news20091210gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environmewnt > Marine life]
Ocean acidification rates pose disaster for marine life, major study shows
Report launched from leading marine scientists at Copenhagen summit shows seas absorbing dangerous levels of CO2
Severin Carrell
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 December 2009 10.52 GMT Article history

The world's oceans are becoming acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the last 55m years, threatening disaster for marine life and food supplies across the globe, delegates at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen have been warned.

A report by more than 100 of Europe's leading marine scientists, released at the climate talks this morning, states that the seas are absorbing dangerous levels of carbon dioxide as a direct result of human activity. This is already affecting marine species, for example by interfering with whale navigation and depleting planktonic species at the base of the food chain.

Ocean acidification – the facts says that acidity in the seas has increased 30% since the start of the industrial revolution. Many of the effects of this acidification are already irreversible and are expected to accelerate, according to the scientists.

The study, which is a massive review of existing scientific studies, warns that if CO2 emissions continue unchecked many key parts of the marine environment – particularly coral reefs and the algae and plankton which are essential for fish such as herring and salmon – will be "severely affected" by 2050, leading to the extinction of some species.

Dr Helen Phillips, chief executive of Natural England, which co-sponsored the report, said: "The threat to the delicate balance of the marine environment cannot be overstated - this is a conservation challenge of unprecedented scale and highlights the urgent need for effective marine management and protection."

Although oceans have acidified naturally in the past, the current rate of acidification is so fast that it is becoming extremely difficult for species and habitats to adapt. "We're counting it in decades, and that's the real take-home message," said Dr John Baxter a senior scientist with Scottish Natural Heritage, and the report's co-author. "This is happening fast."

The report, published by the EU-funded European Project on Ocean Acidification, a consortium of 27 research institutes and environment agencies, states that the survival of a number of marine species is affected or threatened, in ways not recognised and understood until now. These species include:

> whales and dolphins, who will find it harder to navigate and communicate as the seas become "noisier". Sound travels further as acidity increases. Noise from drilling, naval sonar and boat engines is already travelling up to 10% further under water and could travel up to 70% further by 2050.

> brittle stars (Ophiothrix fragilis) produce fewer larvae because they need to expend more energy maintaining their skeletons in more acid seas. These larvae are a key food source for herring.

> tiny algae such as Calcidiscus leptoporus which form the basis of the marine food chain for fish such as salmon may be unable to survive.

> young clownfish will lose their ability to "smell" the anemone species that they shelter in. Experiments show that acidification interferes with the species' ability to detect the chemicals that give "olfactory cues".

The report predicts that the north Atlantic, north Pacific and Arctic seas – a crucial summer feeding ground for whales - will see the greatest degree of acidification. It says that levels of aragonite, the type of calcium carbonate which is essential for marine organisms to make their skeletons and shells, will fall worldwide. But because cold water absorbs CO2 more quickly, the study predicts that levels of aragonite will fall by 60% to 80% by 2095 across the northern hemisphere.

"The bottom line is the only way to slow this down or reverse it is aggressive and immediate cuts in CO2," said Baxter. "This is a very dangerous global experiment we're undertaking here."

Written for policy makers and political leaders, the document is being distributed worldwide, with 32,000 copies printed in five major languages including English, Chinese and Arabic. Every member of the US congress, now struggling to agree a binding policy on CO2 emissions, will be sent a copy.

Congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat representative from Washington state, who championed a bill in Congress promoting US research on ocean acidification, said these findings would help counter climate change sceptics, since acidification was easily and immediately measurable.

"The consequences of ocean acidification may be every bit as grave as the consequences of temperature increases," he said. "It's one thing to question a computer extrapolation, or say it snowed in Las Vegas last year, but to say basic chemistry doesn't apply is a real problem [for the sceptics]. I think the evidence is really quite striking."


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Ban Ki-moon reasserts leadership in Copenhagen climate talks
Danish text raised 'trust issues' between rich and poor countries but won't derail deal, says UN secretary-general
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, New York
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 December 2009 16.57 GMT Article history

The United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has re-asserted ownership over the Copenhagen climate change meeting after the "trust issues" between rich and poor nations were exposed by a leaked draft agreement. He said he was confident of getting a deal for immediate action on global warming.

In an interview with the Guardian, Ban said he believed the negotiations remained on course for a strong deal, sweetened with the early release of

$10bn in aid to poor countries and set down in international law within six months.

He was also adamant that deal would hinge on the core elements of the Kyoto protocol, which developing countries feared was being sabotaged in the so-called Danish text leaked to the Guardian yesterday. The text, prepared in secret by the Danish hosts, was interpreted by developing nations as favouring the rich nations they hold responsible for global warming.

The UN chief sees a climate change deal as his legacy, and has insisted on drawing world leaders into the negotiations, betting they have the authority to make the hard choices on the environmental future for their countries. But some have criticised negotiations that are going on outside the official UN forum.

Ban was determined to set a firm six-month deadline for any political deal agreed in Copenhagen to be given the full force of international law. The timing mirrors an appeal by the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, in the Guardian this week. The push for a six-month deadline indicates growing unease about allowing the climate change negotiations to drift, once the summit is over.

The crucial element of reaching an agreement was $10bn in short-term aid for the countries that would suffer the worst consequences of climate change. "We have been talking a lot most recently with developing countries and small island developing states. They are the most concerned countries and they seem to agree to this idea of $10bn," he said.

Ban admitted that the uproar over the leaked Danish text had exposed the distrust between the industrialised and developing countries. But he downplayed its repercussions, noting he had been in constant contact with the Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and that he had been easing matters over with developing countries. "I have been very consciously engaging with developing countries," he said. "Even if there have been some trust issues, we have been bridging this gap as much as we can. This is what I am going to continue to do."

He was also adamant that the essence of the Kyoto agreement — that industrialised countries take responsibility for global warming — would survive. "What is know as common but differentiated responsibility principle will be maintained in Copenhagen," Ban said.

Next week brings the climate change negotiations to their moment of truth, with the arrival of more than 100 world leaders in Copenhagen. Ban said he was waiting for the rich industrialised countries to promise steeper emissions cuts. But he specifically ruled out further action from America because of Barack Obama's difficulties with Congress. "Now we are approaching this end-game and I am sure people will come out with more serious targets," he said. "Not all developed countries have come out with ambitious targets."

But in an important shift, Ban acknowledged that rapidly emerging economies like China, India, Brazil and Indonesia, which will be the major sources of future emissions, no longer slot neatly into the Kyoto view of the world. Kyoto divided the world into the industrialised countries, which were responsible for global warming, and the developing countries, which would suffer its worst effects.

"China, India and South Korea have made it quite clear that they will have domestic regulations," he said. "This is quite important even if they will not be internationally bound I am sure they will be domestically bound."

news20091210gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen talks break down as developing nations split over 'Tuvalu' protocol
Developing countries have split between those who favour a new protocol proposed by Tuvalu and others who want to continue with the Kyoto agreement
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 December 2009 16.45 GMT Article history

Negotiations at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen dramatically broke down today after developing countries split between those who favour a new protocol and others who want to continue with the legally binding Kyoto agreement.

The crisis, partly precipitated by revelations yesterday that the host country Denmark had proposed a text which could have seen the death of the Kyoto protocol, threatens to divide the powerful G77 plus China group of 130 developing countries.

Tuvalu, a Pacific island state politically and financially close to Australia, proposed a new protocol which would have the advantage of potentially forcing deeper global emission cuts, but could lead to other developing countries - rather than rich nations - having to make those cuts.

Many developing nations cherish the legally binding commitments that Kyoto places on industrialised nations and fiercely oppose proposals that would change this.

Tuvalu was immediately supported by other small island states, including Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and several African states. But it was opposed by 15 countries, including the powerful nations of China, Saudi Arabia and India. One of the two negotiating tracks was then suspended for several hours as no consensus could be reached.

Civil society groups including the TckTckTck campaign and 350.org demonstrated outside the meeting in favour of Tuvalu, chanting: "Tuvalu is the new deal."

Observers said a G77 plus China rift at this early stage in the conference was a serious setback for the big developing countries. Small island states, least developed countries and Africa have so far worked together in public with the G77.

In a separate development, a new draft text prepared by Denmark and other rich countries is known to make several compromises to developing countries. Sources close to the Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, today indicated that the text contains a commitment to complete a legally binding agreement by December 2010. This is significantly more time than is wanted by the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, but is thought to be necessary to complete the legal work.

The new text also also says that countries will work towards agreeing a new commitment period for the Kyoto protocol. This has been holding up talks because developing countries fear the Kyoto protocol will be abandoned. The document also makes reference to the present negotiations, in an apparent move to deflect criticisms that the UN process is being undermined by back-room manouevering.

Elsewhere today, Britain, Mexico, Norway and Australia tabled a paper that strongly backs a major new climate fund for developing countries. This would be run by a board which would be accountable to the UN, where priority would be given to spending in the poorest and most vulnerable countries. It addresses the vexed question of how cash for developing countries to adapt to climate change should be raised and distributed.

Britain has proposed that an fund of $10bn (£6.2bn) be set up immediately to pay poorer nations between 2012 and 2015. Developing countries want $400bn (£246bn) to come on stream a year by 2020.

While the voices of climate sceptics have largely been drowned out in Copenhagen, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has intervened in the debate, saying President Barack Obama's "cap and tax" plan for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions would be an economic catastrophe. In a Washington Post article, which made no mention of climate change, she said Obama's plan would outsource energy supplies to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Obama's fiscal stimulus package gave $94bn for green measures in the US, second only to China.


[Environment > Energy]
Plan to cap electricity bills to stop consumer exploitation
Ofgem keen to ensure energy firms invest in low carbon economy
Tim Webb, Miles Brignall and Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 December 2009 00.05 GMT Article history

Electricity bills could be capped to stop consumers being exploited and to make sure energy companies invest the £200bn needed for Britain's transition to a low carbon economy, the Guardian has learnt.

Industry sources say that the energy regulator, Ofgem, is in principle in favour of the move, which would wipe out one of the central planks in the privatisation of the energy markets: allowing companies to independently set electricity prices.

Some of the "big six" energy companies also said they would support price regulation because it would guarantee them a fixed rate of return on the billions of pounds of investment the government wants them to put into building new infrastructure such as clean coal plants.

The government's investigation into the energy market was among policies announced by the chancellor todayto promote low carbon industries.

But the manufacturers' organisation the EEF said the measures – backed by less than £400m of new funding over the next two years, compared with £1.4bn made available in April's budget – were "fairly limited" and would do little to drive economic growth.

Officials from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Treasury will examine whether electricity bills are fair for consumers, and how energy companies can be encouraged to build more power plants and wind farms.

Officials will work closely with Ofgem and the government's committee on climate change, and will report their findings in the budget in the spring.

If the regulator is allowed to cap retail electricity bills, a "clawback" mechanism, already used by some states in the US, would have to be incorporated based on future movements in wholesale energy markets. This would allow companies – or consumers – to recoup money to make sure that they are not out of pocket as wholesale prices change.

Allowing investors in new power plants a fixed rate of return would also encourage more competition in the market, which is dominated by the big six suppliers.

Ofgem and consumer bodies have attacked energy companies for not passing on the recent fall in wholesale energy prices to consumers, and industry observers believe a showdown between the industry and the government is inevitable. The companies argue they need to keep profits high to invest in new energy infrastructure – but do not say by how much they will invest.

Today, wind farm developers also received a big boost when Alistair Darling said that the increase in subsidies for offshore wind farms announced in April would remain available for projects approved until 2014.

Energy companies will also be forced to give up to £300m a year by 2014 in discounts to vulnerable households. Both of those schemes will be funded by consumers' utility bills. A further £150m of funding will be allocated next year to the government's fuel poverty programme, Warm Front, to insulate vulnerable households' homes.

Funding for many of the other low carbon initiatives has been "reprioritised" from non-environmental programmes. A Treasury spokesman said tonight that two thirds of the new money made available in the pre-budget report had been taken from existing budgets.

The chancellor also claimed that the level of support for the development of carbon capture and storage technology was being doubled to fund four pilot projects. A spokeswoman from Ed Miliband's energy department said the government had previously announced that between two and four schemes would receive funding.

The Aldersgate Group, which represents a range of high-street names including BT, said a more urgent approach was needed to finance green technologies, and said that Darling should have set up a green infrastructure bank to provide more investment.

The EEF claimed the reduction in the rebate given to energy-intensive users such as steel companies to mitigate the cost of the climate change levy would damage the move to a low-carbon economy.

But Britain's fledgling electric car industry received a boost after the chancellor announced he will exempt all electric cars from company car tax for the next five years. Darling said the measure was designed to show the government's intention to "encourage the rapid adoption of electric vehicle technology" by companies and individuals. Until now, company drivers of electric cars faced a 9% benefit-in-kind tax bill, which, while being the lowest band, still meant a £64-a-year bill for basic-rate taxpayers, assuming the car cost less than £20,000.

news20091210gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Danish police raid Copenhagen climate campaigners' rooms
Police detain 200 activists at their Copenhagen accommodation and seize items they claim could be used for acts of civil disobedience
Bibi van der Zee
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 December 2009 13.54 GMT Article history

Danish police last night raided a climate campaigners' accommodation centre in Copenhagen, detaining 200 activists and seizing items including paint bombs and shields which they claimed could be used for acts of civil disobedience.

About 200 police arrived at the shelter on Ragnhild Street, in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen, at 2.30am. They locked activists into the building for two hours, and searched some of the nearby properties. Campaigners say they took away various items including a power drill, an angle grinder, and some wooden props. No arrests were made.

Police confirmed the raid took place and issued a statement saying among the items they had found were "58 fluorescent tubes containing a mixture of paint and oil, closed in both ends with candle wax, 193 riot shields, nine metal cages measuring 4x2m, which are capable of rolling and constructed inside with milk cartons, which could be used for staircases."

A spokeswoman for Climate Justice Action (CJA), one of the activist groups, said: "People were enormously frightened and alarmed. We really don't know why the police handled it like this: the Danish government has provided this accommodation for activists and now the police are acting unnecessarily. We'll be asking for the items they confiscated back."

The centre on Ragnhild Street is one of a handful of sleeping spaces provided by the government for the protesters who are expected during the course of the summit. Activists estimate that between 30,000-40,000 protesters may arrive over the next couple of weeks. Hundreds of small-scale actions are planned, and three large-scale peaceful protests are also due to take place on Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday.

Police have said that although they will facilitate peaceful protest, they fear that an international extremist network may come to Copenhagen to join the peaceful protests then break away to commit acts of violence.

The head of the Police Intelligence Service (PET), Jakob Scharf, has said that "violent extremists will try to abuse and get a free ride on the peaceful activist involvement in the climate debate."

Scharf said he feared that peaceful protesters may end up in a battle zone between extremists and police.

Some activists have privately conceded that there may well be trouble at some of the upcoming demonstrations. But most strongly refute the idea that troublemakers are descending on Copenhagen. "We've found that to be a myth put about by people who are seeking to undermine the genuine reasons people are protesting," said Mel Evans of CJA. "We've issued a call out for people to take peaceful action on climate change and that's why they're coming here."


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen is a world and a decade away from Kyoto
Kyoto's ineffectiveness was due to lack of scientific clarity and lack of public understanding: none of these excuses now apply
Tim Flannery and Erik Rasmussen
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 December 2009 12.44 GMT Article history

Few people outside Japan would have heard of Kyoto prior 1997, its Katsura palace or famous spring blossom. Mention the city now and it is immediately associated with the closest thing we have to an adequate global response to the global climate problem.

As delegates meeting in Copenhagen this month well know, the Kyoto protocol set legally binding requirements for developed economies to achieve emissions reductions by 2012.

But the deficiencies of the protocol are also well known. To name only three: the reductions required are small when compared to what climate science is now telling us; the most rapidly developing economies are not required to achieve any measurable emissions reductions, and it provides no real guidance to business needing to plan for the long term.

It isn't as if the world has been blind to these deficiencies. Since the United Nations climate conference in Bali in 2007, over the past two years climate negotiators from more than 190 countries have been meeting to overcome these constraints and establish a more effective global climate treaty. And this task is meant to conclude in less than 10 days at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen.

Already the Scandinavian city made famous by Hans Christian Andersen is becoming shorthand for the success or failure of our collective efforts to combat climate change. If Copenhagen ends in "success" then we will have succeeded in avoiding the danger of global warming and climate destabilisation; if it is a "failure" then we too will have failed to address this most wicked of problems.

If only it were so simple. If only tools such as text and agreement actually achieved the measureable, reportable and verifiable emissions reductions that all economies must achieve over the coming years. For Copenhagen can only be a beginning: the start to investment in modern low emissions technology and infrastructure and the imposition of costs on the old, polluting industries of the past.

The stakes at Copenhagen are high. The peer reviewed science has only firmed since Kyoto. There is now a consensus that the level of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that the atmosphere can bear before warming triggers unpredictable and potentially catastrophic changes to the global climate system is considerably lower. Climate scientists who only a decade ago would have argued that the amount of greenhouse gas should be 550 parts per million, now argue that even 450pmm may be too much.

Our understanding of the climate problem and our experience of developing effective climate policy have progressed enormously over the past twelve years. The world is now a lot clearer about the policies and incentives that can reduce emissions, maintain economic growth and get our carbon cycle into greater balance. Prior to 1997 no one could refer to the learning from an emissions trading system in Europe, or the rapid move to renewable energy in Germany.

And perhaps more important than all of this is how public sentiment, and with it our politics, has shifted. Kyoto was before An Inconvenient Truth , the Stern review, hurricane Katrina, the 2003 European heatwave and Australia's worst drought on record. In many countries climate change is now an issue which bridges the standard political divide. Some of the most progressive leaders on the issue come from the right of politics: Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and even an actor turned politician not known for his warm hearted roles: Arnold Schwarzenegger. Climate change is now a fixed agenda item for any meeting between heads of state: how to maintain economic growth, energy security and reduce emissions. And no longer is the President of the United States sceptical of the problem: in Barack Obama the White House is occupied by a man who has made tackling climate change a core part of his political narrative.

In accounting for Kyoto's ineffectiveness, in 1997 one could easily cite the lack of public understanding; a lack of clarity in the science; a lack of effective politics or an immaturity in our experience of effective climate policy. None of these excuses now apply.

Whether the final chapter in a story that started in Bali two years ago is one of resolution and joy, or confusion and despair, remains unknown. An unambiguous political agreement establishing how the new binding international rules can be agreed may still mean that Copenhagen becomes shorthand for describing when a new and powerful approach to tackling this most wicked of global problems was begun. That would be cause for celebration by this and all future generations.

news20091210gdn4

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen: Leaked draft deal widens rift between rich and poor nations
Climate talks are in disarray barely days into the summit, putting at risk international unity to fight global warming
John Vidal in Copenhagen and Dan Milmo
The Guardian, Wednesday 9 December 2009 Article history

Three hours after the "Danish text" had been leaked to the Guardian, Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the group of 132 developing countries known as G77 plus China, spelt out exactly why the poor countries he represents were so incensed. "The text robs developing countries of their just and equitable and fair share of the atmospheric space. It tries to treat rich and poor countries as equal," said the diplomat.

The text is a draft proposal for the final political agreement that should be signed by national leaders including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown at the end of the Copenhagen summit on 18 December. It was prepared in secret by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" but understood to include the US and Denmark.

Five hours later, the UN's top climate diplomat had responded. Yvo de Boer said: "This was an informal paper ahead of the conference given to a number of people for the purposes of consultations. The only formal texts in the UN process are the ones tabled by the chairs of this Copenhagen conference at the behest of the parties [involved]."

But the representatives of developing nations felt betrayed by the intent of the proposals in the draft.

"This text destroys both the UN convention on climate change and the Kyoto protocol. This is aimed at producing a new treaty, a new legal initiative that throws away the basis of [differing] obligations between the poorest and most wealthy nations in the world," said Di-Aping.

The existing treaty is the only global agreement that legally obliges rich countries to reduce their emissions.

Di-Aping is one of the most outspoken of developing country leaders, at once charming and radical.

What the west had failed to grasp, he said, was the very deep hurt that had been growing steadily since the climate negotiations were effectively taken over by heads of state and were conducted outside the UN, the only forum in which poor countries feel they are equally represented.

The text is now likely to be withdrawn because of its reception by China, India and many other developing countries. It suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.

Few numbers are included in the text, because these would be filled in later after negotiation by world leaders.

However, it does seek to hold global temperature rises to 2C, the safe limit according to scientists, and it mentions the sum of $10bn a year in aid to help poor countries cope with climate change, starting in 2012.

Last night the G77 reaction was seen by some developed world analysts as an exaggerated but fundamentally correct response to the way that the US, the UK and other rich countries have sought to negotiate.

Development NGOs were particularly scathing in their criticism.

Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft, but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurt."

Hill added: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board, but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN.

"That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on [emissions in] developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."

A spokesman for Cafod, a development charity with close links to some of the poorest countries in the world, said: "This draft document reveals the backstage machinations of a biased host who, instead of acting as nonpartisan broker, is taking sides with the developed countries.

"The document should not even exist. There is a UN legal process which is the official negotiating text. The Danish text disrespects the solid, steady approach of the UN process."

Over the next days several new texts will emerge and out of them a likely contender to be carried by consensus of all the countries. Di-Aping said that the G77 remained committed to the talks.

"We will not walk out of the talks at this late hour, because we will not allow the failure of Copenhagen. But we will not sign an inequitable deal; we will not accept a deal that condemns 80% of the world population to further suffering and injustice."

Later this week, the rich countries can expect fresh assaults from the Africa group of countries, the least developed countries group, and the association of small island states. Each is liable to upset the best laid plans of developed world leaders who those groups say appear to place the need to reach an agreement above fully engaging with the poorest countries.

"We call ordinary people to put the utmost pressure on politicians to come to their senses," said Di-Aping.

news20091210nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 9 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1134
News
New species evolve in bursts
Red Queen hypothesis of gradual evolution undermined.
Kerri Smith

lNew species might arise as a result of single rare events, rather than through the gradual accumulation of many small changes over time, according to a study of thousands of species and their evolutionary family trees.

This contradicts a widely accepted theory of how speciation occurs: that species are continually changing to keep pace with their environment, and that new species emerge as these changes accrue. Known as the 'Red Queen' hypothesis, it is named after the character in Lewis Carroll's book Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There who tells a surprised Alice: "Here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

The Red Queen hypothesis rests on the idea that species must continuously evolve just to hang on to their ecological niche. That gradual evolution is driven by the constant genetic churn of sexual selection.

A consequence of this is that all of the species in a particular family, or genus, gradually evolve to form new species at the same rate.

But Mark Pagel and his team at the University of Reading, UK, challenge this idea. In a paper published today in Nature, they compared four models of speciation — one of which was the Red Queen hypothesis — to see which best explains the rate of speciation in more than 100 species groups from the animal and plant kingdoms, including bumblebees, turtles, foxes and roses.

They looked at the lengths of branches in thousands of species' evolutionary trees contained within these groups to estimate the time periods between speciation events.

When the team compared how well the four models fitted the groups' evolutionary histories, the Red Queen idea that species form through a catalogue of incremental changes fitted no more than 8% of the family trees.

Conversely, almost 80% of the trees fitted a model in which new species emerge from single rare evolutionary events. The Red Queen, it seems, is not running to keep up, but jumping a longer distance and then pausing for a while¹.

"What we've shown is that speciation is about happy accidents — rare events that happen in the environment that cause a species to speciate," says Pagel. These events could include a mountain range being thrust up or a shift in climate, he says.

The team's findings might stir things up in the world of evolutionary biology. "It really goes against the grain because most of us have this Darwinian view of speciation," says Pagel. "What we're saying is that to think about natural selection as the cause of speciation is perhaps wrong."

Mike Benton, a palaeontologist at the University of Bristol, UK, agrees that the work might ruffle a few feathers, adding that it could also shift attention to how groups of species evolve, rather than the minutiae of competition or predation effects that affect a single species. Where speciation is concerned, at least, "maybe all of this squabbling in the undergrowth is quite irrelevant".

Evolutionary biologists will also "look closely at the methods", Benton predicts. The paper's heavily computational approach, crunching large amounts of data from phylogenetic trees, has not traditionally been applied to evolutionary theories.

But Pagel thinks they will be able to convince others that their approach is useful. "We think people will come around because it will start to unravel some mysteries about speciation," he says.

References
1. Venditti, C., Meade, A. & Pagel, M. Nature advance online publication doi:10.1038/nature08630 (2009).


[naturenews]
Published online 9 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1133
News
Fear memories erased without drugs
A temporal twist to a therapeutic technique could block old terrors.
Lizzie Buchen

Fearful memories can be wiped out for at least a year using a drug-free technique, according to a study done in the United States.

The technique exploits the way that human brains store and recall memories. When a long-term memory is recalled, it goes through a brief period of vulnerability, after which it must be stored anew to be remembered again. While the memory is in its fragile state, it can be modified or disrupted.

Studies in animals¹ have used drugs to interfere with this reconsolidation process, stirring hope for therapies to blunt the haunting memories associated with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. But although these experiments have helped to understand reconsolidation, most of the drugs used are toxic to humans. A study done earlier this year in humans used a drug that's used to treat high blood pressure, called propranolol, but the treatment does not work for everyone².

Now, psychologist Elizabeth Phelps and her colleagues at New York University have developed a way to interfere with fear memories in humans using a behavioural technique, and the results last for at least a year. The results are published in Nature³.

"We took advantage of a long history of research in animal models that tells us about this process," says Phelps. "Now we can do interventions in humans in a way that's more sophisticated, and possibly take it to the clinic."

Timing is everything

Humans struggling with horrific memories are often treated with a psychotherapeutic technique called extinction therapy, in which the patient is repeatedly exposed to whatever conjures up the memory — such as snakes or a gunshot — and gradually learns that the stimulus is safe. But while getting back on the horse has some success, the old memories are still stored in the brain and often strike again.

{{“It's going to take a lot more understanding of exactly when, how and where this works to create something clinically useful.”}
Elizabeth Phelps
New York University}

The authors tweaked the timing of extinction therapy so they could take advantage of the fragile reconsolidation period — a window of malleability that opens about three minutes after the memory is reactivated, but closes a few hours later.

The authors showed people coloured squares and gave them mild electric shocks to the wrist after a certain colour appeared (see video). After training, the coloured squares that had been paired with the shock incited fear in the volunteers, which experimenters measured as changes in skin conductance — an indication of sweat-gland activity.

The next day the authors began the modified extinction training. First they called up the fear memory by showing the coloured square. Ten minutes later, while the memory was in its vulnerable state, they repeatedly showed the coloured square again without shocking the volunteers. A day later the fear response to the coloured square was gone, suggesting that the reconsolidation process had been blocked. The fear showed no sign of returning even a year later.

Meanwhile, people who got the extinction training 6 hours — instead of 10 minutes — after the reminder, or who got no reminder at all, still showed a significant fear response the next day and the next year.

From bench to battlefield?

How well these lab-based findings would translate to the clinic remains unclear, as a mild shock to the wrist is a far cry from the battlefields of Iraq.

Co-author Joseph LeDoux acknowledges that "there is a huge gap between fear in the lab and post-traumatic stress disorder" but that "the stuff we study is relevant because the [brain] circuits are proven to overlap".

Cognitive scientist Lynn Nadel at the University of Arizona in Tucson is cautious for a different reason. "We know that [fear] extinction tends to be context specific," he says. "If you're using extinction on someone with post-traumatic stress disorder from the war, they might feel safe if they have a flashback in the laboratory but not in the real world."

Merel Kindt, the lead author of the study that used propranolol to block fear memories and a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, was surprised that the authors used skin conductance as the only measure of fear, she says, as it is not specific to fear — it also indicates arousal, for instance.

Phelps agrees that the technique is not ready for prime time. "It's really intriguing, but it's going to take a lot more understanding of exactly when, how and where this works to create something that's really going to be clinically useful," she said. "We just barely understand this."

References
1.Nader, K. et al. Nature 406, 722-726 (2000). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
2. Kindt, M., Soeter, M. & Vervliet, B. Nature Neuroscience 12, 256-258 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Schiller, D. et al. Nature advance online publication doi:10.1038/nature08637 (2009).

news20091210nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 9 December 2009 | Nature 462, 704-705 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462704a
News
Plagiarism scandal grows in Iran
Investigation finds more cases of duplication in publications co-authored by ministers and senior officials.
Declan Butler

EXCLUSIVE

Nature has uncovered further instances of apparent plagiarism in papers co-authored by government ministers and senior officials in Iran. The spate of new examples raises questions about whether such incidents are symptomatic of conditions also common in other developing countries — such as difficulties with English or pressure to acquire academic credentials as a prerequisite for promotion — or whether they are also linked specifically to the Iranian regime, where growth of a merit-based university culture has been undermined by political appointments and purges of reform-minded scientists (see page 699).

{{Research papers co-authored by Hamid Behbahani contain text from other works.}
A. KENARE/AFP/GETTY}

An earlier probe^1,2 revealed extensive plagiarism in a paper co-authored by transport minster Hamid Behbahani and four papers co-authored by science minister Kamran Daneshjou. The revelations received wide coverage in the Iranian media and blogosphere. Scientists inside and outside the country have called for investigations, as well as for stronger ethical oversight in Iran's research institutions.

Daneshjou, a mechanical engineer at the Iran University of Science & Technology (IUST) in Tehran, was head of the interior-ministry office that oversaw this year's disputed election that kept President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. In October, the Iranian parliament's commission for science and education held an informal inquiry into the four Daneshjou papers. Although it made no official conclusion, it effectively cleared Daneshjou after his co-author, IUST colleague Majid Shahravi, took responsibility for the papers' contents in the Iranian media — although both Shahravi and some members of the commission also maintain that the papers contained originality. Three of the four papers have now been retracted by the journals in question — the fourth was in an Iranian journal.

The paper³ by Behbahani, an IUST researcher who supervised Ahmadinejad's PhD, has not been investigated, although it seems to be almost entirely put together from three earlier articles by different authors². It was retracted by the journal Transport in October.

Behbahani has publicly said that the paper did not constitute plagiarism because only parts of the article were identical to earlier work. He challenged the allegations of plagiarism, calling them a "media attack, far from fairness and integrity" and "an illegitimate accusation".

Nature has now uncovered yet more instances of apparent plagiarism in papers from Behbahani and some of his co-authors.

One paper⁴ on asphalt-road resistance — by Behbahani's Transport co-authors Hassan Ziari, a deputy minister of roads and transportation whom Daneshjou recently appointed as head of Payame Noor University in Tehran, and Mohammed Khabiri, then a PhD student at the IUST — contains many sections that are identical to a 2005 paper⁵ by scientists in Pakistan.

And two 2008 papers^6,7 on strengthening asphalt roads, co-authored by Behbahani and Ziari with PhD student Shams Noubakhat, also contain duplicated material. The first⁶ includes multiple passages from three earlier papers^8,9,10 and the second⁷ is also largely taken from three other papers^10,11,12.

One scientist familiar with the field, who asked to remain anonymous, says that he has difficulty making sense of the first paper's results, and that some data in it⁶ are identical to those in one of the earlier papers by different researchers⁸. "That the two sets of results could be identical is improbable," he says. Behbahani and Ziari did not respond to requests for comment. Muhammad Atif Ramay, managing editor of the Journal of Applied Sciences Research in which both papers were published, says that the journal has withdrawn the articles from its website pending further investigation.

Also in question is a 2008 paper on modelling pollution in Iran¹³, which is co-authored by one of the 37 members of the Iranian Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, Mohammad Ali Kaynejad, an environmental engineer at Sahand University of Technology in Tabriz, Iran. The paper almost entirely duplicates a 2001 conference paper¹⁴ on modelling pollution in Hungary.

The Iranian paper acknowledges the original source of the model, although the authors wrote that it was "tested via the simulation of a photochemical oxidant episode that took place in Tabriz, Iran in 2007". But Alison Tomlin, an environmental modeller at the University of Leeds, UK, and a co-author on the Hungary model, says that the Iranian paper contains "no new results" and "is definitely a copy". It includes computer simulations purportedly of Iranian data, but they match the Hungary figures — and the background map outlines Hungary, not Iran.

The first author of the Iranian paper, Esmaeil Fatehifar, an environmental engineer at Sahand University of Technology, places the responsibility on another member of the team. "He said these are measured data about Tabriz Petrochemical Complex," he says. "I thought he was right and accepted it." Fatehifar says he intends to cancel the team member's PhD plans. He adds that Kaynejad had "not seen that paper" even though his name is on it. Kaynejad did not respond to Nature's interview requests.

Questions have also been raised over work co-authored by Ali Reza Ali-Ahmadi, education minister in the previous government of Ahmadinejad. A 2006 paper¹⁵ on supply networks co-authored by him includes many sentences and paragraphs that are identical to those in three earlier papers^16,17,18. Mika Ojala at Tampere University of Technology in Finland, a co-author on one of the earlier studies, says that in his opinion this is not coincidence. Ali-Ahmadi could not be reached for comment. Babak Amiri, an IUST researcher and a co-author on the paper, says that a draft version of the paper was accidentally submitted before it was checked by himself or Ali-Ahmadi. "I apologize for this big mistake," he says.

Nature has also learned that the US National Academy of Sciences earlier this year removed a chapter from a 2003 book¹⁹ on a US–Iranian workshop. Ironically, the chapter, authored by Hassan Zohoor, secretary of the Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran, was called 'The impact of moral values on the promotion of science'. It was withdrawn because it substantially duplicated a 1999 paper²⁰ by Douglas Allchin, a historian and philosopher now at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Zohoor says that he never saw Allchin's paper, and that he only prepared a draft of the paper, leaving others in his office to "develop it and add the literature review". Zohoor says that the explanation of the staff member involved — that the copying happened "quite accidentally and as a mere negligence" — is inadequate, and that he intends to write to Allchin to apologize. "In my entire life I've never copied anyone else's work," says Zohoor.

References
1. Butler, D. Nature doi:10.1038/news.2009.945 (2009).
2. Butler, D. Nature 461, 578-579 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Ziari, H., Behbahani, H. & Khabiri, M. M. Transport XXI, 207-212 (2006).
4. Ziari, H. & Khabiri, M. M. J. Eng. Appl. Sci. 2, 33-37 (2007).
5. Kamal, M. A., Shazib, F. & Yasin, B. J. East. Asia Soc. Transport. Stud. 6, 1329-1343 (2005).
6. Behbahani, H., Ziari, H. & Noubakhat, S. J. Appl. Sci. Res. 4, 96-102 (2008).
7. Behbahani, H., Ziari, H. & Noubakhat, S. J. Appl. Sci. Res. 4, 282-286 (2008).
8. Awwad, M. T. & Shbeeb, L. Am. J. Appl. Sci. 4, 390-396 (2007). | Article | ChemPort |
9. Lucena, M. C. C., Soares, S. A. & Soares, J. B. Mater. Res. 7, 529-534 (2004). | ChemPort |
10. Emery, S. J. & O'Connell, J. in Proc. 7th Conf. Asphalt Pavements for Southern Africa 29 August–2 September 1999, Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (CAPSA, 1999).
11. Hofsink, W., Kong Kam Wa, N. Y. & Dickinson, M. N. in Proc. 8th Conf. on Asphalt Pavements for Southern Africa 12–16 September 2004, Sun City, South Africa (CAPSA, 2004).
12. Hanyu, A., Ueno, S., Kasahara, A. & Saito, K. J. East. Asia Soc. Transport. Stud. 6, 1153-1167 (2005).
13.Fatehifar, E., Alizadeh Osalu, A., Kaynejad, M. A. & Elkamel, A. in Proc. 3rd IASME/WSEAS Int. Conf. Energy & Environment 23–25 February 2008, Univ. Cambridge, 330-335 (2008).
14. Lagzi, A. S. et al. in Air Pollution Modelling and Simulation (ed. Sportisse, B.) 264-273 (Springer, 2002).
15. Aliahmadi, A. R., Jafari, M. & Amiri, B. in Proc. 2nd National Conf. Logistics & Supply Chain 20–21 November 2006, Tehran (2006).
16. Hallikas, J., Karvonen, I., Pulkkinen, U., Virolainen, V.-M. & Tuominen, M. Int. J. Prod. Econ. 90, 47-58 (2004). | Article
17. Ojala, M. & Hallikas, J. Int. J. Prod. Econ. 104, 201-213 (2006). | Article
18. Harland, C., Brenchley, R. & Walker, H. J. Purchasing Supply Management 9, 51-62 (2003). | Article
19. The Experiences and Challenges of Science and Ethics: Proceedings of an American-Iranian Workshop (NAS, 2003).
20. Allchin, D. Sci. Educ. 8, 1-12 (1999). | Article

news20091210nn3

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 9 December 2009 | Nature 462, 707 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462707a
Corrected online: 10 December 2009
News
'Killer application' for protein synthesis is retracted
Lost lab notes hamper attempts to repeat crucial experiment.
Erika Check Hayden

The retraction of two papers from the lab of prominent US chemist Peter Schultz is a setback for researchers trying to synthesize and study glycoproteins — proteins with sugar chains attached.

The papers, published in Science¹ and the Journal of the American Chemical Society² (JACS), seemed to show that technology enabling the bacterium Escherichia coli to make proteins from many non-natural amino acids could also incorporate sugars at specific sites.

Schultz, of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, says that while attempting to replicate the work in the two papers, members of his lab discovered that non-natural glycosylated amino acids — ones with attached sugars — behave differently from all other non-natural amino acids his lab has studied. The researchers were unable to get any glycosylated amino acids to integrate into proteins, Schultz says. He and his colleagues retracted the JACS paper on 4 September³ and the Science paper on 27 November⁴.

{“This takes away one of the benchmarks people would cite to show how far the method could go.”}

In August, a paper co-authored by Eric Tippmann, a former postdoc of Schultz's who is now at Cardiff University, UK, argued that the method described in the papers could not have worked anyway⁵. E. coli, he reported, has insufficient levels of the relevant enzymes necessary to process the glycosylated amino acids that were used in the experiment. He and his colleagues suggest⁵ that the proteins reported in the retracted papers contained natural rather than non-natural glycosylated amino acids.

Schultz says it could be true that the proteins incorporated natural rather than non-natural amino acids, but adds that there are other possible explanations for his results.

He says that the conditions of the original experiments may have allowed the E. coli to process the glycosylated amino acids, which had been modified to allow them to enter the bacteria easily. However, the lab no longer has the notebooks detailing the original experiments, so the team can't replicate those conditions, Schultz explains.

Schultz says that he had members of his lab try to replicate the papers for more than two years. "We worked hard on it, and there are real peculiarities associated with the glycosylated amino acids that we still don't understand," Schultz says. "We couldn't get it to work." Only then did the team decide to retract the papers. "I think we did the right thing," says Schultz.

Glycoproteins are ubiquitous in biology and pharmacology, but difficult to make artificially in living cell systems, so the ability to direct bacteria to make specific glycoproteins would have been a boon.

Chemist David Tirrell of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who also studies methods for incorporating non-natural amino acids into proteins, says the retractions will be a blow for glycobiologists. But because the glycobiology work was often seen as proof of principle, it is also a disappointment for anyone working on making proteins from non-natural amino acids, he says. "This takes away one of the benchmarks people would cite to show how far the method could go," says Tirrell.

Another former postdoc of Schultz's, Ryan Mehl, who is now at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, agrees. "[Glycobiologists] went from something where they had the potential for great tools to zero, so it's a big deal for that field."

Schultz's underlying method for incorporating non-natural amino acids into proteins has been reproduced by other labs, note Tirrell, Mehl and other scientists. But the ability to incorporate glycoproteins "would have been a killer application", says Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Florida. "I'm disappointed that it didn't work."

Corrected:An earlier version of this story incorrectly suggested that some glycosolated amino acids were taken up into proteins.

References
1. Zhang, Z. et al. Science 303, 371-373 (2004). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
2. Xu, R. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 15654-15655 (2004). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
3. Xu, R. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131, 13883 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
4. Zhang, Z. et al. Science 326, 1187 (2009).
5. Antonczak, A. K., Simova, Z. & Tippmann, E. M. J. Biol. Chem. 284, 28795-28800 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |


[naturenews]
Published online 9 December 2009 | Nature 462, 709 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462709a
News
Cattle disease faces total wipeout
Rinderpest goes the way of smallpox.
Natasha Gilbert

{{Vaccines developed in the 1980s have helped to control outbreaks of rinderpest around the world.}
F. PALADINI/FAO}

What does it take to wipe a scourge off the face of the Earth? A massive global push to hunt down and eradicate the last few stubborn pockets of disease — whether the problem is in people or cattle.

World health bodies say that within 18 months they will celebrate the eradication of rinderpest, the world's most devastating cattle disease. It would become only the second disease that humans have wiped from the globe — after smallpox, which was declared vanquished in 1980 — and will mark a "massive achievement for the veterinary community", says Chris Oura, head of the Non-Vesicular Disease Reference Laboratory Group at the Institute for Animal Health in Pirbright, UK.

"Rinderpest tops the list of killer [animal] diseases," says Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome. Just as smallpox ripped through human populations for centuries, so too has rinderpest drastically reduced animal populations.

Also known as cattle plague, rinderpest can lead to famine when people lose the beasts they need to plough their fields. It first spread from Asia to Europe in the herds of invading tribes, causing outbreaks in the Roman Empire in 376–386, and since then it has killed millions of cattle and other wildlife throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent. The world's first veterinary science school was established in France in 1762 to train specialists to deal with rinderpest.

The disease, which can kill 80–90% of infected cattle within ten days, is caused by a morbillivirus — a group of viruses that also includes measles. Clinical signs include fever, discharges from the eyes and nose, diarrhoea and dehydration.

In the 1980s, outbreaks in Nigeria cost around US$2 billion. But that decade also saw a breakthrough in controlling the disease: a vaccine containing the attenuated virus that was heat-stable and could be stored and transported over long distances.

Going global

In 1994, a global effort to eradicate rinderpest was launched, headed by the FAO and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), based in Paris. It incorporated several earlier, regional efforts and focused on widespread vaccination programmes and on long-term monitoring of cattle and wildlife. The last known outbreak was in Kenya in 2001, with the last remaining pockets of the disease in Pakistan, Sudan and the Somali Ecosystem (parts of Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya) thought to have been eradicated by 2007 (see map).

Oura says that the biggest scientific challenge in eradicating the virus is the large-scale monitoring and surveillance needed to ensure that the virus is gone. "It's a huge task when you have the virus in developing countries and war zones, such as Somalia, to carry out monitoring and surveillance," he says. By the 1970s, smallpox, too, was found only in the war-torn Horn of Africa, where the last case was isolated in Somalia in 1977.

Although the rinderpest vaccine can provide life-long protection, it also poses a challenge. Because it contains the live virus, diagnostic tests can't differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals, as both will test positive for antibodies against the virus. Cows also pass on antibodies to their offspring through their milk. So, to confirm whether the virus has been eradicated, vaccinations must stop for a period of two years and calves younger than two years old then need to be tested. "It is a difficult, long process to make sure nothing is there," says Oura.

Lubroth says he is "confident" that the world is already free of the disease but that the FAO and the OIE expect to make an official declaration that it has been eradicated in 18 months.

Bernard Vallat, director-general of the OIE, says that the hold-up is because 12 countries are yet to submit their final test and surveillance results to the organization. Even after the disease is declared extinct in the wild, it will live on in the lab. Over the next year and a half, the OIE will be drawing up an inventory of which governments and laboratories around the world are keeping a stock of the virus for research purposes.

news20091210nn4

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 9 December 2009 | Nature 462, 714-715 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462714a
News Feature
Copenhagen: the scientists' view
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is mainly a political affair but it has drawn hundreds of scientists to the Danish capital. Jeff Tollefson finds out what they hope to gain.
Jeff Tollefson

As the United Nations summit on global warming kicks into gear in Copenhagen this week, upwards of 15,000 people are converging on the city. The official negotiators from 193 countries will spend much of their time behind closed doors at the Bella conference centre, but they will be a minority of the visitors. Orbiting around the negotiators will be representatives of almost every segment of society, including hundreds of scientists.

The researchers will attend scheduled science sessions and gather for countless impromptu discussions in corridors and cafeterias. Many are presenting their latest work — on a vast array of topics including forest carbon, emissions scenarios and green technologies. Some hope to influence policy-makers and provide technical advice on issues that emerge during the negotiations. Others are coming to educate themselves about the treaty process and to network.

A climate summit is a flurry of activity, with the central negotiations surrounded by side shows that last from early in the morning until late at night. When the formal sessions finally wind down (if, in fact, they do, as negotiations have been known to go all night), discussions often continue over dinner and drinks.

The Copenhagen meeting, which runs from 7 to 18 December, is officially the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Negotiators have been meeting each year for a COP since 1995, but the expectations and the stakes for this summit are orders of magnitude higher than for any previous one.

Twelve years after taking their first tentative steps with the Kyoto Protocol, countries are now aiming to restructure the global economy and to lock in deep cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions for decades to come.

In advance of the summit, Nature talked to researchers from around the world about how they plan to take part.


M. URBAN/PIK
Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair, Working Group III, IPCC; deputy director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

"I wouldn't say that I am depressed, but I feel very sad about the negotiation process as it stands now. But I don't see that this can be changed substantially by scientists."

Edenhofer is wearing two hats in Copenhagen. As co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group on mitigation, he is presenting results from the group's 2007 assessment at several side events and briefings for policy-makers. But those events frequently lead to additional contacts, requests and conversations in which, as an independent scientist, he can offer his own thoughts on the latest research and what it means for policy-makers.

Edenhofer says that the negotiations are falling short of what is needed to address global warming and that scientists are unlikely to change that now. However, he argues it would be wrong to downplay the role of science in the process. Scientists were the first to raise concerns about climate change, and the IPCC's fourth assessment has served as the foundation for the negotiations. He sums up the IPCC's findings this way: humans cause climate change; climate change has severe impacts; and it is not too costly to reduce emissions. "These three messages have already changed the mindset of the negotiators," he says.


P. RICE/SUSTAINABILITY INST.
Beth Sawin, biologist and programme director, the Sustainability Institute, Hartland, Vermont.

"We have this philosophy that if science is going to be helpful, it has to show up, wanting to serve. What can we do to our model to make it more useful to somebody who is incredibly busy, overwhelmed, with not enough time and a huge responsibility?"

The Sustainability Institute has developed user-friendly climate-modelling software that can be run on a laptop computer to help negotiators assess the ultimate impact of any given emissions scenario. Negotiators can manually adjust the emissions and other parameters to analyse their own proposals as well as those of other countries; the model spits out forecasts for variables such as future temperatures and sea-level rise. In Copenhagen, Sawin says, the team is providing a "widget" that can be installed on computers to get the latest climate readings whenever Sawin's group updates its model with any new commitments announced by countries.

The application has generally received positive feedback from negotiators, but Sawin acknowledges the sobering reality that some delegates are less interested in detailed climate projections than in the next election in their home country. Nonetheless, she finds the whole affair touching. "I see that there are warts, and there is unfairness, and there are flaws in this process, but at least it's happening," she says. "So when I come home and talk to my kids, that's what I emphasize: that we happen to be alive at a time when people are trying to make common decisions about how to protect our common planet."


M. BASCOMBE
Albert Binger, science adviser to Grenada and the Alliance of Small Island States.

"I never had the slightest notion in my mind that one day I would be the guy telling everybody that the [target of] 2 °C the majority of the world wants is absolutely crazy. 2 °C is too much for too many people."

Raised in the mountains of Jamaica, Binger did a brief stint as a chemical engineer in the petroleum industry before earning a doctorate in agronomy at the University of Georgia. Today he is an official delegate advising island nations that are seeking to limit average global warming to 1.5 °C — or preferably less. Regularly oscillating between anger and a healthy island humour, he says. "Everybody needs to clean up their own goddamn mess."

Although Binger has full access to the talks, he leaves negotiating to the negotiators. His job is to harness scientific evidence in the push for more stringent greenhouse-gas targets. In practice, this means helping to answer questions that arise during the talks and providing scientific evidence for use in speeches and debates. As an islander who stands to lose everything to ocean acidification and sea-level rise, Binger takes the issue personally. "We want 1.5 °C or less, and we don't really ask it selfishly. Every person on this planet is better off at 1.5 °C than they are at 2 °C. I can sleep very easily with that."


C. CALVIN/UCAR
Lawrence Buja, climate modeller, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado.

"To a certain degree, the physical modellers have a much easier job than these politicians. Our molecules don't think for themselves and start doing different things midstream."

At COP 14 in Poland in 2008, Buja gave a briefing on NCAR's climate-modelling results for the fourth assessment of the IPCC, issued in 2007. He headed the modelling team at the time but is now directing a new group that is developing integrated climate models that include social and economic forces. His career change reflects a larger shift — Buja goes so far as to call it a "sea change" — for NCAR as an institution. Physical modelling will remain a core activity as scientists seek to clarify and provide more detail about the potential impacts of greenhouse gases, he says, but NCAR recognizes that it needs to provide policy-makers with more information about potential solutions.

In Copenhagen, one of his colleagues is presenting modelling results analysing the level and timing of emission-reduction targets, focusing on the 2050–2100 time frame. Buja is on hand to talk about these issues as well as to answer questions about the physical modelling, which is now being ramped up for the IPCC's fifth assessment, due out in 2014. But information flows both ways at these meetings, he says. "What this exposes the scientists to is how these negotiations and agreements are developed and what our role in informing them might be."

CONTINUED ON newsnn5

news20091210nn5

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 9 December 2009 | Nature 462, 714-715 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462714a
News Feature
Copenhagen: the scientists' view
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is mainly a political affair but it has drawn hundreds of scientists to the Danish capital. Jeff Tollefson finds out what they hope to gain.
Jeff Tollefson

CONTINUED FROM newsnn4

Martin Parry
climate scientist, Imperial College London.

"For individual scientists like me, frankly, many would say there's not much point in going. But I think it's a chance to meet those at the fringes of the political system who potentially do have quite a lot of leverage."

Were you to bump into him in Copenhagen and ask how the negotiations are going, Parry says he wouldn't have a clue. He has minimal or no contact with negotiators but says he finds value in exchanging ideas with scientists and activists. Those discussions can be particularly important, Parry says, because advocacy groups such as the WWF can then inject the latest scientific thinking into the political process as they lobby negotiators and government officials. In Copenhagen, he is expecting to participate in two side events, one on development issues and a second on agriculture.

Parry is also thinking about how to assess a major hole in how the world intends to respond to climate change. Some impacts can be avoided by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Others can be managed with enough money; in the vulnerable developing world, that means financial aid from wealthier nations. But the current proposals for emissions cuts and monetary support are not enough to avoid major impacts. "We're trying to close a gap here, coming at it from both ends," he says. Parry hopes that framing the issue this way — and quantifying the impacts — in Copenhagen will clarify where the policy-makers are coming up short, both in terms of emissions reductions and money for adaptation.

C. AZEVEDO-RAMOS
Paulo Moutinho, research coordinator, Amazon Environmental Research Institute, Brasilia, Brazil.

"I believe that [the forest-protection strategy called] REDD could make a difference in COP 15, not just as a way to address emissions from tropical deforestation, but also to create a new kind of synergy among nations. I believe that. That's exactly why I am going."

Moutinho started his career studying ants but has spent most of his time in recent years looking at ways to use carbon markets to stem emissions from deforestation while protecting biodiversity and the rights of indigenous people. Hopes have faded for a complete treaty in Copenhagen, but he is holding out for a significant decision on the forest-carbon component known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD). Through REDD, wealthier nations seeking to 'reduce' their emissions would provide money for developing nations to protect their forests. In Copenhagen, Moutinho is presenting his organization's latest work on REDD in the Amazon and discussing Brazil's national greenhouse-gas commitments.

For him, Copenhagen is a perfect fit. Spending time in the field and publishing papers in Nature or Science is one thing, he says, but the goal must be to translate results into a digestible form for policy-makers. "Science is a tool to reach sustainable development. That's my view about science, and that's exactly what I'm doing." And when it comes to REDD, Moutinho says, the science is evolving rapidly and still plays an important part in the negotiations.