World Environment Day: ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity statement

Uniting with the world to combat climate change
ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity 5 Jun 09

The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity, our partners at the European Commission, and our stakeholders in the 10 ASEAN Member States, join the rest of the world in celebrating World Environment Day 2009.

This year’s theme is “Your Planet Needs You! Unite to Combat Climate Change.” The topic is particularly important and timely for us as it comes in the heels of a study released by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in April 2009, reiterating that Southeast Asia faces a bleak future if governments do not act quickly to address climate change.

Entitled “The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review,” the study found that Southeast Asia will be hit hard by climate change, causing the region’s agriculture-dependent economies to contract by as much as 6.7 percent annually by the end of the century. It also identified Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam as the most vulnerable countries.

With 80 percent of the region’s over 560 million people living within 100 kilometers of the coastline, we do have cause for concern. As the ADB report highlighted, the sea level is rising one to three millimeters annually, and average temperature rose 0.1 to 0.3 degrees Celsius between 1951 and 2000. Already, Southeast Asia is experiencing the impacts of climate change. It devastated by a spate of typhoons, floods, cyclones, heat waves, drought, and other calamities brought about by extreme weather conditions in recent years. Such weather has resulted in water shortages, poor agricultural production, forest fires and coastal degradation, which then create negative impacts on food security and human health.

With Southeast Asia cradling 20 percent of the world’s total known plant and animal species, the loss of its natural treasures due to climate change will also have a significant impact on the entire global sustainability.

There is ample evidence that climate change affects biodiversity. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, climate change is likely to become the dominant direct driver of biodiversity loss by the end of the century. Climate change is already forcing biodiversity to adapt either through shifting habitat, or changing life cycles. We stand to lose thousands of species.

The loss of biodiversity will have far-reaching impacts on all of us – food insecurity, loss of livelihood, poverty. In many parts of the globe, these are already grim realities.

There is an inextricable connection between climate change and biodiversity. While climate change is a driver of biodiversity loss, the deterioration of habitats and loss of biodiversity also worsen climate change. Deforestation, for example, is currently estimated to be 20 percent of all human-induced CO2 emissions.

If no action is done to combat climate change, the peoples of the ASEAN region stand to lose a great deal. Dire consequences in all sectors could seriously hinder Southeast Asia’s sustainable development and poverty reduction efforts.

The ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity encourages all citizens of the ASEAN region to take part in efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Fighting global warming and its impacts is a shared responsibility among all of us who stand to lose so much – our planet and its various natural treasures that sustain our very existence. There are practical actions we can take:

* Plant trees. This will increase the size of existing carbon pools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
* Promote farmer-centered participatory approaches and indigenous knowledge and technologies toward cycling and use of organic materials in low-input farming systems.
* Recycle.
* Save on energy.
* Save on paper.
* Save on fuel.
* Promote biodiversity conservation.

We call on citizens in the ASEAN region to contribute their share in this battle against climate change. Your planet needs you! Let us all unite to combat climate change.

Rodrigo U. Fuentes
Executive Director
ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity

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Revealed: the bid to corner world's bluefin tuna market

Mitsubishi freezing fish to sell later as stock numbers plummet toward extinction
Martin Hickman, The Independent 3 Jun 09;

Japan's sprawling Mitsubishi conglomerate has cornered a 40 per cent share of the world market in bluefin tuna, one of the world's most endangered fish.

A corporation within the £170bn Mitsubishi empire is importing thousands of tonnes of the fish from Europe into Tokyo's premium fish markets, despite stocks plummeting towards extinction in the Mediterranean.

Bluefin tuna frozen at -60C now could be sold in several years' time for astronomical sums if Atlantic bluefin becomes commercially extinct as forecast, a result of the near free-for-all enjoyed by the tuna fleet.

In the forthcoming documentary film The End of the Line, Roberto Mielgo, a former bluefin fisherman who travels the world monitoring catches, claims that Mitsubishi buys and sells 60 per cent of the threatened fish and that it has expanded its freezer capacity to hold extra bluefin.

Mitsubishi acknowledges that it freezes bluefin, but only, it says, to even out peaks and troughs in supply.

"Mitsubishi Corporation handles between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna imported to Japan," the company told The Independent.

"As we explicitly explained to the makers of the film, the fishing season for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean is very short, making it necessary to freeze tuna to provide customers with stable supplies throughout the year."

Fish stocks across the world are in retreat because of over-fishing. One study suggests oceans will be stripped clean of all fish by 2048. Bluefin is imminently at risk of commercial extinction. The wildlife charity WWF forecasts that breeding stocks of the fish that migrate from the Atlantic to spawn will be wiped out in the Mediterranean by 2012.

Although the legal bluefin catch is set at 22,000 tonnes, conservationists suspect the actual catch is 60,000 tonnes, four times the maximum that marine scientists recommend. After studying catches and sales, Charles Clover, the environmental journalist behind the film The End of the Line, believes that businesses involved in the ransacking are deep-freezing 20,000 tonnes of bluefin a year for later use.

He hopes his film will galvanise the public about over-fishing in the same way Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth mobilised opinion against climate change.

British retailers and chefs will not stock bluefin because it is so endangered. However, as disclosed in The Independent last week, the Japanese restaurant Nobu continues to serve it – while advising diners to choose a dish that is less environmentally damaging.

The fisheries body responsible for numbers, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), sanctioned a bluefin catch of 22,000 tonnes this year in defiance of its own scientists who advised no more than 8,500-15,000 tonnes.

WWF said the decision was a "disgrace". In fisheries circles, ICCAT is sometimes referred to as the International Conspiracy to Catch All Tuna. Rules forbidding the use of spotter planes to identify tuna shoals are flouted and boats are thought to have connections to organised crime in Italy.

Willie Mackenzie, a Greenpeace fish campaigner, said: "Mitsubishi are best known in the UK for making cars or electrical goods – and for most people it comes as a bit of a shock to find out they are one of the world's biggest traders in the endangered bluefin tuna. Bluefin tuna are as endangered as rhinos or tigers."

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Film warns of 'world without fish'

Jeremy Cooke, BBC News 2 Jun 09

They are dramatic images to make a dramatic point. The End of the Line is a film packed with footage of big-scale fishing in oceans around the world.

The work is efficient, modern, industrial and, according to the film makers, unsustainable.

Amid doom laden music, the narrator tells us: "Our view of the sea has always been that it is huge, beautiful and inexhaustible. The oceans are the common heritage of all mankind and for billions of years they have been full of life."

But that, according to the film-maker and journalist Charles Clover, is changing. The world's ocean environment - and the fish in it - is facing catastrophe.

"These huge resources which we once believed to be renewable, that our whole human history has led us up until now to believe are renewable, are not renewable any more because of what we are doing to them. And so our entire philosophical approach has to change. It is not going to be the same in the future as it was in the past."

The documentary claims to be to the marine environment what An Inconvenient Truth was to global warming.

The basic problem, says the film, is the huge over-capacity of the modern fishing industry.

There are too many boats chasing too few fish: "The global fishing capacity could catch the world catch four times over. The world's long-lining industry sets 1.4 billion hooks every year. These are estimated to be set on enough line to encircle the entire globe more than 550 times."

If we are in any doubt about the sheer power of the modern fish industry, we are told: "The mouth of the largest trawling net is big enough to accommodate 13 747 jets."

So amid claims of insufficient, poorly enforced regulation it is hard to find any good news when it comes to the world's fisheries. But if the global picture is bleak there are some areas of good practice.

We went to Iceland to see what is regarded by many conservationists as the gold standard of modern fishing practice.

Two hours off the coast of western Iceland the crew of a small, clean, fishing vessel were using the light of the 0300 dawn to bait some 14,000 hooks on eight miles of line.

The skipper is after haddock which he targets very carefully. Two hours later, when the lines are winched aboard, it is clear it has been a good day.

The fishermen here say they are making a good living, despite strict rules and regulations governing their work. The authorities can close the fishing grounds if there are any indications of the stocks failing.

Iceland also has quotas limiting the amount of each species a vessel can land. But, crucially, there are no discards - the practice of throwing tonnes of dead fish back into the water, which has so blighted the EU version of the same measures.

Back in port, fish exporter Jan Tomensen told me there is general agreement in Iceland among policy makers about the conservation measures.

"It is very important, especially for Iceland, not to over-fish and to keep the stocks sustainable… It is very important to the country and everyone understands that - the fishermen, the fisheries' owners and the government, of course.

"We hear that 90% of the fish in the EC is over-fished and 30% is in very bad shape, so I am sure they can learn something from Iceland."

Iceland's record explains why some of our leading retailers go there to buy their fish. Waitrose, for example, relies heavily on Icelandic supplies because it can be sure that the produce is caught sustainably.

But the mainstream industry knows that illegal, or black fish (caught outside the rules of the EU or other authorities) can be a big problem.

Waitrose chief buyer of fish, Quentin Clark, says: "There are some shocking, absolutely shocking, statistics out about how much fish is caught illegally around the world - it is a global problem.

"And that is why it is so important that people have full confidence in their retailer - or wherever else they buy their fish - that they know where that fish is coming from."

Watching The End of the Line, it is clear that consumer power may be central to hopes of stopping the decline in global fish stocks. We are all being encouraged to ask: "Where is this fish from, and is that source sustainable?"

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A life doing dumb stuff with animals

Amanda Gefter, New Scientist 3 Jun 09;

Nature writer Richard Conniff has spent his career out in the field, following researchers around the globe as they study animal behaviour. Throughout his travels he has found himself in some sticky situations, which he chronicles in his new book Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My life doing dumb stuff with animals (W. W. Norton, $25.95/£18.99). He tells Amanda Gefter about his adventures, motivations and where he is headed next.

What motivates you to go out into the field and do "dumb stuff" with animals?

First of all, it's fun. It's exciting to be in some of these places, like the Okavango Delta in Botswana or Bhutan. I put myself in these positions, not to see how the animal relates to me, but to see how the animal lives on its own. So sometimes I'll do something that seems dumb, like swimming with piranhas or sitting down with African wild dogs, but I'm really doing it to show that they are not the sadistic killers that they're made out to be. I want to get inside the mind of the animal.

In your book you seem very concerned with saving the reputations of misunderstood animals. What animals are the most misunderstood?

Predators are the obvious choice because so many people think they just need to be exterminated, and in many cases they have been, like African wild dogs or wolves in the US. We need to think about what they need to survive, so the ranchers and herders can learn to live with them. It's important to understand that we need the predators, because without them there's a cascade of effects and the whole system falls apart.

When Yellowstone National Park lost its wolves, the park became seriously overpopulated and over-grazed by elk. Restoration of the wolf has helped restore balance. The overfishing of cod and other predators from the oceans has resulted in the blossoming of jellyfish populations. The jellies can then become so dominant that fish populations can't get reestablished, even when we stop overfishing.

In the book, you expressed a desire to see the world through the animals' eyes. How can you do that? For instance, you wrote, "I suddenly wanted to become a spider, at least for a little while".

I was studying spider webs with Bill Eberhard in Costa Rica. You walk 50 feet with him down a patch of rainforest and you see dozens of techniques for creating spider webs, and they're all technologically sophisticated. He sees stuff everywhere that most people ignore.

I decided to try to make a web of my own. I called a YMCA in Massachusetts and found an instructor who was willing to help me do this on a climbing wall. I spent an afternoon trying to string a spider web.

It wasn't exactly the same experience as the spider's – I had to worry about the concrete floor 15 feet below. In addition, every time I joined a line I had to tie a knot, whereas a spider just dabs a spinneret and glues the thing together in no time at all.

Mine took hours and hours and was clumsy and small for my size. But it gave me a chance to see the world through a spider's eyes, or feel the world through their sensilla, and it showed me how far we are from being able to do what they do.

What animal would you most like to be?

I'd have to say the African wild dog because they are beautiful animals, they lead an active and interesting communal life, and they get to run through the most beautiful place in the world. I just wanted to get out of my vehicle and run with them.

Do you ever find that in studying these animals you learn something about what it is to be human?

There are lots of creatures that live on our body – being human is being a habitat, and being a habitat is not a bad thing. These creatures do no harm, and we're constantly learning new stuff about them.

We're now learning that the bacterial population on human skin is far more diverse than anyone thought, and different biological communities live on different parts of the body. The ecology of the human digestive system, for instance, is astonishing. 700 species live in our mouths, and between 600 and 700 live in our colons. They all have an effect on how we live. Knowing that we are part of this web of life is really interesting to me.

What's the most surprising thing you've witnessed out in the field?

I didn't go out expecting piranhas to be peaceful. The most surprising thing was finding out that they basically take off a piece of skin, or rake off some scales from their prey, and live off this renewable resource, getting the bulk of their nutrition without ever killing the animal. The idea that they are these ferocious killers turned out to be just a big myth perpetrated by Teddy Roosevelt.

What's your next adventure?

I'm going to do a story about mastodons and mammoths, so I'm helping to dig one up this summer. I'm also working on a book about the discovery of species.

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Calls grow for action on stalled Amazon reserve proposals

WWF 2 Jun 09;

Brasilia, Brazil - WWF and 33 other NGOs delivered a letter on Tuesday to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asking him to take decisive action to create new protected areas in the Amazon and Para regions.

The letter followed a meeting earlier this month between top government officials and 12 forest residents – also known as extractivists -- whose lives depend on local natural resources in those regions. Proposals to create the protected areas have lingered for the last two years in the President’s Chief of Staff Office and the residents so far have received no response following this month’s meeting.

About 750 families live in the three proposed ‘extractive’ reserves (or Resex) up for approval, which include Baixo Rio Branco-Jauaperi (in the states of Roraima and Amazonas), Renascer (Pará state) and Montanha Mangabal (also in Pará state). Residents in those three areas have worked to receive federal protection for the areas since 2000.

IUCN defines extractive reserves as sustainable use protected areas, given in concession to traditional dwellers living on the exploration of natural resources and subsistence level agriculture. The creation of extractive reserves is a conservation concept that emerged from work to protect Amazon forests by famed environmental activists Chico Mendes and Mary Helena Allegretti. Extractive reserves are protected areas for sustainable use that allow the local population to live off the areas’ natural resources – for example by tapping for rubber-- while protecting the reserve from environmental damage from commercial interests, whether legal or illegal.

On May 6 and 7, 12 representatives from the proposed reserves traveled to Brasilia and with the help of WWF-Brazil asked federal government to take action on the reserves. For years, the residents’ way of life has been threatened by loggers, land squatters, commercial fishermen and illegal hunters.

But despite promises made for an urgent solution at those meetings, the residents so far have received no official response from the federal government.

“The slow track of the creation proceedings is undesirable and it apparently reflects a preventive attitude on the part of some federal government organs whose position is against the creation of protected areas whenever there is any possibility that they become an obstacle to tap natural resources,” the letter to President Lula states.

Recently, the Brazilian environment has become threatened by several decisions from the federal government. The Brazil Forest Code is presently under criticism and the government signed a decree limiting to 0.5 per cent the environmental offset payments made by large enterprises impacting the environment, which goes against a ruling by the Brazilian Supreme Court.

The federal government also has issued several MPs – Medidas Provisórias – which are presidential decrees which go immediately into effect and have the force of law with a temporary though renewable lifetime. For example, a recent decree on agrarian reform law implemented a predatory agricultural production model, which does not enough address environmental conservation. Another decree facilitated environmental licensing for new roads and encourages deforestation.

“We find it fearful that, close to the end of his term, Lula’s government has adopted a position which is contrary to environmental conservation,” WWF-Brazil’s conservation director, Cláudio Maretti, said. “It is our perception that a real attack is going on against the environmental issues, on all fronts, based on a development concept which is not sustainable at all. The lack of answers from the government on the Resex issue complements this scenario which worries us”,

The proposed reserve areas were assessed by the Ministry of the Environment as high priority for conservation because of their ecological and biological value.

Environmentally valuable

The area designated for Baixo Rio Branco-Jauaperi (Lower Branco and Jauaperi Rivers) covers approximately 580,000 hectares in the municipal districts of Rorainópolis, in Roraima, and Novo Airão, in Amazonas. The area is inhabited by 150 families who live on artisan fishing and Brazil nut collecting.

The combination of Jauaperi River’s clear waters with the Branco River’s white waters and the Negro River’s black waters accounts for high diversity of plant and animal species. Among the ornamental fish we find Discus and Marbled Hatchet, besides commercial catfish species like “surubim” and “barbado”, as well as the peacock bass (tucunaré) and piranhas.

Forty two mammal species call the area home, including the spotted jaguar, the puma, the ocelot, the giant otter, the giant anteater and the giant armadillo. In addition, forest tree species include the Brazil Nut, the Rubber tree, the Taperebá (Amazonian plum), the Mauriti Palm (buriti), Massaranduba, the purple timber Roxinho, Açaí and Bacaba.

The proposed Renascer protected area is located in Prainha municipal district in Pará state. The area covers 400,000 hectares, and includes 600 families spread among 14 communities.

The Renascer area has great environmental relevance because it encompasses floodplain ecosystems and other areas that protect vulnerable aquatic ecosystems, which are important to local communities’ livelihood. Several fish species call the region home, such as the giant Arapaima or Pirarucu, the Black Pacu (tambaqui), Catfish like Surubim, Dourada, and Filhote.

The forests contain valuable timber species such as Mahogany, Ipê, Cedar, Jacaranda and Brazil nut tree. But efforts to create the Renascer protected area so far have been hampered by government interest in mineral exploitation and plans to build a federal highway.

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We've got no choice but nuclear power and carbon-capture technology, says Jeffrey Sachs

The economist Jeffrey Sachs said carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and nuclear energy will be necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. From Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Grist, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk 2 Jun 09;

Economist Jeffrey Sachs said carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology and nuclear energy will be necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change, comments made as part of a presentation at the Asia Society in New York Monday night.

Jeffrey SachsJeffrey SachsFile photo courtesy the Earth Institute at Columbia University"Carbon capture better work, because they [China] are not going to stop using coal," said Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the author of The End of Poverty and Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, among other books.

He gave a lucid and thoroughly depressing talk on "China's Role in the Global Climate Game," describing a number of unpleasant options China, the United States, and the rest of the world will have to face in dealing with climate changes already underway.

"Any quantitatively realistic path for a fast-growing China will mean a tremendous reliance on coal," he said. "They will have to use growing amounts of coal for decades to come."

That leaves the U.S. with no choice but to develop and use CCS technology, despite the fact that it's never been successfully implemented, he said. Renewable energy sources and improvements in efficiency won't come close to meeting the world's growing energy demand, he said.

"There's no quantitative way to get this right without the nuclear industry playing a really large role," he said. "It's not a happy thought, but it's unavoidable."

And if you thought cleaning up the coal industry was politically difficult in the U.S., Sachs finds the Chinese political landscape "vastly worse" on that front.

Regarding Chinese leadership on climate he said, "China's leadership takes this issue seriously, but China's leadership also takes very seriously the issue of economic development. ... They want to catch up to the West."

In other words, those coal plants won't be shut down any time soon.

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China Warms To Greener Refrigerators And Air-Cons

Jim Bai, PlanetArk 3 Jun 09;

BEIJING - China aims to save 75 terawatt hours of power per year, the equivalent of 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, by promoting energy-efficient air-conditioners and other home appliances.

The government plans to raise the market shares of such appliances to over 30 percent by 2012 by subsidizing sales, the National Development and Reform Commission said.

The appliances include air-conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, flat screen television sets, microwave ovens, rice cookers, electromagnetic ovens, water heaters, computer screens and electrical motors.

China is widely believed to be the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the gas from fossil fuels, industry, farming and land clearance that is accumulating in the air, trapping more solar radiation and threatening to overheat the globe.

It is drafting a long-term plan for climate change that will focus on raising energy efficiency, developing clean-coal technology and expanding carbon-absorbing forests.

The commission has detailed the first batch of makers and types of air conditioners whose sales would be subsidized by 300 yuan ($44) to 850 yuan each by Beijing, a move which would alone save up to 6 terawatt hours of power a year if their market share rises to more than 30 percent from the current 5 percent.

A terawatt equals one trillion watts. China has yet to detail subsidies for other household goods.

Air conditioning consumes 20 percent of China's power and accounts for nearly 40 percent of power use during peak demand time in summer in cities, according to the commission.

China produced more than 70 million air conditioners in 2008 and over 40 percent of them were exported.

It also produced nearly 200 gigawatts in electrical motor power last year and over a quarter were shipped abroad.

Electrical motors and the systems they drive consume 60 percent of China's power production but less than 2 percent of the motors sold on the domestic market are energy efficient.

(Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Green energy goal to boost EU jobs, economy: study

Pete Harrison, Reuters 2 Jun 09;

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will boost economies and create an additional 410,000 jobs if the bloc meets its target of getting one fifth of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, a new report shows.

The 27-country bloc will boost gross domestic product (GDP) by a quarter of 1 percent in the process, the study prepared for the European Commission's energy department said.

The executive Commission introduced its green energy plan last year, with the aim of combating climate change and reducing Europe's dependence on unreliable imports of gas and oil.

But some member states fought bitterly against environmental policies, saying they were unaffordable and put jobs at risk at a time of economic turmoil.

The study appears to change the landscape for renewables by showing the shift will create benefits on all three fronts -- economy, climate and energy security.

"It is ... of immense value that increasing the share of energy from renewable sources not only does not harm the economy, but actually benefits it by creating jobs and increasing GDP," the report said.

Achieving the EU's green energy target will create a gross total of 2.8 million jobs in the sector, but the shift will hit jobs in traditional power plants and in industry due to higher power prices, yielding a lower net gain of around 410,000 jobs.

About two thirds of these are envisaged in small- and medium-sized enterprises.

CHEAPER POWER

"This is the most thorough analysis on employment I've seen in many years," said Christian Kjaer, chief executive of the European Wind Energy Association. "I think it will have a large impact."

GDP would have a net gain of 0.11-0.14 percent by 2020 under a business-as-usual scenario, but this can be boosted to a gain of 0.23-0.24 percent by pursuing the 2020 renewable energy goal, the report said.

"It also shows electricity prices will be around 7 percent lower if we go for the 2020 target scenario, compared to business as usual -- something we have been trying to say for some time," Kjaer said.

Germany currently experiences the biggest benefit from green energy, with nearly a quarter of the 1.4 million jobs in the EU renewables sector.

Other big winners include Finland, Sweden and Latvia, with heavy use of energy from plant biomass waste from farming and forestry.

Biomass energy creates over half the impact on jobs and economies, largely from growing and collecting the feedstock, followed by onshore windpower and hydropower.

The report assumes oil prices will increase to $100 per barrel by 2020 and carbon prices under the EU Emission Trading System will rise to 34 euros ($48.30) per tonne, from 15.30 today.

But it does not take account of the economic benefit of slowing climate change or of averting the industrial closures that occur when suppliers such as Russia cut gas flows, as happened in January.

(Reporting by Pete Harrison; editing by Sue Thomas)

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Former Soviet bloc in firing line of climate change: World Bank

Yahoo News 2 Jun 09;

PARIS (AFP) – The countries of the former Soviet bloc face huge challenges in the next decade to avoid the worst ravages of climate change, the World Bank warned on Tuesday.

From Poland to Kazakhstan, from the Arctic circle to the Caucasus, nations face the likelihood of more frequent floods, droughts, heatwaves, storms and forest fires, it said.

But decrepit infrastructure and the legacies of Soviet mismanagement have left them fearfully under-equipped for coping with the threat, the bank said.

Contrary to popular belief, the region -- a term that covers all of the former Eastern Bloc, excluding East Germany, plus Turkey -- faces "significant threats" from climate change, according to the bank's report.

Average temperatures have already increased by 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) in the south and by 1.6 C (2.9 F) in the north, in Siberia.

The warming has led to more frequent summer droughts and rapid melting of winter snows and glaciers, which in turn have badly affected water supplies.

By the middle of this century, there is likely to be further warming of 1.1 C (2.0 F) in the south and 1.0 C (1.8 F C) in the north, amplifying the water crisis and exacerbating environmental problems, such as the shrinking Aral Sea.

The Baltic Sea, the East Adriatic, the Black Sea and Arctic coasts will be affected by sea-level rise. In the Caspian Sea, though, water levels could drop by roughly six metres (20 feet) by the end of the 21st century because of increased evaporation.

With few exceptions, the region is badly equipped to meet the threat, said the report.

Responding to climate change means being able to draw on a panoply of resources -- economic, human and environmental.

But the former Eastern Bloc countries are poor, have low awareness of climate change and suffer from shoddy housing and other infrastructure that will be badly exposed to weather extremes.

"Chronic environmental management" adds to the problems, said the report.

Wasteful irrigation systems, the plundering of groundwater and river diversion are among the causes for the region's vulnerability to water stress.

Albania, for instance, currently derives 97 percent of its electricity from hydro-electric plants, but cannot rely on it as a future source.

Then there are innumerable toxic dumps and dangerous Soviet-era plants that are located in exposed areas, the World Bank said.

It gave the example of a flood in Baia Mare, Romania, in 2000 that spewed cyanide-laced waste from a gold mine into the Tiza and Danube rivers, poisoning the water of two million people.

To those who contend that warming will open up farmland in the frozen Russian north, the report was skeptical. Inefficient agricultural systems meant that this potential could well remain unrealised.

The report said the impacts of climate change "will likely remain manageable over the next decade."

This would give the region a slender opportunity to beef up its defences, the document said, recommending it focus especially on changing water use, upgrading neglected infrastructure and improving disaster preparedness.

The report, "Adapting to Climate Change in Europe and Central Asia," was issued on the sidelines of talks in Bonn under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

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Climate change threatens African farmland: study

Jasmin Melvin, Reuters 2 Jun 09;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Climate change could cost the African continent more farmland than the United States uses to plant its eight major field crops combined, according to a study published in the June issue of Environmental Science and Policy.

Farming on up to 1 million square kilometers (247 million acres) of land in Africa could subside by 2050 as climate change makes areas too hot and dry for growing crops, the study said.

The latest U.S. Agriculture Department data puts plantings of the eight major U.S. field crops combined at 246 million acres for the coming year.

Though unsuitable for crops, the land could still sustain livestock, which are more tolerant to heat and drought, researchers from the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute and the United Kingdom's Waen Associates found.

Boosting livestock production could provide the 20 million to 35 million people living in these areas with a means to stay on their land and make an income, researchers said.

"Livestock can provide poor households with a buffer against the risk of climate change and allow them to take advantage of the increasing demand for animal products in Africa," said Philip Thornton, a scientist at the Institute and co-author of the paper.

Carlos Sere, the Institute's director general, noted that the addition of livestock would have to be done sustainably. But changing weather conditions and increasing demand for meat will make the addition inevitable, he said.

Thornton, along with Peter Jones of Waen Associates, looked at dry regions across Africa and identified areas already struggling with crop failures in at least one of every six growing seasons.

Using climate models, they determined that if carbon emissions remain high by 2050, the number of reliable crop growing days would fall below 90 for almost 1 million square kilometers of arid and semi-arid lands in Africa.

With fewer carbon emissions, the number of growing days would still fall below 90 for some 500,000 square kilometers (124 million acres), the study found.

Maize, the most widely grown staple crop in Africa, "will basically no longer be possible" to cultivate with fewer than 90 days to grow, the study said.

Even millet, a staple grain in Africa considered to be a drought-tolerant crop, would be at risk of crop failure in areas unable to meet the 90-day mark, the researchers found.

INVESTMENT NEEDED FOR MORE ACCURACY

The study pinpointed areas in Africa where small farmers would be best served by transitioning more of their enterprise to livestock than crops.

But much remains unknown about local impacts of climate change as current climate science and models today are best suited for regional studies, the researchers said.

"There is currently a mismatch between the kind of localized climate change impact information that is urgently needed, and what can objectively be supplied," the study said.

Investment to improve the accuracy of climate models could help groups determine the communities most at risk from global warming, the researchers said.

But there is a "point at which households and farming systems become so stressed that there are few alternatives to an exit from farming," the study said.

Identifying areas at risk could help governments and aid groups limit poor farmers' need to abandon agriculture by developing policy and agendas that mitigate climate change.

Climate change talks are now going on in Bonn, Germany, with delegates from 182 countries. The meetings may lay the framework for an international climate change deal to be discussed in Copenhagen in December.

(Reporting by Jasmin Melvin; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Climate change threatens Mideast stability: study

Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters 2 Jun 09;

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - Climate change could spark "environmental wars" in the Middle East over already scarce water supplies and dissuade Israel from any pullout from occupied Arab land, an international report said on Tuesday.

Almost 10 years of failed peace talks between Syria and Israel have focused on water in and around the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The vital resource is also a point of conflict between Israel and Palestinians seeking a state.

Regarding the Syria-Israel dispute, the report said Israeli concerns about "food security and reduced agricultural productivity could shift the strategic calculation on whether to withdraw" from the Golan Heights, occupied in a 1967 war.

"The expectation of coming environmental wars might imply that the way to deal with shrinking resources is to increase military control over them," said the Danish-funded study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, an independent organization headquartered in Canada.

The Golan supplies 30 percent of the water for the Lake of Galilee, Israel's main water reservoir.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report said sea-level rises as a result of climate change threatened to contaminate Gaza's sole aquifer supplying 1.5 million Palestinians in the territory.

The coastal aquifer, which is shared by Israel, is the only source of fresh drinking water for Gaza, controlled by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. The report said its water quality was abysmal.

In the occupied West Bank, governed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel draws more water from most aquifers shared with the territory and restricts Palestinian water use.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

Climate change will diminish water resources across the Middle East, the report said.

"In a region already considered the world's most water scarce, climate models are predicting a hotter, drier and less predictable climate," it said

"Higher temperature and less rainfall will reduce the flow of rivers and streams, slow the rate at which aquifers recharge, progressively raise sea levels and make the entire region more arid," said the study, which focused on the Levant, the ancient land now comprising Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

The report was released this week at the Danish Institute in Old Damascus, as part of activities before a major United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December that will discuss a new treaty to deal with climate.

The study raised the specter of water shortages and climate- induced crises hitting the economies of the Levant by 2050.

The Levant's population is forecast to grow in 40 years to 71 million people from last year's 42 million. Temperatures in the same period are expected to rise by 2.5 to 3.7 degrees Celsius in the summer and 2 to 3.1 degrees in the winter, changing climate zones and disrupting farming.

The area is already hit by droughts, refugee problems, social tensions, unemployment reaching up to 27 percent and decades of conflict between Arabs and Israel.

"This legacy greatly complicates efforts to collaborate over shared resources, to invest in more efficient water and energy use, to share new ways to adapt to climate change and to pursue truly multilateral action," the report said.

Even countries at peace, such as Turkey, Syria and Iraq, distrust each other when it comes to the issue, resulting in a "zero sum approach to resources, limiting and politicizing the data available on natural resources, reducing the incentives to invest in more efficient agriculture, energy and water systems and encouraging expensive, national level solutions."

Particularly vulnerable to predicted rises in sea-levels is the Lebanese coast, which accounts for 60 percent of the economic activity in the country.

"Sea level rise will impact infrastructure, increase coastal erosion and saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers. Lebanon's narrow coastal strip along the Mediterranean could be susceptible to flooding and erosion as sea levels rise," the report said.

Tourism stands to be another loser, due to damaged Red Sea corals and a shorter skiing season in Lebanon, said the study.

(Editing by Charles Dick)

160 Syrian villages deserted 'due to climate change'
Talal El-atrache, Yahoo News 2 Jun 09;

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Some 160 villages in northern Syria were deserted by their residents in 2007 and 2008 because of climate change, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The report drawn up by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) warns of potential armed conflict for control of water resources in the Middle East.

"The 2007/8 drought caused significant hardship in rural areas of Syria. In the northeast of the country, a reported 160 villages have been entirely abandoned and the inhabitants have had to move to urban areas," it said.

In Syria and also in Jordan, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, "climate change threatens to reduce the availability of scarce water resources, increase food insecurity, hinder economic growth and lead to large-scale population movements," the report said.

"This could hold serious implications for peace in the region," the Canada-based institute said.

The study, financed by Denmark, predicts a hotter, drier and less predictable climate in the Middle East, "already considered the world's most water-scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply."

Oli Brown, who co-wrote the report with Alec Crawford, said: "Climate change itself poses real security concerns to the region. It could lead to increased militarisation of strategic natural resources, complicating peace agreements."

"Israel is already using climate change as an excuse to increase their control over the water resources in the region," he said.

In the study's conclusions, Brown and Crawford said: "As a region, the Levant produces a tiny fraction of global emissions -- less than one percent of the world total.

The exception among Levant countries is Israel, "whose emissions -- 11.8 metric tonnes per capita -- exceed the European average of 10.05 tonnes," they said.

"This may exacerbate the existing deep mistrust of the West, including Israel, which would be seen as causing a problem that it is unable or unwilling to resolve," they said.

The study also revealed the challenge posed by population growth.

"The combined population of the Levant will grow to 71 million by 2050 from 42 million in 2008" with major implications for water demand, food supply, housing and jobs, it said.

The IISD report said there is much that Middle Eastern governments and authorities, civil society and the international community can do to respond to climate change and the threats it may pose to regional peace and security.

"They can promote a culture of conservation in the region, help communities and countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and foster greater cooperation on their shared resources," it said.

The report says climate change could affect farm productivity in Syria, where agriculture represents 23 percent of gross domestic product and employs 30 percent of the economically active population.

"Some 13 percent of agricultural land was downgraded between 1980 and 2006 because of... urban expansion and agricultural, industrial and tourism activities," Fayez Asrafy, a desertification expert, told AFP.

"Rainfall shrank by 10 millimetres (a year) between 1956 and 2006 while temperatures rose by (an average) 0.5 degrees Celsius, though below the worldwide average of 0.6 degrees," Syrian meteorologist Khales Mawed said.

The IISD predicts even modest global warming would lead to a 30-percent drop in water in the Euphrates, which runs through Turkey, Syria and Iraq, while the Dead Sea would shrink in volume by 80 percent by the end of the century.

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Rich Nations Promise $100 Billion Per Year Aid to Poor Nations in Climate Fight

Mridul Chadha, PlanetArk 2 Jun 09;

During one of the many meetings preceding the Copenhagen round of talks scheduled to take place in December, the developed countries have tentatively agreed on a plan to collectively raise $100 billion per year in order to provide financial support to the poor and developing nations as they try to make the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources.

Funding for the international adaptation fund has been one of the contentious issues during the negotiations for the next climate treaty and the global recession has made it even worse with many countries showing reluctance in providing monetary support to developing and poor countries citing problems like unemployment and dropping GDP back home.

The problem is not only 'who would pay how much' but also 'who gets how much'. As far as the first issue is concerned, the European Union had pledged monetary help for the developing and poor nations but failed to reach a final decision since there were no signs of support from the United States. While the EU has its Emission Trading System, the United States is yet to start its carbon trading scheme.

The European Union which has set the boldest emission reduction goals in the world hasn't had any strong support from other developed nations; Japan has been calling for more ambitious goals on the lines of UNFCCC recommendations - 25 to 40 percent reductions by 2020 - and has also lent financial support to developing countries. However, leaders of the European Union want the United States and Australia to do much more. The EU has been pushing the two nations to kick start their emissions trading schemes.

While the United States is reluctant to put extra burden on its industries and giving most of them free emission permits, the Australian government has delayed the introduction of emissions trading system by a year due to adverse economic conditions.

There are also concerns the effectiveness of this financial aid in cutting carbon emissions. A report released by the World Bank states that even though the global emissions trading market doubled in value the actual emissions cuts reduced by a third. Which brings us to the second issue, the quality aspect of the emission reduction mechanism.

A big portion of those $100 billion would be the money given to the developing nations to protect the forests which act as a major sink of carbon dioxide. While the developed nations can claim that they have fulfilled their commitments by giving few million dollars in aid to some tropical country, it is important that to evaluate how the aid money has been utilized at the ground level. Very few countries, if any, have clear policies regarding the deforestation and utilization of aid money. For instance, Brazil has created a $21 billion conservation fund for the Amazon and has been inviting developed nations to donate money to the fund, however, the Brazilian government has clearly stated that the donor nations will have no say in the utilization of the aid money.

The Clean Development Mechanism has been called a failure by many experts, including those at the UN, since it is complicated and overlooks some environmental issues while giving priority to reducing carbon emissions. India, a major carbon credit selling market, wants the right to sell credits before the concerned clean energy project comes online and offsets any carbon emissions while the developed nations want to change this. Even if India feels that financial aid is essential to start clean energy projects it must agree to a mechanism through which the actual amounts of carbon emissions offset or reduced could be measured and further monetary aid could be based up on.

In addition to the developed countries, the advanced developing countries like China and India, should also do their bit in helping poor countries. They could be a part of a second-tier emission trading system (for developing countries only) where they could offset their carbon emissions voluntarily by providing technological and financial aid to African countries. China seems to have agreed to sectoral emissions reductions for its industries, investing in clean energy projects in poor countries can help it achieve some of those goals.

The new climate treaty should have provisions which are not biased in favor of a few countries. Developed nations have been hit the hardest by the economic recession and even though they will provide the bulk of the financial aid to the developing and poor countries for transition to clean energy technology, the advanced developing nations must play their part by agreeing to voluntary emission reductions and help poor nations. The UN must also ensure that the emissions trading system is not reduced to merely a business tool for industries, the actual emission cuts must be measured so that the primary goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved.

Reprinted with permission from Red Green and Blue

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