EU to ban conventionally-fueled cars from cities by 2050 | Belgian …
Earlier today, I stumbled upon a great article by bsbizeu, posted earlier today, over on Belgian Serbian Business Association entitled EU to ban conventionally-fueled cars from cities by 2050 | Belgian … that I would strongly suggest everyone reads! Below are a couple of little excerpts in the hope of piquing your interest!
Posted in Info on Apr 11th, 2011 The EU is getting ready to ban cars from cities across Europe under a draconian EU masterplan to cut CO2 emissions by 60 percent over the next 40 years. The European Commission on Monday unveiled a “single European transport area” aimed at enforcing “a profound shift in transport patterns for passengers” by 2050. Top of the EU’s list to cut climate change emissions is a target of “zero” for the number of petrol and diesel-driven cars and lorries in the EU’s future cities. According to officials in Brussels, there should be a 50% reduction in conventionally-fueled cars in city centers by 2030, disappearing altogether 20 years later. EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas explains: “The widely-held belief that you need to cut mobility to fight climate change is simply not true. We can break the transport system’s dependence on oil without sacrificing its efficiency and compromising mobility.” Those who criticize this plan say that Europe can only dream about fulfilling it. .
Now, reading bsbizeu’s post started me thinking so I googled for more posts on the subject and uncovered some more greats! i.e. Emissions will increase with ongoing coastal … posted earlier today, by Michelle Kovacevic, over on CIFOR Forests Blog:
” The report, written in partnership with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) highlights the current rates of degradation and loss of coastal wetlands which are up to four times that of tropical forests. Destruction of about 20 percent of the worlds’ mangroves, an area of 35,000 square kilometres in the last 25 years or four times the New York City metropolitan area, has led to the release of centuries of accumulated carbon. This has also disturbed the natural protection against storm surges and other weather events. “We must work with nature to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also restore the ability of nature to take carbon out of circulation,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of the IUCN Global Marine and Polar Programme. ”CO2 emissions from lost or degraded coastal wetlands are sufficiently large to warrant amendment of national and international climate change policy frameworks to promote restoration.“ Of the 15 coastal deltas studied for the report, seven were found to have released more than 500 million tons of CO2 each since the wetlands were drained, mostly in the past 100 years. By comparison, Mexico’s carbon dioxide emissions for 2007 were just over 470 million tonnes.
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When these systems are degraded due to drainage or conversion for agriculture and aquaculture, they emit large and continuous amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. “Protecting these coastal ecosystems and the blue carbon they store can be a win-win for communities,” says Marea Hatziolos, Senior Coastal and Marine Specialist at the World Bank. “Shore line protection and increased fisheries productivity are among the co-benefits provided by healthy coastal wetlands—contributing to community resilience while sequestering CO2. If wetlands conservation can be linked to carbon markets, communities have a way to pay for conservation which will generate local and global benefits.
Yet another fine post came from Kenny over on Global Climate Change News posted last week and entitled Accelerated Global Warming And Atmospheric CO2 Emissions | Global … which is also certainly worth a look!
During the period covered by the ice core research the CO2 content of the atmosphere has varied between 170 and 280 ppm. (parts per million). From 1850 to today with the added input from the burning of fossil fuels the CO2 content has risen to 350 ppm. So we are now well outside of the historic range of values and CO2 levels are going to continue to rise for a long time yet and temperatures will follow.
Recent research has shown that the Amazon rain forest is not a stable mature forest with growth and decay in balance but is in fact an expanding forest that is being fertilised by the excess atmospheric CO2.