Morning News Roundup (29 Mar)

• British Prime Minister Tony Blair says urgent action is needed to tackle climate change and must include all the world's major economies and developing nations. He told a climate change conference in Wellington that countries needed to go further than the UN's Kyoto Protocol of 1997, the agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that expires in 2012. [AFP/Yahoo!]
  
  (After starting to read the Time magazine cover story on global warming, I'm certainly feeling much more urgent.)
  
  Blair's comments came a day after the publication of his government's climate policy review, which indicated that Britain is likely to better Kyoto's target of a 12.5 percent reduction in overall carbon emissions. On the other hand, it also suggested his government would fall short of its own long-standing commitment to cut carbon dioxide gases by 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2010.
  
  Yesterday, the UK government unveiled new "ambitious" plans to reduce CO2 emissions, which include:
  
  
  • "Smart meters" will be piloted, enabling consumers to monitor their energy use.
  
  
  • Changes to the vehicle excise duty and company car tax will reward consumers and business for buying low carbon cars
  
  
  • By 2010, 5% of transport fuel sold in the UK will have to come from a renewable source
  
  
• Blair, speaking in Australia, also backed an Asia-Pacific climate partnership that includes India, China and the United States, saying it was not aimed at undermining the Kyoto protocol on cutting gas emissions.
  
  Australia and the United States have not signed up to the Kyoto emissions targets, saying the targets would threaten economic growth and would be worthless without the involvement of major developing countries such as China and India. The Asia-Pacific climate partnership looks at how to develop technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions rather than having specific targets. [ENN]
  
  
• BushCo released new gas mileage requirements for pickup trucks, SUVs, and vans--which now includes the Hummer H2 and Chevrolet Suburban for the first time. Under the CAFE system, automakers now must meet an average of 21.6 mpg for their 2006 model year light trucks. That average will rise to 22.2 mpg for 2007 vehicles. Under the new rules, the fleetwide average would reach 24.1 mpg by 2011, a slight change from the proposal made last summer. [AP/MSNBC]
  
  
• Australia braced for the second powerful cyclone to strike in two weeks as a category-five storm bore down on the country's west coast. Cyclone Glenda was upgraded to the highest category of tropical storm overnight, meaning it was producing extremely dangerous wind gusts of up to 280 kilometers per hour (174 miles per hour). [TerraDaily]
  
  
• Gulf Coast residents will experience “quick and massive evacuations during the upcoming hurricane season, even if the approaching storm is minimal,” due to their fragility of their temporary housing. It’s especially bad news since New Orleans still lacks even a single emergency shelter. [ThinkProgress]
  
  
• Raw Story has a leaked copy of the Congressional Democrats' National Security plan, which outlines the party's strategies with regards to securing the US from terrorist attacks and "restoring" the US position abroad. Daily Kos diarist Georgia10 also has a look. More on this later.
  
  
• Baghdad blogger Riverbend offers this chilling report from the ground (hat tip to the wonderful Soj), based on a message broadcast on TV:
  

  “The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.”
  
  That’s how messed up the country is at this point.
  [...]
  We sat drinking tea, mulling over the possibilities. It confirmed what has been obvious to Iraqis since the beginning- the Iraqi security forces are actually militias allied to religious and political parties.
  
  But it also brings to light other worrisome issues. The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can’t even trust its own personnel, unless they are “accompanied by American coalition forces”.

  
  
• Another workers' strike--this time in Britain. Unison, one of the country's largest unions, said more than a million people refused to go to work in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. At issue is a system in which many government workers can retire with full benefits at age 60 if they have completed 25 years of service. This fall, the government says, rising costs will force it to scrap the "rule of 85" -- for teaching assistants, police community support officers, school-meal workers, garbage collectors and other local government employees, forcing them to work longer before they retire. [WaPo]