ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM

Pakistan seeks tech fix for impending water crisis

2011-08-09T00:53:00.000-07:00

Pakistan is seeking technological solutions for an unfolding water crisis, caused by depleting natural water resources and wastefulness, which is turning much of its land arid.

Lack of funds, though, has proved a major constraint for Pakistan's efforts to plug the technological gap in its water sector, Jawed Ali Khan, director-general at Pakistan’s ministry of environment, told SciDev.Net. The ministry estimates that almost 80 per cent of the country's land is semi-arid or arid.

Experts attribute the escalating water crisis to reduced flow in the country's main river system, the Indus basin, due to warming and shrinking of the Himalayan glaciers. Unchecked deforestation and wasteful irrigation techniques used in agriculture that consumes over 70 per cent of its freshwater resources are other reasons.

Possible solutions to water stress were discussed at a workshoporganised by the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, in collaboration with UNESCO, at the National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, in June.

The workshop recommended that Pakistan increase investments in water reservoirs; improve water management, irrigation and crop cultivation; introduce rainwater harvesting and recycling of waste water; and launch of mass awareness campaigns.

The suggestions included “drip irrigation” that allows water to trickle slowly to plant roots; “sprinkler irrigation” that sprays water on crops instead of flooding the fields., and “pitcher irrigation” in arid and semi-arid areas whereby farmers bury clay water pitchers underground that allow water to seep out according to soil dryness.

These techniques could help cut water losses by 55 per cent, Shabaz Khan, head of the water and sustainable development section at UNESCO, Paris, said.

Nearly 70 per cent of Pakistan’s 291 millimetres of annual rainwater gets wasted because of poor storage facilities and accumulation of silt in the country’s water reservoirs, said Qamar uz Zaman Choudhary, former director-general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department..

Pakistan had long been warned of an impending water crisis due to poor land management practices, said Allan Savory, chairman of the Africa Centre for Holistic Management, Zimbabwe, which won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, an international competition for projects that provide solutions for global problems.

Savory’s 1983 report for the Food and Agriculture Organisation, hadwarned that Pakistan’s poor land management practices had so adversely affected soil surface and rainfall catchments that they would lead to man-made floods and droughts; and worsen the few natural ones.

Savory’s solution lay in his award-winning ‘holistic grazing planning’ that depends on grazing cattle and goats to break up the soil through their hoof action and fertilise it with droppings.

Saleem Saikh

SciDev

G20 must boost green spending

2010-04-21T23:39:00.001-07:00

The Group of Twenty, or G20, should follow China and South Korea and start investing heavily in green initiatives, says Edward Barbier.

Last year, the G20 — the world's 20 wealthiest and emerging economies — embraced the Global Green New Deal proposed by the UN Environment Programme.

The deal planned to stimulate economic recovery while simultaneously enhancing the livelihoods of the world's poor and limiting environmental degradation.

It recommended that countries spend one per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) on green initiatives. But the G20 has largely missed this target, says Barbier.

The United States spent just 0.7 per cent of GDP on green initiatives and the European Union even less at 0.2 per cent.

China and South Korea, on the other hand, have spent three per cent of their GDP on green measures. And Barbier says that their investment is paying off. Both countries are now better placed in the race for technological superiority, he says.

China is the world's leading producer of solar cells, wind turbines, energy-saving light bulbs and solar water heaters and its renewable-energy sector already employs nearly one million people and is worth nearly US$17 billion.

South Korea similarly aims to create up to 1.8 million jobs with a five-year green-growth investment plan on top of the Global Green New Deal.

Other G20 countries should also "turn their green stimulus investments into serious long-term commitment", says Barbier. This must include establishing environmental pricing policies, cancelling fossil fuel subsidies, and agreeing reasonable commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

Link to full article in Nature

Source: Nature

SciDev

Sahel nations may lose maize by 2050

2009-07-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

Is the sun setting on maize in the Sahel?
Flickr/nchenga
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Farmers in six African countries — Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone — may be unable to grow maize by 2050, researchers have predicted.
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Using historical climate data, maps of crop cultivation and climate models taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, they found that by 2050 growing seasons in Africa will be hotter than almost all countries on the continent have ever experienced — even if carbon emissions are dramatically reduced.
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The research, published last month (4 June) in Global Environmental Change, compared the projected climates with present conditions and found that most countries will experience conditions similar to those existing now in other nations.
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For example, Lesotho — which has one of the continent's coolest climates — could turn to the maize varieties being cultivated in Mali, one of Africa's hottest countries.
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But six of Africa's hottest countries, most of which are in the Sahel region, may have nowhere to turn as few countries currently experience their extremely hot projected climates.
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The researchers warn that these countries may therefore need to switch to more heat- and drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum and millet.
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David Lobell, one of the authors and a senior researcher at the Program on Food Security and Environment of the US-based Stanford University, told SciDev.Net that these countries need to work together to grow seeds in a productive way.
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He suggests that Mali, for example, should try to diversify into millet and sorghum and avoid depending on other countries for seeds.
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Farmers should also be educated about the benefits of sorghum and millet, and Mali must share genetic resources with other countries, he adds.
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But decades of neglect of African crop genebanks means that breeders today don't have access to the varieties of Africa's staple crops — maize, millet and sorghum — that are likely to be most helpful in allowing farmers to adapt to climate change, the researchers say.
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"The genebank collections from many areas that are likely to have the widest range of diversity are either incomplete or non-existent," says Luigi Guarino, senior science coordinator at the Global Crop Diversity Trust and co-author of the paper.
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Guarino suggests collaborating on sourcing and using novel genetic material from Africa and further afield to breed better varieties.
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"They could look in national and, even better, international genebank collections for potential suitable material."

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Link to abstract in Global Environmental Change

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Bandé Mousa Sissoko
SciDev

A Call to Action

2009-06-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

Achim Steiner
Executive Director United Nations Environment Programme
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We have but a short time to avert damaging and economically debilitating climate change.
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We also have all the economic, intellectual and technological know-how to head off this calamity and avoid the disruption and misery that inaction would entail.
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The solutions are numerous and, as many economists say, affordable when compared with the costs of complacency.
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These range from energy saving measures and clean and renewable energy sources, to more efficient transport and better planning and management of our economies.
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We also know that the way we harvest natural resources has a big part to play.
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In this respect, the way we utilise and sustainably manage our forests can take a central and pivotal role.
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Historically, forests have all too often been viewed simply as abundant sources of timber for activities like construction, ship building or fuel.
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However, the wider importance of these ecosystems is now increasingly understood.
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Reports such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment make clear that the goods and services provided by forests are worth billions if not trillions of dollars to the global economy.
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They range from goods and services linked with water supplies, with stabilization of soils, with purifying the air we breathe, with sustaining biodiversity, and with tourism, to providing genetic resources and natural medicines.
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Forests are also natural and economically important ‘sinks’, sequestrating carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away in trunks and branches.
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Economics cannot capture all the benefits forests provide — from the beauty and spiritual value of the old and cherished village tree, the much-loved and productive community woodland, to the vast monumental and mystical tropical rainforest.
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But we know these are important too.
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Globally, forest cover is at least one-third less than what it once was.
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It is time to reverse the trends, it is time to act.
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Sustainably managing ancient and old-growth forests and avoiding deforestation must be our watchwords.
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Old growth and pristine forests are the natural world’s equivalents of the human world’s great edifices, sculptures and old masters.
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However, it is also in our wider interests to restore, reforest and recapture the lost and degraded forest and woodland ecosystems that have, all too often, fallen to short-term and narrow economic interests.
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The Kyoto Protocol and its flexible mechanisms, such as the Clean Development Mechanism, provide formal, legally binding ways of achieving some of these wider forest and climate-related goals.
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UNEP fully supports them.
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However, voluntary initiatives also offer an important focus for our mutual and even broader environmental, economic and social concerns, alongside a way of ensuring that the coming years achieve a decisive victory in the fight against climate change.
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The Plant for the Planet:
Billion Tree Campaign is an engine for these voluntary expressions of solidarity.
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It is inclusive and is open to everyone — from governments and businesses, to community groups and individuals.
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The Billion Tree Campaign is but an acorn, but it can also be a significant and straightforward expression of our common determination to make a tangible difference in developing and developed countries alike.
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We have a short time to avert serious climate change.
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It gives new impetus to the sayings of a Chinese poet.
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The author lived 2,500 years ago but the sentiments echo down the ages to all of us facing the challenges of today:
“If you are thinking a year ahead, sow a seed.
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If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree.”
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Climate change confronts us now.
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There is no longer conjecture or debate around an abstract or hypothetical future.
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We need action.
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We need to plant trees and in doing so send a signal to the corridors of political power across the globe that the watching and waiting is over — that countering climate change can take root via one billion small but significant acts in our gardens, parks,countryside and rural areas.
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UNEP

Climate Change responsible for 300,000 deaths a year

2009-05-29T11:02:00.000-07:00

First ever report exclusively focused on the global human impact of climate change calculates more than 300 million people are seriously affected by climate change at a total economic cost of $125 billion per year

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Report projects that by 2030, worldwide deaths will reach almost 500,000 per year; people affected by climate change annually expected to rise to over 600 million and the total annual economic cost increase to around $300 billion

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To avert worst possible outcomes, climate change adaptation efforts need to be scaled up by a factor of 100 in developing countries, which account for 99% of casualties due to climate change

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London 29 May – Kofi A. Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, today introduced a major new report into the human impact of climate change.

The ‘Human Impact Report:

Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis’ is the first ever comprehensive report looking at the human impact of climate change.

The report was issued immediately prior to official preparatory talks in Bonn for a new UN international climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

These talks will culminate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The report was reviewed by leading international experts, including Rajendra Pachauri of the IPCC, Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, and Barbara Stocking of Oxfam.

The report estimates that climate change today accounts for over 300,000 deaths throughout the world each year, the equivalent of an Indian Ocean Tsunami every single year.

By 2030, the annual death toll from climate change will reach half a million people a year.

It also indicates that climate change today seriously impacts on the lives of 325 million people.

In twenty years time that number will more than double to an estimated 660 million, making it the biggest emerging humanitarian challenge in the world, impacting on the lives of 10% of the world’s population.

Economic losses due to climate change already today amount to over $125 billion per year.

This is more than the individual GDP of 73% of the world’s countries, and is greater than the total amount of aid that currently flows from industrialised countries to developing nations each year.

By 2030, the economic losses due to climate change will have almost trebled to $340 billion annually.

The Global Humanitarian Forum commissioned Dalberg Global Development Advisers to develop thereport in December 2008 by collating all relevant information and current statistics relating to the human impact of climate change.

Within the limitations of existing research, the report presents the most plausible estimate of the impact of climate change on human society today.

Mr Annan said:

“Climate change is a silent human crisis.

Yet it is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time.

Already today, it causes suffering to hundreds of millions of people most of whom are not even aware that they are victims of climate change.

We need an international agreement to contain climate change and reduce its widespread suffering.

“Despite its dangerous impact, climate change is a neglected area of research since much of the debate has focused on the long term physical effects.

The point of this report is to focus on today and on the human face climate change.

“Just six months before the Copenhagen summit, the world finds itself at a crossroads.

We can no longer afford to ignore the human impact of climate change.

Put simply, the report is a clarion call for negotiators at Copenhagen to come to the most ambitious international agreement ever negotiated, or continue to accept mass starvation, mass sickness and mass migration on an ever growing scale.”

According to the report, a majority of the world’s population does not have the capacity to cope with the impact of climate change without suffering a potentially irreversible loss of wellbeing and risk of loss of life.

The populations most gravely at risk are over half a billion people in some of the poorest areas that are also highly prone to climate change – in particular, the semi-arid dry land belt countries from the Sahara to the Middle East and Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia, and small island developing states.

Mr Annan was joined at the launch by report review panellist Barbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam GB and Global Humanitarian Forum Board Member.

She said:

“Climate change is a human crisis which threatens to overwhelm the humanitarian system and turn back the clock on development.

It is also a gross injustice - poor people in developing countries bear over 90% of the burden - through death, disease, destitution and financial loss - yet are least responsible for creating the problem.

Despite this, funding from rich countries to help the poor and vulnerable adapt to climate change is not even 1 percent of what is needed.

This glaring injustice must be addressed at Copenhagen in December"

29 May 2009 - Press Release

ghf-geneva.org

2009-03-03T00:48:00.000-08:00

This guide, published by the International Institute for Environment and Development, offers journalists — particularly those in developing countries — pointers on how to report biodiversity loss and its implications.
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Biodiversity loss is a local story the world over and biodiversity is a major topic for science writers, especially in the developing world, says the author. But the issue is currently under-reported, partly because scientists and policymakers haven't communicated the issues in relevant ways.
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Better, more meaningful stories can be told by showing people that they are part of biodiversity and by demonstrating how biodiversity loss will affect them.
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There are many stories on the horizon in biodiversity reporting, from cataloguing the economic value of biodiversity to whether governments can agree on how the world can best share the benefits of biological diversity.
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Journalists should prepare for the challenge of reporting these issues, says the author.
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Journalists, the author says, should also avoid disaster narratives and "flat, one-sided" stories.
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Instead balanced appraisals, probing different angles and asking hard questions are key to good biodiversity reporting.
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And a number of angles can make biodiversity relevant — for example how it links with health, money, politics and more.

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Link to full guide from IIED [166kB]

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This practical guide was written by Mike Shanahan at the International Institute for Environment and Development.
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http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/17037IIED.pdf

SciDev

UN climate chief calls for green technology 'revolution'

2008-12-02T15:31:00.000-08:00

The transfer of "green technology" from industrialised to developing countries is one of four building blocks of the climate negotiations
NREL
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Environmentally sound technologies need "a revolutionary push", says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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On the eve of the opening of the UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, he said: "Incrementalism is the enemy of fundamental change.
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We are really going to need a major fundamental shift, and technology has to be at the heart of that."
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The transfer of "green technology" from industrialised to developing countries is one of four building blocks of the climate negotiations, the latest round of which begin on Monday (1 December).
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The others are global warming mitigation, adaptation to change and finance.
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The importance of technology transfer was reinforced at a meeting held in Beijing, China, earlier this month (November) in the run-up to the Poznan meeting.
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It was attended by de Boer and finished with a declaration specifically calling for developed countries to improve technology transfer.
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Zhang Ping, director of China's National Development and Reform Commission, recently mooted the establishment of a new fund to support transfer of clean technology.
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Norway has suggested raising money for technology transfer through auctions of national emission rights.
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On the mechanics of technology transfer, de Boer said, "There has been some discussion on a technology leveraging facility … to assist in supplementing private sector initiatives that involve clean technology with public funding to install technologies that are even more advanced."
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In Beijing, he also spoke of the need to ensure that intellectual property rights (IPRs) were not a barrier to large-scale commercialisation and deployment.
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But these and other proposals — including a detailed submission by the G77 (the bloc of developing countries in the negotiating process) and China — are either bargaining tools or undeveloped ideas.
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"Expectations are very low," says Mattias Söderberg of humanitarian non-governmental organisation DanChurchAid, who will be lobbying in Poznan.
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"Poland is just a part of the journey towards the climate change summit in Copenhagen next year.
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There will be negotiations, but I don't expect big conclusions or specific agreement."
And William Blyth, Associate Fellow with Chatham House's Energy, Environment and Development Programme, said the technology negotiations process was "symbolic and rather sterile", with little progress in a decade of talks.
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"I don't think transfer takes place because of the existence of a fund," he noted. "Transfer occurs through licensing and investment. Even on intellectual property, seen as a thorny issue, my view is that in the real world IP doesn't stop deals being made."
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De Boer's full interview with SciDev.Net will appear on this site next week
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Daniel Nelson
28 November 2008 EN
ScidevNet
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2007-06-05T23:15:00.000-07:00