News Roundup

IEA stokes doubts over world's climate fight
LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters)

The world will have to bet on extreme measures to avoid serious global warming, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday, adding to growing worries that governments have under-estimated the problem.

The energy adviser to 28 rich countries detailed two paths for limiting warming to 2 and 3 degrees Celsius respectively, which would both require huge annual investments to deploy fossil fuels alternatives.

"Both scenarios imply that net greenhouse gas emissions turn negative -- carbon absorbtion exceeds gross emissions -- towards the end of the century," said the IEA's set-piece annual energy report, published on Wednesday.

If the world carried on as normal without taking new steps to fight climate change temperature would rise in the long-term by up to 6 degrees.

Above 2 degrees warming, "hundreds of millions of people would face reduced water supplies", and above 3 degrees food production worldwide would be "very likely to decrease", a U.N. panel of climate scientists said last year.

Limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees would be especially expensive because it would involve scrapping and replacing dirty power plants at a cost of about $3.6 trillion from 2010-2030, the IEA report said.

That compares with global efforts in recent weeks to shore up the world economy at a cost of about $4 trillion.

U.S. Consumers: Companies Should Pay To Manage Climate Change
Environmental Leader, November 16, 2008

The fifth EcoPinion Survey from EcoAlign finds that consumers generally agree on the definition of climate change, the importance of reducing climate change and the role of the individual to reduce climate change.

“Higher penalties on companies that contribute to climate change” was clearly the top response (61 percent) on the best way for society to pay for the costs of managing climate change, a nearly 45 percent differential with the next top response (16 percent) indicating “higher fees on products or services that contribute to climate change.”

OpenEco.org 2.0 Launched By Sun
Environmental Leader, November 16, 2008

Sun Microsystems has updated OpenEco.org, an online community that provides tools to help companies calculate, compare and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Xerox Details Its Environmental Ups and Downs
GreenBiz.com, 11 November 2008

Xerox lays out its environmental performance for 2007, compared both to 2006 results and its long-term goals, in its 2008 global citizenship report.

Xerox also brought itself closer to its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent between 2002 and 2012. Its original goal was to cut emissions 10 percent in that time period, but upped the goal after hitting 10 percent by 2006. By the end of 2007, Xerox cut its emissions 21 percent compared to 2002.