Best of our wild blogs: 3 Mar 09

End bear farming! Here's what you can do
on the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation blog

Sea Shepherd: Friend or foe of shark conservation?
on the Southern Fried Science blog

Climate Witness: Jerome Robles, Malaysia
from WWF - Climate Witness stories

McDonalds at Ubin
on Ubin.sgkopi

Antics of an Olive-backed Sunbird
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Copper-throated Sunbird leaf-bathing
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Rain is here to stay?
on the Psychedelic Nature blog

Two of Singapore's three refineries are shutting down
on the wild shores of singapore blog

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The Age of Stupid

Climate change disaster film aims to save planet from destruction
From kidnap threats to stomach-churning helicopter rides, The Age of Stupid team reveal the lengths they went to make the film exclusively at Guardian environment
Felicity Carus, guardian.co.uk 2 Mar 09;

In just a fortnight, a film will hit cinema screens around the country that its makers hope will have a profound effect on attitudes to climate change.

Today, guardian.co.uk/environment is exclusively launching The Making of The Age of Stupid. There is nowhere else you can watch this film except on the lap of its director, Franny Armstrong.

The Making of Documentary charts the six-year history of the film and its many incarnations, false starts and screening hiccups. Armstrong's father tells her in The Making of … that the film is a "disaster" until the radical introduction of Pete Postlethwaite as its narrator. Thanks to a stellar cast behind the scenes such as Oscar-winning John Battsek, Armstrong goes back to the cutting room to make a much better film.

At times funny, irreverent and moving, The Making of ... documentary will give you a flavour of The Age of Stupid without giving away the whole story and the many surprising twists throughout the film.

It intersperses snippets of the film itself - which premieres on 15 March - with fascinating behind-the-scenes footage of how an animation of Sydney Opera House in flames was done by a team of 16 "boys in their bedrooms" , how the stories of the six main characters in the film were selected , how she persuaded Pete Postlethwaite to take up the role of narrator and how it was financed using a "crowd-funding" model.

Armstrong describes how she set out to make a film about oil and climate change called Crude. An early addition to the team was producer Lizzie Gillet, a former TV reporter from New Zealand, who was told by Armstrong that she'd have to give up everything to work on the film "hockey, clubbing, socialising, everything," Gillet says in the documentary.

The documentary shows a death-defying helicopter journey through the Alps with Armstrong's legs hanging out of the door to give a clear shot of the precipitious valleys and mountains. Armstrong and Gillet were strongly warned not to travel to Nigeria to film another character, Layefa Malemi. But as Gillet says in The Making of… "seeing the suffering of the Nigerian women for the sake of our lifestyle was a massive eye-opener". A scene also shows how frighteneningly close they came to kidnap themselves - a prospect that elicits only a nervous chuckle from the director.

Armstrong says the worst part of the film was waiting to reunite an Iraqi family in Jordan. They lose all contact with the family's oldest son, Malik, as he travels to the Jordanian border from Iraq where Armstrong waits with his sister Jamila, 5, and brother Adnan, 8. After a nerve-shredding four hours at the Jordanian border with Iraq they establish contact again. "It was the worst moment in the whole film," she says. "I thought I'd killed someone to make a film about climate change."

Armstrong says that "climate change is the most important story of all time" and she can only hope her telling of that story gets through to ordinary cinema-goers, starting with the People's Premiere on 15 March.

More about the film on their website.

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Earth Hour Singapore challenge still way short of participant target

Ali Smith, Channel NewsAsia 2 Mar 09;

SINGAPORE: In the wake of the global economic crisis, environmental issues have taken a back seat.

Earth Hour Singapore, a global climate change initiative, will take place on March 28. Based on the participant numbers as for now, more supporters are needed to hit this year's target of one million.

Their participation will go towards the global Earth Hour target of one billion people in one thousand cities across the globe.

When the clock strikes 8:30pm on March 28, households and businesses around Singapore will enter into complete darkness for one full hour if they choose to take part.

One man said: "If there's any evidence that it makes a difference to global warming, then I am sure most people would help."

Another individual said: "I don't know what to do without electricity."

The action of turning off lights during Earth Hour aims to raise public awareness of important climate change issues. But environmental experts said switching off the lights is just one of the many things Singaporeans can do to make a difference.

Howard Shaw, executive director, Singapore Environment Council, said: "We love air-conditioners in Singapore and having our air-con set at the right temperature is something we can do to save some really significant energy savings in the home.

"Ultimately, we want people to choose energy-efficient air-conditioners and refrigerators - appliances that have a very high demand."

Cities consume 75 per cent of the world's energy and produce 80 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions. That is why the focus of the Earth Hour initiative is to educate and encourage the public to practice energy-saving habits for the long-term.

Last month, Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar expressed support for this effort.

Commending the initiative by the World Wide Fund for Nature, Prof Jayakumar, who is also the Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change, said that the Foreign Affairs Ministry will be taking part in this initiative, with only minimum lighting for essential operations and security switched on.

So far, about a hundred businesses and over a thousand individuals have pledged to participate. This is way short of the target of one million.

But for those who have, it is a chance to think about things they can do to save the planet.

Your can sign up at http://www.earthhour.sg/ if you wish to participate in this challenge. - CNA/vm

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Water & Singapore: Guarding - and pricing - each drop

Leong Ching, Straits Times 3 Mar 09;

NORTH and central China are seeing the worst drought in 50 years, leaving four million people without water. In the Australian state of Victoria, a bushfire that started in the middle of a hot, dry summer may reduce Melbourne's drinking water supply by 30 per cent for 30 years, according to an expert there.

In late January, Mexico City introduced a water rationing scheme which will see 5.5 million people having their water supply cut off or reduced. The water level at its main reservoir has dipped to below 60 per cent.

The city is, quite literally, sinking under the weight of its own ambitions. Over the past five decades or so, its population has increased from under two million to 20 million. And over the past 100 years, the city has sunk 10m because its aquifers are being depleted.

In Mexico City, demand for water is 43 cu m per second but the natural recharge rate from rain is less than half of that. So the land is slowing sinking. Instead of walking up the steps to church, some residents find they now have to walk down instead.

So a lot of money has to be spent to prop up the city - and pump out sewerage. It used to flow out from the city on a hill by gravity but, because the city has sagged so much, sewerage must now be pumped out. And because the city is becoming thirstier, it is building expensive dams and infrastructure to bring in water from rivers far away.

But the people have no idea how much water costs. There are few meters in the city - most pay a flat rate, if they pay at all. Only about one-fifth of the residents in Mexico City actually pay their bills.

There are many places like Mexico City that are now waking up to the hard lessons that water can inflict, lessons that Singapore had to learn in the 1960s.

In 1964, in the middle of a severe drought, Singapore implemented water rationing for 10 months. At the time, its rivers were polluted, its people wasteful. But slowly, sometimes painfully, the country has transformed its water management.

For one, water is not treated as a common good. It is an expensive commodity - paid for with cash, diplomatic goodwill and a bit of national pride. Located in a tropical region where rainfall is plentiful, Singapore is nonetheless one of the world's driest countries. It is simply too small to collect enough water for its domestic and industrial needs.

The island buys about 40 per cent of its water from Malaysia. This arrangement is undergirded by two international agreements, one expiring in 2011 and the other in 2061. Meanwhile, over the past 40 years, Singapore has been innovative about its water supply and management.

It loses only about 4 per cent of its water supply - one of the lowest volume of unaccounted for water in the world. Mexico loses about 30 per cent, and some cities in the developed world lose as much as 15 per cent.

Singapore recycles sewerage and calls it 'reclaimed' water or Newater. This is potable water, mixed with reservoir water and pumped into its national water supply. Expensive in Singapore, water is priced from the first drop. There is no free water.

Perhaps other countries may learn from the Singapore experience. The lessons are simple: Set the price of water high enough to recover costs, guard each drop jealously, recycle and reuse to multiply the supply and build institutions that make the best use of money to invest in water infrastructure, not to prop up sinking buildings.

Stories from Singapore almost always come with a disclaimer that the city state is unique in that it is tiny and has a command and control culture, so most of what it does cannot be replicated.

But water can be a happy exception. It is as vital to Australians, Chinese and Mexicans as it is to Singaporeans. The lessons may be politically difficult, and hard on the pocket, but they can and must be learnt.

The writer is a doctoral student of water policies at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore.

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Changing our ways: a Malaysian environmentalist speaks

The Star 3 Mar 09;

The nation’s eminent environmentalist Gurmit Singh gives his unequivocal replies to readers’ questions which range from how to lead a greener lifestyle to green activism and nuclear energy.

As climate change and environmental degradation affect all of us, my friends and I would like to do our part for the environment. Please suggest some effective ways in which we can make a contribution. – Sofia Amin, Kuala Lumpur

There is a whole range of ways which I have described in my latest book Beyond Me And Mine. Examine your lifestyle, including what you buy, use and discard. Look at your travel modes and your office/worksite operations. Make choices that curb wastage either in the form of excessive packaging or which pose environmental problems in their eventual disposal. Most of these involve energy generation which contributes towards climate change.

One of the most effective ways (but not often taken) is to cut down greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions arising from daily travelling. Ideally, switch to public transport, despite the inefficiency of such transport in the country. Not only do you reduce air and noise pollution, you also reduce road congestion (40 drivers travelling in a bus means 40 cars removed from the road). Even simpler would be to drive fuel-efficient vehicles and to car pool.

Stop littering right away. Not only will you improve aesthetics but your litter (especially of plastic origin) will not float from the drains into the rivers and eventually into the sea. Isn’t it incongruous to see drivers of BMWs throwing litter out of their windows while driving? Why can’t they take it back to their homes and offices for proper disposal? Avoid all forms of throwaways including single-use cameras. And compost your organic waste so that methane is not released into the atmosphere and you have a soil conditioner, to boot, for your garden.

What has been your greatest accomplishment in your years of championing the green cause? – Adrian Lim, Petaling Jaya

It is not for me to make the assessment. You and the Malaysian public have to decide/evaluate. All I can say is, environmental issues are still of interest to me and overall I have been happy with the efforts I have put in. My only disappointment is that we have still not achieved a strong grassroots environmental movement in this country and we have yet to see a strong political and administrative will to take environmentally-positive action at all levels. I am not sure whether you would consider my having worked over a wide range of environmental issues for more than 35 years any accomplishment.

The call for a better mass transportation system appears to have fallen on deaf ears. What is needed to push this through? – George Teh, Penang

The missing driver is strong public pressure, especially from the middle class, for the massive improvements that are needed, especially in the management of vehicles, reliability and connectivity of services. Individuals should not opt out by simply buying another car instead of taking head-on the current hassle of using public transport. It must be put high on the list of our expectations from politicians and planners. We should not accept capital expensive solutions that take years to be undertaken (and billions of ringgit). RapidPenang is the sort of stuff that needs to be replicated more extensively, not to repeat the deterioration in services that RapidKL has shown lately. The Public Land Transport Commission has taken too long to materialise. What we need urgently is the active involvement of public transport users to formulate effective solutions.

What would you say to convince a cynic, or someone who just doesn’t care about global warming, that the threat is very real and that we can still doing something about it? – Michael Chow, Petaling Jaya

It is tough to change a cynic or one who is totally apathetic or selfish. They will only move if they or their family are adversely affected. This is also at the heart of NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome, which was well-illustrated by the residents of Puchong and Petaling Jaya (in Selangor) when an incinerator was proposed to be sited in Puchong. But the moment the proposed site was shifted elsewhere, they were hardly concerned about the environmental hazards of incineration.

Climate change is even more difficult to be observed, as it is slow until abrupt changes like floods, droughts and typhoons occur. The visible impacts are only the collapses of polar icecaps and mountain glaciers. By the time sea levels rise by metres, it may be too late to take cost-effective adaptive measures. Not only should such apathetic Malaysians be shown (the documentary) An Inconvenient Truth but also (the movie) The Day After Tomorrow.

It is totally irresponsible of those who use high amounts of energy not to cut down their GHG emissions by eliminating wastage. Let us not forget that Malaysia is the third largest per capita emitter after Singapore and Brunei and our emissions from the power sector increased by 198% between 1994 and 2004, according to UN figures.

Can you name two practical contributions from individuals to help the environment, apart from recycling waste? – Kennie Yeoh

Recycling is the last of the 5Rs in terms of tackling waste but the easiest option for many governments and firms, as it seems to generate further economic activities. The first and preferable R is to Rethink our needs and then follow up by Reducing consumption and its associated wastes. You may want to examine some of the practical options that I have suggested in my answer to Sofia’s question and choose which you want to implement. Cutting down on GHG emissions is the most urgent action.

I am fearful about the Government’s plans for nuclear energy. Do you think we should go down the nuclear path? – Su-Ann Lim, Kuala Lumpur

I have never been convinced that this country needs nuclear energy – that has been my position for the past 30 years. I have yet to see any conclusive evidence to change my mind. But there are powerful vested interests in the government and private sector that are pushing for this as a quick fix for climate change and a new electricity generation source.

I strongly suggest that you attend the Nuclear Energy Conference on March 22 at Hotel Armada in Petaling Jaya to listen to foreign and local speakers on the issue. The event is jointly organised by the Physicians for Peace and Social Responsibility and the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development, Malaysia. Call 03-7875 7767 for details.

What personal sacrifices have you made in order to lead a greener lifestyle? – Chin Wah Seong, Ipoh

I don’t know whether the actions that I have taken can be described as personal sacrifices. I see them more as different options or paths that I have chosen. I decided just after I helped found the Environmental Protection Society Malaysia in 1974 to lead a simpler and less materialistic life. I gave up a paid job as an electrical engineer in a statutory body in 1976 to become a freelance engineer. In 1978, I sold off my car and have since then used public transport for most of my movements.

In addition, coming from a rather poor family, I became more frugal which also helped my life to be a bit more green. Naturally my late parents were not pleased with many of my actions that did not meet their more materialistic expectations and ensuring a comfortable time for their senior years, especially since I was the eldest child.

Waiting until my mid-40s to meet a compatible spouse has also helped since she is also very much into a simple ecologically sound lifestyle. Through her organic farming work and contacts, we eat more healthy and safe food, especially when it’s cooked at home. We are happy that we are able to practice most of what we preach both within CETDEM (Centre for Environment Technology and Development Malaysia) and in our daily lives. While we are not wealthy, we are overall satisfied with our lives!

Everyone talks about climate change these days but is that the most serious threat to us? What about other problems such as river and air pollution, hazardous chemicals and waste? – Rizal Hassan, Bangi, Selangor

The other problems that you mentioned pale in scope against the pervasive threat of climate change. No life form or ecosystem is immune from the adverse impacts of climate change.

Unless we curb it within the next decade or so, many species will be wiped out, whole island nations will be flooded over, and millions of climate change refugees will be swarming around.

The risk of conflicts and the severity of weather extremes will increase. Of course there are a few other global threats like loss of natural biodiversity, the scarcity of and accessibility to clean water, and massive pollution of oceans through wastes being discharged by humans. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of this Earth!

Twenty years ago, environmentalists were novelties. They were also less engaging but today we see a flood of environmental NGOs and environmentalists who are more vocal. You have your way and style of tackling environmental issues but are these still acceptable today? – Ida Rashid, Kuala Lumpur

I am not too sure that there is now a flood of environmental NGOs and environmentalists. There are probably more who like to call themselves environmentalists but there is still NO broad-ranging environmental movement in Malaysia. Of course, ways and styles may differ but good environmentalists must be able to identify root causes of environmental problems, be independent in their analysis and public articulation of their views, and maintain their integrity.

Then there is the need to sustain passion and commitment, which comes through a spirit of volunteerism. Those who treat environmentalism as a career may run the risk of compromising on these as they strive to assure funding to sustain their jobs. But without full-time staff, not many NGOs can tackle their tasks adequately.

Some say that I have mellowed over the years. But I still maintain consistency of my public positions unless there is evidence that the contributing factors to environmental problems have changed.

But most of the root causes – corruption, weak or almost absent political will, administrative inefficiencies and poor enforcement of regulations still remain.

I continue to believe that I should not stand in fear of government officials and corporate leaders if I have enough facts that convince me that critical views need to be articulated.

What are your views on the about-turn by the Government to allow development on hills? – Chris Ng, Kuala Lumpur

The Malaysian government is notorious for its flip-flops on a number of environmental issues. That is why I still maintain that its overall commitment to environmental quality is weak despite it being a signatory to Agenda 21 at the Rio Summit (in 1992) and its repeated claims to work for sustainable development in the last few Malaysia Plans.

Whenever tragedies occur, there are promises to ban such development. A few months later, the ban is lifted despite geohazard maps amply showing that these are no-go areas.

The solutions are in our hands – a massive boycott of properties in hilly areas or of developers involved in such development, pressure on elected politicians, and demands for the penalising of local officials who approve plans for such development.

Are you and other concerned Malaysians willing to act along these lines for a sustained period of time?

Read more!

Coming Soon: Mass Migrations Spurred by Climate Change

Lisa Friedman, The New York Times 2 Mar 09;

The first in a series of stories on Bangladesh and climate migration. Next week: The villages disappear.

HARINAGAR, Bangladesh -- One by one, the men in Gaurpodomando's family walked out of this mud-caked village and never returned.

First, his uncles went. Both fishermen, they suffered as their catch declined year after year, before they crossed illegally into India to find work in construction. His brothers earned so little fishing that they braved tiger attacks in the nearby Sundarbans forest to forage for honey and timber. Finally, they left, too, and brought their father with them.

Now, Gaurpodomando, who said he is about 35 years old and who goes only by his first name, is the last man in his family still living in the waterlogged village along Bangladesh's Indian border.

His brothers still don't know about the angry tidal flood that burst through a dam and swallowed the family home and dozens of others in September. Those who live here say that between the disappearing fish, brackish flood waters destroying the rice fields and the ever-fiercer cyclones that seem to inhale entire villages, life is becoming almost unbearable.

But Gaurpodomando, who earns the equivalent of $1.50 a day standing hip-deep in the salty river casting a net to collect shrimp fry, said he is doing everything he can to hang onto his way of life.

"I do feel a little lonely and sad, but I don't really want to go to India," he said, squatting on the outdoor stoop of what was once the family kitchen but is now the only structure left to shelter him, his wife and their two children. His arms and bare feet are streaked with the slate-gray mud that covers the ground and seems never to dry.

'I don't want to leave this country'

"I don't want to leave this place," Gaurpodomando said. "I don't want to leave this country. I love this place."

One day soon, Gaurpodomando and an untold number of others in Bangladesh and around the world may no longer have a choice.

A growing body of evidence, including analyses from military experts in the United States and Europe, supports the estimate that by midcentury, climate change will make vast parts of Africa and Asia uninhabitable. Analysts say it could trigger a migration the size of which the world has never before seen.

Some of the big questions remain unanswered: How many people will really move? Where will they go? How will they go? Will they return?

But experts estimate that as many as 250 million people -- a population almost that of the entire United States -- could be on the move by 2050. They will go because temperatures are rising and desertification has set in where rainfall is needed most. They will go because more potent monsoons are making flood-prone areas worse. They will go because of other water events caused by melting glaciers, rising seas and the slow and deadly seepage of saline water into their wells and fields.

The worst migration cases will be nations like the Maldives and small islands in the Pacific. Their inhabitants will go because their homelands will likely sink beneath the rising sea.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a minimum of 207 million people in Latin America, Asia and Africa will not have enough water inside a decade. In Asia, an extra 130 million people will be at risk of hunger by the middle of the century. By 2100, crop revenues in Africa will drop 90 percent. And scientists see Bangladesh as ground zero.

The country's 150 million inhabitants live in the delta of three waterways about the size of Iowa, and the majority of the country sits less than 20 feet above sea level. According to the IPCC, rising sea levels will wipe out more cultivated land in Bangladesh than anywhere in the world. By 2050, rice production is expected to drop 10 percent and wheat production by 30 percent.

By the end of the century, more than a quarter of the country will be inundated.

About 15 million people in Bangladesh alone could be displaced. That's the equivalent of every person in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

A migration that will change the face of the world

But while more climate migrants will come from Bangladesh than from any other country, scientists say that from Mozambique to Tuvalu, from Egypt to Vietnam, climate migration will change the face of the world.

"This will be the largest migration in history. This is not migration as we've known it before," said Edward Cameron, a former senior adviser to the government of the Maldives. "We're talking about people migrating from sensitive places into other very sensitive places."

In some ways, large-scale migration is nothing new. Humans, after all, have been on the move since early man left East Africa. But these shifts will not be the migrations of pioneers or adventurers seeking opportunities in new lands. Rather, social scientists say, they will be the movement of people who are rushed, unwanted and unprepared, into unfamiliar and perhaps hostile new environments. Most of those who will be uprooted already are living on less than $1 per day.

The first shifts will start within countries. Scientists see families flocking from rural and coastal areas to cities where livelihoods are less tied to fickle weather patterns. It's a pattern that is already happening against a background of rapid global urbanization, in which the desperate rate of growth far outpaces jobs and infrastructure.

Mohammad Ayub Ali, 40, is part of that mosaic. He left the central Bangladesh town of Sherpur because the failing crops couldn't earn him a living. A ruinous flood in September was the final straw.

Now Ali drives an eye-catching pink and orange rickshaw through the capital city Dhaka's teeming streets, where he earns the equivalent of $15 per month. He lives in a one-room metal shack with his mother, wife and two children.

"It's not that great over here, but it's better than over there," he said. Nearly 3.5 million people in Dhaka -- about 40 percent of the population -- live in slums, like Ali. The World Bank estimates that by midcentury, half of all Bengalis will live in urban centers.

Moving from one area of resource scarcity to another

The next step in the migration pattern is across national borders. Military experts predict a downward spiral of violence and conflict as people desperate for food, water and jobs cross into neighboring countries where resources may be only slightly less scarce.

Wealthy nations like the United States and the European Union, meanwhile, could also be asked to take in millions of the world's displaced people even as they negotiate international disputes.

"Those people who are most vulnerable right now, and having a problem just surviving, and having the normal development challenges of clean water, fighting disease, getting an education -- those are the ones most affected," said Koko Warner, who heads the Environmental Migration, Social Vulnerability and Adaptation Section at the U.N. University.

In Bangladesh, the issues are magnified by the density of the population. Any climate-induced disaster "inevitably affects millions of people," researcher James Pender wrote in a recent sweeping report on Bangladesh. He estimated that by 2080, almost all the 51 million to 97 million people currently living in coastal zones may have to leave. The worst off won't even be able to do that.

"If those who are causing the greenhouse gas emissions are unable to control carbon emissions, the people in the vulnerable areas, many of the coastal areas, are going to be inundated," said Khawaja Minnatullah, a water specialist at the World Bank's Dhaka office.

"The vulnerable, the uneducated, the lowest of the communities will never be able to migrate to the U.S., to Canada, to Australia. There will be pressure on the not-so-vulnerable part of Bangladesh," he said.

In the village of Gabura in southwest Bangladesh, 20-year-old Amina lives with the fractured collarbone she suffered when a tidal flood smashed a wall of her home, crushing her. She and her husband have no money for a doctor, much less a move.

"Everyone that's living here, we're all poor people," she said, sitting in front of her partially repaired mud and thatch house. "We don't have anywhere to go."

Swelling overcrowded cities; scaring neighbors who have built a fence

But in Gabura and other parts of Bangladesh where the land can become the sea in the blink of an eye, climate migration has already begun.

Cities like Dhaka are bursting at the seams. Migration to bordering India appears to be occurring at a higher rate, as well, though government leaders are reluctant to acknowledge it. India, meanwhile, is wide awake to the possibility of migration from Bangladesh, and is building a fence much like the one along the U.S.-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants out.

There is a human tendency to deny mind-numbing futures like this one, and Bangladeshi experts are positioned on both sides of this verbal fence. Some insist that climate migration is a reality that needs to be addressed sooner than later.

Others say a large-scale migration out of the country will mean the world has failed to tackle global warming. It's a prospect they don't even want to acknowledge. "This idea of climate refugees take up too much of our time. It's an apocalyptic issue of the future," said Omar Rahman, dean of the Independent University, Bangladesh, in Dhaka.

Ainun Nishat, the International Union for Conservation of Nature's representative for Bangladesh, said he is skeptical of migration predictions. Even if they are true, he argued, Bangladesh's needs are more immediate: infrastructure improvements, cyclone shelters, improved flood warning systems and a massive build-up of food security.

'It's not time to worry about it'

"Will people leave? Maybe in a hundred years, but that's not my priority now," Nishat said. "People are living in areas that go underwater once in a fortnight in the coastal belt. The point is, they're still there. They're not migrating today.

"It's not time to worry about it. My priority is the natural disaster that is happening now."

This year, the Western world will continue to grapple with the issue. U.S. President Barack Obama will try to convince Congress to pass a domestic cap-and-trade bill. Meanwhile, the European Union is struggling to implement a plan on reducing emissions. In China and India, which have the economic muscle to begin some actions, debates continue to rage over how much responsibility to bear for fast-rising emissions.

There is little news about this here in Harinagar, where men and women said they probably won't be able to wait for politicians to agree on a global solution. Like the proverbial grains of sand that slowly assemble to make up a beach, individual families are making their painful decisions, creating the possibility of more cruel things yet to come.

"The area is getting worse. I don't think it's going to get better," Gaurpodomando said. His wife, Chorna, her face loosely framed by a red floral headscarf, bounced the couple's 3-year-old daughter on her hip and said she, too, wants to stay, but she's also realistic about the family's prospects. Maybe, she said, they'll go to Khulna, a booming port city about two hours away by car.

Gaurpodomando said his brothers living outside of Kolkata "say it's good over there. They keep asking me to go, and they tell me there's good earning to be done there."

But Harinagar, where the thatched mud huts still look out over a lush countryside, and where a woman who lost everything in a recent flood will still offer a visiting stranger a plate of eggs, has been his family's home for at least three generations.

"I'll do whatever work I can find, but I might have to go outside," Gaurpodomando said. "We might have to leave this village."

Read more!

Jakarta Predicted to be Underwater By 2012

Tempo 2 Mar 09;

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Firdaus Ali, a technical environment researcher from the University of Indonesia, predicts that Jakarta will be underwater before the year 2012. He cited as the cause the excessive suction of ground water in the Jakarta area, resulting in the continuing subsidence of the land surface. “Not only will the city go underwater, we will also suffer from dehydration prior to that,” said the doctorate from the University of Wisconsin contacted by Tempo yesterday.

Firdaus’ calculation was based on the data of land subsidence in the capital city, which ranges around 10 centimeters a year in average. In West Jakarta, during the past 11 years, the land surface subsided by 1,2 meters. In Kemayoran and Thamrin in Central Jakarta, it has lost ground by 80 centimeters for the last 8 years. “If this continues, Jakarta’s land surface will be below sea level,” Firdaus said.

City Environment Committee chief, Darrundono,
shared a similar opinion, pointing out that extreme exploitation of ground water has caused a drastic land subsidence. He said ground water supply is not increasing, yet its consumption keeps going higher. “A ground water crisis in Jakarta has come to a dangerous stage,” he cautioned.

The Jakarta administration plans to increase fees for ground water usage by luxury homes and industries to 6 – 16 times higher. This is aimed at reducing consumption which has become more exploitative.

Increasing fees, Firdaus said, is one of the instruments to reduce its usage. Users would be persuaded to use potable water from the services of the state-run Water Supply Company (PAM). “Ground water tariffs should be higher than that of PAM,” he said.

Every year, 320 million water cubic meters are sucked up from the ground, according to Firdaus. Yet, the reasonable amount should be only 38 million cubic meters. Meanwhile, the official data cites only 21 million cubic meters allowed to be consumed. “The remaining must be taken illegally,” he said.

According to Firdaus, extreme ground water exploitation creates a hollow in the earth. The resulting pressure causes the land subsidence. There are already many hollow areas around. “Even local rainfall can flood many areas,” he said.

Darrundono said the subsidence will cause Jakarta to slowly go below sea level. Sea water intrusion has currently reached 11 – 12 kilometers from the coast. “Sea water intrusion has reached the Setia Budi area in South Jakarta. Floods will become even more unmanageable,” he said. Sea water intrusion and subsidence can also cause buildings to collapse.

Darrundono criticized the construction of super-block buildings and skyscrapers in Jakarta, which also takes up excessive amount of ground water.

SOFIAN| LIS

Jakarta Sinking due to Land Structure
Tempo 3 Mar 09;

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The Regional Environment Management Board (BPLHD) in Jakarta has stated that Jakarta's land level decreases every year.

“This is based on our calculations, together with academics and is similar to a statement made by University of Indonesia environment researcher Firdaus Ali,” Dian Wiwekowati, head of Environmental Impact Prevention of BPLHD, Dian Wiwekowati, told Tempo yesterday (2/3).

Last Sunday, Firdaus said Jakarta would be drowned before 2012 due to overwhelmed ground water absorption in Jakarta.

“It will not only sink but there will also be a lack of potable water,” said Firdaus, who is also a graduate from the University of Wisconsin, US.

Dian explained that Jakarta's land structure would continue sinking, however would eventually stop.

“But we do not know when it will stop,” she said.

The characteristic of land decreasing is different for every region in Jakarta.

“Certain areas like West Jakarta can decrease by as much as 1.2 meters as the land is soft,” said Dian.

She mentioned two reasons why land in Jakarta decreases.

These are pressure from buildings (87.5 percent) and ground water absorption (13.5 percent).

Data from BPLHD showed that the amount of ground water absorption was 21 million cubic meters per year.

But Firdaus Ali claimed that it is ever more at 320 million cubic meters per year while all that can be absorbed is no more than 38 million cubic meters per year.

In this case, Dian said Firdaus's calculation could be right.

“We only calculate the groundwater usage by industry sectors but not households,” she said.

There is no permission needed for ground water usage, “As it is only for basic needs,” she said.

But permission is required for commercial needs like hotels and malls.

To reduce ground water usage, the Jakarta government will increase the tariffs.

The government plans to increase groundwater tariffs for luxurious houses and industry by between six and16 times more than the original tariffs (Koran Tempo, Feb 28).

Sofian | Lis

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Indonesian ministries join hands to clear up Ciliwung river

Fidelis E. Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 2 Mar 09;

Four government ministries on Monday said they were joining hands to rehabilitate the upstream areas of the Ciliwung River that flows through the capital and has been blamed as a major source for the perennial flooding in Jakarta.

Four ministers — for the environment, forestry, public works and agriculture — have launched an integrated program to recover the quality of water in the catchment areas of the Ciliwung in Tugu Utara in the Cisarua subdistrict of West Java Province.

The bursting banks of the Ciliwung during the rainy season — bringing widespread annual floods to Jakarta — have been blamed on the increasingly denuded upstream water catchment area and by the mostly illegal buildings going up along the river.

“Programs to rehabilitate Ciliwung were started in 2006, but the condition of the river turned out to be so severe that an integrated program was necessary to deal with the problems,” said Masnellyarti Hilman, an environment ministry deputy for environmental damage control.

She said that in 2000, the effective green coverage of the Ciliwung water catchment area only stood at 4,918 hectares or just 9.43 percent of the total, and in 2008, the coverage had already drastically gone down to just 2.42 percent, or 1,265 hectares.

Masnellyarti also said that planting was the easy part.

West Java Deputy Governor Dede Yusuf agreed, saying: “We’ve planted 40 million trees but only 50 percent have survived. There is a need for clear law enforcement on maintaining the trees planted.”

Dede also hoped that interest in preserving the Ciliwung water catchment areas was not just because of its effects on Jakarta. “Environmental problems are not limited to the Ciliwung, but also concern the Cisadane or Ciapus Rivers,” he said referring to two other main waterways in West Java.

Dede also hoped that the government could put in place a system of incentives and disincentives for the upstream areas in efforts to prevent flooding in the downstream areas, such as rewarding people for planting trees or penalizing them for building without permits.

Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto said the government already had a regulation on zoning, which provided for incentives and disincentives. “But the regional administration should give further details of the programs that needed to be implemented,” he said.

Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban said the most important issue was the synchronization of policies at central and regional levels in the upstream areas.

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EU Must Make Good On Pledge To Protect Sharks - Group

Silvia Aloisi, PlanetArk 3 Mar 09;

ROME - The European Union must make good on pledges to tighten hunting limits for sharks, which are increasingly threatened by overfishing and the practice of slicing off their prized fins, a campaigner said on Monday.

Around a third of the shark and ray species found in European waters are at risk of extinction, conservationists say.

Sharks may have a reputation as the sea's most ferocious predators but they grow slowly, mature late and produce few young over long lifetimes, meaning their population tends to increase at extremely low rates.

That makes them very vulnerable to overfishing -- blamed on an increasing appetite for shark meat in Europe and the lucrative market for shark fins in Asia -- and very slow to recover once depleted.

"Ten years ago, the UN decided on an international plan of action to protect sharks, but progress has been pitifully slow," said Sonja Fordham of conservation group Shark Alliance.

"Now the EU has come up with its own plan, which we think is solid, but its success depends on the actions of member states, including major shark fishing countries like Spain, Portugal, France and the UK," she said in a telephone interview.

Last month, EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg unveiled proposals to limit shark catches, tighten rules on fishing tackle and reduce the number of days on which fishermen can hunt for sharks, particularly in sensitive areas.

Borg also suggested a plan to reduce by-catches of sharks scooped up with other species, and reinforce a weak EU ban on finning -- the practice of slicing off a shark's fin and discarding the body at sea, which also undermines the accuracy of catch numbers.

Shark fin soup, a traditional Chinese delicacy, is increasingly in demand, and Spain is a large-scale player in the fin market. Other shark parts such as meat, skin, cartilage and liver oil are also valuable, and can be used to make cosmetic ingredients, medicinal supplements and jewellery.

Fordham said that unlike the United States and Australia, which have comprehensive shark fishing rules, Europe -- accounting for more than 50 percent of all shark meat imports and more than 30 percent of exports -- still had a lot to do.

"So far Europe has been pretty lenient with its regulations and setting a poor example to other nations that may look to it for guidance on shark conservation measures," said Fordham, who is attending a meeting on world fisheries hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

"We now hope that EU states will actively promote implementation of the new EU shark plan, starting with closing loopholes in the EU finning ban."

Borg's proposals will be considered by EU countries in the next few months.

Other campaigners at the FAO meeting also sounded alarm bells about overfishing and its impact on the sea food chain.

In its new "Hungry Oceans" report released on Monday, Oceana said it had found widespread malnutrition in predators because of the global depletion of the small fish they need to survive.

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Brazil signs on to high seas fishing agreement

FAO compliance agreement is a unique effort to improve management of high seas fishing and fight illegal fishing
FAO 2 Mar 09;

2 March 2009, Rome - Brazil today became the thirty-eighth country to become a Party to the FAO Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas.

In a ceremony held today at FAO's Rome headquarters, Minister Altemir Gregolin, Brazil's Minister for Aquaculture and Fisheries, formally deposited his country's instrument of acceptance of the FAO Compliance Agreement at the UN food agency's Rome headquarters.

The Compliance Agreement is one of the few international legally binding instruments that addresses fishing activities in "high seas" areas occurring outside countries' exclusive economic zones. Parties to the Agreement must actively ensure that fishing vessels flying their flag adhere to responsible fishing practices when operating on the high seas.

"Our country is proud to have actively participated in all processes of negotiation of international legal instruments in force related to fisheries and aquaculture activities, so this instrument of acceptance represents the reaffirmation of the commitment of the Brazilian government to the sustainability of high seas fisheries, through the full exercises of its responsibilities, jurisdiction and control over fishing vessels flying its flag," said Minister Gregolin.

"With every country that participates in the Compliance Agreement, we are coming closer to the goal of making sure that every boat that fishes on the high seas is doing so in a responsible way that ensures the long term, sustainable use of marine fisheries resources," said FAO's Assistant-Director General for Fisheries, Ichiro Nomura. "We welcome Brazil's participation and look forward to seeing more countries follow their example."

The Compliance Agreement is open to acceptance by any Member or Associate Member of FAO, and to any non-member State that is a member of the United Nations or of any of the specialized agencies of the United Nations or of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It entered into force on 24 April 2003 when the twenty-fifth FAO Member, the Republic of Korea, deposited its instrument of acceptance with FAO's Director General.

The present Parties to the FAO Compliance Agreement are: Albania, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Cook Islands, Cyprus, Egypt, the European Community, Georgia, Ghana, Japan, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, the Republic of Korea, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia , Seychelles, Sweden, Syrian Arab Republic, Tanzania, the United States of America, and Uruguay.

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Farmed fish and shrimps need sustainability boost

WWF 2 Mar 09;

Aquaculture, revealed in a key UN analysis today to be the basis of all future growth in global seafood production, desparately needs to be put on a more sustainable basis, leading global environment organization WWF said today.

State of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008 (SOFIA 2008), released this morning by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said that food supplies from aquaculture now equal those from ocean and freshwater capture fisheries. The report also documents a continuing drop-off in yields from the world's marine capture fisheries, with FAO saying "more closely controlled approaches to fisheries management" are needed.

"The dramatic growth in aquaculture makes it more and more urgent to ensure that aquaculture becomes more sustainable and that supplying the stock and the feed for fish farming becomes less of a burden on traditional fisheries,” said Miguel Jorge, Director of WWF’s Global Marine Programme.

“Coastal aquaculture must also stop making inroads into fish habitat such as mangrove areas, it must becomes less polluting and less of a disease risk and it must be carried out without making communities more vulnerable to natural disasters."

A series of Aquaculture Dialogues, coordinated by WWF and involving more than 2,000 farmers, NGOs and scientists are currently creating global standards to minimize the key environmental and social impacts associated with aquaculture.

Consideration is now being given to whether the standards – initially for the 12 species with the greatest economic and environmental impact – should be administered by a body similar to the Marine Stewardship Council, the leading sustainability certification scheme for marine capture fisheries.

SOFIA 2008 also recorded a rise to 80 per cent in the number of fisheries that are fully or over-exploited, adding yet more weight to predictions that collapsing fish stocks threaten food security in developing countries and the viability of fisheries and coastal communities across the world.

Long -promised action on trade, unsustainable fishing fleet subsidies and protection for marine resources has again been unforthcoming.

“Once again, the leading global fisheries analysis has come out to say the state of of the world’s fisheries is worse than we thought it was,” said Jorge.

“Indeed we and many other analysts believe that the real position of the oceans is much, much worse than the gloomy report from Rome this morning as little account of is taken of rampant illegal, unreported and unrecorded fishing.

“Also, in many cases, even legal fishing quotas have no relationship to actual fish stocks. To take possibly the best known example, the legal quota of Mediterranean bluefin tuna is around twice what the scientists recommend and the illegal catch is equal to the already inflated legal quota.”

WWF is calling urgently for fisheries to be managed in line with scientific advice, for more closed seasons and areas to allow stocks to recover, for massive reductions in bycatch and discards in fishing and for an end to the subsidies that distort the relationship between fishing effort and the fishing resource.

Plenty More Fish In The Sea? Think Again - Reports
Deborah Zabarenko, PlanetArk 3 Mar 09;

WASHINGTON - The world's waters were once seen as a boundless source of fish for humans to eat, but over-fishing and aquaculture have depleted some species and left others famished and weak, two reports said on Monday.

Climate change is expected to add more stress for fish populations, forcing warm-water species further toward the poles, changing marine and freshwater food webs and habitats, the reports said.

The big fish most likely to appear on rich countries' dinner plates -- like salmon and tuna -- have already been over-fished, the nonprofit environmental group Oceana reported, adding that now the smaller fish that these fish eat are under pressure.

"We've caught all the big fish and now we're going after their food," said Margot Stiles, a lead author of Oceana's report, "Hungry Oceans." "We're stealing the ocean's food supply; these are fish that we basically never used to eat."

When fish stocks decline, that poses a potential problem for humans, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

"The question is whether per capita supplies of fish for human consumption will remain steady or peak in the near future and then start to fall," the UN food organization said in a report on the state of the world's fisheries and aquaculture.

'SURREPTITIOUS MESSAGE'

In the last three decades, aquaculture has grown rapidly, from about 6 percent of fish available for human consumption in 1970 to about 47 percent in 2006, the UN organization said.

The UN report questioned the notion that aquaculture would automatically grow to meet demand, saying this sends a "surreptitious message" that no public policies are needed.

"Aquaculture-enabling policies are essential for the steady and sustainable growth of the sector," the report said.

The drop in the amount of available prey fish -- small, fast-growing species such as herring, sardines, squid and krill -- means predator fish, seabirds and whales that feed on the little fish are underfed, sometimes so much so that they can't reproduce or feed their young, the Oceana report said.

With commercially attractive fish like Pacific salmon and blue fin tuna depleted in the wild, fishing fleets turn to prey fish for revenue where in the past they only used these species for subsistence and bait, Oceana said.

Some of these prey fish are used for human consumption, but increasingly, they are fed to farmed versions of the large predator fish, Stiles said. This in turn means there are less

Climate change could add new problems, both reports said, because prey fish are particularly sensitive to warm temperatures and prey populations have collapsed when heavy fishing proceeded during previous warm periods.

To help reverse the trend, the Oceana report said, existing fisheries need to set conservative catch limits, avoid fishing in depleted species' breeding hotspots and restore the prey fish in the wild to support a comeback of predator fish.

The UN report was released on the first day of a meeting of he global organization's Committee on Fisheries in Rome.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

Fish numbers outpace human population
Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist 3 Mar 09;

It's increasingly likely that the fish you eat was farmed not caught wild, according to the latest statistics of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The group's two-yearly assessment of world fisheries, published today, comes with mitigated good news.

The outlook for wild ocean fish remains gloomy: 80% of all fisheries are at or beyond their maximum yields, and over-fishing continues to climb. Yet the amount of fish available to eat is growing faster than the human population, thanks to a boom in fish farming.

The FAO calculates that, for the first time, fish farms produce half the fish we eat, up from less than a third in 2002. With wild-catch fisheries maxed out, any more increases in fish production will depend on farms.
Problems in the wild?

It is unclear from the FAO data whether fish farms are indirectly putting more pressure on wild stocks.

Many farmed fish eat fishmeal and oil, made from small species like sardines. The FAO says the tonnage of these species consumed has trebled since 1992, but does not say whether this is a consequence of fish farming, or because the fish are being used for other purposes.

In a parallel report, international fisheries pressure group Oceana charges that by relying on wild-caught species like sardines, which now constitute one third of world fisheries, fish farms are starving larger predators, including tuna, marine mammals and seabirds.

The FAO observes that the unrestricted competition between companies is a waste of energy: too many boats mean that fewer fish are caught per litre of boat fuel. Meanwhile, boat owners buy more powerful, less efficient engines to beat the competition.

World fisheries must prepare for climate change
FAO releases new "State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture" report
FAO 2 Mar 09;

2 March 2009, Rome - The fishing industry and national fisheries authorities must do more to understand and prepare for the impacts that climate change will have on world fisheries, says a new FAO report published today.

According to the latest edition of the UN agency's The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA), existing responsible fishing practices need to be more widely implemented and current management plans should be expanded to include strategies for coping with climate change.

"Best practices that are already on the books but not always implemented offer clear, established tools towards making fisheries more resilient to climate change," said Kevern Cochrane, one of SOFIA's authors. "So the message to fishers and fisheries authorities is clear: get in line with current best practices, like those contained in FAO's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, and you've already taken important strides towards mitigating the effects of climate change."

Vulnerable food systems and communities

Climate change is already modifying the distribution of both marine and freshwater species. Warmer-water species are being pushed towards the poles and experiencing changes in habitat size and productivity.

And climate change is affecting the seasonality of biological processes, altering marine and freshwater food webs, with unpredictable consequences for fish production.

For communities who heavily rely on fisheries, any decreases in the local availability of fish or increases in the instability in their livelihoods will pose serious problems.

“Many fisheries are being exploited at the top range of their productive capacity. When you look at the impacts that climate change might have on ocean ecosystems, that raises concerns as to how they'll hold up," said Cochrane.

Urgent efforts are needed to help fishery and aquaculture dependent communities to strengthen their resilience to climate change, especially those most vulnerable, he added.

Fishing's carbon footprint

Fisheries and aquaculture make a minor but significant contribution to greenhouse gas emissions during fishing operations and transport, processing and storage of fish, according to today's report.

The average ratio of fuel to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for capture fisheries is estimated at about 3 teragrams of CO2 per million tonnes of fuel used. "That could be improved. Good fisheries management can substantially improve fuel efficiency for the sector," Cochrane said. "Overcapacity and excess fishing capacity mean fewer fish caught per vessel—that is, lower fuel efficiency—while competition for limited resources means fishers are always looking to increase engine power, which also lowers efficiency."

Compared to actual fishing operations, emissions per kilogram of post-harvest aquatic products transported by air are quite high, SOFIA adds. Intercontinental airfreight emits 8.5 kg of CO2 per kilogram of fish transported. This is about 3.5 times that for sea freight and more than 90 times that from local transportation of fish where it is consumed within 400 kilometres of catch.

New production figures

Total world fisheries production reached a new high of 143.6 million tonnes in 2006 (92 million tonnes capture fisheries, 51.7 million tonnes aquaculture). Of that, 110.4 million tonnes was used for human consumption, with the remainder going to non-food uses (livestock feed, fishmeal for aquaculture).

The production increases came from the aquaculture sector, which now accounts for 47 percent of all fish consumed by humans as food. Production in capture fisheries has levelled off and is not likely to increase beyond current levels.

Status of wild stocks

Nineteen percent of the major commercial marine fish stocks monitored by FAO are overexploited, 8 percent are depleted, and 1 percent is ranked as recovering from depletion, today's report indicates.

Around half (52%) rank as fully exploited and are producing catches that are at or close to their maximum sustainable limits.

Twenty percent of stocks fall into the moderately exploited or underexploited category.

Areas with the highest proportions of fully-exploited stocks are the Northeast Atlantic, the Western Indian Ocean and the Northwest Pacific.

SOFIA identifies overcapacity—a combination of too many boats and highly effective fishing technologies— as a key problem affecting fisheries today.

Progress in tackling this issue has been slow, it says, and "there has been only limited progress in mainstreaming precautionary and ecosystem approaches to fisheries, eliminating bycatch and discards, regulating bottom-trawl fisheries, managing shark fisheries and dealing with illegal fishing."

Other findings

SOFIA paints a clear picture of the importance of fishing and aquaculture in the developing world.

An estimated 43.5 million people are directly involved, either full or part time, in capture fisheries and aquaculture. Most (86%) live in Asia. An additional 4 million are engaged in the sector on an occasional basis. Factoring in employment in fish processing, marketing and service industries and including the families of all people employed directly or indirectly from fisheries and aquaculture, over half a billion people depend on the sector.

Fish provides more than 2.9 billion people with at least 15 percent of their average per capita animal protein intake. It contributes at least 50 percent of total animal protein intake in many small island developing states as well as in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, French Guiana, the Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia and Sierra Leone.

Both direct employment and jobs in related industries are likewise important for developing countries, while their revenues from fisheries exports earn have reached $24.6 billion annually.

The world's motorized fishing fleet totals around 2.1 million vessels. The vast majority (90%) measure under 12 meters in length. Some 23 000 are large-tonnage "industrialized" vessels. The nationality of several thousand of these is unknown—this “unknown” category has expanded in recent years in spite of global efforts to eliminate illegal fishing.

SOFIA also includes chapters on the occupational safety of fishers, seafood certification schemes, marine genetic resources, shrimp fishing, and the use of wild fish as seed and feed in aquaculture.

Discussions at FAO

Starting today, representatives of over 80 countries are gathering at FAO's Rome headquarters for the 28th session of the UN agency's Committee on Fisheries (COFI), where they will discuss the issues raised in SOFIA and the program of work for FAO's Fisheries and Aquaculture Department.

Download the "The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008" report

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The Netherlands helps Vietnam with rising sea levels

Netherlands to help with climate change impacts
thanhniennews.com 2 Mar 09;

The Netherlands is at the end of many rivers that cross Europe. It is also has a major delta and many rivers and tributaries. It is also a low-lying country with almost half of the country living below the sea.

Schellaars said reinforcing the dike system would be very important when sea levels increase drastically.

Experts have noted that embankments from Quang Ngai Province in the central region to Kien Giang in the Mekong Delta are rundown with many sections often breached. The threat to public safety could worsen if sea levels rose, they’ve warned.

Schellaars agreed that flooding in HCMC over the past years has impacted the daily lives of its citizens, adding the Netherlands is also preparing plans to deal with the flooding in close cooperation with the municipal People’s Committee.

“This support was discussed during the visits of the Vietnamese ministers of Foreign Affairs and Agriculture and Rural Development to the Netherlands last October,” he said. “And another opportunity could be the high-level delegation from HCMC led by the city party unit chief Le Thanh Hai who is visiting the Netherlands, probably this May.”

Since early this year, the high tides and storms have caused flooding in more than 100 areas in the city and its outskirts, mostly in districts situated along rivers and canals and low-lying areas, badly disrupting daily life and business.

Schellaars said the Dutch Embassy was preparing a support package for the National Target Program in Response to Climate Change launched last month in Vietnam.

The package includes climate adaptation and mitigation activities focused on capacity building, raising awareness and increasing resilience, he said.

Climate change and rising sea levels are inevitable, and Vietnam need to prepare for the worst, says Dutch diplomat.

The Netherlands is willing to share with Vietnam its experience in tackling the impact of rising sea levels and has already chalked out major plans for this, says Jos Schellaars, Consul General of the Netherlands in Ho Chi Minh City.

Whether the rise was caused by the environment or by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions was not the point of discussion, Schellaars told Thanh Nien Daily.

Climate change and the rise in sea levels were inevitable and “we are preparing for the worst,” he said.

Experts have forecast that by 2100, Vietnam’s average temperatures would have risen by three degrees Celsius and the sea level by one meter, affecting at least 10 percent of the Vietnamese population, now estimated at about 86 million people.

The National Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would also drop by 10 percent as a result, they say.

Given the Dutch topography, Schellaars said, his country has been fighting against the rising waters for centuries and has built a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the area of flood prevention and control.

Since the Netherlands is in a similar position to many parts of Vietnam, “Vietnam is very welcome to learn from the Dutch experience and benefit from its technical know-how, especially in the field of delta-technology and sea dike protection,” he said.

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China plans 59 reservoirs to collect meltwater from its shrinking glaciers

Major project for Xinjiang province amid concerns over future water supply
Jonathan Watts, guardian.co.uk 2 Mar 09;

China is planning to build 59 reservoirs to collect water from its shrinking glaciers as the cost of climate change hits home in the world's most populous country.

The far western province of Xinjiang, home to many of the planet's highest peaks and widest ice fields, will carry out the 10-year engineering project, which aims to catch and store glacier run-off that might otherwise trickle away into the desert.

Behind the measure is a concern that millions of people in the region will run out of water once the glaciers in the Tian, Kunlun and Altai mountains disappear.

Anxiety has risen along with temperatures that are rapidly diminishing the ice fields. The 3,800-metre Urumqi No1 glacier, the first to be measured in China, has lost more than 20% of its volume since 1962, according to the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute (Careeri) in Lanzhou.

To deal with the consequences, Xinjiang will set aside 200m yuan (£20m) for each of the next three years. In the first phase, 29 reservoirs will be built with a combined capacity of 21.8 billion cubic metres of water, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Wang Shijiang, director of Xinjiang's water resource department, said the mountain reservoir system was designed to "intercept" meltwater, which has increased in volume over the past 20 years as a result of global warming.

Xinjiang is particularly dependent on a steady supply of meltwater from glaciers, which act as solid reservoirs that store precipitation in the winter and release it in the summer.

Few city residents understand the problem because in recent years water supplies have surged thanks to the extra meltwater and increased rainfall. The excess supply has been used to water golf courses and make artificial snow for a ski slope in semi-desert Urumqi. But scientists say the glut is unsustainable because it comes from the release of water that has built up over thousands of years.

"At the moment there is plenty of water in the big cities. But it is hard to say how long it will last," said He Yuanqing, a glaciologist at Careeri. "On one hand, global warming is accelerating the melt. But on the other, it is increasing rainfall, so we need a way to store the extra water."

It is unclear, however, how long the water can be stored without replenishment. Experts have previously called for the reservoirs to be built underground so that the water does not evaporate in the summer, when Xinjiang has the highest average temperatures in China.

Overexploitation of river systems and oases has exacerbated the problem. The volume of water in the once vast Aibi lake in Xinjiang has decreased by two-thirds over the past 50 years, the Beijing News reported today.

In terms of glacier melt, the worst affected area in China is the Tibetan plateau, often described as "the roof of the world". Last month, Chinese scientists warned that glaciers on the plateau had lost 989 million cubic metres over the past 40 years and were continuing to melt at a "worrying speed". They added that ice fields had shrunk by 196 sq kilometres, equivalent to a quarter of New York city.

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No More Glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2020?

Anne Minard, National Geographic News 2 Mar 09;

It's an oft-repeated statistic that the glaciers at Montana's Glacier National Park will disappear by the year 2030.

But Daniel Fagre, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist who works at Glacier, says the park's namesakes will be gone about ten years ahead of schedule, endangering the region's plants and animals.

The 2030 date, he said, was based on a 2003 USGS study, along with 1992 temperature predictions by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

"Temperature rise in our area was twice as great as what we put into the [1992] model," Fagre said. "What we've been saying now is 2020."

The 2020 estimate is based on aerial surveys and photography Fagre and his team have been conducting at Glacier since the early 1980s. A more standardized measure of what's happening to a glacier comes from arduous documentation of its mass, which requires—among other techniques—multiple core samples.

Fagre said the 2020 estimate could be slightly revised after his team conducts the mass measurements—hopefully this year—and their computer models are retooled with current temperatures.

Nonpolar ice is disappearing all over the globe, Fagre said. Major glaciers have entirely disappeared from the Andes, and the Himalaya have lost a third of their snow. (See video of Alpine glaciers melting.)

Animals at Risk as Glaciers Melt

Fagre is concerned about ecological implications of glacier melt.

"A lot of our sensitive and rare plants are associated with the edges of glaciers," he said.

At first, retreating glaciers will expose more growing area for plants. But eventually plants will crowd the area, and reduced water could cause drying and die-offs.

And as glaciers retreat, the streams they feed can become intermittent, he added.

"For some aquatic species, that's a threshold event," he said. "You only have to dry up once and you're history."

Not Cut-and-Dried

Andrew Fountain, a Portland State University professor of geography and geology, acknowledged that the glaciers of Glacier National Park shrank by 67 percent in the past hundred years.

"As a group, that is the fastest recession of any glaciated region in the lower 48 states" in the U.S., Fountain said.

But he's cautious about predicting the demise of any glacier.

In some situations, local topography can balance out climate change, he said.

"Take the Colorado Front Range, for example," he said.

"There is no reason for glaciers to inhabit Rocky Mountain National Park, climatically speaking. If it were not for … the drifting snow from the high plateau into the cirque basins"—valleys hollowed out by past glacial erosion—"you would not have glaciers there. But they are holding on fine."

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EU fails to pledge climate aid to poor nations

Yahoo News 3 Mar 09;

BRUSSELS (AFP) – EU environment ministers on Monday failed to agree on how to support poorer nations to fund the fight against climate change, and kicked the problem upstairs to the heads of state and government.

"We were not quite able to reach consensus on the financing mechanism. This is an issue where the (EU) council (of nations) will need more discussion time," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, said after an elongated meeting of EU environment ministers in Brussels.

Czech deputy environment minister Jan Dursik said that "one nation wanted to keep all the options open", without naming it.

It emerged that the dissenting nation was Poland, which continued talks with the EU presidency long after some other delegations had already left the talks.

The unresolved matter will now go to EU finance ministers at their March 10 meeting before ending up in the laps of the 27 heads of state and government at the next European Union summit on March 19-20.

The EU ministers agreed that it would take 175 billion euros per year in 2020.

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said half of that amount would need to be found for developing nations.

Greenpeace slammed the EU's failure to help out.

"Environment ministers have ducked and passed the climate funding hot potato to finance ministers," said Greenpeace EU climate and energy policy director Joris den Blanken.

"While billions of taxpayers' money is being used to prop up failed banks and carmakers, not one euro cent is being pledged to help the developing world tackle a problem that Europeans helped create," he added.

Greenpeace and other NGOs have said the European Union should be contributing around 35 billion euros.

EU Inches Towards Climate Funding For Poor Nations
Pete Harrison, PlanetArk 3 Mar 09;

BRUSSELS - European environment ministers inched towards agreeing how to raise billions of dollars to help poor countries prepare for global warming and to coax them into a global deal to tackle the problem.

But cracks started to emerge on Monday among the European Union's 27 nations on how to split the burden of finance, and whether it would be wise to name a figure early in the game.

Success at global talks in December in Copenhagen to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol will largely hinge on whether developing nations can be persuaded to try to curb emissions of greenhouse gases to alleviate a problem they say has been caused by industrialised nations.

Europe and the United States are seen as the main donors.

"It makes no sense to say now how much the EU is willing to transfer," Germany's Sigmar Gabriel told reporters. "We will negotiate that in Copenhagen. We are creeping towards a number."

Global investment to fight climate change will need to rise to around 175 billion euros ($220 billion) per year by 2020, with over 90 billion of that spent in developing countries, says an EU report.

Campaign group Greenpeace says Europe's nineteenth century industrial revolution was a major contributor to global warming and has called on the EU to contribute around 35 billion euros a year by 2020.

Some EU countries, including Italy, are pushing to have the numbers dropped from the EU's negotiating position, documents show. Others, including Germany, feel they are necessary to win the backing of poor nations.

Greenpeace campaigner Joris den Blanken warned: "This could again paralyse UN climate negotiations. Last year, it became clear negotiations didn't move forward because the EU hadn't done its homework on financial support."

Two funding routes were considered on Monday: money raised through the auction of pollution permits in carbon markets around the world, or a mechanism whereby funds are levied according to a country's economic strength, population growth and emissions.

Countries that rely on highly-polluting coal, like Poland, will reject any attempt to link contributions to the level of emissions, a Polish diplomat said.

Martin Bursik, environment minister for the EU's Czech presidency, said nothing could be certain without knowing the position of the United States.

"We are still waiting on the United States, that they provide us the mid-term targets and that they will adopt the cap-and-trade system and talk about their money," he said.

(Additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach; editing by Andrew Roche)

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U.S. Energy Secretary: Change Can Happen Fast

Michelle Nijhuis, National Geographic magazine 2 Mar 09;

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu has always had wide-ranging research interests. Before President Obama tapped him to be his energy secretary, Chu was the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. With funding from the Department of Energy and a major grant from BP, the laboratory's scientists are working to transform renewable-energy technologies, aiming to slash the price of solar power and make biofuels kinder to the planet. With such breakthroughs, they hope to help wean the world off fossil fuels—and help protect the global climate.

Chu spoke with noted science writer Michelle Nijhuis recently for National Geographic's upcoming special issue on energy (available for preorder), out this month. Here are excerpts of their conversation.

How has your switch from research to politics changed your perspective on the energy challenge?

It really hasn't changed my thinking that much. The President has made it very clear that science is science, and many of the issues we face need science and technology solutions.

You've said we must develop an inexpensive way to capture and store the carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants. But last year, the Department of Energy scaled back FutureGen, a major capture-and-storage demonstration project. How do you plan to accelerate the development of these technologies?

The United States should be taking a leadership position in developing technologies for all types of carbon capture. We're certainly going to review the FutureGen project, and there are other technologies that we have to start looking at.

Europe has something on the order of ten carbon-capture projects, and China wants to develop its own projects. In the United States there's been this thinking that these other efforts don't really exist. It behooves all of us—Europe, Asia, the United States—to say, OK, there's at least a half dozen technologies that have to be looked at, because we don't really know which is superior.

Would you rather see nuclear reactors constructed than more coal-fired power plants?

Yes. I think nuclear power has its problems: We haven't solved the long-term storage problems, and we have to be very cognizant of the proliferation problem. But the safety is better and will continue to get better, and nuclear power is far better for climate than coal.

Can the technologies you're talking about be developed fast enough to head off some of the worst effects of climate change?

Energy efficiency can be improved very quickly. Better insulation standards for buildings can be had instantly. Appliance standards, ka-BOOM, can be had right away. And I think in five to ten years, we can go to fuels made from grasses and biowaste.

But it will take time to learn how to capture carbon. It will take time to develop a new generation of solar power technology.

What do you hope to accomplish in the next four years?

The Department of Energy is the biggest supporter of the physical sciences in the United States, but it also has a mission to take what is developed in national labs and universities and transfer this knowledge to applied research—research that will lead to really new ideas about sources of energy and ways of using our energy more efficiently.

So that's one of the things the Department of Energy will be focusing on—how do we make that transition?

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Can Geothermal Power Compete with Coal on Price?

An investment bank report says geothermal energy is now cheaper per kilowatt-hour than coal-derived power. But there are lots of caveats
Christopher Mims, Scientific American 2 Mar 09;

Although the environmental benefits of burning less fossil fuel by using renewable sources of energy—such as geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind—are clear, there's been a serious roadblock in their adoption: cost per kilowatt-hour.

That barrier may be opening, however—at least for one of these sources. Two recent reports, among others, suggest that geothermal may actually be cheaper than every other source, including coal. Geothermal power plants work by pumping hot water from deep beneath Earth's surface, which can either be used to turn steam turbines directly or to heat a second, more volatile liquid such as isobutane (which then turns a steam turbine).

Combine a new U.S. president pushing a stimulus package that includes $28 billion in direct subsidies for renewable energy with another $13 billion for research and development, and the picture for renewable energy—geothermal power among the options—is brightening. The newest report, from international investment bank Credit Suisse, says geothermal power costs 3.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, versus 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for coal.

That does not mean companies are rushing to build geothermal plants: There are a number of assumptions in the geothermal figure. First, there are the tax incentives, which save about 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. Those won't necessarily last forever, however—although the stimulus bill extended them through 2013.

Second, the Credit Suisse analysis relied on what is called the "levelized [sic] cost of energy," or the total cost to produce a given unit of energy. Embedded within this figure is an assumption that the money to build a new geothermal plant is available at reasonable interest rates—on the order of 8 percent.

In today's economic climate, that just isn't the case. "In general, there is financing out there for geothermal, but it's difficult to get and it's expensive," Geothermal Energy Association director Karl Gawell told ScientificAmerican.com recently. "You have to have a really premium project to get even credit card interest rates."

That means very high up-front costs. As a result, companies are more likely to spend money on things with lower front-end costs, like natural gas–powered plants, which are cheap to build but relatively expensive to operate because of the cost of the fuel needed to run them.

"Natural gas is popular for this reason," says Kevin Kitz, an engineer at Boise, Idaho–based U.S. Geothermal, Inc, which owns and operates three geothermal sites. "It has a low capital cost, and even if you project cost of natural gas to be high in future, if you use a high [interest rate in your model] that doesn't matter very much."

Natural gas, which came in at 5.2 cents per kilowatt-hour in the analysis, is also popular because it can be deployed anywhere, whereas only 13 U.S. states have identified geothermal resources. Although this limits the scalability of geothermal power, a 2008 survey by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the U.S. possesses 40,000 megawatts of geothermal energy that could be exploited using today's technology. (For comparison, the average coal-fired power plant in the U.S. has a capacity of more than 500 MW.)

There's another significant issue: finding geothermal resources. In that way, the geothermal industry has the same challenges as the oil and gas industry. The Credit Suisse analysis doesn't factor in exploration costs, which can run hundreds of thousands of dollars for per well.

"The United States Geological Survey estimates that 70 to 80 percent of U.S. geothermal resources are hidden," Gawell says. "You can't see it on the surface, and we don't have the technology to find it without blind drilling. ... Geothermal hasn't had the breakthroughs in geophysical science that the oil industry had in 1920s. We are still looking for where it's leaking out of the ground."

Despite these caveats, the new analysis is backed up by earlier ones, such as a 2006 Western Governor's Association (WGA) report on geothermal resources in the U.S. Southwest. Using nearly the same economic model, but assuming a higher cost of capital than the one used in the Credit Suisse analysis—in other words, the interest rate that is so troublesome in today's economy—the WGA found that geothermal could be produced from existing resources, using existing technology, for around 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, once a 1.9 cent per kilowatt-hour tax credit furnished by the federal government is included.

Although the WGA did not compare the cost of geothermal with coal directly, applying their assumptions to other forms of energy would boost prices across the board, especially for coal-fired plants, which are assumed to last for upward of 50 years. (The assumed 50-year life of a coal-fired power plant allows planners to spread the cost of their construction across an even longer period of time than geothermal plants, which are assumed to last less than half that long.)

Another potential stumbling block is reliability. Both the Credit Suisse and WGA studies assume that geothermal power plants are producing electricity virtually 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Larry Makovich, vice president and senior power advisor at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, believes this is an exaggeration. "They're assuming that if you put a megawatt of geothermal capacity in you're going to run over 95 percent of the hours in the year," Makovich says. "Here's the catch: if you look at actual electric production of geothermal in the U.S., it runs 62 percent of the time."

Other sources dispute this number—Glitnir bank, a financier of geothermal in Iceland and elsewhere, claims that geothermal plants are operational up to 95 percent of the time, and a 2005 paper (pdf) by academics in the field claims that in aggregate, geothermal plants in the U.S. produce power about 80 percent of the time.

What prevents geothermal plants from running continuously is the sometimes harsh nature of the steam on which they depend. "When you take steam out of the Earth it is different from taking steam out of a boiler from a coal or natural gas plant," Makovich says. "It's got a lot of other stuff in it." That "stuff" can include everything from silica and heavy metals to ammonia, depending on the source.

Geothermal advocates hope that many of these caveats become moot. A tax on the carbon emitted by power plants that rely on fossil fuel, for example, could increase the cost of coal so much that geothermal's issues become unimportant. A carbon cap-and-trade system similar to the one used in Europe would do the same.

And state mandates that a certain percentage of energy come from green and renewable sources already seem to be having an effect. "It's been great to see a change in the market—the enthusiasm," says Kitz, who has been an engineer on geothermal projects since he graduated from college in 1985. "Five years ago I said everyone wants green power as long as it's not one one-thousandth of a cent more expensive than coal. Now people just want renewable power, period—It's nice to be loved."

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