The secret to fighting climate change: Mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes from teamseagrass
Birds and climate change
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Rising seas and Singapore, on Blog Action Day
from wild shores of singapore
Blog Action Day – Climate Change
from isn't it a wonder, how life came to be
B.A.D.
from talfryn.net
Climate Change
from Simply Singapore
Shout About it!
from Green Drinks Singapore
Blog Action Day: Acting for Climate Change
from Midnight Monkey Monitor
Anything New @ TPTP?
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Croc
from Biodiversity Singapore
Shades of green: Beijing (13-27 Sep 09)
from Water Quality in Singapore
Reuters 13 Oct 09;
Oct 14 - The global economy is still is bad shape, people are worried about their jobs and just paying the bills is a major challenge, hardly the right environment to get people focusing on climate change.
With so much to worry about, it can be hard to understand all the fuss about reaching a tougher U.N. climate deal in December in the Danish capital Copenhagen.
Following are some questions and answers on the importance of crafting a new agreement from 2013.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ME?
A new deal will change the way energy is used, priced and created. In short, it will change the global economy.
Scientists say rich nations must find ways to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from power stations and steel mills to refineries and transport to prevent dangerous climate change.
For you and me, this will most likely mean higher fuel and electricity bills, while catching a plane will also become more expensive, as will buying imported food and drink. Insurance premiums covering storm damage or other natural disasters are also likely to rise.
In short, we'll be forced to make tougher lifestyle choices.
The flip side is that governments will help make renewable energy and greener transport more attractive, allowing people to make the switch to cleaner alternatives. Wind farms, solar, plus geothermal, wave and tidal power along with hybrid and fuel cell cars should become more commonplace as costs come down.
Financing from rich nations could also drive a green revolution in developing countries, boosting investment, creating jobs and cutting emissions.
HOW WILL THIS WORK?
It all hinges on putting a price on every tonne of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, produced by industry, transport or through deforestation, or saved from being emitted, such as building wind farms or saving tropical forests that soak up CO2.
Emissions trading through cap-and-trade schemes that give industries incentives to clean up will also be essential. Europe already has such a scheme, while Australia and the United States are working on their own versions.
Key to these schemes are tougher 2020 emissions reduction targets under a new climate treaty. The tougher the targets, the greater the financial incentive for industries to act.
WHAT'S THE URGENCY? CAN'T WE WAIT?
The world has already warmed on average 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past century through the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and gas. Prior to the latest financial crisis, emissions growth was increasing annually at a rate beyond past projections, driven largely by soaring coal and oil consumption in big developing nations, such as China and India.
Scientists say that the world is on course to pump enough carbon dioxide into the air to raise global temperatures by at least 2 deg C in the next few decades, a level they say will lead to more chaotic weather, rising seas, melting glaciers, water shortages and falling crop yields.
Such disruption poses major security threats because the world's population is expected to keep rising. Pollution and health problems are also growing risks.
Even if you don't believe in climate change, the world has only about 41 years of oil left based on proven reserves and 2008 consumption levels of nearly 31 billion barrels a year. As reserves fall and oil becomes harder to extract, prices of crude will continue to rise, making greener energy more attractive.
WHAT CAN JUST ONE PERSON DO?
A lot. Switch to compact fluorescent lighting in the home and office, use public transport, buy locally produced food and recycle your rubbish. Take re-useable bags when shopping and switch off unused appliances at home.
Every little bit helps because it entrenches behavior and gets people talking.
(Writing by David Fogarty; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Singapore one of 13 cities hosting events in April to raise awareness
Straits Times 15 Oct 09;
ONE in eight people in the world do not have access to clean, safe drinking water. Many who do have to walk an average distance of 6km a day to get to it.
To raise awareness about the world's water crisis, a series of runs - of a symbolic distance of 6km - will be held across the globe over a 24-hour period, organised by the same people who were behind the 2007 Live Earth rock concerts.
Singapore is one of the 13 cities that will host The Dow Live Earth Run for Water, together with concerts and education events on April 18 next year. Other cities include Buenos Aires and London.
Participants can join the main event at a location to be confirmed next month by local organiser Tribob, or set up their own event by registering online.
Tribob will also set up a water village at the race site to help inform people about water scarcity issues and solutions.
The event aims to raise awareness about the global water crisis, encourage water conservation and trigger a global movement and engagement with the issue which affects more than 1 billion people.
Local NGO Lien Aid is the events partner and main beneficiary here. The organisation runs water and sanitation projects in Cambodia, China and Vietnam. Senior manager of resource development Ko Siew Huey said: 'Fund raising is not the only focus. We get a platform to tell people about the global water crisis and raise awareness about Lien Aid and the work we do in the region. Any amount of money raised will be put to good use.'
Mr Kevin Wall, founder of Live Earth, said that celebrities who have already lent their names to the cause include Pete Wentz of American band Fall Out Boy, and actress Jessica Biel.
Commenting on why Singapore was chosen as a venue, general manager of Dow Water and Process Solutions Ian Barbour said: 'Having travelled to the city state, I know Singapore is buzzing when it comes to sustainable water management...it is already a model in helping to energise people and get them engaged.'
Runners are also invited to sign the Live Earth petition to add water as a basic human right to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.
The event is organised by Live Earth with sponsorship from The Dow Chemical Company.
For more information, visit www.liveearth.org
Hetty Musfirah Abdul Khamid, Channel NewsAsia 14 Oct 09;
SINGAPORE: The first public housing development in the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city has reached a significant milestone.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held on Wednesday. Singapore's Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu officiated at the event.
The Eco-city is designed to promote social harmony, create economic vibrancy and environmental sustainability.
One of its key performance indicators is to have at least 20 per cent of its housing units in the form of public housing.
The first phase of the public housing development is located in the four-square-kilometre start-up area (SUA) of the Eco-city. It will have 569 units spread out in seven blocks.
The project is expected to be completed by mid-2011. In all, some 3,000 public housing units will be build in the start-up area.
- CNA/ir
Eco friendly homes for Tianjin
China will use some of Singapore's experience to build low-cost flats
Grace Ng, Straits Times 15 Oct 09;
TIANJIN: Officials from China and Singapore yesterday broke ground for a new town of environmentally friendly homes for low-income Chinese.
The first public housing project in the Tianjin Eco-City will showcase some 570 units, each 55 sq m large and sporting features such as solar panels and clean drinking water straight from the tap.
China will draw on some of Singapore's experience in building, maintaining and upgrading HDB flats in the joint venture, said Ms Grace Fu, the Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education.
'The emphasis is not just on the economic and commercial development,' she told Singapore reporters yesterday. 'It will be a place where economic activities and the community...are in a harmonious relationship.'
Ms Fu - who visited the Eco-City in June - was back here in the coastal city for two days, to lend a hand in the ground-breaking festivities and to 'understand the progress of the project'.
The project was designed by Surbana International Consultants and developed by the Tianjin Eco-City Administrative Committee.
Singapore hopes to contribute its strengths to bring out the best in a project that may serve as a model for others in future, said Ms Fu. During her Tianjin trip, which ends today, she will visit a secondary school, university, hospital, childcare centre and library to 'see how we can incorporate such facilities into the Eco-City', she said.
While there are dozens of green cities across China, the Eco-City is daring to be different by emphasising public housing innovations that promote social harmony. It aims to offer at least one-fifth of its units in the form of public housing partially subsidised by the Chinese government.
Over time, 3,000 naturally lit units - with solar panels that will reap energy savings of 70 per cent and heat 60 per cent of the units' water -�will be built in the 4 sq km start-up area of the project.
Sales will likely start next year but the pricing and eligibility criteria of low-income buyers are still being evaluated.
The ultimate aim is to transform a 30 sq km barren plot of land here in this northern port city into an environmentally friendly community of 350,000 residents, and create up to 60,000 jobs over the next decade.
The Eco-City also looks to deepen collaboration between Singapore and Tianjin in areas such as education.
An exhibition centre featuring technology related to energy, water and waste collection used in the Eco-City has been proposed.
There are also plans for collaboration between Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore with Tianjin institutions on research and development.
The Eco-City is also seeking special incentives and grants from the Chinese government that would attract more green companies to set up shop and to offset the higher costs related to activities such as waste management, said Ms Fu.
She met Vice-Minister Qiu Baoxing of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in Beijing on Tuesday.
'We understand from our Chinese counterpart that progress is being made on incentives and grant and policy support for Tianjin Eco-City,' she said.
Ms Fu expressed hopes of some progress on the matter by April or May next year, when Premier Wen Jiabao and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong are expected to visit the Eco-City together.
Both leaders had repeatedly emphasised 'the importance and significance of this project' when they met in Dalian during the World Economic Forum last month, Ms Fu noted during her meeting with Tianjin deputy party secretary He Lifeng yesterday.
Ms Fu leaves for Beijing tonight and returns to Singapore tomorrow.
Cai Haoxiang, Straits Times 15 Oct 09;
SINGAPORE and Thailand have expanded the areas of cooperation for their civil service, with a new focus group dealing with environmental issues.
In the next few months, it will work on a proposal for a joint project to tackle pollution caused by, among others, the haze and vehicle emissions, said Mr Eng Tiang Sing, international relations director of Singapore's Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.
The new group formalises a relationship of the two environment ministries that goes back about 15 years, marked by mutual visits, Mr Eng told The Straits Times yesterday during a meeting of the two countries' top civil servants.
The latest addition, announced in a joint statement, brings to 13 the fields of cooperation between the two countries, which include education, health, sports as well as science and technology.
These joint efforts come under the Civil Service Exchange Programme (CSEP), a yearly meeting that began in 1998, alternating between Thailand and Singapore.
This year's meeting in Singapore also saw the introduction of cross-sector talks, where officials from different ministries come together to discuss challenges like managing the spread of infectious diseases.
About 90 civil servants from the two countries attended the one-day meeting at the Shangri-La Hotel.
In their opening address, the foreign ministers of both countries underlined the longstanding relations between them in areas ranging from economic cooperation to defence.
Foreign Minister George Yeo said institutional ties like the CSEP created bonds of personal friendship and increased the effectiveness of joint responses in such areas as maritime security, terrorism and climate change.
He noted that Thailand, as Asean chair, had ensured the progress of the regional grouping's agenda despite its domestic difficulties.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Mr Yeo will attend a summit of Asean leaders and the bloc's six regional dialogue partners in Hua Hin, Thailand, next weekend.
Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, in his speech, said he hoped his colleagues could draw on Singapore's knowledge in technology, coordination among various agencies and urban planning.
He cited, in particular, Singapore's experience in beautifying the city, cleanliness and community involvement.
He said: 'There was always this feeling from our side of that sense of purpose on the side of the Singaporean Government and the people, that once a project has been decided, the whole population moves together in unison and becomes very efficient and very effective.'
Mr Kasit also called on PM Lee at the Istana. They reaffirmed the importance of CSEP as a key institutional link that underpinned the 'excellent state of bilateral relations', exchanged views on their respective economies and talked about the priorities for the Apec Economic Leaders' Meeting in Singapore next month.
Mr Lee also reiterated Singapore's commitment to work closely with Thailand to push ahead with Asean's economic integration agenda.
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 14 Oct 09;
Climate change could pose a threat to national security with thousands of small islands that border the country at risk from rising sea levels.
National Development Planning Agency’s (Bappenas) chairman Paskah Suzetta said if these small islands disappeared, international borders could shift and change maritime traffic routes.
“Changes in traffic routes will put national security at risk making the country more prone to illicit activity including illegal logging and fishing, piracy and natural resource exploitation,” he said.
He said another threat to national security as a result of climate change was likely a food, energy and water crisis.
“It is crucial to consider climate-change issues with national security affairs,” he said.
A study predicts the sea level could increase by 0.4 meters by next year in Indonesia, which could wash away approximately 7.4 square kilometers of coastal areas. By 2100, the sea level is predicted to reach 1 meter and could cover about 100,000 square kilometers of land and about 2,000 islands.
Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Freddy Numberi said Indonesia had already lost about 29 islands due to a rising sea level, from 2007.
There are currently about 17,504 small islands.
“The rising sea level threatens millions of people,” Freddy said.
Bappenas is currently drafting a road map focusing on climate change in national development planning.
The road map based on scientific evidence and assessment will become a guideline to allocate the state budget to each ministry between 2010 and 2030.
It may get aid if it shows will to tackle burning: UN official
Straits Times 15 Oct 09;
INDONESIA needs to ratify a seven-year-old regional haze agreement to prove its commitment in tackling climate change, a top United Nations official said at a conference in Singapore yesterday.
As negotiations on a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen draws nearer, international financial aid to help coastal populations cope with the threat of rising sea levels, for example, will be more forthcoming if the treaty was ratified, said Mr Bakary Kante, director of the division of environmental law and conventions at the United Nations Environment Programme.
Asean nations, except Indonesia and the Philippines, signed the agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002.
Mr Kante said ratifying the agreement was of 'paramount importance' as it would demonstrate a 'political will' as well as a moral obligation to combat forest burning.
He was speaking to The Straits Times on the sidelines of a three-day conference here that brought together environment agencies from 14 countries in Asia, discussing how environmental protection laws can be better enforced.
The meeting was jointly organised by the Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (Aecen) and National Environment Agency.
'The problems you are dealing with are on the top of the agenda for the international community,' said Mr Kante.
'Soot particles emanating from slash-and-burn farming...are having a major impact on the melting of Himalayan glaciers and slowing down the monsoon season, which is threatening food security and rice yields.'
Deforestation, through burning gases released from deforested soil and smouldering peat, accounts for 80 per cent of Indonesia's emissions, making it the world's third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases that exacerbate global warming.
But Indonesia has constantly pointed to a lack of technical expertise and financial muscle to tackle illegal slash-and-burn farming practices effectively.
Mr Kante added that comments by Indonesia's Forestry Minister, Mr Malam Sambat Kaban, that the government would take action on the issue only if its regional neighbours complained, were 'worrisome'.
'If one understands how damaging the haze is for the region, particularly considering how it affects the monsoon season, he would be careful with his words.
'This is a serious matter that no single country can solve by itself. It is through cooperation that governments will find a solution,' Mr Kante said.
Dr Supat Wangwongwatana, chairman of the Aecen executive committee, said tackling the haze had to go beyond a 'carrot and stick' approach to sharing best practices with fire-starters.
'Sometimes, polluters are willing to curb their farming methods but they do not know what to do. They need help.'
Delegates at the three-day forum, which ended yesterday, agreed that environment ministers from the Asia-Pacific region would meet in Japan next September to further diplomatic efforts.
Royal Botanic Gardens hits 10 per cent in quest to collect seeds of world's plants
Michael McCarthy, The Independent 14 Oct 09;
A pink banana marks a milestone today, as Kew Gardens celebrates collecting the seeds of 10 per cent of the world's wild plants.
The banana in question, the Yunnan banana, Musa itinerans, found in Asia from China to India, is the 24,200th species to be conserved for Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, and as such denotes the 10 per cent mark in Kew's mammoth task of collecting and preserving the world's wild seeds, which it took up in 2000.
It is 24,200 down and 217,800 to go in what is perhaps the most ambitious botanical project anywhere – that of fending off the multiple threats of extinction hanging over the flowering plants of the world, of which 70 per cent are now at risk.
Collecting their seeds is an insurance against future disasters, as Kew scientists believe many will be capable of germination hundreds of years from now, once they are dried and stored at 20 degrees below zero at the £80m seed bank, located at the Royal Botanic Gardens' outstation at Wakehurst Place in Sussex.
Botanical bodies from more than 50 countries have joined in a global partnership with Kew to facilitate the collection exercise. The seeds of the Yunnan banana were gathered in south-west China by the Kunming Institute of Botany, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The case of Musa itinerans shows precisely why the seed bank matters. The banana is an important staple food for wild Asian elephants and other wildlife. And its young flowers and stem are made into popular dishes in southern Chinese restaurants. Although the fruit is not itself a major food crop for humans, it represents an important genetic resource for the tropical fruits industry, as it is a wild crop relative that can be used to breed new banana varieties that have disease resistance and other such traits.
Yet it is increasingly under threat in the wild, as its tropical forest habitat is cleared for agriculture.
Many valuable and potentially valuable plants, especially in poorer regions of the world, are at risk from causes ranging from development to drought and the spread of deserts. In setting up the seed bank, Kew's scientists estimated that as many as a quarter of species might be facing extinction by mid-century. Some of the seeds they hold are from plants already extinct in the wild, such as the spiny everlasting, a vanished shrub from South Australia.
The target was to collect 10 per cent of the world's wild seeds by 2010 and 25 per cent by 2025 – now brought forward to 2020. Reaching the 10 per cent mark ahead of schedule is a remarkable achievement and today it will be celebrated with a ceremony at Wakehurst Place hosted by Kew's director, Professor Stephen Hopper, and attended by representatives of 52 of Kew's partner institutions from 27 countries.
"The success we are celebrating is extraordinary and on a scale never before contemplated in global biodiversity conservation," said Professor Hopper. "In a time of increasing concern about loss of biodiversity and climate change, the need for the kind of insurance policy and practical conservation resource the Millennium Seed Bank provides has never been greater."
The seed bank was "not a doomsday vault where seeds are stored under lock and key," said Dr Paul Smith, the head of the partnership. "Our mission is to use these seeds to support conservation and improve people's lives."
National treasures: Britain's wild flowers
Asian bananas, of course, are not the only focus of the Millennium Seed Bank. Its vast collection includes the seeds of nearly all of Britain's wild flowers, in what is thought to be the most comprehensive compilation of any national flora.
Britain has about 1,440 native plants (the precise figure is constantly changing as species are reclassified) and the seed bank's UK Flora Project has gathered in the seeds of all but about 60 of them – more than 95 per cent – according to its co-ordinator, Steve Alton.
They range from our most common plants, such as the stinging nettle and annual meadow-grass, to what may be the rarest, the lady's slipper orchid, which until the last few years was down to a single clump in Yorkshire. Seeds still missing come from plants that are found only in particularly remote or difficult-to-access places, such as alpine rock-cress, found at a single site high on a mountain on the Isle of Skye, or from plants which are extremely similar and can only be told apart by experts, such as some of the eyebrights.
Many of the seeds were collected by volunteers, amateur botanists who roamed the countryside. But recently, collecting the seeds of the more difficult plants has become the province of professionals.
Mr Alton is hoping to do one final collecting push, using volunteers, but feels that to gather the seeds from every British plant may ultimately be an impossibility, as some of them, such as some of the sedges, do not set seed at all but propagate by sprouting runners underground.
UK botanists bank 10% of world's plant species
Yahoo News 15 Oct 09;
LONDON (AFP) – Botanists at Britain's Kew Gardens have collected seeds from 10 percent of the world's wild plants, their first goal in a long-term project to protect all endangered species, they said Thursday.
Seeds from a wild, pink banana are among the latest additions to the collection at Kew, southwest London, designed to guard against dwindling diversity.
The banana from China, musa itinerans, is an important staple for wild elephants and is also useful for breeding new types of the fruit, but is under threat as its jungle habitat is cleared for commercial agriculture.
It became the 24,200th species of wild plant with seeds stored in the Millennium Seed Bank, a nine-year-old conservation project run by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and institutions in 54 countries.
With it the project reaches its target to collect, bank and conserve seeds from 10 percent of the world's most under-threat wild plant species -- although it is already working towards a new goal of 25 percent of plants by 2020.
"The success we are celebrating today is extraordinary and on a scale never before contemplated in global biodiversity conservation," said Professor Stephen Hopper, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in west London.
"In a time of increasing concern about loss of biodiversity and climate change, Kew's Millennium Seed Bank partnership provides a real message of hope and is a vital resource in an uncertain world.
"The need for the kind of insurance policy and practical conservation resource Kew's Millennium Seed Bank provides has never been greater."
About 60,000-100,000 species of plant are threatened with extinction -- a quarter of the total -- largely because of human behaviour, whether through the clearing or over-exploitation of land or climate change, Kew officials say.
The seed partnership -- the largest of its kind in the world -- focuses on collecting those plants most at risk and storing them for future use in conservation or for research.
Since 2000, more than 3.5 billion seeds have been collected and stored in air-tight containers in the temperature-controlled vaults at Kew's seed bank near Ardingly, southern England, as well as in their countries of origin.
Ben Simon Yahoo News 14 Oct 09;
KAMPALA (AFP) – Outraged conservationists said on Wednesday that Uganda had neither enough game nor adequate control mechanisms to reintroduce sport hunting on animals such as elephant and buffalo.
Animal and environmental protection groups were angered by the Uganda Wildlife Authority's (UWA) decision to sell shooting licences in a bid to boost tourism revenue.
"I do not believe that Uganda has enough game animals to sustain sport hunting," Samuel Maina, of Nairobi-based WildlifeDirect, told AFP.
UWA spokeswoman Lillian Nsubuga said population levels had recovered from years of war in some areas and argued that ending the decades-old ban would contain crop-crunching elephants and buffalos while creating jobs.
Maina voiced doubts that the 90 percent loss of the large mammal population during the unstable 70s and 80s had been reversed.
"Sport hunting is thus likely to be unsustainable in the designated hunting areas and there is a likelihood that to sustain this lucrative sector, Uganda will have to extend hunting into protected areas," he said.
Achilles Byaruhanga of Nature Uganda, a Kampala-based advocacy group, also judged the initiative to be dangerous because it is impossible to know the real strength of big game populations.
"I would want to ask UWA: Where is your data and your information coming from? Just because some animals have moved out of a wildlife reserve doesn't mean their numbers are strong enough for sport hunting," he told AFP.
UWA chief Moses Mapesa said that big game hunting was happening already and that the plan was simply for Uganda to benefit from it.
"In the absence of controlled hunting we have had a loss of animals and a loss of potential revenue," he said.
But Byaruhanga argued that the reintroduction of legal hunting was unlikely to stop illegal hunting by needy local communities or create enough guide jobs to provide a viable alternative.
Maina also warned that Uganda had not proven it had the capacity to control the hunting effectively.
"Hunting-law enforcement is going to be difficult when new hunting blocks are opened. I doubt UWA has enough personnel and machinery to prevent abuse of the hunting licenses and concessions," he said.
Maina also argued that sport hunting was incompatible with the east African country's current attempts to enhance its international image as a destination for ecotourism, with gorillas the main attraction.
"Ecotourism and sport hunting are more or less mutually exclusive. Ecotourists do not want to go to places where wildlife is being killed," he told AFP.
"The growth of sport hunting tourism will give Uganda a bad name as an ecotourism destination and is thus likely to reduce earnings from ecotourism including gorilla tracking," he added.
Yahoo News 14 Oct 09;
GENEVA (AFP) – A proposal to place Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna, a popular sushi staple, on world's most endangered species list has been made to CITES, the UN wildlife trade organisation said Wednesday.
The proposal tabled by Monaco, which could result in a ban in the international trade of the fish, will be considered during the meeting of the convention's 175 state members in Qatar next year, according to official documents seen by AFP.
However, it is unlikely to enjoy the full support of European Union countries, which in September voted down plans for the ban.
"All the countries around the Mediterranean came out against" any ban on trade in the fish, a European Union source said in September.
The EU has however, tabled a proposal to limit the trade of porbeagle sharks, or Lamna nasus, by calling for them to be added to Appendix II -- a list of species that could become extinct if trade in the species is not tightly controlled.
"Unsustainable target fisheries for Lamna nasus in parts of its range have been driven by international trade demand for its high value meat," said the European Union in its submission.
"The meat and fins are of high quality and high value in international trade," it added, targeting North and Southwest Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks.
Demand for sharks' fins, a Chinese delicacy, has hurt stocks of such sharks.
CITES spokesman Juan Carlos Vasquez said the UN agency is expecting to receive a separate proposal on other shark species before the midnight Wednesday deadline for submissions to be sent for consideration during next year's meeting.
Other proposals submitted included those from Tanzania and Zambia which call for the African elephant to be downgraded from the list of most endangered species to Appendix II, thereby lifting a ban on ivory trade.
A proposal to limit trade of some coral species is also expected to be filed, added Vasquez.
In 2007, the 175-member Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species placed 26 species of corals on its Appendix II, protecting them from the unregulated trade which has decimated coral stocks around the world.
But days later, the member nations back-tracked and removed restrictions they had imposed.
Joel Makower - Greener World Media, PlanetArk 14 Oct 09;
We take underutilized space in urban areas and grow food there, creating green jobs, providing access to fresh produce, localizing the economy, and creating a better life by building communities through growing vegetables."
I have to admit, it was one of the cooler, more compelling elevator pitches I've heard, and I've heard a lot. This one came at a cocktail reception several weeks ago, at the Food Marketing Institute's Sustainability Summit, a gathering of major retailers and consumer packaged goods brands, where I was a keynote speaker. As such conferences are, this one was a magnet for a wide range of consultancies and service providers aiming to connect with Big Food.
Keith Agoada was one of those. He attended in order to talk up his young company, Sky Vegetables. At first blush, he looked like yet-another fresh-faced recent college grad -- which he is -- seeking to break into the "green space," as it is often called. But when he opened his mouth to tell me his story, I realized that this was a kid with a vision.
The vision is both simple and elegant: green rooftops, not just as gardens, but as urban agriculture hubs for herbs and edible greens, utilizing off-the-shelf hydroponics and aquaponics equipment in greenhouses to grow food to sell for profit within the community.
The idea came to Agoada just before his senior year at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from which he graduated last year. "I saw the community gardens in Chicago and thought that it was fantastic that they were building community by growing food and doing it in the city," he told me recently. "So I went back my senior year at Wisconsin and received three credits for doing a feasibility study to see if rooftops could be commercial farming locations."
He quickly learned that it was possible to grow a myriad of things in the middle of a Wisconsin winter, "when it's below zero and it's covered in snow." That led to a business plan competition, which he won, garnering local press coverage and investor interest.
Amid all this, Agoada remained a reluctant businessman. "It's funny. I studied entrepreneurship in school and I learned that I didn't want to be an entrepreneur. I didn't want the gut-wrenching, the roller coaster -- everything that they told me in business school what would happen if you start a company and try to make it a growth company, and that it's ruthless. I didn't want to take that path. I'd rather go to the farm or do something laid back, but the opportunity was great." He eventually took on investors and business partners, based in the Boston area, a continent away from Agoada's Berkeley, Calif., base. And Sky Vegetables was born.
A conceptual rendering of a Sky Vegetables greenhouse, taken from SkyVegetables.com.
Agoada walked me through the basics. "We come in on the rooftop as a tenant of the building. We rent the rooftop space. We pay for the upgrade, the insurance costs, the fixed costs for planning and development and the soft costs of architects, etc. We take all of that on. We outsource the equipment. We don't invent technologies. We're taking existing proven technologies and applying them to this rooftop. Then we make our money off the sale of the produce. The technology is controlled-environment greenhouses, year-around systems keeping constant temperatures and controlling the environment there. No pesticides, no herbicides, all integrative pest management systems and composting and trying to use paper and food waste from the building as the nutrient stream for our plants."
A typical project covers about 20,000 square feet -- about half an acre -- and fairly efficient, says Agoada. "Our growing techniques use somewhere between 5% and 10% of the water that they're using to grow lettuce out in Salinas Valley," in California's Central Valley, considered the nation's breadbasket. Given that around 80% of water use in the state goes toward agriculture -- and about a fifth of the state's total energy use goes to move and treat water -- such efforts could create significant water-efficiency and greenhouse gas benefits, should the Sky Vegetables model catch on.
That remains to be seen, of course. Agoada has done small-scale projects but is searching for his first major rooftop, most likely in my home town of Oakland, Calif., a city that marries a hunger for attracting green businesses; countless warehouses with large, flat roofs; high unemployment; and vast "food deserts," impoverished areas that lack easy access to grocery stores offering fresh produce. It's a perfect laboratory.
For now, it's merely a terrific vision, one I'm rooting for, but it doesn't necessarily stop with simply selling rosemary or romaine. "One of the projects we're looking at is a mixed-use building with a lot of residents," says Agoada. "Our pitch is to hire some of the people part-time and start to train them. Maybe one day, they become full-time there. Another idea we had was to let the building have open spaces. Maybe the building rents them out and people create their own pesto sauce or their own pressed soap business. We might contract with them. Or we'll grow mint or lavender or basil and turn these added-value products where we're creating more jobs down the line."
I love the vision, but also the unlimited potential. Says Agoada: "If you look at how many rooftop spaces are out there that can handle a 10,000 to 40,000 square-foot farm, you just keep adding zeroes to it. The economic potential of what we're doing is mind-blowing. But from a more general perspective, we'd be a catalyst in trying to localize food systems and localize vegetables, and protein perhaps as well."
Indeed. Sky Vegetables has unlimited potential to fill a hunger -- not just for nutritious edibles, but for a simple but powerful model of food production that feeds all of our appetites for creative and conscious capitalism.
Matt Walker, BBC News 14 Oct 09;
Noise pollution is becoming a major threat to the welfare of wildlife, according to a scientific review.
Sounds produced by vehicles, oil and gas fields and urban sprawl interfere with the way animals communicate, mate and prey on one another.
The sounds are becoming so ubiquitous that they may threaten biodiversity, say the review's authors.
Even the animals living in protected National Parks in the US are being exposed to chronic levels of noise.
Writing in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, three scientists based in Fort Collins, Colorado, US detail the extent to which noise pollution is now harming wild animals.
Dr Jesse Barber and Dr Kevin Crooks of Colorado State University and Dr Kurt Fristrup of the US National Park Service reviewed all recent scientific studies examining the issue.
They found that man-made noise is already causing a catalogue of problems.
"Many animal species evolved hearing sensitive enough to take advantage of the quietest conditions; their hearing is increasingly compromised by noise," Dr Barber told the BBC.
That intrusion can have a significant impact on the way wild animals communicate.
Great tits ( Parsus major ) sing at higher frequencies in response to urban noise, so they are better able to hear each other.
But not all animals are able to adapt in this way.
Female grey tree frogs ( Hyla chrysoscelis ) exposed to the sounds of passing traffic take longer to locate and find calling males, while European tree frogs ( Hyla arborea ) call less overall.
Crucially, both species appear unable to change their calling habitats to overcome the din from the roads, potentially compromising their ability to reproduce.
Noise pollution can also effect the ability of many animals such as owls and bats to find and hunt their prey.
Laboratory studies have shown that gleaning bats, which locate prey by the sounds they make, avoid hunting in noisy areas.
That can place gleaning bats at a higher risk of extinction, as noise pollution increasingly corrupts once habitable areas.
For example, one gleaning bat species, the Bechstein's bat ( Myotis bechsteinii ), is less likely to cross roads than other bat species that forage in open areas, suggesting the noise of the traffic could fragment their hunting grounds. The bat occurs across Europe including in the south of the UK.
In the Amazon, terrestrial insectivores, which also hunt using sound, especially avoid areas where roads are being constructed.
"Noise pollution is so ubiquitous that it may be a factor in some large-scale declines in biodiversity," says Dr Barber.
The problem appears to be getting worse.
In the US alone, between 1970 and 2007, the US population increased by approximately one-third.
Traffic on US roads tripled, to almost 5 trillion vehicle kilometres per year, while air traffic also more than tripled between 1981 and 2007, say the reviewers.
Shipping noise has similarly increased, according to recent reviews of the effects that artificial noise has on marine mammals such as whales.
Even National Parks are becoming increasingly affected.
Despite being protected against the sprawl of towns and cities and other forms of development, noise carries into the parks from surrounding roads and planes flying overhead.
"Quiet places are especially vulnerable to noise intrusions, because even distant sources can have an impact," says Dr Barber.
Systematic monitoring by the Natural Sounds Program, a research exercise carried out by the US National Park Service, confirms the extent of the noise intrusion.
Noise is audible during more than one quarter of daylight hours at more than half of 55 sites in 14 National Parks studied to date.
At 12 sites, anthropogenic noise can be heard more than half the time.
Much more needs to be done to mitigate the problem, says Dr Barber.
"Noise mitigation techniques include quieter road surfaces, noise barriers, appropriate signage in protected areas and most importantly, restriction of motorised travel in protected natural areas," he says.
Otherwise, there may be few quiet places left.
"Naturally quiet backgrounds are an imperilled acoustical resource in many parts of the world," Dr Barber says.
MAN-MADE NOISE
# 83% of land on the continental US is within just over 1km of a road
# At this distance, the sound of an average car is 20dB
# At the same distance, average trucks and motorcycles project 40dB of noise
GLOBAL PROBLEM
# In Canada, the number of frog species falls as traffic density increases
# In Africa, the species richness of primates and carnivores falls within 30m of roads
# In The Netherlands, 60% of woodland bird species avoid roads
U.K. Households will have to collect and separate everything that can be recycled, burned or left to rot under plans to cut the amount of waste going to landfill. But how will the new system work?
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 14 Oct 09;
Councils can choose to collect every single stream of recycling separately – meaning even more than six bins. However councils generally mix at least 'dry recyclates' to make it easier for households. People living in high rise flats or where there is little room for bins may be able to continue to put all rubbish in the same bin and it will be separated by the council at a factory later on.
:: Food scraps – One in four councils already collect food waste separately. Households are usually given a small brown kitchen caddie or "slop bucket" with a biodegradable bin bag that is collected weekly.
:: 'Dry recyclates' – Tin, cardboard and plastic bottles are all recycled separately but generally collected together as they are cheap and easy to separate at a plant.
:: Glass – Glass can be collected with other 'dry recyclates' but since it is a very valuable it is worth collecting separately in order to get more money for non-contaminated material.
:: Paper – Again, this can be collected with other recyclable materials but many processors argue it is more valuable if it is collected separately.
:: Plastic packaging – Some councils have started collecting 'thin plastic' like yogurt pots and other food packages that can be recycled. Plastic film and plastic bags can also be recycled separately but are generally collected as part of dry recyclates.
:: Garden waste – Most councils provide a green bin or biodegradable bags to enable households to regularly throw away garden waste that can then be composted. Garden waste can also be collected with food scraps and other biodegradable waste.
:: All other waste – Waste like nappies and textiles can be sorted for incineration. A small proportion of rubbish like discarded toys may have to go to landfill. Electrical goods and batteries should be disposed of via a civic amenity site to prevent pollution.
Green 'zero waste' recycling policy could mean up to six bins
Householders could be forced to have as many as six bins and sift through every piece of rubbish under Government plans to increase the amount of recycling.
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 14 Oct 09;
The new "zero waste" strategy means every piece of waste that can possibly be burned, re-used, recycled or left to rot will have to be sorted and collected.
The majority of homes will have a slop bucket for food scraps alongside separate bins for glass, plastic bottles and packaging, cardboard, paper, tin, and garden waste - as well as a black bin for the small amount of rubbish that must be burned or sent to landfill.
It will be up to each council how to collect waste but some will be forced to introduce a series of new bins and collection times. Councils can also impose fines of up to £500 per household if people put the wrong material in each bin.
Speaking at "waste summit" attended by local authorities, businesses and waste disposal firms, Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said every council will be expected to have "full recycling services" by 2020.
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is to set up a database for councils to help them set up new waste collection and disposal systems, including new technologies like anaerobic digestion. A consumer campaign will also be launched to educate households about which materials to put in recycling bins.
At the moment the UK dumps half of its rubbish, some 62 million tonnes, in landfill every year.
Mr Benn said it was ridiculous that valuable materials like aluminium and glass are still being dumped in the ground.
He said the amount of waste going to landfill would be halved by recycling more and turning anything else into energy through incineration or new technologies such as anaerobic digestion.
"We must now work together to build a zero waste nation - where we reduce the resources we use, reuse and recycle all that we can and only landfill things that have absolutely no other use," he said.
The Government insisted that local authorities will not face penalties for failing to meet the "zero waste" target but they will face fines for putting materials that could be recycled in landfill.
At the moment a consultation is out on whether to ban certain materials from going to landfill, including food scraps.
The EU could also impose fines of up to £180 million on the country if councils do not reduce the amount of waste going to landfill.
The Local Government Association said it will cost an extra £1.1 billion over the next three years to put the new waste management services in place. This equates to around £50 on the average council tax bill.
"Councils are already trying to cut waste going to landfill as much as possible in order to reduce costs to the council tax payer. To perform even better, they will need the money from landfill tax to build up the infrastructure," a spokesman said.
Dr Michael Warhurst, of Friends of the Earth, said the emphasis should be on recycling rather than incineration that can cause pollution.
“The Government must stop funding new incinerators which don’t help tackle climate change. Recycling is much better for the climate and helps save precious resources too," he said.
Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said it was impossible to recycle everything.
"People are struggling as it is now to cope with all these bins and crates they have to deal with. If we have any more it will become even more confusing and unenforceable as it will be impossible to go through every bin to check the wrong materials have not been mixed in.
"Zero waste is a wonderful idea but it I cannot see anyway they could ever achieve it."
Peter Voser, Straits Times 15 Oct 09;
WHILE we cannot predict the future, it is clear that mobility is a growth market. Between now and 2050, one billion new vehicles will come onto the world's roads, mostly in Asia, more than doubling today's total.
So there will be room and need for all kinds of vehicles and fuels to power them. With more competition between the various fuel types, consumers will have more choice.
Today if you ask a 10-year-old what his or her first car will be, the chances are the response will be: 'An electric one.'
It does not matter whether that first car will actually be electric: More than one road leads to Rome. More important is the underlying aspiration: to own a car that uses less energy, saves money and is fun to drive. And since today's young people are tomorrow's customers, companies need to embrace their aspirations.
Petrol and diesel will remain popular, thanks to their convenience and efforts to make them cleaner. Increasingly, they will be sold with biofuels blended into them. There will be a growing role for alternatives, ranging from biofuels to hydrogen, electricity and natural gas.
Within that mosaic, electric mobility is the talk of the global village. That is not surprising. At Shell, we believe that the number of cars with batteries is set to grow. But they will not all be the same.
Most consumers will continue to make pragmatic choices about which car to buy based on cost and convenience, which is why hybrids are likely to out-compete full electric cars for some time to come. Hybrids combine electric's low-emission for shorter distances with liquid fuels' long range and swift refills.
Indeed, pure electric cars must overcome several hurdles before they can compete with hybrids: the journey range of batteries needs to go up; quick, convenient recharging or replacing of batteries must be made possible; and electricity grids must be expanded to handle more power.
Resource scarcity may also pose a challenge. Take lithium, a crucial component of the lithium-ion batteries that will power tomorrow's electric cars. It can be easily produced in large quantities in only a few places on Earth.
And current production methods put pressure on the environment. Making a big shift to electric vehicles would require an expansion in the world's capacity to mine and recycle lithium, and its ability to do it sustainably and responsibly.
Perhaps the most important thing is how we will generate the electricity. By themselves, wind and solar will not be sufficient to power large-scale electric mobility, at least not for the foreseeable future.
In the coming years, like it or not, most electric vehicles will rely to a large extent on conventional coal-fired power, which is responsible for the fastest growth in greenhouse gas emissions. That is not what people have in mind when they think about their electric cars.
If electric mobility is to fulfil our hopes, we will have to find ways to reduce emissions from coal. One way of doing this is to capture emissions from power stations and store them underground, using carbon capture and storage technology. This promising but expensive technology would get a tremendous boost if the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December expressed support for it.
Another way to quickly and cheaply reduce emissions from coal-fired power is to burn natural gas instead. On average, a natural gas-fired power plant emits half the carbon dioxide of a coal-burning plant to produce the same amount of electricity.
Natural gas-fired power stations can also be switched on and off with relative ease, making them ideal allies of the intermittent power generated by wind turbines and solar panels.
All this helps to explain why natural gas is an increasingly important part of Shell's portfolio. Last year, we produced enough natural gas to supply more than 190 million homes with electricity. By 2012, half of Shell's production will be natural gas.
A decade hence, when the 10-year-old has grown into a young adult, he or she may indeed drive a hybrid electric car that runs on a combination of liquid fuels and electrons. If we make the right choices today, the electricity powering the car will come from cleaner sources.
The writer is chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell. This article appeared first in The Financial Times.
Reuters 14 Oct 09;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Central and eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures are exceeding El Nino levels and will remain at levels typical of an El Nino weather event until early 2010, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said on Wednesday.
"The tropical Pacific Ocean sea surface remains warmer than average and exceeds El Nino thresholds in central to eastern regions," said the bureau in its fortnightly ENSO El Nino report.
"While such conditions are fairly typical during an El Nino event, values of the Southern Oscillation Index and tropical cloud patterns remain inconsistent with normal El Nino conditions," said the bureau.
"Despite this, rainfall patterns over eastern Australia for the past three months are broadly in keeping with the impact of an El Nino event."
The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), a major indicator of a drought-bringing El Nino weather pattern, stood at plus one for the 30 days to October 10, from plus three previously, the bureau said on Tuesday.
A consistently negative SOI points to the development of an El Nino. The SOI measures the pressure difference between the Pacific island of Tahiti and the Australian city of Darwin.
The bureau also said on Tuesday that recent trends showed some weakening of the El Nino signal and that its impacts are likely to be more variable than past El Nino events.
For the bureau's report see: www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
Elodie Mazein Yahoo News 15 Oct 09;
LONDON (AFP) – The Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in summer months within 20 to 30 years, a polar research team said as they presented findings from an expedition led by adventurer Pen Hadow.
It is likely to be largely ice-free during the warmer months within a decade, the experts added.
Veteran polar explorer Hadow and two other Britons went out on the Arctic ice cap for 73 days during the northern spring, taking more than 6,000 measurements and observations of the sea ice.
The raw data they collected from March to May has been analysed, producing some stark predictions about the state of the ice cap.
"The summer ice cover will completely vanish in 20 to 30 years but in less than that it will have considerably retreated," said Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at Britain's prestigious Cambridge University.
"In about 10 years, the Arctic ice will be considered as open sea."
Starting off from northern Canada, Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels skied over the ice cap to measure the thickness of the remaining ice, assessing its density and the depth of overlying snow, as well as taking weather and sea temperature readings.
Across their 450-kilometre (290 mile) route, the average thickness of the ice floes was 1.8 metres (six feet), while it was 4.8 metres when incorporating the compressed ridges of ice.
"An average thickness of 1.8 metres is typical of first year ice, which is more vulnerable in the summer. And the multi-year ice is shrinking back more rapidly," said Wadhams.
"It's a concrete example of global change in action.
"With a larger part of the region now in first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable. The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone."
Doctor Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature's international Arctic programme, said the survey painted a sombre picture of the ice meltdown, which was happening "faster than we thought".
"Remove the Arctic ice cap and we are left with a very different and much warmer world," he said.
Loss of sea ice cover will "set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself," he added.
"This could lead to flooding affecting one quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emission from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."
"Today's findings provide yet another urgent call for action to world leaders ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December to rapidly and effectively curb global greenhouse gas emissions."
Arctic to be 'ice-free in summer'
David Shukman, BBC News 14 Oct 09;
The Arctic Ocean could be largely ice-free and open to shipping during the summer in as little as ten years' time, a top polar specialist has said.
"It's like man is taking the lid off the northern part of the planet," said Professor Peter Wadhams, from the University of Cambridge.
Professor Wadhams has been studying the Arctic ice since the 1960s.
He was speaking in central London at the launch of the findings of the Catlin Arctic Survey.
The expedition trekked across 435km of ice earlier this year.
Led by explorer Pen Hadow, the team's measurements found that the ice-floes were on average 1.8m thick - typical of so-called "first year" ice formed during the past winter and most vulnerable to melting.
The survey route - to the north of Canada - had been expected to cross areas of older "multi-year" ice which is thicker and more resilient.
When the ridges of ice between floes are included, the expedition found an average thickness of 4.8m.
Professor Wadhams said: "The Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus view - based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition - that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years, and that much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years.
"That means you'll be able to treat the Arctic as if it were essentially an open sea in the summer and have transport across the Arctic Ocean."
According to Professor Wadhams, faster shipping and easier access to oil and gas reserves were among short-term benefits of the melting.
But in the longer-term, losing a permanent feature of the planet risked accelerated warming, changing patterns of circulation in the oceans and atmosphere, and having unknown effects on ecosystems through the acidification of waters.
Pen Hadow and his companions Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley endured ferocious weather - including a wind chill of minus 70 - delayed resupply flights and starvation rations during the expedition from 1 March to 7 May.
When I met them on the ice, as part of a BBC team that joined the pick-up flight, all three had lost weight and were evidently tired from the ordeal.
The expedition had been blighted by equipment failures. A pioneering radar system, designed to measure the ice while being dragged over the ice, broke down within days. Another device to measure the water beneath the ice never functioned at all.
Incremental step
The technical breakdowns forced the team to rely on hand-drilling through the ice which slowed progress and meant the team's planned destination of the North Pole had to be abandoned.
Pen Hadow admitted that the expedition had not led to "a giant leap forward in understanding" but had been useful as an incremental step in the science of answering the key questions about the Arctic.
His view was backed by Professor Wadhams who said the expedition had provided information about the ice that was not available from satellites and that no submarines had been available to science at that time either.
Pen Hadow said he was shocked by the image of how "in my lifetime we're looking at changing how the planet looks from space."
He also described how polar explorers were having to change their methods from the days when sledges could be pulled by dogs over the ice.
"Dogs can swim but they can't tow a sledge through water which is what's needed now."
"Now we have to wear immersion suits and swim and we need sledges that can float. I can foresee needing sledges that are more like canoes that you also pull over the ice."
Explorers: North Pole summers ice free in 10 years
Maresa Patience, Associated Press Yahoo News 14 Oct 09;
LONDON – The North Pole will turn into an open sea during summer within a decade, according to data released Wednesday by a team of explorers who trekked through the Arctic for three months
The Catlin Arctic Survey team, led by explorer Pen Hadow, measured the thickness of the ice as it sledged and hiked through the northern part of the Beaufort Sea in the north Pole earlier this year during a research project. Their findings show that most of the ice in the region is first-year ice that is only around 1.8 meters (six feet) deep and will melt next summer. The region has traditionally contained, thicker multiyear ice which does not melt as rapidly.
"With a larger part of the region now first-year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable," said Professor Peter Wadhams, part of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge which analyzed the data. "The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone."
Wadhams said the Catlin Arctic Survey data supports the new consensus that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within 20 years, and that much of the decrease will happen within 10 years.
Martin Sommerkorn of the World Wildlife Fund said the Arctic sea holds a central position in the earth's climate system. "Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself," he said.
He added: "This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."
Global warming has raised the stakes in the scramble for sovereignty in the Arctic because shrinking polar ice could someday open resource development and new shipping lanes. The rapid melting of ice has raised speculation that the Northwest Passage linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could one day become a regular shipping lane.
The results come as negotiators prepare to meet in Copenhagen in December to draft a global climate pact.
Arctic To Be Ice-Free In Summer In 20 Years: Scientist
Peter Griffiths, PlanetArk 16 Oct 09;
LONDON - Global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the summer within 20 years, raising sea levels and harming wildlife such as seals and polar bears, a leading British polar scientist said on Thursday.
Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge, said much of the melting will take place within a decade, although the winter ice will stay for hundreds of years.
The changes will mean the top of the Earth will appear blue rather than white when photographed from space and ships will have a new sea route north of Russia.
Scientists say evidence of melting Arctic ice is one of the clearest signs of global warming and it should send a warning to world leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December for U.N. talks on a new climate treaty.
"The data supports the new consensus view -- based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition -- that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years," Wadhams said in a statement. "Much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years."
Wadhams, one of the world's leading experts on sea ice cover in the North Pole region, compared ice thickness measurements taken by a Royal Navy submarine in 2007 with evidence gathered by the British explorer Pen Hadow earlier this year.
Hadow and his team on the Catlin Arctic Survey drilled 1,500 holes to gather evidence during a 280-mile walk across the Arctic. They found the average thickness of ice-floes was 1.8 meters, a depth considered too thin to survive the summer's ice melt.
Sometimes referred to as the Earth's air-conditioner, the Arctic Sea plays a vital role in the world's climate. As Arctic ice melts in summer, it exposes the darker-colored ocean water, which absorbs sunlight instead of reflecting it, accelerating the effect of global warming.
Dr Martin Sommerkorn, from the environmental charity WWF's Arctic program, which worked on the survey, said the predicted loss of ice could have wide-reaching affects around the world.
"The Arctic Sea ice holds a central position in our Earth's climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world," he said.
"This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions .... and extreme global weather changes."
Britain's Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the research "sets out the stark realities of climate change."
"This further strengthens the case for an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen," he added.
(Editing by Jon Boyle)
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 15 Oct 09;
THE two protocols - the Kyoto Protocol and the Montreal Protocol - stand in stark contrast to each other. But the future of the world as we know it depends on them.
The Kyoto Protocol's major feature is binding targets for 37 industrialised countries. They are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. But the United States - which emits an estimated 19.78 tonnes of carbon dioxide per capita compared with India's two tonnes per capita - has not ratified Kyoto.
Talks in Bangkok earlier this month aimed at agreeing to deep post-2012 emission cuts ended in failure, with developed and developing countries disagreeing on who had to cut their emissions, by when - and who should finance adaptation measures.
So far, emission cuts under Kyoto have fallen well short of the promised targets. Some say Kyoto is clearly a failure. One problem is that the protocol covers a basket of 12 gases and deals only with emissions of the total basket.
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, however, has specific control measures for phasing out the use of specific ozone-depleting gases. It is the only international environmental treaty which every single country on the planet has signed. It is also the most successful international environment treaty ever.
The Montreal Protocol was established in 1987 after a hole in the planet's protective ozone layer was discovered. It offers concessions and grace periods to individual countries to assist in phasing out ozone-depleting substances (ODS).
From 1991 to July this year, the Multilateral Fund, with its headquarters in Montreal, disbursed US$2.3 billion (S$3.2 billion) to finance the phase-out of ODS. These substances have been - and in many cases still are - used in hundreds of appliances.
Because the substances are also drivers of global warming, the phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) - the original villain in destroying the ozone layer - has yielded benefits in terms of slowing global warming. Dollar for dollar and tonne for tonne, phase-outs under Montreal have delivered four times the benefits in reducing greenhouse gases that Kyoto has.
CFCs have been steadily replaced with a family of gases called HCFCs, which also deplete ozone, though to a smaller extent than CFCs, and are greenhouse gases to boot. HCFCs are now being phased out at staggered rates around the world.
Their replacement, though - a family of gases called HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) - while not harmful to ozone, is a powerful driver of global warming.
Alas, HFCs as greenhouse gases come under Kyoto, not Montreal. And Kyoto's focus is on carbon dioxide and methane. For Kyoto, HFC is still a minor gas. So efforts to phase it out are in danger of being lost in the jungle of Kyoto.
With purchases of appliances like air- conditioners and refrigerators increasing rapidly in China and India, HFC consumption is skyrocketing. According to a recent report by Dutch and US-based scientists, HFCs could have a warming impact equivalent to between 28 per cent and 45 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
At the United Nations Convention on Climate Change talks in Bangkok this month, some countries, including the US, proposed adding HFCs to the basket of controlled substances under the Montreal Protocol. They proposed establishing a phase-down schedule for HFCs with a grace period for developing countries. Compliance would still have to be reported to the Kyoto Protocol or its successor.
The logic of such a move is that Montreal has delivered, while Kyoto has not. HFCs were created by Montreal, so it is Montreal that should deal with them.
The European Union supported the proposal in Bangkok. The proposal also has support from non-governmental organisations such as the Environmental Investigation Agency and Greenpeace. Opposition is expected, however, from India and China, which have both invested in HFC production and use.
The new approach will pose major logistical and financial challenges, and have legal ramifications. All countries will have to ratify the changes in both the Kyoto and the Montreal protocols. Moving HFCs from Kyoto to Montreal is therefore not as simple as it sounds.
But it is one way to make progress on curbing global warming - preferable to watching Kyoto or its successor fall apart as ice caps melt, sea levels rise, oceans acidify and extreme weather savages our world.
At worst, the move may buy us time.
Reuters 14 Oct 09;
(Reuters) - Following are the negotiating positions of the top greenhouse gas emitters in the run-up to a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in December due to agree a new pact for combating climate change:
1) CHINA (annual emissions of greenhouse gases: 6.8 billion tons, 5.5 tons per capita)
* Emissions - President Hu Jintao promised on September 22 that China would cut its carbon dioxide emissions per dollar of economic output by a "notable margin" by 2020 compared to 2005. [ID:nN22195458]. The "carbon intensity" goal is the first measurable curb on national emissions for China. Hu reiterated a promise that China would try to raise the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020.
* Demands - China wants developed nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and to give far more aid and green technologies to developing nations.
2) UNITED STATES (6.4 billion tons, 21.2 tons per capita)
* Emissions - President Barack Obama wants to cut U.S. emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. For 2020, that means a 14 percent cut from 2007 levels.
"We will press ahead with deep cuts in emissions to reach the goals that we set for 2020, and eventually 2050," he told the United Nations on September 23, adding that the days when the United States "dragged its feet" were over.
Democratic U.S. senators pushing legislation to cut emissions by 20 percent from 2005 levels say they are making progress -- the measure is expected to begin moving through a key Senate Committee in November. But many are skeptical that it can become law by Copenhagen [ID:nN13212295]
* Finance - The United States says a "dramatic increase" is needed in funds to help developing nations.
* Demands - "We cannot meet this challenge unless all the largest emitters of greenhouse gas pollution act together," Obama said.
3) EUROPEAN UNION (5.03 billion tons, 10.2 tons per capita)
* Emissions - EU leaders agreed in December 2008 to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 30 percent if other developed nations follow suit.
* Finance - EU leaders have agreed that developing nations will need about 100 billion euros ($146.8 billion) a year by 2020 to help them curb emissions and adapt to changes such as floods or heatwaves. As an advance payment, they suggest 5-7 billion a year between 2010 and 2012.
* Demands - The EU wants developing nations to curb the rise of their emissions by 15 to 30 percent below a trajectory of "business as usual" by 2020.
4) RUSSIA (1.7 billion tons, 11.9 tons per capita)
* Emissions - President Dmitry Medvedev said in June that Russia's emissions would be around 10 to 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. That means a rise from now -- emissions were 34 percent below 1990 levels in 2007.
* Demands - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on September 11 that Russia would reject any new climate pact that imposed restrictions on Russia but did not bind other big polluters such as the United States or China.
5) INDIA (1.4 billion tons, 1.2 tons per capita)
* Emissions - India is prepared to quantify the amount of greenhouse gas emissions it could cut with domestic actions to fight climate change, but will not accept internationally binding targets, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said on September 17. [ID:nDEL381436]. India has said its per capita emissions will never rise to match those of developed nations.
* Demands - Like China, India wants developed nations to cut emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020. Ramesh said on October 10 that nations should scale down ambitions for Copenhagen from "exaggerated expectations.
6) JAPAN (1.4 billion tons, 11.0 tons per capita)
* Emissions - New Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama wants to cut Japan's emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 if Copenhagen agrees an ambitious deal, toughening a goal set by the previous government of an eight percent reduction.
* Finance - Hatoyama told the United Nations on September 22 that Tokyo would also step up aid. "Japan is prepared to offer more financial and technical assistance than in the past, in accordance with the progress of the international negotiations," he said.
Climate talks may go to last minute
Krittivas Mukherjee and Muriel Boselli, Reuters 13 Oct 09;
NEW DELHI/ PARIS (Reuters) - The world may have to wait until the dying seconds of a U.N. climate summit in December for a global deal to channel business dollars into low-carbon energy, industry and analysts said on Wednesday.
Senior executives warned progress so far in U.N.-led climate talks was inadequate to guarantee the future of low-carbon markets which could transform how the world gets its energy.
Political posturing may delay a deal until midnight on the last day of the December 7-18 talks, said the head of the U.N. climate panel Rajendra Pachauri -- who was nevertheless hopeful of a deal to put the world "on the right path."
"The wiggle room is there even at the stroke of midnight when the conference is ending," said Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
International Energy Agency head Nobuo Tanaka was unsure of the outcome of the U.N. talks, which re-convene in Barcelona on November 2, but said recession had given the world a head start by causing the biggest drop in carbon emissions in 40 years.
"Usually, the real outcome in negotiations comes out at the last minute, so we don't know. We feel this economic crisis provides a window of opportunity," he told an IEA meeting in Paris.
Business leaders said measures taken so far were inadequate to mobilize the billions of dollars needed to convert the global economy to leaner, low-carbon energy like wind and solar power.
"We can't ... expect companies to invest billions and billions of dollars when we're not convinced there's going to be a market," said General Electric Coenergy chief John Krenicki, adding that U.S. renewable energy tax breaks, for example, would expire in two years.
He said governments must agree in Copenhagen on carbon-cutting targets: "We don't have much right now."
"DANGEROUS DIRECTION"
Fulvio Conti, chief executive of Italian utility Enel SpA, said talks were "taking a dangerous direction" against business-friendly carbon markets allowing industry to offset emissions by funding carbon cuts in the developing world.
The European Union is a hub of such markets and its executive Commission has said it wants developing countries to reach certain targets before qualifying for offsets.
"We now face the risk of increasingly restrictive criteria," Conti told Reuters on the sidelines of the Paris conference.
GE's Krenicki said businesses would fight to hold on to their patents on clean energy technologies. A major stumbling block in the U.N. talks has been a demand by poorer nations for access to advanced solar power and bigger wind turbines.
"We're totally opposed to compulsory licensing, it'll crush innovation in the green sector," said Krenicki, who added new discoveries of vast gas reserves would enable quick wins in cutting carbon compared with high-carbon coal.
Protecting marine life, from plankton to sea grasses and mangrove forests, could help offset up to 7 percent of current fossil fuel emissions, a U.N. report said on Wednesday -- by nurturing organisms which absorb carbon dioxide as they grow.
(Writing by Gerard Wynn; editing by Andrew Roche)
UNEP 14 Oct 09;
Geneva, 14 October 2009 - The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) observes the International Day for Disaster Reduction on Wednesday against the backdrop of a number of catastrophic events in the Asia-Pacific region in recent weeks.
On 26 September, Typhoon Ketsana made landfall in the Philippines causing at least 300 deaths and some two million people to be displaced. Typhoon Parma followed on 3 October, devastating the agricultural sector and affecting more than 300,000 people.
The damage caused by the two storms is estimated at US$57 million in property and infrastructure, as well as monumental damage to agricultural production.
In addition, a series of earthquakes hit Samoa and Indonesia on 30 September, killing at least 1,300 people in Indonesia, and triggering a tsunami that sent huge waves crashing into the Samoan Islands, leaving 143 dead and entire villages flattened or submerged.
"Major disasters and humanitarian catastrophes often have secondary impacts, including damage to infrastructure and industrial installations" said René Nijenhuis of the Joint OCHA/UNEP Environment Unit (JEU) - the UN's mechanism for mobilizing a rapid environmental response to emergencies, which has deployed an environmental expert to the Philippines to provide specialized environmental expertise in disaster waste management.
"These impacts may pose a threat to the health, security and welfare of the affected population. Too often, these risks are neglected, resulting in preventable injuries and even deaths. A vital part of effective humanitarian response is to ensure that these environmental impacts are promptly identified, prioritized and addressed consistently as an integral part of effective emergency response."
Over a week after the passage of Typhoon Ketsana, large areas of the capital Manila and nearby provinces remained flooded with waist-high stagnant water, leading to risks of outbreaks of waterborne diseases and health hazards from overflowing solid waste and garbage that had filled drains and mixed with the waterways.
Environmental degradation is also increasingly recognized as a major factor in the rapid expansion of weather-related disaster risk.
The Global Assessment Report published earlier this year by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), which is based on more than 30 years of disaster data, found the degradation of ecosystems to be one of three main drivers of disaster risk.
Time is therefore of the essence in reversing the trend of environmental degradation, not only to reduce disaster risk, but also to provide vulnerable populations with better protection against disaster impacts.
Indeed, healthy ecosystems are the front line of defense against natural hazards. Intact coral reefs can act as natural wave barriers against storm surges by reducing wave energy, while forests protect communities against landslides and avalanches.
Through its Disaster Risk Reduction programme, UNEP advocates for ecosystems-based management approaches, for instance with respect to coastal zone and watershed management, in order to reduce the impacts of natural hazards on vulnerable populations.
Together with the ISDR and other actors in the Partnership for Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction (PEDRR) - a coalition of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations that it coordinates - UNEP also remains committed to strengthening global risk reduction strategies by ensuring that environmental factors are taken into account and that environmental management is integrated as a critical tool for reducing vulnerabilities and safeguarding development.
Note to Editors:
UNEP's Disasters and Conflicts programme seeks to minimize environmental threats to human well-being from the environmental causes and consequences of conflicts and disasters.
The programme is implemented through the Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, which has responded to crisis situations in more than 25 countries since 1999, delivering high-quality environmental expertise to national governments and partners in the UN family. As the international community has shifted its focus from post-crisis intervention to crisis prevention, the branch has expanded its operational range, adding disaster risk reduction and environmental cooperation for peacebuilding to its core services of post-crisis environmental assessment and recovery. The branch is based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit mobilizes and coordinates the international emergency response to acute environmental risks caused by conflicts, natural disasters and industrial accidents. The Unit is housed with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in Geneva, Switzerland, and works in close cooperation with the Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch.
The 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction can be found online at: http://www.preventionweb.net/english/hyogo/gar/report/index.php?id=9413
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