A third of all sharks on the high seas are threatened with extinction because they are overfished or killed incidentally in swordfish and tuna catches, a nature group warned Thursday.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature, the producer of the world’s Red List of endangered species, released its shark study ahead of a meeting in Spain of tuna fishery managers.
The gathering includes those responsible for fisheries “in which sharks are taken without limit,” IUCN said.
“Despite mounting threats, sharks remain virtually unprotected on the high seas,” said Sonja Fordham, a shark specialist for the group. “The vulnerability and lengthy migrations of most open ocean sharks call for coordinated, international conservation plans.”
BRUSSELS — The European Union said Thursday it will give China up to euro50 million ($70 million) to build a carbon capture and storage plant that will test a technology aimed at limiting climate change.
The EU’s executive commission says the money will help China develop coal-burning power stations that could capture carbon dioxide and bury it underground.
That would allow China to use its most plentiful energy source, coal, without releasing more of the greenhouse gas linked to climate change.
During last month’s EU-China summit, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao asked Europe to help provide it with “clean coal” technology so China could curb emissions from coal-fired power stations.
Energy companies in Europe and the U.S. already are working on trial plants to test if the costly technology could work commercially and whether the carbon can be safely stored, and the EU wants to encourage that kind of work in Asia, too.
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The global recession has an up side, at least for people worried about climate change: carbon emissions are growing more slowly than in recent years, Dutch researchers said Thursday.
But they also said the emissions of developing countries were higher than those of the industrialized world for the first time last year.
Less money in the bank, higher oil prices and a growing use of wind, solar and other renewable energy resources put a brake last year on the increase of the most common greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, said the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.
The growth in CO2 emissions halved to 1.7 percent, compared with a growth of 3.3 percent in 2007, and an average annual growth of 4 percent since 2002, said the report.
The world spewed 31.5 billion tons of carbon into the air last year, more than double the amount in 1970, it said.
AMSTERDAM — Nature’s way is best for controlling the gases responsible for climate change, the U.N. Environment Program said in a report Friday.
The report said better management of forests, more careful agricultural practices and the restoration of peatlands could soak up significant amounts of carbon dioxide, the most common of the gases blamed for global warming.
“We need to move toward a comprehensive policy framework for addressing ecosystems,” said co-author Barney Dickson, releasing the report at the U.N. climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany. The event was Webcast worldwide.
Millions of dollars are being invested in research on capturing and burying carbon emissions from power stations, but investing in ecosystems could achieve cheaper results, the report said.
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Green campaigners and politicians must stop making people feel guilty if they want to change attitudes to action on climate change, Britain’s Science and Innovation Minister said Wednesday.
Pessimistic messages about the personal sacrifices required to cut carbon emissions could alienate those whose support was essential to tackling the issue, Lord Drayson told The Times.
The austere rhetoric of environmentalists who lectured people for excessive driving or flying had convinced many that reducing the size of their carbon footprint was too much like hard work, he said. The prospect of a lower quality of life was unattractive.
“Less emphasis on telling people they have to stop doing many of the things they like — an almost puritanical argument that, for climate change to be addressed, growth has to stop and our quality of life has to decline. I don’t accept that. More importantly, it won’t work.”
Lord Drayson, speaking at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival , wants scientists, environmentalists and politicians to explain that many aspects of a greener lifestyle involve just small changes, come with few costs and might even save money.
Improvements to energy efficiency, such as home insulation, could help to lower carbon emissions — and reduce heating and electricity costs, he said. People were also very willing to take practical environmental steps, such as recycling garbage, when they had the facilities to do so.
• Click here to read the rest of this story in the Times of London.
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