The New Nation - Internet Edition

Will nations build on climate change momentum of 2007?

Tarequl Islam Munna

In 2008, expect developing nations to play a more active role in negotiations for the post-Kyoto Protocol period.

If 2007 was the year when an international scientific - and popular - momentum built around tackling global warming, this year is likely to be one of boosting that commitment. Last year, three major reports from the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change covered the science of global warming, its potential effects, and ways for addressing the challenge. A special UN meeting in September ahead of climate-change talks in Bali last December was matched by a Washington-led initiative for major carbon-emitting nations. In 2008, expect developing nations to play a more active role in negotiations for the post-Kyoto Protocol period, (as they did in Bali). Will the Bush administration steal a march this year on the UN climate talks? The US will be pumping more research money into carbon sequestration - ways to capture CO2 - and solar energy, and several climate bills are pending before Congress.

With the Kyoto Protocol kicking in this year, what will happen to greenhouse-gas emissions?

Jan. 1 marked the start of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period, which runs until 2012. Current projections suggest the countries taking part will collectively achieve the protocol's goal of reducing emissions to levels more than 5 percent below 1990 levels.

But Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), notes that since 1990, global emissions have grown 20 percent. By 2030, the agency expects energy-related carbon emissions to climb to 56 percent above 1990 levels.

Developing countries would account for 74 percent of that increase, with China and India accounting for nearly half of the total. Fossil fuels - oil, gas, and most of all, coal - are expected to fuel some 84 percent of the greater demand between 2005 and 2030. This business-as-usual scenario leads to carbon-dioxide emissions that would raise global average temperatures by nearly 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.

Mr. Tanaka says that to cap warming at about 3.6 degrees, countries would have to begin today aggressively using existing or nearly-ready technologies the equivalent of bringing online each year some 30 nuclear reactors, at least two Three Gorges dams, 17,000 wind turbines, and 22 coal plants using carbon capture and storage (CCS). After 2013, every coal new plant would need to use CCS technology. A significant boost in energy efficiency is also needed. Rising demand for energy through 2030 will call for a $22 trillion investment, he says.

What's likely to happen on the international scene?

Two tracks bear watching.

Track 1: UN talks that received a green light and a negotiating framework at December's global climate talks in Indonesia. The aim is to have a new greenhouse-gas reduction agreement ready to take over after 2012. "It's not impossible, but it's very ambitious," says Manik Roy of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Newly influential developing countries must be part of any new agreement if it's to gain political traction and have a meaningful long-term effect. In a first, those countries, along with the European Union, stared down the US over final wording in the road map at the Bali talks, and the US blinked.

To move forward this year, negotiators may try to set an agenda that starts with issues the White House is most comfortable with, such as technological approaches to reducing CO2 emissions.

Tougher issues - binding emissions targets for industrial countries and more-flexible goals that appeal to developing countries - may wait for a new US administration. At the least, analysts say, they will be watching to see if the White House tries to block elements it doesn't like.

Track 2: The Bush administration's Major Economies Meetings (MEM) on Energy Security and Climate Change. The idea is to gather the major emitters - responsible for some 80 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions - to explore paths to reducing emissions significantly under a new agreement.

Representatives from 17 countries, the European Union, and the UN took part in the first meeting in Washington last September. Now, the process is set to go into high gear, beginning with a meeting at the end of January in Hawaii. According to James Connaughton, who heads the president's Council on Environmental Quality, the meetings will look for ways to help support the new Bali road map.

But many environmentalists worry that the White House is trying to replace the UN Bali process with the MEM one. A key indicator of how much stock participants place in the Bush meetings will be the clout of the teams they send. By some accounts, the White House plans five or six MEM meetings even as participants face an ambitious UN negotiating schedule. Analysts will be watching where the "A" teams go for a hint about the relative priority the Bush process receives. And they will be watching to see how smoothly any final results, which may come as early as July, feed into the UN process.

Will climate-change bills in Congress move orward?

In December, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act cleared the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

According to its sponsors, the bill covers greenhouse-gas sources that account for 80 percent of US emissions; they would have to cut those emissions by 70 percent by 2050, leading to an overall cut in US emissions of 63 percent below 1990 levels. Those levels are comparable to the cuts most scientists say are needed from developed countries to hold global warming to around 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century.

Passage is not certain, but the bill's prospects appear to be improving. For one thing, the president is trying to burnish his legacy and avoid dropping a high-profile environmental issue into Democratic laps in an election year.

In the Senate, 48 lawmakers have backed some form of cap-and-trade bill. And in the house, two influential moderates have indicated they would like to harness the cap-and-trade approach: John Dingell (D) of Michigan and Rick Boucher (D) of Virginia. Among the forces at work there: Industry. It's getting more difficult to site a coal-fired power plant. State programs are springing up like dandelions, raising the prospect of adhering to a regulatory patchwork. And after the US Supreme Court affirmed that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate CO2 as a pollutant, industry is loath to see the EPA craft emission regulations.

What technology is being eyed to tackle CO2 emissions?

Look for significant increases in R&D for greener energy sources, at least in the US. The omnibus spending bill President Bush signed in December contains a 23 percent increase in the Department of Energy's energy R&D budget over the amount the White House requested. The administration's original request represented a 10 percent cut from the previous year, according to an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Congress gave the department authority to spend nearly $1.9 billion on energy research.

The goal is to advance technologies such as carbon sequestration, energy from biomass, and solar energy. Carbon sequestration is particularly important, because for developing countries like China and India, coal remains the cheapest, most abundant fuel. The countries with the largest lead are likely to reap the greatest economic benefits as international agreements include or enlarge incentives to grow in a greener.

What about energy efficiency?

This plays a prominent role in both IEA projections and in the Lieberman-Warner bill. The IEA estimates that improved efficiency in buildings, vehicles, appliances, lighting, and other power-hungry technologies could contribute nearly 25 percent of the CO2 cuts needed by 2030 to reach the 3.6 degree-warmer climate mark by century's end. The Lieberman-Warner bill calls for new codes that by 2010 would lead to new or renovated residential and commercial buildings that are 30 percent more energy efficient. The bill calls for a 50 percent increase in efficiency by 2020.

What projects are scientists planning?

In February, federally-funded scientists head to the Southern Ocean to measure the rate at which carbon dioxide moves from the atmosphere to the ocean and back. It's one of the latest efforts to get a better handle on the processes Earth uses to store carbon dioxide. The rate at which the oceans and biomass on land can store CO2 is critical for estimating how quickly the heat-trapping gas will build up in the atmosphere.

Scientists estimate that oceans soak up about 25 percent of the CO2 produced by industrial activity. Rates of CO2 exchange between sea and air have been measured for the North Atlantic and the equatorial Pacific, but not the Southern Ocean. Yet the amount of surface area in the Southern Ocean available for CO2 absorption is huge.

Wind is thought to be the key factor driving the exchange. But wave height also may play a role: high waves may block wind, calming the seas between crests. Calmer water takes up less CO2. Pinning down these processes also can help scientists project the region's future CO2 uptake as global warming alters weather patterns.

Primates disappearing from tropical forests

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

Primates are considered closest living relatives of mankind. These living relatives-apes, monkeys, lemurs and other primates-are becoming rarer from the tropical forest. "Reasons for the decline are no mystery: they all relate directly or indirectly to human actions" says a Worldwatch Institute report. A survey, worked out by 60 experts from 21 countries, cautions that failure to respond to the mounting threats has now been worsened by climate change. On the whole, 114 of the world's 394 primate species are categorised as threatened with disappearance on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list. Illegal wildlife trade and commercial plant-meat poaching have been largely blamed for their disappearance.

The primate-mongers brutally kill primates for food and to vend the meat. They encage them for live business; and farmers, loggers and land promoters destroy their habitat. One species, Miss Waldron's red colobus of Ivory Coast and Ghana, already is feared extinct, while the golden-headed langur of Vietnam and China's Hainan gibbon number only in the dozens.

The Horton Plains slender loris of Sri Lanka has been sighted just four times since 1937.

"You could fit all the surviving members of these 25 species in a single football stadium; that's how few of them remain on Earth today," said Conservation International President Russell A. Mittermeier, who also chairs the IUCN/Species Survival Commission (SSC) Primate Specialist Group.

"The situation is worst in Asia, where tropical forest destruction and the hunting and trading of monkeys put many species at terrible risk. Even newly discovered species are severely threatened from loss of habitat and could soon disappear."

"By protecting the world's remaining tropical forests," Mittermeier says, "we can save primates and other endangered species while helping prevent climate change."

The 21st Congress of the International Primatological Society in Entebbe, Uganda has published an alarming report that enlists the world's 25 most endangered primates.

Eight of the primates on the latest list, including the Sumatran orangutan of Indonesia and the Cross River gorilla of Cameroon and Nigeria, are "four-time losers" that also appeared on the previous three lists. Six other species are on the list for the first time, including a recently discovered Indonesian tarsier that has yet to be formally named.

Madagascar and Vietnam each have four primates on the new list, while Indonesia has three, followed by Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Colombia with two each, and one each from China, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador. Some primates on the list are found in more than one country.

By region, the list includes 11 species from Asia, seven from Africa, four from Madagascar, and three from South America, showing that non-human primates are threatened wherever they live.

All 25 primates on the 2006-2008 list are found in the world's biodiversity hotspots--34 high priority regions identified by Conservation International that cover just 2.3 percent of the Earth's land surface but harbour well over 50 percent of all terrestrial plant and animal diversity.

Eight of the hotspots are considered the highest priorities for the survival of the most endangered primates: Indo-Burma, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands, Sundaland, Eastern Afromontane, Coastal Forests of Eastern Africa, Guinean Forests of West Africa, the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, and Western Ghats-Sri Lanka.

A journal states, the clearing of tropical forests for agriculture, logging, and the collection of fuel wood continue to be key factors in marauding the primates.

Tropical deforestation also emits 20 percent of total greenhouse gases that cause climate change, which is more than the carbon discharge of all the world's cars, trucks, trains and airplanes combined.

In addition, climate change is altering the habitats of many species, leaving those with small ranges even more vulnerable to extinction. Hunting for subsistence and commercial purposes is another major threat to primates, especially in Africa and Asia. Live capture for the pet trade also poses a serious threat, particularly to Asian species.

The list focuses on the severity of the overall threat rather than mere numbers. Some on the list, such as the Sumatran orangutan, still number in the low thousands but are disappearing at a faster rate than other primates. Others were discovered only in recent years, and their low numbers and limited range make them particularly vulnerable to habitat destruction and other threats.

These genuses are our closest living family members. Non-human primates are indispensable to keep up our eco-system's energy. Through scattering seeds and other interactions with their environments, primates facilitate to sustain a wide range of plant and animal life that rebuild the Earth's forests.

Conservation of non-human primates is a critical issue facing primatologists today. By protecting the world's remaining tropical forests, we should save primates and other endangered species for our easy breathe. We have to check strictly the factors that lead to primate related business or its annihilation.

(Mohammad Shahidul Islam is a faculty member of National Hotel and Tourism Training Institute. Email: mohd-s-islam@myway.com )

Smart biofuel crops: Food and environmental security

While the global debate ranges on whether the biofuel revolution is causing imbalances in food security systems and increasing the emissions of greenhouse gases, the 'smart' biofuel crops developed, utilized and promoted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) ensure energy and environmental security. According to Dr William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT, the time has come to ensure that only smart biofuel crops are developed and utilized so that they can link the poor farmers of the drylands to the biofuel market, without compromising on their food security, or causing environmental damage. "Smart biofuel crops are those that ensure food security, contribute to energy security, provide environmental sustainability, tolerate the impacts of climate change on shortage of water and high temperatures, and increase livelihood options," Dr Dar said.

Through its BioPower Strategy, ICRISAT is developing and promoting sweet sorghum as a major feedstock for bioethanol. Sweet sorghum is a carbon dioxide neutral crop, which is a big contributory factor of being called a smart crop. ICRISAT-bred sweet sorghum varieties and hybrids have increased sugar content in the juice in their stalks.

ICRISAT's rainy season varieties give 42% higher sugar yield, and rainy season hybrids give a 20% increased sugar yield. Sweet sorghum has a strong pro-poor advantage since it has a triple product potential - grain, juice for ethanol, and bagasse (crushed stalk waste) for livestock feed and power generation. Its highlight is that there is no compromise on farmers' food security, since the grain is available for the farmers, along with the sugar-rich juice from the stalk that can be distilled to ethanol.

There are other benefits also. It is a cost-effective and competitive feedstock. It has a shorter crop cycle of 4 months compared to the 12 months of sugarcane. It has a water requirement of 4,000 cubic meter to produce a kiloliter of bioethanol, compared to 36,000 cu.m required for sugarcane. Putting all the factors together, the feedstock cost to produce one kiloliter of ethanol from sweet sorghum is US$ 81.6, whereas it is US$ 111.5 for sugarcane and US$ 89.2 for maize. Sweet sorghum is tolerant to water scarcity and high temperatures, two qualities which will keep the crop in good stead when the climate changes with global warming. It also has high water use efficiency. While sorghum requires 310 kg of water per kg of dry matter, maize requires 370 kg of water per kg of dry matter. Sweet sorghum is a carbon dioxide neutral crop that makes it environment friendly, and does not add to greenhouse gas emissions. During its growth cycle, a hectare of sweet sorghum cultivation absorbs and emits 45 tons of carbon.

The crop also has a good energy balance, that is unit of energy generated per unit of fossil-fuel energy invested in its cultivation. Sweet sorghum generates 8 units of energy for every unit of fossil-fuel energy invested, which compares favorably with sugarcane's 8.3, and for corn it is only 1.8 units. It has been studied that gasoline blended with ethanol has lower emissions when run through an automobile engine than pure gasoline. E85, the fuel with 85% ethanol, has only 1 part per million concentration of nitrogen oxide whereas gasoline has 9 ppm. ICRISAT's initiative to produce biofuels is not limited to bioethanol from sweet sorghum alone. Through its watershed development project, it is promoting the cultivation of Pongamia and Jatropha, from which biodiesel can be extracted. ICRISAT is promoting the cultivation of these biodiesel crops by marginalized communities such as tribal groups and women's self-help groups and ensuring that they are planted on wastelands. The groups get additional income after harvesting and crushing the seeds, selling the oil, and selling the seedcake (the residue after crushing) to farmers as an organic fertilizer. Some of the oil is used to power village diesel engines such as generators and irrigation pumps. "Likewise, our biodiesel initiatives produce green fuel and rehabilitate degraded lands, enhance greenery, conserve rainwater, and provide a sustainable income source for the landless and marginal farmers," said Dr Dar. The issues of food versus fuel, climate change and environment, land use, and impact on poverty alleviation vis-à-vis biofuels call for stimulating and informed science-based policy-making. That means a framework to promote biofuels should be linked to national and regional poverty reduction, food security and climate proofing strategies.

(For further information, contact Dr Belum VS Reddy at b.reddy@cgiar.org and Dr Suhas P Wani at s.wani@cgiar.org . )

Beyond belief: Who will save the Ganga?

Akhilesh Singh & Binay Singh

KANPUR/VARANASI: While the Magh Mela at the Sangam in Allahabad attracted tens of thousands of pilgrims each day over the last month for their annual dips, as usual, the UP government can sigh with relief that there were no protests this time. During the Ardha Kumbh Mela in January last year when sadhus threatened to take 'jal samadhi' if the high pollution level in the river wasn't treated. Indeed, it was perhaps a result of the song and dance that the sanyasis made last year that led the administration to take some steps to reduce effluents into the Ganga. But are these enough?

The state government has sealed 135 tanneries in Kanpur since December 2006. But none of the government agencies are doing anything to stop the discharge of domestic sewage into the Ganga that, by some estimates, is responsible for nearly 75% of its pollution. The UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), the agency that's supposed to act against the causative factors of Ganga's pollution, most notably domestic sewage, is clueless. The pilgrims, who will continue their dips in the river up to Mahashivratri in mid-March, will thus be doing so in a river whose fundamental problem of sludge hasn't been solved. So how bad is the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) story? Herewith some disturbing facts. Kanpur alone produces more than 400 million litres per day (mld) of wastewater, of which 300 mld is from domestic sewage. Industries, including tanneries, produce approximately 100 mld of effluents.

There are as many as 50 and 23 drains joining the Ganga in Allahabad and Kanpur. The three treatment plants in Kanpur manage to clear only about 160 mld of wastewater - more than 250 mld of untreated sludge continues to get discharged into the Ganga. The functional capacity of Allahabad-based treatment plant is a mere 60 mld, whereas the city produces about 300 mld of sewage, with very high percentage of it being domestic waste. "Holding more than 600 mld of water for more than two months is impossible, as there's no infrastructure to do so," says Kanpur-based environmentalist, Rakesh Jaiswal. The sludge is supposed to be drained to out the city's outskirts to treatment plants but authorities say they haven't the support systems in place for it. UPPCB regional officer Radheshyam said the board acted against tanneries because it was responsible for the industrial waste being discharged into Ganga.

The responsibility for treating domestic sewage lay with Kanpur Jal Nigam, which is being funded under GAP. But the Jal Nigam's general manager D P Singh says stopping discharge of domestic wastewater is impossible because they haven't the capacity to store the sewage from homes. In a classic case of bureaucratic red-tape, funds allocated by the Centre to the state under GAP for infrastructure and capacity building of sewage storage plants, are diverted to operations and maintenance.

This is because the state has no money to pay for its mandate, which is maintenance and operations of GAP-related infrastructure. Chairman of UP Leather Industries Association Mohd Ishaq says the leather industrialists have been made fall guys and the civil society, including the courts, are being misguided by the government agencies in the name of cleaning Ganga. "Only 193 tanneries are functional and this will harm the leather industry," he says.

Ishaq says that most of the tanneries were linked with the common effluent treatment plant (CETP) and a few tanneries had their own treatment plants. "We are being victimised and none is bothered either about domestic waste or the effluents produced by industries other than leather," he says. President of the Ganga Pradushan Mukti Abhiyan, Swami Harichaitanya Maharaj, however, says the government should plan alternate measures like centralized treatment plant and utilize the treated water in irrigating the barren lands than dumping it in Ganga. There isn't really a dearth of solutions to save the Ganga. But there's a clear lack of political and administrative will.