The atmosphere inside and outside the Bali International Convention Center is different as the ongoing conference is bringing together thousands of representatives from over 180 countries, as well as observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, who are intensively discussing and negotiating ways and measures that should be adopted to combat climate change, Xinhua reported.
Worldwide efforts on tackling the worsening global warming is gaining steam and momentum at the conference, which is tasked withdrawing up a “roadmap“ for negotiations on a new deal before the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires by 2012.
As numerous discussions, meetings and press conferences were going on inside the closed doors at the center, dozens of side events were being held by nongovernmental organizations, academics, the private sector and others. All were trying to sell their idea on how to save the planet.
Some organizations were sounding alarming bells about the climate change in their press releases and publications, and called for immediate actions in tackling the challenge of climate change. Others were trying to offer solutions to the problem.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yve de Boer said that the climate change being felt around the world has created a public awareness about the issue of global warming.
This year’s scientific report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made clear beyond doubt that climate change is a reality and can seriously harm the future development of the world’s economies, societies and eco-systems. Human activities are blamed for the accelerating global warming.
On the conference’s progress so far, Yve de Boer said that the meetings were “going well.“ He termed the fact that many countries have come prepared with their own proposals on how the process should move forward as “encouraging.“
The climate change is such a “big and complicated“ issue. The problem can only be solved by working together, he said, adding that however, the Bali conference would not finalize a post-2012 climate deal, but could “put in place a two-year process to work towards such a deal.“
He also said that “I think it’s clear to everyone that industrialized countries must continue to take the lead (in reducing emissions of greenhouse gases) and must reduce their emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020.“
The challenge for most of the developing countries in the world in tackling the climate change is how to achieve a balance in growing economy, while reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, he said.
He hoped that modern clean technology can help developing countries manage their economy in a clean way so as to reduce air pollution which leads to high public health costs and help them avoid making the same mistakes that were made in the West.
The main goal of the Bali Conference is to launch negotiations on a climate change deal for the post-2012 period, to set the agenda for these negotiations and to reach agreement on when these negotiations will have to be concluded, according to the UNFCCC.
The UN climate change conference, which kicked off on Dec. 3 will end on Dec. 14. At the end of the conference, a decision is expected to launch a new process to shape a deal on a post-2012 climate change regime, said the UNFCCC.

From 20 people, Suzlon's workforce has grown to 12,000 and it has a presence in 15 countries spread across five continents.

Saving the environment wasn’t as much on his mind as cutting costs when Indian entrepreneur Tulsi Tanti first turned to wind energy 13 years ago.
Confronted with a soaring electricity bill and unpredictable power supply, Tanti had a pair of wind turbines installed at his textile plant in western India and became a quick convert to what became his business calling.
According to Arabtimesonline.com, after building Suzlon into Asia’s biggest wind energy firm in 12 years, Tanti can claim credit for prescience in seizing a market opportunity from concerns over global warming and climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
The 49-year-old mechanical engineer has also become a hero of the global renewable energy movement as the world counts the cost of greenhouse gas emissions and developing economies such as India’s battle chronic power shortages requiring tens of billions of dollars in investment.
’From a Greenpeace perspective, he is definitely someone you would want as an ally, especially in an era of overdependence on coal-based energy,’ said K. Srinivas, the Bangalore-based energy campaigner for the global group.
’He is expanding the renewable energy market and that’s a wonderful thing,’ Srinivas added.
Tanti is sparing no effort in his quest to vault Suzlon into one of the world’s top three wind energy companies after overtaking Siemens of Germany to grab the fifth spot last year.
This year, he won control of the German turbine maker REpower after a bidding war with Areva of France to capitalize on growing global demand for wind power. Last year, he purchased Belgium’s Hansen, a maker of wind-turbine gearboxes.
Tanti has been busy this month with a 10-day ’internal strategy’ session in the beach resort of Goa, followed by the Diwali Hindu festival of light and overseas travel and was not available to comment for this story, his company’s spokesmen said.
But he has said plenty already about the merits of what has become his driving passion.
“Wind energy can and will play one of the most important roles in saving the world of tomorrow, today,“ Tanti said recently. “We drive our business as a cause, one where we power a greener tomorrow.“
Fossil fuels are the world’s biggest energy source but burning them produces heat-trapping greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, currently being debated at a global summit in the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
For Tanti, who founded Suzlon with three brothers in 1995 when he was little known, the accidental stumble into green energy has proved profitable.
His net worth was estimated this year by Forbes at 10 billion dollars, making the chairman and managing director of Suzlon one of the 40 richest in a country of 1.1 billion people.
Suzlon, based in Pune, western India, logged a net profit increase of 68 percent to a record 3.98 billion rupees (101.2 million dollars) in the quarter ended September 30 on a 77 percent jump in sales to 36.41 billion rupees.
“The wind is blowing stronger than ever,“ Tanti commented when the company released its earning statement on October 23.
From 20 people, Suzlon’s workforce has grown to 12,000 and it has a presence in 15 countries spread across five continents.
Its initial share sale in 2005 was 46 times subscribed, vaulting it to the list of India’s top 25 companies by market value.
With profits came global recognition for Tanti, chosen by Time magazine this year as one of the ’most innovative and influential protectors of the planet’ and by Forbes as one of the world’s ’greenest billionaires’.
The worldwide installed capacity of wind power reached 74,223 megawatts at the end of 2006, with India’s 7,000 megawatts trailing only Germany, Spain and the United States.
Suzlon, which has a 7.7 percent share of the global market and almost 50 percent of India’s, is eyeing expansion of capacity to 4,200 megawatts by March next year, from 2,700 megawatts.
Tanti estimates that demand for wind power will grow 25 percent a year as governments spur the use of more environmentally friendly alternative energy sources.
As the time taken to install wind turbines comes down and the machines become more reliable and perform better, wind power is becoming a favored choice of energy.
India’s government offers lucrative incentives to develop and promote the use of wind energy, allowing companies to write off 80 percent of the cost of installing turbines in the first year, said energy expert Gaurav Gandhi.

The amount of solar energy that hits the surface of the earth every hour is greater than the total amount of energy that the entire human population requires in a year.

I hate to use the “C“ word, but there is no other way to say it.Ê There is a national conspiracy to prevent renewable energy from becoming the primary energy source in the United States.Ê
And who are the conspirators?Ê The usual cast of characters:Ê the fossil fuels industry, which continues to rake in exorbitant profits on oil and gas while it refuses to make any significant investment in renewable energy, even in the face of global warming; the members of the mainstream news media, too craven to cross their corporate masters by doing any serious coverage on the Êviability of renewable energy in today’s market; and the members of Congress, too addicted to the big bucks they receive from Big Oil and other traditional energy sources to create any sweeping renewable energy legislation for the good of the country.
According to opednews.com, the truth is, if it were not for this unholy trinity of greed, cowardice, and bribery, all of us would already be living in solar or wind powered homes and driving electric cars to and from work.
Here are the facts:
1) According to the US Department of Energy, the amount of solar energy that hits the surface of the earth every hour is greater than the total amount of energy that the entire human population requires in a year. Another way of looking at it is that roughly 100 square miles of solar panels placed in the southwestern US could power the entire country.
2) The Department of Energy also states that all US electrical energy needs could be met by the wind in Texas and the Dakotas alone.
3) In 1977, the Office of Technology Assessment published a nonpartisan report that concluded that if the federal government offered substantial tax credits and incentives to speed up the mass production of renewable energy technologies, these technologies “could be made competitive in markets representing over 40% of US energy demand by the mid-1980s.“ At that rate, they would be competitive in almost all markets today.
4)Ê The technology to produce photovoltaic panels and modern wind turbines has been around for decades, and thousands of Americans already have installed these renewable technologies on their homes and businesses, cutting their energy bills by significant margins.Ê Recently, a New Jersey resident named Mike Mercurio installed both an array of solar panels on his roof and a wind turbine in his back yard and cut his energy bill from over $300 per month to about $10 per month.
This immediately begs the question:Ê If we have the renewable technology at hand and we know it works, why don’t we use it in place of heavily polluting energy sources like oil, gas or coal?Ê And why have so few people installed solar panels or windmills on their homes and in their backyards?
The primary reason is because the cost of renewable energy is still relatively high compared to fossil fuels, although the gap is closing as the cost of natural gas and oil continues to climb.Ê
For example, the price to install an array of photovoltaic panels on the average home--notwithstanding some modest tax incentives and rebates from the government--is anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000.Ê At this price, only those who are well off can afford to have solar panels installed on their homes.
Of course, anyone with half a brain knows that once a product is mass produced, its price per unit plummets.Ê But in order to facilitate this process and make it happen over a period of years and not decades, the federal government (with help from the states) needs to institute a massive, full-scale national renewable energy program, something equivalent to the Marshall Plan, something that would transform our entire society within a decade.
It can begin this process with a four-point plan:
1) Mandate tight pollution standards on the fossil fuels industry and stiff penalties for not abiding by them. This will get the carbon-based boys to start thinking about divesting some of their money into renewable energy.
2) Impose high (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) CAFE standards on auto manufacturers and stiff penalties if they don’t implement them post haste. This will get the bright boys at GM to start thinking about electric cars in a big way.
3) Implement a windfall profits tax on oil companies and remove tax incentives to the entire fossil fuels industry. This will create billions of dollars that can be used to promote renewable energy.
4) Offer generous tax credits and incentives to the renewable energy industry to facilitate mass production of its technology and equally generous tax credits and incentives for homeowners to buy it.
If Congress made this four-point plan a reality, it would literally reverse the brain-dead energy policy that has been in effect for the past 27 years, ever since Ronald Reagan, Big Oil’s Bad Boy, strutted into office, decimated Jimmy Carter’s renewable energy program, and created energy bills and tax policies that favored the fossil fuels industry at the expense of renewable technology.
John F. Miglio