Environment & Business; Energy Efficiency & Leadership

Three important events are coming up in Singapore and South East Asia  - the B4E – Business for the Environment  - conference in Jakarta 27-29 April, featuring, among others, Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore of “The Inconvenient Truth” fame; the National Energy Efficiency Conference, organised by the National Environment Agency in Singapore on 23-25 May; and the World Leadership Conference  in Singapore 11-15 July.

B4E Global Summit 2011

Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta, Indonesia

27 – 29 April 2011

B4E, Business for the Environment, is the world’s leading international conference for dialogue and business-driven action for the environment. Held in partnership with WWF and Global Initiatives, the Summit offers collaborative solutions to address the most urgent environmental and climate issues facing the world today.

Leaders from business, NGOs, international agencies and governments gather to discuss green investments, clean technologies and  sustainable growth strategies. At the B4E Summit, delegates share and explore transformative solutions to tackle climate change and to protect and restore biodiversity and ecosystems. Partnerships are formed and commitments are made to accelerate the shift towards a more sustainable, low-carbon future.

A keynote speaker is Al Gore, probably the world’s most influential voice on climate change, an advisor to leaders in Congress and heads of state throughout the world. He is also the Chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Since his earliest days in the U.S. Congress 30 years ago, Al Gore has been the leading advocate for confronting the threat of global warming. His pioneering efforts were outlined in his best-selling book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (1992). His newest book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, gathers in one place all of the most effective solutions that are available now and that, together, will help solve the climate crisis.

Another speaker is Georg Kell, the Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest voluntary corporate responsibility initiative with more than 6,000 participants in over 130 countries. Spanning more than two decades, his career with the United Nations began in 1987 at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. In 1997, Mr. Kell joined the Office of the UN Secretary-General in New York, where he spearheaded the development of new strategies to enhance private sector engagement with the work of the United Nations.

As one of the Global Compact’s key architects, he has led the initiative since its launch in 2000, building the most widely recognized global business platform on human rights, labour, environment, and anti-corruption. Prior to joining the UN System, Mr. Kell worked as a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany and as a financial analyst evaluating multinational companies’ investment portfolios in Asia and Africa. A native of Germany, he holds advanced degrees in economics and engineering from the Technical University of Berlin.

Global Initiatives

Global Initiatives is an international media company promoting positive social change and sustainable global development through high-level conferences, television and the internet. Facilitating the sharing of knowledge, experience the best practices, we address some of the greatest challenges facing the world today. Highlighting global issues such as the environment, corporate citizenship, and the development of emerging markets, Global Initiatives encourages partnership, inspiration and creating a better future.

WWF

WWF is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with almost 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

For full details on the conference, speakers, registration etc, go to the website.

Source: www.b4esummit.com

National Energy Efficiency Conference 24/25 May 2011

At time of going to press, more information on the conference programme was not available to release. Please go to the National Environment Agency (NEA) for more information www.nea.gov.sg and www.e2singapore.gov.sg

World Leadership Conference, Singapore     11-15 July 2011

Ready for Rio? Our young leaders have begun.

Young leaders passionate about environmental issues and experts on climate change gather at this conference to take actions for a sustainable future.

The World Leadership Conference (WLC) 2011 serves to empower young leaders aged 16-­35 from the Asia-­Pacific region to think about what they can do to build a sustainable future for the environment. This July, these young leaders, together with leading experts on climate change and organizations dedicated to environmental sustainability, will engage in high-­level interactions ahead of the Rio+20 Summit.

WLC 2011 will be held in Singapore and serves as a build up to the decadal summit for the region. Luminaries such as Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Executive Secretary, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP, and Ted Turner, Founder of CNN and Philanthropist will be expected to grace the conference with their presence as distinguished speakers.

Supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and endorsed by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the conference will function as a consultation for the region as official inputs towards the Rio + 20 Summit due in 2012, and revisit the ideology of sustainable development, what it truly means and provide direction forward for both the public and private sector in this area.

Speaking about this youth-­led initiative by the Environmental Challenge Orgnisation (Singapore), also known as ECO Singapore, who are the organisers of the conference, Wilson Ang, President, says the Rio+20 Summit may be geographically far for young people from the Asia-­Pacific to attend. So, the document being crafted at the WLC 2011 will speak for them at Rio, presenting their views to the rest of the world.

With eyes on the Rio+20 Summit, the WLC 2011 is the platform for international cooperation, learning, and action towards a sustainable future for emerging leaders.

For more information on the World Leadership Conference, go to the web site.

Source: www.worldleadershipconference.org

Delaying Tactic for Aircraft & Clearing Oceans of Plastic Waste

Plastic in the ocean is persistent and pervasive. Investigations into what all this pollution means for wildlife and people are just getting started, but the early signs are not reassuring. “The ocean is not infinite. It doesn’t have room for our waste,” says a researcher in the New Scientist, which also has a new report on aviation emissions. All that’s needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions relating to air travel is a little patience. That’s according to a study looking at how best to get aeroplanes through busy airports.

Hold planes at the gate to cut greenhouse gases

New Scientist (25 March 2011):

ALL that’s needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions relating to air travel is a little patience.

That’s according to a study looking at how best to get aeroplanes through busy airports. “There is going to be a significant decrease in greenhouse gases from this,” says Hamsa Balakrishnan at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the study.

The researchers found that by holding planes at their gates for an average of 4 minutes and 18 seconds, congestion on busy runways at Boston Logan International Airport diminished. This allowed planes to depart more efficiently: taxiing time dropped by 20 per cent – balancing out the extra time at the gate – and fuel use decreased by 75 litres per plane. The study has been published as an MIT Technical Report and was funded by the US Federal Aviation Administration. Balakrishnan now intends to submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.

Domestic flights in the US emit about 6 million tonnes of CO2 from taxiing per year, Balakrishnan says. Similar emissions occur in Europe, where planes spend an estimated 10 to 30 per cent of their journey time taxiing on runways.

A number of airports have already achieved comparable fuel savings by optimising flight paths for planes on arrival. Combining the two strategies could reduce emissions by millions of tonnes per year, Balakrishnan says.

By Ferris Jabr  in New Scientist

If you trawl a fine mesh net through any of the globe’s five subtropical gyres – giant ocean vortexes where currents converge and swirl unhurriedly – you will haul on deck a muddle of brown planktonic goop, the occasional fish, squid or Portuguese man-of-war – and, almost certainly, a generous sprinkling of colourful plastic particles, each no larger than your fingernail.

Every flake of plastic cup or shard of toothbrush handle is a sponge for persistent organic pollutants (POPs) – potentially hazardous compounds that do not degrade easily and cling to any hard surface they find. The fate of all this plastic determines not only the health of marine life, but also our own; if fish are feasting on these toxic morsels, then we probably are too.

Last month researchers from the 5 Gyres Institute in Santa Monica, California, and the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, California, sailed into Piriápolis, Uruguay. They had just completed the third leg of the first expedition ever to study plastic pollution in the South Atlantic subtropical gyre. In every single trawl, the team discovered plastic.

“This issue has only recently come to the public’s attention,” says Anna Cummins, co-founder of 5 Gyres. “We’re trying to document the issue and get baseline information because there is such a scarcity of data.”

Plastic dust

There are still significant gaps in the data the crew can collect, however. The nets that they use cannot capture plastic particles that are smaller than one-third of a millimetre across. “After a certain size these particles just disappear,” says Cummins. “What is their ultimate state? They could very well break down to a size where they are ingested by fish.”

Cummins also explains that trawling gathers plastic particles from surface waters only. Different kinds of plastic may be suspended at different depths – a dreadful rainbow of rubbish spanning the ocean from top to bottom – but no one has done the research to find out.

What 5 Gyres researchers are currently investigating, however, is whether surface-feeding fish are ingesting plastic – and if so, what that does to them. Chelsea Rochman, who studies marine ecology and ecotoxicology at San Diego State University in California, joined the 5 Gyres team in November for a month-long trawl in the South Atlantic. In addition to sampling the water and plastic, Rochman used a special net to collect around 660 lanternfish – a ubiquitous family of small bioluminescent fish that make up around 65 per cent of all deep sea fish biomass. Lanternfish inhabit the dim depths during the day, but swim to the surface at night to feed, so if any fish would have plastic in their guts, it would be these guys.

Back at her lab, Rochman has started analysing the water and plastic samples for the presence of POPs. She has also started slicing open the lanternfish so she can determine if they are eating plastic and whether POPs are accumulating in their tissues. Rochman wants to see whether fish caught in highly polluted areas of the gyres have more plastic in their guts and higher levels of POPs than those taken from less polluted waters. Confirming that distinction would suggest that fish are indeed consuming toxic morsels.

In another lab experiment, Rochman fed one group of fish a diet infused with plastic, and another group a plastic-free diet. Preliminary results show that the fish which ate plastic endured significant weight loss and liver damage. “We are going to look for tumours, cell death and congestion in the organs that filter toxins,” she says.

Plastic, plastic, everywhere

Plastic in the ocean would not be so worrisome if only certain areas were polluted, but it appears to travel everywhere. Worse, it’s hard to pin down exactly where, say, the remains of a candy wrapper blown out to sea in China will eventually drift. One tool is providing some answers, however. For at least two decades oceanographers have deployed thousands of Lagrangian drifting buoys, which are designed to map surface ocean currents rather than wind patterns or waves.

“We realised that our buoys are in fact a kind of marine debris,” says Nikolai Maximenko of the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, who collaborated with 5 Gyres researchers to identify which areas of the ocean should have especially high levels of plastic pollution. Wherever the buoys gather most densely, the reasoning goes, is also where plastic particles should cluster. And that is what the researchers have found so far: all our plastic waste meets and circulates in the gyrating wastes of the ocean.

More surprising is that despite the lure of the gyres, the buoys – and, therefore, probably plastic in general – really get around. “It’s amazing to see the global patterns,” says Maximenko. “I just found out that one surface drifter went very close to the North Pole in summer 2009, and another made two loops around Antarctica.”

What researchers have established so far is that the plastic in the oceans is persistent and pervasive. Investigations into what all this pollution means for wildlife and people are just getting started, but the early signs are not reassuring. “The ocean is not infinite. It doesn’t have room for our waste,” says Cummins.

Source: www.newscientist.com

Bullish on Renewables in Light of Japanese Nuclear Meltdown

Amid the carnage on the Japanese stock market caused by the combined impacts of the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear crisis, one stock shone bright green in a sea of red. The share price of Japan Wind Development Co Ltd jumped sharply as the overall market slumped more than 15%. HSBC believes the EU will have to rethink its 2050 energy roadmap to include more renewables and gas, and less nuclear. But the key to unlocking the potential of renewables will likely come from massive investment in grid infrastructure. Giles Parkinson in Climate Spectator.

Giles Parkinson in Climate Spectator (21 March 2011):

Amid the carnage on the Japanese stock market caused by the combined impacts of the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear crisis, one stock shone bright green in a sea of red.

The share price of Japan Wind Development Co Ltd – a small, loss making wind farm operator – jumped sharply from ¥31,500 on  March 11 to ¥47,000 three trading days later, as the overall market slumped more than 15 per cent.

The contribution of Japan’s wind sector (274MW) to the country’s electricity grid is paltry, but at least it emerged unscathed from the natural disasters, while 10GW of nuclear and 8GW of coal-fired power were disabled. And as we noted on Friday, global green stocks have been well supported by investors in the past week, mostly on the belief that governments will turn increasingly to renewables (and energy efficiency) as their clean energy option.

In reality, it is still too early to say how the crisis at Fukushima will play out, beyond the immediate reactions of government, but given the experience post Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and the indelible images of exploding reactors in Japan that will be left in the public and political mind, it seems fair to assume that the rollout of nuclear facilities will be stalled and downgraded, at least for the next decade, and there will be a renewed focus on renewables and energy efficiency.

To what extent – and how renewables and energy efficiency can fill the void – is the question being posed by markets, analysts and energy companies across the globe.

It is interesting to note that the rollout of nuclear, even with the dawn of its much-touted renaissance, was likely to be dwarfed by the investment in renewables in the coming decade. In a report released over the weekend, analysts at HSBC forecast the nuclear rollout – even before the Fuskushima incident – would be around 16GW a year over the next decade. That’s considerably more than has been installed over the past decade, but it pales in comparison with the 92GW of renewables that HSBC estimates will be installed each year over the same period.

HSBC says it is too early to change these forecasts, but the risk is clearly on the downside for nuclear, and on the upside for renewables. It also expects energy efficiency to get a renewed focus and energy sources such as gas to benefit, particularly in the short- to medium-term if, as expected, lifetime extensions for ageing reactors in Germany, the US and UK are restricted or declined; or, as is likely in Germany, older plants are shut down immediately.

As this site also noted last week, the most predictable impact of Fukushima will be on nuclear costs, as extra layers of safety are nevitably added to new and current reactors. HSBC says this could add a 25 per cent uplift on capital costs for nuclear, lifting its estimates for the levelised cost of energy for nuclear to more than €60 per MWh of electricity produced, not including decommissioning costs.

This compares, says HSBC, to an LCOE of €56-83/MHw for traditional fossil fuel technologies (an average of €68/MWh) and and €58-70/MHw for wind.  “We estimate nuclear decommissioning costs of around €45/MWh, giving a total LCOE for nuclear at €106/MWh, which is considerably more expensive than wind,” it says.

Nuclear, in some countries, will become less economic – or uneconomic – and renewables will be the obvious beneficiary from a rise in gas prices and nuclear capital costs. “It is not unreasonable to expect the focus to switch towards safe, proven, secure and low-carbon forms of energy generation – renewables and gas – as well as measures to reduce demand through building regulations and transport efficiency standards,” HSBC says.  “In the much longer term, given gas’ continuing emission profile, there may be very few other competing technologies for renewables.”

Even China, which is expected to account for nearly half the new nuclear capacity over the coming decade, has suspended the approval of new nuclear projects and plans to conduct ‘rigorous’ safety inspections in all nuclear power plants under construction. The review of safety standards could add costs, both in the construction of new reactors as well as in the operation of active ones, but given the country’s rising energy consumption, pollution issues, lower seismic risk and rigorous central planning focus, HSBC says this is likely to be only a short-term delay for nuclear.

Still, nothing is certain. As noted in the Financial Times late last week, “nuclear radiation” was the most searched phrase on the Chinese internet this past week, and blogs were full of sceptical comments about the technology’s safety. And supermarkets reportedly ran out of salt because many Chinese believed the iodine contained in them would help ward off the effects of any radiation poisoning.

HSBC believes the EU will have to rethink its 2050 energy roadmap, less than a month after it was released, to include more renewables and gas, and less nuclear. But the key to unlocking the potential of renewables will likely come from massive investment in grid infrastructure – so that the wind contribution from a country like Spain can be fully exploited, as could the hydro contribution from Scandinavia, and the solar contribution from southern Europe and north Africa.

Much of the impetus will come from Germany, which is highly likely to dump plans to defer the phase of its nuclear stock. Chancellor Angela Merkel has made it clear that she sees nuclear as a “transition fuel” at best, and while she is reluctant to close down Germany’s own nuclear plants simply to import nuclear from elsewhere, Germany is looking at numerous measures to bridge the gap, including increased investment and tariffs for offshore wind, energy efficiency measures, and a significant investment in its domestic and pan-European grid infrastructure.

This includes the Desertec proposal, backed by leading German companies Siemens, Deutche Bank and Munich Re, among others, which seeks to source solar energy from northern Africa – the first solar plant has already begun construction in Morocco – and accelerating plans for a European “super grid”, and to invest in its own grid infrastructure.

Matters of perception

The image problems besetting the nuclear industry should not be underestimated. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island set back the development of nuclear by several decades. As we noted last week, Nuclear is unique in its dependence on public trust and its ability to secure it.

The mixed signals coming out of the Japanese crisis – where experts insisted there was no danger beyond 20kms, the US suggested the exclusion zone by 80kms, and the government of nuclear dependent France – among others – recommended its citizens either leave the country or drive south from Tokyo, simply underline that point.

The nuclear industry insists that generation 2 and generation 3 reactors will not encounter the same problems at Japan, but that is exactly what they said a week ago about generation 1 reactors, before events spiralled beyond their control. The public will continue to wonder what mixture of natural catastrophe, bad planning, human failure and bad luck might cause future problems.

This concern is reflected in the HSBC report which said that the current new generation of nuclear reactors (eg Areva’s EPR technology) already have apparent safety concerns, which will only be magnified by Fukushima. “We note that the build-out of new nuclear facilities in most nuclear countries is contingent on some form of subsidy/loan guarantee/ financing from governments and as such are deeply political issues with an increasingly sceptical public,” it wrote. “Hence safety is likely to be the latest black mark to be put against the nuclear industry, on a list that includes water intensity (versus expected future water scarcity), slow build times, cost overruns, waste disposal and proliferation.”

But some pro-nuclear activists are insistent, even to the point of arguing that excessive amounts of radiation is actually good for you, as the prominent Fox News columnist Ann Coulter did late last week. “With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer,” she wrote.

Source: www.climatespectator.com.au

See Results in the Dark: Turning Out the Lights for Good

 “The Beyond the Hour call to action has been unanimously answered by people worldwide,” said Andy Ridley, Co-Founder and Executive Director of WWF’s Earth Hour. “From school children in Singapore, to Heads of State from the UK, to Australia, Pakistan and Colombia, people have shown that Earth Hour has evolved beyond lights-out.  We hear from the United Kingdom, Vietnam, the Pacific and the Americas.

Cameron backs ‘Earth Hour’ blackout (21 March 2011):

David Cameron has backed an hour-long blackout to raise awareness of environmental issues.

The UK Prime Minister recorded a YouTube message supporting Saturday’s Earth Hour, when millions of people are expected to switch off lights for 60 minutes.

He said: “Sharing responsibility holds the key to fighting climate change.”

Mr Cameron pledged to make the coalition Britain’s “greenest-ever government” in the fight against climate change.

But he added: “It will be the choices we make as individuals which will mean the difference between success and failure.

“That’s what Earth Hour is all about – millions of people all over the world coming together to switch off their lights, tackle climate change and protect our natural world.

“It is a huge symbol of global solidarity, an inspiring display of international commitment.”

Homes, businesses and landmarks in 130 countries are expected to switch off lights for an hour from 8.30pm in Saturday.

Environmental pressure group WWF’s head of campaigns, Colin Butfield, said: “It’s great to hear the Prime Minister reiterate an ambition to lead the UK’s greenest-ever government. There is substantial and serious work to do if this aspiration is to become a genuine reality.

“The millions of people taking part in Earth Hour are not only demonstrating their personal commitment, but also sending a strong message to government to call for urgent and sustainable action on climate change.”

Source: www.google.com

Report from WWF Vietnam ( 29 March 2011):

VN saves 400,000 kWh of power during Earth Hour

Vietnam saved 400,000 kWh of electricity, equivalent to VND500 million (US$23,809), by switching off lights during the Earth Hour, from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm on March 26, according to the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN).

The campaign took place in 30 provinces and cities nation wide.

In the central province of Thua Thien-Hue , the centre of Vietnam’s 2011 Earth Hour campaign, a 60-minute art performance was held in Nghinh Luong Dinh in Hue city under the light of candles.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Hoang Quoc Vuong, and Tran Minh Hien, Director of WWF Vietnam attended the event.

Thousands of local people and visitors at the central coastal city of Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa province, gathered at the April 2 square to participate Earth Hour 2011.

Politburo member and Minister, Chairman of the Government Office Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Khanh Hoa provincial Party Secretary Le Thanh Quang were among others to attend the event.

Addressing the function, Phuc called all people throughout the country to respond Earth Hour in particular and take actions to protect the environment in general, asking international environmental organizations to continue to support and help Vietnam in environmental related issues.

In Hanoi, during one-hour, lighting equipments in such places as Ngoc Son temple-The Huc bridge, the Opera House, Trang Tien Plaza, Vincom City Towers were turned off in response to Earth Hour.

The action also expressed the capital city’s strong commitment to joining common efforts to cope with climate change.

Lights in such localities as Vung Tau city, the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Ca Mau city of the southern province of Ca Mau, Ha Long city, Uong Bi and Mong Cai towns in the northern province of Quang Ninh, the northern city of Hai Phong and Thanh Hoa city of the northern Thanh Hoa province were switched off in response to the Earth Hour campaign.

The Earth Hour, launched by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), was first held in Sydney, Australia in 2007 with two million participated people turning off lights. In 2010, 128 countries joined the campaign.

Themed “Turning off the lights in 60 minutes, taking actions in 365 days for climate change,” WWF wanted to warn people that activities to protect the environment do not take place in only one hour but also in 365 days throughout the year in an attempt to bring positive changes to the environment.

The Vietnam Earth Hour, jointly held by the WWF in Vietnam and the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, was first organized in Hanoi in 2009.

Vietnam saved 140,000 kWh of power, equivalent to VND126 million in 2009 and 500,000 kWh of power in 2010 during the Earth Hour.

Source: www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn

WWF Report:

As the lights come back on in the Cook Islands, the 134th country to celebrate Earth Hour 2011 – a record breaking year for the annual lights-out event – the global community has shown it is united in commitment to a sustainable future.

Around the world, Earth Hour was embraced by the global community, transcending race, culture, age and economics as individuals took leadership in their communities in the pursuit of a cleaner and safer planet. In 2011, Earth Hour asked the hundreds of millions of people taking part in the one hour switch-off to take the next step and go beyond the hour, using Earth Hour to commit to ongoing action for the planet.

“The Beyond the Hour call to action has been unanimously answered by people worldwide,” said Andy Ridley, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Earth Hour. “From school children in Singapore, to Heads of State from the UK, to Australia, Pakistan and Colombia, people have shown that Earth Hour has evolved beyond lights-out.

“This year’s event has illustrated without question what can be achieved when people unite with a common purpose and rally to action.”

Earth Hour 2011 gathers steam crossing Atlantic

As Earth Hour progressed towards the conclusion of the 2011 lights off event across the planet the Americas celebrated the arrival of the global movement with a breadth of lights-off events across the region. Brazil continued the stronger showing for Earth Hour in emerging economies as the wildly successful call for action on the environment continued to roll around the globe.

Hundreds of millions in thousands of cities, towns and communities in a record 134 countries were expected to have participated by the time the lights out and pledge action beyond the hour completes its passage from New Zealand on one side of the International Date Line to former New Zealand dependency the Cook Islands on the other.

Brazil set its own record with 124 cities taking part this year compared to the still creditable 98 of 2010. This included around two-thirds of the state capitals and coverage across all five Brazilian regions. More cities and towns are likely to reveal Earth Hour activities in the coming days.

Source: www.earthhour.org

What’s Cool and What’s Hot Around the Globe

New ideas and new opportunities including: sustainable fuel from waste plant matter, using enzyme technology; plastic bottle made entirely from plant-based, fully renewable resources; developing technology to produce fuel from inedible biomass such as grass and wood chips; schoolchildren examining water quality and purification and plotting their results throughout the year on a global map.

AAP/Herald Sun (17 March 2011):

UNIVERSITIES in Australia and Britain have announced an $8.3 million program to develop sustainable fuel from waste plant matter, using enzyme technology.

“As oil supplies decline and petrol prices soar, alternatives such as biofuels could become economically very attractive,” Dr Alex Womhas, a director at the CSIRO, said.

The collaboration brings together the CSIRO, the Australian National University, RMIT University, the University of Queensland and the University of Manchester.

Source: www.heraldsun.com.au

Plant-based bottle created Chicago

Sydney Morning Herald (17 March 2011):

 PepsiCo says it has invented the world’s first plastic bottle made entirely from plant-based, fully renewable resources.

Down to the molecular level, it is a clone of today’s plastic bottles, made with the resin polyethylene terephthalate.

The biggest difference is that manufacturing the bottle requires the use of no petroleum. Instead, it is made from such renewable materials as switch grass, pine bark and corn husks (right).

The company expects to use other materials, such as orange peel, potato peel, oat hulls and other agricultural byproducts from its own food businesses, which includes the Frito-Lay, Tropicana and Quaker brands.

Source: www.smh.com.au

Reuters (19 March 2011):

The venture capital arm of Google Inc has invested in a start-up that is developing technology to produce fuel from inedible biomass such as grass and wood chips.

The process, deployed by CoolPlanetBiofuels, also produces a byproduct that can capture carbon and also be added to soil to improve crop yields, leading to what Google Ventures described as a “negative carbon fuel.”

“While we have made significant progress over the past couple of years, this new infusion of capital, coupled with the expertise of the Google Ventures team, enables our team to scale even faster,” Mike Cheiky, chief executive of Camarillo, California-based CoolPlanet, said in a statement on Thursday.

Google’s undisclosed amount of Series B funding follows a $42 million investment last month by Google and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla in a weather insurance start-up.

Also last month, Google Ventures invested in power-saving energy conversion technology firm Transphorm.

Source: www.sbs.com.au

Ninemsn (21 March 2011):

Australian school students will be the first to take part in the world’s largest-ever scientific experiment

The Global Water Experiment, announced on World Water Day last week, involves primary and high school students across the nation and throughout the world examining water quality and purification and plotting their results throughout the year on a global map.

The International Year of Chemistry 2011 activity is called Water: A Chemical Solution and will be conducted under a partnership between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.

Schoolchildren around the world will be involved in measuring the pH of the planet, assessing salty waters, participating in a Solar Still Challenge and studying clean and dirty water.

The experiment will be launched internationally in Brisbane on Monday morning, with experiments commencing simultaneously across Australia.

Source: www.news.ninemsn.com.au

Bearing Fruit & Bearing the Brunt of Climate Change

The carbon footprint of the horticulture industry is low so in a sense they are the victims of other people’s pollution. But the increased risk of this will be borne by future generations, and what we’re doing is making life much harder for them. Some parts of the world will suffer from a changing climate and others will gain. Matthew Ogg reports from the Southern Hemisphere for the Fresh Food Portal.

Matthew Ogg for the Fresh Food Portal (28 March 2011):

From floods to droughts to cyclones, the Asia-Pacific and Latin America have taken a battering from weather events in 2011, following the warmest year on record globally in 2010.

While opinions differ on whether the phenomena are a result of human activity, one thing is clear – temperatures are rising and so is the incidence of extreme weather activity.

At Freshfruitportal.com we speak to climate experts from Australia and Chile to gauge what is happening, and what might be in store for the fruit industry.

When asked about Australia’s extreme weather this year, The Climate Institute regional projects manager Corey Watts is quick to clarify his country ‘has always been a land of droughts and flooding rains’.

It is something Australian farmers know well, but Watts says with warmer temperatures the likelihood of extreme weather events is now much higher.

“It actually is accentuating those incidents. There are still parts of western and south-west Australia that are still in drought, even though we’re in a La Niña episode,” he says.

“We’re seeing more records being set for hot days and that can result in a reduction of harvests – prior to the 2008 bushfires there was a string of 40 plus degree days, new records were set, and those factors came together as a fire risk. Then the fires started.

“They have become so intense now that they’ve added two new categories; they’ve gone from just extreme to catastrophic. That presents quite a risk not just to people’s lives but to the horticultural industry; not just the direct impact from the fires but the infrastructure, overheating of crops.”

Watts points to the stone fruit industry as one of the biggest victims, due to a lack of frost when high temperatures are reached, but it’s not only crop volumes that are under threat. He says climate change will affect soil nutrients where fruit is grown, which will lead to changes in color and taste.

“Climate change increases the risk to plant health and it could also affect the color of the different fruits – this is one of the risks that have been suggested,” he says.

“If the nutrients are different the color will be different, and that can affect the marketing of the fruit, especially for the export market.”

A ‘Greater Intensity’

In the last 100 years global temperatures have risen by more than 0.7 degrees Celsius, while in the first nine months of 2010 the level of weather-related catastrophes was unusually high.

But is there a link between these events and climate change?

Australia’s peak horticultural body Growcom says there is, while many major international insurance companies like Munich Re and Swiss Re have announced the high incidence of natural catastrophes in 2010 cannot be explained without global warming.

“You’re getting more energy in the atmosphere because there’s more heat, and more moisture that’s been evaporating from the sea, and greater intensity in weather events,” says Watts.

 “In the next 20 to 30 years droughts in south-east Australia that will require funding for farming will change from once in every 25 years, to once every two years. We’re seeing a present shift in the climate.

“Then there’s the strong Queensland floods and the affects of a hotter climate on the (farming) sector. In 2007 with Cyclone Tracy, crops were wiped out and you could see it in Sydney when people were stealing bananas to sell on the black market, they were so valuable.

“You had avocadoes and other industries that were struggling, and now you’ve had Yasi and the floods, there’s no doubt something’s happening.”

He says you can’t attribute each individual event to climate change but you can attribute their increased frequency and strength.

“Cyclones are growing in size, are more widespread than we’ve seen before, and while the Queensland floods were not as high as the 74 floods, they covered more of the state; that is mostly consistent the predictions made by scientists for the effects of climate change.

“Two months before the floods in Queensland a scientific panel warned that we would see a marked increase in torrential downpours as a result of climate change.”

Demand and beneficiaries

Watts highlights that not only will climate change pose a threat to many fruit growers, but the damage of catastrophic events could also affect consumption demand, which flows on to how much growers can sell.

“If people have lower disposable income as they’ve been affected by climate change, then that will affect industry too. If climate change affects competitors, some countries will be better off, but there will always be changes in this very tightly connected world,” he says.

“The temperature has risen but there’s also a rise in Carbon dioxide concentrated in the atmosphere, and no one really knows what that will do. Some think that carbon dioxide will have a beneficial effect on some crops, and they might be right. “

On the other side of the Pacific in South America, Chile’s drought has led the government to declare a state of emergency, while Peru too has experienced drought in many areas. Heavy rains in Argentina caused problems for its grape production this season, while Brazil recorded a record drought in the Amazon last year.

But rising temperatures have brought benefits to some regions, according to Agro-climate professor Fernando Santibañez from the Universidad de Chile.

“Progress has clearly been observed for some species around the south, like vines, pome fruit and cherry trees, where there are many private projects in the lake and river regions, including Aysen,” he says.

“For temperate countries, clearly climate change has pushed and will continue to push the lines of where some species can be cultivated in the south.

“Not to speak of Argentina, where there are regions that couldn’t grow soybeans but are today growing them, just because the rain has increased. It’s the same with cotton, which are growing in zones where they didn’t before.”

He explains that a slight increase in temperature can make some crops grow earlier, as seen in the difference between Copiapó and Santiago, where higher temperatures by two degrees means plants flower around one month earlier.

In terms of competitive advantage as the effects of climate change advance, Santibañez says the South American continent has two important buffers; the Amazon Rainforest combined with the cold Humboldt Current which runs up the Pacific coast from Antarctica.

“Firstly, the tropical forest still has a relatively large mass, which is not the case in Africa or on any other continent, so this is an important cushion to mitigate climate change in tropical areas – Latin America would have a much more difficult situation if it didn’t have the cushion of the Amazon Rainforest,” he says.

“In the temperate part, we have a large regulatory effect that’s called the Humboldt Current, which makes the ocean cold and prevents large increases in temperature or other extreme events associated with climate change.

 “We’re pretty far from having more heat waves and cold snaps like those in Europe and the United States, we’ll hardly get those problems here, and presumably our hikes in temperatures are not going to be in the same magnitude of what is going to happen in the Northern Hemisphere – we have a privileged position in the world because of this.”

The effects of aridity

While it may have a relative advantage, South America’s climate situation is far from perfect. While growers in Chile’s south can now grow some crops more easily, the northern zone has suffered.

“In Chile we can say good things have happened in recent decades, for example horticulture, but climate change has been wiping out some crops in the north such as wheat, which is now impossible to grow in the IV region on the coast,” he says.

“Chile produced wheat in that area for 200 years, but as the farmers themselves say, it’s simply not viable, it’s impossible.

“These are very gradual events, changes we observe very slowly and therefore it is not easy to identify an immediate and direct impact for a significant agricultural phenomenon, but in general we can say there clearly has been increased climate variability and that is absolutely proven.”

He says the extreme events in Chile alternate between dry and wet years more abruptly, between La Niña and El Niño periods.

“In Latin America, even more than in Chile, there are studies showing that the number of such destructive storms have increased fivefold in some regions of Latin America,” he says.

“The number of drought episodes and also fires due to extreme weather events have increased by more or less threefold. There are precedents, records, verifiable observations that show in the last two decades we have begun to deal with a hostile climate.”

Santibañez says high rainfall runoff has caused erosion problems in Chile’s northern and central zones, so the fruit industry needs to introduce more soil protection systems, like vegetative cover and run-arrest systems, especially for avocado crops on slopes.

He says there are many tasks ahead, as climate change will exacerbate Chile’s water problems.

“With climate change it could be that renewable water systems diminish their ability to produce water, such as the mountains – all the models say they should be less able to produce water and river flows to some basins will fall by 10, 20, 30 per cent.

“Therefore the number one task to adapt to these conditions is a program for efficient use of water resources, involving works in river water regulation, water harvesting system,  water infiltration systems to recharge groundwater and high efficiency irrigation technology.”

Risk to future generations

Watts says one of the most unfortunate aspects of climate change is that the horticulture industry has contributed very little to carbon dioxide emissions, yet it will affected by changing weather conditions so much.

“The carbon footprint of the horticulture industry is low so in a sense they are the victims of other people’s pollution. It’s good that Growcom has come out and said, this isn’t good enough.

“The increased risk of this will be borne by future generations, and what we’re doing is making life much harder for them. Some people think it’s either adapt or mitigate, but there’s no reason why you can’t have both.

“There is a choice between the amount of adaptation, mitigation and suffering; all of these things are inevitable, and unfortunately that includes suffering, but we can act to mitigate the effects of climate change”.

Source: www.freshfruitportal.com

Designed for Laughs but with a Sustainable Message

A short film entitled “Life Pscycle-ology” and produced by small-scale eco-design and consultancy company Eco Innovators, was more than a mobile telephony soap opera.

As its chief protagonist, Eric Sun, reeled amid the confusion and rejection of being abandoned for a glossy, feature-packed new model, the film didn’t only garner belly laughs, but also provided veiled insights into issues surrounding eco-design and the ever-shortening lifecycle of consumer goods.

Originally developed as a fun resource for design students, Life Pscycle-ology also educates the design community on its responsibility to create more sustainable products, sans guilt, according to the film’s writer and director, Eco Innovators founder Leyla Acaroglu.

Dan Rule reports in the Sydney Morning Herald about this award winning approach t sustainability education. Read More

Dan Rule in Sydney Morning Herald (18 March 2011):

Earlier this month, a dinky animated film about an obsolete mobile phone facing an existential crisis beat big-budget corporate advertisements to win a coveted Melbourne Design Award for best animation.

But the film — titled “Life Pscycle-ology” and produced by small-scale eco-design and consultancy company Eco Innovators — was more than a mobile telephony soap opera.

As its chief protagonist, Eric Sun, reeled amid the confusion and rejection of being abandoned for a glossy, feature-packed new model, the film didn’t only garner belly laughs, but also provided veiled insights into issues surrounding eco-design and the ever-shortening lifecycle of consumer goods.

Originally developed as a fun resource for design students, Life Pscycle-ology also educates the design community on its responsibility to create more sustainable products, sans guilt, according to the film’s writer and director, Eco Innovators founder Leyla Acaroglu.

“The idea was to hide sustainability strategy . . . and all this knowledge in humour,” says 28-year-old Acaroglu, who created the film with the help of animator Nicholas Kallincos.

“The humour is the catalyst for . . . all these people who wouldn’t otherwise be interested in sustainability to engage with it.”

The film follows the decidedly cute Eric Sun through lip-quivering past life regression therapy with his psychologist, Dr A. Fraud, where he learns of his various extractions. He recalls his former lives as Australian nickel, South African gold, Brazilian palladium, Russian platinum and a sombrero-wearing piece of Mexican silver. He reminisces about the delight of regular use as a new mobile phone and the heartbreak of decreased battery life and enforced obsolescence.

But there’s light at the end of the tunnel for little Eric Sun. In his final session with Fraud, he learns not only about his potential for disassembly and resource recovery, but the possibility of reuse in other electronic products such as USB flash drives, digital cameras and snazzy new mobile phones.

It’s a genuinely feel-good tale and the sort of device that characterises many of Acaroglu and Eco Innovators’ endeavours. “The concept of sustainability is still seen as a bit of a hippie thing,” she says. “The design community is increasingly interested in sustainability, but it doesn’t really know how to deal with it yet . . . We’re trying to give them some insights without scaring them off.”

Indeed, Acaroglu’s suite of new creative projects not only hopes to redress what she calls the field’s “PR problem”, but engage and inspire.

The upcoming Eco Innovators iPhone app will take the form of a “mythbusting quiz” that tests users’ knowledge about the environmental impacts of design, production and consumption, while the Repair Workshops project — running as part of the State of Design festival in July — pairs creatives with engineers and scientists in “a left brain, right brain love-in” to “repair and reimagine” the broken household consumer goods donated by the audience.

“We’ve all had that same experience when we might drop our digital camera, the screen breaks and then we try and get it repaired only for it to be cheaper to buy a new one,” says Acaroglu, who will appear as a judge on ABC TV’s New Inventors in April.

“People have the perception that sustainability is about going back to the dark ages,” she says. “It’s actually about valuing the things we did right and the things that we need to hold onto, like the ability to repair and the creation of products that are designed to be repaired.”

Source www.smh.com.au

Horror of all horrors!

Just when we had thought we have had enough of major disasters for a while, comes the monster triple whammy for Japan. An 9.0 earthquake bigger than anything experienced in the country followed by a devastating tsunami and then an on-going related series of nuclear “accidents”. It raises the nuclear spectre again and could lead to renewed interest in cleaner renewables.  If you look at Munich Re reports you will be able to see the world is definitely receiving more – and more frequently – disasters or natural catastrophes. The big question is still how many of them are “natural” and how many are man-made, or at least contributed to in some way by what we humans have been doing to the atmosphere, the earth and the climate.  For the last two issues we have had reports of research findings of the link between geological events and a changing climate. No need to labour the point, so we spread the word wider on the food security issue with a new role for Sir John Beddington. The Carbon tax issue in Australia won’t go away, but Dr Frank Jotzo gives it a new slant. Melting ice-sheets come into NASA’s view and the US wants APEC to drive greenhouse gas reductions.An OECD survey puts ten countries into the green spotlight and the UK Guardian looks at the benefits of going green. Then there’s cloud computing with a green tinge, geothermal boldly coming above ground, and ancient treasures under greater threat of climate change. What’s new under the sun? – Ken Hickson

Profile: Sir John Beddington

Extreme weather events have contributed to a level of food price volatility we haven’t seen since the oil crisis of 40 years ago. “Unfortunately, this could be just a taste of things to come because in the next few decades the build-up of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere could greatly increase risk of droughts, flooding, pest infestation and water scarcity for agriculture systems already under tremendous stress.” So says the United Kingdom’s chief scientific advisor  Sir John Beddington, who heads the new global  Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change.

New commission confronts threats to food security from climate change

Experts from 6 continents are set to produce policy recommendations for boosting food production in face of harsher climates, increasing populations, scarce resources

COPENHAGEN (11 March 2011) — Recent droughts and floods have contributed to increases in food prices. These are pushing millions more people into poverty and hunger, and are contributing to political instability and civil unrest. Climate change is predicted to increase these threats to food security and stability. Responding to this, the world’s largest agriculture research consortium today announced the creation of a new Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change.

Chaired by the United Kingdom’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, the Commission will in the next ten months seek to build international consensus on a clear set of policy actions to help global agriculture adapt to climate change, achieve food security and reduce poverty and greenhouse gas emissions.

There is a rich body of scientific evidence for sustainable agriculture approaches that can increase production of food, fibre and fuel, help decrease poverty and benefit the environment, but agreement is needed on how best to put these approaches into action at scale. Evidence also shows that climate change, with population growth and pressures on natural resources, is set to produce food shortages and biodiversity loss worldwide unless action is taken now.

“Extreme weather like the droughts in Russia, China and Brazil and the flooding in Pakistan and Australia have contributed to a level of food price volatility we haven’t seen since the oil crisis of 40 years ago,” Beddington said. “Unfortunately, this could be just a taste of things to come because in the next few decades the build-up of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere could greatly increase risk of droughts, flooding, pest infestation and water scarcity for agriculture systems already under tremendous stress.”

The Commission brings together senior natural and social scientists working in agriculture, climate, food and nutrition, economics, and natural resources from Australia, Brazil, Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, France, Kenya, India, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.

“I think policymakers are eager for a clear set of recommendations supported by a strong scientific consensus for achieving food security in a world where weather extremes seem to becoming more and more common,” said Dr. Mohammed Asaduzzaman, Research Director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and the Commission’s Deputy Chair. “This Commission is confronting a problem not just of the future but, for places like Bangladesh, a problem of the present. We already are seeing major changes in growing conditions caused by higher temperatures and loss of productive lands to rising sea levels.”

Today, scientists are increasingly concerned that more extreme weather events, especially drought and floods will impede the growth in food production required to avert hunger and political instability as the global population increases to nine billion people by 2050. Even an increase in global mean temperatures of only two degrees Celsius—the low end of current estimates—could significantly reduce crop and livestock yields. Supporting these concerns has been the weather-induced crop losses that contributed to high food prices this year and in 2008.

The World Bank reported in February that the recent rise in food prices—which included a doubling of wheat prices and a 73 percent increase in maize prices—already has pushed an extra 44 million people into poverty. World Bank President Robert Zoellick said food prices have been an “aggravating factor” in the political turmoil in Tunisia, Egypt, and elsewhere in the Middle East and that their destabilizing effect “could become more serious.”

The Commission has been set up by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security program (CCAFS) – a 10-year effort launched by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) – with support from the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development.

“Our ability to deal with the effects of climate change on food security, in both the developed and developing world, will largely determine whether our future is one marked by stability or perpetual food shocks,” said Dr Bruce Campbell, Director of CCAFS. “But there are so many perspectives on the best way for farmers to adapt to climate change—and for farmers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions as well—that we have ended up sort of paralyzed by a lack of clear choices.”

The Commission will synthesize existing research to clearly articulate scientific findings on the potential impact of climate change on food security globally and regionally. The Commission will then produce a set of specific policy actions for dealing with these challenges.

The Commission’s findings will be primarily directed to international policy, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Rio+20 Earth Summit, and the Group of 20 (G20) industrialized and developing countries.

###

The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change is identifying what policy changes and actions are needed now to help the world achieve sustainable agriculture that contributes to food security and poverty reduction, and helps respond to climate change adaptation and mitigation goals. The Commission is an initiative of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), with additional support from the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development.

Full list of Commissioners

Biographical details are available at http://ccafs.cgiar.org/content/commission/commissioners

• Professor Sir John Beddington, CMG FRS Chief Scientist, Government Office for Science, United Kingdom (Commission Chair)
• Dr Mohammed Asaduzzaman, Research Director, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, Bangladesh
• Dr Adrian Fernández Bremauntz, Senior Consultant, ClimateWorks Foundation, Mexico
• Dr Megan Clark, FTSE, GAICD, Chief Executive Officer, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia
• Dr Marion Guillou, President, Institut Scientifique de Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France
• Professor Molly Jahn, Laboratory of Genetics and Department of Agronomy and Special Advisor to the Chancellor and Provost for Sustainability Sciences, the University of Madison-Wisconsin, USA
• Professor Lin Erda, Director of the Research Centre of Agriculture and Climate Change, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China
• Professor Tekalign Mamo, State Minister and Minister’s Advisor, Ministry of Agriculture, Ethiopia
• Dr Nguyen Van Bo, President, Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Science, Vietnam
• Dr Carlos A Nobre, Director of the Center for Earth System Science, National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Brazil
• Professor Bob Scholes, Fellow, Natural Resources and the Environment, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa
• Dr Rita Sharma, Secretary, National Advisory Council (Prime Minister’s Office), India
• Professor Judi Wakhungu, Executive Director, African Center for Technology Studies (ACTS), Kenya

Key facts on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change from the CCAFS program:

• A 4-degree rise in temperatures will have profound effects on farming, cutting down both the range of potential adaptation options and the efficacy of those options. Different crop models give different estimates, but ensembles of models suggest average yield drops of 19% for maize and 47% for beans, and much more frequent crop failures. (Source: Thornton et. al. 2010 -http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1934/117.full)
• The first half of the 21st century is likely to see increases in food prices, and increasing demand driven by population and income growth. Even without climate change, prices could rise by 10% (for rice) to 54% (for maize) by 2050. With climate change, price increases more or less double, ranging from 31% for rice in the optimistic scenario to 100% for maize in the baseline scenario. (Nelson et. al. 2010 - http://www.ifpri.org/publication/food-security-farming-and-climate-change-2050)
• Climate change provides a massive and urgent incentive to intensify efforts to disseminate the fruits of past research, to adapt it to farmer contexts in different developing countries, and to put in place the necessary policies and incentives. The benefits of adopting many of the existing technologies could be sufficient to override the immediate negative impacts of climate change. Key messages from the major Foresight project on the Future of Global Food and Farming, lead by Professor Sir John Beddington:
• Addressing climate change and achieving sustainability in the global food system need to be recognised as dual imperatives.
• Ambitious, and in some case legally binding, targets for reducing emissions have been set, which cannot be achieved without the food system playing an important part.

There is a clear case for substantially integrating and improving considerations of agriculture and food production in negotiations on global emissions reductions.

The program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) is a strategic partnership of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP). CCAFS brings together the world’s best researchers in agricultural science, development research, climate science, and Earth System science, to identify and address the most important interactions, synergies and tradeoffs between climate change, agriculture and food security. For more information, visit www.ccafs.cgiar.org.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is a global partnership that unites organizations engaged in research for sustainable development with the funders of this work. The funders include developing and industrialized country governments, foundations, and international and regional organizations. The work they support is carried out by 15 members of the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers, in close collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations, including national and regional research institutes, civil society organizations, academia, and the private sector.www.cgiar.org - http://cgiarconsortium.cgxchange.org.

The Earth System Science Partnership (ESSP) was established in 2001 to promote cooperation for the integrated study of the Earth system, the changes that are occurring to the system and the implications of these changes for global sustainability. Bringing together global environmental change researchers worldwide, the ESSP comprises four international global environmental change research programmes: DIVERSITAS; the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP); the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP); and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). http://www.essp.org/

The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development is a network of 34 bilateral and multilateral donors, international financing institutions, intergovernmental organisations and development agencies.

Members share a common vision that agriculture and rural development is central to poverty reduction, and a conviction that sustainable and efficient development requires a coordinated global approach.

The Platform was created in 2003 to increase and improve the quality of development assistance in agriculture and rural development. www.donorplatform.org

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org

Biography

Sir John Beddington was appointed as Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA) on 1 January 2008. Since being in post, the GCSA has led on providing scientific advice to Government during the 2009 swine flu outbreak and the 2010 volcanic ash incident. The GCSA has also been responsible for increasing the scientific capacity across Whitehall by encouraging all major departments of state to recruit a Chief Scientific Adviser.

Throughout 2008 and 2009 Sir John raised the concept of the “Perfect Storm” of food, energy and water security in the context of climate change, gaining considerable media attention and raising this as a priority in the UK and internationally.

Prior to his appointment as GCSA, he was Professor of Applied Population Biology and headed the main departments of environmental science and technology at Imperial College. His main research interests are the application of biological and economic analysis to problems of Natural Resource Management.

Sir John has previously been advisor to a number of UK Government departments including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office. He has also advised several Governments and international bodies including the Australian, New Zealand and US Governments, the European Commission, the United Nations Environment Programme and Food and Agriculture Organisation.

He was, for six years, a member of the Natural Environment Research Council. In June 1997 he was awarded the Heidelberg Award for Environmental Excellence, in 2001 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2004 he was awarded the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George by Her Majesty the Queen and in June 2010 was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Source: www.bis.gov.uk

Climate Linked to Earthquake, Tsunami & Nuclear

Japan’s nuclear crisis will boost interest in clean renewables such as solar and wind power but may also sharpen demand for coal, oil and gas, whose carbon pollution drives climate change, meanwhile a report says in addition to the earthquake magnitude, global climate change may also have a bearing on the occurrence of tsunamis, with experts from the China Meteorological Administration saying that the 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia was partially linked to the rising sea levels.

Mar 15 2011ago

ninemsn

By Marlowe Hood and Anthony Lucas (AFP) – 12 hours ago

PARIS — Japan’s nuclear crisis will boost interest in clean renewables such as solar and wind power but may also sharpen demand for coal, oil and gas, whose carbon pollution drives climate change, experts said Monday.

Nuclear energy provides around 14 percent of the world’s electricity mix, although this is overwhelmingly concentrated in six countries, and is not going to disappear off the map any time soon, they said.

“The accident in Japan is not a death sentence for nuclear power,” stressed Jean-Marie Chevalier, an economist and energy expert at the Universite Paris Dauphine, pointing to the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in existing reactors and plants under construction.

But the scare surrounding the crippled reactors at the earthquake-struck Fukushima plant means nuclear’s renaissance after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster will be crimped, at least in the short term.

Governments in India, the United States and Europe are under pressure to review safety standards or slap a moratorium on new projects, and Germany and Switzerland have already said they will be on hold plans to extend the operational life of existing plants, pending safety reviews.

“At the very least, we would expect significant investments in nuclear to be delayed, or deferred, for a period of one to two years,” said Rupesh Madlani, renewables analysts at Barclays Capital in London.

In the short run, any energy shortfall in Japan, and elsewhere, will be filled by fossil fuels, said other experts.

“Disruption to the Japanese nuclear industry means that they are going to be relying increasingly on oil and gas for power generation,” said Julian Lee, an analyst at the Centre for Global Energy Studies, a London think tank backed by the oil industry.

Jacques Percebois, head of the Centre for Research on Energy Economy and Law at Monpellier University, agreed the fossil fuel industry would be early beneficiaries as it could provide gigawatts of quick power.

“Those who declare a moratorium on new nuclear energy should understand that the available solution for meeting large-scale energy demands today is not solar panels, it’s gas,” he told AFP.

Burning natural gas contributes to global warming, but less so than oil, and far less than coal.

“The major risk is that, facing an energy shortage, coal-fired reactors with coal imported from Australia are built,” said Cedric Philibert, an analyst in the renewable energy division of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.

“Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions would skyrocket.”

At the same time, though, a slowdown in nuclear investment would also steer money into renewable energies, which since the 2008 financial crisis have been struggling to expand their share of the world’s power market, several experts said.

“This should lead to an incremental upside in terms of demand for wind and solar projects,” said Madlani of Barclays.

“It could mean 10 percent more wind and solar being demanded each year for the next couple of years,” he told AFP.

Madlani also pointed to current high oil prices and the increasing cost of oil extraction, especially after the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

For Christiana Figueres, the United Nations’ top climate change official, the meltdown will probably push up the costs of nuclear energy, making renewables more competitive.

“Japan will change mid-term world energy scenarios,” she said in a Twitter message on Sunday from a meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Berlin.

Source: www.news.ninemsn.com.au and http://www.google.com

From Agencies

Backgrounder: Relationship between earthquakes, tsunamis

Xinhua

Updated: 2011-03-11 21:15:00

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BEIJING, March 11 (Xinhua) — An 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck northeastern Japan on Friday afternoon, the largest temblor ever recorded by the Japanese Meteorological Agency. The earthquake triggered a tsunami that swamped hundreds of kilometers around the epicenter.

The following is a brief introduction of the relationship between earthquakes and tsunamis.

A tsunami is a series of destructive waves, sometimes tens of meters high, caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, usually an ocean. With gigantic energy and fast movement, the waves are catastrophic to the affected coastal areas.

Tsunamis are usually triggered by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions, landslides and other mass movements. Underseas earthquakes have generated nearly all the major tsunamis in history.

Tsunamis can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a particular kind of temblor associated with the earth’s crustal deformation.

When these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the water above the deformed area is displaced from its equilibrium position.

However, undersea earthquakes do not necessarily lead to tsunamis.

Statistics from the China Earthquake Administration show that of the past 15,000 undersea tectonic earthquakes, only about 100 generated tsunamis. Some experts hold that only earthquakes of above 6.5 magnitude and with a focal depth of less than 25 km underground can cause tsunamis.

Sometimes even strong earthquakes, such as the 8.5-magnitude qukae that occurred near Sumatra in 2005, do not trigger tsunamis because the quake intensity can be largely compromised by the great focal depth, experts say.

In addition to the earthquake magnitude, global climate change may also have a bearing on the occurrence of tsunamis.

According to experts from the China Meteorological Administration, the 2004 tsunami that struck Southeast Asia was partially linked to the rising sea level caused by global climate change.

Source: www.chinadaily.com.cn