Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The Twenty-Second Session of the Subsidiary Bodies to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is taking place in Bonn, Germany, 15-27th May 2005. The event began with a two-day experts' meeting. Opening the meeting, Jurgen Trittin, German environment minister, said that the Kyoto measures had "proved successful" and called for industrialized nations to meet tougher targets, a 15 to 30 per cent reduction, by 2020. The United States is proposing carbon intensity targets, with reductions scaled by Gross Domestic Product. Others argue for weighting by population.

Papua New Guinea has proposed that forest protection should be permitted under the financial mechanisms aimed at reducing carbon emissions. "Kyoto does not allow developing nations that reduce deforestation emissions to get credit. Kyoto unfairly discriminates against rainforested developing nations who seek to participate within the world carbon market," argued ambassador Robert Aisi. "Tropical rainforest nations deserve to be treated equally. If we reduce our deforestation, we should be compensated for these reductions, as are industrial countries. The compensation we seek is access to the world's carbon markets, but on a fair and equitable basis."

More information

• New Scientist
• ENN
• BBC
• Green Building Press

• Speech, Jurgen Trittin
• Live webcast, UNFCCC
• Daily coverage, ENB
• Press release, UNFCCC

A new global atlas of wind power potential suggests that wind could be harnessed to meet the world's total energy demand. Cristina Archer and Mark Jacobson of Stanford University in the United States mapped more than 8,000 wind speed records at the Earth's surface and at height in the atmosphere. "The main implication of this study is that wind, for low-cost wind energy, is more widely available than was previously recognized," Archer reported.

The researchers note, though, that there are barriers to achieving the full potential of the wind resource. A dense array of turbines would be needed, for example, and this may have unacceptable ecological and social consequences. Other power sources may be needed to compensate for periods of low wind speed. Archer hopes that "this study will foster... economic analyses of the barriers to the implementation of a wind-based global energy scenario."

More information

• Science Daily

• Download research paper (3.5 Mb)

The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting an above-average season for Atlantic hurricanes, with a risk of another bad season on the Atlantic Seaboard and Gulf Coast. "NOAA's prediction for the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season is for 12 to 15 tropical storms, with seven to nine becoming hurricanes, of which three to five could become major hurricanes," announced Conrad C. Lautenbacher, NOAA administrator.

NOAA is warning the public to be prepared. " Last year's hurricane season provided a reminder that planning and preparation for a hurricane do make a difference. Residents in hurricane vulnerable areas who had a plan, and took individual responsibility for acting on those plans, faired far better than those who did not," said Max Mayfield of NOAA's National Hurricane Center. May 15th-23rd was National Hurricane Preparedness Week.

More information

• Terra Daily
• ABC News

• Press release, National Hurricane Center
• Tropical storm advisories