Best of our wild blogs: 29 Jan 10

A world without
from The annotated budak

Pulau Hantu Dive Blog Log: 17 January 2010
from Pulau Hantu and 24 January 2010.

Pulau Semakau: Glimpse of the past in NewspaperSG
from wild shores of singapore

Red-legged Crake and earthworms
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Playing hide n’ seek with the clouds
with bird calls from Black Dillenia

Water Competitions for Students in Singapore
from Water Quality in Singapore

Cotton Pygmy-goose breeding in Peninsular Malaysia?
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Crunch time for the cosy cousin?
Conserving biodiversity uncontroversial? from BBC NEWS blog by Richard Black

Will it be possible to feed nine billion people sustainably?
from Mongabay.com news

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Punggol to get green makeover

New estate will be first eco-town in Singapore, says Mah Bow Tan
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 29 Jan 10;

THE former sleepy fishing village of Punggol is to undergo a green makeover that will transform it into Singapore's first 'eco-town'.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said on Wednesday that the northern coastal town is to serve as a testbed for innovative green technologies.

Testing such technologies at Punggol will allow the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to lower the implementation cost of these solutions and to replicate them across other towns, he added.

The HDB sees Punggol, one of Singapore's younger towns, as being ideally placed to undergo the planned transformation.

It is already home to HDB's first green housing project, Treelodge@Punggol, which features solar panels and rainwater recycling.

A waterway is being built at Punggol that will feature green landscapes and bring nature closer to residents.

The town has small, intimate estates featuring common green areas, accessible amenities and a well-integrated public transport network.

The HDB hopes the town's green living environment will raise awareness of environmental sustainability.

To bring about Punggol's revamp, it will be working with government agencies and private sector firms in the areas of energy, waste and water management.

The HDB is adopting a three-pronged approach to the development of the eco-town.

This will involve implementing effective urban planning designs that encourage residents to adopt greener lifestyles, using green technologies and educating residents through grassroots events.

Speaking to a 500-strong audience yesterday at an HDB-hosted housing conference at Suntec City, chief executive Tay Kim Poh said the HDB viewed such investment as being in line with its goal of providing a higher quality of life for residents.

'As the largest developer in Singapore, we have the responsibility to promote environmental sustainability,' he said.

He added that in recent years the HDB had been driving a number of initiatives to combat climate change.

It is introducing solar systems at four precincts - Tampines, Bukit Panjang, Tanjong Pagar and Marine Parade - with a combined capacity of 600 kilowatt-peak that will be used to offset the energy consumption of the towns.

Mr Tay underlined the importance of constantly rejuvenating ageing towns, and said HDB intends to extend to all towns its Remaking Our Heartland urban rejuvenation programme for public housing estates.

Over the next 20 to 30 years, this massive programme will revitalise older towns and estates, he said.

First eco-town in Punggol, solar panels in more HDB precincts
Ting Kheng Siong, Channel NewsAsia 28 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE: Plans are underway to turn Punggol into Singapore's first eco-town as part of the sustainable development blueprint.

The aim is that over the next five years, energy consumption in public areas will go down by up to 30 percent while energy use in households is targeted to decrease by 10 percent.

HDB said that as a new town, Punggol is perfect as a test bed for green technologies. These include facilities in carparks for people to power up their electric cars, and solar panels to generate electricity.

HDB CEO, Tay Kim Poh, said: "We will provide a lot more greenery in the town in terms of park, green connectors, roof gardens. Buildings will be designed so there is good cross-ventilation, and they don't really have to use their air-con."

A pilot scheme in Serangoon and Sembawang estates to use solar power has also seen energy consumption drop by 40 percent.

It will soon be extended to Tampines, Marine Parade, Tanjong Pagar and Bukit Panjang estates.

The aim is to install solar panels at 30 housing estates over five years.

- CNA/ir

HDB to turn Punggol into eco-town
Area will test ideas and tech promoting sustainable devt
Emilyn Yap, Business Times 29 Jan 10;

THE Housing and Development Board (HDB) has identified Punggol as Singapore's first eco-town, and the area is set to become a 'living laboratory' for ideas and technologies promoting sustainable development.

HDB announced this yesterday, together with plans to install solar panels at Tampines, Bukit Panjang, Tanjong Pagar and Marine Parade.

'As the largest developer in Singapore, we have the responsibility to promote environmental sustainability,' said HDB CEO Tay Kim Poh at the International Housing Conference at Suntec Singapore.

As an eco-town, Punggol will become home to more environmentally friendly buildings. New developments along the waterway passing through the town are likely to have higher Green Mark ratings.

Punggol will also have facilities such as cycling paths and spaces for car sharing services, to encourage residents to adopt more environmentally-friendly ways of getting around.

When it comes to testing new technologies in energy, waste and water management, Punggol will be taking the lead. More importantly, HDB will look at lowering implementation costs and replicating these solutions in other towns.

HDB will also be working with advisers, town councils and grassroots leaders to encourage residents in Punggol to adopt a greener lifestyle. For instance, there will be outreach programmes to educate them about the eco-town's environment and design.

Other towns will be getting their share of action in promoting environmental sustainability. Following the successful trial installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels at Serangoon and Wellington,

HDB will be testing the technology in Tampines, Bukit Panjang, Tanjong Pagar and Marine Parade.

This move is part of HDB's $31 million plan to test solar PV panels in 30 HDB precincts by 2015. Last week,

HDB agreed to collaborate with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore on two projects.

In the meantime, HDB will continue to rejuvenate older towns and estates through the Remaking Our Heartland programme. It plans to extend the programme to all other towns, after Punggol, Yishun and the Dawson estate, Mr Tay said.

Solar power for four more precincts
Today Online 29 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE - It started with two precincts last year. And now that the solar photovoltaic (PV) panels have provided sufficient electricity for common usage, four more estates are set to get more eco-friendly.

The "successful trial" at Serangoon and Wellington precincts has allowed the Housing and Development Board (HDB) to "carry out a wider-scale test-bedding of solar PV to build up solar capabilities", it said yesterday in a statement.

The four precincts - Tampines, Bukit Panjang, Tanjong Pagar and Marine Parade - will be equipped with 600 kilowatt-peaks (kWp) solar PV on rooftops.

How many and which blocks will be selected has yet to be finalised. And even as solar power slowly establishes a foothold in public housing estates here, the caveat for now is that it is too soon to say how much cost savings have been achieved.

What the pilot project found is that the panels at Serangoon and Wellington generate about 220 kWh a day, enough to meet electricity requirements for the common services of one block.

Installation costs amounted to about $250,000 per precinct, but this figure could vary for the latest precincts, depending on how many panels will be required.

Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council property manager Lawrence Toh said the installation at Bukit Panjang will complement its existing efforts to go green. Some of its multi-storey carparks and landscape lighting are already powered by solar power.

The HDB also affirmed yesterday that recent green initiatives in Punggol are pointing to one goal: Creating Singapore's own Eco-Town, to serve as a "living laboratory" for sustainable development and living.

The town already has Singapore's first Built-To-Order eco-precinct, Treetops@Punggol, which has flats fitted with water-saving devices, rooftops planted with greenery and water harvesting systems as well as solar panels for common areas. There will also be recycling chutes within the blocks.

Coming up will be cycling paths, charging stations at carparks and spaces for car sharing to encourage "clean commuting".

HDB said it will test-bed more solutions for energy, water and waste management in the estate. Lin Yanqin

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$50m boost for urban development research

Esther Teo, Straits Times 29 Jan 10;

SUSTAINABLE urban development research has received a $50 million shot-in-the-arm with the announcement that the National Research Foundation (NRF) is to help fund five research projects.

Four of the research programmes are from Nanyang Technological University, while the fifth is the brainchild of National University of Singapore academics.

The money will go towards pushing the knowledge frontier forward in areas such as sustainable urban waste management, efficient sunlight harvesting and engineering biofuels.

The grant is part of NRF's Competitive Research Programme (CRP) funding scheme, which attracted 68 preliminary proposals submitted by researchers from local universities, polytechnics, public research bodies and private companies.

Twelve were selected to be developed into full proposals for international peer review, with five finally recommended for funding by the International Evaluation Panel (IEP).

The CRP funding scheme provides up to $10 million per proposal over a period of three to five years and funds a broad range of research programmes.

The initiative is credited with strengthening internationally competitive high-impact science and technology here.

NRF chief executive Francis Yeoh said that the CRP grants had built up a sizeable body of researchers working on cutting-edge issues, and that this greatly enriched the breadth and depth of the research landscape.

'Early results have been promising - we look forward to significant research breakthroughs coming out of this programme that will result in major economic or societal benefit,' he said.

IEP chair and former director of the United States National Science Foundation Rita Colwell said that as a small, densely populated nation, Singapore was well-placed to develop solutions to the global challenges of urbanisation faced by mega-cities around the world.

'The theme was an excellent choice. The awarded R&D projects are very impressive,' Dr Colwell said.

'I hope the results of their research will help Singapore and other cities in the world deal with the complex challenges of rapid urbanisation in a way that will allow large urban centres to achieve an even higher standard of living.'

CRP grant calls are announced twice a year and, to date, 25 awards totalling about $250 million have been disbursed over the past five rounds.

Past research projects funded by the grants have led to a range of discoveries, such as the generation of antibodies used to detect tuberculosis.

NRF said that it is planning a review of the scheme before any further grant calls so that it can evaluate its effectiveness and implement improvements.

NRF hands out $50m worth of grants
Today Online 29 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE -The National Research Foundation (NRF) has awarded $50 million worth of grants to five research programmes on sustainable development, with the lion's share going to Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Four NTU proposals won up to $40 million of funds from NRF's Competitive Research Programme (CRP) Funding Scheme.

They were for proposals involving the development of new biofuels, the development of an underwater city, sustainable urban waste management, and the harvesting of sunlight to create chemical energy.

The other award went to the National University of Singapore for a proposal to convert urban organic wastes into value-added products.

This is NRF's fifth call for proposals under the CRP Funding Scheme - launched in April 2007 - which awards up to $10 million for each successful research proposal, over three to five years. The theme this year was Sustainable Urban Systems.

The NRF also awarded research fellowships to 11 young top scientists to conduct cutting-edge research in Singapore. They were selected out of 221 applications received from around the world, and bring the total number of NRF Research Fellows to 29.

Each of the research fellowship - started in 2007 - provides the recipient with up to US$1.5 million ($2.06 million) in research funding support over three years, with the possibility of a second round of three-year funding. These scientists are currently doing research as post-doctoral fellows in top universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, Caltech and Keio.

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50 electric charging stations to come up in Singapore this year

Christopher Tan, The Straits Times Asia One 28 Jan 10;

A $20 MILLION initiative to put the first fleet of electric cars on Singapore roads this year is picking up pace, with the Government calling a tender soon for a network of charging stations.

The Energy Market Authority (EMA) said the tender will be out this quarter, and that the network will be up by the third or fourth quarter of this year.

EMA deputy chief executive David Tan said: 'We envisage that there will be at least one charging station for each electric vehicle being tested.'

The Straits Times understands that there will be around 50 stations, with three being quick-charge kiosks. The latter can recharge an electric vehicle in about half an hour, versus the usual six to eight hours that a regular station manages.

The stations, which are likely to use a smartcard-based payment system, will be sited at or near the premises of parties involved in test-driving Singapore's maiden fleet of battery-powered cars.

The multimillion-dollar trial is meant to study the robustness, cost-effectiveness and environmental impact of electric vehicles in a tropical setting.

Individuals who want to be part of the test, however, are likely to be disappointed. There will not be enough cars for them.

Mr Tan explained that priority is being given to companies and organisations, as 'there are limited electric vehicles available'.

Participants are required to buy the electric cars for the three-year trial. Although they will be exempt from taxes such as the certificate of entitlement fee and the Additional Registration Fee (ARF), the cars will not come cheap.

For instance, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV subcompact, expected to be the first to arrive in July, will cost $85,000 to $90,000 each - the price of a big family sedan.

Mr Alvyn Ang, general manager at Mitsubishi agent Cycle & Carriage, said he expects to bring in 20 to 50 cars initially.

'The number depends on how many parties sign up for the trial,' he said. 'We are supplying them at close to cost price.'

So far, about 50 organisations have attended informal forums held by EMA and Cycle & Carriage, including an 'electric road show' held last Friday at Cycle & Carriage's Alexandra Road showroom.

These include Sentosa Development Corporation, NTUC Income Car Co-op, courier giant DHL, power companies Singapore Power and Kyushu Electric Power, and a number of learning institutions and government-linked bodies.

Sentosa Development Corp corporate planning director Chan Mun Wei said preserving the 'greenness' of the 500ha resort island 'is of great importance to us', adding that Sentosa is looking to change its fleet of diesel transit buses to hybrids.

'It is likely that we will take part in the test,' he said, even though Sentosa will not benefit from the tax-exempt status of the trial electric cars as its current fleet of petrol vehicles are already tax-exempt.

ITE College West principal Yek Tiew Ming said the school is keen to get on board the trial, too.

'We want to be part of it to understand the technology better,' he said, adding that the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) will offer a course on maintenance and repair of electric vehicles once they become more widely used.

Besides Mitsubishi's i-MiEV, which is already in use in Japan, two other manufacturers have confirmed their participation in the trial.

They are Renault, whose electric Fluence and Kangoo models are expected here by early next year, and Nissan, whose Leaf electric hatchback will arrive between mid- and late-2011.

But Renault will be sporting a small fleet of electric cars during the Youth Olympics here, which runs from Aug 14 to 26.

Other makes which are looking to participate in the trial include Mercedes- Benz and BMW. If they join up, they are likely to do so with the electric Smart and Mini E, respectively.

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Keppel plans to expand its Tembusu power plant

Other players also raising capacity as stalled petrochem projects are revived
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 29 Jan 10;

WITH the market rebound and petrochemical investments once again returning to Jurong Island, a 'power battle' is shaping up at the island's greenfield Tembusu sector.

Following last November's move by Tuas Power - now under China Huaneng Group - to build a mega $2 billion clean coal/biomass cogen plant there, local player Keppel Corp is also looking to expand its Tembusu cogeneration plant to supply utilities there.

'We are currently planning the capacity expansion of Keppel Merlimau Cogen and look forward to the planting,' Ong Tiong Guan, managing director of Keppel Energy, told BT, but gave no further details.

Still, this is the first firm indication in a while by Keppel Energy of its plans for the 500-megawatt Keppel Merlimau Cogen station which first started operations in 2007.

With a licensed capacity of 1,400 MW, Keppel Energy had indicated to the Energy Market Authority as far back as 2006 that it planned to add a 450 MW combined cycle plant this year, followed by another similar sized unit in 2011. But it has kept mum on these plans till now.

Each 450MW plant investment could cost upwards of $400 million, going by industry indications.

BT understands that natural gas feedstock needed for the cogen expansion 'is not an issue', especially since Keppel Energy has a $3 billion-plus deal with Petronas covering the import of 115 million standard cubic feet of gas daily for 18 years.

The Tembusu sector is where Germany's Lanxess is starting to build its $800 million synthetic rubber plant.

Other investors are also trying to restart stalled projects, with Jurong Aromatics Corporation, which is planning a US$2 billion petrochemical complex, also understood to be negotiating its utilities supplies.

Local power players like KepCorp and Sembcorp had earlier indicated that they would prefer to secure customers first before embarking on plant expansions, although by so doing, they face the prospect of losing out to early movers like Tuas Power.

Sembcorp, which has an 815-MW cogen plant on Jurong Island, earlier indicated that it would make an investment decision by end-2009 on another utilities plant, this time using waste-to-steam technology, at Tembusu.

It has missed that deadline, but BT understands that the project is still very much on the cards. A Sembcorp spokeswoman said yesterday that 'we are still exploring doing the investment'.

Meanwhile, new cogen capacity, including from PowerSeraya - now under Malaysia's YTL Group - is coming on stream.

The 3,100 MW PowerSeraya embarked on an aggressive expansion into cogeneration in 2007 - to provide other utilities like steam and cooling water, asides from just power - on Jurong Island.

Its $800 million investment to build a new 800 MW cogen plant plus conversion of two 750 MW combined cycle gas turbines into cogen units are scheduled for completion around this time, which will make PowerSeraya the largest cogen player on Jurong Island with a total 1,550 MW of cogen capacity.

Tuas Power said that in tandem with customer demand, its clean coal/biomass cogen project at Tembusu will be carried out in two phases, with part of the cogen plant ready in 2012 and the rest by 2014.

The facility will produce 180 MW of electricity and about 900 tonnes of steam per hour. It includes a 20 million gallons per day desalination plant and wastewater treatment facility.

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Multi-sector green flight by CAAS, SIA

Nisha Ramchandani, Business Times 29 Jan 10;

THE Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and Singapore Airlines (SIA) will be working together to conduct the world's first multi-sector demonstration green flight, a move to mark CAAS' entry to the Asia and Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (Aspire) programme as of Feb 1.

Initiated by the US Federal Aviation Administration, Airways New Zealand and Airservices Australia in 2008, Aspire is a partnership of air navigation service providers (ANSP) that aims to promote best practices on key Asia and Pacific routes to reduce aviation emissions globally. The Japan Civil Aviation Bureau joined Aspire last October.

Yap Ong Heng, CAAS' director-general, said: 'This Aspire flight is a collaborative effort requiring a high level of cooperation among three ANSPs in the US, Japan and Singapore, and SIA, to demonstrate that an aircraft flying on its most optimal route can achieve significant reductions in fuel consumption and carbon emissions.'

While SIA already adopts practices such as washing the engine regularly and keeping strict tabs on aircraft weight to improve fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, it will step up its measures throughout the demonstration green flight to increase fuel efficiency. At the same time, it will ensure that the aircraft flies through optimum air traffic conditions.

'For this particular flight, on top of these regular measures, we will employ real-time updates of weather conditions to chart the most efficient routing for the aircraft instead of flying a predetermined route,' said SIA's senior executive vice-president (operations and planning), Bey Soo Khiang.

The exercise aims to save about 10,000 kg in fuel and 31,300 kg in carbon dioxide emissions, translating to fuel savings of more than 5 per cent of total fuel burn. SQ11, a Boeing 747-400 aircraft, will depart Los Angeles International Airport on Jan 31 and reach Tokyo Narita International Airport the next day. It will then leave Tokyo the same day and arrive in Singapore on Feb 2.

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Editorial: Higher-tech is the way to go in energy

Business Times 29 Jan 10;

FEARS of a double-dip recession notwithstanding, so far, it has been more up than down as far as investments go for Singapore's energy and power sector. That is reassuring, if not promising, compared to the doom and gloom this time last year when projects were being dropped left and right. While it's still wait-and-see for some investors concerned about whether global economies would in fact continue strengthening, for others confident enough about the current economic rebound, it is time to revive projects they had earlier put on hold.

Just as China is leading the global recovery, new Chinese players here are also very much in the investment forefront. The country's biggest coal-fuelled power producer, China Huaneng Group, which bought Tuas Power, is investing a further S$2 billion to build a clean coal/biomass cogeneration facility on Jurong Island. It made the move last November just as the economy was stirring, clearly wanting to be first mover at the greenfield Tembusu sector to provide utilities such as power, steam and cooling water. By so doing, its project will also be a catalyst in helping draw new petrochemical investors there. And just this month, it has decided to proceed with another S$400 million 'repowering' of an older oil-fired plant into a more efficient, and environment-friendlier gas-firing unit.

Another is Singapore Refining Company (SRC) - owned by Chevron and its new partner, Chinese oil giant PetroChina - which has kick-started detailed engineering design, ahead of construction of its earlier-stalled US$300-400 million 'green' gasoline plant. This is not surprising given that oil prices are up again at US$70-80 a barrel - or double what they were this time last year. With a faster-than-anticipated market rebound, especially in China, Germany's Lanxess is also restarting its earlier-stalled US$575 million synthetic rubber investment here which will incorporate its latest second-generation (2-G) production process. It is a beneficiary of Jurong Island's 'plug-and-play' infrastructure, as Lanxess will be able to tap Shell's new US$3 billion petrochemical complex (starting up this quarter) for raw materials.

As for minuses, two earlier alternative energy investments here have unfortunately hit snags. Natural Fuel, a first-generation biodiesel plant here, was adversely affected by rising palm oil prices and has been wound up. And Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems, a US$100-200 million project, ran into technical issues and has gone back to the drawing board.

More positively, a 2-G biodiesel plant - the S$2.4 billion Neste Oil facility, which will be the largest such facility in the world - will start up here later this year. The Finnish refiner claims the advantage of having advanced technology that no one else has so far, which means it has no competitor.

It will be this climb up the technological ladder - exemplified by the 2-G plants of Neste and Lanxess, as well as the advanced new Shell and ExxonMobil petrochemical crackers - which the energy/chemicals sector here will have to count on for future growth.

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Environmentalist suggests fund that pays Indonesian farmers to stop burning forests

'Make firms pay for clear skies'
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 29 Jan 10;

THE seasonal haze in Singapore will be history if environmental pioneer Dorjee Sun has his way.

He wants to set up a mechanism through which Singapore companies planning to buy carbon credits - to make up for their carbon emissions - can make donations towards a community fund which will pay Indonesian farmers to stop setting tracts of forests on fire.

The farmers' slash-and-burn way of clearing forests for planting has been the source of a choking haze that blankets the skies in Singapore and Malaysia around the dry season in September, triggering breathing problems in the young, elderly and infirm, and affecting tourism.

Mr Sun, 32, thinks that by contributing towards the transboundary haze fund, Singapore companies will see a direct link between their donations and an easing of the haze problem.

He says: 'I want to reach out to the community and ask people for contributions - people who have children who feel they are breathing in the smog through no fault of their own.'

After all, why should companies in Singapore buy carbon credits from wind farms in China when they can do something to improve the air here, he asks.

He has moved his company, Carbon Conservation, to Singapore from Sydney, and has started meeting leaders of environmental groups and the Government.

One of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment last year, he is no stranger to innovative pro-environment ideas. For instance, he brokered the world's first project that prevented deforestation in Indonesia's Aceh province.

He did this by getting investment bank Merrill Lynch to pay for the protection of 770,000ha of jungle on the premise that it could one day make a profit out of selling 'credits' in the form of the carbon locked in the trees.

He is convinced this will potentially yield billions for investors like Merrill Lynch.

Mr Sun, an Australian of Chinese-Tibetan descent, is also behind the Meatless Monday movement, which pushes the idea of skipping meat one day a week to reduce the pollution created by meat farming.

He hopes to encourage big companies, government agencies and the army, for example, to join the movement.

He says: 'Vegetarianism is traditionally terribly unsexy. MTV could do it much better, so I'll be talking to them about it and getting restaurants involved in producing meatless menus one day a week.'

The company also wants to set up Carbon Conversations - a project to get people talking about issues and solutions online, at events and possibly via a TV programme.

The business, which employs 10 people, is currently based in Orchard Boulevard, but will be moving to the planned 55ha CleanTech Park in Jalan Bahar, the first phase of which will be completed by next year.

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Don't cop out on chance to save nature

Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 29 Jan 10;

It sounds simple, and the world should have been able to do it by now: reduce the destruction of nature and conserve large enough areas to serve as gene pools for the millions of species that make up the true infrastructure of life on Earth.

But as with climate change, commercial interests from fisheries to pharmaceuticals have hampered real action to halt the extinction of species, or at least replace outright plunder with sustainable use.

2010 is the United Nations Year of Biodiversity. As with the climate change conference in Copenhagen last month, various parties are girding themselves for battle ahead of a major environmental conference.

This time it's the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Biodiversity. It will be held in October in Nagoya, Japan.

In Johannesburg in 2002, the signatories to the Convention pledged to aim for a 'significant reduction' in the rate of biological diversity loss by 2010. But apart from a few scattered successes, that has not happened.

A major objective at Nagoya will be the adoption of an international protocol on 'access and benefit sharing' or ABS - an acronym the public will soon be hearing more of.

But many rich countries oppose an international legal framework for the use of biological resources. Poor countries - especially tropical nations rich in biodiversity - want to protect their resources but retain the right to exploit them.

The failure of the Copenhagen talks to deliver a binding agreement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions means there is now a greater need for a legal agreement on curbing biodiversity loss.

'If climate change is a problem, biodiversity is at least part of the solution,' says Mr Ahmed Djoghlaf, secretary-general of the Convention on Biodiversity, recently in Copenhagen.

'The loss of biodiversity is compounding the climate change agenda. The science and technology will not replace the forests, oceans, peatlands and wetlands. Nature is a major contributor to climate stabilisation. So it is our duty, it is a survival issue, to protect nature.'

Biodiversity is thus sandwiched between twin threats - human exploitation and climate change. Before the end of the century, around 30 per cent of all known species may disappear because of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said.

Some 1.9 million species have been catalogued, but it is estimated that the total number of species, excluding microbes, on Earth is between 20 million and 30 million.

Since the population explosion of modern humans, the rate of extinction of species is estimated to have increased to 20,000 to 30,000 species a year - a far greater rate than any since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.

The connection is inescapable: The data proves that the planet's sixth mass extinction episode is taking place under our 'stewardship'. Over the past century, the building blocks of our survival have been at first steadily, then rapidly, reduced.

Humans can eat around 3,000 plant species, but only around 20 provide more than 80 per cent of our food. Worldwide, around half our population depends on plant-based medicine for primary health care. Tropical forests remain an enormous and largely unknown repository of plants with potential medicinal value.

The surge in human population, and a consumption- and demand-driven economic model, has ravaged natural systems and depleted our food banks from land and sea. Mining, and the conversion of diverse natural ecosystems to industrial-scale agriculture, plantations, industry and urbanisation, has destroyed country-sized areas of previously productive ecosystems and the organisms that lived in them.

Mr Pavan Sukhdev, a former Deutsche Bank economist who now works for the UN Environment Programme, notes that when banks began losing their capital value in 2008-09, it made front-page headlines. But far greater, ongoing and more fundamentally critical losses in capital value in our natural ecosystems scarcely warrant an occasional report.

In recent memory, food and oil price shocks have underlined our vulnerability to our supply chain - not supermarket supply chains, but the supply chains of the natural ecosystem, the basis of life. Forests - which include grasslands, peat swamps and wetlands often dismissed by governments and corporations as of little use - are key components of that system.

The loss of forests alone is estimated to have been worth up to US$2 trillion to US$4.5 trillion (S$2.8 trillion to S$6.3 trillion) a year over the last 25 years, says Mr Sukhdev. Two of the worst deforesters are in this region - Indonesia and Malaysia.

Mr Djoghlaf says the aim for Nagoya is to have a new strategic plan and a new target for 2020. 'Each country will be called to integrate this new vision into their national priorities to make it effective, and they will also be asked to come up with their own national targets. The objective is to mainstream biodiversity into the economic sector.'

In the run-up to Nagoya, there are worrying similarities to the climate change talks. The draft of an agreement to protect the planet's biodiversity is huge and littered with square brackets marking points that are still contentious. And the real challenge remains that of stalling the juggernaut of destruction.

Again the multilateral, consensus-based decision-making mechanism of the UN will be put to the test, that it failed in Copenhagen. If it fails again, the only hope will lie in national, political and economic policies. Influential tropical countries like India, Brazil and South Africa may bear an even greater responsibility at Nagoya than at Copenhagen. Says Mr Djoghlaf: 'What is at stake is the capacity of the planet to carry its goods and services. So what is at stake is our lives.'

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Activists against Indonesia's tiger adoption program

Oyos Saroso H.N, The Jakarta Post 29 Jan 10;

Environmental activists have strongly criticized the government’s plan to allow Sumatran tigers to be adopted by wealthy citizens and the private sector.

The activists said the adoption plan, which they suspected as being politically motivated, was not the best solution to save the animal and could escalate poaching.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) Sumatra region campaign manager, Mukri Friatna, said that in line with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s first 100-day program, all the ministers in the new cabinet were trying to improve their image.

“That’s the political motive behind the tiger adoption program. We want to emphasize that Walhi opposes the plan since it is the wrong way to save the tiger,” he said.

“If we wish to save the Sumatran tiger, the government should be serious in stopping illegal logging and poaching, not issuing tiger adoption permits.”

On the sidelines of the National Nature Conservation Day event at the presidential palace in Jakarta on Jan. 22, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said his office was studying plans to issue tiger adoption licenses to wealthy Indonesian citizens and corporations.

Zulkifli said the ministry has so far been successful in protecting the Bali starling, which was earlier on the verge of extinction, by allowing residents to help breed the bird through a program.

In the program, the bird breeders are later obliged to hand over one of three hatchlings to be later released to their original habitat.

A similar method will be used to save the Sumatran tiger.

Under the plan, to be able to adopt the rare and protected animals, the adoptive parents must pay US$100,000 or Rp 950 million as collateral.

They must also provide enclosures and prepare an area spanning 60,000 square meters and sign an agreement that the tigers remain as state property and their condition and presence can be monitored by the state at any moment.

The tiger adoption program will follow the Sumatran tiger conservation program at the Tambling Nature Wildlife Conservation (TNWC) in the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (TNBBS) in West Lampung.

In the last two years, TNWC had released four tigers from Aceh and one from Jambi, which were trapped by residents for attacking humans.

Businessman Tomy Winata set up the TNWC in 2003. It is managed by PT Adiniaga Kreasindo, Winata’s subsidiary company. Winata had initially obtained a concession permit to manage tens of thousands of hectares of forest in TNBBS. He currently holds a forest concession area for tiger conservation spanning 45,000 hectares.

Mukri said the tiger adoption permits could be misused for the global carbon trade if the plan was not reviewed carefully.

“A Sumatran tiger needs a habitat spanning 20 square kilometers. A person adopting a tiger could request a concession area of 20 square kilometers, meaning the forest would be divided into lots, and only those who were rich could adopt the tigers,” he said.

The tiger population has dropped to more than 50 percent within the period of 20 years, from more than 1,000 in the 1970s to only around 500 left remaining in the 1990s. Its number is estimated at between 200 and 400 now.

In the period between 1985 and 1997, Sumatra had lost 60 percent of its low-plain forests, considered the best habitat for Sumatran tigers and other wildlife species.

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Leatherback turtles return to Phuket

Phuket Gazette 28 Jan 10;

MAI KHAO, PHUKET: Sirinat National Park and a local conservation organization have set up watches to protect leatherback turtles returning to lay eggs on Mai Khao Beach this nesting season.

Nonthawit Chaturabandit, chief of Sirinat National Park, said that in the past many leatherback turtles nested on beaches inside the park.

Local residents used to set up camps by the beach and go on ‘turtle walks’ to watch the enormous reptiles clamber ashore and lay their eggs.

In recent years, however, the turtles have for the most part stopped coming to Mai Khao, a fact that has been attributed in part to coastal development in the area.

But now the leatherbacks seem to be staging a comeback.

“We were very pleased to find that two leatherback turtles had come to lay eggs in January. The two nests had a total of around 145 eggs. We expect more to come in February,” Mr Nonthawit said.

Sirinath National Park, together with local villagers and the Mai Khao Beach Turtle Conservation Group, have set up watches to remain on the lookout for more leatherbacks coming to lay eggs, and to protect any eggs from being stolen and eaten. Officers will be spread over the whole beach,” he added.

Mr Nonthawit warned anyone wanting to come and watch the turtles not to make loud noises or light fires on the beach. Leatherbacks are very careful when choosing a nest site and will not come ashore if there are noises and lights, he explained.

Leatherback turtles are classed as critically endangered.

Egg theft, environmental destruction and harmful fishing practices have all contributed to the decline in their appearances at Mai Khao, experts say.

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Indonesia Hopes to Complete Climate Action Plan Next Month

Fidelis E. Satriastanti, Jakarta Post 28 Jan 10;

Indonesia will complete its national plan of action for emission cuts before February 20, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy Hatta Rajarsa said on Thursday.

During last year’s G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made a pledge to cut the country’s emissions by 26 percent by 2020 and said that with international assistance the country would aim to reduce its emissions by 41 percent.

“We are determined that this should be finalized before February 20 to show that Indonesia is very serious about its emission plans,” said Hatta, who is also the deputy head of the National Council on Climate Change.

He added that the council had a detailed breakdown on how to reach the 26 percent target from each sector.

“We have all the details, such as what the forestry sector and energy sector need to do, and how much it will cost,” he said, adding that the government would also be preparing for the nation’s emissions to be able to be measured and verified as being in agreement with those from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Meanwhile, Rachmat Witoelar, executive head of the Council, said Indonesia will send its notification to be a part of the Copenhagen Accord following December’s international climate talks, but will deliver emission details at a later date.

“The submission deadline on the Accord is a soft deadline, we’ll say that we associate with the accord but details will follow later,” he said, adding that developing countries are not obliged to submit any details concerning their emission cuts.

Eka Melissa, deputy chair of a working group on international negotiations at the council, said that there were no sanctions if parties were not able to submit anything by the January 31 deadline.

“Based on the Accord, developed countries are supposed to submit their targets for emission cuts, while developing countries only have to submit their action plans for mitigation, called NAMAs,” Eka said.

“However, we have just finished meeting with the coordinating ministers and just got the national plans from Bappenas (the National Development Planning Board), so it will take time to coordinate with each sector (about the details to be provided to the UNFCCC).”

She said that they will try to submit on the due date, but still need the approval of cabinet before submitting to the UNFCCC.

“We are also still pursuing the UNFCCC on the mechanisms of this submission, but we’re serious (about the emission cuts). However, we won’t be giving that many details to the UNFCCC,” she added.

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$1.53m Reef-Monitoring Yacht a Waste of Govt Money, Activists Say

Fidelis E Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 28 Jan 10;

Activists on Thursday blasted the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry for wasting money on a luxurious French sailing ship to monitor the condition of coral reefs in the country.

The Rp 14.3 billion ($1.53 million), 15.5-meter catamaran was purchased from a Bordeaux-based company using funds designated for use elsewhere in the state budget, they said.

“The ship was bought using money allocated by the House of Representatives under the 2008-2009 state budget to repair six patrol boats belonging to the ministry, not to buy cruise ships,” said Riza Damanik, the coordinator for the Fisheries Justice Coalition (Kiara).

Riza said the monitoring of coral reefs could be performed with much cheaper craft.

“In North Sulawesi, in Bunaken [national marine park], they use traditional boats costing 20 million to 30 million rupiah and they are very effective because they are small boats and move very slowly so they won’t destroy the coral reefs,” Riza said.

“This ship is obviously unnecessary because it’s too big and moves very fast and it looks more like a cruise ship than a ship for monitoring coral reefs.”

Furthermore, Riza suggested a case for corruption because state funds had been spent on the boat even though the purchase had not been budgeted.

However, Aji Soelarso, director general for monitoring and surveillance of marine and fisheries resources, argued that the money for the boat had been allocated in the 2008-09 state budget.

“Bearing in mind that Indonesia is a member of the Coral Triangle Initiative, we needed to buy the ship to monitor the condition of our coral reefs. We must set the lead and be an example to other countries, showing we are serious in maintaining our coral reefs,” Aji said. He was referring to the preservation program launched by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2007 that now also encompassing Malaysia, Phillipines, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

Aji said the ship would also act as a prototype for the country to produce its own reef-monitoring fleet.

“If this ship is being compared to the pinisi [a traditional wooden sailing ship], then you could say that it’s expensive, but it’s lot cheaper than a cruise ship,” Aji said.

He added that the vessel was very fuel efficient and could operate much longer than a standard craft. “The biggest cost associated with monitoring is usually fuel. If we used a regular speed boat, it might cost Rp 40 million to Rp 50 million per day for patrols, while this ship does not depend on fuel but rather wind, so it only costs Rp 1 million per day, including the crew’s accommodation.”

Aji also pointed out that maintenance costs would be minimal as the crew would handle most of the work at its home port, thus a special facility would not be required. The ship will be based in Manado, home to the secretariat office of the Coral Triangle Initiative.

Legislators to Drop Anchor on Ministry For Buying Reef-Monitoring Sailboat
Fidelis E Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 29 Jan 10;

Lawmakers have added their voices to the growing wave of criticism directed against the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries over its extravagant purchase of a Rp 14.3 billion ($1.53 million) catamaran sailboat from France.

Sudin, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and member of the House of Representatives Commission IV, overseeing maritime affairs and fisheries, said the matter would be raised during a scheduled meeting with the ministry on Monday.

“We will want explanations regarding this issue because buying a new boat at that price just to monitor coral reefs is too much,” Sudin said.

“We don’t need that kind of boat to do the job.”

The Fisheries Justice Coalition (Kiara), a nongovernmental organization, has blasted the ministry for the purchase of the 15.5-meter-long multihulled sailboat, saying the money used was allocated in the 2008-09 state budget for the repair of six of the ministry’s patrol ships.

Earlier, Aji Soelarso, the ministry’s director for monitoring and surveillance of marine and fisheries resources, said that though the initial cost was high, the wind-powered vessel would bring huge savings on fuel and could be used as a model to build similar ships.

“We are not able to produce this type of sailing ship on our own, so it will also function as a prototype for us in order to make the same type in the future,” Aji said.

But Riza Damanik, coordinator Kiara, insisted that the price of the new ship was far too expensive and the that the money had not been allocated in the budget.

“To protect and save our coral reefs, we don’t need that kind of ship, but we need to stop throwing waste into our seas and oceans, stop using trawls [in shallow seas], and offer more environmental education for people in marine and coastal areas,” he said.

He added that similar sailboats were listed on Web sites at a price of around $900,000.

Minister Defends Catamaran Purchase
Jakarta Globe 1 Feb 10;

Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Fadel Muhammad said on Monday that his ministry was ready to face any legal challenges over its controversial purchase of a French catamaran to monitor the country’s coral reefs.

“I have met with the BPK [Supreme Audit Agency] this morning and stated that we will welcome them if they want to check our budget. If there are any inconsistencies whatsoever, then we are willing to settle this through legal means,” Fadel told House of Representatives Commission IV, which oversees maritime and fisheries affairs.

Fadel did, however, acknowledge that the ship was expensive compared to other vessels used for the purpose of monitoring coral reefs.

The ministry’s purchase has been roundly criticized by environmental groups and lawmakers because of the Rp 14.3 billion ($1.5 million) price tag for the French-built 15.5-meter catamaran.

One group, the Fisheries Justice Coalition (Kiara), said it suspected budget inconsistencies in the purchase because the money used to buy the vessel was designated to repair six patrol ships belonging to the ministry.

There was no immediate response to Fadel’s statement by House commission members because the meeting was adjourned until next week.

“We have decided to postpone any questions or remarks on the issue because there was not enough time to discuss it in one day,” Ahmad Muqowam, the commission chairman, said following the one-hour meeting.

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries has insisted that the ship is essential for Indonesia to set the lead for other members of the Coral Triangle Initiative, the preservation program initiated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2007.

It also claimed that the wind-powered vessel would be worth the expense because of the savings in fuel costs.

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World Bank wants tiger farms shut

Michael Casey, Associated Press 28 Jan 10;

BANGKOK – China and other Asian nations should shut privately run tiger farms as they are inhumane and fuel demand for the endangered big cat's bones and skin, the World Bank said Thursday.

The call came as governments from 13 countries where tigers exist in the wild met in Thailand to discuss their conservation and how to boost tiger numbers.

Tiger farms are found principally in China, as well as Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. Owners claim rearing the cats in captivity will help reduce the illegal trade in tiger parts which are used in traditional medicine, but environmentalists say it only stimulates further smuggling.

"Our position is that tiger farms as an animal practice are cruel. They fan the potential use of tiger parts. That is extremely dangerous because that would continue to spur demand," said the World Bank's Keshav Varma, who is the program director for the Global Tiger Initiative, a coalition formed in 2008 with the Smithsonian Institute and nearly 40 conservation groups. It aims to double tiger numbers by 2022.

"The Global Tiger Initiative as well as the World Bank are in favor of shutting down these farms," he said by phone from the sidelines of the conference in the beach resort of Hua Hin.

Wild tiger numbers have plummeted because of human encroachment, the loss of more than nine-tenths of their habitat and poaching. From an estimated 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, the number today is less than 3,600.

China alone is believed to be home to 5,000 domestic tigers, and farms thrive despite the government banning the trade in tiger parts in 1993. It has imposed stiff sentences on offenders and ordered pharmacies to empty their shelves of tiger medications purported to cure ailments from convulsions to skin disease and to increase sexual potency.

The first tiger farms started before the ban, but others sprang up afterward because speculators thought the ban would be temporary. The government says the farms have been developed to attract tourists but critics say they are used to harvest tiger parts.

Despite lobbying from influential businessmen for the ban to be lifted, China last month announced it would take stronger law enforcement action on the trade in tiger parts and products. It also promised stricter regulation of captive breeding.

Conservationists like the group TRAFFIC welcomed the new measures but continue to call for tiger farms to be shut down. They say allowing trade in tiger parts would fuel poaching because it is cheaper to kill a wild animal than to raise a tiger on a farm. The parts are indistinguishable.

However, some conservationists were wary of raising the matter in Hua Hin, preferring instead to focus on encouraging China to invest more in wild tiger ranges, particuarly on its southern border with Laos.

"They have wild tigers in the north and wild tigers in Yunnan (Province). Can we for once focus on that instead of pointing our fingers at them all the time," said David Smith, a tiger expert at the University of Minnesota. "We know in every political realm, the Chinese don't want to be pushed."

TRAFFIC's James Compton acknowledged that shutting the farms was a complex undertaking and that the short-term goal should be on stopping their expansion.

"The process of shutting down the farms is more complex than doing a simple blanket decision to close all the farms," he said. "What do you do with all the tigers? What do you do with all the investment from the tiger community?"

Varma said tiger farms had yet to be discussed at the three-day ministerial meeting that began Wednesday, attended by Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

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Aussie, NZ scientists prep for whale research trek to disprove Japan's argument

Japan Today 28 Jan 10;

SYDNEY — Scientists from Australia and New Zealand are to set out on a whale research expedition to the Antarctic on Monday in an effort to disprove Japan’s argument that whales must be killed to be studied.

The results of the six-week expedition are central to the whaling debate because Japan is allowed to kill whales provided it’s for research. Still, no matter what the outcome, both sides acknowledge it will likely do little to change Japan’s support for whaling.

“You can always come up with some question that will require an animal to be killed for something or other,” said Nick Gales, the expedition’s chief scientist and leader of the Australian Antarctic Division’s Australian Marine Mammal Center. “But the question is whether that is a critical issue for the management and conservation of whales.”

Japan is permitted to hunt whales in Antarctica under what it says is a scientific program allowed by the International Whaling Commission, despite a 1986 ban on commercial whaling. Japan sends a whaling fleet to the Antarctic each year to hunt hundreds of mostly minke whales, which are not an endangered species. Whale meat not used for study is sold for consumption in Japan, which critics say is the real reason for the hunts.

Last year, several anti-whaling nations came together to form the Southern Ocean Research Partnership, an effort to promote non-lethal whale research in the hopes of eventually seeking an IWC ban on whaling for scientific study. Several countries including Brazil, Italy and the United States have signed onto the partnership, which has scheduled a series of research expeditions.

Monday’s voyage is the group’s first, and will take the scientists from the New Zealand capital, Wellington, to the Ross Sea off Antarctica, where Japan’s annual hunt is also ongoing. There, the researchers will use darts to remove bits of tissue for biopsy sampling and will conduct satellite tracking and acoustic surveys to collect data on the movement of whales, population genetics and how the creatures interact with the sea ice ecosystem.

Gales said he’s confident his team can prove that whales don’t need to be killed to be studied. But he acknowledges Japan will likely continue to argue that fatal testing is necessary, no matter what the findings.

Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research, which overseas the annual Japanese hunt, says there are many critical pieces of information about whales that can only be achieved by killing the animals.

Such information includes age data, which is determined by studying the whale’s ear bone, and reproductive data, which requires the examination of a whale’s uterus—tests that would be impossible to perform on a live whale, said Glenn Inwood, the New Zealand-based spokesman for the Japanese institute.

Inwood said he has no doubt that the Australia and New Zealand researchers will conclude from their expedition that whales can be studied without killing them. But that won’t change the difference in opinions on the subject between Japan and anti-whalers, he said.

“What it comes down to is a different philosophical point of view,” Inwood said. “If you don’t want to hunt whales at all, you are going to be able to achieve the data you want and say you can get a lot of data with non-lethal research. If you want to hunt whales in a manner that is purely sustainable, then you’re going to need data that can only be obtained through lethal research.”

While the non-lethal expedition aims to discredit Japan’s whaling claims, other conservation groups take more direct action by confronting and harassing the Japanese fleet.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which sends ships to Antarctica each season to try to stop the hunt, has mixed feelings about the effectiveness of the expedition.

While the voyage is a positive step in the fight against whaling, it still doesn’t go far enough, said Sea Shepherd Deputy CEO Chuck Swift.

“I unfortunately am not optimistic about Japan doing the right thing in this case,” Swift told The Associated Press by satellite phone from the Antarctic, where his group is still pursuing the whalers—an effort portrayed on the Animal Planet TV series “Whale Wars.” “If we want to effect change and get the Japanese illegal whaling operations to shut down, we need to do things like direct intervention.”

This season’s confrontation between the group and the whalers has been particularly aggressive, with the conservationists losing one of their ships in a collision with a whaling vessel. Both sides blamed each other for the crash, which occurred as the Sea Shepherd’s Ady Gil harassed the Japanese fleet.

Despite the escalating tension between both sides, Gales refuses to give up hope that Japan will one day reconsider the necessity of the hunt.

“We sincerely hope that Japan will be a part of this research partnership,” he said. “In time.”

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French fishermen fear end of sushi bonanza

Michel Rose, Reuters 28 Jan 10;

SETE, France (Reuters) - As the clock on Sete's city tower strikes 5 p.m., the clear blue sky of this Mediterranean seaport suddenly fills with seagulls, awaiting the return of fishing boats from their regulated time at sea.

"They will be disappointed today. Mackerel and sardines are just not there," says a fish trader at the Pecherie Cettoise, next to the Sete wholesale fish market. "It's the tuna, they eat the other fish and there are too many of them."

Environmentalists say the bluefin tuna -- much sought after in Japan -- must be saved from extinction, and want to ban international trade in it, but the local fishing industry wants France to stay out of any international agreement.

French cabinet ministers are divided and a government decision, delayed earlier this month, is expected shortly.

The giant, warm-blooded fish is now found mainly in the Mediterranean after stocks off the coasts of North America plummeted in recent years.

In November ICCAT, the intergovernmental body in charge of managing tuna, lowered the total allowable catch to 13,500 tonnes for 2010. France, Italy and Spain together account for about half of this and 80 percent is exported to Japan.

Monaco has proposed protecting bluefin tuna by listing the species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but the EU did not support this as fishing nations worry about the social impact on coastal towns.

French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo backs a strict CITES listing which means an outright ban on international trade. Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire said he favored a milder approach, increasing monitoring of the species.

For Sete the difference is crucial, as the town's fishing fleet has enjoyed a 15-year boom in tuna exports, fueled by Japanese demand for the fish whose red flesh is prized by sushi lovers and commands high prices in Asia.

Sete, whose name comes from the Latin word 'cetus' for whale, was once home to a mainly poor community of fishermen, often of Italian descent, who settled in the early 20th century.

JAPANESE BOOM

As business with Japan boomed in the mid-1980s, a few of them, helped by EU subsidies, invested in expensive vessels and hi-tech gear and saw their catches and profits soar.

"We are talking about a very small number of individuals who became extremely rich, who are now euro millionaires," says Francois Catzeflis, a biologist at Montpellier-II University and a member of Greenpeace. "As soon as military sonar equipment was available for civil use, they would buy it," he adds.

Among the success stories is Jean-Marie Avallone, who founded the fishing company Medi Peche in 1987. He has the largest tuna fleet in France with five 40-meter long boats worth some 4 million euros ($5.60 million) each.

He holds prominent positions in city institutions and objects to claims that the tuna population is near extinction.

"They are fanatics who want to stop any fishing! At first I could understand that they wanted to fight abuses, but CITES is for Tanzania's elephants!" Avallone told Reuters.

Like others, Avallone has avoided the cuts in European fishing quotas by setting up joint ventures with Libya and putting some boats under the Libyan flag, enabling them to tap into the more generous Libyan quota.

"The day they ban wild tuna fishing, we will be left with industrial tuna farming. And that's eating crap," he added.

The World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) said recently that tuna could become extinct as soon as 2012 because of the size of the Mediterranean fleet and estimates of undeclared fishing. Scientists struggle to work out how big bluefin stocks are.

Italy said this week it would back a ban on bluefin fishing and the French decision could be decisive at the next CITES meeting in Qatar in March. The French government is wary of port blockades by angry fishermen as in Marseille last April.

About 1,500 jobs are at stake in Sete and the golden age of the "sushi boom" is already coming to an end.

"Before, we would work between three and six months a year and make about 30,000 euros," said Akabbar Im'hand, a fisherman in Sete for 32 years. "Now, with a 50-tone quota (per boat) you earn up to 5,000 euros. You can't live a whole year on that." (Reporting by Michel Rose, editing by Tim Pearce)

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Cleantech "Needs Billions" To Scale Up: Fund

Reuters 28 Jan 10;

DAVOS, Switzerland - Emerging clean energy technologies are facing a funding shortfall in a race to roll out at a commercial scale, said Alan Salzman, chief executive of investors VantagePoint Venture Partners, on Wednesday.

VantagePoint manages over $4.5 billion of funds invested in growing companies in information technology, health and clean technology including solar power, low-carbon light bulbs and electric cars.

The venture capital firm holds a stake in Better Place, a company specializing in installing charging infrastructure for electric cars which raised a further $350 million on Monday.

"There is an issue as these new technologies come on, that to deploy them, whether it's Better Place deployment across countries, the solar thermal power plants around the world, our LED (light emitting diode) light bulbs and factories to make them, we need billions and billions of dollars to scale out," he told Reuters.

"I don't really have a good answer" to where that capital would come from, he said.

"VantagePoint is one of the largest in the world doing this stuff but we have $5 billion. I think Exxon generated more than that last weekend," he said, speaking on the sidelines of a business and policy summit in the Davos Swiss ski resort.

A funding gap meant companies were scouring the world for capital. "We need to make sure new industrial policies that will drive our economies this century are the right ones focused on future industries. Those societies that marshal their resources behind this best are going to benefit the most."

China was emerging as a leader in electric cars, he said. "China is being very aggressive, there's no question they're going into electric vehicles."

Cleantech is an emerging sector of technologies which contribute to a cleaner environment, for example supplying low carbon energy, boosting efficiency, recycling waste or cleaning water supplies.

Salzman was upbeat, however, about the future of the sector, saying electric cars and utility scale solar power plants using mirrors to generate power - called solar thermal - would be mainstream before 2020.

He said a number of items taken for granted today, like cell phones, had needed a long gestation period before really taking off once the infrastructure was in place: "I think we're going to see the same phenomenon."

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Oil Demand Has Peaked In Developed World: IEA

Alex Lawler, PlanetArk 29 Jan 10;

LONDON - Oil use in rich industrialized countries will never return to 2006 and 2007 levels because of more fuel efficiency and the use of alternatives, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency said on Thursday.

The bold prediction, while made previously by some analysts, is significant because the IEA advises 28 countries on energy policy and its oil demand forecasts are closely watched by traders and policymakers.

"When we look at the OECD countries -- the U.S., Europe and Japan -- I think the level of demand that we have seen in 2006 and 2007, we will never see again," Fatih Birol told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"There may be some zig zags up and down but as a trend I think it will be a downward trend in terms of oil consumption."

Flat or declining OECD demand may ease any strain on oil prices caused by ever-growing consumption in emerging economies. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries will account for 53 percent of world demand in 2010, according to the IEA.

In its January 15 monthly Oil Market Report, the IEA forecast OECD demand would average 45.48 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2010, unchanged from 2009. World demand is forecast at 86.33 million bpd, up from 84.89 million in 2009.

Birol said the economic crisis had played a role in curbing OECD demand but the main reasons were more efficient cars and the increasing use of electricity and gas instead of oil in areas outside transport.

"It did play a role. The recession had a one-off effect," said Birol, who spoke to Reuters from the sidelines of the Davos conference of business leaders. "But the main factors are structural."

CHINA OFFSETS DECLINE

BP Plc Chief Executive Tony Hayward, also in Davos, said on Thursday demand for gasoline would not return to the rate of three years ago in established markets.

"None of us will sell more gasoline than we sold in 2007," he said, referring to developed markets. "That's, however, being offset by very strong ... markets of the East and particularly China."

In China, 13 million cars were sold last year, he said.

Interest in peak demand has grown following the surge in oil prices to a record high near $150 a barrel in 2008, a decline in world demand because of the economic crisis and efforts to combat climate change.

Reuters reported a year ago, citing analysts including the former chief economist at BP Plc, that oil demand may never return to growth in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia.

While non-OECD demand is expected to keep world oil use on a growing trend, some believe global consumption could reach a high point in the next decades as a result of policies to tackle climate change.

Saudi Arabia, which as the world's largest oil exporter has a lot to lose from a decline in oil demand, is worried about future consumption, its lead climate negotiator told Reuters earlier this month.

Muhammed al-Sabban, head of the Saudi delegation to UN talks on climate change, said the possibility that oil demand might peak this decade was a "serious problem" for Saudi Arabia.

Birol did not give any timeframe for any peak global oil demand, but said a move toward more efficient vehicles in developing markets could dampen the expected emerging country growth.

"If there is a transformation in the transport sector, it may also slow down the growth substantially."

"Advanced-car technologies ... are very strong pushed in many countries."

(Editing by Christopher Johnson)

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Quakes were biggest disaster killers of decade: UN

Yahoo News 28 Jan 10;

GENEVA (AFP) – Earthquakes triggered the deadliest disasters of the past decade and remain a major threat for millions of people worldwide who live in some of the world's megacities, the United Nations said Thursday.

A UN-backed study said nearly 60 percent of about 780,000 people killed by disasters in 2000 to 2009 died during earthquakes.

But climate events affected far more people -- nearly three quarters of the two billion hit by catastrophes.

Storms accounted for 22 percent of the overall death toll while extreme temperatures claimed 11 percent of lives lost in 3,852 disasters over the period.

Officials and researchers also maintained their alarm over climate or weather-related disasters as the overall number of catastrophes more than doubled compared to the previous decade.

The global bill for disasters reached 960 billion dollars according to the study by the Center for Research on Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) at Belgium's Catholic University of Louvain.

"Earthquakes are the deadliest natural hazard of the past 10 years and remain a serious threat for millions of people worldwide as eight out of the 10 most populous cities in the world are on earthquake fault-lines," said Margareta Wahlstroem, UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction.

But just four percent of those hit by catastrophes over the decade suffered in earthquakes, while 44 percent of them were affected by floods and 30 percent by droughts, the study found.

The deadliest disasters in the first decade of the 21st century were the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004, which killed 226,408 people in several countries, Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, which claimed 136,366 lives in 2008 and the Sichuan earthquake in China that year, with 87,476 deaths.

Some 73,338 people were also killed in an earthquake in Pakistan (2005) and 72,210 in heat waves in Europe (2003).

The current decade has got off to an equally deadly start, with about 170,000 feared dead in the powerful and unprecedented earthquake that struck Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area on January 12.

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Egypt's fertile Nile Delta falls prey to climate change

Fatma Ahmed Yahoo News 28 Jan 10;

ROSETTA, Egypt (AFP) – The Nile Delta, Egypt's bread basket since antiquity, is being turned into a salty wasteland by rising seawaters, forcing some farmers off their lands and others to import sand in a desperate bid to turn back the tide.

Experts warn that global warming will have a major impact in the delta on agriculture resources, tourism and human migration besides shaking the region's fragile ecosystems.

Over the last century, the Mediterranean Sea, which fronts the coast of the Nile Delta, has risen by 20 centimetres (six inches) and saltwater intrusion has created a major challenge, experts say.

A recent government study on the coast of Alexandria, Egypt's second largest city, expects the sea to continue to rise and flood large swathes of land.

"A 30 centimetre rise in sea level is expected to occur by 2025, flooding approximately 200 square kilometres (77 square miles).

"As a result, over half a million inhabitants may be displaced and approximately 70,000 jobs could be lost," the study said.

Environmental damage to the Nile Delta is not yet one of Egypt's priorities, but experts say if the situation continues to deteriorate, it will trigger massive food shortages which could turn seven million people into "climate refugees" by the end of the century.

The fertile Nile Delta provides around a third of the crops for Egypt's population of 80 million and a large part of these crops are exported providing the country with an important source of revenue.

Climatic changes have forced some Delta farmers to abandon their land, while others are trying to adapt by covering their land with beds of sand to isolate it against seawater infiltrations, and grow crops.

"We buy these sacks of sand which cost a lot of money and use them to make a bed on which to grow crops so we can get by," said farmer ElSayed Saad.

"Life is difficult," said Saad, who like other farmers must repeat the procedure every 10 years in order to stay productive -- even if that in itself is not a guarantee.

Meanwhile engineering firms specialising in underwater projects have been looking for more long-term solutions.

Mamduh Hamza, of Hamza Associates, has floated a plan to build a waterproof wall or barrier that would effectively separate the sea from the land and raise the shore by two metres (six feet).

"The wall will prevent flooding as well as underground infiltration," Hamza told AFP.

The project was submitted to the authorities in 2007 but has not yet been given the go-ahead, amid fears that such a wall would undermine Egypt's Mediterranean beach resorts which are popular tourist destinations.

Some say that Egypt, like many other developing countries, is suffering from the mistakes of the industrialised West.

"Egypt is only responsible for 0.6 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions," said Mohammed al-Raey of the Regional Disaster Response Centre.

Raey and other experts believe that rising sea levels will not only risk inundating the fertile Nile Delta region but will also change the quality of water, as saltwater seeps into the groundwater.

"There is no doubt that (climate change) poses a threat to food security and a threat to social systems," Raey said.

People in affected areas will leave to find work elsewhere, this in turn will cause unemployment in other areas to rise, which leads to crime and threatens general security.

"So we consider this a matter of national security," said Raey who believes farming in the Delta needs to be restructured to confront the effects of climate change.

"For example, if there are areas that will be flooded, we should use them for fish farms. If there are areas that must be protected, we should protect them with walls," he said.

Egypt's Environmental Affairs Agency also believes that rising sea levels will have an impact on agricultural productivity and fisheries "thus influencing the country's food supply."

The complex ecosystem of the Nile, which has nurtured civilisations for millennia, has already been deeply affected in the last 60 years by the construction of the High Dam in the southern city of Aswan.

The giant project managed to regulate the often devastating effect of the Nile's yearly floods, but it also deprived lands of crucial nutrients and minerals.

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El Nino to boost 2010 U.S. crops: report

Michael Hirtzer Rueters 28 Jan 10;

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. farmers grew record-large corn and soy crops in 2009 but production in 2010 could be even bigger, aided by an El Nino weather pattern that is typically a boon to the Midwest but less so for growers in Australia and southeast Asia, a forecaster said on Thursday.

Allen Motew, meteorologist at QT Weather, forecast a dry U.S. spring, which should minimize problems at planting time, followed by a favorably wet summer growing season.

"It's exactly what we need to increase (crop) yields," Motew said at the Top Producer Seminar, a farmers' conference held in Chicago.

Temperatures in the U.S. Corn Belt are expected to be mostly below normal this summer, while precipitation will be above normal.

"We have a double-whammy here -- colder and wetter," Motew said. "The odds say we are going to have quite a good year."

Motew said corn yields typically increase when an El Nino weather pattern persists for two years in a row. The same is likely true for soybeans, he said.

In two of the most recent such years, 1992 and 1998, corn yields increased by 21.1 and 6.1 percent, respectively, Motew said.

He said that yields increased during the last 16 of 22 seasons of El Nino weather.

The average U.S. corn yield in 2009 reached a record 165.2 bushels per acre, resulting in a record-large crop of 13.2 billion bushels. The average U.S. soybean yield was also the highest on record, at 44.0 bushels per acre, and production topped 3.3 billion bushels.

El Nino, the abnormal warming of waters in the equatorial Pacific, was observed in May 2009 and the existing pattern may run until at least June 2010, the National Weather Service said a week ago.

While El Nino may be beneficial for farmers in the Midwest, the weather pattern can cause erratic and harsh weather elsewhere in the world.

Motew said El Nino could cause drought conditions during the latter months of 2009, stressing the palm oil crop in Malaysia and the wheat crop in Australia.

El Nino has already contributed to bizarre weather in the United States, including flooding and tornadoes in California and heavy snows in Oklahoma.

Temperatures have also been above normal in the typically frigid northern U.S. Plains, while areas in Chicago and southward have seen below-normal temperatures.

The pattern should bode well for U.S. corn and soybean farmers, however. More than 600 farmers were in attendance at the three-day seminar.

(Reporting by Michael Hirtzer; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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Simulated volcanoes and man-made 'sun blocks' can rescue the planet

Scientists back radical 'geoengineering' projects to stop climate change
Steve Connor, The Independent 28 Jan 10;

It would be 100 times cheaper to shield the Earth from sunlight with a man-made "sun block" than to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. This is one of the reasons why the world needs an international project to investigate ways of safely manipulating the global climate in addition to cutting greenhouse gases, scientists have said.

Simulating a volcanic eruption by putting man-made aerosol particles into the atmosphere to reflect the Sun's heat would rapidly lower global temperatures and could provide a vital respite from global warming until cuts in carbon dioxide emissions begin to have the desired effect, they added.

It is important to start tests in "geoengineering" now rather than leave it until a full-blown emergency, according to three environmental scientists who argue that governments should establish a multimillion-pound fund to pay for research into solar-radiation management – techniques for shielding the Earth against sunlight.

"The idea of deliberately manipulating Earth's energy balance to offset human-driven climate change strikes many as dangerous hubris," said David Keith of the University of Calgary in Canada, Edward Parson of the University of Michigan and Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University, writing in the journal Nature.

"Many scientists have argued against research on solar radiation management, saying that developing the capability to perform such tasks will reduce the political will to lower greenhouse gas emissions. We think that the risks of not doing research outweigh the risks of doing it," they wrote.

Until recently, even discussing the idea of manipulating the global climate artificially to combat rising temperatures has been considered a taboo subject among scientists. However, last year a survey of 50 climate scientists by The Independent found there was a growing appetite to at least investigate the idea, an approach supported by a report into geoengineering last September by the Royal Society.

The latest call by David Keith and his colleagues emphasises that there are serious potential problems with building a solar shield, and that it should never be seen as an alternative to cuts in greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, they argue that it is better for an international research project to be established rather than leaving it until a "rogue state" decides to go it alone.

"It is plausible that, after exhausting other avenues to limit climate risks, such a nation might decide to begin a gradual, well-monitored programme of deployment, even without any international agreement on its regulation," the scientists said.

"In this case, one nation – which need not be a large and rich industrialised country – could seize the initiative on global climate, making it extremely difficult for other powers to restrain it."

An international research effort into such a project could begin with an annual budget of about $10m (£6.3m), rising to about $1bn by 2020. It could investigate the risks, such as altering weather patterns, as well as known drawbacks, such as it doing nothing to combat the increasing acidity of the oceans.

Scientists have suggested that generating sulphate aerosols in the upper atmosphere, which are naturally emitted during a volcanic eruption, could quickly lower global temperatures, which happened after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. Another possibility is to spray fine droplets of seawater into the air to create low-level clouds that would lower daytime temperatures over the oceans.

"Opinions about solar radiation management are changing rapidly. Only a few years ago, many scientists opposed open discussion of the topic. Many now support model-based research, but field testing of the sort we advocate here is contentious and will probably grow more so," the three scientists wrote.

"The main argument against solar radiation management research is that it would undermine the already-inadequate resolve to cut emissions. We are keenly aware of this 'moral hazard'; but sceptical that suppressing research would in fact raise commitment to mitigation.

"Indeed, with the possibility of solar radiation management now widely recognised, failing to subject it to serious research and risk assessment may well pose the greater threat to mitigation efforts, by allowing implicit reliance on solar radiation management without scrutiny of its actual requirements, limitations and risks," they said.

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Less Water Vapor Slows Earth’s Warming Trends, Researchers Say

Sindya N. Bhanoo, The New York Times 28 Jan 10;

A decrease in water vapor concentrations in parts of the middle atmosphere has contributed to a slowing of Earth’s warming, researchers are reporting. The finding, they said, offers part of the explanation for a string of years with relatively stable global surface temperatures.

Despite the decrease in water vapor, the study’s authors said, the overall trend is still toward a warming climate, primarily caused by a buildup in emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from human sources.

“This doesn’t alter the fundamental conclusion that the world has warmed and that most of that warming has to do with greenhouse gas emissions caused by man," said Susan Solomon, a climate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the lead author of the report, which appears in the Jan. 29 issue of the journal Science.

Water vapor, a potent heat-trapping gas, absorbs sunlight and re-emits heat into Earth’s atmosphere. Its concentrations in the stratosphere, the second of three layers in the atmosphere, appear to have decreased in the last 10 years, according to the study.

This has slowed the rate of Earth’s warming by about 25 percent, Dr. Solomon said.

“We use the 10-10-10 to describe it,” she said. “That is, a 10 percent change in water vapor, 10 miles above our head, over the past 10 years.”

The study also found that from 1980 to 2000, an increase in water vapor sped the rate of warming — the result of an increase in emissions of methane, another greenhouse gas, during the industrial period. Methane, when oxidized, produces water vapor. Why a decrease in water vapor has occurred in the last 10 years is still unknown.

Dr. Solomon emphasized that the study focused on the atmosphere’s middle layer, not to be confused with the troposphere, Earth’s first layer. It has been known for years that water vapor in the troposphere amplifies the effect of greenhouse gas emissions.

Some climate skeptics have claimed that a spate of years with relatively stable temperatures indicates that the threat of global warming has been overblown.

Last week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration released figures indicating that the decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record.

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Australia "Faces Worse Bushfires Without CO2 Deal"

Michael Perry, PlanetArk 29 Jan 10;

SYDNEY - Australia faces a possible 300 percent increase in extreme bushfires by 2050 unless world leaders can agree to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions, a new report said on Thursday.

The report, commissioned by Australia's firefighters and environmental group Greenpeace, said the failure of U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen to agree on a treaty to tackle climate change had left Australia facing future catastrophic bushfire seasons.

The "Future Risk: Battling Australia's Bushfires" report comes only days before the Copenhagen Accord Jan 31. deadline for nations to announce emissions reduction targets.

"Bushfire conditions are clearly changing and there is strong evidence that global warming is making Australia's climate more bushfire-prone," said Jim Casey, secretary of the Fire Brigade Employees Union in Australia's New South Wales state.

"Bushfire seasons are getting longer and fires are becoming more frequent and intense. We have the power to reverse this trend or we can shrug our shoulders, do nothing and play Russian roulette with our lives," Casey said in releasing the report.

Bushfires are a natural phenomenon in Australia, due to the hot, dry climate.

Australia's most deadly bushfires occurred in February 2009 and were blamed on a decade long drought and extreme heatwaves. The "Black Saturday" infernos killed 173 people and destroyed thousands of homes in the southern state of Victoria state.

This Australian summer has again seen extreme bushfires.

THREE SCENARIOS

The bushfire report, based on studies by Australia's peak scientific body the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), painted three scenarios:

* Under a global climate treaty based on current promises to cut greenhouse gases, Australia's mean temperature would rise by 2 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels by 2050.

This would double the number of severe bushfire days in Australia's most populated southeast corner by 2050. Severe bushfire days would occur once every six months in Sydney.

* Without a legally binding climate treaty the upper forecast temperature rise of 6.4 degrees Celsius globally, by the end of the century, would see Australia experience a 2.8 degree Celsius rise above 1990 levels by 2050.

This is the worst case scenario for Australia which could see up to a 300 percent rise in extreme bushfire days by 2050.

* Under a global treaty with dramatic greenhouse gas cuts, which could see Australia halve its greenhouse emissions by 2050, extreme bushfire danger days would rise by only 8-17 percent.

"Future bushfire danger in Australia will depend heavily on how fast and by how much we act to tackle global warming," said the report.

"The best chance of avoiding a high global warming scenario is through a fair, ambitious and legally binding international treaty to cut emissions," it said.

The firefighters and Greenpeace called on the Australian government to dramatically increase its greenhouse emissions target cuts, but Climate Change Minister Penny Wong on Wednesday announced Australia would stick to its 5 to 25 percent emissions cut range under the non-binding "Copenhagen Accord".

Wong said any decision to opt for a 15 or 25 percent target depended in part on strong steps by India and China to reduce the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions.

"This report shows that unless governments ramp up their targets for cutting greenhouse emissions, we'll be facing more frequent bushfire tragedies on an even greater scale," said Casey.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

Climate change to triple Australia fire danger: report
Yahoo News 28 Jan 10;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Climate change could more than triple the risk of catastrophic wildfires in parts of Australia, a top environmental group warned Thursday, almost a year since savage firestorms that killed 173 people.

Greenpeace warned that, without a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the frequency of severe fire danger in drought-parched southeastern Australia would grow threefold by 2050.

"Catastrophic" conditions similar to those ahead of February's so-called "Black Saturday" wildfires which killed 173 people in towns around Melbourne would occur once every three years, instead of once in every 33.

"The frequency of catastrophic fire danger could increase more than tenfold in Melbourne, and the number of total fire ban days could triple in Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra by 2050," according to a Greenpeace report entitled "Future Risk."

If targets for emission cuts proposed by world leaders at December's Copenhagen summit were adopted in a new global treaty, southeastern Australia would still face at least a doubling of severe fire risk, Greenpeace said.

"If we do nothing to address climate change we are knowingly placing more lives and property at risk," said Greenpeace CEO Linda Selvey.

According to the report temperatures in Australia had warmed an average 0.9 degrees Celsius (33.6 F) since 1950, with the greatest intensification of heat in the country's east, which was accompanied by markedly declining rainfall.

"Hotter, drier weather is a recipe for bushfire disaster in regions of Australia home to the majority of the population," it said, adding that the changing climate had "noticeably" prolonged the annual fire season.

The February 7 Black Saturday fires were the worst natural disaster in Australia's modern history, with one expert likening their intensity to the energy produced by 1,500 Hiroshima atomic bombs.

More than 2,000 homes were destroyed, killing 173 people and injuring more than 400.

Australia this week reiterated its Copenhagen goal for emissions cuts of between five and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020, depending on commitments by other nations, and said they would be formally submitted to the UN.

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Climate change research sound, chief UK scientist says

BBC News 28 Jan 10;

The government's chief scientist says his confidence in climate science remains unshaken despite allegations about the withholding of research data.

Professor John Beddington told the BBC the fundamental science behind man-made global warming was "correct".

He said was concerned that the debate on climate change was becoming artificially polarised.

But he urged scientists to be more open about the uncertainty of predicting the rate of climate change.

He was speaking in the light of reports that the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit had refused to hand over data for public scrutiny.

The Information Commissioner's Office said messages obtained by hackers in November showed that requests by climate change sceptics under the Freedom of Information Act were "not dealt with as they should have been" under the law.

Glacier claims

Prof Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the government, said that even if there were more allegations of wrongdoing by climate scientists or mistakes, the basic science pointing to man-made global warming was very strong.

He told the BBC: "We know that the fundamental physics of the science of climate change is correct. Carbon dioxide, when it is in the atmosphere, increases global warning.

"We know we have increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the pre-industrial period by something of the order of 38%."

He said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had done an enormous job.

But he added that the organisation was at fault by picking up a false claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035.

He said it was wrong to attempt to predict something like that too precisely.

In an earlier interview with the Times, Prof Beddington said public confidence in climate science would be boosted by greater honesty about its uncertainties.

"I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper scepticism.

"Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed."

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