Best of our wild blogs: 10 Dec 08

Soft Cnidarian Workshop Participants' Feedback
on the The Leafmonkey Workshop blog

The Hard Cnidarians Workshop
upcoming workshop on the The Leafmonkey Workshop blog

Grey-tailed Tattler
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Red-wattled Lapwing defending its chick
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Soil investigation off the Marina Barrage
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Mom with a mouthful
on the annotated budak blog

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Cruise ships still making way to Singapore, despite tough economic times

Cheryl Frois, Channel NewsAsia 9 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE: Despite gloomy economic times, one of the world's largest cruise companies, Royal Caribbean Cruises, is setting its sights on Asia.

The last time a ship from Royal Caribbean docked in Singapore was almost eight years ago. Come next year, its Legend of the Seas – with over 2,000 passenger capacity – will be permanently deployed in Asia.

Rama Rebbapragada, regional vice president, Royal Caribbean Cruises, said: "The ship will be pretty much an Asian ship so she'll spend time between Singapore, Shanghai, Tianjin and Hong Kong.

"The ship will move around depending on seasonality, offering cruises around several home ports in the Asia Pacific region. Asia grew by 100 per cent from 2006 to 2007 and we expect at least a 20 per cent to 25 per cent growth from Asia in 2009."

Royal Caribbean does not think the cruise market will suffer much from the economic downturn. But it said it is not ruling out cutting prices and offering deals, such as an expanded itinerary, to draw visitors.

From Singapore, the ship will embark on 18 cruise tours and for the first time, this includes cruise tours between Singapore and Shanghai. Prices start from S$430 for a three-night sail to Malaysia and up to S$5,500 for a 14-night sail to Shanghai.

Passengers onboard the ship can enjoy resort facilities like Asia's first and only miniature golf course, multiple swimming pools complete with whirlpools, and fully-equipped gyms.

As security is something cruise liners are always mindful of, Royal Caribbean cancelled Legend of the Seas' planned call in Mumbai recently, following the terror attacks in the city.

"But the ship did call in Goa and the ship did call in Cochin and those calls went without any incident. We are watching the situation in India very closely because the ship will go back to Europe through India again on its return in May," said Rebbapragada.

Royal Caribbean said it plans to introduce six more ships around the world by the end of 2012.

Over 800 cruise ships have called on Singapore this year, compared to 719 in 2007. Total in- and outbound passenger numbers have almost hit 95,000 so far, similar to last year's figure.

- CNA/so

A Legend returns to S'pore after 7 years
Straits Times 10 Dec 08;

CRUISE operator Royal Caribbean International's Legend Of The Seas, which can take up to 1,800 passengers, returned to Singapore yesterday for the first time in seven years.

Travellers can choose from 14 short cruises lasting between three and five nights from Singapore to popular tourist destinations such as Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi and Phuket.

Royal Caribbean, the world's second-largest cruise operator, will also offer, for the first time, a 14-night cruise between Singapore and Shanghai with stops at Bangkok and Hong Kong.

Royal Caribbean returns for second season
But global cruise brand has trouble filling smaller ship
Vincent Wee, Business Times 10 Dec 08;

(SINGAPORE) Royal Caribbean International (RCI) has returned for a second season with a smaller ship, but even this is having trouble being filled.

The global cruise brand began its Asian season yesterday with the 1,800-passenger Legend of the Seas, slightly smaller than the 2,000-passenger Rhapsody of the Seas, which was based here for the last season.

The season comprises 15 shorter cruises and four longer 14-night cruises. But regional vice-president, international, Rama Rebbapragada, said that the cruises were booked out at an earlier stage last year. 'We're almost booked out till Chinese New Year but there are some soft spots in January,' he said. The 14-day cruise programmes begin from the end of January.

Mr Rebbapragada had said earlier this year in announcing the ship's deployment that last year's Asian cruise programme had been fully booked, with more than 30,000 passengers, representing growth of more than double the previous year.

He had said that he expected to see that number growing by two-thirds this year with revenue nearly doubling. It seems unlikely these targets will be met now. Absolute passenger numbers are not only smaller but Mr Rebbapragada also conceded that some discounting had to be done to fill spots.

He, however, remained optimistic that the economic downturn would not have too adverse an impact on the season. Mr Rebbapragada said that Asians tend to book their holidays at the very last minute and he was now used to this after having spent a season in this market.

He said that RCI was getting demand for the fly-cruise market from India, Japan and Korea. However, lack of air capacity during critical peak periods is putting some constraint on this. Seeing how the proportion of Singaporeans on this year's cruises has barely inched up from the 30 per cent seen last year, this will likely have to be a market it will have to tap further if it wants to grow.

Mr Rebbapragada also said that Shanghai, Tianjin, Busan and Hong Kong will definitely be considered as homeports for the ship when it is based here for a year-long deployment from next November.

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Scientists try to mitigate climate change effects

Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 9 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland – Scientists studying the changing nature of the Earth's climate say they have completed one crucial task — proving beyond a doubt that global warming is real.

Now they have to figure out just what to do about it.

"It is critical for us to get a much better understanding of the impact of climate change in some parts of the world," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.

Scientific warnings of potential catastrophe have been the backdrop for talks among more than 10,000 delegates and environmentalists negotiating a treaty to control the emission of greenhouse gases, which have grown by 70 percent since 1970. The treaty, due to be completed in one year, would replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Pachauri said he was concerned that negotiators were sparring and probing — and leaving key decisions for the last moment.

"My concern is that if we leave everything to the end, we might end up with a weak agreement that doesn't really address the problem," he said.

Last year, Pachauri's IPCC, which collected the work of more than 2,000 scientists, said climate change is "unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity."

It listed likely effects of global warming: arid regions will grow dryer, rising seas will flood coastal areas, melting glaciers will flood communities downstream and then dry up the source of future water supplies, and up to 30 percent of all plant and animal species may become extinct.

Since then, new evidence has emerged showing that ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic are melting, which threatens to dramatically raise the level of the oceans and flood coastal cities and low-lying islands.

"Small island states are living in a state of fear," he said.

But Pachauri said there was no conclusive evidence the world is in imminent danger.

"I don't think we should jump to conclusions if we get material that is based on the last one or two years," the Indian scientist said. The IPCC issues its reports every five or six years.

The 2007 report cited a scientific consensus that global warming should be limited to 2 degrees Centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to avoid the worst scenarios. To contain global warming to that target, carbon emissions must peak by 2015, then begin a rapid decline.

Pachauri now says governments should reconsider whether even that goal goes far enough, since it would still raise sea levels from between 15 inches (40 centimeters) to 4.6 feet (1.4 meters).

Dozens of scientists were among the delegations or nongovernment groups attending the Poznan conference, exhibiting some of the latest technologies and scientific studies.

"The skeptics are doing a good job because they are making us present ironclad proof," said Lawrence E. Buja, a climate change researcher for the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

But since that battle is over, he said scientists need to move on and look at the detailed impact of climate change.

"That's a much harder question," he said.

Buja, who contributed to the IPCC report, said scientists are looking at futuristic solutions to halt global warming, such as imitating the cooling effects of a massive volcanic eruption by spreading sulfur in the atmosphere, or scattering billions tiny refractors high in the air to dim the sun and lower the temperature.

But he said such radical solutions involve risks.

"How are you going to go up and find all those little refractors and pull them down if something bad starts to happen?" he asked.

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Climate talks to fail without tough CO2 goals: U.N.

Alister Doyle and Anna Mudeva, Reuters 9 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - The United States and other rich nations must pledge by the end of next year specific targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 to win agreement on a U.N. climate pact, the U.N.'s top climate official said on Tuesday.

Some analysts say that President-elect Barack Obama may not be ready to set formal emissions targets for 2020 within a year, and that economic recession could delay an end-2009 deadline by 190 nations for agreement on a new U.N. global warming pact.

"We have to have numbers on the table from industrialized countries (by the end of 2009) otherwise the other dominoes won't fall," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said during December 1-12 talks on global warming.

Poor nations such as China and India would not sign up for more action to slow their rising emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, without leadership from the rich, he told a news conference during U.N. talks of 11,000 delegates in Poznan.

And he gave a one-word answer -- "Yes" -- when asked if he would rate the negotiations a failure if they set no 2020 greenhouse cuts for rich nations to succeed 2012 goals set by the existing Kyoto Protocol.

A U.N. official said de Boer's remarks covered the United States, even though President George W. Bush kept the country out of Kyoto. Bush said Kyoto was too costly and wrongly excluded 2012 targets for developing nations.

But de Boer also cautioned against too much ambition for a new global deal due to be agreed in Copenhagen next year, saying that many details of a new pact could be worked out later.

RISK NOTHING

"We should be careful not to reach too far and achieve nothing," he said. Targets for rich nations, clarity on aid for the poor and institutions were essential in Copenhagen.

The talks in Poznan, Poland, are reviewing progress toward the new pact meant to be agreed in Copenhagen in 2009, half-way through a two-year push launched in Bali, Indonesia, a year ago.

Obama said last month that he aims to cut U.S. emissions, running almost 17 percent above 1990 levels in 2007, back to 1990 levels by 2020 as part of a fight to avert more heatwaves, disease, water shortages and rising seas.

But it is unclear if Obama would have to get the Senate's blessing before making a commitment as part of an international treaty. With the economic crisis, U.S. domestic climate laws are unlikely to be in place by late 2009, analysts say.

Environmentalists in Poznan accused some rich nations -- including Japan and Canada -- of slamming on the brakes in their ambitions for emissions cuts by 2020.

Backers of the Kyoto Protocol, which demands average cuts of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, agreed in 2007 at least to consider cuts of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avert the worst of climate change.

In latest texts, a reference to "minus 25 to 40 percent" was in contention and might be dropped. "It's frankly outrageous," said Steven Guilbeault of Canadian environmental group Equiterre, accusing Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia of trying to cut out the reference.

British charity Oxfam set up 10 life-sized human ice sculptures outside the conference center on Tuesday. "Rich countries need to take the lead before hope in saving the planet and its people melts away," said Aboubacar Traore, Oxfam's climate change campaigner in Mali.

(Editing by Myra MacDonald)

UN climate chief downbeat about a complete deal for 2009
Yahoo News 9 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – The UN's climate chief on Tuesday sounded caution over hopes that a new treaty to tackle global warming would be fully wrapped up by the end of 2009.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said it was possible only "the key political issues" would be nailed down by this deadline and further talks would be needed to complete the details of the accord.

"We won't see a fully elaborated, long-term agreement in Copenhagen in 2009. It won't be feasible," de Boer told a press conference here.

More than 10,000 delegates have gathered in Poznan for the December 1-12 UNFCCC meeting, which aims to advance towards a treaty taking effect from the end of 2012, when provisions expire under Kyoto Protocol.

According to the so-called Bali Roadmap, endorsed by the 192-member UNFCCC conference in Indonesia last year, the new accord should be completed in Copenhagen in December 2009.

"We should be careful not to reach too far and achieve nothing," de Boer said on Tuesday ahead of a ministerial-level phase of the talks, taking place Thursday and Friday.

"What we need to achieve in Copenhagen is clarity on the key political issues, so that everything after Copenhagen is about settling the details rather than negotiating the fundamentals," he said.

The highly technical negotiations in Poznan are mired in discord over how to share out the commitments and costs of cutting carbon pollution that stokes global warming.

Rich countries acknowledge their historical role in pushing up global temperatures.

But they say rapidly emerging economies -- including major CO2 emitters such as China and India -- must also take quantifiable action.

Developing and poorer nations argue the industrialised world should lead by example, and foot the bill for clean-energy technology and coping with global warming's inevitable impacts.

"We do have to have numbers on the table from industrialised countries otherwise the other dominoes won't fall," de Boer said.

"And it's clear that you politically also need some form of engagement by major developing countries. What form that commitment will take, what shape it will have and how it will be stated, is not clear to me at the moment".

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