Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug rose from his childhood on an Iowa farm to develop a type of wheat that helped feed the world, fostering a movement that is credited with saving up to 1 billion people from starvation.
Borlaug, 95, died last week from complications of cancer at his Dallas home, said Kathleen Phillips, a spokesman for Texas A&M University where Borlaug was a distinguished professor.
"Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN World Food Programme."His heart was as big as his brilliant mind, but it was his passion and compassion that moved the world."
He was known as the father of the "green revolution", which transformed agriculture through high-yield crop varieties and other innovations,helping to more than double world food production between 1960 and 1990.Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps 1 billion lives.
"He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much," said Dr Ed Runge, retired head of Texas A&M University's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and a close friend who persuaded Borlaug teach at the school."He made the world a better place - a much better place."
Borlaug began the work that led to his Nobel in Mexico at the end of World War II. There he developed diseaseresistant varieties of wheat that produced much more grain than traditional strains.
He and others later took those varieties and similarly improved strains of rice and corn to Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa. In Pakistan and India,two of the nations that benefited most from the new crop varieties, grain yields more than quadrupled.
His successes in the 1960s came just as experts warned that mass starvation was inevitable as the world's population boomed.
"More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world," Nobel Peace Prize committee chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award to Borlaug in 1970."We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace."
But Borlaug and the Green Revolution were also criticised in later decades for promoting practices that used fertiliser and pesticides, and focusing on a few high-yield crops that benefited large landowners.
Borlaug often said wheat was only a vehicle for his real interest, which was to improve people's lives.
"We must recognise the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life," he said in his Nobel acceptance speech."For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care."
Borlaug also pressed governments for farmer-friendly economic policies and improved infrastructure to make markets accessible. A 2006 book about Borlaug
is titled The Man Who Fed the World .Norman Ernest Borlaug was born March 25,1914, on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, and educated through the eighth grade in a one-room schoolhouse.
He left home during the Great Depression to study forestry at the University of Minnesota.While there he earned himself a place in the university's wrestling hall of fame and met his future wife, whom he married in 1937. Margaret Borlaug died in 2007 at the age of 95.
After a brief stint with the US Forest Service, Norman Borlaug returned to the University of Minnesota for a doctoral degree in plant pathology. He then worked as a microbiologist for DuPont, but soon left for a job with the Rockefeller Foundation. Between 1944 and 1960,Borlaug dedicated himself to increasing Mexico's wheat production.
In 1963, Borlaug was named head of the newly formed International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, where he trained thousands of young scientists.
Borlaug retired as head of the centre in 1979 and turned to university teaching,first at Cornell University and then at Texas A&M, which presented him with an honorary doctorate in December 2007.
He remained active well into his nineties, campaigning for the use of biotechnology to fight hunger. He also helped found and served as president of the Sasakawa Africa Foundation, an organisation funded by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa to introduce the green revolution to sub-Saharan Africa.
In 1986, Borlaug established the Des Moines, Iowa-based World Food Prize,a $250,000 award given each year to a person whose work improves the world's food supply.
He received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honour given by Congress, in 2007.
He is survived by daughter Jeanie Borlaug Laube and her husband Rex; son William Gibson Borlaug and his wife Barbie; five grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wetlands once more
Project temporarily floods agricultural fields to restore declining shorebird habitat and boost crops
The request struck Dave Hedlin,a farmer in Washington's fertile Skagit Valley, as particularly odd - conservationists wanted him to voluntarily flood his fields.
Most of us have spent our entire lifetimes trying to keep water off the land,said Hedlin, whose farmlands are nestled among inlets, bays and estuaries in the shadow of the snow-capped Mount Baker Volcano.
But he decided to take part in a pilot project run by the Nature Conservancy,which temporarily floods agricultural fields to restore shorebird habitat.
The flooding would be part of his farms regular crop rotation, and in theory would pay for itself by filling the fields with natural fertiliser, drowning diseasecausing bacteria in soil and boosting crop yields.
In turn, the wetlands would again become a rest and refuelling station for migratory shorebirds between their Arctic breeding grounds and southern winter retreats.
Of the 53 shorebirds that breed in North America, more than half are at grave risk, according to the US Shorebird Conservation Plan, a programme run by a coalition of public and private organisations.
After three years, early results suggest that the project is working: fifteen shorebird species have returned to the restored wetlands.
So far, three participating farmers have been happy with the experiment,including Hedlin, who said that he has not suffered financially.
Before the valley was converted to agriculture at the beginning of the 20th century, its wetlands had teemed with crustaceans, fish and bugs.
But since the wetlands became farmlands, most of the 50,000-some birds that visit each year feed in the nearby estuaries instead.
"We've totally changed this landscape," said Julie Morse, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy in Mount Vernon, also in the Skagit Valley.
"It used to be tidally influenced, but now it is very much a dyked system."
The Skagit Valley project is modelled after a 10-year-old walking wetlands concept in the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon and northern California, where farmland within a wildlife refuge is placed on a wetland rotation.
Laura Payne, a wildlife ecologist based at the University of Washington in Seattle,called the project an innovative collaboration between farmers and conservationists.
"This idea has the potential for wide application, and I think it is absolutely relevant," Payne said.
If the project is successful, the Nature Conservancy plans to replicate the walking wetlands concept on farms throughout migratory-shorebird flyways, which extend from the Arctic to Central and South America.
"Loss of wetlands in coastal areas for farming has happened all around the world, so it could be implemented anywhere," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The three Skagit Valley farmers,including Hedlin, who signed up to participate in the project have also helped shape it.
"They asked for advice first off, instead of telling us what they wanted to do,"Hedlin said.
The team hatched a plan to flood select fields with a thin sheet of water no more than 4in.(10cm) deep - an ideal level for shorebirds for three years.The plots stayed flooded for the entire experiment.
Doing so required the farmers to build berms to prevent water from flooding their neighbours land.
Preliminary results of the first three years suggest a partial success.
In the first year,15 species of shorebirds used the flooded fields, and only two shorebird species used the grazed and green-chop fields pointing to a possible ecological benefit of the flooded parcels.
"The Nature Conservancy team has no data on how many shorebird species historically visited the wetlands, and only about three species had been spotted after the conversion to agriculture. So the team was pleased to see 15 species return," Morse said.
But by the second year, cat's tail in the flooded fields were more than 15 feet (5m) tall, which proved too difficult for the shorebirds to navigate. That year only eight shorebird species visited the fields.
"It is pretty amazing that you let nature go and it [returns to a native state] that quickly," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The conservationists are now considering plans to actively manage the flooded fields to keep them primed for shorebirds.
Farmers also saw a financial benefit:Nitrogen levels in the flooded fields increased on average by 50 pounds (23kg)per acre (0.4 hectare), which means that farmers may have spent less money on fertiliser.
Hedlin, the farmer, said he used the three-year flood to transition his field to organic, as fields have to sit fallow for three years for organic certification.
"We had a positive experience and didn't go backward financially," Hedlin said. The Nature Conservancy's Morse is now comparing how much money is gained on a grazed field versus a green chop field versus a flooded field.
"The big thing that we are doing that they haven't done in the Klamath is really trying to quantify how much value it provides to the farmers and how much [shorebird] habitat it provides," Morse said.
"And were comparing the ecological benefits of those three habitats as well,"she added.
Mark Colwell, a wildlife biologist at Humboldt State University in Arcata,California, praised the projects innovation.
"But helping migratory shorebirds bounce back is not easy," Colwell said.
Habitats such as the Skagit Valley and the Klamath Basin can be thought of as links in a chain along the migratoryshorebird flyway.
You can do stuff at a series of links in the chain up and down the flyway, but if at one site there's a serious problem there, well, the whole population could plummet.
Nevertheless, Colwell added, enough of these projects spread out along the flyway could help birds find enough food over the courses of their annual migrations.
The University of Washington's Payne noted that migratory shorebirds are opportunistic, particularly along inland flyways where wetland conditions are unpredictable.
"They know a good habitat when they see one, such as a normally dry area that floods in a particularly wet year,"Payne said.
Alternative habitats such as temporarily flooded fields, she said, suits this group of species.
The request struck Dave Hedlin,a farmer in Washington's fertile Skagit Valley, as particularly odd - conservationists wanted him to voluntarily flood his fields.
Most of us have spent our entire lifetimes trying to keep water off the land,said Hedlin, whose farmlands are nestled among inlets, bays and estuaries in the shadow of the snow-capped Mount Baker Volcano.
But he decided to take part in a pilot project run by the Nature Conservancy,which temporarily floods agricultural fields to restore shorebird habitat.
The flooding would be part of his farms regular crop rotation, and in theory would pay for itself by filling the fields with natural fertiliser, drowning diseasecausing bacteria in soil and boosting crop yields.
In turn, the wetlands would again become a rest and refuelling station for migratory shorebirds between their Arctic breeding grounds and southern winter retreats.
Of the 53 shorebirds that breed in North America, more than half are at grave risk, according to the US Shorebird Conservation Plan, a programme run by a coalition of public and private organisations.
After three years, early results suggest that the project is working: fifteen shorebird species have returned to the restored wetlands.
So far, three participating farmers have been happy with the experiment,including Hedlin, who said that he has not suffered financially.
Before the valley was converted to agriculture at the beginning of the 20th century, its wetlands had teemed with crustaceans, fish and bugs.
But since the wetlands became farmlands, most of the 50,000-some birds that visit each year feed in the nearby estuaries instead.
"We've totally changed this landscape," said Julie Morse, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy in Mount Vernon, also in the Skagit Valley.
"It used to be tidally influenced, but now it is very much a dyked system."
The Skagit Valley project is modelled after a 10-year-old walking wetlands concept in the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon and northern California, where farmland within a wildlife refuge is placed on a wetland rotation.
Laura Payne, a wildlife ecologist based at the University of Washington in Seattle,called the project an innovative collaboration between farmers and conservationists.
"This idea has the potential for wide application, and I think it is absolutely relevant," Payne said.
If the project is successful, the Nature Conservancy plans to replicate the walking wetlands concept on farms throughout migratory-shorebird flyways, which extend from the Arctic to Central and South America.
"Loss of wetlands in coastal areas for farming has happened all around the world, so it could be implemented anywhere," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The three Skagit Valley farmers,including Hedlin, who signed up to participate in the project have also helped shape it.
"They asked for advice first off, instead of telling us what they wanted to do,"Hedlin said.
The team hatched a plan to flood select fields with a thin sheet of water no more than 4in.(10cm) deep - an ideal level for shorebirds for three years.The plots stayed flooded for the entire experiment.
Doing so required the farmers to build berms to prevent water from flooding their neighbours land.
Preliminary results of the first three years suggest a partial success.
In the first year,15 species of shorebirds used the flooded fields, and only two shorebird species used the grazed and green-chop fields pointing to a possible ecological benefit of the flooded parcels.
"The Nature Conservancy team has no data on how many shorebird species historically visited the wetlands, and only about three species had been spotted after the conversion to agriculture. So the team was pleased to see 15 species return," Morse said.
But by the second year, cat's tail in the flooded fields were more than 15 feet (5m) tall, which proved too difficult for the shorebirds to navigate. That year only eight shorebird species visited the fields.
"It is pretty amazing that you let nature go and it [returns to a native state] that quickly," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The conservationists are now considering plans to actively manage the flooded fields to keep them primed for shorebirds.
Farmers also saw a financial benefit:Nitrogen levels in the flooded fields increased on average by 50 pounds (23kg)per acre (0.4 hectare), which means that farmers may have spent less money on fertiliser.
Hedlin, the farmer, said he used the three-year flood to transition his field to organic, as fields have to sit fallow for three years for organic certification.
"We had a positive experience and didn't go backward financially," Hedlin said. The Nature Conservancy's Morse is now comparing how much money is gained on a grazed field versus a green chop field versus a flooded field.
"The big thing that we are doing that they haven't done in the Klamath is really trying to quantify how much value it provides to the farmers and how much [shorebird] habitat it provides," Morse said.
"And were comparing the ecological benefits of those three habitats as well,"she added.
Mark Colwell, a wildlife biologist at Humboldt State University in Arcata,California, praised the projects innovation.
"But helping migratory shorebirds bounce back is not easy," Colwell said.
Habitats such as the Skagit Valley and the Klamath Basin can be thought of as links in a chain along the migratoryshorebird flyway.
You can do stuff at a series of links in the chain up and down the flyway, but if at one site there's a serious problem there, well, the whole population could plummet.
Nevertheless, Colwell added, enough of these projects spread out along the flyway could help birds find enough food over the courses of their annual migrations.
The University of Washington's Payne noted that migratory shorebirds are opportunistic, particularly along inland flyways where wetland conditions are unpredictable.
"They know a good habitat when they see one, such as a normally dry area that floods in a particularly wet year,"Payne said.
Alternative habitats such as temporarily flooded fields, she said, suits this group of species.
Sound familiar?
Your TOT crossed its heart and hoped to die if it fails to have actual third-generation mobile phone service in a little corner of Bangkok before New Year's Eve; Vichien Narkseenuan, the firm's senior executive president for vice, said he expects to sign a deal Real Soon Now with a socalled mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that will carry the TOT service,although no names, please; Mr Vichien promised "about" 500,000 numbers would be available; real yuppiephone networks scoffed at the TOT offer to let them in on the deal, because they fear that if they rent a network now, the National Telecommunications Commission won't let them bid for a licence to run their own 3G services.
Vichien Narkseenuan, the senior executive president of vice for your TOT ,said that the state monopoly plans to open a third-generation (3G) phone service with 100,000 numbers, and serving the entire country; TOT has no intention of building its own base stations,though, and will rent them from real phone companies; Mr Vichien forgot to mention when this nationwide 3G service might start for the lucky 100,000.
The National Telecommunications Commission announced it will open public hearings on third generation phones next Monday; Prasert Aphipunya, secretary in charge of vice for the NTC, said you should bring along a large truck load of money if you want to start the bidding for licences, say,oh, somewhere around 10 billion-witha-"b" baht; after next weeks' hearing,there will be a notice in the Royal Gazette ,and actual bidding for four (and only four) available licences may open as early as December; rules on all of this should be up on the NTC's website by now at www.ntc.co.th.
For the third time in a row, the strug-gling TT&T company won a multibillion-baht lawsuit against your TOT and for the third time in a row your TOT told them to pound sand; this time,an agree-upon arbitrator decided that TOT owed the up-country phone provider 2.3 billion baht in misguided revenue sharing for long distance calls;but TOT president Varut Suvakorn rejected the arbitration and told TT&T,"See ya in court, boys"; in case the Administrative Court rules against TOT yet again, Mr Varut said he was pretty sure the state firm didn't have that kind of money to pay off anyhow; TT&T explained that lawsuit number four is about to be filed.
No 2 yuppiephone firm DTAC of Norway opened its new headquarters in new Chamchuri Square , bragging that it spent one billion baht on the 19-floor (!) digs; all 3,200 DTAC employees relocated from the Chai Building to the new location at the Sam Yan intersection,overlooking Chulalongkorn University;CEO Tore Johnsen signed a 10-year lease for the 61,160-square-metre office,which includes the firm's main call centre; Mr Johnsen said new staff will work harder to pay the extra rent money; the kicker is that DTAC is asking the following price for the Chai Building one billion baht; Mr Johnsen said that DTAC was pressing ahead aggressively on its 3G trials and so on and etc and zzzzzzz.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul, apparently unaware that you can't spell "Thaksin" without "hub", said that Asean should become the energy exporting hub of the world; no, really,his reasoning is that Southeast Asia has so much food that it can make biofuels galore and sell it to the world at Arabesque profits; not only does Southeast Asia (sic) have a lot of extra food to feed the world's cars, it's, well, better "higher yields and more commercially viable for biofuel than corn and beetroot" from the US and Europe; to coin a phrase, in the klongs there are fish and in the fields there are biofuels.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul called in state firms and phuyai of the private sector for a heart-to-heart joint statement that everyone would cooperate on saving energy; this year's spin is that the programme will "save"100 billion baht, and Mr Wannarat got away unchallenged with a claim that a similar project last year saved 30 billion baht; the deal is that the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and the Thai Chamber of Commerce (TCC) and so on - 30,000 firms altogether - will work on conservation, purchase green technology and so on, and in return they will get some tax breaks and subsidies on loans taken through the energy services company fund (Esco); the minister is looking for one billion baht to fund Esco this year.
Vichien Narkseenuan, the senior executive president of vice for your TOT ,said that the state monopoly plans to open a third-generation (3G) phone service with 100,000 numbers, and serving the entire country; TOT has no intention of building its own base stations,though, and will rent them from real phone companies; Mr Vichien forgot to mention when this nationwide 3G service might start for the lucky 100,000.
The National Telecommunications Commission announced it will open public hearings on third generation phones next Monday; Prasert Aphipunya, secretary in charge of vice for the NTC, said you should bring along a large truck load of money if you want to start the bidding for licences, say,oh, somewhere around 10 billion-witha-"b" baht; after next weeks' hearing,there will be a notice in the Royal Gazette ,and actual bidding for four (and only four) available licences may open as early as December; rules on all of this should be up on the NTC's website by now at www.ntc.co.th.
For the third time in a row, the strug-gling TT&T company won a multibillion-baht lawsuit against your TOT and for the third time in a row your TOT told them to pound sand; this time,an agree-upon arbitrator decided that TOT owed the up-country phone provider 2.3 billion baht in misguided revenue sharing for long distance calls;but TOT president Varut Suvakorn rejected the arbitration and told TT&T,"See ya in court, boys"; in case the Administrative Court rules against TOT yet again, Mr Varut said he was pretty sure the state firm didn't have that kind of money to pay off anyhow; TT&T explained that lawsuit number four is about to be filed.
No 2 yuppiephone firm DTAC of Norway opened its new headquarters in new Chamchuri Square , bragging that it spent one billion baht on the 19-floor (!) digs; all 3,200 DTAC employees relocated from the Chai Building to the new location at the Sam Yan intersection,overlooking Chulalongkorn University;CEO Tore Johnsen signed a 10-year lease for the 61,160-square-metre office,which includes the firm's main call centre; Mr Johnsen said new staff will work harder to pay the extra rent money; the kicker is that DTAC is asking the following price for the Chai Building one billion baht; Mr Johnsen said that DTAC was pressing ahead aggressively on its 3G trials and so on and etc and zzzzzzz.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul, apparently unaware that you can't spell "Thaksin" without "hub", said that Asean should become the energy exporting hub of the world; no, really,his reasoning is that Southeast Asia has so much food that it can make biofuels galore and sell it to the world at Arabesque profits; not only does Southeast Asia (sic) have a lot of extra food to feed the world's cars, it's, well, better "higher yields and more commercially viable for biofuel than corn and beetroot" from the US and Europe; to coin a phrase, in the klongs there are fish and in the fields there are biofuels.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul called in state firms and phuyai of the private sector for a heart-to-heart joint statement that everyone would cooperate on saving energy; this year's spin is that the programme will "save"100 billion baht, and Mr Wannarat got away unchallenged with a claim that a similar project last year saved 30 billion baht; the deal is that the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and the Thai Chamber of Commerce (TCC) and so on - 30,000 firms altogether - will work on conservation, purchase green technology and so on, and in return they will get some tax breaks and subsidies on loans taken through the energy services company fund (Esco); the minister is looking for one billion baht to fund Esco this year.
Egat sells off three decommissioned Mae Moh generators
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand has sold three decommissioned generators from its Mae Moh power station for 297 million baht.
Egat sold the 25-year-old generators so it could mine lignite coal located under the units, the assistant director for production at Mae Moh, Polrit Setthakamnerd, said.
The generators were taken out of service between nine and 10 years ago.
Thepprathanporn Construction and Recycle Co of Bangkok bought the three generators for 297 million baht on Sept 9 in an electronic auction. Eight other companies meeting Egat's selection criteria participated in the auction.
Thepprathanporn will remove the plants fromMae Moh compound in 18 months. An Egat source said the com-pany was expected to use the generators at its power plants in Indonesia.
Egat started building the three generators at the Mae Moh lignite mine in 1975. They began generating and distributing electricity in 1978,1979 and 1981, respectively, Mr Polrit said.
The first plant was decommissioned on Oct 1,1999, and the other two followed on March 1,2000.
The three units must be removed by 2011, Mr Polrit said. Mae Moh now has another 10 generating units in operation.
The power station has been at the heart of an environmental controversy for years.
Greenpeace in 2004 said the power station released 1.6 million tonnes of sulphur gas into the air every day, making it the largest source of sulphur dioxide in Thailand.
Egat sold the 25-year-old generators so it could mine lignite coal located under the units, the assistant director for production at Mae Moh, Polrit Setthakamnerd, said.
The generators were taken out of service between nine and 10 years ago.
Thepprathanporn Construction and Recycle Co of Bangkok bought the three generators for 297 million baht on Sept 9 in an electronic auction. Eight other companies meeting Egat's selection criteria participated in the auction.
Thepprathanporn will remove the plants fromMae Moh compound in 18 months. An Egat source said the com-pany was expected to use the generators at its power plants in Indonesia.
Egat started building the three generators at the Mae Moh lignite mine in 1975. They began generating and distributing electricity in 1978,1979 and 1981, respectively, Mr Polrit said.
The first plant was decommissioned on Oct 1,1999, and the other two followed on March 1,2000.
The three units must be removed by 2011, Mr Polrit said. Mae Moh now has another 10 generating units in operation.
The power station has been at the heart of an environmental controversy for years.
Greenpeace in 2004 said the power station released 1.6 million tonnes of sulphur gas into the air every day, making it the largest source of sulphur dioxide in Thailand.
Edge back from the abyss - it's time to deliver
...the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets.If we don't sort this out, it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
Climate change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation of politicians.
I am now very concerned about the prospects for Copenhagen. The negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment - and such a deadlock may go far beyond a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year. It risks being an acrimonious collapse, perhaps on the basis of a deep split between the developed and developing countries. The world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome.
So I hope that as world leaders peer over the edge of the abyss in New York and Pittsburgh this week, we will collectively conclude that we have to play an active part in driving the negotiations forward.
Now is not the time for poker playing.Now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. That is exactly what Europe has done, and will continue to do.
Part of the answer lies in identifying the heart of the potential bargain that might yet bring us to a successful result, and here I think that the world leaders gathering in New York can make a real difference.
The first part of the bargain is that all developed countries need to clarify their plans on mid-term emissions reductions,and show the necessary leadership, not least in line with our responsibilities for past emissions. If we want to achieve at least an 80% reduction by 2050, developed countries must strive to achieve the necessary collective 25-40% reductions by 2020. The EU is ready to go from 20% to 30% if others make comparable efforts.
Second, developed countries must now explicitly recognise that we will all have to play a significant part in helping to finance mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries.
Our estimate is that by 2020, developing countries will need roughly an additional 100 billion euros (US$150 billion) a year to tackle climate change. Part of it will be financed from economically advanced developing countries themselves. The biggest share should come from the carbon market,if we have the courage to set up an ambitious global scheme.
But some will need to come in flows of public finance from developed to developing countries, perhaps from 22 billion to 50 billion euros ($30- $70 billion) a year by 2020. Almost half of this amount will be required to support adaptation action giving priority to the most vulnerable and poor developing countries.
Depending on the outcome of internation-al burden-sharing discussions, the EU's share of that could be anything from 10% to 30%,i.e. up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year.
We will need to be ready, in other words,to make a significant contribution in the medium term, and also to look at shortterm "start up funding" for developing countries in the next year or so. I look forward to discussing this with EU leaders when we meet at the end of October.
So we need to signal our readiness to talk finance this week. The counterpart is that developing countries, at least the economically advanced amongst them, have to be much clearer on what they are ready to do to mitigate carbon emissions as part of an international agreement.
They are already putting in place domestic measures to limit carbon emissions but they clearly need to step up such efforts - particularly the most advanced developing countries. They understandably stress that the availability of carbon finance from the rich world is a pre-requisite to mitigation action on their part, as indeed agreed in Bali.
But the developed world will have nothing to finance if there is no commitment to such action.
We have less than 80 calendar days to go till Copenhagen. As of the Bonn meeting last month, the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets. If we don't sort this out,it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
This week in New York and Pittsburgh promises to be a pivotal one, if only as it will reveal how much global leaders are ready to invest in these negotiations, to push for a successful outcome. The choice is simple:no money, no deal. But no actions, no money!
Copenhagen is a critical occasion to shift,collectively, onto an emissions trajectory that keeps global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3,6 Fahrenheit]. So the fight-back has to begin this week in New York and continue in Bangkok on Sept 28,2009.
Jose Manuel Barroso is President of the European Commission.
Climate change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation of politicians.
I am now very concerned about the prospects for Copenhagen. The negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment - and such a deadlock may go far beyond a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year. It risks being an acrimonious collapse, perhaps on the basis of a deep split between the developed and developing countries. The world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome.
So I hope that as world leaders peer over the edge of the abyss in New York and Pittsburgh this week, we will collectively conclude that we have to play an active part in driving the negotiations forward.
Now is not the time for poker playing.Now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. That is exactly what Europe has done, and will continue to do.
Part of the answer lies in identifying the heart of the potential bargain that might yet bring us to a successful result, and here I think that the world leaders gathering in New York can make a real difference.
The first part of the bargain is that all developed countries need to clarify their plans on mid-term emissions reductions,and show the necessary leadership, not least in line with our responsibilities for past emissions. If we want to achieve at least an 80% reduction by 2050, developed countries must strive to achieve the necessary collective 25-40% reductions by 2020. The EU is ready to go from 20% to 30% if others make comparable efforts.
Second, developed countries must now explicitly recognise that we will all have to play a significant part in helping to finance mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries.
Our estimate is that by 2020, developing countries will need roughly an additional 100 billion euros (US$150 billion) a year to tackle climate change. Part of it will be financed from economically advanced developing countries themselves. The biggest share should come from the carbon market,if we have the courage to set up an ambitious global scheme.
But some will need to come in flows of public finance from developed to developing countries, perhaps from 22 billion to 50 billion euros ($30- $70 billion) a year by 2020. Almost half of this amount will be required to support adaptation action giving priority to the most vulnerable and poor developing countries.
Depending on the outcome of internation-al burden-sharing discussions, the EU's share of that could be anything from 10% to 30%,i.e. up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year.
We will need to be ready, in other words,to make a significant contribution in the medium term, and also to look at shortterm "start up funding" for developing countries in the next year or so. I look forward to discussing this with EU leaders when we meet at the end of October.
So we need to signal our readiness to talk finance this week. The counterpart is that developing countries, at least the economically advanced amongst them, have to be much clearer on what they are ready to do to mitigate carbon emissions as part of an international agreement.
They are already putting in place domestic measures to limit carbon emissions but they clearly need to step up such efforts - particularly the most advanced developing countries. They understandably stress that the availability of carbon finance from the rich world is a pre-requisite to mitigation action on their part, as indeed agreed in Bali.
But the developed world will have nothing to finance if there is no commitment to such action.
We have less than 80 calendar days to go till Copenhagen. As of the Bonn meeting last month, the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets. If we don't sort this out,it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
This week in New York and Pittsburgh promises to be a pivotal one, if only as it will reveal how much global leaders are ready to invest in these negotiations, to push for a successful outcome. The choice is simple:no money, no deal. But no actions, no money!
Copenhagen is a critical occasion to shift,collectively, onto an emissions trajectory that keeps global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3,6 Fahrenheit]. So the fight-back has to begin this week in New York and continue in Bangkok on Sept 28,2009.
Jose Manuel Barroso is President of the European Commission.
TOGETHER WE CAN MEET THE CLIMATE-CHANGE CHALLENGE
US President Barack Obama will speak to world leaders on climate change during a special UN summit in New York on the eve of the 64th session of the UN General Assembly.
The nations of the world are working hard right now to negotiate a new international agreement to combat climate change.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing our world today. Already its impacts are apparent and consequences severe. Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than expected. Sea levels threaten to rise higher than previously anticipated. And water supplies are increasingly at risk from both melting glaciers and extreme climate events, such as droughts and floods. These changes threaten not only the environment, but also security and stability.
The science sends a simple and stark message: All countries must work together to combat climate change, and the time for action is now.
President Obama recognises that the United States must be a leader in the global effort to combat climate change. We have a responsibility as the world's largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases. We know that without US emissions reductions, no solution to climate change is possible, so the US will take the lead in building a 21 st-century clean energy economy.
When it comes to climate change, President Obama is taking the US in a new direction. The President called on the US Congress to develop comprehensive clean energy legislation to cut emissions 14 per cent from 2005 levels and 83 per cent in 2050. A bill has passed the House of Representatives and is making its way through Congress. The President's economic stimulus package includes over US$80 billion for clean energy. And recently instituted vehicle standards will increase fuel economy and reduce emissions.
But action by the US and other developed nations is not enough. To preserve a safe and liveable planet, all major emitting nations have to join together to take strong action. There is no other way to contain climate change - the International Energy Agency estimates 97 per cent of future emissions growth will come from the developing world.
The US is pursuing a global strategy to combat climate change through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiating process, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate and key bilateral relationships. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other high-level US officials have travelled to several major developing nations to deepen the climate dialogue and explore opportunities for progress. Many of these countries have already taken steps to address climate change; yet they will need to do much more.
To achieve a strong international agreement and meet the climate challenge, all countries must be fully engaged. Developed countries need to reduce their emissions substantially by 2020 on an absolute basis, compared to a 2005 or 1990 baseline. Major developing nations must take actions that will substantially reduce their emissions by 2020 on a relative basis, compared to their so-called "business as usual" path. Other developing countries should focus on preparing low-carbon growth plans - with financial and technical assistance where needed - to guide their longer-term development path.
Ultimately, a climate change agreement must be about not only limiting carbon emissions but also about providing a safe pathway for sustainable development. Clean energy development is the only sustainable way forward. To facilitate this path, countries with advanced capabilities must stand ready to develop and disseminate technologies to countries in need.
If we work together, the effort to build a clean energy global economy can provide significant economic opportunity, driving investment, economic growth and job creation around the world. And it can be a means to bring energy services to hundreds of millions of the world's poor. With the right support, developing countries can leapfrog dirty phases of development directly to low-carbon technologies and clean energy opportunities.
We are mindful that Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations are among the most at risk from the effects of climate change. For Thailand, rising sea levels threaten Bangkok with inundation, while coastal populations face the danger of more severe natural disasters, such as tsunamis. As the world's number-one rice exporter, Thailand is a key nation for the region's food security, and projected increases in the severity of droughts and floods are a major risk. Advances in agricultural technology are one answer to such threats to food production. We are pleased to see that Thailand has taken the threat seriously, establishing a well-staffed office within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment devoted to climate change.
Though not a major emitter of greenhouse gases, Thailand is playing an important role as a regional leader in promoting clean and alternative energy technologies and practices that can help reduce emissions in other countries. While the US has supported Thailand with sustained assistance in the past, today the US and Thailand are working increasingly in partnership to meet climate change and related challenges to the environment.
Secretary of State Clinton announced in July an important engagement with the countries of the lower Mekong River, where addressing climate change impacts will be key for maintaining food security. Other US agencies, such as the US Agency for International Development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, are actively collaborating with Thailand and other partners in the region on climate change-related issues. An exciting new programme between the US Geological Survey and the Mekong nations to establish a network for sharing scientific data on river systems will better inform decision-making relating to the Mekong River and its associated agricultural resources.
The US is clear in its intent to secure a strong international agreement, and I am confident that together we can meet the climate change challenge.
Eric G John is the US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand.
The nations of the world are working hard right now to negotiate a new international agreement to combat climate change.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing our world today. Already its impacts are apparent and consequences severe. Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than expected. Sea levels threaten to rise higher than previously anticipated. And water supplies are increasingly at risk from both melting glaciers and extreme climate events, such as droughts and floods. These changes threaten not only the environment, but also security and stability.
The science sends a simple and stark message: All countries must work together to combat climate change, and the time for action is now.
President Obama recognises that the United States must be a leader in the global effort to combat climate change. We have a responsibility as the world's largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases. We know that without US emissions reductions, no solution to climate change is possible, so the US will take the lead in building a 21 st-century clean energy economy.
When it comes to climate change, President Obama is taking the US in a new direction. The President called on the US Congress to develop comprehensive clean energy legislation to cut emissions 14 per cent from 2005 levels and 83 per cent in 2050. A bill has passed the House of Representatives and is making its way through Congress. The President's economic stimulus package includes over US$80 billion for clean energy. And recently instituted vehicle standards will increase fuel economy and reduce emissions.
But action by the US and other developed nations is not enough. To preserve a safe and liveable planet, all major emitting nations have to join together to take strong action. There is no other way to contain climate change - the International Energy Agency estimates 97 per cent of future emissions growth will come from the developing world.
The US is pursuing a global strategy to combat climate change through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiating process, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate and key bilateral relationships. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other high-level US officials have travelled to several major developing nations to deepen the climate dialogue and explore opportunities for progress. Many of these countries have already taken steps to address climate change; yet they will need to do much more.
To achieve a strong international agreement and meet the climate challenge, all countries must be fully engaged. Developed countries need to reduce their emissions substantially by 2020 on an absolute basis, compared to a 2005 or 1990 baseline. Major developing nations must take actions that will substantially reduce their emissions by 2020 on a relative basis, compared to their so-called "business as usual" path. Other developing countries should focus on preparing low-carbon growth plans - with financial and technical assistance where needed - to guide their longer-term development path.
Ultimately, a climate change agreement must be about not only limiting carbon emissions but also about providing a safe pathway for sustainable development. Clean energy development is the only sustainable way forward. To facilitate this path, countries with advanced capabilities must stand ready to develop and disseminate technologies to countries in need.
If we work together, the effort to build a clean energy global economy can provide significant economic opportunity, driving investment, economic growth and job creation around the world. And it can be a means to bring energy services to hundreds of millions of the world's poor. With the right support, developing countries can leapfrog dirty phases of development directly to low-carbon technologies and clean energy opportunities.
We are mindful that Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations are among the most at risk from the effects of climate change. For Thailand, rising sea levels threaten Bangkok with inundation, while coastal populations face the danger of more severe natural disasters, such as tsunamis. As the world's number-one rice exporter, Thailand is a key nation for the region's food security, and projected increases in the severity of droughts and floods are a major risk. Advances in agricultural technology are one answer to such threats to food production. We are pleased to see that Thailand has taken the threat seriously, establishing a well-staffed office within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment devoted to climate change.
Though not a major emitter of greenhouse gases, Thailand is playing an important role as a regional leader in promoting clean and alternative energy technologies and practices that can help reduce emissions in other countries. While the US has supported Thailand with sustained assistance in the past, today the US and Thailand are working increasingly in partnership to meet climate change and related challenges to the environment.
Secretary of State Clinton announced in July an important engagement with the countries of the lower Mekong River, where addressing climate change impacts will be key for maintaining food security. Other US agencies, such as the US Agency for International Development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, are actively collaborating with Thailand and other partners in the region on climate change-related issues. An exciting new programme between the US Geological Survey and the Mekong nations to establish a network for sharing scientific data on river systems will better inform decision-making relating to the Mekong River and its associated agricultural resources.
The US is clear in its intent to secure a strong international agreement, and I am confident that together we can meet the climate change challenge.
Eric G John is the US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand.
World deltas erode as land sinks, seas rise
Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught in the scissors of sinking land and rising seas, according to a study published on Sunday.
The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 855 of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres.
Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50% this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects.
Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says.
Human activities, including diversion of water and the creation of dams for hydroelectric power or to create reservoirs can radically alter delta ecosystems. Dams block sedimentation which can cause the delta to erode away. The use of water upstream can greatly increase salinity levels as less fresh water flows to meet the salty ocean water.
On a five-tier scale, three of the 11 deltas in the highest-risk category are in China: the Yellow River delta in the north, the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, and the Pearl River delta next to Guangzhou.
The Nile in Egypt, the Chao Phraya in Thailand and the Rhone River delta in France are also in the top tier of danger.
Just below these in vulnerability are seven other highly-populated deltas,including the Ganges in Bangladesh,the Irrawaddy in Burma, the Mekong in Vietnam and the Mississippi in the United States.
These flood plains and others all face a double-barrelled threat, reports the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience .On the one side, a range of human activity - especially over the last halfcentury -has caused many delta regions to subside.
Without human interference, deltas naturally accumulate sediment as rivers swell and spread over vast areas of land. But upstream damming and river diversions have held back the layers that would normally build up.
Intensive subsurface mining has also contributed mightily to the problem,notes the study, led by James Syvitski of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.
The Chao Phraya delta, for example,has sunk 50 to 150 millimetres per year as a result of groundwater withdrawal,while a 3.7-metre subsidence of the Po delta in Italy during the 20th century was due to methane mining.
Indeed, oil and gas mining contribute to so-called "accelerated compaction"in many of the most vulnerable deltas,according to the study, the first to analyse a decade's worth of global daily satellite images.
The other major threat is rising sea levels driven by global warming.
In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted oceans would rise by 18-59cm by 2100.
More recent studies that take into account the impact of melting icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica have revised that estimate upwards to at least a metre by century's end.
The already devastating impact of such increases will be amplified by more intense storms and hurricanes, along with the loss of natural barriers such as mangroves.
In the Irrawaddy delta the coastal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis last year flooded an area up to six metres above sea level, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.
"All trends point to ever-increasing areas of deltas sinking below mean sea level," the study said."It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trends seems to be worsening."
The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 855 of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres.
Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50% this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects.
Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says.
Human activities, including diversion of water and the creation of dams for hydroelectric power or to create reservoirs can radically alter delta ecosystems. Dams block sedimentation which can cause the delta to erode away. The use of water upstream can greatly increase salinity levels as less fresh water flows to meet the salty ocean water.
On a five-tier scale, three of the 11 deltas in the highest-risk category are in China: the Yellow River delta in the north, the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, and the Pearl River delta next to Guangzhou.
The Nile in Egypt, the Chao Phraya in Thailand and the Rhone River delta in France are also in the top tier of danger.
Just below these in vulnerability are seven other highly-populated deltas,including the Ganges in Bangladesh,the Irrawaddy in Burma, the Mekong in Vietnam and the Mississippi in the United States.
These flood plains and others all face a double-barrelled threat, reports the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience .On the one side, a range of human activity - especially over the last halfcentury -has caused many delta regions to subside.
Without human interference, deltas naturally accumulate sediment as rivers swell and spread over vast areas of land. But upstream damming and river diversions have held back the layers that would normally build up.
Intensive subsurface mining has also contributed mightily to the problem,notes the study, led by James Syvitski of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.
The Chao Phraya delta, for example,has sunk 50 to 150 millimetres per year as a result of groundwater withdrawal,while a 3.7-metre subsidence of the Po delta in Italy during the 20th century was due to methane mining.
Indeed, oil and gas mining contribute to so-called "accelerated compaction"in many of the most vulnerable deltas,according to the study, the first to analyse a decade's worth of global daily satellite images.
The other major threat is rising sea levels driven by global warming.
In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted oceans would rise by 18-59cm by 2100.
More recent studies that take into account the impact of melting icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica have revised that estimate upwards to at least a metre by century's end.
The already devastating impact of such increases will be amplified by more intense storms and hurricanes, along with the loss of natural barriers such as mangroves.
In the Irrawaddy delta the coastal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis last year flooded an area up to six metres above sea level, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.
"All trends point to ever-increasing areas of deltas sinking below mean sea level," the study said."It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trends seems to be worsening."
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