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Canada first to withdraw from Kyoto

Canada has announced it will withdraw from the Kyoto protocol. Peter Kent, minister of the environment, confirmed this last night.

Canada will be the first country to withdraw from the global treaty. “It does not represent a way forward for Canada,” Kent said.

The Kyoto Protocol was established in Japan in 1997 and restricts emissions of pollutants and fights climate change by more means.

He said meeting Canada’s obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros): “That’s $1,600 from every Canadian family – that’s the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government”.

Kent also critizised that USA and China were not a part of Kyoto and therefore greenhouse emissions would continue to rise.

He also said that the text of the Durban agreement agreed this weekend “provides a loophole for China and India”, it represents “the way forward”.

Source: BBC

See also: New climate deal at COP17

New climate deal at COP17

December 13, 2011
Polar bear eating own cub pictured

Pictures of a polar bear dragging its own cub after killing it has shook many. The telling pictures by nature photographer Jenny Ross were published yesterday.

She took the pictures in Svalbard but polar bears are known to kill their cubs for food if everything else fails.

The actions are not common and have not been filmed often.

“This type of intraspecific predation has always occurred to some extent. However, there are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring, particularly on land where polar bears are trapped ashore, completely food-deprived for extended periods of time due to the loss of sea ice as a result of climate change,” she told BBC News.

Jenny was on a boat with here telephoto lens but did not realize the bear hd its cub until she was close.

“As soon as the adult male became aware that a boat was approaching him, he basically stood to attention – he straddled the young bear’s body, asserting control over it and conveying ‘this is my food’,” she said.

Source: BBC

See also: Jenny Ross’s website.

December 13, 2011
New climate deal at COP17

“Today, we saved tomorrow,” the chair of the UN Climate talks in South Africa stated, after lengthy negotiations led to a new climate agreement.

COP17 was extended from Friday and after more talks overt the weekend the agreement was reached late on Saturday.

This means that the European Union will follow the request of developing countries to place its current emission-cutting pledges inside the legally-binding Kyoto Protocol.

Talks on a new legal deal covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect by 2020. Management of a fund for climate aid to poor countries has also been agreed, though how to raise the money has not.

South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said. “We came here with plan A, and we have concluded this meeting with plan A to save one planet for the future of our children and our grandchildren to come. We have made history.”

The EU and India had a feisty battle over the “roadmap” for a new global deal. India did not want the deal to be legally binding but it was resolved in the end with the deal including “legal force”.

The big four countries, Brazil, South Africa, India and China felt they were pressured to much. The tight timetable and excessive legality was a problem for them.

India called for equity and it believes in maintaining the current stark division where only countries labelled “developed” have to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Western nations, she said, have not cut their own emissions as they had pledged; so why should poorer countries have to do it for them? Xie Zhenhua, head of the Chinese delegation, agreed.

A management framework was adopted for the Green Climate Fund, which will eventually gather and disburse finance amounting to $100bn (£64bn) per year to help poor countries develop cleanly and adapt to climate impacts.

Source: BBC
COP17 website

December 12, 2011
Greenland rises after melt

Greenland is rising from the sea. A new study released on Friday shows a startling revelation to scientists who study global warming.

Scientist from Ohio State University used a network of high profile GPS stations to measure the uplift. The results show that the rate of ice loss has accelerated in southern Greenland by 100 billion tons.

Michael Bevis led the exploration. “Pulses of extra melting and uplift imply that we’ll experience pulses of extra sea level rise,” he said about the results.

This means the sea has risen and splashed further, and with more power, on the ice which then melts faster. He states that this is partly due to global warming.

Previous studies have recorded measurements indicating that as that ice melted away, the bedrock beneath it rose. In some places the land rose 5cm in only 5 months. The medium rise was 0.5 cm.

Source: The State Column

December 12, 2011
Iceland stands by its name

Iceland showed last week why it is indeed ice-land. This amazing photograph taken by a NASA satellite is from the Earth Science department of the University of Iceland.

The picture was taken the 9^th of December at 12.58.

The freezing temperatures last week went down to -27 in Northeast Iceland, in Mývatn. The record low temperature is for Iceland is -38, the year 1918 often dubbed the “Frosty Winter”.

The image, which you can expand by clicking, shows that sea ice is stretching from the North to Iceland.

Only a few days later the temperature was above 0 again.

This truly is Iceland.

University of Iceland
NASA

December 12, 2011
Promising tests for new wave energy device

Danish researchers believe they have a breakthrough in tidal power, using the waves of the ocean to generate energy.

Weptos is a small power plant which lies on the ocean, tied to the ocean bed. The waves move flaps on the two arms of the device which spin an axel, which then generates the power.

Each machine is a separate unit, so they are very easy to move around, adjust and fix.

Each devise also moves its two arms as the weather conditions change. In severe weathers it narrows meaning it is more stable and does not lose its energy-making capabilities.

The device is also scalable, which means the bigger the unit, the more energy, up to a certain degree of course.

In total over 200 tests has looked “exceedingly promising,” according to the developers.

“I think this unit has a very good chance of making a breakthrough in this field,” says Jens Peter Kofoed, an associate professor at Aalborg University’s Department of Civil Engineering, where Weptos is being developed.

Previous attempts to make profitable wave power plants have faltered because they have not met the three vital parameters: the ability to turn waves into electricity, a robust construction to withstand the impact of powerful waves, and relatively low construction and maintenance costs.

The next version will be 10-15 size the prototype, which is only a medium sized one to the envisaged final version

Source: Science Nordic

Video about the device.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmJpCoFnEsY&feature=player_embedded#!

December 9, 2011
Arctic Cup starts in St. Petersburg

The Arctic Cup starts today with exciting matches in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Arctic Cup is an International Ice Hockey tournament of Arctic Countries the Arctic states.

Russia hosts the event and invited the seven countries to participate in the tournament, where the men have to be at least 40 years old to participate. The tournament is meant for amateurs as well as for former professional sportsmen.

The Arctic Cup tournament’s idea was arisen during the scientific conferences and oil-and-gas exhibitions, as a way to strengthen the friendship between the counties of the Arctic Council.

The purpose of the Arctic Cup is to draw attention to the problem of development of Arctic natural resources on the basis of peaceful and mutually beneficial cooperation.

The boundaries of the Arctic shelf are being claimed by five Arctic states, Russia, USA, Denmark, Norway and Canada. Although in September 2010 Russia and Norway reached an agreement on this issue, it’s still far from being settled.

All expenses and travel is paid by Russia.

Three rounds are played before the semi-final.

Today’s matches:
USA-Denmark (3-6)
Canada-Iceland
Sweden-Finland
Russia-Norway

December 8, 2011
Symposium in Rovaniemi calls for abstracts
The venue for the 5^th Polar Law symposium will be Rovaniemi in Finland. The symposium is held in September 2012.

The Symposium – the home which is in Akureyri Iceland – brings together internationally renowned scholars, partaking in both Antarctic and Arctic research, from different parts of the globe.

Previous symposia have proven to be extremely successful in promoting both scholarship and understanding of polar issues. Their outcomes were beneficial to scholars, students and academicians, government agencies, policy makers, jurists and various stakeholders alike.

The last symposium was hosted by the University of Greenland and held in Nuuk, Greenland, where, among others, the honorable President of the Republic of Iceland and the Premiere of Greenland participated in thelively discussions.

The theme for the symposium is quite open. It covers a wide variety of topics relating to the Arctic and the Antarctic.

These include:
- Human rights issues, such as autonomy and self-government vs self-determination, the rights of indigenous peoples to land and natural resources and cultural rights and cultural heritage, indigenous traditional knowledge.
- Local and national governance issues.
- Environmental law, climate change,security and environment implications of climate change, protected areas and species.
- Regulatory, governance and management agreements and arrangements for marine environments, marine mammals, fisheries conservation and other biological/mineral/oil resources.
- Law of the sea, the retreating sea ice, continental shelf claims.
- Territorial claims and border disputes on both land and at sea.
- Peace and security, dispute settlement.
- Jurisdictional and other issues re the exploration, exploitation and shipping of oil, gas and minerals, bioprospecting.
- Trade law, potential shipping lines through the northwest and northeast passages, maritime law and transportation law.
- The roles and actual involvement of international organizations in the Polar regions, such as the Arctic Council, the European Union, the International Whaling Commission, the Nordic Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the United Nations, as well as NGOs.
Researchers, faculty members, young scholars, jurists, post-graduate research students, policy makers, stakeholders and others interested to submit abstracts within the scope of the above mentioned theme. The abstract should contain no more than 200 words and should be sent to Kamrul Hossain (khossain@ulapland.fi) by 31. March 2012.

The symposium will be held in the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland from 6^th to 8^th of September.

Participants’ registration is from June 15^th – August 15^th, 2012. Registrations are sent to Raija Kivilahti
(raija.kivilahti@ulapland.fi).
December 7, 2011
Great retreat in French Alps

As reported here on Arctic Portal Icelandic glaciers are retreating fast, and now the BBC reports the same problem in France.

A new research has confirmed that in only 40 years the French glaciers have lost 25% of their area.

The area around Mont Blanc was calculated to be 375 sq km. in the late 1960´s/early 1970´s but by the late 2000´s it was only 275 sq. km.

The research has been presented at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the world’s largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.

The same is happening in Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Germany, France, and Italy, even Iceland.

Source: BBC

December 7, 2011
Icelandic glaciers melting fast

Iceland could lose all its glaciers in a few hundred years. A glacier expert predicts a 6m rise of the sea.

DV newspaper reports that climate change is melting the glaciers and in about 200 years the glaciers could all be gone.

“Climate change has hit us with full force. This is very visible in the Arctic,” glacier expert Tómas Jóhannesson told DV.

It is only 6000-8000 years ago Iceland was glacier free.

Rise of sea levels will continue but in the 20^th century the levels rose of about 2mm each years, around 20cm the whole year.

“Now the rise if about 3mm a year,” Tómas said and this will continue to rise.

Naturally this is of great importance in Holland and the Dutch predict 1m rise of sea levels in the 21^st century.

If the Greenlandic glacier would melt it would raise the sea levels of about 6m. DV had expert draw maps of how towns in Iceland would look like if the sea levels rise the whole 6m.

Source: DV

December 5, 2011