27 Nov 2008 - WWF analysis
of latest climate science comes to the dire
conclusion that humanity is approaching
the last chance to keep global warming below
the danger-threshold of 2°C. The global
conservation organization calls on governments
meeting for UN climate talks in Poznan next
week to develop a strong negotiation text
for the new climate treaty due end of 2009.
”The latest science
confirms that we are now seeing devastating
consequences of warming that were not expected
to hit for decades,” says Kim Carstensen,
WWF Global Climate Initiative leader. “The
early meltdown of ice in the Arctic and
Greenland may soon prompt further dangerous
climate feedbacks accelerating warming faster
and stronger than forecast. Responsible
politicians cannot dare to waste another
second on delaying tactics in the face of
these urgent warnings from nature.”
According to WWF, scientists
now suggest that even warming of less than
2°C might be enough to trigger the loss
of Arctic sea ice and the meltdown of the
Greenland Ice Sheet. Feedback effects of
unforeseen strength are to blame for the
early crossing of these tipping-points.
As a result, global sea levels would rise
by several metres, threatening tens of millions
of people worldwide.
“The planet is now facing
a new quality of change, increasingly difficult
to adapt to and soon impossible to reverse,”
says Carstensen. “Governments in Poznan
must agree to peak and decline global emissions
well before 2020 to give people reasonable
hope that global warming can still be kept
within limits that prevent the worst. In
addition to constructive discussions in
Poznan we need to see signals for immediate
action.”
The CO2 storage capacity
of oceans and land surface – the Earth’s
natural sinks – has been decreasing by 5
percent over the last 50 years. At the same
time, manmade CO2 emissions from fossil
fuels have been increasing – four times
faster in this decade than in the previous
decade. WWF urges governments to use the
Poznan talks for an immediate U-turn away
from this fatal direction the world is heading
in.
“We are at the point
where our climate system is starting to
spin out of control,” says Carstensen. “A
single year is left to agree a new global
treaty that can protect the climate, but
the UN talks next year in Copenhagen can
only deliver this treaty if the meeting
in Poznan this year develops a strong negotiation
text.”
+ More
WWF Travel Helper makes
it easy to count and cut your CO2
27 Nov 2008 - Gland,
Switzerland - WWF and Swiss firm routeRANK
have launched an online European travel
planner designed to help fight climate change.
The WWF Travel Planner
will give users information on travel times
and connections, but will also reveal the
carbon footprint of each option.
Whilst WWF hopes it
will encourage travellers to choose the
lowest-carbon option, it will also allow
users to neutralise the carbon emissions
of all modes of transport .
Travel websites usually
only consider one transport means at a time,
but the WWF Travel Helper addresses the
entire route and fully integrates road,
rail and air transport into a one-stop shop.
Aimed primarily at consumers
and individual businessmen and women, the
WWF Travel Helper can be accessed via http://travel.panda.org.
"There is a lot
of demand for an easy-to-use, online search
engine that not only tells you all the different
ways of getting from A to B, but also tells
you the cost - and the carbon emissions
- of each alternative,” said Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud,
WWF Director of Corporate Relations.
"Whether it is
for work or leisure, the WWF Travel Planner
powered by routeRANK will help people to
better understand, manage and reduce the
financial and environmental costs of travelling.
"For a conservation
organisation like WWF it will also be an
indispensable tool in helping us walk the
talk on tackling climate change."
Visitors to the site
will be able to key in their departure and
destination points, and will be given a
list of all the available routes and the
corresponding schedules, expected travel
times including connections, and detailed
CO2 emissions information.
WWF and routeRANK are now looking to develop
more sophisticated, custom-built versions
of the programme for corporations and government
departments. Customised versions will also
provide more detailed door-to-door routing
options, management reporting tools and
integrated booking and carbon offsetting
features.
“RouteRANK is an intelligent
tool that will allow users to make an informed,
carbon-conscious de-cision for specific
journeys and travel routes,” said Dr Klaus
Töpfer, former Executive Director of
the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP).
“This system will make
possible informed travel choices, which
are not only cost and time-efficient but
also benefit the environment.”
Users will be given
the option of neutralizing the carbon emissions
from their chosen mode of travel. With a
mouse click green energy credits will be
purchasable from “Climate Friendly”, a WWF
partner.
The WWF Travel Helper
automatically calculates the emissions generated
by your trip and the cost of compensating
for them through investing in new renewable
energy projects around the world.
“Current independent
travel and transport planning is time-consuming,
tedious and often leads to sub-optimal results
that waste fuel, money and time,” said routeRANK
chairman Jochen Mundiger.
“routeRANK allows for
a three-fold contribution to reducing emissions
by providing the first comprehensive comparison
of CO2 emissions from integrated air, road
and rail travel; by educating the general
public with information on the emissions
generated by their personal travel routes
at the moment of booking their trip; and
by raising the awareness of available public
transport options, in particular for airport
transfers.”
