Twenty-two nations met in Japan yesterday to find ways to curb global warming from transport, which causes nearly one-quarter of carbon emissions but has partly evaded strict regulation.
Transport ministers from the nations — including key polluters such as the US, China and India — opened two days of talks in Tokyo as momentum builds to draft a post-Kyoto treaty on climate change.
“Everyone living on the Earth is expected to take responsible actions to protect our planet,” Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told the session, which also includes UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.
“I would like each participating country to accelerate its efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the transport sector, as well as to enhance its support for developing countries, utilizing its technologies and experiences,” Aso said.
It is one of a series of meetings to lay the groundwork ahead of a December conference in Copenhagen which is supposed to approve a treaty for climate action for after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol’s obligations expire.
Transport — air, sea and land — accounts for 23 percent of carbon emissions, topping all sectors except electricity generation and indoor heating, according to the International Energy Agency.
An April meeting in Bangkok agreed to look at reducing emissions from air and sea travel, which is a growing source of emissions but had been left out of the Kyoto Protocol because of its international nature.
But nations have already been toughening standards for cars’ emissions — decisions mostly taken before the current economic crisis.
Kazuyoshi Kaneko, Japan’s transport minister, said that tackling global warming was in the world’s long-term economic interest.
“Establishing more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly transport systems will strengthen the foundation of each economy, opening a brighter future for our society,” Kaneko said.
BLOODSHED: North Koreans take extreme measures to avoid being taken prisoner and sometimes execute their own forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said that Russian and North Korean forces sustained heavy losses in fighting in Russia’s southern Kursk region. Ukrainian and Western assessments say that about 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August last year. In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy quoted a report from Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border. “In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka,
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen on Monday met virtually with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) and raised concerns about “malicious cyber activity” carried out by Chinese state-sponsored actors, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement. The department last month reported that an unspecified number of its computers had been compromised by Chinese hackers in what it called a “major incident” following a breach at contractor BeyondTrust, which provides cybersecurity services. US Congressional aides said no date had been set yet for a requested briefing on the breach, the latest in a serious of cyberattacks
RSS