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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Wind power]
Maldives announces windfarm plan to provide 40% of island's electricity
Windfarm would provide the island state with the largest percentage of renewable electricity of any country in the world
Chris Goodall
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 November 2009 15.07 GMT Article history

Plans for a new windfarm are set to make the Maldives the country with the highest proportion of renewable power in the world.

The 30-turbine proposed windfarm, close to the capital Malé, will deliver 75 megawatts of electricity at full capacity, enough to provide electricity for the whole of the capital, the international airport and the surrounding resorts. Excess power will be used to run desalination plants that will produce bottled drinking water from the sea.

If built, the project will mean that per head of population, the Maldives will be getting about six times more electricity from wind than the UK. Mark Lynas, the British climate change expert who helped the Maldives develop its draft programme for carbon neutrality, welcomed the windfarm proposal, saying that it was an important signal to the rest of the world. "If a middle-income country can cut its emissions by a quarter through standard commercial partnerships, the rich world has little excuse for saying that carbon reductions are too expensive."

The Maldives government is taking the lead on climate change mitigation in an effort to push larger states into taking more determined action. Last month, President Mohamed Nasheed held a cabinet meeting under-water to highlight the plight of the low-lying island nation as the sea-level rises. In March, he announced a 10-year plan to reduce its use of fossil fuels to zero.

On part of this is a partnership announced in September with the British biochar company Carbon Gold to improve the country's soils by adding charcoal produced from coconut shells and other woody waste materials. The Japanese government is also giving $10m to provide solar panels to power schools and government buildings in Malé. And Nasheed will be hosting a planning meeting for a group of countries most vulnerable to climate change in the run-up to the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

The $200m windfarm project is being financed and built by Falcon Energy and will use turbines from the American company GE, one of the world leaders in wind energy. The project will start with a year-long analysis of wind conditions to assess the best arrangement for the turbines. It will then take up to two years to build. Hassan Zahir, chairman of the local electricity company, STELCO, said that the windfarm represented an important step in the country's move towards a carbon-neutral society.

A new gas turbine power station will provide back-up power when conditions are too calm for wind generation. The Maldives has moderate but reliable winds that blow for most of the year, making this source of power a good choice for the country.

Once built, the windfarm and the gas generator will replace old and inefficient diesel generators on which the Maldives has been completely reliant. The project is likely to provide about 40% of the country's electricity and reduce its overall carbon footprint by about a quarter. When completed, the windfarm should provide this small island state with the largest percentage of electricity sourced from renewable source of any country in the world. Another major windfarm announcement is expected within the next few months.


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Climate negotiators grow impatient at lack of leadership from America
UN and EU pile pressure on US to set ambitious carbon cuts and timetables to improve chances of deal at Copenhagen
John Vidal in Barcelona
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 November 2009 16.16 GMT Article history

With just five days' formal negotiations left before the start of crucial UN climate talks in Copenhagen next month, key figures in the negotiations are showing clear signs of impatience at the US position.

At international climate talks in Barcelona, the United Nations and European Union, backed by international environment and development groups, today piled pressure on the US to set more ambitious targets and timetables to cut greenhouse emissions in order to reach an agreement.

"We expect American leadership. President Obama has created great expectations around the world. Now we urge [the US] to contribute in the way that we have," said Andreas Carlgren, Swedish environment minister talking on behalf of the EU presidency.

In a clear reference to the US, he added: "We are prepared to cut a deal. Other countries should demonstrate leadership and step up their current pledges."

Countries accept that the Obama administration's hands have been tied by delays in Congress but they urged the president to show more personal leadership and to instruct his negotiators to be less intransigent.

"I remind the US that it is not the only country in the world that has to have discussions with its domestic parliament," said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish environment minister who will host the talks in Copenhagen.

"The expectation out there worldwide among populations and the young [is for] the US to deliver on one of the key challenges of our century. The Americans will have to come up [with an offer] one way or another," she said.

Yvo de Boer, head of the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) echoed the call for more ambition from the US. "We need to see clear targets from the US at Copenhagen," he said.

But US chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing responded that the US wanted a deal. "Notions that the US is not making an effort is not correct. To apportion blame is not the constructive thing to do. We do not want to be outside [an agreement]. We have the best chance to [make an agreement] if we can implement something domestically. We and Congress recognise the need to move forward," he said.

Pershing accepted that China had moved significantly to reduce its emissions, but said that it needed to go further. "It is very clear that China has taken enormous steps to reduce greenhouse gases. We look forward to an aggressive [next] step from China," he said.

However, groups like Greenpeace accused the US of doing too little. In a letter sent to Obama today they said: "Our critical assessment is that the [US] legislation pending in Congress in the crucial near term will be a perpetuation of business as usual and it will not decrease emissions in the US."

"The continuation of business as usual means doing nothing to reduce emissions. The US position is to reduce US emissions by 17% below 2005 levels. This is far short of what science demands and what Europe has committed to achieve. The 17% reduction shrinks to an actual 4% if measured against 1990 levels." This is the accepted benchmark year used by the Kyoto protocol.

"Congress and parliaments [around the world] have set themselves up to pass new laws to reduce emissions. It is the collective effort that should be reflected," said Pershing.

news20091103gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Business > Global economy]
Global protocol could limit Sub-Saharan land grab
New code of conduct could limit aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states who have been buying vast tracts of agricultural land
Nick Mathiason
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 November 2009 19.17 GMT Article history

Aggressive moves by China, South Korea and Gulf states to buy vast tracts of agricultural land in sub-Saharan Africa could soon be limited by a new global international protocol.

A scramble for African farmland has in recent years seen the equivalent of Italy's entire arable land hoovered up by businesses from emerging economies.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Bank are now discussing a new code of conduct for land buyers in Africa. Amid increasing concerns over food security, it could include ensuring consent is given prior to selling land from local people as well as ensuring smallholders do not lose out. A first draft is expected to be released next spring.

Alex Wijeratna, Action Aid's food rights campaign officer, said: "There's a new scramble for land in Africa. It's growing at an incredible rate. There's massive secrecy, poor communities can't get information and they're not being consulted. There's an argument for a moratorium on sales until there's a proper framework to assess them. We are concerned that an agreement will not come fast enough."

Earlier this year, legendary hedge fund speculator George Soros highlighted a new farmland buying frenzy caused by growing population, scarce water supplies and climate change. South Korea bought huge areas of Madagasca recently while Chinese interests bought up large swathes of Senegal to supply it with sesame.

He said: "I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that's a long ways away yet."

However, Dr Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, said the issue of land deals had been "overexaggerated".

As investors pile into African land, today saw further appetite for business opportunities in the continent with the launch of a new $400m (£245m) sub-Saharan private equity fund focusing on small to mid-market companies. Aureos Capital's Africa Fund has already raised $322.8m, a quarter of which has come from financial institutions including European pension funds. It is expected to close fundraising at the end of the year.

The fund is the largest private equity vehicle targeting smaller African businesses. Investors, it claims, will receive returns in excess of 20%. Management fees are 0.25% higher than the industry standard 2% because of the large number of investment professionals it is deploying in Africa to identify suitable opportunities.

Sev Vettivetpillai, chief executive of Aureos Advisers, said: "It's 18 months since we started the fund and it's not easy to raise over $300m for Africa as most investors were pulling out of financial markets. It posed a challenge to Aureos. But Africa is the next frontier market that is going to benefit from emerging market flows."

The fund has already spent $106m on nine businesses in financial services, building products, real estate development and agriculture.


[Environment > Oil spills]
Fire on Australian oil rig delays plans to stop leak into Timor Sea
Blaze breaks out as workers attempt to plug leak with heavy mud to stop oil slick which is threatening marine wildlife
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 November 2009 11.29 GMT Article history

A massive fire has broken out on an Austalian oil rig and delayed plans to plug the leak that has been spilling oil into the Timor Sea since August.

The blaze started on Sunday when workers began pumping heavy mud into a leaking well casing. An estimated 400 barrels of oil a day have escaped from the hole since 21 August, threatening marine wildlife over an area ten times the size of London.

Australia's government today promised an investigation, the latest drama in a 10-week saga to plug the hole.

PTTEP Australasia, which operates the rig, said no one was injured and nonessential workers were evacuated after the fire broke out on the West Atlas rig and Montara wellhead platform.

Officials had planned to pour more mud into the leak on Monday in the hopes of removing the source of fuel from the fire, which was sending massive plumes of smoke into the sky. But the company said it was mixing 4,000 barrels of heavy mud, and would not be ready to pour it down the well until Tuesday.

On Sunday, PTTEP Australasia chief financial officer Jose Martins said the company doesn't know how the blaze started.

"Presently there are many unanswered questions, including what caused the fire," Martins told reporters in Perth. "Our sole focus now is the safety of all personnel, bringing the fire under control and completing the well kill."

Federal resources minister Martin Ferguson said that once the spill is contained he would launch an official inquiry. "Our requirement is to assess the cause of the accident and any lessons to be learnt, and that could lead to a change in the regulatory environment," he told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

Ferguson later told reporters in Melbourne that if PTTEP was "found to have been at fault with respect to any of their responsibilities, then any potential action will be appropriately considered at the time."

The oil slick from the rig, about 150 miles off Australia's north-west coast, now stretches across thousands of milesof remote ocean. Indonesia said last week that thousands of dead fish and clumps of oil have been found drifting near its coastline.

Prime minister Kevin Rudd said today he was "deeply disturbed" at the latest turn of events on the rig, signalling the government's rising frustration that fixing the spill is taking so long.

"Do I think this is acceptable? No, I don't," Rudd told Fairfax Radio Network. "Are we angry with this company? Yes we are. Are were trying to do everything we can to get this under control? You betcha."

news20091103gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Birds]
Golf courses can help save Britain's threatened birdies, says RSPB
Rough and out-of-bounds areas of golf courses can offer unexpected sanctuary to wildlife, says the conservation group
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 November 2009 18.10 GMT Article history

Mark Twain called it a good walk spoiled. But the game of golf is often accused of wrecking more than the mood of its participants. With heavily watered fairways and greens saturated with weed-killing chemicals, the sport has become a symbol of environmental wastefulness and an apparent conservation disaster.

Now, the RSPB aims to change that view and wants to recruit Britain's 2,600 golf courses to the fight to save rare species. The rough and out-of-bounds areas of golf courses can offer unexpected sanctuary to wildlife, it says. Together with the R&A, golf's governing body, the conservation group has published a handbook to help course greenkeepers think of a different kind of birdie.

"Golf courses may have gained a bad reputation, perhaps not always justified, among environmentalists in the past, but that is changing," said Nigel Symes of the RSPB. "The truth is that every golf course has potential to be a sanctuary for wildlife, and to provide an important stepping stone for birds and other animals whose habitat is under threat. While researching this report we have come across a lot of inspiring examples of golf clubs which are doing really great things for wildlife."

There are 140,000 hectares of suitable rough and out-of-bounds areas across UK golf courses, about the same as that covered by the RSPB's reserves combined.

Steve Isaac of the R&A, which takes its name from The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, said: "There has been a growing awareness over the past decade or so in the sport that courses need to do more for wildlife. While there are some greenkeepers who put more water and pesticides on their courses than we would like, there are many golf clubs who are managing habitats for wildlife on their land."

The RSPB highlighted Royal Troon golf club in Ayrshire, which has surveyed populations of breeding birds including skylark and linnet, and manages the course around them. Hankley Common in Surrey has rare nightjar, woodlark and Dartford warbler, while several courses in the Highlands are one of the best places to spot the Scottish crossbill, the only bird species unique to Britain.

There were even a pair of eagles on a golf course in Mull this summer, with white-tailed eagles nesting next to a fairway. Albatrosses remain rare on British courses, a RSPB spokesman confirmed.

Alan Gange, a biologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, has studied golf course wildlife and says the common public perception of them as bad for the environment is unfair. "The problem is that people compare them with pristine habitat when they should really ask what would be there if the golf course wasn't, which is usually farmland." Only about 40% of a typical course is actually played on, he says. "Yet that is the bit that people see 99% of the time when they watch golf on television."

Lorne Smith of the Fine Golf campaign blames "pressure from less discriminating golfers" for many courses switching away from traditional grasses that need less water and chemicals. "If all you see on television is lush, green fairways with crisscross mown fairways then you're going to want your home course to look like that."


[Environment > Climate change]
Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth sequel stresses spiritual argument on climate
Nobel winner adapts fact-based message to reach those who believe they have a moral duty to protect the planet in Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 November 2009 19.58 GMT Article history

Al's Gore's much-anticipated sequel to An Inconvenent Truth is published today, with an admission that facts alone will not persuade Americans to act on global warming and that appealing to their spiritual side is the way forward.

In his latest book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, the man who won a Nobel prize in 2007 for his touring slideshow on disappearing polar ice and other consequences of climate change, concludes: "Simply laying out the facts won't work."

Instead, Gore tells Newsweek magazine in a pre-publication interview, that he has been adapting his fact-based message - now put out by hundreds of volunteers - to appeal to those who believe there is a moral or religious duty to protect the planet.

"I've done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It's probably my favourite version, but I don't use it very often because it can come off as proselytising," Gore tells Newsweek.

Gore's book arrives at a time of intense international scrutiny of America's moves on the environment ahead of an international meeting on global warming at Copenhagen, now just more than a month away.

It draws on the scholarly approach Gore developed for Inconvenient Truth. Since 2007, the former vice-president has been calling experts together from fields ranging from agriculture to neuroscience to discuss possible solutions to climate change.

The book draws on 30 such "solutions summits", as well as Gore's countless telephone conversations with scientists at America's best institutions. According to the book's press release, "Among the most unique approaches Gore takes in the book is showing readers how our own minds can be an impediment to change."

New polling last month showed a steep decline in the numbers of Americans who share Gore's sense of urgency in acting on climate change.

The book aims to reach those Americans by familiarising readers with emerging alternative energy sources, such as geothermal, biomass and wind power, as well as the possibilities of making cleaner coal power plants, and developing a more efficient and responsive "smart" electrical grid.

Gore also explores how deforestation, soil erosion, and the rising world population are multiplying the effects of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Much of the material was developed through the series of brainstorming sessions organised by Gore. Since 2007, the former vice-president has been calling experts together to discuss possible solutions to climate change. He has also held countless telephone conversations with scientists at America's best institutions.

"He is one of the only politicians that takes the time to actually talk to scientists who are producing the cutting-edge stuff and he comes in with questions. He doesn't ask us how our results impinge on a particular policy he actually asks about science," said Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who spoke to Gore along with colleagues four or five times for the book. "Nobody that we have dealt with has ever taken as much time to understand the subtlety of the science and all the different complications and what it all means as Al Gore."

Those conversations led Gore to politically inconvenient conclusions in this new book. In his conversations with Schmidt and other colleagues at the beginning of the year, Gore explored new studies - published only last week - that show methane and black carbon or soot had a far greater impact on global warming than previously thought. Carbon dioxide - while the focus of the politics of climate change - produces around 40% of the actual warming.
Gore acknowledged to Newsweek that the findings could complicate efforts to build a political consensus around the need to limit carbon emissions.

"Over the years I have been among those who focused most of all on CO2, and I think that's still justified," he told the magazine. "But a comprehensive plan to solve the climate crisis has to widen the focus to encompass strategies for all" of the greenhouse culprits identified in the Nasa study.

The former vice-president has been working behind the scenes to try to nudge the White House and Congress to move forward on a 920-page proposed law to cut America's greenhouse gas emissions and encourage its use of clean energy sources like solar and wind power.

On Saturday, he told the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, he was "almost certain" Obama would attend the negotiations. The White House has so far refused to make a commitment.

But Gore has also been confronted with almost daily fresh reminders of the difficulties of prodding Americans to action.

The proposed legislation has set off a ferocious debate about the costs of dealing with climate change - with conservative Democrats and Republicans saying reducing America's use of oil will deepen unemployment and hurt average American families.

Republicans in the Senate have threatened to boycott a session today that had been called to move forward a draft of a 920-page proposed law to deal with climate change.

Progress on the bill is seen as crucial to getting a binding deal at Copenhagen. Barbara Boxer, the chair of the Senate's environment and public works committee, said yesterday she was ready to move ahead without any Republican participation.

news20091103nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 2 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1053
News: Q&A
Sacked science adviser speaks out
David Nutt explains what his dismissal means for drugs policy and scientific advice in Britain.
By Daniel Cressey

The UK government faces a revolt from its scientific advisers after it sacked the chair of its independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last week.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson demanded the resignation of psychopharmacologist David Nutt on Friday, after Nutt reiterated his views on the relative safety of various drugs in a lecture at King's College London Centre for Crime and Justice. Nutt gave the lecture in July but his comments came to light when the centre last week published a briefing based on the lecture. He had previously clashed with Johnson's predecessor Jacqui Smith, over his comments regarding the dangers of MDMA ('ecstasy') and his call for a wider debate on society's approach to risk (see 'Ecstasy advice is a bitter pill').

At least two members of the ACMD have already resigned in protest at Nutt's sacking. Nutt, who holds appointments at Imperial College London and the University of Bristol, speaks to Nature about his sacking.

Were you surprised to be sacked?

Yes it was a surprise. I still don't fully understand why. It's sort of sad isn't it that you criticize government policy and you get sacked? It smacks of a very intolerant attitude and the regime of not wanting people to have public debate.

How was the decision broken to you? Did the home secretary himself call you?

I was sent a letter in an e-mail as an attachment. I was rung by someone at the Home Office who said "read your e-mail" and I read my e-mail and there it was.

{{“It just seems to me a nail in the coffin of evidence-based government.”}
David Nutt
University of Bristol}

What it said, basically, was that I'd strayed too far from science into the policy arena … and because I'd strayed into policy I was confusing the public about the harms of drugs. My reply to him points out there is a grey area and that it's perfectly reasonable for scientists to talk about policy issues in which science can inform.

When we last spoke, over your run-in with Jacqui Smith, it was suggested by some people that if the government continued to take this hard line, scientists would be less willing to become advisers. Do you think that is something that will come to pass now?

I would imagine so. It's a pretty thankless task. You work for 10 years unpaid and you get spat out because you say something they don't like, even when it is directed at helping the health of the country. It's weird. I'm fascinated by who they're going to find to replace me. I don't envy the person doing the job.

You sound quite angry about this. Is that a fair description?

I'm hurt. I don't think it's just. I'm disappointed rather than angry. I'm not so much disappointed for me, I'm disappointed for science and for the common sense of the government. It just seems to me a nail in the coffin of evidence-based government.

I did the job to help other people. I feel I did a good job and could continue to do a good job. They're going to struggle to find someone who's better qualified than me. It will be difficult for anyone who has got views to express them now that the threat of being sacked is hanging over them.

Things have changed over the past few years. Until two years ago the government had never gone against the advice of the ACMD. Two years ago, the new prime minister decided that cannabis was a class B drug. Clearly he was determined that he was going to decide what the classification was, independent of the evidence.

After that, it was ecstasy. When we said it should be class B, the home secretary Jacqui Smith said "we need to give out the message it is a dangerous drug".

We're having a kind of Luddite phase now in politicians. I don't think it's going to get any better if the Tories [Conservative Party] get in frankly.

Overall then, is your impression that the government has abandoned making drugs policy on the basis of science?

It has on ecstasy and cannabis. On Monday it's going to legislate — on our advice — for [the 'legal high' party drug] GBL and for [the herbal smoking blend] Spice. I think it's going to accept our recommendations there.

Would you be willing to serve again for a future government, of any political persuasion?

Of course. Provided it was clear that we were the experts and they took our advice. This whole business of being hard on drugs, the 'war on drugs' is all a bit bonkers. I'm perfectly happy to give advice on the harms of drugs but if it's going to be usurped by simple political posturing then it would be rather unrewarding.

For instance, my dream scenario: let's remodel the act. Let's decide we're going to have proper independent regulation of drugs. Let's take the ACMD out of government. Let's make it an independent body that reports to parliament but not to the home secretary and that gives independent advice, rather like the Bank of England takes away the politicking around interest rates.

That's what we should do, and if that were to happen of course I'd serve.

How do you respond to the suggestion that it was naive to say these things again?

Look, I tell the truth. That's what scientists do. Why shouldn't I tell the truth? I think it's very important that people tell the truth about the criminal-justice system in relation to drugs. Is it reasonable to hang a five-year prison sentence over you for a joint? Is that proportionate in any sense when cannabis doesn't kill anyone? Yet on the streets there are going to be people getting into serious injury tonight, there are going to be people dying from alcohol poisoning.

The whole drugs war is ridiculous and someone needs to stand up and say it is wrong and we need to seriously look at where the real harms are.

That's a scientific question. It's about the harms of drugs.

What do you plan to do now?

I'm going to carry on what I'm doing: I'm going to do research on the psychopharmacology of drug misuse and try to understand the nature of addiction and to develop new treatments. That's what I've always done. And hopefully keep educating people about the harms of drugs in an appropriate way.

news20091103nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 2 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462022a
News
California stem-cell grants awarded
First major round of research targeted at therapies takes off.
By Erika Check Hayden

{Dennis Slamon leads one of the teams to receive funding from CIRM.}

UCLAThe starting gun has fired for 14 research teams, based in California, who now have four years to make good on the therapeutic promise of stem cells.

On 28 October, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) committed US$230 million to teams of basic and clinical researchers aiming to move experimental stem-cell treatments into an investigational new-drug filing with the US Food and Drug Administration. Britain and Canada together paid an additional $43 million for four of the grants, which will include work by researchers in those countries.

Robert Klein, chair of CIRM's board, calls the awarding of the grants a "historic day".

It is the most highly anticipated round of research grants yet awarded by the San Francisco-based agency, which was set up by a 2004 ballot measure to fund stem-cell research. At the time, federal funding for research on human embryonic stem-cell lines was restricted to the relatively small number of cell lines in existence in August 2001.

Scientists outside the state say that the grants could help the stem-cell field as a whole. Sean Morrison, director of the University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology in Ann Arbor, calls the awards "exciting".

"Developing an effective new treatment is a hard problem, and most good ideas won't lead to cures," he says. "But, without the resources from these disease-team grants, it would take much longer to distinguish between the good ideas that really work and the good ideas that don't quite work."

{“For adult stem cells, moving from the lab to a clinical trial, four years is not outrageous at all.”}

Other researchers have welcomed the awards, but note that many of the projects test ideas that are similar to work being funded elsewhere. The National Institutes of Health, for instance, is gearing up to fund research on new lines of human embryonic stem cells. It plans to spend nearly $1 billion this year, not including money from the economic stimulus package, on research on adult and embryonic stem-cell lines in humans and other animals.

"The general [new-grant] portfolio strikes me as being similar to what is going on elsewhere," says haematologist Stuart Orkin of the Children's Hospital Boston in Massachusetts. "I don't see anything radically different from what I see people thinking about in other institutions, but it's great to have the funding to do it."

For instance, two of the grants will fund work to develop monoclonal antibodies — targeted biological drugs that are already approved for many indications — to target cancer cells. Another grant will try to use a patient's own cardiac stem cells to repair damage from heart attacks, a controversial approach that is already being tested in patients. A fourth grant aims to modify patients' bone-marrow cells to correct the genetic defect that causes sickle-cell anaemia, then implant the cells back into patients.

A similar approach has been used to treat severe combined immunodeficiency disorder. "That would have been called gene therapy before, instead of stem-cell therapy, and there are a number of people doing that," Orkin points out.

Broad disease range

Four of the grants involve work on human embryonic stem cells, intending to treat diabetes, macular degeneration, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and stroke. And three of the cancer grants — including one co-led by Dennis Slamon, an oncologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who developed the breast cancer drug trastuzumab, sold by Genentech of South San Francisco — aim to target and destroy cancer stem cells, whose existence is still a matter of some debate.

Another grant will attempt to use induced pluripotent stem cells — which have many of the capabilities of embryonic stem cells but can be tailored to match individual patients — to treat a rare skin disease called epidermolysis bullosa.

Four other awards focus on modifying adult stem cells to treat HIV and brain tumours.

Observers say that the chances of one or more of the experimental therapies making it to the clinic are improved because many of them take similar approaches to techniques that have already been approved, and because many focus on adult stem cells.

Major scientific questions remain about using embryonic stem cells in humans. The first company intending to begin clinical trials involving human embryonic stem cells — Geron of Thousand Oaks in California — has faced repeated setbacks in getting its trial going.

"For adult stem cells, moving from the lab to a clinical trial doesn't take nearly as long, and four years is not outrageous at all," says Robin Young, a Philadelphia-based publisher of an orthopaedics newsletter and organizer of an annual stem-cell meeting in New York. "I would say it's very likely that some of those are going to be in clinical trials by then."

Even therapies that aim to use adult stem cells are no sure thing. In September, Osiris Therapeutics of Columbia, Maryland, announced that its treatment made from cultured adult stem cells to treat graft versus host disease had failed.

However, a success by one of the grantees could be enough for CIRM to gain voters' approval to extend its 10-year lifespan beyond its initial approved expiry date of 2014 — or 2016, if counting from when CIRM funded its first grants. "Even if one of these ideas succeeds, it would be a huge success for CIRM that would justify all of their investment in this area," Morrison says.

news20091103nn3

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 2 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1046
Corrected online: 2 November 2009
News
Native American culture sowed seeds of its own collapse
Floods brought the Nazca to their knees — but they crippled themselves by over-farming first.
By Lizzie Buchen

{{An irrigation canal once used by the Nazca, who may have helped bring about their own demise by clearing trees to make way for farmland.}
David Beresford-Jones}

The mysterious Peruvian culture that preceded the Incas had a significant hand in its own catastrophic collapse, new research suggests.

The Nazca people are thought to be responsible for the enormous drawing or geoglyphs etched into the deserts of southern Peru, known as the Nazca lines. Around 500 AD, archaeological evidence indicates that the then-flourishing society came to a sudden and bloody demise.

A leading hypothesis for this precipitous collapse proposes that massive floods destroyed the society's agricultural system, causing the society to fragment and feud over abruptly scant resources. But archaeologist David Beresford-Jones of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues found that — although such flooding did occur — the Nazca brought on their own demise by logging trees to make way for farmland. Their findings appear in Latin American Antiquity¹.

"Dramatic climactic events are always used to explain culture change in the Andes," says Beresford-Jones. "But this is not satisfying based on what we know about human culture. It paints a picture of culture sitting there, not changing, hit by events over which they have no control. But Native Americans did not always live in harmony with their environment."

Cultural forensics

Ice-core records suggested that severe storms — a mega El Niño — hit the Peruvian Andes around the time the Nazca's fall began², but this had not been corroborated in the coastal valleys where the Nazca once lived. Beresford-Jones and his colleagues, focusing on the lower Ica valley, solidified this evidence when they discovered a flood layer that sat directly on top of a Nazca rubbish dump. The authors then recreated the flood using a computer simulation, demonstrating that a flood that left such a layer could have caused the damages to the Nazca canal system known to have occurred around 500 AD.

"But that's not the end of the story," says Beresford-Jones. "The landscape was only exposed to the effect of the El Niño because of what the Nazca were doing to their river valleys."

{{“Native Americans did not always live in harmony with their environment.”}
David Beresford-Jones
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research}

Preserved tree trunks are scattered across the now-deserted lower Ica valley, about 200 km south of Lima, indicating a significant landscape change. To investigate this further, team member Alex Chepstow-Lusty of the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima analyzed the pollen that had been blown to the edges of the basin by strong winds. For much of the older portion of the record, the pollen came from riparian trees, like huarango, which once created woodland oases that lined the rivers in the otherwise desert landscape.

But as Chepstow-Lusty moved forward in time through the pollen record, he found a gradual decrease in huarango pollen and a concomitant increase in pollen from agricultural sources, like cotton and maize, indicating that the Nazca were cutting down woodland to make room for farms. The records show that agricultural plants dramatically disappeared and were replaced by weeds; eventually the weeds died and the land became the lifeless desert it is today.

Beresford-Jones says that when the Nazca cut down the trees they destroyed the root system that had been anchoring the landscape.

"When the El Niño came it cut into the floodplain because it was no longer supported by woodland. That caused erosion and made the irrigation system useless," he explains. "Storms like this should have just replenished the water table and wouldn't have hurt them, but [the Nazca] exposed their own land."

Beyond the lower Ica

"The study is original in lots of ways," says Warwick Bray, a retired archaeologist formerly at University College London. "They've brought to bear pollen analysis, geomorphology and archaeology all together in one programme. There have been hints of [vegetation changes] all along, but this is the first time all these techniques have come ogether for southern Peru."

But Bray points out that the findings don't necessarily apply to the collapse of the entire Nazca culture. "They were spread over several southern coastal valleys, each with slightly different topography and geological possibilities," he says. "This is a marvellous study of a small region, but how much we can extrapolate across the whole range of the Nazca no one knows."

Beresford-Jones agrees that there are considerable variations among the valleys. "But the cultural and ecological changes we record in the lower Ica Valley seem to correlate with the wider social changes recorded by archaeology," he says. "It seems reasonable that our lower Ica Valley results include some lessons for those wider changes."

The findings don't bode well for today's southern Peruvian valleys, says Beresford-Jones, where people are removing the last remaining riparian forests for charcoal.

"Populations have exploded, resulting in tremendous pressure upon water resources, agricultural production and the fragile biomes, all of which increases vulnerability to climatic perturbations such as El Niño," he warns. "History repeats itself."

Corrected:The original version of this story misidentified David Beresford-Jones as performing the pollen analysis.
References
Beresford-Jones, D.G. et al. Latin American Antiquity 20, 303–332 (2009).
Thompson, L.G. et al. Science 229, 971–973 (1985). | Article | PubMed

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[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 2 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1055
News
The melting snows of Kilimanjaro
Glaciers crowning Africa's tallest mountain could disappear within decades.
By Brian Vastag

Remnant of the Eastern Ice Field as seen 2000. This particular chunk of ice has now disappeared.Lonnie G. ThompsonThe snows of Kilimanjaro are rapidly disappearing and will be gone by 2033, predicts the most detailed analysis yet of the iconic glaciers gracing Africa's highest peak.

In addition to shrinking in area, Kilimanjaro's glaciers are thinning from the top down, says Ohio State University's Lonnie Thompson, lead author of the new study. "They're being decapitated," he says. "In fact, they're probably not really glaciers anymore. They're remnants of another climate."

In 2000, Thompson and his team made the first modern measurements of Kilimanjaro's ice. Thompson drilled cores from the three glaciers ringing the summit, estimating that the ice bodies date back at least 11,700 years. The team then anchored stakes in bedrock at the bottom of the drill holes and have since used the stakes to measure the thickness of the ice.

One of the small summit glaciers, called the Furtwängler, lost about half its thickness — nearly five meters — between February 2000 and February 2009. At that rate, the 4.6-meter-thick Furtwängler will be gone in another decade, Thompson estimates. Other glaciers on Kilimanjaro will survive longer, but they too will disappear between 2022 and 2033, Thompson's latest estimates suggest. A second summit glacier, the southern ice field, thinned 24% between 2000 and 2007.

Thinning accounts for about half of the ice loss on the mountain, says Thompson, with retreat of the ice from the glaciers' edges accounting for the other half.

Thinning and drying

Since 1912, when aerial photographers documented Kilimanjaro's glaciers, the mountain's ice fields have shrunk around 85% in area, decreasing from 12 square kilometres in size to just 1.85 square kilometres. That pace seems to be accelerating, as the glaciers shrunk 26% in area between 2000 and 2007. Thompson and colleagues calculated the glaciers' coverage with aerial and satellite images, confirming their retreat with the stakes the researchers began placing around the glaciers in 2000.


The Northern Ice Field margin still rises to heights of around 30 meters.Douglas Hardy, UMass GeosciencesMelting and sublimation both contribute to the ice loss, says study author Doug Hardy, a glaciologist from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The glaciers have been in retreat for more than a century, Hardy says, with a drying climate in East Africa one main culprit.

"The top [of the mountain] is very, very dry. It's a desert up there," Hardy says. The lack of new snowfall means the dark, dirty tops of glaciers absorb more solar radiation than they otherwise would. In addition, the nearby Indian Ocean has warmed, says Hardy, altering circulation patterns that used to bring more moisture to the mountain. But Hardy says there is too little data to blame the ice loss on increasing atmospheric temperatures. "It's entirely reasonable that, yes, the glaciers are going away on Kilimanjaro in response to global warming," but the link is via Indian Ocean-driven circulation patterns rather than via a warmer atmosphere, says Hardy. The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA¹.

Disappearing fast

Chris Larsen, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, called tropical glaciers like those on Kilimanjaro the "drama queens" of the glacier world: they respond dramatically to even slight insults. "When the climate changes, they can portray a bad situation in even worse light," says Larsen. "The fact that these ice fields are now on the verge of ending a 11,000 year existence is quite significant."

{{Kilimanjaro's glaciers seem to be shrinking at an ever-faster rate.}
Douglas Hardy, UMass Geosciences}

As other data from Thompson and colleagues confirms, the much larger tropical ice fields of the Andes Mountains are also shrinking, which within decades will leave tens of millions of people without drinking water. In contrast, the relatively small glaciers on Kilimanjaro provide little water for local residents.

However, the Kilimanjaro glaciers do attract some 25,000 visitors each year, a major revenue source for Tanzania. Hardy, who's made 12 trips up the mountain since 2000, says he's noticed the crowds of summiteers growing larger; he thinks the stampede began in response to the global attention the shrinking glaciers received in 2002, when he and Thompson published their first paper on the subject².

"The mountain is famous because of its ice fields at the Equator," says Thompson, who added that tourism may dry up when the glaciers do. "Hemingway knew that a long time ago."

References
1. Thompson, L.G. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA doi: 10.1073/pnas.0906029106 (2009).
2. Thompson, L.G. et al. Science 298 , 589-593 (2002). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |

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[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 2 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462018a
News
Brazil mulls major climate action
If adopted, the move would put the country ahead of other developing nations on emissions curbs.
By Jeff Tollefson

Building on an existing pledge to slash deforestation rates in the Amazon, Brazil is considering a commitment to substantially reduce cumulative greenhouse-gas emissions over the next decade.

Details were under discussion as Nature went to press, but such a commitment would represent the most significant step yet by a developing country going into December's United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen. It could also help to bridge the gap between rich and poor countries, while increasing pressure on industrialized nations to boost their commitments.

"What's really important is that Brazil has seen that it can lead by example," says Steve Schwartzman, who heads tropical-forest policy for the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington DC. "This is a major step. It's tantamount to taking a national cap."

Under the current global-warming framework, only industrialized nations would be required to 'cap' and then reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions. Developing countries are focusing on policies to reduce emissions growth and set up low-carbon development.

Although Brazil is not discussing a binding emissions cap, scientists and government officials have been updating the nation's greenhouse-gas inventories and quantifying potential reductions. Preliminary results from one analysis suggest that the nation could cut its projected emissions in 2020 by 35%, which would equate to roughly 8% below 2007 levels. The government is also discussing even deeper cuts, all contingent on international aid.

"We are just estimating the magnitude of reductions that we can obtain by 2020," says Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research in São José dos Campos. "The next step is to put a dollar figure to each of those things, and then one has to discuss how to get financing."

Working with the scientist network Rede-Clima, Nobre recently calculated for Brazil's environment ministry that the country could reduce its annual emissions by the equivalent of nearly 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (see graphic) by 2020. Nearly two-thirds of that would come from an existing commitment to an 80% reduction in deforestation — now responsible for more than half of Brazil's total emissions — by 2020. But Rede-Clima estimates that another 320 million tonnes could come from the energy and agriculture sectors, as well as reforestation efforts.

"If we get assistance and we develop good policies here, we might get to 2020 with a maximum 40% reduction," Nobre says, and that would cost several billion dollars or more.

Marina Silva, an environmental advocate who resigned as Brazil's environment minister last year amid internal opposition to her policies, has been using her new post in the Senate to push for a comprehensive national target in Copenhagen. Speaking through an interpreter in Washington DC last week, she said the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" might require wealthy nations to take the lead but does not excuse developing countries from taking action.

"It cannot be something that the developing countries hide behind in order to avoid making reductions," says Silva, who is expected to run as the Green Party candidate for president next year. "Our planet does not take into account where the emissions are coming from."

The government is also rethinking its position on the role of forest carbon in a future climate treaty. To date, the country has taken a lone stance in demanding that wealthy countries should not be able to offset their greenhouse-gas emissions by funding forest conservation in the tropics. The fear is that offsets would allow industrialized countries to delay action at home, but observers say that position may soften.

Brazil created the Amazon Fund last year as an alternative mechanism that would allow donor countries to help pay for the country's ongoing programme to curb deforestation (see Nature 460, 936-937; 2009). Norway has pledged US$1 billion up to 2015, assuming Brazil continues to make progress.

But President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appointed a task force to study the issue after nine governors representing Amazon states urged him in June to reconsider Brazil's policy on carbon markets, which they said represent "a golden opportunity" for sustainable development and forest conservation. That panel has proposed allowing nations to offset up to 10% of their commitment by purchasing carbon credits for avoided deforestation.

Schwartzman credits Silva with initiating change within the federal government. "Not very long ago, the official Brazilian position was that they did not want any discussion of deforestation in the international negotiations," he says. "It was at her urging that the Brazilian government reopened that policy and came to a different conclusion."

Officials with the environment ministry could not be reached for comment. As Nature went to press, Lula had scheduled a 3 November cabinet meeting to discuss the issue. It was unclear whether a formal position would be announced this week in Barcelona, where climate negotiators are meeting for the last round of formal talks before Copenhagen.

news20091103reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Australia's emissions fall as economy slows
Mon Nov 2, 2009 3:40am EST

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's greenhouse gas emissions fell in the year to June, the first decline since an greenhouse inventory started in 1998, as the economy slowed due to the global financial crisis.

Australian National Greenhouse Accounts released on Monday estimated the country emitted 544 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent in the year -- a fall of 1.2 percent compared with the year earlier.

"This is the first time the annual emissions growth has been negative since the series commenced in September 1998," said the Australian government's greenhouse gas inventory report.

Australia's average annual emissions growth rate since 1998 has been 1.5 percent, said the report.

"The negative emission growth recorded in the four quarters to June 2009 is considered temporary and is mostly attributable to relatively low emissions in the March and June quarters in key sectors, mainly reflecting the economic slowdown," it said.

The report said emissions from the steel industry had fallen as a result of a temporary reduction in production capacity at the Port Kembla steelworks, emissions from agriculture and transport declined by 1.4 percent each, and low industrial production affected national demand for energy.

The government's weapon in the fight to reduce greenhouse gases permanently is a planned emissions trading scheme (ETS) to start in July 2011.

The ETS aims to curb emissions by 5 percent by 2020, or by up to 25 percent if there is a deal at U.N. world climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

But the ETS laws are deadlocked in parliament, with the government in talks on possible amendments with the opposition, which wants more money for the coal and electricity sectors and agriculture exempt.

Australia's ETS will be the world's most comprehensive if passed, covering 75 percent of national emissions from 1,000 of the biggest companies and be the second domestic trading platform outside of Europe.

Australia produces about 1.5 percent of global emissions. But it is the world's biggest coal exporter and one of the highest per-capita emitters due to reliance on coal for 80 percent of electricity.

(Reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Dean Yates)


[Green Business]
Landslide risk rises near Three Gorges Dam: report
Mon Nov 2, 2009 5:00am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's vast Three Gorges reservoir will see a increasing number of landslides and other geological hazards as the water reaches its maximum level this autumn, a magazine report warned on Monday.

The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest, aims to tame the mighty River Yangtze and provide cheap, clean energy. Reservoir engineers began withholding outflows last September to push the dam's water level up to 175 meters (574 ft) above sea level.

"More slumping and landslides will happen in the next three years, and the higher the water level in the reservoir is, the greater the risks will be," said a report by Caijing magazine (www.caijing.com).

It cited a research paper by the Chongqing Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body in the region.

The Caijing report also said that due to the rising water level in the reservoir, some old landslide fissures are reviving and could become active and move again.

The Three Gorges Dam plan, which cost 254.2 billion yuan ($37.24 billion) and displaced 1.3 million people, was controversial long before construction began in 1994. Critics say rising water levels in the reservoir are eroding already fragile slopes and triggering landslides.

Much of China's land is covered by steep and geologically active mountain ranges, although the Three Gorges area was largely untouched by an earthquake in nearby Sichuan Province that killed 80,000 people in May of 2008.

That earthquake cracked dams in Sichuan, and raised concerns about the safety of many of China's other mega-dam plans.

On Monday, an earthquake measuring 5 on the Richter scale shook southwest Yunnan Province, injuring 28 people and causing more than 1,000 homes to collapse, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

($1=6.826 Yuan)

(Reporting by Huang Yan and Lucy Hornby)


[Green Business]
Q+A: How can economic growth be decoupled from carbon emissions?
Mon Nov 2, 2009 6:36am EST
By Gillian Murdoch

(Reuters) - Growing economies without emitting carbon is the biggest dilemma of our times, sustainable development guru Tim Jackson argues in "Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet," published on Monday.

The economics commissioner for the UK government's Sustainable Development Commission, Jackson advises that sustainability won't be achieved through relentless material consumption growth. Instead, a rewriting of the economic rule book is needed to meet the linked challenges of climate change, ecological degradation and resource scarcity.

Following are some questions Jackson answered about his blueprint for low-carbon growth in an email interview.

CAN ECONOMIC GROWTH BE DECOUPLED FROM CARBON EMISSIONS?

A few countries have made more progress in reducing carbon emissions than others, not just through accidents of fuel history, like the UK's dash for gas, but also through developing renewable energy, like Denmark's wind industry.

However, in both cases, growth still increases carbon emissions. We won't get a true decoupling until we've transformed our economies into real renewable energy economies. Achieving that requires a massive investment. If we fail to make that investment, sooner or later we'll run our economies off an ecological cliff.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN RESOURCE DEPLETION THREATS WE'RE FACING?

Those associated with oil. Some analysts believe the peak in extractable oil reserves has already been passed... Even the International Energy Agency foresees real shortages by 2020.

The carbon crunch could come over the same sort of timescale if the worst predictions of climate science turn out to be true.

At the very least, we seem to be on track for a 6 degrees (Celsius) warming by the end of this century. Human life in such a world would be considerably harsher than it is today.

AND TRADE-RELATED CARBON EMISSIONS ARE A MAJOR "HIDDEN COST?"

(They are) the biggest emissions source left unaccounted for in national accounts. Aviation and maritime 'bunker emissions' are also considerable. Taken together they already wipe out the apparent gains in carbon reduction achieved in the UK since 1990.

A fifth to a quarter of China's emissions may be associated with goods destined for consumption in developed nations.

The most likely policy intervention to offset the impact of traded carbon emissions is either a global financing mechanisms funded by the developed nations to reduce carbon emissions in the industrialising nations, or some sort of border tax or tariff on high carbon goods with the proceeds recycled back to the producing country to reduce carbon intensities.

SOLUTIONS INVOLVE SCRAPPING GDP AND GREENING INVESTMENT?

The most important thing is to establish an international consensus about a new national accounting framework -- similar to the postwar consensus established around the GDP. (For example) three headline indicators measuring 1. GDP adjusted for some of its most obvious economic deficiencies, 2. carbon footprints, and 3. some measure of social wellbeing.

The new ecological macroeconomics would focus on 'ecological' investment: targeting capital at resource efficiency, low-carbon technologies, demand management and sustainable infrastructures (transport systems for instance).

It's extremely unlikely that such investments will happen without significant changes to capital markets. There is a need for a radical rethink of both financial and commodity markets, to re-localise some elements of financial markets to encourage local investment in community infrastructure.

HOW OPTIMISTIC ARE YOU THAT ECOLOGICAL REALISM WILL PREVAIL?

I am optimistic. It's an optimism based in two things. Firstly, pragmatism. Optimism is a more pragmatic position to take than defeatism or pessimism, which would have us accept the status quo and abandon the search for solutions.

Secondly, realism. My experience delving into the supposed 'impossibility theorems' around economic structure, consumer logic and governance suggests that most of the road-blocks are socially constructed. Alternatives abound.

Source: Reuters

(Download Prosperity Without Growth from the Sustainable Development Commission website here)

(Editing by David Fogarty)

news20091103reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Putin adds conditions for new climate deal
Mon Nov 2, 2009 10:17am EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will only support a new global climate deal if all major industrialized nations sign up to it and if the capacity of Russia's giant forests are taken into account, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday.

Putin said the capacity of Russia's forests to balance carbon dioxide emissions would have to be taken into account for any global deal to replace the Kyoto protocol.

(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya, writing by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Conor Humphries)


[Green Business]
France proposes climate plan for poorest countries
Mon Nov 2, 2009 11:10am EST

PARIS (Reuters) - France is proposing a plan to help the world's poorest countries finance renewable energy projects that it hopes will form part of upcoming climate talks, Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said in an interview on Sunday.

The "justice-climate" plan could be financed by revenue from financial transactions, he told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, without elaborating or specifically calling for a tax.

Borloo hopes the plan, which the newspaper quoted sources saying could raise 20 billion euros a year, will help break the deadlock between rich and poor at talks in Copenhagen in December aimed at agreeing a new climate treaty. "The industrialized countries which have polluted a lot should mobilize to finance the development of renewable energy in the most vulnerable countries," Borloo told the newspaper.

"They represent 1.2 billion people who suffer the most from climate problems. Between this shock, their lack of economic development and their absence from big international negotiations, they are really undergoing a triple punishment."

The money would be targeted toward specific programmes such as hydraulic dams, solar energy stations or wind turbines, he said.

The idea of a tax on financial transactions, sometimes called a Tobin tax after economist James Tobin, has come up regularly in recent months as policymakers examine how financial markets might help pay for the effects of the financial crisis.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said European Union leaders agreed a funding proposal for Copenhagen at a summit on Friday after healing a rift over how to split the bill.

He said developing nations need 100 billion euros ($148 billion) a year from 2020 to battle climate change. About 22-50 billion euros of the total will come from the public purse in rich countries. The climate talks began in 2007, spurred by findings by the United Nations Climate Panel that world emissions would have to peak by 2015 to avoid the worst of desertification, floods, extinctions or rising seas. But progress has been slow because industrialized countries and poor countries are split about how to share curbs on greenhouse gases.

(Reporting by Anna Willard; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)


[Green Business]
Danish PM says optimistic on climate deal
Mon Nov 2, 2009 1:13pm EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said on Monday he was optimistic that a politically binding agreement on global climate change could be agreed at a conference next month in Copenhagen.

Rasmussen, speaking in an interview to Reuters in Moscow after meeting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said momentum was growing ahead of the conference.

"Convinced is probably too big a word, but I have decided to stay optimistic about this because I have been engaged in talks with many leaders in the last couple of months and I sense a very strong political willingness to conclude a result in Copenhagen," he said.

Denmark will host the United Nations climate deal talks from December 7-18 in Copenhagen. The talks aim to set ambitious targets for cutting greenhouse gases.

"Hopefully, I will be able to issue invitations for heads of state and government in a few weeks time," he said. "I really believe that they will participate if it's realistic that we could seal an ambitious deal in Copenhagen in December."

Developing nations such as China and India say that rich nations must cut emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- far deeper than what is on offer.

Developed nations say the poor must also do more by 2020 to slow their rising emissions. China, the United States, Russia and India are the top emitters.

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Conor Humphries)


[Green Business]
Q+A: Palm planters, buyers and NGOs face off at roundtable
Mon Nov 2, 2009 1:18pm EST
By Niluksi Koswanage

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The palm oil industry confronts critics and consumers in a meeting this week in Malaysia as it looks to beef up green standards that already include commitments to preserve rainforests and wildlife.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), whose members include buyers and NGOs, wants to discuss standards on greenhouse gas savings that palm oil should achieve before the Copenhagen climate change talks in December.

But with European firms reluctant to take up pricier palm oil certified under RSPO and a longstanding tussle between environment groups and the palm oil industry over its green credentials, the meeting may fall apart, observers say.

Here are some questions and answers on the issues that will be raised during the RSPO meeting, the seventh since 2001:

WHAT'S THE ISSUE WITH CO2 EMISSIONS?

Palm oil producers have been at loggerheads with green groups over how the tropical oil's impact on the environment should be calculated as they try to counter criticism that the industry fuels climate change.

Planters in top producers Indonesia and Malaysia say that oil palm estates can act as a carbon sink and that a major CO2 saving can come from capturing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas emitted during processing.

Environmentalists say any expansion of plantations should be stopped as chopping down and burning rainforests produces the most emissions in the life cycle of oil palm estates.

Both groups agree that expanding into carbon-rich peatland forests found mostly in Indonesia are a no-go, a rare consensus that may help them to hammer out an agreement for an industry standard on palm oil's greenhouse gas savings.

HOW ABOUT MAKING GOVERNMENTS ACCOUNTABLE?

The Malaysian and Indonesian governments are not a part of the RSPO and their own development policies for the industry make it difficult for planters to become eco-friendly.

For instance, Indonesia ended a freeze on new permits for developing estates on peatlands early this year as it seeks to expand the industry, a key revenue earner.

Planters who are RSPO members have pledged to stay away from peatlands and other natural forests but say they will lose valuable expansion opportunities to other companies who do not belong to the RSPO.

WHO WILL BUY PRICEY GREEN PALM OIL?

Price-conscious shoppers in Europe, a key palm oil consumer, have found it difficult to stomach higher-priced palm oil that has been certified under RSPO as the global economy takes its time to recover.

Much of the extra cost comes in hiring auditors to ensure palm oil is produced without harming wildlife and oppressing local communities as well as building new storage tanks and processors to "green" the supply chain.

Producers say their efforts have been wasted as European supermarkets are just passing the costs to the consumers without sharing the burden and warn that they might turn their backs on the RSPO.

Some European buyers have tried offering discounts although they say that food demand has been weaker across the board due to the economic crisis.

But many European retailers and manufacturers have yet to take up green palm oil in a big way, a scorecard by WWF has shown.

news20091103reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Palm oil CO2 targets delayed as planters, NGOs clash
Mon Nov 2, 2009 1:18pm EST
By Niluksi Koswanage

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Planned palm oil carbon emission targets will be delayed by at least a year as planters clash with NGOs on calculating the vegetable oil's environmental impact, officials said on Monday.

The measure was aimed at combating the negative image of palm oil output, which green groups say has been partly fueled by producers in Southeast Asia cutting down swathes of rainforests and draining carbon-rich peatlands.

But Malaysian and Indonesian producers say imposing limits on land expansion based on greenhouse gas emissions was an unfair barrier to trade as oil palm estates could act as net carbon sink.

The CO2 targets were delayed by a year pending further study and watered down to a voluntary undertaking during the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) that brings together producers, buyers and NGOS this week in the Malaysian capital.

"We are disappointed because we wanted the target for this year," said Jan Kees Vis, chairman of the RSPO, which has been tasked with formulating a green standard for the industry.

"However, looking at how even the Copenhagen climate talks may not even reach a resolution in December, perhaps its not too bad. It's part and parcel of trying to get everyone to agree."

Once hailed as a biofuel feedstock that can cut the world's reliance on petroleum diesel, palm oil now struggles with a negative image that estate expansion fuels climate change.

New oil palm estates often replace tropical forests that absorb carbon dioxide and production of the vegetable oil releases high quantities of methane gas, scientists and green groups say.

Palm oil producers say CO2 standards such as the European Union's move to use biofuels that reduce emissions by at least 35 percent versus fossil fuel in 2010 are trade barriers, sidelining palm oil which the E.U. considers to save 19 percent.

DIFFERENCES

Differences over palm oil's eco-credentials have often made it difficult for the RSPO to come up with a consensus.

It was only last year that producers and green groups hammered out a set of criteria for palm oil produced without harming wildlife or displacing local communities, despite the RSPO being in existence since 2002.

"We agree on some conditions and then they (green groups) throw something at us," said a Malaysian planter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"I won't be surprised in some of the planters get fed up and walk out of this."

Part of the producers' anger stems from the slow uptake of certified green palm oil during the economic crisis, observers said. WWF last week issued a buyer's scorecard that showed most European palm oil buyers have shunned green palm oil priced at a premium.

"The scorecard will benchmark the industry. There is some progress with palm oil buyers, the producers should be heartened by this," said Adam Harrison, senior policy officer of WWF International, who came up with the scorecard.

(Editing by Michael Urquhart)


[Green Business]
Maldives says carbon neutral goal ahead of schedule
Mon Nov 2, 2009 1:20pm EST
By Maryam Omidi

MALE (Reuters) - The Maldives could achieve its aim of becoming carbon neutral well before its 2020 target, the Indian Ocean island nation's president said Monday.

To meet the goal of making the archipelago totally free of carbon emissions, the Maldives government has been encouraging investments in power generation through wind, solar and other renewable energy sources to replace diesel.

Monday, the government inaugurated a $200 million wind farm project it said would generate 40 percent of the Maldives total energy demand of 542,000 MWh within the next 20 months.

The project is expected to reduce carbon emissions by a fifth.

"Our target is to become carbon neutral in 10 years, but with the manner things are proceeding now, my feeling is that we will be able to achieve these goals much, much earlier," Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said after the ceremony.

The island nation off the tip of India, best-known for luxury tropical hideaways and unspoiled beaches, is among the most threatened by rising seas. The U.N. has predicted that a rise in sea levels of up to 58 cm could submerge many of its 1,192 islands by 2100.

On October 17, Nasheed and his cabinet held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting, in a symbolic cry for help.

(Writing by Shihar Annez; Editing by Alex Richardson)


[Green Business]
Decision on Cape Wind project by year end-Salazar
Mon Nov 2, 2009 2:12pm EST
By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A decision will be made by the end of 2009 on whether the go ahead will be given to the massive Cape Wind electricity project off the shore of Massachusetts, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Monday.

Salazar said his department is currently consulting with state agencies, including the state historic preservation office, and the final decision will be made "hopefully by the end of this year."

"There is a legal process," Salazar told reporters outside a White House conference on developing a clean energy economy. "I have ordered my department to move forward with the expeditious conclusion of those processes."

The Cape Wind project in 2001 became the country's first major proposed offshore wind farm. Its developers, Cape Wind Associates LLC, aim to construct 130 towers, which will tower 440 feet above the surface of the Nantucket Sound.

Interior's Minerals Management Service gave Cape Wind a favorable environmental review at the start of this year, finding that there would be little negative impact from the project.

The proposed $1 billion wind farm is designed to power about 400,000 homes, but would be within view of popular Cape Cod resorts.

The project has faced serious opposition from business leaders and politicians, including the late Senator Edward Kennedy. Opponents say the turbines would be an eyesore on the pristine area and threaten the tourist industry around Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

The decision on the wind farm has also been held up by local native tribes who have requested that the area where the project would be located be designated a "traditional cultural property."

Supporters of the project, including Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and many environmental groups, have said it would create needed jobs and cut air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

(Editing by Christian Wiessner)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Putin sees climate deal, but with conditions
Mon Nov 2, 2009 2:48pm EST
By Darya Korsunskaya

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will support a new global climate deal only if major powers also sign up and take into account the role Russia's giant forests play as the lungs of the world, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday.

Putin, in his first extensive comments on the climate talks, said Russia was ready to support a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol at next month's United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Russia, the world's number three emitter of greenhouse gases, is seen as a key player in the talks.

"Yes, we are ready to do this," Putin said when asked by a reporter if Russia would support a deal in Copenhagen.

"We will support the idea of Mr. Rasmussen to have a politically binding agreement at the end of the Copenhagen meeting," said Putin, who was speaking after talks in Moscow with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

But Putin, who many diplomats and citizens believe is the true ruler of Russia despite stepping down as Kremlin chief to become prime minister in May 2008, said two conditions had to be met for Russia's support.

"All countries, especially those with the biggest emissions -- the world's major economies -- must sign this document without exception, otherwise it loses any logic," Putin said.

He added Moscow "will insist that the ability of Russia's forests to absorb carbon dioxide be taken into account."

WORLD'S LARGEST FORESTS

Russia has the largest forests in the world and says expanding forests means they help offset carbon dioxide emissions by other countries and should be taken into account when setting targets under a new deal.

"We've long known that Russia wants its forests included in a deal. But it's not provided satisfactory data on deforestation and on forestry management," said Bill Hare, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

"Russia contends that the overall amounts of carbon in forests has increased since 1990," he said.

The United Nations says just a few degrees change in the world's climate could provoke floods, heatwaves, the extinction of animal species and the spread of diseases into new regions.

Rasmussen, speaking in an interview to Reuters, said he sees momentum for a deal next month and that he hoped to convince world leaders to attend the conference.

Russia's emissions are now more than 30 percent below 1990, the year before the Soviet Union fell, ushering in nearly a decade of economic collapse with emissions bottoming out during 1998.

Putin, who once quipped that a climate change could be positive as Russians would have to buy fewer fur coats, said that Russia was sticking to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 30 percent below the 1990 level.

World Bank researchers say that under current forecasts for temperature change Russia's permafrost regions could partially melt and new pests could threaten the vast forests of Russia's north, though warmer temperatures could help increase crop yields.

According to the World Bank, one of the easiest ways for Russia to cut emissions would be to reduce the vast amount of energy -- equal to France's annual energy consumption -- it wastes for heating, electricity production and industry.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, editing by Myra MacDonald)


[Green Business]
Danish PM upbeat on new global climate deal
Mon Nov 2, 2009 2:50pm EST
By Conor Sweeney

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The host of next month's global climate conference said on Monday he saw momentum for a substantial, political deal to replace the Kyoto Treaty and said he hoped to convince top world leaders to attend.

With Kyoto set to run out in 2012, the talks are seen as the last chance for all countries to agree on painful measures needed to ease the pace of climate change.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told Reuters he was optimistic that a politically-binding agreement could be agreed at the conference next month in Copenhagen but that the final legally-binding decisions would have to be taken later.

Rasmussen, speaking in an interview to Reuters in Moscow after meeting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said he hoped there would be a substantial enough agreement on the table to entice national leaders to attend.

"Convinced is probably too big a word, but I have decided to stay optimistic about this because I have been engaged in talks with many leaders in the last couple of months and I sense a very strong political willingness to conclude a result in Copenhagen," he said.

Denmark will host United Nations climate deal talks on December 7-18 that aim to set ambitious targets for cutting greenhouse gases but also to raise funds to help poor countries tackle global warming.

Rasmussen said he was encouraged both by a statement at the United Nations in New York by Chinese President Hu Jintao and strong engagement from U.S. President Barack Obama.

MOMENTUM CREATED

"Everybody understands that we now have created a momentum and Copenhagen is really the deadline and, if we fail in Copenhagen, it will be a huge failure. I have chosen to stay optimistic about this but it's not easy at all," he said.

"Hopefully, I will be able to issue invitations for heads of state and government in a few weeks time," he said. "I really believe that they will participate if it's realistic that we could seal an ambitious deal in Copenhagen in December."

Developing nations such as China and India say that rich nations must cut emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- far deeper than what is on offer.

Developed nations say the poor must also do more by 2020 to slow their rising emissions. China, the United States, Russia and India are the top emitters.

After their meeting, Putin warned that Russia would only sign up if all other major industrialized countries do so too, a position that Rasmussen saw as a logical position.

"It's not a major setback, it's quite obvious -- why should any country sign if not all countries sign?"

"It is a challenge for every single industrialized country in the world to deal with the climate change issue and that's why we are working very strongly to reach a politically binding agreement in Copenhagen which would cover all the major countries in the world whether they are part of the Kyoto regime, as is Russia, or not, as is the U.S.A., for instance."

Delegates at the final preparatory meeting in Barcelona said on Monday that time was running out. The United Nations urged the United States to set a 2020 deal for cutting greenhouse gases to help secure a deal in Copenhagen.

But Rasmussen said the timeframe is too tight for a legally binding agreement and this must come later.

"We simply can't conclude all the legal discussion in all details in five, six weeks from now, so there will still be some work to be done after Copenhagen."

"Our end goal is an internationally legally binding treaty for when the Kyoto treaty comes to an end in 2012."

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Richard Williams)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
U.S. urged to set 2020 target to save climate deal
Mon Nov 2, 2009 4:36pm EST
By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - The United States came under pressure on Monday to follow other rich countries and set a 2020 goal for cutting greenhouse gases to rescue chances for a climate deal due next month in Copenhagen.

The prospective Danish hosts ratcheted up pressure on the United States at a final preparatory meeting in Barcelona, saying it could not come "empty-handed" to Copenhagen.

Some African countries threatened to walk out of the Barcelona talks, saying rich countries had to deepen their emissions-cutting targets. The head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said a U.S. number was essential.

"We need a clear target from the United States in Copenhagen," Yvo de Boer told a news conference. "That is an essential component of the puzzle."

President Barack Obama, speaking at the White House to reporters, held out hope for "an important deal" in Copenhagen. But he tempered that optimism, saying such a deal might not solve "every problem on this issue, but takes an important step forward, and lays the groundwork for further progress in the future."

The United States has not yet offered a firm target for reducing emissions by 2020. By contrast, the European Union has promised a cut of at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and several other developed nations have set goals.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate said they would try to start pushing legislation through a key committee on Tuesday, ignoring a planned boycott by minority Republicans. That legislation calls for a 20 percent reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by industry, from 2005 levels.

Even if the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee signs off on the bill in coming weeks, there is no evidence any measure will be approved by the full Senate this year.

Delegates at the Barcelona talks that run to Friday said time was fast running out to break a deadlock over how to share curbs on emissions between rich and poor and ways to raise billions of dollars to help developing nations combat climate change.

The role of forests threatened to add another complication to the faltering talks.

Moscow "will insist that the ability of Russia's forests to absorb carbon dioxide be taken into account," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, speaking after talks in Moscow with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

Rasmussen told Reuters he hoped within weeks to have enough on the table to invite world leaders to the December conference.

Australia said its emissions fell last year, if the effect of forest fires was excluded.

'EMPTY-HANDED'

Both Denmark and the European Union urged Obama to do more to unlock a deal at the December 7-18 talks.

Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard said she found it "very hard to imagine" that Obama could collect the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10 "in Oslo, only a few hundred kilometers (miles) from Copenhagen, and at the same time has sent an empty-handed delegation to Copenhagen."

"We have seen a significant, real change in the American position ... but we still expect more," said Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

Washington said it was committed to a U.N. deal.

"The notion the United States is not making enough effort is not correct," said Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation in Barcelona, pointing to a series of measures under Obama to promote clean energy and cut emissions.

"Our view is that it is extremely important to be a party to this (Copenhagen) deal," he said. The United States is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China.

African nations called for tougher emissions curbs from the developed world, and Gambia, Ethiopia and Algeria spoke in favor of walking out of the U.N. talks, said Antonio Hill of Oxfam.

Outside the conference center, protesters lined up hundreds of ringing alarm clocks to show time was running out to reach a deal meant to slow rising temperatures and floods, heatwaves, wildfires and rising seas.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington)


[Green Business]
Climate law seen raising gasoline 13 cents a gallon
Mon Nov 2, 2009 5:02pm EST
By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. climate legislation would hike gasoline prices about 13 cents a gallon as oil companies push the price of carbon permits on to consumers, according to report by Point Carbon, an independent consulting company that tracks global carbon and energy markets.

The analysts did not share the oil industry's view that a U.S. cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gas emissions would decimate demand for gasoline and force large numbers of refineries to shut down.

Climate legislation being debated in the Senate after passing in the House of Representatives narrowly in June would force big polluters to hold carbon credits for every tonne of carbon they emit.

Point Carbon analyst Emilie Mazzacurati said oil companies would face substantial carbon permit costs under the legislation because they would get few of the permits the government would distribute to companies during the first years of a cap-and-trade program.

But that should not hurt integrated oil companies very much, she said, because they could largely pass the costs on to consumers in the form of higher fuel prices.

If carbon prices average about $15 a tonne, about half the level at which price controls could start to kick in, oil companies would would boost gasoline prices about 5 percent from current levels, or 13 cents a gallon, the report said.

Exxon Mobil Corp, for example, could face about $5.9 billion a year in carbon permit prices, but would be able to recoup all but about $277 million of that, the report said.

"They are just going to increase prices, which is going to allow them to recover the money they are spending buying (carbon) allowances," Mazzacurati said.

Point Carbon assumed the fuel price rise would not be enough to reduce demand for gasoline.

Power generators could face higher costs than oil companies, Point Carbon said, because they are not as free to boost electricity rates, which are controlled by state governments.

That means power generators who burn large amounts of coal would face big permit costs they would not be able to recover.

Utility Southern Co would face the highest costs of the largest emitters in the energy business, Point Carbon said. Carbon regulation could cost Southern an amount equal to about 3 percent of its yearly revenue.

"Climate legislation should not be about winners and losers but protecting the economy, our customers, and the economy," said a Southern spokeswoman in an email.

Power generators that rely more on low-carbon power sources could make out quite well. Exelon Corp, which owns the country's biggest nuclear power fleet, could see its annual revenue jump 9 percent, Point Carbon said.

That's because Exelon would not have to buy large amounts of carbon permits that the big coal burners would, but they would be able to take advantage of any higher power prices that resulted from national emissions regulation.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by David Gregorio and Lisa Shumaker)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Senate panel tries bypassing climate bill boycott
Mon Nov 2, 2009 6:38pm EST
By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats who control a key U.S. Senate panel said they would begin debating a climate change bill on Tuesday, despite a planned boycott by minority Republicans who are demanding more study of the issue.

Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, wants to have a bill approved by her panel before an international summit on global warming convenes in Copenhagen in December.

The wrangling over when debate can start illustrated how difficult it will be to get any bill to the Senate floor and passed into law before year end, complicating President Barack Obama's hopes that the United States will take a leading role in Copenhagen.

Saying she was attempting to address Republican concerns, Boxer told reporters Tuesday's work session would be suspended in the afternoon so experts from the Environmental Protection Agency could come before the committee to answer technical questions -- from Democrats or Republicans -- about the bill.

Boxer also said she would extend a deadline for Republicans to notify her of amendments they might pursue to the bill.

"We're not going to rush this through," she said, adding she hoped Republicans "return to the table."

Senator Richard Lugar, a moderate Senate Republican whose support Democrats would like to win, warned that "it would not be constructive" if Boxer pushed the climate bill through the environment panel during a Republican boycott.

A committee Democratic aide, who asked not to be identified, cited Senate rules saying that Tuesday's committee session could occur if at least 10 of the 19 members attend. Democrats control 12 of the seats.

Republicans had hoped to stop the work session with a boycott by all seven of their members, citing a different committee rule stating at least two Republicans must be present for the panel to conduct business.

The Obama administration and many fellow Democrats in Congress think that committee approval would further demonstrate momentum in the United States for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Republicans want more analysis from the Environmental Protection Agency of the economic impact of legislation that would require utilities, factories and oil refineries to cut their carbon pollution 20 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

Boxer has pointed to existing EPA analysis that suggested the legislation would have only a small impact on consumers.

U.N. Climate Change Secretariat head Yvo de Boer called on the United States on Monday to set a 2020 goal for cutting its greenhouse gas emissions. [nL2415367]

But the full Senate was not expected to vote on a bill this year.

Democratic Senator John Kerry is holding talks with Republicans and moderate Democrats that could lead to a quite different measure being presented to the full Senate next year. It would likely retain core elements of the bill before Boxer's panel but could contain incentives for expanding the U.S. nuclear power industry and offshore oil drilling.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)


[Green Business]
China urged to adopt tougher C02 target
Tue Nov 3, 2009 4:55am EST

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt called on China to set a tougher target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions after 2020 as its part of a U.N. climate change agreement to be negotiated in Copenhagen.

China, which recently overtook the United States as the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitter, has said it will cut its C02 emissions per dollar of economic output by a "notable margin" by 2020 compared with 2005..

But it has resisted calls for quantifiable cuts which the European Union, among others, hopes will be the basis for a United Nations climate treaty to be agreed in the Danish capital in December.

"My message to China is this: raise your ambitions so that emissions peak by 2020 at the latest and then fall," said Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

"We know that China has all the requirements for success and I hope that concrete commitments will be announced at the conference in Copenhagen," he said in an article published in the Dagens Nyheter newspaper on Tuesday.

Reinfeldt, who met President Barack Obama on Monday to discuss climate change, also called on the United States, other developed countries and India -- which he will visit this week -- to do their part.

Preparatory talks for the Copenhagen meeting on December 7-18 are bogged down in disputes about how to share out curbs on emissions between rich and poor nations, and how to raise billions of dollars to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

Reinfeldt admitted that many people had already written off Copenhagen as a failure and that all the details of a deal might not be finalized then. "But it would be a major political failure if no agreement were reached in December. Climate change will not wait for drawn-out negotiations," he said.


[Green Business]
Merkel to press US on climate in speech to Congress
Tue Nov 3, 2009 8:11am EST
By Noah Barkin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to urge the United States to take bold action to combat global warming in a speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, a month before a U.N. climate summit.

Merkel, who began her second term in office last week, will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House before giving the first address to the U.S. Congress by a German leader since Konrad Adenauer in 1957.

She signaled in a podcast over the weekend that climate change would be a central theme of her Washington visit, describing it as a "global task we cannot afford to push back."

Hopes that countries can agree a binding treaty at the December 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen are dimming and some believe that targeting a deal in 2010 might be more realistic.

A big hurdle is opposition within the U.S. Senate to a domestic climate bill sponsored by the Democrats.

If the Senate is unable to agree on legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions before the summit, the Obama administration will have its hands tied in Copenhagen and the chances of a deal will erode further.

At a final preparatory meeting in Barcelona on Monday, the United States came under pressure to follow other rich countries and set a 2020 goal for cutting greenhouse gases. The summit's prospective Danish hosts said it could not come "empty-handed" to Copenhagen.

"We need a clear target from the United States in Copenhagen," said the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, Yvo de Boer. "That is an essential part of the puzzle.

SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

Merkel's speech, timed to coincide with next week's 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, is an opportunity to address U.S. lawmakers directly and drive home a message that the world is watching Washington on the climate issue.

In 2007, Merkel cajoled Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, into backing a strong G8 statement on global warming, earning the nickname "Klimakanzlerin," or Climate Chancellor. But winning over skeptical Senate Republicans may be tougher.

Officials said Merkel's speech would last about 30 minutes and be delivered mainly in German. She is expected to highlight the special postwar relationship between Germany and the United States and Washington's role in helping bring down the Berlin Wall with its tough stance toward the Soviet Union.

Merkel is the only German chancellor to have grown up in communist East Germany, giving her a unique perspective on the Cold War and the events leading up to the toppling of the Wall on November 9, 1989.

In her speech she is also likely to touch on the conflict in Afghanistan and the nuclear showdown with Iran as examples of challenges the West must unite to overcome. All three issues are on the agenda for her talks with Obama.

Western powers are engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with Iran, which has signaled that it wants fundamental changes to a nuclear fuel deal it committed to in talks last month.

"The president will want to get her sense on how she sees things with Iran and what needs to be happening here," said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States, Germany and their NATO allies are struggling to forge a new strategy on Afghanistan, where violence is at its worst since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

Obama is weighing a request from his top commander in Afghanistan to increase U.S. troop levels by 40,000.

Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have called for a conference early next year to set targets for handing over responsibility for security to Afghan authorities.

(Writing by Noah Barkin; Editing by Chris Wilson)