Environment

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) today published its interim advice to Government on what the long-term target should be to tackle climate change. The CCC recommended that emissions from harmful Greenhouse Gases be reduced by at least 80% by 2050. In a letter to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, the CCC said that the 80% target should apply on average across all sectors of the UK economy and is achievable at affordable cost of between 1-2% of GDP in 2050

Biofuels are a false solution to climate change and are doing much more harm than good. The EU is proposing a binding target to increase biofuels use to 10% of road fuels by 2020. This massive increase in Europe's demand for biofuels will have a devastating impact on the world’s poorest countries by:

* Destroying communities.
* Damaging wildlife.
* Pushing up food prices.

On 8th August 2008 a young Swazi man, Musa Gamedze, was hunted down and executed in broad daylight at his home, in full view of his children. According to eyewitness reports the man who fired the fatal shot was the General Manager of a local private game reserve, Mkhaya, accompanied by three police officers. Musa was shot in the back.

Stretches of Britain's coastline are doomed and plans will soon have to be drawn up to evacuate people from the most threatened areas, the new head of the Environment Agency warns today [18/8/08].

The Artic meltdown is speeding up, satellite images show. Do something now, for our children’s sake, says  Thomas Friedman:

Most people assume that the effects of climate change are going to be felt through another big disaster, like Hurricane Katrina. Not necessarily, says Minik Thorleif Rosing, a top geologist at Denmark's National History Museum and one of my travelling companions. 'Most people will actually feel climate change delivered to them by the postman,' he explains. It will come in the form of higher water bills, because of increased droughts in some areas; higher energy bills, because the use of fossil fuels becomes prohibitive; and higher insurance and mortgage rates, because of much more violently unpredictable weather. Remember: climate change means 'global weirding' not just global warming.

Friends of the Earth Australia is putting pressure on its new government to deliver on policies relating to the displacement of climate refugees in the Pacific.

There are so many worldwide problems – how do we prioritise them? A group of eminent economists tried to work out a plan…

Imagine that you are Bill Gates. Not to daydream about what to buy with a $58 billion fortune, but to consider how, like the Microsoft entrepreneur, you might give much of it away.