Environmental Outlook Increasingly Grim For Portugal

[hatrack]

LISBON, Feb 15 (IPS) - There is little good news on the environmental front in Portugal, which has been afflicted by severe drought and forest fires for nearly three years, and is making poor progress towards climate change goals.

Between 2003 and 2005, a total of 900,000 hectares of forests burned down in Portugal. And climatic extremes are being observed with increasing frequency. The central and southern parts of the country saw snow in late January, for the first time in 53 years. In the meantime, meteorologists have forecast another unusually hot summer, which will inevitably be accompanied by a new wave of forest fires.

Despite the rain and quick-melting snow that fell last month, drought continues to plague most parts of the country, especially the northern region of Tras-os-Montes and the southern region of Alentejo, with the consequent damages to agriculture and stockbreeding.

As if that were not enough, early this month the government of socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates admitted, exactly one year after the Kyoto Protocol went into effect, that Portugal would not meet its climate change targets.

EDIT

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=32172

[fed-up]

1. thank-you for your posts n/t

[NNadir]

2. Portugal has a huge solar commitment, 116 MW peak.

It is the largest solar plant in the world, and the fact that there is no rain should make it a big producer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/renewable/Story/0,2763,1477722,00.html

It works better if no clouds get in the way.