Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Land clearance to grow biofuels may create a "carbon debt" that has the net effect of increasing greenhouse gas emissions for years to decades, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the University of Minnesota in the United States. In the worst case studied, peatlands to palm oil plantations in Indonesia, the carbon debt could take over 400 years to repay as the annual biofuel savings in emissions offsets the carbon released as a result of the land conversion. Some sources of biofuel, such as perennial grasses, are more effective as they can be harvested without ploughing under existing carbon-carrying species.

A team led by Timothy Searchinger, a visiting scholar at Princeton University, also in the United States, has reached similar conclusions. "Previously, there's been an accounting error: Land use change has been left out of prior analysis," Searchinger said. A United Nations panel is considering the new evidence. "We don't want a total public backlash that would prevent us from getting the potential benefits," said Nicholas Nuttall on behalf of the United Nation Environment Programme. "There was an unfortunate effort to dress up biofuels as the silver bullet of climate change," he continued. "We fully believe that if biofuels are to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, there urgently needs to be better sustainability criterion."

The United States government has missed the deadline, already postponed once, to decide whether or not to declare the polar bear an endangered species as a result of global warming. The issue has been the subject of some controversy. A recent assessment arguing that forecasts of polar bear disappearance are premature was greeted with strenuous criticism, though it was received favourably by the Alaskan governor Sarah Palin.

It has been claimed the delay is to ensure that an oil lease sale goes through before any decision is made. "Now that the Bush administration has taken care of its clear first priority - taking care of their friends in the oil industry - perhaps they can finally give the polar bear, and the global warming that is causing the bear's demise, the attention it is due," commented Ed Markey, head of a House of Representatives panel on climate change. "If the Fish and Wildlife Service had protected polar bears before the lease sales were finalized, there would have been additional legal safeguards to the polar bears," said Andrew Wetzler at the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in New York. The Fish and Wildlife Agency denies that there is any link with the oil lease sale, citing the complexity of the issues and the science as the reason for the delay.

The United Nations has hosted a ministerial session of the General Assembly on the Bali Action Plan. Participants urged speedy action to meet the late 2009 deadline for a new global pact on climate change, with special attention paid to vulnerable nations. Antigua and Barbuda's ambassador, John Nashe, on behalf of the Group of 77 and China alliance, called for an "effective and comprehensive global response to cover the four building blocks of the plan - mitigation (action to reduce the extent of global warming), adaptation (action to minimize the effects of global warming), technology transfer and financing."

Addressing the session, Tavau Teii, deputy prime minister of Tuvalu, stressed that adaptation is "a crucial issue for an extremely vulnerable small, island nation" such as his. "It is very clear," he continued, "that financial resources for adaptation are completely inadequate." Closing the debate, Srgjan Kerim, General Assembly president, underlined the need for global partnerships, noting the general conviction that "the actions necessary to address climate change are so intertwined that they can only be tackled through combined efforts." The General Assembly will convene two more meetings this year on climate change.