Earth’s oceans are currently the largest natural “sink” for carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, and the amount of CO2 they absorb is rising along with atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas. The more carbon dioxide seawater absorbs, the more acidic it also becomes.

That increased acidity poses a threat to shellfish, because more acidic water can dissolve the calcium carbonate that makes up their shells. But now it looks as if dissolved carbon dioxide itself is also bad for sealife, by affecting their brains and central nervous systems.

In fact, the carbon dioxide levels predicted for the oceans by the end of this century could make fish “crazy,” affecting how they hear, smell, turn and avoid danger, researchers at the Arc Centre say. Young fish appear to be particularly vulnerable, losing a significant amount of their ability to hear predators or to move left and right in a school.

“We’ve now established it isn’t simply the acidification of the oceans that is causing disruption — as is the case with shellfish and plankton with chalky skeletons — but the actual dissolved CO2 itself is damaging the fishes’ nervous systems,” said Philip Munday, who is also a professor at James Cook University.

While the research team studied the impacts of CO2 on clown fish and damsel fish, their study indicates that other fish with high oxygen consumption levels — including some important to the fishing industry — could be similarly affected.

“Protecting public health and food supplies may take precedence over avoiding climate change in most countries, but knowing that these measures also mitigate climate change may help motivate policies to put them into practice,” says lead researcher Drew Shindell of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

“We’ve shown that implementing specific practical emissions reductions chosen to maximize climate benefits would also have important ‘win-win’ benefits for human health and agriculture,” he says.

A combination of 14 pollution-control strategies could curb projected global warming by around 0.5 degrees C (0.9 degrees F) by 2050, boost annual farm yields by up to 135 million metric tons by 2030 and beyond and prevent between 700,000 and 4.7 million premature deaths caused by air pollution each year, the study concludes.

Measures examined in the study include stopping leaks from coal mines, oil and natural gas facilities, and long-distance pipelines; improving wastewater treatment and landfill emissions controls; doing more to aerate rice paddies; and tackling emissions from livestock manure.

Those pollution controls would also more than pay for themselves in all the benefits they generate, researchers found. While the cost of abating methane emissions, for example, is less than $250 per metric ton, the resulting benefits would be valued at $700 to $5,000 per metric ton.

For comparison, modern carbon scrubbing technologies used at some power plants carry a cost of $50 to $100 per ton. Paying for straight-from-the-air carbon capture would require the equivalent of a $10 per gallon tax on gasoline.

“The concentration of CO2 in outside air is 300 times less than in the coal-fired flue gases emitted from a power plant,” said Jennifer Wilcox, an energy and environmental researcher at Stanford University who conducted the carbon scrubbing analysis. “The lower atmospheric concentration makes removal from air much more expensive than removing CO2 directly from the flue gases at the source.”

While scrubbing carbon dioxide straight from flue emissions makes more sense, that strategy itself is far from a reality. Heck, it took 20 years for the US to finally approve standards on mercury and other toxins in coal-fired power plant emissions, and there are still plenty of climate change-deniers in leadership positions who insist more carbon dioxide in the air will be good for us. That put the odds of federal requirements for carbon dioxide scrubbers somewhere in the Koch-Brothers-joining-Greenpeace range.

Instead, the most sensible solution would be to stop producing the carbon dioxide in the first place.

“Ultimately,” Wilcox said, “society needs to move completely away from carbon-based energy resources.”

Wilcox’s soon-to-be-published textbook, by the way, is titled — surprise — “Carbon Capture”. It’s due to be published by Springer on Leap Day, Feb. 29, of this year.

There are two excuses for gas flares, say the oil and gas industries: the first is that there is no other way to transport or process the gas for further use. The second is that it can act as a safety mechanism in gas equipment, to prevent overpressure.

However, according to a report from GE, around 150 billion cubic meters of gas is flared a year. This is the equivalent to:

• Gas use in all US residences
• 30% of EU natural gas use
• 2.4 million barrels of oil per day
• 400 million tonnes of CO2
• Emissions from 77 million cars

That news tends to tarnish any enthusiasm about the recent climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, where leaders basically agreed to try to agree on some form of carbon-reducing plan over the next several years. (Upon which, Canada immediately announced plans to bow out.)

The implications of future coal demand affects more than our plans for a low-carbon economy, though. Considering the level of growth expected, the price of electricity — much of which is still generated by coal-burning power plants — around the world could also spike, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which made the prediction in its new “Medium Term Coal Market Report 2011.”

The reason, not surprisingly, is China. While the fast-developing country has become a global leader in wind energy and photovoltaics production, it still gets most of its electricity the old-fashioned way: by burning coal. It already consumes more than three times as much coal as is traded on the international market, and in 2009 switched suddenly from a major coal exporter to a major importer. With China’s coal hunger poised to grow ever bigger in coming years, that could bring dramatic change to global trade.

“What happens in China over the medium term may impact the prices for electricity that consumers everywhere will have to pay,” said Maria Van der Hoeven, the IEA’s executive director.

Once again, it seems that globalization and “outsourcing” our carbon emissions overseas comes with a higher-than-expected cost.

After falling dramatically post-crisis, global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have not only rebounded but reached a new record high of 9.1 gigatons in 2010, according to the latest figures from the Global Carbon Project (GCP). With the additional impact of emissions from changes in land use, that figure rises to a full 10 gigatons.

“In terms of carbon dioxide emissions, it is as if the 2008-2009 global financial crisis did not happen,” said Glen Peters of CICERO (the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research), who is lead author of the GCP analysis. “Many saw the (global financial crisis) as an opportunity to move the global economy away from persistent and high emissions growth, but the return to emissions growth in 2010 suggests the opportunity was not exploited.”

The 2010 increase in emissions marked both the highest annual growth recorded — 0.51 gigatons — as well as the highest annual growth rate since 2003. And if climate negotiators currently meeting in Durban, South Africa, needed any more sense of urgency, the GCP analysis projects that emissions are likely to keep growing by 3.1 percent this year.

The annual analysis from the GCP attributes the increase to both strong emissions growth in emerging economies and a return to emissions growth in developed economies.

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide now stand at 389.6 parts per million — the highest recorded in at least the past 800,000 years.

That’s 30,000 people coming from as far away as Argentina, Canada, Russia and Trinidad and Tobago … which means thousands upon thousands of planes flown, taxis ridden and hotels booked. And all that means lots of energy consumed and lots of carbon dioxide emitted — the very things that climate talks are aimed at curbing.

Granted, advances in networking technology are making it easier than ever to “meet” with others in far-flung parts of the world without ever leaving home. Cisco, for example — an “official networking technology partner for COP17 (the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) — expects to connect 119 of its TelePresence rooms, as well as 36 Tata Communications Public TelePresence rooms, for an “unparalleled set of video-based virtual collaboration at any large event to date.” Maybe, without technologies like these, the number of people in Durban this week would be even higher, and the resulting carbon footprint even larger.

Is it all worth it, though? Meeting face to face still provides richer, more meaningful opportunities for dialogue and relationship-building than does sitting in a TelePresence room or video-chatting via Skype … however much more efficient those technologies might be than jetting cross-planet. Only one outcome will be able to provide an answer to that question: an agreement that finally sets the world on a more sustainable energy and carbon path.

All the other activity — whether in person or via the “intertubes” — will ultimately be just so much hot air … literally.

As of this week, 327 top business execs have put their names to the fifth, and latest, 2°C Challenge Communiqué. The signed document urges governments to work together and individually to immediately start doing what’s needed to build a more efficient, sustainable and low-carbon global economy.

“Failure by governments to end the deadlock in international negotiations will risk permanent damage to their credibility on this issue,” the communiqué states. ”As business leaders, we believe that the only sustainable future for our companies and for the globe is to build a robust, green, climate‐resilient economy.”

While pundits blather on about this political party or that creating “uncertainty” in the markets, the real uncertainty comes from the current, unsustainable determination to carry on with “business as usual,” some signatories to the communiqué suggest.

“Only this will create the market certainty that is necessary to drive further large scale development of low-carbon smart technologies,” notes Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone.

“Endorsing the 2°C Challenge Communiqué is not an option, but a duty,” adds Jeremy Fain, CEO of Verteego.

The communiqué asks for seven actions from government leaders:

1. Break the deadlock and reach an international agreement at Durban;
2. Put a fair price on carbon to end market distortions by fossil-fuel subsidies and other supports;
3. Cough up the cash needed for a Green Climate Fund to help struggling countries develop low-carbon economies;
4. Provide incentives for innovative technologies, skills and processes;
5. Focus on efficiency with better standards and labeling;
6. Work to end deforestation; and
7. Integrate plans for a low-carbon economy that’s also resilient to the risks posed by climate change.

Adopted this week by the California Air Resources Board, (ARB) the system is part of the state’s overall program targeting climate change. Other climate-focused efforts include standards for ultra-clean cars, low-carbon fuels and renewable electricity. The program also complements and supports California’s existing efforts to reduce smog-forming and toxic air pollutants and improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses.

Under the cap-and-trade system, affected businesses and industries will be allotted a specific number of allowances covering their annual greenhouse gas emissions. Over time, those allowances will be reduced to place an ever-lower “cap” on emissions. Companies that can’t stay beneath the cap will be able to buy allowances from organizations that have been able to reduce their emissions more than required, so have allowances to spare.

California officials say they expect the state program will eventually become a model for a nationwide cap-and-trade system

“Cap-and-trade is another important building block in California’s effort to create a clean and vibrant economy,” said Mary D. Nichols, chairman of the ARB. “It sends the right policy signal to the market, and guarantees that California will continue to attract the lion’s share of investment in clean technology. When the nation addresses the growing danger of climate change, as I believe it must and will, California’s climate plan will serve as the model for a national program.”

California’s cap-and-trade regulation sets a limit on sources that are responsible for 85 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The program will cover 360 businesses and will take effect in two stages. The first phase, starting in 2013, will apply to electricity utilities and all major industrial sources. In 2015, the system will then be expanded to include distributors of transportation fuels, natural gas and other fuels.

Under the program, officials expect the state to bring greenhouse gas emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020.