April 2008

Less than a year after the IPCC warned the world that global emissions need to peak within the next 10 years (and then fall sharply), Bush - with much fanfare - has unveiled his new, cunning climate change plan: emit more for the next 17 years, and make sure developing countries help pay for what the US and the industrialised world has already emitted.

His address yesterday came during the latest Major Emitters Meeting - a series of meetings set up by Bush to undermine run in parallel to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process (the UN's process being inconvenient because it wants mandatory rather than voluntary emissions targets, and says the industrialised world should bear the burden of responsibility for historical emissions).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu on the Greenpeace ship MV Esperanza in 2002

That's what Archbishop Desmond Tutu is asking the leaders of the most polluting economies, living up to his reputation for calling a spade a spade in, um, spades.

That's the eye watering message from our friends over at I Count. They're talking of course about the Climate Change Bill - and are asking you to put the virtual squeeze on your MP, to make sure the bill gets the balls it needs to stop climate change:

So, today the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) comes into effect and we'll all be using more biofuels as a result. Regular readers will know that this exciting piece of legislation will see 2.5 per cent of our petrol and diesel coming from food crops, and that we have been asking everyone to send emails to transport secretary Ruth Kelly asking her to postpone the RTFO. Now we need to see that she abandons so if you haven't expressed your concern about this already, you can still do so.

Following our action in France last month - when the crew of the Arctic Sunrise blocked a shipment of timber from the Brazilian Amazon - efforts have been stepped up in the country of origin to prevent illegal timber being exported in the first place.

The Brazilian government's environmental agency, Ibama, has seized a shipment of timber in the first check on exports by authorities in two years. The cargo vessel in question - the BSLE Express - would have been en route to Europe but has been detained in Santarem since March 27. So far, inspectors have confiscated 732m3 of wood which were travelling with false papers; papers that were economical with the truth when it came to the species of timber present in the shipment.

Image from Plane Stupid

I don't know if you've been following this story about the mole who tried to infiltrate Plane Stupid recently but if you're anything like me, you'll be less surprised at the fact that someone's tried to infiltrate a direct action group working on aviation than at the fact that somebody's felt the need to invent the word 'threatscape'.

Toby Kendall / 'Ken Tobias' (the spy concerned, who listed Top Gun as his favourite movie on Bebo, along with 'war movies' and 'revenge movies') works / worked for 'security' firm C2i International. C2i apparently works closely with clients "to understand their unique threatscape" before delivering "appropriate and proactive solutions".