IPCC report: world must urgently switch to clean sources of energy
UN panel's third report explains how global dependence on fossil fuels must end in order to avoid catastrophic climate change
Clean energy will have to at least treble in output and dominate world energy supplies by 2050 in order to avoid catastrophic climate change, a UN report is set to conclude on Sunday.
The report produced by hundreds of experts and backed by almost 200 world governments, will detail the dramatic transformation required of the entire globe's power system, including ending centuries of coal, oil and gas supremacy.
Currently fossil fuels provide more than 80% of all energy but the urgent need to cut planet-warming carbon emissions means this must fall to as little as a third of present levels in coming decades, according to a leaked draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report seen by the Guardian.
Russia seeks to reassure West over Ukraine and energy supplies
Kiev premier’s assurances fail to dislodge pro-Moscow protesters from buildings
Daniel McLaughlin
Russia has insisted that it does not intend to use Ukraine’s crisis to carve up the country or to cut gas supplies to the EU, as Kiev sought to defuse a stand-off with armed pro-Kremlin protesters occupying official buildings.
The US and Nato claim tens of thousands of Moscow’s troops are gathered near Ukraine’s border for a possible push into the country’s largely Russian-speaking southeast, where demonstrators have seized buildings in the cities of Donetsk and Luhansk.
“We cannot have such a desire. It contradicts the core interests of the Russian Federation. We want Ukraine to be whole within its current borders, but whole with full respect for the regions,” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said last night.
Kiev does not believe Moscow’s assurances, having seen it flood Crimea with troops before annexing the Black Sea region last month.
Foreign ministers call for ban on atomic weapons testing
April 12, 2014 - 4:45PMDaniel Flitton
Senior Correspondent
HIROSHIMA: Nuclear talks in Hiroshima have called a new treaty to stop producing radioactive fuel for bombs and acceptance "without delay" of a global ban on testing atomic weapons.
But the 12-nation meeting of foreign ministers, including Australia's Julie Bishop, stopped short of calling for a complete ban on nuclear arms.
Disarmament activists are bitterly disappointed the Hiroshima talks - where a survivor from the atomic bombing on the city nearly 70 years ago told her story - did not end with a call for a ban on nuclear weapons.
Akira Kawasaki from the Japanese anti-nuclear group Peace Boat said the statement issued by the ministers was "very weak".
50,000 children could die in months in South Sudan: Unicef
Conflict in South Sudan has triggered a serious risk of famine that will kill up to 50,000 children within months if immediate action is not taken, the UN has warned.
The African country has experienced high levels of malnutrition since it gained independence in 2011, UNICEF said, and conditions have worsened since ethnic conflict broke out between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and supporters of his former deputy Riek Machar.
"Now the ongoing conflict has pushed them to the edge -- unless treatment is scaled up immediately, up to 50,000 children under the age of five are likely to die," the agency said.
It estimates that 3.7 million people are at risk of "food insecurity."
"Sadly, worse is yet to come. If conflict continues, and farmers miss the planting season, we will see child malnutrition on a scale never before experienced here," said Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF representative in South Sudan.
Southeast AsiaPhilippines tests rule of law
By Gregory Poling
On March 30, the Philippines submitted a memorial detailing its arguments and evidence against China's nine-dash line and other aspects of Beijing's South China Sea claims to an arbitration tribunal at The Hague. The 10-volume, nearly 4,000-page document marks a bold step by Manila, and one that Beijing seems to have believed never would actually happen. The Philippines chose the right course. Now the international community must weigh in and convince China of that fact.
China has refused to take part in the case since it was first brought by the Philippines in January 2013. It has also exerted considerable pressure on Manila to abandon the arbitration
proceedings. As the deadline for the memorial approached and pressure failed to alter the Philippine position, Beijing switched to the carrot. It reportedly offered Manila incentives to drop the case, including trade benefits and a mutual withdrawal of ships from Scarborough Shoal, which China occupied in April 2012. But the Philippines did not budge. An incident near a reef in the Spratly Islands on March 29 helps explain why.
How U.S. Fighter Jet Design Helped A Turtle Find Life - And Love
TEL AVIV, Israel - An endangered sea turtle called Freedom has been saved thanks to a student project inspired by the advanced U.S. F-22 Raptor fighter jet.
The young green sea turtle was found on a beach in northern Israel with his two left flippers almost completely severed by fishing nets.
Veterinarians had no choice but to amputate them, leaving him unable to swim properly.
“When he gets stressed, panicking for some reason, he gets into a spin as he can only use one side to paddle, his head tilts down to one side and he starts taking in water,” said Yaniv Levy, director of the Israel Turtle Rescue Center, north of Tel Aviv.
“He stopped breathing once and we were lucky to resuscitate him.”
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