Artifical Snow Makers might not save Resorts (click at title)
...Many lower and medium-altitude Swiss ski resorts are already using snowmaking machines to boost the snow cover. But the institute warns that there is a downside to the practice.
It says that if temperatures continue to rise because of global warming, snow at below 1,500 metres will melt rapidly, threatening the livelihood of lower and medium-altitude resorts.
But rising temperatures also make it harder to compensate for the lack of natural snowfall. Snow cannon can only work effectively at low temperatures.
By 2050, temperatures in the Alps are expected to be 1.8 degrees Celsius higher than in 1990.
This means the snowline will not only climb higher, but the use of artificial snow facilities will also be limited....
Bali draft says all nations must join climate fight (click here)
By Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - All nations must do more to fight climate change, and rich countries must make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts, a draft proposal at United Nations talks said on Saturday.
The four-page draft, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates from 190 nations at the December 3-14 talks, said developing nations should at least brake rising emissions as part of a new pact.
It said there was "unequivocal scientific evidence" that "preventing the worst impacts of climate change will require (developed nations) to reduce emissions in a range of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020."
The draft is the first outline of the possible goals of talks on a new global deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which binds just 36 developed nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
"Current efforts ... will not deliver the required emissions reductions," according to the text, obtained by Reuters, that lays out a plan for averting ever more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.
"The challenge of climate change calls for effective participation by all countries," it said. The United States is outside the Kyoto pact and developing nations led by China and India have no 2012 goals for limiting emissions.
Echoing conclusions this year by the U.N. climate panel, it said global emissions of greenhouse gases would have to "peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by 2050."...
