It still stings
from The annotated budak and Palparazzi
Venus Drive
from Singapore Nature
An Ubin stroll with fabulous trees
from wild shores of singapore
Straw-headed Bulbul takes Leea indica fruits
from Bird Ecology Study Group
What can ordinary people do to slow climate change?
with comments by David Suzuki, Bjorn Lomborg and Gidon Eshel from Reuters Environment blog
Chong Chee Seong, New Straits Times 14 Dec 09;
MUAR: For several moments yesterday, three fishermen feared the worst.
The net dangling from their boat was ensnared by a tugboat and their vessel was pulled violently along.
Luckily, the rope attached to the net snapped, but not before they came perilously close to the tugboat which was towing a huge sand barge.
Their skipper, Tan Kwee Yong, 48, then managed to steer the boat away to safety.
The incident happened five nautical miles off Parit Jawa yesterday as the fishermen were hauling up 100 nets which were lowered into the sea hours earlier.
"We could not do anything to prevent our boat from crashing into the tugboat and barge as the force of the pull was strong," he said at the Parit Unas fishing village near here.
Tan said several other fishing boats, which were also in the area, suffered losses as the tugboat had also snapped their nets.
He said he lost 25 nets worth RM5,000 and later lodged a report at the Parit Jawa police station.
Tan was unhappy that the tugboat just sailed away "as if nothing had happened".
He claimed the tugboat came from the south and encroached a few nautical miles from shore at specific areas where rich deposits of sand could be found.
Muar-Batu Pahat Fishermen's Association president Ser Boon Huat claimed fishermen had discovered that illegal sand-dredgers had adopted "hit and run" tactics in the Straits of Malacca.
Ser claimed a favourite tactic of the tugboats would be to anchor a short distance from shore and pretend to be making repairs.
"In fact, the illegal operators are observing the movements of the marine police and Fisheries Department officers and will make the hit when they are not around."
He called on the enforcement agencies to check on any stationary foreign vessels within Malaysian waters to ensure the safety of local fishermen.
Thumbs up for logistics, health care, transport in HSBC global survey
Alvin Foo, Straits Times 15 Dec 09;
SINGAPORE is the fourth most attractive posting globally for expatriates, according to a new survey from HSBC.
The bank's report, which assesses the expatriate experience provided by 26 key locations, puts the Lion City behind Canada, Australia and Thailand but ahead of Bahrain, South Africa, France and the US.
Some 3,146 expatriates from 50 economies were polled for the survey, which ranks Singapore highly for logistics such as the setting up of utilities and transport, but lowly in terms of softer issues such as making local friends and hobbies.
Mr Sebastian Arcuri, HSBC Singapore's head of personal financial services, said it was not surprising expatriates ranked Singapore highly.
'Our expat clients have shared with us many anecdotes praising the efficiency of Singapore's infrastructure and the high standard of living here,' he said.
Singapore got the thumbs up for quality of transport, education, childcare and health care.
The Republic emerged top for the setting up of utilities, with 82per cent of expatriates stating that the experience was fuss-free. By contrast, two-thirds of expatriates in the United Arab Emirates found the same process tough.
Singapore came fourth for transport, with the quality of this system making it easier to get to work.
Two-thirds of those polled noted an increase in the ease of travelling to work after moving to their new base, compared with 44per cent globally. And 72per cent said the general quality of travel was better than that available in their home countries.
Hong Kong came two places ahead of Singapore in this area, with expatriates finding the commute to work easier and noticing an improvement in transport generally.
Singapore excelled in education and childcare, coming in second behind Malaysia for organising schooling for expatriate children. Some 37per cent of expatriates here reported an increase in the quality of education and childcare after moving to Singapore, compared to only 18per cent globally.
But Singapore ranked a lowly 18th in terms of the ease of making local friends, and 24th for joining a local community group.
Mr Phillip Overmyer, an American and chief executive of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce, said this could be due to housing and the presence of international schools and clubs.
He noted: 'Most Singaporeans live in HDB flats, which are not yet popular as a housing choice for expats, who tend to live in private apartments. There are also strongly established networks among expat communities here.'
The major findings of the survey were supported by business chambers and expatriate communities.
Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Predeep Menon said: 'Singapore's been building up the buzz, which was known to be lacking a decade ago. Now it's a more 'happening' place.'
Some aspects of the survey did not ring true with everyone though.
British Chamber of Commerce president Terry O'Connor said his members were very happy socially.
'We have a thriving business networking scene. Singapore is an easy place for people to assimilate,' he said.
A recent study conducted by the American Chamber showed that expatriates were most satisfied with the lack of corruption, Singapore's laws and regulations, stable government and personal security. However, for the third year in a row, the survey cited housing costs and office lease costs as areas of concern.
Singapore service standards and cost of living are also negatives, said Mr Overmyer. 'There are serious problems with the standards of service in the F&B, retail and hotel sectors. We're getting wealthier people living here who are used to higher standards of service elsewhere, but are getting a lower standard of service here. We're losing ground in this area relative to other countries in the region,' he said.
Singapore voted third best country in Asia-Pac for expatriates
Channel NewsAsia 14 Dec 09;
SINGAPORE : Singapore has been voted the third best country in the Asia-Pacific for expatriates to live in, according to a survey by HSBC Bank.
In global rankings, it is the fourth best country in the world for an expatriate.
One hundred and ninety-two foreigners living in Singapore were polled on their overall quality of life, and the ease of settling in.
Among the 50 countries surveyed, Singapore was the easiest country to sort up one's utilities - with eight in 10 having no hassle at all.
In comparison, two-third of respondents in the UAE found it more difficult to do so, compared to back home.
When it came to education, Singapore was ranked second after Malaysia.
Thirty-seven per cent of respondents said they found standards here higher than back home.
Many also said they enjoyed better food, transport and healthcare in Singapore.
A total of 3,146 expatriates from 50 countries was polled on their experiences.
The survey also found that a larger proportion of expatriates were spending a longer time overseas - 58 per cent of those polled this year had already crossed the five-year mark in 2009, compared to 45 per cent in 2008. - CNA/ms
Tilak K. Doshi, For The Straits Times 15 Dec 09;
AMONG the array of climate change issues facing negotiators at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen now, the establishment of an international policy regime for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions by global shipping is probably among the most important challenges for Singapore. Not only is the Republic a global leader for sea-borne cargo and container traffic, but it is also the world's single largest bunkering port by far. Bunkering, or the refuelling of vessels, is part of a cluster of oil-related activities here, and is an essential service.
Greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping are not covered by the Kyoto Protocol as the industry is inherently global and its emissions cannot be attributed to national jurisdictions. But the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) was charged in 1997 with establishing an emission reduction regime for international shipping. In the dozen years since, IMO member-states have not reached an agreement on any binding measures to control shipping emissions.
There is pressure from key shipping constituencies represented in the IMO to come up with recommendations on emission cuts. Any IMO agreement requiring member-states to comply with emission reduction regulations will have far-reaching impact on Singapore's role as a maritime and oil-refining and trading hub.
Leading shipping industry bodies and the national authorities have submitted emission reduction proposals to the IMO. The most strategic general question facing IMO members now revolves around the 'tax versus cap-and-trade' question. The two positions are articulated respectively by Denmark's April submission to the IMO calling for a carbon tax to be applied to bunker fuels, and a joint May submission by France, Germany and Norway in favour of a trading scheme.
The European shipping associations, constituting the world's most powerful corporate shipping interests, will play a critical role in the formation of maritime policies within their respective countries. In turn, one would expect these governments to press for international negotiations in Copenhagen and beyond.
In general, shipping executives support the cap-and-trade option. In a recent poll on sustainable shipping, emission trading was supported by 41 per cent of the respondents, compared with the 29 per cent who favoured a bunker tax.
Several shipping industry associations, including those from Australia, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and Britain, have recently affirmed their support for a global cap-and-trade scheme. The European Union is the single largest regional group within the IMO and exerts strong negotiating leverage within the organisation. The European Commission has stated that it would include shipping in its EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) if the IMO did not take action on its own.
Caps and taxes are both market-based approaches that encourage cuts in emissions. Both instruments put a price on carbon and, hence, create market incentives for investments in emission-reduction technologies. While a tax raises revenue directly, a cap-and-trade scheme that auctions tradable permits can also raise similar amounts of revenue. How such revenues are used is an important issue, although distinct from the choice of the instrument. There is nothing in either of the two options that offers a clear argument for support.
The EU clearly favours a trading scheme for shipping along the lines of its active ETS market. Critically, Singapore as a global shipping and bunkering hub would be advantageously placed to benefit from active carbon trading. The establishment of a carbon pricing centre here would add to the city's role as Asia's energy hub. Singapore's position as a financial centre can only be enhanced if it became became a carbon pricing centre.
As the world's largest bunkering port, Singapore would be the natural location for an R&D centre for shipping emission mitigation. Singapore also has strong claim on a substantial share of revenues collected by an IMO-proposed fund administrator for shipping R&D and technology implementation.
Maritime measures need to be effective, equitable and enforceable. Proposed regulations need to take note of the potential for 'leakage', where shipping activity migrates from signatory to non-signatory states or to states that do not enforce emission regulations.
In shaping the policies for shipping, officials must ensure that the complexities of this most international of industries are taken into account. Singapore has a leading role to play in the post-Copenhagen IMO deliberations.
The writer is a visiting principal fellow at the Energy Studies Institute, NUS.
Today Online 15 Dec 09;
SINGAPORE - Building owners in Singapore can soon gain carbon credits while cooling their buildings more efficiently now that a carbon programme - the first of its kind - is being developed.
Climate Action Resource Enterprise' for Energy Efficiency (Care) looks to generate carbon credits by promoting the replacement of chiller plants with state of the art technology under the standards imposed by the United Nation's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
Under Care, building owners can gain Certified Emission Reduction certificates from such projects under CDM.
Projects will generate and deliver carbon credits over a 10-year time frame, and owners can include multiple buildings into the Project of Activities at different stages, depending on their investment and risk appetite.
The resulting carbon credits, registered under the Kyoto Protocol's CDM, will accelerate chiller plant upgrades in Singapore.
Savings possible with quantifiable chiller efficiencies can surpass 50 per cent.
Care is jointly developed by local carbon advisory Climate Resources Exchange (CRX) and Standard Bank. CRX is in the business of originating CDM projects and trading carbon assets originating from such projects.
Financing for individual projects will be considered on a case-by-case basis with SB and CRX assisting Care projects in evaluating financing alternatives.
CRX will also work with local energy services companies, technology providers, or directly with facilities managers of self-maintained buildings with a view to target at least 100 buildings in Singapore to join Care by 2012.
ScienceDaily 14 Dec 09;
In 2009, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences added 94 new relatives to our family tree. The new species include 65 arthropods, 14 plants, eight fishes, five sea slugs, one coral, and one fossil mammal. They were described by two dozen Academy scientists along with several dozen international collaborators.
Proving that there are still plenty of places to explore and things to discover on Earth, the scientists made their finds over four continents and two oceans, climbed to the tops of mountains and descended to the bottom of the sea, looked in their owns backyards (Yosemite National Park) and on the other side of the world (Yunnan Province, China).
Their results, published in 29 different scientific papers, add to the record of life on Earth and will inform future studies on biodiversity, evolution, and conservation.
"Humans rely on healthy ecosystems, made up of organisms and their environments," says Dr. David Mindell, Dean of Science and Research Collections at the Academy. "Creating a comprehensive inventory of life on our planet is critical for understanding and managing resources. Yet a great many life-forms remain to be discovered and described. The effort to determine the genealogical links among all life-forms, and describe their distributions, allows biologists to assess the relative distinctiveness of groups of organisms and various geographic regions, and helps determine conservation priorities."
One recent example of a comprehensive species inventory informing conservation priorities appeared in the April 11, 2008 issue of Science. Academy curator Brian Fisher and his colleagues proposed sites for new protected areas on Madagascar, using distribution data amassed over ten years from 2,315 species of ants, butterflies, frogs, geckos, lemurs, and plants. The study was intended to help the government of Madagascar, which is in the midst of increasing its protected-area network from 5 million to 15 million acres. The team's recommendation, which preserves all 2,315 species, provides a model for making conservation decisions in other biodiversity hotspots around the world.
Below are a few highlights among the 94 species described by Academy scientists this year.
Denizens of the Deep
The deep sea is often described as Earth's last frontier, so it is not surprising that several new species on the list were collected in the cold, dark depths of the ocean via submersible, Remote Operated Vehicles, and deep-sea trawls. These include three grenadier fishes (Coelorinchus fuscigulus, C. obscuratus, and C. osipullus); two Bellottia fishes (B. cryptica and B. robusta); the enigmatic black "ghostshark" which has sexual appendages on its forehead (Hydrolagus melanophasma); and a deep-sea coral (Gersemia juliepackardae) named after Julie Packard, for her dedication to ocean stewardship and conservation.
Threatened by Climate Change
Even a small insect can tell the story of global climate change. Academy curator Dave Kavanaugh and graduate student Sean Schoville discovered the ice beetle Nebria praedicta on a single peak in California's Trinity Alps. The beetle lives only in the presence of glaciers and snowfields, which are melting under current warming trends. In the paper, the authors write: "The disappearance of these temperature moderating bodies, which is virtually certain to occur with the current climatic warming trend, would be catastrophic for this species...and likely lead to their quick extinction."
Spiders from Yunnan, China
Arthropods (insects, arachnids, and their relatives) are the most diverse group of animals on Earth. Accordingly, over two-thirds of the new species on the Academy's list are arthropods. A paper by Academy research associate Jeremy Miller, curator Charles Griswold, and collaborator Chang Min Yin describes 36 new spider species, all from Yunnan Province, China. This paper is the latest result from an ongoing, ten-year inventory of this biodiversity hotspot, led by Academy and Chinese scientists. Griswold co-authored two additional papers in 2009 describing spiders from Yunnan (Mallinela bifurcata, M. biumbonalia, M. kunmingensis, and Sanmenia tengchong).
California Hotspot
Besides hosting a diverse population of people, California is also home to one of the most diverse collections of plant and animal species on the planet. This rich diversity has earned California a title as one of the world's 34 biodiversity hotspots. Ten species on this year's list were collected in or just off the shore of California (though not necessarily endemic to the state): the aforementioned black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma), deep-sea coral (Gersemia juliepackardae), and ice beetle (Nebria praedicta); four mite species that live parasitically in the feathers of birds (Syringophiloidus sialius, Torotrogla coccothraustes, T. cyanocitta, and T. piranga); two mosses from Yosemite National Park (Homalothecium californicum and Pseudoleskea tribulosa); and a lacewing (Ceraeochrysa chiricahuae) found all over the United States.
Fossil Raccoon Dog
Ten years ago, anthropology curator Zeray Alemseged initiated the Dikika Research Project to explore the fossil-rich Awash Valley in Ethiopia. While the project has yielded several important discoveries related to early human evolution (including an infant Australopithecus afarensis fossil, dubbed "the world's oldest child" in 2006), the non-human discoveries provide equally important information about the valley's ancient environment. This year, Alemseged and his colleagues report the only new mammal species on the Academy's list: a raccoon dog (Nyctereutes lockwoodi) from 3.3 million years ago. Described from a nearly complete skull and fragments of others, this small, omnivorous mammal is a member of the canid family, which includes dogs, wolves, and foxes. Fossil raccoon dogs have been uncovered throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa, but only one species remains today (N. procyonoides, native to East Asia). This extant species gets its common name from its raccoon-like coloring but is not closely related to raccoons -- its closest living relatives are thought to be foxes. It forms monogamous pair bonds and is the only member of the dog family to hibernate in the winter.
Phuket Gazette 14 Dec 09;
PHUKET CITY: A Risso’s dolphin that washed ashore in Chalong on Friday night and later died, might have been suffering from exhaustion due to childbirth, researchers at the Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC) think.
Residents of the Khok Tanode community in Chalong Village 9 initially reported two stranded dolphins at Haad Son (Pine Beach) to the PMBC’s Marine Endangered Species Unit at about 8.30 on Friday night.
PMBC researcher Phaothep Cherdsukjai told the Gazette that by the time researchers arrived at around 11pm, villagers had already managed to push the smaller mammal back out to deeper water.
They quickly identified the remaining dolphin as a ‘Risso’s dolphin’ (Grampus griseus), known in Thai as a ‘melon head whale’ for the circular appearance of its head.
The researchers described the whale as a two-meter-long female weighing 200 kilos and between 20 and 30 years of age.
The PMBC staff treated the dolphin and trucked it to Chalong Pier, from which it was taken by boat to deeper water at about 1am, Mr Phaothep said.
The rescue effort failed, however. Villagers living near the Fisherman’s Way beach in Chalong Village 5 reported that the carcass of a dolphin had washed ashore at about 5am.
The PMBC researchers confirmed it was the same dolphin they had released earlier the same day.
An examination of the carcass found her stomach was empty. Given the size of the other animal, they suspect the smaller animal was its offspring and that the pair had become separated from their pod after the birth, Mr Phaothep said.
The baby whale will stand a good chance for survival, but only if it can somehow find its way back to the pod, he added.
Risso’s dolphins inhabit deep water, up to 1,000 meters, where they feed on squid.
They have little interaction with humans and strandings are very rare.
Their conservation status is classified as ‘least concern’ by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ (IUCN).
Made Arya Kencana Jakarta Globe 14 Dec 09;
Badung, Bali. A young, wounded dugong was found struggling in fishing nets on Sunday, stranded on the Tanjung Benoa beach here on the island of Bali.
“We are trying to heal its wounds before returning it to its habitat,” Istanto, who heads the Bali Nature Resources Conservation Agency, said on Monday.
The marine mammal, weighing 30 kilograms, quickly became an attraction for the locals, who along with the fishermen had attempted to help it back to the sea.
Istanto said the dugong, which was suffering from a wound to its head, was found by fishermen and tourists, tangled in nets by fishing boats.
From its weight and length, fishermen estimated it was not more than 4 years old.
Gusti Putu Nuriatha, the head of Bali’s Fishery and Maritime agency, said the dugong was probably separated from its herd during migration.
The agency also warned people against eating the endangered mammal.
“It is a protected species. It should be handled in accordance with existing regulations,” Gusti said of the dugong, which are close relatives of the manatee.
Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 14 Dec 09;
US energy giant ConocoPhillips strongly denied on Monday that there was an explosion on their site in Musi Banyuasin district, South Sumatra, as has been reported by the local media since Friday.
Residents from Sukamaju village told local media outlets that last Wednesday they were startled by a loud bang that came from the ConocoPhillips’ site. The villagers also said that an oil spill, believed related to the explosion, had polluted their rubber plantations.
ConocoPhillips admitted on Friday that it had discovered a leak in a 12-inch subterranean oil pipeline within the Corridor Block PSC but denied there was an explosion earlier in the week.
“There was no explosion. There was some leakage from one of our pipes,” said Jacob Kastanja, the company’s communications manager. “We have already taken the necessary steps to stop the flow of oil and have isolated the area for public safety reasons.”
The leak, Jacob said, had been successfully repaired and the pipeline was able to resume normal operations within 24 hours.
“Our response team is currently on site, cleaning up the spill area. The recovery effort will be conducted in the safest and most efficient way possible,” he said. “No personnel were injured and there was no impact on a nearby rubber tree plantation, which is located on higher ground. The oil spill happened underground and was relatively small so its effects were minimal.”
He said the company, supported by BP Migas (the country’s upstream oil and gas regulator), was still assessing the incident, adding that the leak had been contained within a 100-square-meter area and its volume was estimated at 15 barrels.
Ahmad Najib, head of South Sumatra Environmental Agency, said it had not received any reports regarding the incident.
Daily Express 14 Dec 09;
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah needs a proper set of laws and guidelines to regulate the fast-growing swiftlet nest farming industry.
Stating this, State Wildlife Department Director Dr Laurentius Nayan Ambu said presently there are no regulations to guide and monitor about 200 swiftlet houses in the State.
"So far, the local authorities especially Kota Kinabalu City Hall and Sandakan and Tawau Municipal Councils do not allow swiftlet nests to be cultivated in buildings or shoplots in urban and township areas.
"This is because their Building By-laws do not allow such establishments to be set up within their rating areas. But I see a lot of bird nest cultivation being carried out in buildings and shoplots here, in Beaufort, Tawau and Sandakan.
"That is why I advised the birdhouse operators cum owners to form an association so that things can be straightened out, including addressing the legal issues related to building and operating man-made birdhouses," he said.
Laurentius said this to Daily Express after delivering a talk on "Swiflet Farming" at a half-day seminar held at a hotel here recently.
Following the advice, the birdhouse owners have formed and registered an association called Sabah Swiftlet House & Bird's Nest Industry Association (Swifin), with Laurentius as its advisor and George Ng Aun Heng as president.
"Among the main objectives of setting up Swifin is to further explore the potential of the swiftlet nest farming industry, apart from disseminating information on good practices of the industry and assisting members to address their problems.
"I was also made to understand that Swifin is looking forward to paying a courtesy call to the State Government, particularly the Chief Minister, on the possibility of pursuing their aims as well as proposing certain laws to be formulated and framing proper guidelines for the birdhouse operators.
"Swifin will also have a dialogue with the Chief Minister on the lucrative economic opportunities that can be reaped from the industry," he said.
Laurentius also proposed that a state body or committee be formed to oversee the implementation of the industry and come up with the best guidelines and practices on swiftlet nest farming.
According to him, those keen to set up a swiftlet house needs to have a trading licence to enable the individual to apply for a farming licence from the Wildlife Department.
For a nest trader, he said, he or she needs to apply for a commercial trading licence from the department with an annual fee of RM100 per year.
For exporting bird nests, Laurentius said the department only charges RM5 per permit or consignment.
On the market price of the swiftlet nests, Laurentius, who also owns two birdhouses, said Indonesian nest traders are willing to buy for between RM7,000 and RM8,000 per kg for the raw nests from man-made birdhouses, while the cave nests are bought for between RM3,000 and RM5,000 per kg.
"The bird nests of Malaysia are popular because the nests harvested from man-made swiftlet houses take only 30 minutes to cook, unlike the cave nests which take three to four hours to cook.
"Normally the swiftlet nests in our country are exported to the peninsula, Singapore and Hong Kong. But now, we are looking at China that has a huge demand because they are the biggest consumers of the bird nests.
"Not only China but the demand for the bird nests are also spread in other countries where there are Chinese like Australia, New Zealand, and United States. And thus you can see the market for this industry is expanding," he said.
He added that normally the Chinese in Europe would buy from Hong Kong.
He said the droppings of the swiftlets in the birdhouses, which are a good fertiliser for orchids, could also be sold for RM50 to RM60 per kg.
Laurentius, who has been studying swiftlet nest farming for 25 years, refuted a misconception that swiftlets and their nests impose health hazards on the public with bird flu or the influenza H1N1 virus.
"The H1N1 or bird flu has no connection with the swiflet nests. In fact, studies have shown that there is no relationship between bird nests and the two fatal diseases.
"Swiftlets are aerial birds and they never go down to the ground or mix with other birds, unlike the water birds. Therefore, there is no incident of the swiftlets being the carrier of bird flu or the H1N1," he said.
Thus, Laurentius said the swiftlet nest farming is a viable venture that not only generates lucrative earnings to the operators but also contributes to the economic growth of the State and nation.
Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post 14 Dec 09;
Regional autonomy in Papua poses a threat to forests in the province because the infrastructure development following autonomy would exploit forested areas, says a forestry official.
"The forested areas currently available would unlikely still be there five to 10 years from now if regional autonomy continues as it would lead to physical development," said Papua Forestry Office head Marthen Kayoi, during the launch of the Forest Governance Integrity (FGI) at the Transparency International Indonesia office in Jayapura recently.
He added that the regency capital of Keerom was previously a forested area but raised doubts whether it could still be described as such.
The current area of Papua's intact forest is 31.5 million hectares, while 5 million hectares had been categorized as critical areas from 1973 to 2003.
Kayoi said only around 24 million hectares of the forested areas would remain given the pace of regional autonomy, which has so far produced 33 regencies and municipalities.
"This is what's happening now. The continuing process of regional autonomy, followed by infrastructure development would further reduce the size of forested areas," he said.
"We also could not ensure whether the remaining forested areas would exist in the next five years."
The government has designated a 4,825,786-hectare forested area in Papua as a conservation forest, or natural preserve.
However, for the past several years it has received pressure in the form of conversion into farmland, settlement and infrastructure development including illegal logging.
"The Lorentz National Park, a protected area that has now encompassed seven regencies, including the giant PT Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mining company, due to the impact of regional autonomy."
Marthen has urged every party, including Transparency International (TI) Indonesia, which is now present in Papua, to organize the forest in a wise manner for the sake of Papuan forest sustainability.
"This is a challenge for the forestry office to carry out development effectively," he said.
TI's presence in Papua, said FGI Asia Pacific regional manager Agustinus Taufik, urged every party to fight illegal forestry practices.
"With the principle of united we stand, we could develop a community that is mentally and spiritually sound for the sake of mutual prosperity," Agustinus said.
Agustinus said Papua's forest is one of the best tropical rainforests in Indonesia and serves as the lungs of the earth.
"Papua's forest is a valuable asset that must be managed well to improve the quality of the ecosystem and the well-being of people in Papua in particular and in Indonesia in general."
Raymond Colitt, PlanetArk 15 Dec 09;
MARABA, Brazil - Brazil took a step forward in protecting the Amazon rainforest on Wednesday, starting satellite surveillance of the cattle ranches that are among the chief culprits in the forest's destruction.
The agriculture ministry will monitor more than 15,000 cattle ranches, many of which were established by clearing forested land, and stop ranchers from selling their cattle if they expand farms further by encroaching upon the rainforest.
"We can now say that Brazil is doing its part," said Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes at the launch of the plan in Para, one of several states in the north of Brazil over which the world's largest rainforest sprawls.
Brazil's efforts to protect the Amazon are under the global spotlight this month as heads of state meet at the climate change conference which began this week in Copenhagen.
Cattle ranching is one of the main causes of deforestation, which accounts for about 75 percent of Brazil's carbon emissions.
The scheme is one of the few measures taken to date by the farming ministry to control ranchers, showing heightened awareness of the link between success in exporting and the foreign consumers' desire for more ecologically sound produce.
A major report in June by environment group Greenpeace on the Brazilian cattle industry's deforestation spurred a rash of pledges by big meat firms to cut ties with suppliers producing on illegally cleared land.
Ranchers who have been identified via the satellite images as illegally claiming forested land to expand their pastures will be unable to obtain a permit enabling them to transport their cattle to slaughterhouses.
Up to now, the government's environment agency, Ibama, has led the battle, confiscating the cattle of ranchers found slashing and burning their way into the forested land, occasionally leading to violent confrontations.
ZERO DEFORESTATION?
Government inspectors are stationed at all legally operating slaughterhouses to examine producers' papers before cattle can be delivered.
But the existence of illegal, unregistered slaughterhouses, which are estimated to process as much as 40 percent of cattle in the world's top beef exporter, are likely to provide a gaping loophole for growers who continue to flout the rules.
Higher profile meat firms who depend on the export market would have little option but to comply, however, given the amount of documentation required between the farm, slaughterhouse and port.
Stephanes, who estimated illegal slaughterhouses handled only 10 percent of cattle, was confident monitoring could cut forest destruction, long a blight on Brazil's image.
"The world is increasingly demanding the ability to trace where its food comes from. This will lead us to zero deforestation," he said, near the monitoring station in Maraba.
The huge satellite dish on its roof will receive data about the 15,000 ranches and the areas around them once a month.
On the edge of Maraba, rancher Jose Miranda Cruz showed the minister and reporters around one of the properties where he raises a huge herd of 120,000 cattle. He seemed ambivalent over deforestation but agreed the scheme would be useful.
"The environmentalists exaggerate a little but we have to do it. The world demands it," said Cruz, as around 100 cows grazed nearby.
(Editing by Stuart Grudgings and Christian Wiessner)
Andrea Thompson livescience.com Yahoo News 14 Dec 09;
SAN FRANCISCO - Tiny particles of pollution known as "black carbon" - and not heat-trapping greenhouse gases - may be causing most of the rapid melting of glaciers in the Himalayas, a key water source for much of Asia.
The contribution of this form of man-made pollution, sometimes called soot, to the speedy melting occurring in this mountainous region - sometimes known as Earth's "third pole" - was discussed here today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Earth's third pole
The Himalayas are home to some 110 peaks that stretch along 1,550 miles (2,500 km) of Asia and harbor 10,000 glaciers. These massive rivers of ice hold the third largest amount of stored fresh water on the planet (after the North and South Poles).
All that frozen water is the main source of replenishment to lakes, streams and some of the continent's mightiest rivers, on which millions of people depend for their water supplies.
But since the 1960s, the acreage covered by Himalayan glaciers has declined by more than 20 percent. Some glaciers are melting away so rapidly that scientists worry they could disappear by mid-century.
The rate of warming in the Himalayas has been about twice the global average over the past 30 years, scientists have found.
New research by several groups of scientists has found that the increase in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, might not be the main culprit. Instead, another more localized source of pollution emitted by industrial and other processes might be responsible for most of the melt.
"Tibet's glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate," said James Hansen, a member of one of the study teams and the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. "Black soot is probably responsible for as much as half of the glacial melt, and greenhouse gases are responsible for the rest."
Black carbon
Black soot (or black carbon) is created when the combustion from burning fossil fuels is incomplete.
Many of the major cities near the Himalayas - Delhi, Karachi and Dhaka - are responsible for the production of this pollution through the use of diesel engines, coal-fired power plants and outdoor cooking stoves. The amount of soot emitted from the area's cities has been on the rise in recent decades.
"This is a very populated and polluted area," said William Lau, member of another study team and head of atmospheric science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
The circulation of the atmosphere in the region causes much of the soot-laden air to "pile up" against the Himalayas, Lau explained at a press conference here today.
This soot mixes with other dust from nearby deserts, creating a massive brown cloud visible from space that absorbs incoming solar radiation. As this layer heats up in the Himalayan foothills, it rises and enhances the seasonal northward flow of humid monsoon winds, forcing moisture and hot air up the slopes of the majestic mountain range.
As these particles rise on the warm, overturning air masses, they produce more rain over northern India, which further warms the atmosphere and fuels this "heat pump" that draws even more warm air to the region.
This "heat pump" changes the timing and intensity of the monsoon, transferring heat and hastening the melting of glaciers in the region.
Soot deposited on the glaciers themselves could also increase the melt rate by decreasing the amount of sunlight the icy surfaces reflect and increasing the amount of heat absorbed.
Contribution to climate change
Both studies that have modeled this air-mass movement, along with examinations of soot levels in cores of ice drilled from the glaciers, have shown that soot likely has a strong effect on the climate and warming in the region.
Scientists say more work is needed to pin down the relative contributions of black carbon and greenhouse gases.
"The science suggests that we've got to better monitor the flue on our 'rooftop to the world,'" Lau said. "We need to add another topic to the climate dialogue."
But the scientists at the meeting stressed the importance of monitoring this warming contribution because of its potential impact on water sources in Asia. The worry is that if glaciers disappear, so will the fresh water they provide to the region's inhabitants.
Damian Grammaticas BBC News 14 Dec 09;
Rising from the bowels of the earth are giant trucks laden with coal. One after another they lumber past. Just the wheels of each truck are double the height of a man.
The engines roar as these massive machines grind up the road that climbs up from the bottom of the Pingshou open cast coal mine. We're in China's northern Shanxi province, the heartland of its huge coal industry. A bitterly cold wind whips through the air.
The enormous mine they're digging here must be one of the biggest man-made holes in the planet. The mine is big enough to fit a small town into. All around diggers claw at the earth, giant trucks growl to and fro.
If you want to know where many of today's carbon emissions come from, this is one place to look.
Energy use soaring
China's massive use of coal is what makes it the world's biggest emitter of carbon. Coal supplies over two thirds of China's energy needs. Some 40% of the coal mined on the planet is dug out of the ground in China.
"We have enough coal here to last 90 years," Mr Huang, a supervisor at the mine tells me as we bump along the rough road cut into the side of the pit.
And that's the real question. What will happen to China's coal industry in the next 20 to 30 years, because China's use of coal could double or even triple. If that's the case, then what every other nation does about climate change may not matter if China doesn't clean up its act.
The nearby power station burns 20,000 tonnes of coal a day. It was built from a Czech design dating back to the 1970s.
China has pledged to produce power more efficiently, saying it will reduce carbon intensity by 40% from 2005 to 2020. But that doesn't really change the path China is already taking, and in the coming years its carbon emissions will continue to rise substantially.
The reason is that as China gets richer energy use is soaring. Jeff and Ada Qian both work as IT specialist for international firms in Shanghai. At home in their flat they and their 10-month-old son Tim enjoy many of the comforts of modern life. They have air conditioning, a car, a fridge, a washing machine and two televisions.
"I feel so far our life is good," Jeff tells me, "but I think people always have ambitions, you always want to have more. If I have more money I want to have a better car, a bigger apartment."
Today perhaps one third of China's 1.4 billion people live like this, and many of the rest aspire to.
"I think many of China's people would like a lifestyle like us," says Ada. "I don't think that means we should copy the lifestyle of the West. Maybe we can find cleaner sources of energy."
'Need to develop'
But in its megacities, such as Shanghai, China is copying the West, urbanising on an incredible scale. In the coming 30 years China is planning for 450 million more people to move from the countryside to the cities.
In places like Shanghai and Beijing, carbon emissions per head already rival the West's. And if China's emissions keep rising on current trends, every single Chinese person may be emitting more on average than every European by around 2030.
Pan Jiahua is an adviser to the Chinese government on climate change. He says China's emissions must be allowed to rise above the developed world's on a per capita basis.
Mr Jiahua says the rich world has built the infrastructure it needs and must now make major cuts to emissions. But as long as China is still developing it's emissions need to keep going up.
"We need to develop so we need lots of energy. Our emissions must continue to go up. Developed countries must bring their emissions down, perhaps even to zero. So we should be allowed to emit more than the rich world," he says.
"Eventually CO2 emissions will stabilise and all countries will emit about the same per person."
Green energy
China is searching for clean energy. It wants to lead the world in green technologies. In the vast, flat Gobi desert in China's far west it's busy building the world's biggest wind farms. The scale dwarfs anything in Europe or America.
We watched as a giant rotor was lifted by a huge crane and fixed into place high above the ground on one of the turbines. Teams of men pulled on ropes to ease the vast blades into position.
Abdul Ali is leading the crew who are installing the wind farms. They are putting up two new turbines every three days. Eventually a massive area of desert will be peppered with them.
The wind farms being built here in western Gansu province will produce as much electricity as 16 coal-fired power stations. "This is the Three Gorges Dam of wind power," Abdul Ali says proudly.
But when the winds drop, the turbines slow to a stop. Even here in what is one of China's windiest places, it's clear wind can't be relied on to power China's needs the way coal can. So if China continues to rely on coal, and if more than one billion Chinese end up emitting more carbon per head than Europeans, the future for tackling climate change could be bleak.
Henriette Jacobsen, Reuters 14 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The world is gathered in Copenhagen for the U.N. climate summit, but Denmark"s bicycle-friendly capital has also given its name to a movement of cities trying to find a kinder way to commute.
Nearly 40 percent of Copenhagen's population cycle to work or school on ubiquitous paved cycle paths. Many residents take to their bikes year-round, braving rain and snow through the winter in a city where the bicycles outnumber the people.
"Only when there's half a meter of snow outside would I consider using the underground," said 24-year old student Louise Kristensen.
Amsterdam and Beijing too are known for their bicycles, but the Danish capital is where urban planners from around the world have been looking for ways to get their people out of cars and up onto bikes, an effort known as Copenhagenisation.
"We're trying to strike a balance in our transportation network which means having streets that can accommodate everyone," New York Transport Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said.
Klaus Bondam, Copenhagen's technical and environmental chief, calls himself a "mega cyclist" and says the bike's popularity stems partly from high taxes on cars which meant working-class Danes could not afford to drive in the 1930s and '40s.
"Today you'll meet everybody on the bicycle lanes -- women and men, rich and poor, old and young," Bondam said.
The municipality has during the last three years invested more than 250 million crowns ($49.42 million) in bicycle lanes and to make the traffic safer for bicyclists.
City Hall has also made a rule that when it snows, the bike paths get cleared before car lanes.
Today around a third of the population drive cars to work or study, another third take public transport, while 37 percent cycle -- a figure the city aims to boost to 50 percent by 2015.
Bondam said there are many benefits when citizens choose bicycles over cars: pollution and noise decline, public health improves, and more people on bikes or walking creates a sense of safety in the city.
Fewer parked cars leaves more space for playgrounds, parks, shopping areas and other useful public amenities.
Bondam said car traffic should be limited, though a car-less society is probably impossible. However, cars that cannot be avoided should be electric rather than run on fossil fuels.
COPENHAGENISATION
From 70 to 80 percent of the world's carbon emissions, blamed by scientists for global warming, come from big cities.
As more and more people have become concerned with the climate, officials from around the world have come to Copenhagen to learn about its bike culture.
But Danish architect and professor Jan Gehl, who coined the term Copenhagenisaton, says the concept is broader than that and entails cities becoming lively, safe, sustainable and healthy.
For the past decade Gehl has helped cities around the world, including New York, Seattle, San Francisco, London, Stockholm, Oslo, Melbourne, Sydney and Amman, to "Copenhagenise."
"Depending on culture, region, climate and topography, there are good solutions for every city," Gehl said.
He noted that in most parts of the world car travel has only been common after the Second World War.
"Sixty years is a short time in the greater perspective, so people should be able to change their habits once again," the architect said.
New York has initiatives to improve the look, feel and mobility of its streets, according to Sadik-Khan.
For instance, in the last three years, the city has installed 200 miles of bicycle lanes to boost safety for cyclists and pedestrians and has transformed old railway land into public spaces to improve the quality of life in residential and business districts.
"The response has been tremendous, and we hope to keep the momentum going by expanding it next year," Sadik-Khan said.
From 2008-2009 the city saw a 26 percent increase in bike commuting, and a recent survey in Times Square and Herald Square found that 93 percent said the plazas made the area a better place and one to which they wanted to return.
Gehl said that making cities better for pedestrians and cyclists is even smarter in poor, fast-growing developing countries and cities because it is cost-effective.
"It's a good solution for the climate, the economy and the poor," he said.
Though many officials want citizens on bikes for climate reasons, back in Copenhagen, Kristensen said: "Biking is just the easiest way to get around here."
($1=5.059 Danish Crown)
Richard Cowan PlanetArk 15 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN - The United States pledged on Monday to contribute $85 million to a $350 million multinational fund aimed at speeding up renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in poor countries.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu also announced a high-level meeting will be held in Washington next year of major developed countries' energy ministers to discuss global deployment of clean energy technology.
Chu made the announcements on the sidelines of a December 7-18 international climate conference in Copenhagen.
The talks temporarily stalled on Monday when African countries walked out, accusing rich countries of trying to kill the U.N. Kyoto Protocol which set targets for emissions cuts by most industrialized countries.
Projects which the fund will support include a plan to speed affordable solar-generated lighting systems and LED lanterns to those without access to electricity.
Chu said the devices would eliminate air pollution from indoor kerosene lamps that he said contributes to 1.6 million deaths per year in poor countries.
Other facets of the programme are the encouragement of more energy-efficient appliances in developing countries and rich country information-sharing of clean energy technologies.
The White House said the financing would enhance a World Bank strategic climate fund that helps poor countries develop national renewable energy plans.
Italy, Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland also are participating and already have promised funds. Speaking more broadly about U.S. efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases associated with climate change, Chu said the Obama administration was serious about helping develop clean coal technology.
"What we want to see is the beginning of routine deployment hopefully within eight or 10 years," Chu said.
Emissions from coal-burning power plants are considered a major contributor to global warming.
(Editing By Dominic Evans)
US in plan to aid poor nations develop clean energy
Yahoo News 14 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (AFP) – The United States Monday unveiled a 350-million-dollar global effort to help provide clean energy technology to developing countries and invited top officials to a green summit next year.
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen that the new program will speed the delivery of renewable energy technologies to underdeveloped countries.
That will help them better combat greenhouse gas emissions, he said, as world leaders meet in the Danish capital to hammer out a new treaty to tackle global warming and replace the Kyoto treaty which expires in 2012.
Among the initiatives is a program to provide solar energy and LED lanterns to millions in the developing world who lack access to electricity, providing a low-cost alternative to expensive and polluting kerosene lamps.
"This program will yield immediate economic and public health benefits," a White House statement said, referring to the ambitious project dubbed Climate REDI or the new Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative.
The program will also seek to improve the efficiency of electrical appliances traded around the world by coordinating incentives and setting global standards.
And it will set up an online platform to share information among the members of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), and provide technical assistance to poorer nations in developing renewable energy strategies.
The United States is to contribute a total of 85 million dollars to the five-year effort, while Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland have together pledged 200 million dollars.
Australia, Italy and Sweden have also said they would put up funds for the new initiative, the White House said.
Chu also announced that Washington will host next year a ministerial-level meeting of the MEF forum, a working group of the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitters, which was launched by President Barack Obama in March 2009.
The group aims to foster international discussion on combating climate change and promoting clean energy, said Chu, without setting a date for the talks in the US capital.
The announcement came as Africa led a boycott of developing countries on Monday walking out of the working groups in Copenhagen with less then five days of negotiations left in the two-week conference.
They only returned after securing guarantees that the summit would not sideline talks about the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
A top Western negotiator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a round-table session of around 50 environment ministers Sunday had also been soured by "growing tensions between the Americans and Chinese."
"At the back of everyone's mind is the fear of a repeat of the awful scenario in The Hague," she told AFP, referring to a climate conference in 2000 that broke up angrily without agreement.
The Kyoto Protocol ties the rich countries -- but not developing countries -- that have ratified it to binding emissions curbs.
Sunanda Creagh, Reuters 14 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Nemo the clownfish is more lost than ever, thanks to climate change.
Ocean acidification caused by global warming is destroying the sense of smell and navigational abilities of the little orange clownfish of Finding Nemo fame, pushing the species closer to extinction, a new report has found.
The report, launched on Monday by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on the sidelines of global climate talks in Copenhagen, named 10 species that will be hardest hit by global warming.
Among the 10 was the clownfish, which uses its sense of smell to find its way to its host anemone.
"Ocean acidification and rising temperatures are of course destroying the coral reefs but, on top of that, they are affecting their olfactory senses," the report's co-author, Wendy Foden told reporters.
"They are literally unable to find their way home."
The 10 species named in the report were: beluga whale, clownfish, leatherback turtle, emperor penguin, quiver tree, ringed seal, salmon, staghorn coral, arctic fox and koala.
Higher temperatures cause more of the eggs laid by giant leatherback turtles to develop as females, Foden said.
"It's leading to extremely skewed sex ratios developing," she said.
Koalas are finding it harder than ever to get enough to eat because warmer conditions have made their staple, eucalyptus leaves, less nutritious, she said.
"Species can adapt but the conditions need to change sufficiently slowly," said Foden. "If our governments commit to strong and timely targets, if this meeting is successful here, we can slow the pace of climate change and give these species a chance to survive."
The full report can be found here http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/species_and_climate_change.pdf
(Editing by Dominic Evans)
Koalas, penguins at risk of extinction: study
Marlowe Hood (AFP) Google News 15 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN — Climate change threatens the survival of dozens of animal species from the emperor penguin to Australian koalas, according to a report released Monday at the UN climate summit.
Rising sea levels, ocean acidification and shrinking polar ice are taking a heavy toll on species already struggling to cope with pollution and shrinking habitats, said the study from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an intergovernmental group.
"Humans are not the only ones whose fate is at stake here in Copenhagen -- some of our favourite species are also taking the fall for our CO2 emissions," said Wendy Foden, an IUCN researcher and co-author of the study.
The report details how climate change undermines the viability of 10 species, including the leatherback turtle, the beluga whale, clownfish, the emperor penguin and salmon.
Australia?s iconic bear-like koala faces malnutrition and ultimate starvation as the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves declines as CO2 levels increase, the report added.
Polar species are especially hard hit.
The ringed seal is being forced further north as sea ice it relies on for rearing its vulnerable pups retreats every decade.
The emperor penguin, remarkably adapted to thrive in harsh Antarctic conditions, faces similar problems. Reduced ice cover makes it harder to mate and raise chicks, and has caused a sharp decline in the availability of krill, a major food source.
As once-frozen tundra gives way to forest, the common red fox has moved northward, where it hunts and competes with its far rarer arctic cousin.
The beluga whale is doubly threatened by global warming: loss of sea ice makes it tough to find prey, and the rush to open new maritime routes is likely to result in deadly ship strikes, as happens elsewhere.
"For a large portion of biodiversity, climate change is an additional and major threat," said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN?s Species Programme.
In tropical regions, more than 160 species of staghorn corals -- and the tens of millions of people that depend on healthy coral reefs for their livelihood -- are dying off due to ocean acidification, a direct result of warming seas.
For clownfish, brought to the screen by Hollywood in the animated blockbuster "Finding Nemo", the changing ecosystem impairs sense of smell, which they use to find the sea anemones they rely on for protection.
Salmon stocks are dropping off not just from overfishing but because lower oxygen levels resulting from increased water temperatures boost susceptibility to disease and disrupt breeding.
The United Nations climate talks are tasked with forging a durable solution to global warming and helping poor countries cope with its consequences. They are set to end with a summit on Friday with around 120 leaders attending.
The UK is already feeling the effects of global warming, as rising temperatures put native species at risk of extinction
Press Association, guardian.co.uk 14 Dec 09;
Rising temperatures and sea levels brought on by climate change could have devastating effects on British wildlife from salmon to wildfowl, the Environment Agency warned today as climate talks entered a second week in Copenhagen.
The agency said the country's waterways could be hit by invading species, such as African clawed toads and South American water primrose, which spread disease to native wildlife and clog up rivers and streams, causing flooding.
Fish species such as Atlantic salmon and trout, which need cold water may struggle to survive, are already declining in warming southern English rivers and estuaries.
Insects, which form an integral part of the food chain, will fall by a fifth for every 1C rise in temperatures in upland streams, the government agency warned.
Rising sea levels could inundate salt marshes and mudflats, which are used by migrating birds such as redshank plovers and wildfowl.
According to the government's conservation agency, Natural England, the UK's wildlife – from oak trees to newts – is already feeling the effects of climate change.
Lord Chris Smith, chairman at the Environment Agency, said: "There is a danger that we think of climate change as something that is happening in other countries. But it's not just polar bears and rainforests that are at risk.
"What we see in our rivers, gardens, seas and skies here in the UK is already changing and delays in reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more severe impacts."
The Wildlife Trust is warning that species such as hazel dormice and bluebells are under pressure because of warmer weather, which will affect hibernating animals and bring trees into leaf earlier.
But warmer temperatures could allow the likes of spoonbills, wasp spiders and loose-flowered orchids to become more abundant or colonise for the first time.
European birds and insects which can easily move could be the first to increase their range into this country, while those native species least able to move their ranges further north or higher into the uplands as temperatures rise are most at risk of declines or extinction.
Dr Tom Tew, chief scientist at Natural England, said studies dating over the past 75 years show oak trees are coming into leaf three weeks earlier than they were in the 1950s.
As a result, insects are shifting their emergence patterns to fit in, which deprives birds of food to feed their chicks.
Newts are coming back into ponds in November, instead of March as they were in the 1970s, and swallows in Cornwall "aren't even bothering to migrate" south in winter, he said.
Tew believes the answer, for both wildlife and humans, is to work with the natural environment to help people, plants and animals adapt to the warming climate.
For example, creating salt marshes on the coast protects against flooding more cost effectively than concrete walls, provides carbon storage, nurseries for fish stocks and habitat for wildlife.
And we need to make the landscape more "permeable", allowing wildlife to move further north and higher up as temperatures rise by providing more "stepping stones" such as ponds and hedgerows.
The Environment Agency is working to provide new habitats to replace lost wetlands and improve water quality to give species vulnerable to climate change such as eels the best chance of survival.
Smith said there was also an urgent need for all countries to limit their emissions to avoid the "disastrous consequences" of a world in which temperatures rise by 4C or more.
UNEP 14 Dec 09;
Copenhagen, 14 December 2009 - The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Canada's Polar Cap Productions, Inc. (PCP) are pleased to announce the COP15 screenings of Mark Terry's new climate change documentary The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning .
The partnership between UNEP and PCP is part of the United Nations' "Seal the Deal" campaign, a call to action to clinch an ambitious and effective agreement on climate change during the COP15 conference here Dec. 7 to 18, 2009.
Screenings will take place at the Bella Centre and other venues in Copenhagen throughout the conference. A special two-and-a-half-minute trailer created for the COP15 screenings is currently playing daily on the jumbo screen at the convention centre and was shown on the Climate Express, a special train commuting delegates between Brussels and Copenhagen.
The trailer can be downloaded from YouTube at this address:
http://www.youtube.com/user/polarcapproductions#p/u/1/ShK1TnqkN7o
Screening of The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning had already begun at the Climate Exchange, a pre-conference event designed to prepare delegates for the COP15 conference. All four screenings held Dec. 3 to 6 played to full houses.
A complete schedule of COP15 screenings is detailed below. Filmmaker Mark Terry is a delegate of COP15 and will be present for all screenings conducting Q&As following each screening. Interviews are available until Dec. 18. On Dec. 17, Mr. Terry will be joined by John Gerretsen, Canada's Minister of the Environment for Ontario.
The documentary focuses on new discoveries made related to the ozone hole, the diminishing populations of penguins and other marine life, the greening of the world's largest desert, warming temperatures, glacial melting and increased world sea level.
UNEP 14 Dec 09;
Copenhagen, 14 December 2009 The Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity released today a major study, Scientific Synthesis of the Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Marine Biological Diversity.
The launch of the study, which was prepared in collaboration with the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), is a major event to mark Oceans Day during the current climate change negotiations in Copenhagen and highlights the direct link between climate change, ocean health, and human well-being.
According to the study, seas and oceans absorb approximately one quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other human activities. As more and more carbon dioxide (CO2) has been emitted into the atmosphere, the oceans have absorbed greater amounts at increasingly rapid rates. Without this level of absorption by the oceans, atmospheric CO2 levels would be significantly higher than at present and the effects of global climate change would be more marked.
However, the absorption of atmospheric CO2 has resulted in changes to the chemical balance of the oceans, causing them to become more acidic. It is predicted that by 2050, ocean acidity could increase by 150%. This dramatic increase is 100 times faster than any change in acidity experienced in the marine environment over the last 20 million years, giving little time for evolutionary adaptation within biological systems.
"Ocean acidification is irreversible on timescales of at least tens of thousands of years, and substantial damage to ocean ecosystems can only be avoided by urgent and rapid reductions in global emissions of CO2. Attention must be given for integration of this critical issue at the global climate change debate in Copenhagen," said Mr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention.
"This CBD study provides a valuable synthesis of scientific information on the impacts of ocean acidification, based on the analysis of more than 300 scientific literatures, and it describes an alarming picture of possible ecological scenarios and adverse impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity," he added.
Among other findings, the study shows that increasing ocean acidification will mean that by 2100 some 70% of cold water corals, a key refuge and feeding ground for commercial fish species, will be exposed to corrosive waters. In addition, given the current emission rates, it is predicted that the surface water of the highly productive Arctic Ocean will become under-saturated with respect to essential carbonate minerals by the year 2032, and the Southern Ocean by 2050 with disruptions to large components of the marine food source, in particular those calcifying species, such as foraminifera, pteropods, coccolithophores, mussels, oysters, shrimps, crabs and lobsters, which rely on calcium to grow and mature.
An emerging body of research suggests that many of the effects of ocean acidification on marine organisms and ecosystems will be variable and complex and will affect different species in different ways. Evidence from naturally acidified locations confirms, however, that although some species may benefit, biological communities under acidified seawater conditions are less diverse and calcifying (calcium-reliant) species absent.
Many questions remain regarding the biological and biogeochemical consequences of ocean acidification for marine biodiversity and ecosystems, and the impacts of these changes on oceanic ecosystems and the services they provide, for example, in fisheries, coastal protection, tourism, carbon sequestration and climate regulation.
Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy, Biodiversity Chair of Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, in the Preface to the publication, noted: "This publication by the CBD on the impacts of ocean acidification on marine biodiversity is very timely and germane, as it confirms again how great the stakes of sustainability are in the climate change negotiations".
"It is expected that a continuing effort be made within CBD, in collaboration with relevant international organizations and scientific communities, to build upon this publication, further enhancing scientific research on ocean acidification, particularly its biological and biogeochemical consequences, including the accurate determination of sub-critical levels of impacts or tipping points for global marine species, ecosystems and the services and functions they provide," he added.
The CBD Technical Series No.46 is available at www.cbd.int/doc/publications/cbd-ts-46-en.pdf.
Andrea Thompson livescience.com Yahoo News 15 Dec 09;
SAN FRANCISCO - Time-lapse photography of crumbling Alaskan coastlines is helping scientists understand the "triple whammy" of forces eroding the local landscape: declining sea ice, warming ocean waters and more poundings by waves.
The erosion rates from these forces are greater than anything seen along the world's coastlines, with the coast midway between Alaska's Point Barrow and Prudhoe Bay falling into the ocean in the inland direction by up to one-third the length of a football field annually, scientists have found.
"This is pretty eye-popping," Robert Anderson of the University of Colorado at Boulder said here today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Time-lapse imagery and videos taken by Anderson and his team show how frozen blocks of silt and peat - that contain about 50 percent to 80 percent water ice - are toppled into the Beaufort Sea within a matter of days during the summer months as large waves and warm waters combine to attack the coast.
The dramatic erosion is created by the combination of three main factors: longer ice-free conditions in the summer months (which are lengthening by about two weeks per decade); warmer ocean waters that can melt more of the ice trapped in the coastal soils; and the widening of the gap between the coastline and the sea ice that occurs in the summer months, giving waves more room to batter 12-foot-high (3.5 meters) coastal bluffs.
"What we are seeing now is a triple whammy effect," Anderson said. "Since the summer Arctic sea ice cover continues to decline and Arctic air and sea temperatures continue to rise, we really don't see any prospect for this process ending."
"The landscape is beginning to respond to the acceleration of warming," he said.
The rates of erosion in these areas are several tens of meters per year, compared to other rocky coasts, where erosion rates would be closer to several millimeters or centimeters a year, Anderson said.
"These rates are way out of whack," he said.
This erosion is concerning to scientists not just for the indications it gives of the rate of global warming in the Arctic, but because the area is an important habitat for birds and other wildlife.
While there are no towns in the specific area studied, coastal erosion threatens some abandoned military and petroleum structures. And areas that now aren't as close to the coast could find themselves threatened.
"Even something 1 kilometer [3 miles] away could be dumped into the sea in a matter of years," Anderson said.
You can watch the video at the university's web site: http://www.colorado.edu/news/r/fff17f8947aba3f5e502f0ed30adb9ee.html
Alaska coast erosion threat to oil, wildlife
Yereth Rosen, Reuters 21 Dec 09;
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A portion of Alaska's North Slope coastline is eroding at a rate of up to 45 feet a year, posing a threat to oil operations and wildlife in the area, according to a new report issued by scientists at the University of Colorado.
Warmer ocean water has thawed the base of frozen bluffs and destroyed natural ice barriers protecting the coast, causing large earth chunks to fall each summer, the scientists said.
"What we are seeing now is a triple whammy effect," study co-author Robert Anderson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado's Department of Geological Sciences, said. "Since the summer Arctic sea ice cover continues to decline and Arctic air and sea temperatures continue to rise, we really don't see any prospect for this process ending."
The scientists studied coastline midway between Point Barrow, the nation's northernmost spot, and Prudhoe Bay, site of the nation's biggest oil fields. The erosion, if it continues, could ultimately be a problem for energy companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc.
Findings were presented last week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. They backed up other studies of erosion along Alaska's Beaufort Sea coastline.
A study by U.S. Geological Survey scientists published in February found that erosion along a stretch of Alaska coastline during 2002 to 2007 was twice as fast as in the period from 1955 to 1979. That USGS study also found erosion occurring at a rate of 13.6 meters (44.6 feet) annually from 2002 to 2007.
The three-year University of Colorado study aimed to examine how erosion is occurring, said co-author Irina Overeem, a scientist at the University's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.
The scientists employed time-lapse photography, global positioning systems, meteorological monitoring, and analysis of sediment and sea-ice distribution.
Photographic images snapped every six hours during the around-the-clock sunlight of summer were particularly dramatic, Overeem told Reuters.
"There's a notching effect that just notches, notches, notches and then topples over," she said. "The cliffs are more than half ice -- they're basically dirty icebergs -- so warm water, stronger waves and higher wave action quickly carves them away," she said.
Although the study area holds no communities, there is infrastructure at risk, mostly abandoned military and oil-field sites and their associated waste dumps, the scientists said. Also at risk are ponds and lakes that support migratory shorebirds.
The threat of collapsing military and oil-field infrastructure, including toxics-laden waste, has prompted several government agencies to launch emergency cleanup programs.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management since 2005 has cleaned up three old, erosion-threatened wells and plans to start in on a fourth well later this winter, said Wayne Svejnoha, branch chief for energy and minerals. Each well cleanup takes about two months and costs $12 million to $14 million, Svejnoha said.
Erosion threats to shorebirds were confirmed by another federal manager.
"The erosion is very obvious," said Rick Lanctot, Alaska shorebird coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In some spots, saltwater has inundated lakes and ponds, killing off plants that birds eat, while heavy wave action has displaced driftwood used as nest sites, said Lanctot, who has worked there since 1991.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; editing by Bill Rigby, Gary Hill)
Marlowe Hood Mon Yahoo News 14 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Climate guru Al Gore warned UN climate talks Monday that the record melting of glaciers worldwide could deprive more than a billion people of access to fresh water.
"There are more than a billion people on the planet who get more than half of their drinking water -- many of them all of their drinking water -- from the seasonal melting of snow melt and glacier ice," Gore said at the release of a report he co-sponsored.
A triple threat from crumbling ice sheets, disappearing glaciers and the shrinking Arctic ice cap are feeding global warming and will fuel rising sea levels, the report found.
Adding to an avalanche of bad scientific news over the last two years, the former US vice president also cited new research showing that the Arctic ice cap may have shrunk to record-low levels last year.
"2008 had a smaller minimum, probably, than 2007," Gore said, alluding to work led by California-based researcher Wieslaw Maslowski.
"Some of the models suggest to Dr. Maslowski that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire polar ice cap during some summer months could be completely ice free within five to seven years," Gore said.
Scientists reported in September that the Arctic ice cover -- which helps beat back the Sun's heat-delivering rays back into space -- had reversed course compared to 2007, when it had shrunk to its smallest size since the start of accurate measurements some four decades ago.
But when measured by volume, it turns out that the 4.5 million sq km (1.7 million sq miles) area in 2008 was actually smaller than the year before.
The Arctic ice cover does not affect sea levels, but is a critically important barrier to global warming.
Intact, its white surface acts as a mirror, but when the ice disappears it becomes a sponge.
"Instead of 85 percent of the solar energy being reflected, 85 is absorbed in the Arctic Ocean," said Gore who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on warning of the threat posed by climate change.
One of the report's authors Robert Corell of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington pointed to another threat: the massive, accelerating loss of mass -- measured in hundreds of billions of tonnes per year -- from icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
Combined with the expansion of ocean water due to global warming, the continent-sized icesheets are now set to contribute to a global sea level rise of about a metre by the end of the century, double the mid-point prediction of the UN's benchmark science report in 2007.
"A one meter rise equals 100 million people who will have to move, one hundred million environmental refugees," said Corell.
"We have woken giants," said Arctic ice specialist Dorothe Dahl-Jensen at Copenhagen University of the ice sheets.
"This is really scary. This really shakes us scientists. These icesheets are enormous," she said in presenting a second report on Greenland from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme.
Greenland's ice block holds enough frozen water to lift seas seven metres, while West Antarctica could add another five metres to the global water mark.
Dahl-Jensen said the pace at which some glaciers on the west coast of Greenland were "calving", or falling into the sea, has sped up dramatically over the last decade.
"This is by far the fastest flowing ice we have ever dreamed of. This is a rate of loss that we have never seen before," she said.
Both scientists pointed out that all of these impacts had been unleashed by a less than 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 degree Fahrenheit) increase of global temperatures since pre-industrial times.
"Current proposals from individual countries for their own actions would lead to a temperature increase of approximately 3.8 C (6.8 F)", by the end of the century, Corell said.
Gore at climate talks: Polar ice may go in 5 years
Charles J. Hanley (AP) Google News 15 Dec 09;
COPENHAGEN — New computer modeling suggests the Arctic Ocean may be nearly ice-free in the summertime as early as 2014, Al Gore said Monday at the U.N. climate conference.
Northern polar sea ice has been retreating dramatically. These new projections suggest an almost-vanished summer ice cap much earlier than foreseen by a U.S. government agency just eight months ago.
"It is hard to capture the astonishment that the experts in the science of ice felt when they saw this," former U.S. Vice President Gore told reporters and other conference participants at a joint briefing with Scandinavian officials and scientists, his first appearance at the two-week session.
The group presented two new reports updating fast-moving developments in Antarctica, the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, and the rest of the Arctic.
"The time for collective and immediate action on climate change is now," said Denmark's foreign minister, Per Stig Moeller.
But delegates from 192 nations were bogged down in disputes over key issues. This further dimmed hopes for immediate action to cut more deeply into global emissions of greenhouse gases.
Gore and Danish ice scientist Dorthe Dahl Jensen clicked through two slide shows for a standing-room-only crowd of hundreds in a side event at the Bella Center conference site.
One report, on the Greenland ice sheet, was issued by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, an expert group formed by eight Arctic governments, including the United States. The other, commissioned by Gore and Norway's government, was compiled by the Norwegian Polar Institute on the status of ice melt worldwide.
Average global temperatures have increased 0.74 degrees C (1.3 degrees F) in the past century, but the mercury has risen at least twice as quickly in the Arctic. Scientists say the makeup of the frozen north polar sea has shifted significantly in recent years as much of the thick multiyear ice has given way to thin seasonal ice.
In the summer of 2007, the Arctic ice cap dwindled to a record-low minimum extent of 4.3 million square kilometers (1.7 million square miles) in September. The melting in 2008 and 2009 was not as extensive, but still ranked as the second- and third-greatest decreases on record.
Last April, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that Arctic summers could be almost ice-free within 30 years, not at the 21st century's end as earlier predicted.
Gore cited new scientific work at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, whose Arctic ice research is important for planning polar voyages by Navy submarines. The computer modeling there stresses the "volumetric," looking not just at the surface extent of ice but its thickness as well.
"Some of the models suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap during some of the summer months will be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years," Gore said.
His office later said he meant nearly ice-free, because ice would be expected to survive in island channels and other locations.
Other U.S. government scientists dismissed projections of such rapid melting as excessive.
"It's possible but not likely," said Mark Serreze of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. "We're sticking with 2030."
Meanwhile, what's happening to Greenland's titanic ice sheet "has really surprised us," said Jensen of the University of Copenhagen.
She cited one huge glacier in west Greenland, at Jakobshavn, that in recent years has doubled its rate of dumping ice into the sea. Between melted land ice and heat expansion of ocean waters, the sea-level rise has increased from 1.8 millimeters a year to 3.4 millimeters (.07 inch a year to .13 inch) in the past 10 years.
Jensen said the biggest ice sheets — Greenland and West Antarctica — were already contributing 1 millimeter (.04 inch) a year to those rising sea levels. She said this could double within the next decade.
"With global warming, we have woken giants," she said.
Key claim of global warming sceptics debunked
Steve Connor The Independent 14 Dec 09;
Leading scientists, including a Nobel Prize-winner, have rounded on studies used by climate sceptics to show that global warming is a natural phenomenon connected with sunspots, rather than the result of the man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.
The researchers – all experts in climate or solar science – have told The Independent that the scientific evidence continually cited by sceptics to promote the idea of sunspots being the cause of global warming is deeply flawed.
Studies published in 1991 and 1998 claimed to establish a link between global temperatures and solar activity – sunspots – and continue to be cited by climate sceptics, including those who attended an "alternative" climate conference in Copenhagen last week.
However, problems with the data used to establish the correlation have been identified by other experts and the flaws are now widely accepted by the scientific community, even though the studies continue to be used to support the idea that global warming is "natural".
The issue has gained new importance in the light of opinion polls showing that nearly one in two people now believe global warming is a natural phenomenon unconnected with CO2 emissions. Public distrust of the accepted explanation of global warming has been exacerbated by emails leaked from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, which appeared to suggest that scientists were engaged in a conspiracy to suppress contrarian views.
Many sceptics who accept that global temperatures have risen in recent decades suggest it is part of the climate's natural variability and could be accounted for by normal variations in the activity of the Sun. Powerful support for this idea came in 1991 when Eigil Friis-Christensen, director of the Danish National Space Centre, published a study showing a remarkable correlation between global warming and the length of sunspot cycles.
A further study published in 1998 by Mr Friis-Christensen and his colleague Henrik Svensmark suggested a possible explanation for the warming trend with a link between solar activity, cosmic rays and the formation of clouds.
However, many scientists now believe both of these studies are seriously flawed, and that when errors introduced into the analysis are removed, the correlations disappear, with no link between sunspots and global warming. Peter Laut, a former adviser to the Danish Energy Agency who first identified the flaws, said there were practically no observations to support the idea that variations in sunspots played more than a minor role in global warming.
Mr Laut's analysis of the flaws is accepted by most scientists familiar with the research, including Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on understanding the hole in the ozone layer. "There is definitely a problem [with these studies]. Laut has really pinned it down but the [sunspot] argument keeps reappearing and its quite irritating," Professor Crutzen said.
Professor Stefan Rahsmstorf, of Potsdam University, agreed: "I've looked into this quite closely and I'm on Laut's side in terms of his analysis of the data."
Some scientists believe the flaws are so serious that the papers should be retracted or at least the authors should acknowledge that their work contains problems that question the correlations they have apparently established.
"Their controversial papers must be retracted or at least that there will be an official statement by them acknowledging their mistake," said Andre Berger, honorary president of the European Geosciences Union.
Messrs Svensmark and Friis-Christensen stand by their studies and continue to believe there is evidence to support their sunspot theory of global warming, despite the doubts first raised by Laut.
"It's not a critique of the science or the correlations, it's a critique of person," Mr Friis-Christensen said. "It's a character assassination. [Laut] is not interested in the science, he's interested in promoting the idea Henrik did something unethical."
What are sunspots and cosmic rays?
*Sunspots
Differences in the rotation between the Sun's equator and poles amplify the solar magnetic field until it bursts through to the surface as "sunspots". The activity follows an 11-year cycle, which may vary by a few years. High sunspot activity is associated with a strong solar winds and slightly higher radiation intensity – about 0.1 per cent higher than a sunspot minimum.
*Cosmic rays
Stellar explosions in deep space give off cosmic radiation that continually bombards Earth. The energy, however, is very weak (equivalent to starlight). Some scientists believe that cosmic rays may influence cloud formation by aerosol "seeding".
David Chance and Razak Ahmad, Reuters 14 Dec 09;
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's government will offer "credible" cuts in its emissions of carbon dioxide at the Copenhagen climate change summit in a bid to halt global warming, Prime Minister Najib Razak told Reuters on Sunday.
Najib will be among more than 110 world leaders who will meet in Copenhagen next week to attend a summit to try to clinch a deal on deeper emissions cuts by rich nations, steps by developing nations to cut their carbon pollution and finance to help the poor adapt to climate change.
"We are willing to offer our commitment, I am not just going to call on the developed world I am going to commit Malaysia and I am going to commit Malaysia to very credible cuts which means we have to spend, which we will do," Najib said in the interview.
Najib said the cuts were still being worked on.
The United Nations has said a full, legal treaty to expand or replace the existing Kyoto Protocol is out of reach at the talks, after two years of troubled negotiations, and is likely to be agreed some time in 2010.
UN data shows Malaysia's carbon emissions in 2006 stood at 187 million tones or 7.2 tonnes from each Malaysian.
Although that figure is far less than neighboring Indonesia, which is the world's third largest emitter with 2.3 billion tonnes or 10 tonnes per capita, according to Indonesian government data, Najib said all nations must contribute.
"It has to be predicated on the fundamental principles of the Kyoto protocol and the UN Framework on Climate Convention," he said.
"Amongst which the most important being the common but differentiated responsibilities that the developed world must deliver against larger cuts in terms of carbon emissions and that the developing world should be assisted particularly in terms of finanancial assistance, capacity buiding and technology."
TIGHT BUDGETS MUST ACCOMODATE CLIMATE CHANGE
Najib said that despite the current economic turmoil, which has seen the United States and Europe plunge into huge budget deficits, the fight against climate change had to take priority.
The United Nations wants to raise $10 billion a year from 2010-12 in quick-start funds to help the poor cope with global warming and move away from fossil fuels. But few nations have offered quick-start cash.
In the longer term, the United Nations estimates the fight against global warming is likely to cost $300 billion a year from 2020, largely to help developing nations adapt to impacts such as droughts, floods and heat waves.
"If we really talking about it we must walk the talk (on funding). Otherwise we are just going to face a very uncertain future and the effects will be quite catastrophic," Najib said.
Posts
visitors since Nov 07