Best of our wild blogs: 19 Dec 09

Unbreak my dock
from The annotated budak

Feeding Behaviour of the Brown-Throated Sunbird
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Tanah Merah
from Singapore Nature and wonderful creations and wild shores of singapore and a hustle of hermits

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Sabah's pygmy seahorse under threat from 'over-enthusiastic divers'

Ruben Sario, The Star 19 Dec 09;

KOTA KINABALU: A unique species of seahorse in Sabah’s east coast islands are under threat because of the actions of over-enthusiastic divers.

The pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti and H. denise) was discovered at coral reefs at diving havens such as Pulau Sipadan, Mabul, Bohay Dulang and Bodgaya barely five years ago.

Since then, some dive operators have been bringing divers to known sites of these creatures that can blend with sea fans to serve as their habitat.

Enthusiasm to view these creatures has also seen as many as 100 divers congregate on their habitat and use the flash to take their picture which could harm them.

Some divers have also been known to break off the sea fans and move them just to get a better angle for their pictures.

These were some of the anecdotal reports that reached Universiti Malaysia Terengganu marine biologist Yeong Yee Ling who has been researching the creatures for the past three years.

Out of concern for these creatures, a two-day seminar was held recently at Pulau Mabul about the pygmy seahorse and the care needed in approaching them and their habitat.

The seminar involving Sabah Parks, was funded by Shell Malaysia’s Sustainable and Development Grant and attended by 57 participants that included most of the 15 dive operators based in Semporna town.

“Our hope is that the discussions from the seminar would eventually be synthesised into a code of conduct for divers. We are thankful the dive operators have been supportive of this effort,” Yeong added.

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Need for turtle-safe nets in Penang, Malaysia

Looi Sue-Chern, New Straits Times 18 Dec 09;

GEORGE TOWN: Deep-sea fishermen here may soon be forced to install turtle excluder devices (TEDs) in their trawl nets to protect the endangered species. Fisheries Department (marine resources management) section head Datuk Ahmad Saktian Langgang said the TEDs would be made compulsory if the population count of the species worsened.

He said there were no laws making TEDs compulsory at the moment, as the department was still conducting more research on the device.

"We have tried to introduce this device, which cost about RM1,000 and measures about 60cm long, but fishermen have found it unsuitable for their boats. For now, we can only raise the fishermen's awareness and encourage them to use the device to avoid capturing turtles by accident," he said yesterday after an awareness programme for fishermen at the Teluk Bahang National Park near here.

Ahmad Saktian said the department would also consider making the TEDs a prerequisite for fishermen's licence renewals, as well as introducing incentives.

Penang Fisheries Department resources management and protection branch head Mohd Rafi Hasan said the TEDs, which allow captured turtles to escape fishermen's nets, were unpopular with fishermen as they get jammed in the ships' pulley when the nets are hauled.

"The fishermen complained that the device complicates their operations.

"Therefore, there is a need for us to restudy the device and alter its design to suit fishermen's use," he said, adding that Fisheries' research unit in Terengganu was currently looking into the matter.

He said the use of TEDs by local fishermen would also enable Malaysian seafood to be exported to the United States and the European Union, where TED use was a must.

On whether Penang was facing problems with accidental turtle captures, Mohd Rafi said local fishermen have been very cooperative with the department, reporting all accidental captures immediately to enable swift release of the animals.

The penalty for capturing and keeping endangered marine species under the Fisheries Act is six months jail and RM5,000 fine.

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Sustainability standards completed for tilapia farming

Washington D.C. - Global standards addressing the negative impacts of tilapia farming on the environment and society have been finalized.
WWF 18 Dec 09;

They are the first set of final standards produced through the Aquaculture Dialogues, a series of roundtables coordinated by WWF.

The standards are the final product of the Tilapia Aquaculture Dialogue, a network of more than 200 people – including producers, conservationists and scientists – created in 2005 to help transform the aquaculture industry. Many of the participants are from the world’s leading tilapia producing regions, including Central America and Asia.

“With almost 75 percent of the world’s tilapia coming from a farm, instead of being raised in the wild, the need for credible standards is critical and timely,” said Dr. Aaron McNevin of WWF, tilapia Dialogue coordinator and Dialogue Steering Committee member.

The standards will allow the tilapia industry to grow while minimizing its impacts, such as non-native tilapia being introduced and chemicals being released into the water.

“There are other tilapia standards on the market but these standards have staying power because they were developed by a broad and diverse group of experts through a very transparent process,” McNevin said. “The standards also will have a long shelf life because they are metrics-based, which is the only way to really know if the tilapia industry is reducing its environmental footprint.”

The certification costs will be low compared to most certification programs because the standards focus on reducing a set number of key impacts instead of a long list of issues. The relatively low cost will make it easier for small- and large-scale producers to adopt the standards. Farmers who adopt the standards will be eligible for certification by early 2010.

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), a new entity that will be in operation in 2011, will be responsible for working with independent, third party entities to certify farms that are in compliance with all of the standards created through the Aquaculture Dialogues process, including the tilapia standards. In the meantime, this role will be filled by GLOBALGAP, a private sector body that sets voluntary standards. GLOBALGAP will certify tilapia producers by supplementing its existing food safety, environmental and social requirements with the new standards. GLOBALGAP Is expected to begin offering this new certification option to tilapia producers by the end of 2009.

“We support the tilapia standards because they will help us tell our customers the story they want and deserve to hear – that they are eating tilapia which was raised in an environmentally friendly way,” said Craig Watson, Vice President of Agricultural Sustainability of Sysco Corporation, the largest foodservice distributer in the United States. “And with the ASC in place, we will have the assurance that the standards will be adhered to properly, which will bring credibility and longevity to the standards.”

The tilapia standards are based on almost five years of discussions and research, as well as feedback received from more than 50 stakeholders when the draft standards were posted for review. The steering committee that managed the Dialogue process used all of this information to develop the final product. The committee included representatives from Regal Springs Trading Company, Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, New England Aquarium, Aquamar, Rain Forest Aquaculture and WWF.

“The end result of this process is a product our customers can be proud of because they know it is based on the best input from scientists, producers and NGOs,” said committee member Mike Picchietti of Regal Springs. “And the timing of it is perfect because the standards will allow the tilapia industry to grow without having a negative impact on the environment and society.”

The standards will be amended over time to incorporate new science and to encourage continuous improvement on the farm.

Through the Aquaculture Dialogues, standards for 12 aquaculture species will be created. The Dialogue process includes 2,000 people.The goal of the Dialogues is to follow the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling Alliance’s guidelines for creating environmental and social standards.

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Yao Ming aims to quell China's appetite for shark fin

D'arcy Doran Yahoo News 18 Dec 09;

SHANGHAI (AFP) – NBA star and Shanghai Sharks owner Yao Ming urged China on Friday to say no to shark fin soup to stop the overfishing of some species amid growing demand for the delicacy.

The Houston Rockets centre who recently bought his hometown's professional team, unveiled a television commercial aimed at wealthy Chinese which urges them to stop ordering shark fin soup.

"We have species that need our attention and protection," Yao told reporters at a press conference launching the campaign.

"They are endangered by excessive hunting by humans and deprived of habitats due to human greed."

The television advertisement produced for the San Francisco-based conservation group WildAid shows Yao pushing away a bowl of shark fin soup that is served to him in an upmarket restaurant.

"If you could see how shark fin is made, could you still eat it?" a voice asks as Yao looks at an aquarium in the dining room where a bleeding shark flails after its fin has been cut off.

One by one, sharply dressed diners push their bowls away as Yao says: "When the buying stops, the killing can too."

The ad will air on China Central Television -- the government's main broadcast mouthpiece -- and on screens in government buildings, a WildAid spokeswoman said.

WildAid President Steve Trent told reporters a recent survey in China found that two thirds of respondents did not know shark fin came from sharks.

Shark fin soup, which can cost more than 100 dollars a bowl, is served at weddings and on important occasions to display wealth, but also because it is believed to improve one's health.

However, Trent said a 2007-2008 WildAid study indicated that a quarter of shark fin samples sold at Hong Kong markets were unfit for human consumption.

He added that high mercury levels commonly found in shark fin increased the risk of infertility and brain damage.

Growing demand for shark fin -- driven mainly by Chinese consumers -- had caused populations of some shark species to collapse by as much as 99 percent, WildAid said.

The shellfish industry also is threatened by the dwindling shark numbers, Trent said. Sharks help control populations of certain shellfish predators, which have multipied wildly.

"With China's leadership, we can save the world's sharks," Trent said. "With Yao's help, this will happen a lot quicker."

Yao, who has been ranked as China's most successful celebrity six years running by Forbes magazine, has been a spokesman for shark preservation since 2006 and bought the Sharks basketball team in July.

"Hopefully in future our kids will learn about sharks not only from our team, but they can still see live sharks in the ocean -- not too close," he told reporters after the news conference.

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21st century explorers return with unique data from Indian Ocean

IUCN 18 Dec 09;

A team of the world’s leading marine experts, paired with scientists from the Indian Ocean region, have just returned from a six-week research expedition above seamounts in the high seas of the Indian Ocean with a whole new understanding of seamount ecosystems.
They gathered a very rich collection of data and specimens, including some strange-looking marine creatures.

The scientific survey was organized by IUCN and its partners to improve knowledge of seamounts across the southwest Indian Ocean ridge. Seamounts, underwater mountains of volcanic and tectonic origin, are known to be hotpots of biodiversity and attract a range of oceanic predators, including seabirds, whales and sharks. They also attract deepwater fisheries, as they host many species of commercial interest, most of which are very vulnerable to over-exploitation. The results of the research do not only have a scientific interest, but will help improve conservation and management of Indian Ocean marine resources.

“I am extremely pleased with the data that we have collected and the number of species that we have encountered”, says Dr Alex David Rogers, Chief Scientist of the Cruise and Senior Research Fellow at the Zoological Society of London. “The diversity of species that we sampled is higher than what I would have expected. Some species have been recorded for the first time in the region, and we hope to have found some species new to science. It was also very interesting to discover that the six seamounts we surveyed are very different from each other, and I believe our findings will certainly improve our global knowledge of seamount ecosystems”.

The Norwegian research vessel Dr Fridtjof Nansen left on 12 November from Reunion island, and travelled 6,000 miles in 40 days to study five seamounts on the southwest Indian Ocean Ridge, and one seamount further north on Walters Shoal, south of Madagascar, before docking in Port Elisabeth, South Africa, today. All features were located in waters beyond national jurisdictions, at two to three days' sailing from the nearest land. Two of them had been set aside on a voluntary basis as protected areas by the Southern Indian Ocean Deepsea Fishers Association, which would allow comparison between fished and unfished seamounts.

“It is gratifying to know that this work is not an isolated scientific trip, but will directly feed into conservation and management recommendations”, says Sarah Gotheil, Programme Officer with IUCN's Global Marine Programme. “Through our study we hope to confirm the conservation benefits of protecting seamount features on the ridge. This will inform future management of deep-sea ecosystems in the high seas globally”.

In total, nearly 7,000 specimens have been collected and labeled, from two-metre long fish to tiny crustacean larvae. They include an impressive variety of fish, shrimps, squids and gelatinous marine creatures. Many more microscopic species of phytoplankton and zooplankton, representing the base of the food chain in the ocean, have also been collected. The two seabird and marine mammal observers recorded thousands of seabirds from as many as 36 species, and 26 marine mammals. Two of them, majestic humpback whales, even offered the team a wonderful 30-minute show of jumping around at just a few metres from the ship.


Note for editors:

Partners:
The expedition is supported by expertise and funding supplied by partner organisations including the United Nations Development Programme, the Global Environment Facility, Zoological Society of London, the EAF-Nansen project, the Institute of Marine Research, Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems Project; the Marine Ecology Laboratory, University of Reunion and the African Coelacanth Ecosystem Programme.

Material for the Media:
Project website: www.iucn.org/marine/seamounts
Promotional brochure for the project: also available from the website above
Cruise blog: http://seamounts2009.blogspot.com/
Diary on BBC Earth News (with picture galleries) : http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8363000/8363108.stm

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Greenpeace Takes Shot At Sinar Mas Pulp And Paper

Fidelis E Satriastanti & Belinda Lopez, Jakarta Globe 19 Dec 09;

A day after Indonesian officials at the UN Climate talks praised PT Sinar Mas, the country’s largest palm oil producer, for its sustainable operations, international conservation group Greenpeace took another swing at Sinar Mas, this time taking aim at its pulp and paper arm.

The Greenpeace report launched in Beijing on Thursday entitled, “APP: Thirty Years of Forests Destruction,” said Sinar Mas subsidiary Asia Pulp & Paper has been responsible for clearing away an immense amount of forest land over the last three decades.

Joko Arif, a member of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said independent laboratory results from five samples of paper produced by APP showed three of the samples contained mixed tropical hardwood pulp originating from protected forests in Indonesia.

“Businesses and the public are voting with their conscience, and their wallets, against companies like Sinar Mas, but the government has yet to do anything even though the company has clearly broken national laws and are undermining President Yudhoyono’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Joko said.

“SBY should order an immediate review of all Sinar Mas concession permits and investigate their illegal forest destruction activities,” he added.

APP emitted 5.1 tons of carbon for every ton of pulp logged in natural forests, and 29 tons of carbon from peatland forests, according to Greenpeace’s report.

Greenpeace has also criticized the Sinar Mas’s palm oil division recently. Although Indonesian delegates in Copenhagen on Wednesday night defended the palm oil industry’s sustainability, another Greenpeace report the week before accused the country’s largest palm oil producer of deception and illegal practices.

In the reports, Greenpeace accuses the company of clearing land without permits, including peatland forests, which breaches Indonesian law and criteria set by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a collective of oil producers of which Sinar Mas is a member.

Of the country’s much-lauded commitment to reduce its emissions by 26 percent before 2020, Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said 9.6 percent would come from making the nation’s plantations more efficient. A 2009 decree on environmental protection plans to use law enforcement, improved technology and better management to ensure these efforts,” Hatta told a news conference.

Agriculture Minister Suswono said that despite “mismanagement in the past,” the focus in the future will be on increasing the production of existing palm oil plantations, instead of converting more forest land.

“As a developing country we need to use our land and natural resources to provide people with better personal income,” Suswono said, adding that the palm oil industry had provided food, infrastructure and electricity in underdeveloped parts of the nation.

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Scientists 'crying wolf' over coral, say Australian marine researcher

Jamie Walker, The Australian 19 Dec 09;

A SENIOR marine researcher has accused Australian scientists of "crying wolf" over the threat of climate change to the Great Barrier Reef, exposing deep division about its vulnerability.

Peter Ridd's rejection of the consensus position that the reef is doomed unless greenhouse emissions are checked comes as new research on the Keppel group, hugging Queensland's central coast, reveals its resilience after coral bleaching.

Professor Ridd, a physicist with Townsville's James Cook University who has spent 25 years investigating the impact of coastal runoff and other problems for the reef, challenged the widely accepted notion that coral bleaching would wipe it out if climate change continued to increase sea surface temperatures.

Instead of dying, the reef could expand south towards Brisbane as waters below it became warmer and more tolerable for corals, he said.

His suggestion is backed up by an Australian Institute of Marine Science research team headed by veteran reef scientist Ray Berkelmans, which has documented astonishing levels of recovery on the Keppel outcrops devastated by bleaching in 2006.

Professor Ridd said scientists who predicted corals would be mostly extinct by mid-century had a credibility problem because the Great Barrier Reef was in "bloody brilliant shape".

He said the reef had defied predictions that it would be overwhelmed by crown of thorns starfish, smothered in sediment from river runoff or poisoned by sediment and chemicals washed on to corals from the mainland. He accepted that ocean acidification associated with climate change was a genuine danger because it could impede the process of coral calcification, destroying the reef's building block. Scientists responsible for "crying wolf" over lesser threats had done the research community a disservice, he said.

"Ten years ago, I was told that the coral was going to die from sediment, and we have proved that is complete rubbish," Professor Ridd told The Weekend Australian.

"They are saying that pesticides are a problem, but when you look at the latest data, that is a load of rubbish. They are saying bleaching is the end of the world, but when you look into it, that is a highly dubious proposition.

"So when something comes along like the calcification problem, you are sort of left with this wolf story . . . they are crying wolf all the time."

Leading scientists including former AIMS chief scientist Charlie Veron and reef research pioneer Ove Hoegh-Gulberg, who attended the Copenhagen talks on climate change, have warned that the Great Barrier Reef will be destroyed by the middle of the century if ocean temperatures continue to rise, unleashing more frequent and lethal bleaching.

Mass bleaching was recorded on the Great Barrier Reef in 1998 and 2002, affecting up to 60 per cent of all corals. The last severe outbreak, in which stressed corals eject the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients, causing many to die, was localised on the Keppel reefs three years ago.

More than 95 per cent of the corals were affected, of which about a third died. The corals became stressed after the water temperature topped 28.5C and began to die when it hit 30C and stayed at that level for a week or more, with limited wind or cloud cover to ease the heating.

Scientists have found the tolerance level of corals varies. Reefs around Magnetic Island, off Townsville, can withstand water temperatures in the low 30s, while those off Yemen, at the foot of the Arabian peninsula, live in temperatures that can reach 34C.

As The Weekend Australian reports today, some of the corals on the Keppel outcrops are more thickly covered in coral than before bleaching in 2006, raising hope the living heart of the reef can acclimatise to spikes in water temperature through a remarkable process of algal shuffling.

"That was a real surprise," Dr Berkelmans said, conducting us on an underwater tour of what he calls his "lab rat" reefs at the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef.

He said the findings made him more optimistic about the ability of corals to adapt to climate change, especially on inshore reefs such as those in the Keppels.

"People say the reef is dying," Dr Berkelmans said. "The Great Barrier Reef is 2000km long, with 3000 reefs. Are you telling me all of it is going to die?

"I don't think so. There are some areas that are naturally more resilient than others, there are some areas that see warmer temperatures less frequently because of favourable oceanography or other factors . . . We might lose species, and we might lose them at many reefs. The Great Barrier Reef would look vastly different, but the reef would still be there."

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chairman Russell Reichelt, a former AIMS scientist who worked on crown of thorns outbreaks, said Professor Ridd had cherrypicked data to support his thesis that the threat to the reef was exaggerated. "I would liken it to the medical debate around `Does smoking cause cancer?'," Dr Reichelt said.

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Great Barrier Reef at risk of hot-spot bleaching within months

Peter Michael, couriermail 19 Dec 09;

SCIENTISTS warn the Great Barrier Reef faces a "double whammy" threat of coral bleaching this summer after record high temperatures.

Latest satellite imagery from the US shows a dire outlook for the Reef.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the peak US body, has forecast severe bleaching of the Reef within the next four months.

The entire Great Barrier Reef, worth $6.5 billion a year to the national economy, is painted red with potential "hot-spots" from south of Mackay to north of Cairns.

But Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority experts say their own outlook, based on local data, is not so alarming.

This comes with the United Nation's Copenhagen climate talks, described as a "defining moment for the planet", on the brink of spectacular failure.

The summit attended by 140 world leaders by last night had done little to clinch a legally binding deal to cut global emissions.

The Great Barrier Reef is universally cited as the world's first eco-system most likely to die off under human-induced climate change, possibly within decades.

But GBRMPA climate change director Dr Paul Marshall yesterday said local modelling suggested the latest four-month outlook might not be "as high" or as bleak as the NOAA forecast.

"Early indicators do not point to a super-hot summer," Dr Marshall said, based on Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO figures. "But if we do have a hot summer on the back of the winter we've had we are in serious trouble."

The "double whammy" of Australia's hottest recorded six months on land and the warmest winter water temperatures on record was worrying.

"Usually over winter is when coral recuperate, get their health back, grow and build energy stores," he said.

"If we get above-average temperatures the corals go into summer already stressed, vulnerable and susceptible."

Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching risk low
Daniel Bateman, The Cairns Post 23 Dec 09;

THE Great Barrier Reef is at a low risk of coral bleaching this summer.

However, Reef managers warn this forecast may change in a matter of weeks.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has released its annual coral bleaching forecast for the reef, with the risk of widespread bleaching rated as low, on the basis of seasonal temperature trends.

Last year, the authority predicted a higher risk of coral bleaching, caused by rising summer sea temperatures.

The worst years so far for coral bleaching have been 1998 and 2002 – the two hottest summers on record.

GBRMPA chairman Dr Russell Reichelt said: "For the whole Reef, we’re saying that it’s low risk of bleaching, but there are indicators of higher risk of bleaching in the southern part of the reef. We’ve also got to take into account some of the long-range stuff.

"The weather bureau is telling us 2009-2010 is likely to be an El Nino year.

"That is one of the things in the past, where we’ve had our worst bleaching during an El Nino year, so we’re watching closely this El Nino pattern developing."

Dr Reichelt said any cyclonic activity or intense flooding over the summer could also result in coral bleaching.

Coral bleaching occurs when sea temperature rises more than one degree above coral’s normal range, forcing it to expel its symbiotic algae, which supplies coral with nutrients.

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Acid oceans: the 'evil twin' of climate change

John Heilprin, Associated Press Yahoo News 18 Dec 09;

MONTEREY BAY NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY, Calif. – Far from Copenhagen's turbulent climate talks, the sea lions, harbor seals and sea otters reposing along the shoreline and kelp forests of this protected marine area stand to gain from any global deal to cut greenhouse gases.

These foragers of the sanctuary's frigid waters, flipping in and out of sight of California's coastal kayakers, may not seem like obvious beneficiaries of a climate treaty crafted in the Danish capital. But reducing carbon emissions worldwide also would help mend a lesser-known environmental problem: ocean acidification.

"We're having a change in water chemistry, so 20 years from now the system we're looking at could be affected dramatically but we're not really sure how. So we see a train wreck coming," said Andrew DeVogelaere, the sanctuary's research director, while out kayaking this fall with a reporter in the cold waters.

Nothing in the treaty negotiations specifically addresses the effects of carbon absorption in the oceans on marine life, which studies show is damaging key creatures' hard shells or skeletons.

Oceans absorb about 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere from human activities each year, says a new U.N. report released at the Copenhagen talks this week. That helps slow global warming in the atmosphere, the focus of the Copenhagen talks.

But carbon dissolving in oceans also forms carbonic acid, raising waters' acidity that damages all manner of hard-shelled creatures, and setting off a chain reaction that threatens the food chain supporting marine life, including the lumbering sea mammals along the 276-mile coast of the California sanctuary and the rest of the U.S. West Coast.

By 2100, the report said, some 70 percent of cold water corals — a key refuge and feeding ground for commercially popular fish that also are food for the seals and otters — will be exposed to the harmful effects.

Ocean acidity could increase 150 percent just by mid-century, according to the report by the Secretariat of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.

"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," it said.

The average acidity of oceans' surface water is estimated to increase measurably by the end of the century and will affect marine life, according to Peter Brewer, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

"The total quantity of carbon dioxide that we've put into the oceans today is around 530 billion tons," Brewer told journalists on a fall fellowship program with the Honolulu-based East-West Center. "Now, it's going up at about 1 million tons an hour. You can't keep doing that without it having some impact."

And Brewer, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning U.N. scientific panel on climate change, said that's only part of the story.

"The trouble is, there's more than one thing going on," he said, citing other effects of climate change that bring, for example, "milder winters, so the deep ocean is getting less oxygen down there."

Given the importance of marine life — some 1 billion people depend on fish as their primary source of protein — climate experts and researchers at the treaty talks have sought to draw more attention to the problem. They call it a particularly important — but largely overlooked — reason for nations to agree on a new climate accord.

In Copenhagen, Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which manages the sanctuary, said global cuts in greenhouse gases are needed to limit the "blue" carbon absorbed by oceans.

She said the Copenhagen talks have focused on other types of carbon — the "brown" variety from industrial warming gases released by fossil fuel burning, the "green" carbon from burning and chopping down tropical rainforests — but there has been little focus on helping the oceans.

"It's important to recognize that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also being absorbed by oceans, and that makes oceans more acidic," Lubchenco told AP.

"I call this ocean acidification climate change's equally evil twin, if you will," she said. "And part of the need to reduce carbon emissions is to both slow down the rate of climate change but also to start repairing the damage that is being done to oceans."

Lubchenco pointed to the harmful effects of carbon absorption in the oceans as decreasing the amount of calcium carbonate that can be used by marine creatures to construct shells or skeletons.

"As the oceans become more acidic, it's harder for corals, oysters, clams, crabs, mussels, lobsters to make their shells or their hard parts, and they dissolve faster," she said.

"So ocean acidification, which is a relatively unappreciated problem, is as important as climate change. It's one that most people haven't heard of. Another way to think of ocean acidification is as osteoporosis of the seas."

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Amazon Losing "Flying Rivers," Ability to Curb Warming

Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News 18 Dec 09;

The Amazon's "flying rivers"—humid air currents that deliver water to the vast rain forest—may be ebbing, which could have dire consequences for the region's ability to help curb global warming, an expert said this week at the Copenhagen climate conference.

Rising temperatures in the Amazon region, in large part due to climate change, are creating more arid savannas, which disrupt the water cycle vital to Brazil's farming and energy industries.

Deforestation also plays a role. As more of Brazil's rain forests fall to logging and agriculture, there are fewer trees to release the water vapor that creates these flying rivers.

Until recently, Amazon forest loss has been primarily linked to the trees' role in trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), which are a root cause of global warming.

"Most people look at the Amazon as the lungs of the world, or as a solution to capture CO2," said Gérard Moss, an engineer and founder of the Flying Rivers Project, an ongoing effort to document the humid air currents and their effects.

"But I'd like people to realize that the Amazon Basin is a huge water pump—rain is [our] most valuable asset," he said by phone Wednesday in Copenhagen, where he gave a press briefing on the project earlier this week.

Flying rivers may transport as much water as the Amazon River itself, he added. "This huge rain machine needs to be preserved."

Watery World

The Amazon region is awash with fresh water: 3,700 cubic miles (15,400 cubic kilometers) falls from the sky each year, the highest rate of rainfall in the world. The runner-up is Russia, with a yearly rate of 1,900 cubic miles (7,800 cubic kilometers).

Flying Rivers Project scientists—led by agronomist and Amazon-rainfall expert Enéas Salati—have determined that a single large tree in the center of the Amazon forest can give off up to 317 quarts (300 liters) of water in a day. (See rain forest pictures.)

In a process called evapotranspiration, trees draw water from their roots and then "transpire" some of that water back into the air.

Since 2003, Moss has flown through Brazil's airborne rivers in a single-engine plane to collect water vapor samples. The vapor's chemical "footprints" are then analyzed at the Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA) in Piracicaba, in the state of Sao Paulo.

The project's goal has been to figure out where the water comes from and then map how wind currents carry water across the vast Amazon Basin.

For instance, Salati's research in the 1980s showed that more than half of the Amazon's rainfall emanates from trees, with the rest coming from vapor from surface water bodies.

Moss recently completed a seven-day research trip along the trajectory of one flying river that ends in the city of Sao Paulo. Those results showed that the wet air current flowed at 1,990 miles (3,200 kilometers) a second—about as fast as a major river.

The Brazilian rain forest's moisture is important for sustaining South American rainfall, especially the winter monsoons, noted Helene Muri, of the Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

"So if the trees are chopped down, the rainfall rates could be reduced through this mechanism," Muri said by email.

Any changes in vegetation can impact the local "water budget" and create drought conditions that impact agriculture and industry, she added.

Withering Economy

Brazil's economy may wither if the flying rivers dry out, project founder Moss said.

Farmers in the Amazon's fertile Matto Grosso state are highly dependent on Amazon rain to grow their crops, for example. The agriculture industry in the region is extremely profitable because so little irrigation is needed.

"Rainwater has been taken for granted ... ," Moss said.

"In addition, 80 percent of Brazil's energy is related to hydroelectric power, so every single drop of rain counts," Moss said. "If we start losing rain, it will have a huge impact [on our energy]."

But Moss added that the need to preserve rain forests has percolated into the public consciousness in Brazil.

"More people are realizing," he said, "that the well-being of many people in the southern parts [of Brazil] is related to every tree in the Amazon."

The Flying Rivers Project is funded by the National Water Regulatory Agency (ANA) and by Petrobras, an oil company in Brazil.

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New Map Reveals Tsunami Risks in California

The map, released close to the fifth anniversary of the 2004 Sumatran Tsunami, will be helpful in emergency response planning

Davide Castelvecchi, Scientific American 18 Dec 09;

SAN FRANCISCO—Just days before the fifth anniversary of the 2004 Sumatran Tsunami, California officials on Thursday released a new map of the state's tsunami hazard, which details how an event could affect 350,000 people who live along the coast and cause tens of billions of dollars of damage.

A red line separates possible disaster from safety—the line past which you would have to run to be safe from an inundation. The map will help authorities plan emergency response plans, showing which areas may need to be evacuated. It covers the 50 percent of the California coastline that is significantly populated, and is "based on the largest anticipated tsunami event, plus a high tide," said State Geologist John Parrish of the California Geological Survey in a press conference at a meeting here of the American Geophysical Union.

Scientists preparing the map used computer simulations to model the tsunamis that happen once every 500 to 1,000 years—including those caused by remote earthquakes or underwater slides that could affect the California coast. The scientists heeded the lessons of the 2004 event, which showed how waves can still have deadly impacts after traveling thousands of miles. "Post-Sumatra, we started considering events that are all along the Pacific Ocean," says Costas Synolakis, director of the University of Southern California's Tsunami Research Center.

Although San Francisco is often seen as the earthquake capital of the U.S., the most destructive tsunamis would probably not originate here nor anywhere in the states. Large tsunamis are typically produced by tectonic plates moving vertically, whereas California mostly has plates moving sideways past other, as happens along the San Andreas Fault. Instead, scientists are especially concerned by waves that could originate in the Cascadia subduction zone, which extends from British Columbia to Oregon, or even farther north in the Aleutian Islands.

Waves from a large event, such as a high-magnitude Cascadian earthquake, could affect up to 350,000 people along the California coast—not including the people who may be visiting the state's beaches on a warm summer day, explains Rick Wilson of the California Geological Survey. Waves could typically reach 45 feet at Crescent City, in the northernmost part of the state, and 10 to 12 feet in Southern California, Wilson says.

But because tsunami waves can be greatly amplified or dampened by the local profile of the seafloor and by the shape of the coastline, the effects could vary greatly. In particular, a counterintuitive conclusion of the study is that in crescent-shaped bays, the south-facing northern coast could be hit by worse waves than the north-facing south coast, even though the waves would come from the north. For example, in Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz may be more affected than Monterey, Wilson says.

And of course, low-lying coastal areas will take the worst hits even from relatively low waves, points out Aggeliki Barberopoulou of the University of Southern California, who carried out the computer simulations. For instance, whereas in hilly San Francisco waves might move inland by just a couple of city blocks, in places such as Newport Beach (in Orange County) the inundation may reach a mile or more farther, making evacuation more difficult.

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Threat of rising seas looms over coastal Africa

* Coastal residents say sea levels already rising
* 56 million people live in low-lying coastal areas
* Major lagoon cities such as Lagos could be submerged

Tim Cocks, Reuters 18 Dec 09;

ABIDJAN, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Africans living on the coast, who face the loss of their cities, homes and livelihoods to rising seas, are less interested in haggling over greenhouse gas emissions than getting aid to move to higher ground.

Speaking as talks on a global climate deal in Copenhagen ran into disagreements over how to share the burden of emissions cuts, some residents of low-lying coastal Africa said they had more pressing concerns.

"We want the authorities of the world powers to come and rescue the poor people from the sea," said Diakite Abdullaye, 46, looking over his shoulder at the ruins of a house he said had already been destroyed by the advancing ocean.

"If they can't stop the sea rising, then help us move somewhere else," said the resident of Ivory Coast's biggest city.

Rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps are seen by climate experts as largely unavoidable for centuries to come, even if substantial cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are made.

"Like a slowly boiling kettle, the oceanic system has very long response time to changing conditions and the seas will go on slowly rising for centuries even if all greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow," wrote Mark Lynas, a British climate expert and author who advises the government of the Maldives.

The U.N.'s climate change panel in 2007 predicted global warming would raise sea levels by between 18 and 59 cm (7 and 24 inches) this century. Many climate scientists believe the estimate is conservative, and a rise of a metre or more is likely.

Either way, it could spell disaster for much of coastal Africa, especially densely populated tropical West Africa whose economic centres sprawl along the coast.

The United Nations estimates Africa has 320 coastal cities and about 56 million people living in "low lying" coastal zones, those less than 10 metres above mean sea level.

ENCROACHING TIDE

Some expects say sea levels have risen by about 20 cm since the start of the Industrial Revolution in northern Europe.

That is no surprise to residents of Abidjan's Port Bouet, where abandoned concrete shacks litter the beach. Some have lost their front walls. Scaffolding is all that remains of others.

"Twenty years ago the sea was far away from here," said Samassa Awa, 39, an unemployed nurse whose wooden shack has been flooded by the Atlantic many times. "You see all these destroyed houses? Many people fled but we decided to stay."

Poor planning and the haphazard construction of homes on reclaimed land subject to erosion has compounded the problem.

In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, millions may have to move. The city is home to 15 million people spread over creeks and lagoons. The Lagos state government has been battling to reinforce the long sand spits that protect the mouth of the main lagoon from the Atlantic.

Gilbert Pandy, a resident of the Congolese capital Brazzaville, said advancing seas had washed away a village cemetery. "We are exposed to a disaster ... Sadly, no one cares," he said.

Africa's island paradises such as the Seychelles could be among the first to suffer.

Rolph Payet, an adviser to the government who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore for his work on climate change, told Reuters half of the Seychelles' islands were barely two metres above sea level.

"All of our infrastructure, telecommunications, fuel, ports, airports, are located on the coast," he said, adding that tourist resorts in outlying islands risked being submerged.

"The most frustrating thing is that we can do something. If an asteroid hits the planet, fine, we will all be doomed, but we are in a situation where we can actually solve the problem." (Additional reporting by Richard Lough in Antananarivo and Christian Tsoumou in Brazzaville; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

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World must prepare for mass climate migration: IOM

Yahoo News 18 Dec 09;

GENEVA (AFP) – The International Organisation for Migration warned on Friday the world must prepare for a mass increase in climate-linked migration as leaders battled to save a deal on global warming in Copenhagen.

"Climate change and environmental degradation are already triggering migration or displacement all over the planet," the IOM warned on the critical last day of the Denmark summit, which coincides with International Migrants Day.

Right now, "it is the world's poorest countries that are bearing the brunt" of the migration, said the Geneva-based body, calling for leaders to make "greater efforts, beyond Copenhagen," to tackle the complex issue.

IOM director general William Lacy Swing said experts still struggle to measure the number of people worldwide who choose to leave or are driven from their homes because of climate change and environmental degradation.

But he said the IOM has established beyond doubt that environmental migration "is a growing trend" and that "climate change, demographic trends and globalisation all point to more migration in the future."

The IOM pointed at several Asian countries already struggling to cope with mass migration from rural areas to cities, as farmers' livelihoods are destroyed by recurrent floods.

In many cases, it argued, migration is a valuable "coping mechanism" for populations struggling with environmental degradation, such as in Mali where thousands have left drought-stricken areas in recent years.

But developing nations will need help to cope with large-scale environmental migration, it said, urging the rich world to unblock financial aid, over and above existing development assistance.

And climate-linked emigration from hotspots in Asia, Africa, Central and Latin America will also pose a major challenge to the developed world, the IOM said, warning policy-makers have yet to grasp the scale of the issue.

Swing said the world had a duty to "manage migration in a way that increases the benefits and opportunities and reduces suffering."

"The effects of climate change will be an increasingly important variable in this equation. We need to think ahead and plan for change. We need to be prepared to respond to the humanitarian challenges that climate change is already posing today."

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Copenhagen Talks Create Hardly a Ripple in Malaysia

Anil Netto, IPS News 18 Dec 09;

PENANG, Malaysia, Dec 18 (IPS) - Even if Prime Minister Najib Razak is in Copenhagen for the high-level segment of the U.N. conference on climate change, there has been precious little meaningful debate on the subject here in Malaysia.

Few Malaysians really understand the issues at stake, in part due to the lack of much meaningful analysis in the media apart from the odd commentary.

Not many politicians, whether from the ruling coalition or opposition ranks, have also really discussed climate change and its impact on this South-east Asian country, and put it in the public domain.

Government-controlled television and newspapers have in the main relied on video clips and press reports from the foreign media and western news agencies. These are usually tucked away in world news sections, unless something dramatic happens like the mass arrests of demonstrators in Copenhagen.

The Malaysian public has largely remained in the dark or unconcerned over the issues involved. Only 35 percent -- down from 52 percent in 2008 -- of Malaysians agreed that ''climate change and how we respond to it are among the biggest issues they worry about today", according to a Climate Confidence Monitor 2009 survey conducted by Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corp. Two thirds, however, think a new global deal is important.

But the major factor behind the lack of focus of climate change issues in the country is its geographical position, since Malaysia lies in an area thus far spared from extreme weather events, suggests Anthony Tan, executive director of the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development (Cetdem).

''The weather is a bit more unpredictable now, but we haven't been shocked into the reality of climate change. There is no extreme drought though there are floods, but those seem to be on a yearly basis. This is unlike the situation in the Pacific islands, where they are worried about rising sea levels."

Cetdem is an independent non-profit group committed to improving environmental quality by promoting the appropriate use of technology and sustainable development. It is part of a Malaysian climate change steering committee comprising government departments and agencies. The committee, set up by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, meets twice a year.

From Copenhagen, the state news agency Bernama quoted Najib as saying that Malaysia believes that having developed countries do more to keep their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions is an issue of fairness. "This is based on the principle of fairness because they (developed countries) are the biggest contributors of carbon emissions," he told Malaysian journalists there Friday after addressing the climate change conference.

As a developing nation, Malaysia has no quantitative commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Through the clean development mechanism under the Protocol, Malaysia can trade certified emission reductions in the international market.

Developing countries have insisted that the Kyoto Protocol should continue and that developed countries should slash their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent, compared to 1990 levels, by 2020.

But the developed nations do not want this without the United States on board. They also want developing nations to commit to cuts.

Developed nations have rejected this, wanting a second period of the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 and a so-called two-track approach. This would that see to it that the developed nations commit themselves to more cuts, the United States comes on board through a second track of similar commitments and developing nations agree to voluntary action supported by financial and technological aid.

Najib said Malaysia would have to do its part in addressing climate change. But he also said that the 10 billion U.S. dollar fast-track funding for developing nations to control their emissions, as discussed in the Copenhagen talks, is small compared to the accountability of developed nations.

Whether Malaysia indeed keeps to its own commitments remains to be seen.

Oil and gas, manufacturing, and oil palm products are major revenue earners at a time when Malaysia is expected to post its largest budget deficit in two decades at 7.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product. In eastern Sarawak state alone, Malaysia's auditor-general noted in his 2008 report that close to a million hectares of permanent forest reserve had been lost between 1990 and 2008.

Malaysia recorded 187 million tonnes of carbon emissions in 2006, according to U. N. Millennium Development Goal indicators. That puts it in third place in the South-east Asian region behind Indonesia (333 million tonnes) and Thailand (273 million tonnes), with Vietnam (106 million tonnes) in fourth place.

On a per capita basis, a different picture emerges. With 7.2 tonne of CO2 per capita, Malaysia is still the third highest emitter in South-east Asia. Brunei tops the list at 15.5 tonnes per capita, followed by Singapore with 12.8 tonnes. Thailand (4.3 tonnes) and Indonesia (1.5 tonnes) occupy fourth and fifth places respectively.

Malaysia's rhetoric on climate change has to be seen against what actually takes place locally, given the balancing act the government needs to do between its eagerness to boost economic growth and also cater to investors' interests as it drives the economy forward.

On Monday this week, as the Copenhagen summit moved into high gear before its scheduled end on Friday, Malaysian Youth and Sports Minister Wee Jeck Seng, representing the Prime Minister, unveiled the drivers for Malaysia's new Team Lotus F1 that will debut in the coming season of high- octane, fuel-guzzling Formula One racing. (END/2009)

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Targets Will Be Met By Slashing Forest and Peat Emissions: Indonesian Climate Delegates

Belinda Lopez, Jakarta Globe 18 Dec 09;

Copenhagen. Forest and peat industries are set to slash emissions in the next eleven years, Indonesian delegates revealed Thursday night, following speculation about how the country would meet its voluntarily commitment to cut back emissions by 26 percent before 2020.

Forestry emissions would be reduced by 13.3 percent, while peat would fall by 9.5 percent, with energy, transportation, waste and agriculture sectors also making minor emission reductions under Indonesia’s voluntary commitment.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reiterated a further commitment to reduce Indonesia’s emissions to 41 percent with additional international funding at the UN talks on Thursday. Delegates later revealed the main reductions would again be in forestry and peat emissions, a total 13.5 percent of the extra 15 percent reduction.

Reducing emissions by 41 percent would come at a cost of Rp 168.3 trillion ($17.8 billion), a government report obtained by the Jakarta Globe revealed. This would include Rp 85 trillion ($9.1 billion) required to reduce emissions by the extra 15 percent, a sum Indonesia earlier indicated it would seek from the international community.

Earlier on Thursday, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain, along with the United States, pledged a $3.5 billion fund to kick-start the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation scheme (REDD). It aims to encourage developing nations to preserve forests by measuring and giving an economic value to the carbon saved from deforestation. Under the scheme, the saved carbon will be sold as ‘credits’ to investors and industrialized nations with higher emissions.

“This will be good for the start, but of course we need more,” Wandojo Siswanto, the lead Indonesian negotiator for REDD, said.

Environment office to lead efforts to cut emissions
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 17 Dec 09;

State Secretary Sudi Silalahi insisted that the State Minister of Environment Office lead the country’s efforts to meet emissions cut target set by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“It will be under the coordination of state minister of environment office,” Sudi told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the UN climate summit on Thursday.

Indonesia has pledged to cut emissions by 24 percent by 2020 using the state budget but will increase the target to 41 percent if rich nations provide financial assistance.

The government said that emissions cut target would be fulfilled in forestry, energy and waste sectors. Only waste management currently falls under the supervision of the state minister of environment office.

The ministerial office has long complained about the lack of coordination among the departments responsible for climate change issues.

The Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Forestry have each formed a special unit to deal with the climate change.

Yudhoyono has set up a national council on climate change (DNPI) as a focal point for climate change issues, but its coordination role in the face of the sectors related to climate change issues has remained unclear. Former environment minister Rachmat Witoelar chairs the council.

The DNPI has taken over many climate change-related programs from the state minister of environment office.

Indonesia has roadmap to meet pledged emissions cut: Dino
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta Post 17 Dec 09;

Indonesia claims to have completed a detailed roadmap on how to meet its emissions cut target, on official says.

“We have made a roadmap on how to meet emissions cut target and details of the fund needed to achieve it,” presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of climate summit on Thursday.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in his speech before world leaders attending the UN climate conference did not elaborate Indonesia’s efforts to meet the target.

Indonesia has pledged to reduce 26 percent of emissions by 2020 with state budget and increase the target to 41 percent if rich nations provide financial assistance.

Questions have been rife, however, as to how the Indonesian government can meet such a high target.

REDD Faces Defining Moment at Copenhagen Summit
Belinda Lopez, Jakarta Globe 18 Dec 09;

“Still here, Pak?” Agus Purnomo, head of Indonesia’s National Council on Climate Change, was asked at 2:30 a.m. on Friday at the Bella Center, the official venue for the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.

“Still here,” Agus replied, wearily.

While other delegates in crumpled suits sought refuge and sleep on couches throughout the center, Indonesian negotiators worked into the early hours with other international representatives, leaving only to take a shower at their hotel and return.

Observers reported no real progress from plenary meetings held late on Thursday night and into Friday morning, a process to be repeated as the Jakarta Globe went to print early on Saturday morning.

“Negotiations are not going well,” Fitrian Ardiansyah, a World Wildlife Fund campaigner in Indonesia, said on Friday. The battle lines had been clearly set between the rich and poor, with the Group of 77 developing nations and China leading the fray.

Indonesia positioned itself as the developing country with a moderate voice in discussions. The nation’s lead negotiator on deforestation, Wandojo Siswanto, reiterated his desire to achieve a “realistic strategy for” Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation — the scheme aimed at assisting developing countries to preserve forests.

Many suggest that REDD will be the only legally binding agreement to emerge from the Copenhagen summit.

Indonesia has “common ground” with the G-77 and China, Masnellyarti Hilman, deputy minister for the environment, acknowledged on Thursday night. “But of course, Indonesia would like to have a deal here.”

“We’ve tried to do more than we have to, in terms of a target in REDD emissions and on [monitoring, reporting and verification]. This is our offer,” she said.

MRV became something of an impasse at the talks. China has been reluctant to subject its emission-curbing actions to independent international scrutiny, while the US has made MRV a condition of mobilizing $100 billion in financing for developing nations by 2020.

“For without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page,” read the text of a speech by US President Barack Obama, who appeared at the climate talks on Friday.

Masnellyarti said, however, that Indonesia recognized the importance of accurate and transparent emissions data.

“How can we count reductions [in emissions] if we don’t monitor them?”

In his address to the plenary session on Thursday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia was willing to have its strategy and progress open to international scrutiny.

“Developing countries have to worry about their development and lifting millions out of poverty, and their budget is often strangled by the financial crisis,” he said. “But that is no reason to avoid transparency .”

Concerns Grow Over UN Forest Scheme
Belinda Lopez, Jakarta Globe 18 Dec 09;

Copenhagen. A world away from the official climate talks are the forests of the world’s developing nations. Agreements may be made (and unmade) in carpeted conference halls by world leaders, but it is local forest communities who will now be on the frontline of the fight against deforestation — and the many ways governments and companies may be able to make a quick buck in the process.

The small beacon of hope for a legally binding text at the climate talks was the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plan. REDD is a UN-backed scheme that seeks to put a price on the environmental damage caused by forest degradation and allow developing nations to sell “credits” in exchange for not chopping their trees down.

The great hope is that the income generated by these credits will be sufficient to replace the cash earned by the loggers, plantation companies and slash-and-burn farmers who are destroying the archipelago’s pristine jungle.

Discussions over REDD during the climate talks have been stalled by disagreements over whether such a scheme should be managed by national governments or by smaller provinces in “subnational” agreements, Wandojo Siswanto, Indonesia’s lead negotiator for REDD, said on Friday.

With its decentralized government, Indonesia supports giving a limited degree of autonomy to local governments to handle some aspects of REDD projects, Wandojo said.

“Biodiversity is not evenly distributed,” he said, referring to the fact that the heavily forested areas are to be found in Papua, Kalimantan and Aceh.

Indonesian delegates noted this week that Papua alone had more than five million hectares that could be demarcated as forested lands under REDD — comprising about 50 percent of the forests to be preserved in Indonesia.

Stibniati Atmadja, a research fellow at the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, ttended the Copenhagen talks. She will be observing the implementation of REDD in forest communities in Indonesia as part of a Cifor’s comparative, three-year study across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

“A lot of people and local governments at the district level don’t really understand the logic of REDD, how it fits into climate change and how it fits into their daily lives,” she said. “There hasn’t been a concerted effort in Indonesia to communicate across different levels.”

Despite the government’s acknowledgement that local communities should benefit from any REDD scheme, Stibniati says there is wide potential for misuse of funds, potential conflicts about land ownership and disagreements on how carbon emissions should actually be measured.

“I have not seen the kind of political will in Indonesia that is necessary to ensure that the REDD projects actually benefit communities rather than cause them more harm,” she said.

American investigative journalist Mark Schapiro has reported on such conflict in Brazil between indigenous communities whose families had lived in forests for generations and those enforcing carbon restrictions.

“Suddenly they were getting arrested for hunting or cutting down one tree,” he said. “If not properly handled, a lot of people are concerned that their long-term ability to survive in the forest will be threatened.”

Schapiro is also concerned about the complexities of so-called carbon accounting — everything from measuring the variable rates of carbon in different tree species to ensuring that book-keeping doesn’t become too creative.

“If you talk to law enforcement people who are looking forward, they are seeing potential for criminality emerging in the way that forests are being monetized,” Schapiro said.

Yet Brazil considers itself to be the most sophisticated of developing countries in its approach to the implementation of REDD.

“Brazil distinguishes itself from Indonesia because it sees itself as having better controls to protect trees,” he said.

Wandojo, who said Brazil was more advanced in implementing REDD, said Indonesia would maintain a central database of projects to ensure they were properly managed.

Advocacy organizations Human Rights Watch and Greenpeace both released reports this month raising alarm bells about the country’s ability to retain control of such a process, given the illegal deforestation they claim is taking place right under the central government’s nose.

HRW claimed half of all Indonesian timber from 2003-06 was logged illegally, with rampant tax evasion taking place. Greenpeace accused the largest palm oil producer Sinar Mas of flouting environmental standards while falsely presenting itself as a sustainable company. Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta denied Greenpeace’s claims during the climate summit.

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Fight to control Copenhagen climate change fund

Navin Singh Khadka, BBC News 18 Dec 09;

The deadlock over who should cut carbon emissions and by how much may be dominating the headlines here in Copenhagen but behind the scenes an equally big issue is being thrashed out. It's a fight for control of the massive new fund that will challenge our changing climate.

So far there has been no agreement regarding how this money should be managed and where it should be channelled as negotiating bodies from the developed and developing worlds hold fast to their polarised positions.

"So far, we have no agreement on the new climate fund or the body that will oversee it" Jukka Uosukainen, a co-facilitator representing the developed countries in the financial negotiations told the BBC.

"But if we have an overall agreement in this summit, I think we can still reach into an agreement."

Shaping the fund

US negotiators are backing the idea of a new climate fund which, insiders say, would have the Washington-based World Bank as its trustee.

However, the developing world groupings at Copenhagen want a new body to control the fund which would be under the direct control of the Conference of Parties. The COP brings together all 192 countries that have signed the United Nations Convention Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

"We have made it clear that we want the COP to have the authority over the new body that will control finance," said Farrukh Khan of Pakistan, a co-chair representing developing countries in the financial negotiations.

But the word around Copenhagen is that the developed world doesn't like this idea and is suggesting that the COP provide guidance to the new body.

Meanwhile, it's understood that the EU is insisting that existing institutions should be allowed to do the job as it believes that creating new ones will only cause delay, as has happened with the Climate Adaptation Fund that was formed two years ago to help developing countries adapt, but has yet to come online.

Sources say there is a difference of opinion within the European bloc as some member countries want to continue providing climate change funds through bilateral channels.

Accessing the fund

Developing countries are stressing that they need to have direct access to the fund as, they argue, their experience to date of trying to access funds from existing agencies has not been a pleasant one.

The Global Environment Facility in Washington comes in for particular criticism. It handles the Least Developed Countries Fund for Climate Adaptation and the Special Climate Change Fund.

Saleemul Huq, adaptation expert with the International Institute for Environment & Development says, "The tradition has been that funds like the LDCF have never had adequate money and they have remained under the control of donors and that has often delayed the process of accessing the money."

But insiders here at Copenhagen say the developed world is in no mood to give up this kind of "control". An expert observer tells me that at a recent meeting a Western politician said that his parliament would not allow him to give away money just like that, without knowing how much is being spent, who is getting it and what is it being used for.

The expert went on to tell me that as "it also involves the issue of legislation, they would prefer either a bilateral aid mechanism or their preferred international institutions to channel their money."

But Farrukh Khan says that the problem is that financing the fight against climate change is being viewed by the developed world as overseas development assistance as usual.

"It is not like giving aid to poor countries, it is basically compensating the poor for making them so vulnerable and exposed to the impacts of climate change," Mr Khan told the BBC. "It's a completely different issue."

Another issue many donor countries raise is the "absorptive" capacity of the developing world. They say that they are not always able to use all the funds allocated to certain projects within a stipulated time-frame. They also draw attention to the issue of rampant corruption throughout the developing world.

Controlling the fund

However, those closely following the financial negotiations say that the big game is all about controlling resources and securing power.

"It certainly is a big power game," said a senior European representative actively involved in negotiations. "The fund will run into billions and getting to control it will mean you will be powerful in the world order."

Given the high stakes and the conflicting positions and passions involved, devising a mechanism, to which all parties agree, to manage and channel the new climate fund is surely the hardest task of all.

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Obama says 'unprecedented' deal reached on climate

Michael Casey And Jennifer Loven, Associated Press Yahoo News 19 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN – President Barack Obama said the United States, China and several other countries reached an "unprecedented breakthrough" Friday to curb greenhouse gas emissions — including a mechanism to verify compliance — after a frenzied day of diplomacy at the U.N. climate talks.

The agreement, which also includes the developing nations of India, South Africa and Brazil, requires each country to list the actions they will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts, a senior Obama administration official said. The official described the deal on the condition of anonymity because specific details had not been announced.

The deal reiterates a goal that eight leading industrialized nations set earlier this year on long-term emission cuts and provides a mechanism to help poor countries prepare for climate change, the official said.

But it falls far short of committing any nation to emissions reductions beyond a general acknowledgment that the effort should contain global temperatures along the lines agreed to by the leading economic nations in July.

A European Union news conference to announce the EU reaction was postponed and an official said an overall agreement involving those nations not included in the deal that Obama announced was still being negotiated.

Obama suggested that the five-nation agreement would be adopted by the larger summit in its closing hours.

"I am leaving before the final vote," he said. "We feel confident we are moving in the direction of a final accord."

If the countries had waited to reach a full, binding agreement, "then we wouldn't make any progress," Obama said. In that case, he said, "there might be such frustration and cynicism that rather than taking one step forward we ended up taking two steps back."

Obama spent the final scheduled day of the climate talks huddling with world leaders, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, in a bid to salvage the global warming accord amid deep divisions between rich and poor nations.

In announcing the five-nation deal, Obama said getting a legally binding treaty "is going to be very hard, and it's going to take some time."

"We have come a long way, but we have much further to go," he said.

The president said there was a "fundamental deadlock in perspectives" between big, industrially developed countries like the United States and poorer, though sometimes large, developing nations. Still he said this week's efforts "will help us begin to meet our responsibilities to leave our children and grandchildren a cleaner planet."

The deal as described by Obama reflects some progress helping poor nations cope with climate change and getting China to disclose its actions to address the warming problem.

He said the nations of the world will have to take more aggressive steps to combat global warming. The first step, he said, is to build trust between developed and developing countries.

The five-nation agreement includes a method for verifying reductions of heat-trapping gases, the official said. That was a key demand by Washington of China, which has resisted international efforts to monitor its actions.

"It's not what we expected," Brazilian Ambassador Sergio Barbosa Serra said. "It may still be a way of salvaging something and paving the way for another a meeting or series of meetings next year."

Obama had planned to spend only about nine hours in Copenhagen as the summit wrapped up. But, as an agreement appeared within reach, he extended his stay by more than six hours to attend a series of meetings aimed at brokering a deal.

New Zealand's climate change ambassador Adrian Macey called it "a modest deal."

"I see Kyoto as a first step," Macey said. "This another first step, a global first step."

More than anything, Macey found the U.N. process on climate change "appalling."

The two-week, 193-nation conference has been plagued by growing distrust between rich and poor nations. Both sides blamed the other for failing to take ambitions actions to tackle climate change. At one point, African delegates staged a partial boycott of the talks.

"We are ready to get this done today but there has to be movement on all sides to recognize that is better for us to act rather than talk," Obama had said in an address to the conference, insisting on a transparent way to monitor each nation's pledges to cut emissions.

Abandoning any hope of reaching a comprehensive deal, a group of about 25 countries had sought agreement on a two-page political statement setting out critical elements, key among them the mobilization of $30 billion in the next three years to help poor countries cope with climate change and a scaling up to $100 billion a year by 2020.

As negotiations evolved, new drafts of the document, titled the Copenhagen Accord, emerged with key clauses being inserted, deleted and reintroduced with new wording.

In the end, the statement set no overall emissions targets for rich countries.

South Korea's chief negotiator, Rae-Kwon Chung, said one of the sticking points was a clause saying the combined emissions of rich and poor countries should be cut in half by 2050. Some developing countries opposed that target, fearing it would "define their carbon space," he said, declining to identify them.

With the climate talks in disarray, Obama and Wen met twice — once privately and once with other world leaders present — in hopes of sweeping aside some of the disputes that have barred a final deal. Officials said the two leaders took a step forward in their talk and directed negotiators to keep working, but the degree of progress was not immediately clear.

Wen skipped a high-level meeting a second time and sent another envoy instead.

Later Friday, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held talks with European leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Reporters asked how negotiations were going as Obama walked into the meeting. "Always hopeful," he replied.

Many delegates had been looking to China and the U.S. — the world's two largest carbon polluters — to deepen their pledges to cut their emissions. But that was not to be.

Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, negotiating on behalf of the 27-nation European Union, blamed the impasse on the Chinese for "blocking again and again," and on the U.S. for coming too late with an improved offer, a long-range climate aid program announced Thursday by Clinton.

The U.S. got its share of blame.

"President Obama was not very proactive. He didn't offer anything more," said delegate Thomas Negints, from Papua New Guinea. He said his country had hoped for "more on emissions, put more money on the table, take the lead."

Obama may eventually become known as "the man who killed Copenhagen," said Greenpeace U.S. Executive Director Phil Radford.

Money to help poor nations cope with climate change and shift to clean energy seemed to be where negotiators could claim most success. Pollution cuts and the best way to monitor those actions remained unresolved.

China and the U.S had sought to give the negotiations a boost Thursday with an announcement and a concession.

Clinton said Washington would press the world to come up with a climate aid fund amounting to $100 billion a year by 2020, a move that was quickly followed by an offer from China to open its reporting on actions to reduce carbon emissions to international review.

___

Associated Press writers John Heilprin, Arthur Max, Seth Borenstein and Karl Ritter contributed to this report.

Climate summit clinches deal
Stephen Collinson and Richard Ingham (AFP) Google News 19 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN — World leaders finally clinched a climate deal at the end of marathon talks Friday but admitted it would not halt global warming and campaigners denounced the outcome as an abject failure.

US President Barack Obama said a "meaningful" agreement had been reached during exhaustive meetings involving about two dozen presidents and prime ministers gathered in Copenhagen. Even Obama admitted however that it did not go far enough.

And the deal still have to get the approval of the 193 UN members states, including small island nations most at risk from the warmer Earth's temperatures that bring rising sea levels and the risk of more droughts, storms and floods.

"Today we have made a meaningful and unprecendented breakthrough here in Copenhagen," Obama told reporters.

"For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change."

The agreement foresees US contributions of 3.6 billion dollars in climate funds for the 2010-2012 period while Japan would contribute 11 billion dollars and the European Union 10.6 billion.

It also includes a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) -- well short of the demands of island nations.

But a decision on targets for reducing carbon emissions by 2020 was put off until next month, a European diplomat said.

And unlike earlier drafts, the new accord did not specify any year for emissions to peak.

The US president said before leaving Copenhagen that what had been billed as one the most important summits since World War II would be the starting gun for a much stronger effort to combat global warming.

"Going forward we are going to have to build on the momentum we have achieved here in Copenhagen. We have come a long way but we have much further to go."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the deal was the only one that could be reached after the summit had revealed deep rifts.

"The agreement is not perfect but it's the best one possible," Sarkozy told reporters, adding that another global warming summit would be hosted by Germany in mid-2010.

The deal was hammered out in talks between Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa as well as key European countries, diplomats said.

There was no immediate word on Russia's stance. President Dmitry Medevedev was one of the first to leave Copenhagen, having voiced frustration at the negotiation process overseen by the Danish government.

China had bristled at anything called "verification" of its plan to cut the intensity of its carbon emissions, seeing it as an infringement of sovereignty and saying that rich nations bore primary responsibility for global warming.

Disagreements between the United States and China had been at the core of the divisions holding up a deal.

But even if Washington and Beijing have now come to an understanding, the deal will still have to get the approval of the 194 UN members in attendance in Copenhagen.

The emergence of a deal came at the end of a day in which several drafts agreements were knocked back, with leaders themselves taking over the task of redrafting the exact wording of three pages of text.

Different versions of the document showed the leaders particularly split over whether to fix a firm date for finalising a legally binding treaty in 2010, and a commitment to slashing global carbon emissions in half by 2050.

Scientists say failure to curb the rise in Earth's temperature will lead to worsening drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

The agreement was met with dismay by campaigners.

"By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world's poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates," said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, calling the outcome "an abject failure".

"The blame for this disastrous outcome is squarely on the developed nations."

The WWF environmental group voiced concern that the Copenhagen does not bind nations to action.

"A gap between the rhetoric and reality could cost millions of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars and a wealth of lost opportunities," said Kim Carstensen, the leader of the WWF's Global Climate Initiative.

Obama reaches climate deal with emerging powers
Pete Harrison and Jeff Mason, Reuters 18 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - President Barack Obama reached agreement with major developing powers on a climate deal on Friday, a U.S. official said, but he said the accord was only a first step and was insufficient to fight climate change.

The official said Obama, China's Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South Africa's President Jacob Zuma had reached a "meaningful agreement," after a day of deep divisions between leaders of rich and developing nations.

Brazil also approved the deal that appeared to bypass other participants at UN-led climate talks in Copenhagen. The accord did not have guaranteed approval from all 193 nations. Noticeably, EU nations were absent from the meeting.

Tensions between China and the United States, the world's two biggest emitters, had been particularly acute after Obama -- in a message directed at the Chinese -- said any deal to cut emissions would be "empty words on a page" unless it was transparent and accountable.

Negotiators struggled all day to find a compromise acceptable to all 193 countries which could avert the threat of dangerous climate change, including floods, droughts, rising sea levels and species extinctions.

A draft text under discussion on Friday included $100 billion in climate aid annually by 2020 for poor countries to combat climate change, and targets to limit warming and halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

But it abandoned earlier ambitions for any deal in Copenhagen to be turned into a legally binding treaty next year.

"Today, following a multilateral meeting between President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma a meaningful agreement was reached," the U.S. official said.

"It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change but it is an important first step."

"No country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress," the official added.

Under the five-nation agreement, rich and poor nations had agreed to a "finance mechanism," emissions cuts to curb global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and "to provide information on the implementation of their actions."

Earlier, Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh told Reuters December 7-18 meeting was "close to seeing a legally non-binding Copenhagen outcome after 36 hours of grueling, intensive negotiations."

The European Union had pressed for a strong deal to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and which included tough carbon curbs from other industrialized nations such as the United States.

Scientists say a 2 degrees limit is the minimum to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including several meters sea level rise, species extinctions and crop failures.

"Given where we started and the expectations for this conference, anything less than a legally binding and agreed outcome falls far short of the mark," said John Ashe, chair the Kyoto talks under the United Nations.

(With reporting by Alister Doyle, Gerard Wynn, Anna Ringstrom, John Acher, Anna Ringstrom, Richard Cowan, David Fogarty, Pete Harrison and Emma Graham-Harrison; Writing by Dominic Evans; editing by Janet McBride)

Climate Deal Announced, but Falls Short of Expectations
Helene Cooper and John M. Broder, The New York Times 18 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN — Leaders here concluded a climate change deal on Friday that the Obama administration called “meaningful” but that falls short of even the modest expectations for the summit meeting here.

The agreement still needs to be approved by the 193 nations gathered here.

The accord addresses many of the issues that leaders came here to settle — and if signed, will represent an unprecedented effort by the nations of the world to take concerted steps to address global warming.

But the agreement to leave many of the participants unhappy.

Even an Obama administration official conceded, “It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change, but it’s an important first step.”

“No country is entirely satisfied with each element,” the administration’s statement said, “but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.”

The statement added, “We thank the emerging economies for their voluntary actions and especially appreciate the work and leadership of the Europeans in this effort.”

But many of those emerging economies are likely to express displeasure. Europeans said the deal does not require enough of the United States, China and other major emitters and could put European industries at a competitive disadvantage because the European Union is already subject to a carbon emissions constraint program.

The accord drops the expected goal of concluding a binding international treaty by the end of 2010, which leaves the implementation of its provisions uncertain. It is likely to undergo many months, perhaps years, of additional negotiation before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form.

“We entered this negotiation at a time when there were significant differences between countries,” the American official said.

“Developed and developing countries have now agreed to listing their national actions and commitments, a finance mechanism, to set a mitigation target of two degrees Celsius and to provide information on the implementation of their actions through national communications, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines,” the official said.

The deal came after a dramatic moment in which Mr. Obama burst into a meeting of the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders, according to senior administration officials. Chinese protocol officers protested, and Mr. Obama said he did not want them negotiating in secret.

The intrusion led to new talks that cemented key terms of the deal, American officials said.

Sergio Serra, Brazil’s senior climate negotiator here, confirmed that Mr. Obama had “joined” a meeting of Brazilian, Indian, Chinese and other officials, although he did not say that Mr. Obama walked in uninvited.

“After several discussions had taken place they were joined by President Barack Obama,” Mr. Serra said. “Several important decisions were taken — not a few due to Brazilian mediation — that we hope will bring a result, if not what we expected, that may be a way of salvaging something and pave the way to another meeting or series of meetings to get the full result of this proceeding.”

President Obama announced that an agreement had been reached but he left Copenhagen before the assembled 192 nations could study or vote on the accord. Aides said he left to get to Washington ahead of a major snowstorm headed toward the capital.

The agreement may be based on a document that was being edited by high-ranking officials from some two dozen countries throughout the day.

In that draft, developed nations committed to a long-term target of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. No specific midterm target was set. Developing countries, meanwhile, would pursue mitigation efforts of their own, and agreed in general terms to some sort of reporting on those efforts — something the industrialized world had been seeking.

The draft dropped earlier language that said a binding accord should be reached “as soon as possible,” and no later than at the next meeting of the parties, in Mexico City in November 2010. Instead, the draft set no specific deadline, saying only that the agreement should be reviewed and put in place by 2015.

The draft also included a few hard figures about joint emissions cuts of 50 percent by 2050. It included a dozen or so enumerated points asserting general commitment to the idea that “climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time” and asserted that “deep cuts” in global emissions are required.

It also sought to lay out some framework for verification of emissions commitments by developing countries and to establish a “high-level panel” to assess financial contributions by rich nations to help poor countries adapt to climate change and limit their emissions.

In the draft, many of the specifics remained to be negotiated, however.

In a press conference following the announcement, Mr. Obama thanked other world leaders for their help in reaching the accord — which he nonetheless characterized as being only a start.

“This progress did not come easily,” he said, “and we know that this progress alone is not enough.”

Mr. Obama noted that the United States would not be legally bound by anything agreed to in Copenhagen on Friday, and that, due to weather in Washington, he was leaving ahead of a full vote on the agreement.

But, he added, “I’m confident we’re moving in the direction of final accord.”

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and lead author of the Senate’s climate change bill, said the accord will drive Congress to pass climate change legislation early next year.

“This can be a catalyzing moment,” he said. “President Obama’s hands-on engagement broke through the bickering and sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home.”

Even those environmental groups that have pushed hardest for a deal had to acknowledge that this one is lacking in serious ways.

“The world’s nations have come together and concluded a historic — if incomplete — agreement to begin tackling global warming,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Tonight’s announcement is but a first step and much work remains to be done in the days and months ahead in order to seal a final international climate deal that is fair, binding, and ambitious. It is imperative that negotiations resume as soon as possible.”

The announcement came on a day filled with high brinksmanship and seesawing expectations. On Friday morning, President Obama, speaking to world leaders gathered here at the frenzied end of the two weeks of climate talks, urged them to come to an agreement — no matter how imperfect — to address global warming and monitor whether countries are in compliance with promised emissions cuts.

His remarks appeared to be a pointed reference to China’s resistance on the issue of monitoring, which has proved a stubborn obstacle at the talks and a source of tension between China and the United States, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

After delivering the speech to a plenary session of 119 world leaders, Mr. Obama met privately with China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, in an hourlong session that a White House official described as “constructive.”

But Mr. Wen did not attend two smaller, impromptu meetings that Mr. Obama and United States officials conducted with the leaders of other world powers, an apparent snub that infuriated administration officials and their European counterparts and added more uncertainty to the proceedings.

Earlier in the day, in his address to the plenary session shortly after noon, Mr. Obama, clearly frustrated by the absence of an agreement, was both emphatic and at times impatient. “The time for talk is over,” he said.

He arrived here prepared to lend his political muscle to secure an agreement on climate change at negotiations that have been plagued by distrust over a range of issues, including how nations would hold each other accountable.

Within an hour of Air Force One’s touchdown in Copenhagen on Friday morning, Mr. Obama went into an unscheduled meeting with a high-level group of leaders representing some 20 countries and organizations. Mr. Wen did not attend that meeting, instead sending the vice foreign minister, He Yafei.

Negotiators here had worked through the night, charged with delivering a draft of the political agreement by 8 a.m. ahead of the arrival of dozens of heads of state and high-level ministers for the final stretch of deliberations.

An American negotiator, weary from a night of discussions, expressed confidence early Friday that the talks would produce some form of an agreed declaration, even if it lacked specifics on some of the toughest issues.

Mr. Obama injected himself into a multilayered negotiation that has been far more chaotic and contentious than anticipated — frozen by longstanding divisions between rich and poor nations and a legacy of mistrust of the United States, which has long refused to accept any binding limits on its greenhouse gas emissions.

The administration provided the talks with a palpable boost on Thursday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared that the United States would contribute its share to $100 billion a year in long-term financing to help poor nations adapt to climate change.

Mrs. Clinton’s offer came with two significant conditions. First, the 193 nations involved in the talks here must reach a comprehensive political agreement that takes effect immediately. Second, and more critically, all nations must agree to some form of verification — she repeatedly used the term “transparency” — to ensure they are meeting their environmental promises.

China has brought the talks to a virtual standstill all week over this issue, which its leaders claim to be an affront to national sovereignty.

But the Chinese resistance on the issue is matched in large measure by Mr. Obama’s own constraints. The Senate has not yet acted on a climate bill that the president needs to make good on his promises of emissions reductions and on the financial support that he has now promised the rest of the world.

Late Friday night, speaking to reporters at the Bella Center before leaving for the airport, Mr. Obama, looking exhausted and with bloodshot eyes, said that problems long in the making had to be surmounted before a stronger deal can be reached.

“Let’s build some trust between developing and developed countries to break some of the logjams,” he said.

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