Tiempo Climate Newswatch

August 20-26th is World Water Week. The theme this year is "Beyond the River - Sharing Benefits and Responsibilities".

The conservation organization WWF has issued a report warning that a combination of climate change and poor resource management is leading to water shortages even in the most developed countries. "At the rhetoric level, it is now generally accepted in the developed world that water must be used more efficiently and that water must be made available again to the environment in sufficient quantity for natural systems to function," the report states. Nevertheless, "putting the rhetoric into practice in the face of habitual practices and intense lobbying by vested interests has been very difficult."

In China, parts of the southwest are experiencing the worst drought in 50 years, according to the state meteorological bureau. In Chongqing, 7.5 million people lack adequate drinking water and financial losses have been estimated at US$313 million. Monsoonal rains in India over recent weeks have generated flooding across five states, with over 300 people killed and 4.5 million reported homeless. Lives have also been lost in Pakistan. In Ethiopia, 10,000 people were stranded after a river overflowed in the south, killing 125 people. In total, there have been 600 fatalities in this country over the past two weeks as a result of heavy rainfall and flooding.

More information

• BBC
• ABC News
• Download report, WWF

• Reuters
• Reuters AlertNet
• CNN
• Reuters AlertNet
• BBC
• Reuters AlertNet

Injecting carbon under the sea floor could reduce the risk of leaks, according to a recent study. At 3,000m below the sea surface, high pressure and low temperature mean that carbon gas turns into a liquid that is denser than the surrounding water. Experiments indicate that ice-like compounds would form in which water molecules 'cage' carbon, trapping the gas within the sediment. Because of its density, any liquid that does escape would not rise to the surface. The researchers, from Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University in the United States, write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that "deep-sea sediments at high pressure and low temperature provide a virtually unlimited and permanent reservoir for carbon dioxide captured from fossil fuel combustion." Daniel Schrag at Harvard's Center for the Environment, reckons that the process could make "coal a green fuel."

Some environmentalists remain sceptical. "We have real questions about this technology. It is not something that currently works or is tested," said Chris Miller at Greenpeace. "We have a relatively short amount of time to begin making pretty dramatic reductions in global warming pollutants." There are also concerns about geological stability. "The downsides are that nobody has ever injected into those kinds of formations at those kinds of depths," said Ken Caldeira, Stanford University. "There are engineering hurdles to overcome and it might not be that cheap,"

More information

Background

• BBC
• Reuters
• edie

• On the Web: Carbon dioxide capture and storage

Concern that international carbon trading under the Kyoto Protocol might be delayed has been allayed with the award by the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat of a key software contract to Trasys SA, based in Belgium. The contract will provide the electronic infrastructure for the International Transaction Log (ITL), which will link national carbon trading registries. "Awarding this contract is a significant milestone in finalizing the systems to make carbon trading under the Kyoto Protocol a reality", reported Richard Kinley, acting head of the Secretariat. "We remain on track for Kyoto countries' systems to link to the ITL and become fully operational by April 2007."

The seven states in the northeastern United States that agreed, last year, to establish an emissions trading scheme, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, have now agreed reduction targets. The scheme will cap carbon emissions from power plants at close to current levels from 2009 to 2015, then reduce them to ten per cent by the year 2019. "It's a good first step, but the road is pretty long, and we are going to need substantive greenhouse gas reductions," said Peter Fusaro from Energy & Environment Capital Management. Though the limits are "mild, pretty negligible," he reckons that the agreement could help force the federal government into action.

More information

• Press release, UNFCCC
• Stuff

• Planet Ark
• Bloomberg
• Targets, RGGI