UN cautions over biofuels green credentials

Yahoo News 16 Oct 09;

NAIROBI (AFP) – The use of biofuels as a source of clean energy may lead to higher carbon emissions, but can also yield significant cuts if production is properly managed, the UN Environment Programme said Friday.

As such, governments should assess energy needs, effects on climate, land and water use as well as agriculture if biofuel projects are to be beneficial.

Citing a report by its Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, the UN body noted that Brazil's biofuel production can lead to between 70 and more than 100 percent emission reduction when substituted for petrol.

But some biofuels -- produced for example from oil palms grown in deforested tropical peatlands -- can be responsible for a rise in greenhouse gas emissions of up to 2,000 percent compared with fossil fuels, as a result of carbon releases from the soil.

"The debate whether it is good or evil is not a rational one. Like all technologies, biofuels represent both opportunities and challenges," UNEP's director Achim Steiner said.

"The way in which biofuels are produced matters in determining whether they are leading to more or less greenhouse gas emissions."

Biofuel's green credentials depend on whether it is based on crops or production residues and waste, the latter being more environmentally friendly, said the report entitled: "Towards Sustainable Production and Use of Resources: Assessing Biofuels."

For instance, Brazil's sugarcane-to-ethanol production is considered beneficial because it uses cane waste known as bagasse to power the processing and also generates electricity for the national grid.

Palm oil biodiesel on the other hand can reduce emissions when compared to fossil fuels by 80 percent, but if it is grown on land from cleared tropical forests, greenhouse gas emissions can rise 800 percent, or higher.

Up to 34 percent of arable land worldwide would be needed -- with the current technology -- to produce 10 percent of the world's transport fuels, the report added.

Critics say biofuel production eats up chunks of arable land needed to feed the world population for negligible carbon emission cuts.

The report called for a "reconsideration of current biofuel mandates, targets and quota in order to limit the demand to levels which can be sustainably supplied."

"It is also a choice about how humanity best manages its finite land bank and balances a range of competing interests in a world of six billion people, rising to over nine billion by 2050," Steiner said.

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Storm warnings: Jakarta and Bangkok

Capital at risk of flooding
Straits Times 17 Oct 09;

JAKARTA: Residents in the Indonesian capital have been warned to expect flooding during the rainy season, which starts next month.

Nearly 100 areas across the capital have been identified to be at risk, and the city's crisis centre is working on an early warning system to detect floods.

According to a Jakarta Globe report, heavy downpours are expected ahead of the rainy season, which usually starts next month or in December.

The paper quoted an official from the crisis centre at the city's Disaster Management Coordination Unit as saying that the city administration has prepared early warning communication systems to detect floods across the capital.

This involves comparing weather and rainfall predictions against data on water levels at the city's sluice gates, which will help the crisis centre determine when and where increased water flow could lead to rivers overflowing.

'If the information shows an alert situation, then we will forward it to all five mayors in the city,' Mr Iskandarsyah was quoted as saying.

He added that the warnings would give residents enough time to pack up and move to higher ground if needed.

Meanwhile, the authorities have prepared emergency support and equipment - including rubber boats, tents, soup kitchens and emergency vehicles.

Jakarta Globe also quoted Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo as saying that the city would change its disaster management plan by making use of specially designed parks as evacuation points for victims of flooding or other disasters.

'The preparations are conducted with a more coordinated and intensive system,' he said.

More floods expected
Straits Times 17 Oct 09;

BANGKOK: More floods are expected at the weekend as the Thai capital continues to be hit by a combination of heavy rain and high tides.

Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra has warned residents, especially those in flood-prone areas, to brace themselves for more floods between tomorrow and Tuesday, reported the Bangkok Post.

About 70 per cent of the capital is expected to be inundated by heavy rain over the next few days.

The paper also reported that the authorities have earmarked 800 million baht (S$33 million) to improve drainage along flood-prone Srinakarin Road, where workers have been working to pump out the water since Tuesday.

District chief Somchai Chatsakulpen of the Prawet district in eastern Bangkok was also quoted as saying that a river had overflowed into local communities, making roads to the area impassable.

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UN urges Asia to set up disaster fund

UN official says $16.7b was spent on relief efforts last year; two more quakes strike - off Java and Sulawesi
Straits Times 17 Oct 09;

JAKARTA: Indonesia was rocked by two earthquakes yesterday, less than a day after a top United Nations official said governments in Asia's most catastrophe-prone areas should set aside one-tenth of their development funds to limit the risk of disaster.

The world spent US$12 billion (S$16.7 billion) on humanitarian responses to disasters last year, and 99 per cent of those killed by natural phenomena were in the Asia-Pacific region, said Mr John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, during a visit to Jakarta on Thursday.

'A 10 per cent figure of what you are spending on response or even on development should go into disaster risk reduction because that is a good investment,' he said.

Mr Holmes toured West Sumatra on Wednesday, visiting areas where a magnitude 7.6 quake late last month triggered landslides and killed 1,117 people.

Before visiting Indonesia, Mr Holmes had stopped in Manila, also badly hit by tropical storms recently.

The United Nations official said that the Indonesian and international response to the earthquake in Padang, West Sumatra, was one of the more successful he had seen, but that building codes needed to be enforced to minimise the impact of the next natural disaster.

'All development measures should have disaster risk reduction measures built into them,' he said, adding that disaster risk reduction should also be built into discussions on a world climate pact that will take place in Copenhagen in December.

'That also has to be part of the wider Copenhagen discussions and negotiations in December in order to ensure that not only do we focus on reducing emissions to tackle climate change at its source but also to make sure we are focusing on the adaptation side,' he said.

'In other words, helping developing countries cope with the effects of climate change which are with us right now and disaster risk reduction is very much a part of that.'

Indonesia, which sits on one of the world's most active seismic fault lines, has several active volcanoes and is prone to earthquakes and heavy flooding.

A strong earthquake struck off Java island yesterday, rocking office buildings in Jakarta and sparking panic closer to the epicentre, officials said.

The epicentre of the 6.4 magnitude quake was in the Sunda Strait off the western coast of Java, Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency said.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Early yesterday morning, Kendari in south-east Sulawesi was rocked by a 5.8 magnitude quake, which caused residents to rush out of their houses in panic.

Its epicentre was located at a depth of 20km and 88km north-east of Kendari, according to the meteorology and geophysics agency. Both quakes were not powerful enough to cause a tsunami.

On Monday, an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale rocked the Melonguane area in North Sulawesi.

REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

A wave of natural disasters
Straits Times 17 Oct 09;

Sept 2: A 7.0-magnitude earthquake hits West Java, killing more than 30 people. The temblor rocks high-rise buildings in Jakarta and can be felt in parts of neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore.

Sept 26: Tropical storm Ketsana slams into Manila and surrounding areas, triggering landslides and widespread flooding. The government declares a nationwide state of calamity. More than 330 people are killed.

Sept 29: Typhoon Ketsana roars into central Vietnam after gathering strength over the South China Sea. It leaves more than 120 people dead.

Sept 30: A 7.6-magnitude earthquake rocks West Sumatra province, devastating the provincial capital of Padang. The authorities have revised the death toll upwards to 1,117 people.

Sept 30: India is hit by the worst flooding in 100 years. More than 260 people are reported killed, mostly in the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Oct 3: Typhoon Parma wreaks havoc in northern Philippines. The second major storm to strike the Philippines in two weeks kills close to 300 people.

Oct 8: Melor, the first typhoon to make landfall in Japan since 2007, damages homes, topples trees and causes travel chaos on the main island of Honshu. It leaves four people dead.

Oct 16: Two quakes, hours apart, strike Sulawesi and off Java island respectively. There are no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

U.N. urges Asia to spend more on disaster preparedness
Sunanda Creagh, Reuters 15 Oct 09;

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Governments in Asia's most catastrophe-prone areas should set aside one-tenth of their development funds to limit the risk of disaster, especially given the impact of climate change, a U.N. official said on Thursday.

The world spent $12 billion on humanitarian responses to disasters last year, and 99 percent of those killed by natural phenomena were in the Asia Pacific region, said John Holmes, the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, during a visit to Jakarta.

"A 10 percent figure of what you are spending on response or even on development should go into disaster risk reduction because that is a good investment," he said.

Holmes toured West Sumatra on Wednesday, visiting areas where a magnitude 7.6 quake in late September triggered landslides, killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed more than 130,000 homes.

Before visiting Indonesia, Holmes had stopped in Manila, which was been badly hit by tropical storms recently.

Holmes said that the Indonesian and international response to the earthquake in Padang, West Sumatra, was one of the more successful he had seen, but that building codes needed to be enforced to minimise the impact of the next natural disaster.

"All development measures should have disaster risk reduction measures built into them," he said, adding that disaster risk reduction should also be built into discussions on a world climate pact that will take place in Copenhagen in December.

"That also has to be part of the wider Copenhagen discussions and negotiations in December in order to ensure that not only do we focus on reducing emissions to tackle climate change at its source but also to make sure we are focusing on the adaptation side," he said.

"In other words, helping developing countries cope with the effects of climate change which are with us right now and disaster risk reduction is very much a part of that."

Indonesia, which sits on one of the world's most active seismic fault lines, has several active volcanoes and is prone to earthquakes and heavy flooding.

In December 2004, a magnitude 9.15 quake off the coast of Indonesia's Aceh province triggered an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India, with around 170,000 killed in Indonesia's Aceh alone.

A recent tsunami in Samoa also caused widespread destruction. (Editing by Sara Webb)

INDONESIA: Climate change worsening disasters, says UN
IRIN Reuters Alert 16 Oct 09;

JAKARTA, 16 October 2009 (IRIN) - Climate change is contributing to more frequent and deadlier natural disasters, and governments need to speed up measures to mitigate their impact, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, warns.

Holmes, in Indonesia for a two-day visit after a deadly 30 September earthquake off West Sumatra, warned there would be more intense typhoons, flooding, droughts and forest fires because of climate change.

"Look at the trend. How many [disasters] there are and how bad they are, not only here but also in Central America, and it's perfectly clear what's happening and that's what scientists said would happen," Holmes, also the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, told IRIN in an interview on 15 October.

"To me, that means there's a link between climate change and more frequent disasters," he said.

Given this, governments should be better prepared, and take measures to reduce the impact, he said.

"That means people not living in areas that are flood-[prone]; it means making sure buildings are not in areas that are flood-[prone]," said Holmes.

Holmes also said recent disasters in the Asia-Pacific region made negotiations for a new climate change deal - which are faltering - all the more important.

The Asian region has been hit by several disasters in recent weeks, including devastating floods in the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Nepal, affecting millions.

About 99 percent of those killed by natural disasters were in the Asia Pacific region, said Holmes.

"Obviously it's important to reduce emissions, that's fundamental to stopping climate change in the end. But in the meantime, whatever we do about emissions, the results are already with us for the next 50 years," he said.

Separately, Holmes urged disaster-prone Asian countries to spend one-tenth of their development funds on efforts to reduce disaster risks.

The international community spent US$12 billion on disaster relief last year. "A 10 percent figure of what you are spending on response or even on development should go into disaster-risk reduction because that is a good investment," he told reporters.

Funding for West Sumatra

Holmes travelled to quake-hit areas in West Sumatra and met the head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), as well as humanitarian agencies.

He said the UN would release about $7 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund for aid efforts in West Sumatra, including 12 projects focusing on emergency shelter, nutrition, reopening schools and health sector support.

The UN on 9 October launched a $38 million appeal to help the Indonesian government meet the needs of quake survivors.

The BNPB has revised the death toll from the earthquake to 1,117, including those missing and believed buried in landslides.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest situation report on 15 October that 198,200 households needed emergency shelter.

Lack of access to remote areas remains the major obstacle to providing aid to survivors, but the Indonesian Military (TNI) has agreed to deploy 500 soldiers to rebuild roads or create new access routes to affected areas, OCHA said.

Reconstruction delays

Oxfam Indonesia's humanitarian programme manager, Sébastien Fesneau, said survivors needed tarpaulins, tents and plastic sheeting for shelter - as well as food.

But he said rebuilding houses would prove a greater challenge, because the brick industry in West Sumatra had been paralysed by the quake.

"It will be a problem when we are looking for adequate building materials, and this could possibly delay the reconstruction phase," Fesneau told IRIN.

Some NGOs were considering building transitional shelters using bamboo or coconut trees pending the availability of building materials, he said.

Fesneau also said many survivors had been forced to sell their belongings to meet their basic needs, resulting in what he called "asset erosion".

"We will introduce a cash transfer programme targeting the most vulnerable groups to ensure their belongings will not be sold," he said.

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Low-carbon growth the best option: Nicholas Stern

Nicholas Stern, Straits Times 17 Oct 09;

THE United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in Copenhagen in December, should provide the climax to two years of international negotiations over a new global treaty aimed at addressing the causes and consequences of greenhouse gas emissions.

A global deal on climate change is urgently needed. Concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached 435 parts per million (ppm), compared with about 280 ppm before industrialisation in the 19th century.

If we continue with business-as-usual emissions from activities such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests, concentrations could reach 750 ppm by the end of the century. Should that happen, the probable rise in global average temperature relative to pre-industrial times will be 5 deg C or more.

It has been more than 30 million years since the earth's temperature was that high. The human species, which has been around for no more than 200,000 years, would have to deal with a more hostile physical environment than it has ever experienced. Floods and droughts would become more intense and global sea levels would be several metres higher. Some parts of the world would be under water; other would become deserts.

Developing countries recognise and are angered by the inequity of the current situation. Current greenhouse gas levels are largely due to industrialisation in the developed world. Yet developing countries are the most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. At the same time, emissions cannot be reduced at the extent required without the central contribution of the developing world.

Climate change and poverty, the two defining challenges of this century, must be tackled together. If we fail on one, we will fail on the other. The task facing the world is to meet the environment's 'carbon constraints' while creating the growth necessary to raise living standards for the poor.

To avoid the severe risks that would result from a rise in global average temperature of more than 2 deg C, we must bring atmospheric concentrations to below 450 ppm. This will require a cut in annual global emissions from about 50 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent today to below 35 gigatonnes in 2030, and less than 20 gigatonnes by 2050.

Today, per-capita annual emissions in the European Union are 12 tonnes, and 23.6 tonnes in the United States, compared to six tonnes for China and 1.7 tonnes for India. As the world's population will be about nine billion in 2050, annual per-capita emissions must be reduced to approximately two tonnes of CO2-equivalent, on average, if the global annual total is to be less than 20 gigatonnes.

Developing countries need substantial help and support from rich nations in order to implement their plans for low-carbon economic growth, and to adapt to the effects of climate change that are now inevitable over the next few decades. Developed countries should also provide strong support for measures to halt deforestation in developing countries.

Based on recent estimates of the developing world's extra requests as a result of climate change, rich countries should be providing annual financial support - in addition to existing foreign aid commitments - of about US$100 billion (S$140 billion) for adaptation and US$100 billion for mitigation by the early 2020s. Some of the latter can come through the carbon market.

Rich countries must also demonstrate that low-carbon growth is possible by investing in new technologies, which should be shared with developing countries to boost their mitigation efforts.

We are already seeing extraordinary innovation by the private sector. Investments in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies could also pull the global economy out of its economic slowdown over the next couple of years. More importantly, in driving the transition to low-carbon growth, these technologies could create the most dynamic and innovative period in economic history, surpassing that of the introduction of railways, electricity grids, or the Internet.

There is no real alternative. High-carbon growth is doomed. Low-carbon growth will be more energy-secure, cleaner, quieter, safer and more bio-diverse.

We should learn from the financial crisis that if risks are ignored, the eventual consequences are inevitably worse. If we do not start to combat the flow of greenhouse gas emissions now, the stock in the atmosphere will grow, making future action more difficult and costly. Other public expenditure can be postponed, but delaying climate change measures is a high-risk, high-cost option.

Climate change poses a profound threat to our economic future, while low-carbon growth promises decades of increased prosperity. The choice in Copenhagen will be stark, and the stakes could not be higher. We know what we must do, and we can do it.

The writer is chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and professor of economics and government at the London School of Economics, and a member of the British House of Lords.

PROJECT SYNDICATE

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Fossil Fuel Production Up Despite Recession

World Watch Institute 15 Oct 09;

World production of fossil fuels-oil, coal, and natural gas-increased 2.9 percent in 2008 to reach 27.4 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) per day, the highest ever recorded. In the first half of the 2008, producers strained to meet global demand, but by year's end the global recession left the market swamped by excess supply, causing oil prices to fall to from $144 per barrel in July to $34 per barrel in December.

According to the latest Vital Signs Update on fossil fuel production:

• Continuing a decade-long trend, most of the growth in fossil fuel production was in the Asia-Pacific region, where production grew 6.3 percent.
• For six years running, coal has led the growth in fossil fuel production. The growth in China's coal consumption since 2000 dwarfs that of all other countries combined.
• Natural gas production has maintained a 27-28 percent share of fossil energy production since 2000. High gas prices have spurred exploration and development, especially in the United States, which provided 19 percent of global gas production in 2008.

This new fossil fuel production update includes the latest figures on fossil fuel production globally and by region.

Read the Vital Signs analysis, "Fossil Fuel Production Up Despite Recession" by James Russell.

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Law change needed to cover climate exiles: lawyers

Reuters 14 Oct 09;

LONDON (Reuters) - International law is unfit to deal with the millions of people expected to flee their home countries to escape droughts and floods intensified by climate change, a group of lawyers said on Thursday.

Under existing laws, host countries must protect and care for cross-border refugees, who are defined as those forced to migrate because of violence or political, racial or religious persecution.

There are no such provisions for so-called climate refugees. Yet by 2050, between 200 million and 1 billion people could be forced to leave their homes because of global warming, said the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, which advises vulnerable countries and communities.

"International refugee law ... was not designed for those who are left homeless by environmental pressures," said the group's director Joy Hyvarinen.

"The international legal framework needs to be adjusted to help climate exiles and deal with statelessness and compensation," she said in a statement.

FIRST CLIMATE REFUGEES

Climate change will hit small island states the hardest, the foundation said, adding rising seas might submerge Kiribati and the Marshall Islands or climate changes in other ways might make them uninhabitable.

Kiribati's government has asked larger nations, including New Zealand and Australia, to open their doors to its citizens who might become, along with people in the Maldives and other Pacific islands, climate refugees.

Some in the Pacific say communities are already moving within nations because of climate change. Often-cited examples are the Carteret islands of Papua New Guinea, Tegua island in Vanuatu or Moala in Fiji.

But experts say there is no overall tracking of people moving or of the causes for their migration. Some leave outlying islands drawn by jobs in bigger centres.

What most experts agree on is that rising temperatures will leave an additional 200 million to 600 million people hungry by 2080 and cause critical water shortages in China and Australia, as well as in parts of Europe and the United States, according to a 2007 global climate report.

Coastal flooding will also hit another 7 million homes, the study by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted.

Moreover, last month a U.N. report said global warming was increasing the frequency and intensity of storms and otherwise altering weather patterns, so natural disasters were now "an extremely significant driver of forced displacement globally."

(Reporting by Olesya Dmitracova; Editing by Matthew Jones)

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Pacific islands meet over climate change plan

Yahoo News 16 Oct 09;

MAJURO (AFP) – Officials from Pacific island countries expected to be among the earliest victims of climate change will meet next week to devise a negotiating strategy for a crucial Copenhagen conference.

The officials will meet in Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, a nation where islands average less than one metre (three feet) above sea level and are among the most vulnerable in the world to rising sea levels caused by global warming.

More than a dozen Pacific Island countries will be plotting their strategy for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December in Copenhagen, which will attempt to hammer out an international deal to combat warming.

Espen Ronneberg, the climate change advisor to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), said Thursday that Pacific countries would be gathering new information on the impact of global warming in the region to devise a negotiating strategy.

"We are in need of strong binding commitments to reduce emissions and to support adaptation to impacts (of climate change)," Ronneberg said of the Copenhagen conference.

"We are going to be among the first casualties of climate change," added Marshall Islands Environmental Protection Authority acting board chairman Ben Chutaro.

Mark Lander, a meteorologist with the University of Guam's Water and Environmental Research Institute, told officials in Majuro this week that the rise of sea levels in Micronesia this decade had been three times the world average.

"Globally, the average is about three millimetres per year increase in sea level, said Lander.

"In Micronesia, we're seeing 10 millimetres per year. This is extreme sea level rise and far exceeds the global average."

This is believed to be partly due to the impact of the La Nina weather pattern in the years since 2000, when the sea in the eastern Pacific cools, changing weather patterns and sea levels.

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Indonesia as a major greenhouse gas emitter

Alan Oxley, Jakarta Post 16 Oct 09;

Because a report published on the eve of the visit to Jakarta by Lord Stern, the British Climate Change expert, late in 2007, said so. On the basis of that report, the Indonesian government is being pressed to adopt a strategy to cut emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

The pitch is that this is an opportunity for Jakarta to show global leadership at this critical time as the international community gears up to settle a new agreement on climate change at Copenhagen in December. The reality is different. No new agreement can be struck for several years. It will take that long to narrow the gaps between the positions of the US, EU, India and China.

Yet an impressive set of interests is working quietly to coax the Indonesian Government into this role. It includes the World Bank, the UK's aid agency (DFID), as well as trenchant opponents of Indonesia's current development strategies - the World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

Like Lord Stern's findings which were severely criticized by development economists world wide as unnecessarily harmful to poor countries, the 40 percent target would harm Indonesia, plausibly reducing its GDP in today's dollars by 9 percent. Poverty would rise, not fall. Today, official estimates rate 35 million Indonesians as poverty- stricken. Indonesia's population is also slated to increase by 44 million.

No other leading developing country will go that far. China has decreed climate change is a "development" problem. While reforming its dirty industries, it will continue to increase, not reduce, its emission of greenhouse gases, until poverty is under control. That may not be until 2030 according to assessments by Chinese economic planning agencies.

Why are leading development bodies advancing such anti-growth strategies? The answer is saddening. Like environmental groups, they now attach more importance to seeing an end to conversion of forest land, than to an end of poverty.

They haven't even got their environmental facts straight. Biodiversity is protected by setting up conservation areas, not freezing conversion of forest land. The UN decreed years ago that ten percent of the world's forests needed to be reserved for that purpose. That target has already been met. In Indonesia's case, over 20 percent of forest land has been set aside.

The remaining land is a resource asset available to raise living standards, and was used that way in Europe and North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The ambition of activists is to deny the same right to developing countries.

Indonesia showed how to use that land to reduce poverty when it sponsored introduction of Palm Oil in the seventies and eighties. The World Bank, then in a pro-development mode, commended that as effective poverty-reducing action. Malaysia has done the same. Palm Oil can encourage small holders to acquire property and prosperity. It is now a major export industry for both countries and Indonesia is the world's biggest producer.

Palm Oil in fact is something of a miracle product. It is a high quality and low priced food staple in the developing world. It is also a highly sustainable. It produces more oil from less land than other vegetable oils. Properly managed, Palm Oil plantations will also outperform traditional forest as a carbon sink.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN *s research body on global warming, pointed out in its last assessment that building bigger carbon sinks by expanding sustainably managed forests was the easiest and cheapest way to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.

This has been an inconvenient truth for environmental NGOs for a long time. Their long term ambition has been instead to ensure global agreements on climate change restrict, not promote, forestry in developing countries.

Hence the incredible attack in recent months on Palm Oil: It is just too successful. Western brand food and consumer companies have been "greenmailed" to cease using Palm Oil. It has been blamed for devastation of forestry, peat lands, and Orang-utan. The EU has been pressured to restrict imports of biofuel (read diesel from Palm Oil).

Until the 2007 report, Indonesia was rated only between fifteenth and twentieth on the global scale. So why the change?

It was the surge of emissions of carbon dioxide from the fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan from the late nineties. And the realization that the fires were also occurring in carbon intense peat soils.

Suddenly very large numbers for emissions of greenhouse gases in Indonesia were produced, almost overnight. The 2007 report was produced in three weeks, and, by its own emission, based on desk research and consultation with anti-forestry NGOs, like Greenpeace.

The key piece of research on global emissions used in that report warned it was subject to a margin of error of 50 percent either way in its calculations. In other words, these are highly uncertain numbers. As well, as new and recent research on the impact of clearance of peat soils reveals, the impact of fire and plantation forestry on peat land is really not known.

The 2007 report also assumes that the firing of peat land will continue in the future at the same rate. There is no basis for that assumption. All scientists accept that the El Nino weather cycle created exceptionally dry conditions in the late nineties and early eighties, creating a very fire prone environment. Only environmental activists, and it seems the World Bank and DFID, assume that that is a permanent condition.

Proper research is required. It is a tempting time for developing countries to receive aid to work out how to address these problems.

Around US$ 800 million has been pledged so far. Yet the lesson of the Trojan Horse should not be forgotten.

The opportunity for leadership Indonesia might consider is to commission independent research on the carbon cycle in Indonesian forest and plantations and determine in its own good time a strategy that best meets it development needs.

The writer is Chairman of World Growth and released a report Palm Oil - the Sustainable Oil at the Bangkok negotiations on climate change last week.

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What is holding up progress in climate talks?

Reuters 16 Oct 09;

(Reuters) - U.N. climate talks on expanding the fight against global warming have largely stalled, making the outcome of a major climate summit in Copenhagen in December uncertain.

With less than 60 days to the Copenhagen meeting, negotiators face serious differences in finding a way to get the United States and large developing nations to sign up to a deal that leads to big reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Following are efforts to expand or replace the Kyoto Protocol climate pact.

MONEY

No money, no deal. Developing nations, who say wealthy countries are largely to blame for climate change to date, want cash to help them green their economies. Money to adapt to rising seas and greater extremes of weather is also essential, they say.

Without cash and clean-energy technology, they see no point in taking anything more than voluntary steps to curb the growth of their greenhouse gas emissions.

Rich nations have so far failed to put significant sums on the table and instead talk of "fast-start" cash in Copenhagen for initial adaptation and technology transfer programs.

Details on larger and longer-term funding would come later but there remains disagreement on whether this should be mostly public money or raised through carbon markets and levies on shipping and aviation fuels.

The United States says its hands are tied until the Senate passes a climate bill. The European Union will likely have clarity on funding after a leaders' meeting in a few weeks.

TARGETS

Rich nations have also failed to put final emissions reduction targets for 2020 on the table. Collectively, the figures offered are far below the 25-40 percent cut from 1990 levels by 2020 the U.N. climate panel says is needed to help limit the growth of carbon pollution in the atmosphere.

Many rich nation's targets are also conditional on the outcome of Copenhagen or the actions of big developing nations, such as top greenhouse gas polluter China.

Developing nations want rich countries to adopt tougher targets to show they are serious in fighting climate change.

KILL KYOTO?

Just as contentious is the legal framework of a broader climate pact to succeed Kyoto from 2013. The European Union says Kyoto hasn't worked and that most rich nations will fail to meet their 2008-12 emission targets. The U.S. wants a new agreement that focuses on binding domestic action and wants all nations to put their emissions reduction steps into a registry.

Developing nations want Kyoto to remain since there's nothing better to replace it. They fear wealthy states are trying to dodge tough emissions cuts by 2020 and point to a history of broken promises on financing and failure to meet past emissions cuts.

MEASUREMENT

Rich nations want all countries to provide regular and detailed reports on their efforts to cut emissions and to agree on ways to check, or verify, these steps really lead to greenhouse gas reductions.

But the G77 bloc of developing countries say they should not be part of a universal measurement, reporting and verification system, saying richer nations should be held to a tougher standard. More broadly, developing nations say they shouldn't be treated the same way as rich countries in terms of how their efforts to fight climate change are treated in a new pact.

Analysts say the rigid split in actions by rich and poor nations under U.N. climate treaties is no longer valid, pointing to China, India, Indonesia and Brazil being among the top greenhouse gas emitters. Getting them to agree to binding steps to cut emissions is crucial.

(Reporting by David Fogarty; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

What "Plan B" for Copenhagen might look like
David Fogarty, Reuters 16 Oct 09;

(Reuters) - Negotiators are already talking about "plan B" for the Copenhagen climate talks in December, with uncertainty growing that nations will be able to agree in time on a tougher and broader U.N. climate pact.

While that might sound bad, some analysts say that none of the major players is talking about "no deal," just a deal that will take a little longer to agree on.

Following are possible scenarios for the Dec 7-18 Copenhagen talks.

PLAN A: BROADER CLIMATE PACT

The U.S. Senate passes its climate bill before Copenhagen, allowing Washington to offer a 2020 emissions reduction target and substantial funding for poorer nations for climate change adaptation and green energy technology.

Developing nations agree to formally include their emissions reduction actions into a new climate deal. They also agree to report regularly on how these efforts lead to a substantial reduction in the growth of their emissions and to open up such efforts to independent scrutiny.

With these steps, other rich nations toughen their 2020 emissions reduction targets, pledge near-term climate financing and agree on the need for substantial longer-term financing, how that money will be raised and how it will be managed.

PLAN B: SEAL THE DEAL IN 2010

In reality, the U.S. Senate might pass the climate bill in the first part of 2010, allowing President Barack Obama's administration to bring a 2020 target and financing pledges to the table during a major U.N. climate meeting in Bonn in June.

At worst, nations would have to wait until annual U.N. climate talks in Dec 2010.

In addition, developing nations say they have concerns about the legal nature of a broad climate pact, particularly over efforts to set aside or radically overhaul the Kyoto Protocol.

Copenhagen might instead yield an agreement deciding on the political essentials and add conditional offers by China, India and other big developing nations based on what the United States was prepared to do once the legislation passed.

Global conservation group WWF says the essentials would include: a clear indication of the sources and methods of funding and to ensure the money comes from predictable revenue streams; clarity on the bodies managing the money and the level of developing country representation; and immediate funding.

Failure to at least agree on this could lead to just a broad political statement at the end of Copenhagen on what the structure of a new agreement should be.

PLAN C: U.S. SENATE SAYS NO

The U.S. Senate votes against the climate bill, but other nations reluctantly go ahead with many measures to fight climate change anyway hoping the United States will formally join the global effort at some point.

In the worst-case scenario, negotiations start to resemble failed trade talks that repeatedly stall. Nations instead work on bilateral clean-energy and carbon offset deals that fail to achieve major reductions in the growth of emissions.

(Sources, WWF, The Nature Conservancy, E3G)

(Additional reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Supporters Say Summit Won't Reach Climate Deal

Richard Cowan, PlanetArk 16 Oct 09;

WASHINGTON - An international meeting in December to create tough new goals for fighting global warming will fail to produce a deal, but more modest objectives can be achieved, supporters said on Wednesday.

"I think it's impossible to really get to a binding international agreement" by mid-December in Copenhagen, said Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Claussen sketched out interim steps that could be taken, with the goal of wrapping up a comprehensive deal by mid-2010, instead of December this year.

"We can get a strong political statement -- an agreement to get to two degrees -- and then a date certain to conclude the negotiations. That may be where we end up" at the conclusion of the Copenhagen meeting, Claussen added.

In July, leading carbon-polluting countries including the United States, agreed at a summit in Italy to try to limit global warming to a maximum of two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to head off severe problems.

But efforts in the U.S. Congress to pass legislation forcing industry reductions of greenhouse gas emissions have slowed and it is now seen as highly unlikely that the Senate will pass a bill this year, even though the House of Representatives did so last June.

NO SPECIFIC TARGET

"The main reason that we are not further along (in international negotiations)... is that the United States is really not able to say what it is prepared to offer in terms of a specific target" for carbon reductions, Claussen said.

Mohamed El-Ashry, an environmental expert and senior fellow at the UN Foundation, echoed Claussen's assessment, saying, "It has become obvious that a comprehensive deal ... is not going to be possible" in Copenhagen.

Instead of focusing on sealing a pact that developed and developing countries would then try to ratify, some "ambitious but achievable goals" could be crafted in Copenhagen, El-Ashry said. Those could include energy-efficiency steps to reduce carbon emissions, without mandating the broader levels of pollution reduction by 2020 and 2050.

He also said progress could be made on efforts to reduce deforestation, which is contributing to global warming.

On Tuesday, leading U.S. senators insisted they were making progress toward passage of a domestic climate change bill that would bolster the international efforts. But that legislation may clear some committees, not the full Senate this year.

Some progress in the Senate, coupled with the House bill and steps already taken by the Obama administration to address global warming, would be seen as evidence of Washington's commitment to tackle climate change after eight years of foot-dragging by the Bush administration, supporters argue.

"We will make our best effort and we will advance this ball and Copenhagen will know we're not fooling around," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry told Reuters on Tuesday.

The House-passed bill aims to reduce industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels, while a bill proposed in the Senate seeks 20 percent.

Both plans are less ambitious than those of European countries. Some experts fear the U.S. plan would not be enough to avoid "catastrophic" consequences of climate change like worsening drought, floods and the melting of polar ice.

(Editing by Chris Wilson)

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Best of our wild blogs: 16 Oct 09

Life History of the Five Bar Swordtail
from Butterflies of Singapore

Black-throated Sunbird feeding on nectar
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Adult Tiger Shrike does arrive in Singapore
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Kelongs can be a Singapore attraction

Straits Times Forum 16 Oct 09;

I REFER to Tuesday's report ("Know how to woo more tourists? Tell STB") on the Singapore Tourism Board needing ideas to boost tourism.

We have some treasures in our back yard just waiting for the authorities to give the green light to show to the world. Three weeks ago, The Straits Times carried a report on kelongs vanishing fast. A venture I have in mind could certainly prove to be a new lease of life for the kelongs.

I am a neighbour of Mrs Maureen Wong, the kelong owner named in the report.

Many people do not know that we have kelongs (fish farms included) in Singapore. When news of the plight of kelongs was reported, we received a lot of inquiries from people wanting to visit them.

We can tap the potential of the humble kelongs and extend it to the world. I have friends from China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea and Japan who want to visit a kelong.

Kelongs have a natural charm: One is out at sea, immersed in a breezy atmosphere, with the unmistakable salty air.

If the place is set up for a romantic sunset dinner, featuring fresh catch from the sea, it would be a mind-blowing experience.

Best of all, it does not have to cost an arm and a leg to enjoy this.

Naturally, there are challenges and issues to consider, like public safety, but with resolve and determination, we can overcome them.

Industry players in the food and beverage, hospitality and travel trade could partner kelong operators in this new venture.

Granted, we will have the world-class Integrated Resorts very soon, but we can also offer the humble kelongs which are worthy of a heritage status.

Lee Van Voon

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