Climate change to bring more floods: World Bank
AFP (via Google) 11/11
HANOI — Climate change will bring more floods and extreme weather to Southeast Asia, a World Bank official said Thursday on a visit to the region, where hundreds have died in severe inundation.
"What we are seeing is there are more floods, more extreme weather events, higher temperature, more variable rainfalls and we believe that is caused by climate change. And we should expect this to increase, sadly," Andrew Steer, the World Bank's special envoy for climate change, told reporters in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.
Thailand's worst floods in half a century have killed 533 people and damaged the homes and livelihoods of millions around the country.
In neighbouring Cambodia, the deadliest floods since 2000 have killed at least 247 people while more than 100 have died in Vietnam, mostly in the southern Mekong Delta.
Steer, who cancelled plans to visit Thailand on his regional tour because of the disaster, said the floods there were "consistent with what we know to be true about climate change."
UN chief hails poor nations over climate change
AFP via Google 14/11
"Some of the countries most affected by climate change should be an "inspiration" to rich nations on reducing their emissions, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Monday.
"In this time of global economic uncertainty, let (these countries') commitment to green growth be an inspiration to more developed countries -- the major emitters," he said.
He said it was unfair to "ask the poorest and most vulnerable to bear the brunt of the impact of climate change alone" and called for the release of agreed funds to help poor countries to adapt to global warming.
The meeting in Dhaka of 18 countries most affected by climate change hopes to agree on a united front ahead of UN talks in Durban, South Africa, in December, where a "Green Climate Fund" will be negotiated.
The forum reflected the fact that the pace of international climate negotiations was "very slow and inadequate" said Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, speaking at the opening on Monday.
"We are bearing the brunt of the damage though we made negligible or no contribution to the menace. This constitutes a serious injustice... and demands immediate rectification and remedy," she said.
China
China registers sharp drop in carbon intensity
China Daily 11/11
BEIJING - China has become the top emitter of carbon in the world after its emissions of greenhouse gases increased by 33.6 percent from 2006 to 2010, according to a report released by Tsinghua University on Wednesday.
At the same time, China's carbon intensity - a measure of a country's emissions compared with each unit of its economic growth - dropped by 20.8 percent, partly because of the country's work to become more energy efficient and rely more on renewable sources of energy.