Rivers Are Carbon Processors, Not Inert Pipelines

ScienceDaily 1 Dec 08;

Microorganisms in rivers and streams play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle that has not previously been considered. Freshwater ecologist Dr. Tom Battin, of the University of Vienna, told a COST ESF Frontiers of Science conference in October that our understanding of how rivers and streams deal with organic carbon has changed radically.

Microorganisms such as bacteria and single celled algae in rivers and streams decompose organic matter as it flows downstream. They convert the carbon it contains into carbon dioxide, which is then released to the atmosphere.

Recent estimates by Battin's team and others conclude there is a net flux, or outgassing, of carbon dioxide from the world's rivers and streams to the atmosphere of at least two-thirds to three-quarters of a gigatonne (Gt) of carbon per year. This flux has not been taken into account in the models of the global carbon cycle used to predict climate change.

"Surface water drainage networks perfuse and integrate the landscape, across the whole planet," says Battin, "but they are missing from all global carbon cycling, even from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) reports. Rivers are just considered as inert pipelines, receiving organic carbon from Earth and transporting it to the ocean." This thinking, according to Battin, has changed radically in last few years.

He argues that the latest estimates of how much carbon is transferred to the atmosphere from rivers and streams are very conservative. "The actual outgassing of carbon dioxide is probably closer to 2 Gt of carbon per year," says Battin. "Our surface area estimates only consider larger streams and rivers, because it is very hard to estimate accurately the surface area of small streams. So small streams are excluded, although in terms of microbial activity, they are the most reactive in the network."

Two gigatonnes of carbon per year is close to half the estimated net primary production of the world's vegetation each year. Realising that this quantity of carbon may be delivered straight back to the atmosphere, rather than being taken to the ocean where some of it is removed by marine organisms and ends up in sediment, could have profound consequences for our understanding of the system.

In a disturbing development, Battin's team lab has recently found that engineered nanoparticles can significantly compromise the freshwater microbes involved in carbon cycling. "This finding is a real challenge to science," says Battin. "Engineered nanoparticles such as titanium dioxide are expected to increase in the environment, but it remains completely unknown how they might affect the functioning of ecosystems."

This research was presented at the "Complex Systems: Water and Life" Frontiers of Science conference, organized by European Science Foundation (ESF) and COST, 29-31 October, Taormina, Sicily.

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Financial Times: Out of the Malaise

UNEP website 1 Dec 08;

Out of the ashes of the current financial crisis, where should the 21st-century global economy look for real and long-term growth, genuine prosperity and job creation?

What about a "Global Green New Deal"? Faced with the Great Depression, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt rapidly adopted his recovery-focused New Deal. It brought in banking and industrial reforms alongside emergency relief, work relief and agricultural programmes.

Today we need similar vision, urgent action and strong political engagement to deal with the even greater and multiple challenges of our time - from climate change and poverty to rapidly declining biodiversity and water supplies.

The financial, fuel and food crises of 2008 are in part a result of unregulated speculation, but they also require us to urgently review economic models.

First, the industrial and service sector-led growth "at any cost" may have hit its limits - in terms of job creation and in terms of its ecological footprint on the world's increasingly scarce nature-based assets. Gross domestic product as a measure of real wealth and as a bell-weather of economic success or failure may also have had its day in its current, narrow configuration.

Climate change is perhaps the biggest market failure of all time, but there are many others in the making. Commercial fish stocks may run out in just a few years or decades and fertile agricultural land is heading in the same direction. Economists estimate that well over $2,000bn of natural capital is being lost annually as a result of deforestation. We are living off the capital; we need to live off the interest.

At least 1.3bn people live in poverty, eking out a living on less than $2 a day. Five hundred million young people will join the workforce during the next 10 years. Will all these people really be put to work so that everyone can have five cars, 20 i-Pods or a laptop in every room? Or is there another way?

Steering the global economy onto a sustainable path and delivering a Global Green New Deal is not about sentiment but about hard economics, real choices and a new compass for delivering genuine wealth creation. It is not about cutting growth but about more intelligent and sustainable growth that captures the true value of human and nature-based capital. It is about rebalancing, refocusing and redirecting investments and markets in ways that deal with multiple challenges and deliver multiple benefits in the north and in the south. Thus, it needs a substantial injection of political capital.

These are among the key points that the United Nations Environment Programme made when it launched its Green Economy initiative last month. The pillars of the new initiative include both the need to address climate change and the wider, ever more pressing, challenges of sustainability.

The initiative is not starting from zero. In 2007, $148bn was invested in the renewable energy market - up 60 per cent from the year before. The current global market for environmental goods and services is worth more than $1,300bn and could double by 2020.

Investments in improved energy efficiency in buildings could generate an additional 2m-3.5m green jobs in Europe and the US, with the potential much higher in developing countries. India could generate 900,000 jobs by 2025 in biomass gasification. Recycling and waste management employ an estimated 10m in China and 500,000 in Brazil today - reflecting, in part, the business opportunities but also the rising costs of commodities.

Several countries, including Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand and Norway, have joined with cities and companies to pledge a zero emission future under UNEP's Climate Neutral Network. Via the UN carbon markets, Mexico has, or has in the pipeline, close to 190 projects, including clean energy schemes, and exported $2.3bn worth of solar panels last year.

By some estimates, boosting the fuel efficiency of the US car fleet to 35mpg could generate savings to consumers of close to $40bn, which could be spent in the wider economy.

These transformations are happening as a result of "soft" market signals, and in many cases with minimal government intervention. But what if they became harder and more imaginative?

Take forests, the world's great water storage, carbon-absorbing, soil-conserving utilities. Just $45bn a year invested in the world's 100,000 national parks and protected areas could not only secure services worth some $5,200bn but could boost employment and livelihoods for millions of indigenous and rural people. This could come from the public purse or via a fund for reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation or an expanded carbon market.

The transition to a green economy is not about some unreachable and whimsical nirvana but a way of powering the world out of its current malaise. It is a way of ensuring that money is spent not once but twice or thrice.

A Global Green New Deal echoes Mr. Roosevelt but focuses on the even greater challenges of today. It could also set the stage for unprecedented green growth for the world's 6bn people without short-changing them or the planet.

Achim Steiner is UN under-secretary general and executive director of the UN Environment Programme. Pavan Sukhdev is head of global markets for Deutsche Bank India.

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Best of our wild blogs: 2 Dec 08

A Good Dive @ Pulau Hantu
on the colourful clouds blog and Pulau Hantu blog

November rain
fails to dampen on the Chek Jawa tour of the Adventures of the Naked Hermit Crabs blog

IRAS friends visit Chek Jawa
on the Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs blog

Oriental Honey-buzzard: Wear and tear of feathers
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

5 Dec (Fri): Workshop for Nature Guides - Cnidarians
register now, on the wild shores of singapore blog

Scientific researches of sun bear & publications
on the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation blog

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Ensuring the taps flow steadily

Leong Ching, Straits Times 2 Dec 08;

BY HIS own admission, Mr Ek Sonn Chan is an unlikely hero. In the 1970s as Cambodia emerged from the devastation the Khmer Rouge inflicted on the country, he was a low-profile civil servant in an obscure department working on the city's electricity grid.

He was alone in the world - the Pol Pot regime had killed all his family. He survived, he said, by keeping his head down.

Then in 1993, after the United Nations-sponsored elections, he found new a new mission. As the director of Phnom Penh's Water Supply Authority (PPWSA), he turned the city's yellow, muddy trickle of water into a clear, steady stream.

At the time, only one-fifth of the city had access to the city's 280km of cast iron pipes.

Water flowed for only 10 hours a day and half of it was lost through leaks. Most of the pipes were 70 years old.

There was almost no formal way to be connected to the city's water supply. You had to fork out US$1,000 (S$1,500) to US$5,000 to buy the favour of water officials. If you were poor, you bought water one tepid jar at a time, and tried to make it last.

Some 15 years later, you can drink straight from the tap in Phnom Penh. Almost everyone has access to water 24 hours a day. Out of 100 drops, only six are allowed to leak away. Singapore loses four, while some utilities in Britain lose as many as 10.

Last year, Mr Chan received Asia's Nobel Prize - the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service.

At 59, he remains a tiger of a man, tanned and vigorous. An avid golfer, he still hits 270 yards with his driver on a good day, he told me.

You are a tough man, who did a tough job, I tell him.

He shrugs. 'I saw the people, I saw their need. You can't deny water to someone because he is poor. That gave me the courage to do what was needed,' he says.

He tells of the time when he went to the home of a powerful army general to tell him that he needed to install a water meter in his home. Until then, the general had been paying a flat rate, using as much water as he liked.

'I talked to his deputy first, and he seemed to agree. So my men started digging. But then the general came out, and put a gun to my head. 'Stop now,' he said. I turned around and all my men had run away. So I said, 'Ok, we stop'.

'The next day, I hired some armed militia men. Eight of us went to the house, disconnected his water supply. The general lived without water for a few days. Eventually, he came to see me in my office, and he allowed us to put the meter in,' he says.

Prof Tommy Koh, the chairman of the Asia Pacific Forum, calls Mr Chan 'my personal water hero'. This sounds like hyperbole but it isn't.

One in five people in Asia do not have access to safe drinking water, and half do not have proper sanitation. Waterborne diseases are widespread.

Last week, Mr Chan was in Singapore as part of an executive programme organised by the Institute of Water Policy at the National University of Singapore, to help countries solve their water problems.

Twenty people representing water utilities and companies all over the developing world were here for two weeks to learn how to reduce leaks, to control demand, to get people to accept that recycled water is safe to drink.

Singapore's role in this large and humane mission is to put the pieces together: To connect Mr Chan with Mr Iihom Djalalov of Uzbekistan, Mr Vu Phong of Vietnam and Mr Aleksandr Margaryan of Armenia; to share its own water story, and to spread the successful lessons of others whose rivers have found their own way to the sea.

There are times in history when one man like Mr Chan can make a difference.

The writer, a former Straits Times journalist, is a PhD candidate at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS.

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Prime Taxis introduces 20 petrol-powered taxis

Liang Kaixin/Lynda Hong, Channel NewsAsia 1 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE: Even though petrol is more expensive than diesel and compressed natural gas (CNG), one taxi operator has decided to introduce petrol-powered cabs on the roads.

Prime Taxi launched 20 petrol-powered taxis, 10 of which are MPVs which can sit up to seven passengers per car.

These petrol-powered taxis are said to be more energy efficient.

For every litre of petrol, one such cab can run 12 kilometres, three kilometres more than a diesel-powered taxi.

The company, which has a fleet of 400 CNG taxis, said cabbies find it inconvenient to top up on gas even though CNG costs 20 per cent cheaper than petrol.

Other taxi operators said they have no plans to roll out petrol-powered cabs as fluctuating petrol prices could hurt cabbies' income. - CNA/vm

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Palm oil price drop means new life for biodiesel in Singapore

Natural Fuel's first-generation plant will make first commercial delivery to Asian client soon
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 2 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE'S first-generation biodiesel plants are back in business again - thanks to the slide in palm oil prices to levels two years ago.

Australia's Natural Fuel Ltd (NFL), which completed its US$130 million facility on Jurong Island in end-2007, is set to finally make its first commercial deliveries of biodiesel to an Asian customer in the coming months.

This was disclosed by Ibrahim Risjad, chairman of the Australian-listed company, at its AGM last Saturday, with his speech copied to the Singapore Exchange (SGX) here yesterday.

'There has been positive development in our marketplace and the basic assumptions of our business model have now returned to levels that will enable Natural Fuel to commence economic biodiesel production,' he told the annual general meeting.

'I look forward to our executive management team delivering, within these coming months, NFL's first commercial batch of biodiesel from our Singapore subsidiary to our first customer in the Asian region,' he said.

This is a happy turnaround. Since its start-up early this year, the Singapore facility has reportedly been running at just 10 per cent of its capacity, as surging palm oil prices had resulted in negative margins. This had also caused NFL to shut down its 120,000 tonne Darwin plant in end-2007, just a year after start-up.

Touted to become the world's biggest biodiesel facility, the Jurong Island plant has so far seen just 400,000 tonnes of the project's first-phase 600,000 tonne facility completed. BT understands that the remainder 200,000 tonne capacity will be ready by the first quarter of 2009.

NFL's earlier plan was for three phases of equal size, which would bring its total capacity to 1.8 million tonnes by 2012.

But the earlier spike in palm oil prices to around US$1,000 a tonne - well above the US$600 a tonne diesel it was supposed to replace - put paid to the project's economics.

'But the project is now back in business, as palm oil prices have dipped back to US$400 a tonne, which was the level seen two years ago,' a source said.

'Furthermore, Indonesian legislation that diesel there should have 2.5 per cent biodiesel blended in, has also helped,' the source added.

The entry of Indonesia's Risjadson Group, which executed a US$40 million funding agreement with NFL, and which is now a shareholder, will also help - given its strong network in feedstock supplies as well as Indonesian market knowledge, Mr Risjad indicated.

No details were forthcoming on the quantity or customer for the Singapore facility's first commercial shipment of biodiesel, although the indications are that it will amount to at least 15,000 tonnes worth a month.

Given the earlier spike in palm oil prices, NFL had also arranged late last year to buy an alternative feedstock - jatropha from Madagascar - with the first shipments due here in early 2009.

NFL sources said that over the longer term, the Singapore facility is still committed to using the jatropha given the debate over 'food versus fuels' and Western countries' preference that biofuels should ideally be made from non-edible crops or materials.

Mr Risjad also indicated that NFL would require additional funding in the coming financial year for 'the full commissioning of the Singapore plant and working capital to support operation and production', with this taking the form of equity, debt or a combination of both.

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Antarctic seas richer in life than Galapagos Islands, study claims

A British Antarctic Survey study has revealed over 1,200 marine species around the South Orkney islands

James Randerson, guardian.co.uk The Guardian 1 Dec 08;

Seas surrounding an archipelago near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula are richer in animal life than the Galapagos Islands, challenging the notion that warm seas in tropical zones are higher in biodiversity, scientists claimed today.
Much less is known about the South Orkney islands than the tropical islands that helped to shape Charles Darwin's thoughts about natural selection on his Beagle voyage. But according to a new study published today by the Journal of Biogeography, the sea around them is teeming with a huge variety of life. The survey disproves the notion that the waters in chilly polar regions have a much poorer variety of fauna.

"There has been a long-held belief that the tropics are rich and the polar regions are poor and mid-latitudes are somewhere in between," said Dr David Barnes at the British Antarctic Survey, who led the study, part of the international Census of Marine Life. "This is the first time we've been able to actually look at the fauna of a polar archipelago – it is not actually that poor at all."

Barnes said the reason for carrying out the survey was to give a baseline from which changes in biodiversity due to global warming can be judged. "This is in the part of the world with fastest change in terms of temperature," he said.

The Antarctic peninsula has already experienced warming of 3C over the past 50 years. "If you don't know what the fauna is at any one point it is very difficult to detect either species moving in or species moving out", he added.

The survey recorded 1,224 species in 50 different biological classes. The team discovered five new species and one genus - the biological category that is higher than species - that was new to science. The new species are all sea mosses (bryozoans) or isopods (woodlouse-like animals) but they have not been given names yet.

The team also scoured reports from scientific expeditions and the scientific literature going back decades to find every mention of species observed in the region in a bid to create the most complete and authoritative list of creatures that have ever been found there.

But studying the sea creatures off the South Orkneys is not for the faint hearted - and a far cry from the balmy waters around the Galapagos. Barnes's team had to brave biting winds that frequently stopped them from working.

And while diving in the freezing waters, they had to keep an eye out for potential attacks by orcas and leopard seals. If either predator came near they had to stop diving by climbing onto the British Antarctic Survey's Royal research vessel James Clark Ross or scrambling to shore.

"Although that sounds dramatic, weather is a far bigger issue," said Barnes. "It stops us working far more and makes our work far more hazardous ... Sometimes it's much warmer under the water - it's only minus one and a half [degrees]!"

Once underwater though the view is spectacular. "," said Barnes, who has dived extensively on coral reefs and all over the world.

"I don't think I've been anywhere where you can see so many different types of major groups of animals all in one place.

"You would have to swim quite a long way in the UK or maybe cover hundreds of metres in a coral reef to see so many types of animals that you can see in a very small space at the polar regions."

He said that the marine environment off the South Orkneys is also pristine and free from invasive species. "It is literally the only place in the world where you can dive and not see alien species. Everything you can see in front of you is native to Antarctica."

None of the trawls of the ocean depths brought up any plastic waste – something expected anywhere else in the world. The only human crafted item the team did uncover was a piece of lead shot that was probably fired by whalers who used the South Orkneys as a base at the turn of the last century.

The team's survey covered all realms of sea life. As well as diving in the shallows they also trawled the sea bottom to a depth of 1,500m using nets and employed a special sled that when dragged across the bottom could collect even very tiny creatures. Its sieve held everything bigger than 0.3mm.

Other team members combed the intertidal zone of the islands to survey life in rock pools and living on the shore.

Antarctic more diverse than Galapagos Islands, claim British scientists
The freezing islands of the Antarctic are home to more species of animals than the Galapagos, according to the first inventory of life in the region.

Richard Alleyne, The Telegraph 1 Dec 08;

A team from the British Antarctic Survey and University of Hamburg spent seven weeks studying life on the South Orkney Islands, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

The survey - which saw experts combing the land and using trawling nets up to 1,500 metres long in waters around the island - revealed an area "rich in biodiversity".

Some 1,224 marine and land species were recorded, including sea urchins, free-swimming worms, crustaceans, molluscs, mites and birds.

After checking 100 years of study data five were found to be new to science and a third new to the area, with 1,026 marine creatures, 821 of which living on the seabed.

Scientists believe the study provides an important benchmark to monitor future environmental change in the area.

Antarctic ocean temperatures have risen by 1C and atmospheric temperatures by 2.5C in the last 50 years, making it one of the most rapidly warming areas on the planet.

Dr David Barnes, lead author at the Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS), has revealed his findings in the Journal of Biogeography.

He said: "If we are to understand how these animals will respond to future change, a starting point like this is really important.

"This is the first time anybody has done an inventory like this in the polar regions. It's part of the Census of Marine Life (COML) an international effort to assess and explain the diversity and distribution of marine life in the world's oceans."

Stefanie Kaiser, co-author from University of Hamburg said: "We never knew there were so many different species on and around these islands.

"This abundance of life was completely unexpected for a location in the polar regions, previously perceived to be poor in biodiversity."

The research team of 23 scientists from five research institutes spent seven weeks on the BAS Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross in 2006 as part of the COML.

COML is a ten year program started in 2000 to assess diversity, distribution and abundance of marine organisms in the world's oceans.

The team sampled seven areas of ocean at three different depths - 200m, 500m, 1000m, 1500m - four areas on land, and dived at three islands.

While the sea was less rich than in Hawaii, Caribbean Islands or the Canaries, it had more known species than many temperate and tropical regions including the Galapagos.

The Galapagos are a chain of 13 large islands and 100 small islets, located on the equator around 600 miles off the coast of South America.

Only five are inhabited by people with an approximate population of 18,000. Of the known marine and land species, many are unique to the island.

The Islands are famous for their highly diverse ecosystems and unique geological composition which helped inspire Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

Antarctic islands surpass Galapagos for biodiversity
Tamsin Osborne, New Scientist 1 Dec 08;

A group of isolated Antarctic islands have proved to be unexpectedly rich in life. The first comprehensive biodiversity survey of the South Orkney Islands, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, has revealed that they are home to more species of sea and land animals than the Galapagos.

See a gallery of South Orkney animals

The findings raise the issue of what sort of impact climate change - already hitting the Antarctic hard - will have on this rich biodiversity.

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Hamburg, Germany, carried out the survey using a combination of trawl nets, sampling as deep as 1500m, and scuba divers. The team found over 1200 species, a third of which were not thought to live in the region. They also identified five new species.

The majority of animals were found in the sea, with most living on the seabed.

These findings go against the traditional view that biodiversity declines away from the tropics and towards the polar regions, says lead researcher David Barnes of the British Antarctic Survey.

"Our paper makes the point that if you go right the way across different animal groups rather than taking one specific animal group, which is what most biodiversity studies do, then you get a much better perspective of real biodiversity," he says. "This is the first place in either polar region, not just the Antarctic, where we've actually got a biodiversity across all groups."

Previous research has shown that Antarctic waters harbour a surprising diversity of plankton and larvae and that deep-sea life in the Southern Ocean is similarly rich. But the new study is the first to look at all animals on land as well as in the seas.

"As the sea gets warmer, then temperate species will move into Antarctica and Antarctic species will shift further south or into colder regions," says Barnes. "The South Orkney Islands is the one place where we have a real possibility of detecting new things arriving and things leaving."

Jon Copley, a marine ecologist at the University of Southampton, UK, agrees. "The starting point for any conservation strategy has got to be knowing what you've got to conserve," he says, "and this study provides a very valuable baseline in that regard."

While biodiversity in this region may not decrease as a result of the warming, says Barnes, it is likely that the changes in species composition will result in an overall loss in the Earth's biodiversity.

"All that it will take is for a few things to alter," says Barnes. "It is only a matter of time."

Journal reference: Journal of Biogeography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2008.02030.x

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UN, zoo group launch 'Year of the Gorilla 2009'

Yahoo News 1 Dec 08;

ROME (AFP) – Endangered gorilla species will be placed "on a higher pedestal" next year in efforts to raise awareness about their plight and threats to their habitat, a UN expert said Monday.

"The Year of the Gorilla 2009 will place gorillas on a higher pedestal," John Mshelbwala, UN Convention of Migratory Species expert, told a news conference.

Noting that the convention's conference in Rome this week is coinciding with a forum in Poland of the UN climate change convention, Mshelbwala stressed the benefits of tackling global warming and species conservation together.

"The Year of the Gorilla is not just about gorillas but about their habitat," said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) expert Ian Redmond, noting that the apes serve "as guardians of the forest (by) gardening the forest, pruning the trees and distributing the seeds through their droppings."

Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, patron of the initiative, said in a statement: "It is time for us to pool all of our resources toward saving these magnificent creatures (and toward) ensuring a future for this close cousin of humankind."

The Year of the Gorilla, which follows similar initiatives for the turtle and the dolphin, brings together UNEP, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

The initiative hopes to attract at least 500,000 euros (630,000 dollars) in donations, convention executive secretary Robert Hepworth told the news conference.

Many experts fear that the gorilla will become extinct in the next few decades, UNEP said in a news release.

The last decade has seen a steep drop, from 17,000 to 5,000, in the population of Eastern Lowland Gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while Mountain Gorillas in the Great Lakes region number only 700, UNEP said.

The main threats include hunting for "bushmeat," a prized delicacy in western Africa, as well as logging, slash-and-burn agriculture and armed conflict, notably in DR Congo.

Representatives of more than 100 countries are attending the weeklong conference here that will examine measures to protect nearly 30 species including cheetahs, falcons, whales and dolphins.

The ninth conference of parties to the UN convention on migratory species are set to consider adding manatees, porpoises and several families of dolphins, among other animals, to the endangered list.

The population of falcons in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan has plummeted because of the demand for falcons by hunting enthusiasts.

The cheetah has become extinct in 18 countries, with only about 10,000 adults remaining in Africa and fewer than 50 in Asia.

Other species will be considered for addition to a list of land and marine animals in the less constraining "threatened" category, such as two families of Mako sharks in the Mediterranean Sea whose population has decreased by 96 percent in the past few years from overfishing.

UN officials also pointed to the link between saving the world's wildlife and boosting local economies where tourism and other industries depend on a country's natural assets.

In Kenya, for example, 150,000 people visit the Serengeti each year to see its famous wildlife, generating 5.5 million dollars in income according to 2003 figures.

The wildlife conference will run through Friday.

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Three-quarters of Big Antarctic Penguin Colonies to Disappear?

Ker Than, National Geographic News 1 Dec 08;

Up to 75 percent of major Antarctic penguin colonies may disappear if climate change continues to heat up the continent, according to a recent report.

A global temperature increase of 3.6 Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels will result in widespread changes to sea ice that the birds depend on for survival.

The temperature increase will, in any scenario, lead to a major reshuffling of colonies of emperor and Adélie penguins—the two penguin species that rely on ice for hunting and breeding.

In addition, there could be marked habitat loss of these iconic birds, said the report commissioned by the conservation group WWF.

The penguins' range is already shrinking, said David Ainley, a penguin expert with H.T. Harvey & Associates of San Jose, California, who co-authored the report.

Up to 50 percent of emperor colonies and 75 percent of Adélie colonies could be affected, the researchers said.

Antarctica currently has about 40 emperor colonies and 160 Adélie colonies, with each population containing thousands of birds.

Tightening Noose

Many scientists consider 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) to be the minimum temperature increase necessary to trigger catastrophic climate change.

"If you go beyond 2 degrees it really gets scary," Ainley said.

According to the latest report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in February 2007, that threshold could be reached in as little as 40 years.

The WWF report combines results from four IPCC climate models to predict changes that will occur in oceans surrounding Antarctica.

Two degrees Celsius will warm seas north of Antarctica, which will lead to stronger winds and increased snow and rain in the region.

"The westerly winds, which drive the big currents around Antarctica, will move poleward like a tightening noose," said Joellen Russell, a climate modeler at the University of Arizona who was involved in the research.

This will in turn prevent sea ice formation everywhere in the oceans off Antarctica, especially in the continent's northern latitudes, where emperor and Adélie penguin colonies are concentrated.

Ice Dwellers

Emperor penguins breed and rear their young on sea ice connected to land, called fast ice.

Adélies don't nest on sea ice but, like emperors, they forage for food among crumbling sea ice, also known as pack ice.

If sea ice disappears, the two bird species will have a harder time nesting, and could face increased competition from open-water penguin species.

In fact, some penguin species may benefit from the loss of sea ice.

For instance, ice-intolerant penguins, such as chinstraps and gentoos, are moving into the warmer Antarctic habitats once occupied by the Adélies, according to research by William Fraser of the Polar Oceans Research Group.

Since 1974, gentoos have increased in number by 7,500 percent and chinstraps by 2,700 percent, Fraser found.

Surprises in Store

Andrew Monaghan is an atmospheric scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who was not involved in the research.

Monaghan called the study a "very good effort" at predicting the impact of global warming in Antarctica, but he noted that many of the factors influencing climate change at Earth's poles are still not well understood.

"We don't have a good handle on climatic variability on longer time scales in Antarctica," Monaghan said.

"There could still be some surprises in store that could change the timing and magnitude of some of the warming that we'll see."

Dee Boersma, a penguin expert at the University of Washington in Seattle, has studied penguins in Argentina for 25 years with support from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News owns the National Geographic Society.)

"This is an excellent study, but the real problem is the increasing number of humans on the planet and their growing consumption," Boersma said.

Study co-author Ainley agreed that humans are the penguins' more immediate threat.

"The profound alteration of marine food webs by overfishing has had far, far more effects on the oceans than global climate change will have for a very long time," he said.

And global warming could make an already dire situation in Antarctica even worse, Ainley added.

"As the sea ice recedes, humans have access to fish previously protected by sea ice," he said.

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Amphibian Extinctions: Is Global Warming Off the Hook?

Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News 1 Dec 08;

The world's amphibians are in dire straits—but global warming may not be the problem, a new study suggests.

Previous research has pinned steep declines in amphibian species on rising global temperatures, which are said to be fueling the growth of a deadly fungus.

Most experts agree that the disease-causing chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is taking a terrible toll on frogs and toads. One in three species worldwide is threatened with extinction.

"There seems to be convincing evidence that chytrid fungus is the bullet killing amphibians," said University of South Florida biologist Jason Rohr, lead author of the study, published in a recent issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."But the evidence that climate change is pulling the trigger is weak at this point."

Beer to Blame?

Rohr and colleagues don't completely discount the role of global warming in amphibian declines.

But they say decades of data show only that some correlation exists between rising air temperatures and Latin American amphibian extinctions—and that data are well short of proving causation.

In fact, the researchers found that, in the Latin American countries they studied, beer and banana production were actually better predictors of amphibian extinctions than tropical air temperature.

While beer and bananas are certainly not to blame, the whimsical comparison makes a point.

"We can't jump to conclusions of causality based on a correlation—especially when we're talking about 60 or 70 species," Rohr said.

"The major message is that we need to be careful."

But J. Alan Pounds, resident scientist at Costa Rica's Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve and an author of previous research on the topic, maintains climate change is a key factor in the extinction crisis.

"There is a clear link between global warming and amphibian declines," he said, citing a growing body of evidence, including a recent study in Yellowstone National Park.

"The analysis by Rohr et al. is seriously flawed, as we will demonstrate in due course."

Heated Debate

Some scientists say the fungus is an invasive species, entering an ecosystem and wreaking havoc on species with no natural defenses.

Pounds and others believe that rising daytime and nocturnal temperatures are narrowing the gap between daily highs and lows.

Fewer temperature extremes are advantageous for chytrid fungus, which grows and reproduces best at temperatures between 17 and 25 degrees Celsius (63 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit).

The new research suggests neither theory has it exactly right.

For example, Rohr explained that, although extinctions increased significantly in the 1980s, that period did not show smaller swings between average daily high and low temps that would theoretically produce more fungus growth.

In the 1990s, daily temperature swings were smaller, but amphibian extinctions declined during that period, the study concludes.

Rohr and colleagues conclude that an unknown mix of factors is likely endangering amphibians.

Sorting it all out remains a high priority—and for many amphibians, time could be running out.

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'Cancer village' the dark side of Vietnam's industrial boom

Frank Zeller Yahoo News 1 Dec 08;

THACH SON, Vietnam (AFP) – Gazing at the Soviet-era factory that looms over his northern Vietnamese commune, Quang Van Vinh remembers what the farmland here looked like before it became known as a "cancer village."

"This used to be a vast garden of bamboo, banana, jackfruit and longan trees," says the 62-year-old, visiting his long-abandoned childhood home, now a muddy wasteland of brick kilns.

"It's sad that there's almost no sign of life anymore."

Vinh says things changed quickly in the Red River village in 1962 after the Lam Thao fertiliser plant was built and started pumping wastewater into streams and rice fields, and black smoke into the sky.

"You could smell the factory's smoke everywhere," he says. "People started to cough. All those trees died. Local people didn't know why. Then the authorities moved us all out about 15 years ago."

Vinh says his son died of throat cancer in 2000 aged 23.

"I really think my son died of cancer because of industrial pollution," says Vinh, though he has no scientific proof to back his belief.

Dr Le Van Ton, the head of the local clinic, says the annual death toll from cancer in the commune of 7,000 has climbed almost every year for nearly a decade -- to 15 deaths last year from three in 1999.

The doctor says he is now treating 41 cancer cases, including a primary school student.

"Most of the cancer victims in our commune used to live in areas close to the factory," he said.

A few years ago, Thach Son made national headlines as a "cancer village".

Government officials came, took water samples and looked at health statistics, said people's committee deputy chairman Nguyen Van Thang.

Then they left and the commune has not heard from them since, he added.

Like many developing countries, communist Vietnam has opted for rapid industrialisation that has created prosperity but also left an often catastrophic toll on the natural environment and public health.

Vietnam now has hundreds of industrial parks and thousands of factories, and less than one third of their liquid waste is treated before it is discharged into waterways, the government says.

Environmental inspectors must announce their factory visits in advance, and fines are so low that many companies prefer to pay up rather than fit expensive air and water pollution control systems.

Many rivers and streams in the biggest cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, where many houses have groundwater wells, are garbage-strewn open sewers which, local scientists say, have become biological "zero-life zones."

A cholera outbreak last month, only the country's most recent, sickened 23 people in central Nghe An province. It was traced to bacteria in fish and oysters harvested from the polluted Mai Giang River.

Vietnam, unlike China, has not yet seen protests against factories or other environmental issues, but its leaders have woken up to the fact that environmental carnage can no longer be ignored.

Some analysts now point out that, even in purely economic terms, the costs of pollution are starting to outweigh some of the gains brought by industrialisation.

"Now environmental pollution is threatening to undercut economic gains," wrote To Kim Lien of the Asia Foundation in a recent report.

"Negative effects on human health, water and soil are causing losses in agricultural and aquacultural production among other revenue sources."

In recent months, authorities have launched an unprecedented crackdown against several major polluters -- showing both a new will to act, and the limitations of Vietnam's environmental laws and enforcement agencies.

Taiwanese food additive maker Vedan was caught in early September allegedly dumping 100,000 cubic metres of untreated effluent a month through hidden pipes into the southern Thi Vai River, killing a stretch of the waterway.

Local residents had complained for more than a decade, but the government acted only after shipping companies said they would no longer dock at a nearby river port because the pollution was corroding the hulls of their boats.

The environment ministry in early October ordered the MSG-maker to stop discharging wastewater, but provincial officials several weeks later said they did not have authority to act against the company or close it down.

A press report last week said Vedan had scaled back its wastewater discharge, but the company declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told the national assembly this month that Vietnam had to protect the environment but, in the Vedan case, also needed to think of protecting the thousands of factory jobs at the plant.

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Venice Flooded As Sea Levels Hit Highest In 22 Years

PlanetArk 2 Dec 08;

ROME - Large parts of Venice were flooded on Monday as heavy rains and strong winds lashed the lagoon city, with sea levels at their highest level in 22 years.
Ferry and water taxi services in the city were suspended and Venice's mayor urged people to stay indoors. Tourists and residents struggled to get across the city over raised walkways.

The Centro Maree, which forecasts water levels, said sea levels in the Adriatic rose 1.56 metres (5.1 ft) -- a level not seen since 1986.

The floods have left people in low-lying parts of Venice, including the popular tourist site of St. Mark's Square, wading through knee-deep water.

"These are exceptionally high waters," Venice's Mayor Massimo Cacciari was quoted as saying by the Ansa news agency. "Don't venture out unless it is necessary."

The entire city -- founded on a collection of marshy islands in the 5th century and criss-crossed by canals -- suffers from periodic flooding caused by high tides.

The government has begun a multi-billion euro floodgate project aimed at stopping rising sea levels destroying the city.

(Writing by Deepa Babington; Editing by Nita Bhalla)

Historic center of Venice flooded
The Guardian 1 Dec 08;

VENICE, Italy (AP) - The worst flooding in Venice in more than 20 years forced residents and tourists to wade through knee-high water Monday.

City officials said the sea level topped 61 inches (156 centimeters) on Monday, well past the 40-inch (110-centimeter) flood mark, following heavy rains. Alarms went off to alert citizens in the morning.

"There are very few streets that are water-free," said a city spokesman, Enzo Bon.

Among the spots affected was St. Mark's Square, the landmark piazza that is the lowest point in the city.

Workers were unable to install the raised wooden walkways used during flooding because the water rose too high and too quickly. The floods forced many of the water taxis to suspend service, Bon said.

TV footage showed people rolling up their pants or wearing rubber boots as they walked through the water. Some had plastic wrapped around their legs, while some tourists in St. Mark's walked on chairs left in the piazza.

The last time Venice registered such high waters was in 1986, city officials said. The all-time record was 194 centimeters (76 inches) in 1966.

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Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists

A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim.

Jasper Copping, The Telegraph 29 Nov 08;

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot - about one mile an hour - meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Existing technologies which use water power, relying on the action of waves, tides or faster currents created by dams, are far more limited in where they can be used, and also cause greater obstructions when they are built in rivers or the sea. Turbines and water mills need an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.

The new device, which has been inspired by the way fish swim, consists of a system of cylinders positioned horizontal to the water flow and attached to springs.

As water flows past, the cylinder creates vortices, which push and pull the cylinder up and down. The mechanical energy in the vibrations is then converted into electricity.

Cylinders arranged over a cubic metre of the sea or river bed in a flow of three knots can produce 51 watts. This is more efficient than similar-sized turbines or wave generators, and the amount of power produced can increase sharply if the flow is faster or if more cylinders are added.

A "field" of cylinders built on the sea bed over a 1km by 1.5km area, and the height of a two-storey house, with a flow of just three knots, could generate enough power for around 100,000 homes. Just a few of the cylinders, stacked in a short ladder, could power an anchored ship or a lighthouse.

Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation.

The system, conceived by scientists at the University of Michigan, is called Vivace, or "vortex-induced vibrations for aquatic clean energy".

Michael Bernitsas, a professor of naval architecture at the university, said it was based on the changes in water speed that are caused when a current flows past an obstruction. Eddies or vortices, formed in the water flow, can move objects up and down or left and right.

"This is a totally new method of extracting energy from water flow," said Mr Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other's wake."

Such vibrations, which were first observed 500 years ago by Leonardo DaVinci in the form of "Aeolian Tones", can cause damage to structures built in water, like docks and oil rigs. But Mr Bernitsas added: "We enhance the vibrations and harness this powerful and destructive force in nature.

"If we could harness 0.1 per cent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people. In the English Channel, for example, there is a very strong current, so you produce a lot of power."

Because the parts only oscillate slowly, the technology is likely to be less harmful to aquatic wildlife than dams or water turbines. And as the installations can be positioned far below the surface of the sea, there would be less interference with shipping, recreational boat users, fishing and tourism.

The engineers are now deploying a prototype device in the Detroit River, which has a flow of less than two knots. Their work, funded by the US Department of Energy and the US Office of Naval Research, is published in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering.

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Brazil plans to cut deforestation by 70 pct over 10 years

Yana Marull Yana Yahoo News 2 Dec 08;

BRASILIA (AFP) – The Brazilian government on Monday unveiled a plan to cut the deforestation of the Amazon by 70 percent over the next decade.

It is the first time Brazil, home to the largest area of tropical woodland on the planet, has set a target for reducing the damage wrought by illegal loggers and ranchers.

Environment Minister Carlos Minc unveiled the initiative in the presence of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and said it would be formally presented at a UN climate change conference underway this week in Poland.

"Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won't be emitted up to 2018 -- which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries," Minc said.

The minister said Brazil hopes to use the plan to "increase the number of contributors to the Amazon Fund" launched last August which aims to collect money from around the world to fight deforestation.

The head of Brazil's forestry service, Tasso Azevedo, told AFP that an announcement by Britain that it planned to cut CO2 emissions by 80 percent over the next four decades, and Brazil's plan, "push the ambitions of the Poznan conference (in Poland) to another level."

Brazil's initiative "shows that developing countries can take on aggressive commitments and that developed ones can go much further," he said.

The benchmark against Brazil's plan will be measured is the rate of deforestation recorded between 1996 and 2005, during which an annual average of 19,500 square kilometers (7,500 square miles) of woodland was razed.

The calculation is progressive and worked out on a four-yearly basis, making the real-term goal a deforestation a little under half the current rate, or approximately 12,000 square kilometers per year.

Although the plan is concentrated on the Amazon, it will also apply to other large biomass areas in the country.

Environmental groups welcomed the news, although a few said they would like to have seen the goal be more ambitious.

"Better late than never," was how the director of one organization, Friends of the Earth, Roberto Smeraldi, summed it up.

"It's a modest proposal, which won't give Brazil a leadership role, and I hope they say so in Poznan," added an expert, Sergio Abranches, to CBN radio.

Jose Marengo, a scientist at the Spacial Research Institute which measures Amazon deforestation by satellite, said the move was a step forward "because at least we're talking about targets -- before the government had the position that Brazil wasn't to blame (for greenhouse gas emissions), that they came more from the US and industrialized countries."

He also said that, if deforestation in Brazil continues at the current rate, "from 2040 the Amazon vegetation could collapse in what the English model calls 'savannization', and no longer manage to absorb CO2 but rather become a source of it."

Although Brazil had up to now rejected the notion of targets, it had been making efforts against deforestation that permitted a 59 percent reduction after registering a historic peak of 27,000 square kilometers of stripped forest in 2004.

The announced plan, as well as setting a deforestation goal, covers improved energy efficiency, encouraging alternative energy sources and increasing by 20 percent trash recycling in urban areas by 2015.

"We will surely receive criticism, but we can say that we are presenting a better one (plan) than China or India, and better than others that still haven't signed the Kyoto Protocol," Lula said.

70% deforestation cuts for Brazil
BBC News 1 Dec 08;

Brazil has announced a plan to reduce deforestation rates in the Amazon region by 70% over the next ten years.

The plan follows a call for international funding to prevent further loss of the Amazon rainforest.

This year, the rate of Amazon deforestation increased after falling for the past four years.

The announcement comes as the UN's latest round of climate talks begin.

Tasso Azevedo, head of the Brazilian government's forestry service said "We can now adopt targets because we now have the instruments to implement them."

He was referring to a new Amazon fund, where foreign nations are being encouraged by Brazil to contribute financially to the conservation of the vast Amazon region.

Last month, Norway announced its intention to support the fund, saying it will give $130m (euros 103m; £88m) next year, the first instalment of a $1bn, (euros 700m; £670m) to be given over the next seven years, however Norway will only make each year's donation on the condition that there has been a reduction in deforestation during the previous year.

The 70% figure comes from averaging levels of deforestation in the 10 years up to 2005, the plan aims to see a reduction in deforestation of nearly 6,000 sq km per year or about half the current annual rate of deforestation.

A crackdown on illegal settlements and increased policing in the Amazon region came earlier this year, following an estimated 3.8% increase in deforestation compared with the previous year.

Burning of the forests has contributed to increases in global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, but Brazil's environment minister Carlos Minc said the initiative showed the country is committed to reducing global emissions.

"Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won't be emitted up to 2018 - which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries," he said.

Brazil Says To Cut Amazon Destruction By 70 Percent
PlanetArk 2 Dec 08;

BRASILIA - Brazil announced on Monday a plan to cut destruction of its Amazon rain forest by more than half over the next 10 years, the first time it has set a deforestation target as it seeks to fight global warming.

A government official told Reuters Brazil will aim to reduce deforestation of the world's largest forest by 70 percent by 2018. The target will be based on the average deforestation over the 10 years through 2005 of 19,500 sq km (7,530 sq miles).

That amounts to a yearly target of 5,850 sq km (2,260 sq miles), about half the most recent annual deforestation figure. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was scheduled to announce the plan officially later on Monday.

"We can now adopt targets because we now have the instruments to implement them," said Tasso Azevedo, head of the government's Forestry Service, referring to a new Amazon Fund which is attracting foreign donations to improve conservation.

Last week the government said Amazon deforestation increased 3.8 percent from a year earlier to nearly 4,633 square miles (12,000 sq km) -- roughly equal to the US state of Connecticut -- as high commodity prices drew farmers and ranchers to slash more trees.

It was the first rise in four years, although well down from a peak of 10,570 square miles (27,379 sq km) in 2004.

The announcement of the new plan coincided with the opening of a United Nations climate conference in Poznan, Poland.

Burning of the Amazon makes Brazil one of the world's top emitters of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Every time a tree dies, its carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Brazil has previously refused to adopt targets until rich countries, which cause most carbon emissions, offered more help to protect tropical forests in developing countries.

Norway gave Brazil an unprecedented vote of confidence this year by pledging $1 billion to the new fund over seven years.

Brazil's government this year increased policing, impounded farm products from illegally cleared land and cut financing for unregistered properties, stepping up its efforts after figures showed a spike in deforestation late last year.

Commodity prices have plunged in recent weeks, but were near record highs for most of the year, increasing farmers' incentives to clear forest.

(Reporting by Raymond Colitt; writing by Stuart Grudgings, editing by Alan Elsner)

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Clearing Forests For Biofuel Hurts Climate - Study

PlanetArk 2 Dec 08;

POZNAN - Clearing tropical forests to plant biofuels is a bad idea for the climate and reduces the diversity of animal and plant life, a study found on Monday.

"Keeping tropical rain forests intact is a better way to combat climate change than replacing them with biofuel plantations," according to scientists from seven nations writing in the journal Conservation Biology.

Millions of hectares of forest land in South East Asia has been converted to palm oil plantations to produce biofuels -- seen as greener than fossil fuels because plants soak up greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as they grow.

But the study, released on the opening day of 187-nation talks on a new UN climate treaty in Poland, said it would take 75 years for carbon emissions saved from using biofuels to make up for carbon released into the atmosphere by burning down a forest to clear it for a biofuel plantation.

And the balance would only be achieved after more than 600 years if the habitat was carbon-rich peatland, it said. Planting biofuels on degraded grasslands, however, could lead to a net removal of carbon after only a decade.

"Sourcing biofuel feedstock from crops such as palm oil simply doesn't make environmental sense," said Emily Fitzherbert from the University of East Anglia, England, who was one of the authors.

The spread of biofuel plantations in Asia has also led to a loss of habitat for species such as rhinos and orang-utans according to the report, by scientists in the Netherlands, the United States, Malaysia, Germany, Indonesia, Britain and Denmark.

SUBSIDIES

"Subsidies to purchase tropical biofuels are given by countries in Europe and North America supposedly to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from transport," said lead author Finn Danielsen of Denmark's Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology.

The scientists said that plants thriving alongside palm oil in plantations were usually ones that liked bright sunshine while forest species such as lianas, orchids and native palms and others that favoured shade died out.

They said that only one in six forest animal species could survive in plantations.

The authors called for the development of common global standards for sustainable production of biofuels. And they said the problems were not just in South East Asia.

"In Latin America, forests are being cleared for soy production which is even less efficient at biofuel production compared to oil palm," said co-author Faizal Parish of the Global Environment Centre.

He said that reducing deforestation was a far better way for countries to fight climate change while also meeting their obligations to protect biodiversity.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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Greens go nuts at UN climate talks

Yahoo News 1 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – Armed with walnuts, apocalyptic art and a small green dinosaur, environmentalists spiced up the UN climate talks here Monday with colourful demands for action on global warming.

The World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, welcomed the almost 11,000 participants at the 12-day talks in Poznan by handing out walnuts and urging them to "crack the climate nut" and overcome negotiation deadlock.

Greenpeace meanwhile unveiled a three-metre (10-foot) high sculpture depicting the Earth on the brink of destruction from a "tidal wave" of carbon dioxide made of wood and coal.

"So far, there is still an utter lack of any kind of visionary leadership in these talks. There are still governments that repeatedly fail to grasp the urgency of the crisis," Greenpeace said.

"That's why we need to make ourselves heard, because the impacts of climate change are racing ahead of the scientific projections."

It also launched a video running through 20 years of speeches and "broken promises" on climate change from the likes of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlosconi.

The forum in Poland of the 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes halfway in a two-year process, launched in Bali, Indonesia, that aims at crafting a new pact in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Delegates in Poland are tasked with whittling down an 82-page document containing a vast range of proposals for action into a workable blueprint for negotiations culminating in a deal in the Danish capital.

As the first day's negotiations wound up, activists staged a "Fossil of the Day" ceremony, handing a symbolic award to Poland for its addiction to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.

The "Fossil of the Day" began years ago at the annual UNFCCC meeting as a touch of simple comedy, with the flag of an offending nation planted into a small mound of coal against a pastiche of the "Jurassic Park" movie poster.

In Poznan, though, it snowballed into an Oscar-style ceremony complete with a tuxedoed presenter, who held aloft a silver cup with a green plastic dinosaur on top, with a Polish flag between its claws.

A Canadian campaigner, Katherine Trajan, in dressed in a ballgown, pearls and a fur stole -- "I bought it at the market in Poznan for a few zlotys" (euros, dollars), she admitted -- sang a special "Fossil of the Day" anthem.

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UN Climate Talks To Open, Praise For "Ambitious" Obama

Gerard Wynn and Gabriela Baczynska, PlanetArk 2 Dec 08;

POZNAN - UN climate talks open in Poland on Monday overshadowed by a global economic slowdown but with UN praise for "ambitious" goals by US President-elect Barack Obama for fighting global warming.

About 10,600 delegates from 186 governments, businesses and environmental groups meet in Poznan for the Dec 1-12 talks halfway through a two-year push to agree a new climate treaty in Copenhagen at the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

"It will be an incredible challenge" to reach such a complex accord within a year when the world is struggling with the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen will be among speakers at an opening ceremony on Monday, along with UN experts. WWF and Greenpeace activists plan protests outside the conference centre to urge more action.

De Boer praised Obama for saying that he would seek to cut US emissions of greenhouse gases back to 1990 levels by 2020 as part of global action to avert more heatwaves, floods, droughts, more powerful storms and rising seas.

"It's ambitious," de Boer said of the target, speaking at a news conference on the eve of the talks. A rising US population made the goal hard to reach.

US emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars, are about 14 percent above 1990 levels. President George W. Bush's policies foresee a peak only in 2025.

"I expect Senator Obama to do what he plans to do: show leadership at the national level," de Boer said.

Bush did not ratify Kyoto, saying it would be too costly and excluded targets for developing nations such as China and India. Had Washington ratified, it would have had to cut by seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN

De Boer said the economic slowdown was an opportunity to re-design the world economy but warned governments against making "cheap and dirty" choices of investing in high-polluting coal-fired power plants.

"We must focus on the opportunities for green growth," he said.

In Europe, economic slowdown has exposed doubts about the costs of an EU goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

UN talks host Poland, which gets 93 percent of its electricity from coal, and Italy are leading a drive for concessions in a package meant to be agreed at a December 11-12 summit of EU leaders in Brussels.

The talks in Poland will review new ideas for combating global warming, such as handing credits to tropical nations for preserving forests. And China, for instance, is suggesting that developed nations should give up to 1 percent of their gross national product in aid to help the poor switch from fossil fuels.

(Writing by Alister Doyle; Editing by Charles Dick)

Climate juggernaut on the horizon, UN talks told
Simon Sturdee And Richard Ingham Yahoo News 1 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – War, hunger, poverty and sickness will stalk humanity if the world fails to tackle climate change, a 12-day UN conference on global warming heard on Monday.

A volley of grim warnings sounded out at the start of the marathon talks, a step to a new worldwide treaty to reduce greenhouse gases and help countries exposed to the wrath of an altered climate.

Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki, elected to chair the December 1-12 meeting in the city of Poznan, opened the conference with an apocalyptic vision if mankind fails to change its ways.

There will be "huge droughts and floods, cyclones with increasingly more destructive power, pandemics of tropical disease, dramatic decline of biodiversity, increasing ocean levels," Nowicki said.

"All these can cause social and even armed conflict and migration of people at an unprecedented scale."

The forum of the 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) comes halfway in a two-year process, launched in Bali, Indonesia, that aims at crafting a new pact in Copenhagen in December 2009.

More gloom came from Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which provides neutral scientific opinion on global warming and its impacts.

The number of people living in severely stressed river basins is projected to rise to as many as 6.9 billion by 2050 from 1.4-1.6 billion in 1995, he said.

"That's almost the majority of humanity," he said.

Progress under the so-called Bali Roadmap has bogged down over the sheer complexity of the deal and positioning by rich countries and emerging giants.

Rich countries, historically to blame for most of today's warming, want countries like China and India -- the big polluters of tomorrow -- to do more to tackle their surging emissions.

Developing countries, though, want the West to help pay for them to expand their economies in a sustainable manner and to stump up cash to help vulnerable countries cope with climate change.

Brazil announced on Monday it was doing its bit, promising to slash deforestation of the Amazon by 70 percent over the next decade.

Forest loss accounts for roughly a fifth of all global carbon emissions, and if implemented Brazil would avert emissions of 4.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2018 -- "more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries," Environment Minister Carlos Minc noted in Brasilia.

Hopes for a breakthrough at Poznan have also been darkened by the global economic crisis, but delegates said they were keen for this to become an opportunity not a threat and argued that green technology created jobs and growth.

Environmental pressure groups agreed, with Greenpeace saying that the global recession was "nothing compared to the trillions of dollars that climate change will cost us."

Delegates in Poland are poring over an 82-page document containing a vast range of proposals for action beyond 2012, when emissions-curbing pledges under the Kyoto Protocol run out.

The hope is to condense this labyrinthine document into a workable blueprint for negotiations culminating in a deal in Copenhagen.

One spur for optimism is the election of Barack Obama as US president, who has vowed to sweep away George W. Bush's climate policies which caused the United States to be isolated in the world environmental arena since 2001.

Obama, who takes office January 20, has set a goal of reducing US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system and a 10-year programme worth 150 billion dollars in renewable energy.

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