Biochar has multiple potential environmental benefits, foremost the potential to sequester carbon in the soil for hundreds to thousands of years at an estimate. Studies suggest that crop yields can increase as a result of applying biochar as a soil amendment. Some contend that biochar has value as an immediate climate change mitigation strategy. Scientific experiments suggest that greenhouse gas emissions are reduced significantly with biochar application to crop fields. Obstacles that may stall rapid adoption of biochar production systems include technology costs, system operation and maintenance, feedstock availability, and biochar handling. Biochar research and development is in its infancy. Nevertheless, interest in biochar as a multifaceted solution to agricultural and natural resource issues is growing at a rapid pace both nationally and internationally.

via Environmental Legislation: Biochar: Examination of an Emerging Concept to Mitigate Climate Change.

Chaos greets new climate pact

By Stephen Collinson (AFP) – 2 hours ago

COPENHAGEN — Chaos and farce reigned at the birth of a climate accord agreed by a clique of leaders, with statesmen going missing, critics crying foul and hacks stampeding on vain hunts for Barack Obama.

Fatigue fermented a feverish cocktail of human emotion overnight Friday as the US president claimed to have staved off a default in the dying hours of global warming talks in Copenhagen.

But small nations like Cuba and Nicaragua erupted in fury at being snubbed in a game of big power diplomatic chess also involving developing giants Brazil, China and India.

Chaos greets new climate pact

By Stephen Collinson (AFP) – 2 hours ago

COPENHAGEN — Chaos and farce reigned at the birth of a climate accord agreed by a clique of leaders, with statesmen going missing, critics crying foul and hacks stampeding on vain hunts for Barack Obama.

Fatigue fermented a feverish cocktail of human emotion overnight Friday as the US president claimed to have staved off a default in the dying hours of global warming talks in Copenhagen.

But small nations like Cuba and Nicaragua erupted in fury at being snubbed in a game of big power diplomatic chess also involving developing giants Brazil, China and India.

It is January 2010, after years of negotiation and attrition, we now have a new Global Climate Deal.  The deal will come into effect on expiry of the Kyoto protocol in 2012. Everyone is optimistic but the world is in a panic. The global temperatures have not changed much over the last 12 years, but the sun has been exhibiting some very odd behaviour. There is new emerging evidence that, besides carbon dioxide, there is another factor that is leading to the dramatic change in the climate.

It is supposed to be summer, it is cold and strangely the ice in the poles is all but gone.  Places where the sun is shining, it is not producing enough heat to promote the fast growth of plants. The sea level has risen by 7 meters.  The small island states have been deleted from the global map, parts of the US coast are under the sea.  Mozambique, Cape Town, Mombasa, Malindi, Abidjan are no longer in the global map.   Somewhere in the Kalahari, the wet conditions have given rise to an ecological boom closely mimicking the biblical garden of Aden.  A natural new world order has emerged.

During the years of negotiation, politics dominated the discussions, now the word is faced with new challenges.  The focus is on how to deal with; the global climate catastrophe.

Carbon dioxide levels  in the atmosphere are the same levels are higher than those recorded in the 1990. However, the temperatures have plunged to an all time low.   It is no longer clear why the world has moved from the balanced and predictable, the global warming carbon dealers have all gone into hiding from angry street crowds baying for their under-performing carbon credits stocks.

The  New Deal, New Kyoto or …the Copenhagen something had promised to deliver the world from the global crisis by dealing in Carbon, but now, the mechanisms have all but collapsed and the cause of the global change  seems no longer to point at only Carbon dioxide as the only culprit, there are many other factors.

As the climate talks are about to start in Bonn, already there are signs that a deal in 2009 beyond Kyoto is far from obvious.

Brazil’s environmental minister says a “climate apartheid” between rich and poor nations could hinder a global warming deal this year.  Brazil, India and China have been at the center of a global negotiation which they deem not fitting to their emerging economies.

Carlos Minc says the world “unfortunately is far from reaching an agreement” because of differences in the positions of rich and poor countries.

Brazil minister skeptical of global warming deal – International Herald Tribune.