Bangkok's plight = Bali's challenge

William Pesek, Straits Times 12 Dec 07;

ANYONE looking for evidence of climate change would normally peruse scientific journals, academic reports and World Bank warnings. This week, one could just monitor the vapour trails over Bali.

More than 10,000 world leaders, activists, drought-stricken farmers, journalists, Nobel laureates, Leonardo DiCaprio, you name it, are jetting to the picturesque Indonesian island to save the planet. All those air miles are, of course, contributing to the very problems the United Nations climate change treaty talks aim to tackle.

But, hey, a few days in paradise sounds too good for many to resist. One wonders if the UN's confab would attract so many if it were held in, say, Rochester, New York. The New York Post summed things up with this headline: Save the World (While You Tan).

Yet it may make more sense to size up the issue - and avoid adding to Bali's sudden emissions boom - from 2,900km away in a city on the front lines of global warming: Bangkok.

Thailand's capital has the dubious honour of being among the 10 major cities most at risk from rising sea levels.

Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, headed the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's list of high-population cities vulnerable to climate change by 2070. Also in the top 10 were Mumbai, Dhaka, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh City and Haiphong in Vietnam, Shanghai, Yangon and Miami.

A recent UN report thickened the plot for officials in Bangkok. It found that Thailand's per capita carbon emissions stood at 4.2 tonnes a year, higher than that of China (3.8 tonnes), Indonesia (1.7 tonnes) and India (1.2 tonnes).

The point here isn't to single out Asia's ninth-biggest economy. That distinction might belong to the Bush administration, which refuses to follow the lead of Mr Kevin Rudd, Australia's new Prime Minister, in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Having the biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses blowing off the only international emissions-limiting treaty undermines the entire effort.

Yet Thailand is an intriguing microcosm of the economic risks and political challenges involved in reversing global warming. That this nation of 65 million people has an election coming up thickens the plot even further.

When World Bank president Robert Zoellick talks about global challenges, he often focuses on so-called middle-income countries. Essentially, that means economies that are still developing, but whose governments have access to private-sector loans.

Thailand is one such nation and it's among the vanguard of Asian economies entering a most challenging period.

Slowing global growth is putting Thailand's export-dependent economy at risk. Higher oil prices aren't helping at a time when trouble in global credit markets is amplifying the pain. And thanks to US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's interest rate cuts, the Thai baht is up 12 per cent versus the US dollar this year.

As if such stresses weren't enough, the military-installed government plans an election on Dec 23 to restore democracy following a September 2006 coup. After ousting prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the generals failed to convince investors that one of Asia's most promising economies is in steadier hands.

Amid so many risks, leaders in Thailand and elsewhere in the developing world somehow need to find the resources to address climate change. They also need to overcome a lack of urgency in developed nations, which should be doing more to share with poorer countries the scientific know-how needed to cut pollution.

'Those challenges are many and complex,' says International Monetary Fund deputy managing director Takatoshi Kato.

There will be negative consequences for output and productivity in many countries. Achieving development goals may be jeopardised by deteriorating fiscal positions as a result of weakening traditional tax bases and increased expenditure on the environment.

'There may be balance of payments problems in some countries owing to reduced exports of goods and services, such as agricultural products, fish and tourism, and perhaps from the increased need for food and other essential imports,' Mr Kato said.

'Also, I think there might exist a range of contingent risks to social and economic stability as a result of climate changes.'

The scale of the challenge requires the kind of global leadership that is sadly lacking. It's great that former US vice-president Al Gore is making headlines with his climate change warnings. It's great that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon is on the case, too.

Yet until the biggest economy and biggest polluter leads by example, what can we really expect from smaller countries? What can we reasonably expect from China and India, which will struggle more than most with balancing rapid growth and reducing greenhouse gases?

Thailand has as much to lose as any economy from rising temperatures. Even if Thailand cuts its emissions, though, it won't make much of a dent globally without the US doing the same.

This issue requires global leadership, and fast. Let's hope events in Bali amount to more than a bunch of bureaucrats getting a tan.

The writer is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

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Amsterdam and Rotterdam see green at conference

Yahoo News 11 Dec 07;

Two major Dutch cities presented plans to think globally and act locally to drastically reduce CO2 emissions in their cities by up to 50 percent over the next 17 years, compared to 1990 levels.

While international representatives met in Bali for the United Nations conference on climate change, Amsterdam held its own climate conference Tuesday, where it announced a planned 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2025.

The mini-summit brought together administrations, environmental organisations and businesses. Insisting on the need for public and private partnerships to work together, Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen said, "the experiences of Amsterdam may serve later for the rest of the world."

Amsterdam's deputy mayor in charge of environmental issues presented a slew of possible actions the city could take, from shuttling tourists around in hydrogen-fueled boats to promoting working from home.

From now until mid-2008 the most polluting sectors, mainly transportation and housing development, are to agree voluntarily on a number of measures that will later become binding.

Responsible for 25 percent of CO2 emissions in The Netherlands, Amsterdam announced that it would offer two low-consuming light bulbs to some 300,000 households.

The four-million-euro (5.9 million dollars) price tag for the light bulb operation is infinitely lower than the savings created for consumers: 26 million euros over six years, the average life span of one of these light bulbs, according to the mayor's office.

Rotterdam, which wants to reduce its CO2 emissions by 50 percent between now and 2025, also presented new energy-friendly initiatives for cars, trains and public transportation Monday, along with an sustainable energy generation plan for its metro system.

In addition, public transportation conductors will receive training on ecological driving to reduce pollution from their vehicles by 10 percent.

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Japan's struggle to maintain its reputation for energy efficiency

Paying the price for leading the way
Chris Hogg, BBC News 11 Dec 07;

"It's all very well developing more efficient cars," says Junichi Sato from Greenpeace."But telling people not to drive is a lot harder."

On the flat roof of a department store in Tokyo's fashionable shopping district Ginza there is a wide patch of grass and some flower beds. It is about the size of a small suburban garden. The soil is just a few centimetres thick. It has been developed specially for this purpose - even a thin layer can support plants and grasses.

The rooftop garden also helps to conserve energy. In the summer when the temperature on the exposed concrete of the roof hovers between 60 and 70 degrees, underneath the soil it is just 30 degrees.

"The soil is very light," says Kenji Masaki, the contractor who supplies it. "You only need to water it once a week, and we don't use chemical fertilisers either."

Japan is often described as the most energy efficient country in the world. After the "oil shocks" of the 1970s the government decided it had to reduce its reliance on fuel and energy from elsewhere.

Taking the lead

Today, the government says it has reduced energy consumption by 37% in three decades.

The Japanese have achieved this through innovation - coming up with ideas like "green roofs" to cool buildings and developing new products like Mr Masaki's super light soil to turn the theory into a reality.

Often ideas for advanced technologies receive significant government support, funded by the tax payer to help commercialise products that otherwise might not make it.

For example Japan, is testing fuel-cell vehicles in Tokyo that run on hydrogen.

There are only a few dozen of the vehicles on the road, but the government has spent $30 million to build 12 refilling stations around the city where the vehicles can be filled up.

The collaboration between the government and the two car companies involved, Toyota and Honda, means that the prototype vehicles can be tested under "real-world" conditions.

The government also encourages innovation in other ways. It's "Top Runner" labelling scheme allows consumers to choose the most energy efficient electronic consumer goods with ease.

On a regular basis, officials examine goods such as refrigerators and ascertain which is the most efficient model on the market. That is then set as the standard for energy efficiency.

Products that have the same efficiency level are labelled with a green sticker. Products that don't have an orange sticker.

The government says that these labels influence consumer behaviour, thereby providing companies with an incentive to improve the efficiency of their products.

But Japan's impressive record of energy efficiency isn't just the result of advanced technology.

There is also a sense of what you might call "frugality" that permeates through Japanese corporate and family life.

In summer corporations and municipalities often restrict the use of air-conditioning and encourage workers to take off their ties and adopt cooler (less warm) fashions.

When you visit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the summer months, you find bureaucrats sweating in the corridors.

In the winter on the coldest days, they are just as likely to be shivering at their desks.

Less is more

At home too, there are differences between the average Japanese house and those found in the US or the UK.

Japanese homes are smaller overall. But smaller rooms are easier to heat, and there is rarely any central heating.

Rooms are warmed one-by-one by heaters attached to the wall. Stairwells and toilets are left without heat (although the toilet seats are often warmed for you).

In my house, when you flush the toilet the water to refill it comes out of a nozzle above the cistern. You can wash your hands in the water as it fills it up, reducing the amount of water used.

Warm water from baths is often piped into the washing machine to wash clothes.

Rubbish is recycled, religiously, at home and in industry.

But the Japanese still have a problem.

Under the Kyoto protocol Japan pledged to reduce its emissions by 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. Currently they are 8% above 1990 levels.

Some argue that the difficulty arises because Japan by 1990, in comparison to other countries, had created an industrial sector that was already extremely efficient.

Tall task

Trying to reduce emissions still further has proved difficult.

"It's like trying to squeeze water out of a damp cloth," one economist once told me. "The more you wring it out, the harder it gets to produce any moisture."

So the government is looking beyond industry, at offices where a recent report predicted that emissions are likely to rise as much as 30% by 2012 and in homes, where they will rise, probably by as much as 15%.

Over the last few decades, as Japanese industry became more efficient, the country got richer.

Living standards increased. People started to demand bigger houses. They bought more appliances, more PC's, TV's, luxury items. They started driving bigger cars and driving them further than they used to, in some cases driving instead of making journeys on foot.

They built more impressive offices too. And businesses started to open longer, in more locations, meeting the demand for greater convenience. These are all helping to increase the thirst for power.

The government has encouraged people to modify their behaviour with campaign slogans like "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and the "Top Runner" scheme, which rewards innovation rather than penalising inefficiency.

Environmental campaigners might like to see tougher penalties to try to alter the behaviour of Japanese consumers but culturally that is quite difficult.

"It's all very well developing more efficient cars," says Junichi Sato from Greenpeace.

"But telling people not to drive is a lot harder. However that is the reality. We need to find a way for there to be fewer cars on the road."

Japan is currently considering detailed proposals to try to reduce its emissions but it seems likely that it will try to achieve its target by "carbon trading", which involves buying emission credits from other nations who have achieved greater reductions than they need to meet the Kyoto targets.

"These numbers are quite tough so we need to have a real sense of urgency," trade ministry officials have admitted.

But as elsewhere in the world many firms in Japanese feel they have done enough, or do not know what more they could do, so they have lobbied hard against changes that could affect their profit margins.

And consumers, while happy to do their bit, show no appetite for new taxes or restrictions on the products, the cars, the power they use.

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Asian firms emit more CO2 for same economic activity: study

Laurel Teo, Business Times 12 Dec 07;
This could put investors of Asian equity funds at risk

A NEW study shows that Asian companies emit more carbon for the same amount of economic activity than businesses in other parts of the world.

This puts investors of Asian equity funds at greater risk should new environmental rules set a global price on carbon, and consumer demand starts shifting towards more energy efficient products and services.

Titled Carbon Counts Asia 2007: Carbon Footprints of Asian Investment Funds, the report was conducted by environmental research body Trucost and commissioned by the IFC - a World Bank group member that finances private- sector projects in developing countries.

Rachel Kyte, IFC director of environment and social development, noted that the financial implications of climate change could increasingly be quantified as risk.

'By creating the data that highlights this risk, we are enabling investors and companies to adapt their behaviour. In a carbon-constrained world, this is smart sustainable investing and sustainable business,' she said.

Launched yesterday in Bali on the sidelines of the United Nations climate change talks, the report compared the MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International) Asia ex-Japan equity index to the MSCI All World Developed, S&P 500, and MSCI Europe indices.

It also studied and established the carbon footprints of 90 individual investment funds, which together manage more than US$127 billion. A carbon footprint gauges the effect of a person or an organisation on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, in this instance measured in units of carbon dioxide-equivalents per US$1 million invested.

The report found that the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index emits 620.99 tonnes of greenhouse gas for every US$1 million invested. This is 1.7 times the size of the footprint of the MSCI Europe index, 1.4 times that of the S&P 500 index, and 1.6 times that of the MSCI All World Developed index.

The larger carbon footprint of the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index stems from the relatively higher carbon intensity of companies in the index. These listed Asian companies emit more carbon per US$1 million of revenue than their peers in the same sectors in the other three indices.

Most of the 'greatest contributors' in this index belong to the utilities and basic resources sectors.

Meanwhile, the 90 individual investment funds studied cover 649 companies. Each fund has a market capitalisation of over US$400 million, with at least 90 per cent of the holdings by value in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines or Thailand.

More than half of these funds (54 out of 90) have an even larger footprint than the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index. While this is partly due to the type of sectors in which the funds allocate their investments, the study found that the main driver was that investors in the funds select companies that are more carbon intensive than sector averages.

Yet earlier studies by Trucost show no correlation between the carbon footprint of funds and financial performance.

The report says it is possible for fund managers to choose greener investments and still maintain the same level of earnings. In fact, it created a portfolio that matched the financial performance of the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index while reducing the carbon intensity by 31 per cent.

Noting that emissions are already being taxed in more and more parts of the industrialised world, the study predicted that there would be greater pressure on the corporate world to 'carbon optimise'.

'As companies are increasingly required to bear the costs of carbon, those with less efficient carbon use are likely to see profit margins narrowed, resulting in lower company valuations. Resource-efficient companies will be well positioned to benefit financially and strategically relative to their peers,' said the report.

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Tiny New UN Fund to Combat Droughts, Rising Seas

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 12 Dec 07;

Too much debate in Bali had been about the management of the fund. "It may end up being perfect in structure but puny in size,"

NUSA DUA, Indonesia - A new UN fund to help poor nations cope with climate change threats such as droughts or rising seas can start up in 2008 after a draft deal at UN talks in Bali, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The Adaptation Fund now comprises only about US$36 million but could rise to US$1-$5 billion a year by 2030 if investment in green technology in developing nations surges, according to the highest UN projections.

"The fund can become operational ... at the beginning of 2008," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Secretariat, told a news conference of the preliminary deal.

The decision must now be approved by environment ministers at the end of the Dec. 3-14 meeting of 190 nations in Bali, which is also seeking to agree to start formal negotiations on a new internatioal climate pact beyond 2012.

The accord broke a deadlock on oversight of the fund by splitting responsibility between the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which funds clean energy projects, and the World Bank. The fund would have a 16-member board with strong representation from developing nations.

"I am happy and proud but when you read the decision there is still a lot of work to make the fund operational," Monique Barbut, head of the GEF, told Reuters.

She said that the money was tiny compared to the projected damage from desertification, heatwaves, a melting of the Himalayas that could disrupt river flows and agriculture in China and India, and rising seas that could swamp island states.

In Africa alone, up to 250 million people are projected to face greater stress on water supplies by 2020, according to the UN Climate Panel. The fund could help farmers get new drought-resistant crops, set up better early-warning systems for cyclones or build coastal barriers against rising seas.

Helping people adapt to the impact of climate change has often been overlooked in a fight against global warming which has focused overwhelmingly until now on how to cut emissions of greenhouse gases from factories, power plants and cars.


SUNTAN LOTION

"It will cost US$50 billion a year for all developing countries to adapt to climate change," said Kate Raworth of British aid agency Oxfam.

She said that too much debate in Bali had been about the management of the fund. "It may end up being perfect in structure but puny in size," she said.

And past promises of aid had often fallen short. A separate US$67 million fund to help the poorest nations "is the same amount as people in the United States spend on suntan lotion in a month", she said.

By contrast, building protective barriers around 50 of the coral islands making up the Maldives in the Indian Ocean to keep rising seas at bay could cost US$1.5 billion, said Angus Friday, head of a group representing small island states.

The Adaptation Fund is raised from a two percent levy on the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, under which rich nations can win tradeable credits by investing in projects such as windmills or cleaner industrial processes that cut greenhouse emissions in developing nations.

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Ecuador Holds Park "Ransom," Threatens Drilling

Gonzalo Solano, Associated Press, National Geographic News 11 Dec 07;

The proposal, announced by Ecuador earlier this year, has been praised by some environmentalists as an innovative way to compensate poor nations for not drilling.

Ecuador will open bidding for a major oil project in a jungle nature reserve in June if the poor Andean country does not receive international funding to abandon the proposal, the oil minister said Monday.

The government says a minimum of 350 million U.S. dollars a year from the international community for ten years would ensure that no drilling takes place in the Ishpingo-Tiputini-Tambococha fields located in Yasuní National Park, in Ecuador's northeastern jungle.

The money would compensate Ecuador for income it would have generated by drilling for oil at the site.

"Shared Responsibility"

The jungle area, which is thought to hold close to a billion barrels of crude, is part of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Some environmentalists say the reserve has more varieties of plant life than the United States and Canada combined.

President Rafael Correa has said Ecuador was not asking for the money as "charity" but as a way for the international community to recognize its "shared responsibility" for preserving Yasuní as a major source of biodiversity.

On Monday Ecuadorean Oil Minister Galo Chiriboga told Teleamazonas TV that if the money is not collected by June 15, bidding on the fields will begin the following day.

"Either the international support not to drill is obtained or we go ahead with the auction," he said.

Proponents and Critics

The proposal, announced by Ecuador earlier this year, has been praised by some environmentalists as an innovative way to compensate poor nations for not drilling.

"It's a real pioneer proposal for an oil exporter," Kevin Koenig, of California-based environmental organization Amazon Watch told the Associated Press. "Ecuador is making a sacrifice to try to make this happen."

Ecuadorean environmental group Cedenma said it was skeptical of the government's intentions after Monday's announcement that it may open bidding.

"It again demonstrates to public opinion the government's intentions to cede once again before the (oil drilling interests) who definitively threaten Ecuador's natural ecosystems," the group said in a statement.

Earlier this year state oil companies from China, Chile, and Brazil expressed interest in presenting bids to drill in the fields.

Ecuador is South America's fifth-largest oil producer, with a daily production of around a half-million barrels of crude.

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Niger's vanishing forests: last hope to keep desert at bay

Boureima Hama Yahoo News 11 Dec 07;

"That is paradoxical in a country which has coal reserves and whose neighbours are major oil and gas producers,"

It is not yet daybreak when the trucks, the donkeys and the camels pour out of Niamey across the Kennedy bridge. Night has fallen when they return, loaded down with huge cargoes of wood from south western Niger's last forests.

Local people continue to cut down the few forests still standing to keep themselves in firewood, unaware or unconcerned about the impact their routine has on global warming and desert encroachment.

The Sahara has already swallowed up two-thirds of Niger's surface area and continues to progress at a rate of 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) every year, according to the environmental website Mongabay.

The desertification advances despite the planting of more than 60 million trees in this western African nation between 1985 and 1997.

Specialists say the desert is creeping towards the west and the south of the country, where the last forests remain, at a rate of six kilometres (four miles) every year.

Between 1990 and 2005, Niger lost 679,000 hectares of tropical forest, more than one-third of its total wooded land, Mongabay said on its website.

The environment ministry does not publish cumulative statistics, but estimates that 120,000 hectares of tropical forest are lost every year, in addition to some 340,000 hectares that were lost between 2000 and 2006 due to forest fires.

"Wood's getting scarce. We go more than 150 kilometres (93 miles) to find it, near the border with Burkina Faso," said Ali Amadou, a woodcutter from Dar-el-Salam, one of Niamey's markets.

In 2006 the country consumed more than 3.4 million tonnes of wood. By 2010 it is expected to be consuming 4.2 million tonnes annually, according to government forecasts.

"Wood provides more than 90 percent of domestic household energy," said Moustapha Kadi from the non-governmental organisation SOS-Kandaji.

"That is paradoxical in a country which has coal reserves and whose neighbours are major oil and gas producers," one specialist who asked not to be named noted, referring to northern neighbor Algeria and Nigeria, to the south.

But the same specialist recognized that people living on less than one dollar a day in one of the world's poorest nations have little other option, especially faced with a recent increase in oil and gas prices.

"Ignorance and poverty are not sufficient excuse for committing an ecological crime," said Mamane Lamine, an official with Niger's water and forestry agency.

However NGO worker Kadi said, "Everywhere where you have protected forests, the people who live round about there set up cooperatives, chop down trees and sell the wood, and they don't even spare protected species."

In Niamey wood is priced like gold dust. A lorry-load sells for between 200,000 and 300,000 African CFA francs (from 303 to 455 euros, 440 to 660 dollars). An average donkey or camel load brings more than three euros.

Again though there are no precise statistics, the government estimates that in 1975, Niger had between 10 and 30 times more the trees it has today.

Most of this wood ends up under cooking pots in Niamey, according to a French government think-tank Institut de recherche pour le developpement (development research institute, IRD).

The Niamey municipal authorities, who levy taxes on the sale of wood, admit that they are powerless to put an end to abuses in a sector controlled by rich traders.

For climate specialists -- and delegates from nearly 190 countries gathered at the UN conference in Bali from December 3 to 14 to hammer out a timeframe for a new deal on tackling climate change -- deforestation has three direct and worrying consequences: the sun is reflected more off bare ground, there is no longer anything to shelter the ground from the wind and the air is less and less humid.

Moreover, desert encroachment, exacerbated by scarce rains, is one of the direct causes of the cyclical food crises that hit Niger, whose population is increasing at more than three per cent every year.

As the population keeps growing, there is a risk that more people will turn to the wood trade, unknowingly sabotaging their country's prospects for economic development.

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Huge rise in shipping sparks emissions alert

Danny Fortson, The Independent 11 Dec 07;

It is hard to see a way to avoid a huge increase in shipping emissions – more than 90 per cent of world trade is conducted by sea. Unsurprisingly, China is the primary driver. The biggest of the world's ships are getting bigger to feed the massive demand from the country.

Commercial shipbuilding may be a vestige of what it once was in the UK, but it is a different story in Shanghai, where along 5 miles of coastline on Changxin island the China State Shipbuilding Corporation is building the world's largest shipyard. The site is crucial to China's fight to claim the mantle of the world's largest shipbuilder from South Korea.

Yet this is far more than a tussle for regional supremacy. The global shipbuilding industry is in the midst of its biggest boom ever with the numbers of tankers and bulk carriers expected to increase by 50 per cent by 2012.

Huge tankers, bulk carriers and container ships – the largest ships in the world's fleet – are sliding out of the dry docks in Asia at a rate of nearly four a day. They are responding to growing demands for anything from authentic soy sauce in supermarkets to the Chinese steel industry's insatiable appetite for iron ore.

The global order book for container ships, tankers and bulk carriers to be built by 2012 stands at 6,100, according to Philip Rogers, head of research at the London ship broker Galbraith's. "This is the largest volume we have ever seen," said Mr Rogers, "It is unprecedented for the industry."

The coming deluge of new ships has the world's largest ports scrambling to expand capacity, and politicians, finally, beginning to take notice of what environmentalists argue is an industry that is already doing as much damage to the environment as aviation, and which could do much more.

Nearly as many ships will come into service over the next five years as the number of jumbo jets – 6,900 – expected to hit the skies over the next decade. Yet while airlines and aeroplane makers have been pilloried by environmentalists and drawn into the European emission trading sheme, shipping has thus far escaped the controversy. This is despite the generally accepted view that it generates emissions at least equal to the 2 per cent of global emissions generated by airlines.

By several estimates, including that of BP Marine, the shipping arm of the oil giant, shipping emissions could account for more than twice the greenhouse gases that flying does. Like aviation, shipping emissions fall outside the Kyoto protocol.

Later this month, an international panel of academics and industry magnates will make their final submissions in an inquiry, commissioned by the United Nations International Maritime Organisation (IMO), into the pollution caused by the world's 47,000-strong global fleet. Yet by the time their recommendations are implemented, in 2009, they will be in danger of setting targets long since passed.

This has happened before. An annex to its international Marpol treaty regulating air pollution from shipping was passed in 1997 and came into effect in 2005. However, because the targets were eight years old by the time they came into effect, the IMO launched an immediate effort to revise the targets as soon as they became binding, leading to the inquiry now just wrapping up.

The IMO will publish its pollution recommendations in February. Campaigners want shipping emissions lumped in now with aviation. "Emissions from international aviation and shipping are increasing and must be tackled urgently if we are to stop the worst impacts of climate change," said Richard Dyer, transport campaigner at Friends of the Earth. "The UK Government must also include [shipping emissions] in the new climate change law from the start."

It is hard to see a way to avoid a huge increase in shipping emissions – more than 90 per cent of world trade is conducted by sea. Unsurprisingly, China is the primary driver. The biggest of the world's ships are getting bigger to feed the massive demand from the country. The Chinese steel industry produced 66 million tons in 1990. This year, production is projected to come in at 488 million tons, creating a huge demand for iron ore shipped in bulk carriers.

World Shipping Must Act on Air Emissions - ICS
Stefano Ambrogi, PlanetArk 12 Dec 07;

LONDON - The trillion-dollar shipping industry must set global targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollutants by the end of 2008 or risk having regional solutions imposed on it, the International Chamber of Shipping said on Tuesday.

Tony Mason, secretary general of the influential industry body, called on the sector that carries 90 percent of the world's traded goods by volume to act in a comprehensive way and as quickly as possible.

"We at ICS believe it is absolutely vital that conclusions are reached and improved standards adopted during 2008," Mason told a ship emissions conference in London.

"If governments and industry cannot between them deliver bankable solutions within this deadline, we shall see a serious disenchantment with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) process, and a proliferation of local regulations, led in all probability by the EU and the United States," he said.

PRESSURE BUILDING

Shipping, unlike aviation, has largely escaped close attention over emissions, but pressure is building. In late November, the European Commission urged the IMO to do more.

Commission Vice President Margot Wallstrom said both shipping and aviation were "lagging behind" and were not helping European Union plans to extend its carbon market.

The United Nations' IMO, the world's top maritime body responsible for regulating the industry, is due to report by the end of this year on a way forward to combat emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas.

The shipping industry, with a fleet of up to 60,000 ocean-going vessels, also accounts for about 10 percent of sulphur dioxide emissions and large amounts of toxic nitrous oxide, gases which cause acid rain and deplete the ozone layer.

Ships also produce particulate emissions.

The IMO is busily reviewing current marine pollution laws, known as MARPOL Annex VI, adopted by countries in 1997, but that only came into force globally in 2005.

Because of the delay the regulations are seen as inadequate and unable to address huge concerns over how much sea-based transportation contributes to global warming, industry experts say. IMO's review is expected to set out far more stringent standards on completion.

One problem the industry has is establishing how much CO2 fuel-burning ships create. A further obstacle is that like aviation, emissions from shipping are not covered by the Kyoto protocol on global warming.

A figure that is frequently cited by the industry is a report by former World Bank chief Nicholas Stern, which estimated emissions at just less than two percent in 2000 compared with 15 percent made by transportation as a whole.

Critics say the level is much higher and figure fails to take account of fast expanding seaborne trade, which by the industry's own admission surged by 50 percent in the last 15 years.

"The worst case I've seen is 3 to 4 percent of emissions, which is credible - there's no scientific basis for the others," Mason said.

"Projections are outside our control and that's half the problem. The weakness that we have as an industry is that we can act to reduce CO2 emissions, but do not have mathematical models to say what they will be," he said.

"It's rather like running on a treadmill and then trying to stand still." (Editing by Anthony Barker)

Read more!

Animals, plants need help adapting to climate change

Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Humans must help animals and plants adapt to a warmer world, environmentalists said on Thursday, because it is too expensive to rebuild entire ecosystems and their loss makes people even more vulnerable.

Conservation efforts should focus on protecting a variety of the most resilient or adaptable communities, and providing protected corridors of land or sea to allow species to shift habitats if their old range becomes unliveable, they said.

"The scale of the problem means we cannot effectively intervene. We have to look to nature to help itself," Rodney Salm, director of tropical marine conservation at The Nature Conservancy, said on the sidelines of U.N. talks in Bali on tackling climate change.

Traditionally, protection efforts often focused on the best-preserved areas of plant or animal life, but these are not always the best positioned to adapt.

For example, mangrove swamps at the edge of plains might be overlooked by environmentalists because they are easily accessible to people living nearby and so often in bad condition, while remote outcrops below steep hills can seem better havens of biodiversity, Salm said.

But to survive warming seas, the plants will need the room to retreat slowly inland that flatter areas offer. And experts say humans need mangroves to protect them from storm surges and slow the impact of rising oceans.

"Nature is relying on us. In addition to reducing emissions, we need to help natural systems adapt to climate change in order to sustain the processes that make life liveable," said Stephanie Meeks, President and CEO of the Nature Conservancy.

"No matter how successful mitigation efforts may be, this planet and its people are already committed to a substantial amount of warming and associated impacts of climate change," she said.

Coral reefs, which nurture fisheries and have already suffered mass die-offs or "bleachings" because of warmer waters, are another system in urgent need of protection, Salm said.

Rather than trying to farm heat-resistant or adaptable corals, protection efforts should focus on reefs in water cooled naturally by shade or currents, and those positioned to supply larvae to repopulate damaged areas after a bleaching.

Pacific islanders already suffering the impact of global warming are working on projects to protect the ecosystems that support their traditional way of life, the President of the tiny South Pacific nation of Palau said.

Tommy Remengesau said fishermen and farmers already found it hard to judge weather patterns in a country that also lost vast swathes of its coral reefs in a massive global bleaching late last decade.

"The resiliency of our biodiverse natural systems will be critical to our ability in our efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change that we all know are coming," he said.

(Reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison; editing by David Fogarty)

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World Bank launches forest carbon fund

Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - The World Bank on Tuesday launched plans for a $300 million fund to fend off global warming by preserving forests, but protesters said it risked turning homes of indigenous people into an asset for the rich.

The new financing mechanism, launched at U.N. talks on tackling climate change, aims to turn better forest management into a tradeable commodity to try to halt destruction so rapid it accounts for around a fifth of annual carbon emissions.

"If we don't focus on retaining the world's remaining tropical forests, we drastically narrow the options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions," World Bank President Robert Zoellick told the project's launch.

"Deforestation and changes in land use are the second leading cause of global warming," he said, adding the project was just the start of tackling the problem.

He quoted economist Nicholas Stern's estimate that more than $5 billion a year was needed to halt deforestation.

A $100 million "readiness" fund will provide grants to around 20 countries to prepare them for large-scale forest protection under a future climate change deal, also known as reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) in developing countries.

Grants will fund projects including surveys of current forest assets, monitoring systems and tightening governance.

A second $200 million "carbon finance mechanism" will allow some of these countries to run pilot programs earning credits for curbing deforestation. The credits will belong to the countries or groups that put up the cash for the fund.

Of the $300 million, they already have $160 million pledged from seven developed countries, the World Bank said.

Emissions cuts from forest areas are not yet eligible for formal credits because they were excluded from the Kyoto Protocol's first round, which runs out in 2012, but they may be able to sell them on voluntary markets.

The projects could include anything from straight forward reforestation and better zoning of agricultural and forest lands, to paying people for environmental services or improving management of forest areas, said the World Bank forest and climate change official Benoit Bosquet.

There is interest from around 30 countries for projects that many in the carbon trading industry and developing nations fighting deforestation hope could provide a model for financing forest protection in a successor deal to Kyoto.

The World Bank had previously said it was in talks with Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica and Indonesia, and regional bodies in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

INDIGENOUS CONCERNS

But indigenous and environmental groups say they are worried deals to prioritize the carbon-retaining value of forests might exclude some of the people who have most at stake.

"While the facility can be a good thing, we are very apprehensive on how this will work because of our negative historical and present experiences with similar initiatives," said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the United Nations' Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

An indigenous person herself, she said the forests targeted by the initiative were home to 160 million people who were custodians of forest biodiversity and should be involved in the design and management of the projects as equal players.

"The success of efforts to lower carbon emissions from reduced or avoided deforestation hinges primarily on whether indigenous people throw their full support behind these mechanisms," Tauli-Corpuz said.

Outside the conference centre, protesters were handing out cartoons of worried indigenous people massed outside a fenced off forest, thinking of their homes, religious sites, food and fuel that were now off limits.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

$160million plan to save forests launched at Bali talks
Yahoo News 11 Dec 07;

Wealthy countries and a US green group donated 160 million dollars Tuesday for a new climate-change project aimed at encouraging poor developing nations to conserve their tropical forests.

The World Bank-led plan was launched in Bali amid negotiations over a new framework on climate change once Kyoto Protocol commitments to curb gas emissions end in 2012.

Emerging nations are demanding greater help to cut down on their own greenhouse-gas emissions as their economies catch up with the rich world.

"This initiative is a practical pilot to expand the tools for climate change negotiations," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.

Around 1.2 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods and deforestation accounts for a fifth of global greenhouse-gas emissions, according to figures cited by the Bank.

The Kyoto Protocol allows developed countries to meet their obligations by funding green projects in poor economies but in its present format does not offer specific help for reducing deforestation or forest degradation.

One of the issues on the table at Bali is how to provide such support in the post-2012 pact.

The new programme aims to assist 20 countries, among them some of the poorest in the world, with incentives to discourage illegal logging and forest clearance for agriculture.

Countries that complete a first step under the new Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) would then be eligible to a "carbon finance fund" under which they would be financially compensated for the carbon emissions saved by preserving their forests.

Germany, the outgoing president of the Group of Eight (G8) wealthy nations, is the top contributor to the fund, offering 59 million dollars of the 160 million dollars pledged by nine countries and a US group.

The other contributors are Britain (30 million dollars), the Netherlands (22 million), Australia and Japan (10 million dollars each), France and Switzerland (seven million dollars each) and Denmark and Finland (five million dollars each).

In addition, the Nature Conservancy, a US environmental group, has pledged five million.

"We must not lose another day when it comes to climate and forest protection," German Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul said in a statement. "Forest protection must be a central element in a future agreement on climate change."

The World Bank said that indigenous groups who live in tropical areas would be given observer status in the governance of the mechanism.

Deforestation is a factor in the global-warming equation partly because of the carbon gases released from trees that are burned after clearance. Water vapour and methane rise from cleared land that is given over to irrigated crops and cattle rearing.

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Johor floods: More than 11,000 flood evacuees

Nelson Benjamin, The Star 11 Dec 07;

JOHOR BARU: The number of people fleeing the floods in Johor has reached 11,246.

According to figures from the state police flood operations room, there were 2,760 families housed in 68 flood relief centres state-wide at of 10am this morning.

Segamat is the worst hit district with 7,150 victims in 70 centres, followed by Johor Baru with 3,537 victims in nine centres and Kluang with 397 victims in four centres.

Mersing has 113 victims in one centre, followed by Batu Pahat with 23 victims in two centres, while Kota Tinggi and Muar each have 21 victims and 10 victims respectively in one centre.

The overnight downpour in most parts of the state also caused the closure of 11 roads, mainly in Segamat.

Thousands more flee rising floods in Malaysia
Straits Times 12 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR - FLOODS in three Malaysian states have worsened, with the number of evacuees increasing in Johor, Pahang and Kelantan as of last evening.

The death toll from flooding rose to nine on Monday after a teen drowned in Kelantan as he was swimming in a canal, local papers reported.

More relief centres were opened up to deal with the increased number of evacuees as the Meteorology Department issued red alerts for more rain in parts of the three states.

The number of people fleeing the floods in Johor rose to 12,629 from 10,370 yesterday morning. A total of 78 relief centres have been opened up in Johor.

Segamat was the worst-hit district, with 8,381 victims in 57 centres. Seven main roads in Segamat were closed completely to traffic, while five more were open only to heavy vehicles.

In Pahang, three more districts were inundated, raising the number of flood victims to 4,725 yesterday evening from 1,367 the night before.

The number of flood victims in Kelantan rose to 1,312 yesterday evening from 1,222 in the morning due to heavy rain in Kuala Krai and Pasir Mas.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK, BERNAMA

Malaysian flood death toll rises, thousands more evacuated
Channel NewsAsia 11 Dec 07;

KUALA LUMPUR - The death toll from widespread floods in Malaysia has risen to six and the number of people evacuated to relief centres increased sharply as heavy rains continued to fall, officials and reports said Tuesday.

A 15-year-old boy is thought to have drowned after he went swimming in a canal in north eastern Kelantan state, the official Bernama news agency reported.

Bernama on Sunday had reported five dead and three missing in the floods, which have hit three states in the peninsula.

More than 15,000 people in total are now housed in relief centres, compared with about 10,800 on Monday, Bernama said Tuesday.

As well as Kelantan, the floods have also hit southern Johor state and Pahang state in the east.

The meteorological department warned that the torrential downpours will continue until the end of the week as the flood alert for Johor and Pahang remained at the highest level of red after it was raised the previous day.

"During the monsoon season, it's normal to have heavy rains. It will remain the same until the end of the week," deputy science minister Kong Cho Ha told AFP.

A year ago, floods in Johor left more than 110,000 people displaced in a disaster that caused at least 1.5 billion ringgit (452.8 million dollars) in damages. -AFP/vm

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Shell seeks to make diesel fuel from seaweed

Tom Bergin, Reuters 11 Dec 07;

LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell is to fund a project that aims to produce transport fuel from algae, as biofuel production from palm oil and crops are increasingly criticized for causing deforestation and higher food prices.

Oil major Shell said on Tuesday it would build a pilot facility in Hawaii to grow marine algae from which it would extract vegetable oil that would be converted into a form of diesel for use in trucks and cars.

The Anglo-Dutch company said the research plant, which is being built with Hawaii-headquartered HR Biopetroleum Inc, would only use non-genetically modified algae.

Climate change and oil prices that almost reached $100 per barrel are driving strong interest in biofuels.

Scientists are excited about algae as a feedstock because they overcome the key shortcomings associated with the current generation of biofuels such as ethanol.

Palm oil or sugar cane plantations, cornfields and other feedstocks require land that would otherwise be used for food crops or left as forest.

However, algae grow rapidly, at any time of year, are rich in vegetable oil and can be cultivated in waste or sea water.

Shell has said it wants to develop one significant business in renewable energy, and in addition to advanced biofuels, it is also researching solar and wind power.

Although the company continues to make almost all its multi-billion dollar profits from producing and refining oil and gas, high oil prices in recent years have improved the economics of alternative fuels, which generally remain more expensive than hydrocarbons.

Shell is also motivated by government mandates in the United States and Europe that will require a small percentage of road fuels to be derived from renewable sources in coming years.

Environmentalists are cynical about such investments by oil companies, describing them as a fig leaf aimed more at greening a company's image than solving the world's energy needs in a ecologically responsible manner.

Despite the attractions of algae as a feedstock, no one has yet proven it as an economic proposition, although a number of other companies including private-equity-backed Massachusetts-based GreenFuel Technologies Corp. are also conducting research.

In the late 1980s the U.S. government-funded National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researched the use of algae to produce biodiesel.

However in the mid 1990s, the Department of Energy cut funding to the research, choosing to focus resources on researching production of ethanol, which is produced from sugars in crops such as corn or cane.

In October, NREL said it was to collaborate with U.S. major oil company Chevron on research into producing road fuel from algae.

(Editing by Quentin Bryar)

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