126 ciountries met & agreed to work on alternative energy - who knew

[donsu]

on this a.m.'s Wash. Journal a guest was Stephanie Cohen of The New Atlantis.

she was talking about the energy bill

a caller asked her about the recent meeting of 126 countries who discussed and came to an agreement on working on alternative energy in their countries.

she did not know about the meeting

she's all talky about the energy bill and she knows nothing of this meeting.

did you know? I didn't know? but surely Stephanie should have known.

she didn't know much about the fires in the rivers from coal mines/processing either.

she took notes

[LittleApple81]

1. This is why DU is so good. We don't miss much. I didn't know about

this but now I know apparently more than the woman from New Atlantis.

[Zan_of_Texas]

2. two reports

China sets ambitious goal for renewable energy

By MARK LANDLER
New York Times
June 4, 2004, 11:59PM

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/energy/2610945

BONN, Germany - China, which has rattled energy markets with its ravenous appetite for oil, declared on Friday that it would generate 10 percent of its power through renewable sources by 2010. The pledge, made at a conference on renewable energy held here, surprised experts with its ambition. If China achieves its goal, they said, it will become a world leader in developing alternatives to fossil fuels, rather than just a world-class consumer.

"The Chinese want to do this on a massive scale," said Christopher Flavin, the president of the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization in Washington. "They're very serious about it."
China faces an urgent need to diversify beyond oil and coal, he said.

<snip>
China's initiative is part of a draft law on the use of renewable energy. In setting a numeric goal, Beijing has lined up with the European Union, which has pledged to generate 20 percent of its electricity, and 12 percent of all its energy, from renewable sources by 2010.

<snip>
The United States kept a low profile, sending an assistant energy secretary, while most countries sent ministers. It promised research money to make solar and geothermal energy more cost-efficient. If the United States is not a favored guest at such gatherings, however, it is also no longer a pariah. Most delegates avoided criticizing the Bush administration - at least outside of hallway chatter - and German officials said the American delegation played a "constructive role."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greens Furious With World Bank Over Renewable Energy Commitments

by Jim Lobe
Published on Saturday, June 5, 2004
OneWorld.net
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/0605-05.htm

WASHINGTON - International environmental and development groups have denounced as completely inadequate a new World Bank commitment to increase its lending to renewable energy projects in developing countries by 20 percent annually over the next five years. A statement signed by nine global green groups and released Thursday said the proposed increase was "marginal at best" and ignored the recommendations of its own studies for much greater investment in renewables, such as wind and solar power, and energy efficiency.
"Marginally increasing the funding for renewables is not enough because the World Bank's own numbers show that lending for polluting fuels is growing even faster," said Stephan Singer of World Wildlife Fund International (WWF).

"The US$200 million that the Bank is pledging for renewables is roughly the cost of their contribution to just one of the many fossil fuel projects they support annually," said Petr Hlobil of CEE Bankwatch, which is based in Prague. The Bank made its announcement Tuesday in advance of the International Conference on Renewable Energies <http://www.renewables2004.de/> which is taking place this week in Bonn, Germany.

<snip>
While its renewable portfolio is currently running about $200 million a year, the Bank Group provides about $2.5 billion a year in support of other energy-related projects, the vast majority of them based on fossil fuels. Thus, under Woicke's plan, which must still be approved by the Bank's board of directors, lending for renewables would increase by only about $40 million next year instead of the roughly $500 million recommended by the EIR. "They're not even close to the EIR recommendation," said Steve Kretzmann of the Institute for Policy Studies here. "They're pledging 20 percent of a cent when they were asked to give 20 percent of a dollar," he said, adding that the Bank Group has preferred fossil-fuel-related lending over renewables by a 23:1 ration since 1994. "At this rate, it will take the Bank Group nearly 20 years before their renewables portfolio reaches current levels of funding for fossil fuels," said Janneke Bruil of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) in Amsterdam. "It's absurd."

<snip>
This week's conference in Bonn is designed to promote the use of renewables which a growing number of experts say have become commercially viable in ways that were not foreseen even a decade ago. In a report released last month by WorldWatch Institute, researchers noted that wind and solar power have become the fastest growing energy sources over the past ten years, and their attractiveness has only increased as a result of soaring oil and gas prices and growing instability in the Middle East.
<snip>

[LittleApple81]

3. Thanks a lot! n/t

[redqueen]

4. I saw that segment as well

Sad that the media is so totally corporate-controlled.