Recognizing the profound implications that global warming and climate variation could have on the economy, environment and quality of life in the Southwest, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed Executive Order 05-33 on June 5th, 2005, establishing the New Mexico Climate Change Advisory Group. The Governor directed the CCAG to prepare a report that includes a projection of the State's future GHG emissions and policy recommendations for reducing New Mexico's total greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by the year 2012, 10 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 and 75 percent by 2050.

This Fiscal Year 2007 edition of Our Changing Planet describes a wide range of new and emerging observational capabilities which, combined with the Climate Change Science Program’s analytical work, lead to advances in understanding the underlying processes responsible for climate variability and change. The report highlights progress in exploring the uses and limitations of evolving knowledge to manage risks and opportunities related to climate variability, and documents activities to promote cooperation between the U.S. scientific community and its worldwide counterparts.

In response to the problem of inequalities in the distribution of land, this Policy Research Brief points toward a land reform model that could both satisfy legitimate and urgent demands for social justice and develop an agrarian system that is economically viable. It draws primarily on a UNDP-ISS supported set of country studies and analytical papers.

The Review's executive summary states that "the Review first examines the evidence on the economic impacts of climate change itself, and explores the economics of stabilizing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The second half of the Review considers the complex policy challenges involved in managing the transition to a low-carbon economy and in ensuring that societies can adapt to the consequences of climate change that can no longer be avoided". The report's main conclusion is that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change considerably outweigh the costs.

This law was passed by the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to protect human health and the environment by controlling water pollution.

Establishes first-in-the-world comprehensive program of regulatory and market mechanisms to achieve real, quantifiable, cost-effective reductions of greenhouse gases (GHG).

Proceedings of a meeting of the French Institute of Biodiversity (IFB), setting a course of research for the next fifteen years. The IFB, composed of government agencies, research organizations, and NGOs, is a scientific interest group promoting scientific research in biodiversity. The IFB is devoted to coordinating research on biodiversity in all natural and social sciences, to promoting biodiversity research at the national, European, and international levels, and to disseminating knowledge and providing educational outreach to the general public.

This report is the first report of its kind that attempts to overlay a detailed distillation of climate change science with U.S. insurance industry activities around climate change. This report aims to go beyond an investigation of only hurricanes to also address the implications for the U.S. insurance industry of other impacts of climate change including forest fires, floods, and storm surge (although storm surge is not commercially insured, this report describes how government insurance backstops interact intimately with commercial insurance products and with consumer perception of risk). The report finds that U.S. insurers are far ahead of many of their overseas counterparts in assessing current catastrophic (cat) risk through sophisticated cat risk modeling that is based on historical weather events; however, U.S. insurers appear to lag behind their European peers who have begun to conduct studies of climate change and are beginning, though slowly, to incorporate future climate change scenarios into cat risk models, particularly for flooding.

The publication looks to the prospect for the East and Southern African drylands in the context of recent history and the changes that have occurred in the realms of policy, economic and social conditions and the environment. It further points out three of the biggest challenges facing East and Southern Africa in the foreseeable future— climate change, land tenure and HIV/AIDS.

A brochure explaining the likely dynamics of the carbon-climate-human system with projections for the future, and recommendations for points of intervention and windows of opportunity for human societies to manage this system.

An act to add Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 8340) to Division 4.1 of the Public Utilities Code, relating to electricity.

This Initial Science Plan identifies key environmental changes that affect the people and societies of the regions of Asia affected by monsoons. The plan pinpoints people and environments which are most vulnerable to monsoon damage. The plan ends with a reflection on important scientific issues and lists a number of future actions for the Monsoon Asia Integrated Regional Study.

California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. This bill would require Air Resources Board (ARB) to adopt a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions levels in 1990 to be achieved by 2020. ARB shall adopt regulations to require the reporting and verification of statewide greenhouse gas emissions and to monitor and enforce compliance with this program. AB 32 directs Climate Action Team established by the Governor to coordinate the efforts set forth under Executive Order S-3-05 to continue its role in coordinating overall climate policy.

Numerous independent analyses indicate that we must limit climate change to less than 2ºC above preindustrial temperatures to avoid dangerous impacts to nature, humans, and the global economy.Average global warming of 2°C will result in dangerous and irreversible effects, which rapidly worsen above 2°C warming.This paper seeks to identify the massive difference between the impacts that will happen at 2 and 3°C.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) Strategic Plan, which details measures to accelerate the development and reduce the cost of new and advanced technologies that avoid, reduce, or capture and store greenhouse gas emissions. According to the DOE, the CCTP is the technology component of a comprehensive U.S. strategy introduced by President George W. Bush in 2002 to combat climate change that includes measures to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions through voluntary, incentive-based, and mandatory partnerships; advance climate change science; spur clean energy technology development and deployment; and promote international collaboration.

Climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are a continuing issue in the 109th Congress. Bills directly addressing climate change issues range from those focused primarily on climate change research to comprehensive emissions cap-and-trade programs. Additional bills focus on GHG reporting and registries, or on power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, as part of wider controls on pollutant emissions. The bills vary in their approaches to climate change issues. This report briefly discusses the basic concepts on which these bills are based and compares major provisions of the bills in each of the following categories: climate change research, technology deployment, GHG reporting and registries, and emissions reduction programs.

This is the third Basic Environment Plan of Japan. The theme of the plan is "integrated improvements of the environment, economy, and society." The plan develops long-term goals and will be assessed by quantitative targets and indicators for management. The plan calls for a clear public information campgaign.

This report reviews the status of energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation introduced during the 109th Congress. Action in the second session has focused on appropriations bills; the first session focused on omnibus energy policy bill H.R. 6, H.R. 3, and several appropriations bills. For each bill listed in this report, a brief description and a summary of action are given, including references to committee hearings and reports. Also, a selected list of hearings on renewable energy is included. This report supplements the tracking of issues that appear in CRS Issue Brief IB10020 and CRS Issue Brief IB10041.

This law was passed by the Republic of China (Taiwan) to control air pollution and protect the environment and human health.

The document reports on the state of the environment of Japan in FY 2005. It consists of an overview on population decline and the environment of Japan. It also describes the origins of Japan's environmental problems, citing the example of Minamata disease. In the second part of the report, it summarizes the environmental issues and government environmental conservation measures in Japan, FY 2005.

This paper provides an assessment of broad trends in progress on assessment and implementation of adaptation to climate change in “developed countries”, defined here as being Member states of the OECD and/or Parties listed under Annex I of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Primary inputs to this analysis are the National Communications (NCs) by these countries to the UNFCCC. NCs follow a standardised reporting format which facilitates cross-national comparison. They also reflect “whole government” perspectives. At the same time, however, the coverage of particular issues within these documents need not be comprehensive, nor might it necessarily reflect policy priorities on the ground. Therefore, this paper also examines other policies and projects which highlight progress on implementing adaptation, but which have not been reflected in the NCs.

Among other topics, the panel introduced a proposal for further work on emission scenarios, which was developed based on the recommendations of the Task Group on New Emission Scenarios, established following a decision by the Panel at its 23rd Session. In the plenary debate several countries expressed support for the proposal and some underlined the need to also cover the requirements of impact, adaptation and vulnerability studies, the importance of regional scenarios and developing country involvement in scenario development. Some concern was expressed that integrated scenarios may go beyond the scope of the IPCC. Different views were expressed about the IPCC role in scenario development, including the view that the IPCC should no longer itself commission or direct scenario development. The suggestion was also made to draw on the expertise of the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impact and Climate Assessment (TGICA). It was recommended to take a clear decision on the future role of the IPCC and to focus in the further consultations on aspects where urgent decisions were required.

This Synthesis and Assessment Product is an important revision to the conclusions of earlier reports from the U.S. National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of human-induced global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average warming, while early versions of satellite and radiosonde data showed little or no warming above the surface. This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies. This Synthesis and Assessment Product is an important revision to the conclusions of earlier reports from the U.S. National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For recent decades, all current atmospheric data sets now show global-average warming that is similar to the surface warming. While these data are consistent with the results from climate models at the global scale, discrepancies in the tropics remain to be resolved. Nevertheless, the most recent observational and model evidence has increased confidence in our understanding …

The document contains the opening addresses of the conveners and presentation slides of the presenters in the Tokyo Office of the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) event. The conference was organized around the idea of introducing two important groups to each other to stimulate new ideas to break through barriers for carbon management, a major environmental and social challenge in the 21st Century.