Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Ratification took place on Friday October 22nd. According to Interfax, it was supported by 334 parliamentarians, 73 were against, and two abstained. The minimum number of votes to needed pass is 226.

The Protocol now has to pass through the upper parliament and be signed by President Vladimir Putin, though this is considered a formality. The threshold for implementation will then have been exceeded and the Protocol should come into force some time early in 2005. The United States position remains the same. "We do not believe that the Kyoto Protocol is something that is realistic for the United States and we have no intention of signing or ratifying it," said State Department spokesman Adam Ereli.

More information

• BBC
• CNN
• MosNews

• CBS
• Terra Daily
• Timeline, Terra Daily

"Decades of progress and development could be wiped out overnight. Climate change is undermining advances in development and preventing countries raising themselves out of poverty," warns the report, Up in Smoke, compiled by a coalition of development and environment organizations. The 17-member coalition included ActionAid, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. The coalition argues that climate change could render the international targets laid down in the Millennium Development Goals unachievable.

"Climate change is the mother of all ecological debts owed by the north to the south," said a spokesperson from the new economics foundation (nef), who, with the International Institute for Environment and Development, organized the study. The report calls for a global risk assessment to determine the potential cost of adaptation in poor countries and urges rich countries to provide additional funds to cover climate-related disaster relief. Andrew Simms, nef Policy Director, argued for "a global framework to stop climate change that is based on equity." "Plans for human development must be climate-proof and climate-friendly," he continued.

More information

• Terra Daily
• Guardian Unlimited
• BBC

• Up in Smoke, nef

A little action now to limit long-term climate change would be cheaper than doing nothing at this time and having to do much more later, according to a recent study. A carbon tax of five cents a gallon of gasoline would be the best way to start. "You can think of the tax as a low-cost insurance policy that protects against climate change," said Michael Schlesinger, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The analysts assumed that tax policies would be enacted from 2005 and identified the optimum strategy, balancing costs and benefits. Gross global product was used as a measure of climate impacts. "The idea is to search for the tax that provides the least cost over the whole period. If the tax is too low, you do too little in the beginning, then after 30 years you have to do a lot. On the other hand, if the tax is too high, you spend too much now, and you may have to do only a little later," explained Schlesinger. The five cents tax on a gallon of gasoline corresponds to a tax of US$10 per ton of carbon. The optimal strategy has this tax increasing to US$33 a ton over a 30-year period.

More information

• Science Daily
• Chicago Sun-Times