A year on, Kyoto climate backers urge U.S. action by UNEP / Reuters / The Independent 5:37pm 10th Feb, 2006   First Anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol.    Message of UNEP’s Executive Director Klaus Toepfer on the Occasion of the 1st Anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol.    Today, more than ever before, the world needs to fight against climate change in a globally coordinated and highly committed manner! New scientific findings, especially those highlighting the dramatic consequences of climate change in the Arctic, once more ring the alarm bell and call for immediate, far reaching action.    The energy supply structure must be less carbon intensive. Renewable energies - from wind and solar to geothermal and biomass - are technically feasible and available, and have to be developed and deployed further. This is also an economic imperative, in view of the growing energy demand from fast growing big economies such as those in Asia.    The Kyoto Protocol is the main legally binding instrument to reduce carbon emissions in the developed countries. The result of the first Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, held in Montreal in early December 2005, gives the clear signal that reductions have to go much further: Reductions have to go beyond the first commitment period 2012, they need to reach 30% and more bearing in mind that this is only a stepping stone to the 60% reductions that are required according to the scientists’ findings, and they should be set for a period long enough to attract business confidence into the carbon market.    This is possible without hampering economic development or poverty alleviation. New technologies and changed production and consumption patterns are key. Better use must be made of the instruments of the Kyoto Protocol, Emissions Trading and especially the Clean Development Mechanism, enabling technical cooperation between developed and developing countries. In addition, developing countries need solidarity in their struggle with the consequences of climate change. Adaptation must therefore be integrated in all development policies and be supported by the donor community as partners in development.    Feb 17, 2006    A year on, Kyoto climate backers urge U.S. action, by Alister Doyle. (Reuters)    OSLO - Backers of the U.N."s Kyoto Protocol renewed their pleas to the United States on Thursday to do more to fight global warming, even though their own records are patchy in the year since the pact went into force.    Many experts said that time to slow a rise in temperatures widely blamed on burning fossil fuels was running out. A British report said the nation might resemble the tropics by 3000, with rising seas from melting ice swamping the coasts.    The United Nations, the European Commission and many environmental groups all urged tougher action beyond Kyoto, which entered into force on February 16, 2005 and runs to 2012.    "We need the full participation of all major emitting countries -- such as the United States, the world"s leading economy, but also the world"s leading polluter," European Commissioner Stavros Dimas said in marking the anniversary.    He warned that the world needed to strengthen action to contain global warming or would "run out of time to contain climate change." Most scientists say warming will bring a more chaotic climate with more heatwaves, droughts and floods.    NASA has said that 2005 was the warmest year at the earth"s surface since records began in the 1860s. Another recent study showed that concentrations of greenhouse gases were at the highest in 650,000 years.    President George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying it would cost U.S. jobs and wrongly excluded developing nations from an overall goal of cutting industrialized nations" emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.    U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, released mainly by burning fossil fuels, were about 16 percent above 1990 levels in 2004. But Kyoto signatories Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Canada are all doing even worse.    "Countries are not on track to reach even their modest Kyoto targets, despite growing recognition that we are already facing dramatic consequences as a result of climate change," said Catherine Pearce at environmental group Friends of the Earth.    Washington agreed at U.N. talks in Montreal, Canada, in December to take part in a non-binding world dialogue about new ways to combat climate change. And Kyoto"s backers agreed to talks about what to do after a first period runs out in 2012.    The U.N. climate change office said this week that Kyoto nations were on target to cut emissions by 3.5 percent compared with 1990 levels by 2012 and could reach the 5.2 percent goal by introducing extra measures.    On Thursday, the British Environmental Agency released a report saying decisions in the next 25 years would be critical.    "We are running out of road on decision making -- unless we dramatically change the use of fossil fuels we will be committing future generations to the most severe impacts of climate change," said Barbara Young, head of the agency.    By 3000, it said historically chilly Britain could resemble the tropics. Seas could be 11.4 meters higher due to melting polar ice, swamping cities like London.    After snubbing Kyoto, Bush has stressed promoting new technologies, such as wind and solar power, to break what he has called a U.S. addiction to oil.    Some experts say Bush"s plan lacks a spur to force industry to cut down and say that markets for trading carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are the best way to encourage cuts.    In the European Union, carbon dioxide in a market for industrial pollution allowances traded at 26.9 euros ($31.96) per tonne, reflecting growing belief in the scheme, and up from about 7 euros a year ago.    (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Brussels and Jeremy Lovell in London)    February 17, 2006    Sea Levels likely to rise much faster than was Predicted, by Steve Connor. (The Independent/UK)    Global warming is causing the Greenland ice cap to disintegrate far faster than anyone predicted. A study of the region"s massive ice sheet warns that sea levels may - as a consequence - rise more dramatically than expected.    Scientists have found that many of the huge glaciers of Greenland are moving at an accelerating rate - dumping twice as much ice into the sea than five years ago - indicating that the ice sheet is undergoing a potentially catastrophic breakup.    The implications of the research are dramatic given Greenland holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by up to 21ft, a disaster scenario that would result in the flooding of some of the world"s major population centres, including all of Britain"s city ports.    Satellite measurements of the entire land mass of Greenland show that the speed at which the glaciers are moving to the sea has increased significantly over the past 10 years with some glaciers moving three times faster than in the mid-1990s.    Scientists believe that computer models of how the Greenland ice sheet will react to global warming have seriously underestimated the threat posed by sea levels that could rise far more quickly than envisaged.    The latest study, presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in St Louis, shows that rather than just melting relatively slowly, the ice sheet is showing all the signs of a mechanical break-up as glaciers slip ever faster into the ocean, aided by the "lubricant" of melt water forming at their base.    Eric Rignot, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said that computer models used by the UN"s International Panel on Climate Change have not adequately taken into account the amount of ice falling into the sea from glacial movements.    Yet the satellite study shows that about two-thirds of the sea-level rise caused by the Greenland ice sheet is due to icebergs breaking off from fast-moving glaciers rather than simply the result of water running off from melting ice.    "In simple terms, the ice sheet is breaking up rather than melting. It"s not a surprise in itself but it is a surprise to see the magnitude of the changes. These big glaciers seem to be accelerating, they seem to be going faster and faster to the sea," Dr Rignot said.    "This is not predicted by the current computer models. The fact is the glaciers of Greenland are evolving faster than we thought and the models have to be adjusted to catch up with these observations," he said.    The Greenland ice sheet covers an area of 1.7 million sq km - about the size of Mexico - and, in places, is up to 3km thick. It formed over thousands of years by the gradual accumulation of ice and snow but now its disintegration could occur in decades or centuries.    Over the past 20 years, the air temperature of Greenland has risen by 3C and computer models suggested it would take at least 1,000 years for the ice sheet to melt completely. But the latest study suggests that glaciers moving at an accelerating rate could bring about a much faster change.    "The behaviour of the glaciers that dump ice into the sea is the most important aspect of understanding how an ice sheet will evolve in a changing climate," Dr Rignot said. "It takes a long time to build and melt an ice sheet but glaciers can react quickly to temperature changes. Climate warming can work in different ways but, generally speaking, if you warm up the ice sheet, the glacier will flow faster," he said.    The ice "balance sheet" of Greenland is complex but - in simple terms - it depends on the amount of snow that falls, the amount of ice that melts as run-off and the amount of ice that falls directly into the sea in the form of icebergs "calving" from moving glaciers.    Satellites show that the glaciers in the south of Greenland are now moving much faster than they were 10 years ago. Scientists estimate that, in 1996, glaciers deposited about 50 cubic km of ice into the sea. In 2005 it had risen to 150 cubic km of ice.    Details of the latest study, published in the journal Science, show that Greenland now accounts for an increase in global sea levels of about 0.5 millimetres per year - compared to a total sea level rise of 3mm per year.    When previous studies of the ice balance are taken into account, the researchers calculated that the overall amount of ice dumped into the sea increased from 90 cubic km in 1996 to 224 cubic km in 2005.    Dr Rignot said that there are now signs that the more northerly glaciers of Greenland are beginning to adopt the pattern of movements seen by those in the south. "The southern half of Greenland is reacting to what we think is climate warming. The northern half is waiting, but I don"t think it"s going to take long," he said.
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