Rich not doing enough to help poor fight climate change: Oxfam

Yahoo News 4 Dec 07;

Rich countries need to increase their financial support to help the world's poorest nations adapt to the effects of climate change, Oxfam said Tuesday, describing current levels of aid as "an insult".

The British-based relief agency said rich nations had so far only contributed 67 million dollars into a United Nations fund to help impoverished countries combat global warming.

Americans spent more on suntan lotion each month, Oxfam calculated in a report published to coincide with the opening of the Bali conference sponsored by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is designed to pave the way for a new pact to address the problem.

"This figure represents quite an insult, to be frank, given that the least developed countries will need at least one to two billion dollars to meet just their most urgent adaptation needs," said the report's author, Charlotte Sterrett.

Oxfam said rich countries gathering on the Indonesian island need to honour their promises to the fund by increasing their commitments, with an emphasis on adaptation rather than mitigation.

"Bali needs to tackle both cause and effect equally. Even if the world stopped polluting today, the worsening impacts of climate change will be with us for 30 years or more," Sterrett said.

"That's why it is so vital that rich countries help developing countries to cope now. This would also signal their genuine intent to tackle the problem."

Negotiators should help identify new systems for raising financing to help vulnerable people in developing nations have resources and support to plan for and protect themselves from the impact of global warming, Oxfam said.

Adapting to climate change in developing countries is likely to cost at least 50 billion pounds (103 billion dollars) per year and potentially more if carbon emissions are not cut worldwide, it added.

But current pledges to the fund set up to deal with this stand at 163 million dollars, of which 67 million dollars has been delivered.

Vulnerable communities were being hit by food and water shortages and increased poverty because of unpredictable weather and climate-related crises like floods, strong winds, high tides, forest fires and drought, it added.

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Developing countries to cause 'climate crisis'

Paul Eccleston, Telegraph 3 Dec 07;

Carbon emissions from developing countries will result in a climate crisis within a generation, according to new research.

Within 20 years they will be producing more CO2 than the rich industrialised countries based mainly in the northern hemisphere.

And even if the 'North' - Europe, North America, the former Soviet Union (FSU) Japan, Australia and New Zealand - eliminated all its emissions immediately it wouldn't be enough to stop severe climate change.

The 'South' - Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific islands - faced an environmental disaster.

The shock claims are made by the Centre for Global Development (CGD), an American independent, think tank that works to reduce global poverty and inequality. It says its research has been empirically reviewed.

The CGD said it was a dangerous fallacy to believe that the North was responsible for climate change and should dramatically cut its emissions while the South should be given the time to catch up with more prosperous countries through economic expansion powered by fossil fuels.

By 2025 atmospheric CO2 from the South, combined with widespread deforestation, would match global amounts that triggered the first climate crisis conference in Rio in 1992.

Things would get steadily worse for the South if carbon-intensive growth was allowed to continue in a last-minute fossil-fuelled development push before the onset of catastrophic climate change.
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"We conclude that the conventional wisdom is dangerously misguided," the report states.

"The South cannot relegate mitigation to the North until it achieves prosperity. In fact, cumulative emissions from a carbon-intensive South have already reached levels that are dangerous for the South itself. They are more than sufficient to create a global climate crisis, even if the North eliminates all of its emissions immediately.

"So we face another inconvenient truth: a carbon-intensive South faces environmental disaster, no matter what the North does. For its own sake, the South must recognise this hard truth, accept the necessity of serious, costly mitigation, and immediately embark on a low-carbon development path.

"The North must clearly do the same, while recognising that its own survival requires an immediate, large-scale commitment to assisting emissions reductions in the South."

The report claims that by 2030, if the South's industrial expansion is unchecked, scientists in an isolated South would observe unequivocal global warming, widespread glacial and polar melting, and a rising sea level. The South's governments would then have to introduce plans for a carbon-free future.

If global emissions continued unabated, the resulting increases in temperatures and sea level, greater storm intensity, reduced agricultural productivity, and dwindling freshwater supplies would be likely to undermine the South's development long before it arrived at northern income levels.

Focusing on the North's obligations to cut emissions would be a dangerous distraction because the South's own emissions had already moved it close to the brink of rapid global warming. Cumulative emissions from the North would force the South to take fundamental and unavoidable decisions about cutting its emissions much earlier than previously thought.

David Wheeler, the lead author of the study, said: " The South's population is over four times greater than the North's, so it has been trapped by the sheer scale of its emissions at a much earlier stage of development.

"The South finds itself weighed down by a mass of humanity, as well as the energy technologies and fuels of an earlier age. The question is not if the South will commit to emissions reductions - under any scenario it eventually must for its own sake - but whether it will do so in time, and how the costs of the transition are to be shared."

Wheeler and his co-author, Kevin Ummel, compiled CGD's recently released Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) online database, which discloses for the first time the CO2 pollution of all power plants and companies in the world.

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Top Yahoo searches in 2007: Global warming and celebrity melt-downs

Glenn Chapman, Yahoo News 3 Dec 07;

A review of Yahoo searches reveals global warming, celebrity meltdowns, social networking and a literary boy wizard's final adventure captured mankind's attention in 2007.

The US Internet giant sifted billions of searches made this year by its hundreds of millions of users worldwide to identify trends regarding what piqued people's interest.

The results were posted on Monday at Yahoo's website under the banner of "Top Trends in Search in 2007"

"It is really a barometer for what is interesting and relevant for the world," Yahoo director of product marketing Raj Gossain said while discussing the findings with AFP.

"We have a set of trends that identifies a culture that is really on the brink of change. There are a lot of inflection points that relate to the environment, politics, trade, and how they view celebrity."

Information about fallen Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and the Middle East was the most sought-after news followed by oil prices and the activities of US President George W. Bush.

"People were checking the status of the war and we've seen more and more searches on exit strategies," said Yahoo senior news editor Vera Chan.

"People are monitoring the situation in Iran, the nuclear program and worries of further military confrontations."

Product recalls proved to be hot topics, with queries logged regarding problems with pet food, toys, and even peanut butter.

Internet searches revealed a hunger for knowledge about global warming and ways to do something about it, according to Gossain.

Recycling, hybrid cars, solar energy, and former US vice president Al Gore, who shared a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his battle against global warming, were among top "green" searches for the year.

"These queries indicate a desire for people to take action," Gossain said. "The issue has clearly gone into the public consciousness."

The Internet was rife, as usual, with searches for information on celebrities. This year the focus was on stars whose lives were troubled or tragic.

Queries about pop singer Britney Spears topped the list, followed in succession by those about celebrity brat Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith, a former Playboy centerfold found dead in a Florida hotel room in February.

"These stories are our pop culture Greek tragedy," Chan said of celebrity sagas.

"We've seen in the past couple of years there is a circuit celebrities travel. You go on some kind of spree, apologize and check into rehab. This year it seems the stakes were much higher."

Internet searches were also enthralled with "final farewells," the top one being for fictional boy wizard Harry Potter.

The last of in the series of Potter books by author J.K. Rowling was released this year.

The Internet was also scoured for information about the finale of the cable television series "The Sopranos" and the death of Marvel Comic cartoon hero "Captain America."

Video-sharing website YouTube, online encyclopedia Wikipedia and online social-networking locale Facebook led the pack in technology searches, followed by an Apple Inc. triad of iTunes, iPod and iPhone, according to Yahoo.

Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and Sony's Playstation 3 video game consoles landed in the top ten technology searches, along with the music-playing video game "Guitar Hero."

Global warming joined animals, games, dinosaurs and homework subjects in the top ten Yahoo searches by children.

"2007 seems to be a year when we are at a crossroads and change is going to come in personal lives and on the global stage," Chan said.

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Nature Conservancy study finds marine conservation cuts poverty

Stevie Emilia, The Jakarta Post 3 Dec 07;

Well-managed marine conservation can significantly help reduce poverty and enhance the quality of life for local communities, according to a new study.

The study, Nature's Investment Bank, which was released by The Nature Conservancy in Manado, North Sulawesi, on Thursday, was based on more than 1,100 interviews within poor communities in four countries, including Indonesia, from November 2006 to May this year.

In Indonesia, the study was conducted in North Sulawesi's Bunaken National Park, a popular diving destination in the province.

"This important study demonstrates that conservation and the well-being of humans are indelibly linked," said Stephanie Meeks, acting president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy.

"It's clear from this study that taking steps to protect vital natural systems, such as through the establishment of marine protected areas, provides clear benefits to people as well as wildlife."

Governments around the world are wrestling with questions about whether investment in conservation benefits the lives of the extremely poor.

This new study suggests that such investments do bring about measurable economic and quality of life benefits.

In the study, it was found that restoration of local resources, be they fisheries or coral reefs, increased fish catches and economic opportunities, improved community health as well as directly enhanced the lives of local residents.

Craig Leisher, who co-authored the study along with Dutch economist Dr. Peter van Beukering and Brazilian/Australian social scientist Dr. Lea M. Scherl, said when protected marine areas are developed with government support and scientific data, and are managed primarily by local communities that take pride in the management of their natural resources, significant improvements in quality of life can be seen.

"Building networks of resilient marine protected areas will help maintain the food and income necessary to support coastal communities as well as curb the use of destructive fishing techniques," he said.

Poverty has risen to the forefront of global issues, with nearly 3 billion people around the world living on the equivalent of US$2 a day or less, forcing millions to make decisions that damage their environment in order to feed themselves and their families.

When poverty increases, fish stocks are depleted. Fishermen are often driven to use destructive methods to catch what little is left, damaging the reefs and fish habitats that produce the food local communities depend upon for survival.

With every 5 percent loss of coral reefs, 250,000 to 500,000 tons of fish are lost as well, threatening food security for millions.

According to the study, tour operators in Bunaken National Park noted that tourists come for world-class diving and their presence directly benefits the local economy and tourism sector.

Marine conservation also directly benefits local farmers and fishermen because hotels and restaurants purchase much of their food from them.

In Bunaken National Park, the study found that marine conservation has benefited local communities, such as from the creation of more than 1,000 new jobs open to the local community, and by allowing those working in tourism to earn twice as much as fishermen. Moreover, 20 percent of park entrance fees are used for local community projects.

The study also found out that fishermen in Bunaken's marine protected area spent some 50 percent less time per year fishing than fishermen in areas without a marine protected area, while their income was roughly equal. This finding suggests in protected areas fishermen have more time to invest in other activities, such as the tourism industry.

The study, which was co-funded by the Nature Conservancy, Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Australian government, WWF-Indonesia and was completed in collaboration with local NGOs and universities in each of the four study sites, also found similar results in other areas researched.

Links

On the Nature Conservancy website
Nature's Investment Bank Report Finds Marine Conservation Can Reduce Poverty
and its Protected Areas page

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Cameroon welcomes home "Taiping Four" gorillas

Tansa Musa, Reuters 1 Dec 07;

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Cameroon has welcomed home four endangered western lowland gorillas known as the "Taiping Four", following an international campaign that won their return from Malaysia, where they were illegally smuggled five years ago.

The four, a male and three females, were flown to Douala airport late on Friday from South Africa, where they had been kept at the National Zoological Garden in Pretoria after the Malaysian government sent them back to Africa in 2004.

Malaysia' Taiping Zoo had acquired the apes after they were trapped as infants in Cameroon's forests in 2002 and illegally smuggled out of the central African country.

DNA tests established they came from Cameroon, whose government launched an intense diplomatic lobbying campaign for their return, backed by international conservation groups that seek to protect endangered primates.

"This is a victory for our diplomacy. This is proof of our commitment to the principle of the protection of our wildlife," Cameroon's Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, told reporters at Douala airport as the gorillas were unloaded in big cages from the plane.

As he spoke, young men and women wearing T-shirts from a local environmental group performed traditional dances and chanted songs calling for wildlife to be preserved. They waved placards with the message "No to gorilla trafficking".

After their arrival, the gorillas were taken to the Limbe Wildlife Centre sanctuary. They will initially be freed into a quarantine facility before joining 11 other gorillas at the sanctuary in a special enclosure.

Pretoria's zoo sent two of its primate keepers with the apes to assist with their resettlement at the Limbe sanctuary.

Western lowland gorillas are grey brown, grow up to 6 feet (1.83 metres) tall and can weigh as much as 275 kg (606 lb). Their intelligence and physical structure make them one of man's closest relatives.

Man is their only predator, with hunters tracking them for bushmeat and timber companies destroying their natural habitat.

Cameroon is one of the few countries where they still exist in the wild, although numbers are fast dwindling.

"I am absolutely delighted that the gorillas are back in Cameroon ... This sends a message to poachers and traffickers that the world will not stand by and tolerate the illegal trade in wildlife. Our wildlife indeed should stay wild and stay in the jungle," Christina Pretorius of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) said.

IFAW was one of several conservation groups that backed Cameroon in its campaign to recover the "Taiping Four".

Due to an increase in the hunting of animals for bushmeat -- especially prized primates -- across Africa, sanctuaries across the continent are dealing with an influx of primate orphans in need of lifelong care.

The Limbe sanctuary has rescued four chimps this year alone.

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U.S. says seeks new climate deal, rejects Kyoto

Alister Doyle, Reuters 3 Dec 07;

BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - The United States said on Monday it would seek a new global deal to fight climate change after Australia's move to ratify the Kyoto Protocol isolated it as the only developed nation outside the current U.N. pact.

"We're not here to be a roadblock," U.S. delegation leader Harlan Watson said on the opening day of a December 3-14 meeting of almost 190 nations in Bali, Indonesia, seeking to agree a roadmap to work out a successor to Kyoto which runs to 2012.

"The United States intends to be flexible and work constructively on a Bali roadmap," he said, referring to plans for Bali to launch two years of negotiations on a new U.N.-led deal to fight climate change beyond 2012.

"We respect the decision that other countries have made and we would, of course, ask them to respect the decision we have made," Watson told a news conference.

Earlier, delegates gave almost a minute's applause to news that Australia's new Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was signing documents to ratify the Kyoto Protocol hours after taking office.

The United States is now the only developed nation opposed to Kyoto. President George W. Bush rejected the pact in 2001, saying it would cost U.S. jobs and wrongly excluded 2012 targets for developing nations.

Watson said that Washington was willing to discuss a new long-term deal to succeed Kyoto.

"The response will have to be global," he said, adding that Washington would be flexible in considering whether targets should be voluntary, the approach favored by Bush until now, or binding as under Kyoto.

CLEAN COAL

Washington has ploughed billions of dollars into new technologies, ranging from hydrogen to "clean coal," rating the hope of breakthroughs a better solution than Kyoto's caps.

Kyoto binds 36 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Australia will be the 37th.

Watson said that Kyoto nations would face a struggle to keep their pledges of cuts. "The current regime of legally binding is not doing the job," he said.

It was not going to be easy to reach 2012 goals under Kyoto, he said. "Only a few countries have reduced emissions absolutely -- the UK, Germany and a few others ... It's going to take heroic steps to meet 2012 targets."

Watson said that U.S. emissions had risen by just 1.6 percent from 2000-05, when the economy expanded by 12 percent and the population rose by 5 percent.

That U.S. performance is better than many Kyoto nations. But U.S. emissions in 2005 were also 16 percent higher than in 1990, the benchmark year for Kyoto.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Green group warns Java of looming disaster from loss of protected forests

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post 3 Dec 07;

The continued loss of protected forests on Java could lead to serious ecological disasters on the densely populated island costing the country some Rp 136 trillion annually, an environmental organization said over the weekend.

According to a recent study of Java's forests between 2002 and 2006, conducted by the Greenomics Indonesia, some 165,000 hectares of conservation and protected forests on Java experienced decreasing ecological function.

"Most of the deterioration can be found in West, Central and East Java provinces," Greenomics executive director Elfian Effendi said.

"The large number of squatters in forests and illegal logging have made things even worse," he said.

He said at least 61 regencies in the three provinces were prone to floods, landslides and drought due to climate change and the damage due local forests.

"Damage to conservation and protected forests has affected at least 123 rivers and is threatening more than 10 million hectares of farmland and thousands of villages located along the rivers," said Elfian.

"During the rainy season, floods submerge farmland and villages in coastal areas; landslides hit villages and damage infrastructures in mountainous areas.

"In the dry season, drought hits almost all regencies located in mountainous areas, costing Rp 136.2 trillion annually to the government and the people on the island," he said.

Elfian stressed the importance of maintaining balanced and sustainable development on Java, and halting logging in conservation and protected forests.

He also called for increased efforts to reforest barren areas prone to natural disasters.irregular seasons and the ecological disasters have caused losses in the agriculture sector," he said.

"Climate change will remain a major hurdle for people-based economic development in years to come.

"The more forest areas are damaged, the more serious the ecological disasters will be and the more losses the people will suffer."

Indonesia and the United Nations Convention on Climate Change are jointly hosting the latest meeting to start hammering out a new global agreement to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. The 13th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change starts Monday.

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IT industry 'damaging' the environment

Paul Eccleston, Telegraph 3 Dec 07;

The rapidly expanding information and technology industry is having a growing impact on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, a new report claims.

IT is growing faster than the aviation industry and, with more than a billion computers on the planet, is responsible for around two per cent of man-made CO2 annually, which is on a par with the global airline industry.

An environmental campaign group is now urging the industry to wake up to the environmental impact it is having and adopt better energy policies.

In its report An Inefficient Truth, the charity Global Action Plan calls on the Government to introduce new laws that will force IT companies and users to cut their energy use.

The report claims there are an estimated 10 million office PCs in the UK and 43 per cent of the adult population regularly uses one at work.

IT equipment accounts for about 10 per cent of the country's total efficient electricity use.

As the number of people using computers rises so does the energy consumed by UK organisations.

Information and communications technology (ICT) equipment accounts for about 10 per cent of the UK's total electricity consumption or the output from four nuclear power stations.

The intensive power requirements needed to run and cool data centres now accounts for around a quarter of the IT industry's sector's CO2 emissions.

Between 2000 and 2006, energy consumption from non-domestic ICT equipment increased by more than 70 per cent and is expected to grow a further 40 per cent by 2020.

The Inefficient Truth report said that although computers had helped transform the world they had also greatly increased demand for energy. Because of the fear of power cuts, companies increased storage capacity, operated back-up generators and even duplicated their systems, resulting in an upwardly spiralling cycle of energy consumption.

The use of ICT was growing at a faster rate than the increase in flying but unlike the aviation industry, IT had the opportunity to make energy savings at very little cost.

The report said the link between increased energy consumption of ICT and man-made climate change was clear and cutting energy use now made sense not just environmentally but also as a way of business cutting costs.

Computer servers 'as bad' for climate as SUVs
Catherine Brahic, NewScientist.com news service 3 Dec 07;

Computer servers are at least as great a threat to the climate as SUVs or the global aviation industry, warns a new report.

Global Action Plan, a UK-based environmental organisation, publishes a report today drawing attention to the carbon footprint of the IT industry in the UK.

"Computers are seen as quite benign things sitting on your desk," says Trewin Restorick, director of the group. "But, for instance, in our charity we have one server. That server has same carbon footprint as your average SUV doing 15 miles to the gallon. Yet, whereas the SUV is seen as a villain from the environmental perspective, the server is not."

The report, An Inefficient Truth states that with more than 1 billion computers on the planet, the global IT sector is responsible for about 2% of human carbon dioxide emissions each year – a similar figure to the global airline industry.

The energy consumption is driven largely by vast amounts of customer and user data that are stored on the computer servers in most businesses. The rate at which data storage is growing surpasses the growth in the airline industry: in 2006, 48% more data storage capacity was sold in the UK than in 2005, while the number of plane passengers grew by 3%.
Unknown cost

The group ran a survey of some of the largest businesses in the UK in an attempt to find out how aware the industry is of its carbon footprint.

The survey revealed that more than half of the IT professionals surveyed believed their environmental impact was "significant", however:

• 86% of them do not know the carbon footprint of their activities

• two thirds of the departments they work for are not responsible for paying their own energy bills

• more than half do not even see those bills

The bottom line is that IT departments "are buying lots and lots of kit that they have to run and cool without knowing what the energy cost of that kit is", says Restorick.

The survey also revealed that considerable amounts of electricity could be saved by more efficient data storage: 60% of the departments said they were using less than half their storage capacity and 37% said they are storing data indefinitely.

Restorick told New Scientist that simply increasing the efficiency of energy use and data storage could easily cut 30% of power use in businesses. "In theory, this could happen overnight," he says.
ID cards

Respondents to the survey said they are given few if any incentives to "go green". Global Action Plan is calling on the UK government to review its policies on long-term data storage to take into account the environmental implications and to encourage businesses to only keep the data they need to save.

Restorick points out that policies being pursued by the government have considerable carbon costs. "This government is very keen on individual ID cards," says Restorick. "We would say you should be doing a carbon analysis of putting ID cards into our country – such cards would require data being kept on every single person in the country for an infinite amount of time."

The report is published as a major UN conference about climate change opens in Bali, Indonesia.

From 3 to 14 December, thousands of representatives from governments around the world, NGOs, climate policy makers, researchers, environmental activists, and lobbyists meet in Bali to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto protocol and discuss its progress.

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Fears mount for world's last great tuna fishery

David Brooks Yahoo News 2 Dec 07;

Delegates from over 40 countries began meeting Monday at a Pacific fisheries conference in Guam amid warning signs the world's last great tuna fishery is heading for crisis.

Some argue the western and central Pacific fishery -- which supplies over half the world's tuna -- is in trouble already.

Attempts to improve conservation measures will be put to the five-day meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, which includes delegates from Pacific nations and major fishing countries.

"We still believe there is time for this commission to change course to save our fisheries and our future," Greenpeace's Fiji-based oceans campaigner Tagi Toribau told AFP.

Prized for top quality sashimi in Japan and as a source of cheap canned protein on supermarket shelves all over the world, tuna stocks have been slashed in most of the world's oceans.

The future of the comparatively healthy western and central Pacific tuna fishery is crucial for small Pacific states. Tuna is the only major economic resource for many, as well as one of the most important food sources.

Currently licence fees provide them a small return of around five to six percent of the three billion US dollar annual catch in the region.

The commission believes the two most endangered species -- yellowfin and bigeye -- need a reprieve if the fishery is to remain sustainable.

The bigeye catch needs to be reduced by 25 percent and yellowfin by 10 percent, commission executive director Andrew Wright told AFP.

Stocks of the most common species skipjack are believed to be healthy, although it is less valuable than bigeye and yellowfin and usually ends up in cans.

Skipjack is usually caught in nets by sophisticated purse-seine fishing vessels from countries including Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea and other so called distant water fishing nations.

The purse-seiners accounted for 72 percent of the total catch in the region last year.

But the purse-seiners -- some modern hi-tech vessels are capable of catching up to 10,000 tonnes annually -- also catch large numbers of juvenile yellowfin and bigeye as bycatch.

Long-line boats capable of reeling out massive lines carrying thousands of baited hooks catch most of the mature bigeye and yellowfin, which are sold at premium prices on the fresh tuna market.

Greenpeace argues the commission has under-estimated the impact of illegal and unreported fishing.

It says the fishing effort in the western and central Pacific needs to be cut by half if tuna stocks are to remain healthy, although Wright says this would be politically and economically impossible to impose.

Maurice Brownjohn, president of the Papua New Guinea Fishing Industry Association, says there is already a crisis in some areas of the region.

"If you look at the state of the domestic industries of the island countries, PNG has got less than 20 boats operating out of 80 domestic long-liners," he said.

"The Solomons has lost its domestic long-line fleet and Fiji I think is down to 60 or 70 percent.

"This is mirrored throughout the Pacific and has happened in just the last couple of years with the downturn of the fishery."

Greenpeace's Toribau said apart from cutting fishing effort, Greenpeace will press at this week's meeting for marine reserves set up in some international waters in the region to safeguard breeding areas.

It also wants a ban on catches being transferred from fishing vessels to larger transport ships at sea, a practice which makes it harder to detect illegal fishing and unreported catches.

Brownjohn is sceptical that the major fishing nations will accept their responsibility to reduce fishing.

"They are not interested in not bringing in any measures which would detrimentally affect their industryÂ’s operations or cut the supply of raw materials for their processors."

Even the commission's Wright is pessimistic about prospects for effective conservation measures in the short term.

"What you might find -- and maybe it's 10 years down the track -- is that the resources do become overexploited and you have to experience a crisis in the fishery before governments do take the difficult decisions to re-establish the fisheries on a sustainable basis."

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Tim Flannery: Climate campaigner's road from 'raving idiot' to Australian of the year

Neil Sands Yahoo News 2 Dec 07;

Flannery, a zoologist, biologist, explorer, conservationist and writer, began his scientific career documenting the long-term impact of human activity on the tropical rainforests of Papau New Guinea.

Australian scientist Tim Flannery grew used to receiving quizzical looks in the 1990s as he pounded the corridors of power in Canberra urging politicians to do something about climate change.

"You'd go and see a federal minister and they'd stare at you like you were a raving idiot," Flannery says of his early lobbying efforts.

"You could see them thinking 'what's this guy spouting on about?'.

"That only changed recently."

A shift in the Australian public's attitude towards climate change, brought about in no small part by Flannery himself, means politicans are now far less dismissive of the scientist-turned-environmental campaigner.

The extent to which the views that Flannery's critics once derided as fringe nonsense have become part of the mainstream was demonstrated last January, when the 51-year-old was named 2007 Australian of the Year.

"Tim helps us understand the predicament we face, carefully laying out the science and showing us the likely effects of human-induced climate change," his award citation said.

"But he also offers us hope of a solution to stop and ultimately reverse this trend."

Flannery returned to Parliament House, where his calls for environmental action once went unheeded, to received the award at a glitzy ceremony presided over by then-prime minister John Howard.

If the conservative leader hoped that Flannery's acceptance of an award traditionally viewed as apolitical might tone down his criticism of government policy, he was to be disappointed.

Flannery continued to launch ferocious attacks on Howard's refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and used his status as Australian of the Year to broadcast his opinions as widely as possible.

"John Howard handed me the award but it was the people of Australia who gave it to me," Flannery told AFP.

"They gave it to me for raising these issues and I owe it to them to continue doing that. It's perhaps given a bit more gravitas to the issue than it might have had otherwise."

Howard was ousted in elections on November 24 by Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, who has pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Flannery, a zoologist, biologist, explorer, conservationist and writer, began his scientific career documenting the long-term impact of human activity on the tropical rainforests of Papau New Guinea.

He discovered 29 new species of kangaroo in the remote New Guinea highlands, surviving encounters with giant spiders, having arrows pointed at him by hostile tribesmen and contracting typhus and malaria.

Renowned British naturalist Sir David Attenborough described Flannery as an explorer in the league of historical figures such as David Livingstone.

He rose to public prominence in Australia following the 1994 publication of the ecological history "The Future Eaters," an examination of how mankind has altered the environment of Australasia.

Last year he released "The Weather Makers," which explains how the build up of greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels has damaged the atmosphere and is causing global warming.

This has resulted in the melting of the polar ice-caps, rising sea levels and the extinction of some species -- incontrovertible evidence that mankind's pollution is heating up the Earth, he said.

The book made best-seller lists around the world as the climate change warnings Flannery had been issuing for well over a decade finally gained public acceptance.

Flannery says the turnaround in pubic opinion occurred over a short period last year and he remains uncertain about why the change occurred.

"My feeling is that the Iraq adventure was a factor," he said.

"People thought 'well if the intelligence services and the president (US President George W. Bush) could get it so wrong on weapons of mass destruction then maybe they're wrong on other things'.

"It opened the way for them to challenge what they were being told about climate change, that it wasn't a problem."

Flannery this year took up a climate change research position at Sydney's Macquarie University and he is also chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council.

In the latter role, he will be part of the Danish government delegation at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Bali from December 3, which will look at ways to negotiate pollution cuts after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol pledges run out.

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Australia steals show at Bali climate talks by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol

David Fogarty, Reuters 3 Dec 07;

BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - Australia won an ovation at the start of U.N.-led climate change talks in Bali on Monday by agreeing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, isolating the United States as the only developed nation outside the pact.

Soon after an Australian delegate promised immediate action on Kyoto, new Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took the oath of office and signed documents to ratify, ending his country's long-held opposition to the global climate agreement.

"I think I can speak for all present here by expressing a sigh of relief," conference host and Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told the conference opening session.

About 190 nations are in Bali seeking a breakthrough for a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009 to avert droughts, heatwaves and rising seas that will hit the poor hardest.

"The world is watching closely," Witoelar told delegates at the December 3-14 meeting trying to bind outsiders led by the United States and China into a long-term U.N.-led fight against warming.

"Climate change is unequivocal and accelerating," he told the opening ceremony in a luxury beach resort on the Indonesian island. "It is becoming increasingly evident that the most severe impacts of climate change will be felt by poor nations."

A new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States and developing nations have no caps under Kyoto.

The United States, as the world's top greenhouse gas emitter, has been feeling the heat from developing nations demanding the rich make stronger commitments to curb emissions.

Australia, the world's top coal exporter and among the world's highest per-capita greenhouse gas polluters, has been criticized for years for refusing the ratify Kyoto.

"It was an emotional and spontaneous reaction to a very significant decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Secretariat, said of the ovation.

The United States was unfazed.

"NO ROAD BLOCKS"

"We respect Australia's decision," Harlan Watson, head of the U.S. delegation, told reporters. "We're not here to be a roadblock. We're committed to a successful conclusion here."

De Boer told delegates rich nations had to agree to axe emissions from burning fossil fuels to encourage poor countries to start braking their own rising emissions.

"Bold action in the north can fuel clean growth in the south," he said, urging a sharing of clean energy technologies such as solar or wind power. "I fervently hope you will make a breakthrough here in Bali by adopting a negotiating agenda."

Others urged caution.

"At the opening ceremonies for the climate talks in Bali, there was lots of good will and optimism, but there is clearly a challenging road ahead," said Angela Anderson, vice president for climate programs at the Washington-based National Environmental Trust.

"Agreements on adaptation, deforestation and technology cooperation must be reached before the high-level officials arrive next week. While all the governments agree in principle, there is significant disagreement on the details."

Climate change talks have been bogged down by arguments over who will pay the bill for cleaner technology and how to share out the burden of emissions curbs between rich and poor nations.

China and India, among the world's top polluters and comprising more than a third of humanity, say it's unfair and unrealistic for them to agree to targets, particularly as they try to lift millions out of poverty.

The European Union, which has pledged to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, said that countries should start to look at hard new commitments in Bali.

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle, Gerard Wynn and Adhityani Arga in Bali and James Grubel in Canberra; editing by)

Australian PM ratifies Kyoto Protocol
Madeleine Coorey, Yahoo News 3 Dec 07;

Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd became Australia's 26th prime minister Monday and immediately began dismantling the former government's policies by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

Rudd had pledged to commit Australia to the landmark United Nation's treaty on greenhouse gas emissions as his first priority. And the former diplomat kept his word after his official swearing in at Government House in Canberra.

"Today I have signed the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol," he said in a statement.

"This is the first official act of the new Australian government, demonstrating my government's commitment to tackling climate change."

Rudd, who ousted conservative John Howard in elections nine days ago on a platform that included reversing the previous government's policy and ratifying Kyoto, had taken the oath of office just hours earlier.

The centre-left leader said ratification of the treaty on combating global warming was approved by the first meeting of the government's executive council and later by the governor general.

Ratification will come into force 90 days after the commitment is handed to the United Nations, he said, meaning Australia will become a full member of the Kyoto Protocol before the end of March 2008.

The move leaves the United States as the only major developed nation that has refused to ratify the pact.

Rudd said Kyoto was considered to be "the most far-reaching agreement on environment and sustainable development ever adopted".

"Australia's official declaration today that we will become a member of the Kyoto Protocol is a significant step forward in our country's efforts to fight climate change domestically -- and with the international community," he said.

The move means Rudd is likely to receive a hero's reception when he undertakes his first foreign visit as prime minister to attend high level talks at a United Nations conference on climate change in Bali.

The conference, which began Monday, aims to produce a "roadmap" for negotiating a new pact on tackling global warming to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

Australia's scientific community praised Rudd's move, saying it acknowledged the scientific basis of warnings on the impact of climate change and would draw more of the developing world into the Kyoto process.

"It has acknowledged that for the last 11 years Australia has had backwards thinking in terms of what the science is telling us," said Professor Barry Brook, a climate change expert from the University of Adelaide.

"The second important thing is this has given America no excuse now."

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Josep Canadell said the decision showed Kyoto was still vital.

"This comes at a critical crossroads, as it will increase the morale and the momentum to get global emission targets on the table soon after Bali," he said.

"It's a very significant moment for Australia both domestically and internationally and the hope is that this near-consensus by the developed world will release a snowball effect on the attitude of developing countries."

Rudd said his government would do "everything in its power" to help Australia meet its Kyoto obligations -- which are set at capping greenhouse gas emissions at 108 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

Official projections point to Australia just breaching this limit, estimating greenhouse gas output at 109 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.

Rudd has promised a sharp reversal of several of Howard's other policies, including withdrawing Australian combat troops from Iraq war and rolling back labour laws, which he says are unfair to workers.

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Climate Change May Wipe Some Indonesian Islands Off Map

Sugita Katyal and Adhityani Arga, PlanetArk 3 Dec 07;

"It will be like permanent flooding. By 2050, about 24 percent of Jakarta will disappear," possibly even forcing the capital to move to Bandung, a hill city 180 km east of Jakarta.

JAKARTA - Many of Indonesia's islands may be swallowed up by the sea if world leaders fail to find a way to halt rising sea levels at this week's climate change conference on the resort island of Bali.

Doomsters take this dire warning by Indonesian scientists a step further and predict that by 2035, the Indonesian capital's airport will be flooded by sea water and rendered useless; and by 2080, the tide will be lapping at the steps of Jakarta's imposing Dutch-era Presidential palace which sits 10 km inland (about 6 miles).

The Bali conference is aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, on cutting climate warming carbon emissions. With over 17,000 islands, many at risk of being washed away, Indonesians are anxious to see an agreement reached and quickly implemented that will keep rising seas at bay.

Just last week, tides burst through sea walls, cutting a key road to Jakarta's international airport until officials were able to reinforce coastal barricades.

"Island states are very vulnerable to sea level rise and very vulnerable to storms. Indonesia ... is particularly vulnerable," Nicholas Stern, author of an acclaimed report on climate change, said on a visit to Jakarta earlier this year.

Even large islands are at risk as global warming might shrink their landmass, forcing coastal communities out of their homes and depriving millions of a livelihood.

The island worst hit would be Java, which accounts for more than half of Indonesia's 226 million people. Here rising sea levels would swamp three of the island's biggest cities near the coast -- Jakarta, Surabaya and Semarang -- destroying industrial plants and infrastructure.

"Tens of millions of people would have to move out of their homes. There is no way this will happen without conflict," Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said recently.

"The cost would be very high. Imagine, it's not just about building better infrastructure, but we'd have to relocate people and change the way people live," added Witoelar, who has said that Indonesia could lose 2,000 of its islands by 2030 if sea levels continue to rise.


CRUNCH TIME AT BALI

Environmentalists say this week's climate change meeting in Bali will be crunch time for threatened coastlines and islands as delegates from nearly 190 countries meet to hammer out a new treaty on global warming.

Several small island nations including Singapore, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Caribbean countries have raised the alarm over rising sea levels which could wipe them off the map.

The Maldives, a cluster of 1,200 islands renowned for its luxury resorts, has asked the international community to address climate change so it does not sink into a watery grave.

According to a UN climate report, temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cm and 59 cm (seven and 23 inches) this century.

Under current greenhouse gas emission levels, Indonesia could lose about 400,000 sq km of landmass by 2080, including about 10 percent of Papua, and 5 percent of both Java and Sumatra on the northern coastlines, Armi Susandi, a meteorologist at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told Reuters.

Indonesia, the world's fourth-most populous country, has faced intense pressure over agricultural land for decades.

Susandi, who has researched the impact of climate change on Indonesia, estimated sea levels would rise by an average of 0.5 cm a year until 2080, while the submersion rate in Jakarta, which lies just above sea level, would be higher at 0.87 cm a year.

A study by the UK-based International Institute for Economy and Development (IIED) said at least 8 out of 92 of the outermost small islands that make up the country's borders are vulnerable.


TOO MANY ISLANDS TO COUNT

Less than half of Indonesia's islands are inhabited and many are not even named. Now, the authorities are hastily counting the coral-fringed islands that span a distance of 5,000 km, the equivalent of going from Ireland to Iran, before it is too late.

Disappearing islands and coastlines would not only change the Indonesian map, but could also restrict access to mineral resources situated in the most vulnerable spots, Susandi said.

He estimates that land loss alone would cost Indonesia 5 percent of its GDP without taking into account the loss of property and livelihood as millions migrate from low-lying coastlines to cities and towns on higher ground.

There are 42 million people in Indonesia living in areas less than 10 meters above the average sea level, who could be acutely affected by rising sea levels, the IIED study showed.

A separate study by the United Nations Environment Programme in 1992 showed in two districts in Java alone, rising waters could deprive more than 81,000 farmers of their rice fields or prawn and fish ponds, while 43,000 farm labourers would lose their job.

One solution is to cover Indonesia's fragile beaches with mangroves, the first line of defence against sea level rise, which can break big waves and hold back soil and silt that damage coral reefs.

A more expensive alternative is to erect multiple concrete walls on the coastlines, as the United States has done to break the tropical storms that hit its coast, Susandi said.

Some areas, including the northern shores of Jakarta, are already fitted with concrete sea barriers, but they are often damaged or too low to block rising waters and big waves such as the ones that hit Jakarta in November.

"It will be like permanent flooding," Susandi said. "By 2050, about 24 percent of Jakarta will disappear," possibly even forcing the capital to move to Bandung, a hill city 180 km east of Jakarta.

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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