St John's - Sargassum season
from Singapore Nature and Psychedelic Nature and wild shores of singapore with more fishies
Bird Ecology Study Group blog
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Berlayar Creek: soil investigation works until Nov 09
from wild shores of singapore
Green Sea Turtles @ Kusu Island's captive pool
from sgbeachbum
Ruddy Kingfisher eats one-legged crab
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Comprehensive study will identify weak areas that need improvement
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 23 Sep 09;
(SINGAPORE) Singapore is carrying out a holistic review of its critical electricity and gas network systems to identify potential weak spots which can be beefed up, so as to prevent any major power failures which can be costly for the economy.
The thorough study will be carried out all the way down the line - from gas receiving terminals and gas pipelines to facilities in the power stations, underground electricity transmission systems, etc.
The aim is to make the electricity and gas systems - which are interrelated and with many interdependent operations - more robust, especially as more new players are expected to enter the market shortly.
'Additional generation capacity of about 1,700 MW is expected to come on stream around 2013,' the Energy Market Authority (EMA) said in its tender document for the study, while the new $1-1.5 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Jurong Island, construction of which is scheduled to begin in January, is also expected to start operating in 2013.
The study, expected to take five-and-a-half months, follows several electricity blackouts or near incidents here over the last few years, triggered primarily by disruptions to natural gas supplies from Indonesia and Malaysia, with these affecting operations down the line. The last one happened in November last year, EMA chief executive Lawrence Wong told BT in a recent interview, when lightning struck Singapore's onshore gas receiving facility, and EMA had to activate the standard operating procedure for the power stations to switch to a liquid fuel to ensure that electricity supplies were not disrupted.
In a bid to prevent any future occurrences, EMA is now inviting bids for a consultant to form a project team to carry out the review of the electricity and gas systems 'to identify all potential vulnerabilities' and 'to provide mitigation options to address these'.
The two systems are critically interlinked in that 80 per cent of the electricity here is generated from natural gas, with the remainder 20 per cent from fuel oil and refuse incineration.
The present five generation companies here - Senoko Power, PowerSeraya, Tuas Power, Keppel Merlimau Cogen and Sembcorp Cogen - which provide a total 9,691 MW of generating capacity, use mainly their more efficient combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) to produce the electricity.
As such, CCGTs account for 62 per cent of the gencos' current installed generation capacity, with another 3 per cent being open cycle gas turbines. The remainder 35 per cent comprises steam turbines (which use fuel oil or diesel as feedstock).
The consultant's study will cover areas including onshore gas receiving terminals here; the gas pipeline network; standby fuel management including that of fuel oil, diesel and alternative gas sources at each power station; emergency fuel switching during gas disruption; and also the predominantly underground electricity transmission system.
It will look at details such as design; protection and control; operation and maintenance; and emergency responses for such facilities. The study will however, not cover system vulnerabilities arising from terrorism or sabotage.
EMA said that although it is carrying out the study, the findings will be made available to a number of stakeholders, including government agencies; electricity and gas licensees; fuel suppliers; and the electricity and gas network operators.
On the upcoming new generation capacity, EMA did not spell out where the additional 1,700 MW expected here around 2013 will come from, although this most likely includes India's GMR - with its planned $1.2 billion, 800MW Island Power project - for which it is now trying to source Indonesian natural gas.
Tuas Power is also mulling a US$2 billion coal/biomass plant to produce mainly steam, although the plant will also produce 180 MW of electricity; while Sembcorp is considering a second cogen plant based on waste-to-energy technology, but has not disclosed its scale.
Benson Ang, The New Paper 23 Sep 09;
IT WAS the biggest artwork he had made in his life of nine years.
Never mind if it was the adults who did all the sewing.
For Ethan Cheung, what mattered was that he was part of the United Nation's International Day of Peace.
Together with his brothers Keenan, 31/2, and Declan, 21/2, the Tanjong Katong Primary School student worked hard at painting the feathers, making sure each was colourful and beautiful.
About 100 participants - comprising volunteers and members of the public - attended yesterday's Day of Peace. The event was organised by the Singapore branch of the Jane Goodall Institute, a conservation group.
The birds were made from newspapers, paint, bamboo poles and bedsheets.
And each was larger than a motorcycle.
About 15 of these giant doves were paraded around the compound of the Old School at Mount Sophia about 5pm yesterday.
At least one of the doves, which had a wingspan of about 5m, was made mainly by schoolchildren. The bird's head was made of paper mache, which was stuck to a giant balloon.
It had a pink beak made of cardboard, and its wings and tail were made of 'feathers' made from pieces of scrap cloth, which were sewn onto an old bedsheet.
The dove was designed by Mr Andrew Tay, 45, a volunteer from Cicada Tree Eco-Place, a nature education group.
Mr Tay said he wanted each feather to have a heart painted on it to symbolise love and peace.
The parade of doves was followed by a concert of dance and music acts.
The event brought together several other non-governmental organisations such as Unifem Singapore, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society, to celebrate peace.
Gillian Murdoch, Reuters 22 Sep 09;
ACEH, Indonesia (Reuters) - For decades, the roar of the chainsaw has meant one thing in Indonesia's national parks: illegal loggers ripping down the rainforest.
Now, the whirring blades are part of a fight back to cut out illegal palm oil from the international supply chain and slow the deforestation that has pushed Indonesia's carbon emissions sky high, threatening the destruction of some of the world's most ecologically important tropical forests and their animals.
In the country's first, symbolic action to stop the lucrative crop's march into protected lands a chainsaw-wielding alliance led by the Aceh Conservation Agency (BPKEL), Acehnese NGOs, and police teams are sweeping tens of thousands of hectares of illegal palm from the 2.5 million hectare Leuser Ecosystem.
"Plantation speculators, developers, whatever you want to call them, have moved in further and further," said Mike Griffiths of BPKEL, the agency created by Aceh Governor Yusuf Irwandi to manage Leuser in 2006, a year after the province at Sumatra's northern tip won greater autonomy from Jakarta.
"They do it by fait accompli... Go in, knock the trees down and plant, and all of a sudden the local perception is that you own it. It's Wild West stuff."
Planting a cash crop used in some of the world's best-known brands of chocolate, crisps and soaps inside legally-protected forests and national parks may seem a high-risk strategy.
But with much legal land already allocated, lax law enforcement, large untapped workforces of villagers living inside remote rainforests, and high Crude Palm Oil (CPO) prices, such illegal conversions makes sense to many.
"The forest is seen as a green tangle with little real use and filled with dangerous animals and diseases," explained Jutta Poetz, Biodiversity Coordinator at industry environmental standards body the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
"If this green tangle can be converted into something profitable, with the dangers largely removed, isn't that good? Plantations will develop the country, create jobs and improve people's lives. This appears to be the prevailing sentiment in Southeast Asia."
GREASY PALMS?
One year after Indonesia overtook Malaysia as the world's top palm oil producer, hundreds of illegal plantations are thought to riddle its reserves.
A 2007 United Nations report found forest conversion for palm oil plantations was the country's leading cause of deforestation, with illegal oil palm, illegal logging and illegal land clearances by fire occurring inside 37 of 41 national parks.
Leuser, Sumatra's largest rainforest expanse, and one of the last refuges for endangered Sumatran tigers, elephants, orangutan and rhinos, was one of the worst affected, it said.
Industry bodies, such as the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, GAPKI, insist all plantations follow government regulations, and any found playing fast and loose with the rules are targets.
"We support that illegal oil palm plantations have been cleared -- if they do not follow all the regulations," said Fadhil Hasan, Executive Director of GAPKI.
The Leuser chainsaw sting evicted eleven illegal estates covering 12,000 hectares, a fraction of the at least 50 other illegal estates BPKEL estimates are in the reserve.
NGOs in Aceh say corruption greases the wheels of the plantation concession system. Officials allegedly pocket millions of rupiah for issuing non-binding "recommendations" to companies lacking official permits, and fail to enforce laws stipulating ten years' jail and a $500,000 fine for planting in parks.
Forestry officials in the area say confusion, rather than corruption, is the problem.
Conflicting maps, clashing tenure claims, and overlapping authorities mean locals, district chiefs, companies and government officials may not be aware of exact park boundaries, even in UNESCO-listed World Heritage rainforests such as Leuser.
"The boundaries do not match reality in the field," said Syahyahri, head of Aceh Tamiang Forestry Department.
"Villagers don't know who the forest belongs to. They may not have seen the maps. We are gathering data for making the boundaries now."
HIDDEN COSTS
Leuser's regenerating forests will form a 'corridor' connecting two otherwise non-viable elephant herds, which became separated by the sea of illegal palm over the last decade said Rudi H. Putra, BPKEL conservation manager.
But keeping the high-yielding crop out will take vigilance.
"The problem is protecting the forest," he said. "Growing oil palm is easy."
As well as planting in parks, Indonesia's oil palm industry has been accused of converting forests on carbon-rich peatlands more than two-meters deep, and setting fires to clear land.
GAPKI denies knowledge of these illegal activities, which not only harm the industry's reputation, but also release billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.
While the companies caught in Leuser were domestic, rather than international players, confusion and illegality seeps upwards into the global supply chain.
Blended together at mills and shipped overseas, legal and illegal oils flow into a myriad of products such as chocolate, shampoos, soaps and biofuels, leaving multinational end-users, and consumers, exposed to the risk of illegal ingredients.
While the high price of segregating oils means even RSPO-certified products cannot guarantee illegal oils are excluded, concerns over governance problems, and the crops environmental and social impacts, are already hitting profits.
In late August the World Bank's private finance arm, the International Finance Corp (IFC), which has $132 million invested in palm oil projects, suspended all palm-related investments, due to complaints about plantations' dubious licensing, land-rights conflicts and illegal logging activities.
The same month Cadbury New Zealand pulled palm oil from its milk chocolate products, after consumer protests over the crop's role in rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Back in Aceh, BPKEL and police teams hope their lead can be followed in other areas.
Felling illegal palm will both save forests, and safeguard the industry's long-term financial security by weeding out cowboys, said Hariyanta, police chief of Aceh Tamiang district.
"The local people only get a day's food from a day's work on the illegal plantations, but the companies get so much money," said Hariyanta, who like many Indonesians, goes by one name.
"That's why we go after the companies."
(Additional reporting by Aloysius Bhui in Jakarta, Editing by Megan Goldin)
Sara Schonhardt, Christian Science Monitor 21 Sep 09;
JAKARTA, INDONESIA – The smog-choked capital of Indonesia seems an unlikely place for the world’s first environmental radio station. But it’s here that Green Radio 68H, powered only by solar panels, broadcasts up to 10 hours of environment-focused news and information each day.
Located on one of Jakarta’s rare tree-shaded lots, Green Radio aims to build a more ecofriendly mind-set in a city faced with threats from widespread flooding, dismal sanitation, and water contaminated by sewage and garbage.
“This is what Jakarta needs,” says station manager Nita Roshita, noting the lack of environmental awareness among the city’s 9 million inhabitants.
The commercial station’s ethos covers everything from its clean-energy operations to its advertisers: mining and cigarette companies are prohibited. It also works with the national park system to plant trees in one of Java’s fastest shrinking forests.
After more than a year and a half in operation, the station appears to be gaining a foothold.
Environmental activists say the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide still has a long way to go, but Ms. Roshita says she believes Green Radio can help build support for environmental preservation by capitalizing on Indonesia’s new love for all things Earth-friendly.
“We start with a trend and go from there,” the radio manager says. “We’re not going to change the whole world, but we can change Jakartans’ way of living.”
Roy Gohroygoh, New Straits Times 23 Sep 09;
HEALTHY and well fed, Kertam, an adult male rhino caught in the jungles of Sabah, is the most eligible bachelor in captivity.
The only thing left now is for a partner to be caught and paired with Kertam to reproduce one of the most endangered species in the world.
Until then, the authorities are taking round-the-clock care of the animal in a small plot of jungle within the 120,000ha Tabin Wildlife Sanctuary in Lahad Datu.
The three-hectare area called the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary was set up by the State Wildlife Department in collaboration with the organisation, the Borneo Rhino Alliance.
Herman Stawin of the sanctuary said their task now was to ensure that Kertam remained healthy and once a partner was found, he would be released in a 4,500ha fenced area within Tabin.
"Kertam is like a royal stud just waiting for a partner and we are keeping our fingers crossed for that to happen, the sooner the better," he said of the 638kg Sumatran rhino.
In what was described as a lucky break, the department captured Kertam in August last year in the Kertam Forest Reserve in the same district. He was eventually relocated to Tabin for rehabilitation and full-time care by a team of four keepers.
Justin Endi, one of the four keepers, said Kertam had grown bigger since he arrived here, with a steady supply of food and the absence of threats, natural or otherwise.
"He appeared weak when he first came and his right foreleg had a scar," said Justin recently as he called out to Kertam in a metal enclosure, linked to the open paddock, where it could be fed, washed or treated when necessary.
The ring-like scar on his right foreleg also showed that Kertam may have been snared previously but managed to release himself.
Justin said snares were commonly set by hunters or even plantation workers to catch animals such as deer or wild boar but other animals were known to have got trapped.
As Justin fed Kertam with fruits, roots and leaves, he recalled how the rhino was apprehensive when he first arrived but gradually allowed the keepers to pat, wash and even hand-feed him.
When Kertam is hungry he would let out a high-pitched wail almost similar to that of a young buffalo to call his keepers, stationed about a stone's throw away, be it in the morning, afternoon, or at night.
"He likes bananas and certain types of roots which we collect from the jungle. We also feed him salt once in a while," he said, adding that the keepers keep a record of what type of roots or leaves the rhino consumed or rejected.
As Justin patted the rough hairy shoulder with skin like a tree bark, he also demonstrated how the rhino liked to be scratched with a plastic rake while lying on its side.
"We look after him as if he were our own child," said Justin, who speaks to Kertam when feeding him and even scolds him for playing in the mud too long.
"Most of the time Kertam would be out in the forest roaming about for food or just wallowing in several mud pits we made or even playing in a nearby river.
"But we keep the door leading to the enclosure open at all times for him to come in and be pampered by us," quipped Justin, who shares a special bond with the animal.
"I find Kertam to be a friendly animal. It's a pity there are not many of them left in the wild because I don't see them as a threat to anything."
He has the huge responsibility of saving his species
New Straits Times 23 Sep 09;
KERTAM, one of two rhinos in captivity in Sabah, is a national treasure, state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said.
"It's one of 30 or less left in the state and they are critically endangered, on the brink of extinction, unless we do something about it," he said when met recently.
Poaching and loss of habitat are among key reasons why their numbers have dwindled at an alarming rate, Masidi said, adding that serious conservation efforts were needed.
"Sabah is one of the last bastions for the Sumatran rhino and we are in a position to do something about it. I for one want to leave this world knowing I did something to save the rhinos."
Masidi said because of the threats, rhinos were not able to reproduce.
"As more development comes into the state, land is cleared, and their habitat is fragmented. Because of this, they are not able to see each other to mate.
"Poaching, too, is a problem. Not because they hunt rhinos but because in the attempt to trap other wildlife like wild boar or deer, poachers can hurt rhinos or even kill them with their snares or weapons."
That was one of the reasons why the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary programme was introduced at the 120,000ha Tabin Wildlife Sanctuary in Lahad Datu.
Eventually, 4,500ha of forest will be fenced up within the sanctuary to place rhinos that are rescued from other parts of the state. Kertam, a healthy male of about 638kg, was the first to be rescued.
Rhinos are solitary animals and only meet during the mating season. Records of surveys in the past showed that they roam in an area that would stretch thousands of hectares.
State wildlife director Laurentius Ambu said the fragmentation of habitat appeared to have caused reproduction problems among the animals because they rarely meet and mate.
"Its small numbers in the wild, too, is a hindrance in the effort to increase its population," he said, adding that maintaining and protecting the species in the wild was their only option now to prevent the rhino from extinction.
The Borneo Rhino Sanctuary programme, which involves the department and the Borneo Rhino Alliance, took a positive turn with the rescue of Kertam last year. Subsequently, Sime Darby Foundation pledged RM7.3 million to fund the sanctuary.
Establishment of the sanctuary was part of Sime Darby's "Big 9" campaign aimed at protecting endangered animals which include the sun bear, orang utan, pygmy elephant, clouded leopard, Malayan tiger, proboscis monkey, hornbill and the seladang.
The programme's coordinator, Dr Senthilvel Nathan, said Kertam was ready for a partner and hoped that one could be captured soon as there have been reports on the presence of a few rhinos in several locations in the east coast of Sabah.
"We are keeping our fingers crossed that at least one of them is a female," he said, adding that the other rhino in captivity, at the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park, was a female called Gelugub but she has aged.
"All we can do now is wait and make sure that Kertam is ready for his task, which to his species will be a big responsibility."
National Geographic 22 Sep 09;
September 22, 2009—California has a new star, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark.
Photo from MBARI.
But the newly identified species prefers to stay out of the sun—and the spotlight. And with a club-like sex organ on its forehead, the male ghostshark isn't likely to get any leading man roles.
The new ghostshark uses winglike fins to "fly" through its dark habitat, thousands of feet deep off the coasts of California and Mexico's Baja California peninsula, a new study says.
The ghostshark seems to have flown under the scientific radar too. Since the 1960s experts have been finding specimens of the strange, 3-foot-long (0.9-meter-long) fish, which ended up nameless in museum collections around the world.
It wasn't until after a team recently searched through shelves of "dead pickled fish" that the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark was recognized as its own new species, said study co-author Douglas Long, chief curator in natural sciences at the Oakland Museum of California. The specimens' unique proportions, precisely measured, gave the fish away as a separate species of ghostshark.
Ghostsharks in Chimerical Company
The shark-like animal belongs to the mysterious and little-studied chimeras, perhaps the oldest group of fish alive today.
These "living fossils" branched off from sharks about 400 million years ago. They may have survived by adapting to extreme deep-sea environments, Long said.
The newfound ghostshark belongs to the "big black chimeras," a group whose species number has exploded in recent years, thanks to improved diagnostic techniques, according to the new study, published in the September issue of the journal Zootaxa.
Chimeras display some unusual features not seen in other living animals, Long said.
Male chimeras, for example, have retractable sexual appendages sprouting from their foreheads. These organs, which resemble a spiked club at the end of a stalk, may be used to stimulate a female or to pull her closer—though these are still assumptions, Long said.
Long said the odd fish shows how complex the deep ocean can be—as well as the vast potential for encountering weird new creatures.
"It's like Christmas. You don't what you're going to get," he said, "but you know it's going to be great."
—Christine Dell'Amore
New species of ghostshark from California and Baja California
Ancient and bizarre fish named by California Academy of Sciences researchers
California Academy of Sciences, EurekAlert 21 Sep 09;
New species are not just discovered in exotic locales—even places as urban as California still yield discoveries of new plants and animals.
Academy scientists recently named a new species of chimaera, an ancient and bizarre group of fishes distantly related to sharks, from the coast of Southern California and Baja California, Mexico. The new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma), was described in the September issue of the international journal Zootaxa by a research team including Academy Research Associates David Ebert and Douglas J. Long.
Additional co-authors included Kelsey James, a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and Dominique Didier from Millersville University in Pennsylvania. This is the first new species of cartilaginous fish to be described from California waters since 1947.
Chimaeras, also called ratfish, rabbitfish, and ghostsharks, are perhaps the oldest and most enigmatic groups of fishes alive today. Their closest living relatives are sharks, but their evolutionary lineage branched off from sharks nearly 400 million years ago, and they have remained an isolated group ever since. Like sharks, chimaeras have skeletons composed of cartilage and the males have claspers for internal fertilization of females. Unlike sharks, male chimaeras also have retractable sexual appendages on the forehead and in front of the pelvic fins and a single pair of gills. Most species also have a mildly venomous spine in front of the dorsal fin. Chimaeras were once a very diverse and abundant group, as illustrated by their global presence in the fossil record. They survived through the age of dinosaurs mostly unchanged, but today these fishes are relatively scarce and are usually confined to deep ocean waters, where they have largely avoided the reach of explorers and remained poorly known to science.
This new species belongs to the genus Hydrolagus, Latin for 'water rabbit' because of its grinding tooth plates reminiscent of a rabbit's incisor teeth. This new species was originally collected as early as the mid 1960s, but went unnamed until this year because its taxonomic relationships were unclear. A large blackish-purple form, Hydrolagus melanophasma (melanophasma is Latin for 'black ghost'), is found in deep water from the coast of Southern California, along the western coast of Baja California, and into the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). This species is known from a total of nine preserved museum specimens, and from video footage taken of it alive by a deep-water submersible in the Sea of Cortez.
Renewed exploration of the world's deep oceans and more extensive taxonomic analysis of chimaera specimens in museum collections have led to a boom in the number of new chimaera species discovered worldwide in the last decade, including two species from the Galápagos Islands named by Didier, Ebert, and Long in 2006 that were originally collected by Academy scientist John McCosker. With further advances in research and discovery, perhaps more will be known about these living fossils and their diversity in the world's oceans.
Giant pandas should be allowed to die out, BBC wildlife expert Chris Packham has said.
The Telegraph 22 Sep 09;
The television presenter said that the species was not strong enough to survive on its own and that the millions spent preserving them could be better spent elsewhere.
Mr Packham, who hosts BBC2’s Springwatch, also argued that breeding the animals in captivity for later release was pointless because there is not enough habitat left to sustain them.
He said: “Here’s a species that of its own accord has gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac. It’s not a strong species.
“Unfortunately, it’s big and cute and it’s a symbol of the World Wildlife Fund – and we pour millions of pounds into panda conservation.
“I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go with a degree of dignity.”
The 48-year-old also claimed that tigers could become extinct with two decades.
He told the Radio Times: “Animals are invariably becoming extinct because there’s no secure habitat for them.
“Where are you going to release them? I don’t think tigers are going to last another 15 years. How can you conserve an animal that’s worth more dead than alive? You can’t.”
Giant pandas have been dying out because of the destruction of their natural habitat and are only found in about 20 patches of forest in a densely populated region of China.
There are around 1,600 in the wild with around 180 more being reared in captivity.
Fellow wildlife expert David Bellamy lent his support to Mr Packham. “I agree completely,” he said. “When I was a WWF trustee I begged them to buy big chunks of the land in which these animals live, not just go on spending millions on rearing pandas in captivity.
“You can’t release them back into the wild if there is no wild left and we shouldn’t rear animals just to put them into cages.
“Even the WWF admitted there is no longer enough land for them to live on.”
However, Dr Mark Wright, a conservation science adviser for WWF described Mr Packham’s comments as “daft” and “irresponsible”.
He said: “Pandas have adapted to where they live. They live in the mountains where there is plenty of the bamboo they want to eat.
“It’s like saying the blue whale is in an evolutional cul-de-sac because it lives in the ocean.”
Dr Wright added that pandas face extinction due to poaching and humans moving into their habitat, and that if left alone they would not be under threat.
Hands off the pandas
The Independent 23 Sep 09;
Broadcaster Chris Packham has set fur flying with a claim that the endangered bears should now be left to die out. Simon Usborne leaps to their defence
Poor Yang Yang and Kou Kou and Lun Lun. Chris Packham thinks you and all your panda friends are good-for-nothing, bamboo-munching, taxidermist-dodging benefit cheats. In an interview with Radio Times, published yesterday, the BBC nature presenter launches a viscous assault on the embattled species. He says the giant panda has "gone down an evolutionary cul-de-sac". He adds: "It's not a strong species ... I reckon we should pull the plug. Let them go with a degree of dignity."
And it gets worse. Last year the birdwatcher even threatened to "eat the last panda if I could have the money we've spent on panda conservation to [spend on] more sensible things". Eat a panda? What are you saying, Chris? Why not polish off a blue whale? You've got the mouth for it.
Packham is right in one regard – the panda is under threat and often seems hopeless. Habitat loss, poaching and the bear's notorious disinterest in making baby pandas has left it clinging to life in isolated mountain ranges. There are fewer than 2,000 pandas in the wild, around 250 in captivity.
But since when was it OK to "pull the plug" on one of the world's most recognisable and best loved animals? Predictably Packham's comments have caused uproar among panda lovers and animal experts (and presumably, Chinese people). So Chris – eat this. We present five reasons why the panda is worth saving...
Pandas are symbols of conservationism
Giant pandas belong to a select breed of animals qualifying as "charismatic megafauna". They are the poster boys of the natural world – the "T-shirt" animals whose plight is elevated to get us moist-eyed and agitated. "But pandas didn't ask to be cute and cuddly," says Mark Wright, the science adviser at WWF (which has a panda for a logo). "The point is that by saving the panda you are saving the dozens of other endangered species that are unique to those habitats." So if we did pull the plug on the panda and its habitat, Wright says, we'd also kiss goodbye to the Sichuan wood owl and the Snowy-cheeked laughing thrush. And they're birds, Chris – you like birds.
They are Chinese cultural icons
There is no animal the Chinese love more, besides the mythical dragon, than the giant panda. They're called "di xiong mao", which means "big bear cat" and serve as a symbol of national pride. The animal appears on commemorative coins and Jing Jing the panda was one of Beijing's mascots, elected by Chinese voters, at last year's Olympics. The panda is seen as a manifestation of the Yin and Yang philosophy of Chinese society. Their black and white coats and placid nature are held up as examples of harmony. And they have practical value. "Panda diplomacy" has helped Beijing build bridges, most recently with Taiwan, usually by loaning animals to zoos.
They are unique
There are two kinds of animals of interest to scientists – common ones (think flies) and the rare ones that may hold valuable secrets. "Pandas are famous in evolutionary science because they developed out of their wrist a unique appendage that works as a specialist thumb for stripping bamboo," says Bill Sutherland, a professor of conservation biology at Cambridge University. All too often lessons from nature die with endangered species. The gastric-brooding frog incubated its eggs in its stomach. Scientists seeking a cure for gastric ulcers were studying the acid-proof substance that protected those eggs until the frog became extinct. "You never know why or when a species will become vital to science," says Sutherland.
They're good for humans, too
The panda's future isn't only important for the species who share its home. Pandas have become rare largely thanks to human encroachment. Vast tracts of south-east China have been deforested or given over to agriculture as China tries to fuel and feed a rapidly-growing population. Pandas are now one of the most protected species on the planet. The Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province is one example. It is home to 150 pandas – and thousands of people. "Most of them derive a living from the panda," says Iain Valentine of Edinburgh Zoo. "They depend on pandas thriving."
They're really cute
Packham may say it's the panda's doe-eyed tranquillity and teddy-bear features that have skewed our perspective – but there's no denying the bear's cuteness. It turns out there's science behind our soppiness. The Austrian zoologist, Konrad Lorenz, argued that humans react positively to animals that resemble babies, because we have evolved instinctively to care for our offspring. So humans are genetically disposed to animals with big eyes and heads and cute little ears. If evidence of this theory were needed, visit YouTube and search for "sneezing baby panda". The clip, which has been seen 40 million times, shows a mother jumping out of her fur when her offspring interrupts teatime with an almighty sneeze. Packham either hasn't seen it or doesn't have a heart.
Louise Redvers Yahoo News 22 Sep 09;
LUANDA (AFP) – They are Angola's national symbol and the nickname for the country's football team -- yet fewer than 100 are believed still alive.
And while they are plastered on bank notes and company logos, only a handful of people have actually seen the giant sable antelope -- or palanca negra gigante as they are known in Portuguese, the official language -- in the flesh or beheld their majestic metre-and-a-half (more than five-foot) horns.
The animals' numbers were decimated during the 27-year civil war that shattered this country on Africa's southwestern coast, before it ended in 2002. Among the survivors, many giant sables stopped breeding or started cross breeding with roan antelopes, creating a new hybrid species.
But the sable's future now looks brighter after a breakthrough by scientists from Angola's Catholic University, who worked with shepherds to track down the antelope 100 years after the animal was first discovered.
After six years of monitoring stealth cameras and tracking dung samples, the team has finally captured 10 pure-bred giant sables for a breeding programme and tagged dozens of others to monitor their progress.
"It was an outstanding success, it exceeded all our expectations," expedition leader Pedro Vaz Pinto told AFP.
"The timing could not have been better because now is the traditional mating time for giant sable and we hope that by May or June next year, we will have at least seven calves."
"I don?t think the giant sable will ever be non-endangered because it's only found in such small areas, but I hope we can upgrade it from its critically endangered status," he said.
Vaz Pinto travelled in a helicopter alongside renowned South African veterinary expert Peter Morkel, scanning the Cangandala National Park in the northeastern province of Malanje.
Once they had located a herd, they hovered above the ground and fired a sedation dart at a hybrid female, in order to fit her with a collar with a GPS (Global Positioning System) tracker.
"We used this hybrid as a Judas and she did a great job. In no time we were able to find nine pure females whom we tagged and took to a sanctuary," Vaz Pinto said.
The sedated animals were blindfolded and transported hanging by ropes from the helicopter to a special two square kilometre (0.75 square miles) breeding area in the park.
Some of the antelopes, which weigh up to 250 kilogrammes (550 pounds), were also carried in a Russian M18 helicopter lent to the team by the Angolan Air Force.
No males were seen in Cangandala and the females recovered show no evidence of having mated in at least seven years, which confirmed the team's worst fears.
The search then turned to the more remote Luando Reserve, where the only lead was a positive DNA test on a dung sample collected on an earlier trip.
There they found two herds, in total around 40 giant sable, and chose one for the breeding area.
Even after several weeks back in the capital Luanda, Pedro is still ecstatic about his encounters with the giant sables.
"Getting close to that first male was just incredible," he said. "But for me the most emotional part was when we put the male into the area with the females and stood back to watch them interact.
"We only took one because if we put two in there they would kill each other, but this one we chose is at his prime so we hope will be good for breeding."
And he joked: "The females immediately surrounded him and followed him everywhere, I think he will find it hard to have his own space over the next few weeks. It couldn't be more promising."
A leading authority on the giant sable, Richard Estes of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology who conducted research expeditions on the animal as early as 1968, returned to Angola this year to join Vaz Pinto's expedition.
The now 82-year-old scientist said he got his best view ever of the animals.
"We had such low expectations based on our earlier failures that it was just incredible," he said, speaking to AFP from his US home.
"I did not think we would find a single male, so to find as many as we did was amazing. This is an absolutely seminal step for the project."
Both Vaz Pinto and Estes are thrilled so far with the project, which is conducted in cooperation with Angola's environment ministry and funded by oil companies such as Songangol and ExxonMobile. But both say it will bring new challenges and require more money.
"This has been an amazing success but it also brings new responsibilities," Vaz Pinto said.
The giant sable has a place in the heart of all Angolans," added Estes, "and we're looking at a renaissance of conservation conscience in Angola."
But he added: "The government has a moral and ethical responsibility to preserve its natural ecosystems and tackle the poaching and destruction of its national parks."
Yahoo News 22 Sep 09;
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Japan's new government urged Australia on Tuesday to help prevent violent attacks by activists on Japanese whalers as it stood by the country's traditional support for whaling, an official said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada met his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith on the sidelines of this year's UN General Assembly.
Okada was appointed last Wednesday when Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama was sworn in at the head of his new center-left government after winning the country's elections.
The victorious Democratic Party of Japan formed a coalition government with two small parties under Hatoyama, ending half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the country's conservative Liberal Democratic Party.
"During the meeting, our minister called for Australia's cooperation against groups like Sea Shepherd (Conservation Society), which resort to violent action," a Japanese foreign ministry official said.
Smith stopped short of replying to the request, only saying Australia wants to resolve the dispute through dialogue to avoid straining relations.
"Our minister did not clearly state that the new Japanese government supports whaling, but I understand that his remarks were quite in line with the stance held by our previous cabinet on the subject," the official said.
Anti-whaling nations led by Australia and New Zealand, as well as environmental groups, have attacked Japan for its annual whaling expeditions, including in Antarctic waters, criticizing them as cruel and unnecessary.
Japan hunts whales by using a loophole in the 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling that allows whales to be killed for "lethal research," and Tokyo often accuses western critics of insensitivity toward its culture.
Terry Wade, PlanetArk 23 Sep 09;
UNITED NATIONS - Ecuador, a member of OPEC, is willing to preserve a tropical forest with reserves of 900 million barrels of oil if rich countries pay it about $360 million a year to keep the petroleum in the ground.
Under the proposal, the international community would pay Ecuador an annual fee equal to about half of the total cash it would generate from selling the crude. Leaving the oil under the Yasani rainforest would prevent the release of up to 410 million tons of carbon.
"We have to attack the cause of climate change, which is the elevated use of energy by industrialized countries," Ecuador's Foreign Minister Fander Falconi told Reuters.
"Climate change has a very clear origin ... high energy use by rich countries," he said.
Some developing countries at a U.N. climate change summit on Tuesday said rich countries should pay for damage they have caused and compensate poor countries for taking steps to prevent carbon emissions.
But it may be hard to reach agreement as leaders prepare to sign a new pact to tackle climate change in December in Copenhagen.
Rich countries want guarantees that cash they pay to poor ones would be properly used, while poor countries are worried they might put their sovereignty at risk if they agree to setting aside resources for conservation in exchange for cash.
Falconi said agreeing to forgo oil drilling in a block that overlaps the Yasuni National Park would also protect two indigenous tribes living in voluntary isolation.
Despite its conservation offer, he said Ecuador doesn't plan to limit future oil exploration or extraction in other parts of the country.
"Petroleum is extremely important for Ecuador's economy; it sustains our foreign trade," Falconi said.
He said however that an international body like the United Nations should levy a global carbon tax to help limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Ecuador produces about 450,000 barrels per day, and wants to boost production in the future.
STRAINS WITH COLOMBIA, U.S. BASES
In addition to participating in climate talks, Falconi said he would "cautiously" meet with Colombian officials to map out a series of talks that could eventually lead to their re-establishing diplomatic ties.
Ecuador cut off relations last year after Colombia's military raided a FARC rebel camp inside Ecuadorean territory. Other countries condemned the attack as well.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said the raid was a crucial part of his crackdown on FARC rebels whose long-running insurgency is financed by cocaine trafficking.
Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa canceled access to his country's Manta air base that a previous leader had given to the United States.
Now Washington plans to move its anti-drug flights and surveillance operations to Colombian military and air bases.
Ecuador, like many countries in South America, has voiced concern the United States may increase its military presence in the region -- a prospect that has angered Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez in particular.
"The Colombian bases that will be used by the American military will have technological capabilities that go way beyond the objectives of fighting drug trafficking," said Ecuador's Security Minister Miguel Carvajal.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
WWF 22 Sep 09;
La Paz, Bolivia: Celebrations here yesterday marked the recognition of an area of southern Bolivia as a Wetland of international Importance (or Ramsar Site), the largest declared in South America’s 7000 Km long Andes Mountains chain.
The Los Lipez wetlands complex encompasses 23 high altitude lakes and lagoons as well as geothermal springs and flooded grasslands unique to the southern Andes, known as “bofedales” in the southern tip of Bolivia, and neighboring Chile and Argentina.
At 1.4 million hectares or about one third of the size of Switzerland, the new Los Lipez protected wetland is also more than 25 times the size of the Laguna Colorada, Bolivia’s first Ramsar Site designated in 1991. Laguna Colorada, bordering on Chile and among the most visited protected areas in the country, is now included within the new reserve.
Bolivia’s new Ramsar Site is important for the conservation of South American Flamingo species ranging over Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru. In good years, Los Lipez provides nesting over summer for over 60% of the total population of the rare James Flamingo, and also hosts nearly 30% of the total population of Andean Flamingos.
Archeological investigations show hunter gather presence in the area from 6500 BC and also vestiges of the Inca conquest in the 1400s, most notably the Quechua language. It has historically been a centre of salt extraction as well as of quinoa and potato cultivation, with the bofedales providing prime sites for breeding of lama, alpaca and vicuna.
Significant archeology
Bolivia is currently hosting the 6th annual meeting of the Regional Initiative for the Conservation of High Andean Wetlands, attended by Delegates from Andean Countries and Costa Rica, and by representatives of NGOs including WWF, IUCN, Wetlands International and Birdlife International.
Juan Pablo Ramos, Bolivian Vice-Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Climate Change, received the Ramsar Certificate for the designation of Los Lipez from Maria Rivera, Ramsar Regional Advisor for the Americas, at the opening of the meeting in La Paz.
According to Denis Landenbergue, from WWF International Freshwater Programme, “the protection of Los Lipez is also important due to its location in an arid mountain region which is very exposed to the effects of climate change”.
The International Convention on Wetlands, or Ramsar Convention, was the first of the modern global intergovernmental treaties on the conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It was signed in 1971 in Ramsar, Iran, and has now 159 Contracting Parties.
IUCN 18 Sep 09;
For the world’s governments to understand adequately how their actions and policies are impacting the planet’s species and ecosystems, more investment is needed in the set of biodiversity indicators that has been developed to measure these impacts. This is the conclusion of a review published today in the journal Science by a group of the leading scientists and organisations working on this issue.
In 2002 the world’s leaders adopted a target of significantly reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. In October next year, the international community will convene in Nagoya, Japan for the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) to review whether the target has been met.
The answer lies in a set of 22 biodiversity indicators being developed by over 40 international organizations participating in the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership. In their article “Tracking progress toward the 2010 biodiversity target and beyond”, the authors have assessed the development of these indicators, and found that the set is by no means complete. Five of the headline indicators are not being developed, and only a minority of the datasets used to underpin the other 17 have good global coverage and time series data to detect trends.
"There is certainly a need to invest in biodiversity indicators but more importantly in baseline assessments underpinning those indicators. This is what IUCN has been pushing for and what the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has been doing for years. As shown in our latest publication Wildlife in a Changing World, the IUCN Red List index by itself shows that we are far from reverting the decline of wildlife throughout the wold.. More action is needed quickly while there is still a window of opportunity. The more we wait, the bigger the cost" said Jean-Christophe Vié, Deputy Head, IUCN Species Programme.
Besides highlighting the limited development of indicators, the review also raises questions over whether the current suite of indicators will provide all the right answers. For example, the indicators do not include any measure of the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and few that shine a light on the benefits, the goods and services, that we gain from biodiversity and natural ecosystems. “Biodiversity monitoring and indicators will only be successful if they help to answer the questions that decision makers are asking” says Robert Höft, Environmental Affairs Officer of the CBD Secretariat.
The CBD meeting next year in Nagoya will see decisions made about future biodiversity targets beyond 2010 and with it the continuation and future development of the indicator set. “Nagoya will provide the perfect opportunity to build on the accomplishments of the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership and refine the suite of indicators for meeting the needs for global decision makers over the next decade and beyond” says Robert Höft.
The new indicator set is already a hot topic within the biodiversity sector. Seventy experts from governments, non-governmental organisations and universities met in Reading, UK, in July this year to create a list of indicator recommendations for the Nagoya meeting. “We are eagerly anticipating the outcomes of Nagoya. If the right indicator set is chosen, the global community can look to the future with greater optimism for adequate and accurate biodiversity monitoring, an essential component of sustainable development” added Dr Walpole.
The Article
The article is available from the AAAS Office of Public Programs. Tel +1-202-326-6440 or scipak@aaas.org. The full citation is: Walpole, M. et al. (2009) Tracking Progress Toward the 2010 Biodiversity Target and Beyond. Science 325, 1503-4.
The 2010 Biodiversity Target
In April 2002, at the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), governments committed themselves ‘to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth’. This ‘2010 Biodiversity Target’ was later endorsed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), and has been included in UN Millennium Development Goal 7 (MDG 7) under the ‘reducing biodiversity loss’ target.
The biodiversity indicators
The CBD has identified 22 headline indicators from seven focal areas for assessing progress towards, and communicating the 2010 target at a global level. Each headline indicator may be made up of a composite of indicators, also termed measures. Many of the biodiversity indicators are fully developed and ready for immediate use at the global scale, whilst others require further development and testing. Although developed principally for global use, a number of the indicators can be disaggregated to assess biodiversity trends at regional, national and sub-national scales. A full indictor list and information on individual indicators is available from the 2010 BIP website (www.twentyten.net).
The 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership
The 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (2010 BIP) is a global initiative to track progress towards achieving the “2010 biodiversity target” to significantly reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. The Partnership is a collaboration of over 40 international organizations and agencies developing global biodiversity indicators and is the leading source of information on trends in global biodiversity.
The 2010 BIP has been established with major support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The Secretariat of the 2010 BIP is hosted by the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, U.K.
The Convention on Biological Diversity
Signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is dedicated to promoting sustainable development. The Convention was inspired by the world community's growing commitment to sustainable development. It represents a dramatic step forward in the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources.
The Global Environment Facility
The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a global partnership among 178 countries, international institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the private sector to address global environmental issues while supporting national sustainable development initiatives. It provides grants for projects related to six focal areas: biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, the ozone layer, and persistent organic pollutants.
Reuters 22 Sep 09;
LONDON (Reuters) - Floods, storms, drought and other climate-related natural disasters drove 20 million people from their homes last year, nearly four times as many as were displaced by conflicts, a new U.N. report said Tuesday.
The study tried to quantify for the first time the number of people forced to flee their homes because of climate change.
Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of storms and otherwise altering weather patterns, so disasters are now "an extremely significant driver of forced displacement globally," it said.
The study said a total of 36 million people were driven from their homes by rapid-onset natural disasters in 2008. China's Sichuan earthquake accounted for 15 million of these, but climate-related disasters displaced 90 percent of the rest.
The report said many more people were probably being forced from their homes by slower-onset crises like droughts.
The report was compiled jointly by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), a body which normally tracks displacement caused by conflict.
The aim was "to see whether it was possible to put numbers to the problem and come up with a methodology that will enable us to do that over time," said IDMC head Kate Halff.
The answer was a qualified "yes," though Halff warned that the monitoring effort so far "doesn't give us any idea of what time period these people have been displaced or what their needs are. At this stage it's just about a number."
MIGRATE OR FLEE?
Accurately tracking displacement resulting from slower-onset crises like rising sea levels is also expected to prove difficult, largely because it is hard to judge when voluntary movement from a problem zone becomes forced fleeing, she said.
Determining what role climate change may have played in a natural disaster will also undoubtedly remain controversial.
Still, "an increase in the number of people temporarily displaced will be an inevitable consequence of more frequent and intense extreme weather events affecting more people globally," the report said.
Last year, more than five million people were displaced by flooding in India, attributed in part to changes in that country's monsoon cycle.
In the Philippines, nearly two million people were forced from their homes by severe storms. China and Myanmar also saw large-scale displacements due to storms.
Asia accounted for over 90 percent of disaster-related displacements last year, which the report said "may simply be because Asia is the most disaster-prone region."
By comparison, 4.6 million people were internally displaced last year by conflict, according to Halff's center.
Altogether 42 million people were living as refugees or internally displaced persons last year because of fighting, she said.
(Editing by Tim Pearce)
Thomas Kutty Abraham, Bloomberg 22 Sep 09;
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- India, the biggest vegetable oils buyer after China, may import record volumes for a second year after a drought in almost half the country damaged oilseed crops, a processors’ group said.
Purchases in the year starting Nov. 1 may rise as much as 6 percent to 8.5 million metric tons, Ashok Sethia, president of the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India, said today. Palm oil will account for more than 80 percent of the total, he said.
Production of India’s monsoon-sown oilseeds, mainly peanuts, may drop as much as 1.5 million tons after the weakest rainfall in at least seven years forced farmers to plant fewer acres, the association said. Record imports by the nation may sustain a 29 percent rally in palm oil prices in Malaysia this year.
“The import taps are open, and shortages will be met through imports,” Sethia said in a phone interview from Kolkata.
December-delivery palm oil increased 0.4 percent to 2,190 ringgit ($631) a metric ton on the Malaysia Derivatives Exchange Sept. 18. Markets in Malaysia and Indonesia, the top producers, are shut today for holidays.
Prices may remain in a 2,000-2,500 ringgit a ton band until November and gain about 10 percent by the year end, Sethia said.
India’s vegetable oil imports in the 10 months ended August jumped 49 percent to 7.07 million tons, the association said on Sept. 14. Purchases of crude palm oil gained 29 percent to 4.2 million tons, and soybean oil gained 63 percent to 823,190 tons.
Crop Area
Farmers sowed oilseeds to 16.74 million hectares, compared with 17.98 a year earlier, because of drought, Sethia said. A revival in rains in the past month has increased soil moisture, likely helping early sowing of winter rapeseed crop, he said.
The government must restore taxes on edible oil imports during the harvest of monsoon crop and planting of the winter crop to ensure farmers get remunerative prices, Sethia said.
“You need farmers to boost cultivation to cut dependency on imports,” he said.
India abolished import duty on crude palm oil in April last year, and in March lifted a 20 percent tax on crude soybean oil purchases. The two commodities are substitutes. Refined edible oils are taxed at 7.5 percent.
The country relies on imports to meet half its cooking oil needs and buys palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, and soybean oil from Argentina and Brazil.
West Virginia hosts the world's first power plant to inject some of its CO2 emissions underground for permanent storage
David Biello, Scientific American 23 Sep 09;
Over the next five years at least half a million tons of carbon dioxide will be injected into rock deep underneath the Mountaineer power plant near New Haven, W.Va.
Although that is less than 0.00001 percent of global emissions of the greenhouse gas and less than 2 percent of the plant’s own CO2 output, the sequestration, which begins this week, marks the first commercial demonstration of the only available technological fix for the carbon problem of coal-fired power plants, one that many coal facilities around the world hope to emulate.
Coal accounts for roughly 50 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. and as much as 75 percent of the electricity generated by American Electric Power, says Nick Akins, executive vice president of generation at the utility, which owns Mountaineer. The plant can pump out 1,300 megawatts of electricity, making it one of the single largest coal-fired power plants in the U.S. and a leading source of CO2 emissions. (The top emitters of global warming pollution—China and the U.S.—burn nearly four billion tons of the dirty black rock a year.)
As a result, everyone from coal companies to environmental groups have identified carbon capture and storage, or CCS, as critical in enabling significant and rapid cuts in greenhouse gases. But there have been only a handful of demonstrations of the technology to capture the gas and, outside of using CO2 to pump more oil out of the ground, even fewer attempts to store it.
To capture CO2 from its smokestacks, Mountaineer will employ so-called chilled ammonia technology, which relies on ammonium carbonate chemistry to pull CO2 out of the exhaust gases. (The other two basic capture technologies either burn coal in pure oxygen to produce a CO2-rich emissions stream or siphon off the CO2 made during the gasification of coal.) Mountaineer takes the captured CO2 and compresses it to at least 2,000 pounds per square inch, liquefying it and pumping it roughly 8,000 feet down into the ground. That deep, the liquid CO2 flows through the porous rock formations, adhering to the tiny spaces, slowly spreading out over time and, ultimately, chemically reacting with rock or brine. “We’re not going into a salt cavern; we’re not going into an underground river. We’re going into microscopic holes,” explains geologist Susan Hovorka of the University of Texas at Austin, referring to CCS in general. “Add it up, and it’s a large volume.”
In fact, the Department of Energy estimates that the U.S. has the geologic room for 3.9 trillion tons of CO2 underground, more than enough for the 3.2 billion tons emitted every year by large industrial sources.
The two geologic formations below Mountaineer are the Rose Run Sandstone and Copper Ridge Dolomite, which run underneath layers of relatively impermeable rock that will keep the CO2 trapped. “Part of our project is to kind of take those through their paces and get an idea of their acceptance of CO2,” says Gary Spitznogle, a CCS engineering manager at American
Electric Power. After all, a similar effort in Ohio revealed that formations there stored less CO2 than expected. The company will monitor the CO2 via three specially drilled wells, in addition to the two wells for pumping the CO2 down in the first place.
The process of capturing and storing carbon dioxide may be simple chemistry and geology, but it has significant industrial costs. American Electric Power alone will pay $73 million for just the capture technology at Mountaineer and has asked for $334 million in federal stimulus—half the total cost, the company says—to scale up the project to nab roughly 20 percent of the plant’s emissions in future years.
Despite the steep price of CCS, Mountaineer is not alone. In the U.S., utilities are planning multibillion-dollar power plants that will incorporate CCS; by 2011 Alabama Power may outsequester Mountaineer and bury 150,000 tons of CO2 from its Plant Barry in the Citronelle Oil Field. Abroad, China has several test facilities funded in part by Australia, and in Iceland an international consortium of researchers will pump CO2 into underground basalt where it will react to form a carbonate mineral.
But even if CO2 is permanently locked away in rock, other environmental problems surrounding coal remain. The technology does nothing to remedy the impacts of coal mining, particularly mountaintop removal, or residual toxic fly ash, among other issues. Moreover, although the Environmental Protection Agency has begun to craft rules to regulate the CO2-injection wells, it is still unclear who owns the pore space resource as well as who assumes liability in the event of an accident, such as a sudden, geyserlike release of the gas.
Nevertheless, given looming regulation on emissions, utilities are anticipating extensive CCS installation in just the next few decades. “Our first full scale would be around 2015, and by 2025 we would have a pretty considerable amount constructed on large coal units,” Spitznogle says.
That means one thing: higher electricity prices. In May 2007 the Department of Energy estimated that capturing 90 percent of the CO2 with amine scrubbers would make electricity at a cost of more than $114 per megawatt-hour, compared with just $63 per megawatt-hour without CO2 capture. For the consumer, the extra cost would amount to about $0.04 per kilowatt-hour— a necessary price, perhaps, for less of the warming gas in the atmosphere.
Timothy Gardner, Reuters 22 Sep 09;
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Developing emissions markets to encourage farmers in poor countries to store more carbon dioxide in soil should be a key topic on the U.N. climate talks agenda, global warming activist Al Gore said.
"I think that soil carbon conservation and recarbonizing of soil must be the next stage in this negotiating process," former U.S. Vice President Gore told reporters on the sidelines of a climate conference at the United Nations.
Agriculturists can store more carbon in soil through techniques such as no-till farming that leaves crop residue on the ground instead of plowing it up and releasing the carbon into the atmosphere, or through crop rotations.
Gore said that if a clear signal on carbon storage in soil emerged from the 190-nation U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen in December, it would serve as a "very important measure" to help get developing nations to participate in helping to slow climate change.
Rich and poor countries aim to hammer out a new global deal at the Copenhagen meeting on how to slow global warming and deal with its consequences, but talks have stalled on how to share the burden.
In sub-Saharan Africa, soil carbon has been so depleted that it harms food production and is expected to worsen as a consequence of global warming, Gore said.
Soils can hold carbon for thousands of years when dead leaves, crop residue and other vegetation combine chemically with existing soil particles instead of rotting fully. More carbon is held in this way than in trees and other vegetation.
But agricultural techniques such as heavy plowing, the use of too much fertilizer, and the discarding of the practice of rotating crops have led to the depletion of soils and the carbon in them in many countries.
Gore said polluters and investors in rich countries could potentially help invest in projects promoting new and improved agricultural methods that retain carbon, such as no-till farming, in developing countries through carbon credits.
Similar offsets resulting from storing carbon in forests and soils are already available in voluntary carbon markets, including ones for domestic projects on the Chicago Climate Exchange.
Opponents of such programs say the science is still young on measuring how much carbon is stored in this way. As a result, the price for soil sequestration offsets has traditionally trailed the price of other offsets projects such as solar energy farms.
Others say measurements are improving and that the offsets are a huge potential market that could reward farmers and make the soil yield more and better food.
Gore said improving the soil in many poor countries through such offsets could help fight against hunger and malnutrition.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
Lord Stern, the former World Bank economist, outlines his plan to break the deadlock over climate change negotiations ahead of a key United Nations summit in Copenhagen.
Nicholas Stern, The Telegraph 22 Sep 09;
In the short time remaining before Copenhagen, governments around the world must come together to agree the structure of a global deal on climate change. The agreement must lay the foundations for a future era of dynamic low-carbon growth that succeeds in both cutting emissions and sustaining the growth in developing countries which is necessary to reduce poverty.
I believe that an ambitious and comprehensive deal is possible, but only if crucial steps are taken over the remaining weeks and months to break the deadlock we appear to be in.
That deadlock consists of an approach by rich countries which collectively involves inadequate emissions reductions and unwillingness to make financial commitments without being able to approve the plans for developing countries to move to low-carbon growth. And on the part of developing countries, an unwillingness to make commitments on reductions without a clear indication of financial support from the rich countries, together with an unwillingness to have their own plans for low-carbon development determined by, or subject to the approval of, the rich countries. The developing countries also find the level of commitment by rich countries to domestic reductions in the next two decades both too small and unconvincing.
First, we must recognise what we have to achieve in terms of global emissions. In order to have a reasonable chance of avoiding an increase in global average temperature that exceeds 2˚C, we need to reduce annual worldwide emissions from the present level of about 50 gigatonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent to no more than 20 gigatonnes by 2050. There are a number of possible trajectories which could meet this target and control total annual emissions over the period to the level necessary, but none of them would allow any more than 35 gigatonnes by the mid-point of 2030. These are the key figures, 35 gigatonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent by 2030 and 20 gigatonnes by 2050, that must guide any agreement on national targets for emissions reductions. By focusing on these totals for global annual emissions, and not percentages relative to earlier levels, we can focus where the science takes us, on the overall path of annual emissions over the next few decades. In other words, we must focus on whether the planned national emissions targets are consistent with the constraints of the global emissions totals.”
Second, the need for national targets both to add up and to be equitable means that rich countries, including the European Union, Japan and the United States, need to achieve emissions reductions of at least 80 per cent by 2050, compared with 1990. Developing countries, including China and India, also need to limit and decrease their emissions, but in ways that are consistent with their ambitions for continued economic growth and the reduction of poverty.
Third, if we assume that annual global emissions will peak within the next five years and will reduce at a substantial but realistic rate thereafter to give a reasonable chance of avoiding a temperature increase of more than 2˚C, global annual emissions must be cut to between 44 and 48 gigatonnes of carbon-dioxide-equivalent by 2020. If we only reach the upper end of this range, much bigger annual reductions in emissions would be required in subsequent years, and cuts of more than 50 per cent by 2050 compared with 1990 to prevent a rise of more than 2˚C. Thus, it would be safer to aim for the lower end of the range for 2020. An analysis of the current policies and commitments among the most important rich and developing countries in terms of emissions indicates that we would be close to the top of that range in 2020, so we must find ways of making further cuts in the next two decades to reach a reasonable trajectory.
Finally, rich countries should give their strong backing to climate change policies, including those that are designed to halt deforestation, and low-carbon growth plans in developing countries in a variety of ways, including through additional financial support, beyond official development assistance, of US$100 billion per year for mitigation and US$100 billion per year for adaptation by the 2020s.
If we can get to grips with these issues, then we can achieve an agreement that is effective, efficient and equitable. It will allow us to avoid the profound risks of climate change, to overcome poverty worldwide and to usher in an exciting new era of prosperity based on sustainable low-carbon growth. Through innovation and investment in new greener and more energy efficient technologies in the next two or three decades, we can create the most dynamic period of growth in economic history. And what is more, a low-carbon world will also be quieter, cleaner, more energy-secure and more biologically diverse. Let us not allow mistrust, pessimism and lack of ambition to prevent us from achieving these aims. Instead let us have real vision and leadership in both developing and developed countries which seize the opportunities offered by Copenhagen, for us, our children and future generations.
Jeff Mason, Reuters 22 Sep 09;
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Worldwide efforts to fight climate change face potentially crucial milestones this week during United Nations and G20 meetings that activists hope will bring momentum to stalled talks on a new global warming treaty.
Below is a list of questions and answers about the meetings, what is at stake, and what outcomes may or may not result.
WHO IS MEETING AND WHEN?
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon holds a one-day summit on climate change for world leaders at U.N. headquarters on Tuesday. The meeting is not a negotiating session, but Ban hopes it will encourage heads of state and government to prod their governments over outstanding issues that have prevented official talks from moving forward.
U.S. President Barack Obama hosts a meeting of G20 leaders on Thursday and Friday in Pittsburgh, where they are expected to discuss how industrial nations should provide financial support for developing countries dealing with climate change.
WHAT IS THE STATUS OF CLIMATE TALKS?
U.N. talks among 190 nations are scheduled to take place in Copenhagen in December to forge a deal on a climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out at the end of 2012.
Progress ahead of Copenhagen has been limited. Industrial and developing nations are at odds over how to spread out greenhouse gas emission curbs and how much rich nations should pay to help poorer nations cope with the effects of rising temperatures.
WHAT CAN THIS WEEK'S MEETINGS DO TO ADVANCE TALKS?
It's all about momentum.
Renewed commitment from world leaders at the U.N. summit could reinvigorate the process, trickling down to negotiating rounds set to take place in the coming months.
There are two people to watch in particular on Tuesday: Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The Chinese leader is expected to unveil new plans that his country intends to take to tackle global warming -- a move that could help to break the international deadlock.
Obama's speech at the summit will be scrutinized for signs that he is stepping up to take the leadership role he promised the United States would take on this issue.
WHAT IS OBAMA EXPECTED TO SAY?
The U.S. president is likely to stress the progress Washington has already made in his short tenure as president on fighting global warming, including putting billions of dollars toward renewable energy in the economic stimulus bill and laying out tough new standards for auto emissions.
But activists -- and other nations -- want more than just a review of what has been done.
"He has to show the rest of the world that he is serious about a global agreement, that it's not just rhetoric," said Nick Mabey, head of E3G, an environmental group in London.
"Obama's speech will tell us about how far the forces that are talking about delay and lowering expectations are winning and how much he is still focused on winning this battle. That will massively affect the negotiations."
WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE U.S. CLIMATE BILL?
U.S. progress on a law limiting greenhouse gas emissions is seen as crucial to the advancement of the Copenhagen talks.
Earlier this year the House of Representatives narrowly passed legislation calling for industrial greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels, and 83 percent by 2050.
The U.S. Senate is considering similar legislation, but a bill has not yet been introduced.
Both Congress and the White House are focusing their energy almost exclusively on the debate over healthcare, so delay on the climate bill is seen as possible if not likely.
U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid indicated last week the climate bill could be pushed back to 2010, which could hamper the U.S. position in Copenhagen and discourage other nations from committing to carbon curbs.
WHAT'S NEXT AFTER THE U.N. SUMMIT?
The G20 meeting on Thursday and Friday comes next, though U.S. and other G20 officials have played down expectations of any substantial breakthrough on the financing issue.
Further climate negotiating sessions are scheduled to take place in Bangkok at the end of September and Barcelona in early November. The Copenhagen talks begin on December 7. (Additional reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Eric Beech)
James Bone and Robin Pagnamenta, Times Online 22 Sep 09;
The President of the Maldives, the Indian Ocean islands threatened with extinction by rising sea levels, told the United Nations climate-change summit yesterday that the country’s appeals for help had fallen on deaf ears for 20 years.
“Once or twice a year we are invited to attend an important climate change event such as this one — often as a keynote speaker,” Mohammed Nasheed told world leaders at the UN headquarters in New York.
“On cue, we stand here and tell you just how bad things are. We warn you that unless you act quickly and decisively, our homeland and others like it will disappear before the rising sea, before the end of this century.
“We in the Maldives desperately want to believe that one day our words will have an effect, and so we continue to shout them even though, deep down, we know that you are not really listening,” he said.
Mr Nasheed had again been invited to address a UN climate summit, in the approach to the Copenhagen conference this December at which world leaders hope to “seal the deal” on reducing gas emissions. His speech was sandwiched between those by the two leaders best equipped to save his island nation: President Hu of China and President Obama of the US, representing world’s No 1 and No 2 greenhouse gas emitters respectively.
But Mr Nasheed argued that developing nations must be ready to accept binding targets even if rich countries do not act. “We ask world leaders to discard those habits that have led to 20 years of complacency and broken promises on climate change, and instead seize the historic opportunity that sits at the end of the road to Copenhagen,” he said.
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, said: “Success in Copenhagen will have positive ripple effects for global co-operation on trade, energy, security and health. Failure to reach broad agreement would be morally inexcusable, economically shortsighted and politically unwise.”
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that without counter-measures global temperatures would rise by up to 6.4C by 2100. The dangers include the disappearance of sea ice and more frequent cyclones, heat waves and heavy rains. Water would become scarce in semi-arid areas such as the western US, the Mediterranean Basin, Southern Africa and northeastern Brazil. The Greenland ice sheet might also disappear, leading to a seven metre (23ft) rise in sea level.
“The impacts would be disproportionately severe on some of the poorest communities of the world,” Mr Pachauri said. “At least 12 countries are likely to tend towards becoming failed states and communities in other states would show potential for serious conflict due to scarcity of food, water, stress and soil degradation.”
Mr Pachauri called for steps to ensure that global emissions peaked no later than 2015.
Among the most far-reaching pledges from developed nations, Japan’s new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, to reduce the emissions to a level 25 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020; the previous Japanese Government’s target was 8 per cent. That move, combined with the Chinese offer to slow its emissions, and a recent offer by India to set numerical targets for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions, added to pressure on President Obama to act. too.
Al Gore, the former Vice-President, said that he hoped that the US Senate would pass climate change legislation by December, as the House of Representatives had done, so that Mr Obama would be able to make a firm offer.
However, activists criticised Mr Obama’s speech, in which he offered little except a recognition that the US had a duty to play a leading role.
Asad Rehman, of Friends of the Earth, said: “Barack Obama’s speech was deeply disappointing — it was a huge missed opportunity which does nothing to break the logjam in international climate negotiations.”
James Cameron, of Climate Change Capital, said of the Chinese initiative: “The Chinese move will help create the world’s largest market for the technology and the knowhow needed to combat climate change, which represents great business opportunities that have a public good at their core. China is moving rapidly to create the incentives for low-carbon investments.”
Gordon Brown arrived in New York last night and was seeking support from advanced nations to back a $100 billion fund to support developing nations as they switch to green technologies. Britain is committed to a European Union target to reduce its carbon emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020.
A British official described the proposal by President Hu of China as “definitely encouraging”.
“We obviously need to see numbers from China but we need to see numbers from everybody before December,” the official said.
Jose Maria Figueres, Juan Mayr and Marina Silva
BBC Green Room 22 Sep 09;
This week sees a series of meetings that could create the right conditions for achieving a new global treaty on climate change. In the Green Room this week, three senior political figures from Latin America - Jose Maria Figueres, Juan Mayr and Marina Silva - argue that middle-income nations such as theirs are leading the way.
On 22 September, world leaders meet at the UN in New York for high-level talks on climate change - a summit followed two days later by a discussion at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh on the global financial situation.
Moving out of the current financial crisis and addressing the problem of climate change can be jointly achieved by shifting the world towards a low carbon economy.
Analysis by Lord Stern and many others has shown that the economic case for taking measures now to mitigate and adapt to climate change is overwhelming.
The meetings this month in New York and Pittsburgh should focus on this.
The importance of these meetings can hardly be overstated. Success at December's UN climate meeting in Copenhagen, where leaders will gather with the hope of reaching a new global agreement, will be determined in no small part on the progress made now.
Transition elements
The scientific evidence is clear: the world cannot support the continuation of "business as usual".
There is a growing consensus in the scientific community that the upper boundary of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels safe for our planet is 350 parts per million (ppm).
Today, as a direct result of human activities, it stands at 386 ppm. It is therefore essential that each nation shifts its economic development towards a low carbon model, one that can sustain the economy and the ecology of the planet.
Transition to a low-carbon economic system will only happen if all countries co-operate; commitment from every developed and developing country is required.
Industrialised nations, as the primary carbon emitters, will have to act urgently. Of equal importance is the need for developing nations to embark on a path of economic growth which "leap-frogs" carbon-intensive industrialisation.
New maturity
The dilemma of how to foster economic growth without worsening our climate is not a new problem.
And it is not one that is limited to the developing world. Indeed, with the exception of a few, mostly European, countries, the industrialised world has failed to cut its own emissions sufficiently to grant either moral authority or practical advantage in this discussion.
While some nations are in fact taking action - Denmark for example has raised its GDP while lowering carbon emissions and energy consumption - there are many that are only prepared to make weak commitments, which are well below the levels required.
December's UN climate summit presents a real opportunity for the negotiators from 192 nations to act in the global interest.
But if such changes prove challenging for the world's wealthiest countries, imagine the difficulty they pose for economies still reaching maturity.
In this light, it is important to note that nations such as our own are also taking action, and our determination is unshakable.
Plans have been put in place to lower emissions, forgo unsustainable practices and make a transition to new clean energy technologies.
For example, Costa Rica's climate change plan calls for a transition to carbon neutrality by 2021 - an ambitious but achievable programme.
Brazil plans to decrease emissions from deforestation - its main source of greenhouse gas emissions - by 80% before 2020, and plans to establish a target to reduce all emissions in the coming months.
Other examples include the "Long-Term Mitigation Scenario" published by South Africa in 2008, and plans by the Maldives and other island nations to achieve carbon neutrality in the mid-term.
South Korea is investing approximately 80% of its fiscal stimulus package in climate-related measures.
Those commitments are significantly higher than most of what is being proposed by developed nations.
Four elements
The challenge is straightforward: how to curb greenhouse gas emissions and sustain economic prosperity at the same time.
To secure a practical pathway to a clean energy economy - one that is measured in both higher incomes and a more stable climate - we must strike a new partnership between developed and developing countries.
There are four elements to emphasise:
* Climate change is a moral, economic and environmental imperative that cannot be evaded. Leaders who pay lip service to the science of climate change - who tacitly recognise its devastating implications and then do nothing to halt its advance - are trafficking in hypocrisy, and should be held accountable for doing so
* The developing world is not uniform - it is as diverse as the major industrialised economies. Those who have set ambitious programmes should be recognised and should benefit from additional incentives. Those who have not must be led to see that additional action will result in additional investment and opportunity
* It's time to talk dollars and cents. The developed world must follow the call of those like UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in helping to finance that process of transition. His proposal for $100 billion annually in new investments is the minimum that we should expect to secure at the G20
* Most importantly, the overwhelming scientific and economic case for striking such a partnership must be well communicated to all people in all countries. Leaders must speak to this and civil society must add its voice loudly.
And here's what needs to be said.
A new partnership supported by substantial investments and political leadership is the only way to marshal the political consensus required to make genuine progress on climate change.
It's fair for developed countries to require more clarity of commitment from developing nations - even if they are voluntary commitments.
However, partnerships run both ways, and it is equally fair for developing countries to expect developed nations to make more ambitious commitments than they have so far been prepared to do.
For the developed world, the transition to a new clean energy economy will create jobs and growth, mitigating the current recession and laying the pathway for economic and environmental recovery.
For the developing world, it is an opportunity to progress towards a sustainable economic model, avoiding climate-damaging industrialisation in the process. This will create further prospects for expansion and job growth.
The time has come for a fair, binding and ambitious climate change agreement and concrete action by all nations.
That's why this week meetings are so important. And that's the prism through which their success should be evaluated.
Jose Maria Figueres is a former President of Costa Rica, Juan Mayr is a former Environment Minister of Colombia and Marina Silva is a former Environment Minister of Brazil
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press Yahoo News 23 Sep 09;
UNITED NATIONS – It happened in Rio, in 1992: The world officially woke up to the fact it was getting warmer outside. Seventeen years later in New York, the U.N. gathered presidents and premiers to talk about serious steps to turn down the heat. But the political climate may still be too cool for conclusive action.
In inviting President Barack Obama and other world leaders to Tuesday's summit on climate change, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged them to "act as global leaders rather than national leaders," to push climate negotiations forward.
With a mere 76 days to go before a pivotal diplomatic conference, it appeared an interim agreement might be the most that can be expected this December, leaving difficult details for later talks.
Ban's bid to build momentum for a new climate accord was the latest effort in a long, cumbersome process dating back to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Leaders converging on the Brazilian city signed on to something unprecedented, a treaty committing them to work "to protect the climate system for present and future generations."
Scientists had produced persuasive evidence the carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases that industry, transport and farming were pouring into the atmosphere were trapping heat and raising global temperatures, with potentially damaging effects — droughts, floods, rising sea levels — from a changing climate.
Then-President George H.W. Bush called on fellow summiteers to "join in a prompt start on the convention's implementation."
Not promptly, but five years later the world's nations agreed to add the Kyoto Protocol to the treaty, with its first, modest reductions in emissions by industrialized countries.
The U.S. Senate repudiated the pact, however, and the process entered an eight-year slowdown as a second Bush administration, of President George W., resisted global pressure for deeper concerted action.
The U.S. opponents complained emissions reductions would crimp the American economy, and objected to Kyoto's excusing of China, India and other poorer countries from having to reduce their energy use.
As the diplomacy decelerated, climate change accelerated.
Average global temperatures had risen 0.74 degrees C (1 degree F) over the past century. Sea-level rise, from heat expansion and melting land ice, increased in the late 20th century.
Just last week, scientists reported that one of recorded history's greatest losses of Arctic sea ice to summer melt occurred this year, surpassed only by 2007 and 2008. Scientific forecasts are growing ever more bleak.
While waiting for change in Washington, diplomats in 2007 set a two-year timetable for replacing the Kyoto pact, which expires in 2012, aiming at a comprehensive deal at the annual U.N. climate conference this December in Copenhagen, Denmark. The election of Obama, who pledged U.S. action, put new life in the process. But time was working against success.
The House of Representatives did pass the first U.S. legislation to cap carbon emissions. The Senate, however, embroiled in the U.S. health care debate, delayed addressing the issue. Without U.S. domestic action, the rest of the world isn't likely to commit to an overall, detailed post-Kyoto accord.
"The negotiations are going far too slow. We are close to deadlock," Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which currently heads the European Union, acknowledged in the opening public session of Tuesday's summit. "As leaders we have a job to do. Our job is to break the deadlock."
But, as France's President Nicolas Sarkozy pointed out, "time is not our ally here." Time, in fact, was even in short supply on Tuesday, as some 100 national leaders and other envoys had a theoretical five minutes each to present their views in closed U.N. meetings.
It appeared increasingly that Copenhagen, at best, may produce a framework for further talks, while pieces fall into place in Washington and elsewhere, and Kyoto's formulas are perhaps extended.
Such a Copenhagen plan might set an aggregate goal for emissions reductions by richer countries, with 2020 and 2050 targets, and envision "policy-based" commitments by China and other poorer countries — for example, not reducing emissions directly, but reducing "carbon intensity," or fossil-fuel use per unit of economic growth.
Depending on how well the world is rebounding from the current economic slump, richer nations might also declare their readiness to boost financial support for developing countries to switch to clean energy technologies, and to adapt to climate change's impact on their crops, their shorelines and their economic lives.
At Tuesday's summit and earlier, China, India, Brazil and other developing nations indicated they're prepared to take such steps. The Europeans and Japan's new government, meanwhile, say they'll deepen their emissions cuts. And the Americans, 17 years after Rio, may be prepared to adopt their own reductions.
Concluding the unusual session Tuesday, a determinedly upbeat Secretary-General Ban said, "This summit has put fresh wind in our sails."
But December looks too close, and the issues look too complex, for it to happen in Copenhagen in 2009.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles J. Hanley has reported on climate change since the Kyoto conference of 1997.
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