Tiempo Climate Newswatch

California's political leaders last week reached a "historic agreement" to control greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed bill was swiftly approved by the Senate and Assembly this week and commits the state to cut carbon dioxide emissions back to 1990 levels, a reduction of around 25 per cent, by the year 2020. Emission limits and reduction measures will go into effect by 2012, with penalties for failure to comply. Market mechanisms will be developed, including carbon credit trading. The bill requires the California Air Resources Board to report on greenhouse gas emissions by the major polluters. In the event of "extraordinary circumstances", such as a natural disaster or economic crisis, the governor can bring implementation to a halt for up to a year.

"We can now move forward with developing a market-based system that makes California a world leader in the effort to reduce carbon emissions," said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. "We've reached a tipping point in the fight against global warming," commented Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The whole world has been watching to see whether California passes this bill, and now the world will watch as California takes the lead in developing a clean energy market." "It's an old saying, but I think it's still true: where goes California, the rest of the country will follow in another five or 10 years," commented Steve Sawyer from Greenpeace.

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• Reuters
• Terra Daily
• ENN

• VoA
• Global Warming Solutions Act, 2006

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will invest in the greening of South Africa's transport system ahead of the 2010 Fédération Internationale de Football World Cup. "Well designed, well run, and sensibly planned public transport can play a key role in cutting climate change emissions. It can also help to improve local air quality and bridge social and economic divides," said Monique Barbut, GEF chief executive officer. Around US$11 million has been provisionally allocated to the project. "We share the South African government's aspirations on this and agree that the World Cup represents a great opportunity to lay out a 21st century, sustainable transport network," she continued.

The move has been endorsed by leading footballers Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima and Zinédine Zidane. "Sub-standard public transport perpetuates poverty, generates health-threatening polluted air and contributes to climate change, which affects everyone, everywhere," they said in a statement. "We both have personal experience of this as we were both brought up in communities where poor quality public transport was all too sadly the norm." The Green Goal initiative at the 2006 World Cup in Germany resulted in a drop in private car use, according to a preliminary evaluation, and "significant achievements in areas such as energy savings, rainwater harvesting and waste minimization at stadia," according to Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme.

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• IPS
• AllAfrica

• AllAfrica
• Press release, UNEP

The World Bank is urging the international community to integrate climate concerns in development strategies to safeguard gains in economic development and poverty reduction. A new report, Managing Climate Risk - Integrating Adaptation into World Bank Group Operations, estimates the potential impact on investments of climate change at one to two per cent of the portfolio, about US$200 million to $400 million a year within the World Bank Group and at least US$1 billion for all official development assistance and concessional lending. The World Bank is committed to integrating climate risk management at the outset in project design and into country and sector dialogues and development strategies and supports the creation of financing mechanisms for adaptation.

According to World Bank environment director Warren Evans, "adaptation to climate risks needs to be treated as a major economic and social risk to national economies, not just as a long-term environment problem. By enhancing climate risk management, development institutions and their partner countries will be able to better address the growing risks from climate change and, at the same time, make current development investments more resilient to climate variability and extreme weather events." Monique Barbut, head of the Global Environment Facility, commented that "funding for adaptation to climate change is absolutely critical for developing countries. The best form of adaptation is mitigation, but we must also deal with the climate change that the planet is already signed up to."

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• Reuters
• AllAfrica
• Independent Online

• Press release, World Bank