Climate Change News Round-Up

European Union nations have been warned to renew climate change adaptation programmes.   The European Environment Agency has released a report that concludes cities around Europe may have to install flood barriers similar to those that protect London.

Even Europe's vineyards may have to switch the types of grapes cultivated or move entirely.  EEA studies have found climate change impacts in all regions of Europe with rainfall diminishing in the south and increasing in the north and extreme fluctuations in temperatures.

In Washington, Congressional Democrats are focusing on the ways climate change impacts vulnerable women.  A dozen House Democrats have introduced a resolution recognizing that climate change hurts women more than men and can even lead to an increase in "transactional sex."

An Australian report, focused on what it calls the "The Critical Decade" for climate change action finds China is becoming a world leader in the fight against climate change, slowing its rate of growth of energy consumption and steadily introducing more wind and solar production.

The report describes China's development of renewable energy as "extraordinary", pointing to a 50-fold increase in the amount of energy generated from wind power since 2005. Its investment in clean energy in 2012 was $65.1 billion, which represents 30 per cent of the total investment by G20 nations that year.

One-third of member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have achieved absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions but it's a matter of some, not enough.   And the Athabasca Tar Sands come in for special mention.

"There is significant momentum being driven by a mix of economic, political and environmental motivations," says John Wiseman from the University of Melbourne. "That in turn creates a range of risks that these trends could fall over or head in unpredictable directions." He says that while the US's energy independence policy has led to an increased uptake of renewables, it also uses more gas and is working to exploit carbon-intensive tar sand oil.