from: Lorenz Martin

Workshop on Climate Change Scenarios

2 March 2010, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

The Center for Climate System Modeling (C2SM) of the ETH Zurich and the
NCCR Climate, Switzerland’s centre of excellence in climate and climate
impact research, are organising a workshop on climate change scenarios.

————–

A series of national and international speakers will

- present the current state of scenario development at regional and
global scales;
- discuss the strategy for the development and dissemination of updated
future climate scenarios for Switzerland.

Further information including the detailed workshop programme are
available at <http://www.c2sm.ethz.ch/news/scen_workshop/>.

Everybody is welcome at the workshop, please register at
<http://www.c2sm.ethz.ch/news/scen_workshop/registration>. The
participation fee of CHF 40 has to be paid in cash at the workshop.

————–

Contact: Dr. Isabelle Bey, <mailto:isabelle.bey@env.ethz.ch>

–
Dr. Lorenz Martin, Science Officer
Oeschger Centre and NCCR Climate Management Centre
University of Bern, Zähringerstrasse 25, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Phone +41 31 631 31 46, Fax +41 31 631 43 38
mailto:lorenz.martin@oeschger.unibe.ch http://www.oeschger.unibe.ch

Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change Study:
The Global Report
 hpage at worldbank.org by Friday January 8, 2010

“Full-body scanners on display at Reagan National Airport: Many experts say the full-body scanners would have detected the explosives carried aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day, but the
machines have also raised privacy concerns over the detailed body image that is displayed as part of the screening.”

TSA – Transportation and Security Administration – tries to assuage privacy concerns about full-body scans.

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 4, 2010
It has come to this.

Already shoeless, beltless and waterless, more beleaguered air passengers will be holding their legs apart, raising their arms and effectively baring it all as they pass through U.S. airport security
checkpoints.

Add the “full-body scan” to the list of indignities that some travelers are confronting in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era of vigilance.

Federal authorities, working to close security gaps exposed by the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, are multiplying the number of imaging machines at the nation’s biggest
airports. The devices scan passengers’ bodies and produce X-ray-like images that can reveal objects concealed beneath clothes…….

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now add the “me-au” from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, ADC Legal Director   nshora at adc.org

Washington, D.C. | January 5, 2010 | www.adc.org |

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is deeply concerned by the new Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) directives, which went into effect on January 4th at midnight.  According to news sources, these directives will require citizens from 14 countries, all Arab or Muslim countries, with the exception of Cuba, to go through enhanced security screening. Such screening can include full pat-downs, scans, delays, and anything associated with secondary screening – an extra search of the passenger’s carry-on luggage may also be required.  News sources also stated that the directives are applicable to any travelers, including US CITIZENS, who have passed through one of these 14 countries, or who have taken flights that have originated from these 14 countries.

ADC is very troubled as such directives will have negative ramifications on Arab-Americans, citizens of the 14 countries, and all Americans who visit these countries. A disparate segment of the Arab-American community will be scrutinized because of these new guidelines. The blanket labeling of hundreds of millions of civilians based solely on their country of citizenship or travel is not only unfairly discriminatory based on national origin, but also improperly labels millions of innocent people as somehow suspect or possible terrorists.

The new directives came following the Christmas Day attempted airline attack that threatened our national security, and which ADC has strongly condemned. Implementing an effective and productive counterterrorism tool is paramount. However, casting a wide net against individuals based on their country of origin, race or religion is not an effective counterterrorism tool. During the past decade, similar racial, ethnic and religious profiling tactics and practices have time and again misdirected precious counterterrorism resources, damaged foreign relations with key allies, fueled the fires of extremists by giving them an excuse, stigmatized communities, and most importantly did not have any discernible impact on security. Based on precedent, these new directives will be no different than these past practices and their adverse consequences; and while such directives may appear to make us feel safer, the reality is that they discriminate against innocent persons and divert attention from real threats.

Resources must instead be focused on high-risk individuals based on proper intelligence, better coordination and communication between different governmental agencies. In addition, continued engagement with the Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian community groups must be strengthened, and must not be discouraged by ethnic profiling tactics.

ADC has been in contact with TSA and the Department Homeland Security (DHS) and is planning to file a complaint and request for additional information with the Department.  ADC urges all travelers affected by these new guidelines to always comply with the Transportation Security Officer’s (TSO’s) request.  In the event of any abuse or misuse of authority, please request the TSO’s name and badge number, and file a complaint with ADC’s Legal Department at  legal at adc.org.

==============

Honestly, I feel the pain of decent members of the ADC, but am appalled at the chutzpah to announce the complaints of that organization without a single word attached saying that as loyal citizens to this country they are ready to organize themselves in units of informers when it comes to transgressions by people from their country of birth, that are endangering the security of the country that gave to the ADC members the privilege of life under a secular democracy.

Yes, I know that the ADC has members that are Muslim, Christian or atheists. I know they have no Jews in ADC, but that is not the issue. The Arab countries, other Asian countries, and the African Arabized countries, on the list of 13, are all Islamic countries – in all of them Christians and Jews face very serious difficulties. Further, I know of good Muslims in the US and overseas, that participate with enlightened Jews in order to build bridges between communities. in Copenhagen I actually participated during the Climate conference at a pilgrimage that took us to places of worship that were Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim (that last meeting was held in the rooms of a Danish humanist society) – in this time sequence. Yes – good relationships are possible, but that will happen only when, and if, there is a clear understanding, and voiced recognition, that Islamic terrorism originates with Muslim individuals, and that in order to safeguard ourselves, profiling in search of instruments of terror is not a dirty word, but a means of self defense.

Also, in order to avoid needless friction, I suggest that the ADC moves front and center in the global effort to disengage from the addiction to oil.

And one more item – this website does speak up for Cuba as they surely are not part of the group of countries responsible for Islamicists performing acts of terror. So, they do not belong on that list of 14.

World Trade & Investment Law for a Low-Carbon Economy: Development & Regional Implications of Environmental Pricing Reform
13hr – 15hr, Tues, Dec 01 / Room B, WTO Ministerial NGO Centre CCV, Geneva

Many countries are adopting market-based instruments to promote sustainable development of a low-carbon economy, and to reduce climate change emissions. What are the trade and investment law implications? How can WTO and regional trade rules better support the effective and appropriate use of these instruments? This experts panel and participatory dialogue briefs WTO Ministerial participants on recent legal research and practice in new carbon trading systems and domestic carbon pricing measures, and on how economic instruments could better promote the adoption and transfer of clean energy technology. Hosted by Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), in partnership with the law faculties of several leading universities, with support from Sustainable Prosperity, the event provides an opportunity to help define the emerging trade and investment law research agenda for Copenhagen and beyond.

Chair: Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Senior Director, Sustainable Prosperity & Director, CISDL
Jodie Keane, Overseas Development Institute*
Prof. Markus W Gehring, Professeur agrégé, University of Ottawa & Lecturer, Cambridge University
Prof. Kate Miles, Professor, Sydney University Law Faculty & Legal Research Fellow, CISDL
Me. Verki M Tunteng, Legal Research Fellow, CISDL

Renewable Energy and Technology – Trade and Investment Law Implications
16.15hr – 18.15hr, Tues, Dec 01 / ICTSD Trade and Development Symposium 2009, Room A, WMO, Geneva

Renewable Energy and Technology to promote sustainable development, and to reduce climate change emissions are in an increasingly high demand. But how can trade and investment law foster rather than frustrate this technological shift? How can WTO and regional trade rules better support the effective and appropriate use of these energies and technologies? This experts panel and participatory dialogue briefs WTO Ministerial participants on recent legal research and practice in renewable energy systems and domestic energy reforms, and on how economic instruments could better promote the adoption and transfer of clean energy technology. Hosted by Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL), in partnership with the law faculties of several leading universities, with support from Sustainable Prosperity, the event provides an opportunity to help define the emerging trade and investment law research agenda for Copenhagen and beyond.

Chair & Keynote: Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, Senior Director, Sustainable Prosperity & Director, CISDL
Prof. Markus W Gehring, Professeur agrégé, University of Ottawa & Lecturer, Cambridge University
Prof. Kate Miles, Professor, Sydney University Law Faculty & Legal Research Fellow, CISDL
Me. Verki M Tunteng, Legal Research Fellow, CISDL

Invitation to Swiss Post’s offer for Gold Standard certificates

Since February 2009, Swiss Post has offered carbon offsetting for  items sent by post through the “pro clima” offer  (www.swisspost.ch/climate). In order     to offset CO2 emissions, it intends to purchase Certified Emission  Reduction (CERs) certificates or Verified Emission Reduction (VERs)  certificates from planned or ongoing/completed environmental  protection projects with Gold Standard certification. As of the end of  January 2010, the first Gold Standard certificates to a total value of  around 4,000 – 7,000 tonnes of CO? are to be bought on the basis of   this invitation. Documents relating to the offer can be  requested   from   proclima at post.ch  from 28  September   2009. The  deadline for the submission of tenders is 25 October 2009.

Libya’s Mercurial Leader Keeps U.N. Guessing.
by Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 20 (IPS) – Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, who will be making his maiden appearance before the United Nations this week, has been described as a gadfly with a penchant for stirring up controversies. Even before he addresses a daylong summit meeting of the Security Council on Sep. 24, chaired by U.S. President Barack Obama, the garrulous Arab leader has been politely advised to stick to the day’s agenda and a time frame of five minutes for his speech. The subject of the meeting: nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation.

“So, it would be out of order and inappropriate for any head of state to address topics unrelated to that,” says U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice. But will the mercurial Qaddafi, who recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of a bloodless military coup that catapulted him to power after the ouster of the strongly pro-U.S. King Idris, defy U.N. protocol?

“Assuming Qaddafi does raise the matter of Israel’s nuclear arsenal – which despite all the hysteria about Iran is the only one that actually exists in the Middle East – it will be interesting to see how the United States and the European Union (EU) states react,” Mouin Rabbani, contributing editor to the Washington-based Middle East Report, told IPS.

One assumes they will find a way to smite it off the agenda on procedural grounds, he added.

Rabbani said it was somewhat difficult to comment in advance on Qaddafi: “He’s typically characterised as ‘mercurial’, and that is putting it rather mildly.”

Essentially, anything he might do, as well as its polar opposite (or for that matter anything and its polar opposite), would conform to his pattern of conduct, said Rabbani, a highly-respected Middle East political analyst.

At a press conference in early September, Rice told reporters: “As president of the Council, we are mindful of the very tight time frame that is available for this session.”

“We want to be respectful of the heads of state in attendance. And we have asked, and we expect, and have been assured, by most delegations, that their heads of state will keep their remarks to five minutes or less,” she said.

Rice said she “expect[s] no less” from the Libyan leader, “should he come”.

The Security Council summit is expected to be attended by heads of state from 15 members states, including the five permanent members of the Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

The 10 non-permanent members in the Security Council, whose heads of state have been invited to participate, include Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Libya, Vietnam, Austria, Mexico, Japan, Turkey and Uganda.

A similar session of the Security Council – on the maintenance of international peace and security – was held in January 1992 presided over by then British Prime Minister John Major.

But next week’s session will be only the fifth occasion in U.N. history for a meeting of the Security Council at the summit level.

It will also be the first time a U.S. president will chair such a meeting.

Until recently, Libya was one of the countries designated by the U.S. State Department as a “terrorist state” – along with Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, North Korea and Cuba.

Qaddafi incurred the wrath of the United States for his military and financial support to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the Irish Republican Army (RA), the Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines, Bader-Meinhoff in former West Germany, the Red Army in Japann and the Dhofar rebels in Oman.

However, he has now severed links with virtually all of these organisations and is playing the role of an elder statesman in Africa and the Middle East. But his past keeps shadowing him.

Qaddafi’s decision to give up his nuclear weapons programmes back in December 2003 and his initiative to renounce terrorism gave him international legitimacy in the eyes of the Western world.

In January 2004, the United States helped airlift out of Libya components of the nuclear weapons programme that the country abandoned.

After the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which claimed 270 lives, and in which Libya was implicated, Qaddafi agreed to pay some 2.7 billion dollars in compensation to families of the victims.

The only person convicted in that bombing was Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent, who was released recently on compassionate grounds, triggering outrage in the Western world.

But there have been reports that he was released on condition he dropped his appeal for a re-trial, which could have implicated others or the real architects of the bombing.

Rice said “it goes without saying that virtually every American has been offended by the reception accorded to Mr. Megrahi in Libya upon his return from the U.K.”

“This is a very raw and sensitive subject for all Americans, having lost 270 of our compatriots in a terrorist act,” she said.

“And how President Qaddafi chooses to comport himself, when he attends the General Assembly and the Security Council in New York, has the potential either to further aggravate those feelings and emotions or not,” Rice added. “So we are certainly hoping that this will be an opportunity for a constructive General Assembly session and a constructive meeting of the Security Council.”

Rabbani told IPS it was somewhat ironic that Qaddafi will address the world body as a Security Council member on the pretext of addressing the issue of nuclear non-proliferation.

Libya’s own nuclear programme was – much like that of Iraq at the time – essentially non-existent, and largely invented in the aftermath of the 2003 Anglo-U.S. invasion of Iraq to demonstrate that the war produced genuine disarmament benefits.

For U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, it helped divert attention from the spurious pretexts invoked to invade and occupy Iraq in violation of the UN Charter, he noted.

“And for Qaddafi, it formed his entry ticket into what is termed ‘the civilised world’ – a grotesque colonial term suggesting the Libyan leader was well on his way to achieving the status of an honorary white,” Rabbani said.

The above notwithstanding, he added, “I suspect Qaddafi may well use his U.N. platform to once again argue that Libya – and more specifically former Libyan intelligence operative Megrahi – is innocent of involvement in the Lockerbie attack.”

And while on the subject of nuclear proliferation, he will probably make some pointed references to Israel’s U.S. and European-endorsed nuclear arsenal, in addition to some provocative remarks about Iran’s nuclear programme.

In this context it is a real pity that Megrahi withdrew the appeal to his conviction on the eve of his release from prison, said Rabbani.

Given that withdrawing the appeal was not a requirement for release on compassionate grounds, it seems indubitable that a political deal was struck in this regard.

“That’s about all one can say with any confidence about Qaddafi’s UN statement,” he said,

“But will he also invite Americans to restore the U.S. to its rightful owner, with African-Americans returning to the African continent and the rest embracing Islam and spending the rest of their days memorising the Green Book (which contains his political philosophy?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him…”

The UN University based in Tokyo and its New York office are trying to help the people of the world, but can a few bright individuals make a difference in a body that loves to reject ideas that point out the need for real action?

Thursday, September 24, 2009: UNU Panel Discussion, entitled “Insure Me: Climate Change and Human Migration and Risk“, of policy perspectives on how climate change affects the ability of people to manage their risks – through migration and displacement, or through mechanisms such as risk reduction and insurance, as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced in vulnerable areas of the world.
For more information and register online, click here

The following are the top 28 finalists in the Official 2009 New 7 Wonders of Nature competition – nominated from among hundreds of sites around the world that have been proposed.

Self-selection process for private sector observers to the Climate Investment Funds
from Barbara Black to Climate

SELF-SELECTION PROCESS FOR PRIVATE SECTOR OBSERVERS TO THE CLIMATE INVESTMENT FUNDS.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is designing and facilitating the self selection process for private sector observers to two Climate Investment Fund (CIF) committees : Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and Strategic Climate Fund (SCF); and one subcommittee of the SCF, the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR).

The self-selection process is directed to business associations to ensure that the business community is represented and participates in the meetings based on the   guidelines for inviting representatives of civil society to observe meetings. Five business associations attended the last CIF meetings in May, following an interim selection process for temporary observer seats. They provided a detailed summary of the meetings and useful feedback for the self selection process.

Self-selection process for private sector observers to the Climate Investment Funds

To ensure transparency in the design and implementation of the self-selection process, an Advisory Board has been created. The Advisory Board   is comprised of five recognized energy and climate change experts, who have been selected through consultations with the private sector, a broad range of stakeholders, the CIF Administrative Unit and the accredited UNFCCC business and industry NGOs. The Advisory Board has prepared the attached terms of reference and guidelines for the selection of observers for the CTF, SCF and PPCR.

If your organization wishes to participate in this selection process and believes it complies with the criteria outlined in the terms of reference of one of the fund committees/subcommittee, please complete and return the application form to  climate at wbcsd.org before 25 July 2009.

Self-selection process timeline
•     April – May 2009: The WBCSD launched the self-selection process. Temporary representatives were selected to attend the May meetings on behalf of the private sector.
•     1-12 June 2009: The WBCSD identified and invited a small group of recognized experts to join the Advisory Board
•     12-30 June 2009: Advisory Board prepares the guidelines and criteria for the self-selection process of two seats for the CTF, SCF and PPCR.
•     1-25 July 2009: Call for Application window
•     26-30 July: The WBCSD assists the Advisory Board by providing a candidate matrix using the defined criteria.
•     30 July – 10 August 2009: The Advisory Board selects the two Observer seats.
•     11 August 2009: The WBCSD communicates the decision of the Board to the CIF Administrative Unit and the applicants.
•     End October 2009 – Next CIF meetings

The design and facilitation of the self-selection process for the Permanent Observer Seats has been done in consultation with those undertaking the Civil Society self-selection process and the CIF Administrative Unit to ensure a transparent and fair process and continuity of criteria, timelines and processes.

WBCSD will post the relevant documents for the self selection process on www.wbcsd.org so please check for updates. Please contact WBCSD ( climate at wbcsd.org) with any questions or comments.

María Mendiluce
Energy Manager, Energy & Climate

World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
4, chemin de Conches   l   1231 Conches – Geneva   l   Switzerland
T: +41 (0)22 839 31 36   l   F: +41 (0)22 839 31 31 l   M: +41(0)78 713 04 42

E:  mendiluce at wbcsd.org   l   W: www.wbcsd.org

Climate change divides the Alps down the middle
Global warming is already causing flooding in the north and water shortages in south, report says

The dramatic effect of climate change on the Alps comes into focus as never before this week with the publication of a major report which reveals that the mountain range is rapidly dividing into two contrasting climatic zones, each posing new problems.

By Michael Day in Milan
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Michael McCarthy: Don’t be fooled by this winter’s powder. The Alpine snow line is already in retreat
The Convention on the Protection of the Alps is a statutory EU body set up in 1991 and its magisterial second report, published tomorrow, which has been seen by The Independent, reveals that the northern ranges of the Alps are suffering ever more serious flooding while the parched southern mountains see less and less snow.

According to the report, precipitation in the south-east of the region has fallen nearly 10 per cent in the past 100 years while rain and snowfall in the north-west ranges has increased by the same amount over this time.

“Predictions that the European climate is dividing into two are becoming all too real,” said Marco Onida, secretary general of the Convention, who will present the report at the organisation’s headquarters in Bolzano, Italy, tomorrow, in the presence of EU officials and national representatives. “The result will be havoc for the Alps and the communities and wildlife that rely on area.”

Changing patterns of rain and snowfall, shrinking glaciers and rising temperatures will affect not only the mountains but also the communities which rely on their resources, the report warns. Already some Alpine villages in the north of the range face flooding, while areas further south are seeing tourist and other trades increasingly threatened. Some areas have already suffered water shortages.

The Alps’ most famous high peaks, Mont Blanc, The Matterhorn and Monte Rosa mark part of the dividing line between the increasingly wet north of the region and Italy and Slovenia in the dryer south.

North of the dividing line, flooding and mud slides are becoming a common threat in some Alpine communities. In the south, some of the Europe’s most celebrated Alpine beauty spots, including Italy’s Dolomites are under threat, although some micro-climates mean the dividing line does not following a rigid north-south line.

As a result of these changes, only one Alpine river – Italy’s 178-mile-long Tagliamento in the north-east of the country – has not suffered drastic modifications, the reports says. And even the Tagliamento may not be safe: the wildlife charity WWF has warned that even this, the Alps’ last river system, is threatened by water abstraction in the upper Tagliamento valley, organic pollution, and gravel exploitation.

The situation across the Alps is made worse, the Convention report says, by the increasing demand for artificial snow created during the winter months by snow machines working on the ski slopes. This is needed to sustain the winter sports industry which is an economic mainstay of the slopes, but places a further heavy burden on water and energy supplies which are already under great stress.

“The Alps are the water tower of Europe,” Dr Onida told The Independent, “But increasingly much of the water is not reaching the places downstream where it is needed, for ecosystems, agriculture and energy production.”

Around 16 million people in eight countries, from France in the west to Hungary in the east, live in the arc of Europe’s biggest mountain range. Rain and snow from its mountains provide the Danube, Rhine, Rhone and Po rivers with up to 80 per cent of their water.

Representatives from all eight Alpine countries – France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Lichtenstein, Slovenia and Hungary – together with the European Union – signed up to the Alpine Convention in 1991.

The report warns not only that the destruction of the Alps is accelerating, but that disruption to water supplies will be felt much further afield than originally thought.

Glacier shrinkage earlier this year led the Italian and Swiss governments to propose the first changes in the border line between the two countries in more than a century.

Dr Onida said there was “a battle between agriculture and tourism for control over water supplies” owing to the increasingly intensive exploitation of the slopes.

Climate change is also driving Alpine species further up the mountains while exotic species including palms get a foothold lower down.

The Carbon Footprint of Nations: Wealth and Responsibility.

High wealth implies high emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, a new analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a nation’s consumption shows. In the paper “Carbon Footprint of Nations: A Global Trade-Linked Analysis”, Edgar Hertwich and Glen Peters investigate the carbon footprint for food, shelter, clothing, construction, mobility, the consumption of manufactured goods, services, and trade across 73 nations and 14 aggregate regions. The paper has been released by Environmental Science & Technology , the top-ranked environmental science journal published by the American Chemical Society, on 15 June 2009.

1. The paper presents the first carbon footprint analysis of the most important economies of the world accounting for greenhouse gas emissions caused by the production of internationally traded goods. A nation is made responsible for the carbon footprint of its imports, but not for its exports. The base year is 2001.

2. The analysis shows that the highest carbon footprint occurs in rich countries in Europe (Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands), North America (the U.S. and Canada) and Asia-Pacific (e.g., Australia). The carbon footprints of most of these countries are higher than the territorial emissions because the carbon footprint of imports is larger than that of exports.

3. There is a strong dependence of CO2 emissions on wealth. With a doubling of per-capita expenditure, the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and industrial processes increase by 81%. The emissions of other greenhouse gases, primarily methane and nitrous oxides, increases less strongly with wealth – only 32%, because they are mostly associated with food production.

4. The paper shows that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with mobility and manufactured goods increase most strongly with increasing wealth. With continued economic growth, mitigation measures directed at these areas of demand will become more important.

5. Food production is the most important cause of greenhouse gas emissions in poor countries, followed by household energy use – mostly for food preparation, hot water and heating.

6. Only extremely few, poor countries such as Bangladesh, Malawi and Mozambique have carbon footprints near the 1 ton per capita required for all nations by 2050 in order to limit global warming to 2oC. For most countries, the carbon footprint of food alone is around 1 ton per capita.

7. National-level results, including the importance of consumption categories and the carbon footprints of imports and exports can be found at www.carbonfootprintofnations.com

The Journal paper can be found at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es80…. Those of who do not have subscription access, a limited number of free preprints can be accessed here
 http://pubs.acs.org/articlesonrequest/AO…

Dr. Edgar Hertwich is Professor of Energy and Process Engineering and Director of the Industrial Ecology Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. He is currently a Visiting Professor at ETH Zürich. Dr. Glen Peters is a Senior Scientist at the Centre of International Climate and Environment Research – Oslo (CICERO).
Edgar HERTWICH, PhD
Director, Industrial Ecology Programme
Professor, Department of Energy and Process Engineering
Norwegian University of Science & Technology

Visiting Professor, ETH Zurich(until July 2009)
Institute of Environmental Engineering
www.ntnu.no/indecol

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Eye on the UN <list@eyeontheun.org>
Date: Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Subject: Antisemitism Courtesy of the UN
To:  PJ at sustainabilitank.com

For Immediate Release:
April 22, 2009
Contact:   Anne Bayefsky
 info at EYEontheUN.org

This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in The New York Daily News.

On Tuesday, the UN’s racist anti-racism conference “Durban II” rammed through a final declaration three days before its scheduled conclusion. On Monday Iranian President Ahamadinejad had opened the substantive program by denying the Holocaust and spewing antisemitism. A day later UN members rewarded Iran by electing it one of three Vice-Chairs of the committee which adopted the final declaration.

The committee meeting was chaired by Libya and lasted fifteen minutes. No discussion of the merits of the Durban II declaration was tolerated.

The document reaffirms the 2001 Durban Declaration which alleges Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism and mentions only Israel among all 192 UN member states. It also multiplies the anti-Israel provisions, using the usual UN code, by adding yet another rant about racist foreign occupation.

Not surprisingly, such a manifesto encouraged the racists and antisemites which had pressed for its adoption. Speaking on Tuesday the Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Faysal Mekdad, alleged “the right of return” of Jews to Israel – Jewish self-determination – was “a form of racial discrimination”. He also objected to the “Judaization of Israel” and to the “ethnic cleansing…of 1948.”

Palestinian Riyad Al-Maliki claimed that “for over 60 years the Palestinian people has been suffering under…the ugliest face of racism and racial discrimination…” and said an Israeli government “declaration…regarding the Jewish nature of the state is a form of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Al-Maliki was delighted with the result of the conference and gloated by reading excerpts from the 2001 Durban Declaration that he was pleased to see had been reaffirmed.

The remnants of the European Union which remained inside the conference – in particular France and the United Kingdom – entirely ignored their many promises not to accept anything which singled out the Jewish state. Though these Europeans undoubtedly enabled the hatemongering, their excuses in the coming days are predictable.

The rest of the week has been set aside for speechifying. Europeans can be expected to point to the miniscule mentions of antisemitism and the Holocaust and pretend antisemitism is unrelated to the demonization of Israel in the very same text.

Their behavior is as chilling as the behavior of the UN itself. UN High Commissioner Navi Pillay issued a press release following Ahmadinejad’s speech in which she complained: “I condemn the use of a UN forum for political grandstanding. I find this totally objectionable. Much of his speech was clearly beyond the scope of the Conference.”

Ahmadinejad’s speech was not political grandstanding. It was antisemitism. The problem with Holocaust denial is not the scope of the conference. The problem is that it is a form of antisemitism. A Durban II Declaration which continues to demonize Israel – and therefore fosters the murder of Jews in the here and now – is not legitimate because it feigns concern over Jews murdered in the past.

April 21st was Holocaust Remembrance Day. Its message, however, was totally lost on the United Nations.

HUDSON INSTITUTE   |   90 Broad Street   |   Suite 2003   |   New York, NY 10001

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Hudson Institute <info@hudsonny.org>
Date: Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 5:52 AM
Subject: Hudson Institute presents Panel on Implementing Universal Human Rights Standards in the Fight Against Racism and Religious Intolerance

The Hudson Institute presents in Geneva:

Implementing Universal Human Rights Standards in the Fight Against Racism and Religious Intolerance

April 23, 2009, 15:00 – 17:00
Palais des Nations, Geneva
Room/Salle XXV

Renowned Muslim experts from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America gather to consider how the implementation of universal human rights standards should be applied to racism and religious intolerance

UN Member States have agreed to the responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, but what is today’s reality? With the proliferation of xenophobia and the questioning of universal human rights standards, the world is witnessing increasing conflict and repression rooted in intolerance. The Hudson Institute presents a unique opportunity to hear a prestigious panel gathered from four continents to discuss the universality of human rights standards in the fight against racism and religious intolerance.

Zeyno Baran is the Director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Eurasian Policy. Formerly, Baran directed the International Security and Energy Programs at The Nixon Center and the Caucasus Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She was awarded the Order of Honor by Georgian President Shevardnadze, and has been a Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.

Khaled Abu Toameh is an Israeli Arab journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is the West Bank and Gaza correspondent for U.S. News and World Report and the Jerusalem Post, and has been the Palestinian affairs producer for NBC News since 1988.

Stephen Schwartz is the author of 20 books, including The Two Faces of Islam (translated into Bosnian, Albanian, Indonesian, and Farsi) and The Other Islam, both of which have gained wide readership in the Muslim world as well as in the West. He also worked as a consultant for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.

Irfan Al-Alawi is a barrister in the U.K. and has a Ph. D. in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University, Cairo. He is currently Executive Director of the Islamic Heritage Foundation UK. He is a widely recognized historian of Mecca and Medina and co-author of an important work with Shaykh Yusuf Rifa’i.

Veli Sirin is a graduate in Islamic studies of the University of Bochum, he is a leader in the Alevi Youth Movement, a journalist and German Director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism.

Tarek Heggy studied law at Ain Shams University in Cairo, followed by a degree from the International Management Institute of Geneva University. He taught law in Algeria and Morocco and went on to become Chairman of Shell Companies in Egypt. He has lectured at universities throughout the world.

Hudson Institute is a non-partisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.

For further information, please contact:
Zeyno Baran, +1-202-255-2073 ,  zeyno at hudson.org
Vivian Hakkak, Press Officer + 41 78 740 2422   Permalink | |  Email This Article
Posted in Arab Asia, Future Events, Geneva, Israel, New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Switzerland

Discuss this article

This is only the beginning – perhaps the beginning of a new UN – it is clearly the end of the old UN.

For those of us who need the UN because we want to see a new regime for the planetary environment, and who were ready to bend backwards watching misdeeds and foibles at the UN, these days are a very serious matter. We saw the self destruct of the diplomatic toy the world set up in order to navigate the irate political seas of the world mafiosi – this after we thought the world learnt from the facts of the Holocaust that happened to the Jewish People by what was considered a bunch of rather civilized Europeans. Now we saw the Swiss hiding again behind a self declared neutrality when it comes to watch murderers and calculating that there is a good boon to their economy from the potential spoils from murder. Then the pious Vatican? They do not miss a word when it comes to non-believers being put against stakes.

And the Africans that cry justifiably Apartheid but do not stop to listen to sufferings that were at least as great as theirs – and they should know this – it was the Jews that stood by them more then anyone else. Personally, I was happy like a clam when great man Sisulu took me and a group of good people to see Robin Island … how many African leaders went to visit Ausschwitz? Did anyone of them take the March of the Living and try to think about this in terms like I did when I sat to watch the first session of the Parliament of the new South Africa? I was there because the South Africans – black and white – wanted the world to understand that the change of governance does not mean the end of South Africa. We met then absolutely everyone who was someone – black, white, or Indian – and we thought indeed that new ethics for the world were just born there. Those were the days …

Yes, our website follows the UN and developed a proven disrespect for the institution, but we were open to all points of view and we were critical of what Western States did to Iran or Africa. We were and are in disagreement with many Israeli policies and posted articles that showed our attempt of being progressive and just. I went years ago with Uri Avnery of Israel to visit the Palestinian leadership at the Orient House – at the time the residence of a budding acceptable repectful and self respecting Palestinian Government House. Just because of these past attempts at watching the right things being done, we have no respect for what the UN planned for Geneva 2009, or accomplished in Durban 2001, for these events we can refer only in scatological language and we still hold back from writing the details of this stench.

* * * * *

From: Eye on the UN <list@eyeontheun.org>
Date: Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 8:56 PM
Subject: Durban Diary, day one: Ahmadinejad’s ugly entrance

For Immediate Release:
April 21, 2009
Contact:   Anne Bayefsky
 info at EYEontheUN.org

Durban II Alert

Durban Diary, day one: Ahmadinejad’s ugly entrance

This article, by Anne Bayefsky, originally appeared in The New York Daily News.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance in Geneva Monday at the UN’s so-called anti-racism conference, Durban II, made the point better than anyone else. The UN’s idea of combating racism and xenophobia is to encourage more of it. Ahmadinejad was the very first speaker as the substantive session opened. Handed a global megaphone by the UN, out flowed unadulterated hate speech.

The phenomenon was astonishing. The UN provided a platform for a virulent antisemite on the anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler. In the name of fighting intolerance, they translated his words into six languages and broadcast them around the world. As he entered the grand room at the UN’s Palais Wilson, he was met by a round of applause. And this is what he said.

He began by denying the Holocaust: The “Zionist regime” had been created “on the pretext of Jewish sufferings and the ambiguous and dubious question of holocaust.”

And he continued with a genocidal agenda: “the egoist and uncivilized Zionism have been able to deeply penetrate into their political and economic structure including their legislation, mass media, companies, financial systems, and their security and intelligence agencies. They have imposed their domination to the extent that nothing can be done against their will. As long as they are at the helm of power, justice will never prevail in the world. It is time the ideal of Zionism, which is the paragon of racism, to be broken. The world Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuse religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces.”

As he spoke, the European Union countries that had not withdrawn earlier finally stood up and walked out. But they didn’t really understand what had just happened at all, for when he was finished, all but the Czech Republic went right back in.

Ten countries have now boycotted this second Durban hatefest: Canada, Israel, the United States, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic. The rest of the world remains inside, providing legitimacy to a forum for hatemongering. They are under the impression that there is no lasting damage being done here either to the credibility of the institutional host or to the cause of protecting human rights. They are wrong.

And the real victims of human rights are all the poorer for it.

For a complete source of information on Durban II
see www.EYEontheUN.org

EYEontheUN monitors the UN direct from UN Headquarters in New York. EYEontheUN brings to light the real UN record on the key threats to democracy, human rights, and peace and security in our time. EYEontheUN provides a unique information base for the re-evaluation of priorities and directions for modern-day democratic societies.

HUDSON INSTITUTE   |   90 Broad Street   |   Suite 2003   |   New York, NY 10004

.

* * * * *

We understand that besides the original 10 countries that refused to go to that UN Tragedo-Comedy – we know   there were further 24 member States that walked out at the first Ahmedinejad proud transgression – that is the rest of the EU and St.Kits and Nevis. We do not have the list of those that were present and stayed – that is we believe that some stayed away without any declaration.

We know that the UN will not make lists available – we know this from previous odorous UN events when we were not able to get lists of countries even when actual votes were taken by country name. let alone when the question was just presence in the room. BUT WE KNOW THAT Russia, The Ukraine, Japan, Norway, China, were also there and listened and who knows, probably enjoyed what they heard. So did Jordan and Egypt besides those we mentioned in our introduction.

Nobody has yet written about the remaining 140 countries. how many chose to go down with the UN sinking ship. How many Africans, How many of our friends from the Small Island Independent Developing States? We will want to know because our future backing we give them is here at stake!

* * * * *

And now the Afterthoughts that came to my mind while watching tonight TOSCA at the Israel Opera at the magnificent culture center, next to the Golda Center, in the middle of Tel Aviv.

The voices were first class, the production astonishing as it was mixed media and instead of moving furniture what was being moved around were projections. the view was covered with church images – lots of Madonas, crosses and images of Jesus. In the sold out hall, my estimate was that about 15% were speaking Russian and among the men present, about 10% had their head covered with traditional modern-orthodox crocheted yarmulkes.

Today was the memorial of the victims of the Holocaust. According to Jewish tradition the eve of the Memorial Day no shows or entertainment occurred in Israel. during the day there were various events related to the Memorial, but the evening belonged to the following day – this as per the sequence from The Creation in the Bible. So tonight there was the opening of TOSCA at the Opera.

We all know that Darwin thought out the concept that we all descended from apes – so an ape can give birth to man, but it occurred to me that from Ahmedinejad there is no way that a man can be born in today’s Iran. But really, my thoughts were not about man but about God. This because I saw all these yarmulkes on the heads of Jews that came to see this great Opera that deals with subjects of the Church. Trust me – I saw there at least 5 men with red Yarmulkes – some, with neatly trimmed full beards could have passed as Cardinals of the Church. This on the evening following the Memorial to the Holocaust in which Pope Pius XII did not lift a finger to help the Jews. You know that old saying – the Church hated the Jews because it never forgave them that they had to turn a Jew into their God. Is that why the Vatican did not walk out from that Center of hatred at the UN in Geneva? Does not the Vatican believe it represent today a full billion of believers, a number about equal to the number of Muslims in the world today? Did they just reject those red yarmulkes I saw at the TOSCA performance tonight?

From this observation my mind got more and more feverish. See – the Jews of Israel helped the world by extinguishing the iraqi and Syrian budding nuclear bombs. Now, watching the Iranian, what will they have to do? Is the world just going to let things evolve so that the first nuclear war between two states with nuclear weapons will inevitably be a war between Israel and Iran?

From: Marc Pallemaerts <MPallemaerts@ieep.eu>
Date: Tue, Apr 14, 2009

The Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) recently carried out an analysis of the extent to which the EU (and its then 15 Member States) fulfilled the solemn promises made to developing countries in the so-called ‘Bonn Declaration’ of 23 July 2001. Eight years ago, at the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP6bis) which paved the way for the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol, the EU-15 together with five other OECD donor countries (Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland) collectively made a ‘strong political commitment’ to raise US$410 million a year from 2005 to help developing countries tackle climate change and to review this pledge in 2008. These Annex II Parties to the UNFCCC agreed to provide additional funds in a number of ways: through contributions to the Global Environment Facility (GEF), through other multilateral and bilateral aid channels (additional to 2001 ODA levels), and through three new climate change funds established under the Bonn/Marrakech agreements to provide financial assistance to developing countries: the Special Climate Change Fund, the Least Developing Countries Fund and the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund.

IEEP undertook a detailed analysis of the levels of aid channelled through these different options for each of the EU signatories to the Bonn Declaration (EU-15). Results show that whilst the EU-15 may, overall, have fulfilled their commitments under that declaration, the data published by Member States is far from conclusive and the quality of reporting does not allow full independent verification of the amount of aid provided. Funds made available by the EU-15 through the GEF and dedicated multilateral climate change funds alone (approximately US$160 million/year) amount to less than half of the funds needed to meet the EU’s share of the Bonn commitment (US$369 million/year). Apparently, funding through bilateral channels accounts for most of the aid provided, but such assistance is a lot harder to monitor and verify at the international level. The lack of clarity and transparency in official reporting to the UNFCCC makes it impossible to affirm that much of the ‘additional’ aid actually provided since 2001 did not merely consist of ‘re-branded’ aid money.

To download the IEEP study, presented at a conference in Brussels on 28 January 2009, click http://www.ieep.eu/publications/pdfs/200…

For further information contact:

Dr Marc Pallemaerts
Senior Fellow &
Head of the Environmental Governance Programme
Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP)
Quai au Foin 55
Hooikaai 55
1000 Brussels
BELGIUM
Direct Tel.: 32-(0)2-7387471
Fax: 32-(0)2-7324004
Email:  mpallemaerts at ieep.eu
___________________________________________________________
IEEP is an independent not for profit institute dedicated to advancing an environmentally sustainable Europe through policy analysis, development and dissemination. IEEP undertakes work for external sponsors in a range of policy areas. We also have our own research programmes and produce the Manual of Environmental Policy: The EU and Britain www.mep-online.com. For further information about IEEP, see our website at http://www.ieep.eu or contact any staff member.

From: Other News – Roberto Savio <soros@other-net.info>
Date: Tue, Apr 7, 2009

Democratising Finance

By Hazel Henderson (*)
ST.AUGUSTINE, Apr (IPS) The financial meltdown generated by Wall Street and the “too big to fail” culture of global money-centre banks and financiers is generating local initiatives and demands to decentralise and democratise finance.

While national safety-nets are unravelling because of budget cuts, local leadership is rising, offering many creative alternatives for communities to nurture healthier home-grown economies:

-Local barter-clubs, like Freecycle.com, Craigslist and LETS, and scrip currencies are proliferating, as they always do when central bankers and the International Monetary Fund fail or make matters worse. Some of the most successful complementary currencies are Switzerland’s WIR and in the US, Berkshares, with equivalent to USD 2 million in circulation and accepted by banks and businesses in Massachusetts. Similar complementary currencies are working well in Britain, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, and other countries.

-People-to-people lending and microfinance projects are booming in many countries: Women’s World Banking, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, now emulated in many countries, FINCA and ACCION in Latin America, as well as the newer online versions. Credit unions, operated in Europe and North America for a century, are now filling new local needs, reaching out to poorer people and adding microfinance and lending to small businesses.

-Associations of small local banks and businesses are wielding more political clout, as are credit unions. In the US, they are demanding equal treatment in the government’s bailout funds currently showered on the big banks whose reckless lending triggered the financial   mess. Venture capital and venture philanthropy firms, including the Rudolf Steiner Foundation, Acumen, and the foundations of Ebay founders Pierre Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll, are investing in social enterprises that meet social needs while making modest profits. Such social capital is now creating a new hybrid sector in many economies.

-Britain’s New Economics Foundation (NEF) has been generating both local initiatives, such as the Transition Towns movement, and its Green New Deal and alternative indicators to correct GDP, measuring well-being and ecological sustainability. NEF’s proposal to save Britain’s 11,500 postal offices by adding local banking functions is backed by trade unions, small businesses, public interest groups, and pensioners.

-Time banking, a brainchild of Edgar Cahn in the US, is now helping local people connect and share services in Japan, Europe, and other countries. Neighbours contact each other via a local “time banker” to provide meals and help for shut-ins, babysit each other’s children, watch over property, mow lawns, and share appliances. And car-sharing has now spawned many new companies.

-China is host to many such local initiatives, linking small businesses on networks, including Baidu.com, Alibaba.com, as well as Qifang.com which provides affordable loans to China’s 25 million students. Circle Pleasure, a private company selling prepaid consumer cards, has formed a joint venture with Qifang for people-to-people banking, the first private company to receive a banking license from China’s Central Bank. In many countries in Africa, cell phone banking has taken off. Cell phones are the basis
for the “phone ladies” in Indian and Bangladeshi villages, who rent their cell phones to other villages so rural farmers and fishermen can consult prices in nearby towns and markets to optimise sales.

How far can people-to-people finance go in bypassing big, greedy banks and ethically-challenged Wall Street financiers and their political allies? A long way, thanks to all the communications tools now widely available. Using these new information-sharing tools is helping people realise again what money is: just one form of information. Today it is possible to trade using pure information exchange. For example, in rural Florida, there are call-in radio programmes where, for example, a farmer may offer to trade tractor use for a quantity of seed. Similarly, the growth of farmers’ markets and contract-supported agriculture allows local consumers to buy fresh produce directly from nearby farms.

So how did we allow big banks and centralised finance to grow so large that they became predators on the real living economies which produce the world’s real wealth? Local people around the world are realising that they can simply bypass big banks and stock exchanges and create these services locally. The old, bloated financial sectors must downsize, cut their bonuses and take the losses from their reckless bets in their global casino. A truly efficient financial services sector should be less than 10 percent of a country’s GDP. Those in Britain and the US grew to 25 percent of GDP, metastasising with their “financial engineers” preying on the real economy. Now students are looking for jobs as real engineers, teachers, doctors, and entrepreneurs.

In a very real sense, we humans don’t have a financial crisis but a crisis of perception. We are beginning to see our world differently from the way the mainstream media portrays it. We see our choices with new eyes. As we watch central bankers printing money on TV, we learn that money is not real wealth. Real wealth is generated by productive people using the Earth’s resources wisely. Money is a useful medium of exchange when managed properly, locally, nationally, globally, or electronically. Hoarding money is no longer a reliable store of value. We are all rediscovering the many stores of value in our own communities. We find wealth beyond money. We can change our values for the new times we live in and restore the love economies to their central role in our lives. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2006), is president of Ethical Markets Media ( www.ethicalmarkets.com). She co-created the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators, updated regularly at www.calvert-henderson.com.

Othernews | Via Panisperna, 207 | Rome | Italy | 00184 | Italy

WATCH OUT – WE USED TO THINK THAT ECA IS JUST THE ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA – BUT THEN AFRICA HAS FALLEN OFF THE TABLE – SO DID ‘ECA.’

From: Tol, Susanna <Susanna.Tol@wetlands.org>
Date: Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 1:57 PM
Subject: Invitation side event by ECA in Bonn: Intact terrestrial carbon stores for an effective climate deal

Invitation: side event at Bonn Climate Change Talks

Intact terrestrial carbon stores for an effective climate deal

The newly established Ecosystem Climate Alliance (ECA) invites you to its side event where we present our views on components of a new climate deal for keeping carbon in the soils and biomass of forests & wetlands intact and out of the atmosphere.

The side event will provide opportunity through a panel/audience debate to discuss our policy recommendations.

Date: Thursday 2 April 2009
Time: 18:00 – 20:00
Venue: Maritim Hotel, room Rail

The Ecosystems Climate Alliance (ECA)* is an alliance of environment and social NGOs committed to keeping natural terrestrial ecosystems intact and their carbon out of the atmosphere, in an equitable and transparent way that respects the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. ECA recognises that avoiding emissions of terrestrial carbon stored in the soils and biomass of forests, peatlands and wetlands represents the largest potential single opportunity for cost-effective greenhouse gas mitigation. ECA advocates climate, forest and land use policies to give strong, equitable, transparent and positive incentives free of perversities for avoiding the degradation of terrestrial carbon stores and for rehabilitating degraded land, supported by effective forest governance, robust monitoring and demand-side policies to ensure meaningful outcomes.

* Comprising Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), Global Witness, Humane Society International, Rainforest Action Network, Rainforest Foundation Norway, The Rainforest Foundation U.K., Wetlands International and The Wilderness Society.

For more information:
Susanna Tol, Wetlands International
T: +31 6 22624702
Email:  susanna.tol at wetlands.org

UN-BACKED ROADMAP FOR HALVING AUTO EMISSIONS UNVEILED IN GENEVA

With the world’s car fleet expected to triple by 2050, a road map to halve greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles by that date was laid out today at the Geneva Motor Show by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and partner organizations.

The ‘50 by 50′ Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) charts a strategy for the world to change to cleaner and more efficient cars, advocating that it be integrated into the financial support the auto industry receives during the financial crisis.

“Transport is a crucial sector in the transformation to a low-carbon, green economy,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP, which launched the initiative with the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Transport Forum (ITF) and the FIA Foundation.

“We would urge the world’s car and component makers to get on board to prove that they too are part of the solution,” he added.

The GFEI road map shows how the reductions can be achieved using existing cost-effective technologies, with intermediate goals in 2020 and 2030, in line with suggestions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Objectives of the initiative for 2009 include regional assessments and launches in Europe, North America, Latin America, and in Asia, the start of four national pilot projects in different regions and the development of a fuel economy information-sharing campaign.

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Stonehenge Partners SunTrust Robinson Tuckerman Capital LP Windjammer Capital Media Partners:		Fifth Semi-Annual MasterClassâ„¢ On PE Dealmaking by Independent (aka “Fundless”) Sponsors & the Investors Who Back Them How Independent Sponsors Can Prosper During the Recession– Without an Institutional Safety Net Attendance Is Limited–Register Now height=”90″> Click Here to Register >> Purchase Audio Package >> Visit Audio Library >> Add to Outlook Calendar >> FULL-DAY MASTERCLASS Thursday, April 30, 2009 8:00 am – 5:00 pmNew York City FREE Pre-MasterClass “ToolBox” Workshop For Independent Sponsors Only Wednesday, April 29, 2009 12:15 pm – 5:00 pm Cocktail Networking Reception (For All Attendees) Wednesday, April 29, 2009 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm Designed to Meet the Needs of GPs, LPs, Managers of Buyout, Growth Equity, & Mezzanine Funds, As Well as Officers & Directors of Their Portfolio Companies, Independent Sponsors, and Investment Bankers, Lenders, Industry Executives, Lawyers, & Other Advisors Who Work With Them Faculty | Schedule | Registration | Location | Sponsorship | Audio Package | CLE In the best of times, being an independent sponsor is very hard work. Being “fundless” — i.e., not having committed funds — means having to hustle every time you find a deal. You don’t have a steady management fee that pays the bills. And for all the legwork you do, there’s no guarantee your deal will close. Now is the worst of times—the recession—so you’re up against what seems like a sure-fire recipe for failure. But wait a moment. There’s no shortage of capital out there — in fact, when you total up the uninvested committed capital raised by middle-market mezzanine and PE firms, you have tens of billions of dollars. What’s more, there are lots of good companies out there, coming off bad years, that are looking for solutions to their performance and capital problems. And as EBITDAs plummet, so do valuations, providing attractive opportunities to potential investors. One thing’s for sure — the independent sponsors who are going to prosper in 2009 are those who can adapt to the quickly changing environment. Always a popular conference, The Capital Roundtable’s Fifth Semi-Annual MasterClassâ„¢on “PE Dealmaking by Independent (aka “Fundless”) Sponsors & the Investors Who Back Them”is certain to be a record-breaker. With good reason. While less-savvy sponsors head for the side-lines and blame the recession, you can profit by executing the strategies, tactics, and survival skills you must have to overcome risks, spot deals, and seize rewards. It’s All About Deals, Do’s, & Don’ts Whether you’re currently an independent sponsor, or considering the entrepreneurial plunge, this MasterClass offers the actionable help you need to go it alone without going broke. You’ll discover ways to leverage the extraordinary amount of flexibility independent sponsors have. And you’ll network with dozens of successful independent sponsors who will share their know-how on creative approaches for tough times. What’s more, if you provide services, capital, or opportunities for independent sponsors, this is the place to make contacts and set the stage for win-win transactions. To make the agenda exceptionally relevant, this full-day MasterClass on Thursday, April 30, 2009, will bechaired by Richard Baum, Managing Partner of Consumer Growth Partners LLC. Richard is one of today’s most successful independent sponsors, with an outstanding track record of investing in specialty retail and branded consumer products companies. He was previously one of Wall Street’s top-ranked retail analysts at Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and Sanford C. Bernstein, and previously was a retail operations executive. Most notably, amid the doom and gloom, Richard’s firm has never been busier. Bringing you the right information for the times is what The Capital Roundtable does best. We’re America’s leading conference organization for the private equity community, and while the economic climate may change, our mission to help you succeed never does. Sign up now, and you can take advantage of a $400 Early Bird Discount! Up-To-The-Minute Insights from 20 Top Sponsors, Investors, & Lenders Joining Richard will be 20 well-known industry leaders who are highly-qualified members of the independent sponsor field. You’ll learn from people who are flourishing today, and who were able to succeed in past turbulent markets. And you’ll hear what investors and lenders who do frequent business with independent sponsors are looking for. By attending this MasterClass, you’ll have the answers to what steps you should be taking to find deals, line up funding, and make all the pieces work in stressful situations. How can you find proprietary opportunities before the large funds take notice? What opportunities can be found when large companies shed small divisions? How can you build credibility with the owner of a company who is ready to sell? Why can your domain expertise be a trump card when going against traditional GPs? How should you negotiate with owners not willing to sell all of a business? How can you educate funding partners about the added value you bring to the deal? Where are your likeliest sources for financing and what are the pros and cons of each? What are the considerations of raising equity through high net worth individual investors? Are mezzanine lenders still interested in working with independent sponsors? What are realistic expectations today on the value of a family-owned business? Can you profit in the future by providing short-term advisory services? And much, much more. This MasterClass Is a Must-Attend Event — & Not Just for Independent Sponsors We’ve designed this MasterClass to benefit a wide range of attendees eager to hear current trends and network with other professionals … including – Current independent sponsors looking to survive and even outperform the recession. Prospective independent sponsors looking to succeed on their own. Private equity investors looking to meet independent sponsors with attractive deals. Mezzanine lenders who work with independent sponsors. Attorneys and advisors who work with independent sponsors. Investment bankers who have deals suited for independent sponsors. CEOs and CFOs of companies in search of private equity funding. Venture capitalists looking to exit a portfolio company. Plus a Special FREE Pre-Conference “ToolBox” — Exclusively For Independent Sponsors If you’re an independent sponsor, we also encourage you to attend our special afternoonpre-MasterClass “ToolBox” the day before, on Wednesday, April 29. This complimentaryhalf-day session features three consecutive hour-long workshops led by a dozen experienced independent sponsors who will share their wisdom with you and each other. Because these workshop sessions are for independent sponsors only — and behind closed doors — they will be remarkably candid and free-wheeling. With no vendors or investors present, you can pose specific questions and name names in complete confidence. Should you avoid doing business with Alpha law firm? Why is Bravo Capital’s portfolio having such difficulties? Who’s had good success working with Charlie’s mezzanine fund? Ask away! After the ToolBox, on the evening before the MasterClass, we’ll have a Cocktail Networking Reception for all attendees. So even if you have a conflict on Wednesday afternoon and can’t attend the ToolBox, we know you’ll find this reception ideal for building relationships. Remember, register with our Early Bird Discount by Friday, March 13, 2009, and you’ll save $400 off the regular registration fee! So make your reservation now before our seats are all filled. We’ll be looking forward to greeting you. For more information, please feel free to contact Heather Sote at 212/832-7333 ext. 111 orhsote@capitalroundtable.com. This MasterClass is being produced by The Capital Roundtable, America’s leading conference organization focusing on “need-to-know” information for professionals in the middle-market private equity community. For more information about The Capital Roundtable’s 25 annual MasterClasses and other events and programs, please visitwww.capitalroundtable.com. The Capital Roundtable thanks Nixon Peabody for sponsoring this outstanding conference. It’s due in great part to their support and collaboration that we have the resources to make this event so worthwhile for you. Faculty Chaired By Richard N. Baum, Managing Partner, Consumer Growth Partners LLC Hosted By Burt Alimansky, Managing Partner, Alimansky & Bethell Group, and Chairman, The Capital Roundtable Speakers Drew H. Adams, President, StoneCreek Capital Inc. Brent E. Brown, Managing Partner, Madison Parker Capital Peter G. Davies, Principal, Stonehenge Partners Inc. Dominick P. DeChiara, Partner, Nixon Peabody LLP Brian A. Demkowicz, Managing Partner, Huron Capital Partners LLC Anthony F. Ecock, Leader–Resources Group, Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe LP Dan Negrea, Managing Partner, MTN Capital Partners LLC Additional Speakers to be Announced… Schedule ToolBox 12:15 – 01:30 01:30 – 02:3002:30 – 02:45 02:45 – 03:45 03:45 – 04:00 04:00 – 05:00 05:00 – 06:30 MasterClass 07:30 – 08:30 08:30 – 09:00 09:00 – 09:45 09:45 – 10:30 10:30 – 11:00 11:00 – 12:15 12:15 – 01:15 01:15 – 02:15 02:15 – 03:1503:15 – 03:30 03:30 – 04:30 04:45   Wednesday, April 29, 2009 The Independent Sponsor’s ToolBox – Exclusively for Independent Sponsors!! Registration & Networking Luncheon First Workshop — “How to Attract Deal Flow & Conduct Meaningful Due Diligence” Coffee & Networking Break Second Workshop — “How to Line Up the Right Equity & Debt” Coffee & Networking Break Third Workshop — “How to Manage Companies in Your Portfolio & How to Plan & Choose Exit Strategies” Cocktail Networking Reception — for all attendees Thursday, April 30, 2009 Registration, Networking, & Continental Breakfast Welcoming Remarks & Audience Introductions First Keynote Overview Chairman’s Keynote — Richard N. Baum, Managing Director, Consumer Growth Partners LLC Coffee & Networking Break First Panel — “Survival Strategies Used by Successful Independent Sponsors” (This panel consists of four successful independent sponsors who do different types of deals.) Luncheon & Networking Second Panel — “Recommendations About Helping Portfolio Companies Cope with Shortfalls in Revenue, EBITDA, & Liquidity” (This panel features a turnaround manager, an operating partner, & a transactions services provider.) Third Panel — “Viewpointsfrom Private Equity Investors Who Like Backing Independent Sponsors” (This panel consists of four private equity investors who do different sizes & types of deals.) Coffee & Networking Break Fourth Panel — ” Viewpoints From Mezz Investors Who Like Backing Independent Sponsors “ (This panel consists of three Mezz investors & a lender who do different sizes & types of deals.) Adjournment ^ Back to Top ^ Registration Early Bird Registration Fee — and save $400 off the regular fee! Register by Friday, March 13, and the fee for the MasterClass and Cocktail Reception is $1495. Premiere Registration Fee — and save $200 off the regular fee!Register by Friday, March 27, and the fee for the MasterClass and Cocktail Reception is $1695. After that, the regular registration fee is $1895 for the MasterClass and Cocktail Reception. At the door, if space is available, the fee is $1995 for the MasterClass. Special group rates — The Capital Roundtable offers a special rate for 3 or more people from your firm. For more info, please contact Samantha Feldman sfeldman@capitalroundtable.com or 212/832-7333 ext 112. Click Here to Register >> Purchase Audio Package >> Visit Audio Library >> Add to Outlook Calendar >> You can pay by credit card (using the links above) or by check. Mail your check and business card to: New York Business Roundtable Inc., 12 East 44 Street, Penthouse, New York, NY 10017.If the program is oversubscribed, we will notify you immediately and not charge your credit card. (If you need to cancel, please do so by Thursday, April 23, at 5:00pm, and we will credit you for a future meeting.) From time to time, for reasons beyond Capital Roundtable’s control, program schedules and speakers become subject to change. We make every effort to announce substantive changes by email to registrants at least 48 hours in advance. Have a special question? Please contact Samantha Feldman at 212/832-7333 ext. 112 or by email at sfeldman@capitalroundtable.com. Location Midtown Manhattan location in an exclusive private club. Audio Package Can’t attend but want to hear the program? You can buy the audio package along with the handouts. Purchase the audio package online now. Sponsorship The Capital Roundtable offers excellent sponsorship opportunities to reach the middle-market private-equity community . For more details, please contact Arlene West at 212/832-0800 or by email at awest@capitalroundtable.com.

U.S. Policies Evoke Scorn at Davos

Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

DAVOS, Switzerland — Over the years, the United States has fulfilled many roles at the World Economic Forum: dot-com dynamo, benevolent superpower, feared aggressor. Now add wounded giant.

On the first day of the annual conference here, a parade of bankers, economists and government officials expressed deep fears about the faltering American economy — and blunt criticism, particularly of the Federal Reserve, which some blame for sowing the seeds of today’s crisis.

For George Soros, the financier who made a fortune betting against the British pound, the slump now goes beyond subprime loans. It signals a reordering of the postwar economy and the end of dollar dominance.

“The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom,” Mr. Soros declared. “It’s basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency.”

Suggestions of a new economic order abounded here: India’s commerce and industry minister, Kamal Nath, said that China had overtaken the United States as his country’s largest trading partner, buttressing his view that India could come through an American recession unscathed.

The head of the National Bank of Kuwait, Ibrahim S. Dabdoub, said Americans who opposed sovereign wealth funds, like the one run by the Kuwaiti government, need to come to terms with the new reality.

And an American economist, Nouriel Roubini, said bluntly, “The United States looks like an emerging market,” with large deficits and a weak currency. Brazil, an actual emerging market, had done a better job overhauling its economy, he said.

Mr. Roubini, whose frequent predictions of a downturn have made him something of a soothsayer at Davos, said that the United States would suffer a recession lasting at least a year. He foresees a flood of defaults on car loans and corporate bonds, and a prolonged bear market.

“The debate is not whether we’re going to have a soft landing or a hard landing,” he said, as his audience squirmed. “The question is only how hard the hard landing will be.”

Several economists said the Federal Reserve seemed to have lost control of events since the subprime crisis erupted last summer. Some criticized its steep cut in interest rates Tuesday as a knee-jerk reaction to calm markets, rather than a reasoned response to a deteriorating situation.

“Policy makers are reaching back into the same playbook that got us into this mess,” said Stephen S. Roach, the economist recently named chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

Mr. Roach argued that the Fed, by signaling its readiness to cushion the stock market from the credit crisis, risked creating conditions for a new round of inflation in asset prices.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, said the Fed “made bad judgments” and “looked the other way when investment banks packaged bad loans in nontransparent ways.”

He said the rate cut was too little too late, because monetary policy usually takes 6 to 18 months to have an impact.

Not every one was grim. John W. Snow, the former Treasury secretary and chairman of Cerberus Capital Management, predicted that if the United States slipped into a recession, it would be “short and shallow.”

“That’s been the pattern of recessions in the U.S., and there’s a reason for it,” he said in an interview. “There is an inherent resilience in the U.S. economy.” Mr. Snow said there had already been an adjustment in housing prices and risk valuation.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice picked up the theme of American economic resilience, saying that President Bush and Congress were negotiating an economic stimulus package that would help the United States remain an engine of global growth.

Despite the current weakness, few Americans here said the United States would resort to protectionist policies, even though it is an election year. Sovereign wealth funds, they noted, had taken multibillion-dollar stakes in giants like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch with hardly a peep of protest in Washington.

“Open investment is a critical driver of the U.S. economy,” David H. McCormick, under secretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said. He added that it was reasonable to monitor sovereign wealth funds to make sure that they were commercially and not politically driven.

The debate over “decoupling,” a once-popular idea that Europe and Asia could escape the effects of a recession in the United States because they are less reliant on American trade, seemed to be over before it started.

Virtually everyone here agreed that an American downturn would spill over to Europe and Asia. Mr. Roach said China did not have a large enough domestic consumer market to replace a loss of demand for exports from American consumers.

Officials from China agreed. “The Chinese economy is entering quite a delicate stage,” said Yu Yongding, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “We are facing a very bad situation in the U.S.”

Only Mr. Nath of India said he was confident that his country would not feel a major effect from an American recession. India, he said, was far more driven than China by domestic demand.

At least one specialist here professed to see a silver lining in the links between the world’s major economies. C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said China and India would lift the United States out of its downturn. Companies like I.B.M., General Electric and Caterpillar already depend on these countries for a lot of their profits, Mr. Bergsten said.

Adding a new term to the Davos lexicon, he said the United States would soon experience “reverse coupling.”

      From:          ipstv at aol.com
      Subject:       IPS Terra Viva UN Journal – 4 February 2009
Date:                   February 4, 2009

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: ‘Stateless Peoples’ Defend Diversity
Mario Osava
BELEM, Brazil, Feb 3 (IPS) – The immense diversity of peoples was apparent at the World Social Forum (WSF), which ended Sunday in Belem, the capital of the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon region. he presence of 1,900 indigenous people representing 190 ethnic groups as well as 1,400 Quilombolas (people of African origins living in traditional communities) was conspicuous among the 133,000 participants from 142 countries. They had their own tents, discussions and celebrations at the event.
For the first time, there was also a tent for the Collective Rights of Stateless Peoples, initiating a reflection at the WSF about a “radical democracy” that upholds the self-determination of peoples, said Arnau Flores, a Catalonian journalist responsible for communication at the Escarrà © International Centre for Ethnic Minorities and Nations (CIEMEN). A map showing 32 of these peoples-without-states was displayed in the tent, but “there are many more,” Flores told IPS. Some are well-known – like the Palestinians, Basques, Roma, Kurds, Tibetans and Saharawi. Others are seldom thought of in this context, like the South American Mapuche and the Australian Aborigines.

More than 20 organisations of such peoples took part in the activities organised by CIEMEN, with discussions ranging from strategies for emancipation and building their own institutions, to topical questions linked to the main themes of the WSF – such as the crisis of civilisation and globalisation.

The seeds of a global network of “stateless peoples” claiming their collective rights were sown at this WSF, aiming at a new kind of decolonisation and running counter to the “idea of the imperialist nation-state” as the only institution possible in the world, said Quim Arrufat, a Catalonian political scientist in charge of CIEMEN’s international relations.

The Centre is based in Barcelona, the capital of the Spanish region of Catalonia – a nation-without-a-state.

CIEMEN does not itself advocate, for instance, a Palestinian state – the issue at the centre of the bloody conflict with Israel – but the right of the Palestinian people to make their own decision about this concern, Arrufat told IPS, making a careful distinction.

The “plurinational state” established in the new constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador is one way forward, but “perhaps it is not the path for other” peoples who need, for example, to return to their homeland, like the Saharawi, he said.

At the root of the problem is the “single legal framework” exported by Europe to the whole world, which determines the constitution of even international institutions like the United Nations – made up exclusively of nation states – which “is neither representative nor logical,” he claimed.

One of the consequences of the nation-state model is wars and conflicts, but the issue of peoples-without-states is a new one. Twenty years ago it was a “prohibited” subject, and changing the present system “is not at all easy,” Arrufat said.

The WSF opened the way to bringing together organisations from different regions to debate the issue and promote an international movement for the “collective rights of peoples” who have had their own identities suppressed, he said.

The legal system of national states does not recognise these collective rights, focusing instead on the rights of individuals, Flores said.

Spain grants a certain amount of autonomy to its regions, but Catalonia cannot carry out its own referendums, which must be exclusively national, and in the Basque Country – another Spanish region – any independent party is “outlawed and accused of being terrorist,” he said.

Paradoxically, Europe, the cradle of the nation-state, is experiencing a number of conflicts and tensions because of its many “stateless peoples”: the various Spanish regions, Corsica (in Italy), Brittany (in France), and Scotland and Wales (in the United Kingdom).

The European Union sparked hopes among marginalised peoples that integration would open the doors to their collective rights, but these hopes were dashed. The bloc of 27 countries was built on the idea of statehood, preventing the acceptance of, for example, multilingualism.

Thus the language spoken by seven million Catalonians is official neither in Spain nor in the EU, while in contrast Maltese – an official language of the Mediterranean island state of Malta with a population of 400,000 – is recognised.

The assembly on collective rights decided “to potentiate its participation in the WSF” by promoting this issue which had previously been considered almost solely in relation to indigenous groups, Flores said. Self- determination and sovereignty, among the goals of the 2009 Forum, were the core themes of the discussion.

The diversity of groups with identities of their own was highly visible at the Social Cartography by Traditional Peoples and Communities tent in Belém. This project begun by the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM) and the Association of Amazonian Universities (UNAMAZ) has expanded throughout Brazil.

Dozens of maps of their territories have been made by indigenous peoples and the residents of “quilombos” (communities that were refuges for escaped African slaves) themselves, as well as by communities and social movements. These serve to increase knowledge and awareness of their own reality, and to appropriate information to use as the basis of autonomous initiatives and public policies.

These studies highlight an amazing diversity of communities with their own lifestyles, customs and methods of organisation, including riverside dwellers in the Amazon, fisher folk on large rivers, and the different communities who extract forest products, like natural rubber tappers.

Another example are the “faxinais”, peasants in the south of Brazil who pool their land for livestock raising purposes only and have their own techniques of environmental management.

The diversity of WSF participants at Belém was visible too at the Federal Rural University of Amazonia (UFRA), where the Youth Camp and members of social movements were accommodated.

The multitudes of people on this campus for the six days of the Forum were visibly poorer than those who attended the non-governmental organisations’ activities at the nearby Federal University of Pará (UFPA).

The large numbers of indigenous Amazon peoples who attended, at a time when neoliberal (free market) globalisation is in crisis, provided “new inspiration for renewing the search for another world,” said Cándido Grzybowski, one of the founders and organisers of the WSF and head of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE).

According to the figures he quoted at a press conference at the conclusion of the Forum, out of the 133,000 participants in Belém, 15,000 people were at the Youth Camp and 3,000 were children or teenagers. This is a guarantee of the continuity of the WSF, he said.

In all, “nearly 150,000 people were involved” in the global meeting of civil society, including 4,500 accredited members of the media -2,000 of whom were journalists, 1,000 artists who put on cultural performances, and over 10,000 people who worked in organisation, cooking food and other services.

Security was provided by 7,000 police officers, and health care by 900 professionals, according to Ana Claudia Cardoso, a representative of the state government of Pará.

The next WSF, to be held in 2011, will take place in Africa, said Taoufik Ben Abdallah, a Senegalese member of the African Social Forum. But this has not yet been officially agreed by the WSF International Council, which will consider the question on Monday and Tuesday.

There are proposals for the next WSF to be held in the United States, and for the biennial character of the Forum to be waived by holding another world meeting in 2010, in order to analyse and respond to the new circumstances created by the global financial crisis.

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Wednesday, 4 February 2009
Newsbriefs
Amazon Destruction Undermines Brazil’s LeadershipMario Osava – Tierramerica

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 3 (IPS) – The Brazilian government, and its Environment Ministry in particular, accepted a risky bet by agreeing to voluntary goals for curbing deforestation in the Amazon, giving the country greater weight in the global talks on fighting climate change.

In the annual period under way (August 2008 to July 2009), Brazil should cut deforestation by 22.5 percent of the total recorded in the previous period, which totalled 11,968 square kilometres, according to the national space research institute, INPE. The annual deforested area has already seen a sharp reduction from the record-breaking 29,059 square kilometres in 1995-1996, but the recent awareness of the tragic effects of climate change has intensified pressure to stop deforestation.

The loss of forest coverage is the source of 75 percent of Brazil’s emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases, according to a 1994 inventory. Meeting this year’s goal is vital for strengthening Brazil in the negotiation of the new global pact for cutting carbon emissions beginning in 2013, replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and will be determined at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change to take place in December in Copenhagen.