The environment in the news monday 13 October 2008

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  AP: Beijing to ban half its cars during high pollution
  
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  AFP: Financial crisis clouds EU's climate change plans
  
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  Reuters: Exotic climate study sees refugees in Antarctica
  

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  ROA
  
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  ROAP
  
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  ROWA
  

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  Environment News from the UN Daily News of 10 October 2008
  
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  Environment News from the S.G.’s Spokesman Daily Press Briefing of 10 October 2008
  

The Independent: Leading article: The green lining to this chaos

Heathrow airport is a test case. We understand the conventional economic case, and we are not opposed to air travel as such. But there comes a point when the growth of carbon-based air travel has to be halted and probably reversed if the global ecosystem is to remain capable of sustaining human life at present numbers. It may be easier to adjust to new rules if they are introduced at a time of economic stringency. Now might be the time to say no more runways and that slots on existing runways will go to the highest bidder in a free market, so that the cost starts to reflect the damage done to the environment.

In the argument for better regulation of markets in the public interest – which must include mitigating climate change – we hope that the stars of our Green List will light the way.

The Independent: A 'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Sunday, 12 October 2008

Top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a "Green New Deal" to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaster, as the financial markets plunge into their deepest crisis since the Great Depression.

The ambitious plan – the start of which will be formally launched in London next week - will call on world leaders, including the new US President, to promote a massive redirection of investment away from the speculation that has caused the bursting “financial and housing bubbles” and into job-creating programmes to restore the natural systems that underpin the world economy.

It aims to convince them that, far from restricting growth, healing the global environment will be a desperately -needed driving force behind it.

The Green Economy Initiative - which will be spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), headquartered here, and is already being backed by governments – draws its inspiration from Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which ended the 1930s depression and helped set up the world economy for the unprecedented growth of the second half of the 20th century.

It, too, envisages basing recovery on providing work for the poor, as well as reform of financial practices, after a crash brought on by unregulated excesses of the free market and the banking system.

The new multimillion dollar initiative – which is being already funded by the German and Norwegian Governments and the European Commission – arises out of a study commissioned by world leaders at the 2006 G8 summit into the economic value of ecosystems. It argues that the world is caught up in not one, but three interlinked crises, with the food and fuel crunches accompanying and intensifying the financial one.

Soaring prices of grain and oil, it stresses, have stemmed from outdated economic priorities that have concentrated on short term exploitation of the world's resources, without considering how they can be used to sustain prosperity in the long term. Over the last quarter of a century, says UNEP, world growth has doubled, but 60 per cent of the natural resources that provide food, water, energy and clean air have been seriously degraded.

Achim Steiner, UNEP's Executive Director, adds that new research shows that every year, for example the felling of forests deprives the world of over $2.5 trillion worth of such services in supplying water, generating rainfall, stopping soil erosion, cleaning the air and reducing global warming . By comparison, he points out, the global financial crisis is so far estimated to have cost the world the smaller one-off sum of $1.5 trillion.

“We are pushing, if not pushing past, the limits of what the planet can sustain,” he says. “If we go on as we are today’s crisis will seem mild indeed compared to the crises of tomorrow”.

Switching direction and concentrating on 'green growth', he says, will not only prevent such catastrophes, but rescue the world's finances. “The new, green economy would provide a new engine of growth, putting the world on the road to prosperity again. This is about growing the world economy in a more intelligent, sustainable way.

“The 20th century economy, now in such crisis, was driven by financial capital. The 21st century one is going to have to be based on developing the world's natural capital to provide the lasting jobs and wealth that are needed, particularly for the poorest people on the planet”

He says for example, that it makes more sense to invest in preserving forests, peatlands and soils, which naturally absorb carbon dioxide, than destroying them and then developing expensive technology to do the job.

He points out that the world market for environmental goods and service already stands at $1.3 trillion and is expected to double over the next 12 years even on present trends, and adds. “There is an enormous opportunity to ride on this increasing global demand for environmental improvement and turn it into the driver of economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction that is now so desperately needed. And in some places it is already beginning to happen.”

Mr Steiner will launch the initiative in London a week on Wednesday, October 22nd, with the announcement of three projects, concentrating on how investing in the world's natural systems, in renewable energy and in other green technologies would stimulate growth and provide jobs, and giving examples of where it is already taking place.

He will describe, for example, how Mexico is now employing 1.5 million people to plant and manage forests, how China has created the world's biggest solar energy industries from scratch in just a few years, and how Germany has leapt from being a laggard to a leader in renewable energy by giving people attractive incentives to install it in their home.

Pavan Sukhdev, the chair of Deutschbank's Global Market Centre, who is leading the initiative, says: “. Hundreds of millions of jobs can be created, there is no question that traditional industries like steel and cars cannot provide them. But this is a really huge business opportunity.”

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Moneycontrol.com, India: Deutsche Bank appoints Munish Varma

Published on Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 16:50 , Updated at Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 17:37

Source : Moneycontrol.com

By KENNEDY SENELWA

Posted Friday, October 10 2008 at 21:58
Planting of trees to rehabilitate the Mau Forest will start early next year.

This will be carried out in a joint project of the United Nations and Kenyan Government.

The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) said restoration of the forest would involve re-establishment of plantations and promotion of natural regeneration.
Cut down

Unep’s executive director Achim Steiner said restoration of degraded ecosystems of Mau Forest in Kenya and Lake Faguibine in Mali were country projects to be undertaken jointly with respective governments.

He said Mau was the largest closed-canopy forest in Kenya.

Business Mirror, Philippines: It pays to go green

Science

Written by Wolfgang Kerler/ Inter Press Service

Sunday, 12 October 2008 19:38
UNITED NATIONS—A new report shows how a greener economy could eradicate poverty by creating tens of millions of new jobs. But it will not happen solely through the market’s “magic hand.”

“We are sending signals that low-carbon, energy-efficient and less polluting technologies and production processes will be the winners in the new emerging economy,” Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme (Unep), told Inter Press Service (IPS).

In the same year the sector had more than 2.3 million employees worldwide—many of them in developing countries like China and Brazil. The report estimates that employment in the renewable-energy sector will surpass 20 million people in 2030.

The current pace of economic transition ”is absolutely not fast enough” to tackle the challenges of climate change and to substantially reduce unemployment and poverty, Steiner said.

Globe and Mail, Canada: In Ecuador, rivers, plants and animals have rights

ZOE CORMIER

zcormier@globeandmail.com

October 11, 2008

Ecuador has become the first nation in the world to grant constitutional rights to the natural environment.

On Sept. 28, the country voted for a new constitution that - among changes to education, social security and elections - gives many of the same rights to rivers, forests, plants and animals as it does to people.

"Natural communities and ecosystems possess the unalienable right to exist, flourish and evolve," the legislation states. "... It shall be the duty and right of all Ecuadorean governments, communities and individuals to enforce those rights ... [and] every person, people, community or nationality will be able to demand the recognition of rights for nature."

Therefore, people do not have to claim damage to themselves or their property in order to file a claim against those that harm the environment.

"As a constitutional measure, this is groundbreaking," says Theresa McClenaghan of the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

But the motivation may be far more practical than sentimental: Ecuador has often been stuck with the bill to clean up the mess left by foreign oil and mining companies. It is still trying to extract compensation from Texaco, which it accuses of dumping more than 17 million tonnes of petroleum waste into the rain forest in an area known as the "Amazonian Chernobyl."

GRAND THEFT SOLAR

Californian cities may be renowned - in video games at least - for auto theft, but newspapers reported a different kind of crime this month: the stealing of solar panels.

Energy costs are soaring and the American economic future looks, to say the least, unstable. Solar panels cost tens of thousands of dollars to install, but, once in place, provide free energy. So it is understandably tempting to try to get something for nothing, especially in California, where the state's Million Solar Roofs initiative has seen installations soar over the past few years to more than 30,000 panels statewide.

Fortunately, the solar industry has been working on new kinds of panels that would be cheaper to build and easier to install, and would - coincidentally - also be harder to steal.

With a recession looming, environmentalists fear that climate change will be neglected as governments scramble to rescue the ailing economy.

But dealing with one issue does not have to mean abandoning the other. A United Nations report says climate change and economic development "cannot be addressed separately" and dealing with both can be done only by the creation of "green jobs."

The Green Jobs Initiative - launched by the UN Environment Program and trade and labour organizations - argues that investment in environmentally friendly sectors such as public transportation, waste recycling and renewable-energy generation is the best way to propel long-term job creation and improve conditions for the billion people worldwide who live in poverty.

The global market is estimated to be worth $1.37-trillion (U.S.) and is projected to double by 2020. Some of the biggest areas of growth are in developing countries. For example, solar technology employs 600,000 people in China, where green ventures account for 19 per cent of total investment.

In particular, the UN report calls for a greater focus on "decent" work, noting that jobs in the environmental sectors in developing countries are often dangerous and unhealthy. Recycling and waste management in China employs ten million people, but because it is usually done at a small fraction of the cost as in developed nations (often illegally and by hand), recyclers are frequently exposed to extremely dangerous levels of chemicals and heavy metals.

Governments are moving on an unprecedented scale to prevent bank failures and stimulate the stock markets. But "imagine if some of those stimulus packages could be targeted towards not maintaining the old economy of the 20th century but investing in the new economy of the 21st century," said Achim Steiner, executive director of UNEP.

For example, the report says an investment of $630-billion - just shy of the $700-billion U.S. rescue package - through to 2030 could create at least 20 million jobs in the renewable-energy sector.

An unprecedented international campaign to protect the Gulf of Mannar from destruction by the planned Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project (SSCP) is to be launched in London, UK, next month.

Gulf Daily News: Digital atlas to bolster green drive

Welt Online, Germany: Alcoa Stays Sustainability Course

Over the next two days (October 11 – 13), the conference will hear from such global thought leaders as Björn Stigson, President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development; Tim Flannery, Chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council and Arab Hoballah, Chief of the UNEP’s Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch, in addition to a range of Fellowship program participants who will share the results of their research to date.