The Difference Between News and Ideas

Sometimes, I get frustrated when I put together these weekly news round-ups for you.

You see, many of the topics that are “news” now, we covered months — and sometimes years — ago… when they were merely ideas.

Take the Chinese cleantech boom, for example, which we’ve been touting since 2007. Back then, we told readers that China would be a clean energy force to reckon with, that their solar companies could produce at lower costs, that their non-democratic government could fast-track project with minimal bureaucratic red tape.

As such, many of our readers have profited handsomely from our Chinese cleantech picks like JA Solar (NASDAQ: JASO), Trina Solar (NYSE: TSL), Hong Kong Highpower (NASDAQ: HPJ), and plenty of others.

But only lately, as the hindsight data is revealed, has the mainstream media jumped on board, with everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times touting China’s cleantech abilities and the United States’ laggard position.

It’s not “news” until it happened.

But the profits are made while it’s happening (… Whatever it is.).

That’s the difference between news and ideas.

You read the news. You profit from ideas… and you usually read them here first.

This Week’s News (And Our Ideas)

So it’s news this week that Japan, South Korea, and China are spending $9 billion on “infrastructure and information technology to make electricity networks more efficient.”

It’s news, according to Reuters, because Zpryme, a market research firm, compile the data and released a report.

But it’s been an idea for the past year, as we constantly reported on the necessity of a smart grid to aid the deployment of renewable resources. Green Chip readers have profited from this idea… others are only now reading the news.

It was also news this week when a Chinese wind turbine maker, A-Power Generation (NASDAQ: APWR), announced it’s building a production plant in Nevada. The plant will have an annual capacity of 1,100 megawatts and create 1,000 long-term jobs.

I guess it was only an idea on February 10, when I ran an article entitled, Chinese Cleantech Companies: Made in the USA (by China), in which I specifically mentioned A-Power and their plans for a U.S. plant.

In the month it took for that story to go from a Green Chip idea to mainstream news, the stock has gone up more than 17%.

In other news this week, German solar installer Phoenix Solar (XETRA: PS4) announced it’s “expecting business in the ongoing first quarter to be significantly better than in the year-earlier period.”

But we’ve been reporting on the German feed-in tariff cuts since last year, and how that would lead to more installations fueled by Chinese-built panels before the subsidies disappeared, i.e, higher business in the first and second quarters.

And finally, it was news this week that China and India signed up to the Copenhagen Accord for fighting climate change, after being lambasted by politicians and the media alike for stymieing the talks last December.

But we’ve been reporting on China’s and India’s ambitious climate energy and energy goals for some time now and how, in many ways, their goals are more ambitious than ours are. In an article entitled The Clean Energy Batter: U.S. vs. China, I reported that China and U.S. actually have similar emissions targets, but China’s are official policy while the U.S.’s are simply White House announcements.

So you couldn’t have known the real story before it hit the wire.

And that’s really the point of Green Chip: To know the market so well that we’re ahead of it. And by reading these pages, you are, too.

Our premium services take that one step further, and help you invest in green trends before others know about them.

We help you invest in the ideas that will be profitable when they become news.

You can read this week’s ideas below.

Call it like you see it,

Nick Hodge
 http://www.greenchipstocks.com

How to Rebuild America: The New Road to Energy Sustainability
In his report “How to Rebuild America,” Editor Chris Nelder writes a letter to Congress on behalf of the American people, asking for a real energy plan…

from:    Marco Grasso <marco.grasso@unimib.it>
date:    Sat, Mar 13, 2010
subject:    New Book on the ethical aspects of adaptation funding

I am writing to announce  a new book series on the ethical aspects of adaptation funding, published by Springer:
Justice in Funding Adaptation under the International Climate Change Regime

 http://www.springer.com/environment/glob…)

Covering the ethical dimensions of international-level adaptation funding, a subject of growing interest in the climate change debate, this book provides a theoretical analysis of the ethical foundations of the UNFCCC regime on adaptation funding, one that culminates in the definition of a framework of justice. The text features an interpretative analysis of the ethical contents of the UNFCCC funding architecture by applying the framework of justice proposed to different areas of empirical investigation.

The book offers scholars working on climate change, international relations, and environmental politics an analysis characterized by both theoretical soundness and empirical richness. The comprehensiveness of the book’s approach should make it possible to plan and implement international adaptation funding more effectively, and eventually to define more just funding policies and practices.

Climate science: a peace-studies lesson.

Involves – Civil society Democracy and government International politics;  global security globalisation;  the politics of climate change.

by Paul Rogers, 11 March 2010. OpenDemocracy from the UK.
 http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-rogers…

The doubters of global warming are emboldened by their new ability – as in the “climategate” affair – to put climate researchers on the defensive. But the experience of comparable assaults on the discipline of peace studies in the 1980s suggests that hostile scrutiny can have longer-term benefits for the target. The author mentions – “The articles in this series try to throw light on recent or current developments in international security. Just occasionally an element of personal experience creeps in. This is one of those.”

The last weeks of 2009 were difficult for the public face of scientific research into global warming. The failure of the climate-change conference in Copenhagen, the identification of minor flaws in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC’s) published documentation, and the exposure of email exchanges centred on the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at England’s University of East Anglia – all raised doubts about those charged with presenting scientific evidence about climate change and renewing efforts to address the phenomenon. In the case of the email affair – given an extra conspiratorial frisson by being called “climategate” – the careful selection of damaging details by an evidently well-resourced group made it possible to erect a narrative of deception that found an uncritical welcome among climate “sceptics” and “deniers”.

Soon after the furore, Associated Press tasked a team to examine 1,073 emails from the CRU material in order to provide an independent view of what had happened. The result showed no evidence that climate change was faked (see “’ClimateGate’ Doesn’t Show Global Warming Was Faked, AP Reports”, Huffington Post, 12 December 2009); but amid a deluge of negative comment this attracted little attention, and the impression persists that the whole case for human-induced climate change has been severely hit.

For many of the researchers involved, the period of late 2009-early 2010 has been traumatic; they may have had to contend with controversy over the years, but this is something outside their experience.

The intensity of the coverage, and the zealotry of many sceptics in pressing their case, stem in part from changing global circumstances. There has long been deep opposition to any international move towards a low-carbon economy, from reasons both ideological (free-market true-believers) and commercial (the more retrograde transnational corporations, especially fossil-fuel companies). There was no great risk of such a move as long as George W Bush was in the White House; but the election of Barack Obama and the prospect of Copenhagen agreeing a successor to the Kyoto protocol made 2009 potentially a dangerous year. In this context, “climategate” has been a gift.

The peace benefit

The lesson of my own experience in the 1980s suggests that the longer-term impact might be rather different from what the architects of this affair intend. I got into working in the field of international security from teaching environmental science and resource-conflict at Huddersfield Polytechnic, west Yorkshire, in the early 1970s (and recently came across some of my thirty-five-year-old lecture notes dealing with rising atmospheric CO² levels!). I moved to Bradford’s department of peace studies at the end of the decade, just as the cold war was entering a particularly tense period; from around 1980 onwards, several of us there saw the need for independent research and writing on nuclear issues.

An early outcome (with co-authors Malcolm Dando and Peter van den Dungen) was a book about the risks and consequences of nuclear war: As Lambs to the Slaughter: The Facts About Nuclear War (1981). It struck a chord; 25,000 copies were sold in a few weeks, and that year around 500,000 people purchased an accompanying leaflet published by the environment group Ecoropa.

As Lambs… was part of a wider body of writings, much of it for an academic rather a general readership. This was the case with A Guide to Nuclear Weapons (1981) which ran to several editions and led eventually to a reference work: The Directory of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms and Disarmament 1990. The core purpose of this writing was to be as accurate as possible; this meant (for example) always analysing Soviet as well as western systems and postures, and having a particular focus on the actual consequences of a nuclear war.

What strikes me in retrospect – and when thinking about the problems that climate scientists now face – is how widely varied were the reactions to our work. Military officers, for example, were actually very interested in it and very ready to engage in intensive debates. I was first invited to lecture at the Royal Air Force staff college in 1982 and have continued frequently to lecture at defence colleges to the present day. Senior civil servants in Britain’s ministry of defence were also willing to discuss our work.

The reaction on the political right – then very much in the ascendancy during Margaret Thatcher’s long premiership (1979-1990) – was very different; it was bitter and sustained opposition to what we were doing. In the Thatcherite view of the world, peace studies was “appeasement studies”, indulgent to official enemies and undermining of the nation’s moral fibre. Many articles and pamphlets were written about the Bradford department’s dangerous and subversive nature; one noble member of the House of Lords (the upper chamber of Britain’s parliament) even described us as a “rest home for urban guerrillas”. Some critics preferred a more personal touch: I was called “Dr Death”, and we regularly got abusive mail (which, on one or two occasions, went as far as death-threats).

It was known that Margaret Thatcher wished “something to be done” about peace studies; but this was politically difficult, since universities still retaine considerable independence (a situation that subsequent governments have done much to redress). than now. But the University Grants Committee (UGC) came under pressure to investigate us and to its credit agreed to do so only if Bradford’s vice-chancellor allowed it; he too was prepared to say yes, but – also to his credit – only if the peace-studies staff gave their consent. We certainly would! What followed was the equivalent of today’s “subject review”. It was thorough and exacting, and the UGC made public its verdict – that the department was maintaining high standards.

That outcome lifted the pressure off peace studies for the rest of the 1980s. With the end of the cold war by the end of the decade, much of the other work our staff and research students already did – on peacekeeping, environmental conflict, and mediation, among other issues – came to the fore; this created the foundation for an expansion of our work in the 1990s.

The landscape after battle

How does this relate to “climategate”? A key factor is that we were exposed to intensive criticism and persistent scrutiny of our work virtually from day one, and this in direct consequence made us hugely aware of the need for very high levels of accuracy and impeccable referencing of sources. Access to a wide range of military and defence journals, and a huge amount of information in the public domain, meant that this was actually not so difficult; but under so much external pressure we learned to be very cautious in our analysis at a time when exaggeration on the issues we addressed was common enough.

Many of us now think that the experience made us better academics. If almost everything you write is going to be exposed to detailed examination by relentless and often politically-motivated critics, then you have to set unusually exacting standards for your work. The likely – and beneficial – implication is that climate researchers who have gone through their own test-by-fire will in future take even greater care over published assessments and analyses.

In many ways we were luckier than today’s climate researchers: for there was an intense focus on our peace-studies work from the very beginning – whereas critics of climate science are able to retrieve work published a decade and more ago, when the issue was far less controversial, in order to pinpoint a minor laxity and use it to great effect to damn the whole enterprise.

The overall effect of the setbacks to climate-science’s public face may amount to the loss of a year in the transition to a low-carbon future, but the good work being done in this area offers many grounds for optimism. The New Economic Foundation’s The Great Transition project, and Tim Jackson’s book Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan 2009) are but two examples. Alongside the evidence that continues to emerge about the accelerating impact of climate change, the flow of impressive research and compelling argument based on even more rigorous standards will ensure that the refusenik stance will in future become harder to make.

In the end, peace studies was made stronger by those who sought to expose it. In a similar way, the travails of climate researchers may well end up reinforcing the integrity of the science and the necessity of the low-carbon transition.

Dear All,

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in partnership with the African Union, is organizing the First Conference of Ministers Responsible for Meteorology in Africa, in order to maximise the potential of weather and climate information for societal benefits.

The Conference will be hosted by the Government of Kenya from 12 to 16 April 2010, in Nairobi.

Journalists are cordially invited to a press conference about this event.

Date and Time: Tuesday 16 March 2010 at 12h00 Venue: Palais des Nations, Room III, Geneva, Switzerland.

—-

Speakers:    Mr Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General, WMO

Mrs Khadija Rachida Masri, Permanent Observer, African Union

Mr Philip Richard Owade, Permanent Representative of Kenya

Ms Shree Badoo Chekitan Servansing, Permanent Representative of Mauritius and Coordinator of the African Group

will be represented at the press conference. Mr Jeremiah Lengoasa, Deputy-Secretary General, and Mr Alioune N’Diaye, Director of the Regional Office for Africa, WMO, will also be present.

Journalists not accredited to the United Nations Office at Geneva but who wish to participate in the press conference are kindly requested to contact Ms Catherine Fegli: tel: +41 22 917 23 13; fax: +41 22 917 00 73; e-mail: cfegli@unog.ch, and visit the following link:

www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B9C2E/(httpPages)/70991F6887C73B2280256EE700379C58?Open

For information about the African Ministerial Conference:

http://www.wmo.int/pages/africaconf/index_en.html

For more information please contact the Communications and Public Affairs Office, WMO

Ms Carine Richard-Van Maele, Chief, Tel: +41 (0)22 730 83 15, E-mail: cpa@wmo.int ,

Ms Marie Heuzé, Special Advisor, Tel: + 41 (0)22 730 84 78, E-mail: mheuze@wmo.int

Ms Gaëlle Sévenier, Press Officer, Tel: +41 (0) 22 730 8417, E-mail: gsevenier@wmo.int

Internet website: http://www.wmo.int

We have posted several articles on yesterday’s UN attempt at staging a non- event.

It really starts with the announcement of a meeting at UN Headquarters in New York, 11:30 am to 1 pm, today, March 11, 2010, with the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the UN. THIS IS A CLOSED MEETING and the announcement in the Journal of the United Nations of yesterday, March 10, 2010, that says having that meeting there it does not imply any opinion or endorsement by the Secretariat of the UN.

The meeting is a Briefing on the sixteenth session of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC – or the COP 16 of December 2010, that the UN thinks should help it extricate itself from the situation left behind by the Copenhagen COP 15. Mexico is the host and it does not want to be the home of a disaster. So that is why the UN hauled in to New York also Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, and Professor Robert Dijkgraaf who as head of the InterAcademy Council (IAC) was asked to arrange for a review of the IPCC scientific procedures – a step very much in need now after the fact that the UN decided to cave in to the criticism from the deniers of the idea that there is soundness in the scientific evidence that CO2 emissions are not good for the health of the planet. At least they want to be able to say that damages have not been caused by humans – so why bother with this climate change effort at all?

OK – now step 2 the Journal announces for March 10, 2010, an official UN Press Conference with Mr. Rajendra Pachauri and Profesor Robbert Dijkgraaf. This announcement sounded to me quite insane. What would be the credibility of the reviewer if he lines up at what could have become in a free society at a hearing on the side of the head of the organization he is suppose to review? This really deserved two question marks. The Netherlands is an advanced State to the attention of the UN.

I was tipped off and decided to call in to  Ms. Isabelle Broyer, Chief of the Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit, as I wanted to get a pass to this Press Conference in order to be able to ask some good questions. As the readers of our website know, I do not hold a Press Pass to the UN since the changes in UN Administration that brought in Mr. Ban Ki-moon who replaced Mr. Sashi Tharoor with Mr. Kiyotaka Akasaka as Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information -  a move that allowed Mr. Ahmad Fawzi, the Director of News and Media Division, to revoke our pass because we did not follow his ways of thinking when it comes to reliance on oil and the essence of sustainable development and problems of global warming/climate change. That was when the job Ms. Broyer holds now was in the hands of Mr. Gary Fowlie who was moved since to another job, and Mr. Fawzi is about to retire at the end of this month also. I thought that Ms. Broyer would show now the courage to correct an evil, but she was not up to this. This caused me to make sure I get the information I was after and I knew that I was on an interesting something when I got the e-mail from Geneva, which I posted, that clearly proved to me that folks from at least two outside agencies do not want to be seen as fall guys for the New York Headquarters.

OK – now step 3 – the Appointments of the Secretary-General for March 10, 2010 include a private meeting at 12:00 pm with Dr. Pachauri followed by a 12:30 pm joint “stake-out” for the benefit of the UN correspondents. A stake-out is a stand-up event where usually the correspondents are allowed to ask questions. In this case – please no questions – just be used as props – please. The event is described in full in the article by Matthew Russell Lee we posted.

As I was at the UN anyway – for a different event – I also learned that there was an adjustment to the Briefings to the Press schedule for the day. Seemingly Professor Dijkgraaf is no push-over to his large credit – he clearly pulled away from joint appearances with those he will be called to investigate, and did not appear at that stake-out, but as the UN is in terrible need to do something on this so called “climate-gate” was given separate Press meeting time at 1 pm.

OK – now step 4 – the output from the Press events of March 10, 2010 include the self-serving “Remarks to Media on IPCC” from the UN Secretary-General that had not the courtesy of allowing questions, and a not-easy-to-get two page document by the uninitiated – “PRESS CONFERENCE ON REVIEW OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE.” This was the document used by Jeffrey Ball in his evaluation for the Wall Street Journal that we also presented.

—————-

The material follows:   http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs//2…

Press Conference on Review of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – March 10, 2010

The aim of an independent review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was to ensure the quality of its future reports, the co-chair of the scientific institute charged with that task said today.

“Our goal will be to assure nations around the world that they will receive sound scientific advice on which Governments and citizens alike can make informed decisions,” Robbert H. Dijkgraaf of the InterAcademy Council said at a Headquarters press conference.

Created by the world’s science academies in 2000, the Council aims to mobilize top scientists and engineers to provide evidence-based advice to international bodies.  IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri announced the review’s establishment amid growing attacks by sceptics following the disclosure that the Panel’s fourth assessment report, which confirmed human responsibility for global warming, contained errors in respect of the pace of the phenomenon.  Mr. Pachauri and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had then asked the InterAcademy Council to lead the independent review.

“Our task is forward-looking,” Mr. Dijkgraaf stressed, explaining that the Council had been asked to form a group that could recommend improved practices and procedures so as to ensure the quality of reports in time to impact the Panel’s fifth assessment, already under way.  That meant that the review and recommendations were required by the end of August 2010, “a very tight schedule”, he said.  Specifically, the review would examine quality control and guidelines for the types of literature appropriate for use in assessments, with special attention to non-peer review literature.  It would also look at the Panel’s procedures for Government review of IPCC materials, its handling of the full range of scientific views and its procedures for correcting errors.

Reviewers had been asked to analyse the entire IPCC process, including management, administration, transparency and the way in which the Panel handled possible errors and communicated them to policymakers and the public, he said.  They would also look at how the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), World Meteorological Association (WMA), the overall United Nations system and other stakeholders related to the Panel, with a view to strengthening assessments and ensuring consistent application of IPCC procedures.  Finally, they would analyse the Panel’s communication strategies to ensure that the public was kept informed of its activities.

Emphasizing the independence of the review, which would be conducted in accordance with the InterAcademy Council’s own procedures, he said neither the IPCC, UNEP, WMA, nor any related bodies, would exercise control over or oversee the review process or the final report.  The international group of experts to be assembled by the Council would serve on an unpaid, voluntary basis in all cases where the group was asked to provide advice on a particular issue, he said, adding that the United Nations would provide funds for travel and other expenses.

All draft reports of the InterAcademy Council underwent an intensive peer-review process by international experts, he said, stressing that a final report was only released to the public when the Council’s Board was satisfied that the subsequent feedback had been thoughtfully considered and incorporated.  In addition, all efforts were made to ensure that reports were free of national or regional biases.

Responding to questions, Mr. Dijkgraaf declined to comment on Mr. Pachauri’s chairmanship of the IPCC or give his own views on climate change and the Panel’s current structure, only reiterating the forward-looking nature of the review to be conducted, and pointing out that continual review was part of all scientific procedures.

Asked how he hoped to find enough scientists for an independent review when the IPCC counted thousands of the world’s top climate scientists in its ranks, he said it would be a delicate task to find the necessary diversity of scientific disciplines and people with experience of large-scale organizations.  It was also important that all involved maintain objective distance from the Panel’s work.

In response to a question as to whether the opinions of climate change sceptics would be included, he said:  “By nature every scientist is a sceptic.”  As for alleged manipulation of data at East Anglia University and various consultancy agreements that had been the subject of controversy, he said certain case studies might be part of the investigations, but the reviewers would certainly look at management and organizational issues.

Questioned further, Mr. Dijkgraaf said the number of experts to be appointed had not yet been determined, though a substantial number was needed to provide diverse expertise.  Hopefully, there would have been progress in determining the Board’s composition by a 22 March meeting.

* *** *

Further, considering that Professor Dijkgraaf expects to have his panel ready by March 22nd, we would like to point out the added importance of the full day meeting at the Earth Institute of Columbia University on March 25th – we posted.

The meeting gets added interest as the UNSG is part of that meeting, and he will be there at the home of serious scientists that may not treat him as kindly as the UN Department of Public Information. We look thus forward to further disclosures specifically that there are scientists that think the IPCC under the Pachauri ledership erred rather on the low side and not on the high side. Others may even be less kind by saying something like that both men – the UNSG and the head of the IPCC – were choices of the G.W. Bush US Administration.

Jeffrey Ball is Environment Editor and Columnist at  The Wall Street Journal. He covers the issues by pulling in the information from its sources and judges the information’s importance to business.

As  the WSJ describes him – “Jeffrey Ball is The Wall Street Journal’s environment editor. His column, “Power Shift,” appears every other Friday in the paper and chronicles the changing energy and environmental landscape.

Mr. Ball has written about energy and the environment for the Journal for a decade, having covered the oil industry from the paper’s Dallas bureau and the auto industry from the Detroit bureau. His reporting focuses on the economic viability of efforts to change the way society consumes fossil fuels.

He helped create Environmental Capital, the Journal’s daily blog on energy and the environment, and he has appeared on networks including PBS, NPR, CNN and the BBC. Before coming to the Journal in 1996, he worked as a reporter for the Charlotte (N.C) Observer and the Corpus Christi (TX) Caller-Times.

He graduated in 1990 from Yale University, where he majored in history and was editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News.           He lives in Dallas with his wife and two daughters.”

We write the above because we were impressed. – He is a good journalist – he caught on to the implications to business of the uncertainty created by the push against Climate Science and the need to clear up that uncertainty.

He published:

Climate Panel Vows Better Oversight on Research - WSJ.com
Feb 24, 2010 … Write to Jeffrey Ball at  jeffrey.ball at wsj.com …
 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424… We are not sure he was there, but he cut through the nonsense and came up with the essence. We have him take the stage on our website.

Climate Panel Details Its Review Plan: U.N. Appoints Another Global Science Body to Investigate Problems in Now-Controversial 2007 Report on Warming Trend.

By JEFFREY BALL, The Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2010.

The United Nations detailed its plans for an outside review of its beleaguered panel on climate change, amid political reverberations as critics and advocates each jockeyed to use the announcement to their advantage.

The InterAcademy Council, a body representing scientific academies around the world, is to conduct a wide-ranging review of the procedures and management of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The review, to be done by August, comes in response to revelations of questionable behavior and factual errors by some scientists who contributed to the IPCC’s 2007 report, which won a Nobel Peace Prize.

The report called climate change “unequivocal” and “very likely” caused by emissions from human activity.

Robbert Dijkgraaf, co-chair of the InterAcademy Council, said in an interview that a particularly delicate task will be to pick who participates in the review. The council needs people who have knowledge of climate science but aren’t too close to the IPCC: “Clearly you cannot be the reviewer and the reviewed at the same time,” he said. But people involved in previous IPCC reports could serve on the review committee, he said.

The council was set up in 2000 to advise international institutions such as the U.N. and the World Bank. The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, participated in a previous council report on energy issues, but Mr. Dijkgraaf said that wouldn’t compromise the council’s objectivity.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made climate change one of the top priorities of his tenure. Mr. Ban took no questions Wednesday and didn’t directly address trhe future of Mr. Pachauri, who has faced calls to resign. But the two stood together at the U.N. podium and Mr. Ban was supportive.

“Regrettably, there were a very small number of errors” in the panel’s 2007 report, Mr. Ban said. “Remember, this is a 3,000-page synthesis of complex scientific data. I have seen no credible evidence that challenges the main conclusions of that report.” In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Pachauri said he would “certainly not” resign.

Critics of proposed greenhouse-gas regulations in the U.S. have begun using questions about the IPCC as their latest ammunition. Peabody Energy Co., one of the country’s major coal producers, filed a petition last month with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s move to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions because it relies on IPCC determinations.

The EPA said in a statement that it is confident its move will withstand legal challenge. “The question of the science is settled,” the agency said.

The IPCC expressed “regret” earlier this year that its 2007 report erroneously claimed that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The report also said inaccurately that about half of the Netherlands sits below sea level. IPCC leaders, including Mr. Pachauri, say an independent review is needed to try to restore public confidence in the panel.

The InterAcademy Council’s board is likely to elect members to its review committee on March 22, Mr. Dijkgraaf said. He said the committee probably will include some people who have little exposure to climate science, but have expertise in issues such as quality control of data and use of non-peer-reviewed literature. The report will go through the council’s board, which consists largely of presidents of national science academies.

“Scientific reputations will rest on this, and if it can be shown the science was sloppy, their stars will fall,” said scientific ethicist Thomas M. Powers, director of the Science, Ethics, and Public Policy Program at the University of Delaware, speaking of those involved in the IPCC report. “Apart from divining rods, the best we can do is get the smartest people in the world, the people who know science, and ask them to review their peers.”

Environmentalists said that they hoped the review would quiet criticism of the IPCC. It should “restore public confidence that has been shaken by an aggressive campaign to sow confusion about climate science,” said a statement by Peter Frumhoff, who helped to write the 2007 report and is director of science and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, who is among those calling for Mr. Pachauri’s resignation, on Wednesday said that the U.S. “cannot afford to continue to base our energy and environmental policies on contaminated U.N. data.”

The InterAcademy Council will probe, among other things, the IPCC’s guidelines for using non-peer-reviewed literature in its reports, how to ensure the IPCC considers a “full range of scientific views,” and how it corrects any errors in its reports once detected, Mr. Dijkgraaf said, The council also will “look at the management of the IPCC,” he said.

Neither the U.N. nor the IPCC will “exercise any control” over the study by the InterAcademy Council, Mr. Dijkgraaf said.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A10.

Have Fuel Cells Finally Turned the Corner?
Now by Darren O’Dowd, Manager, Smart Grid, March 10, 2010.
Sunnyvale, California-based Bloom Energy, founded in 2001, was one of the feature stories on the February 21 edition of CBS Television’s “60 Minutes.” The subject of the story was the public unveiling of the Energy Server™, which is refrigerator-sized generating units containing solid oxide fuel cells. Bloom Energy claims that this type of advanced fuel cell holds greater potential for real distributed generation applications than its predecessors due to its use of lower cost ceramic materials as well as due to a breakthrough in engineering design challenges that previously hindered the development of solid oxide fuel cells.

The Energy Server™, according to the Bloom Energy web site, is “fuel flexible,” able to run on Natural Gas, or on renewable bio-fuels. Each one has a generation capacity of 100 kilowatts (kW), and the servers can be deployed modularly to provide greater generation capacity if needed (a Bloom Energy press release from February 24 details modular deployments of 400 kW and two deployments of 500 kW).

One of the most unique and remarkable elements of this public “debut” is that it is nothing of the sort from a production and operational standpoint. Bloom Energy, on its web site and in press releases, already counts such prominent companies as Bank of America, Coca-Cola, eBay, FedEx, Google, Staples, and Walmart as its customers with already installed and operating servers. Among the uses cited for the Energy Servers™ are replacements for on-site diesel generators (typically for back up or peak time period generation) and replacement of traditional grid-delivered power, including for the purpose of reducing these companies’ respective greenhouse gas emissions/carbon footprints through the use of bio-gas as fuel.

However, amid the hype and buzz generated from the “60 Minutes” story and subsequent public unveiling of the Energy Server™ on February 24th, many questions remain as to whether or not this new offering is the “game-changer” that, to date, in regard to fuel cells, has been more promise than delivery. The Energy Server™ was developed largely in secret since Bloom Energy’s founding in 2001, with no substantive information on the product coming from the company until last month’s public coming-out party. Bloom Energy’s headquarters are a non-descript office building in Sunnyvale with no signage indicating their presence there.

Furthermore, while most often such new technologies are tested in cooperation/collaboration with the utility industry, Bloom Energy chose not to do so with the Energy Server™ at least not that is publicly known. A representative from The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) declined specific comment to a blog posting for the Wall Street Journal, indicating that, “we haven’t had access to it.” Therefore it is unclear how the server will function if interconnected to the grid in a net-metering scenario (similar to what’s happening now in many jurisdictions with smaller Solar PV distributed generation). It’s also unclear how exactly the Energy Server™ would function in residential areas, as its capacity would dictate its deployment at the sub-station level.

Finally, there are many questions as to the specific costs associated with obtaining and operating the Energy Server™. Bloom Power’s web site mentions a 3-5 year payback model on owning the server, but the company has not publicly gone into any further detail on the costs of ownership. Any deployment at a “utility level” will likely attract the attention of and possibly require the approval of regulators, at which point the cost in comparison to other generation resources, renewable or otherwise, will come into play.

Despite these (and probably others not explored here) open questions, Bloom Energy and the Energy Server™ merit our industry’s interest and attention going forward. The fact that they have a deliverable product already being used in the market speaks volumes as to how far fuel cells have come from promise to reality.

———–

We think that the questions in above article are basically irrelevant – this because we hope the Bloom-boxes will develop a new decentralized market that is not based on the grid. In our best dreams we envision them make the grid itself a thing of the past – so that the present investment push for smart grid will have to be reconsidered.

Actually we expected to get this information in New York, and we were looking forward to pose questions to the presenters – but as the New York UN Headquarters do not seem to be eager to deal with climate change as if it were the grown up subject that it is, we are happy to get the following release that originated with the IPCC offices in Geneva – while the two remaining main Climate UN officials – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri where at the stand-up show as reported by UN accredited journalist Matthew Russell Lee and we reported earlier today.

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Scientific Academy to Conduct Independent Review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Processes and Procedures at Request of United Nations and IPCC.

Geneva, Switzerland – March 10, 2010 – The United Nations Secretary General and the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced today that they asked the  InterAcademy Council (IAC) to conduct an independent review of the IPCC’s processes and procedures to further strengthen the quality of the Panel’s reports on climate change.  The IAC is the umbrella organization for various national academies of science from countries around the world.

The review will examine every aspect of how the IPCC’s reports are prepared, including the use of non-peer reviewed literature and the reflection of diverse viewpoints. The review will also examine institutional aspects, including management functions as well as the panel’s procedures for communicating its findings with the public.

“The IPCC’s mandate is to provide objective scientific assessments for decision-makers,” said IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, Ph.D. “The IPCC stands firmly behind the rigor and reliability of its Fourth Assessment Report from 2007, but we recognize that we can improve.  We have listened and learned from our critics, and we intend to take every action we can to ensure that our reports are as robust as possible.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Dr. Pachauri formally requested the IAC to conduct the review after the proposal to carry out the review was communicated to IPCC member governments. The decision to engage the IAC was supported by the Executive Director of UNEP and the Secretary General of WMO.

“I am very grateful to the Secretary General’s unwavering support, not only in jointly requesting the IAC to undertake this review, but for his steadfast support of the IPCC and climate change science,” Dr. Pachauri said.

Christopher Field, Ph.D., Co-chair of IPCC Working Group II, said: “We expect the recommendations from the IAC’s review to inform how the IPCC prepares its fifth major assessment of global climate change, due to be published in 2013-2014.  Meanwhile, the conclusions from the IPCC’s 2007 report remain entirely valid: The climate is changing due to human activity, and the effects are already being felt around the globe. If anything, more recent data indicate that the IPCC’s 2007 assessment underestimated the degree to which human activity is changing our climate.”

Dr. Field is also founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and faculty director of Stanford’s Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve.

The review will be led by the IAC co-chairs Robbert Dijkgraaf, Ph.D., president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, and Professor Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  The IAC will conduct its work independently according to its procedures for carrying out expert studies.  The international experts who serve on IAC studies are not paid for their participation and are pro bono volunteers.

A copy of the IPCC’s correspondence to the IAC requesting the review and outlining the scope of work can be found at www.ipcc.ch.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change:
The IPCC is an interdisciplinary and intergovernmental body comprised of more than 190 participating countries.  It mobilizes scientific experts from around the world to carry out assessments of global climate science based on the available relevant literature.

Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the IPCC reports without receiving payment for their work.  The members of the IPCC Bureau, including the IPCC Chair, serve in their expert capacity and are not paid by the IPCC. Rigorous review is an essential part of the process, broadening the set of individuals contributing and ensuring an objective and comprehensive assessment of current information.

For the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, released in 2007, 450 scientists from 130 countries served as lead authors.  Another 800 served as contributing authors.  More than 2,500 experts provided more than 90,000 review comments.

The InterAcademy Council:
The 18-member InterAcademy Council Board is composed of presidents of 15 academies of science and equivalent organizations representing Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

It also includes the African Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) as well as representatives of the InterAcademy Panel (IAP) of scientific academies, the International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences (CAETS), and the InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAMP) of medical academies.

The IAC Secretariat is hosted by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Amsterdam.

Contacts:
IPCC Secretariat
Tel: +41 22 730 8208/8254/8284
Fax: +41 22 730 8025/8013
Email:  IPCC-Media at wmo.int
Website: http://www.ipcc.ch

At UN, Ban and Pachauri Take No Questions on IPCC and Outside Income, Transparency Charade.

By Matthew Russell Lee
 http://www.innercitypress.com/ipcc2pacha…

UNITED NATIONS, March 10, 2010 — Seeking to dampen controversies about the Inter governmental Panel on Climate Change’s use of NGO press releases as science and about IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri’s outside income from sources like Deutsche Bank, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Pachauri “encountered” the Press on Wednesday.

It was a one way encounter. Each man made a statement, each praising the other and the IPCC — and then they left the stakeout, taking not a single question. Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe was left telling reporters, no questions, no questions. Video here.

The UN press corps was essentially used as a prop or as extras, to make it appear to viewers not paying attention that this was a legitimate press conference or Q&A. In fact, as put by one climate change activist, this was mere propaganda, like “something out of North Korea.”

Or perhaps Tiger Woods is the more apt analogy, given the “racy” novel recently published by Mr. Pachauri, another correspondent noted, in which an aging Indian scientist flies around the world bedding young followers.

Back on December 21, Inner City Press asked Ban about Pachauri’s presumptive financial conflicts of interest and failure to disclose, but Mr. Ban did not answer the question.

UN’s Ban and Pachauri at photo op, no questions allowed

Later, Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said that Ban did not have to respond to the controversies surrounding the IPCC, and that Pachauri would answer questions himself.

On Wednesday, Pachauri did not allow or answer any questions, and neither did Ban Ki-moon. What was first advertised as a sit down press conference at 12:30 was converted into a stand up stakeout from which the two men left immediately after speaking. So much for transparency.

Footnote: while refusing to take or answer questions in supposed press encounters, the UN is holding two separate events for journalists in the next five days. Inner City Press will not be present at the first, but may report on the second, unless questions are taken and answered before then.

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So, the UN Department of Dis-Information seems bound to lose the few remaining good journalists they did not yet evict from the UN DPI briefings. What they are left with is the handpicked journalists that could not care less about climate change or true sustainable development, and can be trusted that they will never ask questions on such refined issues as refined oil used to feed global warming and the coffers of UN officials’ preferred nations.

See, while we waste our time trying to get the chance to ask questions of importance, some of those who are allowed to attend get mad because of the way the UN sifts out the unpleasant news. With the whole climate subject under attack, and the UNFCCC Chief leaving his post, as he really does not want to become the sacrificial lamb for UN lack of honest interest of the subject as proven in those past bombastic statements of “Seal the Deal” when there was no deal, now a Press Briefing that was supposed to provide an opportunity for the Press to question the newly appointed Scientific Review panel of the IPCC reports, is turned instead into above non-event that seemed to have had its only justification in the praise-the-leader game.

As we spent part of the day investigating the whereabouts of those announced briefings to the press, we fill follow up with our own articles on the subject. Thanks our readers for your interest.

EU Climate Chief delivers Treaty blow.

by Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
8th March 2010
 http://crazationsice.blogspot.com/2010/0…

The world will almost certainly fail to draw up a new treaty on climate change this year, the minister in charge of last year’s Copenhagen summit has admitted, delivering a heavy blow to the barely flickering hopes for a swift global settlement.

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister who masterminded the summit of world leaders on global warming last year and is now the European commissioner for climate change, told the Financial Times negotiations were not progressing fast enough for a treaty to be signed soon.

She also gave warning that pushing too hard for a treaty this year could be counterproductive.

“To get every detail set in the next nine months looks very difficult,” she said. “Europe would love that to happen, and I would love that to happen . . . but my feeling is that it is going to be very difficult to get a treaty.”

Her pessimism echoed that of the outgoing United Nations climate change chief, Yvo de Boer. He told the FT as he resigned last month after four years of seeking an agreement that he could not see a treaty being signed this year.

The admission also comes against the backdrop of a resurgence of climate change scepticism, fuelled by a series of mistakes made by scientists that have encouraged many politicians to oppose emissions regulation.

Governments had been hoping to forge a final treaty at a global conference this December in Mexico, after failing to do so in Copenhagen.

However, Ms Hedegaard said this was more likely to happen at a follow-up meeting next year in South Africa.

That would still allow governments to meet their self-imposed deadline of forging a new agreement before the end of 2012, when the current provisions of the world’s only existing treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, the 1997 Kyoto protocol, expire.

Ms Hedegaard robustly defended the Copenhagen summit, which attracted loud criticism, especially for the chaotic way in which it finished.

She said that calling world leaders to the long-running negotiations had ensured rapid progress towards the end, when for the first time developed and developing countries mutually agreed limits on their emissions.

But she said there would not be another Copenhagen-style summit. “You can do such a thing one time,” she said.

The price of failure, if diplomats attempted to force an agreement this year, was too high, Ms Hedegaard said.

“People would say let’s skip that idea, let’s skip the UN thing,” she said.

She also defended climate scientists, saying the handful of flaws in the 2007 report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the e-mails in which scientists talked of concealing data did not affect the large body of scientific evidence amassed over decades.

The UN climate talks have been going on since 1992, when world governments signed the first legally binding treaty aimed at avoiding dangerous levels of climate change. The Kyoto protocol failed because it did not impose obligations on developing countries and was rejected by the US.

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Connie Hedegaard: Statement of CONNIE HEDEGAARD, European Commissioner for Climate Action, on the creation of the Directorate-General CLIMATE “The DG CLIMATE has been created …
ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/hedegaard/index_en.htm

The U.N. Men’s Club

Why are women being left out of climate decision-making?

We picked up some ideas from Katie McCaskey of an aol blog – http://www.housingwatch.com/2010/02/19/kill-your-lawn-earn-some-green/

Katie pointed out that Southern California residents have  now further good financial reasons for doing sane things and rip out their water-wasting turf – did you hear that they will get even a check in the mail?

These programs were instituted by Southern California utilities because of water shortage and above triggered my memory of things past that occured when I tried to do sane things in New York State and found that one must bow to the conventional narrow minds running the system.

In Southern California homeowners are now required to replace grass with drought-tolerant, native plant species or install permeable surfaces which filter water back into the ground. Common permeable surfaces that are allowed include:  flagstone, brick, and gravel. The rebate is $1 per square foot, up to a maximum of 2,000 feet.

Cyberhomes blogger Marcie Geffner writes:
The rebate might not be enough to persuade homeowners who really love their lawns. But for me, the offer was a no-brainer as I wanted to replace my big boring lawns with flagstone walkways, cactus and other plants that are more natural to the climate, if not necessarily native.

Other water-saving rebates available through LADWP include incentives to replace toilets and clothes washers with high-efficiency models, timer controlled irrigation, and pressure-reduced sprinkler nozzles. If you’re willing, there is even a rebate for installing synthetic turf.

Kathie McCaskey suggests – “Check with your local utility company or DSIRE.org to see what environmentally-conscious rebates are available in your area.”

Building on the success of Kyoto’s market mechanisms.
by John Kilani, Director of the Sustainable Development Mechanisms programme in the UNFCCC secretariat, Bonn, Germany. In the UNFCCC Newsletter of March 2010 – The first UNFCCC Newsletter since Copenhagen.
Parties are still taking stock of the outcome in Copenhagen, but what Parties have said so far, together with the success of the mechanisms themselves, suggests an expanded role for market-based approaches in the international response to climate change. In-Focus spoke with the UNFCCC secretariat’s John Kilani to get his views on where the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) stand post Copenhagen.

Has the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism met the goal for which it was designed?
Yes. There are now more than 2050 registered CDM projects in 62 countries – everything from community electrification, to landfill gas capture, to industrial chemical projects, destroying extremely potent greenhouse gases. Of these projects, more than a third transfer climate-friendly technologies to developing countries.

We’ve just concluded the second year of a five-year commitment period and already more than 367 million certified emission reductions have been issued to some 640 projects. That’s equivalent to 367 million tonnes of CO2.

A question asked by stakeholders for the past several years, perhaps since CDM began, is “What will happen to CDM at the end of the first commitment period?”

Stakeholders are right to ask that question. The carbon market and the project-based mechanisms – the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation – exist because of a political decision by Parties to reduce emissions. Stakeholders are looking for signs that the market will continue when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012. They are finding those signs in various places.

To name a few, they see that the European Emissions Trading Scheme is open-ended, that it will exist beyond 2012; they see the growing interest in market-based approaches elsewhere; they see continuing, strong interest in the mechanisms in developed and developing countries alike; and then there is the commitment, even pressure, from the private sector, together with the strong interest in voluntary offset schemes. And, most significantly, people see climate change as a critical issue that will not go away without concerted, sustained, long-term action.

Since Copenhagen, some 102 Parties have confirmed their intentions to take action on climate change, some in very detailed, specific terms. These countries account for over 80% of global, energy-related CO2 emissions.

The other project-based mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol, Joint Implementation, has been lagging behind the CDM. Will 2010 be the year that JI takes off?

Parties gave CDM a so-called “quick start”, so it’s true that CDM is much farther along in terms of number of projects. However, there are signs that JI is catching on. There are now 17 projects in three countries eligible to earn emission reduction units under so-called JI Track 2, those projects vetted by the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee. Many dozens more are ready to go, and are awaiting the official go-ahead from countries. Although it’s difficult to predict whether this year will be the break-out year for JI, the signals since Copenhagen have been positive.

Joint Implementation is a useful, unique tool for incentivizing investment in areas of an economy where otherwise there would be little or no incentive. Once countries see the value of the tool, and decide the best way to make use of the tool, I think we will see a vast increase in JI activity. Our challenge then will be to handle the volume of projects. But that would be a good problem to have.

Copenhagen concluded with Parties taking note of an accord calling for the limiting of temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius and calling for tens of billions of dollars to be directed at the climate change challenge. What does the Copenhagen outcome mean for the mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol?

The Copenhagen Accord doesn’t speak directly to the mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol, but it does refer to various approaches, including opportunities to use markets, to enhance cost-effectiveness and promote mitigation actions. It says that developing countries, especially those with low emitting economies, should be provided incentives to continue to develop on a low emission pathway.

This supports what Parties have said previously. They have explicitly endorsed the continuation of market mechanisms to mitigate climate change and generate funds for adaptation to climate change.

In the broader sense, the Accord addresses the essential elements of an international response to climate change. Parties have noted the importance of limiting global warming, and they have noted the large sums that will be needed to address climate change. These two elements are linked fundamentally to the carbon market and the project-based mechanisms.

The carbon market and the mechanisms exist because Parties made a commitment to reduce emissions, thus giving the right to emit a value, and because Parties saw the benefits of using market-based approaches to, among other things, mobilize the vast sums necessary to address climate change.

Aside from the Copenhagen Accord, Parties in Copenhagen did take important decisions on the mechanisms which provide further guidance to the CDM Executive Board and the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee. The decision relating to the CDM contains specific mandates on how to improve the mechanism.

You mention that Parties took a decision in Copenhagen relating to the Clean Development Mechanism. What are the key features of that decision?

The biggest single element of that decision grants the CDM Executive Board, the body that oversees the mechanism, the flexibility to make changes to the CDM’s registration and issuance procedures. In other words, the Board can take a hard look at all of the procedures and related timelines and make any improvements that they see fit, based on the experience gained in implementing the mechanism to date. This could greatly quicken the process for stakeholders.

The Parties have also allowed for the allocation of financial resources to assist in the development of projects in countries with fewer than 10 projects. This could help extend and expand the benefits of the CDM.

Several other elements of the decision respond directly to requests made by stakeholders, such as the establishment of procedures for stakeholders to appeal decisions, and enhanced support to Designated National Authorities in the form of training and information sharing.

It’s important to note that virtually all of the requests made by Parties in their decision taken in Copenhagen were recommended by the CDM Executive Board. The CDM is continually evolving and improving, based on experience. The Copenhagen decision was a continuation of that process of evolution and improvement.

Where do you see the mechanisms in 10 years?

I see growing awareness about climate change and growing action to address it. Action to mitigate climate change, and address its effects, will require resources, it will require participation by the private sector, and it will take a global response. For these reasons I see a growing role for carbon markets and market-based mechanisms like the CDM and JI. Parties have said virtually the same thing, so my prediction is really a restatement of what Parties have said on the subject. The market mechanisms will continue to scale up, evolve and improve.

from:     sniakan at worldbank.org

date:    Thu, Feb 25, 2010
subject:    World Bank participates in the Africa Carbon Forum

Africa Carbon Forum – March 3-5, Nairobi, Kenya

The World Bank Group is pleased to support the Africa Carbon Forum taking place in Gigiri, right outside Nairobi on March 3-5. Bank staff will be participating in a number of plenary sessions as well as side events.
Furthermore, a press conference will be held on March 3, briefing media on the recently registered Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project. The press conference will take place at 1pm in the UNEP Press Room (Lower Library) in Gigiri – that is the location of the UNEP headqarters near Nairobi. Transportation from downtown Nairobi will be provided.

The Humbo Assisted Natural Regeneration Project is located in Ethiopia and is Africa’s first large-scale forestry project under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It was recently registered under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The project, developed by World Vision, brings both economic and social benefits to poor communities in Ethiopia as well as environmental benefits, cutting an estimated 880,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 30 years. The future sales of carbon credits will bring more than US$700,000 to the local communities over ten years.

At the press conference, the National Director of World Vision Ethiopia, Mrs. Tenagne Lemma, will present the project together with Ms. Ellysar Baroudy, the manager of the World Bank’s BioCarbon Fund, which is purchasing a share of the carbon credits generated by this project.

For more information, please contact sniakan@worldbank.org by email.

For more information on the World Bank BioCarbon Fund, please see: http://wbcarbonfinance.org/Router.cfm?Pa…

For more information on World Vision, please see: http://www.wvi.org/wvi/wviweb.nsf

For more information on and registration for the Africa Carbon Forum, please see their website: http://www.africacarbonforum.com/2009/en…. Registration is free.

_______________________________________________
Isabel Hagbrink
Senior Communications Officer
Carbon Finance Unit
Environment Department, The World Bank Group
1818 H Street, NW, Washington D.C. 20433

Tel : 202 458 0422 Fax : 202 522 7432
email :  ihagbrink at worldbank.org
Web : www.CarbonFinance.org (See attached file: Africa Carbon Forum Events Booklet external.pdf)

from:   CPA <ipa@wmo.int>
date    Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:26 AM
subject    High-Level Task Force for Climate Services Starts Work at WMO

The first meeting of the High-Level Taskforce for climate services selected Jan Egeland of Norway and Mahmoud Abu-Zeid of Egypt as co-chairs.  The High Level Taskforce of independent advisers, which the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, was requested by a decision of the World Climate Conference-3 to establish a Global Framework for Climate Services (GFCS), is meeting on 25-26 February, at the WMO Headquarters in Geneva.

Please find attached the press release “High-Level Task Force for Climate Services Starts Work at WMO”.

More information: www.wmo.int

Best regards,

Communications and Public Affairs
Tel: + 41 22 730 83 14
Fax: + 41 22 730 80 27

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Jan Egeland is an excellent choice – we know him from the UN where he had many past involvements and we know for shure that he was one of those that when in Sudan on efforts regarding Darfur, was ready to look at climate change impact on the evolving atrocities.   was the United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator from June 2003 to December 2006 under UN  Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He traveled extensively, drawing attention to humanitarian emergencies.

In UN fashion – he was balanced out with a representative of the Arab world who has a background in water engineering – so at least there will be a link of climate change and growing water shortage in arid and semi-arid lands. Abu-Zeid is Egyptian Water Minister active on global water problems and has Saudi Arabian support.

http://engineering.ucdavis.edu/pages/about/profiles/abu-zeid.html

UNEP NEWS

World Environment Ministers Signal Resolve to Realize Sustainable Development.

Accelerating a Green Economy to Cooperative Action to Protect Human Health and Combat Climate Change Gets Support at Bali Meeting.

11 th Special Session of the UN Environment Programme’s Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum

Bali, 26 February 2010 – In the first landmark Declaration issued by ministers of the environment in a decade, Governments pledged to step up the global response to the major environmental and sustainability challenges of this generation.

The wide-ranging Nusa Dua Declaration, agreed today in the closing session of the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum, underlines the vital importance of biodiversity, the urgent need to combat climate change and work towards a good outcome in Mexico later in the year and the key opportunities from accelerating a transition to a low-carbon resource-efficient Green Economy.

The statement also highlights the need to improve the overall management of the global environment, accepting that that “governance architecture” has in many ways become too complex and fragmented.

An important step forward was made earlier in the week in the areas of chemicals, hazardous wastes and human health. Governments agreed at an Extraordinary Meeting to have more cooperative action by the three relevant treaties–the Basel , Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions — as a first step to boosting their delivery within countries.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “The ministers responsible for the environment, meeting just over a month after the climate change conference in Copenhagen , have spoken with a clear, united and unequivocal voice.”

“Faced with the continued erosion of the natural environment, the persistent and emerging challenges of chemical pollution and wastes and the overarching challenge of issues such as climate change, the status quo is not an option and change is urgently needed”, he added.

“This change starts with recognition that the way we are managing the environmental dimension of sustainable development is currently too complex and fragmented. Change is needed here and the ministers signaled their determination to realize this through a political process”, said Mr. Steiner.

“But the ministers also recognized that action towards a Green Economy –one able to meet multiple challenges and seize multiple opportunities– is taking route in economies across the globe. Accelerating this is a key element of the Nusa Dua Declaration and one that can direct future action towards realizing the kinds of transitions needed on a planet of 6 billion people, rising to 9 billion by 2050”, he added.

The Declaration, the first by world environment ministers since they met in Malmö , Sweden in 2000, will be transmitted to the UN General Assembly later this year.

There Governments will begin preparations for a landmark conference in Brazil , known as ” Rio plus 20″.

“Rio plus 20″ comes two decades after the first Rio Earth Summit, which gave birth to many of the key treaties, ranging from climate change to biodiversity, which to date   have defined the international response to environmental challenges.

Green Economy
Case studies, illuminating the multiple benefits of a Green Economy, were presented to delegates in advance of a landmark Green Economy report to be released later this year.

Uganda
The area of land under organic agriculture has risen from 185,000 hectares in 2004 to close to 300,000 hectares in 2008, with a 360 per cent rise in the number of farmers engaged in the sector – from 45,000 certified farmers to 207,000.
Certified organic exports have risen from US$3.7 million in 2003-2004 to US$22.8 million in 2007-2008.

The country is also contributing to combating climate change. C02 emissions per hectare are up to 68 per cent less than on conventionally farmed land, with studies indicating that organic fields sequester 3-8 tonnes more carbon per hectare.

China
More than 10 per cent of Chinese households rely on the sun to heat their water, with more than 40 million solar water-heating systems in place.
The renewable energy sector as a whole generates output worth US$17 billion and employs 1 million workers, of which 600,000 are employed in solar thermal panel making and installing products, such as solar water heaters.

The warm water from solar water heaters is also reducing rheumatoid arthritis among women as they now have hot water for laundry and dishwashing done by hand instead of only cold water.

Brazil
The city of Curitiba has, through sustainable urban planning and transport, cut per capita loss from severe congestion. It is about 6.7 and 11 times less than per capita losses in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo .
In 2002, Curitiba ’s annual fuel losses from severe traffic congestion equaled R$1.98 million (US$930,000). On per capita terms, this loss is about 13 times and 4.3 times less than those in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro .

Curitiba ’s fuel usage is also 30 per cent lower than in Brazil ’s other major cities.
Other Highlights of the UNEP GC/GMEF

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The delegates were addressed by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC which is co- hosted by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Ministers reaffirmed the central importance of the IPCC and the importance of sound science upon which to base a response to climate change.

However, as a result of recent criticism of the IPCC and some key errors in the body’s Fourth Assessment Report, several Governments called for an independent review of the IPCC.

Full details of the review and its scope will be announced next week with the report to be presented to the IPCC Plenary taking place in the Republic of Korea in October.

Several key decisions were adopted, including ones on oceans put forward by the Government of Indonesia and strengthening the environment via the Environment Management Group which UNEP hosts.

Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)
Many experts believe a science panel or platform for biodiversity and ecosystems is needed to assist Governments in combating the erosion of plants and animals and ecosystems such as forests, freshwaters and soils.

Governments agreed to a final meeting in June 2010, halfway through the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity, to decide whether to establish such a body.

Haiti
Delegates also backed UNEP’s support to Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquake of 12 January 2010 and called on the organization to assist the UN country team to incorporate environmental issues in the rehabilitation and reconstruction and restoration phases.

Gaza – { without Arab world politics there is no meeting at a  UN enclave . }
Delegates asked UNEP to assist in implementing recommendations from its environmental assessment of the Gaza Strip compiled following the escalation of hostilities in December 2008 through to January 2009.
The assessment covers issues such as solid waste management, pollution and the acute decline of Gaza ’s underground water supplies.

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For the full list of decisions and the full text of the Nusa Dua Declaration please go to http://www.unep.org/gc/gcss-xi/

For more information, please contact:
Nick Nuttall, Spokesperson/ Head of Media, Office of the Executive Director, UNEP, Tel: +254-733-632-755, E-mail:  nick.nuttall at unep.org

Jim Sniffen
Programme Officer
UN Environment Programme
New York
tel: +1-212-963-8094/8210
 info at nyo.unep.org
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WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

A SPECIALIZED AGENCY OF THE UNITED NATIONS

___________________________________________

INVITATION TO THE MEDIA

WMO PRESS CONFERENCE
Date and time:          Friday 26 February, 11:45 am

Subject: First meeting of the High-Level Taskforce for the Global Framework for   Climate Services

Speakers:  Mr Michel Jarraud, WMO Secretary-General, with Members from the High-Level Taskforce

Venue: WMO Headquarters, Room B

7 bis, Avenue de la Paix, Geneva, Switzerland

BACKGROUND:
In September 2009, World Climate Conference-3 (WCC-3) decided to establish a Global Framework for Climate Services to “strengthen production, availability, delivery and application of science-based climate prediction and services”. Terms of reference were recently approved, and the composition of a High-Level Taskforce of independent advisers endorsed. On 25-26 February, the Taskforce will meet for the first time in Geneva, at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

HIGH-LEVEL TASKFORCE
Joaquim Chissano (Mozambique)
Jan Egeland (Norway)
Angus Friday (Grenada)
Eugenia Kalnay (Ms) (Argentina/USA)
Ricardo Lagos (Chile)
Julia Marton-Lefevre (Ms) (Hungary/France/USA)
Khotso Mokhele (South Africa)
Chiaki Mukai (Ms) (Japan)
Cristina Narbona Ruiz (Ms) (Spain)
Rajendra Singh Paroda (India)
Qin Dahe (China)
Emil Salim (Indonesia)
Mahmoud Abu-Zeid (Egypt)
Fiame Naomi Mata’afa (Ms) (Samoa)

For more information, including biographies: http://www.wmo.int/hlt-gfcs/index_en.htm…

————————

MEDIA ACCREDITATION

Journalists not accredited to the Palais des Nations, who wish to participate in the press conference, are encouraged to send a request to Gaëlle Sévenier, WMO Press Officer ( gsevenier at wmo.int) prior to 25 February 2010.

WMO is the United Nations’ authoritative voice on weather, climate and water

For more information please contact:  Communications and Public Affairs Office, WMO
Ms Carine Richard-Van Maele, Chief, Tel: +41 (0)22 730 83 15, E-mail:  cpa at wmo.int,
Ms Gaëlle Sévenier, Press Officer, Tel: +41 (0) 22 730 84 17, E-mail:  gsevenier at wmo.int

Internet website: http://www.wmo.int