MEXICO CITY, Jun 5 (IPS) - Expanding the capacity of natural areas for capturing and storing carbon is one of the keys to curbing climate change, and would be a relatively low-cost solution that would also improve the quality of life of millions of farmers, the United Nations said Friday.More attention must be paid to natural carbon absorption, along with cutting greenhouse gases caused by humans, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) stated in a report released to coincide with World Environment Day, which was globally hosted by Mexico. The report, `The Natural Fix? The Role of Ecosystems in Climate Mitigation', calls for the adoption of a "comprehensive policy framework" on management of carbon - the main greenhouse gas - which would include the conservation and restoration of ecosystems and the management of grasslands and agricultural areas. "Safeguarding and restoring carbon in three systems - forests, peatlands and agriculture - might over the coming decades reduce well over 50 gigatonnes (50 billion tonnes) of carbon emissions that would otherwise enter the atmosphere: others like grasslands and coastal ones such as mangroves are capable of playing their part too," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner says in the preface to the report. Slowing the rate of greenhouse gas emissions "will be impossible without addressing carbon losses from ecosystems such as forests and peatlands. Managing ecosystems for carbon can not only reduce carbon emissions; it can also actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere," says the 68-page report.
Associated Press Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) — Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet. More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation's electricity distribution system, an aging spider web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age. The "smart grid" has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House and among members of Congress. President Barack Obama says it's essential to boost development wind and solar power, get people to use less energy and tackle climate change. What smart grid visionaries see coming are home thermostats and individual appliances that adjust automatically based on the cost of power, and water heaters that can draw power from a neighbor's rooftop solar panel. They see a time when, on a scorching hot day, a plug-in hybrid electric car charges one minute and a few moments later sends electricity back into the grid to help avert a brownout. Also coming are utilities that get instant feedback on a transformer outage or shift easily among energy sources from wind turbines to coal-burning power plants and back to the turbines when the wind begins to blow again.
Associated Press Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) — Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet.
More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation's electricity distribution system, an aging spider web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age.
The "smart grid" has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House and among members of Congress. President Barack Obama says it's essential to boost development wind and solar power, get people to use less energy and tackle climate change.
What smart grid visionaries see coming are home thermostats and individual appliances that adjust automatically based on the cost of power, and water heaters that can draw power from a neighbor's rooftop solar panel. They see a time when, on a scorching hot day, a plug-in hybrid electric car charges one minute and a few moments later sends electricity back into the grid to help avert a brownout.
Also coming are utilities that get instant feedback on a transformer outage or shift easily among energy sources from wind turbines to coal-burning power plants and back to the turbines when the wind begins to blow again.
