Technology helps Liberia turn the page on 'blood timber'

Zoom Dosso Yahoo News 16 Mar 10;

MONROVIA (AFP) – Liberia's rainforests, once ravaged for blood timber sold to fund one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars, are being primed as a lucrative and legal industry using cutting-edge tracking technology.

One by one an electronic tag -- similar to bar codes used on consumer products -- is attached to trees in the thick woodlands covering 45 percent of the West African nation, a painstaking process that will allow consumers to trace the end-product right back to the stump.

While the use of "blood diamonds" to fund wars in the region is better known, it was timber that propped up armed factions, notably those of former president Charles Taylor, during 14 years of Liberian conflict that left over 250,000 dead.

Before a United Nations ban on timber exports in 2003, the timber industry brought in a quarter of Liberia's gross domestic product (GDP), and its revival is key to boosting government coffers in one of the world's poorest countries.

In 2006, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf enacted a new forestry law to protect the tropical forests which contain more than 59 species of trees --- and the UN ban was lifted.

The continent's first female president cancelled all previous concessions and put Swiss monitoring company SGS in charge of managing the forests using intelligent tracking software from the Britain-based firm Helveta.

"Liberia is the first country in the world where we have reached this level of the tracking system," said SGS operations manager for Liberia, Thomas de Francqueville, comparing the process to that in supermarkets.

"We start the checking in the forest by making sure that only trees to be cut are cut, we follow the logs on the field, and we check the logs at the port until they are put in the ship."

A report by the International Tropical Timber Organisation in 2005 showed that prior to the industry collapse, the sector generated up to 20 million dollars (14.6 million euros) a year in government revenue and 100 million dollars in exports.

As the country, left in tatters by its successive civil wars, builds its economy and infrastructure from scratch, the forests could prove extremely valuable -- if they are properly managed.

Illegal logging has wreaked havoc on wildlife and communities, while properly managing resources could provide sustainable income and keep the forests in good shape.

"Those trees in a protected area cannot be extracted and so all of these are for conservation -- so it's obvious that the forest will always be replenished, because it's not all trees that are cut," said Eric Gayleh, SGS field officer team supervisor.

Moses Wogbeh, managing director of the Liberian Forestry Development Authority FDA, said parliament had introduced a re-forestation policy and companies given licenses to operate were "very carefully" chosen.

The government will have earned 12 million dollars since it started re-issuing licenses in the beginning of 2009 by the end of March, De Francqueville said.

The first seven containers were exported in November, another six are currently ready for export and the first large-scale shipment is expected some time this month, according to SGS.

The industry is expected to eventually employ some 50,000 people in one of the world's poorest countries, where per capita GDP is estimated at 190 dollars.

However illegal felling continues, for sale on the local market, for charcoal production or to clear land for agriculture, and many of the so-called pit sawers -- the term for small-scale generally illegal loggers -- are former fighters whom authorities hope to bring over to their side.

"The chainsaw will eventually fade away gradually. If some of them remain it will be a smaller scale where we will be able to manage them and control them ... but we are not taking them out of business," said Wogbeh.

Key to the logging deals is ensuring that local communities benefit.

So far, "we have licensed seven foreign management contracts, ranging from 50,000 to 400,000 hectares (123,500 to 988,400 acres)," Wogbeh told AFP.

"In the forest management contract there are provisions spelling out that the companies have to build schools, roads, hospitals in areas where they are operating," he said.

Another provision requires the company to sign a social agreement that entitles the community to 30 percent of the land rental and 1.5 dollars per cubic meter (35 cubic feet) of timber harvested, Wogbeh said.

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Habitat loss wiping out Europe's butterflies

Yahoo News 16 Mar 10;

DOHA (AFP) – The destruction of natural habitats in Europe is wiping out butterfly, beetle and dragonfly species across the region, the updated European "Red List" of endangered species showed Tuesday.

"When a Red List like this raises the alarm, the implications for our own future are clear. This is a worrying decline," said EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik.

Scientists examining Europe's 435 butterfly species found that the populations of one in three species are falling and nine percent are already threatened with extinction.

"Most butterflies at risk are confined to southern Europe," said Annabelle Cuttelod, coordinator of the European Red List at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

"Their main threat is habitat loss, most often caused by changes in agricultural practices, either through intensification or abandonment, or to climate change, forest fires and the expansion of tourism."

Likewise, logging has led to a decline in the populations of some beetles species that are depend on decaying wood. Known as saproxylic beetles, they play an important role in ecosystems by recycling nutrients.

Some 11 percent or 46 species of them are at risk of being lost from the region, while seven percent are threatened with extinction worldwide.

"The main long-term threats to saproxylic beetles are habitat loss due to logging and the decline in the number of mature trees," said the IUCN.

For dragonflies, it is the depletion of freshwater resources that is causing these species to drop in numbers.

Five percent of dragonfly species are threatened with global extinction, while some 11 percent are considered to be near threatened within Europe.

"Increasingly hot and dry summers combined with intensified water extraction for drinking and irrigation are causing the dragonflies' wetland habitats to dry up," said the IUCN.

The list including some 6,000 European species is part of the IUCN's overall Red List, which is the most respected inventory of biodiversity covering more than 47,000 of the world's species.

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UN chides Russia on wildlife failures from the 2014 Winter Olympics

Yahoo News 16 Mar 10;

MOSCOW (AFP) – The United Nations on Tuesday criticised Russia for taking too long to implement decisions to protect the environment from the impact of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The alpine and nordic events in the 2014 Games - Russia's biggest sporting event since the collapse of the Soviet Union - are to be held in a region of outstanding natural diversity in the mountains above Sochi.

Russian environmentalists have long complained the extensive building works risk harming the environment and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said it dispatched a mission to Sochi in response to their protests.

"The implementation of decisions taken at the political level relating to the mitigation and compensation of impacts of Olympic and tourism projects are taking too long," the mission's report said.

It said that these included enlarging the existing Sochi national park, strengthening of the level of protection of the most sensitive areas and the setting up of new areas to protect habitats for birds and animals.

Meanwhile, assessments of the building projects "did not take into account the cumulative... effects on the ecosystems of the Sochi region and its population," the report said.

The report nonetheless praised the organisers for being open to discussions on the issue.

It also noted that while ecologists felt they were being ignored, "those contracted to develop projects also feel that some NGOs were only interested in stalling the entire Olympic project."

The Russian branch of WWF expressed satisfaction with the report, saying UNEP had agreed with NGOs and underlined "the necessity of rapidly setting up monitoring of the impact of the construction on the environment."

WWF has already accused the government of inflicting "huge damage" on nature in its rush to build infrastructure for the 2014 Games and threatened to cease cooperation with the authorities for the event.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, the government's pointman for the Games, had at the weekend launched a scathing attack on Russian environmentalists who had been criticising the Olympics.

Russian NGOs were adopting "an unconstructive position and many are simply trying to obstruct the Olympic project", Russian media quoted him as saying.

Sochi pulled off a stunning victory to win the right to host the Games at the International Olympic Committee vote in 2007, helped by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin pleading its case in English.

But officials have a major challenge in ensuring the Games are ready on time, with much of the infrastructure in the Black Sea port city and the mountains above needing to be built from scratch.

Kozak said almost all the facilities were on schedule, with only the luge and bobsleigh sliding track lagging behind.

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Major report reveals the environmental and social impact of the 'livestock revolution'

Stanford University, EurekAlert 16 Mar 10;

A major report by an international research team explores the impact of the global livestock industry on the environment, the economy and human health.

Global meat production has tripled in the past three decades and could double its present level by 2050, according to a new report on the livestock industry by an international team of scientists and policy experts. The impact of this "livestock revolution" is likely to have significant consequences for human health, the environment and the global economy, the authors conclude.

"The livestock industry is massive and growing," said Harold A. Mooney, co-editor of the two-volume report, Livestock in a Changing Landscape (Island Press). Mooney is a professor of biology and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment.

"This is the first time that we've looked at the social, economic, health and environmental impacts of livestock in an integrated way and presented solutions for reducing the detrimental effects of the industry and enhancing its positive attributes," he said.

Among the key findings in the report are:

* More than 1.7 billion animals are used in livestock production worldwide and occupy more than one-fourth of the Earth's land.

* Production of animal feed consumes about one-third of total arable land.

* Livestock production accounts for approximately 40 percent of the global agricultural gross domestic product.

* The livestock sector, including feed production and transport, is responsible for about 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Impacts on humanity

Although about 1 billion poor people worldwide derive at least some part of their livelihood from domesticated animals, the rapid growth of commercialized industrial livestock has reduced employment opportunities for many, according to the report. In developing countries, such as India and China, large-scale industrial production has displaced many small, rural producers, who are under additional pressure from health authorities to meet the food safety standards that a globalized marketplace requires.

Beef, poultry, pork and other meat products provide one-third of humanity's protein intake, but the impact on nutrition across the globe is highly variable, according to the report. "Too much animal-based protein is not good for human diets, while too little is a problem for those on a protein-starved diet, as happens in many developing countries," Mooney noted.

While overconsumption of animal-source foods – particularly meat, milk and eggs – has been linked to heart disease and other chronic conditions, these foods remain a vital source of protein and nutrient nutrition throughout the developing world, the report said. The authors cited a recent study of Kenyan children that found a positive association between meat intake and physical growth, cognitive function and school performance.

Human health also is affected by pathogens and harmful substances transmitted by livestock, the authors said. Emerging diseases, such as highly pathogenic avian influenza, are closely linked to changes in the livestock production but are more difficult to trace and combat in the newly globalized marketplace, they said.

Environmental impacts

The livestock sector is a major environmental polluter, the authors said, noting that much of the world's pastureland has been degraded by grazing or feed production, and that many forests have been clear-cut to make way for additional farmland. Feed production also requires intensive use of water, fertilizer, pesticides and fossil fuels, added co-editor Henning Steinfeld of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Animal waste is another serious concern. "Because only a third of the nutrients fed to animals are absorbed, animal waste is a leading factor in the pollution of land and water resources, as observed in case studies in China, India, the United States and Denmark," the authors wrote. Total phosphorous excretions are estimated to be seven to nine times greater than that of humans, with detrimental effects on the environment.

The beef, pork and poultry industries also emit large amounts of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, Steinfeld said, adding that climate-change issues related to livestock remain largely unaddressed. "Without a change in current practices, the intensive increases in projected livestock production systems will double the current environmental burden and will contribute to large-scale ecosystem degradation unless appropriate measures are taken," he said.

Solutions

The report concludes with a review of various options for introducing more environmentally and socially sustainable practices to animal production systems.

"We want to protect those on the margins who are dependent on a handful of livestock for their livelihood," Mooney said. "On the other side, we want people engaged in the livestock industry to look closely at the report and determine what improvements they can make."

One solution is for countries to adopt policies that provide incentives for better management practices that focus on land conservation and more efficient water and fertilizer use, he said.

But calculating the true cost of meat production is a daunting task, Mooney added. Consider the piece of ham on your breakfast plate, and where it came from before landing on your grocery shelf. First, take into account the amount of land used to rear the pig. Then factor in all the land, water and fertilizer used to grow the grain to feed the pig and the associated pollution that results.

Finally, consider that while the ham may have come from Denmark, where there are twice as many pigs as people, the grain to feed the animal was likely grown in Brazil, where rainforests are constantly being cleared to grow more soybeans, a major source of pig feed.

"So much of the problem comes down to the individual consumer," said co-editor Fritz Schneider of the Swiss College of Agriculture (SHL). "People aren't going to stop eating meat, but I am always hopeful that as people learn more, they do change their behavior. If they are informed that they do have choices to help build a more sustainable and equitable world, they can make better choices."

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Livestock in a Changing Landscape is a collaboration of the FAO, SHL, Woods Institute for the Environment, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Scientific Committee for Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), Agricultural Research Center for International Development (CIRAD), and Livestock, Environment and Development Initiative (LEAD).

Other editors of the report are Laurie E. Neville (Stanford University), Pierre Gerber (FAO), Jeroen Dijkman (FAO), Shirley Tarawali (ILRI) and Cees de Haan (World Bank). Initial funding for the project was provided by a 2004 Environmental Venture Projects grant from the Woods Institute.

Cassandra Brooks of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University contributed to this article.

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Can Smiley Faces (and a 14-Step Program to Stop Overconsumption) Save the Global Climate?

When rational appeals fall short, environmentalists enlist social and economic incentives—and even neuroscience—to get the public in on national efforts to combat climate change

David Biello, Scientific American 16 Mar 10;

Energy efficiency seems to make rational economic sense—the less energy used, the more money saved. Yet, in the real world it's actually competition with neighbors rather than cost savings that can drive people to turn down their thermostats, install insulation or simply switch off the lights when they leave a room. Such is the lesson of a host of efforts, ranging from a group called OPOWER's comparative use utility billing to switching from miles per gallon to rate vehicle efficiency to gallons per mile.

Now a new collaborative study from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Garrison Institute's Climate, Mind and Behavior Project reveals that such simple actions—from taking one fewer flight per year to wasting less food—can add up. The environmental group estimates that if all Americans adopted 14 such steps over the next decade the country would avoid one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020—or the equivalent of the entire annual greenhouse gas emissions of Germany.

"Much of this is eliminating waste—and most waste costs you money," says NRDC's executive director Peter Lehner. "If all Americans did take a fairly modest range of actions, most of which actually save you money, we can make a big difference."

The recommendations, in addition to flying less and wasting 25 percent less food, include: carpooling or telecommuting once a week (75 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) saved by 2020, if adopted by all Americans); maintaining your car or truck, such as keeping tires properly inflated (45 million metric tons of CO2e); cutting the time spent idling in a vehicle in half (40 million metric tons of CO2e); better insulation at home (85 million metric tons of CO2e); programmable thermostats set higher (80 million metric tons of CO2e); reducing electricity demand from appliances that are "off," so-called phantom demand (70 million metric tons CO2e); using hot water more efficiently, such as washing clothes in colder water (65 million metric tons of CO2e); buying EnergyStar appliances when old ones wear out (55 million metric tons CO2e); replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents (30 million metric tons CO2e); eating chicken instead of beef two days a week (105 million metric tons of CO2e); increased recycling of paper, plastics and metals (105 million metric tons of CO2e); "responsible" consumption, such as buying less bottled water (60 million metric tons CO2e).

"We make bad decisions all the time," says Sabine Marx, associate director at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, thanks to incomplete information or other barriers to action, like high up-front costs for things like insulation. Overcoming those "doesn't mean we have to manipulate people's minds," Marx says, but rather make good decisions easier.

For example, rates of organ donation vary widely within Europe, from 100 percent in France and Poland to 17 percent in the U.K. and just 4 percent in Denmark. The difference cannot be ascribed to different cultural views about organ donation but rather whether the country in question has a policy that is opt-in (check this box if you want to donate your organs) or opt-out (check this box if you do not want to donate your organs). "We think we're rational," says economist John Gowdy of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. "But really it's the person who designs the question on the back of a driver's license who made the choice for us."

NRDC, the Garrison Institute and others hope to bring this kind of choice editing to the world of personal behavior. Part of this is a result of ongoing frustration with broader policy measures, particularly at the national level, when it comes to confronting climate change. "If Congress does enact something, it will be completely inadequate to the task," says Gus Speth, former dean of Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. It would be a "first step," however, Lehner notes. The primary benefit of personal action is that it can start immediately, he adds.

But Lehner admits that his organization has no idea how to convince people to undertake these 14 steps in the next decade on their own. And there is significant danger that any energy efficiency undertaking ends up ultimately increasing energy use. "The rebound effect is quite clear," Speth notes. "You buy an EnergyStar refrigerator, but you buy two of them. We have to bring overconsumption into this. How do we get out of this consumerist trap we've been in?"

Economists Hunt Allcott of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University offer one answer in the March 4 Science: more funding for research into the "behavioral factors that influence energy consumption."

For example, programs like OPOWER's that compare electricity use among neighbors have been shown to reduce electricity use by 2 percent at a cost of 25 cents per kilowatt-hour. "If scaled nationwide," the economists wrote, "a program like this could reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from electric power by 0.5 percent while actually saving $165 per metric ton of reductions." And all from a simple bar chart—paired with a smiley face for energy-efficient behavior—on an electric bill.

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Richard Branson Aims To Rock The Boat For Green Shipping

Greener World Media, PlanetArk 17 Mar 10;

Look around you -- the furniture in your office or house, the electronics, the clothes you are wearing, mostly likely some of your dinner -- chances are these things moved by boat. About 85 percent of worldwide cargo travels by ship, and so it's no surprise that shipping is a major contributor to climate change.

According to Richard Branson's new NGO, which is called the Carbon War Room, the global shipping fleet is the equivalent on the sixth most polluting country in the world:

Annual CO2e emissions currently exceed one million tons and are projected to grow to 18 percent of all manmade CO2e emissions by 2050. Yet existing technology presents an opportunity for up to 75 percent gains in efficiency, with required investments repaid in just a few years.

Fixing shipping will take bold ideas -- see the ship at left, which is equipped with a kite from a company called SkySails -- and it will take simple ones, like slowing ships down a little, adopting the equivalent of a 55 mph limit on the open seas. (See this New York Times story, which is literally about a slow boat to China.) And it will require bringing shipping companies, customers, regulators and others to work together to attack the problem.

Opportunities like these interest the Carbon War Room, which says its focus is to harness the power of business to bring about market-driven solutions to climate change.

"We believe that climate change is the greatest challenge facing humankind," says Jigar Shah, the CEO of the Carbon War Room. "And we need a war room-like effort to combat it."

I spoke recently with Jigar at the NGO's new offices in downtown Washington. We'd met a couple of years ago, when he was running SunEdison, a solar industry startup, backed by Goldman Sachs, that was among the first to sell solar energy as a service (buy electricity, not PV panels), a business model that appealed to big customers including Wal-Mart. Jigar, who is 35, left SunEdison at the end of 2008 and became the top exec of Carbon War Room last June.

Branson, who runs Virgin Group (airlines, music, telecom, green energy etc.), started Carbon War Room with Craig Cogut, the founder of private-equity firm Pegasus Capital, and Boudewijn Poelmann, the co-founder a chairman of the Dutch Postcode Lottery, a private lottery that raises money for good causes. (The Dutch lottery gave $1.3 million last year to the Rocky Mountain Institute.)

They say:

Our approach is to identify the barriers that are preventing market-based scale up of climate change solutions and thereby perpetuating the status quo. In addition to technology and policy gaps, these barriers include principal-agent problems, information gaps, and lack of common standards or metrics.

The Carbon War Room is also looking at building efficiency and seeking 10 cities to join in what Branson, speaking in Vancouver last month, called the Green Capital -- Global Challenge. It all sounds a little amorphous and vague, but the group -- which has only eight full-time staffers -- is working with others to drive change.

Its shipping campaign, for example, includes representatives from Sustainable Shipping, an online news and information portal, and the well-respected NGO Oceana, as well as Jonathon Porritt, a prominent UK environmentalist and author. They're also working with RightShip, an Australian firm the has long vetted ships for safety and now offers environmental ratings as well.

"In shipping, there's been an information gap," Shah explains. "Companies that hired shipping services had no idea which were efficient and which were not."

That's a problem because typically customers -- big companies like Rio Tinto, Cargill or Wal-Mart that ship vast amounts of stuff around -- pay fuel costs, according to Shah. So the owners of the ships have little incentive to invest their capital to improve efficiency.

Transparency is one way to stimulate change. Customers need to know which ships are most efficient. "We now have 160 companies that are using the data that we helped put together, and the impact has been huge," Shah says.

Carbon War Room researchers have also identified more than 40 energy-saving technologies that they are sharing with the industry. Among them: low-friction paint that allows ships to glide through the water, more aerodynamic propeller designs and, of course, kites. SkySails, which is based in Germany, says a ship's fuel costs can be cut by 10 to 35 percent by using wind power; its kites have been deployed by fishing trawlers as well as cargo ships.

"We're working on technologies that currently save people money," Shah says. "It's far more straightforward and easier than trying to get governments to agree to binding targets in Copenhagen."

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Reducing international consumption crucial to cut Indonesia's emissions: Rainforest Action Network

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 15 Mar 10;

San Francisco-based NGO, the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) runs hard-hitting campaigns both in rich and developing nations to slow climate change and help protect the planet. RAN pushes rich nations among others to cut consumption on cheap forest products made in developing countries like Indonesia to reduce emissions. The Jakarta Post’s Adianto P. Simamora talked to RAN’s forest campaigner director Lafcadio Cortesi on the sidelines of his visit to Indonesia. Here are the excerpts:

Question: Could you tell about your visit to Indonesia?

Answer: I am meeting with a number of local NGOs and indigenous forest communities who work in alliance with the RAN to see what we can do to protect the remaining forest biodiversity, which is still amazing in Indonesia, and slow climate change.

We discuss ways to educate people on how to support the development of low carbon pathways. I also talked with a number of officials from government as well as business people from timber companies.

We hope to get them on board with our mission to try to slow global warming, promote alternative kinds of development to the the current method of extracting resources to produce cheap commodities like pulp and papers and oil palm, which were exported to the global market.

We think this type of development model has to be changed to ensure sustainability in economic development. Indonesia and all the world’s countries should create a low carbon economy and acknowledge community rights.

We are talking with investors and buyers of forest products, such as pulp and paper and palm oil, as well as coal energy products. In the United States, our focus is to stop the use of coal by promoting alternative energy resources.

In Indonesia, we talk to forest commodity producers asking them to put in safeguards for the carbon emissions, protecting the environment and ensure community rights because they are the best steward to protect the forests.

What about your campaign to reduce international demand for forest products?

Over the last six months, we have been working with the luxury goods and fashion sector, many of whom use paper bags produced in China and Indonesia. We talked with producers, such as Gucci and Levi’s, that buy paper from Indonesia.

We ask them to look at into the condition of deforestation before buying the products. They then make a commitment that they wouldn’t buy products before major reforms in Indonesia in (protecting the forest).

The companies have responded positively when we show them pictures and tell them about the impacts of purchasing cheap forest products. They are committed to not being involved in forest destruction.

In Indonesia, carbon is offset through cheap forest commodities. We don’t want rich nations like America and Europe to buy cheap carbon from Indonesia. The rich nations should change their lifestyle to combat the climate change.

We think forest destruction in Indonesia and Brazil is due to high demand from international markets for the cheap forest commodities like palm oil and paper.

We are trying to help Indonesia to support President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to meet its commitment to reduce emissions by 26 percent and by 41 percent by 2020, by addressing the demand side.

If we look at emissions in Indonesia, 80 percent are from deforestation and 50 percent are from the peatland. Report by Bappenas says though 50 percent of emissions were from peat land, only less than 1 percent of Indonesia’s GDP were generated through those activities.

So we think the real opportunity is to prevent expansion on peat land so Indonesia can meet its commitment on emission cuts.

I have talked with NGOs, local people and officials about the many private companies interested in expanding business in the forested land where they can also get the first cut and make profit from it.

Until now, there are lots of licenses issued on natural forest and peat. That old model of the development was needed to be changed.

Seeing the real facts in Indonesia, do you believe targets on emission cuts could be met?
I think it is feasible for Indonesia to reach such targets. However, companies should also bear responsibility. It needs courage from the government, political will and leadership from the President down to the governors until the village heads to meet the target.

It is challenging, and international supports, including NGOs and international companies like Gucci or Unilever, would help.

The companies have said that they would not work with companies in Indonesia if there were no changes in how business was conducted.

What has been the progress on reducing of emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) issue in Indonesia?

Q: Brazil has moved very quickly in setting up the avoided deforestation fund and there has been a good amount of the investments coming to the country from the governments of Norway, European countries and the United States.

In Indonesia, ministers are still very slow in figuring out transparency, accountability and equitable mechanisms for managing funds being invested to prevent deforestation. There is also struggling among ministers, on who has control and the right to make decisions.

RAN thinks the main responsiblility for climate change lies with rich nations, particularly the United States. The REDD is important, particularly for countries like Indonesia where deforestation is the leading driver of the emission, but it should not be the key.

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Study highlights forest protected areas as a critical strategy for slowing climate change

World Wildlife Fund, EurekAlert 16 Mar 10;

WASHINGTON, DC, March 16, 2010 – A new study involving scientists from 13 different organizations, universities and research institutions states that forest protection offers one of the most effective, practical, and immediate strategies to combat climate change.

The study, "Indigenous Lands, Protected Areas, and Slowing Climate Change," was published in PLoS Biology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and makes specific recommendations for incorporating protected areas into overall strategies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses from deforestation and degradation (nicknamed REDD).

"Deforestation leads to about 15 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the cars, trucks, trains, ships, and planes on earth. If we fail to reduce it, we'll fail to stabilize our climate," said Taylor Ricketts, director of World Wildlife Fund's science program and lead author of the study.

"Our paper emphasizes that creating and strengthening indigenous lands and other protected areas can offer an effective means to cut emissions while garnering numerous additional benefits for local people and wildlife."

The authors highlight analyses showing that since 2002, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has been 7 to 11 times lower inside of indigenous lands and other protected areas than elsewhere. Simulation models suggest that protected areas established between 2003 and 2007 could prevent an estimated area of 100,000 square miles of deforestation through 2050. That is roughly the size of the state of Colorado, representing enough carbon to equal 1/3 of the world's annual CO2 emissions. Within these efforts, location matters; protected areas in regions that face deforestation pressures would be most effective at truly reducing emissions.

"This study reinforces the wisdom behind global investments in protected areas," says Gustavo A.B. da Fonseca, co-author of the study and Team Leader Natural Resources of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). "In addition to protecting globally important species and ecosystems, the 2,302 protected areas supported by the GEF alone span over 634 million hectares and together store an impressive 30 billion tons of CO2"

International policies for compensating forest nations for REDD are under active negotiation. To access the resulting funds, developing countries will need to develop programs and institutions to reduce forest emissions. "Protected areas represent a valuable component of national REDD programs since they already contain the necessary institutions and infrastructure to handle funds, strengthen protection and generate results," said Claudio Maretti, Conservation Director, WWF Brazil. "Establishing protected areas usually clarifies land tenure and the associated carbon rights, which has been a sticking point in some negotiations."

In addition, the study estimates that the cost of creating and better managing protected areas is lower than many other options to reduce emissions from deforestation. Completing and managing a network of protected areas in the developing world might require $4 billion USD annually, which is roughly 1/10 of the capital that could be mobilized by international REDD policies.

According to the study, forest nations can strengthen the role of protected areas in their REDD strategies by:

* Identifying where Indigenous Lands and Protected Areas would most effectively reduce deforestation rates and associated emissions;
* Establishing national monitoring to measure deforestation rates and quantify carbon emissions reductions;
* Establishing insurance mechanisms for illegal logging or forest fires;
* Providing indigenous groups and local communities the information and capacities they need to participate;
* Distributing payments transparently to reward those responsible for reducing emissions.

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Note to Editors

The publication "Indigenous Lands, Protected Areas, and Slowing Climate Change" is available at http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/2010pubs/WWFBinaryitem15590.pdf

A MAP showing carbon stocks and potential emissions of selected forest protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon is available at http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/2010pubs/WWFImgFullitem15589.jpg

Potential emissions are estimated by simulating future deforestation through 2050, with and without forest protected areas present. The difference (depicted by orange bars) represents the reductions of CO2 emissions contributed by each forest protected area.

ABOUT WORLD WILDLIFE FUND

WWF is the world's leading conservation organization, working in 100 countries for nearly half a century. With the support of almost 5 million members worldwide, WWF is dedicated to delivering science-based solutions to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth, halt the degradation of the environment and combat climate change. Visit www.worldwildlife.org to learn more.

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Indonesia's Nuclear Plan Faces Fallout From NGO

Ismira Lutfia, Jakarta Globe 16 Mar 10;

An environmental group on Tuesday condemned lawmakers’ decision this week to approve plans to build nuclear power plants in Indonesia.

Hikmat Soeriatanuwijaya, a campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said it was too early for the country to go down the nuclear path.

“It is not the time yet” for Indonesia to turn to nuclear power to anticipate the energy crisis as fossil fuels are depleted, he told the Jakarta Globe on Tuesday. “We can try to seek other solutions because Indonesia is rich with renewable energy.”

The House of Representatives on Monday gave a green light to the government’s plan to build nuclear plants. The decision came after a weekend visit to the National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) in Serpong, Tangerang.

Teuku Riefky Harsya, chairman of House Commission VII overseeing energy, technology and the environment, said the nation could no longer rely on non-renewable energy such as gas and coal to generate electricity.

Batan chief Hudi Hastowo told the Globe that the country would carefully weigh safety measures in building nuclear power plants because it is a party to the 1994 Vienna Convention on Nuclear Safety, which was established following the Chernobyl tragedy in 1986.

“There’s a binding regulation that we must take nuclear reactor safety measures very seriously,” Hudi said, adding that the regulations stipulate that nuclear incidents must be promptly reported to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency so that it can take precautionary measures.

“IAEA would be very strict in issuing permits for a country to build a nuclear power plant,” said Hudi. He added that an IAEA inspector in November unofficially endorsed Indonesia as having the capacity to build a nuclear power plant.

Hudi said that Batan would not operate nuclear plants but would serve as a supporting partner that would provide technical advice. “We now have to convince all stakeholders to support the plan,” he said, adding that building a nuclear plant was a long-term project that may take at least 10 years.

“What Batan can do is only promoting, familiarizing the public and drafting policy on nuclear energy. We need political and budget support from the government,” said Adi Wardojo, the deputy head of nuclear development at Batan. He said the agency had conducted a feasibility study on the construction of nuclear plants, taking into account safety, public interests and the environment. Indonesia has uranium reserves in Kalimantan capable of producing 1,000 megawatts of electricity for 150 years, he said.

But Greenpeace’s Hikmat said the government should first explore geothermal energy. Indonesia’s untapped geothermal energy accounted for 40 percent of the world’s total, he said.

“We could also try renewable resources such as solar, wind power or micro-hydro first,” he said.

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Urban CO2 domes increase deaths, poke hole in cap-and-trade proposal

Stanford University, EurekAlert 16 Mar 10;

Everyone knows that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, is a global problem. Now a Stanford study has shown it is also a local problem, hurting city dwellers' health much more than rural residents', because of the carbon dioxide "domes" that develop over urban areas.

That finding, said researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, exposes a serious oversight in current cap-and-trade proposals for reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, which make no distinction based on a pollutant's point of origin. The finding also provides the first scientific basis for controlling local carbon dioxide emissions based on their local health impacts.

"Not all carbon dioxide emissions are equal," said Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering. "As in real estate, location matters."

His results also support the case that California presented to the Environmental Protection Agency in March, 2009, asking that the state be allowed to establish its own CO2 emission standards for vehicles.

Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford, testified on behalf of California's waiver application in March, 2009. The waiver had previously been denied, but was reconsidered and granted subsequently. The waiver is currently being challenged in court by industry interests seeking to overturn it.

Jacobson found that domes of increased carbon dioxide concentrations – discovered to form above cities more than a decade ago – cause local temperature increases that in turn increase the amounts of local air pollutants, raising concentrations of health-damaging ground-level ozone, as well as particles in urban air.

In modeling the health impacts for the contiguous 48 states, for California and for the Los Angeles area, he determined an increase in the death rate from air pollution for all three regions compared to what the rate would be if no local carbon dioxide were being emitted.

The results of Jacobson's study are presented in a paper published online by Environmental Science and Technology.

The cap-and-trade proposal passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June 2009 puts a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases that each type of utility, manufacturer or other emitter is allowed to produce. It also puts a price tag on each ton of emissions, which emitters will have to pay to the federal government.

If the bill passes the Senate intact, it will allow emitters to freely trade or sell their allowances among themselves, regardless of where the pollution is emitted.

With that logic, the proposal prices a ton of CO2 emitted in the middle of the sparsely populated Great Plains, for example, the same as a ton emitted in Los Angeles, where the population is dense and the air quality already poor.

"The cap-and-trade proposal assumes there is no difference in the impact of carbon dioxide, regardless of where it originates," Jacobson said. "This study contradicts that assumption."

"It doesn't mean you can never do something like cap and trade," he added. "It just means that you need to consider where the CO2 emissions are occurring."

Jacobson's study is the first to look at the health impacts of carbon dioxide domes over cities and his results are relevant to future air pollution regulations. Current regulations do not address the local impacts of local carbon dioxide emissions. For example, no regulation considers the local air pollution effects of CO2 that would be emitted by a new natural gas power plant. But those effects should be considered, he said.

"There has been no control of carbon dioxide because it has always been thought that CO2 is a global problem, that it is only its global impacts that might feed back to air pollution," Jacobson said.

In addition to the changes he observed in local air pollutants, Jacobson found that there was increased stability of the air column over a city, which slowed the dispersal of pollutants, further adding to the increased pollutant concentrations.

Jacobson estimated an increase in premature mortality of 50 to 100 deaths per year in California and 300 to 1,000 for the contiguous 48 states.

"This study establishes a basis for controlling CO2 based on local health impacts," he said.

Current estimates of the annual air pollution-related death toll in the U.S. is 50-100,000.

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'Arrogance' undid climate talks

Richard Black, BBC News 16 Mar 10;

The "disappointing" outcome of December's climate summit was largely down to "arrogance" on the part of rich countries, according to Lord Stern.

The economist told BBC News that the US and EU nations had not understood well enough the concerns of poorer nations.

But, he said, the summit had led to a number of countries outlining what they were prepared to do to curb emissions.

Seventy-three countries have now signed up to the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, the summit's outcome document.

The weak nature of the document led many to condemn the summit as a failure; but Lord Stern said that view was mistaken.

"The fact of Copenhagen and the setting of the deadline two years previously at Bali did concentrate minds, and it did lead... to quite specific plans from countries that hadn't set them out before," he said.



"So this process has itself been a key part of countries stating what their intentions on emissions reductions are - countries that had not stated them before, including China and the US.

"So that was a product of the UNFCCC (UN climate convention) process that we should respect."

The former World Bank chief economist and author of the influential 2006 review into the economics of climate change was speaking to BBC News following a lecture at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he now chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

During the lecture, he compared the atmosphere at the Copenhagen summit to student politics in the 1960s - "chaotic, wearing, tiring, disappointing" - and said it was one in which countries had little room for real negotiating.

However, he said, it was vital to stick with the UN process, whatever its frustrations.

Twin tracks

Having failed to agree a treaty to supplant or supplement the Kyoto Protocol, and having failed to set a timetable for agreeing such a treaty, opinions are inevitably split on how countries seeking stronger curbs on greenhouse gas emissions should move forward.



Speaking in Brussels, Gro Harlem Brundtland - the UN's special envoy on climate change - suggested there would now be a twin-track approach, with some of the important discussions taking place outside the UNFCCC umbrella.

She also acknowledged that the talks had proved much more problematical than some governments - particularly in the EU - had anticipated.

"They got the message that it was much more complicated than [they had believed], and that they have to work with Brazil and China and others, not only in the broad framework of UN negotiations but also more directly and pragmatically," she said.

"The reality is different from half a year ago."

Lord Stern agreed that what he described as the "disappointing" outcome of the Copenhagen talks was largely down to rich nations' failure to understand developing world positions and concerns.

"[There was] less arrogance than in previous years - we have, I think, moved beyond the G8 world to the G20 world where more countries are involved - but [there was] still arrogance and it could have been much better handled by the rich countries," he said.

The EU limited its room for manoeuvre, he said, because too many of the leading political figures wanted to demonstrate that they were leading.

Brass from pockets

The most concrete part of the Copenhagen Accord is an agreement that richer countries should raise funds to help poorer nations adapt to climate impacts and "green" their economies.

Lord Stern is a member of the group set up by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advise on how to raise $100bn (£66bn) per year by 2020 using various "innovative mechanisms" that could include taxes on international aviation and banking transactions.

But the immediate objective, he suggested, was to enact the short-term promise of providing $30bn over the period 2010-12 from the public purses of western nations.

If that money did not start to move fairly quickly, he said, that would further erode trust among developing countries.

Speaking in Brussels during a meeting with EU leaders, Mexico's environment secretary Juan Rafael Elvira endorsed the point.

"The developing world needs to see clear signals to have something in their hands at Cancun," he said.

The Mexican coastal city will host this year's UNFCCC summit.

"The developing countries want to see this money unblocked; the island nations especially are waiting for this funding," said Mr Elvira.

How and where these funds are to be disbursed has yet to be decided.

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Climate Change: It's still real and it's still a problem

Lord Chris Smith, BBC Green Room 16 Mar 10;

Climate-related controversies and the outcome of the Copenhagen summit widely regarded as a failure have left a sense of hopelessness in climate policy, says Lord Chris Smith. In this week's Green Room, he stresses the soundness of the fundamental climate science and the need to continue pushing for meaningful climate deals.

The myth fostered by some parts of the media in recent months - that somehow the scientific evidence for climate change is deeply flawed - needs to be laid to rest, and soon.

Sloppily expressed e-mail exchanges involving researchers from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), and a blithe assumption that the Himalayan glaciers may melt by 2035, were both irresponsible and damaging.

But we cannot allow a few errors to undermine the overwhelming strength of evidence that has been painstakingly accumulated, peer-reviewed, tested and tested again.

That evidence shows overwhelmingly that our emissions of greenhouse gases are having a serious impact on the Earth's atmosphere, and that - as a result - climate change is happening and will accelerate.

The damage that has been done by the glee with which sceptics have seized on one or two scientific mistakes and attempted to use them to undermine the whole consensus about the evidence for climate change cannot be underestimated.

Not if but when

In recent years, the public here in the UK, and across much of Europe, had come to accept the reality and the urgency of climate change.

There were still debates about what precisely to do to counter it, but at least the fundamental recognition was there.

I think that is probably less true now than it was four months ago - and that is a tragedy.

We need to take the argument back to the sceptics, and make the powerful, convincing and necessary case about climate change much clearer to everyone.

There may still be a degree of uncertainty, and we need continuously to test the scientific evidence with rigour.

But the uncertainties are not primarily about whether or not climate change is happening, but about how fast the change will come and how bad it will be.

The evidence of change is indeed there.

The glaciers of the Alps and the Himalayas are retreating. Weather patterns around the world are becoming more erratic and more extreme.

The most intensive rainfall ever experienced in one location over a 24-hour period in England fell on Cumbria last November, and caused the tragic consequences of the severe flooding that we saw in Cockermouth, Keswick and Workington.

We cannot say for certain that these things - or indeed the intense heat recently experienced in Australia, or the droughts in Kenya - were caused by climate change.

But we can see with our own eyes that climatic, weather and temperature trends are changing, and we know that these hitherto exceptional events are likely to become more frequent over coming years.

Here in England and Wales, the Environment Agency works at the very point where people's lives intersect with environmental change.

We help people prevent and cope with flooding, environmental degradation, water depletion, and pollution.

In our day-to-day work, we can see small things that are happening all around us.

Damselflies and dragonflies are being found much further north than before, as they move with the warming climate.

The rare vendace fish is disappearing from its former stronghold in the Lake District, and is having to be re-introduced into the colder waters of Scotland.

Our yearly water testing over 20 years has shown an average rise in temperature in our rivers of 0.6C (1.1F). These are small signals, but like the canary in the mine, they foretell greater danger in the future.

'Disappointing outcome'

If we can hold the average global air temperature increase to 2C (3.6F) since pre-industrial times, we have a chance of surviving more or less intact.

But if it ends up being 4C or more, the impacts on population, water resources, sea levels, agriculture, weather patterns, biodiversity, and the quality of human life across the world, will be severe.

That is why the international discussions on climate change at Copenhagen were so important, and why the outcome was so disappointing.

We always knew that we would not emerge from Copenhagen with a full signed-and-sealed treaty with firm commitments for specific emissions reductions from everyone around the world.

But I did hope that we might emerge with rather more than we did, with at least a set of in-principle commitments and some target dates and a map charting where we were heading.

Instead, we have the Copenhagen Accord, drawn up by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa, with some aspirations and agreements, and an earnest of intent to build on this during the coming year.

Build on it we must. The worst response to Copenhagen would be to throw up our hands in horror and say nothing was achieved and therefore we should give up on the search for international commitments and agreement.

We need to continue the drive for an international treaty, and do so with renewed urgency.

There are some useful fundamentals in the Copenhagen Accord - the acknowledgment of a 2C limit on the global average temperature increase; the principle of north-south flows of aid and support in order to ensure that the developing world can grow more sustainably than those of us who have largely caused the problem up to now; and commitments to help combat deforestation.

We should now work as hard as we can to build these up into more specific commitments over the coming months.

Lord Chris Smith is chairman of the UK's Environment Agency

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

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