Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Poverty in Africa can be made history if the continent's resources are harnessed effectively, fairly and sustainably, according to Africa Environment Outlook-2, a report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It is argued that the region is only realizing a fraction of its nature-based economic potential, from freshwater to forests and from minerals to the marine environment. Speaking for UNEP, Executive Director Adam Steiner, said that "the report challenges the myth that Africa is poor. Indeed, it points out that its vast natural wealth can, if sensitively, sustainably and creatively managed, be the basis for an African renaissance - a renaissance that meets and goes beyond the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals. But this is not inevitable and, as [the report] points out, African nations face stark choices."

The report presents a series of scenarios for the future, illustrating the choices that have to be made. If food production is purely driven by market forces, land degradation rates could rise to up to 30,000 hectares a year. The rapid intensification of farming will lead to a drastic decline in forest cover. Under a more optimistic projection, "The Great Transition", the level of land degradation declines and forest cover increases. The area under agriculture increases by 10 per cent, mostly due to government-held land being put into production. The report's conclusions were echoed by the Madagascar Declaration, which resulted from a conference, Defying Nature’s End: The African Context, held in Antananarivo, Madagascar. The Declaration calls for establishing and expanding markets for natural resources, such as ecotourism and carbon trading.

More information

• Reuters
• Jamaica Observer
• ENS
• Reuters

• Press release, UNEP
• Video news release, UNEP
• Maps and graphics, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
• Download report, UNEP

The Japanese government has announced that all vehicles must run on a mix of ethanol and regular gasoline by the year 2030. All new cars must be able to run on a blend of ten per cent ethanol and 90 per cent gasoline by 2010. According to Takeshi Sekiya, from the Environment Ministry, "the main goal is to counter global warming. Adopting the new technology is not that difficult." Japan also imports nearly all its oil and would like to implement alternative energy sources. The ministry will increase production of ethanol fuel on the island of Miyako, where there is an abundant supply of sugar cane. In another initiative, Japan plans to bury 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2020.

The Bush Administration in the United States has announced a US$170 million support programme for public and private partnerships to make solar energy, in the form of photovoltaic cell technology, more competitive with conventional electricity production. "We will be asking the winning partnerships to focus their work on new manufacturing techniques as well as new component designs that will allow us to bring down the cost of producing photovoltaic fuel cells as quickly as possible," said Energy Secretary Sam Bodman. The aim of the broader Solar America Initiative, of which the new programme is a part, is to cut photovoltaic costs from 13-22 cents a kilowatt to 9-18 cents a kilowatt by 2010.

More information

• Calgary Sun
• AXcess News
• Guardian Unlimited

• Stuff

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has set a one-year deadline for a new global agreement on climate change. "We need to begin to agree a framework that the major players - United States, China, India and Europe - buy into and has at its heart a goal to stabilise temperature and greenhouse gas concentrations. And we need to accelerate discussions - we can't take the five years it took Kyoto took to negotiate," he said. The United Kingdom has recently appointed a climate 'ambassador', John Ashton. The United States does not rule out joining a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, according to chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson. It would, though, require "substantial changes in the current rules of the game," he commented.

Canada will join the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was Canada's "desire to participate in the AP-6 process, along with a number of other processes," he said when meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Japan sees the Asia-Pacific Partnership as complementing, not replacing, the Kyoto process. "We are trying to promote the Kyoto Protocol," a senior Japanese official said. "We do hope that Canada also will remain committed."

More information

• Guardian Unlimited
• BBC
• Reuters

• CTV
• Toronto Star
• Canada.com