Environment

"The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said today that a Compliance Committee for the Kyoto Protocol, the environmental treaty aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, has begun operations, with an enforcement branch dealing with countries having difficulties meeting their commitments." [More]

"Eastern European countries, which disproportionately produce greenhouse gas emissions, have taken a small but very significant step in tackling the problem thanks to a United Nations-backed project, a new report released today says. With only 6 per cent of the world's population, the countries of Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) produce approximately 12 per cent of all greenhouse gases." [Read more]

"Tony Blair has admitted that the risks of climate change may be more serious than previously thought. The Prime Minister's concern is revealed today in a book that contains compelling evidence from some of the world's leading scientists of the growing threat to the planet. Reassessments of major risks to the Earth, such as the melting of the great land-based ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which would raise sea levels disastrously, or the slowing down of the Gulf Stream, which would plunge Britain into a new ice age, show that they may be triggered by temperature rises well within those already predicted for the coming century. The fresh appraisals indicate that the situation is far more dangerous than that set out in the last report of the main scientific body monitoring global warming, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That study, the IPCC's third assessment report, known to scientists as the TAR, said there was "new and stronger evidence" that much of the warming already observed in recent decades had been caused by human activities, such as the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases from power stations and motor vehicles." [Read more] Also see: Corals and Mangroves in the Front Line Floods and Drought Boost Global Disasters Global Warming Study: Polar Ice Sheets Could Start to Melt this Century

UN News Service: "Laws aimed at protecting Afghanistan's wildlife, waterways and forests, believed to be the first legal conservation tools in the country, have been developed by the Government with assistance from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the agency announced today."

150 Nations Agree to Future Climate Talks Kyoto Accord Won't Hurt Economies: Clinton Climate change conference urges strategies to curb massive deforestation Clinton Warns of Climate Peril, Demands US Switch Out of Fossil Fuels Kyoto Reforms to Boost 'Green' Business US Isolated at World Climate Talks Seattle Sets Own Kyoto Goals for Emissions Inspired by Lennon, Youth Say Give Climate a Chance 2,300 Computers at the UN Climate Change Conference are Powered by the Wind Blogs weighing in: Barking Dingo Guardian Blogs Climate Change News Greendiary It's Getting Hot in Here Rubicon

"The rise of deadly new diseases such as SARS and bird flu could be linked to the destruction of the environment, the World Health Organization said on Friday. "Human health is strongly linked to the health of ecosystems, which meet many of our most critical needs," Maria Neira, director of WHO's Department of Protection of the Human Environment told a news conference at the launch of a new report. "As a result of human actions, the structure and the world's ecosystems changed more rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century than at any other time in human history," the report said." [Read more] Full Report

"A small community living in the Pacfic island chain of Vanuatu has become one of, if not the first, to be formally moved out of harms way as a result of climate change. The villagers have been relocated higher into the interior of Tegua, one of the chains' northern most provinces, after their coastal homes were repeatedly swamped by storm surges and aggressive waves linked with climate change. The relocation, under a project entitled Capacity Building for the Development of Adaptation in Pacific Island Countries, underlines the increasingly drastic measures now underway to conserve low lying communities as a result of the rise in human-made emissions to the atmosphere." LINK More here

"The impact of spiralling pollution on the planet poses a threat to civilisation just as catastrophic as much-vaunted weapons of mass destruction, Britain's top scientist warned today. Lord Robert May, president of the country's leading scientific body, the Royal Society, issued the warning as a 12-day conference was set to get underway today in Montreal to decide the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations' troubled treaty for curbing greenhouse gases. "The impacts of global warming are many and serious: sea-level rise ... changes in availability of fresh water ... and the increasing incidence of extreme events -- floods, droughts, and hurricanes - the serious consequences of which are rising to levels which invite comparison with weapons of mass destruction," Lord May said in an advance copy of a speech released today to coincide with the start of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on the same day. The Montreal meeting is the first by the convention since the UN's pollution-cutting Kyoto Protocol, signed by 156 countries, took effect on January 16. But a notable non-signatory of the pact committing industrialised nations to reducing or offsetting emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases is the planet's heaviest polluter: the US." [Read more]

BBC NEWS: "The United Nations is to set up a task force to investigate the effects of climate change on regions like the Himalayas. The decision came at the annual meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (Unesco) World Heritage Committee, which declared that climate change does pose a threat to natural and cultural heritage sites."