U.S. agrees to debt-for-nature swap to preserve Peru rainforests.

In a bid to preserve some of Peru’s biologically diverse rainforests, the United States agreed this week to a $25 million debt-for-nature swap with the country, Peru’s second since 2002. Over the next seven years, in exchange for erasing millions of their debt, Peru will fund local non-governmental organizations dedicated to protecting tropical rain forests of the southwestern Amazon Basin and dry forests of the central Andes.

“This agreement will build on the success of previous U.S. government debt swaps with Peru and will further the cause of environmental conservation in a country with one of the highest levels of biodiversity on the planet,” said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Other debt-for-nature agreements have already been brokered with Bangladesh, Belize, Botswana, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, and the Philippines.

This week’s swap makes Peru the largest beneficiary of such deals with the U.S., with more than $35 million dedicated to environmental conservation in the country.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008, NATURAL SELECTIONS  http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fe20…

Climate change in Costa Rica

By ROWAN HOOPER
A couple of weeks ago I was woken at dawn by the booming screeches of the aptly named Howler Monkey. I was in Costa Rica, in the cloud forest of Monteverde.

The author deep in the Monteverde cloud forest of Costa Rica, which gets a whopping 3,000 mm of rain a year.

Among those who know, Monteverde is famous because the cloud-forest reserve is at the center of a crossroads — to the north is temperate America, to the south the Tropics. Animals and plants meet in the isthmus connecting the north and south — and there they mingle.

To the west is the Pacific Ocean; to the east the Atlantic. On top of all that, the country is divided by a volcanic mountain chain — to the east of which lies the Caribbean tectonic plate, to the west the Pacific plate.

It is this unique location and biogeography that gives Monteverde — and indeed the country — its remarkable and unparalleled biodiversity. For anyone with even a passing interest in wildlife, the place is an embarrassment of biological riches.

There are more varieties of butterflies and moths in Costa Rica, for example, than in all of Africa — hardly a continent lacking in jungles or diverse habitats. As well, almost 900 species of birds have been recorded in this small country — more than in the United States and Canada combined.

In total there are more than 500,000 known species in Costa Rica — that’s 5 percent of all the species in the world living on just 50,000 sq. km of land — a place about the size of West Virginia.

Costa Rica, though only the size of West Virginia, is home to more than 500,000 known animal species, inlcuding more varieties of moths and butterflies, such as this Clearwing Butterfly, than in the whole of Africa ROWAN HOOPER PHOTOS

When I visited it was the rainy season, and not long after waking to the Howler Monkeys my friend and I, and a guide, Ricardo, hiked into the forest wearing rubber boots and carrying waterproof jackets and jungle hats.

After all, Monteverde gets a whopping 3,000 mm of rain a year, and even when it doesn’t rain I’d heard that the clouds and mist carry so much moisture that you’d likely be soaked without protective gear.

Not this time. The sun blazed all day. And the next day too, when we hiked for 7 hours in the forest. Well, aren’t we lucky, we said to each other a little ruefully, here we are in the cloud forest and there are no clouds.

We’d seen clouds the day before, driving up the precipitous mountain roads as clouds swept up from the Pacific and over the forest. And from my hotel room, right on the edge of the forest reserve, I saw the mist pushing through the trees. But when we walked through the forest — no clouds.

When I got back from Central America I found some research on a new regional climate model, made specifically to look in detail at Costa Rica.

To predict the effects of climate change, Ambarish Karmalkar of the University of Massachusetts’ Amherst Climate System Research Center used a regional modeling system capable of accommodating the complex topography of Costa Rica.

He tested the computer model using actual rainfall and temperature data collected in Central America between 1961 and 1990, then looked at what would happen if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doubled.

The simulation predicts that temperature will rise by 3 C, and that the mountainous Pacific slopes and the Caribbean lowlands will receive up to 30 percent less rain. There will be an overall increase in the height of the cloud base of up to 300 meters.

“We have completed a regional climate model showing that many areas of Costa Rica will become warmer and drier as climate change accelerates, and these changes will be amplified at higher elevations,” said Karmalkar.

As this happens, plants and animals will try to migrate up slope, to conditions where they can more comfortably grow, forage and reproduce. But other species already live in these regions, and eventually they will reach the top of the mountains.

“Central America is a major, emerging ‘hot spot’ in the Tropics where climate- change impacts on the environment will be pronounced, and the loss of species associated with climate has already been identified,” Karmalkar notes.

I should know better, but it is hard not to equate the predictions Karmalkar’s model makes — that mountainous forests in Costa Rica will become warmer and drier as climate change accelerates — with my experience in the cloud forest.

Now, it makes no scientific sense to link single events to global-climate change. So it is not possible to say, for example, that Hurricane Katrina, the storm that so devastated New Orleans in August 2005, was caused by global warming. It was this implicit link, among others, that got Al Gore into trouble with his film “An Inconvenient Truth.”

It was obviously just chance — or our bad luck, which was how we saw it — that there were no clouds when we were in the cloud forest. But neither were there any frogs — none I could see or hear, anyway.

“You don’t see frogs,” said Ricardo, who has worked in the cloud forest for 10 years. “You used to see more, but not now.”

You used also to see, if you were lucky, the Golden Toad of Monteverde. If the Polar Bear has become a symbol of global warming in the Arctic, the Golden Toad has that dubious honor in Costa Rica. The spectacular bright-yellow-orange amphibian is classified as extinct — not having been seen since 1989.

Its demise has also been blamed on global warming. If so, it will likely be only one of many such extinctions. You can argue the point all you like about the causes of climate change, but the fact is that an overwhelming majority of scientists — and now even politicians — agree that it is mostly driven by human activity.

So although it is difficult to pin to global-warming individual examples such as Hurricane Katrina or the demise of the Golden Toad, it is fair to say that Costa Rica — one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth — will lose species as the planet warms up.

The second volume of Natural Selections columns translated into Japanese is published by Shinchosha. The title is “Hito wa ima mo shinka shiteru (The Evolving Human: How new biology explains your journey through life).” It is priced at ¥1,500.

nbsp;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…

In Bhutan, a Historic Trek to the Polls
With First Vote for Parliament, Kingdom Becomes a Democracy
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 25, 2008; A11

Bhutanese wait to cast their ballots in parliamentary elections ordered by the country’s fourth and fifth kings. (By Paula Bronstein — Getty Images)

TOKTOKHA, Bhutan, March 24 — Without revolution or bloodshed, this tiny Himalayan kingdom became the world’s newest democracy Monday, as wildflower farmers, traditional healers, Buddhist folk artists and computer engineers voted in their country’s first parliamentary elections, ending a century of absolute monarchy.

In a historic event for this country of 700,000, entire families took to winding mountain roads, traveling in some cases for days in minivans, on horseback and on foot to cast their ballots, marking Bhutan’s transition to a constitutional monarchy.

Despite concerns that Bhutanese would be turned off by the rough-and-tumble world of politics, more than 79 percent of the estimated 318,000 registered voters turned out at polling places.

It was the king, as well as his father and predecessor, who ordered his subjects to vote, in the belief that democracy would foster stability in a country wedged between China and India and known as the Land of the Thunder Dragon.

By Monday evening, early tallies indicated that the Druk Pheunsum Tshogpa, or DPT, had won in a landslide, capturing 44 of the 47 seats in the National Assembly. Analysts said the party benefited from the fact that five of its members had served as government ministers in the royal administration. The People’s Democratic Party, or PDP, won three seats.

“We are in total amazement,” said Palden Tshering, spokesman for the DPT. “I think what happened was that they looked at the two parties and figured out that our party was one that could possibly give us a government that was envisioned by His Majesty.”

Before abdicating the throne to his son in 2006, the country’s fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, had taken methodical steps to give power to the people, saying that he believed no leader should be “chosen by birth instead of merit.”

As part of his “gross national happiness” plan, he reformed the country’s feudal system, giving land and jobs to the poorest farmers and launching free health and education systems. He and his Harvard- and Oxford-educated son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, remain immensely popular. Many Bhutanese still refer to both father and son as “His Majesty.”

The country is now likely to be headed by the DPT president, Jigmi Thinley, one of the architects of the gross national happiness development philosophy of grass-roots health, education and environmental programs. Both parties said they would work to bridge the gaps between them.

“We will set aside our differences and reconcile, that is what’s most important. His Majesty has given us a precious gift,” said Sangay Ngedup, president of the PDP, whose four sisters are all married to the fourth king. “The pressure is on us now to nurture democracy. A great legacy of His Majesty the king is on our shoulders. His Majesty the king will always remain an inspiration.”

Ngedup lost his race for an assembly seat, a sign that many voters were unhappy with his political record, despite his family ties to the monarchy.

The fifth king, who is 28, will remain commander in chief of the army and will be able to appoint five members to the upper house of parliament. Many Bhutanese said they hoped his opinions would continue to carry enormous weight.

“We do things a little differently here. We will never fall out of love with His Majesty,” said Sonam Peldam, 29, who works for the national airline, referring to the fourth king.

Almost all stores were padlocked for the day because of the election. Signs said “Gone to vote.” The cellphone network got bogged down because so many Bhutanese called candidates to wish them good luck.

In central Bhutan, buses loaded with voters traveling to remote mountain villages were stalled because gas stations ran out of fuel. “Suffering for suffrage,” a headline in a local newspaper read, showing families camped on roadsides in the cold.

In rural areas, colorful tents with the country’s dragon emblem were set up beside buckwheat farms. In the chilly, cloud-shrouded hills, people in traditional dress lined up peacefully to vote.

The elections were highly managed. Candidates were required to have at least a bachelor’s degree, in a country where fewer than 5 percent hold such a qualification.

Mock elections were held last year to help voters get a feel for the process. Bhutanese journalists were trained this year on how to cover political campaigns. Instead of holding formal rallies, candidates went door-to-door, seeking support over cups of traditional butter tea and fresh walnuts.

“There has been no precedent for anything like this in Bhutan,” said Tshering, the DPT spokesman. “We are all taking baby steps. But it’s also really a wonderful moment in our nation.”

At DPT headquarters Monday night, Tshering said there would not be any celebrations, despite the overwhelming victory.

“There’s a lot of work to do,” he said. “We have to take this very seriously. There is no time to rest now. We have to live up to His Majesty.”

UNEP Unveils the Climate Neutral Network (CN Net) to Catalyze a Transition To a Low-Carbon World - Four countries (Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand and Norway),  four cities (Arendal, Norway; Rizhao, China; Vancouver, Canada; and Växjö, Sweden) and five corporations (Co-operative Financial Services, UK; Interface Inc, United States; Natura, Brazil; Nedbank, South Africa; and Senoko Power, Singapore) Are The First to Join at the 10th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council/ Global Ministerial Environment Forum.


MONACO/NAIROBI, 21 February 2008—Four countries, four cities and five
corporations have become the pioneering founders of a bold new initiative
to address climate change and the urgent need to de-carbonize the global
economy.

The participants are the first to join the Climate Neutral Network (CN
Net), launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in
cooperation with the UN’s Environment Management Group, as one inspiring
solution to the challenge of rising greenhouse gases.

The Network, a web-based project, is seeking to federate the small but
growing wave of nations, local authorities and companies who are pledging
to significantly reduce emissions en route to zero-emission economies,
communities and businesses.

Over the coming months, intergovernmental bodies, organizations, civil
society groups and eventually individuals will be invited to take part.

The aim is a truly global information exchange network open to all sectors
of society from Presidents, Prime Ministers and Princes to people from
Pittsburgh and Sao Paulo to Poznan and Apia.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said
today: “Climate neutrality is an idea whose time has come, driven by the
urgent need to address climate change but also the abundant economic
opportunities emerging for those willing to embrace a transition to a
‘Green Economy’.”

“This new initiative supports the formal negotiations under the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Here Governments need to
navigate the Bali Road Map to a successful conclusion in Copenhagen in
2009. The CN Net can assist in building confidence through demonstrable
action at the national and local level on the art of the possible”, he
said.

“The CN Net is also in for the long haul and equally aimed at mobilizing a
broad-based response demonstrating that a transition to a low, even zero,
carbon future can be a reality if inspiring and practical actions can be
federated around the world”, said Mr. Steiner.

The first four countries to partner are Costa Rica, Iceland, New Zealand
and Norway. They, along with the initial cities and companies, represent a
diversity of challenges and opportunities which have the potential to be
replicated by others in whole or in part.

“For Norway it is emissions from oil and gas that dominate whereas for New
Zealand, agriculture represents 50 per cent of its current greenhouse
gases”, said Mr. Steiner.

“Iceland’s central challenge is perhaps transport and industry including
fishing and fish processing. I am especially delighted that Costa Rica is
at the forefront of the initiative. Its commitment demonstrates that the
economic benefits of reducing dependency on fossil fuels and action on
deforestation and degradation are of central interest to developing and
developed countries alike”, he said.

Costa Rica aims to be climate neutral by 2021 when it celebrates 200 years
of independence.

In 2007 Costa Rica planted more than 5 million trees or 1.25 per person
making it the highest per capita planting in the world. Various industries
are supporting the initiative including a C-neutral plan by Costa Rica’s
banana sector.

Other elements of the strategy include increasing the percentage of
renewable energy generation to well over 90 per cent and action on energy
efficiency including energy saving appliances.

Iceland has drawn up a plan to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by
up to 75 per cent by 2050. The country’s electricity production is already
among the greenest on the globe.

Tapping methane from landfills and better management and restoration of
soils, wetlands and forests in order to “sequestrate” carbon from the air
and minimize releases from the land are also part of Iceland’s strategy.

New Zealand is aspiring to climate neutrality through a wide range of
domestic initiatives including a trading scheme covering all sectors of the
economy and all six greenhouse gases regulated under the Kyoto Protocol.

The country has set itself the target of generating 90 per cent of its
electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and halving per capita transport
emissions by 2040 by introducing electric cars and a requirement to use
biofuels.

Meanwhile, six government agencies will be aiming to achieve full
neutrality by 2012. Where emissions cannot be cut they will be offset
through forest regeneration projects on tribal lands.

New Zealand, which will host World Environment Day 2008 under the theme
“Kick the C02 Habit”, is paying particular attention to emissions from
agriculture. Some 40,000 farms account for 50 per cent of the country’s
greenhouse gases versus around 12 per cent from agriculture in most
developed countries.

During the period 2008-2012, Norway estimates that it will over-fulfill its
Kyoto Protocol commitments by 5 million tonnes.

Cities:
Four cities are also today announcing they have joined the CN Net. They are
Arendal, Norway; Rizhao, China; Vancouver, Canada; and Växjö, Sweden.

Arendal took a decision on climate neutrality in 2007. It is currently
assessing its greenhouse gas footprint and will have a final estimate in
May 2008. The city’s initial target is stabilization in 2012 and a 25 per
cent emission reduction by 2025.

City-wide action, including energy efficiency measures in buildings, will
be supplemented by the purchasing of carbon offsets via a scheme run by the
Norwegian State Pollution Control body. This may commence as early as this
year.

Rizhao is implementing a transition to a low-carbon society via a variety
of innovative measures including boosting solar power in homes and schools
up to harvesting methane as a fuel from industrial waste-water.

Close to 100 per cent of urban housing now have solar heaters and 30 per
cent of rural homes. Compared to 2000, the amount of energy used per unit
of GDP has fallen by almost a third and C02 emissions by almost half.

Vancouver has adopted targets to reduce community greenhouse gas emissions
to 33% below current levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. In
addition, Vancouver adopted the target of greenhouse gas neutral buildings
for all new construction by 2030.

The city has also set a target of being carbon neutral in its own civic
operations by 2012 by retro-fitting public buildings to save energy,
adopting more efficient vehicles, including those powered by alternative
fuels, and capturing methane gas from its landfill and converting the
energy to heat and electricity .

Växjö has decided to become a “Fossil Fuel Free” City.    In 1996, there
was a unanimous political decision to reduce CO2 emissions per inhabitant
by at least 50% by the year 2010, compared to 1993. In 2006, the reduction
was 30%. For the year 2025, the goal is 70% and the long-term goal is, of
course, to stop using fossil fuels. Today, over 50% of the
city’s energy supply comes from renewables.

Corporations:

Five companies have become the first to join the CN Net. They are
Co-operative Financial Services, UK; Interface Inc, United States; Natura,
Brazil; Nedbank, South Africa; and Senoko Power, Singapore.

Co-operative Financial Services’ (CFS) 25-storey headquarters in the north
of England is the largest solar installation in the UK with 7,000
photovoltaic panels. In addition, 99 per cent of the CFS’s electricity is
sourced from ‘good quality’ renewable energy supplies.

The company has also developed a range of innovative products for customers
including car insurance and mortgages that include offsets covering a fifth
of a vehicle and a household’s emissions.

Interface Inc, a commercial interiors company, has committed to climate
neutrality by 2020 under the Clinton Global Initiative. Employee and
company travel is offset through several schemes including Cool C02mmute
and Trees for Travel.

Seven of its manufacturing facilities are run using renewable energy
including its LaGrange plant in Georgia that is fueled by methane from a
landfill site. The company is committed to greening its supply chain and
offers a range of climate neutral products including Cool Carpet.

Natura, a Brazilian multinational cosmetics company, has pinpointed
potential emissions savings of 33 per cent from its business supply chain.
The company has committed to replace petroleum-based products in its
cosmetic in favour of natural minerals and plant materials.

As early as 1997, Natura converted its distribution fleet in the greater
Sao Paulo area to natural gas. Emissions that cannot be cut will be offset
via native species forestry projects and renewable energy.

Nedbank is working to reduce its own emissions and those of its 24,000
employees through a range of initiatives including public awareness schemes
for environmentally-friendly living.

The company is a signatory to South Africa’s Energy Efficiency Accord; is
the only African bank to have signed up to the Equator Principles and is a
leading member of the Carbon Disclosure Project that encourages companies
to disclose their carbon footprint as a stepping stone to greater emissions
reductions.

Senoko Power is Singapore’s largest power company. In 1998, over 80 per
cent of its power plants were powered by fuel oil or diesel. Today over 90
per cent of electricity is generated by natural gas and since 1990 the
“carbon intensity” has fallen by close to 40 per cent.

Part of its Corporate Social Responsibility strategy includes building
climate awareness in the community including in schools and via a National
Weather Study Project. Senoko is the first power company in Singapore to
meet the environmental standard ISO 14001.

Quotes from some of the CN Net’s founding partners

Roberto Dobles, Environment and Energy Minister, Costa Rica
“Costa Rica seeks to be climate neutral in 2021, unilaterally, because even
though our emissions are small, we believe there is a common yet
differentiated responsibility. The successful economies of the future will
be those that are decarbonized and climate friendly.

“Costa Rica is developing the National Strategy on Climate Change to act
responsibly with present and future generations, in a view to reduce
emissions and adapt our country to climate change. Costa Rica is developing
a National Strategy on Climate Change to generate new competitive
capabilities in a global environment heavily impacted by climate change.

“The country is beginning to share the vision that a climate neutral
economy is also a competitive one, since costs can be reduced and climate
quality factors added.”

Thorunn Sveinbjarnardottir, Environment Minister, Iceland
“Climate change can have dire consequences for a large part of humanity in
the coming decades. We must, however, be able to frame the challenge in a
positive way, and to see it as a task of doing things in a better way, a
cleaner way.

“Iceland has effectively de-carbonized its energy production sector, and
hopes to do the same in the coming decades with other sectors of the
economy. UNEP’s Climate Neutral Network initiative allows countries to
illustrate best examples in various fields, and to stake out an ambitious
profile in climate affairs. Who stays ahead in this friendly race towards
carbon neutrality is not most important; if we all manage to beef up our
efforts the real winners will be the future inhabitants of Planet Earth.”

David Parker, Minister for Climate Change, New Zealand
“The development of the Climate Neutral Network signifies a major step
forward in creating a coordinated global response to climate change. I am
proud that New Zealand is a founding member of the Climate Neutral Network.
As a signatory we are leading the way in actively laying out strategies to
become carbon neutral.

“The creation of the network recognizes that global economic growth and
well-being sit alongside a clean and healthy environment. It also
recognizes that climate change is an issue of the highest concern to the
United Nations.”

Erik Solheim, Minister of the Environment and International Development,
Norway
“The Climate Neutral Network will be an important contribution to the
development and promotion of carbon neutral economies. It will facilitate
the role of marked-based solutions and economic regulatory measures to
combat climate change.”

Torill Rollstad Larsen, Mayor of Arendal
“The UN city of Arendal is paying strong attention to the threats from
climate change and trying to live up to the notion ‘think globally and act
locally’. We are currently embarking on an ambitious programme to reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases from Arendal’s own activities drastically by
2012. We will further become climate neutral from 2008 by offsetting
remaining emissions. We also work with major events in the city like the
Hove rock festival, the World Speed Boating Championship and the Canal
Street jazz festival to be climate neutral this year. We very much look
forward to sharing ideas and experience with other colleagues in UNEP’s
Climate Neutral Network.”

Sam Sullivan, Mayor of Vancouver
“The city of Vancouver is proud to be recognized by the Climate Neutral
Network as a world leader acting to significantly reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. Along with our focus on EcoDensity and making Vancouver green,
livable and affordable, we follow approaches where we can have the greatest
impact: improving our own operations, following integrated and sustainable
land-use and transportation planning, encouraging renewable district energy
systems, and requiring the highest standards of energy performance from
buildings.”

Anders Franzén, Development Manager, Växjö
“In Växjö, Sweden we took an early responsibility to become climate neutral
by a decision in 1996 to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions that make us a
fossil fuel free city. By different measures we have reached a considerable
reduction and are now emitting less than world average. We like to share
our programme, vision and experience world wide. One good way can be
through the Climate Neutral Network.”

David Anderson, Chief Executive of CFS
“By using green energy, pursuing energy efficiency and offsetting all our
remaining CO2 emissions we are doing everything to reduce our impact on the
environment. However, we cannot ignore the legacy we have left over the
years. That is why we are going beyond carbon neutral and offsetting 110%
of our emissions each year.”

Daniel T. Hendrix, Chief Executive Officer, Interface, Inc.
“Interface is excited to join UNEP’s Climate Neutral Network and share
ideas and strategies on achieving climate neutrality. It will take the
collaborative work of many to solve global climate change problems and we
want to do everything we can to inspire and enable others to join us in our
mission to be a climate neutral enterprise.”

Eduardo Luppi, Vice-President for Innovation, Natura
“To Natura, initiatives like the Climate Neutral Network are essential to
stimulate the exchange of ideas in a way that countries and companies
commit themselves more and more to the neutralization and, mainly, the
reduction of greenhouse gases. Participation in this network is very
important for Natura to share experiences on its Carbon Neutral Programme
and to exchange best practices on environmental issues.”

Selby Baqwa, Group Executive for Governance, Compliance and Sustainability,
Nedbank Group
“Having worked with both UNEP and the UN Global Compact over the last few
years, we strongly support the collaborative approach to dealing with one
of the greatest challenges facing the world today, that of climate change,
and look forward to working with the Climate Neutral Network.

“Nedbank is committed to a variety of energy efficiency projects,
supporting clean energy and creating awareness around how to minimize the
individual effect on global warming of each of our staff members and
clients through their carbon footprints.”

Roy Adair, President & CEO of Senoko Power Ltd
“UNEP’s launch of the Climate Neutral Network is an excellent step to raise
public awareness on climate change mitigation. Through this platform, the
public, organizations and people sectors will be able to share solutions
and strategies to combat climate change. As a power generation company, we
at Senoko Power are honored to be a part of this global initiative.

“In Singapore, we are committed to minimizing our impact on the
environment. We have significantly reduced our carbon intensity by as much
as 40% compared to 1990s by adopting the latest energy-efficient combined
cycle plant technology, while also shifting fuel consumption to mostly
natural gas.

“In addition, we have committed more than S$1.8 million (US$1.25 million)
for the sponsorship of the National Weather Study Project (NWSP) between
2005 and 2007. The NWSP was launched to raise awareness on climate change
among students from 240 schools and junior colleges in Singapore.

“Through these initiatives, we continue to serve as an agent of change not
only for the power generation industry but also for the public”.

——————

The aims and objectives of the Climate Neutral Network, the pledges and
strategies of the participants and details on how to join are available at
 www.unemg.org
Information on World Environment Day 2008 is available at
 nick.nuttall at unep.org; and Robert Bisset, UNEP
Spokesperson for Europe, on tel: +33-6-2272-5842 or Email  robert.bisset at unep.fr

CLIMATE CHANGE: UN Goes “Climate Neutral” writes for IPS Ramesh Jaura from Bali.

NUSA DUA, Bali, Dec 12 (IPS) - The United Nations announced Wednesday it is joining the growing worldwide effort to go “climate neutral”, an acronym for reducing or offsetting any greenhouse gases.

“Offsetting emissions by supporting the adaptation fund that is expected to become operational soon sends a clear signal that climate proofing vulnerable economies has — like the UN’s action on climate change generally — risen to the top of the organisation’s agenda in 2007,” Steiner said.

Earlier he told journalists that “under the leadership of Ban Ki-Moon, the entire UN system has now pledged to work towards climate neutrality, not just in Bali but across offices and operations globally and forever. Indeed I can announce today that UNEP will be among the early movers and will become climate neutral next month.”

——————————————————–

Steiner told IPS the UN decision came “as Costa Rica, New Zealand and Norway fleshed out some of the pioneering plans and strategies” they are developing in order to achieve climate neutrality in their own countries:

Paulo Manso, chief of Costa Rica’s delegation to the Bali conference, said Costa Rica had placed climate change at the very top of its agenda arguing that a climate neutral economy is also a competitive one.

“The Peace with Nature initiative honours the ethical, human, social, environmental and economic approach which Costa Rica has towards the environment and sustainable development,” Manso said.

Norway, that has also pledged to go climate neutral nationally, reconfirmed Wednesday that it is backing the UN system work towards climate neutrality with an initial investment of 820,000 dollars for the UNEP-hosted Environmental Management Group (EMG).

Solheim told journalists that Norway would be pursuing vigorous energy savings and efficiency measures at home to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to contribute to evolution of the carbon markets established under the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Yet another country that plans to go climate neutral is New Zealand. Its deputy minister responsible for climate change issues, David Parker, said the country’s plan to become climate neutral involves a goal of generating 90 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025, and halving per capita transport emissions by 2040 by introducing electric cars and a requirement to use bio fuels.

The Commission on Sustainable Development Is It A Moribund UN Body Or Will It Be Revived Because It Is Needed After The Re-Engagement Hoopla That Happens Now At Bali?

Our Website was established in order to help create the awareness that there is no other development possible - not in the developing countries and not in the developed countries - that is not SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

We had experience starting from before the Brundtland Commission of 1987, we were engaged at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, and we wrote the “Promptbook on Sustainable Development for The World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg 2002. In short we are strong believers that if the UN CSD were not created in 1994, we would have had to create it now.

Why that? Simply, because as it is crystal clear now that the development of tomorrow cannot go on by rules of the development of yesterday - and this was given, right today, full global recognition in Oslo, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the scientists of the IPCC, and to Al Gore - whatever will come out from the Bali-Poznan-Copenhagen process will be clearly a final global landing on the runway that was built in Rio for Agenda 21. And as we keep saying - this will be a joint Sustainable Development for North and South, East and West. It will be a world were those that have the needed technologies will share them with those that are only trying out for their own National development. This will not be done because of altruism - it will be rather because of self interest that comes from the simple fact that we are all residents of planet earth, and we understand that we have caused the planet to be on a path of destruction that harms the continuation of life as nature or god created.

After UNCED, The UN created a Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development and Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Gali appointed Mr. Nitin Desai, at the Under-Secretary-General level to head the Department. 1994-1998 Joke Waller-Hunter from the Netherlands was the first Director of the Division for Sustainable Development and the head of the Commission on Sustainable Development - so the Commission itself dates back, for all practical purpose, to 1994 - even though it officially was started in 1992. In May 2007 we witnessed the CSD 15 (that is counting back to 1992!).

In 1997, Secretary-General Kofi, in an effort to reduce the number of UN Under-Secretary-Generals, consolidated three economic and social departments and created UN DESA (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and eventually put Mr. Desai as head of DESA where he was until he was replaced in 2003 with Mr. Jose Antonio Ocampo, the former Finance Minister of Colombia; the new Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-moon, brought in, July 2007, Mr. Sha Zukang, the previous China Ambassador in Geneva. In 1998 Ms. JoAnne DiSano, with a background of having worked for the Canadian Government, and then for 11 years with the Australian Government, became the Director of the new Division of Sustainable Development within DESA. She held this position until September of 2007 and since then the position is VACANT, and it looks as if the UN does not care.

Ms. Joke Waller-Hunter, left her position with the CSD in 1998 in order to become the Executive Secretary of the of Bonn based  UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) where she remained untill her death in 2006. She was replaced there in 2007, by Mr. Yvo de Boer, appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Yvo de Boer is also from the Netherlands, where he was Director for International Affairs of the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment. He was in the Past Vice-Chair of the Commision on SD and Vice-Chair of the COP of the UNFCCC. Both, the CSD and the UNFCCC are outcomes of the 1992 UNCED. Ms. Joke Waller-Hunter’s departure from New York may have had something to do with the 1997 UN reorganization that replaced the Department of SD with a Division of SD within DESA. She may have sensed that her presence at UNFCCC will further SD goals easier then  at the new Division of SD - that its creation caused in effect a demotion in her position.

The present vacancy at the nerve-center of the CSD, at a time the CSD is needed indeed, following the latest push at the UNFCCC, on matters of climate change, that causes our renewed interest in the UN CSD and in the UN Division that was established specifically in order to run the CSD. We are afraid that it will be difficult to see progress on the UN level, in matters of climate change, without a functioning office that deals with sustainable development.

Now to be honest, our interest is not just because of curiosity - but rather because of the worry that we understand very well the reasons for the slow demise of the CSD - the factors that got it to start on what may be a path to extinction.

At CSD 9 it was decided that the CSD will discuss specific topics in cycles of two years. So the first cycle was Water for CSD11-CSD12, the second cycle Energy for CSD14-CSD15, the third cycle Land Use for CSD16-CSD17.

So 2006-2007 was the Energy cycle, and as in UN fashion it was supposed to be the turn to have a chair from Asia, it was the Asians that suggested Qatar to chair the energy subject. Now Qatar is a producer of gas rather then oil.

Some said that though sustainable development must help put forward development methods that are less dependent on oil and coal, this for reasons of global warming and climate change, nevertheless, recognizing the role of natural gas as a cleaner fuel and a potential intermediary fuel from an oil and coal economy to an economy that is starting to be based on renewable sources of energy, Qatar could have been acceptable also as a political peace-maker between the interests of conventional industry and the incoming new industry based on renewbles. But to the consternation of those optimists, we could see that behind the representative of Qatar, at the CSD sessions, there was always sitting a representative from Saudi Arabia, and in the end there was no resulting negotiated text for what is probably one of the most important topics of Sustainable Development - Energy.

Above was nothing yet when compared with what happened in the last day of CSD 15. As always, there are elections for the next CSD membership - the membership is held at 53 countries elected according to a regional key - and then there is the election of the “bureau” and the new chair. The turn according to UN habit was that next chair will be from Africa, and as said, the topic for CSD16 in 2008, and for CSD17 in 2009, will be Land Use. The Africans decided to put forward Zimbabwe as their choice and campaigned with the G77 that this is their wish. The UK did not want any part of this, and specially since the land policies of the Mugabe Government have run Zimbabwe agriculture from being a large agricultural exporter to becoming a starving nation, with an economy that was totally destroyed, a monetary situation that shows astronomic inflation rate, and human rights problems that clearly make it ineligible for a UN leadership position, it is this obstinacy that reduced the CSD to plain irrelevancy. We were there that night of Friday May 11, 2007, in room 4 in the UN basement, and watched in disbelief how the distinguished, low-key German Ambassador, head in New York of the EU presidency, with the German Minister of the Environment next to him, simply told the CSD Chair from Qatar that the EU cannot work with this sort of CSD.

If by any way I exaggerate now, 7 months later, please forgive my memory, but see what I, Pincas Jawetz, Inner City Press journalist Matthew Rusell Lee, and the EUobserver from Brussels, wrote about this - the references on the www.SustainabiliTank.info web are:

- EUobserver on the 5/11 Crash of CSD15 (May 14th, 2007)

- A First Analysis: From The Ashes of the CSD, Will We See A Rising Phoenix? A Brundtland II, To be Called - “OUR COMMON GROUND” ? (May 13th, 2007)

- The UN General Assembly Resolution of September 30, 1974 against South Africa was not Premised On Apartheid’s Threat To Security, But On Its Serious Violation Of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. WHY DOES
SOUTH AFRICA OF 2007 BACK MUGABE’s ZIMBABWE SAYING HE DOES NOT THREATEN INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY? (May 13th, 2007)

- 9/11 and 3/11 Have Become Symbols of what Oil Money Can Cause To Those Who Insist On Buying The Oil, Will 5/11 Become The Symbol of Awakening at the UN? This Because Of May 11, 2007 Late Evening Happenings At
The So Called UN Commission On Sustainable Development? (May 12th, 2007)

- At the UN, Zimbabwe Elected 26-21 to Sustainable Development Chair for CSD16, As EU and Others Reject Final Text of The Chairman from Qatar of CSD15. (May 12th, 2007)

I took then the 5/11 date and in ways of exaggeration tried to compare this with 9/11 in New York and 3/11 in Madrid. Was it really an exaggeration? Could we say that the backing Zimbabwe got from States with unresolved problems from colonial days, and oil states that think, completely wrong, that they have anything to gain from derailing the concept of sustainable development, sustainable energy, global warming, climate change…, from efforts to improve the life of billions of people?

Further, the UN recognizes three groups of States with greater needs - these are the Least Developed States (LDCs), the Small Island Independent States (SIDS), and the Landlocked States. These are the States within the UN system that are most in need of help via sustainable development. Why did the UN take them out from being under the Under-Secretary-General who heads DESA, and put them under a separate Under-Secretary-General? Does this not cause waste and decreased efficiency? Would they not be served better within a well functioning unified economic organization that takes, for instance, in account the interests of Island States when it comes to the subject of the effects of global warming/climate change?

Now, I was not going to allow myself to lose my hope for a functioning CSD. The articles I refer to above are actually articles of hope - that is I hope that from the ashes the CSD will rise, as a Phoenix, under the leadership of Brundtland II.

Does this look likely? I submit it is imperative, and by the end of this week, whatever wind will be blowing from Bali, people will see that it does not go without sustainable development. So why do the Africans not get together and try to rein in Mr. Mugabe? Again, just this week, the EU invited all Heads of State of Africa to Lisbon for discussions on trade that were needed in order to help restart the Doha trade round. The Europeans were ready to put aside the dispute with Mugabe, and he was also invited - then why did he have to show physically his raised fist? Is this the end of an EU-Africa relation? Clearly not. It was just a new beginning showing that rational people can try to restart negotiations even in the presence of a street-bully. And that brings me back to the UN DC-2 building - that is where one finds the CSD Secretariat.

CSD 16 will happen one way or another in May 5-16, 2008. The full list of topics is: “The Review Session of The Third Implementation Cycle that Will Focus on Agriculture, Rural Development, Land, Desertification, and Africa.”

The CSD expects Germany to fund the bringing to New York of youth representatives from the developing countries. A main topic will be “Drought and Desertification and Africa” - this means effects of climate change that helped cause warfare in Africa. Will the world allow Africa to commit suicide through obstinacy, or is the world obliged to look into the mirror and say we cannot continue on this path? Mr. Baroso bit his lip and made an effort. We assume the EU will continue to try to find a way to keep the Commission in business, if at least the UN Secretariat helps reestablish a CSD Secretariat - and at the minimum there must be a functioning Director of the CSD Secretariat. That is the closing of the three month old vacancy that was created with the departure of Ms. JoAnne DiSano.

I understand that part of the nominating and election process involves the Commission itself. The present 53 members are:

African States: 12 besides Zimbabwe. They are - Cameroon, Cape Verde, Congo/Kinshasa, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia, Tanzania, Zambia.

Asian States: 11 - Bahrain, China, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kuwait, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand.

Eastern Europe: 6 - Belarus, Croatia, Czech Rep., Poland, Russia, Serbia.

Latin America and Caribbean: 10 - Antigua and Barbuda (the incoming head of G-77), Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Haiti, Peru.

Western European and Others: 13 - Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Monaco, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, UK, US.

By looking through this list I clearly see that Poland, the host of next year’s follow up meeting to Bali, motors of the UNFCCC track like Germany, UK, Japan, Australia, India, even China, Antigua, Korea,Tunisia, Congo/Kinshasa, Tanzania, Croatia will want to see a functioning CSD. What is needed is a low key peace maker with vision who comes from inside the UN system, and who has a history of having seen the difficulties when working with developing countries that seem to have memories from colonial days that they apply to new situations that really are of a totally different nature. Finding such a person would help, we hope, revive the CSD, so it could continue its functions and prepare for much larger importance when the UNFCCC track finally starts sputtering.