14 Oct (Wed): "Good COP, Bad COP - the Compelling Case for a Good Global Climate Deal" from wild shores of singapore
Butterfly of the Month - October 2009
from Butterflies of Singapore
After Rain at Seletar Wasteland
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Long-tailed Parakeets
from Life's Indulgences
House (Pacific) Swallow collecting nesting material
from Bird Ecology Study Group
PUB says it's to prevent abuse by non-park users
Ng Wan Ching New Paper 6 Oct 09;
The free parking enjoyed by visitors at the MacRitchie Reservoir multi-storey carpark will soon come to an end.
This is to prevent possible abuse, which may leave visitors to the reservoir short of parking space, said Mr Tan nguan Sen, PUB's Director of Catchment and Waterways.
Early morning joggers have on some occasions been unable to find space for their cars in the 300-lot carpark.
The Guardian 7 Oct 09;
The fastest rate of deforestation in Indonesia is occurring in central Sumatra’s Riau province, where some 4.2m hectares (65%) of its tropical forests and peat swamps have been cleared for industrial plantations in the past 25 years. Under the Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (Redd) scheme $30bn a year could be transferred from rich countries to the owners of endangered forests. But experts on all sides of the debate - from international police to politicians to conservationists - warned that the scheme may be impossible to monitor and may already be leading to fraud
24 other photos and issues on deforestation in Sumatra on the Guardian website.
Radio Australia 7 Oct 09;
The first attempt to plug a large oil leak from the West Atlas rig in the Timor Sea has failed. The leak started more than six weeks ago, and since then oil has been streaming into the Timor Sea unhindered. The company which owns the oil rig says it will be several days before a second attempt to stop the leak can be made. Environmentalists believe the full impact of the spill has yet to be revealed.
Presenter: David Weber
Speaker: Tracey Jiggins of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority; Martin Pritchard, Director of Environs Kimberley
DAVID WEBER: The company PTTEP has drilled a relief well to pump mud into the leaking well. The target area is more than two-and-half kilometres below the sea bed. The first attempt to stop the leak has failed and it will be four days before it's tried again. But even when the flow is stopped the oil will stay in the area for some time. Tracey Jiggins of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority says much of it is still near the rig.
TRACEY JIGGINS: The major part of the oil still remains within the vicinity of the rig. We have seen some very light, patchy sheen out further which is incredibly low quantities of oil within that is seen out a bit further. It poses no environmental hazard for shoreline but obviously it can still be of concern to birdlife.
DAVID WEBER: Several environment groups presented an open letter about the spill in a full-page newspaper advertisement today. It called on oil and gas companies to support the establishment of large marine sanctuaries to protect wildlife off the Kimberley coast. One of the groups was Environs Kimberley. The director Martin Pritchard says getting accurate information about the spill has been a great challenge.
MARTIN PRITCHARD: Most of the information we've had has been anecdotal reports from non-government people or organisations. We'd like to get more of an estimate of exactly how much is leaking. And also we'd like to see the oil spill trajectory model that the Australian Government has so that we can see where this is likely to end up, particularly now that we've got a change in weather patterns where this oil is likely to be heading towards the Kimberley coast.
DAVID WEBER: A spokesman for the Federal Environment Minister says 15 birds including noddies, brown boobies and a sooty tern have been affected by the spill. Seven of the 15 birds have died. Martin Pritchard:
MARTIN PRITCHARD: There have been a small number of birds affected. We believe that there's probably a whole heap more birds that have been being affected but haven't actually been seen because this oil slick covers a vast area of several thousand square kilometres and as far as we know the surveillance effort to date has been very poor.
DAVID WEBER: There was a report last week that was published in the Jakarta Post suggesting that people on the West Timor coast were concerned and indeed a couple of people had become ill after eating fish that may have been affected by the spill.
MARTIN PRITCHARD: Look this is particularly concerning. Australia has a responsibility to clean up this mess and if it's heading towards Timor then we'd like to see what kind of response the Australian Government is going to provide and how these people in Timor are going to be looked after. And also if we're seeing fish being contaminated that far away then obviously there's a great deal of concern as to how the fish and the marine ecosystems in the near vicinity of the oil spill are being affected.
DAVID WEBER: A spokesman for the Federal Environment Minister says that aside from the birds there have been no confirmed reports of animals dying as a result of the spill. The Environment Department is developing a long-term monitoring plan which the company will have to carry out and pay for.
Papitchaya Boonngok, Reuters 6 Oct 09;
BANG KHUN THIEN, Thailand (Reuters) - Some villagers use bamboo fencing. Others plant mangroves. And some do both to fight back against erosion transforming centuries-old communities on the Gulf of Thailand.
Only a half hour drive south of Bangkok, coastal regions already show alarming signs of erosion: electricity poles, once on land, are submerged in parts of Bang Khun Thien, a district on the outskirts of Bangkok.
Kongsak Lerkngam, who lives in Bang Khun Thien and works on an erosion protection initiative in six coastal provinces, said about 1,140 acres of village land have disappeared in the past 30 years at a rate of between 1.2-4.6 meters a year.
Caused by a combination of expanding fishing industries such as shrimp farms and global warming that has raised sea levels, the erosion has wiped out many of the mangrove forests that once offered a natural buffer on the Gulf of Thailand coast.
"The forest is gone," Kongsak said of the mangroves.
"In the past, erosion was not this intense but now the erosion is very intense," he added.
Most of the affected regions were cleared of mangroves by shrimp farms, a big business in Thailand that brings in $2 billion in exports a year.
Some villagers are fighting back with varying degrees of success. In 1999, about 46 villages began planting mangroves in an attempt to revive the ecosystem of trees and shrubs which once formed a coastal barrier to protect their communities.
Their goal: stop the ripples caused mostly by fishing boats from reaching the water's edge where many homes are built.
HARNESSING BAMBOO
Other villages take a different approach.
In Kok Kham, a fishing community in the province of Samut Sakhon, some villagers have built bamboo fences by submerging about 100 bamboo sticks, each about 5 metres (16 ft) long, in triangle-shaped groups along the coast.
The idea is to prevent big ripples from reaching the coast and allow mud and debris to collect on the fence to form a barrier, said Narin Boonruam, a 71-year-old leader of the Kok Kham Conservation group. "This helps relieve coastal erosion."
But the bamboo fences protect just two km (1.2 miles) of Samut Sakhon's 42 km (26 miles) of coast.
Still, Narin said he is satisfied with the result. Sediment behind the fences has swelled to 1.5 metres (5 ft) thick in just two years. Mangrove trees have also been planted but are too thin to withstand strong ripples and protect the coast, he added.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a network of campaign groups, governments, scientists and other experts, described the local techniques as a good answer to a troubling problem in Thailand.
"It works. It's natural. It's sustainable," said Thailand IUCN Program coordinator, Dr. Janaka De Silva.
"It has added benefits in that it improves the quality of local peoples' livelihood."
His comments come as scientists and government officials from around the globe meet at a U.N. conference in Bangkok to work out ways to fight climate change and curb the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
According to a 2007 World Bank report, about 1,500 sq km (579 sq miles) of Gulf of Thailand mangrove forest has been deforested and replaced by shrimp farms.
It estimates 11 percent of Gulf of Thailand coast has been eroded at a pace of five metres (16 ft) or more a year.
(Editing by Jason Szep and Jerry Norton)
The Star 7 Oct 09;
MALACCA: The badly wounded male tiger rescued from a poacher’s snare is being treated at the Malacca Zoo in the hope of saving its injured limb from amputation.
National Parks and Wildlife Department senior veterinarian Dr Zainal Zahari said the focus now was on treating the deep wound caused by the snare.
“It is too early to tell whether the wound will respond to treatment as it is quite deep and bad,” he said yesterday.
Perak wildlife authorities rescued the 120kg tiger on Saturday afternoon after receiving information that the animal had been found trapped in the Royal Belum Forest Reserve.
The animal was given treatment in Perak and was sent to the zoo here on Sunday night for further treatment.
Zainal said a final decision would be made next week to determine whether amputation would be necessary to prevent the wound from becoming fatal to the animal.
Whatever the outcome, the tiger would be in quarantine at the zoo for a month before a decision is made as to where it should be, he said, adding that it is likely to be kept at the zoo here.
Apart from the wound, he added the tiger, between five and seven years old, was in prime condition.
He said this is not the first time authorities had been called in to rescue and treat snared tigers.
“We managed to save two tigers and a tiger cub in Grik, Perak, in the 1980s that had also suffered snare wounds,” he added.
A well known case involved a male tiger named Harimau Puchong. Its one limb was amputated after it was rescued from a snare in 1987.
Despite having only three limbs, the tiger went on to become one of the zoo’s most prolific breeders under its tiger-breeding programme.
Charles Q. Choi, livescience.com Yahoo News 6 Oct 09;
Dragons may come from the land Down Under.
Scientists now find that the world's largest living lizard species, the Komodo dragon, most likely evolved in Australia and dispersed westward to its current home in Indonesia.
In the past, researchers had suggested the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) developed from a smaller ancestor isolated on the Indonesian islands, evolving its large size as a response to lack of competition from other predators or as a specialist hunter of pygmy elephants known as Stegodon.
However, over the past three years, an international team of scientists unearthed numerous fossils from eastern Australia dated from 300,000 years ago to roughly 4 million years ago that they now know belong to the Komodo dragon.
"When we compared these fossils to the bones of present-day Komodo dragons, they were identical," said researcher Scott Hocknull, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Queensland Museum in Australia.
For the last 4 million years, Australia has been home to the world's largest lizards, including the 16-foot-long giant (5 meters) called Megalania, once the world's largest terrestrial lizard but which died out some 40,000 years ago.
"Now we can say Australia was also the birthplace of the three-meter (10 foot) Komodo dragon," Hocknull said.
The researchers said the ancestor of the Komodo dragon most likely evolved in Australia and spread westward, reaching the Indonesian island of Flores by 900,000 years ago. Comparisons between fossils and living Komodo dragons on Flores show that the lizard's body size has remained relatively stable since then.
Further support for this notion of dispersal from Australia comes from the island of Timor, located between Australia and Flores. Three fossil specimens from Timor represent a new, as yet unnamed species of giant monitor lizard, which was larger than the Komodo dragon, although smaller than Megalania. More specimens of this new giant lizard are needed before the species can be formally described.
"There are a lot of things we just simply don't know about this part of the world - Indonesia to Australia," Hocknull told LiveScience. "In recent years this region has thrown up remarkable discoveries - a new species of hominid, the 'Lost World' in New Guinea boasting dozens of new species having never met humans, and now an island chain of giant lizards, including the largest of them all, Megalania from Australia. However, they all went extinct, except the Komodo dragon. The big question now is why? The south-east Asian to Australian region is a hot-spot of new and exciting discoveries."
All these huge lizards were once common in Australasia for more than 3.8 million years, having evolved alongside large mammalian carnivores, such as Thylacoleo, the so-called 'marsupial lion.' The Komodo dragon is the last of these giants, but within the last 2,000 years, their populations have diminished severely, most likely due to humans, and they are now vulnerable to extinction, living now on just a few isolated islands in eastern Indonesia, between Java and Australia.
"Understanding the past history of a species is absolutely fundamental to determining its potential trajectory in the future, its responses to climate change, habitat change and extinction events," Hocknull said. "The Komodo dragon's fossil record shows that it is a resilient species - resilient to major climatic changes throughout its past, surviving extinction events which wiped out contemporary megafauna species."
One question that now pops up is why the Komodo dragon went extinct on Australia while surviving on a few isolated Indonesian isles. Hocknull noted that climate was an unlikely suspect, as "climate impacts species on islands just as much as a big continent like Australia. In Australia there is plenty of habitat which could be conducive to Komodo dragons. If you released them in Australia today they would probably do quite well."
Were humans involved? "We have no evidence for this because the youngest Komodo fossils in Australia are around 300,000 years old, well before humans arrived. So we don't know whether the Komodo dragons in Australia died out before humans arrived or after. So the jury will remain out on this question until a better fossil record is found."
Hocknull noted these islands of lizards are each, in a sense, individual experiments in evolution that shed light not only on the past of these lizards, but potentially also on the future of the world.
"It's a perfect place to see how life adapts and evolves in response to major environmental impacts, like sea level change, climatic changes, catastrophes - tsunamis and volcanic eruptions - plus each island has received modern humans at one time or another," he explained. "What were their impacts and how did species cope? This will be our Rosetta Stone when understanding how species will respond to future climate change."
The scientists will detail their findings on Sept. 30 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Helen Meredith, BBC Green Room 7 Oct 09;
It is a time of crisis for the world's amphibians, says Helen Meredith. In this week's Green Room she says we may be facing our last chance to save this important group of animals.
A third of all species of amphibian are threatened with extinction; nearly half are in decline, and they are the most threatened of all the vertebrate groups.
If allowed to continue, the projected losses would constitute the largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
But first things first; what are amphibians and why should we care about their decline?
Amphibians are one of nature's less familiar groups - an issue that presents major challenges to establishing the conservation action they so urgently require.
They have been around on the planet for about 360 million years, arising over 100 million years before the first mammal and 200 million years before the first bird.
Great survivors
Modern amphibians comprise frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians (limbless amphibians), and number in excess of 6,000 species to date.
More than 20% are not understood well enough to be assigned any conservation status and it is estimated that up to 10,000 species may exist in total.
They are found on every continent except Antarctica, ranging from the Arctic Circle to the tropical deserts.
Of all the vertebrates, amphibians lead some of the strangest lives. Various species can survive partial freezing, 10 years without food, long droughts and temperatures of up to 40C (104F).
They are among life's great survivors, enduring mass extinction events that have wiped out the dinosaurs and whole swathes of mammals and birds. In this light, their current extinction crisis seems all the more troubling.
Although they may not seem to have an impact upon the daily lives of many cultures, they provide numerous essential services to mankind.
They consume huge quantities of invertebrates, including humanity's most vilified pests.
Their crucial role in global ecosystems, both as predator and prey, helps maintain healthy functioning environments. Frogs are an important protein source in many subsistence cultures and are traded in their millions as food and pets.
The skin secretions that protect amphibians against predation and infection have been found to contain important pharmaceutical compounds that show potential in treating a variety of illnesses from HIV to cancer.
The most famous case is that of the phantasmal poison frog (Epipedobates tricolor) . Skin secretions from this frog yielded the compound epibatidine, which is a painkiller 200 times more effective than morphine.
Amphibians are repositories of potentially life-saving chemicals and are key model organisms in scientific research.
Witnessing the precipitous decline of the amphibians is sobering. Why now, after hundreds of millions of years of survival, are they bowing out?
As always, the reasons are diverse and complex. The usual suspects of habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, environmental contaminants and overexploitation represent key interrelated factors.
Additionally, a disease called chytridiomycosis or "chytrid" (caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis ) infects a wide range of amphibians globally and is capable of driving species to extinction.
Exacerbated by the other issues impacting amphibians, chytrid has emerged as one of the major threats to their survival. This disease can kill amphibians in otherwise pristine habitats or provide the final nail in the coffin for species already pushed to the brink of extinction.
The fight to save the world's amphibians shouts into a howling gale of climate change, war, overpopulation, economic crises, and countless other global disasters, rendering their plight (just like many other aspects of biodiversity) somewhat low on the agenda of global priorities; they are slipping away almost unnoticed.
What can be done?
A recent IUCN amphibian conservation summit held at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) highlighted plans to launch the Amphibian Survival Alliance, which will unite existing organisations and projects working on amphibian conservation (like ZSL's EDGE Amphibians Project), creating a mutually supportive network.
This initiative is still woefully underfunded given the urgent need for action, but represents a major step towards consolidating worldwide conservation activities to protect as many species as possible.
We hope this will improve and expand the movement to protect amphibians, boosting the fundraising and publicity drive necessary to raise concern over amphibian declines and put vital conservation strategies into practice.
To lend perspective, the original cost of the global Amphibian Conservation Action Plan was equivalent to about one and a half Boeing 747 aeroplanes.
The latest plans drawn up at the summit would cost just one tenth of this sum, and would at least make progress towards saving a third of the world's amphibians.
Initially tackling the two main threats to amphibian survival, disease and habitat destruction, the Amphibian Survival Alliance will require major political backing and financial support if it is to achieve its objectives.
It represents the best hope for amphibians at this most critical and desperate time.
Amphibians are widely viewed as the "canaries in the coalmine" for environmental change.
Despite their glorious past, they simply cannot withstand the current onslaught.
Tellingly, the very same factors that threaten amphibians also endanger all other life on Earth, not least humans.
If we cannot rectify the amphibian extinction crisis, then what does this mean for the future of mankind?
Saving the world's amphibians is a crucial part of the puzzle in guaranteeing our own sustainable existence.
I hope we will act before it is too late for us all.
Helen Meredith is a conservation scientist from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL)
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
WHAT ARE AMPHIBIANS?
# First true amphibians evolved about 250m years ago
# There are three orders: frogs (including toads), salamanders (including newts) and caecilians, which are limbless
# Adapted to many different aquatic and terrestrial habitats
# Present today on every continent except Antarctica
# Many undergo metamorphosis, from larvae to adults
Yereth Rosen, Reuters 6 Oct 09;
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Oil companies scouring the coastline of Alaska's North Slope for new production sites are converging on the same territory as hungry polar bears trying to escape shrinking and thinning sea ice.
Polar bears have not attacked any workers recently, but oil companies are reporting four times as many sightings as they did last decade.
"These bears will walk the coast," said Craig Perham, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "So if you've got an operation right on the coast, you're going to see bears."
There were 321 polar bear sightings in and around Alaska oil and gas operations in 2007 and 313 in 2008, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That is about four times the annual average posted for the period of 1994 through 2000.
The last polar bear mauling at a North Slope industrial site occurred in 1993 at a military facility. A bear crashed through a window and severely hurt a contract worker inside.
But close encounters are getting more frequent. Even reality television has documented the phenomenon. On the closing episode of "Ice Road Truckers" on the History Channel, one truck driver was briefly held up from delivering his final load of diesel fuel to Exxon Mobil Corp's Point Thomson field because wandering polar bears had shut down traffic.
Oil companies probably are recording multiple sightings of individual bears that, instead of making brief stops on land, are extending their stays, Perham said.
"What this appears to be is bears looking for another option because their traditional habitat is not as healthy as it used to be," said Steve Amstrup of the U.S. Geological Survey. This summer, Arctic sea ice shrank to its third-lowest area on record [ID:nN17442487].
Like roaming bears awaiting freeze-up, denning females -- mother bears giving birth and nursing cubs -- are settling on land rather than on sea ice, according to a study by Amstrup and others.
Oil-field workers rarely see denning females, the scientists said, but there have been some interactions. A mother bear with cubs forced a late-season shutdown of the ice road to Point Thomson last spring, state officials said.
The Exxon-operated Point Thomson prospect, 55 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, is at a site holding the coastal bluffs that naturally draw polar bears.
"Clearly, Point Thomson is in the midst of polar bears," Amstrup said.
Other sites attractive to polar bears but targeted for drilling are Oliktok Point west of Prudhoe, where the Italian company ENI is developing its Nikaitchuq prospect, and the offshore Liberty prospect, which BP plans to drill from the edge of land east of Prudhoe Bay.
Meanwhile, oil companies are making more efforts to document sightings, said Marilyn Crockett, executive director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association.
She said last year's designation of polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act adds new monitoring responsibilities for operators in polar-bear habitat.
Most companies hold letters from the Fish and Wildlife Service authorizing "incidental takes" of polar bears, meaning generally minor, accidental disturbances, said Crockett, who added that companies take great efforts to avoid any potentially dangerous encounters.
"So if you have more companies operating under LOAs (letters of authorization), then reporting sightings are going to increase," she said.
(Editing by Bill Rigby and David Gregorio)
New polar bear rule sent to White House
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 7 Oct 09;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Protection for polar bears' shrinking icy habitat is the subject of a proposed rule sent to the White House by the Interior Department.
The proposed rule, "Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Critical Habitat Designation for the Polar Bear" is the latest step in a long process aimed at shielding the big white bears from the effects of climate change.
Details of the proposed rule were not immediately made public, but it was filed on Monday with the White House.
The Bush administration designated polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, on the grounds that the sea ice they use as hunting platforms is literally melting under their paws.
However, the 2008 threat listing allowed oil and gas companies to operating in the polar bear's habitat, which environmental groups pointedly criticized as a flawed understanding of the relationship between fossil fuels, climate change and the fate of Arctic wildlife.
In May, the Obama administration said it would keep a Bush-era "polar bear special rule," which weakens protection for the polar bear's habitat and plays down links between the threatened status of the species and climate change.
The rule exempts from government review all activities that occur outside the polar bears' range, which means that individual sources of greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change cannot be directly linked to the polar bear's habitat.
'ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY'
Obama administration Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on May 8 that the melting of polar bear habitat is "an environmental tragedy of the modern age."
But Salazar went on to say, "The best course of action for protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is to wisely implement the current rule, not revoke it at this time."
Polar bears depend on Arctic sea ice as a platform for hunting seals, their main prey. Malnourished polar bears have more problems reproducing and raising their young. The U.S. Geological Survey has said two-thirds of the world's polar bears -- some 16,000 -- could be gone by 2050 if predictions about diminishing Arctic sea ice hold true.
Asked about the new proposed rule, John Kostyack of the National Wildlife Federation said the Obama administration needs to be more "honest with the science than the previous administration."
"There is extremely strong link between climate change and the decline of the polar bear, and if we hope to conserve the polar bear for future generations, we're going to have to take some strong steps to reduce the non-climate stressors ... the chief one would be oil and gas development," Kostyack said in a telephone interview.
Arctic sea ice has declined in the last three years to its smallest area since satellite views began in 1979, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. The 2009 summer ice had grown from the previous two years but was still less than in 1979.
"It's nice to see a little recovery over the past couple years, but there's no reason to think that we're headed back to conditions seen back in the 1970s," the center's director and senior scientist, Mark Serreze said in a statement on Tuesday. "We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades."
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
University of Sydney, Science Alert 7 Oct 09;
Scientists from the University's Ocean Technology Group at the Faculty of Engineering have suggested that the recent dust storms may have dramatically boosted carbon capture in Sydney Harbour and the Tasman Sea, providing an unexpected benefit to the environment.
"Nutrient rich top soil, like the three million tonnes dumped on Sydney at the end of September, contains up to one per cent as nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphates", says Professor Ian Jones, Head of the Ocean Technology Group. "After the dust is deposited on the sea surface, the nutrients dissolve in the sunlit region of the ocean and are used by the phytoplankton to multiply," he says.
Measurements taken following the dust storm at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science (SIMS) have confirmed a tripling of the phytoplankton in Sydney Harbour at Chowder Bay and in samples taken 10km offshore.
"We estimate that as a consequence of this the extra phytoplankton in the Tasman Sea will be capable of capturing eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide, about the equivalent of a year's CO2 emissions from a coal-fired one gigawatt power station, or a month's worth of emissions for the Munmorah Power Station on the Central Coast," says Professor Jones.
Professor Jones says that this carbon will slowly be exported to the deep ocean in the form of an additional two million tonnes of phytoplankton. As the phytoplankton moves through the food chain this will in turn grow extra fish, thus benefiting the fishing industry.
The recent dust storm provides strong evidence in support of the ocean nourishment principles that Professor Jones has been investigating for more than 15 years.
Previous studies led by Professor Jones have established that adding fertilizer nutrients to the sea promotes the growth of naturally occurring phytoplankton near the surface of the ocean. These investigations have shown that the quantity of phytoplankton is only limited by the shortage of nitrogen in the ocean.
For some time now the Ocean Technology Group has been planning an experiment that replicates the dust deposition in the Tasman Sea. Rob Wheen, Associate Professor in Civil Engineering says: "Our intention is to inject 2.5 tonnes of nitrogen (in the form of urea) into the upper ocean in order to increase the amount of phytoplankton in a controlled patch away from shore near the edge of the continental shelf.
"Satellite remote sensing will be used to monitor the patch of enriched water. This sensing can detect the chlorophyll in phytoplankton. We want to demonstrate safe and practical ways of broadcasting the nutrients. We see this as a precursor to larger scientific experiments in the ocean," he says.
David Owen, Straits Times 7 Oct 09;
TO MOST people, big, densely-populated cities look like ecological nightmares - wastelands of concrete, garbage, diesel fumes and traffic jams. But compared to other inhabited places, cities are models of environmental responsibility. By the most significant measures, the greenest community in the United States is New York City, the only American city that approaches global environmental standards.
The average New Yorker generates 7.1 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually; that is more than the average Swede's 5.6 tonnes, but it is less than 30 per cent of the US average of 24.5 tonnes. Residents of Manhattan, the most densely populated of New York's five boroughs, generate even less.
The key to New York's relative environmental benignity is its extreme compactness. Manhattan's density is approximately 67,000 people per square mile, or more than 800 times the US average and roughly 30 times that of Los Angeles. Moving people closer together reduces the distances between their daily destinations and forces the majority to live in some of the most inherently energy-efficient residential structures in the world: apartment buildings.
New Yorkers use less water, burn less fossil fuel and produce less solid waste than other Americans. Their households also use much less electricity: 4,696 kilowatt hours per year, compared to 16,116 kilowatt hours in Dallas. Most important, New York's comprehensive public transit system enables the majority of residents to live without cars.
Some 82 per cent of employed Manhattanites travel to work by public transit, bicycle or on foot. That's 10 times the rate for Americans in general and eight times the rate for workers in Los Angeles.
At an environmental presentation last year, I sat next to an investment banker who was initially sceptical when I explained that New Yorkers have a significantly lower environmental impact than other Americans. 'But that's just because they're all crammed together,' he said.
Well, yes. He then disparaged New Yorkers' energy efficiency as 'unconscious', as though intention were more important than results. In fact, unconscious efficiencies are the most desirable ones, because they require neither enforcement nor a personal commitment.
I spoke with one energy expert who, when I asked him to explain why per-capita energy consumption was so much lower in Europe than in the US, said: 'It's not a secret, and it's not the result of some miraculous technological breakthrough. It's because Europeans are more likely to live in dense cities and less likely to own cars.'
China and many other non-Western countries are rapidly urbanising. This trend, which has been under way worldwide for decades, is often decried by environmentalists, who generally prefer people to move in the opposite direction, towards 'the land'.
But urbanisation is usually a good thing, both for those moving to cities and for civilisation in general. Urban families live more compactly, do less damage to fragile ecosystems, burn less fuel, enjoy stronger social ties to larger numbers of people, and, most significantly, produce fewer children, since large families have less economic utility in dense cities than they do in marginal agricultural areas.
The world's population is expected to reach nine billion by 2042. If we are to sustain a world of that size, growth must occur almost entirely in cities.
Unfortunately, many global trends are pushing in the opposite direction. Dependence on automobiles is growing in parts of the world that formerly got by without them. China's pool of licensed drivers is growing exponentially, and India is a decade into one of the largest road-building projects in history, a 5,800km superhighway known as the Golden Quadrilateral, which links the country's four largest cities, plus an extensive network of feeder roads.
All those new highways - in combination with India's brand-new 'People's Car', the US$2,500 (S$3,500) Tata Nano - represent an environmental, economic and cultural disaster in the making. If America's long history of energy-and- emissions gluttony proves anything, it is that an automobile-dependent society is vastly easier to create than to un-create.
Moving from walking, bicycling and public transit to driving is relatively simple because it requires only wealth. Moving from driving back to transit, bicycling and walking is far harder because the cars themselves are only part of the problem. Much more critical is the inherent inefficiency of the way of life that cars both enable and make necessary, and of the sprawling web of wasteful infrastructure that high levels of individual mechanised mobility lead affluent societies to create.
Sooner or later, whatever else happens, the world will run out of inexpensive oil. Countries with expanding economies would be better off using their new wealth to create ways of life that can be sustained beyond that inescapable point, rather than recklessly investing in a future that has no future.
Not jumping off a cliff is easier than turning around in mid-fall.
The writer's latest book, Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, And Driving Less Are The Keys To Sustainability, has just been published.
PROJECT SYNDICATE
Nao Nakanishi, PlanetArk 6 Oct 09;
EDINBURGH - A first attempt fell victim to the crisis: now in the docks of Scotland's ancient capital, a second-generation scarlet Sea Snake is being prepared to harness the waves of Britain's northern islands to generate electricity.
Dwarfed by 180 meters of tubing, scores of engineers clamber over the device, which is designed to dip and ride the swelling sea with each move being converted into power to be channeled through subsea cables.
Due to be installed next spring at the European Marine Energy Center (EMEC) in Orkney, northern Scotland, the wave power generator was ordered by German power company E.ON, reflecting serious interest in an emerging technology which is much more expensive than offshore wind.
Interest from the utility companies is driven by regulatory requirements to cut carbon emissions from electricity generation, and it helps in a capital-intensive sector.
Venture capitalists interested in clean tech projects typically have shorter horizons for required returns than the 10-20 years such projects can take, so the utilities' deeper pockets and solid capital base are useful.
"Our view ... is this is a 2020 market place," said Amaan Lafayette, E.ON's marine development manager. "We would like to see a small-scale plant of our own in water in 2015-2017, built on what we are doing here. It's a kind of generation we haven't done before."
The World Energy Council has estimated the market potential for wave energy at more than 2,000 terawatt hours a year --- or about 10 percent of world electricity consumption -- representing capital expenditure of more than 500 billion pounds ($790 billion).
Island nation Britain has a leading role in developing the technology for marine power, which government advisor the Carbon Trust says could in future account for 20 percent of the country's electricity.
The government is stepping up support as part of a 405 million pound investment in renewable energy to help its ambition of cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels, while securing energy supply.*
Britain's Crown Estate, which owns the seabed within 12 nautical miles of the coast, is also holding a competition for a commercial marine energy project in Pentland Firth in northern Scotland.
Besides wave power, Britain is testing systems to extract the energy from tides: private company Marine Current Turbines Ltd (MCT) last year opened the world's first large-scale tidal turbine SeaGen in Northern Ireland.
DEVELOPING LIKE WIND
"We are often compared to the wind industry 20 years ago," said Andrew Scott, project development manager at Pelamis Wave Power Ltd, which is developing the Sea Snake system, known as P2.
Standing beside the train-sized serpent, Pelamis' Scott said wave power projects are taking a variety of forms, which he said was similar to the development of the wind turbine.
"You had vertical axis, horizontal axis and every kind of shapes before the industry consolidated on what you know as acceptable average modern day turbines."
The Edinburgh Snake follows a pioneering commercial wave power project the company set up in Portugal last September, out of action since the collapse of Australian-based infrastructure group Babcock & Brown which held a majority share.
"It's easy to develop your prototypes and models in the lab, but as soon as you put them in water, it swallows capital," said John Liljelund, CEO of Finnish wave energy firm AW-Energy, which just received $4.4 million from the European Union to develop its wave-roller concept in Portugal.
At present, industry executives say marine power costs about double that from offshore wind farms, which require investment of around 2-3 million euros per megawatt.
Solar panels cost about 3-4 million per megawatt, and solar thermal mirror power about 5 million.
UTILITY ACTION
Other utility companies involved in wave power trials include Spain's Iberdrola, which has a small experimental wave farm using floating buoys called "Power Take- offs" off the coast of northern Spain. It is examining sites for a subsea tidal turbine project made by Norwegian company Hammerfest Strom.
Countries developing the technology besides Britain include Portugal, Ireland, Spain, South Korea and the United States: about 100 companies are vying for a share of the market, but only a handful have tested their work in the ocean.
Privately owned Pelamis has focused on wave energy since 1998, has its own full-scale factory in Leith dock and sees more orders for the second generation in prospect.
Lafayette said E.ON examined more than 100 devices since 2001 before picking Sea Snake for its first ocean project, a three-year test: "They have a demonstrable track record ... and commercial focus and business focus."
A single Sea Snake has capacity of 750 kilowatts: by around 2015, Pelamis hopes each unit will have capacity of 20 megawatts, or enough to power about 30,000 homes.
Neither Pelamis nor E.ON would elaborate on the cost of the Sea Snake, but they said the goal is to bring it down to the level of offshore wind farms.
"The challenge is more about getting to a place where we are comparable with other renewable technologies... We want to get somewhere around offshore wind," said Lafayette.
(Editing by William Hardy and Sara Ledwith)
CleanTech 6 Oct 09;
Boeing, Honeywell, and Masdar all want in on a new research study that looks at the large-scale production potential of jet fuels from unique plants known as halophytes.
Chicago-based Boeing (NYSE:BA) said today it is teaming up with UOP, a division of Honeywell (NYSE:HON), to commission a study on the sustainability of using saltwater-drinking plants to generate renewable jet fuel.
UOP develops technologies for the petroleum refining, gas processing, petrochemical production and major manufacturing industries. Boeing is the world's leading aerospace company.
The study is being led by the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, an independent research-focused institution founded by the government of Abu Dhabi (see Abu Dhabi, the next cleantech hub?). The study’s results are expected to be available in late 2010.
The results could help the Masdar Initiative grow its portfolio of renewable energy technologies including sustainable biofuel sources that can be locally grown. The Masdar Initiative is working to build the world's first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city, called Masdar City, in the desert ouside of Abu Dhabi (see Madsar City and Al Falah co-develop clean concrete and $50M solar plant comes online to power Masdar City construction).
The new study is being commissioned as part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group consortium—an initiative that promotes sustainable, second-generation biofuels for the aviation industry. The consortium includes Boeing and UOP (see Game-changing day for jet biofuels). Financial details were not disclosed.
The study is expected to research the potential for sustainable, large-scale production of biofuels made from salicornia bigelovii and saltwater mangroves, or plants categorized as halophytes.
Halophytes are considered to be beneficial biomass energy sources because they thrive in arid land, can be irrigated using seawater and have the potential to deliver high yields per acre of land, according to Boeing.
Boeing said the study is expected to evaluate halophyte aquaculture management and practices, land use and energy requirements, and determine potentially unfavorable ecological or social impacts associated with using the plants for energy development, specifically for aviation biofuels.
Yale University's School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and UOP also plan to participate in the study.
Last year, Honeywell said it was teaming up with three other players in the airline industry to study the use of biofuels for commercial aircraft (see Honeywell partners up to look at aircraft biofuels).
Peter Henderson, PlanetArk 6 Oct 09;
LOS ANGELES - The United Nations scientist whose report set the global standard for climate change sees biofuels as a good investment bet and advised on Friday that people eat less meat to help curb global warming.
In an interview on what individuals in developed countries can do to slow climate change and profit in the process, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, advised investors to assume the future will be low-carbon.
"Investors should be going toward clean technologies," he said. "The world is going to move toward a low-carbon future. That is inevitable."
The IPCC's 2007 report galvanized global reaction to climate change with predictions that world temperatures could rise as much as 11.5 degrees F (6.4 degrees Celsius) this century if carbon emissions were not tackled.
New technologies, some of which are still in the lab, could become important, Pachauri said on the sidelines of the Governors' Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles.
"Battery technology is going to be extremely important, but I wouldn't rule out the importance of biofuels. Of course it won't be biofuels converting corn into ethanol. It will be a new generation of biofuels that has relatively low environmental and other social impacts."
"Production of hydrogen from water in a way that's not going to be terribly intensive in terms of conventional forms of energy," could be important. "You have algae that has a lot of potential" as a biofuel, he added.
On a personal level, Pachauri advised citizens of developed countries to cut back on eating meat, which is extremely energy intensive to produce; walk instead of drive when possible; and turn the thermostat up or down a bit.
Put on a sweater and turn down the thermostat instead of wearing a T-shirt indoors in winter, he said.
Buying energy-efficient lights and putting solar panels on the roof would also help, he said.
"I would look at even simple technologies like, you know, when you go into an office, why not have sensors by which lights get switched on or switched off by themselves?" Such simple solutions are cheap and pay for themselves, he said.
If climate change isn't halted, poor nations will "fail" as weather gets worse and sea levels rise, raising risks for developed nations, Pachauri said.
Reuters 5 Oct 09;
* Partners with privately held Energy Inc
* To offer free software on device to monitor energy use
* Bypasses utilities' smart meters to reach consumer
LOS ANGELES, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is partnering with privately held Energy Inc to provide households with free energy management software, bypassing utilities' smart meters and potentially boosting energy efficiency, the company said on its blog on Monday.
Google launched in February a Web tool called PowerMeter, which lets consumers monitor how much electricity they use at home. The catch was that they had to have a smart meter installed by their utility. For the past few months, a few hundred customers have tested the software.
Now, consumers can buy Energy Inc's power-useage measuring device, called TED 5000, costing about $200, and use Google's software on top of it, without ever needing a smart meter.
The partnership between Energy Inc and Google's philanthropic arm is intended to expand the consumer market. While more and more utilities are moving to install smart meters, they still account for a small percentage of all U.S. electricity meters.
The partnership is nonexclusive and does not include financial terms, the company said. Google will continue working with its partner utilities, which include Sempra Energy's (SRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) San Diego Gas & Electric and Germany's Yello Strom.
Internet behemoth Google is widely known for its online advertising and search engine, but it is also making forays into clean technology.
Its projects include ways to write software to connect plug-in hybrid vehicles to the power grid and a mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more. [ID:N29151351]
Technology companies like Google and IBM Corp (IBM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) are shifting into the world of building a smart grid, envisioning a more efficient electricity grid that uses more renewable energy and powers up 'smart' appliances. (Reporting by Laura Isensee; Editing by Bernard Orr)
WWF 6 Oct 09;
Bangkok, Thailand – Negotiations to bring international aviation and shipping emissions under a Copenhagen climate treaty have begun in earnest at UN climate negotiations now underway in Bangkok, in a signal the world has lost patience with a lack of serious action by the international transport sector.
International aviation and shipping emissions, together more than one billion tons of CO2 annually and increasing significantly, were originally entrusted to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Maritime Organization (IMO) under the Kyoto Protocol.
“In the 12 years since the Kyoto Protocol gave these emissions to the ICAO and IMO to manage, they have failed to pass a single binding measure,” said Peter Lockley, head of transport policy at WWF. “The delegates here in Bangkok are sending a message that these important sources of emissions need to be addressed.”
The timing is particularly important as the ICAO begins three days of meetings in Montreal beginning on October 7th in a last ditch effort to agree to meaningful measures.
“We expect a blitz of positive public relations from the ICAO this week as they attempt to hide the fact that all proposals on the table have very weak targets that are voluntary and could be achieved simply by buying offsets,” added Lockley. “What we really need are binding emissions reduction targets with a clear timetable for delivering policies to meet them.”
It is estimated that emissions from aviation and shipping will double or even triple by 2050 if left unaddressed, potentially taking up two-thirds of a 'safe' global greenhouse gas budget calculated to keeping average global warming well below the 2 degrees centigrade threshold for unacceptable risks of catastrophic or runaway climate change.
As the sectors are international, developed countries are calling for global policies. But in order for this to be acceptable to the developing world, the revenues from these policies must be spent on fighting climate change in developing countries.
“European Finance Ministers are currently considering proposals to use these revenues as climate finance for developing countries, but we are hearing strong indications that some countries would rather keep the money for themselves,” said Lockley.
"It's vital they see past their short-term interests and allow the money to flow, otherwise they will be wrecking the efforts of their own negotiators to reach a deal in Copenhagen."
Climate Pundit Seeks Faster CO2 Shipping Cuts
Jonathan Saul, PlanetArk 7 Oct 09;
LONDON - The United Nation's shipping agency must move faster to introduce mandatory efficiency measures for vessels, veteran environmental campaigner Jonathon Porritt said on Tuesday.
Failure do to so could result in a solution being imposed on the shipping industry by the European Union and others, he said.
Shipping and aviation are the only industry sectors not regulated under the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for greenhouse gas emissions by rich countries from 2008-12.
The seaborne sector accounts for nearly three percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and pressure has grown for cuts ahead of December's climate change summit in Copenhagen.
Delegates from member state countries of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in July approved non-compulsory technical and operational measures to reduce greenhouse emissions from ships.
"There is a sense amongst all of us that the IMO has ... been dragging its feet on all of this," Porritt said.
"Progress made has really been very slow indeed," he told Reuters in an interview.
The voluntary measures reached in July included an energy efficiency index to ensure the design of new vessels and existing ships were environmentally friendly.
The initiatives were circulated for trial use and will be discussed at the IMO's next committee session in March 2010.
CARBON WAR ROOM
The Forum for the Future charity, which Porritt co-founded, has joined British entrepreneur Richard Branson and others in a new group called the Carbon War Room seeking a more active stance from the IMO and the shipping industry to combating CO2.
The EU has signaled that in the absence of a proper agreement on CO2 cuts the EU could impose its own solution.
The bloc is likely to propose aviation and shipping should cut their respective carbon dioxide emissions to 10 and 20 percent below 2005 levels over the next decade.
"If the IMO is not able to raise its game, then the industry is going to find itself increasingly regulated to do what it is currently in a position to do voluntarily," Porritt said.
"The first thing would be to agree an absolute timetable for introducing these indexes," said Porritt, who stepped down as chairman of the UK government appointed Sustainable Development Commission this year.
An IMO spokeswoman said it had opted not to make binding decisions on climate change before December's summit.
"Rather, IMO looks to the Copenhagen Conference to provide, through a new framework treaty instrument, political insight and direction," she said.
"The organization stands ready to enact the necessary technical and operational measures needed to give effect to its members' relevant decisions."
Environmental groups argue the measures reached in July did not go far enough given opposition from China, India and Saudi Arabia.
Peter Hinchliffe, marine director with the International Chamber of Shipping, which represents 75 percent of the global industry, said it wanted to see a mandatory design index in the "fastest possible timescale," adding shippers were in a constant search for increased efficiency to cut CO2.
"We already called for mandatory application but it was thrown out by the member states," he told Reuters. "Many of them are preserving their position for Copenhagen."
(Editing by James Jukwey)
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 6 Oct 09;
BANGKOK (AFP) – The global economic crisis will slash carbon emissions in 2009, opening a narrow opportunity to take decisive action on global warming, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday.
The predicted three percent fall in energy-related CO2 pollution compared with a year earlier would be the steepest drop in 40 years, chief IEA economist Fatih Birol said at a press conference in Bangkok.
The global carbon output up to now has on average grown three percent annually, he added.
Birol said this silver-lining drop in carbon pollution was a "unique window of opportunity" for the world to put itself on a path to limit the increase in global temperatures to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the scientific threshold for dangerous global warming.
The recession-driven fall would lead to CO2 emissions in 2020 being five percent lower than the IEA forecast from just a year ago, even if no further action is taken to curb global warming, he added.
The IEA estimate is part of its World Energy Outlook report, an excerpt of which was released at UN climate talks under way in the Thai capital.
It outlined how steeply countries would have to cut their energy-related carbon emissions over the next 20 years in order fix the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a level that would ensure the two-degree threshold is not crossed.
That level, measured in parts per million, is 450 ppm, according to a benchmark scientific report issued in 2007 by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
"This gives us a chance to make real progress toward a clean-energy future, but only if the right policies are put in place promptly," said IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka in a statement.
"Every year of delay adds an extra 500 billion dollars (340 billion euros) to the investment needed between 2010 and 2030 in the energy sector," he warned.
Energy production accounts for about 65 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IEA.
The climate talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been stymied for months, and are running out of time to deliver a new global climate treaty at a December conference in Copenhagen.
Rich and poor nations are divided over how to share the burden of cutting greenhouse gases, and who is going to pay for it.
Developed nations are willing to take the lead, but expect emerging giants such as Brazil, India and China to commit to mitigation measures as well -- pledges these countries have fiercely resisted.
Rich nations created the problem and should bear the brunt of the responsibility to fix it, the developing countries say.
"Continuing the current energy policies would have catastrophic consequences for the climate," said UNFCCC chief Yvo de Boer. "This is a unique opportunity... to transition the global energy system."
In Stockholm, Brazil's president urged the United States, China and others to do their share to reduce greenhouse gases so that the key Copenhagen summit could be a success.
"If we solve a little bit the US issue, and Obama tries to convince his Congress and the Senate" to accept more ambitious climate objectives, "then things can advance," Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva said.
The IEA's Tanaka confirmed that China had overtaken the United States as the world's top carbon polluter in 2007, adding that "it will be the same in the future."
While it has not announced an emission reductions target, if China fulfils its energy efficiency plans it would account for a quarter of the global effort needed by 2020 under the IEA scenario for stabilising CO2 levels, he said.
"It would put China at the forefront of the fight against climate change," Birol told AFP.
Downturn is 'climate opportunity'
Richard Black, BBC News 6 Oct 09;
The global recession provides a window of opportunity to curb climate change and build a low-carbon future, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).
It calculates that global greenhouse gas emissions will fall by 3% this year - an increase on previous estimates.
If governments take this opportunity to invest in clean technology, the global temperature rise can be kept below the G8 goal of 2C (3.6F), the agency says.
The findings were released at UN climate talks in Bangkok.
"The message is simple and stark: if the world continues on the basis of today's energy and climate policies, the consequences of climate change will be severe," said IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka.
"Energy is at the heart of the problem - and so must form the core of the solution."
The recession is likely to mean emissions being 3% lower this year than last - and it will have a longer term impact, the IEA says, with emissions in 2020 projected to be 5% less than they would have been without an economic dip.
The biggest carbon cuts will come from improving energy efficiency, it says.
Slash, not burn
The agency presents a series of policy measures for different regions of the world and for countries at various stages of economic development.
Its prescription would lead to greenhouse gas concentrations being stabilised at the equivalent of 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide - a level that, according to some analyses, offers a good chance that the rise in the global average temperature since pre-industrial times could be kept within 2C.
Without these policies, the agency calculates that concentrations will soar to 1,000ppm by mid-century - levels that, in many scientists' views, would lead to catastrophic and irreversible consequences.
But political and financial capital needs to be invested soon if the world is to follow the 450ppm path, it says, with emissions needing to peak around 2020.
Developed countries, which it defines as those in the OECD and/or EU, will have to slash energy-related emissions by 17% in the next 11 years and by 50% by 2030.
Other major emitters such as China, India and Brazil would have to keep the rise in their emissions to 14% above current levels by 2030.
Countries in earlier stages of development would be able to increase their greenhouse gas output.
Globally, clean energy technologies would expand rapidly.
In the decade after 2020, the IEA's prescription includes a threefold expansion of nuclear power, a fourfold growth in the renewables sector and a 14-fold expansion of clean coal technologies.
The cost of this transformation would be $10 trillion between 2010 and 2030, the agency says - but improving energy efficiency would save virtually the same amount.
Bangkok heat
In a foreword to the report, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate convention (UNFCCC), warned that all of this was contingent on tying up an ambitious global deal during December's UN climate conference in Copenhagen.
"These results should motivate us all to step up efforts to reach an agreement with the requisite ambition," he said.
"The cost of addressing climate change is manageable. The cost of not doing so is unaffordable."
Mr de Boer is currently in Bangkok, chairing a preparatory meeting of officials from governments inside the UN convention.
On Monday, China and Sudan - which chairs the G77/China bloc of primarily developing nations - accused rich countries of trying to "kill off" one of the fundamentals of the Kyoto Protocol - that emission targets should be legally binding in some way.
They accuse western countries such as the US and Australia of wanting to make targets more flexible, which they fear will allow "wriggle room".
The IEA's analysis forms part of its annual World Energy Outlook, and has been released early in order that it can be discussed in the Bangkok talks.
Selected headline figures, including the recession's projected impact on emissions, were made public last month.
Chisa Fujioka, Reuters 6 Oct 09;
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Natural disasters in Asia over the past week highlight the growing humanitarian impacts of global warming and the urgent need for an ambitious climate pact, a relief and development group said on Tuesday.
Speaking on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in the Thai capital, World Vision said floods in India and a typhoon in the Philippines had hit the poor, who stand to suffer most from a lack of action by rich nations to fight climate change.
Developing nations and relief groups are calling on rich countries to take the lead to avert the worst of more intense droughts, floods, melting glaciers and rising seas.
"The linkage between humanitarian impact and climate change is very much on our doorstep here in Asia," Richard Rumsey, director of disaster risk reduction and community resilience, told a news conference.
"This is not just normal disasters, this is on top of existing disasters. Across Asia, you've seen other crises, you've seen earthquakes and tsunamis."
Floods triggered by heavy rains in south India over the past week have killed some 250 people and left 2.5 million homeless. A typhoon in the Philippines has killed 22 people.
Rumsey said resources at humanitarian groups were being stretched with the need to provide immediate disaster relief and also to help developing countries come up with longer-term solutions to deal with climate change.
For example, World Vision was helping communities in the Philippines plant mangroves to strengthen coastal defences and offer a means of fighting global warming with the soaking up of carbon dioxide from the air.
But the group called for more action from developed nations, blamed by critics for not taking the lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions and for providing insufficient financial and technological aid to poorer nations to deal with climate change.
"It does not seem to have sunk into some negotiators that we are facing a global humanitarian emergency," said Brett Parris, World Vision's chief economist and climate change policy director.
"Many are treating it effectively like a trade negotiation, jockeying for economic advantage. That's not the situation we're in. We're facing a global humanitarian emergency that demands serious financing and serious targets."
(Editing by Jerry Norton)
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