Fossil fuel subsidies 'reckless use of public funds'

Matt McGrath BBC News 7 Nov 13;

The world is spending half a trillion dollars on fossil fuel subsidies every year, according to a new report.

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) says rich countries are spending seven times more supporting coal, oil and gas than they are on helping poorer nations fight climate change.

Some countries including Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan, have subsidies bigger than the national fiscal deficit.

The new report calls on the G20 to phase out the payments by 2020.

While there is no globally agreed definition of what a fossil fuel subsidy actually is, the report draws on a range of sources from the International Monetary Fund to the International Energy Agency.

It details the range of financial help given to oil, coal and gas producers and consumers from national governments and through international development.

What emerges is a complicated web of different types of payments in different countries.

Fossil funding
In the United States, for example, the government in 2011 gave a $1bn fuel tax exemption to farmers, $1bn for the strategic petroleum reserve and $0.5bn for oil, coal and gas research and development.

Germany gave financial assistance totalling 1.9bn euro to the hard coal sector in the same year.

And the UK gave tax concessions worth £280m in 2011 for oil and gas production.

The report accuses rich governments of "shooting themselves in both feet" by undermining attempts to put a price on carbon and by giving no incentive to companies to switch from high carbon fuels.

"This is a reckless use of public money at a time when people are very concerned about energy costs," Kevin Watkins, executive director of the ODI, told BBC News.

"Why are we spending $112 per adult in the OECD countries subsidising an energy system that is driving us towards dangerous climate change when there are alternatives?"

In developing countries, the report says the subsidies often take the form of keeping fuel prices low to help alleviate poverty.

Governments in Indonesia, Pakistan and Venezuela are spending twice as much on fossil fuel subsidies as they are on public health.

"Almost all these subsidies go to those who are connected to the grid because the governments give money to the energy providers, who pass it on to consumers.

"The top 20% of these societies get around half of the total subsidy package," said Kevin Watkins.

International finance for development is hugely focussed on oil, coal and gas. According to the ODI, 75% of energy project support from international banks went to fossil fuel projects in 12 of the highest emitting developing nations.

The research adds to data from the International Energy Agency that says global subsidies for fossil fuels are six times higher than those for renewable energy. The OECD has stated that coal is subject to the lowest levels of taxation.

The ODI hopes that enough countries in the G20 group will follow up on promises made to look at the issue.

The institute believes that subsidies for energy are similar to subsidies for agriculture that plagued international trade negotiations in the 1990s.

Ultimately, agreement was found on removing them. The ODI believes there can be a similar outcome for fuel supports.

"This has to be the mother of all win-win scenarios," said Kevin Watkins.

"You'd have a win for taxpayers, a win for governments north and south and you'd have a win for the planet as well."

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Amount of greenhouse gases in atmosphere reach record high, says UN agency

UN Press Release 6 Nov 13;

6 November 2013 – The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2012, continuing an upward trend which is driving climate change and which will shape the future of the planet for hundreds and thousands of years, according to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The agency’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin shows that between 1990 and 2012, there was a 32 per cent increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on the climate – because of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping long-lived gases such as methane and nitrous oxide.

Carbon dioxide, mainly from fossil fuel-related emissions, accounted for 80 per cent of this increase, WMO stated in a news release. The atmospheric increase of CO2 from 2011 to 2012 was higher than its average growth rate over the past 10 years.

What is happening in the atmosphere, said the Geneva-based WMO, is “one part of a much wider picture.” Only about half of the CO2 emitted by human activities remains in the atmosphere, with the rest being absorbed in the biosphere and in the oceans.

The latest findings “highlight yet again how heat-trapping gases from human activities have upset the natural balance of our atmosphere and are a major contribution to climate change,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud.

He recalled that the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stressed in its recent Fifth Assessment Report that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years.

“As a result of this, our climate is changing, our weather is more extreme, ice sheets and glaciers are melting and sea levels are rising,” said Mr. Jarraud.

He underscored that limiting climate change will require large and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. “We need to act now, otherwise we will jeopardize the future of our children, grandchildren and many future generations,” said Mr. Jarraud. “Time is not on our side,” he added.

The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin reports on atmospheric concentrations – and not emissions – of greenhouse gases. Emissions represent what goes into the atmosphere, the agency pointed out. Concentrations represent what remains in the atmosphere after the complex system of interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere and the oceans.

At the same time, the Emissions Gap Report 2013, involving 44 scientific groups coordinated by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), urges wide-ranging global action to close the emissions gap.

If the international community fails to take action, the report warned, the chances of remaining on the least-cost path to keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius this century will quickly diminish and open the door to a range of challenges.

Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), governments have agreed to limit the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The report, which was released yesterday as leaders prepare to meet for the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw, finds that although pathways exist that could reach the 2-degree Celsius target with higher emissions, not narrowing the gap will exacerbate mitigation challenges after 2020.

This will mean much higher rates of global emission reductions in the medium term; greater lock-in of carbon-intensive infrastructure; greater dependence on often unproven technologies in the medium term; greater costs of mitigation in the medium and long term; and greater risks of failing to meet the 2-degree Celsius target.

“As the report highlights, delayed actions mean a higher rate of climate change in the near term and likely more near-term climate impacts, as well as the continued use of carbon-intensive and energy-intensive infrastructure,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“This ‘lock-in’ would slow down the introduction of climate-friendly technologies and narrow the developmental choices that would place the global community on the path to a sustainable, green future.

“However,” he added, “the stepping stone of the 2020 target can still be achieved by strengthening current pledges and by further action, including scaling up international cooperation initiatives in areas such as energy efficiency, fossil fuel subsidy reform and renewable energy.”

Greenhouse gas volumes reached new high in 2012 - WMO
Tom Miles Reuters 6 Nov 13;

(Reuters) - Atmospheric volumes of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change hit a new record in 2012, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Wednesday.

"For all these major greenhouse gases the concentrations are reaching once again record levels," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told a news conference in Geneva at which he presented the U.N. climate agency's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin .

Jarraud said the accelerating trend was driving climate change, making it harder to keep global warming to within 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed at a Copenhagen summit in 2009.

"This year is worse than last year, 2011. 2011 was worse than 2010," he said. "Every passing year makes the situation somewhat more difficult to handle, it makes it more challenging to stay under this symbolic 2 degree global average."

Greenhouse gas emissions are set to be 8-12 billion tonnes higher in 2020 than the level needed to keep global warming below 2 degrees, the U.N. Environment Programme said on Tuesday.

If the world pursues its "business as usual" trajectory, it will probably hit the 2 degree mark in the middle of the century, Jarraud said, noting that this would also affect the water cycle, sea levels and extreme weather events.

"The more we wait for action, the more difficult it will be to stay under this limit and the more the impact will be for many countries, and therefore the more difficult it will be to adapt."

He said the climate system was dominated by the ocean rather than the atmosphere, and the time needed to warm the seas meant the full impact of current emissions would only be felt later.

"Even if we were able to stop today - we know it's not possible - the ocean would continue to warm and to expand and the sea level would continue to rise for hundreds of years."

Delegates from over 190 nations meet in Warsaw next week for a U.N. conference to work on emission cuts under a new climate pact to be signed by 2015, but to come into force only in 2020.

The WMO bulletin said the volume of carbon dioxide, or CO2, the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, grew faster in 2012 than in the previous decade, reaching 393.1 parts per million (ppm), 41 percent above the pre-industrial level.

The amount of the gas in the atmosphere grew by 2.2 ppm, higher the average of 2.02 ppm over the past 10 years.

Carbon dioxide is very stable and is likely to remain in the atmosphere for a long time, Jarraud said. The concentrations were the highest for more than 800,000 years, he said.

"The increase in CO2 is mostly due to human activities," Jarraud said. "The actions we take now or don't take now will have consequences for a very, very long period."

The second most important greenhouse gas, methane, continued to grow at a similar rate to the last four years, reaching a global average of 1819 parts per billion (ppb) in 2012, while the other main contributor, nitrous oxide, reached 325.1 ppb. (Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Alistair Lyon)

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Forget What You've Heard: Humans Are Not Using More Than 1 Planet

David Biello Scientific American 8 Nov 13;

How big is humankind’s "footprint" on the planet? That depends on how you measure it.

Since the mid-1990s environmentalists, politicians, researchers and others have often used a concept called the ecological footprint to quantify the relative health of the planet under the influence of human activity and industry. According to that measure, our footprint has outgrown the planet on which we tread: humans now use 1.5 Earths to support our well-being. The concept has even given rise to a mock holiday, called "overshoot day," which marks the point humans exhaust the renewable natural resources that should have sustained us for the entire year. This year it fell on August 20.

But a new analysis suggests that the size of our seven-billion-person footprint has been mismeasured. "The original ecological footprint is a good metaphor and a good way of getting us thinking about overusing the planet, but what you really want a footprint to do is to be a management tool," says Peter Kareiva, co-author of the study, published November 5 in PLoS Biology. Kareiva is chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, an environmental group that has used the ecological footprint concept from time to time. But now he is advocating for a better metric. "I would like people not to be satisfied with the current ecological footprint and try to come up with measures that really track the water, soil and all the ways we degrade ecosystems in a way that would become management metrics," Kareiva says.

At the most fundamental level, the ecological footprint incorporates six measurements— city cover, carbon dioxide pollution, farm fields, fisheries, forests and rangeland—to reveal "the aggregate area of land and water ecosystems required by specified human populations to produce the ecosystem goods and services they consume and to assimilate their carbon waste." Or so goes the definition from William Rees, an urban planning researcher at the University of British Columbia, and Mathis Wackernagel, head of the Global Footprint Network, who teamed up to develop the metric.

The essence of the case against the footprint is that, on a global level at least, the measurement all boils down to the assimilation of CO2. That is because, by definition, cropland, grazing land and other metrics of land and ocean use cannot exceed the planet’s size, as even Rees and Wackernagel acknowledge. "Unlike nations and regions, Earth cannot 'import' cropland biocapacity and therefore cannot show a deficit," Rees and Wackernagel wrote in a rebuttal to the critique.

In the global view, then, the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is the sole reason that humankind’s ecological footprint is larger than Earth itself. What the outsize footprint means in physical terms is that the world does not have enough forests to soak up all the excess CO2 from human fossil fuel–burning and other activities. "It tells us that forests are not absorbing all of industrial emissions, but we all knew that before," says Linus Blomqvist, director of the Conservation and Development Program at the Breakthrough Institute, a neoenvironmental think tank. The ecological footprint, he says, is a "failed attempt at measuring carrying capacity.”

Humankind could shrink its footprint down to size by dramatically boosting the carbon uptake of the world’s trees—by, for instance, replacing forests with plantations of fast-growing trees like eucalyptus. But that would hardly be good for the planet, Kareiva notes, because natural forests deliver other benefits, such as fostering a diversity of animals, fungi, insects, microbes and plants. Nor does the footprint reveal anything specific about the potential overuse of cropland or grazing land, global deforestation or even the impact of sprawling cities.

The alternative that Kareiva prefers is what he calls an "Earth genome project"—a compilation of data that gets down to the local level on water use, soil degradation and, yes, greenhouse gas and other air pollution. Such a system would reveal whether the local water table was falling or if grazing was too intensive on a given landscape—exactly the type of judgments that the global ecological footprint is ill-suited to make. "You could overgraze an arid land and convert it permanently to desert—that's a local threshold," Kareiva explains. "We need to look for thresholds because they tell us the risk of the next degree of degradation."

The ecological footprint can, however, reveal important connections on the national and international levels, Rees and Wackernagel point out. So, for example, even though Canadians have a small footprint, Canada's excesses of cropland, forest and fisheries are essentially exported to countries like the U.S. and China, which have oversize footprints. "Most countries are in ecological deficit, increasingly dependent on potentially unreliable trade in biocapacity," Rees and Wackernagel wrote. "What could possibly be gained from ignoring footprint assessments?"

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Best of our wild blogs: 7 Nov 13

1 1/2 weeks on and there still American bullfrogs in the pond from Life's Indulgences

Biodiversity for kids during the December school holidays
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

Butterflies Galore! : Common Rose
from Butterflies of Singapore

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People must be at the heart of blueprint for a sustainable Singapore

Jose Raymond Today Online 7 Nov 13;

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s announcement of a review of the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint, in order to update it with new initiatives, is timely. The document, released in 2009, is five years old and many, if not all, of its recommendations are on the way to being implemented.

The vision is to make Singapore a liveable and lively city state come 2030, one that Singaporeans love and are proud to call home. This aim holds true today and, with a public consultation exercise to be held over the next three to six months, there will probably be further calls to ensure that the city is one which is also lovable.

Sustainable development demands long-term effort and commitment. A short-term view towards developing a city of the future can only be detrimental. Make a mistake today, and future generations will end up paying.

Coming out of this review, for any new or improved recommendations to be accepted and implemented effectively, the key will lie not only in the policies themselves but also in people’s behaviour. It is thus imperative that Singaporeans be at the heart — and the starting point — of the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint version 2.0.

From the man in the street to bankers, from business owners to hawkers, from government to corporate citizens, the v2.0 blueprint must demonstrate to as many as possible the benefits of ensuring that Singapore grows sustainably, and the important role they play in this.

Without this awareness of their personal stake, it is all too easy for the year 2030 to fall off people’s radar, wrongly assuming that what happens in the immediate future is of more urgent priority. But behaviour today affects the future. There needs to be, for instance, greater understanding of the need to change habits, be it in consuming energy, conserving water, reducing carbon emissions or helping to keep the country clean.

This is where the challenge lies for the authorities: To get not just the policy strategies right, but also their communication to the public of what the future holds.

GET PUBLIC TRANSPORT RIGHT

One of the things that people will need to be convinced of is that public transport is a better option than driving a car, especially in a densely-populated city where people live, work and play in very limited space. Consider London, Barcelona and Tokyo, where even CEOs take trains or buses because it just makes more sense to do so.

For this paradigm shift to succeed here, the public transport infrastructure must be constantly upgraded and people must have confidence in the system. The Government and its transport partners must get this right over the next decade or so, now that the Land Transport Master Plan has been released and with the rail network set to double by 2030.

People must find it convenient to take public transport; it must be comfortable and relatively affordable (here, the latest fare review proposals are timely). More people making the switch would alleviate the unsustainable construction of more and more roads and reduce vehicle emissions.

SELLING IT BACK TO THE GRID

If we are to dramatically increase recycling rates in homes, Singaporeans have to buy into the importance of recycling and it should be made even easier for them to do so.

Dual bins should be a feature in all new apartments, and apartment dwellers should be allowed to experiment with renewable energy to reduce their consumption from the grid.

One recent announcement is that it will be made easier for small consumers — such as schools, factories and warehouses — with intermittent energy use and their own renewable energy sources to be paid for supplying excess electricity that they generate back to the grid. Let us hope this can become a reality for home owners some day too.

We should also look at food waste recycling. Last year, Singapore produced enough food waste to fill more than 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools, a 26-per-cent increase from 2007 figures. With growing affluence here, it is very likely that more food will go to waste unless people grasp why climate change will make food security an even greater national issue — for we rely almost entirely on foreign sources for our food supply.

Energy efficiency and water conservation are another two key areas to tackle. In 2011, total household energy consumption measured 6560GWh, compared to 3794GWh in 1995. Domestic water consumption has been brought down from 165 litres per person each day in 2003 to 152 litres. But with the goal being to reduce this to 140 litres by 2030, a more intensive education programme will be necessary, even as Singapore strives towards self-sufficiency in water supply.

Mr Lee, in his letter to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development in 2009, noted that sustainable development requires long-term commitment, understanding and the efforts of not only the whole of Government but also the “whole of country”. Which is why people should be at the core of the blueprint.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jose Raymond is Executive Director of the Singapore Environment Council.

ABOUT THE BLUEPRINT:

The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development was set up in 2008 to formulate a national strategy for Singapore’s sustainable development.

Based on feedback from the public and stakeholders, a blueprint was drawn up with strategies and initiatives to achieve both economic growth and a good living environment over the next 20 years. For more, visit www.sustainablesingapore.gov.sg

Consider 2050 target for Sustainable Singapore blueprint
Paul Chan Poh Hoi Today Online 13 Nov 13;

I agree with the commentary, “People must be at the heart of blueprint for a sustainable S’pore” (Nov 7).

We must avoid pitfalls in the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint, and I am concerned about the composition and dynamics of our population come 2030. The challenge would be less daunting if we were a country with more homogeneity, such as Hong Kong or Taiwan.

We now have 2.1 million immigrants of various ethnic, social, linguistic and economic origins. By 2030, could we manage the integration of up to one million more people from diverse sources? This could well be our Achilles’ heel in pursuing the vision of an inclusive society.

It is not difficult to transform Singapore into a green city, with energy-efficient buildings and sky gardens, because these are the hardware. Public transport that runs smoother as well as reduced energy and water consumption may need more measures.

But to sustain a harmonious society with little social and income inequality, amid undercurrents of tension, may need different approaches.

Stringent controls and money can solve hardware problems, but not “heartware” conflicts. A gracious society with racial harmony requires a long time to nurture, and collective efforts by the Government, communities and the individual.

Planning for both a cosmopolitan and liveable city may take perhaps half a century.

There are no “instant trees” for this, and we must accept trade-offs between economic growth and lower population density to enjoy a clean environment in Singapore.

We should look at how long it took to create global cities such as London, New York, Paris and Tokyo.

I would be pessimistic about achieving the blueprint’s vision for 2030, where native and new Singaporeans are proud to call this country home and love it, if we continue to grapple with achieving an inclusive and harmonious multiracial society.

To avoid missteps, we must cross the river by feeling the stones, with small foreign population increments. Perhaps 2050 is a realistic target, with more room to manoeuvre.

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Singapore's first tidal turbine test-bed launched

Channel NewsAsia 6 Nov 13;

SINGAPORE: Singapore's first tidal turbine test-bed was launched in Sentosa on Wednesday.

Designed, built and installed by a group of engineers from NTU, and in collaboration with the Sentosa Development Corporation, the system tests the feasibility of tapping tidal energy to generate electricity.

Though tidal energy is a new field in Singapore, its key advantage as a renewable energy source is that tidal cycles are predictable, unlike conventional wind and solar energy, which are highly susceptible to weather fluctuations.

The system already produces energy to power the lights at Sentosa Boardwalk Turbine Exhibit.

In the coming year, it will further analyse how low-flow tidal energy can be used efficiently and made cheaper and more reliable.

The informative exhibition, which is part of the Sentosa Sustainability Plan, will have information about tidal energy and showcases a miniature tidal turbine prototype. The exhibition is open to public.

Dr Michael Lochinvar Sim Abundo, research fellow at NTU’s Energy Research Institute, said: "This location (Sentosa Boardwalk) is a very good spot for tidal occurrence because it is channelled between two islands - Singapore and Sentosa, which causes an acceleration of the flow much like a funnel."

Mike Barclay, chief executive officer at Sentosa Development Corporation, said: “We do have some pretty good tides around Sentosa, quite strong tidal flows so we can extract energy from them, generate electricity and prove something that could be scaleable for Singapore as a whole, something that really works for us."

- CNA/xq

Engineers hoping to harness energy from tidal currents
Kenneth Cheng Today Online 7 Nov 13;

SINGAPORE — Harnessing energy from tidal currents to generate electricity as a new source of renewable energy. This is what engineers from the Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) Energy Research Institute (ERI@N) hope to test out with a tidal turbine system, the first of its kind in Singapore, launched today (Nov 6) at the Sentosa Boardwalk.

Established in collaboration with the Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC), the Boardwalk Turbine Project took more than two years to come to fruition.

Noting that unlike conventional renewable energy sources like solar — which can be affected by cloud conditions — Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar, Executive Director of ERI@N, said tides are an “extremely predictable” renewable energy source as they are “completely defined by the phases of the moon”.

In contrast with conventional tidal turbines which work “inefficiently at lower (water) flow”, the test bed, comprising two low-flow turbines, had been designed to operate at a “good efficiency range” at low water speeds common in Singapore’s waters as well as those in the region, explained Dr Michael Lochinvar Sim Abundo, a Research Fellow at ERI@N.

The turbines — which extract and capture tidal energy from the currents that, in turn, generates power — are mounted near the boardwalk on a floating platform.

Concrete pillars at an adjacent bridge help speed up water flows that power the turbines by funnelling water into a narrow channel. The team plans to extend the turbines to Pulau Semakau and the Southern Islands, including the Saint John’s Island and Pulau Tekukor, over the next five years.

The test bed currently powers the lights and an LCD display at the Sentosa Boardwalk Turbine Exhibit. Located near the turnstiles leading into Resorts World Sentosa, the exhibit provides information on the project and tidal energy, and is open to the public.

Prof Mhaisalkar said the data amassed from the test bed — which is jointly funded by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, NTU and SDC — will allow NTU engineers to enhance turbine designs for future projects.

“This turbine here (on Sentosa) is very symbolic in the sense (that) this is basically a message that we can explore other forms of renewable energy for Singapore as well,” he said.

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Malaysian Nature Society hails new fishing net ruling

Isabelle Lai The Star 7 Nov 13;

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) has praised the introduction of a larger mesh size for fishing nets to promote sustainable fisheries.

Its president, Prof Dr Maketab Mohamad, said a larger mesh size would allow fish fry to become adults as they would not be caught in the net.

“MNS will support any enforcement of laws and regulations that will bring sustainability to our resources, whether on land or in the sea,” he told The Star.

Maketab said that the fishermen’s protests were based on ignorance and greed, with the focus only being on making short-term profits by selling the bycatch to be made into fish meal for animal feed.

Maketab said he hoped the Department of Fisheries (DOF) and related agencies would fully enforce the law, and also urged DOF to carry out enforcement against fishermen using illegal ray nets, also known as pukat pari, to catch stingrays.

“These specialised nets not only catch stingrays, but also turtles, which will drown in them. This is such a waste of conservation efforts done over the years,” he said.

Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said on Sunday that the ruling on the new minimum mesh size of 38mm came into force on Nov 1.

He said studies had shown that mesh sizes below 38mm would capture fish fry and a significant amount of bycatch, resulting in population decline.

Fishermen have protested that they would suffer financial losses with this new rule.

In response, Ismail Sabri said this rule had been incorporated in the Fisheries Act but enforcement of it had been delayed for some time.

The new ruling also requires licence holders to be onboard when the ship is at sea.

However, Pulau Ketam MCA branch chairman Chia Mong Chun had argued that the fish fry would not escape with the bigger mesh size as they would have been crushed by the larger fish when the net was hauled up, and that the new ruling would deprive fishermen of the income received from selling the bycatch.

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Hopes for strong 2015 climate deal fade, as risks grow

Alister Doyle and Nina Chestney PlanetArk 7 Nov 13;

World governments are likely to recoil from plans for an ambitious 2015 climate change deal at talks next week, concern over economic growth at least partially eclipsing scientists' warnings of rising temperatures and water levels.

"We are in the eye of a storm," said Yvo de Boer, United Nations climate chief in 2009 when a summit in Copenhagen ended without agreement. After Copenhagen, nations targeted a 2015 deal to enter into force from 2020 with the goal of averting more floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels.

The outline of a more modest 2015 deal, to be discussed at annual U.N. climate talks in Warsaw on November11-22, is emerging that will not halt a creeping rise in temperatures but might be a guide for tougher measures in later years.

Since 2009, scientists' warnings have become more strident and new factors have emerged, sometimes dampening the impact of their message that human activity is driving warming.

The U.S. shale boom helped push U.S. carbon emissions to an 18-year low last year, for instance; but it also shifted cheap coal into Europe where it was used in power stations.

Despite repeated promises to tackle the problem, developed nations have been preoccupied with spurring sluggish growth. And recession has itself braked emissions from factories, power plants and cars, a phenomenon that may prove short-lived.

Emerging economies such as China and India, heavily reliant on cheap, high-polluting coal to end poverty, are reluctant to take the lead despite rising emissions and pollution that are choking cities.

"Our concern is urgency" in tackling climate change, said Marlene Moses of Nauru, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States whose members fear they will be swamped by rising sea levels. "Vague promises will no longer suffice."

She wants progress when senior officials and environment ministers from almost 200 nations meet in Warsaw to discuss the 2015 deal, as well as climate aid to poor nations and ways to compensate them for loss and damage from global warming.

Yet many governments, especially in Europe, are concerned that climate policies, such as generous support schemes for solar energy, push up consumer energy bills.

Some want to emulate the success of the United States in bringing down energy prices via shale gas - a fossil fuel that can help cut greenhouse emissions if it replaces coal but at the same time can divert investments from cleaner energy.

PATCHWORK OF PLEDGES

Many Warsaw delegates say the 2015 accord looks likely to be a patchwork of national pledges for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, anchored in domestic legislation, after Copenhagen failed to agree a sweeping treaty built on international law.

The less ambitious model is a shift from the existing Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997. That set a central target for emissions cuts by industrialized countries and then shared them out among about 40 nations.

But Kyoto has not worked well, partly because the United States did not join, objecting that the treaty would cost U.S. jobs and set no targets for big emerging nations. Russia, Canada and Japan have since dropped out.

Warsaw will be the first meeting since the U.N.'s panel of climate scientists, the main guide for government action, in September raised the probability that climate change is mainly man-made to 95 percent from 90 and said that "substantial and sustained" cuts in emissions were needed.

TREATY

A leaked draft of a second report by the panel, due in March 2014, suggests climate change will cause heatwaves, droughts, disrupt crop growth, aggravate poverty and expose hundreds of millions of people to coastal floods as seas rise.

"Evidence is accumulating weekly, monthly as to how dangerous this will be," said Andrew Steer, head of the World Resources Institute think-tank in Washington. Every year of delay added $500 million to the cost of fixing climate change.

He said there were signs of progress, such as a plan in June by U.S. President Barack Obama to achieve a goal for cutting emissions by 2020 and the start of carbon trading in China. "But they don't add up" to a solution, Steer added.

Any deal weaker than a treaty for shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energies is anathema to poor nations.

The 2015 deal is unlikely to include deep enough emissions cuts to achieve a U.N. goal set in 2010 of limiting temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

Temperatures have already risen by 0.8C (1.4F) since the Industrial Revolution and are on track to cause more heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels despite a hiatus in the pace of warming at the Earth's surface so far this century.

A more flexible approach for 2015, championed by the United States, raises risks that many nations will simply set themselves weak goals, hoping others will take up the slack.

But it may have a better chance of ratification by national parliaments. The idea is that negotiators will find a way to compare the ambition of promises and develop a mechanism to ratchet the weak ones up in coming years.

(Additional reporting by Susanna Twidale in London, Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw and Barbara Lewis in Brussels)

Factbox: Governments meet on climate after scientists' warnings
Alister Doyle PlanetArk 7 Nov 13;

Almost 200 nations will meet in Warsaw from November 11-22 to work on a deal due to be agreed in 2015 to fight climate change.

Following are the main findings of a report in September by leading scientists - the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - that are meant to guide the talks:

HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY - The panel raised the probability that human activities, led by the burning of fossil fuels, are the dominant cause of global warming since the mid-20th century to "extremely likely", or at least 95 percent, from "very likely" (90 percent) in its previous report in 2007 and "likely" (66 percent) in 2001.

SLOWING WARMING THIS CENTURY - The panel said that a slowing in the pace of warming at the Earth's surface this century was probably linked to natural swings in the climate. It said short periods, such as the 15 years since 1998 which was a very warm year, do not usually reflect long-term trends.

PROJECTED WARMING - The panel said temperatures were likely to rise by between 0.3 and 4.8 degrees Celsius (0.5 to 8.6 Fahrenheit) by the late 21st century. The report uses new computer models that are not directly comparable with scenarios used in 2007.

CARBON BUDGET - The report said cumulative carbon emissions needed to be limited to about 1 trillion tonnes to give a likely chance of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F) above pre-industrial times. More than 50 percent has already been emitted.

SEA LEVEL RISE - Sea levels are likely to rise by between 26 and 82 cm (10 to 32 inches) by the late 21st century, after a 19 cm rise in the 19th century. In the worst case, seas could be 98 cm higher in the year 2100. The 2001 report projected a rise of 18 to 59 cm, but did not take full account of the potential thaw of Antarctica and Greenland.

CLIMATE SENSITIVITY - The report estimates that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere would lead to a warming of between 1.5 and 4.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 and 8.1F), lowering the bottom of the range from 2.0 degrees (3.6F) estimated in 2007 report. The new range, however, is the same as in other IPCC reports before 2007.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle)

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Best of our wild blogs: 6 Nov 13

Volunteer wanted for coral relocation in Singapore starting Nov 2013 from wild shores of singapore

Sat 9 Nov Heritage Walk with Claire Leow
from a.t.Bukit Brown. Heritage. Habitat. History.

ecoYOUth releases paper documenting environmental perspectives of youths in Singapore
from Green Drinks Singapore

Red-footed Booby photographed at Lim Chu Kang
from Bird Ecology Study Group

A revisit to Sungei Buloh
from My Nature Experiences

Butterflies Galore! : Banded Swallowtail
from Butterflies of Singapore

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Tourist arrivals remain strong despite haze: STB

Neo Chai Chin Channel NewsAsia 5 Nov 13;

SINGAPORE: Tourist arrivals to the country have remained strong despite the haze crisis in June, with latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) showing an increase in year-on-year visitor arrivals for the months of January to August.

The impact of the haze -- which sent the Pollutant Standards Index to a record 401 -- was minimal as it was sudden and short-lived, said experts who cited the strength of the Singapore dollar as a greater factor that would impact visitor numbers.

In fact, June was a month of robust growth in visitor arrivals with 1.26 million visitors recorded, an increase of 8.9 per cent from last year.

Visitor arrivals in the first eight months of this year also grew 8.5 per cent year-on-year to 10.5 million.

Mr Edward Koh, executive director for strategy and planning at STB, said hotel room and tour bookings during the weekend of June 21 to 23 had seen a decline, but the overall impact of the haze in this area was "minimal".

He added that the STB was "cautiously optimistic" of achieving its forecast of 14.8 million to 15.5 million visitors, and S$23.5 billion to S$24.5 billion in tourism receipts this year.

Hong Thai Travel assistant general manager Tony Aw said many of its inbound tour groups had wanted to cancel their trips in June.

But, all the travellers eventually went ahead with their plans as there were no official travel advisories issued by governments, which would have triggered refunds from tour operators. Some frequent independent travellers, however, did cancel their trips, said Mr Aw.

CIMB-GK Research regional economist Song Seng Wun believes Singapore will easily surpass the 7 per cent growth in visitor arrivals he had projected at the start of this year, to some 15.7 million visitors for the year. But, he said the weakening of currencies, like the Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupee, could deter some potential travellers.

"We were more concerned subsequently with the impact of weakened currencies... than the haze."

Though some doctors here have told him that the number of Indonesian patients have fallen in recent months after the rupiah weakened significantly against the Singapore dollar, Mr Song said "per visitor, (spending is) almost unchanged".

Visitors from China -- the second-largest inbound market for Singapore -- could also slow down, due to the Chinese government's curb on "shopping tours", which took effect last month.

With the new regulation, Mr Aw said such tours could double in price and cost 8,000 yuan for a 7-day trip.

Though such "shopping tours" were not offered by Hong Thai, he said several agencies that did are likely to turn their attention to frequent independent travellers instead.

- CNA/ac

Tourist arrivals remain strong despite June haze crisis
Neo Chai Chin Today Online 6 Jun 13;

SINGAPORE — Tourist arrivals to the country have remained strong despite the haze crisis in June, with latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) showing an increase in year-on-year visitor arrivals for the months of January to August. The haze — which caused the Pollutant Standards Index to reach a record 401 — had minimal impact as it was sudden and short-lived, said experts who cited the strength of the Singapore dollar as a greater factor that would affect visitor numbers.

In fact, June was a month of robust growth in visitor arrivals with 1.26 million visitors recorded, an increase of 8.9 per cent from last year. Visitor arrivals in the first eight months of this year also grew 8.5 per cent year-on-year to 10.5 million.

Mr Edward Koh, Executive Director for Strategy and Planning at STB, said hotel room and tour bookings during the weekend of June 21–23 had seen a decline, but the overall impact of the haze in this area was “minimal”. He added that the STB was “cautiously optimistic” of achieving its forecast of 14.8 million to 15.5 million visitors, and S$23.5 billion to S$24.5 billion in tourism receipts this year.

Hong Thai Travel Assistant General Manager Tony Aw said many of its inbound tour groups had wanted to cancel their trips in June. But, all the travellers eventually went ahead with their plans as there were no official travel advisories issued by governments, which would have triggered refunds from tour operators. Some frequent independent travellers, however, did cancel their trips, said Mr Aw.

CIMB-GK Research Regional Economist Song Seng Wun believes Singapore will easily surpass the 7 per cent growth in visitor arrivals he had projected at the start of this year, to about 15.7 million visitors for the year. But, he said the weakening of currencies, like the Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupee, could deter some travellers.

“We were more concerned subsequently with the impact of weakened currencies ... than the haze.”

Though some doctors here have told him that the number of Indonesian patients have fallen in recent months after the rupiah weakened significantly against the Singapore dollar, Mr Song said “per visitor, (spending is) almost unchanged”.

Visitor arrivals from China — the second-largest inbound market for Singapore — could also fall, due to the Chinese government’s curb on “shopping tours”, which took effect last month.

With the new regulation, Mr Aw said such tours could double in price and cost 8,000 yuan (S$1,620) for a seven-day trip.

Though such “shopping tours” were not offered by Hong Thai, he said several agencies that did are likely to turn their attention to frequent independent travellers instead.

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Singapore, Malaysia ministers express concern over transboundary haze

Channel NewsAsia 5 Nov 13;

SINGAPORE: Singapore's and Malaysia's environment ministers have expressed deep concern over the transboundary haze from land and forest fires in Indonesia that recurs every year.

Meeting in Singapore on Tuesday, Singapore's Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and Malaysia's Natural Resources and Environment Minister G Palanivel noted that the haze has severely affected the people in both their countries.

They resolved to take actions to enhance regional collaboration to prevent the recurrence of the transboundary haze by implementing the ASEAN leaders' decision made at the 23rd ASEAN Summit in October.

The ministers hope that prompt measures will be taken to detect, prevent and suppress fires, added a statement from Singapore's Ministry of Environment and Water Resources issued on Tuesday.

Meeting in Singapore for the 26th Malaysia-Singapore Annual Exchange of Visits, Dr Balakrishnan and Mr Palanivel welcomed the long-standing and close environmental cooperation between their countries.

Other issues discussed on Tuesday include the control of vehicular pollution, the joint monitoring of water quality in the Straits of Johor, and cooperation in preventing chemical and oil spills.

- CNA/ac

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Malaysia: Civet fitted with satellite collar

Ruben Sario The Star 6 Nov 13;

KOTA KINABALU: Wildlife researchers are hoping that they can understand how small carnivores such as civets and otters are able to exist in a mix of forests and plantations in Sabah’s Lower Kinabatangan region through satellite tracking.

The researchers recently trapped a male civet from Lot 5 of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary and fitted him with a transmitting collar before releasing him. They are hoping this civet could provide key information on small carnivores such as their foraging habits.

“The data collected can provide information regarding how small carnivores are using the forest and oil palm plantation matrix in the Kinabatangan region,” said Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) director Datuk Dr Laurentius Ambu.

“The results will in turn guide management plans and conservation actionsin the future.”

The trapping and fitting of the collar on Oct 26 was carried out by SWD, the Kinabatangan Small Carnivore Project (KSCP), Cardiff University (CU) and the Danau Girang Field Centre. It was funded by the Sime Darby Foundation and Houston Zoo.

After trapping and sedating the 5.5kg civet, which the researchers named Tenang, they recorded its length and weight, and took saliva and faecal samples before fitting it with a 70g collar that would relay his whereabouts for the next five months.

Danau Girang director Dr Benoit Goosens said a number of small carnivore species, including six species of the civet, and two otter species, had been found within the Kinabatangan region.

“Our project strives to understand the influence of habitat fragmentation on these small carnivores,” he said.

Cardiff University graduate student Meaghan Harris said the initial data from Tenang’s satellite collar was important to help specialists map out Sabah’s biodiversity conservation plans.

“Civets, although not as flashy as larger carnivores such as the Sunda clouded leopard and the Malayan sun bear, are very important to the rainforest ecosystem,” Harris said.

“It will be an adventure to study these animals.”

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