RFI : L'Afrique vue par satellite

RFI : L'Afrique vue par satellite

Article publié le 11/06/2008 Dernière mise à jour le 11/06/2008 à 13:07 TU

Croissance des villes, extension de la pollution et de la déforestation … Un rapport du Programme des Nations unies pour l'environnement (Pnue), accompagnant un atlas de 400 pages, établit un bilan de santé de l’environnement sur le continent africain, globalement négatif éclairé de quelques touches optimistes. Les images, prises par satellite, couvrent parfois trente ans d'évolution de l'environnement et font l’objet d'un atlas publié le 10 juin 2008 par l'Onu.

L’Afrique subit la déforestation à un rythme deux fois supérieur à la moyenne mondiale et perd chaque année plus de quatre millions d'hectares de forêt - approximativement la superficie de la Suisse - soit deux fois le taux annuel mondial de déforestation. C’est un problème majeur pour 25 pays africains, dont la République démocratique du Congo, le Malawi, le Nigeria et le Rwanda. Les arbres et les broussailles des contreforts du Djebel Marra, au Soudan, ont également disparu, en raison des déplacements de réfugiés venus du Darfour voisin.

Les photos rendent compte également de l’impact des changements climatiques sur la disparition des rares glaciers que compte le continent. Des effets des changements climatiques qui vont bien au-delà des sites emblématiques, comme le Mont Kilimandjaro, dont les neiges éternelles et les glaciers disparaissent, ou le lac Tchad, dont le niveau baisse inexorablement. A la frontière de l'Ouganda et de la RDC, les glaciers des Monts Rwenzori, qui culminent à 5 109 mètres, ont rétréci de moitié entre 1987 et 2003, affirme le Pnue.

Pénuries d’eau

« L'atlas (...) montre clairement la vulnérabilité des populations locales face à des forces qui échappent fréquemment à leur contrôle, dont la fonte des glaciers d'Ouganda et de Tanzanie et l'impact du réchauffement sur les réserves d'eau », explique le responsable du Pnue, Achim Steiner. Selon ce document, quelque 300 millions de personnes sont exposées à des pénuries d'eau en Afrique, et les zones sub-sahariennes concernées par ce phénomène devraient s'étendre d'un tiers d'ici 2050.

Néanmoins, le rapport pointe quelques signes optimistes, notamment concernant la protection de quelques parcs nationaux : « Dans de nombreuses régions d'Afrique, les populations ont entrepris des actions. On y trouve plus d'arbres qu'il y a trente ans, des marais s'y sont reconstitués, la dégradation des sols a été arrêtée », souligne Achim Steiner.

Le Pnue cite notamment un programme de lutte contre la création excessive de pâturages en Tunisie, qui a permis de préserver un parc national dans le sud-est et un autre projet, en Mauritanie, qui a permis d'accroître une zone marécageuse et ainsi de mieux contrôler les inondations.

Pour en savoir plus :

Consulter le site du Programme des Nations unies pour l'environnement (Pnue)

WASHINGTON - Conservationists raised the alarm Thursday that lions in Kenya's Amboseli National Park face extinction within a few years unless action is taken to help them.

"The situation has reached a critical level," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president at National Geographic Society. "Unless something is done immediately, there will be no more lions in this part of Kenya, which would be a tragedy."

Fewer than 100 lions are estimated to remain in the 2,200-square-mile region at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro on the Kenya-Tanzania border, the society said. Lions are a major attraction at Amboseli, a popular visiting spot for tourists.

A major reason for the decline of the lions, researchers say, is spearing and poisoning by local Maasai, whose society depends on raising cattle.

National Geographic announced it is making an emergency grant of $150,000 to the Maasailand Preservation Trust to support a compensation fund for herdsmen whose livestock are killed by lions in and around Amboseli.

Such compensation plans have succeeded in other areas, according to the conservation group Living with Lions.

Between 2003 and 2007, a total of 63 lions were killed in properties owned by the Maasai, Kuku Group Ranch and Olgulului Group Ranch, said Laurence Frank, director of Living with Lions. "On Mbirikani Ranch, where compensation began in 2003, only four lions were killed due to predator-livestock conflict during the same period."

Frank said that in 2006 there was a sharp spike in killings in Maasailand. "Two years later, rates are not as high, but the killings continue to be bad enough that if something is not done immediately, we will see these lions go extinct locally in just a few years."

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Reuters: Rich nations fail to take lead at climate talk: U.N.

Wed Jun 11, 2008 2:57pm EDT

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

Yvo de Boer also predicted that U.S. climate policy would be more ambitious under either Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain, the two main candidates to succeed President George W. Bush from January 2009.

"We're not at the moment seeing the leadership from industrialized countries which I think is essential," de Boer told Reuters at June 2-13 climate talks, part of a marathon meant to end with a new world climate treaty by the end of 2009.

"But we are seeing a huge willingness on the part of developing countries to engage" in working out a new pact in return for aid and technology, he said. De Boer is head of the Bonn-based U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

Among examples, he said Mexico favored a new financial mechanism funded by both rich and poor to slow climate change while South Africa had outlined ways to cut its emissions by 50 percent. India plans this month to issue a new climate strategy.

Industrialized nations are meant to take the lead by targeting deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions beyond the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto binds 37 Industrialized nations to cut emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.

Developing nations, outside Kyoto along with the United States which views the pact as flawed and too costly, have agreed at least to slow the rise of their emissions as part of the new pact to be agreed in Copenhagen in 2009.

But they say they will need new technologies, such as solar or wind power, and cash partly to help them adapt to impacts of climate change such as more droughts, more powerful storms, crop failures or rising sea levels.

OIL, FOOD

De Boer said soaring oil prices were maintaining interest in renewable energy and curbing use of fossil fuels despite worries about extra costs of fighting climate change amid high food prices and an economic slowdown in some nations.

"In many sectors of the economy it only increases the interest to look at production costs," he said.

De Boer said developed nations should focus more on targeting 2020 curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases than on longer-term goals such as halving global emissions by 2050 which is under consideration for a Group of Eight summit next month.

"I kneel in front of my bed every night and hope that we're going to get a 2020 commitment by the G8 countries but I don't think my prayers are being heard at the moment," he said.

He said that 2050 goals were less relevant to investors who want to know rules, for instance, for investing in coal-fired power plants or wind farms as soon as possible.

Japan, which will host the G8 summit, announced a goal of cutting its emissions by 60-80 percent by 2050 on Monday.

And Bush said on Tuesday that a global climate agreement was possible during his presidency. The U.S. is sponsoring talks among major emitters, aiming to agree cuts this year that would feed into the U.N. pact by the end of 2009.

"I think it's moving as fast as you can realistically expect," de Boer said of the Bonn talks, adding that challenges remained daunting for a deal by the end of 2009.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:

AFP: Merkel wants progress on climate at G8 summit

MESEBERG, Germany (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday after talks with US President George W. Bush she hoped world leaders would make firm progress on climate change at the G8 summit in Japan.

"I hope that with regard to climate change we will take constructive steps forward in Japan" in July, Merkel said after hosting Bush in Meseberg outside Berlin.

She said record oil prices had made it more urgent for developing nations to diversify their energy sources away from fossil fuels and called on industrialised nations to help them achieve this goal.

"It will be the right thing to start discussions with big emerging nations about how they can develop their technology further to lessen their dependence on oil and gas."

Merkel was credited with winning concessions from Bush on climate change at a Group of Eight summit in Germany last year although these were non-binding pledges on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Reuters: Bush says G8 leaders aim for climate goal

Wed Jun 11, 2008 6:04am EDT

MESEBERG, Germany (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Wednesday leading world economies wanted to agree on a long-term binding goal on climate change within the framework of the Group of Eight powers.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Kerstin Gehmlich)

HONG KONG (AFP) - At least 10,000 deaths every year in Hong Kong, Macau and neighbouring southern China are caused by the area's worsening air pollution, according to a study released Wednesday.

Air pollution is also responsible for 440,000 hospital bed days and 11 million doctor visits each year, the Hong Kong-based think tank Civic Exchange said in its study.

"We estimate that there are about 10,000 deaths occurring which are attributable to daily pollution, 10,000 deaths which are potentially avoidable," said Anthony Hedley, a professor in the department of community medicine at Hong Kong University who worked on the study.

"Our estimates are very conservative," he told reporters at the launch of the report, "A price too high."

The researchers calculated the price of pollution at 6.7 billion yuan (968 million US) every year in health costs and productivity losses. Satellite images show the situation worsened between 2003 and 2006 -- the year the data was taken from.

The area studied by a team of public health and environmental scientists stretched from Hong Kong and Macau to the Pearl River Delta, where thousands of factories have sprung up during China's economic boom the past 30 years.

Hedley said people were suffering from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases brought on by the pollution. One area the study had not been able to completely assess was the impact on pregnant women and their children.

"The unborn child... is being irrigated by pollutants breathed by the mother," he said.

"We know that children who are exposed to that kind of insult may be born with an increased disposition to respiratory illness, illness episodes and hospital admissions."

The scientists called on the Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong governments to adopt an overall air quality management framework, tighten air quality standards and provide real-time pollution data to the public.

It also said Hong Kong should make immediate efforts to reduce emissions from land and sea transport.

Some business groups say Hong Kong's poor air quality is harming the city's ability to attract senior managers and compromising its position as an international finance centre
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Melting Arctic Ice Could Spur Inland Warming - Study

US: June 12, 2008

WASHINGTON - If Arctic sea ice starts melting fast, polar bears and ring seals wouldn't be the only creatures to feel it: A study released on Tuesday suggests it could spur warmer temperatures hundreds of miles (km) inland.

That means a possible thaw in the long-frozen soil known as permafrost, which in turn could have severe effects on ecosystems, human infrastructure like oil rigs and pipelines and the release of more global warming greenhouse gases in Russia, Alaska and Canada, the scientists said.

INTERCONNECTED ARCTIC

Story by Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

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  John Vidal, environment editor
  
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  The Guardian,
  
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  Thursday June 12 2008
  
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  Article history
  

In the first shots of what is expected to become one of the fiercest environmental battles in years, the groups, which include the National Trust, the RSPB and WWF, but not Greenpeace, have challenged the government to find cheaper and less destructive ways of generating renewable electricity from the estuary.

Britain will need to generate nearly 40% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020 to meet its EU targets, and a 10-mile long tidal barrage with 200 turbines between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare is widely seen in government as one of the most attractive options. Plans for a barrage have been proposed for more than 100 years.

But the coalition of 10 groups, with a membership of more than 5 million people, says a barrage would be economically dubious and ecologically disastrous. It would, the coalition says, destroy nearly 86,486 acres (35,000 ha) of highly protected wetlands across the estuary. More power could be generated more cheaply by using other green technologies, the group says.

Their report, commissioned from the economics consultancy Frontier Economics, follows a study last year by the government's environmental advisers, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).

The commission found in favour of a barrage on condition that it be state funded and that the lost wetlands be compensated for elsewhere. The government is now doing its own feasibility studies.

The report challenges the idea that tidal energy from the Severn would be best for Britain. "The cycle of the tides in the Severn means that a barrage would not necessarily provide electricity at peak times."

It also suggests 5m tonnes of CO2 will be emitted during construction and another 5m tonnes emitted during transport of the materials - undermining claims that the barrage would help reduce emissions.

The group says that the real cost could be much higher than the widely quoted £15bn. "This does not take into account costs of land acquisition in Cardiff and Weston or the creation of new wildlife habitats to compensate for the lost land."

The coalition also rejects the SDC condition that the barrage be built and run by the state as it would be of such national importance. This, says the report's author, Matthew Bell, would not be permitted under Treasury rules, and would not, anyway, warrant special government subsidies or other forms of public investment. Bell said: "It is hard to think of reasons for the public sector to build or operate a barrage which would not be equally applicable to many other projects and assets that sit in the private sector. Not only is the private sector more than able to finance a scheme of this scale but, even using the most conservative estimates of costs, the barrage is one of the most expensive options for clean energy generation there is."

Graham Wynne, chief executive of the RSPB, said: "There are good reasons for trying to harness the energy potential of the Severn estuary. But the estuary is truly exceptional for its ecological value. The [SDC] has already confirmed that a barrage would fundamentally change the nature of the estuary. Frontier's report shows that this exorbitantly expensive and massively damaging proposal cannot be justified on economic grounds - there are simply too many cheaper options for clean energy generation."

Tony Burton, strategy director at the National Trust, said: "The Severn estuary is a unique and valuable asset, rich in wildlife and striking landscapes. While we support strong action to tackle climate change, we need to do this in a cost-effective way and respect the importance of our natural environment. This study demonstrates that the government should consider other ways of meeting our renewable targets which make better use of public money and are at less cost to the environment."

The land that would be submerged hosts about 68,000 birds in winter, including huge flocks of dunlins and shelducks, together with Bewick's swans, curlews, pintails, wigeons and redshanks. Breeding birds feeding on the estuary in summer include curlews, shelducks and oystercatchers. At least 30,000 salmon and tens of thousands of shads, lampreys and sea trout use the estuary to reach spawning grounds in the Usk and Wye rivers. Eels swim back down these rivers to reach spawning grounds at sea and millions of elvers return in the spring.
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Independent on line: G8 summit tackle climate change

Hans Pienaar

June 12 2008 at 08:37AM
A few months before the upcoming G8 summit, little cloth bags with sweets were being sold in shops around Lake Toya on Hokkaido island, where it will be held.
They showed the eight richest nations' leaders sitting in a hot-spring bath scrubbing each other's backs.
There was some daring involved, since Germany's Angela Merkel is behind France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and men and women don't bathe together in Japan's nudist public baths.
But the message has more to do with the scepticism with which ordinary Japanese, and probably G8 citizens around the world, regard the annual jamboree.
The area around Lake Toya abounds in ironies, some clanging, others more subtle. Close by is Usu, one of the world's youngest volcanoes, which erupted in 1945, gobbling up a small village. It has since erupted five times, once every generation, so there is some risk to gathering here.
The 50 000 people in the municipality of Toyako bravely voice the slogan "Learning to live with the Volcano" when asked about the folly of remaining on the slopes of a mound of smoking, freshly red earth that is 200?C in the shade. Always!
Their no-matter-what-it-takes optimism is expressed in a delightful phrase used in the piped introduction on the funicular to the opposite mountain, which has itself moved 100m in the past 30 years.
The volcano last erupted in 1972, the voice says brightly, and was since "fully used in developing tourism".
One will be able to detect the same sort of sentiment behind the doings of the G8, who will have pesky natural things such as climate change at the top of its agenda. Their slogan could well be: "Use up the Earth fully and then learn how to live with it."

Hokkaido is Japan's least populated island, in summer a feast of green forest, rushing rivers and neat beds of poppies, daffodils and other lavish flowers on the verges of fertile fields. Five-million Japanese from elsewhere visit Lake Toya every year on escapes into nature.