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Copenhagen accord

The Copenhagen Accord[1] is a document that delegates at the 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to "take note of" at the final plenary on 18 December 2009. The Accord, drafted by, on the one hand, the United States and on the other, in a united position as the BASIC countries, China, India, South Africa and Brazil, is not legally binding and does not commit countries to agree to a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose present round ends in 2012.[2] The BBC immediately reported that the status and legal implications of the Copenhagen Accord were unclear.[3] Tony Tujan of the IBON Foundation suggests the failure of Copenhagen may prove useful, if it allows us to unravel some of the underlying misconceptions and work towards a new, more holistic view of things.[4] This could help gain the support of developing countries. Lumumba Stansilaus Di-Aping, UN Ambassador from Sudan, has indicated that, in its current form, the Accord "is not sufficient to move forward on", and that a new architecture is needed which is just and equitable. [5]

G8 leaders set new emissions target

he leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) countries are meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, from July 8 to July 11. On Wednesday, the group announced that it had agreed to a cut in carbon emissions.

Nuclear power seriously considered for ASEAN power grid

The Philippines and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are becoming alarmed over the rapid increase of global oil prices and are seriously looking into prospects of building nuclear powered plants to energize the electric needs of the 10 member nations of ASEAN.

Solar-powered plane completes 26-hour flight

The Solar Impulse, an experimental solar-powered airplane, landed in Switzerland on Thursday after completing a successful 26-hour test flight. The flight was a proof-of-concept displaying that a solar-powered aircraft can accumulate enough power from the sun during the day to power it through the night. The team that designed and built the aircraft believes that, in theory, the plane could fly indefinitely, given that there is enough sunlight to power it.

Solar car travels around the world

On December 4, 2008, a solar car, developed by scientists at Swiss universities, ended its journey of traveling around the world at the United Nations climate talks in Poznań, Poland. Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, rode into Poznań in the vehicle, along with schoolteacher Louis Palmer.

Climatic Research Unit email controversy

The incident began when someone accessed a server used by the Climatic Research Unit and copied 160 MB of data[2] containing more than 1,000 emails and 3,000 other documents.[16] The University of East Anglia stated that the server from which the data were taken was not one that could easily have been accessed and the data could not have been released inadvertently.[17]

Elves and Sprites

Upper atmospheric lightning or upper atmospheric discharge are terms sometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of electrical breakdown phenomena that occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning. The preferred current usage is transient luminous events (TLEs) to refer to the various types of electrical discharge phenomena in the upper atmosphere, because they lack several characteristics of the more familiar lower atmospheric lightning. TLEs include red sprites, sprite halos, blue jets, gigantic jets, and elves.

Big River Man

In February 2007 Martin Strel began an insane attempt to be the first person to swim the entire length of the world's most dangerous river, the mighty Amazon. Martin is an endurance swimmer from Slovenia, who swims rivers - the Mississippi, the Danube and the Yangtze to date - to highlight their pollution to the world. Martin is also a rather overweight, horseburger loving Slovenian in his fifties who drinks two bottles of red wine a day... even when swimming.

Toyota employs the Japanese hybrid solar powered vehicle carrier ship 'Auriga Leader'

On Friday, a new generation solar powered cargo vessel, the Auriga Leader has docked in North America for the first time. Toyota Motor Corp will employ this car carrier for automobile shipments to Europe and North America from Japan. The vessel will be operated by the Japanese-based NYK Line.

Half of life could go extinct by century's end, warn eminent biologists

Edward O. Wilson and Peter H. Raven predicted dire consequences for the planet's biodiversity and habitability unless current trends in consumption and environmental degradation are reversed.