The agreement signed late last month may be the beginning of a new era of collaboration on climate change as the three North American countries signed an agreement to push cleantech and fight climate change.
The Economist has recently published three articles on energy and climate that received all my attention. One was a recap on which actions have cut the most greenhouse gases emissions. And the results are quite surprising.
Yesterday I published an lengthy article on how business leaders and elected representatives of the so-called ” developped countries ” are awakening slowly to the threat of climate change.
While these are great news, we are still waiting for concrete actions that could actually have a chance to avoid catastrophes such as flooded cities, extreme weather events and so on.
So I had a look at what would consist of an urgent to do list for the future UNFCC conference of parties. Of course, this is a not exhaustive list.
According to the most comprehensive research on the subject, soot – also known as black carbon – may have a significantly higher role in climate change than previously estimated.
According to a BBC article quoting the study : ” (soot) dark particles are having a warming effect approximately two thirds that of carbon dioxide, and greater than methane. “
Tackling its emissions – which come mostly from wood and coal burning as well as diesel engines in developed countries – would be easy to tackle.
Are we finally getting things right on climate change ? Not completely, but what happened last week may be a good omen for the Rio +20 conference. As I noted in a post published yesterday on Cleantechies : ” Further to the Camp David meeting last week, G8 leaders agreed to act on climate change … Read more
This is not as good as it should be as carbon dioxide is not tackled, but this new initiative might help us in mitigating climate change in the short to medium term and improves health of million of people.
According to various sources, the United States, China as well as other countries are willing to cut emissions of various short-lived greenhouse gases such as methane, soot (black carbon) and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs)
Of course, the fact that the main greenhouse gas is not included is a major problem, but the fact that the NASA recommendation are being followed is still good news.
What if we could in the same time slow down climate change, increase health and boost agriculture ? Is this too good to be true ? No, as to a NASA scientist we could do just that by focusing on both methane and soot (black carbon).
Out of the 400 ideas that were studied, these 14 were chosen as they have a direct and immediate impact on people’s lives. None of these methods are concerning carbon dioxide, which also have to be tackled in the meantime.
One of the main ways is switching to cleaner burning cookstoves. I have previously tackled this topic here and explained how this could save two million people per year.