China's green sweep will blow the world

Thomas L. Friedman, Straits Times 29 Sep 09;

MOST people would assume that 20 years from now, when historians look back at 2008-09, they will conclude that the most important thing to happen in this period was the Great Recession. I'd hold off on that. If we can continue stumbling out of this economic crisis, I believe future historians may well conclude that the most important thing to happen in the last 18 months was that Red China decided to become Green China.

Yes, China's leaders have decided to go green - out of necessity because too many of their people can't breathe, can't swim, can't fish, can't farm and can't drink thanks to pollution from its coal- and oil-based manufacturing growth engine. And, therefore, unless it powers its development with cleaner energy systems and more knowledge-intensive businesses without smokestacks, China will die of its own development.

What do we know about necessity? It is the mother of invention. And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.

I believe this Chinese decision to go green is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik - the world's first Earth-orbiting satellite. That launch stunned Americans, convinced then-President Dwight Eisenhower that the US was falling behind in missile technology and spurred America to make massive investments in science, education, infrastructure and networking - one eventual by-product of which was the Internet.

Well folks, Sputnik just went up again: China's going clean-tech. The view of China in the United States Congress - that China is going to try to leapfrog the US by out-polluting it - is out of date. It's going to try to out-green the US. Right now, China is focused on low-cost manufacturing of solar, wind and batteries and building the world's biggest market for these products. It still badly lags US innovation. But research will follow the market. America's premier solar equipment maker, Applied Materials, is about to open the world's largest privately funded solar research facility - in Xian, China.

'If they invest in 21st-century technologies and we invest in 20th-century technologies, they'll win,' says Mr David Sandalow, the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy.

'If we both invest in 21st-century technologies, challenging each other, we all win.'

Unfortunately, Americans are still not racing. It's like Sputnik went up and Americans think it's just a shooting star. Instead of a strategic response, too many US politicians are still trapped in their own dumb-as-we-wanna-be bubble, where the US is always No. 1, and where the US Chamber of Commerce, having sold its soul to the old coal and oil industries, uses its influence to prevent Congress from passing legislation to really spur renewables.

China's leaders, mostly engineers, wasted little time debating global warming. They know the Tibetan glaciers that feed their major rivers are melting. But they also know that even if climate change were a hoax, the demand for clean, renewable power is going to soar as we add an estimated 2.5 billion people to the planet by 2050, many of whom will want to live high-energy lifestyles. In that world, ET - or energy technology - will be as big as IT, and China intends to be a big ET player.

'For the last three years, the US has led the world in new wind generation,' said the ecologist Lester Brown, author of Plan B 4.0.

'By the end of this year, China will bypass us on new wind generation so fast we won't even see it go by.'

I recently met Mr Shi Zhengrong, the founder of Suntech, already the world's largest manufacturer of solar panels. Mr Shi recalled how, shortly after he started his company in Wuxi, the nearby Lake Tai, China's third-largest freshwater lake, choked to death from pollution.

'After this disaster,' explained Mr Shi, 'the party secretary of Wuxi city came to me and said, 'I want to support you to grow this solar business into a US$15 billion (S$21 billion) industry, so then we can shut down as many polluting and energy consuming companies in the region as soon as possible.' He is one of a group of young Chinese leaders, very innovative and very revolutionary, on this issue. Something has changed. China realised it has no capacity to absorb all this waste. We have to grow without pollution.'

Of course, China will continue to grow with cheap, dirty coal, to arrest over-eager environmentalists and to strip African forests for wood and minerals. Have no doubt about that. But have no doubt either that, without declaring it, China is embarking on a new, parallel path of clean power deployment and innovation. It is the Sputnik of our day. Americans ignore it at their peril.

NEW YORK TIMES

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Smuggling Europe's Waste to Poorer Countries

Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times 26 Sep 09;

ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands — When two inspectors swung open the doors of a battered red shipping container here, they confronted a graveyard of Europe’s electronic waste — old wires, electricity meters, circuit boards — mixed with remnants of cardboard and plastic.

“This is supposed to be going to China, but it isn’t going anywhere,” said Arno Vink, an inspector from the Dutch environment ministry who impounded the container because of Europe’s strict new laws that place restrictions on all types of waste exports, from dirty pipes to broken computers to household trash.

Exporting waste illegally to poor countries has become a vast and growing international business, as companies try to minimize the costs of new environmental laws, like those here, that tax waste or require that it be recycled or otherwise disposed of in an environmentally responsible way.

Rotterdam, the busiest port in Europe, has unwittingly become Europe’s main external garbage chute, a gateway for trash bound for places like China, Indonesia, India and Africa. There, electronic waste and construction debris containing toxic chemicals are often dismantled by children at great cost to their health. Other garbage that is supposed to be recycled according to European law may be simply burned or left to rot, polluting air and water and releasing the heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

While much of the international waste trade is legal, sent to qualified overseas recyclers, a big chunk is not. For a price, underground traders make Europe’s waste disappear overseas.

After Europe first mandated recycling electronics like televisions and computers, two to three million tons of electronic waste was turned in last year, far less than the seven million tons anticipated. Much of the rest was probably exported illegally, according to the European Environment Agency.

Paper, plastic and metal trash exported from Europe rose tenfold from 1995 to 2007, the agency says, with 20 million containers of waste now shipped each year either legally or illegally. Half of that passes through this huge port, where trucks and ships exchange goods around the clock.

In the United States, more states are passing laws that require the recycling of goods, especially electronics. But because the United States places fewer restrictions on trash exports and monitors them far less than Europe, that increasing volume is flowing relatively freely overseas, mostly legally, experts say. Up to 100 containers of waste from the United States and Canada arrive each day, according to environmental groups and local authorities in Hong Kong.

“Now we are collecting far more, but they can’t prevent it from going offshore. People talk about ‘leakage,’ but it’s really a hemorrhage,” said Jim Puckett, director of the Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based environmental nonprofit that tracks waste exported from the United States.

The temptation to export waste is great because recycling properly at home is expensive: Because of Europe’s new environmental laws, it is four times as expensive to incinerate trash in the Netherlands as to put it — illegally — on a boat to China. And the vast container ships that arrive in Europe and North America from Asia filled with cheap garments and electrical goods now have a profitable return cargo: garbage like steel cables, circuit boards and leftovers from last night’s pasta meal.

“The traffic in waste exports has become enormous,” said Christian Fischer, chief consultant on waste to the European Environment Agency, which released its first study on the topic this year, “but we need much better information about it.”

The Dutch have taken a lonely lead in inspecting waste exports and curbing the traffic, providing a rare window into the trade. They estimate that 16 percent of the exports are illegal. But in most ports where customs inspectors typically check imports far more thoroughly than exports, much probably passes through unnoticed.

In July, a shipment of 1,400 metric tons of British household garbage that was illegally sent to South America — labeled as clean plastic for recycling — was apprehended only after it landed in Brazil.

Rotterdam uses X-rays and computer analysis of shipping documents to pick out suspicious containers. But other countries need to do more, said Albert Klingenberg of the Dutch environment ministry, adding: “When they can’t get it out in Rotterdam, they go to Antwerp or Hamburg.”

The European Union’s laws governing waste disposal require more recycling of paper and plastic each year, and generally prohibit dumping in landfills. Incineration is now heavily taxed in most European countries.

The regulations also prohibit exporting waste to poorer parts of the world unless the receiving country accepts that kind of waste and it is going to a certified recycler. The guidelines fully ban the export of certain hazardous materials and so-called “problematic” waste, defined as waste that is not amenable to recycling and so would be harmful to the environment at its destination, for example, waste that is soggy or mixed household garbage.

The European laws generally follow the guidelines of the 1992 Basel Convention, the treaty that regulates dangerous exports of waste, and a proposed 1998 amendment.

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Nanotech 'an environment risk'

CRC CARE, Science Alert 29 Sep 09;

The widespread and growing use of nanoparticles is causing a new form of uncontrollable and unregulated pollution that has the potential to harm the environment, a leading scientist warned the CleanUp 09 conference in Adelaide on 28 September.

Nanoparticles’ extremely small size – only billionths of a metre – makes them ideal for use in a growing range of industries and products, but it also allows them to escape through filters and into our rivers, oceans and even to penetrate our bodies.

Dr Tomas Vanek from the Laboratory of Plant Biotechnologies in the Czech Republic will talk about how important it is to understand the damage that this ‘nanopollution’ can cause and the urgent need to control it.

Body creams and toothpastes increasingly contain nanoparticles, as do a range of commercial products and a variety of materials. Nanoparticles are also used in industrial processes, and this range of applications allows them to be exposed to the environment through many different pathways, according to Dr Vanek.

“Nanoparticles often end up washed down the drain where they can pass through sewage treatment plant filters and into our oceans and rivers, potentially contaminating our food and water supplies. Nanomaterial can also be applied directly to ecosystems in order to clean up other unwanted pollutants”, he said.

“The use of these tiny particles of metal and chemicals is quite new and we still don’t know whether they’re dangerous and how, or if, we can clean them up.”

He says the world needs to urgently begin preparing to regulate and, if necessary, restrict the widespread use of nanomaterials.

“In the past we used many chemicals in agriculture and industry, only to find out afterwards they were damaging to human health and the environment. We do not want to make the same mistake with nanotechnologies – releasing unknown materials that turn out to be toxic and then finding they are difficult or even impossible to recall or make safe,” said Dr Vanek.

Dr Vanek and his team are one of the first groups in the world to show that ‘nanopollution’ can harm plants. They tested commonly used nanoparticles - titanium dioxide, zinc peroxide, aluminium oxide, fullerenes and carbon graphite fibres - on tobacco plant cells and found that at varying levels the molecules were toxic to the plant.

“This is a new area of research and much more study is required, but we need to understand whether nanoparticles are dangerous to the environment that we can create guidelines to safely use them,” said Dr Vanek.

Dr Vanek believes a lot more research also needs to go into ways to remediate ‘nanopollution’, in order to safely and sustainably manage the technology.

“If we are going to keep using nanoparticles we need to know whether we’re putting ourselves and the environment in danger, and if so, how to minimise it,” said Dr Vanek.

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Adelaide latest victim of global water shortages

Australia's fifth-largest city could be reliant on bottled water as early as next week as overuse and drought stretch the Murray River to its limit
Toni O'Loughlin and John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 28 Sep 09;

The water in Australia's biggest river is running so low and is so salty that the nation's fifth-largest city, Adelaide, is at risk of having to ship water in to its residents, politicians have warned.

Adelaide's water crisis follows similar problems in cities around the world, as the combination of growing population, increasing agricultural use and global warming stretches resources to the limit. Experts are warning of permanent drought in many regions.

Salinity levels in some stretches of the Murray River already exceed the World Health Organisation's recommendations for safe drinking, and South Australia's water authority and 11 rural townships east of Adelaide have been told to prepare for the worst.

"Another dry year will deplete our reservoirs and the water in the Murray will become too saline to drink. We are talking about 1.3 million people, who are not far off becoming reliant on bottled water. We are talking a national emergency," said South Australian MP David Winderlich.

As early as next week, water from parts of the river may become too dangerous to drink, which would require the water authority to begin delivering supplies to hospitals, clinics, aged care facilities and local supermarkets in plastic bottles, said Winderlich.

"There's simply too many people pulling water out of the river," said Roger Strother, Coorong council mayor. "We've been saying that one day it would catch up, and this summer is when it is going to happen. It could be next week."

Recent rains have topped up Adelaide's dams, but only enough for one year, and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which oversees water use across the whole of south-east Australia, says water levels in reservoirs are much lower than expected. Today the authority said the whole basin was at 25% capacity.

Australia's worst drought in a century has lasted over 10 years in places, and many cities have had to restrict water use.

Climate experts fear the continent faces a permanently drier future as the impact of global warming kicks in. South Australians have watched the waters stagnate as farmers, especially cotton and rice growers upstream, siphoned up to 83% of the water from the river system.

The WHO says the acceptable level of salinity for safe drinking water is 800 EC (electrical conductivity) units but the salinity in parts of the Murray is now around 1,200 EC units. The water authority says it will begin shipping water when the salinity rises to 1,400 EC units.

Adelaide is one of many cities around the world facing acute water shortages as populations grow, long-term droughts continue and ground water is not replenished. The Chinese water minister, Chen Lei, today told engineers at a water conference that two-thirds of Chinese cities now face serious shortages due to rapid industrialisation and climate change.

"Compared to 1956-79, the average rainfall has dropped 6% in three major river basins," Lei said. "Most parts in the north of China are now facing water shortages problems, especially because of the increasing influence of climate change and the faster speed of industrialisation and urbanisation."

By 2015, Lei said, water efficiency would have to be increased by 30%. "Water abstraction must be strictly controlled. We should have strict management of groundwater exploitation and consumption, put a limit on total use of groundwater, and ban or set quotas on groundwater exploitation. Nearly two out of three cities are facing water shortages, and the farmland affected by drought reaches nearly 15m sq km a year."

According to a new UN environment programme report, perennial drought conditions are developing in south-eastern Australia and south-western North America. "Projections suggest that persistent water scarcity will increase in a number of regions in coming years, including southern and northern Africa, the Mediterranean, much of the Middle East, a broad band in central Asia and the Indian subcontinent," the report said.

"There is growing concern that thresholds or tipping points may now be reached in a matter of years or a few decades, including dramatic changes to the Indian subcontinent's monsoon rains, the Sahara and west Africa monsoons, and climate systems affecting the Amazon rainforest," it said.

Hopes in some countries that an El Niño weather event would bring rain to parched areas of the US this week declined as the US government climate prediction centre said temperatures in the equatorial Pacific had stopped climbing. During strong El Niños, abnormally warm waters in that region pump heat and moisture into the atmosphere, which leads to intense storms.

Cities around the world under water stress
BEIJING: Most of Beijing's water comes from the Miyun reservoir, but a decade of drought and huge population increase has left extreme shortages. Water diversion projects are helping, but this is depleting resources from other regions. The city must spend $3.5bn (£2.2bn) in the next five years to cope with a population expected to rise to 17 million.

NAIROBI: The city has imposed water rationing, following an acute drought that has affected all Kenya's water catchment areas. River and reservoirs are at historically low levels. Flower farms and export-oriented agriculture are also reducing supplies available to people.

MEXICO CITY: 2009 has been the driest year recorded in the city of 19 million people. Water is rationed and many areas have no piped water for days at a time. The government has imposed fines of up to $1,200 for hosing down cars and sidewalks or watering lawns during daytime hours. Signs warn that the city could run out of water next spring unless residents switch to low-flow showers and toilets, and plug leaks.

GAZA: Water fit for human use will run out in the Gaza strip within 10 years, the Gaza Coastal Municipal Water Utility and UN agencies said this month. Tap water is already salty, and only 5-10% of groundwater is drinkable. Gaza's population is expected to increase to 3 million by 2025.

KATHMANDU: Erratic rainfall and drier winters have left Nepal's capital very short of water. The water company can provide only 160m litres a day but the demand is well over 200m litres. Many households are drilling their own boreholes to extract groundwater with electric pumps, but the water table is sinking approximately 2.5 metres a year and this is not sustainable in the medium term.

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4 Degrees Warming "Likely" Without CO2 Cuts: Study

Gerard Wynn, PlanetArk 29 Sep 09;

LONDON - Global temperatures may be 4 degrees Celsius hotter by the mid-2050s if current greenhouse gas emissions trends continue, said a study published on Monday.

The study, by Britain's Met Office Hadley Center, echoed a U.N. report last week which found that climate changes were outpacing worst-case scenarios forecast in 2007 by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

"Our results are showing similar patterns (to the IPCC) but also show the possibility that more extreme changes can happen," said Debbie Hemming, co-author of the research published at the start of a climate change conference at Oxford University.

Leaders of the main greenhouse gas-emitting countries recognized in July a scientific view that temperatures should not exceed 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, to avoid more dangerous changes to the world's climate.

The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for its fourth assessment report, or AR4. One finding was that global temperatures could rise by 4 degrees by the end of the 2050s. Monday's study confirmed that warming could happen even earlier, by the mid-2050s, and suggested more extreme local effects.

"It's affirming the AR4 results and also confirming that it is likely," Hemming told Reuters, referring to 4 degrees warming, assuming no extra global action to cut emissions in the next decade.

One advance since 2007 was to model the effect of "carbon cycles." For example, if parts of the Amazon rainforest died as a result of drought, that would expose soil which would then release carbon from formerly shaded organic matter.

"That amplifies the amount of carbon dioxide that goes into the atmosphere and therefore the global warming. It's really leading to more certainty," said Hemming.

DRASTIC

Some 190 countries will try to reach an agreement on how to slow global warming at a meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Chinese President Hu Jintao won praise for making a commitment to limit emissions growth by a "notable" amount, at a U.N. climate summit in New York last week. Other leaders made pledges to agree a new climate pact.

Temperature rises are compared with pre-industrial levels. The world warmed 0.7 degrees last century, scientists say.

A global average increase of 4 degrees masked higher regional increases, including more than 15 degrees warmer temperatures in parts of the Arctic, and up to 10 degrees higher in western and southern Africa, Monday's study found.

"It's quite extreme. I don't think it's hit home to people," said Hemming. As sea ice melts, the region will reflect less sunlight, which may help trigger runaway effects.

Such higher Arctic temperatures could also melt permafrost, which until now has trapped the powerful greenhouse gas methane, helping trigger further runaway effects, said Hemming.

"There are potentially quite big negative implications."

The study indicated rainfall may fall this century by a fifth or more in part of Africa, Central America, the Mediterranean, and coastal Australia, "potentially more extreme" than the IPCC's findings in 2007.

"The Mediterranean is a very consistent signal of significant drying in nearly all the model runs," said Hemming. A 20 percent or more fall is "quite a lot in areas like Spain already struggling with rainfall reductions in recent years."

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Four degrees of warming 'likely'
David Shukman, BBC News 28 Sep 09;

In a dramatic acceleration of forecasts for global warming, UK scientists say the global average temperature could rise by 4C (7.2F) as early as 2060.

The Met Office study used projections of fossil fuel use that reflect the trend seen over the last 20 years.

Their computer models also factored in new findings on how carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans and forests.

The finding was presented at an Oxford University conference exploring the implications of a 4C rise.

The results show a "best estimate" of 4C being reached by 2070, with a possibility that it will come as early as 2060.

Richard Betts of the Met Office Hadley Centre described himself as "shocked" that so much warming could occur within the lifetimes of people alive today.

"If greenhouse gas emissions are not cut soon then we could see major climate changes within our own lifetimes," he said.

"Four degrees of warming averaged over the globe translates into even greater warming in many regions, along with major changes in rainfall."

Big burn

The model finds wide variations, with the Arctic possibly seeing a rise of up to 15C (27F) by the end of the century.

Western and southern parts of Africa could warm by up to 10C, with other land areas seeing a rise of 7C or more.

In its 2007 assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the average warming by the end of the century would probably lie between 1.8C and 4C (3.2-7.2F), though it did not rule out the possibility of larger rises.

Key to the Met Office calculations was the use of projections showing fossil fuel use continuing to increase as it has done for the last couple of decades.

"Previously we haven't looked at the impact of burning fossil fuels so intensely," said Dr Betts.

"But it's quite plausible we could get a rise of 4C by 2070 or even 2060."

Dr Betts and his colleagues emphasise the uncertainties inherent in the modelling, particularly the role of the carbon cycle.

But he said he was confident the findings were significant and would serve as a useful guide to policymakers.

The presentation at Oxford's Environmental Change Institute came as negotiators from 192 countries were gathering in Bangkok for the latest set of prepatory talks in the run-up to December's UN climate summit.

Major governments of developing and industrialised nations are committed to a deal that would keep the global temperature rise to 2C, which many regard as a threshold for "dangerous" climate change.

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FACTBOX: Key Issues On The Table At Bangkok Climate Talks

PlanetArk 29 Sep 09;

Delegates at U.N. climate talks in Bangkok are trying to whittle down a complex negotiating text that will form the basis of a broader global pact to curb the pace of climate change.

The two-week talks are crucial because negotiators have very little time to trim the options and alternative wording proposals in the 180-page text with just over two months to go before a December 7-18 climate meeting in Copenhagen.

The United Nations has set the Copenhagen gathering as the deadline to try to reach a broad agreement on a replacement pact for the Kyoto Protocol.

Following are some of the main issues being discussed in Bangkok.

FINANCING

This is the glue that will hold any new pact together. Developing nations are demanding rich countries offer new and substantial annual funds to help them adapt to climate change and to help them green their economies without sacrificing growth.

Failure by rich nations to implement immediate, far-reaching actions to cut their emissions would only increase the need for poorer countries to adapt to the impact of climate change and therefore increase costs, the text says.

Poorer nations as well small-island states are seen as the most vulnerable to greater extremes of weather, rising seas and changes in rainfall patterns.

Estimates for long-term financing are in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year but as yet no firm amounts have been pledged in the negotiations by individual countries. That is expected to come in the final hours of the Copenhagen talks.

Nor is it clear how much of the money will be public funds or come from revenue generated by carbon markets or other sources.

The rules governing the allocation of funds have also not yet been decided, nor have governments agreed to beef up existing institutions or create new ones to manage the money and low-carbon programmes.

STRUCTURE FOR ALL NATIONS

Any post-Kyoto agreement will need to include steps by big developing nations such as India and China to curb emissions and to help them acquire technology to substantially cut emissions.

But developing nations won't accept binding emissions targets and have instead pledged to take a range of voluntary steps mandated by their governments, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy programmes.

Negotiators in Bangkok will be focused on designing what they call a legal framework or architecture that will encourage developing nations to sign up.

Kyoto backs economy-wide emissions reduction efforts for rich nations but many developing nations say they won't sign up to such steps in a broader climate pact.

Some nations have proposed a flexible arrangement that allows all nations to set verifiable national action plans to curb emissions. These could be entered into a registry that lists low-carbon strategies.

The idea would be to structure a climate pact that would allow easy amendment of national actions to fight global warming to take into account increased efforts over time.

DEFORESTATION AND DEGRADATION

There's growing interest among many nations to create a scheme that rewards developing nations for saving their forests, which soak up vast amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

The U.N.-backed reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) scheme has not yet been integrated into the next climate pact and the number of credits the scheme could generate annually and the value of the credits remain unclear.

A market-based scheme could potentially generate billions of dollars in annual funds for poorer nations from the sales of carbon credits.

Issues surrounding the rules governing the design and monitoring of REDD projects also remain unclear.

(Editing by Dean Yates)

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UN climate chief says time running out for deal

Rachel O'Brien Straits Times 28 Sep 09;

BANGKOK (AFP) – The UN climate chief warned on Monday that time was running out to break a deadlock on a global warming pact, telling delegates in Bangkok that failure to do so by December would threaten future generations.

The talks are the next to last before a showdown in Copenhagen at the end of the year, when the 192 countries must agree on a treaty for tackling greenhouse gases beyond 2010, after the current Kyoto Protocol expires.

"Time is not just pressing, it has almost run out," said UN climate head Yvo de Boer, who broke down in tears of frustration at talks in Bali two years ago, when world governments drew up the "road map" to the Copenhagen deadline.

After two years of haggling, the world is still trying to thrash out a draft text for December's talks, with major disagreements on the two key issues of cutting carbon emissions and meeting the associated costs.

"There is no plan B, and if we do not realise plan A the future will hold us to account for it," de Boer said in his opening speech to around 2,500 government delegates and representatives from business and environment groups.

De Boer said that devastating floods in the Philippines at the weekend which have killed at least 140 people further highlighted the need for action.

"One of the reasons why countries have gathered here is to ensure the frequency and severity of those kinds of extreme weather events decreases as a result of ambitious climate change policy," de Boer said.

The Bangkok talks, part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), run until October 9. The final talks before Copenhagen are in Barcelona from November 2-6.

The meeting in the Thai capital follows last week's UN climate summit in New York and a G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, both of which failed to break the deadlock on either of the two biggest issues.

"Our children and grandchildren will never forgive us unless action is taken. Time is running out, we have two months before Copenhagen," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in his opening speech on Monday.

De Boer said on the eve of the Bangkok talks that they had a 280-page negotiating text which is "basically impossible to work with."

The US on Monday reaffirmed its commitment to signing the treaty.

"We want to be part of a new agreement," said Jonathan Pershing, the US head of delegation in Bangkok.

The US -- which signed the Kyoto deal but later saw it rejected by Congress -- is due to introduce its new climate change and energy bill in the Senate this week and there are fears the bill will not pass ahead of Copenhagen.

Pershing said the United States was "working quite aggressively trying to promote action in the Congress."

While the European Union, pegged to a 1990 benchmark, has set a 20 percent target for emissions cuts by 2020, and Japan 25 percent if others follow suit, the US so far has only set the equivalent of four percent as a target.

Experts warn that global temperatures must rise no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 over pre-industrial times, a target embraced by the leaders of the G8 nations in July.

Scientists also say emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases should peak just six years from now.

Without drastic action they fear drought, floods and rising sea levels could grip the world by the end of the century causing famine, homelessness and strife.

On emissions, developed economies including the US have acknowledged a historical responsibility for global warming. Most have put numbers on the table for slashing their carbon pollution by 2020 and by 2050.

But they say that developing nations -- especially China, India and Brazil and other major emitters of tomorrow -- should also pledge to curb output of greenhouse gases.

Poor and emerging economies refuse to take on their own hard targets but call for rich nations to make higher cuts.

UN warns leaders time running out for climate deal
Michael Casey, Associated Press 28 Sep 09;

BANGKOK – The United Nations on Monday warned world leaders they have only 70 days to reach a new deal to limit global warming, while environmentalists pointed to the deadly floods in the Philippines to illustrate the already devastating impact of climate change.

Only hours after negotiations began, rich and poor nations were already flinging their usual rebukes at one another for failing to do their part to reach a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Talks have been deadlocked for months over the industrial countries' refusal to commit to committing to sufficiently deep cuts or provide billions of dollars to poor nations to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change and transition to a low-carbon economy.

The major developing countries like India and China, in turn, have refused to agree to binding targets altogether and are leery of demands that any of their commitments be monitored and verified as part of any agreement.

"Time is not just pressing. It has almost run out," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said, with a clock nearby showing there were 70 days until world leaders are scheduled to meet in Copenhagen to finalize a pact.

"As many leaders have said, there is no plan B," he continued. "If we don't realize Plan A, the future will hold us to account for it."

Some environmentalists tried to raise the sense of urgency by pointing to the weekend tropical storm that set off the region's worst flooding in more than 40 years in the Philippines and left 140 dead. It offered, they said, a glimpse into the kind of turbulent weather that could be unleashed by warming temperatures.

"We are asking the negotiators to look outside these walls. They should realize that it is the people's lives at stake," said Dinah Fuentesfina, a Philippine activist from the Global Campaign for Climate Action Asia.

The need for a deal was also driven home by a U.N. report last week that showed climate-related events such as the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets and the increasing acidification of the oceans were happening much faster than scientists had predicted even two years ago.

The two weeks of U.N. climate talks in the Thai capital, the second to last meeting before Copenhagen, have drawn some 1,500 delegates from 180 countries who are tasked with boiling down an unwieldy, 200-page draft agreement to around 30 pages that will be presented to ministers in Denmark.

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister for climate and energy whose country will host the talks in December, told delegates the world was watching and urged them to build on the momentum that came out of last week's U.N. climate summit where 100 world leaders pledged their support for an agreement.

At the New York summit, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao — whose countries are the world's two biggest emitters, each accounting for about 20 percent of greenhouse gas pollution — both vowed tough measures to combat climate change.

Hu said China would generate 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources within a decade, and for the first time pledged to reduce the rate by which its carbon emissions rise. He did not give specific targets.

Most countries agree that the rise in average global temperatures must not exceed 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels — a threshold beyond which it is believed serious climate changes would ensue. Temperatures have already risen 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since the 19th century.

But so far, there is no consensus on how to stop the warming

Most industrialized nations have offered to cut emissions 15 to 23 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, falling short of the 25 to 40 percent cuts scientists and activists say are needed to hold off warming of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).

But the United States has offered much lower targets so far, with a House of Representatives bill proposing to reduce emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels — only about 4 percent below 1990 levels — by 2020. The Senate has yet to take up the climate bill.

De Boer insisted a deal could still be reached in Copenhagen, but the traditional divisions sprang up quickly on the first day as poor countries repeatedly called for deeper emissions cuts from rich nations.

"Emission reductions of at least 40 percent or 45 percent below the 1990 baseline by developed countries are required and must be announced without further delay," the Indian delegation said in a statement.

Sudan's Lumumba Di-Aping, speaking for the Group of 77 developing nations and China, said it was just as important that developed countries financially help poor nations adapt to the impacts of climate change and develop greener economies.

"Finance and technology are central to achieving a just and equitable deal," Di-Aping said.

But the United States shot back that developing countries would have to do their part — short of binding targets — to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and for the first time agree to a system that would monitor and verify their promised actions.

Jonathan Pershing, the chief American negotiator at the talks, said the United States was ready to make a deal but that it would take actions from every nation big and small.

"No one nation can meet this challenge alone," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Denis D. Gray contributed to this report.

Negotiators urged to speed up climate pact talks
Thin Lei Win and David Fogarty, Reuters 28 Sep 09;

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Delegates at the start of marathon climate talks in Thailand on Monday were told to speed up "painfully slow" negotiations as they struggle to settle on the outline of a tougher pact to fight global warming.

The Bangkok talks, which run until October 9, is the last major negotiating round before a gathering in Copenhagen in December that the United Nations has set as a deadline to seal a broad agreement on a pact to expand and replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"Time is not just pressing. It has almost run out," Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told delegates from about 180 countries.

"But in two weeks real progress can be made toward the goals that world leaders have set for the negotiations to break deadlocks and to cooperate toward concrete progress," he said.

Delegates at the talks are tasked with trying to streamline a draft legal text of a pact that would replace Kyoto. The main text, running to about 180 pages, is filled with blanks, options and alternative wording options.

The U.N.-led negotiations have become bogged down over arguments about rich nations' targets to cut emissions by 2020, financing for poorer nations to adapt to climate change and to curb their own greenhouse gas emissions and the best way to deliver and manage those funds.

"We've talked for long enough, the world expects actions," Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister of climate change and energy and host of the December 7-18 Copenhagen gathering, told delegates.

De Boer later told reporters the negotiating process so far had been painfully slow. "We must have a higher level of ambition in terms of emissions cuts by industrialized countries.

"In addition, we need to see more clarity here on how the process is going to make it possible for developing countries to engage," he said.

"DROWNING IN TEXT"

The United Nations, many developing nations and green groups have expressed frustration about the lack of progress during several negotiating rounds in the run-up to Copenhagen.

"The problem we have at the moment in these negotiations is that we are drowning in text," Tove Ryding of Greenpeace told reporters.

"What we need to see is late nights and fights. We need to see them sit there -- that's what these people do for a living -- they need to smell like sweat and coffee. If they don't do that, they're not actually at work."

De Boer spoke of progress at last week's U.N. climate change summit in New York but said a Copenhagen agreement must have five essential elements.

These included enhanced steps to help the most vulnerable nations adapt to climate change impacts, tougher emissions targets for rich nations, which are currently well below the 25-40 percent reductions from 1990 levels by 2020 recommended by the U.N. climate panel, and cash to help poorer countries cut their emissions.

Hedegaard said a picture was beginning to emerge from the puzzle of the climate text, but rapid progress was needed to refine it into a document with clear political choices.

Artur Runge-Metzger, head of the European Commission delegation, said final figures on finance would most likely be decided on the last night of the Copenhagen talks.

"Because you can only commit to figures if you know what kind of deal you are going to have and which direction are you going to go," he said.

De Boer said long-term financing to help poorer nations adapt to climate change and to slow the pace of their emissions growth should be in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

"I think the main worry for us here in Bangkok is that there's only 70 days left," said Runge-Metzger, referring to the start of the Copenhagen meeting. "There's so much work to be done."

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 28 Sep 09

Sunny & Nice Dive @ Pulau Hantu
from colourful clouds

Yellow-bellied Prinia nesting
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Pulau Ubin
from Manta Blog

Float like a butterflyfish
from The annotated budak

Beautiful Semakau
from Nature's Wonders

Monday Morgue: 28th September 2009
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

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Kelongs vanishing fast in Singapore

From a high of 45, there are only 14 now due to increasing costs, the lack of new licences and more fish farms
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 28 Sep 09;

THE kelongs that once dotted the coastline of Singapore are becoming a rare sight.

Once numbering 45, these offshore fishing platforms anchored into the seabed on long wooden poles have dwindled to just 14 in the last 30 years.

And the kelong population is likely to sink further, said a spokesman for the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), which administers Singapore's kelong community.

The reasons: New kelong licences are not being issued, and prices of the poles used to prop up the platforms have surged tenfold.

In the 1960s, the AVA stopped issuing new licences because the trade was deemed 'not viable and and not sustainable'. This, said the AVA spokesman, is in line with what is happening in the rest of the world, where 'capture fishery production is expected to decline as overfishing continues'.

In its place are fish farms, which import fry and rear them until they are large enough to be sold at markets.

Aquaculture farm numbers have been multiplying here in place of the traditional netting methods of the kelong. There are currently 106 farms, up from a third of that three decades ago.

'In the past, we had a few neighbours. Now, I have only one,' said Mrs Maureen Ng, a kelong owner for four years, gesturing across the sea from her kelong off Pulau Ubin.

The 61-year-old is looking into fish farming, but wants to keep her kelong for as long as possible. 'It is even more precious now because it is so rare,' she said.

Many owners have given up over the years as the costs of maintaining the kelongs have landed their businesses in the red.

The cost of nibong, the rare palm imported from Indonesia which is commonly used in kelong construction, increased from $35 a pole in 1993 to $60 in 2007, said kelong owners. Then, imports ceased due to shortages, forcing them to switch to other hardy woods priced at more than $400 a pole.

These increases have emptied the pockets of kelong owner The Aik Hua.

It now costs him $22,000 to replace 55 poles annually - the average amount needed to maintain his kelong - up from $2,750 two years ago.

Other costs, like installing the poles, have also doubled, said Mr The, 55, who loses about $150 a month and is keeping the business alive by ploughing in cash he earns as a mechanic on land.

Mr Lim Kok Meng is not as fortunate. His kelong off Pulau Ubin collapsed in December last year when the poles gave way.

He decided to 'just let it be' because it was too expensive to repair. 'I have no choice; it just isn't worth it,' said the 61-year-old, who is venturing into fish farming instead.

He is likely to get some help.

The AVA has launched a fund for fish farmers looking to increase their yield. The agency is also working to identify faster-growing breeds to supply to local fish farms.

Its aim: to raise the percentage of local fish in the national supply from the current 4 per cent to 15 per cent in the next five years.

Ms November Tan, who runs environmental workshops islandwide, acknowledges that aquaculture is a popular solution for food sustainability: 'Food security will be easier met with fish farming,' she said, but added that there are environmental problems with aquaculture.

'There are issues with water pollution due to faecal waste and risk of disease due to fish overcrowding.'

The best solution, she said, is to cut down on consumption so the natural population in the sea can replenish itself.

'It boils down to consumer choice,' she said. 'Singaporeans almost never ask where our fish come from. We seem to think there is a never-ending supply. That is not the case.'

In the meantime, 63-year-old Thomas Tan laments the demise of the kelong. 'It is sad. The younger generation might never know what a kelong is,' said the retiree, who used to visit them in his younger days and even took his girlfriend, now his wife, for meals there.

'But Singapore cannot continue in the old way in a changing world.'

Differences between kelong and fish farm

# What is a kelong?

A kelong is Malay for an offshore platform built predominantly with wood and propped up by tree trucks or wooden poles of about 20m in length.

Wooden poles are also used to construct a funnel-like structure to guide the fish into the net in the centre of the kelong. The net is lifted daily and the fish collected for sale.

Young fish, or fry, are usually bred till they become large enough to sell.

# What is a fish farm?

Fish farming involves breeding fish commercially in tanks or enclosures.

Farms comprise a series of net cages slung on a rectangular framework of floating walkways.

Fry are imported from places such as Indonesia and Taiwan, and reared for about a year - depending on the species - before they are large enough to be sold.

They are usually fed pellets, stale bread or chopped-up small fish. Popular species raised by fish farms here are cobia, sea bass and mullet.

Kelongs' useful connection to the past
Straits Times 29 Sep 09;

I REFER to yesterday's report, 'Kelongs vanishing fast'.

I am upset that the kelong in Singapore is vanishing fast. This shows that Singapore is losing its 'pioneer culture'. Why?

According to history books, Singapore started as a Malay fishing village. Fisherman plied their trade at sea, rearing fish. That is what I learnt from history books when I was a student some years ago.

I have yet to see what a kelong looks like.

School outings take students to places such as City Hall, Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam as part of the learning journey covering Singapore's history.

These feature buildings which will stay as they are part of Singapore's heritage, but what about the kelong?

I urge the authorities to work together to enable students to catch a glimpse of the kelong before it vanishes altogether.

Tan Shao Ken

Read more!

Rewards likely to encourage residents to keep surroundings clean

Ong Dai Lin, TODAY Channel NewsAsia 28 Sep 09;

SINGAPORE: Should residents be rewarded if they keep the estate clean and their Town Council does well in the new bi-annual management report?

Senior Minister of State (National Development) Grace Fu said yesterday the councils could consider such financial incentives. But she stressed: "I think residents should recognise that if they play their part to keep the town clean and easy to maintain ... it will result in more sustainable conservancy charges going forward."

MPs that Today spoke to did not think that incentives and rebates were the most effective ways to motivate residents.

Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council vice-chairman Teo Ser Luck said any incentive would be one-off and "if you're motivated by money, what happens when the money is taken away". He said "it's more important to recognise residents who have done their part" and suggested certificates could be given out.

Jurong Town Council chairman Halimah Yacob said it would be difficult to decide on a financial incentive and the residents to deserve it. "How much do we need to give residents to get them to cooperate?" she wondered. "How do we decide who has contributed to keeping the place clean?"

Mdm Halimah suggested awards can be given to residents if they need encouragement.

Ms Fu also said Town Councils have reflected concerns about arrears management, one of the indicators used in the management report.

As the councils have different starting points and local circumstances, Ms Fu reiterated that the report is a discussion platform that serves as "a basis for them to improve their performance and how they should manage their town better".

"The idea is not to nit-pick," she said.

Town councils: Measure what matters to residents
Spot checks, arrears collection not best way to measure performance
Chua Mui Hoong, Straits Times 28 Sep 09;

I LIVE in a five-room Housing Board flat. Each month, I pay $63 in service and conservancy charges and $75 for parking.

So for $138 a month, I get: A space in an open surface carpark at the foot of my block that gets bird poo every now and then - or a spot in the covered multi-storey carpark a few blocks away. The common corridor floor is washed once a month, and the bin chute is fogged several times a year. My estate is pretty clean.

But like thousands of HDB residents, I often wonder how my service and conservancy charge (S&CC) payments are being spent, how they could be kept low, and what the town council does to make sure it gets enough bang for my bucks.

The Town Council Management Report, which will debut next year, will, unfortunately, not make me any the wiser. Details of this report were announced last Wednesday, after calls last year for closer scrutiny of town councils. Town councils drew flak last year after news broke that some had invested long-term sinking funds in instruments that turned toxic.

That brouhaha turned out to be a storm in a teacup. As the panel which came up with the framework for the town council management report noted, investing is not the town councils' core activity. So it saw no need to use investment returns as an indicator of good management.

This is sensible. But what, then, should be included? The panel decided on four categories: cleanliness, estate maintenance, lift maintenance and arrears in S&CC.

The problem is that some of these indicators depend too much on factors extraneous to town council management, and are not useful to residents.

Take the indicator tracking the percentage of arrears in S&CC payments: An estate with a larger proportion of older, low-income residents is likely to have a higher percentage of arrears.

A high percentage of arrears - and hence a poor rating in this category - may correlate more to the socio-economic profile of residents in the estate than to any management defect. In fact, a council that wants to look good on this rating may decide to be aggressive in recovering arrears from residents in financial hardship - certainly not a desirable outcome.

It is a strange argument that arrears recovery is an indicator of good financial management. Given that arrears form 3per cent or $15million of the estimated $500million collected in S&CC each year, the impact of recovering a larger fraction of arrears on the overall financial health of a council will be negligible. At the East Coast Town Council, provision for bad and doubtful debt is $100,000 - a mere 0.55per cent of the $18million spent in 2007/08.

HDB residents like me would rather a town council go easy on that Ah Pek who is $500 in arrears and struggling to survive on $600 a month as a cleaner, and focus its resources on looking at how it can maximise the use of the money it already has at its disposal.

We want to know how councils can become more efficient in estate management. Sure, we want our estates to be clean, but we also want S&CC kept down, as a dialogue in July conducted by the National Development Ministry discovered. Residents want to know how efficient town councils are with their money, and how they can do more with less.

Meaningful indicators would be: how is the town council managing the pool of funds at its disposal? What is the town council's equivalent of the 'expense ratio' - how much is it paying in fees to managing agents?

The lion's share of town council expenditure goes to two items: cleaning, and water and electricity bills. Residents would want to know what town councils do to keep maintenance costs low.

When building new structures, do town councils consciously go for options that will have low maintenance costs, or do they go for structures that are cheap to build, but which will cost more to maintain down the road?

I, for one, am heartened to learn that my Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council is replacing 4,000 outdoor lights with energy-saving bulbs, cutting the energy bill by 55per cent.

It would also be useful to know how one council does vis a vis others. What is the cost per unit of cleaning services paid by each council? Is there a way to raise productivity?

Comparisons would certainly make town councillors and MPs nervous. But it would have the merit of helping councils share best practices, and of focusing councillors' minds on what matters most to residents.

The other surprising thing about the framework is the premium it places on spot checks on cleanliness.

Cleanliness depends as much on residents' habits as on the effectiveness of a town council. Spot checks are not an ideal way to gauge how clean an estate is.

Take my estate, which is usually clean. Say that on the one day the inspector visits, with checklist in hand, four residents put out bulky items in the corridor pending removal, and another four decline to clean up their dog poo. As a result, the entire town council will get an undeservedly low cleanliness rating.

When it comes to cleanliness, a spot check is less meaningful than tracking performance over time. After all, this was the rationale for moving away from the 'single big exam' mode of testing in schools to continuous assessment.

It is more productive for cleanliness ratings to include residents' views, since they are the ones who live in the estate and know best how clean the area is.

The other two sets of indicators cover estate maintenance, to measure defects like leaking pipes; and lifts, tracking lift breakdown and rescue services. These are simple and easy to quantify.

As Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu notes, the report marks only the start of a longer process of managing the performance of town councils.

It is a modest start. The method can be refined in years to come.

But in choosing criteria like arrears management, and opting for an easy but potentially inaccurate spot-check assessment of cleanliness, there is a risk that a lot of resources will end up being used to track the performance of town councils in ways not meaningful to HDB residents.

Read more!

Manila storm leaves over 70 dead: worst storm in decades

At least 300,000 people are left homeless amid worst storm in decades
Alastair McIndoe, Straits Times 28 Sep 09;

MANILA: Rescuers in helicopters and boats worked to pluck residents marooned by flooding in the worst storm to hit Manila and surrounding regions in decades, leaving at least 70 dead and thousands homeless.

The Philippine government appealed for international aid yesterday after declaring a state of calamity in the capital and 27 storm-hit provinces after tropical storm Ketsana struck on Saturday.

At least 300,000 people were left homeless while hundreds remained trapped on rooftops.

Filipinos long used to annual storms and flooding admitted they had never seen anything like it.

Television footage showed residents stranded on rooftops surrounded by a sea of mud-brown flood water waiting for help. Those fleeing to higher ground waded through chest-high water with young children or luggage hoisted above their heads.

At its height, raging flood water swept away cars, houses and other structures. According to the weather bureau, more rain fell during the nine-hour deluge than is usual in a month.

While the flood water began receding in most parts of the capital of 12million people yesterday, some areas such as Pasig City remained under water.

'We are continuing with our rescue operations for those who are still in need,' Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, who heads the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), said.

'We're appealing for more donations of food, water and warm clothes,' he added.

The Philippine Red Cross said more than 75,000 people were housed in 131 evacuation centres set up in schools and other public buildings. It asked for donations of food, drinking water and clothes.

President Gloria Arroyo, in a radio broadcast yesterday, urged Filipinos to remain calm.

'We shall manage our way out of this latest natural calamity. Let us band together and look out for each other in the finest Filipino tradition of caring and sharing,' she said.

Some people stuck on rooftops made frantic appeals for help to local radio and television stations using their mobile phones.

'Please come and get us. We have been marooned here since the afternoon,' pleaded Ms Cristine Reyes, a resident in Manila's Marikina district late on Saturday. She was trapped with her two young nephews and her mother on the second floor of the family home.

'The water continues to go up, and soon we will be under water.'

In the same district, Ms Cielo del Pena, 31, told The Straits Times by phone that she and her 10-year-old daughter had spent nearly 20 hours stranded on their rooftop.

'We are used to storms and floods in the Philippines, but I have never seen anything like this,' she said. 'All my things are gone and we have nothing to eat.'

Power distributor Meralco cut off electricity in many parts of the capital on Saturday to prevent people from being electrocuted by downed power lines, a common danger during heavy storms here.

Seven people were reported killed in Manila. Nearby Rizal province was one of the hardest hit, with officials reporting 23 deaths.

The mayor of Cainta was stranded on top of a truck, stuck on a road.

'The whole town is almost 100 per cent under water,' he told ABS-CBN television by mobile phone.

The network broadcast footage of several people, screaming for help, being swept away by a swollen and debris-strewn river in Rizal province.

The weather bureau said Ketsana dumped 410mm of rain, exceeding the previous one-day record of 311mm in June 1967, and that more rain had fallen on Manila and surrounding provinces than on New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the city in 2005.

The NDCC is set to hold a meeting today to begin damage assessment.

Manila's drainage system, whose network of drains is often clogged by garbage, is expected to come under fire.

Typhoon Batters Philippines, Nearly 60 Killed
Karen Lema and Manny Mogato, PlanetArk 28 Sep 09;

MANILA - Nearly 60 people were killed, Manila was blacked out and airline flights were suspended as a powerful typhoon battered the main Philippines island of Luzon on Saturday, disaster officials said.

Television showed houses swept away by swollen rivers, people on rooftops waving for help and throngs stranded along Manila's submerged main thoroughfares as the storm packing winds of 100 kph (60 mph) dumped 341 mm (13.5 inches) of rain in six hours.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appealed for donations of clothes, blankets, food and water as hundreds of families, perched on rooftops or were trapped in submerged areas, waiting for rescue.

"I am calling on our countrymen, especially residents of metro Manila and other provinces in the path of the typhoon, to please stay calm, follow the instructions of local officials and civil defense authorities," Arroyo said in a televised message.

At least 47 people were killed, mostly by drowning, in Rizal province, east of Manila, radio reports quoted the local governor as saying.

Eleven more people were killed by collapsing walls and rising floodwaters in the capital area, disaster officials said.

Authorities shut down operations at international and domestic airports, stranding thousands of passengers. An advisory said operations would not resume until Sunday.

Disaster officials declared a "state of calamity" for the capital region and 25 other areas on the main island of Luzon, in order to speed up rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts.

Businesses and commercial shops closed early and local hotels were packed by weary commuters.

The typhoon was moving west-northwest and was expected to head toward the South China Sea by Sunday evening or Monday morning, chief weather forecaster Nathaniel Cruz told a local radio station.

He said the typhoon brought the heaviest rainfall in the country since 1967 after its weather station collected 341 mm of rainfall in six hours on Saturday.

An average of about 20 typhoons strike the Southeast Asian nation every year.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

Philippine floods stress the human element in Bangkok climate talks - WWF
WWF 27 Sep 09;

Bangkok, Thailand – Extreme rainfall causing disastrous flooding in the Philippines should remind delegates gathering for the United Nations climate talks in Bangkok that their deliberations will influence the lives and livelihoods of millions, WWF said.

Regretting the loss of life in the flooding which has displaced hundreds of thousands, WWF said it was aware that Philippines meteorogists had linked the event to climate change, but cautioned that drawing such links to individual extreme weather events was difficult.

The science is clear however that more frequent and more severe extreme weather events are already and will be an increasing consequence of climate change. This will include more extreme rainfall events similar to the record rainfall brought by tropical storm Ondoy to the Manila area and to flooding from record rains that devastated Istanbul and other areas of Turkey a fortnight ago.

"Ondoy taught Manila a painful and very expensive lesson," wrote WWF-Phillipines Chief Executive Officer Jose Ma. Lorenzo Tan. "With climate change, no one is ever exempt. Its impacts are dynamic and non-linear. Coastal zones and flood prone areas along river banks and lake shores will of course get hit. But less vulnerable areas and sectors are affected as well, because the impacts of an extreme weather event spill over into transportation, infrastructure, power, telecommunications, health, food security, water - all leading to internal displacement and marginalization of hundreds, even thousands, of people."

“The Philippine floods should remind politicians and delegates negotiating the climate treaty that they are not just talking about paragraphs, amendments and dollars but about the lives of millions of people and the future of this planet,” said Kim Carstensen, Leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative.

“After months of haggling, losing time and arguing we have now entered the last phase and have an absolutely last minute chance to rescue the climate deal.”

The UN Climate Summit of heads of state in New York last week has given negotiators a mandate to turn the 170-page draft into an agreeable treaty. This is urgently needed to ensure the survival of vulnerable nations at risk from climate change.

According to WWF in order to prevent failure in Copenhagen and future climate disasters, negotiators in Bangkok should aim at cutting the UN draft texts by 40% by the middle of the conference and by 85% by the end of the two-week talks.

The main tasks are in the hands of rich countries which need to come up with ambitious reduction targets as well as finance commitments which will help developing countries to adapt to climate change

“Delegates are equipped with a clear mandate to edit at record speed and accelerate the drafting process”, said Carstensen. “Maybe big targets and big money will only be agreed in Copenhagen, but that can’t be an excuse for wasting time, at least the crucial groundwork must be laid here. We need clarity on what the key elements are for a Copenhagen climate deal.

WWF is worried about a mismatch between credible leadership in Asia and empty rhetoric in Europe and the United States. While key Asian countries are offering concrete contributions to reach a deal in December, EU and US are emerging as major stumbling blocks.

WWF applauds Japan, China and India for outlining concrete mitigation action and for playing an increasingly constructive role in the negotiations, confirming their determination to become the world’s next economic leaders on the basis of a green economy and low carbon growth.

“Pledges such as Japan’s to reduce emissions 25% from 1990 levels by 2020 and that of Indonesia to keep emission growth 26% to 41% below business as usual projections by 2020 are bringing us closer to the global emission reduction targets we need”, said Carstensen.

Both developed and developing Asia are finding their way to the top in the world league of climate action. Now industrialized countries and in particular the US has to follow Asia’s example, and after missed opportunities in New York and Pittsburgh the talks in Bangkok present the next chance to step up.

Read more!

Ecotourism in Indonesia: Finding the Balance

Zack Petersen, Jakarta Globe 27 Sep 09;

Indonesia walks a fine line when it comes to conservation and ecotourism.

Dexter is four months old and weighs nearly 130 kilograms, he’s got eyelashes as thick as paint brushes and if you feed him sugar cane by hand he’ll be your best friend. Tika, who handles both Dexter and his mother, waves you closer to the four-meter-tall matron and her playful calf. Dexter swings his trunk and paws the ground like a bull. But he’s shy, he hides behind those lashes and the hanging belly of his mother. Eventually he approaches you, sluggishly at first, as if he’s still getting used to his weight, and then bounding with uncontainable vigor. He makes a leap and Tika laughs loud enough to show there’s no reason to be scared.

“It’s a baby,” he says, drawing out every syllable.

So the game begins and lasts until the sun sets. Dexter gives chase, his trunk swinging like a door off the hinge; you pat him on the head and step out of the way like a calm matador. Then he stops and comes closer to sniff. Standing next to such a beautiful creature can make you feel that you’ve crossed some kind of line. That’s the dilemma of a wildlife tourist: sometimes you feel you’re intruding, sometimes you’re disappointed you can’t get closer.

Way Kambas National Park in Lampung has both worlds. There’s the world of interaction where you can play with a four-month-old elephant while her mother watches at the Elephant Conservation Center. Then there’s the world at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, where strict park rangers deny your desperate pleas to go beyond the fence to glimpse the Sumatran rhinoceros in its natural habitat.

“Do I love what I saw? Yes,” says Erica Colmenares, a 26-year-old Venezuelan-American who teaches at an international school in Jakarta. “But it’s a personal struggle. I want to see this animal because it’s so cute, but you have to separate yourself from the situation. You have to look at it from a wider, humanistic view. Is it the best thing for this animal? Seeing a baby elephant with a chain tied around it’s neck near the clothesline surrounded by a bunch of people just didn’t seem natural to me. When you contrast that with the rhino sanctuary, [the rhino sanctuary] seems more genuine.”

So why do we indulge if we are either concerned about the ethics when we can see the animals, or frustrated if we can’t? Because we’re tourists, we live in the city and we’re on vacation. And deep down inside we want to be part of the answer. What’s ecotourism without the tourists, after all?

Way Kambas is 53,000 hectares of secondary forest set aside to promote and protect Sumatra’s endangered wildlife. There are tigers, sun bears, rhinos, elephants, gibbons, crocodiles, slow loris and tapir living inside the vast national park. Home to 320 species of birds, including the white-winged duck and Bonaparte’s nightjar, Way Kambas also provides some of the best bird-watching in the country.

But you get to see only about a third of the different animals — which is good. Because what’s the point of the Indonesian government setting aside huge tracts of land if all you want to do is take a picture of a rhino in a cage?

“It’s a huge dilemma, something that Indonesia will have to grapple with,” Colmenares says. “I’m grateful to see the rhino at the sanctuary. Although I couldn’t get too close, all the restrictions and protections help create awareness for this endangered animal. I feel like seeing the rhino had a more powerful effect on me. And I think it’s the only way to [increase the rhino population].”

The closest accommodation to Way Kambas is Eco Lodge. Run by an Australian-based company with branches in Kalimantan, Komodo and Bali, it appears to have a good grasp of how to balance ecology with tourism.

Tourists are well provided for with activities like night treks, river boat trips, elephant rides and day bike trips into the forest to see the gibbons in the canopy.

Eco Lodge’s user-friendly Web site, littered with dazzling photos and easy-to-understand information, gives an accurate impression of what to expect. At Lampung airport you are met by friendly, professional English-speaking staff.

On the drive to the village of Way Kanan they’re quick to answer questions about the park and surrounding area, and are more than willing to offer advice on the dozen or so activities the lodge provides. Everything from a day trip to Krakatau to the night safari where Sugeng, a veteran guide from the lodge, takes you into the forest and parks in the tall swamp grass for a glimpse of wild elephants.

But if you don’t feel quite so adventurous, Harry, the lodge’s driver, will sit down after dinner and take you on in a friendly game of chess.

The rhinoceros reserve inside Way Kambas is a 100-hectare research breeding complex. It contains three adult females, one adult male and the first calf born in captivity in 112 years.

“People don’t understand. The rhino sanctuary doesn’t need the money from the tourists,” said Chandra, the manager at Eco Lodge’s Satwa Lodge, about 500 yards from the gates of the park. “They have funding, that’s from charging a $50 mandatory donation. Sometimes they simply don’t let tourists in the sanctuary. They are trying to breed the rhinos, not show them off.”

Four quaint bungalows house a total of eight rooms. At the lodge there’s no need for shoes, the area is immaculately kept, the grass is soft and the only thing to step on are the mangoes or star fruit that fall to rest near the koi pond. The lodge is surrounded by a tall brick wall to keep curious elephants from going after the bounty of more than 50 pineapple plants lining the south wall.

“We make pineapple jam,” Chandra says. “The pineapple plants used to be on the other side with the sugar cane but we had to move them in here.”

Inside your room you’ll find a clean bed, fresh sheets, towels, a hot shower and a directory of services that gives details of the available activities and prices, along with a bird identification list.

Living Fossils

At the rhino sanctuary, no matter how much you beg there’s no entry beyond the feeding pens where you see the rhinos enjoying breakfast in the early morning. After they have eaten a few kilos of fruit or vegetables like pumpkin and bananas, it’s off to the middle of the park.

This is where your inner conflict begins. You have paid $60 — $50 to the park and $10 per person for the ride, so you expect to see more than a rhino munching on pumpkins while you stand on the other side of an electric fence. But what your tourist mind easily forgets is that these rhinos are here to breed (there hasn’t been a baby born on the premises yet). But you want to see them play. But as big as they are, they’re skittish, elusive creatures, and you approaching them as they are out wallowing is as unsettling to them as it would be for you to try to have a conversation with a date while your parents are sitting and talking about you on the other side of the restaurant.

So you sulk. And the ranger can see it. He apologizes over the howling gibbons, tells you once more than even he can’t go to the other side of the fence. That only the keepers, the two men assigned to each rhino, are allowed inside. The keepers work in long shifts, three days on and two days off. Their focus on the rhinos, the living fossils, leaves little space to care about visitors’ prying eyes.

But Way Kambas does play to both sides. The elephants, as you arrive at the conservation center, line the horizon. When they return to the park to eat and sleep at sunset, 60 of them gather in an area the size of a football pitch. It’s one of the most beautiful parts of the trip, and right in front of your eyes. They eat, chase off fiendish wild pigs racing across the fields rummaging for whatever bananas they can find as a mother turns to rein in her calf by wrapping her trunk around the calf’s tail.

The best part of Way Kambas is the baby elephants — there were three there as of last week. Two less than one-year-old and one orphan, Pepe, taken in when a herding of wild elephants went wrong and a mother abandoned her baby. They’re as playful as 100-kilogram puppies and just as fascinated by you as you are by them.

The elephant handlers are more than willing to let you go out into the field to interact with the calves. You’re led out to the middle of the feeding area and are met by curious baby elephants sniffing the air with their trunks before coming closer until at last playfully charging you, before running back underneath the belly of their mother who stands in constant surveillance eating her last meal of the day.

As the sun sets and you reluctantly make for the car, Dexter, the most playful of the calves is quick to follow you out of the area begging for just a little more playtime.

The handlers — there is one for each elephant, and they can pick out their charge from 100 meters — are friendly and talkative. They are more than willing to watch from the side of the artificial lake as you ride into the water on an elephant’s back and give him a bath before he heads off to be chained up for the night. Their knowledge is matched only by their sense of humor.

Elephant rides are Rp 350,000 for the day. The lodge pays everything for you up front; you never have to lug along cash or haggle over prices. You are given an itemized bill at the end of your stay, which includes the park entrance fee, camera fee and authorized letter. It’s comfortable: you spend your days at Way Kambas cruising around in a comfortable car with air-conditioning. It’s also an adrenalin rush — when is the last time you gave an elephant a bath?

More Than a Feeling

No matter how you feel about the conservation efforts of Way Kambas, it’s impossible to say that you don’t walk away from the experience a better person for seeing both sides of the country’s efforts.

You leave Way Kambas excited at the progress Indonesia is making in its efforts to save protected and endangered animals. You’re glad to fork over $50 to enter a rhino sanctuary, happy to contribute to the efforts. But when you’re told you can’t see the rhino up close, that you can’t snap a picture of yourself patting a rhino to post on Facebook, your heart sinks a little.

But you shouldn’t be able to get up close to the rhinos. There are only 275 Sumatran rhinoceroses left in the world and your bacteria-riddled hands could drop the population to 274.

Now, do you really want that photo?

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