news20091125jt1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
Yemen captors free engineer
Eight-day ordeal over for Japanese linked to JICA, local driver
By MASAMI ITO and JUN HONGO
Staff writers

A Japanese engineer abducted by armed Yemeni tribesmen Nov. 15 was freed early Tuesday Japan time along with his local driver, government officials said in Tokyo.

Takeo Mashimo, 63, who was working on a government-affiliated project, appeared to be in good health, the Foreign Ministry announced.

"I am relieved to have been safely released," Mashimo reportedly said over the phone after he was freed. "Please tell my family that I am O.K."

Mashimo had been working on a school project funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. He and his Yemeni driver were ambushed while they were on their way to the construction site in Arhab, about 60 km northeast of San'a.

"I was held captive in a house. It was really tough," Mashimo said of his eight-day ordeal.

Mashimo, an employee of the Tokyo-based consultancy Mohri, Architect & Associates Inc., has been living in San'a for more than a year while working on the JICA project. He used his cell phone to call the Japanese Embassy to report he had been taken captive.

The kidnappers demanded the release of a 22-year-old relative who has been imprisoned and negotiations were held between the tribesmen and Yemen authorities mediated by tribal leaders. According to media reports, the sheiks promised the kidnappers they would urge the government to free the relative as soon as possible.

Later in the day, Mashimo arrived at the regional governor's office escorted by a long convoy of vehicles carrying scores of armed tribesmen from Arhab after tough negotiations between chieftains and the kidnappers.

"We have given them our word that we will support their case and press the government to either put on trial or release their relative," an Arhab tribal leader who took part in the mediation efforts said outside the governor's office.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama expressed relief over Mashimo's release.

Information from Kyodo added


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
Hatoyama silent on funds probe　　
Charges loom over faked entries
By JUN HONGO
Staff writer

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama remained mum Tuesday on his ever-widening fundraising scandal, saying he trusts prosecutors to judge whether he is liable for any misconduct.

Prosecutors are reportedly preparing to file charges against a former Hatoyama aide for violating the Political Funds Control Law, including faking the sources of donations made to Hatoyama between 2005 and 2008.

Dismissed after the scandal broke over Hatoyama's fund management body's logging of fictitious donors, the former government-paid aide may be indicted without arrest, sources said.

"The issue has yet to receive a final decision, and I trust the prosecutors," Hatoyama said.

Earlier reports said Hatoyama's fund management body listed contributions made by deceased individuals and by people who deny ever making donations.

Asked if he might make a gesture of taking responsibility for the alleged shady practice, the prime minister said now isn't the time to address that question.

Hatoyama's aide allegedly faked the source of about 200 million in donations to the prime minister's fund management body. In addition to listing deceased individuals, Hatoyama has indicated he may have exceeded the annual 10 million cap on politicians putting their own money into their funding management bodies.

Hatoyama has claimed that while it was his understanding his assets would be used to cover operating costs, funds in excess of the 10 million limit constituted a loan he would later be repaid.

The opposition camp, mainly members of the Liberal Democratic Party, has demanded that a Diet panel take up the scandal.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said Tuesday he wouldn't comment on personal matters pertaining to the prime minister.

Hirano said the Diet Affairs Committee will decide whether Hatoyama will face questioning over the issue in the Diet.

Hatoyama has been strongly criticized by the LDP, which has called for a long extension of the current Diet session intensively discuss political money scandals. The ruling DPJ, however, has been reluctant to comply.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office has already questioned the secretary, who has not been identified, on a voluntary basis. Prosecutors are looking into what possible role Hatoyama played as well as that of the fund management body's chief accountant before deciding their next action, the sources said.

The Mainichi Shimbun reported Tuesday evening that false entries in Hatoyama's funding reports exceeded 300 million, quoting unnamed investigation sources.

"It is only natural that there is criticism (over the false entries), but it won't shake the base of the (Hatoyama) government itself," Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.

Information from Kyodo added


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
Dead babies found in bag at river

YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) Two dead babies were found in a duffel bag Tuesday on the banks of the Kawaotogawa River in Matsudamachi, Kanagawa Prefecture, police said.

{Cold trail: Investigators examine on Tuesday afternoon the spot where the bodies of two dead babies were found in a duffel bag in Matsudamachi, Kanagawa Prefecture.}

They said the corpses were decomposed to the point that the genders could not be determined and that they believe the babies had been dead for several weeks.

A 17-year-old high school boy cleaning up the bank of the river found the duffel bag at around 7:40 a.m. in a clump of grass under a bridge about 300 meters from Shin-Matsuda Station on the Odakyu Railway's Odawara Line.

Police suspect the bag was thrown from the bridge, sources said.

Each corpse had been put in a separate plastic bag inside the duffel bag, and one of the babies was between 30 and 40 cm in height, the police said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
CO2 goal could cost households big
Kyodo News

Japan's efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions could cost households \130,000 to \765,000 a year, a task force said Tuesday.

The financial burden will come in the form of estimated declines in disposable income. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged a goal of slashing emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 without purchasing emissions credits from foreign countries.

The previous administration estimated that a 25 percent cut would cost each household at least \360,000 a year.

Hatoyama's predecessor, Taro Aso, had set a more modest target of 8 percent. The new administration has since re-examined the economic impact of the more ambitious goal.

The task force, headed by Kazuhiro Ueta, a professor of environmental economics at Kyoto University's Graduate School of Economics, compiled the new estimates under various scenarios.

Think tanks that comprise the governmental task force came up with the new figures based on an assumption that the economy will expand 1.3 percent a year.

But they set different preconditions regarding how to use revenues from an environment tax which would be introduced by the administration to implement the 25 percent cut goal.

The scenarios involved returning tax revenues to households in a lump sum, using the money for policies to help achieve the emissions reduction, and allocating tax revenues to repayment of the national debt.

The task force also showed that financial burdens on households will be smaller if Japan tries to meet its goal through a combination of domestic efforts, purchasing emissions credits from abroad and forest absorption.

One combination model had the hit on disposable household income at \30,000 to \280,000 a year, according to the experts.

news20091125jt2

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

[EDUCATION AND BILINGUAL]
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
Moving house needn't leave you speechless
By DANIEL ROBSON
Special to The Japan Times

Along with divorce and bereavement, hikkoshi (引っ越し, moving house) is widely considered one of the most stressful experiences a person can go through, and adding an unfamiliar language to the mix can be enough to drive the best of us bonkers. It doesn't help that in Japan fudōsanya (不動産屋, estate agents) and ōya (大屋, landlords) have a pile of infuriating and expensive customs; simply renting a place to live here can take almost Spartan stamina.

Perhaps the most painful element of finding a new home is reikin (礼金, or key money), a nonrefundable wad of cash usually equal to two months' rent that most ōya demand you to pay as a "gift" when signing a keiyakusho (契約書, contract). Think of it as reciprocating their great generosity in letting you give them rent every month from now on. Feeling stressed yet?

Many ōya also expect you to pay kōshinryō (更新料, a renewal fee) when renewing a lease, so even staying put can be costly. However, these days you can find many koushinryō nashi no ie (更新料なしの家, homes with no renewal fee).

You'll also likely have to fork out shikikin (敷金, a deposit), which usually amounts to two months' rent, though it is easier to barter this down than it is with reikin — depending on your kōshō (交渉, negotiation) skills. In theory, you are entitled to get the shikikin back when you leave a place, but the ōya is allowed to dip into it to pay for repairs needed due to neglect by a kyoj?sha (居住者, tenant). This can add to your irritation, since ōya are notorious for trying to keep all of the shikikin. They may try to use a big chunk of it for kur?ningu (クリーニング, cleaning), but this is illegal — regardless of what your contract says. For advice on legitimate uses of shikikin, consult your local shōhi seikatsu soudan sentā (消費生活相談センター, consumer center).

Remember to ask your ōya for a meisai (明細, itemized statement) of all the costs they intend to take from your shikikin. Be prepared to argue! The tenant is not expected to pay for shizen shōmō (自然消耗, normal wear and tear), so stand your ground. Kur īningu is usually covered by a separate fee paid before you move in.

You will probably not deal directly with your ōya but with the fudōsanya where you first found your home. You will usually have to pay them a ch?kai tes?ryō (仲介手数料, agency fee) equal to a month's rent. Don't forget that you'll also need to pay your first month in advance, so in total you're looking at an initial outlay equal to six months' rent, most of which you will never get back!

When you visit the fudousanya, you will be handed an ank?to (アンケート, questionnaire) to determine what kind of property you're after. Questions will include the required hirosa (広さ, size) in heibei (平米, square meters), or jō (畳, tatami mats), and the preferred madori (間取り, arrangement of rooms). At least this last one is easy: 2LDK means two bedrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen; you can work out 1K or 3DK from there. Beware the distinction between an apāto (アパート, lower-grade apartment) and manshon (マンション, higher-grade apartment) — the latter should be more solidly constructed, and more expensive to rent.

You will likely also be asked a barrage of detailed personal questions: job, salary, marital status, how long you intend to stay in Japan, and so on. If at all possible, resist the urge to scream, "Sensakuzuki! Sore wa puraib?to na kotoda!" (「詮索好き！それはプライベートな事だ！ 」, "Mind your own business, nosey!"); it might seem relentlessly impolite, but most of these questions are standard for Japanese, too.

You will also need a hoshōnin (保証人, guarantor), who may be an employer, a friend or relative — pretty much anyone who is permanently based in Japan. If you are unable to pay your rent, it will default to them, though legally the ōya will still need a saibanshomeirei (裁判所命令, court order).

When moving day comes around, you'll probably need a hikkoshiya (引っ越し家, removal company). You will need to work out the ryō (量, volume) of your belongings first to get a quote. Options range from full packing and unpacking service to delivery only.

When the dust settles, you could greet your rinjin (隣人, neighbors) with a bowl of hikkoshi soba (引っ越しそば, moving-in noodles), an old-fashioned tradition that takes advantage of the word soba's other meaning of "next to." This is not a common practice in the busy modern world, but who knows, it might spare you complaints over the noisy business of arranging kagu (家具, furniture).

As for the lingo for buying a property, that's a whole different story. By now you're probably dying to think about something less stressful, anyway — you know, like divorce or bereavement.


[COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY NEWS]
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
IGADGET
Hallods puts definition on its screen; Maxell turns volume up
By PETER CROOKES

Screen saver: Putting genuine high definition in portable-media players is a bit like trying to craft the perfect diamond. If you pull off the act it looks brilliant, but the difference between it and the normal article is nearly impossible for laypeople to actually see. Despite doubts over whether the effort is worth it, electronics makers have been lining up to claim the honor of producing a real high-definition portable media player.

Local firm Hallods looks to have earned the kudos with their new F43 MP4 player. Its 4.3-inch 1280 × 720 screen can display content in full 720p high-definition. The drawback is that on such a small screen only the most dedicated pixel peeper, with eyes up close to the screen, is going to be able to tell the difference between images on it and those on similar screens with slightly lower resolution. Still, pictures and videos are going to look gorgeous on the Hallods machine.

Beneath the screen, the F43 sports 8 gigabytes of internal storage, expandable with a microSD memory-card slot. The gadget also displays videos encoded in 30-fps MPEG4, FLV, RMVB and DivX-WVGA formats, MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC and APE music files and JPEG, BMP and PNG image files. It has a battery life of four hours when playing videos, and 10 hours for music.

Strangely enough it lacks a HDMI output, so it can't display high-definition videos or photos on a TV screen except at reduced resolution. The unit measures 113 × 75 × 13 mm and weighs 140 grams. The design is simple but effective, with the screen taking up the whole front face and the controls positioned along the top and side edges. While it lacks Mac connectivity it does work with Me, 2000, XP, Vista and even Windows 7 versions of the Microsoft operating system.

Only the visually obsessive are going to think the high-definition aspect is a decisive edge for the F43, especially as it lacks wireless or other Internet abilities. But as a device for watching videos, looking at photos and playing music it does the job and costs only \16,800. www.hallods.co.jp/1255519363788/

Drumming up business: Though it looks like a slightly-warped barrel, Maxell has brought its own touch of creativity to the iPod dock market with the MXSP-D240. The dock has a slot on top for iPods, a few buttons underneath and a 2.5-watt, magnetically sealed speaker at each end. The speakers have 53-mm driver units and a frequency range of 60 Hz to 20 kHz. The whole device measures 240 × 151 × 138 mm and tips the scales at a modest 1.2 kg. The dock comes in a choice of either white or black and has the mandatory remote control. Its portability is curtailed slightly by running on mains power only.

The Maxell device caters to the full range of iPods, including the newest touch model, but unfortunately it lacks support for iPhones.

The dock comes out Nov. 25 and is expected to cost around \10,000.

Maxell promotes the unusual shape as lending itself to enhanced bass performance, but regardless of such audio claims the shape is nothing if not eye-catching. Beyond that the compact design and decent if not outstanding specifications offer a nice alternative to the plethora of more expensive iPod docks that are currently available. www.maxell.co.jp/jpn/news/2009/news091118.html

news20091125jt3

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

[COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY NEWS]
Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009
TECHNOLOGY
U.S. online strategy holds clues for Tokyo
Hatoyama's team needs to reform Web policies to connect with Japanese voters
By FUMI YAMAZAKI
Special to The Japan Times

Imagine befriending Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on Facebook. Or getting "tweets" from Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Twitter. It could happen if Tokyo follows Washington's lead.

This summer, Japan, like the United States last year, opted for a new government. Snubbing the Liberal Democratic Party after a more than 50-year ruling streak, voters rewarded Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan and, according to polls, are expecting change in return.

Technologically, change is needed. Public services are weighed down with paperwork, there is a lack of IT utilization and old laws still prohibit parties from using the Internet during an election period. These are things that should have been changed long before now. According to a study on e-government by the Washington-based Brookings Institution, Japan ranked 37th out of 198 countries in 2008.

The e-government movement — the utilization of IT and Web technologies to increase efficiency, and enhance communication and transparency — has taken hold in Washington, D.C.

Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, says the e-government movement has greatly changed information flow in Washington, enhancing communication among and between workers, agencies and the public.

Government agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have opened up online, communicating directly with citizens via Web services such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and their own blogs at FCC Connect (fcc.gov/connect/).

Steven Van Roekel and Mary Beth Richards, managing director and special counsel for FCC Reform, respectively, both say their efforts go beyond communication and aim to actively increase citizen participation in FCC reform. One big initiative relating to this is available at the Broadband.gov Web site, where Americans can have their say in the lawmaking process. Citizens can submit their ideas on the site and other users can vote on those ideas so that the popular ones get filtered up to the top of the page. It is an approach similar to what U.S. President Barack Obama's team did with the Change.gov Web site during the transition period before taking office. Richards sums it up by saying that Broadband.gov is basically cloudsourcing the procedure of making laws.

In Japan, there is a system known as paburikku komento (public comments), where citizens can submit their opinions on specific policy issues. However, submitting an opinion doesn't guarantee it will be listened to. In 2007, the Agency for Cultural Affairs invited input on outlawing online downloads. The issue attracted 8,720 comments from the public, with 80 percent opposing the move. Despite the opposition, a law making downloads illegal was enacted.

In 2008, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare requested comments from the public concerning the prohibition of online medicine sales. It received 2,353 opinions with 97 percent opposing the move, but again the law was enacted based on a plan bureaucrats had laid out even before soliciting the public's opinion.

The key factor in U.S. initiatives such as Broadband.gov and Change.gov is that Washington actually attempts to incorporate the public input it receives.

What Japan needs to do is not just change the technology, but change the mind-set of politicians and bureaucrats so that they listen to public opinion.

The bureaucracy is notorious for being set in its conservative ways and resistant to change, and this notion is summed up in the Japanese phrase oyakusho shigoto.

Steve Radick, a consultant at strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton based in Virginia, believes that in order for e-government to work in Japan, simply building the platform or using the technology won't work. The governmental process itself must also change and how people work must change too.

Atsunori Higashikawa of NTT Data AgileNet agrees. He says just copying what the U.S. did will not be effective, as Japan's bureaucracy must change the way it works. For example, official Japanese documents require the affixing of hanko (personal seals). The current system forces officials to print documents at the last second just to have the hanko added. Higashikawa says Japan needs to make a system that works without the need for a hanko.

U.S. government agencies used to work in isolated conditions in the past, according to the Brookings Institution's West. The old practice of isolation is slowly being shattered as information exchange and communication improves among workers in the same agency, between agencies, and with outside experts.

This change in thinking came partly from a private-sector influx of new blood into the public system. New IT talents with marketing and communication skills have also been drawn out from within the agencies.

West says outside talents who are not bound by tradition are critical to increasing innovation within government agencies.

Craig Newmark, founder of classifieds Web site Craigslist, devotes much of his time and his extensive experience in the Web industry to improving e-government.

"Like everyone else, I would prefer to be at home watching TV [rather] than thinking about politics," says Newmark. "But there are so many things we can do to make the government better."

Newmark is a member of Govloop, a social-networking site focused on connecting people interested in improving government, that attracts a broad range of talent.

A vast amount of human networking and information sharing of the best practices channels through Govloop, according to its founder Steve Ressler. Govloop was the leading source of government input into the Obama administration's Open Government Memo, which was a memorandum published from the president to the heads of executive departments and agencies stating the government should be transparent, participatory and collaborative.

In Japan, there are IT vendors who expect they can get a piece of the budget if they write proposals to the government using buzzwords — prompts that the government should be wary of. For example, phrases such as denshi-seifu (e-government) and "government 2.0" are tossed about frequently in the quest to receive state funds.

In the past there have been so-called e-government systems in Japan that hardly anyone used, but which cost billions of yen. One such program was the passport registry system, which was abolished in 2006. Around \4.8 billion was invested in the program, but only 133 people made use of it.

In contrast, sites such as Change.gov were made with a small budget because they used existing systems. Therefore it is crucial to start initiatives with a small budget, test them well and get user feedback. The important thing is to create systems that the citizens actually use, and that are beneficial for them. For example, in the U.S. more than two-thirds of Americans pay taxes online.

Critics have derided e-government as mere hype, but that hasn't prevented Microsoft, Adobe and Google from joining the movement.

Merely opening government information is not enough, according to Ginny Hunt of Google. She says presenting the data in visual form and making information understandable is important, and Google is putting lots of effort into this. For example, if a voter puts their address into Google's election site, they will be able to see ballot information for their area before reaching the venue to vote.

"We are creating informed and empowered voters. This is the next step of democracy," says Hunt.

Two major obstacles stand in Japan's way to e-government realization. First is the "read the atmosphere" culture. Government must discuss its strategies faster, build quickly and then fix problems if necessary. The current culture dictates too much caution with regards to what others might be thinking and adjusting to pacify those possible scenarios in order to form a consensus that ends up slowing down the decision-making process.

Second, Japan has a "specification culture" where problems must be predicted and fixed beforehand.

What Tokyo needs to learn from Washington is a kind of "beta culture," where action is fast and problems are taken care of quickly if they arise.

Lovisa A. Williams, a technology adviser at the U.S. State Department, says the key to getting citizens involved is to use the platforms they already use.

Working on public diplomacy, Williams uses not only Facebook, Twitter and Second Life, but also QQNet to communicate with the Chinese community and Orkut to communicate with the Brazilians. She says that rather than building your own space for people to come to, you must go to them.

Japan has thriving technology subcultures and Google's Hunt is one of many who believe there are lots of ways for citizens to contribute, especially if it adapts programs such as Apps for America, a contest site in which citizens design software applications to make government data easily understandable for the public.

Japan may be able to get advice from its neighbors as well. In the Brookings' e-government survey, South Korea ranked first, Taiwan was second and Singapore came in fourth.

However, the best advice the Hatoyama administration could probably get is to move quickly while they have voters' support for change and to be ambitious and seek real change.

news20091125gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen climate change congerence 2009]
US and India pledge common action on climate change
Hopes of a strong deal at Copenhagen summit renewed as Obama and Singh commit to 'significant mitigation actions'
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent and Jonathan Watts, Asia environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 November 2009 19.57 GMT Article history

America and India today pledged common action to fight climate change and to build a new global clean energy economy, claiming the new "green partnership" between two of the world's biggest emitters would help produce a strong political deal at next month's summit in Copenhagen.

Barack Obama and visiting Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, both committed to "significant mitigation actions", ie reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

With today's understanding, three of the world's top emitters, China, America and India are now committed to action on emissions at Copenhagen, though they have yet to reveal the actual targets. But it does significantly boost the prospect that world leaders could commit to strong action at the UN summit, despite the rancourous atmosphere among their official negotiating teams at the last set of meetings in Barcelona this month.

"It takes us one step closer to a successful outcome in Copenhagen." Obama said. Today's pledge from Singh comes a day after the White House said Obama would commit to cutting emissions before the Copenhagen meeting gets underway. China's Hu Jintao committed to reducing the future growth rate of emissions during Obama's visit to Beijing a week ago.

India's new commitment is to take what the White House described today as "vigorous action to combat climate change" in return for assistance from industrialised countries for its shift from coal to cleaner energy sources. Singh made it clear there would be a price for India's cooperation. "We will do more if there is global support in terms of financial resources and technology transfer," he told the Council of Foreign Relations yesterday.

Some of that support came through today, with the announcement of a joint research centre, with US and Indian government funds, to help speed the development of more energy efficient technologies, as well as carbon capture and storage. It is thought the US government will contribute $100m a year to the centre over the next five years.

"India was a latecomer to industrialisation and as such we have contributed very little to the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions that caused global warming, but we are determined to be part of the solution," Singh said.

Although India has resisted international pressure to commit to legally binding emissions targets in negotiations, the country has over the last year embarked on a series of new greener measures.

India's cabinet this week approved a plan to triple solar capacity to 20 gigawatts by 2022, and to give more incentives to the development of solar power.

The two countries directed their national labs to work together on expanding solar and wind energy potential. US officials have also been working with India to set up a local version of the Environmental Protection Agency, which could regulate industry and help assure supply of clean water and air.

In recent weeks, Brazil, Indonesia and South Korea have all slapped down hard figures on the negotiating table. A specific target from China is expected soon and, under one scenario, China reveal it at a summit with the European Union on 30 November in Nanjing.

That would pave the way for Obama to announce the US targets soon after. But creating this domino effect requires a strong enough commitment by Beijing to convince wavering US senators that China was moving significantly beyond business as usual.

But several recent reports and recommendations on China's likely ambition have generated fears that the carbon target will actually mark a step back from its existing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, once more placing the talks in jeopardy.

"Some of the numbers being bandied around seem worryingly low given China's weight of economic growth. But we remain confident that China will ultimately offer us an emissions reduction target that represents a significant reduction from business as usual," said a European diplomat.

The closest the government in Beijing has come to announcing a goal was at the UN summit in September, when president Hu Jintao's promised to reduce the carbon intensity of China's economy by a "notable margin" between 2005 and 2020. But recent reports have suggested that China is considering a reduction in carbon intensity - emissions relative to economic growth - in the lower end of the range 40-50% in the period of 2005-2020.

news20091125gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change scepticism]
Climate scientist at centre of leaked email row dismisses conspiracy claims
Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia denies emails provide evidence of collusion by climatologists to fix data
Leo Hickman and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 November 2009 17.55 GMT Article history

The climatologist at the centre of the leaked emails row said today that he "absolutely" stands by his research and that any suggestion that the emails provide evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate or hide data that do not support the theory of man-made climate change was "complete rubbish".

Professor Phil Jones, director of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, said that the past week had been "the worst few days of my professional life". He added that since the emails were leaked he had received personal threats which have now been passed on to the police to investigate.

In his first full interview since last week's theft, which saw hundreds of emails and documents exchanged between some of the leading climatologists over the past 13 years stolen from the university's servers, Jones defended himself against accusations by climate sceptics that the emails provide evidence of collusion by climatologists to fix data.

"That the world is warming is based on a range of sources: not only temperature records but other indicators such as sea level rise, glacier retreat and less Arctic sea ice," he said. "Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for Nasa and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results. The facts speak for themselves; there is no need for anyone to manipulate them."

Jones accepted, though, that the contents of some of the emails were cause for embarrassment: "Some of the emails probably had poorly chosen words and were sent in the heat of the moment, when I was frustrated. I do regret sending some of them. We've not deleted any emails or data here at CRU. I would never manipulate the data one bit - I would categorically deny that."

He confirmed that all of the leaked emails that had provoked heated debate – including the now infamous email from 1999 in which he discussed a "trick" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures - appeared to be genuine.

"The use of the term 'hiding the decline' was in an email written in haste," he said. "CRU has not sought to hide the decline." (The University of East Anglia has now posted a detailed explanation of why this phrase was used on its website)

Jones said the timing of the theft suggested it was intended to cause maximum embarrassment ahead of the Copenhagen climate talks next month: "One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this email correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks."

But he stressed that he has never wished to get drawn into the political debate about climate change, saying: "I'm a very apolitical person, I don't want to get involved in the politics, I'm much happier doing the science and producing the papers. I'm a scientist, I let my science do the talking, along with all my scientific climate colleagues. It's up to governments to decide and climate science is just one thing they have to take into account with the decisions they have to make."

He added that he had long been under pressure from climate sceptics to further explain his research: "From about 2001/2002 I was getting emails from a number of people involved in the climate sceptic community. Initially at the beginning I did try to respond to them in the hope I might convince them but I soon realised it was a forlorn hope and broke off communication. Some of the emails I sent them subsequently appeared and were discussed on various sceptic websites."

Trevor Davies, the University of East Anglia's pro-vice-chancellor with responsibility for research, rejected calls – including from the Guardian commentator George Monbiot – for Jones to resign: "We see no reason for Professor Jones to resign and, indeed, we would not accept his resignation. He is a valued and important scientist."

Davies said the university had now decided to conduct an independent review which will "address the issue of data security, an assessment of how we responded to a deluge of Freedom of Information requests, and any other relevant issues which the independent reviewer advises should be addressed".

Yesterday, prominent members of both sides of the climate change debate, including the climate change sceptic Lord Lawson, had called for an independent review. Lawson said he believed this should be carried out by the Natural Environment Research Council, a government science funding body.

But a spokesperson for Nerc said it was not a matter for them. "Nerc believes this is a matter for the University of East Anglia - their Climatic Research Unit is not a Nerc unit - so it is for them to decide if they call for an enquiry and if so who should conduct it. Should there be an enquiry we would of course be happy to contribute, if asked."

A spokesperson for the journal Nature said, "In line with our standard policy, if clear evidence were to arise that anything we've published is in question then we'll look into any action that may need to be taken."

news20091125gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > 10:10 climate change campaign]
Tories pledge 10% cut in government emissions
The Conservatives make an ambitious pitch to win the environmental vote with a raft of measures
Allegra Stratton
The Guardian, Tuesday 24 November 2009 Article history

The Conservatives will tomorrow make an ambitious pitch to win the environmental vote with a raft of measures including plans to pay the public to recycle and a promise to cut government emissions by 10% within 12 months of taking office.

The party's pledge to slash the government's carbon footprint represents the most significant policy commitment in response to the 10:10 climate campaign which asks individuals, companies and organisations to cut their emissions by 10% during 2010.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne will tell an audience at Imperial College London that environmental considerations will be central to the operations of a Conservative Treasury as he seeks to contrast himself with the record of Alistair Darling, whom the Tories say has not given a speech on the environment during his time as chancellor.

This week four shadow cabinet members will attempt to prove the issue has not slipped down the party's agenda since the days in 2006 when David Cameron made a husky-driven expedition to melting glaciers. They will deliver speeches on how their departments would hope to make the environment central to economic recovery.

Osborne is to pledge a Conservative government will:

> Sign the government up to the 10:10 campaign, cutting emissions across the government estate by 10% within 12 months, saving up to £300m a year on energy bills. They describe this as "the most ambitious commitment on UK government emissions ever made".

> Make all Whitehall departments publish their energy consumption online in order to "hold ministers and civil servants to account for their carbon footprint".

> Replace the government's bin taxes and instead pay the public to recycle.

> Create Britain's first green investment bank, to concentrate funds drawn together from disparate micro-government initiatives. They hope this will win the UK a bigger share of the $3tn (£1.8tn) global market in green technologies than its current 5%. They would also encourage the private sector to finance green technology start-ups.

> Introduce green ISAs: tax-free savings vehicles where all the funds invested go to green companies and environmental technologies.

> Expand the City's green trading market.

> Ban the export credit guarantee department from underwriting risky investment in foreign fossil fuel projects.

Osborne will say: "When it comes to environmental policy the Treasury has often been at best indifferent, at worst obstructive ... how telling that Alistair Darling has not given a single major speech on the environment in the two and a half years since he became chancellor. That attitude is going to change if the government changes. I want a Conservative Treasury to be in the lead of developing the low carbon economy and financing a green recovery."

This week's battery of green proposals comes in the run-up to global negotiations in Copenhagen next month. Though insiders acknowledge the Tories have avoided indulging in bipartisan attacks on the government as it prepares, the party has a job to maintain its environmentalism as politicians on its fringe question whether climate change is really happening and the party's anti-EU agenda leaves observers flummoxed as to how the party believes it will act on climate change alone.

The government points out that the Conservatives opposed their £20bn fiscal stimulus package, which included £405m in funding for sustainable technologies.

The party began work on some of the proposals months ago. The Tory council of Windsor and Maidenhead has tested two of the policies, with pilots on paying the public to recycle and publishing the energy consumption of the local council online having positive results. Publishing power usage online saw a 15% fall in energy consumption, while paying people to recycle prompted a 30% increase.

Within this scheme, some of the money saved by councils on landfill tax is returned to the home owner in the form of retail vouchers, including some for use in Marks & Spencer, but require a floor to be put on landfill tax to get businesses interested. In order to do this, Osborne will pledge that the first Tory budget will set out minimum rates for landfill tax until 2020 in order to provide that stability.

The Tories set up their own green London Stock Exchange in July of this year, to which almost 100 companies are now signed up. And the party will shortly publish a working report on green ISAs by Emma Howard Boyd of Jupiter Capital.

Arguably the pledge to slash emissions from government departments by 10% in a year will be hardest to meet. The Tories will tomorrow announce they have three business leaders to advise on the 10:10 pledge – Ian Livingston of BT, David North of Tesco and Ian Cheshire of B&Q – all companies that have brought carbon emissions down.

Last month the Commons voted against signing the government up to the 10:10 campaign. Labour MPs largely voted against the motion, with the climate change secretary Ed Miliband saying that while the government supported 10:10 and had written into the climate change act long-term reductions in emissions from government property over the thirteen years to 2022, it could not sign up to such a swift cut.

news20091125nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 24 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462397a
News
Storm clouds gather over leaked climate e-mails
British climate centre reeling over Internet posting of sensitive material.
Quirin Schiermeier

The online publication of sensitive e-mails and documents from a British climate centre is brewing into one of the scientific controversies of the year, causing dismay among affected institutes and individuals. The tone and content of some of the disclosed correspondence are raising concerns that the leak is damaging the credibility of climate science on the eve of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December.

The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich confirmed on 20 November that it had had more than 1,000 e-mails and documents taken from its servers, but it has not yet confirmed how much of the published material is genuine. "This information has been obtained and published without our permission," says Simon Dunford, a spokesman for the UEA, adding that the university will undertake an investigation and has already involved the police.

{“There are apparently lots of people who really do think that global warming is an evil socialist plot.”}

Many scientists contacted by Nature doubt that the leak will have a lasting impact, but climate-sceptic bloggers and mainstream media have been poring over the posted material and discussing its contents. Most consist of routine e-mail exchanges between researchers. But one e-mail in particular, sent by CRU director Phil Jones, has received attention for its use of the word "trick" in a discussion about the presentation of climate data. In a statement, Jones confirmed that the e-mail was genuine and said: "The word 'trick' was used here colloquially as in a clever thing to do. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to anything untoward."

"If anyone thinks there's a hint of tweaking the data for non-scientific purposes, they are free to produce an analysis showing that Earth isn't warming," adds Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist and policy researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey. "In fact, they have been free to do so for decades and haven't been able to."

"There are apparently lots of people who really do think that global warming is an evil socialist plot, and that many scientists are part of the plot and deliberately faking their science," adds Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and former director of CRU.

Alleged e-mails containing critical remarks about other climate scientists are merely proof of lively debate in the community, adds Gavin Schmidt, a climate researcher with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.

The title of the uploaded file containing the leaked e-mails — 'FOIA.zip' — has led to speculation that the affair may be linked to the deluge of requests for raw climate data that have recently been made under the UK Freedom of Information Act to Jones (see Nature 460, 787; 2009). The source of many of those requests is Steve McIntyre, the editor of Climate Audit, a blog that investigates the statistical methods used in climate science. "I don't have any information on who was responsible," McIntyre told Nature.

Nevertheless, e-mails allegedly sent by Jones seem to illustrate his reluctance to comply with these requests. "All scientists have the right to request your data and to try to falsify your results," says Hans von Storch, director of the Institute for Coastal Research in Geesthacht, Germany. "I very much respect Jones as a scientist, but he should be aware that his behaviour is beginning to damage our discipline." In a statement, the UEA said: "The raw climate data which has been requested belongs to meteorological services around the globe and restrictions are in place which means that we are not in a position to release them. We are asking each service for their consent for their data to be published in future."

However, von Storch believes that, at least until the affair is resolved, Jones should cease reviewing climate science for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.


[naturenews]
Published online 24 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462397b
News
Indian neutrino lab site rejected
Nilgiri location threatens important elephant habitat.
K. S. Jayaraman

India's particle physicists have lost their battle to build a neutrino laboratory — one of the country's biggest physics projects — under the Nilgiri hills at Singara in the state of Tamil Nadu. The government has upheld conservationists' view that its construction would endanger wildlife in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR), an important tiger and elephant habitat.

{“A new site means a further delay of one year to a project that has already lost four years.”}

The 6.8-billion rupee (US$150 million) India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) has been mired in environmental controversy since 2006, but physicists were hoping it would be resolved in their favour (see Nature 461, 459; 2009). However, on 20 November India's minister of environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, informed the scientists that they should not proceed at Singara.

Ramesh wrote that he was acting on a "large number of reports" received against the proposed site and the "very weighty reasons" put forward by Rajesh Gopal, head of forestry in his ministry. Ramesh has suggested the project consider instead a site near Suruliyar, also in Tamil Nadu, that does not pose Singara-type problems.

"Everybody in the INO project is disappointed," says project spokesman Naba Mondal, a physicist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. Project scientists had already considered and rejected the potential site at Suruliyar because there were less available data on the characteristics of the rock that would need to be blasted out to create a cavern to host the neutrino detector. "Preparing a new site means a further delay of one year to a project that has already lost four years due to environmental activism," he says.

Conservationists are pleased, however. "We are indeed relieved," says Tarsh Thekaekara, coordinator of the NBR Alliance, the group that spearheaded the campaign against building the neutrino observatory at Singara. The proposed Suruliyar site is also close to the Periyar tiger reserve, although not in a wildlife corridor as the Singara site is.

Thekaekara says that environmentalists near Suruliyar may decide to challenge the new proposal. "We only represent organizations in Nilgiri," he says. "It may happen that some of the members also active in [Suruliyar] will protest if there is a serious threat to nature." Mondal says that work at the new site will start only after all government clearances are in place.

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[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 24 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462398a
News
Flu-virus prevalence comes under scrutiny
Projects to monitor antibodies seek true extent of H1N1 infection.
Declan Butler

{{Antibody analysis of blood samples is the only way to accurately track the evolving flu pandemic.}
C. Anand/AP}

Researchers are turning their attention to one of the great unknowns about the ongoing H1N1 influenza pandemic: how many people have been, and are being, infected. The first surveys to monitor for antibodies to the virus are now getting under way, belatedly in some countries such as the United States. The findings could substantially change much of what epidemiologists know about the current pandemic.

"I'm very struck that we don't have even an idea of the magnitude of infection," says Xavier de Lamballerie, a virologist at the University of the Mediterranean Aix-Marseille II in Marseilles, France. "Epidemiologists haven't a clue if it is 5%, 10% or 20% of the population."

Gathering that information is crucial for improving estimates of pandemic spread, severity and mortality, and informing policies such as how to distribute vaccines and antiviral drugs.

Laboratory-confirmed cases of pandemic H1N1 underestimate the true prevalence by several orders of magnitude, as only a tiny fraction of cases can be tested. Instead, public-health agencies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, use proxy measures, including data on the frequency of people reporting influenza-like symptoms to their doctors.

But testing blood samples for antibodies to pandemic H1N1 is the only definitive way to establish how many people have been exposed to the virus and to begin to estimate how this is changing over time. "Arguably, these data are one of the most important quantities," says Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, who is working with the CDC on pandemic flu.

Britain, France and Vietnam are among those farthest ahead with such studies for H1N1. In Britain, Andrew Hayward heads FluWatch, which for the pandemic has scaled up its seasonal-flu work to a £2.1-million (US$3.5-million) study co-funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. Instead of its usual 650–850 subjects, the group will investigate 10,000 subjects, including 2,500 in a serology study to look for antibodies against H1N1 in their blood serum.

{“Arguably, these data are one of the most important quantities.”}

The UK Health Protection Agency has also launched a £180,000 study. This draws on blood samples collected from hospital patients for other purposes — so what it lacks in terms of targeting well-characterized groups of individuals, it makes up for in speed by using existing samples. Survey leaders have collected 1,403 blood samples from before the first pandemic wave, and 1,954 taken in August and September, across all age groups from eight regions in England. "I believe England is the first to obtain such seroincidence data," says Elizabeth Miller, the study's lead researcher.

She declined to comment on the results because they are under review at a journal, but says the data will provide "insight into the extent to which surveillance has underestimated the true burden of infection due to the occurrence of mild or asymptomatic infections". Hayward is also writing up preliminary FluWatch results gathered during Britain's first pandemic wave, and these too are likely to show a very different picture from that provided by surveillance data alone.

In France, the second wave of the pandemic has only just begun, buying precious time for the €300,000 (US$450,000) SéroGrippeHebdo ('Sero Flu Weekly') study, led by the French School of Public Health in Rennes and Paris. This project is recruiting 30,000 pregnant women, and gains speed by piggybacking on existing infrastructure for routine blood sampling of this group. It will publish serology data from 800 of the women weekly in real time, beginning this week. Already, says de Lamballerie, whose lab is doing the testing, "we've got a great baseline — no higher than 5% or so of the study population has already been infected".

In Vietnam, Peter Horby, a researcher at the National Institute for Infectious and Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, is part of a project testing leftover serum from haematology and biochemistry labs in nine provincial hospitals. He is also switching a seasonal-flu study of 908 people in 269 households in the northern Ha Nam province to study the serology of pandemic flu. Horby says it should yield good data on the true epidemiology of H1N1 in Vietnam.

Other projects are also just getting started. On top of the survey of pregnant women, Antoine Flahault, dean of the French School of Public Health, is seeking support for a French-led international study called CoPanFlu. This would see each partner fully profile 1,000 households during the pandemic, including serology testing at six-monthly intervals over two years. "One shouldn't underestimate the difficulty in getting these sorts of studies off the ground," says Hayward.

The United States was less prescient, it seems. Academic groups there are still in the process of applying for funds for such surveys, and Nature has also learned that the CDC is about to announce a serology study across ten states. During pandemic planning before the current virus arose, the United States extensively discussed the need for such studies but decisions weren't taken, says Donald Burke, dean of the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania: "None of these very important studies were in place when we knew there was going to be a pandemic. It's unfortunate."

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Green energy rush could crash Bulgaria power grid
Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:30am EST
By Irina Ivanova

SOFIA (Reuters) - A rush to cash in on incentives to develop renewable energy projects in Bulgaria could end up in so much new supply it could cause blackouts on the national grid, the operator told Reuters on Tuesday.

Ivan Ayolov, chief executive of the state electricity system operator (ESO) said in an interview the government should impose stricter regulations to bar speculators.

Generous government incentives for electricity produced from wind, solar and biomass has led to an avalanche-like increase in projects which totaled over 11,000 megawatts by September.

"This has to be stopped in an intelligent way, otherwise we face a catastrophe," Ayolov said, adding the situation resembled the Klondike gold rush.

"At this stage the grid is reliable. It's capacity (for new installations) is 1,800 MW. But it is not reliable when it comes to 10,000 MW." ESO runs Bulgaria's high-voltage grids.

Bulgaria like most other former communist member states of the European Union relies mainly on coal and nuclear power to meet its energy needs.

The need to raise green energy share to 16-20 percent by 2020 to meet EU targets on reducing emissions, has prompted governments in the region to offer preferential prices to attract investors in renewables whose costs are higher than fossil-fuel based power.

This has led to a wind power boom in Bulgaria and Romania and numerous solar projects in the Czech Republic.

Bulgaria's wind energy capacity connected to the grid jumped to 330 MW so far this year from 103 MW last year.

But the existing power grids cannot cope with the demand for connecting new wind parks and state power utility NEK has already imposed a temporary freeze on connecting turbines in the north-eastern region of Varna.

NEK has warned of possible power outages due to the rising applications for new wind parks.

PRIORITY FOR RENEWABLES

Ayolov said apart from offering incentives, Bulgaria should also have a detailed strategy on increasing renewable energy in a sustainable way that did not put a strain on the power grid.

ESO, therefore, suggests investors pay five percent of the value of their project to the state as a deposit to prove they really intend to realize them, which will separate speculators from serious investors.

Under current legislation, NEK and the three regional power utilities -- Czech CEZ, Austria's EVNVI and Germany's E.ON -- are obliged to give a priority to renewables when connecting units to the system.

They must also cover all costs to upgrade their grids to link the new capacity.

Experts say some 40 million levs ($30.49 million) are necessary for connecting a 100 MW unit to the grid, while NEK has so far been able to invest 300-350 million levs a year for maintenance and overhauls.

The Economy and Energy Ministry says it will submit to Brussels a plan by June 2010 which will regulate the capacities and energy sources for linking to the grid.

The document is expected to rein in the negative effect of the preferential prices which saw applications multiplying and will allow utilities to plan in advance their investments in the grid, Kostadinka Todorova, an energy ministry expert, said.


[Green Business]
UK Tories unveil plan for "greener" government
Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:11am EST
By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - The Conservatives said on Tuesday they will pay households to recycle rubbish, set up a "green" investment bank and cut government emissions by 10 percent in a year if they win next year's election.

The party said it would publish departments' energy consumption online to force politicians and public workers to cut their carbon footprint.

With countries meeting for U.N. climate talks in Denmark next month, both Labour and the Conservatives have been keen to promote their environmental credentials.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said the Treasury had traditionally been "at best indifferent, at worst obstructive" toward environmental policy.

"That attitude is going to change if the government changes," Osborne said in a speech at Imperial College London, a science-based university founded in 1907.

"I want a Conservative Treasury to be in the lead of developing the low carbon economy and financing the green recovery."

Under his proposals, the Conservatives would cut carbon emissions from government departments by a tenth within a year of coming to power, saving some 300 million pounds a year. Departments which fail to reach that target will have their funding cut.

A Tory government would begin talks on establishing a new investment bank that would consolidate all existing government funding of new environmental projects, Osborne added.

The public would be able to invest in tax-free savings accounts that fund "green" initiatives and the Conservatives would set a 10-year minimum tax on burying household waste.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband dismissed the Conservative pledges as "greenwash" and said the plans were not backed by promises of new money.

"The truth is that the Tories have opposed Labour's extra public investment, including the 400 million pounds allocated at the time of the budget for new green industries," Miliband said in a statement. "So why should anyone believe a piece of greenwash from George Osborne?"

Britain was the first country to set legally binding targets to cut emissions. It aims for a reduction of 34 percent by 2020 and at least 80 percent by 2050, compared to 1990 levels.

(Additional reporting by Sumeet Desai; Editing by Steve Addison)


[Green Business]
Ukraine to sell carbon emission rights to Spain
Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:47am EST

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's government has ordered its environment investment agency to sign a deal selling carbon emission rights to Spain, according to a decision published on Tuesday.

The government's decision said it wanted to sell 3 million Assigned Amount Units (AAU) to Madrid and gave no further details of the transaction facilitated by the Kyoto Protocol's emission trading scheme.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said in July Ukraine wanted to earn $2 billion from CO2 rights sales after Japan bought 30 million AAUs earlier this year. Ukraine said that deal was worth $375 million.

The government had said in May it was looking to sell this year 100 million AAUs to Swiss-based Dighton Carbon SA and another 50 million to New Zealand's Tawhaki International LP.

Ukraine was allocated 4.5 billion AAUs between 2008-2012 but due to a deep recession and steeply falling industrial activity, it estimates it needs to use only 2.8 billion. The country is allowed to sell about 450 million AAUs a year.

(Writing by Sabina Zawadzki; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Tiny "carbon neutral" club struggles with costs
Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:07am EST
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent - Analysis

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway, Costa Rica and the Maldives are struggling with high costs and technological hurdles to stay in the world's most exclusive club for fighting climate change -- seeking to cut net greenhouse gas emissions to zero.

The United Nations is praising their "carbon neutrality" targets before a U.N. summit on December 7-18 in Copenhagen meant to agree a new pact to combat global warming. But the model is hard to imitate with its demand for a drastic shift to clean energy.

"What they're trying to do is fundamentally change the direction of their economic growth," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. "It's a way of getting ahead of the game."

Yet all three of the small nations face big problems.

Greenhouse gas emissions in Norway are 7 percent above its 2012 target under the Kyoto Protocol, while emissions are rising in Costa Rica, especially in the transport sector.

And the Maldives' plan to be a tropical showcase for solar and wind power in the Indian Ocean, shifting from dependence on costly diesel, will need an estimated $1.1 billion in investments over a decade for its 310,000 people.

The Maldives is aiming for carbon neutrality by 2020, Costa Rica by 2021 and Norway by 2030.

But New Zealand and Iceland have dropped past aims of carbon neutrality because of high costs amid recession. And the Maldives failed at a meeting this month to win new recruits to the club among poor nations such as Bangladesh and Barbados.

Carbon neutrality means a nation can use fossil fuels -- in power plants, factories or cars -- only if the greenhouse gas emissions are either captured and buried or offset elsewhere, for instance by planting carbon-absorbing forests or by investing in wind turbines or solar panels abroad.

"Norway's not on track," said Knut Alfsen from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo.

CARBON CAPTURE AND CASH

Norway, seeing itself as a green leader even though it is the world's number five oil exporter, is spending $620 million in 2010 on research into capturing emissions from the oil and gas sector. But there have been few breakthroughs so far.

"It will be very hard to achieve (carbon neutrality) if we have no big technological change," Environment Minister Erik Solheim told Reuters. "But you have to set ambitious targets."

And the Nordic nation has a trump card -- cash. "We have more financial freedom than other countries," Solheim said. Norway has a $444 billion fund of oil savings invested in foreign stocks and bonds -- or almost $100,000 for each person.

At current market prices of about 13 euros ($19.46) a tonne, it would cost $650 million a year to buy quotas to emit Norway's annual 50 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. "It's a lot of money but in some ways peanuts for Norway," Alfsen said.

Solheim insisted much of the cuts would be in domestic emissions as part of a wider global goal of slowing rising temperatures projected to bring more heatwaves, droughts, floods, species extinctions and rising sea levels.

Both Norway and Costa Rica have a head start because they already generate almost all electricity from clean hydropower. The Maldives, worried that rising sea levels could swamp coral atolls, hope to be a testing ground for green technology.

And the goals may help both Costa Rica and the Maldives promote themselves as eco-friendly tourist destinations.

"Our main challenge is transport with fossil fuels," said Pedro Leon Azofeifa, coordinator of Costa Rica's 'Peace with Nature' initiative which is seeking carbon neutrality.

Some Costa Ricans complain of a lack of progress.

"The goal of carbon neutrality was set 2-1/2 years ago but not much has happened -- our carbon footprint is growing," said Roberto Jimenez, leader of the www.co2neutral2021.org group which says carbon neutrality will help businesses.

One goal is a new railway in central Costa Rica -- costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

And Costa Rica hopes that its forests -- trees soak up heat trapping carbon dioxide as they grow -- will qualify for credits under a new U.N. plan due to be agreed in Copenhagen aimed at slowing deforestation in developing nations.

The Central American nation cleared forests in the 1980s to make way for cattle ranching but then reversed policy to promote sustainable logging and tourism -- before climate change was a worry. It is not clear whether that will qualify for credits.

"Costa Rica is in a unique position because all tropical countries want to do what Costa Rica has already achieved," said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, a former environment minister who works for Conservation International.

A plan for the Maldives foresees investments of $110 million a year over a decade in solar and wind power -- reckoning that savings on diesel imports would quickly repay investments.

"If the poorest countries in the world are doing the most, where is there for the United States to hide?" said Mark Lynas, a British climate expert and author who advises the Maldives.

All three states have highlighted their neutrality efforts. Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed staged the world's first underwater cabinet meeting last month, in scuba gear, to put pressure on nations at Copenhagen to shift to clean energy.


[Green Business]
Carbon will mature as inflation hedge
Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:57am EST
By Nina Chestney

LONDON (Reuters) - The $126 billion global carbon market will mature so that investors will use it as a hedge against equities and inflation, Bache Commodities Ltd.'s emissions trading head told Reuters in an interview.

Crude oil or gold have often been used to hedge against inflation risk or equities, as investors believe they can offer some protection against rising consumer prices.

"The carbon market is expanding on a rapid basis," said Andrew Ager, head of emissions trading at Bache Commodities Ltd.

"As the U.S. gets cap-and-trade legislation and the Australian bill is passed, the market could mature to become a similar commodity to oil in the way it is used by hedgers as a strategy," he added.

The EU's flagship emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) began in 2005. Prices for permits traded under the scheme, called EU Allowances (EUAs), are the global benchmark for emissions markets.

EUAs frequently correlate to oil and German power prices, as well as natural gas and coal. A sign of the relatively young market's development is that these markets have started to look at carbon prices for direction.

"There's now a situation where oil, coal and gas traders are looking at carbon prices for direction. That's a complete 180 (degree turn)," Ager said.

"Say you have a portfolio of mining shares, it is possible to use carbon as a hedge as part of your portfolio. (Carbon) has even correlated with copper quite strongly recently. As people look at copper as an indicator of industrial growth, it makes sense."

Reuters estimates show EUA prices have shown a weekly correlation of 0.75 with copper since November 1, and 0.85 in the corresponding period the previous month.

GROWTH

The European Union's executive Commission is aiming for the world's major emissions trading schemes to link by 2020.

Progress toward this goal is being hampered by U.S. cap-and-trade legislation's slow progress through the Senate and reduced expectations for a legally binding climate treaty in Copenhagen next month.

"I hope to see a global carbon market sooner than 2020. There is at least a framework for a future market. Regulation may get stricter, there will be foibles and quirks but the underlying (market) structure is there," Ager said.

Ager expects London to continue its reign as the hub of the global carbon market, flanked by a U.S. exchange and an Asian/Antipodean exchange.

An Australian carbon scheme is scheduled to start in July 2011. The government gained bipartisan political backing for its revised carbon-trade plan on Tuesday, but some opposition members still threaten to vote against it or try to have the Senate vote, expected on Thursday, delayed until February 2010.

"You do need something to push the southern hemisphere. You need that link up for a 24-hour market," Ager said.

Major metal market player Bache Commodities expanded into emissions trading by opening a desk in London in June. Ager heads a team of three emissions traders.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by William Hardy)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Kenya sees geothermal power at 4,000 MW by 2030
Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:00am EST
By George Obulutsa

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya plans to boost geothermal power generation to 4,000 megawatts by 2030 and the company responsible needs about $240 million annually to drill wells and harness steam, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

The government estimates east Africa's largest economy has the potential to produce 7,000 MW of electricity from geothermal energy. It currently generates 167 MW from the source.

Silas Simiyu, managing director of state-run Geothermal Development Company (GDC), said the firm plans to buy 12 drilling rigs, sink 60 wells annually and install well head generators.

"In essence our plan is that every year we should be able to install 200 MW of new power from geothermal," Simiyu told Reuters in an interview.

"This will enable the Geothermal Development Company to put online about 1,000 MW in the next five years, and 2,000 MW in the next 10 years and then in the next 20 years we will have the 4,000 MW."

Geothermal power comes from steam made from underground water heated by the earth's core in Kenya's Rift Valley, which is used to drive turbines.

Simiyu said the company planned to drill wells and install the plants before handing them over to investors.

"This will entail the Geothermal Development Company spending about $240 million annually...that is being raised for the first five years," he said, adding that GDC hoped to be self sufficient in funding thereafter.

The government has given GDC a guarantee of about 20 billion shillings ($268 million) per year to help offset the initial drilling costs, Simiyu said.

GDC has acquired two drilling rigs and the French Development Agency has pledged 60 million euros ($89 million) for two more. The firm is also negotiating with Exim Bank of China to get three additional rigs.

Simiyu said the company was seeking funds for the remaining five rigs.

Chinese company Great Wall Drilling has sunk 21 wells in Olkaria under a previous agreement with the government, and planned 26 more, Simiyu said.

U.S., European and local companies were interested in investing in the project, he said, declining to name the companies.

GDC hopes to tap into funds raised from the government's infrastructure bond offered earlier this month, he said.


[Green Business]
Voluntary carbon offset fund launched in Canada
Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:39am EST

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Canadian companies that want to voluntarily reduce their environmental impact will now be able to buy offset credits from a fund that will invest in green projects across the country.

The Greening Canada Fund, the country's first voluntary carbon emissions reduction fund aimed at big business, was unveiled on Monday. It offers companies another way to reduce their carbon footprint by offsetting greenhouse gas emissions against environmentally friendly projects.

The fund will buy credits from green projects in the private, public and non-profit sectors around Canada, helping to finance ventures such as the installation of solar or geothermal heating. The credits from these will then be passed on to companies that invest in the fund.

Initial investors in the Greening Canada Fund, which is launching with C$13 million ($12.2 million) in its coffers, are Bank of Montreal and Toronto-Dominion Bank.

But the fund's manager said there has been interest from other companies although it doesn't expect to attract big industrial emitters who are waiting to see what eventual carbon emission regulations will demand of them.

"Realistically, in the voluntary space we would be happy to get to C$50 million in capital in Canada. That is certainly our goal," said Gerry Rocchi, chief executive of Green Power Action, an environmental finance company.

There are no federally mandated carbon emission limits yet in Canada, which is waiting for the United States to finalize its cap-and-trade program before it proceeds. Ottawa and the provinces are funding various green projects such carbon capture and storage, and wind energy.

Rocchi said companies are expected to be interested in the fund because "it is the right thing to do".

Although the fund is being launched by an organization called Greening Greater Toronto, which aims to make the area around Canada's biggest city the greenest region in North America, it is seeking investors and investment projects nationally.

($1=$1.055 Canadian)

(Reporting by Nicole Mordant; editing by Rob Wilson)


[Green Business]
U.S. coal inventory grows 1 percent: Genscape
Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:23pm EST

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Coal stockpiles at U.S. power plants this week grew 1 percent from last week as shipments exceeded demand, and inventories were 11.9 percent greater than the same week of 2008, Genscape said Tuesday.

Generators had 185.3 million tons of coal on hand as of Tuesday, compared with 183.4 million tons last Tuesday and 165.5 million tons the same week last year, the power industry data provider said.

As of Tuesday, U.S. generators - who rely on coal for about half of U.S. electricity production - had an average of 71 days' supply of coal on hand assuming typical burn rates, Genscape said. That is one more than last week's estimated coal capacity.

Power companies as of Tuesday averaged eight more days' of coal stockpiled than the same week last year. That is one day more than last week's cushion over 2008 stockpiles, data showed.

Coal inventories typically grow in spring and fall when demand for heating and cooling drops, but the seasonal buildup this year has been slower than last year as generators finished summer oversupplied and facing weak power demand, Genscape said.

Stockpiles typically shrink during summer or winter, which tend to boost power consumption for air-conditioning or heating, but this year's drawdown was weak due to milder weather and the economic recession.

Coal mines have responded by cutting production and deliveries to try to get supply and demand back in balance, with only partial success.

Mathematical rounding sometimes affects the results, overstating some changes and understating others, Genscape has said.

(Reporting by Bruce Nichols)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
DuPont bets on bright future for solar sales
Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:24pm EST
By Matt Daily and Ernest Scheyder

NEW YORK (Reuters) - To become one of the biggest suppliers to the solar sector, DuPont has had to think small.

Working at near-nanoscale level is how its researchers and scientists have quietly made the U.S. chemical giant the leading producer of non-silicon materials for the sector, and why it expects its revenue from the solar business to more than double in the next three years.

DuPont has developed films that form the backing for solar cells, silver pastes that line the front of the silicon, substrates upon which the newest photovoltaic products are built, and other essential items for the renewable energy business.

At its sprawling technology campus in Wilmington, Delaware, DuPont scientists are working to increase the efficiency at which modules turn sunlight into electricity and extend the life spans of systems -- moves that will lower solar's cost and reduce the industry's reliance on government support.

"I think there is a lot that can be done in both," Marc Doyle, global business director for photovoltaic solutions, told Reuters.

DuPont scientists use electron microscopes to inspect their films and coatings that are only microns thin. That allows them to subtly adjust their materials and manufacturing processes to help the solar cells pull more energy from sunlight.

DuPont pulled in $400 million in sales of solar materials last year -- less than 2 percent of the company's total sales -- but it expects that figure to grow to $1 billion by 2012. It counts 18 of the world's top 20 solar manufacturers as its customers.

The global solar industry totaled about $35 billion in 2008, and DuPont expects it to double to $70 billion in 2013. Of that 2008 total, about $10 billion went for materials other than the polysilicon most cells used to turn sunlight into electricity.

CHIPPING AWAY AT COSTS

Solar manufacturers have seen prices for their modules drop by as much as 50 percent in the past 12 months amid a production glut, raising pressure on them to cut costs to protect profit margins for the young industry.

DuPont expects the solar market to resume its growth rate of more than 30 percent annually starting next year. Last week it said its DuPont Apollo unit had opened a thin-film photovoltaic module manufacturing plant in Shenzhen, China.

The most efficient polysilicon solar cells turn nearly 20 percent of sunlight into electricity, while those using newer, thin-film technologies typically convert less than 15 percent.

But with companies and governments pouring money into research, the crystalline polysilicon-based systems' efficiencies have increased by about 0.25 percent annually over the last decade, while thin films have seen yearly improvements of 0.50 percent.

Those advances may seem small, but they are putting photovoltaic solar on track to reach "grid parity" in the next five to seven years, according to Steven Freilich, DuPont's director of materials science and engineering.

Grid parity comes when renewable power is cheaper than or the same price as traditional grid power.

That grid parity price, about $2 per watt on an installed basis, would make solar cheap enough to compete against traditional energy sources, such as coal or natural gas, without subsidies.

"We believe there are a lot of things for DuPont to do to help drive the industry toward grid parity," Freilich said.

DuPont, whose Tedlar film is used in 70 percent of solar modules, has also developed new techniques to deposit the silver paste into the thin lines on the front of the cells.

That paste makes up only about 5 percent of the cells' surface, but it is the second-most prevalent material in the product behind silicon. Reducing that coverage or improving the paste's performance can boost the power output from the cell.

"We believe we can get a 0.5 percent increase in efficiency through improvements in the silver paste," Freilich said.

DuPont has also developed films for solar technologies that are only beginning to reach the market, such as a mustard-colored polyimide film can be used as flexible substrate for amorphous silicon and CIGS-based solar cells, two newer materials that are expected to win growing market share in the coming years.

(Writing by Matt Daily; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)


[Green Business]
Australia takes step to CO2 trade, aids Copenhagen
Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:29pm EST
By James Grubel and John Acher

CANBERRA/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Australia took a step toward carbon trading on Tuesday when the opposition promised to support a revised government scheme, aiding the outlook for a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen next month.

Elsewhere, a group of leading scientists called for urgent action at the December 7-18 meeting to rein in climate change, saying the pace of warming was accelerating and that world sea levels could rise by at worst 2 meters (6-1/2 ft) by 2100.

Australia's opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said conservative senators would vote for a revised carbon trading scheme later this week, ending a long-running deadlock that could have forced a snap election.

"I am confident enough Senators will comply with the shadow cabinet and that the legislation will pass," Turnbull said. The revised plan by the center-left government raises compensation to big carbon emitters, coal firms and electricity generators.

Analysts say action by Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter and one of the world's highest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases, might encourage other big industrial emitters such as the United States and Canada to do more.

But divisions over the scheme run deep in Australia's opposition. Some members are threatening to vote against it or try to have the Senate vote, expected on Thursday, delayed until February 2010.

The scheme is due to start in July 2011, cover 1,000 of Australia's biggest polluters and 75 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. It would be the most comprehensive carbon trade scheme outside the European Union in terms of the percentage of emissions covered.

GREENLAND THAWS

In a "Copenhagen Diagnosis" report, 26 leading scientists urged action to cap rising world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015 or 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change such as heatwaves, floods, disease and droughts.

"Climate change is accelerating beyond expectations," a joint statement said, pointing to factors including a retreat of Arctic sea ice in summer and melting of Greenland's ice sheet.

"Global sea-level rise may exceed one meter by 2100, with a rise of up to two meters considered an upper limit," it said.

Many of the authors were on the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 foresaw a sea level rise of 18-59 cms (7-24 inches) by 2100 but did not take account of a possible accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica.

In Strasbourg, European Commissioner Stavros Dimas said a U.S. promise on Monday to set a target for reining in its greenhouse gas emissions would help prospects for Copenhagen but said a deal would fail without cash to help developing nations.

"A positive stance from the United States would have spillover effects on other countries in terms of improving the prospects of success at Copenhagen," Dimas said. The United States is the number two emitter behind China.

A senior Obama administration official said on Monday that Washington would make clear in the "next several days" what it planned to offer at Copenhagen including a greenhouse gas emissions goal in line with proposals in the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. House passed a bill that sets a 17 percent reduction target for emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels. A Senate version is shooting for a 20 percent cut. Those work out at about 4 to 7 percent below 1990 levels respectively.

Most rich nations are promising deeper cuts -- the EU is promising a unilateral 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, or 30 percent if other nations join in. But pledges fall short of demands by China and India of cuts of at least 40 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels, the benchmark year in U.N. treaties.

In Copenhagen, the government said it had nominated Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard, a leading organizer of the Copenhagen talks, to become the European Union's first climate commissioner.

Denmark expects about 65 world leaders to attend the end of the Copenhagen talks and agree a "politically binding agreement" even though most nations reckon that a legally binding treaty is now out of reach with disputes over emissions and aid.

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Enel unit to develop 4,000 MW U.S. wind projects
Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:12pm EST

MILAN (Reuters) - Italy's biggest renewable energy company, Enel Green Power said it planned to develop more than 4,000 megawatt of wind projects in the United States after buying a minority stake in Minnesota-based Geronimo Wind Energy.

Under a strategic partnership agreement, Enel Green Power will inject capital to develop the project pipeline and also have the priority right to buy, own and operate wind projects developed by Geronimo, the green energy arm of Italy's biggest utility Enel said in a statement on Tuesday.

It did not say how much it paid for the stake or how much it planned to invest in developing new US wind projects.

"We are committed ... to contribute to grow the renewable energy capacity in a region where we believe renewable energy demand and production will grow substantially in the next future" Enel Green Power Chairman Francesco Starace said in the statement.

Starace told Reuters in September his company planned several small-size acquisitions in wind power generation by the end of this year, targeting small companies with assets and project pipelines in the countries where it operated.

Enel Green Power, with over 4,500 MW of installed solar, wind and other renewable energy capacity around the world, has been boosting its U.S. clean energy portfolio. It has a similar investment in TradeWind Energy based near Lenexa, Kansas.

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova; editing by James Jukwey)


[Green Business]
U.S. tariffs would chill climate pact and trade
Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:23pm EST
By Timothy Gardner-Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any threat by the United States to slap fees on imports from countries it perceives as weak on cutting carbon emissions could hamper trade relations and delay international efforts to combat global warming.

Lawmakers in states that produce cement, chemicals, steel and other energy-intensive products have called for such tariffs in climate legislation. They fear those industries looking to cut regulation costs could pull up stakes and move to countries that don't have strong climate plans.

But experts say the tariffs may do more harm than good.

"One of the big problems is retaliation," said Jeffrey Frankel, professor of capital formation at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "Other countries will say 'If the U.S. is doing it, we'll put up our own trade barriers.'"

The manufacturers and labor unions are urging the U.S. Congress to include carbon tariffs, also known as border adjustments, in the long-delayed climate bill.

Under the version of the bill passed narrowly by the House of Representatives in June, fees would be levied on such goods from countries that do not adopt plans to curb emissions by 2018. Leaders in the Senate also see the tariffs as important if the bill is to win the required 60 votes.

Kenneth Green, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said trade spats could put U.S. agricultural and high-tech exports at risk.

At issue is the chance that climate could add yet another layer of contention into already complicated U.S. trade relations with China and other developing countries. China and the United States are already at odds on trade over Chinese tires and U.S. exports of poultry and auto products.

TRADE WAR

Another potential problem under the measure is Congress could have a say in determining when a developing country is not matching the United States on future commitments to cut emissions. Those decisions could be subject to influence from industry.

"All you need to start a trade war is a perception of unfairness," said Michael Levi, a climate expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Indeed, poorer countries are balking at the threat of fees placed on their exports.

China and other developing countries have called for a ban on carbon tariffs, which have also been mulled by France. The issue could help keep rich and poor nations at odds beyond the U.N. climate talks next month in Copenhagen.

The United States, which has spewed more heat-trapping carbon dioxide from tailpipes and smokestacks over time than any other country, should worry about cutting its own emissions before laying down demands, some experts said.

And in some measures China, which leads the world in overall greenhouse gas emissions but emits a very low amount per capita, is doing more on climate than the United States.

"Amid this face-off, the danger is that arguments over border taxes could make (an international climate) agreement even more difficult to negotiate," Angel Gurria, secretary general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, wrote in an opinion piece in the Financial Times this month.

Experts have said China could get around any U.S. carbon tariffs by imposing its own carbon tax on energy intensive goods. [ID:nPEK83604]

But one way for the United States to reduce uncertainties about global reactions to carbon tariffs would be to negotiate with trading partners on deciding when to penalize others for not taking enough action on climate.

"At least have a multilateral agreement as to what the rules are guiding when you can impose border measures," Frankel said.

In addition, international efforts to reduce global tariffs on shipments of clean energy products like wind and solar power could be an effective way of addressing climate and trade.

"Rather than devoting time and energy to devising effective border measures against goods, major economies could better spend their collective energy and political will in liberalizing trade in those goods and services that will make a positive contribution to climate change," said Dan Price, who was assistant for international economic affairs to former President George W. Bush and practices law at Sidley Austin.

(Editing by Jeffrey Jones and Christian Wiessner)


[Green Business]
Canada backs Alberta CO2 pipeline plan
Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:29pm EST

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - The Canadian and Alberta governments said on Tuesday they will invest as much as C$558 million ($525 million) in a pipeline project to carry carbon-dioxide from an industrial region near Edmonton, Alberta, to aging oil fields.

The pair are backing the project by closely held Enhance Energy Inc and North West Upgrading as part of a scheme to cut emissions of the gas, blamed as the chief cause of global warming.

The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line will be capable of carrying up to 40,000 tonnes of compressed carbon dioxide per day but will initially take 5,100 tonnes of gas daily produced by North West's planned oil sands upgrader to be built near Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, where a number of other refineries, upgraders and chemical plants are also located.

It will carry the gas to aging oil field in the central part of the province, where pumping it into the reservoirs will remove the it from the atmosphere and help increase oil production.

"This new pipeline will significantly advance Alberta's capacity for future carbon capture and storage projects ," Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said in a statement. "The Alberta Carbon Trunk Line will be the backbone of CO2 transportation for Alberta."

Alberta will provide C$495 million over 15 years for the line, with the cash coming from a C$2 billion fund set aside to spur carbon capture projects.

The project is the third in Alberta to get funding from the province and from the Canadian government's C$1 billion Clean Energy Fund, set up to develop technology to help cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The federal government is providing C$63 million, with C$30 million coming from the clean energy fund and an additional C$33 million from a separate technology fund.

Ottawa has said it seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 2006 levels by 2020.

Last month the two governments also agreed to fund some of the costs of carbon-capture and storage projects at an Alberta coal-fired generating station and an oil sands upgrader.

Some environmentalists have criticized the strategy, saying public money is being funneled into projects proposed by large polluters with uncertain results when it could be invested in alternative energy sources and conservation.

Natural Resources Canada said in a release posted on its website it expects the planned 240-kilometer (149-mile) line to carry and store up to 14.6 megatonnes of carbon-dioxide annually produced by power plants, petrochemical producers and refineries.

Construction of the pipeline is expected to start in 2011 with shipments slated to begin in late 2012.

($1=$1.06 Canadian)

(Reporting by Scott Haggett; editing by Peter Galloway)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
California unveils draft cap-and-trade rules
Tue Nov 24, 2009 7:09pm EST
By Peter Henderson

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California on Tuesday released draft rules for its landmark greenhouse gas cap-and-trade plan that will be the most ambitious U.S. effort to use the market to address global warming.

State law requires California to cut its carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Measures will range from clean vehicle and building rules to the cap-and-trade system that lets factories and power companies trade credits to emit gases that heat up the earth.

Federal rules under debate by Congress could eclipse and preempt regional plans, but California and other local governments see themselves as the vanguard of addressing climate change, especially in light of slow national action and setbacks for international talks scheduled in Copenhagen next month.

The draft released on Tuesday shows California, seen as an environmental trend-setter, may take on even more than expected in its first round of cap-and-trade, which will start in 2012.

Gasoline and residential heating fuel suppliers could be included in the first cap-and-trade phase, which had been expected to focus on big pollution sources like power plants and refineries.

"California is the first out of the box," state Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols told reporters on a conference call. The draft rules kick off a comment period that will lead to final regulation next fall.

A less comprehensive northeastern U.S. regional trading system is already under way, focusing on carbon dioxide emissions by big emitters. California by contrast plans to include nearly every source of emissions to reach its goal.

California businesses regularly criticize the plan as going too far too fast -- and costing too much. Whether the net effect of the plan will be a new green economy or disaster for overburdened businesses is still hotly debated.

OUTSIZE ATTENTION

New estimates of plan costs, including suggestions on how much support to give industry, won't be available until an independent advisory group issues a report next year.

The draft avoids what may be the toughest issue -- how much to rely on auctions of credits, which would require power companies and the like to buy permission to pollute. The emitters want allowances given to them, especially early on.

But Nichols said California had shown a strong preference for moving to auction as quickly as possible and that its 2006 global warming law provided clear guidance while politicians in the U.S. Congress were still raising support for a bill.

"Congress started this, you know, as a political exercise to see how many allowances you had to give out to which groups to get them to buy into the program. They didn't have a climate bill," she said.

"We know how many emissions we have to reduce. The question is how do we do it in a way that costs less," added Nichols, whose Air Resources Board was appointed by state law as the main regulator deciding on how to cut greenhouse gases.

The cost of a ton of carbon dioxide initially could be around $10, based on how other programs operated, she said. That is about half the current European price. The average American has carbon production of about 20 tons per year, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The cap-and-trade system will account for only about a fifth of California reductions but it draws outsize attention, in part because the state, with the largest U.S. economy and population, is part of the 11 member Western Climate Initiative, which includes U.S. states and Canadian provinces.

China, too, will watch California's action, partly by virtue of the state's partnerships with Chinese provinces, said Environmental Defense Fund California Climate Change Director Derek Walker.

"In many ways this is similar to what you are hearing from international circles now. Everybody is coming to the table with their opening bets," he said. But unlike most, California has committed to cuts and now is working out the details.

(Reporting by Peter Henderson; editing by Cynthia Osterman)


[Green Business]
China doesn't want "empty" Copenhagen deal: report
Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:26pm EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will demand next month's Copenhagen climate summit culminates in a real deal, Xinhua news agency quoted a Chinese negotiator as saying, but appears to have accepted that a legally binding agreement must wait until 2010.

"We will try to make the summit successful and we will not accept that it ends with an empty and so-called political declaration," Li Gao, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at a forum on Wednesday.

"The Copenhagen conference will be a milestone and written into history, therefore, too much expectation has been put on it," Li was quoted saying, adding that talks so far had made some progress, but not enough.

December's Copenhagen summit was slated to settle a new framework to tackle global warming, but talks have been hobbled by a rift between developed and developing nations over who should cut emissions, by how much, and who should pay for it.

The Danish government, host of the talks, has proposed that the world delay a legally binding agreement until 2010 and instead aim to reach a comprehensive political deal.

U.S. President Barack Obama has backed the proposal but said he wants to see an agreement with "immediate operational effect."

In a boost to the Copenhagen meeting, the United States said this week it will propose an emissions reduction target with an eye toward winning support from U.S. lawmakers who must agree to put it into law.

The Obama administration had previously been reluctant to put an emissions reduction target on the table because the Senate has yet to pass a sweeping climate bill, hampering the U.S. position in the U.N. climate negotiations.

China has said only that it is "studying" the Danish plan, but Li appeared to tacitly accept it, saying that offers from rich nations on financing technology transfer and the cost of adaptation to a warmer world had paved the way for an agreement.

"It would be called a successful summit and possibly produce a framework," Xinhua quoted him saying in its English-language report. Li added that more detailed discussions would be completed in next year's meetings.

Beijing has invested large amounts of diplomatic capital in reaching a new deal. President Hu Jintao earlier this year unveiled the country's first pledge to curb carbon emissions -- by cutting so-called carbon intensity -- at a United Nations summit.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Emma Graham-Harrison and David Fogarty)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
NZ passes carbon trade laws, Australia edges closer
Wed Nov 25, 2009 2:57am EST

WELLINGTON/CANBERRA (Reuters) - New Zealand's revised emissions trading plan passed into law on Wednesday, while neighboring Australia moved a step closer to ending a deadlock stalling its carbon-trade legislation ahead of a vote this week.

Australia and New Zealand are not big greenhouse gas emitters in total, but passage of their carbon reduction schemes will give U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen in December a boost.

"It is a critical and important first step in our nation's effort to do our fair share in combating climate change," New Zealand Climate Change Minister Nick Smith told parliament after the carbon-trade scheme became law.

The scheme is only the second to pass into law after Europe's began in 2005. It will start in July 2010, but for a two-and-half-year period industry will only have to meet 50 percent of their targets with a slow phase-out of assistance after that.

In Australia, the Senate rejected a move to delay a vote on the government's carbon-trade scheme, suggesting the once defeated legislation should gain final approval this week.

The scheme is scheduled to start in July 2011, covering 1,000 of Australia's biggest polluters and become the world's most comprehensive outside of the European scheme. It aims to put a price on every tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, giving industry an incentive to become more efficient.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who will play a key negotiating role at Copenhagen, says passage of his carbon-trade laws will send a message to world leaders to curb greenhouse gases which are driving climate change.

"No country needs to send the message more than Australia," Treasurer Wayne Swan told parliament, echoing Rudd's stance. "We are one of the hottest and driest continents. We are hit hardest, and we are hit fastest by dangerous climate change."

The United States, the world's number two emitter of greenhouse gases after China, will be eyeing developments in both nations as its lawmakers make slow progress on a climate bill in the Senate.

NZ, AUSTRALIA COMPENSATE POLLUTERS

Australia's carbon-trade plan aims to cut emissions by at least 5 percent from 2000 levels by 2020, or up to 25 percent if nations agree on an ambitious climate pact during U.N. negotiations.

New Zealand has a reduction target of between 10 and 20 percent by 2020 on 1990 levels, depending on the outcome from Copenhagen.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that sets a 17 percent reduction target for emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels. A Senate version is shooting for a 20 percent cut.

Big emitters such as China are watching Washington for its position.

In a boost to the Copenhagen meeting, the United States said this week it will propose an emissions reduction target with an eye toward winning support from U.S. lawmakers who must agree to put it into law.

New Zealand and Australia have had to substantially increase compensation to big emitters, coal companies and electricity generators to gain backing for their schemes.

Australia will give its coal industry A$1.5 billion in compensation over five years, while its electricity sector will receive A$7.3 billion. The country is the world's biggest coal exporter and coal generates about 84 percent of its electricity.

New Zealand said it increased compensation to big emitters as it wanted its scheme to be closely aligned to Australia's.

Both nations are major agricultural exporters. Canberra has excluded the sector from its scheme, while Wellington has delayed the entry of agriculture, which accounts for about half of its emissions, until 2015.

Green groups and carbon market experts are critical of both schemes, saying they give too much compensation to big polluters and would do little to reduce emissions.

"It's a very poor mechanism to reduce emissions and ensuring a price on carbon. Why are we handing over billions of dollars to industry? It's just another form of subsidy," said Paul Winn, forest and climate campaigner for Greenpeace Australia, referring to the changes to the Australian scheme.

An independent adviser on environmental issues to the New Zealand parliament said the changes to that country's scheme gave too many free carbon permits and removed incentive to move to low-carbon technology.

"It's virtually certain our emissions will grow and the burden on the taxpayer will be uncurbed," Jan Wright told Radio NZ on Wednesday.

Wayne King of advisory firm Carbon Market Solutions agreed the amended NZ scheme would not do much to reduce emissions initially, but said it would give certainty to business.

He also expected it would take some time for a liquid carbon trading market to evolve in New Zealand given the large amount of free carbon pollution permits being given to industry.

In Australia, groups critical of the carbon-trade scheme urged for its passage into law, hoping that once in place the government might be persuaded to increase reduction targets.

"Now is the time to move on and ensure this legislation is a springboard for ambitious global action," said John Connor, CEO of independent think-tank The Climate Institute.

(Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by David Fogarty)

Other changes to the New Zealand scheme include a delay to the entry of certain sectors, a cap on the price of carbon and support for forestry planting.

Under the revised scheme, there will be a transitional period from July 1, 2010, until January 1, 2013, in which emitters will only have to meet 50 percent of their obligations, and will be able to take up an option of paying a fixed price of NZ$25 ($18.25) per tonne of emissions.

The estimated annual cost to households would be halved under the new scheme, to NZ$165 from NZ$330 during the transitional period.

Wayne King of advisory firm Carbon Market Solutions in New Zealand agreed the amended scheme would not do much to reduce emissions, but said it would give certainty to business.

"It's good for the overall business to reduce the uncertainty ... in the context of forestry, it may be still quite positive because there's certainty around what you can and can't do," he said.

King said he expected it would take some time for a liquid carbon trading market to evolve in New Zealand and didn't think it would drive buying of more expensive U.N. offsets under the Kyoto Protocol.

The New Zealand trading scheme allows unlimited imports of the offsets called certified emissions reductions but these are priced in euros per tonne of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

Business groups have largely backed the changes proposed by National, while environmental groups say it does not go far enough in putting the onus on large polluters to cut emissions.