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AFP: Global efforts to improve access to drinking water have been hampered by rapid urbanisation, with the proportion of people in urban areas with access actually declining, according to UN figures presented at a conference in Stockholm this week. "In cities, there are today more people suffering from a poor and unsatisfactory access to safe water and sanitation than at the end of the 20th century," Gerard Payen, who heads up the International Federation of Private Water Operators ...

SciDev.Net: A dispute about whether climate change will cause more wars in Africa heated up last week with the publication of a study that pours cold water on the link. "The primary causes of civil war are political, not environmental," said Halvard Buhaug, a political scientist from the Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway, whose study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday, challenges theories that increasing pressure on food and water security caused by ...

Reuters: Natural disasters are tending to kill fewer people but climate change may add to the toll by unleashing more extreme weather and causing after-effects such as disease and malnutrition, experts say. Better warnings of cyclones or heat waves and an easing of poverty in developing nations in the past few decades have made many nations better prepared for weather extremes, helping to curb death tolls. "In terms of actually saving lives we are doing well," said Diarmid ...

New York Times: Simmered out of eucalyptus, charcoal is being hoed into the degraded soils of former forests in western Kenya. Roasted out of chicken manure, it is spurring the growth of malting barley in Australia. And in Iowa, researchers are plowing charcoal into corn rows, hoping to limit the tons of fertilizer that saturate the state's fields each year. At these farms and more, scientists are probing the limits of how high-grade charcoal, dubbed biochar, can be formed from plant and animal waste ...

AP: A group of environmental activists set out Tuesday for Washington with a well-traveled and recycled solar panel that once stood atop President Jimmy Carter's White House, carrying hopes of persuading the current president to once again generate energy with the sun's rays. Environmental author and activist Bill McKibben is leading Unity College students and staff on the solar road trip, with stops planned in Boston and New York en route to Washington. They're toting along the ...

Winnipeg Free Press: Scientists have been buzzing for years about the dwindling number of bees and linking that to less pollination, but a new Canadian study suggests the decline could also be blamed on climate change. James Thomson, a scientist with the University of Toronto, has spent 17 years studying the wild lily from his log cabin in a remote plot of land in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. He's discovered that the flowers have been blooming earlier. "Everyone tends to jump to the conclusion that ...

Guardian

AFP: The drought in Russia and floods in Pakistan are part of a global trend of unpredictable weather patterns and rainfall that threaten food security, experts gathered in Stockholm said. "We are getting to a point where we are getting more water, more rainy days, but it's more variable, so it leads to droughts and it leads to floods," Sunita Narain, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment in India, told AFP on the sidelines of the World Water Week conference. "That is ...

Independent: Bjoern Lomborg, the bad boy of the climate debate who has rejected for years "alarmist" prophecies from environmentalists, stresses in a new book the need to invest billions to fight global warming. In "Smart Solutions to Climate Change," Lomborg lashes out at current policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions but also highlights the need to spend 100 billion dollars a year on intelligent research and green technologies. By spending billions in a smart way, the world could ...

Corvallis Gazette Times: A one-day symposium in Eugene will bring together policy experts and marine scientists - an important step in exploring how climate change impacts on the world's oceans may necessitate new policies and management approaches. The free public symposium will be held at the University of Oregon's Knight Law Center (room 175) from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10. More information on the event, including registration, is available at ...

REDORBIT: Experts meeting in Stockholm during the annual World Water Week conference are concerned that unpredictable weather patterns around the world could endanger global food security, according to Tuesday reports from AFP's Nina Larson. "We are getting to a point where we are getting more water, more rainy days, but it's more variable, so it leads to droughts and it leads to floods," Sunita Narain, the head of the Centre for Science and Environment in India, told Larson during the ...

New York Times: U.S. EPA and the Department of Transportation issued two new designs for the fuel-economy stickers affixed to the windows of new cars. The designs aren't final -- they won't appear until the auto class of 2012, and the agencies have requested public input during the next two months. But the labels are distinct. One design would feature a large letter grade for a car's fuel economy and emissions levels. The other design would feature numbers: the car's miles-per-gallon score and the ...

New York Times: As proposed American offshore wind-farm projects creep forward -- slowed by state legislative debates, due diligence and environmental impact assessments -- China has leapt past the United States, installing its first offshore wind farm. Several other farms also are already under construction, and even the Chinese government's ambitious targets seem low compared to industry dreaming. "What the U.S. doesn't realize," said Peggy Liu, founder and chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China ...

Reuters: The British government launched an initiative on Tuesday to unlock new investment in low-carbon technologies and make London a global hub for green finance. The launch of the Capital Markets Climate Initiative (CMCI) is being marked by an event at the London Stock Exchange. Policy makers and investment banks such as Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley will meet to discuss obstacles to cleaner energy. The CMCI aims to help meet the $100 billion of new investment ...

Business Green: Climate Change Minister Greg Barker will today call on the City of London to step up efforts to establish itself as the global hub for green growth finance, warning that the potential of the finance sector to drive low-carbon investment in both industrialised and developing economies has been ignored for too long. Barker has convened a meeting of senior City figures at the London Stock Exchange to mark the launch of the government-backed Capital Markets Climate Initiative (CMCI), ...

Business Green: Australia is to revive stalled plans for a carbon pricing mechanism after two independent MPs today confirmed they would lend their support to Labor, allowing Prime Minister Julia Gillard to form a minority government. The resolution of 17 days of talks following last month's inconclusive general election came when Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor said they would back Julia Gillard, giving her Labor party a majority of just one vote. A third independent, Bob Katter, decided to support ...

San Francisco Chronicle: London should be the clearinghouse as private investors provide at least half the funding needed to fight global warming in developing nations, U.K. Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said. "It's likely that at least half, if not considerably more" of the $100 billion dollars a year that will be required to fund new infrastructure and cleaner sources of energy will come from private financing, Barker said today in an interview before his speech at the London Stock ...

Ecologist: Climate change may be causing flowers to open before bees emerge from hibernation leading to declines in pollination, new research suggests Climate change could be affecting pollination by disrupting the synchronised timing of flower opening and bee emergence from hibernation, suggests new US-based research. Declining numbers of bees and other pollinators have been causing growing concern in recent years, as scientists fear that decreased pollination could have major impacts on ...

AllAfrica: The European Union has been urged to drop its pledge to produce 10 per cent of all transport fuels from biofuels by 2020 because of the effect this has had on the purchase of African land by multinational companies. According to a report released on August 30 by a UK-based campaign group, Friends of the Earth, the amount of land being taken in Africa to meet the EU's rising demand for biofuels "is underestimated and out of control.' Its report echoes findings from another UK ...

Business Green: There are less than six weeks before organisations need to register for the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). Almost 1,600 organisations have registered, which is about half the number now expected by the Environment Agency. The scheme is mind-blowingly complicated with new rules appearing all the time. For instance, in early August the agency decreed that even insolvent firms and those in administration have to register! DECC has realised the degree of complexity and ...