泰坦魔芋花（Titan Arum）即将绽放Opening soon（4th,Dec）
from PurpleMangrove and (6th, Dec)
Amorphophallus titanum (updated Dec 5 2010) and Changi Boardwalk
from Fahrenheit minus 459
Pulau Semakau (5 Dec 10)
from teamseagrass
Volunteers Day with TeamSeagrass
from wild shores of singapore
Drinking birds
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Sonia Ramachandran New Straits Times 5 Dec 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: Imagine a fisherman getting a text message on his handphone telling him exactly where the fish are going to be on a particular day and time.
All he then needs to do is set sail for that location and fish to his heart's content.
Impossible? Not so, as this is already a reality for some fishermen in Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and Johor, thanks to fish-forecasting.
Fish-forecasting was launched at the Malaysian Innovative Festival 2010 on Nov 25.
But what exactly is fish-forecasting?
Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency (ARSM) director-general Datuk Darus Ahmad said the innovation involved the use of satellite technology to tell fishermen where and when to fish.
"The satellites can detect fish food such as phito-plankton as well as measure sea temperatures, which is important as the growth of plankton is related to sea temperatures.
"Fish concentration is also influenced by sea temperature.
"This satellite data would be analysed, with the final product being the location map of potential fish areas."
The project, which is a joint collaboration between ARSM, the Fisheries Development Authority of Malaysia (LKIM), the Fisheries Department and National Fishermen's Association of Malaysia (Nekmat), has also been earmarked for expansion to the peninsula's west coast as well as Sabah and Sarawak.
This technology has already reduced fish-searching time and fuel costs by 30 per cent for fishermen.
Fish yield is also expected to increase by 20 per cent by January.
The initial cost of the fish-forecasting project was estimated at RM12 million but ended up costing only RM3.2 million.
"We managed to bring the cost down by using in-house experience and existing facilities at ARSM and the fishing agencies, instead of totally depending on outsourcing."
How does fish-forecasting work?
Data is received daily at the ARSM ground station in Temerloh, Pahang. It is then processed immediately.
Basic information related to the location of fish such as sea temperature and phito-plankton is extracted and is further processed and converted into a map which pinpoints the location of the fish.
These locations are translated into Global Positioning System (GPS) readings and disseminated to local fishermen organisations via the short messaging service (SMS).
The locations can also be accessed through a dedicated portal under ARSM which can be accessed using a password by member fishermen.
"Each location provided is valid for three days. This means the fish are supposed to be in that area for a maximum three days.
"Currently, we SMS eight local fishermen associations which covers 50 vessel owners. We receive the satellite data at 10am or 11am and we usually are able to pass the information to the fishermen at 3pm so that they can use the information immediately," explained Darus.
Nekmat acting deputy general manager Salehuddin Abu Bakar said big boats that go out to sea for a week or more would spend RM1,000 to RM3,000 a day.
With this technology, said Salehuddin, fishermen could save up to RM9,000 for a duration of 10 days.
He said the the system was meant to promote sustainable fishing.
"The monsoon helps, too, as fishermen can't go out to sea during that period. From March to June, the sea becomes quiet again and the fish are able to grow to marketable size.
"In future, we plan to identify the type of fish in a location and the size of the fish. If the fish are not mature or too small, we may not disseminate the location of the fish to the fishermen.
"Most of our fish are imported as we have almost depleted our fish resources. By using this technology, we can reverse this situation.
"This technology will also save the government money as fishermen would need to go out to sea less. This translates to less fuel used and the government spending less on fuel subsidies," said Salehuddin
Yahya Mohamad, LKIM marine fisheries development section head, said the country currently produced 1.2 million tonnes of marine fish a year.
He said four zones, A, B, C and C2, had already been drawn up to prevent overfishing.
Zone A and B, said Yahya, are only for vessels between 10 and 40 tonnes, while Zone C is for vessels between 40 and 70 tonnes. Zone C2 is for vessels 70 tonnes and above.
"We will also be drawing up regulations as to what the fishermen can and cannot do."
Debra Jopson Sydney Morning Herald 6 Dec 10;
Substantial stretches of Torres Strait waters are uncharted or only partially surveyed, making it impossible for Australian authorities to chase away illegal fishers, according to the Senate's latest report on the region.
It is standard operating procedure not to sail into uncharted waters. This means some people fishing unlawfully in Australian territory can evade authorities, the chief executive of border enforcement of Customs and Border Protection, Marion Grant, told a parliamentary committee inquiring into the Torres Strait.
In these straits, where the sea sustains the people, illegal fishing is a sore point for the locals.
Their leaders told the Senate's foreign affairs, defence and trade references committee shark fin is being harvested illegally, turtles and dugongs netted and trapped for commercial sale, and beche-de-mer is being taken even though it is protected in the strait.
''On the Australian side, it is illegal to sell sea cows; on the PNG side it is commercialised,'' a local mayor, Fred Gela, said.
The chairman of the Torres Strait Regional Authority, Toshie Kris, said locals had seen foreign fishing vessels around one of the northernmost islands, Boigu, where Customs had difficulty operating.
During a tour of the Horn Island detention centre for illegal fishers, Professor Glen Hurry of the Australian Fisheries Management Authority told Senate committee members the number of people caught fishing illegally had dropped considerably. Dugong and turtle were usually caught for ceremonies such as tombstone openings, he said.
The committee was not convinced the problem had been solved. "Although the number of illegal fishers in the Torres Strait has declined in recent years, illegal fishing remains a significant maritime security risk to the region," its report said.
It called on the federal government to provide the funds needed to speed up the charting, giving priority to the waters around the northernmost islands, Saibai and Boigu.
The Department of Defence said the navy planned to complete a hydrographic survey of the area in the next few years.
Ismira Lutfia Jakarta Globe 5 Dec 10;
Jakarta. A recent poll claims that public acceptance of government plans to build a nuclear power plant has increased.
The poll, conducted by the National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan) in November, showed that 59.7 percent of 3,000 respondents in Java and Bali did not object to the establishment of a nuclear power plant.
Ibnu Hamad, a mass communications expert appointed to conduct the survey for the agency, said the figure showed a three percent increase from 56.7 percent public acceptance found in a similar poll conducted in May.
“The remaining percentage showed that 25.5 percent of respondents rejected, while 14.8 percent abstained” from voting on the issue, Ibnu said.
He added that the number of respondents who rejected the plan also increased from the previous poll’s result which showed that 24.6 percent of respondents were against the establishment of a nuclear power plant.
The figure, according to Ibnu, is the result of a more systematic public campaign conducted by Batan over the past three months to inform the public why the government plans to build a nuclear power plant, despite strong opposition from environmentalists and nongovernmental organizations.
However, Ibnu, who is a mass communications professor at the University of Indonesia, acknowledged that the poll findings could not represent the viewpoint of the Indonesian population in general, given that it was conducted only in 22 cities across Java and Bali.
“But if we consider that the highest electricity demand is concentrated in these two islands, I think the result is representative enough to be a reference for the government in its plan to build a nuclear plant,” he said.
Batan chief Hudi Hastowo said in October that the agency had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bangka-Belitung provincial government regarding plans to build two nuclear power plants worth Rp 54 trillion ($6 billion) on Bangka.
Herman Agustiawan, a member of the National Energy Council, also said the government planned to build a 10,000 megawatt plant in west Bangka and an 8,000 megawatt plant in south Bangka.
Batan spokesman Ferhat Aziz said the poll result could serve as “a boost” for the agency to lay out the organizational infrastructure for the plan.
However, he said a real stimulus would be a “go nuclear” public statement from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
“If the president says ‘go nuclear,’ all related government officials would surely clear the way for the plan to go ahead,” said Sutaryo Supadi, a nuclear scientist from the Energy and Environment Awareness Society.
Djarot Wisnubroto, a deputy for development of nuclear material cycle technology at Batan, said that Indonesia was already being left behind by its regional neighbors, such as Vietnam and Malaysia.
Richard Branson sets up free internet database detailing vessels' engine size and CO2 emissions
John Vidal guardian.co.uk 5 Dec 10;
A free internet database set up by Richard Branson will today list the energy efficiency of almost every ocean-going vessel, in a scheme designed to reduce shipping emissions by nearly 25%.
Using publicly available data on the engine size and CO2 emissions of nearly 60,000 ships, exporters and importers, as well as holidaymakers on cruises, will be able to choose between clean and dirty ships.
The initiative, called Shippingefficiency.org, rates ships from A-G in a similar fashion to ratings given to fridges or washing machines. It will allow supermarkets, oil and mining companies, food importers, retailers and manufacturers to specify that their goods are sent from places like China or Australia only by the least polluting ships.
Britain, which imports most of its food and manufactured goods by sea, is expected to be one of the heaviest users of the database.
Shipping contributes around 1 billion tonnes of CO2 a year, about 3-4% of the world's total. This makes it collectively the sixth largest greenhouse gas polluter in the world, just after Germany.
"By eco-labelling clean and dirty ships, we hope to change the mindset in shipping and begin making gigaton-scale reductions in emissions," said Peter Boyd, director of Carbon War Room, a business NGO co-founded by Richard Branson with the aim of saving millions of tonnes of CO2 from industry.
"The shipping industry was doing pretty well nothing. In the past, any ship was much like another, and ships polluted like mad. We hope this will act as a catalyst for the industry to become not only sustainable, but also more profitable," said Branson, who is in Cancún for the climate talks.
Shipping has been slow to address carbon emissions. The world fleet has been driven for years by engines designed to burn the cheapest, dirtiest "bunker" fuel. Nearly 15% of the world's ships account for about half of all the industry emissions.
In addition, most shipping lines traditionally pass on most of the fuel costs to charterers, providing little incentives to build more efficient ships.
Under the new ratings, the biggest ships in the world range from the most to the least efficient. The giant tax haven cruise ship, The World, rates an F – the second worst score – the Queen Mary 2 is only slightly better with an E, and the massive Allure of the Seas – launched last week and officially the largest cruise liner in the world – is an F.
The lowest score, G, goes to the mighty Aegean, a giant crude oil tanker built nearly 40 years ago, but top marks go to the Berge Stahl, a bulk carrier which is so big it can only dock in two ports in the world.
Shipping and aviation are not obliged by international law to reduce their emissions as countries are. This is expected to change but depends on climate change talks taking place at Cancún.
The database, which relies on information supplied by the UN and international ship registers, includes the majority of the world's container ships, tankers, bulk carriers, cargo ships, cruise liners and ferries. Ships are compared by class not sizes. However, the data base does not cover warships, some of the least efficient fuel users in the world.
The database is expected to be used by ports to offer incentives to clean ships, as well as to shipowners and designers.
"Holiday-makers choosing a leisure cruise can go on the site to check out just how green their chosen liner is," said Boyd.
The initiative was welcomed by at least one large shipping company. "Now everyone can see clearly how our vessels perform, both our customers and the general public. We welcome the new initiative on shipping transparency, and would encourage other shipping lines to share their data as well,", said Jacob Sterling, head of climate and environment for the Maersk Line.
Shipping to steer cleaner carbon course
Richard Black BBC News 6 Dec 10;
Ships could be charged different fees to dock depending on how much carbon they emit, according to ideas being discussed at the UN climate summit.
The government of Papua New Guinea is considering the plan, and is hoping other nations may become involved.
The Carbon War Room, co-founded by Sir Richard Branson, has launched an online tool grading 60,000 commercial vessels according to their emissions.
Shipping contributes about 1Gt of CO2 each year, more than the entire UK.
Currently shipping fuels are exempt from national carbon accounts, which has caused much head-scratching about how their emissions could be curbed.
Ranked, filed
The new approach is to give businesses the tool they need to selectively use lower-emitting vessels.
"The Carbon War Room has been advocating the need for business to play a leading role in the fight to reduce carbon emissions," said Sir Richard.
"This data hub for shipping will help the key players in the industry and their customers make better decisions for their businesses and ultimately, the planet."
Data for 60,000 ships, including many of the big, long-distance carriers, has been put in to the website using data from international registers and methods developed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
The project's initiators hope that big corporations in particular will selectively use low-carbon carriers, encouraging all operators to improve their operations and reducing the industry's overall carbon footprint.
"We're hoping that companies like Nike or Walmart will go for it for two reasons," said Peter Boyd of the Carbon War Room.
"Firstly, they're concerned about greening their brands, but also about securing their supply chains."
But, he said, he was also intrigued by the idea that governments could set differential landing charges for ships depending on their emissions.
Papua New Guinea's delegate to the UN climate convention meeting, Kevin Conrad, told BBC News his government was considering the idea as part of a bigger package of measures designed to cut carbon through engagement with the private sector.
"Our duty is to find those that are leading the charge in the private sector, and work with them to achieve our climate goals," he said.
The ships would be rated on an A-G scale according to their efficiency.
The scheme's labels look very similar to the ratings given to consumer electrical goods such as refrigerators in the EU, which have helped drive up standards.
The Carbon War Room - a non-profit organisation aiming to "harness the power of entrepreneurs" to curb climate change - is hoping that ship owners will voluntarily choose to lodge their emissions data on the website shippingeffiency.org in order to boost their profile.
They calculate that global shipping emissions could be cut by about 30% just through increasing efficiency, although much greater gains could materialise in future as designers pursue new - or revisit old - concepts such as sails, kites and solar power.
Ships could be charged different fees to dock depending on how much carbon they emit, according to ideas being discussed on the sidelines of the UN climate summit.
Greening of merchant ships
Developments are afoot to replace pollutive fuels with efficient, cleaner alternatives
David Hughes Business Times 8 Dec 10;
WITH the recovery from global recession still weak and uncertain, now may seem a strange time to think about replacing much of the world's fleet. In fact there are pressures on the industry that may mean that happening much sooner than most people, and certainly including me, would have thought possible until very recently.
Right now many of the world's politicians are at Cancun, Mexico, trying to thrash out a deal at the UN's Climate Change Conference. Whether that will be successful seems doubtful but what is certain is that pressure on shipping to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will grow.
Incidentally, Singapore company Ecospec is also there with its revolutionary CSNOx scrubber that can remove a high proportion of CO2, as well as oxides of nitrogen and sulphur (NOx and SOx), from ship emissions. It has set up a demonstration plant in a car park.
If the Ecospec scrubber performs as hoped operationally and is widely adopted it will make a very big contribution to drastically reducing shipping's 'carbon footprint'. It won't, though, remove another driver towards radical redesigning of merchant ships - rising oil prices.
On that topic a new study, by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), predicts global oil will run out between 2041 and 2054 or, it warns, about 90 years before replacement technologies are ready, at the current pace of research and development.
The forecast by UC Davis researchers is based on market expectations and will probably be the subject of much debate. Nevertheless there can be few who believe the long-term trend of oil prices can be anything but upwards. So there will be strong pressure on designers to improve fuel efficiency.
Over the past year or so we have heard a lot about liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a marine fuel, with the classification societies doing a lot of work in this area. The consensus has been that LNG is likely to catch on in shortsea trades and possibly in the offshore support industry in some geographical areas; in both cases this is because it is feasible to provide fuelling facilities in limited areas.
In this vein, last week, a pioneer in using LNG offshore, Norwegian-based Eidesvik Offshore, ordered its fifth LNG fuelled supply vessel from Kleven Maritime. The company's delivery of the world's first gas-powered cargo ship, the Viking Energy, in 2003 and since then has built the gas ships Viking Queen and Viking Lady. For good measure, and in another 'green' move, the Viking Lady is fitted with a fuel cell.
This week, however, Norwegian classification society Det Norske Veritas has challenged the idea that LNG will be confined to a limited number of shortsea trades. It unveiled a new LNG-fuelled crude oil tanker concept that 'has a hull shape that removes the need for ballast water and will almost eliminate local air pollution'.
DNV says that its Triality concept very large crude oil carrier (VLCC) has the same operational range as a conventional VLCC and can operate in the ordinary spot market. It is claimed that, compared to the traditional VLCC, the Triality VLCC will: emit 34 per cent less CO2, eliminate entirely the need for ballast water (and thus reduce energy use on empty trips), eliminate entirely the venting of cargo vapours and use 25 per cent less energy.
DNV also says less harm will be caused to the health of people living close to busy shipping routes and ports as NOx emissions will be reduced by more than 80 per cent while emissions of SOx and particulate matter will fall by as much as 95 per cent.
DNV's CEO Henrik Madsen said: 'I am convinced that gas will become the dominant fuel for merchant ships. By 2020, the majority of owners will order ships that can operate on LNG.' He added: 'I am convinced that the Triality concept will create great interest among ship builders and crude oil tanker operators, so that the first Triality crude oil tanker will leave a shipyard before the end of 2014.'
If Mr Madsen is correct there are of course massive implications for the bunker industry. It will, for a time at least make supplying marine fuel a very diverse - and complicated - industry.
Personally I think if Ecospec's scrubber fulfils its promise continuing to use residual oil as the principal marine fuel will be the most practical solution for quite some time to come.
In the longer term, there must be a replacement for oil, and it just so happens there have been reports recently of developments in two areas.
The first brings us back to Singapore. The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore says that funding of up to $6 million will be available over 3 years for a new Maritime Fuel Cell Research Initiative launched jointly with Temasek Polytechnic last week.
The MOU specifically mentions two projects. The first is to test-bed fuel cell as auxiliary power in vessels while the second is to develop an automated process of supplying continuous clean power to underwater systems and devices, such as Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, submerged acoustic devices and underwater data logging instruments for processes like underwater surveys, measurement of currents and sedimentation.
And there is the nuclear option. A new research consortium comprising Lloyd's Register, Enterprises Shipping and Trading, Hyperion Power Generation and BMT Nigel Gee, is to examine the marine applications for small modular reactors.
The consortium says it plans to investigate the practical maritime applications for small modular reactors as commercial tanker-owners search for new designs that could deliver safer, cleaner and commercially viable forms of propulsion for the global fleet. It believes nuclear power is technically feasible and has the potential to drastically reduce the CO2 emissions caused by commercial shipping.
Lloyd's Register CEO Richard Sadler predicted that, 'as society recognises the limited choices available in the low-carbon, oil-scarce economy and as land-based nuclear plants become common place, we will see nuclear ships on specific trade routes sooner than many people currently anticipate.'
Perhaps a later version of DNV's Triality will have a small reactor pushing it through the waves. And of course nuclear ships are steam turbine ships so expertise that has very nearly been discarded could suddenly be needed again.
However this all turns out, a fascinating future lies ahead.
Timothy Gardner PlanetArk 6 Dec 10;
International projects generating voluntary carbon credits by protecting forests are slowly moving forward despite blocked U.N. climate talks, emissions markets developers said.
Many delegates at the 190 nation talks that go on until December 10 at a resort in Mexico are trying to push forward a program called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, or REDD, because forest destruction releases up to 17 percent of mankind's carbon emissions.
Norway and other rich countries have pledged nearly $4 billion since last year to help set up the program. It would bring forestry deals to national carbon markets allowing investors to reward developing countries like Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo for protecting tropical forests from development.
David Antonioli, the chief executive of the Voluntary Carbon Standard, which develops quality standards for emissions markets, said at a business meeting near the U.N. talks that projects covering hundreds of thousands of acres of global forests are already generating voluntary carbon credits.
That is nowhere near the amount of forest land lost from development including palm oil farms, unsustainable logging and mining.
Some 32 million acres (13 million hectares) of forests were lost or destroyed each year of the last decade, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's Forest Resources Assessment 2010.
The climate negotiators this year are not expected to agree a pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, that would lock in a future for existing national mandatory carbon markets in the European Union and New Zealand and give hope to other countries trying to form them.
In addition, prices for voluntary carbon credits in forestry have fallen from a high of about $7 a ton to less than $1 a ton after the failure of a U.S. climate bill in July. The legislation had been expected to set up emissions offsets in which polluters like energy companies could have invested in clean projects like forestry to reduce the impact of their own emissions.
Despite the hurdles, Antonioli said, tens of big forestry projects are nearly ready to issue credits for sale to polluters, many of which may face carbon limits sometime in the future.
ORANGUTANS
Todd Lemons, the chief executive of Infinite Earth, which is trying to save a peat forest in Indonesia, said an advantage of forest carbon offsets is that the projects go beyond saving just carbon.
His project aims to save a forest that borders an orangutan protection zone. Investors are saving the forest at risk from palm oil developers, but they are also saving orangutans and land for traditional villagers.
"It's a tough sell," said Lemons on the sidelines of the World Climate Summit, a business meeting near the climate talks. "Hopefully if we get a footing in these more charismatic projects, then we have a fighting chance at saving equally valuable bio-diverse forests."
Lemons has sold forward credits to Russia's natural gas giant Gazprom and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone. He said European companies will shortly reveal investments in the project.
Jeffrey Horowitz, a founding partner of the nongovernmental group Avoided Deforestation Partners, said U.S. power companies interested in hedging their future emissions risks are among entities that have shown the most interest in international forestry offsets and that oil companies would likely also become buyers.
Some of that demand could come from California, which will place emissions limits on companies in 2012, though offsets will not play a big role in that market for years.
If negotiators at the climate talks push REDD and set the path for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, forestry could become a more common way for companies to cut the impact of their carbon emissions.
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Met Office Hadley Centre warns of drought risk and role of deforestation in global warming
John Vidal The Guardian 6 Dec 10;
The chances of northern Europe facing a new ice age, or of catastrophic sea-level rises of almost four metres that swamp the planet over the next century, have been ruled out by leading scientists.
But the risk of tropical forests succumbing to drought brought on by climate change as well as the acceleration of methane emissions from melting permafrost, is greater, according to the Met Office Hadley Centre, in its latest climate change review.
The government-run climatology centre also suggests that, by the latter half of this century, the Arctic could become largely ice-free in summer, given new evidence of a slightly faster rate of decline.
The study examined international peer-reviewed science over the past three years, and involved remodelling data on a more powerful computer. The research will feed into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's assessment in 2013.
"The evidence of the dangerous impact of climate change is clearer than ever," said Vicky Pope, head of Hadley's climate predictions programme. "New understanding of the science suggests the overall impact will be about the same [but] in some cases, like the risk of methane release from wetlands and permafrost melting, [we] now conclude that the risks are greater."
The evidence downplayed chances of the Atlantic conveyor ocean current, which warms northern Europe, from slowing, forcing temperatures down in the region. "The risks are not as great as we thought before." said Pope.
The report identified increased loss of Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, and new research suggesting that once gone that ice might not be able to recover. But icesheet collapse is unlikely to be catastrophic, with losses occurring at different speeds.
The worst case – of a four-metre rise in sea level – is now all but ruled out in the next century, but 20cm to 60cm rises are likely. The rise will not be the same everywhere and there is a lack of understanding about the potential regional effects.
Among other assessments, old-growth forests, which were thought to be carbon neutral, are now known to still absorb CO2; there is new evidence of their susceptibility to drought, and that tropical deforestation can accelerate climate change.
There is also evidence emerging of increasing emissions of methane, a powerful, but short-lived, gas from wetlands.
Deborah Zabarenko PlanetArk 6 Dec 10;
Climate change is fanning longer- and deeper-burning fires in interior Alaska, changing the area from a carbon sink -- where planet-warming gases are stored naturally in the soil -- to a carbon emitter, scientists reported on Sunday.
The shift has occurred within the last 10 years and is due in large part to a longer burning season, according to a study published in Nature Geosciences.
The research was released at the start of a second week of international climate change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico.
When fires burn late into the season, past the end of July in northern latitudes, they don't just burn what's on the surface, but go deep into the soil where plant matter and other biomass have accumulated over thousands of years, said Merritt Turetsky, the study's lead author.
At some locations in interior Alaska, this accumulated biomass is as much as 26 feet deep, and is where climate-warming carbon has been stored. When it ignites, the carbon is emitted into the atmosphere.
Until about the year 2000, this part of Alaska stored more carbon than was emitted by industry and other sources in the area, but the last 10 years have seen an abrupt shift as long-stored soil carbon has been released by fire.
"Even though these systems have burned in the past, there was enough productivity, enough carbon being fixed (stored) by vegetation, that even when you took into account these fire emissions, they were still a small net sink of carbon," Turetsky said by telephone from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
"In the past 10 years there was this unprecedented amount of carbon released as a consequence of burning, and that changed the system from a small net sink to a net carbon source," she said.
These deep burns occur more often now because the fire season is longer and the late summer fires are fueled by dry ground and warmer air; these conditions are part of a warming environment. About half these fires are started by people, the other half by lightning.
Decades' worth of accumulated biomass, called peat, can burn in minutes, Turetsky said.
To get an idea of how much carbon these fires are putting into the atmosphere, study co-author Eric Kasischke of the University of Maryland offered a vivid comparison.
In the last decade, Kasischke said in an email, the biggest fire year in Alaska was 2004, when more than 56.7 million tons (51.5 teragrams or 51.5 billion kg) of carbon was emitted over 90 days, more than was released by all domestic U.S. airline flights for the whole year. That is also nearly as much carbon as was released by U.S. electricity generating plants for the same 90-day period.
(Editing by Stacey Joyce and Eric Walsh)
Subarctic wildfires a 'runaway climate change' risk
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 5 Dec 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Global warming is driving forest fires in northern latitudes to burn more frequently and fiercely, contributing to the threat of runaway climate change, according to a study released Sunday.
Increased intensity of fires in Alaska's vast interior over the last decade has changed the region from a sink to a source of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for heating up the planet, the study found.
On balance, in other words, boreal forests in the northern hemisphere may now soak up less of the heat-trapping gas than they give off.
The bulk of the released CO2 comes not from the burning trees, but from what is in the ground.
"Most of what fuels a boreal fire is plant litter, moss and organic matter in surface soils," said Merritt Turetsky, a professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada and lead author of the study.
The findings are worrisome, he said, because about half of the world's soil carbon is trapped in northern permafrost and peatlands.
"This is carbon that has accumulated in ecosystems a little bit at a time for thousands of years, but is being released very rapidly."
While the study, published in Nature Geoscience, focused on Alaska's 18.5 million hectares (45 million acres) of forests, its conclusions likely apply to huge expanses of wilderness in Siberia, Canada and northern Europe as well.
Out-of-control fires ravaged more than a million hectares in Russia earlier this year, destroying whole villages and leaving more than 50 people dead.
The shift of subarctic forests and peatlands from a CO2-absorbing sponge to a net source of the gas means that these regions could help trigger accelerated global warming, the study warned.
"Essentially, it represents a runaway climate change scenario in which warming is leading to larger and more intense fires, releasing more greenhouse gases and resulting in more warming," said Turestsky.
The same vicious-circle effect -- what scientists call "positive feedback" -- is true of the shrinking Arctic ice cap, which has likewise become both symptom and cause of climate change.
As ice cover recedes decade-by-decade, more of the Sun's radiative force is absorbed by dark-blue ocean water rather than bounced back into space by reflective ice and snow.
The Arctic and subarctic regions have been hit particularly hard by global warming, with temperatures rising two to three times faster than the global average.
In the study, Turetsky and colleagues examined nearly 200 forest and peatland sites in Alaska shortly after blazes were extinguished to measure how much biomass had burnt.
The amount of scorched earth has doubled in interior Alaska over the last 10 years, mostly because of increased burning late in the fire season, they found.
"We have demonstrated for the first time that increases in burned area are clearly linked to increases in fire severity," said co-author Eric Kasische, a professor at the University of Maryland.
"This not only impacts carbon storage, but also will accelerate permafrost loss and changes in forest cover."
Ten of billions of tonnes of another potent greenhouse gas, methane, are also trapped inside permafrost.
The study comes out as ministers from nearly 200 countries gather in Cancun, Mexico in an attempt to hammer out an agreement on how to keep global warming in check and cope with future impacts.
By week's end, the UN forum could announce measures to slow tropical deforestation, which both releases CO2 and shrinks the biomass that soaks it up.
The destruction of equatorial forests in Latin America, Asia and Africa accounts for 12 to 15 percent of the carbon pollution released into the atmosphere each year, according to recent calculations.
Boreal forests, however, have received scant attention at the talks.
Environment News Service 3 Dec 10;
HAIFA, Israel, December 3, 2010 (ENS) - Firefighting aircraft have rushed from across Europe to help Israel extinguish the largest wildfire in the country's history, which broke out Thursday on Mt. Carmel, near the northern port city of Haifa. But the planes are grounded for the night, leaving firefighters on the ground alone to battle the spreading blaze.
The fire has claimed 41 lives, and four other people - two police and two firefighters - are missing. Hundreds of houses have been burned to the ground and authorities have evacuated some 15,000 people from areas near the fire.
More evacuations may be necessary, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who arrived in Haifa Thursday.
"At this hour a terrible fire is ravaging Mt. Carmel; there are many casualties," Netanyahu said. "We are mobilizing all of our forces to deal with this disaster, to rescue the injured and to stop the fire. This is an unprecedented disaster."
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told reporters that most of those who lost their lives were Israeli prison guards traveling by bus in an attempt to rescue Palestinian inmates at a nearby prison.
The bus caught fire after a tree fell across the road, blocking its path, police said. Many of the guards died inside the bus, while others died trying to flee. The prisoners survived.
Rosenfeld said 16 people remain in hospital, including Haifa Police Chief Ahuva Tomer, who is in critical condition.
The wildfire spread on Friday night, burning several houses in the town of Ein Hod and the religious community of Nir Etzion.
The flames are near Haifa University and the university and dorms have been evacuated.
The blaze has reached the Carmel Forest Hotel and engulfed the Hai-Bar nature reserve, from which the wild animals were released, according to a "Haaretz" newspaper report.
The fire started in brush left tinder-dry by lack of rain. Fire investigators say their preliminary probe showed no signs of arson. Instead, they believe the fire started at a location west of Ussifiya village where household trash and tires caught fire due to a cause yet to be determined.
After a Security Cabinet meeting today Prime Minister Netanyahu said, "Our firefighting measures cannot provide an answer to forest fires of this magnitude, especially in the face of such winds. We do not have such equipment."
The European Commission activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism Thursday night in response to Israel's request for help.
"Alongside my condolences to the victims' families and friends, I want to express solidarity with the people affected by the fire, and to reiterate to the authorities of Israel that Europe stands ready to work closely with them in combating this catastrophe," said European Commission President Jose Barroso.
Netanyahu said today that four aircraft have arrived from Greece and Cyprus has sent a plane and a helicopter. UK Prime Minister David Cameron sent two British helicopters from Cyprus. Some 100 firefighters have arrived from Bulgaria.
Further aid is on the way from Egypt, Jordan, Spain, Azerbaijan, Romania and Turkey, which apparently has dropped its hostility over Israel's deadly raid on a Turkish Gaza-bound flotilla in May.
Prime Minister Netanyahu called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to thank him, saying, "We very much appreciate this mobilization and I am certain that it will be an opening toward improving relations between our two countries, Turkey and Israel." The Turkish leader expressed his willingness to help and Turkey's condolences to the families of the victims.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has sent a large Russian firefighting plane, the largest of its kind in the world, which arrived this afternoon and will go to work in the morning.
Netanyahu said his government has hired an American plane from a private company, a "supertanker" that will arrive Saturday afternoon.
On his way home from visiting U.S. troops in Afghanistan today, President Barack Obama called Netanyahu, expressing his "deepest condolences on behalf of the American people for the tragic loss of life."
President Obama said that USAID and the Department of Defense will deliver large procurements of fire-retardant chemicals this weekend. The President said the first U.S. specialized technical team will arrive Saturday, with other teams to arrive shortly thereafter, and said he is pursuing a "full court press" to help Israel in this emergency.
Netanyahu said that at Sunday's Cabinet meeting, he will submit a national plan to deal with all of the needs of those who were injured and are in distress.
Under criticism for leaving Israel unprepared to handle such a fire, Netanyahu said next week he will "submit for Cabinet decision and implementation a plan to purchase aircraft."
Environment News Service 3 Dec 10;
CANCUN, Mexico, December 3, 2010 (ENS) - Somewhere in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, the world's largest solar-powered boat, Turanor PlanetSolar, is slicing through the waves on its way to Cancun to visit the UN climate negotiations as part of its circumnavigation of the globe.
Sailing under the Swiss flag, the 102-foot-long, 50-foot-wide catamaran left Miami November 30 and is scheduled to arrive in Cancun on December 6.
"We are going to Cancun to show our support for the UN, its member states and all the delegates who are working together to find sustainable solutions for future generations," says Swiss engineer Raphael Domjan, founder of the PlanetSolar project. "We want to show that we can change, that we have the technology, the knowledge and the means. It is possible for each one of us to make a difference; and it depends on both our individual and collective responsibility."
The surface of the Turanor PlanetSolar, measuring more than 5,700 square feet, is designed to act as a solar generator. This ensures that the catamaran can keep going for long periods (up to three full days), even without direct insolation. The solar energy yielded by the generator is stored in a lithium-ion battery (this technology offers the maximum output and energy density).
Solar energy is collected on the catamaran by photovoltaic panels made by Solon AG of Berlin, The panels use high-efficiency solar cells from the California-based SunPower Corporation that achieve conversion rates of up to 23 percent, twice as efficient as conventional solar and up to four times more efficient than thin-film solar.
"We believe that our goal - a better future for our planet through the promotion of solar energy, eco-mobility and energy efficiency - has a strong tie with what the conference is all about," Domjan said. "We hope everyone involved will come to visit our boat." The US$17.5 million Turanor PlanetSolar will be docked at La Amada Marina just north of Cancun.
While government officials from 194 countries hammer out the complex components of a climate treaty to govern human responses to global warming after the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period expires at the end of 2013, civil society groups are creating their own climate events in Cancun.
Natural Refrigerants to Replace HFCs
Consumer Goods Forum, a consortium of over 400 companies, announced Monday that its members will implement climate-friendly refrigeration using natural refrigerants beginning in 2015.
The multi-company team charged with delivering the pledge is co-chaired by Unilever and Tesco and includes Coca-Cola, Carrefour, Ahold, Nestle, Pepsico, Procter & Gamble, Kraft, General Mills, L'Oreal and Walmart among others.
The natural refrigerants will replace hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, now being used by many companies for refrigeration. While HFCs do not destroy the ozone layer, they are greenhouse gases that are far more potent than carbon dioxide, CO2.
Natural refrigeration solutions that exist today use hydrocarbons, ammonia and carbon dioxide. In 1992, Greenpeace developed GreenFreeze, the first hydrocarbon refrigerator as a solution to avoid HFCs - 400 million have sold globally.
The natural refrigerant initiative follows Greenpeace's participation at the Consumer Goods Forum Sustainable Refrigeration Summit meeting last month, where Greenpeace Solutions Director Amy Larkin challenged the companies to come together and commit to a solution on refrigeration by 2015.
"This is an extremely important first step, and will pave the way for major changes across the industry. We expect each of these companies to set forth a timeline by 2015 for complete phase out of HFCs," said Larkin. "Now national and international policy makers must match these corporations' targets by outlawing HFCs and making the transition to climate-friendly alternatives both cheap and easy."
Cities Register Emissions, Build Climate Action Plans
The carbonn Cities Climate Registry, or cCCR, launched November 21 at the World Mayors Summit on Climate hosted by Mexico City's Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, allows cities around the world to report their local climate action to a central platform, run by local governments for local governments.
The cCCR is the official reporting mechanism of the Global Cities Covenant on Climate, also called the Mexico City Pact, signed by 138 cities at the World Mayors Summit. Among them are: Barcelona, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Kyoto, Los Angeles, Nagoya, Nantes, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo.
Five cities from five continents have already registered their data with the cCCR prior to its official launch and the signing of the Pact: Calgary, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Nagpur and Mexico City.
The cCCR will be operated by the "Bonn Center for Local Climate Action and Reporting - carbonn," which was launched by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and the UN Environment Programme at Copenhagen climate talks in December 2009.
ICLEI is an association of over 1,200 local government members committed to sustainable development. Members come from 70 different countries and represent nearly 570 million people.
User registration, climate data reporting and searchable information about cities and their climate commitments will all be available through the carbonn website.
Martin Chavez, ICLEI USA executive director, said, "Through the success of well-developed, well-implemented climate action plans, local governments continue to demonstrate their profound commitment to addressing climate change on a local level and they are looking to the international community to show a similar level of commitment during these climate negotiations in Cancun."
Business Leaders Gather at Parallel World Climate Summit
The World Climate Summit is the business and finance conference accelerating solutions to climate change to be held in Cancun on December 4-5 parallel to the UN's formal negotiations.
Under the leadership of The UNEP Finance Initiative organizers are convening "the largest coalition of financiers tackling climate change ever assembled - representing more than $20 trillions of assets under management."
Business, investment and government figures will collaborate, implement and develop "bottom-up solutions" to climate change to help reach regional and global 2020 targets.
Participants include Sir Richard Branson, Founder, Virgin Group; Ted Turner, Chairman, UN Foundation; Lord Nicholas Stern, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE & Special Adviser to HSBC; Emilio Azcarraga, president and CEO of Grupo Televisa, and more than 100 high-level speakers confirmed from more than 20 industries.
World Climate Summit will launch the Carbon War Room Gigaton Awards, celebrating cities, companies and leaders that are tackling climate change with sustainable business actions.
Aimee Christensen, World Climate Summit program chair, said, "The global climate challenge provides an urgent imperative to build a global clean economy that can deliver greater prosperity, health, and security, and be the engine of our economic recovery.
"At the World Climate Summit," said Christensen, "participants will get down to the practical work of making this more sound future a reality."
On Monday, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon gave the opening address at a side event, Business Action for Climate 2010, organized by the World Climate Summit. A press conference and panel discussion presented the business case for combating climate change, the role of business leadership, and the importance of governmental action.
In summary, participants said that global prosperity, health, security, and safety depend upon a sustainable energy future. The building of the global clean economy can be the engine of economic recovery by reducing energy expenditures through energy efficiency, by retooling manufacturing facilities to produce clean energy technologies, and by launching new industries.
Global Aviation Industry Tackles Its Climate Impact
In October, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations body charged with setting standards and recommended practices for international aviation, adopted a global framework for addressing emissions from aviation fuels.
Approved by 190 governments, the framework includes emissions targets, measures, rules of engagement on market-based measures, means to consider special needs of developing countries and acknowledgment of government and industry roles. While some aspects were tagged for further work, the framework is solid.
At an aviation industry side event in Cancun Tuesday hosted by the International Air Transport Association, policy specialists explored what that will mean in the sky and on the ground.
On December 6, at another aviation industry event, to be hosted by Paul Steele, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group, aviation specialists will present case studies from across the industry illustrating innovative projects now underway or under development aimed at reducing aviation CO2 emissions.
The Air Transport Action Group has launched a new website that uses aims to demonstrate that aviation is serious about the environment and is taking practical measures to limit emissions.
The website is a global cross-industry iniative. Supporters include airlines, airports, air navigation services providers, manufacturers among others.
Nancy Young, vice president for environmental affairs of the Air Transport Association of America, who is with the aviation team in Cancun, said today, "Perhaps the tremendous progress we have made in international aviation can suggest a way forward."
Women in REDD
A new gender initiative introduced in Cancun aims to ensure that women are an integral part of negotiations on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degredation, which everyone calls REDD. This international process is targeted at reduction of climate change impacts due to the logging and mismanagement of forests.
The Global Initiative on REDD+ and Gender Equality was jointly launched Monday by the International Union of Conservation of Nature, IUCN, Women's Economic Development Outreach, WEDO, and Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management, WOMEN.
Delegates attending the launch event, hosted by the Government of Norway and entitled "The missing link to success: Women in REDD" wore red to show their solidarity for the Women in REDD campaign. Jeannette Gurung, director of Women Organizing for Change in Agriculture, WOCAN, moderated the dialogue.
Pilot REDD projects in 40 developing countries are already underway, and as a result of last year's climate change talks in Copenhagen, the international community started working towards a global REDD deal. But women again are the missing link despite their critical role in climate action, the groups stressed.
"Political will for REDD exists, but donors sponsoring REDD initiatives still do not mainstream gender in projects on the ground even though they have mandate - and hence obligation - to do so," said Lorena Aguilar, global senior advisor on gender for IUCN.
Current REDD+ initiatives state the need to engage indigenous peoples and local communities, but do not recognize the differentiated needs of women and men within communities, the groups explained.
"A typical village in the countries we work with is composed of men with rights to land and women who have 'courtesy' land and forest access through their husbands, but no rights," said Consuelo Espinosa, IUCN's senior forests and climate change officer."
Because women do not necessarily own forest lands, they are often excluded from discussions about how forest should be managed at community level. What worries us is that there is a risk that women would also be excluded from REDD payment schemes for the same reason, " she said.
The IUCN's Carole Saint-Laurent said that immediate and long-term benefits can be achieved by involving women in strategy, decision making, the distribution of benefits, and capacity building.
Manohara Khadka of the Himalayan Grassroots Women's Natural Resource Management Association, or HIMWANTI, said that in Nepal there is work to do to elevate women from their traditional roles as users and managers forest resources to making policy decisions.
Vicky Tauli-Corpuz of the Asian Indigenous Women's Network highlighted the important role of indigenous women in forest management and said that traditional knowledge of indigenous people must be protected and integrated into REDD+ policymaking.
In the Pacific, women often have the right to utilize breadfruit even though the tree itself is the province of men, who use it as a source of wood for furniture and canoes. In Nigeria, women may have rights to the kernel but not to the oil of the palm which is often sold as a cash crop.
"We know that community leaders often neglect women's issues, and that women leaders are either not offered a seat at the decision-making table or are ill-prepared to participate effectively if given the opportunity," said Aguilar. "So if REDD+ is to impact positively on the forest-dependent poor, governments should make sure that women, whose livelihoods depend mostly on forest resources, get an equal share of benefits from REDD."
China-US Youth Climate Exchange
Young people in Cancun are trancending the traditional rivalries among governments to create collaborations that will lead to climate solutions.
The China-US Youth Climate Exchange, a project spearheaded by about 30 college-age climate activists from seven Chinese and U.S.-based organizations, met for the first time Sunday in Cancun.
They, like a multitude of other climate activists the world over, are using the Internet to shape a global movement. The young activists have spent the last six weeks coordinating their effort from opposite sides of the Pacific, designing a plan for their work in Cancun without ever having met face to face.
They are conducting a series of workshops on cross-cultural collaboration and organizing strategies. They plan a shared action designed to focus the attention that urges U.S. and Chinese negotiators to agree on a strong climate treaty, and a bi-lingual blog that tracks the progress of the exchange.
Each activity is focused on enhancing international collaboration between youth organizers, and finding ways for the world's two biggest carbon emitters to work together constructively on climate change. The youth say the U.S. and China should stop blaming one another and begin working together to solve climate problems.
"In the midst of the greatest challenge facing our generation," said Jared Schy, part of the U.S. youth delegation and member of the Northwest-based Cascade Climate Network, "we believe it is our responsibility as future leaders to establish this dialogue now."
Wang Yiting, a member of the Chinese delegation to the UN climate talks in Copenhagen last year, said the youths are demonstrating "an innovative model of cooperation on climate change" to the two governments.
Wang, who majors in environmental science and international relations at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, said, "We hope to induce more cooperation among our governments and more aggressive action in creating and taking leadership on climate and energy solutions."
And Much, Much More...
There are 250 side events and some 200 exhibits that have been scheduled by governments, UN agencies and admitted observer organizations during the Cancun negotiations.
To see a full schedule of side events and exhibits visit: http://regserver.unfccc.int/seors/reports/events_list.html?session_id=COP16/CMP6
Shaun Tandon Yahoo News 6 Dec 10;
CANCUN, Mexico (AFP) – The United Nations on Sunday pointed to progress in one track of negotiations on climate change, but questions persisted on whether the talks in Mexico can take concrete steps toward a new treaty.
Negotiators from more than 190 countries were arriving at the Caribbean resort of Cancun for a week of talks, which come in the shadow of last year's Copenhagen climate summit that ended in widespread disappointment.
Mindful of last year's debacle, the United Nations and host Mexico have tried to keep expectations in check by not inviting heads of state and highlighting forward movement in talks that have already seen sharp exchanges.
Negotiations are covering two separate tracks and the UN body overseeing the talks released a draft agreement on one of them -- the part covering long-term action by the world against global warming.
"This conclusion is important because it gives parties a key to unlock other outstanding issues under the two tracks," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
However, disputes in Cancun have centered on the other track -- on the future of the landmark Kyoto Protocol.
The draft on long-term action would reconfirm a key part of the Copenhagen accord -- that the world needs to make "deep cuts" in industrial emissions to keep warming in check at two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The draft also calls for a review on whether the goal should be strengthened to 1.5 degrees Celsius in light of warnings by scientists that the world faces growing natural disasters and extinction of species due to climate change.
The agreement would restate developed countries to mobilize 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to help the poorest nations adapt to climate change.
Gordon Shepherd, head of the environmental group WWF?s Global Climate Initiative, welcomed the draft, saying it "provides a good basis for negotiation."
Shepherd hailed the text for taking up stronger commitments but said it should also address the "significant gap between current pledges and the goal."
"We would like to see a process in place immediately that looks at the gap and how to close it," he said.
Momentum in several key developed nations has shifted away from climate action. The United States is unlikely to approve nationwide cuts on emissions anytime soon after the November election victory by the Republican Party, some of whose members doubt the scientific basis of climate change.
Faced with the growing view that a new global treaty is far away, the European Union has led calls to extend the Kyoto Protocol, whose requirements for developed nations to cut emissions run out at the end of 2012.
Japan has adamantly rejected the idea, saying that the Kyoto Protocol -- negotiated in its ancient capital in 1997 -- is unfair and that it will not sign up for a second round of pledges under the treaty.
The Kyoto Protocol makes no demands of developing nations such as China, which is now the world's top emitter. The United States, the number two emitter, also is free of requirements as it rejected the treaty in 2001.
"Japan's position is to seek a more global framework with the participation of all major emitters, in a legally binding way, after 2012," Japanese negotiator Hideki Minamikawa said.
China has ramped up action on climate change, surpassing the United States in green investment according to two recent studies. But China has resisted calls by developed nations for legally binding constraints on its emissions.
The United States believes that binding action by all nations is crucial to make a treaty palatable in Washington. US and Chinese negotiators have been working -- with some apparent success -- on finding ways to verify action that nations are staying true to pledges on climate change.
Brazil, UK Asked To Help End Kyoto Climate Rifts
Alister Doyle PlanetArk 6 Dec 10;
Participants in United Nations climate talks asked Brazil and Britain on Sunday to help break a deadlock over the future of the Kyoto Protocol for fighting global warming as host Mexico expressed cautious hope for a deal.
Delegates called for swifter progress at the November 29 to December 10 meeting among almost 200 nations on a modest package of measures after a summit in Copenhagen last year failed to produce agreement on a treaty and damaged relations between rich and poor countries.
"The conditions are in place to reach a broad and balanced package of decisions," Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa told a planning session that included several environment ministers.
"However, the positive outcome that our societies demand is still not complete," she said of the talks in the Caribbean resort of Cancun whose goals include a new climate fund to aid the poor and a mechanism to share clean technology.
Espinosa said she was asking environment ministers, acting in pairs from rich and poor nations, for help. Britain and Brazil would try to resolve the deepest split, over the Kyoto Protocol, a pact that obliges nearly 40 developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions until 2012.
Japan, Russia and Canada have been adamant that they will not sign an extension and want a new, broader treaty that will also bind emerging economies to act.
China, India and other developing states say rich nations have emitted most greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution and must extend Kyoto before poor countries can be expected to sign up. The dispute has dominated the talks.
Espinosa said Sweden and Grenada would work on a long-term global goals for slowing climate change and Spain and Algeria would try to bridge gaps on how to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
Australia and Bangladesh would work on finance and technology, while New Zealand and Indonesia would seek to work out other issues about curbing greenhouse gases.
"This gives us a good basis to work from," European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told the meeting.
China expressed hopes of progress. "As long as all parties have sincere political wills, China thinks the talks will eventually achieve positive and meaningful results," Chinese negotiator Su Wei told Xinhua.
In Caracas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez blamed "criminal" capitalism for causing climate phenomena including heavy rains that have killed scores in Venezuela and Colombia.
Both nations said the floods and landslides were reminders of severe weather predicted because of a build-up of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. They said the talks should seek to avoid the errors of the Copenhagen summit.
"We must put the ghost of Copenhagen behind us," said Colombian delegate Paula Caballero Gomez.
(With extra reporting by Sui-Lee Wee in Beijing, Deborah Zabarenko in Washington, Andrew Cawthorne in Caracas; editing by Chris Wilson)
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