In the wake of a United Nations' report last week that declared a world water crisis, concerned Asian leaders are planning concerted action to deal with the lack of clean water in their region.
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Japan on Tuesday announced that it will invite heads of government from 47 countries to attend a summit next year on the subject of water in the Asia-Pacific region.
The summit is being organized by a new private group called the Asia-Pacific Water Forum. The group has reported that nearly two billion people in the Asia-Pacific region do not to have access to basic sanitation, and some 655 million are without safe drinking water.
Former Japanese PM Yoshiro Mori
The forum, launched in Manila in September, is headed by former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori. Mr. Mori addressed ambassadors and other representatives of some 50 countries and international organizations in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Mr. Mori says he feels, for the first time, that nations in the region are committed to confronting water-related crises.
The summit will also address water-related disasters, such as floods and tsunami, to which Asia-Pacific nations are particularly vulnerable.
Bangladesh's ambassador to Japan says countries such as his, which have long struggled with water-related crises, can contribute practical knowledge to help others in the region.
Bangladesh's Ambassador Ashraf ud-Doula at APWF summit announcement
Ashraf ud-Doula points to his country's success with providing nearly all of its people with access to clean drinking water, virtually eliminating water-borne diseases and significantly reducing flood casualties. But he says funding will have to come from the wealthier nations.
"We can share our experience, how we have been able to effectively control, tackle, these issues," he said. "But, on the other hand, there is a need to have a partnership between the countries which are affected by the water-related issues, and the countries which can afford to fund the projects."
The group and the summit will also be supported by a number of United Nations agencies and various regional organizations, including the Asia Development Bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation.
The summit meeting is to be held in the Japanese resort city of Beppu in December of next year.
2007年9月21日星期五
Indonesian Forest Fires Threaten Wildlife, Environment
Conservationists in Indonesia have warned that fires set to clear land have killed and injured hundreds of endangered orangutans. Environmentalists are also concerned the burning of rainforest and peat bogs is contributing to global warming.
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Smoke from land-clearing fires has closed several airports, threatening travel chaos as millions prepare to return home to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month Ramadan in Indonesia, Oct.19, 2006
Widespread fires in Indonesia have claimed millions of hectares of land this year on Sumatra and Kalimantan - the Indonesian part of Borneo - destroying sensitive wildlife habitat and spewing out a thick haze that has choked neighboring countries.
Palm oil companies, loggers and farmers set fires during the dry season each year to prepare land for crops, but the blazes often rage out of control.
The area destroyed this year was some of the only remaining habitat left for orangutans, a protected species with a rapidly declining population.
The only great apes living outside Africa, orangutans can only be found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, which is divided between Indonesia and Malaysia.
Willie Smits, coordinator of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, says time is running out for the endangered primates.
He said, "The populations are all extremely threatened because of the fragmentation of the forest. You need a minimum of three thousand orangutans to have a thousand year chance of survival and that forest has to stay intact in one big piece. There's only two or three years left in which we can prevent that these remaining populations are going to become extinct."
Smits says that only one in three orangutan young are estimated to live, and mothers only give birth on average once every eight or nine years.
Staff of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Center prepare to treat an orangutan after it came out of burning jungle, November 6, 2006 in Mantangai, Kalimantan, Indonesia
Smits adds that the forest habitat, in particular the sensitive peat moss bogs known as "domes", should not only be protected for the benefit of wildlife, but also to stop the rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
"If we look at the amount of carbon in the peat that is being released because of the collapsing domes and the fires, that amount is huge," he said.
"If we would lose the tropical peat swamps, of which Indonesia has more than 50 percent in the world, we would be looking at a doubling of global emissions for the next thirty years."
Fires in peat bogs are particularly hard to stop, because they can smolder underground for weeks without being detected.
Smits says orangutans that survive the fires often flee toward water, where they are more likely to encounter humans.
The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation rescued 137 injured orangutans in central Kalimantan from fires or from assault by humans during the land-clearing season, but discovered the remains of many more.
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Smoke from land-clearing fires has closed several airports, threatening travel chaos as millions prepare to return home to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month Ramadan in Indonesia, Oct.19, 2006
Widespread fires in Indonesia have claimed millions of hectares of land this year on Sumatra and Kalimantan - the Indonesian part of Borneo - destroying sensitive wildlife habitat and spewing out a thick haze that has choked neighboring countries.
Palm oil companies, loggers and farmers set fires during the dry season each year to prepare land for crops, but the blazes often rage out of control.
The area destroyed this year was some of the only remaining habitat left for orangutans, a protected species with a rapidly declining population.
The only great apes living outside Africa, orangutans can only be found on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, which is divided between Indonesia and Malaysia.
Willie Smits, coordinator of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, says time is running out for the endangered primates.
He said, "The populations are all extremely threatened because of the fragmentation of the forest. You need a minimum of three thousand orangutans to have a thousand year chance of survival and that forest has to stay intact in one big piece. There's only two or three years left in which we can prevent that these remaining populations are going to become extinct."
Smits says that only one in three orangutan young are estimated to live, and mothers only give birth on average once every eight or nine years.
Staff of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Center prepare to treat an orangutan after it came out of burning jungle, November 6, 2006 in Mantangai, Kalimantan, Indonesia
Smits adds that the forest habitat, in particular the sensitive peat moss bogs known as "domes", should not only be protected for the benefit of wildlife, but also to stop the rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
"If we look at the amount of carbon in the peat that is being released because of the collapsing domes and the fires, that amount is huge," he said.
"If we would lose the tropical peat swamps, of which Indonesia has more than 50 percent in the world, we would be looking at a doubling of global emissions for the next thirty years."
Fires in peat bogs are particularly hard to stop, because they can smolder underground for weeks without being detected.
Smits says orangutans that survive the fires often flee toward water, where they are more likely to encounter humans.
The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation rescued 137 injured orangutans in central Kalimantan from fires or from assault by humans during the land-clearing season, but discovered the remains of many more.
UN Report Finds Majority in Asia Living Without Clean Water, Sanitation
Declaring "dirty water is a bigger killer than bullets" worldwide, the United Nations Development Program is calling for a global action plan for the more than one billion people with no access to clean water and sanitation.
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The United Nations is sounding the alarm - with more than a billion people without clean water and half of the developing world without basic sanitation.
In its annual human development report, released Thursday, the U.N. Development Program says old policies have failed and it is time for new national strategies and international aid to address the issue.
The U.N. agency estimates that deaths from diarrhea - usually caused by drinking foul water - is six times higher than people dying in armed conflict each year. Nearly two million children alone die annually because of water related diseases.
Shoji Nishimoto
Most of the people without clean water live in Asia. U.N.D.P's Shoji Nishimoto is the assistant administrator for development policy.
"Asia houses the largest number of people living below the poverty line. So, in an aggregate sense, the problem of water and sanitation is biggest in Asia-Pacific zone," he said.
There is some good news. Developing economic giants, India and China, are making progress in bringing clean water to the more than two billion people who live within their borders.
Nishimoto hopes that trend will spread to the rest of the region.
"The largest reduction in the poor people, in terms of number not the share, happened in India and China. So there is a great hope that the improvement even in this area is likely to take place more in Asia-Pacific."
The United Nations is also calling for clean water to be affordable regardless of income. The annual report notes the poor - who usually are not serviced by public utilities - pay significantly more for water. For example, the average person in Manila pays six times the rate the typical New Yorker spends for a cubic meter of water.
The report ranks 177 nations in terms of prospects for human development - based on factors such as life expectancy, education, and real income.
Nepal ranked 138th. East Timor ranked 142nd. Japan is the highest ranked Asian nation - in 7th place overall. That is one spot ahead of the United States and one behind Canada.
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The United Nations is sounding the alarm - with more than a billion people without clean water and half of the developing world without basic sanitation.
In its annual human development report, released Thursday, the U.N. Development Program says old policies have failed and it is time for new national strategies and international aid to address the issue.
The U.N. agency estimates that deaths from diarrhea - usually caused by drinking foul water - is six times higher than people dying in armed conflict each year. Nearly two million children alone die annually because of water related diseases.
Shoji Nishimoto
Most of the people without clean water live in Asia. U.N.D.P's Shoji Nishimoto is the assistant administrator for development policy.
"Asia houses the largest number of people living below the poverty line. So, in an aggregate sense, the problem of water and sanitation is biggest in Asia-Pacific zone," he said.
There is some good news. Developing economic giants, India and China, are making progress in bringing clean water to the more than two billion people who live within their borders.
Nishimoto hopes that trend will spread to the rest of the region.
"The largest reduction in the poor people, in terms of number not the share, happened in India and China. So there is a great hope that the improvement even in this area is likely to take place more in Asia-Pacific."
The United Nations is also calling for clean water to be affordable regardless of income. The annual report notes the poor - who usually are not serviced by public utilities - pay significantly more for water. For example, the average person in Manila pays six times the rate the typical New Yorker spends for a cubic meter of water.
The report ranks 177 nations in terms of prospects for human development - based on factors such as life expectancy, education, and real income.
Nepal ranked 138th. East Timor ranked 142nd. Japan is the highest ranked Asian nation - in 7th place overall. That is one spot ahead of the United States and one behind Canada.
UN: Water, Sanitation Crisis Killing Millions of Children
A new United Nations report says a growing water and sanitation crisis around the world is costing the lives of about two million children a year.
A child fills a container with water for domestic use in Delmas, east of Johannesburg, during a cholera outbreak in the area in Aug. 2006
The report's lead author, Kevin Watkins, summed up the world's water crisis during an interview with VOA.
"The inability of governments to provide children with a glass of clean water is going to cost two million lives," Watkins said. "Now that, to me, is a fairly powerful indictment of what governments are doing and what the international community is doing."
Watkins says most of these deaths are caused by diarrhea and dysentery, the result of water polluted by human waste.
Kevin Watkins
Watkins says the lack of access to clean water is also a powerful driver of inequality, with the wealthy, who are connected to utilities, paying the least per liter, and the poor, who buy water from local providers, paying the most.
The United Nations Development Programme report, called "Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis," calls on governments to increase spending on water and sanitation and to make clean water a human right. The report also urges the international community to double its annual contributions for water and sanitation.
The study blames the current crisis on governments and the international community.
"Many governments in the developing world simply do not take this problem seriously," said author of the report, Kevin Watkins. "If you look at the state of planning in water and sanitation, it is frankly abysmal in many countries."
Watkins adds there is very little international support or aid for the water crisis. He says the issue is not on the agenda of the Group of Eight countries and, in fact, never made it onto last year's communiqué at the Gleneagles summit of the world's richest nations.
According to the report, the reason behind the world's water crisis is not, as many argue, a shortage of water. Watkins says overpopulation and a growing demand for water are not the whole story.
"Water is a precious resource, it is a finite resource. The problem is that governments in the world do not treat it as a precious resource and the do not treat it as a finite resource," he said.
While the UNDP report is being welcomed by many groups concerned about the global water crisis, there is criticism.
Paul Hetherington is a spokesperson for WaterAid, a non-governmental and advocacy group in Britain. He says part of the problem is with the United Nations itself.
"In the situation of water, you have got 23 different U.N. agencies who all work in the water [and] sanitation sphere," Hetherington said. "But not one of them has an overarching responsibility. Not one of them monitors or evaluates what is being done. And very often, important issues are slipping under the table. And, of course, there is no United Nations body there standing up and naming and shaming governments, donors and recipients who are not performing on water and sanitation."
Hetherington adds that every year the United Nations writes in-depth reports on different topics, leaving little room for follow up.
This year's report says the solutions to the water crisis are easy and already well known. The UNDP's Watkins says governments need to invest in their water systems, putting grids and pipes in place as well as filtration systems. To do this, the report lays out a three point plan of action.
"Part one is that governments need to make water a human right and they need to mean it," he said. "And mean it in the sense of putting it in national legislation which provide citizens with an entitlement to 20 liters of water a day as a right of citizenship. Secondly, we call on governments to spend at least one percent of GDP on water and sanitation. If you compare this with military expenditure, countries like India, Pakistan, Ethiopia are spending 10 to 15 times more on military hardware than they are spending on water and sanitation."
Finally, Watkins' report says increased international aid is crucial to reach the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people without water and sanitation by the year 2015.
To accomplish all this, the report is calling for a global action plan under the leadership of the Group of Eight countries to mobilize resources and development for water and sanitation projects similar to the global fund for HIV and AIDS.
A child fills a container with water for domestic use in Delmas, east of Johannesburg, during a cholera outbreak in the area in Aug. 2006
The report's lead author, Kevin Watkins, summed up the world's water crisis during an interview with VOA.
"The inability of governments to provide children with a glass of clean water is going to cost two million lives," Watkins said. "Now that, to me, is a fairly powerful indictment of what governments are doing and what the international community is doing."
Watkins says most of these deaths are caused by diarrhea and dysentery, the result of water polluted by human waste.
Kevin Watkins
Watkins says the lack of access to clean water is also a powerful driver of inequality, with the wealthy, who are connected to utilities, paying the least per liter, and the poor, who buy water from local providers, paying the most.
The United Nations Development Programme report, called "Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis," calls on governments to increase spending on water and sanitation and to make clean water a human right. The report also urges the international community to double its annual contributions for water and sanitation.
The study blames the current crisis on governments and the international community.
"Many governments in the developing world simply do not take this problem seriously," said author of the report, Kevin Watkins. "If you look at the state of planning in water and sanitation, it is frankly abysmal in many countries."
Watkins adds there is very little international support or aid for the water crisis. He says the issue is not on the agenda of the Group of Eight countries and, in fact, never made it onto last year's communiqué at the Gleneagles summit of the world's richest nations.
According to the report, the reason behind the world's water crisis is not, as many argue, a shortage of water. Watkins says overpopulation and a growing demand for water are not the whole story.
"Water is a precious resource, it is a finite resource. The problem is that governments in the world do not treat it as a precious resource and the do not treat it as a finite resource," he said.
While the UNDP report is being welcomed by many groups concerned about the global water crisis, there is criticism.
Paul Hetherington is a spokesperson for WaterAid, a non-governmental and advocacy group in Britain. He says part of the problem is with the United Nations itself.
"In the situation of water, you have got 23 different U.N. agencies who all work in the water [and] sanitation sphere," Hetherington said. "But not one of them has an overarching responsibility. Not one of them monitors or evaluates what is being done. And very often, important issues are slipping under the table. And, of course, there is no United Nations body there standing up and naming and shaming governments, donors and recipients who are not performing on water and sanitation."
Hetherington adds that every year the United Nations writes in-depth reports on different topics, leaving little room for follow up.
This year's report says the solutions to the water crisis are easy and already well known. The UNDP's Watkins says governments need to invest in their water systems, putting grids and pipes in place as well as filtration systems. To do this, the report lays out a three point plan of action.
"Part one is that governments need to make water a human right and they need to mean it," he said. "And mean it in the sense of putting it in national legislation which provide citizens with an entitlement to 20 liters of water a day as a right of citizenship. Secondly, we call on governments to spend at least one percent of GDP on water and sanitation. If you compare this with military expenditure, countries like India, Pakistan, Ethiopia are spending 10 to 15 times more on military hardware than they are spending on water and sanitation."
Finally, Watkins' report says increased international aid is crucial to reach the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people without water and sanitation by the year 2015.
To accomplish all this, the report is calling for a global action plan under the leadership of the Group of Eight countries to mobilize resources and development for water and sanitation projects similar to the global fund for HIV and AIDS.
Nobel Prize Winner Launches Global Tree Planting Campaign
Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai Wednesday called on the world to plant one billion trees as part of a global effort to fight climate change. She launched the initiative at the United Nations' Climate Change conference being held in Kenya's capital.
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Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai and US Senator Barack Obama are planting an African Olive Tree at Uhuru Park Naiorbi, Aug. 28, 2006
Maathai, who is also Kenya's assistant environment minister, told reporters that the Billion Tree Campaign that she, Prince Albert II of Monaco, and the World Agroforestry Centre are backing is a practical, hands-on way to tackle an otherwise daunting problem.
She said, "This is something that anybody can do. Anybody can dig a hole. Anybody can put a tree in the hole and water it, and everybody must make sure that the tree they plant survives. There are six billion of us and counting, so even if only one-sixth of us each planted a tree, we would definitely reach the target."
Under the Billion Tree Campaign, individuals, communities, organizations, businesses, governments, and others are encouraged to plant anywhere from one to 10 million trees.
Pledges to plant a certain number of trees are recorded on the campaign's Web site, which the United Nations Environment Program is to manage. Participants are encouraged to keep updating the Web site on their tree-planting activities so that they could be awarded with a certificate.
Trees play a vital role in the earth's ecosystem. They absorb carbon dioxide, trap rainwater and moisture, stabilize soil, control avalanches, protect coastal areas, and perform other functions.
Forests cover some 30 percent of the earth's total land area, or about four billion hectares. The Democratic Republic of Congo is Africa's most forest-rich country.
But trees are being cut down at an alarming rate. Experts say to make up for the loss of trees in the past decade, some 130 million hectares - the size of Peru - would need to be planted with some 140 billion trees over a 10-year period.
Nobel Prize winner Maathai describes the changes she has seen in her home area of Nyeri near the Aberdare forest on the slopes of Mount Kenya.
"When I was growing up, the Aberdare was a pristine forest. It was thick with indigenous trees, indigenous vegetation. There were no roads, and rivers were flowing from the mountains," she said. "Today, of course, when a child looks at the Aberdare, it's very different. Many places have been cut down. Until very recently there were large farms where people were growing food crops. And so, the Aberdare forest of today is very different from the Aberdare forest of my childhood."
And such deforestation is very worrying. The United Nations says the loss of natural forests worldwide contributes more to global emissions each year than cars and other forms of transportation.
These emissions, or so-called greenhouse gasses, form a barrier that prevents the sun's energy from radiating back into space, raising the earth's temperature. This, in turn, contributes to rising sea levels, droughts, flooding, declining crop yields, and other effects.
The Billion Tree Campaign was launched at the United Nations' Climate Change conference being held in Kenya's capital.
Some 6,000 participants are looking at the problem of climate change and what to do about it. The conference ends November 17.
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Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai and US Senator Barack Obama are planting an African Olive Tree at Uhuru Park Naiorbi, Aug. 28, 2006
Maathai, who is also Kenya's assistant environment minister, told reporters that the Billion Tree Campaign that she, Prince Albert II of Monaco, and the World Agroforestry Centre are backing is a practical, hands-on way to tackle an otherwise daunting problem.
She said, "This is something that anybody can do. Anybody can dig a hole. Anybody can put a tree in the hole and water it, and everybody must make sure that the tree they plant survives. There are six billion of us and counting, so even if only one-sixth of us each planted a tree, we would definitely reach the target."
Under the Billion Tree Campaign, individuals, communities, organizations, businesses, governments, and others are encouraged to plant anywhere from one to 10 million trees.
Pledges to plant a certain number of trees are recorded on the campaign's Web site, which the United Nations Environment Program is to manage. Participants are encouraged to keep updating the Web site on their tree-planting activities so that they could be awarded with a certificate.
Trees play a vital role in the earth's ecosystem. They absorb carbon dioxide, trap rainwater and moisture, stabilize soil, control avalanches, protect coastal areas, and perform other functions.
Forests cover some 30 percent of the earth's total land area, or about four billion hectares. The Democratic Republic of Congo is Africa's most forest-rich country.
But trees are being cut down at an alarming rate. Experts say to make up for the loss of trees in the past decade, some 130 million hectares - the size of Peru - would need to be planted with some 140 billion trees over a 10-year period.
Nobel Prize winner Maathai describes the changes she has seen in her home area of Nyeri near the Aberdare forest on the slopes of Mount Kenya.
"When I was growing up, the Aberdare was a pristine forest. It was thick with indigenous trees, indigenous vegetation. There were no roads, and rivers were flowing from the mountains," she said. "Today, of course, when a child looks at the Aberdare, it's very different. Many places have been cut down. Until very recently there were large farms where people were growing food crops. And so, the Aberdare forest of today is very different from the Aberdare forest of my childhood."
And such deforestation is very worrying. The United Nations says the loss of natural forests worldwide contributes more to global emissions each year than cars and other forms of transportation.
These emissions, or so-called greenhouse gasses, form a barrier that prevents the sun's energy from radiating back into space, raising the earth's temperature. This, in turn, contributes to rising sea levels, droughts, flooding, declining crop yields, and other effects.
The Billion Tree Campaign was launched at the United Nations' Climate Change conference being held in Kenya's capital.
Some 6,000 participants are looking at the problem of climate change and what to do about it. The conference ends November 17.
Experts Warn Climate Change Threatens Heritage Sites
Experts at the United Nations' Climate Change conference in Kenya's capital have warned Tuesday that cultural and natural heritage sites in Africa and other parts of the world could be damaged or destroyed if climate change continues unabated.
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Cultural and natural heritage sites range from coral reefs, mountains and game parks to archeological ruins, concert halls and theaters.
A report released Tuesday by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the United Nations warns that drought, rising sea levels and other effects of global warming could seriously harm or destroy those sites.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UN Environment Programme
The executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, Achim Steiner, tells how climate change could affect the Cape Floral Region World Heritage Site in South Africa.
"We find there the largest number of indigenous species that are found anywhere on the planet," he said. "Any change in either temperatures or variations in rainfall will fundamentally affect the biodiversity of that Cape Floral kingdom, meaning a loss of species forever on the planet."
The report's co-author, a director with the Stockholm Environment Institute, Tom Downing, describes to VOA how world-famous ancient monuments in Alexandria, Egypt, are being threatened by coastal erosion and the inundation of the Nile Delta region, two events linked with global warming.
"With sea level rise, you have an added threat not only of inundation but also the salt water intrusion getting into the foundations of these ancient buildings," said Downing. "It's salty water, so it's a weak acid, and if it's based on anything that has a limestone base, it will just eat it up. Not only does it destabilize the ground so that it's softer and things move around, but the chemistry is dangerous to buildings."
Steiner said rising sea levels will also damage buildings in the historic coastal town of Lamu in Kenya, and warmer temperatures are reducing the amount of snow on Mount Kenya.
The report gives examples of destruction in all parts of the world. For instance, flooding in the Czech Republic in 2002 and other countries across Europe damaged concert halls, theatres, museums and libraries.
In northeastern Thailand, floods damaged the 600-year-old ruins of Sukothai and the ruins of Ayutthaya, which served as the capital from the 14th to the 18th centuries.
In Herschel Island, Canada, deterioration of the permafrost, linked to global warming, is leading to "ground slumping," affecting many of the historic graves and other sites.
The effect of climate change on world heritage sites is one of many topics on the agenda of this year's Climate Change conference being held in Nairobi.
Some 6,000 conference participants are looking at the effect that carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other so-called greenhouse gasses are having on the planet and ways to cut down on those harmful emissions.
The conference ends November 17.
----
Cultural and natural heritage sites range from coral reefs, mountains and game parks to archeological ruins, concert halls and theaters.
A report released Tuesday by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the United Nations warns that drought, rising sea levels and other effects of global warming could seriously harm or destroy those sites.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UN Environment Programme
The executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, Achim Steiner, tells how climate change could affect the Cape Floral Region World Heritage Site in South Africa.
"We find there the largest number of indigenous species that are found anywhere on the planet," he said. "Any change in either temperatures or variations in rainfall will fundamentally affect the biodiversity of that Cape Floral kingdom, meaning a loss of species forever on the planet."
The report's co-author, a director with the Stockholm Environment Institute, Tom Downing, describes to VOA how world-famous ancient monuments in Alexandria, Egypt, are being threatened by coastal erosion and the inundation of the Nile Delta region, two events linked with global warming.
"With sea level rise, you have an added threat not only of inundation but also the salt water intrusion getting into the foundations of these ancient buildings," said Downing. "It's salty water, so it's a weak acid, and if it's based on anything that has a limestone base, it will just eat it up. Not only does it destabilize the ground so that it's softer and things move around, but the chemistry is dangerous to buildings."
Steiner said rising sea levels will also damage buildings in the historic coastal town of Lamu in Kenya, and warmer temperatures are reducing the amount of snow on Mount Kenya.
The report gives examples of destruction in all parts of the world. For instance, flooding in the Czech Republic in 2002 and other countries across Europe damaged concert halls, theatres, museums and libraries.
In northeastern Thailand, floods damaged the 600-year-old ruins of Sukothai and the ruins of Ayutthaya, which served as the capital from the 14th to the 18th centuries.
In Herschel Island, Canada, deterioration of the permafrost, linked to global warming, is leading to "ground slumping," affecting many of the historic graves and other sites.
The effect of climate change on world heritage sites is one of many topics on the agenda of this year's Climate Change conference being held in Nairobi.
Some 6,000 conference participants are looking at the effect that carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other so-called greenhouse gasses are having on the planet and ways to cut down on those harmful emissions.
The conference ends November 17.
UN Climate Change Conference to Open in Kenya
The United Nations' Climate Change conference is set to open in Kenya's capital Monday. Topics expected to be covered include how countries can cope with increases in global warming and why the United States and Australia have not signed a protocol to curb outputs of heat-trapping gases said to be a direct cause of global warming.
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Global Warming map
The 165 countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect last year, are legally committed to reducing their output of six carbon gasses most responsible for causing global warming.
The worst of these gasses is carbon dioxide, the by-product of burning oil, gas, and coal. In industrialized countries, much of the emissions come from cars.
The United States withdrew support for the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 saying the agreement was flawed, and it would look to high technology measures to reduce emissions. Australia has also refused to ratify the protocol.
The United States' reluctance to sign on is expected to be a topic of conversation at the United Nations' Climate Change conference, set to open Monday.
Kenyan environmental activist Grace Akumu, who is the executive director of Climate Network Africa, explains why.
She said, "In the United States of America, the total number of cars in New York is equivalent to the total number of cars in the entire African continent. The entire African continent only emits three to four percent of the global total greenhouse gas emissions. So we need the big emitters - and the single biggest emitter is the United States of America - to be able to impact on the entire emissions of the world."
Scientists point to carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides as being three of several gases that, in excess, form a barrier in the atmosphere that traps heat from the sun, thus raising the earth's surface temperature.
Global Warming blocks of ice
Such climate change has been linked to more frequent occurrences of drought, flooding, hurricanes, forest fires, and increases in the number of malaria cases, with long-term impacts being rising sea levels and damage to crops.
And that has activist Akumu very worried. She says one major agenda item at this year's U.N. Climate Change conference will be looking at long-term solutions.
"One of the priority areas is that the Kyoto Protocol - that we want the U.S. government to ratify, the Australian government to ratify - the legal life-span is coming to an end by 2012, in six years' time. So, there is a need to discuss what's after Kyoto, what's going to be the post-Kyoto regime to govern greenhouse gas emissions," she said.
Also on the agenda are discussions on how especially developing countries can cope with climate change, and methods to reduce emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases, such as using power generated from wind, solar, and hydroelectric sources.
This is the first time that the United Nations' Climate Change conference will be held in sub-Saharan Africa. The gathering, which opens Monday and ends on November 17, is expected to draw some 6,000 participants worldwide.
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Global Warming map
The 165 countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect last year, are legally committed to reducing their output of six carbon gasses most responsible for causing global warming.
The worst of these gasses is carbon dioxide, the by-product of burning oil, gas, and coal. In industrialized countries, much of the emissions come from cars.
The United States withdrew support for the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 saying the agreement was flawed, and it would look to high technology measures to reduce emissions. Australia has also refused to ratify the protocol.
The United States' reluctance to sign on is expected to be a topic of conversation at the United Nations' Climate Change conference, set to open Monday.
Kenyan environmental activist Grace Akumu, who is the executive director of Climate Network Africa, explains why.
She said, "In the United States of America, the total number of cars in New York is equivalent to the total number of cars in the entire African continent. The entire African continent only emits three to four percent of the global total greenhouse gas emissions. So we need the big emitters - and the single biggest emitter is the United States of America - to be able to impact on the entire emissions of the world."
Scientists point to carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides as being three of several gases that, in excess, form a barrier in the atmosphere that traps heat from the sun, thus raising the earth's surface temperature.
Global Warming blocks of ice
Such climate change has been linked to more frequent occurrences of drought, flooding, hurricanes, forest fires, and increases in the number of malaria cases, with long-term impacts being rising sea levels and damage to crops.
And that has activist Akumu very worried. She says one major agenda item at this year's U.N. Climate Change conference will be looking at long-term solutions.
"One of the priority areas is that the Kyoto Protocol - that we want the U.S. government to ratify, the Australian government to ratify - the legal life-span is coming to an end by 2012, in six years' time. So, there is a need to discuss what's after Kyoto, what's going to be the post-Kyoto regime to govern greenhouse gas emissions," she said.
Also on the agenda are discussions on how especially developing countries can cope with climate change, and methods to reduce emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases, such as using power generated from wind, solar, and hydroelectric sources.
This is the first time that the United Nations' Climate Change conference will be held in sub-Saharan Africa. The gathering, which opens Monday and ends on November 17, is expected to draw some 6,000 participants worldwide.
The Dead Sea is Dying Because It Doesn't Have Enough Water
In the Middle East there is no resource more precious than water. For centuries the peoples of the Middle East have relied on the River Jordan for fresh drinking water, and for water to make the Jordan Valley and the land surrounding the Dead Sea one of the most fertile areas on earth. But now the River Jordan is dying and so is the Dead Sea -- because there is little fresh water flowing through the River Jordan.
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River Jordan may be the regions only safe place for baptisms
Christians come from around the world to the Yardenit - one of two sites on the River Jordan in Israel where Jesus is believed to have been baptized by John the Baptist. What many of these Christians don't know is that this is the only safe place where baptisms can take place. Further south, at a site thought to be more historically accurate than Yardinet, the River Jordan is too polluted to be used for baptisms.
Sea of Galilee
This is the Sea of Galilee, one of the world's largest fresh water lakes and the source of nearly all of Israel's drinking water. The Sea of Galilee feeds the River Jordan and the Dead Sea further south. For thousands of years the waters flowing out of the Sea of Galilee have nourished the River Jordan and have been the only source of fresh water for the Dead Sea. These clean waters enter the River Jordan at Yardenit where the baptisms take place but just a few kilometers south is where the river begins to die.
Beyond this earthen dam the River Jordan as we know it no longer exits.
Pollutants include sewage
Just out of eyesight, sewage from communities along the Sea of Galilee is dumped into one of the world's most sacred rivers. The environmental group, Friends of the Earth in the Middle East, says action must be taken to save the River Jordan before it is too late.
Gidon Bromberg
Gidon Bromberg is the group's director in Israel. "We have an earth dam here on the River Jordan. North of this point no fresh water flows down the River Jordan out of the sea of Galilee. From this point raw sewage and saline water diverted from the sea of Galilee is dumped into the River Jordan, a river holy to half of humanity has been turned into an open sewage canal."
Further south along the River Jordan here at the Gesher crossing on the Israel-Jordan border, bridges built by the Romans, the Ottoman Turks and British straddle the once mighty Jordan.
By the time the River Jordan reaches the Dead Sea it is a mere trickle, and as a result, the Dead Sea is dying.
In 1900 and 1917 a British expeditionary force traveled along this road, but they did it in boats as Mira Edelstein of Friends of the Earth in the Middle East explains, "Once the water was way up here they came by boats. On the Jordanian side, where the topography is different and more cliff oriented, you can see the straight drop. Here the gradiant is much less, so it goes a long ways. Now we are a few kilometer from the shore."
Over the last 50 years the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth and world's saltiest body of water, has dropped by 25 meters and shrunk by more than a third. Every year, the Dead Sea drops by more than one meter. These are results -- sinkholes
Mira Edelstein
The shoreline of the Dead Sea is opening up and will soon destroy the road that runs along the Israeli side of the sea, according to Mira Edelstein. "Sinkholes began appearing about 10 years ago. Today there are more than a thousand. What is happening is that the receding waters of the Dead Sea are taking the salt water further into the sea. And in their place is coming fresh water from all the springs around the sea. It is very dangerous and they are opening up along the western shores. There is no development of infrastructure or tourism whatsoever."
As the sinkholes continue to devour the shoreline of the Dead Sea, experts are warning that with no fresh water flowing from the River Jordan, one of the most unique environments on the planet is in critical danger
-----
River Jordan may be the regions only safe place for baptisms
Christians come from around the world to the Yardenit - one of two sites on the River Jordan in Israel where Jesus is believed to have been baptized by John the Baptist. What many of these Christians don't know is that this is the only safe place where baptisms can take place. Further south, at a site thought to be more historically accurate than Yardinet, the River Jordan is too polluted to be used for baptisms.
Sea of Galilee
This is the Sea of Galilee, one of the world's largest fresh water lakes and the source of nearly all of Israel's drinking water. The Sea of Galilee feeds the River Jordan and the Dead Sea further south. For thousands of years the waters flowing out of the Sea of Galilee have nourished the River Jordan and have been the only source of fresh water for the Dead Sea. These clean waters enter the River Jordan at Yardenit where the baptisms take place but just a few kilometers south is where the river begins to die.
Beyond this earthen dam the River Jordan as we know it no longer exits.
Pollutants include sewage
Just out of eyesight, sewage from communities along the Sea of Galilee is dumped into one of the world's most sacred rivers. The environmental group, Friends of the Earth in the Middle East, says action must be taken to save the River Jordan before it is too late.
Gidon Bromberg
Gidon Bromberg is the group's director in Israel. "We have an earth dam here on the River Jordan. North of this point no fresh water flows down the River Jordan out of the sea of Galilee. From this point raw sewage and saline water diverted from the sea of Galilee is dumped into the River Jordan, a river holy to half of humanity has been turned into an open sewage canal."
Further south along the River Jordan here at the Gesher crossing on the Israel-Jordan border, bridges built by the Romans, the Ottoman Turks and British straddle the once mighty Jordan.
By the time the River Jordan reaches the Dead Sea it is a mere trickle, and as a result, the Dead Sea is dying.
In 1900 and 1917 a British expeditionary force traveled along this road, but they did it in boats as Mira Edelstein of Friends of the Earth in the Middle East explains, "Once the water was way up here they came by boats. On the Jordanian side, where the topography is different and more cliff oriented, you can see the straight drop. Here the gradiant is much less, so it goes a long ways. Now we are a few kilometer from the shore."
Over the last 50 years the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth and world's saltiest body of water, has dropped by 25 meters and shrunk by more than a third. Every year, the Dead Sea drops by more than one meter. These are results -- sinkholes
Mira Edelstein
The shoreline of the Dead Sea is opening up and will soon destroy the road that runs along the Israeli side of the sea, according to Mira Edelstein. "Sinkholes began appearing about 10 years ago. Today there are more than a thousand. What is happening is that the receding waters of the Dead Sea are taking the salt water further into the sea. And in their place is coming fresh water from all the springs around the sea. It is very dangerous and they are opening up along the western shores. There is no development of infrastructure or tourism whatsoever."
As the sinkholes continue to devour the shoreline of the Dead Sea, experts are warning that with no fresh water flowing from the River Jordan, one of the most unique environments on the planet is in critical danger
UN Report Adds Pressure to Global-Warming Fight
Scientists from around the world have been meeting in Paris, working out final details of an exhaustive report on climate change and global warming. Now what? VOA's Paul Sisco reports.
The lights on the Eiffel Tower were switched off. It was a symbolic act, marking the end of a weeklong United Nations conference on climate change, and release of the most detailed scientific report to date on global warming -- and that human beings are responsible for it.
Kenneth Denman, an author of the report says, "We're hoping that it will convince people, you know, that climate change is real."
Hundreds of scientists and officials representing more than 100 governments concluded that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity is responsible for global warming. And it is likely to continue for centuries.
Panel member Susan Soloman says the change is rapid. "You can see this remarkable rapid rise that began with the Industrial era. There can be no question that the increases in these gases, these greenhouse gasses are dominate by human activity."
The report makes no policy recommendations but links global warming to rising sea levels, increased drought in some regions and violent storm patterns.
Dr. Achim Steiner directs the United Nations Environmental Program. He says policy makers must be committed. "We are also looking for an unequivocal commitment from policy makers, business leaders and civic society leaders to take climate change as truly the challenge of our century."
Some delegates wanted policy recommendations in the report, ranging from wider use of renewable energy resources, to development of so-called geo-engineering technologies -- giant mirrors in space, for example, to deflect some of the sun's rays.
A University of Arizona researcher, Roger Angel, is exploring the possibility of launching a huge quantity of small plastic discs into orbit, to shield the Earth by diffusing a small amount of the sun's radiation. "The effect could be to take our temperature back to pre-industrial levels."
These ideas are very experimental.
Climate scientist Michael MacCracken explains what can be done. "There are a host of things to do. First, many different technologies are cost effective right now, and what we need to do is [use] as many of them as we can, before we get into these geo-engineering technologies.
MacCracken, like most of the scientists at the Paris conference, says the immediate focus must be on reducing carbon emissions, not on looking to outer space for solutions to the global warming problem.
The lights on the Eiffel Tower were switched off. It was a symbolic act, marking the end of a weeklong United Nations conference on climate change, and release of the most detailed scientific report to date on global warming -- and that human beings are responsible for it.
Kenneth Denman, an author of the report says, "We're hoping that it will convince people, you know, that climate change is real."
Hundreds of scientists and officials representing more than 100 governments concluded that the burning of fossil fuels and other human activity is responsible for global warming. And it is likely to continue for centuries.
Panel member Susan Soloman says the change is rapid. "You can see this remarkable rapid rise that began with the Industrial era. There can be no question that the increases in these gases, these greenhouse gasses are dominate by human activity."
The report makes no policy recommendations but links global warming to rising sea levels, increased drought in some regions and violent storm patterns.
Dr. Achim Steiner directs the United Nations Environmental Program. He says policy makers must be committed. "We are also looking for an unequivocal commitment from policy makers, business leaders and civic society leaders to take climate change as truly the challenge of our century."
Some delegates wanted policy recommendations in the report, ranging from wider use of renewable energy resources, to development of so-called geo-engineering technologies -- giant mirrors in space, for example, to deflect some of the sun's rays.
A University of Arizona researcher, Roger Angel, is exploring the possibility of launching a huge quantity of small plastic discs into orbit, to shield the Earth by diffusing a small amount of the sun's radiation. "The effect could be to take our temperature back to pre-industrial levels."
These ideas are very experimental.
Climate scientist Michael MacCracken explains what can be done. "There are a host of things to do. First, many different technologies are cost effective right now, and what we need to do is [use] as many of them as we can, before we get into these geo-engineering technologies.
MacCracken, like most of the scientists at the Paris conference, says the immediate focus must be on reducing carbon emissions, not on looking to outer space for solutions to the global warming problem.
Study Links Global Warming, Severe Droughts in Indonesia
As Indonesia copes with one of its driest rainy seasons on record, a climate change study indicates global warming will lead to prolonged and more severe droughts in Indonesia and Australia in the future. Chad Bouchard reports from Jakarta.
Climate experts say new evidence suggests Indonesia's seasonal rains will diminish as global temperatures continue to rise.
That could mean a devastating blow to the country's tropical agriculture and spark more haze-producing wildfires each year.
A new study used samples of coral to track rainfall patterns from more than 6,000 years ago. The study was published a few days ago in the journal Nature.
Study co-author Nerilie Abram says the new data suggest an unexpected link between monsoons and droughts in countries surrounding the Indian Ocean.
"And so the implication is that with monsoon strengthening we expect that parts of Asia and India, where you receive monsoon rainfall, are likely to get wetter. But the knock-on effect is that parts of Indonesia and Australia are likely to get dryer," said Abram.
This year's drought in Indonesia is caused partly by a natural cycle of cooling in the Indian Ocean much like the El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean.
But droughts or heavy rainfalls generated by that warming cycle will increase if average global temperatures continue to rise. Many scientists think global warming may be caused in part by increasing emissions of gases from burning fuels such as oil and coal. They recommend cutting those emissions to halt the rise in temperatures.
Abram is a paleoclimatologist who works with the British Antarctic Survey at Cambridge, in the United Kingdom. In a phone call from Cambridge, she said recently that the coral study shows droughts also are shifting to a different time of year.
"And that the peak of drought could actually shift so that it falls at the time of year when this area receives its most rainfall," added Abram. "So that sort of change could have quite a critical effect on agriculture in the area, and actually change the way that we need to try and adapt to these events."
Millions of impoverished Indonesians in rural areas depend on subsistence agriculture, which could be harmed by drier weather.
In the past several months, the severe drought was blamed for massive forest fires in Indonesia, which caused thick smog and health problems in neighboring countries.
Climate experts say new evidence suggests Indonesia's seasonal rains will diminish as global temperatures continue to rise.
That could mean a devastating blow to the country's tropical agriculture and spark more haze-producing wildfires each year.
A new study used samples of coral to track rainfall patterns from more than 6,000 years ago. The study was published a few days ago in the journal Nature.
Study co-author Nerilie Abram says the new data suggest an unexpected link between monsoons and droughts in countries surrounding the Indian Ocean.
"And so the implication is that with monsoon strengthening we expect that parts of Asia and India, where you receive monsoon rainfall, are likely to get wetter. But the knock-on effect is that parts of Indonesia and Australia are likely to get dryer," said Abram.
This year's drought in Indonesia is caused partly by a natural cycle of cooling in the Indian Ocean much like the El Nino phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean.
But droughts or heavy rainfalls generated by that warming cycle will increase if average global temperatures continue to rise. Many scientists think global warming may be caused in part by increasing emissions of gases from burning fuels such as oil and coal. They recommend cutting those emissions to halt the rise in temperatures.
Abram is a paleoclimatologist who works with the British Antarctic Survey at Cambridge, in the United Kingdom. In a phone call from Cambridge, she said recently that the coral study shows droughts also are shifting to a different time of year.
"And that the peak of drought could actually shift so that it falls at the time of year when this area receives its most rainfall," added Abram. "So that sort of change could have quite a critical effect on agriculture in the area, and actually change the way that we need to try and adapt to these events."
Millions of impoverished Indonesians in rural areas depend on subsistence agriculture, which could be harmed by drier weather.
In the past several months, the severe drought was blamed for massive forest fires in Indonesia, which caused thick smog and health problems in neighboring countries.
Colorado Storms Trigger Avalanches
Avalanche!" is the most frightening alert a mountain traveler can hear. Uncontrollable snow slides in the world's mountainous regions -- from the Himalayas to the Alps to North America's Rocky Mountains -- claim many lives annually. Over the past 100 years, the overall death toll from snow avalanches may be well over 50,000 lives. Not only skiers, but those who live in mountainous areas or travel through them can be at risk. VOA's Paul Sisco set out to find what causes avalanches and what you should do if you are caught in one.
The most common and most dangerous types of avalanches look like an enormous "slab" of snow sliding down a mountainside. There can be many thousands of tons of snow -- enough to rip large trees from the ground, shift boulders and crush homes and cars.
The amount of snow resting on a mountainside, the angle of a slope and the weather are some of the factors that combine to trigger an avalanche. Scientists know the most dangerous slopes are inclined between 35 and 45 degrees, but beyond that there is no precise formula to decide when the risk is greatest. Almost anything can set the snow mass in motion -- a loud sound or the weight of a single person crossing a snowfield.
In the United States, there are about 100,000 snowslides every year.
A few days ago an enormous avalanche in the western state of Colorado swept two cars off a road. Those inside lived to tell about it.
Dave Boon and friend, Gary, are avalanche survivors
Dave Boon, is one such avalanche survivor. He said, "It's just amazing the force we were hit with, and that we are even alive today."
Dave Boon, his wife and a young friend survived.
Boon describes what happened. "So I pushed my hand out through the window and found daylight and started, started digging out at that point, ... asked June if she was with me and okay, ... asked Gary if he was with me, and they both answered, so I said we got air. We're going to be all right."
Gary adds, "When we got out of the car and looked at it, an Aspen branch of a tree or something was through the windshield, and right next to the passenger seat, and I was sitting right behind the passenger seat, so I just knew that I was lucky and somebody was watching over me."
These Americans were lucky. Experts say for every one killed in an avalanche, five survive.
At many ski resorts, crews trigger small snowslides deliberately, before conditions become dangerous.
But if a large avalanche develops, anyone caught in the snow's path should know it is impossible to outrun an avalanche. If you are caught up by a rolling wave of snow, the best tactic is to create space around you, by "swimming" through the snow.
Ethan Green of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center explains that the largest-volume objects in an avalanche -- cars, or people flailing their arms -- almost always wind up near the surface when the snow comes to a stop. "An avalanche rolling down the hill is going through a lot of motion, and the small particles tend to fall down into the cracks and that motion pushes the largest particles up onto the surface."
No one died in this week's near disaster in Colorado, and control teams are out on the slopes working hard to keep conditions safe for skiers.
The most common and most dangerous types of avalanches look like an enormous "slab" of snow sliding down a mountainside. There can be many thousands of tons of snow -- enough to rip large trees from the ground, shift boulders and crush homes and cars.
The amount of snow resting on a mountainside, the angle of a slope and the weather are some of the factors that combine to trigger an avalanche. Scientists know the most dangerous slopes are inclined between 35 and 45 degrees, but beyond that there is no precise formula to decide when the risk is greatest. Almost anything can set the snow mass in motion -- a loud sound or the weight of a single person crossing a snowfield.
In the United States, there are about 100,000 snowslides every year.
A few days ago an enormous avalanche in the western state of Colorado swept two cars off a road. Those inside lived to tell about it.
Dave Boon and friend, Gary, are avalanche survivors
Dave Boon, is one such avalanche survivor. He said, "It's just amazing the force we were hit with, and that we are even alive today."
Dave Boon, his wife and a young friend survived.
Boon describes what happened. "So I pushed my hand out through the window and found daylight and started, started digging out at that point, ... asked June if she was with me and okay, ... asked Gary if he was with me, and they both answered, so I said we got air. We're going to be all right."
Gary adds, "When we got out of the car and looked at it, an Aspen branch of a tree or something was through the windshield, and right next to the passenger seat, and I was sitting right behind the passenger seat, so I just knew that I was lucky and somebody was watching over me."
These Americans were lucky. Experts say for every one killed in an avalanche, five survive.
At many ski resorts, crews trigger small snowslides deliberately, before conditions become dangerous.
But if a large avalanche develops, anyone caught in the snow's path should know it is impossible to outrun an avalanche. If you are caught up by a rolling wave of snow, the best tactic is to create space around you, by "swimming" through the snow.
Ethan Green of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center explains that the largest-volume objects in an avalanche -- cars, or people flailing their arms -- almost always wind up near the surface when the snow comes to a stop. "An avalanche rolling down the hill is going through a lot of motion, and the small particles tend to fall down into the cracks and that motion pushes the largest particles up onto the surface."
No one died in this week's near disaster in Colorado, and control teams are out on the slopes working hard to keep conditions safe for skiers.
2007: Expected to be Hotter than 2006
Oil prices are at their lowest levels since mid-2005. That's the good news - or is it?
Unseasonably warm weather is responsible for premature cherry blossoms
Stronger typhoons, more flooding in low lying regions, deepening drought -- all possible, if not likely, according to a report from British climatologists. They say 2007 has a 60 percent probability of being the hottest year on record, citing high levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and El Nino, now underway in the Pacific and expected to last until May.
Temperature studies for 2006 are not yet complete. But the new study, noting that the world's ten warmest years since 1850 have occurred in the past decade, says 2006 is set to be the sixth warmest year globally, and 2007 is likely to set a new all time high.
Even as dangerous winter storms blanket parts of the Western United States, much of the rest of the nation is unusually warm. For the first time in 130 years, New York City has had no snow. In Washington DC, the spring cherry blossoms are already poised to bloom and botanists note southern species of flowers are being found further north.
Bernie Rayno
Meteorologist Bernie Rayno says, "We expected much of the country to be warmer than normal during the month of December. However, we also expect that scene to be turning around during the month of January." A benefit for many in the United States: crude oil prices are at their lowest levels since the middle of 2005.
Ira Epstein is a trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange. "Mild weather in the Northeast -- we’re having ample supplies in this country domestically, and we came off kind of a lackluster year in '06."
Whether lower oil prices will hold is unclear, but for many on America's East Coast this is a winter, at least so far, unlike any they have seen before.
Unseasonably warm weather is responsible for premature cherry blossoms
Stronger typhoons, more flooding in low lying regions, deepening drought -- all possible, if not likely, according to a report from British climatologists. They say 2007 has a 60 percent probability of being the hottest year on record, citing high levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, and El Nino, now underway in the Pacific and expected to last until May.
Temperature studies for 2006 are not yet complete. But the new study, noting that the world's ten warmest years since 1850 have occurred in the past decade, says 2006 is set to be the sixth warmest year globally, and 2007 is likely to set a new all time high.
Even as dangerous winter storms blanket parts of the Western United States, much of the rest of the nation is unusually warm. For the first time in 130 years, New York City has had no snow. In Washington DC, the spring cherry blossoms are already poised to bloom and botanists note southern species of flowers are being found further north.
Bernie Rayno
Meteorologist Bernie Rayno says, "We expected much of the country to be warmer than normal during the month of December. However, we also expect that scene to be turning around during the month of January." A benefit for many in the United States: crude oil prices are at their lowest levels since the middle of 2005.
Ira Epstein is a trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange. "Mild weather in the Northeast -- we’re having ample supplies in this country domestically, and we came off kind of a lackluster year in '06."
Whether lower oil prices will hold is unclear, but for many on America's East Coast this is a winter, at least so far, unlike any they have seen before.
US Proposes Listing Polar Bears as Threatened Species
The United States is proposing to declare polar bears a threatened species because of their shrinking Arctic ice habitat. As we hear from VOA's David McAlary, analysts say the move is an unusual admission by the Bush administration that global warming is an environmental threat.
Polar bear
U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says he is making the proposal because receding Arctic sea ice may be responsible for polar bear population declines. He notes that Canada's western Hudson Bay polar bear numbers have dropped 22 percent and Alaskan polar bears may be suffering the same pressures, although he says their population decline is not yet statistically significant.
"Polar bears are one of nature's ultimate survivors," he said. "They are able to live and thrive in one of the world's harshest environments, but there is concern that their habitat may literally be melting. I, like all Americans, support conservation of the polar bear and will work in partnership on measures to achieve this goal."
Kempthorne's declaration initiates a year-long scientific review to study whether the Interior Department should actually declare polar bears threatened. If it ultimately does, government agencies will be obligated by the U.S. Endangered Species Act to ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize polar bears or their habitat.
The U.S. government decision is the result of a suit by three environmental groups, who argued that the Bush administration was slow to respond to the polar bear's plight. The government's announcement meets a deadline ordered by the court.
Environmentalists hope that the Bush administration's concession might lead it to step up efforts to reduce emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases blamed for warming the atmosphere and oceans.
"This is a watershed decision in terms of way we deal with global warming in this country," said Kassie Siegel, a lawyer at one of the environmental organizations that sued the U.S. government, the Center for Biological Diversity. "The science of global warming in the Arctic and the impact to polar bears is so clear that not even the Bush administration can any longer deny the science. This is the first major acknowledgment from the Bush administration and it's very encouraging, because we now have to move forward very rapidly to reduce greenhouse gas pollution."
Interior Secretary Kempthorne says that if his agency's 12-month review causes him to declare the polar bear is threatened, the department will work with scientists, industry, native populations in U.S. polar bear regions, and other countries with polar bears to seek a way to save the species.
But he says specific measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are beyond the scope of the U.S. law he oversees that governs threats to species and must be implemented as part of broader national policy.
Polar bear
U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne says he is making the proposal because receding Arctic sea ice may be responsible for polar bear population declines. He notes that Canada's western Hudson Bay polar bear numbers have dropped 22 percent and Alaskan polar bears may be suffering the same pressures, although he says their population decline is not yet statistically significant.
"Polar bears are one of nature's ultimate survivors," he said. "They are able to live and thrive in one of the world's harshest environments, but there is concern that their habitat may literally be melting. I, like all Americans, support conservation of the polar bear and will work in partnership on measures to achieve this goal."
Kempthorne's declaration initiates a year-long scientific review to study whether the Interior Department should actually declare polar bears threatened. If it ultimately does, government agencies will be obligated by the U.S. Endangered Species Act to ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize polar bears or their habitat.
The U.S. government decision is the result of a suit by three environmental groups, who argued that the Bush administration was slow to respond to the polar bear's plight. The government's announcement meets a deadline ordered by the court.
Environmentalists hope that the Bush administration's concession might lead it to step up efforts to reduce emissions of the so-called greenhouse gases blamed for warming the atmosphere and oceans.
"This is a watershed decision in terms of way we deal with global warming in this country," said Kassie Siegel, a lawyer at one of the environmental organizations that sued the U.S. government, the Center for Biological Diversity. "The science of global warming in the Arctic and the impact to polar bears is so clear that not even the Bush administration can any longer deny the science. This is the first major acknowledgment from the Bush administration and it's very encouraging, because we now have to move forward very rapidly to reduce greenhouse gas pollution."
Interior Secretary Kempthorne says that if his agency's 12-month review causes him to declare the polar bear is threatened, the department will work with scientists, industry, native populations in U.S. polar bear regions, and other countries with polar bears to seek a way to save the species.
But he says specific measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are beyond the scope of the U.S. law he oversees that governs threats to species and must be implemented as part of broader national policy.
Experts Ask 'What Now?' for Desertification
Only days away from the end of the United Nations' Year of Deserts and Desertification, four experts discuss the challenges of translating a decade's worth of research about the degradation of land in arid areas of the world. Phuong Tran reports from VOA's Dakar bureau, located in the arid Saharan region of West Africa.
A man walks by a jeep covered by sand in the village of Boumdeid, near Kiffa in Mauritania (2002 file photo)
In the decade since the United Nations adopted the convention against desertification, people understand more about the scope of the problem and what needs to be done. What is unclear is how this will all be put into action in the future.
David Mouat, the chair of a U.N. group of 25 experts who came together in 2002 to study desertification, said, "The danger of this is that it raises attention, but then we might feel that we have had all these meetings, that we have addressed this issue and can move on to something else and the problem will go away."
Most recently, Mouat and his colleagues met in Algeria last week to review the challenges ahead. One of the main challenges is coordinating the different organizations involved in the issue.
Pam Chasek, an editor for the Canadian non-profit International Institute for Sustainable Development, said, "The desertification convention has been hampered by the fact that you have got various different ministries responsible for different issues that all affect desertification."
"It is hard to break down those barriers between them, to realize that gosh, if you address some of these environmental issues, it will have an impact on development and vice versa," she added.
Desertification affects almost half of the earth's surface, home to more than a billion people, says Rattan Lal, a professor of soil science at Ohio State University in the United States.
He estimates that about six million hectares of land each year is lost to desertification. He points out that the problem is not only environmental.
"The desert-land degradation issue is a human issue. It is poverty driven. My general feeling is that when pepole are poor, hungry and miserable, they pass their suffering on to the land," he said. "It is the desperate people who drive the process of land degradation and desertification."
There are several factors that contribute to desertification: Harsh dry climates, for example, can ruin soil. Harmful farming and grazing practices can also deplete the soil's nutrients. Inappropriate irrigation and overgrazing of animals also contribute by decreasing food production.
He says that this problem is most serious in arid regions that also have a level of political and economic instability.
"West Africa is really a tragedy. It is a tragedy of poverty. It is a tragedy of harsh climate, of poor soil," he said. "And above all, resource poor farmers who cannot invest and then the political instability component. When there is political instability, then the support that farmers need does not exist."
The U.N.'s Mouat says fast action is needed.
"The race to affect the future is the race to make decisions when there is still an opportunity," he said. "We can project changes in landscape and develop very clear, relatively simple models that show that the trajectory of degradation will have such and such consequences."
"As we wait to make decisions along this trajectory, our opportunities to make a positive impact will become less and less," he continued.
Wafa Essahili is a director of rural development at the Libyan-based non-profit Community of Saharan and Sahelian Countries, which represents 21 African countries. She says the link between desertification and poverty cannot be ignored.
"The convention's recommendations need to be placed at the heart of countries' development plans and poverty reduction strategies," she said. "The fight against desertification cannot take place apart from economic development."
She says farmers can play a key role, if they are provided the tools.
"If we want this evidently poor population to decrease their pressure on the natural resources, we have to create alternative revenue generating activities. It is certain that they are not destroying the land because they want to, but rather because they have no other means," she said.
One idea circulating in the anti-desertification community is carbon credits. Ohio University's Rattan Lal believes that everyone will benefit from this plan.
"To break this vicious cycle, we have to replace the destroyed soil and ecosystem by encouraging farmers to adopt recommended agricultural policies," he said.
"If the farmers can restore the carbon soil, the world community pays these farmers for carbon credits, which will offset fossil fuel emission, which mitigates climate change. It is a win-win-win situation," he added.
Experts estimate that more than 100 million people are at risk of becoming what they call environmental refugees, or people who are forced to move in search of land that can sustain and feed them.
A man walks by a jeep covered by sand in the village of Boumdeid, near Kiffa in Mauritania (2002 file photo)
In the decade since the United Nations adopted the convention against desertification, people understand more about the scope of the problem and what needs to be done. What is unclear is how this will all be put into action in the future.
David Mouat, the chair of a U.N. group of 25 experts who came together in 2002 to study desertification, said, "The danger of this is that it raises attention, but then we might feel that we have had all these meetings, that we have addressed this issue and can move on to something else and the problem will go away."
Most recently, Mouat and his colleagues met in Algeria last week to review the challenges ahead. One of the main challenges is coordinating the different organizations involved in the issue.
Pam Chasek, an editor for the Canadian non-profit International Institute for Sustainable Development, said, "The desertification convention has been hampered by the fact that you have got various different ministries responsible for different issues that all affect desertification."
"It is hard to break down those barriers between them, to realize that gosh, if you address some of these environmental issues, it will have an impact on development and vice versa," she added.
Desertification affects almost half of the earth's surface, home to more than a billion people, says Rattan Lal, a professor of soil science at Ohio State University in the United States.
He estimates that about six million hectares of land each year is lost to desertification. He points out that the problem is not only environmental.
"The desert-land degradation issue is a human issue. It is poverty driven. My general feeling is that when pepole are poor, hungry and miserable, they pass their suffering on to the land," he said. "It is the desperate people who drive the process of land degradation and desertification."
There are several factors that contribute to desertification: Harsh dry climates, for example, can ruin soil. Harmful farming and grazing practices can also deplete the soil's nutrients. Inappropriate irrigation and overgrazing of animals also contribute by decreasing food production.
He says that this problem is most serious in arid regions that also have a level of political and economic instability.
"West Africa is really a tragedy. It is a tragedy of poverty. It is a tragedy of harsh climate, of poor soil," he said. "And above all, resource poor farmers who cannot invest and then the political instability component. When there is political instability, then the support that farmers need does not exist."
The U.N.'s Mouat says fast action is needed.
"The race to affect the future is the race to make decisions when there is still an opportunity," he said. "We can project changes in landscape and develop very clear, relatively simple models that show that the trajectory of degradation will have such and such consequences."
"As we wait to make decisions along this trajectory, our opportunities to make a positive impact will become less and less," he continued.
Wafa Essahili is a director of rural development at the Libyan-based non-profit Community of Saharan and Sahelian Countries, which represents 21 African countries. She says the link between desertification and poverty cannot be ignored.
"The convention's recommendations need to be placed at the heart of countries' development plans and poverty reduction strategies," she said. "The fight against desertification cannot take place apart from economic development."
She says farmers can play a key role, if they are provided the tools.
"If we want this evidently poor population to decrease their pressure on the natural resources, we have to create alternative revenue generating activities. It is certain that they are not destroying the land because they want to, but rather because they have no other means," she said.
One idea circulating in the anti-desertification community is carbon credits. Ohio University's Rattan Lal believes that everyone will benefit from this plan.
"To break this vicious cycle, we have to replace the destroyed soil and ecosystem by encouraging farmers to adopt recommended agricultural policies," he said.
"If the farmers can restore the carbon soil, the world community pays these farmers for carbon credits, which will offset fossil fuel emission, which mitigates climate change. It is a win-win-win situation," he added.
Experts estimate that more than 100 million people are at risk of becoming what they call environmental refugees, or people who are forced to move in search of land that can sustain and feed them.
Asian Governments Pledge to Fight Air Pollution
Government leaders from around Asia have pledged to boost air quality control programs in some of the most polluted cities of the world. As Chad Bouchard reports from the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, widespread urban smog threatens economic growth and is blamed for more than a half-million premature deaths each year.
Thick smog shrouds Hong Kong
Poor emissions controls and the expanding use of outdated technology are spreading a scourge of smog in many of Asia's megacities.
And Asia's booming economic growth means more factories and vehicles polluting the air.
The World Health Organization estimates more than 530,000 people in Southeast Asia and Pacific countries die prematurely from respiratory diseases connected to air pollution, such as asthma and pneumonia.
This week, 20 Asian countries took the first steps in a cooperative effort to stem airborne pollution.
During a three-day Better Air Quality Conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, the governments signed a pact that experts say is a critical step toward healthier cities and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Asia.
Cornie Huizenga is the head of Secretariat for the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities, which held the summit.
Cars drive on Beijing's second ring road in murky weather - fog combined with pollution
"The potential amount of emissions is increasing rapidly," Huizenga said. "Vehicle fleets are doubling about every five years. So - but fortunately, technologies (are) available - cleaner vehicles, cleaner fuels, etc. So there is a way out. And that's what we have been propagating is that countries need to jump on the bandwagon and adopt strategies for cleaner fuels cleaner vehicles etc."
Auto production in India has increased by 20 percent a year since 2000, and China's vehicle fleet is eight times larger than it was a decade ago.
The number of motorcycles in Indonesia has doubled over the past five years to 33 million.
Huizenga says governments once regarded efforts to contain air pollution as harmful to economic growth. But a recent Asian Development Bank study shows that coping with the damage from air pollution can cost two to four percent of gross domestic product.
Though the group's new agreement is not binding, Huizenga says the summit indicates there is a growing commitment to improving air quality.
"I think it's encouraging first of all that a meeting was held," Huizenga said. "Secondly that countries agreed to the development of a long-term vision on air quality in Asia - and that they expressed their willingness to consider about 15 or 20 different strategies to increase urban air quality on an a more immediate and a short-term basis."
Huizenga says the summit should pave the way for more cooperation over emissions standards and pollution that crosses borders.
Thick smog shrouds Hong Kong
Poor emissions controls and the expanding use of outdated technology are spreading a scourge of smog in many of Asia's megacities.
And Asia's booming economic growth means more factories and vehicles polluting the air.
The World Health Organization estimates more than 530,000 people in Southeast Asia and Pacific countries die prematurely from respiratory diseases connected to air pollution, such as asthma and pneumonia.
This week, 20 Asian countries took the first steps in a cooperative effort to stem airborne pollution.
During a three-day Better Air Quality Conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, the governments signed a pact that experts say is a critical step toward healthier cities and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Asia.
Cornie Huizenga is the head of Secretariat for the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities, which held the summit.
Cars drive on Beijing's second ring road in murky weather - fog combined with pollution
"The potential amount of emissions is increasing rapidly," Huizenga said. "Vehicle fleets are doubling about every five years. So - but fortunately, technologies (are) available - cleaner vehicles, cleaner fuels, etc. So there is a way out. And that's what we have been propagating is that countries need to jump on the bandwagon and adopt strategies for cleaner fuels cleaner vehicles etc."
Auto production in India has increased by 20 percent a year since 2000, and China's vehicle fleet is eight times larger than it was a decade ago.
The number of motorcycles in Indonesia has doubled over the past five years to 33 million.
Huizenga says governments once regarded efforts to contain air pollution as harmful to economic growth. But a recent Asian Development Bank study shows that coping with the damage from air pollution can cost two to four percent of gross domestic product.
Though the group's new agreement is not binding, Huizenga says the summit indicates there is a growing commitment to improving air quality.
"I think it's encouraging first of all that a meeting was held," Huizenga said. "Secondly that countries agreed to the development of a long-term vision on air quality in Asia - and that they expressed their willingness to consider about 15 or 20 different strategies to increase urban air quality on an a more immediate and a short-term basis."
Huizenga says the summit should pave the way for more cooperation over emissions standards and pollution that crosses borders.
Melting of Earth’s Poles Confirmed
2007 is International Polar Year. It's an international effort to spur scientific research at the most forbidding places on Earth, primarily because many in science consider the North and South Poles essential to life on the planet.
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Antarctica mountains
The delicate balance between sun, water, and ice hugely impacts life on planet Earth; hence growing concerns over global warming, and a concentrated effort by scientists to accelerate polar research. This year, there was documented evidence of significant melting at both poles. And the U.S. Space Agency, NASA, and others, confirm the Earth has warmed nearly two degrees since 1900. That may not sound like much, but warming temperatures fuel extreme weather patterns. And a recent study suggests continued global warming could raise sea levels several meters by the end of the century.
The poles are strange, beautiful places, where the sun moves sideways, nights last for months, and bone-chilling winds scar the landscape. The North Pole is an ice sheet floating on the Arctic Ocean; a volatile terrain inhabited by fascinating creatures above and below the ice. The colder South Pole sits atop the massive, frozen continent of Antarctica. The southern ice sheet is over 2200 meters thick, on average. That amounts to 90 percent of the world's ice and 70 percent of its fresh water. Beneath these frigid waters researchers find a world teeming with life.
Dale Anderson a scientist with the Carl Sagan Center says, "Most of this area has never been explored or seen with human eyes. The surprising thing for me was just to find the great diversity of life that we find under the ice."
Life -- such as fish with a natural antifreeze that keeps their blood from freezing and huge jelly fish with tentacles fifteen meters long. More, along the sea floor: a silent, eerie forest thick with microscopic life.
Researcher George Simmons adds, "Upon landing on the bottom I realized that the entire bottom quaked around me, much like landing on a big bowl of Jello [gelatin]."
"These microbial mats that we see in the lakes in the Antarctic may resemble communities that may have lived on Mars billions of years ago," says Anderson.
Scientists say these icy polar waters have much to teach about the mysteries of life on our world and perhaps on distant worlds as well.
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Antarctica mountains
The delicate balance between sun, water, and ice hugely impacts life on planet Earth; hence growing concerns over global warming, and a concentrated effort by scientists to accelerate polar research. This year, there was documented evidence of significant melting at both poles. And the U.S. Space Agency, NASA, and others, confirm the Earth has warmed nearly two degrees since 1900. That may not sound like much, but warming temperatures fuel extreme weather patterns. And a recent study suggests continued global warming could raise sea levels several meters by the end of the century.
The poles are strange, beautiful places, where the sun moves sideways, nights last for months, and bone-chilling winds scar the landscape. The North Pole is an ice sheet floating on the Arctic Ocean; a volatile terrain inhabited by fascinating creatures above and below the ice. The colder South Pole sits atop the massive, frozen continent of Antarctica. The southern ice sheet is over 2200 meters thick, on average. That amounts to 90 percent of the world's ice and 70 percent of its fresh water. Beneath these frigid waters researchers find a world teeming with life.
Dale Anderson a scientist with the Carl Sagan Center says, "Most of this area has never been explored or seen with human eyes. The surprising thing for me was just to find the great diversity of life that we find under the ice."
Life -- such as fish with a natural antifreeze that keeps their blood from freezing and huge jelly fish with tentacles fifteen meters long. More, along the sea floor: a silent, eerie forest thick with microscopic life.
Researcher George Simmons adds, "Upon landing on the bottom I realized that the entire bottom quaked around me, much like landing on a big bowl of Jello [gelatin]."
"These microbial mats that we see in the lakes in the Antarctic may resemble communities that may have lived on Mars billions of years ago," says Anderson.
Scientists say these icy polar waters have much to teach about the mysteries of life on our world and perhaps on distant worlds as well.
Countries Agree to Pursue Fusion Energy Research
The United States and more than 30 other nations have signed a $13 - billion agreement to develop a form of nuclear power in a process called fusion. In a Paris signing ceremony, they agreed to cooperate to build an experimental reactor intended to mimic the way stars make energy, with the hope it can eventually lead to a plentiful supply of cheap, clean and safe power.
The consortium brings together the United States, the European Union, Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, and India to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER for short, in southern France.
Yanhua Liu, left, Raymond Orbach, center, Vladimir Travin, right, make toast at end of signing ceremony
The U.S. delegate to the signing, Raymond Orbach, says the project will be carried out on an unprecedented scale for the betterment of a world dependent on fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.
"ITER has the potential to free the quickly growing global economy and population from the looming constraints of decreasing energy supplies and the unfortunate effects of environmental degradation," Orbach said.
ITER began with an agreement at the 1985 U.S.-Soviet Geneva Summit. It was one result of a plan to develop joint activities to help reduce Cold War tensions. Other nations joined later.
But Congress ordered the U.S. government to withdraw in 1998 because it considered the original reactor design too expensive. Faced with a sharp drop in the budget, the remaining ITER members redesigned the reactor at half the cost, making it attractive again to the United States, which rejoined in 2003.
Debate over the location of the project was another source of political friction. France and Japan both wanted it, but the partners agreed on France last year. In return, Japan pays lower construction costs and gets more staff, including the post of ITER director-general.
Now that the agreement is final, Raymond Orbach says the consortium can pursue development of the energy that powers stars.
"The fusion process is one of the most powerful ways of producing energy that nature has devised," he explained. "As examples of that, I simply suggest you look at the stars and realize how our sun is powered. So what we are trying to do is to take advantage of this quite remarkable property of nature that literally keeps us alive."
In fusion, the nuclei of light elements, such as hydrogen, fuse together inside stars to make heavier elements, such as helium. The fusing process gives off tremendous amounts of energy.
Using fusion to generate power, there would be none of the greenhouse gas byproducts of the sort fossil fuels emit. Nor would fusion produce radioactive material as does the other form of nuclear energy, called fission. The source of hydrogen for the energy-producing reaction would be water.
The ITER reactor will use doughnut-shaped magnetic coils to induce an electric current in a mixture of charged particles, making conditions hot enough to create fusion reactions like those inside stars.
Environmental groups oppose the project. At the Washington branch of Friends of the Earth, Eric Pica says the program is a tremendous waste of money for the slight hope of producing fusion energy.
"You can make better investments by investing in renewable energy and energy conservation," Pica said. "We know these things will save energy and reduce our fossil fuel dependence now."
But Raymond Orbach, the U.S. Department of Energy's science director, says not pursuing fusion research would be an outrage.
"We would be telling our world population that they do not have a chance of achieving the standard of living that the rest of us enjoy," Orbach said. "That is how serious it is if we do not pursue this opportunity."
Plans call for the eight-year construction of the ITER reactor to begin next year. Officials hope to have the unit working by 2040. They predict that if all goes well, fusion could provide 10 to 20 percent of the world's energy by the end of the century.
The consortium brings together the United States, the European Union, Japan, Russia, China, South Korea, and India to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER for short, in southern France.
Yanhua Liu, left, Raymond Orbach, center, Vladimir Travin, right, make toast at end of signing ceremony
The U.S. delegate to the signing, Raymond Orbach, says the project will be carried out on an unprecedented scale for the betterment of a world dependent on fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.
"ITER has the potential to free the quickly growing global economy and population from the looming constraints of decreasing energy supplies and the unfortunate effects of environmental degradation," Orbach said.
ITER began with an agreement at the 1985 U.S.-Soviet Geneva Summit. It was one result of a plan to develop joint activities to help reduce Cold War tensions. Other nations joined later.
But Congress ordered the U.S. government to withdraw in 1998 because it considered the original reactor design too expensive. Faced with a sharp drop in the budget, the remaining ITER members redesigned the reactor at half the cost, making it attractive again to the United States, which rejoined in 2003.
Debate over the location of the project was another source of political friction. France and Japan both wanted it, but the partners agreed on France last year. In return, Japan pays lower construction costs and gets more staff, including the post of ITER director-general.
Now that the agreement is final, Raymond Orbach says the consortium can pursue development of the energy that powers stars.
"The fusion process is one of the most powerful ways of producing energy that nature has devised," he explained. "As examples of that, I simply suggest you look at the stars and realize how our sun is powered. So what we are trying to do is to take advantage of this quite remarkable property of nature that literally keeps us alive."
In fusion, the nuclei of light elements, such as hydrogen, fuse together inside stars to make heavier elements, such as helium. The fusing process gives off tremendous amounts of energy.
Using fusion to generate power, there would be none of the greenhouse gas byproducts of the sort fossil fuels emit. Nor would fusion produce radioactive material as does the other form of nuclear energy, called fission. The source of hydrogen for the energy-producing reaction would be water.
The ITER reactor will use doughnut-shaped magnetic coils to induce an electric current in a mixture of charged particles, making conditions hot enough to create fusion reactions like those inside stars.
Environmental groups oppose the project. At the Washington branch of Friends of the Earth, Eric Pica says the program is a tremendous waste of money for the slight hope of producing fusion energy.
"You can make better investments by investing in renewable energy and energy conservation," Pica said. "We know these things will save energy and reduce our fossil fuel dependence now."
But Raymond Orbach, the U.S. Department of Energy's science director, says not pursuing fusion research would be an outrage.
"We would be telling our world population that they do not have a chance of achieving the standard of living that the rest of us enjoy," Orbach said. "That is how serious it is if we do not pursue this opportunity."
Plans call for the eight-year construction of the ITER reactor to begin next year. Officials hope to have the unit working by 2040. They predict that if all goes well, fusion could provide 10 to 20 percent of the world's energy by the end of the century.
Conference: Africa More Vulnerable to Climate Change
Environmentalists and scientists attending a major U.N. climate change conference in Nairobi, Kenya are warning that Africa is significantly more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than any other continent. Climate change in east Africa is worsening environmental problems, especially pollution and deforestation.
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In one visible example of cliamte change in east Aftica, combo satellite images show two perspective views of Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro on Feb. 17, 1993 (top) and Feb. 21, 2000 (bottom)
Michael Mukasa, 57, has lived near the shores of Lake Naivasha for most of his life. In the past seven years, he has been working here as a fisherman, hoping to provide for his wife and eight children.
Watching dark storm clouds gather over the 250-square-kilometer lake, Mukasa's weathered face breaks into a smile. Rain is coming and that is good news for him.
Mukasa says he has noticed that droughts in Kenya have become longer and more frequent in recent years, sometimes leaving the water levels in the lake dangerously low. But he says it has been raining much more than usual this year and the fish are thriving.
In the Eastern Rift Valley, it is not just fishermen who depend on the fresh waters of Lake Naivasha for their survival.
The lake hosts a large number of hippos and nearly 500 species of birds, which attract thousands of tourists every year.
The lake also plays a vital role in Kenya's economy by irrigating some 100 square kilometers of vegetable and flower farms in Naivasha that generate net revenues of nearly $65 million a year.
The farms employ an estimated 30,000 migrant workers, who, along with Naivasha's 250,000 permanent residents, rely on the lake for much of their daily water needs.
But the monitoring officer for a local wetlands association, Bogo Kamau, says the lake has begun showing clear signs of stress and degradation in recent years.
"What I have noted is that the lake levels have gone down,” he said. “It is tending toward a saline lake. Also, the color of the water has changed."
Kamau says the changes are occurring because tributaries of the two main rivers which feed Lake Naivasha, are no longer bringing as much fresh water as is needed to dilute some of the waste, salts, and minerals in the lake.
Environmentalists say the tributaries are contributing less water because severe deforestation in the local mountains, combined with warmer temperatures, is affecting the amount of rain that falls in the area every year.
George Otiang'a-Owiti is the head of Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute in Naivasha. He notes that the lake's ecosystem is so extensive, interdependent, and fragile, anything that upsets the balance can devastate it.
For example, Owiti says African cape buffalos, which have lost much of their nearby forest habitat, are threatening the health of the lake.
"Because of deforestation, the buffalos have now moved toward the lake area here,” he noted. “And because of that, the buffalos are trodding over the papyrus, which is a very good filter for the water in the lake. And the buffalos graze on the papyrus and this, of course, does not allow regeneration of the papyrus."
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, many of the specialists attending the two-week U.N. talks on climate change have been urging the world's wealthy nations to pay greater attention to the effects of global warming, which they say could soon destroy entire communities in poverty-striken areas of Africa.
The United States and Australia have been especially criticized for not signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrialized countries to greatly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. The emissions, caused by burning of fossil fuels, are believed to be largely responsible for the earth's rising temperatures that have affected weather patterns.
But Bogo Kamau says he thinks local people must also be educated and taught to do their part in protecting and preserving their environment and livelihoods.
"We do not need to criticize what other people are doing,” he said. “We need to also change, to realize that you are also part of the problem."
John Stanton is the vice president of National Environmental Trust, a Washington-based, non-profit organization. He says to increase local participation in conservation efforts, one option being discussed at the U.N. climate change conference is to provide incentives for communities to preserve their forests.
"For communities that allow the forests to remain standing, they would actually be provided a financial reward and that would serve many developmental goals, including habitat conservation, clean-water benefits," he explained.
In Lake Naivasha, undisturbed forests mean financial security and a better life for many people, including fisherman Michael Mukasa.
Scooping up some water with his hands, Mukasa says he cannot imagine what his life would like if something were to happen to the lake.
"It would be very bad and everyone here would know what suffering really is," he said.
---
In one visible example of cliamte change in east Aftica, combo satellite images show two perspective views of Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro on Feb. 17, 1993 (top) and Feb. 21, 2000 (bottom)
Michael Mukasa, 57, has lived near the shores of Lake Naivasha for most of his life. In the past seven years, he has been working here as a fisherman, hoping to provide for his wife and eight children.
Watching dark storm clouds gather over the 250-square-kilometer lake, Mukasa's weathered face breaks into a smile. Rain is coming and that is good news for him.
Mukasa says he has noticed that droughts in Kenya have become longer and more frequent in recent years, sometimes leaving the water levels in the lake dangerously low. But he says it has been raining much more than usual this year and the fish are thriving.
In the Eastern Rift Valley, it is not just fishermen who depend on the fresh waters of Lake Naivasha for their survival.
The lake hosts a large number of hippos and nearly 500 species of birds, which attract thousands of tourists every year.
The lake also plays a vital role in Kenya's economy by irrigating some 100 square kilometers of vegetable and flower farms in Naivasha that generate net revenues of nearly $65 million a year.
The farms employ an estimated 30,000 migrant workers, who, along with Naivasha's 250,000 permanent residents, rely on the lake for much of their daily water needs.
But the monitoring officer for a local wetlands association, Bogo Kamau, says the lake has begun showing clear signs of stress and degradation in recent years.
"What I have noted is that the lake levels have gone down,” he said. “It is tending toward a saline lake. Also, the color of the water has changed."
Kamau says the changes are occurring because tributaries of the two main rivers which feed Lake Naivasha, are no longer bringing as much fresh water as is needed to dilute some of the waste, salts, and minerals in the lake.
Environmentalists say the tributaries are contributing less water because severe deforestation in the local mountains, combined with warmer temperatures, is affecting the amount of rain that falls in the area every year.
George Otiang'a-Owiti is the head of Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute in Naivasha. He notes that the lake's ecosystem is so extensive, interdependent, and fragile, anything that upsets the balance can devastate it.
For example, Owiti says African cape buffalos, which have lost much of their nearby forest habitat, are threatening the health of the lake.
"Because of deforestation, the buffalos have now moved toward the lake area here,” he noted. “And because of that, the buffalos are trodding over the papyrus, which is a very good filter for the water in the lake. And the buffalos graze on the papyrus and this, of course, does not allow regeneration of the papyrus."
In the Kenyan capital Nairobi, many of the specialists attending the two-week U.N. talks on climate change have been urging the world's wealthy nations to pay greater attention to the effects of global warming, which they say could soon destroy entire communities in poverty-striken areas of Africa.
The United States and Australia have been especially criticized for not signing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrialized countries to greatly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. The emissions, caused by burning of fossil fuels, are believed to be largely responsible for the earth's rising temperatures that have affected weather patterns.
But Bogo Kamau says he thinks local people must also be educated and taught to do their part in protecting and preserving their environment and livelihoods.
"We do not need to criticize what other people are doing,” he said. “We need to also change, to realize that you are also part of the problem."
John Stanton is the vice president of National Environmental Trust, a Washington-based, non-profit organization. He says to increase local participation in conservation efforts, one option being discussed at the U.N. climate change conference is to provide incentives for communities to preserve their forests.
"For communities that allow the forests to remain standing, they would actually be provided a financial reward and that would serve many developmental goals, including habitat conservation, clean-water benefits," he explained.
In Lake Naivasha, undisturbed forests mean financial security and a better life for many people, including fisherman Michael Mukasa.
Scooping up some water with his hands, Mukasa says he cannot imagine what his life would like if something were to happen to the lake.
"It would be very bad and everyone here would know what suffering really is," he said.
Annan Blasts World Leaders Ignoring Climate Change
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has opened high-level talks at the U.N. Climate Change conference in Kenya, by urging leaders and their governments to get serious about tackling what he calls the "all-encompassing threat."
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Kofi Annan
In his opening address, Annan said that there is a "frightening lack of leadership" with respect to countries curbing their carbon dioxide and other emissions linked to climate change.
Speaking later to reporters, Annan said governments and the people who elect them need to take more responsibility for reigning in climate change.
"I think there are many leaders who are not taking climate change seriously, and I would want leaders around the world to really show courage and to know that if they do, their people and the population and the voters will be with them," he said. "If they do not, I think the population and the voters should take the lead to let them know that they consider climate change seriously and that there may be a political cost if they don't show the political leadership to move the process forward."
Annan said the Kyoto Protocol is a solid first step, but additional measures by governments, business, consumers and others to curb harmful emissions must be implemented.
The 165 countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect last year, are legally committed to reducing their output of six carbon gases most responsible for causing global warming.
The worst of these gases is carbon dioxide, the by-product of burning oil, gas, and coal. In industrialized countries, a lot of this burning gas and oil comes from car emissions.
Others include methane and nitrous oxide. The gases form a barrier that prevents the sun's energy from radiating back into space, thus raising the earth's temperature.
Such climate change has been linked to more frequent occurrences of drought, flooding, hurricanes, forest fires, and increases in the number of malaria cases, with long-term impacts being rising sea levels and damage to crops.
The United States and Australia have refused to ratify the protocol, raising the ire of many experts and activists. The United States accounts for about one quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
Annan urged the holdout countries to cut down on their emissions.
"If they do not sign the Kyoto agreement, they have to act, and be in step with the rest of the world or the rest of the industrialized world," he added. "They have a responsibility to their citizens and to the rest of the world and the people who we share the planet with to bring their emissions under control. Some American leaders have told me, 'We have not signed Kyoto, but we are going to take measures to fulfill it or even go beyond.' So, let us wait and see if that happens."
The United States says the Kyoto treaty does not place enough responsibility on developing countries to cut pollution and its costs would harm the U.S. economy.
The U.N. Climate Change conference ends Friday.
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Kofi Annan
In his opening address, Annan said that there is a "frightening lack of leadership" with respect to countries curbing their carbon dioxide and other emissions linked to climate change.
Speaking later to reporters, Annan said governments and the people who elect them need to take more responsibility for reigning in climate change.
"I think there are many leaders who are not taking climate change seriously, and I would want leaders around the world to really show courage and to know that if they do, their people and the population and the voters will be with them," he said. "If they do not, I think the population and the voters should take the lead to let them know that they consider climate change seriously and that there may be a political cost if they don't show the political leadership to move the process forward."
Annan said the Kyoto Protocol is a solid first step, but additional measures by governments, business, consumers and others to curb harmful emissions must be implemented.
The 165 countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which took effect last year, are legally committed to reducing their output of six carbon gases most responsible for causing global warming.
The worst of these gases is carbon dioxide, the by-product of burning oil, gas, and coal. In industrialized countries, a lot of this burning gas and oil comes from car emissions.
Others include methane and nitrous oxide. The gases form a barrier that prevents the sun's energy from radiating back into space, thus raising the earth's temperature.
Such climate change has been linked to more frequent occurrences of drought, flooding, hurricanes, forest fires, and increases in the number of malaria cases, with long-term impacts being rising sea levels and damage to crops.
The United States and Australia have refused to ratify the protocol, raising the ire of many experts and activists. The United States accounts for about one quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
Annan urged the holdout countries to cut down on their emissions.
"If they do not sign the Kyoto agreement, they have to act, and be in step with the rest of the world or the rest of the industrialized world," he added. "They have a responsibility to their citizens and to the rest of the world and the people who we share the planet with to bring their emissions under control. Some American leaders have told me, 'We have not signed Kyoto, but we are going to take measures to fulfill it or even go beyond.' So, let us wait and see if that happens."
The United States says the Kyoto treaty does not place enough responsibility on developing countries to cut pollution and its costs would harm the U.S. economy.
The U.N. Climate Change conference ends Friday.
UN, Companies Call For Climate Insurance For The Poor
The United Nations and a group of international insurance and finance companies are calling Tuesday for creative ways to provide climate insurance to farmers and others affected by climate change. Experts said they are pleased with the results of a pilot climate insurance scheme for farmers in Ethiopia that was implemented earlier this year.
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Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana opens talks at UN Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, November 6, 2006
U.N. officials warn that losses from droughts, storms, floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather events linked to climate change are doubling every 12 years.
The officials, from the U.N.'s Environment Program's Finance Initiative, say those hardest hit are the poor in developing countries in Africa and other parts of the world, especially those who rely on the land for their livelihoods.
In a report released Tuesday, the UNEP's Finance Initiative and its working group of 15 global banks, insurance companies and asset managers call for new and creative ways to insure the poor against extreme weather events.
Paul Clements Hunt, coordinator of the Finance Initiative, explains the need for such an approach.
"Climate change is now certain. These institutions have calculated potential disaster losses reaching over one trillion U.S. dollars in a single year by 2040. In 2002, we had calculated that there were in the region of $150 billion of economic losses a year associated with natural weather events and natural disasters," he said.
Hunt said, under current climate trends and their resulting impacts on the economy, it would be almost impossible for countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals set out by the United Nations.
New and innovative insurance schemes resulting from the combined efforts of governments, private companies, and donor funds can take many forms.
For instance, one program under consideration for pastoralists would see them receiving payments triggered when the condition and availability of forage for the livestock they tend deteriorate below a pre-determined point.
The U.N. Environment Program's executive director, Achim Steiner, gives another example from his native Germany.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UN Environment Programme
"A weather event that has often broken the backs of farming communities was hailstones," he said.
"So, under legislation in Germany, and I imagine a number of other countries also, farmers were essentially obliged, all of them, to insure their crops, their fields against hailstorm damage, which brought the premium down significantly and ensure that no farmer in one year would essentially lose their entire livelihood."
In March of this year, the World Food Program launched a humanitarian insurance pilot project in Ethiopia that concluded at the end of October. Under the program, farmers would receive payment if rainfalls were lower than expected.
No payments were made, as rainfall during that period was not below average.
World Food Program spokesman Peter Smerdon said that, nonetheless, experts were pleased with the pilot project's outcome.
"We now see it is feasible to use market mechanisms to finance drought risk in Ethiopia. This is the first time in history that humanitarian risk was transferred out of a developing country using such market mechanisms. It also shows that it's possible to develop objective timing and accurate indicators for triggering drought assistance," he said.
The climate insurance report was unveiled at the U.N.'s Climate Change Conference being held in Kenya's capital. Some 6,000 delegates from around the world are discussing the effects of climate change and what can be done about it.
The conference ends Friday.
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Kenyan Environment Minister Kivutha Kibwana opens talks at UN Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, November 6, 2006
U.N. officials warn that losses from droughts, storms, floods, hurricanes and other extreme weather events linked to climate change are doubling every 12 years.
The officials, from the U.N.'s Environment Program's Finance Initiative, say those hardest hit are the poor in developing countries in Africa and other parts of the world, especially those who rely on the land for their livelihoods.
In a report released Tuesday, the UNEP's Finance Initiative and its working group of 15 global banks, insurance companies and asset managers call for new and creative ways to insure the poor against extreme weather events.
Paul Clements Hunt, coordinator of the Finance Initiative, explains the need for such an approach.
"Climate change is now certain. These institutions have calculated potential disaster losses reaching over one trillion U.S. dollars in a single year by 2040. In 2002, we had calculated that there were in the region of $150 billion of economic losses a year associated with natural weather events and natural disasters," he said.
Hunt said, under current climate trends and their resulting impacts on the economy, it would be almost impossible for countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals set out by the United Nations.
New and innovative insurance schemes resulting from the combined efforts of governments, private companies, and donor funds can take many forms.
For instance, one program under consideration for pastoralists would see them receiving payments triggered when the condition and availability of forage for the livestock they tend deteriorate below a pre-determined point.
The U.N. Environment Program's executive director, Achim Steiner, gives another example from his native Germany.
Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UN Environment Programme
"A weather event that has often broken the backs of farming communities was hailstones," he said.
"So, under legislation in Germany, and I imagine a number of other countries also, farmers were essentially obliged, all of them, to insure their crops, their fields against hailstorm damage, which brought the premium down significantly and ensure that no farmer in one year would essentially lose their entire livelihood."
In March of this year, the World Food Program launched a humanitarian insurance pilot project in Ethiopia that concluded at the end of October. Under the program, farmers would receive payment if rainfalls were lower than expected.
No payments were made, as rainfall during that period was not below average.
World Food Program spokesman Peter Smerdon said that, nonetheless, experts were pleased with the pilot project's outcome.
"We now see it is feasible to use market mechanisms to finance drought risk in Ethiopia. This is the first time in history that humanitarian risk was transferred out of a developing country using such market mechanisms. It also shows that it's possible to develop objective timing and accurate indicators for triggering drought assistance," he said.
The climate insurance report was unveiled at the U.N.'s Climate Change Conference being held in Kenya's capital. Some 6,000 delegates from around the world are discussing the effects of climate change and what can be done about it.
The conference ends Friday.
Group Trying to Save Endangered Orangutans
Orangutans are highly intelligent and are one of man's closest relatives. Found primarily in Indonesia, their name in English means "People of the Forest." Just a century ago, their numbers were plentiful, but deforestation, illegal hunting and natural disasters have left these large, red apes on the verge of extinction. A group in the western state of California is working to save orangutans and the habitats they live in. It is called the Orang Utan Republik (OUR) Education Initiative and it is working to get Americans and Indonesians involved in saving Indonesia's orangutans. For producers Vena Anissa and Nia Sutadi, VOA's Jim Bertel has more.
A baby orangutan
Gary Shapiro has spent more than 30 years studying orangutans, spending many years in Indonesia where he taught sign language to ex-captive orangutans in the wild. Three years ago, Shapiro and his Indonesian wife Inggriani began Orang Utan Republik, an environmental organization working to save orangutans from extinction.
"Our goal is to inspire, to empower Indonesian people to be in charge to save the orangutan,” said Inggriani. “We invite them to participate through educational programs in art and science."
Gary Shapiro
"The orangutan is an umbrella-species; if we can preserve orangutans, we can also preserve other animals that are threatened with extinction,” added Gary. “And we hope that Indonesians will learn the place of the orangutan in the ecosystem, so that they will care what happens to them and we will be able to preserve the orangutan forever."
The Shapiros spend Sundays at Santa Monica, California’s farmer's market educating people about orangutans and their habitat.
Inngriani Shapiro
"An adult female orangutan usually gets pregnant every seven years,” explains Inggriani. “It takes such a long time for an orangutan mother to teach its offspring to survive in the forest. If the offspring are continually separated from their mothers, eventually the species will become extinct."
Nicky Coleman, who once visited an orangutan rehabilitation center in Indonesia, supports the Shapiro's efforts. "Some people just don't realize what they are doing to the environment, but if you can bring awareness and show them, they maybe think twice and make some changes in their life style."
An orangutan in the wild
While most of the estimated 57,000 orangutans in the wild are found in Indonesia, the Shapiros believe people around the world need to be educated about orangutans and their role in the tropical ecosystem in order to pressure Indonesians to do more to protect these creatures.
"I have been concerned about the orangutan for a long time,” says Gary. “And like my adopted 'child,' an orangutan named Princess, I want a world where orangutans can live freely in the forest. And hopefully her children and grandchildren will also be able to live that way in Indonesia forever."
some footage provided by Orang Utan Republik
A baby orangutan
Gary Shapiro has spent more than 30 years studying orangutans, spending many years in Indonesia where he taught sign language to ex-captive orangutans in the wild. Three years ago, Shapiro and his Indonesian wife Inggriani began Orang Utan Republik, an environmental organization working to save orangutans from extinction.
"Our goal is to inspire, to empower Indonesian people to be in charge to save the orangutan,” said Inggriani. “We invite them to participate through educational programs in art and science."
Gary Shapiro
"The orangutan is an umbrella-species; if we can preserve orangutans, we can also preserve other animals that are threatened with extinction,” added Gary. “And we hope that Indonesians will learn the place of the orangutan in the ecosystem, so that they will care what happens to them and we will be able to preserve the orangutan forever."
The Shapiros spend Sundays at Santa Monica, California’s farmer's market educating people about orangutans and their habitat.
Inngriani Shapiro
"An adult female orangutan usually gets pregnant every seven years,” explains Inggriani. “It takes such a long time for an orangutan mother to teach its offspring to survive in the forest. If the offspring are continually separated from their mothers, eventually the species will become extinct."
Nicky Coleman, who once visited an orangutan rehabilitation center in Indonesia, supports the Shapiro's efforts. "Some people just don't realize what they are doing to the environment, but if you can bring awareness and show them, they maybe think twice and make some changes in their life style."
An orangutan in the wild
While most of the estimated 57,000 orangutans in the wild are found in Indonesia, the Shapiros believe people around the world need to be educated about orangutans and their role in the tropical ecosystem in order to pressure Indonesians to do more to protect these creatures.
"I have been concerned about the orangutan for a long time,” says Gary. “And like my adopted 'child,' an orangutan named Princess, I want a world where orangutans can live freely in the forest. And hopefully her children and grandchildren will also be able to live that way in Indonesia forever."
some footage provided by Orang Utan Republik
Chesapeake Bay Faces Environmental Degradation
The Chesapeake Bay has the longest coastline in the eastern United States -- nearly 19,000 kilometers long, stretching through and bordering six states. Thousands of rivers and streams feed its waters, and more than 16 million people share its bounty. The bay's economic and environmental impact is huge. But it is in trouble, and many fear its demise. Producer Zulima Palacio reports on one of the most challenging environmental recovery programs in the country. VOA's Jim Bertel narrates the story.
The Chesapeake Bay's pleasures are obvious, the desire to get close to it strong. That is part of the problem. With millions of people living close by, the Chesapeake is under environmental siege.
Decades of human development have had a harsh effect on the watershed, filling it with an overabundance of agricultural nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorous – and industrial waste.
Bill Matuszeski
Bill Matuszeski has spent the last 40 years trying to offset the environment degradation. He now works for the privately funded Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. "In the case of the Chesapeake Bay, the sources of the oversupply of nutrients are overwhelming from agriculture. Sixty percent of it comes from agriculture."
Benjamin Grunbles of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agrees. "We think the primary challenge, the biggest challenge for the Chesapeake Bay, is nutrients. Nutrients are a good thing but when they are in excessive amounts they can trigger algae growth, algae blooms which then deprive the water of oxygen as it decomposes."
Benjamin Grunbles
Much of that excess of nutrients comes from natural and artificial fertilizers. But the overdose of nutrients also comes from antiquated, sewage treatment plants in urban areas, and leaky septic tanks in rural and suburban communities. Matuszeski explains that, until recently, waste treatment plants took out the toxins and the bacteria, but not the nitrogen and phosphorus, because they were not considered harmful to human health. But they are for the watershed.
Farms near the bay contribute nutrient runoff to the watershed problems
"We still have in America and around the world, hundreds of cities that have these combined sewage systems that go back 100-120 years,” says Matuszeski. “In Washington D.C., there are over 100 outlets that open up in a big storm and send raw sewage into the Anacostia River, where it does not go out to sea, where it ends up being caught up by the tide and moved around."
The U.S. Navy Yard, located in Washington D.C., dates to 1799. It once was an industrial facility to build ships, torpedoes and munitions. Over a period of 150 years the Navy discharged toxic materials into the bottom of the Anacostia River, one of many tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay.
Bill Matuszeski says, "Meanwhile we have a situation in the river here, where the fish absorb the toxins and develop tumors and other conditions so that people are not able to eat the fish out of the Anacostia River. This facility is no longer operating as an industrial facility, so we're dealing with what people call legacy sediments."
The Chesapeake Bay has long been known for its high production of oysters, crab and fish, and they support a multi-million fishing industry. But environmental groups say that pollution and years of over fishing are taking a toll. Anxious watermen consider themselves lucky to pull in a full catch.
"In a good year it's a body of water that produces half of the blue crab in the U.S.,” Matuszeski tells us. “It is 90 percent of the spawning area for the striped bass, a very important fish population."
Recent federal and private studies estimate that cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay will cost $28 billion, but plans to complete the restoration by 2010 are not likely to be met.
Still, Benjamin Grunble of the Environmental Protection Agency expresses optimism for the bay's future, even as he warns of the degrading effects of the region's fast growing population.
"The bay is definitely on the right track and we are making progress. But the reason we are not comfortable with the pace of progress so far is the reality that every year 150,000 new residents move into that large watershed. That means more development, that means more pavements and more cars," says Grunble.
Matuszeski says what is happening to the Chesapeake Bay can be seen in coastal areas around the world. But he hopes that a new awareness of the bay's fragility, eco-friendly legislation and new technology can help save it.
The Chesapeake Bay's pleasures are obvious, the desire to get close to it strong. That is part of the problem. With millions of people living close by, the Chesapeake is under environmental siege.
Decades of human development have had a harsh effect on the watershed, filling it with an overabundance of agricultural nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorous – and industrial waste.
Bill Matuszeski
Bill Matuszeski has spent the last 40 years trying to offset the environment degradation. He now works for the privately funded Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay. "In the case of the Chesapeake Bay, the sources of the oversupply of nutrients are overwhelming from agriculture. Sixty percent of it comes from agriculture."
Benjamin Grunbles of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agrees. "We think the primary challenge, the biggest challenge for the Chesapeake Bay, is nutrients. Nutrients are a good thing but when they are in excessive amounts they can trigger algae growth, algae blooms which then deprive the water of oxygen as it decomposes."
Benjamin Grunbles
Much of that excess of nutrients comes from natural and artificial fertilizers. But the overdose of nutrients also comes from antiquated, sewage treatment plants in urban areas, and leaky septic tanks in rural and suburban communities. Matuszeski explains that, until recently, waste treatment plants took out the toxins and the bacteria, but not the nitrogen and phosphorus, because they were not considered harmful to human health. But they are for the watershed.
Farms near the bay contribute nutrient runoff to the watershed problems
"We still have in America and around the world, hundreds of cities that have these combined sewage systems that go back 100-120 years,” says Matuszeski. “In Washington D.C., there are over 100 outlets that open up in a big storm and send raw sewage into the Anacostia River, where it does not go out to sea, where it ends up being caught up by the tide and moved around."
The U.S. Navy Yard, located in Washington D.C., dates to 1799. It once was an industrial facility to build ships, torpedoes and munitions. Over a period of 150 years the Navy discharged toxic materials into the bottom of the Anacostia River, one of many tributaries to the Chesapeake Bay.
Bill Matuszeski says, "Meanwhile we have a situation in the river here, where the fish absorb the toxins and develop tumors and other conditions so that people are not able to eat the fish out of the Anacostia River. This facility is no longer operating as an industrial facility, so we're dealing with what people call legacy sediments."
The Chesapeake Bay has long been known for its high production of oysters, crab and fish, and they support a multi-million fishing industry. But environmental groups say that pollution and years of over fishing are taking a toll. Anxious watermen consider themselves lucky to pull in a full catch.
"In a good year it's a body of water that produces half of the blue crab in the U.S.,” Matuszeski tells us. “It is 90 percent of the spawning area for the striped bass, a very important fish population."
Recent federal and private studies estimate that cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay will cost $28 billion, but plans to complete the restoration by 2010 are not likely to be met.
Still, Benjamin Grunble of the Environmental Protection Agency expresses optimism for the bay's future, even as he warns of the degrading effects of the region's fast growing population.
"The bay is definitely on the right track and we are making progress. But the reason we are not comfortable with the pace of progress so far is the reality that every year 150,000 new residents move into that large watershed. That means more development, that means more pavements and more cars," says Grunble.
Matuszeski says what is happening to the Chesapeake Bay can be seen in coastal areas around the world. But he hopes that a new awareness of the bay's fragility, eco-friendly legislation and new technology can help save it.
Experts Say Global Warming Likely to Affect Africa Most Severely
Experts say global warming is likely to affect people living in Africa more than on any other continent and warn that African policymakers must begin to prepare for such an event. An international panel of experts on climate change made the projection Tuesday in its latest report. Correspondent Scott Bobb reports from Johannesburg.
A child is carried by his mother as she harvests her maize crop early due to a food shortage caused by drought in Kampimphi, 68 kms north of Lilongwe, Malawi (file photo)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, says global warming could upset the livelihood of as many as 250 million Africans in the next 13 years by reducing access to water and food, degrading forests, mangroves and coral reefs and causing large migrations of people.
One of the main authors of the report, Guy Midgley, says at the same time Africa is among the regions least able to address such a crisis.
"It's a continent which is most vulnerable to climate change because of its low adaptive capacity," he said. "You have fairly weak institutional control and inputs and at the same time high levels of projected climate impact. Put those two things together and you end up with substantial vulnerability."
The IPCC was formed nearly 20 years ago to assess scientific studies on climate change. The latest report was compiled over the past six years by hundreds of authors from 130 countries. It is meant to serve as a tool for policymakers.
Midgley says that research is growing and increasingly in agreement. It shows that surface temperatures on land and sea have risen by one to two degrees in the past 34 years and are already affecting weather and ecosystems around the world.
He says in Africa, fish populations have declined in major lakes and coastal areas. The amount of land available for agriculture is shrinking and growing seasons are shorter. The report projects that crops from rain-fed agriculture in some countries could be reduced by as much as 50 percent by 2020.
At the same time, rising sea levels could threaten coastal and island communities and affect industries such as tourism. The report says some adaptation has already begun but the cost could amount to as much as 10 percent of gross domestic products.
He says a major concern in Africa is that so many people are living at subsistence levels.
"A lot of people in Africa are not living buffered by insurance, buffered by savings, by credit availability," Midgely said. "So when resources become less available people potentially could be quite mobile. And that's always a problem for social security, for unrest, etc."
He notes that in a major irony, warming temperatures may actually boost agriculture and water supplies in temperate zones such as the northern hemisphere.
Last November, then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke at the opening of the climate change meeting in Nairobi. He said the impact of climate change will fall disproportionately on the world's poorest countries, many of them here in Africa. He added that these people already live on the front lines of pollution, disaster and the degradation of resources and land.
A child is carried by his mother as she harvests her maize crop early due to a food shortage caused by drought in Kampimphi, 68 kms north of Lilongwe, Malawi (file photo)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, says global warming could upset the livelihood of as many as 250 million Africans in the next 13 years by reducing access to water and food, degrading forests, mangroves and coral reefs and causing large migrations of people.
One of the main authors of the report, Guy Midgley, says at the same time Africa is among the regions least able to address such a crisis.
"It's a continent which is most vulnerable to climate change because of its low adaptive capacity," he said. "You have fairly weak institutional control and inputs and at the same time high levels of projected climate impact. Put those two things together and you end up with substantial vulnerability."
The IPCC was formed nearly 20 years ago to assess scientific studies on climate change. The latest report was compiled over the past six years by hundreds of authors from 130 countries. It is meant to serve as a tool for policymakers.
Midgley says that research is growing and increasingly in agreement. It shows that surface temperatures on land and sea have risen by one to two degrees in the past 34 years and are already affecting weather and ecosystems around the world.
He says in Africa, fish populations have declined in major lakes and coastal areas. The amount of land available for agriculture is shrinking and growing seasons are shorter. The report projects that crops from rain-fed agriculture in some countries could be reduced by as much as 50 percent by 2020.
At the same time, rising sea levels could threaten coastal and island communities and affect industries such as tourism. The report says some adaptation has already begun but the cost could amount to as much as 10 percent of gross domestic products.
He says a major concern in Africa is that so many people are living at subsistence levels.
"A lot of people in Africa are not living buffered by insurance, buffered by savings, by credit availability," Midgely said. "So when resources become less available people potentially could be quite mobile. And that's always a problem for social security, for unrest, etc."
He notes that in a major irony, warming temperatures may actually boost agriculture and water supplies in temperate zones such as the northern hemisphere.
Last November, then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke at the opening of the climate change meeting in Nairobi. He said the impact of climate change will fall disproportionately on the world's poorest countries, many of them here in Africa. He added that these people already live on the front lines of pollution, disaster and the degradation of resources and land.
Global Warming Activists Run Sahara, North Pole Marathons
A South African man and his British friend have launched a campaign to get people around the world to help fight global warming. They call it the EarthFireIce campaign, and they want people to log onto their website and pledge to stop using a hair dryer, or turn down their heat, or walk more and drive less. To kick off their campaign and raise awareness, the two founders have taken part in the hottest and coldest marathons in the world. Catherine Drew caught up with them in London after they ran in the Sahara marathon and before they traveled to compete in a race at the North Pole.
Runner in Sahara Marathon
This is not a jog on the beach. It is the Sahara Marathon, maybe the toughest race in the world. Even in the winter, temperatures can easily rise to over 30 degrees Celsius. But each year a few hundred runners come to Algeria to compete for charity
The race is held to raise money and awareness for the Saharawi people, refugees who were forced from their land in western Sahara 30 years ago. They continue to live in refugee camps
This year, South African Ed Stumpf and his British colleague Sean Cornwell were there in a bid to kick-start what they have called the EarthFireIce campaign against global warming.
Briton Sean Cornwell
Cornwell says desertification caused by global warming will mean that more people could find themselves suffering the harsh conditions endured by the Saharawi people. But [he says] individuals in Europe and elsewhere can do something about it.
"There's a very common perception that only governments and businesses can make any difference in the climate change arena,” Cornwell says. “If an individual wants to make a difference, they [think they] have to make these huge enormous sacrifices in their life – like I'm never going to fly again, I'm going to live in a hippie commune or something [like that]. And we're trying to show exactly the opposite: actually you don't have to make these huge sacrifices, and yet you can still have a significant impact."
While Cornwell and Stumpf have put around $20,000 of their own money into the campaign, they have attracted some sponsorship and hope more companies will support them.
South African Ed Stumpf
People can log on to their website to make a pledge to do their part to fight global warming, and invite family and friends to do the same. Stumpf says what the team really wants is not money, but action.
"Seventy five percent of the world's CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions come from the first world, and yet the affects are far and away the most severe in the developing world,” he says. “And a short trip, even our trip to the Sahara, really pushed home that point. It's quite obvious: what would these people do if global climate changed?"
The EarthFireIce founders hope as many as one million people will join the campaign – which they believe is the first to target individuals.
Runner in Sahara Marathon
This is not a jog on the beach. It is the Sahara Marathon, maybe the toughest race in the world. Even in the winter, temperatures can easily rise to over 30 degrees Celsius. But each year a few hundred runners come to Algeria to compete for charity
The race is held to raise money and awareness for the Saharawi people, refugees who were forced from their land in western Sahara 30 years ago. They continue to live in refugee camps
This year, South African Ed Stumpf and his British colleague Sean Cornwell were there in a bid to kick-start what they have called the EarthFireIce campaign against global warming.
Briton Sean Cornwell
Cornwell says desertification caused by global warming will mean that more people could find themselves suffering the harsh conditions endured by the Saharawi people. But [he says] individuals in Europe and elsewhere can do something about it.
"There's a very common perception that only governments and businesses can make any difference in the climate change arena,” Cornwell says. “If an individual wants to make a difference, they [think they] have to make these huge enormous sacrifices in their life – like I'm never going to fly again, I'm going to live in a hippie commune or something [like that]. And we're trying to show exactly the opposite: actually you don't have to make these huge sacrifices, and yet you can still have a significant impact."
While Cornwell and Stumpf have put around $20,000 of their own money into the campaign, they have attracted some sponsorship and hope more companies will support them.
South African Ed Stumpf
People can log on to their website to make a pledge to do their part to fight global warming, and invite family and friends to do the same. Stumpf says what the team really wants is not money, but action.
"Seventy five percent of the world's CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions come from the first world, and yet the affects are far and away the most severe in the developing world,” he says. “And a short trip, even our trip to the Sahara, really pushed home that point. It's quite obvious: what would these people do if global climate changed?"
The EarthFireIce founders hope as many as one million people will join the campaign – which they believe is the first to target individuals.
Environmental Degradation Seen as Contributing to World
The effects of environmental degradation have been increasingly seen as contributing to conflict in various parts of the world. The growing scarcity of natural resources as a threat to human security and political stability is the focus of an exhibit at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. For producer Valer Gergely, VOA's Jim Bertel has more on the showcase titled: Environment, Conflict and Cooperation.
Picture of child soldier from exhibit
Natural resources provide a living and shelter for hundreds of millions of people in the developing world and are an elementary part of survival. As those life supporting natural resources come under threat so does the personal security of millions who rely on them. Climate change, water scarcity and population growth are some of the most powerful and least understood environmental challenges.
Using the subjects of water, climate, land, forests and minerals, the exhibition shows not only the ways in which environmental degradation can lead to conflicts and new security threats, but also how environmental cooperation can contribute to security and stability.
The exhibit, assembled by the Berlin based think-tank, Adelphi Research, focuses on how man-made environmental changes affect both foreign and domestic policy. It draws a direct connection between natural resources, poverty and stability in various parts of the world, according to Adelphi Research Director Alexander Carius.
Alexander Carius
"We use examples, like impacts of climate change in terms of the increase of droughts, extreme weather events, such as floods and storms,” he explains. “We also look at the economic damage climate change has, and [how it] indirectly effects economies, especially [those of] vulnerable states."
The exhibition also demonstrates that the sustainable use of natural resources across national borders can contribute to conflict prevention and confidence building.
"Armenia and Azerbaijan, for example, still have several border disputes, mainly over Nagorno-Karabakh," says Mr. Carius.
But the European Neighborhood Policy Initiative creates a political framework to both address environmental issues and to bring neighboring countries closer to EU standards.
"Within this political framework, government agencies and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] started to initiate trans-boundary environmental projects, both water and nature protection,” Carius says. “There are some very promising examples at the moment where not those three countries [directly], but bilateral activities between Georgia and Armenia, and also between Georgia and Azerbaijan, proved to be fruitful because normally those countries, especially Armenia and Azerbaijan, don't cooperate with each other."
The exhibition displays the linkage between environment and security in Central Asia, the area of the southern provinces of the former Soviet Union. The map shows the radioactive, chemical and biological hazards, waste disposal and pollution in the region. The exploitation of two main rivers in Kazakhstan led to the reduction of the water level and the desiccation of the Aral Sea. National interests emerged after the collapse of the Soviet water allocation system. The continued use of intensive irrigation practices and environmental pressure raised tensions between ethnic groups and states
Exhibit shows how climate changes will alter usable agricultural lands
Speakers at the exhibition predict that climate change will alter our lives. Great climate pattern changes will alter available water resources, as well as the availability of usable agricultural land. A number of extreme weather events may render cities and tidal regions uninhabitable, resulting in mass migration. They believe that the traditional patterns of our lifestyle and economic behavior must change and that we have to accept the fact that we live in a global village where we all rely on each other.
The exhibition has been brought to the Woodrow Wilson Center with the support of the German Embassy, as Germany continues its efforts to take the lead in environmental issues. After Washington, D.C., the exhibition will be presented in Houston and Austin, Texas.
Picture of child soldier from exhibit
Natural resources provide a living and shelter for hundreds of millions of people in the developing world and are an elementary part of survival. As those life supporting natural resources come under threat so does the personal security of millions who rely on them. Climate change, water scarcity and population growth are some of the most powerful and least understood environmental challenges.
Using the subjects of water, climate, land, forests and minerals, the exhibition shows not only the ways in which environmental degradation can lead to conflicts and new security threats, but also how environmental cooperation can contribute to security and stability.
The exhibit, assembled by the Berlin based think-tank, Adelphi Research, focuses on how man-made environmental changes affect both foreign and domestic policy. It draws a direct connection between natural resources, poverty and stability in various parts of the world, according to Adelphi Research Director Alexander Carius.
Alexander Carius
"We use examples, like impacts of climate change in terms of the increase of droughts, extreme weather events, such as floods and storms,” he explains. “We also look at the economic damage climate change has, and [how it] indirectly effects economies, especially [those of] vulnerable states."
The exhibition also demonstrates that the sustainable use of natural resources across national borders can contribute to conflict prevention and confidence building.
"Armenia and Azerbaijan, for example, still have several border disputes, mainly over Nagorno-Karabakh," says Mr. Carius.
But the European Neighborhood Policy Initiative creates a political framework to both address environmental issues and to bring neighboring countries closer to EU standards.
"Within this political framework, government agencies and NGOs [non-governmental organizations] started to initiate trans-boundary environmental projects, both water and nature protection,” Carius says. “There are some very promising examples at the moment where not those three countries [directly], but bilateral activities between Georgia and Armenia, and also between Georgia and Azerbaijan, proved to be fruitful because normally those countries, especially Armenia and Azerbaijan, don't cooperate with each other."
The exhibition displays the linkage between environment and security in Central Asia, the area of the southern provinces of the former Soviet Union. The map shows the radioactive, chemical and biological hazards, waste disposal and pollution in the region. The exploitation of two main rivers in Kazakhstan led to the reduction of the water level and the desiccation of the Aral Sea. National interests emerged after the collapse of the Soviet water allocation system. The continued use of intensive irrigation practices and environmental pressure raised tensions between ethnic groups and states
Exhibit shows how climate changes will alter usable agricultural lands
Speakers at the exhibition predict that climate change will alter our lives. Great climate pattern changes will alter available water resources, as well as the availability of usable agricultural land. A number of extreme weather events may render cities and tidal regions uninhabitable, resulting in mass migration. They believe that the traditional patterns of our lifestyle and economic behavior must change and that we have to accept the fact that we live in a global village where we all rely on each other.
The exhibition has been brought to the Woodrow Wilson Center with the support of the German Embassy, as Germany continues its efforts to take the lead in environmental issues. After Washington, D.C., the exhibition will be presented in Houston and Austin, Texas.
UN Sounds Global Warming Alarm
Thousands of climate scientists and government policy administrators from more than 120 countries worked on the report for six years. After a reported all night session on April 5, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its second major report on global warming. VOA's Paul Sisco has more.
The climate experts' report predicts rising temperatures will lead to more heat waves in the United States and elsewhere. It also envisions more hunger, particularly in the developing world; continued glacier melting; accelerated plant and animal extinctions; rising sea levels and associated environmental degradation.
Rajendra Pachauri
"The Working Group Two Report deals with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability," explains Panel Chairman Rajendra Pachauri. "And this is what determines responses that human beings and societies will make to counter this problem, to be able to manage this problem."
Panel co-chairman Martin Perry adds, "What they've done now is finally establish at the global level there is an anthropogenic, a man made, climate signal coming through on plants, animals, water and ice."
The report's conclusions are largely based on data that scientists see now. They include changing bird migrations, earlier spring melts in temperate climate zones and rapidly declining tropical coral reefs in some warmer seas.
Life is sweet in the United States when you cast your fishing line in the Yellowstone River. But the United States is not exempt from the report's findings. This river, like most in western and southwestern United States, is severely stressed. The region is suffering from ten years of drought. Nevada's Lake Meade is 24 meters below normal levels. Docks hang from newly formed cliffs. And the once mighty Colorado River, from which seven U.S. states draw water, now trickles at the border between the United States and Mexico.
Heat wave means more drought
The report states clearly that poorer nations above and below the equator, are even worse off, with temperatures predicted to rise, and few resources to deal with resulting problems.
One observer commented, "It is getting worse every year."
Chairman Rajendra Pachauri says this is based on scientific evidence, "You don't need faith to believe what is being put forward, what you have is solid scientific evidence.
The report concludes that the situation is worse than previously thought. And it says that if temperatures continue to rise, one billion people could face dangerous flooding, three billion, water shortages and many species face mass extinction.
The climate experts' report predicts rising temperatures will lead to more heat waves in the United States and elsewhere. It also envisions more hunger, particularly in the developing world; continued glacier melting; accelerated plant and animal extinctions; rising sea levels and associated environmental degradation.
Rajendra Pachauri
"The Working Group Two Report deals with impacts, adaptation and vulnerability," explains Panel Chairman Rajendra Pachauri. "And this is what determines responses that human beings and societies will make to counter this problem, to be able to manage this problem."
Panel co-chairman Martin Perry adds, "What they've done now is finally establish at the global level there is an anthropogenic, a man made, climate signal coming through on plants, animals, water and ice."
The report's conclusions are largely based on data that scientists see now. They include changing bird migrations, earlier spring melts in temperate climate zones and rapidly declining tropical coral reefs in some warmer seas.
Life is sweet in the United States when you cast your fishing line in the Yellowstone River. But the United States is not exempt from the report's findings. This river, like most in western and southwestern United States, is severely stressed. The region is suffering from ten years of drought. Nevada's Lake Meade is 24 meters below normal levels. Docks hang from newly formed cliffs. And the once mighty Colorado River, from which seven U.S. states draw water, now trickles at the border between the United States and Mexico.
Heat wave means more drought
The report states clearly that poorer nations above and below the equator, are even worse off, with temperatures predicted to rise, and few resources to deal with resulting problems.
One observer commented, "It is getting worse every year."
Chairman Rajendra Pachauri says this is based on scientific evidence, "You don't need faith to believe what is being put forward, what you have is solid scientific evidence.
The report concludes that the situation is worse than previously thought. And it says that if temperatures continue to rise, one billion people could face dangerous flooding, three billion, water shortages and many species face mass extinction.
EU Pledges to Cut Greenhouse Gases by 2020
The EU is emerging at the forefront of the fight against climate change. Pledging to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and boost renewable sources, EU politicians seem keener than ever to prove their green credentials. Nina-Maria Potts reports.
Nine out of ten Europeans think climate change is a serious world problem. That startling figure comes from a recent opinion poll taken by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes.
EU Summit on Alternative Energy
And this widespread concern is at the heart of the European Union's new energy strategy. At a recent summit, EU governments agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. They also pledged to feed 20 percent of Europe's energy needs with renewable sources.
Biofuels alone will account for 10 percent of transport energy. Europe is rich in crops like flax and rapeseed and plenty of other crops and byproducts that can be used to make energy. Further, Europe plans to develop a biofuels industry in parts of the developing world.
However, some environmental groups argue that setting binding targets on biofuel use could do more harm than good.
Pieter de Pous is the biodiversity policy officer for the European Environmental Bureau, which represents environmental groups. He says producing biofuels can have a high cost on the environment.
Pieter de Pous
"It all depends on the amount of energy you use in the production of the crop, the intensity of the processing process,” he explains. “Total greenhouse gas emissions are not just carbon, but also nitrous oxide from using mineral fertilizers. So things need to be factored in."
The EU insists it is committed to developing biofuels in a sustainable way. The European Commission plans to issue "green certificates" to biofuel producers in developing countries who export to Europe.
EU energy spokesman Ferran Taradellas Espuny says another incentive is to impose binding targets as a way to attract business to invest in biofuels and other low-carbon technologies.
Ferran Taradellas Espuny
"The best incentive is mandatory targets, because then you know wherever you look at it that the European Union and its member states are going to promote biofuels,” he says. “This is one [challenge], to attract investment. Another [challenge] is to do it in a sustainable way, and we are very committed to doing it in a sustainable way."
But de Pous says, at the very least, biofuel production needs to be properly assessed.
"What we need is a system which is based on a solid life-cycle analysis, where we say these kind of biofuels are the most cost effective, have the least environmental damage and therefore they will be eligible for a certain amount of public support and others do not," de Pous says.
EU officials say they are sensitive to the environmental pros and cons of biofuels - but those concerns should not, they say, outweigh the need to boost Europe's biofuels industry, especially when European public opinion is growing more concerned over global warming, and increasingly pressing governments to act.
Nine out of ten Europeans think climate change is a serious world problem. That startling figure comes from a recent opinion poll taken by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes.
EU Summit on Alternative Energy
And this widespread concern is at the heart of the European Union's new energy strategy. At a recent summit, EU governments agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. They also pledged to feed 20 percent of Europe's energy needs with renewable sources.
Biofuels alone will account for 10 percent of transport energy. Europe is rich in crops like flax and rapeseed and plenty of other crops and byproducts that can be used to make energy. Further, Europe plans to develop a biofuels industry in parts of the developing world.
However, some environmental groups argue that setting binding targets on biofuel use could do more harm than good.
Pieter de Pous is the biodiversity policy officer for the European Environmental Bureau, which represents environmental groups. He says producing biofuels can have a high cost on the environment.
Pieter de Pous
"It all depends on the amount of energy you use in the production of the crop, the intensity of the processing process,” he explains. “Total greenhouse gas emissions are not just carbon, but also nitrous oxide from using mineral fertilizers. So things need to be factored in."
The EU insists it is committed to developing biofuels in a sustainable way. The European Commission plans to issue "green certificates" to biofuel producers in developing countries who export to Europe.
EU energy spokesman Ferran Taradellas Espuny says another incentive is to impose binding targets as a way to attract business to invest in biofuels and other low-carbon technologies.
Ferran Taradellas Espuny
"The best incentive is mandatory targets, because then you know wherever you look at it that the European Union and its member states are going to promote biofuels,” he says. “This is one [challenge], to attract investment. Another [challenge] is to do it in a sustainable way, and we are very committed to doing it in a sustainable way."
But de Pous says, at the very least, biofuel production needs to be properly assessed.
"What we need is a system which is based on a solid life-cycle analysis, where we say these kind of biofuels are the most cost effective, have the least environmental damage and therefore they will be eligible for a certain amount of public support and others do not," de Pous says.
EU officials say they are sensitive to the environmental pros and cons of biofuels - but those concerns should not, they say, outweigh the need to boost Europe's biofuels industry, especially when European public opinion is growing more concerned over global warming, and increasingly pressing governments to act.
Environmentalists Cheer US Supreme Court Ruling on Car Pollution
Environmentalists are elated by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on pollution by automobiles. They say eventually the ruling could prompt the government to take more direct action to reduce greenhouse gases that most scientists blame for global warming. VOA's Paul Sisco reports.
US Supreme Court
The United States' highest court says the government's Environmental Protection Agency can and should regulate carbon-dioxide and other pollutants that cars produce. Until the Supreme Court stepped in, the EPA had declined to set limits on automobile exhaust gases, widely seen as a major factor in global warming.
The ruling is a rebuff for the Bush administration and a major victory for environmentalists. David Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council says, "This opinion is a huge hammer blow in favor of doing something about global warming. The opinion says that the Bush administration has basically gotten the law wrong."
The environmental agency has contended it lacks the authority to regulate new cars' gas emissions, but in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court said such action is a federal responsibility. The ruling notes that U.S. vehicles are by no means the biggest source of atmospheric pollution, but the billions of tons of carbon dioxide they produce are a "meaningful" part of the global-warming trend.
"We think this decision is an overdue wake-up call," said Hawkins. "We think it will force action."
US Senator Barbara Boxer
The court ruling does not order any specific regulatory action, but legal analysts say it opens the door for future cases that may do so. Senator Barbara Boxer says lawmakers on Capitol Hill will be watching the administration closely.
"If they don't do what they need to do, and they have the power to do, we will do it with them or for them," the Democratic senator from California said.
The government had questioned whether it was authorized to regulate automobile emissions, but White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said, "Now that the Supreme Court has settled that matter for us, we are going to have to analyze it and see where we go from there."
The auto industry says emissions regulations will take years to implement and could raises the cost of every new vehicle by thousands of dollars. "Prices will go up and, in the end, it is not the companies [but] the consumers that will be paying more," said Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Scientists working with the United Nations are preparing to release a major report on the impact of global climate change, following up their recent finding that human activity and the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet.
US Supreme Court
The United States' highest court says the government's Environmental Protection Agency can and should regulate carbon-dioxide and other pollutants that cars produce. Until the Supreme Court stepped in, the EPA had declined to set limits on automobile exhaust gases, widely seen as a major factor in global warming.
The ruling is a rebuff for the Bush administration and a major victory for environmentalists. David Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council says, "This opinion is a huge hammer blow in favor of doing something about global warming. The opinion says that the Bush administration has basically gotten the law wrong."
The environmental agency has contended it lacks the authority to regulate new cars' gas emissions, but in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court said such action is a federal responsibility. The ruling notes that U.S. vehicles are by no means the biggest source of atmospheric pollution, but the billions of tons of carbon dioxide they produce are a "meaningful" part of the global-warming trend.
"We think this decision is an overdue wake-up call," said Hawkins. "We think it will force action."
US Senator Barbara Boxer
The court ruling does not order any specific regulatory action, but legal analysts say it opens the door for future cases that may do so. Senator Barbara Boxer says lawmakers on Capitol Hill will be watching the administration closely.
"If they don't do what they need to do, and they have the power to do, we will do it with them or for them," the Democratic senator from California said.
The government had questioned whether it was authorized to regulate automobile emissions, but White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said, "Now that the Supreme Court has settled that matter for us, we are going to have to analyze it and see where we go from there."
The auto industry says emissions regulations will take years to implement and could raises the cost of every new vehicle by thousands of dollars. "Prices will go up and, in the end, it is not the companies [but] the consumers that will be paying more," said Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Scientists working with the United Nations are preparing to release a major report on the impact of global climate change, following up their recent finding that human activity and the burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet.
Sydney Turns Off Lights for 'Earth Hour'
Parts of Australia's biggest city, Sydney, plunged into near darkness for an hour to raise awareness of global warming. The local government, environmental groups and businesses united in support of "Earth Hour" - when the city turned off the lights to save power and cut emissions that contribute to global warming. From Sydney, Phil Mercer tells us more.
Sydney was not completely blacked out Saturday evening, but organizers of "Earth Hour" say they are delighted with the response.
Lights on the city's iconic Harbor Bridge were switched off for the hour along with most of those on the famous Sydney Opera House. Tens of thousands of suburban homes joined in. So did hundreds of businesses. Many tower blocks have spent the evening in almost total darkness.
The event has had high-profile support to raise awareness about how to combat global warming. Australian actress Cate Blanchett says Earth Hour shows small changes can make a big difference in climate change.
"It's massive [climate change]. It's very difficult to grasp in all its magnitude and complexities," she said. "So I think that the potency of tonight is that it's about a very simple beginning, you know, turning off a switch."
Every day millions of lights and computers are left on in deserted offices, apartments and houses.
Environmental activists say that simply switching them off could cut Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by five percent over the next year.
Per capita, Australia is one of the world's largest producers of carbon dioxide and other gases that many scientists believe are helping to warm the Earth's atmosphere, causing climate upset.
This Australian, observing Earth Hour in Sydney, says he hopes the event will spur the national government into greater action.
"We're one of the worst, if not the worst, for carbon emissions and it's good to see this effort tonight," he said. "So hopefully the government will see it and make some changes."
Prime Minister John Howard has refused to sign the international Kyoto Protocol to halt global warming, saying it does not address key issues between developed and developing nations and hurts Australia's coal-driven economy. But he argues Australia is meeting its international emissions obligations in other ways.
A long-standing drought and serious water shortages in Australia have focused much attention on climate change in this election year. Some experts warn higher temperatures could leave this nation of 20 million people at the mercy of more severe droughts and devastating tropical cyclones.
Sydney was not completely blacked out Saturday evening, but organizers of "Earth Hour" say they are delighted with the response.
Lights on the city's iconic Harbor Bridge were switched off for the hour along with most of those on the famous Sydney Opera House. Tens of thousands of suburban homes joined in. So did hundreds of businesses. Many tower blocks have spent the evening in almost total darkness.
The event has had high-profile support to raise awareness about how to combat global warming. Australian actress Cate Blanchett says Earth Hour shows small changes can make a big difference in climate change.
"It's massive [climate change]. It's very difficult to grasp in all its magnitude and complexities," she said. "So I think that the potency of tonight is that it's about a very simple beginning, you know, turning off a switch."
Every day millions of lights and computers are left on in deserted offices, apartments and houses.
Environmental activists say that simply switching them off could cut Sydney's greenhouse gas emissions by five percent over the next year.
Per capita, Australia is one of the world's largest producers of carbon dioxide and other gases that many scientists believe are helping to warm the Earth's atmosphere, causing climate upset.
This Australian, observing Earth Hour in Sydney, says he hopes the event will spur the national government into greater action.
"We're one of the worst, if not the worst, for carbon emissions and it's good to see this effort tonight," he said. "So hopefully the government will see it and make some changes."
Prime Minister John Howard has refused to sign the international Kyoto Protocol to halt global warming, saying it does not address key issues between developed and developing nations and hurts Australia's coal-driven economy. But he argues Australia is meeting its international emissions obligations in other ways.
A long-standing drought and serious water shortages in Australia have focused much attention on climate change in this election year. Some experts warn higher temperatures could leave this nation of 20 million people at the mercy of more severe droughts and devastating tropical cyclones.
Mali Villagers Struggle Daily to Obtain Water
The theme of the 14th annual World Day for Water is water scarcity, a problem that hinders development in many poor countries. In Mali, a near-desert nation where almost 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas, retrieving water is a daily struggle that can take hours. Naomi Schwarz has this story from the VOA West Africa Bureau in Dakar, with additional reporting from Julie Vandal in Mali's Mopti region.
In a rural village near Mali's border with Burkina Faso, 10-year old Amadou Barry sits astride a camel, waiting his turn to pull water from the village well.
Nearby, many women are also waiting.
Mali villagers wait their turn at a water well
"A woman can wait as long as five hours and still not have access to water," says Fayiri Togola, a technical adviser with the U.N. children's agency. He says men retrieve water for their livestock, but women collect the water for all household needs.
Water in Mali is always scarce. Rainfall is unpredictable, and usually only comes in the wet season between June and October. The rest of the year, Malians must rely on underground sources of water, called the water table. And that also presents problems, says Mattias Diassana, head of the medical center in a village 30 kilometers away.
"The water table is very deep, he says, making it difficult and expensive to construct wells deep enough," says Diassana.
The well where 10-year-old Amadou and many women are waiting is deep enough. More than 60 meters, guesses UNICEF's Togola. But he says, pulling up a bucket from such a depth is exhausting work.
Those who do not have animals, he says, are pulling this very long cord by hand. Those with animals use them.
Mali villager uses camel to pull water bucket from well
Amadou, for instance, will tie a cord to his camel and let it do the heavy lifting.
The water gets used for all manner of household tasks, from laundry to cooking dinner. But it is not very clean, says Togola, and villagers suffer from many water-related sicknesses, including typhoid and diarrhea.
Togola says they are working with schools to teach children, and by extension their families, to make better use of the available water.
"We have to give them techniques for purifying water," he says.
This idea is not new, he says. But they have improved it by also making more private wells, such as the ones at the health center and the school, available to the general public.
"We think children, as well as their educators, are a good way to impact the behavior of a community," says Togola.
But Ibrahima Barry, father of young Amadou, says what the village really needs is a tap with running water.
In a rural village near Mali's border with Burkina Faso, 10-year old Amadou Barry sits astride a camel, waiting his turn to pull water from the village well.
Nearby, many women are also waiting.
Mali villagers wait their turn at a water well
"A woman can wait as long as five hours and still not have access to water," says Fayiri Togola, a technical adviser with the U.N. children's agency. He says men retrieve water for their livestock, but women collect the water for all household needs.
Water in Mali is always scarce. Rainfall is unpredictable, and usually only comes in the wet season between June and October. The rest of the year, Malians must rely on underground sources of water, called the water table. And that also presents problems, says Mattias Diassana, head of the medical center in a village 30 kilometers away.
"The water table is very deep, he says, making it difficult and expensive to construct wells deep enough," says Diassana.
The well where 10-year-old Amadou and many women are waiting is deep enough. More than 60 meters, guesses UNICEF's Togola. But he says, pulling up a bucket from such a depth is exhausting work.
Those who do not have animals, he says, are pulling this very long cord by hand. Those with animals use them.
Mali villager uses camel to pull water bucket from well
Amadou, for instance, will tie a cord to his camel and let it do the heavy lifting.
The water gets used for all manner of household tasks, from laundry to cooking dinner. But it is not very clean, says Togola, and villagers suffer from many water-related sicknesses, including typhoid and diarrhea.
Togola says they are working with schools to teach children, and by extension their families, to make better use of the available water.
"We have to give them techniques for purifying water," he says.
This idea is not new, he says. But they have improved it by also making more private wells, such as the ones at the health center and the school, available to the general public.
"We think children, as well as their educators, are a good way to impact the behavior of a community," says Togola.
But Ibrahima Barry, father of young Amadou, says what the village really needs is a tap with running water.