Indonesian utilities agency awaiting government nuclear power plant policy

Antara 3 Feb 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - State-owned power utility firm PLN is waiting for the government to issue a policy on when a nuclear power plant could be used to produce electricity, a PLN official said.

PLN`s Planning and Technology Director Nasri Sebayang said here on Wednesday PLN had not yet included a nuclear power plant as a power generator in its Power Distribution General Plan (RUPTL) for the period 2009-2018.

"The RUPTL is arranged based on the National Power Master Plan (RUKN) for 2008 - 2025 which does not either included any plan to develop a nuclear power plant," he said.

However, Nasri said, the PLN would continue to carry out research on the use of nuclear energy as a power generator and to follow the developments of nuclear power plant (PLTN) technology.

He said that the availability, projection, technical and economic aspects needed to be taken into account in planning the use of a PLTN project.

"Calculations on the social and political aspects as well its security matters also needed to be made," he added.

In the meantime nuclear expert Sutaryo Supadi said that actually the government had included a consideration to build a nuclear energy plant in its RUKN in 2007.

But in 2008, the consideration was eliminated in the RUKN and in PLN`s RUPTL concept.

He said that virtually, based on Law No. 17/2007 On the National Long-Term Development Plan (RJPN), a nuclear power plant was expected to be already operated in the period between 2015 abd 2019.

"Thus, based on the law, the construction of a nuclear power plant should have been started this year," he said.

Sutaryo added that the government needed to form a national team which was in charge of preparing a plan and a program for the development of a nuclear power plant.(*)

PLN waiting for govt decision to go nuclear
The Jakarta Post 3 Feb 10;

State power producer PT PLN is ready to go nuclear but has been left waiting for the government’s decision on the issue, an executive says.

PLN director of planning and technology Nasri Sebayang said Wednesday the government was putting its nuclear utilization policy on hold as evidenced in the absence of nuclear energy on the 2009-2018 power generation master plan.

“The master plan refers to the long-term national power generation plan for 2008-2025 which excludes nuclear power as an alternative source of electricity,” Nasri told Antara state news agency on the sidelines of a seminar on nuclear energy in Jakarta.

He said, however, PLN was well-prepared for a policy change that endorsed the operation of nuclear power plants.

PLN, he added, was conducting a continuous study on the utilization of nuclear energy to generate power, taking into account social, political and safety issues, and following new developments in nuclear technology.

The 2007 law on long-term national development planning stipulates that nuclear power plants may be operating between 2015 and 2019, despite the controversy.

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Winner of tender for Indonesian geothermal power plant require-2 guarantee

Antara 4 Feb 10;

Semarang (ANTARA News) - The Central Java provincial administration required a guarantee of Rp100 billion of the winner of tender for the building of a geothermal power plant in Ungaran, Semarang regency.

Head of the Central Java energy and mineral resources (ESDM) agency Teguh Dwi Paryono said here Wednesday that the guarantee is proof of the readiness of the tender winner in carrying out the project.

He said this is based on past experience in other areas where nothing had been done with a geothermal power plant project.

"If the tender winner cannot carry out the work, the Rp100 billion will fall into the hands of the provincial administration. But if the project goes smoothly, the money will become part of the investment," he said.

The Central Java administration will also set up an independent team which will examine the financial condition of the tender winner.

Right now eight companies will be taking part in the tender, five of whom had already submitted their bids," he said.

The five companies include Medco Geoenergy, Bakrie Power, and Arta Aneka Tambang.

Teguh added that the winner of the tender will be announced in March 2010.(*)

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Obama Eyes Biofuels, Clean Coal In New Climate Push

Jeff Mason and Timothy Gardner, PlanetArk 4 Feb 10;

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama laid out new steps on Wednesday to nudge the United States toward energy independence, backing measures to boost production of biofuels and bury pollution from coal.

Using the new initiatives to garner support for a climate and energy bill stalled in the U.S. Senate, Obama met with a handful of state governors to press his policies to fight global warming and wean the nation from imported fossil fuels.

"America can win the race to build a clean energy economy, but we're going to have to overcome the weight of our own politics," he said at the meeting, noting China was pushing aggressively to lead in "clean" energy technology.

"We have to focus not so much on those narrow areas where we disagree, but on the broad areas where we agree," he said.

Agreement on a climate bill is still far from certain, and the legislation faces further obstacles after the election last month in Massachusetts that gave Republicans a Senate seat long held by Democrats, depriving the president's party of 60 votes that could overcome procedural hurdles.

Obama has acknowledged that a controversial "cap and trade" system could be separated from other parts of the bill, though he is adamant that a market-based mechanism be put in place to make high polluting fuels more expensive for industry than less-polluting, renewable energy sources.

Biofuels represent one renewable energy source the administration wants to promote, and a new interagency report spelled out ways the country would achieve that going forward.

"By 2022, we will more than double the amount of biofuels we produce to 36 billion gallons, which will decrease our dependence on foreign oil by hundreds of millions of barrels per year," Obama said.

He also announced a new task force to forge a plan for rolling out affordable carbon capture and storage technology in 10 years, including having 10 commercial demonstration projects up and running by 2016.

Carbon capture and storage is meant to capture the emissions from carbon-polluting coal plants and bury them underground rather than spewing them into the atmosphere but the technology is still being researched.

EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday ethanol and other renewable fuels must account for 8.25 percent of gasoline sales in 2010 to meet Congress' mandate that nearly 13 billion gallons of renewable fuels be produced this year.

That is lower than last year's 10.21 percent renewable fuel standard that the EPA announced in November 2008..

The United States is far away from its goal of producing 36 billion gallons (136 billion liters) of biofuels a year by 2022, currently producing 12 billion gallons annually, mostly from corn ethanol.

The report offers solutions that would ease the way for ethanol to get from producers in the U.S. Midwest to consumers near the coasts. Such snags include filling stations that have been slow to adopt pumps to distribute a fuel blend that is mostly ethanol, called E85, and a lack of dedicated pipelines for biofuels.

Loan guarantees for ethanol plants could be targeted more effectively to support new biofuels plants, the report said.

The struggling biofuels industry is concerned the Obama administration will move too quickly away from ethanol to biofuels that derive from more difficult techniques using wood chips and other biomass.

The president's backing of ethanol, however, could shore up his support in farm states, where ethanol boosts demand for corn.

Environmentalists and some scientists say production of U.S. biofuels from corn and other grains can drive out production of other crops, prompting farmers in other countries to burn down forests and clear land to grow those crops -- creating new sources of CO2, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

(Additional reporting by Tom Doggett; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Obama unveils new biofuels, carbon capture, initiatives
Yahoo News 3 Feb 10;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama on Wednesday unveiled a new strategy to reinvigorate US production of biofuels, vowing he would not let nations like China race ahead in building new energy economies.

Obama is embracing a host of traditional sources of power, including coal and nuclear and new energy sources, like wind power, as he attempts to improve dim prospects for cap-and-trade climate legislation in Congress.

He said his government's Environmental Protection Agency had mandated the production of 36 billion gallons of biofuel production in the United States by 2022, up from 11.1 billion gallons produced last year.

Obama argued that increasing production of renewable fuels would reduce US dependence on oil by more than 328 million barrels a year and cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 138 million metric tons a year by 2022.

"The bottom line is this: I am convinced that America can win the race to build a clean energy economy, but we're going to have to overcome the weight of our own politics.

"We have to focus not so much on those narrow areas where we disagree, but on the broad areas where we agree," Obama said in remarks to a bi-partisan group of state governors at the White House.

Biofuels are made from natural resources like plants, vegetable oils or fats, that can be converted to power vehicles for example, and are much more environmentally friendly than traditional fossil fuels.

Obama also announced an interagency task force to study carbon capture techniques to reduce greenhouse emissions from coal fired power stations and to help develop cleaner coal.

"It's been said that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal -- and that's because, as I said, it's one of our most abundant energy resources," said Obama.

"If we can develop the technology to capture the carbon pollution released by coal, it can create jobs and provide energy well into the future."

The president said he wanted 10 commercial carbon capture and storage projects up and running by 2016.

A bipartisan effort to pass a cap-and-trade bill in the Senate to tackle global warming appears under threat, as election year politics and delays for other key administration agenda items create a log-jam on Capitol Hill.

Read more!

Uproar in Brazil over huge Amazon dam plan

Yana Marull Yahoo News 3 Feb 10;

BRASILIA (AFP) – A controversial plan to build an immense dam in Brazil's rainforest endorsed this week has attracted a formidable bloc of opponents: ecologists, indigenous Indians and Sting.

The facility, in Belo Monte in the northern state of Para, will be the third-biggest hydroelectric dam in the world once built, after the Three Gorges dam in China and Brazil's existing Itaipu dam.

It will produce 11,000 Megawatts of energy for Brazil's rapidly growing economy, with the project's total cost estimated at 11 billion dollars.

Critics have lashed out at the move, warning it will leave vast environmental devastation in its wake.

Some 500 square kilometers (190 square miles) of land will be inundated, and indigenous communities living along 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the Xingu River feeding it will be displaced from their traditional territories.

The British singer Sting brought the issue to international attention last year when he invited a high-profile Brazilian Indian, Raoni, on stage to denounce the dam during a concert in Sao Paulo.

"It's a project that only benefits companies. Despite all they say, it's not 'clean energy:' it generates methane gas, which provokes climate change, and it will displace 30,000 residents," Antonia Melo of the Xingo Vivo Movement that groups 150 indigenous and social groups opposed to the dam told AFP.

The region's bishop, Erwin Krautler, counts among the fiercest opponents.

"The project completely underestimates the consequences that will be irreversible. (President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva) promised to speak with the population, but there was no dialogue," he said.

The state prosecutor's office has also raised questions over the project, which would see the local population double with the arrival of 85,000 job seekers, who would contribute to deforestation.

But the federal government, which has already had two other dams built on the Madeira river in the Amazon, insists the new dam meets environmental criteria.

"This is without any doubt the strictest environmental license in history. The company (that clinches the tender) will have to spend 800 million dollars in compensation," notably over the loss of native lands, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said.

Energy specialist Adriano Pires said "Belo Monte will ensure clean energy production" at a time when Brazil is facing a five percent increase in energy consumption due to its economic expansion.

"In Germany, which is always cited as an example, 10 percent of the energy comes from renewable sources, whereas in Brazil, hydroelectric plants produce 90 percent of the electricity. We can't give up on this because Belo Monte is important."

Read more!

India’s second largest lake faces ecological collapse

Global Nature Fund OpenPR 3 Feb 10;

Global Nature Fund nominates Lake Pulicat as “Threatened Lake of the Year 2010”

Serious environmental impacts destroy the livelihood of 50,000 fishermen as well as hundreds of thousands of people at the Indian Lake Pulicat. The once species-rich fishing grounds and the ecologically important mangrove forests in the lagoon north of the city of Chennai have reached an alarming dimension.

Radolfzell / Chennai February, 2nd 2010: Hundreds of thousands of people are affected by the consequences of deforestation and pollution at the second largest brackish water lagoon in India. Over-exploitation, mismanagement as well as improperly treated industrial effluents (containing heavy metals) from more than 25 industries coming from the nearby megacity Chennai deteriorate the water quality dramatically.

This is not only affecting the lake but also the 50,000 fishermen and hundred of thousands Indians, whose livelihood and food resource depend on the lake. In former times the artisanal fishery at Lake Pulicat counted 30,000 fishermen. Due to repeated agricultural mistakes and lack of jobs thousands of farmers and day labourers living in the lake region started fishing in the lake, particularly after the Tsunami in 2004.

Prawn farms and an increasing population put additional pressure on the lake’s ecosystem. Overuse of the natural resources and shortage of clean drinking water are inevitable consequences.

Global Nature Fund (GNF) together with the Indian environmental organisation Centre for Research on new International Economic Order (CReNIEO) support the restoration of the species-rich mangrove forests. The sheltered water zones between the dense roots provide ideal conditions for the larvae of numerous fish species. As a result the species diversity increases and fishing remains an assured source of income for the local population.

In a current joint project of both organisations 25,000 mangrove plants are grown within two years in the lake region. Therefore, different mangrove species from the South of Chennai are being used. Further, the insufficient water management must be improved by installing pit drainages and green filter water treatment systems.

In order to involve the local population in this process, the project implies environmental education activities that mainly address women. The women learn methods to grow and plant mangroves which they then put into practise.

For more information and photos please visit: www.globalnature.org/Presse

Background:
Since 2004, on the Worlds Wetlands Day (2nd February) GNF nominates the “Threatened Lake of the Year” to call attention to a threatened lake and help solving environmental problems. The lagoon is an important habitat for 160 different fish species and more than 110 varieties of terrestrial and aquatic birds and small mammals and reptiles. Up to 15.000 flamingoes visit the lake on their annual migration route. Pulicat Lake is member of the international network Living Lakes. The network successively and sustainably engages with local institutions in regions where lakes and wetlands encounter severe threats and is supported by international corporations such as Daimler, the German Airline Lufthansa, T-Mobile, Sika, Reckitt Benckiser and Osram.

Kontakt:
Global Nature Fund (GNF)
Fritz-Reichle-Ring 4
78315 Radolfzell, Deutschland
Tel.: 0 77 32 - 99 95 – 0
Fax: 0 77 32 - 99 95 – 88
E-Mail: info@globalnature.org
Website: www.globalnature.org

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Climate change causes wolverine decline across Canada

Wolverine numbers 'melting away'
Matt Walker, BBC News 3 Feb 10;

The wolverine, a predator renowned for its strength and tenacious character, may be slowly melting away along with the snowpack upon which it lives.

Research shows wolverine numbers are falling across North America. Their decline has been linked to less snow settling as a result of climate change.

The study is the first to show a decline in the abundance of any land species due to vanishing snowpack.

Details of the wolverine's decline are published in Population Ecology.

The wolverine lives in boreal forest across Scandinavia, northern Russia, northern China, Mongolia and North America, where it ranges mostly across six provinces of western Canada.



This largest member of the weasel family eats carrion and food it hunts itself, including hares, marmots, smaller rodents and young or weakened ungulates.

It has evolved for life on the snowpack, having thick fur and outsized feet that help it move across and hunt on snow.

Striking trend

Wildlife biologist Dr Jedediah Brodie of the University of Montana, in Missoula, US, wondered how climate change might be having an impact on snowpack levels, and on the animals that depend on it.

He had previously researched how declining levels of snow in the US Yellowstone National Park, caused by climate change, was changing the abundance of aspen trees and how elk feed on them.

Dr Brodie and his colleague, Professor Eric Post of Pennsylvania State University, at University Park, US, gathered data on snowpack levels across six provinces of Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory.

In all bar the Yukon, he found that snowpack depth declined significantly between 1968 and 2004.

Other studies have shown corresponding rising temperatures and declining precipitation across much of the western US.

"It occurred to me that a good first place to look for ecological impacts of that snowpack decline would be with a snow-adapted species like the wolverine," Dr Brodie told the BBC.

"Fortuitously, Canada has good records of both snowpack trends over time as well as trends in the harvest of all sorts of fur-bearing animals."

So Dr Brodie and Professor Post examined the records of wolverine numbers caught by fur trappers over the same period.

They found a striking correlation between declining snowpack and falling numbers of the predator.

"In provinces where winter snowpack levels are declining fastest, wolverine populations tend to be declining most rapidly," the researchers wrote in the journal article.

"Spring snowpack also appears to influence wolverine population dynamics."

The researchers found only one province, the Northwest Territories, where wolverine numbers are increasing. There, snowpack levels are declining but they remain much higher and less variable than in most other provinces.

Food scarcity

Dr Brodie cannot be sure why wolverine numbers are falling, but he has his suspicions.

"Recent work shows that wolverines appear to use areas with deep snowpack for dispersal. So reduced snowpack could make dispersal more difficult or dangerous, potentially reducing the success rate with which individuals can establish new home ranges," he says.

"Reduced snowpack may also make it harder for wolverines to get food, for several reasons.

"First, harsh winters and deep snow are major causes of mortality for ungulates like elk, moose, deer and caribou.

"If milder winters mean that fewer of these animals die over the course of the winter, then there will be fewer carcasses for wolverines to feed on," he explains.



"Wolverines also hunt rodents, and this food source may be important for wolverine reproductive success in some areas.

"But shallower snowpack is bad for a lot of rodents because it provides less insulation from the cold.

"So if declining snowpack reduces rodent abundance, that could be bad for wolverines."

Dr Brodie believes that his is the first study to show a decline in species abundance due to a reducing snowpack - for any land animal, not just those in North America.

But he says there are interesting parallels in marine systems.

"For example, sea ice is critical for polar bear foraging."

Polar bear body condition, reproductive rates, and survival have declined significantly in Hudson Bay as sea ice breaks up earlier in the spring, he says.

"At the other end of the globe, Antarctic sea ice has increased over recent decades.

"This may have negative impacts on adelie penguin populations that depend on ice-free areas for breeding and foraging.

"But we don't have to just sit back and watch climate change drive animals extinct," he says.

"As climate change worsens, we should reduce trapping levels and also disturbance to boreal forest habitats.

"Reducing the impact of these anthropogenic stressors could help 'offset' the impacts of climate change on wolverines."

Read more!

Global warming good for trees, bad for ducks: studies

Karin Zeitvogel Yahoo News 3 Feb 10;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Global warming is good news for trees, which are thriving in higher temperatures and longer growing seasons, but bad news for ducks and other waterfowl, whose wetland habitat may dry up and disappear, two studies show.

A study by researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Maryland indicates that higher temperatures, longer growing seasons and increased levels of carbon dioxide brought by climate change are helping trees in temperate climates to grow faster.

The researchers studied data on how many trees there were in 55 forests in the eastern United States during a 22-year period, as well as 100 years of local weather measurements and 17 years of carbon dioxide measurements.

Their findings, which were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) show that recent tree growth "greatly exceeded the expected growth," and they hypothesized that the spurt was due to climate change.

"Increases in temperature, growing season and atmospheric CO2 have documented influences on tree physiology, metabolism and growth and likely they are critical to changing the rate of ... growth observed," says the study.

Rising temperatures have increased the metabolic processes of trees and extended their growing season, while higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could be spurring tree growth through carbon fertilization, the study says.

But for ducks and other waterfowl, rising temperatures are bad news, according to a separate study conducted by researchers from the US Geological Survey and South Dakota State University and published this week in the journal BioScience.

That study found that the prairie wetlands that stretch across five north-central US states and into Canada, where numerous species of duck, waterfowl and amphibians feed, breed and shelter, could dry up if temperatures rise by four degrees Celsius.

A model developed by the researchers to try to understand the impact of a warmer climate on the wetlands projected major reductions in water volume, a shortening of the time water stays in the wetlands, and changes to vegetation in the vast area, which reaches across North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana and Iowa and into Canada.

If temperatures rise by four degrees Celsius, parts of the North American prairie will become too dry for waterfowl and other parts will have too few functional wetlands and nesting habitat to support historical levels of wetland species, W. Carter Johnson, one of the authors of the study, said.

Wetland species need a minimum amount of time in water to complete their life cycles. Mallards, for example, need at least 80 days of surface water for their young to grow and be able to fly and for breeding adult ducks to molt, or grow new feathers.

"The prairie wetlands are highly vulnerable to climate warming and less resilient than we previously believed. It's difficult to imagine how to maintain today's level of waterfowl populations in altered climate conditions," study author Glenn Guntenspergen of the US Geological Survey.

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Black carbon a significant factor in melting of Himalayan glaciers

EurekAlert 3 Feb 10;

The fact that glaciers in the Himalayan mountains are thinning is not disputed. However, few researchers have attempted to rigorously examine and quantify the causes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist Surabi Menon set out to isolate the impacts of the most commonly blamed culprit—greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide—from other particles in the air that may be causing the melting. Menon and her collaborators found that airborne black carbon aerosols, or soot, from India is a major contributor to the decline in snow and ice cover on the glaciers.

"Our simulations showed greenhouse gases alone are not nearly enough to be responsible for the snow melt," says Menon, a physicist and staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division. "Most of the change in snow and ice cover—about 90 percent—is from aerosols. Black carbon alone contributes at least 30 percent of this sum."

Menon and her collaborators used two sets of aerosol inventories by Indian researchers to run their simulations; their results were published online in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The actual contribution of black carbon, emitted largely as a result of burning fossil fuels and biomass, may be even higher than 30 percent because the inventories report less black carbon than what has been measured by observations at several stations in India. (However, these observations are too incomplete to be used in climate models.) "We may be underestimating the amount of black carbon by as much as a factor of four," she says.

The findings are significant because they point to a simple way to make a swift impact on the snow melt. "Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 100 years, but black carbon doesn't stay in the atmosphere for more than a few weeks, so the effects of controlling black carbon are much faster," Menon says. "If you control black carbon now, you're going to see an immediate effect."

The Himalayan glaciers are often referred to as the third polar ice cap because of the large amount of ice mass they hold. The glacial melt feeds rivers in China and throughout the Indian subcontinent and provide fresh water to more than one billion people.

Atmospheric aerosols are tiny particles containing nitrates, sulfates, carbon and other matter, and can influence the climate. Unlike other aerosols, black carbon absorbs sunlight, similar to greenhouse gases. But unlike greenhouse gases, black carbon does not heat up the surface; it warms only the atmosphere.

This warming is one of two ways in which black carbon melts snow and ice. The second effect results from the deposition of the black carbon on a white surface, which produces an albedo effect that accelerates melting. Put another way, dirty snow absorbs far more sunlight—and gets warmer faster—than pure white snow.

Previous studies have shown that black carbon can have a powerful effect on local atmospheric temperature. "Black carbon can be very strong," Menon says. "A small amount of black carbon tends to be more potent than the same mass of sulfate or other aerosols."

Black carbon, which is caused by incomplete combustion, is especially prevalent in India and China; satellite images clearly show that its levels there have climbed dramatically in the last few decades. The main reason for the increase is the accelerated economic activity in India and China over the last 20 years; top sources of black carbon include shipping, vehicle emissions, coal burning and inefficient stoves. According to Menon's data, black carbon emitted in India increased by 46 percent from 1990 to 2000 and by another 51 percent from 2000 to 2010.

However, black carbon's effect on snow is not linear. Menon's simulations show that snow and ice cover over the Himalayas declined an average of about one percent from 1990 to 2000 due to aerosols that originated from India. Her study did not include particles that may have originated from China, also known to be a large source of black carbon. (See "Black soot and the survival of the Tibetan glaciers," by James Hansen, et al., published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.) Also the figure is an average for the entire region, which saw increases and decreases in snow cover. As seen in the figure, while a large swath of the Himalayas saw snow cover decrease by at least 16 percent over this period, as reported by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a few smaller patches saw increases.

Menon's study also found that black carbon affects precipitation and is a major factor in triggering extreme weather in eastern India and Bangladesh, where cyclones, hurricanes and flooding are common. It also contributes to the decrease in rainfall over central India. Because black carbon heats the atmosphere, it changes the local heating profile, which increases convection, one of the primary causes of precipitation. While this results in more intense rainfall in some regions, it leads to less in other regions. The pattern is very similar to a study Menon led in 2002, which found that black carbon led to droughts in northern China and extreme floods in southern China.

"The black carbon from India is contributing to the melting of the glaciers, it's contributing to extreme precipitation, and if black carbon can be controlled more easily than greenhouse gases like CO2, then it makes sense for India to regulate black carbon emissions," says Menon.

Read more!

When natural disasters are only human

Andy Ho, Straits Times 4 Feb 10;

AMONG the most embarrassing reports from Haiti are those about its elite. The Jan 12 quake which destroyed much of Port-au-Prince spared its wealthy eastern suburb of Petionville. The mansions there were simply better constructed than most other buildings in the capital.

For Petionville residents - mostly fair-skinned descendants of the French colonialists who controlled the slave plantation economy until independence in 1804 - the genteel life continues. Meanwhile, the black denizens of the shanties in downtown Port-au-Prince who survived the temblor are still on the streets. Relief aid isn't arriving fast enough and most of it will go to Petionville residents, in any case, 'through their government connections, trading companies and interconnected family businesses', as The Washington Post noted.

This unequal distribution of the consequences of the quake is quite typical of natural disasters. In ancient times, a disaster - from dis + astro or 'bad star' - was believed to involve the baleful forces of nature striking humans. But though natural hazards may be unavoidable, they become tragedies only when human decisions result in the most vulnerable bearing most of the suffering.

There are various economic and political factors which cause the consequences of natural disasters to be unequally distributed. But only limited progress has been made in analysing them, which could be one task for the multi-disciplinary Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management that Nanyang Technological University launched last month.

In the 1970s and 1980s, disaster studies focused on how human extractive activities like logging led to deforestation, the silting of rivers and so on. In the 1990s, experts recognised how the consequences of such tragedies were non-randomly distributed by race and income.

In the last decade, their causes were also recognised to be non-random too. Thus, almost all toxic emissions in the United States and Japan come from 5 per cent of their economic activity, almost all located in the poorest communities. Who makes these location decisions? The rich and powerful, of course.

Because natural disasters are assumed to impact just those who happen to be caught in their paths, researchers neglected to look for the social, economic or political factors influencing their impact on people. Instead, their focus has largely been on emergency preparedness, disaster recovery and the like.

The places that are historically prone to quakes or hurricanes are already very well known. Thus when people build in such locations, they do so hoping not to be struck in the near future. Or perhaps they believe they will survive the disaster should it occur.

It was Yale sociologist Charles Perrow who introduced the notion of 'normal accidents'. That is, given the extent to which we depend today on complex systems - power generation, for example, or sewage disposal - multiple catastrophes just waiting to occur are actually built into the fabric of our lives.

Professor Perrow further argues in The Next Catastrophe that instead of assuming a natural disaster is naturally a tragedy, we should look for human causes that turn it into one at any particular location.

On Aug 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina swept down on New Orleans, breaking the levees on the Mississippi river. Some 1,300 people perished in the floods that destroyed 69,000 houses and racked up US$100 billion (S$140 billion) in losses.

In 1965 and 1969, respectively, hurricanes Betsy and Camille took the same path as Katrina did but caused much less damage. Betsy saw a quarter of the city flooded but only 76 people perished. Stronger levees were then built - but Katrina flooded 80 per cent of New Orleans.

While Katrina stories usually focus on the broken levees, the fact of the matter is Louisiana had more public funding for levee construction than any other state in the five years before Katrina occurred. What mattered more was the building of a 122km long, ramrod straight, deepwater canal that directly connected the salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the freshwater of the Mississippi River.

Completed in 1968, it allowed sea water to penetrate very far inland. The salinity killed plants in the wetlands around the river that had long buffered New Orleans from storm surges. Between 1965 and 2005, one million out of four million acres of wetlands were lost thus. Sans wetlands to sponge up hurricane storm surges, the straight canal provided an unobstructed path for and amplified the Katrina flood waters. The levees broke and the rest is history.

Researchers have established that the authorities knew before building the canal that it could destroy the wetlands and raise the risk of hurricane flooding. But it was built, nevertheless, to transform river town New Orleans into a seaport. Over the decades, however, the crooked Mississippi river still carried 250 times more freight than the straight canal. The latter was prone to silting and was re-dredged frequently, which obstructed traffic.

The background to Katrina shows how it was human actions that turned a natural hazard into a tragedy. Prof Perrow argues that spreading out populations now concentrated in hazardous regions will reduce the risks in case of another Katrina.

But the poor have few relocation options. Those trapped in New Orleans as the flood waters rose were mainly poor blacks with no transportation out.

Because Katrina led to significant silting, big vessels can no longer use the canal. By July last year, a rock barrier had been constructed to plug the canal, which will be closed. But should another hurricane make landfall before the wetlands are restored, which could take decades, the poor will bear its brunt - again.

Read more!

Indonesia mulling actions, cost to cut gas emissions

Fardah, Antara 3 Feb 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian government has started mulling actions and calculating the cost to implement its plan to cut gas emissions by 26 percent in 2020 and by 41 percent with international support.

"In the spirit of thinking outside the box, in September this year Indonesia declared an emission reduction target of 26 percent of `business as usual` by 2020, and this can be increased to 41 percent with enhanced international assistance," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in his speech before participants of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), in Copenhagen in December 2009.

"As a non-Annex 1 country, we are actually not required to do this. But we read the stark scientific warnings of the IPCC. So we have set our new reduction target, because we want to be part of a global solution," the head of state added.

To follow-up the commitment, Indonesia presented an official seven-page report on its emission reduction target by 26 percent from current levels by 2020 to combat climate change, to the UN last January 31, 2010.

The non-binding Copenhagen accord set a Jan. 31 deadline for countries to confirm their participation in a deal brokered by the US in last month`s climate talks in Denmark.
Indonesia is currently preparing a legal umbrella in the form of a presidential decree to achieve the target of greenhouse gas reduction by 26 percent nationwide by 2020.

"The legal umbrella in the form of a presidential decree is still being prepared," the environment minister`s deputy for improvement of natural resource conservation and control of environment destruction, Masnellyarti Hilman, said when accompanying Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta at a press conference in Jakarta, last January.

She said the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) followed up the results of the coordination program in reducing gas emissions by implementing them into the National Action Plan for Dealing with Climate Change (RAN MAPI).

Based on the RAN MAPI six sectors are targeted for emission reduction, namely energy, transportation, processing industry, agriculture, forestry, waste processing and emissions from peat lands.

The forestry sector would become the main target for emissions reduction by the equivalent of 392 mega tons per year, followed by emissions reduction from peat lands by the equivalent of 48 mega tons a year and emissions reduction from waste processing by the equivalent of 48 mega tons a year, she said.

The next sectors are energy by the equivalent of 30 mega tons a year, transportation by the equivalent of eight mega tons a year, agriculture by the equivalent of eight megatons a year and processing industry by the equivalent of one megaton a year.

Masnellyarti said the six sectors had been elaborated in the National Communications II Indonesia report to the UNFCCC.

According to Law Number 32 of 2009 on environment protection and processing, the environment ministry is obliged to make an inventory of national greenhouse gas emissions.

"This will be used as the basis for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of the implementation of the efforts to achieve the target," she said.

As funding for the 26 percent emissions reduction program will come from domestic sources, the MRV is carried out domestically based on methods and procedures set by the environment ministry.

Meanwhile, the government has estimated that it would need around Rp400 trillion to reduce gas emissions by 26 percent until 2020.

"We hope not all of it must come from the government. The figure is dynamic or could still change," the secretary of the state minister for national development planning, Sjahrial Loetan, said recently.

He said at least there were some real programs that the government could do to achieve the goal such as maintaining peatlands and reforestation.

The two programs would be able to reduce emissions by around 22 to 24 percent. There are at least 34 million hectares of peatland under focus, consisting of young and old peatlands.

In addition, he said, there was a program to economize the use of energy which was expected to reduce emissions by around two percent. The government would promote the use of renewable energy sources and the use of gas to replace oil in power plants.

He said due to limited funds the government expected participation from various parties in the effort.

There had been funds available from abroad for supporting the program such as "from Britain totaling one million pounds and another 3.5 million pounds from there which will come in a couple of months. And after that they are committed to extend another 50 million pounds for over five years," he said.

More funds are also expected to come from several other countries such as the Netherlands, Norway and other Scandinavian countries.

"They wish to see our commitment first, if they are not corrupted. So far only Britain that has sent the money but some Scandinavian countries have already expressed their commitment," he said.

He said he hoped private parties particularly companies would participate in the effort through their corporate social responsibility program.

Meanwhile, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan, on a separate occasion in Jakarta early January 2010, said the forestry sector would be a net sinker capable of absorbing up to 0.89 giga tons of CO2 by 2020.

The sector`s capability will contribute to efforts to reduce gas emissions by 14 percent out of a total of 26 percent in 2020, he said.

Greenpeace, however, said the government has not yet taken real action to fulfill this emission cut commitment so far.

"In 2010 the Indonesian government must show that they are serious about meeting their emission reduction targets by implementing a moratorium on deforestation and peatland clearance," Greenpeace Southeast Asia said on its website.

The international environmental NGO believed that a moratorium on forest and peatland destruction is the most effective way to meet Indonesia`s gas emission reduction targets.

Another NGO, Oxfam International East Asia Climate, is of the view that it is more important for Indonesia to prepare adaptations and mitigation on the impact of climate change for the poor than targeting emissions reduction.

"As Indonesia is not a country obliged to reduce carbon emissions in line with the Kyoto Protocol, Indonesia could create a pilot project or strategy for adapting to climate change," Oxfam International East Asia Climate campaigner Rully Prayogashe said recently.(*)

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Indonesian government in the dark about source of Copenhagen funds

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 3 Feb 10;

The government said it remained in the dark over how to apply for climate change funds that were promised by rich nations at the recent Copenhagen summit.

No clear mechanism to establish how such funds will be disbursed has been established following the completion of the summit in December 2009.

Experts warned that unanswered questions about the funding could breed mistrust among countries tackling climate change.

“We have sent a letter to the UN asking for an explanation on the mechanisms to apply for the climate change funding,” the Indonesian delegate to the climate talks, Wandojo Siswanto, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

A non-binding Copenhagen accord stipulates that rich nations will provide US$30 billion between 2010 and 2012 to developing nations to mitigate climate change.

Rich nations also promised to scale up climate funding to developing countries to $100 billion
by 2020.

“But we still have no idea on where the funds will come from and what countries are eligible for the funding,” said Wandojo.

He said the funds were crucial for helping Indonesia prepare pilot projects for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) schemes.

The accord did not specify the countries that would be eligible for the fund, but it promised to give financial aid to forestry nations to cut emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation.

Indonesia, the world’s third-largest forest nation with 120 million hectares of rainforests, argued the country was eligible for the climate funding on account of its huge forest area.

The Copenhagen accord set a deadline for the parties to submit their official reports on emission-reduction targets for both rich and developing countries.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Unfccc) reported that only 55 countries out of 194 parties met the deadline.

Indonesia submitted its report claiming it would cut emissions by 26 percent.

“The question is, are countries that did not sign the accord also eligible for the climate fund?

“If that is the case, there is no extra incentive to join the Copenhagen accord,” he said.

Indonesia will spend an estimated Rp 83 trillion to cut 767 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

A study by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)
said the climate fund promised by rich nations was uncertain as several unanswered questions
remained.

It said several questions needed to be answered, such as the source and nature of the funds and the way it would be distributed.

“It is far from clear where the funding will come from, if it is genuinely new and additional, how will it be allocated and channeled?” Saleemul Hug, a senior fellow to the IIED’s climate change group, said in a statement made available to the Post.

The Copenhagen accord was brokered by the US after the collapse of talks on legally binding emissions targets in December.

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Glacier error 'cost us dear': UN climate panel chief

Yahoo News 3 Feb 10;

LONDON (AFP) – The embattled chief of the UN climate change panel admitted Wednesday that a mistake in a landmark 2007 report had damaged the body's credibility, in an interview with a British newspaper.

But Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), refused to apologise in the interview with the Guardian for the erroneous claim that global warming could melt Himalayan glaciers by 2035.

The Nobel-winning panel has faced fierce criticism over the mistake -- which has been discredited by glaciologists and is being withdrawn -- and the controversy has given fresh ammunition to climate sceptics.

"I think this (glacier) mistake has certainly cost us dear, there's no question about it," Pachauri told the newspaper.

"Everybody thought that what the IPCC brought out was the gold standard and nothing could go wrong."

But when pressed to give a personal apology over the error -- just the latest controversy to hit the UN panel -- the climate scientist refused.

He said the IPCC had issued a statement expressing regret and he was not personally responsible for that part of the report.

"You can't expect me to be personally responsible for every word of a 3,000 page report," he said, dismissing the idea of an apology as a "populist" move.

The revelation of the fake glacier claim was a heavy blow to the climate change panel, as the report it came from was regarded as the scientific touchstone for faltering global climate talks.

The IPCC's landmark Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 said the probability of glaciers in the Himalayas "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high."

But there is no evidence the claim was published in a peer-reviewed journal, a cornerstone of scientific credibility, and reports in Britain have said the reference came from green group the WWF.

Despite the damage done to the IPCC by the mistake and the negative publicity it has attracted, Pachauri called for people to move beyond the controversy.

He called for people to "look at the larger picture, don't get blinded by this one mistake."

"The larger picture is solid, it's convincing and it's extremely important. How can we lose sight of what climate change is going to do to this planet?" he said.

The glacier error is just the latest controversy to hit the IPCC amid troubled UN climate talks, which were already severely set back after the near collapse of December's Copenhagen climate summit.

The panel came under ferocious attack ahead of the Copenhagen talks over hacked email exchanges which climate sceptics say reflected attempts to skew the evidence for global warming.

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