Argentina needs sustained effort to eradicate Chagas' disease

Marcela Valente in IPS: One of the potential impacts of climate change that arouses most concern is an increase in diseases transmitted by tropical insects, like Chagas' disease, Argentina's main endemic illness. However, while they are aware of shifting climate zones, experts consider the biggest threat of expansion of Chagas' disease to arise not from global warming, but from inadequate control of its transmission vectors (insect carriers), which have already been eliminated in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.

"Vectors capable of transmitting the disease are present in 19 of Argentina's 24 provinces," epidemiologist Sergio Sosa-Estani, head of the vector-borne disease unit at the Health Ministry, told IPS. "In some areas, the vectors are under control, but if vigilance lapses, they are back within two years." His unit has registered close to two million infected persons, 30 percent of whom will go on to develop heart problems.

…The disease is caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to humans by Triatoma infestans, a blood-sucking insect known in the Southern Cone of South America as the "vinchuca", which lurks in crevices in the mud walls or thatched roofs in the houses of the rural poor.

....He emphasised that to keep the disease under control, houses must be sprayed, walls must be smoothed or plastered, thatched roofs should be avoided, and hen runs or animal pens should not be located close to bedrooms. Boxes containing clothing or shoes may also be hiding places for vinchucas and should be removed.

...Biologist Ricardo Gürtler, a researcher on vector-transmitted diseases, told IPS it was "very difficult to predict the true impact of climate change on the vinchuca and in general terms on the transmission of Chagas' disease.

…Gürtler said some areas of Argentina "still require continuous hard work at the national and provincial levels" to curb transmission of the disease. He stressed the difficulties of implementing national government policies at the local level….

Heart pathology from Chagas' disease, from the US Centers for Disease Control

California urged to make disaster plans for climate change

Xinhua: A bill was introduced on Thursday, urging California to make disaster plans in case global warming causes the sea level. "Our seas are rising from climate change, which poses unprecedented risks for homes, businesses and commerce," said Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, who introduced the bill.

…Assembly Bill 752 would require the Los Angeles International Airport, the Port of Los Angeles and other coastal facilities to get prepared for any scenarios if global warming caused the sea level to rise. … The bill also calls for a study of the potential impact of sea level rise on granted public trust lands, including costs and strategies to prevent or mitigate damage to development and infrastructure.

According to Brownley, the measure gives entities several options for responding without incurring much cost. "This legislation brings immediate focus to the climate-change risk facing our public lands," said state Controller John Chiang, also a member of the State Lands Commission…

The harbor in Monterey, California, shot by Humanoid one, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Tropical forests 're-shaped' by climate changes

Mark Kinver in the BBC: Changes in rainfall patterns can affect the characteristics of tropical forests, research shows Future climate change could change the profile of tropical forests, with possible consequences for carbon storage and biodiversity, a study says.

It suggests that if current trends continued, the drier conditions would favour deciduous, canopy species at the expense of other trees. US researchers based their findings on the changes they recorded in a Costa Rican forest over a 20-year period. The team's paper has been published in the journal Global Change Biology.

"It is important because - depending on the rate of change, and the type of species that are found in the forests - it will influence a lot of ecosystem services and processes," explained co-author Brian Enquist from the University of Arizona. "For example, we need to know how much carbon tropical forests are storing, and will store in the future. We also need to know how much CO2 they are taking out of the air."…

Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica. Palm forest, Manicaria and Raphia swamps. Shot by KTWL, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Zimbabwe far from adapting to climate change

Nelson Chenga in the Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe): Prospects of Zimbabwe significantly improving on the past summer season’s crop harvest are slowly fading as rainless days stretch into weeks across most parts of the country. According to the Meteorological Services Department, a spell of about two weeks of reduced rainfall activity has been recorded in most areas due to dry air prevailing over the sub-region. This has created unfavourable conditions for any meaningful rainfall activity.

…While some are already starting to count their losses, the Met Department is of the view that the nation must not despair: A tropical cyclone currently hovering over the north of Madagascar is expected to track into the Mozambique channel and if it maintains that position chances of rain would be greatly enhanced across Zimbabwe.

…The climate change phenomenon seems to have once again rudely reminded the nation to seriously reorganise itself as yet another not so good summer season beckons. The country has been struggling for over a decade to boost its agricultural production. Unpredictable weather patterns, coupled with poor planning, have been some of the major drawbacks.

…“The increasing temperatures, changing seasons, and increases in frequency of droughts and floods will thus lower crop yields and livestock productivity, especially in already arid and semi-arid areas. Zimbabwe’s high dependence on climate sensitive economic sectors, coupled with low adaptive capacity makes the country particularly vulnerable to impacts of climate variability and change. Climate change directly affects natural resources and the health of eco-systems on which human well-being depends,” says the fact sheet.

…“Zimbabwe’s capacity to respond to climate change disasters at present is not optimal,” Oxfam GB and the Development Reality Insti-tute (DRI) have concluded. Oxfam, whose objective is to enhance food security and livelihoods for poor and vulnerable households, and DRI, a youth-oriented organisation, have been working with some communities in Zimbabwe’s Gutu District to strengthen the capacity of poor and vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change….

Flood studies bring climate change lawsuits a step close

EurActiv: A leading climate professor says that new evidence which further reinforces the connection between global warming and extreme rainfall is "extremely important" in setting out a methodology which could one day be used to sue energy companies for climate damage.

Two studies were published in the journal Nature on 16 February, using complex computer simulation models to assess the contribution of planet-warming gases to intense precipitation events. One paper found that greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risks of the autumn 2000 floods in the UK. In nine out of ten cases, their model saw the flood risk increased by more than 20%, and in two thirds of cases, the increase was over 90%.

Professor Carlo Jaeger of the Potsdam University for Climate Impact Research, who compiled a study linking carbon emissions to the 2003 heatwave in Europe, told EurActiv that the methodology used in the study had "dramatic consequences," even if it was still evolving.

"It is extremely important that we have a method which enables us to assess fractions of probability, to assess how strongly the dice was loaded because in court, that's actually how liability issues are settled," he said. "If you have an accident, a court [might] ask: 'What was the contribution of the manufacturing supplier or whatever to this accident?' Damages are then allocated by such proportions."

The autumn 2000 deluge, which flooded more than 10,000 homes, took place amid the wettest British autumn since records began in 1766 – and caused £1.3 billion of insurance losses. If climate change could be conclusively shown to have enhanced the probability of flooding by 20%, then the same proportion of the damages could theoretically be recouped in damages from companies that had contributed to it.

"Whether this will ever happen, whether this has a chance of success, is another story," Professor Jaeger admitted. The computer systems involved in the study depended heavily on seasonal forecasting which is not always reliable, he said….

Emblem from the 1648 book of emblems Icones mortis by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer

UN relief chief warns of humanitarian disaster as drought ravages Somalia and Kenya

UN News Centre: Severe drought in Somalia has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the country with more people becoming internally displaced and others moving into refugee camps across the border in Kenya, as food and water scarcity worsen, the top United Nations humanitarian official said today. “As we speak, there are significant urban population movements from [Somalia’s] Hiran and Middle Shabelle regions to Kenya,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos, who visited Somalia and Kenya earlier this month, told reporters at UN Headquarters.

“People are moving due to the deteriorating living conditions and a lack of a way to make a living. Families are said to be selling their assets, including houses and land, to get by and to facilitate their movement to the refugee camps in Kenya,” said Ms. Amos, who is also the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator.

Malnutrition rates among children, already above emergency levels in Somalia, have risen and an estimated 2.4 million people – 32 per cent of the country’s 7.2 million people – are in need of relief aid as a result of drought and two decades of conflict.

“I cannot stress enough the importance in Somalia of finding a political solution,” said Ms. Amos. “Only that will enable the people of Somalia to live in peace and dignity,” she added. Somalia has been without a fully functioning government since 1991 when the regime led by Muhammad Siad Barre was toppled, plunging the country into protracted factional warfare.

On Kenya, Ms. Amos stressed the need to strengthen the country’s capacity to respond to humanitarian emergencies related to climate change, saying recurring droughts have been the main cause of humanitarian emergencies in the country. “Disaster risk reduction and recovery must be integrated into humanitarian action to improve preparedness and enhance resilience,” she said.

Ms. Amos urged the Kenyan authorities to resettle an estimated 30,000 people who remain homeless since they were displaced during the post-election violence that rocked the country in 2008...

UK's forestry sell-off: public and political opposition forced a 'yew turn'

Michael White, Fiona Harvey and Damian Carrington in the Guardian (UK) give a spirited account of how the dunderheaded British plan to sell off national forests was stopped: In the best traditions of chaos theory the storm which engulfed the coalition's forestry sell-off began last summer with little more than the fluttering of a butterfly's wings when new ministers warned the Forestry Commission that modest in-year savings would have to be made in its current budget.

Officials who routinely buy and sell forestry land are used to making sales in hard times. They set about finding some, only to be overtaken by far bigger demands from Defra HQ in Whitehall. Caroline Spelman, the new secretary of state, was keen to impress David Cameron and George Osborne by her zeal for the kind of cuts, deep and urgent, which the chancellor's tight fiscal strategy now demanded.

But by declaring her willingness to sacrifice 30% of Defra's already modest £2.8bn budget she made a classic Whitehall error. She alienated many of her own officials (she had already declared the department "flabby") without winning admiration or gratitude in Downing St. Fatefully, a 15% sale of the Forestry Commission's assets - theoretically worth £100m to the government - was suddenly on the table, as well as a new rationale in the chance to scale down or abolish another quango, the 90-year-old commission.

…Establishment bodies like the National Trust and Woodland Trust were slow off the mark. But radical groups, most conspicuously the 38 Degrees website, started petitions which are now approaching the 1 million signature mark. The campaigners made effective use of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, and gathered a wide range of supporters who included some unusual bedfellows, ranging from Tory MPs to the Socialist Worker's Party. Jubilant posters on the campaign's Facebook page toasted policy re-think as a result of"people power" that had mobilised such an unlikely army.

Government advisers confessed they were "shocked" by the depth of the opposition…

A path in Carnock Moor Forest, shot by Paul McIlroy, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Thawing permafrost likely will accelerate global warming in coming decades

University of Colorado at Boulder News: Up to two-thirds of Earth's permafrost likely will disappear by 2200 as a result of warming temperatures, unleashing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

The carbon resides in permanently frozen ground that is beginning to thaw in high latitudes from warming temperatures, which will impact not only the climate but also international strategies to reduce fossil fuel emissions, said CU-Boulder's Kevin Schaefer, lead study author. "If we want to hit a target carbon dioxide concentration, then we have to reduce fossil fuel emissions that much lower than previously thought to account for this additional carbon from the permafrost," he said. "Otherwise we will end up with a warmer Earth than we want."

…While other studies have shown carbon has begun to leak out of permafrost in Alaska and Siberia, the study by Schaefer and his colleagues is the first to make actual estimates of future carbon release from permafrost. "This gives us a starting point, and something more solid to work from in future studies," he said. "We now have some estimated numbers and dates to work with."

…Schaefer and his team ran multiple Arctic simulations assuming different rates of temperature increases to forecast how much carbon may be released globally from permafrost in the next two centuries. They estimate a release of roughly 190 billion tons of carbon, most of it in the next 100 years. The team used Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios and land-surface models for the study.

"The amount we expect to be released by permafrost is equivalent to half of the amount of carbon released since the dawn of the Industrial Age," said Schaefer. The amount of carbon predicted for release between now and 2200 is about one-fifth of the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere today, according to the study….

Helicopter view of crack patterns in the permafrost, shot by Mila Zinkova , Wikimedia Commons,under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Helping businesses adapt to climate change

Ryan Schuchard and Joyce Wong of the consulting firm BSR weigh in at Climate Biz: As climate change sets in, its impacts -- increasing severity of storms and weather disasters, receding snow and rivers, advancing deserts, and more frequent landslides and floods -- will test companies' ability to effectively deliver high-quality products and services.

In response, BSR is launching a series of briefs to illustrate how these changes will affect each industry and what current adaptation practices look like, beginning an examination of the food, beverage, and agriculture sector (PDF).

Some effects of climate change will be familiar, such as crop failures and ensuing price shocks, but over the next several years, they will happen with more frequency and with even higher insurance costs. Beyond direct business impacts, companies will also need to understand how climate change will affect their most vulnerable stakeholders -- the poor, citizens of developing countries, and women -- who will face increasing risks due to drought, disease vectors, and the perils of migration.

The good news is that many resources on business adaptation to climate change are already available (see end of article). McKinsey & Company developed a cost curve for adaptation (PDF), for example, which highlights different adaptation options and shows that investment paybacks can be short. Also, companies do not need to choose between adapting to climate change and helping to mitigate it; the distinction between these two is rarely clear and we should do both together.

There are also tools that translate state-of-the-art climate monitoring, prediction, and imagery into practical information to help companies improve their relevant governance and decision-making processes. These tools include: the Climate Administration Knowledge Exchange (CAKE), Google Earth Engine, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center, and weADAPT. Companies can also take advantage of new market opportunities by providing solutions to enable effective adaptation…

In April 2009 -- Pat Troal, a Fargo, ND engineer marks a stake being used to measure the height of the river in the Edgewood neighborhood in Fargo. The city is measuring the height of the Red River to ensure that that existing levees are high enough to protect the city. Photo by Patsy Lynch/FEMA

In Europe, pollution is a masculine noun

Julio Godoy in IPS via Tierramérica: Many aspects of gender inequality are well known and well documented. But there seems to be little awareness that male behaviour leads to greater emissions of climate-changing gases. That is the conclusion of two independent studies by separate teams of European scientists, both based on statistical data on consumption and daily activities of men and women in industrialised countries.

Frédéric Chomé, a French consultant on environmental and sustainable development issues, stated that a typical French woman causes emissions of 32.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) per day, on average, while a man causes 39.3 kg of CO2 emissions. "The estimates are based on a study of human activities separated by gender, conducted by France's National Institute of Statistics and Economics (INSEE)," Chomé told Tierramérica.

"Although our calculation method is very approximate, I believe the results are a good indicator of the differences in environmental contamination resulting from the different behaviours of men and women," added the author of the study titled "24 Hours Exactly: Your Personal Carbon Account."

Similar conclusions resulted from a study by Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, of Sweden, and Riita Räty, of Finland, about the behaviours of men and women in 10 daily activities in Germany, Greece, Norway and Sweden. According to their study, "Comparing Energy Use by Gender, Age and Income in Some European Countries," men consume more meat and processed beverages than women do, use automobiles more frequently and driving longer distances, resulting in greater CO2 emissions.

Commenting on the two studies, Corinna Altenburg and Fritz Reusswig, of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, noted that some of the more polluting habits attributed to the male population are the result of the social roles they usually play in society…

A traffic jam off the Elbtunnel in Hamburg, shot by Hannes Grobe(who takes an occasional break from the polar regions), Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

If climate models are correct, even if emissions stopped today we would get warmer

Science 2.0: There are varying levels of acceptance for various climate models, especially those that predict short-term escalation of warming due to man-made emissions. Given that, no one is going to like new University of Washington claims that it's already too late. People who want curbs on emissions won't like news that it won't help and people who don't think emissions are the biggest problem in a worldwide recession won't bother to listen if it doesn't matter.

But there is at least a glimmer of hope. While there would continue to be warming even if the most stringent policy proposals were adopted, because there still would be some emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, the claim that even if all emissions were stopped now, temperatures would remain higher than pre-Industrial Revolution levels because the greenhouse gases already emitted are likely to persist in the atmosphere for thousands of years has some room for interpretation - because accurate temperature records don't even go back 40 years much less 140 years.

But first, the bad news; Kyle Armour, a UW doctoral student in physics, says it is possible temperatures would continue to escalate even if all cars, heating and cooling systems and other sources of greenhouse gases were suddenly eliminated, because tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols, which tend to counteract the effect of greenhouse warming by reflecting sunlight back into space, would last only a matter of weeks once emissions stopped, while the greenhouse gases would continue on.

…In their best-case simulation, the global temperature would actually decline, but it would remain about a half-degree higher than pre-Industrial Revolution levels and probably would not drop to those levels again, Armour said. There also is a possibility temperatures would rise to 3.5 degrees F higher than before the Industrial Revolution, a threshold at which climate scientists say significant climate-related damage begins to occur. Far beyond what IPCC models have projected….

William Hamilton, "Prospero and Ariel," 1797

Rising seas will affect major US coastal cities by 2100

Mari N. Jensen in the University of Arizona News: Rising sea levels could threaten an average of 9 percent of the land within 180 U.S. coastal cities by 2100, according to new research led by University of Arizona scientists. The Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts could be particularly hard hit. Miami, New Orleans, Tampa, Fla., and Virginia Beach, Va. could lose more than 10 percent of their land area by 2100.

The research is the first analysis of vulnerability to sea-level rise that includes every U.S. coastal city in the lower 48 with a population of 50,000 or more. The latest scientific projections indicate that by 2100, the sea level will rise about 1 meter – or even more. One meter is about 3 feet.

At the current rate of global warming, sea level is projected to continue rising after 2100 by as much as 1 meter per century. "According to the most recent sea-level-rise science, that's where we're heading," said lead researcher Jeremy L. Weiss, a senior research specialist in the UA's department of geosciences. "Impacts from sea-level rise could be erosion, temporary flooding and permanent inundation."…

The storm surge during Hurricane Alberto in 2006 hits Horseshoe Beach, Florida. Photo from NOAA's archives

New cyclone threatens Australia

Everton Fox in Al-Jazeera.net: Just two weeks after Tropical Cyclone Yasi caused massive destruction to parts of Australia, another big storm has brought further flooding to the far north of the country. Tropical Cyclone Carlos dumped a total of 339.6mm of rain over Darwin during the 24 hour period ending midnight GMT on Wednesday. This is an all-time record for the city over a 24 hour period and eclipses anything that Yasi produced over any town in a single day.

In fact, Darwin has now had a staggering 470mm of rain over a 48-hour period and there is more to come. The storm is moving very slowly and that is why we are seeing such huge rainfall totals over a similar area. In the case of Yasi the wind was as much a damaging feature as the rain. Typical rainfall totals were nearer 160mm of rain over a 24 hour period.

The other concern is the strength of the winds. Cyclone Carlos has uprooted trees and downed power lines. The storm has been classified as a category one storm and may well intensify into a category two over the next 24 to 36 hours and there-in lies the source of some confusion….

Flooding in the low-lying areas of Townsville, Queensland, shot by Rob and Stephanie Levy, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Kenya government acts too late on drought

Maore Ithula in the Standard (Kenya): Relief organisations and leaders of drought-prone communities have hit out at the Government for 'slow' response. Whereas harsh weather is predictable, the stakeholders noted, the State only steps in when it’s too late to safe lives.

During the meeting convened by the Special Programmes and State Development of Northern Kenya and Arid Lands ministries, blame game took the centre stage regarding intervention measures taken by the Government to cushion pastoralists from the effects of climate change. Mr Michael Tiampati of Pastoral Development Network Kenya pointed out that, whereas droughts hit the country with predictable sequence, the State sits back until it is too late.

He said: "The effects of droughts are gradual and predictable. In fact the Meteorology Department always issues warnings based on weather forecasts many months in advance but nothing is done in time." He continued: "Distributing foodstuffs to starving people is not enough because by the point of starvation, livelihoods are already done away with by the ravaging droughts. It takes several years for affected people to recover after every ravaging drought."…

Torrential rain clouds Germany's future

The Local (Germany): Already living in a damp climate, Germans should expect a lot more precipitation and extreme weather by 2040, experts from the German Weather Service (DWD), the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) warned this week.

"Particularly in coastal areas, the amount of (heavy rainfall and flooding) could double compared to the period between 1960 and 2000," said Paul Becker, the vice president of the DWD. The four agencies called a joint press conference in Berlin on Tuesday to highlight the dangers climate change could pose to Germany.

"By the year 2100 we expect torrential rains in winter, that is in the months of December, January, and February, across much of Germany," Becker said. The DWD defined heavy precipitation as a downpour of up to 100 litres of rain per square metre in 24 hours.

The UBA underscored the threat to Germany's infrastructure including water supplies, energy and transportation from extreme weather. "These findings increase pressure to do something to counteract the unavoidable impact from climate change," said Jochen Flasbarth, head of the UBA….

Raining in Hamburg, shot by Jan Zimmermann, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Putting people over money in El Salvador

Dahr Jamail in Al-Jazeera.net: While debate about whether climate change is real or not continues in the US, the world's leading producer of CO2 emissions per capita, those already living with the effects, like Jose Domingo Cruz in El Salvador, don't have time to debate.

"Our storms are increasing in number and intensity," Cruz, a member of his community Civil Protection Committee that responds to community needs during natural disasters, told Al Jazeera while standing on a levy that ruptured during Tropical Storm Agatha last year. "All of us attribute this to climate change."

…Against the backdrop of these dire predictions, the people are, however, forming a movement that is learning to protect and sustain itself in the increasingly chaotic world of global climate change and its severe ramifications on people, the environment, and local economies.

In addition to climate change, El Salvador faces environmental issues that include deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution, and soil contaminated from decades of cotton and sugar cane production using toxic herbicides and fertilisers. El Salvador is the 2nd most deforested country in the Western Hemisphere, second only to Haiti. Only two per cent of primary forest that existed 50 years ago remains today.

In response to increasing natural disasters related to climate change - and as an effort to promote environmental protections and sustainable living - a group known as The Mangrove Association was birthed in 1999. Members of the group are primarily subsistence farmers and fisher-folk whose livelihoods depend on the viability of local ecosystems now threatened by climate change and unsustainable farming practises like those practised by the sugar cane industry.

…In what has become a major grassroots social movement that aims to increase diversified sustainable farming, organic foods, food security, and all of this via environmentally friendly methods, many people living in this area are actually seeing their lives improve, despite the challenges. Yet, the challenges are many, and are not going away….

Fair trade coffee growers in Tacuba in the Parque Nacional El Imposible, El Salvador, shot by Adam C. Baker, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Trillions of dollars at stake from climate change over next 20 years

Click Green: Continued delay in climate change policy action and lack of international coordination could cost institutional investors trillions of dollars over the coming decades, according to research released by Mercer and a group of leading global investors representing around $2 trillion in assets under management.

The report 'Climate Change Scenarios – Implications for Strategic Asset Allocation' analyses the potential financial impacts of climate change on investors’ portfolios, identified through a series of four climate change scenarios playing out to 2030. The report identifies a series of pragmatic steps for institutional investors to consider in their strategic asset allocation.

In the report, a framework is outlined that can be used by institutional investors to enhance their understanding of climate-related investment risks and opportunities across asset classes and regions. Mercer’s “TIP Framework” estimates the rate of investment into low carbon technologies (T), the impacts (I) on the physical environment and the implied cost of carbon resulting from global policy (P) developments across the four climate scenarios.

Andrew Kirton, Chief Investment Officer at Mercer, commented: “Climate change brings fundamental implications for investment patterns, risks and rewards. Institutional investors should be factoring long-term considerations, such as climate change, into their strategic planning. Mercer is pleased to have had the opportunity to kick start such strategic discussions with a group of leading global investors.” Some of the key findings show that by 2030:

• Climate change increases uncertainty for long term institutional investors and as such, needs to be pro-actively managed.
• Investment opportunities in low carbon technologies could reach $5 trillion.
• The cost of impacts on the physical environment, health and food security could exceed $4 trillion.
• Climate change related policy changes could increase the cost of carbon emissions by as much as $8 trillion.
• Increasing allocation to “climate sensitive” assets will help to mitigate risks and capture new opportunities.
• Engagement with policy makers is crucial for institutional investors to pro-actively manage the potential costs of delayed and poorly co-ordinated climate policy action.
• Policy developments at the country level will produce new investment opportunities as well as risks that need to be constantly monitored.
• The EU and China/East Asia are set to lead investment in low carbon technology and efficiency improvements over the coming decades.

The stock ticker from the office of Monty Burns. Actually, it's from from William Maver (1892) American Telegraphy: Systems, Apparatus, Operation, J. H. Bunnell & Co., New York, USA, p.410, fig.307 on Google Books

World phosphorus use crosses a critical threshold

Science Daily: Recalculating the global use of phosphorous, a fertilizer linchpin of modern agriculture, a team of researchers warns that the world's stocks may soon be in short supply and that overuse in the industrialized world has become a leading cause of the pollution of lakes, rivers and streams.

Writing in the Feb. 14 edition of the journal Environmental Research Letters, Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Elena Bennett of McGill University report that the human use of phosphorous, primarily in the industrialized world, is causing the widespread eutrophication of fresh surface water. What's more, the minable global stocks of phosphorous are concentrated in just a few countries and are in decline, posing the risk of global shortages within the next 20 years.

"There is a finite amount of phosphorous in the world," says Carpenter, a UW-Madison professor of limnology and one of the world's leading authorities on lakes and streams. "This is a material that's becoming more rare and we need to use it more efficiently."

…"If you have too much phosphorous, you get eutrophication," explains Carpenter of the cycle of excessive plant and algae growth that significantly degrades bodies of fresh water. "Phosphorous stimulates the growth of algae and weeds near shore and some of the algae can contain cyanobacteria, which are toxic. You lose fish. You lose water quality for drinking."

…Complicating the problem, says Carpenter, is the fact that excess phosphorous in the environment is a problem primarily in the industrialized world, mainly Europe, North America and parts of Asia. In other parts of the world, notably Africa and Australia, soils are phosphorous poor, creating a stark imbalance. Ironically, soils in places like North America, where fertilizers with phosphorous are most commonly applied, are already loaded with the element….

Phosphorus table image created for Wikipedia by Schnee on June 24 2003, 23:32 UTC. Licensed under the terms of the GNU FDL. Also under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Climate change may cause large food disruptions

Luzi Ann Javier and Susan Li in Bloomberg: Global food supplies will face “massive disruptions” from climate change, Olam International Ltd. predicted, as Agrocorp International Pte. said corn will gain to a record, stoking food inflation and increasing hunger. “The fact is that climate around the world is changing and that will cause massive disruptions,” Sunny Verghese, chief executive officer at Olam, among the world’s three biggest suppliers of rice and cotton, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. “We’re friendly to wheat, corn and soybeans and bearish on rice.”

Shrinking global food supplies helped push the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization’s World Food Price Index to a record for a second month in January. As food becomes less available and more expensive, “hoarding becomes widespread,” Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist at FAO, said Feb. 9, predicting prices of wheat and other grains are more likely to rise than decline in the next six months.

Corn futures surged 90 percent in the past year, while wheat jumped 80 percent and soybeans advanced 49 percent as the worst drought in at least half a century in Russia, flooding in Australia, excessive rainfall in Canada, and drier conditions in parts of Europe slashed harvests….

Agronomist Larry Heatherly examines early maturing variety of soybean plants growing in a flood-irrigated field in Mississippi. Shot by Keith Weller at the US Department of Agriculture

Philippines to produce bigger geohazard maps for flood- and landslide-prone areas

Philippine Information Agency: The densification of geohazard and climate change maps is among the major projects to be implemented this year by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Environment Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje said the densification project is aimed to produce geohazard maps with scale of 1:10,000 covering critical areas to show more details of the area covered by the map.

“The production of a 1:10,000-scale geohazard map is like zooming in the 1:50,000 map until we see the details of the area which cannot be represented in the 1:50,000-scale geohazard maps,” Paje said. Among the details that can be found in a 1:10,000-scale geohazard map include parameters or features in the area that may affect ground stability and the type of landslides that can possibly occur in the area.

“With the 1:10,000 map, the relocation sites can also be plotted, which we cannot be done in the 1:50,000-scale maps,” Paje said.

Priority in the densification project will be maps of provinces located in the eastern seaboard, according to him. These include the provinces of Quirino, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Cagayan in Region 2; Aurora, Pampanga, Bulacan, Tarlac, Zambales and Bataan in Region 3; Quezon, Rizal, Laguna, Batangas and Cavite in Region 4A; Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Catanduanes, Albay, Sorsogon and Masbate in Region 5; Southern Leyte, Northern Leyte, Biliran and Samar Island in Region 8; Compostela Valley in Region 11; and Agusan del Sur, Agusan del Norte, Surigao del Sur in CARAGA region.

A field in the Aklan is flooded after Typhoon Fengshen hit the Philippine region in 2008. US Navy photo

Acid oceans demand greater reef care

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies: The more humanity acidifies and warms the world’s oceans with carbon emissions, the harder we will have to work to save our coral reefs. That’s the blunt message from a major new study by an international scientific team, which finds that ocean acidification and global warming will combine with local impacts like overfishing and nutrient runoff to weaken the world’s coral reefs right when they are struggling to survive.

Modelling by a team led by Dr Ken Anthony of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute has found that reefs already overfished and affected by land runoff are likely to be more vulnerable to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Their study is the first to integrate global scale processes, such as warming and acidification, with the local factors overfishing and runoff, to predict the combined impact on coral reefs. “As CO2 levels climb to 450-500 parts per million – as they are now expected to do by 2050 – how well we manage local impacts on reefs like fishing and runoff will become absolutely critical as to whether they survive as coral reefs, or are overtaken by algae that compete with corals for space on reefs,” Dr Anthony says.

Warmer conditions cause periodic mass coral deaths by bleaching, while acidifying sea water – due to CO2 dissolving out of the atmosphere – weakens the corals by interfering with their ability to form their skeletons, making them more vulnerable to impact by storms. If the corals are also affected by heavy nutrient runoff from the land – which fertilizes the algae – and overfishing of parrot fishes and others that keep the reefs clear of weed, then corals can struggle to re-establish after a setback, he explains. “In those situations, the reef can become completely overgrown by algae.”

The team’s modelling, which they say is on the conservative side, has far-reaching implications for the preservation even of well-managed reefs such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – and extremely serious implications for reefs in developing countries, where most reefs are located and where reefs face high levels of stress from human activities. “Put simply, our model indicates that the more CO2 we humans liberate, the harder it will become for coral reefs, as we know them, to survive. This means they will need all the help they can get in the way of good management to prevent their being overgrown by sea weeds,” he adds.

“Coral reefs in developing nations, where most of the world’s reefs occur and overfishing and nutrification remain key concerns, are particularly vulnerable, highlighting the need to continue to build capacity amongst reef managers and governments in areas like SE Asia,” the team warns in their report, which was recently published in the journal Global Change Biology...

NASA image of Australia's Great Barrier Reef in 2003

Preparing blueprint to manage climate change in the Himalayas

The Times of India: The Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Aaranyak, a biodiversity conservation group, will work on preparing a roadmap for researches on management of climate change impact and water-induced hazards in the eastern Himalayan region.

Experts from ICIMOD, Aaranyak and the government sector would meet here on Friday for sharing knowledge on preparing the roadmap. There will be sessions for deliberation on climate-induced water hazards in the Brahmaputra basin in the northeast, covering various aspects of adaptation, governance and community-based risk mitigation. Incidentally, the northeast falls in the eastern Himalayan region.

"The climate change scenario in the Greater Himalayan Region will also be a focus at the meet, where knowledge will be shared. Various observations will be made on water-induced hazards in the northeast in perspective of Greater Himalayan region," Partha J Das, the team-leader of ICIMOD-Aaranyak Project, said.

Satellite hydrology expert from ICIMOD, Sagar Ratan Bajracharya, former secretary of water resources department, A P Mitra, agriculture expert Tapan Dutta among others will take part.

ICIMOD is the regional coordinator of the Brahmatwinn Project, which has been looking to issues like capacity building and addressing implications of climate change for water and soil resources management in the Upper Danube and Upper Brahmaputra river basins. As part of Brahmatwinn, the Lasha basin in Tibet, the Wang chu basin in Bhutan and the Brahmaputra in Assam are taken up for integrated water resources management. Four regional partners, including IIT Roorkee, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research in China and University of Bhutan, are involved in the project.

Brahmaputra River, Shigatse, Tibet, shot by Boqiang Liao, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Why are Ugandans worried?

Degsew Amanu in AfricaNews: … According to Ministry of Water and Environment, Uganda is one of the most affected countries in climate change. The ministry says climate change has led to adverse effects in Uganda which include; declining water resources, reduced agricultural productivity, spread of vector-borne diseases to new areas, drop in fish population and increased flooding and heavier rainfall among others.

A recent International Climate Risk Report also labels Uganda as one of the most unprepared and most vulnerable countries in the world as a country that agriculture takes 80 percent of the total GDP. Aribo Lawrence, Senior Programme Officer, Climate Change Unit of Ministry of Water and Environment, explained the magnitude of the problem by mentioning some areas like eastern and northern parts of the country.

“Arua district of Northern Uganda hit by severe drought last year since the rain stopped early and crops were demolished”, he noted. “Consequently, people come to town to beg and they were saying “we do not have food to eat. We have lost our crops because of drought.” This incident was strange for many Ugandans”, he added.

Devs Bamanya, Head of Seasonal Forecasting and Data Processing in the meteorological department, is of the same mind in the fact that several parts of Uganda are being affected by climate change….

World’s freshwaters contain too much phosphorous

Nadya Anscombe in Environmental Research Web: New policies are needed to decrease the overuse of phosphorous, and allocate the element where it is most needed, according to researchers who have analysed levels in freshwater across the globe. While it's essential for plant growth and agriculture, an excess of phosphorous in water causes eutrophication, which makes water non-potable, leads to blooms of cyanobacteria that are toxic to humans and livestock, depletes oxygen and kills fish.

Stephen Carpenter of the University of Wisconsin, US and Elena Bennett from McGill University, Canada, have found that current conditions exceed all planetary boundaries for phosphorous in freshwater.

In 2009 Rockström et al introduced the concept of planetary boundaries to define a safe operating space for humanity on Earth. They categorized a planetary boundary as a human-determined acceptable level of a key global variable.

"But the phosphorous boundary introduced by Rockström et al was based on oceanic conditions not freshwater," Carpenter told environmentalresearchweb. "The research found that the world was substantially below the oceanic planetary boundary, and this motivated us to look at freshwater. We were not surprised when we found that we are substantially past the boundary for freshwater."…

Cyanobacteria fouling freshwater, shot by Lamiot, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Climate change: Another reason to move

Jakarta Post: Extreme weather caused by climate change variables has given another reason for people to migrate, experts say. Asia Development Bank (ADB) is preparing a report called “Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific”, which is scheduled to be completed in March. ADB has been looking into migration patterns in the Asia-Pacific region, seeking linkages to natural disasters such as flooding.

ADB recently held an online discussion regarding the report, hosting ADB’s Climate Change Program Coordination Unit chief Robert J. Dobias and Francois Gemenne, a research fellow at the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI). More than 40 participants across the Asia-Pacific region joined the discussion.

Dobias said the report took the position that climate-induced migration was currently a relatively minor driver of migration because motivations to move were myriad. “It may be best to consider climate-induced migrations within the context of migration, generally. However, being able to attribute migration to climate change may become important in the context of funding,” he said.

He said that while the report had taken a preliminary step by identifying areas that may be especially vulnerable to climate-induced migration, more refined work was needed. By focusing development assistance in areas of high vulnerability, people could build resilience in their communities, he added.

Gemenne said climate-induced migration could be caused by natural disasters, such as flash floods and hurricanes, or slower catastrophes like rising sea levels and soil degradation. Therefore, the types of migration could be very diverse. Certain people would be forced to move because of a displacement situation, while others might move voluntarily, he said….

An aerial view of a refugee camp in the city of Sabang on Pulau We Island, Indonesia. US Navy photo

Environment minister urges British insurers to build climate-risk services

Business Green: British insurers should "steal a march on their rivals" by developing new products to help firms adapt to the extreme weather-related risks caused by climate change, environment minister Lord Henley will tell a United Nations conference tomorrow. Henley is scheduled to address a meeting organised by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), where he is expected to urge insurance firms to develop new products and draw on British scientific research to help businesses better manage the risks posed by climate change, such as flooding and droughts.

"The UK financial services sector can steal a march on its rivals by developing and selling new weather and climate-related products," he will say. "And in the same way that we have established London as the global centre for carbon trading, investment portfolios that factor in climate resilience are also likely to be more attractive and bring greater returns.”…

Inside Lloyd's of London, shot by phogel, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Lagos eyes financial boom from climate efforts

Michael Simire in the Daily Independent (Nigeria): The Lagos State Government may be strategising towards reaping financial gains from the potentially catastrophic climate change threat. But officials hint that the bulk of the funds will go into financing climate adaptation and mitigation activities.

Apart from leveraging funds from public as well as private sources, a gathering of stakeholders suggested at the end of a three-day forum last week in the nation’s foremost business hub, that projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) were veritable avenues to generate direly-needed funds.

…The state was also urged to consider the adoption of the functional assessment framework approach to climate change actions as a way of facilitating the implementation of adaptation strategies. To avoid or minimise the consequences of human rights violations from climate change effects, the state was similarly charged to strengthen stakeholder consultation while taking actions to combat climate change’s impacts.

Underlining the need for a new legal regime in the country for dealing with intra-national migrations and population displacements, participants noted that such legal regime should be built upon existing human rights laws and principles.

…If the recommendations at the summit eventually see the light of day, Lagos State would adopt a participatory and multi-dimensional approach to climate change risk assessment in its development programmes and include appropriate climate change insurance mechanisms in order to hedge against the impact of climate change and also be able to decide on the right mix between mitigation and adaptation…

A neighborhood in Victoria Island, Lagos, by Eman007, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license

Strain on Pacific islands' water supplies

Ioane Burese in Fiji Online: Pacific island countries will continually be challenged to develop and maintain a sustainable and economically viable supply of fresh water. According to a statement, the island nations have traditionally been dependant on ground and surface water as well as rainfall as their primary source of supply.

"This is still true but increased population growth, economic development and irregular rainfall caused by changing weather patterns as well as climate change have placed a tremendous strain on these traditional water supply sources," according to the SPC, Applied Geoscience and Technology Division, Deputy Director for Water and Sanitation, Marc Overmars.

"Greater attention is now being placed on holistic approaches such as Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), to optimise water supplies in the region and make more efficient use of available resources.

"But for some of the Pacific island countries the availability of freshwater resources is limited especially on atoll islands such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu or raised limestone islands such as Nauru," said Mr. Overmars. He said these islands were frequently affected by periods of drought, often caused by changes in Pacific Ocean temperatures.

"This results in a naturally occurring phenomena known as El Ni±o and La Ni±a. During an El Ni±o or La Ni±a, the patterns of tropical rainfall are affected and satisfying fresh water demand becomes a continuous challenge. For example, the current La Ni±a conditions are causing below normal rainfall in Kiribati and Nauru forcing the countries to put drought mitigation and response plans in place."

A recent study by SOPAC's drinking water adviser Alan Freshwater reviewed the use of desalination plants in the Pacific region as a method to supplement water supplies, such as in Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu or deployed in times of drought such as in the Marshall Islands and Tonga….

A dry lagoon on Enderbury Island, in Kiribati, shot by Cameron B. Kepler, who has released it into the public domain

China readies $1 billion to fight worst wheat drought in 60 years

Jonathan Watts in Solve Climate News in the Guardian: in China has announced a billion dollars in emergency water aid to ease its most severe drought in 60 years, as the United Nations warned of a threat to the harvest of the world's biggest wheat producer. Beijing has also promised to use its grain reserves to reduce the pressure on global food prices, which have surged in the past year to record highs due to the floods in Australia and a protracted dry spell in Russia.

The desperate measures were evident at Baita reservoir in Shandong — one of several key agricultural provinces afflicted by four months without rain. With nearby crops turning yellow, a mechanical digger cut a crude, open-cast well into the dried-up bed of the reservoir. Muddy water from the 16-foot-deep pit was pumped up to the surface via a hose that snaked past a fishing boat stranded on the cracked earth.

As the water spluttered on to his wheat field, farmer Liu Baojin expressed concern the support may have come too late. Despite the emergency well digging and partial compensation from the government, he fears he may have to seek work in the city if his harvest fails. "I guess a third of my crops have already died," he said. "I'm very worried. I've never seen such a dry spell."

The problems are compounded by the growing water demands of cities and industry. On the outskirts of Sishui — which translates as Four Waters due to its historic abundance of rivers and sprints — villagers complain that they are not allowed to use the Si river that runs past their homes because the water is earmarked for the Huajin paper mill and an artificial lake in a nearby urban development….

The Gobi Desert, shot by Junming, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Sunita Narain on the fatal climate disconnect

Sunita Narain in the Business Standard (India): The World Economic Forum — the gathering of power glitterati each year in Davos — has assessed the top risks the world faces in 2011. According to this analysis, climate change is the highest-ranking risk the world will face in the coming years, when its likelihood and impact are combined. What’s even more important is the interconnections between climate change and the other top risks: economic disparity (ranked three), extreme weather events (ranked five), extreme energy price volatility (ranked six), geopolitical conflict (ranked seven), flooding and water security (nine and ten).

This is not a past or future scenario. This is the present. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says world food prices this January hit a “historic peak”. The food price index, collated by FAO, averaged 231 points in January, which is the highest since 1990, when it started measuring food prices globally. The reasons for the spike are not just the traditional, ranging from greedy speculators to faulty future markets and rising demand. They are newer: extreme weather events, floods and droughts, heat and frost waves. And they suggest a threat even more difficult to contain.

…Then why do rich men still have their head (and heart) buried in the sand as far as solutions to climate change are concerned? Why is there no progress to reduce emissions? In fact, why in the world is movement backward when it comes to this top-ranking risk?

…The answer to my question is not far to find. The Davos glitterati’s assessment of global risks contains a fatal error. There is no mention, let alone appreciation, of the role of the same powerful economic game, set and system as the cause of the world’s present danger. The men who run the world (it is now accepted that the club has limited membership) do not even begin to join the dots that point towards their complicity in not addressing the problem….

A "capitalism coin" in Russian

Philippine food security, climate change and the Tibetan Plateau

Rolando T. DY, Executive Director Center for Food and Agri-Business UA&P in the Philippine Star: Is there a relationship between the distant Himalayas and Philippine food security? If so, what are the implications on climate change?

… The melting of the Tibetan glaciers will have global repercussions. River flows could eventually decline and cut rice production. These could even spur conflicts among countries regarding water rights. The major rice exporters such as Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Cambodia and Myanmar will have less rice surpluses. China could become a major rice importer. Thailand could have lower surplus, too, as the upper reaches of Chao Phraya will be affected. World rice prices will skyrocket.

…Specifically for the Philippines, there is a compelling need for a national food security plan. The plan could cover the following:

• Push for an ASEAN food security plan that gives rice-deficit countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, etc.) the right of first refusal for the rice exports of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar.
• Launch productivity drive for all food staples, coupled with marketing information campaign that other food staples (white corn, potato, cassava, banana, and gabi) are as nutritious as rice. Remote communities must attain a high level of food sufficiency due to distance, transport cost and carbon footprint.
• Craft an agenda that combine food security and nutrition security. Energy source from food staples is inadequate and create a false sense of nutrition security.
• Craft watershed management-water supply framework in the context of supply chain of water from source to sea.
• Invest in research and development for rice and diversification of food supply. A key to this is support to the International Rice Research Institute and the Philippines’ Rice Research Institute for drought tolerant and flood-resistant varieties. Access technologies and best practices for crops from the international Center for Research into Semi-arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in India, the International Center for Potatoes (CIP) in Peru, and (Brazilian Agriculture Research Corp.

Gathering plucked ripe fruits at the foot of the tree (Zamboanga del Sur, Mindanao, Philippines). Photo by Rizza Ayavoo, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

UNICEF Delivers Supplies To Flood Victims In Pakistan

Bernama: The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has begun a campaign to bring important supplies to flood victims in Pakistan's Khyber Paktunkhwa region in order help local residents in dealing with dropping temperatures, China's Xinhua news agency quoted UN officials as saying here Wednesday.

Summer floods in 2010 impacted about one-fifth of the Pakistan, disrupting the lives of 20 million people and leaving more than 2 million homes destroyed. Many flood victims do not yet have proper shelter.

…Supplies that UNICEF is rush delivering to vulnerable areas include clothes, shoes, blankets, and newborn kits. The agency has been working to provide safe drinking water and education to those impacted by the floods for months. … Out of the US$1.96 billion that the UN and its partners requested to help flood victims only 62 percent has been received…

Whole coastline of Namibia is designated a national park

Mark Rowe in the Telegraph (UK): The Namib-Skeleton Coast National Park covers 26.6 million acres, making it larger than Portugal. It stretches for 976 miles (1,570km), from the Kunene River, at the northern border with Angola, to the Orange River, on the border with South Africa, and is expected to be promoted as a unified destination. The protected coastline consolidates three national parks: Skeleton Coast, Namib-Naukluft and Sperrgebiet. The last is the site of Namibia’s diamond mines, which have long been closed to the public.

The national park does not stop at the national borders – at the southern end it connects with South Africa’s Richetersveld National Park, while in the north it is linked to Angola’s Iona National Park. Some coastal roads are good, particularly in Dorob National Park, but there is no pan-Namibian highway...

NASA image of Namibia's Skeleton Coast

Climate change investment in Peru exceeds US$ 1 billion

ANDINA (Peru): Climate change investment in Peru exceeds S/. 3 billion (some US$ 1.08 billion), said the Environment Ministry, which so far is working in 68 adaptation, anti-desertification and mitigation projects.

Some 37 percent of these projects belong to those liable to execution, while the remaining 63 percent are in phases of negotiation and formulation, noted the General Directorate of Climate Change, Desertification and Water Resources at the Environment Ministry. Every project comes from different sectors in the three levels of government (central, regional and local), as well as from international cooperation.

The investment amount of these projects, which are part of the ministry’s Adaptation and Mitigation Action Plan Against Climate Change, are related to the registry and quantification of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation measures to climate change, vigilance systems, and adaptation and mitigation capacities, among others….