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The European Commission plans new measures to ensure increased use of biofuels reduces greenhouse gas emissions, an EU official said on Thursday.

In March, European Union leaders agreed to set a binding target for biofuels to make up at least 10 percent of petrol and diesel used by vehicles by 2020.

Paul Hodson, a Commission official involved in turning those targets into law, said the EU executive would set up a mechanism to ensure biofuels contribute to the 27-nation bloc’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“We want to define a minimum sustainability standard,” he told a conference. “We want to say if you don’t meet the standards, you’re not eligible for state aid and it doesn’t count for the biofuel requirements.”

Read the whole article: EU crafting biofuel rules with eye on environment

The Brazilian technical commission on biosecurity approved the genetically modified corn seed ‘LibertyLink’ last week (16 May), but environmental activists are accusing the commission of ignoring public safety concerns.

LibertyLink corn is produced by German company Bayer CropScience and is tolerant to glufosinate ammonium pesticide, used to kill harmful grasses. Bayer first requested the licence in 1998.

This is the third genetically modified (GM) seed whose plantation and commercialisation is allowed in Brazil.

Read the whole article: Bayer wins Brazil GM corn approval

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, unveiled ambitious plans today to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 that would include the world’s biggest emitters, the US and China.

“There is only one earth, and there are no national boundaries for the air,” said Mr Abe, who will put the proposals up for discussion at next month’s G8 summit in Germany.

“Even the most outstanding strategy would be meaningless unless all people living on earth participate in it. If the framework required economic growth to be sacrificed, we cannot expect many countries to participate.”

Read the whole article: Japan calls for 50% reduction in emissions by 2050

Experts at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center are projecting a 75 percent chance that the Atlantic Hurricane Season will be above normal this year—showing the ongoing active hurricane era remains strong. With the start of the hurricane season upon us, NOAA recommends those in hurricane-prone regions to begin their preparation plans.

“For the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA scientists predict 13 to 17 named storms, with seven to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which three to five could become major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. An average Atlantic hurricane season brings 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major hurricanes.

Read the whole article: NOAA predicts above normal 2007 Atlantic Hrricane Season

The rate by which global carbon dioxide emissions are increasing each year has nearly tripled since 2000 according to new research, which implicates rapid economic growth in developing countries.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week (22 May) the study reveals that carbon dioxide emissions increased by 1.1 per cent each year throughout the 1990s.

But between 2000 and 2004, carbon dioxide emissions grew by more than three per cent per year.

The study finds that in 2004, emissions from developing economies made up 73 per cent of the global growth in emissions ― largely due to moving energy-intensive activities from developed to developing countries.

Read the whole article: Developing nations blamed for CO2 increase
Check out: the PNAS study

Some of Indonesia’s most influential and politically connected companies have refocused their business strategies and are joining hands with foreign investors to push forward the government’s multibillion-dollar ambition to transform the country into the world’s leading biodiesel producer.

But there are major political, financial and environmental risks to the grand designs, which arguably are being understated and threaten to complicate the emerging industry’s outlook. The same local companies now leading Indonesia’s biofuel drive incurred and defaulted on huge foreign debts in the wake of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Few fully repaid their debts and today they still dominate the country’s logging, wood-processing and pulp industries. Several also have highly suspect environmental records.

Read the whole article: A who’s who of Indonesian biofuel

The leaders of the world’s second- and third-largest economies, Japan and Germany, pressed the biggest - the United States - Thursday to agree to dramatic action in addressing climate change at a Group of 8 summit meeting next month.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a speech to the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, tried to lower expectations that President George W. Bush would agree to anything close to the ambitious goals being laid out in Europe and, most recently, Japan.

“I can say quite openly that, today, I don’t know whether we will succeed in that at Heiligendamm,” she said, referring to the Baltic Sea resort where the G-8 leaders will meet from June 6 to June 8. “But for me it is clear that the big developed nations must take the lead on this issue if we are to have a chance at fighting climate change,” she told the Bundestag.

Read the whole article: Germany and Japan press US for action on climate change

Global emissions of the main gas scientists link to global warming will rise 59 percent from 2004 to 2030, with much of the growth coming from coal burning in developing countries like China, the US government forecast on Monday.

Greenhouse emission forecasts will be watched widely in coming months ahead of a UN conference in Indonesia late this year in which world governments will discuss whether the Kyoto Protocol on global warming can be extended.

The United States, the world’s top carbon dioxide emitter, in 2001 pulled out of the pact that requires developing countries to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. China, the world’s second-largest emitter, was not required, as a developing country, to limit emissions in the first round of the international agreement.

Global carbon dioxide emissions will hit 42.88 billion tonnes in 2030, up from 26.9 billion tonnes in 2004, and 21.2 billion in 1990, the US Energy Information Administration said in its annual International Energy Outlook.

Read the whole article: US says world CO2 output to rise 59% by 2030

The Southern Ocean around Antarctica is so loaded with carbon dioxide that it can barely absorb any more, so more of the gas will stay in the atmosphere to warm up the planet. Human activity is the main culprit, said researcher Corinne Le Quere, who called the finding very alarming.

The phenomenon wasn’t expected to be apparent for decades, Le Quere said in a telephone interview from the University of East Anglia in Britain.

“We thought we would be able to detect these only the second half of this century, say 2050 or so,” she said. But data from 1981 through 2004 show the sink is already full of carbon dioxide. “So I find this really quite alarming.”

The new research, published in the latest edition of the journal Science, indicates that the Southern Ocean has been saturated with carbon dioxide at least since the 1980s.

Read the whole article: Southern Ocean saturated with CO2

China is emerging as a new backer of massive dam projects around the globe, giving rise to fears for pristine natural resources and the cultural heritage of river peoples.

Already home to nearly half of the world’s dams, China intends to more than double its hydropower generating capacity by 2020 by adding a series of new dams across the country. More significantly, in recent years, Beijing has been ambitious about financing and building dams, both close to home in Asia as well as in half-a-dozen African countries.

In South-east Asia, Chinese officials are focusing on the Salween, the last major river left in Asia, which has not been dammed. Plans are afoot to create a cascade of 13 dams across the Salween (called the Nu river in China) and Beijing recently signed a deal with Burma’s government to build another dam on the river inside the country.

Read the whole article: China - new promoter of mega dams
Check out: Three Gorges Dam causes downstream erosion