True Economic Measure Includes Natural Assets: Scientists

Nina Chestney PlanetArk 29 Mar 12;

Traditional measures showing strong economic growth in Brazil and India over nearly two decades fail to take account of the depletion of their natural resources, scientists and economists at a climate conference said on Wednesday.

Scientists and environment groups have been pressuring governments to include the value of their countries' natural resources - and use or loss of them - into future measurements of economic activity, rather than relying solely on the gross domestic product calculation.

Between 1990 and 2008, the wealth of Brazil and India measured by GDP rose 34 percent and 120 percent respectively, but this measurement is flawed, economists at the "Planet Under Pressure" conference in London argued.

Natural capital, or the sum of a country's assets ranging from forests to fossil fuels and minerals, declined 46 percent in Brazil and 31 percent in India, they said.

"The work on Brazil and India illustrates why GDP is inadequate and misleading as an index of economic progress from a long-term perspective," said Anantha Duraiappah, the executive director of the United Nations University's International Human Dimensions Programme (UNU-IHDP).

When measures of natural, human and manufactured capital are put together, Brazil's "inclusive wealth" rose by 3 percent and India's rose by 9 percent over that time, he said.

The idea of an expanded indicator known as GDP+ to include GDP and natural capital will be on the agenda of a global conference held in Rio de Janeiro in June to try define sustainable development goals.

PRESSURE IN RIO

Duraiappah said his research team and the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) will present a report at the Rio summit showing the "inclusive wealth" of 20 countries, which represent 72 percent of world's GDP and 56 percent of global population.

The UK has already set up a Natural Capital Committee to advise the government on the state of its natural assets.

Britain also said last month it would urge businesses and governments at the Rio conference to start measuring the use or loss of water, agriculture, forests and other natural resources.

Businesses also need to measure and report on the sustainability of their corporate activities, said Yvo de Boer, special global adviser to consultancy KPMG and former U.N. climate chief.

"If companies had to pay for the full environmental costs of their activities, they would have lost $0.41 out of every $1 earned in 2010," he said.

"The external environmental costs of 11 key industry sectors rose by almost 50 percent between 2002 and 2010, from $566 billion to $854 billion."

(Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)

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Farming needs 'climate-smart' revolution, says report

Richard Black BBC News 28 Mar 12;

Major changes are needed in agriculture and food consumption around the world if future generations are to be adequately fed, a major report warns.

Farming must intensify sustainably, cut waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms, it says.

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change spent more than a year assessing evidence from scientists and policymakers.

Its final report was released at the Planet Under Pressure conference.

The commission was chaired by Prof Sir John Beddington, the UK government's chief scientific adviser.

"If you're going to generate enough food both to address the poverty of a billion people not getting enough food, with another billion [in the global population] in 13 years' time, you've got to massively increase agriculture," Sir John told BBC News.

"You can't do it using the same agricultural techniques we've used before, because that would seriously increase greenhouse gas emissions for the whole world, with climate change knock-ons."

Farming is probably responsible for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, although the figure is hard to pin down as a large proportion comes from land clearance, for which emissions are notoriously difficult to measure.

Although there are regional variations, climate change is forecast to reduce crop yields overall - dramatically so in the case of South Asia, where studies suggest the wheat yield could halve in 50 years.

"We need to develop agriculture that is 'climate smart' - generating more output without the accompanying greenhouse gas emissions, either via the basic techniques of farming or from ploughing up grassland or cutting down rainforest," said Sir John.

The techniques needed in different regions vary according to what is appropriate, said Dr Christine Negra, who co-ordinated the commission's work.

"In places where using organic methods, for example, is appropriate or economically advantageous and produces good socio-economic and ecological outcomes, that's a great approach," she said.

"In places where, using GMOs, you can address food security challenges and socio-economic issues, those are the right approaches to use where they've been proven safe."
Waste matters

The commission's recommendations go a long way beyond farming methods, however.

It says the economic and policy framework around food production and consumption need to change to encourage sustainability, to raise output while minimising environmental impacts.

Farmers need more investment and better information; governments need to put sustainable farming at the heart of national policies.

Prof Tekalign Mamo, who advises the Agriculture Ministry in Ethiopia, said models already existed for many of the transformations needed.

One, highlighted in the report, is Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme, inaugurated in 2003 with the involvement of the government and international partners.

"One [aspect of it] is household asset building, so people don't deplete their resources in times of chronic food shortage," Prof Mamo told BBC News.

"Another is working on community assets such as building small-scale irrigation or watershed development; the communities own such activities and also allocate free labour, and the government provides incentives like food or cash for those participating.

"It has lifted about 1.3 million of the population from poverty and into food security, and at the same time they also conserved and rehabilitated the environment."

India's guarantee of employment in rural areas, Vietnam's progress with no-till rice farming (which reduces greenhouse gas emissions from soil), and moves to give women secure land ownership in five southern African countries are also highlighted in the report.

But it also recommends changes in developed nations - for example, around food waste.

"The less we waste food, the less food we have to produce, the less greenhouse gases are emitted," noted Dr Negra.

Before last December's UN climate conference in South Africa, the commissioners had advocated incorporating sustainable agriculture into the UN climate convention's discussions.

The eventual decision - to start talks on a "work programme" - is viewed by the commission as being weaker than it might have been.

The commission was established by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the global network of institutions working on food and poverty issues.

The Planet Under Pressure conference is a four-day gathering of academics, campaigners and business people in London designed to inform policymaking in the run-up to the Rio+20 summit in Brazil in June.

Food Security Focus Fuels New Worries Over Crop Chemicals
Carey Gillam PlanetArk 28 Mar 12;

Analysis: Food Security Focus Fuels New Worries Over Crop Chemicals Photo: Joe Skipper
A grove of star ruby grapefruit is sprayed by a worker in a grove in Vero Beach, Florida December 1, 2010.
Photo: Joe Skipper

Scientists, environmentalists and farm advocates are pressing the question about whether rewards of the trend toward using more and more crop chemicals are worth the risks, as the agricultural industry strives to ramp up production to feed the world's growing population.

The debate has heated up in the last several weeks, with a series of warnings and calls for government action including a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Critics say they fear the push to increase global crop production is translating into mounting health and environmental dangers. As usage expands in some areas, agricultural chemical residues have turned up in water supplies and air samples of U.S. farming communities.

The concerns are rooted in two converging trends:

Growing global demand for food, fuel and livestock feed is pushing many farmers to apply more herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers to crops, hoping to boost production.

At the same time, some favored technologies are starting to lose their edge. Some growers have found they must use more chemicals to combat the very weeds and crop-damaging pests that biotech seeds were engineered to address.

"Production is growing," said Pat Sinicropi, legislative director at the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, an organization of municipal water interests. "The pressure on agriculture is mounting to squeeze as much yield out of their land as possible, which is driving more and more chemical use."

Few would dispute that misuse of agricultural chemicals can harm health and the environment. The debate has focused on when that line is crossed, with industry saying U.S. regulatory oversight is already strong enough to ensure safety.

"With any technology there is risk," said Jim Borel, executive vice president of DuPont, which has projected strong growth in sales of insecticide, herbicide and pesticide products. "People tend to focus on either the problems or worse yet the fears that people create about potential problems.

"But," Borel said in an interview, "if we are going to feed 10 billion people in the next 40 years we have to essentially double agricultural production. We all have to work together. We have to be eyes wide open around the challenges and the risks."

Those on the other side of the debate agree that increasing crop production is necessary.

"To feed a growing world population, we have to intensify crop production, but we can't do so at the expense of the natural resource base," Teresa Buerkle, a spokeswoman for the North America office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

SCIENTISTS SPEAK UP

Where industry says regulation is adequate, critics say it is often lacking. They want the government to do more in-depth examination of the impacts of the chemicals in use and change the incentives that encourage farmers to grow more corn and other chemically intensive crops.

One concern is the level of nitrogen fertilizer run-off into water sources. A study released March 13 by researchers at the University of California, Davis, said fertilizers and nitrates from agriculture are contaminating the drinking water for more than 200,000 residents in California's farming communities.

That study came as a separate coalition of water authority officials, pollution control administrators and sustainable agricultural groups calling themselves Health Waters Coalition asked Congress to address excessive use and runoff of agricultural fertilizers in the new Farm Bill.

The group cited data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicating that more than 50 percent of rivers, streams, and lakes and nearly 60 percent of bays and estuaries are impaired because of excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorus.

"Nitrogen pollution is considered by scientists among the handful of most serious impacts on the environment that humans cause. It has been increasing," said Doug Gurian-Sherman, a plant pathologist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a scientific policy group.

"More and more scientists are speaking up."

Insecticides are also a concern. Twenty-two U.S. plant scientists co-authored a letter March 5 warning the EPA about a biotech corn that is losing its resistance to plant-damaging pests and could trigger "escalating use of insecticides."

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental advocacy group, has taken its concerns to court, filing suit against the EPA on February 23.

The NRDC accuses EPA of not adequately addressing the health threats of 2,4-D, an ingredient in the Agent Orange defoliant used in Vietnam that prompted lawsuits from veterans and others who later contracted cancer. The chemical now is being increasingly used to help fight back "super weeds" that resist glyphosate, also known as Roundup.

NEW PRODUCTS, OLD WORRIES

2,4-D is an herbicide that's been registered for use in U.S. crops since 1948 but may now come into far more widespread usage as Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical, seeks government approval for biotech crops engineered to thrive despite dousings of 2,4-D.

Complaints of ties to cancer have dogged the chemical for decades but U.S. regulators have said that research data is insufficient to make a direct link.

A scientific study published in January in the journal BioScience noted that nationwide herbicide use could see a "profound increase" if the new biotech crops being developed see the same rate of adoption that Roundup Ready crops.

Roundup use became so pervasive after the introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans 16 year ago that last summer, researchers with the Geological Survey said significant levels Roundup were detected in air and water samples in Iowa and Mississippi. More than 88,0000 tons of glyphosate were used in the United States in 2007, up from 11,000 tons in 1992, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Critics of 2,4-D fear a similar rise in the use of that herbicide.

"EPA is dragging their feet on this issue," said Gina Solomon, senior scientist with the NRDC. "They need to grapple with the science and the current situation where U.S. agriculture is on the cusp of the vast increase of the use of this chemical."

FARMERS TAKE PRECAUTIONS

Farmers are well aware of the poisonous possibilities of the chemicals they use, and must get trained and approved every year to apply pesticides, and take a range of precautions.

Life-long farmer Dennis Schwab knows the risks. As a corn grower in the top U.S. corn state of Iowa, 61-year-old Schwab has become an expert in the array of toxic chemicals used to fight bugs, weeds and disease.

"Our exposures are higher than the general population ... yeah we are concerned about it. But we recognize pesticides are a necessary part of raising crops today," he said.

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Climate change to drive weather disasters: UN experts

Richard Ingham | AFP Yahoo News 28 Mar 12;

Climate change is amplifying risks from drought, floods, storms and rising seas, threatening all countries but small island states, poor nations and arid regions in particular, UN experts warned on Tuesday.

In its first-ever report on the question, the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said man-made global-warming gases are already affecting some types of extreme weather.

And, despite gaps in knowledge, weather events once deemed a freak are likely to become more frequent or more vicious, inflicting a potentially high toll in deaths, economic damage and misery, it said.

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri urged countries to prepare more for climate-related disasters.

Many defence options are of the "no regret" type, meaning they are relatively low-cost but effective, he said.

"Reducing disaster risk should be a priority in every country," said Chris Field, a US scientist who was one of the 592-page report's lead authors.

A summary of the report was approved last November. The full document was published on Wednesday ahead of a worldwide campaign to advise governments, policymakers and grassroots groups.

The report made these points:

-- Since the 1950s, record-breaking daily temperatures and heatwaves have become more frequent or lasted longer, according to strong evidence. There is a 90-100 percent probability that this will continue through the 21st century.

"The hottest day, which today occurs once every 20 years, is expected to occur once every second year by the end of the 21st century," said climate physicist Thomas Stocker.

This scenario is based on the assumption that today's high emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, he explained.

-- Extreme rainstorms have intensified over past decades and are likely to become more frequent in this century, although with big differences between regions.

-- Southern Europe and West Africa have already experienced bigger or longer droughts. This century, central Europe, central North America, central America and Mexico, northeast Brazil and southern Africa could follow suit.

-- Whether hurricanes or typhoons have changed in intensity, frequency and duration over the past 40 years is hard to gauge. But warmer seas suggests these storms will pack a higher wind speed, yet may also become less frequent.

"There is disaster risk almost everywhere, in the world's developed regions as well as in developing regions, in areas where the problem is too much water and in areas where the problem is too little water and in areas where the problem is high sea level," said Field.

"But the report does point out areas that are particularly vulnerable, and that does include large cities, particularly in developing countries, coastal areas, it includes small island states, and it includes much of the world that is chronically short of water resources."

The report pointed in particular at coastal megacities.

A rise of 50 centimetres (20 inches) in sea level would make much of the coastal and low-lying areas of Mumbai -- inhabited in particular by slumdwellers -- uninhabitable.

The panel stressed that it had exhaustively collected information, checked it and consulted with experts working outside the forum.

The report was drawn up by 220 scientists and economists from 62 countries, who pored over thousands of published studies. Their draft was then submitted to external review by experts and governments, drawing nearly 19,000 comments in three rounds of consultation.

The IPCC was criticised for closed mentalities and lacking transparency after several mistakes were found in its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report.

Climate sceptics seized on the errors. They accused the panel of distorting data in order, in their view, to invent a problem.

The report -- Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation -- acknowledges shades of uncertainty.

For storms, for instance, longer-term data is needed to say whether they have already become more frequent or intense, said Stocker. Another variable is how effective countries will be in curbing the carbon gases that cause the problem, he said.

Mumbai, Miami on list for big weather disasters
Seth Borenstein Associated Press Yahoo News 28 Mar 12;

WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heat waves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of climate scientists said in a new report issued Wednesday.

The greatest threat from extreme weather is to highly populated, poor regions of the world, the report warns, but no corner of the globe — from Mumbai to Miami — is immune. The document by a Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists forecasts stronger tropical cyclones and more frequent heat waves, deluges and droughts.

The 594-page report blames the scale of recent and future disasters on a combination of man-made climate change, population shifts and poverty.

In the past, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, founded in 1988 by the United Nations, has focused on the slow inexorable rise of temperatures and oceans as part of global warming. This report by the panel is the first to look at the less common but far more noticeable extreme weather changes, which lately have been costing on average about $80 billion a year in damage.

"We mostly experience weather and climate through the extreme," said one of the report's top editors, Chris Field, an ecologist with the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "That's where we have the losses. That's where we have the insurance payments. That's where things have the potential to fall apart.

"There are lots of places that are already marginal for one reason or another," Field said. But it's not just poor areas: "There is disaster risk almost everywhere."

The report specifically points to New Orleans during 2005's Hurricane Katrina, noting that "developed countries also suffer severe disasters because of social vulnerability and inadequate disaster protection."

In coastal areas of the United States, property damage from hurricanes and rising seas could increase by 20 percent by 2030, the report said. And in parts of Texas, the area vulnerable to storm surge could more than double by 2080.

Already U.S. insured losses from weather disasters have soared from an average of about $3 billion a year in the 1980s to about $20 billion a year in the last decade, even after adjusting for inflation, said Mark Way, director of sustainability at insurance giant Swiss Re. Last year that total rose to $35 billion, but much of that was from tornadoes, which scientists are unable to connect with global warming. U.S. insured losses are just a fraction of the overall damage from weather disasters each year.

Globally, the scientists say that some places, particularly parts of Mumbai in India, could become uninhabitable from floods, storms and rising seas. In 2005, over 24 hours nearly 3 feet of rain fell on the city, killing more than 1,000 people and causing massive damage. Roughly 2.7 million people live in areas at risk of flooding.

Other cities at lesser risk include Miami, Shanghai, Bangkok, China's Guangzhou, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, Myanmar's Yangon (formerly known as Rangoon) and India's Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta). The people of small island nations, such as the Maldives, may also need to abandon their homes because of rising seas and fierce storms.

"The decision about whether or not to move is achingly difficult and I think it's one that the world community will have to face with increasing frequency in the future," Field said in a telephone news conference Wednesday.

This report — the summary of which was issued in November — is unique because it emphasizes managing risks and how taking precautions can work, Field said. In fact, the panel's report uses the word "risk" 4,387 times.

Field pointed to storm-and-flood-prone Bangladesh, an impoverished country that has learned from its past disasters. In 1970, a Category 3 tropical cyclone named Bhola killed more than 300,000 people. In 2007, the stronger cyclone Sidr killed only 4,200 people. Despite the loss of life, Bangladesh is considered a success story because it was better prepared and invested in warning and disaster prevention, Field said.

A country that was not as prepared, Myanmar, was hit with a similar sized storm in 2008, which killed 138,000 people.

The study forecasts that some tropical cyclones — which include hurricanes in the United States — will be stronger because of global warming. But the number of storms is not predicted to increase and may drop slightly.

Some other specific changes in severe weather that the scientists said they had the most confidence in predicting include more heat waves and record hot temperatures worldwide and increased downpours in Alaska, Canada, northern and central Europe, East Africa and north Asia,

IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri told The Associated Press that while all countries are hurt by increased climate extremes, the overwhelming majority of deaths occur in poorer, less developed places. Yet, it is wealthy nations that produce more greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, raising the issue of fairness.

Some weather extremes aren't deadly, however. Sometimes, they are just strange.

Report co-author David Easterling of the National Climatic Data Center says this month's U.S. heat wave, while not deadly, fits the pattern of worsening extremes. The U.S. has set nearly 6,800 high temperature records in March. Last year, the United States set a record for billion-dollar weather disasters, though many were tornadoes.

"When you start putting all these events together, the insurance claims, it's just amazing," Easterling said. "It's pretty hard to deny the fact that there's got to be some climate signal."

Northeastern University engineering and environment professor Auroop Ganguly, who didn't take part in writing the IPCC report, praised it and said the extreme weather it highlights "is one of the major and important types of what we would call 'global weirding.'" It's a phrase that some experts have been starting to use more to describe climate extremes.

Field doesn't consider the term inaccurate, but he doesn't use it.

"It feels to me like it might give the impression we are talking about amusing little stuff when we are, in fact, talking about events and trends with the potential to have serious impacts on large numbers of people."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch

Plan Now For Climate-Related Disasters: U.N. Report
David Fogarty and Deborah Zabarenko PlanetArk 29 Mar 12;

A future on Earth of more extreme weather and rising seas will require better planning for natural disasters to save lives and limit deepening economic losses, the United Nations said on Wednesday in a major report on the effects of climate change.

The U.N. climate panel said all nations will be vulnerable to the expected increase in heat waves, more intense rains and floods and a probable rise in the intensity of droughts.

Aimed largely at policymakers, the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear nations need to act now, because increasingly extreme weather is already a trend.

The need for action has become more acute as a growing human population puts more people and more assets in the path of disaster, raising economic risk, the report said. The report's title made the point: "Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation."

Asia was most vulnerable to potential disasters, with East Asia and the Pacific facing the highest adaptation costs.

The 594-page report, with authors from 62 countries, is the world body's most up-to-date assessment of climate change risks. Its general message is that enough is known about these risks for policymakers to start making decisions about how to deal with them.

It follows the release of the report's executive summary in November after an extensive review by scientists and government officials and is based on the work of thousands of scientific studies.

"Few countries appear to have adopted a comprehensive approach - for example, by addressing projected changes in exposure, vulnerability, and extremes," the report said. Building this into national development planning is crucial.

Global reinsurer Munich Re says that since 1980, weather-related disasters worldwide have more than tripled.

Lindene Patton, chief climate product officer for Zurich Financial Services, said the report was particularly useful for insurers who rely on its scientific assessments "to assist our customers to live and work successfully in the natural world."

But the report sidestepped the politically divisive issue of tougher action on curbing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for stoking global warming. U.N. climate talks have become bogged down over who should take most responsibility for action.

Instead, it aimed to push adaptation to a warmer world, offering a range of strategies.

Chris Field, a lead editor of the document, acknowledged this is a change from previous IPCC reports, which largely focused on plans to mitigate climate change by limiting heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions.

In part, Field said in a telephone interview, this is because the world's governments asked the scientists to see what could be done in the next few decades.

"BAKED INTO THE SYSTEM"

"That's a time frame where most of the climate change that will occur is already baked into the system and where even aggressive climate policies in the short term are not going to have their full effects," said Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's department of global ecology.

But the head of the U.N. panel, Rajendra Pachauri, stressed at a briefing that climate-warming emissions must be curbed: "Whatever we do, we have to adapt, of course, but also at a global level, we need to mitigate the emissions of greenhouse gases so that we ensure that these thresholds or tipping points are not exceeded."

The report looks for "low regrets" strategies that not only protect those in the path of natural disasters but also boost sustainable development. These include early warning systems, better drainage, preserving ecosystems such as mangroves, forests and water catchments, plus better building standards and overhauling health systems.

Spreading financial risk of disasters was another tool to limit the already-strained cash reserves of many poorer nations.

Micro-insurance, catastrophe bonds, national and regional risk pools could help to finance rebuilding and recovery. While take-up rates for insurance were increasing in poorer nations, the rate was still low compared with wealthier states.

Remittances, officially estimated at $325 billion in 2010, were another crucial form of finance and risk sharing, but more steps are needed to cut transaction costs.

Insurance groups said the report confirmed their experience of rising costs from climate-related disasters.

"U.S. property and casualty insurers, who are on the front line on this issue, saw catastrophe-related losses double in '11, while their net income was cut in half," Cynthia McHale, insurance program director at Ceres, an investor coalition, said in a statement.

Mark Way, head of sustainability Americas at re-insurer Swiss Re, called the report "yet another reminder of the pressing need to tackle climate risk in both the near and long term."

Nations need to do a better job in assessing people and places vulnerable to climate disasters, such as mega cities expanding further into flood plains or along low-lying coasts. Key was treating the causes, not the symptoms of vulnerability.

Risks also vary widely, from the threat of more droughts and wildfires in Australia and melting permafrost damaging buildings and roads in the Arctic to heat waves in southern Europe.

The report also said some populations are already living on the edge, given the projected increases in the magnitude or frequency of some extreme events in many regions.

"Small increases in climate extremes above thresholds or regional infrastructure 'tipping points' have the potential to result in large increases in damages to all forms of existing infrastructure nationally and to increase disaster risks," it said.

Most deaths from natural disasters - 95 percent between 1970 and 2008 - still occur in developing countries, the report found.

It said current spending on adaptation projects in developing countries is about $1 billion per year, a fraction of the estimated range of $70 billion to $165 billion per year on technologies to curb greenhouse gas pollution.

Yet losses from disasters were substantially higher for developing nations, with middle-income countries suffering losses of 1 percent of GDP between 2001 and 2006, compared with 0.1 percent for high-income countries.

The report's release dovetailed with an unprecedented March heat wave in the continental United States and a London conference where scientists warned the world was nearing tipping points that would make the planet irreversibly hotter.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Rio+20 zero draft accepts 'planetary boundaries'

Yojana Sharma SciDev 28 Mar 12;

[LONDON] The latest draft of the so-called 'zero draft' document, which will be presented to heads of government at the Rio+20 Summit in June, has been amended to include an acknowledgement that there are scientifically assessed 'planetary boundaries' which, if overstepped, could result in irreversible damage to the Earth's sytems.

The draft is being prepared by national delegates to the United Nations, and will ultimately be presented to heads of government at the Summit for their endorsement.

The idea of planetary boundaries, referring to the load-bearing limits on the Earth's systems, was not in the original document drawn up by the United Nations, but was included in a European Union submission to talks last week (March 19-23) in New York.

Earlier this month, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon also backed the idea as he presented the report of his High Level Panel on Global Sustainability to an informal plenary of the UN General Assembly on March 17, just before the latest Rio+20 negotiating session began.

"The panel's vision is to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality, to make growth inclusive and production and consumption more sustainable, while combating climate change and respecting a range of other planetary boundaries," Ban told the General Assembly.

It has now been added to the document known as the 'zero draft' of the outcome of Rio+20. Scientists will discuss the issue on the final day of the Planet Under Pressure Conference, which ends in London tomorrow.

"Planetary boundaries in terms of the carrying capacity of the Earth and the need for sustainability, has now been included," confirmed Gisbert Glaser, senior advisor at the International Council for Science, Paris, who was at the New York meeting last week.

While its inclusion in the zero draft has been welcomed as a breakthrough for a more science-based approach to environmental issues, several delegates at the UN in New York told Scidev.Net that the European proposal did not go far enough to win developing country approval. In particular, it failed to include social aspects and implications of the planetary boundaries concept – including the management of 'tipping' points.

"Developing countries won't accept this unless the social side is added in," said one Asian delegate.

Frank Biermann, chair of the Earth Systems Governance Project, believes the societal aspect of tipping points and the way they are managed is important. "Societies must change course to steer away from critical tipping points," he told Scidev.Net recently.

One EU delegate also pointed to the difficulty of measuring the societal dimensions of planetary boundaries.

"No one has really done that for social aspects, in terms of tipping points," agreed ICSU's Glaser "but we are still happy that it is in there now, in the draft."

According to an Asian country delegate, the acceptance of planetary boundaries within the zero draft strengthens the need for more effective coordination between scientists and policymakers on responding to and managing individual boundaries, which cover issues such asbiodiversity and climate.

"Developing effective policy based on the scientific work is still a major challenge," he said. This was particularly because advances in science might mean that individual boundaries and their tipping points might change over time, requiring flexibility from policymakers.

The inclusion of additional submissions – such as the case for planetary boundaries – has made the original zero draft expand from an original 19 pages to around 150 pages. However Glaser says it will be refined into a far more condensed final document.

"There are quite a number of new additions that strengthen the need for science-based actions and a science-policy interface," he said, adding that the main task of the drafting group between now and the next negotiating session at the end of April will be to streamline the many additions to the text, "and find language acceptable to all."

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Best of our wild blogs: 28 Mar 12

Another fire at Shell's Bukom refinery?
from wild shores of singapore

Birding @ Bishan Park
from Urban Forest

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Beware of captive dolphins, warns ACRES

Straits Times Forum 28 Mar 12;

WHILE it is heartening to read that HCA Hospice Care is organising enriching excursions for terminally ill patients, we are concerned about patients coming into contact with captive dolphins ('Dolphin therapy for terminally ill'; last Saturday).

Dolphins are predators with great physical strength and should always be regarded as the wild animals that they are, with unpredictable natures.

Dolphins cannot adapt well to a life in captivity, where they often display physical and psychological signs of distress. Indeed, in 2001, Namtam, a dolphin held captive at the Dolphin Lagoon, succumbed to acute gastritis, a stress-related illness.

Unnaturally high levels of aggression, probably as a result of stress, have been observed in captive dolphins, and this poses a danger if a person comes into contact with them.

It is worrying to note that Han, one of the dolphins at Dolphin Lagoon who was used for interaction with the hospice patients, was described in the article as having a temper.

There have been many reports of injuries inflicted on members of the public participating in 'swim with dolphin' sessions or other such interactive programmes with captive dolphins, including broken bones and lacerations from bites.

Furthermore, there are many diseases that are known to be transmissible from dolphins to humans, and vice versa. These diseases may not always be evident.

The United States National Marine Fisheries Service has acknowledged that the potential exists for transmission of diseases between wild marine mammals and humans. For example, a variety of opportunistic bacteria found on the skin of dolphins may pose a threat to human health.

For people who are facing serious illnesses and have compromised immune systems, it is extremely risky putting them in a situation where they may be injured by or even contract a disease from a wild animal.

A better and safer alternative is the use of domesticated animals, such as dogs and cats, in animal-assisted therapy programmes, like those provided by Mutts And Mittens in Singapore.

Such programmes have been shown to bring great benefits to participants, and do not entail welfare concerns for the domestic animals involved.

Louis Ng
Executive Director
Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres)

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Illegal Seletar jetties have to go

Jose Hong Straits Times 28 Mar 12;

IS IT a case of giving someone a foot, only for them to take a mile?

In 1993, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) approved the use of part of the picturesque Seletar Reservoir coast as mooring bases for boats.

But over the years, long wooden jetties and structures have been built that extend from the mangroves far out into the sea.

Each of them has a different operator, and some have been run by the same families for years.

All of them will now have to go.

In a joint statement to The Straits Times, MPA and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) said the jetties and structures on stilts are unauthorised and pose a safety hazard.

The MPA informed the jetty operators early this month to remove the unauthorised structures.

Mr Kelanasari Eeban, who runs Jenal Jetty with an aunt, claimed the jetties exist because of a prior verbal arrangement with the MPA.

He added that the jetties provide a mooring place for the boaters who use them, especially when the tide recedes.

The argument clearly does not wash with MPA officers who visited the jetty last Friday and gave the craft owners a seven-day extension to clear out.

MPA and SLA said that individuals cannot simply lay claim to state land for their private use.

SLA added: 'In this case, we had not taken immediate action as the owners use them for their livelihood. We have been in discussion with MPA and the Police Coast Guard to find alternative arrangements for the owners.'

Illegal jetties around for years
Three of the owners told to attend meeting with authorities today
Jose Hong Straits Times 28 Mar 12;

OFF the eastern corner of the Lower Seletar Reservoir Dam lies a sleepy mangrove patch.

Several wooden jetties and structures extend from the mangroves into the sea. Each of them has a different owner, and some have been run by the same families for years. It turns out they are all illegal.

According to a joint statement by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), the jetties and structures on stilts are unauthorised, and must be removed in due course.

No one is allowed to claim state land for their private use, the statement said. State land is held by the Government on behalf of citizens. Proceeds from the sale of state land go to the national coffers.

The latest move comes soon after the SLA ordered a group of residents to cease their farming activities on state land in Clementi earlier this month.

A spokesman for the MPA elaborated, saying that part of the Seletar coastal area has been approved for use as mooring bases for boats since 1993.

However, 'it recently came to the attention of the authorities that unauthorised platforms and floating structures have been built in that area, in addition to the authorised mooring bases'.

As they pose a safety hazard, the MPA has been engaging with the jetty operators since early March to remove these unauthorised structures.

But those who run the jetties have a different view. According to Mr Kelanasari Eeban - who runs Jenal Jetty with an aunt - the jetties exist because of a prior verbal arrangement with the MPA.

Jenal Jetty has been operated by Mr Kelanasari's family for the past 15 years, although it has been in its current location for only seven years.

Mr Kelanasari, 42, said the jetties provide a mooring place for the boaters who use them, especially when the tide recedes. The users include fishermen and those who own small boats for leisure.

A huge expanse of the shore is exposed at the tide's lowest point, and without the jetties, the boat owners would have to trudge a long distance in the mud to reach land, he said.

Referring to the MPA, Mr Kelanasari stated: 'They know we need the jetty... That's why they have never done anything until now.'

He said that two weeks ago, the owners of three of the jetties were approached by the MPA and were told to attend a meeting with its officers, the SLA and the Police Coast Guard. The meeting will take place today.

Other jetty operators have different concerns.

Standing farthest from the entrance to the area is a jetty run by fishermen. It was built a year ago, after they had a serious disagreement with the operator of another jetty.

They decided to build their own jetty - but none of them informed the authorities. When asked why, their appointed spokesman, Mr Aron Christopher, 52, admitted they were taking a 'gamble'.

He said they knew they would have been rejected if they had approached either the SLA or the MPA beforehand, so they decided to build a jetty and wait for the authorities to approach them.

'We know it is an offence, but we have no place to go. We are uneducated and are all old men,' he said. 'Our life is a sea life, and we have families to support.'

In a good month, he estimated, such independent fishermen might earn $1,000 from selling their catch.

The fishermen were originally served a letter from the MPA ordering them to remove the jetties and their floating storage structures by March 23. Although the letter was dated March 14, they received it only on March 20, they said.

But last Friday they were visited by MPA officers who, upon gathering information and listening to their situation, gave them a seven-day extension.

In this period Mr Aron will write a letter listing the fishermen using the jetty. He hopes to present it to Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah.

He said he is feeling more positive, after receiving the extension to the deadline, but 'all we can do is wait for the results'.

A DIFFERENT VIEW

'They know we need the jetty... That's why they have never done anything until now.'

Mr Kelanasari Eeban, who runs Jenal Jetty with an aunt. According to him, the jetties - which are near the Seletar Aerospace hub - exist because of a prior verbal arrangement with the MPA. Jenal Jetty has been operated by Mr Kelanasari's family for the past 15 years, although it has been in its current location for only seven years.

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Australia: Dingoes, devils may be angels in disguise

Carolyn Herbert ABC News 27 Mar 12;

Reintroducing predators such as dingoes and tasmanian devils into landscapes may help protect Australia's diminishing biodiversity, researchers say.

A new paper to be published in the May edition of Trends in Ecology and Evolution suggests dingoes and tasmanian devils could control invasive species, such as cats and foxes, as well as overabundant herbivores.

"We need to be quite bold and allow predators back into the landscape and see if they can reverse some of the damage we've done," said Dr Euan Ritchie, ecologist at Deakin University in Melbourne and lead author of the paper.

Since European settlement, humans have drastically altered the Australian environment, resulting in one of the highest rates of species loss in the world.

Cats and foxes have wreaked havoc on small wildlife species, while larger natives, such as kangaroos, have multiplied.

Dr Ritchie says the traditional approach to conservation is to manage species in isolation instead of considering the whole ecosystem.

"We are constantly trying to poison foxes to reduce their populations and we are constantly culling kangaroos to keep their numbers low. But the reason why these species are problematic is that there is nothing controlling them," he said.

"In a true wild system, larger predators would control both of these species."
Australia's top dog

Top predators are animals at the apex of the food chain with no natural enemies. They play an important role in nature by keeping populations of other species in check.

Australia currently has one top predator - the dingo.

Dr Ritchie says scientists believe expanding the range of the dingo and the tasmanian devil would reduce the number of introduced pest species, therefore allowing smaller native animals to flourish.

"Where dingo populations are still surviving is where we see a lot of threatened species still managing to survive in the wild, and that's probably because dingoes are controlling cats and foxes," he said.

Although farmers fear bringing back dingoes may harm livestock, scientists argue there are viable solutions.

Guardian animals, such as dogs, alpacas and even donkeys could offer protection against livestock predation.

Dr Ritchie says long-term studies are needed to monitor the effects of top predators in varying habitats.

However, he believes that if properly managed, more dingoes and tasmanian devils in the landscape would help save species and restore a natural balance to our ecosystems.

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New Zealand dolphin survival boosted by Marine Protected Area

Ella Davies Reporter BBC Nature 27 Mar 12;

Hector's dolphins living off the coast of Christchurch, New Zealand have benefitted from the area's special designation, say scientists.

Researchers studied the animals, one of the world's most endangered species of dolphin, for 21 years.

Their results show that the survival rate of the dolphins has increased by 5.4% since the Marine Protection Area (MPA) was declared.

The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

"This is the first evidence that Marine Protected Areas can be effective for marine mammals. We found a significant improvement in the survival rate," said Dr Liz Slooten from the University of Otago who undertook the research.

In 1988 the Banks Peninsula Marine Mammal Sanctuary was established in the hope that resident dolphins would be protected from fatalities associated with the gillnet and trawling activities of the fishing industry.

A team of ecologists conducted regular photo identification of the dolphins for 21 years, starting two years before the area was officially protected.

"We can identify individual dolphins from their battle scars - which range from small nicks out of the dorsal fin to major scarring following shark attacks," explained Dr Slooten.

The researchers used the photographs to create a population model; with this they were able to analyse how the animals had fared over two decades.

"Estimating population changes in marine mammals is challenging, often requiring many years of research to produce data accurate enough to detect these kinds of biological changes," said Dr Slooten.

"It seems to take a long time for a dolphin population to respond to protection, and therefore a long-term study to detect [any] improvement."
'Not safe yet'

The teams models suggested that the dolphins' survival rate had increased by 5.4% - a positive result but not what the team had expected.

"At first, we were surprised that the survival rates had not increased further," said Dr Slooten, "Once the Banks Peninsula area was protected, we had expected the problem to be solved and the population to be healthy and recovering."

The team found that the dolphins did not spend the whole year in the protected area, which reached four nautical miles offshore.

In the winter, more than half the dolphins were found up to 16 nautical miles outside of the MPA.

"The dolphins don't care how far offshore they are, their distribution relates to water depth," Dr Slooten explained.

The New Zealand government is now considering whether to extend MPAs where Hector's dolphins are found.

"The good news is that the situation has improved. The population was doing a nose-dive, declining at 6% per year, and now it's only declining slowly [at] about 1% per year," said Dr Slooten.

"The bad news is that the protected area is still too small. It would need to be extended further offshore to allow the population to stop declining and better still to grow and recover towards its original population size."

"The MPA hasn't quite yet 'saved' the dolphins but it's been a major step in the right direction."

Size Matters: Large Marine Protected Areas Work for Dolphins
ScienceDaily 27 Mar 12;

Ecologists in New Zealand have shown for the first time that Marine Protected Areas -- long advocated as a way of protecting threatened marine mammals -- actually work. Their study, based on 21 years' monitoring and published March 27 in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, reveals that a marine sanctuary off the coast of Christchurch has significantly improved survival of Hector's dolphins -- one of the rarest dolphins in the world.

Covering 1170 km2 of sea off New Zealand's South Island, Banks Peninsula Marine Mammal Sanctuary was designated in 1988 to prevent the dolphins being killed by gillnet and trawl fisheries.

Over 21 years between 1986 and 2006, researchers conducted regular photo-identification surveys of Hector's dolphins, photographically capturing 462 reliably-marked individuals, whose survival they studied.

According to one of the team, Dr Liz Slooten of the University of Otago: "We can identify individual dolphins from their battle scars -- which range from small nicks out of the dorsal fin to major scarring following shark attacks."

The team analysed the photographic re-sightings using a so-called Bayesian mark-recapture technique and then used a population model to assess the impact of the Marine Protected Area (MPA) on Hector's dolphins.

The results showed that since the MPA was designated, the dolphin's survival has increased by 5.4%. According to Dr Slooten: "This study provides the first empirical evidence that Marine Protected Areas are effective in protecting threatened marine mammals."

But she warns that while survival has improved significantly, it is not yet high enough to prevent the population from continuing to decline.

MPAs, in which certain fishing methods are banned or restricted, are often used to help conserve marine mammals. Until now, there has been little if any empirical evidence of their effectiveness, so measuring their impact is crucial to justify setting up MPAs.

As well as providing the first hard evidence that MPAs work, the study illustrates the importance of long-term ecological monitoring, as Dr Slooten explains: "Estimating population changes in marine mammals is challenging, often requiring many years of research to produce data accurate enough to detect these kinds of biological changes."

The study also shows that to be effective, MPAs need to be sufficiently large. "The take home message is that size matters. Marine Protected Areas work, but they have to be large enough in order to be effective," she concludes.

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Newly Discovered Hammerhead Shark's 'Twin' Sparks Concern

LiveScience.com Yahoo News 27 Mar 12;

Scientists recently confirmed that endangered scalloped hammerhead sharks have a fishy twin — a newfound species, still unnamed, that is distinct, yet very closely resembles the threatened sharks.

The case of mistaken identity indicates that scalloped hammerhead sharks are even more scarce than once thought, according to some researchers.

Since it's very hard to tell the two species apart — only differences in their DNA and number of vertebrae reveal their true identities — it's likely that previous assessments of scalloped hammerhead sharks exaggerated their numbers because the counts likely included the look-alike sharks.

"It's a classic case of long-standing species misidentification that not only casts further uncertainty on the status of the real scalloped hammerhead, but also raises concerns about the population status of this new species," Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center professor Mahmood Shivji said in a statement.

Shivji's team at the Florida university first discovered the new hammerhead species in 2005 when examining the DNA of sharks thought to be scalloped hammerheads based on their physical appearance. A research team from the University of South Carolina independently confirmed the existence of the new species in 2006.

Combined genetic assessments from both institutions show that at least 7 percent of the sharks in U.S. waters originally thought to be scalloped hammerheads turned out to be the newly identified species.

Now, researchers have found the unnamed shark, a so-called "cryptic" species, swimming in waters off the coast of Brazil, thousands of miles from where the species was initially discovered. The find indicates the cryptic species is widespread, and may be facing similar pressure as its nearly identical cousin.

Shark populations around the world have declined precipitously in recent decades, with millions of the iconic fish falling victim to the grisly practice of finning.

Shark fins fetch a high price in China, where they are used for shark fin soup.

Shark finning is largely banned in the United States, and many individual states have banned the trade and possession of shark fins. However, evidence from around the world indicates that finning continues to claim millions of shark lives each year.

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Great Barrier Reef suffering from Australia's decision to allow pesticides

WWF says Australian government's lifting of three-month moratorium on diuron could spell disaster for 1,600-mile reef
Alison Rourke guardian.co.uk 27 Mar 12;

Australia's Great Barrier Reef will suffer damage as a result of a decision to allow farmers in far north Queensland to resume using a pesticide, according to environmental groups.

The World Wildlife Fund says a decision by the Australian government to lift a three-month moratorium on the use of the pesticide, diuron, on tropical crops like bananas, pawpaw, pineapples and sugar cane is a "disaster" for the reef.

"We are very disappointed at this institutional failure," said Nick Heath, WWF's spokesman on pesticides.

WWF says diuron has been detected in the reef hundreds of kilometres from its point of application. Nearly a third of the reef has been exposed to pesticides.

"Diuron accounts for 80% of the pesticide load in the reef and is persistent and toxic," said Heath, adding that it damages sea grasses, which dugongs and sea turtles feed on.

In December a three-month ban on diuron came into force. It covered the wet season when soil run-off is at its greatest. From this weekend, farmers can resume spraying, with some restrictions still in place – spraying is not allowed if 50mm of rain is expected within three days of application or if the land has a slope greater than 3%.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, which regulates the use of pesticides, says more analysis is needed before any long term decision on diuron's future use is made.

"Yes, diuron is toxic on the grasses and yes it will kill the aquatic organisms, but we need to ask whether there is a risk of it getting from the (farming) properties to those areas (on the reef)," said the APVMA's public affairs manager, Susan Whitbread.

She says her department is analysing further data and stringent controls are still in place.

"Yes there's an environmental concern, but what we have to do is quantify it and look at whether those risks are capable of being managed before we come to a final decision," she said.

The sugarcane industry, which is worth about A$2bn (£1.3bn) annually in Queensland alone and is the state's second biggest agricultural commodity, after beef, has welcomed the APVMA's decision to allow spraying to resume.

"Diuron is a critical and cost effective tool for the sugar cane growing industry," said Steve Greenwood, CEO of Canegrowers, the peak body for sugarcane farmers.

"If diuron was banned, it's very likely a lot of the cane farmers would have to revert to old practices like burning to control weeds, which would have a significant environmental impact," he added.

The acrimony over pesticide use comes just weeks after a UN environmental team visited the reef amid fears its world heritage listing could be placed in jeopardy after a rapid rise in coal exports from the area.

Queensland's resources boom has led to an expanding number of developments along the state's coast where the 1,600-mile reef stretches.

Heath added that a combination of this development, climate change and pesticide pollution will cause the reef to die a death of a thousand cuts.

"Most people dream about going to see the Great Barrier Reef. If we don't start turning this around there won't be a reef in the future."

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Population adds to planet's pressure cooker, but few options

Richard Ingham AFP Yahoo News 27 Mar 12;

The world's surging population is a big driver of environmental woes but the issue is complex and solutions are few, experts at a major conference here say.

Answers lie with educating women in poorer countries and widening access to contraception but also with reforming consumption patterns in rich economies, they say.

The four-day meeting on Earth's health, Planet Under Pressure, is unfolding ahead of the Rio+20 Summit in June.

Scientists taking part have pinpointed population growth as a major if indirect contributor to global warming, depletion of resources, pollution and species loss.

But they also mark it as an issue that has disappeared almost completely off political radar screens.

This is partly because of religious sensitivities but also because of traumatic memories of coercive fertility controls in poorer countries in the 1970s that no-one wants to repeat.

Diana Liverman, a professor at the University of Arizona, said the link between population growth and environmental damage arose in the mid-20th century.

"The 50 years from 1950 to 2000 were a period of dramatic and unprecedented change in human history," she said.

During that time, the planet's human tally doubled from three billion to six billion. It now stands at seven billion, and by some estimates could reach around nine billion by 2050.

The good news is that the fertility rate -- the number of children a women is likely to have -- has halved from five to 2.5 since 1950 and will fall below the replacement rate of 2.1 around 2025, Liverman said.

"It means that there is a strong probability that population growth will level off around nine billion and may in fact fall thereafter," said Liverman.

Others caution that raw statistics mask many complexities.

"The world's carrying capacity isn't a single headline figure but depends on lifestyle, technology, and so forth," said Lord Martin Rees of the Royal Society, whose report on demography and the environment will be issued next month.

The population is stabilising or falling in rich countries.

But these economies remain -- in per capita terms -- by far the biggest sources of environmental damage, with for instance greenhouse gas emissions per head that are double or quadruple those in a developing country.

The big population growth will happen in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

These countries bear least responsibility for climate change but will be hit worst by it, because they lack money and skills to adapt. Thus the higher their population, the more of their people who will be hit by drought, storms, rising seas and floods.

Strategies for working on the demographic drivers of environmental damage are essentially two-pronged, said specialists.

One is to change consumption patterns, so that the rich countries -- and the emerging giants rushing to catch up with them -- use energy and resources more sustainably.

The other is to protect women's rights, education for women and their access to jobs and contraception.

"If you have economic development and you educate women, and women get labour market opportunities, they tend not only to reduce the number of children but crucially to delay when they start having children," said Sarah Harper, director of the Institute of Population Ageing at the University of Oxford.

"And if you delay the start of having children, you tend to have smaller families."

Such changes can have a "surprisingly fast" effect on reducing birthrates, said Stephen Tyler, who works with group called the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN). He gave the fast-shrinking families in India as an example.

On Sunday, a group of scientists and policymakers that have won the Blue Planet Prize, a top environmental award, made a pre-conference appeal to intensify green action.

Looking at demography, they said more than 200 million women in developing countries still have unmet needs for family planning.

But funding for access to contraception fell by 30 percent between 1995 and 2008, "not least as a result of legislative pressure from the religious right in the USA and elsewhere," they said.

Cities on front line of climate change
Richard Ingham AFP Yahoo News 27 Mar 12;

The world's cities face the brunt of climate change but some are starting to respond vigorously to the threat, experts say at a conference here staged ahead of the June Rio summit.

More than half of the world's population of seven billion currently lives in cities and by 2050, this is expected to increase to 70 percent, or around 6.4 billion, according to UN figures.

More than 60 percent of the increase will occur in Asian cities -- and nearly half of the growth will happen in cities that currently have 500,000 inhabitants or fewer.

It means that cities will face unparalleled challenges when climate change starts to bite, scientists said Monday at a meeting on the world's environment ahead of the June 20-22 summit.

"Cities are emerging as first responders. They are on the frontline, both in the cause and effect of climate change," said Cynthia Rosenzweig, who heads the Climate Impacts Group at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The hazards facing cities are many.

By 2100, or sooner, heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods are expected to become more frequent and last longer. Cities built on deltas or on the coast will face rising seas, which threaten homes and drinking water.

That raises mighty questions about water supplies, drainage and flood defences and the resilience of homes, offices, factories and transport systems.

In 2003, one of the hottest summers on record killed around 35,000 people in Europe. Some climate scientists predict that by the 2040s, more than half of the continent's summers will be warmer than that of 2003.

Alex de Sherbinin of the Earth Institute at New York's Columbia University pointed to a dangerous phenomenon called the urban heat island.

Cities can hold pockets of heat that are up to four to six degrees Celsius (7.2-10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) greater than in the surrounding countryside.

The warmth comes from the reflected radiation from treeless streets sealed in heat-trapping black tarmac; from buildings in "street canyons" which block cooling breezes; and from heat discharged by air conditioning ducts.

Those most at risk are the elderly, battling heat stress and air pollution, and the poor, who cannot afford to cool their homes or or move elsewhere, he said.

All cities will be challenged by shifting climate, but some will be more exposed or cope better than others, said Stephen Tyler, working with a group called the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN).

He sounded the alarm for cities that are middle-sized today but will soon face a double whammy -- heavy migration that can lead to slums, and the impact of climate change.

"The middle cities are often ignored by governments, yet they are also the primary target for poor people who leave the countryside and aim for the nearest urban centre," said Tyler.

"But in terms of coping, it's not the city's size which counts, but its ability to provide the services, the infrastructure."

Far from being sitting ducks, many cities are working to shore up their climate defences and ease their greenhouse-gases, said Rosenzweig. Around 70 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions can be attributed to city needs.

Initiatives include painting roofs white to reflect sunlight, having porous pavements that allow rainwater to replenish the aquifer, planting trees and parks to alleviate heat islands and regulating traffic pollution, which has benefits for health and carbon mitigation.

Hospitals and neighbourhood groups are also asked to watch out for old people who may be struggling in a heatwave. Cities that are set to expand can plan their zoning laws, urban density, energy use and traffic system accordingly, which saves having to expensively fix things afterwards.

Rosenzweig, who co-authored a report by a group called the Urban Climate Change Research Network into how global warming will hit urban dwellers, said local governments had powers and the ability to act.

Municipalities are moving into the vacuum left by the UN or national governments, whose work on climate change has marked time since the ill-fated 2009 Copenhagen Summit, she explained.

In 2005, the so-called C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group was set up, and this was followed five years later by the World Mayors Council on Climate Change. It has 60 cities on its roster, swapping ideas and networking.

"City leaders are practical and responsive," she said. "They are there day after day, and they have experience in climate-related disasters."

2C warming target 'out of reach' - ex UN climate chief
Richard Ingham AFP Yahoo News 27 Mar 12;

The UN's former climate chief on Tuesday said the global warming pledge he helped set at the Copenhagen Summit little more than two years ago was already unattainable.

"I think two degrees is out of reach," Yvo de Boer, former executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said on the sidelines of a conference here on June's Rio+20 summit.

The UNFCCC's 195 parties have pledged to limit the rise in global average temperatures to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

The target was set by a core group of countries in the final stormy hours at the Copenhagen Summit in December 2009 and became enshrined by the forum at Cancun, Mexico a year later.

But more and more scientists are warning that the objective is slipping away without radical, early cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions. Some consider the goal to be a dangerous political mirage, for Earth is now on track for 3C (5.4 F) of warming or more.

"The two degrees is lost but that doesn't mean for me we should forget about it," de Boer said in the interview with AFP.

"It is a very significant target, it's not just a target that was plucked out of the air, it refers to trying to limit a number of impacts."

He added: "You shouldn't forget about it, in the sense that you are ignoring the fact that you've gone through the trouble of formulating a goal and then not met it because of lack of policy action.

"The process therefore should be all about how can we get as close to 2C as possible, not to say 'start all over again and formulate a new goal,' having forgotten that we've been through this very recently."

Copenhagen marked a high-water line in the global climate forum.

Its disappointments, together with the financial and fiscal crunch that have hit western countries, have made many advanced economies mark time or even retrench their action against carbon emissions.

And the high price of oil and gas has prompted emerging economies to power their growth with coal, the dirtiest of the major fossil fuels, driving up atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2).

At the UNFCCC's annual get-together in Durban, South Africa last year, countries agreed to wrap up a new climate agreement in 2015 that would take effect in 2020, placing rich and poor for the first time under common legal constraints.

De Boer said he hoped the Fifth Assessment Report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due in 2014, would spur momentum for the 2015 deadline.

The four-day London conference, Planet Under Pressure, aims at delivering a snapshot of the world's environment before the June 20-22 20-year followup to the Rio Earth Summit.

On Sunday, 20 winners of the Blue Planet Prize, one of the world's most prestigious green awards, said there was only a "50-50" chance of limiting warming to 3 C (5.4 F).

There were "serious risks" of a 5 C (9.0 F) rise, a temperature last seen on the planet 30 million years ago.

"We have to be honest with each other that we will not reach the two degrees target," former IPCC head Bob Watson, now a scientific advisor to the British government, said on behalf of the laureates.

The UNFCCC's 2 C target has been widely criticised as inadequate, given that it fails to identify a date for achieving this goal or the stepping stones towards it.

The UNFCCC -- officially at least -- even holds to the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F), which is the demand of the world's poorest economies and small-island states.

They have most to lose from drought, floods, storms and rising seas driven by climate change.

The 2 C goal will be subject to a review in 2015, to see whether it should be brought down to 1.5 C.

Sprawling Cities Pressure Environment, Planning
Nina Chestney PlanetArk 28 Mar 12;

Expanding cities threaten to eat up a swath of land the size of France, Germany and Spain combined in less than 20 years, putting the world under even more environmental pressure, experts said at a climate conference on Tuesday.

Cities are growing to accommodate a rising global population and as countries like China, India and Brazil pursue fast economic growth.

The world's cities are currently on track to occupy an extra 1.5 million square kilometers by 2030 - equivalent to France, Germany and Spain combined - spelling growing greenhouse gas emissions and resource demand, experts said at the "Planet Under Pressure" conference in London.

"The way cities have grown since World War II is neither socially or environmentally sustainable and the environmental cost of ongoing urban sprawl is too great to continue," said Karen Seto, associate professor of the urban environment at Yale University.

"The North American suburb has gone global, and car-dependent urban developments are more and more the norm."

The United Nations sees global population rising to 9 billion people by 2050 from 7 billion now, adding around a million people each week.

Most of the growth is expected to come in urban centers with migration from rural areas potentially adding another 1 billion people to cities. That would increase the total urban population to 6.3 billion people by 2050 from around 3.5 billion today.

OPPORTUNITIES

Over 70 percent of current carbon dioxide emissions already come from cities. Urban emissions are forecast to grow to 36.5 billion metric tonnes by 2030 if no action is taken, from 25 billion in 2010 and 15 billion in 1990.

Urbanization cannot be stopped, but climate experts argue there is plenty of scope for improving the way cities are planned, developed and run.

"Everything being brought into the city from outside - food, water, products and energy, need to be sourced sustainably. We need to rethink the resource flow to cities," said Sybil Seitzinger, executive director of the international geosphere-biosphere program at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

New cities offer an opportunity to rethink urban planning while established ones can become more efficient through technology such as time-adjusted toll systems to cut traffic congestion, said Shobhakar Dhakal, executive director of the Tokyo-based Global Carbon Project.

Congestion wastes fuel, time and causes pollution.

It costs world economies an estimated 1 to 3 percent of gross domestic product and costs New York alone around $4 billion a year in lost productivity, experts said.

Utility meters and sensors that monitor power generation network capacity and electricity supply and demand can also help conserve energy.

Urban planners can also target more efficient land use, better building standards and policies to promote public transport over car use.

Some cities have made efforts to improve their green credentials, such as Iceland's capital Reykjavik, which depends on geothermal energy and hydro electricity for its energy needs.

Vancouver in Canada sources 90 percent of its energy from renewable sources like wind, solar and tidal energy and has developed a 100-year sustainability plan.

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