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The US press still doesn't get it ! . Copenhagen simply has demonstraited the disconnect between the world media and the climate community ! " (Comment . CEEI downloads up to 4000 climate line items a day into 1052 categories, into 8.5 million line items.)
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Dateline: Copenhagen
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Nov
07
A New Climate Treaty: A Prayer of a Chance?
Gary Gardner Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment to World Watch Institute
Windsor Castle ARC 001If you believe only divine intervention will produce a climate agreement in December, here’s encouraging news. A major interreligious conference called “Many Heavens, One Earth” was held this week at Windsor Castle, where many of the world’s faiths presented seven-years plans for greening their activities and promoting climate stabilization. The conference was convened by the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme. Thirty-one plans were presented by the major faiths, including the Baha’i Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shintoism, and Sikhism.
Many religions are leveraging their extensive holdings of land and buildings to show leadership in reducing their carbon and environmental footprint, as described in this article. A few highlights: The Church of England has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by at least 42 percent by 2020, and by 80 percent by 2050–a front-loaded commitment that ought to embarrass US Congressional efforts, which aim only for 17-20 percent reductions by 2020 (though the 80% by 2050 number is the same). The U.S. Catholic Coalition on Climate Change is targeting the tens of thousands of Catholic parishes, schools, hospitals, and colleges and universities in the United States to green their operations, and is working with treasurers of these institutions to green their investment portfolios.
Perhaps most notable are the commitments by Muslim leaders, which appear to signal a new and substantial engagement on environmental issues by Islamic institutions. Under the Muslim seven year plan submitted at the conference, the holy city of Medina will become a model green city. It also calls for creation of a Muslim Associations for Climate Change Action (MACCA) that will represent Islamic nations and faith communities from around the world and for a “Green Hajj” to make the traditional Islamic pilgrimage environmentally friendly within a decade.
The involvement of faith groups is an especially encouraging development for the environment and climate. My book, Inspiring Progress: Religions’ Contributions to Sustainable Development, points out that roughly 85 percent of the world’s people, making them a potentially powerful political force on environmental issues. And the moral authority of religions is a strong influence in shaping worldviews. More concretely, according to ARC, the world’s faiths own 7 percent of habitable land, run more than half of the world’s schools, control 7 percent of the world’s investments, and make major purchases of paper, equipment, and building materials. Thus, greening religious activities, and involving religions in pushing for environmental legislation, regulations, and norms could give an enormous boost to the effort to build sustainable societies. Insha’Allah.
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Nov
06
Non-Discussion of Climate Action in the D.C. Ivory Tower
Frauke Thies Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment
The Washington Times-organized briefing at the Willard Hotel in Washington on November 4 certainly started under the ambitious title ”Advancing the Global Debate over Climate Change Policy.” With a heavy representation of the Republican side, the briefing seemed to offer a chance to hear these representatives’ proposals on how to move the discussions on climate protection forward in the run-up to the Copenhagen conference. But instead of advancement, their debate rather reflected the logjam that Washington seems to have gotten used to.
While representatives from the American Farm Bureau Association or the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association and Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE) alike recognized the importance of reacting to climate change, they failed to deliver solutions on how to precisely decrease emissions in their view. Instead, they repeated that they disagree with the (according to a range of environmental, social and religious organizations) already heavily loophole-destructed cap-and-trade system currently under discussion in the Senate.
tower[1]The ‘no-sayers’ statements were intercepted when Charles Ebinger from the Brookings Institution reminded the conference of the realities in many regions across the globe, where India is building a wall to stop climate refugees from Bangladesh, and where the Himalayan Glaciers are melting, threatening millions of people’s water supplies. But it did not take long for many speakers to resume the statements on why not to take action.
Just 30 days before the Copenhagen climate-negotiations, what are decision-makers waiting for? David Bookbinder of the Sierra Club as well as Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) reminded the participants of the Environmental Protection Agency’s responsibility to act with emission regulation measures if the U.S. Congress fails to agree on sufficient measures. Is this going to become the only credible response to the ongoing blockade and the continued creation of loopholes in the climate bill?
To conclude, however, the set-up of the briefing did not allow for any further discussion of this and other questions of how to act against climate change. The only two speakers in the final panel were Czech President Vaclav Klaus and Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who are both known for their denial of human-induced climate change. It must be considered irresponsible and far from non-partisan practice of the Washington Times to select just two speakers, who are both repudiating the broad scientific consensus on climate change and who are neither representative of the EU, nor the Congress view.
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Nov
05
Discussion Forum on Livestock Emissions: Weigh in Here
Alexander Ochs Dateline Copenhagen 2 comments
In an article in the November/December 2009 [PDF] edition of World Watch Magazine (“Livestock and Climate Change”), authors Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang argue that livestock emissions have been severely underestimated. In their view, livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions. Based on their analysis, Goodland and Anhang recommend a radical decrease in meat consumption in order to help slow climate change.
Goodland and Anhang’s numbers are far above those reported in a widely cited 2006 report, Livestock’s Long Shadow, by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions are attributable to cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, pigs, and poultry. “Livestock and Climate Change” has stirred intensive discussion in a number of fora. While some readers supported the authors’ assessment and recommendations, others disagreed with either or both.
We want to provide everyone who is interested in this important debate—experts or not—with an open forum for discussion. While the magazine’s masthead clearly states that “Opinions expressed in World Watch are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Worldwatch Institute,” scientific integrity and the search for viable sustainability solutions are the foundation of the Institute’s daily work.
We invite you to contribute to the discussion by commenting on the article here. The most constructive and compelling comments will also be printed in a future issue of World Watch. In addition, please check out our blog, Nourishing the Planet, where the Worldwatch food and agriculture team argues for a different, and in their view more effective, way to address mixed-crop livestock and sustainable food than the Goodland/ Anhang article recommends.
agriculture, Climate Change, emissions reductions, energy-related emissions, livestock, livestock emissions
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Nov
04
The World Looks to Americans and Europeans
Alexander Ochs Dateline Copenhagen 1 comment
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
As a former Minister of the Environment turned Chancellor, Angela Merkel had already proven those wrong who surmised that environment positions are a dead end to high-rising political aspirations; now she became only the second German politician (after Konrad Adenauer, the first head of a German government after the Second World War, in 1957) who received the honor to address the U.S. Congress; and as a widely respected leader on environmental issues who is, at the same time, the leader of a conservative party, she would be well positioned to appeal to cautious Republicans when talking about climate change and energy reformation—at least I had hoped so in a recent interview with Reuters.
Angela Merkel in her speech on Capitol Hill yesterday, just weeks after her reelection for a second term (this time as a leader of a center-right coalition) was moved by the honor and the standing ovations she received from U.S. lawmakers even before she had started her speech. Following up on her promises, she spent a good portion of her talk on climate change, urging Congress and the Obama administration to take bold steps to address the issue, in her view one of the “great tests” of the 21st century. “We all know we have no time to lose,” she said.
But her remarks did not resonate with most Republicans. While Merkel’s remarks were met with passionate applause from Democrats, almost the entire Republican side—including key swing voters, such as Independent Senator Dick Lugar from Indiana and Republican Senator Olympia Snowe from Maine—remained silent. When the Chancellor pointed out that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would spur economic and jobs growth worldwide, the same partisan gulf occurred.
Already earlier in the day, Republicans had refused to attend the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s markup of Senators John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) important climate bill ( Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act). The only one out of seven Republican Senators on the committee who showed up for the meeting was Sen. George V. Voinovich (Ohio) who briefly expressed the Republican opposition to the committee’s proceedings. In their view, the Environmental Protection Agency has not done enough economic analysis of the Kerry-Boxer bill. Democrats, however, accuse their opponents of pure gamesmanship pointing out that the Kerry-Boxer bill is modeled after the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which passed the House side of Congress earlier this year and underwent intense economic scrutiny, including from the EPA.
Angela Merkel can tell a great success story about green jobs creation in Germany. The country—home to Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Opel, and Volkswagen—is on track to have more people employed in the environmental technology sector than in the automobile industry as early as 2015. It has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 20% since the beginning of the 1990s. But it seemed yesterday as if only half of the U.S. representatives were ready for Merkel’s optimism—one that has often been echoed by President Obama in the past. Regarding the Copenhagen UN climate summit, Merkel said: “I’m convinced, once we in Europe and America show ourselves ready to adopt binding agreements, we will also be able to persuade China and India to join in ….No doubt about it, in December, the world will look to us, to the Europeans and to the Americans. ” Thus far, only half of America looks back.
American Clean Energy and Security Act, Boxer, China, Climate Change, Copenhagen, Democrats, economic analysis, emissions reductions, EPA, Germany, green jobs, India, Kerry, Lugar, Markey, Merkel, negotiations, Obama, Republicans, Senate, Snowe, transatlantic relations, U.S. Congress, Voinovich, washington dc, Waxman
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Nov
02
Where to look for “ambition” this month
Alexander Ochs Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment
November Pre-Copenhagen Calendar
November Pre-Copenhagen Calendar
If October was for optimism, November is for ambition. Yvo de Boer said it himself this morning at the opening of the UNFCCC talks in Barcelona. With only 5-days of negotiations planned for this final round before Copenhagen, Mr. de Boer insisted that success will require “a level of ambition commensurate with the scale of the problem.” Unfortunately the scale of problem requires ambition larger than the Barcelona negotiating table seems to provide for.
That doesn’t mean that no progress is in store in the final month before COP-15. Rather, if true ambition comes through at several of the high-level meetings planned this month, the prospects for a progressive deal in Copenhagen will be much brighter. We’ll be keeping an eye on the bilateral agreements that could come out of tomorrow’s EU-US Summit and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s address to the U.S. Congress, President Barack Obama’s visit to Beijing in mid-month, and the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington DC on November 24th.
These talks will need to make sincere agreements about the building blocks of a post-2012 treaty architecture. These include indications of where concrete emissions reductions targets for industrialized countries could be set, as well as financial and technology transfer agreements. Developing and industrialized country leaders must also perceive each other’s climate goals (be they financial commitments or mitigation commitments) as ambitious and equitable. If these conclusions are reached during this month’s high-level meetings then there is still a realistic chance to finalize a global climate deal in Denmark.
If in November the issue is not picked up and carried forward by world leaders – the Presidents, the Prime Ministers, the Chancellors – themselves, or if they cannot forge an agreement amongst themselves on the key features of the agreement (the negotiation of the details can well be left for 2010), then the prospects for December are bleak.
Barcelona alone cannot produce the breakthroughs needed at this late point in time. Thus far, climate negotiators are stuck without a green light for serious concessions from their leaders back home. So look to this month’s high-level meetings. You’ll know ambition when you see it.
Co-authored with John Mulrow
Barcelona, Climate Change, negotiations, UNFCCC
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Nov
01
Detecting the Creative Edge in the U.S. Energy Debate
Frauke Thies Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment
After my disappointment about the shortage of innovative ideas and developments in the energy debate during my first week in D.C., I was glad to detect more of the creativity I had been looking for in my second week.
On Tuesday, President Obama announced a $3.4 billion investment in smart grid projects, using money from the stimulus bill. This is a small investment, of course, compared with other government subsidies for energy sources, including tens of billions of dollars devoted to fossil energy sources every year (as shown in a recent study by the Environmental Law Institute.) But it still gives one hope that innovative solutions may be moving further towards the center stage.
The role of smart grids also played a prominent role at a briefing on Improving Energy Efficiency with Information and Communications Technology, which the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) organized on Capitol Hill on the same day. A smart grid system, i.e. a network that is enhanced with an overlay communications network to manage electricity flows, does not only help to improve system security and reliability, but also allows for intelligent demand-side management, substantial energy savings, and the optimal integration of variable renewable energy sources into the system. It can do so, for example, by communicating with appliances like air conditioners or electric car batteries to draw energy at the time of low demand and high supplies (such as when large amounts of wind or solar energy is produced) while drawing less power in times of high demand and limited supplies.
http://impactnews.com/images/stories/CTA/2009/04/15-grid.jpg
A range of bus inesses are ready to go forward with this, including a consortium of ICT companies assembled in the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign to promote energy efficiency, and building efficiency companies like Johnson Controls. But how far will their innovative developments go?
One thing seems clear: the usefulness of the smart grid depends on the role of energy efficiency and renewable energy. If polluting is often made easier than saving energy, and if the regulatory framework supports coal, rather than renewables, the benefit of a smart grid will only be limited.
A new Greenpeace-commissioned analysis for the pending federal climate and energy legislation demonstrates that 20th century energy technologies would receive major support under the climate bills adopted by the House and discussed in the Senate, while the renewable energy standard created by the legislation supports nothing more than the continuation of business-as-usual. This, of course, is very far from creating the optimal conditions for the use of smart-grids.
So after my second week in D.C., I am glad to have witnessed that the seed for innovative developments is growing in the United States, but a lot more political courage is needed to allow it to bear fruit.
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Oct
30
Brazilian Presidential Candidate Advocates a Unified Approach to Climate Change Mitigation
Elena Marszalek Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment
Brazil’s Green Party presidential candidate and former Minister of Environment, Marina Silva, spoke Monday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of a “common responsibility” to climate change.
Ms. Silva was born into a rubber tapping community in the western state of Acra, Brazil. As she completed university, Silva became politically active, helped create the first worker’s union in Acre, and started working with environmentalist Chico Mendes against deforestation. She was elected to the Brazilian Senate in 1994 as a member of the Worker’s Party, and served as Environment Minister under the current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2003 to 2008 – when she resigned due to other government agencies’ resistance to upholding environmental policies. In August 2009 Silva switched to the Green Party, mostly in protest over the Worker Party’s environmental policies. Among many other honors, Silva has received a Goldman Environmental Prize and was declared a “Champion of the Earth” by the United Nations Environment Program.
Marina Silva, potential presidential candidate for Brazil's Green Party
Marina Silva, presidential candidate for Brazil's Green Party
Ms. Silva’s Wilson Center address on climate change was dominated by the word “urgency.” Silva supports a comprehensive approach to global emissions reductions, believing that all countries should partake in climate change mitigation, as “our planet does not take into account where the emissions are coming from.” In accordance with the well-established principles of “the polluter pays,” and the “common but differentiated responsibilities” of all countries in line with their capabilities to reduce emissions and their historic emission responsibilities, Silva acknowledged that industrialized countries should pay for the transfer of technology to less developed countries and provide financial aid for mitigation and adaptation. Silva also noted that there were segments of society in less developed countries with per capita levels similar to the United States, and noted that “new equations” in GHG emissions called for “new and innovative solutions.”
Her argument was optimistic and progressive. Ms. Silva believes that “Brazil has a contribution to make” and envisions it as an active leader in global GHG emissions reductions, providing a “proactive stance” and working alongside other countries. Brazil is already a global leader in biofuels and hydropower production and is in the process of further diversifying its energy power matrix. Brazil is also home to the world’s largest rainforest (the largest carbon sink found in any one country) and Silva believes that Brazil can serve as an example for other countries to manage their rainforests in a sustainable way.
Energy is needed for development. Although developing countries for many decades have prioritized economic development in order to alleviate poverty often at the expense of environmental sustainability, the World Bank estimates that there are still over three billion people living on less than $2.50 a day. Ms. Silva advocates a “new definition of civilization,” where she suggests shifting cultural practices to separate present day notions of well-being from contemporary patterns of consumption. She also envisions incentives to establish change – including laws, monitoring systems, and fines – to ensure local compliance to government policies.
Ms. Silva encourages countries, including those in the developing world, to take their own initiatives to mitigate climate change, claiming that other countries would feel “ethically obliged” to follow the example. This is a far cry from the 1997 “Brazilian Proposal” [ PDF] during Kyoto Protocol negotiations, where the Brazilian delegation proposed that the burden of emissions reductions among Annex I parties should be proportional to their historic responsibility for emissions. Unfortunately, political realities and special interests often prevent countries from acting purely on an ethical basis. All too often a one-dimensional interpretation of national interests and short-sighted economic reasoning prevent international and domestic environmental agreements.
Marina Silva’s comprehensive approach demonstrates a deep understanding of the complexity, urgency, and broad scope of climate change. Although climate change was historically caused by industrialized nations, developing countries are increasing their portion of GHG emissions as they industrialize. As Ms. Silva stated, “We must come to terms with the fact that we are late in the game.” Climate change is truly a global issue that requires an international solution. Ms. Silva’s post-nationalistic and progressive views demonstrate leaps and bounds in the international climate negotiations currently underway. They would greatly benefit the global community if embraced at Copenhagen.
biofuels, Brazil, Green Party, Marina Silva, the polluter pays
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Oct
29
Bold Steps May Be the Prudent Way
Frauke Thies Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment
Amory Lovins continues to encourage with examples of how smart and simple measures can slash our energy use to a fraction of today’s – and he visualizes how foolishly we are currently wasting resources while heating the atmosphere.
In his lecture “Strategic Energy Opportunities for the Department of Defense” yesterday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., Lovins focused on the use of oil in the military, showing various possibilities to cut the use and transportation of enormous loads of oil in deployment regions.
His most interesting message in my view, however, was not limited to the military.
We often assume that the investment costs and energy savings from efficiency measures increase in conjunction with each other, until a certain limit is reached where investments do not pay off anymore. This does not have to be the case. More radical changes can actually help “tunneling through the cost barrier” and lead to even bigger and cheaper resource savings. Wholehouse_540x359[1]One simple example is Lovins’ own house: by constructing it super-efficiently, the price for insulation and smart construction was higher than it would have been with a little less efficiency. But at the same time, the high efficiency eliminated the need for a furnace completely, making the investment pay off even faster than less ambitious efficiency measures would have.
Are bold steps easier than we often think?
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Oct
28
World Forestry Congress Sends Message to Climate Negotiators
Elena Marszalek Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment
Feelings of inequality and tensions between the global North and South—which have plagued international negotiations leading up to the December United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark—were also present at the XIII World Forestry Congress last week (October 18- 23, 2009). Over 7000 participants representing 160 countries convened in Buenos Aires for this event, hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the government of Argentina. Founded in 1926, the Forestry Congress serves as a forum for governments, civil society, academia, and the private sector to discuss forest-related issues and formulate recommendations at multiple levels of governance.
The Conference’s theme was “Forests in Development: A Vital Balance.” Discussion topics included biodiversity, forests and energy, forest management, tourism and recreation, and development opportunities. A forum focused on “forests and climate change” was held Wednesday afternoon, with a keynote address by Roberto Acosta, Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The forum included panels on land use and land use change as well as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), and discussed the impacts of climate change on forests and people.
Forests are not just important carbon sinks, they provide economic, cultural and spiritual livelihoods for billions of people
Forests are not just carbon sinks, they provide economic, cultural and spiritual livelihoods for billions of people
The forum also produced a message to the UNFCCC’s 15th Conference of Parties (COP 15) which will convene in Copenhagen this December. It outlines the important role of sustainable forest management in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and calls for increased “inter-sectoral collaboration” to improve forest governance and the livelihoods of people dependent on forests for income, as poverty and lack of human rights are linked to deforestation and forest degradation. The message to the COP 15 also called for increased recognition that forests are “more than just carbon,” as they provide valuable ecosystem goods and services, promote biodiversity, and provide the economic livelihood, “cultural and spiritual identity of billions of people.”
An ongoing theme of the Congress was that climate change has pinholed forests as tools of storing greenhouse gases, rather than also focusing on the opportunities for “rural development, foods security and livelihood improvement” that forests offer to developing nations, as expressed by Sudanese representative Balgis Osman Elasha (who incidentally authored one of the climate connections for State of the World 2009, “ Building Resilience to Drought and Climate Change in Sudan.”
This theme echoes the North-South divide that has also characterized recent climate negotiations. Developing countries do not appreciate being viewed exclusively as mitigation tools (or in this case, as carbon sinks) for industrialized countries. Accordingly, the World Forestry Congress emphasized that forests should be appreciated in a broader sense including their vital role for the daily lives of hundreds of million people depending on them in the developing world, rather than valued for their usefulness to industrialized countries.
carbon sinks, deforestation, north-south divide, poverty, REDD, world forestry congress
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Oct
27
A Strong Voice: Indian Youth Fighting for 350 ppm
Anna da Costa Dateline Copenhagen Add your comment
The Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) is a coalition of individuals and youth-led organisations from across India united in their concern about climate change. In partnership with 350.org, IYCN organised a series of 300 different actions across India to raise awareness about the importance of this crucial number on October 24th.
Surendran is a Coordinator for 350.org South Asia and for the Indian Youth Climate Network, and was one of the principal organisers of this sequence of spectacular events.
by B. Surendran
From Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Bikaner to Manipur, India resonated with one voice on October 24, 2009. School children, college students, software professionals, police, fishers, farmers, divers, people on bicycles, and drivers of electric cars all participated in some 300 different actions across the country.
Photo Courtesy Indian Youth Climate Network
Youth in the town of Ongole, Andhra Pradesh, form a giant '350'
350 is a vital number. It is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere we need to reach to avoid catastrophic climate change. In an effort to raise global awareness of this target, the campaign 350.org organized a global day of action on October 24, in which India was a major voice.
The day began with the hoisting of a massive banner in front of the Charminar, a mosque and one of the most famous monuments in the city of Hyderabad. As the day progressed, numerous rallies, seminars, movie screenings, awareness drives, competitions, and tree plantings—as well as the widespread creation of giant “350” human art formations—marked the widespread involvement of people for the cause.
Many beautiful stories emerged. In the Fazilka district near the Indo-Pakistan border, students organized the “Badha lake campaign,” each pouring a glass of water into the dried-up lake to symbolize the need to take action. In Gwalior, participants formed a two-kilometer long human chain, and in Kolkata people marched on foot. In Jaipur, a peace rally brought together artists, activists, and vendors to showcase organic seed varieties. In the ancient city of Udaipur participants held a religious ceremony to commemorate the lost ritual of valuing waste in day-to-day activities.
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350.org, Climate Change, demonstrations, India
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Weigh in on Livestock Emissions Here
A story [PDF] in the most recentWorld Watch Magazine claims that livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions - far above data reported by the FAO.
Readers are discussing the topic HERE
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