Beyond GDP: We need a dashboard for the whole economy

Mike Holderness, New Scientist 21 Oct 09;

HOW much political power can one number exert? Gross domestic product (GDP) is a strong candidate for the world's most potent numerical indicator. Politicians use it to rank states in order of production, and to guide policies to maintain their place in the pecking order. Its year-on-year changes dictate whether an economy is "in recession", which in turn influences what you pay for the loan to buy your home or run your business - and, indeed, the price of fish.

But look under the hood at the factors that feed into the calculation of GDP and you'll see some strange goings-on. For one thing, it's full of virtual production and trading. People who own their houses, for example, are deemed to pay themselves rent, which is included in GDP; it has to be this way, to keep the books tidy.

Then there are the important transactions that are not included. No attempt is made to value the services provided by the state, for example. Fees charged by private hospitals are included, but when it comes to state-run hospitals only the goods and services they buy in are deemed to contribute to GDP.

Also unaccounted for is activity in the "informal" economy. As well as dubious or downright illegal activities, this includes things people make and do for themselves, their families and their neighbours without cash necessarily changing hands.

Crucially, existing measures of GDP also fail to reflect the fact that some of the activity that contributes to GDP does harm rather than good. This distortion can encourage false choices - between promoting GDP and protecting the environment, for example. So jammed roads increase GDP through the increased sales of fuel that is wasted, but do nothing for people's quality of life. And for anyone concerned about air quality, statistics which ignore air pollution produce an inaccurate estimate of public well-being.

This clash between the economic measures of socio-economic phenomena and public perception of the same phenomena spurred President Nicolas Sarkozy of France into action. Early last year, he asked economists Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University in New York, Amartya Sen of Harvard University and Jean-Paul Fitoussi of Sciences-Po (the Institute of Political Studies) in Paris, France, to set up the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (CMEPSP).

The commission's report was published last month, and the onset of global recession - as determined by old-style GDP - means it is likely to be read more widely than it might otherwise have been. The report itself says that some members of the commission believe one reason the economic crisis took many by surprise is that "our measurement system failed us and/or... market participants and government officials were not focusing on the right set of statistical indicators". As a result, accounting systems "did not alert us that the seemingly bright growth performance of the world economy between 2004 and 2007 may have been achieved at the expense of future growth".

The report's 12 recommendations centre on changing the emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring human well-being, on the problems of defining well-being and - perhaps the thorniest of issues - how to measure environmental sustainability. The report notes that this last goal will require indicators of crises such as those linked to climate change or to the depletion of fishing stocks.

Measuring quality of life directly is not going to be easy. In passing, the report cites such gems as the finding that women in Columbus, Ohio, surveyed about their feelings, or "affect", while carrying out different activities, felt better walking than when they were having sex. Puzzlingly, the same researcher, Alan Krueger of Princeton University, has also discovered that "the correlation between life satisfaction and net affect is only 0.44": people's description of their separate experiences does not predict very well how they feel about their lives.

Yet "hedonology", as the study of pleasure is called, remains more interesting than the accountant's standard way of measuring well-being, which is to ask about our willingness to pay cash for an equivalent experience. Other efforts, such as the UN's Human Development Index are, say the commission's authors, too closely tied to GDP.

And what shall it benefit you to have cash or hedonic experiences now, if you know it will soon be all over? Proposing a sustainability index brings us up against the core of standard economics, from Adam Smith in the 18th century, right up to the present day: the zero value normally ascribed to natural resources.

Environmental groups promote the idea of the "carbon footprint" or general "resource footprint" as an index of sustainability. But it has been left to the World Bank, often seen as conservative, to develop a more radical measure it calls Adjusted Net Savings, which treats resources as capital.

The authors of the CMEPSP report stress that treating resources as assets or capital goods "does not mean at all that we consider that these assets should all be privately owned or submitted to market forces". Rather, many of them are "collective assets that cannot be managed efficiently by market mechanisms". Have we returned to the 17th-century English activist Gerard Winstanley's insistence that resources are "a common treasury for all to live comfortably upon"?

Any index of sustainability is bound to have little in common with the after-the-fact accounting that produces GDP, because it is, essentially, modelling the future. Here, we collide with the most miserable tool in the box of economics tricks: the measure of people's pessimism known as the discount factor.

If I offer you either £5 today or £10 one year hence, you are likely to take the £5. On this basis, your discount factor with respect to me is 50 per cent per year. Even using a modest 5 per cent discount factor for future environmental damage, a million units of damage done 100 years in the future has a net present value of few thousand units. The future simply disappears from capitalism's books.

Whatever index is used, reducing an entire economy's performance - and especially its sustainability - to a single integer is bound to lose a great deal of information. The CMEPSP report therefore envisages a "dashboard" of measures. As it argues, "a meter that weighed up in one single value the current speed of the vehicle and the remaining level of gasoline would not be of any help to the driver".

The report nevertheless acknowledges that if politicians do accept an alternative index, it will have immense power to drive policy. And prospects for acceptance turn out to be good. On 8 September, the European Commission issued a communication committing itself to "working to complement GDP and National Accounts (which presents production, income and expenditure in the economy) with environmental and social accounts". The European Commission has already adopted many of the report's proposals.

Despite such hopeful signs, GDP isn't going to go away any time soon. The ratio of GDP to national debt may be meaningless, but it looks seductively like real accounting. Currency traders won't feel well-informed if they express national debt as a multiple of happiness or green prudence. Producing useful tools for guiding policy - never mind ideal ones - is going to take a while. But at the very least, exploring the CMEPSP report's recommendations will promote an interesting social and scientific discussion of what "sustainable" and "happy" mean to each of us.
Profile

Mike Holderness is a writer and editor. He has written reports for the Royal Society, including The weather turned upside-down? Abrupt Climate Change: Evidence, mechanisms and implications, and edited the final report of the Information Society Forum for the European Commission

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ASEAN-wide effort needed to protect sea turtles

All round effort to protect turtles
The Star 22 Oct 09;

KUCHING: Multilateral conservation efforts are needed within the Asean region to protect turtles and their habitats, Sarawak Forestry managing director Datuk Len Talif Salleh said.

He said this was because turtles in the region migrated from area to area, such as from Sarawak’s southern coast to the Philippines and Kalimantan, Indonesia.

“The turtles have no nationality, so the joint involvement of Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia is very important in ensuring that they can be effectively protected and conserved,” he told reporters after witnessing the deployment of 150 reef balls around Pulau Satang Besar off Telaga Air near here on Monday.

Len said turtle conservation measures could be discussed in the Sosek-Malindo (Malaysia-Indonesia social and economic cooperation) or BIMP-EAGA (Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area) forums.

For a start, he said Sarawak Forestry officers would work with their counterparts in Sabah and Indonesia to look into protecting turtle migration areas along their respective coastlines.

He also hoped a common understanding could be reached on laws relating to turtle conservation and protection, such as banning the sale and consumption of turtle eggs.

On the reef balls, Len said their deployment aimed to protect turtle habitats besides enhancing marine life and preventing illegal trawling.

He said over 2,500 reef balls had been deployed along Sarawak’s coast since 1998 but more were still needed to protect areas such as the seabed off Kuala Lawas, a feeding ground for dugongs and turtles.

“In the next five years, we hope to deploy another 10,000 reef balls which will cost at least RM12mil.

“We hope to speed up the deployment by enlisting support from the private sector to help sponsor the reef balls,” he said, adding that each ball cost about RM1,000 to construct and another RM300 to transport and deploy.

Sarawak Forestry chief wildlife warden Wilfred Landong said the reef balls had been effective in reducing turtle deaths from being caught in trawler nets.

He said the number of dead turtles reported around the Talang-Satang National Park was now about 20 a year compared to 70 to 100 annually before the reef ball project commenced.

In addition, he said the number of nesting turtles at the national park rose from 737 in 2004 to 1,104 last year.

The number of turtles tagged at the park for monitoring purposes also increased from 639 in 2004 to 1,028 last year.

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'Bad' logging in Kelantan due to poor management

New Straits Times 20 Oct 09;

KUALA LUMPUR: Weak forest management saw indiscriminate logging being carried out at forested areas in Kelantan without any Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports.

The 2008 Auditor-General's Report on the Pas-run state found that its forestry management was unsatisfactory as existing laws and legislation had not been adhered to.

Auditor-General Tan Sri Ambrin Buang noted that there were weaknesses in terms of enforcement and lack of coordination between the Kelantan Forestry Department (JPNK) and other agencies.

Citing an example, Ambrin said he found that while JPNK had approved eight applications for logging activities along the boundary of Taman Negara Kuala Koh, two companies had started work without a EIA report.


"This happened because JPNK was unaware of the existence of the provision which required companies to obtain an EIA report for areas sharing boundaries with Taman Negara."

Ambrin said there was also no EIA report on logging activities at permanent forest reserves in areas that werelocated 1,000m above sea level.

He said a private company had been granted approval to log at the Tanah Tinggi Lojing Sungai Betis and Sungai Brook at Gua Musang without EIA reports as required by law.

As a result, there was severe damage to the environment, including landslides, indiscriminate felling of trees, erosion and damage to flora and fauna.

The audit also found illegal logging activities at Hutan Timur Machang district as a result of poor monitoring and enforcement by JPNK.

It also took the state government to task for failing to gazette protected status to all permanent forests reserves.

"Failure to do so could affect the safety and protection of the forests," he said.

The report noted an urgent need to have comprehensive and continuous monitoring and enforcement of logging activities.

"Although it is less than 500ha, a tract of permanent forest reserve which shares a boundary with Taman Negara has to have an EIA report before a logging license can be granted.


"JPNK has to take immediate action to gazette tracts of forests as protected areas, especially highlands that are at least 1,000m above sea level."

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Raja Nazrin disturbed by poaching in the Royal Belum Rainforest

Chan Li Leen, The Star 22 Oct 09;

IPOH: The Raja Muda of Perak, Raja Nazrin Shah, is disturbed by the alarming decline of large mammals at the Royal Belum Rainforest due to inadequate laws and ineffective enforcement.

He said poaching of wildlife including tigers and elephants was still a major problem at Royal Belum despite its status as a protected forest.

“This indicates that despite the existence of numerous laws pertaining to wildlife protection, forestry and other aspects of natural resource management, they are either inadequate or they suffer from ineffective enforcement,” he said when opening a conference to develop an Integrated Master Plan for the Belum-Temengor Tropical Rainforest here yesterday.

Raja Nazrin, said there were compelling reasons for the development of a master plan as Belum-Temengor was the largest remaining contiguous tract of unprotected rainforest in peninsular Malaysia.

“And although Royal Belum has been gazetted a state park, its adjacent neighbour, Temenggor, is not within the boundaries of national protection. This means that it is defenceless against obliteration,” he said.

He said logging and indiscriminate development remained the foremost challenges to the continuity of Malaysian rainforests, thus jeopardising the continued existence of local species and sites.

Raja Nazrin said while he understood the need to proceed with development programmes to lead people out of poverty towards improved living standards, he caution against unfettered exploitation of the dwindling forest resources.

“Are our forest worth more dead than alive?” he asked.

Forests, he noted, were worth a lot in exchange for its timber, for industry and for agriculture, but in the long run, the price for it was too heavy for both the people and the country to pay.

“The price we pay is the change in climate, increased carbon dioxide levels, diminished fresh water supply, the depletion of a large proportion of our living species, the threat of natural disaster, and hence, our own existence,” he added.

He urged the authorities to explore the possibility of enacting special legislation to ensure a comprehensive and continued preservation of Belum-Temengor alongside its development plan as a tourism product.

The two-day conference is organised by the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority, Perak state government and the Pulau Banding Foundation.

Raja Nazrin: Treasures of Belum forest left unprotected
P. Chandra Sagaran, New Straits Times 22 Oct 09;

IPOH: Raja Muda of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah has called for special laws to be enacted to continue protecting and preserving the Belum-Temenggor tropical rainforest amid plans to promote it as a tourism product.

He said with global climate change and a decline in the number of protected species in the forest due to poaching and extinction, it was necessary that well-planned policies were implemented to safeguard the rainforest.

Opening a conference, "Towards the Development of an Integrated Master Plan for Belum-Temenggor Tropical Rainforest" here yesterday, Raja Nazrin expressed concern at the lack of enforcement by the authorities of existing laws to protect this last frontier.

"Royal Belum State Park is protected, but Belum-Temenggor is the largest remaining contiguous tract of unprotected rainforest in Peninsular Malaysia, and it is not within the boundaries of national protection.

"Poaching is a major problem in the area.

"Our large mammals are declining at an alarming rate and some face the threat of extinction in the near future.

"This is happening despite existing laws on wildlife protection, forestry and other aspects of natural resource management.

"This means ineffective enforcement."

Raja Nazrin said for Malaysia, like other developing nations, the race towards economic progress had tipped the balance away from efforts to tackle conservation issues.

Logging and indiscriminate development, he said, were challenges that could jeopardise the continued existence of precious species and sites.

He said in the long run the price to pay would be a change in climate, increase in carbon dioxide level, lack of fresh water supply, depletion of a large proportion of living species and the threat of natural disaster.

"We need to simultaneously pursue economic development while preserving the balance of nature."

Malaysia, he said, could draw from the experience of others, and cited a few examples, including that of the Danum Valley in Sabah, which is renowned as a research haven that has attracted researchers from universities and institutions worldwide.


Studies done at Danum Valley, he said contributed not only to the science base but also to the conservation and sustainable use of rainforests in general.

Raja Nazrin hoped the conclusion of the conference would contribute towards the development of an effective plan of action.

The two-day conference, organised by the state government, the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority and Pulau Banding Foundation, is attended by 180 participants from government departments, non-governmental organisations and private enterprises.

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Myanmar timber still smuggled to China

Grant Peck Associated Press 21 Oct 09;

BANGKOK — There has been a sharp decline in timber illegally imported into China from Myanmar, but smugglers are still supplying Chinese companies that export the wood to Europe, America and throughout the world, an environmental watchdog agency said Wednesday.

The British-based group Global Witness, in a report issued Wednesday, called on Chinese and Myanmar authorities to step up efforts to stop illegal logging in northern Myanmar and crack down on illicit cross-border trade.

"Clearly action taken by authorities in China and Burma to combat illegal logging in Kachin state has had a significant positive impact," Global Witness quotes its forest policy expert, Jon Buckrell, saying. "But they should do more to close down the remaining industry, which is almost wholly reliant on the illegal timber supply from Burma."

After an October 2005 report by Global Witness alleged that vast stretches of virgin forest were being destroyed to feed China's growing demand for wood, Beijing sought to curb the trade by closing border crossings to timber trucks from its southern neighbor. The military government of Myanmar — also known as Burma — announced it had suspended timber cutting, transport and shipments to China.

In the 2005 report, Global Witness described the area where the forests were being cut as "very possibly the most bio-diverse, rich, temperate area on earth" — a place home to red pandas, leopards and tigers. It said that China depended largely on imported lumber from Malaysia, Russia, Myanmar, Indonesia and Gabon after it banned the felling of its own old-growth trees in 1998.

China became the biggest foreign investor in Myanmar this past year, and is the closest ally of its military regime, which is shunned by the West because of its poor human rights record and failure to hand over power to a democratically elected government.

The new report, "A Disharmonious Trade," said trade data showed that imports of logs and sawed wood from Myanmar to China fell by more than 70 percent between 2005 and 2008, confirming a trend found by the group's own field investigations.

But smugglers use "bribery, false papers, transportation at night and avoiding checkpoints" to get around the restrictions on sending the wood to China, the report said.

China's Foreign Ministry and Myanmar's Forestry Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Global Witness said its researchers had visited flooring companies on China's east coast to gauge the availability of timber from Myanmar, and found widespread use of teak from Myanmar, along with other high value species such as black walnut.

Global Witness said its investigators were told by 13 of the 14 firms visited that it was still possible for them to obtain timber from Myanmar despite the import restrictions, and that several admitted that their supplies were obtained through smuggling.

The report said the Chinese companies export worldwide, including to the United States and Europe. It said some U.S. based companies advertise wood flooring from Myanmar, although under a U.S. law amended by Congress last year, the Lacey Act, it is illegal to import illegally obtained plants and their products, including timber and wood products.

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Japan dolphin hunting town threatens to sue over 'The Cove'

Kyoko Hasegawa Yahoo News 21 Oct 09;

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – A town at the centre of a controversial dolphin slaughtering documentary could sue the film makers, local fisheries officials said Wednesday, as it premiered at a Tokyo film festival.

"The Cove", an award-winning film depicting the annual slaughter of dolphins in the Japanese coastal town of Taiji, has caused uproar in the town, with film makers accused of covertly shooting footage using divers and hidden cameras.

The Taiji fisheries cooperative, which strongly supports the dolphin hunt, has written a letter of protest to the organiser of the film festival, an official told AFP.

"We've heard that the film includes factual errors, and so we may take some sort of action, including legal steps, if we watch it and find problems," said the official, who declined to be named.

The movie had its Japan premiere Wednesday at the Tokyo International Film Festival before some 300 movie-goers and journalists.

Comments in a question-and-answer session varied from revulsion at the graphic scenes of the dolphin slaughter in a secluded cove to a spirited defence of Japanese traditions and fishing and food habits.

"Although it's a difficult issue as it involves fishermen's jobs, it's also difficult to argue that all Japanese traditions have to be maintained," Makoto Iwahashi, a 19-year-old student, told AFP after watching the film. "I think if we find something wrong in our tradition, we should correct it."

Killing dolphins is not prohibited by the International Whaling Commission's ban on commercial whaling, but Japan's Fisheries Agency restricts the practice by handing out annual quotas to several fishing towns.

This year, Taiji was allocated a quota of about 2,300 small cetaceans -- such as dolphins, whales and porpoises, said prefectural official Shimamura.

The film's director, Louie Psihoyos, said the film was not an attack on Japan and his team was negotiating with Japanese distributors over a possible deal for the film to be shown in Japanese film theatres.

"All the profits we will be able to make from this film will go to fishermen in Taiji -- if they agree to stop dolphin-hunting," he said.

The Taiji fisheries official said the town would keep hunting dolphins.

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EU-wide project to fight illegal wildlife trade not to be sniffed at

TRAFFIC 21 Oct 09;

Frankfurt, Germany, 21 October—a year after the introduction of sniffer dogs to track down illegal wildlife products at Frankfurt airport, WWF and TRAFFIC have announced plans to extend the successful pilot project Europe-wide.

In recent months, the two specially trained dogs—Amy and Uno—have uncovered several kilogrammes of caviar, ivory figurines, handbags made of snake skin, shark fins and even a complete bear skull, among other items.

“Dogs have a much better sense of smell than people," explained Volker Homes of TRAFFIC Germany.

“They can detect items with low odour and are therefore ideal for quick checks of luggage, mail, or entire containers."

During their months of training, Amy and Uno were taught to identify 15 particular odours. The two dogs have now been in action at Frankfurt, the third largest airport in Europe, for a year, and taking a particular interest in flights from "biodiversity hotspots" in terms of species trafficking, such as Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.

“The seizure of several kilogrammes of caviar, a rhino horn, ivory, and several parts of highly endangered marine turtles is of particular concern,” Homes said. “These discoveries alone render the use of the sniffer dogs a success.”

TRAFFIC helped pioneer the use of sniffer dogs for detecting illegally traded wildlife in Asia, following feasibility studies that led to the establishment of a wildlife sniffer dog unit in South Korea in 2000, and more recently with the introduction of sniffer dogs to assist enforcement actions in India.

Following the success in Frankfurt, WWF and TRAFFIC plan to launch a Europe-wide project that aims to see the use of wildlife detector dogs at the largest European airports and seaports and in major postal distribution centres.

"The EU has become a single market without internal borders. Hence we need effective and consistent action against the illegal trade of species at the gateways to the EU in every Member States," said Homes.

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The Green Tower of Guangzhou City

Harrabin's Notes, BBC News 21 Oct 09;

BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin reports on the tower block under construction in China which could lead the way in green building technology.

THE GREEN TOWER OF GUANGZHOU CITY

Rising high through the polluted air of Guangzhou City in southern China is a 71-storey tower block which, according to its designers, will be the most energy-efficient in the world.

Among a host of features designed either to make or save energy, the one that caught my eye was the shape of the Pearl River Tower itself.

It is built in a curve, facing the prevailing winds. And it has been deliberately sculpted to increase the speed of that wind and force it through slots in the building where wind turbines will be located.

Now, on many buildings, wind turbines are a waste of space because there's so much turbulence in cities. I heard an apocryphal story about a Japanese firm that installed a turbine which needed electric power to keep it turning to save the face of its would-be-green owners.

But the American architects of this tower - SOM - insist that their experiments in a wind tunnel show this building will generate economically viable wind power.

The vertical axis turbines will be located in the mechanical floors mandated by the Chinese government as emergency muster floors, so no usable office space will be lost.

SOM claims that by thinking carefully about the use of space combined with energy-saving and energy-generating technology, they have been able to make unprecedented gains, so this building will potentially create as much energy as it uses.

They are by no means the only architects to espouse the principle of integrated design, of course. But some observers believe that too many buildings are still being put up with a few bolt-on green features, without proper thought as to what could be achieved through a more considered approach.

Take the cooling system in the tower. Most of the time, air conditioning is done by fat air ducts which gobble both energy and space between floors and ceilings. Here the cooling is done by a cool water system.

The water flows in ducts through concrete beams, and cool air descends upon the toiling masses from cold water radiators in the ceilings.

This doesn't just save energy. SOM say it saves so much space that it's allowed the building's owners to put in an extra five storeys of usable office floor at little extra cost. Indeed, they predict that the extra investments in the building will start making the money in five years.

There are other green features too. There's a wide-spaced double-glazed wall, which channels hot air upwards to a mechanical floor where it's harnessed for dehumidification.

There's also substantial use of solar photovoltaic technology on the frontages of the building, which curve upwards toward the sun, although the current cost of photovoltaic arrays militated against cladding the building completely in energy-generating glass.

Inside there are numerous automatic control systems to make sure power isn't being wasted.

SOM say they could have coaxed the building to produce more energy but it would have been futile because there's no facility in Guangzhou to feed self-generated power back into the grid. To many, this will be a familiar tale.

'Radical' design

I can't verify whether all its claims are true, but the building is undoubtedly an exciting project.

Ame Englehart, director of SOM's East Asia office said: "This building is so radical it could only have been commissioned in China. The owners are very self-confident and have been prepared to push the design as far as it will go."

SOM insists that the design is site-specific and can't just be replicated elsewhere.

But the sad observation from my viewpoint standing on the girders of the 24th floor is that this tower is very much the exception rather than the rule.

The Chinese government has increased building standards recently but they still don't lead to anything like the performance of the Pearl River Tower.

A report in the China Daily during my trip suggested that 40% of bribery cases in China involve property development.

And a Western businesswoman I bumped into told me her firm couldn't persuade Chinese clients to invest in more energy-efficient vehicles even if she could prove that they would start paying back their owners in energy costs is just 10 months.

Later in the week I'll be looking at the building frenzy in the Chinese countryside. Tomorrow, though, I'll be looking at electric scooters in Guilin.

HOW THE TOWER SAVES ENERGY
# High temperature fuel cells complement the sustainable systems
# The outer skin controls glare and includes a photovoltaic system for energy
# Wind turbines generate power which can be fed to mechanical equipment
# The design incorporates a "high performance" building envelope
# An air displacement system relies on raised floors
# Cooling tower water passes through embedded tubes in the building

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Enterprise To Raise $4 Billion For Green Housing

Timothy Gardner, PlanetArk 22 Oct 09;

WASHINGTON - Enterprise, a U.S. nonprofit group, said on Wednesday it hopes to raise $4 billion over the next five years to make housing for low-income people more energy efficient.

The effort, which builds on the group's previous commitments, will result in the creation, preservation or retrofit of 75,000 green homes and community and commercial buildings, it said.

Enterprise, which also has a private branch that provides capital for housing, will lend to existing multifamily building owners for energy and water reduction capital purchases and healthy living environment improvements. Money will also be dedicated to design new affordable housing.

Doris Koo, Enterprise's chief executive, said green investments in affordable housing can yield big returns.

"For a small premium on the construction side, about 2 percent on the front end, you are seeing 20 to 30 percent savings on the energy," she said in an interview.

Affordable apartment buildings are often older and have more leaks, so energy is often wasted more in that type of housing than in homes for people with more money.

In addition problems with the buildings can often make asthma and other diseases worse for residents.

Enterprise takes steps to reduce asthma in low-income housing, such as removing carpets and other materials that emit chemicals and improving pest management. Koo said these steps have greatly reduced reported asthma attacks in children.

Enterprise announced the commitment at the Newseum in Washington. Shaun Donovan, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing, said in a release ahead of the meeting that President Barack Obama "joins me in thanking Enterprise for its leadership in showing that all American families can and must have the opportunity to live in healthy homes that reduce long-term medical costs and help curb the devastating effects of climate change."

Groups and companies that have pledged to help in the fund raising include the Kresge Foundation, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, the Surdna Foundation, The Home Depot Foundation, The Kendeda Fund, The Oak Hill Fund and Wells Fargo.

(Editing by John Picinich)

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World Must Use GM Crops, Says UK Science Academy

Gerard Wynn, PlanetArk 22 Oct 09;

LONDON - The world needs genetically modified crops both to increase food yields and minimize the environmental impact of farming, Britain's top science academy said on Wednesday.

The Royal Society said in a report the world faced a "grand challenge" to feed another 2.3 billion people by 2050 and at the same time limit the environmental impact of the farm sector.

The world will have to increase food output by 70 percent and invest $83 billion annually in developing countries by mid-century, the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization said earlier this month.

"The problem is such an acute one, doing that sustainably without eroding soil, overusing fertilizers is an enormous challenge," said the chair of the Royal Society report, Cambridge University's David Baulcombe.

"There isn't a lot more land to use," he told Reuters. "And from the point of expense and using fossil fuels, we want to use less fertilizer."

"The food supply problem is likely to come to a head 10, 20, 30 years from now," he said, adding this didn't leave much time given the research lead time to develop new crops.

The answer would be a range of approaches from hi-tech genetically modified crops to low-tech management approaches such as sowing grass around maize to divert pests, as well as preserving the diversity of natural, wild crop varieties.

Farming indirectly, including deforestation, accounts for a third of greenhouse gases, say scientists, underlining the problem of increasing production simply by clearing more land or using more fertilizers, the biggest source of a powerful greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.

RESEARCH

Britain had to invest an extra 50 ($82.13 million) to 100 million pounds annually in research to boost innovation in a sector which had lost allure following food over-supply in Europe, the report said.

A combination of changing diets, growing population, demand for farmland for biofuels and high energy prices have stoked food prices and renewed interest in agriculture.

Wednesday's report invoked the successes of the Green Revolution of the 1960s, but aimed for a more sustainable approach. That revolution had more than doubled food output over 30 years but had also degraded soils in some cases.

The world must develop over the next 16 years through genetic modification and conventional breeding varieties of crops resistant to disease, drought, salinity, heat and toxic heavy metals, the report said.

Progress in DNA-sequencing had made more plant genes available for engineering, improving the predictability of results in a "second generation" GM approach. "We're looking at a different base than 10 years ago," said Baulcombe.

A combination of the food crisis and the global economic downturn has pushed more than 1 billion people into hunger in 2009, U.N. agencies said last week, confirming a grim forecast released earlier this year.

The Pressure group Greenpeace said GM crops were a costly distraction from tackling hunger through fighting poverty and helping smallholders in developing countries sell their product.

"Poverty and hunger are the same thing," said Marco Contiero, Greenpeace's European GM policy director, who pointed out that the world already produced enough to feed itself, if that were shared fairly and there was less waste.

(Editing by James Jukwey)

Chief scientist says it would be 'unwise' not to develop GM crops in Britain
Genetically modified (GM) food is an essential tool to help tackle the "perfect storm" of climate change and rising population, the Government's chief scientist has warned.
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 20 Oct 09;

Professor John Beddington said the world will have to produce 50 per cent more food by 2030 in order to feed the growing population.

He said the only way to do this is to grow more crops on less land by using the latest scientific innovation, including crops genetically modified to be drought or disease resistant.

"This is such a problem that you cannot say we will not use GM technology - that would be really unwise," he said.

His comments come as a new Royal Society report also recommends GM crops to tackle the impending food crisis.

The report entitled 'Reaping the Benefits: Towards a Sustainable Intensification of Global Agriculture' is expected to suggest that GM crops could even be grown in Britain.

GM has recently come back onto the political agenda. The first trial in a year was recently re-started in Leeds, with the Government's support, and a recent report on food security from the Deparment for the Enviroment, Food and Rural Affairs backed further research into the technology.

But environmentalists insist the science is not proven and foods made from GM crops or "Frankenstein Foods" may be bad for human health.

Speaking at a global food summit, organised by the not-for-profit environmental research centre CABI, Professor Beddington said science will be the only way to feed the world in the future.

He said that by 2030 the world will have to produce 50 per cent more food and energy, together with 30 per cent more available fresh water, whilst adapting the floods and drought caused by climate change.

Prof Beddington said Britain could lead the way in developing the new technology - although he said it would be difficullt to grow GM crops in Britain because of activists ripping up the plants.

"Ten years ago, when GM was first started, people were understandably worried about about health and environmental impacts. But I think current regulations mean those risks are now mitigated," he said.

Dr Julian Little, Chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, said 13 million farmers are already growing GM on 125 million hectares around the world.

"If we are serious about producing more food off less land, we do not have much choice but to use new biotechnology, including GM," he said.

But Clare Oxborrow, Senior Food Campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said the Government was in danger of being blinded by "the white heat of technology" and putting human and environmental health at risk.

"We do have a 'perfect storm' with the impending food crisis, climate change and the recent economic crisis," she said. "It might seem like the perfect opportunity for the bio-tech industry to promote its products but the drivers of this crisis are so complex and need to be tackled at a fundamental level - just the thought that GM can solve this or play an important part is pie in the sky."


How will farmers feed the world in the future?
A new report argues that scientists should use every method available to boost food production in the next 20 years. But what options are there other than GM?
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 21 Oct 09;

:: Traditional techniques: Crop rotation, natural fertilisers and other methods have been used for generations. However there are a number of ways to boost these techniques, for example by experimenting with types of clover to fix nitrogen in the soil or using fertiliser derived from food waste.

:: Using nature: Plants that attract predators such as lady birds to eat other insects can be used as insecticide. Plants that inject certain nutrients in the soil can be planted among a crop in order to provide a natural fertiliser.

:: Plant breeding: As understanding of the plant genome increases it not only enables scientists to artificially move genes about, but can also help natural methods of breeding to create new plants. The development of "floating rice plants" that are more able to withstand floods was through selective breeding.

:: Irrigation: Water stress will be a serious problem in the future due to urbanisation and population growth. Much more efficient methods of irrigation could be developed using rain water and recycling run off from fields, as well as using less water hungry plants in dry areas.

:: New varieties of crops: Scientists are still discovering new varieties of plants that provide opportunities for breeding new crops. For example there are thousands of varieties of rice that are enabling farmers to grow crops more appropriate to each environment. This also helps to maintain different breeds that would otherwise be in danger of dying out.

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South Africa's Standard Bank Poised To Launch $230 Million Australian Forest Fund

David Fogarty, PlanetArk 21 Oct 09;

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - South Africa's Standard Bank is close to launching a A$250 million ($230 million) forestry fund in Australia, aimed at selling carbon offsets to companies, in what is believed to be the largest fund of its kind so far.

It will focus on companies that will need to meet emissions reduction targets under carbon trading laws awaiting approval by the Australian Senate, said Singapore-based William Pazos, global head of origination and finance at Standard Bank.

"The fund is targeted at compliance buyers that don't want to get involved in management of forests but are really interested in the underlying credits that are going to be generated by the forests," Pazos told Reuters.

The fund is still in the planning stages but is expected to be formally launched in the next few weeks, he added.

The fund is believed to be the largest and most ambitious to be launched so far covering the fledgling carbon forestry sector in Australia, said Sean Lucy, head of environmental finance solutions at National Australia Bank.

The fund will cover the planting and management of 50,000 ha (125,000 acres). Perth-based agribusiness investment firm Rewards Group Ltd would plant and manage the forests, Pazos said.

Forests soak up planet-warming carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. Managed forests that meet government or U.N. guidelines can yield saleable offsets, with one offset representing a ton of CO2 locked away by trees as they grow.

Companies can buy offsets to meet greenhouse emissions reduction targets set by governments.

Australia's planned carbon-trading scheme, if passed, would oblige about 1,000 of the nation's most polluting firms to meet increasingly tougher emissions targets.

TIMING, PRICE

The emissions from those firms, called compliance buyers, covers about 75 percent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

The government will re-introduce the emissions bills in the lower house of parliament later this week and expects a final vote in the Senate, which rejected the laws earlier this year, in the last week of November.

If the legislation is passed, forestry would be the first sector to operate under the scheme from July 2010, followed by a fixed A$10 per ton carbon price for a year from July 2011 for other sectors except agriculture.

While the fund was ambitious, investors needed to ask if the timing was right and whether there would be sufficient appetite for offsets, given the legislative uncertainty, Lucy said.

Another issue was price.

"It is all going to come down to price as these things are going to have to compete with CERs and the like," said Gary Cox, vice president, commodities, energy, Newedge Australia.

He was referring to U.N.-backed carbon offsets called certified emissions reductions, which Australian firms will also be able to buy to meet their emissions targets.

In July, Origin Energy, Australia's second-largest power retailer, signed a deal to fund a mass planting of trees as a hedge for its own carbon-emission liabilities.

If the deal was fully implemented, contingent on the national scheme being enacted, the carbon forest-sink development program could be worth up to A$169 million over 15 years, Origin said.

(Additional reporting by Bruce Hextall in Sydney; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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Hydropower industry braces for glacier-free future

Emma Thomasson, Reuters 21 Oct 09;

RHONE GLACIER, Switzerland (Reuters) - Standing on the glacier at the source of the Rhone river, glaciologist Andreas Bauder poses next to a 3-meter high pole sticking out of the ice, and gestures above his head.

"This is about the melt of one month," he says, as fellow scientists drill into the ice. "I'm about two meters tall."

From the Himalayas to the Andes, faster-melting glaciers spell short-term opportunities -- and long-term risks -- for hydroelectric power and the engineering and construction industries it drives.

The most widely used form of renewable energy globally, hydro meets more than half Switzerland's energy needs. As summers dry and glaciers that help drive turbines with meltwater recede, that share may eventually fall.

A study by Lausanne's EPFL technical university forecast a decline to 46 percent by 2035 for hydro from around 60 percent now as precipitation declines and total energy use increases.

In the same way as the Himalayas are "Asia's water-tower," Switzerland is the source of Europe's biggest rivers, supporting agriculture and waterways, and cooling nuclear power stations.

Water trickles down white-blue crevasses and ice cracks and creaks as Bauder, who for Zurich technical university spends about 20 to 30 days a year working on Swiss glaciers, explains that most of the mighty Rhone glacier will be gone by the end of the century.

"Nature can adjust to the circumstances," he said. "It's just people who are much more fragile about living conditions."

More than a billion people worldwide live in river basins fed by glacier or snowmelt.

Glaciers have been retreating dramatically since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 19th century, particularly in the Himalayas where they feed rivers including the Mekong and Yangtze and ensure water and power for fast-growing economies.

A lack of water for hydropower is already "critical" in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador, according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which also sees risks to water supplies to southern California from the loss of the Sierra Nevada and Colorado River basin snowpack.

In Europe, 20 percent of electricity comes from hydro -- generating potential that is projected to decrease by the 2070s, falling sharpest in the Mediterranean.

Bauder pointed to an area of stony ground and small lakes beyond the end of Rhone glacier ice field: "When I was a kid, I remember that the glacier was much larger. The glacier tongue was still reaching over this rocky area."

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The Swiss hydroelectric industry is part-funding Bauder's research, to help it take a long view on new projects in an industry where licenses often run for up to a century.

Other risks researchers have identified include sudden floods from swollen glacial lakes. Demand for more pumping technology and dams is one response in countries which can afford them.

Experts stress that forecasts so far ahead are highly uncertain, particularly in predicting precipitation, and note that some regions may even benefit.

"With climate change there will be some areas in the world with more precipitation year round," said Petra Doell, a professor of hydrology at the University of Frankfurt and a member of the U.N. climate panel.

"That will mean more hydropower generation even if glaciers melt."

For example Norway, which generates almost 100 percent of its power from hydroelectricity, is likely to get more rain and snow because of climate change even as glaciers retreat.

But if glaciers do disappear, one main impact will be lower river flows in dry seasons -- when irrigation is often needed for crops. That would particularly threaten people in the world's biggest rice-growers, China and India.

Nations with high power demand in dry seasons could suffer from lower flows, but Doell said hydropower reservoirs could be used to mute the overall impacts of melting glaciers downstream.

"A reservoir helps to broaden the availability of water throughout the year," she said. "But there are few dams in south-east Asia, where the impacts of melting glaciers will be most severe."

WAYS TO STORE WATER

From the Swiss perspective, the Lausanne study forecasts run-off from the Swiss Alps will fall by 7 percent to 2049, as glaciers recede and precipitation rises by 6 percent in winter and drops by 8 percent in summer.

These wetter winters and drier summers may force changes in the way Switzerland stores and moves water.

In the past, the country used to make sure its storage lakes were full in September to provide hydropower for heating as energy demand peaked in winter, while they were empty in April, ready to be replenished by melting snow and ice.

"Since the electricity market was liberalized and listed companies involved, which are more oriented to earning money and delivering energy at the best price, it has been more difficult to fill the lakes in the winter," said Bruno Schaedler, a hydrologist from Bern University.

The melting glaciers will be a bonus in the short term, but the hydro industry will have to manage water more efficiently: "When we don't have the reserves of the glaciers, we will need more storage dams," said Joerg Aeberhard, head of hydraulic production at Swiss energy company Alpiq.

Swiss hydropower is not completely dependent on glaciers, he stressed: melting snow is more important and provides run-off with less sediment. "We are worried about climate change, but I am more worried as a citizen than as a generator of hydroelectric power."

By the end of the century, the Lausanne study forecasts run-off will have fallen by 17 percent as the glaciers will have virtually disappeared.

About 55 percent of the 100 cubic km of water stored in Switzerland's glaciers at the end of the last mini Ice Age in 1850 was gone by 2006. Total water stored in the glaciers of the European Alps as a whole had fallen two-thirds to 61 cubic km in 2006.

Bern University hydrologist Schaedler said Switzerland would probably need to make more use of pumped storage power stations -- which pump water into high reservoirs when demand is low, to release the water as demand peaks -- to manage changing flows in run-off and help the rest of Europe cope with more unpredictable precipitation.

While winters may be wetter and summers drier, he said the fact that the Alps attract three times heavier rainfall than the average for the rest of Europe suggests the country will still be relatively comfortable.

"The role of Switzerland as a water tower will become more important for the rest of Europe with climate change and changing precipitation," Schaedler said.

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Sara Ledwith)

FACTBOX: Impacts of glacier retreat on hydropower
Reuters 21 Oct 09;

(Reuters) - Retreating glaciers from the Alps to the Andes are likely to disrupt hydropower generation in coming decades.

Following are details of glaciers and the wider impacts of climate change on hydropower, the most widely used form of renewable energy:

* WORLDWIDE

More than a billion people live in river basins fed by glacier or snow-melt. Climate change will lead to a retreat of glaciers and cause wider disruptions to rain and snowfall patterns from tropical Monsoons to Arctic snowfall.

* ASIA

Himalayan glaciers may shrink to 100,000 square km (40,000 sq miles) by the 2030s from 500,000 sq km if current warming rates continue. That would increase river flows in some river systems for two to three decades, followed by decreasing flows.

Water supplies will be hit in areas fed by melt water from the Hindu Kush and Himalayas, on which hundreds of millions of people in China, Pakistan and India depend.

* EUROPE

Small glaciers will disappear and larger glaciers will shrink by between 30 and 70 percent by 2050.

For the whole of Europe -- where 20 percent of electricity comes from hydropower -- generating potential of hydropower plants is projected to decrease by six percent by the 2070s, mainly because of changes in precipitation.

That translates into a 20-50 percent decline around the Mediterranean, a 15-30 percent increase in northern and eastern Europe and little change for western and central Europe.

* SOUTH AMERICA

Over the next 15 years, inter-tropical glaciers are very likely to disappear in the Andes, reducing water availability and hydropower generation in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. The issue is already "critical" in the four nations.

* NORTH AMERICA

A potential fall in the level of the Great Lakes could mean big economic losses as a result of reduced hydropower generation both at Niagara and on the St. Lawrence River.

By the 2020s, about 41 percent of water supplies to southern California are likely to be vulnerable to warming from loss of Sierra Nevada and Colorado River basin snowpack.

* AFRICA

Hydropower generation is likely to be hit by climate change, according to a study of hydro-electric power generation in the Zambezi Basin. The snows on the peak of Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, have shrunk by 80 percent in the past century.

* AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND

Annual streamflow in Australia's Murray Darling basin is likely to fall by 10-25 percent by 2050 and 16-48 percent by 2100. In New Zealand, annual flow from larger rivers in the Southern Alps is likely to increase. Proportionately more runoff is very likely in winter and less in summer -- helping hydro-electric generation during the winter peak demand period.

(Sources: 2008 and 2007 reports by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC)

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Sara Ledwith)

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