Death of a Little Tern chick
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Before Rain @ Seleter Wasteland
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Team 2 Reporting
from Labrador park
Job posting: Research Fellow - Phytoplankton ecologist (PhD) for TMSI from ecotax at Yahoo! Groups
Phnom Penh Post 2 Jul 09;
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sand from the Kingdom's rivers and coastal areas have been dredged and shipped to Singapore, for use in land reclamation.
PM repeats May ban request, saying he doesn't want history to hold him responsible for the environmental effects of dredging.
PRIME Minister Hun Sen has again announced a ban on the export of sand in an attempt to protect the country's rivers and marine areas from the environmental degradation caused by sand dredging.
"All sand business must be shut down," Hun Sen said during a speech in Kampot province Wednesday.
"I raise this issue in order to warn experts not to make business from sand, which can have a destructive impact on nearby areas."
The prime minister's announcement reiterated a statement in a letter he sent to the relevant ministries on May 8, ordering them to halt all sand-export operations pending proper environmental studies.
But as in his earlier order, Hun Sen said sand dredging will still be permitted in areas where the damage to the environment could be minimised.
"I am afraid that history will put the blame on me for the sales that will have a destructive impact on our islands," Hun Sen added, appealing to the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy to join hands to study the impact of sand operations.
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sand from the Kingdom's rivers and coastal areas have been dredged and shipped to Singapore, for use in land reclamation.
In March, the Post reported that the Hong Kong-based Winton Enterprises Co Ltd was removing thousands of tons of sand each week from estuaries in Koh Kong province, a practice that environmentalists said was having severe effects on the local environment.
Indonesia and the Philippines are among the countries that have banned the practice because of its destructive impact on riverbeds and shorelines.
Pech Siyon, Koh Kong provincial director of Industry, Mines and Energy, said Wednesday that three local sand-dredging companies had postponed their business, but that the LYP Group, the local partner of Winton Enterprises, had acquired permission to fulfill the remainder of its export orders.
"All companies have temporarily halted their activity and await the re-approval of the proper ministries," he said.
Towards a marine paradise
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 4 Jul 09;
SINGAPORE'S famed garden city could one day face some underwater rivalry.
Researchers hope to add life to the dull slabs of rock and concrete which form the sea walls, jetties and piers surrounding up to 70 per cent of the island's coastlines.
They are looking at whether the methods used so successfully to green our urban jungle could help cultivate a colourful, vibrant seascape from scratch.
Twenty scientists from the Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) of the National University of Singapore and planners from the Housing Board and Surbana International Consultants started a feasibility study a year ago.
The three-year project is funded by a $1.4 million research grant from the Ministry of National Development.
'The research is to determine if the concept of gardens and urban landscaping can be applied to man-made structures in the marine environment,' said the principal investigator, Dr Serena Teo from TMSI.
Similar studies are being conducted in cities like Okinawa in Japan.
Factors such as the topography of a wall, how much shade it can give, and density of crevices determine how 'hospitable' it is for biodiversity to thrive.
Reclaimed land accounts for a quarter of Singapore's land area. This figure is projected to rise and more man-made structures such as sea walls and jetty pilings will be built, Dr Teo said.
Sea walls are strong coastal defence structures that reduce the effects of waves, prevent coastal erosion and limit damage caused by tropical storms.
Adding corals and other vegetation to such walls will boost their effectiveness as a coastal defence structure, she said.
During the 2004 tsunami, for example, coastlines fringed by mangroves and coral reefs were found to have suffered less damage. Organisms typically known to thrive on sea walls include corals, sponges, seaweeds, molluscs and crustaceans.
The researchers estimate that Singapore's waters are home to over 250 species of corals, although more than 75 per cent is being lost to coastal development activities such as dredging, large-scale construction works and the clearing of mangrove forests.
The hope is that the project will make room for sea creatures that once thrived here, and help people connect with the marine environment, said another researcher, Dr Tan Koh Siang.
Professor Chou Loke Ming of the biological sciences department, NUS, noted the importance of striking a balance between development and conservation.
'Singapore may not depend on its ecosystem for food or building materials, but it still plays an important role for the environment,' he said.
Energy Studies Institute to examine its effect on businesses, homes here
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 4 Jul 09;
A MAJOR study has begun to throw light on just what Singapore might look like in a carbon-priced world where concerns about climate change are finally being tackled.
The Energy Studies Institute (ESI) will examine issues surrounding caps on pollution and how carbon could be priced and how the new regime might affect businesses and households.
It will also examine the impact on the economy in the hypothetical event that Singapore is re-classified from a Non-Annex I to an Annex I country.
Under the current Kyoto Protocol deal which ends in 2012, Non-Annex I nations do not have to cut emissions but Annex I countries do.
'I think this is a step in the right direction, to get the ball rolling and
shed light on a few things that might happen in the future,' said ESI senior fellow Elspeth Thomson, who said the report will be due in November.
The issues around carbon pricing are concentrating minds across the world.
The global economy's failure to price carbon, largely regarded as the main culprit behind climate change, has been dubbed the 'greatest market failure the world has ever seen' by British economist Nicholas Stern.
But this looks set to change when world leaders meet in Copenhagen, Denmark in December to negotiate a global deal that will likely put a cap on pollution and a price on carbon.
The ESI report will be useful in this process, said Dr Thomson, who was speaking at a seminar yesterday on a recently launched report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on the economics of climate change in South-east Asia.
ADB assistant chief economist Zhuang Juzhong told the seminar that the region is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its densely populated coastal areas and reliance on climate-sensitive sectors.
The region could lose as much as 6.7 per cent of GDP annually by 2100, he said.
Although countries in the region have a range of mitigation strategies, these will not be enough and have to be stepped up.
Singapore has 'pretty advanced policies' and is leading the region in terms of energy efficiency, noted Dr Zhuang.
As the bulk of regional emissions comes from its neighbours, Singapore could help by strengthening cooperation on areas such as deforestation, which is a major source of pollution, he added.
Dr Zhuang said he hoped that the ADB report, which is funded by the British government, will be considered by key policymakers around the region.
The seminar, hosted by ESI and the ADB, was held at the Grand Hyatt and supported by the British High Commission, Singapore.
Straits Times 4 Jul 09;
SINCE it started using a machine that turns food waste into water, the Oasis Bay Taiwan Porridge Restaurant in Toa Payoh has cut its waste management bill by 75 per cent.
The restaurant used to pay up to $1,850 every month to dispose of up to 1,200kg of waste. It now forks out $450 to get rid of one-tenth the amount.
The machine, called the Bio-Helper, gobbles up food waste fast, with the help of special micro-organisms that accelerate the decomposition process. The Toa Payoh restaurant is the only one to use the machine here so far.
There are different models of the machine, which can cost from more than $1,000 to $90,000 and can break down 1kg to 500kg of waste at one go. What are left after 24 hours are carbon dioxide and water.
The device, originally from South Korea, was recently brought into Singapore by local waste management firm Helse Enterprise. A few months ago, the firm approached scientists from Singapore Polytechnic's Centre for Biomedical and Life Sciences to customise the product for the local market.
Senior research scientist Puah Chum Mok, who is heading the project, said his team's work is to ensure that the microbes will devour local food waste with equal enthusiasm. He is also creating a more aggressive mix of microbes that will break down the waste faster.
Waste management has been earmarked as a key area of research here, as the country faces increasing amounts of waste produced by a growing population. Last year, only 12 per cent of the 570,000 tonnes of food waste here was recycled.
Singapore hopes to cash in on the global waste management market projected to grow from US$230 billion in 2005 to US$320 billion (S$464 billion) by 2015.
CAROLYN QUEK
Antara 4 Jul 09;
Pekanbaru, Riau (ANTARA News) - Ten out of eleven districts/cities in Riau Province were hit by forest and plantation fires, according to information from the Sultan Syarif Kasim airport`s meteorological, climatology, and geophysics station (BMKG) in Pekanbaru.
"Ten districts/cities in Ria are being hit by forest and plantation fires," Sanya, a BMKG analyst, said here on Saturday.
According to data obtained through NOAA 18 satellite monitoring, there were 80 hotspots indicating forest and plantation fires in the ten areas, Sanya said.
The affected areas are Rokan Hilir District (with 24 hotspots), Pelalawan and Bengkalis Districts (respectively 11 hotspots), Indragiri Hulu District (nine), Rokan Hulu and Indragiri Hilir Districts (respectively four), Siak District (five), Dumai City (four), Kampar and Kuantan Singingi Districts (respectively two).
"So the total number of hotspots in Riau Province are 80 from previously 27 hotspots," he said.
Only the provincial capital of Pekanbaru was free from hotspots, he said. However, BMKG predicted that haze from the forest fires in the neighboring districts, could affect the city.
Early June 2009, at least ten regions in Riau province also experienced forest and land fires. According to the NOAA satellite 18 monitoring, at least 39 hot spots were detected in the regions.
The ten regions were the districts of Pelalwan with nine hot spots, Rokan Hulu with five hot spots, Indragiri Hulu with four hot spots, Bengkalis with two hot spots, Kampar with two hot spots, Bengkalis with one hot spot, Kuantan Singgingi with one hot spot, Siak with one hot spot and Indragiri Hilir one hot spot.
BMKG urged local farmers not to set fire in forest or plantation areas in order to prevent haze.
At the end of May 2009, dry air triggered at least 350 hot spots which were detected on Sumatra Island, including in West Sumatra.(*)
Radio New Zealand 3 Jul 09;
Northland Regional Council has been experimenting with transplanting clumps of seagrass from One Tree Point to Takahiwai - where it had been wiped out.
The council says the grass has a host of environmental benefits, and is crucial in providing a nursery for young fish.
Seagrass covered 14 square km of the harbour 60 years ago, but the council says only small pockets remained by the 1970s, because of dredging and increased sedimentation.
The council says plots of transplanted seagrass have taken well. In nine months, the seagrass has recolonised the areas it was taken from.
The $50,000 trial is funded by Northport and carried out by tangata whenua and NIWA.
NIWA scientists recently discovered that almost all snapper found off the west coast of the North Island came from the Kaipara harbour: the only one where seagrass is still plentiful.
Copyright © 2009 Radio New Zealand
Sam Rith, The Phnom Penh Post 3 Jul 09;
Attention: open in a new window. PDFPrintE-mail
THE conservation group WWF has agreed to meet with the Council of Ministers to discuss a controversial report on the Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin population that a government official said earlier this week could lead to charges of publishing false information.
The June 18 report claimed that the Mekong's Irrawaddy dolphin population had been decimated by environmental contaminants. It said 88 dolphins had died since 2003 and that pollution in the river had pushed the dolphins "to the brink of extinction".
Touch Seang Tana, chairman of Cambodia's Commission to Conserve Mekong River Dolphins and Develop Eco-Tourism, criticised the report on Monday, saying his office should have been consulted before it was published.
He added that WWF could be charged with publishing false information if it did not revise the report.
Tep Asnarith, senior media and communications officer for WWF, said Thursday that the conservation group had sent a letter to Touch Seang Tana on Monday requesting an opportunity to meet with the Council of Ministers on Tuesday to explain the report's findings as well as researchers' methods.
"We are OK to have a meeting," Tep Asnarith said Thursday.
"WWF is very happy to show the results of the report and answer all questions."
He said WWF was awaiting a reply from Touch Seang Tana.
Touch Seang Tana said Thursday that he had not yet received the letter, but he said officials will not be able to meet Tuesday because they will be
busy celebrating the one-year anniversary of Preah Vihear temple's listing as a World Heritage site.
He said WWF's suggestion that the meeting take place that day was indicative of its reluctance to meet with officials.
"They [the WWF] know ... that high-ranking officials will be very busy on that day, but they still chose that day," he said.
"This shows that they do not intend to answer for their report. We do not have time to listen to their lies."
He said he would send a letter to WWF Country Director Teak Seng on Friday in which he would ask for a written explanation of the report.
Upon receiving the explanation, he said, officials will decide whether it is satisfactory. If not, he said, WWF will face disinformation charges.
Michael Casey, Associated Press The Guardian 3 Jul 09;
AP Environmental Writer= BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Elephants idling outside discos or lumbering through traffic have been part of Bangkok's colorful nightlife for nearly two decades. Now authorities want to send them back to the jungle.
Thai officials say they have come up with an innovative solution: offering the pachyderms for adoption.
Several groups have already paid the estimated 500,000 baht ($14,664) to buy an elephant and relocate it to a reserve in the countryside.
Half of the city's 200 elephants have been relocated since the program began in March, and Bangkok Governor Sukhumphan Boriphat vowed in a glitzy press conference Friday that the rest would be out within a year.
"Roaming elephants can cause accidents, especially at night, and even more importantly are harmful to themselves," Sukhumphan said at a ceremony that featured a marching band, a Thai film actress and several heavyset women who were recent participants in a Miss Jumbo beauty contest.
"It's important that we get elephants out of Bangkok as quickly as possible," the governor said.
Elephants first arrived in Bangkok in the late 1980s after a logging ban made them redundant in forestry work. Since then, they have been trafficked into the city from rural Thailand and even neighboring Myanmar by politically connected gangs who count on corrupt government officials to look the other way.
The elephants' handlers persuade tourists to buy the animals sugar cane and other snacks or use the elephants to promote the sale of ivory trinkets. Many of the animals get hurt when they collide with cars or step into drains or potholes.
The city has tried repeatedly to evict the animals — at one point bringing in trucks to cart them away — only to have the plans undermined by lax enforcement.
This time, the campaign includes putting microchips in the elephants so officials can track their whereabouts, and trying to convince foundations to buy and relocate them.
Once in their new homes, the elephants will be trained to search the forest for their food.
Elephant owners can use the money to get into a new business, and those who refuse reasonable offers will be fined, city officials said.
"They are icons of our country," said Chookiat Prathipasen, deputy secretary general of the Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, which has adopted 63 elephants and plans to take a total of 81. "They should not be treated as pets. They should be treated nearly like humans."
Jakarta Post 3 Jul 09;
Jakarta's next spatial master plan should identify each of its five municipalities for specific functions and even out population density.
Pelita Harapan University architectural expert Manlian Ronald said Thursday the current layout had deviated much from initial plans, thus necessitating a rearrangement.
"East Jakarta used to be identified as a residential area, but now it's an industrial area. South Jakarta was also known as a residential area, but now it's full of shopping centers," he said on the sidelines of a discussion on spatial planning.
"For a better layout, there should be a clear function for each municipality, because some areas in the city have become oversaturated.
"When this happens, the excess spills over into other areas."
Better management of the existing situation is needed, since a major overhaul is not possible, he added.
The master plan, currently being drafted by the city administration to take effect in 2010, should also detail efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, considering the coastal capital will be heavily impacted, said Suraya Afiff, head of anthropology at the University of Indonesia.
"Spatial planning should be based on urban disaster risk management, including efforts to overcome climate change impacts," she said.
In drafting a spatial master plan, the city administration should also work with neighboring provinces on environmental management to cope with climate change, she added.
The WorldWatch Institute's 2007 State of the World, Our Urban Future report points out half the world's urban areas are in coastal zones, leaving them vulnerable to climate change impacts.
It also listed Jakarta as one of the 10 most populous cities, and warned it risked flooding and earthquakes.
It urged the importance of discussing climate change in disaster risk management and urban planning, because cities emit large amounts of CO2 and are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
Suraya said it was also crucial for Jakarta to have a continuous record on flood patterns in the city, because it contributed to the spatial plan.
"The city should also intensify preservation of coastal areas, since these areas will be most affected."
She added this included stricter management of shoreline construction. Both Manlian and Suraya agreed the city should also look to expand green areas in the new plan.
Under the 2007 Spatial Planning Law, 30 percent of the city must be allocated for green areas, with the city and all stakeholders urged to make the most of the space available, such as by creating rooftop gardens on high-rises and playgrounds in housing complexes.
- JP/Desy Nurhayati
Errol Oh, The Star 4 Jul 09;
PALM oil is palm oil, right? As it is a commodity, should it matter who produces it or where it comes from? Is there such a thing as branding for a commodity? If you ask the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC), the answers would probably be “Not necessarily”, “Yes” and “Yes”.
The Malaysian palm oil industry wants the world to recognise that palm oil from Malaysia represents sturdy features such as quality, sustainable practices, speed of delivery, and research and development. And this will be supported by a brand name – Malaysia Palm.
MPOC chairman Datuk Lee Yeow Chor says the council aims to develop the branding and image of Malaysian palm oil as a strategy to differentiate the oil from other commodities in the global edible oils and fats market.
“We will emphasise the good quality backed by R&D and the fulfilment of sustainability criteria. We will be using publicity material to link Malaysia-produced palm oil to these positive attributes,” he adds.
This is has been done before with other agricultural commodities, and with lasting results, in some cases. One example is the longtime use of the Woolmark logo to help the marketing of wool products. Another is the Got Milk? advertising campaign in the United States, which features famous people sporting milk moustaches.
The Malaysian palm oil industry has always maintained that palm oil is a good product, but clearly, it needs to be promoted more strongly. Lee says this is not because the various stakeholders here have not put in the effort.
“It’s just that we need to be a bit more innovative in employing new strategies and using more financial resources in order to promote palm oil, whose worldwide revenue has expanded by more than four times in the last 10 years to RM65bil last year,” he adds.
“If you use as a gauge that a commercial enterprise typically spends 1% of its turnover on marketing, that would mean the industry spending RM650mil on marketing and promotions. Of course, we’re spending far less than that.”
The Malaysia Palm plan is among the marketing and promotional measures that the MPOC will undertake in the coming months to boost Malaysian palm oil’s market expansion.
These efforts are increasingly necessary following developments in recent years that have altered the industry landscape.
For one thing, the rising concern over climate change, deforestation and other environmental issues, has turned oil palm cultivation in Indonesia and Malaysia into a target for activists and politicians because the industry has been accused of contributing to the planet’s woes.
In addition, the surge in crude oil prices has pushed palm oil into the biofuel arena, thus adding another dimension to the dynamics of the edible oils market.
These changes meant that the palm oil players have to deal with new stakeholders and new perceptions. The international environmental non-government organisations (NGOs) are strident voices in the lobby against the opening of plantations, particularly in Borneo and Sumatra.
The overseas media have covered the NGOs’ campaigns and in many instances, have adopted editorial stances in support of the NGOs. This, in turn, has influenced and will continue to sway the public and politicians in matters such as energy policy and the consumption of products containing palm oil.
Healing the damage caused by naysayers is nothing new to the Malaysian palm oil industry. In fact, the MPOC was formed in the early 1990s to thwart a smear campaign in the US, driven by soybean growers, that portrayed palm oil as bad for the heart.
The battle is different this time, and it calls for tactics not normally employed in Malaysia. The MPOC intends to do its own lobbying.
“It is found to be effective in certain countries. So we will do that, and in doing so, we will not just rely on our internal resources. We will have to outsource more and employ specialists in these areas that are new to us,” Lee explains.
“We believe there is a lot of misinformation out there about palm oil, which has not been corrected effectively. We believe palm oil has a credible story to tell. Whatever lobbying that will be done will be fact-based and well-researched, using various channels effectively.”
At the same time, the council will rely more on direct engagement with stakeholders. It has travelled to Europe to meet the NGOs, and it has organised seminars and brainstorming sessions with the NGOs and the media. It has also invited stakeholders to visit plantations in Malaysia.
Lee points out, “You’d be surprised that a lot of the NGOs have not seen what’s happening here. They make a lot of allegations against palm oil, and a lot of it is hearsay.
“That’s why we have to sponsor good research. We have done this in the past, but now, we want to do it through respected organisations in the US and Europe, so that there’s a credible message and it goes to the right forums.”
The idea is to commission more market-oriented studies on nutrition, science and the environment that are more accessible and easier to digest.
Lee acknowledges that it likely that some of the smaller plantation players and smallholders do not employ sustainable practices when clearing land and cultivating oil palm.
He argues, “In this kind of agricultural industry involving so many players, there are bound to be some black sheep. But we should not discredit the whole industry when the majority observe good agricultural practices.”
Lee, who is IOI Corp Bhd executive director, was appointed MPOC chairman earlier this year, replacing Datuk Seri Lee Oi Hian of Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd, who had stepped down after chairing the council’s board of trustees for 13 years.
The current MPOC chairman believes that the council should be “a Malaysian-based global organisation”.
“It has to be seen to be present and effective in all the countries that import palm oil. It has to be interacting with stakeholders at various levels in each of those countries,” he explains.
He adds that there is room to diversify palm oil’s export base, considering that the top five importers of Malaysian palm oil – China, Europe, Pakistan, India and the US – account for slightly more than 65% of the total export.
Matt Walker, BBC News 3 Jul 09;
Fleeting sightings of the world's rarest antelope, the hirola, in a new safe haven are cases of mistaken identity, a survey has found.
That has dashed hopes that some of the last hirola have managed to colonise a new territory where they would be less vulnerable to flooding and hunting.
Fewer than 600 wild hirola remain, confined to a small area in Kenya.
It is sometimes called a 'living fossil', being the sole survivor of a once diverse group of antelope species.
Prior to 1970, an estimated 14,000 hirola existed in the wild.
But the antelope soon came under a host of pressures which led to a dramatic decline in its population over the next 30 years.
Hunting and predation killed many, while the animals' range became restricted by habitat loss and an increase in human settlements and farms rearing livestock.
That left few animals surviving in a small area along the border between the River Tana in Kenya and the River Juba in Somalia.
The Somalia population is already thought to be extinct, while in Kenya the antelope survives in pockets within the Ijara, Garissa, Tana River and Lamu districts, while two small groups of animals translocated to the Tsavo East National park and are struggling to establish there.
Under pressure
However, in the 1990s two new threats emerged.
The collapse of the Republic of Somalia in 1991 precipitated a massive influx of refugees into Kenya.
"The majority of the Somali refugees were resettled in Garissa district which is part of the hirola's natural range," says Yakub Dahiye of the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi. "The presence of large numbers of refugees increased poaching activities and general insecurity of the area."
In 1997 significant flooding caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon covered the region.
In response to both, many large mammals including the hirola migrated either to higher or quieter areas.
Then conservationists started receiving exciting reports of hirola in northern Garissa, an area outside of the antelope's known historical range, suggesting that the antelope was migrating to safer territory. Previously, the antelope was confined to the southern part of the district.
So to check the authenticity of the reports, Dahiye performed an extensive survey of the region.
For six days, he travelled more than 1100km criss-crossing the northern Garissa, observing and recording from the top of a moving vehicle the identity and locations of wildlife in the area. He also showed pictures of hirola to local people, asking if any had seen the elusive antelope in recent years.
None had, and despite spotting giraffe, Grant's gazelles, gerenuk, lesser kudu and oryx, Dahiye did not see a single hirola, he reports in the African Journal of Ecology.
"That confirms that the species is endemic to a small area between the lower River Tana in Kenya and the lower River Juba in Somalia," he says.
"If this small natural habitat is destroyed, then we will not have an in situ hirola population."
Effective management plans for the species are still lacking, says Dahiye.
Back in 1974, the Arawale National Reserve was set up mainly to conserve the hirola, but the reserve was later abandoned.
Local communities in Ijara district have now responded by establishing a Community Conservation Area to help protect those animals living there, but wider, strategic plans have yet to be put in place to conserve the species, Dahiye says.
Evolutionarily unique
The hirola is special because of both its rarity and evolutionary uniqueness.
Scientifically named ( Beatragus hunteri ), the hirola belongs to the family Bovidae, the group that includes all antelopes, cattle, bison, buffalo, goats and sheep.
Within that group, it belong to the subfamily Alcelaphinae, meaning it is most closely related to topi, wildebeests and hartbeest antelopes.
But what makes the hirola stand out is that it is the last living representative of the genus Beatragus .
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature considers it to be the most at risk antelope species, listing it as Critically Endangered, while the Zoological Society of London includes the hirola within its EDGE programme, which seeks to conserve the most evolutionary distinct and globally endangered of all animals.
Dahiye thinks that the unconfirmed sightings of the hirola in northern Garrisa, which sparked much excitement among conservationists, were cases of mistaken identity.
Local people call both hirola and impala antelopes by the same name in Somali, while the two species also look similar, he says.
Gary Duffy, BBC News 3 Jul 09;
The early hours of the morning in the Pantanal can be an almost deafening experience, as this beautiful wetland area wakes up to a symphony of natural sounds.
There are said to be more species of birds here than in the whole of Europe, living among a patchwork of rivers, lakes, lagoons, forests and islands.
The birds are just one part of an abundance of wildlife which makes the Pantanal "a vast ecological sanctuary".
Here you can find everything from the alligator-like caiman to the anaconda, one of the biggest snakes in the world.
The Pantanal is one of the largest continuous wetlands on the planet, spread over 150,000 square kilometres.
The largest part of this flood plain lies in Brazil, divided between the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, but it also extends into parts of Bolivia and Paraguay.
Such is the scale of the place that the first European settlers who arrived here thought they had discovered an enormous inland sea.
As well as around 700 species of birds, there are some 50 different types of reptiles and hundreds of species of fish including the piranha.
Fragile ecosystem
While no-one disputes the uniqueness of the Pantanal, in recent years concerns have been raised about the impact our changing world is having on this fragile ecosystem.
Andre Thuronyi has been working in this region for some 30 years, and now runs the Araras Eco Lodge, sharing his passion for the Pantanal's environment with visitors from around the world.
While he says the wetlands are largely well preserved, he now sees a growing threat from the surrounding high lands and plateaus.
"The real danger is in the area around the Pantanal, in the tablelands, due to the very strong agricultural movement, agribusiness, soya plantations, sugar cane plantations," he says.
"All the waters that flow into the lowlands of the Pantanal come from the tablelands. They use different chemicals that sooner or later might flow into our rivers."
Concern over farming
Environmentalists say another threat to the region is farming activity, which uses inappropriate soil management, and does not follow environmental legislation.
The erosion this has caused has led to a "drastic increase" in sediment in some areas of the wetlands which can have extremely damaging consequences.
Paulo Teixeira who works at the Pantanal Research Centre in the city of Cuiaba points to the example of the Taquari river basin where an area of 5,000 square kilometres was flooded.
"Pantanal half of the year is dry, half of the year is flooded," he says. "This is what causes the uniqueness and environmental richness of the area.
"In the case of the Taquari river, it meant that in some parts of the Pantanal it has been flooded the whole year, so it destroyed the way of life of many farmers, and of course it is affecting biodiversity standards."
Poor farming practices are not the only danger. In some nearby cities only 20% of the sewage is treated, and waste and rubbish can be seen floating down the river towards the Pantanal.
Intensive cattle farming is said to have caused deforestation in the region, while environmentalists warn that hydroelectric plants are affecting the "flood pulse" of the wetlands.
But Mato Grosso's Environment Secretary Luis Henrique Daldegan says the state is aware of the importance of the Pantanal and is working hard to address these kinds of problems.
It is possible, he says, to reconcile development with protecting the environment.
"It is very clear that agricultural activities, when they are not done properly, can cause irreversible harm," he told the BBC News website.
"What we have to do, and we are doing, is to ensure that good agricultural techniques help to mitigate this overall, in order to protect the Pantanal. This is what we have to do to protect the wetlands and to have sustainability in our production and our ecosystem."
The concerns about ethanol production in the highlands are dismissed by those involved in the industry, although there are signs of tension within the government.
Agricultural Minister Reinhold Stephanes has been reported as suggesting there could be an expansion of sugar cane plantations in the highlands, while Environment Minister Carlos Minc has said the possibility of this happening is "zero".
At the Itamarati ethanol plant, production of the biofuel that Brazil has championed around the world continues 24 hours a day.
In the nearby fields there is sugar cane for as far as the eye can see, but a government plan setting out new limits on where more plantations or refineries might be permitted has now been delayed for many months.
New technology
The plant's chief executive Sylvio Coutinho says new technology means there should not be any risk in expansion, even in the region above the wetlands.
"If they come to destroy the environment, then clearly no, if they come to generate wealth in harmony with the environment, why not?" he argues.
"There is technology for that these days. I think instead of emotion, we need to focus instead on an explanation from biologists who know the subject, to see what really causes pollution.
"We cannot let the Pantanal be polluted and destroyed."
At the end of a long day in the Pantanal, along the road which crosses through the wetlands, you can see dozens of caimans, an alligator-like animal basking in the setting sun, while birds feed in the waters just a short distance away.
The diversity of animals and plants is truly extraordinary.
Life in the wetlands still seems relatively untouched, but those who love this rich and unique ecosystem say it is only with continued vigilance that it will be preserved.
THE PANTANAL
# 150,000 square kilometres
# Largest part in Brazil, but also extends into Bolivia and Paraguay
# 700 species of birds
# 50 different types of reptiles
# Hundreds of kinds of fish
Cornelia Dean, The New York Times 2 Jul 09;
Scientists have known for some time that El Niño, the warm spell that turns up every four or five years in the waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean, reduces hurricane activity in the Atlantic. But in a new study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have linked a variant of that pattern — periodic warming in the central Pacific — to more frequent hurricanes in the Atlantic, particularly on the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean.
The researchers and scientists who have reviewed their work said it was too soon to say whether the warming pattern resulted from global climate change or simply had been undetected.
Scientists can detect warming in the central Pacific earlier than they can discern the development of El Niño, the researchers said, so the new finding may help improve forecasts for hurricane seasons over all.
In an El Niño year, warming of the eastern Pacific changes air flow patterns in the troposphere, the lowest portion of Earth’s atmosphere, so that one layer moves eastward and the other westward. Wind shear then develops over the Atlantic, inhibiting the ability of storms to turn into tight, powerful gyres.
But the warming patterns that occur in the central Pacific cause the wind shear phenomenon to shift well to the west, the researchers say, allowing Atlantic hurricanes to form relatively unimpeded.
Peter J. Webster, a professor of earth sciences at Georgia Tech and an author of the report, said the variant pattern was discovered in the 1980s by Japanese and Korean researchers, who dubbed it “modiki” El Niño. (Modiki is Japanese for “similar but different.”)
Dr. Webster said it might be difficult for researchers to determine whether the warming pattern was new because their observational record was relatively short and their climate models were imperfect.
Kerry Emanuel, a climate expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the new work was impressive. But he added that he believed that the pattern “has been there all along, but we just didn’t see it.”
The idea is one of 20 radical solutions to the threat of global warming to be proposed during presentations at a conference in Manchester this weekend
David Adam, guardian.co.uk 3 Jul 09;
The British public could invest their savings in the UK's renewable energy revolution and reap the financial rewards of helping to save the planet, under ambitious plans to be discussed this weekend.
The Public Interest Research Centre, a thinktank based in Wales, says the government could sell "energy bonds" to pay for the required investment. The scheme would be similar to war bonds, which galvanised financial support in Britain during the second world war.
The idea is one of 20 radical solutions to the threat of global warming to be proposed during presentations this weekend in Manchester. The event, organised by the Guardian and the Manchester International festival, will publish a report on the ideas, which will be distributed ahead of key UN talks on a new climate treaty in Copenhagen in December.
Tim Helweg-Larsen, director of the Public Interest Research Centre, said: "To finance renewable energy on the scale required, Britain is going to need hundreds of billions of pounds. Energy bonds are a way to unlock large amounts of money from individuals and institutional investors."
He added: "Make no mistake, this is an incredibly expensive project, but it also has very good rates of return on investments. We should be creating the opportunity for the people of Britain to invest in their own future and a secure climate."
People and companies would buy the bonds over the internet or at Post Offices, he said, investing anything from £10 to millions. The money raised would be dedicated to investment in offshore wind turbines and other clean energy projects. Fixed returns, backed by the government, could be paid at regular intervals, or after a decade or so when the fund matured. The increase in money paid back would be linked to the likely increase in electricity prices.
The large amounts of public investment raised by such a scheme could provoke awkward questions about how it would be allocated in Britain's liberalised electricity market, where infrastructure such as wind turbines are largely built and operated by power companies. Helweg-Larsen said nationalisation would not be needed. An investment corporation could be set up to spend the money, either by building generation capacity directly, or by subcontracting the work to existing operators. War bonds worked in a similar way he said, with the money from the public used to pay private firms to make weapons and munitions.
Other climate-saving ideas to be discussed at the Manchester event include practical suggestions, such as alternative fuels from algae to hydrogen, as well as ways to convert the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to methanol. Others will discuss more controversial ideas such as tighter controls on global population and rethinking conventional models of economic growth.
Stephen Salter, an engineer at Edinburgh University, who was responsible for the "Salter's Duck" wave energy device, will present his latest idea: a form of geoengineering that uses ships to seed clouds over the ocean, designed to block sunlight.
The ideas will be judged by a panel of experts led by Lord Tom Bingham, former lord chief justice, and including Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy at Google.org, and author Chris Goodall.
Keith Bradsher, The New York Times 2 Jul 09;
DUNHUANG, China — As the United States takes its first steps toward mandating that power companies generate more electricity from renewable sources, China already has a similar requirement and is investing billions to remake itself into a green energy superpower.
Through a combination of carrots and sticks, Beijing is starting to change how this country generates energy. Although coal remains the biggest energy source and is almost certain to stay that way, the rise of renewable energy, especially wind power, is helping to slow China’s steep growth in emissions of global warming gases.
While the House of Representatives approved a requirement last week that American utilities generate more of their power from renewable sources of energy, and the Senate will consider similar proposals over the summer, China imposed such a requirement almost two years ago.
This year China is on track to pass the United States as the world’s largest market for wind turbines — after doubling wind power capacity in each of the last four years. State-owned power companies are competing to see which can build solar plants fastest, though these projects are much smaller than the wind projects. And other green energy projects, like burning farm waste to generate electricity, are sprouting up.
This oasis town deep in the Gobi Desert along the famed Silk Road and the surrounding wilderness of beige sand dunes and vast gravel wastelands has become a center of China’s drive to lead the world in wind and solar energy.
A series of projects is under construction on the nearly lifeless plateau to the southeast of Dunhuang, including one of six immense wind power projects now being built around China, each with the capacity of more than 16 large coal-fired power plants.
Each of the six projects “totally dwarfs anything else, anywhere else in the world,” said Steve Sawyer, the secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, an industry group in Brussels.
Some top Chinese regulators even worry that Beijing’s mandates are pushing companies too far too fast. The companies may be deliberately underbidding for the right to build new projects and then planning to go back to the government later and demand compensation once the projects lose money.
“The problem is we have so many stupid enterprises,” said Li Junfeng, who is the deputy director general for energy research at China’s top economic planning agency and the secretary general of the government-run Renewable Energy Industries Association.
HSBC predicts that China will invest more money in renewable energy and nuclear power between now and 2020 than in coal-fired and oil-fired electricity.
That does not mean that China will become a green giant overnight. For one thing, Chinese power consumption is expected to rise steadily over the next decade as 720 million rural Chinese begin acquiring the air-conditioners and other power-hungry amenities already common among China’s 606 million city dwellers.
As recently as the start of last year, the Chinese government’s target was to have 5,000 megawatts of wind power installed by the end of next year, or the equivalent of eight big coal-fired power plants, a tiny proportion of China’s energy usage and a pittance at a time when China was building close to two coal-fired plants a week.
But in March of last year, as power companies began accelerating construction of wind turbines, the government issued a forecast that 10,000 megawatts would actually be installed by the end of next year. And now, just 15 months later, with construction of coal-fired plants having slowed to one a week and still falling, it appears that China will have 30,000 megawatts of wind energy by the end of next year — which was previously the target for 2020, Mr. Li said.
A big impetus was the government’s requirement, issued in September 2007, that large power companies generate at least 3 percent of their electricity by the end of 2010 from renewable sources. The calculation excludes hydroelectric power, which already accounts for 21 percent of Chinese power, and nuclear power, which accounts for 1.1 percent.
Chinese companies must generate 8 percent of their power from renewable sources other than hydroelectric by the end of 2020.
The House bill in the United States resembles China’s approach in imposing a renewable energy standard on large electricity providers. But the details make it hard to compare standards. The House bill requires large electricity providers in the United States to derive at least 15 percent of their energy by 2020 from a combination of energy savings and renewable energy — including hydroelectric dams built since 1992.
Chinese power companies are eager to invest in renewable energy not just because of the government’s mandates, but because they are flush with cash and state-owned banks are eager to lend them more money. And there are few regulatory hurdles.
At the same time, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has temporarily banned three of the country’s five main power companies from building more coal-fired power plants, punishment for their failure to comply with environmental regulations at existing coal-fired plants. China’s renewable energy frenzy has been accelerating recently, especially in solar energy.
Last winter, winning bidders for three projects agreed to sell power to the national power grid for about 59 cents a kilowatt hour.
But this spring, when the government solicited offers to build and operate the 10-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant here in Dunhuang, the lowest bid was just 10 cents a kilowatt hour — so low the government rejected it as likely to result in losses for whatever state-owned bank lent money to build it.
The winning bidder was China Guangdong Nuclear Power Company, an entirely state-owned business that bid 16 cents a kilowatt hour. (That was still far below last winter’s price, but a two-thirds drop in raw material costs because of the global financial crisis has started to drive down the cost of solar panels, the chief expense for the winning bidder.)
Zheng Shuangwei, the company’s general manager for northwest China, said that 22 or 23 cents would be more fair. The bid of 16 cents “is not a proper price,” he acknowledged. “It’s a bidding rate that is the result of competition.”
By comparison, the grid buys electricity from coal-fired power plants for 4 to 5 cents a kilowatt hour. Wind turbine rates have dropped to 7 cents from 10 cents over the last couple of years because of fierce competition and declining turbine costs.
The solar project still must go ahead, Mr. Zheng said, because China has limited coal reserves — 41 years at current rates of production — and the potential for hydroelectric power is leveling off as most eligible rivers have already been dammed.
But technical obstacles to renewable energy are popping up. Sandstorms in Dunhuang in the spring, for instance, will cover solar panels and render them useless until they are cleaned after each storm by squads of workers using feather brushes to avoid scratching the panels, a process expected to take two days.
And wind turbines are being built faster here than the national grid can erect high-voltage power lines to carry the electricity to cities elsewhere. On the windiest days, only half the power generated can be transmitted, said Min Deqing, a local renewable energy consultant.
Nonetheless, city officials are pushing for more projects.
“It’s the Gobi Desert,” said Wang Yu, the vice director of economic planning. “There’s not much other use for it.”
Bernie Woodall, Reuters 2 Jul 09;
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.
Consumers of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest city-owned utility in the United States with 1.45 million electricity customers, will see higher power bills in the fight against climate change, he added in his inaugural speech for his second four-year term as mayor on Wednesday.
California does not have any coal-fired power plants, a leading contributor to greenhouse gas pollution, but the LADWP now gets 40 percent of its electricity from coal plants outside the state.
"LADWP will deliver 40 percent renewable power, with the remainder coming from natural gas, nuclear, and large hydroelectric," said Villaraigosa.
Coal and natural gas-fired power now account for 76 percent of the electricity delivered by the LADWP. By 2020, the LADWP expects to cut its carbon emissions by up to 60 percent from 1990 levels, according to the mayor's office.
Villaraigosa said the LADWP will meet its goal of getting 20 percent of its power from renewables by 2010.
"We applaud Mayor Villaraigosa's bold decision to move Los Angeles beyond coal," said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's efforts to end coal-fired power plants. "The decision to replace coal with cleaner energy alternatives is key to boosting job creation and economic growth."
The LADWP also wants to cut overall electricity use by 1 percent a year for the next 10 years, Freeman said, through energy efficiency.
On Thursday, Deputy Mayor David Freeman said the LADWP will continue to use power from the coal-fired 2,250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station in Arizona until 2019 when its current contract expires. It takes 21.2 percent of the plant's output.
Freeman, the one-time head of the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, said negotiations have not yet begun on how and when the LADWP will leave its contract as lead owner of the 1,800-megawatt coal-fired Intermountain plant in Utah.
It takes 44.6 percent of the output of Intermountain in a contract that extends to 2026.
Together, Navajo -- 477 MW -- and Intermountain -- 803 MW -- can deliver as much as 1,280 MW of power to Los Angeles.
RATES TO RISE
Villaraigosa and Freeman said the elimination of coal-fired power will also mean higher electricity rates. LADWP customers pay an average of about 12 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Freeman said eliminating power from coal will one day increase rates but they will remain competitive with the 15.5 cents per kwh of the average Southern California Edison customer. SCE, a unit of Edison International, has nearly 4.9 million power customers and covers Los Angeles County outside of the city of Los Angeles.
The Navajo plant can deliver power at 3 cents per kwh, and the Intermountain power is between 4 to 5 cents per kwh.
Freeman said that coal power costs will rise as rules limiting carbon dioxide, including a cap-and-trade system, are implemented.
But "costs to society" such as higher medical bills for lung-related diseases, including asthma, will drop.
"The rates are going to go up," said Freeman. "There is no way you can bring in renewable energy and not have some rate impact when you replace coal. But the value to society even aside from global warming is going to be positive."
(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
New field of climate engineering offers quick fixes but there are risks
Michael Wilner, Straits Times 4 Jul 09;
SCIENTISTS are now toying with a grand idea - harnessing technology to alter the earth's climate and combat global warming. They are working in a field of science still in its infancy known as climate engineering or geoengineering.
Among the more modest, but ambitious, proposals being put forward is to populate the earth with 'synthetic trees', essentially high-tech towers armed with special absorbents that scrub and store carbon dioxide from air particles.
Professor Klaus Lackner, a geophysicist at Columbia University who came up with the idea, told The New York Times that such synthetic trees could be 'planted' within two years. He admitted their cost would be high but said this could potentially be offset by the stored carbon dioxide, which could be sold commercially.
Prof Lackner is among those who have cautioned that the earth's climate may be past the point of no return, and that small, individual efforts to prevent climate change may be too little, too late. These scientists believe geoengineering may provide a quick fix for an immediate environmental crisis.
'The idea is that you want to ready some option that you'll have available if you have some sort of emergency, and you learn you need to respond quickly,' Professor David Victor, of the University of California at San Diego and an adjunct senior fellow for science and technology for the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Straits Times.
Climate manipulation may come in many forms, though experts differ on which are most effective or beneficial.
Solar radiation management, a theory that Prof Victor considers the most prominent, would reduce warming of the planet by reflecting Earth-bound sunlight back into space. Scientists say this could be achieved by launching billions of aluminium balloons to act as orbital mirrors, or by injecting the stratosphere with sulphur aerosols, which also reflect sunlight.
Another geoengineering method is cloud brightening, a process by which salt water from the sea is sprayed thousands of metres in the air to produce thicker, more reflective clouds.
All of these methods, in theory, would reduce Earth's radiation intake from the sun. But none have been tested, and all could be risky. Dangers could include typical seasonal pattern disruption, drought and famine threats to Europe and Africa, and deterioration of the ozone layer.
Along with the risks of research and deployment come two moral quandaries: whether deliberate climate manipulation is ethical, and who gets to decide whether or not to move forward.
Governance was a key topic at a recent conference held by the United States National Academy of the Sciences. Professor Alan Robock, a climatologist at Rutgers University, said a major point of debate was how to define 'planetary emergency' - and who, ultimately, identifies the tipping point.
Yahoo News 4 Jul 09;
ILULISSAT, Greenland (AFP) – Denmark's Minister for Climate Connie Hedegaard said here there was no "Plan B" if negotiations broke down for an ambitious climate accord at a December world summit in Copenhagen.
"It's clear, we are not working for a Plan B," Hedegaard said after a ministerial meeting of 29 countries from all continents to boost the talks that she said were going too slowly.
"To seal a deal in Copenhagen is a political challenge, not a technical one," Hedegaard said at a press conference in this western Greenland town, adding that the Greenland Dialogue launched by Denmark in 2005 was providing "political guidance" to the negotiations.
"On emission reductions, participants agreed that developed countries should explore how they can strengthen the ambition of their contribition and that developing countries' action must be strengthened -- all in order to meet the demands of science," the minister said.
"The world will be watching: strong leaders' guidance to the negotiations is urgently needed. Leaders bear an immense responsibility to provide this guidance now."
She admitted that "there are many obstacles, even some very big obstacles" and "there is not so much finance on the table" from the rich to the poor countries.
Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc told AFP: "The developed countries ask us for extra efforts when they themselves haven't applied the Kyoto Protocol." Everyone was waiting for a "strong signal" from the developed countries to help the others, he said.
UN climate chief Yvo de Boer told AFP that a "good result" could be achieved in Copenhagen.
"The number of very key political issues which need to be resolved is not terribly long," he said.
"We need clarity on rich countries' target, we would need clarity on what major developing countries will do to limit the growth of their emissions and we need clarity on finance and we need a new system to manage financial resources in the international level. There are basically the issues which need to be resolved in Copenhagen."
Yahoo News 3 Jul 09;
ROME (Reuters) - Officials from a 17-member body which account for the lions share of the world's carbon emissions will hold urgent talks next Tuesday to iron out differences on the eve of a July 8-10 summit of the G8.
Group of Eight diplomats and climate change officials told Reuters the meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) was called to narrow the gap between rich countries and developing nations such as India over long-term targets on global warming and emissions.
Leaders of MEF nations, which account for 80 percent of global emissions, are due to meet on July 9 on the sidelines of the G8 summit in the central Italian city of L'Aquila.
There are hopes that they could take a decisive step forward in talks for a U.N. climate change pact due to be signed in December.
But officials said persistent differences, particularly over the size of reductions in carbon emissions and the base year for comparisons, could scupper efforts to agree a joint declaration and result instead in a chairman's summary of countries' views.
"If there is no agreement...then what we will have in the end is a chairman's summary. The meeting (on Tuesday) has been called to see if there can be an agreement of some sort," said a senior Indian official involved in the negotiations.
The current draft statement, discussed at talks in Mexico last month, omits a base year for the emissions reduction target and there is disagreement over language and nuances on long-term goals, Indian diplomats said.
Developing countries, including India, would like a base year of 1990 because this would force rich nations to cut back their emissions more sharply, leaving them more carbon space to expand their economies. But wealthy nations, such as Japan, are pushing for a more recent base year.
European diplomats confirmed the technical meeting would take place in Rome, focusing on differences over the base year and emissions targets.
While G8 countries have agreed a "vision" of a 50 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050, developing nations say it is too little and should be 80 percent.
"We are not keen on numbers like 50 percent reduction by 2050 by (rich) countries, which will freeze the existing imbalance in the distribution of the carbon space," Dinesh Patnaik, a top Indian negotiator, told Reuters.
"The Europeans and the United States were not too keen (on Tuesday's meeting) as they feel it will only add further pressure. But India insisted as they don't want anything in brackets brought to the table in L'Aquila," said one European G8 source.
(Additional reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee in Delhi)
(Editing by Richard Balmforth)
Environmental group WWF urges G8 to make climate pledge
Yahoo News 3 Jul 09;
GENEVA (AFP) – The environmental group WWF on Friday urged the Group of Eight industrialised nations to show global leadership by making a commitment to keep climate change in check at their summit next week.
Echoing a call by German Chancellor Angela Merkel a day earlier, the WWF said the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, must commit to keeping the rise in global average temperature "well below" two degrees Celsius.
"A clear commitment to a two degree Celsius danger threshold on paper is an absolute must for G8 countries," said Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF's Global Climate Initiative.
"The countries gathering in L'Aquila have the biggest responsibility to show leadership on climate. Without their action we cannot expect the rest of the world to move," he added.
Negotiations to strike a new deal to tackle global warming by the end of the year have been foundering, partly over disagreements on emissions targets and a rift between industrialised and emerging nations on the burden of responsibility for deeper cuts.
WWF said the long-term target under discussion, of 80 percent cuts in carbon emissions over 1990 levels by 2050, was at the low end of what was needed.
"This is an absolute minimum and anything weaker will be a complete failure," said Carstensen.
"A firm statement by the G8 will send a powerful signal to the developing world and make it easier for the poorer countries to slash their emissions."
Merkel on Thursday set a similar target for the two-day G8 summit which opens on Wednesday.
But she said that European Union and US targets meant little if emerging giants like China and India were not on board at the Copenhagen conference in December, when countries aim to set emissions reduction targets beyond 2012.
WWF said 17 countries in the Major Economies Forum (MEF), which it says account for about 80 percent of the world's emissions, had a particular responsibility to double investment in research and development of green technology and renewable energy by 2012.
The MEF is meeting on the sidelines of the G8 next week.
Posts
visitors since Nov 07