Free Talk! Walk on the Wild Side: Marine Conservation in Singapore from Pulau Hantu
Fish haven at Tanah Merah
from wonderful creation and singapore nature and wild shores of singapore with camoufishes and crusties
Seeking Seahorses at Tanah Merah
from wild shores of singapore
Roosting of Savanna Nightjar
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Bee-eater hybrid 2
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Straits Times 18 Sep 09;
HO CHI MINH CITY: Vietnam's Construction Ministry has asked Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to temporarily ban sand exports from November - a move that will affect Singapore, Vietnam's biggest customer.
The ministry said the move is to ensure domestic supply and protect the environment from unrestrained production.
'We should halt sand exports until all provinces can provide specific information on reserves, exploitation capacity and plans to meet demand,' Mr Le Van Toi, head of the ministry's Department for Construction Materials, said on Wednesday. He estimated that it might take several months for local governments to submit these reports.
Vietnam shipped nearly nine million cubic m of sand in the first eight months of the year from 1.3 million cubic m last year, Mr Toi said, citing figures from the Can Tho Customs Department, which handles most of Vietnam's sand exports.
Singapore is Vietnam's biggest buyer so far this year.
In May, Cambodia abruptly banned sand exports, citing the detrimental effect of sand dredging on its rivers and marine areas. The move mirrored Indonesia's 2007 overnight ban on sand exports, which caused a 'sand crisis' in Singapore given its heavy reliance on sand for construction and land reclamation.
Singapore's building industry has been working since to diversify its sand supplies. It has also relaxed rules to allow quarry dust to be used as a sand substitute.
Vietnam's sand exports surged from May as demand increased following Cambodia's ban on sand shipments.
Unplanned dredging can cause landslides and riverbank collapses along the Mekong River in Vietnam's southern region, which provides the bulk of sand for export, Mr Toi said.
Vietnam expects domestic demand to reach as much as 100 million cubic m next year, 140 million cubic m by 2015 and 197 million cubic m by 2020, he said, citing ministry forecasts. Vietnam used 86 million cubic m of sand last year, according the ministry's data.
BLOOMBERG
It can kick-start creation of regional carbon credit registries and formulate yardsticks
Catherin Wong Mei Ling, Business Times 18 Sep 09;
CARBON markets are here to stay and are likely to grow post-Kyoto 2012. In the run- up to December's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, pundits expect the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to continue to play a big role in the transition to the new low-carbon economy.
This was one of the projections made by Bindu Lohani, vice-president (finance and administration) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), at a seminar organised by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies earlier this month.
While China and India are steaming ahead and establishing a foothold in the rapidly expanding carbon market, South-east Asia's response has been laggard at best.
With 84 per cent of the primary CDM market share, China is rapidly developing its financial infrastructure to meet future demand. The Tianjing exchange announced recently its plans to launch China's first carbon market in 6-12 months' time, and has already started recruiting members for a cap-and-trade scheme.
The Financial Times also reported that half a dozen climate exchanges have been set up in China over the past year alone. The Beijing exchange is collaborating with Paris-based Bluenext to offer credits generated by Chinese renewable energy projects to potential European investors.
India's banks have also moved in on the carbon market. Banks like ICICI, the Industrial Development Bank of India Ltd (IDBI) and State Bank of India (SBI) have tie- ups with a host of local companies and international players like International Finance Corp (the private-sector arm of the World Bank) and Germany-based KfW Bankengruppe.
Vulnerable region
Since carbon trading in India took off in 2005, its companies have earned about US$500 million from carbon-credit sales and netted about 43 per cent of carbon credits issued so far by the CDM executive board.
South-east Asia, however, seems to have been bypassed in the midst of these developments despite the imperatives for the region to step up to a low-carbon economy. The region is one of the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, according to the 2009 ADB regional review on 'The Economics of Climate Change in South-east Asia'.
The region is projected to lose 6.7 per cent of combined gross domestic product (GDP) each year by 2100 if nothing is done to curb global warming. The US, the world's second largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter, stands to lose only half of that (3.6 per cent of GDP) by the same year at status quo.
Nonetheless, the lack of activity also represents untapped opportunity, and Dr Lohani thinks Singapore is well placed to lead carbon trading in the region.
Singapore has the most mature capital markets in South-east Asia and can position itself to be the regional trading platform for carbon credits. In addition to its well established credentials in financial management and good governance, the city already has both the physical and the human capital to establish itself as the carbon trading centre of Southeast Asia.
Singapore is the fourth largest foreign exchange trading centre in the world and is home to many of the world's financial bigwigs. The trust and corruption-free factor has been a key competitive advantage of Singapore, not least due to the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) reputation for its stringent supervision of banking and financial activities.
The hardware is already in place for Singapore to tap on the carbon markets. What it needs now is the software in terms of a clear policy and regulatory framework for carbon trading, domestically and regionally. There is already talk of how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) can play a role in facilitating a regional carbon market.
Maturing markets
With Singapore's experience in financial management, it can kick- start the creation of regional carbon credit registries and formulate yardsticks for clean energy project performance and best practices.
Sceptics say that there is little business incentive for a regional exchange because there are no buyers and only sellers. There are also few liquidity providers in the market for such investments.
But this is slowly changing. The carbon markets are gradually maturing, and the US could potentially come on board; a US House of Representatives committee voted in favour of a draft climate bill in May which, if passed into law, could lead to a US$3 trillion carbon market by 2020.
The global carbon market was worth US$126 billion in 2008 - twice as much compared to the preceding year despite the financial turmoil, indicating its resilience.
There is also a growing pool of international funds willing to provide grants and cheap loans for climate change projects in developing countries. Japan set up the Cool Earth Partnership in 2008, worth US$10 billion to fund reduction of GHG emissions in developing countries. The ADB's Carbon Market Initiative has two funds targeted to be worth more than US$300 million. Europe and the US have also set up a host of similar investment funds.
Granted, carbon markets are still relatively volatile due to lingering misconceptions about environmental investments. But it is clear that the social and political tides are shifting in this direction.
It is not too late for South-east Asia to play catch-up in the carbon markets. But if the region does not act soon, it may be too late when it finds its islands consumed by the sea, its forests depleted, and a growing population of displaced and jobless citizenry.
The writer is a research associate at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
Today Online 18 Sep 09;
HE HAS said it before, and he repeated his warning: This year's hazy conditions could reach the unhealthy levels seen in 1997 and 2006, said Minister for Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim.
Yesterday, the 24-hour PSI reading registered 54 - the third day straight it has been in the moderate air-quality range.
At the peak of the haze problem in past years, PSI readings in Singapore soared above 100, in the unhealthy range.
Dr Yaacob said the drier weather caused by stronger El Nino conditions will exacerbate the haze situation caused by forest fires in Indonesia. He appealed to his regional counterparts to take action against slash-and-burn activities.
"I hope that my colleagues in Indonesia and the rest of the Asean countries will do their part, because if they can demonstrate there's a willingness and political will to tackle this problem, that will also improve the image of the region," he told reporters at a Chinatown event.
Singapore will play host to a Sub-regional Ministerial Steering Committee on Transboundary Haze Pollution forum next month. 938LIVe
Jon Afrizal and Rizal Harahap, The Jakarta Post 17 Sep 09;
The haze covering Jambi city, Jambi province and several areas in Riau over the past few days has threatened people's health and might disrupt travellers heading home for Idul Fitri.
The level of air pollution has reached 98 parts per million (ppm) in Jambi city, based on the Air Pollution Standard Index (ISPU).
"Such a level indicates the air in Jambi city is unhealthy," said Arfan, the head of Jambi's Environmental Agency (BLHD) on Wednesday.
Data from the Jambi BLHD showed the ISPU level over the past few days in Jambi city ranged between 77 ppm and 98 ppm.
The data was based on an ISPU detection device the Singaporean government provided. Jambi has three such devices, one in Jambi city and two others in Muarojambi regency.
Arfan said pollution levels of between 100-199 ISPU were categorized as harmful, so Jambi city's ISPU level of 98 ppm on Wednesday was considered unhealthy and could trigger illnesses.
He added that an ISPU level of between 200 and 299 ppm was very harmful and classified as dangerous above 300 ppm.
"I urge residents to be more alert because this can be dangerous *for them*. They should wear masks when they are outdoors," he said.
Most people were unaware the air was polluted because they were used to the haze in Jambi, he said, so they no longer consider it dangerous despite the current harmful level.
The haze covering Jambi does not seem to be correlated to the number of hotspots.
Satellite images show hotspots located in two points in the Muarojambi regency, a resident's farm and an oil palm plantation.
Jambi Forestry Office head Budidaya confirmed the thick haze covering Jambi originated from neighboring provinces, and that in the past week, hundreds of hotspots had been detected in Sumatra, mostly in South Sumatra and Lampung.
The Jambi Meteorological and Geophysics Agency (BMG) warned about wind coming from the south of Jambi, or from Lampung and South Sumatra.
Sahlian Lubis, Jambi City Health Office's acting head, urged residents in Jambi city to watch out for air pollution in the city and avoid outdoor activities for the time being.
"If they don't have any important business to do *outside*, they shouldn't leave the house until the situation in Jambi city returns to normal," he said.
He added the worst time of the day for air pollution was at dawn, in the afternoon and at night.
Although there have not been any forest fires in the past two weeks, haze has nevertheless returned to blanket several areas in the Riau province recently.
Riau Governor Rusli Zainal said on Wednesday that the haze might be a nuisance to Idul Fitri travellers.
"I asked all related agencies to take measures to address the haze as it could harm travellers and reduce visibility while driving," Rusli said.
He urged residents to stop clearing land by burning forests, and police to take stern action against land owners who cleared their land by burning it.
VietnamNews 16 Sep 09;
HA NOI — Many people understand that Viet Nam’s coral reefs are a precious natural resource, yet few are aware that in approximately 20 years the reefs may be ruined by human exploitation, according to Dr Nguyen Huy Yet of the Viet Nam National Museum of Nature.
These "tropical rain forests of the sea" are home to a variety of fish and other saltwater creatures and have been known to cure a myriad of different diseases.
However, according to a recent survey carried out by the Viet Nam Institute of Oceanography, the coral reefs now might be facing their biggest-threat to date. People continue to trespass into nature preserve areas like Hon Mun (Khanh Hoa), Cat Ba (Hai Phong), Phu Quoc (Kien Giang), Con Co Island (Quang Tri), Cham Island (Quang Nam) and Ha Long Bay (Quang Ninh) to steal pieces of coral. They then use the coral to make handicrafts to sell to tourists and merchants in HCM City.
The situation is most alarming in Van Ninh sea (Khanh Hoa) where hundreds of people are using mines to catch fish, which inflict massive damage to the reefs. Other factors that lead to the destruction of coral include sea contamination, over fishing and mangrove forest destruction, said Yet.
The Government has recently been paying more attention to this issue. Their solutions to the problem, which include an awareness campaign and restricting access to certain areas, have yet to be effective, said Yet.
He is saddened by the destruction of the coral because Viet Nam’s tropical climate is suitable to develop the rare natural resource.
In order to protect the coral, Yet suggests preserving endangered areas that would be monitored by security forces.
He also recommends creating favourable conditions in order to grow new coral, which could be done on slabs of concrete, outdated fishing boats or other solid material.
Most importantly, Yet recommends creating enforceable and detailed laws on coral protection. — VNS
Liz Gooch, The New York Times 17 Sep 09;
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Idyllic scenes of palm trees swaying over sandy beaches have long decorated brochures meant to lure tourists to Indonesia and Malaysia. But few visitors see the giant palm plantations away from the shore.
Each year, the plantations produce millions of tons of palm oil, which has soared in popularity since the 1970s and is now found in foods like margarine, potato chips and chocolate, as well as in soap, cosmetics and biofuel.
With these two Southeast Asian nations leading the way, the industry churned out about 43 million tons last year, making palm oil the world’s most produced vegetable oil, according to estimates by Oil World, an independent industry analyst group.
But the palm plantations are in the cross hairs of consumer groups and corporations in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United States. Echoing the longstanding concerns of environmental groups, they say palm oil producers continue to fell large tracts of forest to make way for plantations, destroying habitat for endangered species like the orangutan.
In Malaysia, the land devoted to palm oil plantations increased to 4.48 million hectares in 2008, or 11.1 million acres, from about 641,700 hectares in 1975, according to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. Reports suggest that Indonesia has about 6 million hectares (14.8 million acres) under cultivation.
Last year, the British cosmetics company Lush introduced a soap made from a base that is free of palm oil. Last month, Cadbury New Zealand bowed to consumer pressure and reversed a decision to replace cocoa butter with palm oil in its chocolates. And the Melbourne Zoo in Australia began a campaign to have palm oil clearly labeled on food products to ensure that consumers know what they are buying.
The increasingly vocal protests are not what the industry expected five years after it began developing a certification system for producing environmentally sustainable palm oil. In 2004, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was formed, representing palm oil producers; consumer goods manufacturers including Unilever, Johnson & Johnson and Kellogg; environmental groups like the World Wide Fund for Nature; and social and development organizations.
Membership in the roundtable is voluntary, and producers must meet its criteria before their oil can be certified as sustainable. The group’s secretary general, Vengeta Rao, said new plantations could not be established on primary rain forest or lands with “high conservation values” like those with rare or endangered species.
“If the land was cleared before November 2005, irrespective of who logged it or cleared it, any plantation on that land can be certified to produce sustainable oil, provided there are no land conflicts over that land and the company has not broken any laws in establishing the plantation,” said Dr. Rao, a plant biologist. “But if planting was done after November 2005, it can only be certified if the company has done a conservation study and found that there are no conservation values present.”
The roundtable requires plantations to develop plans to protect rare or endangered species on their land and to assess whether there are cultural relics that need to be preserved.
About 700,000 tons of certified oil has been produced since the first company, United Plantations in Malaysia, was certified a year ago. Dr. Rao said that by 2015, about 10 million to 15 million tons could be certified, or perhaps a quarter of the total.
Once a company registers a plantation or mill for certification, it must create a timetable to convert all of its operations. Consumer goods manufacturers joining must also devise a timetable for switching to certified oil.
Dr. Rao said the roundtable did not dictate timetables to its members “because circumstances vary between producers.”
Some critics say the standards are not stringent enough to prevent further deforestation.
“The expansion of plantations has pushed the orangutan to the brink of extinction, with some experts predicting total extinction within 10 years,” said James Turner, a spokesman for the British branch of Greenpeace. A United Nations report in 2007 found that “the rapid increase of plantation acreage is one of the greatest threats to orangutans.”
Greenpeace says the industry also contributes to carbon emissions when producers establish plantations on peat bogs, which store carbon. Draining and burning peat bogs to establish plantations releases greenhouse gases.
Dr. Rao said although the roundtable’s guidelines did not allow extensive planting on peat bogs, limited planting was permitted in some circumstances, depending on factors like the type of peat and its depth. However, he said, this was being reviewed in the case of new plantings.
Such concerns prompted Lush to formulate its new soap, which went on sale last month in the United States. The company says it wants to eliminate palm oil from its products completely but is struggling to find suppliers who can provide such materials for ingredients other than the soap base.
Sean Augustin, New Straits Times 18 Sep 09;
KUALA TERENGGANU: Several quarters are asking the state government to scrap the idea of importing the Mekong Giant Catfish into the Kenyir lake as part of its plans to replenish the fish population.
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Faculty of Agro Technology lecturer Prof Mohd Azmi Ambak said Kenyir lake was famous for its rich variety of kelah fish and importing a foreign species would mean running a risk of it out-competing the local species for food, or the catfish itself could eat the other species.
"I think it's a terrible idea. We don't know if the catfish is an invasive species.
"I would advise the state government against implementing this idea. We need to preserve the local diversity."
Azmi said there were about 10 to 20 different varieties of kelah, some of which are endemic to Terengganu.
On Wednesday, Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said had revealed the plan in view of the upcoming Kenyir Lake Cup fishing competition next month.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia president S.M. Mohd Idris Salam has also slammed the idea, adding the organisation had always been concerned that alien fish species were being dumped into the waterways which threaten the lives of indigenous fish species.
Factors like environmental pollution and destruction of natural habitats as well as ecosystems have made it easier for non-native species brought to Malaysia to establish itself.
"They become invasive as many of them are "colonising" species that benefit from the radically reduced competition that follows habitat degradation or destruction.
"We really hope the state government would reconsider," he said.
The Malaysian Nature Society echoed the same sentiment, adding any initiative to replenish lakes and rivers should focus on conserving and restoring the population of native fish species rather than importing alien fish species.
Its president, Tan Sri Dr Salleh Mohd Nor, said based on the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), (invasive) alien species has been identified as one of the keys to biodiversity extinction.
"Has the Terengganu state government conducted a thorough study to identify potential impact of the introduction of the Mekong Giant Catfish into Kenyir Lake and its native fish fauna?
"Efforts in Indochina and Thailand, where the species originate from, have also shown that the species does not breed well in enclosed water bodies such as ponds and lakes.
"This would mean that the state government would have to keep spending money to restock the lake," he said, adding that while the society lauds the efforts to replenish fish population in Kenyir Lake, it strongly urged the state government to rethink this idea and to focus on native fish species to further help conserve freshwater biodiversity.
The Mekong Giant Catfish or the Pangasianodon gigas, which is endemic to the lower half of the Mekong River is believed to be able to grow up to three metres in length and reach a mass of 150 to 200kg in only six years.
Vineyard on island in Tasik Kenyir
Sean Augustin, New Straits Times 23 Sep 09;
KUALA TERENGGANU: The state government will establish a vineyard on one of the islands in Tasik Kenyir by the end of the year.
Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said said this would be one of the attractions for the island-hopping programme, which is scheduled to start next year. The grapes will include White Malaga, Black Opal and Shiraz.
The state government will appoint an agency to manage the vineyard.
"It can be done and I am confident it will be a success. After all, I grow grapes in my backyard. There should not be any problem.
"The fruit is highly adaptable and if it can be grown in Thailand, Perlis and Negri Sembilan, why not here?" he asked, adding that the vineyard would start yielding fruit by 2011.
He was speaking after hosting a Hari Raya open house for over 2,000 Terengganu citizens working or studying outside the state at the Islamic Civilisation park here yesterday.
Ahmad said the government had done its homework on plans to bring the Mekong giant catfish to Tasik Kenyir as an attraction for the Kenyir Cup, a fishing competition, next month.
When it was announced last week, several quarters including the Malaysian Nature Society called for the plan to be scrapped, saying it was not viable.
The fish has been listed as critically endangered under the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List for fish.
"It is not an invasive species and it only eats fresh water weeds and not other fishes.
"In addition, the Kenyir Cup is a catch and release competition, so we need not worry about its status as a critically endangered species."
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post 18 Sep 09;
Rampant illegal logging has been blamed for recent flash floods that hit six villages in North Sumatra, killing dozens of people, Regent Amru Daulay has said.
Amru blamed deforestation after inspecting the baron area that was once a forest not far from the disaster areas, adding the area was previously part of a forest concession area (HPH).
He said the HPH license had been revoked 10 years ago and since then illegal logging had been rampant because of a lack of supervision from authorized agencies.
"The flash floods in Muara Batang Gadis district, Mandailing Natal regency, are attributed to illegal logging, which has prevailed unabated. We have no authority to supervise logging because it is the responsibility of the Forestry Ministry," Amru told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday evening.
Amru said his relief workers were facing difficulties in reaching the affected areas because their limited facilities made the rough terrain difficult to access.
"We face difficulties reaching the area due to rough terrain. We have only one rubber dinghy and can not reach the location because there are many logs clogging the river," Amru said.
Amru added that due to the setback, relief workers had only distributed part of the relief aid available, the rest of which is stranded at a border area located about 7.5 hours away from the affected area.
"We were informed by a council member living in the disaster area that many evacuees are going hungry because of food shortages. Hopefully, the team bringing food aid will arrive tonight," Amru said.
Amru said his office had yet to ascertain the number of dead and missing persons as communication lines have been cut.
However, based on reports from the local council member, the bodies of eight victims have already been recovered.
At least 15 people were reportedly killed and 25 others missing in the flash floods, which happened before dawn on Tuesday.
The six villages swept by the floods were Rantau Panjang, Lubuk Kapodang I and II, Tagilang, Saleh Baru and Manuncang.
North Sumatra Governor Syamsul Arifin said his office had sent a joint team made up of members from the health and social service offices to assist survivors. He added he had also instructed Regent Amru to immediately take the necessary steps to help survivors. Syamsul said around 2,200 of the affected families had evacuated.
"We must be responsible for the survivors. They need relief aid immediately, especially because they will celebrate Idul Fitri in a short while," said Syamsul, adding relief aid includes rubber dinghies, instant noodles and clothing.
Syamsul said the provincial administration had also 50 tons of rice stored at the provincial logistics agency, which will be made available to the survivors as soon as possible.
Hotli Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post 18 Sep 09;
Widespread deforestation in the Islamic province of Aceh is threatening some of its rich traditions, including one ancient custom practiced to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan.
Muslims in Aceh have been preparing Ie Bu Peudah porridge during Ramadan for generations as a way of bringing the community together during the fasting month, but a lack of spices as a result of deforestation is threaten the annual tradition.
"Long ago, almost all the villages in Aceh prepared the Ie Bu peudah porridge, but now less and less people carry out this traditional custom," Sukran, a resident of the Bung Bak Jok village in the Aceh Besar regency, said recently.
"Every member of the community is usually involved in the process of cooking the porridge, but due to the large number of younger people in the village, the elderly are normally not involved," said Sukran.
The village head of Bung Bak Jok, Abdul Muthalib, said the tradition of preparing the porridge and sitting down together to eat is unique to Ramadan. With everybody taking part in the cooking process, and coming together to break the fast in the evening, ties between the community are strengthened.
"Every member of the community is involved in some aspect of the process, from collecting the herbs and spices, to preparing the ingredients, to eating the final product," said Muthalib.
The porridge is handed out to villagers a few moments before the fast is broken, and children come with containers to take some porridge home to those who cannot make it themselves.
"Traditionally, the porridge would have been eaten to break the fast together at the village mosque. But now people have their own personal activities, so they take the porridge back to their own homes," Muthalib said.
Ie Bu Peudah literally means hot or spicy porridge. Its basic ingredients are rice and an assortment of spices believed to be capable of curing illnesses and assisting those carrying out their fasts.
"One of our beliefs from the days of our ancestors that breaking the fast with the porridge can revive the lost stamina during the fast," Sukran told The Jakarta Post.
The vast array of spices necessary for the recipe are sourced from around the forest areas around the villages.
Long before the arrival of Ramadan, villagers seek out the herbs and spices required for the recipe and allocate a particular plot in the local rice fields for the grain required for the porridge.
"Our village has a special rice field set aside so there is not shortage of rice for the porridge Ramadan. That way residents do not have to pay for rice during the holy month," said Muthalib.
However, Muthalib said he was concerned about the tradition surviving in the future, as several key spices required for the dish have become scarce in the region due to widespread logging, deforestation and unethical clearing practices.
Muthalib said his parents recipe for the porridge, which has been handed down for generations, required 44 varieties of plants to make a truly authentic Ie Bu Peudah porridge.
Of these herbs, today only a handful can be found in the jungle areas around the village. Muthalib said the plants were scarce or even extinct as a result of deforestation and the conversion of forest land for commercial purposes.
"Each plant has a specific purpose. They are believed to contain ingredients to cure various illnesses. Each plant has a different function for curing disease," said Muthalib.
Although no comprehensive studies on the properties of these herbs has been carried out, Muthalib said he had no doubts that the porridge was greatly beneficial to his health. If he misses the traditional meal in the evening, he said, something feels amiss.
"We will still have the Ie Bu Peudah porridge every Ramadan, but it will never be the same as that prepared by our ancestors long ago," said Muthalib.
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 16 Sep 09;
The government is unlikely to meet its much-pledged carbon emissions cut from the energy sector due to corporate inertia and the absence of financial incentives to develop clean technologies.
The office of the State Ministry for Environment said that the use of renewable energy continued to lessen and there were no new investments in low-emission energy sources like geothermal and hydropower plants.
“Coal will still be the main source of energy here,” said Haneda Sri Mulyanto, head of the climate change mitigation unit at the ministry.
Coal burning has been blamed as main source of greenhouse gas emissions.
A 2006 presidential decree on national energy policy stated the use of renewable energy, including biofuels, geothermal, nuclear, and liquid coal would reach 17 percent by 2025.
Nurfika Osman The Jakarta Globe 17 Sep 09;
Swells up to five meters high will likely strike Indonesia’s waters until Tuesday next week, the head of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics agency said on Thursday.
Sri Woro, the head of the agency, also known as the BMKG, suggested that Idul Fitri travelers who will take sea routes to their hometowns may want to reconsider their itineraries.
“People who will go to their hometowns by sea should be very careful,” she said. “We do not recommend traveling by sea as the weather will be bad and dangerous until next week.”
Millions of people living in big cities across the archipelago are now traveling to their hometowns to celebrate Idul Fitri, which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month. This year, Idul Fitri falls on Sept. 21-22.
Sri Woro said heavy swells would hit waters off western Aceh, the Gaspar Strait between Bangka and Belitung, Riau, Pontianak, the Natuna islands off West Kalimantan and northern Papua.
She added the swells could be higher than five meters in some areas because dark rain clouds and strong winds are likely to occur in the next few days.
“There is a great chance of cumulonimbus clouds and strong winds that will heighten the waves,” she said, adding that heavy rainfall near the coast would worsen the conditions.
Sri Woro said swells up to three meters high would hit the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java, waters off East Java, Ambon, West Nusa Tenggara, and the Arafuru Sea off Papua.
Four-meter waves, she said, could possibly be seen in the southern part of the Indian Ocean up to Central Java and Merauke in Papua.
“We are collaborating with all harbor masters and transportation agencies to warn people that the sea is dangerous,” she said, adding that waves only two meters high were strong enough to flip a tugboat.
She said the BMKG already had 19 radar stations in big cities across the country to predict the weather.
“We now have 19 radar stations, with eight of them installed this year,” she said, adding that each radar could detect weather within 150 kilometers.
Cities that have stations include Jakarta, Surabaya in East Java, Semarang in Central Java, Padang in West Sumatra, Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara and Manado in North Sulawesi.
She said the country should have at least 40 radar stations scattered to improve the detection of bad weather and avoid weather-related accidents and disasters.
“We hope we can reach our goal of having 40 stations in 2011,” she said.
“The lack of funds is the biggest problem,” she added.
Separately, Widada Sulistya, the director of the Center of Public Meteorology, said most people traveling to their hometowns for the Idul Fitri holiday would generally enjoy fine weather next week.
“There is only a small chance of rain, so people should not be worried about the coming week,” Widada said, referring only to areas those people traveling in Java and South Sumatra.
Jane Bardon, ABC News 18 Sep 09;
The Federal Opposition is calling on the Government to pay for an independent organisation to carry out environmental monitoring of an oil spill off the Kimberley coast.
At least 1200 tonnes of oil have leaked from the Montara well head, 130 kilometres off the north-west coast of Australia.
The rig's manager, PTTEP Australasia, says it will be weeks before the leak can be plugged.
Fishermen and environmental groups do not believe the Government is doing enough surveying of the environmental impact in the area.
The Opposition's environment spokesman, Greg Hunt, says it should pay for an independent organisation, such Charles Darwin University or James Cook University, to carry out a survey of marine life.
"What we're seeing now is a big gap, a wall of silence, in relation to environmental monitoring," he said.
"So let's have an immediate environmental monitoring body appointed, such as a university.
"And let's have a genuine deep review into what happened here, how it happened and whether there are better ways to prevent it."
The Northern Territory Environment Centre says proof the oil slick is killing birds gives more weight to calls for new protected marine areas in the region.
Speaking from the shore of Fannie Bay in Darwin, the centre's director, Stuart Blanch, says the oil spill has raised serious concerns.
"I'm looking out over the water and about 70 metres offshore I can see a dugong," he said.
"It's coming to the surface, then slowly going back down to the bottom to feed ... and then coming up again.
"And a marine oil spill, if that happened here in the harbour or washed into the harbour, animals like dugong would be in big, big trouble and that's why we need a network of marine parks."
The company responsible for the oil spill says it is making progress in its plan to stop oil leaking, but it will still take about three weeks to complete.
The company plans to drill an oil well parallel to the Montara well, intersect it, and then inject mud into the leaking well.
It says it expects to have drilled 1600 metres of the 2.6 kilometre deep relief well by Sunday night.
Timor Sea Oil Spill May Worsen, Australian Conservationists Say
Ben Sharples, Bloomberg 18 Sep 09;
Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- An oil spill from a leaking well off Western Australia that has polluted the Timor Sea with 1,200 metric tons of oil may worsen and is a “major ecological disaster in the making,” a conservation group says.
“This is a disaster that risks blowing out further in terms of its scale and impact on the ocean,” Darren Kindleysides, director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said in an e-mailed statement today. The spill has covered 15,000 square kilometers (5,800 square miles), with 400 barrels a day leaking from the Montara field, the group said.
Oil, gas and condensate started seeping into the Timor Sea Aug. 21 from a leak 3,500 meters below the ocean floor during drilling by the local unit of Bangkok-based PTT Exploration & Production Pcl. The Thai company said today halting the flow by drilling a relief well to plug the leak with mud is expected to take a further three-and-a-half weeks to complete.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority observations indicate the size of the spill is reducing, Lauren Tindale, Perth-based spokeswoman for PTTEP Australasia, said by phone. The authority is coordinating the clean up effort and PTTEP has said it will cover the cost.
The government’s response to the spill is insufficient, Australian Greens party Senator Rachel Siewert said in a separate statement today. The spread of oil may affect commercially important fish stocks, the marine ecosystem and coral colonies around Ashmore Reef, about 840 kilometers west of Darwin and 610 kilometers north of Broome, Siewert said.
The relief well is expected to reach a depth of 1,622 meters on Sept. 20, PTTEP said in its statement.
C.K. Nayak, Reuters 17 Sep 09;
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Talks between India and China to try to save the endangered tiger failed to make much progress, India's environment minister said Thursday.
The use of tiger parts in Chinese medicine was encouraging the poaching of India's tigers, Jairam Ramesh told reporters.
China was also operating tiger farms in violation of international agreements, which stimulated demand, he said.
Ramesh, speaking after a visit to China, said breeding tigers in captivity went against the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
"There are about 4,000 tigers bred in captivity in China. We had discussions with China on this but there is not much success," he said.
"China is party to CITES. On the CITES, captive breeding of tigers is not allowed."
Illegal poaching and loss of natural habitat have caused India's tiger population to plummet in recent decades, even in large swathes of land protected as tiger reserves.
Conservationists say the trade in skin and bones is booming to countries such as China, which has banned the use of tiger parts in medicine but where everything from fur, whiskers, eyeballs, to bones, are still used.
"This is the first time the whole issue of tiger trade and tiger poaching is being discussed in a political forum," said Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India.
"There's a huge demand coming from China, prices are skyrocketing. India's like a supermarket."
India's latest tiger census counted just 1,411 cats, down from 3,642 in 2002 and around 40,000 a century ago.
(Writing and additional reporting by Matthias Williams; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Tan Ee Lyn, PlanetArk 18 Sep 09;
HONG KONG - One needs to look no further then the river that runs through Shangba to understand the extent of the heavy metals pollution that experts say has turned the hamlets in this region of southern China into cancer villages.
The river's flow ranges from murky white to a bright shade of orange and the waters are so viscous that they barely ripple in the breeze. In Shangba, the river brings death, not sustenance.
"All the fish died, even chickens and ducks that drank from the river died. If you put your leg in the water, you'll get rashes and a terrible itch," said He Shuncai, a 34-year-old rice farmer who has lived in Shangba all his life.
"Last year alone, six people in our village died from cancer and they were in their 30s and 40s."
Cancer casts a shadow over the villages in this region of China in southern Guangdong province, nestled among farmland contaminated by heavy metals used to make batteries, computer parts and other electronics devices.
Every year, an estimated 460,000 people die prematurely in China due to exposure to air and water pollution, according to a 2007 World Bank study.
Yun Yaoshun's two granddaughters died at the ages of 12 and 18, succumbing to kidney and stomach cancer even though these types of cancers rarely affect children. The World Health Organisation has suggested that the high rate of such digestive cancers are due to the ingestion of polluted water.
"It's because of Daboshan and the dirty water," said the 82-year-old grandmother. "The girls were always playing in the river, even our well water is contaminated," Yun told Reuters during a visit to the village.
The river where the children played stretches from the bottom of the Daboshan mine, owned by state-owned Guangdong Dabaoshan Mining Co Ltd, past the ramshackle family home. Its waters are contaminated by cadmium, lead, indium and zinc and other metals.
The villagers use well water in Shangba for drinking but tests published by BioMed Central in July show that it contains excessive amounts of cadmium, a heavy metal that is a known carcinogen, as well as zinc which in large quantities can damage the liver and lead to cancer.
"China has many 'cancer villages' and it is very likely that these increased cases of cancer are due to water pollution," said Edward Chan, an official with Greenpeace in southern China.
But it's not just water, the carcinogenic heavy metals are also entering the food chain.
Mounds of tailings from mineral mining are discarded alongside paddy fields throughout the region.
"If you test this rice, it will be toxic but we eat it too, otherwise, we will starve," said He, the farmer, as he shovelled freshly milled rice into a sack. "Yes, we sell this rice too."
NO HEALTH CARE
Few families in the villages downstream from the Daboshan mine have been left untouched by cancer.
The most common cancers are those of the stomach, liver, kidney and colon, accounting for about 85 percent of cancers. Cancer incidence rates in these villages are not available, but rights groups say they are far higher than the national average.
"In southern China, where communities depend largely from ponds or lakes for drinking water, the rates of digestive system cancer are very high," said a report 'Environment and People's Health in China', published by the World Health Organisation and United Nations Development Programme in 2001. Across China, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of small, anonymous villages that are suffering the consequences of the country's rapid economic expansion, villages with rates and types of cancers that experts say can only be due to pollution.
This may be the fate of more and more of China's population as mines and factories spew out tens of millions of tonnes of pollution every year, into the water system as well as the air, to produce the fruits of China's economic growth.
Death rates from cancer rose 19 percent in cities and 23 percent in rural areas in 2006, compared to 2005, according to official Chinese media, although they did not give exact figures.
The health burden has an economic price. The cost of cancer treatment has reached almost 100 billion yuan a year ($14.6 billion), accounting for 20 percent of China's medical expenditure, according to Chinese media.
NO COMPENSATION
The lack of a national health system means that most of the victims must pay their medical bills themselves.
Healthcare costs took up 50 percent of household income in China in 2006 due to inadequate health insurance, according to a paper published in the Lancet in October 2008.
China does not have a comprehensive state healthcare system and more than 80 percent of farmers have no medical insurance at all, although there are plans for sweeping reforms so that by 2011, most of the population will have basic medical coverage.
The residents of so called cancer villages, meanwhile, struggle to fund their medical care, often going into debt to pay crippling pharmaceutical and doctors' bills.
"An official did come to give me our compensation, 20 yuan ($2.93)," said Liang Xiti, whose husband died of stomach cancer at the age of 46. His medicines alone cost the family 800 yuan a month, she said.
Zhang Jingjing, a lawyer who is helping the villagers, said the local mine has promised to distribute a few thousands yuan to all the villagers every year.
Even though the funds will barely cover medical expenses, Zhang says it is an encouraging first step.
"This means the mine admits it is polluting the environment. If it did no wrong, it won't give out this money."
(Editing by Megan Goldin)
Confidential papers show how fishing boats in the region routinely fail to follow regulations put in place to protect tuna stocks
David Adam, guardian.co.uk 17 Sep 09;
Measures to protect dwindling stocks of bluefin tuna fish in the Mediterranean have failed to curb illegal fishing practices, leaked papers show.
The Guardian has been passed a confidential report of a French navy inspection of the tuna fishery, which shows how fishing boats in the region routinely fail to follow regulations put in place to protect stocks. Conservation experts say the report shows that existing controls are not enough to save the species and that wider measures are needed.
The disclosure comes in advance of a European commission vote on Monday on whether to support moves to list bluefin tuna as an endangered species under the UN agreement Cites, which would bring an immediate ban on its trade.
Sergi Tudela, head of fisheries at WWF Mediterranean, said: "This report speaks of the real situation of the fishery, more than any paper measures that remain largely unapplied. It is evident that the bluefin tuna fishery in the Mediterranean is still entirely out of control and illegal fishing continues unabated. Management measures adopted for the fishery are not only well below the standards requested by urgent scientific advice, but even so they are not even implemented in the field."
Stocks of bluefin in the Mediterranean - where they spawn before heading into the Atlantic - collapsed during the 1990s, driven by demand for sushi, for which their tender flesh is highly prized. Numbers are now reckoned to be below one-fifth of what they were in 1970.
The remaining fish are supposed to be protected by a intergovernmental body called the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which regulates catches and fishing activity. The organisation has been consistently criticised by scientists and conservation groups for setting quotas above sustainable levels and ignoring expert advice.
The French navy report describes a surprise inspection of the tuna fishery in the eastern Mediterranean by patrol boat Arago in May this year. The navy inspected 24 vessels from Turkey, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus involved in "purse seine" fishing for bluefin, a practice where fishermen use giant nets to herd the fish towards shore, where they are transferred to shallow water pens for fattening.
The report strongly criticised the Turkish fishing fleet. It says: "The Turkish didn't seem to apply the regulations. Registration documents were either not filled in or simply did not exist. There are no ICCAT observers in the purse seiners or the vessel is simply not registered with ICCAT."
Under ICCAT rules, each vessel over 24m needs to carry a regional observer to be allowed to work the fishery.
The Arago report says they found only one observer across the fleet, and raised question marks about his honesty. "After the inspections he would find all sorts of explanations or false arguments to try to justify noncompliance with ICCAT recommendations. Moreover, the estimations of the amount of fish in the cages given by him were on average 10-times lower than those estimated by the divers of the Arago."
In all, the Arago report details 22 breaches of ICCAT regulations, including fishing without licenses, poor or absent record keeping and taking fish below the allowed size.
Tudela said: "The risk situation reported for the bluefin tuna breeding stock is higher than ever. This is inevitable given the huge overcapacity of the industrial fleet targeting the stock. To break even, this giant fleet needs to overfish. The only option to save the stock and the fishery is to temporarily close the fishery, to create conditions for a sustainable fishery and to allow the stock to recover. A ban of international trade under Cites is essential to cut the main driver of overfishing. We want to see a sustainable fishery in the future, but to allow that we must give tuna a breather."
Greater use of contraceptives could help reduce the global impact of climate change, according to medical journal The Lancet.
The Telegraph 18 Sep 09;
In an editorial, The Lancet said more than 200 million women worldwide wanted contraceptives but lacked access to them.
Addressing this unmet need could prevent 76 million unintended pregnancies each year, slow population growth, and reduce demographic pressure on the environment, it said.
The journal said: ''Countries in the developing world least responsible for the growing emissions are likely to experience the heaviest impact of climate change, with women bearing the greatest toll.
''In tandem with other factors, rapid population growth in these regions increases the scale of vulnerability to the consequences of climate change, for example, food and water scarcity, environmental degradation, and human displacement.''
The Lancet also criticised non-government organisations (NGOs) for ''working in silos'' and avoiding the varied approach needed to change social attitudes.
A study soon to be published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) showed that 37 of the least developed countries appreciated the link between population growth and climate change. However, only six of them identified family planning as part of their adaptation strategy. This was possibly because family planning fell under the remit of health rather than environment ministries, said The Lancet.
Only 7 per cent of 448 projects submitted by developing countries to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change involved the health sector.
The Lancet highlighted a successful programme in Ethiopia which trained people in sustainable land management at the same time as increasing the availability of family planning. It resulted in an immediate improvement to the environment with better agricultural practices.
''The sexual and reproductive health and rights community should challenge the global architecture of climate change, and its technology focus, and shift the discussion to a more human-based, rights-based adaptation approach,'' said the editorial. ''Such a strategy would better serve the range of issues pivotal to improving the health of women worldwide.''
Earlier this month, research by the London School of Economics said contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green technologies.
Every £4 spent on family planning over the next four decades would reduce global CO2 emissions by more than a ton, whereas a minimum of £19 would have to be spent on low-carbon technologies to achieve the same result, the research said.
Birth control could help combat climate change
Yahoo News 18 Sep 09;
LONDON – Giving contraceptives to people in developing countries could help fight climate change by slowing population growth, experts said Friday.
More than 200 million women worldwide want contraceptives, but don't have access to them, according to an editorial published in the British medical journal, Lancet. That results in 76 million unintended pregnancies every year.
If those women had access to free condoms or other birth control methods, that could slow rates of population growth, possibly easing the pressure on the environment, the editors say.
"There is now an emerging debate and interest about the links between population dynamics, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and climate change," the commentary says.
In countries with access to condoms and other contraceptives, average family sizes tend to fall significantly within a generation. Until recently, many U.S.-funded health programs did not pay for or encourage condom use in poor countries, even to fight diseases such as AIDS.
The world's population is projected to jump to 9 billion by 2050, with more than 90 percent of that growth coming from developing countries.
It's not the first time lifestyle issues have been tied to the battle against global warming. Climate change experts have previously recommended that people cut their meat intake to slow global warming by reducing the numbers of animals using the world's resources.
The Lancet editorial cited a British report which says family planning is five times cheaper than usual technologies used to fight climate change. According to the report, each $7 spent on basic family planning would slash global carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1 ton.
Experts believe that while normal population growth is unlikely to significantly increase global warming that overpopulation in developing countries could lead to increased demand for food and shelter, which could jeopardize the environment as it struggles with global warming.
http://www.lancet.com
Contraception vital in climate change fight: expert
Kate Kelland, Reuters 18 Sep 09;
LONDON (Reuters) - Contraception advice is crucial to poor countries' battle with climate change, and policy makers are failing their people if they continue to shy away from the issue, a leading family planning expert said on Friday.
Leo Bryant, a lead researcher on a World Health Organisation study on population growth and climate change, said the stigma attached to birth control in both developing and developed countries was hindering vital progress.
"We are certainly not advocating that governments should start telling people how many children they can have," said Bryant, an advocacy manager at the family planning group Marie Stopes International, who wrote a commentary in the Lancet medical journal on Friday.
"The ability to choose your family size...is a fundamental human right. But lack of access to family planning means millions of people in developing countries don't have that right," he told Reuters.
Bryant's study of climate change adaptation plans by governments in the world's 40 poorest countries showed that almost all of them link rapid population growth to environmental impact, but only six had proposed steps to tackle it.
"Acknowledgement of the problem is widespread, but resolve to address seems to be very much a minority sport," he said.
Bryant said 200 million women across the world want contraceptives, but cannot get them. Addressing this need would slow population growth and reduce demographic pressure on the environment.
In most countries with good access to birth control, average family sizes shrink dramatically within a generation, he said. But policymakers in rich donor nations are wary of talking about contraception for fear of being accused of advocating draconian ideas like sterilization or one-child policies.
Bryant's comments echo those by the head of Britain's science academy Martin Rees, who told Reuters this month that the stigma holding women back from getting access to birth control must be removed to reduce the impact of rising populations on climate change.
The world's population is forecast to rise by one third to more than 9 billion people by 2050, with 95 percent of this growth in developing countries.
In a study to be published in the WHO Bulletin in November, Bryant and colleagues said that population growth in poorer nations was unlikely to increase global warming significantly, as their carbon emissions are relatively low. But overpopulation combined with climate change would worsen living conditions by degrading natural resources, they said.
Climate change can also not only cause more natural disasters such as storms, but force people to live in areas at risk of floods, drought and disease.
Bryant said health policies targeting family planning must be combined projects to educate people about sustainable farming and land management.
"Then the gains that you make in environmental sustainability in the immediate term are going to be protected in the long term against a rapidly growing population," he said.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Charles Dick)
Yahoo News 17 Sep 09;
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Cars running on sugarcane ethanol can produce as many harmful pollutants as those using ordinary petrol (gasoline), according a study published by Brazil's environment ministry.
But the report on the emissions of the cars on Brazil's roads does not count carbon dioxide emissions.
"We want to make sure that customers are aware of pollutant emissions" when they buy a car, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said Tuesday on delivering the report.
The study ranked emissions based of a scale of "green grades" that measured three pollutant gases that do not produce climate change but do affect the health of a country's population: carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide.
The green grade scale, ranging from 0-10, does not count carbon emissions, which are the main driver of global warming, because emissions from burning ethanol are offset by the carbon dioxide that sugar cane absorbs as it grows, the study said.
The research also examined 250 so-called "flex-fuel" cars, which use both ethanol and petrol and constitute about 85 percent of all cars on the road in Brazil.
Among those receiving the lowest scores, eight were cars running on ethanol, including several with "flex" engines, the study said, though all of the models examined met Brazil's standards for maximum emissions levels in 2008.
Environmental group Greenpeace welcomed the report, but an official with the group's climate change campaign in Brazil, Joao Talochhi, told Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper that "when it comes to public health, the Brazilian government should invest in non-polluting vehicle technology."
ScienceDaily 17 Sep 09;
Scientists from the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth are calling for urgent research to understand the impact of renewable energy developments on marine life. The study, now published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, highlights potential environmental benefits and threats resulting from marine renewable energy, such as off-shore wind farms and wave and tidal energy conversion devices.
The research highlights the capacity for marine renewable energy devices to boost local biodiversity and benefit the wider marine environment. Man-made structures on the sea bed attract many marine organisms and sometimes become 'artifical reefs', for example, supporting a wide variety of fish. The study also points out that such devices could have negative environmental impacts, resulting from habitat loss, collision risks, noise and electromagnetic fields.
The study highlights the gaps in our understanding of the effects of marine renewable energy devices on the health of our oceans. The team calls for more research to improve our understanding of these threats and opportunities. The researchers also stress the importance of considering the impact on marine life when selecting locations for the installation of marine energy devices.
Corresponding author Dr Brendan Godley of the University of Exeter said: "Marine renewable energy is hugely exciting and it is vital that we explore the potential for it to provide a clean and sustainable energy source. However, to date research into the impact of marine renewable energy on sea life has been very limited. . Our study highlights the urgent need for more research into the impacts of marine renewable energy on marine life. This will involve biologists, engineers and policy-makers working together to ensure we really understand the risks and opportunities for marine life."
Professor Martin Attrill, Director of the University of Plymouth Marine Institute said: "Our paper highlights the need to take a fresh look at the effect marine renewable energy generation has on the environment if we are to deliver a higher proportion of energy from renewable sources and start to combat climate change. We need to have the industry working directly with conservation bodies to plan the next phase of development. We suggest further research could demonstrate the potential of security zones around, for example, wave farms to act as Marine Protected Areas. Therefore, if all stakeholders can work together in a coordinated way we can possibly address two key issues - combating climate change and creating a network of MPAs. We need the research on environmental impact to help move the whole field forward."
This study was carried out by PRIMaRE (the Peninsula Research Institute for Marine Renewable Energy), a joint £15 million institute for research into harnessing the energy from the sea bringing together the technology and marine expertise of the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth.
Journal reference:
1. Inger et al. Marine renewable energy: potential benefits to biodiversity? An urgent call for research. Journal of Applied Ecology, 2009; DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01697.x
Adapted from materials provided by University of Exeter.
John Acher and Karin Jensen, Reuters 17 Sep 09;
ESBJERG, Denmark (Reuters) - Denmark on Thursday inaugurated the world's biggest offshore wind farm in time to serve as a showcase of its green technological prowess before a global climate conference in Copenhagen in December.
The 91-turbine Horns Rev 2 wind farm off the west coast of Jutland in the North Sea will generate enough electricity for 200,000 Danish households.
"Horns Rev 2 is an important step in our energy policy," Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told guests gathered for the opening ceremony in the west coast town of Esbjerg.
"It's our ambition that Denmark will be a green growth laboratory," Rasmussen said after he joined Crown Prince Frederik in inaugurating the park on its offshore platform.
World leaders will meet in the Danish capital on December 7-19 to try to hammer out a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.
Denmark, which gets a fifth of its electricity production from wind, aims for an ambitious treaty in Copenhagen and hopes the conference will boost its environmental technology industry.
"Given that we are hosting the COP15 (climate) meeting in December, this is also a strong signal to the world that investments in renewable energy can go hand in hand with growth and economic development," Rasmussen told Reuters.
"I'm totally convinced it can have a political impact," said Rasmussen, who last week visited India where he said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was working to bring electricity to 100 million Indians without access to power.
"His (Singh's) first priority is to fight poverty and to bring electricity to more people and to do it in a sustainable way, and for that reason it is good to have showcases," Rasmussen said.
The climate talks have stalled over how to share the burden of curbing greenhouse gases between rich and poor nations and on aid to help the poor shift to greener technologies such as solar or wind power.
Rasmussen said there was enormous potential for "green development" and added: "You need cases like this to prove - not only to political leaders but also to their voters and inhabitants - that it is possible to build a bridge between the climate change agenda and bringing prosperity to people."
The 209-megawatt Horns Rev 2 development by state-owned DONG Energy is the offshore wind farm situated furthest out to sea, 30 kilometers off the coast, northwest of Esbjerg.
The 3.5 billion crowns ($694 million) wind park overtakes another Denmark installation, the 166-MW Nysted wind farm -- also DONG Energy's -- as the world's biggest offshore wind park.
FIRST ACCOMMODATION PLATFORM
But it will be superseded by the 630-MW London Array wind park in the Thames Estuary once that comes on stream in time for the London Olympics in 2012.
The wind park, consisting of 13 parallel rows of seven turbines each that spread out fan-like, is the world's first to have an offshore accommodation platform that can house up to 24 workers. Plans call for it to be manned year-round.
The turbines are from Siemens and rise to a total height of 114.5 meters above sea level. An additional 30-40 meters are below the surface. Each has a capacity of 2.3 megawatts, and the blade diameter is 93 meters.
Current from the turbines goes by buried cables to a transformer on the platform from where the electricity is brought ashore by a subsea cable.
If a new U.N. climate pact imposes tough emissions cuts, wind power stands to benefit as countries will be forced to turn increasingly to non-carbon renewable energy sources.
(Editing by James Jukwey)
World's biggest offshore windfarm launched ... eventually
Fritz Schur, chairman of Dong, said his firm would triple its production capacity of clean energy by 2020
Terry Macalister, guardian.co.uk 17 Sep 09;
The world's largest offshore windfarm was inaugurated in the North Sea today – with a high-profile display of the intermittent nature of this power source.
Danish Crown Prince Frederik pressed the button to start the Horns Rev 2 project, which uses 91 turbines to generate enough green power for 200,000 households.
But an industry audience brought together in a civic centre to watch the opening via a videolink with the 209MW windfarm, watched in silence as the turbines failed to turn.
Half a minute later as a breeze developed and the first blade slowly began to rotate, there were cheers of relief as much as joy from executives of the developer, Dong, and its guests.
Horns Rev 2, 30 kilometres (16.2 nautical miles) off the coast of Jutland, Denmark, is the largest offshore windfarm but its position will be eclipsed when the Greater Gabbard field comes on stream in Britain followed later by the much larger London Array.
The 3.5bn kroner (£420m) development has some extra significance because it has been put together by a Danish oil company.
Fritz Schur, chairman of Dong, said his firm would triple its production capacity of clean energy by 2020. "Establishing Horns Rev 2 is an important milestone in Dong Energy's gradual transition from conventional to green power generation," he said.
Critics of wind power complain that it is unreliable because of the intermittent nature of wind. But wind executives say this will only be a problem if it replaces most other energy sources. Even then they believe that other forms of clean energy can be used to take up the slack via a much-vaunted super grid to link the whole of Europe's electricity supply.
Niels Bergh-Hansen, head of wind power at Dong, shrugged off the slow start at Horns Rev 2. "The turbines are very heavy and it always takes time to get started. I had faith in the team out there and never doubted it would work fine."
Dong Energy: 'Clean' Denmark's dirty secret
State-owned Dong Energy trades on its green image at home while outsourcing the dirty end of its energy portfolio with coal-fired power stations elsewhere in Europe
Fred Pearce, guardian.co.uk 17 Sep 09;
The Danes like to think of themselves as green. Denmark is home to the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas. And today, the giant state-owned energy company, Dong Energy, opens the world's largest windfarm.
But the Danes have a dirty secret. For Dong Energy, while greening its image at home, is busy building coal-fired power stations elsewhere in Europe. First in Germany, and now in Scotland.
We in the rich world are used to the idea of our big companies dumping their dirty and anti-social industries on the poor countries. But now European companies are doing the same to us. Rather as if Scotland were a banana republic somewhere in the developing world, it is the recipient of Dong "outsourcing" the dirty end of its energy portfolio.
Dong, which began as a North Sea oil and gas company before buying the country's electricity utilities, trades on its green image in a country that likes to be thought of as green. Its website announces that the company is "part of the solution" to climate change, and it lovingly pictures its efforts to "move energy forward" on a sea of wind turbines.
Today Denmark's king and prime minister will both be on hand as the record-breaking 209-MW Horns Rev 2 windfarm opens off the west coast.
But Dong also sees itself as a diverse energy provider, and wants to grow in the coal business, too. It would be unlikely to get permission to build a new coal-fired plant at home, however. The Danish government last December proposed that the EU should limit carbon emissions from new power plants to 500g per kilowatt hour – far too low to accommodate a coal-fired plant.
So, what it cannot do at home, it is intent on doing abroad. It is planning to build a giant 1600MW coal-fired plant at Greifswald in northern Germany.
And now in Scotland, Dong is to take a 75% stake in a new joint venture with local company Peel Energy to build a similar behemoth at Hunterston, west of Glasgow.
It would be the first new fossil-fuel burning power plant in Scotland for 30 years – a real step backwards for the country that has pioneered wind power in Britain.
I have written about Scotland talking green and building for coal before. The Scottish Nationalist government is keen to end the country's reliance on nuclear power, and to that end they are covering the glens in wind turbines and dotting the coastline with coal-fired power stations. Dong's new Hunterston plant would be built next to a nuclear power station.
But Dong, like many coal companies, is keen to give the dirtiest fossil fuel a makeover. For instance, it says it will add some biofuels to the coal in the boiler to create a "super-efficient multi-fuel power plant". Both the German and Scottish plants will this way reduce emissions by 20-30% compared to conventional coal power stations, it says.
But sorry, it will still burn coal. Burning coal produces roughly twice the CO2 emissions of even another fossil fuel like natural gas. So that 20-30% cut still leaves it among the dirtiest plants around. WWF estimates the new plant's carbon emissions will be 6.9m tonnes a year. So it would still be outlawed by the proposed new EU rules.
The other greenwash favoured by coal-burners is to hold out the prospect that emissions will soon be cleaned up and buried under ground using carbon capture and storage.
Dong says the construction plans for the £2bn Hunterston plant "include the development of carbon capture and storage", but adds the caveat "once the CCS technology has been fully developed."
As I have written before, that's quite a caveat. By some counts, that day will not happen till towards the end of the plant's lifetime, if at all.
Dong Energy may be an efficient coal-burner. But dressing that accomplishment up as a green technology is greenwash. When it goes on the coal trail, Dong looks like part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Thomas L. Friedman, Straits Times 18 Sep 09;
APPLIED Materials is one of the most important United States companies you've probably never heard of. It makes the machines that make the microchips that go inside your computer. The chip business, though, is volatile.
So in 2004, Mr Mike Splinter, Applied Materials' chief executive, decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company's nanotechnology capabilities - making the machines that make solar panels.
The other day, he gave me a tour of the company's Silicon Valley facility, culminating with a visit to its 'war room', where Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar-panel factories it's built around the world in the last two years. I could only laugh because crying would have been too embarrassing.
Not a single one is in America.
Let's see: five are in Germany, four are in China, one is in Spain, one is in India, one is in Italy, one is in Taiwan, and one is even in Abu Dhabi. I suggested a new company motto for Applied Materials' solar business: 'Invented here, sold there'.
The reason all these other places are building solar-panel industries today is that most of their governments have put in place the three prerequisites for growing a renewable energy industry: any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftops.
Regulatory, price and connectivity certainty, that is what Germany put in place, and that explains why it now generates almost half the solar power in the world today and, as a by-product, is making itself the world centre for solar research, engineering, manufacturing and installation. With more than 50,000 new jobs, the renewable energy industry in Germany is now second only to its auto industry. One thing that has never existed in America - with its fragmented, stop-start solar subsidies - is certainty of price, connectivity and regulation on a national basis.
That is why, although consumer demand for solar power has incrementally increased in the US, it has not been enough for anyone to have Applied Materials - the world's biggest solar equipment manufacturer - build him a new factory in America yet. So, right now, American federal and state subsidies for installing solar systems are largely paying for the cost of importing solar panels made in China, by Chinese workers, using high-tech manufacturing equipment invented in America.
Have a nice day.
'About 95 per cent of our solar business is outside the US,' said Mr Splinter. 'Our biggest US customer is a German- owned company in Oregon. We sell them pieces of equipment.'
If you read some of the anti-green commentary today, you'll often see sneering references to 'green jobs'. The phrase is usually in quotation marks as if it is some kind of liberal fantasy or closet welfare programme (and as if coal, oil and nuclear don't get all kinds of subsidies). Nonsense. Last year, more silicon was consumed globally making solar panels than microchips, said Mr Splinter.
'We are seeing the industrialisation of the solar business,' he added. 'In the last 12 months, it has brought us US$1.3 billion (S$1.8 billion) in revenues. It is hard to build a billion-dollar business.'
Applied sells its solar-panel factories for US$200 million each. Solar panels can be made from many different semiconductors, including thin film coated onto glass with nanotechnology and from crystalline silicon. At Applied, making these complex machines requires America's best, high-paid talent - people who can work at the intersection of chemistry, physics and nanotechnology.
If the US wants to launch a solar industry, big-time, it needs to offer the kind of long-term certainty that Germany does, or impose the national requirement on its utilities to generate solar power as China does, or have the government build giant solar farms, the way it built the Hoover Dam, and sell the electricity.
Okay, so you don't believe global warming is real. I do, but let's assume it's not. Here is what is indisputable: The world is on track to add another 2.5 billion people by 2050, and many will be aspiring to live American-like, high-energy lifestyles. In such a world, renewable energy - where the variable cost of your fuel, sun or wind, is zero - will be in huge demand.
China now understands that. It no longer believes it can pollute its way to prosperity because it would choke to death. That is the most important shift in the world in the last 18 months. China has decided that clean-tech is going to be the next great global industry and is now creating a massive domestic market for solar and wind, which will give it a great export platform.
Next month, Applied will be opening the world's largest solar research centre - in Xian, China. Gotta go where the customers are. So if Americans like importing oil from Saudi Arabia, they're going to love importing solar panels from China.
NEW YORK TIMES
David Fogarty and Deborah Zabarenko, PlanetArk 18 Sep 09;
SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON - In the game of climate poker, developing nations might feel they have the right cards on the table in U.N. talks after ramping up efforts to curb greenhouse gas output.
China, India, South Korea and other emerging economic powers have announced a series of measures this year to make their economies greener and limit the increase of carbon dioxide emissions from their farms, forests and factories.
The question is whether these domestic steps are enough to seal a new global climate deal, prompt rich nations to toughen their emissions reduction pledges and lead to billions in annual financing to help poorer countries fight global warming.
The measures, focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency, have drawn international praise and helped strengthen the hand of developing nations in talks to try to agree on a replacement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
The U.N. hopes those talks will culminate in December in the Danish city of Copenhagen.
But some rich nations want more. Some in the U.S. Congress say China, now the world's top greenhouse gas polluter, and other big developing nations, must agree to binding emissions curbs. It comes down to trust and accountability.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will help to craft U.S. climate legislation, was encouraged by China's climate moves.
"I'm confident that China is prepared to take some steps that will be meaningful," Kerry told reporters on Tuesday, in advance of a flurry of global climate gatherings in the United States.
"I think the crucial question is, can we together, America and China, forge a partnership that's capable of acting boldly enough to prevent a climate catastrophe?" Kerry said.
China said it would unveil new plans to tackle global warming during a U.N. meeting later this month.
"GET REAL"
The U.N.'s top climate change official says it is not the time to be asking poorer nations to take on binding cuts.
"I'd say get real, quite honestly. We know that the bulk of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are there because of industrialized countries and that's why industrialized countries have to take responsibility and act first," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N.'s Climate Change Secretariat.
"China is setting targets already. It is setting targets for industrial energy efficiency, for renewable energy, for buildings efficiency, for sustainable cities," he told Reuters.
He also said it was "nonsense" to ask India, the world's fourth-largest emitter, to reduce its emissions at the same time as it fights poverty with increased development.
The Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012, requires only rich nations to limit greenhouse emissions.
The Copenhagen talks aim to draw up the outlines of an agreement that brings all nations, plus aviation and shipping, into the fight against climate change.
Without domestic efforts, there is no prospect for an effective global deal, Elliot Diringer of the Washington-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said by telephone.
"How serious the initiatives are and what they could actually deliver remain to be seen, but they certainly create a more positive momentum going into Copenhagen."
EMISSIONS SET TO SOAR
A major concern is the pace of emissions growth from the developing world, which is set to jump over the next 20 to 30 years. India said this month its greenhouse gas emissions could double or more than triple to 7.3 billion tonnes by 2031.
China's emissions are also expected to soar and a Beijing energy think-tank said this week China needs huge flows of clean technology investment to maintain hope of keeping emissions below levels that could help push the planet deep into dangerous global warming.
"In the short run, the developing nations are sitting ducks and they can do nothing to stop global warming," said climate policy expert Graciela Chichilnisky of Columbia University.
"In the long run ... developing nations are going to have the global warming issue by the tail."
How efforts to curb emissions will be funded has been a major sticking point in talks leading up to Copenhagen, with developing nations insisting the rich world should meet most of the cost of tackling a problem they caused in the first place.
Developing countries must use their pledged actions to try to win the best possible deal in Copenhagen, said Kim Carstensen, head of conservation group WWF's Global Climate Initiative.
"Most of what we see at the moment coming from these countries is what they intended to do in any case, funding or no funding," he said.
Instead, domestic steps should be part of the grand climate bargain to try to win the best possible funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation programs in poorer countries and the transfer of clean-energy technology.
"What we lack is some kind of agreement of how that translates into something international," he said of domestic steps.
For some nations, though, backing away from insisting on emissions targets is just too hard.
Any steps by big developing nations to curb emissions were positive and would help their negotiating positions, said Peter Backlund, a former science adviser in the Clinton White House.
"But there's still a kind of a superficial level where the line that's got to get passed to really make a huge difference is about setting a target," said Backlund, now director of research relations at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
"Even though the steps themselves might be more consequential than a target, it's just a kind of superficial marker that's been established."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
FACTBOX: Steps By Developing Nations To Fight Climate Change
David Fogarty, PlanetArk 18 Sep 09;
Major developing nations have announced steps over the past year to curb their growing greenhouse emissions as the world tries to negotiate a broader, and tougher, U.N. pact to slow the pace of climate change.
Rich nations have demanded China, India, Brazil and others to set binding emissions reduction targets to help seal a global climate deal in December, but poorer nations instead say they will take steps according to their abilities.
Following are actions or pledges by leading developing nations.
CHINA
-- Government aims to cut energy consumption per unit of GDP by about 20 percent by 2010 compared with 2005 levels, which it says will save more than 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from being emitted.
-- Goal for renewable energy to account for 15 percent of total energy consumption by 2020. Wind power generation is forecast to rise to 100 gigawatts by 2020 and the official forecast is 1.8 gigawatts for solar, though this may be conservative.
-- Fuel economy standards among toughest in the world.
-- Top climate diplomat said last month he wants to see emissions peak as soon as possible and major Chinese study released in August called for the government to set firm targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak around 2030.
INDIA
-- Government has pledged to ramp up investment in renewables and has set a solar power target of 20 gigawatts by 2020, up from a fraction of that now.
-- Aims for energy efficiency targets for more than 700 industrial operations as a step toward a national trading system centered on energy efficiency certificates.
-- Enforce energy efficiency for appliances, lighting, power distribution transformers.
-- Mandatory fuel efficiency standards for the transport sector by 2011.
MEXICO
-- Plans to put a detailed offer to cut growth of its greenhouse gas emissions at climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
-- President Felipe Calderon said in June Mexico would voluntarily cut 50 million tonnes of verifiable annual emissions by the end of his term in 2012 by bolstering efficiency in the state-run electricity and oil industries and improving rural land use. But CO2 emissions from the oil industry soared in 2008.
-- Agreed with the United States and Canada to build infrastructure to cooperate on CO2 emissions trading.
BRAZIL
-- To announce targets to substantially curb carbon emissions. Announcement to come before the Copenhagen meeting.
-- Last year presented a plan to slash Amazon deforestation in half over 10 years and thereby avoid the release of 4.8 billion tonnes of CO2.
-- Will announce on September 17 new restrictions on sugar cane planting and ban new cane mills in the Amazon rain forest and the Pantanal wetland area in the country's west.
SOUTH KOREA
-- Unveiled plan in August to opt for a voluntary 2020 reduction target. To decide on three options with a minus-four percent target by 2020 from 2005 levels being the most ambitious.
-- Also plans to trial emissions trading and tax incentives to achieve the 2020 goal, boost use of hybrid cars and renewable energy and increase nuclear power output as part of steps to spark a "green revolution" of the economy.
INDONESIA
-- Government-back National Climate Change Council in August set out roadmap for government to adopt measures in forestry, energy, transport and industry to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
-- Created government-backed clean technology fund to ramp up renewable energy investment.
-- Government is a leading supporter of U.N.-backed forest preservation scheme called REDD that aims to reward developing nations with valuable carbon credits for saving forests.
-- Government has crash program to add 10,000 megawatts of power through coal and renewable energy such as geothermal power.
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
FACTBOX: Quotes On Steps By Developing Nations To Curb CO2
David Fogarty, PlanetArk 18 Sep 09;
Developing nations have stepped up pledges to curb growth in greenhouse gas emissions as U.N.-led talks trying to seal a broader pact on fighting climate change intensity ahead of a major climate meeting in December.
Following are comments from leading climate officials and policy analysts on how these steps will affect the tone of the talks and the outcome.
KIM CARSTENSEN, HEAD OF WWF'S GLOBAL CLIMATE INITIATIVE
"The good news is that these new developments show that a large number of developing countries are taking climate change seriously and are preparing themselves for significant action on the mitigation side and on the adaptation side.
"What we lack is some kind of agreement of how that translates into something international. And that I think is one of the technical problems in the negotiations, that these things have been put forward in a domestic political context for each of the countries, but they are not at the moment seen or defined as part of a negotiated international framework."
CHEW TAI SOO, SINGAPORE'S CLIMATE CHANGE AMBASSADOR
"The problem is not one of whether countries are doing enough, or doing anything. It's a question of the demand by developed countries that developing countries must commit themselves to these targets internationally. That is a difficult issue.
"China, India, domestically they are doing something. In China's case, even the U.S. admits that it is doing a lot. But these are domestic actions, domestic programs and the line that needs to be crossed will be whether the Chinese or other developing countries are prepared to commit themselves to what they are doing domestically, internationally."
MATTHEW CLARKE, SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AND POLITICAL
STUDIES, DEAKIN UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
"Developing countries are now seeing the value in engaging with climate change negotiations. As the most vulnerable in the long term, it is to their advantage to support an international climate change protocol.
"Until now, the reluctance of developing countries to commit to measures to reduce measures has allowed developed nations an excuse to also not commit: 'If they aren't going to reduce emissions, why should we'. Given the engagement of developing countries, this approach by wealthy countries will no longer suffice."
DIVYA REDDY, ANALYST IN EURASIA GROUP'S GLOBAL ENERGY &
NATURAL RESOURCES PRACTICE
"I think it makes it harder for the U.S. and other industrialized countries to say that they need to see action from China and India before acting themselves. People in the Obama administration and some in Congress have already backed away from that position, pointing to significant progress in China, in particular.
"But I don't think it's undermined pressure on developing countries to accept binding targets. I think that is something that will still come up in Copenhagen, even though they won't accept taking on mandatory targets.
"But it will increase pressure on industrialized countries to show that they too are willing to do more, especially in the 2020 timeframe and in helping developed countries by putting forward more money. And that's likely where talks will break down."
PETER BACKLUND, FORMER SCIENCE ADVISOR IN THE CLINTON
ADMINISTRATION
"All these things are very positive and it's accelerating and it's happening faster than I would have expected in the run-up to Copenhagen.
"But there's still a kind of a superficial level where the line that's got to get passed to really make a huge difference is about setting a target.
"Even though the steps themselves might be more consequential than a target, it's just a kind of superficial marker that's been established."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
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