International Conference on Plants & Environmental Pollution

International Society of Environmental Botanists (ISEB) is organizing Fourth International Conference on Plants & Environmental Pollution (ICPEP-4) from 8-11 December 2010 at the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, India. The deadlines for abstract submission is 31st July 2010. For more information, please visit its webpage: http://isebindia.com/

Environmental News.

While going through the journal of Asian Journal of Water, Environment and Pollution and feel liking sharing through this blog. The original content is found in the following link: http://iospress.metapress.com/content/jr8647443j15l553/fulltext.html

Who are the Climate Change Victims and Villains by Ken Hickson, author of The ABC of Carbon

There are many victims of climate change, but mostly we consider the vulnerable countries which will be hit hardest by rising sea levels and higher temperatures, as well as extreme weather. Australia is in that category too because we are already seeing the signs of the effects of a changing climate. Drought experienced in many places, while at the same time, in other parts of the vast continent, floods are taking their toll. There is more to come and scientists are coming to the realization that it will get worse before it gets any better. It shouldn’t be difficult for us to identify the villains. We don’t have to look further than ourselves: the human race. The industrialization of the past 100 odd years, and consumerism that we enjoy today, has contributed the greatest amounts of excess carbon dioxide more than our atmosphere, our oceans and our trees can absorb.

China Launches Green Power Revolution to Catch Up on West

China’s ambitious wind and solar plans represent a direct challenge to Europe’s claims of world leadership on cutting carbon emissions. China is planning a vast increase in its use of wind and solar power over the next decade and believes it can match Europe by 2020, producing a fifth of its energy needs from renewable sources, a senior Chinese official said yesterday. Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-chairman of China’s national development and reform commission, told the Guardian that Beijing would easily surpass current 2020 targets for the use of wind and solar power and was now contemplating targets that were more than three times higher. In the current development plan, the goal for wind energy is 30 gigawatts. Zhang said the new goal could be 100GW by 2020. China has the ambitious plan of installing 100 m energy-efficient lightbulbs this year alone. Beijing seeks to achieve these goals by directing a significant share of China’s $590 bn economic stimulus package to low-carbon investment. Of that total, more than $30 bn will be spent directly on environmental projects and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But the indirect green share in the stimulus, in the form of investment in carbon-efficient transport and electricity transmission systems, would be far larger. HSBC Global Research estimated that the total green share could be over a third of the total package. The US goal for solar heating by 2020 is 200 m sq. m. Zhang was speaking in London on a day China came under increased pressure from Washington to do more cut in its emissions. Zhang told the all-party parliamentary China group in Westminster yesterday that Beijing’s stimulus package was already showing signs of re-energizing the Chinese economy. He said it grew by 6.1% in the first quarter of this year, and growth in the second quarter would be stronger than the first. He predicted that China would meet its target of 8% growth this year.

Captured on Camera: 50 Years of Climate Change in the Himalayas

When Fritz Müller and Erwin Schneider battled ice storms, altitude sickness and snow blindness in the 1950s to map, measure and photograph the Imja glacier in the Himalayas, they could never have foreseen that the gigantic tongue of millennia-old glacial ice would be reduced to a lake within 50 years.

But half a century later, American mountain geographer Alton Byers returned to the precise locations of the original pictures and replicated 40 panoramas taken by explorers Müller and Schneider. Placed together, the juxtaposed images are not only visually stunning but also of significant scientific value. The photos have now been united for the first time in an exhibition organized by the International Environment News Futures. International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and are printed here for the first time in Britain. The Himalaya Changing Landscapes exhibition opened in Bonn this week as delegates gathered for the next round of UN talks aimed at delivering a global deal on tackling global warming. The series of pictures tell a story not only about the dramatic reductions in glacial ice in the Himalayas, but also the effects of climate change on the people who live there.

Maldives Aims for Carbon Neutral

The Maldives, one of the countries most affected by climate change, has joined a United Nations Environment Programme initiative which promotes the global transition to low-carbon economies and societies. The move follows the announcement earlier this year from President Mohamed Nasheed to make the Indian Ocean archipelago the world’s first carbon neutral country in 10 years by fully switching to renewable sources of energy, such as solar panels and wind turbines, and investing in new technologies. UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner stressed that climate neutrality is not just a concern for developed nations. Developing nations such as Maldives can indeed leapfrog by embracing the low-carbon development model, which will assist in greening their economies and weathering both climatic and economic storms. Launched a year ago, the UNEP-led Climate Neutral Network has close to 100 participants worldwide, including several countries, cities, major international companies, UN agencies and leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The Maldives consisting of some 1,200 tropical coral islets, none of which rises more than 1.8 metres above sea level, leaving the 400,000 inhabitants at great risk of rising sea levels and storm surges has become the seventh country to join CN Net. The other six nations that have pledged to move towards climate neutrality and joined the CN Net are Costa Rica, Iceland, Monaco, New Zealand, Niue and Norway. When the most climate change vulnerable nations display leadership in addressing the cause of the problem which they had very little to contribute to, there is no excuse for others not to act, said Mr. Steiner.

500 MW of Green Power in India and China to be Developed by Suzlon Green Power

One of the commitments made at this year\s Clinton Global Initiative’s annual meeting is the one with significant implications for the development of renewable energy in the developing world. Suzlon Green Power, owned by the Tanti family (of Suzlon Energy fame), has announced that it will be bringing 3,500 megawatts of green power over the next five years, at a total cost of $5 billion, to nearly 10 million people in the developing world, primarily in India and China.

Fiji Discloses Carbon Project

Fiji Water has decided to disclose the carbon footprint of its products. To that end, the company has joined the Carbon Disclosure Project Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration, the first privately-owned U.S. company to do so. The CDP is working with Fiji to get suppliers to disclose their emissions. For the base year ending June 30, 2007, Fiji’s total annual carbon footprint from every stage of its production and distribution was 85,396 metric tons of CO2. Now that it has its own carbon numbers in hand, Fiji is challenging other companies in the industry to do the same. To measure its carbon footprint, Fiji says it calculated its carbon emissions across every stage in the product lifecycle: producing raw materials for packaging, transporting raw materials and equipment to the plant, manufacturing and filling bottles, shipping the product from Fiji to markets worldwide, distributing the product, refrigerating the product in stores, restaurants, and other outlets, and disposing/recycling of the packaging waste.