on-climate.com

Poll by Roy Morgan Research

The most important environmental issues facing the World today are Global warming related issues (52%, down 1% from May 2009), ahead of Pollution (19%, down 5%), Water management and Drought (19%, up 6%) and Depletion of Resources (12%, down 5%).These are the results of a recent telephone Roy Morgan Survey on the most important environmental issues facing the World and Australia conducted in November 2009.

The most important environmental issue facing Australia today is Water management & Drought (45%, up 9%) ahead of Global warming related issues (34%, up 7%), Natural disasters (29%, up 9%) and Pollution issues (16%, down 3%).

World Environmental Issues

The precise environmental issues to increase since May this year are led by Climate change (21%, up 6%), now only just behind Global warming (23%, down 1%), Water conservation, Water management (11%, up 3%), Drought (8%, up 4%) and Famine (4%, up 3%).

Australian Environmental Issues

Since May several related environmental issues have increased significantly led by Water conservation, Water management (25%, up 5%), Drought (23%, up 7%), Climate change (16%, up 9%) and Bushfires (9%, up 5%).

When asked specifically about Global warming and the associated problems, 34% (up 11%) of Australians mentioned Rising sea levels, 27% (down 3%) cited Climate change, 17% (down 2%) said the Melting of polar ice caps and 13% (up 4%) mentioned the Greenhouse effect, Heating up of planet, Thermal blanket as a problem related to Global warming.

A slightly reduced majority of Australians aged 14+ (57%, down 1%) believe “If we don’t act now it will be too late” in relation to Global warming compared to 26% (unchanged) that say about Global warming that “Concerns are exaggerated.”

Slightly more Australians (13%, up 1%) say about Global warming that “It is already too late” while just 4% (unchanged) can’t say.

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From Economist.com

There is an awesome amount of energy tied up in an atom of uranium. Because of that, projections of the price of nuclear power tend to focus on the cost of building the plant rather than that of fuelling it. But proponents of nuclear energy—who argue, correctly, that such plants emit little carbon dioxide—would do well to remember that, like coal and oil, uranium is a finite resource.

Some 60% of the 66,500 tonnes of uranium needed to fuel the world’s existing nuclear power plants is dug fresh from the ground each year. The remaining 40% comes from so-called secondary sources, in the form of recycled fuel or redundant nuclear warheads. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is a United Nations body, and the Nuclear Energy Agency, which was formed by the rich countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, both reckon that, at present rates, these secondary sources will be exhausted within the next decade or so.

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From The Economist.

Expectations for the Copenhagen climate conference, held next month in Denmark, have been steadily dwindling. On Sunday November 15th, as Barack Obama toured Asia, he and the Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, quietly agreed what many had anticipated—that no binding agreement would be reached at the conference. There is now no hope of new legal targets for emissions-reductions to replace those set out in the Kyoto Protocol and which will lapse in 2012. Instead the pair suggested that the best to be expected is a political deal on cutting emissions.

Some of the blame for this must be directed at Capitol Hill. Not only will Mr Obama now not sign a cap-and-trade bill before Copenhagen; the Senate is not even expected to pass one. The House of Representatives passed in June its version of cap-and-trade but the Senate, preoccupied by a debate over the reform of health care, has left climate talks to inch along slowly behind. John Kerry, one of the Senate’s cap-and-trade champions, now says he hopes for a vote on the bill only in the spring.

But American congressmen are not alone in shouldering responsibility. Each tortuous round of negotiations ahead of Copenhagen has lengthened the list of issues up for debate. The negotiating text is now a snarl of material that few parties can agree upon. And big developing countries have been almost as immovable as America, at least publicly. China’s president said in September that his country would in time cut the amount of carbon dioxide it emits per unit of GDP by a “notable amount”. But Sun Guoshun, a Chinese diplomat in Washington, says that a figure is unlikely to emerge before Copenhagen. India (a much smaller polluter) has steadfastly resisted binding targets for poor countries. Many in Washington believe that America, just as it did at Kyoto, will not accept a deal that requires nothing concrete on emissions from the developing world.

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From John Broder, in The New York Times.

President Obama came into office pledging to end eight years of American inaction on climate change under President George W. Bush, and all year he has promised that the United States would lead the way toward a global agreement in Copenhagen next month to address the warming planet.

But this weekend in Singapore, Mr. Obama was forced to acknowledge that a comprehensive climate deal was beyond reach this year. Instead, he and other world leaders agreed that they would work toward a more modest interim agreement with a promise to renew work toward a binding treaty next year.

The admission places Mr. Obama in the awkward position of being, at least for now, as unlikely to spearhead an international effort to combat global warming as his predecessor — if for different reasons.

In Mr. Bush’s case, he remained skeptical about the science of global warming until near the end of his presidency and dubious about the need for concerted global action.

And his reluctance was echoed by a Congress that wanted to see clear commitments from developing countries like China.

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