Tourism and garbage in Bali

Paper, Plastic, Other? Let's scavengers decide
Jakarta Post 14 Dec 07;

Welcoming more than 10,000 participants of the United Nations climate change conference, Nusa Dua demonstrated its green practice when it comes to garbage.

At the conference venue at the Bali International Convention Center, organizers have placed a set of three trash bins at several points, one for plastic garbage, one for paper and one for others. The arrangement may show delegates the area is part of an integrated recycle system.

The truth is there is no garbage handling system in place in Nusa Dua or Badung regency in general. All garbage, regardless of its type, is dumped at Suwung, some 20 kilometers north of Nusa Dua. Much is even disposed of at illegal dump sites on vacant lands or in mangrove forests.

In labor-intensive Indonesia, sorting is conducted by scavengers; many roam across cities hunting out recyclable garbage while some live near dumps. The scavengers take only those promising an income and leave the useless.

One such illegal dump was located by the main road leading to the BICC, causing a small itch in the eye.

Monday afternoon on Dec. 10, when President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and high-level officials from abroad arrived in Bali, the Badung authorities tried to doctor the itch. They closed the illegal dump, covering it with a solid fence, after cleaning a mountain of garbage from the site.

"Some officials came yesterday afternoon. They looked tense. They sent a machine to remove a heap of garbage there on the mangrove forest next to the land. Afterwards, they fenced the plot," an employee of a restaurant next to the formerly illegal dump told The Jakarta Post Tuesday.

"It used to be a dump site. People came on motorbikes at night and dropped their garbage there," a scavenger living near the site said with a Javanese accent.

About a dozen other scavengers, plus a goat, live there.

There are two further dump sites, about one kilometer apart, near a school deep inside a village. Motorists traveling on the by-pass road may not spot these dumps. One of them used to be a mangrove forest. The waste here appears to be from households, as it packed in small plastic bags.

The other dump site, which is bigger in size, looks like the place to dispose of waste, apparently from a hospitality business. There are bunches of large black plastic bags as well as boxes of empty milk cartons. A dead mouse adds to the messy scenery.

Problems with garbage here are partly related to the Balinese penchant for pigs and tourism.

I Ketut Teji, a pig farmer, recounted that about two decades ago he was paid by hotels to haul their garbage. He took the kitchen waste to feed his pigs and dumped the rest at Suwung on his way home not far from the dump site. "Other haulers sometimes just dumped the rest of the garbage on vacant plots or mangrove forests. Suwung was too far for them," he said.

After some time, Teji said, the hotels started to see the value of the garbage, while the demand for kitchen waste as pig feed was also on the rise.

Hotels stopped paying him and instead Teji, like other pig farmers, had to pay the hotels. "Now, I pay a hotel for Rp 1 million a year. I get the pig feed but I have to dump the rest at my own expense."

"Hotels should pay for a professional hauler to manage their waste. Otherwise, Bali's garbage problem will continue to deteriorate and tourists will leave," Olivier Pouillon, the manager of garbage hauler PT Jimbaran Lestari, said.

The company was founded by a local Jimbaran resident who once worked like Teji. He hauled garbage from hotels, took the pig feed, and dumped the rest near one hotel. He later met Pouillon and his friends who then worked for an environmental foundation. They set up "a formal integrated waste management system", offering their services to hotels.

Amidst tight competition over garbage, asking hotels to pay for their garbage is not easy, Pouillon said.

"We now work with about 25 hotels around Nusa Dua, Jimbaran and Benoa. They are good hotels that care about the environment."

At Jimbaran Lestari, 30 workers sort garbage from about 25 trucks every day. They separate plastic, paper, hard paper, organic waste from kitchen, organic waste from garden, and TetraPak packages. Leaves from garden are being composted and given back to hotels for garden maintenance.

The residue, Pouillon said, amounts to about five trucks. "From 25 trucks of garbage, we only dump five of them at Suwung. The other 20 are recycled."

He claims the company’s recycling practice manages to reduce about 800 tons of methane, which equals about 1,700 tons of CO2 emission per month. "It could be more if only more hotels were willing to pay for their waste management," he said. (Evi Mariani/***)

Read more!

Don’t nuke the climate

Jakarta Post 14 Dec 07;

While the ‘high level segment’ of the climate negotiations is about to start everyone involved is also aware of the difficult decisions that are to be made. There seems to be a lot of optimism inside the convention centre and according to officials we are close to agreements.

While that would be a success in itself we should not forget that the real tough decisions and actions are to be taken in the coming years; how will we actually achieve the targets that we agreed upon.

Of course, we have savings and more efficiency, and we know there is much even so called low hanging fruit in there still. But we will also need more energy, at least for many developing countries who have the full right to increase their energy consumption, hopefully mainly helping the almost 2 billion people who currently do not even have access to electricity.

If the environmental movement, together with a coalition of willing governments manage to set very high standards for solutions as bio fuels and clean coal the pressure to go nuclear will increase.

And so one can already see this happening in the climate talks. From our 30 years experience of working on this issue my organisation strongly believe this would be the wrong path to go, not only dragging us into a new era of nuclear pollution, cost-overruns, accidents, more radioactive waste for which we don’t have a solution but also leading necessary investments in the wrong direction, effectively locking us in for many years.

Nuclear energy is not a sustainable energy source. Not only does it effectively contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases (life-cycle analysis show that a kilowatt of nuclear energy emits as much as one from a modern gas-fired plant), are we running out of the be-needed uranium, some of the man-made radioactive elements like plutonium will be with us forever, causing cancers and leukaemia for hundreds of generations to come.

Some argue that we have no choice but to accept nuclear in the so-called transition phase, the 30 or so years in which we leave behind the fossil era and move towards the real sustainable energy future. One should than take into account that there are two very good reasons not to accept nukes even for a limited period. First are the costs. A single modern nuclear power station costs about 3.5 billion dollar to build. That is, if everything goes smoothly. The only western country currently building an npp (Finland) has to deal with large cost overruns. This is all money that, if invested in clean energy sources, would much quicker be able to serve the needs. And without any environmental disadvantages.

Second is the timing. We need climate action and we need it now. It takes at least 15 years (again, if everything goes as anticipated) to build an npp. If we would only want to replace the existing fleet as they are in the coming decades to be closed because of aging, we would need to build dozens of them.

There is no way the industry is capable of doing this. Let alone real new plants to meet the growing need for energy. It would be too late, too expensive and too dirty. So, accepting nuclear as part of the solution to fight climate change would effectively only mean new huge state subsidies and incentives for a nuclear industry which has, despite having had 50 years to proof itself, completely failed to deliver an affordable, clean and reliable source of energy

In 2000 we managed to keep the nuclear option out of the so-called flexible mechanisms going with the Kyoto-agreement. We now have to be very aware of this danger again and make sure that any post Kyoto agreement recognises nuclear as a false solution.

(Peer de Rijk, Nusa Dua, Bali. The writer is Executive Director of World Information Service on Energy.(WISE)

Read more!

Are biofuels a sustainable solution to climate change?

Jakarta Post 14 Dec 07;

Many countries at this year’s climate change conference – including China, the European Union countries, and the U.S. – have set targets for the use of biofuels to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Biofuels are liquid fuels made from animal or plant matter. Burning them to power vehicles can result in fewer emissions per unit of energy than using petroleum fuels. Their production may also promote rural development and national energy security.

Biofuels may not in fact be a sustainable solution to climate change.

Depending on the plants used to make the fuel, the production process, and the policy frameworks of governments, biofuels may lead to rising food prices, soil degradation, loss of biodiversity, increased rural poverty, and greater GHG emissions due to deforestation.

The U.S. is the world’s second largest producer of biofuels, and this is mostly ethanol made from corn. The enthusiasm of the Government for corn ethanol arguably has little to do with its environmental benefits, and much more to do with reducing dependence on oil imports, and reducing government subsidies paid to corn farmers.

An increase in demand for corn because of new domestic targets for ethanol has driven up the price and in turn leads to the government saving some US$6billion in subsidies to corn farmers.

These economic benefits of corn ethanol to the United States economy are what drive its growth. But it has negative consequences elsewhere. As demand for corn as a fuel rises, so too does its price. In late 2006 prices of corn jumped by 65 percent, effecting both global corn prices and the price of other foods such as soy beans which are used to substitute for corn in animal feed. These shifts in production, demand and price for U.S. corn have significant implications for food security in food importing countries.

These impacts on food prices need to be set against the modest reductions in GHG emissions from corn ethanol. At present ethanol can only be mixed with gasoline in quantities of up to 10 percent (described as E10) without engine modification. Given ethanol provides less power to an engine than gasoline, more fuel is required to travel the same distance. Therefore studies indicate using E10 may actually result in a net increase in emissions.

The development of palm oil biodiesel in Indonesia provides another example where biofuels may have significant negative impacts. The aggregate economic benefits of palm oil biodiesel seem good. The Government aims to create millions of jobs and $1.3 billion worth of exports by 2010 through new palm oil plantations and value-added exports. Recent regional development plans have designated 20 million hectares for oil palm plantations, mainly in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and West Papua.

The areas suitable for oil palm cultivation in Indonesia overlap significantly with the areas of lowland tropical rainforest, which are home to more than 6 percent of the world’s plant species, 6 percent of mammal species, 7 percent of reptile and amphibian species, 10 percent of bird species, and 15 percent of the world’s fish species. An expansion of plantations into these areas would mean the loss of large amounts of biodiversity.

Clearing rainforests that grow in peat spoils for new palm oil plantations would also mean a huge release of emissions. These emissions would be many times larger than those saved by the burning of biodiesel instead of conventional diesel. Already a quarter of the plantations in Indonesia are on peat soils, and most of the new expansion is likely to be in these areas.

The establishment of palm oil plantations in Indonesia has also often involved the forced displacement of communities, and this can result in violent conflict, assault, torture, murder, and the destruction of property.

The growth in employment from new plantations may not mean an improvement in livelihoods as local people have little choice but to become palm oil labourers when the forests surrounding their village are occupied by plantations.

The increasing international demand for palm oil as a fuel and as a substitute for corn as an animal feed has meant palm oil producers in Indonesia can earn more from exports than from domestic sales. For this reason local palm oil prices have increased by a third in recent times.

These examples illustrate that many biofuels may be good for business, but are not a sustainable solution to greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector. They result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and an increase in poverty and food insecurity in many parts of the world.

There are many more efficient and effective means for reducing emissions from transport that do not present significant risks to people and the environment. Alternatives include reducing the weight of vehicles and the size of engines, increasing the efficiency and fuel economy of vehicles, increasing fuel prices, improved urban planning to encourage walking, cycling, and the use of public transport.

Josie Lee and Jon Barnett, Jakarta. Josie Lee and Jon Barnett are environmental professors at Melbourne University

Read more!

New York mayor says US already leading climate change fight

Yahoo News 14 Dec 07;

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed Friday that local US leaders would spearhead the fight against climate change despite President George W. Bush's hardline stance in global talks.

Bloomberg, visiting a deadlocked UN conference in Bali on global warming, signed a pledge with London's Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron that their cities would slash carbon emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels.

The mayor has already launched a plan to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2030, including by making New York taxis eco-friendly within five years and improving energy efficiency of buildings, power plants and mass transit.

"I don't think any other city is doing as much as we're doing -- perhaps London, perhaps Chicago," or Berlin, Bloomberg said.

"If you look at history, America sometimes having to be cajoled and nudged a little bit after sitting around too long in retrospect, but America has always done what's right," he said.

"At the local level, where it really matters, changes are being made and I think we'll find, when we write the history of this sometime in the future, when we look back, America will have done its part," he said.

"If it were up to me, I think we would have done more, quicker," added Bloomberg, who has advocated mandatory emissions cuts and a carbon tax.

The United States is the only major industrial nation to reject the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates cuts in emission, with Bush arguing it is too costly for the economy.

The US delegation in Bali is clashing with the European Union and developing nations, which want a mention of 25-40 percent cuts in carbon emissions by 2020 as an ambition for negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol's successor.

Nobel laureate Al Gore on Thursday urged the conference to take strong action with or without the United States, predicting change once Bush leaves office in January 2009.

Bloomberg, 65, a billionaire who has stirred speculation of an independent presidential run, dismissed a reporter's question on whether he would be Gore's running mate if the former vice president again sought the White House.

"I'm not a candidate and I'm too old to work for someone else," he deadpanned.

Read more!

Deal to fight deforestation agreed at climate talks

Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters 14 Dec 07;

"We will need to find a new mechanism that values standing forests. Because ultimately if this does its job, (deforestation) should go down to nothing."

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Climate talks in Bali reached a deal on Friday to tackle greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, hailed as a sign of developing nations' commitment to fighting global warming.

The breakthrough might eventually allow poor but forested nations to turn conservation into a tradeable commodity, with the potential to earn billions of dollars selling carbon credits.

But one of the scheme's key architects warned that, if successful, it will create such large emissions reductions that carbon markets could collapse unless rich nations take on more stringent reductions targets.

Destruction of forests produces about 20 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions, so their conservation is vital to limiting rises in global temperatures.

Deforestation had been left out of previous climate deals because of concerns about how to work out which trees were threatened, and that any scheme would reward countries destroying forests rather than those protecting their resources.

"Forests have been the elephants in the corner of the climate change process," said Andrew Mitchell, executive director of Global Canopy Programme, adding that markets were the only way to find the billions of dollars a year needed to protect forests.

"We cannot expect philanthropy or governments to come up with this amount of money sustainably," he said.

The new deal, which has been agreed but is yet to be formally approved, provides a framework for countries to start pilot projects and lay the groundwork for broader programs.

A planned $300 million World Bank fund will help pay for forest surveys and other groundwork, and finance the first projects but the scheme has been driven by developing nations.

U.S. scientist Peter Frumhoff, Director of Science and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the project -- also known as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) -- was a sign of poorer countries' sense of urgency about tackling global warming.

"It sends a very powerful signal to my home country that developed countries are committed to reducing their emissions in a way that we in the United States must also be committed to."

CARBON, DIVERSITY CONCERNS

But Kevin Conrad, executive director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations and Papua New Guinea's climate change envoy said that when the pace of programs picked up, they would generate so many credits it would skew carbon markets.

At present under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, rich nations can pay for emissions' reducing projects in the developing world and earn credits to put towards domestic quotas. But Conrad said REDD required tighter targets.

"The only way that we are going to bring in new supplies is if there are deeper cuts (for rich nations)," he told journalists on the sidelines of the U.N.-led climate talks.

"We are not going to flood the market and then drop prices for everybody and not be able to overcome any of the opportunity costs," he added.

Activists also say the deal does not contain a strong enough commitment to biodiversity or offer any way to help poor countries pay for conservation of already-protected forest.

"We will need to find a new mechanism that values standing forests," Mitchell said. "Because ultimately if this does its job, (deforestation) should go down to nothing."

Also vital is preventing "leakage" of logging and deforestation to countries outside the scheme, which would make any carbon sequestration worthless.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

Climate plan to adopt forest protection
Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 15 Dec 07;

Delegates at a U.N. climate conference have agreed to include forest conservation in any future discussions about a new global warming pact, paving the way for billions of dollars in new spending to attack illegal logging, officials said.

With deforestation making up 20 percent of global emissions, world governments are desperate to find a solution to a problem that has been fueled by rising demand for timber and palm oil, widespread corruption and endemic poverty.

The program, Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Degradation, aims to pay mostly developing tropical countries enough money to keep their trees in the ground — and thus continue to absorb carbon — rather than allowing them to be chopped down for a profit.

The agreement will be part of negotiations for a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012 and is "a good balance between different countries views," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said Friday.

"It is one of the substantial achievements of this conference."

Saving tropical rain forests, especially in the Amazon, Indonesia and Congo basin in Africa, has been marked by a series of failures the past three decades.

About 32 million acres of forest — or twice the size of Panama — are lost each year to logging, agriculture and other activities, according to the World Bank. Brazil and Indonesia — where 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation — are the worst effected due to rampant illegal logging and the growing demand for biofuels and other commodities like soybeans.

But with as much as $23 billion — the amount of money that could be raised through the program — conservationist and governments from tropical countries say there is renewed hope that the trend can be reversed.

"This is an important agreement because we need to have emissions included in the Bali roadmap," said Greenpeace Brasil's Paulo Adario.

The agreement calls for providing assistance to countries in the tropics to reduce deforestation and what is called degradation — mostly farming and small scale logging that destroys the forest undergrowth. It also includes a reference to conservation, a demand of India and Costa Rica, which want financial assistance for the work already done to protect their forests.

Other projects would help develop mechanisms to determine the best way to verify a country's claims of reducing deforestation and the method of providing assistance.

Brazil, for example, would like Western governments to provide aid to a fund for countries that are reducing deforestation. Papua New Guinea and other developing nations want a system where countries could get credit for saving their forests, which eventually could be traded for money.

Associated Press writer Chris Brummitt contributed to this report.

Read more!

China says water supplies exploited by 2030

Chris Buckley, Reuters 14 Dec 07;

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will have exploited all available water supplies to the limit by 2030, the government has warned, ordering officials to prepare for worse to come as global warming and economic expansion drain lakes and rivers.

As well, a state newspaper warned on Friday that drought next year could hit crops and stoke already heady inflation.

China's surface and underground water supplies are under strain from feverish economic growth and a population passing 1.3 billion. And scarcity will worsen with global warming, the central government warned in a directive.

"In recent years economic and social development has led to increasing water demand, and with the impact of global warming, drought and water scarcity are increasingly grave," said a directive issued by the office of the State Council, or cabinet, late on Thursday.

"Taking into full account water-saving, by 2030 our country's water use will reach or approach the total volume of exploitable water resources, and the drought-fighting situation will be increasingly serious."

The document on the government Web site (www.gov.cn) urges officials to make emergency plans for coping with drought and promises more spending on water-saving technology and artificial rain-making. Local governments must also develop policies to aid and compensate drought-hit farmers.

China has about 7 percent of the planet's water resources to nourish a fifth of the global population, the government has estimated. Scientists have said that by 2030, China's potential grain output could fall by 10 percent, unless crop varieties and practices adapt to climate change.

China is at the centre of international talks in Bali struggling to agree on a framework for future negotiations on an international pact to fight global warming.

But drought is already a chronic burden for many farmers, especially in the country's west. An official newspaper said on Friday that drought next year could cut crops and stoke already heady inflation.

The country's consumer inflation hit an 11-year-high at 6.9 percent in November, fuelled largely by rising prices for foods.

The People's Daily, mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party, said drought in the south in 2008 could add to pressure on the national "food basket."

"Localized regional drought is extremely likely to have the same effect as yanking one hair to pull the whole body," the report said, using a traditional saying.

With winter crops in southern China already hit by drought, the paper said, "we must take this seriously and avoid setting hidden perils for next year's agricultural production growth, especially cereals."

Contradicting officials' recent assurances that increased farm production next year was likely to dampen inflation, the People's Daily said extended drought in the south could drive down crop yields and drive up food prices.

"The problem of prices at the end of this year and early next merits serious attention," it said.

China could call on its massive stockpile of foreign exchange reserves, which stood at $1.455 trillion at the end of October, to shop around the world for more food, a planning official said on Thursday.

(Editing by Roger Crabb)

Read more!

WWF helps in the Philippines in whale shark conservation

GMANewsTV 14 Dec 07;

Environmental group World Wildlife Fund has pitched in efforts to conserve the “butanding," or Philippine whale shark, with satellite tracking tags and a photo-identification system.

The WWF, in a statement on its Web site (www.wwf.org), said WWF used this technology recently on some 300 whale harks in Donsol town in Sorsogon province in Bicol.

“WWF-Philippines, supported by WWF-Denmark, recently forged a partnership with Australia-based ECOCEAN to catalogue Donsol’s famed seasonal visitors in a bid to protect the migratory creatures of the Coral Triangle. The results break new ground and give us a glimpse into the migration patterns of this most secretive of giants," it said.

It said the whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) have been cruising Philippine seas for over 200 million years and are one of just three planktivorous or filter-feeding sharks.

Yet, it said little is known of their habits as fewer than 350 sightings have been recorded prior to the 1980s, and it was just recently when scientists began to study them in detail.

WWF also noted Donsol transformed into a busy tourist attraction since its whale shark eco-tourism program was established barely a decade ago.

“Success comes with responsibility. The ever-increasing number of tourists is feared to drive off the seaborne giants," said WWF-Project Manager Ruel Pine.

“The lack of information on Butanding migration routes lead to frequent injuries from boat propellers, untended ropes and fishing nets," he said.

He added inattentive boatmen often run over whale sharks feeding near the surface, where plankton abounds.

WWF researcher Dave David added that sliced dorsal fins are now common, and over half the new sharks we identified had fresh scars.

Pine said due protection can only be administered if practical scientific knowledge is made available.

“Our work in satellite tagging and pattern identification provides us with a clear picture of both shark population size and migratory routes. This will help identify which sea-lanes to protect. Additionally, the distribution of these fish can indicate ocean health through the abundance of their food – plankton," he said.

He said 70 new sharks were identified, boosting Donsol’s documented visitors to 116.

“Whale shark photo-identification is a non-invasive approach in identifying individuals. Each photographed shark is logged and uploaded into a centralized repository of information, the ECOCEAN library, where it is automatically catalogued, matched and if possible, identified as a previously-known individual," Pine said.

Satellite tags were also utilized to track migration routes. The devices, which cost from P100,000 to P400,000 each, were attached to eight sharks last May.

“Although the sharks are protected in Donsol, there is a pressing need to manage their protection as they travel along their migratory routes. Our satellite results will give us a strong basis to establish protected areas in the Coral Triangle," Pine said.

WWF said its efforts will help strengthen the tourism industry of Donsol and the overall conservation of Philippine whale sharks.

Practical management schemes will soon be developed to ensure that the next generations will continue to marvel at this most charismatic of species, it added. - GMANews.TV

Read more!

I'm dreaming of a free Christmas

Gifts and baubles are hard on the purse, and the planet. Can Rebecca Armstrong do the festive season without spending?
The Independent 13 Dec 07;

'What do you want for Christmas?" is the question that's being asked up and down the country as we all wonder what we're going to give our loved ones on 25 December.

I know what I want. It's not a hi-tech hairdryer or a cashmere cardigan, an MP3 player or a pair of slippers. I want to get through Christmas without going into debt or obliterating my overdraft.

And while saving money might not seem very festive, it's a sensible way to approach a season that, according to the British Retail Consortium, saw us spend an extra £11bn on presents, decorations and food last year.

The BRC also calculates that Christmas Day costs each household £975. As Joanna Elson, chief executive of the Money Advice Trust, says, " Everyone wants the best for their families at Christmas, and some find it hard to avoid getting into debt at this time of year."

And it's not just the financial cost. The surge in consumerism and indulgence at Christmas is costly to the planet, too. By reducing what I buy, I can save money and avoid contributing to the waste mountain that accumulates before, during and after Christmas.

So I've set myself a challenge: forget doing Christmas on the cheap – I'm going to see if I can be festive... for free. And without short-changing my nearest and dearest.

My first challenge is finding and sending Christmas cards, and it's a toss-up between making my own and sending e-cards. While making cards is more personal, I will a) have to pay postage and b) add to the pile of cards my friends and relations will already be accumulating. The Recycling Consortium reports that Britain's bins are filled with 1 billion Christmas cards every year. You might not be able to put an e-card on the mantelpiece but they are free, green and, best of all, I don't have to remember anyone's postcode to send them. The World Land Trust (www.worldlandtrust.org) has a selection of 33 nature-inspired cards that fit the bill.

I've left it a little late but I fancy counting down the last days to Christmas with an Advent calendar. When I was growing up, my mother set a great example by insisting I used the same Advent calendar every year, saving money and waste. For a similarly no-cost approach with a new twist, Tate Modern has created a free online Advent calendar (www.tate.org.uk/adventcalendar/2007) featuring works of art from the Tate Collection chosen by Tate Members.

Now I need to find a Christmas tree and decorate it. I discover that a bauble exchange has been set up in Covent Garden Piazza as part of a " festive extravaganza" known as Christmas Deluxe (www. christmas-deluxe.com). The exchange, which will run to 23 December, is the brainchild of Judy Berger, the woman behind fashion exchange website www.whatsmine isyours.com. When I visit her in her underground grotto she is surrounded by tinsel, Advent candles, baubles and sparkling lights – spoils from the swappers who have already been to visit.

I'm hoping to exchange some beaded tinsel, a few plastic reindeer and a stripy bauble for some items to deck my halls. Berger works out how much credit I'm due – £8 – and points me in the direction of the exchange. I see some silver twine decorated with little angels at £1 a length – as Berger puts it, it gives "a lot of bang for my buck" – and some baubles. I grab three, then spy a bag full of mini silver baubles worth £5 – that little lot is more than enough to spruce up a tree.

Instead of getting one of the 8 million Christmas trees that Britain goes through every year – that generate 12,000 tons of rubbish – I'm going to make use of the long twigs scattered about in my local park. Dried out and bound together with some of the silver angel twine, they don't look half bad and once the baubles have been added, my arrangement is almost as impressive as last year's traditional tree. Then it's on to the biggest challenge by far – finding decent gratis gifts but not looking like a total skinflint in the process.

In this quest, my helpers are a handful of recycling websites that have got wise to the plight of penniless would-be shoppers and those who want to buy gifts without actually buying anything new. Efreeko.co.uk has a section for Christmas gifts, which must be new and unopened items to qualify. I spot a ladies' bathroom set my mum might like and Star Wars Monopoly – perfect for my big kid of a fiancé. The only thing I have to pay to get these gifts is postage and packaging, which amounts to a total of £9.50 for both items. Freecycle.org is another good site, and you can post a request for items or browse what's on offer. There's no guarantee any of the items are new, so check that out with whoever is offering a product before committing.

My little brother and sister are video-game addicts so, with a heavy heart, I sift through my collection of games and fillet out those I'm unlikely to play again. A quick visit to my local Computer and Videogames Exchange (www.cex.co.uk) and I've exchanged a stack of games for two very nearly new Nintendo titles I know my siblings are longing for. When it comes to my dad, a gadget freak of the highest order, I have a bright idea. Calling up a group of my techy friends, I suggest we have our own swapping party with bits of kit we've never used and, after giving up a wind-up radio – hardly used – and a set of miniature Óscrewdrivers, I'm left with a memory stick-cum-MP3 player that, unbelievably, has never been out of its box.

Other than giving up my own unloved objects, I had to spend a tenner on a couple of bottles of wine to encourage generosity but feel that I've done pretty well to source all my gifts for less than £20. Cards sent, calendar opened, decorations sorted and presents wrapped – in newspaper – and my work is done. It might not be the most chic Christmas shopping I've ever done but it's definitely the cheapest, and that's exactly what I wanted this year.

How to reduce your festive footprint

* Academics at the University of Manchester estimate that producing a dinner for eight people generates 20kg of CO2 emissions. Reduce the impact of your spread by buying local, seasonal produce, cooking food in the oven rather than using the hob and composting vegetables and suitable leftovers.

* Fairy lights can add £75 to your electricity bill and result in 500kg more CO2 emissions per household, say researchers at the Environment Institute at the University of York. Buy energy-efficient LED fairy lights or restrict lighting up to a couple of hours in the evening.

* Britain's bins are filled with an extra 750 million bottles and 500 million drinks cans after Christmas. There's no excuse not to recycle those extra containers so fill up your recycling box and visit the local bottle banks – or don't drink so much in the first place!

* Out of 8 million Christmas trees bought last year, only about 1 million were recycled. Most councils run a recycling scheme, so log on to to find out how to go about getting rid of yours in the greenest possible way. Real trees absorb an estimated 5 million tons of CO2 per year, so forget buying a plastic version and go for the real deal.

* Last year, 125,000 tons of plastic wrapping were ditched after the big day, according to the Recycling Consortium. When shopping for gifts, decorations and edible goodies, look for those with the least packaging to avoid leaving a lasting impression on landfill sites.

Read more!

Planet Bali: Exploring the parallel worlds of the UN climate conference

David Shukman, BBC News 14 Dec 07

Bali is only a relatively small island but at the moment it can feel like it's home to no fewer than three very different planets.

There's the planet of the official business of the United Nations climate conference - the hermetically-sealed bubble of the thousands of delegates, activists and media where the daily currency is speeches, statements and press conferences.

This is the public face of this massive event; a world of suits, documents and slogans.

Hardly a minute goes by without some distinguished minister uttering one or more of the following words or phrases: "urgent", "catastrophe", "action" and - most commonly - "the time for talk is over."

This is also the planet where worried delegates from Belize, Burkina Faso and Mauritania plead for help to cope with floods and droughts and hurricanes.

There are genuine cases of need and a real hope that something will come out of all this.

But then there's another planet here at the talks, one inhabited by a mysterious and mostly invisible breed of negotiators.

We rarely see these shadowy figures, but occasionally hear word of their efforts behind the scenes.

They gather for formal meetings and huddles and one-to-ones, and their trade is in the minutely calibrated meanings of particular words.

A treaty is different to an arrangement, a process is something distinct from a dialogue, a commitment doesn't necessarily mean a promise to do something.

This is a world of impenetrable acronyms and bewildering language. Days can be lost in the haggling over a single phrase.

But it's on this planet that the outcome of the whole event depends, whether anything concrete is agreed, whether this meeting actually leads to cuts in greenhouse gases.

Real world, real problems

And then there's a third planet, the real one; a world recognisable to most of humanity.

I ventured into it during a break in the conference.

I drove for two hours up into the hills in the centre of Bali, guided by two experts from Conservation International.

Amid the terraces of the steep bright green hills, dotted with ornate temples and pretty villages, I met a rice farmer harvesting his crop.

We talked about how Mangku Candra is faring. The weather has become unpredictable, he told me.

The rains arrive late and haven't delivered enough water in the past four years. Yields of rice on his small plot are down by about a quarter.

For a subsistence farmer this really matters. And it's a foretaste of what the UN climate panel said could happen in South-East Asia - changing patterns could threaten crops and the availability of food for millions of people.

I realised that this man - barefoot and poor - was living through what the experts were talking about on their air-conditioned planets.

He didn't have much time for talk, he had work to do. And I had a conference to return to.

Read more!

Governments agree on new UN-backed pact to protect sharks

UN News Centre 13 Dec 07;

13 December 2007 – Dozens of governments agreed in principle today to a new United Nations global agreement to protect sharks, which have long been neglected by conservationists and overexploited by the modern fishing industry.

Three of the largest and most iconic shark species – migratory whale, great white and basking sharks – have been singled out for protection in the agreement reached after a three-day meeting, also attended by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and fisheries bodies, in the Indian Ocean nation of Seychelles.

The meeting was organized by the Convention on Migratory Species, an intergovernmental treaty concluded under the aegis of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) that seeks to conserve wildlife and habitats on a global scale.

Although it had been feared that the interests of individual fisheries would thwart an agreement from being reached, the meeting’s chairman, Rolph Payet, announced that Governments had resolved their differences.

To be finalized next year, the agreement will promote cooperation among governments, fisheries bodies, scientists and NGOs, as well as further efforts to conserve sharks, including putting controls on shark finning given the surging worldwide demand for fins as a luxury food.

It also includes encourages the creation of a global shark database and identifying and protecting critical shark habitats and migration routes.

Robert Hepworth, Executive Secretary of UNEP/CMS, said that this latest agreement brings the total number of new agreements having secured international approval to eight this year. Aside from sharks, these cover the following endangered migratory animals: ruddy-headed geese, birds of prey, sea cows, small whales, Mediterranean monk seals, grassland birds and gorillas.

“The challenge now is to get these new agreements into full operation so they can change the survival prospects of all these precious species,” he observed.

Read more!

Cities to turn out the lights for climate change: WWF

Yahoo News 13 Dec 07;

Major cities around the world will plunge into darkness for an hour in March 2008 to mark their commitment to battling climate change, conservation group WWF said Friday.

Toronto, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Copenhagen and Chicago and many other cities in Asia, Europe and North America will switch off the lights on March 29 for the so-called Earth Hour, the group announced.

James Leape, head of WWF International, hailed the "unique global event" as a demonstration of the world's commitment to fighting global warming, which climate scientists say is one of the planet's gravest long-term problems.

"During Earth Hour, governments, businesses, community leaders and individuals will be turning out their lights and switching on their support for actions that can help make a difference in the most significant challenge facing the world today," Leape said in a statement.

The announcement came as the world's environment ministers and senior delegates thrashed out the details on a new climate change road map in Bali, Indonesia as talks entered 11th-hour haggles with key issues unresolved.

"While we expect the government leaders here in Bali to make courageous decisions that are needed to save our planet, Earth Hour reminds us that each of us can be part of the solution to climate change," Leape said.

Environmental delegates from more than 180 countries have until the end of Friday to agree a framework for tackling global warming past 2012, when pledges under the climate change-tackling treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, expire.

This will be the second Earth Hour organised by WWF, after Sydney plunged into the dark in March this year, with more than 2.2-million people taking part. Sydney's landmark Opera House and Harbour Bridge were among the buildings dimming the lights.

The idea behind the initiative is to raise awareness of climate change and promote energy efficiency.

"Now it is time to take Earth Hour to the rest of the world," said Sydney's Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

Read more!

Arctic ice melting at record rate: scientists

Yahoo News 14 Dec 07;

The arctic ice cap melted at an unprecedented rate in mid-2007, losing an area of ice the size of the state of Alaska, US scientists said at a conference this week.

"The average rate of loss of sea ice every summer year to year up to 2006 was equal to an area the size of West Virginia," or about 62,800 square kilometers (24,250 square miles), said Michael Steele, the senior oceanographer at the University of Washington in Seattle.

However the decrease in ice between 2006 and 2007 "was almost equivalent to the area of Alaska," or some 1.7 million kilometers (more than 663,000 square miles), Steele told AFP in a telephone interview.

"It was a huge retreat," said Steele, one of the researchers who discussed the subject at the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco, California.

The arctic ice cap currently covers around 4.13 million square kilometers, its smallest surface in modern times, said another conference speaker, Wieslaw Maslowski, an oceanographer at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

The Arctic Ocean could thus be completely ice-free during the three summer months by 2013, Maslowski said at the conference.

Steele refused to make the same prediction, but did say that the Arctic Ocean has never been as hot during the summer months.

"The ocean warmed up at temperatures never seen before ... it was five degrees Celsius warmer than average," said Steele. "It's very large."

In arctic areas usually covered by ice "the temperature was maybe two or three degrees warmer than the average." And in Alaska the temperature was unusually high -- between 12 and 13 degrees Centigrade. "We never saw that before," he said.

Steele based his research on records over the past 100 years as well as measurements taken with instruments in the field. More recently he has also used data from NASA satellites.

Other scientists at the AGU conference said the Arctic Ocean's heating was self-sustained, with warmer water from the Atlantic and Pacific heading north and accelerating the melting of the ice caps.

Global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans "is basically responsible for the ice getting thinner and thinner," said Steele.

"And when it gets thinner, the ice becomes more vulnerable to wind that can blow it away from Alaska and eastern Siberia. It's also more vulnerable to the unusual summer time melting -- if you have thick ice that melts a little bit, it's still there, (but) when it's thin it melts completely away."

"It's just a fact that the ice is going away and the ocean can absorb the sunlight," Steele said. With less ice to reflect the sunlight, the ocean absorbs the sun's heat, warms up and furthers the melting process.

"I don't know what the future holds, but most arctic scientists think that is not getting much better," he said.

Read more!

South Korea spill threatens fish: 'oil balls' on one of most important tidal flats in Northeast Asia

Lee Jae-won, Reuters 14 Dec 07;

TAEAN, South Korea (Reuters) - South Korea's worst oil spill on Friday washed up "oil balls" on beaches that had avoided damage and it moved toward a tidal flat conservationists said was one of the most important in Northeast Asia.

A week after a crane on a barge punched holes in a tanker that then leaked 10,500 metric tons of crude oil, densified parts of the spill have fallen to the sea floor and washed up on beaches, a coast guard official said.

The dense oil can kill fish, marine plants and plankton, in effect wiping out marine life in the affected areas, said Park Jeong-woon, director of nature ecosystem conservation at Green Korea United group.

"Oil balls are the typical signal of secondary pollution," she said.

They are more difficult to remove than initial parts of the spill.

More than 25,000 people on Friday used shovels, absorbent cloth and their rubber-gloved hands to remove oil from west coast beaches about 150 km (95 miles) southwest of Seoul that were once popular with tourists.

Oil balls have been spotted near the Anmyeon peninsula on the west coast, another region famed for its sandy beaches, scenic sunsets and a nature reserve.

"Overall, the pollution is on a southward movement trend," the coast guard said in a statement.

That triggered concern among conservationists that the spill could affect tidal flats further south, which they said are some of the most important areas for migratory birds and for biodiversity in the Yellow Sea and East Asia.

"If the oil impacts the area, it would be an unbelievably tragic loss of biodiversity of the Yellow Sea," said Nial Moores of the conservation group Birds Korea.

The maritime ministry has conceded it was not properly prepared for the tanker disaster and did not have enough equipment.

A team of U.S. Coast Guard and oceanic experts have arrived in the area to assist with clean-up efforts. China and Japan have pledged equipment, South Korean officials said.

The tanker involved in the spill, the Heibei Spirit, will be scrubbed and taken into port in the next few days to remove its remaining cargo of crude, a coast guard official said.

(Additional reporting by Jessica Kim and Jon Herskovitz in Seoul, writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Grant McCool)

Read more!

For the right to live free: Acres

neo chai chinToday Online 14 Dec 07

At an animal sanctuary in Zambia, a South African vervet monkey called Blue has found familial bliss with its wife and two babies.

Nothing surprising there, except that Blue was previously smuggled from South Africa to Singapore and spent the first six years of his life in a cage.

And somewhere in Singapore's central catchment area, a long-tailed macaque called Angelina has a new lease of life after being rescued from a Zion Road temple.

I ask animal welfare activist Louis Ng, 29, what the process of rescuing and repatriating a smuggled or illegally-kept animal is like and he replies: "It's a nightmare".

But stories like these give the executive director of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) hope, for they are the result of his efforts to give these animals their lives back.

Louis' interest in animal welfare began when he was 14 and he watched the movie, Gorillas in the Mist, which told the story of researcher Dian Fossey's work with mountain gorillas.

"During the movie, I told my mum that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life."

As Louis discovered more about animals, he realised he was, in many ways, "part of the problem and not the solution". So, he gave up drinking turtle soup and eating stingray among other things.

And after volunteering with animals, he felt strongly that more had to be done to inform the public about the way animals were being treated — or rather, mistreated — "behind the scenes".

So, in 2001, he set up Acres with a friend. The group has rescued about 170 animals so far from pet shops and private owners. It has also raised awareness of the illegal animal products trade, and the smuggling and mistreatment of animals.

Louis is also hopeful that with Acres' soon-to-be-opened Wildlife Rescue Centre at Choa Chu Kang, the animals they rescue will be better cared for.

The 2ha space houses an education centre, live-in quarters for volunteers, quarantine quarters for up to 48 cases at any one time, and 62 enclosures to house the animals after their quarantine.

The ultimate aim, however, is to repatriate the animals, which means restoring them to their country of origin.

In the meantime, Acres' seven staff members are busy getting the centre operationally ready and raising funds. They need $1m to build the centre and run it for a year. So far, $665,000 has been raised.

And Louis, who has a Masters degree in primate conservation, says he will apply to be a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) after the current batch of NMPs have completed their term.

"I will raise issues about animal welfare and youths. In Singapore, we have the luxury of choosing to make a difference," said Louis.

"I want to get youths to play a bigger role in society and tell them that the individual can make a difference."

Links

Acres website

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 14 Dec 07

ANOTHER dolphin sighting clip!
at St. John's on chimck's YouTube also on the urban forest blog

Ant biting another ant
a fascinating clip on the johora singaporensis blog


Daily Green Action: 12 Dec
Monkey meets Lomborg and sits the dark on the leafmonkey blog

Bath-time for Baby
The heron takes a dip on the bird ecology blog

Read more!

Mandai: Relocate site? Few back Nature Society option

Planned Nature-Themed Attraction in Mandai
Some nature lovers not convinced that development will harm area's ecology
Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

THE Nature Society's alternative plan to re-locate a planned nature attraction to Yio Chu Kang has not drawn widespread support here.

At the centre of the debate is the question of whether the 30ha site suggested by the Singapore Tourism Board for the new Mandai attraction is that critical to the preservation of animal life in the area, as the Nature Society says.

The Society says that the plot - about three times the size of the VivoCity megamall - is a vital 'buffer zone' for animals such as the leopard cat to move from one part of the reserve to another.

Instead, it wants the development to move to a site in Yio Chu Kang Road, near Lower Seletar Reservoir. The area has a couple of commercial vegetable farms.

But where some nature lovers such as volunteer nature guide Ben Lee, 45, rallied around the Nature Society's call to stop development in Mandai, other environmental watchers like head of Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research Peter Ng are not as convinced.

Professor Ng pointed out that the Mandai site - which is not in any nature reserve - is an abandoned durian and rambutan plantation.

Disputing what the Nature Society says of the sites's ecological importance, he said: 'The original forest had long been chopped down.'

Neither is Professor Leo Tan, who won this year's President's Award for the Environment, convinced that the nature attraction should move to Yio Chu Kang. He said that it was too premature to reject the Mandai plans without learning more about the developers' intentions.

'We should not object for the sake of objecting. If the development really harms the environment, the whole nation will rally around it,' he said. 'Look at what happened with Chek Jawa.'

Plus, there is the issue of commercial viability. A project in Mandai, surrounded by two world-class attractions - the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari - would be a good draw for visitors.

Done properly, such a project like that can be immensely successful, said Mr Francis Phun, who is the Association of Singapore Attractions chairman. He cited Australia's Blue Mountains in New South Wales as a perfect example of how nature and tourist attractions can co-exist.

But if the attraction went to Yio Chu Kang Road - its commercial viability will be questionable.

The Mandai plan is to build on the existing appeal of the area with attractions such as the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari. Moving it elsewhere may not give the new attraction the 'critical mass' it needs to survive, he added.

However Ms Ng Lee Li, a section head for the Tourism Academy @ Sentosa, was more willing to give the Yio Chu Kang site more merit.

It could work in Yio Chu Kang and provide the node for visitors keen to explore the area's farms; and it could become a different sort of retreat for such visitors.

But this is provided that the developer pumps money into the surrounding sites, and works with the farms to make them visitor-friendly and an attraction. 'It's the plans for the type of attraction that count,' she said.

The Singapore Tourism Board, which is spearheading the project, has said that it would 'consider' the Nature Society's proposal.

RELATED LINKS

Nature Calls
mr brown comments on plans to develop Mandai.

Mandai: Nature Society moots two new spots for attraction
Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 7 Dec 07;

STB reply: Sensitive approach to Mandai revamp
STB-NParks' wildlife studies to feature in plans
Today Online 5 Dec 07;

Leave the beautiful Mandai rainforest alone
Letter from George Pasqual, Straits Times Forum 27 Nov 07;

Mandai at risk?
Straits Times 25 Nov 07

Beware the wildlife tradeoff
If not properly done, plans to turn Mandai into nature retreat could backfire
Letter from Marianne Maes, Today Online 22 Nov 07

Do we need another nature-themed attraction?
NO: Nature Society thinks it will cause greater damage to nature reserve
Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 22 Nov 07

YES: A nature escape will add to Singapore's attraction as a tourist destination, say travel agents
30ha of greenery in Mandai has been set aside for a new attraction near the Zoo and Night Safari, and the idea is already drawing varied reactions
Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 22 Nov 07;

Mandai: a repeat of the losses at Bukit Timah Nature Reseve
due to over-development? and more thoughts on the nature scouter blog

Nature Society expresses concerns about plans for Mandai
Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 21 Nov 07;

Mandai to be turned into Asia's top nature spot
Channel NewsAsia 20 Nov 07

Read more!

Air-con bullies rule the roost

Today Online 14 Dec 07;

I have a wonderful desk at work, with great views. But there is only one glitch: It's directly below an air-conditioning vent.

The first thing I do when I go in is to turn off the unit to keep the temperature cool enough to be comfortable but warm enough for me not to need a cardigan.

One hour later, my colleague enters and, without asking any of us, lowers the temperature before trotting off to his cubicle three desks away. There, he sits in cool splendour while water starts condensing along the icy vent and sending the rest of us rushing for our coats.

Yes, coats. Mine is a canvas field jacket made to withstand temperatures of 10°C. Another colleague uses a fleece jacket — normally used for skiing. We would use gloves if only they didn't interfere with our typing.

Outside, the sun is so hot it reflects off the neighbouring building but inside, it's a white Christmas — without the goodwill to all men.

We've tried talking to our too-hot-to-handle colleague but it doesn't work. He likes the air-con going at full blast, he says, because "the place is so stuffy" yet, when we offer him one of the "hot seats", he refuses because "the direct blast gives me headaches".

My husband also suffers the same fate as I do. In his office, six people share the same vent. Five of them are happy with temperatures of 25°C but one, however, wants it cranked all the way down to 18°C. It's five against one but guess who gets her way?

She even takes the remote to her desk so that she has full control over the office climate. "It's wonderful when she goes on leave," my husband says wistfully.

Visitors to our country joke that elsewhere, people put their coats on to go out but here, we put them on when we get into office. They can't understand why, with such glorious natural weather, we prefer to enclose ourselves in an artificial cocoon.

An overseas visitor once asked me: "Do you have operas in the daytime?"

"No, why?" I answered, puzzled.

"All the women are wearing shawls."

The World Wildlife Fund, the global conservation organisation, calculates that air-conditioning accounts for 47 per cent of the office electric bill. It suggests setting the thermostat to 25°C, because every degree cooler that you set the temperature raises energy consumption by 10 per cent.

The advice? Encourage staff to dress appropriately for the season. My husband's colleague, for example, loves wearing wool so it's no wonder she feels hot all the time. The problem is, we have a culture that favours the overheated.

Singapore offices are usually kept at a freezing 22 to 23°C. In comparison, the Hong Kong government has decreed a summer temperature of 25.5°C for its offices to save energy, while in Japan, the temperature in some offices can even go up to 28°C. Singapore is, as Nanyang Technological University professor Cherian George so succinctly put it, an air-conditioned nation. So loving the air-con is normal, complaining about the cold is not.

Just look at how modern offices are designed — with everything enclosed in glass to keep the artificial air in. Some even lock all the windows so none of that evil fresh air can sneak in to spoil the purity.

You only have to look at the lovely old office buildings of the '50s and '60s to see how they did it without expensive and environmentally-unfriendly air-cons. My mum remembers going into The Fullerton when it was still a post office and marvelling at how the postal hall, with its high ceilings and huge doors, was so cool with just fans going.

These days, bosses see air-cons as a mark of status. More units means you can afford the high electricity bills, ergo, you must be doing well. No unit at all? Gosh, you must either be really ancient or desperately trying to make ends meet. One day, perhaps, these employers will realise that keeping the temperature down is hitting their bottom line and dictate that the thermostats stay at 25°C. In the meantime, however, the air-con bullies will continue to thrive in Singapore offices.

And the rest of us will just have to stock up on winter wear.

Tabitha Wang wonders why the winter wear shops in Chinatown have closed down, seeing as they were enjoying such a roaring business from Shenton Way folks.

Read more!

First, see the trees, not just the forest: Bjorn Lomborg

Bjorn Lomborg, Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

SINCE time immemorial, people have worried about the earth's future. We once believed the sky would fall. Then we feared the planet might freeze, and technology would grind to a halt because of a computer bug that was supposed to be unleashed at the turn of the millennium.

Those fears melted away, but today the world has many real, pressing problems. Think about the environment, governance, economics, health or population, and you'll find plenty of reasons to worry.

But unfortunately, we tend to focus on just some of the planet's biggest issues, and we get a distorted view of the world as a result. Deforestation is a challenge that has attracted alarming headlines, celebrity firepower and widespread anxiety. It is, to be blunt, a popular cause.

It seems surprising, then, to learn that deforestation is a diminishing problem. The solution wasn't found in condemnation from the West of developing- country practices or in protests by well-meaning environmentalists, but in economic growth.

Developed countries generally increase their forested areas, because they can afford to do so. Developing countries can't. To encourage less deforestation - and more reforestation - the best thing we can do is help undeveloped nations get richer, faster.

Some challenges fail to ignite widespread concern. We should probably worry a lot more than we do about demographic changes that will cause a dramatic fall in the potential labour force in rich countries, and a rise in those relying on pensions and health care. In most industrialised countries, employment is concentrated in a narrow age range, so a decline in the labour force will cause a decline in production - and make us less well-off.

This problem will hit even China. So we need to start talking about the options - raising the retirement age, increasing immigration from developing nations and reforming labour markets.

When we over-worry about some things, we forget other, possibly much more important, issues. In the West, there is the worry about the use of pesticides in crop creation. This has somehow become a rallying issue for environmentalists.

But indoor air pollution poses a much greater environmental problem. The fumes from cooking indoors with firewood and dung will kill more than 1.5 million people this year. Many will be children. We could combat the problem quite cheaply and efficiently by getting improved cooking devices (such as cookers with a flue) and clean fuel to those who need them, and by encouraging fuel drying and stove and chimney maintenance as well as the use of pot lids to conserve heat. We could keep vulnerable children away from the smoke.

The biggest concern about our planet right now is, of course, climate change. This is a serious problem that requires a serious response. However, our blinkered focus on reducing carbon emissions has led us to look in the wrong place for answers to other challenges. Losses from weather disasters are increasing, but the reason isn't climate change - as many of us assume - but demographics.

More people with more belongings live closer to harm's way. What's worse, many governments are doing little to prepare for hurricanes, earthquakes or floods. They don't do enough to discourage people from living in foolhardy locations, and response plans are often poor.

The narrow focus of the climate debate on emissions reductions has worked against a clear focus on reducing vulnerability. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has refused to fund disaster-preparedness efforts unless states show exactly how the disasters they fear are linked to climate change.

A recent Rand study says the United States' funding for disaster loss reduction research in 2003 was about US$127 million (S$183 million) - only 7 per cent of the sum invested in climate- change research for that year.

Climate-change policies are not the best way to reduce the effects of weather disasters. During the 2004 hurricane season, the Dominican Republic, which has invested in hurricane shelters and emergency evacuation networks, suffered fewer than 10 deaths. In neighbouring Haiti, which wasn't prepared, 2,000 lives were lost.

Why is disaster vulnerability so low on the list of global development priorities?

Like the rest of us, governments tend to focus their attention on a small number of planetary problems. Every dollar they spend on climate change research, for example, is money not being spent on disaster loss reduction research.

That is the point of my new book Solutions For The World's Problems, in which 23 researchers address 23 global challenges. The book also allows readers to set their own priorities: leading economists sketch out solutions and provide cost-benefit ratios so that different policy options can be compared, and the best ones identified and prioritised.

After all, while there is no shortage of ideas for resolving the big issues, governments and international organisations do have limited money. It would be wrong to pretend that we can do everything at once.

There is no harm in worrying about the planet. But we should be sure to look at the full picture, so that we know what to worry about first.

The writer, the organiser of Copenhagen Consensus, is author of Cool It: The Sceptical Environmentalist's Guide To Climate Change and editor of Solutions For The World's Problems: Costs And Benefits.

Read more!

Reward plan to save forests may just end haze

But Asean cautions against let-up in bid to fight haze from Indonesia
Azhar Ghani, Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

IN BALI - THE regional fight to rid South-east Asia of the annual haze caused by land-clearing and forest fires in Indonesia could benefit from the international battle against global warming.

Delegates at the UN climate talks here are likely to set up a mechanism that would make it more valuable for governments to protect their trees than allow timber and palm oil barons to cut them down.

Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said yesterday that delegates are close to agreeing on guidelines for a pay-and-preserve scheme for forests under a future deal to fight global warming.

But Asean representatives have cautioned that the regional grouping should not let up in its anti-haze efforts as any major impact from the new scheme would still be some years away.

The scheme, known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (Redd), would be the first to include forest protection measures in negotiations on replacing the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Under Redd, developing countries such as Indonesia could be paid billions of dollars a year to protect their forests.

The destruction of tropical forests accounts for 20 per cent of yearly greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. In Indonesia, this has also led to large swathes of fire-prone terrain left vulnerable to irresponsible land-clearing by fire.

While Redd is aimed at slowing global warming, it would also help Asean's anti-haze fight, said Ms Frances Seymour, the director-general of the Centre for International Forestry Research (Cifor).

She told The Straits Times: 'By encouraging people to avoid deforestation activities, the forest protection proposal may help reduce the extent to which peatland is converted for activities associated with land-clearing by fire.'

The rewards for countries which preserve their forests would likely come in the form of tradeable carbon credits, which are bought and sold in the market for greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, industrialised countries are required to reach certain emissions targets by either emitting less or by buying someone else's cutbacks to claim as their own.

Redd would allow countries with large forest reserves to sell the amount of carbon credits they keep out of the atmosphere if they preserve their trees. This will give these countries greater access to the carbon trading market which, according to one report, records transactions of at least US$15 billion (S$22 billion) a year.

And even as the loose ends of Redd are being tied up, the proposal appears to have already made an impact.

Yesterday, Indonesia's Riau province, which accounts for a large part of the smoke that affects both Singapore and Malaysia every year, announced a temporary halt to its current land-use planning process.

This means that approvals for new plantations and other developments, which could involve land-clearing, would be stopped for now.

Riau governor Rusli Zainal said the move was to 'generate solid scientific data on carbon stock and other high conservation values' to prepare the province for the benefits under the Redd.

Still, a member of an Asean country speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed concern. He feared some Asean countries might feel Indonesia should now not get any anti-haze funding from the grouping, given that it would benefit from Redd.

Cifor's Ms Seymour, however, felt that Asean would do the right thing.

'Redd would take some years to kick off,' she said.

'It is in Asean's interests not to wait and to solve the haze issue quickly, as every haze-affected day amounts to some economic losses.'

Read more!

Rain misery to continue for Malaysia

Situation set to worsen in country already hit by deaths, evacuations and crocodile menace
Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR - ALREADY, crocodiles are menacing villagers, 13 people have died and 33,000 have been evacuated. Now forecasts of more rain mean things could be about to get worse for flood-hit Malaysia.

As monsoon downpours continued to pound the country, a meteorological official said an orange warning - the second-highest alert - has been issued for parts of Pahang and Johor until today.

Local media have reported that the rains have cut off roads in several states, including Kelantan and Terengganu in the east and Johor in the south.

Johor was the worst hit, with 13,000 residents fleeing to higher ground, the New Straits Times reported yesterday.

It also said some villagers in the state are living in fear of crocodiles, which have been seen feasting on dead chickens dumped by poultry farms.

And making matters worse for Johor residents, the paper said, many who rely on income from rubber-tapping to support their families have been unable to work for three weeks because of the continuous rain.

The death toll from the floods also jumped yesterday from seven the day before, with new victims including a three-year-old Indonesian girl in central Pahang state whose body was found trapped under a tree trunk, the Bernama news agency said.

A 15-year-old boy also drowned in northern Kelantan state while playing in flood waters in front of his house, the state agency said.

And officials said the number of flood victims forced to flee their homes rose to 18,492 in central Pahang state and 3,226 in Kelantan, but eased to 11,402 in Johor.

Government agencies are now trying to overcome food-shortage problems faced by those sheltering in relief centres, the state news agency said.

'Our focus is on how to get aid to the flood victims,' Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shafie Apdal said, urging traders not to profiteer by increasing the prices of goods in short supply.

In Kampung Jawa, according to village headman Md Sahar Sabino, more needs to be done.

He told the New Straits Times that while enough food was being delivered on a daily basis for the adults in his village, there were concerns about providing a balanced diet for the babies and elderly residents.

'There is also a shortage of diapers and infant formula for the babies. We would really appreciate donations as the current wet spell means napkins cannot dry,' he added.

Meanwhile, The Star reported yesterday that Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries Minister Muhyiddin Yassin is to propose that state governments look into permanently resettling villages located in flood-prone areas.

He reportedly said a long-term solution was needed as the government could not afford to keep compensating victims every time there was a flood.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin, speaking after visiting flood victims in the Bukit Serampang area yesterday, pointed out that the government used to resettle villagers during the 1970s, moving them from flood-prone villages to higher grounds.

And the Pagoh MP was quoted as saying: 'Climate change has brought regular flooding to Johor and other parts of the country, and affected most villagers along the rivers and low-lying areas.'

Last December, major floods in Johor left more than 110,000 people displaced in a disaster that caused at least RM1.5 billion (S$652 million) worth of damage.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

Read more!

Save the climate, save the world: Can celebrities save the world?

Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

'Can celebrities save the world? It rankles. What kind of place are we in when people are looking to Hollywood or celebrities to save the world? Where are the people who really should be stepping up to the plate and leading us? Where is the leadership? Red light. Emergency. Help. This is something that has been flashing for the past 40 years.'

Entertainers perform at Nobel Peace Prize concert to draw attention to global warming
OSLO, Norway - Leading entertainers performing on Tuesday to honour Nobel peace laureates Al Gore and the United Nations climate panel said they hoped they would draw attention to global warming.

Taking the stage near the end of the concert, the former United States vice-president called for all people to show 'the moral imperative' to face the challenge of climate change.'Let's get on with it. We can do this,' he said in the Oslo Spektrum concert hall.

He and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to document and spread the word about what he calls the 'planetary emergency' of global warming.

Before the show, American actress Uma Thurman, who co-hosted the performance with Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey, said she wanted to call attention to the warnings from Gore and the panel.

At a news conference before the concert, she said: 'The whole point is to raise awareness and communicate with everyone else in the world and share our concern for the planet.

'What we are hearing is that everyone needs to get very much involved with climate. It's coming to us. It's coming to a theatre near us, very, very near us.'

The Nobel Peace concert, broadcast worldwide, attracted such singers as Kylie Minogue, Alicia Keys and Annie Lennox. Melissa Etheridge, who won an Academy Award this year for the song I Need To Wake Up, which was featured in Gore's environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth, also performed.

At the concert news conference earlier, Spacey said: 'Showing up at an event like this is important because there are going to be so many young people tuning in to this concert.'

Scottish singer Lennox said the real question is what the world's leaders can do.

'Can celebrities save the world? It rankles. What kind of place are we in when people are looking to Hollywood or celebrities to save the world?' she asked.

'Where are the people who really should be stepping up to the plate and leading us? Where is the leadership? Red light. Emergency. Help. This is something that has been flashing for the past 40 years.'

Read more!

US stance on emissions may change, says PM Lee

America's next president may not oppose binding agreement on cuts
Peh Shing Huei, Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

IN NUSA DUA (BALI) - AMID talk that the negotiations here are in jeopardy over Washington's opposition to specific target cuts, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday that the American position may not be the 'last word'.

The stance by the United States against binding agreements for greenhouse gas emissions is a key stumbling block to the progress of climate change talks taking place here.

But with US presidential elections scheduled for November next year, Mr Lee said a new leader could move away from the Bush administration's position.

As delegates here try to hammer out a Bali road map to start negotiations for a new international climate change agreement to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol from 2013, countries led by the US are against the mention of specific targets to cut emissions.

The European Union (EU), supported by most developing nations, is pushing for specific targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr Lee, speaking to the Singapore media yesterday after attending a leaders' retreat, believed that the US leader who succeeds President George W. Bush might do things differently.

'Americans are going to have presidential elections next November and whoever comes in after that would have to review their position because, as climate change becomes more obvious and more severe, public attitudes will change and governments, particularly in the West, will have to respond to these shifting public attitudes,' he said.

He pointed to changes already made at the state level in the US, where the likes of California and Massachusetts have imposed caps on emissions.

But such a 'hotchpotch of different restrictions' across the US is bothering manufacturers and multinational corporations, he said, and they are already pushing for a standard nationwide limit so they can operate more efficiently.

'So I think whoever comes in after 2008 will have to re-assess their position. This is a dynamic situation. So I don't see the US position as being the last word,' he said.

Australia was in a similar position, but after Mr Kevin Rudd came to power, his administration ratified the Kyoto pact, something his predecessor John Howard steadfastly refused to do.

Still, Mr Lee acknowledged that the road ahead to reach an agreement on climate change is very difficult.

But an important step was being taken by holding the United Nations conference in Bali, he said as he applauded Indonesia for having 'done the world a favour' by hosting it.

'This is a very difficult long-term problem, and it cannot be solved without every country participating, particularly the major economies - America, China, India, the EU,' he said.

'So it's going to be a long process to work out some agreement. The target is 2009. I think it'll be very challenging.'

Mr Lee also said, in response to a question, that Singapore did not have alternative sources of energy and thus had to be dependent on fossil fuel.

'So therefore, our view is that if Singapore is going to take on any commitments and there are going to be caps, this has to be taken into account - that we are not quite as favourably disposed as a country as other more resource-rich and energy-rich nations,' he said.

Read more!

Support for PM Lee's views on greening and growth

Arti Mulchand, Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

IN BALI - POVERTY is not a solution to global warming.

That point, made by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the opening of the United Nations climate change conference in Bali, clearly resonated strongly - it was echoed by many, including Norwegian Environment and International Development Minister Erik Solheim yesterday.

Economic growth is vital, PM Lee argued, and developing countries cannot go green at the expense of growth and dependence on resources such as energy and fossil fuels, a 'reality that will not change in the foreseeable future'.

It was one of three principles that he said a post-2012 climate change framework should have, the other two being the commitment and participation of all countries, with developed countries taking the lead, and the need to take into account countries' different circumstances.

Transportation hub Singapore, which is strong in manufacturing, would have a larger carbon footprint, he said, but penalising it would be 'counterproductive'.

He even got the nod from environmental campaigners, despite his endorsement of carbon capture and storage, and 'safe' nuclear energy as possible mitigating measures, which did not sit as well with them.

Said Shailendra Yashwant, climate and energy campaign manager for Greenpeace South-east Asia: 'He identifies the need for energy efficiency and conservation measures, protection of forests and reducing emission from deforestation, and calls for overall targets for emission reduction...(It) was progressive.'

Mr Alan Oxley, chairman of US-based non-governmental organisation World Growth, said Mr Lee identified 'the only real strategy that will work to achieve a global consensus'.

Read more!

Singapore can ride on South East Asia's rise as global biofuel player

Besides building bio-diesel plants, Singapore can take on export, logistics roles: Expert
Alvin Foo, Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

SOUTH-EAST Asia, which is rich in palm oil, will play an increasingly important role in the world's biofuel market in the next five to 10 years.

And Singapore can position itself as a key export and logistics player for biofuel in the region, said a top Brazilian energy official on the sidelines of an energy seminar in the Republic yesterday.

Mr Ricardo Borges Gomide, deputy director of Brazil's Ministry of Mines and Energy (renewable fuels department), spoke at an Institute of South-east Asian Studies seminar entitled Biofuels And Renewable Sources Of Energy In Brazil: The Ethanol Experience.

He told The Straits Times after the talk: 'South-east Asia is going to play a stronger role in the bio-diesel sector in the next few years because palm oil will become more popular as a feedstock for bio-diesel. It is more efficient and productive.'

Industry experts say palm oil is one of the most efficient feedstocks for bio-diesel production, yielding as much as 10 times oil per hectare as compared to soybean.

Bio-diesel has been the energy sector's buzzword recently. Late last month, Finland's Neste Oil announced plans to build the world's biggest bio-diesel plant in Singapore for $1.2 billion. When ready in 2010, the Tuas plant will be able to produce 800,000 tonnes of bio-diesel a year.

Production is not the only area in which Singapore can play a part. Mr Gomide said: 'Singapore can work with bio-diesel, ethanol producers to distribute these products around the world and have tanks here to sell to several countries - a key export and logistics role.'

Brazil is one of the world's leading countries in renewable energy. Last year, renewable sources accounted for almost 45 per cent of all energy consumed there, as opposed to 14 per cent for the world.

Perhaps the most prominent sign of its successful renewable energy programme is the widespread use of flex-fuel cars - vehicles that can run on petrol, alcohol or any combination of the two.

This was highlighted by Mr Gomide during the talk. 'Flex-fuel cars are a fashionable thing in Brazil these days. If you don't own one, you'll want one. With a flex-fuel car, a consumer can choose. If the price of petrol continues to go up, you can switch to ethanol.'

Read more!

Singapore's reputation as third largest oil refining hub is under siege

Singapore's biofuels hedge
Business Times 14 Dec 07

SINGAPORE'S reputation as the world's third largest oil refining hub is under siege. India's Jamnagar, with plans to boost capacity to over 1.9 million barrels per day (bpd) - will soon overtake long-time hubs like Singapore and Rotterdam (each with about 1.3 million bpd) as the world's single largest refining hub.

India's Reliance Industries is investing US$6 billion to double capacity to 1.24 million bpd by next year, while Essar Oil is also spending US$6 billion to triple its capacity there to 700,000 bpd by 2010.

By comparison, Singapore refiners ExxonMobil (605,000 bpd), Shell (500,000 bpd) and Singapore Refining Company (285,000 bpd) seem more intent on value-add, petrochemical plant investments and refinery upgradings - the latter to produce 'green' transportation fuels.

Any additional capacity here will likely only be achieved through 'refinery creep', that is, small increments from upgradings. So far, the only known addition is a 'niche' 110,000 bpd refinery in the form of a US$400 million condensate splitter being built by Jurong Aromatics Corporation to provide feedstocks for its planned US$2 billion petrochemical complex on Jurong Island.

Little wonder then the recent spate of calls by Singapore officials on the need to boost refining capacity here to secure the Republic's position as a leading oil and gas global hub. 'This is necessary to provide the critical volume of export-oriented refining throughput, creating the liquidity needed to anchor oil trading and price discovery activities here,' said S Iswaran, Minister of State for Trade and Industry.

But current high engineering, procurement and construction costs - amidst the global building boom - is making nonsense of new refinery economics, Singapore Petroleum Company CEO Koh Ban Heng told a recent oil conference. Capital equipment costs have doubled since 2002, skilled labour is very hard to find and project costs have ballooned. Given this scenario, Singapore's strategy to try to integrate biofuels activities - including biofuels trading - into the oil refining/trading hub here is a good hedge.

However, escalating palm oil prices caused by strong demand from the many upcoming biodiesel plants, including in Indonesia and Malaysia, has made many such palm oil-based projects uneconomical. Australia's Natural Fuel, which is building a plant on Jurong Island, has for instance been forced to source jatropha from Madagascar instead.

But this has not deterred Neste Oil from just announcing a S$1.17 billion investment in an 800,000 tonne per annum biodiesel plant in Singapore - which will be the world's biggest. This is because the Finnish refiner will use second-generation technology to produce high-quality biofuel, thus giving it an edge over basic plants.

So even if there are no new incoming oil refineries at this time, Singapore's strategy to leverage on its highly efficient oil and logistics hub here to develop new wings like biofuels refining may just fly.

Read more!

Singapore's first sensory park

Your senses will be in for a treat at this park
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 14 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE'S first sensory park - with features designed to stimulate all five senses - is being built in Toa Payoh for $3.5 million.

Unveiling the project yesterday, the Housing Board said many elderly people living in nearby estates will enjoy the Japanese-inspired park on completion in 2009.

For the sight-impaired, Braille signs will describe the plants nearby, while a range of flowers will offer sweet smells to residents on a leisurely evening walk.

The sight and sounds of water features will also vie for visitors' attention, along with sculptures to touch, and paving designed to create special sounds. For the adventurous, garden herbs and fruit trees will be on the menu too.

The 1.1ha pilot park, to be located at Toa Payoh Neighbourhood 2, will integrate a universal design - creating an environment suitable for people of all ages and abilities.

The park's concept, to rejuvenate the five senses by integrating features to stimulate them, originated in Osaka.

The head of HDB's redevelopment unit, Mrs Lee-Loy Kwee Wah, said that a study trip to Japan in 2005 was the source of HDB's inspiration for the park.

It has engaged landscape architect Yoshisuke Miyake, who pioneered the concept in Japan, to work with local architectural firm Surbana International to create Singapore's own sensory park.

Construction started in October and will be completed by the first quarter of 2009.

Mr Miyake told The Straits Times that, like Japan, Singapore has an increasing ageing population. 'People get more passive as they grow older, and to have things around you to stimulate your senses, is very soothing and has healing qualities,' he said.

In Osaka, for example, the Kansai Rosai Hospital has built its own sensory park for its patients, he said.

The park will also have an adjoining recreational area for playgrounds, a jogging track and exercise facilities.

Although the sensory park costs more than a normal park, Mrs Lee-Loy said it was 'worth it' considering the social benefits.

Vice-president Judy Wee of the Handicaps Welfare Association, said the park will be good for 'promoting an inclusive society'.

'Many Singaporeans don't know what universal design is currently. As it caters to people of all abilities, no one is left out, be it a grandparent or a grandchild or a disabled person.'

Resident Wong Thian Hock, 53, said he was looking forward to having the 'unusual park at his doorstep'.

'It's refreshing to be able to stimulate your senses on a daily walk,' he added.

Read more!

How 'virtuous' are these gifts?

Shopping has become virtuous, especially during Christmas.
New York Times News Service, Today Online 14 Dec 07;

Buy a "Better World" scarf at American Eagle Outfitters and US$10 ($14.50) of the US$19.95 price will go to one of three charities. Buy or lease a BMW this month and participating dealers say they will give US$25 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Consumers can benefit many charities with their purchases. Or can they?

Increasingly, non-profit experts are questioning one of the fastest-growing sectors of giving — the practice of building a donation into the purchase of everything from fine jewellery to feminine products.

They point out that such giving is unregulated and, in most cases, unaccountable — and no one knows who is claiming a tax deduction for it.

"It is virtuousness as a marketing gimmick run amok," said Ms Lucy Bernholz, founder and president of Blueprint Research and Design, a consulting firm for non-profit organisations, who has coined the term "embedded giving" to describe the phenomenon. "The potential for it to be a scam is huge."

Many charities and their corporate partners are unwilling to discuss the specifics of their programmes, declining to answer questions about how much is raised and even where the money goes.

Sometimes, charities do not know they are supposed to be receiving donations. Mr John Donoghue, senior vice-president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), was disconcerted to learn his organisation was among the charities named as beneficiaries of items purchased from Barneys New York's "Have a Green Holiday" catalogue.

"Unfortunately, just like Barneys shoppers, we're in the dark as to how or if Barneys and the manufacturers will fulfill their commitment to donate a portion of the proceeds from these products to the WWF," Mr Donoghue said.

The start of embedded giving can be traced to the early '80s, when American Express raised money for restoring the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island by donating one penny for every purchase charged to its credit cards, raising US$1.7 million.

Experts say companies and charities have embraced it wholeheartedly ever since. Many charities believe embedded giving makes it easier for people to donate because the transactions occur as they go about their daily business. Some worry this could eat into more direct contributions.

Mr Donoghue said the benefits could reach beyond money. "For us to have 100,000 cool girls walking around wearing panda-branded T-shirts that have appeared in a circular that goes to 50 million people and is paid for by a corporate partner has a communications benefit we could never afford on our own," he said.

Read more!