Best of our wild blogs: 21 Dec 09

Have you seen a wild boar in Singapore?
Rachael would like to hear from you, from wild shores of singapore

Trees that touch and inspire
from Flying Fish Friends

Upclose and intricate on Hantu’s reef
from Pulau Hantu

Clash of the Common Sandpipers
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Shrimp and prawn
from The annotated budak

upside-down jellyfish
a video clip from sgbeachbum

Sonneratia and streams on a sunny Sunday
from wild shores of singapore

Tampines Avenue 9
from Singapore Nature

Where Are Our Butterflies?
from Life's Indulgences

Ubin abandoned prawn farms
from Ubin.sgkopi

Labrador updates
from isn't it a wonder, how life came to be

Monday Morgue: 21st December 2009
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Yellow-vented Bulbul and bananas
from Bird Ecology Study Group

New papers on Nature in Singapore

• Asthenodipsas laevis (Reptilia: Squamata: Pareatidae), a snake record for Singapore that was almost forgotten. Francis L. K. Lim.
  
• The identity of a mousedeer (Mammalia: Artiodactyla: Tragulidae) observed at Lower Peirce forest, Singapore. Celine H. S. Low, Chan Kwok Wai and Kelvin K. P. Lim.
  
• The black-naped monarch (Hypothymis azurea) in Singapore. A. F. S. L. Lok.
  
• The status and distribution in Singapore of Acriopsis liliifolia (Koenig) Ormerod (Orchidaceae). A. F. S. L. Lok, P. X. Ng, W. F. Ang and H. T. W. Tan.
  

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Left high and dry by waterway rules

Man gets conflicting advice on using his own boat in reservoir
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 21 Dec 09;

THE lure of Singapore's easily accessible reservoirs is making more people take up water sports.

But one family, keen to make kayaking a hobby, has been left high and dry due to conflicting rules on the use of waterways.

Earlier this month, Mr Jason Toh, 40, and his family took their own inflatable kayak to MacRitchie Reservoir.

But he was stopped and told that he needed a permit.

This began a 'wild goose chase', with national water agency PUB and the Singapore Canoe Federation (SCF) issuing different advice.

At the heart of the matter is whether a boat permit from PUB allows an individual to take his own boat out on the water. Before this permit is issued, however, an individual needs to get a proficiency certificate.

The SCF, based at MacRitchie Reservoir, issues the certificates for varying levels of proficiency, with the majority being for the entry-level one-star course, which takes 12 hours to complete and costs between $50 and $80.

No certification is needed to rent sit-on-top kayaks, but a one-star certificate is needed for one-seater kayaks. Between April and September, the federation issued about 10,000 such certificates.

When Mr Toh asked what was required to get afloat in the reservoirs, he was told by a PUB official 'that if I got a one-star certificate from the SCF, got my boat checked out and then submitted a form endorsed by SCF to PUB, I could get a permit'.

Ms Lyuina Lee, 24, a sports executive for SCF, offered the same advice, adding that she did not know many people who owned their own kayak.

However, in a statement issued to The Straits Times, Mr Tan Nguan Sen, PUB's director of catchment and waterways, said individuals are not allowed to take their own boats out on the water.

'As the safety of the reservoir user is paramount, only organised group activities and training conducted under the supervision and guidance from either the operators, national sports associations, schools and grassroots organisations are allowed at the reservoirs,' he said in the statement.

'It is also for safety reasons that we do not permit individuals to carry out water activities on their own currently.'

Reacting to this, Mr Toh said: 'This is turning into a wild goose chase as I anticipated...The advice is not consistent.

'I hope PUB keeps an open mind on this and not just say it is for safety reasons. What's the difference if I take out my kayak or rent one, I am still on my own in the reservoir?'

The PUB added that it has not encountered this issue before and is reviewing its policies before deciding on the best course of action.

In the meantime, Mr Toh is planning to take a one-star canoe course and seek a permit as advised by the PUB official he spoke to. Until then, his $200 kayak, bought in Bangkok, will be left to gather dust.

An application form for a non-motorised vessel permit is available on the PUB website. There is no cost for the permit.

Sorry, no water activities on one's own
Straits Times Forum 21 Dec 09;

PUB, the national water agency, thanks Mr Jason Toh for his feedback on kayaking at MacRitchie and Bedok reservoirs ('Family's kayaking dreams drifting in red tape', last Thursday).

Since 2005, PUB has actively promoted water activities at our reservoirs as part of our efforts to inject life and vibrancy into our reservoirs and encourage the public to bond with water.

We have worked with partners such as the People's Association (PA), Singapore Canoe Federation (SCF), Singapore Dragon Boat Association, Singapore Waterski and Wakeboard Federation, Singapore Sailing Federation as well as schools and grassroots associations to organise various water activities such as kayaking, dragon boating, rowing, wakeboarding and sailing at our water bodies.

The public can also enjoy walk-in recreational water activities at kayaking centres run by the SCF or PA at Bedok Reservoir, MacRitchie Reservoir, Marina Reservoir, Jurong Lake and Lower Seletar Reservoir.

PUB works closely with the operators to ensure that water activities are conducted in a safe and proper manner. For instance, safety briefings for members of the public and checks on the conditions of life vests and kayaks are conducted by the operators.

For safety reasons, we do not permit individuals to carry out water activities on their own.

We have contacted Mr Toh and apologised for the miscommunication. PUB will continue to review the procedures and improve our service quality.

Tan Nguan Sen
Director, Catchment and Waterways
PUB, the national water agency

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‘Lost World’ has potential: Maliau Basin for World Heritage site

The Star 21 Dec 09;

KOTA KINABALU: An intensive effort is underway to assess to see if Sabah’s “Lost World” has what it takes to be a World Heritage Site.

State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun has directed officers to do a thorough study on the world renowned Maliau Basin, rich in bio-diversity and popularly dubbed as “The Lost World” of Sabah.

“I hope to get this done in three months before bringing it up as a proposal to the Cabinet,” Masidi said yesterday.

The 390 sq km basin forms part of Yayasan Sabah’s timber concession area but was designated as a conservation area in 1981 for the purposes of rainforest education, research and training.

It remains Borneo Island’s untouched rainforest that is rich in flora and fauna, including over 1,800 species of pitcher plants and at least 80 kinds of orchids.

“Maliau Basin is not only unique but is famous worldwide as a centre for research,” said Masidi.

“Today, there are many scholars and researchers conducting their studies at the site and I believe that we must work hard in getting it listed as a World Heritage Site.”

Environmentalists, uneasy over the proposed 300MW coal-fired power plant in Sabah’s east coast district of Lahad Datu, have raised concerns that Maliau Basin might be a target of mining for coal if the facility materialises.

The state government has repeatedly stressed that Maliau Basin would not be touched and will remain a conservation area.

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Philippine volcano 'building up to major eruption'

Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

LEGASPI, Philippines (AFP) – The Philippine government warned Sunday that Mayon volcano could erupt violently within days following a week of spectacular flows of lava and increasing volcanic quakes.

Government volcanologists raised the alert level around Mayon to level four, meaning there could be an eruption in a matter of days.

"We raised it to level four this afternoon because there was a sudden acceleration in the activity of the volcano," said July Sabit, head of the volcano monitoring team.

Local civil defence head Raffy Alejandro said that the military and police had evacuated more than 8,600 of the 9,000 or so families living within an eight-kilometre (five-mile) danger zone declared around Mayon.

The military and police will now tighten the controls over the danger zone and ensure that no one is left there or allowed to enter, said Joey Salceda, governor of Albay province, where Mayon is located.

The officials warned that they would take forceful measures to remove villagers who did not want to leave their farms.

"We try to do the persuasive thing but if (it) gets bad, the governor has instructions to forcibly evacuate them," Alejandro added.

Despite the warnings, many villagers are reluctant to leave and may sneak back to their farms to harvest their produce or protect their livestock.

Sabit said the alert level around Mayon was raised after the number of volcanic quakes increased to 463 from 8:00 am (0000 GMT) Sunday compared with about 245 for the whole of Saturday.

The volcano was also belching more sulphur dioxide into the air and rumbling sounds were detected inside, the volcanologists said.

The government has already evacuated more than 8,600 of the 9,000 or so families living within an eight-kilometre (five mile) danger zone set up around Mayon, civil defence officials said.

Chief government volcanologist Renato Solidum told reporters that "what we are preparing for is a hazardous eruption and a quick descent of pyroclastic ashflow."

He said the ashflow would remain within six kilometres of the 2,460 metre (8,070 feet) volcano.

"But naturally, we have a buffer zone," just to make sure, he said.

Mayon could remain silent after an initial eruption before erupting yet again, said the volcanologists.

Although ash from the volcano was unlikely to threaten residents directly, there was a risk it could turn into a deadly mudflow, as happened in 2006, when hundreds of people were swept away, the officials said.

While no one was directly killed by that eruption, tons of debris that had collected on Mayon's slopes were dislodged by a typhoon three months later. The avalanche of mud and boulders crushed entire villages, leaving over 1,000 dead.

Mayon, renowned for its near-perfect cone, has erupted 48 times in recorded history. In 1814, more than 1,200 people were killed as lava buried the town of Cagsawa.

Major volcanic eruption feared in Philippines
Bullit Marquez, Associated Press Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

LEGAZPI, Philippines – The Philippines' most active volcano could have a huge eruption within days, officials warned Sunday after detecting a drastic surge in earthquakes and eerie rumbling sounds in surrounding foothills. Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated as a precaution.

Scientists raised the alert level for the Mayon volcano after 453 volcanic earthquakes were detected in a five-hour span Sunday, compared to just over 200 Saturday, said Renato Solidum, chief of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology.

The five-step warning system was raised to level four, meaning a hazardous eruption "is possible within days." Level five is when a major eruption has begun.

Army troops and police will intensify patrols to enforce a round-the-clock ban on villagers moving within a five-mile (eight-kilometer) danger zone around the 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) mountain, said Gov. Joey Salceda of Albay province, about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Manila.

More than 40,000 villagers have been moved to school buildings and other emergency shelters, but some have still been spotted checking on their farms in the prohibited zone. Salceda said about 5,000 more villagers were being evacuated away from the volcano.

The cone-shaped volcano began emitting red-hot lava and puffing columns of ash last week. It belched a plume of grayish ash half a mile (nearly a kilometer) into the sky Sunday, and lava has flowed about 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) down the mountainside, Salceda said.

A major eruption can trigger pyroclastic flows — superheated gas and volcanic debris that can race down the slopes at very high speed, vaporizing everything in their path. There can be more extensive ejections of ash, which can drift toward nearby townships.

In Mayon's major eruptions in recent years, such pyroclastic flows have reached up to four miles (six kilometers) down from the crater on the volcano's southern flank — a farming region where most residents have been evacuated, Salceda said.

Army checkpoints have been set up and patrols have been intensified to ensure residents will not sneak back to check on their homes and farms, as some have done in recent days, Salceda said.

"I have set a very high bar, which is zero casualty," Salceda told The Associated Press. "If there's a lull and you step back into the danger zone, you'll immediately be escorted out."

The evacuations were unfortunate, coming so close before Christmas, but authorities will find ways to bring holiday cheer to displaced villagers in emergency shelters, he said.

He said residents are used to playing a "cat and mouse" game with Mayon, a popular tourist attraction because of its near-perfect cone shape.

Residents who briefly returned to their homes within the danger zone Sunday morning to check on their belongings reported hearing eerie rumbling sounds. Some were seen by journalists tending to their farms within the prohibited zone near Guinobatan township.

In 1991, Mount Pinatubo exploded in the northern Philippines in one of the world's biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, killing about 800 people.

Mayon last erupted in 2006, when about 30,000 people were moved. Another eruption in 1993 killed 79 people.

The first recorded eruption was in 1616 but the most destructive came in 1814, killing more than 1,200 people and burying a town in volcanic mud. The ruins of the church in Cagsawa have become an iconic tourist spot.

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Indonesia's next big quake due under Mentawais

Michael Perry, Reuters 20 Dec 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A massive undersea earthquake is long overdue beneath the Mentawai islands in Indonesia and could trigger another deadly tsunami, say scientists mapping one of the world's most quake-prone zones.

Unlike the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed around 226,000 people, this tsunami is expected to be smaller but may be very deadly as it would hit Sumatra's densely populated coast.

"The size of the tsunami may not be as big, but the problem is the size of the population is about three times as great as Aceh," Kerry Sieh, director of the Singapore-based Earth Observatory, told Reuters.

A major quake measuring around 8.6 magnitude is expected beneath Siberut Island, along the Sunda megathrust, where the Indo-Australian tectonic plate butts up against the Eurasian plate -- one of the world's most active fault lines.

Exactly when the big quake will strike is not known.

"We say most likely in the next few decades. Thirty seconds to 30 years, somewhere in there," said Sieh, who has studied geological records showing that for the past 700 years, major quakes have occurred along the Sunda megathrust every 200 years.

There have been three major quake cycles: the late 1300s, the 1600s, and between 1797 and 1833.

"The timing between those three sequences is about two centuries," said Sieh, adding a section of the megathrust under Siberut has not ruptured for 200 years, so it is due to slip and cause a major quake.

SUPERQUAKE CYCLES

The Sunda megathrust extends from Myanmar in the north and sweeps in a southeast arc through Sumatra, Java and toward Timor.

The northern 1,600 km (1,000 mile) section of the fault, from Myanmar to Aceh, ruptured in 2004 sending the deadly Boxing Bay tsunami out into the Indian Ocean.

"The Boxing Bay quake reset the (super earthquake) cycle for that segment of the fault," Mike Sandiford at the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia, told Reuters.

"The fault slipped up to 20 meters (60 feet) and that is like several hundred years of plate convergence. It should take several hundred years, if not longer, to accumulate the stress in the system to rupture on that particular strand."

The Sunda megathrust is made up of three distinct sections.

In March 2005, a powerful quake hit the second section near Nias island, causing more than 11-meter (33-feet) deformations beneath the island.

In 2007, an 8.4 and a 7.8 earthquake hit the southern end of the third section, the "Mentawais Patch," but not the northern part of the "Mentawais Patch."

"Now we have another 300 km that has not yet failed. It hasn't failed since 1797," Sieh said.

The 2009 Padang earthquake on September 30, while large has not relieved any pressure beneath the Mentawais, as it resulted not from a rupture of the megathrust, but was on a deeper fault.

"It may have potentially loaded that segment that has not ruptured for long time. It may have taken us closer to the big failure," said Sandiford.

"Because that (pressure) has not been released in the Padang region, we know the stress has been building and it must eventually be released. The sort of stress which ultimately led to the big rupture at the northern end of Sumatra on Boxing Day."

QUAKE SCENARIOS

One reason the Sunda megathrust generates major quakes is because it has very long fault planes that can slip as one. But because it bends as it runs south through Indonesia, scientists believe big quakes are limited to each section of the megathrust.

Sandiford says a 30-km (18-mile) fault could generate a maximum 7 magnitude quake, a 300-km (190-mile) fault a maximum 8 magnitude, and a 1,000-km (62-mile) fault a maximum 9. The 2004 quake was over a fault some 1,600 km (1,000 mile) long.

"The Boxing Day earthquake was huge. We have only had three or four of those quakes in the last 100 years or so," he said.

Singapore's Sieh paints two scenarios for the next big quake. The first is an 8.6 quake on the northern section of the "Mentawais Patch."

"There is only one piece of data that tells us it last broke in 1797. If we are wrong, it may be that the last event was the 1680s. If that is the case, we could have a significantly greater uplift and significantly larger tsunami," he said.

Recent studies by Sieh suggest a second scenario, where another big quake could occur along the same section of the megathrust that caused the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

While the middle of this section ruptured up to 25 meters (76 feet) in 2004, the lower part only slipped 10 meters (30 feet), leaving hundreds of years of stress still to be released.

"We are wondering whether there could be another big earthquake down in the south end of the 2004 section, which could break sometime in the next few decades as well," Sieh said.

The Mentawais fault line runs under the sea and any major quake is expected to rupture the ocean floor causing a tsunami.

In 2004 the quake spread a tsunami across the Indian Ocean to India and Africa. A tsunami generated from a Mentawais quake would send a wave southwest out into the empty Indian Ocean.

But the wave would also hit Sumatra's densely populated coast between Padang and Bengkulu, although the Mentawais island chain would help dissipate the wave's energy before it hit shore.

Scientists say there is little data linking a major quake with Indonesia's super volcanoes, like Sumatra's Lake Toba, saying a volcano must be ready to erupt in the first place.

Toba erupted around 74,000 years ago in what is believed to be the largest volcanic eruption in the last 2 million years.

Some scientists suggest the mega eruption may have accelerated a glacial shift in climate, by spewing 2,800 cubic kms of debris into the atmosphere, dramatically dropping the earth's surface temperature and sparking an ice age.

(Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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Gorillas: still wild at heart

The Independent 21 Dec 09;

A pioneering project to reintroduce traumatised gorillas to their natural habitat is bringing extraordinary success. Chris Green reports on how British conservationists are achieving what few thought was possible

The two terrified baby gorillas, both female, were brought to the Lesio-Louna reserve in the Congo Basin shortly after witnessing the brutal slaughter of the rest of their family group at the hands of some poachers. They were so traumatised by what they had seen that they clung to each other in fear and bared their teeth at anything or anyone who ventured close.

At the time, few thought it possible that the two sisters, named Likendze and Matoko, would ever be successfully reintroduced into the wild. But seven years later they have been, and something even more extraordinary has happened: the two have given birth within three weeks of each other, producing the ninth and tenth babies born to "rewilded" gorillas.

The births are viewed as a milestone for the Aspinall Foundation, a British charity which for more than 20 years has managed two gorilla rescue and rehabilitation projects, one in Congo-Brazzaville and another in the neighbouring state of Gabon, where wild populations were almost hunted to extinction in the 1950s. "We are delighted by the news of the birth of Matoko's infant, and indeed Likendze's before that," said James Osborne, chairman of the Aspinall Foundation.

"A mere seven years ago, the infants were so traumatised that they refused to move. Now they have both given birth. Each birth reinforces the success of the reintroduction, and we now have three viable groups of gorillas within the Lesio-Louna reserve."

The success of the foundation has gone some way towards reversing the slide of the Western Lowland gorilla towards extinction, an assault which has seen their numbers dwindle from millions to as few as 150,000. If the decline continues at its present rate, it is likely that the animal will be extinct by 2020, zoologists say.

The fall in numbers has been fuelled by deforestation, the deadly Ebola virus and the bush meat trade, with gorillas being captured by poachers before being slaughtered and their meat sold at markets in the capital, Brazzaville – a fate which befell Likendze and Matoko's family. The sisters were rescued by local ministry officials and handed to the Aspinall Foundation's reserve.

When the project's director, Amos Courage, saw the condition of the two young gorillas, his first thought was that they would never reach the stage of being able to go back to the wild, because they were too traumatised by what they had experienced.

The two were immediately assigned a dedicated human carer each, to look after them 24 hours a day with the aim of teaching them how to trust again – a process Mr Courage describes as having been "invaluable" to their survival. "They really do respond to devoted surrogate love," he said.

"Without it, they would just die, because they go into a spiral of depression and illness. And when they get into the forest, and see other orphans who have been in a similar situation to them, they join a sort of nursery group – which forces them to interact and gets them to stop thinking about the horror of their capture."

In 2006, The Independent reported the story of Massabi and Koto after those two apes became only the second and third gorillas to produce offspring after being carefully restored to their natural habitat. Three years down the line, the charity has successfully reintroduced to the wild more than 50 gorillas, 43 of which were orphans whose parents had been killed for bush meat. The latest birth is the third in 2009.

The project initially focused on providing shelter and care to young orphans, but over the years it has grown to include rehabilitation, ecosystem management, tourism and local community development.

The Lesio-Louna Gorilla Reserve is 170,000 hectares in size and enclosed by three rivers, which are natural barriers that prevent the animals escaping the reserve and coming into contact with nearby villages. Outside the main site is a nursery area where the young orphans learn the basics of foraging. Each night they are placed in an enclosed dormitory until they start trying to break down the door – a sure sign they are ready to be reintroduced to the wild. "Inevitably they'll meet up with other reintroduced gorillas in the reserve, and there'll be a lot of swapping of females. It's a very fluid situation between the groups, and although we've been doing this for more than 20 years we're still amazed at what happens – it's like a constant soap opera every day, said Mr Courage.

"The fact that the mothers are now raising these babies is fascinating because they're all orphans – we don't know how much experience of mothering they would have remembered from their early memories."

In 2005, an international treaty outlining a strategy to save the world's great apes was signed by the 23 states that have primate populations within their borders, as well as donor countries led by Britain.

The deal, which was billed as the last chance to save humanity's nearest relatives, set the target of significantly slowing the loss of great apes and their habitat by 2010, and securing the future in the wild of all this endangered species by 2015. The birth of Likendzé and Matoko's babies has, in one small way, helped towards this goal.

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Colobine monkeys 'could be wiped out by global warming'

Species of primates including colobine monkeys are in danger of being wiped out by global warming, scientists have warned.

Matthew Moore, The Telegraph 20 Dec 09;

A new study suggests that some of mankind's evolutionary near-neighbours may not survive if temperatures around the world rise by just 2C.

Among the animals most at risk to climate change are gorillas of which there are only 50,000 left in the wild, according to research by British scientists published online in the journal Animal Behaviour.

Leaf-eating African monkey species like the colobines are on the danger list because the habitats in which they can secure food are so restricted, being confined to a narrow region of the equator.

Monkeys in South America are much less likely to be affected by a rise of 2C in average global temperature. However, they would not be spared if temperatures rose by 4C, causing their habitats to become fragmented.

The researchers coupled climate models with an analysis of behaviour, diet and group size of different primate species across the world.

Fruit-eating species such as the baboons and guenon monkeys of Africa typically have a much wider latitudinal range and could cope with more variable climatic conditions.

Professor Robin Dunbar, of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, who coauthored the study, said that more must be done to replace habitats threatened by global warming.

"We often worry about deforestation and hunting as the two main factors threatening the extinction of primate populations, but these results suggest that even if we find ways to solve these problems, it may not save some species of monkeys and apes from extinction," he said.

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Polluting pets: the devastating impact of man's best friend

Isabelle Toussaint And Jurgen Hecker Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Man's best friend could be one of the environment's worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To confirm the results, the New Scientist magazine asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, Britain, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data. The results were essentially the same.

"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said.

Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say.

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.

But Reha Huttin, president of France's 30 Million Friends animal rights foundation says the human impact of eliminating pets would be equally devastating.

"Pets are anti-depressants, they help us cope with stress, they are good for the elderly," Huttin told AFP.

"Everyone should work out their own environmental impact. I should be allowed to say that I walk instead of using my car and that I don't eat meat, so why shouldn't I be allowed to have a little cat to alleviate my loneliness?"

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs -- the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars -- says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all.

"I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations.

"I don't want a life without animals," she told AFP.

And pets' environmental impact is not limited to their carbon footprint, as cats and dogs devastate wildlife, spread disease and pollute waterways, the Vales say.

With a total 7.7 million cats in Britain, more than 188 million wild animals are hunted, killed and eaten by feline predators per year, or an average 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat, according to figures in the New Scientist.

Likewise, dogs decrease biodiversity in areas they are walked, while their faeces cause high bacterial levels in rivers and streams, making the water unsafe to drink, starving waterways of oxygen and killing aquatic life.

And cat poo can be even more toxic than doggy doo -- owners who flush their litter down the toilet ultimately infect sea otters and other animals with toxoplasma gondii, which causes a killer brain disease.

But despite the apocalyptic visions of domesticated animals' environmental impact, solutions exist, including reducing pets' protein-rich meat intake.

"If pussy is scoffing 'Fancy Feast' -- or some other food made from choice cuts of meat -- then the relative impact is likely to be high," said Robert Vale.

"If, on the other hand, the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower."

Other potential positive steps include avoiding walking your dog in wildlife-rich areas and keeping your cat indoors at night when it has a particular thirst for other, smaller animals' blood.

As with buying a car, humans are also encouraged to take the environmental impact of their future possession/companion into account.

But the best way of compensating for that paw or clawprint is to make sure your animal is dual purpose, the Vales urge. Get a hen, which offsets its impact by laying edible eggs, or a rabbit, prepared to make the ultimate environmental sacrifice by ending up on the dinner table.

"Rabbits are good, provided you eat them," said Robert Vale.

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Oceans becoming nosier thanks to pollution: report

Yahoo News 21 Dec 09;

PARIS (AFP) – The world's oceans are becoming noisier thanks to pollution, with potentially harmful effects for whales, dolphins and other marine life, US scientists said in a study published Sunday.

Low-frequency sound in the ocean is produced by natural phenomena such as rain, waves and marine life, and by human activities such as sonar systems, shipping and construction.

The sound is absorbed mainly through the viscosity of the water and the presence of certain dissolved chemicals, said the report published in the science journal Nature.

But the concentration of chemicals that absorb sound in the oceans has declined as a result of ocean acidification, in turn caused by rising concentrations of carbon dioxide.

Rising levels of carbon dioxide come from human activity such as shipping, with the number of ships roughly doubling over the past 40 years, the scientists said.

This was in turn increasing the acidity of the ocean, shown by a lowering of its pH levels, they said.

Using model simulations, the scientists found that increases in acidity could reduce seawater sound absorption by as much as 60 percent by 2100 in high latitude oceans.

Concern about the negative effect of the sea's increased acidity had previously been concentrated on the reduced rate of calcification, such as in coral reefs.

"However, a less anticipated consequence of ocean acidification is its effect on underwater sound absorption," the authors said.

"A decrease in seawater pH lowers sound absorption in the low-frequency range and, as a result, leads to increasing sound transmission."

Future global warming due to an accumulation of greenhouse gases may further decrease the ocean's sound absorption capacity at certain frequencies, the study said.

"High levels of low-frequency sound have a number of behavioural and biological effects on marine life," it added.

This included tissue damage, mass stranding of mammals such as whales and temporary loss of hearing in dolphins associated with military tests using intense mid-frequency sonar, the report said.

Marine species had adapted to varying levels of noise but the consequences of the sea's decreased ability to absorb sound were uncertain and required further research, the scientists said.

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Global warming hike may be steeper: research

Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Global temperatures could rise substantially more because of increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study by US and Chinese scientists released Sunday.

The researchers used a long-term model for assessing climate change, confirming a similar British study released this month that said calculations for man-made global warming may be underestimated by between 30 and 50 percent.

The new study published online by Nature Geoscience focused on a period three to five million years ago -- the most recent episode of sustained global warming with geography similar to today's, a Yale University statement said.

This was in order to look at the Earth's long-term sensitivity to climate fluctuation, including in changes to continental icesheets and vegetation cover on land.

More common estimates for climate change are based on relatively rapid feedback to increases in carbon dioxide, such as changes to sea ice and atmospheric water vapour.

Using sediment drilled from the ocean floor, the scientists' reconstruction of carbon dioxide concentrations found that "a relatively small rise in CO2 levels was associated with substantial global warming 4.5 million years ago."

They also found that the global temperature was between two and three degrees Celsius (3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than today even though carbon dioxide levels were similar to the current ones, the statement said.

"This work and other ancient climate reconstructions reveal that Earth's climate is more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than is discussed in political circles," said the paper's lead author, Yale's Mark Pagani.

"Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level," he said in the statement.

The study was published on the heels of a 12-day UN conference in Copenhagen that was aimed at providing a durable solution to the greenhouse-gas problem and its disastrous consequences but was labelled a failure by critics.

The meeting set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.

The British study released on December 6 had also researched the Pliocene era, between three to five million years ago.

Read more!

2010 preview: Automotive X Prize contestants power up

MacGregor Campbell, New Scientist 20 Dec 09;

If this is the future of green motoring, sign us up. The electric hybrid eVaro, developed in Canada by Future Vehicle Technologies of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, can accelerate to 60 miles per hour in around 5 seconds, and drives at least 165 miles on the equivalent of a US gallon of fuel.

The eVaro is one of the contenders in the Automotive X-Prize contest starting in May. At stake is a share of $10 million, to go to the best-performing cars to maintain at least 100 miles per US gallon (42.5 kilometres per litre) or the equivalent in electricity usage.

More than 40 teams from around the world are set to compete in a number of performance trials, culminating in a stage race across the US in June or July. The contestants include small custom shops, well-known start-ups such as Tesla Motors and Aptera, and the giant Indian car maker Tata. No major US or European manufacturer is competing.

The contest features two classes. Mainstream cars must carry four passengers on four wheels and have at least 10 cubic feet (280 litres) of space for groceries. Alternative entrants, of which the eVaro is one, can have fewer seats and wheels, and need not have any carrying space.

Futuristic concept cars and one-offs need not apply. The X-Prize Foundation, which is organising the competition, stipulates that the vehicles must be capable of being mass-produced at the rate of 10,000 units per year by 2014. Expect to see one coming up fast in your rear-view mirror soon.

Read more!

Off to the Races

Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times 19 Dec 09;

I’ve long believed there are two basic strategies for dealing with climate change — the “Earth Day” strategy and the “Earth Race” strategy. This Copenhagen climate summit was based on the Earth Day strategy. It was not very impressive. This conference produced a series of limited, conditional, messy compromises, which it is not at all clear will get us any closer to mitigating climate change at the speed and scale we need.

Indeed, anyone who watched the chaotic way this conference was “organized,” and the bickering by delegates with which it finished, has to ask whether this 17-year U.N. process to build a global framework to roll back global warming is broken: too many countries — 193 — and too many moving parts. I leave here feeling more strongly than ever that America needs to focus on its own Earth Race strategy instead. Let me explain.

The Earth Day strategy said that the biggest threat to mankind is climate change, and we as a global community have to hold hands and attack this problem with a collective global mechanism for codifying and verifying everyone’s carbon-dioxide emissions and reductions and to transfer billions of dollars in clean technologies to developing countries to help them take part.

But as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil told this conference, this Earth Day framework only works “if countries take responsibility to meet their targets” and if the rich nations really help the poor ones buy clean power sources.

That was never going to happen at scale in the present global economic climate. The only way it might happen is if we had “a perfect storm” — a storm big enough to finally end the global warming debate but not so big that it ended the world.

Absent such a storm that literally parts the Red Sea again and drives home to all the doubters that catastrophic climate change is a clear and present danger, the domestic pressures in every country to avoid legally binding and verifiable carbon reductions will remain very powerful.

Does that mean this whole Earth Day strategy is a waste? No. The scientific understanding about the climate that this U.N. process has generated and the general spur to action it provides is valuable. And the mechanism this conference put in place to enable developed countries and companies to offset their emissions by funding protection of tropical rain forests, if it works, would be hugely valuable.

Still, I am an Earth Race guy. I believe that averting catastrophic climate change is a huge scale issue. The only engine big enough to impact Mother Nature is Father Greed: the Market. Only a market, shaped by regulations and incentives to stimulate massive innovation in clean, emission-free power sources can make a dent in global warming. And no market can do that better than America’s.

Therefore, the goal of Earth Racers is to focus on getting the U.S. Senate to pass an energy bill, with a long-term price on carbon that will really stimulate America to become the world leader in clean-tech. If we lead by example, more people will follow us by emulation than by compulsion of some U.N. treaty.

In the cold war, we had the space race: who could be the first to put a man on the moon. Only two countries competed, and there could be only one winner. Today, we need the Earth Race: who can be the first to invent the most clean technologies so men and women can live safely here on Earth.

Maybe the best thing President Obama could have done here in Copenhagen was to make clear that America intends to win that race. All he needed to do in his speech was to look China’s prime minister in the eye and say: “I am going to get our Senate to pass an energy bill with a price on carbon so we can clean your clock in clean-tech. This is my moon shot. Game on.”

Because once we get America racing China, China racing Europe, Europe racing Japan, Japan racing Brazil, we can quickly move down the innovation-manufacturing curve and shrink the cost of electric cars, batteries, solar and wind so these are no longer luxury products for the wealthy nations but commodity items the third world can use and even produce.

If you start the conversation with “climate” you might get half of America to sign up for action. If you start the conversation with giving birth to a “whole new industry” — one that will make us more energy independent, prosperous, secure, innovative, respected and able to out-green China in the next great global industry — you get the country.

For good reason: Even if the world never warms another degree, population is projected to rise from 6.7 billion to 9 billion between now and 2050, and more and more of those people will want to live like Americans. In this world, demand for clean power and energy efficient cars and buildings will go through the roof.

An Earth Race led by America — built on markets, economic competition, national self-interest and strategic advantage — is a much more self-sustaining way to reduce carbon emissions than a festival of voluntary, nonbinding commitments at a U.N. conference. Let the Earth Race begin.

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Copenhagen’s One Real Accomplishment: Getting Some Money Flowing

James Kanter, New York Times 20 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN — The most tangible outcome of the climate agreement announced here Friday turned out to be cash.

The Copenhagen Accord set no goal for conclusion of a binding international treaty, leaving months, and perhaps years, of additional negotiations before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form.

But money in notable quantities should, in principle, start flowing next year.

The accord was “a big step forward” since talks on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007, when countries committed to control emissions but offered no financial support mechanisms, Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, said in an interview Saturday.

“This time we have $100 billion a year,” Mr. Ban said, and “$100 billion a year is significant big money.”

To Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace, the environmental group, the funding pledge was one of the few “plus points” in an otherwise grossly inadequate document.

The accord calls for the establishment of the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund to support immediate action to help curb emissions and to help communities adapt to the effects of global warming.

An initial, fast-start fund worth $10 billion annually would operate from 2010 to 2012.

For long-term finance, developed countries agreed to support a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.

Mr. Naidoo said the long-term fund needed to be closer to $140 billion annually by 2020 to be truly effective.

But he said that the decision to raise and disburse hundreds of billions of dollars to help the most vulnerable nations showed that “the principle that poor countries with least responsibility for climate change need resources for adaptation has been recognized.”

Mr. Naidoo said some of the money should go to small island states like Tuvalu that are vulnerable to rising seas and need help in starting to move people to higher ground.

Mr. Naidoo said other candidates for such funding were low-lying coastal communities in countries like Bangladesh where levies are needed to channel seawater to keep it from contaminating sources of fresh water.

Mr. Ban said that he foresaw that the fund would oblige recipients to have reporting and verification systems, and that he envisaged a “comprehensive governance structure” to manage the aid disbursements.

“This is a new step toward the era of clean energy security and toward an era of green growth,” he said.

But Oxfam, the anti-poverty campaign group, immediately warned that the offers were full of “caveats and loopholes,” raising questions about whether the money would ever be disbursed in adequate amounts.

Robert Bailey, a senior spokesman for Oxfam International, said the amount of $100 billion was only half of what was needed.

Mr. Bailey also warned that rich-world governments could end up diverting money from important education and health care projects in poor countries to pay for new projects like flood defenses.

There were also concerns that governments would generate money for the fund on revenue raised from private-sector activities, like taxes on trading in greenhouse gas pollution allowances.

If that turns out to be the case, then forecasting the precise amount of aid flows could prove difficult, as the prices of allowances fluctuate, partly depending on how strongly governments enforce quotas, or caps.

“If the carbon markets are expected to provide any significant portion of that $100 billion, then developed countries will need to commit to cap emissions tightly to drive demand for allowances,” said Tom Brookes, the director at the European Climate Foundation, a research organization based in Brussels.

“But right now there are no caps in the accord,” said Mr. Brookes, referring to the outcome in Copenhagen.

The European Union has pledged $3.6 billion annually to the initial fast-start fund. Japan and the United States have made pledges to that fund, too.

But where large portions of the rest of the money will come from remains uncertain.

Announcing that the United States would contribute to the long-term $100 billion-a-year fund, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton insisted that those details could come later.

“There are a number of different ideas about how we can pursue the financing,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“The important point,” she said, was “not to talk about how we would fund money that we haven’t yet agreed to fund, but to make the agreement that that is what we’re going to do.”

On Saturday, Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. climate office, acknowledged that the accord did not specify how responsibility for the money would be divided up among industrialized countries.

“That means we have a lot of work to do on the road to Mexico,” he said, alluding to the next U.N. climate conference, which will be held nearly a year from now.

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Indonesian President blasted for 'characteristic' indecision

Hans David Tampubolon and Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post 21 Dec 09;

President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono’s “characteristic” lack of leadership was the main reason for Indonesia’s failure to play a bigger role in the recent UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, experts and legislators say.

Having successfully hosted the Bali climate talks two years ago and won international praise for domestic reforestation efforts, Yu-dhoyono came to Copenhagen with an ambitious plan to bridge the gap between developed and developing countries in creating a new climate change deal.

But Yudhoyono did not even make the group of countries that drafted the final form of the Copenhagen Accord, which emerged principally from US President Barack Obama’s meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa.

In international media coverage about the talks, Indonesia’s role was also rarely mentioned.

“The people put high hopes in the President to show strong diplomacy during the conference,” National Awakening Party (PKB) legislator Effendi Choirie said Sunday.

“The people realized that Indonesia, with its vast forests and seas, should have stronger bargaining power at the conference.

“However, the strong leadership expected from the President went to waste, because we all know the kind of character he is: not brave, and more concerned about lip service than real action.”

The climate talks ended Saturday without a legally binding agreement on greenhouse gas emissions
reductions.

Yudhoyono, arriving back in Jakarta on Sunday afternoon, expressed his satisfaction with the accord, claiming almost all of Indonesia’s proposals to address climate change, which he had outlined in his speech, had been included in the draft.

Benny Furqon, from the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said the lack of leadership from the Indonesian delegation was evident in the country’s unclear stance on whether to take sides throughout the conference.

“Indonesia tried to play the mediator between the developing and rich countries, but at the end of the day, nobody wanted to hear what Indonesia had to say because of its indecisiveness,” he said.

“Indonesia should have taken a much more firm and clear stance from the very start. This country could have been the leader of the developing nations in bargaining with the rich countries for the sake of the Earth and the environment.”

Civil Society Forum for Climate Justice coordinator Giorgio Budi said Yudhoyono had also failed to comprehend the real issues.

“The President didn’t realize that his interventions were mostly related to money,” he said.

“Money is not the issue. The issue is rich countries’ responsibility for causing environmental damage in developing countries.”

Giorgio also lambasted Yudho-yono for focusing more on guarding his image in the eyes of world leaders rather than fighting for the environmental interests of his own people back home.

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Indonesia to prepare concrete steps after Copenhagen talks

Antara 20 Dec 09;
Dubai (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia will prepare a number of concrete steps after the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The move was part of active steps Indonesia would take without having to wait for the adoption of a new protocol to replace the Kyoto Protocol which will expire in 2012, the president said on Saturday night in a press conference during a stopover in Dubai on his flight from Copenhagen to Jakarta.

"Indonesia is moving forward so as not to miss every opportunity. We have been struggling and making every effort," he said.

Yudhoyono said the concept of the so-called Copenhagen Accord was endorsed by the plenary session on Saturday morning with 194 countries participating.

As a follow up to the developments, Indonesia hoped there would be profound concepts for discussion at a similar conference to be held in Mexico by the end of 2010, he said.

"Besides the updated national action plan, we have to ensure that regional action plans will be attached to it. By doing do, we do not need to wait for the adoption of a new protocol," he said.

The president and entourage are expected to arrive in Jakarta at 09.30 a.m.

Indonesia hails Copenhagen accord
Antara 20 Dec 09;

Dubai (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia hails the endorsement of the Copenhagen Accord concept to be part of the UN climate change summit.

"Shortly before the plane took off I received a phone call from the foreign minister who along with the chairman of the Indonesian delegation took part in the plenary session.

In his report he said the concept of the so-called Copenhagen Accord prepared by 26 countries in the past two days was accepted at the plenary session," the president said on Saturday night in a press conference during a stopover in Dubai on his flight from Copenhagen to Jakarta.

The president said shortly before he called the press conference he had phoned chairman of the Indonesian delegation to the UN climate change talks Rachmat Witoelar to ask about latest developments.

"I have just been in talks with Rachmat Witoelar. He said discussions were underway
to synchronize what has been endorsed," he said.

Although the Indonesian delegation to the summit was still unsatisfied with a number of things, the government felt relief that the country`s proposal for the inclusion of measurement, reporting, verifying (MRV) point in the accord had been accepted.

"MRV is designed to ensure that all targets must be met. The obligation applies to all developed and developing nations. We want the concept implemented and delivered well. Don`t leave it unimplemented," he said.

The president and entourage are scheduled to arrive at Halim Perdanakusuma military airport, eastern Jakarta, at 08.30 a.m.

Climate Activists Say Jakarta Governor’s 30% Emissions Pledge Is Hot Air
Arientha Primanita, Jakarta Globe 20 Dec 09;

Environmental activists on Sunday criticized the Jakarta governor’s pledge to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030, saying the target was far too optimistic.

“It’s impossible to reach under Jakarta’s current conditions. It [the target] is a manifestation of the euphoria of being at a world conference,” Ahmad Safrudin, chairman of the Committee Against Leaded Gasoline (KPBB), told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday.

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo, who joined President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the recently concluded climate summit in Copenhagen, said his administration would continue to pursue environmentally-friendly initiatives, including integrated waste management, kerosene conversion to gas and the “one man one tree” program.

“The city will continue to work on transportation reform with eco-friendly macrotransport schemes like the Bus Rapid Transit and the planned Mass Rapid Transit,” he said.

Fauzi also emphasized the importance of devolving to regional governments the responsibility for implementing the Carbon Finance and Clean Development Mechanism.

Ahmad, however, said the devil was in the detail. Policies such as non-smoking areas, vehicle emissions testing and waste management have been poorly implemented, he said.

He said that only when all 15 busway corridors were operational and properly managed could the city count on the system to address traffic woes. Transportation, he added, accounts for 70 percent of the air pollution in the city.

Ahmad added that the city urgently needed to implement a traffic management system. With significantly less traffic, he said, emissions could be cut by up to 40 percent.

Ubaidillah, the executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said he was pessimistic the governor’s pledge could be met.

“Just take a look at the development orientation. Commercial interests tend to win the city’s attention ahead of ecological issues,” he said.

He said industry, which accounts for 20 percent of pollution in the city, needed to reduce its impact. The final issue, he said, is allocating more green space to absorb emissions and pollution.

Read more!

Asian giants hail Copenhagen deal: China and Indonesia

BBC News 20 Dec 09;

Asian giants China and Indonesia have hailed the Copenhagen UN climate summit outcome, despite its cool reception from aid agencies and campaigners.

Beijing's foreign minister said it was a new beginning, and Indonesia's leader said he was pleased with the result.

Earlier, US President Barack Obama defended the accord he helped broker with China and other main powers.

The non-binding pact, called the Copenhagen Accord, was not adopted by consensus at the summit in Denmark.

Instead, after two weeks of frantic negotiations, the 193-nation conference ended on Saturday with delegates merely taking note of the deal.

BBC environment correspondent Richard Black says the accord looks unlikely to contain temperature rises to within the 2C (3.6F) threshold that UN scientists say is needed to avert serious climate change.

It includes a recognition to limit temperature rises to less than 2C and promises to deliver $30bn (£18.5bn) of aid for developing nations over the next three years.

The agreement outlines a goal of providing $100bn a year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change.

It also includes a method for verifying industrialised nations' reduction of emissions. The US had insisted that China dropped its resistance to this measure.

'Make it binding'

China's Foreign Minister, Yang Jiechi, praised the summit in a statement which said: "Developing and developed countries are very different in their historical emissions responsibilities and current emissions levels, and in their basic national characteristics and development stages.

"Therefore, they should shoulder different responsibilities and obligations in fighting climate change."

"The Copenhagen conference is not a destination but a new beginning," he added.

His upbeat note was echoed by Indonesia, ranked the world's third-largest polluter after the US and China, if the effects of deforestation are taken into account.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in a statement on his website: "Indonesia is pleased, as [we have] taken a wholehearted stance to save our Earth, to save the children in our country," reports AFP news agency.

Environmental campaigners and aid agencies have branded the deal a toothless failure.

But the head of the Nobel-winning UN panel of climate scientists said on Sunday the outcome of the summit was a start, though he urged countries to make it binding.

Hopes for Mexico

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told India's NDTV news channel: "We will have to build on it.

"We will have to make sure it moves quickly towards the status of a legally binding agreement and therefore I think the task for the global community is cut out."

Germany will host the next climate change conference in six months in Bonn, to follow up the work of the Copenhagen summit.

The final outcome is supposed to be sealed at a conference in Mexico City at the end of 2010.

US President Barack Obama defended the deal after arriving back in Washington on Saturday, describing it as "the foundation for international action in the years to come".

The Copenhagen Accord is based on a proposal tabled on Friday by a US-led group of five nations - including China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

It was lambasted by some delegations when put to a full session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at the summit.

A few developing countries said it was a cosy backroom deal between rich nations that violated UN democracy and would condemn the world to disastrous climate change.

Before the summit, China for the first time offered to limit its greenhouse gas output.

It pledged to reduce its carbon intensity - use of fossil fuels per unit of economic output - by up to 45%, although critics said this would not necessarily lead to any overall cut in its emissions.

China 'positive' on Copenhagen summit
Yahoo News 19 Dec 09;

BEIJING (AFP) – China on Sunday welcomed the outcome of climate change talks in Copenhagen, the day after a deal reached to fight global warming came in for heavy criticism.

"With the efforts of all parties, the summit yielded significant and positive results," foreign minister Yang Jiechi was quoted as saying in a statement on the foreign ministry website.

The Copenhagen Accord, passed Saturday after two weeks of frantic negotiations, was strongly condemned as a backdoor deal that violated UN democracy, excluded the poor and doomed the world to disastrous climate change. Related article: Copenhagen deal passed amid condemnation

The agreement was assembled at the last minute by a small group consisting of leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and major European nations, after it became clear the summit was in danger of failure.

It set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.

Nor did it identify a year by which emissions should peak, and pledges were made voluntary and free from tough compliance provisions.

Yang, who never specifically mentioned the accord, said the summit had successfully maintained the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility," which recognises differing economic circumstances between emerging and rich nations.

China, the world's biggest carbon polluter, has always said rich countries should take the lead in committing to substantial emission reduction targets and provide finance to developing countries battling climate change.

The Copenhagen Accord set a goal of "jointly mobilising" 100 billion dollars for developing nations by 2020.

Yang added that the summit made a step forward with regards to developed countries' mandatory emissions cuts and developing nations' voluntary mitigation actions.

"Third, it reached broad consensus on the key issues of long-term global targets, funding, technology support (to developing countries), and transparency," Yang said, according to the statement.

China has pledged to reduce carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 based on 2005 levels.

China: Climate talks yielded 'positive' results
Gillian Wong, Associated Press Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

BEIJING – China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, lauded Sunday the outcome of a historic U.N. climate conference that ended with a nonbinding agreement that urges major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts — but does not require it.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the international climate talks that brought more than 110 leaders together in Copenhagen produced "significant and positive" results.

The Obama administration on Sunday also defended the agreement as a "great step forward" — despite widespread disappointment among environmentalists that the pact does not include mandatory targets that would draw sanctions.

"Nobody says that this is the end of the road. The end of the road would have been the complete collapse of those talks. This is a great step forward," White House adviser David Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" show.

Disputes between rich and poor countries and between the world's biggest carbon polluters — China and the United States — dominated the two-week conference. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to demand action to cool an overheating planet.

The meeting ended Saturday after a 31-hour negotiating marathon, with delegates accepting a U.S.-brokered compromise. The so-called Copenhagen Accord calls for reducing emissions to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) above preindustrial levels. It gives billions of dollars in climate aid to poor nations but does not require the world's major polluters to make deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions.

"It's disappointing, that we didn't get binding reduction targets," said Danish ex-climate minister Connie Hedegaard, who led the negotiations in Copenhagen. "We've worked very hard to achieve that."

But Hedegaard said the conference was successful in the sense that developing countries are "acknowledging their responsibility for getting the world on track in the fight against climate change."

"Although we regrettably in Copenhagen did not manage to make commitments legally binding, that is a very important step forward, which will probably have far-reaching consequences in the years to come," she said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would work with member states to convert the commitments into a global, legally binding treaty as soon as possible in 2010.

But the international response Sunday was not all rosy.

Former Cuban president Fidel Castro said the agreement was "undemocratic" and called President Barack Obama's address to the conference as "misleading." In one of his regular essays published Sunday, Castro wrote that only industrialized nations could speak at the summit, while emerging and poor nations only had the right to listen.

Bolivian President Evo Morales urged the world to mobilize against the failure of the Copenhagen summit and said that he would organize an alternate climate conference.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, defended the outcome as a first step toward "a new world climate order."

The Bild am Sonntag newspaper quoted her as saying that "anyone who just badmouths Copenhagen now is engaging in the business of those who are applying the brakes rather than moving forward."

China's Yang said the outcome upheld the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" recognized by the Kyoto Protocol, and made a step forward in promoting binding emissions cuts for developed countries and voluntary mitigating actions by developing countries.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — that was rejected by the U.S. — 37 industrial nations were already modestly cutting back on their emissions of greenhouse gases. Under the new, nonbinding agreement, those richer nations, including the U.S., are to list their individual emissions targets, and developing countries must list what actions they will take to reduce the growth in their global warming pollution by specific amounts.

"Developing and developed countries are very different in their historical emissions responsibilities and current emissions levels, and in their basic national characteristics and development stages," Yang said in a statement. "Therefore, they should shoulder different responsibilities and obligations in fighting climate change."

"The Copenhagen conference is not a destination but a new beginning," Yang said.

China has said it will rein in its greenhouse gas output, pledging to reduce its carbon intensity — its use of fossil fuels per unit of economic output — by 40 to 45 percent. The European Union has committed to cutting emissions by 20 percent by 2020, compared with 1990 levels; Japan to 25 percent, if others take similar steps, and the U.S. provisionally to a weak 3 to 4 percent.

The Copenhagen Accord emerged principally from Obama's meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa. But the agreement was protested by several nations that demanded deeper emissions cuts by the industrialized world.

Its key elements, with no legal obligation, were that richer nations will finance a $10 billion-a-year, three-year program to fund poorer nations' projects to deal with drought and other impacts of climate change, and to develop clean energy.

A goal was also set to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 for the same adaptation and mitigation purposes.

In a U.S. concession to China and other developing nations, text was dropped from the declaration that would have set a goal of reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2050. Developing nations thought that would hamper efforts to raise their people from poverty.

Despite the lack of mandatory targets, Axelrod defended the agreement and credited Obama's leadership for winning the cooperation of other major economies.

"Now, China, India have set goals. We're going to be able to review what they're doing. We're going to be able to challenge them if they don't meet those goals. We're going to pursue this anyway, because the president understands that our future lies with a clean energy economy," he said.

Read more!

World leaders defend climate deal

Yahoo News 20 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – World leaders defended Sunday the much-criticised climate deal they struck at a UN summit as a key step in the fight against global warming despite its lack of targets to curb emissions.

Newspapers widely branded the accord a failure and experts such as the head of a Nobel Peace prize-winning climate panel said "urgent" action was now needed.

US President Barack Obama acknowledged that all of the world's polluters would quickly have to do more, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the critics would only hold up the battle against rising temperatures that threaten devastating floods, storms and drought.

Obama returned to the White House and said "extremely difficult and complex negotiations" had been needed in Copenhagen.

"This breakthrough lays the foundation for international action in the years to come."

But even the US leader said "we will have to build on the momentum" and get the US Congress to pass mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Merkel hit back at critics saying Copenhagen was "a first step toward a new world climate order, nothing more but also nothing less," she told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

"Those who are only putting Copenhagen down are helping those who want to blockade rather than move forward."

Germany will host a follow-up meeting of environment ministers in Bonn in June, ahead of another summit in Mexico City next December.

The Danish chair of the UN climate summit, Connie Hedegaard, said Sunday she thought it would be difficult to gather together so many world leaders again for a new conference, though the effort must be made.

The Copenhagen Accord, only passed by a procedural motion after two weeks of tense negotiations, has been widely condemned as a backdoor deal that excludes the poor and dooms the world to disastrous climate change.

The agreement was assembled by the leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and major European nations, after it became clear the 194-nation summit was in danger of failure.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen said the agreement reached in Copenhagen was "better than nothing" and "not a bad result."

China, the world's top polluter, has given the warmest welcome to a summit that experts say it has benefited from by making the fewest concessions.

"With the efforts of all parties, the summit yielded significant and positive results," Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in a statement.

The summit set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 that are the key to holding down temperatures.

It also promised 100 billion dollars for poor nations that risk bearing the brunt of the global warming fallout, but has not given a fixed payout plan.

So far, the United States has promised to contribute 3.6 billion dollars in climate funds for the 2010-2012 period, with Japan contributing a total of 11 billion dollars, and the European Union 10.6 billion dollars.

However, the Council of Europe criticised the Copenhagen accord as a "missed opportunity" for failing to take "concrete decisions", which threatens food security and access to water or land for people who could "swell the ranks of climate refugees," said Lluis Maria de Puig, head of the Council's parliamentary assembly.

Even UN chief General Ban Ki-moon admitted the agreement had failed to win global consensus and would disappoint many who demanded stronger action against climate change.

"Many will say that it lacks ambition," Ban told the end of the summit. "Nonetheless, you have achieved much."

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said: "Developing countries, certainly Africa, are very concerned and very suspicious of the developed countries on whether they are really genuine in making these offers."

New research published Sunday suggested that carbon dioxide may be having more of an effect on global temperatures than previously thought.

The study, focussing on a period three to five million years ago, said that calculations for man-made global warming may be underestimated by between 30 and 50 percent.

"Since there is no indication that the future will behave differently than the past, we should expect a couple of degrees of continued warming even if we held CO2 concentrations at the current level," said the paper's lead author, Mark Pagani.

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