Bangladesh releases 25,000 protected turtles

Yahoo News 4 Jul 08;

Bangladeshi bio-marine experts have released 25,000 endangered baby turtles into the sea in the past two months as part of a state-run captivity breeding programme, an environmental official said Friday.

Rafiqul Islam, spokesman for the Coastal and Wetland Biodiversity Management Project, told AFP that 80 to 90 percent of the Olive Ridley turtle eggs would have been destroyed by humans and dogs if the programme had not existed.

"We starting collecting the eggs along the southern coastline at the end of last year and since May we have released 25,000 hatchlings following an incubation period," he said.

He said the biggest danger the turtles faced was from local tribespeople who considered the eggs a delicacy.

The initiative started five years ago but this breeding season had been the most successful by far, he said.

"Last year 15,000 were released. The number has grown a lot this year because we have worked very hard to expand the programme."

As well as setting up hatcheries in the southern district of Cox's Bazar, officials had also focused on educating locals about the importance of protecting the turtles.

"Tribal people living nearby used to eat the eggs. Some locals were collecting the eggs to sell," Islam said.

"We've built awareness among the local people not to eat or sell the eggs. Now they are not eating them and they are helping us protect them by collecting them for us to incubate in our hatcheries."

He said the turtles, which come to shore every October to lay the eggs, were also at risk from dogs and foxes who ate them.

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Study: Orangutan populations declining sharply

Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Jul 08;

Orangutan numbers have declined sharply on the only two islands where they still live in the wild and they could become the first great ape species to go extinct if urgent action isn't taken, a new study says.

The declines in Indonesia and Malaysia since 2004 are mostly because of illegal logging and the expansion of palm oil plantations, Serge Wich, a scientist at the Great Ape Trust in Iowa, said on Saturday.

The survey found the orangutan population on Indonesia's Sumatra island dropped almost 14 percent since 2004, Wich said. It also concluded that the populations on Borneo island, which is shared by Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, have fallen by 10 percent. Researchers only surveyed areas of Borneo that are in Indonesia and Malaysia.

In their study, Wich and his 15 colleagues said the declines in Borneo were occurring at an "alarming rate" but that they were most concerned about Sumatra, where the numbers show the population is in "rapid decline."

"Unless extraordinary efforts are made soon, it could become the first great ape species to go extinct," researchers wrote.

The number of orangutans on Sumatra has fallen from 7,500 to 6,600 while the number on Borneo has fallen from 54,000 to around 49,600, according to the survey on the endangered apes, which appears in this month's science journal Oryx.

"It's disappointing that there are still declines even though there have been quite a lot of conservation efforts over the past 30 years," Wich said.

Indonesia and Malaysia, the world's top two palm oil producers, have aggressively pushed to expand plantations amid a rising demand for biofuels which are considered cleaner burning and cheaper than petrol.

Wich and his colleagues said there was room for "cautious optimism" that the orangutan could be saved, noting recent initiatives by Indonesian leaders.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a major initiative to save the nation's orangutans at a U.N. climate conference last year, and the Aceh governor declared a moratorium on logging.

Coupled with that are expectations that Indonesia will protect millions of acres of forest as part of any U.N. climate pact that will go into effect in 2012. The deal is expected to include measures that will reward tropical countries like Indonesia that halt deforestation.

"There are promising signs that there is a lot of political will, especially in Aceh, to protect the forest," Wich said, adding however that much more needs to be done.

Michelle Desilets, founding director of Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation UK, praised the study for offering the first comprehensive look at the species population.

"What matters is that the rate of decline is increasing, and unless something is done, the wild orangutan is on a quick spiral towards extinction, whether in two years, five years or 10 years," Desilets said in an e-mail.

In their paper, the researchers recommended that law enforcement be boosted to help reduce the hunting of orangutans for food and trade. Environmental awareness at the local level must also be increased.

"It is essential that funding for environmental services reaches the local level and that there is strong law enforcement," the study says. "Developing a mechanism to ensure these occur is the challenge for the conservation of the orangutans."

The study is the latest in a long line of research that has predicted the orangutans demise.

In May, the Center for Orangutan Protection said just 20,000 of the endangered primates remain in the tropical jungle of Central Kalimantan on Borneo island, down from 31,300 in 2004. Based on that estimate, it concluded orangutans there could be extinct by 2011.

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New West Nile virus strain may worsen epidemic

Maggie Fox, Yahoo News 4 Jul 08;

A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States, and may thrive in hot American summers, researchers said on Thursday.

The virus infected an estimated 175,000 people last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in its weekly report on death and disease on Thursday.

The mosquito-borne virus caused an estimated 35,000 cases of fever, was reported to have killed 117 people and caused serious disease such as encephalitis and meningitis in 1,227 people in 2007, the CDC reported.

A second team of researchers said a new strain of the virus that has completely overtaken the original strain is particularly well suited to hotter weather -- which in turn means West Nile outbreaks may worsen in the north.

It also means that North America may suffer more from West Nile virus than other parts of the world, said Lyle Petersen, who helps lead West Nile surveillance at the CDC.

West Nile was introduced to the United States in 1999 -- during a particularly hot summer in New York City.

"In Europe, Africa and West Asia, where the virus was previously endemic, you'd see these big outbreaks and then they'd kind of disappear and then not come back for years on end," Petersen said in a telephone interview.

"What we have seen in the United States, we've had repeated outbreaks every single year since 2002 -- in fact, big outbreaks. This is an unusual pattern that not been seen before."

Hot American summers may be to blame, said Petersen and Marm Kilpatrick of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine and the University of California Santa Cruz.

FASTER AND WARMER

Writing in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Pathogens earlier this week, Kilpatrick and colleagues said they showed the new strain, first seen in 2002, replicates faster in the bodies of mosquitoes when it is warm.

"The warmer the temperature, the faster it replicates in mosquitoes and the faster the mosquito can transmit the virus," Kilpatrick said in a telephone interview.

"It also indicates that increases in temperatures due to global climate change would have major effects on transmission of the virus."

West Nile virus infects birds, and it can spread to people via mosquitoes that bite both.

Petersen and Kilpatrick said it is known that mosquitoes transmit all sorts of diseases more efficiently when it is warm.

Kilpatrick and colleagues, working in a lab, showed the new, 2002 strain of West Nile, does particularly well in warmer temperatures.

The new strain appears to have evolved naturally, said Petersen. "We can no longer find the 1999 strain. It's pretty dramatic," he said.

The Kilpatrick findings fit in with what the CDC has seen, Petersen added.

"What we observed is, at least in temperate climates, these big West Nile Virus outbreaks tend to occur in heat waves," Petersen added.

Petersen said it is too soon to show any links between climate change and West Nile Virus, however.

If it gets too warm, mosquitoes die sooner, before they can spread the infection, Kilpatrick said. So in southern states the new strain may not have an advantage. But in the northern states and Canada, hot summers could make a big difference, he said.

"It is probably going to push the northern boundary farther north," Kilpatrick said.

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Food price rises force biofuel U-turn in the UK

Colin Brown, The Independent 4 Jul 08;

Soaring world food prices look set to force Gordon Brown into a U-turn over the use of crops such as corn, rapeseed, palm and soya to produce fuel as an alternative to petrol and diesel.

Biofuels were seen as the eco-friendly answer to global warming and rising fuel prices but a report to be published on Monday will force the Prime Minister to rethink his support for using crops to keep Britain's cars and lorries running.

A second report will also force Downing Street to revise its policies on food and the environment – opening Mr Brown to the charge from environmental groups of going soft on the Government's green agenda.

The Prime Minister has been warned in a report by Professor Ed Gallagher, head of the Renewable Fuels Agency, that the rush for biofuels has made a "significant" contribution to the soaring cost of food on the global markets. Corn ethanol and biodiesel derived from vegetable oil were widely seen as important ways of creating fuel and combating carbon emissions which contribute to global warming.

The Gallagher review threatens to knock out an important plank in Mr Brown's environmental strategy. He introduced targets in April in Britain requiring all petrol and diesel to contain 2.5 per cent of biofuels with the intention of doubling it to 5 per cent by 2010. The EU is contemplating a 10 per cent target by 2020. Professor Gallagher's report will say the production of fuels from "biomass" – non-food crops – may be sustainable but it challenges the targets for producing fuel from other crops normally used for food.

Greenpeace said biofuels initially "looked good on paper" but the Gallagher review would conclude that the risks are too great to impose higher targets.

The campaign group called for a moratorium on targets, subsidies and tax breaks for biofuels consumption until it was clear that they could be produced from sustainable sources. Oxfam said: "It is clear that any additional pressure on limited land resources has the potential to drive further agriculture clearance of forests or other habitats and to drive up food prices."

The vast majority of the European biodiesel was made from rapeseed oil, said Oxfam. "As we divert more and more rapeseed crop into fuel, European industry is buying increasing supplies of edible oils from overseas including palm oil.

A second report by the Cabinet Office strategy unit is intended to launch a debate over how Britain uses its land more effectively to produce more food.

In a further blow to the Prime Minister's "green" strategy, ministers are preparing to respond to the pressure from motorists – led by haulage owners who staged a noisy protest around Westminster this week – by bringing forward the announcement by the Chancellor Alistair Darling that the 2p rise in fuel duty in October will be scrapped.

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UN chief to G8: climate change, food crisis linked

Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 4 Jul 08;

The global food crisis will only worsen because of climate change, the U.N. climate chief said Friday, urging leaders of the world's richest countries meeting in Japan next week to set goals to reduce carbon emissions within the next dozen years.

Food security and soaring oil prices are likely to overtake climate change in the priorities of the G-8 meeting starting Monday, though global warming was the theme set by the host, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Food and global warming are interconnected, said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. "They are not competing with each other on the international agenda."

"It is absolutely right that the food issue is receiving a lot of attention. That is a human crisis that's out there right now," De Boer said in a telephone interview from his office in Bonn, Germany.

But in the long term, climate change will bring still higher food prices, worsening water problems and more drought. Ignoring the issue "will get you into deeper trouble down the road," he said.

De Boer said it was uncertain whether the industrialized countries would firm up the goal adopted a year ago to "consider seriously" halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

But he said it was important to discuss more immediate goals. Knowing what the world's biggest economies intend to do by 2020 is critical for developing countries and business investors, he said.

"If you look at the signs of investment direction that the private sector is crying out for, that is the issue that is most critical," he said. He acknowledged, however, he expected no conclusions on emissions goals for 2020.

A Nobel prize-winning panel of U.N. scientists has said emissions must level off within the next 10-15 years and then start to dramatically decline to avoid a rise in average temperatures that could have catastrophic consequences.

Since the last G-8 meeting in Germany, oil prices have doubled to surpass $140 a barrel, and de Boer said soaring prices were already having an effect on climate issues.

On the plus side, people were driving less, and renewable energy was winning more attention. For the first time, the International Energy Agency lowered its forecast for oil demand, he said.

At the same time, "very poor people who spend the bulk of their income on survival are not happy to see energy prices go up," he said.

De Boer welcomed the move by the board of the World Bank on Tuesday formally launching two special investment funds for climate change that could raise up to US$10 billion.

The funds have been sharply criticized by some environmentalists who distrust the bank's environmental record and say the money should be put in the hands of de Boer's U.N. organization.

"The Bank's new climate funds will undermine U.N. climate talks, increase debt and pay polluters," said the Friends of the Earth in a statement Friday.

De Boer said, however, the bank's funds had a clause that will phase them out when a new financial structure is adopted in a climate change treaty. That accord should be negotiated by the end of next year.

More than $200 billion will be needed annually by 2030 to bring the world's emissions down to 1990 levels — and still more will be needed to reduce that by half over the next 20 years, he said.

"We will have to mobilize every possible financial channel to meet that challenge," he said.

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Only seven years left for global warming target: UN panel chief

Reuters 4 Jul 08;

The head of the UN's Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists on Friday said only seven years remained for stabilising emissions of global-warming gases at a level widely considered safe.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), delivered the bleak warning at a gathering of European Union ministers where he pleaded with the EU to take the lead in global talks on tackling climate change.

The UN negotiations "must progress rapidly, otherwise I am afraid that not only future generations but even this generation will treat us as having been irresponsible," said Pachauri.

"The EU has to lead. If the EU does not lead, I am afraid that any attempt to bring about change and to manage the problem of climate change will collapse," said Pachauri.

"Today there is a high level of expectation. If the EU does not lead, you will not be able to bring the US on board, North America, on board. You will not be able to bring on board other countries in the world as well."

Pachauri said the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report -- which helped earn the panel the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize alongside US climate campaigner Al Gore -- had dispelled any doubts about human impact on the climate system.

He issued a stark warning that time was running out for dealing with the threat.

In the 20th century, the temperature had already risen on average by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.32 degrees Fahrenheit), he said.

The EU wants to limit the overall warming since pre-industrial times to 2 C (3.6 F), a goal that is shared by many scientists.

To do this, said Pachauri, "we would have to stabilise the greenhouse-gas concentration at more or less the level at which we are today.

"(...)But in order to do that, we have a window of opportunity of only seven years because emissions will have to peak by 2015 and reduce after that. We cannot permit a longer delay."

Pachauri also sounded a note of caution about the 2 C (3.6 F) figure, as evidence was mounting that climate change was accelerating faster than thought. Heatwaves and floods were increasing, and higher temperatures were having a far-reaching effect on glaciers and snowfall.

"The very wise target that the EU had set of 2.0 (C, 3.6 F) may need to be looked at once more, because the impacts are turning out to be more serious than we had estimated earlier," he said.

Talks are taking place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for a new global pact after 2012, when the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol run out.

A major round of negotiations will take place in Poznan, Poland in December, with the climax scheduled in Copenhagen in December 2009.

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Factbox: Carbon trading schemes around the world

Reuters 4 Jul 08;

(Reuters) - Companies and governments are turning to emissions trading as a weapon to fight climate change, in a carbon market worth $64 billion last year.

Cap and trade schemes force participants -- often energy-intensive industries -- to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which is produced from burning fossil fuels.

Australia's leading climate guru Ross Garnaut on Friday laid out a draft carbon trading scheme, to be launched in 2010, to rein in rising emissions in the world's top per-capita greenhouse gas polluter.

New Zealand's carbon market said on Thursday it was in a position to become Asia's leading market for trading in greenhouse gas emissions when it starts up in early 2009.

The European Union launched its cap and trade scheme in 2005, while Canada is set to launch a market of its own in 2010.

U.S. senators last month defeated a proposed federal U.S. climate change bill which included cap & trade.

In another type of carbon market, countries and companies can trade carbon offsets under three, UN-led Kyoto Protocol schemes. The schemes allow rich countries to earn emission permits by investing in cuts in greenhouse gases in other countries.

A full list of established and proposed schemes follows.

INTERNATIONAL SCHEMES

KYOTO PROTOCOL (United Nations) (1)

Launched: 2005

Mandatory for 37 rich countries

Target: 5 percent reduction in 1990 emissions by 2008-2012

Contains three sub-schemes to help signatories meet targets:

1- Clean Development Mechanism (CDM): Rich countries can

invest in clean energy projects in developing nations

2- Joint Implementation (JI): Rich countries can invest in

clean energy projects in former communist countries

3- Assigned Amount Units (AAUs): Signatories can trade

surplus emissions rights among themselves

First commitment period expires in 2012 and governments scrambling to negotiate a successor agreement

EU ETS - European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (2)

Launched: 2005 (Phase 1: 2005-2007, Phase 2: 2008-2012, Phase 3: 2013-2020)

Mandatory for 27 nations in EU

Covers around half of all EU emissions

Target: Reduce EU ETS emissions by 21 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels

Worth $50 billion in 2007 (3)

UNITED STATES

Mandatory cap & trade scheme proposed under Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act was rejected by the U.S. Senate in June, but many observers expect either presidential candidate to introduce new climate legislation within first six months of their presidency.

CANADA (4)

Launch: 2010

Mandatory for all 10 provinces and three territories

Target: Reduce 2006 emissions by 20 percent by 2020

Scheme covers 50 percent of Canada's emissions

Potential problems: Alberta already has a provincial scheme and several provinces have joined U.S. regional schemes

JAPAN (5)

Currently a voluntary scheme (JVETS), and government trialing a mandatory scheme in autumn 2008

Target: Cut emissions by 14 percent below current levels by 2020

JVETS - Launched: 2005

Target: Cut emissions from a 2002-2004 average, using government-subsidized clean energy equipment

AUSTRALIA (6)

Launch: 2010

Mandatory - to cover some 70 percent of Australian emissions

Target: First cap (2010-2012) to cut emissions to 8 percent above 1990 levels (Australia's Kyoto target). Subsequent caps "should reflect increasing levels of ambition" and move country towards long-term goal of reducing 2000 emissions by 60 percent by 2050

NEW ZEALAND (7)

Launch: 2008

Mandatory - includes forestry in 2008, power & industry in 2009, transport in 2011 and agricultural waste from 2013.

Target: To be announced

Appointed to be VCS (Voluntary Carbon Standard) registry

Sources: (1) UNFCCC

(2) European Commission

(3) World Bank

(4) Environment Canada

(5) Japanese government

(6) Australian government

(7) New Zealand government

(Compiled by Michael Szabo; Editing by James Jukwey)

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Australia needs carbon trading to fight climate change: study

Yahoo News 4 Jul 08;

A major climate change report for Australia's government on Friday recommended the rapid introduction of an emissions trading scheme to curb greenhouse gases and warned that delay could be disastrous.

"Without early and strong action, some time before 2020 we will realise we've indelibly surrendered to forces that have moved beyond our control," said the report's author, economics professor Ross Garnaut.

The former diplomat and long-time advisor to governments said in his report that climate change was a "diabolical" problem which could cause immense damage to Australia.

An emissions trading scheme covering as many sectors as possible, including transport, was the best way of reducing the production of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, he said.

"The more sectors included in the emissions trading scheme, the more efficiently costs will be shared across the economy," Garnaut said.

However, energy prices would rise under the scheme and low-income households would need to be compensated through funds collected from the sale of emissions permits.

Garnaut said his specific recommendations on emissions targets and carbon pricing would be contained in a supplementary report at the end of August and in the final report to be released at the end of September.

Emissions trading schemes place a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases companies can produce, forcing heavy polluters to buy credits from companies that pollute less -- thereby creating financial incentives to fight global warming.

Garnaut was commissioned to undertake the study last year by the incoming centre-left government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, which accused the former conservative government of failing to take action over climate change.

Rudd, who signed Australia up to the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change as his first official act in government, wants to create such a trading system by 2010.

Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong has said it would "constitute the most significant economic and structural reform undertaken in Australia since the trade liberalisation of the 1980s."

Business groups have expressed concern that such a trading scheme would push up costs and make it more difficult for companies to compete against foreign firms not faced with similar restrictions.

Australian adviser unveils carbon trading scheme
Rob Taylor and Mark Bendeich, Reuters 4 Jul 08;

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's leading climate guru on Friday laid out a draft carbon trading scheme to rein in rising emissions in the world's top per-capita greenhouse gas polluter.

Economist Ross Garnaut, appointed by the government to design what will be the world's most extensive emissions regime from 2010, said Australia was critically at risk from climate change and urged deep cuts in emissions from the world's top coal exporter.

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who won a huge election victory last November on a green agenda, is under pressure to soften the impact of inevitable energy and fuel price rises from an emissions cap-and-trade scheme.

"We cannot drop the ball," Garnaut said in a speech. "Our location makes us already a hot and dry country. Increases in temperature and lower rainfall have a much bigger impact here than on other wealthy countries."

Garnaut, dubbed "Australia's Nicholas Stern", referring to the British author of a widely read report on fighting climate change, urged Rudd to go further than his current goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050.

Garnaut urged the inclusion of energy and transport in the scheme, but said big corporates whose foreign rivals are free to pollute should be mollified with compensation.

Voters, though, are already fretting over higher petrol prices, along with rising food and mortgage costs, piling pressure on Rudd to get the scheme right and limit the impact on ordinary Australians.

Polls show rising living costs are already eating into government popularity.

Some rival green and conservative analysts have even begun thinking what on election night last year seemed impossible; that emissions and climate policy could bring so much economic upheaval that Rudd's dominant Labor lasts only one three-year term. Garnaut gave no hard numbers on what his preferred regime could cost, promising those by August. But a "middle-of-the-road" climate policy could gouge 4.8 percent from gross domestic product, or US$384 billion, by end of the century, he said.

POLLUTER PAYS

"An effective market-based system will be as broadly based as possible, with any exclusions driven by practical necessity and not by short-term political considerations," the report said. Power generators say they will have to raise prices, while farmers and coal-miners warn of lost overseas competitiveness.

Under Garnaut's proposals, businesses that pump out less greenhouse gas than their allowable limit would receive credits and be able to sell permits bought at competitive auction to pollute to firms exceeding their carbon emissions quota.

The government is already working on a number of options for the 2010 trading scheme.

"Professor Garnaut's views will be taken into account," Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said.

"The Australian government believes that every nation must do its fair share to tackle climate change and we are working to help shape a long-term global solution," she said.

Garnaut's scheme would cover more sectors of the economy compared with the European Union's emissions trading system, currently the largest of its type and worth $50 billion last year.

The EU scheme, which covers about half of EU emissions, was criticized for overallocating emission permits, which experts said should have been auctioned.

To overcome what Brussels sees as that design flaw, the Commission earlier this year said it will set EU-wide emissions limits for all sectors covered by the trading scheme, and most permits will be auctioned off instead of handed out for free.

The report conceded a competitive emissions-trade system could cause big price gyrations in the early stages and accepted there was a good argument for relying initially on some fixed-price permits and a two-year trial period.

Compensation directed to disadvantaged exporters, to keep them in Australia, should be limited to as much as 30 percent of the cost of purchasing emission permits, the report said, prompting a testy response from Green groups.

"There is a danger that if we move to a corporate welfare scheme, it's just going to prolong the use of coal. Coal is not the solution, coal is the problem," Greenpeace CEO Steve Shallhorn told Reuters.

Australia relies on coal to generate about 77 percent of the country's electricity.

Garnaut stressed the emission scheme should not become a government revenue-raiser, suggesting 50 percent of the likely A$15-20 billion ($14-19 billion) raised from permit auctions should be returned to households and 30 percent to hard-hit businesses. The other 20 percent would go to renewable energy.

(Reporting Rob Taylor and Mark Bendeich; Editing by David Fogarty)

($1 = A$1.04)

FACTBOX: Australia report outlines carbon trading system
Reuters 4 Jul 08;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's climate-change adviser, Ross Garnaut, sketched out a blueprint for a national carbon-trading system on Friday in a report to the government. In his 600-page draft report, Garnaut called for tough limits on greenhouse gas emissions and a competitive auction for setting the price of emission permits, which would give the right to pollute, but he stopped short of giving hard numbers. Instead, he outlined the following key principles for governing an emissions-trading system:

SETTING EMISSIONS CAPS

* The nation's overall emissions cap should be set as an annual limit and lowered over time. The first cap, from 2010 to 2012, should be based on Australia's commitments to the Kyoto climate-change protocol, which aims to limit its emissions to 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2008-12. The caps decided for the post-2012 period "should reflect increasing levels of ambition".

CHANGING EMISSIONS CAPS

* Changes should be based on international policy developments and agreements. The government should give five years' notice of movement to another "trajectory", meaning a different level of emissions caps.

SCHEME COVERAGE

* Emissions caps and emissions-permit trading should apply to six greenhouse gases as defined by the Kyoto Protocol: Stationary energy (such as power plants), industrial processes, "fugitives" (which includes coal-mining and oil and gas production), transport, waste and forestry. The first four would be included from the outset in 2010 and the other two as soon as practicable. The inclusion of agriculture (Australia's second-biggest emitter) to be subject to progress on measurement and administration.

DOMESTIC CARBON CREDITS

* Domestic carbon credits will have a small role. Unlimited credits should be accepted from forestry, before and during running of the scheme. Credits for agriculture should be analysed further in the context of coverage of agricultural emissions, pending advice given in further reports.

ISSUING OR RELEASING PERMITS

* All permits should be auctioned at regular intervals. Some additional permits may be awarded, in lieu of cash assistance, to firms that are in trade-exposed, emissions-heavy industries that face competition from less-regulated rivals overseas.

INTERNATIONAL LINKS

* Opportunities for international linking of the Australian scheme should be sought in a judicious and calibrated manner.

PRICE CONTROLS

* Not supported, except during transition period to end 2012.

FLEXIBILITY IN USE OF PERMITS

* Unlimited hoarding of permits should be allowed. Official lending of permits by an independent carbon bank to the private sector should be allowed within five-year periods.

TREATMENTS OF TRADE-EXPOSED INDUSTRIES

* International sector-specific agreements on emissions caps should be pursued as a priority. If they have not been reached by end-2012, assistance should be given to account for "material distortions" arising from major trading competitors not adopting similar constraints on emissions. The level of assistance should not amount to more than 30 percent of the cost of permits.

GOVERNANCE

* Scheme should be administered by an independent "carbon bank".

COMPLIANCE AND PENALTY

* Penalty will be enforced to ensure compliance but will not release the offender from the obligation to purchase permits.

USE OF PERMIT REVENUE

* Auctioning of permits likely to raise A$15-20 billion ($14-19 billion), with some cash kept aside to cover the costs of the system and to purchase international permits or carbon credits. The rest would be returned to households and businesses or invested in renewable energy.

(Reporting by Mark Bendeich; Editing by David Fogarty)

FACTBOX: Australia's plan for "diabolical" climate change
Reuters 3 Jul 08;

(Reuters) - Australia, one of the world's top carbon emitters per person, will unveil an emissions trading scheme later this year, which it hopes will help cut the country's carbon footprint.

The scheme is a major initiative of Kevin Rudd's Labor government, and is due to start operating in 2010.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong will outline the government's options for carbon trading later in July, with the system to be finalized and laws sent to parliament by the end of the year.

The government's key climate adviser, economist Ross Garnaut, released his draft report on climate change and carbon trading on Friday, July 4.

Here are some details on how a cap and trade scheme can work.

HOW DO EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEMES' WORK?

* A national upper limit, or 'cap' for carbon emissions is set according to the country's target.

* Companies audit emissions, and reduce them to hit the target by buying permits that allow them to emit above-target levels of carbon. Companies with under-limit emissions sell permits to those unable to keep within their ceiling.

* Limits can tighten over time. Polluting businesses then migrate to cleaner technologies to cut costs, speeding the transition to a low-carbon economy. Start-ups are also dissuaded from going into carbon-heavy technologies.

WHAT SECTORS WILL BE AFFECTED IN AUSTRALIA?

* Details have not been released, but the scheme will likely include as many energy sources as possible. Government climate adviser Ross Garnaut, who calls climate change a "diabolical problem", has suggested fuel should be included, as excluding it would put a bigger burden on other polluters.

* Likely suspects, farmers, coal miners and power generators, could be asked to bid for carbon permits at auction, rather than be given free permits. The previous conservative government wanted initial exemptions for farmers and free carbon permits for the coal industry to soften the economic blow.

* Some economists say the Australian permit auction could net A$20 billion ($19.2 billion) -- money which could go towards subsidizing higher electricity and petrol prices.

WHY ARE AUSSIE EMISSIONS SO HIGH?

* In a word, coal. Australia relies on it to generate about 80 percent of its electricity. Greenhouse gases are emitted both in coal mining and when the fossil fuel is burnt.

* Cutting coal emissions is not easy -- Australia is also the world's largest coal exporter, sending more than A$26 billion of coal overseas in 2007/8, mostly to Asian neighbors.

* Despite having 0.32 per cent of the global population, it is responsible for about 1.5 percent of all carbon emissions. Each Australian's emissions were 4.5 times the global average in 2004 -- pushed up by coal and other fossil fuels.

WHAT ARE THE NATIONAL GOALS?

* To reduce 2000 emissions by 60 percent by 2050. Under the Kyoto Protocol, ratified by Labor last year, it must limit growth in greenhouse emissions to 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

* Hard-hit by the worst drought in century, Australia last year introduced stringent water restrictions, and concerns about global warming rose. But with inflation soaring and high fuel prices already angering voters, making tough moves to meet national goals may not be popular. * Moving to 'clean coal' is being presented as a means to cut emissions without abandoning the profitable industry. But with this technology still fledgling, some expect carbon-lite energy sources such as natural gas and nuclear will benefit.

DO CAP-AND-TRADE SCHEMES WORK?

* There are success stories. An early 1990s cap-and-trade system to combat acid rain by limiting sulfur dioxide emissions saw United States power plants cut back successfully, and at lower than expected costs.

* Greenhouse gas schemes are modeled on the acid rain program, but experts say carbon schemes are wider-ranging, (covering many greenhouse pollutants instead of just one) and their international nature makes them more complicated and costly. Technology to capture and store carbon from coal-fired power plants is also not as developed as acid rain systems.

* Europe introduced the world's largest cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gases in 2005. In 2007, it set the goal to reduce greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020. But the Australia scheme is expected to be broader in reach.

* Some say carbon taxes are more appropriate than trading schemes, others say they are just one approach among many needed.

Sources: Reuters, Garnaut Climate Change Review (http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/home), CSIRO (http://www.csiro.au/news/GlobalCarbonProject-PNAS.html) European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/emission.htm)

(Writing by Gillian Murdoch, Beijing Editorial Reference Unit)

FACTBOX: Australia's carbon footprint
Reuters 3 Jul 08;

(Reuters) - Australia in 1997 signed the Kyoto Protocol, which set targets for developed countries to limit Greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming, but did not ratify the agreement until December 2007.

Former conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who lost power after almost 12 years in office last November, refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would unfairly hurt Australia's economy and reliance on coal for energy and export income.

Left-leaning Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on December 3, 2007, as his first official act after being sworn into power, and has promised to introduce carbon trading in 2010.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Australia must limit emissions growth to 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2012. The country says it is on track to meet its Kyoto target.

Here are some details about Australia's carbon emissions.

* Australia's net Greenhouse emissions totaled 576 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or about 1.5 percent of world emissions.

* Emissions in 2006 were 4.2 percent higher than 1990 levels, despite a 47 percent increase from stationary energy.

* Australia emits 28.1 tons of carbon per person, the highest per capita level in the developed world and five times more per person than China, due to use of coal for electricity.

* Transport and Energy account for 69.6 percent of Australian emissions, or 400.9 million tons.

* Stationary energy, which includes electricity generation, petroleum refining and gas processing, accounts for 49.9 percent of emissions, or 287.4 million tons.

* Transport accounts for 14 percent of emissions, or 79.1 million tons. Road transport and passenger cars accounted for 12 percent of national emissions.

* Agriculture created 15.6 percent of emissions, or 90.1 million tons.

* 10.9 percent of Australian emissions, or 62.8 million tons, come from sheep and cattle, due to gases produced when they digest food.

* Land use and forestry account for 6.9 percent of emissions, or 40 million tons, down more than 70 percent from 96.5 million tons in 1990.

* Carbon dioxide represents 74 percent of Australian emissions (427.8 million tons), methane 20.5 percent (118 million tons), and nitrous oxide 4 percent (24.2 million tons).

* The energy sector is the main source of carbon dioxide (86 percent), while agriculture is the main source of methane (59 percent).

* Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter, with coal used to generate about 77 percent of Australia's electricity. Poland, China and South Africa also rely on coal for more than 75 percent of electricity generation.

* Australia has the world's largest reserves of uranium and is a major uranium exporter, but has no domestic nuclear power.

* Limited carbon trading already exists in Australia. The New South Wales state introduced a Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme in 2003, which forces electricity suppliers to meet Greenhouse targets by investing in projects to offset emissions. The Australian Capital Territory has a similar scheme.

Sources: Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventory; Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics)

(Reporting by James Grubel)

FACTBOX: Timeline for Australian carbon trading
Reuters 3 Jul 08;

(Reuters) - Australia's left-leaning Labor government has promised to introduce national carbon trading by 2010 in order to curb Greenhouse gas emissions.

Here is a timeline of the path to carbon trading in Australia.

2007

- Former conservative government of John Howard proposes carbon trading by 2012, and promises a 15 percent clean energy target by 2020, up from its old target of 2 percent. His government announces a phase-out of incandescent light bulbs. But he refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

- Labor's Kevin Rudd promises to ratify Kyoto, introduce carbon trading by 2010, and set a 20 percent renewable energy target by 2020. Labor also promises to cut emissions by 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2050, but does not set an interim emissions target for 2020.

November 24 - Rudd leads the left-leaning Labor Party to victory at national elections, ending nearly 12 years of conservative rule.

December 3 - Rudd is sworn into office, and immediately signs documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Penny Wong is appointed Minister for Climate Change.

2008

March - Government-industry consultations start on emissions trading.

July 4 - Government adviser Ross Garnaut, an economics professor, releases his draft report on carbon trading after a 15-month inquiry.

July 16 - Climate Change Minister Penny Wong due to release green paper on policy options for carbon trading.

August - Treasury modeling on the economic impact of carbon trading to be sent to government and Garnaut.

September - Final Garnaut report due by September 30.

December - Public release of draft legislation. Government expected to announce emissions target for 2020.

2009

March to July - Carbon emissions laws considered by parliament.

- Ongoing consultation on carbon trading regulations

New laws to come into force in third quarter, 2009, and regulator to be established.

2010

- Carbon trading to start.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 5 Jul 08

Smooth-coated otters at Punggol River
on the habitatnews blog

Sekudu Survey
with surprising first time encounters on the wildfilms blog and more sightings on the wonderful creations blog

BB: a very special reef
on the wonderful creations blog and some BB-only critters on the wildfilms blog

International Coastal Cleanup Organiser's workshop
on the news from the international coastal cleanup blog

Scientists studying seagrasses in the U.S.
on the teamseagrass blog

Read more!

Tree part of our history

Tanglin Trust school says tree needs to be cut for new building.
Students protest: Tree part of our history
Veena Bharwani, The New Paper 5 Jul 08;

IT may look like just an ordinary old tree to some.

But to Tanglin Trust School student Danielle Guy, 15, the three-storey tall Ficus microcarpa (banyan) tree with its buttress roots, is a part of the school's history.

So when she heard that it is being cut down, she along with more than 30 others and several staff members of the international school, stood in front of the tree yesterday at lunch time to stage a silent protest.

The tree, which has a 30m wide trunk, has been at the school's Portsdown Road premises for more than 20 years.

It is located behind the school campus.

The school management told The New Paper that they had decided to fell the tree because the area around it is being used to extend part of the school building to accommodate more students.

Currently, the school has 2,250 students and is looking to increase its enrolment to 3,000 by 2012.

The management consulted NParks before deciding to fell the tree. It will be cut down in due course.

However, Danielle and the others felt that cutting down the tree is like chopping away part of the school's history.

She said: 'I've been in this school for 12 years, ever since I was 3 years old and the tree has been there.

'When I was 7, I used to swing by the tree's long vines and have even collected insects around it for science experiments.'

'The tree is the school,' she added.

Upon hearing from a staff member on Wednesday that the tree will be cut down, Danielle decided to gather evidence to try and save it.

'I only heard about it at 6pm on Wednesday. I looked through 15 old school magazines to gather information on how important the tree is to the school.

'I found a school prospectus that had the tree's picture on its cover and as the background of its every page.'

Her father Graeme Guy, 55, a biochemist, added: 'I asked her if she was prepared to do this alone and she said 'yes', as she felt very strongly about it.'

Armed with evidence and arguments, Danielle met the headmaster yesterday morning to present her case.

She said: 'I told him that as one of the older students in the school, it was my responsibility to try and prevent it from happening as it was a big part of the school's history.

'As part of the school curriculum, we learn about environmental conservation and we feel that the management is sending mixed signals to us by deciding to cut down the tree.'

Danielle, however, didn't succeed in her appeal. The headmaster told her that the tree has to go.

She said: 'I came out of the office crying and I told my classmates about it. They said why not stand in front of the tree to show our support for it.'

Within two hours, the entire school was buzzing with the news of the tree's fate.

Some students had even made a poster to rally support for the tree to stay, she said.

Danielle's classmate, who declined to be named, said: 'We wanted to express our feelings about the decision to cut the tree down.'

In a staff briefing yesterday, the CEO of Tanglin Trust School, Mr Steven Andrews, explained that the decision to remove the tree was not something that was taken lightly and was only considered after all possible alternatives had been examined.

In an e-mail response to The New Paper yesterday, a school spokesman explained that demand for places at the school has grown significantly over the past few years, with waiting lists for places across the board.

The latest expansion - a new five-storey building - is designed to enable all students who are currently studying in the schools' junior level (7 to 11 years) to enter the senior school and continue their studies up through to the Sixth Form (16 to 18 years).

And in consultation with NParks, the management decided to remove the tree to make way for the expansion.

However, the spokesman added that the school is 'actively seeking expert advice on how to save part of the tree with a view to relocating it on the campus'.

Read more!

Mangrove tree 'saviour' gets green award

Liaw Wy-Cin, Straits Times 5 Jul 08;

SOME 300 mangrove trees at Punggol River would have died if not for Mr Goh Yong Keng, 51.

He had the trees moved to Tuas, ahead of the damming of the Punggol River to form a reservoir, which would have flooded the area with fresh water. Mangroves need brackish water to survive.

For this and other pro-environment acts at his workplace in Tuas, the engineering and maintenance director at drug company Schering-Plough received the National Environment Agency's (NEA) EcoFriend Award yesterday from Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim.

The award, also presented to 16 other people, is given to individuals in the private, public, non-government, youth and school sectors for their pro-environment efforts.

The 17 were picked from among 260 nominees. The hat held 80 per cent more names than last year, when the award was introduced.

The award is to encourage people to do their bit to conserve the environment.

At the awards ceremony held at Mount Faber, the NEA unveiled its modified logo, which now includes the tagline 'Our Environment - Sustain and Enjoy'.

The agency's chief executive Lee Yuen Hee explained that the change reflected the NEA's evolving role: 'Previously, our function was more operational and regulatory. Now, we are more involved in engaging people in sustaining our environment.'

The NEA plans to push for 60 per cent of the waste here to be recycled.

Besides saving the mangroves, Mr Goh also planted natural insect-repelling neem trees at his company's waste-water treatment centre, so that less anti-pest chemicals needed to be used. He also changed the fuel used in his company's steam boilers from diesel to natural gas, to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Of his award, he said: 'For the environmental cause, we need models for people to follow and be inspired. This award is one way of doing this.'

Read more!

Teacher, grade our herb soap

It's more than just textbooks for these students who experiment with soap & oils in lab work
SCHOOL is not just about textbooks and exams for these 'green ambassadors' from Kranji Secondary School.
Karen Wong, The New Paper 5 Jul 08;

SCHOOL is not just about textbooks and exams for these 'green ambassadors' from Kranji Secondary School.

Not only do Deborah Koh, 15, Quraisya Mirza, 15, and Lim Hwai Yi, 14, know their herbs, they also know how to extract their essence to make soaps.

They are part of a rotating group of students who, together with teachers, conduct such laboratory experiments after school.

And the experiment is one of 80 innovative projects to be showcased at the Education Ministry's Excel Festival, which the public can visit tomorrow.

There will also be 60 classroom experience sessions and talks for parents on the latest developments in education.

Deborah, Quraisya and Hwai Yi, who are Secondary 3 biology students, started testing herbs such as basil, as well as wild pepper and the ruta plant this year.

They discovered that the ruta plant's leaves emit a strong odour and has anti-bacterial properties.

They then went on to infuse its extract into soap that they made themselves.

HANDS-ON WORK

Speaking to The New Paper at their school's laboratory, Quraisya said that although it has already been scientifically proven that the ruta plant contains anti-bacterial properties, they undertook the experiment to find that out for themselves.

'This is more hands-on,' she said.

The original idea came from her teachers - one of whom is biology teacher Normala Alias.

Madam Normala, 42, recalled that it all started with the 100,000 native plant project, a community gardening initiative by South West Community Development Council in 2006, in which students and teachers planted local fruit trees and herbs around the school.

One teacher later decided to do some research on herbs and their properties. At the same time, the school was conducting a soap-making course for the students.

Madam Normala said: 'So, I thought, why not infuse the soap with the herbs?'

In their own time, teachers and students experimented with soaps with different mixes of ingredients and oils before they found the right concoction.

Last year, the students who took part in the after-school experiments made the soaps with help from their teachers and sold them.

Packaged with a booklet, each soap sold for $5 at the Singapore Garden Festival last year, raising over $1,000 for the school's pupil welfare fund to help needy students.

For Deborah, Quraisya and Hwai Yi, the soap they made this year will not be for sale, but will be on display at the Excel Festival.

WHAT: MOE Excel Fest

WHEN: Today, 9am to 7pm, only for Education Ministry (MOE) staff members Tomorrow, 9am to 8pm, for parents and the public

WHERE: Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hall 401, 4th level

Read more!

Elephant blood - on Singapore's hands?

The felling of elephant forests in Riau may seem remote, but businesses here are linked to plantations that do damage
Christy Williams, Straits Times 5 Jul 08;

SINGAPORE is clean, green and very easy on the eye. Yet most Singaporeans are blissfully unaware of the rapid loss of forests and biodiversity happening right next door.

Take the Riau province on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, just half an hour away by plane. It was considered a stronghold for Asian elephants in the 1980s. The province had tropical rainforests in abundance and elephants and tigers roamed everywhere.

Then came the boom in palm oil and a thirst for pulp to supply paper to the world. In the last decade, Riau has lost almost all of its 220,000ha of lowland rainforest, considered a cradle of biodiversity. Due to this massive habitat loss, the elephant-human conflict has skyrocketed there.

An appetite for crops

GENERALLY, each group of elephants, as well as big solitary adult bulls, needs to roam in a home range of 200 to 400 sq km. In large forest areas, where the home ranges are contained within forested habitat, there is very little conflict.

When small groups of humans move in and clear forests within an elephant's home range, they create either a crop field of paddy, wheat or sugar cane, or plantations of oil palm.

All this, to an elephant, is just another type of food which is in fact richer and tastier. They love to eat it.

Soon, they also discover that humans stock yet more gourmet food - salt, rice and sometimes rice beer - inside their flimsy and easy-to-push-down huts. It is inevitable that some elephants turn into house-raiders.

In face-to-face confrontations with a four- to five-tonne animal, people can get hurt or killed.

The situation worsens when more humans move in, clearing more forests before them and becoming more organised in their efforts to prevent the animals from taking their livelihood. This is when a full-blown elephant-human conflict happens.

Humans, in the absence of technical help and access to better and more humane mitigation methods, retaliate by throwing burning tyres, shooting with sharpened nails and using easily available pesticides as poisons.

If we want to save the elephants, we need to to save their forest habitats.

Human intrusions

PAPER and pulp or palm oil are not the only industries threatening the survival of elephants, tigers and rhinoceros in Sumatra.

In November 2006, I was called to an illegal coffee plantation inside the Bukit Barisan Selatan (BBS) National Park. My World Wildlife Fund (WWF) colleagues and Indonesian government partners had summoned me urgently to help deal with a crisis.

The people, whose livelihood was based on the illegal coffee plantations, were threatening to destroy the BBS elephant herd.

The herd, which numbered 30 in 2006, now comprised just six elephants. Although they were within the national park boundary, they were living on coffee plantations and posed a threat to the people there and their crops.

In fact, over 240 sq km of the national park had been converted to coffee plantations and now the elephants were being called aggressors.

We decided to develop an early-warning scheme using a Global Positioning System (GPS) collar fitted to one of the elephants.

This allowed us to monitor the elephants and warn villagers about approaching creatures, so they could vacate the village for the night or avoid going into a particular coffee plantation to prevent a confrontation with the elephants.

The easier solution would have been to do what Indonesians had been doing for a long time: capture the elephants and move them into captivity. This would mean, however, that a conservation battle had been lost once again.

The coffee plantations are still there and the WWF is trying to work out a solution with the big buyers and coffee growers to see if we can slowly reclaim some of the park's key areas.

The Singapore connection

WHEN the WWF began investigating the levers we could use to encourage better corporate responsibility by companies engaged in these businesses, we started finding Singapore links.

Financial institutions based in Singapore were connected to the two biggest paper and pulp industry players in Riau.

In the case of coffee grown on illegal plantations in Lampung Province, Sumatra, beans sold by small farmers were actually being shipped via Singapore by reputable companies.

Many of the people directly or indirectly involved in these businesses may have no idea that forests were being destroyed as a result of economic activities that had links to Singapore.

Creating awareness here about the plight of Riau's elephants, tigers and rhinos will go a long way towards changing the behaviour of players involved in the actual conversion of forests.

The WWF has now opened a Singapore office to create awareness among corporate and financial institutions about the need to protect Planet Earth and ensure a safe future for Singaporeans and other inhabitants of the Asean region. Eco-friendly products could be labelled so that consumers can choose those that have not damaged the environment.

At the individual level, people can make additional commitments to reduce their consumption. Every packet of creamer that we use for coffee, or ingredients used in items ranging from ice cream to toilet rolls, probably came from former habitats to highly endangered species such as elephants and tigers.

Companies producing goods such as palm oil must show clear commitment to stop cutting down forests. Institutions that make financial investments in plantations and other companies that clear tracts of land should insist that High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) assessments are done in forest habitats.

What this means is that every forest block must be assessed against agreed criteria for what constitutes good elephant, tiger or rich biodiversity areas. Those areas identified as HCVF must be left alone and those falling outside of the criteria can be converted to human use.

At the end of last year, I received word that the group of elephants in BBS National Park, whose matriarch we had collared, had killed a woman and her young son in an illegal settlement within the park.

They were the only two people who had not moved despite being warned by our field team about the presence of elephants in the vicinity.

Maybe they didn't have anywhere to go.

A few days later, I was sent pictures from the field showing two of the elephants from the collared group lying dead, killed in retaliation.

As an elephant biologist, I was filled with utter despair for the fate of the elephants. As a father of two young children, I closed my eyes to imagine myself in that dark hut as marauding elephants milled around me and my children.

We need to awaken our social responsibility and take steps to ensure that our impact on these ordinarily gentle giants is minimised.

In doing so, we will limit the tragedies caused by human-elephant conflict.

The writer is an Asian large-mammal expert with the WWF, a global conservation body with offices here. The WWF, together with the Indonesian government, has established a 33,000ha national park in Tesso Nilo in Riau, an important elephant habitat.

Read more!

Coming up: First 'zero energy' building

Solar panels to provide for BCA Academy's electricity needs
Tania Tan, Straits Times 5 Jul 08;

INSTEAD of gobbling up electricity from Singapore's power grid, one local building could soon be able to fend for itself.

Planners unveiled yesterday details of renovations to a Braddell Road research institute that would make it the country's first zero-energy building.

Officials hope to cover the government-run BCA Academy with half a football field's worth of solar panels, said Professor Lee Siew Eang, the project's head researcher.

The ultra-efficient institute, scheduled for completion next year, would also use about one-third the power of an average building and be able to survive on its own electricity.

'Hopefully, with a little help from heaven, there won't be too many rainy days, and we'll have our zero-energy building,' said Prof Lee, who works at the National University of Singapore.

The building would be at the forefront of a trend to turn buildings into batteries, thus reducing power consumption and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Officials hope the homes and offices of the future will be able to power themselves, said the president of the Institution of Engineers Singapore, Ms Lee Bee Wah.

But the difficulty is two-fold. The buildings must be energy efficient, and affordable sources of renewable energy - like solar power - must be developed, said Ms Lee, who is also an MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC.

Simply using renewable energy without improving efficiency would be futile.

'We cannot just plaster solar panels, as that will make costs skyrocket,' said Prof Lee.

Daylight, natural ventilation and visitor- tracking systems will be used to improve energy efficiency, said Prof Lee.

Green buildings are key in ensuring economic growth, environmental sustainability and a high quality of life for urban dwellers, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week.

The BCA building is not the only one heeding his call.

Under a $10 million plan by the National Environment Agency, manufacturers and contractors receive co-funding for doing an energy audit on their business.

As of last month, 107 applications to the three-year-old scheme were approved, with building projects accounting for more than 70 per cent.

If implemented, the projects could save a whopping 327,000MWh annually, or $28 million in power bills.

The Government is considering six bids for the project, tentatively scheduled for completion by next year.

Six bids logged for green building project
But contractors sound caution with requests for longer warranty period
Jamie Lee, Business Times 5 Jul 08;

SINGAPORE'S first zero energy building (ZEB) project has attracted six bids for the main tender and interviews with four 'serious' bidders will start next week, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) said yesterday.

The tender to convert the BCA Academy into a net zero energy building has drawn bids ranging from $10.4 million to $11.8 million.

The six companies that tendered are: ACP Construction, Dokota, Logistics Construction, Lexon Furniture & Construction, Shanghai Chong Kee Furniture & Construction and Stallion Development. All six are mid-size unlisted companies. 'We have six that came in. There are four serious ones that we are going to proceed with tender interviews next week,' Ang Kian Seng, deputy director of technology and innovation development at BCA, said on the sidelines of a ZEB seminar.

Of the four short-listed firms, three are Singaporean while one is a Chinese company, he said.

BCA closed the construction tender on June 6. It has already awarded the building's solar energy tender to Singapore firm Grenzone for $1.7 million.

In a sign of caution, some suppliers and contractors for renewable energy projects are 'over-specifying' with requests for warranties as long as 20 years, said Lee Siew Eang, who heads the research centre set up by BCA and the National University of Singapore. This is double the usual warranty period for specialised building projects and could raise costs as much as 40 per cent, said Eugene Seah, executive director of Davis Langdon & Seah.

'There is a benchmark in the industry and the maximum is usually 10 years,' he said.

Companies are seeking 20-year guarantees because while solar panels tend to last for that long in temperate regions, they could be damaged faster by Singapore's tropical weather.

'When (the panels) are exposed to the afternoon sun, it can be over 50 degrees. With rain and thunderstorms, you can go down to 28 degrees, so there is expansion and contraction. That element of uncertainty is still there,' said Prof Lee.

Singapore lags regional neighbours such as Malaysia, Japan and Thailand, which are also constructing ZEBs.

The ZEB project was launched in November last year. By 2009, the BCA Academy will be fitted with solar panels to generate electricity that is transferred into a normal power grid.

The amount of energy produced will match the amount of power consumed in the building.

ZEB, which will cost about 10 per cent more than a conventional building, will become a test centre for other green building technology, such as energy- efficient lamps and fan-ventilation systems.

The target is to run the building on 70 per cent less energy than a conventional building. ZEB is expected to run on 86 kilowatts per hour (kwh) per sq metre, compared with 230 kwh per sq metre for standard buildings.

Read more!

Cyclists welcome foldable bicycles on board public transport

Channel NewsAsia 4 Jul 08;

SINGAPORE: Environmentally-conscious commuters are opting to cycle and take public transport over private cars or even taxis.

A new measure by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) now enables cyclists to go that extra mile in reducing their carbon footprint.

Li Pui Ming no longer needs to leave her bicycle outside the train station before she boards a train. That's because a new trial by LTA, introduced on May 24, allows cyclists to bring their foldable bicycles on board during off-peak hours or weekends.

While this is extremely convenient for the housewife, she feels more can be done for working Singaporeans.

She said: "For me, it's okay, because I usually use it during off-peak hours. But for those who go to work, I don't think it's very practical, because during peak hours, they cannot bring it into the MRT."

Before the rule was in place, Li would lock her bicycle outside train stations. However, two of her bicycles were stolen.

These days, being able to bring her bike onto the train means she has free transport from the station to her destination.

Together with transport operators, LTA is running a six-month trial on trains and a three-month trial on buses to see if having these foldable bikes on board will affect operations and other commuters.

Feedback from the public will also be taken into consideration.

For now, at least, there is this low-cost, eco-friendly option for those wanting to do their bit to save the earth. - CNA/vm

Read more!

S$10m given to 8 research teams under clean energy programme

Channel NewsAsia 4 Jul 08;

SINGAPORE: Eight research teams have received a total of S$10 million to fund their projects on clean energy.

The projects span a wide range of technologies in the solar energy field.

These include research and development in the various main classes of solar energy, including purification of solar-grade silicon used in conventional wafer-based solar cells, thin-film photovoltaics (PV), novel PV technologies such as dye-sensitised solar cells, as well as high-efficiency concentrator solar cells.

The S$10 million in grants were given out by the Clean Energy Programme Office.

The eight research proposals came from the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Sinomem Technology. They were picked from 60 submissions.

The proposals were the first to be awarded the grants under the Clean Energy Research Programme (CERP), which aims to accelerate research and development efforts to help drive the growth of the clean energy industry in Singapore. - CNA/ir

$10m boost for solar-power studies
Straits Times 5 Jul 08;

SCIENTISTS yesterday received a $10 million boost for research into solar power.

Eight projects were the first to be awarded grants under the $50 million Clean Energy Research Programme, launched by the Economic Development Board.

The winners 'will contribute to the international effort to replace greenhouse-emitting energy sources with clean, renewable energy', said Professor Andrew Blakers, a member of the expert panel that evaluated the proposals.

Dr Stephen Wittkopf and his team from the National University of Singapore were one of the recipients. They will be installing new-age solar panels on the campus' department of architecture building.

Solar panels used to be 'black, bulky and ugly' and eschewed by style-conscious architects, explained Dr Wittkopf. However, his team will use translucent and coloured panels that can be incorporated into a building's facade.

The team plans to spend the next three years testing which of the prototypes work best.

The results will be compiled into a comprehensive database for architects, for reference on their green designs.

TANIA TAN

Solar research gets EDB funding boost
Business Times 5 Jul 08;

THE Economic Development Board (EDB) said yesterday it has awarded $10 million to eight solar energy research teams under the clean energy research programme.

The eight proposals were chosen from 60 submissions in this first grant call, on the back of Singapore's growing interest in green energy.

The proposed studies will look at how to raise the performance of solar cells and cut the cost of producing them. They include research on purifying the silicon used in conventional wafer-based solar cells, thin-film photovoltaics, new technology such as dye-sensitised cells, and high-efficiency concentrator cells.

The $50 million clean energy programme was launched on Oct 30 last year. And EDB plans to issue two grant calls every year.

Academia, public sector agencies and non-profit organisations qualify for full grants for direct costs, while the private sector can receive funding of up to 70 per cent.

Proposals must first be submitted to international peer reviewers. Short-listed proposals are then assessed by an EDB evaluation panel.

The next grant call is expected to open next month.

The government has pledged $350 million to build a clean energy sector, with a focus on solar power. The industry is expected to contribute $1.7 billion to gross domestic product and create 7,000 jobs by 2015.

Solar energy can be sexy
Research grants aim to reduce costs and showcaseits prettier side
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 6 Jul 08;

YOU do not need to be a scientist to make your mark in the solar industry.

That is what Dr Stephen Wittkopf from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Department of Architecture proved on Friday.

One of eight research project leaders awarded a total of $10 million in grants under the Clean Energy Research Programme (Cerp), Dr Wittkopf credits architects for morphing bulky, dark-coloured solar panels of yore into sleek, multi-functional building components. Instead of sitting on rooftops, the panels can now be part of the building’s “skin”.

His idea is to set up a “demo site” within NUS’ school of architecture. This would measure and collect data on solar radiation in buildings, as well as the efficiency of their photovoltaic components (which convert solar energy into electricity).

The site, which Dr Wittkopf reckons is the first of its kind in South-east Asia, would change the public’s perception that solar technology is visually unappealing. He said: “With new technology, there are fewer limitations , and that would make it more attractive for architects. In a couple of years, we won’t know it’s a photovoltaic panel, because it won’t look like one.”

For instance, they could resemble pretty stained glass mosaics, or multi-task as sun shades or skylights, he said.

Lower costs and higher efficiency are the key ideas driving the eight research proposals that were awarded grants under Cerp, whose inaugural grant call focuses on solar technologies.

Over the next three years, the eight research teams will work toward the holy grail of “grid parity” so that electricity generated from solar energy will cost the same as that from fossil fuels, at about US$1 ($1.35) per watt.

Currently, energy from silicon-based solar cells costs about four times that amount, said Professor Tse Man Siu of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), the co-principal investigator of one of the awarded proposals. The project will develop a low-cost solid variant of dye-sensitised solar cells, improving on liquid variants used now which deteriorate after a while.

Said Professor Tse: “We are excited because of the potential to develop cheap and new technology to manufacture solar cells.”

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