Maldives fails to convince peers to go "carbon neutral"

Maryam Omidi, Reuters 10 Nov 09;

MALE (Reuters) - A group of developing countries agreed Tuesday to "green" their economies but stopped short of promising to become "carbon neutral" as a way to spur big polluters into action at climate talks next month.

The president of the Maldives had hoped a summit he was hosting would result in a promise by all present to commit themselves to become carbon neutral within a decade.

Instead, the summit's final declaration said: "We will commence greening our economies as our contribution toward achieving carbon neutrality."

"In short, we have been able to agree that development and green technology or less-carbon development is possible," President Mohamed Nasheed said.

The summit was attended by Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Kiribati, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania -- countries which are among the lowest emitters of greenhouse gas but are vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change including desertification, drought, floods and storm surges.

In March, Nasheed outlined plans to make the Maldives the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade -- meaning it would not emit a net amount of the gases blamed for causing climate change.

Last month he and his cabinet donned diving gear to hold the world's first underwater cabinet meeting, in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels that threaten the Indian Ocean archipelago's existence.

The Copenhagen talks are supposed to find a successor to the 1997 Kyoto climate treaty, but negotiations have stalled as rich and poor nations remain divided on how to share the burden of emissions cuts and how to fund the deal. [nLA713064]

"It's a moral issue, it's a financial issue, it's a social issue and it's a human rights issue," Ghana's environment minister, Sherry Ayittey, told Reuters, insisting developed countries do more. "We expect them to be committed to a reduction in emissions. This is non-negotiable."

The Maldives' battle against extinction
BBC News 11 Nov 09;

Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed hopes nations most vulnerable to climate change will set an example to richer countries. Charles Haviland reports on plans to make the Maldives "carbon-neutral" by 2020.

On a cloudy day in the Baa atoll of the northern Maldives, I took a speedboat ride across a choppy sea.

No part of the Maldives lies more than about 2m (6.5 ft) above sea level. And at least 50 of the 200 inhabited islands already suffer from the problem of coastal erosion. I was heading for one of them.

Thulhadhoo is quite a bleak place, not like the islands given over to luxury resorts. A few thousand families here earn a living from fishing or from selling lacquerwork crafts.

The sandy soil was getting looser, threatening buildings, Mohamed Usman, the island's chief official, told me. Rising sea levels were eroding the coast. Because of this, some jetties had had to be extended - not out into the sea, but extended inland.

At a football pitch a few hundred metres in from the dazzlingly turquoise sea, there are lots of unfinished homes with breezeblocks and graffitti on the walls - messages like "Ronaldo Rox". Beyond the pastel-coloured houses sits the sparkling mosque, Thulhadhoo's most impressive building.

Land eroding

Heavy rains descend on us and we take refuge in a house where children watch television in the front room. A woman in her 80s, Khadija Abdurrahman, welcomes us in.

The land is eroding, eroding, eroding, she laments.

"I can't explain natural things," she says. "But it's getting worse and worse all the time."

She hopes for solutions including land reclamation. But, we are told, land has already been reclaimed in the past and that, too, is eroding.

The Maldives' charismatic young president is adept at highlighting their problem. Last month he staged an underwater cabinet meeting, making world headlines.

In the capital, Malé, the housing and environment minister, Mohamed Aslam, tells a group of visiting journalists that by the year 2100, the Maldives as he knows it may no longer exist.

"Just the sea level rise itself is going to drown most of our islands," he warns.

"We might have some land above water. But the effects of rising sea levels itself is going to cause salinisation of groundwater, which will affect vegetation on land, the livelihood of the people. It's a number of things."

As its own gesture the Maldives now aims to go "carbon-neutral" by 2020. That means switching to renewable energy sources where it can, and balancing the carbon it does emit through measures like planting forests elsewhere.

There is a major problem - the islands' main earner, top-end tourism, cannot be environmentally friendly. All the clients, and all manner of extraordinary luxury foods from Europe and elsewhere, are flown in.

But President Mohamed Nasheed says practices can still change.

"I'm not trying to defend decadence and the good life," he says, laughing. "Of course that's going to harm the environment."

But, he says, rather than changing people's behaviour, better to change the way energy is produced or water is used.

"We can't ask you to stop driving, however much we may want to do that. But we are trying to achieve a balance where it is less harmful."

Green luxury

While critical of rich countries for not doing more about climate change, he also thinks it is useless to expect them to bear the whole burden of curbing carbon emissions.

In Malé, youths make a monotonous city circuit on their motorbikes. Mr Aslam says he wants to wean people away from them, to walking, cycling or clean-energy vehicles. But it will take time.

The water around Malé is dirty with petroleum. The government wants the ferry boats to use cleaner power. It is also setting up a wind farm which it hopes will cut the country's carbon emissions by a quarter - even though it is not a windy place.

Some luxury resorts are also going green. At one, Soneva Fushi - reached by not-very-green sea plane - solar panels are being installed.

Its environmental manager, Anke Hofmeister, shows the BBC a special oven in which waste wood is heated and made into charcoal or into biochar, a fine charcoal they use in gardening as it is said to improve soil productivity.

"The biochar contains the carbon which is not taken up again. So this carbon can be locked in the soil for a few thousand years," she says, explaining that this practice may earn the status of a "carbon sink" to be used in carbon trading.

The resort is also experimenting in using cold sea water, from 300 metres down, to cool the rooms. The water is pumped up and distributed around the resort island, then channelled into fan-coil units, says Ms Hofmeister.

Danger

"So you use the cooling capacity of the sea water which is always readily available, and we use this for air conditioning."

Back on Thulhadhoo, a radio in the street announces prayer time.

These islanders face an immediate danger. With seven surviving children and their descendants, Khadija Abdurrahman would like to see a brighter future.

Initiatives like cleaner technology, the whole carbon-neutral plan, cannot eliminate that peril. The government is already taking other measures, like building artificial and higher islands.

It even has contingency plans to evacuate the entire population somewhere else. But it sees this as an extreme scenario, one it hopes will not be necessary.

In the meantime this tiny country hopes other vulnerable states will follow its lead on carbon emissions, thereby setting an example to richer nations.

Vulnerable countries urge world to cut emissions
Bharatha Mallawarachi Associated Press Google News 11 Nov 09;

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A group of 11 countries vulnerable to adverse effects of global warming urged world leaders Tuesday to reach a binding agreement at the next month's global conference on the issue.

The countries called President Barack Obama and the leaders of emerging economies such as India and China, to personally attend the talks in Copenhagen.

Officials from Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, the Maldives, Nepal, Rwanda, Tanzania and Vietnam — calling themselves the V11 — pledged at the Climate Vulnerable Forum in the Maldives to committing to greening their economies as their contribution toward cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

On Monday, President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives asked fellow developing nations to become "carbon neutral" and lead a drive to reduce global warming.

The group issued a statement called upon all countries to follow the "redouble their efforts at reaching a binding, ambitious, fair and effective agreement" in Copenhagen.

The low-lying Maldives has become an outspoken voice on global warming, even staging an underwater Cabinet meeting last month to promote awareness about rising sea levels. It is feared that rising seas could swamp the Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet (2.1 meters) above sea level.

Maldives has already pledged to become the world's first carbon-neutral nation and last month announced plans to build a wind farm that can supply 40 percent of its electricity. Carbon neutrality refers to achieving an equal balance of the amount of carbon dioxide — the leading greenhouse gas — emitted and the amount sequestered or offset.

U.N. scientists say rich countries must cut carbon emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 to prevent Earth's temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius (4 degrees Fahrenheit) above its average temperature before the industrial era began 150 years ago. Any rise beyond that could trigger climate catastrophe, they say.

So far, reduction pledges total 11 percent to 15 percent, but those could be seen as negotiable.

Maldives and Other Climate-Vulnerable Countries Call for Action Ahead of Copenhagen Summit
UNEP 13 Nov 09;

Nairobi, 13 November 2009 - Some of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world called for help this week at a meeting organized by the Maldives, a member of the Climate Neutral Network.

Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, Kiribati, Barbados, Bhutan, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania, popularly known as the V11, are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, but they are also among the lowest greenhouse gas emitters. Some of them, like the Maldives, could disappear with a century.

The two-day meeting, which ended on 11 November, highlighted their concerns and determination to "green" their economies. The outcome did not quite live up to the expectations the chief organizer President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, who had hoped that the countries attending the forum would commit to become carbon neutral within a decade.

In March, President Nasheed announced plans to make his own country the world's first carbon-neutral nation by 2019 and last month he announced the construction of a wind farm that can supply 40 per cent of the country's electricity.

The President has been an active spokesperson for the island states, many of which are now threatened by rising sea levels. Earlier this year, President Nasheed took part in a public service announcement (PSA) organized by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which called for world leaders to seal the deal in the climate negotiations in Copenhagen next month.

Shot in six locations and across four continents, the videos launched this September feature President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives; Hollywood actor, Don Cheadle; Nobel Laureate, Professor Wangari Maathai; UN Messenger of Peace, Midori Goto; Animal Planet presenter and environmentalist, Phillipe Cousteau and wildlife film maker, Saba Douglas-Hamilton.

In May, the Maldives became the seventh country to join the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net), a UNEP initiative launched in February 2008 to promote global transition to low-carbon economies and societies. The Climate Neutral Network also includes cities, regions, companies and organizations. Last month President Nasheed staged the world's first underwater cabinet meeting to promote awareness about rising sea levels.

The V11 says that achieving carbon neutrality for developing countries will be very difficulty given their lack of resources. The group is calling upon developed countries to provide money "amounting to at least 1.5 percent of their gross domestic product to assist developing countries to make their transition to a climate resilient low-carbon economy".

The question will be on the table in just three weeks at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.