Tall Economist

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: fish and protein access for the poor impacted

2008-02-27T08:29:00.002Z

Source: AllAfrica
Climate change is emerging as the latest threat to the world's fast declining fish stocks, which could affect millions of people who depend on the oceans for food and income, says a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The report, In Dead Water, says climate change may slow down the global flow of ocean currents, which flush and clean the continental shelves and are critical to maintaining water quality, nutrient cycling and the life-cycle patterns of fish and other marine life in more than 75 percent of the world's fishing grounds.
"In developed countries, the degradation of traditional fishing grounds will have commercial effects on the fishing industry sector and fleets," said Stefan Hain of UNEP's World Conservation Monitoring Centre. "The effects in developing countries and SIDS [Small Island Developing States] will be more direct, i.e. on coastal communities and populations, which depend on marine resources for sustenance and livelihoods."
Fifty million people could be at risk by 2080 because of climate change and increasing coastal population densities, according to a Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) policy brief on the impact of climate change on fisheries. "Projections suggest that these combined pressures could result in reef loss and a decline in fish availability for per capita consumption of approximately 15 percent by 2015."
The high catches that currently allow exports may become a thing of the past, and a high dependence on fish for protein could threaten the health of many thousands as catches shrink
Coastal fishing communities face a double whammy of reduced fisheries resources and increased risks of coastal flooding and storm surges, said the FAO brief, Building adaptive capacity to climate change: Policies to sustain livelihoods and fisheries. "Impacts of climate change are an additional burden to other poverty drivers, such as declining fish stocks, HIV/AIDS, lack of savings, insurance and alternative livelihoods."
The UNEP study, the first of its kind by UNEP scientists, was conducted in collaboration with universities and institutes in Europe and the United States, which found that the number of marine dead zones - oxygen deficient areas - have increased from 149 in 2003 to over 200 in 2006, mostly in coastal waters. These zones are linked with pollution and the projected growth in coastal development, and this number is expected to multiply in a few decades.
Christian Nellemann, editor-in-chief of the UNEP report, pointed out that the "impoverished will take the greatest toll both in terms of reduced food supply, but also breakdown in their economy and their primary opportunity to move out of poverty. This is an emerging catastrophe of an unprecedented scale, and the efforts in the next two decades will determine the lives of hundreds of millions for centuries ahead.
He said West Africa, where several million people live along the coast and the fisheries provide the primary income and food resource, could be among the worst affected by climate change and industrial overfishing - including bottom trawling - combined with coastal pollution. "Here, an increasingly larger portion, often exceeding 80 percent to 90 percent of the fishery harvest, is caught by non-local vessels, such as from the European Union.
The report also found that up to 80 percent of the world's primary fish-catch species are exploited beyond or close to their harvesting capacity: advances in technology, combined with subsidies, mean the world's fishing capacity is 2.5 times bigger than can harvest fisheries sustainably.
Higher sea surface temperatures in the coming decades threaten to bleach and kill up to 80 percent of the globe's coral reefs, which are major tourist attractions, natural sea defences and nurseries for fish.
There is also growing concern that carbon dioxide emissions will increase the acidity of seas and oceans; this in turn may negatively affect calcium- and shell-forming marine life, including corals, but also tiny ones such as planktonic organisms at the base of the food chain.
Impact on poor countries
The FAO paper noted the link between fisheries and poverty reduction. "The sector and its related activities are important for economic output and growth, and employs over 155 million people worldwide - 98 percent from developing countries."
It cited a recent study on the vulnerability of national economies and food systems to climate impacts on fisheries, which found that African countries were most vulnerable to the likely impacts of climate change on fisheries. "This is in spite of over 80 percent of the world's fishers being in south and Southeast Asia, and fish catches being greater in Latin America and Asia."
Climate change will change the distribution, conservation and use of the water of the earth and its atmosphere. African fisheries are particularly at risk because semi-arid countries with significant coastal or inland fisheries have high exposure to future increases in temperature, and the linked changes in rainfall and coastal current systems.
The high catches that currently allow exports may become a thing of the past, and a high dependence on fish for protein could threaten the health of many thousands as catches shrink. Low capacity to adapt to change due to their comparatively small or weak economies and low human development indices could set back development in countries like Angola, Congo, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
In African countries like Ghana, Namibia, Senegal and Uganda, the fisheries sector contributes over six percent of gross domestic product. Rift Valley countries such as Malawi, Mozambique and Uganda, and Asian river-dependent fishery nations, including Bangladesh, Cambodia and Pakistan, are also vulnerable.
Impact on freshwater fisheries
In the short term, climate change is expected to affect freshwater fisheries through changes in water temperature, nutrient levels and lower dry-season water levels. Dry-season flow rates in rivers are predicted to decline in south Asia and in most African river basins, leading to reduced fish yields, according to the FAO.
In the longer term, larger changes in river flows are anticipated as glaciers melt, reducing their capacity to sustain regular and controlled water flows.
Researchers found that lake fisheries have already begun to feel the impact of climatic variability, affecting fish production.
In Lake Chilwa, Malawi, a 'closed-basin' lake, dry periods have become more frequent and fish yields are declining.
In Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, fish yields have dropped because of declining wind speeds and rising water temperatures, which have reduced the mixing of nutrient-rich deep waters with the surface waters that support fish production. This, along with overfishing, may be responsible for the declining fish yields from the lake.
Lake Chad's area fluctuates extensively, but follows a declining trend. In 2005 it occupied only 10 percent of the area it was in 1963, with further decreases predicted in the coming century. Fish catches have not fallen to the same extent, but the overall productive potential of the lake is declining.
Upside of global warming
Snow and glacier melt in the Eurasian mountains, which stretch from the Caucasus Mountains to the Himalayas, may also result in changes in the flows of the Indus, Brahmaputra, Ganges and Mekong, which sustain major river and floodplain fisheries, as well as supply nutrients to coastal seas, the FAO paper said.
"Predictions for consequences of flow regimes are uncertain but increased runoff and discharge rates during this process may boost fish yield through more extensive and prolonged inundation of floodplains. In Bangladesh, a 20 percent to 40 percent increase in flooded areas could raise total annual yields by 60,000 tonnes to 130,000 tonnes.
"These potential gains may be counterbalanced by greater dry-season losses due to lower dry-season flows and greater demands on water resources for irrigation, threatening fish survival and making them more susceptible to capture. Damming for hydropower, irrigation and flood control may also offset any potential fishery gains," the FAO paper noted.
The FAO suggested policy action for mitigation and adaptation such as raising awareness of the impacts of climate change to ensure that the special risks to the fishery sector are understood and used to plan national climate change responses.
Mitigation targets should be set, using mechanisms like the Kyoto Protocol. Mangroves should be restored and coral reefs protected, which will contribute to carbon dioxide absorption, coastal protection, fisheries and livelihoods.
Click here to read the report.

CLIMATE CHANGE and THE POOREST: knee-jerk climate change reactions fuelling starvation

2008-02-26T10:05:00.002Z

Source: The Guardian (UK)

The United Nations warned yesterday that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay this year in the face of a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, which have created a "new face of hunger".
"We will have a problem in coming months," said Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). "We will have a significant gap if commodity prices remain this high, and we will need an extra half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs."
With voluntary contributions from the world's wealthy nations, the WFP feeds 73 million people in 78 countries, less than a 10th of the total number of the world's undernourished. Its agreed budget for 2008 was $2.9bn (£1.5bn). But with annual food price increases around the world of up to 40% and dramatic hikes in fuel costs, that budget is no longer enough even to maintain current food deliveries.
The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition
"This is the new face of hunger," Sheeran said. "There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before."
WFP officials say the extraordinary increases in the global price of basic foods were caused by a "perfect storm" of factors: a rise in demand for animal feed from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change.
The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.
"For us, the main concern is for the poorest countries and the net food buyers," said Frederic Mousseau, a humanitarian policy adviser at Oxfam. "For the poorest populations, 50%-80% of income goes on food purchases. We are concerned now about an immediate increase in malnutrition in these countries, and the landless, the farmworkers there, all those who are living on the edge."
Much of the blame has been put on the transfer of land and grains to the production of biofuel. But its impact has been outweighed by the sharp growth in demand from a new middle class in China and India for meat and other foods, which were previously viewed as luxuries.
"The fundamental cause is high income growth," said Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute. "I estimate this is half the story. The biofuels is another 30%. Then there are weather-induced erratic changes which caused irritation in world food markets. These things have eaten into world levels of grain storage.
"The lower the reserves, the more nervous the markets become, and the increased volatility is particularly detrimental to the poor who have small assets."
The impact of climate change will amplify that already dangerous volatility. Record flooding in west Africa, a prolonged drought in Australia and unusually severe snowstorms in China have all had an impact on food production.
"The climate change factor is so far small but it is bound to get bigger," Von Braun said. "That is the long-term worry and the markets are trying to internalise it."
The WFP is holding an emergency meeting in Rome on Friday, at which its senior managers will meet board members to brief them on the scale of the problem. There will then be a case-by-case assessment of the seriousness of the situation in the affected countries, before the WFP formally asks for an increased budget at its executive board meeting in June.
But the donor countries are also facing higher fuel and transport costs. For the biggest US food aid programme, non-food costs now account for 65% of total programme expenditure.
Global impact: Where inflation bites deepest
1 United States The last time America's grain silos were so empty was in the early seventies, when the Soviet Union bought much of the harvest. Washington is telling the World Food Programme it is facing a 40% increase in food commodity prices compared with last year, and higher fuel bills to transport it, so the US, the biggest single food aid contributor, will radically cut the amount it gives away.
2 Morocco 34 people jailed this month for taking part in riots over food prices.
3 Egypt The world's largest importer of wheat has been hard hit by the global price rises, and most of the increase will be absorbed in increased subsidies. The government has also had to relax the rules on who is eligible for food aid, adding an extra 10.5 million people.
4 Eritrea It could be one of the states hardest hit in Africa because of its reliance on imports. The price rises will hit urban populations not previously thought vulnerable to a lack of food.
5 Zimbabwe With annual inflation of 100,000% and unemployment at 80%, price increases on staples can only worsen the severe food shortages.
6 Yemen Prices of bread and other staples have nearly doubled in the past four months, sparking riots in which at least a dozen people were killed.
7 Russia The government struck a deal with producers last year to freeze the price of milk, eggs, vegetable oil, bread and kefir (a fermented milk drink). The freeze was due to last until the end of January but was extended for another three months.
8 Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has asked the WFP to feed an extra 2.5 million people, who are now in danger of malnutrition as a result of a harsh winter and the effect of high world prices in a country that is heavily dependent on imports.
9 Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf announced this month that Pakistan would be going back to ration cards for the first time since the 1980s, after the sharp increase in the price of staples. These will help the poor (nearly half the population) buy subsidised flour, wheat, sugar, pulses and cooking fat from state-owned outlets.
10 India The government will spend 250bn rupees on food security. India is the world's second biggest wheat producer but bought 5.5m tonnes in 2006, and 1.8m tonnes last year, driving up world prices. It has banned the export of all forms of rice other than luxury basmati.
11 China Unusually severe blizzards have dramatically cut agricultural production and sent prices for food staples soaring. The overall food inflation rate is 18.2%. The cost of pork has increased by more than half. The cost of food was rising fast even before the bad weather moved in, as an increasingly prosperous population began to demand as staples agricultural products previously seen as luxuries. The government has increased taxes and imposed quotas on food exports, while removing duties on food imports.
12 Thailand The government is planning to freeze prices of rice, cooking oil and noodles.
13 Malaysia and the Philippines Malaysia is planning strategic stockpiles of the country's staples. Meanwhile the Philippines has made an unusual plea to Vietnam to guarantee its rice supplies. Imports were previously left to the global market.
14 Indonesia Food price rises have triggered protests and the government has had to increase its food subsidies by over a third to contain public anger.
FAQ: Food prices
Few winners and many losers
What is the problem?
In the three decades to 2005, world food prices fell by about three-quarters in inflation-adjusted terms, according to the Economist food prices index. Since then they have risen by 75%, with much of that coming in the past year. Wheat prices have doubled, while maize, soya and oilseeds are at record highs.
Why are food prices rising?
The booming world economy has driven up prices for all commodities. Changes in diets have also played a big part. Meat consumption in many countries has soared, pushing up demand for the grain needed by cattle. Demand for biofuels has also risen strongly. This year, for example, one third of the US maize crop will go to make biofuels. Moreover, the gradual reform and liberalisation of agricultural subsidy programmes in the US and Europe have reduced the butter and grain mountains of yesteryear by eliminating overproduction.
Who are the winners and losers?
Farmers are the obvious winners, as are poor countries that rely extensively on food exports. But consumers are having to pay more, and the urban poor in many developing states will be hardest hit, as they often spend more than a third of their income on food.
How long are prices likely to be high?
The US department for agriculture says the country's wheat stocks are at their lowest for 50 years and demand will continue to exceed supply this year. There is potential to bring more land into production in countries such as Ukraine, but that could take time. And as all foodstuffs have risen sharply in price there is little incentive for farmers to switch from one crop to another.
What about the EU's common agricultural policy?
High food prices certainly remove the need to subsidise farmers and so there is a chance, say experts, that badly needed reductions in CAP subsidies, which cost European taxpayers dearly, could now be within reach.
Are other commodity prices also rising?
Oil, metals and coal have seen their prices rise strongly as the global economy has expanded rapidly, driving up demand for almost everything,
particularly from emerging economies such as China and India. Some economists think speculation may also play a part. Disappointed by the sub-prime collapse and falling property values in many countries, investors have piled money into commodities.

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: Monaco hosts Environment Ministers

2008-02-21T09:46:00.002Z

Although the title shows how the Environment ministers realise they need economic incneitves, approaches and thinking to change environmentally-poor activities, the absence of the finance ministers shows how far they have to go ...

Souce: ENS - "World's Environment Ministers Meet to Mobilize Global Green Economy"

A green economy is emerging worldwide as growing numbers of companies embrace environmental policies and investors pump hundreds of billions into clean technology and renewable energies, finds the 2008 United Nations Environment Programme Year Book.
The Year Book was presented here today at the opening of the largest gathering of environment ministers since the UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia last December.
The ministers, joined by representatives of business, organized labor, science and civil society, are attending UNEP's Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum with the theme "Mobilizing Finance for the Climate Challenge."
"Hundreds of billions of dollars are now flowing into renewable and clean energy technologies and trillions more dollars are waiting in the wings looking to governments for a new and decisive climate regime post 2012 alongside the creative market mechanisms necessary to achieve this," said Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director.
Climate change, as documented in the Year Book, is increasingly changing the global environment, from the melting of permafrost and glaciers to extreme weather events.
But it is also beginning to change the mind-sets, policies and actions of corporate heads, financiers and entrepreneurs as well as leaders of organized labor, governments and the United Nations itself.
Combating climate change increasingly is being viewed as an opportunity rather than a burden and a path to a new kind of prosperity instead of a brake on profits and employment, the UNEP Year Book shows. The emerging green economy is driving invention, innovation and the imagination of engineers on a scale not witnessed since the industrial revolution of more than two centuries ago.
The report points to the growing interest in novel geo-engineering projects such as giant carbon dioxide, C02, collectors that absorb the greenhouse gas from the air as trees do.
"Based on technology used in fish tank filters and developed by scientists from Columbia University's Earth Institute, this method called "air capture" can collect the CO2 at the location of the ideal geological deposits for storage," says the report.
Meanwhile, scientists in Iceland and elsewhere are looking at injecting C02 into that country's abundant basalt rocks where it is claimed the gas reacts to form inert limestone.
Similar "sequestration rocks" exist in geological formations across much of the world and may provide a safe and long term disposal option for the main greenhouse gas emissions, says the UNEP Year Book.
Some elements of a green economy are already taking shape.
Corporate social responsibility reporting, including environmental concerns, is now found among corporations in over 90 countries - with the number of such statements mushrooming from virtually zero in the early 1990s to well over 2,000 now, the Year Book states.
The Investor Network on Climate Change, launched in November 2003, now has some 50 institutional investors with assets of over $3 trillion.
And the Principles for Responsible Investment, jointly facilitated by UNEP's Finance Initiative and the UN Global Compact in 2006, now has 275 institutions with $13 trillion of assets.
In 2007, financial transactions in the sustainable energy sector reached $160 billion - up from just over $100 billion in 2006, according to another UNEP report drafted to inform the deliberations of ministers in Monaco.
"An initiative to provide seed money for clean energy entrepreneurs has spawned close to 50 new enterprises in Africa, China and India. The Principles for Responsible Investment, facilitated by the UNEP Finance Initiative and the UN's Global Compact, has secured the support of over 275 institutions handling assets of over $13 trillion dollars," said Steiner.
"Among the challenges facing ministers in Monaco is how to accelerate this transformation to ensure that it is far reaching, widespread and above all speedy," he said.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, composed of more than 2,000 scientists established by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization to advise governments, estimates that to avoid dangerous climate change emissions need to be stabilized at between 535 to 590 parts per million, ppm, in 2050.
In order to meet the stabilization target, global emissions of greenhouse gases will need to decrease in 2050 by 18 to 29 giggatonnes of carbon dioxide with emissions peaking even earlier - somewhere between 2010 and 2030.
A variety of recent assessments such as the Stern Review; ones by the IPCC and others by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change put the costs of stabilization at between 0.3 percent and four per cent of global Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
Stern estimates it at one percent of global GDP, costing around $134 billion in 2015 rising to $930 billion in 2050.
Industrialized countries, except the United States, are abiding by the Kyoto Protocol, which requires a reduction in six greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 percent of 1990 levels by the end of 2012.
After 2012, the Kyoto Protocol will be replaced by an global agreement now under negotiation that are expected to be completed by the climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in 2009.
Some developing countries are already committed to a green economy.
UNEP Governing Council President Roberto Dobles of Costa Rica told reporters today that his country wants to become a carbon neutral, zero impact economy by 2021.
"To change the economy, we have to become more resource efficient, the culture of consumption will have to change," Dobles said.
Although the country enjoys a 62 percent forest cover, last year Costa Ricans planted six million trees and aim to plant seven million trees this year, he said.
Costa Rica will be reducing emissions and increasing its capacity to mitigate climate change, Dobles said. "We will be increasing our well-being through a low carbon economy."
In a video message played at the Governing Council today, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed to the environment ministers to usher in a "new generation" of solutions to climate change.
"You can help us meet the crucial challenge of mobilizing finance to meet the climate challenge," he said. "We must sustain the momentum, including through practical actions now."

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: Abel and Cole boycott?

2008-02-18T13:30:00.006Z

If you believe in global social justice and maximising environmental benefits, its time to face-off the food fashionistas/fascists and boycott Abel and Cole. Their guzzling trucks clogging our roads [these deliveries claim to be eco-friendly but since they do not replace any car-trips since they only deliver one part of our supermarket shop, they are an additional carbon load], their overpriced [claimed to be more expensive than Borough Market, apparently!] fruit and veg being wasted [an estimated 35% of box schemes are landfilled or composted], and they will not buy from the world's poorest farmers - starving the UK consumer of variety particularly when it is needed in winter [babycorn or green beans or swede?] and cutting a lifeline for small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

If anyone established a business delivering by van eco-friendly cat food and household cleaning items, they'd be roundly bollocked by the food miles brigade ... this is all A&C are doing. And you are paying [too much], and WE are paying [the added environmental cost], and THEY are paying [the poor farmers]. Also, the Soil Association should be suing for ripping off their logo [font, scale, size, colours ... ].

Walk to your local convenience store, buy some of their locally-grown vegetables and revel in the range of imported goods from Sri Lanka and India.

Time to boycott a profitable but flawed business plan!

CLIMATE CHANGE and SOCIAL JUSTICE: UNDP China shouts loud for economic equity and justice

2008-02-15T08:00:00.002Z

Source: Principal Voices by Dr Kishan Khoday, UNDP China

"There is an increasing spirit of global environmental citizenship, a desire to address climate change as a matter of common concern for all humanity."
There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says, "One generation plants a tree; the next generation gets the shade." As noted by the U.N. Secretary General, climate change has become the "defining issue of our era." The great challenge of our generation is to plant the seeds for future innovation in global society; innovations that can align our current needs for energy to fuel global growth with the needs of future generations to live in a healthy environment. This is more than an academic debate. Countries like China and India have made significant progress toward the Millennium Development Goals and have greatly reduced poverty. But climate change now poses risks to sustaining these hard won development gains.
My work focuses on the most vulnerable of humanity, those who rely heavily on land and water for their daily existence and are expected to feel the brunt of climate change. The British economist and academic Nicholas Stern has called the climate crisis the greatest market failure in human history. For me, it may also become the greatest social injustice. Rural communities across the world rely heavily on the natural environment for their livelihood, while lacking capacity to adapt to these drastic changes.
I work with local partners in developing countries to find ways to increase energy efficiency and use of renewable energy technologies, while also exploring ways communities can climate-proof themselves to future climate risks. I have found that one of the most effective ways to reduce such risks is to increase the efficiency of energy end-users in big cities through practical solutions such as energy-efficient lighting, solar-powered homes and hybrid vehicles. Individually they may not make a major contribution, but when you add up the energy and emission savings the overall net benefit is massive, especially when such initiatives are scaled up in large emerging economies, such as China and India. Start small, think big.
I see great hope in the new generation, the consumers of the future. There is an increasing spirit of global environmental citizenship, a desire to address climate change as a matter of common concern for all humanity and we see this more and more not only in developed but also in developing countries. By engaging this new consciousness we not only stimulate a new green market, but also reduce the threats that rising emissions pose to rural communities.
Another prospect I see is in the social responsibility of industry. Business chiefs are showing leadership in the climate challenge, and these leaders are no longer just based in the developed world. My expectation is that the success stories we are beginning to see in the private sector in places like China and India will become a driver of global growth and a new Green Revolution.
Balancing humans and nature. Balancing urban-industrial growth and the needs of rural people for a stable environment. Balancing developing countries' right to development and the needs of future generations to live in a healthy environment. These are the great challenges of our time. What we need are integrated solutions that match new opportunities in technology and knowledge in the market with a growing sense of global environmental citizenship in society--a new Green Revolution to address both the economic opportunities and the social inequities of climate change.
Dr. Kishan Khoday is the team leader for energy and environment at the United Nations Development Programme in China. Dr. Khoday leads efforts to find local energy solutions to reduce emissions and address the serious implications of climate change on poor and vulnerable communities.

CLIMATE CHANGE and DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: Chinese leadership emerges on crucial issue

2008-02-14T11:10:00.002Z

China is caught in the crossfire on climate change. Blamed by some for accelerating carbon emissions, blamed by others for not helping to lead developing countries in the negotiations. In a credible and unlikely move, Yt Qingtai has indicated that China not only wants to implement some of the Bali roadmap's ideas, but also that China will also help other developing countries to improve their ability to adapt to climate change.

Source: ChinaView

BEIJING, Feb. 14 -- China's special representative to the UN climate change talks has urged the international community to substantive negotiations to secure a new global agreement on climate change.
Yu Qingtai said the Bali roadmap, adopted at the UN climate conference last December, is only a beginning.
Yu Qingtai said, "The international community must continue with the task of conducting substantive consultations and negotiations, to ensure a final agreement on post-2012 international cooperation on climate change within the next two years."
Yu Qingtai says a framework for future agreements must be based on the principles of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol... particularly the principle of shared responsibilities.
Yu Qingtai urged developed countries to further strengthen policies and measures aimed at emission reduction.
Yu Qingtai said, "The effectiveness of participation by developing countries will depend to a significant extent on whether developed countries will take substantive action on financial and technological assistance."
Yu Qingtai said China takes climate change very seriously and has made considerable efforts to respond to the challenge, with noticeable success. China will also help other developing countries to improve their ability to adapt to climate change.

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY: Buy Kenyan roses, Ghanaian chocolate this Valentines Day!

2008-02-13T11:26:00.004Z

DFID have issued an important press release, keeping pressure on consumers to recognise the importance of balancing the social aspects of trade with the environmental ones. Douglas Alexander says: "And buying African goods shouldn't give you too many worries about your carbon footprint. Roses flown in from Africa can use less energy than those grown in Europe, because they're not grown in heated greenhouses which emit relatively high levels of carbon dioxide. The money cost of these emissions has been calculated at £4.5 million, which is a small fraction of the total value of the £52 million flower trade with Kenya. It is important that we continue to support the growth of poor countries' economies in the way that we shop. This Valentine's Day provides a golden opportunity to do that. " There is a presentation here, which is schmaltzy but lets hope puts the lead back into the trade pencil!

Source: DFID

International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander today encouraged romantics in the UK to buy Kenyan flowers this Valentine’s Day.
Farmers and flower producers have been working extra hard to get flowers to market in time for Valentine’s Day given the unrest in the country.
Kenya is the lead exporter into the European Union of cut flowers. Roses constitute more than 70% of Kenya’s flower exports and by meeting demand for roses used on 14 February and Mother’s Day (March 2) exporters earn more than the rest of the year’s sales combined. The Kenyan economy is already under great strain given the political situation and a dip in exports could make the country’s problems worse including many further job losses.
Douglas Alexander said:
"It’s encouraging to see that more and more people recognise the benefits of buying products from developing countries as a way of supporting the poorest people on this earth. Everyone can make a difference on Valentine’s Day including to the lives of Kenyan farmers who, given the current political crisis in the country, have been working so hard in such difficult conditions to ensure their flowers reach the market in time for 14 February.
"Buying flowers from developing countries makes it easier for people there to make a decent living. It’s also important to remember that flowers flown in from Kenya aren’t grown in heated greenhouses so they use less energy than most of those produced in Europe."
Notes for Editors
The Kenyan horticulture sector is the number two foreign exchange earner after tourism bringing in more than $250 million per annum and employing 100,000 people directly and more than 2 million indirectly. It is estimated to impact the livelihoods of 4 million people.
Kenya is the largest supplier of cut flowers to the EU representing 32% of imports. The UK is one of the world’s biggest importers of flowers and almost a third of what we import comes from Kenya.
For more information on where you can source flowers from Kenya.
Trade is the most effective method of reducing poverty and the UK continues to be firmly committed to helping developing countries trade their way out of poverty.
The Department for International Development continues to be a strong supporter of the growing fair and ethical trade sector (positive impact on 7 million certified producers and their families through higher prices, greater certainty, and access to markets) but shoppers also have a huge role to play. Every two years, UK shoppers have doubled the amount of Fairtrade goods they buy.
A 2007 study shows that emissions produced by growing flowers in Kenya and flying them to the UK can be less than a fifth of those grown in heated and lighted greenhouses in Holland.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL SOCIAL JUSTICE: Is Darling sending too many Valentine cards?

2008-02-12T08:58:00.000Z

UK's proposed global "green fund" [an awful hackneyed outdated name] which has some nice objectives but insufficient substance has failed to interest G7 partners to part with cash. Another case of the UK's thinking on climate issues lagging too far beyond its clever financial brains? An echo of Gates' call for "creative capitalism" to unleash the benefits of a mature financial knowledge economy to help with tricky environmental and social issues? Darling isnt a salesman, in the way Brown & Blair were ... he doesnt have the charisma ... he needs to focus on one prospective lover at a time, not blanketing all prospects with cheap Valentine's cards ... At least he should have tried roses from Kenya !

Setback for Darling's 'green fund' initiative from The Independent

Alistair Darling's efforts to establish an environmental consensus have echoed those of Gordon Brown in Davos.
The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, has failed, so far, in his attempt to persuade all of the G7 group of leading economies to create, in collaboration with the World Bank, a "green fund" for emerging and developing nations to draw upon as their economies advance.
The idea, also backed by the US government and Japan, would, for example, help pay for sustainable energy supplies rather than the use of fossil fuels for power generation. The com-munique of the G7 summit of finance ministers in Tokyo stated merely that they group had "discussed" the idea, and there was no immediate move on the part of France, Germany, Italy or Canada to sign up.
Nonetheless, Mr Darling said he was expecting a "substantial amount" of funding for the scheme, though he was not prepared to be more precise at this stage.

CLIMATE CHANGE is a defining global social justice issue, says DFID Secretary of State

2008-02-11T16:34:00.000Z

Source: The Guardian.
Britain is to increase its spending on research into the effects of climate change on developing countries tenfold to £100m over the next five years, the international development secretary, Douglas Alexander, said yesterday.
The move follows a warning in a United Nations development programme report that climate change would have catastrophic effects on poor countries and reverse decades of development gains.
Alexander said: "Climate change is a defining global social justice issue. If we fail to tackle climate change, we risk condemning the world's poorest people to poverty for generations to come."
The minister said the new money was on top of £75m the Department for International Development was spending on trying to help poor countries adapt to climate change. Last year Britain also announced an £800m fund to help developing countries adapt to clean energy.
It was crucial that poor countries leapfrogged the dirty kind of industrial development that rich countries went through in the past two hundred years and went straight for low-carbon economies.

Full article The Guardian.

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: carbon counting - xenophobic tiddlywinks or scientific elixir?

2008-02-08T10:17:00.001Z

Several months after M&S and Tesco dropped their ill-advised "air freight logos", consumers might be doubly surprised that the "carbon counting" carousel is still turning. This is in large part to the increasingly impotent and cranky UK Government departments that sling copious cash into Carbon Trust. Nice bunch of well meaning people, but whether they like it or not, they will have to deliver some "killer facts" for their burgeoning accounts. Nowhere do they use the word trade-off - e.g. what if i buy crisps today and an apple tomorrow? etc. What about the global and national economic equity implications? The parameters on these carbon counts are ridicuolous and open to ridicule from anyone with a inquiring mind. Have they included the amortised carbon load of producing and maintaining a tractor over all the fields it has and will plough? What about the kit-kats the tractor driver eats - if he had a nice office job, he'd be eating ciabatta? What about the carbon saved by the tractor not being 30 farting draught animals? The Tall Economist is happy that Terry Leahy is leading us down a pathway where this issue is on the horizon behind us ...

Source: The Guardian (UK)

It all began with a packet of cheese and onion Walkers crisps. For this humble potato snack boldly went where no other food product, not even the fearsome Lion Bar, had yet dared to go – the brave new world of carbon labelling.
The smelliest flavour of Britain's favourite crisps has had its carbon footprint measured and, since last year, it has been exhibited on its royal blue packaging for all to see.
It took over a year and a half for the Carbon Trust to figure out a carbon label for the Walkers cheese and onion pack. It's 75g — almost double the weight of the pack (34.5g).
Two other products were also put to the test: Boots Botanics shampoo (average 148g for a 250ml bottle) and Innocent Smoothies (average 225g for a 250ml bottle).
You would be forgiven for thinking that taking this much time to measure the carbon footprint of the lifecycle of a packet of crisps is rather ludicrous, over-complicated, and a waste of time.
But the Carbon Trust and companies argue that it will raise public awareness and, more importantly, will help them, through the evaluating process, realise where companies' biggest carbon sins are. They can then make amends by adjusting their supply chain.
More foods and other products are now set to follow suit. They're even going to measure the carbon footprint of an iron. The Carbon Trust announced this week that seven more companies have signed up to the carbon labelling scheme. That makes 20 in total now — including Tesco, who have pledged to add carbon labels to 30 of their own-brand products, taking in orange juice, lightbulbs, washing detergent and some veg. Cadbury has put forward its Dairy Milk bar and Andrex toilet tissue, and Foster's lager are also getting carbon labelled up.
The idea is to work towards a single standard that will eventually be applicable not just to food, but to a wide range of sectors and products. Halifax bank has already labelled its online Web Saver account with a carbon footprint of 204g. Make of that what you will.
The calculations are done from cradle to grave so, for example, with Walkers crisps, the process began by calculating the carbon emissions of the fertilisers used in the soil, then proceeded to the farmer ploughing the field, the manufacturing process, packaging, distribution, retailing and finally to the disposal of the packets at the end of their life, including transport from disposal site to the recycling point or landfill site, as well as emissions from the recycling or landfill process.
If that sounds full-on, think about the number of calculations needed to find the carbon footprint of a food with larger numbers of ingredients, such as a pizza or a pre-prepared fruit salad.
The point to all this, said former Defra head David Miliband last year, is to help consumers, who often feel confused and powerless, as well as producers, who feel their environmental efforts are going unrecognised and unrewarded.
But does it really? It is likely to confuse a lot of people who will be faced with a number which, at present at least, has no meaning. Is 75g per pack a lot or a little? It sounds a lot, coming in at double the weight of the pack. So, does Walkers get a big green thumbs up or down?
And even with a common standard, it is going to take an age to carbon footprint every product. Last year, Tesco boss Terry Leahy announced that the giant supermarket chain would carbon label all of its products — some 70,000 different lines. This was wisely pared down to a more manageable 30 products a few months on once Leahy — or more likely the poor soul he put in charge — realised how much work it would entail.
So is it worth all this effort? Will the carbon label system work, and will we ever understand it, and care enough to change our habits?
A quick straw poll amongst friends revealed that there may be some way to go. "What if my flowers have been flown in from Kenya?" one points out. "I'm supporting the community there but the carbon label will be huge from all the air miles." "And if they're taking into account the whole lifecycle, including how I cook my food, does that mean I am never again allowed to slow roast my potatoes and am condemned to a life of mash?" quips another.
Others complained of being labeltastically fatigued, with Fairtrade, organic and traffic lights amongst others already fighting for space. But there is something morbidly interesting in knowing how much carbon has been emitted producing the food we'll gobble down in a few minutes. And more often than not, it's far too much.

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: George Bush listens, learns, loves ... ignores?

2008-02-08T09:45:00.000Z

Forget Kennedy's Peace Corps, Dubya is being urged to include a Clean Energy Corps in his legacy to the world post-2008. This is viewed as a key-turner to increase environmental and social sustainability in one of the most economically polarised developed countries, the USA. What are the chances for this being a pilot for a program with global eco- and social-sustainability objectives? Is the world ready for an eco-ethical Bush legacy? Would a more competitive eco-ethical field, would see Gore, Bono and Brown accelerate their international efforts? Or would the eco brand be forever tarnished?

Source: PRNewsWire: 'Go Green, Go Equal:' Environmental, Minority Groups Outline Needed Long-Term Economic Stimulus for All Americans

Unusual Coalition Urges Congress, White House to Focus on Sparking New Economic Boom, Resolving Climate Woes and Expanding Prosperity for Poor and Working Class.
Two dozen leading environmental and minority groups are urging the White House and Congress
to look ahead to a long-term economic stimulus package that would use targeted investments in energy efficiency, mass transit, and a "Clean Energy Corps" to put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work while strengthening the economy, accelerating towards energy independence, and easing the harm of global warming.
In the joint statement to President George Bush, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the groups write: "By increasing national energy efficiency, reducing out-of-pocket energy spending, and creating employment opportunities, the measures above will meet basic stimulus goals while furthering national objectives of climate protection, energy security, and economic equity."
The statement continues: "In crafting a national stimulus package, we urge you to consider policy measures that not only help keep our economy out of recession in the short term, but also make smart investments in longer-term, sustained economic prosperity by moving our nation towards a clean energy economy that provides employment opportunities for poor and
working-class Americans.... We have an opportunity to act boldly to strengthen American energy independence, invest in the clean, sustainable energy sources that will form the foundation of a new era of economic prosperity, and address global warming -- all while putting hundreds of
thousands of Americans to work."

In addition to endorsing such short-term steps as increased spending on means-targeted or unemployment-targeted programs (e.g., unemployment insurance, food stamps, and LIHEAP) and investments in the U.S. physical infrastructure and public buildings, the groups also call for steps to "promote a clean energy economy that provides opportunities for all Americans, including the poor and working class, including:

-- Funding a public Clean Energy Corps that offers work and service opportunities to the young and poor to combat climate change through energy efficiency and weatherization projects;
-- Expanded and immediate funding of the recent Green Jobs Act (GJA), Title X of the EISA;
-- Directing infrastructure investments toward transit, mixed use dense development, walkable communities, and overall reductions in vehicle miles traveled and our nation's carbon footprint;
-- Investing in improving our electricity grid to be 'smarter' in end-use efficiency and allowing greater use of distributed renewable energy generation;
-- Using additional monies allocated to LIHEAP for improving building energy efficiency as well as home heating assistance, and removing current constraints on such use;
-- Extend production and investment tax credits for solar, wind, and other renewable energy companies to prevent high-growth clean energy industries from having to cancel projects and lay off workers;
-- Establishing federal credit guarantees for state and municipal 'efficiency utilities' promoting energy conservation efforts in transportation, industry, and buildings;
-- Establishing a federal revolving loan fund to support such efforts; and

-- Providing personal tax credits or rebates to encourage the purchase and installation of energy efficient appliances and heating and cooling systems."
The joint statement was signed by 1Sky; Breakthrough Institute; Center for Neighborhood Technology; Center for State Innovation; Climate Crisis Coalition; Climate Protection Campaign; Climate Solutions; ColorOfChange.Org; The Corps Network; Earth Day Network; EcoAmerica; Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Energize America; Green for All; Green House Network; Hip Hop Caucus; Innovations in Civic Participation; Kyoto USA; MoveOn.Org Political Action; Solve Climate; Step It Up!; Sustainable South Bronx; and U.S. Climate Emergency Council.

CLIMATE CHANGE and THE POOR: Can the Poor be Insured Against Climate Change?

2008-02-04T18:11:00.000Z

Microinsurance forwarded as an option to help the poor. Good article by a serious economist!

Source: Le Panoptique, by João Sarmento Cunha

Moving into the XXI century, images of lives devastated by floods in Asia, droughts in Africa and cyclones in Central America are becoming increasingly familiar, reminding us of how vulnerable people in developing countries are to climate change. Considering the hardships these people face every time a catastrophe dawns on them, could they not perhaps be insured against the perils of climate?
Recent headlines of devastation caused by Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, displacing over half a million people, or the massive floods in southern Mexico, leaving vast stretches of land completely submerged, are just the visible face of a growing problem affecting developing countries. According to a recent Oxfam report1 , the number of weather related disasters has quadrupled over the past 20 years, with an average of 500 disasters taking place each year compared to 120 in the 1980s. Vulnerability to adverse weather events occurs for several reasons, among them the geographic location, poor infra-structure, economies highly dependent on agriculture, high incidence of poverty and limited means of coping with risk, including access to formal insurance. Climate change is expected to make matters worse, raising the likelihood of more extreme events like the ones mentioned above and posing real risks to development2 . So, considering that many instruments already exist for risk-sharing and transfer, can these also be provided to the poor in rural areas of developing countries? Can the poor be insured against adverse weather events and climate change more broadly?
Risks, vulnerability and poverty
The rural poor own very few assets and income generation is largely dependent on labour put into agricultural activities. The main threats to livelihoods are therefore those pertaining to loss of life, critical illness, old age, lower agricultural productivity and loss of assets. To counter these risks, and considering that formal protection mechanisms such as social security and formal insurance are wholly absent, these people have developed sophisticated strategies to “insure” against negative surprises. Ex ante, they may diversify their sources of income and make more conservative decisions on farm technologies and techniques. Although less risky, these forms of income smoothing tend to yield low returns and contribute to the vicious circle of poverty.
They may also resort to risk coping strategies following a shock, such as drawing down their savings or through mutual assistance arrangements. The downside is that these strategies are often insufficient in dealing with shocks that affect whole regions (i.e. covariate shocks). This is especially true if the savings are held in cattle or grain, and thus perishable, and if the social networks are based on close relatives and neighbours which may be equally affected by the shock. There is also significant evidence that when severe economy-wide shocks occur, certain survival strategies are used that divert spending away from investments in education and health, with serious implications on the well-being of future generations3-4 . Transitory events can therefore have permanent effects on household welfare5 .
For more see here.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND UK CONSUMERS: animals remain turn-on for Brits, and climate a turn-off

2008-02-04T16:12:00.000Z

Co-op accuses its rivals of lazy thinking again as it proves climate indifference is the norm, and the Brits fabled animal love is a dominant force. Is the Coop going to poach Jamie Oliver from battery-hen powered Sainsbury?

Source: "Shoppers care more about animals than climate" by The Guardian,
Animal welfare and fair trade are far bigger concerns to UK consumers than climate change, according to a huge new poll of UK shoppers.
Only 4% rate climate change as their top ethical priority, compared with 21% who think animal welfare is the most important issue and 14% who rate fair trade as their key concern.
The findings come from a survey conducted by the Co-op grocery business that has been used to draw up a "responsible retailing" policy, designed to reflect shoppers' concerns.
The Co-op claims the survey is the biggest poll of consumer ethics ever undertaken. The supermarket group analysed responses to a detailed, four-page questionnaire from more than 100,000 members and customers. It intends to use their responses to guide changes to the way it does business.
As a result of the survey the Co-op is halting the sale and use of eggs from caged hens with immediate effect. The 2,700-strong supermarket chain is also ensuring all its own-brand tea - including its 99 brand - becomes fair trade. The customer-owned grocery business, which made all of its coffee fair trade five years ago, intends to absorb the extra costs so that prices do not go up.
Three main categories emerged from the survey as the key areas of concern: ethical trading (27%), animal welfare (25%) and environmental impact (22%).
Shoppers' worries about the environment are focused on issues other than climate change. Twice as many are concerned about the amount of packaging on their food as think global warming is the most important issue.
As a result, the Co-op is changing the shape and weight of its 26 own-brand wine bottles to save 450m tonnes of glass a year. It has also increased its list of prohibited pesticides from 32 to 98.
Among those who believe ethical trading is the most important issue, 14% make fair trade their priority, with 8% supporting "general ethical trading" policies.
Some 4% pinpointed animal testing as the ethical issue they believe is the most important facing consumers - the same proportion as want more attention paid to climate change. Paul Monaghan, the Co-op's head of ethics, said the group believed that consumers' apparent indifference to climate change was likely to be the result of believing they have little influence to force change: "They may believe they are powerless on climate change. People can choose to buy Fairtrade or Freedom Food labels, but there is no carbon label yet. We think shoppers see climate change as an issue for corporations and governments."
Peter Marks, chief executive of the Co-operative Group, said the organisation would not scale back its support for the global drive to reduce greenhouse emissions despite its members' seeming ambivalence to the issue. He said they needed more information, adding: "Over the next decade we will work even harder to help customers understand the threat we face and the actions we can take."
The Co-op launched its vast consultation exercise last September. It aimed to discover which issues meant most to its customers and to make it clear that some seemingly sensible changes had negative repercussions that it would not support. The grocer pointed to the aeroplane stickers used on air-freighted exotic fruit and flowers by Marks & Spencer and Tesco and accused its rivals of "lazy thinking".
The Co-op said it would never introduce such stickers because they could have a detrimental effect on growers in less developed countries and the carbon produced by importing from African farmers can be a fraction of that produced by farmers in Europe because of the heating and lighting required.
The Co-op has long been at the forefront of the ethical debate. It was the first major retailer to champion fair trade, when it put Cafédirect coffee on its shelves in 1992, and introduced the UK's first fair trade bananas in 2000.
In recent years, however, supermarket groups have increasingly been seeking to underline their credentials as planet-friendly businesses. Marks & Spencer has set out a 100-point Plan A eco-strategy while Tesco has set out a "community plan" and has pledged to "become a leader in helping to create a low-carbon economy". Tesco is also leading an initiative to come up with a carbon-labelling scheme and last year announced £25m of funding for a new Sustainable Consumption Institute at Manchester University.
Monaghan said the Co-op was now "raising the bar" with its ethics policy

CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL EQUITY: India cools on developed country apathy [again]

2008-02-04T09:06:00.000Z

Small carbon footprints, poverty and addressing adapatation characterise developing countries. Yet, they remain pariahs for many developed country mitigation programmes and excuses for inaction.

Source: India News by Arun Kumar, IANS - "India asks developed world to walk the talk on climate change"
India has asked developed countries to walk the talk on climate change and stop harping on standards "benchmarks" to let developing countries play their part through agreed flexibility mechanisms.
"An absolutely clear imperative is that developed countries walk the talk on GHG (Green House Gas reductions)," R. Chidambaram, principal scientific advisor to the Indian government, told a US-sponsored international climate change in Honolulu Thursday.
"There has to be a clear understanding that developing countries have small individual carbon footprints and their overriding priority has to remain poverty eradication and addressing adaptation," said the leader of the Indian delegation to the second Major Economics Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change.
"Developing countries including India, are playing a part in the international action on mitigation especially through the flexibility mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol as also taking nationally appropriate action on mitigation," he said.
Expressing concern over suggestions on setting standard "benchmarks" for various technology sectors, Chidambaram said: "Such benchmarking would be premature for developing countries - smaller players have to catch up.
"Moreover, we should not put the cart before the horse. If technologies are transferred properly, standards would automatically be achieved."
Asking the participants to "sculpt our ideas and proposals on climate change within the provisions and principles of the Framework Convention," Chidambaram made a strong plea for the "spirit of common but differentiated responsibilities" to pervade their deliberations.
Expressing concern that the agenda did not emphasise the special need to support developing countries, he said: "The group of large economies representing both developed and developing countries should be able to discuss issues of relevance to both but within the clearly identified building blocks and other details negotiated at Bali."
Noting the Bali Action Plan is about long term cooperative action to enable full, effective and sustained implementation of the Framework Convention, Chidambaram asked the participants to do "without suggestions for additions, including on competitiveness etc., which are the subject matter of discussions elsewhere."
The major economies process is well placed to contribute to the building block of technology with both its components, he said suggesting, "If knowledge is already available and technology is already developed, it should be transferred to the developing countries."
"If the process of knowledge generation is still on, there should be scientific and technological cooperation between the developed and developing countries and in this India will be more than happy to contribute," Chidambaram said.
Noting the prospect of rapid depletion of fossil fuels are now driving the global development of energy related technologies like renewables, efficiency and nuclear, he said: "Development of each technology is complex."
"There is need for closing the nuclear fuel cycle," Chidambaram said, suggesting the response to climate change needs to be technology based and discussion on technology was necessary.
The setting of standard "benchmarks" goal needs to be realistic, apart from being based on a scientific consensus at a far higher spatial level than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
It should also take into account, historical cumulative emissions, per-capita emissions and the sustainable development needs of developing countries and be guided by Article 2 of the UN Framework Convention in its entirety, he said.
"The issue of a long term goal is, however, linked to issues of equity, Chidambaram said. "We believe that an equal per-capita entitlement to equal sustainable development is unassailable to ensure fairness and recognition that the earth's atmosphere is our common heritage to which all of us have an equal claim."
Noting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's determination to not let India's per-capita emissions exceed those of developed countries even as it pursues growth and development, he said: "This offer is, of course, a challenge to us but it also throws up a challenge to the developed countries and requires sharing of technology."
India was glad that Germany, France and Britain have accepted the importance of convergence in per-capita emissions for developing and developed countries.
"We would be happy to work with like-minded countries to develop this paradigm in a manner that also ensures accelerated growth and empowerment in the developing countries," Chidambaram said.
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee led the Indian delegation at the first US-sponsored meeting of the world's 17 major economies in Washington last September.

KENYA: High-quality flower trade reliant on the poorest migrant workers

2008-01-30T09:00:00.000Z

Source: Business Daily (Nairobi) "Post-Poll Violence Looms Over Horticulture Sector"
Expectations were high that players in the horticultural industry would raise their glasses to toast for remarkable earnings last year, but their expectations and hopes have turned into worry.
The sector had an impressive run in 2007 , with earnings climbing by 64 per cent to Sh49.5 billion, buoyed by strong demand in key international markets, surprising even analysts who had raised concern over diverse challenges such as the food miles concept, a strengthening shilling against the dollar and expiring trade arrangements with Europe.
But an outbreak of violence related to the disputed presidential election results, especially around the main growing areas around Naivasha and west of the Rift Valley seems to have spoiled the party for producers, as fear mounts over gangs blocking the shipment of produce from the farms and disrupting labour.
Violence and protests followed the Electoral Commission's declaration of Mr Mwai Kibaki as winner of the presidential election whose outcome the opposition ODM has challenged.
ODM and election observers have complained of differences in some of the final results announced by commissioners and those read out at the constituencies.
Because of the violence, the horticultural industry , instead of enjoying the pickings, is now preparing for a nervous brain- storming meeting in Nairobi today to map out its future.
"The developments are not good and all of us are meeting to try and find a way out of the situation," Ms Jane Ngige, the chief executive of the Kenya Flower Council told Business Daily.
The latest wave of unrest especially around Naivasha and Kericho has raised great concern in the sectors as thousands of people providing casual labour in the flower farms have been displaced from their homes.
Analysts warn that the displacements will hit the flower farms that require intensive labour in picking and packaging .
Besides the shortage of manpower, there is also a massive threat to shipment of consignments to Nairobi and Eldoret International airports from where they are transported to markets abroad. Gangs of youth have since the weekend been erecting illegal roadblocks along the main Kericho/ Nairobi highway, paralysing traffic.
Hasit Shah, the Fresh Produce and Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK) chairman said there have been major repercussions to the industry following the skirmishes in Naivasha at the weekend which have triggered a mass exodus of mainly migrant workers.
"Most of the farms are operating with limited capacity. The situation is tense and most workers are afraid to stay ," he said.
Vehicles drive around a burning roadblock in Naivasha, a key flower growing area.
"The entire western Rift region has been hit. In the past two days, produce from most of these areas is not coming through to Nairobi. We are how, A KEY ever, making arrangements to airlift the produce from all affected areas," he added.
Issa Wafula, the Kenya Agricultural and Plantations Workers Union (KPAWU) assistant secretary- general said from workers from the western region who remained in Naivasha have not been able to access their stations since fresh chaos broke out this week.
Mr Wafula has appealed to the government to move fast and save the industry from collapse."Seventy per cent of flower farm labour force is provided by workers from western Kenya. This is why we urgently appeal to the Government to restore peace before more damage is done to the farms", he told the Business Daily.
James Finlay Ltd's subsidiary-Flamingo Holdings- that owns flower and vegetable farms in Lake Naivasha and Timau areas says it was also affected by the weekend skirmishes.
"We have lost five days of work because there were many blockades on the road. Each day, we are not sure that the roads are open. "We can only ship flowers when the roads are passable," Nec Davies, the Finlays managing director said.
His company, which also runs tea plantations in Kericho, but which was less affected, said all of its processed tea was lying in its Kericho stores until the situation improves.
Reduced and cancelled airlines' operations, stoppages of road transport and production losses in the past one week will mainly feature at the meeting of producers, farmers and exporters in Nairobi today,
Other issues on the agenda-which are to be presented to Government, include decisions by customers and clients to cancel commercial and technical visits and divert into Egypt, Morroco and West African producers.
"Delays in ports meant that chemicals, fertilisers and agro inputs could not get to farms on time. Many farms in the Rift Valley were vandalised and workers have not returned to all the units," Mr Shah whose organisation represents some 100 small scale growers, said.
With impressive earnings from 2007, industry players fear political turmoil was scaring away potential investors and increased investment until they are guaranteed of security of their assets.
The good run by the horticulture industry last year was because of demand in the international market helped by poor weather conditions in Europe during the second quarter of 2007 that opened the window for local producers to increase their sales.
Traditionally, the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere reduces sales volumes for local exporters as their counterparts in Europe take advantage of improved weather to increase their output.
Last year, however, unpredictable weather attributed to climate change upset Europe's horticultural production in key source markets such as the UK.
That meant prolonged period of demand for imports from countries like Kenya.In its latest monthly economic review, the Central Bank of Kenya said horticultural exports increased both by volume and value, capturing the change in fortunes for the local growers

CLIMATE CHANGE: not a priority say "Big Business"

2008-01-28T10:44:00.000Z

Big business says addressing climate change 'rates very low on agenda'
Poll of 500 major firms reveals that only one in 10 regard global warming as a priority
Source: Independent (UK) by Tricia Holly Davis, Geoffrey Lean and Susie Mesure

Global warming ranks far down the concerns of the world's biggest companies, despite world leaders' hopes that they will pioneer solutions to the impending climate crisis, a startling survey will reveal this week.
Nearly nine in 10 of them do not rate it as a priority, says the study, which canvassed more than 500 big businesses in Britain, the US, Germany, Japan, India and China. Nearly twice as many see climate change as imposing costs on their business as those who believe it presents an opportunity to make money. And the report's publishers believe that big business will concentrate even less on climate change as the world economy deteriorates.
The survey demolishes George Bush's insistence that global warming is best addressed through voluntary measures undertaken by business – and does so at the most embarrassing juncture for the embattled President. For this week he is convening a meeting of the world's largest economies to try to persuade them to agree with him.
The meeting – in Hawaii on Wednesday and Thursday – follows the US's refusal to accept binding targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming, in international negotiations in Bali last month, and is seen as an attempt to develop a less rigorous approach to the crisis.
But the new report shows that even business does not support this, with four out of the five companies surveyed wanting governments to take a central role in tackling climate change.
The survey, carried out by the consulting firm Accenture, found that only 5 per cent of the companies questioned – and not one in China – regarded global warming as their top priority. And only 11 per cent put it in second or third place.
Overall it ranked eighth in business leaders' concerns, below increasing sales, reducing costs, developing new products and services, competing for talented staff, securing growth in emerging markets, innovation and technology. Although most are taking limited action to reduce their own emissions, almost one in five had done nothing.
Mark Spelman, global head of strategy at Accenture, told The Independent on Sunday at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week: "Climate change is not going to get nearly the same degree of attention here as it would have achieved if the economic outlook were brighter. Whenever there are underlying economic concerns, people will focus on them."
The report makes it clear that – in contradiction of the Bush administration's position – business is waiting for governments to take the lead. Nearly half of all the companies worldwide said that climate change was already a major issue for them and three in five expected it to be so within five years. But more than half confessed to be struggling to understand its implications.
Matthew Farrow, head of environment for the Confederation of British Industry, agreed that companies are having a hard time digesting climate change, but added: "The core financials need to be right, but business also needs to understand how climate change will affect the marketplace and realise those business opportunities."
Some 67 per cent of the businesses surveyed agreed they have a role to play in tackling global warming, but only four out of 10 felt in a position to fulfil it. In China only 14 per cent of those questioned felt in a strong position.
The report concludes: "Businesses clearly are seeking long-term signals about where and how to invest. They are reluctant to make big investments in climate change-related initiatives until the scope of future regulation becomes clearer".
This point has been made to US and European governments by businesses in their own countries. The European Corporate Leaders on Climate Change group, made up of the heads of major companies – which persuaded both Tony Blair and EU President José Manuel Barroso to make climate change a priority – has called for "a strong and clear policy framework" to enable cuts in emissions.
And the US Climate Action Partnership – which includes the heads of blue-chip companies such as General Electric, DuPont, and Alcoa – has urged Mr Bush to "establish a mandatory emissions pathway" leading to a reduction of up to 30 per cent in US emissions within 15 years.
Yesterday, Mark Kenber, policy director at the Climate Group, said: "These disappointing findings highlight the fact that carbon pricing mechanisms are not yet strong enough for businesses to incorporate climate change risks and opportunities into traditional business strategy".

'Creative Capitalism': Equity and sustainability as natural economic outcomes

2008-01-25T14:23:00.000Z

Bill Gates made a nice speech at Davos - seen in full here - his call for "creative capitalism" challenges those big companies to show that they have the skills, capacity for doing the right thing [on a range of development issues] while also making money. He is in effect saying: "earn your bonuses/ wages ... show us how clever you are".

"If we just have the company that was doing the best in the sector matched by other companies, say all the drug companies were doing as well as GlaxoSmithkline thinking about the needs of the poor, if the banks were thinking micro-financing as well as the best, if the cell phone companies were thinking how the cell phone can even help the poor low cost financial transactions then we could see the condition of the poor improve dramatically,” Gates said.

BONO, GORE, SARKOZY pledge recognition of GLOBAL ECONOMIC EQUITY and CLIMATE CHANGE

2008-01-24T16:08:00.001Z

Al, Bono and Nick have more in common than pretty wives and large second homes. They are all committed to solving global economic equity and climate change simultaneously. Apparently. At least, committed to chatting about it.

Source: CBS.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Irish rock singer Bono warned the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday that efforts to tackle climate change and global poverty were lagging, and not improving conditions as much as is needed.
Bono also stressed the interconnectedness of the issues of climate change and third world debt relief, as the environmental and economic consequences of global warming will only exacerbate efforts to reduce poverty, "and in fact undo all of the work that we've been trying to do over the years."
He noted that French President Nicolas Sarkozy told him earlier this month that he, too, would try to keep France's commitments to the poorest of the poor even though he had his own campaign commitments to improve the lives of the French people.
More here.

CLIMATE CHANGE and GLOBAL ECONOMIC EQUITY: Recognition by Gordon of developing country claims on ecological space

2008-01-23T08:25:00.000Z

Joint Statement issued by PM Gordon Brown with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh includes reference to climate change issues. They jointly recognise the importance of long-term convergence of per capita emission rates equitably through the UNFCC provision and principles, in particular the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. In other words, weighting those issues of concern [in the climate change debate at least] to developing countries, in particular those relating to addressing adaptation, technology, and financing arrangements. In the field of bilateral cooperation on climate change, the two Sides expressed satisfaction over the announcement of a UK-India Agreement on the second phase of UK-India Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Study. This talk is encouraging, but the reliance on the untested carbon trading "silver bullet" is easily misinterpreted as a smokescreen for "we intend doing very little about equity issues".

Source: e-Gov Monitor

10. India and the UK recognise the need to find effective and practical solutions to address concerns regarding climate change and its implications for human kind. These would include mitigation and adaptation strategies in a manner that supports further economic and social development in particular of developing countries. Long-term convergence of per capita emission rates is an important and equitable principle that should be seriously considered in the context of international climate change negotiations. They expressed satisfaction over the successful outcome at Bali that reaffirmed the relevance of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including its provision and principles, in particular the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. The process established under the Bali Road Map should aim for enhanced implementation of the UNFCCC and give due weight to issues of concern to developing countries, in particular those relating to addressing adaptation, technology, and financing arrangements. In the field of bilateral cooperation on climate change, the two Sides expressed satisfaction over the announcement of a UK-India Agreement on the second phase of UK-India Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Study.
The UK and India are convinced that development of the international carbon market is important for the future and wish to explore new approaches to market related investment that offer the potential to drive technology transfer. The two Sides shall work towards the success of the second Phase of a project aimed at identifying the barriers to low carbon technology transfer. They will also collaborate on a project piloting implementation of programmatic CDM in India this year to jointly explore the potential of this to facilitate up-scaling of carbon market investment in accordance with India’s future development priorities. Both sides recognised the importance of Research and Development collaboration on low carbon energy technologies and welcomed the broadening dialogue between the two countries on clean coal technologies and other power generation technologies.

EU, CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: Can equity be maintained through the EU's latest plan?

2008-01-23T08:08:00.001Z

Climate change proposals for sweeping emissions targets/ cuts by the EU announced today indicate first this issue is being taken seriously and that the EU wishes to be a world leader in this [not just the UK]. Yet, the taxes proposed are on many basic items - such as electricity, heating, etc - products that the poor [and elderly] consume as a higher proportion of their disposable income. When the focus was on the illogical food miles issue, the proposed taxes on air freight would have disproportionately hit higher-value/ luxury products such as fresh produce. While illogical, inefficient and socially costly to developing countries, equity issues in consumer countries were not a consideration. Furthermore, what of small and medium enterprises in the EU - scraping by currently, facing higher energy costs anyway. Selling out and becoming a shelf-stacker in Lidl becomes a more viable option than struggling on with the family business. Are we continuing to pursue those easier targets at the expense of economic equity [nationally and internationally] and ignoring the potential win-wins from appropriate taxing of industry, incentives for innovation? Furthermore, what if predictions about climate change's sequencing/ timing and ferocity are overstated; what cost to our economies from such "eyes wide shut" knee-jerk reactions from Brussels?

Source: Deutsche Welle

The European Commission will on Wednesday, Jan. 23, unveil sweeping plans to fight global warming, under heavy fire from industry and many EU member countries over the possible costs of the scheme.
Consumers too will not escape the costs, which Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said would amount to a total of around 60 billion euros ($86.6 billion) a year -- 0.5 percent of gross domestic product. Commission officials, however, have said the bill might be double that.
The package is an attempt by the EU executive to translate into action the aim of EU leaders, announced last March, to cut emissions of the gases that cause climate change by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
The measures, including a new look at state aid for environment projects, will set the 27 nations specific targets for renewable energy use, to ensure that 20 percent of the bloc's energy in 2020 comes from these forms.
he commission has come under attack from virtually all sides, including in-house, even before the plans are examined by EU countries and the European Parliament, a process Brussels hopes to conclude by the end of the year.
"These proposals are going to raise electricity prices for households and enterprises," said EU Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen from Germany. "This has to be openly said to citizens."
Carbon dioxide emissions from industry totaled more than two billion tons in 2005, around half of the greenhouse gases produced in the EU. Much of the other half comes from transport and agriculture.
Under the EU's emissions trading scheme, set to expire in 2012, nearly 12,000 energy-intensive plants can buy or sell permits to emit carbon dioxide.
In future such permits, currently provided free, would be managed by member states and gradually increase in price. The system would also be extended to other sectors like aviation, petrochemicals, ammonia and aluminum.
Some companies have complained they could be forced to move abroad, taking jobs with them, and according to Green MEP Claude Termes, major steelmakers were knocking on the Commission's door on Monday.
The threat to employment is a powerful argument, but Barroso has warned that the energy and climate status quo is unacceptable.
"Taking action is not cost free," he said Monday. The price of inaction "could even approach 20 percent of GDP. The longer we delay, the higher the costs."
EU countries are concerned about the burden they will have to assume on renewable energy.
Around 8.5 percent of the bloc's energy comes from renewable forms, like biomass, wind and solar power, but future load sharing will be based on GDP; simply put, on a nation's wealth.
This has particularly angered Sweden, which already derives around 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources, but could, according to Green party calculations be asked to raise that to 52.7 percent.
Stockholm argues that it is being punished, rather than rewarded, for the eco-friendly efforts it has already made.
In Germany, 18 percent of energy would have to come from renewable resources, according to the proposal, doubling the current percentage.

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECOLOGICAL SPACE: The rich are damaging the poor!

2008-01-22T12:44:00.000Z

UCLA have provided evidence of another universally accepted truth - that the rich have larger eco-feet. Is this more numbers or re-packaged numbers to confuse the consumer and baffle the policy-makers? Historically, there is strong evidence that the richer countries have "environmentally damaged" other [usually poorer] countries through their actions. Here, some eco-economists quantify this. Evidence on CC is that "Greenhouse emissions from low-income countries have imposed $740 billion of damage on rich countries, while in return rich countries have imposed $2.3 trillion of damage." It strikes me as odd that a cost-benefit study looks only at costs. The policy action from such figures is unclear [OK, I should have google-d the original paper and read it]. Is the net damage of $3 trillion efficient? Expect more silo-ed studies like this putting numbers to CC. Probably a [life]raft of Willingness to Pay studies aswell. It all points to a empty "so what?". Or does it, my willingness to be proved wrong, remains high. If there is a transfer of funds as hoped for: "This is an accounting tool that allows you to say how much the high-income world owes the low-income world for the environmental externalities we impose on them,"], then let's hope it doesnt get spent on Mercedes and Gucci ...

Source: Guardian (UK)

The environmental damage caused to developing nations by the world's richest countries amounts to more than the entire third world debt of $1.8 trillion, according to the first systematic global analysis of the ecological damage imposed by rich countries.
Using data from the World Bank and the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the researchers examined so-called "environmental externalities" or costs that are not included in the prices paid for goods but which cover ecological damage linked to their consumption. They focused on six areas: greenhouse gas emissions, ozone layer depletion, agriculture, deforestation, overfishing and converting mangrove swamps into shrimp farms.
Greenhouse emissions from low-income countries have imposed $740 billion of damage on rich countries, while in return rich countries have imposed $2.3 trillion of damage. This damage includes, for example, flooding from more severe storms as a result of climate change.
Likewise, CFC emissions from rich countries have inflicted between $25 billion and £57 billion of damage to the poorest countries. Increased ultraviolet levels from the ozone hole have led to higher healthcare costs from skin cancer and eye problems. The converse figure is between $0.58 and $1.3 billion.
"We know already that climate change is a huge injustice inflicted on the poor," said Dr Neil Adger at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Norwich, who was not involved in the research, "This paper is actually the first systematic quantification to produce a map of that ecological debt. Not only for climate change but also for these other areas."
"This is an accounting tool that allows you to say how much the high-income world owes the low-income world for the environmental externalities we impose on them," he said.
More here.

CLIMATE CHANGE, CARBON TRADING and ASIA: first futures trading for Asia in Mumbai

2008-01-21T14:56:00.000Z

India's Multi Commodity Exchange opens Asia's first-ever commodity exchange to offer trades in carbon credits - among the select few including Chicago Climate Exchange and the European Climate Exchange. Carbon credits are generated by enterprises in the developing world by using cleaner technologies and saving on energy consumption. This consequently reduces their greenhouse gas emissions. For each reduced tonne of carbon dioxide emission, an organisation receives a carbon emission certificate, which it can sell, either immediately or through a futures market, just like any other commodity. Only time can tell if we are witnessing a "race to the top" or "tunnelling to the bottom", national gains and sub-national poverty or win-wins??

Source: Business Standard Reporter

Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), the country’s largest commodity exchange, today launched futures trading in carbon credits - one of the fastest emerging intangible commodities in developing countries including India.The trading unit of carbon credits is fixed at 200 tonne. Today, five annual contracts are available on the platform with respective expiries on 15 December 2008, Dec 2009, Dec 2010, Dec 2011 and Dec 2012.The tick size has been fixed at Re 0.50 per tonne while the exchange has decided to facilitate delivery on the expiry of the respective contracts.The initiative makes it Asia's first-ever commodity exchange and among the select few along with the Chicago Climate Exchange and the European Climate Exchange to offer trades in carbon credits."The launch of carbon credits is significant as more and more countries are adhering to global carbon emission norms," said Joseph Massey, deputy managing director, MCX.Carbon credits are generated by enterprises in the developing world by using cleaner technologies and saving on energy consumption. This consequently reduces their greenhouse gas emissions. For each reduced tonne of carbon dioxide emission, an organisation receives a carbon emission certificate, which it can sell, either immediately or through a futures market, just like any other commodity. Carbon trading is carried out under an UN-mandated international convention on climate change.Under the Kyoto Protocol, carbon credits, or carbon emission reduction certificates, are issued by the executive board of Clean Development Mechanism - the highest international body to register projects and issue credits.

Cameroon: Climate Change Will Have Dreadful Consequences - Experts

2008-01-21T14:26:00.000Z

Journalists are being trained to keep a keen eye on the potential shocks and trends that climate change will put in motion that can scupper economic growth options for Cameroon.
Source: The Post (Buea) by Kini Nsom & Ernest Sumelong

Climate change may soon have a toll on Cameroon's agriculture, economy and health, experts have revealed.
They raised the concern on Monday, January 14, during a training course on reporting climate change, organised by the British High Commission in Yaounde."Our activities - felling trees, burning bushes and emitting gases into the atmosphere - have direct consequences on our environment. We must regulate them to prevent impending consequences of climate change," Dr. Gabriel Tchatat, one of the facilitators told The Post.
Tchatat said global warming, which is an indicator of climate change, will cause the disappearance of watersheds, savannah and lakes like the Lake Chad watershed and so on.
According to him, demography, agriculture, industries, urbanisation, deforestation etc., cause climate change.
Other facilitators - Drs. Joseph Amougou, Jacob Tche and Ernest Moloua - corroborated Tchatat; adding that there can hardly be economic development in Cameroon without considering climate change.
"Everybody is concerned about this; there would be loss of biodiversity, fertile lands and increase in pests. "Agriculture contributes 40 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, and that is really important for our economy," Dr. Moloua posited.
"Without integrating climate change in every project, there can be no development," Amougou argued.The researchers cited residents of Douala and the northern provinces of Cameroon who are already suffering from excessive heat and diseases.
Climate change became a major concern when President Paul Biya addressed the UN General Assembly in Geneva in November 2007. He announced the creation of the Climate Change Observatory, even though it is yet to go operational.
However, the researchers faulted government for failing to make concrete efforts in spite of its pledge to fight climate change. They also said government has failed to communicate and get the population involved. Administrative authorities at the training admitted that communication is important if the population must understand and participate in the fight.
Thus, the facilitators maintained that journalists must, through environmental reports, educate the population on what role they can and should play in fighting climate change.
Meanwhile, the course instructor Janet Barrie, former BBC news presenter, urged reporters to write stories that will cause people to act.

CLIMATE CHANGE and The Famous SHORT ECONOMIST: Stern resources online

2008-01-18T14:49:00.000Z

Rabett Run has a long list of resources online about Stern Review including from the CC Economist himself, supplementary material, critiques from Nordhaus, Varian, Stiglitz, etc. Well worth a browse ... well that's my weekend reading taken care of! [btw, couldnt find a picture online of Stern standing next to anyone for perspective ... so u will have to take my word for it!]

CLIMATE CHANGE, BUSINESS AND EQUITY: Its all about the money ...

2008-01-18T13:56:00.000Z

Source: ClimateCorp.com - “Bali Special Report – was it good for business?” By Zara Maung

The logistical challenge of tackling climate change was displayed perfectly at the UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, by the constant stream of taxis queuing up to ferry conference attendees from one five star hotel in Nusa Dua to another. A modest free bike hire service did exist for the event but unfortunately bike lanes didn’t.
The Bali bicycle analogy also sums up the businesses’ approach at the post-Kyoto political negotiations: “We can run the low carbon economy” was the message to governments, “but you need to build the infrastructure to make it work”.

The balance sheet
Although businesses were not included in the negotiations at Bali, business and investors organisations such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) had a strong presence at the conference side events. The general attitude from companies towards the political process at Bali was a mixture of idealist hope for a global plan on combating climate change, along with increasing frustration that the politicisation of climate change was in fact holding back meaningful progress.
The main factors holding businesses back from investing in low carbon solutions are price, price and more price. The price of developing new technologies is too high, the price of carbon is too unstable, the prices consumers are willing to pay for low carbon goods is not high enough – all were recurring comments from businesses throughout the conference.
So what did they get in return for their pleas for better market conditions? Well, Yvo de Boer, general secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), came to the press on week one of the conference with a very clear view of what needed to be done to drive private low carbon investment. Quoting figures from the UNFCCC report on investment and financial flows, which was published shortly before the talks, he noted how much global investment and financial flows relied on private sector involvement - 86 per cent of it to be precise.
He acknowledged that businesses would need policy certainty, incentives to invest in new technologies and that international and public capital would need to be channelled towards climate friendly and climate proof investments. “The problem is that governments don’t want to pay for all of this” he told the press frankly.
The frustration of knowing what needed to be done set against all the political stalling that occurred (alongside serious sleep deprivation) would have driven any sane man to tears by the end of the talks. Many of the developing countries, who could only afford to send two or three delegates to the conference compared to the large team from the US, simply had to drop out of the talks at times due to sheer exhaustion, which might in part explain the raw deal they ended up with on adaptation funding. The meagre fund is to contain money collected from a 2 per cent adaptation levy on Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism projects, the emissions abatement projects in the developing world that fuel the carbon markets with tradable credits.
Being an outsider, following the last few days of negotiations was a little like waiting at the hospital bed of a comatosed patient. There was nothing much going on but you still hung on day and night waiting for some signs of life. Luckily Al Gore’s refreshing speech provided welcome respite and the waiting paid off. At the end of the talks we were proudly presented with a somewhat patchy but promising Post-2012 road map. The road map was so called because of its express purpose to lead countries towards a post-2012 agreement in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.

Policy certainty
After 13 consecutive years of UNFCCC conferences and 10 years of Kyoto, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the best these global powwows on climate change can give us is an indication of what might happen policy wise on the national scale. Even the Kyoto Protocol, as low as its 5 per cent emissions reductions targets for 2012 were, could not prevent Japan, Canada and a host of European countries from emitting over their limits.
Accordig to media reports at the end of 2007, Japan, Italy and Spain face payments of as much as $33 billion in carbon credits combined for failing to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions as promised under the Kyoto treaty. Other analogies at the national level include the bi-lateral deals on technology transfer being brokered between the US and Asia.
Nevertheless, some measures agreed under the Bali road map had good prospects. Promises by developing countries to measure and cut their emissions suggested that we can expect a stronger focus on renewables and energy efficiency policies in the big emitter nations such as China and India.
The much anticipated REDD policy, a handy acronym for “Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries” also came into swing. Deemed of high importance because deforestation is estimated to account for 20 per cent of global emissions, countries agreed to work on methods to preserve tropical forests, the type of forest best suited to absorbing carbon.
Providing disputes over indigenous peoples’ rights are peaceably settled, it seems the post 2012 future for forests may be based on selling avoided deforestation credits, with governments being issued the credits by a UN authoritative body for preserving their trees. Some impoverished forested states, such as Indonesia’s West Papua and Aceh are taking the hint and trying to get in on the act early. They plan to seize on the new confidence in forestry credits to sell them on the voluntary markets as soon as possible.
Developing countries lost out at the talks. Promises by developed countries to transfer technology to developing nations (which have lingered unfulfilled since the start of Kyoto) continue to be vague. China did however manage to bully the European Union and US on the last day of the talks into agreeing to measure and report on their contributions to technology transfer.
Downright negative was the agreement to set up an inadequate adaptation fund for developing countries. The fund will also be unpredictable, with the amount raised from the CDM levy estimated at somewhere between $80-300 million by 2012. This is hardly a drop in the ocean for places like Bangladesh, which already needs emergency flood prevention and management measures costing billions of dollars.
Calls from the finance world and development NGOs, before the talks, to simplify the Clean Development Mechanism’s overly bureaucratic registration process seemed to go unheeded. The problem of finding buyers for existing CDM carbon credits was tackled via the launch of a (somewhat bizarre) website called www.cdmbazaar.com, the CDM’s own matchmaking website, where buyers and sellers of carbon credits are able to make contact.

Technology hurdles
Vague promises from rich countries to transfer clean tech to poor ones tend to fall down on two counts: firstly private companies, not countries, own much of the technology in the first place; secondly developed countries are not putting enough money into clean tech investment in their own countries, let alone being in a position to transfer the technology. Sun Guoshun, a Chinese delegate at the Bali conference explained that China desperately needed clean coal technology from America. Cedric Philibert from the International Energy Agency pointed out, however, that these technologies, including Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology and carbon capture and storage were yet to reach the commercial stage.
The Bali talks brought countries one step closer to accepting carbon capture and storage in geological formations for use in CDM projects. More is to be decided on this front at the 2008 conference in Poznan, Poland. The notion that fossil fuels could continue to be used “in a clean way” was a strong concept at Bali but the challenge remains to prove that the technology works and that high costs of CO2 storage can be drastically reduced.
The riddle of bringing clean technologies to the commercial stage is one that governments and companies alike are failing to solve. Clean tech solutions already exist in many cases but commercial take up is low. Examples include the revolutionising low cost, low carbon French invention, the MDI air car, which runs on compressed air. The car has been ready for years but big manufacturers have not yet taken the bait (save India’s Tata Motors, which had promised to produce 8000 air cars this year). Not surprisingly, the rapidly developing markets in India and China are finding opportunities in the area of clean tech. Ten years on, they might have turned the issue of technology transfer completely on its head.

Nasty leakage
It would be impossible to sum up the global political process on climate change without mentioning “leakage”. It doesn’t sound very pleasant and indeed to most Kyoto signatories it is not. From the time developed countries started to address their responsibilities to tackle climate change at Kyoto in 1997, factories that have been leaving developed countries in droves, looking for cheaper manufacturing processes in developing countries.
Leakage refers to the emissions that have leaked out of one country into another when a factory has relocated. A paper released by Chinese academics in 2007 relating 25 per cent of China’s greenhouse gas emissions directly to US and European supply chains. China, for example, provides the leading global supply of steel, which requires a dirty, high carbon manufacturing process part of which was transferred from Europe in the 1990s.
Unfortunately the term used by developed countries for leakage until now has been “emissions reductions” - emissions reductions that count towards Kyoto targets.
“Kyoto signatories have to be responsible for the emissions of factories that have moved to other countries since the Kyoto agreement”, argued Kevin Conrad, one of the more outspoken delegates for Papua New Guinea at Bali (who famously told the US to “get out of the way”).
The leakage debate is picking up steam as developing countries are being pressured into making their own emissions reductions, and is sure to be tackled in more depth in coming talks, though the outcome is entirely uncertain. Companies hoping to ‘offshore’ their emissions in response to the introduction of cap and trade schemes may want to take note however.
Already a form of environmental protectionism is being hinted at in the EU, with suggestions of a carbon tariff on dirty imports. These measures are popular with the diminishing German steel industry, whose production processes are three times less carbon intensive than China’s.

Going it alone

Despite numerous complications in the move towards the elusive low carbon economy, forward thinking companies were keen to point out at Bali that they had made the most of the opportunities so far. Most moves were made in the carbon markets, which are set to take off globally.
The long term price of carbon was subject to much speculation at Bali. Whilst some banks have taken pains to predict accurate price for carbon on the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), other investors, such as Fortis bank predict the price of carbon could be anywhere between zero and 100 Euros over the coming phases of the scheme.
Karen Degouve from the European Carbon Fund, a CDM project investor, concurred with Fortis at an IETA event, saying, “Prices could go anywhere from zero to the roof”.
Cmpanies seemed to agree that we would soon see a global roll out of mandatory carbon markets. “We’re going to see multiple markets although a unique carbon price might not happen for another 10 years” said Degouve.
This could include Japan, Canada, Australia, US – all of which have started voluntary carbon markets.
Mile Bess from Camco International, a big CDM project developer, predicted that within two to three years “the biggest game in town” would no longer be the EU ETS. Bess said the EU scheme was “a valuable model”, although he expected a mandatory US market to start to take over, acting as a driver for carbon markets globally.
“What we need to see is what happens post-tightening”, he said, referring to the reduction in emissions allowances given to EU nations under each four-year phase of the ETS. Phase I of the ETS collapsed after emissions allowances were too generous, and the price of carbon dropped to around 1 cent, so all eyes are now on phase II, which started in January 2008, and the time of writing stood at €22 per tonne of CO2.
Fabian Gaioli, from Morgan Stanley’s MGM International, another CDM project developer, warned that carbon credits under the CDM may become more expensive, as the highly profitable ‘low hanging fruit’ HFCs reduction projects start to dry up. HFCs are very potent greenhouse gases - around 1300 times more potent than CO2. Projects may move towards renewable energy and energy efficiency, he said, but will require more capital to set up and offer less returns.

Fate of the CDM
The Australian renewables company Pacific Hydro has been making the most out of the Kyoto Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), having directed much of its new investment $ 0.5 billion so far, into developing countries, such as Chile, where the company’s wind and hydro projects have earned money from carbon credits. However, the future of the CDM is left hanging in the balance from 2012 onwards, when the first phase of Kyoto ends. According to JP Morgan’s Odin Knudson, who spoke at an Asian Development Bank side event, companies were being dissuaded from getting involved in setting up CDM projects every year the uncertainty continued.
Pacific Hydro chief executive Andrew Richards expressed the same sentiments, complaining at a WBCSD event about the lack long term planning on the international level. “Nothing exists beyond 2012 except fairly long term targets” he explained, referring to the faraway target of a 50 per cent cut in the global emissions of 2000 by 2050, which was set by scientists at the IPCC.

Business technology
Technology transfer was a hot debated topic amongst businesses at Bali. David Hone, climate change manager at the energy company Shell, stood up at the WBCSD event to explain all the difficulties of getting clean coal technology to the market. He compared our relatively primitive coal technology to the fast moving electronics industry pointing out the fundamental difference between them. Without consumers willing to pay the extra for their energy, as they would for the latest electrical gadget, the development of the product could not be funded.
Richards meanwhile bashed the “politicisation of technology”, arguing that clean coal was “not a cure all” solution.
Jonathon Lash, head of the World Resources Institute attempted to convince us that the world would see an “explosion of low carbon technologies” over the next ten years, driven by a price on carbon, which he believed would be a steady $25 a ton in the US within five years. Once a green technology booms in one country, said Lash, it will spill over national boundaries regardless of politics, driven by consumer demand. He used the example of GE’s Ecoimagination energy efficient products, which he said cost $100 million to market but in the long run added to GE’s value by 10 cents a share. Proving his point that technology has no boundaries, 65 per cent of ecoimagination sales were outside of the US.

Domestic solutions
Although it has its faults, the strength of international meetings such as Bali is that they allow fresh ideas and sometimes painful truths to be unearthed about how countries deal with climate change. Despite the political charades, it is the ripple effect of positive agreements on the international level within nations, businesses and consumers that matters. The global talks will continue, but meanwhile the real action on climate change will happen at home

Climate Change and Poverty Top Google's Giving Priorities

2008-01-17T17:20:00.000Z

Good to see Google.org is listening to someone - maybe even Tall Economist [!]. Google will be focusing on Climate change and poverty - let's hope it will marry these two rather than discretely focus and report on each ...

Source: The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Tackling climate change, emerging health threats, and poverty in developing countries will top Google.org’s philanthropic agenda
After more than a year of research and planning, the charitable arm of the Mountain View, Calif., search-engine company announced today the focus for its efforts over the next five to 10 years:
To support efforts that make plug-in hybrid electric vehicles commercially available. Such cars are essentially hybrids with larger batteries that can be recharged from a standard outlet, which further reduces the amount of gas needed to run them.
To support the development of renewable energy sources that can be produced on a large scale and at a lower cost than conventional energy sources, such as coal.
To support efforts to make it easier for small and medium-size businesses in developing countries to gain access to the capital and expertise they need to grow and create more jobs.
To support projects that improve the flow of information related to public services, such as education, health, water, and sanitation, in developing countries. This program, known as the Inform and Empower Initiative, will focus on India and East Africa at the start.
To support efforts to identify emerging health and environmental threats, such as infectious diseases or drought, and take steps to mitigate their impact and prevent them from becoming local, regional, or global crises.
‘Best Solutions’
Google’s decision to operate its philanthropic arm largely as a for-profit entity gives it the ability to make both grants to nonprofit organizations and investments in for-profit companies involved in solving social problems. To date, Google.org’s giving and investments total $75.4-million.
In the program to promote plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, for example, Google.org has awarded $1-million in grants to nonprofit organizations, such as CalCars and Plug-In America, that raise public awareness about the cars. But it also has issued a call for proposals for $10-million in investments.
“We want to be open if the best solution is in the private sector or if the best solution to a given problem is to invest in a for-profit company,” says Jacquelline Fuller, head of advocacy and communications at Google.org.
Google.org has already made investments of $10-million each in eSolar, a company in Pasadena, Calif., that builds solar power plants, and Makani Power, an Alameda, Calif., wind-energy company.
Operating as part of the company, rather than as a corporate foundation, also gives Google.org greater latitude in lobbying and advocacy, something Ms. Fuller expects the organization will take greater advantage of now that it has decided its top priorities.
“Advocacy really is a tool that can be used to advance an agenda, but you first have to get very clear about what you’re trying to do,” she says.
Early ‘Flag’
Google didn’t always plan to take a hybrid approach to its philanthropy. Early on, the company set up the Google Foundation, which still exists today, with an endowment of $90-million.
One of the first grants that the foundation wanted to make was to the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, in Cambridge, Mass. The organization’s mission was close enough to Google’s business that foundation officials worried the grant could be construed as aiding the company.
“That was a flag early on” for the Google executives leading the company’s philanthropic efforts, says Ms. Fuller.
“They began asking questions like, ‘What really are the pros and cons of doing this so separate as a 501c(3)?’ and realized that it was preferable for Google — not for everyone, but for Google — to hold the majority of its resources outside of a foundation structure,” she says.
In 2004, before Google went public, the company’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wrote a letter that said they wanted to use 1 percent of the company’s equity and 1 percent of profits to support philanthropic work, a total that Ms. Fuller says currently comes to almost $2-billion.
But while Google.org relishes the freedom its largely for-profit status affords, the organization does also make grants to charities. In fact, one of its first projects was to create a new nonprofit organization: Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases and Disasters, or Instedd.
The new organization will seek to improve the early detection of global health threats and humanitarian crises, as well as the process of preparing for and responding to them, by working with governments, health and relief organizations, and scientists to develop software and other technology tools to improve the sharing of information and collaboration. In addition to a $5-million grant from Google.org, the organization has also received financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation and contributions from several philanthropists.
Instedd’s first project will be to work with 20 partners on efforts to identify emerging infectious diseases and improve the ability to respond to them in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province in southern China.
“We are so connected as a global population now with travel and trade,” says Eric Rasmussen, the new organization’s chief executive officer. Before joining Instedd in October, Dr. Rasmussen served as chairman of the department of medicine at the Naval Hospital Bremerton, near Seattle. “If we do not spot [health] events transpiring early enough, it doesn’t take much for them to escape.”
Instedd’s software engineers will first look at existing technologies to see how they can be adapted for disease tracking and humanitarian response, only developing new software when other options can’t be found. Engineers have already built several tools using technologies from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Other large grants include a $3-million award to TechnoServe for its efforts to support businesses, spur job creation, and strengthen antipoverty programs in Africa; $2.5-million to the Global Health and Security Initiative, which tracks international biological threats; and $2-million to Prath am, in Mumbai, to study India’s educational system.
Staff of 40
Google.org currently has 40 employees, and plans to add a few more staff members now that its giving and investment priorities have been established.
Employees have come from various backgrounds, and include an epidemiologist, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs, and a former assistant secretary of energy.
Google.org has already seen the value of building a team comprising people with different training and backgrounds, says Ms. Fuller.
“There was a lot of tears and angst to go from a white sheet of paper down to five initiatives,” she says. “It was really good as we were in the room trying to narrow it down to have people with these different perspectives talking about how they thought we could best contribute.”
Google.org hopes that it will be able to encourage other corporations to both increase their giving and to think about it more creatively.
But Ms. Fuller says that the organization is uncomfortable with the excitement Google’s entry into philanthropy has caused.
“We don’t feel like we are sprinting on the scene with the answers,” she says. “We’ve got a lot to learn from others. So we really disagree with the slant that some people are trying to take, that this is new or different or better. It’s just that this is Google’s way of doing things.”

CLIIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL ECONOMIC EQUITY: Zoellick/ World Bank's take; CC is a core development and economic challenge

2008-01-16T13:30:00.000Z

Developing nations hit hardest, least able to adapt. Zoellick report the World Bank will help by integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation into core development work, providing innovative and below-market rate financing, markets, technology and research. The TallEconomist salutes this approach, but asks if simply assuming climate change as a development risk is enough? I am keen to see the WB find innovative ways of leveraging the carbon credit that developing countires have - making their ecological space work for them. Can the WB give voice to these concerns at an international level? Can the WB be the developing nations' champion and not just its donor? Skeptically, I see nothing here that diverges from core World Bank work - I hope the reality of operationalising this programme in developing countries will yield the success the WB so sorely needs and doesnt backtrack on the promise the countries so heartily need.

Source: NYT Blogs, map: Distribution of Climate Change Risks, World Bank, October 2007, IDA and Climate Change: Making Climate Action Work for Development, mimeo.

Q. Citizens in developing countries are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate changes now in progress on a global scale. The changes in the weather patterns, from droughts to flooding, will affect the poorest in those countries. How is the World Bank dealing with the phenomenon of unprecedented climate change in its poverty reduction strategy, if at all?
Rita ChangHong Kong

A. Rita, you are correct. As you can see in the attached map, poor countries are much more likely to be affected by droughts, poor crop yields, floods, hurricanes and wind storms – likely consequences of climate change. Since 2000, poor countries have experienced three times more floods and twice as many wind storms than they did 20 years ago. And the poor people in these countries – people who live on less than $2 a day –are the most affected and least able to adjust. Climate change is not only an immense environmental threat; it is a core development and economic challenge.
This is why at the recent Bali conference on climate change, I outlined how the World Bank Group can support developing countries as they combine growth and development with protection of the environment.
How can the World Bank Group help?
• First, by integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation into core development work. Climate change policies cannot be the frosting on the cake of development. They must be baked into the recipe of growth and social development. We can help countries incorporate climate change and low-carbon plans into agriculture and land use policies, urban development strategies, water policies, transport plans and so forth.
• Second, we can help by providing innovative and below-market rate financing to promote investments both in low-carbon and adaptation projects. We already do this through the Global Environment Facility and Carbon Finance. We will do more thanks to donor governments contributing record sums to the latest replenishment of the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries. We will also work with donors to develop new funding innovations.
• Third, we will pioneer and advance new market and trading mechanisms, such as for carbon trading.
• Fourth, recognizing the vital importance of new technologies that can generate energy while limiting the impact on climate, we are working with partners on new financing and incentives schemes to facilitate technology deployment and transfer to developing countries. Some will involve alternative energy. But given the high use of coal in developing countries, it would help enormously if we could help develop and disseminate, for example, carbon sequestration technologies.
• Fifth, the sums involved are too large to handle with public funds, so we need to encourage policy changes to help create an enabling environment to tap resources from the private sector. IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, can help spur these investments.
• Sixth, we will work with developing countries to support policy research on climate change and development to help share information and tools for analyzing the impacts and developing cost-effective strategies. We are now working with six large countries on customized assessments of pathways to low-carbon growth.
• Finally, if we are able to advance these six activities, we should have the experience and knowledge to play a supportive role to the UN and the negotiating partners as they develop a new climate change agreement.
Let me give you a concrete example of how we are helping negotiators develop a post-Kyoto Protocol.
Deforestation and change in land use accounts for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and over a third of emissions from developing countries. In many developing countries, deforestation and forest degradation account for a majority of the carbon emissions. However, the Kyoto Protocol does not include a mechanism for rewarding reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries: It rewards countries for planting trees, but does not encourage them to keep trees standing. So with the support of 10 donors, the World Bank has launched a Carbon Forest Partnership Facility. It will pilot incentives to communities for reducing emissions from deforestation while improving their livelihoods and safeguarding indigenous peoples. By highlighting this concept and showing a way to address it financially, the World Bank helped advance its inclusion in the framework that was agreed among negotiators at the Bali Conference.
I cannot end this entry without mentioning that the World Bank Group is carbon-neutral!

KENYA's poor farmers hard hit by political unrest

2008-01-15T16:19:00.000Z

Mounting evidence that Kenyan political situation is harming the country's exports and that this isplacing costs squarely on the small-scale farmers involved with the export horticulture trade. Most of these farmers are GLOBALGAP certified - but the realy question is - will this certification count for anything in the market after political storms have stilled?

Source: The Nation (Nairobi)
Horticultural farmers in Murang'a North and South Districts have lost millions of shillings since the post-election unrest begun.
Most affected are French beans growers who have depended on the crop as the sole source of income for years.
Thousands of tonnes have gone to waste due to lack of markets, while middle men take advantage of the situation to give the farmers a raw deal.
Farmers have to contend with the situation and watch helplessly as their produce goes to waste, due to lack of storage facilities and lack of access to markets.
The area has about 23 French beans buying centres.
Before the skirmishes, each of the centres was handling an average of 1,200 kilogrammes of the produce daily.
"We invested heavily, hoping to catch good markets in January and February that would help us raise school fees for our children and meet other requirements," said Ms Agnes Wanjira.
Like many other farmers in the upper side of Murang'a North District, she diversified from coffee to French beans' farming, due to better and faster returns.
Farmers say major buyers have not bought the produce since the day of elections. Though the farmers would have wished to sell the beans to brokers at throw away prices, the middlemen traders could not cope with the high supplies and only bought a little.
"Most of these traders sell in the normal local markets and could not buy in bulky. They offered as little as Sh10 per kilogram compared to major buyers like Frigoken Company that paid Sh30 per kilo of the beans," said Ms Wanjira from Mugoiri.
The beans require frequent picking to maximise production and turn into waste if not harvested in time. After picking, they need to be stored in a freezer, something the farmers do not have.
"Buyers tell us they would be taking a risk in buying the beans since they are not guaranteed of delivering the purchases to their stores and other destinations," Mr Irungu said

CLIMATE CHANGE and WHALES: Greenpeace hypocrisy? or a globally sustainable trade-off?

2008-01-14T21:18:00.000Z

Greenpeace are claiming success after chasing Japanese whalers from the seas around Antarctica. That is, they have successfully chased away internationally sanctioned activities of one of the least efficient fishery nations in the world. And made it even less efficient. What is the carbon cost of stopping the whale hunt? Why does Greenpeace feel it is fine to expend tonnes of carbon stopping legal whale hunts but also lambast developing world farmers for flying their produce to supermarkets? Dont forget the fleet they are chasing is becoming more inefficient by the day and will be going at high speeds, burning more and more fossil fuel. AND dont forget the value of the whale meat is increasing as the story is splashed across the press.

Maybe they are Economists and have done a calculation that shows each whale saved/ life extended is worth XX tonnes of carbon. My question is "Dear Mrs Greenpeace, is one whale life worth more or less than one African farmer?". What do you think the answer will be? Comments in civil tongue this time please ...

Source: www.chinaview.cn -- "Greenpeace: Japanese whalers chased from Antacrtica"
BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Greenpeace activists claimed Sunday they had chased Japanese whaling ships Nisshin Maru and Yushin Maru through dense fog and over hundreds of miles, driving them out of the whaling grounds off Antarctica.
"We came here to stop the fleet from whaling and we have done that. Now they are out of the hunting grounds they should stay out," said Greenpeace Japan campaigner Sakyo Noda.
But Greenpeace added that it expects the ships to refuel and offload whale meat onto a tanker outside the whale grounds, raising the possibility that the ships might try to return.
Greenpeace's ship Esperanza confronted the Japanese whalers in the Antarctic Ocean early Saturday after a 10-day search, and the hunting ships immediately steamed off with the activists in pursuit, the environmentalists said in a statement.
They warned they would take non-violent action to try to stop the ships from killing whales — a promise that in the past has led to activists in speed boats trying to put themselves between whales and Japanese harpoons, and once to a collision of ships.
A spokesman for Japan's whale hunt called Greenpeace's actions illegal and demanded it stop its disruptive actions.
"Greenpeace actions are illegal under international law (and) it's time the public stopped treating Greenpeace as heroes," Glenn Inwood, spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, in Tokyo, Japan, said Monday. "It's time the public saw this fringe group for what they really are: environmental imperialists who are trying to dictate their morals to the world."
Japan dispatched its whaling fleet to the icy water of Antarctica in November to kill about 1,000 whales under a program that Tokyo says is for scientific purposes, but which anti-whaling nations and activists scoff at as a front for commercial whaling.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EQUITY: Can Crops Be Climate-Proofed?

2008-01-13T13:40:00.000Z

Source: SciDev.Net (London) and AllAfrica
Climate change threatens food crops across the world. Now scientists are re-focusing their efforts on crop resilience, rather than yields.
Among the most worrying aspects of climate change is its effects on the world's food supply. The worst-case scenario is stark: Africa's Sahel region will produce fewer cereals, rice cultivation in Asia will be under threat, there will be fewer vegetables -- with potatoes and beans potentially wiped out -- and livestock and fisheries will be severely stressed.
Climate change is making crop scientists review their research agenda. Until now, their main focus was on improving yields. But with successive International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports warning that increased droughts and floods will shift crop systems, 'climate-proofing' of crops has become crucial. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) institutes are now investigating how to make crops' more resilient to environment stresses.
Working blind
But efforts are hampered because few climate models predict changes for individual regions, making it difficult to predict how climate change will affect growth and yields of specific crops in each region.
"A partnership between climatologists and crop scientists will be valuable in developing regional analogues," says Martin Parry, IPCC co-chair and a scientist at the UK-based Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research.
And the need is urgent. At a meeting of CGIAR institutes in Hyderabad, India, in November 2007, Parry said that the estimated window for implementing mitigation and adaptation programmes has shrunk from 30-40 years to 15.
He advised CGIAR scientists to put climate change at the heart of research programmes.
Others agree. As Kwesi Atta-Krah, deputy director-general of the Italy-based research organisation Biodiversity International says, "Plant breeders now need to focus on the future as well as the present, and use the vast genetic resources in gene banks and in the wild that hold potential for adaptation of major crops to a changing climate."
Rice crops most vulnerable
Rice crops are most vulnerable to global warming. Studies worldwide show that rising carbon dioxide levels may initially increase growth, but the benefit is temporary. Rising temperatures make rice spikelets -- the slender branches containing rice flowers -- sterile, and grain yields will fall.
Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will be amongst the most severely affected by climate change. About 90 per cent of the world's rice is grown and consumed in Asia (where 70 per cent of the world's poor live), and sub-Saharan Africa is the world's fastest growing rice consumer. The most vulnerable agricultural systems are the rain-fed uplands and lowlands that form almost 80 per cent of total rice land in Africa.
Reiner Wassman, coordinator of the Rice and Climate Change Consortium at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, says IRRI strategies should include breeding rice that can survive climate change. He wants to see plants that can tolerate higher temperatures and/or flooding, that flower in the mornings before temperatures rise, and that transpire (lose water through evaporation from leaves) more efficiently to cool the air around them.
His hopes are buoyed by IRRI's latest research into the rice line 'sub1', which survived submersion for 17 days (see Scientists create flood-resistant rice). The line could provide genes for flood tolerance.
In Africa, the Africa Rice Centre (WARDA) is focusing on its NERICA (New Rice for Africa) varieties. These combine traits of Africa's Oryza glaberrima -- such as drought and local disease tolerance -- with the high yields of Asia's Oryza sativa.
Looming disaster for wheat?
Drought is also a big concern for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in El Batan, Mexico. The IPCC's predictions of increasing droughts spell disaster for half of the developing world's wheat growing areas.
The problem is particularly acute in central and west Africa, where the poor depend on wheat but get an annual rainfall of less than 350 mm, says CIMMYT scientist Rodomiro Ortiz.
CIMMYT has launched a hunt for drought tolerance in wild wheats and 'landraces' -- traditional crops that have adapted to local conditions over centuries. The centre is also teaming up with the Japan International Research Centre for Agricultural Sciences to map drought-tolerant genes in wheat and maize.
CIMMYT is using its findings in both traditional breeding and genetic engineering programmes. For example, researchers are working on genetically engineered wheat containing the DREB gene of Arabidopsis thaliana -- a relative of mustard plants -- that may confer tolerance to drought, saline soils and low temperatures. CIMMYT is testing yields of genetically engineered plants with the DREB gene under varying water stress.
However, Ortiz cautions that the plant is still experimental. Most published studies simulated drought conditions in greenhouses more rapidly than would occur naturally. Ortiz wants more experiments under natural water stress conditions.
Shrinking diversity
Scientists look for useful genes in plants grown only locally, and CIMMYT already has maize breeding programmes that work with local communities. But researchers fear many useful wild species could disappear.
"Climate change is leading to significant losses of genetic resources in several regions of the world," says Atta-Krah. He says diversity among crop species must be effectively conserved, managed, and used to improve crops and adapt to climate change.
One striking example of shrinking diversity is Latin America's beans. Peter Jones, a scientist at the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Columbia, says that of the 17 wild species of the Arachis genus -- the pea family that includes the peanut -- 12 will be extinct by 2055 due to climate change.
We must systematically map important bean species and ensure important collections have more than five live specimens, adds Jones.
The world's livestock are also in the danger zone. A 2006 assessment of global animal genetic resources by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 70 per cent of the world's unique livestock are in developing countries. Many breeds already risk extinction. On average, one livestock breed is lost every month, mainly due to globalisation of livestock markets.
Climate change will strike further blows. According to the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya, climate change will affect livestock by changing the yield and nutritional quality of their fodder, increasing disease and disease-spreading pests, reducing water availability, and making it difficult to survive in extreme environments.
"Climate change will have impacts at the ecosystem level that are poorly understood," says ILRI's deputy director-general for research, John McDermott. Effects will vary between the rain-fed highlands in the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa, the coastal regions of south, east and west Africa, and the forests of central Africa. The exact consequences for each ecosystem need to be analysed in detail.
Water holds the key
The common theme in all these changes is water availability. Already, one-third of the world's people live in river basins where they face water scarcity. But climate change will have other effects on agricultural irrigation.
The timing and size of river flows will change, affecting river water schemes, says Colin Chartres, director-general of the Sri-Lanka-based International Water Management Institute. He adds that receding glaciers mean less water will be available in spring, which could affect some 17 per cent of the world's population, including those irrigating the Indus basin. Changes in groundwater recharge could also affect irrigation in China, India, Mexico and the United States.
Chartes says scientists need to go beyond coarse global models, and develop specific river-basin and farm-scale models of how climate change will affect river water availability and lake levels. He also calls for more precise models of how climate change may affect fish productivity in oceans, seas and inland fisheries.
A tentative start
As the problems become apparent, CGIAR centres are working on better understanding their implications.
The India-based International Centre for Research in Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) research strategy for 2007-2012 targets climate change issues in the short- and medium-to-longer term.
ICRISAT director-general, William Dar, says ICRISAT is working to make millets, sorghum, pigeon pea and groundnut better adapted to major climate stresses. The organisation has already developed varieties tolerant to heat, high soil temperatures, low and variable rainfall, and diseases.
What is needed now, says Dar, is a better knowledge of the physiology behind stress tolerance, wider gene pools, and more effective screening methods for useful genes.
CIAT is developing computer software to analyse future climate scenarios. Examples include 'MarkSim' to simulate daily weather for up to 100 years anywhere in the tropics, and 'Homologue' to compare climate and soil throughout the tropics.
The International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) has studied how areas in and around Egypt, Morocco and Sudan are coping with water scarcity in rainfed and irrigated grasslands, as well as traditional watershed management systems.
But the task ahead is tough. As Jones points out, historically the average time between scientists beginning to hunt for useful traits and a new stable variety growing in farmers' fields has been 46 years. "So that is how far ahead we should be looking at the start of every project," he says.
And as one participant at the Hyderabad conference commented, "You may put all those traits for tolerance to drought, salt and pests in a plant -- and then find it has no yield!"

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ECONOMIC EQUITY: Biofuel incentives still forgetting about deforestation

2008-01-12T10:37:00.000Z

In the face of mounting evidence that jatropha and other biofuel options are environmentally damaging to produce - monoculture issues, pollution, deforestation, short-term fertile cycles on land, land grabbing, loss of community benefits, elite capture, etc - some car firms are more interested in having something to report on their greencredentials in 2008's Annual Report ... HOWEVER, it will be beneficial in some locations - as Damlier state: "Since jatropha can be cultivated on barren land, it does not compete for land that is being used for food production, and thus provides farmers with an additional source of income". Let's hope its not just rich plantation farms only that benefit, and that the degraded land is re-invigorated through this production.

Source: African Agriculture: "Car maker Daimler, partners explore jatropha as a biodiesel source"
German carmaker Daimler AG has teamed up with Archer Daniels Midland and Bayer CropScience to explore tropical plant jatropha as a biodiesel fuel, Daimler said.
"Biodiesel derived from jatropha nut kernels has properties similar to those of biofuels obtained from oilseed rapes. It is also characterised by a positive CO2 balance and can thus contribute to protecting the climate," the companies said in a statement.
The partners aim to develop production and quality standards for jatropha-based biofuel. ADM runs several biodiesel refineries worldwide, while Bayer plans to develop herbicides, insecticides and fungicides for Jatropha plants.
Daimler has already completed a five-year project which demonstrated that jatropha can be used to make biodiesel. It will continue to explore the interactions between the fuel and engines.
Jatropha, a wild plant, has never been professionally cultivated, the statement said, suggesting the plant could be grown on 30 million hectares of land, especially in South America, Africa and Asia.
"Since jatropha can be cultivated on barren land, it does not compete for land that is being used for food production, and thus provides farmers with an additional source of income," it added.

CLIMATE CHANGE and HEALTH: Malaria buzz

2008-01-11T17:21:00.000Z

Climate Change Fueling Malaria in Kenya, Experts Say
Eliza Barclay in Tumutumu, Kenya
for National Geographic News
Esther Njoki lay on a slender cot in the women's ward of Tumutumu Hospital, lucid for the first time in days after being ambushed by fever and delirium. The emaciated 80-year-old had survived a bout of malaria, but her doctor said it nearly killed her.
Malaria has long been endemic to Kenya's humid coast and swampy lowland regions, but it has only rarely reached Njoki's village on the slopes of Mount Kenya (see Kenya map).
In recent decades, however, scientists have noted an increase in epidemics in the region, as well as in sporadic cases like Njoki's.
Many medical and environmental experts attribute the spike in malaria to climate change, in the form of warmer temperatures and variations in rainfall patterns. (See a map of global warming's effects.)
"We are now finding malaria in places that we did not expect to find it, particularly the highland regions that used to be too cool for malaria," said Dorothy Memusi, deputy director of the Malaria Division in Kenya's Ministry of Health.
Parasites, Mosquitoes Affected by Climate
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites in the blood system. Symptoms include fever, severe joint pain, and in extreme cases, anemia—a deficiency in red blood cells—because the parasites use red blood cells to reproduce.
Changes in temperature can affect the development and survival of malaria parasites and the mosquitoes that carry them, according to a joint 2004 study by the State University of New York, Buffalo, and the Kenya Medical Research Institute.
Rainfall also influences the availability of mosquito habitats and the size of mosquito populations, the research found.
Shem Wandiga is a professor of chemistry at University of Nairobi who has studied the relationship between climate and malaria.
He said malaria epidemics first appeared in Kenya's highlands in the 1920s, but during the last 20 years, the frequency of outbreaks in the region has been more pronounced.
"The best climate conditions for malaria are a long rainy season that is warm and wet, followed by a dry season that is not too hot, followed by a hot and wet short rainy season," Wandiga said.

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: The People's Car arrives in India

2008-01-10T11:10:00.000Z

Climate change evangelists are in uproar over the launch of Tata's latest locally-relevant innovation, the 'People's car'. With sales of cars going up, emissions worries are compounded by incomplete information and a lack of thinking about the equity [economic and social] that India's population deserves. First, the People's Car will replace inefficient emitting motos -- basically lawnmower engines working overtime. Second, these will be efficient petrol users and emitters -- assuming higher passenger loads. Third, safer [hopefully]. Fourth, benchmarking efficiency, price and quality in the Indian automotive sector for all other manufacturers, designers and planners to follow. Fifth, locally built enhancing multipliers. And finally, from an "ecological space" viewpoint, Indian consumers have a lot of carbon spare to burn in economically enriching ways. The People's Car is not perfect, but it is way better than consuming imported cars.

Tata says: "Indian car sales are predicted to more than quadruple to $145bn by 2016. Company chairman Ratan Tata said the launch of the Nano was a landmark in the history of transportation. Further, the car was "a safe, affordable and all weather transport - a people's car, designed to meet all safety standards and emissions laws and accessible to all".
Environmental critics have said that the car will lead to mounting air and pollution problems on India's already clogged roads. The car had passed emission standards and would average about 50 miles to the gallon, or five litres per hundred kilometres.

DOMINO EFFECT? Regional economic cost of KENYAN problems becoming apparent

2008-01-09T08:56:00.000Z

Kenya's position as a hub for transport and trade in East and Southern Africa is aptly demonstrated by the current problems and subsequent disruption. Fisheries companies in neighbouring Uganda cannot access packaging boxes let alone export through the usual channels into SOuth Africa. Compounding this are price rises as oil costs increase owing to distribution problems. The spectre of snowballing poverty is emerging. From an economic perspective, it is during times of shocks that an economy relies on its key export sectors to continue and to help drip-feed the rest of the economy through the mire. Yet, it seems a mixture of the hub business model and the reliance of many of the companies at the vanguards of fragile economies on Kenya's throughput might produce a catastrophic domino effect starting with the richer and more reliable internationally-trading companies. What this means for the majority of poorer, locally trading and subsistence farmers and workers remains unclear but is not for continued unfettered growth. Let's hope this forecast is wrong.

Source: "Uganda: Three Fish Exporters Suspend Operations", New Vision (Kampala)
Macrines Nyapendi
THREE fish exporting companies have suspended operations due to high production costs caused by the post-election violence in Kenya. The plants are Oakwood based at Kansensero landing site, Wild Catches in Butiaba, Lake Albert and Marine and Agro.
"Skyrocketing fuel prices and lack of packaging materials has forced us to temporarily close down. If the violence in Kenya continues, all processors will halt operations," a source said.
Solid packaging boxes imported from South Africa, which come into the country by road through Kenya, have not arrived.
Dick Nyeko, the commissioner for fisheries, said the processors who suspended operations use generators because they are not connected to the main power grid.
He added: "But even those who are connected to the main power grid may be affected by the surging prices of the Nile Perch at the landing sites and the depreciating dollar."
"The fuel crisis has severely affected fish exports because boats fishing Nile Perch use petrol engines. Nile Perch prices at the landing sites have been rising by 10% daily," Nyeko said.
A kilogramme of Nile Perch at the landing sites was at sh3500 before the crisis.
Hundreds of fishermen in Butiaba and Kasensero landing sites are stuck with fish.
"The situation is getting worse by the day. Our main buyers have stopped us from supplying them, yet the other processors are in Kampala. We cannot take fish to Kampala plants because we don't have contracts with them," a fisherman in Butiaba said.
Fish export earnings stand at over $150m (sh255b) annually with fish being the second largest forex earner after coffee.
Nyeko said the violence in Kenya is a blessing to the lake's ecosystem.
"The pressure mounted on the Nile Perch species has reduced. This will help regeneration of stocks," he explained.
Last week, the processors and the fisheries department officials had a meeting to plan how they could avert the crisis.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EQUITY: Kenya Hit By Food Shortage After Poor Rains

2008-01-08T16:55:00.000Z

Poorer rains in the Greater Horn of Africa region are forecast to spell bleak futures for pastoralists and all those who rely on their production system for cheap protein [nyama choma]. Climate change is expected to exacerbate these trends, spelling potential disaster for the pastoral communities and for the macroeconomy as imports of protein will need to rise and the management of rangeland is reduced. Fortunately, we can expect a rise in price/value of such meat, increasing incentives to be involved.

Source: BuaNews (Tshwane)
Judith Akolo
The long-term implications of last year's poor rain seasons in the Greater Horn of Africa region, affecting mostly Kenya, will be bleak.
Kenya, as well as Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, are experiencing a shortage of pasture for animals, poor crop harvests and reduced drinking water availability due to insufficient rainfall during the short-rains period last year.
This is according to Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWSNET), which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The worst hit area is to be central Kenya, with impacts being felt in southern Kenya and parts of Somalia and Ethiopia.
Poor rainfall during the 2007 short-rains season has left southern portions of Kenya with insufficient pasture, drinking water and crop yields.
The northern pastoral areas of Kenya have also experienced a below normal short-rains season, the FEWSNET report says.
While control operations are ongoing following a locust invasion in parts of northern Kenya, the current situation is threatening livelihoods, because of a shortage of pasture and browse for livestock.
Some locations in the area have also experienced two consecutive seasons of failed rainfall.
Kenya is also currently experiencing political unrest following the announcement of President Mwai Kibaki, as winner of the 27 December presidential election.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga disputes the election result which gave victory to President Kibaki by a very narrow margin and he accused the president of rigging the election to stay in power.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier this week appealed to Kenya's political leaders to urgently hold talks to end the riots in which more than 300 people are reported to have died.
All local radio and television stations in Kenya on Sunday evening aired a special joint prayer session for peace.
The one-hour programme dubbed "Prayer for peace, Kenyans unite", involved leaders from the Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal churches, as well as from the Muslim and Hindu faiths, who converged to pray for peace, unity, truth and justice.

Do Beanz meanz [we forgive democracy] hijackerz? UK hopes Kenyan exports not disrupted!

2008-01-07T17:19:00.000Z

The UK middle/ chattering classes are really hoping the Kenyan public's reaction to its hijacked election does not mean interrupted fresh green beans and roses on Valentine's Day. Although, maybe this is the sort of international pressure and exposure that is needed to resolve the current troubles -- how else to keep the developed world engaged in the emerging problems in another of Africa's success stories.
It is the Tall Economist's opinion that a greater understanding of the African nature of a number of everyday household products will be well demonstrated by such interruptions. I just hope the situation resolves and trade can begin again with gusto and great quality we have come to expect from Kenya and its feeder countries that rely on its transport hubs [Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia]. As Philip Ngunjiri notes, "Economists credit Kibaki's government with allowing private enterprise the freedom to flourish. But they say growth could have been even better if the government had tackled corruption, speeded infrastructure improvements and fought crime." If only ...

Sources: Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation "UK companies move to protect 2008"; "Uganda: Kenya Stumbles, And Uganda Loses Its Step" The Monitor (Kampala) by Charles M. Mpagi ; "East Africa: Neighbours Also Suffer As Kenya Burns" The East African (Nairobi) by Philip Ngunjiri

Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation "UK companies move to protect 2008"

British companies moved to protect hundreds of thousands of staff in Kenya following post election violence that had threatened the country's economy.
More than 60 British companies - including Barclays, Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline - have operations in Kenya, a former British colony where the UK is the country's largest foreign investor, with investments worth an estimated £1.5bn.
The supply of roses, a major Kenyan export, has been disrupted by the violence
Unilever, which owns two tea plantations and employs several thousand Kenyans, said it was "taking all necessary steps to safeguard all our employees" following violence that is feared to have claimed at least 300 lives.
"Employee welfare is obviously paramount," said a Unilever spokesman.
Both Barclays and Standard Chartered, which employ 4,000 staff combined, closed a number of branches in areas where tensions were high "until further notice". GlaxoSmithKline said it had stepped up security at its manufacturing site on the outskirts of Nairobi.
Following the violence, sparked by disputed presidential elections, the world's biggest tea auction in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa and the Nairobi Coffee Exchange suspended trading because of concerns about security.
Most east African producers sell tea at the Mombasa auctions.
Kenya is the world's third largest exporter of tea, which, together with coffee and horticultural products, contributes to about 55pc of exports.
An estimated 135,000 Kenyans are employed in the production of flowers and fresh vegetables for the UK market.
Leading UK supermarkets - which import more than £100m of produce and flowers from Kenya every year - said that imports of green beans, mange tout, sugar snap peas, aubergines and chillies had not been affected. Kenya's total exports to the UK are worth £255m.
However there were reports that the supply of flowers, a major Kenyan export, had been disrupted.
The coming weeks are a key trading period for exporters of flowers, which supply Valentine's Day roses to the UK.
An Asda spokesman said: "Asda has a long and positive relationship with our suppliers in Kenya. Many families depend on the revenue generated from supplying products to Asda and it would be inappropriate to cease trading. We will continue to monitor the situation on an ongoing basis and will review if there is further deterioration."
There have been fears that Kenya's £450m-a-year tourist industry - the largest single contributor to the country's GDP - could be affected by the violence.
Lonrho, the London Stock Exchange listed conglomerate, said its Kenya-based budget airline had suspended flights following the violence.
The majority of flights, however, resumed on Wednesday.

Uganda: Kenya Stumbles, And Uganda Loses Its Step
The Monitor (Kampala) by Charles M. Mpagi

WITHIN hours of the violent protests following Kenya's disputed elections held Thursday last week, Uganda was on the brink of its own crisis.
Landlocked to the west of Kenya, Uganda suffered the biggest shock of countries that rely on the Mombasa sea route for imports and exports.
Long queues at fuel stations and prices that shot right through the roof immediately brought the Kenyan election, long seen as a minor distraction by most of Uganda's politically unconscious "middle class" (who are generally defined by the cheap second hand Japanese car they drive and the fact that they buy their groceries from supermarkets).
But the daunting prospect of having to pay between Shs80, 000 to Shs10,000 for a litre of petrol soon shook up their indifference and made them understand that politics matters after all. The fact that there was no fuel even if one could afford to pay for it at any price helped drive the point home.
Traders in Kampala's trading hub of Kikuubo told this news paper that, "We are suffering, business is not good, we do not have fuel." One trader who preferred not to be named also posed the tricky question: "they are talking about fuel coming, but will our goods come?"
This was in reaction to reports that the Uganda government has negotiated with the Kenyans to provide armed escort to fuel tankers through the volatile western Kenya so as to replenish stocks in Uganda.
Because of the significance of Kenya as a transit route for Ugandan imports, the crisis has seen local news media lead their bulletins with the Kenyan crisis. This concentration of attention may also be partly explained by the fact that the violence and mayhem have in a way provided answers to Uganda's own crisis and therefore the newspaper reports in part helped provide the population some form of reflection of their own fears back home.
To the ruling political class, it was the fear of a domino effect where the defeat of an incumbent government by the opposition in a neighbouring country could galvanise the domestic Opposition, which has already been gaining popularity in recent by-elections even where the President has personally been chief campaigner.
This, pundits say, could have in one way contributed to the government's hurried message of congratulation to Mr Mwai Kibaki despite the many questions that still hang around the manner of his victory.
As it turned out, only Uganda, in the entire world has sent a message of support and congratulation to Kenya. This embarrassing state of affairs has since given Uganda the unflattering distinction of being the lead news item on all major international networks.
Mr Kibaki was sworn-in in dramatic fashion within minutes of the declaration by the Electoral Commision of Kenya that he had pulled off a last minute overhaul of Mr Raila Odinga. There was no live media coverage of this event instead what was conspicuous was the presence of heavily police.
To some extent the Kenyan crisis also helped focus attention on Uganda's lack of preparedness for disasters just months after the government had again been paralysed in the face of unusually heavy unseasonal rains that led to unprecedented flooding in northern and eastern Uganda between September and early November.
As noted earlier, Uganda has not only suffered the biggest effects of the Kenya electoral crisis that has so far seen the death of at least 300 people (unofficial figures put the figure much higher) but also remains the lone voice of support to Kibaki's troubled government.
The endorsement of Mr Kibaki by President Museveni has drawn sharp criticism from the Ugandan Opposition but the man who was the conduit of the statement of congratulation, Senior Presidential Advisor on Media and Public Relations Mr John Nagenda remains unrepentant and unfazed.
Mr Nagenda told Sunday Monitor that even his boss has no regrets for remaining the sole leader to endorse Kibaki.
"He did what he thought was the right thing to do," said Nagenda on Friday.
Asked to comment on whether the message wasn't premature, he retorted, "Of course he doesn't feel it was hasty, as it is the point of the matter is that on Sunday the Electoral Commission of Kenya announced that Kibaki had won and even gave the tallies. Having done that he was sworn, Museveni has two roles to play, as President of Uganda and chairman of the East African Community (EAC). What is he supposed to do other than congratulate the person who has been declared a winner?" Nagenda said.
He then observed that in spite of the violence, as chairman of the EAC, President Museveni had asked the Kenyan government if it needed any help from its neigbours and expressed readiness to help

"East Africa: Neighbours Also Suffer As Kenya Burns" The East African (Nairobi) by Philip Ngunjiri
The ripple effects of the current political stalemate are being felt in the region, with the country's immediate neighbours that rely on the Kenyan port of Mombasa suffering the most.
According to Arun Devani, chairman of the East Africa Business Community, the five countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo are suffering more than Kenya.
"In a span of four days, fuel pump prices shot up from $1.2 to $5 per litre in Kampala. The situation is equally grave in the other major cities in the region."
Mr Devani was in a Kenya business community delegation that included the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, Federation of Kenya Employers, Kenya Private Sector Alliance and the Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers who told a media briefing that the country was losing Ksh2 billion ($31.45 million) worth of taxes daily due to unrest caused by the disputed presidential election results.
Most business premises in Nairobi have remained closed after the announcement that declared the incumbent Mwai Kibaki the president. Since then Nairobi and its environs has been rocked by widespread riots and looting.
The results announced by the Electoral Commission of Kenya have caused tension and violence in the country and a breakdown in security because they were not considered credible and the process appeared to have been compromised, said FKE chairman Patrick Obath.
"We are concerned about the country and are keen to protect it from further violence and loss of lives.
Our hearts bleed for Kenyans who have died needlessly and we extend our condolences. In the national interest, it is important for the truth to be established about the electoral outcome," he said.
In this regard, the business community appealed to all the main political protagonists to facilitate a process of establishing the truth with regard to the disputed elections.
The numbers presented by the commission are in dispute, they said in a statement. Both parties must facilitate an independent process that establishes the truth about the verdict of Kenyans in the elections. Such results will provide a basis for negotiations between the political leaders on a settlement acceptable to both of them.
Economists credit Kibaki's government with allowing private enterprise the freedom to flourish. But they say growth could have been even better if the government had tackled corruption, speeded infrastructure improvements and fought crime.

CLIMATE CHANGE and FEAR: how the climate is changing in ways we are not being told about!

2008-01-06T14:53:00.000Z

An excellent article in NYT by John Tierney "In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm" deserves to be read by everyone. As does Bjorn Lomborg's Cool It. It covers the media ignorance on climate change and some of the key misinformations. Including the non-disappearing polar bears, the growing glaciers on Antarctica, the falling sea levels, etc. It is no wonder that the business world, both culpable for the actual climate change happening and the hope for stopping future change, finds doing nothing preferable!

WILDLIFE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: biltong being produced from elephant meat

2008-01-04T10:34:00.000Z

Source: "Zimbabwe: Parks Authority to Produce Biltong From Elephant Meat" The Herald (Harare)
The Parks and Wildlife Management Authority of Zimbabwe says it plans to produce biltong from elephant meat for sale in retail outlets throughout the country as part of sustainable utilisation of the animals.
Parks director-general Dr Morris Mtsambiwa said the project begun last year after the Ministry of Environment and Tourism permitted the authority to experiment with the said resource. "It is in our plans. We plan to start this year. We tried it last year and we found that we did not have the proper infrastructure for the purpose," he said. Dr Mtsambiwa said the authority would apply to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for a quota of elephants to slaughter every year, after which it would build some abattoirs. He said slaughtering the animals for biltong would, however, not contribute in reducing the size of the elephant herd in the country, which has far surpassed the carrying capacity of the National Parks.
The country would need to slaughter at least 6 000 animals every year to have an impact on the population of the elephants. It is estimated that there are more than 100 000 elephants in Zimbabwe, a figure three times more than the carrying capacity of the protected areas. Currently, the country slaughters at least 500 elephants every year with the meat distributed to communities living adjacent to the game parks. The size of the elephant herd is posing serious environmental challenges in Zimbabwe and other Southern African countries including Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia.
It is estimated that the regional elephant population has now surpassed 400 000 and is growing at between 4 to 7 percent every year. The affected countries have since formulated an African Elephant Management Strategy that seeks to address the problem of the ballooning population." We have agreed on a work plan which we will start implementing this year," said Dr Mtsambiwa.
He said the work plan was agreed on at a meeting of director-generals of national parks in the region held in the town of Pemba in Mozambique in November last year. The meeting agreed that an aerial survey be conducted simultaneously in the respective countries to establish the population of the elephants in order to avoid double counting, he said.
Zimbabwe currently heads the regional task force on finding strategies to control the population of elephants in the region. At least some options have since been identified to control the elephant population, including contraception, culling and translocation. It was agreed that individual countries would take options depending on resources at their disposal, capacity and situation.
Contraception was a preferred option in view of pressure from animal rights groups against culling although it is expensive and sometimes does not work.

CLIMATE CHANGE TRADE SCAREs OVER: Kenya's Horticulture Sector Upbeat On 2008 Forecast

2008-01-03T09:13:00.000Z

Source: Business Daily (Nairobi) by Allan Odhiambo
It may have had its share of breath taking scares across the year, but players in the robust horticulture industry are looking up to success in the coming year.
First to rattle the sub-sector was the food miles concept that threatened to lock local producers from key markets especially in Europe on grounds that shipments from far flung areas were contributing to global warming through carbon emissions.
Proponents of this concept argued that to discourage such threats of environmental degradation, all produce brought in through long haulage should be accorded cautionary labels such that buyers 'skipped them' for locally produced ones.
Then came a strengthening shilling against major international currencies such as the dollar that eroded producers' earnings from exports prompting a debate over possible switch to other currencies to avoid further damage.
That aside, there were the jitters of expiring preferential trade agreements that would have disrupted export trade with the EU come December 31.
"It has been a tough year for exporters" Hasit Shah, the vice chair at the Kenya Flower Council (KFC) says.
Luckily the industry 'lived through' these scares and analysts say it could be headed for firmer performance compared to last year, going by the strong run over the first half of this year.
The carbon miles debate was fizzled out by the fact that its proponents would not scientifically justify their claims against the long haul products while the fears of trade disruptions were put to rest after Kenya and other East African Community (EAC) member States initialised new trade deals with the EU waiting the signing of comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) by 2009-guaranteeing continued duty/quota free access of their goods into Europe.
The industry's spirits are further buoyed by statistics from the Leading Economic Indicators for September released by the Planning and National Development Ministry that showed the industry's earnings hit the Sh31 billion mark as at June, representing a 57 per cent growth over a similar period last year backed by a strong demand for cut flowers in key international markets.
Kenyan horticulturists have particularly cashed in on sharp changes in weather patterns over Europe where the bulk of exports are taken. Traditionally, the onset of summer in Europe towards June spelt lower sales for Kenyan horticultural exporters as their counterparts in the EU upped own business in the warmest months for the northern hemisphere.
This year, however, unstable weather patterns attributed to global climate change has set back horticultural production programmes in regions such as the UK, and that has meant a stronger than usual demand for imports from countries like Kenya.
Analysts now predict that backed by this massive growth, the industry is likely to surpass the Sh43 billion full-year earnings for last year.
"We look up to a very successful 2008 because massive transformations are being carried out," Jane Ngige, the chief executive officer at KFC told Business Daily.
The CEO says growth in the industry is likely to come from stronger audit of operations especially among the upcoming smallholder producers which would reduce the rate of rejection of goods turned up from trading in key markets.
Faced by stringent market safety requirements players in the industry have moved to adopt practices such as Kenya Good Agricultural Practices (Kenya-Gap) protocol to counter the threats with an aspect of self regulation now ensuring the country's producers and exporters maintained an emphatic run in key markets abroad.
Based on the successes of this concept of self regulation, a recent survey by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), titled : "Bridging the Gap Between Food Safety Policies" labels the Kenya horticulture industry as a global illustration of how standards can be used to tackle competition in key markets.
The UN agency said that through investments in high-care processing facilities, private laboratories, full supply chain traceability, improved sanitation, storage systems and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) measures, the leading firms in Kenya's fresh produce industry have focused their attention and resources on premium-quality market segment and reaped significant benefit.
"In spite of more stringent standards applied by certain importing countries, some industries and supply chains in low-income countries have maintained or enhanced their competitiveness and market share," the document reads in part.
This concept of self regulation in Kenya has been bolstered by the recent accreditation of the Kenya Plant Health Inspection Services (KEPHIS) to carry out inspections of exports on behalf of the EU.
Previously, exports were checked for standards locally and later re-examined in Europe.
A step to harmonise the inspection procedure has however improved fortunes for Kenyan exporters in that their produce is only inspected once by Kephis and a binding certificate, application even in Europe, issued to them.

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY: VICTORY! UK Carbon Footprint Campaign Fizzles Out

2008-01-02T08:50:00.000Z

Kenyan growers rejoice at the success of their well-run campaign against food miles ignorance and for global social justice.

Source: The East African (Nairobi) by Catherine Riungu

The food miles debate that threw Kenya's flower industry into a spin at the beginning of 2007 has finally fizzled out as UK supermarkets have dropped their initial hardline stance.
According to Ron Fasol, managing director of Oserian Development Company, a leading flower exporter, although this may not have been publicly acknowledged, the food miles debate has flopped and is unlikely to resurface - unless Africa reaches the high pollution levels of the developed world.
The plane symbols put on imported produce by leading UK supermarkets Tesco and Marks & Spencer have been replaced by Kenya's "Grown Under the Sun" label which, according to Kenya Flower Council chief executive Jane Ngige, has led to increased interest in Kenya produce and a subsequent surge in earnings.
Mr Fasol said the supermarkets rushed to impose sanctions on air-freighted goods without proper scientific findings, a move that prompted urgent research into how much carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere by airlifting of goods from Africa. Growers, trade associations and scientists conducted studies whose findings discounted the retailers' theory that banning imports would reduce global warming.
The Soil Association of the UK had said it would withdraw its organic certificates from air-freighted organically grown produce, effectively denying products from Africa a vital market.
In September, when the association was to have effected the ban, the British Department for International Development (DfID) organised a debate where it charged that, "while welcoming the Soil Association's concern about the impact of food production on climate change, the air-freighting of fruit and vegetables counts for only a small proportion - less than 1 per cent of UK greenhouse gas emissions. There can be no denying that food transport has an environmental and social cost, but most of this - about 85 per cent - comes from UK roads."
UK Trade and Development Minister Gareth Thomas said: "The distance food has travelled is not a good way to judge whether the food we eat is sustainable. Driving 6.5 miles to buy your shopping emits more carbon than flying a pack of Kenyan green beans to the UK."
Mr Thomas added that tackling climate change was a priority in the fight against world poverty.
"The only fair option, which considers the livelihoods of those in developing countries as well as the need to protect the environment, is to ensure that the prices of the goods we consume cover the costs of their environmental impact," he said.
He added that the government was encouraging more efficient distribution within the food and drink sector, and has proposed that food industry trade bodies look into achieving a 20 per cent reduction in the social costs of transporting food in the UK by 2012.
He added, "We must ensure the world's poorest producers are not penalised for the sins of the world's richest consumers."
In Kenya, for instance, carbon emissions are 200 kg a head, while in the UK they are almost 50 times that. African economies are currently growing by around 5 per cent or more - in part due to agricultural exports.
Agriculture remains the most likely source of economic growth and poverty reduction in most African countries. If Africa is to grow by 7 per cent, and halve poverty, get its children into school and achieve the Millennium Development Goals, it must be free to trade with the rest of the world, DfID said.
The DfID stand rubberstamped the Grown Under the Sun crusade, which set out to inform British consumers about the development benefits associated with buying fresh produce from Kenya even as the food miles and carbon footprints debate continued.
Kenya Flower Council chairman Erastus Mureithi said the campaign was aimed at demonstrating to consumers that unlike flowers grown in Europe under artificial light, Kenya's are produced under natural conditions.
The Grown Under the Sun campaign was launched by Kenya's High Commissioner to the UK, Joseph Muchemi, at the Royal Show - Britain's largest agricultural trade show - in July, when the debate was at fever pitch, at a seminar on the subject of carbon emissions and food miles. It was attended by representatives from Kenya, British retailers, the National Farmers Union and Farmer's Weekly magazine, published in London.
Mr Mureithi said UK scientists have proved to carbon miles crusaders that the subject had not been scientifically focused, leading to the current change of mind.
He, however, cautioned the flower industry against celebrating because, this being the high season, human-rights groups and environmental activists focus their attacks on the high sales on Valentine's Day which is observed on February 14 worldwide with red roses. The day is the single most important event in the flower business.

SUPERMARKETS and MOZAMBIQUE: Small-scale farmers become entrepreneurs

2007-12-23T14:02:00.000Z

In Mozambique if you shop at Shoprite, Africa's largest food retailer, with operations in 16 countries, you'll be buying vegetables produced locally by small-scale farmers.
The IFAD-funded Agricultural Markets Support Programme (PAMA) supports the implementation of major economic reforms launched by the government during the 1990s, including the commercialization of small-scale farming through better access to markets and improved linkages with private-sector operators.
The programme, funded by a US$23.6 million loan, enables small-scale farmers in Boane, 30 km south of Maputo, to grow cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes and other cash crops in the rehabilitated irrigation schemes that were severely damaged during 16 years of civil war. Today, in the Boane area, the irrigation schemes cover 405 ha of land and the programme works with approximately 400 farmers.
The PAMA team worked hard to get the farmers to where they are today. "Before we came into the picture, farmers produced low-quality products. They were unable to sell directly to the buyer and had no idea of how to link up with big buyers. At best they sold their goods through intermediaries or at farm gate, and had little or no negotiating power," said Rui N. Ribeiro, PAMA coordinator. "Now they are organized in associations and as a result have more bargaining power."
PAMA's vision was to enable farmers to produce high-quality products and to link them directly to the market. Thanks to the programme, farmers are using fertilizers and improved seedlings to produce high-value crops that they sell to supermarkets, hotels, restaurants and the main hospital in Maputo.
Strengthening capacity and institutions, and influencing policy To enter the market and trade with commercial entities, farmers needed to issue invoices and receipts. To do that they needed to become a legal entity, and consequently they had to organize themselves into associations. PAMA facilitated the creation of farmers’ associations, organized marketing committees and helped farmers conduct market research.
"Before the programme's intervention, registering as an association was a costly affair and immense challenge," said Alessandro Marini, IFAD Country Programme Manager for Mozambique. "The programme, together with other stakeholders, lobbied with the government and raised awareness about the importance of having an easy process for registering associations," said Marini.
As a result, the Government of Mozambique passed a new law on decentralizing registration formalities to the district level. The government is also developing and implementing marketing strategies and pro-poor programmes supporting market linkages.
Thanks to the efforts of Ribeiro and his team, the farmers’ associations are now well established in the market. Each association has a president, treasurer and secretary.
The programme is providing marketing and production specialists and two supervisors who provide continuous technical assistance. The associations now are supported by a marketing committee responsible for coordinating production and marketing activities. The marketing committee meets with buyers to determine their needs, negotiate prices and deliver products.
Building social capitalFarmers’ associations built their credibility and reputation by encouraging buyers to visit their plots to check the quality of products. To ensure that quality was up to par, the project arranged for a visit by a nutritionist who examined and approved the products.
Subsequently the farmers visited the supermarket, where they were able to examine the quality of the products on the shelves.
"We took this opportunity to discuss our needs with the farmers," explained Pine Oppesmon, fruit and vegetable manager at Shoprite. "For example, we told them we needed tomatoes that were half-green because they have a longer shelf life, and that we would buy potatoes from them only if they had been washed."
"Since we started buying from the associations, the supermarket’s revenue has increased by 4 per cent," said Oppesmon. "You know, labour is much cheaper here than in South Africa. Now I am buying 25 per cent of products locally. I hope one day I'll be able to buy 80 to 90 per cent of products locally." He added, "These guys have a great potential, they are producing at European standards. If they get a bit better in packaging, they will make a quantum leap."
Going one step further "My vision is to expand the association's activity and start working with agro-processing industries and become equipped to do better packaging," said Mula, the Massaca association’s president. "Today farmers sell excess or low-quality products as animal feed. Linking them to agro-processing industries would mean, for example, that they would be able to sell ripe tomatoes for tomato paste and increase income-generating activities.”
For further information, please contact: Alessandro Marini, Country Programme Manager, Eastern and Southern and Africa DivisionEmail: a.marini@ifad.org

CLIMATE CHANGE and MALAWI's Ambassador: William Kamkwamba

2007-12-20T16:50:00.000Z

Forget Al Gore, Jonathan Porritt and the rest of the Eco armchair royal family. This guy puts the whole lot to shame in a country where global warming will impact harder than any European or North American community.

Take a look at this guys BLOG – I sent him $50 for Xmas as he is the only guy that managed to inspire me on climate change EVER !!

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba/

CLIMATE CHANGE and ECONOMIC EQUITY: can industry match the efforts of citizens?

2007-12-19T16:01:00.000Z

Source: INSNET

Dutch Sustainability Research (DSR) and Respect published findings of a benchmarking study on climate change best practice. The research indicates that corporations are taking part in numerous interesting and innovative climate change related initiatives. However, overall climate change disclosure remains patchy and inconsistent and it therefore remains difficult to determine real leadership.The report urges corporations and policy makers to promote accountability and stimulate best practice in the field of climate change. To this end, corporations and policy makers should further stimulate meaningful, focussed and standardised reporting on climate change. As comment to the benchmarking study, Kaj Embrén, partner of Respect, says:
All the companies in this study show that they have a formal statement on Climate Change, but only 45 % have formulated corporate targets and clear deadlines in terms of GHG-gases. So, it is important to strengthen the work with target setting in the companies further
DSR reviewed the performance of 20 corporations on a selected number of climate change best-practice indicators drawn from international guidelines. The study shows that companies are keen to demonstrate leadership in this field. There is no indication that climate change action compromises financial performance. The study however also reveals that climate change related reporting remains fragmented. Data needs to be gathered from various documents including annual reports, sustainability reports, and websites. Overall, it remains difficult to assess actual corporate leadership on climate change.
Hans-Ulrich Beck, Research Director at DSR, explains: “The difficulty stems mainly from the fact that data disclosed is not easily comparable given the scope and methodologies applied. Furthermore, current disclosure often fully omits material emission sources in particular from the use of products.”
The study highlights that the lack of transparency will make it difficult for climate change leaders to reap the full benefits of climate change leadership such as strengthened reputation or brand awareness. Similarly, there is little pressure for laggards to take action. In order to promote corporate leadership, steps need to be taken to increase corporate accountability and access to meaningful climate change data.
In order to promote transparency and corporate best-practice in the field of climate change, the study urges corporations and policy makers to take necessary steps to:
· Promote more consistent, meaningful, and focussed corporate reporting on climate change; · Facilitate public access to corporate climate change data through a public climate change repository · Provide more visibility to climate change leaders through third party climate change accountability/transparency certification; and
· Reward specific performance standards or emissions reduction achievements through third party climate change leadership labels

CLIMATE CHANGE and TRADE EQUITY: Can trade rules be leveraged to reduce climate change?

2007-12-18T08:33:00.000Z

Pascal Lamy, the Director of the WTO hints at how the WTO tool-box of rules can certainly be leveraged in the fight against climate change. Normally, the WTO has rules on product standards that encourage its members to use the international norms and this would be defined only by a consensual international accord on climate change that successfully embraces all major polluters. He uses the "food miles" debate to illustrate how far away both this global consensus is and our understanding of climate cause and effects.

Source: Business Daily (Nairobi) by Pascal Lamy
The issue of Climate Change intersects with international trade in a multitude of different ways. While the World Trade Organisation does not have rules that are specific to energy, to the environment or to climate change per se, there is no doubt that the rules of the multilateral trading system - as a whole (i.e. the WTO "rule book") - are indeed relevant to climate change.
Today, there are many different perceptions of what the trading system ought to do on climate change. While some would like to see the trading system curb its own "carbon footprint," through the greenhouse gas emissions it generates in the course of the production, international transportation, and consumption of traded goods and services; others would approach the issue differently.
Some would like to see the trading system offset any competitive disadvantage they suffer in the course of climate change mitigation. More specifically, they would like to impose an economic cost on imported products at their borders equivalent to the one they suffer in curbing their own emissions.
In other words, a "levelling of the playing field" of sorts, if you will, based on an importing country's perception of how that field may best be levelled.
And, of course, there are many different ideas floating on what these "offsetting" measures may be, with most of the discussion naturally focussing on countries' most trade-exposed, energy-intensive, economic sectors like iron and steel and aluminium.
For instance, while some are considering the imposition of domestic carbon taxes, with adjustment for those taxes at their border; others are contemplating emission cap-and-trade systems, with an obligation upon importers to participate in those systems.
Yet another group would prefer to focus on what is most immediately "deliverable" - if I may say so - by the trading system in terms of the fight against climate change. And by this, they mean the opening of markets to environmental goods and services; in particular to those that are relevant to climate change, through the ongoing Doha Round of trade negotiations.
These are but a few of the ideas I have heard so far on how some would like to position the multilateral trading system on climate change. But there are other ideas for sure, and much work is being conducted at the moment - in various quarters - on how the WTO tool box of rules may be leveraged in the fight against this environmental challenge. While some are looking at WTO rules on taxes, others are looking at the rules on subsidies and intellectual property for instance.
My starting point in this debate is to say that the relationship between international trade - and indeed the WTO - and climate change, would be best defined by a consensual international accord on climate change that successfully embraces all major polluters.
In other words, until a truly global consensus emerges on how best to tackle the issue of climate change, WTO Members will continue to hold different views on what the multilateral trading system can and must do on this subject.
There is no doubt that trade regulations are not, and cannot be, a substitute for environmental regulations. Trade, and the WTO toolbox of trade rules more specifically, can - at best - offer no more than part of the answer to climate change. It is not in the WTO that a deal on climate change can be struck, but rather in an environmental forum, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Such an agreement must then send the WTO an appropriate signal on how its rules may best be put to the service of sustainable development; in other words, a signal on how this particular toolbox of rules should be employed in the fight against climate change.Absent such a signal, confusion will persist on what would constitute an appropriate response by multilateral trading system.
Let us take the issue of the international trading system's carbon footprint for instance. Much is said in the press everyday about the carbon footprint of international transportation.
In fact, a new and emerging concept is that of "food miles." In other words, the desire of consumers in certain countries to calculate the carbon emitted in the course of international transportation, with many already drawing the conclusion that it may be better to "simply produce goods at home" to minimize emissions.
But that argument does not always stand up to empirical verification. In fact, 90% of internationally traded goods are carried by sea. And maritime transport is by far the most carbon-efficient mode of transport, with only 14 grams of CO2 emissions per ton kilometre.
Shipping is followed by train transport, then road transport. Air transport has by far the highest CO2 emissions per ton kilometre (a minimum of 600 grams), illustrating the high relative climate impact of such transport.
For instance, some studies show that a Kenyan flower that is air-freighted to Europe emits a third of the CO2 of flowers grown in Holland. Others show that New Zealand lamb that is transported to the United Kingdom can actually generate 70 per cent less CO2 than lamb produced in the UK.
Only a multilateral approach to climate change would allow us to properly address these issues. A multilateral agreement, that includes all major polluters, would be the best placed international instrument to guide other instruments, such as the WTO, as well as all economic actors on how negative environmental externalities must be internationalized. Only with such an instrument can we move towards the proper pricing of energy.
The WTO tool-box of rules can certainly be leveraged in the fight against climate change, and "adapted" if governments perceive this to be necessary to better achieve their goals. The WTO has rules on product standards for instance, that encourage its members to use the international norms set by more specialized international institutions.
The WTO has rules on subsidies, taxes, intellectual property, and so on. All of these tools can prove valuable in the fight against climate change, but in that fight, would need to be mobilised under clearer environmental parameters that only the environmental community can set.
Surely we should not miss an opportunity to open markets for clean technology and services in the Doha negotiations. But, in doing so, we should cognizant of the fact that, ultimately, it is the existence of environmental regulations that will drive demand for these goods and services.
Hence the importance, once again, of setting the right environmental framework within which market opening can take place.
The writer is the director-general of WTO.

EQUITY and CREDIT CRUNCH: Will this impact on Travel Trends to developing countries in 2008?

2007-12-17T13:33:00.000Z

Worries are abounding that one indirect victim of the US-generated credit crunch will be foreign travel, particularly that to developing nations. On one hand this is inevitable, but in a growing market the answer is nuanced. It is clear that the direct victims who are losing homes in the mid-west US were a very small percentage of developing country visitors. Yet for the actual tourists, mostly ABC1s and dreadlocked neo-backpackers ... will they not invest in that new buy-to-let flat in Lewisham or Bucharest and rather have a holiday? Will they choose Nairobi and Phnom Penh over London and LA? Likely is that thrifty people will think they can get a bargain in the developing world and will go for that and save for the expensive European destinations. Tall Economist puts his money squarely on eco-tourism in developing countries sustaining its steady pace of growth.

Source: Business Daily (Nairobi) by Wangui Maina
The credit crisis that has hit the US market, in turn affecting the global markets, is expected to have an impact on travel in 2008 according to a new report by Deloitte.
According to the report, 2008 Travel Industry Trends Report, the tightening in US credit lending is expected to impact on individuals spending on leisure.
"A slumping housing market and softening in consumer confidence is likely to impact travel in the near future," the report stated. In the past consumers have relied on cash-outs from refinanced mortgagees to support THL spending.
The ongoing crisis may make it impossible for some travellers to access finances to travel especially as houses are foreclosed due to faulted mortgages.
The report which looks at the Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure (THL) industry in the American market noted in addition to the credit crisis four other trends are expected to inform travel from this market in 2008.
This include changing customer tastes, globalisation, safety and security, and technology. Customers are increasingly looking for niche products when making decisions on their travellers.
The report notes that travellers look for specific destinations to suit some of their interests especially if it is a repeat journey to a particular destination.
Already Kenya has turned its marketing towards attracting this travellers by promoting various niche products like eco-tourism, bird watching and cultural tourism as a bid to grow the tourism sector.
The growing economies of China and Russia are expected to impact on travel trends in 2008 as travellers from these countries are expected to have more disposable income. Kenya has already turned its focus to China where it hopes to attract more tourists.
Travellers are also expected to visit these countries "especially with Moscow being classifies as one of the most expensive cities in the world," the report noted.
The 2008 Beijing Olympics are expected to be a positive gain for the East Asian country whose hotel rooms is predicted to grow by 76 per cent ahead of this international fete.
According to Deloitte's October 2007 Travel Survey 17 per cent of respondents said the new security measures that have been put in place in the past year will actually deter them from travelling by plane for leisure and 10 per cent said the measures would deter them from travelling by plane for business.
Since the terror attack in 2001 security measures have been tightened in the aviation sector making travelling an excruciating process.
Today airports boast long security lines with new security requirements being unveiled regularly. Mid this year IATA introduced new rules on hand luggage on planes that were adopted in most airlines, the new rules banned the carry any form of liquid aboard the plane.
The debate on climate change is also expected to affect customers travelling patterns, in the recent years there has been an increased awareness of ethical travel. To curb this schemes like carbon offsetting have been introduced to help offset the guilt of carbon emission. In addition this has raised the awareness of sustainable tourism which mainly promotes eco-tourism.
Regardless of all these trends the travel market is still expected to grow in 2008.

VIETNAM and CAMBODIA: more trade ... but what about sustainable tourism?

2007-12-16T10:46:00.000Z

Facilitating trade is always the excuse for new border crossings. Given the competing needs for the rural poor in Cambodia and the integrity of the eastern Plains forests, the opening of a new border gate in Rattanakiri is worrying. Has a feasibility study been conducted? And what is this trade going to be facilitated in -- timber, poached wildlife and chainsaws?

Source: Nhan Dan ... "Vietnam opens another border gate with Cambodia"

Vietnam on December 15 put into service an international border gate in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai, which borders Ratanakiri province in Cambodia.
The border gate, situated in Gia Lai province’s Duc Co district, is called Le Thanh in Vietnamese and Oyadao in Cambodian.
It is hoped to facilitate trade activities in the two countries’ border areas and also cement the ties between residents on both sides of the border.
The establishment of the border gate is also expected to help create a breakthrough for development in the triangle area which encompasses Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

EQUITY and HUNTING: rural poor benefit from elephant hunting

2007-12-14T09:03:00.000Z

Source: The Namibian (Windhoek)
EVERY member of the 5 000-strong San community in the Bwabwata National Park in the Caprivi Region received N$136 from the Kyaramacan Association in October.
The Association, representing San people living in 10 villages in the newly proclaimed park, was given hunting rights in the park by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
It generates money from trophy hunting and meat sales.
The Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) project leader in West Caprivi, Friedrich Alpers, says a total amount of N$300 000 was distributed among the association's members.
Alpers said 16 elephants were hunted during the year and the meat was given to the community for domestic consumption.
"They had about 30 000 kg of elephant meat," he said.
Alpers said the association's members have indicated that they will use the money to pay their children's school fees and buy food.
For the past two years, the Kyaramacan Association has contributed N$1,2 million a year to the Ministry's Game Products Trust Fund, which finances conservation projects and compensates people for losses caused by wild animals.
According to the agreement signed between the Government and the association, 50 per cent of the income generated from trophy hunting must be handed to the Fund.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EQUITY: Namibia: Poor 'Will Be Hit Hard' By Climate Change

2007-12-13T16:26:00.000Z

Source: SciDev.Net (London) by Carol Campbell

Climate change is expected to dramatically alter the lifestyles of poor people in Namibia, say the authors of a study.
Their findings were published by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) this month (December).
Namibia is economically dependent on natural resources. Up to 30 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to be reliant on the environment. Climate change could increase temperatures by 2-6 degrees Celsius by 2100, and rainfall is expected to be lower and more variable.
The researchers used data from Namibia's natural resource accounts to model the economic impact of climate change.
They found that under a best-case scenario over 20 years, the overall GDP would fall by about one per cent (about US$70 million). But under a worst-case scenario, livestock farming would be hit hard, fishing production would be greatly reduced and GDP would fall by almost six per cent (about US$200 million).
Even in the best-case scenario, subsistence farming would be greatly reduced and a quarter of the population would eventually have to find new livelihoods.
Extreme events like drought are expected to become more common, while changes in sea temperature will play havoc with the fishing industry. Economic diversification will be an important development strategy in future, especially in farming and coastal communities.
Phoebe Barnard, founder of Namibia's national climate change programme, now based at the South African National Biodiversity Institute in Cape Town (SANBI), told SciDev.Net that a detailed modelling study of climate change impacts on Namibian biodiversity and ecosystems was conducted by SANBI for Namibia in 2003.
The SANBI study projected significant additional bush encroachment of the savannah under climate change, and an expansion of Nama Karoo-type (dwarf shrubland) habitat.
"This will severely compromise the livestock production sector, one of Namibia's main livelihoods, and put pressure on the ecology of areas marginal for farming," said Barnard.
"It is up to industrialised nations -- the most responsible for climate change -- to help Namibia and other vulnerable countries cope with the impacts and plan for a climate-constrained future," says the study.

CAMBODIA: Silver bullets? How the sustainable tourism dream is being subverted by business and the government

2007-12-12T10:20:00.000Z

According to Global Witness, Cambodia's government ranks as one of the most corrupt and its ruling cliques as the most incestuous. The government at all levels is grappling with how to deal with rising populations, pressures from its neighbours for its natural resources and the cries of conservationists. A policy of laissez-faire is supported. The latest silver bullet is proposed by a hunting safari company which wants to develop a hunting bag of 30 species in Rattanakiri province. As WWF point out (a) no assessment of populations has been conducted to discern suitability of these species for hunting (b) no supporting infrastructure exists for community benefits to be dispersed (c) poaching from Vietnamese hunters is a huge problem for species conservation and needs to be addressed. Experience from southern Africa shows that well-managed hunting operations integrated with communities, local and national official channels, and in harmony with nature, can be a positive addition to the conservation mosaic for an area. It is rarely the first tool one would use, and then only with good information.

Source: Reuters ..."Cambodia plans hunting safaris for VIP tourists" By Ek Madra; Illegal Logging ... "Global Witness Report Accuses Cambodia's International Donors of Inaction while a Corrupt Elite surrounding the Prime Minister loots the Country's Forests"
Cambodia is considering laying on hunting safaris for well-heeled foreign tourists in its remote jungle-clad northeast, to the consternation of green groups who say it could be a recipe for disaster.
Officials said on Tuesday a Spanish firm called Nsok Safaris had already drawn up plans for a five-star jungle camp to house hunters after trophies on a list of 30 mammals, birds and reptiles in a 100,000-hectare (250,000-acre) forest reserve.
The area, in Mondulkiri and Rattanakiri provinces, is home to several indigenous hill-tribes whose first main contact with the outside world was during the Vietnam War when their territory was crossed by the myriad paths of the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Dany Chheang, deputy director of the Agriculture Ministry's Wildlife Protection Office, said allowing foreigners to pay to shoot game was far better for conservation than having poachers take it illegally.
"Illegal hunters are burning dollars every day," he told Reuters. "We have not explored all the potential of our natural resources. Now is the time to do so."
"The money we net will be invested in preserving the animals and forest. It is better for sustainable development than letting local hunters deal with cheap black markets."
He did not say what the 30 approved species were. The forest area is thought to be one of southeast Asia's last wildernesses and is home to wild elephants and tigers.
Environvmental group WWF, which has been promoting wildlife conservation in war-scarred Cambodia since 1998, said it was concerned about the plan, which has been in the pipeline for two years but which has remained shrouded in secrecy.
WWF's Cambodia programme manager, Bas van Helvoort, said little was known about animal population numbers in the two provinces, and so allowing them to be hunted could be disastrous.
"Putting species up to be hunted is not going to contribute to making them safe," van Helvoort said. "This has been done in Africa but it is very carefully selected and very controlled."
So far, Phnom Penh -- which is routinely accused of allowing rampant illegal logging -- appears oblivious to the concerns.
"These are our natural resources. We do not need permission from wildlife conservation experts to run our business," Dany Chheang said.
The Finance Ministry was still working with agriculture officials on the finer points of the plan, such as trophies and fees, he added.
Madrid-based Nsok Safari's Web site advertises hunting expeditions in Cameroon and Tanzania. (Editing by Ed Cropley and Roger Crabb)

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY: Namibia's poorest lose out

2007-12-12T08:50:00.000Z

Natural resource based economies in Africa to be hit hard economically by climate change with the poorest paying the highest relative price.

Source: The Namibian (Windhoek) ... "Climate Outlook Grim - Study" by Absalom Shigwedha

The impact of climate change on Namibia's natural resources alone could reduce the country's Gross Domestic Product by one to six per cent, says an opinion paper by four climate change experts.
The paper, 'Counting the cost of climate change in Namibia', was compiled by Hannah Reid of the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), James MacGregor (IIED), Linda Sahlen of Umea University and Jesper Stage of Goteborg University It was launched at the conference of parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) currently on in Bali, Indonesia.
"Its [Namibia's] natural legacy underpins much of the national bank balance - and also leaves it highly vulnerable to climate change," said the two-page paper. It is estimated that up to 30 per cent of Namibia's GDP is reliant on the environment. The paper said there was a need for Namibia to mainstream climate change into national policies and planning. Employment opportunities, it says, could shrink and wages fall, with wages for unskilled labour dropping by 24 per cent in worst-case scenario. "So, along with climate change policies and activities, Namibia needs a strategy to deal with displaced farmers and farmworkers," said the paper. Low rainfall is particularly expected in the central regions, while overall rainfall is projected to become even more variable that it is now.
"Even if rainfall changes little from today's levels, hotter temperatures will boost evaporation rates, leading to severe water shortages. Poor rural pastoralists and dryland populations will be affected most. Extreme events such as drought are likely to become more frequent and more intense," said the four experts.
They said it was up to industrialised nations - the most responsible for climate change - to help Namibia and other vulnerable countries to cope with the impact.

CLIMATE CHANGE, EQUITY and MARKETS: Stern warning

2007-12-10T19:14:00.000Z

Nicolas Stern estimates the extra costs developing countries face as a result of climate change are likely to be upwards of $80bn per year and it is vital that extra resources are available for new initiatives.
Source: Royal Economics Society
Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure that the world has seen, Sir Nicholas Stern, whose review last year warned of the economic and social costs of climate change, said tonight.
Delivering the Royal Economic Society (RES) public lecture in Manchester, ahead of next week's world summit on climate change in Bali, Sir Nicholas said targets and trading must be at the heart of a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay," said Sir Nicholas.
"Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. The problem is global and the response must be a collaboration on a global scale."
He added that rich countries must lead the way in taking action. "That means adopting ambitious emissions reduction targets; encouraging effective market mechanisms; supporting programmes to combat deforestation; promoting rapid technological progress to mitigate the effects of climate change; and honouring their aid commitments to the developing world," he said.
Sir Nicholas used the RES lecture - entitled, Climate Change, Ethics and the Economics of the Global Deal - to set out a six-point global deal for tackling climate change.
The first involves rich countries reducing their greenhouse emissions by at least 80% - either directly or through trading schemes - in order that the overall 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 is met.
Secondly he called for substantial trade between countries, including rich and poor countries, in greenhouse gas emissions.
The third point requires a major reform of the clean development mechanism, a Kyoto protocol mechanism that allows developing countries to sell emission reductions, but does not penalise them for emissions themselves, making it a "one-sided trade mechanism", said Sir Nicholas.
He also argued for an international programme to combat deforestation, which contributes 15-20% of greenhouse gas emissions.
"For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation," he said.
There also needs to be urgent promotion of rapid technological advance for climate change mitigation, said Sir Nicholas.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) for coal is particularly urgent since coal-fired electric power is currently the dominant technology round the world and emerging nations will be investing heavily in these technologies, he said.
"For $5bn a year, in terms of feed-in tariffs (which could be reduced as carbon prices rise), it should be possible to create 30 commercial scale coal-fired CCS stations within seven or eight years. Unless the rich world demonstrates, and quickly, that CCS works, developing countries cannot be expected to commit to this technology."
The final plank in Sir Nicholas's action plan is for rich countries to honour their commitments to 0.7% of GDP in aid by 2015. This would yield increases in flows of $150-200bn per year. The extra costs developing countries face as a result of climate change are likely to be upwards of $80bn per year and it is vital that extra resources are available for new initiatives.
Sir Nicholas argued that this global deal invokes effectiveness, efficiency and equity.
"The problem is deeply inequitable with the rich countries having caused the bulk of current stocks of greenhouse gases and the poor countries being hit earliest and hardest - which means that the rich countries must take the lead," he said.
"Within different countries, there will be different choices of instruments - such as taxes, trading and standards - and different technological mixes.
"In all countries, there is scope for energy efficiency, which both reduces emissions and saves money. But trading must be a central part of the story because it can provide the international incentives for participation, and promote efficiency and equity, while controlling quantities of emissions."
Sir Nicholas Stern said that his programme could be developed if rich countries take a lead in Bali on their targets, the promotion of trading mechanisms and funding for deforestation and technology.
He said: "Bali is an opportunity to draw the outline of the common understanding or framework, which will both guide action now, and build towards the deal."

Meat and equity: Zambia questions EU policies over imports and trade

2007-12-10T15:05:00.000Z

Zambia's President Levy Mwanawasa questions EU policies over imports and trade complaining that Zambia is losing as much as $150 million annually on potential meat exports alone .... close to what the EU gives Zambia in grants every year.He called for delegates to find ways on how Africa and European nations can build a new relationship based on equality.

Source: The Times of Zambia (Lusaka)... Zambia: President Call for EU Countries to Open Up Their Markets to Africa

THE call by President Mwanawasa for European Union (EU) countries to open up their markets to African agricultural produce is a serious matter, which should be accorded the attention that it deserves. For a long time, African countries have been crying about the restricted access to the lucrative EU and other markets.
That Zambia is losing as much as $150 million annually on potential meat exports alone as a result of these trade restrictions is indicative of the magnitude of the opportunities that the EU has been denying African countries. This figure, according to Dr Mwanawasa is close to what the EU gives Zambia in grants every year.
This clearly demonstrates that Zambia and other African countries are capable of eventually standing on their own if only EU members and other developed countries could be supportive by offering them chance to trade equitably, instead of keeping them hooked on foreign aid.
In fact, Africa has always stated that it does not wish to live on hand-outs because it is capable of standing on its own with genuine support from the developed. Such support could entail the removal of some of the rigid packaging specifications and phyto-sanitary standards demanded by the EU.
The other way that the EU could help Zambia would be through the deliberate boosting of Africa's capacity to meet some of these measures demanded by the European nations, and allowing the country to trade itself out of aid dependency.
Europe can enable Africa to trade more equitably by removing agricultural subsidies, which make African produce uncompetitive on the EU market.
Of course, the EU cannot be expected to relax the trade restriction and open up its markets rapidly and at once, but there is room for the EU member states to remove some of the barriers and meet the African nations half way.
The EU-Africa Summit, which closed yesterday in Lisbon, was called to find ways on how Africa and European nations can build a new relationship based on equality. The suggestion made by Dr Mwanawasa is one way of achieving that.
The World has followed the deliberations of the summit in Portugal with keen interest and is waiting to see the results of the meeting.
Now is the time to implement the resolutions of the EU-Africa summit. Otherwise the meeting will be branded just another talking shop.

EQUITY and GAS: how loudly purrs the tiger in your tank?

2007-12-09T20:59:00.000Z

Nice data and graphical representation in this article ... but no purchasing power parity vibe ... still a good read, even if unrelative equity is the watchword.

Source: Foreign Policy ... "Prime Numbers: Pain at the Pump" by Gerhard Metschies
Drivers grumble about high gasoline prices all over the world. But with oil prices at record highs, many countries are saying goodbye to gas subsidies, making a trip to the filling station more expensive than ever.

Gasoline prices are based largely on the price of crude oil, but refining costs, distribution, and taxes also add to the tab. Some governments, such as Venezuela and Iran, pick up much of the bill through subsidies. But as the price of crude has risen, many countries have abandoned subsidies in favor of higher gas taxes. Indonesian motorists have perhaps been hit hardest: Gas prices there have increased a whopping 238 percent since 2000.
Countries that keep prices artificially low do so at the peril of their budgets’ bottom line. Iran’s subsidies cut into its total state spending by nearly 40 percent. On the flip side, gasoline taxation can help curb state deficits. South Korea’s high fuel taxes bring in 15 percent of the country’s spending

KENYA and sustainable development: Bank Gets Long Term Credit for SMEs

2007-12-09T13:15:00.000Z

Smaller businesses in Kenya will get a new leg-up from leveraged cheaper finance from Fina Bank [through EIB]. The credit market in rural areas is one missing market that needs filling and could radically alter the profile of rural poverty.

Source: The Nation (Nairobi) Kenya: Fina Bank Gets Long Term Credit for Smes

Fina Bank's small and medium clients can now access long-term financing of up to 10 years following an agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB) to provide funding.
Under the agreement signed on Friday, Fina Bank will receive Sh273 million (3 million euros) from the European bank's Sh1.8 billion (EUR 20 million) line of credit.
Mr Carmelo Cocuzza, the EIB head of regional representation for Central and East Africa, said the loans will be available in Kenya shillings, US dollars or Euros at either floating or fixed rates.
"Besides being long-term, the loans will be beneficial to the clients because they will be cushioned against the local interest rates fluctuations," said Mr Cocuzza.
Fina Bank group CEO, Mr Frank Griffiths, said the agreement will allow the banks to provide longer term loans to its growing number of SME customers.
"Expanding a business is not easy and being able to finance a project for up to 10 years will be greatly appreciated," said Mr Griffiths.
He added that the ability to offer up to a 10-year loan, in a variety of currencies, and with the option of a fixed rate of interest, is relatively unique in this market.
It targets the agro-industry, fishing, mining, food processing, manufacturing, tourism, education and health-care.

TRADE and EQUITY: Namibian meat, economic dominoes

2007-12-07T13:09:00.000Z

WINDHOEK: The Namibian government has made a bizarre decision which will cripple its lucrative export industry to the EU for fresh produce and meat -- seemingly for no gain, political or economic. New tariffs will AVERAGE 90% on all exports. Clever Namibians are buying shares in haulage companies, gas stations along the TransCaprivi and TransKalahari Highways. Meat-eating Namibians are wondering what this means for the local price of meat which has for a long time been subsidised by lucrative exports to the EU. Plus, the value of land is intimately linked to these high returns from exports - and cattle rangeland supports cattle and wildlife complementarily. The tourism industry, based around sustainable tourism [and community-based natural resource management, is equally watching these emerging events with a sense of loss and impending problems.

Source: The Namib ian ... "Farmers Shocked About EU Trade Loss" by Brigitte Weidlich

SHOCKWAVES have rippled through the private sector since Government announced on Wednesday that it refused to sign a new trade deal to kick in on January 1 2008.
The signature would have safeguarded duty- and quotafree access of all Namibian agricultural produce, such as beef, grapes and fish, to the European Union (EU).
"Namibia is facing very stiff tariffs for beef imports to the EU, averaging 90 per cent, three weeks from now against the present eight per cent," said Juergen Hoffmann, Special Trade Advisor at the Agricultural Trade Forum (ATF).
"This is because the European Union does not grant GSP to any meat products," he said yesterday.
The Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) is a scheme whereby a wide range of industrial and agricultural products from some developing countries are given preferential access to EU markets.
An insider of the beef industry told The Namibian yesterday the steep increase in tariffs from next January would make it uneconomic to export beef to the EU.
Currently Namibia exports some 9 000 tonnes of beef a year to the EU.
"It is deboned meat and only the best pieces, being the prime cuts, are exported," said the person, who spoke on condition off anonymity.
"I would not be surprised at all if some abattoirs shut down in Namibia and jobs will be lost.
I also wonder if the Etunda feedlot, which is to be set up by Meatco near Ruacana with EU grant money, will actually come off."
Trade and Industry Minister Immanuel Ngatjizeko told reporters on Wednesday that Government would set up a special task team to assess the losses the beef, fish and grape producers will suffer.
"We can meet them only halfway," the Minister stated. The grape industry is also affected by the Government decision. It employs about 1 500 people permanently and 6 000 seasonal workers in southern Namibia. Namibia exports about 22 500 tonnes of table grapes, most of them to the EU.
The higher import tariffs of EU countries will amount to over N$300 million, which producers have to cough up next year to sell their grapes in Europe

CLIMIATE CHANGE and EQUITY: CC will hit Namibia's poorest

2007-12-07T08:46:00.000Z

Namibia: Climate Change to Hit Key Economic Sectors
Climate change will impact the poorest - more evidence from the University of Namibia

Source: The Namibian (Windhoek) by Absalom Shigwedha

Namibia's agricultural production could drop by 13 per cent because of climate change, says a recent study by the University of Namibia.
Livestock production will also decrease. The report, titled 'Millennium Development Goals 7 and Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities', was presented by Dr John Mfune, a lecturer at Unam, last Thursday.
Mfune, who was the co-ordinator of the study, said the country will also lose biodiversity and revenue from wildlife-based tourism because of climate change. However, Mfune said his team was happy to see that some rural people in the Oshana Region have already taken measures to adapt to climate change. Instead of sowing the traditional pearl millet (mahangu) that needs a lot rain, they have turned to drought-resistant Okashana mahangu, which matures fast even in drought conditions.
Mfune said climate change would mean more frequent and severe droughts for Namibia, which would lead to water shortages and less wood from natural forests for building homesteads. The research team visited the Erongo, Oshana, Caprivi, Karas and Hardap regions. The report was presented at the launch of the 2007/2008 Human Development Report last month.
The Human Development Report also focused on the effects of climate change. The 13th conference of parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) started in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday and will run until next week Friday.
Namibia acceded to the UNFCCC in 1995 and is represented at the Bali meeting.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EQUITY: India - Class injustice

2007-12-05T13:53:00.000Z

Sub-national divisions between rich and poor in India are identified as being divisive both economically and environmentally. This excellent article from Frontline illustrates why decisions taken at an international level need to be coupled with responsible national practices in order to genuinely ensure that climate change is purse-neutral and that we all bear its costs and reap its benefits.

Source: Frontline - India's national magazine ... "class injustice" by R. RAMACHANDRAN

Rich Indians are eating into the carbon space the poor need for economic growth, and recent national policies have helped such disparities grow.
PARTH SANYAL A THERMAL POWER station in West Bengal. India is ranked as the 14th worst carbon intense electricity-producing nation in the world.
IT is a truism and so does not require detailed surveys to drive home its point: in India the disparities in living standards and consumption patterns, in particular of energy, between the rich and the poor are so vast that in the context of climate change, by emitting disproportionately large amounts of carbon, the former class is eating into the carbon space that the latter genuinely needs for its economic growth and development. By focussing exclusively on economic growth in the gross without adequately addressing issues of equity, national policies of the recent past have increased these disparities, which will only render the already vulnerable sections of India even more incapable of adapting to the dangerous effects of climate change.Greenpeace report
“Hiding Behind the Poor”, a recent report by Greenpeace India, provides a quantitative perspective to this internal “climate injustice”. Even such a quantitative perspective is not new. In 1997, N.S. Murthy and associates from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, highlighted the high degree of distortion in energy consumption prevalent in the country. Using 1989-90 data, they showed that the richest top 10 per cent of urban people emitted 12 times as much carbon a person a year as the bottom poor. They showed that the extreme disparity ratio (EDR), defined as the ratio of the energy (direct and indirect) consumed by the urban top and the rural bottom, was 10.3 for coal, 14.8 for oil and 9.0 for electricity and 12 in terms of the total carbon equivalent. The Greenpeace report only serves as a reminder – if one was required – that it is high time the government put in place appropriate policy measures to reverse this trend, which has been allowed to continue unbridled.
International negotiations on climate change have been premised on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” to address the issue of the iniquitous development of nations and their highly disparate per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since, historically, developed countries have been the biggest emitters of GHGs (in particular, of CO2 from burning fossil fuels) and hence are responsible for global warming and the consequent climate change, the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, framed under the convention, require that industrialised countries (called Annex-1 countries under the protocol) cut back on their GHG emissions (to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012).
For the full article click here.

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY SCHIZOPHRENIA

2007-12-04T17:57:00.000Z

VS has swallowed a Financial Dictionary! Genuinely, it is hard to know what to make of her deployment of the terms hypercapitalism, pollution socialism and equity schizophrenia [!] but Shiva times her latest rant in advance of the Bali meetings.

Source: IPS by Vandana Shiva

GLOBALISATION, EQUITY, AND CLIMATE CHANGE - The pollution created by corporations must be recognised as their responsibility and liability, no matter where they create it. Transferring their pollution burden to the poor of the South is not equity, it is injustice, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment. In this analysis, Shiva writes that in times of globalisation, global corporations are the main economic players, not countries, and global corporations out-source their pollution to the developing world to save costs and maximise profits. The author coins the term ''equity schizophrenia'', by which corporate globalisers destroy equity to concentrate wealth and resources in the hands of a wealthy few, while they want the poor, whom they have dispossessed of their livelihoods and land, to share the responsibility for pollution, which the poor did not cause. This is hypercapitalism of wealth and resources and socialism of pollution. The poor lose their ''goods'' to the rich and inherit their liabilities.

CLIIMATE CHANGE EQUITY: Africans emit the least

2007-12-03T08:32:00.000Z

In terms of totals, small african countries - Rwanda and Burundi - emit the least in the world and in terms of per capita, the whole continent is below the global average and according to IIED, below the natural sink capacity level. Time to echo the HDR findings "'The world's poorest people are on the frontline. They stand most directly in harm's way - and they have the least resources to cope. This first catastrophe is not a distant future scenario. It is unfolding today, slowing progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and deepening inequalities within and across countries."

Source:The New Times (Rwanda), agrifoodstandards.net and IIED .... by C. Kazooba, S. Mutesi and IIED [Muyeye Chambwera et al]

Rwanda and Burundi are among countries with least carbon emissions in the world.
Rwanda is ranked at 161 emitting about 600,000 tonnes of carbon gasses that cause climate change whereas Burundi is positioned at 167 emitting about 200,000 tonnes in 2004 out of the 177 countries surveyed, according to the 2007/2008 UNDP's Human Development Report released in Kampala yesterday.
Rwanda, which comes after Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, in 2004, signed the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, both of which limit a country's emission of Carbondioxide.
The United Nations Development Programme report titled: 'Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World', warns that the recent devastating climate change would severely affect the world's poorest.
'The world's poorest people are on the frontline. They stand most directly in harm's way - and they have the least resources to cope. This first catastrophe is not a distant future scenario. It is unfolding today, slowing progress towards the Millennium Development Goals and deepening inequalities within and across countries.
Left unattended, it will lead to human development reversals throughout the 21st century,' the report reveals.
It adds that climate change through its impact on ecology, rainfall, temperature and weather systems, global warming will directly affect all countries.
'However, some countries and people are more vulnerable than others. In the long-term, the whole of humanity faces risks but more immediately, the risks and vulnerabilities are skewed towards the world's poorest people,' it said.
The world's temperature is reported to have grown by around 0.7 degrees centigrade since the advent of the industrial era, according to the research.
'The trend is accelerating at average global mean temperature is rising at 0.2 degrees centigrade every decade.'

AFRICA and the USA: Remarkable Change and Progress in Africa's Economic Development

2007-12-02T18:52:00.000Z

Source: AllAfrica

On the second leg of a trip to three African countries, the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., delivered this address to the Corporate Council on Africa's U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Cape Town.
Africa is a unique continent: diverse in people and heritage, with some of the most spectacular geography and biodiversity on the planet. All too often, however, those who do not know Africa well associate the continent with issues like famine, conflict and disease. Tonight, I will talk about a much different Africa, one with which I suspect most of you are more familiar – a continent of diverse nations increasingly defined by economic opportunity and promise.
Most importantly, I will talk about an Africa where leaders are taking control of their own economic futures and continuing to move beyond reliance on donors.

For the rest of the speech AllAfrica.

UK "soft" exports grow at same rate as China's "hard" exports

2007-12-02T16:51:00.000Z

Source: Financial Times (UK).

Britain has got the knowledge and should flaunt it by Will Hutton.

China's export miracle over the past 10 years is now a commonplace. Less well-known is a parallel British miracle. Exports of knowledge-based service - everything from investment banking to publishing - have grown over the same period at near-Chinese proportions as part of Britain's emergence as a world leader in the knowledge economy.
It is a fragile position, not widely understood, with far-reaching implications. On data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Britain employed more than 48 per cent of its workforce in knowledge economy sectors in 2005 (including information and communications technology, health, education, financial and business services, creative industries and high-tech manufacturing) compared with a European Union average of 41 per cent. Britain's trade surplus in the knowledge industries constitutes 3.4 per cent of gross domestic product - the highest in the world.
Why is Britain doing so well? The Work Foundation's answer (we are engaging in Europe's largest-ever knowledge economy inquiry) is that the knowledge economy is a sophisticated supply response to high and growing levels of educated, discerning demand - and that Britain has enjoyed 15 years' growth of just such demand.
Abraham Maslow, the US psychologist, depicted human beings as having a hierarchy of needs ranging from the most basic to an apex of self-fulfilment. Enough consumers are now rich enough to have created a tipping point: the emergence of "apex consumption". Buyers, whether individuals or businesses, are insistent that what they buy is not just a transaction; they want value, a relationship, a quality experience and even psychological satisfaction from what they spend. Business success now requires investment not just in physical assets, but in design, so-called soft skills, brands, company-specific software, leadership, research and development and in-house training. In 1970, investment in these so-called intangibles was a mere 40 per cent of investment in tangible assets: now it is 125 per cent.
More at ft.com.

CLIMATE CHANGE, equity and MARKETS: “Climate may change in public opinion”

2007-12-02T16:35:00.000Z

Source: Financial Times (UK)

“Climate may change in public opinion” by Pablo Triana

In the past few months, there has been a flurry of activity in the “green investments” arena. In August, Credit Suisse unveiled its Global Warming Index, with HSBC throwing its hat into the ring just weeks later with its Climate Change Index. Both innovative devices allow investors direct plays on the stocks of companies that should, in principle, benefit from the altered climatic conditions that seem to surround us these days. While Credit Suisse has chosen to select a basket of 40 firms, HSBC has opted for a larger selection of 300 names, with both indices focusing on renewable and alternative energies.
Should investors pay heed and punt on those companies bent on making millions out of the new weather realities? The easy answer would seem to be yes, definitely. Few would nowadays doubt that climate change is not only a reality, but a severe problem that needs to be tackled with the utmost urgency, thus significantly enhancing future demand for things like ethanol or wind turbines. And there is the ethical kicker to boot. By betting on the health of green companies, you would not only be destined to reap millions but also contribute to the clean-up of the planet. Who could resist that?
More at ft.com.

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY: China, coal and iPods

2007-11-30T17:43:00.000Z

A good article from WSJ. Fails to point its finger at how fashion in gadgets requires these mobiles and other small electronic equipment to be flown from East Asia to Europe and the USA. Forget food miles, think gadget miles!

From Wall Street Journal: Why China Could Blame Its CO2 on West
By JANE SPENCER
To understand the deadlock in the debate on global climate change, take a look at your iPod.
The vast majority of the world's MP3 players are made in China, where the main power source is coal. Manufacturing a single MP3 player releases about 17 pounds of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
IPods, along with thousands of other goods churned out by Chinese factories, from toys to rolled steel, pose a question that is becoming an issue in the climate-change debate. If a gadget is made in China by an American company and exported and used by consumers from Stockholm to São Paulo, Brazil, should the Chinese government be held responsible for the carbon released in manufacturing it?
Next month, world leaders will gather in Bali to begin hammering out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to combat global warming that expires in 2012. China and the U.S., the world's two largest carbon emitters, are facing mounting international pressure to participate in the new deal. But as the bill for unchecked emissions comes due, a battle is brewing over who should pay for it.
Past accords like Kyoto have looked at emissions on a country-by-country basis, requiring participating nations to reduce greenhouse gases released within their borders. In other words, the manufacturing nation pays for the pollution. But in a twist that could put more pressure on industrialized nations like the U.S., academics, environmentalists and some policy makers argue the next global climate treaty should take into account a nation's emissions "consumption." They argue the emissions are embedded in goods that move around the world through trade -- so if the U.S. imports iPods from China, Americans should share some responsibility for the pollution produced in making them.
"As China's emissions rise, everyone is pointing the finger of blame at China," says Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, a think tank and environmental-advocacy organization based in London. "The real responsibility for rising emissions should lie with the final consumers in Europe, North America and the rest of the world."
The argument appeals to leaders in China, which by some tallies has already passed the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Earlier this year, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang reminded reporters from the Western media that "a lot of the things you wear, you use, you eat are produced in China." On the one hand, Western companies are manufacturing more in China, but "on the other hand, you criticize China on the emission-reduction issue," he added. Roughly 23% of China's emissions come from the production of goods that are shipped elsewhere, according to a recent report by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Britain.
Some economists dismiss the argument and note that China happily benefits from the arrangement. "China loves being an exporter, so it's ironic they would blame the U.S. for their exports," says Robert Stavins, a professor of business and government at Harvard University. "It's called having your cake and eating it too."
At this point, the blame-the-buyer approach is more a negotiating tactic than a serious proposal for redrafting the global-emissions map. But as new studies and reams of data become available tallying embedded emissions, the research could influence the debate over what kind of emissions cuts various nations should be called on to make.
Advocates of the consumption-based approach argue it solves one of the key problems associated with the Kyoto Protocol, known as carbon leakage. This is the idea that countries can reduce their own emissions by sending dirty industries abroad. The same countries may still import the finished goods from the developing world, creating a situation in which global carbon emissions rise, even as individual nations meet their targets.
"If you have emissions constraints, it's become very attractive to relocate dirty production to developing countries, or import products from developing countries," says Glen Peters, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "You import the finished goods, and leave the pollution in China."
Technically, carbon emissions in the U.S. have declined in recent years, a fact noted by President Bush. U.S. carbon emissions fell 1.3% in 2006. But a recent study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University suggests the U.S. may be cutting its emissions by outsourcing more manufacturing.
"If the Chinese government was held responsible for its emissions, it would raise the cost of producing goods there," says Joseph Aldy, an economist at Resources for the Future, an environmental think tank based in Washington. "Typically, when one imposes a tax, the cost gets passed back to the consumer."

CAMBODIA and Helmets: responsible business fund safety

2007-11-29T18:39:00.001Z

Frrom: WWF Cambodia's Newsletter.

On your bike! But not without your helmet WWF Cambodia employees have been provided
with motor cycle helmets which they are required to wear when riding to and from work and
whenever carrying out WWF work related activities.
According to a recent article in the Asia Life magazine, wearing a helmet reduces your chance of
death in an accident by 40%. When it comes to serious injury a non-helmeted motorbike rider is three times more likely to suffer than one wearing a helmet. These statistics apply to low speed accidents, between 30-40kph – or about the speed of the average motorcycle around Phnom Penh.
Not negotiable: WWF Cambodia is taking the issue of rider safety seriously. Project managers have already warned that any WWF staff seen riding a motorbike without a helmet may be stood down. Finance and administration manager Soeun Seng said the issue is really
non-negotiable with staff. “We have bought helmets for staff who ride motorbikes because we want to try and avoid serious injury. However we have also been advised that staff may not be adequately covered by our insurance policy if they are not wearing helmets,” he said.
“We can’t let that happen. The result would be financially crippling for the victims and their family, not to mention the pain and suffering.”
So the answer is simple – get on your bike, but not without your helmet.

SOUTH AFRICA's environmental economists fail to convince the policy-makers

2007-11-28T08:54:00.000Z

South Africa's short-sighted politicans have been swayed by the opinions and no doubt financial clout of preservationist consrvation charities. Here, Marine Protected Areas are to be rid of fishermen. While this might make sense in the short-term, it is rarely a long-term solution. No mention is made of compensation for these poor fishers, nor of the plans for future fishing rights. It reminds me of 1960s-style conservation - put up a fence and keep the people [who are surely the problem, right?] OUT. Conservation in southern Africa leads the world in finding simple economics and incentive-based solutions to complex people-environment problems. This is an inequitable step in the wrong direction.

Source: BuaNews by Edwin Tshivhidzo "South Africa: Marine Protected Areas Will Not be Opened to Public"

Marine Protected Areas (MPA) are critical in resuscitating ailing oceans and collapsing fish stocks, and would remain closed for recreational activities, according to Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk. Responding to proposals that government should open parts of the Tsitsikamma MPA for recreational fishing, the minister was clear that fishing would not be allowed there.

"The reasons for originally closing the MPA in 2000 and the prevailing underlying circumstances have not changed," he said. ,Opening this MPA to recreational fishing will set a dangerous precedent in a conservation area that is closed to all and for the benefit of all South Africans.

"Allowing a few people access for recreational purposes would negate the benefits that accrue to all. MPAs are a key part of our strategy to manage vulnerable eco-systems in a sustainable way," he said. ,The minister said protected areas also increased populations outside reserves as young species migrated.

"Because of our determined and forward-looking approach, South Africa today is among the world leaders in implementing the goals set at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. "At least 18 percent of South Africa's coastline falls within formal protected areas." In order to protect and grow marine resources, local communities have been progressively excluded from fishing in the Tsitsikamma MPA since 1975.

Minister van Schalkwyk said a decision to open this MPA would effectively have signaled a broader shift in policy on the part of government and the beginning of a new approach that is neither sustainable nor in line with our stated objectives.

He added that opening the MPA would undermine its biological sustainability."The impact of catches in the MPA will lead to a decline in abundance because many of the resident fish species are slow growing," the minister said. In 2004, government proclaimed four new MPAs, bringing roughly 15 percent of South Africa's 3 000km coastline under protection, in the process creating a framework for managing the country's fisheries and consolidating some of the world's top research, eco-tourism, sport diving and fishing sites.

Previously, South Africa had 19 marine protected areas covering approximately 11 percent of the coastline, which stretches from the country's border with Namibia in the west to Mozambique in the east. The Tsitsikamma National Park was the first to be proclaimed in 1964. Marine protected areas allow for the conservation of natural environments, while assisting in the management of fisheries by protecting and rebuilding economically important stocks.

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY: should we stop expecting postal haste or embrace new efficiencies in Africa?

2007-11-27T13:19:00.000Z

DAR ES SALAAM: This DHL advert is from an ex-pat guide to Dar in my hotel room. Recent research shows that over 20% of all air freight is post or documents - a lot of this is time sensitive documents such as contracts and legal documentation. Now, developing countries are being serviced with regular flights, it is hoped that information efficiencies will stimulate growth in the knowledge economies and reduce risks of doing business in Africa further still. The text here from DHL reads "whether you are sending a single document or a pallet-load of machine parts, there's one sure way to get it there on time. All day, every day, DHL delivers to all 56 countries in Africa. With our own fleet of aircraft you can be sure of a fast reliable service. And happy customers throughout Africa." http://www.dhl.com/

Climate change and aviation equity: Cambodia's tourism provides economic incentives for aviation investment

2007-11-27T08:05:00.000Z

PHNOM PENH: A joint venture between regional investors and the Cambodian government in a new airline shows the power of tourism in generating interest, incentives and investment in aviation in developing countries. Jobs, indirect benefits, land price changes and increased economic opportunities for Cambodia's citizenry and its business community are all expected. This raises the importance of getting the land rights issues sorted in the country. See this article on the economic benefits of air freight for developing countries.

Cambodia develops new national airline from Travpress

The Cambodian government has signed an agreement with Indonesian companies last Friday which will see the development of a Cambodian national airline called the National Flag Carrier. Petter Sondakh, the CEO for Rajawali Group, has stated that the company invested in Cambodia because of the tourism boom the country is currently experiencing.
"Today we signed the MOU to establish the National Flag Carrier with PT Rajawali Group and PT Ancora International company, which are joint ventures from Indonesia," Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An told reporters after signing the memorandum of understanding in Phnom Penh. "This is our pride and victory that we have had our own national airline."
The new carrier is expected to commence operations in six months, with Sok An revealing that the Cambodian government will hold a 51 percent stake in the airline and will receive 30 per cent of the profits.
The airline’s board chairman will be appointed by the Cambodian government and the General Manager and CEO will be selected by the investing companies, added Sok An. Its operations have been outlined by Petter Sondakh who has stated that the airline will fly both domestically and internationally, with its first international flights focusing on the country’s current strongest markets; China, Japan and South Korea.

CLIMATE CHANGE and EQUITY: America looks to learn from development-friendly UK

2007-11-26T07:37:00.000Z

USA: Farmers in developing world hurt by 'eat local' philosophy in USA

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Increasing awareness of climate change has transformed the way Americans think about organic food. While organic consumers used to focus on how food was produced, such as whether pesticides were used, they now are also concerned about how far food has traveled to arrive at their plate. The issue is that greater distances often equate to more energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.
The preference for eating local has been popularized, among others, by UC Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan in the "Omnivore's Dilemma" and by Barbara Kingsolver in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." This "eating local" philosophy has a huge following among those consumers who buy organic food. But what about the consequences of the local food craze for farmers in the developing world who have joined the organic and fair trade movements?
We're getting a glimpse of the future of this debate in the United Kingdom, where the tension between the local food and fair trade movements is acute. Just recently, the U.K. Soil Association, a nonprofit group that promotes sustainable and organic farming, called on the British government to restrict imports of organic produce brought in by air. In a concession to the fair trade movement, this group would allow for imports from countries actively seeking to promote organic and fair trade markets within their own borders. Despite this concession, British fair trade activists are worried.
Whether the British government would ever adopt such a ban is questionable, but labeling schemes and use of concepts such as "food miles" (the distance a product has traveled to reach the store) are likely to increase consumer awareness and influence purchasing habits.
The suggestion that developing countries should promote local markets for organic produce in order to wean themselves off of export markets is a false alternative. These markets often already exist in everything but name.
Many farmers in the poorest of African nations - where I do my research - already supply local markets with their grains and produce. While not formally recognized as such, these markets are virtually organic because most poor African farmers restrict pesticide use to traditional export crops such as cotton, cacao and coffee, while local foodstuffs are grown with few or no chemical inputs.
Traditional export-oriented agriculture is problematic in many ways, but the organic and fair trade movements are beginning to diversify opportunities for African farmers in this sector. Just as Mexico and South America supply large amounts of organic produce to California, European demand for organic and fair trade products from Africa is surging. These are not just niche markets where developing world farmers can potentially gain a higher return, but these channels also promote better working conditions and the reduced use of chemicals. If the local food movements in Europe and North America reduce their demand for organic and fair trade products from afar, the most likely consequence is that African farmers who have entered these niche markets will return to producing their export crops in the conventional, pesticide-intensive manner. While local food markets can provide some income for these farmers, they still are reliant on export opportunities for the bulk of their cash income.
Although our decisions as consumers have the power to influence how our food is produced, this approach is limited. What we really need are changes in the basic rules that govern the global marketplace.
If international bodies, such as the World Trade Organization, set and enforced rules about basic working conditions and environmental standards, then we would not be relegated to trying to promote organic farming and fair labor practices via labeling schemes and informed consumption. If African countries were allowed to protect nascent industries, then they might not be so reliant on agricultural exports.
But until these changes are made, it is a cruel joke to condemn developing-world farmers to commodity crop production and then remove the only hope they have for higher returns - organic and fair trade crops and products. While the local food craze is all well and good, we should not be so quick to denounce organic and fair trade foods that are imported from the developing world. By shunning these products, we do not encourage local markets to flourish in these countries, but we condemn these farmers to the ills of conventional production for the global market (the only other real alternative at this time). We should remain open to such products in the short term, but also work for broad scale changes in the rules of the global market place to ensure that even conventional agricultural production is safe and fairly compensated.

CLIMATE CHANGE and rubber: measurement and generation

2007-11-23T15:35:00.000Z

PHNOM PENH: Rubber is at the heart of both climate change measurement and its generation. Weather forecasting remains most accurate when using a latex weather balloon. Tyres and deforestation to produce these tyres are at the heart of the problem.

Weather balloon story "Upper air measurement" from Engineering News (South Africa).

It may seem odd, and a little old-fashioned, that the world’s most sophisticated and accurate in situ upper-air weather-measurement device is borne aloft by, of all things, a latex rubber balloon. But there is nothing old-fashioned about the performance that Vaisala Radiosonde RS92 delivers to Finnish national weather services and other meteorological organisations worldwide.

The most valuable data for meteorologists and meteorological researchers is that generated in situ, at the very heart of weather phenomena.

And the most practical and cost- effective way to lift a radiosonde into the atmosphere, where it can measure these phenomena, is a good old latex rubber balloon.

This is as true today – when Vaisala radiosonde technology has become one of the high-tech cornerstones of modern meteorological measurement – as it was when Professor Vitho Vaisala, a mathematician and meteorologist and the inventor of a number of meteorological instruments, intro- duced his first commercial radiosonde back in 1936.

The atmospheric data gathered by Vaisala radiosondes is a key input for the forecasting and climate change monitoring carried out by many of the world’s national weather services.

It is also used to calibrate some of the most technologically sophisticated equipment on earth – and beyond. Radiosonde data is used, for example, to calibrate equipment aboard satellites, measuring such things as the radiation emanating from the earth’s surface.

Scientists conducting meteorological research, as well as meteoro- logists working for national weather services, require very different things of their measuring equipment, but one thing they all want, and expect, is accuracy. And that is what the Vaisala Radiosonde RS92 provides.

Its unrivalled measurement accuracy has propelled its rise to become the world’s acknowledged gold standard in upper-air weather observation.

The data that it generates during its ascent into the upper atmosphere covers pressure, temperature (as low as –90 degrees Celsius at high altitudes), and relative humidity measurments, all of which are transmitted to receiving equipment on the ground, in the form of the Vaisala Digi-CORA Sounding System MW31.

Thorough testing of the RS92 radiosonde, in combination with the Digi-CORA Sounding System MW31, by the World Meteoro-logical Organisa- tion (WMO) on the island of Mauritius, in February 2005, together with acceptance tests carried out by Vaisala customers worldwide, has shown that the RS92 offers the world’s highest level of PTU measurement performance and continuous wind data availability.

CLIMATE CHANGE and ALUMINIUM: growth stock fuelled by CC concerns in China fuels incentives for expanding concessions, reduced indigenous rights

2007-11-22T12:49:00.000Z

SEN MONOROM: BHP Billiton, the world's largest mining company [and sixth largest producer of primary aluminium] is prospecting in Mondulkiri - a remote province in Cambodia, eight hours drive along poor roads. Yet, it is home to the Buong people, WWF's flagship conservation project Mondulkiri Protected Forest as well as some of the poorest people in Cambodia. Plus, little of the province's 1.2 million hectares outside of protected areas are titled, remaining the ownership of the state. With aluminium prices set to quadruple during the next four years - see excellent Herald Tribune article - what does this mean for conservationists. WWF have already lost 75,000 hectares of their conservation forest concession to BHP - a company with a reasonably transparent CSR wing - see their Corporate Sustainability Report here.

Throughout the developing world, will higher prices mean deeper digging, more widespread speculative prospecting, greater scullduggery in the industry or more competition, more openness to joint ventures with indigenous peoples and a new greener coat of paint for the aluminium extraction industry?

Climate change is an indirect driver here too ... China's drive to cut power consumption [of which aluminium smelting is a huge contributor] and reduce aluminum overcapacity [China produces over 60% of the world's aluminium] may slow growth enough that the nation becomes a net importer of the metal in the fourth quarter of 2008, said Chris Ding, a Beijing-based analyst at China International Capital, the nation's biggest investment bank [from HT article]

From the Phnom Penh Post:

Bauxite under the ground in Mondulkiri where exploratory drilling began a few months ago could result in an investment worth "billions of U.S. dollars," Deputy Prime Minister Sok An announced to 600 business people attending a two-day investment conference November 9.

Prime Minister Hun Sen told the investment conference that he also had high hopes for BHP Billiton efforts. "Cambodia has significant potential in iron, bauxite, precious stones, gold," he said. But regarding oil, he said, "much of the speculation is premature."

Australian mining giant BHP Billiton over the summer began what it expects to be five years of exploratory drilling for bauxite in Mondulkiri. The company has a concession signed a year ago by Sok An to explore 1,000 square kilometers, some still dotted with unexploded ordinance and land mines from 40 years ago. Billiton said it is using land mine clearance teams in the risky areas.

From Oxfam:

"The rapid pace of the development means that we might not have a say about if it happens, but more how it happens,” said Warwick Browne, a program officer in Oxfam America’s East Asia office.

From NGO Forum:

"Now they’re just exploring, but it’s important to get people involved early on. By participating, we want to avoid environmental, social, and cultural impacts,” said Chhith Sam Ath, executive director of The NGO Forum on Cambodia, an Oxfam partner. “We also want to empower communities to have some decision-making power.”

From the United Nations office in PP:

In late 2006, a licence was granted to BHP Billiton and Mitsubishi Corporation to explore for bauxite over 100,000 hectares of land in Mondulkiri province, overlapping with the Wuzhishan concession and encompassing indigenous traditional lands. Other mining concessions affect indigenous land in Veal Veng district, Pursat and Roveang district, Preah Vihear. The growing number of mining concessions gives rise to concerns about the potential impacts on indigenous
communities, their rights and their livelihoods.

CLIMATE CHANGE, EQUITY AND SELF-INTEREST: Japan

2007-11-22T12:38:00.000Z

PHNOM PENH: Japan is proposing a £1 billion 'upgrade' for Asian forests in countries polluting Japanese air. The initiative, announced by Fukuda at a summit of Asian leaders, includes soft loans and training programs over five years, and is aimed at helping the region tackle global warming while pushing forward with economic development. "For ASEAN nations, the efforts to address climate change must not hinder them from seeking development and economic prosperity". East Asian countries also will adopt an "aspirational goal" of expanding their combined forest cover by at least 15 million hectares by 2020 and fight deforestation.

From TaiPei Times. Japan unveils 'green' aid package at Asian summit

The country's environment is already being affected by pollution from China and it is offering US$2 billion to promote a `greener' East Asia Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda yesterday unveiled a US$2 billion aid package to help developing Asian nations fight pollution and combat climate change. The initiative, announced by Fukuda at a summit of Asian leaders, includes soft loans and training programs over five years, and is aimed at helping the region tackle global warming while pushing forward with economic development.

The package "includes loan and grant aid as well as technological training, targeting East Asian countries," a Japanese official said, without specifying which nations would receive aid. "For ASEAN nations, the efforts to address climate change must not hinder them from seeking development and economic prosperity," another official said.

Yesterday's summit included the 10 members of ASEAN, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The summit issued a declaration on fighting climate change.
The new Japanese aid is aimed specifically at helping developing Asian countries tackle air and water pollution, as well as improve sewage processing.

Japan has long relied on aid as a primary instrument of its foreign policy and considers Southeast Asia a key region to exert international influence. Pollution in China is already affecting parts of western Japan, and Japan is keen to share information to help other countries clean up the environment while ensuring economic growth.

Indonesia will host a conference on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol next month in Bali. The protocol sets limits on emissions by developed nations, but the US and Australia have refused to join it because it exempts major polluters, China and India. Australia, the world's worst greenhouse gas polluter per capita, says the emission targets imposed on it could hurt Australian industries while handing competitive advantages to developing countries.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told reporters yesterday there were signs India and China have recognized they need to take action to stabilize and reduce emissions. "They are not going to take the view that only developed countries should deal with this issue," Downer said. "I think there has been a turning of the tide in terms of China and India's position on climate change."

China's booming economy has propelled it past the US as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the atmospheric pollutant that is primarily responsible for global warming. Two-thirds of China's power comes from coal, which releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other energy source. Over the next five years, the country expects to complete at least one new coal-fired power plant a week. In India, where several automakers are competing to provide affordable cars to the country's enormous middle class, there were 300,000 cars registered last year in the capital New Delhi alone. The government acknowledges that it expects the country's emissions to grow fivefold by 2031, which would put India about where the US is now.

The East Asia Summit was expected to call on members to work to reduce by at least 25 percent their energy intensity -- the amount of energy needed to produce a dollar of gross domestic product -- by 2030. East Asian countries also will adopt an "aspirational goal" of expanding their combined forest cover by at least 15 million hectares by 2020 and fight deforestation.

ASEAN's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

VIETNAM: safety in transit - new law economics bite as helmet makers reap returns

2007-11-22T11:45:00.000Z

HANOI: New nationwide safety laws mean all morocyclists must wear helmets. The deadline is 15 Dec 2007 and worried about police crackdown, customers rush to buy them, pushing up prices. There are benefits to being a first mover here and to being a canny stockpiler. Costs to late deciders, those with big heads [33% premium! - I pity all brainy Vietnamese economists!] and potentially those who flout this law. Will the risk of detection outweigh these inflated prices? I am sure some clever economist will be testing this out - please let me know the outcome! Important analytical questions include taxi fare rises, demand for taxis [cheap already], imports, illegal helmets, mock helmets, etc.

Helmet sellers take public for a ride from VietNamNet.

Safety helmets have increased in price by VND30,000-80,000, a jump of 30-40%, over the past two months, as customers rush to buy them in anticipation of the traffic law requiring their usage in December.

Customers rush to buy helmets as the December 15 deadline approaches for the mandatory helmet law. In response to the high demand for helmets, retailers have raised prices 30-40% in the past two months.Honda brand helmets cost VND290,000 each, up from VND170,000-180,000 in October while Protec helmets are going for VND165,000 to VND215,000 and Amoro VND95,000 to VND150,000.

Taiwanese-made helmets for children that have eye-catching sizes cost VND180,000 to VND210,000. Safety helmets will likely be even more expensive as people tend to wait until the last minute to buy them, said a distributor. Under a recent regulation of the National Committee for Traffic Safety, motorcyclists have to wear safety helmets starting December 15 when riding motorbikes on all roads and streets nationwide. The deadline is fast approaching, and more and more people are rushing to buy good quality helmets that many fear are in short supply.
It is next to impossible to buy a helmet for less than VND150,000, said Duong Huu Khanh, an employee at a navigation company.

He said an Andes brand helmet worth VND120,000 last month now costs VND180,000 for a small one and VND210,000 for a large one with sellers citing a supply shortage as the main reason. A number of Protec showrooms are currently out of stock as the firm reduces its distribution channels. Local distributors said an undersupply is unlikely given the huge number of safety helmets available from domestic and foreign sources.

Nguyen Hoang Anh, Protec’s deputy general director, said the company has been operating at full capacity with additional employees working to get orders finished by the end of the year. "The company produces an average of 1,500-2,000 safety helmets a day," he said.
Vo Van Duc Bay, deputy director in charge of business at Cho Lon Plastic Co, said the company distributes 1,000 helmets a day and will increase its supplies if demand surges. Sai Gon Plastics Joint Stock Co said the company is producing 10,000-15,000 helmets a month, but that capacity can reach 50,000 a month. People will not likely be left without safety helmets because corporate clients have ordered up to 80,000 for their employees, who would not have to buy one for themselves, said an executive of a joint venture firm involving the production of LH helmets.

Le Van Dien, sales director of Dai Viet Trading and Service Joint Stock Co., agreed, saying that in addition to 20,000 helmets in stock, the company markets 1,000-1,500 daily. Legally and illegally imported helmets are also available on the market. A HCM City-based importer specialising in importing helmets from the US and Taiwan said it had rented a warehouse months ago to stockpile helmets.

BIOFUELS and CAMBODIAN FORESTS: fuelling felling, grabbing and odd economic arguments

2007-11-21T08:47:00.000Z

PHNOM PENH: jatropha is being heralded as the silver bullet for biofuel production, sustainable rural livelihoods, small-scale alternatives to agriculutre and forest use, as well as a great way for poorer developing countries to access international funds. Of course, it is also a great way to fox communities, dodge legal requirements and make supernormal profits under the government and NGO radar.

Van Der Horst Biodiesel, a Singapore company that has invested in small pilot plantations of 1,000 hectares or less in China and Cambodia. Van der Horst is now negotiating for an additional 20,000 hectares in Cambodia, 10,000 hectares in Vietnam and 25,000 hectares on the Indonesian island of Seram. The company's business plan calls for it to build a biodiesel plant in Singapore, with a 200,000-ton annual production capacity, to process jatropha from its plantations in the region

Read mnore here in International Herald Tribune.

ERASED FORESTS: rubber, biofuels and rural communities

2007-11-21T08:28:00.000Z

PHNOM PENH: rubber demand is rising, Chinese, Cambodian and Korean companies are gaining plantation concessions in Cambodia. Yet, with land rights ill-defined, activists fear for local communities losing land, losing access to livelihoods, losing future benefit-sharing opportunities and becoming even more marginalised. With 60% of rubber for car tyres, and fast development in SE Asia, this is an issue that requires further analysis and attention. Will climate change help reduce this demand? will technology mean greater re-use and longer tyre lives? will fashion mean we change our cars for newer models more often?

Article from India's Zee News: Rubber demand surging with scarce supply

With buyers the world over scouring for natural rubber and producing countries struggling to increase supplies, industry will soon feel the bite of spiralling prices. Though the market has been very much in balance in 2007, demand could exceed supply as early as next year as several factors conspire to curb output growth in the main producing countries of Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. These include delays in planting caused by erratic weather, limits in cultivable land, labour supply constraints, higher wage costs and religious insurgency. "There is no single piece of evidence to foresee a decline in the price. All factors are favourable for an increase in price," said Jom Jacob, senior economist of the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries. "There are well-defined limits for natural rubber supply to increase at least until 2012. So, the tight supply situation is likely to continue," he said. International prices have risen four-fold since hitting 30-year lows in 2001, when there was a supply glut. Some analysts say they expect rubber to rise around 18 percent to $3 a kg next year. Thai RSS3 grade, often used as the benchmark for physical prices, stood at USD2.55 a kg on Friday. "It`s possible the price will reach $3, although I would prefer to refrain from mentioning any specific number. Strong demand, mainly from China, is one of the factors that will push up the price," said a Tokyo-based analyst. China boom The recovery in rubber prices and continued robust demand have taken place on the coat-tails of China`s booming economy. Tyres account for 60 % of the country`s rubber consumption, according to China Rubber Industry Association. As the world`s largest consumer, China last year imported 1.6 million tonnes of natural rubber, which is used in everything from tyres to sports shoes. China`s rubber consumption is to rise 12 % in 2007 from 2.1 million tonnes last year, according to the China Rubber Industry Association. China is emerging as a major exporter of cars and production of tyres has grown above 20 percent a year over the past few years. And last year, China outstripped Japan to become the world`s number-two auto market, with sales of 7.2 million vehicles and output of 7.3 million. "There`s a close relationship between economic growth and domestic consumption. From 2007 to 2010, I anticipate demand growth in China at between 7 and 10% each year for natural rubber," said Jacob of the ANPRC. Deficit looms "We expect global consumption to rise to 9.7 million tonnes in 2007, which is an increase of around 4%. Next year`s may reach around 10.1 million tonnes," said a London-based analyst. "Of course there`s global economic growth, and demand from the tyre industry is obviously the key factor. Also, within the increase in global demand, we`ve got the increase in GDP and the increase in mining activity that pushes up demand for tyres." With consumpution on the rise, supply will be a problem for the market. Synthetic rubber remains expensive as it is made from pricey crude oil. The International Rubber Study Group put global natural rubber output at 9.7 million tonnes in 2006 but output this year and next remains constrained. Output in Thailand, the world`s largest producer, may fall 1.5 % to about 3 million tonnes in 2007 from a year earlier because heavy rains have disrupted tapping. Production has also been hurt by separatist violence in Thailand`s southern provinces, which account for 10 percent of the country`s output. The second-largest producer, Indonesia, could see its output unchanged at 2.8 million tonnes next year, due to climate change and poor yields. Malaysia, the third-largest producer, may lose 250,000 hectares of plantations between 2008 and 2020 because of rapid industrialisation and expansion of its palm oil plantations as demand for biofuel drives prices to record highs. With emerging producers such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, also struggling to boost output due to the lack of suitable land, rubber manufacturers will face higher costs. "Everybody cares about rising prices but there`s very little choice. There`s not much you can do very quickly to reduce your exposure to natural rubber consumption. I think we`ll have a deficit starting next year," said the London-based analyst. "Going forward, we`re looking at the deficit running to probably 2013. We don`t dare forecast the shortfall but fundamentals are driving the direction, while the extent of the movements in prices is probably driven more strongly by speculators." India, whose economy has grown at an average of 8.6% in the past four years, grows rubber but also imports the commodity from Southeast Asia to fill a supply gap. "A surge in the natural rubber price is inevitable with the widening of the demand and supply gap in the coming few years," said Arup Chandra, head of research and development at Apollo Tyres, one of India`s main tyre makers. India`s tyre industry has an annual turnover of USD4.5 billion and production of passenger cars is expected to grow 18 percent each year from 2006 to 2010.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS UNDER THREAT: from public opinion

2007-11-13T10:36:00.000Z

HANOI: it seems climate change may be under threat from fickle public opinion. While this is not a contra-CC article, it verges on it, taking a market-based approach - "if the market isnt fixing it, it aint broke"! "Notwithstanding the positive contributions (and potentially healthy financial performances) of the companies included in the Climate Change-Global Warming indices, the unavoidable truth is that their fortunes in the stock markets are ultimately linked to people's belief in global warming and its degree of severity."

It reads:

In the past few months, there has been a flurry of activity in the "green investments" arena. In August, Credit Suisse (NYSE:CSR) unveiled its Global Warming Index, with HSBC throwing its hat into the ring just weeks later with its Climate Change Index. Both innovative devices allow investors direct plays on the stocks of companies that should, in principle, benefit from the altered climatic conditions that seem to surround us these days. While Credit Suisse has chosen to select a basket of 40 firms, HSBC has opted for a larger selection of 300 names, with both indices focusing on renewable and alternative energies.

Should investors pay heed and punt on those companies bent on making millions out of the new weather realities? The easy answer would seem to be yes, definitely. Few would nowadays doubt that climate change is not only a reality, but a severe problem that needs to be tackled with the utmost urgency, thus significantly enhancing future demand for things like ethanol or wind turbines. And there is the ethical kicker to boot. By betting on the health of green companies, you would not only be destined to reap millions but also contribute to the clean-up of the planet. Who could resist that?

And yet, it seems difficult not to detect some potential risks associated with such investment strategy. It is not so much that the products and services offered by the names included in vehicles like the new indices may not end up being heavily sought-after. Rather, the key risk lies in the fact that climate change is such an emotional issue, almost entirely driven by thinly informed perceptions. Semi-religious for many, these perceptions are prone to dramatic shifts in sentiment for the most irrational of reasons. If chaotic, wild-swinging human decision-making processes are a concern for every investor, the semi-fanaticism that surrounds the global warming debate makes green investments particularly exposed.

Notwithstanding the positive contributions (and potentially healthy financial performances) of the companies included in the Climate Change-Global Warming indices, the unavoidable truth is that their fortunes in the stock markets are ultimately linked to people's belief in global warming and its degree of severity. If the outside world overwhelmingly believes that global warming and climate change are both real and can have severe consequences, green companies can benefit in the markets. But if, for whatever reason (perhaps new scientific evidence, perhaps a bout of cold weather, perhaps a tiredness about Al Gore's relentless preaching) the perceptions begin to change and people stop viewing climate change as that big a problem, green stocks could suffer indiscriminately.

The inner complexities of the issue are quite possibly alien to many of those faithfuls who bow at the global warming altar. After all, how many of today's anti-climate changers have really examined the scientific evidence, or even listened to all the relevant points of view? How many became converted simply because that seemed the appropriate, trendy thing to do? Such disinformed, passionate, animal-spirited decision-making tends to bode ill for any market, as any indication that the fad may be built on shaky foundations could trigger a devastating and sudden abandonment of investment faith.

In essence, the global warming debate seems mostly dominated by flimsy perceptions and borrowed wisdom, not fundamental analysis. When so many opinions are determined by emotions and voluntary submission to faddish popular conventional wisdom, they become extremely vulnerable to a drastic shift on very short notice.

Paradoxically, such a shift could take place in the green investments arena even if global warming turns out to be as nasty as originally predicted. All that matters is whether people stop believing in climate change, not whether climate change does actually take place.

Several recent events (including historical snowfalls in Argentina and South Africa, sceptical comments by NASA's chief, and a court resolution in the UK citing the bias of Al Gore's film) provide examples of the kind of ammunition that could cause a change in perceptions. Were global warming to start being seen as less severe or less threatening, the stocks of green companies could be indiscriminately thrown down the toilet, independently of the financial health of the company or the soundness of its strategy.
Climate may change in public opinion By Pablo Triana. From the FT.
Pablo Triana directs the Centre for Advanced Finance at Instituto de Empresa business school, Madrid

CLIMATE CHANGE, EQUITY and SPECIES: Sanctuary for cranes, Cambodia

2007-11-12T06:01:00.000Z

The TallEconomist will be in Cambodia - wondering how the latest fad in conservation will work with hungry people and less food security among climate change:"wildlife officials had been dispatched to tell local fishermen and farmers not to hunt the cranes for food" ...

PHNOM PENH, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Cambodia has established an 8,000 hectare (20,000 acre) sanctuary in flood plains near the Mekong Delta to protect the rare Eastern Sarus Crane, Environment Minister Mok Mareth said on Friday.Nearly 300 of the red-headed, 1.3 metre (4 feet) tall birds have been found in two districts of Takeo province near the border with Vietnam. Conservationists said in 1999 there may be fewer than 1,000 of the birds left in the wild."We need to protect these beautiful creatures," Mok Mareth said, adding that wildlife officials had been dispatched to tell local fishermen and farmers not to hunt the cranes for food.The cranes have also been found in the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey province, 300 km (185 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, in an old Khmer Rouge reservoir.Thanks to a similar government protection and sanctuary scheme introduced in 1999, that population had grown from 220 to 495 this year, officials said.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EQUITY: sugar sugar

2007-11-11T18:41:00.000Z

BBC Radio Four's The Food Programme today was about the changes in the EU's sugar regime, with reporting from Barbados.
If you have good-quality internet access, you can still hear here. It is 24 minutes long.
Or if you are in the UK, you can hear a slightly longer version of it broadcast again on Radio 4 at 16.00 GMT on Monday, November 12th.

Ghent six-days: The greenest way to travel and party

2007-11-11T13:04:00.000Z

Ghent six days. There is no greener way to travel. Book now to avoid disappointment here!

CLIMATE CHANGE, EQUITY and APATHY: UK consumers do not put their MONEY where their mouths are!

2007-11-11T09:22:00.000Z

Article from Freshinfo.com reporting the ZERO impact on sales of fresh produce of airfreight stickers. The question the TallEconomist must ask is -- what would the consumer response have been if the stickers had indicated the "sustainable development" cost or benefit of the product?

Tesco and M&S admit airfreight apathy

November 10, 2007
Freshinfo 7 November 2007
Controversial airfreight stickers added to packs of fresh produce by Tesco and Marks & Spencer since April have had no impact on sales, the two retailers have admitted.
According to The Grocer, while neither retailer gave away the exact figures, they both said there was no direct evidence to suggest consumers were so concerned about their carbon footprints that they were turning away from airfreighted produce.
The news became clear during the Soil Association's consultation into whether or not to bar organic status from produce that had been flown to the UK.
Experts suggest consumers either do not care about the carbon footprint of such products or misunderstand the link between the label and the product's environmental impact.
But Tesco said the situation may have changed since sales figures were reviewed in September, and that it was still committed to developing more detailed carbon labelling for shoppers.
"It's still early days for the scheme," said a Tesco spokeswoman. "These findings are not in the same league as carbon labelling, where we haven't changed our thinking. Airfreight is a very immediate, visual thing, while carbon labelling will be much more detailed, so the two can't be compared. We are still committed to establishing an industry-wide carbon labelling system with the Carbon Institute and the BSI."

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EQUITY: Africa caught in the tough ‘food miles' war with UK

2007-11-07T08:41:00.000Z

Source: Business Daily (Kenya). by Zeddy Sambu

Kenyan stakeholders re-ignite the debate over how to balance the socio-economic development benefits from the export horticultural trade with Europe with the carbon costs. One telling fact is that this needs to grow for genuine economic benefits to be accorded to Africa and to have any chance of filtering down to the poorest. Indeed, it is reported that a one per cent increase in Africa's share of global trade would deliver seven times more than the continent receives in aid. This is a figure to bear in mind when African trade is put under threat by tokenistic gestures such as "food miles" ...

Every day, a cargo plane leaves the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi with Kenya's agricultural produce destined for the European market. But it lands in Europe as a surging air-miles debate continues threatening to curtail growth in the agriculture sector.
Mr Joseph Muchemi, the Kenyan high commissioner in London, is sitting right at the centre of the storm and is fighting back.
"As an exporting country, we feel that air freight has been unfairly picked out as being the prime contributor to carbon emissions and that the concept of ‘food miles' as indicative of environmental sustainability is misleading," Mr Muchemi said in a statement sent to Business Daily.
The air miles debate - introduced early this year - has now broadened to include the spectrum of energy use and framing methods, with local players term as crude, the efforts by the European Union to introduce new standards.
Fresh campaigns aim to shift attention from the much hyped climate change debate to the contribution of trade in fresh produce making the fight against poverty and economic welfare of growers in the developing world.
Besides , African growers are facing the commercial standards threat set by individual EU member countries and supermarket chains.
The food miles concept, researchers say, needs reform, to include social and economic development aspects.
While UK researchers have disagreed with retailers' design of a new aeroplane label on exports, on Friday, the debate, took a new twist to include farming methods dashing Kenyan hopes on the fight against climate change and boost of revenue from one of Kenya's leading foreign exchange earner.
The Soil Association, Britain's largest organic food association, said it will continue to put its stamp of approval on products sent by air, but only if the food sales help poor farmers.
The official certifier of over 70 per cent of organic produce sold in Britain, the lobby appeared keen to cut down on airfreight with intention to see a total ban in the future.
Air freighted organic produce, it said , must, henceforth, adhere to stricter ‘ethical' policies in order to be accredited and sold in the key market that absorbs 65 per cent of Kenya's fresh fruits, vegetables and flower exports. Previously, the environmental lobby debated refusing to certify products shipped by air freight because of high carbon emissions from planes.
But the group says details of the proposal would be open to discussion throughout 2008 and would become effective January 2009.
"Our aim is to minimise air freight by encouraging alternatives, such other forms of shipping, and creating local organic markets," Anna Bradley, chairwoman of the Soil Association Standards Board, told reporters in London last week. "We recognise that building alternative markets that offer the same social and economic benefits as organic exports take time," she said.
Experts are warning that more restrictive practices will damage its organic export market, which is growing in demand in the UK.
Although developing markets such as Kenya use less carbon intensive farming methods, analysts say collapse of the horticulture sector could see the country lose Sh114 billion in trade and investment.
Environmental organisations like Greenpeace, which earlier said it was concerned about the large carbon footprint created by food shipped via air freight, had been involved in consultations over the new standards, Bradley said. Nearly 95 per cent of Kenya's exports to the UK are sent by ship, which is far less intensive in terms of carbon emissions.
Campaigns unveiled in July by Kenyan flower exporters in the height of the climate change battle, introduced the ‘Grown Under the Sun' label to counter the campaign fronted by UK traders and environmental lobbyists.
"All environmental and social aspects need to be analysed, and trade-offs assessed. Singular comparisons do not necessarily help us to generate good policy," said Jane Ngige, the Kenya Flower Council's chief executive.
The local horticultural industry and its exports to the UK currently supports around one million Kenyans and generates at least £100 million per year to play a key role in its economy.
New research findings by the International Institute for Environment Development (IIED) show that developing markets such as Kenya actually use far less carbon-intensive farming methods, and so the broader picture looks very different.
It estimates that air-freighting from sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 0.1 per cent of the UK's total carbon emissions while around 65 per cent of emissions relating to food are caused by transportation within Britain.
Gareth Thomas, the UK Minister for Trade and Development, last week, noted that driving around six miles to a supermarket to buy some Kenyan green beans, emits the same amount of carbon as air-freighting that pack of green beans.
"If you consider that the majority of Kenyan fresh produce is freighted in the hold of passenger aircraft, then the emissions relating to that pack of green beans is even less," said Mr Thomas.
IIED says before targeting developing countries such as Kenya whose emissions per capita are 0.9 tonnes as opposed to Europe's 22 tonnes per capita, the UK needs to prioritise addressing domestic road transport and energy use first, then aviation.
Estimates of doubling of air travel in the next 20 years, coupled with high carbon emissions, and the exacerbating effect of "radiative forcing", make aviation cuts, a necessary part of the solution and realise targets under Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto Protocol recognises the need for equity and economic development for developing countries in the transition to a low-carbon future. The UK's carbon footprint is largely domestically generated, the IIED report notes. But the main share of increased flights appears to be passenger traffic. In the UK, passenger flights account for 90 per cent of emissions from air transport, and international freight for five per cent.
"There is no firm evidence that UK if consumers are not eating imported produce, fewer planes would fly today or in future. Indeed, an annual expansion of six per cent in air traffic in all sectors air freight imports, passenger volumes, and dedicated freight," says the London-based IIED.
Only 1.5 per cent of imported produce arrive in air transport but that portion produces 50 per cent of all emissions from fruit and vegetable transportation.
Currently, average carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions globally stands at 3.6 tonnes globally, the UK (9.2 tonnes) and Africa, one tonne.
"African figures are skewed towards oil-rich countries, and only two countries exceed the global average. Many African countries are feeling the force of climate change impacts, the root cause of which was produced in developed countries" IIED's James McGregor and Bill Vorley, authors of the ‘Fair Miles? The Concept of "food miles" Through a Sustainable Development Lens', say.
They want the ‘Food miles' campaign to be replaced by the new concept of ‘fair miles.'
The earlier concept, it says, is blind to social and economic benefits associated with trade in food, especially from developing countries, while previous inclusion of sub-Saharan Africa in these high-value markets has been a success story.
UK consumers spend over £1 million (about Sh137 million) at retail every day on produce from Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, that supplies 40 per cent of air freighted imports, and is now growing despite the threats. Trade, it notes, is dependent on the UK consumer, and also on air-freight, bringing climate change impacts of this trade into the development equation.
The new findings show that it is only through the sale of fresh produce that UK consumers will interact with rural Africa. Poor African countries rely on the UK market to support their domestic industry. By not buying the produce, UK, researchers say, will be guarding against an insignificant less-than 0.1 per cent in CO2 emissions.
"Economic development for the poorest in a low carbon future means expanding emissions for some," says the report in part. It adds that over one million livelihoods in Africa are supported by UK consumption of imported fresh fruits and vegetables.
On the contrary, ‘Food miles' presents an argument to buy commodities which have travelled the shortest distance from farm to table, and to discriminate against long-haul transportation, especially air-freighted goods.
The long-distance transport of food is associated with additional emissions due to increased transportation coupled with greater packaging, as well as a disconnection between the public and local farming.
It is estimated that annually, the UK "imports" 189 million cubic metre of African water as a result of the import of green beans, which is enough to provide 10 million Kenyans with drinking water.
An estimated £200 million is injected into rural economies in Africa through trade with the UK alone. Africa is a relatively efficient "investment" by the UK in allocating its carbon emissions to support livelihoods when compared to the efficiency of the remaining 99.9 per cent that is supporting 60 million UK residents.
Unlike many western farming methods, machinery is rarely used and Kenya's indigenous geothermal energy provides a sustainable way to maintain humidity on flower farms. This year, the world's largest commercial project using solar panels for providing energy for farms was launched in Kenya.
Water recycling systems on farms encourage plant growth and supports biodiversity.
Similar studies have been conducted with refrigerators on ships that use more energy keeping the produce fresh over longer periods of time than a short journey by aeroplane.
The UK has always encouraged trade relationships with Kenya and the countries have been major trading partners for generations.
While the Kenyan economy and development is greatly enriched by high-value organic exports to the UK, Kenya is also leading the way in the East African Community in trading closer to home and will continue to build upon this local trade.
It is well reported that a one per cent increase in Africa's share of global trade would deliver seven times more than the continent receives in aid. This is a figure to bear in mind when African trade is put under threat.
There are clear socio-economic benefits of organic farming in Kenya and it would be beneficial to nurture Kenyan organic farming.
"British farmers currently have access to, among other things, subsidised diesel fuel for machinery which perhaps does send out the right message about emissions and climate change," says KFC.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND EQUITY: A new era for global citizenry?

2007-11-06T08:04:00.000Z

Saleemul Huq from IIED at Gristmill. It is time for a new era of global citizenry in which people around the world come together to both take and demand effective action.