Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The government of the United Kingdom intends to introduce cheap loans for householders to improve the energy efficiency of their homes if it wins the forthcoming election. The long-term loans will be at subsidized interest rates and will be attached to the house rather than the homeowner. "By spreading the repayments over a much longer period - more like 25 years than the eight years that someone might want to live in a house - that's what makes it financially affordable," energy and climate secretary Ed Miliband said. "The key thing that we're doing is to put the proposed legislation forward to ensure that the re-payments are attached to the house not the person," he added.

United States president Barack Obama has proposed rebates of up to US$3000 to encourage homeowners to improve energy efficiency. The initiative is part of a US$6 billion programme to create jobs. The highest rebates will go to upgrades leading to a 20 per cent saving in energy use. The rebates will be available through a variety of channels, including building material stores, companies that install the equipment and utility's energy efficiency programmes. Speaking at Savannah Technical College, Obama said: "I just hope Washington [Congress] stands alongside me in making sure we've got the kind of energy future that we need."

The European Union (EU) has requested public input on how best to protect the region's forests against the impact of climate change. "Europe's forests are a precious resource that must be protected against the harmful impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss. Their wide range of social, economic and environmental functions means that the stakes are high," said environment commissioner Janez Potocnik. "We need to explore what value European action can add to national efforts to safeguard forests and maintain reliable, coherent and up-to-date information about them," he continued.

Connie Hedegaard, former Danish climate and energy minister and host of the Copenhagen climate summit, is the EU's first commissioner for climate action. She regards ensuring that Europe's forests can continue to perform all their functions as essential to the EU's climate strategy. "As huge stores of carbon, forests will play a critical role in efforts to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius," she commented. The public consultation, through the Your Voice in Europe website, will end July 31st 2010.

Taiwan faces the threat of more frequent storms on the scale of last August's Typhoon Morakot, which generated 2777mm of rainfall, leaving over 700 people dead or missing, and resulted in US$3.3 billion of damage. "A typhoon as powerful as Morakot is very likely to strike Taiwan in a year or two," warned Wang Chung-ho from the Institute of the Earth Sciences of the Academia Sinica in Taipei. "The government must work out effective countermeasures," he continued.

Wang noted a long-term trend towards increased precipitation over Taiwan during the monsoon season, with the mean monthly rainfall for the half-year beginning in May surpassing 400 millimetres during the past six years, compared with an average of 380 millimetres in the years before 2004. "It's pretty remarkable to see this kind of humidity in the atmosphere over such a sustained time period," he commented. Ho Tsung-hsun of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union considers that "typhoons of the Morakot scale hitting Taiwan will become normal as the Earth's environment changes... This is a grave warning from nature. It could end up exceeding our worst fears."