Noble Energy announces significant natural gas discovery at Leviathan offshore Israel
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Japan postpones launch of GHG emissions trading scheme until after FY2013

Nikkei. Japan’s government will postpone creation of a greenhouse gas emissions trading system until after fiscal 2013. It will continue with the introduction of an environment tax in the form of higher tax rates on fossil fuels depending upon the degree of CO2 associated, in FY 2011.

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government has already submitted to parliament a basic anti-global warming bill that also includes an environment tax and fixed-price purchases of power generated by renewable energies, but is apparently backing off on the emissions trading system while the bill is pending at the Diet...The environment tax...appears only to give a face lift to existing taxes on oil and coal products.

...Skepticism lingers, however, about whether Japan can take effective measures down the road, since the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan has not shown a tough stance on the global warming issue.

Comments

Reel$$

A healthy position. But AGWs still cannot admit their campaign is d-e-a-d. They still assuage their bruised egos by attaching "global warming" titles to renewable energy legislation.

Major governments concur (which makes a "consensus") that AGW is a lame limerick. But it has not slowed progress in transitioning to sustainable energy for good, solid economic, security, public health and environmental reasons.

There will be no CO2 trading schemes in the future. Which prevents thousands of hucksters and political nihilists from holding the industrial world hostage to their myopic vision.

ai_vin

2010 on track to be Earth's warmest year on record; http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2010/12/2010-earth-warmest-year-on-record-climate-change-global-warming-/1

"This will be the 34th consecutive year that the global temperature will be above average, according to the data center. The last below-average year was 1976."

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

Reel$$

The science Fair needs needs no response. But GISS??? The outfit located above a NY sitcom RESTAURANT??

ai_vin

You didn't even try to look at those links, did you?
The "science fair" [AKA: USATODAY] was only reporting what the National Climatic Data Center was saying.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/
And GISS? Well that's NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/
Office space is only that - office space.

Reel$$

Point is both resources have little credibility left. Here's just one reason why:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255779/Met-Office-drops-long-term-forecasts-fiasco-years-predictions.html

ai_vin

WTF?...the National Climatic Data Center and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies have no credibility because the Daily Mail, a British daily tabloid, takes a break from entertaining bored English housewives to report on the Met Office?

Meanwhile, you say "Major governments concur (which makes a "consensus") that AGW is a lame limerick." but Major governments DON'T concur. They may argue over commitments and targets but not the science. No, on the science they defer[as I do] to the scientists:

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, with nearly 120,000 individual and institutional members in 2007, and publisher of the well-known scientific journal "Science."


They put out this Statement


"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society. Accumulating data from across the globe reveal a wide array of effects: rapidly melting glaciers, destabilization of major ice sheets, increases in extreme weather, rising sea level, shifts in species ranges, and more. The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.

The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a critical greenhouse gas, is higher than it has been for at least 650,000 years. The average temperature of the Earth is heading for levels not experienced for millions of years. Scientific predictions of the impacts of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and deforestation match observed changes. As expected, intensification of droughts, heat waves, floods, wildfires, and severe storms is occurring, with a mounting toll on vulnerable ecosystems and societies. These events are early warning signs of even more devastating damage to come, some of which will be irreversible.

Delaying action to address climate change will increase the environmental and societal consequences as well as the costs. The longer we wait to tackle climate change, the harder and more expensive the task will be.

History provides many examples of society confronting grave threats by mobilizing knowledge and promoting innovation. We need an aggressive research, development and deployment effort to transform the existing and future energy systems of the world away from technologies that emit greenhouse gases. Developing clean energy technologies will provide economic opportunities and ensure future energy supplies.

In addition to rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it is essential that we develop strategies to adapt to ongoing changes and make communities more resilient to future changes.

The growing torrent of information presents a clear message: we are already experiencing global climate change. It is time to muster the political will for concerted action. Stronger leadership at all levels is needed. The time is now. We must rise to the challenge. We owe this to future generations."

-- December 9, 2006

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes.

And from them we get-

Statements


Joint Academies Statement on Climate Change

"There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001). This warming has already led to changes in the Earth's climate.

". . . We call on world leaders, including those meeting at the Gleneagles G8 Summit in July 2005, to


•Acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing.
•Launch an international study to explore scientifically-informed targets for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and their associated emissions scenarios, that will enable nations to avoid impacts deemed unacceptable.
•Identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions. Recognise that delayed action will increase the risk of adverse environmental effects and will likely incur a greater cost.
•Work with developing nations to build a scientific and technological capacity best suited to their circumstances, enabling them to develop innovative solutions to mitigate and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change, while explicitly recognising their legitimate development rights.
•Show leadership in developing and deploying clean energy technologies and approaches to energy efficiency, and share this knowledge with all other nations.
•Mobilize the science and technology community to enhance research and development efforts, which can better inform climate change decisions."

-- June 2005

You want to try and discredit them?!?!

Reel$$

What a difference five years make!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8230318/Britain-could-be-heading-for-coldest-winter-in-300-years.html

More to the point is Andrew Light's article on Cancun's failure in Grist:

Along with the astonishing dearth of factual science to support AGW, there is the worldwide failure to renew the Kyoto Protocol which divided developing and developed nations. This is due entirely to governments no longer believing in AGW "science." Thus, "governments concur,(which makes a consensus)that AGW is a lame limerick."

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-12-07-has-japan-killed-the-kyoto-protocol-does-it-really-matter

Meanwhile giant steps are being made to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy resources. All done without contribution from AGW.

ai_vin

OTOH:
I took a second look at your link; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255779/Met-Office-drops-long-term-forecasts-fiasco-years-predictions.html

to see if you might have missed something...and you did, BIG TIME. This article isn't about climate change nor global warming, it's about weather forecasting.
"Not since Michael Fish scotched reports of a hurricane more than two decades ago have the weather forecasters seemed to get it so wrong."

More to the point it's about the difficulty in making long-term seasonal forecasts as opposed to shorter term ones: Big D'uh, any weather man will tell you that.

You simply can't equate "weather forecasting" with "climate change predictions" let alone actual records of past temperatures (which, btw, do show global warming). To try to do so only makes you look less intelligent then I know you to be.

From the Met Office itself, they say it best in their FAQ pages:
7. If we're meant to have global warming, why is the weather so miserable a lot of the time?
"This is the fundamental difference between weather and climate. Even in a warming climate we will still get individual weather systems which will bring 'miserable' weather. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations will mean an upward trend in temperatures. However, natural variability in the climate means that not every year will necessarily be warmer than the last, with some years being cooler and others warmer.

There is indisputable evidence that the climate is changing. The average global surface temperature has risen by 0.6 °C in the past 140 years. Globally, nine out of the ten hottest years ever recorded have occurred since 1990. Here in the UK, four out of five of the hottest years ever recorded over a 330-year period have occurred since then."

10. Weather forecasts aren't always accurate a few days ahead, so how can you possibly predict what climate over the next 100 years?
"Although they are made by the same sort of mathematical model, weather forecasts and climate predictions are really quite different. A weather forecast tells us what the weather (for example, temperature or rainfall) is going to be at a certain place and time over the next few days.
A climate prediction tells us about changes in the average climate, its variability and extremes. So, it might say that Somerset, in 40-60 years time, will have, on average 25% more rain in winter with three times the current number of heavy rainfall events. It [can] not forecast that it will be raining in Somerset on the morning of 15 October 2044."

ai_vin

And once again your link; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8230318/Britain-could-be-heading-for-coldest-winter-in-300-years.html

talks about weather, not climate. And the weather in one small part of the world, during one season, of one year, does not equate to a global average, multidecadal, climate trend.

ai_vin

More to the point is Andrew Light's article on Cancun's failure in Grist:

Along with the astonishing dearth of factual science to support AGW, there is the worldwide failure to renew the Kyoto Protocol which divided developing and developed nations. This is due entirely to governments no longer believing in AGW "science." Thus, "governments concur,(which makes a consensus)that AGW is a lame limerick."

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-12-07-has-japan-killed-the-kyoto-protocol-does-it-really-matter

And that statement also fails on a number of points.

The "astonishing dearth of factual science to support AGW" exists only in your own mind. It's out there for anyone who cares to see it and your unwillingness to do so puts you in the same camp as the people who can walk through a natural history museum and proclaim 'the only reason the dinosaurs aren't with us now is because they missed the boat.'

And if governments no longer believed in AGW science why have they invested so much time in climate summits like Cancun and raise so much fuss when another country like Japan seems to backtrack? At Cancun even China said it will firmly committ itself to the process of the Kyoto Protocol. I said "seems to" because even here it shows Japan has a lot of belief in the science of AGW: Japan may longer support the Kyoto protocol but the reason they don't is because they have no belief in the politics of AGW, not the science.

Japan's rep at Cancun - Jun Arima, Deputy Director-General, Global Environmental Affairs, said, "We are not supporting the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol because it is not an effective vehicle for addressing global climate change mitigation and its coverage is only 27 percent of the total emissions and that share we would rather decline in the coming years." Japan wants to register all post-2012 cuts in a new deal, building on a non-binding Copenhagen Accord agreed last year by 140 Nations accounting for 80 percent of emissions.
http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20101203/103356.shtml

Quoting Jun Arima - “We need to do more.” The KP committed them to only a 6% reduction in CO2 but with the CA they are shooting for a 25% reduction.

Even your grist link says the same thing: Hideki Minamikawa, vice minister for global environment in the Japanese environment ministry, noted that the parties aligned to the Copenhagen Accord -- the non-binding political agreement delivered in the 11th hour at the U.N. climate summit last year in Denmark -- represented 80 percent of global emissions. While some have suggested that the Kyoto Protocol should continue to a second commitment period and be tied to a new agreement based on the Copenhagen Accord, Minamikawa made it clear in an interview with The Guardian that his government did not support such a potentially cumbersome architecture: "We want a single binding treaty," he said.

Some will conclude that Japan's decision on the protocol is simply a ploy to shirk their responsibilities on carbon mitigation and assistance with adaptation in poorer countries. But Japan's pledges and actions to date point to a different conclusion. Japan's commitment under the Copenhagen Accord is to cut emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, a target which is more stringent than Europe's current goal. And of the fast start financing announced in Copenhagen last year -- for developing countries to provide $30 billion to developing countries by 2012 for adaptation and mitigation -- Japan has pledged $15 billion and already implemented $7.23 billion as of the end of September.

If that's not believing in the science of AGW what is?



Reel$$

Suffice it to say both Copenhagen and Cancun have produced no binding agreements to reduce AGW. In year 2012 the Kyoto Protocol, the grandfather of Global Warming, will expire as there are no developed signatories willing to renew.

Call it weather, climate, multidecadel atmospheric hijinks... There is no agreement by governments or science that Anthropogenic Global Warming is anything more than a theory in search of substance.

And then there is the Antarctic, home to 90% of all ice on Earth that continues to GROW! Twice the size of Europe! Despite the speculation (with zero proof) of one Antarctic Survey scientist - there is no explanation for this global cooling phenomena.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/antarctica-ice-growing-while-arctic-ice-shrinks-100617.html

Reel$$

And, happily, there is momentous progress in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy - starting with the introduction of mass produced electric vehicles which eliminate approximately 60% of the purported AGW emissions.

And there is the introduction of renewable cellulosic alcohol fuels, biodiesel, and conversion of coal to NG power plants (cleaner if not renewable.) Wind, solar, PV, tidal are all a part of the energy portfolio now. Industrial nations with the exception of China and India's coal plants, are building sustainable power systems with far lower emissions than ever before.

There is a lot to be thankful for at the start of this New Year, and one of them is the putting to sleep old, outdated gloom and doom theories that do not affect behavior. This is a good thing. As it confirms the efficacy of fact over fiction when it comes to human activity.

Happy New Year ai_vin.

ai_vin

I always know when Reel is losing it, he bring up the Antarctica arguement: "And then there is the Antarctic, home to 90% of all ice on Earth that continues to GROW! Twice the size of Europe! Despite the speculation (with zero proof) of one Antarctic Survey scientist - there is no explanation for this global cooling phenomena."

If therte's no explanation why is it that the AGW climate models actually predicted this REGIONAL cooling phenomena?

SJC

I seldom get into Global Warming discussions, using less fossil fuels is its own reward in so many ways that we do not need the distraction of arguments that are never resolved.

Reel$$

True SJC. Which is another reason AGW has bitten the dust.

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