Degraded peatlands in Indonesia unleash vast amounts of carbon

A climate threat, rising from the soil
Andrew Higgins, Washington Post 19 Nov 09;

TARUNA JAYA, INDONESIA -- Across a patch of pineapples shrouded in smoke, Idris Hadrianyani battled a menace that has left his family sleepless and sick -- and has wrought as much damage on the planet as has exhaust from all the cars and trucks in the United States. Against the advancing flames, he waved a hose with a handmade nozzle confected from a plastic soda bottle.

The lopsided struggle is part of a battle against one of the biggest, and most overlooked, causes of global climate change: a vast and often smoldering layer of coal-black peat that has made Indonesia the world's third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States.

Unlike the noxious gases pumped into the atmosphere by gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles in the United States and smoke-belching factories in China, danger here in the heart of Borneo rises from the ground itself.

Peat, formed over thousands of years from decomposed trees, grass and scrub, contains gigantic quantities of carbon dioxide, which used to stay locked in the ground. It is now drying and disintegrating, as once-soggy swamps are shorn of trees and drained by canals, and when it burns, carbon dioxide gushes into the atmosphere.

Amid often-acrimonious debate over how to curb global warming ahead of a critical U.N. conference next month in Copenhagen, "peat is the big elephant in the room," said Agus Purnomo, head of Indonesia's National Council on Climate Change. Dealing with it, he said, requires that the world answer a vexing question: How can protection of the environment be made as economically rewarding as its often lucrative destruction?

Carbon trading was meant to do just that by allowing developing countries that cut their emissions to sell carbon credits. But this and other incentives for conservation developed since a U.N. conference in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 have done nothing to protect Indonesia's abused peatlands.

Dwindling forestland

Less than a quarter of a century ago, 75 percent of Kalimantan -- which comprises three Indonesian regions on the island of Borneo -- was covered in thick forests. Gnawed away since by loggers, oil palm plantations and grandiose state projects, the forests have since shrunk by about half. Each year, Indonesia loses forest area roughly the size of Connecticut.

Fires, meanwhile, have grown more frequent and serious. For centuries, Kalimantan locals have burned forestland to create plots for farming. But what used to be small, controlled fires have become fearsome conflagrations as dry and degraded peat goes up in smoke.

Estimating carbon emissions from deforested peatland is a highly complicated and inexact science. Even when not burning, dried peat leaks a slow but steady stream of carbon dioxide and other gases. Once it catches fire, the stream becomes a torrent.

In 2006, according to Wetlands International, a Dutch research and lobbying group, Indonesia's peatlands released roughly 1.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide -- equal to the combined emissions that year of Germany, Britain and Canada, and more than U.S. emissions from road and air travel. When particularly bad fires raged across Kalimantan in 1997, according to a study led by a British scientist, the amount was up to four times as high -- more than the total emissions by the United States in that period.

Economics vs. ecology

How dirt became so dangerous -- and why reversing the damage is so difficult -- is on grim display here in Central Kalimantan, inhabited by about 2 million people and a rapidly dwindling population of orangutans. Economic logic here is firmly on the side of those wrecking the environment.

For example, Hadrianyani, the firefighter in Taruna Jaya, also has another job: He clears peatland of trees and scrub for cultivation -- a task done most easily by burning. That work earns him about $8 a day -- twice what he gets for putting out fires.

Across Kalimantan, logging and palm oil companies deploy formidable economic, and real, firepower against environmental activists trying to protect the fragile peat. On a recent afternoon in Lamunti, a desolate Central Kalimantan settlement crisscrossed with fetid canals, the rival camps faced off. On one side of a wooden barrier at the entrance to PT Globalindo Agung Lestari, an oil palm estate, stood a dozen or so out-of-town environmental activists with a bullhorn. On the other side stood company security guards, local police officers and Indonesian soldiers with automatic weapons.

Villagers, though angry at the plantation, stayed away: They didn't want to lose their jobs tending oil palm. The pay is about $3 a day and the work is backbreaking, but "when you don't have anything, you have to support the company," said Budi, 21, who, like many Indonesians, uses one name.

Interviewed away from the company's compound, villagers accused its managers of stealing their land. The village chief, Syahrani, said he was trying to get compensation but didn't hold out much hope. Globalindo's bosses "have all the power. They control everything," he said. Of the 600 working-age people in his village, 75 percent work at Globalindo. Acting estate manager Karel Yoseph Rauy declined to comment on allegations that his company had pilfered land.

The uneven match of reality and good intentions has put Central Kalimantan's government in a bind. "The carbon here is huge. It should be safeguarded like Fort Knox," said Humda Pontas, the Maine-educated head of the economics department at the regional planning board. But palm plantations, though a serious threat to carbon-rich peatland, "are the only real investment opportunity. They employ people" and pay taxes. The rest, he said, "is just theory."

'Mega rice' disaster

The deforestation of Kalimantan began with loggers. Then, in 1995, Indonesia's authoritarian ruler, Suharto, launched a plan to turn nearly 2.5 million acres of peatland -- about twice the size of Delaware -- into a rice farm. Thousands of workers were shipped in to dig canals and drain swamps.

Suwido Limin, a local scientist, protested that the plan would never work. The government dismissed him as a communist.

Suharto's "mega rice" project turned out to be a disastrous flop. "It was supposed to produce rice. It just produced haze," said Limin, who runs a peat research center and has joined with American bank J.P. Morgan to develop a project to fight peatland fires -- and earn money from carbon credits.

A year after Suharto fell from power in 1998, Jakarta pulled the plug on his rice folly. Since then, Indonesian and foreign experts have struggled to figure out how to repair the damage. An Indonesian-Dutch plan to rehabilitate the area put the price tag at about $700 million.

The hope is that a big chunk of this might come from carbon trading if delegates at next month's Copenhagen conference agree to expand the system of conservation incentives to cover peatlands. The Indonesian-Dutch plan calculates that emissions reductions in the former mega-rice zone could fetch $50 million to $100 million a year on the global carbon market.

Agustin Teras Narang, governor of Central Kalimantan, likes the idea of earning big money from his region's vast peatland vault of carbon dioxide. But, with no sign of peat turning into a profit center anytime soon, the governor's big concern is getting Jakarta to let him turn more of Central Kalimantan's forests over to production -- primarily rubber and oil palm plantations.

When fires raced across his territory in September, Narang had seven firetrucks to cover an area bigger than Virginia and Maryland combined.

Schools shut down, the airport closed, and hospitals struggled to cope with thousands of patients suffering from respiratory problems.

Research camp razed

The fires also delivered a devastating blow to Limin, the peat researcher. Flames reduced his research camp to charcoal. Charred sardine cans, an incinerated bicycle and shattered glass now litter an apocalyptic landscape of smoldering peat and uprooted trees.

Before the fires started, Limin was working on a big experimental project to reduce fire risk and thus carbon emissions. Financing was to come largely from J.P. Morgan's ClimateCare unit, headed by British engineer Mike Mason, a prominent Oxford-based climate entrepreneur. Mason took the firefighting project to a U.N. climate committee in Germany that reviews emission-reductions ventures and decides whether they might qualify to earn carbon credits.

In June, the committee rejected the proposal, arguing that peat fires are a natural phenomenon and, therefore, are not eligible. (Most experts disagree and say the fires are not natural.) Limin put his ambitious firefighting plans on hold. When flames advanced on his forest encampment in September, he had just a couple of dozen men to battle them. After days of struggle, they retreated.

Shortly after his camp was gobbled up, Limin stood near a table on which a police-band radio crackled with reports from the forest of yet more flames. He groaned. Saving peat and the planet, Limin said, requires that people get paid: "Who will work without pay? Nobody."

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Amazon Forest Schemes Await Strong Climate Pact

Stuart Grudgings, PlanetArk 25 Nov 09;

BOA FRENTE - The boat plows on through the brackish green river, taking Jose de Oliveira Quadro on a journey that may have been futile a few years ago.

Strangers have been fishing in his village's lake and Quadro is on a two-hour ride to recruit help from the nearest police post in Brazil's vast Amazon forest. He admits he probably wouldn't have bothered before his river-side community was made part of a pioneering scheme that pays each family about $30 a month to act as forest guardians.

"I can't let them take the food off our plates," said the nearly toothless 35-year-old.

"Thank God we have more help these days."

Quadro's journey is part of a new chapter in the long struggle to save the world's greatest forest that will be central to efforts in Copenhagen next month to frame a new global effort to curb the planet's warming.

His tiny settlement is one of 36 communities and 320 families receiving the payment in the Juma reserve, an area the size of U.S. state Delaware in Brazil's Amazonas state that is the first official emissions-reducing project in the Amazon.

Working schemes for REDD, which stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation and allows the sale of credits to offset carbon pollution elsewhere, are few and far between now. But a climate deal including REDD could be a potent tool to cut deforestation, which globally accounts for up to 20 percent of carbon emissions -- more than all the world's cars, ships and planes combined.

"What the world needs to understand is that we have done our housecleaning, valued the forest as much as we can, tested good practice and now we need a response or the people will end up pressuring the forest for survival," Amazonas state Governor Eduardo Braga told Reuters.

Versed in the minutiae of global climate talks, Braga is the modern face of a state nearly the size of Alaska whose previous government handed out free chainsaws to loggers.

The fresh-faced 48-year-old set up the "Bolsa Floresta" program that hands out the monthly stipend to about 7,000 forest families, including in Juma. He said a strong accord on REDD could boost the program to 60,000 families by 2014 or about half the population living in the state's vast forest.

CONCERNS

Accounting for more than half of the world's standing forest and 55 percent of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions through its destruction, the Amazon is both a villain and a victim of climate change.

REDD offers a possible way both to cut the destruction that has razed nearly a fifth of the forest and combat poverty that remains at African levels despite Brazil's economic rise.

Yet hope is mixed with concern over the role of the private sector and whether forest dwellers have enough say in decisions about them sometimes being made thousands of miles away.

Banks, carbon-trading firms, and companies seeking to boost their green credentials are ramping up their interest ahead of Copenhagen, with estimates that REDD could bring in $16 billion a year for Brazil alone. Coca Cola Co, Brazilian bank Bradesco, and the Marriott Hotels chain are helping to fund the Bolsa Floresta project.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace worry that too much reliance on carbon markets for funds could result in speculation or a flood of cheap credits, allowing rich countries to continue polluting at little cost.

Brazilian critics of REDD say it risks making high levels of Amazon deforestation acceptable. Brazil's government this month trumpeted the lowest deforestation rate in two decades, but the 2,700 square miles (7,000 square km) cleared in the year to August was still equivalent to nine New York cities.

Brazil's government, after an initially luke-warm response to REDD, is expected to back it in Copenhagen.

In Amazonas, however, not everyone sees Juma and the private Sustainable Amazon Foundation that manages it in partnership with the state government as a desirable model.

"If this is REDD, we need to fight it," said Rubens Gomes, coordinator of the Amazon Working Group, an umbrella group for Amazon social and environmental organizations.

Some 49 social groups published an open letter in October rejecting market-based REDD schemes.

Gomes complains civil society groups such as his were excluded from the creation of the foundation, which is headed by Braga's former environment secretary Virgilio Viana. He worries social handouts will create a culture of dependency.

"Without another source of income, we won't create opportunities and they will continue to exchange trees for food and for clothes," Gomes said.

The foundation head Viana told Reuters that many critics of the project were simply ideologically opposed to markets.

SUSTAINABILITY

The $30 monthly stipend is a useful rather than a transformational boost to family incomes in Juma, which can be between $2,000 and $5,000 a year.

But for Quadro and the other inhabitants of Juma, which lies in an area threatened by intrusions from a major highway, the payment funded by contributions by guests of the Marriott appears to be changing the way they see the forest.

"If we take trees from the river banks, the river will dry up and it will hurt our fish," he said, standing in front of trees that resounded to the squawks of parrots.

"If we take the trees from the land, it will hurt our hunting and we'll be without food for our children."

Families that receive the Bolsa Floresta pledge to stop destructive practices and act as the eyes and ears of the forest by reporting illegal deforestation -- a role that is often beyond Brazil's thinly-resourced environmental agency.

The idea is for carbon emissions saved in the reserve compared to a "business as usual" scenario to be sold as credits, with the funds used to improve education and stimulate sustainable industries such as nut gathering.

Given a forecast that Juma will generate 3.6 million tonnes of credit in its first 10 years, it could expect a windfall of more than $7 million a year at current carbon prices.

A study by McKinsey & Company found that Brazil could cut its emissions by about 40 percent compared to "business as usual" by 2030 with annual investments of 5.7 billion euros ($8.4 billion) in forest preservation and social programs, half the average global cost of emissions reduction.

In Juma, though, the community's own deforestation -- slash-and-burn clearing to grow traditional crops -- continues. The nutrient-thin Amazon soil is a farmer's nightmare, forcing communities to cut down trees for fresh land.

Environmentalists say that for projects like Juma to be sustainable over the long term and avoid dependency, they need to shift to permaculture farming that can co-exist with the forest and to strengthen the weak market for forest products.

FINDING MARKETS

REDD projects will one day end, leaving Amazon forest communities to stand on their own feet again.

"I think that's the big challenge of REDD -- to use this income ... in a way that's going to generate sustainable long-term income," said Monique Vanni, a London-based environment consultant who visited Juma this month.

"That's all about finding new markets and getting them to organize production."

Sustainable practices such as rubber, managed logging, and nuts are potentially many more times lucrative than destructive industries. A chronic lack of education and market access in the Amazon has long hampered their growth.

In the main Juma community of Boa Frente, such efforts are in their infancy. Only nut collection provides a significant alternative income, although there are plans to sell seeds from trees to replant degraded forest in other parts of Brazil and to begin a managed logging program.

While debate goes on over the best way to save it, time continues to tick away for the Amazon. Extremes such as a severe drought in 2005 and heavy floods this year underline concerns about the effect of climate change on the forest.

About 100,000 families are now on the move in Amazonas state, searching for new land after their crops were wiped out by this year's floods, Braga said. REDD may not a panacea, he said, but done with professional monitoring and safeguards against corruption, it is a vital part of the solution.

"The pressure on the forests is the most worrying in four years," he said. "Because of this, the world can't wait any more.

(Editing by Claudia Parsons)

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Indonesian fishermen to sue over Timor oil spill

Stephanie March for The World Today
ABC News 24 Nov 09;

Hundreds of fishermen and seaweed farmers are seeking compensation from the Federal Government and a Thai operator after the Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea.

At least 500 million litres of oil from the Montara oil field spilled into the Timor Sea over 10 weeks from August this year, and more reports have emerged of decimated fish stocks.

Fishermen and seaweed farmers say the spill has cost them their only source of income and they are preparing a compensation claim against both the Government and the Thai operators of the rig.

While the Government maintains there is no evidence of damage to Indonesia's marine areas, the Indonesian Government has set up a team to calculate the losses incurred from the oil spill.

Reports of dead fish floating in waters off Kupang in Indonesia's east started to emerge in September, and environmental researcher David Jones spent the past six weeks taking water samples and speaking to fishermen in the area.

"They found dead fish in the area and as they started fishing they discovered their fish catch was off by 70 per cent or more," he said.

"So every time they went fishing, they were unable to produce any economic benefit and, in fact, they lost money every trip and so they eventually had to stop fishing."

Bob La Macchia manages one of the largest trawling operations in the area and is seeking compensation for lost income caused by the spill.

He says the claim from his company alone reaches into the millions.

"More than a million. I'm looking at 2-3 million," he said.

"It's got to be at least seven years, at least seven before we start seeing any product off these grounds."

Daily assessments

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority says it has been conducting daily fly-over assessments of the area since the leak started in August.

It maintains the type and amount of oil observed in Indonesian waters poses no significant threat to the marine environment.

But Mr Jones says the dispersant used by Australian authorities pushed the oil from the surface down onto the reef.

"Some of these guys, they fish and sometimes they dive down at night and they use a small spear gun and they shoot a few fish," he said.

"So ... it's only 15 metres deep, so they could see it on the reef even if it wasn't on the surface."

Moral obligation

Chairman of the West Timor Care Foundation, Ferdi Tanoni, is coordinating the compensation claim on behalf of the Kupang fishermen, and says the Australian Government has a moral obligation to help the fishermen.

"I can recall back in the Second World War, thousands and thousands of West Timorese and East Timorese got killed just to help with the Australian Army," he said.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement it would act consistently with international law, but that it was not aware of any basis for a compensation claim.

A Federal Government inquiry into the disaster will hand down its findings in April.

But Mr Jones says that may be too late for the Indonesian fishermen.

"They fish until Christmas time and the first part of January, and then they have to make enough money to survive through the wet season," he said.

"And this year they are not going to have any way to survive because their boats are only designed for fishing in that area."

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Dead Sea needs world help to stay alive

Ahmad Khatib Yahoo News 24 Nov 09;

GHOR HADITHA, Jordan (AFP) – The Dead Sea may soon shrink to a lifeless pond as Middle East political strife blocks vital measures needed to halt the decay of the world's lowest and saltiest body of water, experts say.

The surface level is plunging by a metre (three feet) a year and nothing has yet been done to reverse the decline because of a lack of political cooperation as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The shoreline has receded by more than a kilometre (around a mile) in some places and the world-famous lake, a key tourism destination renowned for the beneficial effect of its minerals, could dry out by 2050, according to some calculations.

"It might be confined into a small pond. It is likely to happen and this is extremely serious. Nobody is doing anything now to save it," said water expert Dureid Mahasneh, a former Jordan Valley Authority chief.

"Saving the Dead Sea is a regional issue, and if you take the heritage, environmental and historical importance, or even the geographical importance, it is an international issue."

Landlocked between Jordan, Israel and the West Bank, the Dead Sea is rapidly vanishing because water which previously flowed into the lake is being diverted and also extracted to service industry and agriculture.

Jordan decided in September to go it alone and build a two-billion-dollar pipeline from the Red Sea to start refilling the Dead Sea without help from proposed partners Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

However, that project is controversial and Mahasneh stressed that Jordan alone is not capable of solving the Dead Sea's problems.

The degradation began in the 1960s when Israel, Jordan and Syria began to divert water from the Jordan River, the Dead Sea's main supplier.

For decades, the three neighbouring countries have taken around 95 percent of the river's flow for agricultural and industrial use. Israel alone diverts more than 60 percent of the river.

The impact on the Dead Sea has been compounded by a drop in groundwater levels as rain water from surrounding mountains dissolved salt deposits that had previously plugged access to underground caverns.

Industrial operations around the shores of the lake also contribute to its problems.

Both Israel and Jordan have set up massive evaporation pools to vaporise Dead Sea water for the production of phosphate, while five-star hotels have sprung up along its shores, where tourists flock for the curative powers of the sea mud and minerals.

The salty lake is currently 67 kilometres (42 miles) long and 18 kilometres (11 miles) wide.

The top of the water was already 395 metres (1,303 feet) under global sea level in the 1960s but the drying out has lowered the surface further to minus 422 metres (1,392 feet), according to Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).

Mahasneh says climate change is aggravating the crisis. "Climate change affected everything," he said. "It's an umbrella for many problems, including short rainfall.

"Nothing is being seriously done to tackle climate change. Sustainable and integrated solutions are needed."

The World Bank has funded a two-year study of the plan for a pipeline from the Red Sea to replenish the Dead Sea.

The project, agreed in outline by Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan in 2005, aims to channel two billion cubic metres (70 billion cubic feet) of water a year via a 200-kilometre (120-mile) canal to produce fresh water and generate electricity as well as raise the Dead Sea.

But some environmentalists say the scheme could harm the Dead Sea further by changing its unique chemistry by introducing Red Sea water.

"We are dealing with at least two sensitive and different ecosystems: the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. We also need to keep an open mind about other possible alternatives," said Munqeth Mehyar, FoEME chair.

Mahasneh supports the plan, saying: "The Dead-Red project is like a salvage plan -- there is no other option. But it won't be an easy task for political and economic reasons."

Jordan's Environment Minister Khaled Irani said: "Let's wait and see the results of the study of the environmental impact."

"We might not go ahead with the project if it is going to create a major mess with the ecosystem, but if we can bring water to the Dead Sea and maintain the same ecological quality of the Dead Sea, why not?"

Friends of the Earth's Mehyar believes saving the Jordan River is key to the Dead Sea.

The waterway is under severe ecological strain because large amounts of raw sewage gush untreated at various locations into the relative trickle left after the diversion of most of the Jordan River.

During the past 50 years, the river's annual flow has dropped from more than 1.3 billion cubic metres (46 billion cubic feet) to around 70 million cubic metres (around 2.5 billion cubic feet), according to FoEME.

"We are working hard to push for rehabilitating the Jordan River by increasing and maintaining its flow in order to save it and save the Dead Sea," Mehyar said.

"The Dead Sea is in danger and that's for sure. I can't claim that we can prevent the level of the Dead Sea from dropping more, but I think we can control the problem and cooperation from all sides is a must."

Most of the springs in the Jordan Valley which flow directly into the Dead Sea are currently dammed, according to water experts.

Jordan, where the population of around six million is expanding by 3.5 percent a year, is a largely desert country that depends greatly on rainfall. It needs every drop of water to meet domestic, agricultural and industrial requirements.

The tiny kingdom, which forecasts it will need 1.6 billion cubic metres (56 billion cubic metres) of water a year by 2015, is one of the 10 driest countries in the world, with desert covering 92 percent of its territory.

"We need to make sure that there is always running water flowing into the Dead Sea," Irani said.

"The Dead Sea is unique in many aspects, not only for Jordan, but also for the Israelis and Palestinians."

One side effect of the lake's falling water volumes is the appearance of large sinkholes along its shores, creating serious problems for farmers and businesses.

"A sinkhole destroyed my farm 10 years ago and forced me to move and work for other farmers," said Izzat Khanazreh, 42, as he puffed on a cigarette, his face tanned by working long hours under a hot sun.

He used to grow vegetables in his farm in Ghor Haditha in the southern Jordan Valley, a bare and sun-baked area around the Dead Sea.

"Nobody compensated me for my loss. My land was full of cracks and it was impossible to do anything about it," said Khanazreh, standing beside a sinkhole about 20 metres (65 feet) wide and 40 metres (130 feet) deep.

There are an estimated 100 sinkholes in Ghor Haditha alone. They can open up at any time and swallow up everything above ground like a devastating earthquake.

"These sinkholes are time bombs. They can appear any time and eat everything up," said Fathi Huweimer, a field researcher with FoEME.

"Farmers do not feel secure and are anticipating more trouble. This problem is because of the degradation of the Dead Sea."

A factory for Dead Sea products in the area has had to relocate after a large sinkhole appeared beneath it, threatening the lives of more than 60 workers, Huweimer said.

Irani said Jordan will highlight the Dead Sea's problems at the Copenhagen summit on climate change next month.

"We will raise those issues in Copenhagen and say that Jordan is heavily affected and urge developed countries to allocate more resources to contribute to saving the Dead Sea," he said.

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Warming Means Rain But No Crop Boost For NE China

Emma Graham-Harrison, PlanetArk 25 Nov 09;

BEIJING - Climate change is likely to bring more rain to China's northeastern bread basket, but too late in the year to benefit crops, seriously threatening a major region for wheat, corn and rice, a report said on Tuesday.

Climate change-driven water scarcity in the country's northeast could lop up to 12 percent off forecast average crop yields. Droughts are exacerbated by limited irrigation in an area that has historically had fairly reliable water supplies but is already losing millions of tonnes of potential grain production a year from shortages.

The report, "From bread basket to dust bowl" highlights how complicated the impact of climate change may be in many areas, and also the threats it poses to China's food supplies.

Many models of warming driven by greenhouse gases suggest northeast China may get more rain and a longer growing season.

But this report, prepared with leading Chinese experts on climate change and farming, suggests such changes may not bring bigger yields -- at least, not without major spending to counter shifting and increasingly erratic rain patterns.

"In Northeast China, where the climate can only support one harvest per year, crops are sown in spring, thus spring-time precipitation is critical," the report, drawn up by consultants McKinsey Climate Change using government data, said.

"The suggestion that climate change could increase average annual precipitation in Northeast China ought not to be mistaken for climate change relieving drought...Climate change will still lead to increased drought because it decreases the critical springtime precipitation," it added.

Heavier rains that fall in summer will do little for crops. Neighboring north China will fare better, with a slight increase in useable downpours because that area supports two plantings a year.

But global warming is also likely to bring an increase in "extreme events" -- in the northeast, droughts -- that will also cut into farmers' average yields over several years.

The potential slide in harvests is worrisome for a country that prides itself on food self-sufficiency, and is already losing crop productivity to drought. By 2030 the North and the Northeast together are expected to provide over a quarter of China's grain, more than Brazil's entire output, it added.

SPEND TO SAVE

Investment in areas such as high-tech irrigation, soil management and seed technology could cut the losses by half. McKinsey estimates the price tag for the two northern bread basket areas at 5 billion yuan ($732.3 million) a year over two decades, but says much of this could come from businesses.

The report also suggested agricultural insurance to protect farmers in years when drought was too fierce to salvage crops.

"Two-thirds of these possible solutions have attractive returns, and one would hope that the private sector could be leveraged," said report author Martin Joerss, who used data from China's Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Urbanization will cut the number of affected farmers, and expected legislation to allow land transfers should also allow the creation of larger farms which have capital to spend on more expensive equipment.

However the report also warns some adaptation could potentially be undermined by longer-term events beyond the scope of their report -- particularly the forecast shrinkage of China's rivers if glaciers retreat.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)

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Climate change quickens, seas feared up two meters

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 25 Nov 09;

OSLO - Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst could raise sea levels by up to 2 meters (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a group of scientists said on Tuesday in a warning to next month's U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.

In what they called a "Copenhagen Diagnosis," updating findings in a broader 2007 U.N. climate report, 26 experts urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

"Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations," a joint statement said, pointing to factors including a retreat of Arctic sea ice in summer and melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica.

"Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 meter by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 meters considered an upper limit," it said. Ocean levels would keep on rising after 2100 and "several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries."

Many of the authors were on the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cms (7-24 inches) by 2100 but did not take account of a possible accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica.

Coastal cities from Buenos Aires to New York, island states such as Tuvalu in the Pacific or coasts of Bangladesh or China would be highly vulnerable to rising seas.

"This is a final scientific call for the climate negotiators from 192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in Copenhagen," Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said in a statement.

AMAZON, MONSOON

Copenhagen will host a December 7-18 meeting meant to come up with a new U.N. plan to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. But a full legal treaty seems out of reach and talks are likely to be extended into 2010.

"Delay in action risks irreversible damage," the researchers wrote in the 64-page report, pointing to a feared runaway thaw of ice sheets or possible abrupt disruptions to the Amazon rainforest or the West African Monsoon.

The researchers said global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were almost 40 percent higher in 2008 than in 1990.

"Carbon dioxide emissions cannot be allowed to continue to rise if humanity intends to limit the risk of unacceptable climate change," said Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California.

In a respite, the International Energy Agency has said emissions will fall by up to 3 percent in 2009 due to recession.

The report said world temperatures had been rising by an average of 0.19 Celsius a decade over the past 25 years and that the warming trend was intact, even though the hottest year since records began in the mid-19th century was 1998.

"There have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend," it said. A strong, natural El Nino weather event in the Pacific pushed up temperatures in 1998.

Climate science update: from bad to worse
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 24 Nov 09;

PARIS (AFP) – The planet could warm by seven degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and sea levels could rise by more than a metre (3.25 feet) by 2100, scenarios that just two years ago were viewed as improbable, scientists said on Tuesday.

In the widest overview on global warming since a landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2007, the authors said manoeuvering room for tackling the carbon crisis was now almost exhausted.

The 64-page "Copenhagen Diagnosis" aims at the December 7-18 UN conference in Denmark, tasked with forging a planet-wide deal on greenhouse-gas emissions.

"This is a final scientific call for climate negotiators from 192 countries who must embark on the climate protection train in Copenhagen," said Hans Schellnhuber, director of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), which oversaw the paper.

"They need to know the stark truth about global warming and the unprecedented risks involved," he said.

The scientists billed the summary as "an interim scientific evaluation" between the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, known as AR4, and its next big handbook, due in 2013. Several authors were part of that Nobel-winning group.

New evidence published in peer-reviewed scientific literature suggests many of the estimates published in 2007 are too low, the "Copenhagen Diagnosis" suggested.

Among the findings:

-- Emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from fossil fuels "are tracking near the highest scenarios considered so far" by the IPCC.

They were nearly 40 percent higher in 2008 than in 1990, the benchmark year for the Kyoto Protocol, whose pledges expire in 2012.

Over the past 25 years temperatures have rise by 0.19 C (0.34 F) per decade, and current emissions place Earth on track for global mean warming as high as 7.0 C (10.8 F).

In 2007, the IPCC predicted warming of between 1.1 C (1.98 F) and 6.4 C (11.52 F) compared to 1980-99 levels, with the likeliest rise being 1.8-4.0 C (3.24-7.2 F). Added to this is warming of around 0.74 (1.33 F) during the 20th century.

-- To limit global warming to 2.0 C (3.6 F) compared to pre-industrial times, emissions must peak before 2020 and reach a "zero"-level "well within this century," the researchers conclude.

"Our available emissions to ensure a reasonably secure climate future are just about used up," said Matthew England, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre of the University of New South Wales in Australia.

In July, leaders from the world's major developed and developing economies agreed on the need to prevent average global temperatures from climbing more than 2.0 C (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.

-- Summer-time melting of Arctic sea ice has outstripped IPCC climate models by about 40 percent for the period 2007 to 2009.

A wide array of satellite and ice measurements leave no doubt that both Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets -- with enough frozen water between them to raise sea levels by 12 metres (40 feet) -- are losing mass at an increasing rate.

The IPCC estimated sea levels would rise 18-59 centimetres (7.2-23.2 inches) by 2100, but this was from thermal expansion (water expands when it warms) and did not factor in runoff from melting land ice.

"By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected (in) AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed one metre (3.25 feet)," said the new report.

-- Major ecosystems are nearing individual "tipping points," the threshold beyond which they may spiral into irretrievable decline and will no longer mitigate global warming but, instead, amplify it.

Some of these ecosystems -- the Amazon forest, the West African monsoon, coral reefs -- directly support populations in the hundreds of millions, and could create huge numbers of migrants were they to collapse.

Meanwhile, a study published by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the German insurer Allianz calculated the risk to port cities from a global sea level rise of 50 cms (20 inches) by 2050.

Worldwide, property worth up to 28.21 trillion dollars in 136 coastal megacities would be exposed.

On the US Eastern Seaboard alone, a 50cm (20-inch) rise, when coupled with a local storm surge of 15 cms (six inches), would imperil assets potentially worth 7.4 trillion dollars.

CO2 curve ticks upward as key climate talks loom
John Heilprin, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Nov 09;

MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY, Hawaii – The readings at this 2-mile-high station show a troubling upward curve as the world counts down to crucial climate talks: Global warming gases are building in the atmosphere at record levels from emissions that match scientists' worst-case scenarios.

Carbon dioxide concentrations this fall are hovering at around 385 parts per million, on their way to a near-certain record high above 390 in the first half of next year, at the annual peak.

"For the past million years we've never seen 390. You have to wonder what that's going to do," said physicist John Barnes, the observatory director.

One leading atmospheric scientist, Stephen Schneider, sees "coin-flip odds for serious outcomes for our planet."

Far from this mid-Pacific government observatory, negotiators from 192 nations gather in wintry Copenhagen, Denmark, next month to try to agree on steps to head off the worst of the climate disruptions researchers say will result if concentrations hit around 450 parts per million — in 30 years at the current rate. Some say the world has already passed a danger point, at 350 ppm, and must roll back.

Today's emissions curve is tracking the worst case among seven emissions scenarios set out in 2001 by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), British climatologists reported in September.

The U.N. expert group projects that such a path would raise global temperatures between 2.4 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 and 11.5 degrees F) by century's end. That would come on top of a global temperature increase of about 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) in the past century, a warming trend the authoritative IPCC says is mainly due to the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Such warming will shift climate patterns, cause more extreme weather events, spread drought and floods to new areas, kill off plant and animal species, and cause seas to rise from heat expansion and the melting of land ice, the IPCC says.

"Changing several degrees may not seem like much, but we're just changing things too fast," Barnes said. "So the consequences could well be drastic."

The IPCC has urged industrialized countries to reduce global emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. As of 2007, they stood only 4 percent below 1990 levels, and the rest of the world continued pouring out more and more heat-trapping gases, chiefly from the burning of coal, gasoline and other fossil fuels.

Through this decade global emissions have grown by 23 percent. In 2008, almost three-quarters of the increase came from China, researchers reported last week. Other big contributors among developing countries were India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia, Iran and Mexico.

Experts see no sign of a slowdown.

It would "probably be at 390 (ppm) next year at Mauna Loa," said Fred T. Mackenzie, a professor emeritus of oceanography at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. That would represent almost a 40-percent increase in carbon-dioxide density in the atmosphere since before the industrial age and extensive use of fossil fuels.

Schneider, a Stanford University climatologist, said the world faces a huge risk.

"I think meters of sea-level rise are virtually inevitable, unless we can stop this. But I'm not such an optimist," he told journalists on a fellowship program with the Honolulu-based East-West Center. "The main message is we're in risk management. We do not know the science well enough to know exactly what the temperature is at when a tipping point will occur."

This U.S. government observatory, 11,141 feet up Mauna Loa's northern flank, also measures methane and other significant greenhouse gases. It was here on Hawaii's Big Island that climatologist Charles David Keeling pioneered the measurement of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, installing his experimental manometer on the gently sloping volcano in 1958.

He chose the site, already a U.S. Weather Service station, because the trade winds blowing over it had some of the cleanest air on the planet. Barnes said the CO2 measurements here, thousands of miles from major industry, were the first to show that manmade carbon dioxide emissions were accumulating throughout the global atmosphere.

The upward trend, averaging 1.9 parts per million per year in the past decade, undergoes seasonal fluctuations. In summer, during the growing season, plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But in winter, the concentration of C02 rises as vegetation and other biomass decompose.

The observatory is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's worldwide network for measuring greenhouse gases. It coordinates measurements with other U.S.-run research stations in Alaska, California, American Samoa and the South Pole. Japan and Australia also run such networks.

The Mauna Loa researchers extend their measurements through their "flask network" — containers sent to dozens of places around the world each week or carried on commercial ships so people can fill them with air and send them back to be measured for C02 and other gases.

Barnes, watching the carbon dioxide "ppm" curve track ever upward on Mauna Loa, while some other greenhouse gases decline, noted that long-lived CO2 is "more and more the bigger player."

"It is going into the ocean, and there's some plant uptake, but a whole lot of it just goes into the air and it's going to stay there for thousands of years," he said.

___

On the Net:

NOAA Mauna Loa Observatory: http://www.mlo.noaa.gov/

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This year 'in top five warmest': UK Met Office

Roger Harrabin, BBC News 24 Nov 09;

This year will be one of the top five warmest years globally since records began 150 years ago, according to figures compiled by the Met Office.

The UK's weather service projects that, unless there is an exceptionally cold spell before the end of the year, temperatures will be up on last year.

Climate sceptics had pointed out that the temperature rise appeared to have stalled in the last decade or so.

That was caused in part by the Pacific La Nina current, which cools the Earth.

But the influence of La Nina declined in the spring and the Met Office project that, barring a very cold December, this year will be the fifth warmest on record.

Other sources say it could even be the third warmest.

The last ten years have been in the top 15 warmest on record. And this summer the UK enjoyed temperatures higher than the long-term average.

Although the Met Office was pilloried after forecasting a "barbecue summer", it was their rainfall forecast, not the projected temperatures, that was wrong.

Next year we will see the influence of the warming El Nino current, and the Met Office says there is a 50% chance that global temperatures will hit an all-time high.

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Minister Warns Of New UK Flood Threat

Peter Griffiths, PlanetArk 25 Nov 09;

LONDON - Heavy rain could bring more flooding to parts of northern England still struggling to cope with the damage caused by last week's unprecedented storms, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said on Monday.

In an emergency statement to parliament, Benn said people in Cumbria, which was lashed by the heaviest downpours on record, should be prepared for more flooding.

"Further heavy rain is forecast overnight and there may be some further flooding," he said.

Three people have been killed and a fourth is missing after the unprecedented downpours, he added.

Policeman Bill Barker died when a bridge collapsed in the market town of Workington and Environment Agency contractor Michael Streeter was killed in an accident while working on flood defenses at Selsey Bill on the south coast.

Canoeist Chris Wheeler died after becoming trapped on the swollen River Dart in Devon, while a woman is missing feared dead after falling into the River Usk in Brecon, mid-Wales.

"Our thoughts are with all their families and colleagues," Benn added. "It is utterly devastating and the House will wish to express its sympathy to all those affected."

About 1,300 properties were flooded in Cumbria, more than 1,000 lost electricity and 12,000 lost their phone lines, he added. Six bridges have collapsed due to the force of the water.

MORE RAIN COMING

The Met Office said parts of Cumbria and the Scottish borders could see 50 mm to 74 mm of rain by Wednesday morning, with wind gusting at up to 65 mph. Up to 100 cm of rain could fall on the Cumbrian fells.

"There will be persistent heavy rainfall in Cumbria on Tuesday," said Paul Davies, chief hydrometeorologist for the Met Office and the Environment Agency. "We are not expecting the same volumes of rainfall as last week and do not expect there to be the same widespread property flooding.

"We are concerned about the ongoing risk to infrastructure, particularly bridges, and the possible risk to life in the area as the river flows increase."

Hundreds of people were allowed back to their shops and businesses for the first time earlier on Monday to count the cost of the damage caused by flooding in Cockermouth, one of the worst-affected Cumbrian towns.

After waiting for three days, the owners of 900 properties crossed a police cordon to see the devastation.

Shop windows were smashed, stock lay ruined on muddy floors and water marks on the walls showed how flood water from the River Cocker had reached shoulder-height.

Some shop-owners complained that it took too long for the authorities to allow them back to check the damage after the damage from Thursday night's flooding.

While the Christmas tree in the main street was still standing, some businesses said they did not expect to reopen in time for the festive season.

(Editing by Steve Addison)

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Sabah’s electricity shortage critical after power trips

Muguntan Vanar, The Star 24 Nov 09;

KOTA KINABALU: More lights winked out in Sabah after the state’s electricity shortage became even more critical when power tripped unexpectedly at several stations.

This has triggered another round of load shedding, drastically affecting homes and businesses already living with regular brownouts.

Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd said the tripping from independent power plants and its own power stations has forced power generation to drop by about 79MW and was expected to be rectified only by Thursday.

SESB corporate communication manager Chendramata Sinteh said that load shedding had to be implemented as they could not meet the peak demand of 730MW following the drop in the their generation capacity of 756MW.

“With the reduction 79MW, we cannot meet peak demands, she said Tuesday.

She said load shedding would be implemented in Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Tawau, Lahad Datu, Keningau, Kunak, Kinabatangan and Penampang.

She said the tripped power stations were being repaired and power would return in stages by Thursday provided no other damages were detected at other power stations.

Sabah’s power shortage remains critical with SESB explaining over the last few years that it was in dire need of a 300MW coal power plant in the east coast of Sabah to replace old diesel generators.

However, the proposal for the coal fired power plant has met with strong resistance from environmental groups and others as they feel that the power utility company should consider other environmentally friendly power generation sources.

The government has agreed to set up the proposed coal fired power plant in Tungku near Lahad Datu in the east coast.

A group “Green Surf” is offering to work with the government to seek other alternative power sources as they say that the proposed site in Dent peninsular was part of the Coral Triangle that is described as one of the world’s important refuges for marine life.

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Coal-burning China invests in methane capture

Yahoo News 23 Nov 09;

BEIJING (AFP) – China, a massive consumer of fossil fuels and coal in particular, is trying to modernise its mines by containing emissions of methane and turning the toxic gas into a source of much-needed energy.

Authorities in Beijing have made methane capture a government priority both in the name of safety, as the gas is responsible for many of the deadly blasts in China's dangerous mines, and environmental protection.

China is the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases and the extraction of coal, the source of more than 70 percent of the Asian giant's energy, accounts for a significant proportion of those emissions.

Beijing -- which has come under mounting pressure to commit to deeper emissions cuts, especially in the run-up to climate change talks in Copenhagen next month -- is now pouring millions of dollars into clean coal technology.

"The government grants about 300 million dollars a year in subsidies to mines that set up methane capture units," says Huang Shengchu, director of the Chinese Coal Information Institute in Beijing, a government-linked body.

Mines with such units are cleared of dangerous gas before coal is extracted; the siphoned-off methane is transported through pipelines to power stations where, unlike carbon dioxide, it can be recycled to produce electricity.

Despite the clear benefits of such technology, not all involved in the industry have been converted to the idea of going green.

"Small private structures are reluctant to implement Beijing's policies," Huang noted.

But companies that specialise in clean coal technology say they are optimistic that mining firms will get on board.

"This industry is undergoing a huge modernisation," said Dave McKinnon, project manager for Australian firm Valley Longwall International.

His company has been selling its computer-assisted drilling guidance system for three years in northern Shanxi province, the centre of China's coal-producing heartlands.

The cutting-edge equipment detects methane emissions and, according to the firm, allows for near-total capture.

"Most of my customers buy our technology because the safety standards are more and more strict," McKinnon said.

For years, authorities have been trying to improve safety in the country's coal mines, which are among the most dangerous in the world, with standards often ignored in the quest for profits and the drive to meet surging demand.

Official figures show that more than 3,200 workers died in collieries last year, but independent labour groups say the actual figure could be much higher, as many accidents are covered up in order to avoid costly mine shutdowns.

At least 104 miners were killed in a huge blast at a mine in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang last Saturday, China's worst mining disaster in two years.

Traditionally, methane has been extracted from mines through ventilation systems to prevent high concentrations of the gas in the shafts, which could poison workers and eventually lead to explosions.

But that method allowed the gas to escape into the atmosphere, rather than be put to positive use.

"Methane represents only one or two percent of the consumption of primary energy in China, but it could become quite important in some areas," said Pamela Franklin, of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

In Shanxi, the city of Jincheng stands as a shining example of the benefits of methane capture: since last year, a major power station has been operating there, fed by methane from a nearby mine.

Huang says the 45-million-dollar plant -- capable of continuously producing 120 megawatts of power -- is one of the most significant of its kind in the world. Taxis and buses in the city also run on methane.

Last year, 4.3 billion cubic metres of methane were captured in China, an increase of 26 percent from 2007, according to Ming Yang, an official at the International Energy Agency who co-authored a report on the potential for methane use here.

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Tiny "carbon neutral" club struggles with costs

Alister Doyle, Reuters 24 Nov 09;

* Cash, technology hurdles on path to zero net emissions
* Norway's greenhouse gas emissions far over Kyoto target
* Costa Rica's emissions rising; transport a problem
* Maldives needs $1.1 bln clean energy investment

OSLO, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Norway, Costa Rica and the Maldives are struggling with high costs and technological hurdles to stay in the world's most exclusive club for fighting climate change -- seeking to cut net greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

The United Nations is praising their "carbon neutrality" targets before a U.N. summit on Dec. 7-18 in Copenhagen meant to agree a new pact to combat global warming. But the model is hard to imitate with its demand for a drastic shift to clean energy.

"What they're trying to do is fundamentally change the direction of their economic growth," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. "It's a way of getting ahead of the game."

Yet all three of the small nations face big problems.

Greenhouse gas emissions in Norway are 7 percent above its 2012 target under the Kyoto Protocol, while emissions are rising in Costa Rica, especially in the transport sector.

And the Maldives' plan to be a tropical showcase for solar and wind power in the Indian Ocean, shifting from dependence on costly diesel, will need an estimated $1.1 billion in investments over a decade for its 310,000 people.

The Maldives is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2020, Costa Rica by 2021 and Norway by 2030.

But New Zealand and Iceland have dropped past aims of carbon neutrality because of high costs amid recession. And the Maldives failed at a meeting this month to win new recruits to the club among poor nations such as Bangladesh and Barbados.

Carbon neutrality means a nation can use fossil fuels -- in power plants, factories or cars -- only if the greenhouse gas emissions are either captured and buried or offset elsewhere, for instance by planting carbon-absorbing forests or by investing in wind turbines or solar panels abroad.

"Norway's not on track," said Knut Alfsen from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo.

CARBON CAPTURE AND CASH

Norway, seeing itself as a green leader even though it is the world's number five oil exporter, is spending $620 million in 2010 on research into capturing emissions from the oil and gas sector. But there have been few breakthroughs so far.

"It will be very hard to achieve (carbon neutrality) if we have no big technological change," Environment Minister Erik Solheim told Reuters. "But you have to set ambitious targets."

And the Nordic nation has a trump card -- cash. "We have more financial freedom than other countries," Solheim said. Norway has a $444 billion fund of oil savings invested in foreign stocks and bonds -- or almost $100,000 for each person.

At current market prices of about 13 euros ($19.46) a tonne, it would cost $650 million a year to buy quotas to emit Norway's annual 50 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. "It's a lot of money but in some ways peanuts for Norway," Alfsen said.

Solheim insisted much of the cuts would be in domestic emissions as part of a wider global goal of slowing rising temperatures projected to bring more heatwaves, droughts, floods, species extinctions and rising sea levels.

Both Norway and Costa Rica have a head start because they already generate almost all electricity from clean hydropower. The Maldives, worried that rising sea levels could swamp coral atolls, hope to be a testing ground for green technology.

And the goals may help both Costa Rica and the Maldives promote themselves as eco-friendly tourist destinations.

"Our main challenge is transport with fossil fuels," said Pedro Leon Azofeifa, coordinator of Costa Rica's 'Peace with Nature' initiative which is seeking carbon neutrality.

Some Costa Ricans complain of a lack of progress.

"The goal of carbon neutrality was set 2-1/2 years ago but not much has happened -- our carbon footprint is growing," said Roberto Jimenez, leader of the www.co2neutral2021.org group which says carbon neutrality will help businesses.

One goal is a new railway in central Costa Rica -- costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

And Costa Rica hopes that its forests -- trees soak up heat trapping carbon dioxide as they grow -- will qualify for credits under a new U.N. plan due to be agreed in Copenhagen aimed at slowing deforestation in developing nations.

The Central American nation cleared forests in the 1980s to make way for cattle ranching but then reversed policy to promote sustainable logging and tourism -- before climate change was a worry. It is not clear whether that will qualify for credits.

"Costa Rica is in a unique position because all tropical countries want to do what Costa Rica has already achieved," said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, a former environment minister who works for Conservation International.

A plan for the Maldives foresees investments of $110 million a year over a decade in solar and wind power -- reckoning that savings on diesel imports would quickly repay investments.

"If the poorest countries in the world are doing the most, where is there for the United States to hide?" said Mark Lynas, a British climate expert and author who advises the Maldives.

All three states have highlighted their neutrality efforts. Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed staged the world's first underwater cabinet meeting last month, in scuba gear, to put pressure on nations at Copenhagen to shift to clean energy.

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Environmentalists Target Foam Food Trays

Laura Isensee, PlanetArk 25 Nov 09;

LOS ANGELES - Environmentalists and green businesses are targeting foam food trays used to sell vegetables, fruits and meat in grocery stores.

The ubiquitous trays, which are made from polystyrene, have a long shelf life in landfills, much like plastic bags which the green brigade also took aim at in recent years.

"The developers of expanded polystyrene made the perfect material. They brought the costs down. Functionally it works great. There are no complaints ... But it never goes away," said Richard Feldman, chief executive of G4 Packaging.

The Los Angeles-based company makes trays primarily from sugar cane pulp that can be composted in 90 days or recycled.

Some U.S. cities have started to limit the use of foam trays. Portland, Oregon passed a ban in 1989 and last year Seattle, Washington voted to ban foam containers from all businesses serving food.

Seattle will ratchet up its measure next year. Beginning in July grocery stores will have to stop using foam trays for meat packaged on site and all businesses must use food containers that are compostable, as well as recyclable.

"Most plastics have pretty significant environmental impacts and we didn't want them sent to the landfill," said Dick Lilly, the business area manager for waste prevention at Seattle Public Utilities.

Smaller cities in Washington followed Seattle's lead while the Costa Mesa, California-based nonprofit Earth Resource Foundation is pushing for statewide ban in California.

"This plastic problem is as big as global climate change ... It hurts your health, the economy and the environment," the group's executive director Stephanie Barger said.

Feldman believes legislative pressure could help to propel eco-friendly trays into a $100 million market.

His two-year-old company has more than $300,000 in monthly sales. Its deals include supplying trays for zucchini and peppers sold at upscale grocer Trader Joe's. A veteran of the food packaging industry, Feldman has previously worked with fast-food giant McDonald's Corp.

But going green in groceries will cost money -- a major hurdle even when the economy is on an upswing. Trays made from natural materials like sugar cane pulp or bamboo weigh more and cost more than traditional foam trays.

Trays made by G4 Packaging can cost 8 cents each, about double the cost of a traditional container, Feldman said.

"At some point more and more people will say I as a consumer am willing to pay three or four cents more in order to go ahead and see this change," Feldman said.

(Reporting by Laura Isensee)

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