Le Monde Jacques Chirac propose de créer un groupe mondial d'experts sur la biodiversité

Le président a inauguré la conférence de Paris.

C'est la "voie propre" de Jacques Chirac. Chantre de l'écologie, il a choisi d'être au premier rang des chefs d'Etat, peu nombreux, qui lancent un cri d'alarme sur la dégradation de la biodiversité de la planète. En inaugurant, lundi 24 janvier, au siège de l'Unesco, à Paris, la conférence internationale sur "Biodiversité, science et gouvernance" (Le Monde daté 23-24 janvier), initiative française lancée au G8 d'Evian en 2003, il a tout d'abord répondu au vœu de la communauté scientifique : "J'appelle, a-t-il dit, tous les scientifiques à se rassembler pour constituer un réseau mondial d'expertise", en matière de biodiversité.

En effet, la France propose à la conférence, qui se tient jusqu'au 28 janvier, en présence de responsables politiques, de chefs d'entreprise et de plusieurs centaines de chercheurs, de créer un groupe intergouvernemental sur l'évolution de la biodiversité (GIEB).

Sur le modèle du groupe d'experts internationaux constitué pour suivre l'évolution du climat, son objectif est de fournir des éléments scientifiques reconnus, afin de permettre les décisions politiques. On estime aujourd'hui que l'extinction des espèces est entre cent et mille fois plus rapide que celle qui résulterait de l'évolution normale, soulignent les conseillers du chef de l'Etat, tout en pointant la grande imprécision de cette fourchette.

M. Chirac a aussi saisi l'occasion de cette conférence pour attirer l'attention de la communauté internationale sur un problème qui lui est cher, celui des pays du Sud. Comment concilier le développement, la croissance économique, la pression démographique, sans sacrifier "un patrimoine inestimable" ? "Nous devons être prêts à mutualiser une partie du coût" de la préservation de la biodiversité dans ces pays, a rappelé le chef de l'Etat, tout en saluant les efforts déjà accomplis par Madagascar.

Il a également évoqué la lutte contre le commerce illicite des bois tropicaux, en soulignant qu'il convenait d'aider les pays producteurs à développer des filières bois. Ce sera notamment le sujet du deuxième sommet d'Afrique centrale sur la gestion durable des forêts du bassin du Congo, à Brazzaville, où M. Chirac doit se rendre en février. Le président a rendu un hommage appuyé à la militante écologiste kenyane Wangari Maathai, qui a obtenu le prix Nobel de la paix en 2004 pour son combat contre la déforestation.

Devant la "panne" de la Convention sur la biodiversité, signée en 1992, mais non ratifiée par les Etats-Unis, le président a proposé "que soit mandaté un comité des sages indépendant", afin d'en évaluer les mécanismes et de les améliorer. Chaque pays, a insisté M. Chirac, " doit prendre des mesures concrètes et la France s'y engage résolument". Une communication, présentée en conseil des ministres le 19 janvier, a précisé que la France présenterait, lors de la conférence, les programmes de recherche de 2005. Le gouvernement rendra publics, en mars, "les plans d'action de la stratégie nationale pour la biodiversité". Le président a souligné qu'il s'agissait de constituer "une véritable police de la nature", précisant cependant que les mentalités et les cultures devaient évoluer.

Son entourage admet, en prenant le contre-exemple des directives Natura 2000, mal accueillies par les agriculteurs et les chasseurs, qu'une telle politique "se mène avec les gens et non contre eux". Ce réseau doit être complété, si possible, en meilleure intelligence avec la population des territoires concernés.

M. Chirac a également annoncé que la France défendra la création d'aires protégées dans les océans et qu'elle relançait la création de parcs nationaux, "au plus tard en 2006, en Guyane et à la Réunion, en accord avec les autorités locales". Elle devrait aussi créer des réserves naturelles dans les terres australes de l'Antarctique, ainsi qu'à Mayotte et à la Réunion.

La charte de l'environnement, qui doit être adoptée par le Congrès - "si le Parlement y consent, naturellement", soulignent prudemment les conseillers de l'Elysée -, a bien sûr été mentionnée par le président. M. Chirac a souligné que ce texte consacrait "la biodiversité comme droit et comme patrimoine collectif".

Un mois après le raz de marée qui a ravagé l'Océan indien, le chef de l'Etat a rappelé que l'humanité prenait "lentement, trop lentement, conscience que la puissance qu'elle a acquise, loin de l'affranchir définitivement de la nature, - lui conférait - désormais une responsabilité sans précédent".

Dans ce combat, le conseiller épisodique du président, Nicolas Hulot, estime, dans Le Figaro du 24 janvier, que M. Chirac "fait figure de cavalier seul dans son propre camp et dans son propre gouvernement", excluant de cette critique Serge Lepeltier, le ministre de l'écologie.

Béatrice Gurrey

• ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 25.01.05

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KOBE, Japon (AP) -- Le violent séisme qui a frappé l'Asie méridionale le 26 décembre dernier, faisant entre 158.000 et 221.000 morts selon les sources, a également entraîné une véritable catastrophe écologique en Indonésie, causant pour 675 millions de dollars (522 millions d'euros) de dégâts.

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TITRE: CES DÉSASTRES PERÇUS À TORT COMME NATURELS

"Les désastres naturels ne le sont pas vraiment." Eva von Oelreich, chef de l'unité préparation aux catastrophes à la Croix- Rouge, s'insurge contre l'emploi trompeur de l'expression. Venue participer a la conférence de Kobe, elle estime que la prise de conscience est en cours au sein des gouvernements et que "la politique de prévention des risques est davantage prise au sérieux". Il est temps. Le nombre des désastres dits naturels (tremblements de terre, inondations, sécheresse...) ainsi que leurs ravages sur les hommes et les biens ne cessent de grandir, or cela n'est pas le fruit de la seule fatalité.

Les aléas hydro-météorologiques, responsables de 97 % des victimes des désastres naturels ou technologiques, sont d'autant plus destructeurs que les pays sont pauvres et vulnérables : faiblesse des infrastruc- tures, des institutions, du cadre légal, de la gouvernance, de l'éducation... "La vague d'ouragans qui s'est abattue sur les Caraïbes l'an passé n'a provoqué que 4 morts à Cuba contre 2.757 à Haïti", a souligné Andrew Maskrey, chef de l'unité prévention des risques au Programme des Nations unies pour le développement (PNUD).

Klaus Toepfer, sous-secrétaire général des Nations unies pour l'environnement (PNUE), considère aussi que "la frontière entre désastres naturels et ceux dus à la main de l'homme est floue". Selon lui, "les inondations qui ont touché l'Europe l'été dernier ont beaucoup à voir avec ce que font les hommes". Le PNUE a établi un lien statistique très fort (89 %) entre le nombre de morts dus aux orages violents et la déforestation. La corrélation est également forte entre nombre de morts et niveau de développement.

Et que dire des changements climatiques qui résultent des émissions de gaz à effet de serre dont l'homme est responsable. "L'hypothèse scientifique [...] du lien entre changements climatiques et désastres dus au climat est devenue beaucoup plus certaine", a rappelé Joke Waller-Hunter, secrétaire de l'exécutif de la convention des Nations unies sur le changement climatique. La Banque mondiale vient à son tour d'admettre dans une étude intitulée Gestion du risque de désastres... que "de nombreuses conséquences du changement climatique se traduisent par une exacerbation ou une altération des menaces existantes..."

Manque de prévention. D'où les appels insistants de l'ONU pour que les pays donateurs et les institutions internatio- nales investissent davantage dans la prévention. Selon l'Unesco, 4 % de l'aide humanitaire seulement lui sont consacrés. "La France doit intégrer une part plus im- portante de prévention dans sa politique de coopération", a admis Christian Rouyer, délégué à l'action humanitaire. Pour Andrew Maskrey, "cela signifie non seulement qu'il faut construire des écoles et des hôpitaux qui résistent aux tremblements de terre, mais aussi que soient recréées les conditions de vie, un cadre économique, social, environnemental..." dans les pays qui ont besoin d'être aidés.

L. C., à Kobe

DATE-CHARGEMENT: 23 janvier 2005

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Agence France Presse -- German

Montag, 24. Januar 2005

ÜBERSCHRIFT: Töpfer: Korallenriffe und Mangroven können Tsunamis abbremsen
TEXT:

Verstärkte Anstrengungen im Umweltschutz sollten nach den Worten von Klaus Töpfer, dem Chef des UN-Umweltprogramms UNEP, eine Konsequenz aus den Tsunamis im Indischen Ozean sein. "Mangroven und Korallenriffe können eine Pufferfunktion gegen Naturkatastrophen übernehmen", sagte Töpfer am Montag zum Auftakt der Pariser Artenschutzkonferenz.

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ÜBERSCHRIFT: Artenvielfalt bedroht wie seit Dinosaurier-Zeiten nicht mehr

Die natürliche Vielfalt rund um den Globus ist derzeit so stark bedroht wie seit Urzeiten nicht mehr: Seit der Ausrottung der Dinosaurier vor Jahrmillionen habe es keine Krise wie die derzeitige gegeben, sagte der Chef des UN-Umweltprogramms UNEP, Klaus Töpfer, am Montag zur Eröffnung einer großen Artenschutzkonferenz am Pariser UNESCO-Sitz. Die Menschen müssten Mittel finden, um das Aussterben der Arten zu stoppen, forderte Töpfer. Frankreichs Präsident Jacques Chirac, auf dessen Initiative die Konferenz zurückgeht, versprach konkrete Schritte unter anderem zum Schutz der Korallen. Naturschützer begleiteten die Konferenz mit Skepsis.

Als akut bedroht stehen derzeit weltweit knapp 15.600 Arten auf Roten Listen, darunter jedes vierte Säugetier, jeder achte Vogel oder jeder dritte Lurch. Der Pariser Wissenschaftler Robert Barbault sagte, das Ausrotten von Arten gehe derzeit teils innerhalb von nur wenigen Jahrzehnten vor sich und stelle die Anpassungsfähigkeit von Tieren und Pflanzen auf harte Proben. Anders als zu Zeiten der Dinosaurier könne und müsse der Mensch aber diesmal eingreifen.

Töpfer, betonte, verstärkte Anstrengungen im Umweltschutz sollten eine Konsequenz aus den Tsunamis im Indischen Ozean sein. "Mangroven und Korallenriffe können eine Pufferfunktion gegen Naturkatastrophen übernehmen." Der Exekutivsekretär der internationalen Artenschutz-Konvention von 1992, Hamdallah Zedan sagte, nach bislang vorliegenden Erkenntnissen seien Regionen mit "intakten Ökosystemen" von den Flutwellen am 26. Dezember weniger stark getroffen worden als Gebiete etwa mit zerstörten Mangrovenwäldern. 45 Prozent des Urwaldes seien bereits vernichtet, ebenso wie zehn Prozent der Korallenriffe.

Die bis Freitag angesetzte Konferenz am Pariser UNESCO-Sitz mit rund 1200 Wissenschaftlern und politisch Verantwortlichen hatte Chirac auf dem G-8-Gipfel von Evian 2003 angeregt. Das Treffen solle eine "entscheidende Etappe" hin zu einem umfassenden Artenschutz darstellen, sagte Chirac. "Auf allen Kontinenten und in allen Ozeanen gehen die Alarmsignale an." Als Beispiele nannte der französische Staatschef "die Zerstörung der ursprünglichen Regenwälder, den langsamen Tod der Korallenriffe und den drastischen Populationsrückgang bei den großen Säugetieren".

Frankreich will nach den Worten Chiracs bis 2006 Nationalparks auf seinen Überseegebieten in der Insel La Réunion im Indischen Ozean sowie in Französisch-Guyana einrichten. Naturschutzgebiete sollen auch in den zu Frankreich zählenden Teilen der Antarktis-Region geschaffen werden. In Neukaledonien im Südwestpazifik werde Frankreich den Schutz der Korallenbarriere verstärken und darauf hinarbeiten, dass diese in die Liste des UNESCO-Welterbes aufgenommen werde.

Die Umweltorganisation Greenpeace prangerte ein ungebremstes Abholzen der Tropenwälder an. "Alle sechs Stunden verschwindet eine Waldfläche von der Größe der Stadt Paris", erklärten Greenpeace und die Organisation Freunde der Erde. Der Frankreich-Direktor der Weltunion für die Natur (UICN), Sébastien Moncorps, sagte, das Aussterben von Arten spiele sich nicht nur "am Ende der Welt" ab, sondern vor der eigenen Haustüre. Als Beispiele nannte er die Mittelmeer-Mönchsrobbe und den Pyrenäen-Steinbock.

+++ Das Treffen im Internet: www.recherche.gouv.fr/biodiv2005paris/en/index.htm +++

Politiker in aller Welt sollten die Lehren aus der Tsunami-Katastrophe ziehen und die bedrohte Artenvielfalt besser schuetzen. Dies forderte der Direktor des UN-Umweltprogramms Klaus Toepfer zur Eroeffnung der internationalen UNESCO-Konferenz ueber Artenvielfalt am Montag in Paris. Mangrovenwaelder und Korallenriffe haetten die schlimmsten Auswirkungen dieser moerderischen Wellen abgeschwaecht. Auf der "Roten Liste" der Weltnaturschutzunion (IUCN) stehen mehr als 15 000 Pflanzen- und Tierarten, die vom Aussterben bedroht sind. Nur noch Fotos erinnern heute den Tasmanischen Tiger oder den schwerfaelligen madagassischen Dodo-Vogel, dessen letztes Exemplar 1861 getoetet wurde. Nicht nur grosse Tiere, auch Froesche, Insekten und Bakterien leisteten einen wichtigen Beitrag zum oekologischen Gleichgewicht auf dieser Erde, "haben aber keine Lobby", sagte der wissenschaftliche Leiter der Konferenz, Michel Loreau. "Jede vierte Saeugetier-Art, jede dritte Amphibien-Art und jede achte Vogelart ist vom Aussterben bedroht", betonte Loreau. "Die Abholzung der Waelder ist die Vorbereitung einer wirtschaftlichen Katastrophe", sagte Robert Barbault vom Naturkunde-Museum in Paris. Mediziner erinnerten daran, dass tropische Pflanzen die Grundlage zahlreicher Medikamente lieferten. Allein in Frankreich hat die Vielfalt der Voegel laut Loreau in den vergangenen 15 Jahren um zehn Prozent abgenommen, angefangen beim Spatz in unseren Staedten bis hin zur Feldlerche, die frueher in laendlichen Gebieten weit verbreitet war. Der Schutz der Artenvielfalt ist nach Expertenansicht das "Stiefkind" der Umwelt im Vergleich zu anderen Bereichen wie dem Klimaschutz. Es fehlen auch verbindliche Verpflichtungen wie das Protokoll von Kyoto. Die Pariser Konferenz mit mehr als 1200 Teilnehmern aus Wissenschaft, Politik und Oekologie kann zum Abschluss eine international anerkannte Expertengruppe fuer Artenvielfalt fordern, die angesichts dieses Massensterbens Politikern Schutzmassnahmen vorschlagen koennte. Der franzoesische Praesident Jacques Chirac hat dieses Treffen angeregt, das bis Freitag dauert und die Oeffentlichkeit "aufruetteln" soll. dpa pk xx hu

UPDATE: 24. Januar 2005

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PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac proposed on Monday creating a global network of experts to help save tens of thousands of endangered animals and plants from extinction.

Launching a five-day conference sponsored by the United Nations on protecting the diversity of Earth's plant and animal life, Chirac called for a change in world attitudes to ensure more was done to protect species close to extinction.
"I appeal to all scientists to gather to create a world network of expertise, and France will propose to its partners ... the creation of an inter-governmental group on the evolution of biodiversity," Chirac said.
He gave few details but said France would push for adoption of such measures by the signatories to the 1992 Convention onf Biological Diversity, which is designed to sustain biodiversity.
"With the fight against world climate change, the protection of biodiversity demands a deep change in how we think and live," he said.
The conference of 1,200 participants, organised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), is looking at ways to prevent the loss of biodiversity due to disappearing natural habitats and world climate change.
UNESCO cited figures suggesting almost 16,000 species of living creatures were near extinction and said the dangers of extinction were increasing with global warming.
One in four known mammal species and one in 10 bird species is in danger of extinction, it said. Of the 350,000 known plant species, 60,000 are threatened with extinction, it said.
Chirac has been a vocal supporter of global biodiversity, but France stands accused of not meeting its own standards for promoting conservation.
The European Union's executive Commission said last week Paris had failed to heed rulings from European's top court on nature conservation, public access to environmental information, water protection, and genetically modified micro-organisms.
France has said it is aware of of its delay in implementing the European directives and has made it a priority since 2002 to catch up on the delay.
"We fear that once again speeches will just give rise to more speeches," Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth said in a statement as they and other environmental groups held a parallel meeting to the UNESCO gathering.
"Every six hours, an area of forest the same size of Paris is disappearing, meaning the extinction of numerous species of plant and animal life sometimes not even known about."

Story by Elizabeth Pineau and Gerard Bon

Managing forests protects precious water supplies

Unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and other harmful practices, "exacerbated by poverty and other social and economic factors, continue to destroy habitats and species at an unprecedented rate," he said in an address delivered by the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koïchiro Matsuura, at the opening of the five-day UN International Conference on Biological Diversity, or "Biodiversity 2005."

Scientific literature has described fewer than 1.5 million living species out of an estimated 30 million, UNESCO said in a background paper. The result of the loss of their ecosystems was exemplified by the decline of coral reefs which increased the vulnerability of coastal areas to such natural disasters as last month's Indian Ocean tsunami, it said.

"Biological diversity is one of the pillars of life. It stabilizes the Earth's climate and renews soil fertility. It provides millions of people with livelihoods, helps to ensure food security, and is a rich source of both traditional medicines and modern pharmaceuticals. It is essential to our efforts to relieve suffering, raise standards of living and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," Mr. Annan said.

Under-appreciated as a resource, biodiversity was also under-appreciated as an issue meriting high-level attention, he told the 1,000 participants at the meeting.

"I therefore call on those Governments that have not yet done so to ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Biosafety Protocol. These instruments and the processes they have set in motion are crucial for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and for the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources," he said.

"The Protocol gives us an international regulatory framework to ensure the safe transfer, handling and use of living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology, thus making it possible to derive maximum benefits from biotechnology while minimizing the potential risks to the environment and human health."

Biodiversity 2005 had to come to grips with the gaps in overall knowledge – the rates of loss, extinction trends, causes of decline – and the inability to monitor its status and trends, said Hamdallah Zedan, Executive Secretary of the Montreal-based CBD.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) said in its 2004 Global Species Assessment that in the best-known taxonomic groups, 12 per cent of all bird species, 23 per cent of all mammal species, 32 per cent of all amphibians and 34 per cent of all gymnosperms were being threatened with extinction, he added.

One ray of hope was that the international community had recognized the magnitude of the looming biodiversity crisis and had set a global target to reduce significantly the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national levels by 2010, Mr. Zedan said.

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Scientists called on Monday for the creation of a global panel of experts on species loss, warning that the planet was racing towards a man-made extinction crisis.

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France's president opened an international conference on biodiversity Monday with a warning that humans risk their own future if the destruction of other species continues unabated.

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THE National Biodiversity Council meeting on Jan 13 had to be adjourned

because of the blackout which affected parts of peninsular Malaysia.

But that did not stop Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

from going through a thick file on Malaysia's biodiversity issues - by

candlelight, no less.

During the meeting in Malacca, he said that there had to be protection

of mangroves and water catchment areas.

He took up those issues again when he spoke to civil servants on

Thursday, urging them to take care of the environment and not to pollute

the country's rivers.

Tomorrow, Abdullah will speak on biodiversity and the environment to a

much wider and more significant audience.

He will address an international audience and thousands of delegates at

the Conference of Biodiversity: Science and Governance here. Themed

Today's choice for tomorrow's life, the event is organised by the French

Government and sponsored by Unesco.

Other speakers at the event include Nobel Peace Prize winner 2004 and

Kenya's Vice-Minister of Environment Wangari Maathai, Harvard lecturer

Edward O'Wilson, French President Jacques Chirac, Magadascar President

Marc Ravalomanana and Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo.

Maathai founded the Green Belt movement in Kenya in 1977, which has

planted more than 10 million trees to prevent soil erosion and provide

firewood for cooking fires. Wilson is one of today's finest scholars and

naturalists, and he is one of the world's leading authorities on ants.

Abdullah's speech there will be of special importance as not only is

Malaysia an unofficial representative of Asia at the conference, it is

also a country juggling the needs of a developing country and trying to

protect its natural resources at the same time.

Issues like sustainability, access to technology and benefit-sharing are

relevant to biodiversity and governance, says Ahmad Zaki Zahid, the Prime

Minister's special officer.

"It is a complex set of issues when it comes to biodiversity. In

Malaysia, for example, we want to make sure the environment is

safeguarded, but at the same time cater to the demands of development," he

said.

danger of losing its biodiversity as a result of the destruction of its

forests.

As one of the 12 mega biodiversity countries in the world, Malaysia has

15,000 different plant species, 4,000 kinds of marine fish and a whopping

150,000 different insects and invertebrates.

Its experience will thus be significant to other developing countries

that are also having to balance a wealth of natural resources and the need

for development.

Abdullah is expected to touch on Malaysia's governance on environmental

issues as well as the complex inter-relationship between developed and

developing nations when it comes to access to technology.

"There is also the question of how private sectors and non-governmental

organisations play a part in environmental protection, as both can be very

influential," Ahmad Zaki said.

Other issues that come hand in hand with biodiversity are the

commitments made by countries at the Earth Summit and the World Summit,

and whether they have honoured them, as well as the more controversial

subjects of genetically-modified (GM) crops.

But Abdullah's visit to Paris will not only be about his speech at

Unesco, it will also be about strengthening already warm ties with France.

He will be making a courtesy call on Chirac tomorrow morning and will

attend a luncheon hosted by the President at the Elysee Palace.

The two leaders are likely to discuss bilateral relations as well as

recent events such as the tsunami disaster and the Iraq war.

"The relationship between Malaysia and France is warm and friendly and

the two leaders get along very well. This visit is a follow-up of sorts to

the Prime Minister's visit to France last year," he said.

But the core of his two-day visit to Paris will revolve around his

concern for nature. Hardly surprising since one of the 10 principles of

Islam Hadhari advocated by the Prime Minister is the protection of the

environment.

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MALAYSIA will for the first time prepare an inventory of the country's ecosystem.

Malaysia.

shortcomings and issues on the management of biodiversity.

some time, it was a step in the right direction.

community whose resource or knowledge is used.

LOAD-DATE: January 23, 2005

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UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

Climate: A peek at the next IPCC report

By Dan Whipple

The panel's fourth report will be acronymed AR4, a break from tradition. The second assessment report was called SAR and the third was short-handed as TAR. Logically, Meehl said, the fourth would have been FAR, but that would mean the fifth assessment report would have the same acronym.

"Someone suggested that we can call that one 'Too FAR,'" Meehl said.

Not exactly George Carlin, and the AR4 does not promise to be a laugh a minute, but the next IPCC report does figure to feature a few shifts in emphasis, including attempts to quantify the uncertainty about climate shifts, provide a better estimate of climate sensitivity, report more multi-model results and get a better handle on the extremes.

The change likely to cause the sharpest intake of breath is the revision of the measurement of "climate sensitivity." This is the change in temperature measured by models from an equilibrium state that then respond to forcings and give a range of results for possible warming.

The numbers that result from the climate sensitivity calculation are widely quoted as the predicted warming the globe will experience under the current regime of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to the TAR, the numbers fall between +2 degrees and +8 degrees Fahrenheit (+1.1 degree and +4.5 degrees Celsius).

The median response is about 6.3 degrees F (3.5 degrees C), but the method of calculating that in the past has been based on climate models that use what climatologists call a slab ocean and do not fully mix the exchange of heat from the deep ocean.

"The numbers haven't changed in a long time, and people say, 'Well haven't you learned anything?'" Meehl told UPI's Climate.

The upgraded calculation of climate sensitivity will use coupled atmosphere-ocean global climate models to come up with a range and median, thereby refining the figures and giving a narrower range and lower median value.

Based on 17 of these AOGCMs, as they are known, the equilibrium range now is expected to be 3.6 degrees to 7.9 degrees F (2 degrees to 4.4 degrees C), with a mean value of 5.6 degrees F (3.1 degrees C).

Meehl said many people who remain skeptical about the result of the climate science have charged the scientists with fudging the sensitivity figures to get the result they would like to see. As a lead author on the climate science section of the IPCC report, he said he has spoken to most of the modeling groups and no one is aware of any such shenanigans.

"There is a feeling in some quarters that people are faking with their forcings," Meehl said. "That doesn't happen here. I don't even know how you'd do it. There are so many non-linear relationships that it's impossible to know which parameters to adjust to get the outcome you wanted. All you can do is say that this is the best we can do with the current state of the knowledge."

There remain considerable uncertainties, particularly the effect of aerosols -- dust and other particles -- in the big climate picture. Aerosols play several roles in weather and climate, such as cloud formation and solar reflectivity. Some of these roles tend to heat the atmosphere and some tend to cool it.

"In terms of the chemistry, for the future, both of those sources (black carbon and organic carbon aerosols) are more important than we had previously thought, since they tend to stick around longer," Lynn Russell, associate professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, told Climate late last year.

Russell and colleagues reported in a paper published in the journal Science last week that aerosols may produce a slightly greater cooling effect than climate models previously estimated.

NCAR runs two climate models: the older PCM model and the newly released CCSM3. The older model does not attempt to calculate aerosol inputs, while CCSM3 does -- although Russell's work implies the modelers used to adjust the values. The uncertainty is large, however.

"The deeper you get into aerosols, the worse it gets," Meehl said.

Meehl said most models are showing a slowdown in the overturning circulation of the North Atlantic, but not enough to overcome the warming trends in Europe.

"We're putting so many things in the atmosphere, and it is heating up so much, that anything that would cool Europe is overwhelmed by greenhouse warming. For the next 100 to 200 years, no model indicates a cooling of Europe."

AR4 will present a "snapshot of current knowledge in climate and climate change. An IPCC assessment is policy relevant, but not policy prescriptive," Meehl said.

The IPCC is an organization of 190 governments around the world interested in learning the latest about climate change. "It's not our job on the science side to tell them what to do," he said.

--

Climate is a weekly series examining the potential human impact on global climate change, by veteran environmental reporter Dan Whipple. E-mail: sciencemail@upi.com

By Alex Kirby

BBC News website environment correspondent
People are worried by climate change, Stephen Byers says

The world may have little more than a decade to avert catastrophic climate change, politicians and scientists say.

We might end up in the middle of that temperature range, and if we do that wouldn't make very good news

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC

One of its co-chairs is the UK politican Stephen Byers MP, a former transport secretary.

"The possibilities include reaching climatic tipping points leading, for example, to the loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (which, between them, could raise sea levels more than 10 metres over the space of a few centuries."

The IPCC predicts that on present trends global sea levels will probably have risen by 9 to 88cm by 2100 and average temperatures will be between 1.5 and 5.5C higher than now. The last Ice Age was only 4-5C colder than today.

* G8 governments generate at least 25% of electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025

* governments remove barriers to and increase investment in renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies and practices by taking steps including the phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies.
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Financial Times (London, England)

January 24, 2005 Monday

The report last week of the United Nations Millennium Project lays out a strategy for cutting extreme poverty and disease in the world's poorest countries. The idea is to increase investments in people (health, education, nutrition, family planning), the environment (soils, land, water, biodiversity) and infrastructure (roads, electricity, ports), based on the specific needs of each country. The investment plans should be ambitious enough to achieve the project's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Private markets will not provide the needed investments. The poorest of the poor hold no appeal for private suppliers of such investment. Nor can low-income governments provide the investment solely from domestic budget revenues. Simply put, these vital investments must be co-financed by rich and poor countries alike. The rich countries have long promised such help, to the target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national product, but have fallen notoriously short since that commitment was set in 1970.

But times are changing. Europe is getting serious about increasing its aid levels. Five countries are at 0.7 per cent of GNP (Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden), and six more have recently pledged to achieve that level before 2015 (Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Spain and the UK). Germany is likely to announce its own target soon, in a decisive breakthrough for a European-wide commitment. The US and Japan could join this effort. The policy debates are therefore shifting from whether to increase aid to how best to deliver it.

In its call for results-based management of foreign assistance, the report recommends first that aid be designed and evaluated against the quantitative targets set for 2015 in the internationally agreed MDGs. Goals such as reducing child mortality rates by two-thirds by 2015 can help ensure donors and recipient countries do not shirk responsibilities as they have in the past.

Second, aid in each sector should be delivered against measurable interim benchmarks on a clear calendar basis. In fighting malaria, for example, interim benchmarks would show the proportion of rural families receiving free mosquito nets and anti-malaria medicines by certain dates. In treating HIV/Aids, the benchmarks would include the numbers of people on anti-retroviral treatment. In the health sector generally, benchmarks would include the construction and operation of hospitals and the proportion of doctors and health workers in each district. Third, governments, donors and civil society should prepare specific compliance guidelines that include spot audits, evaluation and publication of performance indicators. Leading civil society organisations such as Transparency International and private accounting firms should help ensure that the increased aid flows to the targeted areas. Only governments willing to sign on to such rigorous compliance would receive the increased aid.

Fourth, the specific investment plans should be crafted by developing country governments in partnership with local organisations, donors and international institutions, to ensure they respect local realities. Plans will vary by country according to conditions such as disease ecology (such as the presence or absence of malaria), agronomic conditions (such as rain-fed versus irrigation-based farming), and transport conditions (such as landlocked versus coastal regions).

Sceptics argue that the project's goals are too ambitious. That is no doubt true in countries where governments are uninterested in meeting the goals, but it is not true where governments are keen. In Kenya, Ethiopia and other countries, the Millennium Project worked with the governments to measure detailed investment needs and outline 10-year investment programmes. This is a practical step that the sceptics have never tried. The naysayers are irresponsible in their casual assertions about what is and is not possible. The UN Millennium Project identified specific investment measures that can overcome the worst bottlenecks in areas such as food production, disease prevalence and other barriers to poverty reduction.

In Kenya, for example, where a new democracy is committed to the country's development, agronomists, health and education specialists and engineers identified problems and recommended solutions across many sectors. Once donors commit to making resources available, conditional on their good use, it is possible to draw up ambitious plans to scale up investments. At a meeting of donors and Kenyan officials two weeks ago, an agreement in principle was reached to prioritise five quantitative targets this year, from hiring 4,000 nurses to putting 100,000 Aids patients on treatment and paying and training tens of thousands of village health workers. These goals are practical and directly respond to Kenya's health challenges.

This year donors in Europe, now entering a new era of development co-operation, should identify a number of fast track countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania and Senegal, that have governments ready to accept enhanced transparency and accountability. The donors and recipient countries should champion several "quick wins" such as malaria nets, Aids treatment, school meals and soil nutrient replenishment, which when applied in Africa's villages, will offer a way out of desperation and early death for hundreds of millions of people.

The writer is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and directs the Millennium Project, which last week delivered its report on achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and 13 companion volumes of analysis, to the United Nations Secretary General; www.unmillenniumproject.org

LOAD-DATE: January 23, 2005
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NY TIMES

Nations Ranked as Protectors of the Environment

January 24, 2005

By FELICITY BARRINGER

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 - Countries from Northern and Central

Europe and South America dominated the top spots in the

2005 index of environmental sustainability, which ranks

nations on their success at such tasks as maintaining or

improving air and water quality, maximizing biodiversity

and cooperating with other countries on environmental

problems.

Finland, Norway and Uruguay held the top three spots in the

ranking, prepared by researchers at Yale and Columbia

Universities. The United States ranked 45th of the 146

countries studied, behind such countries as Japan, Botswana

and the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and most of

Western Europe.
The lowest-ranking country was North Korea. Among those

near the bottom were Haiti, Taiwan, Iraq and Kuwait.

World Economic Forum, which meets in Davos, Switzerland,

this week. The first complete index, in 2002, produced

outrage and soul-searching in lower-ranking countries like

Belgium and South Korea, said Daniel C. Esty, the director

of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and an

author of the report.
The report is based on 75 measures, including the rate at

which children die from respiratory diseases, fertility

rates, water quality, overfishing, emission of

heat-trapping gases and the export of sodium dioxide, a

crucial component of acid rain.
In its opening chapter, the Environmental Sustainability

Index report said: "Although imperfect, the E.S.I. helps to

fill a long-existing gap in environmental performance

evaluation. It offers a small step toward a more vigorous

and quantitative approach to environmental decision

making."

correlation between high-ranking countries and countries

with open political systems and effective governments.
The report's flaws stem largely from inadequate data, Mr.

Esty said, adding that the ranking system is at best

approximate, because some individual scores had to be

imputed in many cases. But he said that data might improve

in coming years.
He also said a system that rated Russia, whose populated

western regions have undergone extraordinary environmental

degradation, as having greater environmental sustainability

than the United States had inherent weaknesses.

consequence of the country's vast size. While it "has

terrible pollution problems" in the western industrial

heartland, he said, its millions of unsettled or sparsely

settled acres of Asian taiga mean "it has vast, untrammeled

resources and more clean water than anywhere in the world."

So, he added, "on average, Russia ends up looking better

than it does to someone who lives in western Russia."

difficult to compare, he said, this report also analyzed

seven clusters of similar countries; in this analysis, the

United States ranked slightly below the halfway point among

24 members of the Organization of American States.
Another cluster ranked countries whose land is more than 50

percent desert, including Israel and much of the Arab

world. In this group, Israel ranked second, after Namibia,

and the best-performing Arab countries were Oman and

Jordan. But some nations with considerable oil wealth, like

Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, ranked in the bottom third.

the overall rankings were, in order, Sweden, Iceland,

Canada, Switzerland, Guyana, Argentina and Austria.
Irritation at low rankings in the 2002 index spurred

countries like Mexico and South Korea to improve their

efforts, Mr. Esty added. Young Keun Chung, an environmental

economist with South Korea's state Korea Environment

Institute, agreed, saying: "The first time we were shocked.

Our government wanted to improve our situation. So we

concentrated on improving environmental policy, pollution

problems, traffic problems and everything."

report, but was only No. 122 in the overall index, and 14th

out of 21 high-density countries in which more than half

the land has a population density greater than 100 people

per square kilometer.

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