sustenergy press review n. 12

also published on http://sustenergy.wordpress.com  (beta version)
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SUSTENERGY PRESS REVIEW n.12 – 29 Septeber 2008
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Mobile phones to track carbon footprint
Keeping track of your carbon footprint could become as simple as slipping a mobile phone in your pocket: a London-based start-up company has developed software for mobile phones that uses global positioning satellites to work out automatically whether you are walking, driving or flying and then calculate your impact on the environment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/29/carbonfootprints.travelandtransport

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Video: Alaska’s Eroding Arctic Coast

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/video-alaskas-eroding-arctic-coast/

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Rich nations’ greenhouse gases fell in 2006: survey

OSLO (Reuters) – Rich nations’ greenhouse gas emissions dipped for the first time in five years in 2006, easing 0.1 percent despite robust economic growth, a Reuters survey of the latest available information showed Friday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE48P6OL20080926?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews&sp=true

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CO2 Flow Speeds Up; Poor Countries Now Lead

Overnight the Global Carbon Project, a network of scientists tracking emissions of carbon dioxide, released its latest update, and it shows that emissions are accelerating and are close to the highest scenarios considered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year.More than half of global emissions, which totaled more than 34 billion tons of CO2 in 2007, are now from developing countries, the report said. Their dominance reflects explosive growth in the burning of coal and manufacturing cement, another big source of the heat-trapping gas.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/co2-flow-speeds-up-poor-countries-now-lead/

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Africa awash in sunlight, but not solar energy
From household solar panels to thermal generators big enough to power a town, sun power has enjoyed explosive growth around the world.
Everywhere, that is, except on the sun-drenched continent of Africa.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMM7je0c_5HgWo2_K64Ptt-BRdyg

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Spain Ratifies New 500-MW Solar Subsidy Cap

Spain’s Cabinet has ratified proposals to set a new limit on subsidised solar power at a capacity level of 500 megawatts, Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said on Friday.
The approval ends weeks of wrangling over the new subsidy cap, which is far below the 1,200 MW fixed in a current subsidy scheme expiring on Monday that helped make Spain the world’s third-largest solar market after Germany and the United States.

http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=107383

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Scottish Power Plans $184 Million Spend on Tidal Power Turbines

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) — Scottish Power Ltd., Iberdrola SA’s U.K. unit, plans to invest more than 100 million pounds ($184 million) on tidal-power developments as the utility develops energy-production that doesn’t add to carbon-dioxide emissions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=a3HCt5SyVWFk&refer=europe

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Carbon clean-up in Stinky Town
A new German coal-fired power station buries its own CO2. Now Europe must decide whether to spend €12bn subsidising more.
The next 10 days will determine if CCS, which is expensive and still unproven, has a future. A vote in the European parliament will decide whether the first 12 demonstration projects receive a €12bn (£9.5bn) subsidy. Failure to reach agreement – and Europe is split over the proposal – will mean a delay of at least two years while the search goes on for alternative funding mechanisms.

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ILO new report says emerging green economy could create tens of millions of new “Green Jobs”

NEW YORK (ILO News) ─ A new, landmark study on the impact of an emerging global “green economy” on the world of work says efforts to tackle climate change could result in the creation of millions of new “green jobs” in the coming decades.

The new report (Note 1) entitled Green Jobs: Towards Decent work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World, says changing patterns of employment and investment resulting from efforts to reduce climate change and its effects are already generating new jobs in many sectors and economies, and could create millions more in both developed and developing countries.

http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Press_releases/lang–en/WCMS_098481/index.htm

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