Best of our wild blogs: 5 Nov 09

Soil sampling very close to Cyrene Reef
from wild shores of singapore

Smooth Otters - Part I
from Life's Indulgences

Saving the ‘Old Antiques’ – Horseshoe Crabs Research and Rescue
from My Itchy Fingers

Under the rocks and among seaweed in Sentosa
from wonderful creation and Singapore Nature and wild shores of singapore with boom in the bryopsis bloom.

Venus five
from The annotated budak

Flocking display by Purple-backed Starling
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Grey-tailed Tattler at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Paradise preserved
from talfryn.net

Palm oil threatens Borneo's rarest cats
from Mongabay.com news

Read more!

13 million want to live in Singapore

Alicia Wong, Today Online 5 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE - Should all who want to live in Singapore be granted their wish, the island could be overwhelmed with a population of up to 13 million, even if some restless locals seek greener pastures elsewhere.

This appeal the Republic holds for potential immigrants puts it right at the top of research firm Gallup's Potential Net Migration Index, consolidated after a three-year survey of where the world's adults would like to move to permanently.

Places like the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France are, not surprisingly, the most popular destination countries in absolute terms, the survey found. But the index measures - as a proportion of the total population - the estimated number of people who want to live in a country minus those who want to move out.

With a top score of 260 per cent, "Singapore's adult population would increase from an estimated 3.6 million to as high as 13 million," Gallup reported on its website.

It's both good and disturbing news for Singapore, which has grappled with the economic imperative to persuade talented foreigners to take up roots here, but also the need to control the migrant influx and its problems for a tiny city-state with limited land.

After accelerating immigration numbers in recent years, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong two months ago signalled a slowdown in the intake.

Sociologist Paulin Straughan said the survey findings "mean that hopefully we will be in a situation where we can afford to be selective". "If the statistics are reliable, it seems to suggest we are in a happy situation where we have a bigger pool of talent (to choose from)," the Nominated Member of Parliament added.

But who are those who want to move here? The Gallup survey, which interviewed 259,600 adults from 135 countries over the telephone or face-to-face, did not specify.

It did, however, show that of the 700 million worldwide who would like to live elsewhere, 38 per cent were from Sub-Saharan Africa and 23 per cent from the Middle East and North Africa, while Asians were the most content to stay put - only one in 10 wanted to move permanently.

As for Singapore's overall attractiveness, it was this year ranked by Mercer as being the world's 26th most liveable city, but also the 10th most expensive.

MP Charles Chong (Pasir Ris-Punggol) is "not surprised" with the Gallup findings. "(There are) many bigger countries where the situation is comparatively less fortunate than the situation here."

At his Meet-the-People sessions, he encounters "quite a lot of people (who) want their relatives, parents to move here". The Government will have to "strike a balance" in taking in those with talent, and those who do the jobs locals are not inclined towards, he added.

But as for Singaporeans who want to leave, they will likely be the "educated, professional and (those who) have skills" - and they will need to be replaced, said Associate Professor Straughan. About 1,000 emigrate each year.

Singapore a top choice for migrants
Gallup index shows S'pore population would jump to 13m if it takes in all who wished to come here
Lin Zhaowei, Straits Times 5 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE is a top immigration hot spot, according to a global survey conducted by Gallup.

If it were to take in all adults who wish to settle in the country, its adult population of 3.6 million would jump to 13 million, said the survey released this week.

Gallup arrived at this figure by using what it called the Potential Net Migration Index (PNMI).

The index is the estimated number of adults who wish to leave a country permanently subtracted from the estimated number who wish to immigrate to the country, as a proportion of the total adult population.

The higher a positive PNMI value, the greater the potential of net population gain, proportional to the population size.

Singapore emerged tops with the highest PNMI value of 260 per cent, followed by Saudi Arabia (180 per cent), New Zealand (175 per cent), Canada (170 per cent) and Australia (145 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's score was minus 60 per cent, which means that more people want to leave the country permanently than settle in it.

For the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, only Arab nationals and Arab expatriates were interviewed for the 2007-2009 survey, which polled about 260,000 people aged 15 and older in 135 countries.

Singapore's ranking in the PNMI may not be entirely surprising given its relatively small population size and strong and stable economy, analysts said.

According to the United Nations' 2009 Human Development Report, Singapore is already a popular immigration destination.

It ranked No. 10 in the world in terms of the share of immigrants as part of total population, at 35 per cent.

The UN report also showed that Singapore had a relatively low emigration rate of 6.3 per cent.

'If most of those who say they want to come here are mostly economic migrants from other Asian countries, I won't be surprised because Singapore's economy is doing quite well relatively,' Dr Chua Beng Huat, a sociology professor at the National University of Singapore, told The Straits Times when asked to comment on the Gallup survey findings.

On the whole, the survey found that some 700 million people - or 16 per cent of the world's population - would like to relocate permanently to another country, if they had the chance.

The United States was the most desired destination overall in terms of numbers - around 165 million adults would like to move there permanently if they could.

Other top destinations included Canada, Britain, France (all three with around 45 million potential migrants); Spain (35 million) and Saudi Arabia (30 million).

Sub-Saharan Africa was the region with the highest percentage of people who would like to emigrate, at around 38 per cent.

The corresponding figure for the Middle East and North Africa was 23 per cent, and 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively for Europe and the Americas.

Those living in Asia were the least likely to emigrate, with only 10 per cent expressing a desire to do so.

Ms Neli Esipova, Gallup's director of research for global migration, said the findings showed that hundreds of millions of people around the world felt pulled or pushed towards countries other than their own.

'Who these potential migrants are, where they would like to go and why will continue to be crucial for leaders in countries of origin and destination to understand as they develop migration and development strategies during the economic crisis and well after,' she said.

Read more!

Singapore scientists join international study of 10,000 vertebrates' genomes

Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore EurekAlert 4 Nov 09;

'Genomes contain information from the past -- they are molecular fossils,' said Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner, M.D.

The Singapore laboratory that deciphered the DNA codes, or genomes, of the famed fugu (or pufferfish) and elephant shark, has joined The Genome 10K Project, an international effort to build an invaluable repository of DNA sequences on 10,000 species of animals for conducting comparative studies on a scale that currently can not be achieved.

Participating in The Genome 10K project, described in a paper published in the Nov. 5, 2009 issue of the Journal of Heredity, are 70 leading scientists at major zoos, museums, research centres and universities in North and South America, Europe, Australia as well as Asia. They will create a collection of tissue and DNA samples and then sequence and analyze the animals' genomes to reveal the complete genetic heritage of the 10,000 species.

The results will enable scientists worldwide to understand the genetic basis of adaptive changes that occur in vertebrates and predict how animals respond to climate change, pollution, emerging diseases and competition. In addition to aiding conservation efforts, this data will enable researchers to compare animal and human genomes, and reconstruct the evolutionary history of the human and other vertebrate genomes.

"The most challenging intellectual problem in biology for this century will be the reconstruction of our biological past so we can understand how complex organisms such as ourselves evolved," said Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner, M.D., who co-heads Singapore's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) comparative genomics laboratory, which will participate in The Genome 10 K Project.

"Genomes contain information from the past – they are molecular fossils – and having sequences from vertebrates will be an essential source of rich information," added Dr. Brenner, who also is Scientific Advisor to the Chairman of Singapore's A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), which oversees 14 biomedical sciences, and physical sciences and engineering research institutes, and seven consortia and centres at Biopolis and Fusionopolis, as well as their immediate vicinity.

One of the initiators of the Genome 10K project, David Haussler, Ph.D., Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at University of California, Santa Cruz, said, "For the first time, we have a chance to really see evolution in action, caught in the act of changing whole genomes. This is possible because the technology to sequence DNA is thousands of times more powerful now than it was just a decade ago, and is poised to get even more powerful very soon."

Byrappa Venkatesh, Ph.D., who heads IMCB's comparative genomics lab and is one of the chairpersons of the Genome 10K committee, said, "This project will not only generate sequences of all important vertebrate genomes that we were contemplating to sequence, but also will give us access to the latest sequencing technologies and sequence analysis tools for genomic studies in Singapore."

IMCB Executive Director Neal Copeland, Ph.D., added, "We are delighted and honored that IMCB is participating in this momentous project, which is a fine example of the international nature of science. Following the successful revelation of the fugu genome in 2002, IMCB is looking forward to making even more important contributions to the international field of genomics through the Genome 10K project and remains committed to using the tools of modern science to make important, basic discoveries that will advance the understanding of the human genome and diseases."

###

In addition to Dr. Haussler, the project initiators are Stephen J. O'Brien, M.D., M.P.H., Chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute and Oliver A. Ryder, Ph.D., Director of Genetics at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research and Adjunct Professor of Biology at UC San Diego.

For more information, please contact:
Wang Yunshi (Ms)
Corporate Communications
Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

Scientists Launch Effort To Sequence The DNA Of 10,000 Vertebrates
ScienceDaily 4 Nov 09;

Scientists have an ambitious new strategy for untangling the evolutionary history of humans and their biological relatives: Create a genetic menagerie made of the DNA of more than 10,000 vertebrate species. The plan, proposed by an international consortium of scientists, is to obtain, preserve, and sequence the DNA of approximately one species for each genus of living mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish.

"Understanding the evolution of the vertebrates is one of the greatest detective stories in science," said David Haussler, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). "No one has ever really known how the elephant got its trunk, or how the leopard got its spots. This project will lay the foundation for work that will answer those questions and many others."

Known as the Genome 10K Project, the approximately $50 million initiative is "tremendously exciting science that will have great benefits for human and animal health," Haussler said. "Within our lifetimes, we could get a glimpse of the genetic changes that have given rise to some of the most diverse life forms on the planet."

Haussler is one of the lead authors of an article, published online November 5, 2009, in the Journal of Heredity, that outlines the project. The other lead authors include Stephen J. O'Brien, chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute, and Oliver A. Ryder, director of genetics at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research and adjunct professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego. Coauthors and additional authors, who together make up a group called the Genome 10K Community of Scientists (G10KCOS), include geneticists, paleontologists, ecologists, conservationists, and other scientists representing major zoos, museums, research centers, and universities around the world.

The proposal originated at a meeting Haussler hosted at UCSC in April 2009. More than 50 scientists came together to discuss the merits of the project and its daunting logistic and financial challenges. "Some of the people at the meeting were initially skeptical," Haussler said. "But they quickly recognized the many advantages of a shared infrastructure and data analysis system."

The primary impetus behind the proposal is the rapidly expanding capability of DNA sequencers and the associated decline in sequencing costs. "We'll soon be in a situation where it will cost only a few thousand dollars to sequence a genome," Haussler said. "At that point, most of the cost will be getting samples, managing the project, and handling data."

All living vertebrates descend from a single marine species that lived 500-600 million years ago. Paleontologists do not know much about the physical appearance of that species, but because all of its descendents share certain characteristics, they know that it had segmented muscles, a forebrain, midbrain, and hind brain attached to spinal cord structures, and a sophisticated innate immune system.

That primitive vertebrate gave rise to what Haussler calls "one of the most spectacularly malleable branches of life." Vertebrates spread throughout the oceans, conquered land, and eventually took to the air. Over the course of time they produced stunning innovations, including multichambered hearts, bones and teeth, an internal skeleton that has supported the largest aquatic and terrestrial animals on the planet, and a species of primate -- Homo sapiens -- that has produced sophisticated language, culture, and technology.

By sequencing the DNA of 10,000 vertebrates -- roughly one-sixth of the 60,000 species estimated to be living today -- biologists will be able to reconstruct the genetic changes that gave rise to this astonishing diversity. Some parts of our DNA are very similar to the DNA of other vertebrates, reflecting our descent from a common ancestor, while other parts are markedly different. "We can understand the function of elements in the human genome by seeing what parts of the genome have changed and what parts have not changed in humans and other animals," said Haussler.

The project also will help conservation efforts by documenting the genomes and genetic diversity of threatened and endangered vertebrate species. By helping scientists predict how species will respond to climate change, pollution, emerging diseases, and invasive competitors, it will support the assessment, monitoring, and management of biological diversity.

The G10KCOS consortium has been developing guidelines for the collection, preservation, and documentation of cell lines and DNA samples. It also has been discussing potential public and private sources of funding for the project -- estimated at $50 million if the price of handling and sequencing each DNA sample eventually falls to $5,000. Said Haussler: "How do you raise $50 million? Ask nicely and make a strong case."

In planning the project, the G10KCOS group has used the Human Genome Project as a model. For example, the consortium plans to release sequencing data immediately according to standards developed for the sequencing of the human genome. Haussler also cited that project, which began before needed sequencing technologies were available, as evidence that it is worthwhile to begin planning for the Genome 10K Project before the cost of sequencing falls enough to make it feasible. "The time to start is now, or the job will get away from us," said Haussler. "The sequencing machines will be waiting, but the samples won't be ready."

Adapted from materials provided by Howard Hughes Medical Institute, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

10,000 species ... and the missing link
A*Star scientists to help collect DNA samples for worldwide project
Today Online 6 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE - How humans evolved could one day be scientifically reconstructed through a project involving scientists from Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), who will help collect tissue and DNA samples from 10,000 species of animals.

Scientists from A*Star's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) will team up with 70 leading scientists from major zoos, museums, research centres and universities in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, in the effort called the Genome 10K Project.

Led by Professor Byrappa Venkatesh - who heads the Comparative Genomics Laboratory at IMCB and who is one of the chairpersons of the Genome 10K committee - the project will create an invaluable repository of DNA sequences for comparative studies on a scale never done before.

Taking Darwin's theory of evolution to another level, the project will allow scientists to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the human and other vertebrate genomes.

"Genomes contain information from the past - they are molecular fossils - and having sequences from vertebrates will be an essential source of rich information," said Nobel Laureate Dr Sydney Brenner, who is Scientific Adviser to the A*Star chairman and co-head of the IMCB laboratory.

"The most challenging intellectual problem in biology for this century will be the reconstruction of our biological past so we can understand how complex organisms such as ourselves evolved," he added.

Aside from being able to compare animal and human genomes, scientists will also be able to understand the genetic changes and adaptations that occur in vertebrates.

This will help in conservation efforts, as scientists may be able to predict how animals respond to climate change, emerging diseases, and competition.

Said Prof Venkatesh: "This project will not only generate sequences of all important vertebrate genomes that we were contemplating to sequence, but also will give us access to the latest sequencing technologies and sequence analysis tools for genomic studies in Singapore."

The proposal for the project, launched in April this year, is outlined in a paper titled A proposal to obtain whole genome sequence for 10,000 vertebrate species, which will be published in the Journal of Heredity.

Evolution of man - Singapore joins first steps of gene study
Channel NewsAsia 5 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE: How humans evolved could one day be scientifically reconstucted through a project involving Singapore's A*STAR scientists, who will help collect tissue and DNA samples from 10,000 species of animals.

Scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) will team up with 70 leading scientists from major zoos, museums, research centres and universities in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia in the effort called the Genome 10K Project.

Led by Prof Byrappa Venkatesh, who heads the Comparative Genomics Laboratory at IMCB and who is one of the chairpersons of the Genome 10K committee, the project will create an invaluable repository of DNA sequences for comparative studies on a scale never done before.

Taking Darwin's theory of evolution to another level, the project will allow scientists to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the human and other vertebrate genomes.

"Genomes contain information from the past – they are molecular fossils – and having sequences from vertebrates will be an essential source of rich information," said Nobel Laureate Dr Sydney Brenner, who is the Scientific Advisor to A*STAR's Chairman and co-head of the IMCB laboratory.

"The most challenging intellectual problem in biology for this century will be the reconstruction of our biological past so we can understand how complex organisms such as ourselves evolved," he added.

Aside from being able to compare animal and human genomes, scientists will also be able to understand the genetic changes and adaptions that occur in vertebrates.

This will help in conservation efforts as scientists may be able to predict how animals respond to climate change, emerging diseases, and competition.

Prof Venkatesh said, "This project will not only generate sequences of all important vertebrate genomes that we were contemplating to sequence, but also will give us access to the latest sequencing technologies and sequence analysis tools for genomic studies in Singapore."

The proposal for the project, launched in April 2009, is outlined in a paper entitled "A proposal to obtain whole genome sequence for 10,000 vertebrate species", which will be published in the Journal of Heredity.

The initiators of the Genome 10K Project include Prof David Haussler, Professor of Biomolecular Engineering at University of California, Santa Cruz; Dr Stephen J. O'Brien, Chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute and Prof Oliver A. Ryder, Director of Genetics at the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research and Adjunct Professor of Biology at UC San Diego.

- CNA/sf

Massive effort to decode DNA of 10,000 species
Research will also give insight into evolutionary history of humans
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 7 Nov 09;

SCIENTISTS the world over are sequencing a veritable Noah's Ark, in the largest-ever project to trace the genetic history of humans.

Major zoos, museums and research centres, including the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's (A*Star) Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB), are involved in the massive effort to decode the DNA of 10,000 animals, ranging from the tiger shark to the crocodile lizard.

In all, 68 scientists from five continents - North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia - are working on what is called the Genome 10K Project.

There are about 60,000 known species of living vertebrates - creatures with backbones - broadly categorised into mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and sharks.

So far, the genomes of 50 animals such as chickens and zebrafish have already been decoded. But by getting such information from one in six vertebrates on earth, the researchers hope to be able to compare them with the genetic make-up of humans, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of humans.

Said Dr Sydney Brenner, a Nobel laureate in physiology who co-heads the IMCB laboratory: 'The most challenging intellectual problem in biology for this century will be the reconstruction of our biological past so we can understand how complex organisms such as ourselves evolved.

'Genomes contain information from the past - they are molecular fossils - and having sequences from vertebrates will be an essential source of rich information.'

The scientists hope to raise up to US$50 million (S$69 million) for the study, which was published in the Journal of Heredity on Thursday and is expected to take five years. The results will be freely available to researchers.

They also hope that by looking at the genetic changes in species as they adapt over time, they can better predict how vertebrates respond to climate change and pollution, to help in conservation efforts.

Said Professor David Haussler of the University of California, Santa Cruz, one of the three researchers to initiate the project: 'For the first time, we have a chance to really see evolution in action, caught in the act of changing whole genomes.'

Singapore's contribution is led by Professor Byrappa Venkatesh, who heads the Comparative Genomics Laboratory at IMCB, and chairs the committee that will oversee the sequencing and analysis of the 10,000 specimens.

'The idea is that once these genomes are sequenced, we can understand how they have evolved, how diverse they are, and how their biological identities have come about,' he explained.

Such detailed studies can, for example, boost efforts to conserve endangered species such as anteaters, the California condor and the Chinese sturgeon.

'Once we have sequenced these animals, we can look for adaptations, so we can see variations in populations and select mutations that are favourable. So, for example, when you want to breed these endangered species in captivity, you can select those that do not carry lethal mutations or genes,' he said.

Such a vast database will also boost efforts in understanding genetic diseases that afflict humans, he added.

'Sequencing the human genome has changed medicine, because we now can look to the root cause of genetic diseases and which genes cause them,' he explained.

Undertaking a project on such a large scale is possible only now because sequencing technology has become more affordable, he added, noting that when the human genome was sequenced in 2000, it cost around US$300 million per genome. This can be done now for US$50,000, and in a year or so, the cost is expected to shrink to US$5,000.

Scouring the world for promising fish is second nature to the 18-year veteran of the local research scene, and Singapore has proved to be an invaluable treasure trove of rare fish species., he said.

Fish make up nearly half of the living vertebrates alive today, and will comprise 4,000 out of the 10,000 used in the project.

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Sungai Pulai and Sungei Buloh part of Iskandar work group

New work group to study joint economic project in Iskandar Malaysia
Channel NewsAsia 4 Nov 09;

A study has been commissioned to assess the feasibility of nature sites for joint tourism development, which can potentially increase tourism flows between Iskandar Malaysia and Singapore.

The study sites are Sungai Pulai, Tanjung Piai and Pulau Kukup - collectively known as the Ramsar sites in Iskandar Malaysia - and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in Singapore.

SINGAPORE : A new work group has been formed to study the joint development of an iconic economic project in Iskandar Malaysia.

This is a follow-up to the discussions between the prime ministers of Malaysia and Singapore in May this year.

They mooted the idea of a bilateral project in Iskandar Malaysia as a showcase of the commitment of both countries to build a strong, productive and enduring relationship.

The set-up of the work group was announced after the fifth working meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee for Iskandar Malaysia on Wednesday.

A joint statement said the committee also reviewed the progress made so far by the Joint Work Groups on Immigration, Transportation, Tourism, and Environment.

A study has been commissioned to assess the feasibility of nature sites for joint tourism development, which can potentially increase tourism flows between Iskandar Malaysia and Singapore.

The study sites are Sungai Pulai, Tanjung Piai and Pulau Kukup - collectively known as the Ramsar sites in Iskandar Malaysia - and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve in Singapore.

On the immigration front, the pilot of the Malaysian Automated Clearance System that gives frequent travellers to Iskandar Malaysia access to "fast track" lanes was extended to all frequent travellers to Malaysia in September.

Both sides also agreed to double the cross-border bus services by January 2010.

The joint ministerial committee will meet again in the first half of 2010 to review the progress of the joint work groups. - CNA /ls

Singapore-KL work group for Iskandar project
Teo Cheng Wee, Straits Times 5 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE and Malaysia formed a work group yesterday to study the joint development of an iconic economic project in Iskandar.

Working together on an iconic project in the Johor economic zone was one of the key issues discussed when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong met Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in Singapore in May.

The bilateral project was mooted as a showcase of the commitment of both countries to build a strong, productive and enduring relationship, the two countries' Joint Ministerial Committee (JMC) for Iskandar Malaysia said yesterday.

At the meeting in May, Mr Lee had suggested a mixed-use township development, while Datuk Seri Najib was keen on a wellness centre that could provide spas and other services.

But what the project will eventually be has not been finalised.

Yesterday's meeting at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Singapore was the fifth for the JMC. It was formed in 2007 with the aim of facilitating cooperation between Malaysia and Singapore on the Iskandar project.

The meeting was jointly chaired by National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan and Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Malaysia's Minister in the Prime Minister's Department.

The committee also includes Johor chief minister Ghani Othman and Singapore's Transport Minister Raymond Lim. The JMC also reviewed the progress made by four sub-groups on immigration, transportation, tourism and the environment.

A study has been commissioned to assess the feasibility of jointly developing nature sites as tourism spots.

On the immigration front, the pilot test of the Malaysian Automated Clearance System - which gives frequent travellers to Iskandar Malaysia access to 'fast track' lanes - was extended to all frequent travellers to Malaysia in September.

Both countries also agreed to double cross-border bus services by next January. The JMC will meet again in the first half of next year.

Read more!

SembMarine leaps into future with massive new shipyard in Tuas

$750m first phase to be ready by 2013 and remainder over 12 years; no cash-call to fund expansion
Vincent Wee Business Times 5 Nov 09;

(SINGAPORE) Sembcorp Marine yesterday took a bold step into the future by unveiling plans to build a massive integrated yard facility in Tuas View Extension. This will be Singapore's first new-built yard in a generation. Its first phase is expected to cost about $750 million and be completed by 2013.
Development of the 73.3-hectare first phase will begin next month and is expected to take four years. The remainder of the 206-hectare total site will be developed in two more phases over a period of 12 years.

'This is the right time to build in order to anticipate (demand) especially after the most recent crisis as we have seen neighbouring countries build up their shipyard facilities,' said SembMarine president and CEO Wong Weng Sun. 'We're trying to envisage the next cycle . . . and this is the best time to build and crucial to success in the future.'

In response to concerns that the new capacity will come onstream after the rigbuilding cycle has peaked, Mr Wong said that the first phase will focus on ship repairs and conversions, two sectors that should remain strong. Dock capacity has not kept pace with the increase in the global fleet which has added an average of 1,000 ships per year over the past four years.

Sembawang Shipyard managing director Ong Poh Kwee revealed that SembMarine turned away over 400 ships last year alone as it did not have the capacity to take them in.

Ship repairs contribute around $150 million to $160 million in turnover at the moment with SembMarine making the most of its current facilities to build rigs, do conversions as well as take in what repair jobs it has capacity to handle. The new yard will create 200 vessel slots per year, Mr Wong said.

SembMarine's regular customers and preferred partners have more than 1,000 vessels between them, most of which call in Singapore for their repair and maintenance needs. As much as 86 per cent of the repair business comes from these regular customers, Mr Ong said. With as much as half of the world's ships expected to be plying Asian routes in future, quicker turnaround times will be an increasingly important factor.

A 30-plus-30 years' lease has been signed with JTC for the first phase and SembMarine's current operations in Pulau Samulun will be relocated to the new yard and the land returned to JTC when it is ready for commercial operations. SembMarine will maintain operations at its other units PPL Shipyard and Sembawang Shipyard for now.

The development costs will be funded through a combination of debt and internal funds. SembMarine said that it has secured $700 million in committed banking facilities comprising $300 million term loans and $400 million revolving credit facilities with various banks.

SembMarine said that the expansion is a long-term project and is not expected to have any material impact on the net tangible assets and earnings per share for the year ending Dec 31, 2009. Barring unforeseen circumstances, it expects positive contributions to earnings when phase one becomes operational.

CFO Tan Cheng Tat assured investors that there would be no cash calls to fund the expansion. He added that the group also had the capacity to gear up to as much as 1.75 times, giving it the ability to take advantage of opportunities to expand overseas as well despite the huge capital expenditure planned over the next few years.

When fully completed, the new yard will increase total dock capacity by 62 per cent to 3.08 million dwt (deadweight ton) from 1.90 million dwt currently and will feature optimised docking and berthing facilities, with an improved dock and quay ratio, to ensure effective utilisation and faster turnaround in repairs and upgrading of ships, rigs and floaters.

The first phase will more than triple land area from the current 20 hectares, nearly quadruple drydock capacity to 1.55 million dwt from the current 400,000 dwt and boost quay length by almost three and half times from 1,071 metres to 3,408 metres. This will give SembMarine four very large crude carrier-size drydocks compared to two now.

Integrated facilities and newer technology will make the yard more efficient and productive which will in turn boost capacity and profitability, Mr Wong said. He expected productivity at the new yard to increase by at least 15 to 20 per cent.

The new facility marks a key milestone in the transformation of Singapore's offshore and marine sector, the Economic Development Board (EDB) and JTC Corp said in a joint release.

'The first integrated yard facility represents how Singapore stays at the forefront of the marine and offshore sector through constant innovation and modernisation,' said EDB chairman Leo Yip.

'Given the yard's new requirements, it was a challenging project for JTC,' said CEO Manohar Khiatani. 'We worked very closely with SembMarine to create a unique custom-made waterfront profile for the integrated new yard facility.'

SembMarine to build high-tech yard
$750m hub in Tuas is designed to boost competitive edge
Alvin Foo, Straits Times 5 Nov 09;

SEMBCORP Marine has unveiled plans to build Singapore's first integrated yard facility, in a move designed to boost its competitive edge and ready itself for the upturn. Located at Tuas View Extension, the state-of-the-art yard will occupy 206ha and be built on reclaimed land in three phases over 16 years.

Work on the first phase - costing $750 million - will start next month and is expected to be completed in four years. The remaining two phases will be developed over a 12-year period. The yard will serve as a one-stop hub for ship repair and conversion, shipbuilding, rig building and offshore engineering and construction.

Speaking at a briefing yesterday, SembMarine chief executive Wong Weng Sun said: 'It's the best time to build - and it's crucial, not only in the business sense, but also for the future.'

He added that the yard will leave SembMarine well positioned to respond to forecast growth in dock capacity demand and to a rise in offshore oil and gas activities, which will be spurred by projected increases in Asian seaborne and oil trades.

JTC Corp chairman Cedric Foo said: 'It's not only a key project for Sembcorp Marine, but also a major milestone for Singapore.'

Economic Development Board chairman Leo Yip said: 'The state-of-the-art facility will sharpen our competitive edge, and it demonstrates how Singapore continues to stay at the forefront of the global marine and offshore industry through constant innovation and modernisation.'

The yard will be designed to serve a wide range of vessels, including very large crude carriers, new generations of mega-container ships, LNG carriers and passenger vessels. When fully completed, the new yard will boost SembMarine's total dock capacity by 62 per cent and enhance productivity by up to 20 per cent.

The 73.3ha Phase 1 will focus on ship repair and conversion, with SembMarine relocating its Pulau Samulun operations to the new yard when the initial phase is ready. SembMarine said it had secured $700 million worth of committed banking facilities for the yard.

Yesterday's announcement came as SembMarine reported that net profits went up 3 per cent to $144.6 million in the three months ended Sept 30. Revenue rose 32.9 per cent to $1.52 billion.

Earnings per share was 7.02 cents, up from 6.84 cents a year ago, while net asset value per share was 77.43 cents, up from 64.11 cents as of Dec 31 last year.

The company has a net order book worth $6.7 billion, including $1.12 billion in new orders secured during the first half of this year. It said the fundamentals for the offshore oil and gas sector remained intact, with oil prices stabilising in the US$70-US$80 a barrel range. It expects its ship repair business to remain reasonably good for the rest of this year.

Before news of the planned integrated yard broke, SembMarine shares closed two cents higher yesterday at $3.44.

SembCorp Marine building 206-hectare yard facility in Tuas
Desmond Wong, Channel NewsAsia 4 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE: SembCorp Marine is building a new 206-hectare yard facility in Tuas in three phases over the next 16 years.

SembCorp Marine said on Wednesday the first phase will have ship repair and conversion facilities, and will have three-and-a-half times the capacity of the current yard at Pulau Samulun.

The rig-builder expects the new yard to boost productivity by as much as 20 per cent from a reduced product cycle.

The construction of the first phase of the project will cost S$750 million and it will begin next month.


- CNA/so

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Sustainable Manufacturing Centre: One-stop knowledge hub

Jonathan Kwok, Straits Times 4 Nov 09;

A ONE-STOP knowledge hub for manufacturers who want to increase the environmental sustainability of their production processes was set up at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology's premises on Wednesday.

The Sustainable Manufacturing Centre will facilitate collaborations among government agencies, industry associations, the research community and the manufacturing industry to engage in research and development and the implementation of green manufacturing technologies.

It will also educate and advise companies on best practices in sustainable manufacturing.

'Singapore is doing its part to ensure that we, as a nation, move in the right direction in this aspect...

'Boosting our resource efficiency has been identified as a key priority, in light of the greater needs of our growing population and economy, growing global resource constraints as well as climate change,' said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim, who was guest of honour at the centre's official opening.

'Our goal is to improve our energy use per dollar GDP by 35 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030,' he added.

Cadbury gets on green bandwagon
Jonathan Kwok, Straits Times 5 Nov 09;

GLOBAL confectionery firm Cadbury is aiming to make green chocolate - green in the environmental sense, that is.

Cadbury is one of four companies that have linked up with Singapore's newly set-up Sustainable Manufacturing Centre (SMC) to develop eco-friendly manufacturing processes and products.

Cadbury's project is part of Purple Goes Green, a global campaign by the chocolate brand with the trademark purple packaging to boost the environmental sustainability of its production.

'There is a growing awareness of environmental issues, and more of our consumers request and demand that their products be green,' said Mr Chandran Gopal, manufacturing manager at Cadbury Enterprises, Cadbury's Singapore-based arm.

'As a company, we are also conscious of the environment, and thus it's good to be upfront, be prepared and to put in (environmental) initiatives to be ahead of the rest,' he said.

The SMC is a tie-up between seven government agencies and eight industry associations. It will focus on developing and implementing sustainable manufacturing technologies.

It will assist Cadbury over the next three months in tracking the carbon footprint of each piece of equipment in its cocoa production plant in Jurong. Once the evaluation process is over, Mr Gopal hopes to extend the agreement and engage the SMC's capabilities to implement measures to help his factory reduce its carbon emissions.

These might include bringing in innovative new technologies to improve energy and water usage.

The official signing of the agreement between Cadbury and SMC was held yesterday in conjunction with SMC's opening ceremony at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology's premises.

The other companies that have linked up with SMC are timber product maker LHT Holdings, food manufacturer Prima, and electronics company Screentech Display.

The SMC aims to be a one- stop information hub for Singapore-based manufacturers who want to become 'greener'. It will conduct workshops and seminars on sustainable technologies, and provide consultancy and advisory services for firms exploring methods to revamp their processes.

These companies can eventually follow in the footsteps of Cadbury by entering into full-fledged research and development arrangements with SMC. By undertaking the costs of manpower, equipment and consumables, companies can engage the SMC in projects to tailor and implement green technologies to meet their business needs.

'Singapore is doing its part to ensure that we, as a nation, move in the right direction in this aspect... Boosting our resource efficiency has been identified as a key priority, in the light of the greater needs of our growing population and economy, growing global resource constraints as well as climate change,' said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim, who was the guest of honour.

Read more!

Energy savings in ICT sector could help firms to go green

Rachel Kelly, Channel NewsAsia 4 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE: Businesses around the world have been ramping up their efforts to go green. Experts said on Wednesday one aspect of their operations, which could offer major energy savings, is the information communications technology sector.

Data centres, commonly used by firms to store and archive information, could be streamlined to be more efficient. This can, in turn, help companies save around 20 per cent on energy costs.

Uwe Schlager, managing director, T-Systems, Singapore, said: "The power usage (of a data centre) depends on a lot of different factors. It starts with the building, the height of the ceiling, the allocation of the racks and servers in the centre, humidity and so on.

"We have, in Germany, a project called 'Data Centre 2020'. We are making the parameters flexible and trying to figure out an ideal setup for a data centre. At the moment, power usage factor is 1.6 to 1.7, and we want to bring it down to a factor of 1.3 - that means 20 per cent less power consumption in data centres."

Here in Singapore, T-Systems have already managed to cut down the usage of energy in its data centres. Previously, its Singapore operations emit carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to 14 flights from Singapore to New York. This has now been cut down to three flights' worth.

The firm said this is a cost saving which can then be passed on to customers.

At the start of the year, Japanese IT services company Fujitsu Asia also opened what it dubbed the "Data Centre of the Future", which is expected to cut energy usage by 30 per cent.

Overall, some analysts said the ICT industry currently produces 832 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. This is expected to reach 1.4 billion tonnes by 2020.


- CNA/so

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Climate friendly policies pay off, report shows

WWF 2 Nov 09;

Climate-friendly policies not only reduce greenhouse emissions and bring environmental benefits; they also boost and diversify the economy, a recent report scoring some 100 climate policies from G20 countries reveals.

The report carried out by Ecofys and Germanwatch for WWF and E3G evaluates climate policies of countries accounting for around three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions, identifying best and worst examples and lessons learned.

As G20 Finance Ministers prepare to meet in St. Andrews, UK, on 6-7 November, WWF urges this group to take the steps required now to ensure that the next major wave of infrastructure investment is green. That includes concrete proposals on climate finance to help developing countries build low carbon economies and adapt to climate change, as mandated by the Pittsburgh Summit of G20 Leaders in September.

The top places in the report were given to an “Efficiency in buildings” programme implemented by the German government and a “Feed-in tariff for renewable electricity” initiative, also in Germany. The latter guarantees a producer of renewable energy a fixed feed-in tariff for 20 years. Germany’s buildings programme reduces emissions, creates jobs in the construction sector, and offers broad scope for replication in others countries.

A Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in Mexico has shown that green solutions have strong potential to increase comfort and quality of life – important considerations for fast-growing, emerging economies. China’s programme of targets for the 1000 most energy-intensive enterprises led to permanent improvements in energy management and efficiency in these companies.

“This report shows that governments which implement green and climate friendly solutions will win and take a leadership position in the world,” Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative said.

“Governments which don’t invest in low carbon solutions will lose in the end and their voters will turn away from them,” he said. “We call on the G20 to come up with a strategy to drive investment in the green economy.” “Not investing in low carbon solutions nowadays is simply short-sighted.”

The report also exposes a number of bad policies, ver often in the same countries where the good policies were implemented, which both fail to deliver economic benefits and block the way to a low carbon future. These include measures such as subsidizing of local mining, preferential treatment of energy-intensive industries and lack of comprehensive water management.



Nick Mabey, CEO of E3G, said: “G20 leaders agreed at Pittsburgh to a framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. That commitment will be in vain unless it is backed by concrete investments in a low carbon recovery. One-off green stimulus packages aren’t enough. What investors are looking for is long-term, legal and loud policy signals that governments are serious about the low carbon transition. Copenhagen is the place to start.”

WWF estimates that industrialized governments will need to provide financing in the order of US$160 billion for adaptation and mitigation in developing countries, especially to those most vulnerable to climate change.

While single policies make a difference, there is also urgent need for more policy integration and overall coherence. That is why WWF calls Zero Carbon Action Plans for developed countries.

Download the 2009 Scorecard 752 KB pdf

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Indonesia Defends Converting Peatlands To Palm Estates

Niluksi Koswanage, PlanetArk 5 Nov 09;

KUALA LUMPUR - Indonesia will stick to a controversial plan to open peatlands for oil palm estates as it seeks to develop the economy despite protests from green groups that this type of land conversion speeds up climate change.

The Southeast Asian country wants to maintain its position as the world's top palm oil producer as it looks to hand over degraded land including peatlands to planters, a top Indonesian government official said on Wednesday.

Peat is the accumulation of partially decayed vegetation in very wet places and burning peatland forests in Indonesia pumps large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and fans choking smoke across the region during the dry season.

But the world's No.3 CO2 emitter has set aside 8 percent of its 25 million hectares of peatlands this year that prove to have low carbon stores in a bid to control land conversions, said Rosediana Suharto, head of the Indonesian Palm Oil Commission.

"We have not issued any licenses so far because of the strict criteria like maintaining water tables and we do have a zero-burning tolerance for these lands," Suharto told Reuters at the sidelines of a palm oil conference in the Malaysian capital.

"Some companies are interested in peatlands and we are working with those who want to safeguard the environment and ensure our country's prosperity."

Indonesia has planted palm estates of 7.1 million hectares. Palm oil generated exports revenue of $10.7 billion, or about 10 percent of the country's non-oil and gas exports in 2008.

PEATLANDS VS PALM ESTATES

A willingness to transform peatland forests into farmland sidelines 36 out the 150 planters like London Sumatra and Musim Mas who belong to an industry initiative that commits to produce palm oil without expanding into forests, Suharto said.

And that is further complicated by an ongoing tussle between planters and green groups in Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) on whether further land expansion should be limited based on greenhouse gas calculations.

"If the peatland we have set aside has low carbon reserves and given oil palm estates ability to act as net carbon sink, then expansion in these areas should go on," Suharto said.

"We have not been wantonly cutting down forests the way the green groups accuse us of doing."

About 2 million hectares are suitable for oil palm estates and since the 1970s, a little less than half have been taken up by planters, Suharto said.

The rest of the peatland forests hold the world's largest carbon reserves, holding around 37.8 billion tonnes, according to environment group Greenpeace.

Indonesia's government has said the country has released 2.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005 -- or 10 tonnes per Indonesian and forecast it would jump to 2.8 billion due to the farm and forestry sector expansion.

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Asia peatland loss 'helps drive warming': scientists

Richard Ingham Yahoo News 4 Nov 09;

BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) – Scientists pointed the finger on Wednesday at Southeast Asian countries for draining wetlands for palm oil and cheap timber production, warning the practice was stoking dangerous global warming.

In a presentation on the sidelines of the UN climate talks, a network of scientists branded Southeast Asia the world leader in greenhouse gases that seep from degraded peat soils.

Peatlands comprise compacted carbon from vegetation, deposited over thousands of years.

The carbon is safely stored when the soil is covered with water, but starts to be released as a greenhouse gas when the land is exposed to air, explained Hans Joosten of Germany's Greifswald University, who coordinated the study.

"They become very big sources of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide," Joosten said.

"The main hotspot is Southeast Asia, with a lot (of emissions) from deforestation and fire and from palm oil and pulpwood plantations," he told a press conference.

Globally, 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2 were emitted from drained peatlands in 2008, compared with 1.06 billion tonnes in 1990, Joosten told a press conference.

This figure comprises only biological degradation of peatlands and does not include peatland burning, which by some estimates could add at least two billion tonnes of CO2 per year, according to the report.

To give a comparison, total greenhouse-gas emissions in 2004 were the equivalent of around 49 billion tonnes of CO2, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Of the 1.3 billion tonnes in emissions from peatlands last year, 580 million tonnes came from Southeast Asia, led by Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.

The region's emissions from this source have increased by 250 percent since 1990 and now account for 70 percent of the regional pollution from oil, gas and coal -- the "fossil fuels" that are most notoriously to blame for man-made climate change.

China, too, is a major source of peatland warming, ranked third in the world after Indonesia and Russia.

The study is the first inventory of global peatlands, said Susanna Tol of Wetlands International, which commissioned the probe.

It was released as negotiators wrangled over a draft text that will be put to the December 7-18 UN climate talks in Copenhagen. Its goal is a treaty that will reduce man-made carbon emissions and help poor countries in the firing line of climate change.

Tol said peatlands had been badly overlooked in international talks, where a more favoured focus has been on preventing carbon emissions by preserving forests and curbing deforestation.

But peatlands store three times the amount of carbon in all the world's forests, which makes it imperative to conserve them, she said.

Joosten said peatlands were found in 175 countries. They account for only three percent of the world's land area, but store a massive 550 billion tonnes of carbon because they are so compact, with some layers being up to 20 metres (65 feet) thick.

So long as drained peatlands are exposed to air, the carbon is released, which means that the sole option is to "re-wet" them by returning them to bog or marsh, he said.

Numerous small-scale projects are underway in various countries to "re-wet" peatland that has been drained and abandoned, some of which entails planting reeds or trees that can then be harvested.

"It entails making a change from dry agriculture to wet agriculture," said Joosten, adding though that the cost of restoration was hard to estimate.

"It is very strongly dependent on the local situation."

Study Finds Vital Peatlands Neglected
Gerard Wynn, Reuters 5 Nov 09;

BARCELONA - Draining and burning of the world's peat bogs accounts for about 5.5 percent of global carbon emissions but are currently excluded from governments' climate targets and U.N. talks, a study found on Wednesday.

Peat stores around twice as much carbon as all the world's trees, but compared with the well-publicized issues of fossil fuels and forests, the sector was the "Cinderella" of climate change policies, said Hans Joosten at Germany's Greifswald University, co-author of the report.

"We call for mandatory accounting of emissions from peatlands," said Susanna Tol of the environment group Wetlands International, presenting the findings on the sidelines of November 2-6 U.N. climate talks in Barcelona. Reporting was only voluntary now, she said.

"So far these emissions have not been addressed" in U.N. talks meant to agree a global climate deal in Copenhagen in December, Tol added. The 175-nation meeting in Barcelona is the final session of preparatory talks before Copenhagen.

Layers of peat up to 20 meters (about 65 ft) thick accumulate as plants rot in wetland areas. As the vegetation is water-logged, it doesn't decay and release the stored carbon dioxide into the air, a major cause of global warming.

But landowners and farmers are draining peatlands, notably in South East Asia, to plant oil palm plantations to meet rapidly growing demand from the food and biofuel industries.

Tol said peatland emissions must be included in far higher profile U.N. talks to design a framework for cutting emissions from the destruction of rainforests, often in peatland areas. The study echoed the findings of an article published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Geoscience, which found that draining peatland in South East Asia alone produced carbon emissions equal to a quarter of those from global deforestation.

That study put CO2 emissions from deforestation at 12 percent of the global total, not 20 percent as widely thought.

HOTSPOT

Curbing carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels has received the lion's share of governments' climate change attention so far, for example under cap and trade schemes to penalize industry or steps to promote renewable energy.

A palm oil boom in Indonesia has meant that in 2008 its carbon emissions from peat were one and a half times greater than burning fossil fuels, Wednesday's study said. The country is the top peatland emitter, followed by Russia and China.

The study estimated that last year global carbon dioxide emissions from draining and burning peat amounted to 2 billion tonnes annually, or about 5.5 percent of the global total. Since 1990 those emissions have grown by 25 percent.

Continued draining or burning of peat is not an option, given that it stores about 446 billion tonnes of carbon, or twice as much as the world's forests, Greifswald University's Joosten said.

The world could limit peatland emissions both by limiting deforestation and peat drainage, and boosting wet farmland, for example harvesting of mosses, he added.

(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

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Australian oil spill recovery plan could take 7 years

Yahoo News 4 Nov 09;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Monitoring the clean-up of a huge oil spill in pristine Australian waters could take as long as seven years, an official said Wednesday as environmentalists urged a wide-ranging inquiry into the disaster.

As many as 28,000 barrels of oil have gushed into the Timor Sea off Western Australia's northern coast in the 10 weeks since the West Atlas oil rig began leaking, raising concerns of an environmental disaster.

Attempts to plug the hole were delayed by the need to bring equipment from Singapore, the difficulty of the operation some 2.6 kilometres (1.6 miles) below the seabed and a fierce inferno fuelled by the leak which erupted Sunday.

The rig's operator PTTEP Australasia said the clean-up would be carried out quickly after the oil and gas leak and the fire were shut down on Tuesday.

"I suspect a couple of months is what we are sort of anticipating," the company's Jose Martins said of the operation.

"The environmental plan really could take up to seven years."

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, who has called for an inquiry into the incident, welcomed the news that the fire on the rig and the Montara wellhead platform had been extinguished.

"I think we are all relieved that what could have been a very dangerous situation hasn't seen any loss of life," the minister told state radio.

Environmentalists said stopping the flow was the first step in cleaning up the spill some 250 kilometres offshore, but called for any inquiry into the leak and fire to have wide-ranging powers.

"This is a major spill," WWF Australia's Ghislaine Llewellyn told AFP. "This is up in the top three in Australian history."

Llewellyn said the spill of oil and condensate combined with the dispersant used to control the slick had created a toxic cocktail which would have a long-term impact on the area's pristine tropical marine life.

Authorities said they were investigating whether oil from the rig could have washed up on Australia's northern coast.

The Australian embassy in Jakarta has dismissed reports that oil from the leak had come close to Indonesian coastal waters as "highly unlikely".

NTT urges Australia to plug Timor Sea oil spill
Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post 4 Nov 09;

East Nusa Tenggara Governor Frans Leburaya has urged the Australian government to take immediate measures to plug an oil leak polluting the Timor Sea.

Leburaya said Tuesday in the provincial capital Kupang that the local environmental agency had sent the government results of lab tests proving the leak, from an offshore oil rig in the Montara field, had polluted local waters.

"The observation team is continuing to monitor the impact of the pollution and will report periodically," Leburaya said.

He added marine life reportedly affected by the oil included dolphins and whales.

"If the crude oil sinks to the bottom of the sea, deep-sea fishes will also be at risk," he said, adding he had sent a letter to the foreign, environment and transportation ministers to discuss the issue with the Australian government.

At a press conference the same day, West Timor Care Foundation director Ferdi Tanoni lauded the Australian government's plan to form an independent commission to investigate the oil rig explosion.

"The proposal to establish an independent commission was expressed by Australian Resources Minister Martin Ferguson on November 30 in Canberra," he said.

He urged the independent commission to involve Indonesia and East Timor in its job, saying both countries were at the highest risk from the pollution.

"The investigation should be carried out together so as not to give an impression of being partial," Tanoni said, adding the Indonesian government should be more proactive in dealing with the issue.

Besides the spill, he went on, the offshore oil rig operated by West Atlas, owned by Thai company PTTEP, had also caught fire.

Australian authorities are currently attempting to plug the leak and put out the fire.

At a press conference Tuesday in Jakarta, the Australian Embassy said the federal government had focused on minimizing the impact of the oil spill and would continue to provide the latest information to Indonesian authorities.

Embassy public affairs official Angky Septiana said the oil leak began on Aug. 21, spilling light crude oil into the Timor Sea.

The embassy had immediately reported the incident to Indonesian authorities as soon as satellite images showed large patches of crude oil entering the Indonesian exclusive economic zone, he added.

"On Oct. 28, Australian Minister of Environment, Heritage and Arts Peter Garrett held talks with his Indonesian counterpart Gusti Muhammad Hatta on the oil spill from the Montara oil field," Septiana said.

The biggest section of the oil spill is found in Australian waters, within the Montara oil field.

A large-scale cleanup process is currently underway, using methods from dissolving the crude oil, to containment and restoration using booms and skimmers.

Australia launches inquiry into major oil spill
AFP Google News 5 Nov 09;

SYDNEY — Australia launched an inquiry on Thursday into a major oil spill off its coast which has been described as one of the country's worst environmental disasters.

Retired senior civil servant David Borthwick was appointed to probe the leak, which gushed from a damaged oil well in the Timor Sea for some 10 weeks and then burst into flames before finally being contained on Tuesday.

"I simply say that we aspire to learn from this incident and take any necessary steps to stop similar incidents occurring in the future," Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said.

The inquiry will have the power to call witnesses, take sworn evidence and force companies to hand over documents, and will make recommendations aimed at stopping future accidents.

The rig's Thai-based operator, PTTEP Australasia, has warned the site off northern Australia may need environmental monitoring for up to seven years.

Up to 28,000 barrels of oil poured into the sea after the West Atlas rig began leaking on August 21, prompting several attempts to cap it by boring a relief well and pumping in heavy mud.

Environmental groups have criticised the government's handling of the spill, saying it threatened bird and marine life off Western Australia's north coast.

Resource-rich Australia is enjoying strong energy exports, notably its fast-expanding liquefied natural gas sector fuelled by booming Asian demand.

Read more!

Pythons Rescued From Becoming Exotic Luggage Overseas

Bernama 4 Nov 09;

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 4 (Bernama) -- Fifty-nine pythons were rescued from being skinned for exotic leather luggage for the international market.

Thanks to swift action by the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan), the regal pythons (python retuculatus species) were found at a store in Sungai Pelek, Sepang when its wildlife crime unit mounted a raid last Monday.

Initial investigations revealed that the pythons were in the midst of being exported to the leather markets of Hong Kong, Vietnam and Singapore.

Also seized at the store were 65 python and lizard skins worth about RM30,000.

Perhilitan (law and enforcement) division director Saharudin Anan said the wildlife crime unit officers found that the pythons were bought by an unlicensed party.

"We found the pythons, together with python and lizard skins, in a store," he said Wednesday, adding that they were protected under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972.

He said that the owner of the premises, in his 40s, had misused his licence in buying snakes from unlicensed wildlife catchers.

"A licenced wildlife buyer can only buy species from wildlife catchers licenced by Perhilitan," said Saharudin, adding that besides being a delicacy, the pythons were also used for leather goods.

They were usually exported to countries such as Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong, he noted.

Saharudin said python meat was sold for RM30 per kilogramme, while its skin was valued at between RM30 to RM50 ringgit a metre.

Lizard skin was sold for between RM40 to RM50 a piece, he said.

-- BERNAMA

Malaysia rescues 59 pythons from dinner table: official
AFP Google News 5 Nov 09;

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian wildlife authorities rescued 59 pythons from being skinned and sold to restaurants and leather dealers, an official said Thursday.

Wildlife and National Parks Department enforcement head Saharudin Anan said the pythons were rescued in a raid last Monday from a warehouse south of the capital.

"We found the pythons, together with python and lizard skins in the store where they were in the midst of being sold," he told AFP.

He added that two individuals had been arrested and were being investigated under the Wildlife Act.

"The python meat would end up on dinner tables in the region while the skins would be used in making exotic leather luggage for international markets in Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam," he added.

Wildlife groups say the trafficking of wildlife, for use in traditional medicine or to be eaten in kitchens abroad, has hit alarming levels in Malaysia.

Authorities in recent months have seized tiger skins, the remains of civet cats, long-tailed monkeys and wild boars that were destined for sale in neighbouring countries.

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Animal release: Don’t spur capture of wildlife

The Star 4 Nov 09;

TRAFFIC South-East Asia would like to offer a word of caution to well-meaning people who plan to buy birds, frogs, fishes and turtles and release them into the wild as suggested in your article “Saving animals from the pot” (Star Metro, Oct 29).

While the intention may be good, buying and releasing wildlife in this manner poses several serious problems. As a wildlife trade monitoring network, Traffic has documented sellers in many parts of South-East Asia antici­pating this act of kindness and stocking up extra animals solely for the purpose of selling them to those moved by the animal’s plight. This means more are caught from the wild than would be otherwise.

Many of these animals are injured in the process of capture, and many more die in stores where they a re often kept in cramped and cruel conditions.

Take the example of the munias, a group of bird species most commonly sold for release for religious reasons. In Traffic’s five-year survey of the Medan Bird Market – the point from which many of them are exported to Malaysia and Singapore – dealers reported that between 30% and 50% of these birds died in the first 24 hours between capture and sale.

The birds are not sold as pets. The trade in these birds is fuelled solely by the practice of releasing them.

Many of the species released are also not native to this country, and by releasing them we could be introducing potential alien invasive species into our environment that would compete with local wildlife and spread diseases with devastating effects on native species of frogs, fishes and turtles.

Furthermore, many of the animals released are in poor health, largely due to the stress of capture, or are otherwise ill-equipped to survive in their new environment and die shortly after release.

The problem of invasive alien species is a worldwide concern that impacts not just nature but also agriculture, fisheries and many other sectors of the economy, and costs governments millions to solve.

Traffic truly appreciates the concerns of believers who want to alleviate the suffering of these captive animals, but perhaps a better way might be to boycott pet stores, restaurants and businesses that sell wild animals altogether. When there is no demand, there will no longer be any reason for them to continue taking these animals from the wild.

CHRIS R. SHEPHERD,
Acting Director,
TRAFFIC South-East Asia.

Saving animals from the pot
Anthoney Chew 29 Oct 09;

IN a wet market in Penang, bull frogs sit and fishes and turtles swim in rectangular containers. These creatures may long for their freedom but they are helpless.

They seem destined for the dinner table unless you step up to save them. You can pay the seller and release the animals to the nearest forest or stream.

Keen to save the lives of animals, more than 70 Buddhist devotees gathered at Chokyi Gyaltsen Centre (CGC) on Lorong Zoo 1 off Jalan Air Itam to attend an Animal Liberation ceremony one fine Sunday morning.

Present to conduct the ceremony and lead the prayers was the abbot of Kopan Monastery in Nepal, Khen-rinpoche Lama Lhundrup, who was on a five-day visit to Penang.

Thousands of crickets and hundreds of birds, fishes, frogs and turtles were released on that day.

Lama Lhudrup said the act of rescuing animals from being slaughtered had two benefits — not only do you save lives but you also prevent another person from killing them.

CGC president Dr Daniel Yeoh said that saving animals was “ one of the most effective ways to cultivate loving kindness amongst children.”

“If children can show loving kindness with animals, it is naturally easier for them to extend this loving kindness to the people at large.

“This is one way to minimise violence, cruelty and war.

“Many patients with cancer or other terminal sicknesses are advised by Buddhist master Lama Zopa Rinpoche to practised animal liberation, and quite often the results turned out to be positive,” he said.

CGC animal liberation project coor- dinator Lee Shik Kee said it was joyful to release these animals, especially knowing that they had been saved from being slaughtered.

“Animals share the same feelings as humans such as happiness and fear.

“We can do a small part to relieve the fears and sufferings of these helpless animals by liberating them.”

One of the CGC members Yap Cheng Hui said taking part in animal liberation would cultivate a sense of compassion or bodichitta.

“The fundamental belief of Buddhism is karma, that is, cause and result.

“Hence, the Buddhism practice of libe-rating animals is to create a direct cause for having a long and healthy life,’ he said.

This unique method of animal libera- tion practised by Lama Zopa Rinpoche encompasses four important elements, namely, rescuing animals from being slaughtered and taking the animals for a walk around holy objects consisting of Buddha statues, Buddhism scriptures and stupas (called the circumambulation of holy objects).

He said that praying for the animals created positive imprints so that people would have a good rebirth.

Read more!

Penang consumer association calls for ban on bottled water

Andrea Filmer, The Star 5 Nov 09;
By ANDREA FILMER

GEORGE TOWN: The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) has called on the authorities to ban bottled water in the country, while also warning consumers not to refill plastic bottles or reuse them as chemical leaching can pollute the water within.

“Consumers should not refill the plastic bottle with tap water,” CAP president S.M. Mohamed Idris said at a press conference on Wednesday, adding that such bottles were made for one-time use only and would not stand up to repeated wear, dishwater treatment, direct sunlight, high temperatures or rough handling.

“Studies show that when subjected to stress tests, the bottles are more likely to leach plastic materials into the water the longer the bottles are reused,” he said.

Mohamed Idris said moreover, there was evidence that a toxic material called antimony (used in making polyethylene bottles) can begin leaching into the water immediately, even when it’s first used.

“In 2006, scientists in Germany found that antimony begins leaching into the water immediately. The longer the bottled water is in storage, the more toxic it becomes.

“High concentrations of antimony can cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea,” he said.

Mohamed Idris said Malaysians consumed an average of 100 million bottles of bottled water every year.

“For the last two decades, bottled water has become a part of every social function.

“It’s amazing how Malaysians can be lured into paying exorbitant prices for what flows almost freely from the tap.

“The cost per bottle here ranges from 40sen, if bottles are bought in bulk, to RM5 a bottle in hotels.

“However, it is little known that 90% of the cost of bottled water is used for the label, cap and bottle,” he claimed.

He said it was also not commonly known that coloured bottle caps were designated for natural water, which was normally more expensive, while white caps indicated distilled drinking water.

Mohd Idris also noted that plastic bottles normally ended up in landfills and could take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.

“It is estimated that 1.5 million barrels of crude oil or 2.7 million tonnes of plastic are used annually worldwide to produce plastic used to bottle water.

“The bottles that are thrown away create mountainous rubbish heaps, while incinerating used bottles produces toxic by-products like chlorine gas and ash laden with heavy metals that are all tied to a host of human and animal health problems,” he said.

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Indonesian government warns producers to stop producing non-recyclable packaging

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 4 Nov 09;

The government has warned producers to stop producing packaging that cannot be recycled due to a law that is expected to be effective as of next year.

The Office of the State Ministry for the Environment said government regulations that were needed to implement the 2008 Waste Management Law would be completed by December.

“Once the law is implemented, it is not enough that producers cease using plastic packaging and begin using eco-friendly materials,” the domestic waste management deputy assistant at the ministry, Tri Bangun Sony, said Wednesday.

He said producers should also collect non-recyclable litter to help protect the environment.

“Many producers have yet to take action to manage their garbage,” he said. “The noodle companies, for example, produce about 11 billion plastic packages annually, but no initiatives have been implemented to pick up litter.

“Littering is very harmful to the environment.”

Tri was speaking at a media briefing organized by Tetra Pak, one of the world's largest packaging suppliers, which operates in more than 150 countries including Indonesia.

The communication director of PT Tetra Pak Indonesia, Mignonne Maramis Akiyama, said the company used renewable resources such as wood fiber for certain food carton packaging.

“But no wood from Indonesian forests has been used in packaging,” she said.

Tetra Pak Indonesia, which has set up three recycling centers in East Java, Jakarta and West Java, supplied about 1.5 billion packages last year.

The Office of the State Minister for the Environment said the law needed at least 12 supporting regulations.

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Rise in dumped TVs due to digital switchover, figures show

The number of TVs left in landfill has risen by 70% in the past year, says Cumbria county council
Adam Vaughan guardian.co.uk 4 Nov 09;

The major digital TV switchover today in north-west England has coincided with a huge increase in dumped analogue TVs, environmental campaigners have revealed.

Figures from Cumbria county council, which administers a region of nearly half a million people, show that the number of TVs dumped in landfill has risen by 70% in the past year. This year, the council has handled 50,000 analogue TVs thrown away by households, of which 30,000 could have been upgraded to receive digital TV signals with a simple £20 set-top box.

Around 7 million viewers in Cumbria, Manchester, Liverpool and the rest of the Granada TV region had their analogue transmissions of BBC Two switched off in the early hours of this morning. BBC One, ITV1, Channel 4 and Five will also be permanently switched off four weeks later on 2 December from households served by the Winter Hill transmitter.

Simon Birch, who is investigating the environmental impact of the digital switchover for Ethical Consumer magazine, said: "Digital UK is currently failing to tell the public of the environmental cost of throwing away their televisions. If your existing television can be adapted to getting digital TV then don't chuck it out but buy a digital set-top box – you'll be doing the planet a favour as well as saving yourself money."

The government's Energy Saving Trust, which lists energy efficient electronic appliances, currently recommends 14 low-energy digital set-top boxes. The most efficient option for anyone with an existing TV, it said, is to buy one of those recommended boxes. However, the trust said that Ethical Consumer's concerns about the "embodied energy" of old TVs – the carbon required to manufacture them – have to be balanced against energy running costs. It added that a TV with a built-in digital tuner requires only one power supply and can save £7 and 20kg of carbon each year compared with an equivalent analogue TV combined with a set-top box.

Devon county council, which had a digital switchover this spring, saw a near doubling of dumped TVs between April and September, Ethical Consumer said. Millions of TV viewers, including those in London, are yet to undergo the digital switchover, which is due to complete across the country in 2012, freeing up valuable bandwidth for future high-definition broadcasts and other services.

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Investors Warm To Scaled-Up U.N. Offset Scheme

David Fogarty, PlanetArk 5 Nov 09;

SINGAPORE - A U.N. scheme initially shunned by investors as too risky is now pulling them in to help achieve dramatic cuts in carbon emissions in developing countries and improve the livelihoods of millions of people.

The scheme is designed to spread simple technologies such as solar latterns, more efficient cooking stoves and solar water heaters across villages, towns and districts, cutting emissions.

Investors say a "program of activities," or PoA in the language of the United Nations, is the way of the future because it allows almost limitless scaling up of the existing Clean Development Mechanism, which favors big single investments such as wind farms that often fail to reach the grassroots.

"It is very clear that the project-by-project standard way of CDM is not going be allowed in many countries," said Chandra Shekhar Sinha, head of Environmental Markets in Asia for J.P. Morgan.

"If you want to be active in the normal markets, China and India and so on, you have to move toward these approaches which move toward sectoral approaches," he told Reuters.

The CDM allows investors to build clean-energy projects in developing countries and earn U.N. carbon offsets for every tonne of emissions they save from being emitted.

The European Union favors broadening the CDM to drive emissions reductions across industrial sectors in poorer nations.

It wants the CDM's project-based approach to be phased out for advanced developing countries, such as India and China, to help least developed nations get a bigger slice of the CDM pie, worth $6.5 billion last year.

China and India have captured the bulk of CDM's investment, but the EU has cast doubt on the environmental integrity of giving carbon credits to large hydro and wind power projects.

The shift to PoA, though, has been slow. Confusion over rules and fears by U.N.-approved project auditors that they could face huge bills for mistakes has curbed appetite for the scheme until this year when the U.N. panel that approves CDM projects stepped in to clear up some of the concerns.

"DEMANDING"

"CDM is not easy. It's time-consuming, it's demanding. But once you understand the system, it can be done very well and the PoA has to go through the same learning curve," said Lex de Jonge, chair of the CDM Executive Board.

U.N. data shows that, globally, one PoA project is already formally registered and 15 more are being examined by auditors. Dozens more are being developed or evaluated by investors.

"We see programmatic CDM as a growth area but we're being relatively cautious in the development of these projects because our experience has shown that the rules in CDM are continuously evolving," said Paul Soffe, business development manager for Ecosecurities.

The project developer and advisory firm is helping develop two PoAs in Tunisia and Mexico and is looking at others.

In Tunisia, the project involves installing about 150,000 solar water heaters in households and is expected to yield about 600,000 U.N. carbon offsets called certified emissions reductions (CERs) over 10 years.

Emergent Ventures India is evaluating a number of PoAs, including upgrading low-voltage power lines to more efficient high-voltage lines in India as well as upgrading transformers to reduce distribution losses of up to 35 percent.

"I have seen that people who were waiting for some kind of clarity six months back, now they are becoming more active," said Emergent Ventures CEO Ashutosh Pandey. He expected a rapid increase in PoA projects in India.

COSTS

All developers, though, point to high auditing costs.

Pandey said validation costs for each PoA project were between $50,000 and $70,000 and the cost of adding linked schemes, called CDM program activities or CPA, might be higher than thought.

"The reason why it not be so low is that the validator has a risk involved -- the risk increases because he on his own is responsible for approving those projects."

Under U.N. rules, the auditor could eventually became liable for all the carbon credits issued for what is termed a wrongful inclusion of a CPA into the parent program of activities.

That has made some auditors wary of PoAs but those Reuters spoke to said they now embraced the scheme.

"It is often said auditors don't like PoAs because we will be liable. This is complete nonsense," said Stephan Hild, head of international sales at TUV SUD.

A key issue is proving over time that the estimated emissions reductions actually take place, since many programs involve installing cookers, solar panels and heaters as well as compact fluorescent bulbs in people's homes.

Hild said it was unfair to be held liable "for any situation where the content of one piece of paper we use is deviating from the situation of the ground. This is not acceptable," he told a carbon conference in Singapore last week.

Flavio Gomes, global product manager for climate change at auditor Bureau Veritas said while liability worries were valid, costs were perhaps a bigger problem. "The PoA validation is becoming more expensive than the traditional CDM. It is not supposed to be the case," he told Reuters.

"It's learning by doing, but someone has to pay the bill."

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Can we manipulate the weather?

Chinese scientists claim to be able to control the weather. But is so-called geoengineering more than wishful thinking? And, if so, should we be worried?
David Adam, The Guardian 4 Nov 09;

The unseasonal snow that fell on Beijing for 11 hours on Sunday was the earliest and heaviest there has been for years. It was also, China claims, man-made. By the end of last month, farmland in the already dry north of China was suffering badly due to drought.

So on Saturday night China's meteorologists fired 186 explosive rockets loaded with chemicals to "seed" clouds and encourage snow to fall. "We won't miss any opportunity of artificial precipitation since Beijing is suffering from a lingering drought," Zhang Qiang, head of the Beijing Weather Modification Office, told state media.

The US has tinkered with such cloud seeding to increase water flow from the Sierra Nevada mountains in California since the 1950s, but there remains widespread scientific sniffiness in the west at such attempts at weather control. The chemicals fired into the sky, usually dry ice or silver iodide, are supposed to provide a surface for water vapour to form liquid rain. But there is little evidence that it works – after all, how do investigating scientists know it would not have rained anyway?

Such doubts have not stopped China claiming mastery over the clouds. Officials said the blue skies that brightened Beijing's parade to celebrate 60 years of communism last month were a result of the 18 cloud-seeding jets and 432 explosive rockets scrambled to empty the sky of rain beforehand. Last year, more than 1,000 rockets were fired to ensure a dry night for last year's Olympic opening ceremony.

"Only a handful of countries in the world could organise such large-scale, magic-like weather modification," Cui Lianqing, a senior meteorologist with the Chinese air force, told the Xinhua news agency after last month's parade.

Magic or not, there is growing interest in such attempts to deliberately steer the weather, and on a much larger scale. Next spring, a group of the world's leading experts on climate change will gather in California to plan how it could be done as a way to tackle global warming, and by whom. The ideas, some of which, similar to cloud-seeding, involve firing massive amounts of chemicals into the atmosphere, can sound far-fetched, but they are racing up the agenda as pessimism grows about the likely course of global warming.

As interest grows, so does concern about whether such techniques, known as geoengineering, could be developed and unleashed by a single nation, or even a wealthy individual, without wide international approval. "What will happen when Richard Branson decides he really does want to save the planet?" asks one climate expert. If China thinks it can make cloud seeding work, then what about geoengineering?

"If climate change turns ugly, then many countries will start looking at desperate measures," says David Victor, an energy policy expert at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Logic points to a big risk of unilateral geoengineering. Unlike controlling emissions, which requires collective action, most highly capable nations could deploy geoengineering systems on their own."

Victor is a heavyweight policy analyst, but one of his most impressive academic feats could have been to smuggle the name of the world's favourite secret agent into the sober pages of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. "Geoengineering may not require any collective international effort to have an impact on climate," he wrote in an article published last year. "A lone Greenfinger, self-appointed protector of the planet and working with a small fraction of the [Bill] Gates bank account, could force a lot of geoengineering on his own. Bond films of the future might [enjoy incorporating] the dilemma of unilateral planetary engineering." Move over, Goldfinger.

Unilateral geoengineering worries experts for two reasons. First, the massive side effects; what it could do to the world's rainfall, for example. Second, once started, geoengineering would probably have to be continued, as stopping could bring an abrupt change in climate. "One of the many dangers with unilateral geoengineering is that once a country starts, it becomes very hard to stop," Victor says. "Removing a warming mask, even if it is a flawed mask, would expose the planet to even more rapid and probably dangerous warming."

In a world where action on global warming has created new markets in carbon worth billions of pounds, countries are not the only players. Geoengineering would require investment and the private sector is already eyeing up opportunities. Two companies have emerged with a business plan based on dumping iron in the sea and then selling carbon offsets based on the extra pollution supposedly soaked up by the resulting algal bloom. And in their new book, Superfreakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner talk approvingly of Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer of Microsoft, whose company, Intellectual Ventures, is exploring the possibility of pumping large quantities of reflective sulphur dust into the Earth's stratosphere through a patented 18-mile-long hose held up by helium balloons.

This is the point where most people will shake their heads, say the whole silly idea will never happen, and skip to the crossword. They could be right, but the global warming story has a tendency to outpace most attempts to predict its path. Just a few years ago, scientists and politicians talked of the need to avoid a 2C rise in global temperature, yet experts recently gathered at an Oxford University conference openly talked of a likely 4C rise, which, without urgent and unlikely action, a new report from the Met Office says could come within many of our lifetimes.

A decade ago, an unproven idea called carbon sequestration, that would see carbon emissions from power stations trapped under the ground, was talked up by a small group of advocates, but was dismissed by most people as too expensive and unworkable on a large scale. Renamed carbon capture and storage, the idea is now mainstream energy policy in countries including Britain, despite still being unproven and dismissed by many as too expensive and unworkable on a large scale. Last month, the International Energy Agency said the world should build 100 full-scale carbon-capture power stations by 2020, and 850 by 2030.

If the geoengineering narrative follows a similar arc, then how long until nations or individuals that have the most to lose, or are the first to accept that the required massive emission cuts are impossible, turn to the presently unthinkable option? The US government, under President Bush, has already lobbied the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to promote geoengineering research as "insurance". When the Royal Society recently carried out an investigation of the options, senior figures privately expected it to dismiss the whole concept as nonsense. Instead the society, Britain's premier scientific academy, concluded in September that methods to block out the sun "may provide a potentially useful short-term backup to mitigation in case rapid reductions in global temperature are needed". The society stressed that emissions reductions were the way to go, but recommended international research and development of the "more promising" geoengineering techniques.

"My guess is that we will be taking geoengineering a lot more seriously in the next decade," says Victor, "but we won't be in a position to deploy systems for some time. Most nations will decide it is needed only if we have really bad luck as warming unfolds and if we fail miserably in controlling emissions. I put the odds of using such systems in the next 40 years at perhaps one in five."

Of all the apparent obstacles to geoengineering, cost is not likely to be among them. Compared with the expense of investing in renewable energy and phasing out fossil fuels, the cheapest geoengineering options come with a price tag of just a few billion pounds, perhaps 1% of what it could cost to tackle global warming through emissions cuts.

Alan Robock, an expert on volcanos and climate at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has looked at how much it might cost to carry out one of the most commonly discussed geoengineering options, to mimic the cooling effect of a volcanic eruption by filling the high atmosphere with sulphur compounds, which reflect sunlight.

The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 threw so much shiny sulphurous dust into the atmosphere that temperatures across a shaded Earth dropped a year later by about 0.5C. The 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora in Indonesia triggered the notorious "year without a summer" and widespread failure of harvests across northern regions including Europe, the north-east US and Canada.

Robock has worked out the likely cost of technology needed to deposit a million tonnes of sulphur in the stratosphere each year, an amount equivalent to a Mount Pinatubo eruption every four to eight years, and which scientists think could be enough to cancel out the global warming caused by a continued rise in carbon emissions.

The cheapest option could be to use giant mid-air refuelling aircraft, such as the US air force's KC-10 Extender, filled with sulphur dioxide or hydrogen sulphide gas. It would be a round-the-clock operation, with nine aircraft each required to fly three sorties a day. In a new paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Robock and his colleagues say it could be done for "several billion" dollars a year. The results have forced Robock to revise a high-profile list of 20 objections to geoengineering he published last year. "It turns out that being way too expensive is not the case."

Robock's new analysis still includes 17 reasons why geoengineering is a bad idea. Throwing sulphur into the atmosphere could slow down the world's water cycle and do more damage to rainfall patterns than the global warming it aims to prevent. And because techniques that focus on stopping sunlight do nothing to stop carbon dioxide pollution from cars, factories and power stations, they cannot address the looming disaster of ocean acidification. The surface of the world's ocean is slowly turning to acid as our extra carbon pollution dissolves in seawater. Coral reefs already appear doomed and many shellfish could follow. Altering the atmosphere could also weaken solar power and reverse years of work to close the hole in the ozone layer.

With such a catalogue of potential disasters waiting to unfold, there must be a law against geoengineering? The international rulebook is fuzzy on this issue. The only international framework that directly covers many geoengineering techniques, the 1976 Environmental Modification Convention, designed to stop nations at war from meddling with each other's weather, has never been tested. The 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty could be used to regulate activities and experiments in those shared spaces, but releases to the atmosphere are legally more problematic because nations have sovereignty over their own airspace.

Rather than laws and treaties, many experts argue that the best way to prevent countries or companies from going it alone is to plunge in and start serious research. "The way to tame the worst forms of unilateral geoengineering is to promote a lot more research, especially [into] the side effects," Victor says. "One of the biggest dangers is that some governments will try to create a taboo against geoengineering. A taboo would stop a lot of research but it wouldn't stop determined rogues. That scenario would probably be the worst, because rogues would not abandon their efforts and the rest of us would not have done enough research to know what to expect."

Mike MacCracken, chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington, is organising the California meeting next spring, which aims to figure out some guidelines. He says large-scale unilateral geoengineering is "not very plausible" and his main concern is fairness to future generations. Once started by anybody, a geoengineering attempt would probably need to be continued by everybody else because it would offer a mask on global warming that could be dangerous to remove.

"It might be that this is how unilateral concerns should be reframed; this generation more or less deciding it will take only slow action on any type of emissions, essentially forcing the next generation to be more likely to have to invoke geoengineering to save much that anyone considers beneficial and unique about the Earth."

Read between the lines of most scientific reports on geoengineering and there is a tacit assumption that the idea sounds so extreme that merely discussing it will refocus efforts on emission cuts. But what if the reverse is true? What if a heavily funded research programme, and articles such as this, promote the idea to people who have little interest in moving to a low-carbon world?

"Knowledge is hard to hide," says Robock. "It would be great if people didn't know how to build nuclear bombs, but they do. We need to research and debate the consequences and then use politics and influence to let people know what would happen."

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