Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The European Commission has released plans to diversify energy sources and cut carbon emissions by at least 20 per cent by the year 2020. "Europe must lead the world into a new, or maybe one should say post-industrial, revolution - the development of a low-carbon economy," according to José Manuel Barroso, president of the Commission. "We have already left behind our coal-based industrial past; it is time to embrace our low-carbon future," he continued. The new strategy proposes a binding target of meeting 20 per cent of European energy needs from renewable sources by 2020, almost tripling the current figure. Biofuels would account for 10 per cent of vehicle fuel by 2020. Individual governments would remain free to decide on the nuclear option, though cutting nuclear output must be compensated for through low-carbon energy sources.

"This is not a step forward, but a leap forward to a low carbon world," claimed environment commissioner Stavros Dimas. "This is the first time that any country or region has come forward with such a unilateral target." The carbon target was welcomed enthusiastically by the United Nations. "This is a crucial signal to unlock the current situation where countries are saying 'I'll wait and see what you do first'," said Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme. "They have shown real leadership," commented Yvo de Boer from the Climate Change Secretariat. "Developing countries have been crying out for industrial countries to set targets," he continued.

The United States government proposes to list the polar bear as an endangered species because of the threat of global warming. "Polar bears are one of nature’s ultimate survivors, able to live and thrive in one of the world’s harshest environments. But we are concerned the polar bears’ habitat may literally be melting," said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne. "Degrading pack-ice habitat is making it increasingly difficult for polar bears to find their prey. They are being forced to forage for food on land, where prey is nearly impossible to find," said Chris Haney, chief scientist with Defenders of Wildlife.

The announcement was in response to legal action by environmentalist organizations who claimed that the government had failed to respond to the effects of climate change on polar bears. "This is a watershed decision in terms of the way we deal with global warming in this country," said Kassie Siegel at the Center for Biological Diversity. The decision whether or not to list the polar bear will rest on further research. "We have sufficient scientific evidence of a threat to the species to warrant proposing it for listing, but we still have a lot of work to do to enhance our scientific models and analyses before making a final decision," reported Dale Hall from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.

According to the latest annual environmental assessment from the Worldwatch Institute, cities are the source of the most innovative ideas in combating climate change and other environmental problems. Examples include: urban farming in Freetown, Sierra Leone; linking hundreds of thousands of low-income households in informal settlements with good-quality sewers in Karachi, Pakistan; and solar-warmed water heaters in households and solar-powered traffic signals and street lights in Rizhao, China. In Bogotá, Colombia, the rapid transit system has been improved with a 'street-level subway'. "Cities are great centres of innovation and that is even more true today than it has been in the past," said Chris Flavin from the Worldwatch Institute. "Necessities from food to energy are increasingly being produced by urban pioneers inside city limits."

Business leaders see climate change as "one of the defining challenges of the 21st century - and as a global risk with impacts far beyond the environment," according to a report commissioned by the World Economic Forum. The report concludes that the world economy is under growing threat from risks such as climate change, terrorism, pandemics and oil prices, with inadequate action by governments and business to blame. It warns of "a fundamental disconnect between risk and mitigation." According to Jacques Aigrain of Swiss Re, who contributed to the study, "risks are often still viewed and dealt with in isolation. However, in today’s world global risks are tightly interwoven. To address our contemporary risk landscape, governments and enterprises need to take a holistic approach to overcome silo-thinking and acting."