New U.N. Pact May Be Needed For Climate Victims: WWF

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 4 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - The world may need a new U.N. pact to compensate victims of climate change or risk a tangle of billion-dollar lawsuits linked to heatwaves, droughts and rising seas, a study said on Wednesday.

The report, commissioned by the WWF UK environmental group, said the world already had compensation deals for accidents from nuclear power, oil spills, or even objects launched into space. But there were no U.N. schemes for damage from climate change.

"The likelihood of legal action against major-emitting countries is increasing," according to the 37-page study of options written by two climate lawyers.

Among options were an international compensation fund set up by some future U.N. treaty to compensate victims, according to the report, released on the sidelines of December 1-12 U.N. talks in Poland on fighting climate change.

"You need to address this. The science is progressing far enough to make these kinds of claims legitimate," said Peter Roderick, a director of the Climate Justice Program and a co-author of the study.

"It makes more sense to come up with a system, rather than people starting to litigate," he told Reuters.

The U.N. Climate Panel said last year it was at least 90 percent certain that human activities, led by burning of fossil fuels, were to blame for most of the warming in the past 50 years.

TOBACCO

"Potential claims for compensation could be way above any precedented damage in the past," said Kit Vaughan, a climate change adaptation adviser at the WWF UK, such as billion-dollar settlements linked to health damage from tobacco or asbestos.

Many small island states, for instance, fear that rising sea levels threaten to wipe low-lying coral islands off the map.

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a nation of more than 600 islands in the western Pacific with a population of 107,000, said the rising seas were caused by emissions from nations thousands of miles (km) away.

"The cost will be enormous...It shouldn't be the burden of the FSM to carry -- this is climate change caused by trans-boundary pollution," said M. J. Mace, a FSM delegate at the December 1-12 conference.

Small island states have been calling for an International Climate Fund and an insurance mechanism since 1991. Tuvalu in the Pacific once spoke of trying to sue the United States for emissions.

Roderick said one problem is that most international funds compensate for abrupt accidents -- not creeping damage such as rising sea levels that are projected by the U.N. Climate Panel to rise by 18-59 cm this century.

Pledged funds under main U.N. schemes to help countries cope with climate change total only about $300 million. Many studies project that tens of billions of dollars a year will be needed to help adapt.

"We risk a massive shortfall," Vaughan said. He said the study was meant to provoke discussions on options.

Read more!

Island States Seek Tougher U.N. Climate Deal

Alister Doyle and Gabriela Baczynska, PlanetArk 4 Dec 08;

POZNAN - A group of 43 small island states called on Wednesday for tougher goals for fighting global warming than those being considered at U.N. climate talks, saying that rising seas could wipe them off the map.

"We are not prepared to sign a suicide agreement that causes small island states to disappear," Selwin Hart of Barbados, a coordinator of the alliance of small island states, told Reuters at the 187-nation meeting.

The December 1-12 talks in Poznan, Poland, are reviewing progress at the half-way stage of a two-year push for a new U.N. treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. The new treaty is meant to be agreed by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen.

The 43 nations, including low-lying coral atolls from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, said global warming should be limited to a maximum of 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, below a 2.0 C goal by the European Union.

Average temperatures rose by about 0.7 Celsius last century and many scientists say that even the EU goal, the toughest under wide consideration, may already be out of reach because of surging emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

Hart said it was the first time that the alliance had set a common temperature goal. Rising temperatures and seas would damage corals, erode coasts, disrupt rainfall and spur more disease, they said.

Low-lying states such as Tuvalu and Kiribati say they risk being submerged by sea level rises, spurred by rising temperatures that could melt ice in Greenland and Antarctica. Warmer water also takes up more space than cold, raising levels.

"A 2 C increase compared to pre-industrial levels would have devastating consequences on small island developing states," the nations said in a joint statement.

CORALS

"My country is really suffering," said Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives. He said some people in the Maldives were already living in partly inundated homes.

Bernaditas Muller of the Philippines said a 2C rise would wipe out a third of the territory of her country. Rising seas would also swamp low-lying coasts from Bangladesh to Florida.

The small islands said their goal would mean that industrialized nations would have to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and by more than 95 percent by 2050.

Such cuts are far deeper than under consideration by industrialized countries, facing additional problems in making new reductions because of the financial crisis.

The EU, for instance, is struggling to get approval for a plan to cuts of 20 percent below 1990 by 2020. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama aims to return U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 after a rise of 14 percent since 1990.

The U.N. Climate Panel said seas may rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century and that sea levels are likely to keep on rising for centuries.

But some scientists say that may be an under-estimate.

"It's still likely that the average sea level will rise less than 1 meter by 2100 but higher figure cannot be excluded," said Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

He said that some studies indicated that seas could rise by up to about 1.55 meters by 2100 and 1.5-3.5 meters by 2300.

"If the Antarctic ice sheet melts down completely the global sea levels would rise by 57 meters (187 ft). For Greenland it's 7 meters," he said.

(Additional reporting by Megan Rowling and Gerard Wynn)

(Editing by Matthew Jones)

Small States Must Be The Benchmark, Says AOSIS
Samisoni Pareti, Pacific Magazine 4 Dec 08;

The negative impact of climate change on small island states must be used as a key benchmark to ascertain the adequacies of any long-term emission reduction targets amongst the world’s richer nations, a United Nations conference has been told.

All of the world’s small and poor island nations will be “challenged to survive and provide a livelihood for their population” even at the most stringent emission reduction rates put forward by scientists on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Such observations were made in the eleven-page submission of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) to a session on ‘Shared Visions’ at the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which opened on Monday in the Polish city of Poznan.

A working group will now consider the AOSIS submission together with submissions made by other groups and countries represented at the two-week long conference, before a draft proposal is put before the full Conference of the Parties (COP) for consideration next week.

After two days of submissions, AOSIS comprising 43 island states in the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, is suggesting the most ambitious reductions in carbon emission for industrialised countries.

“The avoidance of climate change impacts on small island developing states (SIDS) must be one of the key benchmarks for assessing the appropriateness of any long-term goal,” said the AOSIS submission.

“The long term global goal must be sufficient to ensure that long-term temperature increases are stabilized well below 1.5°C.

“A 2ºC increase compared to pre-industrial levels would have devastating consequences on SIDS due to resulting sea level rise, coral bleaching, coastal erosion, changing precipitation patterns, increased incidence and re-emergence of climate related diseases and the impacts of increasingly frequent and severe weather events.”

Warning that unless reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is “deep and rapid,” AOSIS said island countries, smaller and more vulnerable especially, would suffer from “runaway climate change.”

Industrialised countries referred to under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as Annex 1 countries need to reduce their emissions by more than 40 percent to 1990 levels by 2020, and more than 95 percent by 2050.

AOSIS said reductions should not be confined to the wealthier nations only, arguing that developing countries or “non-Annex 1” states should reduce their emissions as well.

The group of Least Developed Countries (LDC), which also includes the Pacific countries of Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu has rallied behind the AOSIS proposal.

The European Union argues the cuts being proposed by AOSIS would be too costly to implement. The EU is advocating a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 for its member countries, which they believe would keep the global temperature rise at 2°C or below. Many experts have argued that a 2°C rise in temperature would be devastating for the world’s islands and coastal areas.

Other key features of the AOSIS submission include:

* transfer of environmentally sound technologies for adaptation and mitigation;
* availability of new and sufficient financial resources (separate from current ODA commitments to vulnerable countries) to assist in capacity building and implementing adequate adaptation measures;
* expansion of access to renewable energy and energy efficient technologies as part of mitigating efforts for developing countries;
* addressing of demand-side management for developed countries through the use of economic instruments like taxes on carbon intensive activities, eco-labelling, removal of subsidies for fossil fuels and creation of incentives for uptake of renewable energy;
* discouraging the development of technologies that increase dependency on carbon intensive fuel sources;
* development of a “multi-window mechanism” to address loss and damage from climate change impacts with insurance, rehabilitation or compensatory and risk management components; and
* enhancing of existing financial assistance for recovery from “extreme events.”

Read more!

World carbon market now worth 38 bln euros

Yahoo News 3 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – The world market in greenhouse gases was worth 38 billion euros (48.26 billion dollars) in the first half of 2008, an increase of 41 percent over the figure for the same period in 2007, the UN climate conference heard on Wednesday.

The estimate, published by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), highlighted a fast-growing industry which is expected to expand even further if the United States establishes a national carbon market under Barack Obama.

A total volume of 1.84 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the principal greenhouse gas -- or its equivalent were traded in the first six months of the year, an increase of 56 percent over the figure for the first half in 2007, when the tally was 1.2 billion tonnes.

"These volume and value numbers suggest a weighted average world carbon price of 20.61 euros per tonne" of CO2 or its equivalent, according to the estimates, compiled by the Oslo-based analyst Point Carbon.

The European Union's Emissions Trade System (ETS), established under the UN's Kyoto Protocol, accounts for the lion's share of trade -- 70 percent of all global volume in the first half of 2008, as against 61 percent in all of 2007.

"While the EU ETS retains the largest share of the world carbon market, we may expect the fastest growth to take place elsewhere," the report, Greenhouse Gas Market 2008, noted.

The world carbon market took off in 2005, when the Kyoto Protocol took effect, although small schemes had been started on a pilot basis several years before. In 2003, world trade was just 70 million tonnes.

Under Kyoto, rich countries are required to curb their emissions as compared to a 1990 benchmark. There is a five-year evaluation period, from 2008-2012, for assessing whether they reach their target.

To help economies meet this objective, the treaty enables several mechanisms that harness market forces.

One is emissions trading. Under the ETS, big-polluting EU corporations have been set individual emissions targets or else pay a penalty for every tonne over this limit.

Companies that succeed in emitting less than their cap can sell the surplus to others that are over their cap. The idea is to provide a financial stimulus to everyone to clean up their act.

The other Kyoto incentives are the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI), under which a company can gain carbon "credits" for emissions-reducing schemes in developing countries (under the CDM) or former Eastern Bloc countries (the JI). These credits can be traded in the marketplace.

Outside the EU, the other significant markets in carbon emissions are at regional level, IETA said.

They are the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (NSW GGAS) in southeastern Australia and the Alberta provincial emissions trading system in Canada.

However, a slew of countries are expected to launch their own national system in the coming years, although it is unclear so far as to how these might connect up with the EU ETS.

Prospective entrants include Australia, with a federal ETS from 2010, Japan, New Zealand and the United States.

President-elect Obama has set a goal of reducing US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system and a 10-year programme worth 150 billion dollars in renewable energy.

The talks in Poznan, running from December 1-12, gather the 192-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), tasked with furthering efforts to build a new climate pact beyond 2012.

Read more!

Scientist warns against overselling climate change

Climate change forecasters should admit that they cannot predict how global warming will affect individual countries, a leading physicist has said.

Louise Gray, The Telegraph 3 Dec 08;

Lenny Smith, professor of statistics at the London School of Economics, said that scientists risk "blatantly overselling what we know. That could bring everything down and cost the world valuable time".

As the world gathers to decide a new way forward on climate change, he said the data produced by models used to project weather changes risks being over-interpreted by governments, organisations and individuals keen to make plans for a changing climate – with dangerous results.

"They are certainly right on the basic story of global warming. Man-made climate change is real.

"However, there is a risk that something important will happen that is not predicted by any of today's models – and they cannot give us trustworthy forecasts of climate for regions as small as most countries are. The bottom line is that the models help us understand pieces of the climate system, but that does not mean we can predict the details."

More than 192 countries have gathered at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland to decide a new Kyoto Protocol. The main issues will be whether developed countries like the US will commit to cutting emissions, paying developing countries to stop deforestation and an adaptation fund to help poorer people adapt to climate change.

Professor Smith, told the New Scientist magazine, said climate change negotiations should stick to the facts.

"Effective application of climate science hinges on clear communication of which results we believe are robust and which are not.

"Any discussion of such limits can be abused by those seeking only to confuse. But failing to discuss those limits can hinder society's ability to respond, and also compromise the future credibility of science.

"Let's forget the spurious certainties, and even the spurious possibilities and concentrate on what matters."

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 3 Dec 08

Peregrine Falcon feasting on a White-vented Myna
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Team with bite
on the annotated budak blog and Little brown bird and Crabbed out on Changi and Mad Murai

Nesting saga of Peaceful Doves: Part 2 of 6
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

White Peacock at St John
on the wonderful creation blog

Reef Friends Survey Training - Dec 08
on the BlueWaterVolunteers blog

Valley of The Trees
on the Aesthetic Voyager blog

Rio revisited?
on the BBC blog

Read more!

MM: No pushing back climate change

China and India, as major consumers of energy, must cut emissions, says MM Lee
Tracy Quek, Straits Times 3 Dec 08;

HONG KONG: Singapore is known for its equatorial climate, but yesterday, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew revealed that when indoors in Singapore, he needs warm clothing more often than he does on his trips to Europe.

That is because 'the offices are freezing!', he declared, explaining that the low temperatures are a consequence of central air-conditioning systems in office buildings.

His comment drew laughter from the audience attending his 40-minute dialogue with former United States president Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Asia meeting yesterday afternoon.

Mr Lee was responding to a question from Ms Liao Xiaoyi, president of Global Village, a Beijing-based environmental group, who had asked him why the Singapore Government did not take measures to address the problem of excessive energy consumption caused by the widespread use of air-conditioners.

Ms Liao, who has visited Singapore, said she could not 'understand the ridiculous phenomenon of why every house is so cold'.

In China, she said, the government has ordered that all air-conditioned public rooms must not be set lower than 26 deg C in summer, and no higher than 20 deg C in winter to save energy.

Chinese media reports say air-conditioners account for 30 to 50 per cent of office buildings' power consumption. Some cities such as Shanghai have been known to experience power shortages when the use of air conditioners is high.

Singapore, said Mr Lee, attempts to rein in the use of energy-guzzling air-conditioners by pricing.

'We give everybody a quota for normal consumption, if you go beyond that you pay a surtax on your electricity,' he said but added that the problem was that 'in a growingly affluent society, people say 'never mind I'll pay up'.'

The conflict between economic growth and the desire to protect the environment, how to get the whole world on board when it comes to tackling global warming, as well as finding solutions to the problem of growing scarcity of fossil fuels, took centre stage in Mr Lee's conversation with Mr Clinton.

Among the questions that Mr Clinton posed to MM Lee was one on how the use of renewable energy such as solar power and the dependence on it, could be encouraged at a time when prices for oil and coal have dropped.

The oil age will 'come to an end sooner or later', but alternative energy can never replace carbon fuels, said Mr Lee.

While nuclear fusion looks some years away, 'the only thing that can replace carbon fuels would be nuclear power', said MM Lee, who said he was more pessimistic about energy than water scarcity.

'With the best of intentions, the world must prepare itself for more adaptations than pushing back climate change,' said Mr Lee.

With scientists forecasting that global temperatures could rise by as much as 6 deg C over the coming decades, Mr Lee said the world must aim to keep the increase to the minimum prediction of 2 deg C. But it will not be easy.

'The Europeans have not been able to keep up the limits they placed on the Kyoto Protocol, they have decided now that cap and trade may not be as efficient as a straightforward carbon tax,' he said. 'How do you get a carbon tax right across the board throughout the world, including India and China?'

India and China, he noted, have made no commitments to cut their carbon emissions.

'We have to wait for them to get the message, when the glaciers in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau begin to recede to dangerous levels and their rivers begin to become seasonal with rain and not throughout the year.

'How long will that be? I don't know but maybe too late. So my conclusion is that we have to do the best we can, and hope that the major consumers of energy, which will be India and China, will come on board soon,' he said.

Meanwhile, there can be simple solutions to saving energy and energy efficiency.

Mr Lee cited the example of his stay at a hotel in Istanbul where he had a 'ghostly' experience with lights installed with motion-sensors that came on when a person was in range, but went off when no one was there.

'Now if we can have that for air-conditioners and so many other things, we could easily save 30, maybe 40 per cent of energy consumed,' he said.

However, energy efficiency will not solve the problem, it just 'delays the ending of the coal and oil age'.

He said: 'At the end of the day, there is a finite amount of stored solar energy over the millennia and people are using it up... it's going to come to an end. So we need to find a solution to this.'

Read more!

Last of Temasek's power units sold for $3.8 billion to Malaysian company

Surprise sale of PowerSeraya to YTL Power unit after 'unsolicited proposal'
Gabriel Chen, Straits Times 3 Dec 08;

TEMASEK Holdings has stunned the market by announcing that it has sold electricity generator Power-Seraya to a unit of Malaysia's YTL Power International for $3.8 billion.

This came just a week after the Singapore investment company said it would shelve tender plans for PowerSeraya, owing to 'market conditions'.

Market talk had suggested that relatively poor investor interest and lower-than-expected indicative bids by investors had led to Temasek's earlier decision.

Temasek said in a statement yesterday, however, that Sabre Energy, a wholly-owned unit of YTL Power, would pay $3.6 billion for PowerSeraya and assume $201 million of its adjusted net debt as at March 31 this year.

The transaction for PowerSeraya - the third and last of the electricity generation companies (gencos) to be sold by Temasek - is expected to be completed early next year.

In June last year, Temasek announced it was selling the three gencos to liberalise the power generation industry. It had targeted to complete the sale by the middle of next year.

Ms Gwendel Tung, Temasek's director of investment, said yesterday that after the company put a stop to the tender process last week, YTL Power submitted an 'unsolicited proposal' that met Temasek's requirements.

Referring to YTL Power, Ms Tung said: 'We are confident that their expertise and experience will add significant value to Singapore's electricity market and PowerSeraya in particular.'

Other factors may have also come into play. One possibility, suggest industry watchers, is that the funds will come in handy in helping cushion losses from other investments that have soured amid the global financial crisis.

They say another possibility concerns Temasek's outlook on market conditions. Temasek might have worried that, with asset prices declining rapidly, it might not have been able to secure such an 'acceptable' price again had it 'procrastinated'.

Temasek's other gencos fetched higher prices. Tuas Power went to Chinese firm Huaneng for $4.23 billion. Senoko Power, meanwhile, was sold to a consortium led by Marubeni Corp for $4 billion.

A third theory concerned the other bidders for PowerSeraya, which were said to be a Hong Kong CLP Holdings-led consortium and Bahrain's Arcapita.

Due to deteriorating market conditions, and with banks taking more precautions on lending, Temasek might have been concerned over whether these bidders would face difficulties in financing the deal.

Temasek declined yesterday to comment on the talk and also declined to provide the names of the shortlisted bidders.

The sale of the three gencos is aimed at liberalising the power generation industry. Private ownership can trigger stronger competition, possibly leading to lower costs and lower electricity prices.

The acquisition of PowerSeraya is not YTL Power's first foray into Singapore-based assets.

Its parent company, YTL Corp, owns majority stakes in two Sentosa Cove projects. In November last year, the group made history here by paying $2,525 per sq ft per plot ratio for Westwood Apartments in Orchard Boulevard - the most expensive site to be sold collectively.

YTL Power managing director Francis Yeoh said the 3,100MW of licensed capacity operated by PowerSeraya would give YTL Power 'significant participation' in the Singapore energy market.

YTL Power believes its participation in Singapore's electricity market will put it in a prime position to contribute towards the liberalisation of the Malaysian electricity market.

The lights are back on
Energy provider goesto Malaysian-listed giant
Marissa Chew, Today Online 3 Dec 08;

JUST a week after saying it was shelving the sale of PowerSeraya, Temasek Holdings said yesterday it was selling the electricity: generation company to Malaysia-listed YTL Power International.

YTL Power agreed to pay $3.8 billion for PowerSeraya, which accounts for about a quarter of Singapore’s generation capacity. YTL Power will pay $3.6 billion in cash and assume net debt of $200 million.

The Malaysian company said DBS Bank is providing $2.25 billion of credit facilities to help finance the purchase.

Temasek launched the sale of :PowerSeraya in early October, despite the spreading gloom in financial markets, saying it had attracted strong interest from potential bidders.

:However, the Singapore investment company last week unexpectedly halted the sale of PowerSeraya, citing market conditions.

Observers at that time said the relatively poor investor interest and low indicative bids led to the decision. :YTL Power is understood to have been one of the contenders for PowerSeraya in the first round of the sales process, along with Hong Kong’s CLP.

Yesterday, Temasek’s director, investment, Ms Gwendel Tung said: “After we stopped the tender process last week, YTL Power International put forward an unsolicited proposal which met our requirements.”

:With the latest sale, Temasek completes the divestment of its three power generation assets, which it announced in July 2007. All three were sold to foreign interests this year, with Tuas Power going to China Huaneng Group for $4.2 billion, and Senoko Power picked up by a consortium of Japanese and French companies for $4 billion.

If YTL Power shareholders approve, the deal will be completed on Feb 28.

“The 3,100 megawatts of licensed capacity operated by PowerSeraya will give us significant participation in the Singapore energy market,” said YTL Power managing director Dr Francis Yeoh.

For YTL Corp, the parent of YTL Power, PowerSeraya is the second major acquisition in Singapore in just over a month. YTL Corp on Oct 28 bought the Macquarie Group’s stake in Singapore-listed Macquarie Prime Reit, which owns stakes in the Wisma Atria and Ngee Ann City malls, for $285 million.

Apart from power generation, Power-Seraya :also operates oil trading and multi-utility businesses, and offers retail energy services. The company had revenue of:$2.79 billion and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $355 million for the year ended March 31, 2008.

YTL ups the ante to clinch PowerSeraya
Deal comes just a week after Temasek stopped tender for the genco
Conrad Tan, Business Times 3 Dec 08;

(SINGAPORE) In a stunning about-turn, Temasek Holdings has sold electricity generating firm PowerSeraya to Malaysia's YTL Power International for $3.8 billion just a week after it postponed the sale indefinitely due to poor market conditions.

YTL Power will pay Singapore investment company Temasek $3.6 billion and assume $201 million of PowerSeraya's net debt.

'After we stopped the tender process last week, YTL Power put forward an unsolicited proposal which met our requirements. We are pleased with the successful outcome of the PowerSeraya divestment,' Gwendel Tung, director of investment at Temasek, said in a statement.

Francis Yeoh, managing director of YTL Power as well as its parent company YTL Corp - both listed on Bursa Malaysia - said that he was 'delighted' to acquire PowerSeraya, which will give YTL Power 'significant participation in the Singapore energy market'.

Sources told BT that Mr Yeoh flew to Singapore with other senior YTL Power executives to meet Temasek representatives. Over the past two days, they rapidly hammered out a deal.

Just last week, on Nov 25, Temasek said that it had stopped the tender process for the sale of PowerSeraya that it had started on Oct 7.

'In light of the market conditions, we have decided not to proceed further,' Ms Tung said in a statement at the time.

YTL Power had been one of two shortlisted bidders; the other was a consortium led by Hong Kong's CLP Group.

DBS Bank is providing $2.25 billion of credit facilities to YTL Power to fund part of the purchase.

PowerSeraya is the last of three power generating companies that Temasek put up for sale under its planned divestment of the gencos, first announced in July last year.

The first, Tuas Power, was sold to China Huaneng Group for $4.24 billion in March, while Senoko Power was bought by a consortium led by Japan's Marubeni Corp for $3.97 billion in September.

With a registered generating capacity of 2,940 megawatts (MW) and a licensed capacity of 3,100MW, PowerSeraya is the second largest genco here after the 3,300MW Senoko Power, providing about 27 per cent of Singapore's electricity needs.

The deal is subject to the approval of YTL Power's shareholders. If approved, the acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of February next year.

For the financial year ended March 31, 2008, PowerSeraya reported revenues of $2.79 billion and net income of $218 million.

Its net debt at the end of March was $201 million, after adjusting for a $100 million dividend paid to Temasek in September this year.

Wong Kim Yin, managing director of investment at Temasek, said that, with the sale of PowerSeraya, 'Temasek would have fulfilled its commitment to help develop a competitive power generation market in Singapore'.

Mr Yeoh, 54, one of the most powerful businessmen in Malaysia, has been busy deploying the YTL group's war chest of more than RM11 billion (S$4.6 billion) in cash to buy overseas assets on the cheap.

In October, the group bought Macquarie Group's entire interest in Singapore-listed Macquarie Prime Reit at a sharp discount to the property trust's net asset value, in an all-cash deal worth $285 million.

Temasek sells power firm to Malaysia YTL for $2.5bln
Kevin Lim, Reuters 2 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL] said on Tuesday it had sold electricity generator PowerSeraya to a subsidiary of Malaysia's YTL Power International Bhd (YTLP.KL: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for S$3.8 billion ($2.5 billion).

Temasek said Sabre Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of YTL, will pay S$3.6 billion and will assume S$201 million of PowerSeraya's adjusted net debt as of March 31, 2008.

YTL said it would fund the acquisition through a combination of cash reserves and a loan, and said the acquisition would add 76 million ringgit ($20 million) to its full year 2010 post-tax profit. It saw the acquisition being completed in the third quarter of 2009.

The deal came despite Temasek saying just a week ago that it had postponed the sale of PowerSeraya, the last of three power firms it is selling to liberalise Singapore's electricity market, amid market turmoil that has dampened deal-making globally.

"After we stopped the tender process last week, YTL Power International put forward an unsolicited bid which met our requirements," said Gwendel Tung, director of investment at Temasek, in a statement.

Temasek also raised S$334.5 million on Tuesday from the sale of its 70 percent stake in Singapore Food Industries (SFIL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Asian sovereign wealth funds such as Temasek may invest their growing cash piles to shore up markets close to home as their risky bets in Western banks show few signs of paying off and as emerging economies look to avoid the damaging effects of the financial crisis, analysts said. [ID:nSIN287928].

Temasek sold the other two power generators earlier this year for a total of S$7.9 billion. For a Factbox on Temasek see [ID:nSP132652].

PowerSeraya's plant has a capacity of 3,100 megawatts (MW) and provides about 28 percent of the city-state's electricity. Its capacity will rise to 3,900 MW by 2010 as it is in the process of building an 800 MW capacity natural gas-fired plant.

"Its attraction lies both in its strong position in the energy market and its complementary multi-utility business -- the acquisition of PowerSeraya will help us grow our utility business in the region," said Francis Yeoh, managing director of YTL Power.

Bahrain's Arcapita and a consortium led by Hong Kong's CLP (0002.HK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) had been named as other potential bidders for PowerSeraya, according to media reports.

Analysts had expected the deal to be postponed because of higher borrowing costs for companies and expectations of weaker power demand from Singapore, which slipped into a recession in the third quarter.

Malaysia supplies natural gas to its neighbour Singapore. The two countries briefly merged in the 1960s and have since often bickered over issues from land reclamation to airspace.

Temasek sold generator Senoko Power to a consortium led by Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp (8002.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) for $2.5 billion in early September, while Tuas Power was sold to Chinese power firm Huaneng Group for $3 billion in March. (Additional reporting by Julie Goh in Kuala Lumpur; Writing by Neil Chatterjee; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

Read more!

Carry rubbish at your own peril

David Hughes, Business Times 3 Dec 08;

As an awful lot of containers are filled with rubbish, a report details how much trouble recyclable waste can cause

A COUPLE of publications coming to my attention this week have underlined how different a business liner shipping has become. The first was the British seafarers' union Nautilus UK's journal. Towards the back, there was a picture of a model of the Clan Line general cargo ship Clan Shaw and a write-up of its rather short service life, ending up under a different name on the rocks off Cape Town 16 years after being built.

Now it so happens that the Clan Shaw was an identical sister ship of my first ship as a cadet. Consequently, I took a particular interest in the article and especially the bit on how many crew we used to carry on those ships - the total complement was somewhere over 80. And then I looked at her tonnage - 8,700 gross registered tonnes, perhaps with a lifting capacity of around 14,000 tonnes.

We used to trundle around the European coast taking weeks, sometimes literally months, loading a full cargo before sailing to Africa to discharge and load again in equally leisurely manner.

Of course, it immediately struck home just how far we have come since the Clan Shaw and her ilk.

The Clan Shaw was big and powerful for her day so the fair comparison would be with an 8,000-TEU or 10,000-TEU container ship operating today.

And a modern container ship requires only a fraction of the time in port required by the old conventional cargo ships.

Then I saw a press release about the latest publication from the mutual liability insurer the UK P&I Club. The Perils of Waste Shipments in Freight Containers highlights the problems and summarises the legislative framework surrounding this trade. The club notes, 'There is plenty which can go wrong.'

One passage I found especially interesting. Apparently a vessel loading in the UK for China may carry recyclable waste in up to 65 per cent of its loaded containers.

The new UK Club manual goes into great detail about how much trouble 'recyclable' waste can cause. Partly this because the term is often really a misdeclaration of hazardous rubbish.

The club notes that containers carrying waste shipments can suffer structural damage due to improper stowage practices at the loadout point or become unusable due to tainting from a particular cargo's malodorous properties. Ports may turn down cargoes of contaminated green waste.

Unbalanced loads may cause vehicles to roll over during road transportation.

Shipments may be rejected at the port of discharge due to incorrect or incomplete documentation. Shippers and receivers may fail to take timely and appropriate measures to mitigate problems arising from incidents and may even abandon waste cargo, leaving the container operator to arrange disposal or return the cargo expensively to origin.

The club says that many countries receive hazardous waste as a welcome source of business, with at least 8.5 million tonnes shipped internationally each year. The trans-boundary movements of various wastes and their volumes have increased significantly over the last decade, with recycling the primary spur. Certain types of waste have become more valuable to export, such as electrical and electronic equipment, which is very expensive to recycle or treat in Western Europe.

The main international legislation governing the carriage of waste in containers is the Basel Convention. Negotiated under the United Nations Environment Programme, it was adopted in 1989 and came into force in 1992. It was originally designed to address the uncontrolled movement and dumping of hazardous wastes, including incidents of illegal dumping in developing nations by developed world parties. Among the 170 member countries, Afghanistan, Haiti and the United States have signed but not ratified it.

The Convention regulates the movement across international frontiers of hazardous and other wastes. These include paper, paperboard and paper product wastes, plastic, mixed plastic materials and metal or alloy electrical and electronic assemblies.

Written consent has to be obtained from the states of export, import and transit. The Convention obliges its parties to ensure that hazardous and other wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. Parties are expected to minimise the generation of waste and the quantities moved across borders, and to treat and dispose of it as close as possible to the place of generation.

Nevertheless, it is clear from the UK Club's new publication that an awful lot of containers hauled around the world on these ultra large, ultra expensive container ships are literally filled with rubbish, and quite often dangerous misdeclared rubbish at that.

So this all makes me wonder just how much progress we have made since the days of the Clan Shaw. She was apparently hopelessly inefficient, but in those days we made good profits for her owner and carried useful goods across the oceans. Can we say the same today?

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Are you game and green enough?

Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 3 Dec 08;

WE'VE heard it time and again. It's important to recycle. It's important to prevent mosquitoes from breeding.

But students might not heed the messages because of other distractions.

Now there's a new way to spread such important messages, through board games designed by students who took part in a competition organised by the National Environment Agency (NEA).

The winning entry for the secondary school category is Mozzie Buster, which was invented by 10 Secondary 3 students from Maris Stella High School. They won $1,000.

The game, which can be played by up to six people, revolves around using various weapons to fight mosquitoes in different locations represented on a map of Singapore.

The game locations have different prize values simulating the risk levels of the actual locations.

The areas that allow players to score the most points are the areas where dengue is known to be more prevalent.

One of the Maris Stella group members, Choy Bing Han, 15, said: 'The most fun part about designing the game is learning how to prevent mosquito breeding. We all can do our part in preventing dengue.'

Between May and July, the team met after school and during school holidays for up to three hours a week to work on the game.

They found out about the competition from their geography teacher.

Augustine Koh, 15, said the team got ideas from other games by going to a board games exhibition.

'The most difficult part was at the start when we had a lot of ideas but many of those didn't work,' he said.

For example, they wanted to use small mosquito figurines in the game but these were hard to make from recycled materials.

One of the criteria of the competition was that the game prototype submitted had to be made from recycled materials.

As part of the contest, NEA engaged Melchiz Pte Ltd, a training company which uses games as a medium, to provide three training sessions for the participants.

Bing Han said: 'They gave us ideas on how to make a successful game. For example, the objective must be clear and educational.'

One of the teachers supervising the team, Mr Low Tung Mun, 36, said: 'It was an interesting challenge - the process was quite meaningful. Not only was it fun but it teaches some important lessons on how to control dengue in Singapore.

'We didn't realise there are so many ways to fight dengue, such as breeding dragonflies that eat mosquito larvae. After research, we found a lot of basic stuff which can be done on a daily basis, like checking to make sure that plastic containers left outdoors are overturned so that they don't collect rain water.'

Mozzie-busting methods

So what examples of mozzie-busting methods will the boys be practising at home?

Bing Han said: 'Removing the flower pot plates, covering the toilet bowl when going on holiday. My family was already doing this but the message got reinforced after the board-game design experience.'

The winning team for the tertiary institution category was from ITE College Central (Tampines) who invented a game called Recycling Coaster.

Student Chua Boon Siah, 18, said: 'It's similar to Snakes and Ladders but there's the added objective of getting as many tokens as possible before reaching the end.

'Also, you can sabotage other players and switch places with them.'

Team-mate Leonard Cheng, 18, said he started using both sides of paper after joining the contest. He found out about it through posters on campus.

His teacher, Madam Fauziah Abdul Aziz, 52, said: 'We are now more conscious of the environmental message. It was also good to discover talent in the students. For example, all the illustrations in the game were hand-drawn. They were really impressive.'

Like the Maris Stella team, the ITE team also won $1,000. They also won another $300 for having the best illustrations.

NEA has produced 100 sets of the board games with plans to work closely with the South East Community Development Council to distribute the games to schools in the south-east district.

Mr Ng Meng Hiong, deputy director of the 3P (people, public and private sectors) partnership department of NEA, said: 'It's part of our outreach programme to the youths, engaging them in an interactive and fun way through games so that the message of environmental responsibility and ownership can be sustained.'

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Baby decisions - adding to the world's woes?

Joanna Benn, BBC Green Room 2 Dec 08;

How responsible is it to have children in a world whose environmental health is already under stress? That's the question Joanna Benn poses this week in the Green Room. On the other hand, she wonders, will a couple more hungry mouths make much difference?

I came out of my house last week and got caught up in a fleet of mothers and prams.

They were wearing a middle class yummy mummy uniform combining comfort and fashion - skinny jeans, UGG boots, black tops and large sunglasses.

The prams were all state-of-the-art three wheeled, balanced, air-bagged mini cars that can fold to the size of a postage stamp and carry the week's shopping.

The urban mother tribe looked chic, proud and collectively cool.

It got me thinking. I love kids, I love babies.

I love the idea of the Brady Bunch, of close-knit large families and a stream of brothers and sisters of different heights with crazy hair.

However, perhaps it's my age; suddenly everyone I know has children and it is confusing me.

I don't even know when it all happened. I remember conversations about university, jobs, flats, boyfriends and partners, but I seem to have missed the pre-baby musings.

One minute people were childless - or child-free, depending on your viewpoint.

The next - magic wand, small bang, plume of smoke - it was insta-family, complete with new people-carrier in the drive and more often than not, a house extension.

Two weeks ago, a single childless friend confessed she'd been looking into freezing her eggs. That apparently is not a taboo subject.

Nor are conversations about contraception, fertility patterns, mastitis, post-partum depression and sex, child behaviour problems, sleepless nights, credit crunch worries or redundancy.

However, dare ask how green is it to have kids in a world of dwindling resources, vast global inequality, terrifying climate change scenarios and dying empty seas... then people get uncomfortable and usually defensive.

Ugly truths

I have couched the question a few times: "Why did you want children?"

The answers have usually been - "It seemed the next thing to do, we wanted to, it felt right, I couldn't imagine not..."

Push again - "Have you thought about what kind of world you are bringing them into to? Some climate change scenarios give us a 10 to 15 year window before things get very ugly and scary indeed."

Resounding silence.

Being an environmentalist is, quite frankly, an awkward thing.

When I see babies, not only do I see the beauty, joy and miracle of life, I also see nappies, landfill waste, vast amounts of food and money needed, and a very shaky, unpredictable future.

According to United Nations projections, the world population will nearly stabilise at just above 10 billion people after 2200.

That's a lot of people on one small planet.

When we talk about the environment and available natural resources, we bandy around statistics; yet none of it seems to be about me or you or that guy that everyone talked about during the US election campaign, Joe the Plumber.

Mood swings

Ask any environmental organisation what it thinks about birth control; it'll sidestep the issue, and say it's not their place to comment.

If a commentator says there are too many people on the planet, their words smack of authoritarian dictatorships and human rights violations, and echo traces of unpalatable eugenics.

However, the reality is that every time we eat, switch on a light, get in a car, drink a beer, go on holiday or buy something to wear or use, we are adding to our environmental footprint.

Toddlers - small beings that they are - require almost unlimited nappies, a fair amount of food, and apparently a loungeful of loud, battery-powered plastic toys.

I am not saying we shouldn't have kids. They may well be the leaders of tomorrow, steering humanity into a just, equitable, fair and healthy future.

The new generation may indeed succeed where all others have failed, and learn lessons of the past.

Perhaps it's just my mood.

Or perhaps it's the media's fault that some of us feel as if humanity is sliding from one patch of melting ice to another in a murky sea of financial, environmental and social woes.

I am curious to know if I am the only 30-something woman who has these dilemmas, worrying about the planet's future and what we could and should do to ease the strain.

Am I fretting needlessly? Because in the grand scheme of things, one or two more children in the world really make no difference, do they?

And as for the future - rising sea levels, bare former forests, desertification, empty seas and a few dollar bills floating in the wind - well that'll all take care of itself.

Won't it?

Joanna Benn is a journalist, writer and consultant specialising in environmental issues

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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Florida's $5.5 Billion Reef Economy at Risk From Climate Change, Report Finds

Tens of Thousands of Florida Jobs Threatened by Environmental Damage to Corals
Yubanet.com 1 Dec 08;

(Sarasota, Florida - December 1, 2008) A comprehensive new analysis of business generated by Florida's coral reefs warns that more than 70,000 jobs and more than $5.5 billion in economic activity in the state are in grave jeopardy from climate change.

"A business-as-usual approach to climate change could mean a lot less business for Florida," said Jerry Karnas, Florida project director at Environmental Defense Fund, which commissioned the report, Corals and Climate Change: Florida's Natural Treasures at Risk.

Florida boasts the only shallow-water coral reefs in the continental United States - and those reefs are a centerpiece of South Florida's economy. Like coral reefs worldwide, Florida's are under siege from a range of environmental challenges that could lead to huge economic losses in the state.

The groupers, snappers, jacks, angelfish, and spiny lobsters that thrive on coral reefs make Florida a destination for millions of fishermen every year and back up Florida's claim to be the Fishing Capital of the World. On the commercial side, catches of reef-associated species in South Florida account for $158 million in annual sales.

Terry Gibson, the Fishing Editor of Outdoor Life magazine and a co-author of the report with University of Miami Professor Hal Wanless, noted that "from scuba diving in the Keys to charter fishing boats in Miami-Dade to commercial fishing in Martin County, reef-related sales amount to more than $5.5 billion each year."

But climate change driven by unchecked greenhouse gas emissions is stressing coral reefs and putting the Florida economy at risk. According to Wanless, "a central culprit in the decline of coral reefs is unchecked emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, largely from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil."

New research by Florida scientists is providing surprising new insights into how CO2 and other greenhouse gases hurt coral reefs. First, global warming leads to warmer oceans – which cause harmful coral "bleaching" and make corals more vulnerable to diseases – as is now visible on many of Florida's coral reefs. As the report describes, innovative research by Dr. Kimberly Ritchie of the MOTE Marine Lab in Sarasota helps explain why: during times of warmer ocean water, corals lose their ability to use natural antibiotics to protect themselves from disease.

Research by another Florida scientist, Professor Andrew Langdon of the University of Miami, shows another way in which greenhouse gases harm coral reefs: as oceans absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, they become more acidic, which stunts coral growth and impairs reproduction.

EDF's Karnas said quick federal action to limit greenhouse gas emissions can help protect Florida's reefs and the state's economy. "We need Congress to cap global warming pollution. This report shows that doing nothing is the worst option for Florida's economy."

To see the full report, please visit edf.org/floridacorals.

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Mystery of crocs' mass die-off: gharials in India

BBC News 2 Dec 08;

Measuring up to 6m long, with elongated narrow snouts, gharials are one of the world's most distinctive-looking crocodilians.

Just 100 years ago, these fish-eating reptiles were prevalent throughout the Indian subcontinent; but by 2007, there were just 200 breeding adults found in only a handful of rivers in India and Nepal.

Last winter, this already critically endangered species was dealt another cruel blow. Over the space of just five months, more than 100 of the creatures washed up dead on the banks of India's Chambal river - and nobody knew why.

For the past year, herpetologist Rom Whitaker, who runs the Madras Crocodile Bank, has been followed by a BBC Natural World team as he attempted to solve this mystery.

Here, he explains how scientists may finally be on the verge of finding some answers.

It's been a bit like a long drawn out Agatha Christie mystery. Everything we hear about just throws up more questions.

Why is it just a particular 40km stretch of the river that is being affected, and the deaths all occurred over winter?

Why is it that only one particular size class - the medium sized ones - is dying?

And why is it that only one fish-eating animal is being affected?

Death by gout

We started to speculate that it had to be something in the food chain.

Autopsies have told us the deaths were caused by gout, which more or less indicates kidney failure - and this points to the build up of toxins.

The river that they live in - the Chambal - is one of the cleanest rivers in India. But this flows into another river called the Yamuna, which is a big huge toxic mess.

We think the gharial are moving into the Yamuna and feeding on fish that have big toxic loads.

Then it is likely that they are coming back to the Chambal, having brought with them all this fish they have gorged upon, and this bioaccumulation of toxin is then affecting them.

We believe that the die-off happened in winter because when it is cold, the animals are unable to metabolise anything in their system - they sort of shut down.

This will take a toll on weak, injured or sick animals. And in this case, if they had damaged kidneys, and the kidneys were trying to excrete the uric acid but were unable to, then the uric acid would have spread to the body, causing gout.

Ecologist Jeff Lang was able to fill us in on another piece of the puzzle concerning the size of the animals that were dying.

The little crocodilians can bask in what little sunshine is available in the winter, and because they are small they heat up very fast. Even if they have eaten polluted fish, they would be able to metabolise it very fast - in other words, get rid of it as quickly as they consume it.

The very large animals are at a stage of their life where they are not gorging on fish as they have no great incentive to grow fast. They are more likely to be concentrating on patrolling their territory than on feeding.

It is the medium-sized class that are dying - these are feeding on a lot of fish as they want to grow quickly. And in the case of the adult females, they need extra energy for egg production at this time of the year.

But being larger, it takes them a heck of a long time to warm up, and we think that they never do warm up enough to aid digestion and metabolise out the toxins.

'Educated speculation'

But why aren't other fish-eating animals affected?

If you are talking about river dolphins, cormorants, otters and pelicans - these are all warm-blooded, and they are eating and expelling waste as fast as they can.

So this accumulation may take place, but it isn't happening fast enough to kill them - at least not yet. And of course, there is the sinister possibility that people who eat the fish may also be affected.

The other species of crocodile that's there is the mugger crocodile.

And this animal is not a specialist like the gharial.

Gharials only eat fish, but these muggers eat anything that moves. So we surmise they are not getting the same kind of accumulation of nasty fish in their systems.

This is all speculation - but it is educated speculation. The pieces of the puzzle are beginning to all come together. But it is not enough to just find out what happened.

If they are going to clean up the Yamuna river, we are talking probably about another long decade of really hard work - and there is a chance that a die off could happen again before that.

The Chambal population is the most important last repository of gharial. So it seems that a critically endangered species with this one last bastion left is in real real trouble.

But the problem goes much wider.

The gharial could be the canary in the coalmine. They are telling us something very important - that our rivers are dying, and that could mean us dying next.

Crocodile Blues is on BBC2 on Tuesday 2 December at 2000GMT as part of the Natural World strand

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