EU/ERBD News
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The world’s greatest, highest snow-capped Asian peaks have lost no ice over the last decade, The Guardian cited new US research in Nature as showing. Lower-altitude glaciers in the Himalayan watersheds – dubbed the “third pole” – are definitely melting, however. The study, using satellite data, is the first to survey all the...
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Russian scientists, after more than 20 years of drilling in Antarctica, have reached the surface of a huge freshwater lake hidden under kilometres of ice for some 20 million years, The Associated Press said. Lake Vostok may hold microbial life forms from the distant past and clues to the search for life on other planets. A small group of leading climate...
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A NASA study underscores the fact that greenhouse gases generated by human activity – not changes in solar activity – are the primary force driving global warming, the US space agency said. The researchers’ calculations, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, show that, despite unusually low solar activity between 2005 and 2010,...
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January 25, 2012 A global environmental update US president Barack Obama pledged support for his country’s shale-gas boom, but said the government must focus on safe development of the energy source, Reuters reported. In his annual state-of-the-union address, Obama pressed again for ending tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, while adding that he would...
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An international team of scientists says global warming can be slowed in the short run – preventing millions of deaths from dirty air – by reducing methane and soot, according to the Associated Press. The researchers said soot causes rainfall patterns to shift, and reducing it would lessen droughts in southern Europe and parts of Africa and also...
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Countries attending the UN’s Rio+20 meeting in Brazil in June will be asked to sign up for 10 new sustainable development goals and promise to build green economies, The Guardian reported a draft agenda document as saying. The participants in the first Earth Summit in 20 years also will be asked to negotiate a new agreement to protect oceans, approve...
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Petrol stations were blockaded and tyres set alight as hundreds of Nigerians protested against the removal of fuel subsidies that saw petrol prices more than double at the start of the new year, CNN said. Rich in oil reserves, Nigeria has poor infrastructure and, according to UN figures, its impoverished citizens live on less than US$2 a day. Royal Dutch...
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China's 12th 5 year plan Energy efficiency and the use of Renewable Energy resources has been indicated as a key area for China to develop and invest. This Focus has created excellent business opportunities for ABB Automation in China. With the rapid industrialization of China over the years ABB has been an important player in the Energy efficiency and Renewable...
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International airlines lost their legal challenge to the European Union’s planned expansion of its carbon cap-and-trade system, Bloomberg News reported. The European Court of Justice upheld the validity of the plan to impose emissions curbs on flights to and from EU airports starting next year. US airlines and others argued that the EU plan was unlawful. ...
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Canada has been widely condemned as “irresponsible” and “reckless” for pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol a day after committing to a future legally binding deal at UN climate talks in Durban, The Guardian reported. China, which agreed for the first time to legal limits on its greenhouse-gas emissions, denounced Canada’s...
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