NGOs: Better to teach people about Redang's beauty

The Star 10 Apr 10;

PETALING JAYA: Several non-profit environmental organisations have spoken out against the Terengganu government’s plan to turn Pulau Redang into a high-end, exclusive getaway for the rich, saying educating the people about preservation was more vital.

Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) said that educating the people on the importance of preserving the diving haven’s natural beauty and adhering to a strict enforcement of guidelines would be a better move.

“MNS is of the opinion that there should be no further development on the island except to improve and review certain amenities and introduce the best practices for the island,” it said in a statement yesterday.

The body expressed concern about over-development which had taken a toll on the island, especially in waste management and the health of corals in certain areas of the island.

“Having informed visitors to the island is one of the ways we can protect Redang’s national heritage,” MNS said.

MNS communications head Andrew Sebastian said he was worried that the “carrying capacity” of Pulau Redang may had been exceeded.

If there were too many visitors on the island, the fresh water supply may be used up sooner, he said.

“Also, if raising prices is to control the number of people going there, MNS supports the move if the money is used to help smaller operators put in the appropriate systems to prevent pollution,” he said.

On Thursday, Terengganu Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said announced that the island would be turned into an exclusive getaway with rooms starting from US$500 (RM1,600) per night.

Ahmad said the move was to control the number of people who visited Pulau Redang in order to save the island’s rich marine life and prevent environmental destruction due to pollution and littering.

He added that only hotels rated five-star and above would be allowed to be built, adding that the state government would no longer approve the construction of chalet-type accommodations on the island. Existing chalets would also have to upgrade and raise their rates to match the high-end destination decision.

Reef Check Malaysia, another non-profit organisation that looks into coral conservation, said the Government should not waste money building new resorts but have stricter enforcement and policies instead.

Its Eco Action Programme manager Ummi Haslinda Mohd Rosli said a centralised sewage treatment should be built, adding that there should also be compost machines for solid waste to be shared by all resorts.

“These are some of the ways to improve the environment of the islands,” she said, adding: “We can also monitor the number of tourists visiting the island and impose strict fines on tourists and locals who fish at restricted areas. Enforcement officers need to be vigilant in punishing those who litter.”

Ummi Haslinda said it was just not enough to post signs to caution tourists and locals to not litter.

“It’s better to have a simple and improved eco-friendly environment than having islands swamped by big and expensive resorts that do not help conserve the marine environment,” she added.

Tourism Ministry gives the thumbs-up on high-end Redang
The Star 10 Apr 10;

PETALING JAYA: The Tourism Ministry has given the thumbs-up to the plan to turn Pulau Redang into a high-end destination as this is in line with the Government’s aim of increasing tourist spending.

Ministry secretary-general Datuk Ong Hong Peng said the Terengganu government’s plan was a good one, adding that it was also parallel to the objective of attracting high-end tourists.

“It will also be a measure to maintain sustainable tourist development on the island,” he said yesterday.

However, tourism organisations have expressed concern over the move as they believe it would adversely affect tourist arrivals.

Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (Matta) deputy president John Tan said the state should not take away what people had enjoyed for years.

“It is a good idea to have an island for the rich niche market but the approach is wrong,” he said in a telephone interview.

He said other islands near Pulau Redang could be developed as exclusive destinations instead of Pulau Redang which was immensely popular with both local and foreign tourists.

“How many people can afford to pay US$500 (RM1,600) per night? This will definitely affect tourism,” he said, pointing out that a big percentage of visitors to Pulau Redang were backpackers.

He said it was ironic that while the move was meant to protect the island’s surroundings, it turned out to be a slap in the Government’s face.

“The state government should not have approved the building of those budget chalets if they did not have a proper sewage system in the first place,” Tan said.

Malaysian Ecotourism Association secretary-general Lee Choon Loong said high prices for resorts did not necessarily mean high value.

“Visitors to Pulau Redang come to appreciate the marine flora and fauna. That is the value they want, not luxury hotels,” said Lee.

He said a high-value destination did not need to be expensive or branded, adding that Pulau Redang’s value came from its natural beauty.

“But the corals there are damaged and nobody will want to pay to see that. It will be like a scam,” he said.

Former Deputy Tourism Minister Datuk Donald Lim said there was no reason to restrict Pulau Redang to wealthy tourists.

He proposed a quota for high-end and budget tourists instead, if the reason was to control the number of tourists going to the island.

Decision on Redang does not go down well with divers
The Star 10 Apr 10;

PETALING JAYA: Divers gave the thumbs-down to the move to make Pulau Redang an exclusive getaway, saying that for half the RM1,599 a night accommodation proposed by the Terengganu government, a diver can now get a four-day trip including accommodation, food and diving activities.

They said budget travellers and divers would not be able go to the diving haven if it was made a high-end destination.

Diver Angeline Goh, 29, believed that the plan would not only turn divers away but also cause chalet operators to go bust.

“Diving operators look for cheap packages to take their clients. If it is expensive, they will move to other places like Tioman,” she said yesterday.

Another diver, Sean Phoon, 30, agreed that there was a need for conservation efforts but noted that hiking prices and making it an exclusive getaway was not the solution.

“The corals have deteriorated and there is a need to preserve the environment.

“You can preserve the environment by following Pulau Sipadan’s measures – limiting the number of people on the island. You cannot force existing chalets to hike up their prices and kill off these chalets by insisting on a ridiculous price tag,” he said.

Reconsider move on Redang, says Terengganu PAS
The Star 10 Apr 10;

KUALA TERENGGANU: Teren-gganu PAS is not in favour of Pulau Redang being turned into an exclusive island for affluent tourists while limiting budget travellers who now make up the bulk of tourists to the island.

The party’s state deputy commissioner Mohd Abdul Wahid Endut urged the state to reconsider the move as it would have a negative impact rather than being a boon for the island.

Eventually, Redang would end up like Monaco which was commonly referred to as the Las Vegas of Europe as such exclusivity normally encouraged gambling and vice-related activities, he said here yesterday.

Mohd Abdul Wahid said the state government could designate one stretch of the island as a gateway for affluent holidaymakers without disregarding tourists on shoestring budgets.

He said the state should also consider the welfare of the locals who depended on budget travellers for a livelihood.

He said locals rented out chalets to holidaymakers on limited budgets to make ends meet and they would not be able to do so if only the rich went to the island.

Pulau Redang Petty Traders Association spokesman Mohd Idrus Mohd Amin, 46, said the state government should outline a mechanism to assist them before enforcing the move.

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Plantation firms to produce biodiesel for Pertamina

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post 9 Apr 10;

Three state plantation firms – PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) III, IV and V — will begin the construction of three biodiesel plants in Dumai, Riau province, before the second half of the year starts.

The three plants are expected to absorb Rp 400 billion in total investment.

“The plants will be finished in the next 18 months. In 2012 the plants will start producing biodiesel,” PTPN IV president director Dahlan Harahap said on the sidelines of the signing of an MoU between the three firms with state oil and gas producer PT Pertamina on Thursday.

Pertamina has agreed to purchase the biodiesel from the plants and to prepare a storage facility for the biodiesel at the port in Dumai.

Dahlan said each of the plants has a capacity to process 100,000 tons of oil palm fruit bunches (TBS) annually. The capacity is expected to be doubled by 2014.

“If the demand keeps increasing, the capacity may jump to 1 million tons of TBS every year,” he said.
Dahlan said about 30 percent of the investment needed to construct the plants would come from the companies’ internal cash flow and the rest from bank loans.

Biofuel is currently being sold to retail customers. In 2008, Pertamina had 279 petrol stations selling biofuel while PLN has also used biofuel to help power nine of its power stations. These nine stations have a total capacity of 96 megawatts (MW).

Currently Indonesia has produced two types of biofuel: bioethanol — made from cassava, sugarcane and sweet sorghum, and biodiesel — made from castor, crude palm oil and jatropha.

By 2015, Indonesia plans to have 10 million hectares of palm oil plantations, up from 7.9 million today.

According to studies by state plantation companies, there are 44 million hectares of land in the country ideal for palm oil plantation. Using conservative yield estimates, this area of oil palm plantation could produce 145 billion liters per year of biodiesel, or 10 percent of current fossil diesel demand.

Besides planning to produce biodiesel, the state plantation firms also plan to produce electricity from biomass-generated power plants and sell it to state electricity company PT PLN.

To produce electricity power in the CPO factories, one factory will require between Rp 30 billion and Rp 40 billion in investment. Dahlan said PTPN IV currently operates 50 factories, with each one potentially able to generate 3 MW of power from biomass, mostly from the Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB) and any other available biomass waste.

PLN will be obtaining electric power from CPO plantations from power generated from biomass (EFBs) while Pertamina will obtain biofuel processed from the CPO itself.

“At the present, only two factories are ready to produce 6 MW in total of electricity power,” he said.
CPO is playing an increasingly important role in Indonesia today with the demand for the product increasing which not only for food consumption and other uses but also as an energy supply crop.

The Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI), consists of about 370 CPO producer firms making use of about 2.4 million hectares of oil palm plantations. They, along with many smaller farmers, are aiming to produce at least 25 million tons of CPO this year, up by 25 percent from last year’s production target of 20 million tons.

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NGOs collect data for Indonesian President’s taskforce on illegal logging

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 9 Apr 10;

Several environmental NGOs met Thursday to compile data on illegal logging activities at the request of the President, who has ordered sterner action against the environmental threat.

The NGOs included Greenpeace Indonesia, WWF Indonesia, Forest Watch Indonesia, Sawit Watch Indonesia, Conservation International, Tropenbos Indonesia, the Nature Conservancy and the Center for International Forestry Research.

“We asked them to supply data on illegal logging. This will be a good chance for the activists to help the government battle illegal logging,” Agus Purnomo, special assistant on climate change to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Agus said he would compile a list of measures to combat illegal logging and hand it to Yudhoyono when the President returned home from his trip to Vietnam.

President Yudhoyono ordered the presidential taskforce against judiciary corruption to launch an in-
vestigation into illegal logging syndicates before he left on his visit to Vietnam for the ASEAN Summit, which will discuss climate change issues.

The President said illegal logging was still rampant due to corruption within the forestry sector.
Indonesia, the world’s third-largest forest nation, home to about 120 million hectares of rainforest, has never passed a special law on illegal logging.

In 2005, the President issued an instruction tasking 18 departments under the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Ministry to combat illegal logging.

A working group was then set up to monitor and evaluate illegal logging, but it has yet to publicly announce the names of any major perpetrators.

The Forestry Ministry has repeatedly claimed the number of illegal logging cases has dropped since former minister M.S. Kaban left office.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said his office had set a target of reducing illegal logging cases to 12 or less per year. The latest data shows 700 cases were reported in 2008.

The ministry predicted the country suffers financial losses of at least Rp 30 trillion (US$3 billion) per year due to the crime.

US-based Human Rights Watch said Indonesia had suffered $2 billion in potential tax losses between 2003 and 2006 due to illegal logging
Indonesia Corruption Watch together with other activists from Walhi and Sawit Watch Indonesia earlier asked the Corruption Eradication Commission to investigate corruption in the forestry industry.

Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta agreed illegal logging remained rife in the country, adding that some forest concession holders were allegedly involved in illegal logging activities.

“Before taking office, I found a number of concessionaires conducting illegal logging on their own land. They cut down big trees even though this violated their annual working plan,” he said.
He said concessionaires were allowed to cut down a maximum of 80 percent of trees in their concession areas.

The 2009 Environmental Law invests the Environment Ministry with the power to revoke business permits for companies seen to be damaging the environment.

Executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, Elfian Effendi, said that Yudhoyono’s recent order to tackle illegal logging proved that the 2005 presidential instruction had accomplished little in the last five years.

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Malaysian Loggers Try to Improve Their Image

Liz Gooch, New York Times 9 Apr 10;

TEMERLOH, MALAYSIA — Huge meranti tree trunks, many of them destined for faraway shores, are piled up high along the road in this town about a two-hour drive northeast of Kuala Lumpur, awaiting their date with the saw.

Steps away, inside the Maran Road Sawmill workers nimbly slice lengths of timber into thinner strips, adding to the blanket of ochre dust beneath them.

All the logs have numbers scrawled on their ends, indicating the area they came from, plus the sawmill’s license number — assuring buyers that the wood was harvested legally and could be traced to its source.

As band saws droned on a recent Friday, the mill director, Ng Kay Yip, ushered a potential customer from the Netherlands around the facility, explaining how the trees had been harvested and showing him the nearby factory, where the timber is planed into semifinished pieces for windows and doors.

Europe is already an important export market for the company, but Mr. Ng and others in the timber industry here are hoping that even more traders from Europe will soon knock on their doors. Malaysia is working to become the first country in Asia to sign a voluntary agreement with the European Union guaranteeing that all timber exports to the bloc have been harvested legally.

The Union says the agreement is likely to give Malaysia, and other countries that sign similar pacts, a competitive advantage as the bloc pushes for tighter regulation of timber imports because of environmental concerns. Last year, countries in the 27-member Union imported wood, wood charcoal and cork worth an estimated €8.5 billion, or $11.4 billion, 4.6 percent of it from Malaysia.

Uncontrolled logging can destroy animal habitats, cause erosion and increase the risk of natural disasters like floods and landslides, contribute to deforestation and climate change, and deprive governments of tax revenue. A report by the World Wide Fund For Nature estimated that illegally harvested timber accounted for as much as 19 percent of the Union’s wood imports in 2006, with Russia and Indonesia the main culprits.

The Union has no region-wide law preventing the importation of illegally logged wood products, although in response to consumer demand, some companies voluntarily buy timber from sources certified by various groups as sustainable. The Union is considering legislation that would require all importers in the bloc — from furniture companies to those buying raw materials like boards — to conduct due diligence to show that the timber they bought had been legally harvested.

A draft of the measure being negotiated in Brussels says importers would have to know the origin of timber and take steps to minimize the risk that it was illegally harvested.

Companies importing from countries that have signed a voluntary partnership agreement, like the one being negotiated with Malaysia, would be given a “green lane” for entry into E.U. markets and would be exempt from further checks. “There’s no doubt that this will create an advantage for the timber traders on the E.U. market,” said Vincent Piket, head of the Union’s delegation to Malaysia.

Under its Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade action plan, the bloc has already signed agreements with Ghana, the Republic of Congo and Cameroon. In addition to Malaysia, negotiations are under way with Indonesia, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon and Liberia. The Union has not begun negotiations on an agreement with China — the biggest exporter of timber to the Union — but the two sides signed a cooperation pact last year that was intended to reduce unlawful logging and trade in illegal timber.

Under the voluntary partnership agreements, source countries are responsible for determining that the timber has been harvested according to their national laws and the criteria in the E.U. agreements. While the agreements may vary among countries, requirements typically include that trees not be cut from protected forests, that endangered species not be logged and that companies comply with trade and customs regulations.

A third-party monitor, like an independent auditing company, would conduct spot checks to ensure compliance.

Whether such agreements will significantly decrease illegal logging, however, remains to be seen.

“It’s a very positive step, the idea of introducing these structural changes by requiring companies to use control systems, but we believe that it’s not enough,” Sebastien Risso, forest policy director at Greenpeace’s European Unit, said by telephone from Brussels.

Companies should be compelled to show a product’s complete chain of custody, he said, documenting its journey from the forest to its final destination.

Rupert Oliver, director of Forest Industries Intelligence, a British consulting company, said the proposed Union legislation could result in the sale of illegal timber to other countries that lack strict rules on timber imports, like China and India.

“It doesn’t really get to the root cause of the problem,” he said. “It shifts the problem elsewhere.”

Mr. Oliver added that the proposed Union legislation was not as tough as the U.S. law known as the Lacey Act, under which companies can be criminally prosecuted for importing illegal timber. The draft E.U. law does not stipulate the level of penalties to be imposed on those involved in importing illegal timber, leaving it to the member states to determine the penalties.

Ivy Wong Abdullah, forest conservation senior manager at WWF Malaysia, said that no statistics were available on the extent of illegal logging in Malaysia but that “sporadic instances” were still being detected. For example, just last month, the authorities discovered hundreds of fallen trees in a suspected case of illegal logging on the border of Perak and Pahang States, the Malaysian national news agency, Bernama, reported.

Ms. Wong Abdullah said that while Malaysia had strong laws against illegal logging, “there’s a need for more enforcement personnel on the ground.”

Malaysia’s timber industry already has several voluntary programs for certifying that timber is legally and sustainably harvested, with sawmills and other businesses participating to make their products more appealing to buyers concerned about environmental issues. Once the pact with the E.U. is signed, all timber companies will be compelled to comply with the criteria.

Saskia Ozinga, the campaign coordinator at FERN, a Brussels-based nongovernment organization that monitors E.U. forest policies, said there had been some resistance to the agreement from Sarawak State in Malaysia over a requirement that the land rights of indigenous people be respected.

While the Malaysian authorities say that the industry still has some concerns that need to be resolved, both the Union and Malaysia expect to sign the agreement this year.

Malaysian environmental groups have welcomed the proposed agreement but say sustainability issues as well as legal ones must be addressed.

Ms. Wong Abdullah said that while some of the current voluntary certification systems require operators to address sustainability issues, including assessment of an area’s conservation value, the draft E.U. agreement focused on the “bare legal minimum” requirements for logging in Malaysia.

Europe is Malaysia’s second-largest timber export market after Japan, with 2.67 billion ringgit, or $834 million, in sales of timber and timber products in 2009. Furniture, sawn timber, moldings, plywood, doors and flooring materials are among the main exports. Meranti, the timber at the Temerloh mill, is an important hardwood that grows in the tropical forests of Asia and is used in light construction and veneers

Jalaluddin Harun, director general of the Malaysian Timber Industry Board, said Malaysia was committed to fighting illegal logging and had decided to pursue the agreement with Europe to ensure that timber traders continue to have unhindered access to E.U. buyers.

“We want to ensure that our timber continues to be exported without having to be re-evaluated,” he said. “In Malaysia we would like to have the image of selling or trading in legal timber.”

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Message On Green Living Hits Home for Muslims in Indonesia

Fidelis E. Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 9 Apr 10;

Are you sick of accords and protocols on fighting global warming that never produce anything tangible?

If you are Muslim, then you should take the issue into your own hands every day, Islamic scholars heard on Friday, as 120 participants from 14 countries met at an international Islamic conference on climate change, in Bogor, West Java.

Emil Salim, a presidential adviser on the environment and sustainable development, told the conference, titled Muslim Action for Climate Change, that the lack of awareness of environmental issues in Muslim countries was alarming.

The former environment minister said many Muslims live their lives only from a religious point of view, without considering other issues addressed by Islam, including maintaining one’s home and land well.

“One primary point of view is to embody friendliness toward ecology,” Emil said, adding that an Islamic boarding school in West Java had initiated programs like planting trees as a means of preserving fresh water, which Muslims use to wash before praying.

Emil was addressing conference attendees from Egypt, Britain and Jordan, as well as 90 Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia. The two-day conference ends today and will see scholars discuss what Muslims can do to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A meeting of leaders in Turkey in 2009 agreed to spend seven years coming up with ways to protect the environment, according to the Alliance of Religions and Conservation Web site.

The project is investigating every level of Muslim activity, from daily life to annual pilgrimages, from holy cities to the future training of imams, the Web site says.

The proposals include developing major Muslim cities as green models, building eco-friendly mosques and developing an Islamic labels for environmentally friendly goods.

The proposals will be managed through umbrella organization the Muslim Associations for Climate Change Action. There have been proposals to ban plastic bottles during the hajj and build mosques designed to conserve energy, but they have yet to be implemented on a major scale.

Fazlun Khalid, founder of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, slammed the failure of agreements on global warming.

“We have so many climate change negotiations and agreements. Not one of them gets very far. Remember the Copenhagen Accord or even the Kyoto Protocol? Not one turned into real action,” Fazlun said. “Real action is when you make it real in your own home.”

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Eco-centre sets sights on carbon-free Britain

Peter Griffiths, Reuters 9 Apr 10;

MACHYNLLETH, Wales (Reuters) - In a remote, rain-soaked former quarry in Wales, environmentalists are putting the finishing touches to a plan to tackle climate change by weaning Britain off fossil fuels within 20 years.

The Center for Alternative Technology (CAT), a sprawling eco-complex set up during the 1974 oil crisis, will publish proposals in June to eliminate emissions from oil, gas and coal.

While Britain was the first country to set legally-binding targets to cut emissions, by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050, CAT's strategy goes further.

"We are saying 100 percent by 2030," CAT researcher Alex Randall told Reuters at the tourist attraction and research center on the southern tip of Snowdonia National Park.

"We can't keep burning fossil fuels."

The authors of CAT's report, Zero Carbon Britain, hope to influence policy-makers and spark a wider public debate.

Under their plans, energy demand would be halved and renewable energy expanded. It generates only six percent of Britain's electricity today.

Wind, wave, solar and other renewable sources would replace coal, gas and nuclear power, while electric cars and more energy-efficient homes would help to cut emissions.

The Labour government and the opposition Conservative Party, ahead in opinion polls before a May 6 election, both support a move to a low carbon economy, but they want to keep nuclear power.

Critics say renewables are too costly, unreliable and unlikely to produce sufficient power.

World leaders are arguing about how deep the emissions cuts will be and who will pay for them. Hopes of a deal were low as U.N. climate talks resumed in Bonn on Friday.

RED KITES

The late ecologist Gerard Morgan-Grenville founded CAT in an old slate quarry near the town of Machynlleth, west Wales, after spending a year studying American hippies.

The center aims to show people how to protect the planet by using less power, cutting pollution and living sustainably.

The once bare quarry is now rich in wildlife. Polecats and dormice live in the woods, while red kites circle overhead. Only the roar of fighter jets on training runs disturbs the calm.

Two water-powered funicular railway carriages take visitors up the hillside from the car park to the center, where displays give tips on everything from composting to green toilets.

CAT, which attracts around 65,000 people a year, is about to open a new education center, with earth walls in the lecture theater, that will offer training and post-graduate courses.

The area's member of parliament Lembit Opik, a Liberal Democrat who rides a Segway electric scooter to meet voters, supports the zero carbon report and says bold action is needed.

"It's doable, it's only a question of political will," he told Reuters. "How brave are we? How much are we as politicians willing to lead opinion rather than follow it?"

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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World Bank's $3.75bn coal plant loan defies environment criticism

US, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy and Norway abstain from vote in protest
• South Africa is becoming a high-carbon zone to attract foreign investment | Joss Garman
• Britain's key vote on World Bank loan to Medupi power station
Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian 9 Apr 10;

The World Bank approved a controversial $3.75bn loan to build one of the world's largest coal plants in South Africa yesterday, defying international protests and sharp criticism from the Obama administration that the project would fuel climate change.

The proposed Medupi power station, operated by South Africa's state-owned Eskom company, was fiercely opposed by an international coalition of grassroots, church and environmental activists who said it would hurt the environment and do little to help end poverty. As planned, it would put out 25m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and would prevent South Africa making good on a promise to try to curb future emissions.

The bank said it had acted to help South Africa escape a crippling power shortage. "Without an increased energy supply, South Africans will face hardship for the poor and limited economic growth," said Obiageli Ezekwesili, the World Bank's vice president for Africa.

But the bank's approval for the Medupi plant, though expected, was overshadowed by dissatisfaction from American and European donors, as well as a groundswell of protests.

America, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy and Norway registered their opposition to the loan by abstaining from the vote, the traditional method of dissent on the board which operates by consensus.

In a statement, the US treasury department said the loan was incompatible with the bank's stated commitment to promoting low carbon economic development.

"We expect that the World Bank will not bring forward similar coal projects from middle-income countries in the future without a plan to ensure there is no net increase in carbon emissions," it said. Britain, registering its abstention, noted the controversy surrounding the plant.

"The project raises several sensitive and potentially controversial issues which it has not been possible to resolve before this period began," a statement from Dfid said.

However, a World Bank official said the strong wording of such statements did not carry over to the Board's discussions of the loan. "It was not an easy decision," he said. "Everybody recognised the concerns about climate change, but this was a balancing act."

The vote by the World Bank had been widely seen as a test of the Obama administration's commitment to new guidelines put forward barely three months to shift aid to the developing world away from coal and fossil fuels to less polluting energy sources.

The administration had come under strong pressure from Democratic leaders in Congress as well as environmental organisations to try to block the loan.

Environmental organisations said its decision to abstain fell short.

"I am not going to give them points for abstaining. This was totally the easy way out," said Karen Ornstein of Friends of the Earth. "If the US were to follow its own clean coal guidance for multilateral development banks it would have had to vote no on this loan."

Michael Stulman of Africa Action said the entire project was misguided, and would do little to help poor South Africans. "This is one of those stereotypical development disaster stories," he said.

• This article was amended on 9 April 2010. The original said that the Medupi power station, as planned, would emit 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide. This has been corrected.

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El nino to trigger drier-than-average conditions over Indonesia

Antara 9 Apr 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - El Nino is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere spring 2010 and transition to El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-neutral conditions by Northern Hemisphere summer 2010, according to a weather forecast.

"Expected El Nino impacts during April-June 2010 include drier-than-average conditions over Indonesia and enhanced convection over the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean," said a press statement of the US Climate Prediction Center (CPC) received by ANTARA, Friday.

El Nino weakened to moderate strength during March 2010, with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies decreasing slightly, but still exceeding +1 degree Celsius across much of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean at the end of the month.

Anomalous tropical convection remained consistent with El Nino, with enhanced convection over the central and eastern Pacific and suppressed convection over Indonesia, according to the weather forecast.

The equatorial low-level easterly trade winds strengthened near the Date Line, while upper-level easterly wind anomalies became confined to the eastern Pacific.

"Collectively, these oceanic and atmospheric anomalies reflect an ongoing, but weakening El Nino," the statement said.

For the contiguous United States, potential El Nino impacts include above-average precipitation for the southeastern states, while above-average temperatures are most likely for the Pacific Northwest.

The forecast is a consolidated effort of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA`s National Weather Service, and their funded institutions.

Oceanic and atmospheric conditions are updated weekly on the Climate Prediction Center web site. Forecasts for the evolution of El Nino/La Nina are updated monthly in the Forecast Forum section of CPC`s Climate Diagnostics Bulletin.

In 1997-98, Indonesia was affected severely by strong El Nino leading to significant social and economic implications for the country. A large part of the country suffered from severe drought, resulting in a huge shortfall in rice production.

The El Nino also triggered forest fires which damaged more than 9.7 million ha of forest area. The smoke and transboundary haze from the forest fires affected not only Indonesia but also other Southeast Asian countries, in particular Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Singapore.

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Almost all Austrian glaciers shrank in 2009: report

Yahoo News 9 Apr 10;

VIENNA (AFP) – Almost 90 percent of Austrian glaciers shrank in 2009, some by as much as 46 metres (150 feet), the Austrian Alpine Association (OeAV) said Friday.

In a report, the OeAV said 85 out of 96 glaciers had shrunk over the past year.

The biggest changes were seen in the Oetz valley in western Tyrol province, where three glaciers retreated by over 40 metres, and eight by over 20 metres.

"The ice is very thin over large areas, so the glaciers are retreating very quickly," noted Andrea Fischer of the University of Innsbruck, who conducted the measurements for the alpine club.

One glacier bucked the trend and expanded, but only by a few dozen centimetres.

Temperatures were higher than average by about 0.2 degrees Celsius in the winter of 2008-2009 and by 2.1 degrees last summer, the OeAV noted.

"This year too, the tips of the largest glaciers will disappear," Fischer said.

"There is a lack of new ice and coupled with high summer temperatures, this will lead to serious shrinking of the glaciers."

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ASEAN seek binding global climate change pact

Yahoo News 9 Apr 10;

HANOI (AFP) – Southeast Asian leaders called Friday for a legally binding global pact on climate change and urged richer nations to provide them with "scaled-up" financial help to combat its effects.

In a joint summit statement, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Vietnam said a new deal should go further than the non-binding 11th-hour pact reached in Copenhagen in December.

All parties under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change should "work together to secure a legally binding agreement, particularly to limit the increase in average global temperature to below two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level," the statement said.

The Copenhagen Accord calls for limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the threshold set by many scientists.

But critics have complained that the actions are only voluntary and lacking in vital details on how to achieve the goal.

Environmental campaigners at Greenpeace dismissed the ASEAN leaders' statement as "weak and compromising" in not criticising the Copenhagen pact in stronger terms.

A drought currently affecting the region could have encouraged leaders to say more, said the group's Southeast Asia adviser, Zelda Soriano.

"(The drought) should have moved ASEAN leaders to make a bolder, stronger statement that places the interests and welfare of their citizens before everything else," said Soriano in a statement.

The Copenhagen deal commits rich countries to paying out around 30 billion dollars in total over the next three years and sets a potential figure of 100 billion dollars annually by 2020 for climate change action.

ASEAN leaders also "urge developed countries to... provide scaled-up, new and additional, adequate and predictable funding to the developing countries," their statement said.

The leaders urged richer countries to "continue taking the lead" with improved targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions blamed for climate change, but said they should take care not to affect trade.

In the statement, the ASEAN leaders say they will also consider "the possibility of developing an ASEAN action plan to better understand and respond to climate change".

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US denies climate aid to countries opposing Copenhagen accord

Bolivia and Ecuador will be denied aid after both opposed the accord
Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk 9 Apr 10;

The US State Department is denying climate change assistance to countries opposing the Copenhagen accord, it emerged today.

The new policy, first reported by The Washington Post, suggests the Obama administration is ready to play hardball, using aid as well as diplomacy, to bring developing countries into conformity with its efforts to reach an international deal to tackle global warming.

The Post reported today that Bolivia and Ecuador would now be denied aid after both countries opposed the accord. The accord is the short document that emerged from the chaos of the Copenhagen climate change summit and is now supported by 110 of the 192 nations that are members of the UN climate change convention.

"There's funding that was agreed to as part of the Copenhagen accord, and as a general matter, the US is going to use its funds to go to countries that have indicated an interest to be part of the accord," the state department envoy, Todd Stern, told the Washington Post. He said the decision was not "categorical", suggesting that other countries that opposed the accord could still get aid. Bolivia had originally been in line for $3m (£1.95m) in climate assistance and Ecuador for $2.5m under the State Department's original request to Congress for international climate aid, the Post reported.

Environmental organisations in Washington said they had been briefed that the State Department was contemplating such a step. According to their understanding, the Obama administration sees the Copenhagen accord and the promise of $30bn in climate aid for poor countries as combined package. Countries that oppose the deal, therefore, do not qualify for such funds.

However, Alden Meyer, the climate change director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, warned that such a policy risked further inflaming the tensions between the industrialised world and developing countries that have been a major obstacle to getting a deal.

"They are playing a pretty hard line," he said. "But it has the potential to be a counterproductive strategy. To cut off adaptation aid to countries suffering the impacts of climate change that are largely the result of past emissions from the US and other industrial countries risks making them look like the bad guys in a morality play. It is not a strategy that is going to play well in the developing world."

It could also expose America to further criticism that it is not doing enough to shoulder its share of climate aid. America has contributed slightly more than a billion to the fund, below its share.

At the Copenhagen summit last December, Bolivia had cast itself as a champion for the concerns of developing countries that they were being railroaded into an international agreement that would not do enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or protect the African and small island nations that will bear the brunt of climate change.

Bolivia joined Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in formally opposing the accord. Ecuador did not issue such a statement but it is among the countries that have yet to formally endorse the accord. Some of those hold-outs are acutely vulnerable to climate change – such as the island state of Tuvalu which was outspoken in its opposition to the process of negotiation at Copenhagen. Others are fairly large emitters, such as Argentina.

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China, U.S. clash over 2010 U.N. climate talks

Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn, Reuters 8 Apr 10;

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - The United States and China clashed on Friday about how to revive climate talks in 2010, complicating the first U.N. session since the acrimonious Copenhagen summit fell short of agreeing a treaty.

Many delegates at the 175-nation talks in Bonn from April 9-11 urged efforts to restore trust between rich and poor countries but few held out hopes for a breakthrough deal to fight global warming at the next major talks in Cancun, Mexico, in late 2010.

In a split between the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases, Washington said it wanted talks in 2010 to build on a non-binding Copenhagen Accord for limiting global warming reached by more than 110 nations at the December summit.

Beijing insisted negotiations should be guided by other draft U.N. texts and said Premier Wen Jiabao had been "vexed" at one point in Copenhagen by the way the meetings were organized in small groups.

"We view Copenhagen as a significant milestone," U.S. negotiator Jonathan Pershing told delegates. "We believe that the accord should materially influence further negotiations. This was not a casual agreement."

The accord, backed by about 120 nations, sets a goal of limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), but does not say how. It also holds out the prospect of $100 billion in aid a year to developing nations.

BALI, CANCUN

Su We, China's negotiator, gave no praise to the Copenhagen Accord in a speech and said work in 2010 should be guided by U.N. texts worked out since a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007. Those texts are also marred by disagreements.

"Cancun has a very clear objective -- to ensure that the work set out in the Bali road map is carried out," he said.

"In the process of arriving at the agreement, openness and transparency were missing," Su said, saying Wen was "vexed" on December 17 when he was not informed of a meeting.

China is among 120 formal backers of the Copenhagen Accord, that is opposed by many developing nations.

Su and many developing nations criticized the practice of limiting talks to small groups of negotiators. Mexico has already held one such preparatory meeting limited to about 40 countries to try to get round the unwieldy U.N. process.

"We are aware that this process of negotiation requires adjustment and modernization," said Fernando Tudela, climate negotiator of Mexico.

Outside the conference center, environmentalists dumped about 4 tonnes of shattered glass on the ground alongside a sign marked "Copenhagen" and a banner reading: "Pick up the Pieces."

The U.N. talks are due to work out how many extra meetings to hold in the run-up to Cancun.

Most want two or three extra sessions, a lower pace than in 2009. Few spoke of a binding deal in Mexico with most pinning hopes on 2011 when talks will be in South Africa, or even at a meeting of world leaders in Rio de Janeiro due in 2012.

The long-running, U.N.-led process is meant to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

"I don't think anyone expects a full legal deal (in 2010) the differences are just too deep," said Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Delegates said the talks could make progress in 2010 on starting a flow of funds, helping safeguard carbon-storing forests or helping poor countries to adapt to changes in climate such as desertification, floods or rising sea levels.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Climate 'more urgent than ever'
Richard Black, BBC News 9 Apr 10;

The need for a new global climate deal is "greater than ever", according to developing country delegates speaking at the opening of UN climate talks.

Blocs representing the poorest nations called for intensive talks during the year, leading to agreement on a legally binding treaty in December.

The EU backed the call, re-stating that the conclusion of December's Copenhagen summit had not met its ambitions.

But other industrialised countries do not appear so keen for a new treaty.

The three-day meeting here in Bonn is the first since the Copenhagen summit concluded without the global treaty that many countries had aimed for, instead producing a political declaration known as the Copenhagen Accord.

The US and other rich countries see it as a positive development, but others decry it as a figleaf that detracts attention from the real issues.

Describing Copenhagen as "a total failure", Venezuela's delegation chief Claudia Salerno said the accord would not reduce emissions enough to prevent significant climate impacts on poorer countries.

"My country raised its voice against the misnomer 'Copenhagen Accord' because... it contains proposals for voluntary reductions in carbon emissions that according to scientists would lead to increases in temperature of about 5C (9F)," she said.

"So nobody should be congratulating themselves on that. The urgency we face now is even greater than 2009."

Not all analyses of the Copenhagen Accord's pledges on curbing carbon emissions produce such high estimates for temperature rise, but many of those pledges are far from precise.

Lessons of history

The US - which did not speak during the opening session here - has been the accord's principal champion, saying it "achieves a number of landmark outcomes".

Its written submission to the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) backs "further formalisation of the accord" at this year's summit in Mexico, and says that "it will be difficult to find consensus around alternative proposals that depart from the accord understandings".

These statements have raised the hackles of developing countries, which interpret them as meaning that the US now sees the accord as the central global agreement and is not prepared to engage in anything that goes much beyond it.

"As a well-known politician once said, the one thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history," said Tosi Mpanu Mpanu from the Democratic Republic of Congo, speaking for the Africa Group of nations.

"The Africa Group believes that if we are to avoid a repetition of Copenahgen and repair this damaged process, then we must learn from Copenhagen."

And one of the lessons to learn, he continued, was that breaking away from formal inclusive negotiations and instead focusing on "a secret text put together by a selected few fundamentally broke the trust that is necessary for any partnership that aspires to be succesful and enduring".

Fernando Tudela, the Mexican delegate whose government will host this year's summit, referred to the need for "an authentic process of multilateral negotiations", with many others echoing his call.

Time and money

How and when these negotiations can happen, though, is another matter.

Developing country blocs called for at least three extra meetings this year - and perhaps as many as five - in addition to the regular fortnight in Bonn scheduled for June.

Staging all the extra meetings between the 2007 Bali summit and Copenhagen cost more than $30m (£19.5m), according to the UNFCCC secretariat; and governments would have to provide the money needed to hold another series.

Among wealthy nations, the EU appears the bloc most likely to engage with developing country concerns.

"We all need to frankly assess and examine the lessons learned last time," said Spain's Alicia Montalvo Santamaria, speaking for the EU, as Spain currently holds the presidency.

"The EU recognises the positive outcomes of the Copenhagen conference that gave important political guidance from the highest levels.

"However, the outcome did not reflect the EU's ambitions, and... we remain fully commited to negotiations with all parties in order to conclude a comprehensive global legal framework that allows us to stay below a rise of 2C (3.6F) since pre-industrial times."

UN seeks way forward on climate at Bonn meeting
Richard Ingham Yahoo News 9 Apr 10;

PARIS (AFP) – Countries gather this week in the hope of erasing bitter memories of the Copenhagen summit and restoring faith in the battered UN process for combatting climate change.

Negotiators meet in Bonn from Friday to Sunday for the first official talks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since the strife-torn confab.

Their first job will be stocktaking: to see what place climate change now has on the world political agenda.

Disappointment or disillusion swept many capitals when 120 heads of state and government returned from Copenhagen after coming within an inch of a fiasco.

Over the past three months, political interest in climate change has ebbed, says Sebastien Genest, vice president of a green group, France Nature Environment.

"The summit prompted a widespread sense of failure and a kind of gloom," says Genest.

Moving to fill the vacuum are climate skeptics and pragmatists -- those who call for priority to domestic interests and the economy rather than carbon emissions.

On the table in Bonn will be how to breathe life into the summit's one solid outcome: the Copenhagen Accord.

The slender document was hastily crafted by the heads of 28 countries as the December 7-19 marathon wobbled on the brink of collapse.

It sets the goal of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), gathering rich and poor countries in action against carbon pollution.

It also promises 30 billion dollars (22 billion euros) for climate-vulnerable poor countries up to to 2012, and as much as 100 billion dollars annually by 2020.

The deal falls way short of the post-2012 treaty that was supposed to emerge from the two-year haggle which climaxed in Copenhagen.

Its many critics say it has no deadline or roadmap for reaching the warming target and its pledges are only voluntary.

It was not even endorsed at a UNFCCC plenary, given the raucous reception it got from left-leaning countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. So far, less than two-thirds of the UNFCCC parties have signed up to it.

Yet the Accord also has powerful supporters.

While acknowledging its flaws, they note it is the first to include advanced and emerging economies in specified emissions curbs.

And, they argue, it could provide the key to resolving climate financing, one of the thorniest problems in a post-2012 pact.

A big question in Bonn will be how to dovetail the Copenhagen Accord with the UNFCCC, so that money can be disbursed.

But negotiators will be unable to duck what went wrong at Copenhagen -- the cripplingly slow textual debate, the entrenched defence of national interests and the deep suspicion of rich countries among the developing bloc.

"The meeting... is going to be very important to rebuild confidence in the process, to rebuild confidence that the way forward will be open and transparent on the one hand, and efficient on the other," UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer says.

Many voices, such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, are arguing for changes to the UNFCCC's labyrinthine, two-track negotiating process.

The final hours at Copenhagen showed how quickly things could move when handled by a small group, as opposed to gaining unanimity of all 194 parties in one go, they say.

The way forward could lie with a representative group which would advance on major issues and consult the full assembly, which would also vote on the outcome, according to this argument.

Some are looking closely at the G20, which accounts for rich and emerging economies that together account for some 80 percent of global emissions.

Lord Nicholas Stern, a top British economist, says the G20 has gained clout and credibility thanks to the financial crisis.

"We've essentially marginalised the G8 and replaced it with the G20," Stern said in an interview in Paris.

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