IEA says $36 bln/year to eradicate energy poverty

* 1.2 bln people without power access by 2030, 1.4 bln now
* Universal access to energy would boost oil demand 1 pct
* Number of people relying on biomass stoves to grow by 2030
Muriel Boselli Reuters AlertNet 21 Sep 10;

PARIS, Sept 21 (Reuters) - It would cost $36 billion per year to enable the world's 1 billion energy-starved people to access energy supplies at home by 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday.

The IEA said in an excerpt of its 2010 World Energy Outlook that some 1.2 billion people, equivalent to China's population, would still have no electricity by 2030 if governments made no change to existing policies, down from 1.4 billion currently.

The $36 billion per year only represented 3 percent of global energy investments projected by the agency to 2030.

"This is peanuts compared to other investments which are made," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the IEA, said in an interview.

In Nigeria for instance, Africa's top oil producer, where half the 152 million population has no access to electricity supplies, it would cost the country 0.4 percent of its oil and gas revenues to fix the situation, Birol said.

Achieving universal access to energy supplies would only boost oil demand by less than 1 percent and carbon dioxide emissions by 0.8 percent, Birol said, adding this was because most people who lack access to electricity live in rural areas.

"Since they are not connected to the cities, in most cases decentralised systems such as wind, mini-hydro or solar, will be used," Birol added.

"GOOD STEPS IN INDIA"

The projected number of 1.2 billion people without access to electricity by 2030 was however 100 million people less than in the IEA's 2009 outlook.

"This is mainly due to what happened in India, which made some good steps to reduce the number of people needing access to electricity," Birol added.

"Although electrification will progress over the period to 2030, the need will grow as the population increases," the report said.

Countries with a large proportion of the population living on an income of less than $2 per day tend to have low electrification rates and a high proportion of the population relying on traditional biomass, the IEA said.

The number of people relying on biomass is projected to rise by 100 million to 2.8 billion, which represents over 40 percent of the global population, by 2030.

The IEA said that household air pollution from the use of biomass in inefficient stoves would lead to over 1.5 million premature deaths per year in 2030.

This was greater than estimates for premature deaths from malaria, tuberculosis or aids, it said. (Editing by Sue Thomas)

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Progress in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals

Reuters AlerNet 22 Sep 10;

Sept 21 (Reuters) - World leaders urged countries on Tuesday to intensify efforts to meet U.N. anti-poverty goals and African leaders said developing countries should take responsibility for their own development. The eight goals are meant to be achieved by 2015.

Following is a description of the goals and progress made so far:

REDUCING GLOBAL POVERTY AND HUNGER

Goal: to halve the number of people living below the poverty line of $1.25 a day and halve the number of people going hungry.

* The goal of cutting the poverty rate in half appears well within reach by 2015, according to a World Bank report which notes that, excluding China, the drop in poverty will be less dramatic but still make the grade.

* Of the 84 developing countries with available data, 45 have already achieved or are on schedule to meet the poverty reduction target; the rest are off track, especially in Africa.

* The world is not on track to halve hunger by 2015 mainly because of setbacks caused by record food price increases in 2008. In 1990, the share of hungry people was 20 percent; by 2005 it had dropped to 16 percent, but rose to an estimated 19 percent in 2009.

ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION

Goal: to ensure that all boys and girls get a complete primary school education.

* According to World Bank data, 50 poor countries have achieved universal primary education and seven more are on their way. Still, 38 countries, mostly in Africa, are off track and unlikely to achieve the full-enrollment target.

* Sixty-nine million children worldwide are still out of school, down from 103 million in 2000, according to UNESCO. Between 2002 and 2008 about 19.3 million were enrolled in schools in 42 of the world's poorest countries.

PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY

Goal: to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education.

* The target looks likely to be met by 2015 although Africa is lagging.

REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY

Goal: to cut by two-thirds deaths of children under age 5.

* Only about one-fourth of developing countries are on track to reach this goal.

* Each year about 8 million children die before the age of 5, largely from preventable causes. Some 38 percent of the deaths occur in the first month of life due to infection, low birth weight (because of poor maternal nutrition), or birth asphyxia. Nearly 4 million of the deaths are from preventable and treatable illnesses such as pneumonia and diarrhea.

IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH

Goal: to reduce by three-quarters the maternal mortality rate and achieve universal access to reproductive health.

* There has been a big drop in the number of women who die giving birth but the progress falls short of the goal.

* Globally, more than half of all maternal deaths were concentrated in six countries: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.

COMBAT AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES

Goal: to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. Achieve by 2010 universal access to treatment for HIV and AIDS. Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.

* Results have been mixed. An estimated 33 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in 2008. There were an estimated 2.7 million new infections and about 2 million AIDS-related deaths in 2008.

* Africa is the region most heavily affected, accounting for over two-thirds of all people living with HIV and nearly three-quarters of AIDS-related deaths in 2008. Women are most affected, accounting for about 60 percent of those living with HIV in Africa.

ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL STABILITY AND REVERSE LOSS OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES

Goal: to integrate sustainable development into national policies and reverse environmental losses; reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010; halve the number of people living without safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

* Expanding access to safe drinking water is on track globally in most regions.

* Between 1990 and 2008, more than 1.6 billion people in developing countries gained access to improved sources of drinking water, raising the proportion of population with access to 84 percent from 72 percent.

DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT

Goal: to address cooperation in aid, trade, debt relief, and access to technology and essential drugs.

* Aid has remained constant at about $38 billion a year since 2008, falling short of promises, according to the International Monetary Fund.

* Countries have failed to conclude the Doha Round of global trade talks despite repeated pledges to reach a deal.

* There has been progress in writing off the debts of most of the world's poorest countries. (Sources: World Bank, IMF and United Nations) (Writing by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Jakarta Disaster Agency Not Needed: Governor

Arientha Primanita Jakarta Globe 22 Sep 10;

Jakarta. As heavy rains pounded the capital, paralyzing traffic on flooded roads and inundating areas from Cawang in East Jakarta to Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta on Tuesday, Governor Fauzi Bowo said the capital did not require a disaster mitigation agency under the central government.

Fauzi pointed out that the capital had its own disaster management unit within one of the city’s offices.

The city-run Fire and Disaster Mitigation Office incorporates the Jakarta Disaster Coordinating Unit (Satkorlak PBP) and a crisis center, both designed to handle disaster contingencies.

He told reporters that creating a new disaster mitigation agency would be “too costly. Not just the establishment, but also the recruitment of the officials.”

Fauzi added that the city administration had evacuation plans for the use of parks and public facilities as meeting and shelter areas in case disaster struck.

His statement comes on the heels of the collapse of a 115-meter stretch of embankment along the West Flood Canal, which has renewed fears of land subsidence across the city.

The collapse, along a section of the canal running parallel to Jalan Sultan Agung in South Jakarta, left the embankment sagging by up to three meters in some places and leaning out at a 45-degree angle to its previous upright position.

The incident occurred in the same week that a 103-meter span of two entire lanes of the four-lane Jalan RE Martadinata collapsed and fell into the Japat River in North Jakarta before dawn on Thursday.

Had the road caved in during daylight hours, scores of cars may have ended up in the water.

On Monday, presidential aide Andi Arief said the two infrastructure failures proved that the city was in need of a special disaster mitigation agency managed by the central government.

Andi said the failure to mitigate disasters in the capital was not because they were unmanageable or extraordinary, but because of mismanagement on the part of the city.

Last month, mud slides killed three and floods inundated East Jakarta.

In 2007, massive flooding killed dozens in the capital.

Ubaidillah, the chairman of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said there should be more coordination between the central and city governments on disaster management.

He said Jakarta faced serious ecological threats, indicated by the two collapses.

Both have been preliminarily tied to natural forces as well as shoddy construction.

Ubaidillah said the city government had focused too much on commercial development and did not pay enough attention to immediate environmental concerns.

“North Jakarta will be drowned by 2030 due to land subsidence and abrasion,” he said.

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India floods leave two million homeless, destroy crops

Alka Pande Reuters AlerNet 21 Sep 10;

LUCKNOW, India, Sept 21 (Reuters) - At least two million people in northern India have been left homeless as the Ganges and other rivers, swollen by heavy monsoon rains, broke embankments and submerged villages, fields and religious sites.

State officials said 500,000 hectares of agriculture land in top cane growing state Uttar Pradesh were flooded and the heavy rains could affect cotton output from Punjab and Haryana states.

They said floods in Uttar Pradesh were the worst in years and were still assessing the damage to the cane.

Any output loss would reduce sugar supply in India, the world's top consumer and second-largest producer of the sweetner, and could push up prices globally.

The Ganges, a dip in which Hindus believe washes away sins, and its tributary rivers have risen to close to their record-high levels and weather officials have forecast heavy rains in the region for the next two days.

"Agriculture fields and many roads are still water-logged... the real estimation would be possible when the water recedes," said K.K. Sinha, a senior Uttar Pradesh government official.

Television pictures showed people leaving villages on bullock carts through submerged roads, while several women and men were seen wading through waist-deep water, carrying children on their shoulders and belongings on their heads.

Farmers in northern Haryana and Punjab told Reuters that heavy rains have damaged cotton boils and fear, which could affect harvesting this year.

"Rains are likely to increase risk of pest attack and disease to cotton, escalating cost of production. It will bring quality of crop and lower its value," said G.S. Butter, director, Cotton Research Centre of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU).

MORE RAINS

India's monsoon may not start withdrawing this week and with the weather department predicting more rains, state governments have been asked to gear up to cope with risk of heavy flooding. [ID:nDEL003438]

In the eastern state of Bihar, the Gandak river burst through its embankments in various places, and had flooded vast farmland.

"Sugarcane crops grown in 600 acre (250 hectares) area are totally destroyed in the state," S.N. Lal, a senior official said, estimating 1.5 million tonnes of cane may be damaged.

Floods in India kill 1,793 people each year, on an average, and cause losses of $575 million each year, including damaging crops in 3.7 million hectares. [ID:nSGE64I0PG]

(Additional reporting by a Reuters reporter in Patna, Ikhhlaq Singh Aujla, Vikas Vasudeva and Surinderpal Singh; Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Alistair Scrutton)

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Asia faces rising cost from disasters, report says

Nopporn Wong-Anan Reuters 21 Sep 10;

(Reuters) - China, India and Indonesia are likely to face much higher losses from natural disasters in coming decades as their economies grow faster than their capacity for disaster prevention and relief, a new report has forecast.

That means more foreign investment projects will be exposed to disaster damage as economic growth brings more factories, roads and other infrastructure to the region, which suffers the highest number of disasters in the world.

But the threat also brings opportunities for investors to help countries in the region with a poor track record of disaster management to improve their monitoring and relief capabilities, Political & Economic Risk Consultancy said in its latest report.

As Asian countries grow richer, natural disasters could have more political repercussions on governments, both democratic and authoritarian, if their responses are deemed inadequate, the Hong Kong-based firm said in its fortnightly report.

"If countries like China, India and Indonesia fail to improve their disaster response capabilities, it could create systemic shortcomings that ultimately result in social and political instability," PERC said.

Asia has not suffered the highest dollar costs from disaster damage, but it has had many more people killed and affected by disasters than other parts of the world due to having the largest share of the global population.

But the monetary costs in the rapidly developing region could rise sharply if governments fail to come up with effective warning systems and relief strategies, PERC said.

Commending Chinese authorities for their "good job" of staff mobilisation for relief efforts, the agency said China must be transparent in its handling of domestic emergencies and publicising human errors that could have aggravated them.

India is credited for its early warning system that has saved tens of thousands of lives each year, but officials are often criticised for their ineffective responses to major disasters.

Among 12 economies covered in the report, Thailand and the Philippines are criticised for their governments' inability to deal effectively with natural disasters and man-made emergencies such as the Manila hostage crisis and Bangkok political riots.

"Thailand's poor capabilities for managing life-threatening emergencies should be a concern for anyone investing or conducting business in the country," the report said, referring to a two-month cover up of the outbreaks of bird flu in 2003.

(Reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Andrew Marshall)

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Disasters mirror climate models: US environment chief

Yahoo News 21 Sep 10;

PARIS (AFP) – The flurry of exceptional weather disasters in recent years is completely consistent with scenarios about an aspect of climate change, the head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Tuesday.

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the top US agency for meteorology and environmental science, said extreme weather events, when viewed individually, should not be considered as firm evidence that climate change was under way.

"At the same time, (what) we are seeing, with more and more of these extreme events, is completely consistent with what we would expect to see under a climate-changed world," Lubchenco said in response to a question at a press conference during her European visit.

"Many of the events we are seeing are characterised as a hundred- or a thousand-year event, and yet the climate models suggest that those types of events, those extreme events, are likely to become more and more frequent as the climate system is increasingly disrupted."

In China, 230 million people were affected this year by floods and landslips, according to official figures. The death toll stands at 3,185 and more than 1,000 missing.

In Pakistan, 21 million people were hit by floods, which also killed more than 1,700.

Russia, meanwhile, suffered its worst-ever heatwave, in which at one point some 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of forests and peat bogs were ablaze. At least 50 people were killed.

Lubchenco also pointed out that the high toll of weather disasters also came "partly as a result of actions that put people in harm's way."

"In addition to reducing (carbon) emissions and addressing climate change, in parallel to that we can take actions to reduce people's vulnerability to such extreme events," she said.

Lubchenco attended talks in Nantes, western France, and Paris on management of the Atlantic bluefin tuna, an issue where the United States is lobbying for greater conservation efforts. She was to travel to Brussels for meetings with the European Commission, the European Union's executive.

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Warming in Deep Southern Ocean Linked to Sea-Level Rise

LiveScience.com Yahoo News 21 Sep 10;

Warming waters in the deepest parts of the ocean surrounding Antarctica have contributed to sea-level rise over the past two decades, scientists report today (Sept. 20).

In an attempt to pinpoint all culprits for the rising oceans, scientists analzyed warming trends in the abyssal ocean - below about 3,300 feet (1,000 meters), said study team member and oceanographer Sarah Purkey of the University of Washington in Seattle.

The scientists found that the strongest deep warming occurred in the water around Antarctica, and the warming lessens as it spreads around the globe. The temperature increases are small - about 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit (0.03 degrees Celsius) per decade in the deep Southern Ocean, and less elsewhere. But the large volume of the ocean over which they are found and the high capacity of water to absorb heat means that this warming accounts for a huge amount of energy storage.

If this deep ocean heating were going into the atmosphere instead - a physical impossibility - it would be warming at a rate of just over 5 degrees F (3 degrees C) per decade.

This amount of energy would be the equivalent of giving every person on Earth five 1,400-Watt hair dryers, and running them constantly during the 20-year study period, said study team member and oceanographer Gregory Johnson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Sea level has been rising at around one-eighth of an inch (3 millimeters) per year on average since 1993, with about half of that caused by the ocean expanding as it's heated, and the other half due to additional water added to the ocean, mostly from melting continental ice.

The oceanographers note that deep warming of the Southern Ocean accounts for about one-twentieth of an inch (1.2 mm) per year of the sea-level rise around Antarctica in the past two decades.

The authors note that there are several possible causes for this deep warming: a shift in Southern Ocean winds; a change in the density of what is called Antarctic Bottom Water (which would change how much gets mixed with surface waters); or how quickly that bottom water is formed near the Antarctic, where it sinks to fill the deepest, coldest portions of the ocean around much of the globe.

The study draws on temperature trends between the 1990s and 2000s in the deep Southern Ocean. Though there are no continental boundaries there, and all oceans contribute water to the Southern Ocean, its distinct circulation makes the area a separate water body. This study shows that the deep ocean is taking up about 16 percent of the energy that the upper ocean is absorbing.

To study how much heat was building up in the Southern Oceans, the researchers divided the ocean into 28 sections, or basins, for which they computed warming rates. As a part of a large international research mission, researchers sailed across the ocean, stopping every 30 miles (48 kilometers) to lower their instruments into the deep ocean to take measurements for four hours.

"It was like crossing the ocean at a jogging pace," Johnson said.

The three southernmost basins showed a strong statistically significant abyssal warming trend, with that warming signal weakening to the north in the central Pacific, western Atlantic and eastern Indian Oceans, the researchers said. Eastern Atlantic and western Indian Ocean basins showed slight cooling trends, though the results weren't statistically significant, meaning they could be due to measurement or other errors.

The study is detailed in a recent online edition of the Journal of Climate.

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Best of our wild blogs: 21 Sep 10

Brown Hawk Owl calling
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Shooting snakes
from talfryn.net

Is there a future for the birds of the last greenspaces of Manila? from Raffles Museum News

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Conservationists Score Major Victory to Save Dolphins

Solomon Times Online 21 Sep 10;

The Earth Island Institute team successfully negotiated an end to a 450 year tradition of killing dolphins with three of eight tribes in the Solomon Islands.

Ric Barry, producer of the very popular "Blood Dolphins," stated in his blog that it is "a huge victory for the dolphins and will result in thousands of dolphins saved."

The Solomon Islands gained the attention of some major international lobby groups with the exportation of dolphins in early 2006.

Apart from the exportation of dolphins, traditional dolphin killings have placed the Solomon Islands quite close to Japan in terms of the number of dolphins brutally killed each year. Killing dolphins is so engrained in local customs as the teeth are used for currency.

"The team went there unsure of what to expect. So we listened, heard local concerns and together came to a reasonable conclusion. As a result, we have agreed to help them develop sustainable long-term solutions to dolphin hunting. And they will stop killing dolphins," said Ric Barry.

Ric Barry stated in his blog that progress in the Solomon Islands could be a "shining beacon of what's possible for other dolphin-hunting countries-specifically Japan and the Faroe Islands."

More Solomon Islands tribes agree to stop dolphin hunting
New Zealand International 23 Sep 10;

Three tribes in Solomon Islands have signed an agreement with the American-based Earth Island Institute to stop their traditional killing of dolphins.

An associate director of the Earth Island International marine mammal project, Mark Berman, says after the Fanalei and Walande tribes signed an agreement in April, other tribes have also stopped their dolphin hunting.

He says in return, his organisation has agreed to make grants available for sustainable community projects.

“Our goal is to make this a long-term effort where they get away from any type of dolphin hunts. In future we think that dolphin watch could be presented there, as a sustainable eco-tourism situation - that takes time to develop though - and they could show their culture by not harming dolphins but by just going to see the dolphins in the wild.”

Mark Berman says the agreement will save up to 2,000 dolphins a year.

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Bleaching in Kuwait: "20 pc of coral reefs dead, 60 pc affected"

Arab Times 20 Sep 10;

KUWAIT CITY, Sept 20, (KUNA): Bleaching of some of the country’s wealth of coral reefs is caused by high temperature in the sea waters, the Deputy Director General of the Environment Public Authority said on Monday.

Ali Haidar said in a statement that transformation of the color of the coral reefs into white in most marine regions, recently, was the result of the high temperature in the waters that soared to 35 degrees, indicating that the high temperature was measured by a diving team of the Kuwait Environment Protection Society (KEPS) on Sunday.

He was speaking following a meeting that grouped officials of EPA, the KEPS and the Kuwait Voluntary Work Center (KVWC), discussing the problem from various aspects.

The bleaching of corals is an indication of either their death or transformation into an unnatural condition, and the whitening is most probably caused by the soaring heat, said Haidar.

The deputy director general indicated that the survey of the coral reefs close to the islands of Umm Al-Maradem, Qarouh and Al-Zour revealed that 20 percent of the coral reefs are dead and 60 percent of the corals “are affected and may restore to their normal condition depending on the surrounding natural conditions.” On the soaring heat at sea, Haidar said this phenomenon, also know as Al-Nino, spread, this year, from the Arab Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, Arab Sea and coastal regions of Africa. It existed south of the equatorial, last year, affecting most of the marine regions in the world.

Haidar affirmed importance of the existence of healthy coral reefs because they secure nutrients for some sea species, protect the islands and signal the condition of the sea waters.

He indicated that the department of living resources at EPA would work out a plan and a wide-scale research program, with a three-year timetable, in coordination with the International Union for Conversation of the Nature, to study best means for the protection of the Kuwaiti wealth of corals.

For his part, Dr Thamer Al-Rashidi, the general coordinator of the project for measuring impact of the climatic change and Al-Nino on the Kuwaiti corals of the KEPC, said the high temperature at the sea was related to Al-Nino that occurs in the Pacific every five-seven years, either in month 11 or 12 — effects of which spread to the Arab Gulf late this summer.

Kuwait’s coral is dying as sea warms up
James Calderwood The National 21 Sep 10;

KUWAIT CITY: A group of Kuwaiti divers has reported bleaching in more than 90 per cent of the country’s coral reefs – a sign that the coral is either sick or dead.

“This is really bad,” Dari al Huwail, a member of Kuwait Dive Team, said. “Before Ramadan, it seemed normal; there were signs of bleaching, but they were not unusual, at least to me.” After the holy month, “we went diving for a conservation project and were shocked to discover how massive the bleaching was”.

When team members dived at a reef near Umm al Maradim island, they noticed most of the brightly coloured corals had turned a sickly white. When two teams of divers inspected Kuwait’s seven other major reefs this week, they realised that the whole country was affected.

“We’re not scientific experts, we don’t have a background in marine biology, but we are professional in documenting what we see,” Mr al Huwail said. The team said it was ready to collaborate with international experts to discover why the corals have turned white and try to solve the problem.

Ali Haidar, the deputy director general of the government’s Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement on Monday that the bleaching was probably caused by rising sea temperatures. Sea temperatures around Kuwait have soared to 35°C this year.

About 20 per cent of the coral reefs are dead and 60 per cent “are affected and may return to their normal condition depending on their surrounding natural conditions”, Mr Haidar said.

Bleaching occurs when the pigmented algae that live in the coral’s tissue are expelled, revealing the coral’s bright white skeleton. Without the algae, the coral begins to starve.

Thomas Goreau, the president of Global Reef Alliance, a non-governmental organisation based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, dedicated to studying and restoring coral reefs, said the reefs have suffered from massive bleaching all over the world this year.

“This year is certainly the hottest year in history,” Mr Goreau said. “This is a result of global warming.”

If the sea exceeds its average temperature during the hottest time of year by 1°C for one month, the coral will turn white, Mr Goreau said. If the temperature remains high for two months or increases to 2°C above the average for one month, the corals will die.

The phenomenon has been discovered in the Gulf because Kuwait Dive Team actively surveys the country’s marine environment, Mr Goreau said. He expects coral reefs in Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Iran have all undergone a similar change, but the damage has not been reported yet.

Mr Goreau, who has been tracking global sea temperatures by satellite since 1982 and visiting endangered reefs all over the world, said the bleaching began in the southern hemisphere this year. Coral reefs in Mauritius were the first to bleach and others were affected as the location of maximum temperature migrated across the globe.

Coral reefs in the Seychelles and the Maldives were next to feel the effect of the extraordinary heat, then Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. Waters off the Philippines and the Caribbean have also faced unusually high temperatures this year, Mr Goreau said.

When coral reefs die, the sea loses the majority of its marine diversity and fish will disappear in search of other areas to feed and serve as a nursery for their young. Dead reefs will not absorb wave energy or replenish sand, causing nearby beaches to slowly erode.

“Coral reefs are the most fragile ecosystem there is,” Mr Goreau said. “They can be killed by water that is too hot, cold, salty, fresh, muddy or has an excess of nutrients. Boats’ anchors pose a physical threat to the delicate reefs, as does dredging to build islands and ports or to clear lanes for shipping.”

Scientists are unsure why coral reefs have grown in the Gulf despite extreme temperatures, saline and muddy waters, and high levels of pollution from sewage and the petrochemicals industry. Mr Goreau said if researchers were given the opportunity to study why the region’s corals are so resilient, it might be an opportunity to propagate them to other parts of the world.

“These are exceptional corals because they’ve been pushed beyond conditions that no other corals could survive, but now they’ve been pushed beyond their limit.”

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CNG cars in Singapore: moment in the sun over

Few refuelling stations, poor conversions among factors deflating demand
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 21 Sep 10;

INTEREST in compressed natural gas (CNG) cars has fizzled out after a brief spurt.

The trend can be blamed on a number of factors - the languishing car market, a persistent shortage of refuelling facilities, negative publicity over poorly carried out petrol-to-gas conversions and even the uncertainty hanging over the tax break granted to such cars.

The numbers from the Land Transport Authority (LTA) say it best: Only 25 or so CNG cars were registered in the first eight months of this year, down from 250 last year and 2,000 the year before.

From January to August this year, all other alternative-fuel cars were more popular than CNG models. Petrol-electric hybrids pulled in about 500 new buyers, and diesel cars, about 40 - despite the high taxes payable on them.

Buyers of budget cars have traditionally been the biggest CNG converts, but this year's deep cut to the supply of Certificates of Entitlement (COEs) sent their premiums skyrocketing. The car market cooled in response, nudging out such price-sensitive buyers. Sellers, particularly the parallel importers, were also hit.

A senior executive from authorised Toyota agent Borneo Motors observed: 'Parallel importers have lost steam because of the high COE prices.

'Ninety-nine per cent of CNG cars were sold by them.'

General Motors Overseas Distribution Corp, the importer of Chevrolet cars, stopped offering CNG models in March.

Its spokesman said customers were turned off because the savings they were to reap from using gas instead of petrol did not make up for the inconvenience of having only limited places where they could refuel.

There are four refuelling stations in operation: in Jurong, Mandai, Toh Tuck (off Upper Bukit Timah) and Serangoon North. This is twice the number of stations available before last year, but they can hardly be said to be centrally sited.

Customer service representative Wong Chee Wei, who drives a CNG Chevrolet Optra Magnum, said of the refuelling hassle: 'There's always a long queue at the Serangoon station.'

For better or worse, he is stuck with his CNG-model Chevy for now, because he finds car prices too high for him to trade it in.

Mr Melvin Toh, 28, a wealth management consultant, has the same model car, but has taken to using its petrol engine 60 per cent of the time. He said: 'Ideally, I'd want to use more CNG, but the nearest station for me is Serangoon, and it closes quite early, at around 8pm.'

He also feels that the high COE prices mean changing his car is not an option now.

C Melchers, a company specialising in converting petrol cars to run on CNG, is feeling the drop in interest acutely. Its sales manager, Mr Gilbert von der Aue, said the company is doing only about two conversions a month, down from as many as 120 two years ago.

'Things are not so good,' he said. 'I don't think conversions will go back to what they were like.'

He said it has not helped that some of Melchers' smaller rivals have done 'bad installations', which have resulted in adverse effects such as severe power loss or stalled engines.

The LTA said 16 car owners with such problems have been allowed to remove the CNG systems from their converted vehicles, thus reverting to petrol-only vehicles.

'Applications for the removal of CNG systems are considered on a case-by- case basis,' an LTA spokesman said. Permission is granted only if the technical problems cited are found to be genuine.

And then there is the looming uncertainty over the tax break granted to CNG cars, which is due to run out at the end of next year.

The 40-percentage-point reduction in the Additional Registration Fee was what fuelled the surge in the number of CNG- converted cars in the last two years. The Government also plans to levy a petrol-like duty at gas pumps from 2012.

Only taxi companies seem to be driving any sort of momentum in CNG conversions now. About 460 new CNG cabs were put on the road in the first eight months of the year. The strongest advocate is Trans-Cab, which plans to treble its CNG fleet of about 1,500 by next year.

Taxi firms and a small but growing fleet of private gas-powered buses are keeping the CNG refuelling business afloat.

Mr Johnny Harjantho, the managing director of refueller Smart Energy, which operates the Mandai and Serangoon stations, said: 'Our business has been growing, but we need 1,500 fillings a day to make money. Right now, we are getting 800 to 900, sometimes 1,000.

'We still need more support from the Government, especially in providing sites for new CNG stations.'

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Malaysia's dengue death rate spirals 53 percent this year

(AFP) Google News 20 Sep 10;

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia said Monday its dengue fever death rate spiralled 53 percent this year, but backed away from a controversial trial of releasing genetically modified mosquitoes to wipe out the disease.

"There was a major rise in deaths due to dengue fever, with 107 deaths so far this year compared to 70 deaths for the same period last year," said deputy premier Muhyiddin Yassin.

Muhyiddin said the majority of the deaths could have been avoided, and urged the public to take action to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes -- which spread dengue -- from their homes and workplaces.

"We have identified 19 hotspots throughout the country where the disease is prevalent, and action is being taken to tackle the situation in these areas," he said.

However, Muhyiddin was cool on a plan to release genetically modified mosquitoes designed to combat dengue fever, in a proposed landmark field trial that has come in for criticism from environmentalists.

In the first experiment of its kind in Asia, 2,000-3,000 male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were to be released in two Malaysian states in October or November if the plan had won government support.

The insects in the study have been engineered so that their offspring quickly die, curbing the growth of the population in a technique researchers hope could eventually eradicate the dengue mosquito altogether.

Females of the Aedes species are responsible for spreading dengue fever.

Muhyiddin said the project would not be implemented "at the moment".

"Seemingly it is quite an interesting (solution) to deal with such a problem but I think... not until and unless every aspect of research being carried out is clinically tested and... environmental issues have been addressed," he said.

"And of course most importantly at the end of the day, it is endorsed by international organisations -- that it is something we can apply for the purposes of dealing with the epidemic."

The development is a boon for environmentalists who were were concerned the GM mosquito could fail to prevent dengue and could also have unintended consequences.

Critics have said the larvae will only die if their environment is free of tetracycline, an antibiotic commonly used for medical and veterinary purposes.

The field trial for the GM anti-dengue mosquitoes was developed by a British-based insect bio-tech company, Oxitec, and was to be undertaken by the Malaysia's Institute for Medical Research, an agency under the health ministry.

Dengue infection leads to a sudden onset of fever with severe headaches, muscle and joint pains, and rashes.

The virus has historically been found in tropical regions, particularly in urban and semi-urban areas, but has spread in recent years to colder and higher places and is now endemic in more than 100 countries.

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