“Entrepreneurship for a Zero Carbon Society.”

Cambridge’s First International Summit on Policy, Technology and Investment for a low-carbon economy.

22nd - 24th September 2008, University of Cambridge, UK

For a pdf formatted version of this message see
 http://www.cambridgeclimate.com/p/Invita…

With escalating concerns over climate change, and rapidly
growing global energy demand, greater action is needed to
deploy political and technological solutions to ensure a rapid
decarbonisation of the world energy system. The barriers to
overcoming our current dependence on fossil fuels are no
longer technological. Appropriate technologies exist; but they
presently require immense scaling up.

This event aims to address how to achieve such large-scale
deployment through a politically-neutral summit of policy
advisors, technological experts and investment specialists.
The summit is the first of its kind to be hosted at the University
of Cambridge and aims also to connect the university with
industry in the hope of establishing mutually valuable partnerships.
This famous university has recently helped nurture a community
of high-tech firms in the city, some of which are involved in the
research and development of climate-friendly technologies.

The Summit Programme will include:
* Technology, Policy and Investment perspectives from private
and public sector experts
* Descriptions of innovative possibilities and successful initiatives
* Discussion sessions
* An exhibition of cutting edge climate-friendly technologies
* Opportunities for networking and identifying research and investment
partners

The final agenda will be published on our website on July 1st, 2008.
Speakers at the summit include: Dr. Bernie Bulkin (Senior VC Partner
at Vantage Point Venture Capital & Former Chief Scientist, BP),
Professor Robert Watson (former Senior Scientific Advisor of World Bank),
Mr Ross Lovegrove (world-renowned industrial designer known for his work
for Apple, Sony and more recently ‘Solar Trees’) and Dr. Joachim Reiss
from Q-Cells AG (world leading photovoltaic cell producer).

Please visit www.cambridgeclimate.com for further details and a full list
of speakers.

Who should attend?

We expect some 200 delegates from local and international companies,
research and university institutions as well as non-government and
government organisations. There will also be a limited number of
student delegates. Registration is currently available on the summit
website with reduced early registration prices on offer until June 30, 2008.
Please refer to the website for registration information and to register.

For further enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us at:
 info at cambridgeclimate.com

Sponsorship and Exhibition Opportunities

Opportunities for sponsoring the summit are available. Information and
the relevant documents for sponsorship are available by emailing us.
Please direct any sponsorship enquiries to:
 sponsorship at cambridgeclimate.com
Exhibition opportunities are also available and interested parties should
contact  exhibition at cambridgeclimate.com

“Entrepreneurship for a Zero Carbon Society” is brought to you
through a collaborative effort of graduate students at the University
of Cambridge and The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

—
=================================================================
Dr Gunnar Möller
Physics Department
University of Cambridge
JJ Thomson Avenue
CB3 0HE Cambridge
+44 1223 337 005 /  gm360 at cam.ac.uk

 UN food summit hammers out plan for world’s hungry.

From Times Online, June 4, 2008 - Richard Owen in Rome.

President Lula da Silva of Brazil defended the use of biofuels, of which his country is a major producer.

Delegates to the UN summit on the world food crisis today began hammering out an emergency plan to reduce hunger and help Third World farmers despite often testy disagreement behind the scenes over the future of biofuels.

The three-day summit, convened by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is based in Rome, ends tomorrow, when the final communique will be issued outlining both short-term and long-term solutions.

A draft declaration vows to eliminate hunger and secure “food for all, today and tomorrow”. The leaders undertake to “stimulate food production and increase investment in agriculture” while “addressing obstacles to food access and using the planet’s resources sustainably for present and future generations”.

The draft document calls for a reduction in trade barriers and food export restrictions, emergency food aid, increased crop yields and guidelines on the use of biofuels.

Related Links from Times Online  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/wo…
What leaders are eating at the UN food summit
Mugabe: UK trying to topple me
Quick fixes will not solve deeper food crisis

FAO officials said 850 million people already faced famine or malnutrition, and rising food and fuel prices would push that figure over the one billion mark, with the risk of further riots and instability in affected nations. Prices of staples such as rice, corn and wheat have soared.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said it was rolling out an additional US$1.2 billion in food assistance to help tens of millions of people in more than 60 nations hardest hit by the food crisis.

She said that WFP was “helping the world to weather the storm” by tripling the number of people who receive food in Haiti, doubling those who will receive food in Afghanistan, and delivering assistance to people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. “We have mobilised our 10,000 employees and every dollar and Euro given to us to reach as many hungry people as we can at this critical time,” she said.

The first day of the summit was dominated by controversy over the presence of the President Ahmadinejad of Iran and President Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Today, however, delegates got down to the nitty-gritty of the food crisis, with the United States and Brazil - the world’s largest producer of sugar-cane ethanol - defending the diversion of crops for energy in the face of growing criticism.

The US plans to use 25 per cent of its corn crop for ethanol production by 2022, and the European Union aims to obtain 10% of its car fuel from bio-energy by 2020. The US Agriculture Secretary, Ed Schafer, insisted that “the use of sustainable biofuels can increase energy security, foster economic development especially in rural areas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions without weighing heavily on food prices.”

He said the US was “deeply concerned by the current crisis…..We are now projecting to spend nearly five billion dollars in 2008 and 2009 to fight global hunger”.

But Jacques Diouf, director general of the FAO, said: “Nobody understands how $11-12 billion-a-year subsidies in 2006 and protective tariff polices have had the effect of diverting 100m tonnes of cereals from human consumption, mostly to satisfy a thirst for fuel for vehicles.”

Mr Schafer responded that biofuels had contributed under 3 per cent to food price increases. However FAO officials said biofuels accounted for 59 per cent of the increase in global use of coarse grains and wheat between 2005-2007, and 56 per cent of the increase in vegetable oils. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that biofuels are responsible for up to 30 per cent of the price rises overall.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil, accused critics of biofuels of hypocrisy. “It offends me to see fingers pointed at biofuels, which produce clean energy, when those fingers are soiled with oil and coal,” he said. “It is frightening to see attempts to draw a cause and effect relationship between biofuels and the rise of food prices”.

But he took a swipe at the US version of biofuel, saying that corn-based ethanol was less efficient than fuel produced with sugar cane, and could only compete “when it is shored up with subsidies and shielded behind tariffs”. Yasuo Fukuda, the Japanese Prime Minister, added: “In some cases, biofuel production is in competition with food supply…..We need to ensure that biofuel production is sustainable.”

The Rome summit will be followed by the G8 summit in Japan next month and the final stages of the stalled World Trade Organisation (WTO) Doha round of talks on global trade. Pascal Lamy, the head of WTO, said a Doha deal “would reduce the trade-distorting subsidies that have stymied the developing world’s production capacity”.

Douglas Alexander, Britain’s International Development Secretary, said that Western farm subsidies were also responsible for food price rises. “It is unacceptable that rich countries still subsidise farming by $1 billion a day, costing poor farmers in developing countries an estimated $100 billion a year in lost income,” he said

nbsp;washingtonpost.com  > World  > Africa - looking at a new mess in the making.

U.S. Africa Command Trims Its Aspirations - Nations Loath to Host Force - Aid Groups Resisted Military Plan to Take On Relief Work.

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 1, 2008; Page A18

The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America’s image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after African governments refused to host it and aid groups protested plans to expand the military’s role in economic development in the region.

Africom, due to begin operations Oct. 1, will now be based for the foreseeable future in Stuttgart, Germany, with five smaller regional offices planned for the continent on hold while the military searches for places to put them.

Nonmilitary jobs, created within Africom to highlight new cooperation between the Pentagon and the State Department, have been hard to fill and will initially total fewer than 50 of 1,300 headquarters personnel. Plans to broaden the military’s more traditional overseas training and liaison responsibilities to include development and relief tasks were curbed after U.S.-funded aid groups sharply objected to working alongside troops.

“I think in some respects we probably didn’t do as good a job as we should have when we rolled out Africom,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said recently, adding that “I wasn’t there” when the command was conceived by his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and approved by President Bush.

“I don’t think we should push African governments to a place they don’t really want to go in terms of relationships,” Gates said.

Planning for Africom began in early 2006, when the Bush administration designated Africa an area of “strategic concern” and policymakers cited a number of “pre-conflict” situations there. Based on lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the U.S. military is deeply involved in civil affairs and economic development efforts, Africom was fashioned as a template for a new interagency structure that would coordinate “hard” and “soft” U.S. power.

U.S. Agency for International Development personnel were assigned to Africom, and a senior State Department diplomat was named one of two command deputies under Army Gen. William E. “Kip” Ward. Not only would Africom help make Africa secure, Bush said when he unveiled it in February 2007, it would help promote “development, health, education, democracy and economic growth.”

Africa has always been an orphan in the U.S. defense establishment, divvied up among the Pentagon’s four regional “Unified Combatant Commands” — European, Central, Southern and Pacific — that manage U.S. military relationships and operations overseas.

Of the four, only Eucom, established in post-World War II Germany, is based overseas.

Pacom handles Asia from its headquarters in Hawaii;

Southcom, responsible for Latin America, and Centcom, in charge of operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, are both in Florida.

There was no Africom - period - probably Nigerian oil was left to be handled by the local ccoperative rulers. That was good until the Chinese showed up. Now the Indians, the Japanese, the Brazilians, are not far behind. www.SustainabiliTank.info comments.}

Under Africom, one command will consolidate military responsibility for all of Africa, excluding Egypt.

Although it encompasses the volatile Horn of Africa and the U.S. Navy’s forward operating base in Djibouti and will take over training tasks on the continent, it has no other dedicated troop components. “There are very few scenarios which would create a U.S. military intervention” in Africa, said one Africom officer who was not authorized to speak on the record. “Arguably, there are no scenarios.”

With its headquarters on the continent, liaison groups of 20 to 30 military personnel established in key countries and U.S. units brought in to help with development and relief tasks, the command was envisioned as an example to Africans of how their own armed forces and civilians could work together for the good of their nations. { ??? }

The trouble was, no one consulted the Africans. “Very little was really known by the majority of people or countries in Africa who were supposed to know before such a move was made,” said retired Kenyan army Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande. Worry swept the continent that the United States planned major new military installations in Africa. { ?!?!}

“If you know the politics of Africa,” said Opande, who has headed U.N. peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone and Liberia, “you know there are certain very powerful countries who said, no, we are not interested in having a headquarters here.” South Africa and Nigeria were among them, and their resistance helped persuade others.

Over the past seven years, the administration has more than tripled U.S. assistance to Africa, to about $9 billion annually, nearly half of which is spent on prevention and treatment for HIV-AIDS. U.S. military training for African forces has steadily expanded, and U.S. troops have undertaken humanitarian missions in several countries — digging wells, building schools and providing medical care. Africom’s budget request for 2009 is about $400 million.

But despite the promise of new development and security partnerships, many Africans concluded that Africom was primarily an extension of U.S. counterterrorism policy, intended to keep an eye on Africa’s large Muslim population. {!!!}

“I think everyone thought it would be widely greeted as something positive,” the Africom officer said. “But you suddenly have wide publics that have no idea what we’re talking about. . . . It was seen as a massive infusion of military might onto a continent that was quite proud of having removed foreign powers from its soil.” {it seems that the expectation was similar to Iraq -they will embrace the US army as liberators. ?}

The United States “equates terrorism with Islam,” senior Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat said, and few African governments wanted to be seen as inviting U.S. surveillance on their own people.

Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations African affairs subcommittee, thought Africom was “something that would show real respect for Africa.” But there was no question, Feingold said, that the concept had “a neocolonialist feel to it.”

The subject was at the top of African leaders’ agendas when Bush visited in February. “The purpose of this is not to add military bases,” he told reporters after meeting with Ghanian President John Kufuor. By Bush’s own account, Kufuor confronted him, saying, “You’re not going to build any bases in Ghana.” Bush told reporters that the very idea of establishing such bases was “baloney. Or as we say in Texas, that’s bull.”

At home, major U.S. nongovernmental aid organizations protested that what might work in the Iraq war zone — where government civilian-military “provincial reconstruction teams” operate together under heavy security to build local governing capacity and infrastructure — was ill-suited for non-conflict zones. Not only would a military presence draw unwanted attention and increased risk for development workers, they argued, the military had neither the training nor the staying power for effective development.

“Is the face of America in Africa a baseball cap or a helmet?” asked Samuel A. Worthington, president of Interaction, the Washington-based umbrella for many development and relief organizations. “We told the military — do what you’re good at. Stay in your lane.”

Since last year’s announcement, senior U.S. officials have been trying to make up for what they acknowledge was a bad beginning. There has been a “retooling” of the mission, the Africom officer said, away from development and toward “peacekeeper training, military education, a counterterrorism element — programs that have been going on for some time.”

“I’ll be candid with you: There was a misunderstanding of sorts,” said Ward, Africom’s commander. African governments he has visited since his confirmation last fall, he said, wanted to know “were we going to be establishing large bases, bringing in large formations of troops, naval bases and air squadrons? My answer was no.”

To USAID and other U.S. government development partners, worried that the military’s vast human and financial resources would overshadow them, Ward said he has explained that “we absolutely have no intention of being the leader in doing development on the continent of Africa. It is not our job, not our lane. We have no intention of taking over.”

{will next Administration be able to correct these impressions, while still be able to take a closer look at Islamic extremism ? And what is the story about Egypt?}

EYE ON THE UN: For Immediate Release - May 26, 2008 - The US Memorial Day.

Contact: Anne Bayefsky
(917) 488-1558
 anne at hudsonny.org

UN Racism Conference to be held in Geneva April 20-24, 2009 - Ironically over Holocaust Remembrance Day.

May 26, 2008

The next UN racism conference - known as Durban II or the Durban Review Conference - will be held on UN premises in Geneva from April 20-24, 2009, a UN preparatory committee decided today.

Anne Bayefsky, editor of EYEontheUN.org, said “holding the meeting at a UN venue on European soil will essentially guarantee funding from the UN regular budget for the conference, and that the European Union will fully participate and not follow boycott plans of Canada, the United States and Israel.”

The European Union had been insisting on a shorter session in New York, but the African Group refused to agree on the New York venue and wanted a 5-day conference. The idea floated by some states of again holding the conference in Durban, South Africa fell through when South Africa withdrew its offer to host the event. Throughout negotiations the African group was tightly controlled by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, with Egypt acting as their spokesperson.

Bayefsky noted “Ironically, the Durban Review Conference will take place over Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah on April 21, 2009.

Jews all over the world will be remembering the 6 million murdered in the worst instance of racism and xenophobia in human history.

At the same time, the United Nations will be discussing whether the Jewish state, created in the wake of the Holocaust and standing as a bulwark to ensure it is never repeated, should be demonized as the worst practitioner of racism and xenophobia among nations today.”

Durban II is intended to promote the implementation of the 2001 Durban Declaration, which singled out only Israel and labeled Palestinians as victims of Israeli racism.

————-

For once South Africa showed the courage to stand up and be counted among the Nations - the rest of Africa - we must note - is nothing but a rug at the feet of the Islamic world - Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibuti, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Marocco … all countries were black Africans suffer from the Egyptian led OIC intrusions on their continent. The UN is just a conduit for making the world pay the bill.

China, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Libya … seem to have money to burn - will they burn us? The question is about the buying up of agricultural land outside their countries. Is the intent just to create new food production sites to feed their own citizens, or is this also an effort to corner commodities?

At this week’s session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, China distributed an April 2008 “Review of Sustainable Development in China (2008): Agriculture, Rural Development, Land, Drought, and Desertification.” prepared by The Office of the Leading Group for Promoting the Sustainable Development Strategy, P. R. China.

The report speaks frankly about “Obstacles and Challenges” but presents a program for the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Eleventh Five -Year Plan for Development of National and Rural Economy - “the objectives set up for building a new socialist countryside.” (Chapter 4, page 25, of the report)

The report is a statement of past success, and of great plans for further increase in efficiency while reducing the number of farmers and the rural percentages in the total population. This is the story of industrialization and of modernization in the agriculture sector of the economy - historically the high majority sector in China. We know that China is an agricultural success story as they turned away from a history of hunger. I had no intention to get anywhere deeper into the subject.

But, surprise, even though we knew that China is doing well in its exports and has a $1.3 trillion reserve, having created in the process also a new, sizable, middle class that will aim at an increase of the standard of living and demand a better array of foods including much more meat, we were yet not prepared for the Friday, May 9, 2008 article of the Financial Times that brought before our eyes the actual figures: “FOOD SHORTAGES - NEW EATING HABITS FORCE REVOLUTION ON CHINA’S FARMS.” “With 21% of the world’s population, 9% of its arable land and below average and poorly distributed water resources, China is already unable to supply enough homegrown animal feed” - says the article. www.ft.com

Further - “Although analysts disagree on the timing of china’s emergence as an importer of all grains, a few doubt that Beijing will be forced to modify its longstanding policy of self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs to meet demand.”

But, the pressure for animal feed that is already felt now, nd the expectation of future shortages, send already now China to look for off-shore arable land.

Also from the Friday issue of the Financial Times, this from Jamil Anderlini, from Beijing, and Javier Blas from London: “Beijing looks at foreign fields in pushto guarantee food supplies - China Losing its ability to be self-sufficient.”

The reporters learned that a proposal drafted by the agriculture ministry would make supporting offshore land acquisition by domestic agricultural companies government policy. These acquisitions will be made by state-owned banks, manufacturers and oil companies. Some rather small projects have already been established in Africa.

It is easy to foresee how Chinese farms will evolve in various places - mainly in Africa, and Chinese farmers will be toiling on these farms. There is nothing alarming here, but it is hard to see how this will not project a return to colonialism - this time seated in China government owned enterprises - something like the old Dutch and English Trading companies? When I say it is not alarming, I mean that the intent will be to lift the produce for consumption at home and not as part of an international trade. if the locals will have any luck, they may actually be pushed to copy the Chinese production technologies and develop their own agriculture in parallel.

What is more worrisome, is a different paragraph in that article: “The move comes as oil rich, food poor countries in the Middle East and North Africa explore similar options. Libya is talking with Ukraine about growing wheat while Saudi Arabia has said it would invest in projects abroad TO ENSURE FOOD SECURITY AND CONTROL COMMODITY PRICES.” Now that is something hair-rising.

What we are now foreseeing is how the specialists in cartel building who have cornered the petroleum market, will now extend their reach into the food market. When the banana exporters tried this years ago - they were laughed off - but when the rise of food demand by China and India creates shrinking worldwide supplies, games by the money rich oil producers to start cornering food staples like corn, soy, wheat, rice or sugar, could indeed cause havoc.

Today, Monday May 12, 2008, The Financial Times writes under World News / Food: “UAE INVESTORS BUY PAKISTAN FARMLAND.”

The story from Dubai (Simeon Kerr) and Lahore (Farhan Bokhari) is about the Dubai based Abraaj Capital, one of the middle East’s largest private equity companies quietly buying farmland in Pakistan as part of plans by the UAE to increase food security and dampen inflation. Further, the government of Abu Dhabi was talking to the Islamabad officials. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are also looking at Pakistan.

Abraaj already owns 800,000 acres of farm land in Pakistan and the Emirates Investment Group, and the Abu Dhabi Group are not far behind. Some in Pakistan start thinking that this might lead to increase in food prices in Pakistan. This while prices of food have already caused riots in Pakistan because of a 20% increase in March.

Besides Pakistan, a State in trouble these days, other Islamic States in trouble - Sudan and Somalia, are also offering lands for sale. Will all of this lead to what some dreamers (Jordan’s Agriculture minister) think will be sort of an Islamic/Arab self-help organization - or just another plain cartel? That is something to look after.

Further, also today, May 12, 2008, at the CSD at the UN, there was the SIDs Day. At one of the panels there was talk about the impact of the increase of the price of food commodities that is harming the Small Islands States. There was some talk about the global effects of the biofuel’s production using agricultural commodities. I felt compelled to bring up the Financial Times on-going articles in order to explain that the issue is much more complex and that it has to do rather with the fact that countries with excess money are causing this with their acquisition of land helping drive up the price of the commodity because of the creation of expectation of price increases. Also, the increase in price should be viewed as an opportunity because it will eventually bring more products to market.

Let Us Look Closely At Some Of The UN DAILY NEWS from the UNITED NATIONS NEWS SERVICE
28 April, 2008 =========================================================================
Analyzing the news we find that now even the UN makes clear prediction that climate change in Africa is bound to become a security problem with the Sahel countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal among the first that must address this inevitable danger. All these countries belong to the Arabized Africa.

But Mr. Ziegler of the UN “Right to Food” Program just shoots his mouth at the US and at the EU for trying to decrease their dependence on imported oil by emulating the great Brazilian experience with biofuels. Rather then being helpful, Mr. Ziegler calls for a moratorium that could only benefit his Arab friends.

Mr. Ban Ki-moon visits now the economic offices of the UN in Vienna and Geneva, and speaks up about the real World needs. He will then meet high level UN officials from Economic and Human Rights offices. He will also meet the foreign ministers of Austria and Slovenia, and the President of Switzerland. Our main attention is drawn to this last meeting and we think that the best reason for his trip could come true if he were to negotiate with the Swiss President’s removing Mr. Ziegler from his UN related functions, as he did enough damage by now. Also, perhaps, if needed, Switzerland could take over from South Africa the hosting of that Durban II event. By bringing the hotheads of that planned disaster to their senses, Switzerland could have the chance to redeem itself from all these other problems that its citizen, Ziegler, managed to create on the world stage. We really do not want to see that the Swiss flag will remain stained for any further length of time.

Further, While in Vienna, in his meetings there, Mr. Ban could obtain further information about farm policy and biofuels. The Austrians were very good at that. When “Gemma Brott Verbrennen” was the anti-ethanol call that was all over the frontpage of the daily “Kurrier” - the Austrians moved to the production of biodiesel made from oil of the ricinus plant in order to avoid the Food-for-fuel misrepresentation of the European agriculture. The Slovenians think in this respect like the Austrians.

UN TO ASSIST AFRICAN FARMERS THREATENED BY CLIMATE CHANGE

Some 10,000 farmers in five African countries, where crops are expected to be badly affected by climate change, are to receive help from the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in the form of low-cost rain gauge equipment and roving seminars provided by agricultural experts.

With the help of Spain, WMO will distribute the rain gauges to volunteer farmers in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal, and train them in using rainfall data to plan sowing, fertilizer application and harvesting.

The goal of the roving seminars is to support farmers’ self-reliance by supplying them with information on weather and climate risk management.

In West Africa, the area suitable for agriculture, the length of the growing season, and crop yields, especially along the margins of arid and semi-arid areas, are all expected to decrease, according to projections by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In some African countries, yield from rain-fed fa