It’s Time to Rethink Kyoto Protocol.

Newsday - Long Island, N.Y.
Author: Oran R. Young.
Date: Aug 1, 2001
Start Page: A.31
Section: VIEWPOINTS
Text Word Count: 672

Abstract (Document Summary)

Needed as well is a much-improved steering system. Because emissions of greenhouse gases come from many sources, we need a sophisticated and credible system for tracking not only aggregate concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere but also trends in emissions from a variety of sources. Linked to this is the need for flexible procedures for adjusting the rules regarding climate change that do not require protracted ratification procedures. Here, too, there is much to learn from the experience of addressing the problem of ozone depletion.

Nonetheless, the effort to address the problem of climate change at the international level has run into a brick wall.

Upbeat stories coming out of Bonn recently cannot hide the impasse over the Kyoto Protocol.

The United States, the source of almost 25 percent of worldwide carbon emissions, flatly refuses to accept the Kyoto rules.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

María Mendiluce
Energy Manager, Energy & Climate

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

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

A self serving note from a typical Washington DC self serving institution tries to tell us that the June 1-12, 2009 climate meeting in Bonn did have positive results.

As we heard from objective sources that Bonn provided no results whatsoever - but indeed pointed out that in Copenhagen, hopefully, the stage will be set so that eventually solutions will be obtained in the future - at best in 2010, we nevertheless do not discard their material and will try to figure out what they say.

They say: “Since 1985, CCAP  has been a recognized world leader in climate and air quality policy and is the only independent, non-profit think-tank working exclusively on those issues at the local, national and international levels. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., CCAP helps policymakers around the world to develop, promote and implement innovative, market-based solutions to major climate, air quality and energy problems that balance both environmental and economic interests. For more information about CCAP, please visit www.ccap.org.”

But above in our opinion is rather a widely inflated testimony of the Washington DC based “Center for Clean Air Policy” which is ahighly industry oriented organization and it cannot be expected to side with the environmentalists in case that indeed their opinions are too much for the industroil interests. that own K- street and clearly owned much of the Administration and Congress in days past - and still are mighty strong indays present.

————-

They say:

CCAP Says UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn Set the Stage for Global Action in Copenhagen.

At the latest round of UN climate change negotiations, which took place from June 1-12 in Bonn, Germany, international negotiators began the in-depth discussion on establishing frameworks for:

Technology and financial support;

Capacity building;

Nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) in developing countries;

New targets for Annex 1 countries for the next commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol;

and Adaptation.

Above is true and one asks what was it that these folks did in years past.

The Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP) was in the middle of the action in Bonn. CCAP hosted a number of events, released various papers on topics of relevance to the negotiations and educated and influenced key players on the conceptual design of sectoral NAMAs, along with the governance of financing in the post-2012 international climate agreement.

Similar to previous UN climate change conferences, in Bonn, CCAP co-hosted an informal policy luncheon with Ambassador Alfonso de Alba of Mexico and Ambassador Adrian Macey of New Zealand on June 6.

CCAP President Ned Helme facilitated an important discussion of options for the governance of the financing associated with the proposed NAMAs and NAMA registry system that could be included in a post-2012 climate agreement.

Heads of delegation from more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., China, South Korea, Mexico, South Africa, Tuvalu, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Norway and various European Union member states, participated in the discussion. The participants actively exchanged ideas and thoughts on NAMA registries and finance.

NAMAs and the associated financing mechanism were also the central themes for a well-attended CCAP side event on June 5. During the side event, CCAP President Ned Helme discussed NAMAs, how reducing emissions from deforestation (REDD) could be incorporated into the NAMA framework, financial governance issues related to NAMAs and a proposal for fast-tracking the evaluation and provision of support for NAMAs as part of a workable framework that could be adopted at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen. Chief negotiators from South Korea, Australia and the European Commission attended the event and served as official respondents, providing their thoughts on NAMAs, NAMA registries and NAMA finance.

In association with this side event, CCAP released a new report that highlights options for a financing mechanism for the post-2012 global climate change agreement. The focus of the paper is to provide guidance on the design and potential institutional structures needed for governance of future international financial assistance.

The international climate community has viewed sectoral approaches as one of the most promising NAMAs under the Bali Action Plan for encouraging developing countries to contribute more towards global GHG emissions mitigation.

The European Commission (EC) hosted a side event on the Sectoral Study led by CCAP on June 6. CCAP discussed how sectoral approaches fit into the current negotiations and presented highlights of the study’s findings from China and Mexico.

CCAP focused on its initial “proof-of-concept” efforts to set sectoral goals for Mexico’s cement and oil refining sectors and to propose technology-based NAMAs for China’s cement and steel sectors. CCAP’s Sectoral Study partners, Climate Change Capital (CCC) and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), also presented their latest work on financing mechanisms for sectoral NAMAs in China and on sectoral approach capacity-building issues.

In addition, CCAP released a new report on the Mexico goal-setting exercise and CEPS released a new report on capacity building for sectoral approaches.

With less than half a year remaining on the road to Copenhagen, the slow progress at this round of negotiations raised concerns regarding what kind of outcome negotiators can reach in Copenhagen in December, but signs also indicated that negotiating at almost all levels is more serious, with discussion focusing on key elements of the legal text. A constructive dialogue began among the parties in Bonn and marks a positive step toward developing a comprehensive and balanced negotiating text. The next several rounds of negotiations before Copenhagen will be critical in constructing a manageable and acceptable text of a future global climate agreement. Through its dialogues and in-depth country work, CCAP will continue assisting the negotiators and other worldwide stakeholders in addressing NAMAs, REDD, financing and sectoral approaches - all key issues that will be vital in reaching a final international deal.

—-

BRAVO - this last paragraph was very interesting indeed but where do you see here any hint that there is anything on the fire to be served at the Copenhagen table?

Oil or Trees? Germany Takes Lead in Saving Ecuador’s Rainforest.

by Jess Smee
24 June 2009

Oil companies are salivating over the supply of black gold beneath Ecuador’s rainforest. The South American country is pledging to keep the oil in the ground — if the international community provides compensation. Now Germany has taken a leading role in raising the necessary cash.

There are many attributes which make the Yasuni National Park special: It is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet, it is home to indigenous tribes which hunt and gather in its remote interior, and there’s a unique breed of small bat. But the national park also has a geographic curse: It sits atop Ecuador’s largest known oil reserve, thought to contain hundreds of millions of barrels.

And this potential fortune threatens its very future. In response, Ecuador has come up with an unusual plan to safeguard the UNESCO biosphere Reserve. The cash-strapped South American country has pledged to leave the oil in the ground forever — something unheard of among oil nations — if the international community compensates for some of the lost income.

The scheme, which was first mooted by Ecuadorian President Raphael Correa more than a year ago, got off to a slow start. By the end of the year the country extended its self-imposed deadline, in a last ditch bid to rally international support. Meanwhile, international oil giants were queuing to exploit the supply of black gold.
But now, all of a sudden, the ball seems to be rolling. Following a two-day visit by the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Fander Falconí to Berlin, Germany had positioned itself at “the forefront of the initative,” the Ministry for Economic Cooperation said.

However, officials urged caution on a newspaper report which said Germany would pay $50 million (€36 million) into a yet-to-be-established international fund. “There will be emphatically no financial promises. The conversation in the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development focused on the framework of the project and also on the efforts that Ecuador itself has to make,” Stephan Bethe, spokesman for the ministry, told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

He stressed that Ecuador’s idea had caught Berlin’s imagination: “It offers a new approach to rainforests and, from the perspective of development politics, it is very promising,” Bethe said. “Combining climate protection and fighting poverty will play a growing role in the future.”

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Falconí told the German daily Die Tageszeitung that Germany had pledged “the first significant contribution” to a yet-to-be-created international fund. The paper reported that Ecuador was pushing Germany to pay up within one month.

Hat in Hand

Ecuador estimates that by leaving the oil untouched, some 410 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions will be averted. Oil is Ecuador’s most important export, generating around a third of its income. With the value of the untapped supply under the Yasuni National Park estimated at some $6 billion, the country argues it has little option but to approach international donors, hat in hand.

Environmentalists welcomed the plan as a way to save Ecuador’s rainforest from destruction. Preventing forests from disappearing is a vital element in the fight against climate change as they absorb huge quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Still, doubts lingered about the Ecuador model. Tobias Riedl from Greenpeace Germany’s Forest Campaign warned that the scheme was far from perfect. “It is a double-edged sword. While we welcome moves to save this unique environment, the fact is that all rainforests need to be saved, regardless of whether they lie on valuable natural resources or not,” he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

“There needs to be a broader move with industrialized nations paying money into a fund to save these forests. Preservation of these bio-diverse areas comes at a price.”

Meanwhile, environmental groups are looking to the Copenhagen Climate summit in December which aims to hammer out a new United Nations accord to replace the Kyoto Protocols which expire in 2012. Riedl remained upbeat, despite mounting signs that worldwide climate negotiations are stalling: “We expect to see how the preservation of forests can be brought into a new climate protection framework,” he said. “That is a step in the right direction.”

But there is a long way to go. Greenpeace estimates that €30 billion are needed to secure the future of the rainforests worldwide. And with 80 percent of all ancient forests (including rainforests) worldwide already gone, the clock is ticking. And Ecuador knows it.

Links:    Original article at www.spiegel.de

Call for Papers: Climate change and simulation/gaming

A special edition of Simulation & Gaming, an international journal of theory, practice and research (Sage Publications), will focus on the numerous pedagogical and investigative methods employed to examine climate change – methods that cross disciplines, from the natural and geo sciences, through the social sciences, to education. Climate change is a quintessential issue requiring rigorous analysis and careful understanding by scientists, educators, policy makes and global citizens. We seek submissions from multiple disciplines and perspectives, employing a variety of methods to understand and teach a broad variety of climate change dimensions - process, causes, consequences and responses - social, economic and geopolitical impacts such as international migration, reconfiguration of states, poverty, trade wars, etc. We encourage articles related to climate change utilizing such methods as games, role-plays, simulations, experiential learning exercises, case studies; internet-based and digital games; modeling, game theory, computer simulation, etc.; virtual reality, augmented reality, virtual environments.

Proposals may submitted now through the end of 2009. Proposal will be reviewed within one month. Manuscripts will be published on line as articles are accepted. A printed symposium will be available after all articles are printed online.

Proposals of one to two pages may be submitted electronically (.doc, not .docx). Proposals should contain your name, email, phone, fax, address, etc.; working title for proposed paper; and a set of objectives, an abstract and/or working plan.

Proposals may be submitted to the Guest editors: Klaus Eisenack, University of Oldenburg, Germany,  klaus.eisenack at uni-oldenburg.de, Mary Pettenger, Western Oregon University, USA,  pettengm at wou.edu, Diana Reckien, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany,  reckien at pik-potsdam.de, Richard Warrick, International Climate Change Exchange, New Zealand,  cearsr at waikato.ac.nz,  Niki Young, Western Oregon University, USA,  youngn at wou.edu.

Editor of Simulation and Gaming: A Sage Journal: David Crookall,  simulation.gaming at gmail.com.

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

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

By Michael Day in Milan
Tuesday, 16 June 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Tennessean, May 1, 2009
Global warming strongly divides Christian clergy

By Bob Smietana

When the Rev. James Merritt wants to talk about the environment, he does what any good Baptist preacher would do. He picks up the Bible.

“The first assignment that God gave to Adam was to take care of the Garden,” said Merritt, who was president of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention from 2000-02. “As far as I know, that job has never been revoked.”

While most Christian ministers agree that human beings are to care for creation, they disagree on the details. That’s especially true about the topic of global warming.

A new survey from Southern Baptist-owned LifeWay Research found a split between mainline ministers, like Episcopalians and Methodists, and evangelicals like Southern Baptists. Mainline ministers believe that climate change is manmade and want to take action. Evangelical ministers, on the other hand, remain skeptical.

For full story, visit:

 http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modul…

see the full article at: http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/wp-content/upl…

The Secretary of Saving the Planet.

By Jeff Goodell, RollingStone, June 25, 2009 issue, PDF.

“When Steven Chu, president Obama’s pick for Secretary of energy, was confirmed in January, the rap on him was that he’s a brilliant scientist who doesn’t know politics. ‘Washington is going to eat him alive,’ one congressional staffer told me. Chu is the first member of any presidential Cabinet to have won a Nobel Prize. But at this moment in history, should he prove less adept at the physics of congressional appropriations than he is at quantum mechanics, the entire planet could be in big trouble. Chu is not only one of the president’s most trusted advisers on global warming — by far the most pressing issue facing human civilization — he is also responsible for doling out $38 billion from Obama’s stimulus bill and creating a new economy founded on green energy… Chu represents something entirely new in the world of Washington politics: the scientist as entrepreneur. As a product of Silicon Valley, where he has spent the bulk of his career, he professes a near-absolute faith in the ability of science and business to join forces and fix global warming… Chu is an unabashed crusader for the renewable future, a man whose most basic assumption about energy is that the age of fossil fuels is coming to a close… He has spent the bulk of his adult life in the Bay Area, at UC Berkeley and Stanford, and has absorbed the cultural nuances of the place… He hates wearing a suit, doesn’t own a car, rides his bike as often as he can… He carries a BlackBerry in one pocket (for DOE business) and an iPhone in another (for personal stuff). His bike - ‘my only extravagance,’ he has called it - is a $5,000 Colnago with a carbon-fiber frame.”

The Carbon Footprint of Nations: Wealth and Responsibility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The 5th International Water Technologies & Environmental Control Exhibition & the 2nd International Conference - WATEC

Tel Aviv, Israel, November 17-19, 2009.

————

WATEC is a pivotal sustainable-economy exhibition and conference for 2009.

WATEC 2009 is an international showcase of technologies, products, and services to support a sustainable economy. With water and energy challenges at the top of the global agenda, WATEC 2009 features compelling solutions and proven, practical applications in areas such as water and energy efficiency, water quality, desalination, and water supply.

Hosting participants from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, the exhibition is a unique opportunity to discover the latest innovations from start-up businesses, established companies, and researchers that can help drive private and public initiatives and accelerate results.
The realities of today’s global economic crisis, declining ecological situation, and tenuous international political climate create both serious challenges and great opportunities for optimal resource utilization. Effective resource management and development solutions that have minimal ecological impact and are financially viable can be comprehensive and balanced strategies to address inevitable resource constraints. In this context, WATEC 2009 makes crisis the catalyst for technological innovation, policy change, and optimal resource utilization.

WATEC 2009 will introduce international successes and promising advancements for sustainable development, focusing on recent achievements and emerging solutions for the coming years. Bringing together Israeli and international business executives, political decision-makers, and leading researchers, WATEC 2009 will also be a showcase for the most advanced environmental technologies from around the world.
 highlights:

20,000+ exhibition attendees projected
150 international delegations expected
90+ countries represented

Illuminating presentations on current and emerging water and environmental topics
International region-based problem-solving forum
An array of new products and solutions that will be premiered for the first time
Expansive exhibition forum; ideal venue for both exhibitors and those see Start-ups in the spotlight:king solutions

The on-line meeting planner that makes it easy to pre-schedule meetings with the people who want to see you the most

5 region-featured panel sessions: Brazil, Southeast Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Africa
The conference will feature an international problem-solving forum for water, energy, and environmental technology issues. Each of the 5 region-featured panel discussions will highlight one of these regions, assess the challenges it faces, and propose practical solutions.

 Start Ups: This year, WATEC is featuring the Innovation Pavilion, a forum to highlight Israeli breakthrough solutions in technology and approach to a sustainable economy. This pavilion receives high visibility from the media and benefits from heavy international publicity from Israeli economic attachés worldwide. It is a unique opportunity for start-ups to promote their products, explore partnerships, attract investors, and expand international exposure.
 info at watec-israel.com
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Posted in Reporting From the UN Headquarters in New York, Reporting from Washington DC, Brazil, Israel, Reporting from UNFCCC Meetings, Africa, Asia & Australia, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Nairobi, Vienna

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Saturday, June 13, 2009

The Japan Times EDITORIAL - Greenhouse-gas cuts

Prime Minister Taro Aso has announced that by 2020 Japan will try to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 15 percent from 2005 levels. He characterized this midterm plan as “ambitious” since it means a 33 percent improvement in the nation’s energy efficiency.

Financial burdens will rise for industrial as well as household sectors. For example, it is estimated that the introduction of carbon-free power sources, such as nuclear and solar power, will increase each household’s annual burden by ¥60,000 to ¥180,000.

While a 14-percent cut from 2005 levels was believed to be a strong candidate as the midterm target, Mr. Aso opted for the more severe cut. He says Europe’s target translates into a 13 percent cut and America’s, a 14 percent cut, from 2005 levels. He emphasized that Japan’s plan excludes purchase of emission rights from abroad and absorption of carbon dioxide by forests, devices that the Europe and the U.S. plans include.

Even so, Japan’s plan may not be appreciated internationally since 1990 is a benchmark in the Kyoto Protocol. Japan’s target translates into an 8 percent cut from 1990 levels, compared with Europe’s target of a 20 percent cut or more. The U.S. aims to bring emission levels back to 1990 levels by 2020 even as its population is projected to rise by a whopping 33 percent from 1990 to 2020.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Japan was obliged to achieve a 6 percent reduction in the fiscal 2008-2012 period from 1990 levels. But fiscal 2007 saw Japan’s emissions increase to a level 9 percent above that level — a performance that casts doubts over Japan’s seriousness in combating global warming and in reducing its reliance on fossil fuels.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calls on the developed nations to cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. With its present target, Japan may find it difficult to lead international negotiations for new global efforts to cut emissions. Starting serious efforts at home to build a low-carbon society will be important. The government should present a clear vision and policy measures for technological innovation and structural change of the economy.

The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD Programme) is a collaboration between FAO, UNDP and UNEP. A multi-donor trust fund was established in July 2008 that allows donors to pool resources and provides funding to activities towards this programme.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that the cutting down of forests is now contributing close to 20 per cent of the overall greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. Forest degradation also makes a significant contribution to emissions from forest ecosystems. Therefore there is an immediate need to make significant progress in reducing deforestation, forest degradation, and associated emission of greenhouse gases.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agenda item on “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries and approaches to stimulate action” was first introduced at the Conference of the Parties (COP11) in December 2005 by the governments of Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, supported by eight other Parties. The challenge was to establish a functioning international REDD finance mechanism that can be included in an agreed post-2012 global climate change framework. Progress has been made and the need to meet the challenge is now reflected in the Bali Action Plan and the COP13 Decision 2/CP.13. A functioning international REDD finance mechanism needs to be able to provide the appropriate revenue streams to the right people at the right time to make it worthwhile for them to change their forest resource use behaviour.

In response to the COP13 decision, requests from countries, and encouragement from donors, FAO, UNDP and UNEP have developed a collaborative REDD programme. The UN-REDD Programme is aimed at tipping the economic balance in favour of sustainable management of forests so that their formidable economic, environmental and social goods and services benefit countries, communities and forest users while also contributing to important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to generate the requisite transfer flow of resources to significantly reduce global emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. The immediate goal is to assess whether carefully structured payment structures and capacity support can create the incentives to ensure actual, lasting, achievable, reliable and measurable emission reductions while maintaining and improving the other ecosystem services forests provide.

————————————–

From:  Charles McNeill
Senior Policy Advisor
United Nations Development Programme
The UN-REDD Programme is having an event at the current climate change meeting in Bonn:

MRV, MULTIPLE BENEFITS & GOVERNANCE: KEY ISSUES FOR REDD IMPLEMENTATION

Tuesday, 9 June 2009
1:00pm – 3:00pm

Solar Room, Ministry of Environment , Bonn

Speakers:

Peter Holmgren, Director, Environment, Climate Change & Bioenergy Division, FAO

Barney Dickson, Head of the Climate Change & Biodiversity Programme, UNEP-WCMC

Rosalind Reeves, Forest Campaign Manager, Global Witness &
Laura Furones, Regional Manager for Latin America Forest Team, Global Witness

Charles McNeill, Senior Policy Advisor, UNDP

Monitoring systems that will allow credible and affordable Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of REDD performance are critical for successful implementation of any REDD scheme.  Many countries are in the early phases of designing such systems by preparing and testing technical methodologies for accurate measurements, including field measurements and remote sensing, to enable monitoring of emissions from forests and land use.

MRV requirements under REDD are about trends in emission levels and therefore concern the stock and flows of forest carbon.  Specific MRV requirements will be determined through the UNFCCC process, building on IPCC guidelines.  Additionally, for REDD to be successfully  delivered by countries, alignment with national development contexts is needed to address synergies and trade-offs among multiple benefits (including livelihoods, biodiversity and ecosystem services).

The aim of the event is to support countries in developing appropriate institutional and governance mechanisms to operationalize MRV systems. Speakers will also describe ongoing work of the UN system on multiple benefits beyond carbon.  Implementation issues at the national level including institutional capacities will be explored.  The CSO speakers will address the governance and independent monitoring aspects of MRV for REDD.

———————
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)  announced its latest CLIMATE related publications:

 - Incentives to sustain forest ecosystem services: A review and lessons for REDD
Paying people to protect forests can be an effective way to tackle deforestation and climate change but only if there is good governance of natural resources, claims this study funded by Norway’s Government. IIED, the World Resources Institute and the Center for International Forestry Research looked at existing efforts to pay people in developing nations to protect ecosystems in return for the services — such as fresh water, wild foods and climate control — they provide. It aimed to see if such payments could be used to help tackle climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). A review of 13 schemes that make payments for ecosystems services in Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America concluded that performance-based payments can be part of REDD but only if important preconditions are met.

 http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=1…

 - Community-based adaptation to climate change: an update
Over a billion people - the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities  - will bear the brunt of climate change. For them, building local capacity to cope is a vital step towards resilience. Community-based adaptation (CBA) is emerging as a key response to this challenge. Tailored to local cultures and conditions, CBA supports and builds on autonomous adaptations to climate variability, such as the traditional baira or floating gardens of Bangladesh, which help small farmers’ crops survive climate-driven floods. Above all, CBA is participatory – a process involving both local stakeholders, and development and disaster risk reduction practitioners. As such, it builds on existing cultural norms while addressing local development issues that contribute to climate vulnerability. CBA is now gaining ground in many regions, and is ripe for the reassessment offered here.

 http://www.iied.org/pubs/display.php?o=1…

 From:
The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
Research and Transfer Centre Applications of Life Sciences
Lohbruegger Kirchstrasse 65
D-21033 Hamburg/Germany

T: +49.40.42875-6324
F: +49.40.42875-6079

 franziska.mannke at haw-hamburg.d

www.haw-hamburg.de/ftz-als.html

We learned about an online complete “one-stop” library on much of what matters onclimatechange.

The refernce is:

http://www.klima2009.net/de/ccsl

What Does Climate Change Do to Our Heads?     

by Sanjay Khanna
14 May 2009, CultureChange.org
A small yet growing body of evidence suggests that how people think and feel is being influenced strongly by ecosystem transformation related to climate change and industry-related displacement from the land. These powerful stressors are occurring more frequently around the world.

A case in point: When researchers from the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health at the University of Newcastle in Australia conducted interviews in drought-affected communities in New South Wales in 2005, the responses suggested some of their subjects may have been suffering from a recently described psychological condition called solastalgia (pronounced so-la-stal-juh).

Solastalgia describes a palpable sense of dislocation and loss that people feel when they perceive changes to their local environment as harmful. It’s a neologism that Glenn Albrecht, an environmental philosopher at the University of Newcastle’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences, created in 2003.

Albrecht’s work among communities distraught by black-coal strip mining in New South Wales’ Upper Hunter Region convinced him that the English language needed a new term to connect the experience of ecosystem loss to mental health concerns.

“The sense of a home landscape being violated [by strip mining-related environmental damage] seemed to have disturbed the region’s social ecology so much that the psychic or mental health of many people living in the zone of high impact was being affected,” he says.

Albrecht’s stunning insight? That there might be a wide variety of shifts in the health of an ecosystem—from subtle landscape changes related to global warming to desolate wastelands created by large-scale strip mining—that diminish people’s mental health.

In Eastern Australian communities, where the toll of a six-year-long drought has been devastating, interviews with farmers provided additional momentum for the solastalgia concept.

In one such interview, a female farmer poignantly described the loss of her garden oasis. “Our gardens have had to die,” she said, “because our house dam has been dry…. So it’s very depressing for a woman because a garden is an oasis out here with this dust…you know, to come home to a nice green lawn is just… that’s all gone, so you’ve got dust at your back door.”

While persistent drought and open-pit coal mining may be extreme cases, if the environmental degradation of the past hundred years is any indication, our contemporary lifestyles, built on a dwindling resource base, have failed to acknowledge how much the mental health of people and ecosystems is interrelated.

This may imply that the unrelenting media focus on weather-related and economic aspects of climate change does not adequately take into consideration the challenge of mitigating the psychological impact of global warming. How might we feel when the heat is relentless and our surrounding environment changes irrevocably? How might our mental health be affected?

In a recent Wired magazine article on Albrecht and the concept of solastalgia, Global Mourning: How the next victim of climate change will be our minds, writer Clive Thompson sensitively characterized as “global mourning” the potential impact of overwhelming environmental transformation caused by climate change. Thompson cogently summed up Albrecht’s view of what solastalgia might look like were it to become an epidemic of emotional and psychic instability causally linked to changing climates and ecosystems.

Albrecht also emphasizes that feelings of melancholia and homesickness have previously been recorded among Aboriginal peoples in the Americas and Australia who were forcibly moved from their home territories by U.S., Canadian and Australian governments in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Sanjay Khanna: You speak of psychoterratic and somaterratic illnesses. What are they?

Glenn Albrecht: Psychoterratic illness involves the psyche or mind and terra or earth. So a psychoterratic illness would be an earth-related mental illness, where both nostalgia and solastalgia are examples of people being made “mentally ill” by the severing of “healthy” links between themselves and their home or territory.

Somaterratic illness, on the other hand, involves soma or the body and relates to damage done to the human body, its physiology and/or genetics, as a result of the loss of ecosystem health by, for example, toxic pollution in any given area of land.

SK: You note on your blog that there are antecedents to solastalgia.

GA: Yes, David Rapport, a past professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, is a pioneer in the study of the health of natural ecosystems and their relationship with humans. In the 1970s, he described “ecosystem distress syndrome,” which was what happened when an ecosystem couldn’t restore its balance after an external disturbance.

Once I fully appreciated this concept, I realized there must be a human equivalent to ecosystem distress syndrome, that is, a home environment so profoundly disturbed that it affected the balance of well being or the mental health of people within their social ecology.

The interviews of affected people I conducted along with Nick Higginbotham and Linda Connor in strip-mined areas of the Upper Hunter Valley showed that people’s sense of place was being violated and that this was profoundly disturbing them. Their home environment was being desolated and it seemed to us that the vital link between ecosystem health and human health, both physical and mental, was being severed.

SK: Can you tell us a little bit more about the origins of solastalgia?

GA: Solastalgia’s Latin roots combine three ideas: The solace that one’s environment provides, the desolation caused by that environment’s degradation and the pain or distress that occurs inside a person as a result.

Solastalgia brings into English a much-needed word that links a mental state to a state of the biophysical environment. The need for new concepts in the face of what is happening under climate change has seen other cultures develop new terms that have affinities with solastalgia.

The Inuit, for example, have a new word, uggianaqtuq (pronounced OOG-gi-a-nak-took), which relates to climate change and has connotations of the weather as a once reliable and trusted friend that is now acting strangely or unpredictably. And the Portuguese use the word saudade to describe a feeling one has for a loved one who is absent or has disappeared. The upshot is that under the pressure of climate change, your preferred climate and ecosystem might well be thought of as a lover gone missing or turned bad.

SK: How might your research impact on psychiatry and the diagnosis of psychoterratic illnesses such as solastalgia?

GA: Alongside five other researchers, our four-person team co-wrote a summary of our research on the mental health impacts of mining and drought for psychological and psychiatric professionals. The paper, Solastalgia: the distress caused by climate change, was published in Australasian Psychiatry, a publication of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, in November 2007.

Our team has mused that people badly affected by solastalgia would benefit from a set of professionally developed diagnostic tools so that solastalgia could be listed as a condition that required diagnosis and professional attention.

We’re happy for other people to take that challenge up and there are some academic psychiatrists who are interested in exploring these ideas further. However, given that key aspects of solastalgia are existential, the traditions of environmental philosophy and medical psychiatry may not come together so harmoniously. The melancholia of solastalgia is not the same as clinical depression, but it may well be a precursor to serious psychic disturbance.

That said, it’s worth remembering that up until the mid-twentieth century, the medical profession viewed nostalgia as a diagnosable psycho-physiological illness in which, for example, soldiers fighting in foreign lands became so homesick and melancholic it could kill them.

Today psychiatrists would see the condition of rapid and unwelcome severing from home as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an outcome of an acute stressor such as warfare or a Hurricane Katrina.

Solastalgia on the other hand is most often the result of chronic environmental stress; it is the lived experience of gradually losing the solace a once stable home environment provided. It is therefore appropriate to diagnose solastalgia in the face of slow and insidious forces such as climate change or mining.

SK: Would you tell us a little bit about the transdisciplinary team that you participate on?

GA: Nick Higginbotham, a social psychologist colleague who specializes in epidemiology and health matters, is working to gather empirical data for our solastalgia research. He has developed a much-needed environmental distress scale (EDS) that teases out the specific environmental components of distress from all the other things that go on in a person’s life. We will be using this scale in the new AUS$430K grant the team has received from the Australian Research Council to extend our earlier work by addressing “the lived experience (ethnography) of climate change” among people in the Hunter Valley.

Linda Connor, an ethnographer and social and medical anthropologist, handles the ethnography or cultural experience of all this. So collectively we have empirical (Higginbotham), cultural (Connor) and philosophical (me) interpretations of health and climate change. Finally, Sonia Freeman, our research assistant, has co-authored a number of papers.

SK: What implications might the recent apology by Kevin Rudd, the new Prime Minister of Australia, to the “stolen generations” of Australian Aborigines have in relation to solastalgia?

GA: The apology by Kevin Rudd to the stolen generations is about seeking forgiveness for the government-sanctioned taking of Indigenous children from their families and from their home territories (their “country”) from 1909 until 1969. There have been profound mental and physical health impacts from this process and many of the remaining stolen generations are now ageing but with a 17-year shorter life expectancy on average than non-indigenous Australians. Those who are alive today may be experiencing genuine nostalgia for a once-sustainable past and solastalgia within contemporary pathological and depressed home environments.

SK: Do you see a relationship between the conquest of Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia, the state of environmental degradation and the experience of loss that we are seeing today? If so, what is that relationship from your perspective and research?

GA: The answer is, yes, there is a relationship between the two colonial cultures: the two continents were colonized only by the systematic dispossession of complex and formerly sustainable Indigenous societies.

Traditional Indigenous cultures in the Americas and Australasia displayed a profound appreciation of the relationship between human and ecosystem health, something global culture is trying to rediscover under the label of sustainability.

Remnant aboriginal cultures are still being pushed aside by the dominant global model of economic growth and progress. Even today, their chronic health problems are likely related to social and political issues that are connected to ongoing dispossession.

I’ve had recent firsthand experience of the lives of Indigenous people leading semi-traditional lives in Northern Australia to see the importance of the connections between human health and ecosystem health. In Arnhem Land, Aborigines who live on what are called “outstations” have been able to maintain much stronger and healthier links to their traditional land. Their physical and mental health status is, as a consequence, much better than those whose links to their own land have been severed and who now live in crowded, dysfunctional communities.

SK: Some of the solastalgia symptoms you describe are similar to the loss of cultural identity, including the loss of language and ancestral memory. Loss of place seems an extension of this new global experience of weakened cultural identities and Earth-based ethical moorings.

GA: I have written on this topic in a professional academic journal and expressed the idea of having an Earth-based ethical framework that could contribute to maximizing the creative potential of human cultural and technological complexity and diversity without destroying the foundational complexity and diversity of natural systems in the process.

Our history shows that some people and cultures have a tendency to create pathological ways of thinking, but if we want to support a life-affirming ethic in the twenty-first century, we are in need of reform and change.

SK: In the context of accelerating environmental change, what would you say to young people about the planet they are inheriting? What does sustainability mean in the context of the overwhelming pace of environmental and economic change that we’re seeing today?

GA: This is a tough one because the children of today face the double whammy of the escalating pace and scale of changes under the global forces of development and those of climate chaos. I’ve suggested to my own teenagers that what is happening is unacceptable ethically and practically and they should be in a state of advanced revolt about the whole deal.

From my perspective, supporting and maintaining the status quo is no longer a reasonable response to these big picture issues. At every point, we must challenge and refute this kind of thinking in a society that is clearly on a non-sustainable pathway.

Unfortunately, the lot in life of the youth today is to undo much of what has been done in the name of growth and progress in the last two hundred years. However, this does not mean a return to the past: As Herman Daly (the ecological economist) once said, you can have an economy that develops without growing.

On a personal level, I’m an optimistic, energetic philosopher and I believe that we must get our values more life orientated. I’m not willing to give up on encouraging change towards sustainability even in the face of what look like overwhelming negative forces.

The four-year grant recently awarded to our team will allow us to study the lived experience of climate change at a regional level. We’re happy that we’ll be able to start contributing data on how climate change is shifting culture, values and attitudes.

The next four years are critical. As a member of a research team, I believe that we’re right at the leading edge of change research and we are very committed to supporting the network of ecological and social relationships that promote human health. There’s hope in recognizing solastalgia and defeating it by creating ways to reconnect with our local environment and communities.

###

Sanjay Khanna is a writer and foresight researcher based in Vancouver, Canada. He can be reached at sk AT khannaresearch DOT com. His blog is at www.realisticsanctuary.com. More articles are available at www.huffingtonpost.com

From IISD a Special Report on UNCCD Land Day at the ongoing Bonn meetings on Climate Change.

On Saturday June 6, 2009, organized by the UNCCD Secretariat, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Secretariat hosted “Land Day” at the Gustav-Stresemann-Institut, Bonn, Germany.

The event, attended by 170 participants, aimed to help climate change negotiators and other stakeholders attending the concurrent Bonn climate change talks consider in detail the linkages between climate change and desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD).

The event was opened by Luc Gnacadja, UNCCD Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, and Adolf Kloke-Lesch, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) Director-General.

Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute Director, Columbia University, offered a pre-recorded keynote address.

Participants then attended three panels, entitled:

  - “How does sustainable land management support climate change adaptation?”;

 - “What options can soil carbon sequestration offer for mitigating and adapting to climate change?”; and

  - “Sustainable land management in climate change policy frameworks: what is the way forward?”

Luc Gnacadja, UNCCD Executive Secretary, stressed that land has an unparalleled capacity to sequester carbon, but its potential to mitigate climate change is presently untapped. Emphasizing that numerous opportunities exist to include land within a post-2012 climate regime, he said the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and carbon markets must be changed and made accessible to farmers and land managers.

Gnacadja argued that soil restoration and soil carbon sequestration offer “win-win-win” opportunities for climate change, biodiversity and desertification. Noting that “poor soils lead to poor people,” he further suggested that inclusion of desertification, land degradation and drought in a future climate regime has the potential to bring more equity and justice to developing countries.

Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, discussed the linkages between the agriculture and forest sectors and climate change mitigation and adaptation. He highlighted that 10-12% of total annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come from agricultural practices, and that deforestation accounted for 20% of GHG emissions in the 1990s.

Underscoring that some mitigation options can be realized at “low or even negative costs,” de Boer highlighted a number of possibilities in these sectors, including: reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (REDD); improved crop and grazing management; and restoration of organic soils. He added that mitigation options, such as agroforestry, support adaptation and promote biodiversity.

Adolf Kloke-Lesch, Director-General, German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), said climate change threatens to destroy the efforts and achievements of sustainable development. Noting that land degradation was previously considered a collection of local problems, he argued that today it is understood as a global problem that must be part of the global environmental agenda.

Kloke-Lesch stated that sustainable land management offers a cost-effective solution to mitigating climate change and that natural infrastructures, such as forests and soils, must be part of this solution. He stressed that sustainable land management must become an integral part of climate protection strategies in a new “Green Deal” forged at the 2009 climate change talks in Copenhagen.

In a pre-recorded message, Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute, Columbia University, underscored the importance of integrating the urgent agendas of drylands and global climate change. He said drylands are amongst the most vulnerable areas to climate change, and that impacts in dryland countries are compounded because these countries are also experiencing demographic pressures and have large populations living in poverty.

Sachs explained that the combination of these factors is “at the root” of some of the greatest security challenges on the planet, noting these issues must be addressed to lessen security risks not only for the people in these regions but for the entire world.

He called for several responses, including: better science on the effects of climate change in dryland regions; increased understanding of human systems, such as the impacts of climate change on herders’ livestock assets; and increased understanding of intervention measures that are needed for adaptation and climate change preparedness. Sachs emphasized the need for a holistic approach in addressing these issues, highlighting the potential for ecosystem-based adaption in this regard.

————

(later addition) Professor Sachs - Highlighting the political conflicts in the 10,000 km stretch of drylands across the Sahel from Senegal to the Horn of Africa, across the Red Sea into Yemen, Pakistan and on to Afghanistan, Sachs said the lack of  “a coherent, consistent, persistent, scaled science-based response” to the harrowing effects of climate change associated with hunger, livestock survival and increasing stresses between sedentary populations and nomadic or semi-nomadic herders is the real challenge.

It is mind-boggling how above reality was suppressed by the UN for so many years - this as if the men in the UN glass building can speak only of unsolvable issues that provide for them a raison d’etre and their jobs, while trying to find the real reasons of those conflicts, the reasons before the fabricated reasons of “the other” would do harm to the bureacrats self  interest.

—————-

www.sustainabilitank.info is still waiting to hear above ideas fully backed by the UN bureaucracy, but we are already gratified that many individuals, and enlightened governments, speak out forcefully. We were privvy, and victims, to a UN that was hiding above under the global rug because they felt it was just one more cause that can harm the sale of petroleum.

Please also read into the “at the root” comment by Dr. Sachs, locations like Darfur and the Middle East, and we would like to remark that we were hoping that President Obama would mention this in his Cairo speech to the Muslim World - but he did not. In our opinion, an opinion we fought for at the UN, a cooperative program on these “Land” issues between Israel, the Arab World, Iran, China, Africa, with international support, could go a long way in helping  address some of the problems with the Islamic governments - problems that were mentioned in the speech and the African problems that were not mentioned at all.

 As we know that many of our readers are interested in the nexus of climate change and desertification, we thought that there might be interest in participatingin the following review studies and decided to post this e-mail.

————–

Dear Scientific Colleagues and Stakeholders of the UNCCD. This is an invitation to review the first drafts of scientific analysis papers contributing to the world’s fight against desertification and land degradation.

To begin the review, please go to the website www.drylandscience.org

(or http://dsd consortium.jrc.ec.europa.eu/php/index.php?action=view&id=160) and click the button on the left entitled ‘Online Consultation’.

You can download and read the papers in PDF format there if you prefer, but all comments must be received via the web feedback system that is accessed through the above path.

—————

Background

The Committee on Science and Technology (CST) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has called for a Scientific Conference on the topic of “Bio-physical and socio-economic monitoring and assessment of desertification and land degradation, to support decision-making in land and water management.”  The Conference, popularly known under the shorter title ‘Understanding Desertification and Land Degradation Trends’, will take place at the UNCCD Conference of Parties in Buenos Aires, Argentina during 22-24 September 2009.

In preparation for that Conference, three Working Groups have drafted ‘white papers’ summarizing leading scientific knowledge relevant to the topic assigned by the Convention that leads towards recommendations that can support decision-making in land and water management by the Convention and its Parties. Each of the three Working Group white papers is about 80-100 pages long consisting of several chapters. In addition, there is a cross-cutting topic that the Working Groups collectively address (denoted ‘S1’).

For one month, from 28 May to 28 June 2009, the first drafts of the white papers will be open for review by scientists and stakeholders worldwide.

We look forward to your valuable contributions. Please visit the web link mentioned above to participate in the review process. Thank you for helping to enrich these papers with your knowledge, comments and suggestions.

Sincerely,
The Dryland Science for Development Consortium (DSD)

————
Dr. Christopher Martius

Head, Program Facilitation Unit (PFU), CGIAR Program for Central Asia and the Caucasus (CAC)

Coordinator, Regional Program of the International Center For Agricultural Research In The Dry Areas (ICARDA) for the CAC Region
Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Mail Address: Program Facilitation Unit, P.O. Box 4564, Tashkent, 100000, Uzbekistan
Street Address: 6, Osiyo Street, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Phones: +99871 2372130, +99871 2372169, +99871 2372104
Fax: +99871 1207125

Voluntary Carbon Standard Association - www.v-c-s.org
AFOLU Program Coordinator -
 http://www.v-c-s.org/docs/VCS%20AFOLU%20…
Duty Station: Washington, DC, USA
Deadline for Applications: 10 June 2009
Contact Person:  secretariat at v-c-s.org - Jerry Seager
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Voluntary Carbon Standard Association - www.v-c-s.org
Program Officer -
 http://www.v-c-s.org/docs/VCS%20Program%…
Duty Station: Washington, DC, USA
Deadline for Applications: 10 June 2009
Contact Person:  secretariat at v-c-s.org - Jerry Seager

Dear Colleagues:

You are hereby cordially invited to join us Monday evening (8th June) in room ‘Metro’ at the Ministry of Transport to discuss a new research paper prepared by the Öko-Institut for the Global Wind Energy Council:

“A framework for a sectoral crediting mechanism in a post-2012 climate regime”

The paper is available for download at:

http://www.oeko.de/oekodoc/904/2009-022-en.pdf

The paper will presented by:

Lambert Schneider:  Öko-Institut

Martin Cames:  Öko-Institut

Panelists responding will be:

Carolina Fuentes Castellanos, Delegation of Mexico

Gerie Jonk, Delegation of The Netherlands

Kim Carnahan, IETA

Nicolas Höhne, Ecofys

Ned Helme, Center for Clean Air Policy

The panel will be moderated by Steve Sawyer, Global Wind Energy Council

——————-

Steve Sawyer

Secretary General

Global Wind Energy Council

Rue d’Arlon 63-65

1040 Brussels

tel +32-2-400-1030

fax +32-2-546-1944

 http://www.gwec.net

CLIMATE CHANGE: U.S., China Seek Common Ground
By Matthew Berger

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 3 (IPS) - As the slew of U.S. officials visiting Beijing continued with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s visit this past weekend, it is clear the Barack Obama administration is taking a much more active approach to relations with China than in years past. This shift is probably most clear, and most crucial, in the field of climate change.

Climate change talks continue this week in Bonn ahead of December’s United Nations-sponsored talks in Copenhagen, which will try to determine a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Among the significant changes in the 12 years since the protocol was adopted is the increase in the political will of the U.S. to act on climate change and in the carbon emissions of China.

Together, these two factors mean a U.S.-China bilateral agreement prior to Copenhagen should be both more likely than in previous years and more necessary. The two sides, however, remain far apart.

The U.S. and China are the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases, combining for over 40 percent of global carbon emissions. But China’s share has grown feverishly since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997.

“In 2006, China added enough coal-fired power capacity to emit over 500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year for the next 40 years,” Elizabeth Economy, director for Asian studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told IPS. “This wipes out the EU’s entire Kyoto reduction commitment of 300 million tonnes.”  Economy says China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon, and “without a dramatic reshaping of its economy, its emissions will be twice those of the United States by 2030.”

Prior to the Obama administration’s dual emphases of working with China and on climate change, the prospect for a serious global agreement to address these issues seemed dim.

This is largely because negotiations between the two countries not only directly impact the rate of climate change but the political arena in which this issue is addressed, as well.

When the U.S. shows it is committed to acting on climate change, a lot pieces fall into place, Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told IPS. And how far the U.S. is willing to go is largely based on how far China goes.

On Capitol Hill you cannot have a debate on climate action without the question being raised of what China is doing, he said. “What is agreed between China and the U.S. will have a huge impact on solving climate issues over the next 10 to 15 years.”

This is also true for countries like India, which is largely seen as being in the same middle ground between developing and industrial as China.

The actions of China might have an even bigger impact on those countries that are less developed than it and India. The Kyoto Protocol included the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” which recognises that the largest shares of greenhouse gas emissions are from industrial countries and that developing countries will likely increase their emissions in order to meet their needs.

It also, however, meant quantitative emissions limits were not placed on developing countries, including China, under the protocol.

Schmidt says he is not sure that the issue of who falls into the category of “developed” and “developing” will get resolved at Copenhagen, but that countries like China and India will clearly be expected to do more than less developed countries, probably with responsibilities that will evolve over time.

“The idea of common but differentiated responsibilities can remain a part of a Copenhagen agreement,” said Economy, “but I think there will be increasing pressure on China to actually assume some responsibilities, even if its cap is not – understandably – as aggressive as that of the United States.”

While visiting China last week with a U.S. congressional delegation, Senator John Kerry remarked that “Copenhagen will be defined by what the U.S. and China agree on in the next few weeks,” calling his discussions with Chinese officials on climate change the “most constructive and productive” he has had with them.

Overall, however, the talks were seen as only minimally productive. China recently released a position paper calling for a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from industrial countries by 2020 and more funding from industrial countries for climate projects in developing projects. It also stressed that “common but differentiated responsibilities” remain a part of any Copenhagen agreement.

According to Economy, China is currently home to 42 percent of all “clean development mechanism” projects, in which industrialised countries invest in greenhouse-gas-reducing projects in developing countries in lieu of reducing their own emissions.

This does mean China is getting funds that might otherwise go to lesser-developed countries. “There are undoubtedly developing countries that feel that China has absorbed more than its fair share of greenhouse gas mitigation assistance,” said Economy.

Ultimately, though, both China and the U.S. made dramatic shifts toward more significant action on climate change since 1997 and in the past couple years.

While China has avoided setting firm targets or timetables for limiting emissions, it has taken action in other ways. It currently has some of the strictest auto emissions standards in the world, strong energy efficiency standards for industry, and is increasing its investment in renewable energy sources.

But these efforts, warns Economy, “act only at the margin in terms of influencing the country’s greenhouse gas emission trajectory.”

Schmidt agrees, but sees hope that U.S. engagement might “push China over the finish line” and into a more sustainable energy future.

And the U.S. has been engaging China fairly heavily since President Obama took office in January – a trend that is far from over. U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern will visit later this month, as will Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

“Within the first six months in office, nearly every Obama cabinet minister will have visited China,” says Schmidt. “Under the Bush administration, [Treasury Secretary Henry] Paulsen and [President George W.] Bush went once or twice.”

“By no stretch of the imagination,” he says, did climate change or China “get the amount of attention they are getting under the Obama administration.”

——————

Above sounds great and promissing  - that by Copenhagen there might be some US-China bilateral agreement to help the Climate Convention from its dead point that was set in Kyoto. So, if there is a good US-China bilateral agreement, Copenhagen as a locale will allow for the rest of the world to join in. In the absence of such a prior US-China agreement, the optimism expressed in the other recent IPS article on the topic of a global climate change agreement as it appears in: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=4… is just so much UN hot air - but if there is a US-China agreement - then let Copenhagen get the flowers.