From:    unnews at un.org
Subject: UN DAILY NEWS DIGEST - 15 August
Date: August 15, 2008

IN CHINA, UN OFFICIALS HAIL SPORT’S CONTRIBUTION TO DEVELOPMENT

Sport is increasingly recognized as an important tool in helping countries achieve their development goals, the United Nations envoy for sport said today in Beijing, where athletes from around the world are currently competing in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The UN Resident Coordinator in China, Khalid Malik, also praised the Chinese authorities’ efforts to create an Olympic Games with an emphasis on environmental sustainability.

Friday, Aug. 15, 2008

Ways of beating malaria without using DDT.

By Cesar Chelala, A Health Consultant in the US, for The Japan Times on line, New York, August 15, 2008.

Malaria continues to be endemic in the developing world, causing more than 1 million deaths every year, mostly among children living in Sub-Saharan countries.

The good news is that the results of a new project carried out in Mexico and Central America show that the fight against malaria does not have to depend on using DDT. In Mexico and the Central American countries, it is estimated that around 108.7 million people live in areas that are environmentally favorable to transmission of malaria, with 35 percent at high risk of contracting the disease.

The need to continue to rely on DDT to effectively combat malaria has been the subject of a long running discussion. Although DDT spraying has long been successfully used in controlling the mosquito population and the spread of malaria, it easily enters the food chain and persists for many years in the environment. The result is often serious harm to wildlife. In addition, the mosquito population under attack can become resistant to DDT, making necessary the search for alternatives.

Since 2004, a project funded by the U.N. Environmental Program and the Global Environmental Facility has been carried out with the technical support of the Pan American Health Organization in Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Panama. It was developed on strategies outlined in the “Roll Back Malaria” approach championed by the World Health Organization.

This project was initially implemented in Mexico and subsequently adopted to local areas in the Central American countries. Critical to its success has been the use of public health measures aimed at controlling mosquito breeding and standing sites, rapid diagnosis and treatment of those affected with malaria and active community participation.

Public health measures against malaria had already shown their effectiveness in Central America. During the construction of the Panama Canal, which had been abandoned by the French in 1889 due to financial scandals and the high number of worker deaths from malaria and yellow fever, thousands of lives were saved thanks to public health measures implemented by Dr. William C. Gorgas of the U.S. Army Medical Corps.

Similar public health measures have been applied in the Mexico/Central America project, including participatory community treatment of larval breeding sites, improvements in housing conditions, periodical clearing of vegetation around houses, and elimination of stagnant water near houses. These actions are complemented by a wide array of educational interventions aimed at information about malaria transmission, and rapid diagnosis and prompt treatment of those affected in the community.

Early detection and treatment is crucial for eliminating the parasite carriers. A key aspect has been the collaboration of voluntary community health workers who are taught to make an early diagnosis in situ and to administer complete courses of treatment not only to those affected but to patients’ immediate contacts.

The project was carried out in “demonstration areas” selected for their high levels of malaria transmission. In those areas, the number of malaria cases fell 63 percent from 2004 to 2007. In several demonstration areas I visited in Honduras and Mexico as a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization, malaria had practically been eliminated. Plans are under way to expand the project to other regions where malaria remains a serious threat.

One of the advantages of avoiding DDT (and its toxic effects) is the enormous savings realized from discontinuing its routine use. These savings can now be put to good use against other diseases.

Although DDT can still be used in some countries or regions with extremely high levels of malaria infection, the fact that an effective campaign against malaria can be waged without it, and at much lower cost, raises hopes that this approach can be used as time goes on by a wide range of developing countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

Ethiopia powers up with solar energy.

August 8, 2008 -  By David Ehrlich, Cleantech Group.

 http://media.cleantech.com/3213/ethiopia…

Germany’s Solar Energy Foundation aims to improve living conditions and foster a solar industry in Ethiopia. The rural village of Rema in Ethiopia could become a cleantech boom-town if the work of Germany’s Solar Energy Foundation continues its success in the region.

Since 2006, the foundation has installed 2,000 solar systems in Rema and in nearby Rema ena Dire, the biggest solar power project in East Africa. The project has brought power to 5,500 residents in a country where only one percent of people in rural areas have access to electricity.

The charity is led by Harald Schutzeichel, the founder and former head of Freiburg, Germany’s S.A.G. Solarstrom, with the Good Energies Foundation on board as a major backer. The Good Energies Foundation is an affiliate of New York-based renewable energy investor Good Energies.

Schutzeichel, who left S.A.G. Solarstrom in 2003, said he isn’t interested in just installing solar systems in Ethiopia. His group is training the villagers to install and maintain the systems, and he says there is growing interest from the solar industry to set up shop in the country.

“Until now we import all the materials from China,” Schutzeichel told the Cleantech Group. “It’s not necessary to do this if there’s a market in Ethiopia.”

“We have two interested companies. They want to invest in Ethiopia because they see this big market.”

The foundation is aiming to have 50 solar training centers across the country, incorporating classroom for solar energy training, workshops for the assembly of the solar systems, and accommodations for around 30 students and solar technicians at each center.

The first International Solar Energy School opened its doors in Rema last year, with more set to be built this year. The schools will be powered by solar energy, with a photovoltaic system providing electricity and a solar thermal system providing warm water.

The initial solar installations were provided by the charity, with the residents paying only for maintenance and service. Installations in other areas will use microfinancing to enable residents to pay for the solar systems over a three year period.

The solar panels are used to power lighting, refrigeration for medicine, water pumps, and water disinfection.

The Good Energies Foundation committed $2.7 million to the Ethiopian solar project in 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual philanthropic meeting headed up by former President Bill Clinton.

The former president took a tour of the facilities in Rema on his recent tour of Clinton Foundation projects in Africa.

Take a look at Bill, Harald and Chelsea here >>

“There’s already a market there because people are already paying for their energy needs, even if they’re paying for the kerosene on a monthly basis and dry cell batteries,” said Richenda Van Leeuwen, senior adviser at Good Energies. “This is just bringing it onto a more environmentally sustainable and viable platform.”

In addition to Good Energies, Germany’s Conrad Electronic and Switzerland’s Industrielle Werke Basel are providing base financing for the Solar Energy Foundation’s projects.

German solar cell maker Q-Cells, which is a Good Energies portfolio company, is also a partner in the project, supporting the solar training school. Energiebau Solarstromsysteme and Phocos, both based in Germany, are also project partners.

The standard system being installed by the Solar Energy Foundation is a 10 watt system, along with four LED lights and a radio, with a pricetag of about €180.

“It’s not the cheapest one, but I think in this area we shouldn’t use the cheapest material,” said Schutzeichel. “We have very good modules, because they should work for 25 years. We have UV-resistant cable, because they have a lot of sun, and if you use cheap cable it will be damaged after two years.”

The foundation already has plans to offer a double-size unit for families who can afford it, as well as a smaller system with just one high-power LED lamp. The smaller system will sell for €30.

“Thus far it’s been proof of concept,” said Van Leeuwen. She said the organization now has the capacity to do 4,000 installations per year.

“We’re looking at the way to move from being a philanthropic model to being an at least partially microfinance-driven model in order to bring both scale and also to ensure the sustainability, building a sustainable solar sector in Ethiopia.”

Schutzeichel said the foundation is currently operating on €1 million per year and has successfully completed the biggest solar power project in East Africa with that budget. But in a country with 60 million people without power, he said it’s time to move to the next level.

“We have to scale up, and one day, one year, we should have 50,000 per year installed.”

He said one solar company is deciding on whether to set up operations in Tanzania or Ethiopia, and could make a decision by the end of this month. “They say in Tanzania are the better conditions, but in Ethiopia is the bigger market,” said Schutzeichel.

“Now they have to decide. If they decide against Ethiopia,” he said, “we will find another.”

Time short for climate pact, draft by mid-09 - an Interview with UN Head of this Topic.

13 Aug 2008, Reuters - Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent.
OSLO, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Time is short to work out a new treaty to fight global warming as planned by the end of 2009 because drafts of a deal must be ready in less than a year, the U.N.’s top climate change official said on Wednesday.

Negotiators from almost 200 nations will meet in Accra, Ghana, from Aug. 21-27 to discuss elements of a future pact such as deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, ways to slow deforestation and aid for developing nations to adapt.

“Time is short,” Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters of a timetable meant to end with agreement on a new climate treaty to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol at a meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009. “If you are going to negotiate something in Copenhagen in December in 2009 the elements of that negotiation have to be available six months before,” he said. So far, only vague proposals have been floated at the talks.
Asked about what Accra would achieve, de Boer said: “To make a squirrel analogy I hope we gather more nuts. I hope we get more specific proposals.” The talks are the third session this year to work out a pact to slow rising temperatures blamed by the U.N. Climate Panel on greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels that could bring desertification, shift monsoons, and raise world sea levels.
De Boer said he did not believe the collapse of the world trade talks last month and an economic slowdown in many rich nations would derail efforts to confront climate change. “Business is still calling for clarity and ambition,” he said. Many industries want to know the long-term rules to decide, for instance, whether to build a coal-fired power plant or a wind farm.

LOUDER VOICE!
He said that the breakdown of the World Trade Organisation talks in Geneva illustrated that developing nations needed a stronger voice in international bodies, such as the U.N. Security Council. {Now That Is A First - Will The Developing Nations That Suffer Because of Climate Change Get a Voice in the UN Security Council? - Good Luck! Those we hope that they will become additional UNSC Permanent Members will get there because of a totally diffeent set of reasons. That is A Sustainable Development.info comment}

“If you are asking major developing countries to engage on a topic like climate change in a serious way, don’t they also deserve a serious place in the governance? I think that’s something to think about,” he said.

The Accra meeting will be the first since the Group of Eight industrialised nations agreed a vision last month of cutting world greenhouse gases by 50 percent by 2050.

De Boer said it was unclear, however, whether the 2050 target would help. He has called 2050 too distant and urged nearer-term goals to force politicians to act now, rather than leave cuts to a future generation.
“In order to know if it’s a help or not I’d need clarity on a couple of things,” he said, saying it was not clear if the vision of halving emissions would be non-binding or a firm goal.

And he noted that the G8 text did not name a base year for cuts — the European Union favours 1990 but Japan wants it to be from current levels.

The base year makes a big difference because world greenhouse gas emissions leapt to 49 billion tonnes in 2004 from 39 billion in 1990, according to the U.N. Climate Panel.

The Kyoto Protocol binds all developed nations except the United States to cut emissions by an average of 5 percent by 2008-12 below 1990 levels. The new deal aims to include all countries in a successor pact that would start from 2013.

– For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/ (Editing by Mary Gabriel)

From:  sniffenj at un.org
Subject: NEWS RELEASE: Biofuels soon to be measured by international standards.
Date: August 13, 2008

forwarding of News Release from: Charlotte Opal
Tel: + 41 21 693 5351
 charlotte.opal at epfl.ch

Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels - An initiative of the EPFL Energy Center.

Ensuring that biofuels deliver on their promise of sustainability - Biofuels soon to be measured by international standards.

300 experts and representatives of the public and private sector have come
together in the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, housed at the EPFL
Energy Center, to develop global norms for the economic, social, and
environmental impacts of biofuels.

LAUSANNE, 13 August 2008 – Are biofuels a panacea or a threat to climate,
food and energy security? While the answer is indeed “it depends”, pundits
so far have not agreed on global criteria to evaluate the positive or
negative impacts of a certain crop, produced in a certain area, processed
in a certain way into a biofuel to be used in a certain place.

However, such diverse constituencies as businesses, academics and
environmentalists seem closer to a previously unlikely agreement about the
economic, social, and environmental sustainability of biofuels. A critical
step was announced today, when the Steering Board of the Roundtable on
Sustainable Biofuels (RSB), an international initiative hosted by the
Energy Centre at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
(EPFL), endorsed the first draft of a global sustainability standard for
biofuels.

The standard is intended to be used by investors, governments,
corporations, and civil society groups to assess the sustainability of
different biofuels. “With all of the mixed messages we hear about biofuels,
there is a clear need for a standard that can differentiate the good from
the bad,” said Claude Martin, chair of the Roundtable and former
Director-General of WWF International. “For an issue of such seminal
importance, it was necessary to bring many different stakeholder groups
together to agree on how to define and measure sustainable biofuels. The
publication of the first draft standard today represents an important
consensus for how we can judge the development of this industry”.

The draft criteria of the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels, developed
through a multi-stakeholder process, are based on a comprehensive “land to
tank” analysis, covering the whole chain of biofuels’ production. ‘Version
Zero’ of the standard will now undergo six months of global stakeholder
consultation for incorporation into what will become Version One to be
released in April, 2009. In person feedback sessions on Version Zero are
being planned in East Asia, Europe, Mozambique, Mali, and throughout the
Americas. “Any interested stakeholder is welcome to attend these meetings
or give feedback online,” explained Charlotte Opal, Head of the RSB
Secretariat. “Our hope is that by February 2009, all interested
stakeholders will have had their chance to influence the criteria”.

Over 300 experts from corporations, civil society groups, academic
institutions and government agencies from nearly 40 countries helped draft
Version Zero of the standard, through
teleconferences, an innovative Wiki format  www.bioenergywiki.net), and
in-person meetings in Switzerland, Brazil, China, India and South Africa.
The standard addresses the major issues of concern regarding biofuels’
production, including their potential contribution to climate change
mitigation and rural development; the protection of land and labor rights;
and their impacts on biodiversity, soil pollution, water availability and
food security. Version Zero can be accessed here:
 http://cgse.epfl.ch/page70341.html
.
The Energy Centre at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne,
EPFL (one of the two federal institutes of technology in Switzerland)
houses the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels.

Steering Board members include, among others, individuals from BP, Bunge,
EPFL, the National Wildlife Federation, the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), Petrobras, Shell, Swiss and Dutch federal agencies, TERI-
India, Toyota, UNICA (the Brazilian sugar producers’ union), the World
Economic Forum (WEF), and the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF)

—————————–

The following members of the Roundtable’s Steering Board can be contacted
for interviews:

Barbara Bramble, National Wildlife Federation, USA +1 202 797 6601
Jean-Philippe Denruyter, WWF International, +1 202 822 3459
Lukas Gutzwiller, Swiss Federal Office of Energy, +41 31 322 56 79
Stephan Herbst, Toyota Motor Europe, +32 2 745 2720 (August 13th and 14th
only)
Marcos Jank or Geraldine Kutas, UNICA – Brazilian Sugar Producers’ Union,
care of Rose Racorti, +55 11 3093-4949,
Jürgen Maier, German NGO Forum, +49 (30) 6781 775 88 or +49 171 383 6135,
Martina Otto, United Nations Environment Programme, +33 (1) 44 37 46 91
Hans-Björn Püttgen, Director, EPFL Energy Center, +41 21 693 2473
Roberto Smeraldi, Amigos da Terra – Amazônia Brasileira, +55 (11) 3887-9369
(August 13th and 14th only)

For more information, please call Charlotte Opal, +41 21 693 5351, or
e-mail her at  charlotte.opal at epfl.ch. The Roundtable’s website is
 http://EnergyCenter.epfl.ch/Biofuels.

***********************************
Jim Sniffen
Information Officer
UN Environment Programme
New York
tel: +1-212-963-8094/8210
 info at nyo.unep.org
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People Fight to Save World’s Deepest Lake.

By MIKE ECKEL, AP, August 10, 2008

filed at AP under: SCIENCE NEWS, WORLD NEWS

BOLSHIYE KOTY, Russia (Aug. 10) - The world’s oldest, deepest and biggest freshwater lake is growing warmer, dirtier and more crowded.
Lyubov Izmestieva is charting these insidious changes. Marina Rikhvanova is fighting them. And the fate of one of the world’s rarest ecosystems, a turquoise jewel set in the vast Siberian taiga, hangs in the balance.
‘A Kind of Red Line for Humanity’

Misha Japaridze, AP

The world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake is under siege. Lake Baikal, a massive body of water in the vast Siberian taiga that’s home to one of the most diverse ecosystems, faces threats ranging from pollution to climate change.

For centuries Lake Baikal has inspired wonder and, more recently, impassioned defenders. With more fresh water than the Great Lakes combined, and home to 1,500 species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world, Baikal has been called Sacred Sea, Pearl of Siberia, Galapagos of Russia.

But these pristine waters, a mile deep in some places, are threatened by polluting factories, a uranium enrichment facility, timber harvesting, and, increasingly, Earth’s warming climate. The struggle has turned nasty, with Rikhvanova, an environmental activist, claiming the authorities even dragooned her own son into a violent attack on her group.
Tourists, most of them newly prosperous Russians, are flocking to the lake, filling the beaches, building vacation dachas and changing the lake’s ecology. Resorts are opening. There are more fishermen, hunters and boaters.
The lake’s significance goes far beyond Russia’s borders; its size and fragility, say environmentalists, makes it a sort of test case for such bodies of fresh water around the world.
“Baikal is the greatest lake in the world. It is a limitless reserve and source for water that all of humanity can drink without any sort of purification,” says Izmestieva, a third-generation biologist. “This is a priceless gift for everyone, whether you live in Bolshiye Koty or Florida … or Kansas.”

Shimmering, crystalline waters lap at the hull of the boat named for Izmestieva’s scientist grandfather, Mikhail Kozhov, as her colleagues sort plastic jugs and glass bottles and prepare for the day’s work.

Lyudmila Ryabenka lowers a plate-sized disc into the rolling waves to measure transparency and quality. Then she winches a cone-shaped net deep into the lake to pull up phytoplankton — tiny plants that are an essential food source for many fish and shellfish. Later, she and another biologist use a glass cylinder to measure water temperature and collect animal plankton samples.

On the return to the ramshackle village of Bolshiye Koty, Ryabenka says the sampling is sometimes tedious. When the boat pitches or the Siberian winter winds howl, it’s even harder. “We say that only romantics do this sort of work.”
But every week to 10 days, four seasons a year, for more than 60 years, Izmestiva’s family and their colleagues has kept at it.

Izmestiva, 56, the gruff-spoken director of Irkutsk State University’s Scientific Research Institute of Biology, is the third generation in her family to do this work. Starting in 1945, her grandfather sailed out onto Baikal’s waters — or trudged out on its ice — to take samples. When he died, Izmestieva’s mother continued the work until her death in 2000. Izmestiva then took over.

Taking the samples became a family ritual, she says. “There’s a kind of work that just has to be done whether you like it or not. … And it’s just worked out that we’re the ones who have to do it.”
The result has been a remarkable trove of data published in the U.S. journal Global Change Biology in an extraordinary paper that concluded Baikal is warming and its food web changing. That echoes other evidence of climate change, including thinning lake ice, arriving later and leaving earlier.

Izmestieva and her colleagues supplement small academic salaries (around $200 a month) consulting for private companies. They store samples in old champagne and vodka bottles. Their work space is the porch of a tired-looking shore-side cabin in Bolshiye Koty.

Now, the university rector wants to rent out the institute’s cabins to tourists. That, Izmestieva says, would likely deprive the scientists of a base from which to monitor the lake’s changing nature.
“No one will do this if we don’t,” she says.
___
Some 20 to 30 million years ago, scientists believe, a rift in the Earth’s crust created Baikal’s 400-mile-long, sickle-shaped basin.
Today the lake near the Mongolian border, 2,600 miles east of Moscow, contains one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, enough to provide Earth’s 7 billion people with six cups of water a day for the next 6,000 years.
It’s a sprawling outdoor laboratory of biological diversity comparable to the rich fauna of the Galapagos Islands. Geologists come to study the formation of the Asian continent. Biologists probe such mysteries as how a lake 1,000 miles inland became home to the world’s only true species of freshwater seals.

Last month two small, manned submarines reached the bottom of the lake with scientists on board to take soil and water samples. The 5,223-foot dive fell just short of setting a world record.

Baikal inspired the Soviet Union’s environmental movement in the 1960s, after Izmestieva’s grandfather and other scientists spoke out against Nikita Khrushchev’s plans to build a pulp and paper factory on its shores.
Today Marina Rikhvanova, who helped found the nonprofit group Baikal Ecological Wave, is still fighting to close the mill, which has created a dead zone miles wide in the lake and may be contaminating the seals.

A few years back her group led protests against a 2,700-mile oil pipeline, part of which would run along the lake’s northern shores. The group’s books were audited by authorities, its computers seized and its phones tapped — retaliation, she says, for fighting the pipeline.

In 2006, then President Vladimir Putin ordered the pipeline rerouted, a rare victory for Russian environmentalists that earned Rikhvanova international accolades. This year she won a prestigious, $150,000 award from the U.S.-based Goldman Foundation.

The 47-year-old former scientist says the victory demonstrates Baikal’s potency as a symbol.

The lake “is an indicator of whether modern man can curb his appetite and preserve what nature has created,” she says, surrounded by shelves of maps, nature guides and scientific papers. “It’s a kind of red line for humanity.”
Now she’s taking on Kremlin plans to build a uranium enrichment facility 60 miles west of the lake, which would produce nuclear fuel. Officials say the project would bring thousands of jobs to this poor region. Environmentalists say it’s a grave mistake that would threaten a natural wonder with radiation.

A year ago Rikhvanova helped organize a tent camp protest not far from the site of the proposed facility. Skinhead nationalists attacked the camp and beat the protesters, one fatally.
Rikhvanova’s son, Pavel, was among the intruders, although he denies hurting anyone. She alleges that authorities set up her son in an effort to embarrass her organization. Prosecutors officials refused to comment. Pavel remains in custody.

Despite her personal pain, she says, she is not about to give up. Baikal is too important. “When you see results from your work, you want to continue,” she says. “You have to persevere.”

***

OTHER World Natural Record-Holders in AP’s posting:

John McConnico, AP

World’s Tallest Mountain: Mount Everest, 29,028 feet above sea level
Location: Himalayan Range, between Tibet and China
Fun Fact: Mount Everest rises a few centimeters each year due to tectonic plate shifts.

Leslie Mazoch, AP

World’s Highest Waterfalls: Angel Falls, 3,230 feet high
Location: Venezuela
Fun Fact: The falls are 15 times taller than Niagara Falls.

Pierre Verdy, AFP / Getty Images

World’s Largest Non-Polar Desert: The Sahara, 3.5 million square miles
Location: Northern Africa
Fun Fact: The Marathon des Sables (”Sand Marathon”), a 6-day endurance race, covers 151 miles of the Sahara desert.

Pilar Olivares, Reuters / Corbis

World’s Deepest Canyon: Cotahuasi Canyon, over two miles deep
Location: Peru
Fun Fact: The Cotahuasi Canyon is over twice as deep as the Grand Canyon.

Alexander Zemlianichenko, AP

World’s Lowest Land Elevation: The Dead Sea Depression, over a quarter-mile below sea level
Location: Between Israel and Jordan
Fun Fact: The Dead Sea is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean, making almost all life in the water impossible.

Statement of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute
August 11, 2008

As you may know, over the weekend, anti-Semitic graffiti was painted on the Lithuanian Jewish Community building at Pylimo 4. The Vilnius Yiddish Institute condemns this vandalism, and expresses it solidarity with Lithuanian Jewish Community’s leadership, staff and members. We urge Lithuania’s Police do their utmost to quickly identify and bring to justice the hateful people who committed this crime.

The Vilnius Yiddish Institute appreciates the strong statements of condemnation from President Adamkus and Prime Minister Kirkilas and urges them to take the steps needed to put an end to anti-Semitic expressions that are injuring democracy in Lithuania and harming Lithuania’s reputation internationally.

Here are the statements from the President and the Prime Minister:

President Valdas Adamkus on Monday, August 11, 2008 stated: “Contempt targeted at the nation which has suffered from genocide is not casual hooliganism. It is a destructive and sordid act against Lithuania as a whole, not only Lithuania’s Jewish community. I underline that there is no, and will never be, room for hatred and instigation of discord in Lithuanian society. I have no doubt the organisers and perpetrators of the act will be identified and punished.

At the time when the traditions of tolerance and respect for human rights are being consolidated in Lithuania and when Lithuania is helping other states to consolidate freedom and democratic values, I consider such dis-reputation of our country a harsh provocation against Lithuania.

I call on all people of Lithuania to be intolerant to the instigation of hatred whatever form it may take. It is only through our joint efforts and strong condemnation of instigation of intolerance that we can create a safe, open and European-like Lithuania of the twenty-first century.”

Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas on Monday, August 11, 2008 stated:

“The Lithuanian Citizens of the Jewish descent had contributed a lot to the making our Homeland famous. The tragedy of the war time Holocaust has to remind everybody how disastrous is policy of racial and ethnic hatred. The so called „patriots“ making antisemitic graffiti on the walls and writing in the internet comments with racist phraseology actually hate Lithuania and make harm to her.”

From:  glen.peters at cicero.uio.no
Subject: Chinese exports and climate change
Date: August 11, 2008

We have just published a new report that quantifies the carbon dioxide emissions from the production of exported products in China. We found that in 2005, one-third of China’s carbon dioxide emissions were due to the production of exports. This proportion has risen quickly, from 12 percent in 1987 and only 21 percent in 2002. These results beg the question of who should be held responsible for China’s immense growth in emissions, and importantly, how to encourage China to take quantified emission limitations in post-2012 climate policy.

The report is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2008.0… (subscription to Energy Policy required).

A report analyzing the changes in Chinese emissions more broadly from 1992 to 2002 can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es070108f (subscription required to Environmental Science and Technology).

—————–

Glen Peters
Senior Research Fellow
Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo (CICERO)
P.O.Box 1129 Blindern
N-0318 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 2285 8780
Cell: +47 9289 1638
Fax: +47 2285 8751
E-mail:  glen.peters at cicero.uio.no