Climate Change Working Group

Automatic flux measurement chambers and an eddy covariance system to determine turbulent exchange fluxes of heat, water vapor, CO2, and CH4 between a re-wetted peatland and the atmosphere at Zarnekow, NE Germany.  D. Franz, GFZ.

reportingclimatescience.com - March 26, 2015

From the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam

Natural wetlands usually emit methane and sequester carbon dioxide. Anthropogenic impacts however, in particular the conversion of wetlands into cropland, result in a significant increase in CO2 emissions, which overcompensate potential decreases in methane emission, caused by the reduction of wetlands.

A large international research team now calculated that the conversion of arctic and boreal wetlands into agricultural land would result in an additional cumulative radiative forcing of about 0,1 mJ per square meter for the next 100 years. The conversion of temperate wetlands into agricultural land would even result in a cumulative radiative forcing of 0,15 mJ per square meter. Converting forested wetlands into managed forests also contributes to increased warming, albeit much less than the conversion of non-forested wetlands.

Exhaust rises from cooling towers at the new Neurath lignit coal-fired power station at Grevenbroich near Aachen, western Germany. Photograph: Patrik Stollarz/AFP/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Let Them Eat Coal: Why the G7 must stop burning coal to tackle climate change and fight hunger

theguardian.com - by John Vidal - June 8, 2015

Five of the world’s seven richest countries have increased their coal use in the last five years despite demanding that poor countries slash their carbon emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change, new research shows.

Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan and France together burned 16% more coal in 2013 than 2009 and are planning to further increase construction of coal-fired power stations. Only the US and Canada of the G7 countries meeting on Monday in Berlin have reduced coal consumption since the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.

The US has reduced its coal consumption by 8% largely because of fracking for shale gas.

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London School of Economics

greenbiz.com - by Michael Mathres - June 4, 2015

CLICK HERE - REPORT - 2015 Global Climate legislation Study

A lot of times businesses look to or blame,  governments for a lack of a national strategic economical direction for tackling climate change. This often leads to climate inertia where each party looks to the other for leadership and action.

However, according to a new report from the London School of Economics, this is no longer the case, and business have plenty of climate laws and policies from which to be inspired or adapt.

reuters - by Alister Doyle and Bruce Wallace - June 1, 2015

BONN/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.N.'s Paris climate conference, designed to reach a plan for curbing global warming, may instead become the graveyard for its defining goal: to stop temperatures rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Achieving the 2C (3.6 Fahrenheit) target has been the driving force for climate negotiators and scientists, who say it is the limit beyond which the world will suffer ever worsening floods, droughts, storms and rising seas.

But six months before world leaders convene in Paris, prospects are fading for a deal that would keep average temperatures below the ceiling.

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