news20091216gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Connie Hedegaard resigns as president of Copenhagen climate summit
Gordon Brown and Danish and Australian prime ministers discussed last-minute change overnight to 'ramp up' talks
Allegra Stratton and John Vidal in Copenhagen and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009 12.46 GMT Article history

The president of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Connie Hedegaard, resigned this morning. She is to be replaced by the Danish premier.

"With so many heads of state and government having arrived it's appropriate that the prime minister of Denmark presides," Hedegaard told the 192-nation meeting. "However, the prime minister has appointed me as his special representative and I will thus continue to negotiate the ... outcome with my colleagues," she said.

Rumours circulating in the first week of the 14-day conference suggested that Hedegaard was unhappy with the contents of the so-called "Danish text" a secret negotiating text prepared by rich countries and leaked to the Guardian. It was rumoured that the prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, would take over to push through that text in the final stages of negotiations.

Hedegaard, who is the Danish climate and energy minister, said the move was merely procedural, and that it was more appropriate for Rasmussen to preside over the final stages of the talks when over 100 heads of state and government will be present. Separately, Hedegaard has been criticised by African nations for favouring rich nations in the negotiations.

"Approximately 115 heads of state and government have decided to participate in COP15 at summit level to close a deal in Copenhagen. This historical will to address the climate challenge is the strongest possible driver for a global agreement," said Rasmussen. "The final negotiations will be tense and strenuous. I have therefore asked minister Connie Hedegaard to continue to negotiate the Copenhagen outcome with her colleagues."

The developments followed a dramatic night during which ministerial negotiations carried on till 5am. US diplomats inserted brackets at numerous places in the negotiating text for the main strand of the negotiations that includes all countries - the long term action plan. This effectively blocked discussions on this negotiating track.

Some observers believe the US wanted to counter moves by developing countries to add their concerns to the text, effectively ensuring that discussions would have to be continued next year.

Another interpretation of the move was that it was a clever way to allow President Obama to come to the negotiations on Friday to "save the talks" by putting back in much of what had been removed.

"[Today's developments] shows that you cannot have a political statement coming out of the two draft texts that have been presented. Any new draft now will come from outside," said one diplomat. "All we can expect now is a bland political statement, and the possibility of the two draft texts going forward to be negotiated next year," said another.

A spokesperson for the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, said that Hedegaard stepping down was not a surprise and had always been planned. He confirmed that Brown, Rasmussen and the Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, had discussed the resignation during a three-hour meeting last night. The three had decided that Rasmussen taking over was the right thing to do to "ramp up" the urgency of the talks for the final three days.

A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: "This is a planned procedural handover to the Danish prime minister ahead at the start of the high level segment. Prime minister Rasmussen has been closely engaged in this process talking to fellow leaders over the past few months, and he will now be taking the negotiations through to the end game. Connie will remain as prime minister Rasmussen's special representative."


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Danish police arrest 230 activists as world leaders arrive in Copenhagen
Security measures stepped up around city as thousands of demonstrators set off for mass invasion of Bella centre
Bibi van der Zee and Jonathan Watts in Copenhagen and Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009 10.08 GMT Article history

Danish police today arrested 230 people at various points around Copenhagen, where world leaders and officials are meeting for UN climate talks.

The news came as thousands of protesters set out in Copenhagen this morning in a bid to take over the conference centre where the talks are taking place. The organisers of the mass "Reclaim Power" march, the Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now! (CJN) networks of campaigners, said they hope to enter the Bella centre today, where NGOs and activist groups were struggling to gain entry this morning, to hold a "people's assembly" in protest at the direction the talks are taking.

In the bitter cold outside the Bella centre where the conference is being held, a group of around 60 people including indigenous groups, mainstream environment groups and journalist and activist Naomi Klein were protesting about NGOs being excluded from the conference centre. They had been met by police who warned that they may be arrested, although there has not been any violence. Klein said of the handling of the protests that, "Denmark is losing its reputation for being a good world citizen."

It is not yet clear what the 150 arrests this morning were for or whether they are part of the Reclaim Power event. Around 4,000 people have set off as part of a "blue bloc", one of several groups that are converging on the summit from different directions. The groups marching on the centre hope to be joined by more than a thousand delegates from inside the centre in a show of solidarity, but even mainstream groups such as Friends of the Earth were barred from entering the conference centre this morning.

Activist Alexander Lassithiotakis said, "I hope that lots of NGOs are going to come out and join us because this summit is just letting Africa die. I hope it will be lovely, and big and lots of people will come to join us and show solidarity. But I'm a bit anxious too, I feel as if we could get arrested just walking down the road."

Another marcher, Mette Hermensen, 27, from Copenhagen, said: "Hopefully it will be a massive peaceful demonstration. I hope the excluded NGOs will participate, and show the people inside that this is a broad movement."

Unverified reports suggest three people have already been arrested this morning at Tårnby station folllowing yesterday's arrest by plain clothes policeman of high-profile activist Tadzio Mueller - a spokesman and organiser for today's event. The police are on high alert for today's protest, with officers out in large numbers with police dogs, rows of police vans along the side of the march route and police helicopters overhead. Officers are also stopping and searching people, including protestors taking part in the Reclaim Power event.

The activists have pledged to both congregate outside the centre and also attempt to breach the building. At a CJN meeting last night a spokesperson said: "There is definitely going to be an attempt to get in. We must not be intimidated by the police. We must be more numerous than they were expecting." The organisers are hoping their numbers will be swelled by NGO delegates who are having their accredited head-count reduced to make space for world leaders who are arriving with their entourages. Reports this morning suggest 300 people inside the centre, including NGO delegates and scientists, have come out to join the protest.

Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South, one of the large social movements taking part in the march, said: "We hope to make people understand that there is great urgency here that the leaders do what they must, but that if they don't people will continue to struggle to change the system. Many of us have come to the conclusion that nothing will come from these talks. But the struggle will not stop here."

There is also growing criticism at the way Danish police have handled demonstrations in Copenhagen, including arrests of over a thousand people at the weekend and the use of tear gas in Christiana this week. At a meeting last night organised by a coalition that included the Danish socialist party Unity List and Danish NGO ATTAC there were calls for a demo to protest against the treatment of the demonstrators. While other Danish political parties have supported the policing, Unity List has been outspoken in its criticism.

news20091216gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
UK must invest in green technologies or lose out to other countries, MPs warn
Britain's transformation to a low-carbon society could be delayed by a lack of people trained in the right skills, says report
Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009 11.55 GMT Article history

Britain's transformation to a low-carbon society will be delayed by a lack of people trained in the right skills unless the government significantly increases its investment in the sector, a group of MPs have warned. They said that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created if the government doubled its funding of green technologies, making the UK a world leader in a market worth £3tr worldwide.

"The government has missed a big opportunity to kick-start a green industrial revolution with its £3bn fiscal stimulus. Germany, the US, Japan and China have invested billions in their low-carbon industries," said Tim Yeo MP, chair of the House of Commons environmental audit committee (EAC).

In the US, the government has spent about £50bn to create half a million new green jobs, while Germany, Japan and Korea have also announced major plans to grow their domestic environmental sectors. China's economic stimulus plan includes £142bn for environmental measures.

"Only one sixth of the UK's government's fiscal stimulus package was devoted to green industry," said Yeo. "At the same time as cutting carbon emissions we could be boosting employment and putting UK firms at the forefront of the huge global market for green technologies."

The EAC's report on green jobs and skills, published today, identified about £405m for low-carbon industries and advanced green manufacturing in the 2009 budget. But members of the committee said the size of funding was nowhere near enough to allow the UK to compete internationally in this sector. "It could have been double that if you have regard to what's happening in other countries," said Yeo. "£1bn wouldn't have been too much – it would have been justified and quite effective as well."

The report identified a shortage of skilled people available for environmental firms, which could prevent the government from delivering the promises in its low-carbon transition plan, published earlier this year.

Yeo said there were three areas where the government should encourage green industries and create more jobs. As well as focusing more of the economic stimulus on the green sector, the MPs suggested launching a street-by-street programme of energy-saving measures for households.

"Most of the work is labour-intensive and involves pretty rapid paybacks – improving the insulation in older buildings often produces a payback much quicker than five years," said the report. David Cameron has said a Conservative government would make councils go "house-to-house, street-to-street" to identify areas most in need of energy-efficiency improvements.

The committee said that increasing the speed and scale of the programme to insulate UK homes could kick-start a market worth up to £6.5bn a year.

Ministers must also give industry long-term stability through government policy, in order to encourage companies to invest in training and skills for new green jobs. "The potential for Britain to display its skills [in low-carbon industries] is considerable but it doesn't look as though the government is leading in that direction," said Yeo.

He added that moving quickly would put the UK at the forefront of the world's green economy: "The global need is very urgent indeed, so those countries which do invest now will have significant first mover advantage - in five years' time, the opportunity will have gone. London has 87% of the international emissions trading taking place at the moment. That's a huge first-mover advantage and reflects our strength in financial services historically. The danger is we're going to cede a similar advantage to other countries in some of the other technologies."

Friends of the Earth's senior economics campaigner, Ed Matthew, said the government had to urgently steer the country to a low-carbon economy. "Developing Britain's huge renewable energy potential and cutting energy waste could make this country a world leader in creating a safe and prosperous future. The [EAC] rightly highlights the importance of a 'street-by-street' energy saving programme – this has massive potential to create new jobs, cut fuel bills, tackle fuel poverty and slash emissions."

He added: "But far bolder action is needed to raise finance to make the low-carbon transition. Ministers must set up a green investment bank to give the UK's low carbon sector the turbo boost it so desperately needs."


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Boris Johnson tells Copenhagen delegates to stop being gloomy
The London mayor urges a gathering of municipal leaders to advocate green consumerism
Jonathan Watts in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 15.38 GMT Article history

The UN climate summit in Copenhagen may be struggling to break an impasse while the world warms, but Boris Johnson delivered a simple message today to delegates at Copenhagen: cheer up.

The London mayor told a gathering of municipal leaders that misery, restraint and self-flagellation would only make matters worse.

"We have to stop being so unremittingly negative and gloomy. We need to warn people and be realistic about the peril we face. But we must also mobilise people's natural desire to better themselves and get on with their lives," he said. "What I want to advocate is not just a reduction in consumption, but a virtuous pattern of green consumerism. I want to appeal to people's naked financial self-interest."

Johnson said London will reduce emissions by promoting clean transport and encouraging people to insulate their homes.

He said the city is adding 1,000 electric vehicles to its fleet of non-emergency vehicles and aiming to have 100,000 electric vehicles on the streets within the next few years. By 2015, a network of 22,500 electric charging points will be in place around the city.

"I'm a believer in electric vehicles," he said. "A golden era of clean, green electric motoring is upon us and London is well ahead of cities around the globe in preparing the right conditions for this," said the mayor.

He pointed to an electric Metropolitan police car on display in Copenhagen city centre. More of the vehicles – with a top speed of 130kph – will be in use by the 2012 Olympics. When Routemaster buses return to the city's streets, he said they will be low-carbon.

Johnson also said he wanted banks and individuals to get involved in a campaign to improve insulation and reduce heating bills.

"We would like to see some of the banks, which have not been popular across the planet recently, to come to the table and help us to securitise the debts that will inevitably be incurred by public bodies and individuals from these big upfront costs," he said.

Johnson has been criticised by campaigners for failing to back his green talk with action, and for backing the development of a new airport in the Thames estuary.

news20091216gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Forests]
Prince of Wales warns Copenhagen summit that planet is in crisis
Prince calls for trees to be at heart of deal, as revolutionary plan to save forest forests and reduce emissions hangs in balance
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 18.45 GMT Article history

The are on them and that "our planet has reached a point of crisis", leaving only seven years before "we lose the levers of control" on the climate.

The prince was addressing ministers at the formal opening of the high-level talks. "It is no understatement to say that, with your signatures, you can write our future," he told them.

And in an apparent reference to disagreements between rich and poor nations he said that all countries needed to work together — climate change was not resolvable "in terms of 'them and us'", he said.

The prince, who has long campaigned for the survival of rainforests, said that forest protection would be key to a successful deal. "It seems the quickest and most cost-effective way to buy time in the battle against catastrophic climate change is to find a way to make the trees worth more alive than dead," he said.

But even as he spoke, plans for a revolutionary agreement to end deforestation and pay poor countries to protect their forests were hanging in the balance after leaked papers showed that a new proposed text has removed many of the scheme's safeguards.

It emerged that the negotiating text leaked to NGOs late last night showed that the language meant to cut the approximately 20% of global greenhouse gases from deforestation in developing countries — the so-called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation scheme (Redd) — has now removed all targets for ending deforestation and significantly weakened other areas.

"Without targets, Redd becomes toothless," said Peg Putt of the Wilderness Society. "The so-called safeguards will be nothing but fancy window-dressing unless they are given legal force."

Forests protection is crucial to an ambitious deal at Copenhagen because it will not only save up to 20% of emissions which come from deforestation, but the forests provide a massive store of carbon against which countries can offset emissions at home.

In return, it was hoped that it could provide up to $40bn a year for some of the poorest countries in the world, including Congo DRC, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Gabon. In addition, countries which have already cut down their forests stand to benefit from money for reforestation.

Nobel peace prize-winning environmentalist Wangaari Maathai, whose efforts have resulted in more than 1bn trees being planted by individuals worldwide in the last few years, urged countries to set ambitious targets.

She told the Guardian: "We realise now that forests are much more important for services such as regulating the flow of water, climate medicine and food. We appeal to leaders to protect the forests." Targets for deforestation in the earlier text aimed to cut deforestation by 50% by 2020 and eliminate it by 2030. These targets have now been lost.

Start-up costs for Redd are estimated to be £13.6-22.7bn from 2010-15 to support preparatory activities, although some experts challenge those figures as far too low.

Forest groups reacted with clear disappointment. "It's hardly surprising that developing countries won't commit to global targets for deforestation when rich countries haven't yet provided the necessary financing for Redd or global targets for deep reductions of industrial emissions," said Nathaniel Dyer of Rainforest Foundation UK.

Of equal concern to forest-protection NGOs, language ensuring critical safeguards for biodiversity, forest conversion, indigenous rights, and monitoring has moved from operational text. Protection of natural forests does appear explicitly in the text for the first time, and a safeguard on conversion of natural forests to plantations has reappeared, but neither are mandated.

"Limiting safeguards to the preamble weakens the agreement and deprives it of any assurance of compliance," said Dr Rosalind Reeve of Global Witness.

"Global demand for forest commodities like illegal timber and palm oil is one of the leading causes of tropical deforestation around the world," said Andrea Johnson of Environmental Investigation Agency. "If we don't address the causes of the problem, how can we find a solution?"

Also missing from the negotiating text is any provision to protect and restore the world's peat soils, which account for 6% of all global C02 emissions. "Peat soils are a key part of many countries' plans to reduce their emissions, including large emitters like Indonesia," said Susanna Tol of Wetlands International.

"Currently, an acre of forest is cut down every second, depriving the world of critical carbon reservoirs and creating huge emissions bursts into the atmosphere," said Stephen Leonard of the Australian Orangutan Project. "A Redd deal without global deforestation targets or safeguards makes it much more likely that the orangutan and other critical species that rely on the forest will become extinct."

While text can still be changed, ministerial level actions will probably now be needed to reinsert targets and strengthen safeguard language. "Clearly, everyone agrees that the world's tropical forests need to be protected," said Bill Barclay of Rainforest Action Network. "But good intentions aren't enough, they have to be paired with action. Ministers must act to strengthen the Redd text if we have any hope of a Redd that will be effective in protecting tropical forests."

news20091216gdn4

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Final reckoning: What the leaders must do to thrash out a deal in Copenhagen
After eight long days at the Copenhagen summit, the talking is nearly over
Suzanne Goldenberg in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009 22.47 GMT Article history

It's up to the bosses now. Years of international gatherings – from Bali to Bangkok to Bonn. Nine raucous, angry and confusing days cooped up in the windowless halls of Copenhagen's biggest conference site. The protesters in polar bear suits. The countless appeals for action – and the forecasts of the life-altering consequences of global warming if world leaders fail to come to a firm deal. It all comes down to the next 36 hours.

As more than 115 world leaders descend on Copenhagen to make the crucial decisions, what can we expect? Nobody really knows.

By 6pm last night, negotiators had produced a text so dense and unwieldy that the Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, called in negotiators from the larger countries to help knock it into "laymen's terms for politicians". If they succeed, the main issues looming for leaders on Friday will be as follows.

Kyoto Protocol: Should it stay or go?
At the heart of the Kyoto protocol is the simple principle that the industrialised world bears the legal responsibility for global warming and that poor countries will suffer most of its consequences. But this vision has translated into a bitter divide between rich and poor countries. The industrialised world – led by Japan and the EU – wants to ditch Kyoto, arguing that the 1997 protocol does not reflect current realities because it ignores the now huge emissions from emerging economies such as China, India, Indonesia and Brazil. Also, the US never even signed Kyoto. But many African countries and other poorer countries are fighting hard to retain Kyoto, accusing the industrialised world of trying to escape their responsibilities.

Emissions cuts: How do they stack up?
Much of the work in getting commitments to cuts in greenhouse gas emissions was done before Copenhagen. Some have been impressive. Japan pledged a 25% cut in emissions. Brazil committed itself to a drastic reduction in deforestation. Other pledges, though significant gestures, did not go as far. China and India both signed up to a less polluting course of growth, but balked at putting a ceiling on emissions within the next few years. America satisfied a minimum requirement of coming to Copenhagen with a defined pledge to cut emissions, but it was a lowball offer. It was also conditional on getting climate change law through the Senate, which could be a struggle. There is expectation that the European Union could deepen its reductions to 30%, which would set off a chain reaction of increased offers. But while analysts say that the emissions cuts are more than they expected, they are still not enough to guarantee keep warming under the danger level of 2C.

Deadline for a treaty
The Copenhagen summit was originally supposed to be the deal to end all deals on global warming. But negotiators conceded this year that there was no chance of a legally binding deal. Instead, they wanted to use Copenhagen as a forum where world leaders could thrash out a "politically binding" agreement, leaving the details for lawyers to iron out later. But that two-step approach presents a new problem: if there is no treaty now, then when? The UN, Britain and others are pushing hard to set a six-month deadline, so as not to lose momentum. But the spectre of the moribund Doha round of trade talks haunts the minds of some.

Transparency
America has been pushing hard to establish an inspection regime to make sure developing countries deliver on their promises to reduce emissions and prevent deforestation. The issue is key because rapidly emerging countries such as China and Brazil are not required to cut emissions under the Kyoto agreement, but have agreed to do so anyway. The US pressure rose yesterday when John Kerry offered a stark choice: agree an inspection regime or risk the prospects of getting a crucial climate change law through the Senate.

Climate finance
Expect a last-minute flurry of cash. Developing countries – which did not cause global warming in the first place – have no incentive to sign a deal unless it helps them deal with its consequences. Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy and other leaders have been personally engaged in efforts to try to put together a financial package for African countries. But compared with the billions of pounds that will be needed to help developing countries move to clean energy technology and shield them from the worst ravages of climate change, so far there is only small change on offer. The industrialised countries are on track to give an immediate injection of cash – $10bn (£6.1bn) a year over three years from 2010. But coming up with a plan for more has so far drawn a blank. One plan from the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, sets out how developed countries could scale up their funding to $50bn by 2015 and $100bn by 2020. But other African countries have accused the Ethiopian leader of a sellout.

Deforestation
Between 15% and 20% of global warming pollution is caused by the razing of forests. The solution is to makes trees worth more alive than dead. That effort got a boost yesterday when Australia, France, Japan, Norway, Britain and America agreed to provide $3.5bn in immediate cash for forest preservation, with the promise of more later. It's the one bright spot.


[Environment > Sea level]
Study forecasts 9m sea-level rise if temperatures meet 2C threshold
Hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected as low low-lying coastal areas became inundated
Alok Jha
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009 18.05 GMT Article history

Global sea levels could rise by up to 9m in the next few hundred years, even if the world manages to stabilise average temperatures to 2C above pre-industrial levels, according to a new study.

In this scenario, hundreds of millions of people around the world would be affected as low low-lying coastal areas became inundated. New Orleans would be lost to the sea, much of southern Florida and Bangladesh and most of the Netherlands.

The 2C figure is significant because this is level of warming that is likely to be adopted as the threshold to be avoided by the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen – although small islands states and developing nations have argued that 1.5C would be a more appropriate target.

Nine metres of sea level rise is higher than anything predicted so far because the new study takes into account the potential that the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets start to melt as the Earth warms. This did not factor into the most recent assessment of the state of climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. It forecast a sea-level rise of up to 59cm by 2100, and between 4-6m in the next few hundred years, if average global temperatures stabilised around 2C.

"Everybody's known that the IPCC's last numbers were underestimates because they didn't include all the factors that can accelerate ice sheet melting," said Robert Kopp of Princeton University, who led the latest study. "If the future models are limited, you want to look at other approaches to get at the question of sea-level rise one approach is to turn to the past record of sea-level rise."

Kopp's team reconstructed the sea levels in the last interglacial period, around 125,000 years ago. At the time, polar temperatures were around 3-5C warmer and equatorial sea-surface temperatures were around 2.5-3.5C warmer than today. "So you look at things like coral reef terraces and how high they grew and, if you know something about the ecology of corals, you can say how high sea level was relative to the top of the coral reef. Or you look at old beaches that are now stranded above the sea-line, or you look at sediments that have textures that indicate they were deposited inter-tidally."

His results, published in the journal Nature, showed that sea levels around the world during the last interglacial were between 6.6m and 9m higher than today. "During this period when temperatures were 2-3C above pre-industrial levels, global sea level looks like it was very likely at least 6.6m higher than today, which implies significant melting of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets."

Kopp said the results could be used to infer what could happen to future sea levels over the next few hundred years, as a result of human-induced global warming. "The warming we're on track to do now is more than enough to commit us to last-interglacial levels of sea-level rise."

Kopp's work echoes recent research by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) suggesting that sea-levels could rise much higher than predicted by the IPCC by the end of the century. The study by SCAR suggested that sea levels could rise by up to 1.4m by 2100 if the Antarctic ice began to melt.

> The original headline on this piece incorrectly stated that the 9m estimate came from the IPCC. This has now been corrected.

news20091216gdn5

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen: Head of African bloc calls on poorer nations to compromise over climate funding
'Because we stand to lose more than others we have to be flexible,' warns the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 December 2009 17.51 GMT Article history

The head of the African group of nations at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen has proposed a finance deal where rich countries would pay for schemes to help poor states adapt to climate change and develop their economies using clean technology.

The proposal, from the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi, of $50bn (£44bn) a year for poor countries by 2015 and $100bn (£89bn) by 2020, is far less than many developing nations had been calling for, but is roughly in line with a proposal in June by the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, and an offer agreed by the EU in October.

Control over the funds would lie with the countries receiving the money. The G77 group of 130 countries, backed by the least developed countries and small island states, has long proposed that $400bn (£356bn) a year, or 1% of rich countries' GDP, would be the appropriate figure.

Meles also proposed that 50% of the fund created should be allocated to vulnerable and poor countries as well as "regions such as Africa and small island states".

In addition, he suggested that a group of high level financial experts investigate and report back within six months on possible "innovative" ways to raise the money. IMF special drawing rights, as proposed by the G77 and financier George Soros, a carbon tax, a possible "Tobin tax" on all financial transactions and even taxes on flights and shipping would all be assessed. His proposal is likely to have been largely agreed by rich countries following intense talks in the last 24 hours between Meles, Gordon Brown and other world leaders.

Meles admitted that many Africans would not be happy: "I know my proposal will disappoint those Africans who ... have asked for full compensation ... for damage done to our development prospects. My proposal dramatically scales back our expectation of the level of funding in return for more reliable funding and a seat at the table in the management of such fund."

"Because we stand to lose more than others we have to be flexible," he said, adding that there was a danger that no deal would be done. "That is not an idle threat but a solemn promise by Africa that we will strive for a fair and just deal," he said.

The influential economist, Lord Nicholas Stern, welcomed the proposal as "strong and reasonable" and "with the interests of developing countries at its heart". He said: "Of course, there will be those who say, understandably, that the plan should go further, but we are at a critical stage in the negotiations. This is a major step forward.

"The focus on new sources of finance provides confidence that new monies are genuinely new from the perspective of developing countries, and allows rich countries with very stressed public finances to explore new and internationally based sources of revenue."

Developing countries have yet to react officially to the proposal, but it was dismissed by some African MPs and many development groups.

Liz Gallagher, climate finance specialist at Cafod, said: "Such a turnaround on the level of finance being asked for by Africa points to the influence of some of the big powers behind the scenes.

"To slash the figure from $400bn to $100bn is a high-risk strategy – on the one hand Africa could be showing its willingness to compromise; but on the other it is placing its trust in the US and other developed countries to deliver. Whether this strategy is wise or naive remains to be seen."

Awudu Mbaya, president of the Pan-African Parliamentarians Network on Climate Change, said: "If Prime Minister Meles wants to sell out the lives and hopes of Africans for a pittance he is welcome to, but that is not Africa's position".

In a separate development, the UK's Department for International Development announced £50m of funding for green energy projects in developing countries. The "Scaling-up Renewable Energy Programme" is administered by the World Bank and will focus on deploying renewable energy in a small number of low-income countries. On Monday, the US pledged £31m to the same fund, which with the UK contribution now stands at over £153m.

news20091216nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 16 December 2009 | Nature 462, 833 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462833a
News
Royal Institution faces cash crisis
Overspend threatens to curtail science outreach activities.
Geoff Brumfiel

The Royal Institution of Great Britain, once home to historical figures such as Michael Faraday and Lawrence Bragg, has survived since 1799 and is the world's oldest scientific research organization. But it now faces a financial crisis that could bring its 200-year reign to an end.

The institute offers a rare blend of research and outreach, says Richard Catlow, who headed its Davy Faraday Research Laboratory from 1998 to 2007. In the United Kingdom, it is well known for its annual Christmas lectures, a series of high-profile lectures aimed at the general public that are televised nationwide.

{“Discussions about the role of the director of the Royal Institution are currently taking place.”}

But it depends on fundraising and membership for money, and has faced financial difficulties in the past. In 2004 the institution ran up a deficit of £400,000 (US$650,000), according to a 2005 financial statement filed with the Charities Commission, which regulates charities in England and Wales. In 2006, its director, Susan Greenfield, a University of Oxford neuroscientist known for her high media profile, began a £22-million refurbishment of its headquarters in central London, intended to make it a more attractive venue to hire out for conferences and public events. To help pay for the work, the research staff was cut from 60 to just 15, drawing criticism from some scientists (see Nature 453, 568–569; 2008).

The project also ran behind schedule and over budget. Fundraising was hampered by the recession, and the institution was forced to dip into its endowment and other 'restricted funds'. By September 2008, it had spent £3.2 million designated for other activities, including the Christmas lecture programme, according to the latest financial statement to the Charities Commission, dated 29 September 2009.

Last week, The Guardian newspaper reported that Greenfield was being asked to take a pay cut — and reduce the scope of her role — to help make up for the shortfall. The institution declined to comment to Nature, saying only that "discussions about the role of the director of the Royal Institution are currently taking place between the board of trustees and the current director".

Chris Rofe, a former administrator at London's Science Museum and the Millennium Dome, was brought in this April to oversee fundraising and financial accountability. The Charities Commission audit acknowledged that a plan was in place to see the organization through to late 2011 and gradually repay the money spent from restricted funds. But it added: "By their very nature, there is a significant uncertainty as to whether these projections will be achieved."


[naturenews]
Published online 15 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1145
News: Q&A
From climate news to classroom views
New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin reveals his thoughts on science journalism and Copenhagen.
Daniel Cressey

{{Climate journalist Andrew Revkin will take up a position at Pace University in New York.}
F. M. BROWN/GETTY}

Award-winning journalist Andrew 'Andy' Revkin has arguably been the world's leading correspondent on climate change for more than a decade. His coverage for the New York Times and its Dot Earth blog is seen as essential reading for those in the field. He recently announced a change of career, and will depart the newspaper to go to Pace University's Pace Academy for Applied Environmental Studies in White Plains, New York (although Revkin's blog, Dot Earth, will continue in some form).

Revkin took time out from covering the ongoing Copenhagen climate meeting to talk to Nature.

Why have you decided to leave the New York Times and move into academia?

You have a finite professional life and I just felt there were things that I had put on the sidelines that I wanted to focus on. A vital part of what I want to try to do [at Pace University] is to foster a new generation of people with an appreciation of how science works and how it relates to their decisions in life. I can only do so much on that as a journalist.

The course I want to create is not designed for environmental-studies majors or biology majors — it's a course for generalists. Ideally, I want it to be for someone going into the arts, economics, business or psychology, to give them a grounding in global change and global risk, so that they can shape whatever career they pursue with some little part of that in mind.

What do you think the future holds for science journalism?

Oh boy, I don't know. I don't think that there will necessarily be what we now call 'journalists'. Increasingly, there will be people more in academic settings … who can serve as the guides to particular issues, not necessarily as what we call journalists, but as communicators.

{{“I don't think that there will necessarily be what we now call 'journalists'.”}
Andrew Revkin
New York Times}

The lines between what we call 'communication' and 'journalism' are blurring, and the role of journalism is definitely shrinking — but the role of other enterprises is expanding and I don't think anyone really knows where that will place us. I think that there will still be critical enquiry on important issues.

Does the decline of newspapers matter?

It matters, it does matter. The thing that's going away — the front page of a newspaper or the nightly newscast — was the equivalent of the town plaza. It was the place giving us all a common framing of what we think we know and a blog is a very specialised thing, it's a little compartment that people go to because they know the issue already.

There is a potential to lose that sort of wider conversation about stuff if we all end up just reading blogs on things we already care about.

How has the debate over climate change developed over the years?

It's gotten more polarized and heated. I don't think the overall architecture of what people think about global warming has changed, as most people still don't think about it at all. If you ask them the specific question: 'Are you worried about climate change?', then most people would say yes. But if you open the survey by asking what they worry about, most people would say anything but climate change. It would be the last thing on their list.

What are your thoughts on the leaked climate e-mails — dubbed 'Climategate' — from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK?

When something like that happens, it gives ammunition to people who are already angry, those who are trying to get action on greenhouse gases and those who are utterly convinced or trying to convince people it's a hoax.

What did you think of the Climategate e-mail that allegedly featured one scientist saying you were "not as predictable as we'd like"?

It was great. I loved seeing that. I'm not out here to be a messenger for anybody. I'm out here to try as hard as I can — amid a lot of hype and disinformation and complexity — to clarify for readers the things we know, don't know, can learn, and what's basically unknowable on meaningful timescales — and where that leaves society in terms of personal and policy choices.

Do you think that there will be an agreement at Copenhagen and do you have faith in our ability to combat climate change?

I'm glad you made that into two questions because I absolutely believe there will be an agreement and I absolutely think it will be very debatable whether the atmosphere will notice it anytime soon.

[The agreement] will be incremental because the leaders have already said that there isn't going to be a legally binding final instrument, and that leaves a lot of flexibility. I've tried on the blog and in some articles to get at the underpinnings of the problem, which are that the world does not have the energy sources it needs to have a smooth ride to a population of roughly nine billion people.

Is the media to blame for the current inaction on climate change?

To some extent, but I think it's been overplayed. Everyone from Al Gore onwards has blamed the press for this whole business about balance getting in the way of what we actually understand. That's a problem that the media have fallen into, and it's worse than ever because of the limits on time and space.

But in the past four or five years, I've really dived into the social sciences related to this and it's very clear that as a species, we're not well set up to absorb this message. You could write perfect stories and have them all on the front page every day, but as long as it's not affecting people's lives they're not going to change their ways. That's the sociological reality.

news20091216nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 15 December 2009 | Nature 462, 834-835 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462834a
News
Satellites beam in biomass estimates
Additional detail could help bring woodland into a future climate treaty.
Jeff Tollefson

Whatever agreement emerges from the climate meeting in Copenhagen, many expect that it will include a mechanism allowing rich nations to offset their emissions by paying poorer countries to protect their forests — and the carbon they contain. But just how much carbon is at stake? Researchers at the meeting have given their best answer yet: the first satellite-based estimates of the biomass contained in the world's tropical forests.

Current biomass estimates for the tropics are based on data gathered by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and their quality varies greatly from country to country. As a result, baseline figures for biomass are some of the biggest uncertainties in calculating emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, recently estimated to be around 15% of global carbon emissions (G. R. van der Werf et al. Nature Geosci. 2, 737–738; 2009).

The latest assessments, presented at Copenhagen, harness data from multiple satellites as well as thousands of ground plots, and should help governments and other scientists to estimate how much carbon is locked within trees, vegetation and soils on a given patch of land — rather than relying on rough averages that are calculated across a forest.

Sassan Saatchi, an environmental scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, worked on one study with researchers at the carbon consulting firm Winrock International in Arlington, Virginia. He says that their preliminary calculations (see map) accord well with previous estimates. South America comes in with about 145 gigatonnes of carbon in vegetation and soils, about 26% higher than what has been reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The figures for Africa (51 gigatonnes) and south Asia (46 gigatonnes) are about the same as the IPCC figures.

A question of scale

But Saatchi says that the study provides additional information about biomass levels at regional and national levels. "You cannot really nail down this problem unless you have the distribution," he says. "You need to know how biomass is distributed and how it's changing over time, almost everywhere, with some resolution and accuracy."

Funded in part by the World Bank, the work provides a snapshot at 1-kilometre resolution of tropical forests as they were in 2000, when most of the satellite data were collected, as well as more recent deforestation trends.

Also at Copenhagen, researchers at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts presented another pan-tropical biomass assessment, which had a resolution of 500 metres. Like the Winrock study, it includes spectral data from NASA satellites as well as laser measurements of forest canopy height from an instrument on NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) that was designed to study polar ice caps. The two teams have yet to compare results.

Richard Houghton, a biomass expert at Woods Hole, says that it is good news that multiple teams are tackling the big-picture question of tropical forest biomass. "We need a couple of independent estimates just to see how well they match," he says. "Anybody can make a map. If they differ, at least it identifies the areas that need further analysis."

The next step, says Alexander Lotsch, a geographer at the World Bank in Washington DC, is to produce better estimates for carbon emissions from deforestation. He adds that Saatchi's research is still a "work in progress".

Satellites can reliably track deforestation and, increasingly, small-scale logging. In Copenhagen, Greg Asner of the Carnegie Institution of Science in Stanford, California, and Google.org unveiled an online tool that allows tropical countries, beginning in South America, to map deforestation using an automated system to analyse satellite imagery. Asner has also developed a system for assessing biomass at finer resolution, which will be necessary if forests are going to be linked to international carbon markets.

The new pan-tropical biomass maps from Saatchi and Woods Hole won't accomplish that goal, but they can provide scientists and policy-makers with a better understanding of carbon trends. For example, using a similar technique to Saatchi, Asner has found that deforestation in Brazil is moving into higher biomass areas in the interior of the forest. That suggests that emissions will probably rise over time on a per-hectare basis, offsetting some of the reductions in deforestation that Brazil aims to achieve in the coming decade (see Nature doi:10.1038/news.2009.752; 2009).


[naturenews]
Published online 15 December 2009 | Nature 462, 835 (2009) | doi:10.1038/462835a
News
Hope for Japan's key projects
Science council recommends funding for research threatened by budget cuts.
David Cyranoski

{{Scientists are hoping that Japan’s prime minister Yukio Hatoyama will avert proposed funding cuts.}
S. Kambayashi/AP}

When Japan's government changed hands in September for the first time in five decades, many Japanese people hoped that the newly powerful Democratic Party of Japan would revitalize their country. But the new government has since sent scientists on an emotional rollercoaster. In recent weeks, two cabinet-level bodies, both chaired by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, have recommended drastically different financial futures for major scientific projects.

One set of proposals, from the Government Revitalization Unit (GRU) that was set up in September to trim bureaucratic fat, recommends deep cuts for many key projects. These include a proposed next-generation supercomputer, the SPring-8 synchrotron in Harima, and Earth-science research. Scientists protested against those cuts (see Nature 462, 557; 2009). But last week came news of a separate recommendation from the Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP), Japan's highest science-policy-making body, proposing continued support for those projects and many others.

For instance, the SPring-8 synchrotron and the Global Center of Excellence programmes — meant to strengthen doctoral research programmes — had each been headed for cuts of one-third or more, but the CSTP says they should be "prioritized and given the necessary resources". The next-generation supercomputer, which could have faced outright termination, should also be supported, it says.

In Japan, where government decisions are usually made in bureaucratic back rooms and handed out as a harmonious consensus, the apparent contradiction is baffling researchers. "The decision-making process is unclear," says Tadashi Watanabe, project leader for the supercomputer. "It is very unsettling."

Final budget decisions will be made later this month, but the prime minister has called the CSTP proposals "valuable opinions", and said that he would "work to ensure they were reflected in the final budget". Many think Hatoyama could be leaning towards accepting the CSTP's recommendations, perhaps because of the outcry over the proposed cuts. "It's too early to tell, but you can safely say that the top leadership did recognize the problem," says Atsushi Sunami, a science-policy expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

The GRU was earlier criticized by scientists for recommending cuts without obtaining sufficient external input; projects were usually explained to the decision-making committee in a one-hour session by a bureaucrat. According to the Japanese media last week, the GRU plans to reopen debate on the supercomputer project in a public forum that will involve many scientists.

For researchers, the near demise of beloved projects has been a wake-up call to the need to justify them to the public as well as to bureaucrats and external evaluators. Last week, leaders of the supercomputer project posted on their website a list of frequently asked questions on the project's significance, including: "What is great about the supercomputer?"

Watanabe says the team doesn't yet have a long-term strategy for engaging the public, but he wants to emphasize that the supercomputer would have a major role in Japan's main research fields, including nanoscience, life science and environmental science. "We have to get that point across," he says.

Sunami agrees that scientists in Japan can't take public support for granted. "Even if the budget for the supercomputer and SPring-8 are saved at a smaller scale," he says, "they have to engage with the public more."

news20091216nn3

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 15 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1142
News
Arctic trees will make things warmer
Vegetation feedback effect amplifies climatic changes.
Alexandra Witze

{{Warming of the Arctic could speed up if more trees and shrubs grow there.}
J. Holmgren/ National Science Foundation}

Chalk up another piece of dire news for the Arctic in a globally warmed future. Researchers have identified a previously unknown climate feedback effect suggesting that, as vegetation creeps northward, it will accelerate warming trends already in place.

Higher surface temperatures in recent decades are already making it easier for trees to grow farther north. But "when the vegetation moves in, there will be an amplification of the warming", says Inez Fung, an atmospheric physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. She presented the results of her team's study on 14 December at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California.

Fung's team ran a computer model that simulated trees moving into a swathe of bare land — a region more than twice the size of Alaska — at latitudes north of 60 degrees. Because vegetation is darker than bare land, it has lower albedo or reflectiveness so absorbs more of the Sun's energy and contributes to warming at the surface. It's a similar effect, says Fung, to that seen when sea ice melts and exposes darker surface water, thus accelerating the melting effect there.

Bring me a shrubbery

Average temperatures in the Arctic are already rising roughly twice as fast as those in the rest of the world. The team's calculations show that, as a result of new tree and shrub growth, the landscape warmed by at least 1 ºC.

In another twist, records of ancient Arctic pollen suggest that deciduous trees colonize the landscape before evergreen trees. And transpiration in deciduous trees is greater than that in evergreens, which means that they release more moisture as water vapour, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas that also accelerates the warming effect, says Fung.

The work is in press in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Robert Anderson, a geologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, says that Fung's study is part of a larger picture showing that the Arctic is changing far faster and in far more extreme ways than scientists had thought. "The landscape has already experienced much of the predicted twenty-first-century warming," he says. "And here we are in only the first decade of it."

At the conference, Anderson presented a dramatic video of frozen coastlines in northern Alaska eroding rapidly into the Beaufort Sea. In places, the bluffs are being eroded by 9 to 14 metres per year — rates that are "three to four orders of magnitude higher than common", Anderson says. That could be partly because the sea ice that holds fast to the coast for much of the year is breaking up earlier, and also that the water lapping the shore is warmer than it was.

Asked what her team's findings might mean for the international climate negotiations going on in Copenhagen, Fung says she is impatient to see progress. But she also sounds somewhat fatalistic. "Whatever they agree to," she says, "is not fast enough to stop the changes that we are seeing."