Coral Reefs May Start Dissolving When Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Doubles

ScienceDaily 9 Mar 09;

Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on ocean water are making it increasingly difficult for coral reefs to grow, say scientists.

A study to be published online March 13, 2009 in Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem warns that if carbon dioxide reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world.

The impact on reefs is a consequence of both ocean acidification caused by the absorption of carbon dioxide into seawater and rising water temperatures. Previous studies have shown that rising carbon dioxide will slow coral growth, but this is the first study to show that coral reefs can be expected to start dissolving just about everywhere in just a few decades, unless carbon dioxide emissions are cut deeply and soon.

"Globally, each second, we dump over 1000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and, each second, about 300 tons of that carbon dioxide is going into the oceans," said co-author Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, testifying to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans and Wildlife of the Committee on Natural Resources on February 25, 2009. "We can say with a high degree of certainty that all of this CO2 will make the oceans more acidic – that is simple chemistry taught to freshman college students."

The study was designed determine the impact of this acidification on coral reefs. The research team, consisting of Jacob Silverman, Caldeira, and Long Cao of the Carnegie Institution as well as Boaz Lazar and Jonathan Erez from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, used field data from coral reefs to determine the effects of temperature and water chemistry on coral calcification rates. Armed with this information, they plugged the data into a computer model that calculated global seawater temperature and chemistry at different atmospheric levels of CO2 ranging from the pre-industrial value of 280 ppm (parts per million) to 750 ppm. The current atmospheric concentration is over 380 ppm, and is rapidly rising due to human-caused emissions, primarily through the burning of fossil fuels.

Based on the model results for more than 9,000 reef locations, the researchers determined that at the highest concentration studied, 750 ppm, acidification of seawater would reduce calcification rates of three quarters of the world's reefs to less than 20% of pre-industrial rates. Field studies suggest that at such low rates, coral growth would not be able to keep up with dissolution and other natural as well as manmade destructive processes attacking reefs.

Prospects for reefs are even gloomier when the effects of coral bleaching are included in the model. Coral bleaching refers to the loss of symbiotic algae that are essential for healthy growth of coral colonies. Bleaching is already a widespread problem, and high temperatures are among the factors known to promote bleaching. According to their model the researchers calculated that under present conditions 30% of reefs have already undergone bleaching and that at CO2 levels of 560 ppm (twice pre-industrial levels) the combined effects of acidification and bleaching will reduce the calcification rates of all the world's reefs by 80% or more. This lowered calcification rate will render all reefs vulnerable to dissolution, without even considering other threats to reefs, such as pollution.

"Our fossil-fueled lifestyle is killing off coral reefs," says Caldeira. "If we don't change our ways soon, in the next few decades we will destroy what took millions of years to create."

"Coral reefs may be the canary in the coal mine," he adds. "Other major pieces of our planet may be similarly threatened because we are using the atmosphere and oceans as dumps for our CO2 pollution. We can save the reefs if we decide to treat our planet with the care it deserves. We need to power our economy with technologies that do not dump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere or oceans."

Adapted from materials provided by Carnegie Institution, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Carbon cuts 'only give 50/50 chance of saving planet'

As states negotiate Kyoto's successor, simulations show catastrophe just years away
Michael McCarthy, The Independent 9 Mar 09;

The world's best efforts at combating climate change are likely to offer no more than a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rises below the threshold of disaster, according to research from the UK Met Office.

The key aim of holding the expected increase to 2C, beyond which damage to the natural world and to human society is likely to be catastrophic, is far from assured, the research suggests, even if all countries engage forthwith in a radical and enormous crash programme to slash greenhouse gas emissions – something which itself is by no means guaranteed.

The chilling forecast from the supercomputer climate model of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research will provide a sobering wake-up call for governments around the world, who will begin formally negotiating three weeks today the new international treaty on tackling global warming, which is due to be signed in Copenhagen in December.

The treaty, which is due to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, is widely seen as the Last Chance Saloon for the community of nations to take effective action against the greatest threat the world has ever faced. But the Met Office's new prediction hits directly at the principle guiding all those hoping for an effective agreement, with the European Union in the lead: that of stopping the warming at two degrees Centigrade above the "pre-industrial" level (the level of average world temperature pertaining two hundred years ago).

Today, world average temperatures stand at about 0.75C above the pre-industrial, and many scientists and politicians agree that further increases have to be stopped at 2C if catastrophic impacts from the warming are to be avoided, ranging from widespread agricultural failure and worldwide sea level rise, to countless species extinctions and irreversible melting of the world's great ice sheets.

But the Hadley Centre's simulation indicates that even if global emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas causing the warming, were to be slashed at a very high rate the chances of holding the rise at the C threshold are no better than even. The scenario, prepared for Britain's Climate Change Committee, the body recommending the UK's future carbon "budgets", visualises world CO2 emissions peaking in 2015, and then falling at a top rate of 3 per cent a year, to reach emissions of 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

At the moment, global emissions are thought to be rising at nearly 3 per cent a year – so turning that into a 3 per cent annual cut would be a gigantic slashing of what the earth's factories and motor vehicles are pumping into the atmosphere. There is as yet nothing remotely like that on the table for potential agreement in Copenhagen, and if a deal of this ambition were to be done, it would be regarded as a triumph.

Yet even with that, the Hadley Centre research suggests, the chances of keeping the rise down to about 2C by 2100 would be only 50-50. Furthermore, the simulations suggest that there is a worst-case scenario – about a 10 per cent chance – of the rise by the end of the current century reaching, even with these drastic cuts, a level of 2.8C above the pre-industrial, which is well into disaster territory.

With any action that is slower than the scenario above, the likeliest outcome is a much higher eventual temperature – and in fact, the model indicates that each 10 years of delay in halting the rise in global emissions adds another 0.5C to the likeliest end-of-the-century figure. So if emissions do not peak and start to decline until 2025, we can expect a 2.6C rise by 2100, and if the decline only begins in 2035, the figure is likely to be 3.1C – even with 3 per cent annual cuts.

These new figures suggest quite unambiguously that the world is on course for calamity unless rapid action can be taken which is far more drastic than any politicians are so far contemplating – never mind the general public.

If action is sluggish or non-existent, the model suggests that climate change is likely to cause almost unthinkable damage to the world; under a "business-as-usual" scenario, with no action taken at all and emissions increasing by more than 100 per cent by 2050, the end-of-the-century rise in global average temperatures is likely to be 5.5C, with a worst-case outcome of 7.1C – which would make much of life on earth impossible. "Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next 10 years, our results project that there will only be a 50 per cent chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 2C," said Dr Vicky Pope, the Met Office's Head of Climate Change Advice.

"This idealised emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and changing from an increase of 2-3 per cent per year to a decrease of 3 per cent per year. For every 10 years we delay this action another 0.5C will be added to the most likely temperature rise. If the world fails to make the required reductions, it will be faced with adapting not just to a 2C rise in temperature but to 4C or more by the end of the century."

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The world's water and climate change

Reuters 9 Mar 09;

March 10 (Reuters) - World water supplies may be severely stressed in coming decades because of global climate change linked to the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. The U.S. West is one of the places that has the most to lose with water scarcity, but many other regions around the world will face similar challenges.

Here are some facts and projections on water and climate change:

-- Temperatures are likely to rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 Celsius (2.0 and 11.5 Fahrenheit) and sea levels by between 18 cm and 59 cm (7 inches and 23 inches) this century, according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

-- Climate change model simulations for the 21st century see increased precipitation at high latitudes and tropical areas; decreased rainfall in sub-tropical regions.

-- Warming in the western U.S. mountains is projected to cause decreased snowpack, more winter flooding and reduce summer flows, exacerbating competition for over-allocated water resources.

-- Major challenges are projected for U.S. crops near the warm end of their suitable range or which depend on highly utilized water resources.

-- In southern Europe, climate change is projected to worsen conditions like high temperatures and drought, and reduce available water, hydropower potential, summer tourism and crops in general.

-- In Latin America, productivity of some important crops will decrease, while disappearance of glaciers in the Andes will affect water supplies for human consumption.

-- In Africa, by 2020, between 75 and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change. In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent.

-- In Asia, by the 2050s, freshwater availability in Central, South, East and South-East Asia, particularly in large river basins, is projected to decrease.

-- Australia's current drought, which helped spark the country's deadliest bushfire disaster ever in early in 2009, has been linked to climate change. By 2030, water problems are projected to intensify in southern and eastern Australia.

-- Rising sea levels could increase salinity in groundwater and estuaries worldwide. This could have grave implications for coastal urban areas such as Miami, Florida. (Sources: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, World Health Organization, Pacific Institute for Studies on Development, Environment and Security)

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard, editing by Mary Milliken)

Business suffers with world water shortages
Reuters 11 Mar 09;

(Reuters) - From cotton farms to factories that make high-tech computer chips, companies face huge risks from droughts like those searing California and Australia and that recently parched the U.S. Southeast.

Climate scientists say droughts will become more common as higher temperatures evaporate water supplies and overuse drain aquifers faster than they can be replenished by natural cycles.

Large cities in China and India are also at risk from droughts as mountain glaciers shrink on the Tibetan plateau.

The risks to big business range from actual physical shortages of water, to rising costs for meeting water quality regulations, to conflicts with local communities.

Below are some sectors that face risk from water scarcity.

-- AGRICULTURE. About 70 percent of global water used is for agriculture, in some developing countries where populations are growing fastest that figure is as much as 90 percent. Australia's drought helped sharply boost global rice prices last year. Companies that make products that require large amount of water, such as meat and biofuels, face drought risks.

-- BEVERAGES. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo bottlers lost licenses to operate in Kerala, India while major beverage firms face opposition to new plants. Bottled water companies also face opposition in places where water is scarce. Some consumers are drinking more tap water for environmental reasons.

-- HIGH TECH. More than half of the world's largest semiconductor factories are in the Asia-Pacific, where water risks are severe. Silicon chips take large amounts of clean water to make and factories face competition with local populations.

-- ELECTRICITY GENERATION. Droughts can severely cut power generation from hydropower, an electricity source that is low in greenhouse gas emissions. In 2001, a drought in Brazil dramatically cut energy output.

-- APPAREL. Cotton and other raw materials of clothes face risks as droughts slash agricultural yields.

-- BIOTECH PHARMACEUTICALS. Companies face new cleanup costs from new regulations to cut the concentration of chemicals and microbes in their waste water streams

-- FOREST PRODUCTS. Water-intensive pulp and paper manufacturing faces risks from droughts, increased costs for water and regulatory costs.

-- METALS/MINING. Companies face regulatory risks from their waste water streams. Mines use lots of water and face competition with local populations.

(Sources: Ceres, Pacific Institute)

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Mary Milliken)

Key facts on the world's water supply
Reuters 11 Mar 09

(Reuters) - Water scarcity is likely to change the way of life of millions of people in the U.S. West, one of the richest and most technologically advanced regions in the world. Other parts of the planet may take cues from the West on how to deal with a global water crisis that is expected to worsen with climate change.

Following are some facts and figures about the world's water:

-- There are 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of water on the planet but almost 97 percent is salt water. Most freshwater is locked up in glaciers or deep underground, leaving only a fraction available for human consumption or use.

-- Most experts believe there is still enough water to go around, but its distribution is very uneven. According to the Pacific Institute for Studies on Development, Environment and Security, North Americans have access to over 6,000 cubic meters per person per year stored in reservoirs. But the poorest African countries have less than 700 and Ethiopia has less than 50 cubic meters per person per year of water storage. Wealthy but water-scarce countries such as Saudi Arabia can afford expensive desalination projects, but poor ones cannot.

-- Agriculture accounts for 66 percent of human water consumption, industry 20 percent, domestic households 10 percent, according to the World Water Council. About four percent evaporates from man-made reservoirs.

-- Providing clean drinking water to the poor is one of the biggest development challenges. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals pledged at the start of this decade "to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation." The U.N. says that since 1990, 1.6 billion people have gained access to safe water. But nearly a billion people still lack safe drinking water.

(Sources: Reuters, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, Pacific Institute for Studies on Development, Environment and Security, World Water Council

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard, editing by Mary Milliken)

Key facts about water in the US West
Reuters 11 Mar 09;

(Reuters) - The West has been one of the United States' fastest-growing regions, with its warm, dry climate a major draw. But much of its landscape is desert or semi-arid and many of its cities are facing a long-term water supply crisis.

Here are some facts and figures:

-- The Southwest was home to 14 of the 25 fastest-growing American cities with populations over 100,000 between 2006 and 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

-- It is home to seven of America's 10 largest cities. By order of ranking: Los Angeles (2), Houston (4), Phoenix (5), San Antonio (7), San Diego (8), Dallas (9), San Jose (10).

-- The six-county area of Southern California, including Los Angeles and San Diego, is home to nearly 22 million people, with population growth expected to add 6 million residents by 2030. Yet 60 percent of its overall water supply is "imported" from distant sources, such as northern California or the Colorado River. In some areas, only 10 percent of the water comes from local sources.

-- Outdoor water use, such as lawn irrigation, accounts for 40 percent of average household consumption in the city of Los Angeles, which has a population of about 4 million. The city averages close to 15 inches of rainfall annually, but that amount varies widely from year to year.

-- Las Vegas gets only 2 or 3 inches of rainfall a year, and in 1959 it went 150 straight days without measurable rain. Because the Southern Nevada climate is so much drier than Los Angeles, grass lawns there require a third more water.

-- Water use in Los Angeles is projected at about 208 billion gallons this fiscal year, roughly the same amount that the city has consumed annually for the past 25 years despite population growth of about 1 million. City water officials attribute this to a combination of greater conservation practices and more water-efficient appliances and fixtures. (Reporting by Steve Gorman and Ed Stoddard; Editing by Mary Milliken)

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China canal project sparks eco debate

Some environmentalists question the human and ecological costs of the US$62b project
Henry Sanderson, Business Times 10 Mar 09;

IT is China's latest grand attempt to tame nature. Three canals will bring water hundreds of kilometres to Beijing and other thirsty cities in the north. More than 350,000 people in the way will be forced to move.

For many in Zhangyigang, a village of 942 people in brick-and-mud houses in Henan province, it will be their second uprooting. They moved to higher ground in the late 1950s and 1960s when a dam was built on the Han River to create the Danjiangkou reservoir, submerging homes and temples. Now their next stop is to be Dengzhou, a busy market city 50km to the east, as the dam is raised.

'We are made to keep moving,' said Zhang Jiqing, 53, crouching by his bags of dried corn, which he fears won't fetch a good price because of the financial crisis. 'I have a deep longing for my old place. But what can I do if the government says we have to move? It is for the good of the nation.'

Now, that is coming under question.

Experts and environmentalists say it's time China took a different approach to its growth-related challenges, one based on conservation rather than engineering.

That may not come easy in a country with a long history of mega projects. When China wanted to keep out foreign invaders, it built the Great Wall. When it wanted to move rice, it built the 1,760km Grand Canal. When it needed electricity, it built the Three Gorges Dam, completed in 2006.

The most expensive and technically difficult leg of the canal project has been postponed for more study after scientists questioned its feasibility. Another leg has been delayed for four years to smooth the resettlement process.

Perhaps most important, a key official concedes that the project won't slake the north's thirst for long.

Saving option

'It can only be a supplement to the water shortage in the short term,' Zhang Jiyao, the minister in charge of the water project, told The Associated Press. 'More important, we must depend on saving water.'

It was Mao Zedong, founder of communist China, who first dreamed of the canal project in 1952, remarking that the wet south should share water with the dry north. The densely populated north China plain that includes Beijing has only about 8 per cent of the country's water resources. The result: a project estimated at US$62 billion, more expensive than the Three Gorges Dam. It would transfer 45 trillion litres a year from the Yangtze and its tributaries to wheat farms and fast-growing northern cities.

The eastern route, to be completed in 2013, follows the remains of the Grand Canal, completed some 1,400 years ago, and will use pumping stations to raise the water 40m before it descends into the booming coastal city of Tianjin and Shandong province.

The western route has been postponed pending further study. As currently proposed, it would dam three rivers high in the Tibetan plateau and tunnel more than 95km through mountain rock.

The central route, where work began in 2002, will take water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir across three provinces to supply about a quarter of Beijing's water and 20 other cities.

Increasingly, the human and environmental costs are raising questions.

The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, forced more than 1.4 million people to move, their villages flooded by a 660km long reservoir that the dam created on the middle Yangtze.

Chinese scientists say the rising water behind the dam has affected the geology, causing surrounding hillsides to erode. Local residents complain about landslides, but the government denies the dam triggered them.

China's environmental protection body has also warned of rising pollution in the waters behind the dam, as the once fast-running Yangtze has slowed. The quality hasn't improved despite a costly cleanup, the agency said in a report last year.

Now, as water tables plummet in the north, China is trying to tap the Yangtze, the country's longest river, and its major tributary, the Han.

Doing so would cause algae blooms and make the Han, already polluted by factories, even dirtier, predicts Zhang Haiping, an associate professor at the College of Environmental Science and Engineering at Shanghai's Tongji University.

Moreover, environmentalists worry that supplying more water to Beijing will encourage the capital's citizenry to keep wasting it.

Wen Bo, an opponent of the project, says the focus should instead be on reducing inefficient water use and preserving forests and wetlands, which act as natural reservoirs.

'This mentality of using this mega project as a solution to solve water shortage problems is not the right approach,' said Mr Bo, the China programme director of Pacific Environment, a California-based group. 'We need another more ecologically sound approach to deal with this system, to view China as an ecosystem rather than an engineering board.'

Scientists from Sichuan province criticised the western leg in a public forum in 2007, saying the water to be pumped exceeds supply in an ecologically sensitive area prone to earthquakes.

Positive move

Ma Jun, Beijing-based author of a landmark book on China's water, says postponement of the western leg is a positive move.

'That's a sign of progress in China,' said Mr Ma. 'The eastern and middle routes did not have much open discussion . . . so I think this will help to improve the quality of the decision-making, because if they don't voice concerns then we might end up building some mammoth project and end up finding not much water.'

On relocation, the direction is less clear. Officials say they are learning from the corruption experienced in building the Three Gorges Dam, in which some people were moved to towns where there were no jobs or land, and an official was convicted of pocketing 2.8 million yuan (S$634,000).

This time, the money for resettlement has been declared 'high voltage', meaning untouchable by local bureaucrats, said He Ying, an official in Dengzhou, the city that will receive the Zhangyigang villagers.

He said the Henan provincial government has promised one-tenth of a hectare of land, housing of at least 24 square metres, and 600 yuan a year in compensation for 20 years.

The central government announced a four-year delay in construction of the middle route, pushing back completion to 2014, to ensure infrastructure is in place.

The government will 'put people first', said Mr Zhang, the minister.

Nonetheless, many in Zhangyigang feel shortchanged, saying local officials forced them to sign an agreement last November that they would move. Compensation wasn't mentioned, and despite assurances, many still worry about corruption.

Mr Zhang, the corn farmer, says officials are offering less than half the amount of land that he currently uses and the quality is not good.

'There have been improvements in terms of quasi-open discussions on environmental impacts,' said Andrew Mertha, an associate professor at Cornell University in New York state who has written about opposition to China's water projects. 'But as far as relocation is concerned I see many of the same problems.' - AP

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Best of our wild blogs: 9 Mar 09

Pedal Ubin!
on the Running with the Wind blog and on the Just across the Horizon blog

No fishing at West Coast Park: Nobody gives a damn
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog

Crab in the bryozoans
on the wonderful creation blog

Back to Berlayar
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Discover Semakau
on the Where Discovery Begins blog and manta blog and Running with the Wind blog

Malay Cemetery
on Ubin.sgkopi

Moulting of a male Black-throated Sunbird
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Autumn colours on our shores
on the wild shores of singapore blog

"No avian flu here but this bird can spread other diseases" on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog and chickens running free in Changi and flowerless plant blossoms and shocking to find rat at T3.

Monday Morgue: 9th March 2009
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog

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Overhaul bumboat services to Pulau Ubin

Straits Times Forum 9 Mar 09;

I CANNOT but agree with the observations of Mr Jervis Lim in his letter last Friday, 'Rude bumboat service at Changi ferry terminal', in which he expressed his dissatisfaction over the service provided by bumboat operators. It is time the system was overhauled to reflect changing times and conditions.

As a regular visitor to Pulau Ubin and Penggerang, I feel the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) should take over all operations. This will ensure the ferry tragedies of the Philippines and Indonesia will not become a feature of our maritime sector. According to the MPA website, the statutory board was established to 'advance and safeguard Singapore's strategic maritime interests'. It also proudly proclaims that it partners other agencies 'to enhance safety, security and environmental protection of our port waters, facilitate port operations'.

Changi ferry terminal is very crowded on weekends, public holidays and during school holidays as hordes of schoolchildren make a beeline for Ubin. Currently, there is no ticket sales and the bumboat operator collects fares himself from passengers. The operator is usually irked when a passenger offers him a big note. On several occasions, I noticed the bumboats were far from seaworthy and during a heavy shower, the roofs leaked and I had to hold an umbrella to protect myself from the rain.

To revamp the system, perhaps MPA could employ these bumboat operators (so they do not lose their livelihood) and provide them with proper uniforms, which will improve their public image. MPA could also regularly check the bumboats for seaworthiness.

As a seasoned visitor to Ubin since the fare was only $1 (it is now $2.50), I hope MPA will not ignore this problem. With the influx of tourists, more foreigners will flood Ubin, whose flora and fauna have much to offer. If MPA is not keen, perhaps the Singapore Tourism Board can take over operations and make Ubin an attraction to draw more tourists to Singapore.

Heng Cho Choon

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Five CNG stations not enough,say taxi drivers

Time to pump up the volume
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 9 Mar 09;

FOR two weeks, compressed natural gas (CNG) taxi driver, Mr Ng Buck Swee, had to wait at least an hour to refuel at the Mandai CNG pump station, which was having problems with its pumps.

The 50-year-old told Today last week: “Only four out of the 16 pumps are working ... It has been like that since the Chinese New Year week but since last week, the pumps have been spoilt almost everyday.”

When contacted on Thursday, Smart Energy, which runs the Mandai Link CNG station, told Today it had “maintenance issues” with its pumps but the station is now fully operational.

Over the fortnight, according to Mr Ng, as many as 40 CNG taxis were queuing at the pump station during the shift-change hours. Every hour spent waiting at the pump station meant a loss of $20 to $30 in income, the cabbie added.

Smart Energy’s managing director William Aw said the pump station had relied on a secondary compressor as a back-up. “However, due to the lower output capacity of the secondary compressor, it can only handle four dispensers simultaneously,” he said.

The company has purchased another compressor system to complement the current setup, which is expected to be in place later this month, he said.

Such woes are not the first encountered by drivers of CNG vehicles.

In January last year, a pump breakdown at the CNG station on Jurong Island — the only one that was operational then — also lasted for two weeks, hitting taxi drivers who were already struggling with low takings due to a fare hike.

As of this January, there were 1,009 CNG taxis and some 2,500 CNG vehicles in Singapore. But there are only three CNG pump stations in Mandai Link, Jalan Buroh and Jurong Island.

Two new stations will open this year: One in Serangoon North under Smart Energy later this month and the other along Old Toh Tuck Road under Union Energy in August.

While the new stations should help ease woes, taxi drivers like Mr Goh Teow Wah still have some concerns: “We need more stations ... there should be one pump station in each area. For instance, if I’m at Changi Airport and my car has no gas, how to travel to Mandai to pump?

“There are a lot of CNG cars now on the road. And more people will drive CNG cars if there are more pump stations.”

Mr Tan Soon Chye, general manager of Prime Taxis, suggested that pump stations be set up in a central area like Bukit Merah.

“The Government can provide some incentive for used cars to be converted to CNG. Even allowing used private cars to be converted to CNG and used as taxis will accelerate the CNG programme here,” he said. Prime owns 450 CNG taxis.

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Singapore should lead region in emission cuts

It has the knowledge, technology, vision to share with neighbours, says European Commission delegation head

Jamie Lee, Business Times 7 Mar 09;

SINGAPORE should lead in pushing regional countries to cut their carbon emissions, says a representative of the European Commission (EC).

The issue could be made an agenda item at the economic leaders' meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec), chaired by Singapore this year, according to EC head of delegation Holger Standertskjold.

'I would like to see Singapore taking that active role and be a leader,' he told BT. Singapore has the 'knowledge, technology, vision' to share with its neighbours, he added.

The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change - a body set up by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme - has urged that developing countries limit emissions growth to 15-30 per cent below business-as-usual levels by 2020.

'This means concrete action to limit the emissions from energy generation, the transport sector and the buildings sector,' said Mr Standertskjold. 'It also means real action to limit deforestation in the region.'

He said that the Apec meeting - to be held in Singapore in November - could provide a 'building block' for the Copenhagen Climate Conference to be held a month later. The Copenhagen conference will focus on producing a global framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012.

'If we want to find a robust agreement in Copenhagen, much more preparatory work needs to be done in terms of concrete emission limitation or reduction contributions by developed countries, actions by developing countries and support for actions in developing countries,' said Mr Standertskjold. 'The Apec meeting provides an opportunity for doing so.'

No carbon reduction targets have been set by Apec, although in 2007, it set an 'aspirational goal' of reducing energy intensity by at least 25 per cent by 2030, from 2005 levels. It also has a similar goal to increase forest cover by at least 20 million hectares of all types of forests by 2020.

Despite Singapore's small size, the country has a bigger role to play, according to Mr Standertskjold.

He said that while Singapore is not a major contributor to global carbon emissions, it has high per capita emission, excluding emissions from the aviation and maritime sectors.

The European Union is advocating the inclusion of emissions from the aviation and maritime sectors in any agreement reached in Copenhagen.

A 2004 UN report showed that Singapore's carbon emission to be a mere 0.2 per cent of global emissions.

But the same report showed that Singapore's carbon emission per capita - or the amount of emitted carbon dioxide divided by population - to be 12.2 tonnes, putting it in the same league as many developed countries in Europe. Singapore is defined as a developing nation under the UN's climate treaties.

Two weeks ago, Singapore's chief climate change negotiator Chew Tai Soo, defended the country's high per capita emission, saying that the measurement approach is 'flawed'.

'It penalises small countries with small populations, without taking into account their limitations,' he told a conference, adding that Singapore has no natural resources, depends heavily on trade and is less able to switch to non-fossil energy alternatives because of its land size.

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Two takes on the severity of the climate threats

Lee Poh Onn, Straits Times 9 Mar 09;

DOES climate change matter at all? Has global warming been exaggerated? Is it a hoax?

A working paper issued by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in November last year suggested that the impact of climate change on global economic growth may not be as severe as previously believed.

This contradicts the claim of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change issued by British economist Sir Nicholas Stern in 2006. He had suggested that an investment equal to 1 per cent of global GDP would be required to ward off the detrimental effects of climate change. If nothing were done, global GDP might fall by as much as 20 per cent, he suggested.

The NBER paper noted that higher global temperatures would have an impact on poor countries but not rich ones. An increase of 1 deg C will reduce economic growth by about 1.1 percentage points in poor countries. Rich countries will be able to ward off the impact of global warming.

Since rich countries make up the bulk of global GDP, their ability to minimise the effect of global warming will mean that the impact of climate change on the global economy will be limited. The NBER study, however, does not take into account the fact that political unrest caused by climate change in poor countries may affect rich countries as well. If this is taken into consideration, global GDP may be affected by climate change.

To place doubt as to the necessity of cutting carbon emission immediately, there is evidence to suggest that global temperatures may have been cooling rather than warming since 1998, and that climate change could be linked to activities on the sun rather than on human action. Evidence is still anecdotal at this point but is gathering momentum nevertheless. One scientist who questions the link between human actions and global warming is Dr Will Happer of Princeton University, who served as director of energy research at the US Department of Energy from 1990 to 1993.

Does that mean we should stop all measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions?

The potential negative impacts of climate change on the global economy cannot be disputed though the strength of the causal relationship bears further study. Regardless of which faction in the climate change debate is correct, the climate change movement has generated a new sense of environmental awareness.

Another positive from the climate change movement is the search for alternative fuels. It has been estimated that we have about 75 years of fossil fuels left. Long before we reach that point, markets will be subject to massive swings in oil prices. Despite its flaws, the climate change movement has helped to spur the search for alternative fuels.

The writer is a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Climate change: Heeding the signs

The three-day International Scientific Conference on Climate Change will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from tomorrow, when scientists will outline their latest findings. Writers give their take on the state of debate on global warming, as we move towards December's international climate talks.
Michael Richardson, Straits Times 9 Mar 09;

Governments can run - but they can't hide

RESEARCHERS from around the world will meet in Denmark tomorrow to discuss the latest scientific findings on climate change.

The three-day international gathering at the University of Copenhagen is sponsored by a consortium of 11 research universities in Europe, the United States, Asia and Australia, including the National University of Singapore. It is part of the lead-up to a conference in Copenhagen in December to try to agree on a global framework to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

One of the questions the conference will consider is whether the evidence on the pace, scope and consequences of climate change presented to governments less than two years ago is already significantly out of date, and whether there should be more frequent reports.

The present process is cumbersome and lags well behind advances in research. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the United Nations in 1988, brought together hundreds of experts from around the world to assess the science and policy implications of global warming.

Since 1990, the IPCC has published four assessment reports. The next is not due until 2014. The most recent, in November 2007, concluded that the Earth's temperature is likely to rise by between 1.1 deg C and 6.4 deg C by 2100, depending on how much greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere in coming decades.

One of the lead authors of that report said last month that it had probably seriously underestimated the consequences of climate change. Professor Chris Field of Stanford University said: 'We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries...saw a huge upsurge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal.'

He said that he was particularly concerned about new evidence that tropical forests would dry out and catch fire, and that permafrost in the Arctic would thaw, releasing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, an even more potent global warming gas, into the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, other recent studies forecast that sea levels will rise substantially higher by 2100 than the IPCC had projected and that the capacity of oceans to soak up excess carbon dioxide is declining. The oceans, forests, vegetation and soil absorb about half of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

In January, a team of US and European scientists published a study demonstrating how changes in surface temperature, rainfall and sea level would be largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide emissions are completely stopped. Dr Susan Solomon of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said: 'Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet.'

Not all the recent research on climate change have dire conclusions. One study suggests that the tropical forest in the Amazon basin may be less vulnerable to temperature rise than previously believed. Another concludes that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which accelerated in the early part of this decade, has slowed again.

Dr Vicky Pope of Britain's Meteorological Office says that there will always be natural variations in climate trends. However, she adds that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut 'drastically and swiftly'. The message from scientists to political leaders trying to focus on the global recession is this: You may try to run from the costs of the climate change challenge, but ultimately, there is nowhere to hide.

The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Tackling the challenges to trade
Barry Desker & Deborah Kay Elms, Straits Times 9 Mar 09;

THE Copenhagen Summit in December will discuss the replacement for the Kyoto Protocol. Whatever comes out of Copenhagen will likely involve more states following more stringent rules designed to mitigate the environmental damage from global warming. Copenhagen will have a direct impact on trade policy. Three inter-linked challenges face us in tackling the relationship between climate change and trade.

# First, the impact of climate change is not evenly distributed across states.

The poorest people and the poorest countries may end up suffering the most. Developing regions are already warmer, on average, than the developed world. They rely heavily on agriculture. Changes to the climate that negatively affect the ability of farmers in the developing world to grow crops will have many trade-related impacts.

# Second, the contribution of each state to the problem is different. Hence, any post-Kyoto regime will have different rules for different categories of states.

But these distinctions may give rise to potentially unfair outcomes. For instance, there may be an environmental 'race to the bottom' as firms relocate to states with relatively lax policies. To offset this trade advantage, many states are planning a range of interventions for climate-related trade businesses, including subsidies.

# Finally, the ability to develop, deploy and pay for mitigation strategies varies across states.

Take, for example, the prospect of more extreme weather events. Some states will simply be unable to prepare adequately for such calamities as floods or droughts. Others will be overwhelmed by events when they occur.

Three other issues should also be considered in discussing the nexus between climate change and international trade. First, some observers have suggested that climate change disputes could be handled by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). After all, the WTO has the best mechanisms already in place for addressing disputes. Since many of the disputes will have trade implications, the WTO might be well-positioned to resolve many of these state-to-state disagreements.

Yet the attempt to do so might well overwhelm the WTO system. Its dispute settlement mechanism may be overloaded precisely because member states and customs territories recognise that it is effective and will result in legally enforceable decisions. Some new mechanism will need to be created to resolve climate change disputes.

A second area of concern is that climate change negotiations are increasingly being led by trade negotiators. There is a risk that mercantilist approaches and an insistence on package deals may take hold in Copenhagen. If we export the concept that 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed' - a staple of WTO negotiation - we will set the stage for failure in Copenhagen.

Most governments have traditionally regarded attention to climate change as imposing a cost on economies and an impediment to economic growth. With the global economy heading into recession, governments will increasingly focus on immediate threats rather than those that appear over the horizon. The ability to reach significant binding agreements in Copenhagen may be threatened by the current gloomy global economic outlook.

Barry Desker is dean of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), NTU. Deborah Kay Elms is the head of the Temasek Foundation Centre for Trade and Negotiations, RSIS.

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Less carbon can mean more growth

Jeroen van der Veer, Straits Times 9 Mar 09;

DESPITE the global recession, the world must continue to focus on the threat of climate change. Policy can serve the twin goals of stimulating growth and fighting global warming.

The broad outlines of an effective response to global warming are clear: A system to cap carbon emissions and trade emission allowances would channel resources towards the most cost-effective reduction measures. And widespread adoption of efficiency standards for appliances, vehicles and buildings would help us use less energy. Several specific policy initiatives could help us control the emission of greenhouse gases.

# Agreements among groups of key countries to reduce emissions in specific industrial sectors.

# Incentives to capture carbon dioxide and store it safely underground.

# Funds to support the development and demonstration of new technologies, such as advanced biofuels, with high potential for lowering carbon dioxide emissions.

Until now, negotiators have aimed for a global deal palatable to developed and developing countries alike. While that remains the ultimate goal, it has proven devilishly complex to formulate. A stepping stone would be agreements between pivotal countries to cap emissions in high-emitting sectors. Such agreements could be building blocks for a broader deal. Sectors to focus on include power generation, which accounts for about 35 per cent of global carbon emissions. For example, a pact on the emissions of coal-fired power stations might include large users such as China, the European Union (EU), India, Japan and the United States, which together account for about 80 per cent of global coal-fired capacity. Such a deal could include mechanisms for transferring clean coal technology from developed to developing countries.

The need is urgent. Asia will build about 800 gigawatts of new coal-fired generating capacity over the next 10 years, equal to the EU's total electricity generating capacity today. Once built, the plants will emit four billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year - about the same as the EU's total energy-related emissions.

Climate negotiators should also give carbon capture and storage (CCS) high priority. While renewable and nuclear energy will help reduce emissions, they will not be able to keep up with energy demand. Fossil fuels will remain the world's main sources of energy for decades. 'Cleaning up' carbon is thus a vital bridge to a low carbon future. CCS may contribute up to 55 per cent of the reductions in emissions that scientists believe are necessary.

But firms are reluctant to invest in CCS as it adds substantial cost and generates no revenue. Policymakers should promote CCS. They can put a price on carbon emissions; and CCS can be recognised within the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, through which developed countries can invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries.

No one knows if the economic crisis will last months or years. But a good outcome at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen later this year will serve the world for decades to come.

The writer is the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell.

PROJECT SYNDICATE

Asia needs to commit itself to clean energy
Dennis Posadas, Straits Times 9 Mar 09;

ASIANS need to adopt clean energy quickly if they wish to avert the adverse consequences of climate change. Climate change threatens Asian countries with a rise in sea levels that may destroy low-lying coastal areas. And it will increase the intensities of the storms that pass through countries like the Philippines annually.

Fortunately, many Asian governments have now started to legislate clean energy mandates similar to those in Europe and the United States. These mandates often feature incentives to spur the development of clean energy and require power utilities to purchase a certain percentage of their power from such sources.

Unfortunately, even with such laws in place, there is a lack of commitment to clean energy. From being a top priority when oil cost US$140 a barrel, it is once again an afterthought. This resembles what happened in the 1970s and 1980s: After the Opec oil crises had passed, the solar panels that had been on the roof of the White House were removed. Blowing hot and cold on renewable energy is not the way to encourage its development.

Mandate or no mandate, it would be difficult for utilities to justify large capital investments in clean energy if consumers are not willing to commit themselves to it. The utilities may try to comply minimally with the mandates but not go all out. Investors will find it difficult to justify funding research and development in renewable energy if the market demand for clean energy fluctuates. It is only when the price of electricity is expensive that clean energy sources are competitive.

A steady growth market for renewable energy, decoupled from the price of oil, needs to appear. Otherwise we will not see that combination of economies of scale and innovation, which saw the price of personal computers and semiconductors drop, repeat itself itself in renewable energy.

The writer is the author of Jump Start: A Technopreneurship Fable.

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Skeptics Gather to Discuss Why Global Warming Isn’t Such a Big Worry

The New York Times 8 Mar 09;

More than 600 self-professed climate skeptics are meeting in a Times Square hotel this week to challenge what has become a broad scientific and political consensus: that without big changes in energy choices, humans will dangerously heat up the planet.

The three-day International Conference on Climate Change — organized by the Heartland Institute, a nonprofit group seeking deregulation and unfettered markets — brings together political figures, conservative campaigners, scientists, an Apollo astronaut and the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus.

Organizers say the discussions, which began Sunday, are intended to counter the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers, who have vowed to tackle global warming with legislation requiring cuts in the greenhouse gases that scientists have linked to rising temperatures.

But two years after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded with near certainty that most of the recent warming was a result of human influences, global warming’s skeptics are showing signs of internal rifts and weakening support.

The meeting participants hold a wide range of views of climate science. Some concede that humans probably contribute to global warming but they argue that the shift in temperatures poses no urgent risk. Others attribute the warming, along with cooler temperatures in recent years, to solar changes or ocean cycles.

But large corporations like Exxon Mobil, which in the past financed the Heartland Institute and other groups that challenged the climate consensus, have reduced support. Many such companies no longer dispute that the greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels pose risks.

From 1998 to 2006, Exxon Mobil, for example, contributed more than $600,000 to Heartland, according to annual reports of charitable contributions from the company and company foundations.

Alan T. Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil, said by e-mail that the company had ended support “to several public policy research groups whose position on climate change could divert attention from the important discussion about how the world will secure the energy required for economic growth in an environmentally responsible manner.”

Joseph L. Bast, the president of the Heartland Institute, said that Exxon and other companies were just shifting their stance to improve their image. The Heartland meeting, he said, was the last bastion of intellectual honesty on the climate issue.

“Major corporations are painting themselves green around global warming,” Mr. Bast said, adding that the companies have shifted their lobbying and public relations efforts toward trying to shape climate legislation in their favor. He said that contributions, over all, had continued to rise.

But Kert Davies, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace, who is attending the Heartland event, said that the experts giving talks were “a shrinking collection of extremists” and that they were “left talking to themselves.”

Organizers expected to top the attendance of about 500 at the first Heartland conference, held last year. They also point to the speaker’s roster, which included Mr. Klaus and Harrison Schmitt, a geologist, Apollo astronaut and former senator.

A centerpiece of the 2008 meeting was the release of a report, “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Planet.” The document was expressly designed as a challenge to the reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This year, the meeting will focus on a more nuanced question: “Global warming: Was it ever a crisis?”

Most of the talks at the meeting will challenge climate orthodoxy. But some presenters, including prominent figures who have been vocal in their criticism in the past, say they will also call on their colleagues to synchronize the arguments they are using against plans to curb greenhouse gases.

In a keynote talk Sunday night, Richard S. Lindzen, a professor at M.I.T. and a longtime skeptic of the mainstream consensus that global warming poses a danger, first delivered a biting attack on what he called the “climate alarm movement.”

There is no solid scientific evidence to back up the models used by climate scientists who warn of dire consequences if warming continues, he said. But Dr. Lindzen also criticized widely publicized assertions by other skeptics that variations in the sun were driving temperature changes in recent decades. To attribute short-term variation in temperatures to a single cause, whether human-generated gases or something else, was erroneous, he said.

Speaking of the sun’s slight variability, he said, “Acting as though this is the alternative” to blaming greenhouse gases “is asking for trouble.”

S. Fred Singer, a physicist often referred to by critics and supporters alike as the dean of climate contrarians, said that he would be running public and private sessions on Monday aimed at focusing participants on which skeptical arguments were supported by science and which were not.

“As a physicist, I am concerned that some skeptics (a very few) are ignoring the physical basis,” Dr. Singer said in an e-mail message.

“There is one who denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which goes against actual data,” Dr. Singer said, adding that other skeptics wrongly contend that “humans are not responsible for the measured increase in atmospheric CO2.”

There are notable absences from the conference this year. Russell Seitz, a physicist from Cambridge, Mass., gave a talk at last year’s meeting. But Dr. Seitz, who has lambasted environmental campaigners as distorting climate science, now warns that the skeptics are in danger of doing the same thing.

The most strident advocates on either side of the global warming debate, he said, are “equally oblivious to the data they seek to discount or dramatize.”

John H. Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama who has long publicly questioned projections of dangerous global warming, most recently at a House committee hearing last month, said he had skipped both Heartland conferences to avoid the potential for “guilt by association.”

Many participants said that any division or dissent was minor and that the global recession and a series of years with cooler temperatures would help them in combating changes in energy policy in Washington.

“The only place where this alleged climate catastrophe is happening is in the virtual world of computer models, not in the real world,” said Marc Morano, a speaker at the meeting and a spokesman on environmental issues for Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma.

But several climate scientists who are seeking to curb greenhouse gases strongly criticized the meeting. Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University and an author of many reports by the intergovernmental climate panel, said, after reviewing the text of presentations for the Heartland meeting, that they were efforts to “bamboozle the innocent.”

Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations office running the meetings leading to a new global climate treaty, to be signed in December in Copenhagen, said, “I don’t believe that what the skeptics say should provide any excuse to delay further” action against global warming.

But he added: “Skeptics are good. It’s important to give people the confidence that the issue is being called into question.”

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