news20091114jt

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
Obama, Hatoyama prioritize alliance
Cooperation on nuke arms, emissions; no Futenma deal
By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and U.S. President Barack Obama vowed Friday to bolster the bilateral alliance and cooperate on pressing global issues, including climate change and nuclear disarmament.

The two also touched on the sensitive relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa. The issue has cast a shadow on bilateral relations. They said it was their common goal to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

Earlier this week, the two governments decided to form a ministerial-level working group to find a way to resolve the issue, just in time to avoid direct conflict at the summit.

The working group "will focus on the implementation of the agreement that our two governments reached with respect to the restructuring of the U.S. forces in Okinawa, and we hope to complete this work expeditiously," Obama said during a joint news conference. "Our goal remains the same — and that is to provide for the defense of Japan with minimal intrusion on the lives of the people who share the space."

But the contentious relocation of the Futenma base continues to loom over the Hatoyama administration.

In 2006, the then Liberal Democratic Party-led government signed a bilateral agreement with the U.S. to move the Futenma base's flight operations in Ginowan to U.S. Marine Corps Camp Schwab in Nago on the northern part of Okinawa Island by 2014.

But Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan, which came to power in August amid a strong wave of anti-LDP sentiment, has promised to consider moving the base outside the prefecture or even outside Japan.

Obama arrived at Tokyo's Haneda airport aboard Air Force One earlier in the day on his first official trip to Japan. He will depart Saturday for Singapore to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit.

"I began my trip here in Tokyo because the alliance between the United States and Japan is a foundation for security and prosperity not just for our two countries but for the Asia-Pacific region," Obama said.

With the 50th anniversary of the revision of the Japan-U.S. security treaty coming up next year, the two leaders promised to strengthen the bilateral ties to aim for a "world without nuclear weapons."

"I told Obama that the Japan-U.S. alliance is the foundation of everything in regards to Japan's diplomacy," Hatoyama said. "But the times and the situation of the world have changed and I suggested to further advance and develop the alliance, to create a constructive and future-oriented new Japan-U.S. alliance."

During the evening talks at the Prime Minister's Official Residence, Hatoyama and Obama issued a joint statement, pledging the two governments to work closely toward nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his vision of a nuclear-free world.

The statement declared that North Korea and Iran should "uphold and adhere to their respective international obligations." Pointing out Pyongyang's recent missile launches and nuclear test, the joint statement stressed, "North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons remains a major threat to peace and stability in Northeast Asia and the entire international community."

Japan and the U.S. also urged North Korea "to return immediately to the six-party (Pyongyang denuclearization) talks without precondition."


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
JAL lost 131 billion in half, skips forecast
By KAZUAKI NAGATA and TAKAHIRO FUKADA
Staff writers

Battered by the global financial crisis and the H1N1 swine flu pandemic, Japan Airlines Corp. on Friday posted a hefty group net loss of 131.2 billion for the April-September half and said it has applied for out-of-court debt restructuring as a stopgap measure to stay aloft.

It represents JAL's worst first-half loss since it merged with Japan Air System in 2002. JAL also said sales for the half fell 28.8 percent to 763.9 billion compared with a year ago.

Sales from domestic flights suffered a 12 percent drop, but the faltering airline struggled even harder on international routes, logging sales of only 225.4 billion, down 42.8 percent. The carrier refrained from issuing a forecast for the full year.

"It is difficult to have a forecast, and we would like to avoid causing misunderstanding, so we refrained from posting the forecast," JAL executive Yoshimasa Kanayama said.

JAL President Haruka Nishimatsu said in the future the company needs to reduce the number of international flights, which have been the airline's main business for a long time.

Asked whether management intended to take responsibility for the dismal figures, Nishimatsu also hinted the team may step down after the company puts together a rehabilitation plan and outlines a road map for its feasibility.

How to reconstruct the struggling airline, which posted a record 99.04 billion group net loss in the April-June quarter, has been a focus of increasing public attention.

JAL will tap into an arbitration scheme dubbed alternative dispute resolution, which allows a noncourt third-party to act as an intermediary between JAL and its creditors and immediately suspend loan payments and possibly have debt waived in the longer term.

If a company takes the ADR route, financial institutions that write off the debts will receive tax benefits.

Earlier this week, the government revealed options for saving JAL, including a bridge loan it is expected to need this month from the Development Bank of Japan and the drafting of a special law that would allow the state to reduce pension benefits.

The company has applied for rehabilitation under Tokyo-based Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp., a body set up by the government and private-sector financial institutions to rehabilitate debt-ridden firms.

Speaking about Friday's ADR decision, Nishimatsu said it was necessary because it would facilitate arrangements to obtain bridge loans needed for JAL to stay alive until a decision on longer-term financial aid is made by the corporate turnaround body.

Ryota Himeno, analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co., said JAL will not likely see its business dramatically improve in the near future as it will take some time to reform its high cost structure by reducing pensions and streamlining its workforce.

But analysts said the carrier will be able to receive funding from ETIC and continue to exist with the government's support. "The airline will certainly not disappear," Himeno said.

While taxpayers might not welcome the government's assistance for JAL, experts said travelers will benefit from its continued existence.

"If there is only one carrier, it will not be good in terms of the antitrust law and competition," Himeno said, adding that JAL and rival All Nippon Airways Co. should compete with each other to keep airfares low and provide passengers with more choices.

Makoto Murayama, senior analyst at Nomura Securities Co., pointed out people who can only use JAL from their local airports also need the carrier to continue operations.

The struggle at Japan's largest has spread overseas.

American Airlines parent AMR Corp., may team up with private-equity fund TPG Inc. to invest at least 300 million in JAL, aiming to keep JAL in the oneworld alliance, while Delta Airlines Inc. of SkyTeam alliance also wants to bring JAL to their alliance.

Nishimatsu said the company needs to make an "urgent decision" by the end of the year on capital tieup talks with foreign air carriers.

However, he said the continuation of the carrier's alliance ties with American Airlines is "natural" in view of the costs of withdrawing from the oneworld grouping.

Information from Kyodo added


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
Death sought over Ibaraki stabbing spree

MITO, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) Prosecutors sought Friday the death sentence for a man accused of a stabbing spree in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture, that left two people dead and seven others wounded.

At the Mito District Court, the prosecutors said Masahiro Kanazawa, 26, "wanted to end his boring days" with the death sentence he thought he would get for the March 2008 stabbings at Arakawaoki Station.

Kanazawa's counsel asked for life imprisonment.

Kanazawa was also accused of fatally stabbing a 72-year-old man at the victim's home in Tsuchiura four days before the stabbing spree.

He has admitted to stabbing the 10 people in the two cases.

news20091114lat

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[World > Asia]
Obama speaks of cooperation with China
In a speech in Tokyo, President Obama addresses issues such as human rights and openness, but makes it clear that the U.S. does not see China as a strategic threat whose rise must be checked.
By Peter Nicholas
November 13, 2009 | 7:11 p.m.

Reporting from Tokyo - Rolling out his approach toward Asia, President Obama emphasized that he wants a cooperative relationship with China in which the two nations act as responsible global powers coping with climate change, nuclear proliferation and economic instability.

Obama said today that the U.S. has no wish to "contain" China, a strategy from the Cold War era when the United States worked to block the spread of communism.

"I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China's emergence," Obama said. "But, as I have said, in an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another. Cultivating spheres of cooperation -- not competing spheres of influence -- will lead to progress in the Asia Pacific."

Obama's half-hour speech at a concert hall was warmly received by a Japanese audience of about 1,500. His talk was interrupted by applause more than a dozen times, and he got a standing ovation at the end.

Obama is on the second day of a weeklong trip to Asia. He will spend more than two days in China, where he will meet with the country's leaders and tour the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.

In his speech, Obama sought to navigate difficult issues that China presents. He made the case for China to respect human rights and embrace a more open society. At the same time, he made it clear that the U.S. does not see China as a strategic threat whose rise must be checked.

"So the United States does not seek to contain China, nor does a deeper relationship with China mean a weakening of our bilateral alliances," the president said. "On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations."

Obama offered an implicit rebuke to China's authoritarian government -- its censorship of the Internet and preference for one-party rule. A universal human desire, he said, is "the freedom to speak your mind and choose your leaders; the ability to access information and worship how you please."

As the Obama administration sees it, China is indispensable to achieving crucial goals. The U.S. wants China's help in persuading North Korea and Iran to forswear nuclear weapons, in stabilizing Afghanistan and in setting conditions for a more "balanced" world economy.

The president hopes to create more American jobs by coaxing China and other Asian nations to boost spending and expand imports. That's a theme he also will express in stops in Singapore and South Korea.

He also sought to remind an American audience listening back home that they have a stake in Asia's success.

"So I want everyone to know, and I want everyone in America to know, that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct effect on our lives at home.

"This is where we engage in much of our commerce and buy many of our goods. And this is where we can export more of our own products and create jobs back home in the process."

news20091114nyt

[Today's Newspaper] from [The New York Times]

[Asia Pacific]
Obama Says U.S. Seeks to Build Stronger Ties to China
Mr. Obama bowed to members of the audience after delivering his remarks at Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
By HELENE COOPER and MARTIN FACKLER
Published: November 13, 2009

TOKYO — The United States is not threatened by a rising China, President Obama said Saturday, but will seek to strengthen its ties with Beijing even as it maintains close ties with traditional allies like Japan.

In a wide-ranging speech on his first trip to Asia as president, Mr. Obama drew on his own background to reassure the people of the fast-growing continent that even as the United States seemed preoccupied with conflicts in the Middle East and other regions, it was increasingly “a nation of the Pacific.”

“I know there are many who question how the United States perceives China’s emergence,” Mr. Obama told an audience in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall. But he added, “In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another.”

Declaring himself “America’s first Pacific president” (a description that somehow ignored Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, two Californians), Mr. Obama previewed many of the themes that will shadow him during his weeklong trip, which will also include stops in Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul.

He called on North Korea to return to talks aimed at reining in its nuclear weapons program or face even greater isolation; he urged the military government in Myanmar to release the leader of the country’s beleaguered democracy movement, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (although he mispronounced her name); and he pledged to “never waver in speaking for the fundamental values that we hold dear.”

But at every turn of his address, Mr. Obama projected a more conciliatory America, which is trying to break from the past. On Myanmar, for example, he pledged that he would “be the first American leader to meet with all 10 Asean leaders.” Mr. Obama will be at the table in Singapore on Sunday with the leaders of Myanmar and the other countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, an economic group.

And while Mr. Obama spoke at length about human rights, he never connected the pursuit of such rights specifically to China and Tibet, where Beijing-backed authorities have clamped down on religious freedom. Instead, Mr. Obama, clearly seeking to avoid alienating Beijing on the eve of his inaugural visit to China, struck broader themes, saying that “supporting human rights provides lasting security that cannot be purchased any other way.”

As he has on many of his trips abroad, Mr. Obama painted a picture of an America willing to learn from its mistakes. In particular, he said, the United States and Asia must grow out of the imbalance of American consumerism and Asian reliance on the United States as an export market, a cycle he called imbalanced.

“One of the important lessons this recession has taught us is the limits of depending primarily on American consumers and Asian exports to drive growth,” he said. “We have now reached one of those rare inflection points in history where we have the opportunity to take a different path.”

Mr. Obama seemed to speak directly to the new Japanese government’s efforts to build a tighter Asian economic sphere, and used his own history to deliver the message: Don’t exclude the United States.

“My own life is part of that story,” he said. “I am an American president who was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia as a boy. My sister Maya was born in Jakarta and later married a Chinese-Canadian. My mother spent nearly a decade working in the villages of Southeast Asia, helping women buy a sewing machine or an education that might give them a foothold in the world economy.”

“So,” he added, “the Pacific rim has helped shape my view of the world.” He even spoke of his first trip to Japan as a boy—“As a child, I was more focused on the matcha ice cream,” he said.

That drew laughs from the audience, which gave him a standing ovation both before and after his speech.

news20091114gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen climate change congerence 2009]
Barack Obama's trip to China expected to set the tone for talks in Copenhagen
China unlikely to show its hand during president's visit while US climate legislation stalls in Senate
Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009 18.04 GMT Article history

The leaders of the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters – Barack Obama and Hu Jintao – are to meet on Tuesday in Beijing, in one of the most significant moments leading up to the world summit on climate change in Copenhagen next month.

Agreement between the US and China on key issues would breathe new life into the moribund negotiations towards a global climate deal. But sources are downplaying the chances of a breakthrough, suggesting another blow to the talks.

Instead, modest progress may be announced in the fields of technology co-operation and private sector initiatives to move towards a low-carbon economy.

In the run-up to Copenhagen, the US negotiator Todd Stern had hoped for a series of bilateral steps that might lead the world's major polluters into an international deal. These two nations, which together account for 40% of global emissions, will make or break the summit.

China is moving towards setting its first "carbon intensity" target, which would curb – but not cut – the pollution emitted as its economy grows. The target is thought to be about a 40-45% reduction relative to economic growth by 2020. But China is unlikely to declare its hand yet.

There remains a big gap in the demands made by each nation.

The US wants China to sign up to specific emissions commitments; China insists they should be voluntary, as they are under the current Kyoto climate change treaty.

China's public position is that rich nations should cut emissions by 40% by 2020. Privately, negotiators acknowledge this is unrealistic, but they want the US to go much further than the 17% cut approved by the House but blocked in the Senate.

If the US president says he is prepared to push for a higher target, some observers believe Hu may give him a political "gift" to take back.

"China understands the political system in the US. We know it's difficult for Obama. If he wants the Senate to do more, he needs to be able to say China will do more than people expect," said Yang Fuqiang, the director of global climate change solutions at the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

Yang identified several possible cards that China might play either during Obama's visit or at Copenhagen. Earlier this year, it withheld a planned announcement on a higher renewable energy target so that this could be used at a more politically opportune moment. Other major shifts in its energy mix are the likely doubling or tripling of nuclear power generation, greater use of natural gas – China has recently discovered some major fields inside its territory – and in the most optimistic scenario, a pledge to improve its energy or carbon efficiency by 20% for each of its five-year plans until 2020.

"All these measure together add up to emissions reduction of 4-4.5 gigatonnes over the period 2005 to 2020," said Yang. "This is the opportunity. But the condition is that Obama uses the power of the presidency to persuade Congress to do more."

Others believe this is overly optimistic. "Obama's dream scenario would be to come to China and make it look like he saves the world from China so that he could go back and convince his Congress to back him up in Copenhagen. But why should China go along with that scenario. The US target is pathetic," said another Chinese observer, who declined to be identified.

With dim prospects of a legally binding deal at Copenhagen or a US climate bill passing the Senate, others say Hu has little incentive to make concessions during Obama's visit.

But the meeting itself will be significant.

"There will be a lot of public stuff about cooperation and in private they will get to understand each other better. It will be an opportunity to show that China is doing a lot. That will help in the Senate," said Deborah Seligsohn, a principal advisor to the World Resources Institute's Climate and Energy Programme in Beijing. "Fundamentally, the objective is for Obama and Hu to speak face to face. Given that the specific issue is trust, that will help a lot."

China's emissions have grown rapidly in recent years along with the economy, but it has one of the world's most ambitious renewable energy programmes and is on course to meet a self-set target to improve energy efficiency by 20% between 2005 and 2010.

The world's number one emitter is adamant that it should not have to take actions that restrict economic growth because rich nations have a far greater historical and per capita responsibility for the carbon in the atmosphere. It wants wealthy countries like the US to provide technology and finance that will help developing nations to ease the impact of climate change and move towards a low-carbon economy.

The two governments signed a memorandum of understanding in July that identified possible areas of collaboration on research and technology. But efforts to flesh out that agreement have proved tougher than expected.

There have been wrangles over how much each nation should pay for a proposed joint research centre on clean energy. The US energy secretary, Steven Chu, who is travelling with Obama, is expected to sign an agreement next week, but it is unclear if the countries will split the costs down the middle.

While business deals and joint projects may be announced to develop green buildings, electric cars and smart power grids, there is less confidence that a deal can be struck in the key area of "clean" coal technology. The US has proposed closer collaboration in this field, which is vital given the heavy reliance of both economies on coal. But China has been cautious about such overtures, perhaps because it is poised to move ahead of the United States in several key processes, including integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) in power stattions and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).

If these two key players are unable to resolve their differences, there is a danger that the Copenhagen talks will suffer the same fate as the Kyoto protocol, which was handicapped by the absence of a clear commitment by China and rejection by the US Congress.

There is scope for more progress this time. During the UN climate summit in September, Hu said China was prepared to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by a "notable margin" by 2020. Beijing has a figure up its sleeve. Government-related thinktanks are proposing targets of 40-45% by 2020 and 78-80% by 2050.

"I think they will announce something soon," said a source in the Energy Research Institute. "The upper end of our recommendation is 44%. But whether they will adopt it depends on their assessment of how fast the economy will grow."

Whether this figure will be high enough and announced early enough to shake the rust from the Senate is uncertain.

"At some point, China must produce a number. Assuming its good enough, then it should be recorded in an international agreement," said Charlie McElwee, a Shanghai-based American lawyer specialising in environmental issues. "Without that, I think there will be a pushback from the Senate."

For the moment, it is unclear even if the two leaders will attend Copenhagen. Expectations have been pushed down so far recently that leaders appear reluctant to invest political capital in the talks. Whether Obama's charisma and Hu's drive for "scientific development" can salvage at least a political agreement will be much clearer after next week.

news20091114gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Heathrow third runway]
Eden Project architect risks green reputation over Heathrow contract
Campaigners denounce Grimshaw's green credentials as 'laughable' as practice set to be named third runway designer
Robert Booth
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009 18.00 GMT Article history

From its opening in 2001, the Eden Project in Cornwall has come to exemplify the fightback against global warming – and its designer, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, has basked in the green glow of a reputation as one of the country's most sustainable architects.

But environmental campaigners today branded the firm's green claims "laughable" after it emerged that the practice led by Grimshaw, the president of the Royal Academy, was set to be named lead designer of Heathrow's £8bn third runway expansion. The project will allow an extra 350 flights and transform Heathrow into the single biggest emitter of CO2 in the UK, according to Greenpeace.

Grimshaw's selection has yet to be formally announced by Heathrow's operator, BAA, but rivals for the job have been privately informed by the client that the firm has won the contract, the architecture newspaper Building Design reported today. That was confirmed by competing architects, as environmentalists pledged to take direct action against Grimshaw in the coming weeks to try to persuade the firm to stand down from the job.

"Grimshaw trades on its reputation as a green architectural firm," said Leo Murray, spokesman for Plane Stupid, the anti-aviation protest group.
"They celebrate the Eden Project and are a founder member of the UK Green Building Council. They are a prime target for us because they are exactly the kind of firm that could back off because of the danger of reputational damage."

A spokeswoman for Grimshaw today declined to comment on the criticisms, stating: "We can't confirm or deny any involvement". BAA also declined to comment, stating that it would formally announce its selection in the near future.

The firm was defended by the UK Green Building Council, an alliance of architects and building services companies, which said Grimshaw "is in many ways at the cutting edge of sustainable design, as confirmed by its involvement in the Eden Project".

"The firm's involvement in a controversial aviation project has to be seen in the context of the UK's overall carbon budget," said John Alker, spokesman for the council. "If this is going to bust those budgets then we need to direct our anger at the policymakers involved. Where does this stop? Should we be protesting against the people that pour the concrete for coal-fired power stations?"

Today, campaigners against the third runway planted an orchard on land required by BAA for the expansion, which they have acquired in a bid to block the plan.

Actors Alison Steadman and Richard Briers were joined by the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, and the poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, as well as local residents to plant trees on the land purchased by Greenpeace earlier this year.

"The government is absolutely wrong to stubbornly push ahead with a third runway at Heathrow," said Clegg. "How can Gordon Brown go to Copenhagen and credibly call for big reductions in carbon when he has such a dire environmental track record at home?"

The orchard includes a Cox's apple tree, sponsored by David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, which has pledged to scrap the third runway if it wins the next general election.

News of Grimshaw's selection comes amid a campaign by Plane Stupid aimed directly at architects who work on aviation projects.

The campaign group hijacked the Architect of the Year awards at the Intercontinental hotel at Park Lane last week when two activists dressed in evening wear took to the stage and tried to give a spoof award to Pascall and Watson, a firm of architects who work at Heathrow.

They tried to give the firm the "we don't give a shit" award "in recognition of their 50-year aviation portfolio, which includes expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester, Dublin and Abu Dhabi airports". There was applause from some architects in the room as the protesters were bundled out.


[Environment > Carbon emissions]
World leaders 'must not use recession to delay action on climate change'
Economic downturn may cut emissions 9% by 2012 but only delay dangerous climate change by 21 months, say economists
James Randerson
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009 17.31 GMT Article history

World leaders cannot use the global recession as an excuse to delay action on climate change, according to leading economists. In a new analysis they predict that the economic downturn will cut carbon emissions by 9% by 2012 and delay the onset of "dangerous" climate change by just 21 months.

The report, published today by the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, compared economic forecasts made before the recession with revised estimates that incorporate the contraction in the global economy. They used this to work out the knock-on effect on carbon emissions and hence the climate.

Even using assumptions that are most favourable to a drop in emissions, the economists only predict a delay in reaching 2C warming compared with pre-industrial temperatures of 21 months — 2C is the point that the EU defines as the threshold for dangerous climate change.

Professor Andy Gouldson, who is a co-author of the report and director of the Centre at the University of Leeds, said that a deal at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December was still important. "They should not use the recession as an excuse to not act with ambition," he said.

The report, which uses economic data compiled by the IMF and UK National Institute for Economic and Social Research found that even a devastating recession on the scale of the 1930s depression would not have as large an effect as some might think. Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in such a recession would, they predict, drop by 23% and the point at which the world hits 2C of warming would be delayed by only five years.

"If we return to 'business as usual' emissions after the economic crisis is over, the profound and severe risks of climate change impacts will continue to grow. So the global downturn does not remove the urgent need for a strong agreement to be reached at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen in December," said Gouldson. His team also predicted that UK emissions would be up to 9% lower in 2012 than would have been expected without the recession.

The team's predicted fall in emissions is much more severe than some analyses conducted before the full extent of the recession was known. It is also higher than the 3% drop in 2009 that the International Energy Agency predicted last month. Gouldson said that was because his team had assumed that improvements in the carbon intensity of the economy — the amount of carbon released per unit of economic activity — would continue at the same rate. In reality, this is unlikely to be the case because businesses will have less money available for investment in energy efficiency and lower energy prices might give users less incentive to restrict their consumption. So the 9% figure is a best-case scenario, and the actual drop in emissions may be smaller.

"It is clear that the recession has made it easier for the UK to meet its commitments under the Kyoto protocol. But that is no reason for complacency, given that the recession and lower energy prices may have slowed down investments in energy efficiency by UK businesses," said Gouldson.

Dr Victoria Johnson, a climate change and energy researcher with the new economics foundation thinktank, said that almost all of the economic stimulus packages being delivered by governments around the world were focused on increasing consumption rather than boosting clean technology. So when the world economy emerges from recession, carbon emissions may actually accelerate. "We're not changing the underlying energy infrastructure," she said. "The recession is casting a veil over the underlying fact that globally, the transition to the low-carbon economy isn't happening." She also pointed out that in the run up to the recession the carbon intensity of the world economy was actually increasing as countries began burning more coal, the dirtiest of fuels in terms of its carbon emissions.

One implication of the recession is that there has been a drastic fall in demand for carbon credits in the European Emissions Trading Scheme. The price of a credit has fallen from €30 in summer 2008 to around €13. That means there will be less money available to invest innovations in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies.

The report was commissioned by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. It was published today as a working paper ahead of a public debate hosted at the University of Leeds. The analysis has been peer reviewed by researchers at the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy but has not yet been formally published or subjected to external peer review.

news20091114gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > UK news > Buncefield fire 2005]
Oil company Total admits Buncefield fire failingsFour years after largest explosion in peacetime Europe, company pleads
guilty to health and safety breaches
Matthew Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009 17.05 GMT Article history

Oil company Total UK has admitted health and safety breaches in connection with the explosion at the Buncefield oil depot that left more than 40 people injured and damaged hundreds of homes and businesses.

The admission comes four years after the blast at the site in Hemel Hempstead believed to have been the largest explosion in peacetime Europe.

Today at the Old Bailey Total entered guilty pleas to two charges under the Health and Safety Act and one charge of polluting water under the Water Resources Act.

Four other companies – Hertfordshire Oil Storage, British Pipeline Agency, TAV Engineering and Motherwell Control Systems 2003 – denied breaking health and safety laws.

The explosion, which injured 43 people and forced 2,000 to flee their homes, happened when 300 tonnes of petrol leaked from a tank at the site.

A huge vapour cloud formed and ignited, sending a plume of black smoke over Hertfordshire and much of south-east England.

The blast measured 2.4 on the Richter scale and could be heard 125 miles away. Buildings on the surrounding industrial estate and some homes up to three miles from the scene had severe structural damage.

Mike Penning, the Tory MP for Hemel Hempstead, welcomed Total's admission. "I am thrilled that common sense has prevailed and that Total has pleaded guilty to the very serious charges against them."

Penning said the explosion had a devastating effect on the community.

"There are still people who are not able to go back to their homes nearly four years after the blast and there are others who remain psychologically scarred by what happened."

But he said his constituents had "reacted amazingly" in the aftermath. "I am extremely proud of how this community has pulled together. Even though we have not had the support we should have either from government or the oil companies, the collective response has been truly impressive."

In March the high court decided Total should pay the property damage bills of individual and business claimants – a decision due to be appealed against next year. Claims amounted to £750m.

At the time the judge criticised sloppy practices and inadequate risk assessment at the site and listed various reasons for the explosion, including the negligence of supervisors and a series of failures in risk assessment and prevention.

Buncefield held large stocks of oil, petrol and aviation kerosene used to supply airports across the region including Heathrow and Luton.

After the explosion an investigation by the Major Incident Investigation Board made 78 recommendations and the board's chairman, Lord Newton of Braintree, said the decision to prosecute the five companies was "an important milestone".

In its plea Total admitted exposing staff and members of the public to risk, and to allowing water below the depot to become polluted after the explosion.

The oil company is not expected to be sentenced until the trial of the other companies is completed next spring.

news20091114nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 13 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1083
News
Australian agency moves to calm climate row
Researcher will be allowed to publish his paper after making 'tiny' changes.
Stephen Pincock

{{Publication of a paper on cap-and-trade has been held up by CSIRO.}
Malcolm Paterson/ CSIRO}

An Australian researcher involved in a censorship controversy will be allowed to publish a paper critical of cap-and-trade systems for controlling carbon emissions — but only after some changes are made to wording, the country's science agency has said.

Clive Spash, an ecological economist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Canberra, had an invited paper on the failings of emissions-trading schemes accepted by the journal New Political Economy earlier this year. But the acting chief of his division subsequently wrote to the editors telling them that the paper was being withdrawn because it had not passed internal processes (see 'Australian agency denies gagging researchers').

With Australia's government battling to pass emissions legislation, accusations that the agency was trying to muzzle climate researchers made headlines.

But after Spash met with CSIRO chief executive Megan Clark on 9 November, the two reached an agreement that the paper could be published with some rewording. "We had a productive talk," Spash says. "I was told by the chief executive that her changes would be tiny, consisting of a few words or phrases. That sounds as if it would be acceptable."

A spokesman for the agency, Huw Morgan, confirmed that Clark told Spash the article was publishable under CSIRO rules with "minor but important" changes. He said Spash would see the proposed changes by close of business today.

Chopping and changing

The issue centres on the charter under which the CSIRO, a statutory authority, operates. That charter allows agency researchers to discuss their results, but says they "should not advocate, defend or publicly debate the merits of government or opposition policies".

Spash told Nature that Clark agreed with "my own opinion that the paper did not breach the CSIRO charter or policy in any substantive fashion. This reversed the decision statements previously issued to me by senior managers wishing to cut 75% or more of the paper."

{{“The paper was therefore submitted to the journal, with the express permission of the acting chief of division.”}
Clive Spash
CSIRO}

The paper analyses emissions-trading schemes, economists' claims for them, and the implications of their design. "There is no detail on, nor analysis of, the current proposals by the Australian government or opposition parties," says Spash.

When he first alerted his CSIRO bosses to the paper, they considered it to be politically sensitive and in need of robust review, Spash said. Normally, papers produced by the agency are reviewed internally before being sent for external review. But Spash says he and his co-author Andrew Reeson were told they should send the paper straight away for review by the journal even though the internal review had not concluded.

"The paper was therefore submitted to the journal, with the express permission of the acting chief of division, prior to completion of the internal referee's reports," Spash adds. "Both internal referees recommended publication a few weeks after submission to the journal."

Spash says the journal accepted a revised version of the paper in June. He told the acting division chief this, but two weeks later was informed that the article could not be published.

Speak truth to power?
The episode has caused debate in Australia about whether CSIRO scientists should have the same freedoms as university academics.

Michael Borgas, president of the CSIRO's staff association, has backed the current system, telling The Australian newspaper that most of the agency's researchers "find they are helped by CSIRO to directly engage with the political process by getting their research into the heads of [ministers and the bureaucracy], rather than by publishing in academic journals".

Meanwhile, CSIRO has moved to further tighten its grip on scientists' freedom to speak out, rolling out a new policy over recent weeks that requires researchers "to use their CSIRO affiliation on all publications that arise from research work they do as an employee with CSIRO," spokesman Huw Morgan said. Morgan said it would be extended across the agency by early 2010.

Spash hopes his case will highlight the need for openness and public engagement. "This does not mean scientists becoming political activists or advocates," he says. "It does mean being prepared to make and defend logical arguments and being prepared to explore moral and ethical issues."

"Institutions are today facing the reality of a new mode of operation at the science–policy interface," he adds. "My hope is that recent events have shown they must grasp this challenge rather than falling back into a mode of operation which is long outdated."


[naturenews]
Published online 13 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1085
News
Selective sequencing solves a genetic mystery
Examining only protein-coding genes finds cause of Miller syndrome.
Elie Dolgin

Targeted sequencing of the entire protein-coding portion of the human genome has for the first time discovered the cause of a rare genetic disorder.

"This technology is incredibly promising," says James Kiley, director of the division of lung diseases at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, which partly funded the work. "It's giving us a more efficient way to identify the causal genetic factors of disease."

Protein-coding genes make up only about 1% of the human genome, but they harbour the bulk of the mutations that contribute the most to disease. So, rather than sequencing entire genomes, many researchers are starting to decode only the protein-coding exons — collectively called the 'exome' — to make genetic inferences at a fraction of the cost of whole-genome sequencing.

In August, a team led by Jay Shendure and Sarah Ng at the University of Washington in Seattle provided the first proof-of-principle that this approach could detect the genetic culprits behind single-gene, or Mendelian, diseases. The researchers sequenced the exomes of 12 unrelated individuals, four of whom had a rare, inherited disorder called Freeman–Sheldon syndrome. Although the genetic defect behind the disease was already known, the technique zeroed in on the exact gene responsible for the disease, demonstrating that it was feasible to sort out the genetic signal from more than 300 million bases of DNA noise¹.

"The primary criticism of that paper is that we knew the answer and we were basically showing it could be done," says Shendure. "Here, we're extending that to something where we didn't know the answer."

Tip of the iceberg

{{Miller syndrome was first described 30 years ago but its cause was a mystery.}
Nature Genet., S. B. Ng et al}

Shendure and his colleagues have now sequenced the exomes of two siblings and two unrelated individuals who all suffered from a single-gene disorder called Miller syndrome, which is characterized by facial malformations and limb abnormalities, such as a cleft palate and absent or webbed fingers and toes. Although the disease was first described 30 years ago, its genetic basis has remained elusive.

The researchers compared the exomes of Miller-affected individuals to exome sequences from eight healthy, unrelated individuals. This approach flagged a single candidate gene called DHODH, which encodes an enzyme that is essential for making some of the building blocks used in DNA and RNA. Shendure's team then directly sequenced DHODH in four more Miller-affected individuals and found that they too all had mutations in this gene. No similar mutations were found in 100 unaffected individuals. The findings are published online today in Nature Genetics².

"This is the first demonstration of whole-exome sequencing for a new disease-gene discovery," says Richard Lifton, a geneticist at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, who was not involved in the work. This first discovery is only the tip of the iceberg, he adds. "I think there are large classes of Mendelian traits that will be found by whole-exome sequencing."

Lifton also notes that exome sequencing will be useful as a clinical tool. In October, Lifton and his colleagues used the technique to diagnose a five-month-old child with a mysterious genetic illness. They found that the infant, who was suffering from persistent dehydration and a lack of weight gain, had a mutation in a gene that caused intestinal problems due to congenital chloride diarrhoea, not in a kidney-associated gene as physicians had originally suspected³.

Shendure is confident that exome sequencing can reliably uncover genes that are responsible for relatively simple, single-gene disorders. The big challenge moving forward, he says, is to show that the method can tease apart the genetic basis of more-complex diseases in which two or more genes are involved. "That's by no means a given," he says. "This is going to be hard."

References
1. Ng, S. B. et al. Nature 461, 272-276 (2009).
2. Ng, S. B. et al. Nature Genet. advance online publication doi:10.1038/ng.499 (2009).
3. Choi, M. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 19096-19101 (2009).

news20091114nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 13 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1087
News
Lunar impact tosses up water and stranger stuff
NASA claims definitive detection of Moon water in the Solar System's 'attic'.
Eric Hand

The debate is finally over. Lunar scientists have detected water for certain near the north pole of the Moon, after the impact of a NASA projectile kicked up water vapour along with a plume of dust. But it's not just about the water, say the scientists, who found hints in the plume of other, more exotic molecules, ranging from organic hydrocarbons to mercury. Increasingly, the scientists are viewing the polar craters as the 'attics' of the Solar System, repositories for billions of years of history.

"It is the most definitive detection yet, and will certainly settle the question of this spot in Cabeus [crater] holding water," says Anthony Colaprete, of the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, and principal investigator for Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), an empty rocket stage that plunged into the Moon on 9 October. Colaprete announced the water discovery at a NASA press conference on Friday.

Although the water finding is important, he is most interested in learning more about the strange stuff that still might be buried in darkness. Because the Moon has nearly no tilt to the Sun, some of its craters, including parts of Cabeus, remain in permanent shadows that get as cold as Pluto. The cold and lack of light turn them into vaults for all that falls within their rims. "These cold traps — they've swept through the inner solar system over the past couple billion years and have accumulated everything that has migrated to them."

The material remains locked in the traps, except when impacts such as LCROSS stir up the pot. Although the impact blast wasn't as spectacular as had been anticipated (see 'Moon Smash Gives off Flash'), Colaprete says his team gleaned rich data from LCROSS's trailing satellite, on a suicide trajectory four minutes behind. The impact carved out a crater more than 20 metres wide and sent dust tens of kilometres above the surface, beyond the crater walls and into sunlight.

Using spectroscopy in both the infrared and ultraviolet, Colaprete's team looked for telltale spectral lines caused by water. In the infrared, they found some lines at frequencies where light was absorbed by water molecules. In the UV, they found emission lines, where energy absorbed by water molecules was re-radiated as faint light. Colaprete says the signature is unique, and strong — he is confident that water accounts for more than 1% of the weight of the debris cloud from the impact. The final frontier

And that's enough to pique the interest of those who seek to colonize the Moon. LCROSS, along with its sister mission the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), was launched on 18 June — and paid for by the division of NASA that manages human space exploration, not science.

The spectra also showed evidence of hydrocarbons, which could have reached the moon along with the water during impacts from organic-rich comets. Another process, a continuous stream of protons from the solar wind, could also implant small amounts of water in the soil (see 'Water on the Moon?').

One of the most unexpected compounds — mercury — was detected by an instrument on LRO, which normally looks for the faint ultraviolet glow of the universe reflecting off of material in the permanently shadowed craters. In this case, it peered into the post-impact haze of LCROSS. Randy Gladstone, acting principal investigator for that instrument, called LAMP (for Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project), says there is a spectral signature that can only be fit well by mercury. With that element present at a sizeable fraction of a percent, Gladstone says he's not sure if he would really want to drink the Moon's water. But he hopes that the find will at least encourage future missions to the poles to figure out when and how it got there. "The soil there is this tape recorder for everything that's happened in last billion years or so on the Moon."

news20091114bbc

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Asia-Pacific]
Page last updated at 03:09 GMT, Saturday, 14 November 2009
Obama affirms commitment to Asia
{President Obama: "The United States and China will be better off meeting challenges together"}
US President Barack Obama has welcomed a bigger role for China on the world scene and pledged to pursue greater cooperation with Asian countries.

Speaking in Tokyo, he said the US would not be "cowed" by North Korea's nuclear threats and that his commitment to the security of Asia was "unshakeable".

Mr Obama also called on Asian leaders to pursue balanced economic growth.

After Japan, he attends an Asia-Pacific economic summit in Singapore, followed by visits to China and South Korea.

The president has brought forward his departure from Japan, so that he will arrive sooner than planned at the Apec summit.

His trade representative Ron Kirk, who is already at the meeting in Singapore, says the US wants barriers to trade and investment removed to promote an open global trade system.

'Strong China'

Calling himself America's first "Pacific president", Mr Obama said Washington's commitment to the region's security was "unshakeable" despite fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

{{DATE SCHEDULE}
1. Friday 13: Arrives in Japan
2. Saturday 14: To Apec summit in Singapore
3. Sunday 15: Has talks with Russia's President Medvedev before leaving for China
4. Tuesday 17: Summit in Beijing with Chinese President Hu Jintao
5. Wednesday 18: Ends tour in South Korea}

He said the US did not seek to "contain" China's rising power, and pledged to pursue "pragmatic cooperation" with Beijing on issues of mutual concern.

"The rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations," Mr Obama said.

He warned that he would not waver from raising human rights concerns with Beijing, but did not mention specific concerns, including Tibet.

He sought more assistance from China to thwart the ambitions of North Korea, and warned there would be tough, unified action by the US and its Asian partners if the Koreans fail to abandon their nuclear weapons programmes.

Mr Obama again called on Pyongyang to return to six-party talks.

'Sustained growth'

On the issue of economic cooperation, Mr Obama challenged Asian countries to break their dependence on exports to the US and to pursue "balanced" and sustainable economic growth.

"We must strengthen our economic recovery, and pursue growth that is both balanced and sustained," he said. "We simply cannot return to the same cycles of boom and bust that led us into a global recession."

He said the US would pursue a new economic strategy that would mean "saving more and spending less".

He urged Asian leaders to break their dependence on exports to the US market and to open up their markets to speed up a global economic recovery.

Mr Obama arrived in Tokyo on Friday and met Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

The two leaders agreed on the need to renew their countries' strained alliance and pledged to work quickly to resolve a dispute over the US military base in Okinawa.

His eight-day tour will next take him to Singapore, where he will attend an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit.

After that, Mr Obama moves on to China on Sunday. He wraps up his visit in South Korea next week.

news20091114cnn

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[World]
November 14, 2009 -- Updated 0311 GMT (1111 HKT)
Obama vows renewed ties with Asia
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
> In speech, Obama renews U.S. ties with Japan, reaches out to China
> Obama: Rise "of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength"
> U.S. president urges North Korea to return to Six-Party denuclearization talks
> Obama's Asia tour includes Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea

Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- Touting himself as America's "first Pacific president," Barack Obama called on his own connections with Asia Saturday as he pledged a renewed engagement with Asia Pacific nations based on "an enduring and revitalized alliance between the United States and Japan."

The U.S. president, in his first Asia trip since taking office in January, told a packed house at Tokyo's Suntory Hall that all Americans should know that what happens in Asia "has a direct effect on our lives at home."

"This is where we engage in much of our commerce and buy many of our goods," he said. "And this is where we can export more of our own products and create jobs back home in the process.

"This is a place where the risk of a nuclear arms race threatens the security of the wider world, and where extremists who defile a great religion plan attacks on both our continents. And there can be no solution to our energy security and our climate challenge without the rising powers and developing nations of the Asia Pacific."

Obama met with new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama Friday after his arrival in Tokyo as well as with the Japanese emperor and empress.

Obama touched on nearly every part of the Asia Pacific region during his speech, and talked about a boyhood visit to Japan with his mother, his birth in Hawaii, a childhood spent partly in Indonesia and the United States' position as a Pacific nation.

"There must be no doubt: as America's first Pacific president, I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world," he said.

He stressed that the United States was not interested in containing the emerging economic growth in China.

"The rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations," he said. "And so, in Beijing and beyond, we will work to deepen our strategic and economic dialogue."

Obama also called on Myanmar to make more definitive moves toward democracy, including releasing all political prisoners; urged North Korea to return to the Six-Party Talks so that the reclusive nation could be reintegrated into the world stage and pledged America's support for eliminating nuclear weapons and efforts to reduce the global effects of climate change.

His trip is to include stops in Singapore, China and South Korea, during which Obama will hold formal talks with Asian leaders as a group and individually.

The president plans to meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Russia President Dmitry Medvedev and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and will take part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

APEC's 21 member nations represent more than half of the world's economic output. The forum sees its goal as "facilitating economic growth, cooperation, trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region."

During a busy day in Singapore, Obama also will become the first U.S. president to take part in a summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic alliance.

In China, Obama will continue efforts to define and strengthen the United States' relationship with the world's largest emerging economy, which has a growing influence in Asia, said Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council's senior director for East Asian affairs.

"We see it as a relationship where we're obviously going to have differences, where we are going to be competitors in certain respects," he said. "But we want to maximize areas where we can work together, because the global challenges will simply not be met if we don't."

Bader cited North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the economy, climate change, human rights and Afghanistan as among the top issues for the China swing. On human rights, Bader said Obama is likely to address "freedom of expression, access to information, freedom of religion, rule of law and, certainly, Tibet."

Obama will make clear to Hu that he intends to meet with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, Bader said. China, which rejects Tibetan aspirations for autonomy, opposes such high-level contacts with the Dalai Lama.

On North Korea, the State Department announced Tuesday that U.S. officials will travel to the country by year's end to seek a resumption of broader talks on ending the Pyongyang government's nuclear program.

The Obama administration has claimed initial progress in its strategy of forging an international effort, including China and South Korea, to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Japan has been asking for a comprehensive solution to North Korea's missile tests and the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s. Saturday morning, Obama made clear that both were necessary.

"The path for North Korea to realize this future is clear: a return to the Six-Party Talks; upholding previous commitments, including a return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and the full and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," he said.

"And full normalization with its neighbors can only come if Japanese families receive a full accounting of those who have been abducted. These are all steps that can be taken by the North Korean government, if they are interested in improving the lives of their people and joining the community of nations."

It won't be all diplomatic meetings, though. Obama's first trip to China will include a town hall-style meeting in Shanghai and sightseeing in Beijing, including a stop at the Great Wall.

news20091114reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[News > U.S.]
Obama pushes for greater U.S. involvement in Asia
Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:10pm EST
By Patricia Zengerle and Caren Bohan

TOKYO (Reuters) - President Barack Obama pledged to pursue greater U.S. engagement in Asia, pragmatic cooperation with China and a push for deeper trade ties with the region in a major speech in the Japanese capital on Saturday.

Tokyo is the first stop in Obama's nine-day Asian tour, which also takes him to Singapore for an Asia-Pacific economic summit, to China for talks likely to feature climate change and trade imbalances, and to South Korea, where North Korea's nuclear ambitions will be in focus.

Obama, on his first trip to Asia since becoming leader, reaffirmed Washington's alliance with Japan, strained of late by a row over a U.S. military base and questions about the future of the relationship as both countries adapt to a rising China.

"But while our commitment to this region begins in Japan, it does not end here," Obama, who met new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama for a summit on Friday, said in his prepared speech.

"So I want every American to know that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct affect on our lives at home," Obama told an audience of about 1,500 people at Tokyo's Suntory Hall.

"This is where we engage in much of our commerce and buy many of our goods. And this is where we can export more of our own products and create jobs back home in the process."

Obama, who will be spending three of his nine days in Asia in China, said Washington would approach the rising regional power "with a focus on our interests."

"And it is precisely for this reason that it is important to pursue pragmatic cooperation with China on issues of mutual concern -- because no one nation can meet the challenges of the 21st century alone, and the United States and China will both be better off when we are able to meet them together."

APPEAL TO NORTH KOREA

Obama also urged an unpredictable North Korea to return to stalled multilateral talks on its nuclear programme.

"We will not be cowed by threats, and we will continue to send a clear message through our actions, and not just our words: North Korea's refusal to meet its international obligations will lead only to less security, not more," he said.

Fresh government figures on the U.S. trade deficit could add urgency to Obama's efforts to seek greater export opportunities in China and other Asian countries.

America's trade gap ballooned in September by 18.2 percent to $36.5 billion, according to U.S. Commerce Department figures released in Washington on Friday.

It was the largest monthly increase in more than 10 years and was driven both by higher oil prices and a surge in imports from China.

The import growth may reinforce U.S. concerns that China's currency is undervalued against the dollar, which U.S. manufacturers say gives Chinese companies an unfair trade advantage.

Obama also reiterated his call for balanced global and regional growth.

"First, we must strengthen our economic recovery, and pursue growth that is both balanced and sustained," he said.

"Now that we are on the brink of economic recovery, we must also ensure that it can be sustained. We simply cannot return to the same cycles of boom and bust that led us into a global recession. We cannot follow the same policies that led to such imbalanced growth."

(Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Rodney Joyce and Ron Popeski)


[Green Business]
Forest CO2 projects could bring Brazil $16 billion
Fri Nov 13, 2009 12:59pm EST
By Brian Ellsworth

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil could earn up to $16 billion per year to fund emissions reductions and Amazon rainforest protection by selling forest carbon credits, a Brazilian carbon markets expert said in an interview.

Rich countries and developing nations will discuss including forestry preservation projects known as REDD, which are not yet part of carbon markets, in a new climate treaty when they meet at a U.N summit in Copenhagen in December.

Brazil has been under pressure for years to slow deforestation, driven primarily by logging and ranching, that has reduced the Amazon's total area by some 20 percent over the past 40 years and made Brazil a major carbon polluter.

"We could earn eight to sixteen billion dollars per year from forestry credits," Flavio Gazani, head of the Brazilian Carbon Markets Association, said in an interview on Thursday.

"We all should agree that emissions from deforestation are a significant part of the problem, and we should also admit that we could use some help."

Brazil recently signaled it is open to selling carbon credits for REDD, or Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, after months of opposition to them on the ground they could allow rich nations to continue polluting.

REDD projects let countries sell credits in exchange for protecting forests, which store carbon while they are kept standing. Forests release greenhouse gasses when cut down, accounting for a fifth of global emissions.

Supporters say such projects create incentives to prevent deforestation by monetizing forest resources. Critics say those credits could flood the market and reduce prices, and many are ideologically opposed to monetizing forests.

Brazil said last month it was studying reducing carbon emissions to 1.7 billion tons by 2020, a 19 percent cut from 2005 levels. That would take emissions to where they were in 1994, primarily through efforts to protect the Amazon.

"I think the government's goal for reducing forest emissions would be easier to guarantee if we had resources coming from REDD projects," Gazani said.

Officials said on Thursday Amazon deforestation in the 12 months leading to July fell to its lowest level since Brazil began measuring it 21 years ago, which it attributed to better monitoring and coordination with municipal authorities.

COPENHAGEN BLUES

But the future of such projects depends heavily on whether industrial countries and developing nations can put aside squabbling over who should pay for emissions cuts and ratify a new treaty extending emissions commitments beyond 2012.

"The pre-negotiations have been a bit disappointing," Gazani said. "But I don't think there's any way around it. We might not reach an agreement this year, but I don't think we'll continue much beyond that without a treaty."

Uncertainty over the treaty and global economic weakness has reduced demand for credits and limited investor interest in starting up new projects as the 2012 deadline looms.

Companies selling credits must complete a complex registration with the Clean Development Mechanism, which lets rich countries invest in emissions cuts in the developing world, instead of in pricier reductions at home.

India and China are the biggest sellers in this market because of their dependence on polluting fuels such as coal.

Gazani said Brazil has opportunities to enter voluntary carbon markets that entities in countries such as the United States, which did not sign the Kyoto Protocol, use to offset emissions. That market was only $700 million globally in 2008, compared with the overall carbon market currently valued near $126 billion.

"It's a small but growing market," he said. "The advantage is it doesn't face the 2012 treaty deadline."

(Editing by Stuart Grudgings and Walter Bagley)

news20091114reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Investment in ecosystems will reap rewards: UNEP
Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:01pm EST
By Nina Chestney

LONDON (Reuters) - Nations that take into account natural resources in their investment strategies will have higher rates of return and stronger economies, a report backed by the United Nations' Environment Programme said on Friday.

With less than one month until a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen, the report urges policymakers to reform their economic policies to stop the destruction of natural resources such as forests and oceans.

"Repairing the ecosystem by replanting forests, restoring mangroves along coastlines or rebuilding coral reefs are very smart ways of doing adaptation. People going into Copenhagen are not necessarily aware of these things," Pavan Sukhdev, the leader of the study prepared by UNEP's Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Initiative, told Reuters.

For example, planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves in Vietnam costs over $1 million but it saves over $7 million in dyke maintenance expenditure.

The report estimates that investment in mangrove and woodland restoration could achieve rates of return up to 40 percent, tropical forest investment up to 50 percent and grassland investment 79 percent.

"We studied the economics of using nature better -- through adaptation and restoration. In each case we found the benefits exceed the cost, typically between 3 and 75 times," Sukhdev said.

Brazil, India and Indonesia emerged as leaders in leveraging natural capital, while Korea has also got good plans, Sukhdev added.

"Governments need to pay attention to this report and start looking at nature in a more holistic way," WWF director Gordon Shepherd said. "With smarter approaches to economics this can change but right now we are paying for their ignorance."

SUBSIDIES

The report also calls for reform to subsidies which harm the environment. The worst subsidies are for fossil fuels, which total between $240 billion and $300 billion a year globally.

Global fishery subsidies, which amount to $34 billion out of a $90 billion market, should also be reformed to prevent the collapse of fisheries around the world.

Measures to combat deforestation, which accounts for almost 20 percent of current greenhouse gas emissions, should also be given priority.

Under a U.N.-market based forestry scheme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), rich countries reward developing nations for preserving forests to prevent emissions through the use of an expanded carbon market.

REDD+ expands the idea to protection, restoration and sustainable management of forests.

Several nations want to see REDD incorporated into a new global climate agreement.

"REDD+, as well as ecological restoration, need to be given a bit of a fillet through the Copenhagen process. These are the first two steps on the ladder. When these get going then a lot else will fall in place," Sukhdev said.

(Editing by Sue Thomas)


[Green Business]
EU nears deal on buildings eco-standards from 2018
Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:02pm EST
By Pete Harrison

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - New energy economy standards could kick in for all new public buildings in the European Union from 2018, and for all new homes and offices from 2020, according to a draft negotiating document.

The new policy is expected to have a significant long-term impact on the EU's bill for gas imports, worth tens of billions of euros each year.

"This is a hugely important piece of legislation because 40 percent of final energy use in Europe is in buildings," said environment campaigner Arianna Vitali Roscini of WWF.

"We would have preferred that all new buildings have net zero energy use from 2015, but at least we have a date," she added.

Final changes to the European Union's "Energy Performance of Buildings Directive" will be worked out at negotiations on November 17 between representatives of the EU's 27 member states and the European Parliament.

But several key compromises have emerged already in the document, seen by Reuters on Friday.

The Parliament originally proposed that from the end of 2018, all new buildings would have to reduce their carbon footprint to zero. But member states said the goal was over-ambitious and impractical.

"Instead, all public buildings built after 2018 must be low-energy, and after 2020 that will apply to all new buildings -- homes, restaurants, offices, schools, everywhere," said a source close to the negotiations.

"We're still fine-tuning the exact definition of low-energy, but it's clear it can't be the same for Finland as it is for Cyprus. There will be guidance on how member states calculate low-energy to take account of heating, cooling and hot water."

People selling or renting a house will also have to include the property's energy efficiency rating in advertisements so potential occupants can make informed choices, but no date has yet been set for that.

The policy has received little attention as it has weaved its way through the EU's complex political process, but it has the potential to make deep cuts into the level of European gas imports.

A similar EU plan to renovate about 15 million European buildings over the next decade is expected to slash back oil and gas imports by about 20 billion euros [ID:nL9513781].

The European Union's executive arm is also thinking of proposing binding energy saving goals for EU countries in the next few months.

That prospect was supported on Friday by Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

"Binding efficiency targets are one of our important recommendations to the European Commission," he told reporters during a visit to the Commission. "The cheap energy age is over."

(Reporting by Pete Harrison, editing by Timothy Heritage)

news20091114reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Obama, Hu climate talk could spur Copenhagen
Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:43pm EST
By Russell Blinch and Christopher Buckley - Analysis

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - When President Barack Obama sits down with his Chinese counterpart next week to talk climate change, it is highly unlikely they will craft a definitive plan to tackle global warming.

But the summit between the world's two biggest spewers of carbon dioxide will probably set the tone for next month's U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen.

Any progress in bridging the North-South climate divide would help lift the shroud of pessimism enveloping Copenhagen and Obama told Reuters this week he was optimistic of progress.

Conversely, a failure to advance, or any sign the big two could conspire to effectively let each other off the hook in Denmark, would probably condemn the talks to failure.

"Everyone is very pessimistic about Copenhagen, so there's a need for a positive signal from China and the United States," said Zhang Haibin, a professor of environmental diplomacy at Peking University.

"A joint statement that both countries are willing to cooperate and will not abandon this process would help lift hopes for Copenhagen. Without it, Copenhagen looks even bleaker, and the subsequent negotiations would also be damaged."

TOP EMITTERS

The United States has emitted more carbon into the atmosphere than any country on earth but China has since taken up the mantle as top producer of the gases blamed for warming the Earth's atmosphere. Together, they account for 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

So there can be little progress without cooperation between the two countries at the December 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen that is designed to succeed the Kyoto climate protocol.

"You are not only talking about the two greatest emitters but the two emitters that are iconic of the whole divide between developed and developing countries," said Julian L. Wong, Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

Wong thinks the international climate talks are far too complicated for Obama and President Hu Jintao to hammer out a definitive agreement on climate change when they meet next week.

But the two sides are expected to make announcements showing how they are engaging on renewable energy projects and research into things like electric cars and capturing carbon at power plants for storage underground. The two leaders will pledge greater cooperation on climate but specifics of any bilateral plan might be sparse.

"There will also be discussion of how to achieve some sort of agreement in Copenhagen -- something to boost global confidence -- but no major breakthroughs," said Wang Ke, a professor at Renmin University in Beijing

OBAMA'S OPTIMISM

Obama told Reuters in an interview prior to the trip that it was key the two countries reach a framework agreement other nations could buy into.

"I remain optimistic that between now and Copenhagen that we can arrive at that framework," he said, adding he would travel to Denmark next month if he saw a chance of progress.

Jennifer Morgan, director of the World Resources Institute Climate and Energy Program, said the two leaders need to show they want to go to Copenhagen to seal the deal.

"The signal President Obama and Hu Jintao sends is very vital for hopefully inspiring others to come to Copenhagen with a high level of ambition," she told a journalists' briefing.

But both leaders will also be constrained by domestic issues and policies.

Obama must be careful not to preempt Congress, or risk a backlash.

"The Senate needs to feel like it's beginning to tackle climate change itself, not because Obama boxed them in after visiting Beijing," said Michael Levi, a director at the Council on Foreign Relations.

A sweeping climate bill that would seek to reduce U.S. emissions is struggling through the congressional maze in Washington and it faces opposition across the political divide on concerns about costs for industry. But the Chinese could help Obama if they recognize Obama's domestic constraints.

"Any progress on the part of the Chinese in accepting the political reality in the U.S. Congress would be very important," said Levi.

For its part, China is making strides embracing renewable energy and has pledged to reduce its emissions intensity -- the amount of emissions from each unit of economic output -- by a "notable margin."

But China is resisting pressure from the United States and other developed countries to agree to a specific emissions targets.

"Developed countries must lead the way with transforming their unsustainable production and lifestyle, and lead the way with deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions," Xie Zhenhua, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, told a meeting in Beijing, according to an official Chinese climate news website.

"As a responsible country, we will continue enhancing efforts to save energy and reduce emissions, but we will also resolutely oppose any effort to impose unreasonable demands on us," he said.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington; Editing by Simon Denyer and Vicki Allen)


[Green Business]
A123 sets up new business unit to focus on autos
Fri Nov 13, 2009 2:22pm EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems is increasing its focus on the automotive market, creating a new business unit led by a former auto parts executive.

A123 said on Friday it has created two business units, one called the automotive solutions group which will focus on the transportation market, and another that will work on cell design and development.

The auto group will work with automakers and major suppliers to provide battery systems for hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle technology, the company said.

The two new units will operate alongside A123's Energy Solutions Group, which develops battery systems for the electric grid and consumer product markets.

A123, founded by scientists linked to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is working with German luxury carmaker BMW, U.S. automaker Chrysler and France-based Renault. It also has relationships with suppliers like Delphi and Magna Steyr.

The Watertown, Massachusetts-based company, which has a history of losses, enjoyed a successful initial public offering in September with the price of its shares jumping 50 percent on their first day of trading.

But investor concerns have surfaced after A123's major customer, Chrysler, said last week it would dismantle its team working on electric vehicles and fold its plans into Fiat SpA.

A123, in an effort to allay concerns, has said it was in various stages of talks with seven different passenger car customers.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta, editing by Matthew Lewis)

news20091114reut4

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Brazil pledges deep emissions cut by 2020
Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:42pm EST
By Carmen Munari

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil raised the pressure on other nations on Friday ahead of a world climate summit, pledging deep cuts in its greenhouse gases over the next decade that would take its emissions back to 1990s levels.

Latin America's largest economy is committing to cut its emissions by between 36.1 percent and 38.9 percent from projected 2020 levels, Dilma Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chief of staff, told reporters in Sao Paulo.

Brazil's emissions would drop to near 1994 levels of 1.7 billion tons if the top end of the pledged range is met. That would represent about a 20 percent cut from the 2.1 million tons emitted in 2005.

The pledge, while voluntary and not internationally binding, aims to encourage other nations to adopt aggressive cuts and could make a global deal more likely at the December summit in Copenhagen, which aims to forge a new climate pact.

"With this, Brazil destroys the main argument of the rich countries -- that developing countries don't want to adopt targets," said Paulo Moutinho, a researcher with the Amazon Institute for Environmental Studies.

"I hope the developed countries are embarrassed by Brazil's position and adopt more effective targets."

But Brazil's proposal contained no specific emissions reduction for industry, meaning much of the weight of the cuts will fall on its vast forestry and agriculture sector.

The cuts, which assume annual economic growth of between 4 and 6 percent, would not hamper Brazil's economy, Environment Minister Carlos Minc said.

"Brazil will grow and develop. We will create more green jobs, more efficient jobs, a cleaner energy matrix, more efficient agriculture," he said.

Brazil, among the world's biggest carbon polluters mostly due to deforestation, has become a major player in climate negotiations after years of rejecting such talks and saying the onus was entirely on rich countries to cut emissions.

PRESSURE ON U.S.?

Developing nations such as China and India want rich countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Rich countries in turn have called on developing countries to do their part by cutting emissions significantly by 2020. The European Union wants developing nations to cut projected 2020 emissions by 15-20 percent.

Brazil hopes to nudge other countries to adopt more aggressive emissions targets. But wary of undermining its negotiating strategy, the government says its new goal is a domestic target and not internationally binding.

The talks in Copenhagen aim to reach agreement to succeed an accord adopted in Kyoto to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming.

"It's very positive. Finally Brazil is adopting a target. Two years ago it was a crime to talk about an emissions target in Brazil," said Joao Talocchi, climate campaign coordinator for environmental group Greenpeace.

"It can have a big influence on other countries. The United States called on Brazil to do more and it did, now Washington is in the spot light. It needs to go to the negotiating table in Copenhagen with an aggressive proposal."

The emissions pledge came a day after Brazil's government announced that destruction of the Amazon rain forest fell to its lowest level in 21 years.

(Additional reporting by Raymond Colitt and Eduardo Simoes; writing by Stuart Grudgings; editing by Paul Simao)


[Green Business]　　
Nissan says all-electric Leaf will compete on price
Fri Nov 13, 2009 6:10pm EST
By Mary Milliken

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co Ltd will keep the price of its upcoming battery-powered Leaf competitive with similar-sized cars and expects to make money on the vehicle despite the cost of its launch, Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn on Friday.

The five-passenger hatchback, which is being designed to have an all-electric range of 100 miles, would cost only 1 to 2 percent more than traditional combustion engine vehicles in its class, he said.

"On the pricing of the vehicle it is too early to say, but there will be no surprise," Ghosn said. "We know it will be the key to the mass market."

Nissan has not disclosed pricing on the Leaf, but has said it expects the car to be the first affordable, mass-market electric car when it goes on sale in the United States, Japan and Europe by the end of 2010.

Nissan has bet heavily on electric cars and expects that by 2020, 10 percent of the world car market will be for electric vehicles. It has announced a series of partnerships with utilities and government agencies to advance technology where it believes it has a chance of seizing market leadership.

The automaker said on Friday that it would cooperate with Houston-based Reliant Energy, a subsidiary of NRG Energy Inc in developing a charging infrastructure for electric cars at homes and near office buildings.

Ghosn, who was speaking to reporters at an event outside Dodger Stadium to kick off a U.S. marketing tour for the Leaf, said Nissan would roll out the car slowly in the U.S. market to get more feedback from consumers.

The Leaf is designed to draw power from a battery-pack developed with Japan's NEC Corp that Nissan has said can be recharged overnight on a 220-volt connection.

Nissan has taken $1.6 billion in low-cost loans from the U.S. Department of Energy to revamp a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee to make the Leaf. The first models in the U.S. market will be imported from Japan.

Nissan's rivals have pushed competing battery-powered technologies. Toyota Motor Corp dominates the market for traditional hybrids and has floated plans for a broader range of vehicles under the Prius name.

Others, such as General Motors Co and Fisker Automotive, are banking on plug-in designs that rely on batteries for short drives but also include a gasoline-powered generator to recharge the battery on longer trips.

'WE WILL MAKE MONEY'

Ghosn, who also leads Nissan's controlling partner Renault SA, said the key to bringing down the cost of producing electric cars would be to spread development costs across up to eight vehicles for the two companies.

"We think this technology is a technology we control, but we need scale. And that is why today we are building an overall capacity between Renault and Nissan of 500,000 cars and batteries a year that we are installing between the United States, Europe and Japan," Ghosn told reporters.

"Hopefully, we are going to move upward. Because it is not about one car, it is about four cars for Nissan and four cars for Renault."

Leasing the car's batteries is a way to bring down the upfront cost, analysts say, and Ghosn said he preferred to lease batteries because Nissan can have control over replacement as technology improves.

But while Nissan plans to lease batteries on a global scale, executives said that they are still studying whether to do so in the U.S. market.

Ghosn said the Leaf would be profitable for Nissan. By contrast, GM has said it does not expect to make money on the first sales of its plug-in Volt, expected to be priced near $40,00O when it launches in late 2010.

"We will make money out of the Leaf," Ghosn said. "We have to make money, because if we don't make money the technology is condemned."

He added: "Everything we are doing today -- and that is one of the reasons we are negotiating with the government -- is to make sure this technology can continue to develop. We have a reasonable return on our investments and continue to develop the technology. And the consumer has to pay a reasonable price."

(Reporting by Mary Milliken. Writing by Kevin Krolicki, Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

news20091114reut5

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Obama: Developing nations must cut greenhouse gases
Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:20pm EST

TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday that developing nations must take "substantial actions" to curb their greenhouse gas emissions and that the world's top emitters must have clear reduction targets.

He added in a major speech in Tokyo that there could be no solution to the problems of energy security and climate change without the involvement of the Asia-Pacific region's developing nations, but that these problems could also provide great opportunities.

"If we put the right rules and incentives in place, it will unleash the creative power of our best scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. It will lead to new jobs, new businesses, and entire new industries," Obama said.

About 190 nations will gather in Copenhagen from December 7-18 to work out a global deal to fight climate change after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012, but talks so far have been clouded by disputes between rich and developing nations.

Obama, who has faced resistance from opposition Republicans and even some fellow Democrats to setting caps on U.S. emissions, has previously acknowledged that the U.S. Senate would not pass climate change legislation in time for Copenhagen.

"I have no illusions that this will be easy, but the contours of a way forward are clear. All nations must accept their responsibility," he said in his speech.

"America knows there is more work to do -- but we are meeting our responsibility, and will continue to do so."

The new government in Japan, the world's fifth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has promised to reduce emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels in an effort to strengthen its diplomatic clout at the December meeting.

Tokyo is the first stop in Obama's nine-day Asian tour, which also takes him to Singapore for an Asia-Pacific economic summit, to China for talks likely to feature climate change and trade imbalances, and to South Korea, where North Korea's nuclear ambitions will be in focus.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Caren Bohan; Writing by Hugh Lawson; Editing by Rodney Joyce)


[Green Business]
Solar power startup Ausra looks to sell itself
Fri Nov 13, 2009 9:41pm EST
By Laura Isensee

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures-backed solar thermal start-up Ausra Inc is in talks to sell itself with three potential buyers, two sources familiar with the company told Reuters on Friday.

The buyers could take a majority stake or snag the whole company and the discussions are at a "very aggressive level", said one source familiar with the company, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Both sources said the interested companies were global conglomerates in the power generation business but declined to name them. The companies already have various power products, such as steam and gas turbines, and are committed to renewable energy. One interested party has engaged with Ausra previously, one source said.

Ausra declined to comment.

A sale of the high profile Silicon Valley start-up that has raised $130 million in venture capital would add to a string of recent deals and growing consolidation in the solar power industry.

Chinese solar wafer manufacturer ReneSola Ltd plans to buy Dynamic Green Energy Ltd while silicon maker MEMC Electronic Materials Inc plans to acquire privately-held SunEdison, which installs, maintains and finances commercial solar systems.

Privately held Ausra, which is based in Mountain View, California, launched as a solar thermal developer in 2006, when solar power and other clean technology were luring venture capitalists.

Two years ago the company landed a power purchasing agreement with California utility PG&E, a unit of PG&E Corp for a 117 megawatt solar thermal plant. Solar thermal plants use the sun's rays to heat liquid to create steam, which drives turbines and generates electricity.

Earlier this year, the company switched tracks, saying it would move away from developing projects and focus on supplying large-scale solar steam generators.

This month Ausra said that it canceled its agreement with PG&E and sold the project's land to the largest U.S. solar power company, thin film photovoltaic First Solar Inc.

Ausra also has deals in Jordan and Australia and other investors include Starfish Ventures and KERN Partners.

One source familiar with the company said that "extensive work" has been done at various stages of completion with the interested buyers.

"We're talking about meetings with dozens of people involved," said the person, who also was not authorized to speak publicly about the discussions.

(Reporting by Laura Isensee; Editing Bernard Orr)


[Green Business]
APEC leaders row back on 2050 emissions cut target
Sat Nov 14, 2009 2:13am EST

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - APEC leaders have watered down draft text on emissions cuts, dropping a reference to reductions of minus 50 percent by 2050, pledging instead to "substantially" cut carbon pollution by 2050, the latest draft leaders' statement says.

The meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders, ministers and CEOs in Singapore is the last major gathering of global decision-makers before a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in three weeks meant to ramp up efforts to fight climate change.

But hopes have been dashed that the Copenhagen meeting will yield a legally binding framework for a new deal . Arguments over targets have been a key stumbling block in U.N. negotiations and at other forums, such as the G8.

While the APEC talks are not part of the troubled U.N. climate negotiations, any future emissions goals the 21 members adopt is crucial because the group is responsible for about 60 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas pollution.

The initial draft leader's statement said "global emissions will need to... be reduced to 50 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050."

The latest draft says: "We believe that global emissions will need to peak over the next few years, and be substantially reduced by 2050, recognizing that the timeframe for peaking will be longer in developing economies."

In July, the G8 failed to get major developing nations China and India to sign up to the goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The 17 biggest emitters in the Major Economies Forum chaired by President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the G8 could only get China and India to agree temperature rises should be limited to 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

Conservation group WWF said this week it was doubtful the minus-50 percent goal would be in the final APEC leaders' declaration.

"Normally it doesn't survive in these kinds of circumstances," said Kim Carstensen, head of WWF's global climate initiative.

He was referring to past objections from China and other big developing nations on adopting a 2050 emissions target unless rich nations adopt a 2020 target as well.

Developing countries blame rich nations for most of mankind's greenhouse gas pollution to date and say they should make major reductions first.

The APEC draft doesn't mention a 2020 target but does retain a goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to within 2 degrees Celsius.

(Reporting by David Fogarty and Nopporn Wong-Anan; Editing by Bill Tarrant)


[Green Business]
South Korea adopts toughest emissions cut goal: source
Sat Nov 14, 2009 4:12am EST
By Yoo Choonsik

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - South Korea has adopted the toughest of its two voluntary 2020 emissions reduction targets, calling for a reduction of 4 percent from 2005 levels, a senior government source told Reuters on Saturday.

"The government has chosen the toughest option," said the source with direct knowledge of the decision. "I think it's important for countries to aim high."

The fastest-growing carbon polluter among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) plans to announce its decision next Tuesday, with the other option calling for keeping 2020 emissions unchanged at 2005 levels.

"There was some opposition from the industrial sector but the government's will is very firm on this issue," the official added, without elaborating on the reaction from companies.

Early this month, South Korea dropped the weakest of the three options calling for an 8 percent increase in 2020 emissions from 2005 levels.

While not obliged under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol climate pact to announce binding cuts, South Korea has come under pressure to put the brakes on the rapid growth of its planet-warming emissions from industry and transport.

In response, the country took the lead among newly industrialized nations by announcing the three emissions targets in August.

The latest move showcases President Lee Myung-bak's firm commitment to making Asia's fourth-largest economy more energy-efficient.

The country's green investment plans already rank near the top in Asia. The government said earlier this year it would invest 107 trillion won ($92.53 billion) in environment-related industries over the next five years, or 2 percent of annual GDP each year.

Lee hosts a G20 summit next year, an event that will help him showcase the country's green policies.

($1=1,156.3 Won)

(Editing by Dean Yates)