Japan vows big climate change cut” (BBC News, 7th September 2009)

Japan’s next leader has promised a big cut in greenhouse gas emissions, saying he will aim for a 25% reduction by 2020 compared with 1990 levels.

Democratic Party leader Yukio Hatoyama is due to take over as prime minister on 16 September, after a resounding election victory in August.

His predecessor, Taro Aso, had pledged cuts of only 8%.

Mr Hatoyama said the plan was dependent on other nations agreeing targets at December’s climate talks in Copenhagen. (Read More)

“Armed forces may be the agents of climate change” (The Age, 5th September 2009)

THE oceans are getting warmer, coral reefs are increasingly under threat, Arctic ice is dropping into the sea. July was the warmest month in 130 years of testing ocean temperatures. Who are we going to call?

The admirals and the generals. It appears that the US military is as concerned about the fate of the Earth as the man and woman on Civvy Street. And, as history has shown, what troubles the US generals troubles the rest of the world. (Read More)

“One minute to midnight for Maldives’ corals” (Minivan News, 6th September 2009)

If the experts are right, however, the Maldives’ coral reefs are in terminal decline. A UN report entitled The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity released last week in Berlin, stated the world’s coral infrastructure and accompanying biodiversity would be the first ecosystem to go due to climbing greenhouse gases.

The message is critical; the reality is grim. “Corals are the foundation of the whole ecosystem, the building blocks of the reef itself,” said Guy Stevens, a British marine biologist at Four Seasons resort. “If the reef went, the Maldives would cease to exist, the islands themselves would be eroded and washed away. Without them, there’s nothing.” (Read More)