Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Seven states in the Northeast United States have announced an agreement to control carbon dioxide emissions through a mandatory "cap-and-trade" programme. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) aims to stabilize emissions from power plants in the region at current levels by the year 2015, and reduce emissions by 10 per cent from current levels by 2019. There will also be energy efficiency and other emissions reduction projects outside of the power sector. The states involved are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.

Governor George Pataki of New York, a Republican, pioneered the RGGI proposal. "My goal in proposing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2003 was to bring states together to tackle a significant environmental challenge that we all face, knowing that a collaborative effort is the most effective policy," he said. According to Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner, a Democrat, "this historic agreement represents the first significant step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions in this nation. I am proud that Delaware has been part of this very important effort which I believe will result in measurable reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in a manner that maintains reliability and economic certainty in our electrical generating sector. I also see the potential for this programme serving as a national model."

More information

• ENS
• Christian Science Monitor

• Energy Online

The Global Governance Initiative, a World Economic Forum project, has concluded that the world has slipped backwards in the areas of environment and human rights during 2005. In the environment sector, governments scored poorly for a number of reasons: a lack of high-level political commitment to global environmental goals; few countries slowed or reduced greenhouse gas emissions; no serious frameworks to ensure ecosystem integrity; and hundreds of millions of people still lack access to clean water and sanitation.

Progress has, though, been made in other areas. Richard Samans of the World Economic Forum cites the outcome of the December 2005 World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, PR China, as an example of "how the international community is beginning to work harder to alleviate poverty. But it "still has a long way to go," he continued. "Much remains to be done in 2006 to transform the 'Doha Development Round' from an aspiration to a concrete plan of action. A lot of hard bargaining lies ahead." Other commentators were less impressed by the outcome in Hong Kong, citing the lack of any clear commitment on the part of the leading industrialized nations to open up their markets to developing countries and end subsidies to domestic producers.

More information

• AllAfrica
• Press release, World Economic Forum

• 2005 report, World Economic Forum

A food additive could cut significantly the amount of methane released by flatulent cows. "In some experiments we get a 70 per cent decrease, which is quite staggering," said John Wallace of the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland. The food additive is based on fumaric acid, which occurs naturally and is essential to the respiration of animal and vegetable tissue.

"In total around 14 per cent of global methane comes from the guts of farm animals. It is worth doing something about," Wallace reckons. In 2003, the New Zealand government proposed a flatulence tax - methane emitted by farm animals accounts for more than half the country's greenhouse gases - but the plan was dropped after widespread protests.

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Background

• Reuters
• Research update, RRI

• Methane from ruminants, GHG Online