News from January 2008

UK: Carbon emissions show slight fall

The UK’s carbon emissions fell by just 0.1% last year, and the government has admitted it must do more to tackle climate change. The figures would have been worse if the UK’s share of pollution from global flights and shipping had been included. Analysis of the figures highlights key trends: emissions from homes went down, [...]

Climate ‘could devastate crops’

Climate change could cause severe crop losses in South Asia and southern Africa over the next twenty years, a study in the journal Science says. The findings suggest southern Africa could lose more than 30% of its main crop, maize, by 2030. In South Asia losses of many regional staples, such as rice, millet and [...]

‘Doomsday’ seeds arrive in Norway

The first consignment of seeds bound for the “doomsday vault” on Svalbard has arrived in Norway. Twenty-one boxes containing 7,000 seed samples from 36 African nations were sent by the Nigeria-based International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. The final leg of the journey will take the seeds to the remote Arctic Island. The vault is intended [...]

The hedge fund manager who bought a farm

Investors are buying a slice of the countryside to make the most of rising food prices The cost of farm property looks likely to soar as traditional British At the same time lifestyle farmers – typically City high-fliers – have become the largest group involved in buying British farmland. According to Mark Ashbridge, of Savills [...]

Western majors feel the squeeze

Daniel Yergin, the chairman of Cambridge Energy Re …Yet Jeroen van der Veer, Shell

Russia FinMin says lower oil taxes not in sight

MOSCOW, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Russia may raise taxes on the gas industry but has no plans to cut them for the oil sector despite complaints from oil firms that they need more cash for investments, a government official said on Thursday. “We are planning no radical steps to decrease taxation on the oil industry,” [...]

Power Failures Outrage South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa The government has confessed to an

People blamed for water woes in West

WASHINGTON – Human activity such as driving and powering air conditioners is responsible for up to 60 percent of changes contributing to dwindling water supplies in the arid and growing West, a new study finds. Those changes are likely to accelerate, says the study published Thursday in Science magazine, portending “a coming crisis in water [...]

Cheap cars in Asia, expensive gas everywhere

The debut of the $2,500 car is just another reason Americans will pay more at the pump, and highlights a need for some creative urban planning in the developing world. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The debut of the $2,500 car may be billed as a mobility breakthrough for billions of people in the developing world, [...]

Dems, Republicans equally green

Political party affiliation has little bearing on the number of Regardless of political persuasion, people who believed that climate change is a danger, and who believed that we can combat it, were engaging in more activities to protect the environment. According to the survey, adults who held these beliefs strongly engaged in 60 percent more [...]