news20091225reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Thu Dec 24, 2009 4:43pm EST
CORRECTED: Alaska tanker-escort grounds at notorious wreck site
(Corrects width of diesel slick to 30 yards from 30 feet)
By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A tugboat used to help oil tankers travel safely through Alaska's Prince William Sound has run aground at the site of the Exxon Valdez disaster and is leaking diesel fuel, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday.

The tug, called the Pathfinder and owned by Crowley Maritime Corp, hit Bligh Reef on Wednesday evening. The submerged reef, a notorious navigation hazard, is where the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, leaking 11 million gallons (42 million liters) of crude oil in the country's worst oil-tanker spill.

Fuel tanks holding up to 33,500 gallons (127,000 liters) of diesel were breached in the grounding, and aerial surveys show that a sheen about three miles long and 30 yards (meters) wide has formed, Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Dana Ware said.

Tanker traffic out of Valdez, site of the marine terminal for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, was temporarily interrupted but resumed Thursday morning, Ware said.

The 136-foot (41-meter) tug, part of the tanker-escort system set up after the Exxon Valdez disaster, had been scouting the tanker route for ice buildup, the Coast Guard said. It was not escorting a tanker at the time.

It is unclear what caused the grounding. All six crew members passed the alcohol test that was administered, the Coast Guard said.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen; editing by Bill Rigby and Eric Beech)


[Green Business > COP15]
BEIJING
Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:44am EST
China defends Wen Jiabao's role in Copenhagen talks
BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Friday defended the role played by premier Wen Jiabao at climate change talks in Copenhagen this month after a barrage of international criticism blaming China for obstructing negotiations.

The Copenhagen meeting ended with a broad political agreement but left specifics to be ironed out in 2010, angering many of the poorest nations as well as Western groups who had hoped for a more ambitious commitment.

China insisted that firm targets agreed to by European nations not be included in the final deal, and Wen himself was absent from a final round of direct negotiations between national leaders. British climate minister Ed Miliband said China and its allies had "hijacked" talks, according to the Guardian newspaper.

In a long account of the Copenhagen meeting, Xinhua gave Wen credit for "the last minute attempt to exchange ideas and reach consensus" despite his belief that it was "impossible" to reach a legally binding agreement.

"China showed the greatest sincerity, tried its best and played a constructive role," Xinhua said.

Issues of verification of emissions cut pledges plagued the meeting, with rich nations saying China's efforts to slow greenhouse gas growth should be subject to international verification to ensure that Beijing is keeping its word. China has said such checks would violate its sovereignty.

"On the transparency issue in self-mitigation actions, Wen said China was willing to conduct talks and cooperation," Xinhua said.

China has made its own pledges to reduce carbon intensity, or the amount of emissions produced per unit of GDP, but blocked European countries from including their commitment to cut absolute emissions by 80 percent by 2050, as well as commitments to specific dates when emissions would peak.

Other Reuters sources had also said China blocked the inclusion of specific targets.

Xinhua acknowledged Wen's absence from the late night meetings on Dec 17, saying that Wen had not been informed, and had learned the Chinese delegation was included in the meeting list from another, unidentified foreign leader.

"Premier Wen felt quite astonished and was vigilant," Xinhua said, adding that China sent a vice foreign minister instead.

The U.S. administration has played up President Barack Obama's role in breaking through a deadlock by arriving unannounced at a meeting of the heads of China, Brazil, India and South Africa, all powerful developing countries concerned that emissions concessions could impede growth.

Xinhua said that meeting -- which occurred as the U.S. sought a meeting with China and was rebuffed from meeting the others -- represented Wen's efforts to reach consensus before bringing a final deal to the Western nations and poorest developing nations.

(Reporting by Lucy Hornby; Editing by David Fox)


[Green Business]
Katherine Baldwin
LONDON
Fri Dec 25, 2009 2:22am EST
Tsunami early warning must start at community level
LONDON (Reuters) - Five years on from the Indian Ocean tsunami, the region has its own early warning system but experts say the new technology will not save lives unless local communities are more involved in planning how to respond.

The 230,000 people killed in Africa and Asia by the 2004 tsunami received no formal warning of the approaching waves.

Since then, millions of dollars have gone into building a vast network of seismic and tsunami information centers, setting up sea and coastal instruments and erecting warning towers.

But studies show that the closer the warning gets to those it is designed to help, the more it fades out, and much more needs to be done to connect the technology to the people.

"The weakest link remains at the interface between the early warning system and the public, and in ensuring there's enough preparedness at the local level to react appropriately," said Bhupinder Tomar, senior officer for disaster preparedness at the International Federation for the Red Cross (IFRC) in Geneva.

In terms of technology, the region has made great strides since December 26, 2004, and is much better prepared, experts say.

Warning centers in Japan and Hawaii receive seismological and tidal data and send out alerts to national agencies in Indian Ocean countries. These agencies then warn the population, via SMS, radio, television, watch towers and loud speakers.

By 2010, regional centers in Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand are set to take over primary responsibility from Hawaii and Japan for issuing the warnings.

START WITH COMMUNITIES

Many relief workers, however, believe the system's design is too top-down and that local communities should be the starting point, not the end point, in any early warning network.

Local people should be the 'first mile' in early warning, rather than the 'last mile' as they are often called, the workers say.

"You need to start with the people and move outwards," said Ilan Kelman, a senior research fellow at CICERO, the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

In a June 2009 report, the Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction found community participation in the decision-making process was insufficient.

It said the emphasis must shift from international and national policy-making to policy execution on the ground.

Similarly, Oxfam found in a recent report, "Collaboration in Crises," that disaster-affected communities wanted the chance to play a more decisive role in programs designed to help them.

Evacuation routes and drills need to be integrated into communities' day-to-day activities, experts say.

"In a heavily vegetated area, people need paths to get from the coast to inland ... and there's no reason why those paths should be different from an evacuation route," said Kelman.

"Having a development project to create more paths and maintain them is actually useful for the communities every day, as well as every decade when there's a tsunami warning."

Other community-based measures that need to be developed further include the teaching in some schools of "Shake, Drop, Run" -- when the earth shakes, drop everything and run.

Teachers and children must be taught what most fishermen know, that when the sea recedes you should run, said Kelman.

Thailand has put tsunami education on its national curriculum and more countries should do this, the experts say.

MULTI-HAZARD APPROACH

Communities must also design their own warning messages.

"We don't want to see panic, we don't want to see people taking the wrong action. So getting the words right, getting the message right and getting it delivered are key components," said Al Panico, head of the tsunami unit at the IFRC.

In order to maintain the tsunami early warning system, at the community, national and international level, it is vital to extend it to other hazards like cyclones and storm surges.

"Any warning system you don't notice is a dormant system, and treasuries don't like anything that they cannot justify," said Peter Koltermann, head of the Tsunami Coordination Unit for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), which began coordinating the Indian Ocean system in 2005.

The best approach to saving lives, however, is better urban and coastal planning to move people away from high risk areas. But experts agree this is the hardest thing to accomplish when communities and livelihoods are established.

"That is by far the best approach," said Panico. But "it's the individual who decides where to live."

(Additional reporting by Thin Lei Win in Bangkok; Editing by Jerry Norton)