Taiwan: Trash ritual that won't go to waste

Julia Ross, Straits Times 5 Dec 07;

WHEN I planned for my year in Taiwan two summers ago, trash was the last thing on my mind. The more obvious challenges of moving abroad - finding an apartment, navigating the bus system, learning Mandarin - preoccupied me.

But strange things happen when you cross cultures. Unexpected frustrations vex you and ingrained habits suddenly come up for negotiation. So it was for me and waste disposal.

On this island of 23 million people, trash matters.

My Taipei landlady was the first to make that point, when she instructed me on how to dispose of household waste.

First, buy city-approved trash bags at the corner 7-Eleven. Then, meet the garbage truck five nights a week at the mouth of a nearby alley. Finally, heave the bags onto the truck yourself.

You'll recognise the truck, she said, because it plays music - a tinny version of the Beethoven classic Fur Elise, I soon figured out.

Understanding the mandatory recycling system was more troublesome.

In Taiwan, recycling trucks follow trash collectors but accept only certain items on certain nights. According to the strictly enforced schedule, plastic bottles must be separated from plastic wrappings and bags; flat recyclables, such as styrofoam trays and cardboard dumpling boxes, are collected only on Mondays and Fridays.

Show up with bundled newspapers on the wrong night and you'll get an earful from the sanitation worker.

Waiting for the garbage truck is one of Taiwan's liveliest communal rites. Many evenings I watched food vendors from the night markets, buckets of eggshells in hand, chat up convenience store clerks alongside Filipino nannies who traded kitchen appliances as if they were at a Sunday morning swop meet. Freelance recyclers showed up to collect cardboard and newspapers, which they would then sell back to the city. An alderman with a whistle kept traffic at bay.

These kerbside jaunts formed my initiation into Taiwan's broader waste-disposal network, made up of municipal employees and regular citizens all doing their part.

They shamed me into compliance after years as a half-hearted recycler back home. I even came to feel a peculiar solidarity with the 'ladies with tongs', the city transit and university sanitation workers who spend their days sifting through garbage bins in subway stations and on university campuses in search of aluminium cans.

Then you have nosy landlords who are sometimes tasked with sorting their tenants' trash.

One American friend, upon surrendering several bags of refuse soon after moving into a Taipei apartment, was dumbfounded when his landlady scolded him for eating too many candy bars and not enough fruit.

Humiliated, he bought oranges the next day, hoping she would notice the peels he planned to leave on top of the pile.

Taiwanese friends tell me that 10 years ago, Taipei's sidewalks were awash with rotting garbage. You'd never know it today, thanks to the introduction of a per-bag trash-collection fee, a charge for plastic bags at supermarkets and the rigorous recycling policy now in effect. These changes created an infinitely cleaner city. Even more impressive, they fuelled a sense of civic responsibility.

I've been home in the United States for three months now, and consumption looks as robust as ever, with the same limited recycling opportunities.

Reducing your personal 'carbon footprint' is a hip way to fight global warming, but what about the trash generated by last night's takeout?

Before Taiwan, I was a lazy environmentalist, dutifully recycling wine bottles and newspapers and opting for paper over plastic, but never going the extra mile if it wasn't convenient. It's no longer so easy to make excuses.

Living in a place where I was expected to use what I bought and recycle every last yogurt cup and juice box left me with a new appreciation for what clean streets mean in a civil society, and the realisation that I'm responsible for everything I consume.

That's as good a Chinese lesson as any.

WASHINGTON POST

Ms Ross, a writer, was a US Fulbright scholar in Taiwan.

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Public anger rising over tiger photo fiasco

Their trust in the authorities shaken by refusal to verify authenticity of photo
Sim Chi Yin, Straits Times 5 Dec 07;


BEIJING - PUBLIC anger is mounting over a fiasco involving a photograph of an endangered South China tiger that could possibly be fake.

The spat - fought in cyberspace and the media - has been cast as a test of Beijing's credibility.

But state forestry officials only made more Chinese see red yesterday when they refused at an eagerly anticipated press conference to verify the authenticity of the photo - even after experts declared it a fake in recent days.

The seemingly simple question of whether the image is real or not has snowballed over the past two months into a battle pitting the people against the authorities.

As one netizen put it in the flood of online postings yesterday: 'How the authorities explain the authenticity of the photo has become far more important than whether the tiger still exists or not.'

More than 90 per cent of over 71,000 users polled on a local news website yesterday said they were 'dissatisfied' with the authorities' handling of the debacle.

In October, forestry officials in north-western Shaanxi province released the photograph in question, said to have been shot by farmer Zhou Zhenglong in the wilderness of Zhenping county.

It immediately stirred much interest in the Chinese and international media, but has since been relentlessly questioned, with netizens and experts saying it is fake - and possibly copied off a calendar poster.

The Shaanxi authorities have stuck to their guns.

Dodging pointed questions from local journalists yesterday, Mr Cao Qingyao, spokesman for the State Forestry Administration (SFA), said the agency would not 'exceed its administrative scope' to authenticate the picture.

Instead, it will focus on an ongoing study by a team of 10 experts dispatched to Shaanxi to check on possible sightings of the tiger and other wildlife.

'Whether the tiger in the picture is fake or a living animal, it is not helpful for evaluating the situation of the wild South China tiger in that area,' he said.

Similarly playing down the debate over the photo, SFA deputy director Zhu Lieke drew a parallel to the legendary Loch Ness Monster in Scotland.

'The museum there does not know if its pictures are real either. The question everyone is concerned about is whether the monster exists,' he said.

Beijing's fence-sitting is 'irresponsible' and simply deepens its credibility problem, said Professor Zhou Xiaozheng, a sociologist at the People's University.

'This incident has become a test of society's trust in the authorities,' he said, adding that Beijing's humming and hawing further convinces people that the picture is very likely a fake.

To avoid the embarrassment of going against the Shaanxi government's account, Beijing is probably hoping the debate will just dissipate, Prof Zhou said.

The online debate does not look likely to die down soon, with netizens charging Beijing with 'participating in a cover-up'.

One posting yesterday read: 'There is only one solution now. If the government still does not give us a verdict on the authenticity of the tiger photo, the people should hold an online referendum on the government's trustworthiness.'

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Rare Chinese tiger spotted for first time in decades
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Cambodia, UN launch project to save dolphins: UN

Yahoo News 4 Dec 07;

Cambodia and the UN have launched a joint project aimed at saving endangered Irrawaddy dolphins from extinction, the international body's World Tourism Organization said Tuesday.

The Mekong River Discovery Trail Project encourages local fishermen to work in dolphin-watching tourism instead of fishing, the UN agency said in a statement. Fishing nets often cause the death of Irrawaddy dolphins.

"Local authorities believe fishing is depleting the dolphins' food supply. Fishermen will be encouraged to take visitors to see the dolphins and sell food and drinks instead," it said. It did not give financial details.

Conservationists estimate that fewer than 100 Irrawaddy dolphins exist in the wild, but the Cambodian government has said the number could be around around 130 and could rise to 170 within the next five years.

Thousands of the Irrawaddy dolphins, which have blunt, round heads and are almost white in colour, once swam in the Mekong -- which flows from Tibet to the South China Sea and has tributaries in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

The project, which begins this month, will teach fishermen about tourism activities, the UN agency said, adding it hopes to draw tens of thousands of visitors.

The Cambodian government said it would help build hotels in a bid to draw visitors.

"No dolphins means no tourism. No tourism means no development," Tourism Minister Thong Khon said in the statement.

Tourism is one of the few sources of foreign exchange for impoverished Cambodia, which is still recovering from decades of conflict.

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Lawrence Ong, BBC News 21 Nov 07;

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Biggest threat to Asia's prosperity: water and not oil

There's something in the water
Today Online 5 Dec 07; also in Business Times 5 Dec 07;

Andy Mukherjee

The commodity that poses the biggest threat to long-term prosperity in Asia isn't oil, it's water.

It isn't the likelihood of Asian cities running out of fresh water that should bother the region's policymakers as much as the bigger danger of being overwhelmed by waste water.

The capability to treat discharged water before it is allowed to flow into lakes, rivers and oceans isn't growing quickly enough. Unless this crucial shortcoming is immediately tackled, it may end up being a deterrent to urbanisation.

"Continuation of the present trend will make available water resources increasingly more contaminated and will make provision of clean water more and more expensive as well as more complex and difficult to manage," the Manila-based Asian Development Bank said in a recent report.

The countries that rise to the challenge will create more livable cities for their people as well as exciting, new opportunities for investors; those who squander the initiative will pay a heavy price.

The problem would have been easier to tackle had it been restricted to a few large cities. That, however, isn't the case. Between now and 2025, Asia's urban population will swell by 60 per cent.

The first step toward efficient management of water is to price it correctly. It's also the most difficult thing to do.

"There is no question that the era when drinkable water could be provided to everyone free or at highly subsidised rates on a long-term basis is now over," says Mr Asit Biswas, president of Mexico City-based Third World Centre for Water Management and one of the authors of the ADB report.

Subsidised water does nothing for the poor. The utilities that aren't able to recover the cost of their services can't raise money to expand their networks or improve the management of waste water. After a while, they even fail to maintain their existing service standards.

At the behest of the Beijing government, cities in China have shown a willingness to improve the pricing. Between 1949 and 1985, the municipality of Tianjin in north-east China charged residents an unchanged fee of 0.08 yuan (less than 2 cents) per cubic metre of water. Once the city understood that these heavily-subsidised rates were a hindrance to both producing and conserving water, it raised the tariff eight times over the next 20 years.

This has seen Tianjin win much-needed investments in water treatment and distribution. In September, Paris-based Veolia Environnement, the world's leading operator of water services, won a 30-year, 2.65-billion-euro ($5.6-billion) contract to supply drinking water to 3 million people in the city. Hyflux, Singapore's largest water treatment company, is building a plant in Tianjin to recycle waste water.

India, which will need US$37 billion ($53.5 billion) over the next decade to give city dwellers access to safe water and sanitation, is also aware of the need to make tariffs more realistic.

In advocating that the state-owned utility in New Delhi allow the private sector to use its infrastructure to deliver water in the city, the World Bank recommended that tariff increases be linked to improvements in service.

The project never took off; in fact, it became a rallying point for social activists to condemn the World Bank for pushing privatisation through back-door methods.

But what other option is there? How does one even begin to fix a state-owned utility that distributes only 60 per cent of the piped water it produces and collects just 80 per cent of the bills it issues? And without such efficiency gains, how does one win popular support for price increases in a city where the utility can at best supply water for a few hours every day?

The time to answer these questions is now.

Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

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Brazil slams EU-US 'green' WTO proposals as protectionist

Yahoo News 4 Dec 07;

"The exclusion of biofuels is particularly striking," Azevedo said. Brazil is a key exporter of this alternative fuel source.

Brazil on Tuesday sharply criticised joint proposals by the United States and European Union for fewer tariffs and other trade barriers on "green" goods and services as protectionist and only serving their own interests.

"Brazil is deeply disappointed. We find the proposal modest, biased and protectionist," Brazil's trade negotiatior at the WTO Roberto Azevedo told journalists.

The EU and United States on Friday proposed that all 151 WTO members cut tariffs on at least 43 types of environmentally-friendly goods and services in order to boost their use worldwide.

Brazil said the measure was "essentially protectionist," and took issue with the definition of "green" products, not least the absence of biofuels.

"The exclusion of biofuels is particularly striking," Azevedo said. Brazil is a key exporter of this alternative fuel source.

"The approach of the proponents ignores high tariffs and other barriers they impose on goods they do not produce," he added.

"Anything they don't produce is not on the list," he claimed, concluding: "We don't think this is a basis for negotiation on environmental products."

WTO member states have yet to arrive at a common definition of what should be classified as environmental products, within the wider framework of the Doha Development Round, which remains stalled over differences between developed and developing countries.

RELATED ARTICLE

US, EU aim to free up trade in 'green' goods
Yahoo News 30 Nov 07;

Read more!

Europe urges steeper greenhouse gas cuts

Sebastien Blanc, Yahoo News 4 Dec 07;

The EU again dangled the prospect of even steeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions on Tuesday, as nations held nitty-gritty talks to cope with the looming threat of global warming.

The proposal came as nearly 190 nations began hammering out the preliminary details in a long process to agree to a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the main international accord on climate change, before its expiry in 2012.

But as wealthy countries wrangled over how to cut the emissions blamed for placing the planet in peril, poorer nations said they needed tens of billions more dollars right away to fight the ravages of global warming.

Trying to spur nations like the United States which have hesitated to make binding commitments on emissions cuts, the European Union urged rich nations to rally together to slash greenhouse gas output by 30 percent by the year 2020.

The wealthy bloc has pledged a 20 percent reduction by then, but reiterated that it would raise that commitment to 30 percent if other developed nations agree to do the same under a new worldwide deal.

"We are not aiming for a low-carbon economy for the European Union alone -- we are aiming for a low-carbon economy for the globe," said Nuno Lacasta, a climate change official of current EU chair Portugal.

"Under a new global climate agreement, for which we hope this Bali conference will agree to launch negotiations, it is actually necessary for developed countries to cut their collective emissions by 30 percent by 2020."

The offer came at the 11-day UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference on Indonesia's resort island of Bali, which is intended to take the first steps to finding Kyoto's replacement.

The United States -- currently the world's worst polluter and the only industrialised nation not to have ratified the Protocol -- has so far rejected mandatory emissions cuts, advocating voluntary targets instead.

Growing economies such as India and China, which are on track to become the major carbon polluters, are also reluctant to commit to binding targets, saying the industrialised world was historically to blame for climate change.

UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer said talks were off to an encouraging start.

He said a working group had been established to thrash out a calendar for the intricate years-long international negotiations needed to forge an agreement of such complexity and sweep.

He also said an important decision had been taken to help oversee the transfer of technologies to cope with climate change from richer to poorer nations.

"Developing countries feel that the rich countries have not done enough to transfer technology," de Boer told AFP. "It's very important that this issue is examined."

Poor countries are forecast to suffer most from the effects of global warming, with increased droughts, flooding, hunger and water stress.

Delegates from Bangladesh, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea joined global relief agency Oxfam in demanding that rich countries help foot the bill, with costs estimated at 50 billion dollars a year.

Oxfam said the current level of funding for poorer nations was an "insult".

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said earlier this year that evidence for global warming was unequivocal, and without prompt action, the world could see irreversible effects, including desertification and extinction of up to 30 percent of plants and animals.

But delegates cautioned the world needed more than just ambitious goals.

"Setting targets is one thing," said Artur Runge-Metzger of the European Commission. "Implementing these targets is the second question, so you need to really need to come forward with the right legislation."

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Bali climate talks advance despite squabbling

Gerard Wynn, Reuters 4 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali took small steps towards a new global deal to fight global warming by 2009 on Tuesday amid disputes about how far China and India should curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, praised the December 3-14 meeting of 10,000 participants for progress towards a goal of launching formal talks on a long-term climate pact to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

"But in this process, as in so many, the devil's in the detail," he cautioned in an interview with Reuters at a beach-side conference centre on the Indonesian island.

Governments set up a "special group" to examine options for the planned negotiations meant to bind the United States and developing nations led by China and India more firmly into fighting climate change beyond Kyoto.

The meeting also agreed to study ways to do more to transfer clean technologies, such as solar panels or wind turbines, to developing nations. Such a move is key to greater involvement by developing nations in tackling their climate-warming emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol now binds 36 rich nations to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 in a step to curb droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.

But there was skirmishing about how to share out the burden beyond Kyoto and environmentalists accused Kyoto nations Japan and Canada of expecting China and India to do too much.

Canada said in a submission to the talks that "to be effective, a new international framework must include emission reduction obligations for all the largest emitting economies". It did not mention deeper cuts for rich nations beyond 2012.

And Japan on Monday called on all parties to effectively participate and contribute substantially. A Japanese official said it was "essential" that China and India were involved.

"Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They are trying to shift the burden to China and India."

NO FORMAL PROPOSALS

Green groups gave Japan a mock award as "Fossil of the Day" -- made daily to the nation accused of holding up the talks.

De Boer played down the environmentalists' objections, saying that all nations were merely laying out ideas. "A marriage contract is not something to discuss on a first date," he said. "No proposals have formally been made."

China and India say that rich nations must take on far deeper cuts in emissions and that they cannot take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty.

The Bali talks are seeking a mandate to widen Kyoto to all nations beyond 2012. Of the world's top-five emitters, only Russia and Japan are part of Kyoto. The United States is outside the pact, while China and India are exempt from curbs.

And de Boer also said the talks should not focus solely on the plan to launch new negotiations. "There's a bit of a risk that countries that are very keen to see negotiations being launched go over the top and focus only on that," he said.

Developing nations were worried that more immediate issues -- such aid to help them cope with droughts, floods and rising seas -- could "be forgotten in all the excitement about the future", he said.

Outside the Bali conference centre on Tuesday, a group of environmentalists gave a mock swimming lesson to delegates, saying that rising seas could swamp low-lying tropical islands such as Bali unless they acted.

"Sea level rise is threatening hundreds of millions of people," they said. "Sink or swim!"

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle, David Fogarty and Adhityani Arga in Bali; Editing by David Fogarty)


Talks focus on emission curbs on India, China
Straits Times 5 Dec 07;

BALI - THE hunt for a new global deal to fight climate change has started here with 190 countries skirmishing about how far China and India should curb surging greenhouse gas emissions.

'The conference got off to a very encouraging start,' said Mr Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat.

Some 10,000 delegates are meeting to launch talks on a climate pact to succeed the UN's Kyoto Protocol.

After an opening day dominated by ceremony, governments set up a 'special group' to look at options for starting two years of talks meant to bind the United States and developing countries led by China and India more firmly to the fight to slow global warming.

Mr De Boer said the group of senior officials would report back to 130 environment ministers who will arrive next week at the talks in the resort island of Bali.

US delegates at the climate conference insisted they will not block a new international pact aimed at reducing potentially catastrophic greenhouse gases, but refuse to endorse mandatory emission cuts.

Many governmental delegations at the meeting see mandatory cuts as crucial to reining in rising temperatures.

The Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, required the 36 signatories to cut emissions by 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012.

Meanwhile, China and India say that rich countries must take on far deeper cuts in emissions, and that they cannot take on caps yet because they need to burn more fossil fuels to end poverty.

Environmentalists have accused Kyoto countries Japan and Canada of asking China and India to do too much.

REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS

FACTBOX - What Bali Means for Carbon Markets
PlanetArk 5 Dec 07;

About 190 countries are meeting in Bali, Indonesia, aiming to kick-start two years of talks to agree a new global climate change deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol from 2013.

Kyoto has created a carbon market whereby rich countries can meet their binding greenhouse gas emissions limits by funding emissions cuts in developing nations, through a trade in carbon offsets worth $5 billion last year.

That trade has attracted speculators including investment banks and specialised carbon project developers, and has cut the cost for rich countries of meeting their Kyoto targets.

Some supporters of carbon markets want these extended under a Kyoto successor to include huge emissions-cutting projects.

Following are carbon market issues under discussion at Bali:


REDUCED EMISSIONS FROM DEFORESTATION

Under Kyoto, rich countries can earn carbon offsets by investing in projects to plant trees, which soak up the commonest man-made greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).

Now some countries want to include forest protection, whereby rich nations earn offsets by paying countries not to chop trees down. Complicating issues include: calculating the CO2 saved; establishing whether these trees were really at risk; and whether the resulting offsets will make it too cheap for rich countries to offset their own emissions.

The Bali meeting will not decide whether avoided deforestation is included in carbon markets. The meeting may formally approve pilot projects to test inclusion from 2013.


CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE

Burying CO2 underground, also called carbon capture and storage (CCS), is widely believed to be a crucial weapon without which carbon emissions may pass dangerous limits.

The technology is supposed to trap CO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are proliferating globally, and pump the gas underground. But there is no commercial-scale power plant project yet anywhere.

That is because of the extra expense to install CCS technology, estimated at $1 billion per plant.

The Bali meet will not decide whether to include CCS in the carbon market but may put it formally on the agenda for possible future inclusion, the UN's top climate official said.

Because no new commercial-scale CCS projects are expected to be operational for several years, the technology is only relevant to carbon markets in a Kyoto successor deal after 2012.


HFC PLANTS

At present under Kyoto rich nations can earn carbon offsets by funding the destruction of potent greenhouse gases called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a waste product from the manufacture of refrigerant gases for use in air conditioners.

Projects have drawn criticism because chemical plants, for example in China, now make more money destroying the greenhouse gas than from selling its refrigerant end product, removing any incentive not to produce the waste gas in the first place.

At present factories are not allowed to claim offsets for destroying the production of HFCs above a 2000-2004 baseline.

China wants to be able to sell offsets from subsequent, additional capacity. But the European Union is concerned that will encourage companies simply to manufacture the greenhouse gas in order to earn offsets, making these meaningless.

As a result the Bali meeting may not resolve this issue.

FACTBOX - What's on the Table at the Bali Climate Talks?
PlanetArk 5 Dec 07;

About 190 nations are meeting on Indonesia's Bali island to hammer out details for a broader global pact to fight climate change after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

The United Nations hopes the Bali gathering will launch a two-year dialogue that will lead to a replacement of Kyoto or an expanded version of the pact.

Here is a guide to some of the issues on the table at Bali.

* TIGHTENING THE TARGETS:

-- Greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise despite countries' attempts to meet their Kyoto targets. And current Kyoto targets have been criticised as being too-little too-late.

-- The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its latest scientific reports, says it is very likely the rapid rise in greenhouse emissions above natural levels is due to mankind's burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and agricultural practices. The European Union says an average temperature increase of no more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels should be considered the limit. Beyond this, the world is at risk from dangerous climate change, it says.

* BRINGING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES:

-- Drawing in developing countries excluded from Kyoto's first round, such as China, the world's second biggest carbon emitter, will be crucial if the new agreement is to avoid criticisms of inequity that have dogged Kyoto. The Bush administration pulled out of Kyoto saying it unfairly penalised its economy but is now under pressure to do more to rein in its own emissions.

* CARBON FORESTRY:

-- More carbon is emitted from deforestation than the global transport sector, but forests are not factored into Kyoto.

-- For the past few years forest-rich developing countries such as Indonesia have been lobbying to monetise the "avoided carbon emissions" their forest carbon stores represent.

-- Paying poor countries to protect mature trees prevents carbon emissions while offsetting the financial losses involved in passing up lucrative forest clearances for timber and plantation concessions, supporters of schemes such as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries (REDD) say.

* TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS:

-- Combatting climate change through the use of cleaner, more energy-efficient technologies has high-level backers on both sides of the rich-poor divide that has threatened to derail global responses to climate change.

-- In May, an IPCC report said US$20 trillion must be spent by 2030 on upgrading the world's energy infrastructure to reduce emissions.

-- While many are keen to push for such transfers, Kyoto's subsidised technology transfers from developed to developing world, via the Clean Development Mechanism, have attracted criticism for focusing especially on a narrow range of lucrative projects in China, and elsewhere for delivering emissions cuts against rather hypothetical baselines.

* ROPING IN OTHER POLLUTION SOURCES:

-- Kyoto's first phase, which ends in 2012, focuses mainly on controlling pollution from industrial sources.

-- At Bali, British and European negotiators are expected to push for emissions from the global aviation and shipping industries to be included in a successor pact. They argue fast-rising emissions from these sectors could cancel out savings made elsewhere if they are not addressed.

Sources: Reuters

(Writing by Gill Murdoch, Singapore Editorial Reference Unit, editing by David Fogarty)

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Storms pound North America on both coasts

Channel NewsAsia 4 Dec 07;

MONTREAL - Major storms pounded North America's Atlantic and Pacific coasts Monday, grounding flights, forcing schools to close and creating dangerous road conditions that have left at least nine people dead.

Snow forced severe flight delays at major airports in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, while children stayed home as hundreds of schools closed in eastern Canada.

Nearly all flights were cancelled or delayed at the international airport of Montreal, where 24 centimetres (9.5 inches) fell overnight.

Up to 35 centimetres of snow was expected in parts of Canada's eastern provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

The storm lashed the US Midwest over the weekend before striking the northeastern United States and Canada.

Slick and icy roads caused traffic pileups and accidents across the United States, leaving four people dead in Michigan, three in Wisconsin, one in Indiana and another in New Jersey, according to local newspapers.

The Pacific northwest was also pounded by a major early winter storm.

The state of Washington took a beating from a wintry mix of powerful winds, heavy rain and massive snow fall, all resulting in mudslides, flooding and avalanches, the US National Weather Service said.

"You name it, we have it," NWS meteorologist Brad Colman told AFP.

Hurricane-force winds of up to 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour, with gusts of 135 kph (85 mph), were recorded off the Washington coast, while at least one river flooded with more expected to overflow, Colman said.

Sixty centimetres to one meter (two to three feet) of snow fell in the Cascades mountain range, triggering avalanches that forced one major state road to shut down, he said.

Heavy rain also caused major traffic woes with water rising up to 1.2 meters (four feet). "It has been a traffic nightmare," Colman said, adding that no injuries were reported.

The NWS issued flood and heavy snow warnings for parts of Oregon and Washington state. Snow warnings were also in effect in Idaho and parts of Montana.

Powerful winds and heavy rains also pounded Canada's Pacific coast city of Vancouver, while Alberta province was hit by a polar cold.- AFP /ls

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Singapore Outward Bound School to expand training activities beyond Singapore

Channel NewsAsia 4 Dec 07;

SINGAPORE: The Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) plans to expand its training activities beyond Singapore to countries as far as Croatia.

It said this is one way to overcome the limited space available for training activities on Pulau Ubin.

This was revealed at the OBS' 40th anniversary celebrations attended by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday.

The OBS trains about 23,000 youths and adults every year. There are plans to include even more people. But the school has limited space to do this.

So it is trying to come up with an innovative approach. This includes training in waters off Pulau Tekong and the Southern Islands. As for overseas training, OBS is looking beyond Malaysia and Indonesia to countries such as China, India and even Croatia.

Nicholas Conceicao, director of Outward Bound Singapore, said: "We are exploring these three countries because, as you know, China and India are increasingly being countries which schools are looking at.

"China, especially, is partnering many schools in Singapore. Croatia is an interesting example because there are new schools being set up and OBS is actually playing a role in mentoring the set up of the new schools."

He also said that Croatia offers a good training area for OBS trainees because the climate there is very compatible with Singapore's.

As for its premises on Pulau Ubin, the OBS plans to develop more training activities in areas which were previously untouched, such as disused quarries. There, activities such as quarry jumps are being considered.

Prime Minister Lee believes the OBS can overcome the problem of limited space available for its training activities.

Mr Lee said: "These are all ingenuity challenges that we have to overcome and I think we will overcome, because we would like more of our students, more of our people to come and attend and have this experience which will leave them changed, not just physically fitter but mentally tougher and more cohesive as a team and, I think, with memories that will last them a lifetime."

That's what Mr Lee himself experienced 40 years ago. To relive those moments, he had the chance to sail on board a cutter, and got reunited with the instructor who trained him. He is Mr S Puhaindran, a former OBS instructor who was also at the anniversary celebrations.

Mr S Puhaindran said: "He (Mr Lee) mixed well with the other students. That made it easier for me. I was apprehensive because knowing his background, I thought it might be difficult for him to mix with people from the other sex... his own school, it was a boy's school."

On Tuesday, the OBS also unveiled its new logo, with colours that represent nature, life, adventure and courage. - CNA/ir


PM remembers the day he got lost in Punggol
That was in 1967 when he and other 15-year-olds were attending OBS
Peh Shing Huei, Straits Times 5 Dec 07;

WHEN Mr Lee Hsien Loong attended Outward Bound Singapore (OBS) in 1967, he and his mates had to dash through rural Punggol and navigate checkpoints without a compass.

In a place dotted with pig farms, unrecognisable from the new town it is today, the group of 15-year-olds failed in their task.

'We got lost,' he admitted self-deprecatingly yesterday to much laughter.

Returning to OBS as Prime Minister to celebrate its 40th anniversary, he reckoned that today's youth would probably have a far easier time.

'Today, I think it is very difficult to get lost in Punggol because if you get lost, you go to the light rail, you follow the tracks and it would take you to the next station,' he said.

Even on Pulau Ubin, where OBS is located and which is just a 15-minute boat ride from Punggol, it is quite difficult to get lost these days.

'It is quite a crowded place. You have tarmac roads...you have road signs. It's not as much of wilderness as we would like it to be,' he said.

'But with some ingenuity and some effort, we can make the best of what we have.'

It is what OBS is already doing - taking some of its annual intake of 23,000 participants beyond its Ubin home ground.

A programme to paddle to Batam and back will kick off next year.

More exciting challenges are also lined up for participants in China's scenic Guilin area, the Himalayas, and even in Croatia.

OBS will also have more activities in other parts of Singapore, making use of nature reserves and also of Pulau Tekong and the Southern Islands.

Of course, it also wants a slice of the new Punggol 21-plus, aiming to 'chope' or reserve, as Mr Lee revealed, some space at Punggol Point Jetty when the new town is rejuvenated as a coastal suburb.

This would beef up OBS' presence on mainland Singapore.

And it will also allow more Singaporeans to try the climbing, jumping and even 'flying' - on the Flying Fox apparatus, of course - that the OBS is famous for.

'We would like more of our students, more of our people to come and have this experience which would leave them changed - not just physically fitter but mentally tougher and more cohesive as a team and with memories which would last them a lifetime,' Mr Lee said after a two-hour tour, during which primary school pupils greeted him with the Mexican, or perhaps in this instance, the Pulau Ubin Wave.

Mr Lee's 17-day course four decades ago certainly left an impression on him.

His then-OBS instructor, Mr S. Puhaindran, now 71, remembers him as a boy who didn't give trouble.

'He mixed very easily with the other people. He did everything that everyone else did and never complained. After a while, the other students all forgot that he was Lee Kuan Yew's son,' said the veteran Marine Parade grassroots leader.

As for the little misadventure in Punggol, he said: 'They were quite happy and they laughed it off.'

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Bali climate meeting must show results: Pacific islands

Kyoko Hasegawa, Yahoo News 4 Dec 07;

"It takes a lot of effort to generate political will and financial commitment for something that doesn't directly affect us"

Leaders of small Pacific island states threatened by rising sea levels on Tuesday called for action rather than empty rhetoric at a key climate change conference underway in Bali.

Young Vivian, prime minister of the tiny Pacific state of Niue, said he feared the high-profile meeting in Bali would be "talk, talk, talk and meeting, meeting and meeting."

"I don't know, maybe next year there'll be another disaster and they may still be talking," Vivian told a first-of-a-kind Asian "water summit" in the southern Japanese town of Beppu.

"What is happening now is reported in newspapers, and it is in front of us now. On a daily basis, in many places there will be more natural disasters -- storms, tsunamis, typhoons -- and all sorts of problems," he said.

The Bali conference is aimed at working out a framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that expires in 2012.

Vivian, speaking to AFP after his address, praised Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, a move that leaves the United States as the only industrial power to snub the treaty.

"I think they (rich countries) know what we need. I think they know what they should do to reduce the emissions," he said.

"Australia has done that now. They ratified the protocol," he said.

Kiribati President Anote Tong showed the conference video footage of what he called the consequences of rising water levels for his island nation, including intensifying floods and storms and greater salt levels in the groundwater.

He said 25 to 50 percent of urban areas in a southern region of his country was under threat from rising sea levels, while 50 to 80 percent of villages risked being submerged in the same region.

"This is typical of what's happening now," he warned.

An official from Tuvalu called for technological help to secure safer water and better sanitation, while Fiji's finance minister asked for more loans to help deal with the effects of rising water levels.

"I appeal particularly to financing institutions to consider soft-loan options for small island nations with vulnerable economies," Fijian Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry said.

"There are other competing demands on government financing which come from the social sector," he said.

Asia-Pacific leaders agreed at the end of the two-day meeting to "exhort the Bali Conference to take into account" problems such as the melting of snowcaps and glaciers in the Himalayas and rising sea levels, a statement said.

Prince Willem Alexander of The Netherlands, who chairs the UN International Year of Sanitation next year, called on policymakers to show more commitment.

"Everyone has a right to sanitation," the heir to the Dutch throne said.

"Our main dilemma is that we, you and I, policymakers and opinion formers, are not confronted with the impact of inadequate sanitation," he said.

"Consequently it takes a lot of effort to generate political will and financial commitment for something that doesn't directly affect us," he said.

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EU has no idea how much fish it catches: watchdog

Reuters 4 Dec 07;

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union has no real idea of how many fish its national fleets catch each year and is failing to clamp down hard on vessels that exceed national quotas, the EU financial watchdog said on Tuesday.

The Court of Auditors said unreliable data on catches, weak inspections with no proper deterrent, as well as general fleet overcapacity were threatening fish stocks. For many species including cod, stocks had been hard hit by years of heavy exploitation.

"Catch data are neither complete nor reliable and the real level of catches is thus unknown," an ECA report said.

It criticized EU governments and the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, for not doing enough to enforce the rules and stop the overfishing -- a phenomenon that international scientists have warned the EU about for years.

"If this situation continues, it will bring grave consequences not only for the natural resource, but also for the future of the fishing industry and the areas associated with it," said the analysis of the EU's six major fishing countries: Britain, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.

"If the political authorities want (EU policy) to achieve its objective of sustainable exploitation of the fisheries resources, the present control, inspection and sanction systems must be strengthened considerably," it said.

More than 4.4 million tonnes of fish and crustaceans are landed in EU ports every year, worth some 6.1 billion euros ($9 billion).

For more than 20 years, EU ministers have agreed annual fishing quotas by species, fishing area and country. Those volumes are based on a total allowable catch, or TAC, that is then sub-divided into quotas allocated to each EU member state.

Catch volumes are calculated on information provided by authorities in each country. Under EU law, a country may be fined if its vessels break the rules -- for example, if they use small-mesh nets to trap extra fish, or trawl in closed seasons.

But inspections and follow-up legal action were inadequate to prevent abuses, while levels of fines were limited, the report said. Countries were also unable to guarantee catch data and the Commission could not identify the errors properly.

The Commission said reporting accurate data on catches was the responsibility of the national authority concerned.

"While it continues to look for ways in which it can improve its own data processing systems, the Commission ... considers that the primary responsibility for providing reliable data rests with the member states," it said in a statement.

Equipping EU-flagged trawlers with far more fish capacity than they needed, despite Commission efforts to curb this, made matters worse, it said.

"Overcapacity affects the profitability of the fishing industry and, in a context of decreasing authorized catches, is an incitement to non-observance of these restrictions and affects the quality of the data forwarded," it said.

(Reporting by Jeremy Smith; Editing by Caroline Drees)

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"Out of Balance" climate film targets ExxonMobil

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 4 Dec 07;

"When I started to find out who it was that was really fostering the confusion around the issue ... I just thought it was outrageous that here's this company that basically has been portraying this major debate among climate scientists ... when largely the debate was over a long time ago, back in the 90s."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmentalists love taking aim at ExxonMobil Corp., which many see as the biggest corporate culprit in human-fueled climate change. A documentary on global warming takes this to a new level: buy the $24.99 DVD online, and the film's distributor will donate $10 to victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

"Hey, $10 might not be the $339 billion in revenue that ExxonMobil's going to generate ... this year, but it's what we can do," said Halfdan Hussey, executive director of Cinequest, which is distributing the film "Out of Balance." "We might be able to write a $100,000 check."

The donations would go to the Bidarki Youth Center in Cordova, Alaska, on Prince William Sound, where the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in March 1989, spilling 11 million gallons (50 million liters) of crude oil along 1,200 miles

of Alaskan coastline.

The Valdez spill was what originally got filmmaker Tom Jackson interested in ExxonMobil and its influence.

"I was in college then and pretty upset by that whole thing ... and the way it was handled, or perhaps one would say, mishandled," Jackson said by phone from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He stopped buying Exxon gas and noticed a boycott of the company's credit cards, but did not then associate the company with the growing issue of global warming.

That came much later, after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the U.S. Gulf Coast and some scientists linked more severe storms with climate change. Scenes of the ravaged Louisiana coastline open the film.

"I myself took a while to come around to the whole climate change issue, and bought the whole 'the jury is still out' (argument)," Jackson said. But then he heard reports that ExxonMobil has funded those skeptical of the reality of global warming.

"FOSTERING THE CONFUSION" ON CLIMATE CHANGE

"When I started to find out who it was that was really fostering the confusion around the issue ... I just thought it was outrageous that here's this company that basically has been portraying this major debate among climate scientists ... when largely the debate was over a long time ago, back in the 90s."

Jackson, who made "Out of Balance" for about $50,000, said the connection between the Valdez spill and ExxonMobil's stance on global warming was former chief executive Lee Raymond, who headed the corporation's cleanup operations in Alaska in 1989. Jackson and others quoted in the film dismissed this operation as a "PR charade" aimed more at looking busy than fixing the problem.

ExxonMobil has weathered numerous accusations of funding what critics call "junk science" on climate change by saying that the corporation funds a wide range of organizations and does not dictate what they produce.

Asked specifically about the accusations in "Out of Balance," ExxonMobil spokesman Gantt Walton said by e-mail, "This film was produced and originally aired a year ago and the recycling of discredited conspiracy theories diverts attention from the real challenge at hand: how to provide the energy needed to sustain and improve global living standards while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

ExxonMobil, unlike other oil companies including BP and Chevron, has not been very vocal in opposing climate-warming emissions. But it did run double-page spreads in The Washington Post and The New York Times to promote its new technology that could make the batteries in hybrid vehicles more efficient.

The ads ran on December 3, the opening day of an international conference in Bali, Indonesia, aimed at figuring out how to cut greenhouse emissions after the current Kyoto Protocol runs out in 2012.

The Exxon Valdez case is still winding its way through the legal system. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the company's appeal to overturn a $2.5 billion punitive damage award to about 32,000 commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others affected by the worst U.S. tanker spill.

Exxon's Walton called the spill "a tragic accident," but said the company has paid $3.5 billion in cleanup and other costs and believes that no punitive damage payment is warranted.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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