Best of our wild blogs: 14 Sep 10

Starting the work day with a smile! :D
dolphin sighting at St. John's from ashira

Singapore Aquatic Heteroptera workshop from 18-29 Oct 2010
from Raffles Museum News

RIP. Jack the wild boar
from Ubin.sgkopi

How is coral bleaching at Kusu Island?
from wild shores of singapore with Seagrass surprises. Also in Singapore Nature and into the wild and The Annotated Budak.

zooming into venus drive
from into the wild

Boo hiss boo
from The annotated budak

苍鹭的早餐 breakfast of a grey heron
from PurpleMangrove

White-throated Kingfisher (Halcyon smyrnensis)
from into the wild

350 Singapore Public Boardroom 17 Sep 10
on Young NTUC

Saving Forests To Save Biodiversity (Science, 10 September 2010) from Raffles Museum News

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A pool too small for dolphins

Straits Times Forum 14 Sep 10;

I REFER to last Friday's report ("Dolphin Lagoon is too small: SPCA") and have to agree with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The pool at the Underwater World does look too small to be able to hold three dolphins.

The Underwater World may claim that its new pool exceeds international guidelines. However, these standards are usually basic requirements. It does not take an expert to see that the pool is too small for the dolphins.

Today, animal circuses and performances are no longer viewed as acceptable. We would much rather see animals in their natural habitat, not in man-made enclosures.

Many also do not relish seeing them being made to perform tricks for the amusement of human beings.

Jill Hum (Ms)

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Singapore sounds out oil firms on ultra-low sulphur petrol, diesel

Early-stage talks on introducing greener grades of Euro IV petrol, Euro V diesel
Ronnie Lim Business Times 14 Sep 10;

WITH the world moving to 'greener' transport fuels, Singapore is starting to suss out the oil companies and refiners on the potential for them to introduce even cleaner, ultra-low sulphur petrol and diesel grades here, industry sources said.

'The authorities made the approaches recently, and the oil companies are debating whether they can do it,' one oil official told BT, noting that some broad timelines - but not specific deadlines - were broached in these 'early-stage' talks.

BT understands from industry sources that the National Environment Agency (NEA) sounded out the possibility of them introducing the greener fuel grades of Euro IV specification petrol, which has a maximum sulphur content of 50 parts per million (ppm), tentatively by end-2012, and Euro V specification diesel (with maximum sulphur content of 10 parts per million) by end-2014.

But at the same time, the NEA is also conscious that the tighter emission standards must not come at a high cost, and be cost-effective.

A recent Platts report on NEA's meetings with the oil industry, cited NEA as saying: 'We are still consulting the oil industry on the lead time needed to supply higher-quality gasoline. No time frame has been set at this moment on the adoption of a higher emission standard or the Euro IV emission standard for petrol vehicles.'

Currently, petrol sold here meets Euro II specifications, where the maximum allowable sulphur content is 500 ppm, although higher octane grades sold here, like 98 RON, is said to already have a lower sulphur content of less than 100 ppm.

'For diesel vehicles, we have, in the Singapore Sustainable Development Blueprint which was launched in April 2009, indicated that we are targeting to move to Euro V vehicle emissions standards by 2014/15,' the report quoted an NEA spokesman as saying.

Singapore last legislated the use of Euro IV diesel here in October, 2006 - up from the previous Euro II diesel specifications.

From the refiners' viewpoint, production of the cleaner, or ultra-low sulphur, transportation fuels will require costly new plant investments.

Singapore Refining Company (SRC) is, for instance, currently carrying out front-end engineering design for a planned US$300-400 million project (including a cogeneration plant for the refinery) to produce ultra-low sulphur gasoline.

This will apparently be capable of producing Euro IV specification petrol.

The final investment decision for the project is expected from SRC - a joint venture between PetroChina and Chevron - this year-end.

ExxonMobil, Singapore's largest refiner, which last month told BT that it was 'evaluating additional investments in the Asia-Pacific, including a potential diesel project at its Singapore refinery,' is also understood to be looking to produce Euro V specification diesel.

One industry observer said that the tentative end-2012 timeline mooted for Euro IV petrol here 'is quite pressing' given that plants take time to build.

'From the time a go-ahead is given, it can take at least one and a half years or more, depending on the project's complexity.'

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At least 6,500 buildings need retrofitting to reach green building target

Sharon See Channel NewsAsia 13 Sep 10;

SINGAPORE : The Singapore Green Building Council estimates that at least 6,500 buildings here need to be retrofitted over the next 20 years.

This will enable Singapore to reach its target of "greening" at least 80 per cent of its buildings by 2030.

Several green ideas are being exhibited at the third Build Eco Xpo, a three-day event that focuses on green practices in building, design and technology. The event is being held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

One idea involves the use of titanium dioxide coating solution to treat panels of glass.

Titanium dioxide is a chemical commonly found in sunblock, paint and ink. When exposed to sunlight, it prevents water from staining, and allows dirt to be washed away easily by rain water.

It also helps to oxidise dirt, and that means buildings can keep themselves clean in sunlight.

Another green application showcased is plastic sheets which emit light. It is made possible with technology that allows light emitting materials to be printed directly on materials such as plastic and paper.

Dr Albert Lu, a senior scientist at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, said: "The target future applications would include aesthetic or ambient lighting, flexible signages, and in the longer term, even for general lighting, because this promises very good energy efficiency as well as minimum heat generation."

While these ideas will help new buildings be greener, the Building and Construction Authority is also helping older buildings to be more energy efficient.

Singapore currently has 500 green buildings and this forms 8 per cent of the building stock.

So far, some 10 existing buildings are in the midst of retrofitting.

For them, the benefits go beyond saving the environment and being energy efficient.

The president of the Singapore Green Building Council, Lee Chuan Seng, said: "What we have found so far is that when you retrofit a building, some of the building owners are now reaping savings of half a million dollars, S$1 million a year."

Most retrofitting processes typically involve improving the air-conditioning and lighting systems, lifts and the facade. - CNA/ms

Green Individual Award to be introduced later this year
Channel NewsAsia 13 Sep 10;

SINGAPORE : A new award for green building professionals will be introduced later this year.

The Green Individual Award is to recognise the contributions of professionals and individuals who have been leading the green building movement in Singapore.

Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim made this announcement at the opening of the World Green International Congress on Monday.

The World Green International Congress is held in conjunction with the Singapore Green Building Week, and Building Eco Xpo Asia, a trade event for the green building industry.

Dr Yaacob said with the rise of the green building movement, there will be demand for green building professionals to support the greening of the built environment.

Singapore would need to train about 18,000 to 20,000 green collar professionals over the next 10 years in the development, design, construction, operation and maintenance of green buildings.

The award is a collaborative effort between the Building and Construction Authority and the Singapore Green Building Council.

It will be open for nomination next month.

- CNA/al

20,000 to be trained in 'green building' push
They will lead energy efficiency drive; new awards to recognise efforts made
Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 14 Sep 10;

ABOUT 20,000 working professionals in the building sector, as well as polytechnic and university students, will be trained over the next 10 years in the nuts and bolts of designing and running green buildings.

As specialists and resource persons in sustainable building design and management, they willlead the charge towards the national target to equip eight in 10 buildings here with more energy-efficient features by 2030.

To kick-start this charge, awards will be given out every year - beginning this year - in recognition of contributions by individuals in creating such a sustainably built environment. Winners, to be drawn from the building and construction sector, could be engineers, developers or even materials suppliers.

This announcement came from Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim yesterday at the launch of the inaugural World Green Building Council International Congress at the Marina Bay Sands.

The three-day forum has drawn industry players in the sustainability sector from around the world.

Nominations for the new awards, to be presented jointly by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) and the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC), will open next month.

The BCA-SGBC Awards will be handed out in four categories - architects, engineers, entrepreneurs and innovators - in May next year.

SGBC president Lee Chuan Seng said that putting the spotlight on outstanding players in a relatively young industry here can have knock-on benefits.

About 1,000 individuals now have the qualifications to bill themselves BCA Green Mark Managers.

But more of them are needed so that Singapore's concrete jungle can be a green, energy-efficient one.

To grow the 'clean tech' sector, a $680 million kitty has been set aside by the Government to fund research and development and manpower training.

Those to be trained in this new field include tertiary students in polytechnics and universities reading courses in areas such as sustainable building design and management.

Most buildings here are now lacking in energy-efficient features. The BCA estimates that only 8 per cent of all buildings here, with 210 million sq m of floor space among them, have these features.

The Government will require all public-sector buildings to undergo energy audits in two years.

By 2020, new public-sector buildings with more than 5,000 sq m of air-conditioned floor space will have to fall in line with tightened energy-ratings criteria set out by the BCA.

A report released by the United Nations last year pinned the blame for almost a third of the world's carbon emissions on buildings.

It added that a failure to make some of the world's gleaming structures green will double the amount of carbon contributed by buildings by 2030.

6,500 buildings need to go 'green'
Sharon See Today Online 14 Sep 10;

SINGAPORE - The Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) estimates that at least 6,500 buildings here need to be retrofitted over the next 20 years.

This will enable Singapore to reach its target of "greening" at least 80 per cent of its buildings by 2030.

Several green ideas are being exhibited at the third Build Eco Xpo, a three-day event that focuses on green practices in building, design and technology. The event, which started yesterday, is being held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre.

One idea involves the use of titanium dioxide coating solution to treat panels of glass.

Titanium dioxide is a chemical commonly found in sunblock, paint and ink. When exposed to sunlight, it prevents water from staining and allows dirt to be washed away easily by rain water.

It also helps to oxidise dirt, and that means buildings can keep themselves clean in sunlight.

While such ideas will help new buildings be greener, the Building and Construction Authority is also helping older buildings to be more energy efficient.

Singapore currently has 500 green buildings and this makes up 8 per cent of the building stock.

So far, about 10 existing buildings are in the midst of retrofitting.

SGBC's president Lee Chuan Seng said: " ... When you retrofit a building, some of the building owners are now reaping savings of half a million dollars, $1 million, a year."

Most retrofitting processes typically involve improving the air-conditioning and lighting systems, lifts and the facade.

Awards to recognise 'green' individuals
Uma Shankari Business Times 14 Sep 10;

NEW Green Individual Awards will be launched this year to recognise the contributions of professionals and individuals in the green building industry, Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim said yesterday.

Some 18,000 to 20,000 professionals will need to be trained in green design techniques to help achieve the target of 'greening' 80 per cent of buildings in Singapore by 2030, industry regulator the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has said.

Right now there are almost 500 green buildings in Singapore, forming just 8 per cent of total building stock.

'With the rise of the green building movement there will be demand for green building professionals to support the greening of the built environment,' Dr Yaacob said.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of BEX Asia, which focuses on green building architecture, design, products, practices and technologies for environmental sustainability.

This year's BEX Asia is running in conjunction with the World Green Building Council's International Congress 2010 and the Singapore Green Building Council's (SGBC) inaugural Green Building Conference.

The new awards are being launched jointly by BCA and SGBC.

A product certification scheme to assess and label green building products will also be launched soon. 'One of the major problems facing the building industry in trying to be green is the lack of robustly assessed and certified products to facilitate the faster switch to green buildings,' said SGBC president Lee Chuan Seng.

The new scheme - Singapore's first - will adopt assessment criteria such as energy, water and resource efficiency to assess the environmental friendliness of building products.

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Singapore's e-waste gets new life

Gwendolyn Ng My Paper AsiaOne 14 Sep 10;

IF YOU are tossing your mobile phones and laptops into the trash, know this: They could end up harming your health and the environment.

Said Associate Professor Ting Yen Peng of the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: "These electronic devices contain a variety of hazardous substances such as lead and mercury.

"When improperly disposed of, they end up in an incinerator, and these substances will be emitted into the environment and pollute the air, water and land."

With the increased use of technology - Singapore's mobile- penetration rate alone hit 140.7 per cent in June, up from 139.6 per cent in May - the recycling of electronic waste, commonly known as e-waste, is fast becoming a popular means to get rid of old devices.

According to a 2007 media report, environmental agencies estimated that 20-50 million tonnes of electronic products are discarded globally every year.

Recycling firms told my paper that the amount of e-waste collected has increased over the years, and collection peaks during sales of information-technology products, electronics fairs and festive seasons.

This year, the National Environment Agency's (NEA) Recycling Week, which ended last Saturday, featured an E-waste Take Back Project.

An NEA spokesman said: "E-waste recycling enables the recovery of precious resources such as metals and plastics, and minimises waste disposal at our waste-to-energy incineration plants and Semakau Landfill."

There are also other avenues to collect e-waste.

Old mobile phones can be dropped off at Nokia Care Centres, where everything from plastic covers to batteries are recycled.

There are also door-to-door collections provided by recycling firms such as Recycling Point Dot Com.

The firm's founder, Mr Joseph Tan, who began collecting e-waste about 20 years ago, said that other companies jumped on the e-waste bandwagon about a decade ago.

He revealed that the top three items collected in Singapore are washing machines, refrigerators and cathode ray tube (CRT) television sets.

Recycling companies my paper spoke to said that electronic devices in good condition are often given a second life. They are refurbished and resold to the market here or abroad.

Devices deemed beyond repair are usually dismantled, and materials such as gold and copper are extracted.

But before trashing your old devices, it is important to ensure that your stored personal data has been deleted so that it does not fall into the wrong hands.

Mr Thomas Kok, chief of IT Risk Management Practice at the NUS Institute of System Science, said: "Depending on the type of information someone could uncover, he or she may be able to use it maliciously against you. You could become a victim of identity theft, lose money, or be used in a social-engineering attack."

Mr Kok said there is a range of measures one can take, including using software available at computer stores to carry out "detailed formatting" multiple times, or even physically damaging the hard disk by drilling multiple holes into it before disposal.

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New gecko species found in Vietnam

VietNamNet Bridge 13 Sep 10;

Scientists have discovered a new species of gecko in the Phu Quoc National Park, last week’s issue of Zootaxa, an international animal taxonomy journal, has reported.

It was found in a forest near the Tranh stream on the island and is believed to be endemic to the park.

The new species has been named Cyrtodactylus phuquocensis sp. nov. Ngô, Grismer & Grismer after the three scientists – Vietnamese zoologist Ngo Van Tri, “Reptile King” L. Lee Grismer, a world-renowned US herpetologist, and his son Jesse – who found it.

Geckos are small to average-sized lizards found in warm climates throughout the world and are unique among lizards for their chirping sounds during social interaction with other geckos.

Source: SGTT/Tuoi Tre

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Shark victims unite to save their attackers

Sebastian Smith Yahoo News 13 Sep 10;

NEW YORK (AFP) – They've lost arms, legs and ankle parts, but nine survivors of encounters with sharks said Monday that the oceans' greatest predator -- not man -- should fear the water.

The survivors gathered at the United Nations in New York to tell the world that their attackers, like the great white, desperately need protecting.

Paul de Gelder, an Australian navy diver whose right hand and lower right leg were torn off last year in Sydney Harbour, said he wanted to "speak out for an animal that can't speak for itself."

Rampant overfishing is driving some species to the brink of extinction, with 73 million sharks killed annually to feed Asia's demand for shark fin soup.

"We're decimating the population of sharks just for a bowl of soup," de Gelder said.

The Pew Environment Group, a US-based organization that brought the survivors to the United Nations, says 30 percent of shark species -- including great whites, whitetips and shortfin makos -- are threatened or near-threatened with extinction.

Some are close to collapse, such as the porbeagle whose population is down 90 percent, while the status of a further 47 percent is not properly known.

Scientists say that wiping out sharks, who are at the top of the ocean food chain, creates a destructive ripple effect throughout the marine ecosystem.

For example, sharks eat seabirds, so a reduction in shark numbers leads to more seabirds, who then eat up the bait fish needed for tuna, another endangered big fish.

Another example is the gradual collapse of life on coral reefs once the primary predator is removed from the balance.

"The ramifications on the ocean ecosystem are vast," said Matt Rand, director of shark conservation at Pew.

Pew is lobbying for an end to finning, where fishermen simply slice off shark fins and throw the mortally wounded creature back into the sea, and for strict catch limits to be imposed worldwide.

"In the open ocean, there are no limits on how many sharks can be caught," Rand said.

The survivors said the fear sharks inspire, most famously in the massively popular film "Jaws," is hugely distorted.

Fewer than 70 people are recorded as being bitten annually worldwide, although the number does not include incidents in countries where statistics are not kept. Of those, just a handful die, making fatal shark attacks less likely than lightning strikes.

For some of the shark victims, advocating on behalf of their attackers was part of their efforts to move on from their often horrific accidents and to make sense of their changed lives.

De Gelder remembered fighting for his life with the shark. "I tried to go for the eyeball and realized I couldn't because my hand was in his mouth," he said. "I punched him. I think that just upset him."

Debbie Salamone, who went to work for Pew after a shark severed her Achilles tendon in 2004 in Florida, said that at first "I was really not a big fan of sharks. I wanted to plot my revenge and was planning to eat shark steaks."

Then, she decided to go the other way and help the fearsome, but vulnerable fish.

"I decided this was a test, a test of my commitment to environmental conservation," she said.

South African lifeguard Achmat Hassiem, who lost his right foot, described scraping his knuckles raw as he struggled with a great white more than twice his size. "It was like hitting a tank, a tank with sandpaper all over its body."

But like the others, Hassiem said he quickly realized that sharks were the true victims.

He said he didn't want his children or their children to end up having "to go to a museum and see what sharks used to look like."

"We can't take down our sharks for a bowl of soup," Hassiem said.

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Hydropower dams in Southeast Asia

Dam if they do, and dam if they don't
Michael Richardson, For The Straits Times 14 Sep 10;

CHINA, already the world's largest generator of electricity from river water trapped by giant dams, recently announced plans to nearly double its hydropower capacity by 2020.

This is good news for those concerned about China's impact on climate change. Coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, is now the main source of energy for China.

But South-east Asia and South Asia, which depend on the regular flow of major rivers that start in China, will be watching closely where the new Chinese dams are built and how the huge amounts of water in their reservoirs are regulated.

These decisions can affect the flow of water in trans-boundary rivers that begin and run for much of their course in China, such as the Mekong, South-east Asia's longest river, and the Brahmaputra, which winds for 1,700km through the highlands of Tibet before crossing into India and Bangladesh.

When all the generating units began running last month at the Xiaowan hydropower dam on the Chinese section of the Mekong in south-western Yunnan province, China's hydropower capacity became the world's largest.

Xiaowan is the fourth of eight dams being built on the upper Mekong. Its completion brought China's nationwide hydropower generating capacity to just over 200 million kilowatts.

Chinese officials say that had they not tapped hydropower, thermal plants of equivalent capacity would have been built, burning 288 million tonnes of coal annually and releasing 855 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and 5.4 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Hydropower produces no toxic air pollutants or carbon emissions.

China aims to generate 15 per cent of its power from non-fossil sources by 2020, up from 7.8 per cent at present. It has also promised to cut its carbon emissions per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 per cent by then. As the most competitive renewable energy, hydropower is the key to achieving emission cuts in China, although rapid expansion of nuclear power will also help.

Mr Zhang Guobao, director of the National Energy Administration, told the official Xinhua news agency last month that hydro projects with another 70 million kilowatts capacity were under construction.

If done well, hydropower can be a sustainable and non-polluting power source. However, blocking rivers with massive dams and reservoirs can create serious social and environmental problems, including displacement of local communities, forest and wildlife habitat destruction, and preventing movement of migratory fish. There is also the risk of damage or even a catastrophic breach in an earthquake.

Because of such concerns, the central government in China had put a freeze on dam building. However, in July, Beijing gave the go-ahead to two hydropower projects, one in Yunnan and the other in Tibet. They were the first approvals in more than two years.

Will intensified dam building result in lax regulation? Mr Zhang said that even as China accelerated hydropower development, approval procedures would be stricter and focus on issues like the environment and the rights of people relocated to make way for the projects. He did not say where all the new dams would be constructed.

India is concerned that China may decide to meet some of its hydropower needs by building giant dams on the upper reaches of the Brahmaputra River, although Beijing has denied this. But China now appears certain to finish its planned cascade of dams not only on the upper Mekong, but also on the upper Salween River before it flows into Myanmar.

For downstream South-east Asian states - Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam - this raises two points of concern. The first is how much water will be impounded in Chinese reservoirs behind the dams in these projects.

The second is how hydropower operators, all of them state-owned firms, will regulate the flow of water once the reservoirs hold enough water and the generating units are ready to run.

The four completed dams on the upper Mekong have a capacity to hold back over 18 billion cubic metres of water. This is 70 per cent of the total storage capacity of all reservoirs on the Mekong and its tributaries. After the fifth upper Mekong dam at Nuozhadu is finished in 2014, China's share will rise to nearly 90 per cent.

There are two basic ways of regulating the outflow of this water. One is to hold it back in the wet season to prevent flooding downstream and to release it in the dry season when it is most needed by farmers and others.

The other way is to release more of the turbid water in the wet season before the sediment has a chance to settle in the reservoir, and store extra water in the dry season to make up for these releases.

Chinese hydropower operators reportedly prefer the latter method because it evens the flow of water throughout the year and increases both the reliability and efficiency of electricity generation.

However, it raises the risk of wet season flooding and dry season water shortages for downstream states in South-east Asia.

The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Melting sea ice forces walruses ashore in Alaska

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 13 Sep 10;

WASHINGTON – Tens of thousands of walruses have come ashore in northwest Alaska because the sea ice they normally rest on has melted.

Federal scientists say this massive move to shore by walruses is unusual in the United States. But it has happened at least twice before, in 2007 and 2009. In those years Arctic sea ice also was at or near record low levels.

The population of walruses stretches "for one mile or more. This is just packed shoulder-to-shoulder," U.S. Geological Survey biologist Anthony Fischbach said in a telephone interview from Alaska. He estimated their number at tens of thousands.

Scientists with two federal agencies are most concerned about the one-ton female walruses stampeding and crushing each other and their smaller calves near Point Lay, Alaska, on the Chukchi Sea. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to change airplane flight patterns to avoid spooking the animals. Officials have also asked locals to be judicious about hunting, said agency spokesman Bruce Woods.

The federal government is in a year-long process to determine if walruses should be put on the endangered species list.

Fischbach said scientists don't know how long the walrus camp-out will last, but there should be enough food for all of them.

During normal summers, the males go off to play in the Bering Sea, while the females raise their young in the Chukchi. The females rest on sea ice and dive from it to the sea floor for clams and worms.

"When they no longer have a place to rest, they need to go some place and it's a long commute," Fischbach said. "This is directly related to the lack of sea ice."

Loss of sea ice in the Chukchi this summer has surprised scientists because last winter lots of old established sea ice floated into the region, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. But that has disappeared.

Although last year was a slight improvement over previous years, Serreze says there's been a long-term decline that he blames on global warming.

"We'll likely see more summers like this," he said. "There is no sign of Arctic recovery."

Read more!

Going beyond GDP to measure progress

US latest to seek new metric on how well the country & its people are doing
Anna Teo Business Times 14 Sep 10;

(SINGAPORE) Even as most of Asia cheer the return this year of robust growth, the region and the rest of the world, continue to keep their eyes peeled on America - where the economic indicators streaming out each week have been less than sparkling.

The US, meanwhile, is looking beyond GDP (gross domestic product) as the defining yardstick of how well the country and its people are doing. It's not that the world's biggest economy is abandoning the universal indicator of economic prowess anytime soon.

But efforts are underway by a non-profit, non-partisan organisation called The State of the USA (SUSA), under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences, to launch a 'key national indicator system' that would 'help Americans assess the progress of the United States for themselves'.

The idea is to develop scores of alternative measures - around 300 - on factors such as crime, energy, education, health, housing, infrastructure, the environment, and the economy, that collectively would be a comprehensive report card on how the country has fared over time.

Globally, SUSA is hardly a new initiative, of course. It's but the latest in a wave of ventures over the last couple of decades to go beyond the GDP statistic as the measure of a country's well-being. Implicit in these initiatives - ranging from the genuine progress indicator (GPI) to, at the national level, Bhutan's gross national happiness index and France's Sarkozy Commission - is a sideswipe at the GDP metric.

Even as national policies just about everywhere live or die by the GDP statistic, it has also long been known that many of the activities that boost GDP - thus adding 'positively' to a country's performance - actually do nothing for the people's welfare. Pouring resources into flood allevation or fighting a war; cleaning up after a typhoon or tsunami; building more highways and adding to urban congestion and pollution, for instance.

In 2007, the European Commission and European Parliament, along with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Wildlife Fund and the Club of Rome, started a 'Beyond GDP' campaign to look into new ways to calculate economic output and track progress.

Their September 2009 report suggested, among other things, the creation of quality-of-life and well-being indices, as well as indicators on environmental sustainability to measure the full effects of pollution, and an inequality metric that takes into account various social disparities in everyday living. All in the name of an 'international initiative' to measure the 'true wealth and well-being' of nations.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, on his part, seemed to be on a one-man mission to get the world to shift focus on measuring economic production to measuring people's quality of life. Critics said that it was because GDP figures made France look bad.

The bluechip task force of big-name economists that Mr Sarkozy assembled - his Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress - produced, after 18 months, a veritable treatise on the subject. But they thought that the problem lies not so much with the GDP indicator itself as with the way it is used.

Still, the bottom line is - value 'quality of life' rather than mere production, by taking into account income, consumption and the intangibles generally termed social capital.

America is now also on the bandwagon to try to track, via indicators that 'truly capture our essence as a nation', what 'really matters'. And one consensus is - what really matters is not GDP, even if it's the universal measure of economic performance and hence, as it were, national success.

As the late US senator Robert F Kennedy said, most lyrically in a speech shortly after announcing his presidential candidacy in 1968: 'The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America, except why we are proud that we are Americans.'

Moved or not, economists (perhaps apart from those on the Sarkozy Commission, notably Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen) aren't about to ditch or dismantle the GDP measure.

Asked for his views, labour economist Edward Lazear said he wasn't 'optimistic' that a better measure of economic output will emerge anytime soon. 'Anything we can do to get better measures is fine,' he told BT during a visit to Singapore in August. 'There are always refinements that we'll have to make.

'One of the big problems that we've had with GDP is that if you move from a manufacturing economy to a services economy, issues of measuring quality, issues of measuring how much of a particular service is being provided, are much more difficult than when you're talking about goods. So those are the kinds of technical issues that I think we need to focus on.'

But 'thinking about some sort of lofty theory or notion of what should enter GDP' - economists do and have been thinking about such things, he said.

'We know how to deal with those things, we know how to value them. Usually, we convert them into a monetary equivalent. And my mentor, Sherwin Rosen, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago, he's the guru on how to take non-monetary aspects of production and translating them into money. So anything that we can do to move in that direction, I think would be helpful. I doubt that President Sarkozy is the person to do it. But I'm happy to see anybody who can make progress on that.'

Read more!

China Says Rich-Poor Divide Still Dogs Climate Pact Talks

David Stanway PlanetArk 14 Sep 10;

The prospects of a new global climate change pact still hinge on resolving the divisions between rich nations and the developing world, a top Chinese climate negotiator said in remarks published on Monday.

"Right now there are still huge differences between developed and developing countries in the negotiations on climate change problems," said Su Wei, the head of the climate change office at the National Development and Reform Commission.

Negotiators from nearly 200 nations continue to haggle over the small print of a sprawling 34-page draft agreement to combat global warming, and an additional round of talks at the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin will begin on October 4.

The deadline for a new binding global climate pact was originally set for the end of 2009, but a final round of negotiations in Copenhagen ended in failure.

Few now expect a binding deal to emerge before the new deadline of December 2010, when talks move to the Mexican resort of Cancun.

In remarks carried by the China Today magazine, Su said the crucial divide still centered on the core Kyoto Protocol principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities," which committed richer nations to take the lead in cutting greenhouse gases.

He said industrialized nations were still seeking to "water down" the principle by asking large developing countries such as China and India to commit to quantifiable cuts in emissions.

The two sides were still unable to agree on how the burden of cutting emissions is distributed, and also on the provision of funds and the transfer of key technologies.

Su said rich nations were still putting the emphasis on creating market mechanisms to supply funds and transfer technology, and were ignoring government responsibilities.

He also accused rich countries of overlooking the issue of adaptation to climate change.

The first phase of the Kyoto Protocol will expire at the end of 2012, and Su said China was urging developed countries to clarify their post-2012 commitments in time for the Cancun talks.

"To ensure that there is not a gap between the first and second compliance periods of the protocol, the protocol working group's most urgent task is to complete negotiations as soon as possible," he said.

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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