Tiempo Climate Newswatch

A new study has found that the number of malnourished people in Africa has more than doubled since 1970, to 38 per cent of the population, as a result of poor agricultural policies and trade barriers. The Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015 is considered inconceivable without a turnround in domestic and international policy. The report, from the International Food Policy Research Institute, concludes that "policy choices and investments made now could substantially improve, or further worsen, the prospects for food security in Africa over the next two decades."

The report identifies priority areas for action. These include reform of agricultural policy, trade and tariffs, increased investment in rural infrastructure, education and social capital, improved management of crops, land, water and inputs, increased agricultural research and greater investment in women. The study presents three scenarios for Africa's future. The most optimistic, the Vision scenario, comes close to meeting the Millennium Development Goal, but not until the year 2025. This scenario assumes, amongst other things, a 78 per cent increase in investments for Africa above a 'business as usual' projection, with an even greater increase of 94 per cent for sub-Saharan Africa.

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• Mail and Guardian Online
• Islam Online

• Download report, IFPRI

A New Zealand study suggests that the atmosphere is retaining one aspect of its ability to cleanse itself of pollution, despite fears to the contrary. With more pollution in the atmosphere, there has been concern that levels of the hydroxyl radical, which reacts with carbon monoxide and methane removing them from the atmosphere, would become depleted. Any such trend would intensify the increase in concentrations of greenhouse gas methane. Dave Lowe and a team from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research have shown that there has, in fact, been no long-term trend in Southern Hemisphere concentrations of the hydroxyl radical.

The hydroxyl radical "makes up less than a trillionth of the atmosphere, but without it the planet would be rapidly choked by smog," says Lowe. He concludes that "the fact that hydroxyl is not decreasing may be one small piece of good news in a pretty bleak scientific consensus on climate change, because it means that hydroxyl is continuing to remove some methane from the atmosphere at the same rate as previously." He warns, though, that the data show high variability in levels of the hydroxyl radical so "we can’t say whether it will stay that way."

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Background

• SCOOP

• IPCC

Environment ministers and officials, meeting in Ilulissat, Greenland, have agreed that action is needed on climate change. Participants met after inspecting the state of Greenland's retreating glaciers. "We have to act, we cannot afford inaction," concluded Denmark's environment minister, Connie Hedegaard. The meeting brought together supporters of the Kyoto Protocol and the United States and its allies who reject the agreement.

Four United States Senators, fresh from a visit to Alaska and and Canada's Yukon Territory, have warned that signs of rising temperatures are obvious and called for Congressional action. "If you can go to the Native people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something's going on, I just think you're not listening," said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "I don't think there's any doubt left for anybody who actually looks at the science," concluded New York Senator Hilary Clinton. "There are still some holdouts, but they're fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming."

More information

• Washington Post
• IOL
• Reuters

• ENN
• Science Daily
• Alaskan residents speak of climate change, BBC