News from Bill Newton Dunn MEP

10.35.01am GMT Thu 27th Nov 2008

Read on for European news on Climate Change, the Euro, Lisbon and more from Bill.

• Global Warming is becoming increasingly serious.

I attended two separate meetings in Brussels last week, where the same startling message was given. It is that, all the forecasts made by different scientists and establishments around the world over the past ten years, optimistic ones, median ones, pessimistic ones, about how Global Warming may work out, are all proving to be wrong. What is actually happening is proving to be worse than the most pessimistic forecast.

The EU's negotiator at the world talks (his next meeting is next month in Poznan) said that this alarming fact is causing all the negotiators' minds to be concentrated on achieving a worldwide agreement at the summit in Copenhagen one year from now.

What is happening ? The pumping of CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere has actually accelerated since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol. The oceans are becoming acidic, measured by their "ph", and thus less able to continue absorbing the CO2. The northern ice-caps and mountain glaciers are melting : when the glaciers in the Himalayas have gone, the seven major rivers which they feed and which supply water to two billion people, will be affected. The Jet Stream (the belt of fast-moving air 36,000ft above the earth which controls the movements of bad-weather systems) has moved several hundred miles to the south. Why ? Scientists believe there is a link to La Niña and to the warming of the Atlantic, one of the effects of climate change.

• Lisbon Treaty

The Irish government has undertaken to produce its proposal about Irish ratification, or not, next month in December.

• The Euro

From January, the Euro-zone will expand to sixteen member states of the EU. As sterling sinks against the Euro, we British become progressively poorer. We should, in my view, have joined years ago. One more failure by Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor. Statisticians say that the size of our economy is about to be overtaken by Italy.

• Conference

Early this week I did a one-hour video-conference with a university class in Indiana. This is the link to it - for any academic who is very keen to try the same idea. mms://wms.indiana.edu/ip/vic/mep_video_conf_20081119.wmv

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