A 1,300-page report known as the National Climate Assessment
is due to be launched by the White House today. The report, which
is compiled by 300 leading scientists and experts, is meant to be
the definitive account of the effects of climate change on the US.
It’s expected to drive the remaining two years of Barack Obama’s
environmental agenda.

60 distinguished US scientists have written to UK energy
secretary Ed Davey, urging him to abandon the government’s
“misguided” subsidies for companies burning wood pellets to
generate electricity. The signatories to the letter – including
biologist EO Wilson – warn that UK energy policies are stimulating
an “explosive growth” in wood pellet mills that will not reduce
carbon emissions and which threatens important native
forests.

China and the United States have started far-reaching, if
little-noticed, talks on how to cut carbon emissions, in what is
being described as the most hopeful single development in tackling
global warming for almost 20 years.

A new studyclaims that while the world
is getting warmer, the heating effect on the Earth has not been
uniform across the planet. Noticeable warming first started around
the regions circling the Arctic and subtropical regions in both
hemispheres. but the largest warming to date has been at the
northern mid-latitudes, the study says. The research team also
found that in some areas of the world, cooling had
occurred.

Polls show that worries about the environment increased
around the winter floods and more people got concerned about the
impacts of climate change. But polls suggesting about a fifth of
people put cliimate change as one of the top issues facing Britain
today don’t tell the full story, according to Barosi. There was a
spike in concern in February which has recently dropped down to
lower levels.

The government’s market-based approach to the energy system
will not deliver the £100bn needed to secure energy security in
this country, according to a report from Newcastle University. For
the bulk of the population, energy is too cheap, which is leading
to waste, the study says.

Four of the Big Six power firms have failed to pass on the
£50 saving from the reduction in green levies announced last year,
according to the Mail. E.ON, EDF, npower and Scottish Power have
offered 3.7million of their customers just £12 off. In
an editorial, the paper says companies
“sought to lay the blame” for price rises on green levies, and are
behaving cynically.

18 gigawatts of wind farm projects are in the planning
system, according to thinktank the Renewable Energy Foundation
(REF) – and if they were built they would mean the country is
generating 50 per cent more renewable electricity than is required
under the country’s EU 2020 renewable energy targets. Meanwhile
campaigners argue a planned offshore wind farm off the Jurassic
coast will threatenits status as a world
heritage site.

While climate change is never seen as a sole cause of
poverty, research has identified numerous ways in which climatic
variability and change may exacerbate poverty, particularly in less
developed countries and regions. A new review examines the complex
literature on the climate-poverty-vulnerability nexus.

Scientists examine the effectiveness of green roofs to
lessen the urban heat island effect during a heatwave in
Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. They find a significant
beneficial effect on temperature in the city, as well as on local
humidity.

Adaptation is needed to help lessen the impact of the
climate change we can now no longer avoid. But we can’t adapt
indefinitely, there are limits to adaptation. A new study examines
how these barriers differ for governments, the private sector, and
civil society in Australia – and what to do about it.

A new analysis of observational data suggests about half of
the recent Arctic warming of 0.64?degrees Celsius per decade can be
explained by anthropogenic greenhouse gases and aerosol forcing.
Natural variability – in particular, the Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation (AMO) – is responsible for the remainder of the
temperature variability, say the authors.