Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Switzerland and Kenya led a two-day meeting, September 14-15th, in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, to discuss the future role of developing nations within the climate treaty. At least seventeen developing nations took part. "We want to reinforce the dialogue launched last year in Montreal, by concentrating on reduction actions, which would be possible in all countries," Swiss environment minister Moritz Leuenberger said. Technical or financial support was also on the agenda. "This support has to take account of the priorities for Africa and other developing countries. Such priorities will be an important subject of discussions here in Rüschlikon, and [at the next Conference of the Parties to the climate treaty] in Nairobi in November," commented Leuenberger.

Earlier in the week, Asian and European politicians meeting in Helsinki, Finland, pledged to continue to cut greenhouse gases after the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol in the year 2012. The summit declaration calls for "the widest possible cooperation" in fighting global warming. "In comparison to ten years ago, now all countries recognize that climate change is an important issue, that we must continue Kyoto, that the time after 2012 must be in our sights and that we must do everything possible to improve energy efficiency and, at the same time, facilitate economic growth," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The declaration does, however, stop short of setting actual targets.

More information

• Terra Daily
• Speech, Moritz Leuenberger

• ENN
• Reuters AlertNet
• CBC News
• ASEM 6 Declaration on Climate Change

Changes in solar activity have made a "negligible" contribution to global warming over the past century, according to a new study. "Our results imply that over the past century climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the sun's brightness, said co-author Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in the United States. "This basically rules out the sun as the cause of global warming," concludes Henk Spruit of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany.

Tom Wigley also contributed to a recent survey of the link between human activity and ocean warming in areas important for the formation of tropical storms. "The important conclusion is that the observed sea surface temperature increases in these hurricane breeding grounds cannot be explained by natural processes alone," he said. The analysis suggests that "with increasing sea surface temperatures, we can expect more intense hurricanes," reports co-author Nathan Gillett of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.

More information

• Reuters
• Scientific American

• ENS
• Guardian Unlimited
• IPS
• IHT
• Comment, Houston Chronicle

A second Green Revolution is needed to feed the world's growing population, according to Jacques Diouf, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization The original Green Revolution, which doubled world food production, "relied on the lavish use of inputs such as water, fertilizer and pesticides," he said. "The task ahead may well prove harder. We not only need to grow an extra one billion tonnes of cereals a year by 2050 but do so from a diminishing resource base of land and water in many of the worlds regions, and in an environment increasingly threatened by global warming and climate change."

Diouf reckons that the "new Green Revolution will be less about introducing new, high-performance varieties of wheat or rice, important as they are, and much more about making wiser and more efficient use of the natural resources available to us." The place to start was at village level and in developing countries themselves. "Investing in agriculture is usually low in the order of priorities of politicians, typically more interested in short-term returns, but we can no longer afford such neglect - our future depends on it."

More information

• Terra Daily

• Press release, FAO