The Return of the Admiral
from Butterflies of Singapore
Black Baza in comfort behaviour
from Bird Ecology Study Group and Red Junglefowl: adult male, female, chick and call
BeMUSE features Pulau Ubin and Singapore's biodiversity
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
Massive petroleum terminal in Johor: a 'Jurong Island' off our northern shores from wild shores of singapore
My student articles
from Otterman speaks
Christina Chin The Star 13 Jan 11;
GEORGE TOWN: Penang is trying to hatch more male turtles to mate with females so that the reptiles will not disappear from the island’s coastlines.
The Pantai Kerachut Turtle Conservation Sanctuary is working to maintain a breeding ratio of 70 females to 30 males under a programme which began three years ago.
Department licensing and resource protection officer Mansor Yobe said they needed to have more male turtles for the females which come to shore to lay their eggs eight times a year.
“If we don’t do this, there may not be any turtles left here in future,” he said at the sanctuary at the north-west tip of Penang island.
Besides Green Turtles, the Olive Ridley Turtles are also known to lay their eggs at Pantai Kerachut, Pantai Teluk Kampi, Pantai Teluk Ailing and Pantai Teluk Ketapang on the island’s north-west coast.
Mansor said records from 2000 until 2006 showed that close to 100% of all hatchlings at the sanctuary were females.
He said they then started testing various sites by burying the eggs in shaded spots under trees or in cooler areas to try to get more male turtles hatched.
He added that a shaded hatchery was built at a cost of RM16,500 in 2009 to help determine the gender of the turtles.
“After collecting the eggs from several sites, we placed them in the shaded hatchery where the temperature is about 28.2 degrees Celsius.
“Eggs buried in the sand outside the shaded hatchery will produce females as the temperature there is hotter at 30 degrees Celsius,” he said.
He said eggs at the sanctuary were hatched on the beach rather than in a temperature-controlled incubator because research has shown this produced healthier hatchlings.
He said last year, some 5,000 eggs were collected and 70% were successfully hatched.
“We hope to collect the same number this year,” he said, adding that the peak period for turtles to lay eggs is between December and August.
Richard Black BBC News 12 Jan 11;
China's endangered giant pandas thrive in old forest that has never been logged, research shows.
The finding comes ahead of a decision on whether to end or renew a 12-year logging ban in the area.
Writing in the journal Biology Letters, the researchers - from China and the US - tell the government that continuing protection would be cost-effective.
They based their finding on data collected during a five-year forest survey in Sichuan Province.
There are thought to be fewer than 2,500 adult giant pandas in the wild, scattered across mountain ranges in small, fragmented populations.
They are classifed as a "conservation-dependent species", meaning that without protection, they would be on their way to extinction.
Roots of the issue
In Sichuan - the animals' main homeland - teams of observers gathered all kinds of data on forests during the State Forestry Administration's Third National Survey, which ran from 1999 to 2003.
This database has now been mined to see which aspects are most closely associated with the presence of pandas.
Having bamboo in the area is a key factor that researchers had previously known and understood - hardly surprising, as the plants constitute 99% of the panda's diet.
However, the researchers - led by Zejun Zhang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing - discovered that the age of the trees also strongly predicted the existence of pandas.
They suggest this link has not been found before because previous studies looked at small areas only.
Why old-growth forest should be so important is not clear, and data of this type cannot yield the answer.
"One possibility is that the bamboo that grows underneath old growth [trees] is more nutritious," they write.
"Another intriguing possibility is that only old-growth trees grow large enough to form cavities suitable for maternity dens.
"This raises the question: are birth dens a factor-limiting panda population size in reserves with a history of logging?"
Iain Valentine, Director of Animals, Conservation and Education for the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) who has worked on giant pandas with Chinese colleagues for abour five years, commented that understanding the animals' ecological needs was crucial for their long-term survival.
"It could be as simple as that old stands of bamboo produce large new shoots of bamboo at their bases, which are rich in sugars," he told BBC News.
"These large shoots are softer too, and are therefore easier to eat than hard stalks.
"But conversely it could be far more complicated than this and involve complex seasonal nutritional needs of the panda which themselves vary as a result of the bamboo forest structure and age."
RZSS has just concluded an agreement with the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Association to host two giant pandas in its Edinburgh Zoo - the first pandas in the UK for 17 years.
The Chinese authorities have implemented a number of policies aimed at conserving the species - banning trade in skins, setting up reserves, and, in 1998, banning logging throughout the panda's range.
But the logging ban is up for review this year.
The scientists on this study stop short of calling for a continuation; instead, they observe: "It may be more cost-effective to protect the existing old growth than to open it up to logging while protecting an equivalent area of secondary growth forest".
Yahoo News 12 Jan 11;
LOME (AFP) – Togo on Wednesday said it will outlaw the import and sale of plastic bags from July in order to protect the environment, picking up on a growing global trend.
"These bags have become truly disastrous for the environment...The public must know that a plastic bag is not biodegradable and that they need at least 400 years to decompose," said trade ministry official Mohamed Saad Sama.
Importers of plastic bags were given a six-month deadline and manufacturers nine months, he told national television.
More than three billion plastic bags are used every year by Lome residents, according to estimates by green group Pour un Avenir Ensoleille (For a Sunny Future)."
Kenya last week declared a similar ban, renewing an earlier pledge that had failed in 2007.
Of all five members of the East African Community -- Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda -- only Rwanda has so far successfully banned all plastic bags since 2008, and replaced them with paper bags.
Italy, among the top consumers of plastic bags in Europe, began banning them from shops and supermarkets beginning January 1, a move widely welcomed by environmentalists.
TRAFFIC 12 Jan 11;
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 12th January 2011—A man who put two ivory statues for sale online will be the first person charged under Malaysia’s tough new wildlife laws.
The Selangor State Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) raided the man’s home in Bukit Jelutong on Tuesday and found the ivory items, which he advertised in the classified ads of a well known local website, officials told TRAFFIC.
He is expected to be charged under Section 68(b) of the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 which came into force in December.
He faces up to MYR 100,000 (USD 32,500) in fines or up to three years in jail, or both, if found guilty.
Under the previous law the penalties would have been significantly lower: a fine of not exceeding MYR3,000 (USD975) or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding one year or to both.
“It is encouraging to see the new law deployed so quickly and to address this specific problem,” says Chris R. Shepherd, Deputy Regional Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia.
The case is not only significant in putting the new law to the test, it also shines a spotlight on the illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts on the internet.
“Illegal trade in wildlife on local websites is a serious issue that needs to be addressed, says Shepherd.
“This case exemplifies the need for increased monitoring of these websites.”
While Malaysia does not possess the open ivory markets of other countries in the region, the country is becoming one of concern for its role in the global ivory trade. Malaysia was identified in the latest Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) report as a country of concern because of its role as a significant transit point.
ETIS is the world’s largest database of elephant product seizure records, comprising more than 15,400 ivory seizure cases compiled over the last 21 years and is compiled by TRAFFIC on behalf of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The data shows a growing number of illegal ivory shipments passing through Malaysian ports.
In 2009, a large shipment of 5,647 kg of ivory was seized in Viet Nam, having passed through Pasir Gudang, Malaysia, while in 2010, 1,665 kg of ivory was seized in Hai Phong Port, Viet Nam, again having come via Malaysia.
In August last year, Wildlife officers seized two tonnes of elephant ivory and five rhino horns at Kenya’s international airport, which were to be illegally shipped to Malaysia.
Pesticide ban call for around India's Kaziranga park
Subir Bhaumik BBC News 12 Jan 11;
Forestry officials in the north-east Indian state of Assam have demanded the creation of a no-pesticide zone around the famous Kaziranga game sanctuary.
The call follows the deaths of two pregnant elephants and other animals in tea estates around Kaziranga.
The national park is renowned for its varied wildlife, especially the tiger and the one-horned Indian rhino.
Officials say that mammals and birds were killed after eating grass that was contaminated by pesticides.
The two elephants ventured out of the park in search of food and ate grass which had been sprayed to kill red ants, officials say.
"The death of these elephants has brought the pesticide issue to the limelight, because the chemicals sprayed in tea estates are playing havoc with wildlife in our forests which are surrounded by hundreds of tea estates," said Anurag Singh, a senior forestry official in northern Assam where Kaziranga is located.
The area has the highest concentration of tea estates in India.
"The managements of these estates must turn to organic farming and stop spraying chemicals," Mr Singh said.
'Endangering our wildlife'
He added that hundreds of birds have died in the same area as has livestock which has eaten pesticide-laced grass in recent weeks.
"The cows died in their dozens and the vultures who fed on them also died in large numbers. So you can imagine the effect on human health when consumers drink these teas," Mr Singh said.
He said the forestry department was contemplating the prosecution of some tea estates if animals - especially those that are endangered - are killed by the pesticides.
Local community groups also support a pesticide ban.
"The tea estates should go organic and stop spraying random pesticides. They are not only endangering our wildlife and aquatic life but also our people," said Moni Manik Gogoi, who heads a "people's committee" near Kaziranga.
Some tea estate owners have also supported the call, especially those who run estates which are fully organic.
"Unless we all go organic, our teas will be under a scanner and we will lose lucrative markets where consumers are very health conscious," said Binod Saharia, owner of the Gossainbarie tea estate near Kaziranga.
But some planters are wary of losing out if they make the transition.
"The tea industry is so used to chemicals because they represent the easy option when combating plant diseases like halepeltis," said HS Siddhu, a veteran tea planter in Northern Assam.
He said the planters should be persuaded rather than being forced to convert to organic farming.
Yahoo News 12 Jan 11;
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – South Africa lost 333 rhinos to poaching in 2010, the highest number ever recorded and almost triple the previous year's losses, the country's parks agency said on Wednesday.
"This has definitely been the worst year for rhino poaching -- this is the highest number ever recorded," National Parks Agency spokesman Reynold Thakhuli told AFP.
However the agency said anti-poaching programmes were yielding results. Five suspected poachers were shot dead at the world-famous Kruger National Park in the last four days.
"Since the beginning of this year a total of five more poachers have died when rangers acted in self-defence after poachers opened fire on them," said parks agency chief executive Dr David Mabunda in a statement.
Kruger suffered the worst losses in 2010, with 146 rhinos killed there.
"It is more worrying that rangers are often greeted by the poachers' firepower without warning," Mabunda said.
Police have arrested 162 people linked to rhino crimes at various levels, ranging from actual poachers to couriers and kingpins, but South Africa has already lost five rhinos in 2011, he added.
South Africa is home to more than 70 percent of the world's remaining rhinos and experts blame a booming black-market demand for horns, which saw the number of the animals killed almost treble from 122 in 2009.
The use of rhino horn in Asian traditional medicine has continued to feed demand and more recently, researchers say, a belief that rhino horn can cure cancer has emerged in Vietnam.
Conservationists estimate there are around 25,000 rhinos left globally, with three species in Asia and two in Africa.
Asia's rhino populations have already been pushed to the brink of extinction by hunting and deforestation.
'Rhino poachers' shot dead in South Africa
BBC News 12 Jan 11;
Five suspected rhino poachers have been shot dead in South Africa's biggest game park in the last four days.
Park officials say that three suspects were killed in a shootout with police in the Pretoriuskop area of the Kruger National Park on Tuesday.
Another two were killed near the border with Mozambique on Saturday.
In 2010, 333 rhinos were shot in South Africa for their horns, which are sold in the black market for medicine and aphrodisiacs in Asia.
The figure represents a rise of about 10% from the previous year.
Thriving business
The five suspected poachers were killed in shootouts with South Africa's elite police unit - the Hawks.
The unit has been tracking down organised syndicates which often use high-tech equipment and helicopters in the Kruger National Park.
Officials say two rhino horns and a high-calibre hunting rifle were found at the scene of one of the shootings.
However, three suspects managed to flee across the border.
The Hawks have conceded that it is difficult to catch the masterminds - as only people who do the ground work have been arrested.
The Kruger National Park is one of the biggest in the world: it links reserves reserves along South Africa's borders with Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
South Africa is home to 90% of the continent's white rhino population.
Many arrests have been made by South African police in recent months and the cases are currently before the courts.
But poaching continues to thrive despite a tightening of anti-poaching laws in the country, the authorities say.
Rhino poaching in South Africa reaches highest ever levels in 2010
WWF 12 Jan 11;
Killings continue unabated in first days of 2011
A total of 333 rhinos were illegally killed in South Africa in 2010, including ten critically endangered black rhinos, according to national park officials. The yearly total is the highest ever experienced in South Africa and nearly triple 2009 when 122 rhinos were killed in the country. An additional five rhinos have been lost to poaching since the new year.
Kruger National Park, the world famous safari destination, was hardest hit losing 146 rhinos to poaching in 2010, authorities said. The park is home to the largest populations of both white and black rhinos in the country. Rhinos constitute one of the much-revered “Big 5” of African wildlife tourism, including elephants, lions, leopards and Cape buffalo.
Rhino poaching across Africa has risen sharply in the past few years, threatening to reverse hard-won population increases achieved by conservation authorities during the 20th century. The first alarming yearly spike occurred in 2008 when 83 rhinos were lost. South Africa has responded by intensifying its law enforcement efforts, and made approximately 162 poaching arrests last year.
“Many more successful convictions, backed up by appropriately daunting penalties will significantly demonstrate the South African government’s commitment to preventing the clouding of the country’s excellent rhino conservation track record that it has built up over the past several decades,” said Dr. Morné du Plessis, CEO of WWF South Africa.
The current wave of poaching is being committed by sophisticated criminal networks using helicopters, night-vision equipment, veterinary tranquilisers and silencers to kill rhinos at night while attempting to avoid law enforcement patrols.
“The criminal syndicates operating in South Africa are highly organised and use advanced technologies. They are very well coordinated,” said Dr. Joseph Okori, WWF African Rhino Programme Manager. “This is not typical poaching.”
The recent killing increase is largely due to heightened demand for rhino horn, which has long been prized as an ingredient in traditional Asian medicine. It has been claimed recently that rhino horn possesses cancer-curing properties, despite there being no medical evidence to support the assertion.
“Only a concerted international enforcement pincer movement, at both ends of the supply and demand chain, can hope to nip this rhino poaching crisis in the bud,” said Tom Milliken, Director of TRAFFIC’s East and Southern Africa programme. Milliken pointed to recently established coordination links between officials in South Africa and Vietnam, the country heavily implicated in the recent poaching surge.
South Africa is home to approximately 21,000 rhinos, more than any other country in the world. Black rhinos are listed as critically endangered with only about 4,200 remaining in existence, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Approximately 1,670 black rhinos were believed to be living in South Africa in 2009. The country's other resident species, white rhinos, are classified as near threatened on IUCN’s Red List of threatened species.
“The recovery of African white rhinos from less than 100 in the late 19th century to more than 20,000 today is a phenomenal conservation success story that can largely be attributed to the combined efforts of South Africa’s state and private conservation authorities. Consumers of rhino horn across Asia, and in Vietnam in particular, are now seriously compromising this achievement by motivating criminal groups to kill rhinos. In order to halt this massacre, substantial resources need to go into law enforcement, both in Africa and in Asian consumer countries where all trade in rhino horn is illegal," said Dr. du Plessis.
In South Africa, WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project aims to increase the overall numbers of black rhino by making available additional breeding lands. This is done by forming partnerships with owners of large areas of natural black rhino habitat. So far, 98 black rhino have been translocated to new range lands and at least 26 calves have been born on project sites. In December 2010, South Africa’s Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Authority committed to donating 20 black rhino to the project in an effort to aid South Africa in reaching its national target of 5,000 black rhinos.
In October 2010, TRAFFIC facilitated a visit of five South African officials to Vietnam to discuss strategies for combating the illegal rhino horn trade. TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, is a joint programme of WWF and IUCN.
First photos of coral bleaching
Nikita Watts The Morning Bulletin 13 Jan 11;
THESE are the first photographs to emerge that show coral bleaching near Great Keppel Island.
They were taken by researcher and Keppel coral expert Dr Alison Jones last week while studying the reef around Halfway Island.
Coral bleaching occurs when coral starves and eventually dies, due to high water temperature, sedimentation, pollutants and changes in salinity.
Dr Jones emphasised that so far she had seen only one reef flat affected to some extent and the conditions over the next few weeks would determine whether the flood would be as bad for the reefs as the 1991 flood.
“The difference between Keppel reefs and the rest of the Great Barrier Reef is that we have extremely high coral cover and fast regrowth, but also a very small inshore reef system that is extremely vulnerable to water quality impacts,” she said.
Dr Jones said CQUniversity had 10 permanent loggers placed in the Keppels looking at the tolerance to the salinity. “This will be the first time researchers have been able to study the effects of such a massive flood on local reefs,” she said.
Capricorn Tourism and Economic Development chief executive Mary Carroll stressed that the floodwaters were affecting only a small area of the reef.
“We continue to receive reports from divers from all over the world that these are some of the best dives they’ve ever experienced,” she said.
Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 12 Jan 11;
The government’s pursuit of increased revenue at the expense of environmental conservation could see the number of water pollution cases nationwide increase by 50 percent to 70 percent this year, activists say.
The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said on Wednesday that it expected a significant increase in the number of major water pollution cases, with mining and palm oil plantation operators once again the main culprits.
Mukri Friatna, head of advocacy at Walhi, said there were at least 79 major water pollution cases last year, affecting 65 rivers across the country.
Twenty-two were linked to palm oil operators, 18 to coal miners and 7 to gold miners.
Walhi said the expected increase could be traced to several factors, including more mining and plantation concessions being awarded, outdated waste disposal standards and a lack of enforcement of environmental impact analysis, or Amdal, requirements.
“Walhi has since 2000 warned the government about these ecological disasters, which also lead to frequent floods and landslides, but there has been no response at all,” Mukri said.
“In fact, looking at the environmental regulations that have been issued so far, the country’s environmental condition is only going to worsen.”
He said the government’s attitude could be summed up by a decision it made in 2004 to grant 13 companies permits to mine in natural forests, valuing the land in the deals at only Rp 120 to Rp 300 per square meter.
“The benefit to the country from these mining activities is not worth the damage that it does to our forests,” Mukri said.
“In 2009, the state only received Rp 168.7 billion in revenue from 101 corporate taxpayers in the mining sector, while in 2010, that figure was down to Rp 78.7 billion from 112 companies.”
He said these amounts paled in comparison to the estimated Rp 6.66 trillion ($740 million) lost due to corruption in the forestry sector in just nine provinces.
Mukri also took the government to task for its lack of law enforcement, pointing out that of 20 people charged with breaking environmental laws last year, only five were convicted, one was given probation and the rest were acquitted.
Rhino Subagyo, executive director of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, a nongovernmental group, said the country had progressive green laws that emphasized sustainable development, but had failed to implement them.
He cited the 2009 Environmental Management and Protection Law as a case in point, saying it gave the Environment Ministry greater powers to arrest violators, whereas in the past it could only flag violations.
“However, the law hasn’t been fully enacted by the government,” he said.
“The government has simply acknowledged that it’s an important law, but has done nothing in practice to support it.”
He said this lack of commitment was also apparent in the Environment Ministry’s Proper Index, which rates companies based on their environmental credentials.
While the index serves to name and shame polluting companies, it does not prescribe punishments or require them to clean up their act.
“When you see the Proper Index, it’s obvious that the government still has no clear idea how to protect the country’s natural resources,” Rhino said.
A first step, he said, is for the government to issue the necessary regulations to enact environmental laws.
Walhi estimates that ecological disasters, including floods, landslides and pollution, cost the state up to Rp 20 trillion last year.
That doesn’t include damage from Mount Merapi’s eruptions.
Walhi: Environmental damage to increase 50-70 pct in 2011
Antara 12 Jan 11;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) predicts that environmental damage in Indonesia in 2011 will increase by 50 percent to 70 percent from last year`s figure.
Walhi activist Mukri Friatna said there were six factors which would contribute to the damage, namely the fact that the government continues to issue operation licenses for big mining and paper companies.
Another factor was the threshold of company`s waste to be disposed which was considered to be relatively loose and no longer relevant to the actual conditions. Mukri referred to the environmental impact assessment (Amdal) report obliged for every companies. The report, he said, was not yet putting natural disaster and human rights as valued points.
The third factor was the absence of a governmental regulation about guidelines for devising a strategic environmental research program (KLHS). The fourth was the fact that many provinces and districts had not yet completed their Regional Regulation on Spatial Planning.
Mukri also said there were companies and hospitals which had not yet made Amdal reports and proper waste management. He also considered the government was being too slow in handling cases related to environmental damage.
He said the ongoing environmental degradation might cause various ecological disasters which could eventually affect the people.
South Sumatra government urged to overcome environmental damage
Antara 12 Jan 11;
Palembang, S Sumatra (ANTARA News) - The South Sumatra branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI) has urged the local government to immediately overcome continuous environmental damage in the province.
Local WALHI`s Executive Director Anwar Sadat said here on Wednesday that the environmental damage of river pollution, deforestation, and ecological destruction in South Sumatra should be seriously dealt with immediately.
In the company of his staff, Hadi Jatmiko, Anwar Sadat said that based on the facts and findings during an investigation in 2010, illegal logging activities and ecological destruction in the province were still rampant.
"We are afraid that if the local government fails to do something about the environmental destruction in the province immediately, it will get even worse in 2011," Anwar Sadat said.
WALHI predicts that environmental damage in Indonesia this year would increase by 50 to 70 percent compared to that of previous year.
Walhi`s activist Mukri Friatna said in Jakarta on Wednesday that there were a number of factors which would contribute to the damage namely the government which kept giving license for big mining and paper companies to operate.
Another factor was the threshold of company`s waste to be disposed which was considered to be relatively loose and no longer relevant to the actual condition.
Mukri referred to the environmental impact assessment (Amdal) report obliged for every companies.
The third factor was the absence of government`s regulation about the guidelines for composing the environmental strategic research program (KLHS).
The fourth was the fact that many provinces and districts had not yet completed their Regional Regulation about the Spatial Planning.
Mukri also said there were companies and hospitals which had not yet made Amdal report and proper waste management.
He also considered the government was being too slow in handling cases related to environmental damage.
Yogi Aggarwal Business Times 13 Jan 11;
MANAGING the often-conflicting demands of fast economic growth and safeguarding the environment is hard. It involves tough choices between protecting forests and rivers on the one hand and industrialists and miners on the other; large investments that generate employment and yet may displace local populations and lead to loss of existing livelihoods.
In an economy such as that of India, which is hoping to achieve a consistent growth of over 9 per cent, these choices boil down to policy and investment decisions that often involve enforcing existing laws, or ensuring that profitable opportunities aren't missed.
The clearest statement of the environmental point of view is in a United Nations document that says: 'Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'
The difficulty lies in putting economic numbers onto a concept like this one. The World Bank has a metric that measures the rate of savings in an economy after taking into account investments in human capital, depletion of natural resources and damage caused by pollution.
In India's case, according to the World Bank data, the gross national saving as a per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) was around 34.3 in 2008, but because of depletion in natural resources and pollution-related damage, the loss was 10 per cent and 'adjusted net saving' was just 24.2 per cent.
Partha Dasgupta, a professor at Cambridge University who is a leading authority in this field, has calculated that against the estimated growth rate of India's per capita GDP of 2.96 per cent during 1970-2001, the growth rate after taking into account environmental costs works out to 0.31 per cent per year.
The costs are even higher when mining for minerals or coal is involved. Much of the mineral resources are found in states such as Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhatisgarh. These states account for 70 per cent of India's coal reserves, nearly 80 per cent of high-grade iron ore and 60 per cent of bauxite.
They are also heavily forested and many of them are also inhabited by tribal people (aborigines) - the original inhabitants of the sub-continent. As a result, large parts of the mineral-bearing areas are being deforested, and because of displacement and poor rehabilitation policies these places face a Maoist insurgency.
Deforestation and the rebellion of displaced aborigines is a major reason that the several stalled projects are on forest land. A six-million-tonne-per-annum steel plant by Tata Steel and a 12-million-tonne-per-annum steel plant by South Korea's Posco in Orissa have been blocked. Both of these could be cancelled.
The Environment Ministry has also scrapped plans by the Vedanta group for bauxite mines and for expansion of an alumina refinery in Orissa from one million to six million tonnes per annum.
Jairam Ramesh, the MIT-trained engineer who is the minister of environment and forests, said recently: 'Is the debate really environment versus development or is it one of adhering to rules, regulations and laws versus taking the rules, regulations and laws for granted? I think the latter is a more accurate representation and a better way to formulate the choice.'
Until Mr Ramesh took over the ministry in 2009, getting environmental clearance was considered as part of the 'licence raj', the system of greasing palms to get the requisite permits. Now many projects find the environmental laws cannot be bypassed.
Until the late 1960s, little thought was given to the environment. Since then ecological concerns have been given form in pieces of legislation such as the Water Pollution Control Act passed in 1974, the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, the Environment Protection Act of 1986 and, most recently, the Forest Rights Act of 2006.
Though the assessment of environmental impact currently done is often of poor quality and needs to be made more professional, a beginning has been made.
There have been cases when environmental clearance has been given on conditions being fulfilled. This happened to the provisional approval for a second airport for Mumbai and for a 10,000 MW nuclear power station on the Konkan coast, south of Mumbai.
Other projects previously passed, for instance a new hill station near Pune, have been temporarily stalled.
Mr Ramesh often maintains that 95 per cent of all projects sent for approval to his ministry are cleared. The ones that are not often involve mining. A differentiated approach needs to be taken for mining activities between essential and non-essential needs.
If India is to grow at 9 per cent, its electricity consumption should go up by 6.5-7 per cent annually. And since 70 per cent of the electric supply is from coal-fired plants, the Ministry of Coal believes that local production of coal should be doubled in 10 years to one billion tonnes per annum, to generate another 90 gigawatts of electricity.
The Environment Ministry's maps show that many of the new mines lie in 'no-go' zones for mining. This is disputed by the coal ministry. Since increase in power generation is vital for increase in GDP growth and for the country's prosperity, some kind of compromise on regulations for the mining of coal may be necessary.
But the iron-ore mines and the huge bauxite deposits are a different matter. Much of the iron ore is exported, mainly to China. It partly balances the vastly unequal trade. However, many of the mines are illegal.
The iron-ore mines, particularly in Goa and Karnataka, are not even following basic procedures of trying to restore the land after extracting the ore.
Considering that this is a scarce mineral resource, strict environmental norms should be imposed, even if exports fall. A similar case could be made for the mining of bauxite, especially since there is strong opposition to the mining in the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa, considered sacred by the aborigines. Mining, more than any other industry, creates the strongest opposition, and stringent laws need to be imposed to stop reckless exploitation.
Yahoo News 12 Jan 11;
NEW YORK (AFP) – World agriculture employs more than one billion people but is in trouble because it's the biggest consumer of ever scarcer water and a huge producer of greenhouse gas emissions, a new report said Wednesday.
Worldwatch Institute, a research group on climate, energy, agriculture and the green economy, said there had to be a revolution in investment in food and water to reverse a "frightening" long-term depletion of stocks.
"Agriculture as we know it today is in trouble," said the institute's "State of the World 2011" report.
The industry accounts for one trillion dollars of the global economy but also 70 percent of water withdrawals and 15 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, much of that from developing countries.
The institute said small farmers who dominate the industry would be the key to maintaining food supplies for the world's estimated one billion hungry people.
Studies have shown that increasing food production is not making a dent in reducing hunger in the world.
"From 1980 to 2009, the production of barley, corn, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorghum and wheat increased by nearly 55 percent," said the report. But at the same time "hunger also increased and countries' food self-sufficiency declined in that same period."
Developing countries need investment to make them less dependent on food imports and international markets. They should put more emphasis on small scale and less intensive farming, the report said.
"The remarkable news is that after years of neglect, governments are reinvesting in agriculture and giving priority to small-scale producers," said the report.
"They are recognizing the important role of women, infrastructure, safety nets, and local markets," it added. "All this holds great potential for eradicating hunger."
Worldwatch Institute warned that with nearly seven billion people now in the world, and an increase of up to 40 percent expected by 2050, governments still need to take urgent action.
"This additional population, and further economic growth, will add up to sharply higher global demand for food, feed, and fiber and to higher meat consumption," said the report.
World hunger best cured by small-scale agriculture: report
A move from industrial farming towards local food projects is our healthiest, most sustainable choice, says Worldwatch Institute
Nidhi Prakash guardian.co.uk 13 Jan 11;
The key to alleviating world hunger, poverty and combating climate change may lie in fresh, small-scale approaches to agriculture, according to a report from the Worldwatch Institute.
The US-based institute's annual State of the World report, published yesterday, calls for a move away from industrial agriculture and discusses small-scale initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa that work towards poverty and hunger relief in an environmentally sustainable way.
The authors suggest that instead of producing more food to meet the world's growing population needs, a more effective way to address food security issues and climate change would be to encourage self-sufficiency and waste reduction, in wealthier and poorer nations alike.
"If we shift just some of our attention away from production to consumption issues and reducing food waste, we might actually get quite a big bang for our buck, because that ground has been neglected," said Brian Halweil, co-director of the project.
"The majority of incentives that governments give to farmers are still tied to the production mindset. The farmers are rewarded for sheer production quantity, with very little guidance for the quality they produce and the impact of their farming practices on the environment and on human health and nutrition ... It is necessary to change these incentives," he said.
The projects explored in the report include community-based initiatives in urban farming, school gardening and feeding programmes, and indigenous livestock preservation.
In Kenya's largest slum, in Nairobi, local women are growing vertical gardens in sacks, providing them with a source of income but also an element of food security for their families.
"They sell their produce and also consume part of what they grow," said Danielle Nierenberg, Halweil's co-director.
"As we talk about all these innovations, it's important to remember that farmers aren't just farmers: they're businesswomen and -men, they're stewards of their land and they're educators passing on their knowledge to others in their communities," she said.
In another programme in Uganda, Developing Innovations in School Cultivation (Disc), children are being taught about nutrition, food preparation and growing local vegetables. Pilot programmes are also being run in Mali and Sudan to feed children in schools and educate them on food production and consumption.
Anna Lappé, the author of a chapter in the report entitled Coping with Climate Change and Building Resilience, said: "We have really emphasised a set of policies over the past half a century that have prioritised an agricultural system that is incredibly fuel-intensive and emissions-based."
Emma Hockridge, head of policy at the UK Soil Association, said the report supports the case for the expansion of organic farming.
"Organic farming systems benefit biodiversity, are resilient in the face of climate change, and have been shown to improve yields and the ability of poor communities in the global south to feed themselves," she said.
Although Halweil says national governments should lead the way in implementing change, the report suggests that international attitudes towards agricultural development need to shift if the lessons from these case studies are to bring about results on a larger scale.
"I think the African Union is a natural starting point, an organising body for all these initiatives, to share between members the experience in these initiatives, but also in setting themselves goals," said Halweil.
He suggests that international aid policies on food need an overhaul to better serve the long-term interests of those on the ground.
"Food aid is a short-term fix, a Band-Aid rather than an opportunity to infuse money into the local economy and an incentive to process and distribute food locally," he said.
See also
On the Worldwatch Institute website: Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2011 Shows Agricultural Innovation Is Key to Reducing Poverty, Stabilizing Climate
Richard Ingham Yahoo News 12 Jan 11;
PARIS (AFP) – Massive changes in farming practices, eating habits and consumption will be needed to feed Earth's population sustainably when it hits nine billion in 2050, French scientists warned on Wednesday.
In under 40 years, the world will have to make farming more productive but less dependent on harmful chemicals, curb food losses and waste, protect the environment and reduce agriculture's exposure to disastrous price swings, they said.
Their study, called Agrimonde (Agriworld in French), is co-authored by specialists at France's National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and the International Cooperative Centre for Agronomical Research for Development (CIRAD).
"This exercise is undertaken at a very specific human history, at a time when the population today is seven billion," CIRAD president Gerard Matheron said at a press conference. "World agriculture faces a major challenge."
Last week, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported that food prices had hit their highest level ever and World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned that rising prices for staples "are re-emerging as a threat to global growth and social stability."
Riots in Algeria, meanwhile, left five people dead, hundreds wounded and about 1,000 in jail, prompting the authorities to promise to cut food prices.
The Agrimonde study said that North Africa and the Middle East, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, all with fast-growing populations today, will be heavily dependent on imported food in 2050.
It puts forward two scenarios -- both relatively optimistic -- by which the planet's expected nine billion humans are fed by 2050.
Under a business-as-usual scenario, all regions in the world would enjoy strong economic growth, invest heavily in research, innovation, education, health and infrastructure.
But, under this scenario, there is not a high priority to the environment, with resulting damage to ecosystems.
Under the second scenario, environmental integrity is a key factor.
To achieve this goal in sustainability, rich countries in particular would have to reduce excessive consumption that leads to obesity and tackle loss and waste in food distribution and use that today runs at around 25 percent of production.
Agriculture everywhere would have to be more economical in fossil fuels and make less use of chemicals.
"However, this would not be a return to archaic agriculture, but instead require innovation and social change," said CIRAD researcher Bruno Dorin, who co-authored the study.
Genetic manipulation of plants to boost yields would be necessary. However, smarter ways of traditional cross-breeding are emerging as good alternatives to genetic engineering, which is a hot political issue in many countries, he said.
At the same time, there would have to be changes in trade rules so that the food supply line to importing countries becomes stronger and more resilient, thus easing the price shocks that hit producer or customer.
"The necessary and foreseeable growth of agricultural exchanges coming from OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, the ex-Soviet block and Latin America, and going towards Africa, Asia and the Middle East needs to be stabilised and regulated," says the paper.
Alister Doyle Reuters 12 Jan 11;
OSLO (Reuters) - Major financial firms feel they lack information about climate change to help clients manage increasing risks ranging from heatwaves to rising sea levels, a U.N.-backed study showed on Wednesday.
"Climate expertise is an emerging factor of competition," according to the survey of 60 insurers, banks and asset managers including Aviva, Banco Santander, Deutsche Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ and Citigroup.
"More than half of the respondents feel that the level of information today is not sufficient," according to the study by the U.N. Environment Programme's (UNEP) Finance Initiative, sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research.
Better information could help financial institutions to assess and adapt to increases in floods, heatwaves and droughts as well as creeping threats such as higher sea levels and the encroachment of desert, projected by the U.N. panel of climate scientists.
Respondents reckoned the risks of climate change were likely to increase.
"To date, the key role financial institutions and other private sector decision-makers can play in increasing the climate resilience of economies and societies has been neglected at best," said Paul Clements Hunt, head of UNEP's Finance Initiative.
MATTER OF TRUST
"The relevance of climate data and their interpretation for business purposes will play a more and more important role," Ernst Rauch, head of the corporate Climate Center at Munich Re, said in a statement.
Respondents most wanted to know how far they could trust predictions and statements about the climate, closely followed by calls for more detailed regional climate projections.
The study showed 89 percent of financial groups operating in Africa felt inadequately informed about the regional climate risks. Percentages were lower on other continents, with just 56 percent feeling inadequately informed in Europe.
Respondents reckoned there was a lack of knowledge about the impacts of climate change on individual business sectors, including healthcare, chemicals, tourism and mining.
The credibility of the U.N. panel of climate experts has suffered after its latest report in 2007 exaggerated a thaw in the Himalayas. Expert reviews, however, have endorsed its main conclusion that climate change is very likely man-made.
(Editing by David Hulmes)
Current climate information insufficient, say world's financial institutions
UNEP 12 Jan 11;
Frankfurt/Geneva/Nairobi, 12 January 2011 - The availability of and access to climate change information remains insufficient, according to many of the world's leading financial institutions. A pioneering study launched today confirms the increasing financial relevance of climate change and the fact that insurers and lenders need better information regarding the physical and economic impacts of the world's changing weather patterns.
The report, sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, presents the results of an international survey undertaken by the Climate Change Working Group (CCWG) of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and the Sustainable Business Institute (SBI), Germany. More than 60 institutions, from both developed and developing countries, took part in the survey.
Financial service providers and their customers are increasingly affected by the impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather events. Moreover, the survey shows that insurers, reinsurers, lenders, and asset managers expect these kinds of risks to increase in the future.
Given that financial institutions are able to influence their clients and investee companies across all sectors of the economy, they can play a key role in accelerating the implementation of adaptation measures by the private sector.
But in order for the sector to manage climatic risks affecting their business portfolios and to give the best possible advice to their customers, financial institutions need access to applied information such as climate change predictions, modelling, analysis, and interpretation. Such information needs to be appropriate to the duration of contracts, the regions where customers hold assets or undertake operations and the hazards that are material to the operations of borrowers, investees, and the insured.
"To date the key role that financial institutions and other private sector decision- makers can play in increasing the climate resilience of economies and societies has been neglected at best", said Paul Clements-Hunt, Head of UNEP Finance Initiative. "The rapid reduction in greenhouse gases and the adaptation to the unavoidable effects of global warming need to go hand-in-hand if we are to cope with the climate challenge. This study is a first step in identifying what is needed so that financial institutions can start playing their important role in accelerating the shift to climate-resilient economies", he added.
Climate change forecasts and predictions of the resulting economic impacts will never be perfect and will inevitably feature some element of uncertainty. But the more information and expertise regarding climate change and its uncertainties that is available to financial institutions, the better these risks can be calculated. This will enable insurers, reinsurers, lenders, and asset managers to price and absorb these risks more effectively.
This can be crucial not only to the performance of individual businesses and financial institutions, but to the entire economic tissue of communities affected by climate change and the social well-being it underpins.
"Financial institutions are experts in identifying, quantifying and pricing risks. This expertise can be of great value to society at large when faced with the sheer uncertainty linked with changing climate patterns and the significant risks of resulting impacts", said Mark Fulton, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors and Co-Chair of UNEP FI's Climate Change Working Group (CCWG). "This study confirms that what private sector institutions need in order to become real 'adaptation catalysts' is objective and reliable information. We need to work towards enhancing the access of private sector decision makers to climate information as well as, most importantly, improving the reliability and accuracy of our climate models and forecasts", he added.
The survey identified that such information gaps can be closed by continued research towards more reliable climate modelling and forecasting, as well as enhanced translation of scientific knowledge and existing information into user-friendly information. Such efforts are likely to require more intensive collaboration between users and suppliers, public and private actors, scientists and decision makers.
The survey is available at www.unepfi.org
Yahoo News 12 Jan 11;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Last year tied with 2005 as the warmest year on record for global surface temperature, US government scientists said in a report on Wednesday that offered the latest data on climate change.
The Earth in 2010 experienced temperatures higher than the 20th century average for the 34th year in a row, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Overall, 2010 and 2005 were 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 Celsius) above the 20th century average when taking a combination of land and water surface temperatures across the world, it said.
Those two years were also the highest in temperature since record-keeping began in 1880.
Last year was the wettest on record, NOAA said citing Global Historical Climatology Network which made the calculation based on global average precipitation, even though regional patterns varied widely.
When it came to hurricanes and storms, the Pacific Ocean saw the fewest number of hurricanes and named storms, three and seven respectively, since the 1960s.
But the Atlantic Ocean told a different story, with 12 hurricanes and 19 named storms, which include tropical storms and depressions, marking the second highest number of hurricanes on record and third highest for storms.
The analysis also tracked weather changes that contributed to massive floods in Pakistan and a heat wave in Russia, saying an "unusually strong jet stream" from June to August was to blame.
"The jet stream remained locked in place for weeks, bringing an unprecedented two-month heat wave to Russia and contributing to devastating floods in Pakistan at the end of July," it said.
Expert Bob Ward at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science said the US data shows proof of climate change.
"These new figures show unequivocally that the Earth is warming and its temperature is at record levels," Ward said.
Last year's data "also showed that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had reached 390 parts per million, its highest level for at least 800,000 years and almost 40 per cent higher than the level before the start of the Industrial Revolution when humans started to burn fossil fuels in increasing amounts," he said.
"The evidence is overwhelming that human activities are driving climate change."
In the United States alone, 2010 marked the 14th year in a row with higher annual average temperatures when compared to the long term average since 1895, NOAA said.
Record snowfalls at the start of the year in the northeast including Washington and Philadelphia were part of a winter pattern driven by El Nino and the Arctic Oscillation, NOAA said.
A separate report by Canada's Environment Ministry said that last year was the warmest in Canada since it began keeping meteorological records 63 years ago.
Canada's second warmest year was 1998, when temperatures were 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) higher than normal, the ministry said, adding that its records went back to 1948.
International studies published on Sunday warned that global warming could wipe out three-quarters of Europe's alpine glaciers by 2100 and hike sea levels by four meters (13 feet) by the year 3000 through melting the West Antarctic icesheet.
2010 Ties For Warmest Year, Emissions To Blame
Timothy Gardner PlanetArk 13 Jan 11;
Last year tied for the warmest since data started in 1880, capping a decade of record high temperatures that shows mankind's greenhouse gas emissions are heating the planet, two U.S. agencies said.
Global surface temperatures in 2010 were 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 Celsius) above the 20th century average, tying the record set in 2005, the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Wednesday.
"These results show that the climate is continuing to show the influence of greenhouse gases. It's showing evidence of warming," David Easterling, the chief of the scientific services division at the NCDC, told reporters in a teleconference.
Many places, such as Russia and Pakistan, suffered from heat waves and floods that killed thousands, scorched crops and inundated countless farm acres. Those events, caused in part by a shifted jet stream in the atmosphere, helped lead to record global food prices and threaten to lead to food riots like those seen in 2008.
It's not possible to directly link global warming as the cause of one weather event. But the trend of rising temperatures since 2000 increases the possibility of extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and floods, Easterling said. Every year since 2000 has ranked as one of the 15 warmest years on record, he said.
Last year was also the wettest on record and a warmer atmosphere holds more water, which in general can result in more floods, he said.
FUTURE
The report did not predict weather in the future. But the U.N. climate science panel says weather is likely to be more extreme this century because of a build up of gases released by burning fossil fuels and forest destruction.
James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said "if the warming trend continues, as is expected, if greenhouse gases continue to increase, the 2010 record will not stand for long." His office also released a report on Wednesday that said 2010 was tied for the warmest year on record with 2005.
Jay Gulledge, the senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said farmers and others can adjust to expected warmer temperatures, but preparing for extreme weather is harder. "We've got really immense potential right now to have even bigger impacts from the direct effects of extreme events," he said.
As the weather warmed, the world did not do enough to prevent future climate change, scientists said.
At U.N. climate talks in Cancun late last year nearly 200 countries agreed to set a target of limiting a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees C (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.
But promised emissions curbs by big polluters such as China and the United States are not enough to achieve that goal and tougher actions are needed, climate scientists said.
NOAA's and NASA's reports were the first of four major ones on global 2010 temperatures. The UK Met Office's Hadley Center and the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization are expected to issue reports later this month.
PARADOX
Frigid winters in parts of Europe and the United States in 2010 may be a paradoxical side effect of climate change, some scientists said. Rising temperatures mean a shrinking of sea ice in the Arctic, heating the region and pushing cold air southwards during the winter, according to a study last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Warming of the air over the Barents and Kara seas, for instance, seems to bring cold winter winds to Europe.
"This is not what one would expect," said Vladimir Petoukhov, lead author of the study and climate scientist at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. "Whoever thinks that the shrinking of some far away sea-ice won't bother him could be wrong."
The release of the NOAA report itself was delayed one day by an unusually hard snowstorm in North Carolina.
"These anomalies could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia," he said. "Recent severe winters like last year's ... do not conflict with the global warming picture, but rather supplement it."
(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Oslo; graphic by Emily Stephenson)
(Editing by Marguerita Choy and Lisa Shumaker)
2010 hit by weather extremes: Pakistan to Russia
Reuters AlertNet 12 Jan 11;
Jan 12 (Reuters) - Last year, in which extreme weather caused devastating floods in Pakistan and China and a heatwave in Russia, tied as the warmest year since records began, a U.S. government agency said on Wednesday. [ID:nN12197667].
The U.N. panel of climate change experts says that weather is likely to be more extreme in the 21st century because of a build-up of heat-trapping gases from human use of fossil fuels.
Last year tied with 2005 as the warmest since global surface records began in 1880, according to the National Climatic Data Center, an office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Following are examples of extreme weather in 2010.
PAKISTAN FLOODS - Pakistan had its worst flooding in its history after exceptional monsoon rains, killing more than 1,500 people and displacing more than 20 million.
RUSSIAN HEATWAVE - Russia had its most severe heatwave, with average temperatures for Moscow a scorching 7.6 degrees Celsius (14 F) above normal in July. About 11,000 excess deaths in summer were attributed to the extreme heat in Moscow alone. The heatwave caused forest fires and drought led to crop failures that contributed to drive up world food prices. Finland, Ukraine and Belarus also had extreme high temperatures at the time.
World wheat prices rose 47 percent last year, for instance, and the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization said key grain prices could rise further [ID:nLD37041BM]
AUSTRALIA FLOODS - Heavy rains made 2010 the third wettest year on record in Australia even before devastating floods in early 2011 that have killed 16 people [ID:nL3E7CC094]. Large parts of Australia and Indonesia suffered heavy rains from May 2010, linked to the La Nina event that cools the Pacific Ocean and disrupts weather patterns [ID:nL3E7CC0WS].
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HOT - Canada had its warmest year on record in 2010, with mean temperatures 3 degrees Celsius above normal. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver lacked snow.
Large parts of northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and southwest Asia also had their warmest year on record.
High temperatures included a sweltering 53.5 Celsius (128.30F) at MohenjoDaro in Pakistan, a national record and the highest temperature in Asia since at least 1942. Other highs included 52.0 degrees Celsius in Jeddah and 50.4 in Doha.
COLD - A few areas had below-average temperatures over 2010, including parts of Siberia, interior Australia, parts of the United States and Europe.
Opponents of proposed U.S. legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions seized upon blizzards in February in the eastern United States as evidence that global warming was not happening. The family of Senator James Inhofe, a Republican climate sceptic, built an igloo on Capitol Hill with a sign that said "Al Gore's new home." The bill ultimately failed, contributing to scant progress in U.N. talks towards a new climate treaty.
The winter chill in parts of Europe and the United States caused travel chaos. A thaw of Arctic sea ice, itself linked to global warming, may have driven chill air southwards, some scientists say.
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OTHER EXTREMES - Floods and landslides killed more than 1,400 people in Gansu province in China. Floods in Colombia have killed about 300 people since April, displaced 2 million and caused estimated damage of up to $5.2 billion
The Amazon basin was hit by drought and the Rio Negro, a major Amazon tributary, fell to its lowest level on record.
EL NINO/LA NINA - The year started with a strong El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean, a naturally occurring weather phenomenon associated with warmer than normal water. It was succeeded by a cooling La Nina event.
SEA ICE - Arctic sea ice shrank in summer to the third smallest in the satellite record, behind 2007 and 2008. Antarctic sea ice was slightly bigger than normal.
(Compiled by Alister Doyle in Oslo, extra reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington. Sources: Reuters bureaus, U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
El Nino Seen Triggering Next World Warmth Record
Alister Doyle PlanetArk 14 Jan 11;
Last year tied with 2005 as the warmest on record, according to U.S. agencies, but is likely to be overtaken soon by the next year with a strong El Nino weather event, experts said on Thursday.
A gradual build-up of greenhouse gases from human activities is heating the planet but natural events such as El Nino, which every few years warms the surface of the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, can have a far bigger immediate impact.
"It will take an El Nino year to break the record, so possibly the next one," said professor Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain.
On Wednesday, the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies said 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year since reliable data started in 1880, capping a decade of record temperatures.
Last year started with an El Nino, as did 2005 and 1998 which is rated the warmest year by the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The WMO is likely to give a view of 2010's ranking in late January, after compiling temperature data that is also due from Jones' unit alongside NCDC and NASA. El Nino can disrupt world weather, with effects on everything from food to energy prices.
Knut Alfsen, research director at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, said greenhouse gases from human activities caused the Earth to absorb more energy than it radiated into space.
"Most of that energy goes into the oceans -- so a record depends on the behavior of the oceans, typically an El Nino or La Nina event," he said.
LA NINA
A current La Nina, widely seen as a factor causing floods in Australia that have killed at least 19 people, is a natural cooling of the Pacific that mirrors El Nino.
Other natural events that affect temperatures include variations in the sun's output, shifts in ocean currents or big volcanic eruptions such as that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, whose ash dimmed sunlight worldwide.
Jones said that warming from 1979 to 2010 had been 0.51 degree Celsius (0.9 Fahrenheit), or 0.016 C a year. But annual natural swings were far bigger -- in the largest 20th century shift, 1977 was 0.29 degree C warmer than 1976.
Jones was cleared of scientific misconduct last year after hacked e-mails raised questions about the reliability of data in the "Climategate" controversy.
The U.N. panel of climate scientists said in 2007 it was at least 90 percent likely that human activities were the main cause of global warming, leaving a slim possibility that natural variations such as the sun's output may be to blame.
And the climate system is far from fully understood. A study in the Journal Science in 2010 said the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere, which also retains heat, had declined since 2000 and braked the rise caused by greenhouse gases.
Governments are far from agreement on how to solve the problem. U.N. talks in Mexico last month agreed steps such as a fund to help poor nations cope with everything from floods to rising sea levels. But a binding treaty is far off.
(Editing by Andrew Roche)
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