In a report that is bullish for the oil industry and horrifying for the people of the planet, the Guardian reports that  Exxon predicts carbon dioxide emissions to rise by 25 per cent over the next 20 years.

“According to the company’s annual Outlook for Energy report – due to be published in the next few weeks – demand for power will increase by nearly 40% in the next 20 years, lifting emissions by around 0.9% a year at least until 2030.”

Which is to say that all the optimistic (!?) international predictions of anthropogenic CO2 emissions levelling off anytime soon are a fiction. Exxon, apparently, is paying attention to the pathetic efforts that world governments are making to rein in increases (and paying a fortune to ensure that platitudes outpace policy for as long as possible).

Canada’s (Trash-the-)Environment Minister Prentice Denies Charge

The Guardian has turned up a leaked document from a Chinese think tank that condemns Canada for being “devoted to conniving” at the international climate conference in Copenhagen last December.

According to The Guardian, the Chinese text says that Canada spent the conference trying, “to convince the world that its pledge of a 3% emissions reduction between 1990 and 2020 is significant, while having no intention of meeting its Kyoto protocol target of 6%.”

Canada’s “Environment” Minister Jim Prentice took issue with that characterization:

“Canada has always been completely open, completely transparent and we have been constructive,” Prentice told Canwest News Service. “We have not been conniving.”

That said, Canada has indeed abandoned its Kyoto commitments and recent reports suggest that it has no plan to reach the 3% target (20% below 2006) that it has been promising more recently.

"Coal is about acid rain and peasouper smogs, asthma and mercury contamination, radioactive waste emissions and ripping apart mountains, killing trees, lung cancer and, of course, global warming.

"Coal emits more carbon dioxide for every unit of energy generated than any other fuel. Sure you can clean it up a bit – though the toxins you've taken out of the ground have to go somewhere. But clean coal? Just say no."

 

"Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand. The evidence is clear, the long-term trend in global temperatures is rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise. Global warming does not mean that each year will be warmer than the last."

- UK Met Office, as quoted in The Guardian

As reported in Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in the Guardian and previously on the DeSmogBlog, there was a media stampede last month to misrepresent a new piece of research as evidence that climate change is not happening - a bit of truth twisting that left the researcher in question aghast.

Rampant population growth and rising wealth in developing countries are driving up demand for food, a UK official says, while global warming also imperils food stores through decreased rainfall and crop failures.

The agriculture industry is going to have to double food production, but with less water than today. Another big threat to food supplies is biofuel production.