Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The level of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, now stands at 387 ppmv (parts per million by volume), a rise of 40 per cent since the industrial revolution. According to a new European study of the gas content of Antarctic ice cores, this is the highest levels have been for at least 800,000 years. "Despite all the talk," commented Martin Parry, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's impacts working group, "the situation is getting worse. Levels of greenhouse gases continue to rise in the atmosphere and the rate of that rise is accelerating. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change and the scale of those impacts will also accelerate, until we decide to do something about it."

An extensive assessment of changes in bird and animal populations or behaviour has concluded that 90 per cent of the cases could only be explained by global warming. Ninety-five per cent of environmental changes reviewed were consistent with rising temperatures. "When you look at a map of the world and see where these changes are already happening, and how many species and systems are already responding to climate change after only a 0.6°C rise, it just heightens our concerns for the future," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, co-author of the study from the Goddard Institute of Space Studies in the United States. "It's clear we have to adapt to climate change as well as try to mitigate it. It's real and it's happening now."

The Billion Tree Campaign has upgraded its planting target to a goal of seven billion trees by the time of the Copenhagen climate change conference in November 2009. Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said that "when the Billion Tree Campaign was launched at the Climate Convention meeting in Nairobi in 2006, no one could have imagined it could have flowered so fast and so far. But it has given expression to the frustrations but also the hopes of millions of people around the world."

In the past eighteen months, the campaign has doubled its original goal of one billion trees planted. "In 2006 we wondered if a billion tree target was too ambitious; it was not," Steiner reported. "The goal of two billion trees has also proven to be an underestimate. The goal of planting seven billion trees - equivalent to just over a tree per person alive on the planet - must therefore also be do-able given the campaign's extraordinary track record and the self-evident worldwide support." Over ten million trees were planted in a single day in Uttar Pradesh, India. The initiative is led by UNEP and the World Agroforestry Centre.

The geothermal energy industry is "on the cusp of what could be an extraordinary growth period," according to Mark Taylor, an analyst for international group New Energy Finance. In the United States, concern over climate change is driving the trend, with a number of states requiring that utilities derive more energy from green sources. The renewable energy production tax credit, extended to geothermal sources since 2005, makes geothermal energy competitive with wind power. The United States Geological Survey estimates that the United States could generate 150,000 megawatts of geothermal power. Currently, production stands at 3,000 megawatts, a third of the global total.

"Geothermal energy is very complex and diverse in terms of its use. It's used for fish farming in China, alligator growing in Idaho, power production in China, spas and greenhouses in Mexico and Iceland, and used to heat buildings in Iceland," says Karl Gawell, head of the Geothermal Energy Association, based in Washington DC. At 27,000 megawatts, Indonesia has the largest geothermal resource identified anywhere in the world. "Geothermal is very clean energy and its economics can make sense. This is a terrific business for us," reckons Steve Green of Chevron. Chevron hopes to double its geothermal production in Indonesia to over 1000 megawatts by the year 2020.