Un Petit Pois

“EMISSIONS of greenhouse gases from the 27 countries of the European Union fell by 1.2% in 2007 compared with the year before, according to new data released before UN climate-change talks beginning in Bonn on Monday June 1st. Warmer weather and higher fuel prices were the main reasons for the drop. At the current rate, the EU will achieve its target of a 20% cut from 1990 levels by 2020; emissions are already down by 9.3% since 1990. Emissions have increased most in poorer countries with rapidly expanding economies; Spain is pumping out over 50% more greenhouse gases than it did in 1990.”

June 22, 2009, 8:59pm

• PollutionWatch’s 2007 report found that Suncor was the 6th worst greenhouse gas producer in Canada at about 7.6 M tonnes
• along with some of its contractors, it faces charges of illegally dumping waste water into the Athabasca river in 2008.
• Alberta regulators had previously instructed it to cap production at one site due to the high emission of hydrogen sulphide in 2007.

March 23, 2009, 11:02pm

E.P.A. Moves Toward Regulating Greenhouse Gases

“The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to declare that greenhouse gases are pollutants that pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare. That determination, once made final, will pave the way for federal regulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

In February, the E.P.A.’s administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, hinted strongly in an interview with The New York Times that the agency would take action on the issue before April 2. That date marks the second anniversary of a Supreme Court ruling ordering the agency to determine whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act…

But Bill Kovacs, a specialist on global warming issues with the United States Chamber of Commerce, said that an endangerment finding would automatically provoke a tangle of regulatory requirements for businesses large and small, including, he predicted, small dairy farms whose cattle produce methane gas.”

March 23, 2009, 10:32pm