Best of our wild blogs: 1 Dec 10

Are our streams dying?
from Water Quality in Singapore

Pasir Ris Boardwalk - 27Nov2010
from sgbeachbum

Ubin for handicapped visitors
from Ubin.sgkopi

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Tree pruning stepped up to boost safety

Since May, 4,200 have had crowns trimmed; 800 storm-vulnerable trees chopped down
Grace Chua Straits Times 1 Dec 10;

IF ROADSIDE trees have been looking thinner on top lately, it is because the National Parks Board (NParks) has been pruning more of them.

Safety is the reason for the stepped-up work, which began in May, ahead of the year-end wet weather and high winds, which can topple the trees.

Between May and October, NParks inspected 107,600 trees, up from the 90,000 checked in that period last year.

But even with the extra work, a tree along Yio Chu Kang Road still fell onto a car during a storm in July, killing the driver. It was a healthy tree that had been uprooted by a 'microburst', which is a brief rush of strong winds with speeds of up to 65kmh.

NParks streetscape director Simon Longman said via an e-mail that the agency was committed to minimising 'tree failures', but it was impossible to prevent them. Healthy trees can succumb to strong winds and heavy rain, and waterlogged soil can cause root and soil failure. 'Trees are living organisms and not engineered structures,' he said.

The work by NParks and its contractors involves inspecting and pruning mature trees in heavy-traffic areas, trimming heavy crowns so they do not catch the wind like sails, and removing 'storm-vulnerable' trees in which defects have been found.

Since May, 4,200 trees have had their crowns trimmed, and 800 storm-vulnerable trees have been removed.

NParks' work has not gone unnoticed. Long-time Yio Chu Kang resident Lim Pheng Suan, 55, said she noticed that Yio Chu Kang Road has seemed brighter of late, and that she feels safer with the mature trees there having been pruned.

Seletar resident Jayanthi Gopal, 45, who said she has not noticed pruning work in her area, confessed to 'being in two minds' about the tree-pruning programme. 'With all these thunderstorms, it's good to take precautions. But it's sad - these trees have taken years to grow, they are beautiful and they provide shade.'

Ms Jeanne Pang, general manager of Prince's Landscape and Construction, said older pruned trees can still grow back their foliage if they are in good soil, and may have to be pruned twice a year.

The stepped-up pruning has meant good business for tree-care contractors. For instance, business at Prince's Treecare+ arboriculture division has risen by 50 per cent in the last few months.

Ms Pang noted that, besides the tree pruning by NParks and town councils, construction activity also drives up business for companies like Prince's; trees in construction sites marked for preservation are often pruned so they do not interfere with building work.

There is such a thing as overpruning. Mr Veera Sekaran of landscape firm Greenology said trees that have been too aggressively pruned go into 'survival mode', putting out many weaker branches at the same time.

Urban tree management is a delicate balancing act, he said. The crowns of tall, straight trees, like the khaya, can be hard to reach and maintain, but they do need looking after, especially if they are old.

He said: 'I don't envy NParks. Everyone loves Singapore's 'green infrastructure' because it looks nice and provides shade, but every time a tree comes down, NParks is in trouble.'

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Sustainable Palm Oil: Rainforest Savior or Fig Leaf?

Yale Environment 360 at Yale Environment 360
Fred Pearce Reuters 29 Nov 10;

The push to promote sustainable palm oil is turning into a test case for green consumerism. The outcome could help determine the future of the rainforests of Asia and Africa - and whether consumer pressure can really sway corporate giants.

The spoof advertisement could scarcely have been nastier for the chocolate firm Nestle. It showed a worker taking a break at the office and eating a Kit Kat bar that turns into the finger of a baby orangutan, with blood oozing everywhere. The online video, which appeared early this year, helped persuade Nestle to change its policy on the use of palm oil grown - so campaigners claim - on land that once nurtured forested orangutan habitat.

It also encouraged the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a coalition of environmentalists and palm oil growers, traders and users, to launch its trademarked logo for certified sustainable palm oil to be put on food and cosmetics packaging beginning in early 2011. And it raised afresh the question of whether consumer pressure on big companies can deliver major environmental improvement.

Can we tame the corporate giants of consumerism? Or are we deluding ourselves that we can put the fright into the likes of Nestle, Wal-Mart and BP? And even if some green-minded Westerners can successfully demand that these multinational companies clean up their act, surely the rapacious new consumers across Asia will undermine our efforts?

The fate of palm oil in the marketplace is rapidly become a test case for green consumers. And despite some setbacks and plenty of skepticism, I think there are causes for optimism.

Palm oil has overtaken soya as the world's number one source of vegetable oil. It is found in everything from biscuits to biodiesel, detergents to potato chips, cookies to shampoo, and candy and cosmetics. In fact, palm oil is now found in about half of all packaged goods on the shelves.

Palm oil is squeezed from the red fruit of the oil palm tree, primarily in Indonesia and Malaysia. Demand has doubled in the last decade because it delivers more vegetable oil per-hectare than rival oils like soya or sunflower, and because of health concerns about these other fats. Palm oil is free of trans fats. Its two major producing nations are riding the wave of an industry that now produces 50 million tons a year valued at roughly $40 billion.

But palm oil is usually grown on former rainforest land - sometimes recently-cleared land. Palm oil plantations cover 30,000 square kilometers of former forests in Indonesia alone, wiping out habitat for elephants, tigers, rhinos, orangutans and much else, and triggering enormous releases of carbon dioxide from lost forests and drained peat lands. By some counts Indonesia is, as a result, the world's third-largest CO2 emitter, after China and the U.S.

With industry analysts predicting that palm oil is likely to require an extra 30,000 to 70,000 square kilometers in the coming decade, the stakes are immensely high. This is especially true as the palm oil juggernaut is now moving on to the forests of central and west Africa.

Can the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) stop this rolling leviathan of environmental destruction? The RSPO was formed in 2003 by the environmental group WWF, the Anglo-Dutch foods and toiletries company Unilever, which is the world's biggest buyer of palm oil, and other companies and industry organizations. Members today include growers, food manufacturers, commodity traders, retailers, and environmental groups.

Its aim is no less than "to make all the world's palm oil production sustainable." To that end, in November 2008, the first shipload of certified sustainable palm oil docked at Rotterdam in the Netherlands. At its recent meeting in Jakarta, the RSPO announced what could be its most important move - the creation of a "sustainable palm oil" trademark that it says "will be carried by thousands of consumer products worldwide." The logo should start appearing on products in early 2011. It will, says the RSPO president, Unilever's Jan Kees Vis, show that the product "does not contribute to the sustained destruction of valuable tropical forests or damage the interests of people in the regions where the palms are grown."

Some are bound to contest that broad claim. What is "sustained destruction"? Is unsustained destruction OK? And who is to determine "the interests of people in the regions"? Human rights NGOs in Indonesia have been swift to note that some companies that have obtained the RSPO seal of approval "are involved in unresolved conflicts with local communities" over land. There will be battles ahead. But nobody said sustainability was an easy concept. And debate about its meaning can, of itself, be part of the solution.

Can the industry continue to meet rising demand without trashing more forests? Some doubt this. But as a result of failed land use policies in Southeast Asia, and especially Indonesia, there are huge areas of land that have been deforested by loggers but now lie abandoned. Often the loggers gained their licences by promising local communities jobs on palm oil plantations once the clearing was completed. They often claimed the profits from selling the logs were necessary to fund the plantations. Then they high-tailed it with the logging money.

So targeting this abandoned land makes sense. According to an Indonesian government report earlier this year, it has 60,000 square kilometers of degraded land "available for palm oil expansion." But will that land get used, or will the companies simply engage in another orgy of forest destruction?

Perhaps the RSPO can help prevent that. All depends on whether the great food manufacturers and store chains that buy the products of the plantations start insisting on taking only sustainable palm oil and products containing it. Can consumer concern, even among a minority, be translated into corporate buying policy?

We should not be too cynical. There are already signs of an outbreak of the rule of law in some of the world's rainforests, especially Brazil, but also Indonesia and parts of Central Africa. The sheriffs are rolling into town, thanks in part to Western consumer pressure.

A report in July from the London-based Chatham House think tank found that illegal logging in rainforests from the Brazilian Amazon to the islands of Indonesia had been reduced by between 50 and 75 percent in the past decade. This is thanks to a combination of environmental audits, consumer labeling schemes for good practice, such as the Forest Stewardship Council, and a recent European Union ban on pirated timber.

Of course, some illegal loggers have simply gone straight and started paying their taxes. They are still logging. But even so, as incentives for the most rapacious forms of logging diminish, the spotlight moves to the new frontier, land cleared to plant large-scale commodity crops.

There is a huge way to go before most of the world's chocolate bars and lipsticks contain sustainable palm oil. Progress in the first seven years of the RSPO has been so slow that many have dismissed it as a corporate fig leaf. It has few funds, and no powers to investigate the activities of its members. Critics say companies join the roundtable as an insurance policy against being accused of ripping out the rainforests, but do little to alter the practices of their suppliers. "We are doing what we can," the companies say. "But it is very difficult to persuade all those nasty Indonesia plantation companies."

But the RSPO is not just a corporate club. In November it announced that 25,000 palm oil family farms had signed up, after having certification audits. Unilever's Vis promised "hundreds of thousands more" from among the estimated 3 million smallholders growing palm oil. How good are the audits? We don't know. But the move shows a widespread desire to buy into the idea of sustainability among small landholders, if only so they can continue to sell their crop to processors that in turn regard it as important. This is how change happens.

While some big-hitting NGOs like Conservation International and the World Resources Institute have signed up with the RSPO from the start, others have been more cautious. The Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an observer at this year's proceedings in Jakarta, noted that the big Malaysian and Indonesian producers are being dragged very reluctantly toward their claimed goal. "I've now got serious doubts about the sincerity of some of the RSPO members," blogged RAN's observer on the the RSPO meeting's final day.

Earlier in the year RAN welcomed a change of heart from Cargill, the commodities giant that numbers palm oil among its most important products, when it promised henceforth to supply palm oil to Unilever that is "certified and segregated at every step of the supply chain." But the deal only covers 10,000 tons, a tiny percentage of the volumes that Cargill trades annually.

What about the rest? Cargill continues to buy from the Sinar Mas Group, the largest producer in Indonesia, which RAN charges with the continued destruction of rainforests, including peat lands and orangutan habitat. RSPO members only account for 40 percent of world production. "A global market shift cannot happen until influential companies in China and India move towards sustainability," says WWF, one of the RSPO's founders.

Nonetheless, more and more corporations are buying into sustainable palm oil to protect their reputations. More than 6 percent of palm oil production is now certified as sustainable, double the figure of only a year ago. And the public pressure is mounting.

Cargill's move followed a damaging report on its palm oil buying policies. And some leading brands selling directly to the public have responded to controversy generated by Greenpeace over Sinar Mas by canceling their own direct contracts with the company. These include Nestle, Kraft and Unilever. In November, the Netherlands announced that all its palm oil suppliers and buyers had pledged to only buy certified sustainable palm oil by 2015 - the first such national commitment.

The stakes are immensely high. They are high for the rainforests of Southeast Asia and Africa, which could face wipeout unless the palm oil juggernaut is stopped. But they are also high for consumer environmentalism. If palm oil can be tamed, then so can other global commodities grown at great environmental expense - like cotton, soya, cocoa and the many food crops now being co-opted for biofuels. And if they can be tamed, then why not coal and oil?

If globalization can make the consumer king, then maybe consumers can accomplish what politicians have failed to do. Anyone for a Kit Kat?

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Half of Indonesia's mangrove forests heavily damaged

Antara 30 Nov 10;

Bogor (ANTARA News) - Half of Indonesia`s mangrove forests are heavily damaged and facing total destruction due to ecological problems, an expert said here Tuesday.

Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) mangrove expert Professor Cecep Kusmana said most of Indonesia`s mangrove forests were in critical condition because of ecological disturbances.

Cecep hoped the government, the Forestry Ministry in particular, would undertake an emergency response to save the mangrove forests as they were on the brink of complete destruction.

"The threat to our mangrove forests is very concerning and they will vanish if we don?t act now," Cecep said.

The precarious conditions of the country`s mangrove forests needed to be addressed through serious actions by the central government , the Forestry Ministry and all stakeholders, he said.

The governments of regions where the mangroves were located also had an important role to play in saving them as they were the local policy makers.

"Local governments and the Forestry Ministry are expected to work together to stop further damage to mangrove forests," he said.

On the occasion, Professor Cecep also introduced the "Guludan" technique to save mangrove forests, which was considered as the appropriate technology to revitalize heavily damaged and critical forest areas.

The Guludan technique was mainly done by using a bamboo pole that planted deep in the mangrove areas and formed as a square partition with adjustable size.

In the research, the proper square measurement was done by 4 four meters wide, six meters long and two meters deep into the mangrove`s soil.

These Guludan must be filled with bags full of dirt on the bottom and then piled with approximately 50 centimeters high dirt on the top as the plant`s medium.

After the structure is built, mangrove sprouts can now be planted at a certain distance from each other.(*)

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Indonesia lost Rp514 billion by Wasior, Mentawai disasters

Antara 29 Nov 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia suffered a total of Rp514 billion in material losses by the Wasior flash floods in West Papua and the tsunami in Mentawai Islands in West Sumatra, a national disaster management official said.

"The Wasior flash floods caused material losses of Rp280 billion while the funds needed to reconstruct the whole area are estimated to reach Rp370 billion. Meanwhile, The Mentawai Islands tsunami caused a material loss of Rp314 billion with Rp368.2 billion needed to reconstruct the impacted area," Sutopo, director of Disaster Risk Reduction at the National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB), said here on Monday.

He said the funds to finance reconstruction and rehabilitation of the two regions would come from the 2011 State Budget where a total of Rp4 Trillion was earmarked for disaster management. Meanwhile, the material losses in Yogyakarta province due to Mount Merapi eruptions last Oct 26 were still being calculated.

Sutopo said the material losses counted by BNPB`s personnel recently covered damage to housing, infrastructure, social and economic life of the people in Wasior and Mentawai.

During October 2010, Indonesia was hit by three major disasters in different parts of the country. The first one was flash floods in Wasior, West Papua, on October 3, which took the lives of 124 people and left 123 others missing.

The second disaster was a magnitude-7.7 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Mentawai Islands District, West Sumatra , on October 25 which killed at least 408 people, caused 303 others to go missing and 23,000 people to lose their homes forcing them to stay in refugee camps.

Just one day after the Mentawai earthquake and tsunami, Mount Merapi, one of Indonesia`s most active volcanoes, started to erupt on October 26, 2010.

A total of 185 people, including Mbah Maridjan, the `spiritual caretaker" of the volcano, were killed, and tens of others were injured. Around 40,000 people were evacuated to safer places. Located on the border between Central Java and Yogyakarta, the volcano had been erupting regularly since 1548.

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Huge study of UK farmland habitat reveals rare species

BBC News 30 Nov 10;

More than a quarter of the UK's rare species have been discovered by a large scale biodiversity study of farmland on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.

The University of East Anglia said its Breckland study revealed a "nationally important biodiversity hot-spot".

A huge variety of species were identified, from the smallest gnat to birds, plants and mammals. Researchers were astonished to find 28% of the UK's rare species on farmland in constant use for thousands of years.

The area spans a large part of Norfolk and Suffolk but is still only 0.4% of land in the UK.

The university and a team of 200 naturalists collated nearly 1m records, showing 12,500 species and, of these, more than 2,000 are of national conservation concern.

The study is believed to be the first of its kind to consider every single species found in an entire region.

The team looked at novel approaches for managing habitats to restore and protect this biodiversity.

This included boosting rabbit populations to "stir up the ground" to encourage rare plants on which some of the unexpected creatures living in the area depend for food.

"These exciting findings demonstrate beyond doubt what conservationists have long suspected.

"Breckland is a unique region and a vitally important hot-spot for rare and threatened species, making it a key area for conservation within the UK," said Dr Paul Dolman of UEA's School of Environmental Sciences.

"Although much of what conservation has achieved is excellent, new approaches are urgently needed or we risk many of these species drifting towards extinction."

Breckland is one of the driest places in England and encompasses Thetford Forest, the largest lowland woodland habitat in the UK.

Because the sandy soil made ploughing easy, Breckland was one of the first places in England to be settled.
'Not mothballing'

The medieval word 'breck' means a fallow cropped field and the team found this lightly cultivated land was crucial to many species unique to the region.

But many of these farmland species are now extremely rare and threatened.

"We need to put the brecks back into Breckland," said Dr Dolman.

Breckland boasts a range of other important habitats - including the UK's only inland sand dunes, grazed heathland, pine forests and wetlands.

It also has a "continental climate" which can experience rare frosts in some summer months.

Based on the findings, scientists are now calling for radical new approaches to conservation.

Dr Dolman said that in the past conservation had meant moth-balling, but the dynamic environment of the Breckland has shown that this is not always the case.

The University of East Anglia worked with partners Natural England, the Forestry Commission, Norfolk and Suffolk Biodiversity Partnerships and county councils, the Brecks Partnership and Plantlife.

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Study: Ecological effects of biodiversity loss underestimated

Ecologists say prior studies underestimated the specific dietary needs of most species
Rice University EurekAlert 30 Nov 10;

Children aren't the only youngsters who are picky eaters: More than half of all species are believed to change their diets -- sometimes more than once -- between birth and adulthood. And a new study by ecologists at Rice University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, finds this pattern has major implications for the survival of threatened species and the stability of natural ecosystems.

With thousands of species facing Earth's sixth major mass extinction, there is little doubt that the planet's biodiversity is in rapid decline. But many questions remain about how natural ecosystems will respond to the lost diversity.

The new study, published online this week in Ecology Letters, challenges one of the standard assumptions that ecologists have used for decades to analyze the effects of biodiversity loss on ecosystems. That assumption -- that all food resources used by a species are interchangeable among all members of the species -- fails to account for the fact that diets change as young animals develop into adults, said Rice ecologist Volker Rudolf, one of the study's co-authors. The findings by Rudolf and co-author Kevin Lafferty suggest that changing dietary needs within species have important implications for ecosystem health.

"If a species has three resources in an ecosystem, and we take away one, conventional wisdom suggests that that species should be fine," said Rudolf, assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology. "But if the missing resource is crucial for a particular developmental stage of the species, that just doesn't work. You can't take away all of the adults, for example, or all of the larvae, and assume that the species will persist."

He said the new study was made possible by a wealth of information from recent datasets collected by Lafferty and colleagues at UC Santa Barbara. The datasets cover seven food webs --each representing the network of connections between dozens and, in some cases, hundreds of species in an ecosystem. Rudolf said Lafferty's food webs include data about specific resource requirements for particular developmental stages within species, in some instances for as many as 50 percent of the species in the ecosystem.

"With this data, we were able to estimate the percentage of resources that are actually shared among developmental stages," Rudolf said. "In addition, we were able to show how this affects the stability of natural ecosystems.

"We found that in most food webs, the individual stages of a species typically share less than 50 percent of their resources," he said. "And within certain subgroups, like metamorphic species, that number is sometimes less than 10 percent."

The researchers used the information to formulate computer models that simulated how the loss of species affects natural ecosystems. One important implication of the finding is that natural ecosystems are much less stable than previously assumed, and many at-risk species may face an even greater likelihood of becoming extinct than ecologists previously thought.

"Our results suggest that the increasing loss of biodiversity -- due to changing climate, habitat destruction and other causes -- will likely have much more devastating effects on natural communities and result in a greater number of species extinctions than previously believed," Rudolf said.

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The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

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Oceans where fish choke

James Cook University Science Alert 1 Dec 10;

Australian marine scientists have expressed disquiet over the continued worldwide spread of large, dead zones in the ocean.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and Associate Professor Mark McCormick of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies have recently published scientific articles, which raise concern about the impact of large areas of ocean emerging which are so low in oxygen that fish and other sea life cannot survive.

Hundreds of dead zones are being reported around the world in areas that have been overfished and where rich nutrient runoff from the land is causing blooms of algae, which lead in turn to blooms of bacteria that strip the oxygen from the water.

“We think this problem is also linked to climate change,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg of CoECRS and the University of Queensland argues in a recent review article in the leading international journal Science.

“Warmer oceans tend to form layers which, like stagnant ponds, are low in oxygen. Changes in wind strength and ocean currents driven by climate change affect the degree of mixing that goes on between surface and deep waters and this is changing the nutrient distribution, causing anoxic zones to form,” he said.

A total of 405 dead zones have been reported by oceanographers worldwide during the period 2000-08, compared with 300 in the 1990s and 120 in the 1980s. The number has been doubling every decade since the 1960s. Some zones are as small as a square kilometre, while others are 70,000 sq kms in extent. Together they cover about 245,000 sq kms of the planet’s oceans.

Associate Professor Mark McCormick of CoECRS and James Cook University says the loss of oxygen from waters in the world’s major ocean basins is one of several factors contributing to increased stress on world fish populations.

“We know from our recent work that increases in stress result in deformities leading to poorer survival of fish larvae,” he said.

“Low oxygen levels increase stress on fish. It has also been found they can cause fish to have smaller ovaries, produce fewer eggs, so larvae are also smaller and less likely to survive.”

Associate Professor McCormick said that a large area of the central Pacific, between 200-600 metres deep, had only a tenth of its normal oxygen levels, causing profound changes to the type of sea life that can inhabit it.

“As the ocean warms it is likely this hypoxic (low oxygen) zone will move closer to the surface and spread out on to the continental shelves. This will have repercussions for both recreational and professional fisheries.”

Associate Professor McCormick said that in cases where anoxic (zero oxygen) zones occur along heavily populated coastlines, major fish kills were often reported and coastal communities incensed.

Scientists fear the increase in the number and size of the dead zones may herald a mass extinction of sea life.

In a recent review paper published in the journal Science, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg and co-author John Bruno linked the phenomenon to mass extinctions of the past, saying: “There is growing paleontological evidence that declining oxygen concentrations have played a major role in at least four or five mass extinction events.”

Low oxygen zones have now been found in all the world’s oceans, with particular hotspots in places such as the Gulf of Mexico, off Namibia in the South Atlantic, in the Bay of Bengal, in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the tropical South Pacific, off China, and south-eastern Australia.

These anoxic zones are likely to be connected to an observed decline in ocean phytoplankton - which supports the entire marine food web - of about one per cent a year, Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg said.

In a chain reaction, this loss of the marine food base may be a factor in the worldwide decline in fisheries.

“Coastal dead zones correlate strongly with heavy human populations, runoff and overfishing. In the open oceans changes in winds and currents and the formation of warm layers may be the main factors.” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.

“It adds up to a conclusion that our ocean ecosystems are in a lot of trouble – and it all bears the hallmarks of human interference. We are changing the way the Earth’s oceans work, shifting them to entirely new states which we have not seen before.

“Among them are these black anoxic zones which belch up dead sealife. It may be happening in pockets today, but the risk is it will happen on a far greater scale in future unless we take urgent steps to reduce the impact of human activities on the world’s oceans and their life.”

The Impact of Climate Change on the World’s Marine Ecosystems by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg and John F. Bruno was published in Science vol 328, June 2010, and Gagliano M and McCormick MI (2009) Hormonally mediated maternal effects shape offspring survival potential in stressful environments. Oecologia 160:657-665.

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Man, climate combine to erode Cancun's beaches

Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Yahoo News 1 Dec 10;

CANCUN, Mexico – Cancun's eroding white sand beaches are providing a note of urgency to the climate talks being held just south of this seaside resort famed for its postcard-perfect vistas.

Rising sea levels and a series of unusually powerful hurricanes have aggravated the folly of building a tourist destination atop shifting sand dunes on a narrow peninsula. After the big storms hit, the bad ideas were laid bare: Much of Cancun's glittering hotel strip is now without a beach.

Hotels built too tall, too heavy and too close to the shore, as well as beaches stripped of native vegetation to make them more tourist-friendly, have contributed to the massive erosion.

"It was the chronicle of a disaster foretold," said Exequiel Ezcurra, the former head of Mexico's environmental agency. "Everybody knew this was going to happen. This had been predicted for 40 years."

Cancun's beaches largely disappeared after Category 4 Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005, leaving waves lapping against hotel foundations or against rocks.

Four category 4 and 5 hurricanes have hit Mexico in the past decade, the highest rate in 40 years and equal to all those in the preceding three decades, according to Mexico's National Meteorological Service. Many scientists blame such extreme weather patterns on climate change.

The coastline erosion was worsened by a rise in sea level, which has grown at a rate of about 2.2 millimeters a year.

"It doesn't sound like much, but ... in an area as low as that sandbar, it doesn't help, especially when the sandbar doesn't have the properties to compensate for sea level," Ezcurra said.

In a major restoration project last year, millions of cubic yards (meters) of sand were dredged from the sandy bottom of the Caribbean and pumped ashore in Cancun. The project created a seven-mile stretch of beach some 40 to 70 yards (meters) wide, at a cost of about $70 million.

It is already washing away. Waves have carved a waist-high shelf into the beach and Assistant Tourism Secretary Hector de la Cruz acknowledges that 6 percent to 8 percent of the new sand has been swept away — even without any major storms.

It was the second time such an undertaking had been tried; a $19 million beach restoration effort in 2006 also washed away, finished off by a Category 5 hurricane, Dean, that hit further down the coast in 2007.

Officials hope each disaster will be the last and the sand will somehow stick.

"The erosion was really caused by Hurricane Wilma stalling over the area, and we just have to hope we don't get another one like that," De la Cruz said.

Tourists and local residents are skeptical.

Fernando Garcia, a 47-year-old opal dealer from Bilbao, Spain, strode up the steep Delfines beach after a swim in the turquoise waters and gazed back to the shelf the waves have carved in the sand.

"In a year or two, another hurricane will come and the same thing will happen all over again," he said. "This is an absurd waste of money."

In a financial sense, however, it still works. Cancun remains the biggest money-earner of all of Mexico's tourist destinations, bringing in about $3 billion per year — about a quarter of Mexico's tourism income.

"I wouldn't talk about Cancun as an error," said De la Cruz. "I think Cancun is one of the most successful tourist developments not just in Mexico, but in the entire Caribbean."

And those with enough money to stay here continue to enjoy it — perhaps even more, as the climate undergoes increasingly large swings.

Margaret Young, a retired teacher from Winnipeg, Canada, came to Cancun as unusually heavy storms lashed her hometown.

"We feel climate change," Young said. "We get storms in the summer that we never used to get."

And the foot of snow that fell in the Winnipeg area in late November was also unusual. "We used to get some snow, but not that severe," she said.

Told that the beach she and her friends were enjoying was largely artificial, Young said: "How would you know from looking at it? It's fabulous, one of the nicest beaches ever."

All the debate might be academic if it weren't for the fact that pumping huge amounts of sand affects both the ocean floor ecosystems where the sand was removed, and the coral reefs that lie offshore.

That's because sand from the sea bottom contains fine sediments that wash away with the tide from the newly restored beaches and onto the reefs, blocking out sunlight and causing them to secrete mucuous-like substances, said Roberto Iglesias, a biologist with the Ocean Sciences Institute of Mexico's National Autonomous University.

Experiments are still under way to judge the exact effects, but there is evidence that sea grasses have suffered higher die-offs from previous beach restoration efforts, said Iglesias, who works on coral reefs and coastal environments in Puerto Morelos, just outside Cancun, where the two-week U.N. climate change conference is being held.

Experts note that dredging sandy sea bottoms affects the populations that live there, such as conches, octopus and sea cucumbers.

Iglesias recalled one local official saying the resort had to choose restoring the beaches over protecting coral reefs "because the majority of Cancun's inhabitants make their living off the beaches, not the reefs."

De la Cruz, whose agency oversaw the sand-dredging project, blames more frequent, violent storms for the erosion and maintains "all the beaches in the Caribbean are vulnerable to these natural events."

But the former head of Mexico's environmental agency, Exequiel Ezcurra, says Cancun was built with fatal flaws.

Tall hotels force winds downward onto the beach, creating eddies that encourage erosion. Waves that once might have rolled harmlessly right over the dunes now smack into solid hotel foundations, and rebound — filled with sand — back out to sea. And the very weight of big hotels might be pressing the unstable sand peninsula downward.

Fittingly for the scene of what some see as an environmental crime, the coastal resort has increasingly been marked by police tape. In July 2009, marines cordoned off the beach in front of a Cancun hotel that had built an illegal breakwater to hoard sand.

The armed guards treated the stretch of beach as a stolen property case: While such cement jetties often benefit the builder, they rob properties down-current of their natural flow of sand.

Garcia says the powder sand beaches — unblemished by the shrubs, vines and dune grasses that might hold it together — are "something made up, intended as a promotional picture."

But he concedes their effectiveness. "This is something to be used to sell the idea of the resort to people who live in cold climates," he said.

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Africa mulls biofuels as land grab fears grow

* Large land acquisitions for biofuel alarm hungry continent
* Sierra Leone farmers say Addax project threatens rice crop
* U.N. says well managed biofuel projects could work well
Simon Akam Reuters AlertNet 30 Nov 10;

YAINKASA, Sierra Leone, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Farmers in this iron-roof village in Sierra Leone say they didn't know what they were getting into when they leased their land for a biofuel crop they now fear threatens their food harvests.

Addax Bioenergy, part of privately-owned Swiss Addax & Oryx Group, says it went through long consultations with locals when it won a lease for around 50,000 hectares (123,600 acres) for ethanol sugarcane in the poor West African country's centre.

Despite that, a land dispute has flared up, one that highlights a major obstacle to efforts to tackle climate change by growing fuel in some of the world's poorest places.

"We were tricked. We feel the way we're being treated is not in line with our agreement," said rice farmer Alie Bangura, 68. "They promised things when we gave up our land that didn't happen."

Addax says a large share of a competitive $12 per hectare goes directly to farmers, rather than via landlords or officials, and that a development programme to help farmers improve yields will ensure all villages have enough to eat.

Proponents of biofuel crops in rural Africa say they will help fight climate change, meet Africa's own chronic energy shortages and give badly needed income from under-used farmland; critics say they take food out of hungry mouths by turning arable land over to feed cars, stoking tension with communities.

As environment ministers gathered in the Mexican resort of Cancun on Sunday for U.N. talks aiming for agreement on steps to slow down global warming, biofuels are likely to get little attention as doubts grow about whether they are realistic.

By one estimate, satisfying the EU's biofuel targets alone will require an additional 4.5 million hectares of land by 2020, an area the size of Denmark.

"ALARMING ACQUISITIONS"

Environmental groups have become alarmed at the pace with which vast tracts in Africa are being bought up for fuel crops.

A study by Friends of the Earth in August said biofuel demand was driving a new "land grab" in Africa, with at least 5 million hectares (19,300 sq miles) acquired by foreign firms to grow crops in 11 countries it had studied.

Ethiopia has earmarked 700,000 hectares for sugarcane and up to 23 million for jatropha. In Tanzania, rice farmers have been forced off their land to make way for sugarcane, the group says.

Kenya and Angola each have received proposals for the use of 500,000 hectares for biofuels and a plan for 400,000 hectares of oil palms is underway in Benin. Environmentalists are worried.

"The rush is definitely still ongoing. It is quite alarming the rate of land acquisitions by large companies," Greenpeace Africa director Olivia Langhoff told Reuters by phone.

"It's doubtful that Africans will see any benefits. There's very little involvement from local communities or farmers."

Langhoff said that in many cases promises are made that only fallow or marginal land will be used, but the plantation expands into good land as demand increases, squeezing out food crops.

Residents near the Addax plantation, many of whom signed away their land with thumb prints because they can't write, say they thought the farm wouldn't affect their fields in what they call "bolilands", seasonally waterlogged areas suitable for rice growing, because the sugarcane is being planted in drier areas.

But irrigation channels dug up by the company have drained some of the bolilands, they say, damaging their rice fields. Other food crops of theirs such as cassava and wild palm trees used for cooking oil were razed when it developed the land.

"Even if Addax leaves the bolilands we will not be able to work," said farmer Abdulai Serry in Lungi Acre village. "They have dug up canals and the water is no longer settling."

"NO SILVER BULLET"

Addax, which negotiated the lease directly with local people for its Sierra Leone plantation, says the villagers were consulted about the projects impacts and a local lawyer represented them, a rare example of a truly grassroots deal.

"Some of those who complain, it's out of ignorance," Addax social affairs manager Aminata Kamara told Reuters. "When they see outside people, they don't see the benefits they will get."

But on a continent where most people in rural areas live off subsistence farming and soaring populations compete for dwindling earth, conflicts over arable land are common. Adding foreign buyers in the mix can be explosive.

In 2008 high food prices prompted countries like China, and Saudi Arabia to seek farmland abroad, sparking protests. A lease by South Korea's Daewoo for nearly half of the arable land in Madagascar, an island bigger than France, triggered a wave of protests that eventually ousted President Marc Ravalomanana.

And, as in Indonesia, natural forest might be cleared to grow fuel, making net carbon emissions bigger than fossil fuels.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, home of the world's second-biggest tropical forest, China's ZTE Agribusiness plans a million hectare palm farm. Environmentalists fear massive deforestation.

Biofuel produced this way is also likely to fall foul of European environmental rules.

Most environment experts think biofuels do have a future in Africa, but only if properly managed.

"Biofuels can in Africa improve access to fuels ... and contribute to reducing greenhouse emissions, but biofuels are certainly not the silver bullet," said the United Nations' Environment Programme spokesman Nick Nuttall. "Africa needs to be careful about the choices it makes with biofuel production." (Writing and additional Reporting by Tim Cocks; Editing by Alister Doyle)

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Bangladesh wants money, not more talks on climate change

Shafiq Alam Yahoo News 30 Nov 10;

DHAKA (AFP) – The terrible human cost of cyclones and flooding are plain to see in southwest Bangladesh, a low-lying, impoverished region on the frontline of the battle to adapt to climate change.

Cyclone Aila, which hit in May last year, killed 300 people, washed away the embankments which make coastal regions habitable, and left 150,000 survivors reliant on emergency relief supplies including free rice.

Aila was particularly destructive as a huge volume of water, swollen by spring tides, slammed into a densely populated, extremely poor area, said Saleemul Huq of the International Institute for Environment and Development.

"Bangladesh is often said to be on the 'frontline' of adverse climate change impacts due to this combination of a large, dense and poor population with potentially severe changes [in weather] as well as sea level rises," Huq said.

"Such severe storms are likely to become more frequent in future," he told AFP, adding that sea level rises mean cyclones and tidal surges will become more devastating.

Such dire warnings explain why, as the UN's talks on climate change begin in Mexico, people in Bangladesh are less interested in the endless debates than in getting money to help communities prepare for increasingly extreme weather.

"Even 18 months after Cyclone Aila struck, it remains a wasteland -- 90 percent of the trees are dead and the birds are still not singing," Koyra district chief Abul Bashar told AFP.

"I have 150,000 people living on government handouts, they cannot farm as their lands were flooded with salt water," he said, adding that the area was also hit by major flooding in 2004 and 2007.

In November, Bangladesh became one of the first three countries to tap into a pilot climate change fund which is funnelling millions of dollars to help places like Koyra cope with and adapt to climate change.

Part of Bangladesh's grant, to be managed by the World Bank, will help shore up the country's coastal embankment to withstand cyclones and storm surges, and also pay for water supply projects and promote farming of more resilient crops.

Tajikistan and Niger are the two other beneficiaries of the grants, the likes of which will be high on the agenda among representatives of 194 countries meeting in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.

With the UN climate change negotiation process locked in deep acrimony between rich and poor nations, delegates are hoping progress on the financing issue will help rebuild trust.

If all went to plan in Cancun, rich countries would provide 30 billion dollars in "fast start" funds to worst-hit nations such as Bangladesh from 2010 to 2012.

This would hopefully lay the foundations for providing up to 100 billion dollars a year in aid to poor countries by 2020.

"The world knows very well how we have been coping with one natural disaster after another," environment secretary Mihir Kanti Mojumdar told AFP before leaving for Cancun.

"They must compensate us and take into account our population size (146 million)," he said, adding Bangladesh wanted at least 4.5 billion dollars from the funds.

"Some of the rich nations are wary of committing money for the fund as they have been hit by global recession. But they are still rich and we are not -- and we need help now," Mojumdar said.

A World Bank study released this month estimated Bangladesh would need to spend an additional 2.6 billion dollars by 2050 to ensure key infrastructure was protected from the impact of climate change.

One United Nations adaptation project already under way in Bangladesh is to establish 6,100 hectares of mangrove plantations and 935 hectares of timber and fruit trees along the coast.

UNDP administrator Helen Clark last month visited the remote island of Char Kukri-Mukri, one of four sites where women have been trained to grow the mangrove saplings, as well as trees used for timber, such as bamboo.

The mangroves absorb carbon and, more importantly, trap sediment in their intricate root structure at such a high rate that they can potentially reverse the effects of sea-level rises.

A total of 2.5 million trees will be planted through the project.

But Bangladesh undoubtedly needs much more help, and quickly.

"Aila was a sign of what is to come. It gave us an idea of how bad things will be," said Atiq Rahman, a Bangladeshi member of the IPCC, the UN?s climate change research body.

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UN climate talks seek to define rich, poor duties

* New proposals to define actions of emerging economies
* Nations agree on needs for 'balanced package'
* But still divided on content after Copenhagen summit
Timothy Gardner and Gerard Wynn Reuters AlertNet 1 Dec 10;

CANCUN, Mexico, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Climate negotiators at U.N. talks in Mexico on Tuesday struggled over proposals that would abolish a two-decade divide between rich and poor on scrutiny of greenhouse gas emissions.

Developed countries say fast-growing emerging economies led by China, which has become the top carbon emitter, have to do far more to curb their emissions. Many poor nations oppose changing a 1992 U.N. convention that obliges the rich to lead.

"I can guarantee you that this will be a controversial issue," Artur Runge-Metzger, a senior European Union negotiator, said at the Nov. 29 to Dec. 10 talks in a Caribbean resort.

"For China, there need to be much tighter rules for measurement, reporting and verification compared to a small poor country," he added, saying that EU funding detailed on Tuesday would help pay for the poorest countries to report their emissions. [ID:nLDE6AT2CU]

Most countries agreed on a formula at last year's Copenhagen summit, under which industrialized countries would cut their emissions and emerging economies slow growth in greenhouse gases.

The Cancun talks have far lower ambitions than last year's Copenhagen summit which fell short of an all-encompassing deal to help slow floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

Cancun will seek agreement on a smaller package of measures including a "green fund" to channel aid to the poor or efforts to protect tropical forests that soak up carbon as they grow.

A main point of controversy in Cancun is how far rich and poor countries report their pledges and whether these should be subject to international scrutiny.

India is proposing that all major economies, developed and developing, would report their emissions, while the rich would also detail climate aid.

That marks a big concession by a major emerging economy and would dilute differences between rich and poor: under the 1992 climate convention only about 40 developed countries have to report their emissions annually.

In a rival plan, the EU has suggested that developing country emissions would be subject to non-penalizing, international scrutiny, in proposals seen by Reuters.

Under the 1992 divide, South Korea and Mexico count among developing nations.

OLD SPLITS

Progress to adopt new reporting and scrutiny of emissions could unblock a wider deal, for example on a new round of carbon caps under the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, and funding to slow deforestation and prepare for a hotter world.

"It's an offer which could solve a lot," said Greenpeace's Siddharth Pathak of the Indian proposal, if that were adopted.

Some developing nations balked at last year's non-binding Copenhagen Accord, which approved carbon cutting efforts by developing countries, a widening of the present, 2008-2012 Kyoto Protocol which only binds the emissions of developed countries.

Still unsure is whether Kyoto will be extended beyond 2012, and widened to include emerging economies and the United States which did not ratify it, or killed off in favor of a new, wider agreement.

"We will sternly oppose debate for extending the Kyoto Protocol into a second phase which is unfair and ineffective," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku told a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Bolivia was among a clutch of nations which opposed the Copenhagen Accord.

"We have noticed that several developed nations are not going to accept a second period of the Kyoto Protocol, even though that is in the (U.N. climate) treaty," said Bolivian delegate Pablo Solon, mentioning Japan.

(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota and Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

FACTBOX-UN talks try to define rich, poor climate effort
Reuters AlertNet 30 Nov 10;

Nov 30 (Reuters) - Negotiators at U.N. climate talks in Mexico are trying to define the climate actions required of developed and emerging economies, to overcome the main block in sharing the burden of carbon emissions cuts.

Under the U.N.'s existing Kyoto Protocol, only rich countries have to cut their greenhouse gas emissions from 2008 to 2012.

A Copenhagen Accord agreed by most nations last year defined action after 2012, where rich countries would cut their greenhouse gases and developing economies would slow growth in emissions through particular climate actions.

Still stalling progress is the question of how rich and poor countries report their cuts and actions, and whether these should be subject to international review.

Following are three proposals on the table at the Nov. 29-Dec. 10 negotiations in Cancun, on this controversial issue also called Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV).

SITUATION NOW ON REPORTING EMISSIONS

* Only industrialized countries report their greenhouse gas emissions annually to the United Nations.

* The United Nations does not comment on progress towards emissions targets, although a country which misses its Kyoto targets will be penalised under a successor round

* Developing countries do not have to report their emissions regularly, or their efforts to control these. If they do publish, developed countries should pay for the reporting and measurement

1. INDIAN PROPOSAL

* All countries, rich and poor, which contribute more than 1 percent of global greenhouse gases will report to the United Nations every two to three years
* Other countries will report every four to five years
* A U.N. group, comprising experts drawn from around the world, would assess the reports
* Developed countries report their emissions, progress towards emissions cuts, and their contribution to green funds to help poor countries cut emissions and prepare for a hotter world
* Developing countries report their emissions, and progress to their climate actions to slow growth in emissions

2. EU PROPOSAL

For developed countries:
* Annual reporting of greenhouse gas emissions
* A full national report every four years on funding and technology help for developing countries, plus their own greenhouse gas emission projections
* New rules for international review of reports

For developing countries:
* Full national communication every four years, including emissions levels, projections, and mitigation actions planned and implemented and funding and other help received
* The poorest, least developed countries submit national emissions reports at their own discretion

3. U.S. POSITION

All countries:
* "We think there should be more reporting; not just on your inventories (emissions levels), but also on your actions," said Jonathan Pershing, deputy special envoy for climate change
* International review of commitments "could be formalized"

For developed countries:
* Annual reporting of emissions

For developing countries:
* "Our sense is that the bigger you are the more significant your emissions, it might be useful to have more frequent reporting"
* "Perhaps every two years might be acceptable. That's fine"

(Reporting by Gerard Wynn in CANCUN, Mexico, Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Old Rifts Mar U.N. Climate Talks On "Balanced Deal"
Robert Campbell and Alister Doyle PlanetArk 1 Dec 10;

Old splits between rich and poor nations re-emerged on Tuesday over a plan to slow global warming, but both sides maintained a "balanced package" is the goal of U.N. talks in Mexico.

After an opening day largely dominated by ceremony, almost 200 countries showed little sign of compromise on past demands that have brought deadlock since last year's Copenhagen summit fell short of a binding U.N. climate treaty.

All sides stress that Cancun has to come up with a "balanced package," a mantra that masks deep splits in strategy about how to curb greenhouse gas emissions and divide the responsibilities between rich and poor nations.

"A balanced package means many different things to developed and developing countries here," said Tim Gore of the humanitarian organization Oxfam. He said there was a risk that some nations might hold the talks hostage to push their agendas.

Developing nations at the two-week meeting reiterated calls for the rich to give 1 percent of their gross domestic product in aid -- far above a deal from Copenhagen that they provide $100 billion a year starting in 2020.

The United States and the EU, by contrast, insisted that "balance" means stronger action by emerging nations like China and India to curb their soaring greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and to allow more oversight of their actions.

Delegates hope for compromise, noting that there are lower expectations for the Cancun talks than last year's Copenhagen Accord, which failed to draft an all-encompassing deal to help slow floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

"Not all of our demands are satisfied by current documents. But we think there can be agreement," said Peter Wittoeck, of Belgium, which leads the European Union delegation in the Caribbean resort of Cancun.

In Mexico, the United Nations wants agreement on a new "green fund" to help developing nations as well as ways to preserve rainforests and to help the poor adapt to climbing temperatures.

The meeting will also seek to formalize existing targets to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The talks, which require unanimity to progress, are seeking a successor for the U.N.'s 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which obliges almost 40 developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

The United States never joined Kyoto, believing it would cost U.S. jobs and excluded developing nations.

A statement by the developing nations in the Group of 77 and China said that a balanced deal would have to involve an extension of Kyoto.

Kyoto backers say that any legally binding Kyoto extension should also bind the United States to cut emissions, and include climate actions by developing countries.

"We will sternly oppose debate for extending the Kyoto Protocol into a second phase which is unfair and ineffective," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku told a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.

In Cancun, Bolivia's delegate Pablo Solon said he was "deeply worried" by reluctance to extend Kyoto, accusing rich nations of rolling back on past commitments.

Failure to agree a modest package in Cancun would raise doubts about the future of Kyoto beyond 2012. Kyoto's mechanisms encourage a shift to renewable energies from fossil fuels and help guide carbon pricing.

(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota and Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo)

Negotiators get down to details at UN climate talks
Richard Ingham Yahoo News 30 Nov 10;

CANCUN, Mexico (AFP) – Negotiators got down to the nitty-gritty on the second day of the world climate talks on Tuesday, grappling for a breakthrough on half a dozen issues that will revive the battered UN process.

By December 10, the 12-day gathering hopes to kickstart operational work after a year in which political interest in climate change has all but dropped off the map.

"The discussions yesterday were generally good, but there are holes," said Nina Jamal of Indyact, a watchdog on green and social issues.

"But the negotiations are going to be complex if there is no flexibility by the parties and no political will."

The mood in Cancun remains darkened by memories of the December 2009 Copenhagen summit, where more than 120 world leaders came close to a historic fiasco.

They had gone to the Danish capital to bless an expected post-2012 pact to brake man-made greenhouse gases, blamed for driving the planet to a future of flood, drought, rising seas and freakish storms.

Instead, they entered a maze of national interests and reluctance to pick up the tab for easing dependence on fossil fuels, the backbone of the world's energy supply.

To get the process back on track, the 194 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are under pressure in Cancun to consolidate pledges on carbon emissions and devise ways of monitoring these promises.

They are also being urged to give at least an official start to a so-called Green Fund that would help channel hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to climate-vulnerable countries.

Technology transfer, help for coping with climate change and averting carbon emissions by deforestation are other areas that look promising.

But there was no guarantee that the UNFCCC will exorcise the devil of inter-connectedness -- in other words, a country or bloc of countries will refuse to sign up to one particular deal unless it gets a break in another.

In an early sign that this problem could revive, Brazil warned that developing countries expected a decision to extend commitments under the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 as part of an overall deal.

"If we don't have a very clear decision on this in Cancun, it will be impossible to have decisions on other issues because we would not have the necessary balance," its chief negotiator, Luiz Figueiredo, said on Monday.

The future of the Protocol lies in a second track of the Cancun talks. The treaty ties almost every rich country to targeted curbs on carbon emissions, in a roster of pledges that runs out at the end of 2012.

The problem, though, is that the treaty only covers 30 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, as China and the United States -- the world's No. 1 and 2 polluters -- remain outside its obligations.

Even the European Union (EU), the Protocol's most ardent supporter, says this burden is unfair. But it says it could accept a deal if China and the United States set down promises on emissions that were not only ambitious but verifiable.

"The big give-and-take on this is transparency," said EU chief negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger.

Another bugbear is the status of the Copenhagen Accord, a compromise agreement stitched together in the dying hours of last year's summit by a small group of leaders but rejected as official text by some developing countries.

"We must avoid a repetition of what happened in Copenhagen, at three o'clock in the morning, with a document that was not discussed by all parties," said Bolivian delegate Pablo Salon.

Mexican leader: Move on from climate blame game
Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press Yahoo News 30 Nov 10;

CANCUN, Mexico – Stuck in a blame game led by "big players" U.S. and China, the rest of the world should take on the climate crisis more aggressively "with or without them," says Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

That example — through such basic steps as switching out Mexico's light bulbs — will rally public opinion and bring political pressure on the biggest contributors to global warming, Calderon told The Associated Press.

"I do prefer to be very pragmatic. I don't want to spend 20 more years discussing about the procedure and about the purposes and blaming each other — developing countries blaming developed countries, and developed countries blaming developing-country big emitters, and that is a never-ending story," he said.

The Mexican leader met with the AP as the annual two-week negotiating conference of the 193-nation U.N. climate treaty opened in this Caribbean resort under a heavy shield of Mexican warships offshore and helmeted, assault rifle-armed police and soldiers onshore.

The diplomatic effort to impose stronger controls on global warming gases — carbon dioxide and other industrial, transport and agriculture gases — has been stymied by friction between the two biggest emitters, China and the United States. After a major disappointment last year at the Copenhagen climate summit, no one expects Cancun to break the deadlock and produce a far-reaching global accord. Delegates hope for progress on secondary issues, however.

The U.S. has long refused to join the rest of the industrialized world in the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 adjunct to the climate treaty that mandated modest emissions reductions by richer nations. The Americans complained it would hurt their economy and it exempted such emerging economies as China and India.

The Chinese, for their part, have resisted pressure from the U.S. and others in recent years to take on binding commitments — not to reduce emissions, but to limit the growth in emissions. They're still too poor to risk slowing down their economy, and the rich industrial nations bear historic responsibility for past emissions, the Chinese say.

"It is very important the behavior in this matter of the big players," Calderon told AP, mentioning the U.S. and China.

"If we don't get the commitment coming from them, is it necessary to wait 10 or five or another 20 years in order to start? I think we need to start with or without them, and to show with our own example the way to go," he said in the interview after opening the conference Monday.

Calderon pointed to Mexico's own plan to switch out tens of millions of incandescent light bulbs for more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

"We're going to save a lot of money because it's very expensive, this electricity," he said.

In the first four years of his six-year presidency, Calderon, 48, has grappled above all with a life-and-death struggle with Mexican drug cartels. In the Cancun interview, however, he turned his attention to an area he knows well, as a former executive of Mexico's oil and electric companies and former Mexican energy secretary.

He said he hopes for a "very serious outcome" from the Cancun conference — decisions to establish a "green fund" to disburse aid to poorer nations to reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change; to make it cheaper for developing nations to obtain climate-friendly proprietary technology; and to finalize more elements of a complex plan to pay developing countries, including Mexico, for protecting their tropical forests.

One of the few key agreements at Copenhagen was for rich countries to funnel $30 billion over three years for "fast track" financing for poor countries needing quick help. Projects include coastal protection against seas rising rom warming; help for small farmers whose traditional crops are ruined by changing climate patterns; and aid to governments to plan for low-carbon growth.

The European Union said Tuesday it has mobilized euro2.2 billion ($2.9 billion) this year, and is on track to meet its pledge of euro7.2 billion over three years in short-term financing. Jonathan Pershing, chief U.S. negotiator, said Monday that Washington has allocated $1.7 billion for 2010.

Calderon is expected to take a personal hand next week in trying to resolve disputes over such secondary treaty issues, being debated while the world waits at least another year for an end to the gridlock on a new overall global accord to ward off the worst of climate change.

About 25 heads of government or state are expected to attend the final days of the conference, but neither President Barack Obama nor Chinese Premier Hu Jintao will be among them. Bolivian President Evo Morales, who last April led a developing world climate summit, will join the Cancun meetings Dec. 9, his country's delegation said.

U.N. experts say countries' current voluntary pledges on emissions cuts will not suffice to keep the temperature rise in check.

The last decade confirmed scientific predictions of 20 years ago that temperatures would rise and storms become more fierce, and those trends are likely to continue, Ghassam Asrar, chief of World Meteorological Organization's climate research center, said Tuesday.

The brutal heat waves that killed thousands of Europeans in 2003 and that choked Russia earlier this year will seem like average summers in the future as the Earth continues to warm, he said.

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