UPDATE: Stronger winds which have cooled the surface of the Pacific Ocean could explain what is likely to be a temporary slowdown in the pace of global warming this century, researchers said. Last year, scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the pace of temperature rise at the Earth's surface had slowed over the past 15 years, even though greenhouse gas emissions, widely blamed for causing climate change, have risen steadily. Past research has linked the slowdown in the pace of warming to factors such as a build-up of sun-dimming air pollution in the atmosphere or a decline in the sun's output. Others suggest the deep oceans may be absorbing more heat. A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Sunday said stronger Pacific trade winds - a pattern of easterly winds spanning the tropics - over the past two decades had made ocean circulation at the Equator speed up, moving heat deeper into the ocean and bringing cooler water to the surface. The winds have also helped drive cooling in other ocean regions. "We show that a pronounced strengthening in Pacific trade winds over the past two decades is sufficient to account for the cooling of the tropical Pacific and a substantial slowdown in surface warming," said the study, led by scientists from the University of New South Wales in Australia. "The net effect of these anomalous winds is a cooling in the 2012 global average surface air temperature of 0.1-0.2 degrees Celsius, which can account for much of the hiatus in surface warming since 2001." - Yahoo News

Stronger Pacific winds explain global warming hiatus: study - Yahoo News: "COOLING DOWN

The study's authors, including scientists from other research centers and universities in the United States, Hawaii and Australia, used weather forecasting and satellite data and climate models to make their conclusions.

"This hiatus could persist for much of the present decade if the trade winds trends continue, however, rapid warming is expected to resume once the anomalous wind trends abate," the study said.

"If the anomalously strong trade winds begin to abate in the next few years, the model suggests the present hiatus will be short-lived, with rapid warming set to resume soon after the wind trends reverse," it added."



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UPDATE: DELHI, India and Air Pollution Problems. The combination of rapid urbanization, a high density of cars and industrial emissions, and other environmental factors have made the smog in Delhi worse even than Beijing. However, despite India slipping down to a staggering rank of 155 in the global Environmental Performance Index this year, on-the-ground awareness of how bad the air truly is remains low overall. While the thick smog is hard to miss, widespread information linking environmental impacts from pollution to health effects is currently lacking in India. Many Delhi residents are unaware of the growing body of scientific evidence that shows direct links between increasing automobile use and emissions of harmful PM2.5 emissions — the kind of particulate matter (PM) that is so small that it can enter the human bloodstream. The question is, will the international spotlight on the country's air pollution shine through the smog to spark action? Despite low awareness, the serious health effects of Delhi's poor environmental quality are harder to ignore. The dangerous air pollution threatens a literal chokehold on the population as asthma and other respiratory ailments affect two in five Delhi residents, according to the International Harvard Review. But as communities throughout the country can attest, harmful particulates in the air are not just Delhi's problem — air pollution is the sixth biggest killer across India, according to the Lancet Global Health Burden of Disease report. Finding cleaner ways forward, including shifting to energy sources that pollute less than fossil fuels, is key to improving India's air, water and environment, as well as combating the global problem of climate change.- | The Energy Collective

CLICK LINK TO READ ARTICLE: India and Air Pollution Problems | The Energy Collective: "Much remains to be done to mitigate the severe air pollution across India's cities and rural areas. Raising awareness of the often-fatal health impacts of poor air-quality and ways the country can move towards a cleaner future — including through greener transportation fleets, energy efficient buildings and clean energy — are necessary to spark action on all levels. By prioritizing less polluting, renewable energy sources domestically, including wind and solar, India's communities will begin to breathe easier."



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UPDATE: UK: Treasury urged to insulate homes with carbon tax revenues - - A coalition of businesses and NGOs has accused the Treasury of hypocrisy over its refusal to use proceeds from carbon taxes to insulate the UK's housing stock. A new report, authored by an ex-Treasury economist for campaign group Energy Bill Revolution, which is made up of nearly 200 UK charities, businesses, unions, consumer, and health groups, highlights how the Treasury's decision to retain proceeds from emissions trading and the carbon floor price is something of an anomaly. Revenues from other policies classed as environmental taxes are set aside to be reinvested in specific programmes. For example, the Renewables Obligation funds green energy incentives and the London Congestion Charge is reinvested in Transport for London. The report, published on Friday, also highlights 13 countries in the EU that use proceeds from EU emissions trading to finance energy and climate change initiatives, including France and Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia and Lithuania. However, the UK government has so far refused to recycle its carbon taxes for environmental initiates because it could reduce spending in other areas.- 10 Feb 2014 - News from BusinessGreen

CLICK LINK TO READ Treasury urged to insulate homes with carbon tax revenues - 10 Feb 2014 - News from BusinessGreen: "Energy Bill Revolution says revenues from carbon taxes could provide an extra £60bn over the next 15 years to help reduce fuel poverty.
"The real reason the Treasury has opposed carbon tax recycling into energy efficiency is because they don't want to reduce their control over public spending and other departments," said Ed Matthew, director of the Energy Bill Revolution in a statement.
"When will they understand that this is not their tax revenue? It belongs to the people and we want it back to warm up our homes. Using carbon tax to make households more energy efficient is by far the best long term solution to both bring down energy bills and end fuel poverty.""



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UPDATE: China's large state-owned power firms have taken the lead in the country's nascent carbon offset market, leveraging preferential procedures to cut the cost of complying with new rules capping greenhouse gas emissions. The central government will issue offsets, known as Chinese Certified Emissions Reductions (CCERs), under a new programme to reward projects that can prove they cut carbon emissions. Companies covered by China's five recently launched emissions trading schemes can use CCERs to cover 5 percent to 10 percent of their emissions, making for an attractive low-cost compliance option. But China's state-owned enterprises get preferential treatment as they can apply directly to the central government for eligibility, while private firms face a time-consuming process to get approval from regional authorities before they can turn to Beijing. "This will cut compliance costs for the state-owned companies, and since they are first in line to take on targets in the envisaged national (carbon) market, the earlier they move, the less costly it will be for them," said Chen Bo, a researcher at the Central University of Finance and Economics. State enterprises own six of the first seven projects up for consideration later this week by a technical panel under the offset programme. China General Nuclear runs four of them, all wind farms. The advantage held by the state-owned enterprises may prove especially important in the first year of the scheme. Companies covered by carbon markets in Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin must hand permits to regulators to cover for their 2013 emissions by the end of June, and getting low-cost credits issued by then will be a race against time, especially for private firms.

China's state utilities move on preferential rules in carbon offset market | Reuters: "Traders say it will take 6 to 8 months from the design phase until a project can receive its first CCERs.

The budding market has yet to establish a clear and transparent price for the carbon credits."



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FYI: Women suffer more disabling strokes than men and need to become better aware of their unique risk factors, including pregnancy complications and the use of oral contraceptives, according to recommendations released Thursday by the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association. The stroke prevention guidelines — the first to be released specifically for women — also point to risk factors more common in women, such as migraines with aura, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. Such differences could point to why strokes are the third leading cause of death in women but only the fifth leading cause of death in men. “These new guidelines are a call to action that doctors really need to be focusing more on women when it comes to stroke prevention,” said Dr. Shazam Hussain, head of the Stroke Section at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved with developing the guidelines. About 3 percent of Americans have lived through strokes, with many suffering permanent health problems such as impaired speech, memory loss, or paralysis. Women who develop dangerous hypertension during pregnancy, known as preeclampsia, have twice the risk of having a stroke later in life compared with those who had healthy pregnancies.

Stroke prevention guidelines highlight special risks for women - Health & wellness - The Boston Globe: "The guidelines, published in the journal Stroke, advise doctors to consider preeclampsia to be a stroke risk factor akin to smoking, high cholesterol, and obesity because it’s likely to lead to hypertension years after the pregnancy."



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UPDATE: Abu Dhabi -- Nineteen countries have pledged to create an Africa Clean Energy Corridor to exploit the continent’s vast renewable potential. Energy ministers and delegates from the countries endorsed an action agenda drawn up by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Abu Dhabi. The corridor is designed to boost the deployment of renewable energy and help meet Africa’s rising energy demand with clean power from renewable sources such as hydro, geothermal, biomass, wind and solar. IRENA’s director-general Adnan Z. Amin said the corridor would “provide the continent with the opportunity to leapfrog into a sustainable energy future.” “The dynamic development that Africa will see in the next decades needs to extend to the energy sector, and Africa’s abundant renewable energy resources are a perfect match to meet rising demand in a sustainable and cost-effective way, from Cairo to Cape Town.”

Countries Vow to Form Africa Clean Energy Corridor: "Electricity demand is expected to triple in southern Africa and quadruple in east Africa over the next 25 years and there is a desire among many nations to meet this demand with renewables.

Ethiopia’s energy minister Alemayehu Tegenu said the clean energy corridor would help “leverage the tremendous opportunity that renewable energy presents, for the best of the African states and the entire continent.”"



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UPDATE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's critical assessment of the proposed northern leg of the Keystone pipeline could have outsized influence on the final decision of whether to approve the project, experts familiar with the process said. Friday's State Department report contained the EPA's evaluation that crude produced from Canada's oil sands, which the pipeline would carry, are 17 percent more greenhouse gas intensive than average oil used in the United States. The EPA also said oil sands imports would be 2-10 percent more greenhouse-gas intensive than imported oil from Mexico or Venezuela that would probably replace it.

EPA scrutiny could be linchpin to Keystone review process - Yahoo News: "The Departments of Defense, Commerce, Commerce, Energy, Justice, Transportation and Homeland Security are also evaluating the State Department's environmental assessment of the Keystone proposal. Of the eight agencies that have 90 days to weigh in, the EPA's evaluation is expected to be the most influential because of its expertise on the environment."



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