news20091213gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
[Video] Copenhagen: A tale of two protests
After tens of thousands of climate change protesters took to the streets of Copenhagen, police make hundreds of arrests
Shehani Fernando, Cameron Robertson and Andy Duckworth
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 December 2009


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Hundreds arrested in Copenhagen as green protest march leads to violence
Two Britons deported as police crack down on protesters
Robin McKie and Bibi van der Zee ｆThe Observer, Sunday 13 December 2009 Article history

More than 900 campaigners were arrested in Copenhagen last night as police were accused of overreacting to sporadic street violence. The arrests came the day before an appeal in the Danish capital by the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, for people to start loving and caring for their world.

Williams will address a congregation including Queen Margrethe of Denmark and senior international politicians. He will call for a scaling down of the extravagant use of energy and the amount of waste across the planet. "These things will only happen if we learn to love the world we live in," he will say.

Williams, a passionate believer in the need for control of the causes of climate change, has had strong words for those who deny that man's activities are not responsible for the current phase of global warming. "Don't please listen to those who say that there is some kind of choice to be made between looking after human beings and looking after the planet. It is one of the most foolish errors around these days," he said.

But last night violence broke out when tens of thousands of people – some dressed as penguins and polar bears, carrying signs saying: "Save the humans" – took to the streets. The march had been organised to urge conference delegates to work out a binding deal to tackle climate change but was marred when a group of protesters threw bricks at police.

Hundreds were arrested and police "kettled" several hundred more before sending coaches into the pen, filling them up and driving away.

Henri Purje, who was in Copenhagen with Attac, a group opposed to international free trade, was standing in front of the group that was penned in and taken away by police. "I was in the last line of people before the police suddenly moved in for no obvious reason. It seemed as if they just wanted to take out a bunch of random people. No one was being violent, I didn't see anyone doing anything apart from singing and chanting and marching. Everything had been really peaceful," Purje said.

A British demonstrator, Georgy Forshall, told the Observer: "Two of my friends are in there. The police said demonstrators had been throwing stones, but my friends were in a cow costume, they wouldn't have been able to throw stones."

Police said two Britons had been deported. "There were many thousands on the march. The police knew that some of them were activists. Some of them were throwing stones and in that case we make arrests. The activists also wear masks on their faces and this is illegal under Danish law," police spokesman Henrik Moeller Jakobsen said.

The disruption marks the halfway point of the climate talks. This week the UN-sponsored summit enters its final phase with more than 100 world leaders, including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, arriving to hammer out a deal. The conference has been characterised by posturing and recriminations but gained focus on Friday with the release of a document outlining ambitious greenhouse gas reductions over the next 40 years.

Industrialised nations will bear most of the burden of emission cuts in the short term, it is proposed. They will reduce their output of greenhouse gases by 25%-45% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. Major developing countries would reduce theirs by 15%-30%. Together, all countries would cut emissions by 50%-95% by 2050.

However, the text fails to indicate how much money rich countries would give poorer ones to cope with global warming, a major bone of contention. The European Union has pledged to provide £2.2bn a year over the next three years to help poorer countries adapt to the impact of climate change.

Island states, such as the Maldives, the Seychelles and Tuvalu, are the most vulnerable to sea-level rises. They want any treaty agreed at Copenhagen to set a target year, within the next decade, when emissions peak and then begin to fall.


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Hundreds arrested at Copenhagen protest rally
Bibi van der Zee in Copenhagen and Robin McKie
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 December 2009 19.03 GMT Article history

Hundreds of people were arrested in Copenhagen today after sporadic street violence broke out during a major protest march as UN climate change talks reached their halfway point.

The demonstration, organised to urge conference delegates to work out a binding deal to tackle climate change, was largely peaceful but was marred when a group of protesters threw bricks at police.

As many as 700 people are thought to have been arrested amid clashes with riot police as the authorities used "kettling" tactics to contain marchers.

Organisers estimated that up to 100,000 protesters, including some dressed as penguins and polar bears and carrying signs saying "Save the Humans", joined the march across the city to the conference centre where negotiators and ministers are meeting.

A British demonstrator, Georgy Forshall, told the Observer: "Two of my friends are in there. The police said demonstrators had been throwing stones, but my friends were in a cow costume, they wouldn't have been able, physically, to throw stones."

The Danish police, who put the number of those taking part in the march at 30,000, said two Britons involved in the protest had been deported.

Police spokesman Henrik Moeller Jakobsen said the arrests were made because of stone-throwing. "The activists also wear masks on their faces and this is illegal under Danish law," he said.

The UN-sponsored summit is meanwhile entering its final phase with more than 100 world leaders, including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, arriving to hammer out a deal.

So far the conference has been characterised by posturing and recriminations but gained some focus on Friday with the release of a document outlining ambitious greenhouse gas reductions over the next 40 years.

Industrialised nations will shoulder most of the burden of emission cuts in the near term, it is proposed. Collectively, they will reduce their output of greenhouse gases by between 25% and 45% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. During that time, major developing countries would reduce theirs by between 15% and 30%. Together, all countries would cut emissions between 50% and 95% by 2050.

However, the text fails to indicate how much money rich countries would give poor ones to cope with global warming, a major bone of contention. The European Union has pledged to provide $3.6bn a year over the next three years to help poorer countries adapt to the impact of climate change: from coping with flood and drought to avoiding deforestation. This figure was dismissed as inadequate by delegates from small island states and the nations from the least developed countries bloc.

Island states – such as the Maldives, the Seychelles and Tuvalu – are the most vulnerable to sea-level rises, a consequence of melting ice caps, and are particularly concerned about the need for firm, predictable funding to help them adapt. They want any final treaty agreed at Copenhagen to set a target year, within the next decade, when emissions peak and then begin to fall. This concept is absent from the draft.

news20091213gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Science > Food science]
Why Britain faces a bleak future of food shortages
Britain faces a 'perfect storm' of water shortage and lack of food, says the government's chief scientist, and climate change and crop and animal diseases will add to future woes. Science is now striving to find solutions
Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 13 December 2009 Article history

It was an ecological disaster that occurred on the other side of the planet. Yet the drought that devastated the Australian wheat harvest last year had consequences that shook the world. It sent food prices soaring in every nation. Wheat prices across the globe soared by 130%, while shopping bills in Britain leapt by 15%.

A year later and the cost of food today has still to fall to previous levels. More alarmingly, scientists are warning that far worse lies ahead. A "perfect storm" of food shortages and water scarcity now threatens to unleash public unrest and conflict in the next 20 years, the government's chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, has warned.

In Britain, a global food shortage would drive up import costs and make food more expensive, just as the nation's farmers start to feel the impact of disrupted rainfall and rising temperatures caused by climate change. "If we don't address this, we can expect major destabilisation, an increase in rioting and potentially significant problems with international migration, as people move to avoid food and water shortages," he told a conference earlier this year.

The reliable availability of food – once taken for granted – has become a major cause for alarm among politicians and scientists. Next month several of Britain's research councils, together with the Food Standards Agency, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for International Development – will announce a taskforce that will channel the UK's efforts in feeding its own population and playing a full role in preventing starvation in other nations.

The problem is summed up by Professor Janet Allen, director of research at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). "We will have to grow more food on less land using less water and less fertiliser while producing fewer greenhouse gas emissions," she said.

No one said science was easy, of course. Nevertheless, the scale of the problem is striking. It is also unprecedented, says Professor Mike Bevan, acting director of the John Innes Centre in Norfolk. "We are going to have to produce as much food in the next 50 years as was produced over the past 5,000 years. Nothing less will do."

It is a staggering goal that highlights the depth of the food security crisis that Britain and the world face. Over the next 40 years Britain's population will rise from 60 to 75 million while the world's will leap from 6.8 to 9 billion. Feeding all these people will stretch human ingenuity to its limit. Crop yields will have to jump, a goal that will have to be achieved in the middle of global climatic disruption. At the same time, farmers will find many aids – in particular, chemical fertilisers – that they have come to rely on will no longer be available .

"People do not quite realise the scale of the issue," added Bevan. "This is one of the most serious problems that science has ever faced." In Britain the lives of hundreds of thousands of people will be threatened by food shortages. Across the globe, tens of millions – if not hundreds of millions – will be affected.

Consider the problems that affect just one crop: wheat. This is the most widely grown cereal in Britain. British farmers excel at its cultivation. Today yields in Britain average between 8 and 10 tonnes a hectare, some of the highest in the world. Yet only 50 years ago UK yields were only 4 or 5 tonnes a hectare.

It took a green revolution in the 1960s that involved the development of new crop varieties, greater use of agro-chemicals and changes in farming practices to double production by the 1980s. Now a second revolution of equivalent magnitude is urgently required, say food scientists.

"We can certainly do it, although it won't be easy," said Bevan. For a start, farmers will have to increase yields using greatly reduced amounts of agro-fertilisers because their manufacture is energy-intensive. Some 3% of the world's energy is used in the manufacture of fertilisers and in a post-Copenhagen world, dominated by renewable energy, such carbon consumption is likely to be prohibited. "What we need are major research programmes to create new crop yields that, in effect, make their own fertiliser and will also be disease-resistant and more resistant to droughts and rising temperatures," added Bevan.

In this country, one such programme dedicated to improving wheat varieties is scheduled to be launched next year as part of Britain's food security initiative. This will exploit cutting-edge DNA technology to speed up wheat breeding projects to develop new drought-resistant, low-fertiliser strains, though the programme will stop short of the creation of genetically modified strains. "The wheat we use today is a hybrid, created by ancient farmers 10,000 years ago, from three different species of wild grass," said Bevan. "We are going back to these first types of grass and from varieties of these create fresh hybrids."

The importance of creating new crop varieties is also demonstrated by another threat to food production, the appearance of new crop diseases. For example, in 1999 a new variety of the wheat disease – black stem rust – appeared in Uganda. Since then, Ug99 has spread across Africa and Asia, destroying harvests and threatening the lives of millions. However, scientists have recently discovered a strain of wheat, known as Sharon grass, that is resistant to Ug99, raising hopes that the outbreak could be contained. "Creating ranges of new crop varieties is going to be vital in feeding the world," said Allen.

The farmers of tomorrow will not only have to improve yields using less fertiliser, they will also have to be increasingly wary of new agricultural pests and diseases as global temperatures have risen and more and more devastating varieties of viruses and fungi have spread around the globe. Britain will not be immune.

A classic example is provided by bluetongue disease, a virus that affects cattle, sheep, deer and goats and is spread by midges. Sheep are especially vulnerable and one in three can die if infected. The disease was unknown in north-west Europe until 2006, when an outbreak occurred in Holland and spread to nearby countries. Then, in 2007, it spread to Britain. Only swift action by agricultural authorities halted its advance. In future this will be harder to achieve.

"The problem is that the life cycles of diseases such as bluetongue speed up as temperatures go up," said Dr Chris Oura, of the Institute for Animal Health in Newbury. "The warmer it gets, the more infective they become." Bluetongue could soon return. More importantly, it is only one of many other exotic, potentially devastating livestock ailments that could be spread by insects.

"Bluetongue appeared out of the blue. And that could happen again. Other diseases like epizootic haemorrhagic disease (EHD) and African horse sickness are also spread by midges and threaten Europe and Britain," added Oura.

However, it is not just global warming that is increasing the risk of deadly new epidemics of livestock disease. Globalisation itself threatens to bring infestation in its wake. An important, and very worrying, example is provided by African swine fever virus, said Oura. "As its names suggests, it infects pigs. There is no cure and no vaccine and it kills every animal it infects. Recently the disease emerged from Mozambique and has spread along shipping routes around the coast of Africa and into central Asia. Should it appear in Britain, it would be devastating. And were it to strike in China, where there is a massive consumption of pork, it would be a disaster. Apart from the hardship there, pork prices around the world would soar." British pig farmers might do well, but the public would face a major jump in the price of a basic commodity.

The key to preventing such a scenario is science, said Oura. "We had the right vaccine to deal with the strain of bluetongue that hit Britain. We now need to develop vaccines that will halt diseases like EHD or African swine fever and contain them long before they ever hit our shores." This work is another key priority for researchers.

Changes are not confined to exotic foreign viruses. Many of the pests that have been part of the British agricultural scene for centuries are also likely to gain new leases of life as climate change takes a grip on the country. A perfect example is provided by the aphid. "Aphids are one of the country's main agricultural pests and they inflict about £100m of damage to cereal crops a year," said Richard Harrington, of the Rothamsted agricultural research centre. "But as the weather gets warmer and warmer, aphids are now arriving in fields far earlier than they used to do, and that is bad news. Crops in early spring are younger and more susceptible both to the damage inflicted by the aphid itself and also by the viruses they carry. It's a double whammy and it is leading to increases in crop loss – unless we find new ways to tackle aphid infestation."

CONTINUED ON newsgdn3

news20091213gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Science > Food science]
Why Britain faces a bleak future of food shortages
Britain faces a 'perfect storm' of water shortage and lack of food, says the government's chief scientist, and climate change and crop and animal diseases will add to future woes. Science is now striving to find solutions
Robin McKie
The Observer, Sunday 13 December 2009 Article history

CONTINUED FROM newsgdn2

One answer is to use increased amounts of pesticides. However, this solution is limited by the spread of pesticide-resistance and by the EU's increased antipathy to their use because of potentially toxic side-effects. "It is quite clear that we need to take a more sustainable route to pest control," added Harrington.

One ingenious solution involves planting nettles around wheat fields. Parasitic wasps arrive to feed off the aphids that are found in nettles. Then, as the neighbouring wheat grows and aphid infestations arrive, there is a ready supply of wasp predators to deal with them.

"About 40% of crops in Britain are vulnerable to destruction by weeds, fungi and insects," added Dr Tom Hooper, another Rothamsted researcher. "We have got to find sustainable ways to prevent that from happening if we want to maintain and increase food production in future."

Of course, some answers to the threat of the forthcoming perfect storm and the threat to our food security involve political and economic solutions as well. The end of cheap supermarket deals, restraints on water use and the need to change farming practice have all been touted. In the case of farming practices, economists argue that small farms are too inefficient and should be incorporated into larger outfits, for example. Owners of small hill farms oppose the idea, however.

Economic or political changes will certainly be needed if Britain is to face the challenge ahead. However, it is now accepted that science will play the principal role in Britain's battle to ensure the nation can rely on food security in the future. Whether it has the funds to do so remains uncertain. A total of £600m was cut from the nation's science funding last week. Scarcely an auspicious start to our battle to survive the perfect storm.

BBSRC: www.foodsecurity.ac.uk


[Environment > Carbon emissions]
Government spends nearly £3m on UK flights for civil servantsAnswer to parliamentary questions reveal more than 6,500 flights made around UK by government staff last year
Allegra Stratton, political correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 December 2009 11.23 GMT Article history

The government spent nearly £3m flying civil servants to meetings and events within the UK last year, according to ministerial answers revealed to parliament.

The figures come as high-level negotiations at the UN's climate change talks in Copenhagen are due to start and just days after a report by the respected Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recommended heavy taxes on airline passengers and a ban on regional airport expansion to curb the high levels of British air travel.

Sixteen of 21 government departments responded to Hughes's parliamentary questions. Between them they spent £2,947,437 on domestic flights. Those that answered said their civil servants made a total of 6,503 return flights.

The worst offender was the Home Office. Though it could not provide the numbers of flights, owing to "disproportionate costs", it spent £1.69m on air travel in the last year, £50,000 more than the year before.

The CCC, which was set up to independently advise the government on how to meet its legally binding emissions reduction targets, warned that the British flying boom was unsustainable. But there are few signs in the answers to parliamentary questions tabled by Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes, that the government is leading by example. There is also no mention in the ministerial code of conduct which advises on ministerial behaviour regarding air travel or the use of video conferencing as an alternative.

All departments said their use of air travel within the British Isles was guided by the civil service code of management, which urges consideration of public money and time, but not carbon emissions.

"For ministers and civil servants to spend so much time flying around England, Scotland and Wales demonstrates this government's recklessness with our money and our environment," said Hughes. "The choices that ministers make have a big impact on the environment and they should be taking a lead by making responsible travel arrangements. It is time for the Labour government to walk the walk when it comes to fighting the climate crisis."

A Home Office spokesman said the department's position at the top of the table was due to it being one of the largest in Whitehall and its increased handling of migration and international terrorism issues. "The UK Border Agency and Identity and Passport Service are geographically widespread organisations, with offices throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland," the spokesman said.

"The Home Office always seeks the best value for money in terms of staff travel arrangements and domestic air travel is often the most cost-effective over long distances in the UK, and cheaper than travel by rail. Air travel over longer distances also offers significant advantages over rail travel in terms of saving staff time.

"The reality of controlling all ports of entry into and out of the UK has a large part to do with why we are much higher than other government departments, which is reflected in the statement."

Second highest was the Ministry of Justice, which spent £478,091 on 2,262 flights. In the most expansive response to the parliamentary question, the justice secretary, Jack Straw, said: "The ministry's policy is that air travel should only be used where there is a cost advantage from savings of subsistence and official time, or if urgency justifies the additional cost."

The departments of health and business came third and fourth in the list respectively. The Department of Health said that 1,316 return flights within the UK had cost £239,130. What was then the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr) made 1,035 flights at a cost of £185,446.

A spokesman for Berr said trade agreements, trade promotion, regional economic development and energy policy made travel necessary within the UK. "Carrying out that role requires face-to-face contact with potential customers and investors. These sort of relationships need personal contact and often need developing over a period of time – that is the nature of developing business opportunities overseas for UK companies and for developing interest in the UK to potential investors."

He said all air travel undertaken by ministers and officials was offset. "The department calculates the cost of any damage done to the environment and invests that money into environmental improvement projects."

Civil service flights broken down by government department

Foreign and Commonwealth Office: 507 flights; cost £59,933
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: 368 flights; £59,556
Justice: 2262 flights, £478,091
Children, Schools and Families: 335 flights; £70,356
Culture, Media and Sport: 65 flights; £12,077
Home Office: (said that breaking down number of flights would involve "disproportionate costs"); £1.67m
Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform: 1,035 flights; £185,446
Innovation, Universities and Skills: 152 flights; £31,331
Health: 1,316 flights; £239,130
Attorney General: 73 flights; £16,932
Serious Fraud Office: 77 flights; £14,812
National Fraud Authority: 2 flights; £749
Revenue and Customs prosecutions Office: 19 flights; £3,052
Women and Equality: 44 flights; £5,848
Wales: 17 flights; £2,516
Scotland: 231 flights; £67,608
International Development: Refused
Cabinet Office: Refused
Transport: Refused
Communities and Local Government: Refused
Treasury: Awaiting answer

news20091213gdn4

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen climate protesters rally
Thousands of people march as part of a global protest to demand that governments agree a new climate deal
Bibi van der Zee Copenhagen, David Batty and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 12 December 2009 16.58 GMT Article history

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Copenhagen today as part of a global protest to demand governments across the world agree a binding new global deal to tackle climate change.

The march and rally in the Danish capital, the world's largest ever protest about global warming, comes at the halfway point of the United Nations' climate summit in the city.

"Let's dance, sing and be happy, because power is in your hands," Nnimmo Bassey, director of Friends of the Earth International told the crowd, as he kicked off the first part of the march, the Flood, from Halmtorvet.

Official police estimates put the number of protesters at 25,000, but organisers said as many as 100,000 had joined the march from central Copenhagen, waving banners that read "Nature doesn't compromise" and "Climate Justice Now".

Although most of the march has been peaceful, a small group threw bricks at police early on. So far there have been 21 arrests, and police are currrently kettling about 200-300 marchers in Amagerbrogade.

Police spokesman Rasmus Bernt Skovsgaard said: "There was some cobblestone-throwing and at the same time people were putting on masks. We decided to go for preventive detentions to give the peaceful demonstration the possibility to move on."

To mark the Global Day of Action on climate change, campaigners were also staging events around the world, including a four-minute "flashdance" with lights outside the Houses of Parliament, with volunteers across London collecting messages from citizens to deliver to MPs.

Phil Thornhill, from the Campaign against Climate Change in the UK, said on behalf of the Global Climate Campaign: "Every year of inaction sees us slide closer to the point where a tragedy of unprecedented scale becomes irreversible.

"As politicians fail to find the collective will to overcome inertia, international rivalries, and the all-pervasive power of vested interests, ordinary people all around the world will be demanding decisive action now, not later when the fate of billions could be already have been sealed and the catastrophe will have become unstoppable."

Among the protesters in Coppenhagen were the actor Helen Baxendale, model Helena Christensen and former Irish president and UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson.

Baxendale said thousands of people from all over the world were trying to encourage their leaders to take "firm and fair action" on climate change.

She told Sky News it was "inspiring", adding: "It's fantastic to join with so many other people from all over the world.

"I think it's also important that people come and make their voices heard as well. I think, in the end, that's what will make real, positive change."

Christensen added: "They will be very bad politicians if they do not hear us by now."

Environment ministers started arriving in the city today for informal talks before world leaders join the summit late next week.

Initial reaction to the negotiating text submitted yesterday underscored the split between the US-led wealthy countries and developing countries still struggling to catch up with the modern world.

The tightly focused document was meant to lay out the main themes for environment ministers to wrestle with as they prepare for a summit of around 110 heads of state and government at the end of next week.

Wealthy countries, including the US, Japan and Norway, as well as the European Union, criticised a draft agreement for not making stronger demands on developing countries underscoring the difficulties in reaching a deal.

US delegate Jonathan Pershing said the draft failed to address the issue of carbon emissions by emerging economies.

"The current draft didn't work in terms of where it is headed," he said.

But European delegates also criticised the US, insisting it could make greater commitments to push the talks forward. Both the US and China should be legally bound to keep whatever promises they make, said the Swedish environment minister, Anders Carlgren.

China has made voluntary commitments to rein in its carbon emissions but doesn't want to be bound by international law to do so. Its position is that the US and other rich countries have a historical responsibility to cut emissions and any climate deal in Copenhagen should take into account a country's level of development.