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  • UK conservation ‘pointless’ without tackling African climate change

    UK conservation ‘pointless’ without tackling African climate change

    Lynn Morris

    30th March, 2010

    Conservation efforts towards protecting migrating bird habitats in Europe may be doomed to failure unless we tackle climate change and protect Africa’s coastlines

    According to Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, ‘for good or ill, we live in an age of interdependence, and we must manage it collectively’. Nowhere is that observation more applicable than in dealing with climate change. 

    Lifestyles led by people in the developed world caused and continue to exacerbate climate change, the effects of which are felt globally.

    Figures produced by the New Economics Foundation show that before the average UK citizen is six months old they will be responsible for the same carbon dioxide emissions as a Tanzanian generates in their entire lifetime. 



    Indeed, Africa as a whole is responsible for less than four percent of global carbon emissions. But it is developing nations that suffer first and are most vulnerable.


    ‘West Africa is obliged to respond to a situation we are not responsible for and that is a source of iniquity,’ says Professor Isabelle Niang, co-ordinator for UNESCO’s adaptation to climate and coastal change project in West Africa.

    Banc d’Arguin

    But it is not a one-way street, and climate change impacts in developing countries will also be felt in the developed world.

    Mauritania’s Banc d’Arguin is an area of flat low-lying ground about the size of Gambia where the Sahara meets the Atlantic. Sea level rise already witnessed along this coastline will have dramatic effects on bird populations in Europe. 



    The Banc is a unique environment with particularly abundant marine life because of nutrient-rich water brought to the surface by a coastal upwelling. Every year the national park supports millions of migratory birds. For a third of these birds this is the final destination in their migration but for others it is merely a rest point. 


    ‘It’s the most important crossroads for migratory shore birds in the whole Atlantic. They really need this staging point to refuel: without it they would not reach further south and they could not reach Europe,’ says Antonio Arujo of the Fondation Internationale du Banc d’Arguin.

    Birds affected

    But the ecology of the area is changing. The distribution of sea grass, which needs to be covered and uncovered by the tide twice a day, is affected by rising sea levels. In areas where eel grass used to grow the water now is too deep to support it.

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    The sea grass beds are home to invertebrates – food for the birds. In addition, nesting sites on shrinking islands are repeatedly being washed out by the rising tides.

    ‘If the Banc d’Arguin can’t accomplish its functions as it is doing now whole populations of wading birds will probably disappear from the Palearctic,’ says Arujo.


    ‘There is no point England spending millions conserving the Wash if some of that money is not helping preserve the Banc d’Arguin. If the Banc disappears all the efforts made in the Wash will make no sense,’ he adds.

    Migration decline

    A fall in the UK’s bird population is already being noticed. 

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) noted a decrease in the numbers of birds that migrate between the UK and Africa.

    Of 36 migrant species, for which it holds long term data, the RSPB found 21 have declined significantly. And studies show that pattern is being repeated across Europe.

    Fishing problems

    The waters off the Banc d’Arguin are the site of another struggle for survival – that of fish. 

Fishing is a hugely important industry for West Africa and its waters are plied not only by local fleets but those from the EU, China, Korea and many other countries.

  • Climate change programs lack creditability

     

    The harsh assessment of Australia’s climate change programs comes as a meeting of ministers from the world’s major greenhouse gas emitters failed to agree how global climate talks should proceed after the failure of last year’s UN meeting in Copenhagen, and downplayed the chances of reaching a deal at this year’s talks in Mexico.

    The Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, said she believed the Copenhagen accord – the political agreement thrashed out in the Danish capital last December – was ”the best international consensus to date and the key to getting international action on climate change”.

    But the Major Economies Forum meeting she has been attending in Washington was downbeat and the US climate envoy, Todd Stern, said afterwards that agreement in Mexico in December might not be possible.

    The audit report was also scathing about the greenhouse gas abatement program set up under the Howard government and continued in the early years of the Rudd government, a competitive grants program similar to Tony Abbott’s planned ”direct action” climate change scheme. A previous audit had criticised the first two rounds of the scheme, but yesterday’s report found the third round was not any better.

    The three projects funded were ”technically ineligible” because they did not meet the criteria, only one produced any greenhouse abatement at all, and even that project only reduced emissions by a third of the amount it had promised.

    The Greens senator Christine Milne said the report ”should give Tony Abbott and [the opposition climate spokesman] Greg Hunt pause for thought”.

    ”Clearly the approach they have taken is not an effective or efficient way of delivering emissions cuts. We know we need to do a lot more than throw a few grants around if we are to stimulate the huge growth in green technologies we need,” she said.

    The report also criticised the original rebate scheme for solar roof panels, saying it achieved greenhouse gas abatement at a cost of about $447 each tonne of carbon, compared with the estimated costs in the early years of an emissions trading scheme of about $20 or $30 a tonne.

    It also found that the impact of federal and state government measures had caused their greenhouse gas abatement impact to be revised down by 15 per cent over the past two years.

  • Seismic activity rises in California

     

    Egill Hauksson, a geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology, said the rate of quakes in the region was ”probably … picking up again” after a relative lull that lasted more than 10 years.

    ”What it means is that we are going to have more earthquakes than in the average year. With more earthquakes, we’re bound to have more bigger ones. But there are always fewer of those than the smaller ones.”

    Scientists, however, have not been able to identify reasons that fully explain the increase.

    Many of the earthquakes this year have been aftershocks to a 7.2 temblor that rattled the Mexicali area earlier this month. The border region had experienced smaller quakes before the big one. And there have been more than 1000 aftershocks, including more than a dozen that registered higher than 5.0.

    The Mexicali quake was the region’s largest since one of 7.3 in the Mojave Desert in 1992. Despite their size, neither quake did catastrophic damage because they occurred in relatively remote areas far from large population centres.

    In California, scientists say one of their biggest concerns remains the San Andreas fault, which has produced some of the state’s largest earthquakes. Experts have said the San Andreas is overdue for an eruption. State officials have also often noted that only about one in six Californians has earthquake insurance.

    Los Angeles Times

  • Stable Population Party says massive cuts needed to Australia’s immigration intake

     

    He denies the fledgling party, formed in February, will be a honeypot for rednecks and racists, saying Australians are “capable of a mature and rational debate on the issue”.

    Nevertheless, he says massive cuts are needed to Australia’s current immigration intake, including from the skilled migration program, family reunions, the high volume of New Zealanders allowed in, and overseas students.

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    Net overseas migration, the difference between those entering Australia with plans to stay for more than a year and those leaving with the same intention, was 297,000 in the year to September last year.

    Mr Bourke, who says he has never been a member of a political party, thinks that figure should be reduced to zero.

    “We need a balanced migration program, with immigration set at between 50,000 to 80,000 a year, matching the emigration that happens each year,” he told The Australian.

    “The major parties are hopelessly conflicted between the will of the people and the will of their big business donors, and both sides are just as bad.

    “They keep using this measurement of higher gross domestic product to indicate our wellbeing, but of course it’s going to grow if you have a bigger population. The measure they should be using is GDP per capita, and that has fallen for the past five quarters in a row.”

     

  • Volcano shows our lack of sustainability

     

     

    Furthermore, volcanic eruptions are flashes in the pan. They have been happening regularly for aeons, with no discernable effect on global temperatures. When, in a few days, weeks or months, Eyjafjallajokull returns to its state of slumber and our skies are once again choked with aircraft, we will have returned to a way of life that neither our planet nor our economy can support in the long term. Although the current crisis is expensive – airlines are reported to be losing around £130m per day, and stranded travellers are shelling out further millions for accommodation, car hire and extortionate seats on Eurostar – the effects of climate change will cost a lot more. Lord Stern has warned that failing to invest 1-2% of GDP now in the fight against climate change could end up costing us more than 20% of the world’s GDP.

     

    Had we taken steps already to redesign our economy according to the principles of sustainable development, the grounding of our air fleet would have been far easier to take. There would already be affordable, high-speed direct rail links between all major European cities. Businesses would be equipped with state-of-the-art videoconferencing facilities and making fuller use of the formidable communications and information resources of the internet. Aircraft would be more efficient. Airlines would be paying duty on fuel in the same way that car drivers do, changing the economics of travel in a way that favoured more sustainable alternatives. Citizens would be used to holidaying closer to home. Only those with enough money and pressing reasons to fly would be inconvenienced.

     

    Sadly, these more fundamental questions are largely ignored, especially in the runup to the general election. As David Blunkett recently told me at a post-budget breakfast, and as a senior member of shadow cabinet confirmed to me in confidence, voters have become more sceptical and less concerned about climate change, while scientists are more concerned and convinced than ever that it is both real and damaging. Concerns over short-term economic performance, and some blunderous decisions by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia, have allowed our politicians to sweep this important issue under the carpet.

     

    Little wonder, then, that some environmentalists are indulging in a certain amount of schadenfreude. Their argument: if we insist on closing our eyes to the threat of climate change, if we insist on making the wrong choices in our business and personal lives, if we deny our addiction to air travel and fail to develop better solutions, then we deserve to suffer when the airports are closed.

     

    I don’t share this sentiment. No one benefits from this temporary chaos, and few people will overhaul their lifestyle just because they can’t fly for a week or two. But I fear for our future when I see that, no matter how much evidence we gather about our effects on the climate, water, biodiversity and our own wellbeing, we cannot bring ourselves to find a better way to live.

     

    By definition, what is unsustainable cannot go on indefinitely. If we need to change, as we do, then we need to start right away, and we need this change to be deep and lasting. We could start by electing politicians who are prepared to present honestly both the exciting opportunities and the occasionally painful changes required to bring about a fulfilling, rewarding, healthy and lasting future for our species. We could reconsider our obsession with growth fuelled by consumption; as the respected economist Kenneth Boulding said: “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” And we could begin a serious debate about how to limit the size of our population without undermining the right of people to choose how many children they have. All of these are vital issues, all of them present economic opportunities, and none of them is being adequately addressed by our political leaders.

  • Voter anger as Tasmanian stalemate continues

    Voter anger as Tasmania stalemate continues

    Felicity Ogilvie, ABC April 19, 2010, 7:00 pm

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    As another day of negotiations between Tasmania’s minority government and The Greens ends in stalemate, some Tasmanians are getting frustrated at their leaders’ inability to form a stable government.

    It has been more than a month since the state election brought in a hung parliament.

    Labor and the Greens have tried to do a deal but their negotiations have stalled.

    The Chamber of Commerce is warning that unless a stable government is formed soon, the state is going to miss out on more than $1 billion worth of investment.

    Spending is down, unemployment is up to 5.7 per cent and a business group says major investment is on hold because there is no clear majority in the Parliament.

    Most Tasmanians thought they were going to get a Liberal government until the Governor told Premier David Bartlett to stay on.

    Then Labor tried to broker a deal with the Greens last week offering Greens Leader Nick McKim a ministry, but so far he is resisting because his party wants three ministries.

    But with the Premier tied up in COAG talks, and no sign of a new offer, another Greens MP Kim Booth has refused to deny he has been lobbying the Liberal Party to reconsider a deal.

    Voters on the streets of Hobart are frustrated.

    “It would be nice to have stability and be able to then go in to the future,” one said.

    “I mean, they’re botching it all up basically,” another said.

    “I think they’re a bunch of liars and they just don’t do what they say they’re going to do,” another frustrated voter said.

    Hare Clark system

    Under the Hare Clarke voting system five members are elected from five electorates.

    Basically a politician who only gets 17 per cent of the vote can be elected to Parliament.

    ABC election Analyst Antony Green doubts the Hare Clarke will be abolished.

    “Well, if the Labor Party and the Liberal Party got together and changed the Electoral Act then they could get rid of it,” he said.

    “But I would find it hard to believe that in the current climate the Liberals would do anything like that because they’d be condemning themselves to permanent opposition based on the vote of the last state election.”

    The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says minority government is bad for business.

    “There is certainly a lack of investment and small business confidence is still quite weak, so actual trading conditions are getting very difficult and having this political instability – a lack of investment in public infrastructure – is continuing to drag on the state economy,” the chamber’s senior economist Richard Dowling said.

    “So the economy really is at a crossroads at the moment and unless we can start to see some more major large scale investment companies in Tasmania, it’s going to be very difficult for those smaller businesses to continue to support the higher levels of employment that they have now.”

    Mr Dowling says more than $1 billion worth of manufacturing and real estate projects are on hold.

    “No investor would be committing hundreds of millions of dollars to an economy where there is such political uncertainty about whether a government will even be capable of instituting its reform agenda, getting its legislation through parliament,” he said.

    “So it will take some months before that’s bedded down and investors start to come back to the negotiating table about their approach to Tasmania.”