Sour asides
from The annotated budak
NSS Kids’ Last Kampong of Singapore Adventure
from Fun with Nature
Grey Heron feeds on fish
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Tongue of the Little Spiderhunter
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Asking to get shot
from The annotated budak
Roger Greenway, ENN, 22 Dec 2009
The British Antarctic Survey has released new photographs of ice fish, octopus, sea pigs, giant sea spiders, rare rays and beautiful basket stars that live in Antarctica's continental shelf seas are revealed this week by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
As part of an international study on sea surface to seabed biodiversity a research team from across Europe, USA, Australia and South Africa onboard the BAS Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross sampled a bizarre collection of marine creatures from the Bellingshausen Sea, West Antarctica — one of the fastest warming seas in the world. Research cruise leader Dr. David Barnes of British Antarctic Survey said,
"Few people realize just how rich in biodiversity the Southern Ocean is — even a single trawl can reveal a fascinating array of weird and wonderful creatures as would be seen on a coral reef. These animals are potentially very good indicators of environmental change as many occur in the shallows, which are changing fast, but also in deeper water which will warm much less quickly. We can now begin to get a better understanding of how the ecosystem will adapt to change."
"Our research on species living in the waters surrounding the BAS Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula shows that some species are incredibly sensitive to temperature changes. Our new studies on the diverse range of marine creatures living in the deep waters of the Bellingshausen Sea will help us build a more complete picture of Antarctica's marine biodiversity and give us an important baseline against which we can compare future impact on marine life."
BAS photographer Peter Bucktrout took stunning images of an astonishingly rich and unusual variety of life from on and above the deep continental shelf. Photo shows a sea pig.
Dewi Kurniawati, Jakarta Globe 23 Dec 09;
Sarolangun, Jambi. Driving the beat-up motorcycle that he bought five years ago, Tumenggung Tarib stretched out an arm to point out columns of palm oil trees on the side of the paved road leading to his house in the Air Hitam area. As he spoke, his voice was tinged with disappointment.
“All of this plantation area used to be our home when I was a kid,” the 60-year-old says.
Thinking back to those days, when the tribe he calls “Orang Rimba” (Jungle People) freely roamed the forests here without running into anyone, especially outsiders, makes him sad. “In those days, the forests were truly a place we called home,” Tarib said.
The Orang Rimba are the indigenous, semi-nomadic tribe of Jambi, in central Sumatra. Their people number around 3,000, spread among the forests of Bukit Duabelas and Bukit Tigapuluh, two national parks.
Such tribes were once common throughout what became Indonesia. Nationhood and modern development means that these scattered “Isolated Customary Communities,” as the government calls them, are fast disappearing.
With forests being cleared for industrial plantations and transmigration settlements, the original inhabitants are being squeezed out of their traditional homes. Some say they’re also losing their cultural identity.
“In the name of industrialization, people have to move, but when the forest is gone, this tribe is gone. Their whole life and mythology is in the forest,” said Rakhmat Hidayat, executive director of Warung Komunikasi (Warsi), a local nongovernmental organization that’s been working with the Orang Rimba since 1995 on education, legal rights and health care programs.
“Everyone is encroaching into their forests, and all they can do is keep going deeper in … but the forest is not big enough for all of them. There aren’t enough resources to support them,” Rakhmat said, noting that the problem was exacerbated by the tribe’s tradition of avoiding confrontation.
“Unlike the Dayak in Kalimantan or tribes in Papua, the Orang Rimba will not fight. When pushed, they will go deeper into the forest,” he said.
The first real incursion into Jambi’s forests came in the 1970s during the Suharto government’s controversial transmigration program, which moved landless people from Java, Bali and Madura to underdeveloped areas. By the end of the 1980s, millions of Javanese had become new landowners in Sumatra and Borneo.
Tarib was only 7 years old when workers first cleared the outer boundaries of the forest, which had literally been a playground in which he would pick fruit and hunt for wild boars, porcupines and other animals — the tribe’s main food sources. “Those workers said they were under orders from the president,” Tarib said.
Backed by soldiers and police officers, the workers scoffed at the Orang Rimba and told them to go complain to Suharto. “We didn’t know where the president lived. How could we ask why our home was being destroyed?” Tarib said, shaking his head.
Housing developments for transmigrant families were soon erected on the cleared land. Each new family was granted a two-hectare plot.
Even as the plots kept growing, the forest people didn’t lose much sleep over their new neighbors. As Tarib described it: “The Orang Rimba didn’t want to stress about it. As long as we could still find food to eat, it was OK for us.”
They would soon be hit by a bigger wave. Palm oil plantations, established in the 1980s with the blessings of the government, were followed by more land conversions to make way for plantations devoted to pulp and paper factories in the 1990s.
In 1999, Jambi’s forests made up 42 percent of the province’s total land area, or about 2.17 million hectares. A decree issued by the governor’s office at the time set aside almost half of that, about 870,000 hectares, as a protected area. Nonetheless, Jambi is currently losing around 1,500 hectares of that protected area every year due to illegal logging, land clearing and development. The same pattern of deforestation is occurring across the country. The Ministry of Forestry concedes that from 2003 to 2006, more than 1.17 million hectares of forest were cleared, with Sumatra losing the most.
A Way of Life in the Forest
The Orang Rimba’s simple life has changed significantly as a result of deforestation.
They are easily recognized by their features and dress, with their long, ruffled hair and loincloths. The women mostly go topless, though those who have embraced a bit of modernity cover themselves with a bra or a piece of cloth. Most Rimba men are exposed to the outside world; women remain hidden in their huts.
Their ancient attire, nomadic lifestyle and supposed lack of hygiene is mocked by outsiders as backward.
“That is why when someone doesn’t like to shower or acts stupid, they are called Kubu,” said Rudi Syaf, program manager of Warsi, referring to another name for the Orang Rimba that is often used by Jambi’s non-indigenous residents.
The central government hasn’t done much better, calling the tribe the “Isolated tribe.” Now they are the “Community with Remote Customs,” a term the tribe rejects.
Fed up with labels and slurs, the Orang Rimba try to adjust. To avoid being looked down upon when they wander out of the forests to trade fruit for salt, matches and rice, tribesmen will don shirts and pants. Some ride motorcycles and own cell phones. More and more of the tribe’s younger generation are adapting to modern life. The end is coming. “We can’t avoid this. Very likely we will lose this battle,” Tarib said.
Tarib and his family seem to see the writing on the wall. He dresses as the outsiders do, uses a motorcycle daily and bought a cell phone in 2007. He, his wife and one of their sons also converted to Islam. “My son is married to a village girl whose father is an Islamic cleric. He became a Muslim for that,” Tarib said.
But even if they give in to outside forces, the Orang Rimba find it hard to adjust.
“Outside the forest they are ranked as the lowest caste, subservient to other cultures. Because they are aware of this situation, they force themselves to adjust to modern culture,” said Adi Prasetijo, an anthropologist who wrote his thesis at the University of Indonesia on the Orang Rimba.
“The problem is, although they have adopted some modern ways — for example how they dress — that doesn’t change the perception of the outside world toward the Orang Rimba,” he said.
The internal conflict between modernity and tradition is apparent with Tumenggung Grip, a 54-year-old local chief from Kedundung Muda, which is a three-hour hike deep into the forests of Bukit Duabelas National Park. “Tumenggung” means hierarchical leader, and Grip leads a group of 50 families.
Sitting in a hut usually used as a make-shift school, he explains why he’s dressed the same as his visitors from the Jakarta Globe.
“The perception of the loincloth is that it equals low education, backwardness and a filthy life. I dressed like this to honor you as my guests,” he said.
Beneath his shirt and shorts, however, Grip’s heart and mind are still about the old ways.
As we sat down, he told us a story about how transmigrants once told him that the forests would one day disappear and become a city.
“At that time, I thought it was impossible. I just couldn’t imagine it, but now it’s all come true. We lost most of our forests,” he said.
To Grip, who was born in the forest, it’s all his people have in life. “People don’t seem to understand that this is not just trees, or logs or land … it’s home for us. Our whole life and customs are inside the forests,” he said, adding that true forest people only want to die where they are born.
The ‘Tree Of Life’
With relentless deforestation, there’s less of a homeland for the Orang Rimba to live in and practice their distinct culture. Whenever a baby is born, its umbilical cord is planted under a tree. Such a tree is called a “tree of life,” and is considered sacred because it grows along with the baby.
“ ‘One birth, one tree’ is an ancient concept for the Orang Rimba,” Grip explained.
Unlike loggers from outside, tribespeople immediately recognize a “tree of life” by its bark, the grass around it and other hints.
“Cutting down a ‘tree of life’ is a huge violation for us. It’s as if you kill someone,” Grip said. “Many of our ‘trees of life’ have been cut down by loggers. It’s sad if you can’t visit the marker of your birth.”
When a family member dies, the tribe follows the custom of melangun, in which they abandon their huts and roam the forests looking for a new spot to settle. In the old days, the process could take as long as five years — something they can no longer do.
“We can’t travel that long or that far because there is less forest now for all of us,” Grip said. “In the old days, we would also dig someone’s grave as far as possible from our huts, but with less forest, the graves are closer to our homes now.”
Less forest land also means fewer animals to hunt and fruit to collect, which weighs heavily on the tribe because raising and eating livestock is forbidden. They are allowed to eat fresh fish from local rivers.
However, the children we saw in Kedundung Muda were visibly malnourished. Dozens die each year from diarrhea, which first began appearing within the tribe in 1998. They say it’s caused by local palm oil companies polluting the rivers with waste.
“Our shamans can’t cure diarrhea because we haven’t had this problem before,” Grip said.
In a somewhat desperate move to ensure their survival, some groups within the Orang Rimba have themselves cleared forest land to plant sugar cane, cassava, rubber trees and other crops.
“It breaks our hearts to cut down even a single tree, but if we don’t do this, we can’t feed our families,” Grip said.
Far away from the peaceful isolation of the forest, less fortunate members of the tribe eke out a living selling snacks and cigarettes from kiosks along the Trans Sumatra Highway. These Orang Rimba were displaced when their forest land was cleared to build the highway.
They frequently have problems with the Javanese transmigrants who also live there, and risk being thrown in jail just for picking up fallen fruit from nearby land owned by palm oil plantations.
Deforestation has also sparked confrontations within the tribe. In December 2008, three people died in a brawl sparked by an argument, the first homicides in the tribe’s history. While the Orang Rimba have their own customs to resolve disputes — giving items of clothing as compensation — the local police intervened because the brawl occurred in public.
Two tribesmen spent two months in prison, which in itself was another insult because technically many Orang Rimba don’t even exist. Most of the tribespeople don’t have state identity cards because they don’t have permanent residences, and are animists, which is not an officially recognized religion.
“I think it’s not fair that they don’t recognize our religion. It shows that they don’t care about us,” Grip said, adding that the same applies to some aid organizations. “Christian and Islamic preachers have come and offered to give us some land for farming and housing — if we convert.”
Some tribespeople have attempted to secure their families’ futures by accepting government-built permanent housing and converting to one of the country’s five official religions. But doing so can sometimes mean being expelled from the tribe, something Tumenggung Tarib has seemingly been able to avoid.
Helmy, 55, once known Tumenggung Miring, was a group leader before converting to Islam in 1995. He even went on the Hajj pilgrimage in 2007, his trip paid for by the local district chief.
“At first I was sad to leave the tribe, because I’ve lived most of my life in the forest,” Helmy said. “But it was becoming difficult to live that life. We couldn’t see our future, we didn’t know what would become of us.”
“Then I decided to live in the village and join the transmigrant families.”
Helmy said he waited for his father to pass away before converting to Islam because he didn’t want to break his heart. He said 20 family members have also converted, and that many more Orang Rimba were interested in abandoning their traditional ways.
“Converting to a religion is a way for the Orang Rimba to survive,” Adi, the anthropologist, said. “With less forest land, they are more exposed to outside life, and it’s tough to resist.”
Government Intervention
To Jakarta, the Orang Rimba seem to be another mundane statistic. The Ministry of Social Affairs says there are more than 220,000 families in 30 provinces, identified as “Isolated Customary Communities.” These isolated communities even existed in Java until three years ago, but have now integrated into outside communities, the ministry said.
“We may have been neglecting them all this time — that’s why they are left behind,” said Charles Talimbo, a director at the ministry’s directorate general for social empowerment. “I think there’s been a lack of political will to solve these problems.”
According to Adi, the government has always attempted to address the issue of indigenous tribes, such as the Orang Rimba, in the same way they treat other communities. They are told to take up permanent housing, wear clothes and send their children to state schools for a conventional education, he said.
When asked about the apparent failure of government policies with remote communities, Rusli Wahid, head of the social empowerment directorate, responded angrily, “Do you want them to suffer? Live in trees, naked, while it’s been 64 years since the country’s independence? We don’t live in the Stone Age anymore!”
He blamed the problems on insufficient funds and the policies of other government agencies.
Talimbo said that “other ministries, like forestry and mining, issue concessions to open up the forests and forget about the people living there.”
He said the Social Affairs Ministry endorsed education and health programs for these communities, and asserted it was not contingent on them converting to officially-recognized religions.
Masyhud, a spokesman at the Ministry of Forestry, denied that government policies had led to the demise of forest-dwelling tribes such as the Orang Rimba.
“We should look toward the future, instead of at the wrongdoings of the past,” he said, adding it was a natural consequence of human development that forests were opened up.
“All cities, just like Jakarta, used to be forests too,” Masyhud said, “we can’t go back.”
Neither can the Orang Rimba. But it’s likely that one more unique way of life will be a casualty as another corner of the country encounters the future.
See also on Jakarta Globe
The Jakarta Post 22 Dec 09;
East Lombok fishermen exploiting coral reefs off West Nusa Tenggara are being blamed for causing two islets to sink, an official said.
Regent M. Sukiman Azmy, speaking with Research Minister Suharna Surapranata on Tuesday, said extensive exploitation of the coral reefs had placed other small islands in danger following the disappearance of Pengadah and Kapal islets.
“We have seen two islets sink and do not want such environmental destruction to ever happen again,” Sukiman was quoted as saying by Antara news agency.
Pengadah and Kapal were part of eight small islands in the Alas Strait in East Lombok, 100 kilometers east of the provincial capital, Mataram. West Nusa Tenggara has 278 islets, 33 of them in East Lombok regency.
Sukiman said his government had initiated a program to grow the local economy, which in turn would keep residents from exploiting protected coral reefs. The program includes the provision of fishing nets and boats.
“We also plan to provide the fishermen's families with cows to enable them to generate income from other sources,” he said.
Reuters Yahoo News 22 Dec 09;
BEIJING (Reuters Life!) – A man who killed and ate what may have been the last wild Indochinese tiger in China was sentenced to 12 years in jail, local media reported on Tuesday.
Kang Wannian, a villager from Mengla, Yunnan Province, met the tiger in February while gathering freshwater clams in a nature reserve near China's border with Laos. He claimed to have killed it in self-defense.
The only known wild Indochinese tiger in China, photographed in 2007 at the same reserve, has not been seen since Kang's meal, the Yunnan-based newspaper Life News reported earlier this month.
The paper quoted the provincial Forestry Bureau as saying there was no evidence the tiger was the last one in China.
A local court sentenced Kang to 10 years for killing a rare animal plus two years for illegal possession of firearms, the local web portal Yunnan.cn reported. Prosecutors said Kang did not need a gun to gather clams.
Four villagers who helped Kang dismember the tiger and ate its meat were also sentenced from three to four years for "covering up and concealing criminal gains," the report said.
Kang was also fined 480,000 yuan ($70,000).
The Indochinese tiger is on the brink of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 left in the forests of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.
($1=6.828 Yuan)
(Reporting by Yu Le and Lucy Hornby; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Boris Bachorz Yahoo News 22 Dec 09;
NAIROBI (AFP) – Three months from a major international conference on endangered species, African countries are divided over whether a fresh round of ivory sales should be allowed.
With black market sales on the rise again, some nations that consider their elephant populations to be out of danger are arguing stocks of the precious ivory should be sold legally.
Tanzania and Zambia, for example, have asked the CITES (Convention on International Trade in International Species) conference to be held from March 13 to 25 in Doha to authorise them to sell 90 and 22 tonnes of ivory respectively.
This request for an exemption to the 1989 ban on ivory sales, a measure destined to protect the African elephant and rhino, has rekindled a war between countries with varying animal population levels.
If elephants used to roam the African continent in their millions, today they number somewhere between 400,000 and 600,000.
More than half are found in southern Africa with just a few thousand, or sometimes a few hundred, in most western, central and eastern African countries.
In some cases the animals have disappeared all together, for example in Burundi, Gambia, Mauritania or Sierra Leone.
"We don't want to see elephants survive just in one corner of Africa, just in southern Africa," said Patrick Omondi who will head the Kenyan delegation to the Doha talks.
The last CITES conference in the Hague in June 2007 led to confrontations between African countries but they eventually reached a compromise prolonging the moratorium on ivory saes by nine years but allowing Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Botswana to make a one-off sale of 108 tonnes to buyers in China and Japan.
Elephant protection groups argue that this legal sale increased demand for ivory, much sought after throughout Asia for its decorative qualities, boosting the black market.
In Kenya, the number of elephants killed by poachers rose from 47 in 2007 to 214 in 2009.
"If the trend continues this way, we can expect to see the extinction of the elephant in our lifetime," said Patricia Awori of the Pan African Wildlife Conservation Network.
"Our position is that the international community should sustain the ban of selling ivory and rhino horns. By perpetuation of poaching, we will eliminate these animals," Kenyan Wildlife Minister Noah Wekesa told AFP.
Tanzania has a different argument. The authorities estimate that their elephant population rose from 55,000 in 1989 to 137,000 in 2006.
"Elephants are increasingly becoming a nuisance to poor farmers who are progressively becoming opponents to their conservation. The sale of ivory seized or collected from animals that have died a natural death is the best way of making the population aware of the value of the animal," the Tanzanian government said in the file it submitted to CITES.
Tanzania's proposal caused seven African countries, among them Kenya and DRC, to submit a counter amendment asking for the moratorium to be extended to 20 years from nine and calling for a ban on any sales outside southern Africa.
"The illicit trade in ivory, which has been increasing in volume since 2004, moved sharply upward in 2009", according to Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network.
"The remarkable surge in 2009 reflects a series of large-scale ivory seizure events that suggest an increased involvement of organized crime syndicates in the trade, connecting African source countries with Asian end-use markets," Traffic says.
The quantity of ivory seized has doubled in a year to reach 15 tonnes this year. Its market value is around 750 dollars per kilogramme.
"It is really getting out of control, it has become like the drug trade," Awori said.
Syed Zarir Hussain Thaindian News 22 Dec 09;
Kaziranga (Assam), Dec 22 (IANS) Two endangered one-horned rhinos were killed by poacher gangs at the famed Kaziranga National Park in Assam, taking the toll of the giant pachyderms slaughtered so far this year to 14, officials said Tuesday.
A wildlife official said the latest killings were reported Monday from inside the sanctuary, 220 km east of Assam’s main city of Guwahati.
“The two rhinos were killed using automatic weapons in separate locations and their horns gouged out. It could be the same poacher gang involved in both the attacks,” a park ranger told IANS.
Both killed were adult rhinos - a male and a female.
“We are indeed worried by the spurt in incidents of rhino poaching inside Kaziranga,” the park official said, requesting anonymity.
Last year, 18 rhinos were killed by poachers, the first time in a decade that the number of rhinos killed in a year in the park touched a double digit figure.
Between 1980 and 1997, some 550 rhinos were killed by poachers in Kaziranga - the highest being 48 in 1992.
As per latest figures, some 1,855 of the world’s estimated 2,700 one-horned rhinos lumber around the wilds of Kaziranga - their concentration here ironically making the giant mammals a favourite target of poachers.
Forest rangers complain about poor infrastructure and obsolete weapons compared to the poachers armed with sophisticated assault rifles.
“First of all the number of forest guards in Kaziranga is far less than what is actually required to protect the wildlife, then you have World War II weapons compared to AK series rifles and carbines used by the poachers,” a senior forest guard working in Kaziranga for more than 15 years, said.
Poachers kill rhinos for their horns, which many believe contain aphrodisiac qualities, besides being used as medicines for curing fever, stomach ailments and other diseases in parts of Asia.
Rhino horn is also much fancied by buyers from the Middle East who turn them into handles of ornamental daggers, while elephant ivory tusks are primarily used for making ornaments and decorative items.
Profits in the illegal rhino horn trade are staggering - rhino horn sells for up to Rs.1.5 million per kilogram in the international market after they are smuggled to China or sold in other clandestine Asian markets.
Once extracted, the rhino horn is routed to agents in places like Dimapur in Nagaland, Imphal in Manipur and Siliguri in West Bengal.
The route for rhino horn smuggling is an interesting one - a possible route is to Kathmandu via Siliguri and then from Nepal to China and the Middle East. The other possible route is from Imphal to Moreh on the Manipur border with Myanmar and then via Myanmar to countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and China.
New Scientist 22 Dec 09;
DAM-BUILDERS: be careful when you create a reservoir because bigger storms and flooding could be on the way. That's the warning from an analysis of more than 600 dams, many of which have brought more extreme rainfall.
The idea that large bodies of water might influence rainfall is not new. But until now, no one had studied the effect of large dams and their reservoirs.
Faisal Hossain of Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville and colleagues looked at the magnitude of the biggest storms near 633 of the world's largest dams before and after construction. They found that in many places the level of precipitation in the most extreme rainfall events grew by an average of 4 per cent per year after a dam was built, with the relationship especially strong in semi-arid regions. There was also an increase in the frequency of rainy days (Natural Hazards Review, DOI: 10.1061/(asce)nh.1527-6996.0000013).
The paper is the first to show a clear relationship between dams and heavy rainfall, says Johannes Feddema at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Though the results were not consistent all over the world, that is to be expected, he says, since regional weather patterns and numerous other factors come into play.
To explore these effects, Hossain plans to use computer models to simulate dams in different scenarios. "Hopefully it will make the picture less blurry," he says.
Yahoo News 22 Dec 09;
OSLO (AFP) – Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday he would put together a group of the world's most important rainforest countries in order to fight deforestation.
The group, initiated "as part of our efforts to reach a binding climate agreement in Mexico in 2010," will consist of "the most important rainforest countries, among them Brazil, Indonesia, Guyana, Gabon, Papua New Guinea and others," Stoltenberg said in a statement.
"Developing countries represent 17 percent of the total emission of greenhouse gases," he said, adding "efforts related to rainforests may lead to one third of the emission cuts needed by 2020."
Norway, one of the world's leading oil and gas exporters, has made the fight against deforestation one of its top climate change priorities.
The Scandinavian, non-EU country argued Tuesday that reducing deforestation may lead to the "largest, quickest and cheapest cuts in greenhouse gas emissions."
At the UN Climate summit in Copenhagen, Norway said it would unblock one billion dollars as part of a 3.5 billion dollar aid package to fight deforestation, put together by the United States, Britain, France, Australia and Japan.
The Norwegian prime minister, speaking at his bi-annual press conference, said the deal reached in Copenhagen had "great weaknesses" but that it was an "important step" in the fight against climate change.
Stoltenberg said two of the greatest weaknesses of the last-minute deal reached in Copenhagen were the lack of numbered targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the absence of a legally binding agreement.
He however lauded the international consensus of world leaders to tackle climate change, the involvement of emerging countries, developed countries' financing promises and control measures.
Their credibility is at stake, even without a legally binding accord
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 23 Dec 09;
IF THERE is a silver lining to the recently-concluded climate talks, it is that the momentum to curb greenhouse gas emissions looks likely to continue beyond Copenhagen.
Key countries in Asia, in particular China and Indonesia, have indicated they will go ahead with pledges to reduce the growth of emissions even though the United Nations conference did not produce a legally-binding pact.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in Copenhagen last week that his country would honour its pledge to voluntarily reduce its carbon emissions intensity by 40 to 45per cent by 2020, without any conditions. This refers to emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP).
Like China's voluntary action, India also announced early this month that it would reduce carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 20 to 25per cent of 2005 levels by 2020.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said recently that Indonesia would prepare a number of concrete steps without waiting for the adoption of a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012, state news agency Antara reported.
'Besides the updated national action plan, we have to ensure that regional action plans will be attached to it. By doing so, we do not need to wait for the adoption of a new protocol,' he was quoted as saying.
Indonesia, which is the world's third- largest emitter after China and the United States, has pledged an emissions cut of 26per cent from business as usual (BAU) levels by 2020.
Analysts told The Straits Times that the momentum to take action on curbing pollution would likely continue, with countries adopting their own national plans despite Copenhagen's outcome.
It is 'a matter of national pride' that countries do what they say, said the Asian Development Bank's deputy director-general for regional and sustainable development, Mr Woochong Um. 'Countries will take some actions now, and perhaps ramp it up if there's a global binding deal in the future,' he said.
Singapore will start making good on its pledge to bring down its own level of carbon emissions growth, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said recently.
But whether it can reach the full target of 16per cent below BAU levels by 2020 will depend on an eventual legally binding global deal to fight climate change, he added.
After the 12-day climate conference, which was extended by a day, the countries agreed to take note of the Copenhagen Accord, a deal shaped by the US, China, India, South Africa and Brazil.
The document states that countries will list pledges to fight climate change and take action to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising by more than 2degC.
Funding of US$30billion (S$42billion) in the next three years will also be provided by rich nations to help poorer nations cope with climate change. This will be raised to US$100billion a year by 2020.
Senior policy analyst Julian Wong at the Centre for American Progress, a Washington-based think-tank, said that despite criticism, the accord 'represents a sea change in global climate politics' in that major emitters China and the US are committing to mitigation actions.
'They are under intense international scrutiny and pressure to act,' he said.
'To renege on their verbal promises on climate action would severely undercut their international credibility,' he added.
International policy director Mark Kenber of The Climate Group, an international think-tank that boasts former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a campaigner, noted that though the accord 'falls short in setting a clear pathway for the reduction of emissions, it is a start'.
Countries are due to submit their pledges to reduce emissions to the UN by end of next month.
'Countries need to complete the task of agreeing to a legally binding treaty, and to enshrine their most ambitious pledges into national legislation,' said Mr Kenber.
Companies and individuals, too, can do their part through their businesses and consumer decisions to 'make the radical shift necessary' to achieve a low-carbon economy, he added.
Yahoo News 22 Dec 09;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia will do "no more and no less" than other nations to fight climate change, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Tuesday, as he defended the outcome of global talks in Copenhagen.
Rudd's centre-left government wants to introduce a carbon emissions trading scheme which will reduce the pollution responsible for global warming by between five and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020.
But following the global summit on climate change in the Danish capital, it will consider the efforts of other countries before setting the level within this range at which carbon emissions will be capped.
Asked whether Australia would consider a target above 25 percent, Rudd replied: "Absolutely not."
"And the reason is, as I have said consistently, that Australia will do no more and no less than the rest of the world," he told reporters.
The non-binding Copenhagen Accord committed nations to limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but it failed to set targets for greenhouse gas emissions cuts.
Rudd said Australia's range of five to 25 percent carbon cuts was consistent with this aim, as he defended the outcome of the summit.
"The negotiations among many countries proceeded very effectively. And with various other countries, did not proceed effectively," he said.
"There were many countries in the Copenhagen negotiations who wanted to land a deal on climate change which was comprehensive. We had some resistance from various developing countries against that.
"The important thing, however, is that the alternatives at the end of the day were this -- the complete collapse of negotiations, and no deal whatsoever, or the deal that we were able to deliver."
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government had made its target range of proposed cuts clear.
"That is dependent on what the rest of the world is prepared to do and as we work over the coming weeks with other nations who are supporting the Copenhagen Accord, we will be considering very carefully what other nations put forward," she said.
Wong said the Copenhagen conference was a step forward because for the first time it involved developed and developing nations acting together on climate change.
But according to a transcript of Wong's comments made after the summit, the minister agreed that more could have been gleaned from the talks.
"Of course there's a lot to do, of course we would have wanted more," the senator told a media conference after the talks concluded.
"But this is a significant step and what is important now is pressing on, implementing this agreement, working with those countries who support action to get a legally binding outcome at the next conference."
Australia backs carbon plan, early poll chances cool
James Grubel, Reuters 22 Dec 09;
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia promised to press on with its carbon trade plan on Tuesday despite the U.N. climate summit's failure to set emissions targets, but the Copenhagen outcome has cooled chances an early election on climate policy.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government would consider targets by other countries before finalizing domestic targets to curb carbon emissions, blamed for gobal warming.
"We have our target range, we will consider what is put forward by the rest of the world under this agreement, and we will do no more and no less," Wong told Australian radio.
Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter and the developed world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gas per person, and has promised a broad target to curb carbon emissions by between 5 and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020.
The accord from the U.N climate summit of 193 countries in Copenhagen included no new emissions targets, but agreed that deep cuts were needed to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.
The result is also likely to make it harder for U.S. President Barack Obama to win Congressional support for a cap and trade carbon scheme in the United States.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants carbon trading to start in Australia in July 2011, obliging 1,000 of the biggest companies to buy permits for their carbon emissions and providing a market-based incentive to clean up pollution.
But laws to set up the carbon trade scheme have twice been rejected in parliament's upper house, where the opposition has the largest voting bloc, giving Rudd the option of calling an early election on his key climate policy to resolve the deadlock.
Rudd plans to re-introduce the carbon trade laws to parliament in February, but the opposition Liberal Party has hardened its stand after electing new leader Tony Abbott, who won the job with the backing of climate skeptics.
Abbott has been buoyed by the outcome at Copenhagen, saying the lack of firm emissions targets was a rebuff for Rudd and proved Australia should wait to see what other countries do.
EARLY ELECTION COOLS
Analyst Rick Kuhn said the results in Copenhagen would now make Rudd cautious about an early election, with the government more likely to wait for a regular poll due in late 2010.
"Climate change is now clearly not the issue to go to an early election on. I think for the time being, it is off the agenda," Kuhn, from the Australian National University, told Reuters.
Opinion polls continue to show Rudd holds a strong lead and would easily win a fresh election with an increased majority, although analysts expect Abbott's election as opposition leader will see a shift back toward the opposition.
Betting agency Centrebet on Tuesday said Abbott's honeymoon period may already be over, with the odds of the government winning the next election narrowing over the past two weeks to $1.19 for a $1 bet from $1.23.
Kuhn said Abbott, a blunt speaking social conservative who once studied to become a Catholic priest, would win back votes from traditional Liberal Party supporters, but was unlikely to secure enough support to win an election.
"He can play all sorts of right-wing issues, but unless he has some traction on the economic issues, I don't think he is going to get that far," he said.
Yahoo News 22 Dec 09;
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon appealed for world powers to make a new effort to secure a legally binding climate deal next year amid new diplomatic wrangling over the failure of the Copenhagen summit.
China hit back at Britain over claims that Beijing had "hijacked" the Copenhagen negotiations while Brazil and Cuba lashed out at the US President Barack Obama.
With scientists warning of the growing threat of drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels, Ban acknowledged international disappointment over the summit accord on restraining rising temperatures.
"I am aware that the outcome of the Copenhagen conference, including the Copenhagen Accord, did not go as far as many would have hoped," Ban told reporters in New York.
"Nonetheless they represent a beginning, an essential beginning," the secretary general added.
Ban said "the leaders were united in purpose, but they were not united in action," and pressed them "to directly engage in achieving a global legally binding climate change treaty in 2010."
The UN boss said he would set up a high-level panel on development and climate change in 2010 ahead of attempts for a new deal at a summit in Mexico City in December next year.
The leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and major European nations assembled the last-minute Copenhagen accord, as it became clear the 194-nation summit was heading for failure.
They promised 100 billion dollars for poor nations that risk bearing the brunt of the global warming fallout and set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
The outcome has been widely criticised, with recriminations among many of the participants.
China on Tuesday accused Britain of "fomenting discord" among developing countries after Britain's climate change minister Ed Miliband said China had blocked a deal in Copenhagen.
Miliband wrote in a newspaper article that China vetoed attempts to give legal force to the accord reached at the summit and that it had blocked an agreement on reductions in global emissions.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said "such an attack was made in order to shirk the obligations of developed countries to their developing counterparts and foment discord among developing countries."
She told the state Xinhua news agency "the attempt was doomed to fail."
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed the United States for the talks' failure, saying Obama was not prepared to make sufficient emissions cuts.
"The United States is proposing a reduction of four percent from the date fixed by the Kyoto Protocol (1990). That is too little," Lula said on his weekly radio programme.
This led other countries to avoid their "commitments to the objectives (of reducing carbon dioxide emissions) and financial commitments," Lula added.
Brazil pledged voluntary carbon emission cuts of 36-39 percent based on projected 2020 output and urged rich countries to help poorer countries.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez accused Obama of being "arrogant" at the summit, while Britain had been the "executioner" for the United States.
"During the summit, there was just an imperial, arrogant Obama who doesn't listen, who imposes and threatens developing countries," the minister told a press conference.
Rodriguez added that "the British delegation played the role of the executioner" using attempts at "shameful blackmail" against developing countries.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday accused a handful of unnamed countries of taking the summit hostage.
India weighed into the dispute with its government hailing the lack of targets and legally binding measures and vaunting the united front presented with China, Brazil and South Africa.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told parliament India had "come out quite well in Copenhagen".
He listed a series of accomplishments, including the thwarting of moves to impose binding targets for global reductions in carbon emissions -- something India has always rejected.
"We can be satisfied that we were able to get our way on this issue," Ramesh told lawmakers.
Bangladesh, one of the nations most vulnerable to global warming, said meanwhile that it will seek 15 percent of the first 30 billion dollars committed at the Copenhagen summit.
EU seeks way ahead after 'disastrous' UN climate talks
Yahoo News 22 Dec 09;
BRUSSELS (AFP) – European environment ministers began Tuesday to plan a new strategy for tackling climate change after "disastrous" UN climate negotiations which the US and China did their best to undermine, the Swedish EU presidency said.
"I call this a disaster, it doesn't at all match the needs of the world and that is what we have to discuss," said Sweden's Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of the year.
The outcome of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, which ended last Friday "was mostly for the big ones, for the US and for China and their followers" agreeing on "the lowest common denominator," he told reporters as he arrived for the talks in Brussels.
The Copenhagen agreement was put together by 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.
It promised 100 billion dollars for poor nations that risk bearing the brunt of the global warming fallout and set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
The summit outcome has been widely criticised, however, with recriminations among many of the participants.
Belgian Climate Minister Paul Magnette is one of the Europeans seeking a stronger EU line, and sees a kind of climate tax as a possible answer.
"If some countries, including the biggest emitters in the world, continue to block the adoption of binding emission reduction targets, the European Union has to consider... a carbon tax on products imported from these countries," he told the Belgian daily Le Soir Monday.
Otherwise, he added, companies operating in Europe, which has set binding CO2 cuts of 20 percent by 2020, would be at a disadvantage.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has also said that such a carbon tax is worth considering.
However, the idea does not have unanimous EU backing.
"We can't reach our goals through state edicts," German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said on Tuesday.
The European Commission is also reticent. "The carbon tax is not a subject for discussion" at the EU ministerial talks, an official said.
No decisions were expected on Tuesday, but the post-Copenhagen debate was underway in Europe.
"The governments are in the process of analysing and leading the debate," one negotiator said, while adding that the next major talks would take place in Seville on January 15-16 after Spain assumes the EU presidency.
Roettgen was not despairing. "This isn't lost," he said.
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