India To Assess Climate Gain; Pump Millions In Forests

India will spend some $200 million to protect its forests and will announce how much carbon emission is being captured by its green cover, the environment minister said on Friday.

Jairam Ramesh said the money would go into conserving and restoring unique vegetation, controlling forest fires and strengthening forestry infrastructure, among other goals.

"This reflects the high priority that the prime minister accords to the renewal of our forestry establishment which is critical in our climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts," he said.

Forestry forms an important part of international negotiations for a new U.N. climate change deal in December, and India says efforts to conserve and increase forest cover should be considered as vital as reducing deforestation.
Forests soak up vast amounts of planet-warming CO2 and can act as a brake on climate change.

Under an emerging U.N. scheme called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, or REDD, developing nations could potentially earn billions of dollars by setting aside and rehabilitating their forests.

The valuable carbon offsets they earn could be sold to rich nations to help them meet their emissions goals under the scheme that is likely to be part of a broader climate pact from 2013.

Ramesh said India would announce on Aug. 10 the results of a study into how much emissions were being captured by India's forests. The quantification could bolster India's demand for money for afforestation efforts under REDD.

"We have for the first time estimated how much of our emission is being captured by the forest cover," he said.

About 65 million hectares, or 20 percent of India's land, is under forest cover. Ramesh said the cover would be extended by another six million hectares over the next six years.

SOURCE : REUTERS

California must prepare for climate change, official report warns

Communities should rethink development, reinforce levees and conserve water, says the California Natural Resources Agency

Even if the world is successful in cutting carbon emissions in the future, California needs to start preparing for rising sea levels, hotter weather and other effects of climate change, a new state report recommends.

It encourages local communities to rethink future development in low-lying coastal areas, reinforce levees that protect flood-prone areas and conserve already strapped water supplies in the most populous US state.

"We still have to adapt, no matter what we do, because of the nature of the greenhouse gases," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary for climate change and energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, who helped prepare the report. "Those gases are still going to be in the atmosphere for the next 100 years."

The draft report to be released today by the agency provides the state's first comprehensive plan to work with local governments, universities and residents to deal with a changing climate. A final plan is expected to be released in the autumn.

The report was compiled after the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, directed agencies in November to devise a state climate strategy. It comes three years after the Republican governor signed California's landmark global warming law requiring the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Most countries have focused on cutting greenhouse gases in the future, but researchers say those efforts will take decades to have an effect while the planet continues to warm. States have only recently begun to consider what steps they must take to minimise the damage expected from sea level rise, storm surges, droughts and water shortages because of the climate changes.

Over the last century in California, the sea level has risen by 7 in, average temperatures have increased, spring snowmelt occurs earlier in the year, and there are hotter days and fewer cold nights.

The report warns that rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods.

The report suggests the state partner with local governments and private landowners to create large reserves that protect wildlife threatened by warmer weather. Similarly, wetlands and fish corridors should be established to protect salmon and other fragile fish. Farmers should be encouraged to be more efficient when watering crops, and investments should be made to improve crop resistance to hotter temperatures, the report adds.

In June, the Obama administration published a major scientific report on the long-term impacts that climate change would have on the US, including temperatures so high they would cause withering in the vineyards of California.

SOURCE : guardian.co.uk

Bangladesh Wins World Bank Solar Power Loan

The World Bank said on Saturday it will loan Bangladesh $130 million to install solar energy panels to power 300,000 households.

"The World Bank today approved a $130 million credit to Bangladesh, designed to increase access to electricity through installation of affordable solar home systems in rural areas," the statement said.

Only around 40 percent of Bangladeshis have access to electricity. Power shortages are severe, especially in rural areas.

In addition, population growth, increased industrialization, additional connections, and rise in the use of modern, electrical appliances have boosted demand for electricity, currently growing at a rate of over 500 megawatts (MW) a year.

A part of the financing will also be used to purchase and install about 10 million energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps in densely populated areas, replacing an equivalent number of incandescent lamps.

The credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank's concessionary arm, has 40 years to maturity with a 10-year grace period and it carries a service charge of 0.75 percent.

Bangladesh will also get $77 million worth of financial assistance from the German government for the economic and energy development as well for the social sector development, a senior official of the Bangladesh's finance ministry said on Saturday.

About $56 million dollars of the money is to go to the promotion of energy efficiency, good governance and health financing, he said.

The rest $21 million is to go for the legal and social empowerment of women, prison reforms, local government strengthening, rural infrastructure development and biodiversity protection.

Together with contributions to the European Union and a number of other organizations, Germany's overall support for Bangladesh now exceeds $6 billion, the official said.

SOURCE : REUTERS

Nissan unveils its electric car, the Leaf

Claims Leaf is first electric-only mass-market car

Nissan has unveiled what it claims to be the world's first mass-market electric car — a five-door hatchback called Leaf which its Sunderland plant is vying to build for the European market.

The family-sized car, which has a maximum range of 100 miles and a top speed of about 90mph, will be in showrooms in Britain, Europe, the US and Japan by the end of next year.

The Leaf is the first of Nissan's new range of fully electric powered cars, which produce no carbon emissions, unlike hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, which uses a petrol-powered engine as well as an electric battery.

The Japanese carmaker announced last month that it had selected its Sunderland plant to make lithium-ion batteries for the European market at a new £200m factory. But the north-east plant is also bidding to make the cars. The factory is up against plants in France, Spain and Portugal also owned by Nissan and its French partner Renault.

Nissan hopes that the Leaf will become the world's first truly mass-market electric car. Unlike its Japanese rival Toyota, which makes the hugely popular Prius, Nissan is focusing its energies and investment on "pure electric" cars.

Electric cars currently on the market have a niche appeal with motorists put off by their limited range, size and speed. The tiny G-Wiz in Britain, for example, has been popular among commuters in large cities such as London, where it is exempt from the congestion charge. But even the latest model has a speed limit of only 51mph and a maximum range of 70 miles before it needs recharging, limiting its use.

High performance electric cars are prohibitively expensive. Tesla Motors, maker of the Tesla Roadster, has spent years trying to get costs down to about $100,000 (£60,000) for each sports car.

The Leaf car battery can be charged to 80% capacity in about 20 minutes, compared with almost three and a half hours needed for the G-Wiz. The first batch of cars, primarily for the Asian and North American markets, will be made in Japan and the US.

SOURCE : guardian.co.uk

Sahara desert becoming green due to climate change

According to a report in National Geographic News, if sustained, these rains could revitalize drought-ravaged regions, reclaiming them for farming communities.

This desert-shrinking trend is supported by climate models, which predict a return to conditions that turned the Sahara into a lush savanna some 12,000 years ago.

The green shoots of recovery are showing up on satellite images of regions including the Sahel, a semi-desert zone bordering the Sahara to the south that stretches some 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers).

Images taken between 1982 and 2002 revealed extensive regreening throughout the Sahel, according to a new study in the journal Biogeosciences.

The study suggests huge increases in vegetation in areas including central Chad and western Sudan. he transition may be occurring because hotter air has more capacity to hold moisture, which in turn creates more rain, according to Martin Claussen of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany.

"The water-holding capacity of the air is the main driving force," Claussen said.

While satellite images can't distinguish temporary plants like grasses that come and go with the rains, ground surveys suggest recent vegetation change is firmly rooted.

Throughout North Africa, new trees, such as acacias, are flourishing, according to Stefan Kropelin, a climate scientist at the University of Cologne's Africa Research Unit in Germany.

"Shrubs are coming up and growing into big shrubs. This is completely different from having a bit more tiny grass," he said.

SOURCE : National Geographic

Arctic Tundra Hotter, Boosts Global Warming: Expert

Scientists fears that as the permafrost in the Arctic melts, it will release vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

Regions of Arctic tundra around the world are heating up very rapidly, releasing more greenhouse gases than predicted and boosting the process of global warming, a leading expert said on Wednesday.

Professor Greg Henry of the University of British Columbia also said higher temperatures meant larger plants were starting to spread across the tundra, which is usually covered by small shrubs, grasses and lichen. The thicker plant cover means the region is getting darker and absorbing more heat.

He said tundra covers about 15 percent of the world's surface and makes up around 30 percent of Canadian territory.

Henry, who has been working in the Arctic since the early 1980s, said he had measured "a very substantial change" in the tundra over the last three decades, citing greater emissions and plant growth.

Since 1970, he said, temperatures in the tundra region had risen by 1 degree Celsius per decade -- equal to the highest rates of warming found anywhere on the planet.

Scientists blame climate change on a surge in emissions of greenhouse gases. The effects in Canada's North and Arctic regions have been particularly notable.

Henry said his research station in Nunavut had recorded record high temperatures virtually every summer since the early 1990s. The warmer temperatures mean plants are growing bigger and faster, while larger species are spreading northward.

"The tundra is getting a lot weedier all the way around the globe. This has major implications," said Henry, who also chairs an international project studying tundra.

"You're changing the color of the surface of the earth by making it darker ... so the consequence of that is increased warming again."

Some scientists also fear that as the permafrost in the Arctic melts, it will release vast amounts of carbon and methane into the atmosphere.

SOURCE : REUTERS

Emerson Opens New Green Global Data Center

The new data center expected to be 31 % energy efficient.

Manufacturing and technology company Emerson opened its new $50 million state-of-the-art global data center today -- a 35,000-square-foot facility that's expected to be 31 percent more energy efficient than a standard facility.

With Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt on hand, the company conducted an opening ceremony at the St. Louis site, which is expected to have 99.982 percent uptime.

Emerson's solar array atop the St. Louis data center.

In addition to using precision cooling products and energy efficiency strategies and technology, the new data center claims bragging rights to the largest rooftop solar array in Missouri.

The 7,800-square-foot system has more than 550 solar panels and can generate 100 kilowatts of energy.

The construction of the new facility is part of Emerson's efforts to consolidate more than 100 of its data centers around the world to four.

Besides the St. Louis site, where IT applications go live in August, one in Marshalltown, Iowa, has been completed. The remaining two are to be built in Europe and Asia.

In building the St. Louis facility, about 80 percent of the construction waste was recycled. Design innovations also helped avoid the use of more than 2.5 miles of copper piping, according to the company.

Emerson is seeking green building certification under LEED standards and is aiming for a gold rating, the second highest of four.

SOURCE : REUTERS

World Fisheries Collapse Can Be Averted: Study

Overfishing threatened total global collapse of fish and seafood populations by 2048

The world's commercial fisheries, pressured by overfishing and threatened with possible collapse by mid-century, could be rebuilt with careful management, researchers reported on Thursday.

In fact, a fisheries expert who in 2006 predicted total global collapse of fish and seafood populations by 2048 is more optimistic of recovery, based on a wide-ranging two-year study by scientists in North and South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Still, 63 percent of fish stocks worldwide need to be rebuilt, the researchers said.

"I am somewhat more hopeful that we will be in a better state ... than what we originally predicted, simply because I see that we have the management tools that are proven to work," said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a co-author of a paper in the journal Science and also an author of the pessimistic 2006 report.

These tools include: restrictions on gear like nets so that smaller, younger fish can escape; limits on the total allowable catch; closing some areas to fishing; certifying fisheries as sustainable; offering shares of the total allowable catch to each person who fishes in a specified area.

Worm's optimism was provisional, however, because the current research only looked at about one-quarter of the world's marine ecosystems, mostly in the developed world where data is plentiful and management can be monitored and enforced.

Of the 10 major ecosystems they studied, the scientists found five marine areas have cut the average percentage of fish they take, relative to estimates of the total number of fish. Two other ecosystems were never overexploited, leaving three areas overexploited.

HELPING FISHERIES SURVIVE

One key to helping fisheries survive is to revamp a long-used standard called maximum sustainable yield, which means figuring out the highest number of fish that can be caught in an area without hurting the species' ability to reproduce.

The researchers recommended setting fishing limits below the estimated maximum sustainable yield. Maximum sustainable yield should be an absolute upper limit, they said, rather than a target that is frequently exceeded.

Ray Hilborn, a co-author from the University of Washington in Seattle, noted in a telephone briefing that fisheries are also likely to feel pressure from climate change and ocean acidification, which is exacerbated by emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Hilborn said places with a strong regulations to protect fisheries will probably be in good shape by 2048, but areas that lack this kind of institutional framework could be "quite overfished" by that time.

Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society told reporters that efforts in the developed world to curtail overfishing could mean more overfishing in the developing world, especially in Africa.

The fisheries in the study are: Iceland Shelf, Northeast U.S. Shelf, North Sea, Newfoundland-Labrador Shelf, Celtic-Biscay Shelf, Baltic Sea, Southern Australia Shelf, Eastern Bering Sea, California Current, New Zealand Shelf.

SOURCE : REUTERS

London to plant 2m trees by 2025, says mayor's office

Mayor's adviser announces plans to make London 'greener, cleaner and more civilised' with 2m tree plan

London needs more parkland and to plant more trees to combat predicted rises in summer temperatures, an environment chief said today.

Mayor Boris Johnson's environment adviser Isabel Dedring said climate projections showed average summer temperatures in London could be some 3.9C higher than today by 2080, and as much as 6C to 10C on the hottest days.

The "urban heat island effect" in which buildings absorb and release heat, maintaining a higher temperature in cities than surrounding areas, means London temperatures will continue to be higher than other parts of the south-east.

But a study from Manchester suggests that increasing the amount of greenery in a city by 10% could offset the higher temperatures.

The mayor's environment plan is aiming to increase tree cover across the capital by 5% – an extra 2m trees – by 2025.

The programme, Leading to a Greener London, also involves plans for an increase in green space in inner London by 5%, including green roofs and more trees in streets. A green roof features waterproofing and drainage layers topped with soil and plants.

Other measures to make the capital "greener, cleaner and more civilised" include pilot schemes which will pay householders to recycle.

"Trees in streets have a very positive air-quality effect," Dedring added

SOURCE : guardian.co.uk

Chinese to launch first ever green lawsuit against government

'Breakthrough' hailed as Chinese judge says residents may prosecute government over pollution claims

China should see its first lawsuit by an environmental group against authorities within weeks, state media reported today.

A member of the All-China Environmental Federation - which is backed by the central government - said a judge in Guizhou province had accepted its claim on behalf of residents who complain they have suffered from pollution.

Residents allege that the Qingzhen land resources bureau leased land to a drinks factory in 1994, but construction of the factory has not been completed and they believe the site is damaging two adjacent lakes from which they draw drinking water. They want the government to take back the land and remove construction materials.

Ma Yong, director of the legal service centre at the federation, told the Associated Press the case would open in early September.

"The case will serve as a warning for government departments and companies that damage the environment, as we're stepping up efforts to play a supervisory role," Ma Yong said. He added that he hoped it would pave the way for other organisations to file public-interest lawsuits.

Liu Haiying, deputy head of the environmental protection tribunal at Qingzhen municipal people's court, told China Daily: "We are established to safeguard public interest and hope to encourage other courts to step forward to handle similar cases."

She added: "No matter what the conclusion is, we hope it will serve as a warning to government departments such as environment, forestry and other agencies, that they should always fulfill their duty to protect the environment.

In a separate development, China is to shift a planned £3bn oil refinery and petrochemical plant in the south after years of public outcry.

Wang Yang, the Communist Party chief of Guangdong, said the province would move the plant - a joint venture between China's Sinopec and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation - because of opposition from the community and officials.

"We only have one planet to live on, so whatever we do on this end will affect others on the other end," Wang told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

"The decision by the government shows that they do consider the opinions from different stakeholders across the region, which is a positive sign," said Edward Chan, a Greenpeace campaign manager based in Hong Kong.

It is thought the factory will be relocated away from Nansha to Zhanjiang in western Guangdong, a less ecologically sensitive area.

SOURCE : guardian.co.uk