But exile is undeniable. A report by the US Army Corps of Engineers predicted that the highest point in the village – the school of Warner's nightmare – could be underwater by 2017. There was no possible way to protect the village in place, the report concluded.
If Newtok can not move its people to the new site in time, the village will disappear. A community of 350 people, nearly all related to some degree and all intimately connected to the land, will cease to exist, its inhabitants scattered to the villages and towns of western Alaska, Anchorage and beyond.
It's a choice confronting more than 180 native communities in Alaska, which are flooding and losing land because of the ice melt that is part of the changing climate.
You want to ask, How can this be happening? When we have all the knowledge in the World to stop this or at .......... least put the damn BRAKES ON it! .... Such a shame! .... .. we've just turned our backs AND our faces to it.... .
EU takes first step towards emissions trading reform
Finance Minister Penny Wong has signalled any decision by cabinet to end Australia’s three-year fixed carbon price would require the government to find savings to cover the loss in revenue. Photo: Glenn Hunt
Carbon
Marcus Priest The European Parliament voted to prop up its ailing emissions trading scheme, a move likely to drive up European carbon prices closer to Australia’s price.
European MPs voted 344 to 311 to temporarily remove up to 900 million permits – known as “back-loading” – for up to seven years. A similar proposal was rejected by the Parliament months ago.
The vote is seen as one of the first steps towards structural reform of the European emissions trading system, which has been plagued by over-supply of permits due to generous allocations to industry and slow economic growth.
Separately, Finance Minister Penny Wong signalled any decision by cabinet to end Australia’s three-year fixed carbon price would require the government to find savings to cover the loss in revenue.
Analysts said the European move would mean that European emissions permits could now rise to around $11.50 a tonne, which is close to the price predicted by Treasury in this year’s budget. The price of European permits rose by 9 per cent after the vote to around $7. Australia’s price rose to $24.15 a tonne July 1.
Technical details and the timing of the withdrawal of permits haven’t been settled and will require endorsement by the EU Council of Ministers. As a result, there remains uncertainty about the measure, given Germany is yet to take a formal position on the initiative.
EU Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard, who campaigned strongly for the measure, called on the EU Council to act quickly so further long-term structural reform could occur quickly.
“With today’s vote, the European Parliament has sent a clear message: Europe needs an effective ETS and a genuinely European climate policy,” she said.
“I, of course, welcome this positive vote, which also shows the European Parliament shares the Commission’s view: we must have a well-functioning European carbon market to boost innovative low-carbon technologies in Europe.”
International Emissions Trading Association spokesman in Australia Rob Fowler said the vote had prevented a further collapse in the price of carbon in Europe.
“The EU is a big example of a design challenge, a design flaw which needs to be corrected,” he said.
On Adelaide radio, Senator Wong said as with the last budget, the government would look for savings to offset the likely fall in revenue from a lower carbon price if there was an early move to emissions trading, which cabinet is considering.
Treasurer Chris Bowen wants cuts in spending to offset any changes to policies that affect revenue or spending.
The Australian Financial Review
Marcus covers federal politics from our Canberra bureau.
UPDATE 1-Ship owners will have to count CO2 emissions under EU plan
Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:05pm BST
* International talks have failed to deliver a plan
* EU plan a step towards a global deal
* Maersk says rules are a pragmatic first step
* Environment campaigners say too little, too late
By Barbara Lewis
BRUSSELS, June 28 (Reuters) - Owners of large ships using EU ports will have to measure and report annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from January 2018 under proposals the European Commission published on Friday.
The plans stop short of including shipping emissions in the EU carbon market and the proposed start date is years later than envisaged in previous debate. But the Commission says they can still have an impact as part of its work towards global emissions agreements.
"The EU monitoring system will bring environmental and economic gains for the shipping sector by increasing transparency about emissions and creating an incentive for ship-owners to cut them," Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action, said in a statement.
The proposals will need approval from EU member states and the European Parliament before they can become law.
They would create an EU-wide legal framework for collecting and publishing verified annual data on CO2 emissions from all large ships (defined as more than 5,000 gross tons) that use EU ports, irrespective of where the ships are registered.
Owners - such as Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S , the group behind the world's biggest container shipping operator - will also be required to provide other information, including fuel consumption and how much freight they have shipped, to determine ships' energy efficiency.
The Commission said the EU-wide monitoring system should cut CO2 emissions from the journeys covered by up to 2 percent.
Debate on how to handle shipping emissions, which the Commission estimates account for 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 4 percent of EU greenhouse gas emissions, has rumbled on for years with little progress.
INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY
Without action, shipping emissions are expected to more than double by 2050 as transport demand grows, the Commission said.
Preliminary discussions between EU member states and the shipping industry addressed the option of including emissions in the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme.
But there is little chance of that happening in the short term, given the international outcry and threats of a trade war that followed an earlier decision to expand the carbon trading scheme to include all flights to and from EU airports.
As a result, the European Union agreed to freeze the charge on intercontinental flights for a year to give the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization a chance to come up with an alternative.
At the same time, talks are under way at the International Maritime Organisation on a global deal for shipping emissions.
The European Commission says its measures on both shipping and airlines are only being introduced pending a worldwide agreement and the EU shipping rules would be modified to conform to any global standards, if agreed.
Maersk, which was involved in consultation on the proposals, said they were a pragmatic step towards a market-based mechanism and would make shippers "even more focused on fuel consumption".
"At least they started on a more pragmatic track than they did on aviation," Niels Bjorn Mortensen, director of regulatory affairs at Maersk Maritime Technology, told Reuters.
Some environmental campaigners urged EU policy-makers to think again and propose a regional market-based measure.
"Monitoring, reporting and verifying is all very well, but we also need emissions reduction," John Maggs of non-governmental organisation Seas at Risk said in a statement.
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