30/01/2009
By David Cronin
BRUSSELS, Jan 29 (IPS) - Figures indicating how much the European Union should give to poor countries affected by climate change have been removed at the last minute from a new environmental blueprint published in Brussels Jan. 28.
As part of preparations for a crucial round of talks due to culminate at a United Nations conference in Copenhagen in late 2009, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, has presented a new paper urging greater international coordination against global warming.
But while a draft of the plan suggested that up to 30 billion euros (39.7 billion dollars) should be made available to help poor countries adapt to water shortages and other effects of climate change, the figure has been erased from the final version.
Stavros Dimas, Europe's environment commissioner, said that firm financing pledges will be vital in order to clinch an agreement on fighting climate change in Copenhagen. "No money, no deal," he added.
Still, the lack of specific recommendations on funding in Dimas's plan has angered green and anti-poverty campaigners.
"The European Commission is proposing some loose commitment to additional public funding but there are no hard numbers," said Tom Sharman from ActionAid. He said that the EU had been unwilling to signal that it would release fresh money at the latest round of international negotiations, held in Poznan, Poland, in late 2008, undermining the Union's self-declared position as a global leader in dealing with environmental problems.
"Europe's failure to take a stance on finance was a major cause of the stalemate in last year's climate change talks, and these proposals diminish rather than enhance Europe's position," Sharman added.
The UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, the body overseeing the international talks, has estimated that between 23 billion and 54 billion euros will be needed by 2030 to help poor countries. Other studies have cited figures of between 100 billion and 200 billion dollars. Yet currently available facilities only include a fraction of such amounts.
A new analysis by the Institute for European Environmental Policy in Brussels tracks the progress that has been made since the EU undertook to raise 369 million dollars per year from 2005 onwards during a 2001 climate change conference in Bonn. The actual amount released by EU governments could be as low as 160 million dollars per year, the institute has calculated.
Oxfam voiced concern that the Copenhagen talks could end in failure, and claimed that the Commission is afraid to demand additional resources from EU member state governments. "Unless developing countries see hard cash on the table, there is a real danger they will simply walk away," said Elise Ford, head of the organisation's office in Brussels. "It seems the Commission is pandering to member states' expected opposition to put money on the table - fuelled by their worries about the impact of the recession."
Dimas nevertheless emphasised his optimism, describing the stance of Barack Obama, the new U.S. president, as "enormously encouraging." Whereas his predecessor George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto protocol on greenhouse gas emissions, Obama has identified environmental policy as one of his top priorities.
Dimas's paper, to be debated by leaders of the EU's governments at a summit in March, calls on the U.S. and the other main industrialised countries to form a market under which pollution licenses are traded by 2015. Revenue generated from these sales would be used to assist poor countries.
It also advocates reform of the clean development mechanism (CDM), an initiative undertaken as a result of the Kyoto accord. Designed to let rich countries avoid emission cuts at home by financing ecologically sound schemes abroad, the CDM has become mired in scandal. Factory owners in India and China have netted 4.7 billion dollars as part of an effort to prevent fluorinated gases, a significant contributor to global warming, being released into the environment. This sum dwarfed the actual cost of the operation.
The new plan reiterates the EU's earlier promise to bring its collective greenhouse gas output below 1990 levels by 20 percent by 2020. The Union has said it would be willing to increase that reduction target to 30 percent but only if other industrialised countries adopt the same goal.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has called on the EU to act bolder. "Europe needs to stop anticipating what the rest of the world might do and concentrate on what Europe should do if it wants to reclaim the reputation of leading in the fight against climate change," said WWF campaigner Kim Carstensen.
Meanwhile, Paul Magnette, Belgium's minister for energy and climate issues, has criticised the European Commission for placing greater emphasis on economic growth than on protecting the environment. He took issue with statements by José Manuel Barroso, the Commission's president, hinting that competitiveness should take precedence over ecological concerns.
"Over-exploitation to satisfy hard-headed growth and development logic has to be faced," Magnette said. "The commercial policy of the EU is too one-sided and generally does not take into account sustainable development."
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| A medical boat left unused and overgrown by bushes behind Tra Vinh Province’s Waterway and Traffic Police Office. |
| Medical staff in the Mekong Delta say they have no use for the 800 motorboats the government gave them in 2001. |
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In a move to boost disaster preparedness, the Health Ministry’s Committee for Population and Family Planning provided the 12 Mekong provinces with some 860 plastic motorboats.
Each worth between VND8 million and VND25 million ($458-1,430), the boats were to help communal medical and rescue workers in the flood-prone region.
Thanh Nien found one overgrown by bushes, rusting away behind the provincial Waterway and Traffic Police Office.
Moss and rust covered the engine, gear-box and steering wheel.
The Long Duc Commune Medical Clinic in the provincial capital of Tra Vinh which received 35 boats, was supposed to use the boat, but clinic director Phan Thi Dieu Hien told Thanh Nien she didn’t know it existed.
Do Minh Son, head of the town’s health department, said he had received the boat from the government, but never used it.
He said department employees rarely traveled by water.
“Because the government offered it, we couldn’t refuse but we mostly just use roads,” Son said, adding that his agency spent more than VND1 million (US$57) fixing several problems on the boat, only to “store” it behind the local police station.
All medical staff Thanh Nien spoke with said the boats were not large enough for the area’s big rivers.
Doctors in Soc Trang and An Giang provinces have capsized the boats several times, according to local agencies.
Head of the Dinh An Commune medical center in Tra Vinh Province’s Tra Cu District Phan Van Thu said that the boats’ engines were too big as well.
He said that because his center didn’t have a warehouse, they kept their boat outside for several years before giving it to local shrimp farmers. One farmer uses the body to wade out and feed his fish, and another uses the engine to pump water on his farm, said Thu.
Thu said he had asked district and province officials if he could return the boat on several occasions but they never got back to him on the issue, he said.
Tran Cong Tao, head of Tra Vinh Province’s Tieu Can District Health Department, said he doesn’t remember how many boats the district received.
“I think the boats have already been sold to buy other things,” Tao said. “We just use roads.”
But his assistant Nguyen Van Son said there’s still one boat that’s been lent to residents in Tan Hoa commune.
A local named Diep borrows it to go and buy coconut leaves to make brooms while another resident, Gioi, uses it to haul sugar cane, said Nguyen Van Ut Nho, from the commune medical office.
“It would be wasteful to let the boat idle away,” Nho said.
He said the office had indeed used the boat for several months but had quit as it doubled the time it took officials to get to most destinations by car.
Tran Quoc Tuan, head of Long Duc Commune Health Clinic in Tra Vinh Town, said he had suggested that their boat be given to another commune that needs it to transport medicine.
Doctors in Tra Cu District’s Long Hiep Commune have also shown no interest in their boat. It takes them 20 minutes to travel to the district medical center by road, but more than two hours by boat.
When asked about how the boats can be put to more use, a leading official from the Tra Vinh Province Health Department spoke on condition of anonymity: “I cannot answer.”
“Driving it from here to the police department is the only time it has ever run.”
Son said the boat was too small to use on the local Co Chien River.
“The river is rough enough to capsize small boat. I was scared to death” driving the boat to the police office, he said. |
29/01/2009
A new scientific study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reaches a powerful conclusion about the climate change caused by future increases of carbon dioxide: to a large extent, there’s no going back.
The pioneering study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, shows how changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped. The findings appear during the week of January 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”
The study examines the consequences of allowing CO2 to build up to several different peak levels beyond present-day concentrations of 385 parts per million and then completely halting the emissions after the peak. The authors found that the scientific evidence is strong enough to quantify some irreversible climate impacts, including rainfall changes in certain key regions, and global sea level rise.
If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in zones including southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern North America, southern Africa and western Australia.
The study notes that decreases in rainfall that last not just for a few decades but over centuries are expected to have a range of impacts that differ by region. Such regional impacts include decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts. Dry-season wheat and maize agriculture in regions of rain-fed farming, such as Africa, would also be affected.
Climate impacts were less severe at lower peak levels. But at all levels added carbon dioxide and its climate effects linger because of the ocean.
“In the long run, both carbon dioxide loss and heat transfer depend on the same physics of deep-ocean mixing. The two work against each other to keep temperatures almost constant for more than a thousand years, and that makes carbon dioxide unique among the major climate gases,” said Solomon.
The scientists emphasize that increases in CO2 that occur in this century “lock in” sea level rise that would slowly follow in the next 1,000 years. Considering just the expansion of warming ocean waters—without melting glaciers and polar ice sheets—the authors find that the irreversible global average sea level rise by the year 3000 would be at least 1.3–3.2 feet (0.4–1.0 meter) if CO2 peaks at 600 parts per million, and double that amount if CO2 peaks at 1,000 parts per million.
“Additional contributions to sea level rise from the melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets are too uncertain to quantify in the same way,” said Solomon. “They could be even larger but we just don’t have the same level of knowledge about those terms. We presented the minimum sea level rise that we can expect from well-understood physics, and we were surprised that it was so large.”
Rising sea levels would cause “…irreversible commitments to future changes in the geography of the Earth, since many coastal and island features would ultimately become submerged,” the authors write.
Geoengineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. “Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative,” said Solomon.
The authors relied on measurements as well as many different models to support the understanding of their results. They focused on drying of particular regions and on thermal expansion of the ocean because observations suggest that humans are contributing to changes that have already been measured.
Besides Solomon, the study’s authors are Gian-Kasper Plattner and Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and Pierre Friedlingstein of Institut Pierre Simon Laplace, Gif-Sur-Yvette, France.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
NOAA / January 26, 2009
28/01/2009
Written by: Thin Lei Win
BANGKOK, Jan 27 (AlertNet) - Asian cities will form a network to prevent disasters and prepare for the impacts of climate change with an initial investment of around $50 million from the U.S.-based Rockefeller Foundation.
The network, which will start with six cities in India and Vietnam, aims to help poor and vulnerable residents become more resilient to extreme weather and rising seas.
It will receive some 70 percent of the philanthropic foundation's $70-million funding for its five-year programme on climate change, which also includes agriculture projects in Africa and policy initiatives in the United States.
"While there is much discussion focused on mitigating future climate change, we must also address the impact of impending climate change, which is irreversible and will continue to accelerate in the coming decades," Judith Rodin, the foundation's president, told reporters on Tuesday.
She said cities in the network would be better equipped to stop catastrophes happening and protect their populations from the longer-term effects of global warming.
"By mid-century, climate change may subject 132 million people in Southeast Asia alone to resurgent hunger and poverty and another billion Asian people may struggle to find fresh water," Rodin warned.
Of the six cities participating in the first phase, three are in India - Surat in Gujarat, Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Gorakphur in Uttar Pradesh - and three are in Vietnam - Danang and Quy Nhon in the centre and Can Tho in the southern Mekong Delta.
Work will start immediately in these cities, where the foundation will collaborate with officials, climate scientists, technical experts and civic groups to analyse vulnerability to climate change risks.
These pilot projects will share experiences and serve as a model for other cities, with plans for the programme to be rolled out to Thailand and Indonesia.
Ashvin Dayal, the foundation's managing director for Asia, said projects would range from flood management in India to insurance against coastal storms in Vietnam and climate-sensitive disease surveillance systems in Thailand.
Eight of the world's 10 countries with populations most at risk from sea-level rise are in Asia, where millions live in coastal zones, according to the U.N. climate change panel. The region is also experiencing rapid urbanisation - 60 percent of urban population growth in the next three decades is expected to happen in Asia.
The network's first cities were selected partly because they have yet to make major infrastructure decisions, avoiding the need to retrofit existing infrastructure as in mega-cities like Bangkok.
Initial funding will come entirely from the Rockefeller Foundation, but Rodin said the goal was to expand the network with help from partners, including the World Bank.
"It is anticipated that by 2012, a network of cities in Asia will have demonstrated robustly the ability to prepare, withstand and recover from the predicted impacts of climate change," Dayal said.
NEW YORK, USA, 26 January 2009 – The 2009 Humanitarian Action Report (HAR) is set to be launched tomorrow in Geneva by UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman and Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Sigrid Kaag. This year's HAR highlights the plight of children and women in humanitarian emergencies in a total of 36 countries and territories, including Zimbabwe, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Myanmar.
The report states that emergency needs in eastern and southern Africa have almost doubled, particularly in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Somalia. The report is seeking $981 million – 15 percent more than in 2008 – to cope with the growing severity of emergencies; 38 per cent of the funding will support health and nutrition programmes, and 22 per cent will fund water and sanitation projects.
More than half the funds requested are for the continuation of UNICEF's support to the five largest humanitarian operations worldwide: in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The HAR also notes the challenges presented by high food prices and climate change and their effects on already vulnerable children and families.
The growing number of humanitarian emergencies around the world has prompted UNICEF to give the report a higher profile, making it a flagship publication for the very first time.
"This is the first year that the Humanitarian Action Report has become a flagship for UNICEF and that is a recognition that humanitarian crises around the world are increasing – and hence the importance for us to increase our advocacy," said UNICEF Director of Emergency Operations Louis-Georges Arsenault.
High food prices
Looming over more than half the countries named in UNICEF's annual Humanitarian Action Report is the adverse impact of high food prices.
UNICEF estimates that more than 950 million people now suffer from a lack of food – 100 million more than the previous year. Higher food prices exacerbate other problems that children face, such as increasing their exposure to disease and forcing families to take extreme measures like sending children out to work or having them marry young.
"It is creating a new level of vulnerability for children," Mr. Arsenault said.
Climate change
Climate change is also taking a higher toll on children's lives—exposing them to disease and displacement. UNICEF estimates that 175 million children will suffer from climate-related disasters in the next ten years.
UNICEF's is working with its partners to help the countries most at risk from climate change, to develop systems and policies to mitigate its impact.
La "tempête du siècle" était passée en décembre 1999... Moins de 10 ans après, une tempête comparable en intensité mais plus localisée dévaste le sud-ouest de la France, tuant une dizaine de personnes et causant des dégâts considérables.
Une tempête exceptionnelle
Après avoir causé de sérieux dommages en Espagne, Klaus, c'est ainsi que les services météorologiques allemands l'ont baptisé, a traversé le sud-ouest de la France le 24 janvier 2009 avec une violence exceptionnelle. Selon Météo-France, son intensité est comparable à l'ouragan Martin qui a traversé le sud du pays le lundi 27 décembre 1999 avec des rafales comprises entre 130 et près de 200 km/h ! Origine et formation
Klaus, comme les tempêtes de 1999, est une dépression profonde (965 hPa) qui trouve son origine dans l'intensification du jet-stream. Ces vents froid circulent d'ouest en est entre 200 et 300 km/h au-dessus de l’Atlantique à environ 10 000 m d’altitude et trouvent leurs origines dans les contrastes de températures entre le pôle et l'équateur, plus accentués l'hiver. Ainsi, cette tempête ne correspond pas à une formation cyclonique à l'instar des puissants cyclones qui dévastent notamment chaque année les Caraïbes. Ainsi, samedi 24 janvier 2009, des mouvements ascendants d’air chaud ont généré une dépression qui s’est très rapidement accentuée au contact des courant-jet, particulièrement bas en latitude. Centrée sur les Charentes, cette dépression s'est accompagnée de rafales qui ont approché 170 km/h sur les côtes Atlantiques et dépassé 190 km/h sur le littoral Méditerranéen de l’Aude et des Pyrénées Orientales, tout en battant de nombreux records locaux, selon Météo-France.
Quelques valeurs de rafales de vent observées par Météo-France le 24 janvier 2009
Formiguères (Pyrénées Orientales) : 193 km/h (montagne)
Cap Béar (Pyrénées Orientales) : 191 km/h
Mont-Aigual (Gard) : 185 km/h
Perpignan (Pyrénées Orientales) : 184 km/h (record)
Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet (Pyrénées Orientales) : 177 km/h (record)
Biscarosse (Landes) : 172 km/h (record)
Cap Ferret (Gironde): 172 km/h
Bordeaux (Gironde): 161 km/h (record)
Caunes-Minervois : 161 km/h
Vic-en-Bigorre (Hautes-Pyrénées) : 160 km/h
Narbonne (Aude) : 159 km/h (record)
Lézignan-Corbières (Aude) : 153 km/h
Pointe de Socoa (Pyrénées Atlantiques) : 152 km/h (record)
Leucate (Aude) : 152 km/h
Fraisse (Tarn) : 150 km/h
Saint-Félix de Lauragais (Haute-Garonne) : 150 km/h
Lahas (Gers) : 146 km/h
Granes (Aude) : 146 km/h
Mouthoumet (Aude) : 142 km/h
Mont-de-Marsan (Landes): 141 km/h (record depuis 1981)
Cazaux (Gironde): 141 km/h
Vives (Pyrénées Orientales) : 140 km/h
Créon Armagnac (Gers) : 138 km/h
Dax (Landes) : 137 km/h (record)
Savenes (Tarn et Garonne) : 137 km/h
Biarritz (Pyrénées Atlantique) : 136 km/h (record)
Rion des Landes (Landes) : 133 km/h
Béziers (Hérault) : 133 km/h
Pau (Pyrénées Atlantique) : 131 km/h
Peyrusse (Gers) : 131 km/h
Condom (Gers) : 126 km/h
Saint-Girons (Ariège) : 127 km/h
Toulouse (Haute-Garonne) : 126 km/h
Agen (Lot-et-Garonne) : 122 km/h
Une dizaine de morts et des dégâts considérables
Selon la Sécurité civile, les victimes directes et indirectes de cette tempête sont de 11 en France à cause de chutes d'arbres, d'objets mais aussi d'intoxication au monoxyde de carbone dans l'usage de groupes électrogènes et des pannes d'appareils d'assistance respiratoire provoquées par des coupures d'électricité.
Les dégâts sont considérables sur le sud-ouest de la France, notamment dans les départements des Landes et des Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Les infrastructures de transport, de communication, de distribution de l'électricité, de l'eau et du téléphone ont été particulièrement touchés. Des milliers d'habitations, d'entreprises sont sinistrées, des arbres centenaires ont été déracinés...
L'électricité
Au plus fort de la crise, plus de 2 millions de foyers ont été privés d'électricité. Mardi 27 janvier, plus de 350 000 foyers restaient sans électricité selon Electricité Réseau Distribution France (ERDF). Alors qu'il avait fallu plus de trois semaines en 1999 pour rétablir l'électricité, EDF et RTE ont fortement mobilisés leur personnel pour que l'ensemble du réseau soit opérationnel en une semaine. A ce titre, plus de 3 500 agents provenant de toute la France, soutenus par d équipes européennes sont à l'oeuvre.
Selon RTE, une grande partie du réseau à très haute et à haute tension affecté par la tempête dans le Sud de la France est maintenant à nouveau opérationnel.
Le téléphone
Les dégâts sont considérables selon l'opérateur historique France Télécom qui s'est également mobilisé pour rétablir les liaisons fixes interrompues pour 350 000 clients au lendemain de la tempête. Près de 4 000 techniciens d’intervention de France Télécom sont sur le terrain dans les trois régions concernées : Aquitaine, Midi-Pyrénées et Languedoc-Roussillon.
Mardi 27 janvier, la situation sur les services fixes et haut débit s’est améliorée avec le rétablissement de plus de 200 000 lignes dans les dernières 48 heures, principalement grâce au retour de l’énergie sur la plupart des sites techniques. France Télécom a installé depuis 48 heures près de 250 groupes électrogènes mobiles.
Le nombre de relais mobiles Orange hors service a diminué de moitié. Il est passé de 1000 à 480 (12 % du nombre total de sites sur la zone).
L'eau
Mardi 27 janvier, l'ensemble des stations de pompage et des châteaux d'eau des Landes sont de nouveau alimentés en électricité, "par raccordement au réseau ou à des groupes électrogènes", d'après la préfecture du département. Cependant, en raison de ruptures de canalisations ou de fuites, certaines communes ou habitations isolées ne sont pas encore desservies, indique le directeur de cabinet du préfet des Landes, Serge Gonzales.
Les transports
Au lendemain de la tempête, les avions sont restés cloués au sol et la circulation des trains totalement interrompu dans les régions Aquitaine, Midi-Pyrénées et dans les départements de l'Aude et des Pyrénées-Orientales. Depuis, des milliers de personnes sont mobilisées pour dégager et nettoyer les routes, avec l'aide de l'armée appelée en renfort.
Guillaume Pépy, le président de la SNCF, a parlé "d'images de guerre" pour commenter les ravages constatés sur les lignes du réseau ferroviaire. "Nous avons affaire à de très gros dégâts, 1 500 kilomètres de voies sur lesquelles il y a des arbres arrachés et de l'alimentation électrique qui a disparu", a-t-il déclaré depuis Morcenx, dans les Landes, dimanche.
Mardi 27 janvier, le trafic est rétabli sur les grands axes ferroviaires et routiers mais de nombreux axes secondaires restent encore encombrés par des chutes d'arbres et de caténaires, des éboulements et des crues. Le réseau routier est globalement ouvert à la circulation mais 45 sections de routes pouvant atteindre jusqu'à cinq kilomètres restaient fermées lundi soir.
L'école
Les écoles, collèges et lycées étaient restés fermés lundi dans les Pyrénées-Orientales, la Haute-Garonne, les Landes, le Lot-et-Garonne et la Gironde, à l'exception de Bordeaux. Mardi 27 janvier, la plupart des établissements scolaires ont pu rouvrir dans le Sud-Ouest même si les transports scolaires sont restés interdits en raison des difficultés de circulation dans certaines zones.
Le massif forestier des Landes dévasté
La plus grande forêt d'Europe a subi de plein fouet la violence de la tempête même si les zones sinistrées sont plus localisées qu'en décembre 1999. « Il semble qu'on ait plus de 60 % de dégâts dans les Landes, a indiqué Eric Dumontet, secrétaire général adjoint du Syndicat des sylviculteurs du Sud-Ouest, évoquant une « catastrophe » pour une filière déjà en crise et qui se remettait tout juste de la tempête de 1999. Le ministre de l'Agriculture, Michel Barnier, va proposer la mise en oeuvre d'un « plan global » en faveur des forêts « permettant d'assurer la récupération des bois abattus, le stockage et la valorisation de ces bois (et) d'organiser la reconstitution du patrimoine forestier », a annoncé dimanche soir le ministère.
Les sylviculteurs craignent un bilan encore plus dramatique qu'en décembre 1999, où environ 150 000 hectares de forêt avaient été détruits.
Premières estimations financières
Selon la fédération française des sociétés d'assurances ( FFSA), le coût de la tempête "se chiffrera à plusieurs centaines de millions d'euros", a déclaré Jean-François Lequoy, délégué général de la FFSA, lors d'une conférence de presse. Le travail de recensement des dégâts ne fait que commencer mais une première estimation provisoire table sur un coût supérieur "supérieur à 600 millions d'euros". Il s'agit d'une estimation basée sur les des dégâts assurés causés aux particuliers et aux entreprises par les effets du vent. Les dégâts causés par l'eau (débordement de rivières, dommages causés par les vagues) pourraient encore alourdir la facture. En tout cas, les dégâts devraient coûter beaucoup moins que ceux générés par les cyclones Lothar et Martin en décembre 1999 (6,8 milliards d'euros de dégâts assurés). En effet, la tempête de 1999 "avait coûté 7 milliards d'euros mais c'était un événement de bien plus grand ampleur car 30 départements avaient été touchés et les vents avaient pénétré plus loin dans les terres", a souligné M. Lequoy. Une tempête annonciatrice des changements climatiques ?
Pour la première fois depuis la mise en place de la Vigilance météorologique, le niveau rouge (niveau maximum) a été activé pour une tempête (phénomène « vents forts ») pour 9 départements. Là aussi, cette prévention a été mise en place en octobre 2001 pour tirer les leçons des tempêtes de 1999. Les prévisions formulées par le Groupe d'Experts Intergouvernemental sur l'Evolution du Climat (GIEC) concernant les changements climatiques induits par les activités humaines font état de phénomènes météorologiques plus violents et plus nombreux. Or, ce qui est inquiétant, c'est la puissance et l'occurrence de cette nouvelle tempête, moins de 10 ans après celle de 1999 pourtant baptisée la « tempête du siècle ». A ce titre, le climatologue français Jean Jouzel, vice-président du GIEC a relevé une "cohérence" entre l'intensité de la tempête Klaus et les prévisions sur le changement climatique. "La question de l'intensité (des phénomènes extrêmes, ndlr) reste une des caractéristiques du changement climatique. En l'occurrence, cette tempête qui semble avoir été particulièrement intense est conforme aux observations et aux prévisions", a déclaré Jean Jouzel. "Mais a priori, a-t-il ajouté, cette plus forte intensité des tempêtes extra-tropicales, on l'attend davantage sur le nord de l'Europe, les îles britanniques par exemple. Or là, elle est passée sur le sud (...) A ce stade, on ne franchit pas le pas de dire que cette tempête peut être attribuée aux activités humaines, mais il y a une certaine cohérence dans les observations et avec ce qu'on attend en augmentation de l'intensité", a-t-il souligné. 27/01/2009
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (IPS) - Environmental activists have hailed the first moves by U.S. President Barack Obama to reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions by setting tough new fuel efficiency and pollution standards for the country's cars and trucks, steps that his predecessor, George W. Bush, had rejected or ignored.
In a mid-morning White House appearance six days into his new job, Obama directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider the Bush administration's denial of a 2007 request by California and 13 other states to implement strict new limits on tailpipe emissions that contribute to global warming.
He also directed the Department of Transportation to follow through on Congressional legislation to raise existing fuel economy standards on new cars and lorries by 40 percent beginning in 2011.
Both directives, once the administrative process required to implement them is completed, are sure to have a major impact on the reeling U.S. automobile industry which, along with the major U.S. oil companies, has long resisted the imposition of major new fuel efficiency and pollution standards.
"For eight years, President Bush blocked the country's progress on global warming solutions," said Steven Beil, Greenpeace's Global Warming Campaign Director. "At long last, the era of obstruction and denial is over. President Obama's directives recognise that America is ready to tackle global warming."
Obama's announcement coincided with the appointment by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of a special envoy on climate change, Todd Stern, a senior White House aide under President Bill Clinton and his top negotiator at international talks that culminated in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement that required wealthy countries to reduce their greenhouse emissions below 1990 levels by 2012.
While President Clinton signed the Protocol, he never submitted it to the Senate for ratification, and, shortly after taking office, Bush rejected the agreement on the grounds that its implementation would harm the U.S. economy.
"The time for denial, delay and dispute is over," Stern said at a brief State Department ceremony Monday. "The time for the United States to take up its rightful place at the negotiating table is here...We will need to engage in vigorous, dramatic diplomacy."
Obama's directives were the latest in a series of actions taken since his inauguration Jan. 20 - among them, closing the Guantanamo detention facility within one year; banning coercive interrogation techniques on detainees; and lifting an eight-year by on U.S. funding of overseas clinics and other organisations that support or perform abortions. The swift moves were designed both to fulfill campaign promises and dramatise the difference between the Bush administration and his own.
"This is a clean break from the previous administration's do-nothing approaches on global warming and U.S. oil dependence," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) about Monday's announcements.
He said the decision to permit states to set stricter emission standards was a "clear indication that the new administration is ready to lead on energy and global warming," and added, "With this announcement, President Obama is beginning to make good on his campaign pledge to restore science to its rightful place in federal policy-making."
In his announcement, Obama stressed that both moves were aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on oil, which he called "one of the most serious threats that our nation has faced. It bankrolls dictators, pays for nuclear proliferation and funds both sides of our struggle against terrorism," he said.
And he described the "long-term threat of climate change" in words that the Bush White House reserved only for its "global war on terrorism".
"(I)f left unchecked, (climate change) could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines and irreversible catastrophe," warned Obama who, since his inaugural address, has appeared determined to underline the gravity of the many challenges facing the country and the necessity of confronting them.
"Year after year, decade after decade, we've chosen delay over decisive action. Rigid ideology has overruled sound science. Special interests have overshadowed common sense," he said. "Now America has arrived at a crossroads."
The two directives issued Monday, in addition to his proposed economic stimulus plan that includes billions of dollars for clean energy programmes, should constitute "the first steps in our journey toward energy independence."
The first directive requires the Transportation Department, which is headed by a former Republican congressman, Roy LaHood, to proceed with implementing legislation passed by Congress in 2007 - but ignored by Bush - requiring U.S. automobile manufacturers to meet a 35-miles-per-gallon (56 kms) fuel-economy standard, a 40-percent increase over current standards.
Congress originally approved a 2020 deadline for the higher standard, but Obama said he wanted to move that back to 2011. If all automobiles complied with the proposed standard, more than two million barrels of oil a day, or "nearly the entire amount of oil that we import from the Persian Gulf," could be saved, Obama said.
The second measure ordered EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to review a request from California and 13 other states to set automobile emissions standards stricter than those required by the federal government.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had asked the Bush administration for the first time in 2007 to "waive" the application of federal law so that his state could impose the tougher standards to help it comply with Kyoto's requirements, but Bush, backed by the auto and oil industries, refused to grant it. Schwarzenegger last week asked Obama to review his predecessor's decision.
"(T)he federal government must work with, not against, states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Obama said Monday with the EPA's Jackson at his side. "California has shown bold and bipartisan leadership through its effort to forge 21st-century standards, and over a dozen states have followed its lead. But instead of serving as a partner, Washington stood in their way."
"The days of Washington dragging its heels are over," he added. "My administration will not deny facts; we will be guided by them."
"We believe that the auto industry should have no trouble meeting the challenge set by our new president," said Ann Mesnikoff, Washington director of the Sierra Club. "It has the technology and the know-how to comply with both California's standards and new fuel economy standards. It is time for the industry to demonstrate to the American people (who have already given them billions in taxpayer dollars) that they are committed to meeting the standards that science and the President have stated are necessary."
Indeed, the Auto Alliance, the industry's lobby group, said in a statement that it "supports a nationwide programme that bridges state and federal concerns and moves all stakeholders forward, and we are ready to work with the administration on developing a national approach."
26/01/2009
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An estimated 40 people drowned when an overloaded boat capsized on Gianh River in central Vietnam early Sunday morning. Thirty-five other passengers were rescued or managed to swim to safety. |
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Witnesses said the small boat could have been carrying over 80 people, mostly women and children. Authorities of Quang Hai and Quang Thach communes of Quang Binh Province, where the accident happened, are searching the river for more victims.
The Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted Colonel Nguyen Quoc Tri, head of the Quang Binh Military Command, as saying the boat’s capacity was about 40 people.
The boat’s owner, Nguyen Xuan Qui of Quang Hai, has been summoned by the local police for interrogation, VnExpress newswire reports.
Witnesses told Thanh Nien many passengers were going shopping for the Tet (Lunar New Year) festival from Quang Hai, on the south side of the river, to a market in Quang Thach. The Lunar New Year falls on January 26 this year.
Tuoi Tre quoted a witness as saying the boat also carried many bicycles, goods and a cow.
The boat capsized in the middle of the 50-meters wide river where it is 15 – 20 meters deep. None of its six lifebuoys were used, possibly because the accident happened very fast.
VnExpress quoted Cao Thi Huong, a 39-year-old survivor, as saying there were strong waves in the middle of the river.
Tran Cong Thuat, Vice chairman of the Quang Binh People’s Committee, told Tuoi Tre the province has canceled the fireworks display planned to welcome the Lunar New Year, adding the accident was “too great a loss.”
Reported by Thanh Nien staff |
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK, Jan 25 (IPS) - Faced with shortages of blue crab delivered to his food processing company a Filipino businessman turned to a green-friendly solution to restore the supply chain.
Alfonso Gamboa urged suppliers to catch crabs with baskets rather than gill nets that damage the crustaceans and wasted part of the catch. It not only improved supplies but also helped conserve crab numbers that had begun to dwindle thanks to seas warming as a result of climate change.
In poverty-stricken Laos, a private company stepped in to supply power to remote areas beyond reach of the main electricity grid. Sunlabob, which uses solar, hydro and biomass as power sources, currently ‘’operates as a profitable, full-service energy provider’’ and has set its sights on becoming the largest provider for ‘’renewable energy solutions.’’
But these examples, singled out in a report released last week, are few and far between in a region that is vulnerable to climate change.
Companies that will be exposed to the ravages of dramatic shifts in the weather and natural disasters are still to join the wave seeking green business answers, reveals the report, ‘Making Climate Your Business - Private Sector Adaptation in Southeast Asia’.
‘’The private sector has been slow to react,’’ notes the 59-page publication brought out by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). ‘’Thus far, business has shown less interest in addressing the impacts of climate change in its operations than the public sector and civil society.’’
‘’Climate change presents several major challenges for business with operations or customers/ suppliers in South-east Asia,’’ adds the report, which was released here to frame discussions at a conference on the role of the Asia-Pacific business community in adapting to climate change.
‘’Distant climate impacts may affect business if suppliers’ operations are disrupted. Operational risks also come from disruptions to infrastructure - if roads or railways are damaged or submerged, supplies cannot come in and finished good cannot go to the market.’’
‘’The train is rolling and if you are not onboard, companies may lose business opportunities and politicians may lose votes,’’ Anders Nordstron, director-general of SIDA, said at the conference that drew nearly 300 delegates from major private corporations in the region.
One area where the private sector was encouraged to take the lead is in field of adaptation to climate change, where stress is placed on initiatives aimed at minimising the effects of climate change.
Adaptation is one of the three main pillars that have emerged in the ongoing global campaign triggered by a rapidly warming planet. The others are mitigation and transferring environmental-friendly technology.
‘’It is in their own self-interest for businesses to take the issue of climate change seriously,’’ said Noeleen Heyzer, head of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), a Bangkok-based U.N. body that co-hosted the conference, which drew nearly 300 representatives from major business houses in the region. ‘’There are new opportunities to trade, new products, green products.’’
But the call for the private sector to take up the climate change challenge cannot be an extension of a business-as-usual model, where there is little change in the way companies pursue their economic interests. ‘’Companies need to embrace the idea of green economics,’’ said Sunita Narain, an Indian environmentalist and director of the Centre for Science and Environment. ‘’It requires a new way of doing business itself.’’
‘’We will have to distinguish between the businesses of the past - the dinosaur businesses - and the businesses of the future,’’ she added. '’The climate change challenge is to attract more businesses of the future, reinvented businesses. We have still not understood the scale of the economic transition that is needed.’’
The real estate sector in South-east Asian cities will have to reflect these new currents, since in capitals like Bangkok they enjoy ample freedom to develop with few limits placed on constructing enivornmentally-sound buildings.
‘’Many governments do not touch the real estate sector because it brings in a lot of investment,’’ says Ranjith Perera, professor of urban environmental management at the Asian Institute of Technology, based north of the Thai capital.
Such building booms have resulted in many cities in the region ‘’grow horizontally, with the line between urban and rural areas being blurred,’’ he told IPS. ‘’Mega-urbanisation is the result.’’
But the threat of climate change will leave many citizens in these urban centres open to natural disasters resulting from hotter temperatures, rising sea levels and floods. ‘’Major cities such as Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Jakarta risk becoming submerged within this century,’’ notes the SIDA report.
The Philippines capital Manila is already grappling with another climate-related problem. ‘’(It) already faces frequent water scarcity. In July 2007, a dry spell led to severe water shortages in the city, causing electricity blackouts,’’ the report states.
The Thai tourist resort of Phuket has been hit likewise, facing ‘’water shortages during peak seasons, creating tensions between local communities and the tourist industry’’.
‘’We are at the stage where many of the effects of climate change are unavoidable, especially in South-east Asia,’’ says Kirk Herbertson of the Washington D.C-based World Resources Institute. ‘’Business should acknowledge the risks of climate change, but should also acknowledge the opportunities climate change offers.’’ |
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