Best of our wild blogs: 16 Dec 08

16 Dec: Talk on "Biodiversity: Interactions among hornbills, plants and animals" on ecotax at Yahoo! Groups

An 'improved' beach on Changi?
on the wild shores of singapore blog

The "Rock"
on the Psychedelic Nature blog

Sentosa with the SWA folks
on the ashira v3.0b blog

Trilobite Larvae: The Peter Pan of the Insect World
on the Flying Fish Friends blog

Food brought to the nest of the Long-legged Buzzard
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

5th International Hornbill Conference in Singapore: 22-25 March 2009 on ecotax at Yahoo! Groups

Buzzed
on the annotated budak blog

Scientific researches of sun bear and publications: Part 2
on the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation blog

Roads will be expunged
deletions at Seletar Camp on the Postcards from Seletar blog

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Singapore coastline getting dirtier

More than 9,750kg of trash cleared during cleanup in September
Shobana Kesava, Straits Times 16 Dec 08;

DESPITE public anti-littering campaigns and annual cleanups involving thousands of people, Singapore's coasts are dirtier than they were five years ago, according to new data.

Over 9,755kg of waste, from plastic bags to refrigerators, was fished off beaches and mangroves during a mammoth cleanup in September, almost 400kg more than in 2007.

The cleanup was organised by International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS) and was part of a worldwide drive.
Full PDF on the Straits Times Online.

Locally, over 2,500 people - from schoolchildren to business executives and civil servants - took part in the event, fanning out to coastal areas from Changi to Jurong.

The results of the cleanup were recently computed by the entirely volunteer-run ICCS.

Lead coordinator N. Sivasothi said he was not surprised by the volume of trash collected.

He described the cleanup as a stopgap measure, saying the only way to cut down on beach-front trash is to encourage conservation.

'If we use less, that will mean fewer things we need to dispose of. Proper disposal is important so that trash doesn't end up in drains which wash into the sea,' he said.

This year, about 2,530 volunteers participated in the Sept 20 cleanup, down from 2,860 last year. Organisers said the numbers were higher when volunteers who worked on other days of the year were included.

The results of the cleanup show trash trends have varied little over the few years, said Mr Sivasothi.

'It would take an enormous shift in behaviour to change the kind of rubbish we find. I'd be surprised if there was a significant change,' he said.

Plastic bags, straws and styrofoam have been a constant on shorelines here and abroad for years. Larger items, such as refrigerators and tyres, have also been found, according to organisers.

While the September cleanup shows littering habits remain a problem, volunteers are undeterred.

Kranji Mangrove volunteer Cheong Wei Siong, 20, said he has seen the shoreline become progressively cleaner over the years.

'I always feel good visiting the mangroves because they are much cleaner, and I played an important role in it,' he said.

Mr Yasim Abidin, a volunteer who has cleaned the shores for 10 years, said he is not discouraged by the consistently high garbage load.

Every year, the 29-year-old gets 80 children to pair up with Nanyang Polytechnic students to help clean the shoreline. 'It's our small contribution to Singapore and hopefully the children will take the message home and into their future,' he said.

Registration for next year's International Coastal Cleanup will open in March at the website http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg

New cleanup site: Pandan Mangrove
Straits Times 16 Dec 08;

SITUATED off the West Coast, Pandan Mangrove has become the latest addition to the coastline being cleaned up by International Coastal Cleanup Singapore.

Fresh pickings could be the main reason for the unusually high number of bulky items found on just 350m of shoreline. More than the average number of tyres and building materials were found stuck in the mud.

In all, 3,448 pieces of trash were collected by corporate volunteers from Oil Spill Response and East Asia Response Limited (OSRL/EARL) and Wildlife Reserves Singapore - both new to coastal cleanups - and veterans from the Raffles Museum Toddycats of the National University of Singapore, a non-governmental organisation headed by zoologist N. Sivasothi, who coordinates the annual event.

'We wanted to give them this fresh site, even though they have never done this work before, because they had a great 'can-do' spirit and were serious about wanting to do a good job,' he said.

'We wanted to cover only a small site because we wanted to minimise the damage to the site,' said site captain Kelly Ong, 27, a marine biologist.

The volunteers found almost 1,300 plastic bags, 820 food wrappers and more than 440 glass bottles.

'The most peculiar items found included traffic barrier lights, half of a vacuum cleaner, a rice cooker, a wooden statue of a smiling Buddha, a golf bag and a lot of plastic pipes,' she said.

A human chain was formed to remove 39 tyres, which easily weighed about 740kg.

Ms Ong hopes this will reduce the places where rainwater can collect, as these can serve as breeding grounds for mosquitos.

Mr Wilson Tan, 28, who headed the OSRL/EARL team, said he had been searching for a way to help his company reduce its carbon footprint.

'I went online to check if anyone was cleaning the beaches because the footprint is worse if trash is left in the open. It affects the mangroves and the marine life,' he said.

SHOBANA KESAVA

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Chingay participants use recycled material for costumes

From junk to WEARABLE ART
Adeline Ong, The New Paper 16 Dec 08;

WHEN you marvel at the colourful costumes in next year's Chingay Parade, take a closer look.

You may then notice that the costumes are made of fruit wrappers, bottle caps, soft toys and even film negatives.

Working on the 'Wonderland' theme, the Chingay, an annual street parade held during Chinese New Year, will feature a contingent parading wearable art made from recycled material.

The parade will take place on 30 and 31 Jan next year.

But yesterday, participants in the wearable art public contingent were already preparing for it, attending a dance workshop at the People's Association auditorium because dancing is part of their act in the parade.

The participants also spared no effort in giving their self-designed outfits a creative touch.

Madam Kiaw Ai, 57, was dressed elegantly in a cheongsam handsewn with fruit wrappers. She took five days to make the outfit with the help of two friends.

She said: 'We would visit different fruit stalls each day to collect the wrappers, and had to take extra care in sewing the outfit as the wrappers would tear easily.

'I feel quite accomplished, and happy,' she added.

Another participant, Madam Tan Leng Har, 61, used bottle caps as buttons for her dress.

Yet another, Ms Lee Hon Moi was out to spread some joy to children with her striking outfit made of soft toys.

Ms Lee said: 'It was a 'eureka' moment for me. My sister was moving house and had some unwanted soft toys, so I took them and used them for an outfit.'

'I like soft toys, and thought that kids would find the outfits interesting.'

For others, it was a big family affair.

Nur Farhana Ilyan, 18, a student, was with her mother, brother, aunties and cousins at the rehearsal.

She said: 'Our outfits were inspired by the butterfly gardens in Alice in Wonderland. I am dressed as the queen of butterflies, while my cousins are the little butterfly fairies and toy soldiers.'

Her mother, Madam Latifah Hassan, 42, a teacher, said the family had shortened a holiday trip to attend the rehearsal.

'I think it's worth it because we are excited about Chingay, and it's a good time for some family bonding too,' she said.

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The disabled help turn trash into Christmas tree

Shobana Kesava, Straits Times 16 Dec 08;

DISCARDED plastic bottles have been turned into a Christmas tree now on display at Tanglin Mall.

The creation was made by a group of 10 adults with conditions such as autism, Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities, with help from Christian Outreach to the Handicapped (COH).

COH enlisted students to help, blending two of its causes into one: first, that those with disabilities have skills to offer society, and second, that what seems like rubbish can be recycled and put to good use.

Since January, young adults with disabilities have been spreading the green message to schools, teaching students how to recycle and produce art from discarded plastic water bottles.

'We wanted to show students that people with disabilities have skills to share,' said programme manager Julius Koh.

The idea of recycled art came from one of its volunteers, Mr Khor Tuck Kuan, a creative director with Timmermann and Tan Advertising.

COH, the only voluntary welfare organisation that actively cares for adults with autism, showed 10 of its members how to teach students to cut and weave lampshades from plastic bottles.

Schools were happy to take part because it supported their lessons on climate change.

About 10,000 bottles were piled up in 18 educational institutions from primary to university level for the project.

Despite their social impairment, the creators reached out to 2,000 students. At Victoria School, teacher Peh Siew Kuan took on the project because she said 'it was ideal for our community involvement programme'.

'Although they can't communicate using words like us, they can find a way to show us what to do,' said Aravind Seeralan, 12.

Classmate Jeremy Chew added: 'I didn't know something so beautiful could be made from mineral water bottles.'

COH raised about $10,000 in sponsorship from Tuas Power and the National Environment Agency for the project, while Tanglin Mall provided a spot for the Christmas tree.

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Scientists Urge Caution in Ocean-CO2 Capture Schemes

David Fogarty, PlanetArk 16 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE - To some entrepreneurs, the wild and icy seas between Australia and Antarctica could become a money spinner by engineering nature to soak up carbon dioxide and then selling carbon credits worth millions of dollars.

To some scientists and many nations, though, the concept of using nature to mop up mankind's excess CO2 to fight global warming is fraught with risk and uncertainty.

An analysis by a leading Australian research body has urged caution and says more research is crucial before commercial ventures are allowed to fertilize oceans on a large scale and over many years to capture CO2.

"I don't think the scientific community has even sat down and made a list of the things we need to check before we feel comfortable that this would be a low-risk endeavor," said one of the Australian report's authors, Tom Trull.

"We never even designed measurement programs to look at ecological change and the risks," said Trull, Ocean Control of Carbon Dioxide program leader at the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center (ACE CRC) in Hobart.

Scientists say sprinkling the ocean surface with trace amounts of iron or releasing other nutrients over many thousands of square kilometers promotes blooms of tiny phytoplankton, which soak up carbon dioxide in the marine plants.

When the phytoplankton die, they drift to the ocean depths, along with the carbon locked inside their cells where it is potentially stored for decades or centuries in sediments on the ocean floor.

Firms eyeing this natural carbon sink hope to commercialize it to yield carbon credits to help industries offset their emissions.

The problem is no one knows exactly how much carbon can be captured and stored in this way, for how long, or the risks to ocean ecosystems from such large-scale geo-engineering.

Some scientists fear such schemes could change species composition in the oceans, increase acidity or cause oxygen depletion in some areas, even promote the release of another powerful greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.

BLOOMING

"Ocean fertilization may cause changes in marine ecosystem structure and biodiversity, and may have other undesirable effects," says the ACE CRC position analysis on ocean fertilization science and policy, soon to be publicly released.

"While controlled iron fertilization experiments have shown an increase in phytoplankton growth, and a temporary increase in drawdown of atmospheric CO2, it is uncertain whether this would increase carbon transfer into the deep ocean over the longer-term," it says.

It also says the potential for negative impacts is expected to increase with the scale and duration of fertilization. There are doubts that any damaging effects could be detected in time.

"It is very important to recognize that if deleterious effects increase with scale and duration of fertilization, detection of these cumulative effects may not be possible until the damage is already done," said John Cullen, professor of oceanography at Dalhousie University at Nova Scotia in Canada.

"It is extremely important to look at the ecological risks of this kind of activity," he said.

Oceans soak up vast amounts of CO2 emitted by nature or through burning of fossil fuels and deforestation and the Southern Ocean plays the greatest role of all the oceans.

But much of the Southern Ocean is depleted of iron and experiments have shown even small amounts of the nutrient can trigger phytoplankton blooms that can last for up to two months.

Companies such as California-based Climos and Australia's Ocean Nourishment Corp are planning small-scale experiments to test their ocean carbon capture and sequestration projects.

Ocean Nourishment uses ammonia and urea, delivered via a marine pipeline to a region deficient in nitrogen, to boost phytoplankton growth and boost fish stocks. Climos uses iron and plans experiments in the Southern Ocean in 2010.

"Iron fertilization is no silver bullet for climate change -- which underscores the severity of the problem we have, and the urgency for immediate emissions reductions worldwide," Climos founder and CEO Dan Whaley told Reuters in an email interview.

But he said it was premature to judge iron fertilization as dangerous.

"Phytoplankton are nature's way of sequestering CO2 to the deep ocean, where nearly 90 percent of earth's carbon lies. Further, most everything we put up in the air is going to the deep ocean eventually. The only question is how long it takes," he said.

Many nations, though, remain cautious and member states of two treaties that govern dumping of wastes at sea passed a non-binding resolution in October calling for ocean fertilization operations to be allowed only for research.

Parties to the London Convention and related London Protocol, part of the International Maritime Organization, signed the resolution that said member states were urged to use "utmost caution" to evaluate research proposals to ensure protection of marine life.

ABSORPTION LIMIT

Trull, who participated in the first ocean fertilization experiment in 1999, one of a dozen since conducted globally, said commercial ventures would need to operate over huge areas of ocean for many years.

The ACE CRC report also says ocean fertilization just using iron would likely hit an absorption limit of about 1 billion tonnes of carbon (3.7 billion tonnes of CO2) annually, or about 15 percent of mankind's total carbon emissions.

"That really puts the risk in context. We're talking about altering ecosystems of planetary scale for a benefit that won't actually relieve us from dealing with all the other issues, such as conservation or alternative energy generation."

Cullen of Dalhousie University said studies suggested that to sequester large amounts of carbon would require fertilization of most of the Southern Ocean for long periods of time.

"The question is can we assess those large-scale and long-term effects on the basis of experiments 100 by 200 km (60 by 120 miles) in size. I have not seen evidence it can be done."

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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South Korea unveils $10billion river development project

Yahoo News 15 Dec 08;

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea Monday announced a 14-trillion-won (10.3-billion-dollar) scheme to reduce the effects of floods and drought along four main rivers and help create 190,000 jobs during the economic downturn.

The plan is part of a new package for provincial development which requires a budget of 42 trillion won over the next five years, officials said. It was outlined at a meeting between President Lee Myung-Bak and top policymakers.

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs promised to complete the improvements to the Han, Nakdong, Geum and Yeongsan rivers by late 2011.

It said the "Green New Deal" project could boost economic output by 23 trillion won, with floods and drought alone costing 4.2 trillion won annually.

The ministry aims to build submerged dams and reservoirs along the rivers and develop recreational facilities on their banks. Woodland would be planted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Lee also said his government would link the country's roads and railways and intensively implement other infrastructure work as part of measures to boost the slowing economy.

He said the river refurbishment project would help improve business, cultural and sightseeing infrastructure in the provinces.

The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said it would expand tax benefits and other incentives for companies planning to move into provincial areas.

"Work (on the rivers) will focus on strengthening embankments, restoring the eco-system and maintaining appropriate depth to facilitate water flow," said Kwon Jin-Bong, deputy minister for construction and water resources.

The government denies its river improvements are a prelude to reviving plans for a cross-country canal system. Lee touted the plan during his election campaign last December but later shelved it amid widespread public opposition.

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China to Accelerate South-North Water Project

PlanetArk 16 Dec 08;

BEIJING - China will accelerate construction of the south-to-north water diversion project next year, the Xinhua news agency quoted the head of the project office, Zhang Jiyao, as saying.

The project, criticized by some environmentalists for encouraging the wasteful use of water, will divert water from the Yangtze River in western and central China to arid northern regions through three channels: eastern, middle and western.

A number of projects along the eastern and middle routes would start next year, Zhang said, drawing on investment of up to 254.6 billion yuan ($37.20 billion) authorized by the State Council, or the Cabinet, for the eastern and middle routes.

As of the end of last month, 4.16 billion yuan had been spent on the eastern route and 18.23 billion yuan on the middle route, from a total 45.67 billion yuan that has been earmarked.

Sections of the project in coastal Shandong province and eastern Jiangsu province have been completed.

A middle section linking Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, and Beijing, has also been finished, and an emergency diversion was started in September to supply about 300 million cubic meters of water to the capital through March 10.

About one billion cubic meters of water could be diverted to Beijing annually, when that part of the project is completed in 2010.

Environmentalists say the diversion project encourages wasteful water use in Beijing, reduces the water supply to arid surrounding regions and takes little account of the potential long-term impact.

The western route, which would involve drilling tunnels through the high mountains on the Tibetan plateau to bring water from the Yangtze to the Yellow River, is in the planning stage.

(US$1=6.844 Yuan)

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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Green activists find growing support from US unions

Renewable energy now seen as answer to job losses
Business Times 16 Dec 08;

(POZNAN, Poland) Some US labour groups that have long feared environmental campaigns as a threat to American jobs are starting to see advantages in going green.

This evolution was clear at last week's UN climate talks in Poland, where several American labour groups and environmental activists made joint appeals for policies that would promote high-tech renewable energy as the answer to both climate change and job losses.

About 25 representatives of US unions were in Poznan - about twice the number at last year's UN talks in Bali, Indonesia - representing workers from the electrical, transit, steel, service and other sectors.

'There is a very wide cross-section of American unions that reflects the growing engagement of American unions' support of climate change policies,' said David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance.

The group was founded by the United Steelworkers, North America's largest manufacturing union, and the Sierra Club, the US' largest and oldest grass-roots environmental group.

'There's a power in the joint vision that we just don't have functioning on our own,' added Mr Foster, who was for 16 years a United Steelworkers regional director.

The Blue Green Alliance was founded in 2006 and expanded this autumn to include three more unions and another green group.

Environmental protection and labour rights have intersected before, especially in past battles to eliminate toxins and other pollutants from the workplace.

But the two sides have also found themselves at odds. Unions have often seen nature lovers as idealists willing to sacrifice American jobs for the sake of endangered species. Some coal industry workers remain hostile to efforts that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by closing down coal-fired plants.

But both groups also have felt growing pressure over the past decade because of manufacturing job losses in the American heartland and what they see as an erosion of workers' rights and weakening environmental protection.

Environmentalists want clean energy - such as wind and solar power - to reduce gases that degrade the environment. It is in their interest that new jobs in the sector offer good pay and benefits, to win labour's support for their agenda.

David Hawkins, director of climate programmes with the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, attributes the deepening cooperation to the need to fight opponents who say you cannot protect the environment and preserve jobs at the same time.

'They keep on shouting that scare campaign at every opportunity they get,' Mr Hawkins said. 'An alliance is a powerful way of sending the message that you can have both.'

Margrete Strand Rangnes, a Sierra Club representative, says environmentalists are also fighting for workers to have stronger protections as a way of protecting whistleblowers who speak out against environmental and other violations. Some unions see jobs in the renewable energy sector as a way to create a new wave of well-paid jobs that will replace the nearly 5 million manufacturing jobs that have disappeared over the past decade.

Robert Baugh, chairman of AFL-CIO's energy task force, said his federation still has 'some differences' with environmental groups, but that 'we also have a lot of common interests.' As environmentalists push for clean energy policies, he said it's vital that labour get involved to ensure that as those policies are put in place, workers' interests are not ignored.

'The climate crisis and a new energy policy is an opportunity for our country to actually have a strategy about the environment, about manufacturing,' Mr Baugh said. 'We think that by addressing the environmental crisis, we actually can have the opportunity to create good, green jobs.'

Mr Baugh noted, for instance, that there are about 8,000 parts in a windmill - and that his group wants to ensure that American workers will be making them.

The labour leaders who are going green like to cite examples of where green policies have led to job creation. Pennsylvania, for example, passed renewable energy standards several years ago that persuaded the Spanish wind energy company Gamesa to open up four plants in Pennsylvania, creating 1,400 new jobs making wind turbines.

And last year, about 500 laid-off steel workers were called back to work in two steel plate mills in Gary, Indiana, to produce steel for wind turbines.

Abraham Breehey, a senior union official, said workers are starting to shake off their belief that green energy spells doom rather than opportunity.

Mr Breehey pointed to the case of a group of Indiana blacksmiths who recently struck a multi-million dollar deal to produce a new hammer for heavy-duty work in building wind turbines.

That 'was a light bulb moment, and we realised that there must be more examples where job opportunities on their face might not seem like green jobs but end up being part of the green economy,' said Mr Breehey, of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers\. \-- AP

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When will the oil run out?

George Monbiot puts the question to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency - and is both astonished and alarmed by the answer

George Monbiot, The Guardian 15 Dec 08;

Can you think of a major threat for which the British government does not prepare? It employs an army of civil servants, spooks and consultants to assess the chances of terrorist attacks, financial collapse, floods, epidemics, even asteroid strikes, and to work out what it should do if they happen. But there is one hazard about which it appears intensely relaxed: it has never conducted its own assessment of the state of global oil supplies and the possibility that one day they might peak and then go into decline.

If you ask, the government always produces the same response: "Global oil resources are adequate for the foreseeable future." It knows this, it says, because of the assessments made by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its World Energy Outlook reports. In the 2007 report, the IEA does appear to support the government's view. "World oil resources," it states, "are judged to be sufficient to meet the projected growth in demand to 2030," though it says nothing about what happens at that point, or whether they will continue to be sufficient after 2030. But this, as far as Whitehall is concerned, is the end of the matter. Like most of the rich world's governments, the UK treats the IEA's projections as gospel.

Earlier this year, I submitted a freedom of information request to the UK's department for business, asking what contingency plans the government has made for global supplies of oil peaking by 2020. The answer was as follows: "The government does not feel the need to hold contingency plans specifically for the eventuality of crude-oil supplies peaking between now and 2020."

So the IEA had better be right. In the report on peak oil commissioned by the US department of energy, the oil analyst Robert L Hirsch concluded that "without timely mitigation, the economic, social and political costs" of world oil supplies peaking "will be unprecedented". He went on to explain what "timely mitigation" meant. Even a worldwide emergency response "10 years before world oil peaking", he wrote, would leave "a liquid-fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked". To avoid global economic collapse, we need to begin "a mitigation crash programme 20 years before peaking". If Hirsch is right, and if oil supplies peak before 2028, we're in deep doodah.

So burn this into your mind: between 2007 and 2008 the IEA radically changed its assessment. Until this year's report, the agency mocked people who said that oil supplies might peak. In the foreword to a book it published in 2005, its executive director, Claude Mandil, dismissed those who warned of this event as "doomsayers". "The IEA has long maintained that none of this is a cause for concern," he wrote. "Hydrocarbon resources around the world are abundant and will easily fuel the world through its transition to a sustainable energy future." In its 2007 World Energy Outlook, the IEA predicted a rate of decline in output from the world's existing oilfields of 3.7% a year. This, it said, presented a short-term challenge, with the possibility of a temporary supply crunch in 2015, but with sufficient investment any shortfall could be covered. But the new report, published last month, carried a very different message: a projected rate of decline of 6.7%, which means a much greater gap to fill.

More importantly, in the 2008 report the IEA suggests for the first time that world petroleum supplies might hit the buffers. "Although global oil production in total is not expected to peak before 2030, production of conventional oil ... is projected to level off towards the end of the projection period." These bland words reveal a major shift. Never before has one of the IEA's energy outlooks forecast the peaking or plateauing of the world's conventional oil production (which is what we mean when we talk about peak oil).

But that is as specific as the report gets. Does it or doesn't it mean that we have time to prepare? What does "towards the end of the projection period" mean? The agency has never produced a more precise forecast - until now. For the first time, in the interview I conducted with its chief economist Fatih Birol recently, it has given us a date. And it should scare the pants off anyone who understands the implications.

Birol, the lead author of the new energy outlook, is a small, shrewd, unflustered man with thick grey hair and Alistair Darling eyebrows. He explained to me that the agency's new projections were based on a major study it had undertaken into decline rates in the world's 800 largest oilfields. So what were its previous figures based on? "It was mainly an assumption, a global assumption about the world's oil fields. This year, we looked at it country by country, field by field and we looked at it also onshore and offshore. It was very, very detailed. Last year it was an assumption, and this year it's a finding of our study." I told him that it seemed extraordinary to me that the IEA hadn't done this work before, but had based its assessment on educated guesswork. "In fact nobody had done this research," he told me. "This is the first publicly available data."

So was it not irresponsible to publish a decline rate of 3.7% in 2007, when there was no proper research supporting it? "No, our previous decline assumptions have always mentioned that these are assumptions to the best of our knowledge - and we also said that the declines [could be] higher than what we have assumed."

Then I asked him a question for which I didn't expect a straight answer: could he give me a precise date by which he expects conventional oil supplies to stop growing?

"In terms of non-Opec [countries outside the big oil producers' cartel]," he replied, "we are expecting that in three, four years' time the production of conventional oil will come to a plateau, and start to decline. In terms of the global picture, assuming that Opec will invest in a timely manner, global conventional oil can still continue, but we still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau as well, which is, of course, not good news from a global-oil-supply point of view."

Around 2020. That casts the issue in quite a different light. Birol's date, if correct, gives us about 11 years to prepare. If the Hirsch report is right, we have already missed the boat. Birol says we need a "global energy revolution" to avoid an oil crunch, including (disastrously for the environment) a massive global drive to exploit unconventional oils, such as the Canadian tar sands. But nothing on this scale has yet happened, and Hirsch suggests that even if it began today, the necessary investments and infrastructure changes could not be made in time. Birol told me: "I think time is not on our side here."

When I pressed him on the shift in the agency's position, he argued that the IEA has been saying something like this all along. "We said in the past that one day we will run out of oil. We never said that we will have hundreds of years of oil ... but what we have said is that this year, compared with past years, we have seen that the decline rates are significantly higher than what we have seen before. But our line that we are on an unsustainable energy path has not changed."

This, of course, is face-saving nonsense. There is a vast difference between a decline rate of 3.7% and 6.7%. There is an even bigger difference between suggesting that the world is following an unsustainable energy path - a statement almost everyone can subscribe to - and revealing that conventional oil supplies are likely to plateau around 2020. If this is what the IEA meant in the past, it wasn't expressing itself very clearly.

So what do we do? We could take to the hills, or we could hope and pray that Hirsch is wrong about the 20-year lead time, and begin a global crash programme today of fuel efficiency and electrification. In either case, the British government had better start drawing up some contingency plans.

monbiot.com

• Watch George Monbiot talking to Fatih Birol as part of the Monbiot Meets video series, in which Britain's leading green commentator challenges the world's top environmental policy-makers guardian.co.uk/environment/series/monbiot-meets

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China's first mass-produced hybrid car goes on sale: car maker

Marianne Barriaux Yahoo News 15 Dec 08;

BEIJING (AFP) – China's first mass-produced hybrid electric car hit the market on Monday, its manufacturer said, in a move aimed at driving the nation to the cutting edge of the world's green auto industry.

The car is made by BYD Auto, a Chinese company backed by American Warren Buffett, one of the world's most successful investors who owns 9.9 percent of the firm.

The F3DM is also the world's first mass-produced plug-in hybrid car, meaning owners can charge it from powerpoints at home for the first time, as well as in specialised electric car charging stations, according to BYD.

BYD president Wang Chuanfu was quoted by Chinese media as saying that his firm and China were on their way to being world leaders in the fuel-efficient auto industry.

"Through the F3DM dual-mode electric vehicle, BYD will grab a head-start in the new energy automobile market," he said at the launch in the southern city of Shenzhen, according to Auto 18, an online platform for China's auto industry.

A spokeswoman for the company confirmed the launch took place on Monday, but gave no other details.

BYD, which also specialises in making rechargeable batteries, only started making cars in 2003 when it bought a bankrupt state-owned auto company.

Its hybrid car is planned to first go on the market in 14 Chinese cities, and the firm is initially focusing on striking deals for company fleets rather than individuals, mycar168.com, another auto website, quoted Wang as saying.

The United States, meanwhile, is currently examining the F3DM to see if it meets the necessary standards for its domestic market, a spokesperson for the firm was quoted as saying by pcauto.com.cn, another car-focused web portal.

Exports to the United States could begin from 2010, according to the report.

The Prius hybrid electric car, made by Japan's Toyota, is currently sold in China, but the F3DM is the first locally made hybrid vehicle to hit the market.

Other carmakers in China have also manufactured these types of hybrid cars but never released them for public sale, said Duan Chengwu, a Shanghai-based technical analyst with international market research firm Global Insight.

The F3DM, meanwhile, has beaten Toyota and General Motors in the plug-in area, as the two companies only plan to launch hybrid cars that can be charged from home in 2009 and 2010 respectively, Duan said.

BYD's hybrid car, which can run 100 kilometres (62 miles) on a full battery, will cost just under 150,000 yuan (22,000 dollars).

Duan expressed doubt that the F3DM would initially be successful with Chinese customers because of the high price.

"In the initial stage, I don't think Chinese customers will buy a lot of these cars, but BYD wants to use them to test the waters," he said.

"Ultimately, though, this kind of car has a big potential in the Chinese market, and in the world market, because we all know we need new energy cars to solve the environmental and oil crisis problems."

Duan said Chinese automakers still lagged behind Western companies in conventional car technologies, but were at a similar level when it came to hybrids.

"The Chinese manufacturers have the opportunity to leapfrog the traditional technologies and to gain a leading position in terms of new energy cars," he said.

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Algerian projects captures and buries carbon dioxide

Nathaniel Harrison Yahoo News 15 Dec 08;

KRECHBA, Algeria (AFP) – On a desolate, wind-pummeled expanse of central Algeria, natural gas is being pumped out of the Sahara Desert and sent on to energy-starved Europe, leaving nearly all its environment-damaging carbon dioxide buried deep beneath the earth's surface.

The In Salah gas project, a four-year old venture grouping energy majors Sonatrach of Algeria, BP of Britain and Statoil of Norway, is described by its managers as the world's first and largest onshore carbon capture and sequestration scheme.

Natural gas from the Krechba field, one of three In Salah fields currently in operation, has a carbon dioxide content of 9.1 percent, making it unmarketable in that form in Europe, where CO2 can be no higher than 0.3 percent.

"You can't sell gas with a high carbon content -- you have to take it out," said Michael Mossman of BP.

"And so we had a decision to make -- are we just going to vent it into the atmosphere or are we going to do something different?"

"Something different" at the Krechba facility, a bewildering warren of pipes and tanks, was the re-injection of the CO2 into aquifers that lie 1,850 metres (6,100 feet) beneath the surface, where according to project vice president Mohammed Keddamm it should stay forever under layers of shale, a rock that is impermeable to gas.

"There's no reason for the CO2 to migrate anywhere," he said. "There's no reason why it shouldn't stay there."

Either the CO2 is released into the atmosphere or it is captured and buried. There is no realistic third option, project officials contend.

In Salah managers say an estimated 800,000 tonnes of CO2 is being re-injected each year, equivalent to what 200,000 cars produce annually.

Over the anticipated 30-year life of project, about 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be captured and sequestered deep in the earth.

The gas is purged of nearly all its CO2 by being pumped through a liquid amine solution. Amine is a chemical capable of detecting -- and separating -- CO2 from natural gas.

The natural gas is then transferred via pipeline to a collection point 530 kilometres (330 miles) away at Hassi R'Mel before being exported to Europe.

The sprawling In Salah project, which covers 3,000 square kilometres of the Sahara and is located 1,200 kilometres south of Algiers, must surely be among the most forbidding places on earth.

Project workers say the temperature in the summer can rise above 60 degrees Celsius (140 F) and fall below freezing in winter.

The site, often buffeted by violent sandstorms, is 200 kilometres from the nearest inhabited community and is realistically accessible only by air.

About 2,000 workers are on location, four weeks on duty, 12 hours a day and no weekends, and four weeks off.

There are some amenities, however -- a swimming pool, gym, a professional caterer and satellite television connection.

"We're in the middle of nowhere," said field operations manager Paul Andrews.

"If we want something we have to make it. We generate our own power, drill for water and deal with sewage."

About 4.0 billion dollars is to be invested in the project, with the CO2 capture and sequestration scheme costing just 100 million dollars.

But despite its cost effectiveness and technical feasibility, the In Salah model may not be universally applicable.

What is needed is a verifiably secure reservoir to contain the CO2, which may not be available elsewhere.

At the Krechba field, there are no worries on that score.

"We are sure about the integrity of the reservoir," said Keddam.

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Australia's Climate-Change Winners & Losers

Mark Bendeich, PlanetArk 16 Dec 08;

SYDNEY - The only clear, outright winners from Australia's climate-change policy unveiled on Monday are the accountants and lawyers who will have to make sense of it.

Losers, on the other hand, are everywhere.

They include coal-fired power stations, mainly in government hands or unlisted, and some of the local stock market's biggest firms, such as smelters BlueScope Steel and OneSteel, and refiner Alumina Ltd, analysts say.

Around 1,000 of the largest polluters, ranging from transport operators and aluminum makers to gas producers and petroleum refineries, will have to pay to pollute from 2010, under a government plan to cut national greenhouse gas emissions by 5-15 percent by 2020.

Gas firms Woodside Petroleum and Santos, and refiner Caltex Australia will have to pay for permits to pollute. Qantas Airways will also face carbon costs via higher fuel prices or the need to buy permits, or both.

But market analysts said many firms were in reality breathing a sigh of relief on Monday because the government's white paper on cutting carbon emissions could have been a lot tougher, with green groups demanding emission cuts of up to 40 percent.

"The whole tone of the white paper is that they have aimed to provide greater assistance to business," said Andrew Gray, head of environmental research for Goldman Sachs JBWere.

That tone was reflected in the stock market where firms supposedly in the firing line in the war on global warming were all hanging on to strong gains they had already made earlier in the day due to higher metal and crude oil prices.

BlueScope and OneSteel gained 5-7 percent, Santos 3.7 percent, Woodside 7.4 percent and Caltex 6 percent -- avoiding the bloodbath some industry lobbyists had warned of in the event that the government opted for a tougher emissions target.

Instead, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in unveiling his climate-change policy that the government would hand out billions of dollars in free permits to a much wider class of polluter than envisaged in the government's initial consultation paper in July.

That cheered LNG producers such as Chevron and Woodside Petroleum, who were offered exemptions.

In the first year alone, to end-June 2011, almost A$4 billion (US$2.65 billion) in free permits are to be given to big polluting exporters, assuming a market price for carbon of around A$25 a tonne. That is almost A$1 billion more than the compensation that would have been forthcoming under the proposals mooted in July.

By 2020, using market expectations for a carbon price of about A$35 a tonne and assuming Australia cuts emissions by its minimum 5 percent, assistance for these exporting firms could amount to around A$8 billion a year.

And that would be in addition to billions of dollars earmarked as compensation for the coal-fired power industry, which accounts for about 80 percent of Australia's electricity generation and about a third of national emissions.

"It's an attempt to really balance the winners and losers," said analyst Richard Gibbs of Macquarie Bank, agreeing that more firms stood to receive more assistance than originally feared.

Gibbs said chemical firms such as fertilizer-maker Incitec Pivot could also now take advantage of the more generous free-permit scheme, and big miners such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto also had scope to shield themselves from the full impact of paying for carbon emissions.

"I would not be crying too much for them," Gibbs said.

Without assistance the losers would bear a lot of financial pain, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project, which reveals paying for carbon emissions at A$20 a tonne would slice 8 percent off Rio Tinto's 2007 earnings before all financing costs and tax.

Rio Tinto is a major aluminum producer, one of the world's most energy-intensive industries, but it still would suffer less than Alumina, BlueScope and OneSteel, which would lose around a fifth of their 2007 earnings, based on the same assumptions.

For green politicians, who have a pivotal role in the upper house of parliament and could yet stand in the way of the government's plans, the real loser is the environment.

"Kevin Rudd's white paper has raised the white flag of surrender on climate change," said Greens Party leader Bob Brown.

(US$1=A$1.507)

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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Australia vows to cut greenhouse gas emissions

Madeleine Coorey Yahoo News 15 Dec 08;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia Monday pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least five percent from 2000 levels by 2020 to help fight climate change, in a plan dismissed by critics as a "global embarrassment."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Australia could not afford to sit on the sidelines as the world risked environmental disaster caused by rising atmospheric pollution blamed for global warming.

He said the government's pollution reduction plan, which will include a carbon trading scheme due to start in 2010, was "one of the largest and most important structural reforms to our economy in a generation."

"By the end of 2020, we will reduce Australia's carbon pollution by between five percent and 15 percent below 2000 levels," he told the National Press Club in Canberra.

The targets are well below the cuts some environmentalists have warned are necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change, and the Australian Greens immediately labelled the five percent minimum a "global embarrassment."

A small group of protesters occupied the prime minister's Brisbane office, saying the proposed cuts would "only lead to climate chaos and the loss of national icons such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu wetlands."

Rudd, who was heckled by protesters as he delivered his address, said the government would reduce emissions by 15 percent from 2000 levels if a global pact on climate change was reached.

This would occur "if there is a global agreement where all major economies commit to substantially restrain emissions and advanced economies take on comparable reductions to that of Australia," he said.

Climate change campaigners are hoping to see a historic pact reached in Copenhagen next December to set down unprecedented measures for curbing emissions of heat-trapping carbon gases.

Rudd said the cuts announced Monday were substantial given that Australia's carbon pollution was projected to rise by 20 percent between 2000 and 2020 if no action was taken.

But they fail to go as far as those recommended by the government's independent advisor Professor Ross Garnaut, who has suggested a cut of 25 percent from 2000 levels if a global agreement is reached.

"We are not going to make promises that cannot be delivered," Rudd said.

"We are starting the scheme with appropriate and responsible targets, targets that are broadly consistent with other developed countries."

By comparison, European Union countries are eyeing cuts in carbon emissions of 20 percent by 2020 over 1990 levels.

Rudd said the government would be criticised for not setting higher targets but he believed they would deliver necessary cuts while supporting the economy.

And he said the proposed carbon trading scheme, which will grant permits to industries to cover the amount of greenhouse gases they are allowed to produce each year, would encourage companies to reduce their carbon footprint.

Rudd's announcement came just over a year after the centre-left Labor leader came to power, promising to bring major coal producer Australia in from the cold on climate change.

He ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark United Nations treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, as his first official act after being sworn in as prime minister in late 2007.

He also committed Australia to a 60 percent cut in emissions by 2050 from 2000 levels.

But his statement Monday has failed to impress environmentalists, with a coalition of more than 60 green groups, including Greenpeace and WWF Australia, condemning his plan.

"If adopted globally, this target would guarantee the loss of the Great Barrier Reef and the Kakadu wetlands, and would steer the earth on a path towards catastrophic climate change," they said.

Australian Greens spokeswoman Christine Milne said the government's policy was a "complete failure."

"Five percent is a global embarrassment, 15 percent is way below even the minimum the rest of the world wants to see," she told ABC radio.

Australia to cut pollution 5 to 15 percent by 2020
Rod Mcguirk, Associated Press Yahoo News 15 Dec 08;

CANBERRA, Australia – Australia said Monday it plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by as little as 5 percent by 2020 — a reduction that critics say undermines international efforts to reach an effective global pact next year to avert dangerous climate change.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the interim plan would not affect his commitment to slash the carbon emissions that are blamed for global warming by 60 percent from 2000 levels by 2050.

But Rudd was rebuked by an environmental activist while announcing his 2020 targets at the National Press Club in the capital Canberra on Monday.

"No, that's not good enough," a woman in the audience yelled before she was restrained by officials.

Protesters calling for deeper cuts staged angry demonstrations outside Rudd's office in the east coast city of Brisbane and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong's office in the southern city of Adelaide.

Environmental groups have been lobbying for months for a 2020 reduction target to be set at a minimum of 25 percent, as recommended for developed countries by the United Nation's expert Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Rudd's plan calls for an interim reduction range of only 5 percent to 15 percent.

"The weak targets announced today will damage Australia's international reputation and hold back progress toward an effective international agreement," Australian Conservation Foundation executive director Don Henry said in a statement.

Frank Jotzo, an Australian National University economist who specializes in climate change policy, agreed that Australia had undermined the chances for an ambitious reduction target of more than 25 percent at next year's United Nations climate conference.

"It's disappointing because it makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for Australia to come to the party of an ambitious international agreement," Jotzo said.

Australia's largest business group, the Australian Chamber of Commerce, said it remained apprehensive about being burdened with pollution reduction targets during the current economic slowdown.

But Rudd said the global economy could not excuse failing to act on global warming.

"Australia is today the biggest carbon polluter in the developed world on a per capita basis," Rudd said. "Yet we are the developed country with the most to lose from climate change."

The softest target of 5 percent would apply if the United Nations fails to reach a binding agreement at Copenhagen next year committing developing and developed countries to making deep cuts in global emissions.

On a per capita basis, the Australian target is comparable to the European Union's commitment last week to reduce their greenhouse emissions by at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, the government's climate change policy document said.

Australia also plans to introduce a carbon market on July 1, 2010, where polluters will have to bid against each other for government permits to emit carbon.

Australia Vows 5-15 Percent CO2 Cut, Unveils Trade Scheme
James Grubel, Reuters 16 Dec 08;

CANBERRA - Australia pledged to cut its greenhouse emissions by 5 to 15 percent by 2020 as it unveiled on Monday the world's broadest carbon trading scheme, rebuffing business calls for a delay due to the global slowdown.

While Australia is now second only to the European Union in its drive to cut emissions by establishing a cap-and-trade system that puts a price on carbon output, critics said the target was too weak and blasted the trading plan that will give free credits to some of the economy's most carbon-intensive industries.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the carbon scheme was vital for Australia, which has the fourth-highest per-capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world, and five times more per person than China, due to its reliance on coal for electricity.

"Without action on climate change, Australia faces a future of parched farms, bleached reefs and empty reservoirs," Rudd told the National Press Club.

But some carbon market participants said the system, details of which Canberra unveiled on Monday ahead of approval by parliament expected next year, may fall far short of what's required in the global fight against climate change.

And the government said Australia would only target the full 15 percent cutback if a global deal emerges from U.N. talks in Copenhagen in late 2009, angering environmentalists who had hoped Rudd would follow through on his green electoral mandate by taking a leading role in cutting global emissions.

"It's a total and utter failure. It's madness. Climate change is happening much faster than people thought. Five percent, which is what we are looking at, is an outrage," Greenpeace climate campaigner John Hepburn said.

Friends of the Earth called the plan a "polluters' paradise."

Scientists and green groups wanted cuts of at least 25 percent but the carbon scheme comes at a politically sensitive time for the government, with the mid-2010 start date set only months before it is due to hold elections to seek a second term.

Australia's target is far shy of the 20 percent reduction that Europe has promised and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommendation of up to 40 percent by then, and underscores the challenge world governments face in finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in the next 12 months.

Rudd defended the targets by saying they were more aggressive on a per-capita basis than those in the European Union.

The government also said the scheme would only trim about 0.1 percent off annual growth in gross national product from 2010 to 2050, with a one-off increase in inflation of around 1.1 percent.

"You could say that the decision came down to a choice between the environment and the economy and at this stage it looks like the economy has won," said Gary Cox, head of environmental derivatives at global brokers Newedge.

MARKET PRICE

The details of the plan released on Monday showed some changes from the draft proposal that came out in July, dropping a much-criticized suggestion to fix initial carbon prices and offering exemptions for the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.

Under the new proposal, permits to produce carbon will be auctioned by the government in the first half of 2010, raising an estimated A$11.5 billion in 2010/11 that will help compensate businesses and consumers for higher power and fuel costs.

The system will cover 75 percent of Australia's carbon emissions and involve 1,000 of the nation's biggest firms, the government said, and participating firms will need to surrender a permit for every tonne of carbon emitted.

But there will be exemptions of up to 90 percent for major polluters who could be penalized by the added carbon cost when facing untaxed competitors on the international market, like iron ore and aluminum producers including BHP Billiton, Alcoa and Rio Tinto.

And while LNG producers Chevron and Woodside Petroleum will only get a smaller 60 percent exemption, the industry was pleased that it had been included at all.

Natural gas is a much cleaner-burning hydrocarbon for power plants, but producing it releases large volumes of CO2.

Overall, industry experts said the plan looked weak.

"It seems a bit like the old game of one foot on the brake and one foot on the accelerator, having a bet each way and I'm not sure the numbers add up," said Brett Janissen, executive manager of the consultancy Asia-Pacific Emissions Trading Forum.

"BUY THEIR WAY OUT"

The carbon trade plan allows for prices to be set by the market, first under auctions to be held in the first half of 2010. It estimated an initial price of about A$25 (US$16.70) a tonne, below the European emission allowances, which are trading around 15 euros (A$30) a tonne.

But the government said it would also impose an interim price cap of A$40 a tonne for four years, a move that analysts said could limit the market's development initially.

By allowing polluters to import unlimited carbon permits from green projects abroad, but barring potential exports from Australia, companies will have their pick of the cheapest price.

"The proposed scheme is disappointing in terms of the levels of reductions required as set down by the (U.N.'s) IPCC," said Martijn Wilder, partner at Baker & McKenzie in Sydney.

"By adopting a A$40 price cap, it will provide companies with certainty as to their compliance cost but it also enables companies to buy their way out of compliance, in circumstances where the carbon price breaks the $40 ceiling," he added.

Australian farmers, who have suffered more than seven years of severe drought, will be spared from taking part in carbon trading for at least five years, as expected. Agriculture accounts for about 16 percent of Australian emissions.

But transport and fuel will be included in the scheme.

The government will introduce carbon-trading laws into parliament in 2009, where it needs the support of the Greens and two independent senators, or the conservative opposition, which want the scheme delayed due to the global economic downturn.

(US$1=A$1.49)

(Additional reporting by David Fogarty; Editing by Jonathan Leff)

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