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

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

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

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 DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: Chinese leadership emerges on crucial issue

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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.