HSBC: World is hurtling towards Peak Planet

Global investment bank HSBC says the world is hurtling towards a “Peak Planet” scenario where the global carbon budget from 2000 to 2050 is consumed well before 2030.

To address this, a peak in greenhouse emissions will need to be achieved as a matter or urgency, and by 2020 at the latest. “This is a tough task – but not impossible in our view,” it writes. “There is a growing recognition of the severity of the situation … and we believe that ambition is about to pick up again.”

In an analysis on climate change politics and the business case for action, HSBC economists say the focus is now on five key economies to break that nexus between economic growth and emissions – in fact to double the rate of decoupling.

This so-called Carbon 5 comprises China, Russia, India, the EU and the US, and HSBC says these countries need to cut the carbon emitted per unit of GDP by between 3 and 5 per cent per annum by 2020, beyond existing efforts.

It points to five reasons why this might be achievable, despite the apparent stalemate in international talks.

First, it notes that awareness of the severity of climate impacts is rising, and public opinion is shifting, particularly in the US. It says improving economic confidence and falling clean tech costs will assist the process, and it expects an increase in policy activism in the next three years after the recent plateau.

“Ultimately, climate change is like a chronic disease, where the problem accumulates over time. If we are to avoid unmanageable disruptions to the global economy, governments have agreed that we need to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2°C,” HSBC says.

“What they haven’t agreed, however, is the likelihood of hitting this target. This will be a core part of the negotiations that are now underway for an international climate agreement by the end of 2015.”

HSBC says there are different views of carbon budgets for the global economy, depending on differing views of risk, and where investors can generate returns.

The most commonly cited assessment is Malte Meinshausen’s 2009 evaluation that to have an 80 per cent chance staying below 2°C, the global carbon budget is around 886 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent from 2000-2050. A riskier 50:50 scenario increases the budget substantially to 1440Gt (see chart above). But by the end of 2011, 420Gt had already been consumed.

HSBC says that with annual emissions from energy alone running at over 31Gt, the budget for the 80% scenario would de depleted by 2026, and by 2039 for the 50/50 chance.

This means that without large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage, between two-thirds and four-fifths of current reserves cannot be commercialised in a 2°C world, and global emissions need to peak before 2020. The International Energy Agency, it notes, says global CO2 emissions from energy need to peak by 2017. “The contradiction between global carbon budgets and fossil fuel reserves is gaining increasing attention,” it says.

Is this target impossible? Nearly, but not quite, says HSBC. It says major European economies – France, Germany and the UK – peaked their emissions of greenhouse gases in the 1970s, and have each cut their emissions by more than 30 per cent as a result of oil price shocks and a structural shift away from coal for economic and environmental reasons. (see chart below) More

 

The 2013 Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo

About the Summit

The 2013 Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo will be held jointly with the 2013 Islands & Isolated Communities Congress at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, September 9 - 11.

The event is the preeminent meeting place for international leaders and energy experts at the forefront of the clean energy movement. Securing energy independence and developing a clean energy industry that promotes the vitality of our planet are two reasons why it is critical to reaffirm already established partnerships and build new ones throughout the Asia-Pacific region and the world. The Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo and the Islands & Isolated Communities Congress provide a forum for the high-level global networking necessary to advance this emerging clean energy culture. Read our 2012 attendee testimonials at right. More

 

New flood map displays areas impacted by sea level rise

A new online tool created by University researchers will help inform the public about critical sea level increases and flooding hazards in New Jersey.

http://www.njfloodmapper.org/

Following years of study accompanied by surveys and testing which began in 2009, University researchers released the user-friendly website www.njfloodmapper.org, said Lisa Auermuller, watershed and outreach coordinator for the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve.

The creators of the website concentrated on applying digital map-making to site-specific information about landscapes to help town and county decision-makers, said Richard Lathrop Jr., director of Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis.

Lathrop, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, said the interactive website’s visualization tools illustrate the impact of sea level rises from 1 to 6 feet on user-selected areas in the state.

The site also demonstrates the confidence level, or amount of certainty, in the mapping itself for a particular area in relation to expected flooding, he said.

Populations most vulnerable to flooding were also of great importance to the study, Lathrop said. The creators examined factors including the socioeconomic status and mobility of age groups.

He said they incorporated the locations of facilities such as schools, fire stations and hospitals in their maps.

Street-level views of selected locations are also available on the website, he said. These photos simulate what different sea level would look like on the ground.

Lathrop said the locations selected were based on landmarks that had meaning to the surrounding community and provided valuable perspectives.

“Although the public is not our target audience, [I believe] there is real value in the public understanding the risk and vulnerability [associated with sea level rise and flooding hazards],” Auermuller said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology and Sustainable Jersey funded the project, among others, Lathrop said.

Together with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Service Center, Lathrop and his partners designed the site with their target audiences in mind, Auermuller said.

His foundation, Grant F. Walton Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis, focuses on geographic information systems.

“When it comes to GIS … [Lathrop] is a valuable [specialist],” said Martha Maxwell-Doyle, project coordinator at the Barnegat Bay Partnership.

The project was a long-term planning effort and a starting point for the application of this particular technology, Lathrop said. His initial expectations for this project have been met, and what remains to be seen is how the website is used. More

 

Climate Change Is the Biggest Threat in the Pacific, Says Top U.S. Admiral [And Caribbean]

North Korea just annulled the 1953 armistice ending its war with South Korea. China and Japan are locked in a dispute over an island chain. But the greatest long-term threat to the peace of East Asia and Pacific Ocean — the part of the world at the heart of the Obama administration’s aspirational defense strategy — is climate change, according to the admiral in charge of U.S. military operations there.

Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III is no smelly hippie. He became chief of U.S. Pacific Command last year after running the maritime portion of NATO’s 2011 war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. To Locklear, the consequences of a warming planet are likely to “cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.”

“You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level,” Locklear told Danger Room pal Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe over the weekend. “Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.”

So the greatest threat in the Pacific region isn’t a military one, despite the fresh provocations fromnuclear North Korea; the Chinese missile buildup; and the hardening responses by the nations that feel threatened by both regional military powers. All this has right-leaning naval analyst Bryan McGrath shaking his head that Locklear’s jumped the shark.

And yet Locklear’s forces frequently have to respond to the destructive weather events that are growing more frequent as the Earth’s climate shifts. Whether it’s a typhoon in the Philippines, a hurricane in Burma or an earthquake in Indonesia, climate change is putting a greater operational strain on U.S. forces in the Pacific than most other threats facing a region experiencing what Locklear recently described as “relative peace.” These are just the immediate-term consequences of climate change, not the ones that will manifest over the coming decades in a region where half the world’s trade occurs.

“I’m into the consequence management side of it,” Locklear told Bender. “I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.” More

 

Small Island States (SIDS) in 2014

Antigua St. John’s - In keeping with the request of Antigua & Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer; the United Nations has officially dedicated 2014 as the International Year of Small Island Developing States.

Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer

Prime Minister Spencer tabled the request at the UN General Assembly in September 2012, where he also pointed to Antigua and Barbuda’s role on behalf of the region, in sending a strong message of awareness to the international community on the need for bold action and support for sustainable development, and the pervasive issue of climate change.

“We cannot wait for our lands to disappear before we act. We must act now to respond to the climate crisis, and ensure that not a single country is sacrificed, no matter how small.

“The threat is real, our sea-levels are rising, there is coral bleaching beyond the depths of our shores, and hurricanes are becoming more recurrent and severe,” the Prime Minister told the United nations General Assembly.

National Information Officer with the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) for the Caribbean Area, Amanda Laurence, currently in Antigua, confirmed to local journalists on Tuesday that the year has indeed been delegated as the International Year of Small Island Developing States, and has been added to the UN Calendar for 2014.

She noted that the UN seriously considered Antigua & Barbuda Prime Minister Spencers’ proposal, and agreed that “the focus would be on them (the Caribbean) as requested.”

“I don’t have information on all the activities that will be rolled out for it next year but as those events are identified, the information would sent out,” Laurence said.

Antigua and Barbuda joined with the Small Island Developing States(SIDS) to point out to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) the need for concrete steps in order to protect these, and other exposed countries from the threat of climate change.

“The responsibility to mitigate climate change should be a collective consciousness for both developing and developed countries; however, developed countries should accept their responsibilities as the leading contributor in emitting extremely high levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere which are now threatening the welfare of the present and future generations,” Antigua’s Prime Minister said. More

 

Study: Sea level rise could severely affect Caribbean coastal wetlands

The World Bank analysis considered a variety of types of coastal wetlands at risk in 76 countries and territories, using a number of databases and satellite maps.

According to the data, about 99 per cent of the coastal wetlands, at elevations of one metre or less in the Middle East and North Africa, could disappear, as well as 77 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa, 66 per cent in East Asia, and 39 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The World Bank said, in recent years, coastal wetlands have been disappearing more quickly than other ecosystems, mainly because of land development

The Washington-based financial institution said sea level rise from climate change will exacerbate these losses, adding that the rise in sea levels will lead to wetlands being submerged, pushed inland, or blanketed with salt.

"How those wetlands fare will vary, depending on the slopes and water flows in the surrounding area," the bank said.

Susmita Dasgupta, a lead environment economist at the bank's Development Research Group, said the findings are "alarming, because wetlands don't exist just for the birds and plants. People rely on them for water, food, transportation, and other essential goods and services".

Dasgupta, who co-authored the study with colleague Brian Blankespoor and consultant Benoit Laplante, said "we hope our research can motivate steps to protect wetlands, especially since global warming will for sure accelerate the rise of sea levels".

She said the resulting economic losses from coastal wetland destruction will be in addition to other coastal impacts, such as the forced relocation of people and infrastructure.

An earlier study co-authored by Dasgupta predicted that 60 million people in the Caribbean and developing countries would be forced out of their homes if sea levels rise by one metre. More

 

Atmospheric Warming Altering Ocean Salinity And The Water Cycle

A clear change in salinity has been detected in the world’s oceans, signaling shifts and acceleration in the global rainfall and evaporation cycle tied directly to climate change.

In a paper published … in the journal Science, Australian scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory reported changing patterns of salinity in the global ocean during the past 50 years, marking a clear symptom of climate change.

Lead author Paul Durack said that by looking at observed ocean salinity changes and the relationship between salinity, rainfall and evaporation in climate models, they determined the water cycle has become 4 percent stronger from 1950-2000. This is twice the response projected by current generation global climate models.

“These changes suggest that arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions have become wetter in response to observed global warming,” said Durack, a post-doctoral fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Scientists monitor salinity changes in the world’s oceans to determine where rainfall has increased or decreased. “It provides us with a gauge — a method of monitoring how large-scale patterns of rainfall and evaporation (the climate variables we care most about) are changing,” Durack said.

With a projected temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, the researchers estimate a 24 percent acceleration of the water cycle is possible.

[JR: Actually the projected warming by century's end is closer to 5°C -- see review of literature here -- which would yield a stunning 40% acceleration of the water cycle.]

Scientists have struggled to determine coherent estimates of water cycle changes from land-based data because surface observations of rainfall and evaporation are sparse. According to the team, global oceans provide a much clearer picture.

“The ocean matters to climate — it stores 97 percent of the world’s water; receives 80 percent of all surface rainfall, and it has absorbed 90 percent of the Earth’s energy increase associated with past atmospheric warming,” said co-author, Richard Matear of CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

“Warming of the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere is expected to strengthen the water cycle largely driven by the ability of warmer air to hold and redistribute more moisture.”

He said the intensification is an enhancement in the patterns of exchange between evaporation and rainfall, and with oceans accounting for 71 percent of the global surface area, the change is clearly represented in ocean surface salinity patterns.

In the study, the scientists combined 50-year observed global surface salinity changes with changes from global climate models and found “robust evidence of an intensified global water cycle at a rate of about 8 percent per degree of surface warming,” Durack said.

Durack said the patterns are not uniform, with regional variations agreeing with the ‘rich get richer’ mechanism, where wet regions get wetter and dry regions drier.

He said a change in freshwater availability in response to climate change poses a more significant risk to human societies and ecosystems than warming alone.

“Changes to the global water cycle and the corresponding redistribution of rainfall will affect food availability, stability, access and utilization,” Durack said.

Susan Wijffels, co-chair of the global Argo project and a co-author on the study, said maintenance of the present fleet of around 3,500 profilers is critical to observing continuing changes to salinity in the upper oceans. More

This piece of research was originally published at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

 

Pacific Island Warriors Day Of Action

Malo ni!

My name is Mikaele Maiava. I'm writing from the Pacific Island archipelago of Tokelau to ask you to join with us in action as we take on the fossil fuel industry.

Last October, Tokelau turned off the last of its diesel generators. In their place, we switched on our solar plants, making Tokelau the first country in the world to become 100% renewably-powered.

I woke up before sunrise that day, excited about the history Tokelau was making. My whole village made its way to the site of over 100 solar panels -- we could see the many hours of hard labor that had gone into this project. As we counted down to the switch, I could feel future generations smiling at us and thanking us. Our children's future suddenly looked brighter because we had the vision (and perseverance) necessary to get off fossil fuels and switch to 100% renewable energy.

You might wonder why we bothered. Aren't we doomed to lose our islands from sea-level rise? I don't blame you for thinking that if you did. So often the global media victimises the Pacific Islands and portrays us as helplessly succumbing to climate change and rising seas. But the global media know nothing of who we really are, or how it feels to live on these paradise islands we call home. They don't know that as Pacific Islanders, we are warriors, and that the land we live on is part of us.

We know that the longer the fossil fuel industry gets its way, the worse climate change will be, and the more sea-level rise will threaten our islands. But giving up on our home is not an option. We are not drowning.
We are fighting.

That's why on March 2nd, Pacific Islanders across 15 diverse nations will be mobilising at prominent locations to perform our unique war challenges, songs, and dances. We'll be laying down a challenge to the fossil fuel industry. It is their coal and oil and gas vs. our future. They cannot both coexist. And it is our future that has to win.

In this moment, and in the years to come, we need you to walk beside us. Because we live far away from the mines and power plants that threaten our future, we need the world's solidarity. Click here to stand with us during this weekend of Pacific Warrior climate action!

We want to show the world that people from countries and cultures everywhere are standing with us -- the Pacific Warriors -- in the fight against climate change.

Fakafetai lahi,
Thank you,
Mikaele Maiava

---

350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebookand Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by getting involved locally, sharing your story, and donating here.

 

The Beginning of the end of 'Life As We Know It'

The OFFICIAL TRAILER for 2012 Sundance Award-Winning film "Chasing Ice," opening in theaters starting November 2012.

********************************
In the spring of 2005, National Geographic photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth's changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change and a cynic about the nature of academic research. But that first trip north opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.

Chasing Ice is the story of one man's mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers.

As the debate polarizes America and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Balog finds himself at the end of his tether. Battling untested technology in subzero conditions, he comes face to face with his own mortality. It takes years for Balog to see the fruits of his labor. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Chasing Ice depicts a photographer trying to deliver evidence and hope to our carbon-powered planet.

 

MIDWAY : trailer : A 'Must Watch' film by Chris Jordan

MIDWAY : trailer : a film by Chris Jordan

from Midway PLUS 1 year ago / Creative Commons License: by nc nd NOT YET RATED

 

A Must Watch

 

The MIDWAY film project is a powerful visual journey into the heart of an astonishingly symbolic environmental tragedy. On one of the remotest islands on our planet, tens of thousands of baby albatrosses lie dead on the ground, their bodies filled with plastic from the Pacific Garbage Patch. Returning to the island over several years, our team is witnessing the cycles of life and death of these birds as a multi-layered metaphor for our times. With photographer Chris Jordan as our guide, we walk through the fire of horror and grief, facing the immensity of this tragedy—and our own complicity—head on. And in this process, we find an unexpected route to a transformational experience of beauty, acceptance, and understanding.

We frame our story in the vividly gorgeous language of state-of-the-art high-definition digital cinematography, surrounded by millions of live birds in one of the world’s most beautiful natural sanctuaries. The viewer will experience stunning juxtapositions of beauty and horror, destruction and renewal, grief and joy, birth and death, coming out the other side with their heart broken open and their worldview shifted. Stepping outside the stylistic templates of traditional environmental or documentary films, MIDWAY will take viewers on a guided tour into the depths of their own spirits, delivering a profound message of reverence and love that is already reaching an audience of tens of millions of people around the world.

Production of the feature film "MIDWAY" continues through 2013.

Please go to midwayfilm.com for more information.

For more information:

MidwayFilm.com

To donate:

midwayfilm.com/donate.html

Midway Project blog, team details, production diary videos:

MidwayJourney.com

Facebook - behind the scenes photos, latest updates

Facebook.com/MidwayJourney

Twitter:

twitter.com/#!/midwayjourney

Youtube:

youtube.com/journeytomidway

Don’t Talk to Us About Your Sinking Island

How the U.N. Security Council takes a pass on global warming.

If you’re a low-lying island state, climate change is not some abstract problem far out on the event horizon, it’s more of an urgent existential threat—the kind of thing you’d hope would spur the leading global security body to take bold action. If only it were that simple.

Carne Ross

In the latest episode of Slate’s video series The World Decrypted, Carne Ross deconstructs the U.N. Security Council’s latest puzzlingly passive response to global warming. Here’s some additional background on the story: This report suggests that some low-lying states may need to be evacuated within a decade, as the rate of sea level rise is worse than anticipated: Oceans are rising 60 percent faster than the U.N. had projected. The island state of Kiribati is already making plans to relocate its population.

Here is the statement made by the representative of the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, at last week’s private and “informal” meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

There’s also a lot of emerging research about how rising temperatures may cause new hostilities or exacerbate existing conflict. This report from the International Crisis Group contends that the links between climate change and conflict are complex and not yet fully understood, and the Economist covers similar terrain in this analysis.

This National Research Council report states that accelerating climate change will place unparalleled strains on American military and intelligence agencies in coming years by causing ever more disruptive events around the globe. More

 

 

 

Climate: New study maps regional sea level rise variation « Summit County Citizens Voice

FRISCO — Intensifying concerns about the potential for sea level rise to swamp low-lying Pacific island nations are justified, according to a new report in Geophysical Research Letters.

Western Australia, Oceania and the small atolls and islands in this region, including Hawaii, are at greatest risk, according to the new study from EU’s ice2sea program.

The results of the modeling mirror observational data that’s been collected by satellites in the past few decades, said David Vaughan, program coordinator for EU’s ice2sea program, which seeks to develop more accurate sea level rise predictions.

“The urgent job now is to understand how global the sea-level rise will be shared out around the world’s coastlines. Only by doing this can we really help people understand the risks and prepare for the future,” Vaughn said, explaining that some regions will actually see relative sea levels decline because of the way land and ice interact globally.

The research team included scientists from Italy’s University of Urbino and the UK’s University of Bristol. The study focussed on three effects that lead to global mean sea-level rise being unequally distributed around the world.

One key factor is the continuing subsidence and emergence of land masses due to a massive loss of ice at the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago when billions of tons of ice covering parts of North America and Europe melted. This caused a major redistribution of mass on the Earth, but the crust responds to such changes so slowly that the process is still ongoing.

The overall warming of the oceans will also change in the distribution of water across the globe by altering circulation patterns and currents. For example, scientists have documented a depletion of deep, cold water in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, a reservoir that helps drive ocean currents worldwide.

The new paper also suggests that the loss of ice in Greenland and Antarctica will affect the regional distribution of sea level rise in another way. For now, the sheer mass of water held in ice at the frozen continents like Antarctica and Greenland exerts a gravitational pull on the surrounding liquid water, pulling in enormous amounts of water and raising the sea-level close to those continents. As the ice melts, that gravitational pull will lessen and the water will rush away and slosh toward equatorial regions.

“In the paper we are successful in defining the patterns, known as sea level fingerprints, which affect sea levels,” said University of Urbino Professor Giorgio Spada. “This is paramount for assessing the risk due to inundation in low-lying, densely populated areas. The most vulnerable areas are those where the effects combine to give the sea-level rise that is significantly higher than the global average,” Spada said, adding that, in Europe, sea level will rise but it would be slightly lower than the global average. More

 

China and Russia block UN Security Council climate change action

Russia and China blocked efforts last Friday to have climate change recognised as an international security threat by the UN Security Council (UNSC).

The council met in New York to discuss the potential effects of global warming, but according to Bloomberg the two permanent members objected to it being a ‘formal session’.

Despite the participation of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this meant the session – planned by Pakistan and the United Kingdom – had few political implications.

China, Russia, India and more than 100 developing countries oppose climate becoming a UNSC issue as the council does not operate under the principles of Common But Differentiated Responsibility, which underpins the UN climate talks.

They are concerned that securitizing the issue would place a greater burden on poorer nations with large greenhouse gas emissions to take action.

Small island states vulnerable to sea level rises have pushed for climate to be discussed at this level for over two decades.

Marshall Islands representative Tony deBrum expressed frustration with Russia and China’s stance, explaining that 35 years on from gaining independence from the USA the very existence of his country is now in question.

“Our roads are inundated every 14 days,” he said. “We have to ration water three times a week. People have emergency kits for water. We can no longer use well water because it’s inundated with salt.”

The meeting – the third in UNSC history – was convened by council President Pakistan and permanent member the United Kingdom, which despite domestic criticism over its low carbon strategy appears to be embarking on a new initiative to inject momentum into global efforts to cut emissions.

The UK’s new climate envoy Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti is pushing for climate change to be framed as a global security concern.

“The UK believes that the impacts of a changing climate pose a significant and emerging threat to a country’s national security and prosperity,” a Foreign Office spokesman told RTCC.

“The UK is engaging with our international partners and through international forums to better manage this risk.”

Risk multiplier

A 2009 report commissioned by the council identified climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’, stressing it would hit food supply lines and affect the territorial integrity of island states.

And in 2011 it discussed whether ‘green helmet’ climate peacekeepers could be required to prevent conflicts caused by resource scarcity.

Addressing the session, leading German scientist Joachim Schellnhuber explained that rises in global temperatures were likely to have catastrophic consequences.

“With unabated greenhouse-gas emissions, humankind would venture into an uncertain future that is much hotter than ever before in its history – so from a scientist’s perspective, climate change is a global risk multiplier,” he said.

The World Bank’s Rachel Kyte told delegates cities must take the lead in developing low carbon infrastructure, in terms of transport, urban planning and managing water resources.

In a statement Oxfam International’s Tim Gore urged the UNSC to debate the issue further, warning the global food system was already under severe stress as a result of droughts across the US, Africa and Asia.

“Droughts or floods can wipe out entire harvests, as we have seen in recent years in Pakistan, in the Horn of Africa and across the Sahel,” he said.

“And when extreme weather hits major world food producers – like last year’s droughts in the US and Russia – world food prices rocket. This presents a major risk to net food importing countries, such as Yemen, which ships in 90% of its wheat.

“The food riots and social unrest seen in the wake of the 2008 food price spikes were not a one-off phenomenon, but a sign of the risks we face through our failure to feed a warming world.” More

 

Islands struggle to convince UN Security Council that climate change is a security threat

The Marshall Islands and other low-lying island nations appealed to the U.N. Security Council on Friday to recognize climate change as an international security threat that jeopardizes their very survival.

Tony deBrum, a minister and assistant to the Marshall Islands president, said the island nations are facing opposition from Security Council permanent members Russia and China and a group of more than 130 mainly developing nations, which argue that the U.N.'s most powerful body is the wrong place to address climate change.

DeBrum told reporters after a closed Security Council meeting on the "Security Dimensions of Climate Change," organized by Britain and Pakistan, that he hopes more council members will be convinced that "this is a security issue and not just an economic-political-social issue."

The low-lying islands, which are already being inundated with sea water, want the council to bring its "political weight" to the issue and help their countries survive, for example, by harnessing new technologies and ensuring alternative energy supplies, he said.

DeBrum said it was "ironic, bizarre perhaps" that 35 years after he went before the Security Council to seek the independence of the Marshall Islands he was back again "to appeal for the survival of my country."

He said climate change has already taken a toll on the Marshall Islands. Wells have filled with salt water, making drinking water scarce and in turn affecting food production. One small island in a lagoon is now under water, and coastlines are being eroded.

The impact of climate change is also causing migration to other islands, as well as to Australia and the United States, he said.

In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, Rachel Kyte, the World Bank's vice-president for sustainable development, said that since the council's last discussion of climate change "the sense of immediacy and urgency has increased."

"The question is: Do you want to keep on cataloguing all of the terrible things that are going to happen if we continue on a business as usual track, or are we actually going to start doing anything about it?" she said

Kyte said she explained to the council on Friday that "it is possible to stop the worst from happening but it will require real, concerted policy action globally at every country level." More

 

 

Tsunami highlights small island vulnerability

Bangkok - At least five people are reported to have died in a tsunami which struck a remote part of the Solomon Islands earlier today.

More than 5,000 people could have been seriously affected by the one meter wave that hit the town of Lata on Santa Cruz island swamping some villages and the town’s main airport but early warning systems worked and most people had fled the town for higher ground.

Initial information provided by OCHA suggests that the tsunami wave travelled 500 meters inland and flattened many traditional houses but the extent of the damage is still unknown especially in remote areas which may not have received the alert.

Some fifty people died in 2007 when the Solomon Islands was last hit by a tsunami following an 8.1 magnitude quake.

A tsunami warning was issued earlier today by The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre (PTWC) within four minutes of the earthquake and covered the Solomon Islands and many other surrounding islands such as Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis and Futuna. The regional warning was cancelled 2.5 hours later.

In New Zealand, tsunami sirens were set off late in the afternoon, and people in coastal areas were being told to stay off beaches and out of the sea, rivers and estuaries. The Bureau of Meteorology said there was no tsunami threat to Australia however a tsunami watch was issued for Australia, New Zealand, and all the way to Indonesia.

More than 500,000 people are living in Solomon Islands which forms part of the Ring of Fire, a zone of tectonic activity around the Pacific Ocean that is subject to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

“This lastest disaster event underlines the vulnerability of all these small low-lying islands to sea level rise. Many islands such as Vanuatu and Kiribati are already suffering from recurrent flooding. More action needs to be taken at the international level to increase their capacities to deal with what is now seen as inevitable,” said Jerry Velasquez from the UN office of Disaster Risk Reduction. More

 

The Open and Rocky Road Post-2015

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31 2013 (IPS) - What values does a Yemeni journalist who fuelled the Arab Spring hold in common with a former principal of the U.S. National Security Council? And how in turn will they see eye to eye with a Jordanian queen, or the president of Indonesia?

The subjects of this riddle are meeting in Monrovia as part of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s 27-member High Level Panel of Eminent Person’s on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP).

The purpose of the HLP is to lead the discussion around a new framework, the post-2015 development agenda, to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The HLP’s work will culminate with an advisory report to Ban in May 2013.

The meeting, which takes place between Jan. 30 and Feb. 1, is the third in a series of four. Previous meetings took place in London and New York, and the forthcoming one will take place in Bali.

“This (meeting in Monrovia) is the HLP’s chance to hear the perspectives of a wide range of organisations and individuals in Africa about their priorities for a post-2015 agenda,” said Claire Melamed, head of the Growth and Equity Programme at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

“It’s important those perspectives are reflected in the final report,” Melamed told IPS.

ODI, in partnership with the World Wide Web Foundation and the U.N., developed an online survey to gauge the priorities of the world’s citizens. The survey, conducted through myworld2015.org, inspired a running Twitter conversation on the topic (#post2015). The online platforms sparked international chatter that was absent during MDG discussions.

“As we witnessed in the historic events of 2011 – from the Arab spring to the rise of Occupy – the possibility of mobilising public opinion on a global scale is becoming ever-more urgent and realistic,” Rajesh Makwana, director of Share the World’s Resources (STWR), told IPS.

The airing of new voices does pose a challenge: how will 27 panellists harbour the hopes and concerns of so many people?

“My apprehension is that this process is moving in so many levels (that) there’s no priority on how these different conversations (will) come together in one place,” said Radhika Balakrishnan, executive director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and professor of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University.

“There’s consultations happening all around the world… There’s not a clear way to see how these are going to come to fruition at the end,” Balakrishnan told IPS, noting that she is still hopeful, despite the challenges.

More