The Copenhagen Diagnosis was released yesterday in advance of the December 7th United Nations-led climate change conference in Copenhagen —
This report is an update from the 2007 assessment of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
You can read the full report here
Read the Times Colonist story here
The House resumed yesterday after a week long break and the top story was the salary of BC Ferries CEO David Hahn. The report generating the intense debate was requested by the Transportation Minister Shirely Bond but she will not be taking any immediate action.
“…the person who requested the review, B.C. Transportation Minister Shirley Bond, said she’s not ready yet to make any changes.
“BCFS executive compensation was significantly higher than that paid by several larger public sector entities,” said British Columbia’s comptroller general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland in the 97-page Report on Review of Transportation Governance Models.
“For example, the Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO) total 2008/09 compensation was more than double that of the larger public sector comparators,” it said. “We also found that the performance measures and targets used to determine the incentive bonuses for executives made the bonuses easier to attain than we would have expected.”
In July, B.C. Ferries revealed CEO David Hahn last year made over $1 million and four more executives each made around $500,000. ”
Read the full story from the Tyee.
Read the full report: Report on Review of Transportation Governance models
Google.com has had some US public data embedded in its search results for a while now, but as of November 11 the World Bank’s public data has been added to Google search results. According to the Official Google blog, “17 World Development Indicators are now conveniently available to you in Google search….
Complete list of World Bank indicators currently available:
CO2 emissions per capita, Electricity consumption per capita, Energy use per capita, Exports as percentage of GDP, Fertility rate, GDP deflator change, GDP growth rate, GNI per capita in PPP dollars, Gross Domestic Product, Gross National Income in PPP dollars, Imports as percentage of GDP, Internet users as percentage of population, Life expectancy, Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Mortality rate, under 5, Population, and Population growth rate.”
Read the NY Times article here
From the NYT: ” The signing raises the prospect of an empowered Europe with an enhanced global stature. The treaty, which may go into effect as early as Dec. 1, creates a permanent presidential post and sets up a more powerful foreign policy chief supported by a network of diplomats around the world. It seeks to make an increasingly unwieldy bloc more workable by putting in place a new voting system, which reflects countries’ population size, while reducing the number of areas where one country alone can block a proposal. It also gives more power to the directly elected European Parliament.
The rulebook the treaty replaces was out of date, created before the bloc began to expand broadly across Europe; it has taken in 12 new nations since 2004.
Some leaders, including President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, insisted there could be no significant further enlargement of the European Union without the Lisbon Treaty in effect.”
You can read more about the Treaty of Lisbon on the Europa site.
The Treaty at a glance.