The environment in the news friday, 2 November, 2012

For a full summary of news from Latin America and the Caribbean region, visit: http://www.pnuma.org/informacion/noticias/2012-11/01/index.html

Octubre 31, 2012

21 countries meet in Bogota to chart a course for tackling ‘short-lived climate pollutants’(SLCPs) across Latin America and the Caribbean

Yahoo! México Noticias : Agricultura debe apuntar a la diversidad para enfrentar el cambio climático

Octubre 31, 2012

Una tarea conjunta que involucra a la comunidad, autoridades municipales y de la Itaipú Binacional tiene como meta cultivar veinte mil mudas de plantas nativas y exóticas en el distrito de Minga Guazú.

País: Jamaica

País: Cuba

El estudio afirma que estas empresas han implementado medidas de mitigación de emisiones de CO2 y sistemas de gestión de riesgos para enfrentar el fenómeno.

País: Chile

ReliefWeb Hurricane Sandy underlines global threat of climate change and more extreme events says UNISDR
Octubre 31, 2012

NEW YORK/GENEVA, 31 October 2012 - Margareta Wahlström, the UN Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, today said that the economic losses inflicted on the US and Caribbean island states by Hurricane Sandy underlined the growing threat posed by extreme natural hazards to the world economy

01 November 2012

Major nations failed to reach agreement on Thursday to set up huge marine protected areas off Antarctica under a plan to step up conservation of creatures such as whales and penguins around the frozen continent.

The 25-member Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) agreed, however, to hold a special session in Germany in July 2013 to try to break the deadlock after the Oct. 8-Nov. 1 meeting in Hobart, Australia.

Environmentalists criticised the failure to agree new marine protected areas in the Ross Sea and off East Antarctica, home to penguins, seals, whales and seabirds as well as valuable stocks of shrimp-like krill.

"We're deeply disappointed," Steve Campbell of the Antarctic Ocean Alliance, grouping conservation organisations, told Reuters at the end of the CCAMLR annual meeting. He said that most resistance had come from Ukraine, Russia and China.

Environmentalists said that the United States, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand were among countries pushing for agreement on new protected zones.

Some fishing fleets are looking south because stocks nearer home are depleted and some nations worry about shutting off large areas of the oceans. CCMALR comprises 24 member states and the European Union.

"This year, CCAMLR has behaved like a fisheries organisation instead of an organisation dedicated to conservation of Antarctic waters," said Farah Obaidullah of Greenpeace.

Among proposals, a U.S.-New Zealand plan would have created a 1.6 million sq km (0.6 million sq miles) protected area in the Ross Sea - about the size of Iran.

And the EU, Australia and France proposed a series of reserves of 1.9 million sq km (0.7 mln sq miles) off East Antarctica - bigger than Alaska.

Last week, Hollywood actor Leonardo di Caprio launched a petition to protect the seas around Antarctica with campaigning group Avaaz, saying "the whales and penguins can't speak for themselves, so it's up to us to defend them."

Governments in 2010 set a goal of extending protected areas to 10 percent of the world's oceans to safeguard marine life from over-fishing and other threats such as pollution and climate change. By 2010, the total was 4 percent.

CCAMLR said in a statement that members had identified several regions of the Southern Ocean that warrant high levels of protection.

"These important areas can provide a reference for scientific research on the impacts of activities such as fishing, as well as significant opportunities for monitoring the impacts of climate change in the Southern Ocean," it said. (Writing by Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent in Oslo; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Back to Menu

_________________________________________________________________
Reuters: UN Security Council relocates due to storm damage

(Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council was forced to relocate on Wednesday for a meeting on Somalia and other issues because of extensive water damage to parts of the United Nations complex from the storm Sandy, U.N. officials and diplomats said.

It was not immediately clear how badly the U.N. buildings were damaged by the storm. The U.N. press office sent a statement to reporters announcing that the U.N. headquarters would reopen Thursday after a three-day closure and outlining which areas would be accessible.

The statement also said senior U.N. officials would brief reporters on Thursday about the damage the U.N. sustained during the massive storm Sandy, which flooded many parts of lower Manhattan and left nearly 2 million residents of New York state without electricity since Monday.

Diplomats said flooding in basement areas at the U.N. was severe enough to require the 15-nation Security Council to move to a temporary container-like structure built to house parts of the U.N. secretariat and conference rooms during a years-long renovation of the main buildings due to finish in 2013.

"The council chamber was hit, IT (information technology) was apparently damaged, possibly some documents as well," a council diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Another council envoy confirmed the diplomat's remarks.

The U.S. Northeast began crawling back to normal on Wednesday after Sandy crippled transportation, knocked out power for millions and killed at least 45 people in nine states with a massive storm surge and rain that caused epic flooding.

When the Security Council met on Wednesday, it approved the extension of its mandate for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia for one week before meeting again next week to vote on a 12-month extension for the force, known as AMISOM.

31 October 2012

"Ocean grabbing" or aggressive industrial fishing by foreign fleets is a threat to food security in developing nations where governments should do more to promote local, small-scale fisheries, a study by a U.N. expert said on Tuesday.

The report said emerging nations should tighten rules for access to their waters by an industrial fleet that is rapidly growing and includes vessels from China, Russia, the European Union, the United States and Japan.

"Ocean-grabbing is taking place," Olivier de Schutter, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food and the report's author, told Reuters. "It's like land-grabbing, just less discussed and less visible."

The 47-page report on "Fisheries and the Right to Food", which said 15 percent of all animal protein consumed worldwide is from fish, will be presented to the U.N. General Assembly.

De Schutter said ocean grabbing involved "shady access agreements that harm small-scale fishers, unreported catch, incursions into protected waters, and the diversion of resources away from local populations."

The report cited the example of islands in the western and central Pacific that get only about 6 percent of the value of a $3 billion tuna fishery off their coasts. Foreign fishing fleets get the rest.

Equally, Guinea-Bissau nets less than 2 percent of the value of the fish caught off its coast under a deal with the EU. De Schutter said some countries where industrial fleets were based were already taking steps to tighten laws.

"What's getting worse is that the capacity of industrial fishing fleets is increasing," he said. Governments give an estimated $30-34 billion in subsidies to fishing each year.

That money is often spent on boat-building or fuel that skews competition.

"We need to do more to reduce the capacity of the industrial fishing fleets and to manage the fish stocks in a much more sustainable way," said de Schutter. Food security is also at risk from threats such as climate change and pollution, he said.

WASTEFUL

De Schutter said aquaculture was disproportionately concentrated in Asia which is responsible for 88 percent of all production. "Extremely little has been done in Africa and Latin America in particular. There is a huge potential there," he said.

Fisheries received less attention than farming, he suggested, partly because the sector employed only about 200 million people globally. By contrast, the world has 1.5 billion small-scale farmers, he said.

The report said that local fishing was more efficient and less wasteful than industrial fishing, urging measures to promote small-scale fishing such as the creation of "artisanal fishing zones".

"Small-scale fishers actually catch more fish per gallon of fuel than industrial fleets, and discard fewer fish," it said. It praised some measures which have already been taken to promote local fishing - such as in Cambodia's biggest lake or off the Maldives.

Estimates of the scale of illegal catches range from 10-28 million metric tons, while some 7.3 million metric tons, or almost 10 percent of global wild fish catches were discarded as unwanted by-catches every year, the report said.

It said industrial fishing was by far the most wasteful.

Total global fish production was about 143 million metric tons - 90 million from wild fish catches and 53 million from fish farming, the report said.

De Schutter said fish farming would have to expand to feed a rising world population, now just above 7 billion. Population growth would raise demand by a forecast 27 million metric tons over the next two decades, he said.

Back to Menu

_________________________________________________________________
Seattle Times: UN council holds makeshift meeting

Associated Press

NEW YORK - The United Nations Security Council held a makeshift meeting after superstorm Sandy forced the world body to remain mostly closed for a third day.

The council needed to meet Wednesday because the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia was expiring. Meeting in a temporary chamber at its New York headquarters, the council voted to renew the force's mandate for one week. The meeting was broadcast live on the U.N. website.

The U.N. Secretariat was re-opening Thursday, according to a statement sent to the media. The first 16 floors of the renovated Secretariat Building will be open, but higher floors would be closed. Staff that could travel to headquarters were asked to report back to work.

Back to Menu

_________________________________________________________________
Sonoran News (Arizona): Another UN Day has come and gone
By Linda Bentley | October 31, 2012

WASHINGTON – Oct. 24 is United Nations Day. The United Nations (UN) got its name from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who first used it in January 1942 during World War II in the “Declaration by United Nations” when representatives from 26 nations pledged their governments would continue fighting together against the Axis alliance of Germany, Italy and Japan.

The UN was officially formed in San Francisco in 1945 when representatives of 50 countries met at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the “United Nations Charter.”

Poland, which was not one of 50 countries represented at the conference, signed the charter later and became the one of the original 51 countries.

Prior to the UN, we had the League of Nations, formed during similar circumstances during World War I. The League was established in 1919 under the “Treaty of Versailles” for the purpose of promoting “international cooperation and to achieve peace and security.”

The League of Nations was essentially dissolved after it failed to prevent the Second World War.

The UN is currently made up of 192 countries and has its headquarters in New York City.
However, the land and buildings are considered international territory. The UN also has its own flag, it’s own post office and its own postage stamps.

The six official languages used at the UN are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The “Aims of the UN,” are as follows:
• To keep peace throughout the world.
• To develop friendly relations between nations.
• To work together to help people live better lives, to eliminate poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world, to stop environmental destruction and to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms.
• To be the center for helping nations achieve these aims.

The principles of the UN are stated as follows:

While the United States has been by far the largest contributor to the UN’s core budget at 22 percent and closer to 25 percent of its total spending, now estimated at around $25 billion per year, last year the House Committee on Foreign Affairs held a session to address UN Budget and Policy, grilling UN Ambassador Susan Rice on the UN’s culture of being despot-friendly, anti-American, anti-Semitic and its lack of financial transparency.

According to a Sept. 14, 2012 National Review Online article by Brett D. Schaefer, Congress only began requiring the State Department to compile a detailed tally of U.S. contributions to the UN beginning in 2006. Prior to that time, estimates were based on incomplete State Department data.

The Office of Budget Management (OMB) calculated U.S. contributions totaled $4.115 billion in 2004 and $5.327 billion in 2005.

For FY 2006 and FY 2007 the Department of State only reported the U.S. reduced its contributions.

The OMB report for FY 2010 indicated U.S. contributions reached a record high, exceeding $7.691 billion, which was $1.3 million more than FY 2009.

Schaefer then states, “If you’re wondering how much we contributed last year, good luck.
Congress neglected to renew the reporting requirement. I’ve spoken to Obama-administration officials, and they say they’ve prepared the data in anticipation of producing the report, but OMB will not issue the report without a congressional mandate.”  

Looking at what is happening around the world today, especially in the Middle East, it doesn’t appear the UN is achieving any of its aims nor is it abiding by its principles.

As the money provided to the UN by United States taxpayers has skyrocketed along with UN’s spending, there are increased calls for the United States to revoke its membership in the UN.

And, on Sept. 19 2012, during the UN General Assemby’s 67th session, it issued a 54-page “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk.”

In summary, Falk states, “The report addresses Israel's compliance with its obligations under international law in relation to its occupation of Palestinian territory. The Special Rapporteur focuses particular attention on the legal responsibility of business enterprises, corporations and non-state actors involved in activities relating to Israel's settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

In conclusion he states, “The failure to bring the occupation to an end after 45 years creates an augmented international responsibility to uphold the human rights of the Palestinian people, who in practice live without the protection of the rule of law. In this context, the Special Rapporteur recalls that the General Assembly, as early as 1982, called on Member States to apply economic sanctions against the State of Israel for its unlawful settlement activities.”

Falk then calls for a boycott of various companies that conduct business in Israel, including U.S. companies, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola along with Cemex, a Mexican company that produces cement products and owns Readymix Industries, an Israeli company that owns plants in the West Bank and has provided elements for the construction of settlements as well as construction of Israel’s wall and military checkpoints in the West Bank.

The report also singles out European companies, including Volvo, whose equipment and products Falk claims are used in the demolition of Palestinian homes, the construction of the wall and Israeli settlements.

According to Falk, Volvo holds a 27 percent share in the Israeli company Merkavim, which “manufactures buses that are used to transport Palestinian prisoners from the occupied Palestinian territory to prisons in Israel.”

Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, has stated it is not “an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with the criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity” and, as part of UN fact-finding mission, determined suicide bombings were a valid method of struggle.

Falk has charged Israel with “genocidal tendencies,” said Israeli policies in Jerusalem amounted to “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinian people, and claims it is trying to achieve security through “state terrorism.”

Falk also is a 9/11 “truther” who endorses the theory that the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 were an “inside job” by the U.S. government.

NAIROBI – Until the global financial crisis erupted four years ago, sovereign bonds had traditionally been viewed as reliable, virtually risk-free investments. Since then, they have looked far less safe. And many observers within and outside the financial sector have begun to question the models upon which credit-rating agencies, investment firms, and others rely to price the risks tied to such securities.

At the same time, it is increasingly obvious that any reform of risk models must factor in environmental implications and natural-resource scarcity. Indeed, a recent investment report underlined that the fall in prices in the twentieth century for 33 important commodities – including aluminum, palm oil, and wheat – has been entirely offset in the decade since 2002, when commodity prices tripled.

It is likely that growing natural-resource scarcities are driving a paradigm shift, with potentially profound implications for economies – and thus for sovereign-debt risk – worldwide. Indeed, many countries are already experiencing an increase in import prices for biological resources. Financial markets can no longer overlook how ecosystems and the multitrillion-dollar services and products that they provide – ranging from water supplies, carbon storage, and timber to the healthy soils needed for crop production – underpin economic performance.

In addition, we are living in a world in which over-exploitation of natural resources, unsustainable consumption, and the condition of many ecosystems have become incompatible with accelerating demographic growth, as the human population increases from seven billion today to well over nine billion by 2050.

Studies such as the The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), conducted on behalf of the G-8, have improved our understanding of the economic, ecological, and social value of the goods and services provided by ecosystems, and have proposed better methods for pricing them. Yet this new thinking has yet to influence significantly the behavior of bond investors and rating agencies.

Some might assume that bond markets are shielded from the effects of climate change, ecosystem degradation, and water scarcity. With more than $40 trillion of sovereign debt in global markets at any given time, that is a very high-risk game.

In order to address the gap between reality and perception, the United Nations Environment Program Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN), together with a number of institutional investors, investment managers, and information providers, have launched E-RISC, or Environmental Risk in Sovereign Credit analysis.

The project will take center stage at a gathering of investors in London on November 19, providing an early glimpse of how environmental criteria can be factored into sovereign-risk models and hence into the credit ratings assigned to sovereign bonds.

E-RISC highlights the situation in several countries – including Brazil, France, India, Turkey, and Japan – demonstrating how importers and exporters of natural resources such as timber, fish, and crops are being exposed to the increasing volatility that accompanies rising global resource scarcity. Indeed, the E-RISC report estimates that a 10% variation in commodity prices can lead to changes in a country’s trade balance amounting to more than 0.5% of GDP.

Meanwhile, the economic consequences of environmental degradation can be severe. The report estimates that a 10% reduction in the productive capacity of soils and freshwater areas alone could lead to a reduction in the trade balance equivalent to more than 4% of GDP.

Clearly, environmental risks are potentially large enough to affect countries’ economies in ways that could influence their willingness or ability to repay sovereign debt. In addition, these risks vary widely across countries, including countries whose current credit ratings suggest similar levels of sovereign risk.

This suggests that the findings and methodologies applied in the E-RISC project bring added value to traditional sovereign-risk analysis, by providing insights into relevant but currently unaccounted-for parameters. Credit-rating agencies, institutional investors, and asset managers are encouraged to see how such factors can be incorporated into their own risk models.

The time has come for a better understanding of the connection between environmental and natural-resource risk and sovereign credit risk. Only then will investors, rating agencies, and governments be able to plan over the medium to long term with the knowledge needed to ensure long-term economic growth and stability.