The European Union's development chief may be forced to name and shame France, Germany and Italy for not living up to their aid commitments, contributing to a roughly $17 billion funding gap this year.
Andris Piebalgs warned in January he would clearly identify EU countries that failed to meet their aid commitments.
"In 2010, the EU aid disbursements are likely to further grow to approximately 54-55 billion euros ($74-75 billion)," a leaked EU document seen by Reuters shows. "Many member states will most probably not reach their... aid targets. A gap of 12-13 billion euros remains."
Covering about 70 percent of our planet's surface, the ocean acts as a global thermostat, storing energy from the sun, keeping Earth's temperature changes moderate and keeping climate change gradual. In fact, the ocean can store as much heat in its top 10 feet as the entire atmosphere does.
What happens in the atmosphere has usually the most effect on where humanity lives but the ocean really controls the world's climate more.
The Obama administration will give small businesses a break on coming carbon dioxide emissions rules but big emitters like coal-fired power plants will face a crack-down, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said on Wednesday.
President Barack Obama has pushed the EPA to begin regulating gases blamed for warming the planet, in part to force polluters to support the climate change bill. The legislation is his preferred method of climate control, but it is stalled in the Senate.
Mars is a lot like Earth in many ways. The signs of water are obvious in the deep valleys. Many have speculated about once vast oceans often centered over the northern part of Mars. Where did the water go? Extensive radar mapping of the middle latitude region of northern Mars shows that thick masses of buried ice are quite common beneath protective coverings of rubble. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has charted the locations of these hidden glaciers and ice filled valleys which were first confirmed by radar two years ago.
The melting of glaciers is well documented, but when looking at the rate at which they have been retreating, a team of international researchers steps back and says not so fast.
Previous studies have largely overestimated mass loss from Alaskan glaciers over the past 40-plus years, according to Erik Schiefer, a Northern Arizona University geographer who coauthored a paper in the February issue of Nature Geoscience that recalculates glacier melt in Alaska.
The idea of imposing a broad cap-and-trade system to cut America's greenhouse gas emissions is dead and will be replaced with a new approach, an influential Republican senator said on Tuesday.
Lindsey Graham, one of three senators working against daunting odds to produce a compromise climate bill, has recently turned against imposing the kind of cap-and-trade system used in Europe, which involves companies buying and selling pollution permits.
The Pliocene epoch is the period in the geologic timescale that extends from 5 million to 2 million years before present. Although scientists know that the early Pliocene had carbon dioxide concentrations similar to those of today, it has remained a mystery what caused the high levels of greenhouse gas and how the Pliocene’s warm conditions, including an extensive warm pool in the Pacific Ocean and temperatures that were roughly 4 degrees C higher than today’s, were maintained.
In a paper published February 25 in Nature, Kerry Emanuel and two colleagues from Yale University’s Department of Geology and Geophysics suggest that a positive feedback between tropical cyclones — commonly called hurricanes and typhoons — and the circulation in the Pacific could have been the mechanism that enabled the Pliocene’s warm climate.
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