3 Sep (Fri): Workshop for Nature Guides - Dragons and Damsels
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Dragonfly (35) - Aethriamanta Brevipennis
from Nature Photography - Singapore Odonata and Dragonfly (36) - Indothemis Limbata
Tan Yong Soon Business Times 24 Aug 10;
CLIMATE change is one of the most important and pressing challenges facing the international community.
However, it is not easy to reach a global agreement to address climate change.
The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December did not result in a global legally binding agreement to address climate change.
The issues are complex and the politics inherently divisive.
Many governments are reluctant to sacrifice current economic growth as the most severe consequences of climate change will only be evident over the long term, while the economic costs of preventive actions are huge and must be paid upfront.
As a small and low-lying island state, Singapore is vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
A rise in sea level and temperatures can have significant consequences for us.
We thus have a stake in seeing the issue effectively addressed. It is important to have an agreed global regime that commits everyone to take action. Without such a global regime, every country would act for itself, promoting undesirable unilateral actions.
Singapore's role
Singapore has been active at the UN negotiations to arrive at a new global framework for long-term cooperation to address climate change, participating in both the ministerial and official tracks.
As a member of the Group of 77 (G-77/China) as well as the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), and also given our unique position as a small but successful developing country, Singapore has tried to play a constructive and moderating role in the negotiations.
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim had participated in numerous climate change-related meetings, such as the recently concluded REDD+ Partnership in Oslo in May 2010 which allows developing and developed countries to act together to reduce deforestation.
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Minister in the Prime Minister's Office and Second Minister for Finance and Transport Lim Hwee Hua have also represented Singapore in discussions at the UN secretary-general's High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing.
Asean countries are vulnerable to climate change. Singapore will do its part in promoting greater awareness and to encourage closer cooperation on climate change.
In 2009, the Asean Working Group on Climate Change was launched during the Asean Environment Ministers meeting in Singapore.
It seeks to build common understanding of climate change issues and enhance regional sharing of information on vulnerability risks and adaptation measures.
The Singapore government is serious about our domestic efforts to address climate change.
Before Copenhagen, Singapore had announced that we would undertake actions to reduce our emissions by 16 per cent below business-as-usual (BAU) in 2020, contingent on a legally binding global agreement and all countries implementing their commitments in good faith.
This is a significant contribution, given our constraints in switching to non-fossil alternatives to reduce emissions from the power sector.
Our early actions in the past, such as our policy to limit car population growth and our switch from oil to natural gas for electricity generation have also limited our ability to further reduce emissions.
To ensure that Singapore is prepared for climate change threats and opportunities, a dedicated National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) under the Prime Minister's Office was set up on July 1, 2010.
The NCCS coordinates climate change policies across government agencies.
It supports the international negotiations and also coordinates domestic mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change through an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change (IMCCC), chaired by Senior Minister Professor S Jayakumar and comprising the Ministers for Finance, Trade & Industry, Foreign Affairs, Transport, National Development, and the Environment & Water Resources.
With limited access to clean and renewable energies such as wind, geothermal and tidal energies, we have fewer options to reduce emissions.
Our approach to reduce emissions is primarily to improve energy efficiency in all sectors.
We also actively invest in research and development (R&D) and test-bedding of alternative energy sources so that Singapore will be better-positioned to adopt these technologies when they improve and their costs come down.
The Sustainable Singapore Blueprint (SSB), launched in April 2009, represents a major national effort to reduce our energy intensity.
It lays out measures to reduce emissions up to 2030 and sets targets to reduce emissions in four key sectors - industry, transport, households and buildings.
The government has announced plans for an Energy Conservation Act to come into effect in 2013 to facilitate a coordinated approach to standards for energy efficiency and energy management for companies that consume significant amounts of energy.
The Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources has undertaken vulnerability studies to better understand long-term physical impacts such as sea-level rise, temperature profile and wind.
Preliminary results indicate that existing infrastructure is sufficient to address the risks in the short to medium term. Studies on secondary impacts such as biodiversity, energy demand and public health implications are on-going.
However, uncertainties remain on the extent of climate change and when it will unfold. Making sense of these uncertainties will require risk assessments and regular reviews and updates of our design parameters as global models and the understanding of climate science improve.
New opportunities
There are new opportunities from addressing climate change. While Singapore is a small player, we have sought continually to stay relevant. We have been successful in turning challenges and potential adversities into opportunities.
Alternative energies are unlikely to form a significant part of our fuel mix in the near or even medium term.
However, with technological advances, Singapore can turn our alternative energy-disadvantaged situation into a competitive advantage in the long-run. We can be a reference site for emerging ideas to be tested before larger cities adapt and adopt similar practices.
Singapore has declared an emissions target. However, government actions alone are not enough. We need everyone to play a part. We will need to make conscious changes in our behaviour and choices, such as cutting down energy wastage at home and at the workplace.
Climate change is one of the most difficult challenges facing Singapore and the global community.
We will need ideas, innovation and to make some trade-offs. Singapore has always taken a balanced approach to growth and sustainability and we have been reaping the fruits of our on-going efforts as a reference site for other countries and cities.
Only by working together, can we have a chance of success.
Tan Yong Soon is the Permanent Secretary, National Climate Change, Prime Minister's Office. This article was adapted from Mr Tan's keynote address at the Conference on EU and Asian Policy Responses to Climate Change Energy Security Post-Copenhagen on July 26, 2010
Antara 23 Aug 10;
Bengkulu (ANTARA News) - Arnoldi Rafflesia is the biggest of the 25 known rafflesia snake-plant in the world, a rafflesia researcher of Bengkulu University Agus Susatya said.
"We have found that of the 25 rafflesia species throughout the world, Arnoldi is the biggest," katanya.
He said an Arnoldi Rafflesia has a diameter of 70-110 centimeters, and the other species are smaller.
"Some of the other species as found in Bengkulu is Haseltii Rafflesia which has a diameter of 30-60 centimeters, Gadutensis 50 centimeters, and Bengkuluensis 30 centimeters," he said.
Arnoldi Rafflesia is endemic in West Sumatra, Bengkulu, and Aceh, and to find it researchers have to go deep into forested land.
Rafflesias are snake flowers without roots, branches and leaves, and Arnoldi Rafflesias are parasitic flowers found in Bengkulu by an Indonesian guide working for Dr. Joseph Arnold in 1818, and later named after Thomas Stamford Raffles, head of the expedition.
Rafflesias are wide, bright red and with spots. When blooming this flower may have a diameter of up to 1 meters and 50 centimeter tall.
In Bengkulu, rafflesias are found in several places like the Kerinci Seblat National Park (TNKS), South Mountain Range Nasional Park (TNBBS), elephant training center (PLG), and at Padang Guci in Kaur regency.
The flower is short-lived especially in the absence of proper treatment including against ants and other small insects.
"Rafflesia flowers are best perserved in their habitat," he said.(*)
Antara 23 Aug 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Only six percent of Indonesia`s coral reefs is now still in excellent condition, a senior marine affairs official said.
M Syamsul Maarif, secretary general of the Marine and Fisheries Ministry, made the statement after attending the signing of a memorandum of understanding by his ministry and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) here on Monday on cooperation in sustainable and responsible management of marine resources.
He said six percent of Indonesia`s coal reefs was in excellent condition, 30 percent in good condition but the rest was categorized as damaged.
According to Maarif, one of the ways to fix the damage to coral reefs was by conducting sustainable and responsible management of marine resources with emphasis on the economic, ecological , and socio-cultural aspects.
However, he added, the most important thing to be done was to organize public campaigns to educate the people about the importance of keeping coral reefs in good condition.
"If the people`s empowerment effort goes well, environmental conditions in their areas will likely also improve," he said.
According to data collected by the Marine and Fisheries Ministry , Indonesia now has around 75,000 square kilometers of coral reefs or about 12 to 15 percent of the world`s.
The Indonesian Coral Reef Foundation has noted that Indonesia as the largest archipelagic state in the world has 17,508 islands of which 6,000 are inhabited.
Comprising 14 percent of the Earth`s land territory, Indonesia had the longest coastline in the world. It also has a sea area of about 5.8 million square km, representing approximately 70 percent of its total territory.
Coral reefs in Indonesia are mostly to be found towards the eastern end of the archipelago (Bali, Flores, Banda, Sulawesi). But cora; reefs also exist off the Sumatra and Java coasts. Indonesia supports a diverse array of reef types (fringing, barrier, and atoll).
The dominant reef type is fringing reefs. Fringing reefs can be found along the coasts of Sulawesi, Maluku, west and north Irian Jaya, Lesser Sundas, Bali, and some of the islands off the west and east coasts of Sumatra.
Patch reefs are in best developed condition in the Seribu Islands and best-developed barrier reefs are to be found along the edge of the Sunda Shelf, east of Kalimantan, and around Togean Islands, Central Sulawesi.
There are few atolls but the Taka Bone Rate atoll in the Flores Sea is the third largest in the world.
The Indonesian coastal zone supports approximately 60 percent of Indonesia`s 182 million people. In some areas, local people are heavily dependent on a wide variety of reefs and reef-associated animals for home consumption and trade, including turtles, fish, molluscs, crustaceans and echinoderms.
(A051/HAJM/P003)
Lee Yen Mun The Star 24 Aug 10;
PETALING JAYA: Pollution, and not poaching, is the main cause for the dwindling turtle population.
Tengku Arif Temenggong (TAT) Turtle Sanctuary co-founder Datin Rowena Baker said more turtles are dying due to pollution, where foreign objects left in the sea have contributed to the death of the animals.
Mistakenly eating items such as plastic bags and bottle caps, the garbage blocks the turtles’ intestinal tract, hence choking them to death.
“What is worse is that there are currently no dedicated rehabilitation centres, or turtle hospitals, to treat injured turtles in the country.
“This means that all this while, the ill turtles on our shores have had very little chance of survival as we do not have the facilities to treat them,” said Baker.
On Saturday, the turtle sanctuary – which operates in Pulau Tioman – attempted to resuscitate a green turtle found with part of its shell broken.
Suspected to have been hit by a speedboat, it died shortly after due to internal injuries.
Baker said she had sought advice from a turtle rehabilitation centre in Greece – the Archelon Rescue – via e-mail, but it was too late to save the young turtle.
A retired professor in conservation biology in Kuala Lumpur also echoed the need for a turtle hospital.
“Under the Fisheries Act, injured turtles must be surrendered to the Fisheries Department for rehabilitation.
“As far as I know, there is no place in Malaysia where expert care can be given to ill turtles,” said Prof Chan Eng Heng, who has carried out research and conservation work on marine turtles since the 1980s.
“There are just too many cases of wild turtles that were not well that died due to the lack of expert medical attention,” Chan added.
He also noted that there were currently only a handful of turtle hospitals worldwide.
On Aug 13, The Star reported that the defiling of the ocean had increased the risk of hatchlings being born with deformities.
The report said that the turtles – mostly born without eyes – failed to survive beyond three days due to the physical defects.
Baker also listed fishing mishaps, such as accidental trapping of a turtle in a net or by a fishing hook, as the other major hazard that causes turtle injuries.
Turtle park hooks up with vet to save Eva
Alina Simon New Straits Times 24 Aug 10;
TIOMAN: The Tengku Arif Temenggong Turtle Sanctuary here yesterday mounted a mercy mission to save a Hawksbill turtle (penyu karah), which had a fishing hook in its throat.
It flew in an aquatic veterinarian from Universiti Putra Malaysia to treat the injured reptile, believed to be a 30-year-old female.
Sanctuary co-founder Datin Seri Rowena Baker said the turtle, with a fishing line in its mouth, was found by a Berjaya Tioman Resort staff during a diving expedition 10 days ago.
Resort staff tried to clear the line but it was tied to a fishing hook lodged deep inside the animal's throat.
"They kept the turtle, which they called Eva, for two days before deciding to release it back into the sea after failing to remove the hook," Baker said.
"Luckily, my vet suggested that I contact a marine animal expert at UPM and I promptly called Associate Professor Dr Hassan Mohd Daud for advice.
"He was kind enough to offer to treat the animal provided we could find it again. Luckily, the same person who found the turtle managed to capture it for treatment on Friday."
She said the expert and an assistant were flown into the island yesterday morning and taken to the resort where Eva was kept in a large container.
The examination could not be conducted immediately as it took some time to coax Eva to fall asleep despite being injected with 15ml of sedative.
After more than an hour, Dr Hassan inserted an endoscopy camera into Eva's throat and found the hook deeply lodged 30cm inside.
"The good news is that there are no lacerations, bleeding or ulcers on the throat and the hook appears to be made of carbon as it is dark coloured.
"If it goes into the stomach, hopefully the (stomach) acid will help dissolve it naturally," Dr Hassan said before injecting Eva a dose of antibiotics and vitamins.
Dr Hassan, who has 20 years' experience treating aquatic animals including turtles in captivity, said it was his first time handling wild turtles.
Rowena said they planned to release the turtle back into the sea as soon as possible to allow it to heal.
Eva also became the first turtle in Tioman to be tagged by a team from the Pahang Fisheries Department from Kuantan.
It is learnt that the department plans to tag all the turtles that land on the island to lay eggs.
The department currently tags turtles that land in Cherating.
Marine wildlife clinic plan
Alina Simon New Straits Times 25 Aug 10;
PULAU TIOMAN: Eva, the hawksbill turtle (penyu karah) that had a fishing hook lodged in its throat, was released back into the sea yesterday.
The 30-year-old female reptile was released at the Berjaya Tioman Resort beach yesterday.
Tengku Arif Bendahara Turtle Sanctuary co-founder Datin Seri Rowena Baker, who coordinated the effort to save the turtle, said the animal had a chance of healing naturally in the sea.
A worker at the resort found the turtle two weeks ago with a fishing line in its mouth while diving nearby.
It was released after resort staff failed to remove the hook but was recaptured after Universiti Putra Malaysia aquatic veterinarian, Associate Professor Dr Hassan Mohd Daud, agreed to step in.
He flew in and examined the turtle but decided not to do anything further as the hook was lodged 30cm inside its throat.
It was the second turtle rescued by the sanctuary since its inception four years ago.
The first was a green turtle (penyu agar) which died of its injuries on Sunday, including a cracked shell after being hit by a speedboat.
Rowena said the authorities should do something to help injured marine wildlife like turtles and the dugong.
"There are many islands, including Pulau Tioman, which depend on eco-tourism.
"It will be great if the authorities coordinate their efforts to help protect marine wildlife," she said, adding that the sanctuary planned to set up a clinic to help treat injured marine wildlife.
"This is our long-term goal. It will be costly but we aim to raise enough funds.
"By having a clinic, we also hope to expand cooperation with Dr Hassan and UPM by inviting their veterinary students here to gain experience."
Antara 23 Aug 10;
Liwa, West Lampung (ANTARA News) - Over 10 wild animals from the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park forest are killed daily by passing motor-vehicles on the western track of the tans-Sumatra highway in Lampung on the southern tip of Sumatra Island.
"Every day, I always find animals which were killed by vehicles passing through the western track of the trans-Sumatra highway," Marsono, an inhabitant of Bengkunat Belimbing sub district, West Lampung, around 360 km from Bandar lampung, said here Monday.
The poor animals, which include anteaters, deer and wild cats, were usually ran over by night traffic, he said.
The highway which skirts the edge of forest areas, is always busy with many cars passing by, he said.
Another witness, Asep Triadi, a Bandarlampung resident who often passes the highway, said he once hit a wild animal on the highway.
"The presence of the wild animals roaming around on the highway in the evening could endanger passerby, especially the big ones," he said.
He hoped that several forest patrol posts could be set up along the highway to prevent the animals from crossing the street.
Sumatra is home to some of the richest and most diverse tropical forests on the planet.
The island house thousands of unique species and the world?s last remaining Sumatran tigers, orangutans, pygmy elephants and Sumatran rhinos.
There are as few as 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild and they are under relentless pressure from poaching and clearing of their habitat.
Zora Chan The Star 24 Aug 10;
SARAWAK Biodiversity Centre’s (SBC) traditional knowledge documentation programme has come a long way from plant sample collection and recording to bio-prospecting for the production of household items, including drugs and antibiotics.
While the production of drugs, essential oils and household needs from herbs in Sarawak is at its infancy, initial research is showing positive results.
SBC senior research officer Dr Yeo Tiong Chia said that one promising compound was silvestrol, which had good anti-cancer properties as shown in animal studies.
“Lately, there has been interest from Ohio State University and National Cancer Institute of the United States to test this compound against leukaemia,” he said.
It had moved from lab tests to animal studies and then to pre-clinical and clinical processes, he told StarMetro recently.
Dr Yeo said that SBC, in collaboration with an Australian biotech company, discovered and patented the compound in 2004, and the state government was managing the patent through the centre.
“The compound comes from the rukang tree found in Ba’Kelalan in the northern highlands of Sarawak,” he said.
He said the Lun Bawang community in Ba’Kelalan claimed the bark of the tree could cure stomach pain.
SBC chief operating officer Dr Rita Manurung said the production of household items from plants was a short-term result of bio-prospecting and the development of drugs and antibiotics was a long-term goal.
It often took more than 10 years before any medicine could be put on the shelf, she said.
The centre’s traditional knowledge documentation programme was the starting point for research and development in herbs and product development, she added.
The programme started in 2001 to conserve the traditional knowledge of indigenous groups in Sarawak and encourage the communities to cultivate useful indigenous plants for their own use and later for commercial purposes, she said.
“The centre, in collaboration with the people, has documented 3,000 plants of 700 species used by 12 communities in the state. All these plants are planted in our herbarium,” she said.
The programme was formulated to ensure the communities that shared their knowledge would benefit socio-economically, she said.
Citing an example, she said that SBC had helped set up a herbarium for the Penan community in Long Iman, Mulu.
This first Penan herb garden in the world was a potential tourist draw to help the community earn tourism ringgit as sustainable income, she added.
“We hope to promote the garden as a tourist attraction because, where else in the world could you find a Penan herb garden,” she said.
Dr Rita said that SBC’s bio-prospecting work came up with many other uses for the plants.
“One plant called pahkak in Bidayuh and tenom in Lun Bawang and Kelabit is used for the relief of backache by these communities,” she said.
Through SBC’s aromatic oil programme, the centre discovered that the plant’s roots and leaves produced a composition of oil that was anti-microbial and equivalent to tea tree oil, she said.
This made pahkak oil a potential ingredient of household and cosmetic products, she said, adding that R&D by the centre and a private firm had come up with products like floor cleaner, disinfectant, soap, insect repellent and shampoo.
“Oil from the engkabang fruit can also be made into soap, lip balm and chocolate,” she said.
She said the local rice species was high in anti-oxidant properties and could be an ingredient in healthcare or cosmetic products.
Dr Rita hoped that local entrepreneurs would be interested in developing and commercialising these prototype products.
“Sarawak is very rich in biodiversity and there is much potential in just the plants alone,” she said.
The centre was pleased that its programme had become a model for others in Asia and a source of excellence in documenting traditional knowledge in the region, she said.
People from as far as Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and India had taken part in SBC workshops to learn the documentation methods, she added.
Yahoo News 23 Aug 10;
NAIROBI (AFP) – Kenyan authorities have seized two tonnes of raw elephant ivory and five rhino horns bound for Malaysia at the country's main airport, wildlife officials said Monday.
Officials said the ivory, from an estimated 150 elephants, had likely been collected over a period of two decades and represented "the largest elephant ivory recovery in Kenya in the recent past".
"We suspect these were collected over 20 years; some are pretty old, others are recent, as recent as six months," Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) director Julius Kipng'etich told journalists Monday, surrounded by the seized tusks displayed in Nairobi National Park.
Two suspects have been arrested in connection with the seizure, KWS said.
The ivory, concealed among avocado and packed into 12 wooden crates, was detected by sniffer dogs at Nairobi's international airport.
"It may have been collected from animals that died naturally. Some (tusks) were hacked. Some were just pulled," Kipng'etich said.
"In recent times, cases of illegal trafficking of wildlife products through Kenya's ports to the middle and far east has been a matter of concern," the KWS statement said, noting that wildlife contraband has been intercepted this year in Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong.
In November last year KWS officials displayed half a tonne of recently seized tusks.
Kenya currently has an elephant population of some 35,000.
Kenya seizes tonnes of illegal elephant tusks
* 317 elephant tusks, five rhino horns seized
* Poaching incidents more than double last year
* Wildlife service fears trafficking is on the increase
Reuters 23 Aug 10;
NAIROBI, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Kenyan authorities have intercepted more than 2 tonnes of elephant tusks and rhino horns disguised as fruit destined for export to Malaysia.
Most of the tusks seemed to have been collected from natural deaths of about 150 elephants and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said it was yet to determine their origin.
"The cargo, which was falsely declared as containing only fresh avocado fruits, was packed in 12 wooden boxes, which raised a red flag due to its mode of package, weight and destination," KWS said in a statement on Monday.
Inside, it found 317 elephant tusks and five rhino horns.
This year alone, authorities have intercepted wildlife contraband in Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong, KWS said.
"In the recent times, cases of illegal trafficking of wildlife products through Kenya's ports to the Middle and Far East destinations has been a matter of concern," KWS said.
KWS said rhino and elephant poaching was on the increase.
Elephant poaching more than doubled to 204 illegal killings in 2009 from 94 in the previous year and 47 in 2007, according to KWS figures. Rhino killings nearly tripled to 13 deaths in 2009 from five in the previous year.
Kenya loses about 200-300 elephants to natural causes annually.
The east African safari destination has been opposed to the lifting of a 9-year ban against ivory sales agreed in 2007 under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species.
Some African countries with growing elephant populations want the trade to resume but Kenya maintains it would threaten its 38,000-strong elephant population.
East Africa is still recovering from extensive poaching in the 1960s and 1970s before the global ban. In 1989, poaching had reduced populations to about 17,000 elephants. (Reporting by Humphrey Malalo, editing by Helen Nyambura)
Space mirrors and 'volcanic' blasts are not an easy fix for the rise in sea levels.
Richard Lovett Nature.com 23 Aug 10;
Unless they involve extreme measures, geoengineering approaches to offset the effects of human-driven climate changes won't do much to combat rising sea levels, an international team of scientists reports in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1.
That is because sea levels respond slowly to changes in Earth's temperature, says John Moore, a palaeoclimatologist at Beijing Normal University and lead author of the study.
"We've got this 150-year legacy of fossil-fuel [burning], land-use changes, et cetera," he says. "You can't just slam on the brakes instantaneously."
Moore and his team examined two proposed geoengineering schemes: mirrors orbiting in space to reduce incoming sunlight, and sulphates being shot into the upper atmosphere to create a bright, sunlight-reflecting haze — similar to the one produced naturally by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. Either scheme could reduce incoming solar energy by about 1–4 watts per square metre, enough to offset the atmospheric warming caused by carbon dioxide build-up until at least 2070.
To determine how this might affect sea levels, Moore and his group used a computer model that could track historical sea-level changes over the past 300 years. They found that under a business-as-usual fossil-fuel scenario, even the 4-watt space mirror reduced this century's sea-level rise by only some 39 centimetres out of a projected 'no-intervention' rise of about 1 metre.
Only in combination with fairly aggressive carbon dioxide emissions reductions, Moore and his team calculated, could these geoengineering schemes have a larger effect. Even then, they would not completely stop sea-level rise, with the oceans likely to be about 30 centimetres higher by 2100, depending on the emissions scenario.
Two and a half Pinatubos
To nip sea-level rise in the bud, the scientists calculated, would require either injections of sulphur dioxide aerosol into the stratosphere equivalent to more than 2.5 Pinatubo eruptions every four years, or a commitment to constructing an ever-expanding space mirror.
Another problem, Moore says, is that once started, geoengineering must be continued or temperatures will quickly rebound to what they would have been without intervention. An attendant surge in sea-level rise wouldn't occur quite as quickly, but it would follow soon enough, at a rate of up to 1–2 centimetres per year, he says.
"Those are speeds that were observed during the last deglaciation," says Moore, "so we're not forecasting anything that is out of the geological record."
The economic effects of that would be so extreme, he adds, that a cost-benefit analysis indicates that geoengineering isn't even worth considering if there is more than about a one-in-ten chance that it will be suddenly discontinued. "It's playing economic roulette."
Richard Alley, a glaciologist and climate researcher at Pennsylvania State University in Philadelphia, calls the findings a "nice advance". He notes, however, that it is only the beginning of trying to determine how glaciers might react to geoengineering.
"We don't really have an ice-sheet model that we trust," says Alley, noting that, in addition to global warming, glaciers react to local and regional changes in winds, ocean temperatures and ocean circulation. "In many ways," he says, "this large advance serves to show how far we have to go before climate modelling of geoengineering is really good enough that useful regional projections could be made to guide decision-makers."
Alan Robock, a geophysicist from Rutgers University in New Jersey, agrees, but says that one finding that does come through strongly is that geoengineering has only a relatively minor effect on sea-level rise. "Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases will have a much larger impact," he says.
Moore concurs. "Anything that isn't reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is like putting [on] a bandage rather than actually solving the problem," he says.
References
1. Moore, J. C., Jevrejeva, S. & Grinsted, A. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA advance online publication doi:10.1073/pnas.1008153107 (2010).
Geoengineering 'not a solution' to sea-level rise
Katia Moskvitch, BBC News 24 Aug 10;
Even the most extreme geoengineering approaches will not stop sea levels from rising due to climate change, a study suggests.
New research proposes that as many as 150 million people could be affected as ocean levels increases by 30cm to 70cm by the end of this century.
This could result in flooding of low-lying coastal areas, including some of the world's largest cities.
The team published the study in the journal PNAS.
Scientists led by John Moore from Beijing Normal University, China, write that to combat global warming, people need to concentrate on sharply curbing greenhouse gas emissions and not rely too much on proposed geoengineering methods.
"Substituting geoengineering for greenhouse emission control would be to burden future generations with enormous risk," said Svetlana Jevrejeva of the UK's National Oceanography Centre, a co-author of the study.
Geoengineering has been talked about for countering some of the effects of climate change for the past several years, with some figures like the billionaire Bill Gates ploughing millions of dollars into the research.
But Dr Jevrejeva told BBC News that some proposals such as placing mirrors in space and spraying aerosols - microscopic particles - into the sky would only treat the symptoms, as greenhouse gases would remain in the Earth's atmosphere.
Dr Jevrejeva and her colleagues examined two geoengineering schemes with five different scenarios.
'Not a solution'
The first approach involves limiting incoming solar radiation through the injection of SO2 (sulphur dioxide) aerosols into the stratosphere. Alternatively, giant mirrors could be launched into orbit, they said.
The second approach would involve modifying the carbon cycle by either planting more trees (afforestation), converting organic material into charcoal (biochar) or using renewable energy from materials derived from biological sources (bioenergy).
"We used [a computer model to track] 300 years of tide gauge measurements to reconstruct how sea level responded historically to changes in the amount of heat reaching the Earth from the Sun, the cooling effects of volcanic eruptions, and past human activities," said Dr Jevrejeva.
"We then used this information to simulate sea level under geoengineering schemes over the next 100 years," she added.
The team found that, if taken individually, even the most extreme of these methods would result in severe sea-level rise.
"We suggested that the most effective approach would be a combination of three different techniques for managing the carbon cycle," said Dr Jevrejeva.
She explained that these scenarios relied on biological mechanisms to remove CO2 from the air and store it in biomass, soils or geological storage sites.
For instance, afforestation, or adding forests to places where they have been cut down or never existed, would lower the amount of atmospheric CO2, but only by 45ppm (parts-per-million) - a lot less than the amount humans have already emitted.
Biochar would reduce the CO2 levels by even less - 35ppm.
Biofuel production would be more effective, and the combination of the three methods could eliminate up to 250ppm of CO2 and limit sea level rise to between 20 and 40cm.
Carbon storage
The carbon storage technique also has other advantages, pointed out Dr Jevrejeva. It actually reduces the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, whereas the method of reflecting sunlight back into space does not.
"If you use a mirror, it's extremely expensive and it's an engineering challenge - you have to place mirrors [weighing] some 20 million tonnes into the Earth's orbit," Dr Jevrejeva explained.
There was also the chance these mirrors might break in orbit, the researcher added.
The same goes for SO2 aerosol injection - a controversial approach that has already been tested on a small scale in Russia by one of the country's leading climatologists Yuri Israel.
He told BBC News that a stratospheric layer of SO2 could cool the planet and would be an effective and none-too-expensive way of tackling climate change.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
What worries me is that it's cheap and do-able and all you need is a country with a rocket”
End Quote Sir David King Former UK Chief Scientific Adviser
But Dr Jevrejeva said that even though injecting a certain amount of SO2 into the atmosphere might lower mean global temperatures by 1C or more over a few decades, the CO2 would still persist there.
The researchers' simulations showed that spraying the stratosphere with aerosols would produce a similar effect to a major volcanic eruption occuring every 1.5 years. Besides reducing global temperatures, this approach would also delay sea-level rise by 40 to 80 years.
"During a natural volcanic eruption, there's usually a cooling effect in the atmosphere and a drop in sea level. We [followed] different scenarios using the amount of aerosols equivalent to the biggest eruption of the 20th Century - the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991," said Dr Jevrejeva.
"Particles from volcanic ashes end up in the stratosphere and reflect the radiation from the sun, but the same amount of CO2 stays in the atmosphere, so you do not solve the problem."
Also, no one knows the effect such spraying could have on the ecosystem, added the scientist.
"It's a huge challenge, no one knows what could happen."
Major concerns
In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the scientists wrote that SO2 injection into the atmosphere would likely lead to such undesirable consequences as "disruption in precipitation patterns and stratospheric ozone, and do nothing to avert the continued absorption of CO2 by the global ocean leading to rising acidity and ecosystem damage."
There are many opponents of geoengineering techniques, among them former UK chief scientific adviser Sir David King.
He told BBC News about his concerns over geoengineering proposals, especially those involving spraying the stratosphere with aerosols.
"What worries me is that it's cheap and do-able and all you need is a country with a rocket and they can put aerosols up into the stratosphere. We have no confidence in models on what these aerosols would do there.
Sir David explained: "Imagine if the aerosols would in some way cause more aerosol production - because there are a lot of chemicals there including ozone - and in time we find that we're getting more than we anticipated so the planet gets cooler and cooler when we wanted it to be stable"
Lisa Friedman, The New York Times 23 Aug 10;
Rising ocean levels brought about by climate change have created a flood of unprecedented legal questions for small island nations and their neighbors.
Among them: If a country disappears, is it still a country? Does it keep its seat at the United Nations? Who controls its offshore mineral rights? Its shipping lanes? Its fish?
And if entire populations are forced to relocate -- as could be the case with citizens of the Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati and other small island states facing extinction -- what citizenship, if any, can those displaced people claim?
Until recently, such questions of sovereignty and human rights have been the domain of a scattered group of lawyers and academics. But now the Republic of the Marshall Islands -- a Micronesian nation of 29 low-lying coral atolls in the North Pacific -- is campaigning to stockpile a body of knowledge it hopes will turn international attention to vulnerable countries' plights.
"At the current negotiating sessions and climate change meetings, nobody is truly addressing the legal and human rights effects of climate change," said Phillip Muller, the Marshall Islands' ambassador to the United Nations.
"If the Marshall Islands ceases to exist, are we still going to own the sea resources? Are we still going to be asked for permission to fish? What are the rights that we will have? And we are also mindful that we may need to relocate. We're hoping it will never happen, but we have to be ready. There are a lot of issues we need to know the answer to and be able to tell our citizens what is happening," he said.
Frustrated by the dearth of answers to the questions he was posing, Muller said, Marshall Islands leaders contacted Columbia Law School. Michael Gerrard, who leads the law school's Center for Climate Change Law, picked up the challenge and issued a call for papers.
Theoretical questions become real
Gerrard, who is arranging a conference sponsored by Columbia University's Earth Institute next year, said that when he began reaching out to scholars, he realized most were working in isolation from one another. And, he said, some of the most ticklish legal questions facing small island nations have been understudied -- because until recently, the notion of a country's extinction has been largely theoretical.
"The prospect of a nation drowning is so horrific that it's hard to imagine," Gerrard said. Moreover, he added, until just a few years ago, it was difficult to have a conversation in the international community about how countries might adapt to climate change.
"There was a concern that it would divert focus from mitigation. But now people recognize that even with the most aggressive imaginable mitigation measures, the climate situation will get worse before it gets better, and we have to begin making serious preparation," he said.
The plight of refugees is the most emotional of the looming questions. Deciding where to relocate citizens is just the beginning for a disappearing nation. Still unanswered: What will the political status of those displaced people be? Will they assimilate into the culture and economy of their new host country, or will they retain a separate identity?
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion and accelerated coastal erosion could lead to as many as 200 million environmentally induced migrants worldwide by 2050.
The Carteret Islanders of Papua New Guinea could be some of the world's first climate "refugees." The land is expected to be under water by 2015, and Papua New Guinea's mission to the United Nations has already announced it would evacuate the approximately 2,000 islanders to Bougainville Island -- about a four-hour boat ride away.
Maldives wants a fund of last resort
Meanwhile, in the Maldives, President Mohamed Nasheed declared upon entering office that he would create a sovereign fund -- something of a last-resort insurance policy -- in the event that the country's 305,000 citizens would require relocation. The fund fell victim to budget shortfalls, but Maldivian officials have said it had the desired effect of raising awareness in the international community.
And while environmental migration is not a new phenomenon, the projected scale of human movement over a short period of time is unprecedented. But, noted University of New South Wales professor Jane McAdam, "there is at present no internationally agreed definition of what it means to be an environmental 'migrant,' 'refugee,' or 'displaced person,' and consequently, no agreed label for those affected."
Edward Cameron, former senior adviser to the government of the Maldives, added: "We see at the moment how many people are on the move in Pakistan." While the floods devastating that country have been displacing millions internally, Cameron asked, "What if they were on the move across an international border? They certainly wouldn't have refugee status."
But while questions abound over the status and rights of displaced persons, experts say that field of study is burgeoning compared to the study of sovereign rights of vulnerable countries.
McAdam, who has looked at the question of whether a disappeared nation could retain its U.N. seat, noted that there is no automatic triggering mechanism that "undoes" a state.
"Certainly states have ceased to exist in the past, but it's through occupation, war, state secession," McAdam said. The closest thing to an extinct nation would be a government in exile. Yet even that assumes the government will eventually return to its territory -- something climate change may make impossible.
"There's precedent for other things that we can draw on, but ... there's no self-executing formula for deciding when a country doesn't exist anymore," she said.
Cleo Paskal, associate fellow at Chatham House and author of "Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map," said one of her top worries is the fate of countries' maritime exclusive economic zones.
Those areas where countries have exclusive rights to the resources are measured from coastlines or offshore islands. But, Paskal noted, the laws assume the coastlines won't change or disappear. That's already happening.
Laws assume coastlines are a constant
"Any country with a coastline or offshore islands that are being used to anchor claims need to start thinking about if that coastline or offshore island is affected, and what will that do to the exclusive economic zone claims?" she said. "The core issue is that we have written our laws, regulations, subsidies on the assumption that the environment is a constant, and it isn't."
Moreover, as Paskal noted in a recent blog post, countries that take in climate "refugees" might make a case for governing the former nation's maritime zone -- something she described as a "very lucrative and geopolitically touchy proposition."
Meanwhile, Paskal and others warn that well before a country disappears under rising waters, it will face less provocative but deeply vexing problems.
"On your way down, before your country disappears, you've got desalination problems, agriculture problems, import problems. You might lose your fresh water; your land might start to degrade because of saltwater intrusion," Paskal said.
Cameron said threatened nations need answers to the vexing legal questions of land, water and migration for their own sakes as well as to send a signal to developed countries stalling on climate change action that "if you don't come up with a response, we're going to start looking at legal options." But more broadly, he said, the international community needs to start viewing climate change through the lens of human rights.
"What we're trying to do in this debate is take an old issue, which is climate change, and make people look at it in a completely different way ... as a human and social issue instead of an ecological issue," he said. "Climate change is not about polar bears; it's about people, and human rights helps us to understand it as a human issue."
WWF 23 Aug 10;
Moscow & Athens – Analysis of catastrophic wildfires in Russia and Greece has highlighted a deadly combination of climate change impacts and the neglect of forest management, WWF organizations in the two fire prone countries said today.
In the joint statement, WWF-Russia and WWF-Greece said the catastrophic wildfires that hit Russia during the first two weeks of August awoke the memories of the tragic Greek "black summer" of 2007. Fires have now flared up in Greece, where the national budgetary crisis has seen fire defences downgraded.
“Although the weather did not favor mega-wildfires during June and July, as the 2010 summer ends Greeks witness once more the dramatic ecological consequences of forest fires, " said Demetres Karavellas, Director of WWF Greece.
"Yesterday, we lost to the flames one of the most important forest ecosystems in the Mediterranean, the rare and endemic palm forest of Preveli in Crete.”
Key factors turning wildfire into wildfire disaster
The analysis of key contributing factors that turn wildfire into wildfire catastrophe included gaps in national forest legislation, understaffed and under-equipped forest management and fire suppression authorities, little emphasis on cost effective preventative measures and poor mobilization of public support for forest protection.
“According to the official data, this summer about 1 million hectares of forests were burnt, 14 natural protected areas of federal importance are burning at this very moment, at least 127 villages turned into ashes and 52 people were killed because of forest fires,” said Dr Evgeny Shvarts, Conservation Policy Director for WWF Russia..
“According to rough estimations, the fires released something like the annual carbon emissions of Germany into the atmosphere to aggravate climate change.
“Most of forests and villages destroyed by fire were located in the most heavily populated European part of Russia, where forests have a special social and ecological value.
“This catastrophic situation roots in recent thoughtless administrative reforms of forest management, resulted in decreasing of federal control over forest resources planning and use, elimination of the federal forest rangers service and decreasing of specialized forest fires monitoring and fire fighting centers’ potential.
“We believe that urgent measures are needed by the Government of Russia to revise results of the forest management reforms made since the year 2000.”
Deadly gaps
A similar message is now coming from Greece as the threat of end of summer fires rapidly worsens.
“The financial crisis that looms over Greece has resulted in decimating the already scant funding for forest management and protection,” said Demetres Karavellas, Director of WWF Greece.
“The memory of the tragic summer of 2007, when over 270 thousand hectares of precious Mediterranean forest land was burnt and over 80 human lives were lost, should teach us that the cost of prevention and integrated management is always a cheaper and more effective solution, compared to the real cost of environmental crises, such as wildfires."
The two branches of WWF called on their governments to address numerous and deadly serious gaps in the national forest legislation.
“Forests need to be managed and protected primarily as vulnerable ecosystems, which are vital for human survival through climate change and not as land offered for easy profit,” they said.
Emphasis should be put on prevention, rather than fire suppression. Integrated management of forests as dynamic ecosystems throughout the year is cheaper and more effective, than the army of aerial and land-based fire fighting means needed to combat mega wildfires.
“Public participation and constant alert is crucial securing a better future for forests,” WWF said. “Volunteer fire-combating teams and organized social mobilization has on numerous occasions averted forest disasters.”
* Putin visits Arctic Circle to look at melting permafrost
* Seeks advice on climate change from scientists
Darya Korsunskaya Reuters AlertNet 23 Aug 10;
SAMOILOVSKY ISLAND, Russia, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin travelled beyond the Arctic Circle on Monday to look into evidence for climate change after a record heatwave ravaged central Russia this summer.
Putin, who has in the past displayed a light-hearted approach to global warming by joking Russians would have to buy fewer fur coats, flew to a scientific research station in the Samoilovsky island at the delta of Siberia's Lena River.
"The climate is changing. This year we have come to understand this when we faced events that resulted in fires," Putin told climate scientists working at the station, opened in 1998 to study the melting Siberian permafrost.
The two-month heatwave, Russia's worst on record, killed 54 people in forest fires, destroyed a quarter of the grain crop and shaved at least $14 billion off the economy.
Putin, who has sought to burnish his action-man image flying firefighting planes and facing angry fire victims, was clearly stunned by the extent of the natural disaster, likening it to Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union.
Though experts say it is impossible to link individual weather events to climate change, the heatwave has shown signs of shifting perceptions of global warming risks among northern nations such as Russia, Canada and the Nordic countries.
Putin, dressed in a warm jacket, told the scientists on the barren tundra that he was still waiting for an answer whether global climate change was the result of human activity or "the Earth living its own life and breathing".
WOOLLY MAMMOTHS
He argued that the end of the Ice Age which forced woolly mammoths to seek refuge in Samoilovsky and other Arctic islands ten thousand years ago was not mankind's fault and sought advice on how to handle climate change.
"Which islands should we be fleeing to?" he asked.
Scientists blame global warming on emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. Putin, keen for Russia to retain position as one of the leading exporters of oil and gas, has spoken dismissively of alternative energy sources.
Russia's own greenhouse gases emissions are well within its Kyoto goal of keeping them below 1990 level by 2012, but are set to rise as the country bids to develop manufacturing.
Russia was the fourth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in 2009, according to energy firm BP, and is a key player in efforts to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012.
Scientists say that melting Siberian permafrost which stretches up to 1.5 km into the ground will accelerate the global warming process further, as huge quantities of methane gas are released into the Earth's atmosphere. (Writing by Gleb Bryanski; editing by Ralph Boulton)
Michael Szabo PlanetArk 24 Aug 10;
The World Bank has defended its investment in chemical plants accused by green groups of raising production of greenhouse gas HFC-23 with the aim of incinerating it to get extra carbon offsets worth millions of dollars.
Approved under the Kyoto Protocol's $2.7 billion Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) scheme, 19 plants mainly in China and India are issued offsets by the UN for incinerating the refrigerant waste gas called hydrofluorocarbon-23.
But environmental groups including Germany's CDM Watch have accused some of the plants, in which the World Bank is an investor, of intentionally boosting refrigerant gas production just collect more offsets by destroying it.
The CDM's executive board last week halted issuance of offsets to five projects, including two with World Bank funding, pending an investigation.
"The analysis conducted by CDM Watch is based on a narrow and simplistic approach ... Key parameters have been discarded, such as operating conditions and technical capacity," the World Bank said in an undated report on its website, adding there was not enough evidence to support the allegations.
But environmental activists were not convinced.
"The World Bank is one of the largest investors in HFC-23 projects and clearly has vested interests in protecting its investments and ensuring a continuous flow of credits," said CDM Watch program director Eva Filzmoser by email.
"CDM Watch ... considered all parameters available and is confident that our analysis that some plant operators are gaming the system to extract huge profits from the CDM is correct."
A molecule of HFC-23 traps 11,700 times more heat than a molecule of CO2, making the 19 projects lucrative for their long list of investors, which UN data said include Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Deutsche Bank.
The World Bank said on its website its Umbrella Carbon fund had contracted to buy from two contested Chinese HFC-23 projects some 130 million tons in offsets through 2013, which at current market rates are worth about 1.76 billion euros ($2.2 billion).
The 19 HFC-23 projects account for over half of the 430 million offsets doled out to the 2,326 projects approved under the CDM to date.
OVERPRODUCTION?
"It is astonishing that the World Bank concludes now that there is not sufficient evidence to support our allegations while the investigation is still ongoing," Filzmoser said.
CDM Watch accused the projects of overproducing a gas called HCFC-22, adding that the level of waste gas HFC-23 emissions per ton of HCFC-22 was larger for plants covered by the CDM than for newer facilities that were not.
The World Bank said, however, "Scientific research reports that plants not covered by the CDM are less efficient in both developed and developing countries ... this includes newer facilities in developing countries."
It added that revenues from selling offsets do not exceed those from producing and selling HCFC-22.
"If we look at China alone, where the majority of HFC-23 projects are located, the overall national production of HCFC-22 very significantly exceeds that of the CDM project unit," the bank's report said.
"Clearly the CDM is not driving the demand for production."
The World Bank cited rapid economic development as a reason for the swift growth in HCFC-22 production in emerging nations, which it put at 25 percent per year.
The report also noted that there was a current lack of any international agreement or regulations to mandate the destruction of HFC-23.
"CDM revenues are the only financial resource available to developing countries to cover the incremental costs for the destruction of HFC-23 from HCFC-22 production in facilities."
For this reason, the bank advised against suspending the CDM's HFC-23 methodology, which would effectively curb the carbon finance available to these projects.
"Because of the significant impact of (these) projects on the global effort to reduce greenhouse gases, it is not advisable to put this methodology on hold before an international agreement is reached and a financial mechanism is available for developing countries to cover the additional costs for the destruction of HFC-23."
(Editing by Sue Thomas and Jane Baird)
Alister Doyle PlanetArk 24 Aug 10;
The U.N. panel of climate scientists should be more nimble at highlighting global warming trends and at fixing mistakes, experts said ahead of the planned August 30 release of a review of the group's work.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked for an independent review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) after the group came under fire for errors such as wrongly saying Himalayan glaciers could all melt by 2035 and overstating the amount of the Netherlands below sea level.
"It is an embarrassing but useful crisis," said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is not one of those conducting the review.
Schellnhuber and other experts contacted by Reuters said the U.N. group, which guides government climate policies and shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. campaigner Al Gore, could play a bigger role in assessing extreme weather such as Pakistan's floods or Russia's heat wave in real time.
"There needs to be a more real-time assessment of the climate," said Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.
One possible format for future IPCC reports could be the U.S. "state of the climate" report, the 2009 version of which was issued in June 2010, he said.
The current report "is a fairly clumsy vehicle ... covering all regions and all sectors. It is a sort of Bible written every 7 years," said Schellnhuber. The last IPCC assessment was in 2007 and the next is due in 2013-14.
"It would be better to have leaner publications, more updated, on time. That would not preclude that you also have a major publication in 5, 6, 7 years," he said.
SCANT PROGRESS IN CLIMATE TALKS IN 2010
The review group, led by former Princeton University president Harold Shapiro, will submit recommendations for overhauling the IPCC to Ban on August 30.
One concern that needs to be addressed is the IPCC's slowness at correcting errors -- it took months to fix the mistake about the Himalayas, feeding a view that the IPCC was deaf to criticism.
A report by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency in July found the IPCC's basic conclusion that mankind was to blame for global warming was sound. But the IPCC and the credibility of science have suffered.
A Gallup poll in March, for instance, showed that 48 percent of Americans thought that news of global warming was "generally exaggerated," up from 41 percent in 2009.
The IPCC's problems have been mirrored by scant progress in climate negotiations this year after a summit in Copenhagen in 2009 agreed only a set of non-binding guidelines for slowing global warming, short of a new U.N. treaty that many countries had hoped for.
Another issue is whether the way the IPCC works needs to be reformed. Under the current system scientists and government officials agree reports together, which binds governments to the conclusions but can bring suspicions of political tampering.
"I think the IPCC should have a clearer difference between the scientific part and the political part," said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
The experts contacted by Reuters also said the IPCC should be more cautious about using so-called "grey literature" that falls short of peer-reviewed science. Such reports include studies by environmental groups.
The review may also try to bolster the Geneva-based secretariat of the IPCC, which has about 10 staff and an annual budget of $5 million to $7 million. Governments will consider the review's findings at a meeting in South Korea in October.
(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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