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Climate Change Working Group

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The mission of this working group is to explore the evidence regarding points of leverage assisting human groups in coping with or reducing the risk of global climate change.

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This working group is focused on issues of Global Climate Change.
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admin Albert Gomez Amanda Cole Anthony ChrisAllen david hastings
fosternt Kathy Gilbeaux Maeryn Obley mashalshah mdmcdonald MDMcDonald_me_com
Nguyen Ninh StarDart

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Floods Highlight Need to Make Europe’s Cities More Resilient

A view of Dresden on the morning of 5 June, before the Elbe had crested. Flickr/tigion

sei-international.org - by Marion Davis - June 7, 2013

The floods now devastating Central Europe, and severe floods in Norway last month, are part of a pattern of increasingly frequent disasters that require new approaches to risk management. 

As of June 6, the floods in Austria, Germany, Slovakia and the Czech Republic had killed at least 16 people, and damages were so severe that some said they could exceed the more than €21.1 billion cost of the historic 2002 floods in the region.

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Could Climate Bonds Become a Major Force in Green Finance?

submitted by Albert Gomez

environmentalleader.com - June 3, 2013

So-called “green” or “climate” bonds, being issued by a number of financial institutions and state governments as a means of generating funding for sustainable development and clean energy technology, are becoming increasingly popular and could become a major new force in the green investment world, according to the Globe-Net.

The World Bank developed the Green Bond concept in 2007/2008 and simplicity is key to its popularity, according to Globe-Net blog post. The World Bank’s green bonds are triple-A rated and can be traded as easily as other “vanilla” investments, offering investors a high rate of liquidity.

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Climate Change And The Nile: Floods From Major Rivers Around The World May Increase

huffingtonpost.com - June 9th, 2013

Climate change is likely to worsen floods on rivers such as the Ganges, the Nile and the Amazon this century while a few, including the now-inundated Danube, may become less prone, a Japanese-led scientific study said on Sunday.

The findings will go some way to help countries prepare for deluges that have killed thousands of people worldwide and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage every year in the past decade, experts wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Given enough warning, governments can bring in flood barriers, building bans on flood plains, more flood-resistant crops and other measures to limit damage.

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Infographic: What Climate Change Means for Africa and Asia

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Introducing Global Sustainability

huffingtonpost.co.uk - by HRH The Prince of Wales - June 3, 2013

I have long been deeply concerned about the effect our modern, highly industrialised approach is having on nature's capacity to sustain life on Earth. There is a growing set of alarming problems which, if not addressed with real urgency, will severely affect nature's capacity to keep her life support systems running and thus guarantee the well-being of billions of people around the world.

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Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds

'Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary'. Photograph: John McConnico/AP

Image: 'Our findings prove that there is a strong scientific agreement about the cause of climate change, despite public perceptions to the contrary'. Photograph: John McConnico/AP

guardian.co.uk - May 15th, 2013 - Suzanne Goldenberg

A survey of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals has found 97.1% agreed that climate change is caused by human activity.

Authors of the survey, published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters, said the finding of near unanimity provided a powerful rebuttal to climate contrarians who insist the science of climate change remains unsettled.

The survey considered the work of some 29,000 scientists published in 11,994 academic papers.

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400 Parts Per Million

Former Vice President Al Gore. (photo: Mario Anzuoni)

Image: Former Vice President Al Gore. (photo: Mario Anzuoni)

readersupportednews.org - May 11th, 2013 - Al Gore

Yesterday, for the first time in human history, concentrations of carbon dioxide, the primary global warming pollutant, hit 400 parts per million in our planet's atmosphere. This number is a reminder that for the last 150 years -- and especially over the last several decades -- we have been recklessly polluting the protective sheath of atmosphere that surrounds the Earth and protects the conditions that have fostered the flourishing of our civilization. We are altering the composition of our atmosphere at an unprecedented rate.

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Video - Scrap Fuel Subsidies and Price CO2, Urges World Bank

Reuters - trust.org - May 6, 2013

LONDON, May 6 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The world’s nations must scrap fossil fuel subsidies and put a price on emitting carbon dioxide if the planet is to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the president of the World Bank. The two measures are part of a five-point plan that the bank urged the world’s environment ministers to take, including building low carbon cities, improving agricultural practices and sharing new technology that will save energy.

“We need a global response equal to the scale of the climate problem.

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Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears

      

The average carbon dioxide reading surpassed 400 parts per million at the research facility atop the Mauna Loa volcano on the island of Hawaii for the 24 hours that ended at 8 p.m. on Thursday.  Chris Stewart/Associated Press

nytimes.com - by Justin Gillis - May 10, 2013

The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.

Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering.

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitoring program
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

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