Be Careful What You Fish For: Invasion of Asian carp

Monica Davey, New York Times 12 Dec 09;

CHICAGO — Alarms are sounding near the edge of the Great Lakes. Genetic evidence of Asian carp — a mammoth, voracious, non-native conqueror among fish, long established in the Mississippi River — has turned up just a few miles from Lake Michigan in the waterway that links the river system to the lake. If such creatures were to swim on into Lake Michigan, some scientists say they fear the fish would ultimately upend the entire ecosystem in the lakes that make up a fifth of the earth’s fresh surface water.

So an urgent search is underway in Chicago for sightings of the silvery-gray fish with low-set eyes, the sort that even a scientist here described, somewhat unscientifically, as “an exceedingly ugly fish.” Advocates for the lakes are demanding emergency closures of a lock to block their arrival. And the attorney general of Michigan says he will sue to stop the fish.

Forgotten in all the fuss now is that these bighead and silver carp — imported in the 1970s to scarf up algae from ponds in the Deep South — are apparently making their way north to the Great Lakes along a route that humans, not nature, dreamed up.

Over a century ago, people built a canal to link the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River system. Historians say early travelers reported they could make their way from the lakes to the river by canoe in the wet season, but faced a portage during dryer periods; hence, the call for a canal. Over the years, it carried fetid sewage away from Chicago and Lake Michigan as part of a remarkable engineering feat that reversed the flow of the Chicago River. Commercial barges traveled up and down the vast, crucial path.

Along the same path came the carp, who had escaped from their southern ponds and spread through the Mississippi River system, by some accounts, thanks to flooding in the 1990s. Scientists have worried for years about the capability of an assortment of other non-native species (the round goby, the zebra mussel) to make their way either north from the Mississippi River system into the Great Lakes or back south on an opposite journey.

“The bottom line is that this canal is a conduit — a highway to environmental havoc — from one of these important watersheds to the other,” said David M. Lodge, a biologist and the director of the center for aquatic conservation at the University of Notre Dame.

It has surely happened before. Dams, levees, flood diversion projects. We redirect water and solve a problem, only to discover some new, unintended consequence.

In California and Oregon, some blame four old dams, which certainly generated electricity, for a decline in salmon in the Klamath River. In Missouri, during flooding along the Mississippi a year ago, residents of towns with low, primitive levees begrudged neighbors with enormous ones, saying the higher walls were directing unnatural amounts of water their way.

In the end, it seems, nature does as it wishes, try as we might to keep the waters in our grasp. For more than a decade, as reports of escaped northbound Asian carp emerged from parts of the Mississippi, civic, environmental and business leaders around the Great Lakes fretted. Asian carp committees were formed, reports were written, and more than $20 million was spent to build elaborate electric fences in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to at least temporarily hold back the carp from Lake Michigan, a measure one expert likened to hand-washing in the face of the H1N1 flu — wise but not a cure. And even as a third electric barrier is under construction, the authorities have reported finding the genetic evidence of the carp beyond the fences, within about six miles of Lake Michigan.

Some here now say that the only guaranteed, permanent way to keep these fish from the Great Lakes may be to put things back where we found them: separate the lakes from the Mississippi River watershed.

Needless to say, the politics, engineering and costs of such a solution could not be more tangled. People, of course, are used to what they built. Interests fight interests, and any one of them can draw an environmental arrow from the quiver. Those opposed to unbuilding the canal, including a barge industry that hauls 16.9 million tons of sand, coal, gravel, cement and salt through it, envision an extraordinary price for overhauling Chicago’s water system and assert that 1.3 million more trucks would be needed each year to handle what the barges carry.

“What is that going to do from an air pollution standpoint?” said Lynn M. Muench of the American Waterways Operators, a trade group that includes barges. “This is a huge environmental issue.”

So are the carp. Despite tests that found Asian carp DNA in the water, no actual silver or bighead carp have been spotted as close to the lake (a recent strategic poisoning turned up one, but farther away), and some here view that as proof that this is a lot of worry about nothing. Maybe a carp fell out of a bait box? Maybe it slipped through some other passage during flooding?

Still, those who know carp best say even a whiff of them is much to worry about, especially for the Great Lakes’ $7-billion-a-year fishing industry. The carp can weigh as much as 100 pounds, and the silver carp has a habit of jumping, seeming to challenge boaters as much as it does other fish. They eat pretty much all the time, vacuuming up the plankton that other fish depend on and crowding the others out.

Then again, most scientists admit they do not know exactly how the Asian carp would behave in the Great Lakes. Though a few have been reported in Lake Erie in the past, biologists have mainly dismissed the discoveries as isolated, and say they leave little precedent for what might happen in such large bodies of water.

Already in these lake waters are the zebra and quagga mussels, more unwanted non-native species. They have devoured plankton throughout the lakes, harming native species that need it too. The mussels are thought to have arrived here in the ballast water of international trade ships, one more unintended consequence.

“It is conceivable that given how much the zebra and quagga mussels have eaten up already, there may not be much left for the Asian carp, and they might struggle to thrive,” Reuben R. Goforth, an assistant professor of aquatic community ecology at Purdue University, offered hopefully.

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Indonesian village's environmental dilemma weighs on the world

Tiny Teluk Meranti, in an area seen as ground zero for climate change, is being wooed from all sides. Loggers want its forests and activists want it to bar the door. Residents just want a better life.

John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times 13 Dec 09;

Reporting from Teluk Meranti, Indonesia - This isolated Sumatran village, where monkeys frolic in the jungle canopy and residents take easy evening swims in the mud-colored Kampar River, is the unlikely center of a tense international battle of wills.

Logging lobbyists, environmental activists and even foreign diplomats, including the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, have visited in recent months. Job fairs, door-to-door visits and community meetings have become a constant.

It's a little like the New Hampshire presidential primary season, in an equatorial climate.

What's at stake for villagers, and the rest of the world, is the future of the community's lush and benevolent forest and the environmental consequences of its possible demise.

A Singapore-based firm wants to carve out some of the 1.7 million acres and replace them with an acacia tree plantation to be harvested for pulp and paper.

The company has been granted a permit by the Indonesian government to try to negotiate a land-use deal with villagers. Though the residents of Teluk Meranti don't actually own the land, the government acknowledges their financial interest in the forest, which they and their ancestors have used for generations.

Across Sumatra, scores of villages face similar decisions: whether to make deals that would allow companies to replace residents' beloved virgin and second-growth forests with highly profitable palm oil and acacia plantations.

Since the 1980s, the amount of forest land in Sumatra -- the world's sixth-largest island, which once contained more animal species than the Amazon -- has been slashed more than 70%.

Teluk Meranti, two hours by plane northwest of Jakarta, the capital, is in Riau province, often called ground zero for climate change. As companies log and then burn the remaining forest to create plantations, huge amounts of carbon are released into the atmosphere.

Studies show that the carbon released by logging in Brazil and Indonesia exceeds that of all the buses, planes and cars on the planet. Though Brazil contributes more carbon, Indonesia is clearing its forest at the fastest rate on Earth, and studies done by Greenpeace and other organizations show that Riau's peat lands contain some of the world's highest concentrations of carbon per acre.



A hub for advocates

As the villagers here mull their future, people around the world are watching closely: One-fourth of all greenhouse gas emissions are the direct result of tropical forest clearance, studies show.

At meetings underway in Copenhagen, world leaders are seeking to reach a climate-change accord that in 2012 would replace the Kyoto Protocol and include a framework for compensating countries for protecting their forests.

Proposals include providing developing countries with financial assistance for reducing their emissions from deforestation, and giving such nations credits they could sell on an international market to companies that have exceeded carbon emission caps.

In Teluk Meranti, a panel of two dozen village elders, after consulting with residents, will vote in several months on whether to allow the Singapore firm, Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd., to develop the forest.

The issue has transformed the sleepy, out-of-the-way spot into a hub for company advocates, environmental groups and foreign government officials.

Whisked in by helicopter, lobbyists from Asia Pacific Resources entice villagers with their pitches. They tell residents they don't want to kill the forest, but rather will work with villagers to ensure its preservation by selectively logging land that won't support wildlife.

The outsiders can build new schools and businesses, said Wendy Poon, an Asia Pacific Resources spokeswoman. "We can [also] help them develop alternative livelihoods -- like how to rear cows and farm vegetables for commercial produce, so they won't ruin the forest," she said.

Greenpeace activists have also set up shop, imploring residents not to sell their forest for short-term profit.

"Many communities are wooed into thinking only about the short term, the money-for-land bargain, without fully comprehending the long-term consequences," said Paul Winn, a Greenpeace forest campaigner.

Environmentalists are also trying to show the villagers how pulp and paper plantations disrupt things close to home.

They point to another company's project upriver, where bulldozers carry logs like huge praying mantises and build canals to drain the sodden forest, allowing acidic water to move into rivers, killing fish.

Things came to a head recently when regional police tried to shut down a Greenpeace "climate defenders" camp near a patch of endangered forest near Teluk Meranti. When officers tried to close the camp, according to Greenpeace and village administrator Ali Mursidin, scores of villagers arrived and demanded, successfully, that the camp be left alone.



Conflicted

Mursidin remembers Teluk Meranti before the world cared about it. The farmers, fishermen and loggers might not have known a lot about the outside world, but they were masters of the realm in which they live.

Then the paper company officials came in 2004, talking big dreams and development. Palm oil is a lucrative product, they said, used in items varying from cosmetics to ice cream.

For many here, making a deal looks attractive. Life is a struggle in this Muslim community of sustenance farming and fishing, where wooden shanties overhang the winding river and few outsiders visit.

"If there's a company offering us money, even if it's not a good company, if it can improve the quality of our life, why not do it?" asked Sarkawi, a 35-year-old public health administrator who, like many here, goes by one name.

Yet he's conflicted. The forest has always been a trusted provider, offering rattan, honeybees and wood to build houses.

"It's the only forest we've got -- we want it for our children," he said. "Do we really know what the company will do with it?"

The back-and-forth has resulted in an atmosphere marked by gossip and whispered accusations.

"Ninety-nine percent of people here have absolutely no clue what global warming is," said Mursidin, who fills in for the mayor when he's out of town. "Now people have come to play politics with this village. It has created tensions. Suddenly, neighbors aren't talking."



'Times got tough'

Tears in his eyes, the dark-skinned man wearing a traditional Muslim kopiah hat blurted an appeal to the outside world.

He sat cross-legged in a crowded village center, directly across from Cameron Hume, the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia who, along with an official from the British Embassy in Jakarta, had been invited by Greenpeace activists to come and assess the jungle damage.

It was an unusual visit for a diplomat like Hume, who told villagers he came because he was concerned both about the future of the forest and the residents of Teluk Meranti.

"We know there is a plan to open our forest," the villager told Hume, who was dressed in signature diplomatic jungle-wear -- matching khaki-colored vest and pants. "We don't know much, but we are afraid we are going to lose our livelihoods. You are from a foreign country. Maybe you know how to help us save our sacred forest."

As representatives of the paper company looked on, Hume took a perhaps not-so-diplomatic approach: He urged villagers to fully investigate any claims about how logging would improve their livelihoods.

"When a tree gets cut, the money for that tree does not stay here," Hume said. "It goes to Jakarta and it's gone forever."

Yet, slowly, many people are siding with the loggers.

Mursidin, while personally wary of a deal, says many residents who were initially against it are changing their minds. Even the village chief is now leaning toward the project.

"Times got tough and they promised us a better life," he said. "That's why people are willing to listen."

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Forest communities said key to climate fight

David Fogarty and Sunanda Creagh, Reuters 13 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Saving tropical forests is crucial to fighting climate change but efforts to halt deforestation could go awry without safeguards to protect and compensate local communities, officials and academics said on Sunday.

Forests act like "lungs" of the atmosphere, soaking up large amounts of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions. Billions of people also rely on them for food and livelihoods.

Paying developing nations to preserve forests is a central issue at U.N. climate talks in the Danish capital aimed at securing the outlines of tougher global deal to curb greenhouse gas emissions from 2013.

"Forests and climate issues have never been higher on the political agenda," Gro Harlem Brundtland, U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Change, told a meeting on the sidelines of the talks.

Yet forests were still being destroyed at an alarming rate, with no observable decrease in the pace of destruction since 1987, she said.

"We are still on our way to destroy an area the size of India by 2017," she said.

Tropical forests from equatorial Africa to Brazil and Indonesia contain some of the world's richest reserves of carbon and species but are under increasing threat for their timber and for the land to grow food for an ever-expanding human population.

Indigenous groups in the vast Amazon basin and deep in the jungles of Borneo island fear losing more of their lands to cattle ranchers or to palm and soy oil plantations.

Delegates at the talks are close to finalizing the framework of a U.N.-backed financial scheme that would allow developing countries to earn carbon offsets in return for saving, rehabilitating and improving the management of their forests.

The scheme, called reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, could potentially earn poorer nations billions of dollars annual in offset sales to rich nations.

It would, for the first time under the United Nations, put a price on the carbon saved from being emitted by keeping forests standing with some of the money flowing back to communities.

CLEAR RIGHTS

Speakers at the conference said enshrining the rights of indigenous people was crucial to the scheme's success, along with a transparent payment scheme that would help fund alternative livelihoods and promote forest protection.

"If local people and indigenous people in the developing world are not recognized and assigned clear rights, we could end up with more deforestation," said Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University and 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.

There was a risk of violent evictions of communities and corruption in preservation schemes unless safeguards were enforced, she said.

Greens at the conference say the language of the draft REDD text is weak because it does not require nations to comply with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, although it does refer to the treaty.

Conservationists also say the current draft fails to set a final date or target to halt and reverse forest loss in poor countries and has not finalized a funding amount or timeframe to deliver that money from developed nations.

But it does promote steps to avoid the conversion of natural forests and to enhance social benefits of the scheme.

Brundtland said REDD in practice should not create incentives for converting natural forests into agricultural plantations, such as palm oil estates.

Millions of hectares of forest has been cut down in Indonesia to plant palm oil estates. While providing jobs, the spread of palm oil plantations has also displaced large numbers of people reliant on forests.

She said 1.6 billion people relied heavily on forests for their livelihoods.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Indian farmers adapt to shifting weather patterns

Nita Bhalla, Reuters 13 Dec 09;

GORAKHPUR, India (Reuters) - As global leaders and top scientists in Copenhagen debate how to deal with climate change, farmers in flood-prone areas of northern India are taking it into their own hands to adapt to shifts in the weather.

For decades, people of Uttar Pradesh, whose population is more than half that of the United States, have been witnessing erratic weather, including increasingly intense rainfall over short periods of time.

The rain, combined with heavy mountain run-off from nearby Nepal, which is also seeing heavier-than-usual rains, has inundated villages, towns and cities in the region.

Such floods have destroyed homes, crops and livestock, highlighting the fact that the poorest in countries such as China and India are most at risk from climate change.

While world leaders in Copenhagen argue over who should cut carbon emissions and who should pay, experts say low-cost adaptation methods, partly based on existing community knowledge, could be used to help vulnerable farmers.

In the fields of Manoharchak village, where terms such as "global warming" are unknown, such experiments are bearing fruit, changing the lives of poor farmers who outsmart nature using simple but effective techniques to deal with rising climate variability.

"For the last three years, we have been trying to change our ways to cope with the changing weather," said Hooblal Chauhan, a farmer whose efforts have included diversifying production from wheat and rice to incorporate a wide variety of vegetables.

"I don't know what those big people in foreign countries can do about the weather, but we are doing what we can to help ourselves," said the 55-year-old from Manoharchak, situated 90 km (55 miles) north of the bustling city of Gorakhpur.

IMPROVISATION

Villagers here have raised the level of their roads, built homes with foundations up to 10 feet above ground, elevated community handpumps and created new drainage channels.

Supported by the Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group -- a research and advocacy group -- farmers are also planting more flood-tolerant rice, giving them two harvests a year where they once had one, and diversifying from traditional crops to vegetables such as peas, spinach, tomatoes, onions and potatoes.

The diversity of crops, they say, is particularly beneficial when their wheat and rice fail. And the vegetables give them not only a more varied and nutritional diet, but also help in earning an income when excesses are sold.

Increasingly, intense rain means farmers in the region also have to contend with silt deposition from long periods of water-logging in their farms.

But 50-year-old widow Sumitra Chauhan, who grows about 15 different vegetables as well as rice and wheat on her two-acre plot, says she has learned ways to overcome the problem.

"We plant our (vegetable) seedlings in the nurseries and then when the water drains, we transfer them to the land so there are no delays," she said, standing in her lush green plot packed with vegetables including mustard, peas, spinach and tomatoes.

CLIMATE REFUGEES

Farmers have also started using "multi-tier cropping" where vegetables like bottle gourd and bitter gourd are grown on platforms raised about 5-6 feet above the ground and supported by a bamboo frame.

Once the water-logged soil drains, farmers can plant the ground beneath the platforms with vegetables and herbs such as spinach, radish and coriander.

Warmer temperatures and an unusual lack of rain during monsoon periods in eastern Uttar Pradesh have also led to dry spells. To cope, villagers have contributed to buying water pumps for irrigation, lowering their dependence on rain.

According to Oxfam, which is supporting the action group's work in Uttar Pradesh, millions of people in India have been affected by climate-related problems.

Some have been forced into debt. Others have migrated to towns and cities to search for manual labor or have had to sell assets such as livestock to cope.

"It is true that developing countries need a lot of investment to adapt to the effects of climate change, but small and marginal farmers, who are some of India's poorest, can make a start by using simple, cheap techniques to help themselves," said Ekta Bartarya of the Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group.

(Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Alex Richardson)

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Australia in bid to repair ecological ruin: peat swamps in Kalimantan

Tom Allard, The Age 14 Dec 09;

A BOAT trip down the wide brown waters of the Kapuas River and the canals that flow off it, crisscrossing the hinterland of Central Kalimantan, makes for a depressing tour.

What was once one of the world's great swamp peat forests is a tangle of weeds and burnt trees. The rich peat, one of the world's great stores of carbon, is dry and crumbles at first touch, degraded each dry season by fires lit by local farmers.

The mills along the banks of the Kapuas are testament to the ongoing illegal logging that is denuding the area of what trees remain.

Even a rare sighting of a female orangutan cradling her baby in a small grove of trees by one of the canals fails to enliven the mood. She hollers in distress and throws debris at the passing canoes as if to condemn their human cargo for the destruction.

Amid the ecological ruins of a colossally ill-conceived project by former Indonesian dictator Suharto to convert 1.4 million hectares of wetland forest into an enormous rice farm, the Australian Government has undertaken an ambitious effort to rehabilitate the land.

Moreover, it hopes the project - a joint venture with the Indonesian Government - will provide a template for how a global emissions trading system might work.

It's not quite money growing on trees, but should the $40 million scheme come to fruition, the impoverished locals will get money to grow trees and preserve those that already exist under the UN-backed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plan.

REDD, as it is known, is the centre of heated negotiations at the Copenhagen conference. It will allow developing nations like Indonesia to generate income by selling credits for their forests that soak up carbon to richer countries to offset their own carbon emissions.

For its proponents, it's a panacea that could not only save forests and combat climate change, but enrich impoverished communities along the way.

''What we hope to achieve is a form of win-win situation where we achieve emissions reduction targets but also improve local livelihoods through support for improved farming practices and the potential to generate incentive payments through REDD,'' says Neil Scotland, the AusAID officer overseeing the project.

Critics, however, say that it's an attempt by the developed world to gain cut-price credits to offset their own emissions, thereby doing little to reduce overall global warming. Moreover, such schemes are incredibly complex to set up, open to abuse and offer no guarantees the money generated will find its way to the local community.

Muliadi, the secretary general of Central Kalimantan's association of peat land farmers, said he was aware of the AusAID project - which was announced in 2007 - but that neither he or his members had been contacted by organisers.

''We are the people who traditionally keep the forests and the environment and have been living here for generations,'' he said. ''REDD has been talked about everywhere. Climate change is also the topic everywhere. But the local people in Central Kalimantan have never been invited to any discussion or seminar or any occasion like that.''

Mr Scotland says broaching the topic of REDD payments is fraught, not least because the scheme has yet to be agreed as a concept at the Copenhagen conference.

''We have to be able to discuss these issues with subsistence farmers who live very much from day to day. They are uncertain about what they are going to eat that night … it's really a very large gulf you have to bridge and working out ways to bridge that is very important.''

Communication efforts, thus far, are centring on encouraging farmers not to burn the land before planting, and building trust by advocating small scale income generating schemes. Even so, fires are an annual scourge. The peat smoulders for months each dry season, sending plumes of smoke across Kalimantan and up to Singapore and Malaysia. Only the monsoon rains can put out the subsurface fires.

Illegal logging remains an ongoing issue, operating openly along the Kapuas River and fuelled by widespread corruption.

According to a recent report by Human Rights Watch, the rampant graft means it is highly problematic that any REDD scheme could be enforced in Indonesia.

And then there is the incredible complexity of pricing carbon from peatland forests. Scientists are struggling to agree how much carbon is stored in such areas and developing a formula for pricing any carbon credits remains elusive.

If, as appears likely, any emissions reduction undertakings by the developed world are modest at Copenhagen, it will mean there will be less demand for carbon credits, reducing their price and the money flowing to the villagers of Central Kalimantan.

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Sabah can't do without coal plant: SESB

Daily Express 13 Dec 09;

Papar: Sabah needs to have a coal-fired power plant in its east coast region to ensure stable electricity supply statewide and prevent blackouts in east coast districts if the existing supply system fails, according to Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB).

Currently east coast districts are depending mainly on supply channelled through the West-East Coast Grid from the west coast which the utility company considers as risky.

Because if something happened, for example a lighting strike hits and damages any cable along this grid, the entire east coast districts may face a blackout.

At the moment there is no power plant in the east coast with a capacity enough to support the existing demand there, it stated, adding the coal-fired power plant planned at Felda Sahabat in Lahad Datu would be the first, if it materialises.

Media representatives were told about this at a one-day SESB Media Retreat at Beringgis Beach Resort, Saturday.

SESB Corporate Communication Senior Manager, Chendramata Haji Sinteh, in replying to public suspicion that the coal for this power plant in Lahad Datu would in the end come from coal deposits in the Maliau Basin, assured this will not happen.

She said the coal deposits in Maliau are of high quality and unsuitable for firing the power plant in Lahad Datu. The Lahad Datu coal-fired power plant is designed to operate using coal not of the same quality as in Maliau, she added.

Lahad Datu Energy Sdn Bhd (LDE), the company behind the coal-fired power plant project in Lahad Datu, meanwhile, said the plant is designed to burn about 1.22million tonnes of coal annually with a maximum design ash content of 7 per cent.

This will translate to about 85,400 tonnes of ash annually, said its Project Director Ahmad Farid Yahya.

"The dry ash will be stored in a specially designed ash yard entirely lined with impermeable membrane to prevent ash leachate to the ground. In the later years as the ash yard is filled, the area will be 'soiled' over and landscaped," he said.

He said the ash yard capacity has been designed for 25 years and from the analysis of the coal type to be used for the project, the presence of heavy metal elements is not detectable.

"However it is still a requirement by Department of Environment for the monitoring of heavy metal elements like mercury, lead, cyanide and so on," he said.

There is a positive side benefit of the ashes accumulated, he said, adding about 70 per cent of the ash can be used in the cement industry. "However, this is a separate commercial agreement between LDE and any interested parties."

If all goes according to plan, the Lahad Datu coal-fired power plant would be the seventh in the country. Currently there are six with four in the peninsula and two in Sarawak.

Ahmad said in the long run, after the coal-fired power plant is built and operational, the east coast region will benefit.

"The State Government will be able to attract and set up commercial, business and industrial centres in the region, thus creating economic opportunities for the locals," he said.

He said the standard of living will improve with more reliable electricity supply. Industrial areas will grow just like "what we have in peninsula, such as Penang, Port Kelang and Pasir Gudang."

More maritime based industrial sites means more jobs for Sabahans, he said, adding from being fisherman with incomes of RM500 per month, they can earn RM1,000 to RM1,500 by working in the industrial and manufacturing sectors.

"When a conducive environment is set up, more multinational companies will invest in Sabah. This will create a capital inflow," he said, adding a coal-fired power plant will be in line with the national fuel mix policy.

The Lahad Datu coal-fired power plant has also been designed for a specific coal quality range and operating beyond it will damage the power plant, he said.

Ahmad said the station would not discharge chlorine oxide as the Electro Chlorination Plant uses seawater to produce sodium hypochlorite via the electrolysis process.

"Sodium hypochlorite will be injected into the cooling water at a controlled rate to prevent growth of barnacles inside the piping. The residual sodium hypochlorite discharge is less than 2.0ppm as per the Department of Environment effluent limit," he said.

He said there would be no effect on marine life in the mangrove forests, sea grass beds, the coral reefs and beyond. This process is a widely accepted practice throughout the world for the thermal power plant cooling system.

Based on the Manjung power plant experience, he said the seawater temperature at 500m from the discharge point is reduced to ambient seawater temperature.

"The proposed power plant is facing the Sulu Sea so the head dissipation is expected to be better than Manjung. This will part of the DEIA thermal plume modelling study.

"The plant will be designed so that the seawater discharge will be less than 40 degrees Celsius in compliance with the Department of Environment limit," he said.

On the impact of coal use on the weather and global warming, Ahmad said the DEIA will conduct a computer modelling of the exhaust dispersion.

"The required mitigation factors to comply with the emission standards will be complied with. The DOE study guidelines are site and project specific. It is not required to study the global warming and global weather impacts," he said.

"In fact, LDE is not aware of any projects in the world that conducted their DEIA studies to encompass the whole world! Imagine the impossibly huge data and parameters to include in the computer software, and probably the computer will overload and crash," he said.

Coal-fired plant on track
Ruben Sario The Star 14 Dec 09;

KOTA KINABALU: An unpopular coal-fired plant project in the Sabah east coast Lahad Datu district appears to be a certainty now that the company is awaiting environmental approval for it.

Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) senior general manager for operations Abd Razak Sallim said the company was expecting the 300MW coal plant at the Felda Sahabat land scheme to be fully operational by 2014.

He said the coal-fired plant was the only option available to the electricity-deficient east coast as other power generation methods like those using natural gas, biomass, solar and hydro were not feasible.

“We need the power plant now in the east coast, otherwise, consumers there will continue to face blackouts,” he told reporters at a media briefing here.

He said that unlike in the peninsula where there were already four coal-fired plants, or in Sarawak which had two, power supply in Sabah was barely enough to meet the demand with the shortage reaching an acute situation in the east coast.

At the briefing, other SESB officials said the construction of more power plants in the west coast – where natural gas was readily available – with electricity being channelled to the east coast via a east-west grid was also risky.

They said the east coast would suffer a major blackout if anything were to happen to the grid such as a lightning strike or damage to the cables.

Lahad Datu Energy Sdn Bhd, the company behind the coal plant, said the facility was designed to burn 1.22 million tonnes of coal annually. It was initially sited at Silam and then moved to Sandakan before being relocated to the Felda scheme following vocal opposition.

Various concerned groups in the state, including WWF Malaysia, Pacos Trust and the Sabah Environmental Protection Association and even the business community have opposed the coal plant project, arguing that such a project could destroy the state’s natural beauty.

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Asia climate plans to benefit energy efficiency sector

Building efficiency is the segment with the largest potential
Business Times 14 Dec 09;

(HONG KONG) Asia's aggressive emission targets and legislation around carbon and power use are expected to drive demand for energy efficiency products and services, creating lucrative opportunities for investors in the sector.

Ongoing climate talks at Copenhagen and commitments from around the region to slash emissions could help unlock some benefits and potential investments in energy efficiency stymied by information barriers and weak regulatory standards.

'While we may or may not have an agreement in Copenhagen, many nations are setting very aggressive targets to improve energy intensity,' said Clay Nesler, vice-president for Global Energy and Sustainability at Johnson Controls, a US- based company offering automation solutions for buildings and vehicles.

'With that, and concerns about the cost of energy increasing due to limited supply, those are the forces that, in the long term, will give rise to significant investment in energy efficiency,' he said.

An increasing focus on the energy efficiency theme is set to benefit companies such as Taiwan's Epistar Corp, which makes energy- saving light-emitting diodes, and Japan's Daikin Industries, which designs efficient air conditioners, analysts say.

Developing nations need US$90 billion a year in improvements from plugging leaks in building ducts to replacing inefficient household appliances with energy-saving ones to slow estimated demand growth by more than half over the next 12 years, consulting firm McKinsey Global Institute said.

China alone would need to spend about 30 per cent of that to ease power consumption, currently the world's second-largest.

'Global action to fight climate change is expected to create huge opportunities for low-carbon investments,' said Barbara Hon, analyst with China Everbright Securities.

Just like Japan, China is mulling levying a carbon tax which should provide incentive for the deployment of more low-carbon fuels and energy efficient technologies, Ms Hon said.

Efficiency in buildings is the segment in the sector with the largest potential for energy gains, said analysts.

Energy consumption within the residential, commercial and public buildings accounts for about 40 per cent of total global energy use, making it the largest single component of energy use.

China, which is constructing the equivalent of the entire commercial floor plate of Australia every year, is a growth market for efficiency solutions providers including Johnson Controls, Honeywell International, Schneider Electric and Seimens.

But while the development of green buildings and energy-efficient infrastructure is a potentially lucrative investment market, the right incentives are lacking for the industry to gain critical mass.

In India, construction of green buildings remains very scattered among individual projects and small scale development, said Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi. -- Reuters

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Japanese firms take initiative to go green

But government is still silent on what steps it will take to meet emissions target
Kwan Weng Kin, Japan Correspondent Straits Times 14 Dec 09;

TOKYO: Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama heads for Copenhagen this week for the COP15 climate change conference with a pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Japan by 25 per cent from 1990 levels.

But otherwise, the Japanese leader has remained silent on what steps his government will take, and how the burden should be shared between industry and households, to ensure that his country meets that target.

A recent poll by the leading business daily Nikkei has found that many Japanese manufacturers are worried that, on their own, their greenhouse reductions will not meet the 25 per cent target.

Many companies are anxiously waiting for the government to produce a road map to show who should do what and when before they draw up their own carbon dioxide reduction timetables.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a main component of greenhouse gases.

'Since 25 per cent is a national objective, we are obliged to try to achieve it,' said Mr Kuniaki Okahara, who heads the environmental affairs division of Japan's leading electronics maker Panasonic. 'But the government has not given us any details as to what it wants to do. So we too cannot say more at this stage.'

Meanwhile, Japanese companies are actively pushing ahead to cut CO2 levels in their products.

At Japan's largest annual exhibition of eco-friendly products here last week, 'CO2 sakugen' (reduction) was the buzzword at the booths of every exhibitor, from carmakers to construction companies.

Panasonic, for instance, highlighted its energy-saving TVs and fridges. Many of the eco-friendly products at the show are innovative, if a little quaint.

Shredder maker Oriental has developed a machine, said to be a world's first, that can turn shredded paper into toilet rolls.

Launched commercially in October, the machine can recycle 40 sheets of A4-sized copy paper into one toilet roll every half an hour.

The system, says the company's brochure, is also the perfect solution for protecting industrial secrets as all confidential documents are safely flushed down the toilet bowl!

Roof tile maker Shinto touted its ecological moss-covered tiles for keeping a house cool in summer and relatively warm in winter, thus saving on air-conditioning costs.

Although the products exhibition targets both businesses and the general public, in recent years, it has also come to play a key role in helping to educate the young about the environment.

Last week, thousands of primary school kids swamped the huge exhibition site at Tokyo's waterfront Odaiba area, busily learning what manufacturers are doing to save the planet.

Since 2006, local chambers of commerce in many Japanese cities have been conducting certification examinations twice a year to raise public awareness about the environment, recycling and other ecological issues.

The test is popular with companies, many of which encourage their staff to take it, and also among housewives and school children. People who have passed the test range so far in age from 11 to 86.

Last year saw a roughly 25 per cent jump in people who sat for the test apparently because the environment topped the agenda of the Group of Eight summit which Japan hosted.

The Japanese people are generally supportive of environmental causes. A poll last month by the leading Yomiuri Shimbun daily found that 75 per cent of the Japanese supported PM Hatoyama's 25 per cent reduction target.

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Clean development a tricky balancing act in Indonesia

Michael Richardson, For The Straits Times 14 Dec 09;

CONSIDER these two recent government announcements in Indonesia, South-east Asia's biggest economy.

A discussion paper released by the country's Finance Ministry and circulated last week at the climate change conference in Copenhagen proposes one of the most extensive plans in the developing world for cutting man-made greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

It sets out strategies for reducing deforestation. By some measures, Indonesia is - or has been in recent years - the third largest emitter, after China and the United States, as its forests and peat swamps are cleared for agriculture, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

The Finance Ministry's Green Paper outlines measures to constrain future demand for coal and other fossil fuels in Indonesia, while promoting energy efficiency and increased reliance on abundant local sources of renewable geothermal power for generating electricity.

It says the government should prepare to impose a carbon tax on fossil fuels and phase out costly subsidies on these fuels to hasten the transition to a cleaner economy. The carbon tax revenue and savings on energy subsidies would help pay for the transition and offset the costs for the poor.

Meanwhile, as Indonesians were starting to digest the implications of these proposals, the state-owned electricity company Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) was trying to reassure industrial and home consumers fed up with frequent blackouts that several new coal-fired power plants due to start operating in the first half of next year will ease the crisis.

The plants, which will add 1,890 megawatts to PLN's total capacity of around 24,000 MW, are part of a major expansion programme. The first phase is due to be completed in 2013. Much of the programme is based on switching from more expensive oil and diesel to locally-produced coal for generating electricity. As a result, PLN's coal consumption will almost double over the next two years, to around 41 million tonnes in 2011.

This energy and environmental snapshot in Indonesia encapsulates the dilemma facing many Asian countries as they try to balance their development objectives against increasing pressures to join a global battle against climate change.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has announced a target for Indonesia to cut emissions by 26 per cent by 2020 - through 'an energy mix policy including land use, land use change and forestry'. He also said a cut of up to 41 per cent was possible with international support, including funding and technology transfer.

He told the G-20 leaders' summit in Pittsburgh in September: 'We must tell the world it is possible to cure the global economy and save the planet at the same time.'

But in the meantime, the fact is that Indonesia and most other South-east Asian economies are heading towards a dirtier future, not a cleaner one.

In a recent overview of energy trends in the region, the International Energy Agency forecast that if Asean countries continue their business-as-usual approach, the region's primary energy demand will surge in the next 20 years at an average growth rate of 2.5 per cent per annum - much faster than the rest of the world.

By 2030, fossil fuels would be meeting 76 per cent of the region's energy demand, slightly more than today, with coal's share rising to 24 per cent, from 15 per cent now.

Coal produces much more carbon dioxide per unit of energy burned than oil or natural gas. So the projected rise in South-east Asia's demand for coal has significant implications both for global warming emissions and for local air pollution, from oxides of sulphur and nitrogen and fine soot particles that harm human health.

The region's energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will almost double by 2030, to nearly 2 billion tonnes a year. This would take South-east Asia's share of these emissions on a worldwide basis to 5 per cent, from around 3.5 per cent at present.

This would be in addition to the region's disproportionately large share of global emissions from deforestation and land use change. Power generation would account for more than half the increase in South-east Asia's energy-related carbon dioxide emissions.

However, there would be some major benefits. The number of people without access to electricity would fall from 160 million now to 63 million in 2030. This would constitute a huge leap forward in living standards, especially for the poor.

Indonesia's Green Paper points the way to a cleaner future for the region. But greater efficiency and lower-carbon sources of energy might not be able to meet demands for widely available and affordable electricity, as well as continued rapid economic growth.

These are very difficult choices for South-east Asian policymakers. Jakarta deserves credit for putting them in the public domain for discussion and debate.

The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Climate change may open Arctic sea routes

Robert Karniol, Defence Writer Straits Times 14 Dec 09;

THE climate talks being held in Copenhagen have highlighted the fierce debate over global warming - its causes, environmental consequences and severity, and how the international community should respond. That much of Asia looks set to benefit amid the overall gloom is often overlooked.

'Major reductions in transport cost have twice remade the world. First, with the invention of the steamship and then with the introduction of containerisation,' said Mr Stephen Carmel, senior vice-president of maritime services at the world's largest container shipping company, Maersk Line. 'In my view, were the Arctic to open up and become really

viable for shipping, we would see the same. It'll change the world as much as the container did.'

There are three frigid routes with the potential to speed up maritime traffic: the Northwest Passage over North America, the Northern Sea Route over Russia, and the more tentative Polar Route running astride the North Pole.

According to one study, the Arctic ice covering each route has receded by about 20 per cent over the period from 1979 to 2006. This trend is expected to continue, with the Northern Sea Route likely becoming the first to emerge as regularly navigable. Just when this might occur is open to speculation, but Mr Carmel suggests a timeframe of around 2040 to 2050.

The savings in distance can be significant. The route between Yokohama and Rotterdam, for instance, is 20,100km via the Panama Canal or 17,800km via the Suez Canal. The Northern Sea Route would cut this to 11,400km, a reduction of at least 35 per cent. And Yokohama to New York is 15,800km using the Panama Canal but just 12,200km using the Northwest Passage, a reduction by nearly 25 per cent.

China should emerge as the big winner, centred on Shanghai, but not all routes stand to benefit. Maritime travel between Singapore and New York, or between Los Angeles and Rotterdam, are among those that will remain unaffected.

Mr Carmel emphasises that time saved is nevertheless more significant than distance, given daily ship charter rates and ancillary costs. Using that measure and an average speed of 22 knots, the journey from Yokohama to Rotterdam would be cut by about a third to 12 days, and Yokohama to New York by a quarter to 12 days.

However, the cost comparison is considerably more complex. Shipping companies could expect savings in fuel and canal toll charges, the latter worth US$250,000 (S$348,000) to US$300,000 each way for an average-sized container vessel using either the Suez or Panama. However, any threat of ice will require an icebreaker escort, by some estimates costing US$100,000 in each direction, and inclement weather common in the Arctic may cut speed, with a resulting loss in time.

Furthermore, vessels using northern routes may be required to utilise a higher grade of fuel for environmental reasons, and this will add to the cost. Hardened hulls may also need to be factored into shipbuilding costs.

Calculation complexities aside, shipping companies are convinced that substantial savings in the cost of transport can be realised on selected routes between Asia and Europe, and between Asia and the east coast of North America. This will reinforce the globalisation of trade that containerisation so significantly primed, but it will also have a wider impact on trade patterns.

The opening of Arctic sea routes could slash usage of the Suez and Panama canals, with dire consequences on local economies. Egypt earned toll receipts of US$5.38 billion last year, accounting for 1.2 per cent of its gross domestic product.

Italy's largest seaport, Gioia Tauro, is among those in similar danger. It now mainly serves the trans-shipment of containers travelling between Asia or the United States and Central Europe, and much of this traffic could be lost.

With so much at stake, some assume the threat of conflict over issues relating to the control of northern waters. Indeed, Canada has long claimed the Northwest Passage as an internal waterway subject to its sovereignty, though this has yet to gain international recognition.

Countries abutting the Arctic Ocean - Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US - have in recent years intensified their territorial claims to better ensure exclusive access to a suspected wealth of natural resources. Others from further afield - including China, France, Japan and South Korea - have begun eyeing the area's bountiful fisheries.

Speaking at a security conference earlier this month, Canada's chief of defence provided a military perspective on this heightened activity.

'There is no conventional military threat to the Arctic,' General Walter Natyncyk firmly stated. 'If someone were to invade the Canadian Arctic, my first task would be to rescue them. The Arctic is a very harsh environment. It is actually more difficult for me to support operations in the (Canadian) Arctic than it is to support operations in Afghanistan.'

All this suggests that the public debate over global warming has so far largely neglected a critical issue: the potentially dramatic reduction in transportation cost, and what this means for trade.

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Climate progress eludes ministers, protesters held

Reuters 14 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Environment ministers struggled to nudge forward climate talks in Copenhagen on Sunday, and police detained more than 250 protesters on a second day of mass action.

Church leaders handed a petition with half a million signatures to the United Nations and prayed for climate justice, while hundreds of demonstrators marched through the city center for a second day to remind world leaders of the huge public pressure for a successful deal at the Dec 7-18 talks.

"We are telling them: Hey you, you who are sitting there making the decisions, the world is waiting for a real agreement," South African Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu told a crowd in the city center.

The day after a huge demonstration flared into violence and prompted the largest mass arrest in Danish history, police shut down a small march they said had not been authorized, detaining almost all who had joined it for disturbing the peace.

More than 90 ministers had met informally, on their day off from official negotiations between 190 nations, to try to break an impasse between rich and poor over who is responsible for emissions cuts, how deep they should be, and who should pay.

There was a positive atmosphere, but the talks apparently achieved little beyond a consensus that time is running out.

"Everyone realizes the urgency of what we are undertaking but we need to move faster," said British Energy Minister Ed Miliband.

Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said he had not expected solutions on Sunday. "We have defined to each other where our absolute limits are," he told reporters.

Countries like China and India say the industrialized world must make bigger cuts in emissions and help poor nations to fund a shift to greener growth and adapt to a warmer world.

Richer countries say the developing world's carbon emissions are growing so fast it must sign up for curbs in emissions to prevent dangerous levels of warming.

SUMMIT ADDS TO PRESSURE

The talks will culminate in a summit on Thursday and Friday that President Barack Obama will attend, adding to the pressure on negotiators to reach a deal.

The head of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, warned governments that failure to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen could lead to a collapse of the carbon market, which would hit efforts to deal with climate change.

Tutu handed a petition with over half a million signatures, calling for a "fair, effective and binding climate deal," to Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

De Boer told the crowd he hoped public pressure could persuade leaders to set aside their concerns about the global economic crisis and tackle the urgent threat of climate change.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, called for political courage at a service in Copenhagen's cathedral, attended by Danish royalty, which was followed by a "bell ringing for the climate" in churches around the world.

"We have not yet been able to embrace the cost of the decisions we know we must make ... but we have an obligation to future generations," Williams told the congregation.

Police have released all but 13 of nearly 1,000 people detained after a march on Saturday, a police spokesman said.

The demonstration by tens of thousands of people was largely peaceful but violence erupted toward evening when demonstrators smashed windows and set fire to cars.

Some of those detained said they were unfairly held and badly treated by police, and the waves of new arrests angered activists who said they were peacefully exercising their rights.

A Reuters witness saw no violence at the small anti-capitalist "hit production" march.

"They're just trying to stifle any kind of protest and they are mass arresting any demonstrators. Also today, there was nothing going on and suddenly police started arresting people," said protester Peter Boulo at Sunday's "hit production" march.

(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison, additional reporting by Anna Ringstrom, John Acher, David Fogarty and Richard Cowan; editing by Tim Pearce)

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The push for 350: Contradictions and carbon levels

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 14 Dec 09;

COPENHAGEN – As police cracked down on climate protesters, church bells tolled 350 times Sunday to impress on the U.N. global warming conference a number that is gaining a following, but is also awash in contradictions.

Conference negotiators went behind closed doors in talks to pin down an elusive new pact on climate, talks in which the figure 350 looms as a goal for true believers, but one that appears impossible based on progress so far.

It refers to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the highest concentration that some leading scientists say the world can handle without sparking dangerous climate effects.

"It's the most important number in the world," said Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental activist group 350.org. "It's the line between habitability on this planet and a really, really desolate future."

Not everyone buys into that. But an entire environmental group has sprung up around the number, pushing 350 as a goal, sporting it on T-shirts and flags waved by throngs of protesters that marched to the conference center over the weekend. About 100 nations at the U.N. climate summit have signed on to the idea of heading for 350.

Actually, the world has lived with more than 350 for a while.

The last time the Earth had 350 ppm of carbon dioxide in the air was a generation ago, in the fall of 1989. This year CO2 pushed over the 390 level. When scientists started measuring carbon dioxide in 1958 it was 315.

Since the atmosphere passed the 350 level, ice sheets have been melting and other dramatic changes have been happening. Prominent scientists — notably NASA's James Hansen, one of the earliest to warn about global warming, and Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — have said 350 is the only safe level of carbon dioxide in the air.

Still, many economists, political leaders, and even some scientists believe that the worst effects of global warming can be avoided even with less stringent actions.

But there is general agreement among negotiators and climate scientists that continued global warming will lead to dramatic changes that mean more widespread drought in some regions, greater flooding along coastlines, stronger storms and the loss of species.

On Sunday, hundreds of churches around the world had signed up to ring bells at 3:50 p.m. in their respective time zones.

"It was an incredibly powerful moment and to know that there are bells ringing all over Europe, up to Greenland, down into the south Pacific and every corner of the planet," McKibben said moments after the bells stopped ringing in Copenhagen.

As they tolled, more than 40 government environment chiefs and other high-level negotiators were meeting at the Danish Foreign Ministry. They were trying to bridge the gap between their positions in informal talks before the second and last week of negotiations gets under way. The week will end with the arrival of President Barack Obama and more than 100 other national leaders for the final hours of negotiation.

Sharp divisions remain between rich and poor countries on greenhouse emissions cuts and financing for developing nations to deal with climate change and shift to cleaner energy.

"I think there was recognition around the table of the urgency of what we need to achieve in the coming days," Britain's Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said after Sunday's talks. "I think there needs to be more movement from everyone, more imagination, and I think we will all be striving for that."

Australia's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong also said a lot of work remains to be done.

"It's going to be tough to get an agreement by Friday but that's what we have to do," she told a news conference.

According to participants, the closed-door consultations focused on about a half-dozen plans on financing for poor countries to deal with climate change. One joint proposal by Mexico and Norway calls for a "Green Fund" for climate financing, starting with $10 billion a year in 2013, and increasing to $30 billion to $40 billion a year by 2020

Separately, a proposal aimed at saving the world's tropical forests suffered a setback Sunday, when negotiators ditched plans for faster action on the problem because of concerns that rich countries aren't willing to finance the plan. A deal on deforestation — a sizable global warming factor — is considered a key component of the larger pact.

For a second day in a row, police cracked down on climate activists marching through the Danish capital. More than 200 were detained as police stopped an unauthorized demonstration headed toward the city's harbor and carried out a security check of some of the participants.

Meanwhile, nearly all of the 1,000 detained on Saturday — from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the U.S — were released without charges. Thirteen of them were arraigned in court and faced preliminary charges of assaulting police or were let off with a warning for wearing masks, which are outlawed during demonstrations in Denmark, or carrying box-cutters or other sharp objects.

Reducing carbon dioxide levels to 350 would mean reversing the trend of the past couple of centuries. Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for as long as 100 years. And the emissions cuts currently being pledged by developed countries, including the United States and European nations, are aimed at having CO2 levels peak at around 450, not 350, in coming decades.

And even that may not be possible. Some economists say the world should plan to stop at 550.

Economist Henry Jacoby, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, has said that even 450 is "totally impossible, there's no way we can do that."

To get down to 350, civilization has to remove massive amounts of carbon dioxide from the skies, something talked about but not yet achieved. Trees and oceans suck CO2 from the atmosphere, but that process is overwhelmed by emissions from burning coal and oil. McKibben said it would probably take 40 years to get down to 350 even if emissions stopped today.

"It may be on the edge of impossible," he said Sunday. "We could do it. At the moment, there's no sign that we are going to do it."

MIT management professor John Sterman said scientifically 350 makes sense, even if economically it seem unreachable.

"We ought to have a goal of 350 and realize we're already above that," Sterman said.

___

Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen, John Heilprin and Karl Ritter contributed to this report.

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