Food system that fails poor countries needs urgent reform, says UN expert

Mark Tran in the global development blog at the Guardian (UK): The existing food system has failed and needs urgent reform, according to a UN expert who argues there should be a greater emphasis on local food production and an overhaul of trade policies that have led to overproduction in rich countries while obliging poor countries – which are often dependent on agriculture – to import food.

In his final report , Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, offers a detailed critique of an industrial system of agriculture that has boosted food production over the past 50 years, yet still leaves 842 million – 12% of the world's population – hungry.

"Measured against the requirement that they should contribute to the realisation of the right to food, the food systems we have inherited from the 20th century have failed," he told the UN human rights council. "Of course, significant progress has been achieved in boosting agricultural production. But this has hardly reduced the number of hungry people."

The right to food is defined as the right of every individual to have physical and economic access at all times to sufficient, adequate and culturally acceptable food that is produced and consumed sustainably, preserving access to food for future generations...

In India, a "metate" is used to process grain, shot by Fotokannan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Mega-dams economically unviable - Oxford report

Samuel Mintz at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Most large-scale dam projects do more economic harm than good due to poor or dishonest planning - and their skyrocketing costs could play a role in crippling the fragile economies of some developing countries, a study by Oxford University’s Saïd Business School charges.

By the time it is finished, the Belo Monte Dam being built in Brazil’s Amazon will cost $27.4 billion, and China’s Three Gorges Dam is set to cost the Asian superpower $26 billion over the next 10 years, the study predicted. In Pakistan, building the Tarbela Dam boosted the country’s external debt by 23 percent between 1968 and 1984, it said. But Richard Taylor, president of the International Hydropower Association, said he disagreed with many of the report’s findings, calling its central claim “complete nonsense.”

Countries around the world, from Laos to Ethiopia, are pushing ahead with plans for mega-dam projects, after a 10-year hiatus in which such projects were seen as poor choices for solving problems and funding largely disappeared.

In part, the surge in dam building is designed to help produce “green” hydropower to meet growing energy demand and avoid boosting climate-changing emissions from growth in the use of fossil fuel energy plants. As climate change brings more irregular rainfall, dams in some regions also are seen as a way of storing water, controlling water flows and managing droughts and floods.

Taylor said four out of every five dams in the world are today used primarily for water management, with many also providing energy to nearby communities.

But the benefits of these projects are a matter of some debate. The Oxford report claims that the hard-to-measure results produced by big dams rarely make up for big costs and long timelines....

A view from space of Pakistan's Tarbela Dam. Via NASA

Sri Lanka' punishing heat wave

Amantha Perera in IPS: Sri Lanka is heading into a major crisis under extreme heat, as the rains stay away. Fears are growing of power cuts and interruption to the water supply because reservoir levels are running scarily low. By the third week of February, the Ceylon Electricity Board said it was relying on expensive thermal generators for 76 percent of the country’s power supply.

Around August 2012, extended dry weather almost dried up hydro-reservoirs. The country spent over two billion dollars to import furnace oil. The drought impacted over a million persons, according to the Sri Lanka Red Cross. Power supply and the vital paddy harvest are likely to be hit if the rains stay away for longer.

The 2012 dry spell was followed by heavy rains that allowed hydro-power to gain lost ground last year. That vicious cycle could be repeating itself. Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabraal said last week that changing climate patterns have had a serious impact on the country’s fortunes. “Sri Lanka also is impacted by climate change in the form of droughts, floods and other natural disasters. We take these matters into consideration when framing monetary policy,” he said during a live Twitter interaction.

According to experts, power supply and the vital paddy harvest are likely to be hit if the rains stay away for longer. Asoka Abeygunawardana, executive director of the Sri Lanka Energy Forum and Advisor to the Ministry of Technology, told IPS that Sri Lanka’s power supply was too dependent on hydro-power or on costly coal and furnace oil....

Sri Lanka's Victoria Dam in wetter times in 2009, shot by Chamal N, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Farmers' fury after climate change expert claims Somerset Levels flooding 'should not be made a special case'

Jonathan Taylor in the Western Gazette (UK): Farmers have reacted angrily after the Government's climate change experts questioned whether it was fair to spend £100 million of taxpayers' money to save the Somerset Levels.

Climate expert Lord Krebs has sent a letter to Environment Minister Owen Paterson saying the Levels should not be made a special case and any plan should be good value for money. Earlier this week the Minister took receipt of an action plan outlining £100 million worth of measures that need to be taken to safeguard the area from future flooding. Read the summary of the plan.

The Government has pledged £20 million towards dredging and the clean-up operation, but it is still unclear where the money for major capital projects such as the £30 million barrage on the Parrett will come from.

The Committee on Climate Change warns Mr Paterson that defending the Levels will become "ever more difficult" as sea levels rise by 12cm by 2030 and intense rainfall events become even more common.

Lord Krebs, chairman of the adaptation sub-committee, tells the Minister that the Levels is "a largely engineered wetland landscape" and any public funding should face strict face tests to ensure "value for money is being achieved".

"Funding from central Government for flood risk management is limited, and as a result many worthwhile projects have to held back each year," he said. "Whilst the immediate needs of the affected communities will be a priority, it would be unfair in the long-term for the Levels to attract more taxpayer support than similar areas elsewhere....

February 2014 flooding in Burrowbridge, in Somerset, shot by Rodw, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Nigeria's dams contain enough water for 2014 dry season farming

AllAfrica.com via the Vanguard (Nigeria): An official of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Dr Emmanuel Adanu, said on Thursday that Nigeria's existing dams had stored enough sufficient water for 2014 dry season farming.

Adanu, the Director, Dams and Reservoir Operations said this in an interview on Thursday in Abuja. " We are working in close collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture now in their quest to provide food for the populace. We have enough water for everybody to use now for irrigation.  It is just that the dams have not been properly utilised.

"But we still have to contain most of our fresh water that is being discharged into the ocean every second, because in future it's going to be a problem of every nation in the world. The volume of water on earth is constant since its creation, but the population keeps growing. So the water available for each person keeps decreasing every second."

The director also said that attention was now being given to other parts of the country regarding the erection of dams. He noted that this was a new policy thrust of the government unlike the practice in the past when there was concentration of dams in the North. "Now the focus is to make water available for everybody. Basically, when we talk about water, drinking is the first thing. Water use by persons is the first thing you recognise before you go to other aspects such as irrigation, fishery and hydropower...."...

A 2012 NASA image of the lake formed by the Tiga dam in Nigeria

Peru to ‘eliminate’ key environmental rule for oil and gas firms, says minister

David Hill in the Guardian (UK): The Peruvian government is planning a new law loosening the social and environmental checks on companies exploring for oil and gas, according to a controversial announcement by the Energy Minister.

Current law states that companies must research and write “Environmental Impact Assessments” (EIAs) of proposed operations before submitting them to the government for approval and then beginning exploration.

However, Energy Minister Eleodoro Mayorga Alba announced this week that oil and gas companies planning to explore by conducting seismic tests will be exempt from the EIA process. Speaking at an event in Lima, he said that Energy Ministry and Environment Ministry personnel are currently working on the law and had reached several agreements:

[One] agreement is to eliminate environmental impact assessments for seismic operations. The [oil and gas] industry has its laws, the industry has principles, it has well-established practices, and the idea is to move away from procedures and permissions to action. The companies know what they have to do.

Mayorga’s comments were reported by Peruvian newspaper Gestion which stated that the new law, according to the minister, is intended to “accelerate investment in the oil and gas sector.”...

An oil pump in Talara, Peru, shot by Maurice Chédel, public domain

Shareholders seeking stronger responses from companies as climate change concerns deepen

A press release from Ceres: Motivated by mounting scientific evidence that human activity is a leading cause of climate change, major institutional investors are pushing for stronger actions from companies in climate-related shareholder resolutions in the 2014 proxy season.

Led by Walden Asset Management, the New York State Comptroller’s Office, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, Calvert Investments, the Connecticut Treasurer’s Office, Trillium Asset Management, Mercy Investments and Green Century Capital Management, 35 institutional investors have filed 142 resolutions in a coordinated effort to spur action by 118 companies – including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Kinder Morgan, Lowes and several electric utilities – on a wide range of climate-related issues such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy efficiency and sustainable palm oil.

“The combined package of 2014 resolutions demonstrates a common urgency that investors and companies alike need to ‘raise the bar’ and expand our actions to address climate change,” said Timothy Smith, Senior Vice President and Director of Environmental Social and Governance Shareholder Engagement at Boston-based Walden Asset Management. “The range of resolutions shows how investors are broadening their outreach to more companies and deepening their message to other companies on difficult climate issues such as lobbying on climate by fossil fuel companies.”

This year’s record number of climate-related resolutions demonstrates that investors are paying more attention than ever to risks and opportunities that climate change and environmental issues pose to companies in their portfolios. The investors – many of which are members of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, coordinated by the sustainability advocacy group Ceres, and members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) – request specific actions from companies such as adopting and achieving company-wide goals for reducing GHG emissions from operations...

A stock certificate photographed by SpreeTom, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Researchers map European climate change

EurekAlert via the Institute of Physics: The majority of Europe will experience higher warming than the global average if surface temperatures rise to 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, according to a new study published today. Under such a scenario, temperatures greater than the 2 °C global average will be experienced in Northern and Eastern Europe in winter and Southern Europe in summer; however, North-Western Europe—specifically the UK—will experience a lower relative warming.

The study, which has been published today, 7 March, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, also shows that in the summer, daily maximum temperatures could increase by 3𔃂 °C over South-Eastern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula and rise well above 40 °C in regions that already experience some of the highest temperatures in Europe, such as Spain, Portugal and France. Such higher temperatures will increase evaporation and drought.

In the winter, the maximum daily temperatures could increase by more than 6 °C across Scandinavia and Russia. Lead author of the research Robert Vautard, from Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (CEA/CNRS/UVSQ), said: "The 2 °C warming target has mainly been decided among nations as a limit not to exceed in order to avoid possibly dangerous climate change. However, the consequences of such a warming, at the scale of a continent like Europe, have not yet been quantified.

"We find that, even for such an ambitious target as 2 °C, changes in European climate are significant and will lead to significant impacts."

The study also shows that there will be a robust increase in precipitation over Central and Northern Europe in the winter and Northern Europe in the summer, and that most of the continent will experience an increase in instances of extreme precipitation, increasing the flood risks which are already having significant economic consequences. Southern Europe is an exception, and will experience a general decline in mean precipitation....

The clock tower in Piazza San Marco, in Venice, shot by G.dallorto, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Italy license 

US infrastructure threatened by climate change poses a 'national crisis'

Evan Lehmann in E & E News: The nation's aging infrastructure makes up an interconnected web of systems that are alarmingly vulnerable to the shocks of climate change, according to a report released today that will inform the National Climate Assessment, to be made public next month.

The difficulty of strengthening the systems that support the American economy -- from electricity to drinking water -- poses significant problems requiring large investments at a time of rising risk and receding political appetite for big spending initiatives. "It's kind of a national crisis," said Tom Wilbanks, a senior scientist at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a co-author of the 109-page report.

It is the first time the National Climate Assessment will include a section on the risks to infrastructure, a broad term that includes most major societal investments. Among them are health care systems; the nation's web of roads, airports and seaports; and communication systems relied on by every owner of a cellphone.

The threats to these systems don't include just the physical damage they might suffer during a hurricane, a flood or a heat wave. The bigger impacts are on society, the economy and the environment, all of which depend on the smooth functioning of these systems, the report says.

"Vulnerabilities are especially large where infrastructures are subject to multiple stresses, beyond climate change alone; when they are located in areas vulnerable to extreme weather events; and if climate change is severe rather than moderate," it says.

Still, the researchers find that adaptation can significantly reduce risk. Whether lawmakers are willing to pay for it is a separate question....

The 2007 Cedar Avenue bridge collapse in Minneapolis, shot by Mordac, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.  

Untimely rains hit Cuban tobacco harvest

Ivet Gonzalez in IPS: Near the close of the harvest , local people in the Cuban municipality of San Juan y Martínez, which boasts the finest tobacco plantations in the world, are seeing their hopes of a plentiful season dashed by unexpected winter rains.

“It’s been a bad year, a rebellious one as we call it. There was a lot of rain, which rots the plants. Tobacco needs sun during the day and cold at night,” 67-year-old Dámaso Rodríguez, a worker on the Valle plantation in this municipality, 180 kilometres west of Havana, in the province of Pinar del Río, told IPS.

“We are late with the farm chores,” said Yamilé Venero, a young tobacco worker on the same plantation. “It’s not worth planting again,” added María Teresa Ventos, a 54-year-old woman who comes every season to string the tobacco leaves onto long poles for drying in this agricultural industry which is a source of temporary jobs for women.

Since November, when the season started, there has been too much rain in the province which was expected to supply 70 percent of the 26,400 tonnes of tobacco leaf forecast for the 2013-2014 harvest. San Juan y Martínez and the neighbouring municipality of San Luis were severely affected; between them they provide 86 percent of the tobacco for the prized and costly Havana cigars.

Local sources reported the loss of 813 hectares in Pinar del Río and partial damage in a further 1,000 hectares, out of the provincial plan for 15,000 hectares. Many farms had to uproot their tobacco plants and replant three times over. Tobacco is Cuba’s third export, after nickel and medical products...

Tobacco processing in Cuba, shot by Vgenecr, Wikimedia Commons, nder the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Philippines coconut industry struggles to recover after Typhoon Haiyan

Voice of America: Last December, Typhoon Haiyan's destructive winds devastated the Philippines. Parts of the archipelago nation are still recovering. Among those hardest hit were farmers, nearly half of whom harvest coconuts. In Leyte province, efforts to revitalize the coconut farming industry are underway.

Before the storm, farmers at a farm in rural Leyte harvested the dried meat, or copra, of coconuts to make oil, but Typhoon Haiyan’s destruction has made the future of this and many other small plantations unclear.

The farm’s caretaker, Arnulflo Barcero, 52, said the typhoon knocked out the large majority of the farm's trees. “Before the typhoon we had 700 trees and now there are only 90 trees still standing. It’s a problem for the community because we rely on the copras to earn a living,” said Barcero.

Around 40 percent of farmers in Leyte province work in the coconut industry.  The downed trees mean they have nothing to sell and the help they employ have no work. But for others, the devastation is creating income.

Francisco Alverca, a chainsaw operator who has been called in to help cut up the fallen and damaged trees, is one of those benefiting. “I think it will take several months to complete all the work here, it is a big property,” said Alverca....

A few palm trees left standing in Tacloban after Haiyan, shot by DFID - UK Department for International Development, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Flood warning for Mozambique

Paul Fauvet in IOL News (South Africa): Torrential rains in southern Mozambique and South Africa on Tuesday and Wednesday have caused a major flood on the Incomati River in Mozambique. Briefing the Mozambican parliament on Thursday, the Minister of State Administration, Carmelita Namashulua, warned that the current flood was not far short of the enormous flood wave that struck the Incomati Valley in 2000.

At Ressano Garcia, on the border with South Africa, the river was measured at 10.4m on Wednesday morning – more than double the flood alert level of 5m. Namashulua said this was much higher than the last flood on the Incomati, in 2011, when the river reached 6.83m.

In 2000, the year of the worst floods in independent Mozambique’s history, the Incomati reached 10.56m. It is now just 17cm short of that record, and the authorities fear that, since more rain is forecast, the current flood could exceed the levels of 2000.

The Incomati takes a long and meandering path through southern Mozambique before it reaches the sea about 30km north of Maputo. It will take two or three days for the flood surge to travel that distance.

In about 48 hours, the flood would reach Manhica district, said Namashulua. When that happens, it would sweep across the country’s main north-south highway. That would, almost certainly, as with previous floods, cut all overland traffic between Maputo and the centre and north of the country....

US Air Force activity over a flooded Mozambique in 2000

Aging El Nino buoys get fixed as weather forecasts at risk

Brian K. Sullvian at Bloomberg News: The National Weather Service is set to start repairing 70 towering buoys used to track El Nino and La Nina patterns, whose damage has led scientists to warn the accuracy of forecasts is in danger.

The Tropical Atmospheric Ocean Array, deployed after a 1982-83 ocean warming caught governments by surprise and caused at least $8.1 billion in damage worldwide, is designed to help predict developments that can alter global weather. The system has degraded to about 40 percent effectiveness, a victim of age, vandalism and neglect, according to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

“Having this array in place may give us a few more months extra lead time that otherwise would not occur,” said Kevin Trenberth, distinguished senior scientist in the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. “It makes a difference as to what strategy many farmers have in terms of what crops they grow, what water irrigation strategies they use, what fertilizer.”

While maintaining and upgrading the buoys costs about $10 million annually, less than 1 percent of NOAA’s budget, government spending constraints in recent years have limited repairs, said Craig McLean, a deputy assistant administrator for programs and administration at the agency’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. The weather service’s 2014 budget “offers relief,” and maintenance will begin within the next two weeks, Susan Buchanan, a spokeswoman for the service, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday.

...“We are hopeful that we will be able to restore the TAO array to near 80 percent by the end of this year,” she said.

From corn farmers in Iowa to oil-rig operators in the Gulf of Mexico to rubber growers in Indonesia, businesses depend on forecasts generated by data from the equipment. Without that information, there might be less time to prepare for droughts, wildfires, floods and storms, leading to more volatility in commodity prices and the potential for a greater loss of life....

NOAA photo of TAO Buoy Array deployment preparations on board the NOAA Ship GORDON GUNTER. United States, Gulf of Mexico. 2006 August 29.

New technique allows frequent water quality monitoring for suite of pollutants

Matt Shipman in the North Carolina State Newsroom: Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that uses existing technology to allow researchers and natural resource managers to collect significantly more information on water quality to better inform policy decisions.

 “Right now, incomplete or infrequent water quality data can give people an inaccurate picture of what’s happening – and making decisions based on inaccurate data can be risky,” says Dr. François Birgand, an assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. “Our approach will help people get more detailed data more often, giving them the whole story and allowing them to make informed decisions.”

In addition to its utility for natural resource managers, the technique will also allow researchers to develop more sophisticated models that address water quality questions. For example, the researchers are using data they collected using the new technique to determine the extent to which fertilizer runoff contributes to water pollution in specific water bodies and the role of wetlands in mitigating the effect of the runoff.

The researchers used existing technology called “UV-Vis” spectrometers, which are devices that measure the wavelengths of light absorbed by water to collect water quality data. The upside to these devices is that they can collect data as often as every 15 seconds, and over long periods of time. This is far more frequent than is possible with conventional water sampling and lab analysis techniques. The downside is that they are designed to monitor only a handful of key water quality parameters: nitrates, dissolved organic carbon and turbidity – or how clear the water is.

But the NC State research team developed a technique that uses a suite of algorithms to significantly expand the amount of information that can be retrieved from the spectroscopy data collected by UV-Vis devices. Specifically, the new technique allows researchers to get information on the levels of organic nitrogen, phosphates, total phosphorus, and salinity of the water. This water quality data can offer key insights to a host of questions, including questions about nutrient pollution...

A Cambodian boy washing cutlery in a dirty pond, shot by Dtfman, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Flood havoc in Johannesburg

AllAfrica.com via SAPA: Several areas in Johannesburg are flooded, the Gauteng provincial government said on Friday. "Co-operative governance and traditional affairs' provincial disaster management centre (PDMC), together with emergency management services (EMS), are working round the clock to respond and offer aid in affected areas," said PDMC head Elias Sithole.

The most affected areas in the province were the City of Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni. Temporary accommodation, food parcels and blankets were provided to people displaced by the floods. "About 70 shacks in the Vusimuzi informal settlement near Tembisa, in Ekurhuleni, were flooded, and about 25 displaced families were moved to the community hall," Sithole said.

The PDMC and the municipal disaster management centre (MDMC) in the area had also cleared flooded roads and school yards in the municipality. "Blocked stormwater drainages were unblocked and the dammed water was able to flow, relieving the flooded roads."

About 90 shacks in Kliptown, Soweto, had also been flooded due to heavy rains in the area....

Soweto Township, shot by Matt-80, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license 

Reef fate in hands of chiefs and researchers — for now

Jan Piotrowski in SciDev.net: Trust and strong relationships between researchers and traditional tribal leaders of small pacific islands allows for quick and effective implementation of science-based strategies that slow the decline of coral reefs, an international conference has heard.

Coral reefs recovered far quicker when scientists worked directly with leaders of local communities — rather than national governments — on changing the damaging land-use practices that pollute coastal waters, said Robert Richmond, a professor of marine biology at the University of Hawaii, United States.

...But these strategies can only be a stopgap as the rising sea levels, water temperatures and acidification — which could spell the end for many reef ecosystems — will need to be addressed by an international climate change agreement, he said.

For local populations dependent on ever-diminishing coral reefs for survival, conservation laws take too long to devise, and are difficult to enforce and monitor in remote regions, Richmond tells SciDev.Net.

Local chiefs have the ability to quickly change damaging practices but researchers must first work to build trust before their advice will be considered, he adds. “Many times, the local level is much more efficient than national governance. Working at a local level means communities can act immediately,” Richmond says....

Hawaii's Pearl and Hermes atoll, US Fish and Wildlife photo

Climate change could mean more malaria in Africa

The Guardian (UK) via Reuters: Future global warming could lead to a significant increase in malaria cases in densely populated regions of Africa and South America unless disease monitoring and control efforts are increased, researchers said on Thursday.

In a study of the mosquito-borne disease that infects around 220 million people a year, researchers from Britain and the United States found what they describe as the first hard evidence that malaria creeps to higher elevations during warmer years and back down to lower altitudes when temperatures cool.

This in turn “suggests that with progressive global warming, malaria will creep up the mountains and spread to new high-altitude areas,” said Menno Bouma, an honorary clinical lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

And because people who live in these areas have no protective immunity because they are not used to being exposed to malaria, they will be particularly vulnerable to more severe and fatal cases of infection, he added. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) data, malaria infected around 219 million people in 2010, killing around 660,000 of them - the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa.

But robust figures are hard to establish for a disease that affects mainly poor communities in rural areas of developing countries, and some global health experts say the annual malaria death toll could be double that....

Trapped mosquitoes at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, shot by a US Defense Department employee

Sea-level rise threatens world heritage sites

Liz Kalaugher in Environmental Research Web: Sea-level rise could threaten cultural world heritage sites, as well as people and infrastructure, near the coast as climate warms. Almost one-fifth of the world’s 720 cultural and mixed heritage sites will be at risk within the next 2000 years if temperature rise reaches 3° above pre-industrial levels, researchers from Austria and Germany have found.

 “Humanity has to take fundamental decisions,” Ben Marzeion of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, told environmentalresearchweb. “Do we look at the impacts [of climate change] and say ‘it was nice to have these cultural heritage sites for a few centuries – let's move on and forget about their future’ or do we want to take actions that will allow us to keep them for future generations? The way we are acting now, we are putting expiration dates on our cultural heritage.”

Together with Anders Levermann from Potsdam University in Germany, Marzeion looked at sea-level rise over the long term for different levels of warming. The pair’s data allowed for thermal expansion of the ocean, ice-sheet melt, glacier melt, changes in the Earth’s gravity field from mass relocation and rotation changes, and the response of the Earth’s crust. Tides, storm surges and subsidence, all of which could bring inundation at an earlier stage, were not included.

 “Almost 20% of the world heritage sites currently enlisted by UNESCO, and about 7% of the currently inhabited places, will be affected directly by sea-level rise for even [a] seemingly modest 3° of global warming,” said Marzeion. “This illustrates the magnitude of the problem we are passing on to future generations.”...

The Sydney Opera House is a World Heritage Site, shot by Christian Mehlführer, User:Chmehl, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license 

Netherlands to upgrade flood defenses to cope with climate change

Sophie Yeo in Responding to Climate Change: A national effort is underway in the Netherlands to upgrade the thousands of miles of dykes and dams responsible for keeping the country dry.  As the planet warms, experts say the Netherlands’ network of flood defences will no longer be able to hold up against rising sea levels, and this autumn, the government will explain how it plans to hold the sea back for another century.

In 2007, an investigation was launched into whether the the famously low-lying country could survive at all should projections of almost a metre of sea level rise by the end of the century come to pass. A committee concluded that life could go on in the Netherlands, but work must begin immediately to upgrade the country’s 3,700km of dykes, dunes and dams, which hold back the water in the country’s most vulnerable coastal areas.

On the committee’s advice, a Delta Programme was set up, which began work on a new policy framework for the country that will be put before Parliament this September, including five “Delta Decisions” that will form the basis of the country’s new water strategy.

These five decisions lay out concrete ideas on how the Netherlands can deal with some of the biggest challenges posed by their troublesome geography. The proposals will renew the government’s strategy on water safety and flood risk management, the future scarcity of freshwater supplies, and spatial planning of new buildings and infrastructure.

They also propose specific plans for the most vulnerable regions of the Netherlands, the IJsselmeer region and the Rhine-Meuse Delta....

The Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta, shot by NLR and ESA, Wikimedia Commons. The copyright holder of this work allows anyone to use it for any purpose including unrestricted redistribution, commercial use, and modification. 

Study projects big thaw for Antarctic sea ice

David Malmquist at William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science: Antarctica’s Ross Sea is one of the few polar regions where summer sea-ice coverage has increased during the last few decades, bucking a global trend of drastic declines in summer sea ice across the Arctic Ocean and in two adjacent embayments of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

Now, a modeling study led by Professor Walker Smith of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science suggests that the Ross Sea’s recent observed increase in summer sea-ice cover is likely short-lived, with the area projected to lose more than half its summer sea ice by 2050 and more than three quarters by 2100.

These changes, says Smith, will significantly impact marine life in what is one of the world’s most productive and unspoiled marine ecosystems, where rich blooms of phytoplankton feed krill, fish, and higher predators such as whales, penguins, and seals.

...Smith says “The Ross Sea is critically important in regulating the production of Antarctica’s sea ice overall and is biologically very productive, which makes changes in its physical environment of global concern. Our study predicts that it will soon reverse its present trend and experience major drops in ice cover in summer, which, along with decreased mixing of the vertical column, will extend the season of phytoplankton growth. These changes will substantially alter the area’s pristine food web.”

Researchers attribute the observed increase in summertime sea ice in the Ross Sea—where the number of days with ice cover has grown by more two months over the past three decades—to a complex interplay of factors, including changes in wind speed, precipitation, salinity, ocean currents, and air and water temperature....

NASA image of ice in the Ross Sea, Antarctica

Experts at UCSC conference urge rethinking responses to climate change

Molly Sharlach in the Santa Cruz Sentinel: A diverse group of academics and policymakers gathered for a national climate conference on the UC Santa Cruz campus Saturday. In a series of panel discussions, they shared perspectives on addressing climate change with the campus community and members of the public.

A panel on mitigating the effects of climate change highlighted efforts to reduce carbon emissions at the state level.  Ken Alex, director of the California Governor's Office of Planning and Research, acknowledged that the rest of the world -- especially India and China with their combined population of 2.6 billion -- must also reduce their emissions.

But Alex said he believes California's leadership "is potentially world-changing, because the world's eighth-largest economy is not going to take a big economic hit for doing this. That is part of how we change the world here."

Steven Cohen, executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, expressed optimism that we can reduce our emissions on a more global scale by developing new technologies. "We will mitigate climate change, because we know we need to," he said. "Human ingenuity will triumph over greed and stupidity." The developing world will get its energy from somewhere, and Cohen thinks these nations will "leapfrog" a spike in carbon emissions by adopting renewable energy.

UCSC environmental scientist Erika Zavaleta introduced the panel on adapting to the future effects of climate change. "Adaptation got a bad rap early on," she said, because "it was just throwing up our hands and accepting the problem. But the train has already left the station."...

The South Tufa area at Mono Lake, California, shot by James J. Ludemann, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license 

Despite climate change, Africa can feed Africa

Richard Munang and Jesica Andrews in Sierra Express Media via Africa Renewal: Climate change comes with never-before-experienced impacts. For example, crop yields and growing seasons will decrease even as changing rain patterns will worsen people’s access to water. Yet Africa’s population is projected to reach 2 billion in less than 37 years, and in 86 years three out of every four people added to the planet will be African.  

Decreasing crop yields and increasing population will put additional pressure on an already fragile food production system. That is why experts have warned that if the current situation persists, Africa will be fulfilling only 13% of its food needs by 2050. This situation will further threaten about 65% of African workers who depend on agriculture for their livelihoods including children and the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity.

Hunger already affects about 240 million Africans daily. By 2050, even a change of about 1.2 to 1.9 degrees Celsius will have increased the number of the continent’s undernourished by 25% to 95% (central Africa +25%, East Africa +50%, Southern Africa +85% and West Africa +95%). The situation will be dire for children who need proper nourishment to succeed in their education. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has estimated that African countries could lose between 2% and 16% of gross domestic product due to stunting of children as a result of malnutrition.

...Unlocking Africa’s potential requires that policy makers in agriculture and the environment join forces with civil society and non-governmental organizations to consider options that will enable the environment and farmers to cope with climate change. One of the options being advocated is the ecosystem-based adaptation,, which is to mitigate climate change impact through the use natural systems such as drought-resistant varieties, more efficient methods of water storage and more diversity in crop rotation, says UNEP...

Flood damage cost to rise fivefold across Europe

Damian Carrington in the Guardian (UK): The huge cost of flood damage is set to soar fivefold across Europe in coming decades, according to the first comprehensive analysis of risk across the continent. The cost of homes, belongings, businesses and infrastructure wrecked by the wettest winter in England for 250 years has been at least £1bn and over the last decade the average annual loss across the European Union has been €4.5bn. But increasingly intense downpours driven by climate change, as well as population growth and urbanisation, will see that rise to €23bn a year by 2050, the study found.

The growing prosperity of citizens is also a factor, according to Brenden Jongman, a researcher at the VU University Amsterdam, who led the new work. “People increasingly have more expensive stuff – like expensive televisions and other gadgets – than they had 50 years ago,” he said.

The costs of damage could be curbed by better flood protection and insurance schemes, but faces political obstacles, according to Jongman. “For rare events [like England’s wettest winter on record] the chances of it happening within the term of one government is low, so the incentive for politicians to invest in flood protection is quite low,” he said. “The cost is upfront but the benefits are over decades.”

The UK’s coalition government cut annual flood defence spending sharply after entering office in 2010 and the Guardian revealed earlier in February that projects in flood-stricken areas from the Somerset Levels to the Thames valley were not built as a result.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that improving flood defences across the EU to resist once-a-century flooding would save €7bn a year by 2050 but cost just €1.75bn. In the UK, most flood defences save £8 for every £1 spent....

A 2013 flood in Passau, on the Danube, shot by Stefan Penninger, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license 

Massive storm system takes aim at winter-weary US Midwest, East

Reuters: A massive winter storm system packing cold air, snow and freezing rain was pummeling the central United States on Sunday and headed for the East Coast, sending temperatures plummeting and causing major delays for weekend travelers.

Rainfall and snow associated with the system will stretch over 1,500 miles, stretching from southeastern Colorado to southern Massachusetts, meteorologists said.

The storm "is going to be a real mess," said Bruce Sullivan, a senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Silver Spring, Maryland.

"The main system is injecting a lot of moisture and cold air out over the Southern Plains," he said. "It's going to bring quite a bit of precipitation." Up to 12 inches of snow could fall on an area from eastern Kansas to Pennsylvania before the system dissipates on Monday....

This snow man is in Finland, but you get the idea, shot by Petritap, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

PM Hasina of Bangladesh for upgrading disaster mitigation system

The Daily Star (Bangladesh): Stressing upgrading the traditional early warning and disaster mitigation system, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said that international cooperation for exchange of weather data and information is very important for worldwide disaster management.

“Since meteorological phenomena do not obey political or geographical boundaries, international cooperation for exchange of weather data and information throughout the globe is essential for worldwide disaster management,” she said.

“We’ve to ensure proper application of latest technology with our conventional system for upgrading our existing early warning and mitigation activities,” Hasina said, inaugurating the 41st session of WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones for the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

Defence Secretary Khondoker M Asaduzzaman delivered the address of welcome at the inaugural ceremony held at the International Conference Center of the Prime Minister's Office in the morning. Director of Bangladesh Metrological Department Md Shah Alam gave the vote of thanks....

Study shows less snowpack will harm ecosystem

Newswise via Boston University: A new Boston University study shows that the consequences of milder winters – a smaller snowpack leaving the ground to freeze harder and longer – can have a negative impact on trees and water quality of nearby aquatic ecosystems far into the warmer growing season.

In a paper in the journal Global Change Biology, BU biology Prof. Pamela Templer and her co-authors show that soil freezing due to diminishing snowpack damages the roots of sugar maple trees and limits their ability to absorb essential nitrogen and other nutrients in the spring. This leads to greater run off of nitrogen into ground water and nearby streams, which could deteriorate water quality and trigger widespread harmful consequences to humans and the environment.

“Most people think that climate change means hot, sweltering summer months, but it affects the winter as well,” said ecologist Templer, currently on fellowship at Harvard University, noting that winter snowpack has been shrinking over the past 50 years due to climate change and is likely to continue diminishing over time.

Templer and her colleagues discovered that a thick layer of snow acts as an insulating blanket. When snowpack was shoveled off sections of New Hampshire’s Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest to simulate the effects of a warm winter, the soil was much colder – a much as 10 degrees less -- than when it was when covered with deep snow. This means the ground could be frozen solid longer into the spring.

Templer is following up her winter research with a new National Science Foundation funded project that uses warming cables in the ground to determine the combined effects of warmer winters and summer on the trees....

A NASA image of Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierras of California

Rotterdam: designing a flood-proof city to withstand climate change

Elizabeth Braw in Guardian Sustainable Business (UK): Water plazas, green walls, floating neighbourhoods. Rotterdam, the famous Dutch university city, is building a captivating new infrastructure, but not out of vanity. If it doesn't come up with innovative solutions, the city is set to lose its battle with climate change.

"We're really planning ahead", says Alexandra van Huffelen, Rotterdam's vice mayor in charge of sustainability. "The Dutch have lived below the sea level for centuries and are used to dykes and barriers. But today we're experiencing heavier and more unpredictable rainfalls, so behind the barriers we're turning the city into a sponge."

A crucial sponge. Surrounded by water on four sides, this delta city of some 600,000 people can't flush the sudden stormwater away. Instead, it has embarked on a climate change adaptation strategy that turns every conceivable area into water storage. "We have squares that are set lower than the surrounding streets and pavements that will function as water plazas and fill themselves up with water", explains van Huffelen.

"We've also built water storage facilities, for example an underground parking garage with a basin the size of four Olympic swimming pools. And we've introduced more green areas, including green roofs and green facades, that will be able to absorb water as well."

...The city is also in the process of building a floating neighbourhood, to be completed within the next three years, that will feature homes, offices, a school, a park and even a dairy factory. More are planned in future. A floating pavilion in the inner harbour is being used as a conference centre....

A street in Rotterdam, shot by Ralf Roletschek - Fahrradtechnik und Fotografie, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Beijing steps up air pollution law enforcement

Xinhua: Beijing has launched a "zero-hour" campaign for enforcing the city's first air pollution prevention regulation, which came into effect on Saturday. Over 400 environmental monitoring staff began work at 12 a.m. Saturday to conduct a scrutiny on industrial emissions and dust.

Among the 617 plants and firms inspected, 25 received fines for discharging excessive emissions and 11 others for improper treatment of dust. When inspectors arrived at the Hongxiang Heat Co. Ltd. in Changping District, they found emission from roaring coal-fired heating boilers were discharging sulfur dioxide with a density of 350 milligrams per cubic meter, which is seven times more than the city's permitted level.

Zhong Chonglei, captain of the municipal environmental inspection team, said according to the regulation, the company should be given a fine of between 80,000 yuan (13,018 U.S. dollars) and 100,000 yuan. The fine will be doubled if the company fails a further check in a month.

Beijing's local law on air pollution prevention is widely regarded as a test of the government's resolve to solve air pollution problems. It legislates penalties from hefty fines to imprisonment for polluters, and, for the first time, sets a ceiling on total emissions of major pollutants. A previous guideline targeted only growth of emissions....

Cusco, Peru receives help from World Bank in adapting to climate change

Via Andina in Peru This Week: The Andean city of Cusco in southern Peru has received assistance from the World Bank to strengthen local climate change adaptation planning. The World Bank’s disaster risk management team in Latin America and the Caribbean recently piloted a regional study and technical assistance initiative in Cusco and other four small and medium sized cities (SMSC) in the region.

The initiative’s main objective was to support SMSC with their adaptation planning for floods and landslides, two of the most recurrent climate-related hazards in the region. SMSC in the LAC region are diverse in location, topography and socio-economic and institutional make-up, yet many are struggling with similar challenges caused by rapid urban growth, weak capacities in urban planning and inadequate provision for public services and infrastructure.

SMSC are also less likely to have had access to climate change adaptation (CCA) training, financing or knowledge networks. The ultimate goal of the initiative was to strengthen local adaptive capacity and to increase urban resilience through mainstreaming climate change adaptation into current planning systems. The other medium sized cities selected were Castries, Saint Lucia; El Progreso, Honduras; Estelí, Nicaragua; and Santos, Brazil.

Over the course of one and a half years, the task team worked with these cities to conduct three assessments to evaluate their i) climate related risks, ii) institutional adaptive capacities, and iii) socio-economic capacities to adapt to climate change.

These assessments, in conjunction with a series of consultative workshops with city planners and decision-makers, resulted in the development of Strategic Climate Adaptation Investment and Institutional Strengthening Plans for each city. These plans identify priority investments and activities to strengthen institutional capacities for climate change adaptation....

Roofs in Cusco, shot by Colegota, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Spain license

Can Turkana be food sufficient?

Lemukol Ng'asike in AllAfrica.com via the Star (Kenya):  Drought in Kenya, and particularly in Turkana, is not a new thing. It came calling in 1952 killing nearly 50 per cent of livestock. After almost a decade of breeding and laughing it came back in 1960 decimating the remaining livestock. Then it occurred in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010. And now, in 2014 the cries of hungry babies and skinny, malnourished mothers can still be heard from this corner of Kenya. The culprit none other than drought.

Fruitless military operations Northern Kenya has endured countless military operations under the guise of flashing out tribal warlords and restoring peace and order. During these escapades, many innocent lives were lost, women raped and peoples' livelihoods destroyed. There is nothing tangible for one to see. Northern Kenya is still insecure. Bandits still reign. Lives are lost daily. Livestock is stolen.

Which begs the questions - what is ailing this segment of the republic? Could there be a different dose? Stronger, food secure Northern Kenya Northern Kenya, contrary to the perception of many Kenyans, can stand on its own. It can feed its people. It has the potential to produce more than it needs. There are reasons why this has never been achieved. Convoluted thinking is the mother of all the ailments bedevilling the north.

The people of northern Kenya have more than 58 million livestock. Surely, they should not depend on relief food for generations. But what is the problem? Water is still a preserve of a few. Large portions of the population can neither read nor write. They must be supported for them to support themselves. They are thirsty for knowledge....

The main street in Kalokol, Turkana, shot by Mr.matija.kovac, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license