a-framework-for

China Sets First Target to Slow CO2 Emissions as U.S. Offers 17% Reduction

by on November 26, 2009

Bloomberg:

By Bloomberg News Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) — China, the world’s biggest polluter, set its first target aimed at slowing the growth of carbon dioxide emissions, less than two weeks before global leaders meet to negotiate a new climate change treaty. China’s announcement comes a day after the United States offered to cut emissions by about 17 percent in the coming decade. China will cut output of carbon per unit of gross domestic product by between 40 percent and 45 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels, according to a statement from the State Council, or cabinet, issued in Beijing today. Given the “magnitude of the climate change crisis, China needs stronger measures,” said Ailun Yang, a Beijing-based campaigner for Greenpeace China. Still, “this is a significant announcement at a very important point in time” and “another challenge to the industrialized world,” she said. The target gives the world’s fastest-growing major economy new negotiating points heading into the Copenhagen conference starting Dec. 7. Premier Wen Jiabao and U.S. President Barack Obama are among at least 66 global leaders who will seek to reach agreement on a framework for a final accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Negotiations leading up to the summit have been stymied as industrialized nations and developing countries disagreed on issues such as emissions-reduction targets and how much financial help rich nations should provide to poor ones. “The United States is the biggest developed country in the world, so it should shoulder its historic responsibilities and obligations suitable to its national development level,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing today. Legislation Stalled China and India have said industrialized countries must be willing to cut their carbon output 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 if they expect poorer nations to agree to long-term reduction goals. The U.S. will be offering cuts “in the range of 17 percent” from 2005 levels by 2020, Carol Browner , Obama’s top adviser on energy and the environment, told reporters yesterday. That also marked the first time the U.S. has offered such a target. U.S. legislation backed by Obama to cut greenhouse gases and establish a market for the trading of pollution allowances passed the House in June and then stalled in the Senate. China’s targets do not mean emissions will fall, only that their growth may slow. China’s economy has more than quadrupled since 2000 to $4.3 trillion and if growth continues at that pace the country’s carbon pollution will also continue to grow. Unfair Targets President Hu Jintao in September first pledged to cut China’s so-called carbon intensity, or the amount of the pollutant emitted per unit of economic growth, by a “notable margin.” At the time, Hu didn’t announce specific targets. China has resisted calls for it to cut its carbon output, saying such measures are unfair for a developing country to undertake. Yu Qingtai, a climate-change negotiator with China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters yesterday that rich countries such as the U.S., Japan and Germany are responsible for 80 percent of the carbon-dioxide pollution now in the atmosphere. Instead, China is pushing the development of alternative energy such as solar and wind, with a goal of generating 15 percent of all electricity from such sources by 2020. The world’s biggest photovoltaic solar plant, to be built by Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar Inc ., is set to break ground next year in Inner Mongolia. China is also working to increase energy efficiency. China also plans to increase its forest cover by 40 million hectares by 2020, which amounts to planting 60 billion trees, Yu Qingtai, a Chinese Foreign Ministry climate-change negotiator, told reporters on Nov. 25. To contact the reporter on this story: Ying Wang in Beijing at ywang30@bloomberg.net ; Baizhen Chua in Beijing at bchua14@bloomberg.net ; Michael Forsythe in Beijing at mforsythe@bloomberg.net .

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China Sets First Target to Slow CO2 Emissions as U.S. Offers 17% Reduction

Obama Will Attend UN Climate-Change Meeting in Copenhagen, Official Says

by on November 25, 2009

By Hans Nichols and Kim Chipman Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama will attend United Nations climate-change talks in Copenhagen next month amid international pressure for the U.S. to do more to reduce its record production of greenhouse gases. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen has invited the heads of almost 200 countries to the Danish capital for the Dec. 7-18 meeting. Leaders planning to make an appearance also include German Chancellor Angela Merkel , U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama . The president will go to Copenhagen Dec. 9, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters today. Obama will then travel to accept the Nobel Peace prize in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10. Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to tackle climate change aggressively, has been under pressure to attend the meeting amid criticism that the U.S., the biggest greenhouse-gas producer on a per-capita basis, is thwarting progress because of a lack of new national laws to limit heat-trapping pollution and create an emissions-trading market The U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass climate legislation before the Copenhagen meeting of at least 65 world leaders, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , a Nevada Democrat, has said lawmakers will try to focus on the issue “sometime in the spring.” Without a bill from the Senate, which must ratify treaties by a two-thirds majority, Obama’s negotiators are left without firm guidelines to center their discussions. Measure Passed House The House of Representatives passed a bill in June by a 219-212 vote. The Senate is working to complete a bipartisan blueprint of a measure before the Copenhagen meeting, Senator Joe Lieberman , a Connecticut independent, has said. Negotiators have worked for almost two years to devise new emissions-reduction targets for the 37 developed nations bound by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol treaty goals that expire in 2012. Leaders are also trying to agree on standards for the U.S., which never ratified Kyoto, and for developing nations such as China and India, which had no Kyoto commitments. Obama and other leaders have said that a binding accord for reducing greenhouse gases is unlikely to happen in Denmark. The UN had previously said the meeting would mark the deadline for completing a treaty. Instead, leaders are now calling for a “meaningful” political agreement as a framework for a final accord to replace Kyoto. Negotiations are expected to continue next year. To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net ; To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net .

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Obama Will Attend UN Climate-Change Meeting in Copenhagen, Official Says

Pat Earley: 21st Century Workforce: ‘The Times They Are a Changing’

November 9, 2009

According to a recent report released by Maria Shriver entitled, “The Shriver Report: A Women’s Nation Changes Everything,” there has been a dramatic shift in our nation’s workforce and women make up a greater part of our current workforce and economy than ever before. Today, women account for approximately 50% of our nation’s workforce compared to only 1/3 of the workforce in 1967 (a generation ago). Women are graduating from college today at a higher rate than men. At the same time, 60% of these women have children under the age of 3 and four-in-five families with children still at home do not fit the traditional male as breadwinner, female as homemaker description. The Shriver Report presents a framework for discussion on ways our society can better support working families and how policymakers, political leaders and employers can begin to address the impact and implications of these workforce changes. By taking a look at their assumptions and out-dated work practices, institutional leaders can begin to evaluate and create new work policies and arrangements that better address the needs of 21st Century families. According to this report, in today’s families 23% of our children live with a single mother; in today’s families 39% of all births are to unmarried mothers; in today’s families 60% of women with children under the age of 3 are in the labor force; and, between 1977 and 2007, the number of employed men age 65 and older rose to over 75% while the employment of women age 65 and older climbed to almost double that figure — 147%. Obviously, dramatic changes have occurred. As an organization dedicated to inspiring, promoting and maintaining a family consciousness, the Twiga Foundation supports the fact that these statistics are important and relative to our goal of promoting workplace flexibility and effectiveness. By providing work options to their employees, businesses and organizations can begin to assist employees and their families in addressing issues such as care giving, individual and family health, community health and safety, child care and education, transportation, environmental concerns, housing, career development and mobility and many other areas that intersect our lives and are interwoven with the needs and responsibilities of families. Beginning with the belief that family is at the heart of our society, how we individually define our family unit becomes less important than how we define our roles as productive, compassionate, and ethical members of our home, workplace, community and society. By helping families balance the demands of their workplace while at the same time meeting the needs of their families and home responsibilities, employers can also help support a vibrant, more productive workforce and promote happier and healthier employees.

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Dollar Falls on Speculation G-20 Will Call for Gains in Other Currencies

September 21, 2009

By Ron Harui Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — The dollar weakened for the first time in three days against the euro on speculation Group-of-20 leaders this week will call for gains in other currencies to help reduce global trade imbalances. The greenback fell versus 14 of the 16 major currencies after a spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the leaders meeting in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24-25 will discuss “a framework for balanced and sustainable growth,” including reform in deficit and surplus countries. New Zealand’s dollar rose toward a six-week high against the yen after a government report showed the current-account deficit shrank to the narrowest in more than four years. “There’s talk that world leaders may seek to address the U.S. imbalances,” said Masashi Kurabe , head of currency sales and trading in Hong Kong at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd., a unit of Japan’s biggest publicly traded bank. “This may lead to weakness in the dollar.” The U.S. currency dropped to $1.4715 per euro as of 11:31 a.m. in Tokyo, from $1.4680 yesterday in New York. It declined to 91.75 yen from 91.93 yen and weakened to $1.6253 per pound from $1.6217. The yen was little changed at 135.01 versus the euro from 134.96. New Zealand’s dollar strengthened 1.2 percent to 65.80 yen, after earlier climbing to 65.81 yen, the highest level since Aug. 10. The so-called kiwi rose 1.4 percent to 71.71 U.S. cents. Australia’s dollar advanced 0.7 percent to 86.87 cents. Structural Reform Policy makers need to promote a “sustained growth track and facilitate global adjustment, as well as structural reform which will need to be undertaken in both deficit and surplus countries,” Dimitri Soudas , a spokesman for Harper, told reporters yesterday in Ottawa. The U.S. trade deficit widened in July and imports gained by a record 4.7 percent, the Commerce Department said in Washington on Sept. 10. The gap between imports and exports increased 16 percent, the most in more than a decade. The Dollar Index , which the ICE uses to track the dollar against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners including the euro and the yen, fell 0.3 percent to 76.514. The U.S. currency also weakened as gains in Asian stocks spurred investors to buy higher-yielding assets. The MSCI Asia-Pacific excluding Japan Index of shares climbed 0.7 percent. The Australian dollar-U.S. dollar exchange rate had a correlation of 0.98 with the MSCI in the past year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A reading of 1 would mean the two moved in lockstep. Japan’s financial markets were closed today for the second of three consecutive public holidays. ‘More Positive’ “Risk sentiment seems to be slightly more positive, with equity markets higher,” said Lee Wai Tuck , a foreign-exchange strategist at Forecast Pte in Singapore. “It’s dollar-selling” against major currencies, he said. Benchmark interest rates are as low as zero in the U.S. and 0.1 percent in Japan, compared with 2.5 percent in New Zealand and 3 percent in Australia, attracting investors to the South Pacific nations’ assets. New Zealand’s dollar rose for a second day versus the yen after Statistics New Zealand said the current-account deficit shrank to NZ$10.61 billion ($7.57 billion) in the 12 months ended June 30, from NZ$14.57 billion in the year through March. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey was for a NZ$13.3 billion shortfall. The annual deficit was 5.9 percent of gross domestic product, less than the 7.4 percent forecast by economists, and the least since the period ended September 2004. “That’s the best number since September 2004 in GDP terms — a significant improvement,” said Imre Speizer , a market strategist at Westpac Banking Corp. in Wellington. “Appetite for risk is pretty subdued and till we get out of the FOMC meeting it will be hard for the global rally to take another step up.” To contact the reporter on this story: Ron Harui in Singapore at rharui@bloomberg.net

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California Lawmakers, Schwarzenegger Strike Deal Over $26 Billion Deficit

July 20, 2009

By Michael B.

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