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Countries can then hammer out legally binding agreement
Jessica Cheam Straits Times 10 Dec 10;
CANCUN (MEXICO): Both developed and developing countries must summon the political will and converge on how to deal with climate change, said Singapore's Senior Minister S. Jayakumar.
When there is such a will, they can then forge a global legally binding agreement, which will ensure that commitments will be based on rules applied across the board.
This will help the world avoid a worst-case scenario in which dissent among nations could lead to a failure of multilateral negotiations.
This underlines the importance of the ongoing climate talks at Cancun, said Prof Jayakumar, who on Wednesday described them as 'an important turning point'.
'In that sense, we are at a crossroad. The future direction of climate change negotiations depends on what we do here or fail to do,' he declared.
Prof Jayakumar was speaking at the high-level segment of the summit, which he is attending with Minister of the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim.
The two-week United Nations conference aims to address the curbing of greenhouse gas emissions and helping countries cope with climate change.
Last year's summit at Copenhagen failed to produce a binding agreement on emissions targets to replace the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that expires in 2012.
In his speech, Prof Jayakumar stressed the need for a legally binding global deal, noting it would instil confidence in countries to carry out their pledges.
He described three possible scenarios arising from negotiations: A 'united world' with a legally binding pact; 'muddling along' with a mix of agreement and disagreement, which could lead to prolonged tension among major players; and 'conflict and crossfire', with dissent among all parties that could ultimately prompt some to take harmful unilateral actions such as trade tariffs.
Prof Jayakumar noted that the eventual scenario would depend on how countries acted collectively.
'If we have the political will, we can avoid the worst-case scenario. We should also avoid a scenario of muddling along. If there is political will, we can achieve the best-case scenario of a climate regime built on a legally binding global agreement,' he said.
European Union climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard made the same point at a press conference on Wednesday.
'What is at stake here is also multilateralism... to come out of here with nothing is not a political option, and a dangerous option for multilateralism,' she said.
So far, the issue of what to do after the Kyoto Protocol expires, remains a sticking point. Prof Jayakumar noted that it was important to 'send a strong political signal' in Cancun on its continuity.
But developed countries such as those in Europe, and Japan and Russia say they will not commit to another period of emissions reduction targets if major players like the US, China and India do not do the same.
Another key issue is monitoring how countries keep to their pledges.
Major emerging economies like China and India have recently softened their stance on external verification, but Ms Hedegaard said specifics had to be ironed out. The issue of transparency, she added, is still 'in conversation'.
With days to go before the conference ends tomorrow, Singapore time, negotiators are still working out the details on monitoring and other issues including climate funding. Among other things, they are still debating the size and sources of the funding.
Prof Jayakumar told The Straits Times that the atmosphere at Cancun was less acrimonious than at Copenhagen. But there was still a sharp polarisation of views beneath that surface, especially between developed and developing countries, he revealed.
Dr Yaacob Ibrahim acknowledged that climate change was a complex topic that would likely not interest average Singaporeans, but he appealed to them to understand and support Singapore's efforts to become more resource-efficient.
A climate crossroads
Esther Ng Today Online 10 Dec 10;
CANCUN - With less than 48 hours to go before global climate talks in Cancun conclude, Senior Minister S Jayakumar laid out the options the world was facing as it finds itself at a crossroads.
Outlining the various "rough sketches" as to how climate change negotiations could evolve in the next few years, Professor Jayakumar, who heads the Singapore delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), called on world leaders to show the necessary "political will".
"If there is political will, then we can create the convergence necessary for a global agreement," said Prof Jayakumar, "How we choose to proceed, and what outcome we can have, is entirely up to us as sovereign states."
Prof Jayakumar said that, under a "united world" scenario, a global legally-binding agreement (LBA) will be reached by next year or 2012. He acknowledged that this "optimistic scenario" may not be achieved but said the world had to aim for this outcome as it was the "best way" to deal with the challenges posed by climate change.
The second scenario, which he described as "muddling along", would happen when there was no clarity in the approach but some agreement on certain issues. This could lead to concrete decisions adopted at each UNFCCC, also known as Conference of Parties (COP).
While this proposition was "realistic", it would not be satisfactory as it is "not sufficient to be muddling along", he said.
He added: "There could also be convergence on substance using the political understandings reached at Copenhagen Accord as a framework. But public pressure in our countries may demand more action than is delivered by our process and this could lead to tension among the major players."
The worst-case scenario? A "conflict and cross-fire" where there is divergence and dissension among all parties on many substantive issues, and no clarity in approach between an LBA and COP decisions and countries resort to unilateral or plurilateral measures, like "border trade adjustments".
Prof Jayakumar noted that this was "not an impossible scenario" but one that countries have to "avoid at all cost, because such a scenario will represent the failure of multilateral negotiations and of the UNFCCC".
Reiterating Singapore's goal of reaching a legally-binding outcome, Prof Jayakumar said: "The LBA does not absolutely guarantee the implementation of all commitments and pledges. However, it will provide reasonable assurance that there will be reciprocity of actions among parties and instil confidence in countries to implement their own."
An LBA would apply not only to commitments on mitigation, but also those relating to finance, capacity building and technology transfer.
By Saturday, the world will know which path it has chosen.
Legally binding pact after Cancun 'vital'
Jaya outlines three possible scenarios resulting from climate change talks
Joyce Hooi Business Times 10 Dec 10;
SENIOR Minister S Jayakumar outlined three possible scenarios in which the climate change negotiations could result, while delivering Singapore's national statement at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Cancun, Mexico on Wednesday.
The best of the three outcomes was what Professor Jayakumar called a 'United World' scenario, in which political will and convergence would be present among all the parties involved.
'Under this scenario, there is agreement on a comprehensive, global legally binding agreement (LBA) to be reached not now but later in 2011 or 2012. The LBA will provide the foundation for a multilateral, rules-based climate change regime,' said Prof Jayakumar.
He added that such a scenario may not be immediately achievable. 'Nevertheless, we must aim for such a scenario because it is the best way to deal with the challenges posed by climate change,' he said.
The worst possible foreseeable outcome was one that he called the 'Conflict and Cross-fire' scenario.
'In such a scenario, the UNFCCC fails to deliver an agreement, which in turn could lead to public pressures to take action through other channels, such as unilateral or plurilateral measures, like border trade adjustments,' said Prof Jayakumar.
'This is a scenario that we have to avoid at all cost, because such a scenario will represent the failure of multilateral negotiations and of the UNFCCC.'
Somewhere in between, a 'Muddling Along' scenario exists, in which a lack of clarity could exist alongside agreement on some issues, according to Prof Jayakumar.
'There could also be convergence on substance using the political understandings reached at Copenhagen Accord as a framework. But public pressure in our countries may demand more action than is delivered by our process and this could lead to tension among the major players,' he said.
Prof Jayakumar deemed this scenario a realistic one but not satisfactory. 'It is not sufficient to be muddling along. We have to aim higher than that,' he said.
Which scenario ultimately triumphs will depend on whether there is both political will to solve the climate change problem and political convergence on the key issues during negotiations, he said.
Prof Jayakumar also stressed the importance of a legally binding agreement. 'It will provide reasonable assurance that there will be reciprocity of actions among parties and instil confidence in countries to implement their own,' he said.
'This applies not only to commitments on mitigation, but also those relating to finance, capacity building, adaptation and technology transfer. Such a system is necessary for the success of our collective effort to address climate change.'
Rachel Kelly Channel NewsAsia 9 Dec 10;
SINGAPOPE : There may be few electric cars on the roads in Singapore at the moment, but experts said that number is on the rise as demand and infrastructure picks up in the region.
Research house Solidiance has forecast that sales of electric vehicles in China will rise to between 2 million and 3 million in 2020, and to 25 million in 2030.
But in the short term, growth in markets such as Singapore is expected to be more tempered.
"It will be a test-bedding type of growth, where certain (vehicle) models that are ready, will start to come in and they will be test-bedded in Singapore. It's up to the manufacturers when their models will be ready... (whether) they are going to be range extended electric vehicle or hybrid," said David Chou, MD of evHUB.
Supply of electric vehicles in Asia, as well as the battery-recharging infrastructure required to run them, are still challenges for the industry.
Greenlots is one company that homed in on the battery-recharging business opportunity two years ago - and has seen exponential growth.
Oliver Risse, MD of Greenlots said: "We started this business a little more than two and a half years ago. We started as a Singapore based company to create and develop charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, not only for Singapore, but also for international markets. And this is where we are right now - we have one of the most advanced networks for charging electric vehicles.
"We are doing our market entry in Asia, in Europe, and we are already planning for the North American continent (in) Q1or Q2 next year. So the opportunity is there, you just need to tap into it."
At the moment, Greenlots has 10 to 15 charging points available in Singapore. The network is expected to expand to over 60 by the end of 2011 on the back of initiatives by the Singapore government.
According to some estimates, there are about 10,000 charging stations globally. hat number could reach 5 million by 2015.
And there's something in the works for those who want to make their petrol-guzzling cars more environment-friendly.
With increasing demand for alternative energy vehicles, evHUB is looking to bring a new option to consumers here in Singapore next year - which is a service to convert combustion engines in existing vehicles to electric.
- CNA /ls
IUCN 7 Dec 10;
With the slogan “Biodiversity is Life. Biodiversity is our Life”, the United Nations International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) won the coveted 2010 Green Award for best Global Campaign in recognition of the strength of a campaign that inspired activities throughout the world that showcase the value and beauty of biodiversity. IUCN is delighted to have been involved with creating the slogan and logo.
The award ceremony took place at London’s Natural History Museum on 2 December with more than 400 guests. The ceremony was attended by Sir David Attenborough, Britain’s best loved naturalist with more than 50 years of broadcast experience including the BBC Life series.
“The celebrations organized for the International Year of Biodiversity by the citizens and Governments of 191 countries and partners around the world have been an extraordinary human experience aimed at reconnecting people with nature. It has demonstrated the resolve of the people of the world to protect life on Earth,” said Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. “The 2010 Green Award is recognition of and tribute paid to people of the world for this achievement.”
IUCN through its Countdown initiative worked with Futerra Sustainability Communications to create the logo and slogan for the campaign.
Reuters AlertNet 9 Dec 10;
HONG KONG, Dec 9 (Reuters Life!) - After exchanging vows, rings and a kiss, twenty-five Hong Kong couples pledged their support to seahorse conservation for as long as they both should live.
The group wedding, held on Wednesday at Hong Kong's Ocean Park, aimed to raise awareness of the need to save seahorses, with the tiny critters threatened by overfishing, habitat destruction and their use in traditional Chinese medicine.
"We have 25 seahorses here at Ocean Park, three were actually born here," said Alan Zeman, chairman of Ocean Park, a themepark with attractions that include thrill rides and dolphin shows.
"We thought what a great significance to have a wedding with couples who really pledge -- they'll get married today but they really will take part in conservation for the rest of their lives."
The seahorse is a good symbol for the nuptials because seahorses undergo a complicated "courtship" before mating and many mate for life, said Suzanne Gendron, director of Ocean Park's Conservation Foundation.
"The biggest threat to the seahorses is traditional Chinese medicine. They're taken, especially from our Asian waters, and tens of millions of them are taken from the wild every year," she added.
"So working together with traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, we're looking for a sustainable use for seahorses and other marine resources that are used in traditional medicine."
The park selected the 25 couples, many of whom said they had met and started dating at Ocean Park, from a large number of applicants gathered through newspaper and online promotions.
The park also footed the bill for their big day.
"We think this is very important because we protect (the) environment and this is very important for our future," said Alan Tsang, who took his bride to Ocean Park on their first date.
"Our future should have a good environment to live (in) so we really support this aim, this event."
(Reporting by Stefanie McIntyre; editing by Elaine Lies)
Jakarta Globe 9 Dec 10;
Jakarta. Activists have decried the illegal trade in the Sunda slow loris, which they blame for the species’ decline in the wild and for the high rate of premature deaths among captive animals.
Darma Jaya Sukmana, senior manager at International Animal Rescue, which runs a rehabilitation center for the primate in Bogor, said on Thursday that one of its three subspecies, the Javan slow loris, had been listed among the world’s 25 most endangered primates since 2008.
“Very little information about the species has been published, but there’s a consensus that the primate faces a massive threat in Indonesia from loss of habitat and the illegal wildlife trade,” he said during a seminar about conserving the species.
He added that while habitat loss had previously been considered the main culprit for the Sunda slow loris’s decline, new research indicated the illegal wildlife trade was more to blame.
He said the loris was highly prized as a household pet and for use in traditional medicines.
Trade in all three subspecies — the Javan, Malay and Borneo slow lorises — is prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, which Indonesia has acceded to but not ratified.
Despite this, Darma said the animal was still being widely traded across the country.
IAR has since 2008 run the world’s first rehabilitation center for Sunda slow lorises in Bogor, where it now cares for 100 of the animals, more than half of them of the Javan subspecies.
However, Nicolien de Lange, the center’s manager, said a quarter of the animals received there since it opened had died.
She blamed the high fatality rate on the primate’s heightened susceptibility to infections as a result of having their teeth ground down by traders to stop them from biting owners.
“Sixty-four percent of the lorises that come into the IAR rehabilitation center have had their teeth ground down,” she said.
“This results in the roots of the teeth getting exposed and infected, which in turn leads to the animals not eating.”
De Lange said the animals at the IAR center were seized during raids on illegal traders or were donated by their owners.
“The ones from the raids generally still have their teeth intact, but three-quarters of those from private owners don’t,” she said.
With dental operations, however, de Lange said about a tenth of all animals received were able to be released back into the wild.
Antara
Ian Timberlake Yahoo News 9 Dec 10;
HANOI (AFP) – Laos on Thursday inaugurated its biggest hydropower plant, a controversial project hailed by supporters as vital to the impoverished nation's development but long opposed by environmentalists.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said the move ushered in "a new era" for growth, development and poverty reduction in the communist country, where the majority of people still live on less than two dollars a day.
"The importance of this hydroelectric project to the Lao economy cannot be overemphasised," Haruhiko Kuroda, the ADB president, said at a ceremony to formally inaugurate the Nam Theun 2 power station.
Critics say tens of thousands of people continue to be affected by the project, which has been dogged by years of controversy.
After five years of construction and development costs of more than 1.4 billion dollars, the plant began supplying neighbouring Thailand with power in March.
With a generating capacity of 1,070 megawatts, the development is jointly owned by communist Laos, Electricite de France, and the Electricity Generating Public Company of Thailand.
The project on the Nam Theun River, a tributary of the Mekong, will contribute two billion dollars to the Lao treasury over its first 25 years of operation, according to the company operating the facility.
"Funds are earmarked for primary education and health service improvement, rural electrification, and other nationwide poverty alleviation programmes," said the ADB.
According to an advance copy of his speech, Kuroda said the project will also reduce Laos's dependence on international aid and contribute to deeper integration of the surrounding Greater Mekong area.
Laos, a rural-based society highly reliant on foreign donors, has a population of about six million.
The ADB said the power project will contribute seven to nine percent of the country's national budget and approximately three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
GDP last year was almost 5.6 billion dollars.
However, environmentalists have long-opposed the Nam Theun 2 project.
US-based watchdog International Rivers says there are still questions about the sustainability of livelihoods for the more than 6,000 villagers relocated for the dam, and tens of thousands more downstream.
"It's way too early to call this project a success," said Ikuko Matsumoto, Lao programme director for the group.
The ADB said the vast majority of relocated villagers consider their lives better.
"There are, of course, still challenges ahead to ensure sustainable livelihoods for affected people, monitor and respond to downstream impacts and protect the watershed area, which represents one of the few remaining wildernesses in the planet," Kuroda said.
Logging and outside commercial interests threaten the area's natural resources, posing a major challenge, said the statement from the ADB, which provided 120 million dollars of the dam's funding.
France's Foreign Trade Minister Pierre Lellouche called the project's concern for the environment and the population "exemplary."
Most power goes to Thailand but the plant also meets up to 20 percent of peak Lao electricity demand, the operator Nam Theun 2 company (NT2) said.
"NT2 has defied the doubters who claimed such a complex project couldn't be done in a poor country," said Sri Mulyani Indrawati, managing director of the World Bank Group, which supervised and monitored the development.
Eight additional dams are proposed on the mainstream Mekong River in Laos.
Those projects "could have profound and wide-ranging socioeconomic and environmental impacts", according to a study released in October by the Mekong River Commission, an inter-governmental advisory body.
Mark Kinver BBC News 9 Dec 10;
Loopholes in EU regulations mean that illegal shark finning is continuing undetected, a report warns.
Finning involves cutting off a shark's fins and throwing the rest of the carcass back into the sea - a practice that the EU has regulated since 2003.
Marine experts are calling on the EU to stop issuing special permits that allow fishermen to remove fins at sea.
The authors say almost a fifth of shark, skate and ray species are classifed as threatened.
"The waste and unsustainable mortality associated with finning pose threats to shark populations, fisheries, food security and the sustainability of marine ecosystems," said co-author Sonja Fordham, deputy chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Shark Specialist Group (SSG).
"The most reliable way to enforce a shark-finning prohibition is to require that sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached to their bodies," she suggested.
"This method is being mandated for more and more fisheries, particularly in Central and North America, creating momentum for global change."
In the EU, shark finning is banned except where special permits have been issued that allows a fishing vessel to fin sharks at sea, without landing the entire animal.
Fin dining
Under the present regulation (1185/2003), member states are able to issue the permits to exempt fishing vessels from the finning at sea "ban".
Under the exemption, the weight of fins kept from the catch must not exceed 5% of the live weight of the shark catch.
However, the authors observed, the fins of some shark species did not typically represent 5% of the live weight of a shark, creating a loophole that meant finning could take place unnoticed.
Globally, sharks are captured in targeted fisheries for their meat, fins, liver and oil. However, it is the animals' fins that are prized as these command high prices.
In comparison, shark meat is relatively cheap, difficult to store and takes up a lot of storage space. This is why the practice of finning at sea is used - it allows vessels to harvest the valuable asset, dump the remaining carcasses, leaving storage space for more economically valuable fish stock.
Shark fin soup is a highly priced, traditional, celebratory, Chinese dish. Fins are considered to be among the world's most valuable fish products, fetching in the region of up to 300 euros/kg (£250/kg) in Hong Kong.
In contrast, shark meat retails for up to seven euros/kg (£5.80/kg) in European markets.
The report - Shark Fins in Europe: Implications for reforming the EU finning ban - was produced, the authors said, in order to highlight the weaknesses in the current system.
"For too long, the EU has left the door open to shark finning," said Uta Bellion, European co-ordinator of the Shark Alliance.
"This report reinforces our call on the EU Commission to propose legislation in 2011 with the one truly reliable option for preventing finning - a complete prohibition of the removal of shark fins at sea."
The European Commission is currently canvasing public opinion on whether the option to issue special permits should be revoked.
The consultation runs until February 2011, after which the Commission plans to submit a proposal to revise the current regulation to the European Council and Parliament for consideration.
In October, the UK government announced that it was going to stop issuing the permits that allowed vessels to remove fins while at sea.
On the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website, officials wrote: "This means that all UK registered vessels will now have to land sharks with their fins naturally attached, wherever they fish.
"We did not think that UK fishermen were engaged in shark finning, but wanted to take a strong position and make clear our support for 'fin-on' landings."
Study calls for EU ban on removing shark fins at sea
IUCN 9 Dec 10;
Shark fisheries experts say in a report released today that to strengthen the European Union’s ban on shark finning, EU fishermen should no longer be permitted to remove shark fins on board ships, and that loopholes in EU regulations make it possible for fishermen to fin an estimated two out of every three sharks without detection or punishment.
The expert study from the IUCN Shark Specialist Group (SSG) and the European Elasmobranch Association (EEA), ‘Sharks fins in Europe: Implications for reforming the EU finning ban’, compares shark catching, processing, trade and regulations of the EU with those of the rest of the world and makes recommendations for improvement.
“The international debate on whether to prohibit finning (the wasteful practice of slicing off a shark’s fins and discarding the body at sea) and how best to implement such a rule has been raging for more than a decade,” says Sarah Fowler, report author and former SSG co-chair and EEA president. “Our report set out to examine this history, with particular emphasis on the influence of EU fisheries, trade and management policies, and to develop clear recommendations on how to improve the current situation.”
In demonstrating that prohibiting at-sea removal is the best option for implementing the finning ban, experts noted that this method also facilitates the collection of species-specific catch data, which are vital for the assessment and management of shark populations.
“The waste and unsustainable mortality associated with finning pose threats to shark populations, fisheries, food security and the sustainability of marine ecosystems,” says Sonja Fordham, Deputy Chair of the IUCN SSG and co-author of the report summary. “The most reliable way to enforce a shark-finning prohibition is to require that sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached to their bodies. This method is being mandated for more and more fisheries, particularly in Central and North America, creating momentum for global change.”
The study was undertaken to contribute to the current debate on weaknesses in the EU finning regulation. Last month, the European Commission launched a public consultation on options for amending the regulation, including a ban on at-sea fin removal. The Shark Alliance welcomed this consultation.
“For too long, the EU has left the door open to shark finning,” says Uta Bellion, director of the Pew Environment Group’s European Marine Programme and European coordinator of the Shark Alliance. “This report reinforces our call on the EU Commission to propose legislation in 2011 with the one truly reliable option for preventing finning—a complete prohibition of the removal of shark fins at sea.”
Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Portugal rank among the top 20 countries for shark catch. The combined landings of these four Member States put the EU second in the world, behind only Indonesia, in volume of shark catches.
Notes to editors
Background:
Although the EU finning regulation prohibits the removal of shark fins at sea, a derogation allows EU Member States to provide fishermen with special permits to ‘process’ sharks and thereby remove fins on board vessels. Germany and the United Kingdom recently stopped issuing these permits. Only Spain and Portugal grant them, and they do so for most of their shark fishermen.
In 2003, in an attempt to prevent finning under these permits, EU fishery managers adopted a maximum fin weight to carcass weight ratio. Such ratios are used around the world to ensure that shark fins and bodies are landed in proper proportions. The EU ratio of 5% whole weight, however, is higher and more lenient than those of other countries. It is also currently legal for EU boats to land shark fins and carcasses in separate ports. This second loophole further complicates enforcement and undermines an already weak policy. The most reliable way to enforce a shark finning prohibition is to require that sharks be landed with their fins naturally attached to their bodies
Most sharks grow slowly, mature late and produce a small number of young, making them vulnerable to overfishing and slow to recover once depleted. The removal of top predators threatens the stability of marine ecosystems, and overfishing (including through finning) is the greatest single cause of increased extinction risk to sharks.
A copy of the consultation document can be downloaded here: http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/partners/consultations/shark_finning_ban/index_en.htm
Yahoo News 9 Dec 10;
KOLKATA (AFP) – India's endangered Bengal tiger is dwindling not only in numbers, but also in stature, according to a recent survey that suggests the famed big cats are getting physically smaller.
Experts say the Bengal tiger is losing weight because of "stress" associated with environmental changes impacting their natural habitat in the Sunderban mangrove swamps on the India-Bangladesh border.
A survey conducted by Indian wildlife officials showed that tigers in the Sunderbans were lighter and their body parts smaller compared to a decade ago.
"We were surprised that animals, which otherwise look healthy, weighed only 98 kilos (215 pounds)," Subrata Mukherjee, director of the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, told AFP on Thursday.
"The average weight of an adult tiger should not be less than 140 kilos," he added.
As well as human encroachment, experts point to rising sea levels which are increasing the salinity of the Sunderban swamp waters surrounding the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers in the Bay of Bengal.
This has reduced the number of fresh water ponds which attract the tigers' main prey.
"Spotted deer have become their main source of food, but the deer numbers are going down because of rising sea levels which is causing more flooding in the forest," said Pranabesh Sanyal, a tiger expert with the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
"So the tigers are physically stressed and, being under-fed and malnourished, they are straying into human habitats in search of goats and cows," Sanyal said.
The last census done in Sunderbans in 2001-02 put the tiger numbers in Indian section of the mangrove forest at just 274.
Nigel Hunt PlanetArk 10 Dec 10;
The European Union's biofuels industry looks set to struggle to attract funds to expand with a challenging investment climate made more difficult by complex questions about the sector's environmental credentials.
The eurozone's economic crisis is taking a toll as biofuels producers face an uphill task as they seek to secure financial incentives as government budgets are increasingly squeezed.
In Germany, the coalition government elected in late 2009 initially said it would revive the biofuels industry. But it later froze biofuels taxes rather than reducing them and scaled back planned increases in blending levels.
"Currently the outlook for the biodiesel industry is pretty hopeless unless there is a correction in the tax level," said Peter Schrum, president of Germany's biofuels industry association BBK.
Biofuels, which are currently mainly produced from grains, vegetable oils and sugar crops, are seen by advocates as a way of reducing emissions of the greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change.
The European Union initially embraced biofuels, setting a target that 10 percent of all fuels used in transportation should come from renewable sources by 2020. Biofuels are by far the most important source of renewable motor fuel.
The industry's environmental credentials have, however, been questioned with the development of a concept known as "indirect land use change" (ILUC) which suggests that some biofuels may actually lead to an increase in climate-warming emissions.
BURNING FORESTS
The EU's executive Commission has responded by running 15 studies on the new concept which centers on concerns that the expansion of biofuels may indirectly lead to the burning of forests to clear additional land.
This could lead to a one-off release of millions of tonnes of carbon and lead environmental campaigners and many politicians to seek some kind of disincentive applied to biofuels from food crops to reflect that impact.
EU sources says a Commission strategy report due by the end of this year will contain no concrete actions. Instead it will propose further, detailed impact assessments by July 2011, and just possibly a proposal for new legislation after that.
Any such proposal would then take at least a year to become law.
"If you are going into a difficult money market and there is some dodginess about the regulatory environment then they (potential investors) will say no. It is as simple as that," said Clare Wenner of the UK's Renewable Energy Association.
"They will not invest in a climate of dither," Wenner, the REA's head of renewable transport, said.
Alwyn Hughes, chief executive of UK biofuels firm Ensus, has said a clear policy framework which favored biofuels that provided the greatest environmental benefits was needed.
The (biofuels) industry is being held back by a lack of robust discrimination between what is good and what is bad," Hughes told Reuters in an interview last month.
SUSTAINABILITY RULES
Germany led the way in providing tax incentives for a massive early expansion of its biodiesel industry.
BBK's Schrum said it is now running at only about half of its capacity.
"Whilst such a major uncertainty exists for current and future biofuels...it is not reasonable to expect real investment to occur," said bioenergy expert Jeremy Woods of Imperial College, London.
In France, new rules on sustainability for biofuels are due to come into force on January 1 although in Britain a similar scheme, mandated by the EU's Renewable Energy Directive, has been delayed while ILUC studies are conducted.
Stricter environmental requirements could dent profitability in the short term but could help to guarantee a future for the industry at a time when biofuels are hotly contested by some green groups.
"We hope that these sustainability criteria will quieten criticisms of biofuels at least for some time," said Georges Vermeersch, head of biodiesel makers group Esterifrance.
The United States and Brazil are the two most important producers of biofuels with output in both countries dominated by petroleum substitute ethanol. The EU ranks third and is the biggest source of diesel substitute biodiesel.
(Additional reporting by Pete Harrison in Brussels, Sarah McFarlane in London, Gus Trompiz in Paris and Michael Hogan in Hamburg; Editing by Sue Thomas)
Yahoo News 9 Dec 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Israel's worst-ever forest fire earlier this month confirms predictions on the impact of global warming in the Mediterranean basin, according to one of Israel's leading climate experts.
"The fire disaster in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa is a taste of the future," Guy Pe'er, co-author of Israel's National Report on Climate Change, said on Wednesday.
Nearly a decade ago, Pe'er and other scientists warned that warming would create conditions such as heat waves, decreased and delayed rainfall, leading to a higher risk of intense forest fires.
The recent four-day blaze, which destroyed some five million trees across 12,000 acres (4,800 hectares), arose from these very conditions, he said.
The national report predicted that a temperature increase of only 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times would cause the region's desert to expand northward some 300-500 kilometers (200-30 miles).
Without deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, the temperature increase by century's end will be closer to 3.0 C (5.4 F), scientists say.
In either scenario, such a change would spell the end of Mediterranean-type ecosystems in Israel, Pe'er said.
The fire that raged in the Carmel mountain range, which rises more than 500 metres (1,500 feet) above sea level, was preceded by eight months of drought and occurred during a heat wave with temperatures around 30 C.
Normally, first rainfall should have come in September or October, and the maximal daily temperature at this time of year should be around 15-20 C.
Pe'er, currently a fellow at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, said it would be decades before the region began to recover.
More than 40 people were killed in the fire.
Wynne Parry livescience.com Yahoo News 10 Dec 10;
Accomplishing it is arguably the most difficult problem facing the world, but at least the target is clear. Negotiators gathered in Cancá½»n, Mexico, are shooting to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a goal set a year ago in Copenhagen.
As international climate talks head toward the two-decade mark, achieving this goal is anything but a certainty. But if you take the leap of faith and envision Earth in 2100 with its overall surface temperature 2 degrees warmer than now, what is the planet like?
Although researchers don't have the details, a broad-strokes portrait is emerging, in which day-to-day life is punctuated by increasingly intense storms, wider-ranging wildfires and increasing drought, among other changes.
"These guidelines, in terms of global mean temperature, they are more like speed limits," Raymond Pierrehumbert, who directs the Climate Systems Center at the University of Chicago, told LiveScience. "The warmer you get, the more bad stuff can happen and the more outside the natural range of the Earth's climate we get." [10 Surprising Results of Global Warming]
A warmer world
The implications depend on where you are. Warming over land is twice as intense as over the ocean, and it is exacerbated over the Arctic, where retreating sea ice reflects less light and so produces less cooling, according to Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist and head of the climate analysis section of the independent National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.
The more severe precipitation patterns associated with a warmer world are already showing up, Trenberth said.
Last year, the sea surface temperatures in the subtropical Atlantic were as much as 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal, and about half of this increase can be attributed to global warming, according to Trenberth. In February, this warm spell contributed to a perfect storm, and "Snowmageddon 2010" shut down a swath of the United States' East Coast, including Washington, D.C.
"The fact that this was a big one has a large element of chance, but the underlying environmental conditions associated with global warming mean that when the conditions are right, the result is bigger and better than anything else seen before," he told LiveScience in an e-mail.
In other words, day-to-day weather in a warmer world may remain about the same, but extreme events become more extreme.
While warming oceans may not produce more tropical storms and hurricanes - they may even produce fewer - those storms will be more intense, and with longer dry spells between them. More sporadic precipitation, combined with earlier snowmelt, particularly in mountains like the Rockies, will increase the risk of wildfires, according to Trenberth.
A study published in 2007 in the journal Climate Dynamics predicted wetter winters for the northeastern United States - with 10 to 15 percent more precipitation - and hotter summers, with increasing drought over the next century as things heat up.
"We are getting a better and better idea of the whole picture, but it is still very difficult to translate general thinking about what is happening into specific results," said Mark Schwartz, a distinguished professor of geography and climate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who worked on the 2007 study.
A 2010 report by the National Research Council, to which Pierrehumbert contributed, breaks down a series of incremental changes. Each one degree increase could mean up to 10 percent less rainfall during the Mediterranean, southwest North American and southern African dry seasons, and a corresponding increase in Alaska and other high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. It also could mean up to 10 percent less stream flow in some river basins, including the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, and an up to 15 percent reduction in the corn crop in the U.S., Africa and wheat in India. Each degree could also bring up to a 400 percent increase in area burned by wildfire in parts of the western U.S. And the dizzying array of impacts the authors project widens as the increases rise above two degrees.
Nature and politics collide
The Earth's average surface temperature has risen 0.7 C (1.3 F) since humans accelerated emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases during the Industrial Revolution. The Copenhagen Accord leaves negotiators some wiggle room, in that it didn't specify whether the 2-degree Celsius cap includes the increase so far.
In Cancún, there is a movement afoot to set the threshold lower, to 1.5 C (2.7 F). Leading the push is the Alliance of Small Island States, representing island nations, which are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels, according to Ramzi Elias, an associate for the European Climate Foundation who is attending the talks. (The Marshalls, Kiribati, and Tuvalu islands are already feeling the effects for rising sea levels.)
But setting a threshold doesn't guarantee the emissions reductions that are necessary to back it up.
In a report issued as talks in Cancá½»n began, the United Nations Environment Program found that the pledges made a year ago in Copenhagen filled 60 percent of the gap between the "business as usual" scenario and the rate of greenhouse gas emission necessary by 2020 to cap global warming at 2 C. (Elias was a project manager for the UNEP report.)
Some fear that 2 degrees Celsius may no longer be attainable. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) uses a range that goesup to 4 C (7.2 F). However, its most extreme scenario extends well above that.
A series of papers, which will appear in the Jan. 13 issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, looked at the likelihood and the implications of warming well above the 2-degree threshold.
"The continued rise in greenhouse gas emissions in the past decade and the delays in a comprehensive global emissions reduction agreement have made achieving this target extremely difficult, arguably impossible," wrote researchers led by Mark New of the University of Oxford.
An increase of 4 degrees Celsius within the century is more likely, and from disappearing coast cities to increased water stress to changing ecosystems, the changes we see will be larger for 4 degrees than for 2. In fact, the additional warming could have dramatic consequences, such as the collapse of farming in sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers wrote.
When following the progress of the talks in Cancá½»n, which finish up Friday, neither optimism nor pessimism is productive, Pierrehumbert said.
"The point is, our only hope is to get the carbon under control, and we just have to keep trying until we do," he said.
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