Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that so many fossil-fuel power stations and energy-inefficient factories and buildings are likely to be built over the next five years that holding global warming to safe levels will become impossible. The excessive carbon production will be "locked in" for the lifetime of the infrastructure.

"The door is closing," said Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist. "I am very worried – if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever." By 2015, on current trends, 90 per cent of the carbon budget that is available if the temperature rise is to be limited to two degrees Celsius will be consumed by energy and industrial infrastructure, according to World Energy Outlook 2011. By 2017, the entire carbon budget will be committed. "If we do not have an international [climate] agreement, whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to [holding temperatures to the two degree threshold] will be closed forever," Birol warned.

Government representatives from 18 Southeast Asian countries meeting in Singapore have supported a call for the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs as one of the easiest ways to limit carbon emissions and make financial savings. Over 95 per cent of the energy emitted by an incandescent bulb is heat. Incandescent lamps have already been phased out or are scheduled to be phased out in most countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Senegal, Malaysia, Philippines and other developing countries.

The Singapore meeting was organized by the en.lighten project, a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/Global Environment Facility initiative in partnership with lighting manufacturers and China's National Lighting Test Center. The aim of the en.lighten project is to accelerate the market transformation of efficient lighting technologies on a global scale. UNEP has created a Centre of Excellence on Efficient Lighting to provide guidance and technical support to countries that partner with the initiative.

Aquaculture is the world's fastest growing source of animal protein, growing by more than 60 per cent between 2000 and 2008, according to World Aquaculture 2010 from the Food and Agriculture Organization. "With stagnating global capture fishery production and an increasing population, aquaculture is perceived as having the greatest potential to produce more fish in the future to meet the growing demand for safe and quality aquatic food," the report concludes.

World Aquaculture 2010 recommends that, "as the sector further expands, intensifies and diversifies, it should recognize the relevant environmental and social concerns and make conscious efforts to address them in a transparent manner, backed with scientific evidence." It also recommends that the sector should prepare itself to face the potential impacts of climate change, expressing concern that they will be more pronounced at the small-scale level, particularly in the Asia–Pacific, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean regions. It emphasizes, though, that large-scale producers in North America, Europe and some countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean regions are also likely to be adversely affected and that substantial financial losses leading to closures are possible.