Individuals and marine conservation: Chek Jawa case study
from wild shores of singapore
Open letter to the 31st NUSSU EXCO (Balloon Release on NUS Rag Day 2010)
from Dee Kay Dot As Gee
Studies in symmetry
from The annotated budak and Chelipad
Fruit eating larvae in Elaeocarpus
from Urban Forest
Songs of the Greater Racket-tailed Drongo
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Foreign officials flock here to learn about urban management
Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 11 Aug 10;
SINGAPORE is enhancing its reputation as the go-to classroom for other countries hoping to learn how to build the liveable cities of tomorrow.
Officials from 40 countries including China, India and nations in the Middle East have come here in the past year to study the nuts and bolts of building landfills, managing waste and recycling water for industrial use and drinking.
And homegrown companies such as Keppel Seghers and Sembcorp have gone abroad, to the Middle East for example, to sell their technological know-how.
They have found rich pickings. In the past three years, they have signed deals to build water and waste-treatment facilities worth upwards of $4 billion.
Associate Professor Simon Tay, who chairs the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, said Singapore's leap from being a Third- to a First-World metro-polis has produced many lessons from which growing cities in Asia and beyond can draw. By combining technology with pragmatic policy-making, it continues to be a test bed for innovative technologies sought after as a model of the way to go, said Prof Tay, who used to chair the National Environment Agency (NEA).
Prime examples of cities which have learnt from Singapore are Tianjin, which is developing its Eco-city, and Guangzhou, with its Knowledge City.
Mr Michael Chia, the chief executive of Keppel Integrated Engineering, said: 'With more communities around the world realising that reliable and proven technology can provide effective solutions for waste-water treatment and waste management, there's an increasing demand for such technologies.'
Agencies such as the Economic Development Board and International Enterprise Singapore, which have been pushing the 'Singapore Inc' brand overseas, have their work cut out for them as countries strive for economic advancement that is, at the same time, environmentally sustainable.
The NEA, for example, has shared its knowledge of how to build and maintain landfills to contain waste in space-constrained cities, using its offshore Semakau Landfill as an exhibit.
The NEA also showcases the systems it uses to monitor key environmental indicators such as pollution levels and meteorological data, said its director of industry development and promotion Dalson Chung.
But what sort of trickle-down effect will this growing recognition of Singapore's expertise have here, particularly at a time when the public is openly questioning, for example, the capacity of the drainage system to cope with floods?
Prof Tay named two benefits: One is that tapping green technology will build the tools to further enhance Singapore's landscape.
'This is a green infrastructure that adds to the value and appeal of the city and underscores property prices and
everyday activities like outdoor dining, whether at the hawker centre or stylish cafes,' he said.
The other benefit takes the form of economic trickle-down from there being more companies providing environmental services on a global scale, he said.
(AFP) Google News 10 Aug 10;
JAKARTA — Indonesia's biggest palm oil producer said Tuesday it had been cleared of allegations made by environmental group Greenpeace that it had destroyed high conservation-value forests on Borneo.
A report commissioned by SMART, part of the Singapore-listed Sinar Mas agri-business group, found that it was not to blame for widespread destruction of Borneo's forests as repeatedly alleged by Greenpeace, the company said.
"The report concluded that the allegations were largely unfounded and that SMART was not responsible for deforestation of primary forests and the destruction of orangutan habitats," said SMART president Daud Dharsono.
The investigation was carried out by Control Union Certifications and BSI Group.
SMART, the Indonesian palm oil unit of its Singapore-listed parent company Golden Agri Resources (GAR) and part of the Sinar Mas agri-industry empire, commissioned the probe in February after the claims were first made by Greenpeace.
Greenpeace accuses SMART of widespread forest destruction, including clearing primary forests and peatland.
GAR has lost major clients including Unilever, Kraft and Nestle over environmental concerns.
SMART'S Dharsono said Tuesday, "All the land in the 11 concessions examined comprised of secondary forests, degraded and shrub land and were no longer primary forests before SMART started land clearing and planting."
He acknowledged that there were some plantations on peatland but "not as extensively as claimed" by Greenpeace, with just "1.8 percent cultivated on total concessions".
However, Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar replied that SMART's own audit "largely confirmed Greenpeace's finding" that the company cleared peatland and primary forests.
"They misinterpreted the audit result," he said. "It confirms that the company has been operating without the necessary permits and has been clearing deep peat illegally."
Following the report, SMART "has not yet decided to take a legal action" against Greenpeace, Dharsono added.
Indonesia is considered the world's third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, mainly through deforestation, much of which is carried out illegally with the alleged connivance of officials and security forces.
Indonesian SMART Gets Mixed Score In Green Audit
Sunanda Creagh and Fitri Wulandari PlanetArk 11 Aug 10;
Indonesian palm oil giant PT SMART Tbk on Tuesday got a mixed score card in an environmental audit, leaving in doubt whether key buyers including Unilever will renew contracts with the firm.
Both SMART, which is part of Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources, and leading critic Greenpeace claimed victory after the audit said SMART had not destroyed primary forest but had planted in greenhouse gas-rich peatlands.
The bitter dispute shows the difficulties for Indonesia of spurring economic growth and slashing emissions as the world's top palm producer eyes hungry Asian consumers and eco-conscious Westerners for an oil used to make biscuits and biodiesel.
"This is a positive result for palm oil firms, especially SMART and Golden Agri, and I think this is going in the right direction for them to convince their EU buyers," said Miang Chuen Koh, a Singapore-based plantation analyst at Morgan Stanley.
Greenpeace has said in a series of reports released since last year that the firm was clearing peatland and high conservation value forests, which shelter endangered species such as orangutans and trap vast amounts of climate-warming gases.
Unilever and Nestle dropped SMART as a supplier following the Greenpeace reports, while Cargill had threatened to do the same if the accusations proved correct in the audit SMART commissioned and paid for in response to Greenpeace claims.
A spokesman for SMART said he was confident the firm would win back Nestle and Unilever. SMART said the two firms represented 4-5 percent of its revenue.
Unilever on Tuesday welcomed the report but said the group needed to obtain certification from the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) -- an industry body of planters, green groups and consumers -- before Unilever would start buying from them again.
The auditors, Control Union Certification and BSI Group, were paid for by SMART, after being approved by the RSPO.
The audit covered only 40 percent of SMART's total planted area of 430,000 hectares, not including its plantations in Papua. It used satellite images, land surveys, soil analysis and interviews with officials for the findings.
"Planting on peatlands and deep peat were found but not as extensively as claimed," the audit said, adding such planting was mainly incidental but broke Indonesian law and SMART's own rules.
The firm's share price was little changed after the audit, down 1.4 percent, though the stock has rallied 39 percent this year to beat strong gains in the Jakarta index, showing investors retain confidence in the firm's outlook.
NOT PERFECT
Greenpeace said in a statement that the audit showed SMART was illegally clearing deep peat and operating without permits, and it was now up to the Indonesian government to respond.
"SMART is not perfect," SMART's chief executive Daud Dharsono told reporters after the audit. "It's very difficult to detect deep peat plots that are small and sporadic," adding the firm would repair damaged peatlands.
Peatlands release huge amounts of greenhouse gases when cleared or drained, and the deforestation of Indonesia's extensive tropical forests led the World Bank to name it the world's number three emitter in a 2007 report.
Indonesia has promised to cut greenhouse emissions by as much as 41 percent from business-as-usual levels by 2020 from curbing deforestation, but resource exports have driven its economy.
SMART told Reuters in an interview this month it will not be affected by the Greenpeace campaign or a planned two-year government moratorium on new permits to clear natural forest, and plans to expand its plantations this year [ID:nJAK13839].
SMART runs the Indonesia palm oil operations of its Singapore-listed parent company Golden Agri-Resources (GAR). GAR is controlled by the Widjaja family, whose business empire Sinar Mas has interests in pulp and paper, finance and property.
(Editing by Sara Webb and jonathan Thatcher)
Greenpeace's claims 'unfounded'
Grace Chua Straits Times 11 Aug 10;
CLAIMS by Greenpeace that logging in Indonesia by a unit of Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources had led to deforestation have been rebutted by an independent study.
According to PT Smart, which operates all oil palm plantations for Golden Agri, a review by certification bodies Control Union Certification and BSI Group plus Indonesian forestry experts has ruled that the environmental group's claims were unfounded.
The certification bodies were hired by the palm oil producer shortly after Greenpeace claimed the company was clearing forests without permits and developing peatlands - an important sink for carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas - contributing to global warming. The environmental group also said the firm's actions had led to the destruction of orang utan habitats.
The Greenpeace accusations, dating back to 2008, led Unilever and Nestle - who together account for 4 per cent to 5 per cent of PT Smart's revenue - to suspend contracts with PT Smart.
And agricultural giant Cargill threatened to boycott PT Smart if the Greenpeace claims were found to be correct.
Responding to the PT Smart statement yesterday, a Unilever spokesman said the firm would need to study the report before it could decide on further action.
'The verification exercise by PT Smart is a good first step, but the proof of the pudding is in the firm's actions,' said its corporate relations director Sher Mazari.
He added that palm oil companies could take steps to certify their palm oil as sustainable, and boost transparency by publicising the locations of their land concessions.
The review of PT Smart's activities looked at 11 concessions in West and Central Kalimantan, which cover some 180,000ha and were the target of Greenpeace's claims.
It found that forest clearing took place before the unit acquired the concessions and that there was no evidence of forest burning by the firm.
But in the six Central Kalimantan concessions inspected, PT Smart began clearing forests before an environmental impact analysis was completed.
And the report 'could not adequately conclude that there was no negative social impact to local communities' from PT Smart's land acquisition.
The verification team also found about 3,200ha of peatland had been developed, which went against company policy.
PT Smart said it took 'serious action' against policy violations, such as suspending plantation managers.
Greenpeace contested PT Smart's interpretation of the report yesterday, calling its press briefing 'greenwashing' and saying that the verification exercise had in fact confirmed its own findings.
Indonesia APP Says Audit Shows Deforestation Claim Untrue
PlanetArk 12 Aug 10;
Indonesian paper firm Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) on Wednesday released an audit it said showed allegations it destroyed rainforest were baseless and invalid.
The audit marks the latest chapter in an increasingly bitter dispute between environmentalists and the plantation industry over Indonesian forests, which trap huge amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gases.
French retailer Carrefour said last month it would stop buying certain APP products, a day after Greenpeace released a report accusing the paper firm of planning to destroy vast areas of Indonesian rainforest. APP described the allegations as 'ridiculous'.
Following other allegations of forest destruction by another conservationist group, WWF, APP produced a report that it said refuted the claims and had been checked by audit company Mazars.
"The audit conducted by Mazars found that the facts contained in the APP report were accurate and, therefore, the allegations made by the environmental NGOs were indeed baseless, inaccurate and without validity," the report said.
"APP is making efforts to reduce its environmental impact" by undertaking carbon footprint calculations in its mills and preserving tracts of valuable forest," their report said.
Greenpeace forest campaigner, Bustar Maitar, said the audit was "just greenwashing."
APP is part of the Sinar Mas empire founded by the Widjaja family, which also runs Golden Agri-Resources, the parent company of palm oil firm PT SMART Tbk.
SMART, which has been the target of a series of Greenpeace reports accusing it of clearing high conservation forest in Kalimantan, released an audit on Tuesday that partially cleared it of the allegations.
Big palm oil buyers Nestle and Unilever, which stopped buying SMART products after the Greenpeace reports came out, are yet to say if they will renew contracts following the audit's release.
(Editing by Alison Birrane)
Yahoo News 10 Aug 10;
DENPASAR, Indonesia (AFP) – Indonesia and the US launched Tuesday a biodiversity research centre on the holiday island of Bali to further studies of the archipelago's rich and diverse species.
The Indonesian Biodiversity Research Center (IBRC), funded by USAID, is a collaboration between three local universities and Old Dominion University in Virginia and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
IBRC chief researcher from UCLA Paul Barber said it was a strategic move because Indonesia was still behind on the number of researchers and biodiversity studies despite its abundance of potential research material.
"The centre will significantly enhance Indonesia?s capacity to study its own biodiversity," Barber said.
One of IBRC initiators I Gusti Ngurah Mahardika said the centre would serve as a focal point for biodiversity research, training and species collection.
"IBRC is the magnet that will attract Indonesian and international scientists to carry out researches focusing on biodiversity," Mahardika said.
"These researchers will employ the latest technology and methods in molecular genetics to gain understanding on the intricate nature and formation of Indonesia?s biodiversity." he said.
The centre is based in Udayana University's Biomedic Lab in Denpasar where 60 Indonesian and US scientists make up the core researchers.
Biodiversity research center built in Bali
Antara 11 Aug 10;
Denpasar, Bali (ANTARA News) - As many as 60 people consisting of students, researchers and participants from the United States will conduct a study on bio diversity in Indonesia, said an Udayana University Rector Prof Dr Made Bakta.
"The study will be held at the Indonesian Biodiversity Research Center (IBRC), the Udayana University veterinary medicine faculty Laboratory," he said here Tuesday.
On the Biodiversity Research Center launching in Bali, he said that the research center was built under a cooperation between the United Sates and Indonesia.
The cooperation involved the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), Old Dominion University Virginia, USA, University of Papua, Manokwari (UNIPA), Diponegoro University, Semarang (UNDIP) and Udayana University (UNUD).
"The research center is also supported by the Smithsonian Institute of Natural Museum, and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2012," Prof. Bakta said.
The center`s establishment in Indonesia was strategic because the country is known to have a mega-biodiversity, but lack of researchers and publications on marine collections.
"The marine biodiversity is very abundant since Indonesia is a Coral Triangle which is a center of world marine biodiversity," he said.
According to professor Bakta, IBRC is using molecular genetics technology to understand how biodiversity is created, because the information is very important as a solid foundation for more effective conservation. Therefore, the ecosystem of the center of the world marine biodiversity can be conserved.
"Biodiversity related agencies cooperation is considered to be very productive in the future, and also in line with the University`s mission as a world class university," he said.
IBRC collaborator and initiator Prof. Dr. I Gusti Ngurah Mahardika said that this institution is a magnet to attract Indonesian and international researchers to conduct studies on biodiversity.
"The center will accommodate research, training, specimen testing services and collection of species," said Prof. Mahardika.
A joint research is also very important in saving biodiversity, said Dr Paul H Barber of the
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California in Los Angeles, as the principal investigator in the project.
Indonesian capacity to study its biodiversity is extraordinary, Paul said.
The signing of a cooperation charter between the Rector of the University of Papua, Rector of the University Diponogoro, representative from UCLA, and Rector of Udayana University marked launcing of the IBRC.
A 2009 marine biodiversity research was also presented by the Indonesian and American researchers.(*)
Antara 11 Aug 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia will implement a moratorium in forest exploitation in 2011, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said here on Tuesday.
"It (the moratorium) will be started in 2011," he said through a short text message to ANTARA.
He said the moratorium on conversion of natural and peat land forests for two years was one of the cooperation deals between Indonesia and Norway following the signing of a letter of intent by the two countries.
Based on the LOI signed on May 26, 2010 issuance of new forest conversion license would be stopped for two years as of January 2011.
According to the document the trial implementation of REDD Plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) in the first province would be carried out in January 2011 which will be followed in the second province in 2012.
As of January 2011 the funding from Norway totalling US$200 million will also have been operated until 2014.
Zukifli Hasan said the government is now preparing sectors for the implementation of the cooperation program. He said various actions to be taken were establishing a special agency to implement the moratorium and formulating a national action program.
"This year we are preparing the establishment of the institution. The preparation itself is to be done since June until December 2010," he said.
Zukifli said there are five areas that have been proposed for a pilot project namely Kampar (Riau), Central and East Kalimantan, Bengkulu and Papua.
The Norwegian government later will choose one of them to adjust with the REDD+ pilot project.
He hoped with the two-year moratorium Indonesia would be able to reduce carbon emissions until 26 percent in 2020.
He said the cooperation between Indonesia and Norway as the first and the method is expected to be used as a model for other countries.
Zukifli admited forest condition in Indonesia was critical and therefore the moratorium should serve as one of the solutions for the problem.
"Our forests need to be put in order. We have stopped issuance of license for tree felling and exploitation of peatland and primary forests," he said.(*)
Once worshipped as gods, the endangered elephant population of Laos is under threat from a legal loophole
Fiona MacGregor guardian.co.uk 10 Aug 10;
It may be known as the Land of a Million Elephants, but conservationists are warning that the imminent exportation of more than a third of Laos's remaining domesticated elephant calves to a Chinese circus could prove disastrous for the endangered species.
Once worshipped as gods, the animals are still considered sacred by many in Laos, but loss of habitat and tradition means there are now just 20 domesticated elephants under the age of 10 left in the country.
The agreement with the circus company will see seven of these youngsters, along with four older animals of breeding age, exported from the remote Thongmixay district, in Laos's Sayaburi province, to southern China this autumn.
Although Laos signed up in 2004 to the CITES international agreement against trading endangered wildlife, a loophole is being exploited. Elephants are being taken out of the country on "long-term loans" to zoos and circuses in foreign countries but are never returned.
With the most recent government estimates suggesting there are now as few as 600 wild and only 480 domesticated elephants left in the country, hopes for the survival of the species in Laos are pinned on breeding programmes involving the domesticated population. The loss of so many young elephants will place that under threat, the NGO ElefantAsia has warned. The group has official responsibility for the animals, having been charged by Laos's department of livestock to manage the Laos Elephant Care and Management Programme.
"We are very concerned to see so many elephants – especially young ones and females – being exported to foreign countries," said Sebastian Duffillot, co-founder of ElefantAsia. "The best and healthiest animals have been leaving the country steadily for several years despite existing laws condemning the export of live elephants."
Korea and China are the main destinations for the "loaned" elephants. Because elephants are privately owned, ElefantAsia has no mandate to prevent the animals leaving the country. "Laos needs to protect its elephants by any means if the country wants to keep a sustainable population," said Duffillot.
Although companies from these countries pay the animals' transport costs into the country, they often renege on paying return costs, leaving it impossible for the elephants' owners to take their animals home if and when their contracts eventually runs out. In one such example it is understood that 19 elephants were sent to Korean circuses in 2002/3, all of which have now been sold there and not returned to Laos.
It is understood the elephant handlers - mahouts - in this latest deal have been offered $150 dollars a month to work with their elephants in the Chinese circus. This represents a considerable income in Laos, where average earnings are just $30 a month.
Traditionally known as "Lane Xang", meaning "land of a million elephants", the working relationship between humans and elephants in landlocked Laos, one of the world's least developed countries, dates back 4,000 years. The rapid decline in numbers is due to a combination of habitat loss, poaching and animals being killed after threatening people and their property.
Elephants are still held in high esteem in Laos culture, where the religious mix of Buddhism and animism sees them considered sacred beings. Women bring their babies to be blessed by elephants, but the reality of life for the average domesticated elephant is far from divine. Most working elephants are used as labour in logging camps. Grim working conditions and long hours take a toll on their health as elephants are used to destroy the forest homes of their wild relatives.
ElefantAsia is keen to encourage mahouts to turn away from the logging industry and use their animals in sustainable, welfare-conscious tourism projects.
The organisation is involved in a number of breeding programmes including the recent launch of an innovative maternity leave scheme for elephants in which mahouts are given financial incentives and offered alternative work if they breed their elephants – a process which can take an elephant out of work for four years, with a two-year gestation period and a further two years spent nursing their baby.
But if Laos keeps losing its elephants to other countries such projects will simply not be possible. "The law against all forms of exportation of live elephants must be enforced more firmly if the Land of a Million Elephants wants to keep its population alive," said Duffillot.
Hazlinda Hamzah Bernama 11 Aug 10;
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 11 (Bernama) -- Concern for the environment are growing among Malaysians today and conserving the 'green' appears to be the concern from among the people including those in the government and private sectors.
Matthias Gelber, awarded the world's greenest man on earth in 2008 for his environmental conservation efforts worldwide, has made the challenge to empower people to protect and conserve the environment as a way of life.
Recently, Bernama was fortunate enough 'to catch' Gelber on one of his trips to Malaysia.
His travelling schedules are always tight but very systematically arranged.
According to Gelber, this is to prevent unnecessary and excessive emissions of carbon during the educational routes that he involves himself with.
A 'GREEN' CHILDHOOD IN GERMANY
"I have been green since my childhood days, grew up on a farm in Germany.
We planted our own potatoes, fruits and vegetables," Gelber said proudly.
"(However) We must work harder to reduce carbon emissions throughout the world. Currently, it is 7.0 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted per inhabitant in Malaysia.
"Growth rate is aggressively on the rise and so is the meter reading on carbon emission per capita in Malaysia.
Although Malaysia is still not a fully developed country, the gap is definitely getting smaller now," he said.
He said deforestation is becoming a problem.
The industries coming in are more and more emission intense, some without the necessary standards and in fact, no benefit to mother nature.
THE GREEN LIFESTYLE
The world's greenest man does not possess his own vehicle and he actually uses very little air conditioning and electricity.
"My condominium in Malaysia, is very healthy. I open my windows to let the air flow through my unit. Of course the rain can pose a hazard occasionally, but that doesn't trouble me too much," he said.
Gelber who contributes to various regional initiatives and programmes has some tips for Malaysians intending to change their lifestyle, turning that environmental dial to a greener shade and eventually reducing the CO2 emission scale.
He said the simplest way for the people to conserve a green earth is to be conscious of what they do daily, including the equipment they use and how they can reduce carbon emissions on a regular basis.
"The monetary system which measures the utility bills one pays each month can be likened to the micro carbon emission meter.
Firstly, by creating awareness towards one's electricity consumption both at home and in the office. Next, the discipline towards controlling and the ability to influence the use of less green things in daily living, he said.
GREEN INVESTMENTS
According to Gelber, Malaysia is the world's number two country with plenty of peat swarm land or forests.
"These forests suck up a lot of carbon, up to 10 times more than the normal forests. By investing in efforts to protect these lands with new plants and replanting of trees, the people will positively contribute to the conservation of the environment, ensuring its sustainability," he said.
Gelber said this would prevent extreme exploitation of the natural resources besides generating wealth and values in the society. This is crucial in controlling the emission of CO2 which can certainly bring destruction to Earth and her inhabitants.
"Malaysia can also plan towards this method of planting the forests," Gelber made a suggestion.
He also said talks on green and the importance of environment to the younger generation is certainly an effective method to disseminate the latest information to the young targets.
Gelber believes that the level of enforcement in this country still has room for improvement especially in curbing excessive pollution and exploitation of mother earth.
"Enforcement measures must be stepped up. Pollution traced from source at its early stage and clamping it quick would be less a burden for the people and the country.", he said.
COLLECTIVE EFFORT
Efforts emphasizing on greening the environment should sprout from the ground.
"Awareness springing from the people in this manner would surely get the attention of those higher up including the politicians and motivate them to join in to do their bit.
"Going Green is the in thing and putting it into practise with the right allocation in budgets is a noble thing any government can and should be doing.
These efforts include the implementation of the Green Building Index, the clamping of illegal loggers and all other activities that contribute to the environment", he added.
-- BERNAMA
David Fogarty and Augustine Anthony, Reuters 10 Aug 10;
SINGAPORE/ISLAMABAD(Reuters) - Floods that have devastated Pakistan could be a sign of the future as climate change brings greater extremes of weather to the region.
While climate scientists say single flooding events can't be directly blamed on global warming, more intense droughts and floods could be in the forecast for the future.
And for Pakistan's 160 million people, many already facing regular droughts and floods, that could cost more lives and threaten cotton, wheat and rice crops and infrastructure.
It could also add to the security challenges in what is already one of the world's poorest and volatile nations that is battling Islamic militancy. The government has been heavily criticised over its poor response to the crisis.
Scientists say Pakistan could also suffer in the long-term from declining amounts of meltwater from glaciers feeding the Indus River, which is nation's life-blood.
For the current floods, rainfall of about 400 millimetres (16 inches) in mountainous areas in the far north of Pakistan and adjoining parts of Afghanistan between July 28 and 29 triggered a torrent of water down the Indus and Kabul Rivers.
"That was a record," said Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, director-general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department.
"The only explanation can be the link to climate change. Because that area very rarely receives monsoon rains," he told Reuters, pointing to the risk of the monsoon belt shifting as well as changes in the intensity of the monsoon.
LIMITS
He said the current floods could also be blamed to some degree on deforestation and more people living in flood-prone areas as the population keeps growing.
Pakistan has lost vast areas of forest over the past few decades, while overgrazing often strips degraded land of whatever plant cover is left. The government has set a target to boost forest cover from 5.2 percent to 6 percent by 2014.
Climate scientists say it is much easier to link climate change and heatwaves such as the one that has triggered wildfires and wiped out wheat crops in Russia.
"Floods are harder to pin down," said leading Australian climate scientist Neville Nicholls.
"We expect changes in precipitation but the science to actually to attribute those to global warming hasn't been done yet," Nicholls, of Monash University in Melbourne, said.
He also pointed to the global climate moving from an El Nino to a La Nina, a natural swing in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that can trigger drought in Australia and Southeast Asia and then floods, as well affecting South Asia monsoon.
"In parts of the world, that sequence does lead to really quite strange, anomalous rainfall," he said.
Indian experts point to evidence of rising temperatures in the Himalayas and more intense rainfall events.
"No one can say for sure that this is all related to climate change, but yes there is circumstantial evidence that over (the last) 20 years very heavy rainfall events have drastically increased," Bishwajit Mukhopadhyay, deputy director-general of meteorology at the India Meteorological Department, told Reuters.
Scientists say nations will need to start adapting to climate change impacts such as more intensive droughts and floods but poorer nations with limited cash face the toughest challenge.
Pakistan, like any flood-prone country, needed early warning systems, better storage of drinking water, even to move people from vulnerable areas, said Andrew Ash, who leads a climate adaption programme for Australia's state-funded research body the CSIRO.
"There are definite limits to adaptation. We often talk about adaptation as if we can adapt our way out of trouble," he told Reuters. "But these sorts of events highlight that we can't adapt our way out of all the impacts of climate change."
Pakistani food expert Abid Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said the country would need to work on seed varieties to adapt to climate change.
(Additional reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee in New Delhi; Editing by Robert Birsel and Miral Fahmy)
Karl Ritter, Associated Press Yahoo News 10 Aug 10;
STOCKHOLM – An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland.
Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes — and any collision could do untold damage. In a worst case scenario, large chunks could reach the heavily trafficked waters where another Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912.
It's been a summer of near biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wildfires, heat and smog in Russia and killer floods in Asia. But the moment the Petermann glacier cracked last week — creating the biggest Arctic ice island in half a century — may symbolize a warming world like no other.
"It's so big that you can't prevent it from drifting. You can't stop it," said Jon-Ove Methlie Hagen, a glaciologist at the University of Oslo.
Few images can capture the world's climate fears like a 100-square- mile (260-sqare-kilometer) chunk of ice breaking off Greenland's vast ice sheet, a reservoir of freshwater that if it collapsed would raise global sea levels by a devastating 20 feet (6 meters).
The world's newest ice island already is being used as a powerful emblem in the global warming debate, with U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts suggesting it could serve as a home for climate change skeptics.
Researchers are in a scramble to plot the trajectory of the floating ice shelf, which is moving toward the Nares Strait separating Greenland's northwestern coast and Canada's Ellsemere Island.
If it makes it into the strait before the winter freeze — due to start next month — it would likely be carried south by ocean currents, hugging Canada's east coast until it enters waters busy with oil activities and shipping off Newfoundland.
"That's where it starts to become dangerous," said Mark Drinkwater, of the European Space Agency.
The Canadian Ice Service estimates the journey will take one to two years. It's likely to break up as it bumps into other icebergs and jagged islands. The fragments would be further ground down by winds and waves and would start to melt as they move into warmer waters.
"But the fragments may still be quite large," warned Trudy Wohlleben, a Canadian ice forecaster, who first spotted the massive chunk of ice on satellite images last Thursday.
The chunks of ice could be large enough to threaten Canada's offshore platforms in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, said Wohlleben.
And, while it's possible to redirect smaller icebergs, by towing them or spraying them with water cannons, "I don't think they could do that with an iceberg this large," she said. "They would have to physically move the rig."
Moving an offshore platform is time-consuming and expensive — and very complicated in cases where they are fixed to the ocean floor.
While Greenland's glaciers break off thousands of icebergs into Arctic waters every year, scientists say this ice island is the biggest in the northern hemisphere since 1962.
It contains enough freshwater to keep the Hudson River flowing for more than two years, said Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware.
The drifting ice sheet is likely to remain at the heart of the global warming discussion during its journey.
While experts say it's difficult to directly tie the giant ice island to climate change because there are so many factors that affect glaciers in the area, the unusual event coincides with worrisome signs of warming in the Arctic.
Since 1970, temperatures have risen more than 4.5 degrees (2.5 degrees C) in much of the Arctic — much faster than the global average. In June the Arctic sea ice cover was at the lowest level for that month since records began in 1979, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The retreat of Greenland's glaciers, which has accelerated in recent years, is one of the least understood pieces of the climate puzzle.
A team of climate scientists who visited the Petermann glacier last year, expecting it to crack then, is now planning another trip within weeks.
"We did leave behind a couple of time-lapse cameras and 11 GPS (devices). Now we are scrambling to get up there and recover the data," said Jason Box, an expert on Greenland glaciers from the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University.
Box and two British researchers traveled to the glacier last year with Greenpeace activists who offered space aboard their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, to scientists studying climate change.
They were hoping to capture the event with cameras rolling, which would have been a powerful image just months before the Copenhagen climate talks that failed to produce a binding treaty to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions.
"It would have been nice if it had broken off last year," said Melanie Duchin, who led that Greenpeace expedition. "I mean ice melting, it doesn't get any simpler than that."
Still, she finds it ironic that the Petermann breakup coincides with another catastrophe linked to fossil fuels. The Arctic Sunrise is now in the Gulf of Mexico, surveying the massive oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon blowout.
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Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
Arthur Max, Associated Press Yahoo News 8 Aug 10;
BONN, Germany – The new climate change treaty under negotiation for the past 2 1/2 years begins with a brief document called "A Shared Vision." The problem is, there isn't one.
The latest round of talks that concluded Friday showed that the 194 negotiating countries have failed to even define a common target or method for curbing greenhouse gases — just one example of the ongoing divide among rich and poor nations.
Talks began in 2007, with the aim of wrapping up a deal in Copenhagen last December. But that didn't happen, despite the presence of 120 heads of state or government. It ended instead with a three-page statement of intentions brokered by President Barack Obama.
Though less than expected, the Copenhagen Accord scored some breakthroughs. It boiled down the core elements of a deal to 12 carefully worded paragraphs, and it inscribed hard-fought compromises by the main protagonists, the U.S. and China.
Details were to be filled in by the next major conference in Cancun, Mexico, starting in November.
But the accord was never formally adopted. A handful of countries led by oil giant Saudi Arabia and U.S. nemesis Venezuela blocked the required consensus. The paper was merely "noted" by the conference, stripping it of any legal force.
Now, much of the Copenhagen deal has been thrown open again. After five days of talks in Bonn, rich and poor countries traded recriminations, and some positions are back to where they were a year ago.
Developing countries tried to weaken their Copenhagen commitments to rein in carbon emissions by saying their actions were voluntary while emissions targets for industrial countries are binding.
China balked at U.S. suggestions for monitoring Chinese domestic action, saying it would infringe on national sovereignty.
Countries most threatened by global warming — African states facing water shortages and island states whose coastlines are retreating under rising seas — say the $100 billion a year in climate aid by 2020 promised in Copenhagen is not enough.
The sought-after climate agreement is meant to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required 37 industrial countries to cut emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Kyoto said nothing about the rapidly growing emissions by developing countries, nor did it set targets for the post-2012 period.
No one expects an agreement to be completed in Cancun. Christiana Figueres, the top U.N. climate official, says the conference should agree on a series of practical steps that can take effect quickly — financial and technological help for poor countries — while a legal agreement can wait another year.
Nonetheless, negotiators continue to work on a draft text of an agreement. Each section is packed with wording still to be agreed and with competing proposals.
It begins on page one: A Shared Vision for Long-Term Cooperative Action.
A U.N. scientific panel said in 2007 that rich countries should slash emissions by 25-40 percent below the 1990 benchmark by 2020 to have any chance of avoiding the worst effects of global warming, but the negotiators cannot agree on a collective target. So after Copenhagen, each country submitted pledges of what it believed it could reasonably do on its own.
The U.N. climate secretariat said the pledges would bring those countries to 12-18 percent over the next decade. That could lead to runaway climate change, virtually ensuring that extreme events like Russia's current drought and the flooding in Pakistan will become more common.
Some developing countries say the whole approach is wrong. Rather than letting countries decide how much each can reduce its emissions, the atmosphere should be seen as "carbon space" to be divided up equitably.
The idea found its way at the Bonn talks into the "Shared Vision" draft.
Advocates cite a study published last year in Nature magazine saying that to limit temperature increases this century below 2 degrees Centigrade (3.8 F), the world has a "carbon budget" of 750 gigatons of emissions by mid-century. This budget should be allocated according to population, factoring in how much countries historically have drawn on their account.
Industrial countries have 16 percent of the world's population, but they "occupy" 74 percent of the carbon space, Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon said at a presentation for delegates. Rich countries already have filled the air with carbon, using up much of their budget.
"If you spend all your salary in the first week you won't have anything left," Solon told reporters.
Poor countries with huge populations say this method will let them build their economies and catch up. But rich countries dismiss the notion as unrealistic and designed to score points against the rich countries.
Chief U.S. delegate Jonathan Pershing called it "completely impractical." Artur Runge-Metzger, of the European Commission, said any discussion of historical responsibility is "a cul de sac. It leads nowhere."
Mexico's special climate ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba said only a few countries are behind it. "The majority is talking about the transition toward a green economy, and that's more important politically and conceptually," he told The Associated Press.
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Arthur Max has been covering climate issues since 1990
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