Elimination of food waste could lift 1bn out of hunger, say campaigners

Excessive consumption in rich countries 'takes food out of mouths of poor' by inflating food prices on global market

Adam Vaughan, guardian.co.uk 8 Sep 09;

Eliminating the millions of tonnes of food thrown away annually in the US and UK could lift more than a billion people out of hunger worldwide, experts claim.

Government officials, food experts and representatives of the retail trade brought together by the Food Ethics Council argue that excessive consumption of food in rich countries inflates food prices in the developing world.

Buying food, which is then often wasted, reduces overall supply and pushes up the price of food, making grain less affordable for poor and undernourished people in other parts of the world.

Food waste also costs UK consumers £10.2bn a year and when production, transportation and storage are factored in, it is responsible for 5% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions.

Tristram Stuart, author of a new book on food waste and a contributor to a special food waste issue of the Food Ethics Council's magazine, said: "There are nearly a billion malnourished people in the world, but all of them could be lifted out of hunger with less than a quarter of the food wasted in Europe and North America. In a globalised food system, where we are all buying food in the same international market place, that means we're taking food out of the mouths of the poor."

Stuart calculated that the hunger of 1.5bn people could be alleviated by eradicating the food wasted by British consumers and American retailers, food services and householders, including the arable crops such as wheat, maize and soy to produce the wasted meat and dairy products. He added that the production of wasted food also squanders resources, and said that the irrigation water used by farmers to grow wasted food would be enough for the equivalent domestic water needs of 9bn people.

Food waste costs every household in the UK between £250 and £400 a year, figures that are likely to be updated this autumn when the government's waste agency WRAP publishes new statistics. Producing and distributing the 6.7m tonnes of edible food that goes uneaten and into waste in the UK also accounts for 18m tonnes of CO2.

But Tom MacMillan, executive director of the Food Ethics Council, warned that reducing food waste alone would not be enough to alleviate hunger, because efficiency gains in natural resources are routinely cancelled out by growth in consumption. "Food waste is harmful and unfair, and it is essential to stop food going into landfill. But the irony is that consumption growth and persistent inequalities look set to undo the good that cutting food waste does in reducing our overall use of natural resources and improving food security," he said.

MacMillan explained that the land and resources freed up by cutting food waste would likely be put to producing and consuming other things, such as growing more resource-intensive and expensive foods, bio-energy or textile crops. "Now is the moment all parties should be searching out ways to define prosperity that get away from runaway consumption. Until they succeed, chucking out less food won't make our lifestyles more sustainable," he said.

In addition to cutting down on waste, experts suggested food waste that does end up in bins could be dealt with in more environmentally friendly ways.

Paul Bettison, chair of the Local Government Association environment board, wrote: "Many councils are now giving residents a separate bin for their food waste. Leftovers are being turned into fertiliser, or gas to generate electricity. In some areas, in-vessel composting and anaerobic digestion are playing a key role in cutting council spending on landfill tax and reducing methane emissions."

But there are obstacles to generating energy and producing compost from food waste, he warned. "Lack of infrastructure is holding back the drive to make getting rid of food waste cheaper and greener. Councils do not want to collect leftovers without somewhere to send them, but nobody wants to build the places to send food waste until it is being collected."

Writing in the magazine, the retail industry defended sell-by and use-by dates, which were criticised as confusing by environment secretary Hilary Benn in June. Andrew Opie, director of food and consumer policy at the British Retail Consortium, wrote: "Certainly, some customers aren't clear about what the different dates mean but getting rid of them won't reduce food waste. Customer education will."

Last month, the government also criticised supermarket "bogof" offers (buy one get one free) that encourage shoppers to buy food they don't need and which ends up unused in bins, adding to the UK's food waste mountain.

The renewed push for action on food waste comes comes as a National Zero Waste Week by online campaigners and bloggers gets under way, encouraging individuals to go one day without putting anything in their bins.
Food waste tips from the web

• Don't fall for "three for two" deals on fresh food unless you'll definitely use them - Susan Smillie, Guardian food blogger

• Plan weekly meals and stick to shopping lists - Susan Smillie

• Keep your fridge at 1-5 degrees to make chilled food last for longer - lovefoodhatewaste.com

• Remove bad apples! One bad apple can spoil the barrel, so separate fruit which is ripening faster than the others - Womens' Institute

• Just chuck your leftover veggies into a stockpot to make a delicious stock for soups - Thomasina Miers, MasterChef winner and food writer

• Use your eyes and nose as a guide and ignore the sell-by date - Guardian user "hrhpod" on the Word of Mouth blog

• Watch your portion sizes and make sure plates are being completely cleared at mealtimes - Annette Richards on lovefoodhatewaste.com

• Make sure vegetables are stored correctly, with root vegetables kept in cool dark locations rather than refrigerators - "leuan" on Word of Mouth

• Leave most vegetables and fruit in the fridge until a day or two before you're going to use them: you could extend their life by a fortnight - lovefoodhatewaste.com

• Make DIY frozen ready meals by freezing excess food, such as mashed potato, into portions - Sarah Beeny

Share your tips for avoiding food waste on our Green Living Blog and you could win a £60 composter

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US firm in China solar mega-deal

BBC News 8 Sep 09;

US energy group First Solar has signed a preliminary deal to build the world's biggest solar power plant in China.

The 10-year project would result in a two gigawatt plant - enough to power three million Chinese homes - at Ordos City in Inner Mongolia.

First Solar will begin constructing a 30 megawatt demonstration project in June next year.

China is expanding its use of solar power as it works towards meeting ambitious renewable energy targets.

First Solar has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese government.

If the project gets the go-ahead, the plant should be completed by 2019.

"We're proud to announce this precedent-setting project. It represents an encouraging step forward to the mass scale deployment of solar power worldwide to mitigate climate change concerns," said First Solar boss Mike Ahearn.

The project would operate under a feed-in tariff that would guarantee the price of electricity produced by the plant over the long-term, the company said.

"Discussions with First Solar about building a factory in China demonstrate to investors in China that they can confidently invest in the most advanced technologies available," said Cao Zhichen, vice mayor of the Ordos municipal government.

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World's first floating wind turbine opens in Norway

Yahoo News 8 Sep 09;

OSLO (AFP) – The world's first floating full-scale offshore wind turbine has been inaugurated in the North Sea off the coast of Norway, Norwegian energy giant StatoilHydro said Tuesday.

The turbine known as Hywind, which measures 65 metres (213 feet) tall and weighs 5,300 tonnes, lies some 10 kilometres (seven miles) off the island of Karmoey near the Scandinavian country's southwestern coastline, the company said.

It rests upon a floating stand that is anchored to the seabed by three cables. Water and rocks are placed inside the stand to provide balast.

StatoilHydro plans to test Hywind over the next two years before it looks to set up any more floating wind turbines with international partners.

StatoilHydro sees Japan, South Korea, California, the east coast of the United States and Spain as some of the potential markets to where this technology could be exported.

Hywind can be used in waters from 120 metres to 700 metres deep allowing it to be placed much further away from the shore than static wind turbines already in operation.

StatoilHydro's Anne Stroemmen Lycke told AFP that the floating turbine has "great advantages."

"It is not so easily seen from the coast, it can be placed in areas not used by others," she said.

"We could use such wind turbines in countries where coastal waters are very deep or where there is little space left for land-based turbines," Stroemmen Lycke added.

A total of 400 million kroner (46 million euros, 66 million dollars) has been invested in the 2.3-megawatt floating turbine, making it a far more expensive option than its fixed counterpart.

"Our goal is to bring down the price to the level of fixed wind turbines that are currently installed in waters some 60 metres deep," Stroemmen Lycke said.

France's Technip and Germany's Siemens both worked with the Norwegian energy giant on the Hywind project.

It is set to start producing electricity in the next few weeks, StatoilHydro said.

Floating challenge for offshore wind turbine
Jorn Madslien, BBC News 8 Sep 09;

Heading offshore in the Rygercruise catamaran, it is a journey into uncharted territory.

Not in terms of sea charts - the Norwegian energy giant StatoilHydro knows these waters well, having spent the past 30 years drilling for oil and gas here - but in terms of technology.

Statoil has constructed the world's first full-scale floating wind turbine a couple of hours by catamaran from the oil town Stavanger, in the hope that one day vast wind farms could be constructed far offshore in water depths of up to 700m.

Standing firm as the catamaran rolls in the waves, Sjur Bratland is optimistic with regards to the technology's potential.

Yet, having spent the past two years listening to a whispering crowd of nay-sayers, he wants proof. He wants to see for himself that the turbine can cope with winter storms that whip the North Sea into a froth and winds that rip roofs off houses.

And he wants to be sure that the supply industries can deliver the right turbines, supply ships and so on.

Fortunately, Mr Bratland is in charge of the Hywind project, and he has been given some 400m Norwegian kroner ($66m; 35m) to play with by Statoil, with the government injecting a further 59m kroner.

Trouble shooting

As the turbine slowly emerges through the mist, the first impression is how stable it is.

As the catamaran moves closer, the turbine stands as firm as if it was pinned to the seabed, the way conventional offshore turbines are, its 65m tubular carbon steel tower and slowly rotating 80m diameter blades, together stretching 100m above the sea.

The most interesting aspects of the turbine can be found in the depths of the sea, where a 100m long steel cylinder weighing 3,000 tonnes thanks to its ballast of water and rocks is anchored to the sea-bed with mooring lines that can hold the structure at depths of up to 700m.

So-called slack anchors are used, allowing the structure to move with the seas. In fact, in spite of its apparent sturdiness, the 138 tonne turbine is constantly moving.

Everything below the water line is "known technology from the oil and gas industry", where StatoilHydro has 30 years of experience from its extensive offshore operations around the world, Mr Bratland explains.

"Actually, the really tricky thing is to apply this technology in a completely new setting in a new industry," he says. "That has been a challenge."

Deap seas

The Hywind turbine will be tested over a two-year period, at the end of which Mr Bratland hopes to have found proof that offshore wind farms can be built, and that they are economically viable - perhaps even competitive with conventional offshore wind.

Turbines pinned to the sea-bed are relatively cheap in water depths of up to 25m, when the basic monopole foundation can be used. At greater depths of up to 50m, the tubular turbine towers will need gravity bases and stronger steel structures that push the price up.

Statoil's floating turbine requires the waters to be at least 120m deep, though beyond that the sea is the limit - literally.

"But first, we'll need to look for smarter solutions that make it commercially viable," says Mr Bratland.

Better and cheaper turbines

Above sea level, the offshore structure has been bolted together with a conventional offshore turbine of the sort used for near-shore wind farms that are bolted to the sea-bed.

Ease of entry for maintenance is a seemingly trivial yet major headache for Mr Bratland.

Though the seas are relatively calm, the waves are nevertheless too large for a safe mooring against the base of the structure to enable the BBC team to climb the 17m steel ladders up to the service deck.

At a more fundamental level, turbine technology must be developed specifically for far offshore conditions, he insists.

On land, turbines are getting taller all the time to accommodate ever larger blades, explains Mr Bratland.

For the purposes of floating wind farms, such turbines are not light enough, they are too tall and the rotor blades are too small, according to Mr Bratland's early assessments, made even before the 2.3 megawatt turbine has started delivering electricity through the sea-bed cable that connects it to the Norwegian national grid.

He wants turbine manufacturers to produce lower turbines, to take advantage of winds blowing strongly and steadily close to the surface of the sea. Closer to land, the wind lifts to enter the beaches and climb over the cliffs.

Lower turbines should, together with clever design and material selection, help reduce the turbines' weight, and thus their need for ballast, which in turn should reduce sub-sea costs.

At the same time, Mr Bratland wants the power output of each turbine to be raised to perhaps 6MW, and he wants it all to be cheaper than it is today.

This could be possible as there is tremendous potential for economies of scale, both in terms of mass production, which reduces the cost of each turbine, and in terms of the construction and management of vast wind farms offshore where there are few limits on available acreages.

Moreover, onshore production of floating turbines that are then towed offshore to be anchored in place should prove cheaper than the weather-restricted and costly off-shore construction of sea-bed turbines.

Grid cables transporting the power to shore are neither expensive - in the greater scheme of things - nor technologically complicated to roll out, so this is a minor part of the project, according to Mr Bratland.

"Still, we have some way to go," says Mr Bratland.

"Today's solutions are too costly as the margins are so much slimmer in this area than in the oil and gas industry."

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Venice in danger because of new port

Venice is in danger of crumbling into the sea because of plans to build a major shipping port alongside the fragile floating city, according to British conservationists.

Louise Gray, The Telegraph 7 Sep 09;

The World Heritage site, built on an island in the centre of a lagoon in North East Italy, is visited by millions of tourists every year eager to float down the Grand Canal in a gondolier.

The famous city is already in danger of sinking into the sea because of subsidence and rising sea levels.

However the latest threat to Venice is more about economics.

Italian authorities want to build a major shipping port on the inland side of the lagoon that will allow more cruise ships and massive containers to go past the low lying island.

In a report put to the Italian government, the Venice Port Authority called for a new terminal at Marghera Port to deal with the increase in tourism and trade to the area. The authority also want to spend millions deepening shipping lanes in the lagoon.

Conservationists say it could be a "ecological catastrophe" for Venice as the continual dredging of the lagoon causes sea levels to rise.

In a report launched at the Royal Institute of British Architects, the charity Venice in Peril said waves generated by large ships and the currents that run through the deep passageways play a big part in dragging out the sandbanks that keep seawater out.

The report, written in collaboration with Cambridge University Department of Architecture, said buildings are already being destroyed as seawater gets into the brick work and then damages the infrastructure as the water dries out leaving salt behind. If levels continue to rise many famous buildings like St Mark's Square could crumble altogether.

Nicky Baly of Venice in Peril said rising sea levels are already causing problems for most of the famous buildings in the city.

"The degradation of the lagoon adds to the long term rising sea levels eating into the brickwork of the buildings. Ultimately they will crumble because the structures will be unable to stand," she said.

Venice is one of the busiest tourist sites in the world with more than 16 million visitors every year. In 2005 510 cruise ships up to 16 decks high came into the city, compared to just 200 in 2000.

At the same time the petrochemical industry in the area is dying and the Italian government is eager to promote tourism and trade with emerging markets in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

The Venice Port Authority insisted it was necessary to improve Marghera Port to deal with the increasing flow of tourists and goods.

The authority said city will be safe because of a new £3.7 billion tidal barrier system known as MOSE, expected to be operational by 2014, that will stop flooding.

But Tom Spencer, Director of the Cambridge University Coastal Research Department, said the barrier will only stop tidal floods and do little to prevent sea level rise because of continual dredging.

“It is difficult to see how the implementation of the MOSE system legitimises the deepening of the navigation channels in the Venice lagoon at the present time. MOSE is an extreme flood control system but the problems in the lagoon are related to the long term evolutionary tendency," he said.

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Cities Trap More Carbon Than Rain Forests, Study Says

Mason Inman, National Geographic News 8 Sep 09;

There may be something more to the phrase "urban jungle."

Compared with tropical rain forests—the densest natural ecosystems—cities store more carbon, acre for acre, in their trees, buildings, and dirt, a "surprising" new study says.

With Earth's temperature rising due to increased emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, scientists are taking a closer look at all the places that naturally store carbon—and how to lock up more.

"Everyone thinks about the tropical forests, but I don't think people consider cities as a way to store carbon," said study leader Galina Churkina of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany.

Although a lot of studies have focused on carbon in forests, grasslands, and other natural ecosystems, looking at cities—which now house half of the world's population—is relatively new, Churkina said.

Intentionally storing carbon in cities could be one approach to counter global warming, she said. (Get global warming fast facts.)

Carbon Cities

Churkina and colleagues pulled together previous evidence looking at various stores of organic carbon—carbon that comes from living things, as well as from such as plants and animals, wood, dirt, and even garbage.

Cities—including both dense metropolises and sprawling suburbs—store about a tenth of all the carbon in U.S. ecosystems, the study estimated.

In total, U.S. cities contain about 20 billion tons of organic carbon, mostly in dirt, according to the new study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Global Change Biology.

Some of this carbon-rich topsoil is in parks and under lawns, but it's also sealed underneath buildings and roads—a remnant of grasslands or forests that were there before development.

Of all this urban carbon, about three billion tons are locked up in human-made materials—two-thirds of it in garbage dumps, and the rest in building materials such as wood.

Tree Power

Many cities have already launched ambitious plans for turning gray to green, such as Los Angeles' Million Trees LA project, which aims to plant a million trees in the Californian city over several years.

Trees take up CO2 and turn it into carbon in their trunks, branches, and leaves, so planting more trees helps counter some of the excess CO2 in the air.

Likewise trees also cool cities and reduce the need for air-conditioning, according to urban forest expert David Nowak of the U.S. Forest Service in Syracuse, New York.

By planting trees around buildings, he added, "you avoid about four times more CO2 emissions than the trees sequester."

Study leader Churkina added that "people could [also] try to store more carbon in gardens by smart management of the land. The carbon storage in lawns is quite amazing."

Tricky Balance

However, figuring out whether more lawns or trees in cities would actually fight global warming "can be tricky," said earth scientist Diane Pataki of the University of California, in Irvine.

"Managing urban soils to store more carbon can use energy, and those fossil fuel emissions have to be taken into account," said Pataki, who was not involved in the research.

For example, the process of making fertilizer typically burns a lot of natural gas. Later, when the fertilizer breaks down in the soils, it releases nitrous oxide—also known as N2O, or laughing gas.

Since N2O is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, fertilizer can offset some or all of the carbon gain, Pataki added.

Study leader Churkina agreed. "You have to follow the whole life cycle of things, and cannot just think of carbon storage."

Waste to Energy

Building wood houses instead of using concrete could also help, said Leif Gustavsson, an expert on sustainable technologies at the Mid Sweden University in Õstersund.

However, the main benefit comes from better use of building waste, not the carbon stored in the structures, said Gustavsson, who was not involved in the new research.

Of the wood used in building homes in Sweden, his research found, only about 20 percent goes into the building, and 80 percent is waste.

"We should use all of that waste to replace fossil fuels," he said, burning it instead of coal, oil, or natural gas to generate electricity or heat.

Wood-frame houses typically need less energy for heating and cooling than concrete buildings, avoiding more fossil fuel use, Gustavsson added.

Bricks and concrete also require a lot of energy to create, whereas harvesting sustainably grown wood uses much less energy—another carbon savings.

Overall "it's a good thing if you can increase the carbon stored in society," he said.

"Everything makes a small difference."

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Manure, HD TVs Among Greenhouse Gas Sources to Watch

John Roach, National Geographic News 8 Sep 09;

In the fight against global warming, most innovations have been targeting the greenhouse gas "supervillain" carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, several "henchmen" gases—some even more potent than CO2—have also been building up in Earth's atmosphere.

For now, none of these gases is as big a worry as CO2, due to its higher levels in the atmosphere. But if left unchecked, experts warn, these other compounds could create major new climate change battlefronts.

"The truth is we don't really have room for [these gases] to grow, in terms of the state that we are in with climate change," said Jay Gulledge, a senior scientist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia.

"It is happening more rapidly than [it was] projected to happen."

Nitrous Oxide, aka "The Joker"

Most recently scientists warned that nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, already accounts for roughly 6 percent of the gases that fuel human-caused climate change.

The main culprit is animal manure, which releases N2O into the atmosphere, according to a new study by Eric Davidson, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Nitrous oxide emissions are first produced when fertilizer is added to the soil to grow animal feed. Animals then concentrate nitrogen inside their feces and urine, and soil microbes interact with the released waste to create N2O.

Burning fossil fuels, manufacturing nylon, and other industrial activities also emit the greenhouse gas, Davidson reported last week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

"If we just go on with business as usual with increasing food production, particularly increasing meat production, nitrous oxide will become an even bigger problem," Davidson said.

Manure management should therefore be part of future plans to combat climate change, the scientist concludes, and the Pew Center's Gulledge agreed.

One idea would be to set up a cap-and-trade scheme for farmers to encourage them to reduce their N2O emissions, Gulledge said. This would allow farmers who find ways to pollute less to sell their credits to, for example, carbon dioxide emitters.

"The caveat is we don't have a system for verifying those reductions," Gulledge said.

Methane, aka "Clayface"

In addition to laughing gas, scientists have their eyes on methane, the second largest contributor to climate change.

Methane accounts for about 15 percent of the warming that has occurred in the past century, Gulledge noted, and is 20 to 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

"There is a potential for large amounts of methane to be emitted from natural systems as they warm," he noted.

For example, scientists are concerned that huge deposits of methane locked up in underwater permafrost around Earth's Poles could be released as oceans soak up heat and the frozen soil starts to melt.

And some evidence suggests methane is already being "belched" into the atmosphere as aboveground Arctic soils thaw.

"Right now we still control the composition of the atmosphere by our human activities," Gulledge said.

"If we pass a point where there's large scale thawing of these northern soils … we will no longer be able to control that."

Synthetic Refrigerants, aka "Mr. Freeze"

The other worrisome greenhouse goons are synthetic gases used as refrigerants, in heavy industry, and in consumer electronics.

Many are replacements for chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were phased out from sources such as refrigerators and air conditioners in the 1990s to prevent destruction of the Earth's ozone layer.

"The new replacements don't destroy ozone, but they are still greenhouse gases," Gulledge said.

These include hydrofluorocarbons, which come standard in today's air conditioners and refrigerators, and perfluorocarbons, which are used in the manufacture of semiconductors.

Sulfur hexafluoride is widely used in the electrical-utility industry to insulate high voltage equipment. The compound is 22,000 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a hundred-year period.

Nitrogen trifluoride is used to make consumer electronics such as high-definition televisions, and it's about 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

"Anytime a building is built or a computer is made, these kinds of chemicals are being used," Gulledge said. "So they are increasing in the atmosphere."

For now, though, concentrations of synthetic gases are only about a millionth that of carbon dioxide and thus have little effect on global climate, Gulledge said.

And unlike carbon dioxide, these gases should be easy to reduce, he added.

"Our economy is based on fossil fuels, and that makes CO2 much harder to manage," Gulledge said.

"The other things [are] currently a very small part of the overall warming effect, and we can use our modern innovation technology process to figure out ways to phase them out."

Read more!

Global climate deal only 50:50 chance: Flannery

James Thornhill, Reuters 8 Sep 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The chances of a global agreement to fight climate change at U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December are only 50:50, said Australia's leading environmentalist, who warned of "full climactic destabilization" without a pact.

Tim Flannery, chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council which fosters collaboration between international business and science to fight climate change, said without action in Copenhagen the world faced "runaway" climate change.

"The changes in the climate system are occurring at a very fast rate indeed and our attempts to catch up in terms of our social and economic policy are just not fast enough," Flannery told Reuters Television in an interview on Tuesday.

"I'm deeply concerned that in the near future we're facing a runaway situation," said Flannery, as part of Reuters Climate Change and Alternative Energy Summit.

The U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen aim to reach agreement on a post-Kyoto pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming.

Cooperation between the United States and China, the world's two biggest polluters, is considered essential for the world to reduce heat-trapping gas emissions.

China's rapid growth has pushed it into first place as the world's leading source of carbon dioxide emissions. But the United States, the number two emitter, still has spewed the most heat-trapping gases into the air over time.

Their greenhouse gas emissions are driven by a huge appetite for fossil fuels.

But both Washington and Beijing have in recent months vowed to reduce emissions, prompting environmentalists like Flannery to become more hopeful of a global climate pact being reached.

HOPE

"I'm more optimistic than I have been for a number of years, for a number of reasons," Flannery explained.

"The first is that (U.S.) President Obama has taken an interest in this issue, and also the Chinese have shown real leadership, so that gives us hope," he said.

The House of Representatives has approved legislation that would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. It is unclear whether the U.S. Senate will pass similar legislation before Copenhagen.

In China's current five-year plan, the government aims to cut energy consumption per unit of GDP by about 20 percent by 2010 compared to 2005 levels, saving more than 1.5 billion tons of CO2 from being emitted.

The effort has fallen behind schedule, although cuts are speeding up.

Beijing is also demanding that developed countries cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and for rich nations to commit between 0.5 and 1.0 percent of their GDP to help developing countries address climate change.

"The obstacles in our path are still absolutely immense and I must admit our chances are still somewhere around 50:50 of us reaching an agreement," said Flannery.

The worst-case scenario would be if the Copenhagen climate talks collapsed due to national self-interest, he said.

"If we have a catastrophic failure to reach an agreement, in other words we have people walking away from the table, we will face the most dire consequences," said Flannery.

"Some of those will be almost immediate because the level of disillusionment among people will be great, but then over the coming decade we will have to wait and watch as the situation deteriorates without resort to a solution," he said.

"That will be hugely corrosive and at the end of that process there will be full climactic destabilization."

(Editing by Michael Perry)

Climate deal is 'in the balance'
Richard Black, BBC News 8 Sep 09;

Prospects for reaching a new global deal on climate change are "in the balance", according to UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

There is a "real chance" that December's UN summit in Copenhagen will not reach agreement, he said.

Mr Miliband was briefing reporters prior to a whirlwind tour of European capitals aimed at stepping up EU diplomacy on the Copenhagen process.

The EU could be a "force multiplier" on the issue, he said.

In the same news conference, Mr Miliband's younger brother Ed - the UK Energy and Climate Secretary - said the Copenhagen process was too important to be a matter for politicians only.

On a recent visit to Bangladesh, he related, he had seen how "two million people living on sandbanks are already living with the effect of climate change, with more flooding than usual".

Whether Copenhagen produced money to help countries such as Bangladesh adapt to climate impacts would, he said, be "a big determinant of their survival".

Atonement

Preparations for a new UN climate treaty to supplant the Kyoto Protocol began nearly two years ago, but in recent months it has become clear that wide divisions remain between various blocs.

Developing countries say that as the industrialised west grew rich through intensive fossil fuel use, emitting carbon dioxide in the process, western countries bear historical responsibility for climate change and must take the lead in cutting emissions.

So far, the scale of cuts pledged by western leaders has not met the expectations of the developing world.

Neither have the sums of money coming forward to help poorest nations protect their societies and economies against climate impacts.

This means in turn that developing countries have been unwilling to pledge measures to restrain the growth in their own emissions.

"The deal that the world needs in Copenhagen is in the balance," observed David Miliband.

The foreign secretary described the news that Japan's incoming government would triple the size of its emission cut pledge as "very significant".

The UK government sees itself as a leading player in international climate diplomacy. In June, Prime Minister Gordon Brown proposed setting up a fund to raise and disburse $100bn (£60bn) annually for climate protection and adaptation.

David Miliband's tour of EU capitals is aimed at increasing and co-ordinating diplomatic efforts towards securing a Copenhagen deal, including promoting the adaptation fund.

Much of the negotiating, he said, would have to be done in the months leading up to the UN summit; and the EU, because of the influence it had in various countries, could be an effective leader in that.

Acceleration lane

An agreement with Mr Miliband's French and Swedish counterparts, Bernard Kouchner and Carl Bildt, means that diplomatic missions of the three countries will step up lobbying across the world in the coming weeks - a period that also sees a special climate change event for heads of government at the UN in New York, and a key meeting of the G20 in Pittsburgh that may come up with new initiatives on funding.

If none of this worked well enough, the foreign secretary conceded: "There is a real danger that the talks scheduled for December will not reach an agreement".

This is the strongest admission yet from a senior UK minister that a deal is not necessarily in the bag; and with only three months left until the summit, environmental organisations agreed that the pace and intensity of diplomacy needed to be stepped up.

"[David] Miliband's acknowledgement that the EU must harness political will right now, in order to make a sustainable future a possibility, is very welcome," said David Norman, head of campaigns at WWF UK.

"Copenhagen is fast approaching, and high level discussions over the next few weeks will determine whether we can achieve a decent global deal in December or if we will shackle ourselves to a future of runaway climate change."

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 8 Sep 09

Project Mending Sky: YOU
from AsiaIsGreen

21-23 Oct (Wed-Fri): ASEAN Conference on Biodiversity 2009
Registration closes 18 Sep; only 30 places allocated for Singapore participants, from wild shores of singapore

The Perfect St Andrew's Cross Web
from Life's Indulgences

What a hairy-looking caterpillar!
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Death in small doses
from The annotated budak and Pray don't and What's the point? and Beelittled

A sparrowhawk’s kill
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Monitor Lizard
from Manta Blog

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Cukup Rudiyanto: Of mangroves and monkeys

Toto Dartoyo, The Jakarta Post 8 Aug 09;

Back in the 1980s, thousands of monkeys were living in the mangrove forests in Pabean Ilir village in the West Java town of Indramayu, where Cukup Rudiyanto lives.

Now the monkeys have disappeared, and no one knows where they’ve gone. There’s not even one left. The thousands of hectares of mangrove forest where they lived were turned into fishponds.

But for Cukup, as his neighbors call him, it wasn’t just his longing to see the monkeys that inspired him to replant hundreds of hectares of mangrove trees at the edge of the beach in the Pasekan and Cantigi subdistricts in the north of Java.

Rather, it was a message from his father that inspired him: His father once said that Indonesia would never be independent if the nation didn’t have forests. All the guerrilla fighters in the past who opposed the colonizers used the forests to move about unseen.

“So guard the forests”: That was the father’s advice to the young Cukup.

Now a couple of weeks shy of his 33rd birthday and a father himself, Cukup still remembers that message — a message that led to him winning a Kalpataru award as an Environment Pioneer. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presented him with the award on National Environment Day in 2008.

The care required, and the awareness needed, to repair the damaged mangrove forests and the eroded beach that stretches for 60 kilometers along the two subdistricts grew more demanding as he grew older.

“After I became an adult I found the courage to remind the community not to cut down the mangrove forests along the edge of the beach,” Cukup told The Jakarta

Post recently. “Because erosion can’t be prevented when there are no mangroves.”

But Cukup’s attitude only had the effect of angering the community in the village, who did not care about Cukup’s warning.

They argued that, by felling the mangrove forests and turning the area into fishponds to grow shrimp, their actions would reduce unemployment and poverty.

The community went ahead with felling the mangroves; Cukup could do nothing to stop them. He even received death threats, which he admitted was frightening.

Consequently, before long, the community owned fishponds, which did indeed, as they had expected, have financial benefits.

But that didn’t last long.

Cukup’s fears became reality. Slowly but surely, erosion swept away their fishponds. As far as the eye could see, all that remained were the beach and pools of seawater.

Cukup got to work. With the help of his relatives, he raised seedlings and replanted the area. Slowly, the area that had once held fishponds turned green. The twitter of the beach birds began to be heard again.

“Only the monkeys haven’t been seen,” said Cukup.

As members of the community came to realize what had happened, they finally began to respect his views. Once the mangrove forests had regrown, Cukup allowed the community to reopen the remaining fishponds.

“Once they became aware of the situation it was easy for me to approach the community,” he said.

“Now we’re busy replanting new mangrove forests, apart from the 600 hectares which was already there.”

The efforts to reclaim the beach area and repair the damage finally attracted the concern of a Japanese NGO called OISCA (Organization for Industrial, Spiritual and Cultural Advancement). This is non-profit organization aims to build industry, encourage the work ethic and reflect the culture of the community in the nation.

“I felt that we were being helped by this NGO,” he said. “OISCA appointed me as the mangrove coordinator for the West Java region.”

The success of Cukup, who studied law at Wiralodra University, in being awarded a Kalpataru award, and his involvement with an international organization, drew positive interest from neighboring countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.

“They used to come here to do comparison studies,” said Cukup with pride.

But any pride he might feel has been eclipsed by worry, because of an industrial incident where raw oil leaked in the area of Balongan Indramayu, killing 200 hectares of year-old mangrove trees. This event has largely passed unnoticed by the local government and the management of state oil company Pertamina.

“If no serious attention is paid to this leak, I fear that the aid we have been getting from OISCA will be stopped,” Cukup said.

Despite these concerns, Cukup plans to keep working to green his area.

“I am so determined to do it and I hope that I can help a little to reduce global warming,” he said.

Now, apart from planting mangroves to preserve the environment, Cukup is trying to increase the local economy by inviting his supporters to plant trees that have the potential to be productive.

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Changi motorsports hub bidders reveal proposals

938LIVE Channel NewsAsia 7 Sep 09;

SINGAPORE: The three groups bidding to design, build and manage the Changi Motorsports Hub made their presentations to the media on Monday.

Singapore Agro Agricultural or SAA, a consortium led by Turf City Management, was the first to unveil its proposal. Among its unique selling points is the fact that it has secured the exclusive rights to stage the annual MotoGP series, which is motorcycling's equivalent to Formula One racing.

Calling the facility the Changi International Speedway or CIS, it will comprise a 4.4-kilometre race track that includes 16 turns. There will also be an 8,000-seater covered grandstand overlooking the ocean, plus a full view of the entire race track.

Adjacent to it is the Motorsports Centre of Excellence, which can also accommodate another 4,000 on a temporary basis. Together with a third temporary grandstand and walkabout tickets, the CIS can accommodate up to 60,000 people.

The SAA bid also includes entertainment, shopping, dining and auto workshop facilities which will be made available to the public.

The second consortium is Sports Services, which is owned by the Haw Par Group. Its S$200m proposal includes a 4.2-kilometre track that is designed by world renowned Herman Tilke. He had designed world-class race tracks in Sepang, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi.

Going with the policy of "Motorsports for the Masses", this tender bid also sees the Motorsports Hub being used for carnivals, marathons and corporate events.

The Sports Services Group is confident of bringing Japan's Super GT series and Australia's Super V8 series to thrill fans. Several new local championships will be organised to nurture and groom Singapore drivers.

A prominent feature of the bid sees the establishment of a motorsports country club, which will cater to 3,000 members.

Among the three bidders, SG Changi is the only one that is proposing a track below 4 kilometres long. But Mr Thia Yoke Fan, one of four shareholders of the consortium, said it would result in a faster track.

The 3.7-kilometre long circuit will have a seating capacity of 30,000, including a permanent solar-roof grandstand to accommodate 8,000 seats. Costing about S$280m, it will include a motorsports museum.

The consortium said it has been given "Letters of Interests" from the popular Japan Super GT Series, Australia's V8 Supercars and FIA GT to race on the track should they win the bid.

Apart form Mr Thia, the other shareholders of the company are Singaporean Eddie Koh and former Japan GT driver Genji Hashimoto and Fuminori Murhashi.

- 938LIVE/ir

Motorsports hub: 3 groups unveil plans
The winner which will develop Changi site to be known early next year
Leonard Lim, Straits Times 8 Sep 09;

SLEEPY Changi could soon stage motorcycling's equivalent of Formula One, have a race driving academy whose graduates include top F1 drivers, or be transformed into a family-friendly shopping and entertainment destination.

These tantalising features and more were dangled by the three groups bidding to develop the Changi Motorsports Hub, a facility crucial for Singapore to be an international motorsports destination, in separate presentations to the media yesterday.

The hub will be located on a 41ha site near Changi Airport and is expected to cost between $200 million and $300 million. It will be completed in late 2011.

Based on tender specifications, it will have a track that can host any race except F1, grandstands for at least 8,000 spectators, and car industry-related amenities.

Singapore Agro Agriculture's (SAA) trump card is that it has clinched a deal to stage MotoGP at night - a coup which would see Singapore hosting the top tiers of both motorcycling and motor-racing under the stars.

'That's the jewel in our crown,' said chief operating officer Jason Wong of SAA Holdings, the company behind food-and-retail hub Turf City.

Sports Services, backed by public-listed leisure and health-care products company Haw Par Corporation, emphasised its strong financial position.

This is a possible edge given the trouble in securing loans which is preventing another mega project, the $1.87billion Kallang Sports Hub, from getting started.

Haw Par executive director Chng Hwee Hong said: 'We have a strong balance sheet and a reputation to uphold. Financing is not a main concern, what matters is the project's long-term sustainability.'

Subscription fees from a 3,000-member MotorSports Country Club will help defray the hub's capital and operating costs. Members will have free use of the 4.2km track - good enough to be an F1-test venue - and the right to rent bonded garage space.

The internationally-renowned and United States-based Jim Russell driving academy - graduates include current F1 championship leader Jenson Button - will be another draw.

Track designer Hermann Tilke, who drew up the Marina Bay F1 circuit, also told the Sports Services consortium recently that MotoGP promoters were keen for a tie-up if it won the bid.

SG Changi, fronted by Jurong Kart World, is banking on facilities that will provide entertainment for a wider crowd than just racing enthusiasts.

'Most race tracks are a men-only venue but we want to sell ourselves as a family and tourist destination,' said Mr Norman Simon, managing director of norman2, the firm which is marketing the bid.

Video arcades, a 120-room three-star hotel, a museum and beach activities are part of its proposal.

Five criteria will be used in evaluating bids: Ability to position the hub as the preferred venue for international motorsports events (40 per cent); contribution towards developing a centre of excellence for motorsports training and education (20 per cent); financial and business sustainability (20 per cent); contribution towards developing the local motorsports ecosystem (10 per cent), and attractiveness of commercial mix and events (10 per cent).

The winner will be announced in the first quarter of next year.

Changi Motorsports Hub proposals roll in
All three bidders have clearly different visions, despite putting in similar elements
Nisha Ramchandani, Business Times 8 Sep 09;

(SINGAPORE) Three visions of one dream were on display yesterday when parties vying to build and operate Changi Motorsports Hub (CMH) unveiled their proposals.

Guidelines issued by the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) for the 41 hectare site include a track of at least 3.5 km to be certified Grade 2 by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and Grade 1 by the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM).

All three bidders have incorporated elements such as retail, F&B, training academy, Go-Kart track and capacity for at least 30,000 spectators in their bids - but their visions clearly differ.

Singapore Agro Agricultural (SAA)'s 4.37km track will not only meet the FIA-2 and FIM-1 standards but has been designed so it could be extended for Formula One racing should the opportunity arise, SAA said.

The company, whose shareholder Tan Chee Beng is a director of Turf City Management, has also landed an agreement to bring in the hugely popular MotoGP, Formula Ford, Clio Cup and Asia GT races.

SAA reckons that cost of developing its Changi International Speedway at CMH will be around $250-$300 million, to be financed by a mix of debt and investment. It expects to recoup the investment over five years.

Haw Par Corp's wholly owned subsidiary Sports Services proposes to develop a 3,000-member motorsports country club to offset the hefty project cost of CMH - 'in excess of $200 million' - and operating costs. Details of club fees and subscription charges are still to be ironed out.

Sports Services also plans for a Customs-bonded zone with a 563-car garage, where enthusiasts can keep supercars without having to pay massive duty.

For instance, a duty free Ferrari 430F1 Spider has an OMV of $210,000 - plus roughly $255,000 in duty. However, the duty-free car would have to remain within the zone.

Sports Services' plan for a 4.2km track is expected to fulfil FIM-1 certification as well as FIA-1T, which means F1 cars could be tested.

So far, it has signed letters of intent with Australia's V8Supercars and Super GT out of Japan to bring those races here. Other potential events include Asian Superbike, Formula Drift and Race Masters Championship.

Meanwhile, SG Changi, a consortium that includes Kart World owner Thia Yoke Kian, has plans for a 3.7km track in line with FIA-2 requirements. But citing safety issues, it says that its track would not meet the FIM-1 grade at present.

Other SG Changi directors include former Japan GT driver Genji Hashimoto and Singaporean Eddie Koh.

SG Changi has secured letters of interest for international events such as FIA-GT, Super GT, Formula Nippon and Nippon Formula 3, as well as regional series such as Motorsports Asia.

Its $280 million vision for the CMH will be bankrolled largely by foreign investor Auto Trading Luft Japan. The plan includes an R&D facility, motorsports museum and a 120-room 3-4 star hotel.

The winning bidder, which will operate the track for 30 years, will be selected by the first quarter of next year.

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More investments in rice research needed to avoid panic over rice shortage

Gladys Ow, Channel NewsAsia 7 Sep 09;

SINGAPORE: More investments in rice research is needed to ensure adequate rice supply in the long term and avoid last year's panic over rice shortages.

Experts said Singapore is well-positioned to facilitate research and development on rice production.

Early last year, a global rice shortage sent consumers scrambling to stock up on the grain. That sent prices soaring to record highs which affected rice-consuming Asian economies like Singapore.

Prices peaked at around US$1,000 per ton in April 2008, twice the price seven months earlier. To make matters worse, major rice-growing countries like Vietnam and India imposed export restrictions to protect their domestic consumers.

That is a situation governments and consumers all over the world want to prevent.

Rice accounts for more than 40 per cent of the calorie consumption of most Asians. So keeping the price of rice affordable, especially for the poor, is crucial.

In addition, food security in the region is a growing challenge. There will be one billion more mouths to feeds in Asia by 2030.

The Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) said scientific research is key to ensure food security. It is collaborating with a biotech company, Syngenta, to help farmers increase their rice yield using technology.

Both parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Singapore on Monday. They said Singapore, with its strong research and educational capabilities, can contribute to rice research efforts.

Peter Pickering, region head, Seeds, Syngenta Asia Pacific, said: "Creating more crop with less input is really what we are about. The challenges are to grow higher yields on less land, less water, less fertilisation. Those are the kinds of challenges that everyday rice farmers in the region face.

The Scientific Know-how Exchange Programme (SKEP) is also established to study the genetic composition of rice plants, validate genetic markers of rice plants, remove constraints to production, promote better agricultural practices like water-saving irrigation techniques and build scientific capability by funding learning of young researchers joining the industry.

Dr Robert Zeigler, director general, International Rice Research Institute, said: "Unfortunately, because of urbanisation and competing uses of land, we are going to have less land, less water, less labour that can go into rice production.

"So our technology for rice production has got to be more sophisticated and that's going to require long-term efforts by governments and the private sector. Productivity is simply not keeping up with demand.

"The drop-away from the peaks of last year is a subsiding of the panic, but the structural problems that have been pushing rice prices up are still there. And so we've got to make investments, to make sure that we don't find ourselves in the situation again."

Experts said climate change will also continue to affect rice production as severe tropical storms and droughts can destroy crops and further tighten rice supplies. But they believe the long-term prospect of Asia achieving self-sufficiency in rice is reasonably good. - CNA/vm

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Singapore getting more energy efficient

Less electricity used last year to generate each dollar of GDP
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 8 Sep 09;

THE Singapore economy became more energy efficient last year, squeezing more value from every dollar spent on electricity, even as it cost more.

In other words, it took less electricity to generate every dollar of the gross domestic product (GDP) last year - 13 percentage points less than in 1999.

It is significant that the country's energy efficiency went up in a year of spiralling fuel prices. Fuel costs, which make up half the cost of generating electricity here, have risen by 418 per cent since 1999, noted Mr Benjamin Tang, a senior economic analyst at the Energy Studies Institute in the National University of Singapore (NUS).

With oil prices hitting almost US$150 per barrel last year, electricity tariffs were raised by 21 per cent last October - the highest one-time hike in eight years.

More than $8.2 billion was spent on electricity last year, double the amount from a decade ago, going by figures from the Energy Market Authority (EMA), which regulates the electricity and gas industry here.

Bigger energy bills notwithstanding, the country's increased electricity efficiency comes partly out of the economy's move away from the machinery-intensive, energy-guzzling manufacturing activities towards service-oriented industries such as finance and health care. These knowledge- and skills-based sectors require less inputs of energy to generate income, said Professor Ang Beng Wah of the department of industrial and systems engineering at NUS.

Strides made in the technology of power generation and the more productive use of energy in other sectors are also factors, he added.

With rising affluence and economic growth, household electricity consumption peaked at 6,652 gigawatt-hours last year, an increase of 18 per cent from 1995, noted Mr Joseph Hui, director-general of the environmental protection division of the National Environment Agency (NEA). However, domestic consumption as a proportion of overall consumption has fallen - from 19.7 per cent in 2000 to 17.8 per cent of the 37,940.3 kilowatt-hours consumed last year.

Mr Tang said the double-barrelled effect of the downturn and increased electricity tariffs last year made people tighten their belts. The NEA's drive to persuade households to buy energy-efficient appliances and its challenge to them in April last year to practise energy-saving measures could also have had an effect.

An NEA spokesman said household electricity consumption fell 2 per cent between 2007 and last year. The EMA expects electricity demand to grow by between 3 and 4.5 per cent every year in the coming decade as the economy grows.

But Citigroup economist Kit Wei Zheng said if less power is consumed to generate each dollar of GDP, overall costs will be kept in check.

The global demand for energy is expected to jump 45 per cent between now and 2030, fuelled by economies such as China, India and Brazil, said Dr Bindu Lohani, a vice-president at the Asian Development Bank.

'Green' fridges, air-cons easier on the pocket
They may be pricier, but will offer more savings in the long term
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 8 Aug 09;

PAY a few hundred dollars more for an environmentally friendly refrigerator now and reap the savings in the future.

A survey of 11 major electrical retailers here has shown that going green by opting for more energy-efficient air-conditioning and refrigerator systems could shave as much as $4,000 off household utilities bills.

Energy labelling for these home appliances, whose use can make up as much as 50 per cent of an average household's monthly utilities bill, was made mandatory in January last year.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) conducted a 14-month study of 11 local retailers to assess the life-cycle costs of such appliances by adding the purchase price to the expected usage bill incurred over their lifespan.

Mr Ong Seng Eng, director of resource conservation at NEA, said the study was significant in establishing the impact of mandatory labelling on suppliers as well as the benefit derived from energy savings to consumers.

In the case of an air-conditioning unit, the survey found that although the purchase price of a less energy-efficient model could be a few hundred dollars lower, its life-cycle cost could reach $12,000 - in contrast to around $8,000 for the most energy-efficient model.

This calculation is based on the assumption that a home owner's air-con is used up to eight hours a day annually.

Mr Darren Lim, a sales executive at appliance manufacturer Sanyo, said cost is by far the biggest challenge in convincing consumers of the merits of buying energy-efficient products.

'At the initial stage, the consumer pays slightly more, but over the product's lifespan of about eight years, he saves more,' said Mr Lim. The price of Sanyo's most energy-efficient air-con model was $2,999, he said.

Gain City marketing manager Evonne Lee said the company had observed a 22 per cent jump last year in the purchase of more energy-efficient air-cons compared with three years ago.

'The key reason...is the heightened awareness of energy conservation and the cost savings that come with it,' she said.

Mr Joseph Hui, director-general of the environmental protection division at NEA, said there has to be a change in mindset. 'It is really for their own good to save money because in the end, it goes back to them. If electricity prices were to go up in future, even more savings could be reaped,' he said.

Ms Kang Chai Yen, who is in her 30s, switched to a more efficient air-con system last year. The housewife said the change has shaved $30 off her monthly $120 utilities bill.

More cost savings with green household appliances
Cheryl Lim, Channel NewsAsia 7 Sep 09;

SINGAPORE: Investing in green household appliances will result in more cost savings in the long run, according to results of a study conducted by the National Environment Agency (NEA) on energy efficiency.

More Singaporeans are taking steps to make their households energy efficient. According to NEA, 9 per cent more Singaporeans adopted good energy habits last year, compared to 2007.

Household energy consumption accounts for almost 17 per cent of total electricity consumed in Singapore.

But results from NEA's ongoing "10% Energy Challenge" have revealed a 2 per cent drop in the country's total household energy consumption last year, compared to the year before.

Under the Mandatory Energy Labelling Scheme, the more ticks an appliance has, the more energy efficient it is. Currently, the scheme applies to only air-conditioners, clothes dryers and refrigerators because they consume the most electricity.

But NEA said on Monday there are plans to expand it to other appliances like lighting fixtures. Its survey also showed that energy-efficient appliances are cheaper to run.

The average cost of purchasing and operating an energy-efficient air-conditioner for eight hours a day over seven years is around S$7,000. A less energy-efficient model, with the same usage pattern, will cost slightly over S$12,000.

Likewise, the cost of an energy-efficient fridge will amount to less than S$2,500 for 10 years, while a less energy-efficient model will cost more than S$3,000 on the same usage pattern.

Some 11 electrical appliance retailers were polled during the 14-month energy label study.

Joseph Hui, director-general of environmental protection, NEA, said: "We need to be aware of all the technologies available in other parts of the world and also be aware of the kinds of incentive schemes and various other schemes that are in place, so that what we subsequently implement in Singapore will be practical."

NEA hopes to spread the message through its Energy Challenge Week, which has started last Saturday.

A fair featuring the latest energy-efficient technology and innovation in household appliances will be held at the Marina Square Central Atrium from September 11 to 13.

Various community events will also be held islandwide until September 13. For more information on NEA's energy efficiency programmes, visit www.e2singapore.gov.sg.

Tick here to pay less
Four-tick models let you save 50 per cent more in bills than single-tick ones
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 8 Sep 09;

IT DOES not cost more to be green.

Consumers who buy an electrical appliance with four ticks for energy efficiency can save almost 50 per cent in its lifecycle costs as compared to what they would have to fork out if they had opted for a one-tick model. Besides, the higher-rated model may not cost more, a survey by the National Environment Agency (NEA) has shown.

Lifecycle costs refer to the price of the appliance and the electricity cost of running it during its lifespan. For instance, a four-tick air-conditioner which uses 6 kilowatts has a lifecycle cost of around $7,500 if it is on for eight hours a day.

In contrast, a one tick model has a lifecycle cost of $12,000.

The survey, carried out from January last year to February this year, involved 11 retailers. It also showed that a big number of consumers are choosing air-conditioners and refrigerators with two ticks.

These accounted for 34 per cent of the sales for air-conditioners and 49 per cent of sales for refrigerators in the survey period.

Four-tick air-conditioners constituted 37 per cent of sales respectively. The sales of four-tick refrigerators was, however, only 8 per cent; three-tick models were more popular at 42 per cent.

Explaining the trend, NEA's director-general of environmental protection Joseph Hui said the low sales of highest-rated refrigerators could be due to the limited range of such models available.

At the same time, only 10 per cent of air-conditioners and 1 per cent of refrigerators sold do not receive any rating from NEA because they are not energy efficient.

NEA's chief executive officer Andrew Tan said he is "delighted" that retailers have increased their range of the more energy efficient appliances. "This can be attributed to higher consumer demand due to increased sophistication of consumers who are now more aware of the energy savings they can reap by adopting energy-efficient models."

To raise more awareness about energy efficiency, NEA has launched its inaugural Energy Challenge Week last Saturday.

The initiative, which includes a fair at Marina Square Central Atrium and activities in the heartlands to promote energy efficiency, will be held until this Sunday.

For information, visit www.e2singapore.gov.sg/

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