Himalayan glaciers may disappear within decades: UN

Himalayan glaciers may disappear within decades: UN

Tuesday, 18 March , 2008, 16:16

New York: Himalayan glaciers are melting fast and may disappear within decades, affecting as many as 750 million people downstream who depend on the glacial melt for their water, according to a new UN report.

Rivers in the region such as the Ganga, the Indus and the Brahmaputra, as well as others crisscrossing northern India may soon become seasonal rivers - a development that has ramifications for poverty and the economies in the region, warns the report released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

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Glacier melting rate doubles, UNEP urges for new climate pact

New York (PTI): The latest data on glacier melting has painted a bleak future for the mammoth ice bodies, prompting the United Nations Environment Programme to urge countries to agree to a new emission reduction pact.

According to the UNEP-backed World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMC), data from nearly 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicates that the average rate of melting of glaciers more than doubled between 2004-05 and 2005-2006.
"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine," Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director said adding glaciers are perhaps among those making most noise.
Steiner further said 2009 will be a crucial year with the "litmus test" coming in Copenhagen where the negotiation process for a successor pact to the Kyoto Protocol is scheduled to conclude.
"Here governments must agree on a decisive new emissions reduction and adaptation-focused regime. Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for manoeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away," the official said.
Based in University of Zurich, WGMS, which has been tracking glaciers for more than a century, noted that between 1980-1999, average ice loss had been 0.3 metres per year compared to 0.5 metres after the start of the new millennium.
"The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight," Wilfried Haeberli, WGMS Director said.
On average, one metre water equivalent corresponds to 1.1 metre in ice thickness, which suggests a further shrinking in 2006 of 1.5 actual meters and since 1980 a total reduction in thickness of ice of just over 11.5 meters, or nearly 38 feet.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200803181121.htm

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Making big money while greening the economy

Priscilla Jebaraj

“Green invasion” at Vancouver meet on business, environment

VANCOUVER: The greenback may be faltering, but there’s a green invasion taking over the global economy.
An environmental perspective is no longer the preserve of scruffy Greenpeace types, with their nature songs and banner protests. It’s been appropriated by the men in suits with their calculators and PDAs who have just discovered the immense money-making possibilities involved in greening the economy.
Nowhere is this more evident than at the 2008 edition of Globe, a biennial trade fair and conference on business and environment held here this week.
Changing attitudes
The largest of its kind, the event positions itself as the business equivalent of the political and activist-dominated conferences organised by the United Nations.
The U.N. itself recognised the money implications of environmental concerns one and a half decades ago, creating the U.N. Environment Programme Finance Initiative which brings together 180 banks, insurers and asset managers from around the world. However, its head Paul Clements-Hunt, says attitudes have changed in the last two years.
“Till now, all financial institutions looked at the environment from a risk and cost perspective,” he said. “They are now also looking at the opportunities.”
Carbon trade
The numbers at stake are huge. The global carbon trade market is currently worth $30 billion, a figure set to double by 2011. In 2006, venture capitalists pumped $2.9 billion into clean technologies.
The overall investment in renewable energy projects alone grew 60 per cent in 2007. Financial institutions representing $13 trillion in assets have vowed to follow U.N.-approved environmentally sound principles for investing.
In such a scenario, businesses are realising that first mover advantages are valuable.
“Being involved in a leadership position gives us a say in setting the frameworks ... helps us ensure a level-playing field [when it comes to government regulations],” said Kevin Moss of BT, the British telecom giant that is setting up captive wind farms to power 20 per cent of its energy needs.
Infosys Technologies’ Sandeep Dadlani feels Indian companies need to jump on the bandwagon quickly. “It is in India’s best interests to start driving the changes. We need to be involved in shaping the process of environmental economics, leaving aside the politics of whether the U.S. is doing it or China is doing it first.”
Green trade system
Belgium’s Prince Philippe, who has been in the forefront of environmental economics in Europe, agreed that all nations needed to ensure an equitable green trade system.
“We need to establish global standards, to be applied in a differential way to developing economies,” he said, borrowing the “common but different” terminology used in the political negotiations.
The Globe fair is crowded with companies jostling to establish their first mover advantage with the 10,000 conference visitors, including a 13-member Indian delegation. Apart from the plethora of new firms with catchy names such as Kyoto Planet or Free Energy International, blue-chip logos from Siemens, Shell and Rio Tinto Alcan catch the eye. The auto giants are out in full force, with Toyota, GM and Ford showing off their range of hybrid models, biofuel-driven vehicles and gas-free cars.
Canadian caution
Amid the optimism, there were those such as Canadian environmental professor Mark Jaccard, who injected a note of caution. “Sometimes I think that conferences such as this can be the worst thing for climate change — and no, I’m not talking about the emissions from all the flight travel ... It is all about business promenading what we can do without government, as though we can solve the problem by ourselves.” Despite such optimistic talk for the last two decades at Globe, emissions had been steadily on the rise, he pointed out.
Lowering emissions requires more than easy gestures. It will take a level of technology transformation involving major sacrificial costs and tough government decisions.
“Those decisions are going to be even more difficult if business keeps convincing the government, the media, the public that fighting climate change can be left to the markets, that it’s an easy, profitable task,” Professor Jaccard warned.

http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/19/stories/2008031953451400.htm

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