Slowing Deforestation May Be Worth $Billions

Shell Chief Seeks Carbon Capture Subsidies BELGIUM: April 8, 2008 BRUSSELS - The European Union must create rapid incentives to promote underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) to achieve its ambitious climate change goals, the head of oil major Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday. "Because CO2 capture and storage adds costs and yields no revenues, government action is needed to support and stimulate investment quickly on a scale large enough to affect global emissions," Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said in a speech prepared for delivery in Brussels.

U.N. climate talks agree on agenda for next global pact BANGKOK, Thailand

BUSINESS will be expected to massively boost investment in Victoria's stressed environment under a State Government plan to save species threatened by climate change. Launching a draft blueprint for rebuilding devastated ecosystems over the next 20 to 50 years, Environment Minister Gavin Jennings yesterday called on the community to start viewing the restoration of the environment as an economic opportunity rather than a cost.

Climate change, a creation of mankind has brought many ills to the world, but a solution is not far off as long as a concerted effort involving all countries is made to protect the environment sooner than later, Healthcare and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said. Addressing media personnel at a seminar conducted to mark

THE pain of rising interest rates on home owners could be curtailed and Australia's carbon emissions reduced while fighting inflation under a new economic policy now before the Federal Government. The policy by Harold Lubansky, a former managing director of the Stafford Group, has been viewed by members of the Government and the Opposition and has garnered interest from economists. Mr Lubansky proposes the creation of a National Climate Change Savings Scheme into which Australians earning a net income of $38,000 a year or more would contribute.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, here comes along James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world's most respected climate scientists (except in the White House), with an even more depressing assessment of how climate change will unravel over the coming decades - if, that is, we don't act fast to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

World Bank Accused Of Climate Change "Hijack" THAILAND: April 7, 2008 BANGKOK - Developing countries and environmental groups accused the World Bank on Friday of trying to seize control of the billions of dollars of aid that will be used to tackle climate change in the next four decades. "The World Bank's foray into climate change has gone down like a lead balloon," Friends of the Earth campaigner Tom Picken said at the end of a major climate change conference in the Thai capital.

Bangkok Climate Change Talks Close THAILAND: April 7, 2008 BANGKOK - The first formal talks to draw up a replacement to the Kyoto climate change pact wound up in Thailand on Friday with plans for another seven rounds of negotiations in the next 18 months to tackle global warming. As expected, no major advances were achieved at the meeting, which was mainly intended to flesh out a roadmap from a breakthrough agreement in Bali last year to kick off the talks through to a culmination in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.

Head Of UN Climate Panel To Seek New Term NORWAY: April 7, 2008 OSLO - India's Rajendra Pachauri said on Saturday he will seek a new six-year term as head of the UN climate panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore. "I have after a great deal of reflection and consultation decided to express interest in a second term," Pachauri, 67, told Reuters. "Of course, the government of India would have to send in my nomination, and I hope that will happen soon," he wrote in an e-mail.

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