Tiempo Climate Newswatch

Small Island Developing States have stressed their vulnerability to climate change and the need for energy efficiency and fair trade to protect their people against economic and environmental shocks during recent debates in the United Nations General Assembly. "To a Small Island Developing State, there are few things more important than securing the necessary assistance in order to build resilience against the many hazards that afflict the country on a consistent basis, including the violent storms that pass through our region even more frequently as a result of global warming," said Frederick Mitchell, Foreign Minister of the Bahamas. He called for the development of alternative energy sources "to make us less dependent on the current polluting technologies that supply our energy needs but threaten our sustainability." Petrus Compton, Foreign Minister of Saint Lucia, argued that "the international community, and in particular our developed partners, need to take more aggressive action to promote the development and distribution of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in developed and developing countries alike." He advocated the establishment of a global renewable energy and energy efficiency fund.

Charles Savarin, Foreign Minister of Dominica, welcomed the Central Emergency Response Fund, which, he said, "will significantly enhance the capacity of the United Nations to more effectively respond to the increasing frequency of natural disasters brought about by climate change and global warming." On trade, Eamon Courtenay, the Foreign Minister of Belize, said the World Trade Organization had worsened conditions for his country. "There is something fundamentally unfair in a system which promises a development agenda and delivers suspended negotiations and less market access to vulnerable economies," he said. In an earlier debate, Redley Killion, Vice-President of the Federated States of Micronesia, warned that small island nations "are under greater threat than ever before," despite the fact that they contribute little themselves to the climate problem. Nauruan President Ludwig Scotty lamented the lack of any substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 or in implementing the commitments made at the Mauritius Summit last year.

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• IHT
• Fiji Times

• Press release, UN
• Press release, UN

A decline in methane emissions from human activity during the 1990s, largely associated with less, or more efficient, use of natural gas, was responsible for the slower growth in atmospheric levels during that period, according to a recent study. Using observations and computer simulations, the research team determined that methane levels fell from a growth rate of 12 parts per billion (ppb) a year during the 1980s to 4 ppb a year in the 1990s. Methane emissions have increased since that time, but a reduction in wetland emissions caused by draining and climate change has offset the effect on concentrations in the atmosphere.

Paul Steele from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research in Australia, reckons that "had it not been for this reduction in methane emissions from wetlands, atmospheric levels of methane would most likely have continued rising. This suggests that, if the drying trend is reversed and emissions from wetlands return to normal, atmospheric methane levels may increase again, worsening the problem of climate change." The recent rise in emissions from human activity is linked to fossil fuel use in north Asia. Though concerned about future trends, Jos Lelieveld, from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, believes that methane emissions are much easier to control than carbon. "In my opinion the easiest and most time-effective way to control climate change is to start acting on methane," he says.

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• ENS
• EurekAlert!

• Nature

The world is warmer than it has been for 12,000 years, according to scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and universities in the United States. Global temperature has risen by 0.2 degrees Celsius every decade for the past thirty years. The study, based on indirect evidence of past ocean temperatures, concludes that the recent warming has brought global temperature to within about one degree Celsius of the highest temperature of the past million years.

"The evidence implies that we are getting close to dangerous levels of human-made pollution," warned James Hansen, of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. "If further global warming reaches two or three degrees Celsius, we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know," he said. "The last time it was that warm was in the middle Pliocene, about three million years ago, when sea level was estimated to have been about 25 metres higher than today."

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• BBC
• New Scientist

• Aljazeera

Satellite images of the pack ice in the Arctic Ocean have revealed extensive clearance during summer 2006. "This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low ice seasons," commented Mark Drinkwater of the European Space Agency. "It is highly imaginable that a ship could have passed from Spitzbergen or Northern Siberia through what is normally pack ice to reach the North Pole without difficulty," he continued. "If this anomaly trend continues, the North-East Passage or 'Northern Sea Route' between Europe and Asia will be open over longer intervals of time, and it is conceivable we might see attempts at sailing around the world directly across the summer Arctic Ocean within the next 10-20 years."

A new study from the University of Colorado reveals that the Greenland ice sheet is still losing mass. Between April 2004 and April 2006, the ice sheet lost ice at about two-and-a-half times the rate over the previous two years. "The acceleration rate really took off in 2004," said Isabella Velicogna of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. "We think the changes we are seeing are probably a pretty good indicator of the changing climatic conditions in Greenland, particularly in the southern region," she continued.

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• Reuters
• The Age
• Press release, ESA
• ENS

• ENS
• Reuters AlertNet
• ENS

An international conference on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 19th-21st September. Noting that "CDM gives flexibility to industrialized nations to meet their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets by setting up environment-clean projects in developing countries," conference chair Mohammad al-Sabban, an adviser to the Saudi oil minister, described CDM as "a win for investor, a win for the project host country and a win for the environment." Saudi Minister Ali Al-Naimi confirmed his nation's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, though he did warn that "solutions, such as solar, wind, nuclear or hydroelectric power may contribute to carbon dioxide emissions reductions, but they cannot meet increasing global demand for energy." Inaugurating the meeting, Riyadh Governor Prince Salman called on the business community to take advantage of opportunities provided by new investment avenues, such CDM.

Criticizing industrialized nations for not investing more in the scheme, acting secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Mohammed Barkindo claimed that "the mechanism is making relatively insignificant benefits to developing countries given what was initially envisaged." With the number of CDM projects rising to 300 this year, Yvo de Boer, recently appointed United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary, considers that "via international carbon finance, there is a potential to generate up to 100 billion dollars per year in green investment flow to developing countries... None of the other types of financial resources available to these countries have a potential of this scale."

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• Yahoo
• Yahoo
• Brunei Times
• Arab Times

• Conference website
• Press release, UNFCCC

The state of California is suing six automobile manufacturers over global warming. Accusing the carmakers of creating a "public nuisance", the complaint states that climate change "injuries have caused the people to suffer billions of dollars in damages, including millions of dollars of funds expended to determine the extent, location and nature of future harm and to prepare for and mitigate those harms, and billions of dollars of current harm to the value of flood control infrastructure and natural resources." The measure builds on recent initiatives by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"While the Bush administration continues to burrow its head in the sand, California has taken out a whole arsenal to combat emissions," commented Daniel Becker of the Sierra Club. The Automobile Alliance noted that manufacturers were already working to produce more fuel-efficient cars and argued that "using nuisance suits to address global warming would involve the courts in deciding political questions beyond their jurisdiction." "This opens the door to lawsuits targeting any activity that uses fossil fuel for energy," the Alliance statement continued.

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• Reuters
• Bloomberg
• Guardian
• Terra Daily

• Press release, Office of the Attorney General
• Complaint, Office of the Attorney General
• Comment on use of public nuisance suits, Jonathan H Adler

Switzerland and Kenya led a two-day meeting, September 14-15th, in Rüschlikon, Switzerland, to discuss the future role of developing nations within the climate treaty. At least seventeen developing nations took part. "We want to reinforce the dialogue launched last year in Montreal, by concentrating on reduction actions, which would be possible in all countries," Swiss environment minister Moritz Leuenberger said. Technical or financial support was also on the agenda. "This support has to take account of the priorities for Africa and other developing countries. Such priorities will be an important subject of discussions here in Rüschlikon, and [at the next Conference of the Parties to the climate treaty] in Nairobi in November," commented Leuenberger.

Earlier in the week, Asian and European politicians meeting in Helsinki, Finland, pledged to continue to cut greenhouse gases after the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol in the year 2012. The summit declaration calls for "the widest possible cooperation" in fighting global warming. "In comparison to ten years ago, now all countries recognize that climate change is an important issue, that we must continue Kyoto, that the time after 2012 must be in our sights and that we must do everything possible to improve energy efficiency and, at the same time, facilitate economic growth," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The declaration does, however, stop short of setting actual targets.

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• Terra Daily
• Speech, Moritz Leuenberger

• ENN
• Reuters AlertNet
• CBC News
• ASEM 6 Declaration on Climate Change

Changes in solar activity have made a "negligible" contribution to global warming over the past century, according to a new study. "Our results imply that over the past century climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the sun's brightness, said co-author Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, in the United States. "This basically rules out the sun as the cause of global warming," concludes Henk Spruit of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany.

Tom Wigley also contributed to a recent survey of the link between human activity and ocean warming in areas important for the formation of tropical storms. "The important conclusion is that the observed sea surface temperature increases in these hurricane breeding grounds cannot be explained by natural processes alone," he said. The analysis suggests that "with increasing sea surface temperatures, we can expect more intense hurricanes," reports co-author Nathan Gillett of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.

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• Reuters
• Scientific American

• ENS
• Guardian Unlimited
• IPS
• IHT
• Comment, Houston Chronicle

A second Green Revolution is needed to feed the world's growing population, according to Jacques Diouf, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization The original Green Revolution, which doubled world food production, "relied on the lavish use of inputs such as water, fertilizer and pesticides," he said. "The task ahead may well prove harder. We not only need to grow an extra one billion tonnes of cereals a year by 2050 but do so from a diminishing resource base of land and water in many of the worlds regions, and in an environment increasingly threatened by global warming and climate change."

Diouf reckons that the "new Green Revolution will be less about introducing new, high-performance varieties of wheat or rice, important as they are, and much more about making wiser and more efficient use of the natural resources available to us." The place to start was at village level and in developing countries themselves. "Investing in agriculture is usually low in the order of priorities of politicians, typically more interested in short-term returns, but we can no longer afford such neglect - our future depends on it."

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• Terra Daily

• Press release, FAO

A coalition of non-governmental organizations and think tanks has called on rich countries to pay for the effect that their lavish lifestyles have on the people and environment of the developing world in a new report on the implications of climate change for Latin America and the Caribbean. "The poorest of the poor are hit first and hardest by the impacts of climate change, although they had little or no role in causing the crisis," says Jan Kowalzig of Friends of the Earth Europe. "Climate change is mostly a result of the energy-hungry lifestyles in the rich world, including the European Union," he continues. "Consequently, Europe must take more serious steps to cut back its own emissions, but also it must act according to the principle that the polluter must pay and must finance adaptation measures and disaster relief in regions like in Latin America and the Caribbean."

"Climate change impacts are being felt across Latin America, ranging from drought in the Amazon to floods in Haiti, from vanishing glaciers in Colombia to hurricanes, not only in Central America but even in southern Brazil," according to Giulio Volpi of WWF International. "Across the region the capacity of natural ecosystems to act as buffers against extreme weather events is being undermined, leaving people more vulnerable." The coalition concludes that immediate action is needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, stop illegal logging and government-sanctioned deforestation and prioritize energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. It also calls for assessment of national vulnerabilities, support for community-based coping strategies and disaster risk reduction, increased support for small-scale agriculture and new standards for the private sector.

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• theparliament.com
• Press release, FOE

• Download report, WWF International

Leaked information from the forthcoming Fourth Assessment of the International Panel on Climate Change suggests that the more extreme forecasts of global warming rates may be revised down. The current draft narrows the range of predictions for the year 2100 from 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius to 2 to 4.5 degrees Celsius, reflecting increasing confidence in the forecasts. Holding greenhouse gas emissions at current levels would limit the rise to two degrees by the end of the century, the draft report concludes. The report will finalized in the first quarter of 2007.

Dismissing the Kyoto Protocol as "largely ineffectual," Frances Cairncross, chair of the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council has called for a greater emphasis on adapting to the changing climate. Speaking at the British Association Festival of Science in Norwich, United Kingdom, she said that "adaptation policies have had far less attention than mitigation, and that is a mistake. We need to think now about policies that prepare for a hotter, drier world, especially in poorer countries." Former United States Vice President Al Gore, meanwhile, warned that adaptation to climate change could serve as an excuse for not reducing pollution. "We have to solve it [global warming] and there are some people who urge adaptation instead of prevention, and that formulation must be rejected," he said while visiting Helsinki, Finland. Given the damage already done, it is only morally responsible that poor nations must be helped to cope with existing changes, he continued.

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• The Australian
• Comment, SciGuy

• Independent
• Planet Ark
• Reuters

Approaches to slowing deforestation were discussed at a workshop in Rome, Italy, during the first week in September. Governments presented the results of their actions to slow forest destruction and the lessons they had learned. The workshop also considered the technical requirements for monitoring deforestation rates and consequent emissions. "This meeting clarified the key challenges in this area and identified useful ways to move forward on this important issue," reported Kishan Kumarsingh, chair of the climate treaty's Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, who led the meeting.

There were strong calls for the establishment of a financial mechanism to provide financial incentives for developing countries that voluntarily reduced their emissions from deforestation. Brazil proposed a compensation fund that countries could access if they could prove they had brought deforestation below rates of the 1990s. "Once again Brazil is acting as a protagonist in presenting an innovative proposal," said Environment Minister Marina Silva. Negotiations will continue in Nairobi, Kenya, at the next meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the climate treaty.

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• Press release, FAO
• Press release, UNFCCC
• ENN

• Independent Online
• Radio New Zealand International

California's political leaders last week reached a "historic agreement" to control greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed bill was swiftly approved by the Senate and Assembly this week and commits the state to cut carbon dioxide emissions back to 1990 levels, a reduction of around 25 per cent, by the year 2020. Emission limits and reduction measures will go into effect by 2012, with penalties for failure to comply. Market mechanisms will be developed, including carbon credit trading. The bill requires the California Air Resources Board to report on greenhouse gas emissions by the major polluters. In the event of "extraordinary circumstances", such as a natural disaster or economic crisis, the governor can bring implementation to a halt for up to a year.

"We can now move forward with developing a market-based system that makes California a world leader in the effort to reduce carbon emissions," said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. "We've reached a tipping point in the fight against global warming," commented Frances Beinecke of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The whole world has been watching to see whether California passes this bill, and now the world will watch as California takes the lead in developing a clean energy market." "It's an old saying, but I think it's still true: where goes California, the rest of the country will follow in another five or 10 years," commented Steve Sawyer from Greenpeace.

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• Reuters
• Terra Daily
• ENN

• VoA
• Global Warming Solutions Act, 2006

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) will invest in the greening of South Africa's transport system ahead of the 2010 Fédération Internationale de Football World Cup. "Well designed, well run, and sensibly planned public transport can play a key role in cutting climate change emissions. It can also help to improve local air quality and bridge social and economic divides," said Monique Barbut, GEF chief executive officer. Around US$11 million has been provisionally allocated to the project. "We share the South African government's aspirations on this and agree that the World Cup represents a great opportunity to lay out a 21st century, sustainable transport network," she continued.

The move has been endorsed by leading footballers Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima and Zinédine Zidane. "Sub-standard public transport perpetuates poverty, generates health-threatening polluted air and contributes to climate change, which affects everyone, everywhere," they said in a statement. "We both have personal experience of this as we were both brought up in communities where poor quality public transport was all too sadly the norm." The Green Goal initiative at the 2006 World Cup in Germany resulted in a drop in private car use, according to a preliminary evaluation, and "significant achievements in areas such as energy savings, rainwater harvesting and waste minimization at stadia," according to Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme.

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• IPS
• AllAfrica

• AllAfrica
• Press release, UNEP

The World Bank is urging the international community to integrate climate concerns in development strategies to safeguard gains in economic development and poverty reduction. A new report, Managing Climate Risk - Integrating Adaptation into World Bank Group Operations, estimates the potential impact on investments of climate change at one to two per cent of the portfolio, about US$200 million to $400 million a year within the World Bank Group and at least US$1 billion for all official development assistance and concessional lending. The World Bank is committed to integrating climate risk management at the outset in project design and into country and sector dialogues and development strategies and supports the creation of financing mechanisms for adaptation.

According to World Bank environment director Warren Evans, "adaptation to climate risks needs to be treated as a major economic and social risk to national economies, not just as a long-term environment problem. By enhancing climate risk management, development institutions and their partner countries will be able to better address the growing risks from climate change and, at the same time, make current development investments more resilient to climate variability and extreme weather events." Monique Barbut, head of the Global Environment Facility, commented that "funding for adaptation to climate change is absolutely critical for developing countries. The best form of adaptation is mitigation, but we must also deal with the climate change that the planet is already signed up to."

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• Reuters
• AllAfrica
• Independent Online

• Press release, World Bank

World Water Week took place in Stockholm, Sweden, August 20-26th. The theme this year was "Beyond the River - Sharing Benefits and Responsibilities". A landmark report released during the event called for a radical new agenda for agricultural water management. Based on assessment of past water-management practices, the study was led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), based in Sri Lanka. "The last 50 years of water management practices are no model for the future when it comes to dealing with water scarcity," said Frank Rijsberman, IWMI head. "We need radical change in the institutions and organizations responsible for managing our earth's water supplies and a vastly different way of thinking about water management."

David Molden at IWMI concludes that "to feed the growing population and reduce malnourishment, the world has three choices: expand irrigation by diverting more water to agriculture and building more dams, at a major cost to the environment; expand the area under rain-fed agriculture at the expense of natural areas through massive deforestation and other habitat destruction; or do more with the water we already use. We must grow more crop per drop, more meat and milk per drop, and more fish per drop." The report does identify areas of innovation that hold hope for the future, particularly low-cost technologies that facilitate access to, and use of, water by the rural poor. As long as health issues are addressed, people can effectively use urban wastewater as a productive resource. Irrigation could be reformed and transformed to reduce water wastage and increase productivity.

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Other news from World Water Week

• Greenbiz
• edie
• Press release, CGIAR

• Overview, ENS
• Overview, IPS
• Tree planting, SciDev.Net
• Fixing leaks, Reuters
• Water scenarios, WBCSD
• Fighting corruption, ENS

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is considering tougher environmental guidelines to regulate shrimp farming operations across Asia. Shrimp farming has been responsible for the destruction of extensive areas of mangrove forest, removing a valuable resource that provides natural coastal protection. According to Ben Brown of the Mangrove Action Project, as much as 90 per cent of Asia's mangrove has been destroyed by shrimp farming, which is rarely sustainable. "In Asia, the average intensive shrimp farm survives only two to five years before serious pollution and disease problems cause early closures" he said. The industry has a "get-in-quick, do-it-dirty approach, and it causes a lot of havoc."

The guidelines have been developed by a consortium that includes the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA), whose 17 member-governments have already agreed to the regulations. FAO adoption will mean the guidelines will become part of national government policy. Regulation is considered necessary because the environmental costs of shrimp farming are borne by the broad community. "There is no incentive to take account of mangrove costs, because they are not felt as losses to the private producers, but to the wider economy," argues Lucy Emerton at the World Conservation Union.

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• Reuters

• International Principles for Responsible Shrimp Farming, NACA
• On the Web: The mangrove ecosystem

The latest report on the state of the global ozone layer in the stratosphere warns that recovery may be delayed by five to 15 years beyond earlier forecasts, but the atmosphere is responding to the effect of the Montreal Protocol in curbing the release of ozone-depleting chemicals. The report was prepared by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme. "While these latest projections of ozone recovery are disappointing, the good news is that the level of ozone-depleting substances continues to decline from its 1992-94 peak in the troposphere and 1990s peak in the stratosphere," commented Michel Jarraud, WMO Secretary-General.

The latest predictions indicate that the ozone over the Antarctic should recover by the year 2065. Over middle latitudes, recovery should occur by 2049. The fact that the decline in stratospheric ozone levels away from the polar regions observed during the 1990s has not continued is seen as a response to stable levels of ozone-depleting gases during the recent period. "The early signs that the atmosphere is healing demonstrate that the Montreal Protocol is working. But the delayed recovery is a warning that we cannot take the ozone layer for granted and must maintain and accelerate our efforts to phase out harmful chemicals", said Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director.

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• BBC
• Guardian Unlimited

• Press release, UNEP
• Executive Summary, Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2006, WMO/UNEP

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.

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• 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,"

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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.

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• Press release, UNFCCC
• Stuff

• Planet Ark
• Bloomberg
• Targets, RGGI

The Clinton Climate Initiative, which was launched early August, has formed a partnership with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, chaired by the Mayor of London, to reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency in twenty-two of the world's largest cities. "It no longer makes sense for us to debate whether or not the Earth is warming at an alarming rate, and it doesn't make sense for us to sit back and wait for others to act," said former United States President Bill Clinton. "The fate of the planet that our children and grandchildren will inherit is in our hands." He stressed that the partnership will take "measurable steps" towards slowing down global warming.

The partnership will take a business-oriented approach. According to London Mayor Ken Livingston, "there is no bigger task for humanity than to avert catastrophic climate change. The world's largest cities can have a major impact on this. Already they are at the center of developing the technologies and innovative new practices that provide hope that we can radically reduce carbon emissions." One of the first steps the partnership will take is to form a purchasing consortium that pool the cities' buying power to lower the price of energy saving products and stimulate technological development.

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• ENS
• Interior Design

• SciDevNet
• Washington Post

The Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is encouraging indigenous peoples, particularly from Africa, to participate actively in the next Conference of the Parties to the climate treaty in Nairobi, Kenya, in November 2006. Marking the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, August 9th, Richard Kinley, acting head of the Secretariat, congratulated indigenous peoples on their "continued progress with strengthening international cooperation on issues of concern."

The leaders of the world's indigenous peoples have called on the United Nations General Assembly to recognize native people's right to self-determination and protect them against discrimination and oppression by approving the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, reports that "systematic racism and discrimination is still the lot of many indigenous people not only in the developing countries, but also in the richest and most powerful countries." United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan acknowledges that "much remains to be done to protect [indigenous peoples] from massive human rights violations, to alleviate the poverty they face and to safeguard against many discriminations that, for example, forces many indigenous girls to drop out of school."

More information

• Press release, UNFCCC
• IPS

• Latest draft of the Declaration, CWIS

An Inuit community in Canada is installing air conditioners after July temperatures topped 30°C. Ten air conditioners are being installed for office workers in the village of Kuujjuaq in Quebec, Canada. "These are the times when the far north has to have air conditioners now to function," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, International Chair for the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. "Our Arctic homes are made to be airtight for the cold and do not 'breathe' well in the heat with this warming trend."

Writing in Ambio, Terry Chapin, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and his co-authors argue that Arctic nations have the wealth and scientific understanding to alter the course of global climate change: Arctic nations "account for about 40 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions and, therefore, have a substantial capacity to reduce the rates of Arctic change." They argue that there is already enough information to devise suitable strategies. "We do not need to delay action until some future time when we will ‘know enough’ to act," says Chapin. The authors advance a set of policy recommendations, including approaches to emissions reductions and the zoning of increasingly ice-free areas. "A lot of the recommendations for policy change deal with enhancing the capacity of northern regions to be flexible and adaptable to cope with changes, some of which we can predict, and others of which will be surprises," reports Chapin.

More information

• edie
• Reuters

• Press release, Institute of Arctic Biology

A new report warns that rapid global warming poses a variety of threats to the security of the Asia-Pacific region. "There is no longer much doubt that the world is facing a prolonged period of planetary warming," conclude authors Alan Dupont from the Lowy Institute for International Policy and Graeme Pearman, a fellow at Monash University. "Compressed within the space of a single century, global warming will present far more daunting challenges of human and biological adaptation" than previous, slower environmental shifts.

The report, from the Lowy Institute, based in Sydney, Australia, identifies sea-level rise as a major threat to the low-lying islands of the Pacific, heavily urbanized areas, such as the Yellow and Yangzi deltas in China, the east coast of Bangladesh, the deltas of Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar and parts of the Philippines and Indonesia. Weather extremes and climate fluctuations could "refashion" the region's productive landscapes and affect the incidence of disease. The authors call for a "fundamental transformation" in our approach to energy use, avoiding fossil fuels.

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• CNN
• ABC

• Comment from Alan Dupont, The Australian
• Download report (0.8Mb), Lowy Institute

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have announced an agreement to work together to fight global warming that could lay the foundations for a trans-Atlantic emissions trading system. They will collaborate on research into cleaner fuels and technologies. "The environmental and economic consequences of climate change and our dependency on fossil fuels compel both California and the United Kingdom to commit to urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote low carbon technologies," according to a joint statement.

"We see that there is not great leadership from the federal government when it comes to protecting the environment," Schwarzenegger said. "We know that there is global warming, so we should stop it." Both parties were, however, eager to dismiss the idea that the agreement undercuts the Bush administration's position on the climate issue. Kristen Hellmer, speaking for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, described the agreement as a "wonderful amplification" of last year's talks between President Bush and the British Prime Minister.

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• Seattle Times
• Guardian Unlimited

• Planet Ark

Participants at a recent European Science Foundation meeting have called for a long-term research programme to develop the "artificial leaf", harnessing the way in which biological systems convert solar energy in order to produce fuels on a commercial scale. The programme will tackle means of extending current photovoltaic technology to generate clean fuels directly from solar radiation, the construction of artificial devices mimicking photosynthesis and tuning natural systems to produce fuels such as hydrogen and methanol directly rather than carbohydrates that require further processing to generate fuels.

In the United Kingdom, electronics chain Currys is to sell solar photovoltaic panels in selected high street shops. Announcing the development, Currys said that rising electricity prices and a better understanding of environmental issues meant customers were now more open to purchasing these items. They intend to cut the cost to almost half that charged by specialist suppliers. Mike Childs from Friends of the Earth welcomed the move, but noted that insulation and double-glazing would be a cheaper starting point for many households.

More information

• Press release, ESF

• BBC
• in2perspective

The Amazonian forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought, according to research conducted by the Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, United States. The project was led by Dan Nepstad, who is based in Belém, Brazil. "We started thinking about simulated drought experiments back in 1994, when the Amazon was coming out of a major drought caused by a severe El Niño, and the forest almost completely ran out of water," he explains. There is now increasing concern that global warming could lead to longer and/or more severe droughts in the Amazonian Basin.

The research involved covering an area of forest the size of a football pitch with plastic to simulate prolonged drought. Nepstad reports that the trees survived two years of drought, by sinking their roots deeper to locate remaining moisture. "That’s one of the most fascinating things about the Amazon," he says. "The east and southeastern parts of the forest actually go months each year with little or no rain. The trees survive by tapping soil moisture as far down as 20 metres." But, in year three of the experiment, the trees began to die, releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere and accelerating global warming.

More information

• New Zealand Herald
• Earth Observatory, NASA
• New Zealand Herald

• Audio interview with Dan Nepstad about the 2005 Amazonian drought ( text), Living on Earth

Participants at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) conference, Living with Climate Variability and Change, held in Espoo, Finland during July 2006, have called for "efforts to assemble disparate knowledge, to identify good practice, and to assess the value of and give visibility to climate-related risk management." They are concerned that there is a "lack of awareness of climate-related risk management opportunities among numerous communities that would benefit."

Opening the meeting, Michel Jarraud, WMO Secretary-General, drew attention to the particular needs of the developing nations, where the "concept of climate risk might not even be considered." "In the developing and the Least-Developed Countries," he continued, "there is often no established or an insufficient mechanism for data collection and reporting and, accordingly, insufficient reliable data on which to base a rational attempt at risk assessment." The conference was cosponsored by the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

More information

• Press release (1.7Mb download), WMO

• Espoo Statement

The British government may cap each citizen's carbon emissions and permit individuals to trade carbon credits gained by reducing their emissions below the personal limit. "Imagine a country where carbon becomes a new currency," said Environment Secretary David Miliband introducing a study of the proposal. "We carry bank cards that store both pounds and carbon points. When we buy electricity, gas and fuel, we use our carbon points, as well as pounds."

The scheme would cover energy use through electricity, gas, petrol and air travel. "People on low incomes are likely to benefit as they will be able to sell their excess allowances," Miliband said. "People on higher incomes tend to have higher carbon emissions due to higher car ownership and usage, air travel and tourism, and larger homes." The personal allowance is one of a number of schemes the government is considering to involve the public in carbon reduction.

More information

• Guardian
• Times Online
• Ottawa Recorder

• Domestic Tradable Quotas (0.7Mb download), Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
• Blog entry, David Miliband

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that action is needed to conserve Pacific mangroves. As a result of climate change and other stresses, some Pacific islands could see half their mangroves lost by the end of the century. The link between the mangrove wetlands and other coastal ecosystems and their contribution to near-shore fisheries production make it "critical for Pacific Island governments and local communities to act now to ensure the sustainable provision of mangrove ecosystem services," says Kitty Simonds of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.

According to Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, "there are many compelling reasons for fighting climate change. The threats to mangroves in the Pacific, and by inference across other low-lying parts of the tropics, underline yet another reason to act" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But," he continued, "there is also an urgent need to help vulnerable communities adapt to the sea level rise which is already underway." Vainuupo Jungblut at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme reckons that "the challenge for the region is to implement appropriate and affordable adaptation measures with limited resources."

More information

• Independent Online
• Fiji Times
• Press release, UNEP

• Pacific Island Mangroves in a Changing Climate and Rising Seas, UNEP

Leading scientists and policy experts have signed a declaration calling for a new international coordinating mechanism to advise governments on protecting biodiversity. They argue that the gap between biodiversity science and public policy must be closed as a matter of urgency and that the global scientific community should be more strongly organized and integrated. Bob Watson, chief scientist at the World Bank, reckons that biodiversity needs the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "It is a wonderful example of academics working with politicians," he said. The Convention on Biological Diversity does not have the "structural means to mobilize the expertise of a large scientific community that spans a wide range of disciplines," according to the declaration.

Last year, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warned that the present rate of species loss may be one thousand times faster than at any time in history. "It is the bits of biodiversity acting together that creates the ecological goods and services that we depend on for life," according to Georgina Mace at the Institute of Zoology in London, United Kingdom. "For the sake of the planet," Watson concludes, "the biodiversity science community has to create a way to get organized, to coordinate its work across disciplines, and together with one clear voice advise governments on steps to halt the potentially catastrophic loss of species already occurring." The Consultative Process Towards an International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity (IMOSEB) has been established to produce recommendations for such a process.

More information

Background

• IPS
• BBC
• Reuters
• CORDIS

• Press release and Declaration, IMOSEB

The annual Group of Eight (G8) Summit took place in St Petersburg, Russia, July 15-17th 2006. The G8 leaders approved a statement that recognized a split within the group on nuclear energy and climate change as "G8 members pursue different ways to achieve energy security and the goals of climate protection." The statement said that those who favour the nuclear response, six of the eight members, see it as a key to energy security and slowing global warming.

Environmental groups were not happy with the endorsement, albeit qualified, of the nuclear option. "Spreading nuclear reactors around the planet will pave the way for new terrorist threats and new potential nuclear armed states," warned the GRACE Policy Institute. Alice Slater of the GRACE Policy Institute said that it was time to focus on the green renewable sources of energy. "People don't get told the story that these things are possible, that the sun, water and wind can work," she said. Graham Saul at Oil Change International took issue with the G8 prediction of a massive increase in demand for fossil fuels: "The G8 can't fight climate change and subsidize an expansion of fossil fuels at the same time. This is a complete contradiction and a dramatic failure of leadership on the part of the G8."

More information

• Reuters
• Reuters
• Energy Business Review

• ENS
• Cattle Network
• G8 Statement on Global Energy Security

The World Heritage Committee (WHC) has adopted a strategy in response to the threat that climate change brings to sites such as Mount Everest and the Great Barrier Reef. Sites at risk will be added to the List of World Heritage in Danger on a case by case basis. There will be a study of alternatives to the Danger List for these sites. Environmentalists were frustrated by what they saw as a conservative stance. They had lobbied for a strong statement on the need to reduce emissions and immediate listing of threatened sites such as Mount Everest.

"We are extremely angry that the World Heritage Committee has not taken any meaningful action to protect some of the most important sites on Earth from climate change," said Peter Roderick of the Climate Justice Programme. "They are good at drawing up wonderfully drafted documents, but the idea of actually doing anything seems to pose a problem." WHC chairperson Ina Marciulionyte explained that "this is the start of a long process, which is important in that it helps draw attention to a far reaching issue. It is our duty to do whatever we can to protect World Heritage in keeping with our responsibility to implement the World Heritage Convention. This is what we are trying to do by initiating more studies and sharing experience."

More information

• ENS
• BBC

• New Zealand Herald
• ABC Online

The Pacific island of Vanuatu is the happiest nation on earth, according to the Happy Planet Index. The index, developed by the new economics foundation (nef), is based on consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness, rather than measurements of national economic wealth. "It is clear that no single nation listed in the index has got everything right," said Nic Marks from nef, "but it does reveal patterns that show how we might better achieve long and happy lives for all while living within our environmental means."

nef is calling for the adoption of a global manifesto for a happier planet. Recommendations include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, recognizing the contribution of individuals and unpaid work and ensuring economic policies stay within environmental limits. According to Simon Bullock of Friends of the Earth, "the current crude focus on Gross Domestic Product is outdated, destructive and doesn't deliver a better quality of life."

More information

• BBC
• Independent

• Download report, nef

In the run-up to the Group of Eight (G8) Summit in St Petersburg, Russia, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that he would like to see the G8 expanded to 13 nations, taking in China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. He considers that this is essential if global agreement is to be reached on climate change, trade and other issues. There is no way we can deal with climate change unless we get an agreement that binds in the United States, China and India," he said. The British government recently published plans to bring the developing nations into a more forward role in the climate negotiations.

Jacques Chirac, the French President, called on the G8 members to "set an example by respecting their commitments" under the Kyoto Protocol. "If we continue on our current course, increased consumption of fossil fuels will be disastrous for the environment and climate," he warned. The WorldWide Fund for Nature urged the G8 to adopt a "Marshall Plan" to treat climate change and energy security in one concerted effort. G8 legislators also underlined the need for a joint response. "If we do not successfully address both, we risk undermining our development, economic and security goals," they said in a statement released at a meeting organized by Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE) International. Responding to fears that climate would drop down the agenda in St Petersburg, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that G8 members would use the Summit to "to renew the commitments we made together last year on climate change."

More information

Background

• Trend
• Independent
• Planet Ark
• IPS
• IOL

• Comment from Jacques Chirac, Independent
• Energy poll, BBC

The European Parliament is supporting proposals for an emissions trading scheme for air travel. Despite the air industry's substantial contribution to global warming, the Kyoto Protocol exempted the sector from emissions reductions targets in the expectation, that has not been realised, that a voluntary scheme would be established. The European initiative will, it is hoped, curb the growth in emissions from the region's aircraft, which stood at 85 per cent between 1994 and 2004. During its initial phase, the air travel scheme will run alongside the existing European emission trading scheme.

The industry response to the proposed scheme has been mixed. British Airways supports an emissions trading scheme, preferring this approach to, for example, a tax on fuel. Sylviane Lust, director general of the International Airline Carrier Association, claims, however, that "the recommendation to set up a separate... scheme for aviation is totally unrealistic." Jos Dings of the European Federation for Transport and Environment welcomed the development. "It is high time Europe got its head out of the clouds, got the aviation sector in line with other polluters and started demanding emissions cuts," he said.

More information

Background

• Guardian Unlimited
• edie
• New Zealand Herald
• IACA statement
• T&E statement

• Travel emissions calculator, World Land Trust
• Aviation and the Global Atmosphere, IPCC

The increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the air is making the oceans more acidic. According to a new report from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder in the United States, the trend is "dramatically altering ocean chemistry and threatening corals and other marine organisms that secrete skeletal structures." Ken Caldeira from Stanford University reported that the ocean is more acid than it has been for "many millions of years." "What we're doing in the next decade will affect our oceans for millions of years," he said. "Carbon dioxide levels are going up extremely rapidly, and it's overwhelming our marine systems."

Christopher Langdon, from the University of Miami, has shown that corals grew half as fast in aquaria when exposed to carbon dioxide levels that might prevail by the middle of the present century. He fears that corals might not be able to survive by the end of the century. "These organisms probably don't have the adaptive ability to respond to this new onslaught," he warns. John Guinotte at the Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Redmond is concerned that plankton and marine snails may suffer. "These are groups everyone depends on, and if their numbers go down, there are going to be reverberations throughout the food chain," he said. "When I see marine snails' shells dissolving while they're alive, that's spooky."

More information

• Seattle Times
• Terra Daily
• ENS

• Press release, NCAR
• Download report (9Mb), NCAR

A recent study suggests that salps, transparent jellyfish-like creatures, may be carrying substantial amounts of carbon down into the ocean, limiting the rise in atmospheric concentrations. "Salps swim, feed, and produce waste continuously," according to Laurence Madin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the United States. "They take in small packages of carbon and make them into big packages that sink fast."

In field studies in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, the researchers found that one species, Salpa aspera, multiplied into dense swarms that lasted for months. One swarm covered 100,000 square kilometres, consuming up to 74 per cent of microscopic carbon-containing plants from the surface water each day. Sinking waste then took up to 4,000 tons of carbon a day down to deep water.

More information

Background

• Science Daily

• Discover

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

The European Union and the United States have agreed to "act with resolve and urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," at an annual summit held in Vienna, Austria. Though the contentious issue of the Kyoto Protocol was side-stepped, a new EU-US High Level Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development will hold its first meeting this autumn in Finland. Through strategic cooperation, the agreement aims to "accelerate investment in cleaner, more efficient use of fossil sources and renewable sources in order to cut air pollution harmful to human health and natural resources, and reducing greenhouse gases associated with the serious long-term challenge of global climate change." EU President Manuel Barroso reported that the Dialogue will "address ways to get cost-effective emission cuts, development and employment of new technologies, efficiency and conservation, renewable fuels and other environmental issues such as biodiversity."

The High Level Dialogue will advance the G8 Gleneagles Plan of Action for Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development. Topics to be covered include experience with different market-based mechanisms, advancing the development and deployment of existing and transformational technologies, producing energy with lower emissions, efficiency and conservation, renewable fuels, clean diesel, capture of methane, lower emitting agricultural operations and energy production and distribution systems. US President George Bush commented that he "kind of startled my country when, in my State of the Union, I said we're hooked on oil and we need to get off oil. That seemed counterintuitive for some people to hear a Texan say. But the truth of the matter is, we got to diversify away from oil. And the best way to do it is through new technologies."

More information

• ENS
• BBC
• edie

• Summit Declaration, Europa

A United Nations conference, held in Tunis, Algeria, during June 2006, has concluded that better management and a wider spreading of scientific knowledge are essential in the fight against desertification. The Tunis Declaration, resulting from the conference The Future of the Drylands, which was attended by 300 scientists, calls on governments to "place combatting desertification and development of drylands as a major priority and to create an enabling environment." Furthermore, governments and multilateral environmental agreements should "use sound scientific knowledge to formulate and implement policies, laws, regulations and action programmes vis-a-vis environmental issues stressing integrated management of natural resources and conservation practices."

The Tunis Declaration underlines the role of scientists in disseminating research results and making them available "to decision-makers and local dryland communities so that research can help shape sound policies and good governance as well as education on an interactive basis for sustainable dryland management and improved livelihoods." It identifies the preservation of cultural and biological diversity, management of water resources and the identification of sustainable livelihoods for dryland inhabitants as critical issues. "Drylands do have a future," said Walter Erdelen of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as the meeting ended. They should not "be neglected as remote or peripheral areas or considered as marginal with respect to their economic productivity," he warned.

More information

• Terra Daily
• Press release, UN News Service

• Tunis Declaration, UNESCO

A new project will bring high quality public transport to three of the most polluted cities in the world. The project was announced at the World Urban Forum III in Vancouver, Canada. Concepción, Chile, Guatemala City and Panama City in Central America will see new modern bus networks, cycle ways and pedestrianization schemes in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 100,000 tonnes a year. A new information network, NESTLAC, will link these cities to others in the region, promoting cooperation.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), commented that "the urban environment is inextricably intertwined with the rural one and inextricably linked with the way local, regional and global natural resources are soundly and sustainably managed. So it is vital that we get cities right if we are to meet the internationally agreed development goals, if we are to deal with such pressing global issues as climate change." The project is being funded by the Global Environmental Facility and will be managed through the UNEP's Risø Centre.

More information

• Panama Guide
• Press release, UNEP

• Project summary, NESTLAC

The science academies of 12 nations have urged political leaders not to neglect climate change during energy security talks at the G8 Summit in July 2006. They cite climate change, sharply rising and fluctuating oil and gas prices, providing fuels to the developing world, inefficient and wasteful use of energy, and a geographical mismatch between energy sources and users as "very serious difficulties related to sustainability and security of energy." "If energy sustainability and security fail, the primary human development goals cannot be achieved," they conclude.

The academies warn that climate change considerations could get lost as nations concentrate on securing energy supplies. "One year on from the UK Gleneagles Summit, where the G8 committed to taking action on climate change, this crucial issue must not be allowed to fall by the wayside," said Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society. "The G8 must demonstrate that this was a serious pledge by integrating climate concerns with their discussions regarding security of supply."

More information

• ENS
• Reuters

• Press release, Royal Society
• Download Statement, Joint Science Academies

William Bradshaw and Christina Holzapfel at the University of Oregon in Eugene in the United States report that some species of animals are adopting new patterns of behaviour to cope with global warming as rapid climate changes over the past several decades lead to heritable, genetic changes. "Over the past 40 years, animal species have been extending their range toward the poles and populations have been migrating, developing or reproducing earlier," according to Bradshaw. Red squirrels in Canada are reproducing earlier in the year and German blackcap birds are arriving earlier at nesting sites.

Bradshaw attributes the adaptation to phenotypic plasticity, the ability of animals to modify their behaviour, morphology or physiology as their environment changes. "Small animals with short life cycles and large population sizes will probably adapt to longer growing seasons and be able to persist," said Bradshaw. "However, populations of many large animals with longer life cycles and smaller population sizes will experience a decline in population size or be replaced by more southern species." Though behavioural adaptation to changes in season onset and duration are occurring, the researchers found no evidence of genetic changes, such as increased heat tolerance, directly related to higher seasonal temperatures rather than season length.

More information

• National Geographic
• Earth Times

• Live Science
• Inside Oregon

More than 200 green energy projects have been approved under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) since late 2004, and 600 more are in the pipeline, according to the Climate Change Secretariat. By 2012, the CDM could generate one billion tonnes of emissions reductions. This "corresponds to the present (annual) emissions of Spain and the United Kingdom combined," says the Secretariat.

There is concern, though, about the lop-sided development of the programme. "Whilst the mechanism is seeing exponential growth, the growth is still too unevenly distributed," according to Richard Kinley, Secretariat head. There have been few projects in Africa, for example. To date, The Netherlands, Britain and Japan have been the leading investors in the CDM.

More information

• Reuters
• Press release, UNFCCC

• On the Web: Clean Development Mechanism

June 17th is World Desertification Day. This year's theme is "The Beauty of Deserts – The Challenge of Desertification".

The world's deserts are facing dramatic changes as a result of climate change, water demands, tourism and salt contamination, according the World Deserts Outlook, published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on World Environment Day, 5th June. "Across the planet, poverty, unsustainable land management and climate change are turning drylands into deserts, and desertification in turn exacerbates and leads to poverty," said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "There is also mounting evidence that dryland degradation and competition over increasingly scarce resources can bring communities into conflict," he continued. The report argues that global and regional instability is altering desert landscapes as more military training grounds, prisons and refugee holding stations are built.

UNEP launched a guide on tourism and deserts on the same day. "The guide seeks to promote desert tourism as a leading source of sustainable development in the countries concerned," said UNEP's Monique Barbut. "With careful planning, tour operators can help mitigate the seasonal nature of desert tourism by generating positive social, economic, and environmental impacts that will offer year-round benefits for the communities living in desert destinations." The guide notes that desert tourism is growing quickly but that the tolerance threshold for visitor numbers in the fragile desert ecosystems is not high.

More information

• Reuters
• Press release, Global Deserts Outlook, UNEP
• Press release, Tourism and Deserts, UNEP

• Global Deserts Outlook, UNEP
• Download Tourism and Deserts, UNEP
• Deserts and Drylands, Special issue of Our Planet, UNEP
• On the Web: Drylands and desertification

An American team of researchers has developed a new process for studying complex drylands and desert landscapes. The team was led by Debra Peters, a research scientist at the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, at the Jornada Experimental Range in southern New Mexico, where the research was conducted. "Previously we looked at small areas and used that information to make guesses about the large area, to extrapolate to the big area, and that doesn't work very well when things are really complex and so then we shifted to say, really, the complexity is what's interesting and important," reported Peters.

The research has been based on a six-step approach in order to give full weight to the myriad, complex influences on the system: "look up" to assess the broad scale; "look back" in time to determine the role of past events on the present landscape; "look around" to consider adjacent spaces and the influence of wind, water and animals as connecting transport vectors; "look down" to determine fine-scale properties and processes of the landscape; then integrate the information from broad scale to fine scale to determine the most important influences; and, finally, "look forward" in time to the effects of variable environmental factors from the current landscape to the future.

More information

• Science Daily

• On the Web: Drylands and desertification

Construction has begun on what it is claimed will be the world's largest solar power plant. The power plant is located near Serpa, 200km south of Lisbon, in Portugal's Alentejo region. Generating eleven megawatts of electricity, it will consist of 52,000 photovoltaic modules on a 60-hectare hillside. The plant will use PowerLight's PowerTracker technology so that the photovoltaic modules follow the sun.

According to Piero Dal Maso, of the renewable energy company Catavento, the plant "should provide energy enough for 8,000 homes. It will save 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, so that is probably around one per cent of domestic consumption of Portugal." An even larger solar power station has been proposed for the same region. Visible from space, that installation could generate 116 megawatts of electricity.

More information

• BBC
• The Engineer Online

• Solarbuzz
• Guardian Unlimited

A report on the 3 Country Energy Efficiency (3CEE) Project concludes that China, India and Brazil will more than double their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions within a generation if energy efficiency efforts are not successful. In contrast, "improving energy efficiency for existing buildings and other infrastructure could cut current energy consumption by 25 per cent or more in India, China and Brazil, amounting to millions of tons in reduced greenhouse gas emissions and hundreds of millions of dollars in energy savings," according to Robert Taylor, World Bank energy specialist and project leader. The project is a joint initiative of the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Programme and partners in Brazil, China and India.

Since 2001, the 3CEE Project has worked to promote energy efficiency projects in the target nations by easing typical investment requirements of financial institutions. "Many energy efficiency projects quickly pay for themselves, with typical returns on investment of 20-40 per cent," says Chandra Govindarajalu, World Bank environment specialist. "Despite the demonstrated benefits, though, companies often cite other, more immediate investment and borrowing priorities", he continued. "Meanwhile, commercial banks in these countries are generally unfamiliar with financing projects designed to achieve cost savings, rather than develop new product lines or other tangible assets." The way forward is to foster corporate awareness, support catalyst energy efficiency practitioners and enlighten commercial banks to ease access to local financing for such projects.

More information

• ENS
• SciDevNet
• Terra Daily
• Reuters

• Press release, 3CEE
• Executive Summary, 3CEE
• Country reports, 3CEE

The European Commission has launched a campaign to encourage Europeans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Amongst other things, the campaign, You Control Climate Change, promotes 50 practical tips aimed at halting climate change, ranging from turning off lights to not using cars. School children are being asked to sign a pledge to reduce their emissions and then monitor their progress.

Noting that action against climate change is a priority for the European Commission, President Jose Manuel Barroso said that the "campaign complements and reinforces our political and legislative efforts. It makes clear to which extent we all are responsible for climate change and what individuals can and need to do to limit this threat." Every European citizen is responsible for eleven tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

More information

• BBC
• ENN
• Press release, UNFCCC

• Comment, WorldChanging
• DIY Guide, Tiempo Climate Cyberlibrary

China has announced that it has reduced the rate of desertification. The rate has dropped from about 10,400 square km a year towards the end of the 20th century to 3,000 square km a year at present. The Chinese government admits, however, that the problem remains serious. "Disadvantageous climatic reasons, especially the influence of drought on speeding up desertification, cannot be underestimated," said Zhu Lieke of the State Forestry Administration. "Over-planting, over-grazing and over-use of water are also issues yet to be totally resolved."

It has been estimated that desertification affects around 27 per cent of China's territory and causes economic losses of US$6.75 billion a year, afflicting around 400 million people. The Chinese government is investing US$250 million a year in combating the problem. It is planned that, by 2020, anti-desertification schemes will recover half of all land destroyed by desertification. A 5,700km green wall is being built from Beijing through to Inner Mongolia to protect lands degraded by human activity. Domestic animals are being banned from fragile soils and efforts are being made to improve irrigation. Tree fences and grass belts are being used to keep blown sand off oases and farmlands.

More information

• Reuters
• New Zealand Herald
• Xinhua

• Guardian
• Terra Daily

The Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol met in Bonn, Germany from 17-25th May. This body focuses on further measures to be taken by industrialized countries for the period after 2012 when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends. Delegates agreed to a roadmap to set new targets beyond 2012, but with no timetable for decisions on the level of the reductions. "This [agreement] makes clear... that the outcome of this process will be a new set of quantitative caps," said Michael Zammit Cutajar, who is leading the process. "This is a new phase in the life of the Protocol."

The post-2012 view will have an economic and scientific underpinning, based on the forthcoming Stern Review on the economics of climate change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 review of climate science. Richard Kinley, acting head of the climate treaty secretariat said: "Developing countries, which will be hit hardest by climate change, are pushing for rapid agreement on deeper emission cuts. This is the message we have also been hearing from business leaders meeting here in Bonn, who have underlined the importance of a speedy process from their perspective. Obviously, the carbon market needs clear signals."

More information

• NEWS.com.au
• Reuters
• Press release, UNFCCC

• Closing press conference (video on demand), UNFCCC
• Closing press conference (video on demand), CAN International
• Earth Negotiations Bulletin, daily reports
• On the Web: The climate negotiations

Fiji has been selected as the pilot country for a series of projects that will help the tourist sector respond to the threat of climate change. "Addressing the impact of climate change on Small Island Developing States has become a priority, given the heavy dependence of their economies on tourism, their high level of vulnerability and their relatively low adaptive capacity," said Programme Officer Gabor Vereczi in the Sustainable Development of Tourism Department of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). "Basic adaptation measures, such as early warning systems and preparedness for cyclones, or the better use of climate information provided by national meteorological services can make a huge difference in preventing and mitigating climate-related risks and hazards," he continued.

Napolioni Masirewa of the Fijian Ministry of Tourism said the work should "provide much needed support to develop a risk management and response strategy for tourism to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change. We hope it will reduce the vulnerability of the tourism sector, and in doing so enhance the sustainability of the natural resources and the quality of life of the people of Fiji." The projects will be coordinated by the UNWTO with the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Development Programme. They are financed by the Global Environment Facility. A conference on Building Tourism Resilience in Small Island Developing States will be held in Nassau in the Bahamas 7-9th June 2006.

More information

• Press release, UN

• Press release, UNWTO

An Australian government report has concluded that global warming could be occurring faster than previously thought and could exceed previous predictions. "The impacts of a changing climate are beginning to emerge," according to the report, Stronger Evidence But New Challenges: Climate Change Science 2001-2005. "High temperature extremes, such as the August 2003 heatwave in central Europe that had severe impacts on human health, are becoming more common," it observes. The report was launched by Environment Minister Ian Campbell. He also announced that Australia was on target to meet its greenhouse gas emissions targets of 108 per cent of 1990 emissions by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol, which Australia has not ratified.

A team of European scientists warns that climate models may have underestimated the extent of global warming as an important feedback may have not been given due weight. As the planet warms, additional carbon is released from decomposing soils and from the oceans. Estimating the effect from ice core evidence, the team concludes that it could boost the rise in global temperature by between 15 and 78 per cent. According to Marten Scheffer of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, "although there are still significant uncertainties, our simple data-based approach is consistent with the latest climate-carbon cycle models, which suggest that global warming will be accelerated by the effects of climate change on the rate of carbon dioxide increase."

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• Reuters
• Press release, DEH
• Press release, DEH
• Download report

• Guardian
• Terra Daily

In a new report, British charity Christian Aid claims that a "staggering 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa alone could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century." According to John Houghton, former co-chair of the science working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "this report exposes clearly and starkly the devastating impact that human-induced climate change will have on many of the world's poorest people."

The Christian Aid report concludes that "climate change is taking place and will inevitably continue." "Poor people will take the brunt, so we are calling on rich countries to help them adjust as the seas rise, the deserts expand, and floods and hurricanes become more frequent and intense." Warren Evans, environment head at the World Bank, said last week that "as a development institution we have to focus on the fact that millions of people will suffer from climate change. The last G8 pushed African development but didn't focus on the impact of climate change on Africa," he continued. "We need to catch up on our understanding of that."

More information

• New Zealand Herald
• Reuters

• Download report, Christian Aid

The latest round of negotiations on implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) began on May 15th in Bonn, Germany. The meeting launched with a two-day Dialogue on the way forward post-Kyoto, following the commitment made at the last Conference of the Parties to the climate treaty. "I don't think anyone expects any breakthroughs in Bonn but it will be the start of what could prove to be some very useful discussions," said Elliot Diringer of the Pew Centre on Climate Change. Talks then continued on implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

Speaking at the talks, Richard Kinley, acting head of the UNFCCC Secretariat, warned that transport is "the big problem" in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. "The growth... is really quite worrisome," he said. "Clearly much more concerted action is necessary." While he felt that progress was being made in some areas, such as the energy sector, he was disappointed that a number of reports on progress in implementing the Kyoto Protocol were overdue. He reported that the Bonn meeting was placing "much emphasis... on the promotion of economic incentives to promote action to reduce emissions - for both industrialized and developing countries."

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• Reuters
• Independent Online
• Reuters
• Yahoo
• Reuters
• Planet Ark

• Press release, UNFCCC
• Earth Negotiations Bulletin, daily reports
• On the Web: The climate negotiations

A movie documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, featuring former United States Vice President Al Gore had its premiere in Hollywood May 16th. The film mixes an account of climate science with the story of Gore's personal crusade to reverse global warming. Movie critic Kirk Honeycutt considers the film a success, meeting its goal of bringing "to a much larger audience... Al Gore's fascinating multimedia presentation of the facts and issues."

That same week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) launched two television ads in the United States that present the sceptics' case on global warming. "The campaign to limit carbon dioxide emissions is the single most important regulatory issue today," said Marlo Lewis, a CEI senior fellow. "It is nothing short of an attempt to suppress energy use, which in turn would be economically devastating - all to avert an alleged catastrophe whose scientific basis is dubious."

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• ENS
• Reuters
• Independent

• Trailer, An Inconvenient Truth
• View TV adverts, CEI

The Climate Alliance of European Cities with Indigenous Rainforest Peoples has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by ten per cent every five years. The long-term strategy will result in a halving of emissions below the 1990 baseline by 2030. Climate Alliance cities and municipalities will cut emissions through energy conservation and efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy sources. They are also committed to avoiding procuring tropical timber derived from destructive logging and helping indigenous partners to conserve the rainforests.

"The new target... extends far beyond the year 2010, but also permits short-term monitoring of performance," reported Joachim Lorenz, a Munich city councillor. "It allows local authorities who are only just starting their climate protection activities to pursue concrete quantitative goals," he continued. The goal was announced at the 14th International Climate Alliance Annual Conference, held 4-6th May in Vienna, Austria. At the meeting, participants from across Europe exchanged experience and discussed strategies, measures and barriers affecting climate protection at the local level.

More information

• ENS

• Press release, Climate Alliance

China is to build an eco-city, Dongtan, near Shanghai. With energy from wind turbines, biofuels and recycled organic waste, managed by a system designed by Arup Urban Design and the University of East Anglia, the aim is to generate zero carbon emissions and reduce average energy demands by two-thirds through the city layout, energy infrastructure and building design. "We don't want to replicate a European city in China, or create an alienating futuristic environment," says Braulio Morera of Arup. "We want to reinterpret a Chinese city - and Chinese urban lifestyle - for the 21st century. Bicycles will be a major feature, as will boats, but the bikes will be powered by renewables, and the boats by hydrogen."

China increased its carbon emissions by a third between 1992 and 2002, according to the annual Little Green Data Book, published by the World Bank. The World Bank's Steen Jorgensen blames inefficient investment in power generation and warns that it will be difficult for a country such as China to switch to clean technology. "They can't afford to take [the old, heavily polluting power plants] out of commission to repair them because basically, if you don't have power for even three months, that has huge economic costs," he said.

More information

• New Zealand Herald
• BBC
• Press release, Arup

• Reuters
• Cybercast News Service
• Hindustan Times
• Little Green Data Book, World Bank

A new study suggests that conflicting influences on regional climate are generating substantial impacts in South Asia. "It appears that the whole tropical region in this area is being pulled in different directions," reports Veerabhadran (Ram) Ramanathan, director of the Center for Clouds, Chemistry and Climate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "The observed trend of reduced sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface, with compensating solar heating aloft from the pollution, also called the ‘brown haze,’ appears to be masking the greenhouse warming in the northern Indian Ocean, while the greenhouse warming continues unabated in the southern Indian Ocean," he continued. "We are starting to see that the air pollution affects sunlight and is potentially having a major disruption of the rain patterns, with some regions getting more and some less."

Research by Tim Garrett and Chuanfeng Zhao of the University of Utah, has shown that the Arctic haze is heightening the effect of greenhouse warming. "Particulate pollution from factories and cars can be transported long distances to the Arctic, where it changes clouds so that they become more effective blankets, trapping more heat and further aggravating climate warming," said Garrett. The effect is most pronounced in the winter when there is no sunlight.

More information

• Newswise

• Science Daily
• Background on Arctic haze

The World Bank has announced a new project to promote clean energy in developing countries, the development of an Investment Framework for Clean Energy and Development. Over the next two years, World Bank staff will consider technology options, analyze the impact of climate change on developing countries and make specific programme proposals. At present, it is not clear how the programmes will be financed, though a number of funding schemes have been proposed. A grant may be created to help developing countries cut the cost of buying new high-efficiency energy technology and infrastructure. Another suggestion is that the gains from more efficient production from upgraded power plants could repay the loans that funded the overhaul.

The plan was criticized during discussions at the Development Committee session that ultimately approved the project. Colombian finance minister Alberto Carrasquilla, said that some of his colleagues "find the [project] to be biased toward the development of alternative, renewable sources of energy not yet commercially viable while neglecting the bigger picture of aiming for cleaner, more efficient traditional energy sources." Agnes van Ardenne, Dutch development minister, argued that the project primarily targets middle-income countries and that she would have preferred an "energy for all" initiative covering the millions who have no access at all to electricity.

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• Reuters
• Yahoo
• SABC News
• World Peace Herald

• Report to Development Committee, World Bank

Chinese scientists have shown that climate change is having a serious impact on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, known as the "roof of the world". According to Dong Guangrong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the glacier on the plateau is shrinking at a rate of seven per cent a year. He calls for world attention to the environmental deterioration caused by global warming in this area. Analysis of China's 681 weather station records confirms a regional warming trend of 0.9 degrees Celsius over the past 20 years.

A new study has revealed a weakening of the Walker Circulation, the equatorial flow of air that is linked to the occurrence of El Niño and La Niña events. The trend has occurred since the 1800s and amounts to a reduction in strength of 3.5 per cent. It has accelerated over the past 50 years. Though the trend is not large, "the Walker circulation is fundamental to climate across the globe," according to research leader Gabriel Vecchi of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in the United States.

More information

• SciDev.Net
• IOL

• EurekAlert!
• Reuters

The United States government has made available, on request, a confidential draft of part of the Fourth Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is not due to be formally published until 2007. The United States Climate Change Science Programme (CCSP) made the document freely available as it wanted as many experts and stakeholders as possible to comment on the draft report from the physical science working group. The IPCC Assessments are prepared and reviewed by hundreds of scientists and policy analysts but protocol dictates that the evolving text remains confidential until finally approved in February 2007.

The current draft, as released by the CCSP, reports that "there is widespread evidence of anthropogenic warming of the climate system in temperature observations taken at the surface, in the free atmosphere and in the oceans." It concludes that "it is very likely that greenhouse gas forcing has been the dominant cause of the observed global warming over the past 50 years." IPCC Chair, Rajendra Pachauri, was reported to have been unaware of the plan to publish the draft report. The IPCC has stressed that the current text is subject to change as the review process continues.

More information

• Independent
• Times Online

• To request access to IPCC Working Group I report, US Climate Change Science Programme
• Clarification, IPCC

As the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6) held a working meeting in California, Canada announced its support for the pact. "We've been looking at the Asia-Pacific Partnership for a number of months now because the key principles around [it] are very much in line with where our government wants to go," said Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, citing the involvement of China and India as an example. John Bennett of the Sierra Club responded that "Canada is being enthusiastic about a meaningless public relations stunt by the United States government when it should be talking about the importance of working... on a programme that has real targets."

The aim of the California meeting of the AP6 was to discuss "concrete steps" to spur the development of clean technology, with "tangible results over these next six months," according to Paula Dobriansky, speaking for the Bush Administration. Responding to criticism of the low level of financial backing from the United States government, James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said that that perspective is "completely turned around. Only with private sector investment does the technology get deployed. The government does not go out into the world and spend the several trillion dollars that are about to be spent on the technologies that are going to be the solutions to this problem." Government's role, he concluded, is to guide investment.

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• CBC News
• Globe and Mail
• Comment, CBC News

• ENN
• CICERO

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, chair of Green Cross International, has called on the industrialized nations to establish a 50-billion-dollar fund to support solar power. "This idea reflects our vision of a way of helping the energy-impoverished in the developing world, while creating concentrations of solar energy in cities that could be used to prevent blackouts," he said. Marking the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, he warned that oil and nuclear energy are not viable energy sources for the future.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that momentum is gathering for a switch from fossils fuels to renewable bioenergy sources such as sugar cane or sunflower seeds. "The gradual move away from oil has begun. Over the next 15 to 20 years we may see biofuels providing a full 25 per cent of the world’s energy needs," according to Alexander Müller of the FAO's Sustainable Development Department. "Oil at more than 70 dollars a barrel makes bio-energy potentially more competitive," he continued. "Also, in the last decade global environmental concerns and energy consumption patterns have built up pressure to introduce more renewable energy into national energy plans and to reduce reliance on fossil fuels." Brazil, with most new cars powered by flex fuel engines, is highlighted as an example for the rest of the world.

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• Yahoo

• ENS
• Renewable Energy Access
• Press release, FAO

The news of lower than expected emissions from European industry triggered a substantial drop in the price of carbon dioxide permits on the European market last week. Prices dropped by close to 50 per cent, causing investors to question the functioning of the European Union's carbon trading scheme. "It does raise the question whether there were too many permits issued and that the governments may have got it wrong," commented Louis Redshaw at Barclays Capital. "If there's a surplus there's no incentive to reduce emissions and the price collapses," said James Emanuel at brokers CO2e.com.

The Czech Republic has recently announced that its emissions during 2004 were about 15 per cent below the national cap. Dutch emissions fell eight per cent below. Estonia has recorded 2005 emissions 25 per cent below its cap and France almost 12 per cent below. Some analysts feel that the reduction in emissions indicates that the market is working. "This is really the first time since the system started that there has been anything other than bad news [for the environment]," said Chris Rogers of JPMorgan.

More information

Background

• Reuters
• Financial Times

• Market data, European Climate Exchange
• On the Web: Emissions trading

The United States emitted a record quantity of greenhouse gases during 2004, according to the latest figures from the Environmental Protection Agency. Greater electricity consumption was the main cause of the 1.7 per cent increase from 2003. National carbon emissions have risen sharply in recent years despite concern about climate change and have increased by almost 16 per cent since 1990. Methane and nitrous oxide levels have, however, decreased by ten and two per cent, respectively, from 1990 levels.

David Read, Vice President of the London-based Royal Society, commented that "while the United Kingdom appears to be doing slightly better, its carbon dioxide emissions have been rising annually for the past three years." "The United States and the United Kingdom are the two leading scientific nations in the world and are home to some of the best climate researchers. But in terms of fulfilling the commitment made by their signature to the United Nations Convention to stabilize greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, neither country is demonstrating leadership by reducing their emissions to the levels required," he concluded.

More information

• Independent Online
• ENS

• Emissions report, EPA

Scientists predict that global warming will mean drier summers in the Caribbean and parts of Central America. The forecast is based on a review of a number of climate model simulations. The model consensus was that a substantial decrease in tropical rainfall could occur by 2054, earlier according to some models. The regions most likely to experience summer drying are Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.

Lead author of the study, David Neelan of the University of California at Los Angeles, said that "the regions in the tropics that get a lot of summer precipitation are going to get more, and the regions that get very little precipitation will get even less, if the models are correct." "Certain regions in between will get shifted from a moderate amount of precipitation to a low amount," he continued. "The bigger the temperature rise, the larger the change in precipitation." Commenting on the slight decrease in summer rainfall that has affected the Caribbean over the past 50 years, Neelin said that "it is plausible that the decrease is due to global warming, but there is not yet a smoking gun that shows that to be the case." It could be "part of a natural cycle."

More information

• ENS
• SciDev.Net

• Research paper (1.6Mb download), UCLA

If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions become a vegetarian, according to a recent study from the University of Chicago. Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin examined a range of typical American diets, considering the amount of fossil-fuel energy and greenhouse gas emissions associated for each. The vegetarian diet proved the most energy-efficient. "The less animal-based food you eat, and the more you replace those calories with plant-based food, the better off you are, in terms of your health as well as your contributions to the health of the planet," Eshel concludes.

In terms of total emissions, red meat was the worst offender, though the fish-based diet rivalled red meat in energy consumption. "The seafood portion of American diets is heavily skewed toward what is called charismatic predator fish," Eshel reported. "Sword, shark and tuna and so on require long-distance ocean journeys, and those efforts... require a lot of labour and a lot of fossil fuel."

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• ABC News

• EurekAlert!

The largest wind power project in China is to be developed in the Turpan Basin in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Huadian Corporation will invest US$1.87 billion in two million kilowatts of capacity. China's Law on Renewable Energy came into force on January 1st 2006 and emphasizes the development and use of solar energy and wind power. It includes a national renewable energy requirement that should increase the role of renewable energy to up to 10 per cent of total energy consumption by the year 2020. "China could and should be a world leader in renewable energy development," commented Yu Jie, Greenpeace energy policy advisor, when the law was passed last year.

Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority is giving 15 small wind turbine systems to municipalities, public authorities or schools to publicize the role of this technology in meeting energy needs. According to Pennsylvania governor Edward G Rendell, "by placing these windmills where many people can see them, Pennsylvanians will be able to learn about and experience alternative energy as part of their daily lives." Successful applicants will receive a Southwest Windpower small-scale wind system and basic installation at no charge, though they will have to pay a fee to connect to the grid and they must provide public outreach and education.

More information

• Xinhua
• Forbes
• Renewable Energy Access

• Yahoo
• Program details, PEDA

A two-day meeting on desertification, hunger and poverty was held in Geneva, Switzerland, April 11-12th 2006. The aim was to find new ways of combating desertification. "The issue of desertification has largely been ignored by the international community. There is a lack of interest and a lack of support," said Liliane Ortega of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the national representative to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. "The problem is that many poor countries don't have the means to fight desertification and the situation, because of human and climatic reasons, is getting worse and worse. It's not an issue – unlike climate change or biodiversity – in which the economic world is very interested," she continued.

The participants concluded that, alongside more foreign aid, there was a need for mobilization at the political level and from the countries affected. "It was not just a question of trying to find more money, but that there can be a partnership between the West and the developing world... that [the affected countries] have to act themselves but with the support of the West," commented Ortega. The meeting was a contribution to the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.

More information

Background

• Swissinfo
• Swissinfo

• International Year of Deserts and Desertification

Climate change could cause the extinction of tens of thousands of species over coming decades, according to a recent study. The researchers predict a substantial thinning out of biodiversity in hotspots such as the Caribbean basin. These hotspots are "the crown jewels of the planet's biodiversity," said lead author Jay Malcolm of the University of Toronto. Around 40 per cent of the species in these areas could disappear as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere double.

The study concludes that the tropical Andes, the Cape Floristic region (on the tip of South Africa), southwest Australia, and the Atlantic forests of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina are particularly vulnerable. Species in many of these regions have few avenues for escape. These hotspots "are essentially refugee camps for many of our planet's most unique plant and animals species," according to Lee Hannah of Conservation International. "If those areas are no longer habitable due to global warming, then we will ... be destroying the last sanctuaries many of these species have left.".

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• canada.com
• New Zealand Herald

• Reuters

"The debate is over. The science is in. The time to act is now. Global warming is a serious issue facing the world and California has taken an historic step with the release of this report," said California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. "We are all convinced that we can protect our environment and leave California a better place without harming our economy," he continued. Schwarzenegger was speaking at the launch of a report by the state's Climate Action Team. The report recommends means to achieve pollution reduction targets set last year: to reduce global warming emissions to 2000 levels by 2010, to 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Canada's new government has begun dismantling the nation's Climate Change Program, according to the Sierra Club of Canada. "Apparently, the federal government has launched a stealth campaign against action on climate change," said John Bennett of the Sierra Club. Programmes announced in Action Plan 2000 have not been renewed and Natural Resources Canada has been reducing its staff. The government has been sending equivocal signals regarding its commitment to the Kyoto process since its election two months ago.

More information

• ENS
• Voice of America
• Press release, NRDC
• Video of launch
• Download report, Office of the Governor

• ENS
• The Dominion

The region of Gedo, in the south of Somalia, is undergoing a "critical nutrition situation", according to a team led by Food Security Analysis Unit-Nutrition. With pastureland disappearing and most water sources dry, "the only coping mechanisms left are migration; reducing the number and quantity of meals; collection and selling firewood by the poor; and food aid," said Sidow Ibrahim Addou of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

It is estimated that around 1.7 million people in northern, central and southern Somalia are facing an acute crisis because of drought. Christian Balslev-Olesen, United Nations Acting Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, warned that "Somalia is facing a drought, an emergency situation - the most severe in a decade - and this is coming on top of a situation where you already have all the most difficult indicators for human development," he said. Drought-induced hardship is putting recent political progress in danger. "The two elements - the political peace process and the humanitarian situation - of course do present two different momentums. But they are interlinked," he concluded.

More information

• Reuters
• Washington Post
• Voice of America

• Latest situation, FSAU
• Latest situation, FEWS

Analysis of the longest pollen records for Central and South America suggests that, on geological timescales, global warming is accompanied by an expansion of the rainforest and an increase in biodiversity. "We found that pollen diversity tracks global temperature through time over millions of years. Diversity increases as the planet warms and decreases as it cools," reports Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Jaramillo proposes that the changes in area drive speciation and extinction. "There is good correlation between area and number of species: more area implies more species. During global warming, tropical areas expand and diversity goes up, the opposite happens during global cooling," he said. If this is the case, fragmentation of modern tropical forest could be equated to a global cooling period, because forested areas are shrinking dramatically, resulting in plummeting diversity in the forests that remain."

More information

• Mongabay

• Science Daily

China is proposing to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 846 millions tons annually through the installation of energy-saving technologies in new buildings. "If all of the national energy-saving standards have been fully implemented by 2020, China will be greatly contributing towards curbing global warming," said Minister of Construction Wang Guangtao. Vice-Minister of Construction Qiu Baoxing said the proposal could bring business opportunities for Chinese real estate developers, who may trade emission quotas with developed countries. The announcement was made at an international exhibition and forum on green and smart buildings in Beijing.

Targets have already been set for saving energy in real estate development. By 2010, all new buildings should be 50 per cent more energy-efficient then in 2005. One real estate developer called for economic incentives to promote the campaign. "The extra cost is the major reason why the market is slow to react," said Zhang Jun. Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan regards the nation-wide energy-saving campaign as crucial because of resource shortages. "If we don't take action now the situation will become worse," he said.

More information

Background

• People's Daily Online

• Satisfying China's demand for energy, BBC
• China: Environmental issues, EIA

Climate change is increasing the number of the most severe tropical storms, according to a recent study. The research includes processes, such as wind shear, neglected in previous work. "We were criticized by the seasonal forecasters for not including the other environmental factors," said Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Analysing the number of category four and five hurricanes alongside a range of environmental factors, sea surface temperature emerged as the only factor that could explain the observed rising trend.

Review of over 100 studies of trends in the global water cycle reveals that, although the global water cycle has intensified overall, there has been no consistent increase in the total number of storms or of floods. "We are talking about two possible overall responses to global climate warming: first an intensification of the water cycle being manifested by more moisture in the air, more precipitation, more runoff, more evapotranspiration, which we do see in this study; and second, the potential effects of the intensification that would include more flooding and more tropical storms which we don't see in this study," said Thomas Huntington of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.

More information

• Guardian
• Press release, IFP

• Science Daily

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, speaking in New Zealand, has called for urgent action on a post-Kyoto climate agreement. "I don't believe that we can wait five years to conclude a new agreement. I think we've got to do it much more quickly than that," he told a climate change conference in Wellington. He argued that "such an agreement, if it's going to be successful, has got to include all the major countries of the world and that includes the major developing economies."

He believes that new technology will be a critical factor in limiting climate change. "It's almost as if we've got to produce the type of technological revolution that gripped us with information technology," he said. While in Australia, Blair gave a broad endorsement to the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. "I think the fact that you've got these initiatives at the moment, all tending in the same direction, is actually a positive sign, it's not a negative one," he said, arguing that such initiatives could eventually be brought together. Back home, the Blair government has been accused of a "pitiful" failure to meet its target for greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

More information

• Reuters
• Stuff

• New Zealand Herald
• Guardian
• Leader, Guardian

World Water Day, on March 22nd 2006, was marked by the Fourth World Water Forum, an international meeting in Mexico City on management of the world's fresh water resources. Over one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and four out of every ten people lack access to sanitation. In a keynote speech, Nobel Prize Winner Mario Molina warned that climate change and inappropriate water management might intensify global warming, creating "an intolerable risk." There was disappointment that the Forum declaration did not declare water a human right, referring only to its critical importance.

Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Koïchiro Matsuura, stressed the importance of the theme, Water and Culture. "Traditional knowledge alerts us to the fact that water is not merely a commodity," he said. "Since the dawn of humanity, water has inspired us, giving life spiritually, materially, intellectually and emotionally. Sharing and applying the rich contents of our knowledge systems, including those of traditional and indigenous societies, as well as lessons learned from our historical interactions with water, may greatly contribute to finding solutions for today’s water challenges."

More information

• ENS
• Xinhua
• noticias.info
• New York Times
• Press release, UN News Centre
• Press release, WMO

• Ministerial Declaration
• Daily coverage and summary, ENB
• Water for Life Decade
• On the Web: Water management

The European Union (EU) has launched a new initiative, the CASTOR Project, to develop the capture of greenhouse gases as they are produced by power stations and their storage underground. The aim is to cut Europe's emissions of carbon dioxide by ten per cent (or 30 per cent of the emissions of large industrial facilities, mainly power stations). It is also intended that the cost of carbon capture and storage be reduced from the current 60 euros a tonne to around 20 euros a tonne. "By developing technologies for carbon capture and storage, we can reduce emissions in the medium-term as we move to large-scale use of renewable, carbon-free energy sources," commented EU science commissioner Janez Potocnik.

The CASTOR Project will operate the world's largest carbon capture installation at Esbjerg in Denmark to test new carbon separation technologies. Four carbon storage sites will provide case studies representative of the range of geological conditions across Europe. Carbon capture and storage is seen as a possible "medium-term solution to the current dichotomy of our dependence on fossil fuel technology and the fact that alternative sources of energy aren't yet ready to satisfy the global demand for energy," according to EU spokeswoman Antonia Mochan.

More information

• Terra Daily
• Press release, IFP

• On the Web: Carbon dioxide capture and storage

Climate change may be contributing to the resurgence of malaria in the highlands of East Africa, according to an international team of scientists. Contradicting previous work, the researchers found a half a degree Celsius rise in regional temperature, which could result in enhanced abundance of mosquitoes. "We showed that a small increase in temperature can lead to a much larger increase in the abundance of mosquitoes," said team member Mercedes Pascual of the University of Michigan. "And because mosquito abundance is generally quite low in these highland regions, any increase in abundance can be an important factor in transmission of the disease."

The scientists are cautious in attributing climate change as a causal factor as other processes, such as drug and pesticide resistance, changing land use patterns and human migration, may be playing a part. "Our results do not mean that temperature is the only or the main factor driving the increase in malaria, but that it is one of many factors that should be considered," Pascual said. She added that "this is a very polarized field, in terms of supporting or not supporting the role of climate versus other factors. We don't want to contribute to the polarization, which I think is very unproductive in terms of the science. I hope we can move from this sort of debate into a more constructive one about interactions and relative roles of all the factors that may be contributing to the resurgence of malaria."

More information

• Science Daily

• SciDev.Net

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a record 381 parts per million by volume during 2005, according to preliminary figures from the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research at the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). David Hofmann from NOAA said that levels rose by 2.6 parts per million from the previous year.

Pieter Tans, a carbon dioxide analyst for NOAA, reckons the latest figures confirm a worrying trend. "We don't see any sign of a decrease; in fact, we're seeing the opposite, the rate of increase is accelerating," he said.

More information

• Sify
• Scotsman

• Recent carbon dioxide concentrations, NOAA ESRL

Over the past 40 years, there have been fewer rain- and snow-producing storms in middle latitudes, but the storms that have occurred have been stronger, each storm generating more precipitation. A new study by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), based on global satellite data from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project and the Global Precipitation Climatology Project, has examined the implications of this trend. The results show conflicting warming and cooling effects and an overall increase in precipitation amounts.

NASA scientist George Tselioudis notes that "there are consequences of having fewer but stronger storms in the middle latitudes both on the radiation and on the precipitation fields." The net effect on the radiation balance should lead to cooling, it is calculated, with the cooling effect of the thicker clouds in the more intense storms outweighing the warming effect as global cloud cover is reduced. Overall, precipitation levels have increased, despite the drop in the number of storms.

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• Science Daily

• Research paper (0.2Mb download), NASA GISS

Keeping carbon dioxide levels from reaching potentially dangerous levels could cost less than 1 per cent of gross world product as of 2050, according to Klaus Laukner and Jeffrey Sachs of The Earth Institute in New York in the United States. They consider that this cost is well within the reach of both developed and developing nations.

They warn, however, that there must be simultaneous progress in the way energy is found, transformed, transported and used. "Today's technology base is insufficient to provide clean and plentiful energy for 9 billion people," the authors conclude. "To satisfy tomorrow's energy needs, it will not be enough simply to apply current best practices. Instead, new technologies, especially carbon capture and sequestration at large industrial plants, will need to be brought to maturity."

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• Science Daily
• Mongabay

• Research paper (0.4Mb download), The Earth Institute

A survey of 47 journalists in four developing countries, Honduras, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Zambia, reveals that the media in these countries have a poor understanding of climate change and do not consider reporting the issue a high priority. The survey was conducted by the Panos Institute, based in London in the United Kingdom. According to Panos, the media, policymakers and scientists should encourage an "urgently needed" public discussion.

On Zambia, the report says that "the little reportage that appears barely scratches the surface, and lacks in-depth analysis of what climate change is, what its effects are, and the available strategies to cope with them." The journalists interviewed said they lacked access to clear, accurate information and that scientific jargon made reporting difficult, especially in the case of reporters who do not speak English.

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• AllAfrica

• Download report, Panos Institute

"Given the gravity of the situation and the importance of taking action, I hope that the global community will move a little more rapidly with some future agreements" on climate change, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), speaking during a recent visit to Oslo, the capital of Norway. He said that the inhabitants of low-lying countries and small islands are "living in a state of fear." "We must understand the reasons behind their fears. We're really talking about their very existence, the complete devastation of the land on which they're living."

While refusing to be drawn on the conclusions of the forthcoming IPCC assessment, he did comment on the latest research on the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, saying that "if one looks at just the scientific evidence that's been collected, it's certainly becoming far more compelling. There is no question about it." He also reckons that the costs of slowing global warming might be less than forecast in the IPCC's 2001 report.

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• Reuters
• BBC

• IPCC 2001 assessment

Reducing emissions of greenhouse gas methane by a fifth could prevent 370,000 deaths worldwide between 2010 and 2030, according to Jason West of Princeton University in the United States and his collaborators. The money saved by preventing these deaths would exceed the cost of the emissions reduction.

Methane reacts in the lower atmosphere to produce ozone, which has been linked to premature deaths in the industrialized nations as a result of cardio-respiratory disease and other health problems. Emissions are being reduced under the Kyoto Protocol through, for example, capture of the gas and its subsequent use in generating energy. The researchers conclude that "methane mitigation offers a unique opportunity to improve air quality globally and can be a cost-effective component of international ozone management, bringing multiple benefits for air quality, public health, agriculture, climate, and energy."

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• SciDev.Net

• Full paper, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

United States President George W Bush says he is "fired up" about renewable energy. "We're close to changing the way we live in an incredibly positive way," he said while visiting the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He downplayed the push to build nuclear power plants and emphasised clean coal, ethanol, hybrid cars, wind and solar power. To achieve the "national goal of becoming less dependent on foreign sources of oil," Bush said "we're not relying upon one aspect of renewable energy to help this country become less dependent. We're talking about a variety of fronts."

"I wasn't satisfied with the federal response," Bush acknowledged, responding to a White House report on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. "We will learn ... to better protect the American people." The report found numerous failures in the government's response and proposed over 100 fixes, including better communications, improved evacuation plans and first aid training for students. It was concluded that the White House should have recognized problems earlier and moved faster to coordinate federal aid.

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• ENS
• UPI

• USA Today
• Lessons Learned, the White House report

Mangrove plants account for a tenth of the dissolved organic carbon flowing from land to the ocean even though they cover less than 0.1 per cent of the land surface world-wide. The results, which suggest that the mangrove is one of the main sources of dissolved organic carbon in the ocean, stem from a study of the carbon output from a large Brazilian mangrove forest by Thorsten Dittmar at Florida State University in Tallahassee, United States, and his collaborators.

"To understand global biogeochemical cycles it is crucial to quantify the sources of marine dissolved organic carbon," according to Dittmar and his co-authors. "We show that mangroves play an unexpected role in the global carbon cycle." The mangrove root system traps leaf litter, rich in carbon, running off the land and dissolved organic matter is leached into the coastal waters from this sediment. Tides then flush the carbon into the open ocean. The mangrove ecosystem has declined by nearly half over recent decades because of coastal development. The researchers fear that this trend may be cutting off the link between the land and ocean, affecting the composition of the atmosphere and global climate.

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Background

• Science Daily

• On the Web: the Mangrove Ecosystem

According to the South Pacific Sea Level and Climate Monitoring Project sea level around the Pacific island of Tonga appears to have risen by about ten centimetres over the past 13 years. Sea level has been rising at all stations monitored, but the rise has been greatest at Tonga, where it averaged 8.4mm per year. The oldest gauge in the Pacific, at Lautoka, Fiji, was installed in October 1992 and shows an average trend of a 2.8mm rise a year since then.

The coordinators of the monitoring project advise caution interpreting the data. "Observed trends in sea level include natural variability, for example, events such as El Niño and effects due to many other atmospheric, oceanographic and geological processes. Longer-term data sets for all stations are required in order to separate the effects of the different signals."

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Background

• Stuff
• ABC Online

• IPCC
• On the Web: Small Island States

The Aletsch glacier in Switzerland, the longest in Europe, lost 66m last year. Swiss scientists claim this reduction to be an effect of global warming. In total, 84 of the 91 glaciers surveyed in a Swiss Academy of Sciences study shrank. A previous study from the University of Zurich reported that Switzerland's glaciers had shrunk by about a fifth over the previous 15 years. Andreas Bauder of ETH Zürich, warns, though, that predicting the impact of climate change is difficult because, as well as temperature, glaciers respond to rain and snowfall and these parameters are hard to forecast.

A reduction in the Rocky Mountain snowpack has slowed down the release of carbon dioxide from forest soils, according to scientists from the University of Colorado and other American institutions. The effect occurs as the reduction in insulation cools the soil and retards the metabolism of the microbes responsible for the release of the greenhouse gas. "I view this as a small amount of good news in a large cloud of bad news," said Russell Monson, who led the research.

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• Terra Daily
• Press release, Swiss Academy of Sciences

• EurekAlert
• ABC

The possibility of a binding International Agreement on Forests is being debated at the United Nations Forum on Forests, which opened February 13th in New York. Opinions differ, with some nations, such as China, supporting the proposal while others, for example, Brazil, are strongly opposed. China's representative, Qu Guilin, considers the negotiations "critical... to the future management, conservation and sustainable development of forests at the global level." Brazil argues that the adoption of quantifiable targets is not an appropriate response to the threats facing the world's forests.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil announced the opening of two new national parks and the expansion of an existing reserve as the Forum opened. A further four national forests, where sustainable logging will be permitted, and an environmental protection zone, within which development is strictly constrained, have also been created. One aim of the creation of these protected areas is to limit development along the new BR-163 highway from Cuiabá to Santarém.

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• ENS

• Newsday
• ENS

The United Nations is relying on Canada's new government to respect its obligations under the climate treaty. John Hay, communications director for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, warned that "there is a compliance regime... which foresees that countries do need to meet their commitments, and if they don't there will be implications." Canada currently exceeds its Kyoto target by around 25 per cent.

Canadian immigration minister, Monte Solberg, has described the nation's Kyoto target as "insane". "If we decide to ban all planes, trains and automobiles in Canada and entirely abandon all manufacturing, stop all construction and shut every mine we would still fall short" of the target, he claims. "In order to reach our Kyoto targets we will have to get to work by bicycle, foot or oxen," he continued. "Excuse me, I've got an appointment downtown. When does the next express oxen come by?" It appears, though, that the new government may have changed its pre-election line. Environment minister Rona Ambrose says that the government will "move on very quickly" with a new climate action plan. "I think we not only have the political will from the prime minister, and from myself and my colleagues, on this issue, we also have the public will on our side."

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