from the climate desk

An ice-free Northwest Passage is seen in this handout satellite photo from NASA taken on September 15, 2007. REUTERS/NASA/Terra Satellite/Handout

Betting on climate change

Clive Thompson

Is the planet really warming up? Just ask the corporations that stand to make—or lose—billions due to "climate exposure."  Full Article 

Climate report publicized in runup to Senate bill

The dome of the US Capitol, is visible through a window on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 24, 2009. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The dome of the US Capitol, is visible through a window on Capitol Hill in Washington, February 24, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

WASHINGTON | Tue Apr 20, 2010 8:18am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An environmental coalition publicized a new U.S. draft report on climate change Monday, one week before the expected unveiling of a compromise U.S. Senate bill that aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The Project on Climate Science, a coalition of environmental groups, publicized the report in advance of Earth Day on April 22, a spokeswoman said. The report was released with little fanfare on April 7 and posted on the Federal Register on April 8.

The report, a draft of the Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report that will be sent to the United Nations, says bluntly: "Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced ... Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases."

Without action to stop them, climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions will rise over 8,000 megatonnes by mid-century, the draft said. By adopting measures detailed in a bill passed last year by the U.S. House of Representatives, these emissions will drop beneath 2,000 megatonnes. They're now about 6,500 megatonnes. The United Nations measures greenhouse gas emissions in megatonnes, or million metric tons.

The effects of climate change are already evident, the draft said: warming air and oceans, vanishing mountain glaciers, thawing permafrost, signs of instability in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica and rising sea levels.

The State Department draft, now open for public comment, precedes the expected April 26 unveiling of Senate legislation by Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and Independent Joe Lieberman.

Supporters of the bill hope this will pave the way for the full Senate to debate and pass a measure in June or July.

The State Department report will ultimately go to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; previous U.S. reports to this body were in 1994, 1997, 2002 and 2007.

The draft report is available online here

(Editing by Jackie Frank)
Politics
Environment
United Nations
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Comments (8)
Galt99 wrote:
A universally respected environmental coalition has been reporting the theory that Liberals are the major cause of man made global warming. Electric car driving Liberals use more than their share of electricity generated from dirty coal fired plants instead of clean burning environmentally friendly petroleum energy sources. They are more physically active working out in health clubs and bicycling which causes them to breath harder thus producing more carbon than their conservative counterparts who are too busy working and adding to the economy to work out. They stifle economic growth thus keeping the third world in poverty and using dirty fuels like chopping down forests and burning wood, instead of more modern cleaner technologies like petroleum or natural gas. The coalition claims that we need smart regulation of Liberals, but the government must act quickly, there are only 5 years to save the planet from all the toxic chemicals used in the batteries that fuel Liberal cars.

Apr 19, 2010 11:24pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
JefferyWright wrote:
This in spite of cooling global temperatures, record ice levels at the antarctic, exposed fraudulent research while more CO2 in the atmosphere than ever?

If cap & trade passes, what will the global temps be in 20 years? No one knows.

All the solutions to AGW is political, none are scientific, so can you guess what drives the AGW agenda?

Apr 20, 2010 9:05am EDT  --  Report as abuse
olly19 wrote:
we need a constitutional amendment allowing for recall of any elected official whose actions are contrary to the will of the majority.
our political class is entirely disconnected from us as well as from reality.
we inundated them with our objections to the health care bill—calls, letters, faxes, emails, demonstrations, polls—but they passed it anyways.
they don’t care what we want.
they are the elite. we are the lumpen.
we wont get fooled again.

Apr 20, 2010 10:29am EDT  --  Report as abuse
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