Tiempo Climate Newswatch

"Without leadership from the G8 countries, an international response to climate change will not happen," Yvo de Boer, head of the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told environment ministers from the G8 group of industrialized nations and the major developing economies, meeting in Syracuse, Italy. "This meeting needs to point the way," he continued. Lisa Jackson, head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, brought a "message of hope" from President Obama. "The United States government now fully acknowledges the urgency and complexity of climate change challenges," she informed the delegates.

Strengthening goals for 2010 that were set in 2002, the Syracuse Charter commits signatories to ensuring "that the current deep economic crisis does not translate into a reduction in resources for the protection of biodiversity." "Efforts must be redoubled and we must start thinking beyond 2010," said Stavros Dimas, European environment commissioner. The Charter, whose slogan is "Biodiversity is Business," aims to use the environment as a tool for development. "Defending biodiversity can play a key role in the battle against climate change and the reduction of the gap between the world's North and South," commented Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italian environment minister.

Oxfam warns that the number of people affected by climatic disasters could rise by 54 per cent to 375 million people a year by 2015. Humanitarian aid spending is far from prepared to meet the challenge. "The response is often fickle - too little, too late and not good enough," said Oxfam's Barbara Stocking. "The system can barely cope with the current levels of disasters and could be overwhelmed by a substantial increase in numbers of people affected. There must be a fundamental reform of the system."

The Oxfam report, "The Right to Survive, concludes that US$42 billion more each year is needed in humanitarian aid to help meet people’s basic needs and another US$50 billion a year is required to help developing countries adapt to climate change. More flexible aid must be provided on the basis of need - not tied to strategic or political interests, or favour one affected group over another or cherry-pick high profile emergencies. To avoid the most extreme potential impacts of climate change, developing countries must give greater priority to responding to emergencies and reducing vulnerability to them.

Senior New Zealand scientist, Jim Salinger, a pioneering climate researcher and contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has been sacked by his employer, the state-owned National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), for allegedly speaking to the media without prior approval. "New Zealand is on a slippery slope when trying to provide Kiwis with a greater understanding of our climate is a sackable offence," said Jeanette Fitzsimons of the Green Party. "I'm not aware of any other country sacking a Nobel award winner," said John Lancashire from the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science.

"As scientists we're all a bit eccentric and we all might slightly break protocol, but it's not going to destroy NIWA," Salinger commented. "It's not as though I'm doing bad science, it's not as though I'm not performing and so I'm really astounded." Salinger was given no written warning prior to his dismissal and was left with three and a half hours to clear his office. He had been working as a government scientist for 27 years. The Green Party has asked the Minister for Crown Research Institutes, Wayne Mapp, to call in the board of NIWA and instruct them to investigate the matter. "An investigation is needed into how it came to be that one of New Zealand’s foremost scientists was frog-marched out of his job for what appears to be trivial and petty reasons," said Fitzsimons.