Archive by category | Funding

New, ‘relentlessly pragmatic’ approach to climate change needed?

New, ‘relentlessly pragmatic’ approach to climate change needed?

Cross-posted from Daniel Cressey on The Great Beyond The collapse of UN-led international efforts to combat climate change means a new approach that is “politically attractive and relentlessly pragmatic” is required, according to a new report. The 14 authors of a new report on climate policy describe themselves as “an eclectic group of academics, analysts and energy policy advocates”. They say the Kyoto Protocol style approach “crashed” last year with the perceived failure of the Copenhagen meeting. A new approach, focusing on human dignity, is required, they argue in their ‘Hartwell Paper’ – named after the house in Buckinghamshire where  … Read more

Sizing up carbon capture and storage

“0031321.jpg”Considered by some a silver bullet and by others a hopeless dream, the idea that we can simply capture our carbon dioxide emissions and store them safely away is nothing if not compelling. After all, it lends an air of practicality to the notion that human ingenuity can somehow continue the unabated use of fossil fuels over the coming decades without dangerously warming the climate.  Read more

Impacts research – the next frontier

Now that remarkable headway has been made into understanding the physical science of climate change, there’s a feeling among climate experts – including those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – and among funding agencies of the need to shift the focus of climate research from identifying the cause to assessing the impacts, whether hurricanes, oceanic dead zones or forest fires.  Read more