The Importance of Military Organizations in Protecting the Climate: 2008.

 http://www.igsd.org/docs/Workshop%20Anno…

Paris, France, November 3-5, 2008.

Organized and Sponsored by the EC Defence Environmental Network (DEFNET), the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Defense, the United Nations Environment Program, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), Ministries of Environment and Defence Ministries of France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom and others (invited and to be confirmed).

Join in Paris this November to learn how militaries worldwide are responding to threats of climate change and acting now reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

This workshop is scheduled to complement the EU Member States DEFence Environmental Network (DEFNET) meeting, which will be held on the 6 and 7 November.  This workshop will:

* Provide a forum for leadership announcements and updates.
* Apply lessons from ozone layer protection to climate protection.
* Highlight challenges and progress made by developed and developing countries.
* Summarize emerging and available climate protection technologies suitable for military and civilian applications.
* Focus on military-unique problems not solved by technology developed for civilian applications.
* Present case studies of military and commercial leadership to protect the climate.

*****

***Conference Outcomes***

A conference report will be published with consensus findings, including proven strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving military effectiveness. The outcomes of this conference will:

* Document the importance of military leadership in technology, operations, and knowledge sharing.
* Build networks of military and civilian experts who share common goals and challenges.
* Draft a meeting consensus summary that becomes the basis for military briefings to national and regional ozone and policy makers worldwide.

*****

***Who Should Attend?***

This workshop is likely to attract a large and influential audience and capable presentations.  Those who should attend include:

* High-ranking military officials
* Environmental policy makers
* Energy security officials and experts
* Military contractors
* Military personnel responsible for managing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions
* Suppliers of technology that satisfies all performance criteria with significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions
* Owners, operators and regulators of electric utility systems that support military operations

***Location and Registration Information***

The meeting will be held at the Paris Marriott Rive Gauche Hotel and Conference Center, located at 17, Boulevard Saint Jacques. To register for the event:
 http://www.igsd.org//conferences/Paris20…

***Conference Organizers***

Kristen Taddonio, US Environmental Protection Agency,  Taddonio.kristen at epa.gov
Stephen O. Andersen, US Environmental Protection Agency,  Andersen.stephen at epa.gov
E. Thomas Morehouse, Institute for Defense Analyses,  Tom.morehouse at verizon.net

For more information on registration, please contact Veronique Millon, Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development,   Permalink | Printer Friendly |  Email This Article
Posted in Policy Lessons from Mad Cow Disease, Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Global Warming issues, Real World's News, Future Meetings, Green is Possible, European Union, Job Offers, France, United Kingdom, Futurism, Africa, Islands & SIDS, The New Climate, Brussels

From:    messouli at gmail.com
Subject: workshop CC
Date: September 14, 2008

The University of Marrakech and its partners (DMN, CDRT, START, OSS), with the support of the Climate Change and Adaptation in Africa program (CCAA), announce a two day international workshop to be held on 25 and 26 of November 2008 in Marrakech. The title of the conference is ” Climate change in the Maghreb: thresholds and limits to adaptation

The overall objective of this conference is to consider strategies for adapting to climate change, in particular to explore the potential barriers to adaptation that may limit the ability of societies in the Maghreb countries to adapt to climate change and to identify opportunities for overcoming these barriers

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts is 10 October 2008.

to register, please go to this link at your soonest convenience and discover other information on the workshop:
 http://www.ucam.ac.ma/ccam/ccamaccueil.h…

Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

St Petersburg 2008 - Developing Country Emissions:
Common and Joint Responsibilities

Oxford Energy and Environment Comment, September 2008

by Benito Müller

available at http://www.oxfordclimatepolicy.org/publi…

From:    lorenz.martin at oeschger.unibe.ch
Subject: 8th International NCCR Climate Summer School 2009
Date: September 16, 2008

8th International NCCR Climate Summer School with participation of
IGBP-PAGES

30 August - 4 September 2009, Grindelwald, Switzerland

The NCCR Climate, Switzerland’s Centre of Excellence in Climate and
Climate Impact Research, invites young scientists to join leading
climate researchers in a scenic Swiss Alpine setting for keynote
lectures, workshops and poster sessions on the occasion of the 8th NCCR
Climate Summer School 2009.

The topics covered at the NCCR Climate Summer School 2009 will include:
* climate variability: the long-term perspective
* reconstruction techniques, past climate modelling and data assimilation
* forcings, feedbacks and responses of the climate system
* impacts of climate change: the hydrological cycle

The Summer School invites young researchers from all fields of climate
research. The courses cover a broad spectrum of climate and climate
impact research issues and foster cross-disciplinary links. Each topic
includes keynote plenary lectures and workshops with in-depth discussion
in smaller groups. All Summer School participants present a poster of
their research and there will be ample opportunity for discussion.

Lecturers for keynotes and workshops (confirmed):
International speakers: E. Cook (LDEO, USA); N. Graham (Scripps SIO,
USA); G. Hegerl (U Edinburgh, UK); B. Otto-Bliesner (NCAR, USA); Swiss
speakers: J. Beer (EAWAG); N. Buchmann (ETH Zürich); J. Esper (WSL); J.
Luterbacher (U Bern); F. Joos (U Bern); C. Schär (ETH Zürich); M.
Schwikowski (PSI); T.F. Stocker (U Bern); W. Tinner (U Bern); H. Wanner
(U Bern) and others.

The Summer School is open to young researchers (PhD students and
Post-Docs) worldwide. Participation is highly competitive and will be
limited to a maximum of 70. The registration fee (1′200 CHF) includes
half board accommodation, excursion and teaching material. A small
number of grants will be available for students from developing countries.

DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: 20 DECEMBER 2008
Successful applicants will be notified in February 2009.

On-line information and the application form are available at
<http://www.nccr-climate.unibe.ch/summer_school/2009/>

Contact:
University of Bern, NCCR Climate Management Centre, Zähringerstrasse 25,
CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland, <mailto:nccr-climate@oeschger.unibe.ch>,
Telephone +41

China mulls green tax to curb pollution - reports Reuters from Shanghai.

Reuters News,  September 13, 2008.

China is studying whether to impose an environmental tax on polluters to cut their emissions, the official China Daily reported on Saturday.

The newspaper quoted Pan Yue, a deputy minister for environmental protection, as saying several government agencies had formed a team of experts to research the issue.

Pan gave no details of the proposed tax or when it might be introduced.

He said also -

China has increasingly turned to its tax system to fight severe pollution created by its economic boom.    Last year, China cut export tax rebates for energy-intensive products, and this month it raised consumption taxes on large passenger vehicles.

Russia says it must stake claim to Arctic resources.

By Guy Faulconbridge, Reuters, from Moscow, Friday, September 12, 2008.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia must stake its claim to a slice of the Arctic’s vast resources, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council said on Friday at an unprecedented session of the council held on a desolate Arctic island.

Russia, the world’s second biggest oil exporter, is in a race with Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States for control of the oil, gas and precious metals that would become more accessible if global warming shrinks the Arctic ice cap. (At www.SustainabiliTank.info we expressed earlier that we expect China to take up the cause of the rest of the world and claim that these resources belong to all - that is not just to those closest to the source. China already had submarines putting down their flag like Russia did!)

Underlining Russia’s claims to the region, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev assembled the defence and interior ministers and the speakers of both houses of parliament for the meeting on the Arctic island, Russian news agencies reported.

Russia, the world’s biggest country, says a whole swathe of the Arctic seabed should belong to it because the area is really an extension of the Siberian continental shelf.

“The Arctic must become Russia’s main strategic resource base,” Russian news agencies quoted Patrushev as saying. The Council usually meets only in Moscow.

***

Patrushev, formerly Russia’s powerful domestic spy chief, said competition from other Arctic powers was increasing and that Russia must strengthen transport links across its Arctic regions to drive development.

Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark — which governs Greenland — all have a shoreline within the Arctic Circle, and have a 200-mile (320-km) economic zone around the north of their coastlines.

Russian officials say they are entitled to a bigger share. They base the claim on the contention that the Lomonosov ridge, a vast underwater mountain range that runs underneath the Arctic, is an extension of the Siberian continental shelf.

Under the United Nations Law of the Sea treaty, any state with an Arctic coastline that wishes to stake a claim to a greater share of the Arctic must lodge its submission with the U.N.’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Russian geologists estimate the Arctic seabed has at least 9 billion to 10 billion tonnes of fuel equivalent, about the same as Russia’s total oil reserves.

Last year a submersible with a senior Russian lawmaker on board planted a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed. The crew were greeted as heroes when they returned to Moscow.

Russian news agencies said the special Security Council session was held at the Nagurskaya base, Russia’s most northerly border outpost. The base is on Alexandra’s Land, part of the Russian-controlled Franz Josef archipelago.

From:  jaiganesh09 at gmail.com
Subject: 2nd Regional Training Course on Climate Risk Management: Science, Institutions, and Society
Date: September 9, 2008

2nd Regional Training Course on Climate Risk Management: Science, Institutions, and Society.

Greetings from ADPC!

The Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) will offer the Second Regional Training Course on Climate Risk Management: Science, Institutions, and Society from 17 to 28 November 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. The course aims to build the capacity of professionals to manage risks associated with climate variability, change, and extremes. It builds upon ADPC’s two decades of experience in disaster management, facilitating regional cooperation and building capacities of disaster management institutions, disaster management practitioners, and communities, and a decade of experience in institutionalizing climate information applications for disaster mitigation. It incorporates case studies and sectoral examples from climate risk management programs and projects all over Asia.

Upon completing the course, participants will be able to:

1) design early warning systems for climate-related risks;

2) design climate risk management, climate forecast applications, and climate change adaptation projects, and

3) develop tools to integrate climate risk management practices into development programs and policies.

The first CRM course offering was completed in May 2008 with 27 participants from 14 countries. For more details, please check out the course brochure at http://www.adpc.net/v2007/Downloads/2008…. Please contact me ( jaiganeshm at adpc.net) or my colleague Ms.Kareff Rafisura ( kareff at adpc.net) if you have any questions.

Jaiganesh Murugesan
Disaster Reduction Specialist
Climate Risk Management / Early Warning Systems
Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC)
979/66-70, 24th Floor
SM Tower, Paholyothin Road , Samsen Nai, Phayathai,
Bangkok, 10400
Thailand
Tel : (66-2) 298 0682-92 (Ext-205 )
Fax : (66-2) 298 0012-13
URL: www.adpc.net

Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning Center
P.O. Box 4, Klong Luang,
Pathumthani, 12120
Thailand
Tel : 02-5165900-03
Fax : 02-5245350,60

[Comment] Transport - go green or go under.
RUPERT WOLFE MURRAY, from Romania - an Olinion on EUobserver, September 10, 2008.

EUOBSERVER / COMMENT – Are there any political leaders in the EU who say we must (urgently) move towards renewable-energy-transport and that road-building can no longer be our top transport priority?

The issue is getting urgent and we must prepare for the risk of oil depletion and global warming, which could result in a six-metre rise in sea levels.

(Rupert Wolfe Murray is an independent consultant based in Romania.)

Even a small risk of oil running out should be enough to make us urgently review our transport sector. The economic arguments are powerful: There is big money to be made by “electrifying” Europe’s transport fleets and the car industry is indeed quietly moving towards the electric car. But the political will is missing.

The “Peak Oil Theory” of global oil supplies “peaking” in 2012 was not taken seriously by the mainstream until recently. That attitude is starting to change. Shell Oil recently sponsored an advert in Time Magazine that quoted a former US energy secretary as saying: “We can’t continue to make supply meet demand for much longer. It’s no longer the case that we have a few voices crying in the wilderness. The battle is over. The peakists have won.”

If oil did peak, the consequences for our transport system, food supply and economic system would be devastating. Although there is growing interest in renewable energy, it is still considered somewhat marginal, uncompetitive and untested. There is no sign of a “rush to renewables” that could be compared to the “dash to gas” that took place in the UK during the 1980s. We are still tinkering at the margins.

The EU’s new transport policy must be based upon renewable energy. The first challenge is a conceptual one: People need to understand that a transport system can function on electricity just as efficiently as it now does on oil. The case for a renewable transport system needs to be communicated to the public and a massive investment plan worked out.

It is becoming increasingly clear that a combination of wind, solar, hydro and nuclear power could provide us with a carbon-free power supply. The most exciting developments seem to be taking place in the solar energy industry, where prices are falling rapidly.

***

European electrical grid to northern Africa:

A German utility recently commissioned a study into extending the European electrical grid to northern Africa – a potential major supplier of solar energy. Apparently Morocco could provide all of Europe with electricity if three percent of the country was covered with solar panels. Cost is a major barrier here, but if we consider that global companies will spend $3.4 trillion on IT this year according to Gartner, a consultancy, it is clear that the cash is available.

Another barrier to the development of electricity as a replacement fuel is the challenge of storing electricity. The electric car could provide a solution to this problem. The concept is simple: electric cars would charge up at night, when electricity is cheap, and during the day the grid could draw off some electric power from individual cars, when extra power is needed.

According to the Zero Carbon Britain group, if Britain’s car fleet became electric, it would provide the grid with more than enough reserve energy to meet any surges in demand.

Electric cars, bicycles and improved public transport could take care of almost all transport requirements at the urban level. But what about long distance transport? There is talk of biofuel and hydrogen fuelled planes, but the future for these fuels does not look promising.

***

The train from Naples to New York:

A strong transport policy would confront the energy and transport lobbies and phase out aviation altogether, replacing it with high-speed trains and wind-powered ships. A French train recently broke the 500-km-an-hour speed record.

If the Russians and Americans took the plunge, they could build an “Intercontinental Peace Bridge” across the Bering Straits and it might be possible to one day get a train from Naples to New York.

What about freight? Our economic system has become so dependent on big trucks that it is hard to think what could replace them. Europe’s freight-train infrastructure has become so neglected – with the exception of Germany – that upgrading it would cost trillions of Euros.

But there is another alternative: the airship. Interest in airships is currently growing and scientists say that future “freight airships” could pick up containers directly from a factory yard, fly across the world and deliver inside another factory yard. We need to urgently develop these future forms of transport before it is too late.

Rupert Wolfe Murray is an independent consultant based in Romania and author of the blog: www.productive.ro/blog

———–

Melting ice cap pushes Arctic up EU agenda.
New transit routes across the Arctic present great commercial opportunities and enormous environmental risks.
LEIGH PHILLIPS, EUobserver, September 10, 2008.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The rapid melting of the polar ice cap in the Arctic offers Europe a “first-time opportunity” to access new trade routes and massive oil and gas deposits, the European Commission has said - developments that are pushing the EU’s polar strategy up the policy agenda.

Speaking in Ilulissat, Greenland, on Tuesday (9 September) to a conference of the Nordic Council of Ministers dedicated to Arctic issues, the EU’s fisheries and maritime affairs commissioner Joe Borg said: “As the ice recedes, we are presented with a first-time opportunity to use transport routes such as the Northern Sea Route.

“This would translate into shorter transportation routes and greater trading possibilities, and will provide a better opportunity to draw upon the wealth of untapped natural resources in the Arctic,” Mr Borg told the council, an intergovernmental forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries established after the Second World War.

The Nordic Council brings together EU member states Denmark, Finland and Sweden alongside Norway and Iceland - both outside the bloc - as well as the autonomous territories of Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Aland Islands.

:

In his speech, Mr Borg also highlighted a document published earlier this year by the commission jointly with the EU’s chief diplomat, Javier Solana, that mapped out the latest thinking from Brussels on the security implications of climate change.

The seven-page paper authored by Mr Solana and commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, distributed to EU government leaders in March, argued that the European Union should boost its civil and military capacities to respond to “serious security risks” resulting from catastrophic climate change.

The paper, Climate Change and International Security, underlined the risks and opportunities presented by the melting Arctic, alongside concerns about increased numbers of migrants, territorial disputes, water shortages in Israel and decreases in crop yields in the broader Middle East. Political radicalisation as a result of climate insecurity, sea-level rises and extreme weather events also present security challenges, according to the report.

Commissioner Borg emphasised the centrality of the Arctic in EU security thinking: “This document highlights the growing geopolitical importance of the Arctic region … [with the] opening up [of] new waterways and international trade routes, and the increased accessibility to the enormous hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic region.

“This accessibility, in conjunction with territorial claims, is changing the geo-strategic dynamics of the region with potential consequences for international stability and for European security, trade and resource interests,” he added.

Regional governance:

Later this year, the commission is to present a communication dedicated to the Arctic region that will tackle issues related to climate change as well as regional governance.

The communication is to propose three main actions. Firstly, the commission is to propose measures supporting scientific research and monitoring with the aim of safeguarding the Arctic environment.

The commission is also interested in the exploitation of Arctic resources such as hydrocarbons and other commodities. The commissioner underscored that this must be done in a sustainable manner, but he also said that the communication hopes to outline how all regions that border the Arctic could gain equal access to such bounty.

“We should seek to apply the principles of a level playing field and reciprocal market access in the Arctic,” he said.

The commissioner also said the EU should seek to ensure equal access to any new fishing opportunities via new regulation and work towards an international fisheries conservation and management scheme for the Arctic - something which has never been implemented.

The third element of the commission’s new thinking on the Arctic is developing the governance of the region.

Noting that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and work performed by the Nordic Council, the Arctic Council and other bodies have already played something of a function in this area, the commissioner said: “Nevertheless, we should be open to develop this system further,” he said, adding that international environmental treaties that apply to the Arctic should be revisited.

In June, the Nordic Council published an extensive study of EU-Arctic policies, and called on the bloc to establish a self-standing Arctic-dedicated unit within the European Commission. The document also suggested the EU needed to “establish, intensify and possibly formalise international co-operation with Arctic regional bodies”.

‘Crazy situation’

Environmentalists agree with the commission that the melting ice cap is a brute fact and that in the absence of appropriate governance, there could be a ‘scramble for the Arctic’ without movement by the EU in this direction.

“There is no environmental management framework for the Arctic,” Neil Hamilton, the director of the WWF’s Arctic programme.

“There is overlapping legislation in various countries, but nothing Arctic-specific, with a result that everyone is looking to Arctic exploitation instead of sustainable development.

“We have a crazy situation where every one is rushing to get into fishing, shipping and oil and gas, but no one’s looking at the manner in which it will occur.”

“It’s not that there should be no exploitation at all,” qualified Mr Hamilton. “Instead, there should be effective management, which we take to mean collaborative management between the different countries.

“Done right, it could be a model for oil and gas extraction for the world.”

But green groups are clear that the emphasis should be on sustainable development, rather than the rush for resources.

“On the other hand, if you open up shipping routes, it could have significant global implications.

“The worst-case scenario would be oil spills in the Arctic, which are impossible to clean up, given the conditions there. And a spill in the Arctic would be catastrophic.”