Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Progress in implementing the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States will be reviewed at an International Meeting taking place in Port Louis, Mauritius, January 10-14th 2005. A Civil Society meeting will precede the International Meeting and will submit its recommendations at the opening session of the International Meeting.

According to Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, Secretary-General of the Mauritius conference, "after decade-long serious efforts, this well-crafted and elaborate document has remained largely unimplemented. The well-intentioned commitments in fourteen priority areas have failed to get the required political will to turn them into real actions." Agreement has yet to be reached on critical issues such as climate change, trade relations, market access, renewable energy sources and finance.

More information

From the conference

• Press releases, UN-OHRLLS
• Backgrounder, UN-OHRLLS

• Webcast, UN
• Daily reports, ENB

The European Union (EU) launched its emissions trading market on January 1st 2005. "The emissions trading scheme is one of the key policies... to ensure that the EU and its member states limit or reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases," according to the European Commission. Under the new scheme, businesses that exceed their emissions targets can sell unused quotas to companies that cannot (or choose not to) meet their own targets and thereby face financial penalties. On the unofficial carbon market, one tonne of carbon dioxide has been trading recently for an average price of 8.5 euros. "But the price is fluctuating quite widely," reports James Emanuel of Evolution Markets. "The lowest is 5.0 euros and it's been as high as 13.4" since February 2004.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has predicted that the 15 pre-2004 members of the EU (the EU-15) can meet their emissions target under the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto target for the EU-15 is eight per cent below 1990 levels by 2010. The 15 nations should cut their total emissions by 8.8 per cent by 2010. So-called flexible mechanisms, whereby nations claim credit for paying for emissions reductions in a country outside the EU, would account for 1.1 per cent of this total. Some nations will exceed their own Kyoto target but it is anticipated that others will make larger cuts than required.

More information

• Terra Daily
• BBC Q&A

• BBC
• Press release, EEA
• Technical report, EEA

The pika, a small hamster-like animal, is in decline and climate change may be responsible, according to a recent study. The pika lives at high elevations in the western United States and southwest Canada and cannot tolerate warm temperatures. "Population by population, we're witnessing some of the first contemporary examples of global warming apparently contributing to the local extinction of an American mammal at sites across an entire eco-region," said Erik Beever, an ecologist with the United States Geological Survey.

"There are several contributing factors, but climate seems to be a very strong factor," Beever concludes. "At the places where they have been lost, the sites were hotter and drier than sites where they have remained." Previous research indicates that factors such as increased road building and smaller habitat areas have increased vulnerability to climate change. "Extinction of a species, even on a local scale, is a red flag that cannot be ignored," commented Brooks Yeager of the World Wildlife Fund. "We must limit heat-trapping emissions from the burning of dirty fossil fuels for energy now."

More information

• Newsday
• Guardian Unlimited
• Press release

• Pika photos, John William Uhler, Total Yellowstone
• Pika sound, Michael Morris, Parks Canada