WWF: Halt to forest loss a key to stabilising climate

WWF 19 Oct 09;

Buenos Aires, Argentina – WWF is challenging global leaders to back an ambitious target on stopping forest loss as a major element of efforts to avert the looming climate catastrophe.

In his keynote address at the XIIIth World Forestry Congress on Monday, WWF International’s Forests Director Rodney Taylor urged participants of the Congress, including government leaders, NGOs and businesses, to support a global target of zero net deforestation by 2020.

WWF is proposing a groundbreaking global benchmark for action on forests to avoid dangerous climate change and curb biodiversity loss.

Despite conservation efforts, deforestation continues at an alarming rate – 13 million hectares per year, or 36 football fields a minute. It generates almost 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and halting forest loss has been identified as one of the most cost-effective ways to keep the world out of the danger zone of runaway climate change.

Taylor said that zero net deforestation by 2020 is “a common target – one that sets the scale and urgency with which these threats need to be tackled to maintain the health of the planet.”

“This is an opportunity to build consensus on how the forest sector can help achieve an early peak of greenhouse gas emissions and a rapid 80 percent decline in emission levels by 2050.”

“But this is a global target, and we can only do it together.”

Taylor called the Congress timely in the lead up to the climate conference in Copenhagen this December, where rich countries have been urged to commit to cut emissions by at least 40 percent by 2020. They also need to contribute financial support of at least USD 160 billion per annum to developing countries, enabling them to deviate at least 30 percent from business as usual emissions by 2020.

In particular, governments must bolster this commitment by backing the REDD mechanism. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) is a mechanism to provide financial incentives on a global scale to conserve forests rather than convert them.

“Rich countries can provide funds to support developing countries in their efforts
to curb deforestation, through REDD initiatives,” Taylor said. “All governments should support the inclusion of a REDD mechanism as a credible and compensated form of
emissions reductions within a post-2012 UN climate treaty.”

Potential investors recently surveyed by WWF said they would be ready to support a REDD based forest carbon market if certainty and support were forthcoming from the international community and key national legislation.

WWF is proposing a target of “zero net deforestation by 2020 because it will consolidate efforts to halt deforestation across various international initiatives and set a global benchmark against which the success of these efforts can be measured.

“Zero net deforestation” does not mean "zero deforestation.” "Zero net deforestation" acknowledges that some forest loss could be offset by forest restoration and afforestation on degraded land. In addition, a net target leaves room for change in the configuration of the land-use mosaic, provided the net quantity, quality and carbon density of forests is maintained. However, the world´s natural forests must be conserved to maximize reduction of forest-based greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity conservation,

“The forest sector, for its part, can contribute through the conservation and
sustainable use of forests, but the foresters cannot do it alone,” Taylor said. “The integration of other sectors, particularly agriculture, energy and finance, is key for formulating sustainable land-use policies and planning processes.”

The World Forestry Congress, held only every six to seven years, brings together thousands of key decision makers and industry representatives from forest industry, including senior forestry officials, policy makers, and major industry and NGO representatives.

The WFC serves as a forum for governments, universities, civil society and the private sector to exchange views and experiences and to formulate recommendations to be implemented at the national, regional and global levels. The Congress also provides an opportunity to present an overview of the state of forests and forestry in order to discern trends, adapt policies and raise awareness among decision and policy makers, and the public.

Read more!

Bushmeat consumption soars as forest cover declines

WWF 19 Oct 09;

Cambridge, UK - New analytical techniques have revealed that the scale of bushmeat trade in Central Africa may be much larger than originally thought, according to a study published today by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

The study, based on an analysis of food balance sheets provided by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s statistical database FAOSTAT, strongly supports the view that the current situation surrounding bushmeat hunting in Central African rainforests is precarious. According to the analysis, bushmeat extraction rose considerably in the Congo Basin between 1990 and 2005, despite the overall decrease in forest cover in Central Africa.

Cameroon appears to be exceeding—by more than 100%—an estimated sustainable offtake of 150 kg of game meat per square kilometre of forest, and Gabon and the Republic of Congo are both close to this limit. The greatest rise in bushmeat production was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the yield rose from 78,000 tonnes in 1990 to 90,000 tonnes in 2005. In the Republic of Congo, production almost doubled, from 11,000 to 20,000 tonnes per year in the same time period.

“While the FAOSTAT bushmeat data are probably underestimates and should be regarded with caution, the data are the most readily available official sources of information on production of wild meat in the Congo Basin and are valuable indicators of bushmeat production and consumption trends,” says Stefan Ziegler, Programme Officer with WWF Germany, and author of the report.

Wildlife is a significant and direct source of protein for more than 34 million people living in the Congo Basin and bushmeat hunting is a key component of many peoples’ livelihoods in Central Africa.

Earlier studies have demonstrated that bushmeat extraction increases with human population growth. However, the latest study finds that bushmeat consumption increases significantly with personal wealth too.

“Bushmeat consumption is higher in countries with large urban populations, and the increasing urbanization in the Congo region is likely to place even greater pressure on wild animal populations there,” says Ziegler,

“The danger is unsustainable offtake of wild game will lead to a collapse in wild animal populations and widespread human hunger in the region,” says Ziegler.

Unsustainable harvest levels are widely believed to be the most immediate threat to the region’s forest mammals.

“Local people have hunted for centuries, for food and for barter, but the last 20 years have seen the emergence of a commercial bushmeat market due to rural people being increasingly drawn into the cash economy,” says Nathalie van Vliet, TRAFFIC Bushmeat Strategic Advisor.

“The impacts of subsistence hunting was previously balanced by the fact of the hunting was done on a rotation basis on alternate tracts of forest areas. However, shifts in human population dynamics and socio-economic factors are leading to rising, and increasingly unsustainable demands on wild animal populations.”

An earlier WCS study found that offtake by commercial hunters in south-eastern Cameroon was ten times more per immigrant hunter than for local subsistence hunters.

“What is clear is that management strategies to prevent over-harvesting need to be implemented and measures put in place to provide alternative sources of protein for the inhabitants of the region.”

However, the study also indicated that the development of animal husbandry may not be an ideal solution to provide substitute protein for game meat.

The study, Application of food balance sheets to assess the scale of the bushmeat trade in Central Africa, was launched today at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Bushmeat Liaison Group Meeting, currently taking place in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Further to the results of the study, TRAFFIC is encouraging countries in Central Africa to enhance enforcement efforts and establish concrete law enforcement mechanisms targeted at curbing commercial bushmeat poaching. “Central African countries can cooperate in addressing this growing problem through the development of a regional enforcement plan and creating the political will to combat commercial bushmeat poaching in regional fora such as the upcoming Yaounde +10 Summit." says Germain Ngandjui, TRAFFIC's representative in Central Africa.

Read more!

Spanish wetlands shrouded in smoke as overfarming dries out peat

National park which was once a 'paradise' now on fire and churning out tonnes of CO2
Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk 19 Oct 09;

They are meant to be Spain's most important inland wetlands, but yesterday the lagoons at Las Tablas de Daimiel national park were not just dry, they were burning. Stilted walkways stood on baked earth and rowing boats lay stranded on the ground. Observation huts revealed no birds, just an endless stretch of reeds rooted in cracked mud.

Only 1% of the park's surface remains wet, but the real catastrophe is happening underground. "If you see smoke it is because the dried-out peat under the ground has begun to self-combust," a park worker warned visitors. Occasionally, the fire breaks to the surface, sending up puffs of white smoke.

Scientists warn the wetlands are losing the lining that once retained water, with deep cracks opening up in the worst areas. Park authorities worry the damage may prove irreversible.

Park director Carlos Ruíz believes this is a life-or-death moment for one of Spain's 14 national parks. "We are at a point of no return," he said in a recent report. Spain's environment ministry, which runs the failing park, this week banned Ruiz from talking to the Guardian, but scientists who know the wetlands all agree on what is happening.

The aquifer which once fed the lagoons now lies 50ft below them. Farmers near the park have sunk thousands of wells, some 300ft deep, and have spent years pumping out more water than goes in. Furthermore, the Guadiana river, which used to flow into the Tablas de Daimiel, has disappeared.

"People have been warning that it was going to dry out for 20 years," said Luís Moreno of Spain's Geological and Mining Institute.

As the peat burns, an area that once trapped carbon dioxide has started releasing vast quantities of it. "We saw the first smoke in August but the fires must have been burning for a while," said Moreno. "It is a very difficult thing to control. It could burn for months."

Many worry the political will does not exist to save a park where the last few lagoons are still a refuge for egrets, coots and other waterfowl.

"Daimiel was once a paradise, with thousands and thousands of birds," said Santos Cirujano, of Spain's Higher Scientific Research Council. "If they want to save it, they can, but that requires a will to conserve it."

Environmentalists want Unesco to shame Spain by removing Daimiel and its surrounding area from the list of international biosphere reserves.

A plan approved two years ago to revive the aquifer by cutting down on irrigation is not working, environmentalists say, as local officials protect farmers. "Rather than fix the problem here, they use the Tablas [problem] to ask for more money and demand water be pumped in from elsewhere," said José Manuel Hernández, a local environmentalist who sits on the park's consultative board.

"There are thousands of families who live off agriculture in the area, and it is going to take time to change the way people farm," said José Luis Martínez, head of agriculture at Castilla La Mancha's regional government.

Spain's environment ministry this week pledged to pump water over from the Tagus river basin early next year. But the last time that was attempted, 95% of the water was lost along the way. Furthermore, in a country where water is fought over bitterly, the decision has provoked angry reactions from Tagus farmers.

Some scientists have predicted that Spain's thirsty agriculture cannot survive in the next decade, as aquifers are exhausted and global warming cuts rainfall. Last year, Barcelona was forced to import water in tankers to supply the city.

But Pepe Jimenéz, head of Spain's national parks, denied the situation in Tablas was irreversible. "We are buying up land around the park and buying water rights too," he explained. "The rate at which the aquifer is declining is slowing down but it will take time before it can provide water to the park."

Manuel Martín grows melons and giant pumpkins on a modest plot where the river Guadiana once sprung generously from the ground. Now the barren river bed is pitted with cracks and subsidence holes. Half a dozen water mills remain stranded along the banks. The land around, however, boasts huge, overhead "pivot" sprinklers for cereal crops.

"The lagoon here used to be full all year round but I haven't seen water since 1985," Martin said. "Our grandparents managed to irrigate their fields without making the water disappear. They should ban those pivot sprinklers until it comes back."

Read more!

Thailand Urged to Stop Construction of Salween Dams

The Irrawaddy 19 Oct 09

Fifty-one human rights and environmental groups have submitted a petition to the Thai government calling for it to halt the construction of dams on the Salween River.

Thailand is in partnership with Burma and other countries to construct five dams on the river.

The petition was submitted to the government during a meeting of the Association of Southeast Nations People’s Forum in Hua Hin, Thailand.

Sai Sai, the coordinator of the Salween Watch Coalition, said, “The Salween dams will only mean more fighting and more refugees fleeing to Thailand.”

Attacks by Burma’s military government on armed units of the United Wa State Army, which controls the roads between the intended 7,110 megawatt Ta Sang dam and the Thai border, would lead to a massive new refugee influx into northern Thailand, the group said in a statement on Monday.

Thai military sources recently estimated about 200,000 refugees in Shan State are expected to enter northern Thailand through Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces if wider armed conflicts break out in the area between government forces and ethnic armed groups.

The environmental groups also said that various dam projects on the Salween River will not provide guaranteed energy security for Thailand, as military operations and human rights violations committed by government troops have increased recently around the planned Hat Gyi dam site in Karen State and the Ta Sang dam site in Shan State.

“Building dams in Burma’s war zones makes no sense if Thailand wants a stable power supply,” said Montree Chantawong of the Thailand-based environmental group Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA), which includes more than 20 international and regional environmental organizations.

In June, more than 3,500 ethnic Karen refugees fled to Thailand following a military offensive launched by government troops against Karen National Liberation Army Brigade 7 in order to control roads and power transmission routes to the planned 1,360 megawatt Hat Gyi dam, according to a statement issued by TERRA.

A memorandum of understanding was signed in June 2006 between Burma’s Department of Electric Power, the Thai energy authority EGAT and China’s Sinohydro Corporation to build the Hat Gyi dam.

The Thailand-based Shan Sapawa Environment Organization said that a community of 15,000 people around Keng Kham in Shan State was forced to move 10 years ago because of work on the Ta Sang dam and most had fled to Thailand.

Thailand currently depends on Burmese natural gas for 12.2 percent of its
total power capacity and has recently suffered from supply
interruptions, according the groups’ statement.

Five dams are under construction or in the planning stages on the Salween River. Four will export electricity to Thailand, and one to China.

The National Power Development Plan of Thailand, which includes electricity from the dams on the Salween River, is to be completed by the year 2014, according to environmental groups.

Read more!

China begins resettling 330,000 for water project

Yahoo News 19 Oct 09;

BEIJING (AFP) – China has begun resettling up to 330,000 people to make way for a much-delayed multi-billion dollar project to divert water to meet growing demand in the parched north, state media said Monday.

People in the central provinces of Henan and Hubei are being moved to make way for a canal from the Danjiangkou reservoir in Hubei to Beijing, Xinhua news agency said.

Under the project, waters from a tributary of the Yangtze river, the country's longest, will be diverted to arid northern China.

The canal is part of the central line in a projected 400-billion-yuan (58-billion-dollar) project originally envisioned as a three-line system of canals and pipes.

Environmentalists have long criticised the project for its huge costs, while warning of corruption in the building and resettlement processes.

Water was originally slated to begin flowing from the central line to Beijing by 2010 but was postponed to 2014 largely due to the resettlement issue, earlier reports said.

The delay will further complicate water shortages in northern China that experts blame on global warming, drought, and rising demand in the booming Beijing region.

Currently water is being diverted from parched Hebei province to provide emergencies supplies for neighbouring Beijing.

According to plans, in 2014 about 13 billion cubic metres (460 billion cubic feet) of water is expected to be channelled along the central canal from the Yangtze tributary every year, with one tenth earmarked for Beijing.

Costly plants to treat badly polluted water along the project's eastern line have also put construction and delivery of water on that line behind schedule, earlier reports said.

The difficulties on the eastern and central line also prompted the government to postpone construction on the western line which was slated to begin in 2010.

China's Great Hydro project
Billions of tonnes of water will be moved from the south to north
Peh Shing Huei, Straits Times 21 Oct 09;
# 330,000 people relocated
# Costs 3 times more than Three Gorges Dam

China has started to relocate 330,000 people as it pressed ahead on yet another awe-inspiring massive engineering adventure as ambitious as the construction of the Great Wall.

The South-to-North Water Transfer Project, or Nanshui Beidiao, will move billions of tonnes of water from the south of the country to the north, a diversion of hundreds of kilometres through pipes and canals.

Even as experts continue to debate the wisdom of the gargantuan hydro scheme, the authorities are pressing forward to overcome the limitations posed by northern China's arid landscape.

The project requires the uprooting of entire villages in central Henan and Hubei provinces to make way for a canal that would carry water from the Yangtze River to thirsty regions in the north, including capital Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province, reported the official Xinhua news agency.

The mass migration is the largest after the Three Gorges Dam - the world's largest hydroelectric project - forced more than 1.4 million people to leave their hometowns.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to be displaced for the eastern and central routes in the water diversion project. More will be affected once details of the western route are released.

But hydro expert Yang Jun of the Beijing University of Astronautics and Aeronautics believes the sacrifice is worth it. 'The South-to-North Water Transfer Project is critical to this country,' he told The Straits Times. 'Whatever sacrifices the people have to make, it will be just a short-term adjustment.'

According to Xinhua, the resettled villagers will be given cash and land for their losses. Aside from compensation for their homes, each family will be given new arable land in new villages. They will also get an annual subsidy of 600 yuan (about S$120) per person for 20 years.

But earlier this year, the villagers complained that they were forced to sign agreements to move and that they were offered less than half the land they currently have.

But their complaints are not likely to drown a five-decade-long project that was first mooted by Mao Zedong in 1952.

While the north accounts for 37 per cent of the country's total population and 45 per cent of cultivated land, it has only 12 per cent of its water resources. Yet in the south, about 1,000 billion cubic metres of water from the Yangtze empties into the sea each year.

It took the Chinese government nearly five decades of research and planning to finally approve the world's largest water transfer project in 2001, in large part to ensure last year's Beijing Olympics would not be a parched Games.

But the US$62 billion (S$86 billion) plan - which is three times more expensive than The Three Gorges - has been delayed repeatedly because of environmental concerns and migration challenges.

The three proposed routes - eastern, central and western - to channel water to the north from the Yangtze are in various stages of blockages.

The central route, which involves the relocation of villages in Hebei and Hunan, will not start flowing until 2014, four years behind schedule.

The delays have raised questions on whether the western route, to be built on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and yet to be started, is even viable.

More importantly, some experts wonder if the project could ever satisfy the north's thirst even if all three routes are to be completed.

The official China.org news portal, which is under the State Council Information Office, had warned in a commentary that the project should not be seen as a panacea to the country's water woes.

Still, the ambitious enterprise will go on. Said Prof Yang: 'It will succeed, largely because this country has strong political will... This is a huge project for the development of the Chinese people.'

Additional reporting by Lina Miao

Read more!

Thailand threatens to delay Asean pact over rice

Business Times 20 Sep 09;

(BANGKOK) Rice-exporter Thailand threatened to delay an Asean free trade agreement unless it can get a 'fair deal' on tariffs from the Philippines, the world's biggest buyer of the food staple, Thai officials said yesterday.

The 10 members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations - of which Thailand and the Philippines are members - are due to ratify an Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) at their summit in Thailand this week.

The trade pact is among the steps that Asean, with a combined population of 540 million, is taking towards becoming an EU- style grouping.

'Thailand will make its final proposal at the Asean summit meeting this weekend that it would not ratify the ATIGA pact if it cannot get fair deals from the Philippines on the rice issue,' a senior commerce ministry official told Reuters.

Thai Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai was quoted as saying in a local newspaper that Thailand could not accept the Philippines' offer to compensate for its delay in cutting tariffs on rice imports by giving Thailand an annual tariff-free rice import quota, saying the amount was too small.

According to the Asean free trade pact, Philippine rice import tariffs should be cut to 20 per cent from 40 per cent by Jan 1, 2010.

But Manila is insisting that rice is classified under a 'highly sensitive list' that allows import tariffs to stay at 35 per cent.

The Philippines is proposing to give Thailand a quota of 50,000 tonnes of tariff-free rice annually to compensate for not meeting the tariff target, while Thailand has demanded 360,000 tonnes, another senior commerce ministry official said.

Trade ministers from the two countries need to try to resolve the dispute during the Asean summit this weekend at Thailand's beach town of Hua Hin, the official said.

'It depends on the policymakers whether they want Asean to move on, or to be such a less progressive trade cooperation,' he said.

Thailand, the world's biggest rice exporter, exported 10 million tonnes of rice in 2008 of which 599,677 tonnes went to the Philippines, the world's biggest rice importer, according to Thailand's commerce ministry data.

From January to August 2009, Manila bought 116,322 tonnes of rice from Thailand, mostly premium grade for high-end restaurants. Vietnam has mainly snatched the market for lower quality rice grades by offering better prices, traders said.

Vietnamese newspaper Liberty Saigon yesterday reported that Vietnamese rice exporters have agreed to sign export contracts for 250,000 tonnes of rice with the Philippines for the year 2010\. \-- Reuters, Xinhua

Read more!

EU farm ministers refuse to okay new GM maize strains

Yahoo News 19 Oct 09;

LUXEMBOURG (AFP) – European Union farm ministers refused to give their seal of approval on Monday to plans to allow the import of genetically-modified maize from US growers, diplomats said.

During a meeting of European Union agriculture ministers in Luxembourg dominated by crisis in the dairy sector, nations were unable to agree on proposals to greenlight the latest batch of so-called 'Frankenstein foods.'

Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel sought the go-ahead for two strains of corn produced by Monsanto and another by rivals Pioneer to be cleared for import by European firms.

Several sources told AFP that the decision would ultimately be left up to the commission itself, because if no agreement can be reached by the ministers Brussels will have free rein to choose.

Fischer Boel argued that a shortage of soya for animal feedstuffs and over-reliance on US exporters meant the EU had to get over old fears about new products.

She slammed regulations that meant one large shipment of soya was turned back from EU borders this summer because traces of unauthorised GM maize, that she said were harmless, were found in its containers.

"We have to rely on science and not on emotions," said Fischer Boel. "The commission will take a clear decision and that will be a yes," she vowed.

Only a handful of genetically modified crops have been approved for cultivation in the European Union, but of them only Monsanto's MON810 maize, approved in 1998, is so far being grown.

The MON810 case has become a source of transatlantic friction. The United States has warned Europe against using environmental issues as an excuse for protectionism.

Six European countries -- Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg -- had adopted safeguard clauses to ban its cultivation on their territory.

Read more!

Electric Cars Don't Deserve Halo Yet: Study

Timothy Gardner, PlanetArk 20 Oct 09;

NEW YORK - Electric cars will not be dramatically cleaner than autos powered by fossil fuels until they rely less on electricity produced from conventional coal-fired power plants, scientists said on Monday.

"For electric vehicles to become a major green alternative, the power fuel mix has to move away from coal, or cleaner coal technologies have to be developed," said Jared Cohon, the chair of a National Research Council report released on Monday called "Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use."

About half of U.S. power is generated by burning coal, which emits many times more of traditional pollutants, such as particulates and smog components, than natural gas, and about twice as much of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Nuclear and renewable power would have to generate a larger portion of U.S. power for electric cars to become much greener compared to gasoline-powered cars, Cohan, who is also president of Carnegie Mellon University, said in an interview.

Advances in coal burning, like capturing carbon at power plants for permanent burial underground, could also help electric cars become a cleaner alternative to vehicles powered by fossil fuels, he said.

Pollution from energy sources did $120 billion worth of damage to human health, agriculture and recreation in 2005, said the NRC report, which was requested by the U.S. Congress in 2005 and sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Electricity was responsible for more than half of the damage, the report said.

Electric cars have other benefits such as reducing imports of foreign oil. But they can also have hidden costs

Materials in electric car batteries are hard to produce, which adds to the energy it takes to make them. In fact, the health and environmental costs of making electric cars can be 20 percent greater than conventional cars, and manufacturing efficiencies will have to be achieved in order for the cars to become greener, the report said.

Emissions from operating and building electric cars in 2005 cost about 0.20 cents to 15 cents per vehicle mile traveled, it said. In comparison, gasoline-powered cars cost about 0.34 cents to 5.04 cents per vehicle mile traveled.

The report estimated that electric cars could still cost more than gasoline-powered cars to operate and manufacture in 2030 unless U.S. power production becomes cleaner.

Hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles with batteries that are charged by the driver hitting the brakes scored slightly better than both gasoline-powered cars and plug-in hybrid cars, which have batteries that are charged by the power grid. (Editing by Christian Wiessner)

Read more!

Nissan bets on battery power, electric car future

Car maker and its parent Renault will manufacture both
Anthony Rowley, Business Times 20 Oct 09;

JAPAN'S second biggest car marker, Nissan, and its French parent Renault intend to sink a huge investment into producing batteries for electric cars in the belief that electric vehicles will account for 10 per cent of the global car market by as early as 2020, Carlos Ghosn, head of both companies announced last night.

He spoke on the eve of the Tokyo Motor Show where interest in electric cars is expected to be at an all-time high as concern over global warming and environmental pollution mounts around the world.

Nissan and Renault are taking a 'long-term bet' on electric cars and are distancing themselves from other leading motor manufacturers by deciding to manufacture both electric vehicles and the batteries that power them.

The electric car is 'no longer day dream - the technology allows it now', said Mr Ghosn, who is president and CEO of Nissan and chairman and CEO of Renault.

The era of 'cheap oil is ending', declared Mr Ghosn, and oil prices, already at US$78 a barrel can only rise as economic recovery sets in and demand for energy rises. Electricity to power motor vehicles, on the other hand, can be generated from oil, coal, nuclear, solar and other sources, he noted.

Other leading motor manufacturers plan to 'buy' batteries from outside, but battery makers are wary of sinking major investment into producing them without a guarantee of future demand, Mr Ghosn said. Nissan and Renault can overcome this problem by producing both, he claimed.

'Our intention is to be a big player in the industry,' Mr Ghosn told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. 'The investment is very costly', but Nissan and Renault believe it will be justified in view of the potential for electric cars.

China has developed technologies for producing 'relatively' cheap car batters, while Japan and South Korea have the ability to produce high power electrical energy sources, said Mr Ghosn. Nissan hopes to take advantage of both technologies.

Future car growth will come mainly from emerging markets such as China, India, Brazil and Russia, Mr Ghosn said, but initial demand for electric cars will come chiefly from the US, European and Japanese markets.

Governments are anxious to see a significant switch to electric powered vehicles and are willing to invest in the battery-charging infrastructure needed to support the introduction of such vehicles on a major scale, he said.

Nissan is currently negotiating with governments in 30 countries around the world with a view to agreeing on such infrastructure building, Mr Ghosn noted.

Nissan will begin an 'offensive' to market electric cars in the US market next year, followed by similar drives in Japan and Europe, where Renault will be a source of supply, he said. The fact that most electric cars can cover a maximum of 160 kilometres before needing their batteries charged is no barrier to their mass use, the Nissan president and CEO claimed. In the US, most car owners drive less than 100 kilometres a day and in Japan less than 50.

The cost of providing charging and recharging infrastructure for electric car batteries is far from prohibitive, at both the household and community level, he said. And, the electric car is more energy-efficient than conventional motor engines, he added.

Read more!

Energy Out of the Blue: Generating Electric Power from the Clash of River and Sea Water

Two pilot projects are testing the potential of "salt power", a renewable energy that relies on the differing salinities at river mouths to make watts

Adam Hadhazy, Scientific American 19 Oct 09;

In the hunt for alternatives to polluting and climate-warming fossil fuels, attention has turned to where rivers meet the sea. Here, freshwater and saltwater naturally settle their salinity difference, a phenomenon that two pioneering projects in Europe will try to harness to generate clean energy.

This concept of "salt power"—also known as osmotic, or salinity-gradient, power—has been kicked around for decades, and now, proponents hope, technology has advanced enough to make it economically competitive.

On November 24, the world's first large-scale prototype facility for developing a form of salt power called pressure-retarded osmosis is expected to begin fully operating in Norway. "The big reason to build this thing is to answer important questions [about osmotic power], and while we've done a lot of theoretical studies, we need live experience," says Stein Erik Skilhagen, vice president of osmotic power at Statkraft, Norway's state-owned power utility that built the plant. The prototype will have no customers, although the very small amount of electricity it generates will technically be directed into the power grid.

Statkraft's approximately $5-million prototype plant is a converted paper mill in the seaside village of Tofte, about 60 kilometers south of Oslo. The plant's pressure-retarded osmosis setup will place freshwater and brine on either side of a semipermeable membrane that prevents the passage of salt particles but allows water through. Water from the fresh side naturally flows into the salty side, generating pressure equivalent to a column of water 120 meters high. This pressurized water can be used to turn a turbine to make electricity. Statkraft's goal is to yield five watts per square meter of membrane, although current capacity is about three watts. If successful, the utility hopes to build a commercial salt power plant for paying customers around 2015 with a targeted cost ranging from seven to 14 cents per kilowatt-hour (pdf) (at current euro–dollar conversion rates), which at the low end would be competitive with coal and natural gas prices.

To the south in the Netherlands, a Dutch research firm called Wetsus has fired up its own salt power experiment to evaluate what is essentially a saltwater–freshwater battery.

Wetsus, with the collaboration of a spin-off company called Redstack, is pursuing a version of salt power dubbed "blue energy". A pilot-scale installation that is about two times the size of a big American refrigerator is up and running in Harlingen, by the Wadden Sea, says Gert Jan Euverink, Wetsus's deputy scientific director. The technology relies on reverse electrodialysis, wherein a series of fresh and saltwater streams are diverted via underground pipes to opposite sides of two kinds of membranes. These let sodium or chlorine ions—the constituent elements of salt—dissolved in the water to pass into separated freshwater streams. This builds an electrical potential across the membranes, like a battery, and this charge reacts with iron to form an electric current. Joost Veerman, a researcher at Wetsus, says the company aims to get five watts per square meter of membrane, the same result as Statkraft's process.

Neither Statkraft nor Wetsus expects to crank out more than just a few kilowatts—enough to boil water—with their initial experiments. Instead, they plan to demonstrate what could be scalable, commercially viable energy production as well as determine if salt power endangers the health of source-water estuaries. Statkraft estimates salt power's worldwide electricity-generating potential at up to 1,700 terawatt-hours, or about 10 percent of global demand.

Salt power is attractive for several reasons: For one, unlike renewable energy technologies for harvesting solar or wind power, salt systems are not dependent on the weather and could provide baseload (constant, predictable) electricity like that supplied by coal, natural gas and nuclear energy. "The river water is flowing into the sea 24/7, so you have a constantly available source of energy," Skilhagen says. He also points out there are no emissions besides brackish water, which swirls in the river's mouth anyway.

Unlike conventional hydropower, a saline power plant does not require damming off a waterway, and it may require less infrastructure than, say, riverbed-mounted turbines or floating fleets of generators for equivalent tidal and wave power. A salt power plant, including its membrane stacks, turbines, cleaning facilities and offices, could actually be located in a riverside industrial complex's basement, for example, or constructed underground within a riverbank with pipes extending into the waterway, Statkraft's Skilhagen says—a big advantage for incorporating such facilities into already-developed, populated coastal areas.

Membrane design and performance remain the biggest hurdles for both Statkraft's and Wetsus's approaches. The membranes must be made more efficient, durable and resistant to microbial buildup, or so-called biofouling. Pretreating the pumped-in water by filtering out organic matter and river-borne debris helps, but this critical step consumes energy and is expected to be expensive, Skilhagen says, adding that it is too early to know just how expensive.

Accordingly, experts remain cautious about salt power's prospects. "Both these methods are promising and certainly worth researching," says Ari Seppala, a mechanical engineer and thermodynamicist at the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland, "but both may still need a breakthrough innovation before commercialization." Seppala sees no physical or chemical showstoppers standing in the way of producing much-improved membranes, although he also points out that a better, membrane-free method could yet be found for exploiting salinity differences to yield electricity.

Another key uncertainty: a salt-power plant's effect on the local aquatic environment. "This is a completely new process that has not been tested on this scale," says Menachem Elimelech, a professor of chemical and environmental engineering at Yale University. "I doubt there will be no [environmental] impact at all." If the ecological footprint is minimal and the membrane technology advances, however, he adds that salt power could be a "significant renewable energy option."

Read more!

The Great Transition

A tale of how it turned out right
Andrew Simms, BBC News 19 Oct 09;

Western governments, including the UK's, are desperate to restore the global economy along "business as usual" lines. But, argues Andrew Simms, that is a short-sighted approach; a radical, green-tinged redevelopment would bring much bigger environmental, social and economic benefits.

If someone offered you a plan that would get rich countries on to a radical path of deep, immediate carbon cuts to tackle climate change and also solved a great swathe of social problems, would you take it?

A team of scientists and economists at the New Economics Foundation (nef) has come up with one.

It's called The Great Transition.

It provides a blueprint - or rather, a greenprint - for how the UK can make a step-change in delivering quality of life for all, whilst living within our collective environmental means.

What may shock some people is that it will do this even as the UK economy stops growing in a conventional economic manner and GDP falls significantly.

Economic madness

For decades, the addiction of business and politics to economic growth has steamrollered all attempts to make the economy environmentally sustainable.

The assumption of "growth forever" sits behind every major industrialised economy. Yet, as the great economist Kenneth Boulding put it: "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."

One thing is sure: in spite of being well-intended, the recent Climate Change Committee call for more electric cars and nuclear power was a disastrously inadequate distraction from the type, scale and speed of measures actually needed.

So how did we find this holy grail of policymakers - a genuine win-win in which environmental imperatives, social objectives and the economy are brought together?

In short, by coming up with the equivalent of a new economic sat-nav. Because if the only navigation system you have keeps directing you over a cliff, it's time to reprogram it.

Only by including in economic calculations the social and environmental costs of business-as-usual can we properly assess the alternatives.

Alarm warming

At one extreme, of course, allowing runaway climate change to occur is infinitely expensive and therefore unthinkable.

So no cost below that should be too much to avoid it.

But even over the next few decades, simply by factoring-in reasonable, even highly conservative, estimates of how much we can save by tackling social and environmental problems with proven solutions, the results are astonishing.

Despite the destructive economic events of the last two years and the fact that we're now, perhaps, no more than 86 months away from a new, more perilous phase of global warming, governments are preparing a return to business-as-usual.

The costs of doing so, we forecast, are huge.

Between 2010 and 2050 the cumulative cost of climate change would range from £1.6 trillion to £2.5 trillion ($2.6 trillion to $4.1 trillion).

And the cumulative cost of addressing social problems associated with high levels of inequality is £4.5 trillion.

The Great Transition tackles climate and inequality at the same time.

It puts the UK economy on a rapid decarbonisation diet that puts us on track to playing our fair part in an effective global deal.

These cuts will avoid between £0.4 trillion and £1.3 trillion in environmental costs.

Simultaneously, progressive redistribution toward Danish levels of equality, we calculate, could generate £7.35 trillion of social value.

What is saved and generated in terms of cost and income more than compensates for the drop in GDP that happens as we consume fewer resources.

Mending Britain

How will it happen? First we need to get a real picture of what is going on in the economy. That means having a proper set of accounts that include real environmental and social value.

If we do that, what looks like radical and expensive change turns out to be a new direction we cannot afford to miss.

This is what we call the "great revaluing" - ensuring that prices reflect true social and environmental costs.

Next, following on from the ground-breaking, comprehensive work of social epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Picket, whose work demonstrates that more equal societies almost always do better - against a host of indicators ranging from crime to health to the environment - we propose a "great redistribution" to mend so-called "broken Britain".

In the face of recent, catastrophic market failures, the "great re-balancing" then sets out a new productive relationship between markets, society and the state.

It builds a more effective "ecology of finance" so that money and investment flows to where it is most needed - such as the low carbon transition of our energy, housing and transport systems.

A national Green Investment Bank, for example, with start-up funding from windfall taxes on fossil fuel company profits, could provide initial capital.

It's a big, bold plan that tears up business-as-usual.

The details can be argued over; but given the scale of the challenge, we believe that this is one time when we really can say "there is no alternative".

Chilling tale

All change is threatening. Change to new ways of living - even if familiar to people in other cultures and different generations - we find hard to imagine.

But failures of imagination can be fatal.

When Greenland was occupied by Icelandic and Scandinavian settlers in the early Middle Ages they soon made themselves at home with familiar customs and methods of food cultivation.

When the great chill bit deep in the 15th Century, instead of adapting by learning from the climate-adjusted indigenous people, who they dismissed as skraelings (wretches), they clung to what they knew, and died out.

Far from that grim scenario, today the great re-skilling of society to manage this transition could even break the zombie walk of consumer society and bring us alive again as individuals and communities.

The Great Transition is a tale of how it turned out right.

Andrew Simms is policy director of nef and a co-author of The Great Transition

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

Read more!

Deadlines loom for creating new economy to avoid climate catastrophe

WWF 19 Oct 09;

Gland, Switzerland - The world has just five years to initiate a low carbon industrial revolution before runaway climate change becomes almost inevitable. But the good news is that it can be done and that the long term benefits will be immense, according to a new analysis from WWF.

Climate Solutions 2 (CS2) is the first analysis to put timetables to the industrial transformations needed to limit global carbon emissions to below the 2˚C level scientists identify as presenting unacceptable risks of runaway climate change. It was prepared for WWF by Climate Risk, a company known for its work on climate change for global insurers and infrastructure providers.

The report found that beyond 2014 the feasible upper limits of industrial growth rates will make it impossible for market economies to meet the carbon targets required to keep global warming below 2°C. The report also found that market measures alone will not be enough to deliver emissions reductions on the scale required and that delays will increase the levels of direct intervention needed in the economy.

"Climate Solutions 2 tells us that we need to start making the change to a low-carbon economy today,” said Kim Carstensen, who leads WWF’s Global Climate Initiative. “The transformation will require sustained growth in clean and efficient industry in excess of 20 per cent a year over a period of decades.

“The report's modelling shows how we can sustain these growth rates but also makes it clear this will be the fastest industrial revolution witnessed in our history.

"The findings of this report offer a pragmatic, sobering and urgent warning to world leaders that the window of opportunity to act on climate change is rapidly closing. The time for playing politics with our future is long past."

The way forward, according to the report, is simultaneous action on all greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors, with market measures backed with a full range of other policies including energy efficiency standards, feed-in tariffs for renewable energy and an end to “perverse “ subsidies for fossil fuel use.

According to the report, countries not pursuing all carbon abatement options in all sectors will tend to develop least-cost industries first and only develop other low carbon industries as they become affordable.

Computer modelling and historical records agree that sequential development of industries, which would result from undue reliance on a single mechanism such as a rising carbon price, will make it impossible to meet emissions targets on time. Industries that come online later will have to grow considerably faster because of the delays in start-up and will be hit harder by constraints on available resources, labour and expertise.

"This analysis shows that we can win the fight against runaway climate change by transforming all sectors of our economies concurrently, by creating stable long-term investment environments that don't seek immediate returns and through focusing on key industry sectors,” said Dr Stephan Singer, who leads WWF’s Global Energy Initiative.

The industries that will lead the transformation are renewable energy generation, carbon capture and storage, energy efficiency, sustainable low-carbon agriculture and sustainable forestry. With the clean industrial revolution under way and sustained by a strong policy framework all renewable energies become competitive with fossil fuels between 2013 and 2025 – a highly conservative estimate based on just 2% annual rises in fossil fuel prices and no price on carbon.

"The wind, the sea and the sun will cost the same today, tomorrow and into the future, unlike coal,” said Singer. “They can be the basis for a cleaner world where energy supplies are more secure and where we have the best chance of preventing dramatic climate changes that could endanger our cities, our food supplies and the natural environment that we have always depended on."

Climate Solutions 2 calculates that the extra investment worldwide is expected to be US$17 trillion up to 2050 – or less than 15% of the funds currently managed by institutional investors. The returns on that investment are expected to flow back into investor’s pockets from 2027 and in some cases even earlier.

For renewable technologies, the cumulative investment to 2050 worldwide will total US$7 trillion, but it is expected generate returns to investors of around six times as much.

"Climate Solutions 2 draws a line in the sand that we cannot cross,” said Castensen. “It reinforces that we have reached a pivotal moment in our history where the window of opportunity which remains to prevent runaway climate change will soon disappear entirely.

“Most immediately and importantly, the basis for this transformation has to be laid in Copenhagen in December with a fair, binding and effective new global deal on climate change.”

Read more!