Ecologists Raise Alarm Ahead of UN Climate Summit
WARSAW - Ecologists raised the alarm Monday over global warming as environment ministers from more than 30 states met in Warsaw ahead of December's UN Climate summit focused on slashing greenhouse gases.
"We're ringing alarm bells -- the UN summit in Poznan must deliver a deal that will keep global warming below two degrees Celsius to the end of this century," Kaisa Kosonen from the global environmental group Greenpeace told reporters.
"Five years from now will be too late," she said as activists rang bells outside of the Warsaw hotel where ministers were gathered.
"We are currently on a pathway that implies temperatures could increase up to seven degrees (by the end of the century)," Kosonen said at an earlier press conference. "There is no more time for small steps."
Greenpeace and the Global Climate Initiative want the UN Poznan summit to agree on binding carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions cuts of 25-40 percent -- from 1990 levels -- by 2020.
Emissions of greenhouse gases like CO2 are believed to be the main culprits causing global warming.
European Union leaders are currently working on a package to cut CO2 emissions by 20 percent -- compared to 1990 emission levels -- by 2020.
Environmentalists insist the consequences of failure to agree on terms to deeply limit carbon dioxide emissions could include widespread flooding from rising sea-levels as polar icecaps melt and increased morbidity from heatwaves, floods and droughts.
Switching to green energy technologies based on solar, wind, biomas and hydro power as well as increasing energy efficiency makes both environmental and economic sense, Kosonen said.
"The amount of money world governments have pooled now in the financial crisis is huge and we have no guarantee it isn't being wasted - it would take just a fraction to spearhead renewable energy technologies," she observed.
World leaders will meet in Poznan, western Poland for the United Nations Climate Change conference dubbed COP 14 from December 1-14.
But within the EU's current talks on limiting emissions, host country Poland is calling on Brussels to increase its carbon dioxide emissions cap for its coal-reliant energy utilities and a more gradual introduction of the auctioned emissions quotas in order to ease the cost burden.
Relying on coal-fired power plants for 96 percent of its electricity, Poland has asked the commission for a 2008-2012 carbon dioxide quota of 284.6 million tonnes per year. Brussels reduced it by 26.7 percent to 208.5 million tonnes.
Poland has also proposed a 20-percent carbon dioxide quota auction be introduced in 2013, rising by degrees each year to reach the full 100 percent by 2020.
The EU's original proposal foresees full CO2 emission quota auctions to begin in 2013.
Published on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by Agence France Presse
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torsdag den 16. oktober 2008
onsdag den 15. oktober 2008
This Stock Collapse Is Petty When Compared to the Nature Crunch
Published on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 by The Guardian/UK
This Stock Collapse Is Petty When Compared to the Nature Crunch
The financial crisis at least affords us an opportunity to now rethink our catastrophic ecological trajectory
by George Monbiot
This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what's coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.
As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by. On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year as a result of deforestation alone. The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services - such as locking up carbon and providing fresh water - that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.
The two crises have the same cause. In both cases, those who exploit the resource have demanded impossible rates of return and invoked debts that can never be repaid. In both cases we denied the likely consequences. I used to believe that collective denial was peculiar to climate change. Now I know that it's the first response to every impending dislocation.
Gordon Brown, for instance, was as much in denial about financial realities as any toxic debt trader. In June last year, during his Mansion House speech, he boasted that 40% of the world's foreign equities are now traded here. The financial sector's success had come about, he said, partly because the government had taken "a risk-based regulatory approach". In the same hall three years before, he pledged that "in budget after budget I want us to do even more to encourage the risk takers". Can anyone, surveying this mess, now doubt the value of the precautionary principle?
Ecology and economy are both derived from the Greek word oikos - a house or dwelling. Our survival depends on the rational management of this home: the space in which life can be sustained. The rules are the same in both cases. If you extract resources at a rate beyond the level of replenishment, your stock will collapse. That's another noun which reminds us of the connection. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 69 definitions of "stock". When it means a fund or store, the word evokes the trunk - or stock - of a tree, "from which the gains are an outgrowth". Collapse occurs when you prune the tree so heavily that it dies. Ecology is the stock from which all wealth grows.
The two crises feed each other. As a result of Iceland's financial collapse, it is now contemplating joining the European Union, which means surrendering its fishing grounds to the common fisheries policy. Already the prime minister, Geir Haarde, has suggested that his countrymen concentrate on exploiting the ocean. The economic disaster will cause an ecological disaster.
Normally it's the other way around. In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond shows how ecological crisis is often the prelude to social catatrosphe. The obvious example is Easter Island, where society disintegrated soon after the population reached its highest historical numbers, the last trees were cut down and the construction of stone monuments peaked. The island chiefs had competed to erect ever bigger statues. These required wood and rope (made from bark) for transport, and extra food for the labourers. As the trees and soils on which the islanders depended disappeared, the population crashed and the survivors turned to cannibalism. Diamond wonders what the Easter islander who cut down the last palm tree might have thought. "Like modern loggers, did he shout 'Jobs, not trees!'? Or: 'Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood.'? Or: 'We don't have proof that there aren't palms somewhere else on Easter ... your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering'?".
Ecological collapse, Diamond shows, is as likely to be the result of economic success as of economic failure. The Maya of Central America, for instance, were among the most advanced and successful people of their time. But a combination of population growth, extravagant construction projects and poor land management wiped out between 90% and 99% of the population. The Mayan collapse was accelerated by "the competition among kings and nobles that led to a chronic emphasis on war and erecting monuments rather than on solving underlying problems". (Does any of this sound familiar?) Again, the largest monuments were erected just before the ecosystem crashed. Again, this extravagance was partly responsible for the collapse: trees were used for making plaster with which to decorate their temples. The plaster became thicker and thicker as the kings sought to outdo each other's conspicuous consumption.
Here are some of the reasons why people fail to prevent ecological collapse. Their resources appear at first to be inexhaustible; a long-term trend of depletion is concealed by short-term fluctuations; small numbers of powerful people advance their interests by damaging those of everyone else; short-term profits trump long-term survival. The same, in all cases, can be said of the collapse of financial systems. Is this how human beings are destined to behave? If we cannot act until stocks - of either kind - start sliding towards oblivion, we're knackered.
But one of the benefits of modernity is our ability to spot trends and predict results. If fish in a depleted ecosystem grow by 5% a year and the catch expands by 10% a year, the fishery will collapse. If the global economy keeps growing at 3% a year (or 1,700% a century), it too will hit the wall.
Iam not going to suggest, as some scoundrel who shares a name with me did on these pages last year, that we should welcome a recession. But the financial crisis provides us with an opportunity to rethink this trajectory; an opportunity that is not available during periods of economic success. Governments restructuring their economies should read Herman Daly's book Steady-State Economics.
As usual I haven't left enough space to discuss this, so the details will have to wait for another column. Or you can read the summary published by the Sustainable Development Commission (all references are on my website). But what Daly suggests is that nations which are already rich should replace growth - "more of the same stuff" - with development - "the same amount of better stuff". A steady-state economy has a constant stock of capital that is maintained by a rate of throughput no higher than the ecosystem can absorb. The use of resources is capped and the right to exploit them is auctioned. Poverty is addressed through the redistribution of wealth. The banks can lend only as much money as they possess.
Alternatively, we can persist in the magical thinking whose results have just come crashing home. The financial crisis shows what happens when we try to make the facts fit our desires. Now we must learn to live in the real world.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
This Stock Collapse Is Petty When Compared to the Nature Crunch
The financial crisis at least affords us an opportunity to now rethink our catastrophic ecological trajectory
by George Monbiot
This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what's coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.
As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by. On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year as a result of deforestation alone. The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services - such as locking up carbon and providing fresh water - that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.
The two crises have the same cause. In both cases, those who exploit the resource have demanded impossible rates of return and invoked debts that can never be repaid. In both cases we denied the likely consequences. I used to believe that collective denial was peculiar to climate change. Now I know that it's the first response to every impending dislocation.
Gordon Brown, for instance, was as much in denial about financial realities as any toxic debt trader. In June last year, during his Mansion House speech, he boasted that 40% of the world's foreign equities are now traded here. The financial sector's success had come about, he said, partly because the government had taken "a risk-based regulatory approach". In the same hall three years before, he pledged that "in budget after budget I want us to do even more to encourage the risk takers". Can anyone, surveying this mess, now doubt the value of the precautionary principle?
Ecology and economy are both derived from the Greek word oikos - a house or dwelling. Our survival depends on the rational management of this home: the space in which life can be sustained. The rules are the same in both cases. If you extract resources at a rate beyond the level of replenishment, your stock will collapse. That's another noun which reminds us of the connection. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 69 definitions of "stock". When it means a fund or store, the word evokes the trunk - or stock - of a tree, "from which the gains are an outgrowth". Collapse occurs when you prune the tree so heavily that it dies. Ecology is the stock from which all wealth grows.
The two crises feed each other. As a result of Iceland's financial collapse, it is now contemplating joining the European Union, which means surrendering its fishing grounds to the common fisheries policy. Already the prime minister, Geir Haarde, has suggested that his countrymen concentrate on exploiting the ocean. The economic disaster will cause an ecological disaster.
Normally it's the other way around. In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond shows how ecological crisis is often the prelude to social catatrosphe. The obvious example is Easter Island, where society disintegrated soon after the population reached its highest historical numbers, the last trees were cut down and the construction of stone monuments peaked. The island chiefs had competed to erect ever bigger statues. These required wood and rope (made from bark) for transport, and extra food for the labourers. As the trees and soils on which the islanders depended disappeared, the population crashed and the survivors turned to cannibalism. Diamond wonders what the Easter islander who cut down the last palm tree might have thought. "Like modern loggers, did he shout 'Jobs, not trees!'? Or: 'Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood.'? Or: 'We don't have proof that there aren't palms somewhere else on Easter ... your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering'?".
Ecological collapse, Diamond shows, is as likely to be the result of economic success as of economic failure. The Maya of Central America, for instance, were among the most advanced and successful people of their time. But a combination of population growth, extravagant construction projects and poor land management wiped out between 90% and 99% of the population. The Mayan collapse was accelerated by "the competition among kings and nobles that led to a chronic emphasis on war and erecting monuments rather than on solving underlying problems". (Does any of this sound familiar?) Again, the largest monuments were erected just before the ecosystem crashed. Again, this extravagance was partly responsible for the collapse: trees were used for making plaster with which to decorate their temples. The plaster became thicker and thicker as the kings sought to outdo each other's conspicuous consumption.
Here are some of the reasons why people fail to prevent ecological collapse. Their resources appear at first to be inexhaustible; a long-term trend of depletion is concealed by short-term fluctuations; small numbers of powerful people advance their interests by damaging those of everyone else; short-term profits trump long-term survival. The same, in all cases, can be said of the collapse of financial systems. Is this how human beings are destined to behave? If we cannot act until stocks - of either kind - start sliding towards oblivion, we're knackered.
But one of the benefits of modernity is our ability to spot trends and predict results. If fish in a depleted ecosystem grow by 5% a year and the catch expands by 10% a year, the fishery will collapse. If the global economy keeps growing at 3% a year (or 1,700% a century), it too will hit the wall.
Iam not going to suggest, as some scoundrel who shares a name with me did on these pages last year, that we should welcome a recession. But the financial crisis provides us with an opportunity to rethink this trajectory; an opportunity that is not available during periods of economic success. Governments restructuring their economies should read Herman Daly's book Steady-State Economics.
As usual I haven't left enough space to discuss this, so the details will have to wait for another column. Or you can read the summary published by the Sustainable Development Commission (all references are on my website). But what Daly suggests is that nations which are already rich should replace growth - "more of the same stuff" - with development - "the same amount of better stuff". A steady-state economy has a constant stock of capital that is maintained by a rate of throughput no higher than the ecosystem can absorb. The use of resources is capped and the right to exploit them is auctioned. Poverty is addressed through the redistribution of wealth. The banks can lend only as much money as they possess.
Alternatively, we can persist in the magical thinking whose results have just come crashing home. The financial crisis shows what happens when we try to make the facts fit our desires. Now we must learn to live in the real world.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
mandag den 13. oktober 2008
Vaclav Havel: The Planet is not at risk. We are
Over the past few years the question has been asked ever more forcefully whether global climatic changes occur in natural cycles or not, to what degree we human beings contribute to it, what eventual threats stem from them and what can be done to prevent them.
If we are at the beginning of serious global climatic changes, as scientific studies demonstrate, and if there is a threat of changes to temperature and energy cycles on a planetary scale, it could mean a generalized danger irrespective of the area of civilization people belong to or the continent they live on. It is also obvious from published research that human activity is also one of the causes of change; we just don’t know how big its specific contribution is. Is it really necessary to know it to the last percentage point, though? By waiting for confirmation, for incontrovertible precision, aren’t we simply wasting time when we could be taking measures that are relatively painless compared to the ones we would have to adopt in the event of further delays?
Maybe we should start considering our sojourn on this Earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for past hundred years at least, the Euro-American world has been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are joining it and following its example. However, we have entered an era in which nature is issuing us warnings and demanding that we not only stop the debt growing but, on the contrary, start to pay it back. There is little point in asking whether we have borrowed too much or what would happen if we postponed the repayments. Anyone with a mortgage or a bank loan can easily imagine the outcome.
Estimates of the effects of possible climatic changes are hard to gauge. Our planet has never been in a state of balance, from which it could deviate through human or other influence, and then, in time, return to its original state. The planetary organism cannot be regarded as some kind of pendulum that will return to its original position after a certain period. The climatic system has evolved turbulently over billions of years and the energy flows represent a gigantic, complexly interlinked structure of networks, and of networks within networks, where everything is interlinked in diverse ways, one part being dependent on the next. One of its characteristics is that the structures will never return to precisely the same state they were in fifty or maybe five thousand years ago. They will probably evolve into a new state, which need not necessarily mean any threat to existence, so long as the change is only slight. Larger climatic changes, however, could have unforeseeable effects within the global ecosystem. Were that to happen and were the pessimistic forecasts to come true, we must ask ourselves whether human life would be possible in the new conditions. And precisely because so much uncertainty still reigns, a great deal of humility and circumspection is called for. We can’t go on endlessly fooling ourselves that there is nothing wrong and that we can go on cheerfully pursuing our consumer lifestyles, ignoring the climatic threats and postponing a solution. Maybe there is no danger of any major catastrophe in the coming years or decades. Who knows? But that doesn’t relieve us of responsibility toward future generations.
I don’t agree with those whose reaction to the possible threats is to warn against the restrictions on civil freedoms. Were the forecasts of certain climatologists to be fulfilled, our freedoms would be tantamount to the freedom of someone hanging from a twentieth-story parapet.
We live in a world ringed by a single global civilization comprising various areas of civilization. Most of them these days share one thing in common: technocracy. Priority is given to everything that is calculable, quantifiable or ratable. That is a very materialistic concept, however, and one that is drawing us toward an important crossroads for our civilization.
Whenever I reflect on all the various problems of today’s world, whether they concern the economy, society, culture, security, the ecology or civilization in general, I always end up confronting the moral question whether this or that is responsible or acceptable. The moral order and its wellspring, our conscience and responsibility, as well as human rights and the right to human rights, these are the most important issues at the beginning of the third millennium. It is necessary to return again and again to the roots of human existence and confront our sojourn on this planet with the prospects of the centuries to come. We must analyze everything open-mindedly, soberly, unideologically and unobsessively, and project our knowledge into practical policies. Maybe it is no longer a matter of simply promoting energy-saving technologies, but chiefly of introducing ecologically clean technologies that can be incorporated into the natural cycle, of diversifying resources and of not relying on just one single invention as a panacea.
I’m also skeptical about whether such a complex problem can be solved by one single branch of science. We cannot rely on mere technical measures and regulations being able to bypass or take the place of responsibility. Economic instruments and legally stipulated limits are all important of course, and they must be used and implemented. But equally important, however, is support for education, ecological training and ethics, in other words, a consciousness of the commonality of all living beings and an emphasis on shared responsibility.
We will either manage to achieve an awareness of our place as humankind in the living and life-giving organism of our planet, or we will face the threat that our evolutionary journey will be set back thousands or even millions of years. That is why we must take this issue very seriously and see it as a challenge to behave responsibility and not as an anticipation of the end of the world. The end of the world has been anticipated many times in the course of history and has never happened, of course. And it won’t happen this time either. We have no need to have fears for our planet as such. It was here before us and most likely will be here after us. But that doesn’t mean that the existence of the human race might not be at serious risk. As a result of our endeavors and our irresponsibility the climatic system on this Earth could end up in a state in which there would be no place for us. If we drag our feet, the scope for decision making – and hence for our individual freedom – could be considerably reduced.
If we are at the beginning of serious global climatic changes, as scientific studies demonstrate, and if there is a threat of changes to temperature and energy cycles on a planetary scale, it could mean a generalized danger irrespective of the area of civilization people belong to or the continent they live on. It is also obvious from published research that human activity is also one of the causes of change; we just don’t know how big its specific contribution is. Is it really necessary to know it to the last percentage point, though? By waiting for confirmation, for incontrovertible precision, aren’t we simply wasting time when we could be taking measures that are relatively painless compared to the ones we would have to adopt in the event of further delays?
Maybe we should start considering our sojourn on this Earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for past hundred years at least, the Euro-American world has been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are joining it and following its example. However, we have entered an era in which nature is issuing us warnings and demanding that we not only stop the debt growing but, on the contrary, start to pay it back. There is little point in asking whether we have borrowed too much or what would happen if we postponed the repayments. Anyone with a mortgage or a bank loan can easily imagine the outcome.
Estimates of the effects of possible climatic changes are hard to gauge. Our planet has never been in a state of balance, from which it could deviate through human or other influence, and then, in time, return to its original state. The planetary organism cannot be regarded as some kind of pendulum that will return to its original position after a certain period. The climatic system has evolved turbulently over billions of years and the energy flows represent a gigantic, complexly interlinked structure of networks, and of networks within networks, where everything is interlinked in diverse ways, one part being dependent on the next. One of its characteristics is that the structures will never return to precisely the same state they were in fifty or maybe five thousand years ago. They will probably evolve into a new state, which need not necessarily mean any threat to existence, so long as the change is only slight. Larger climatic changes, however, could have unforeseeable effects within the global ecosystem. Were that to happen and were the pessimistic forecasts to come true, we must ask ourselves whether human life would be possible in the new conditions. And precisely because so much uncertainty still reigns, a great deal of humility and circumspection is called for. We can’t go on endlessly fooling ourselves that there is nothing wrong and that we can go on cheerfully pursuing our consumer lifestyles, ignoring the climatic threats and postponing a solution. Maybe there is no danger of any major catastrophe in the coming years or decades. Who knows? But that doesn’t relieve us of responsibility toward future generations.
I don’t agree with those whose reaction to the possible threats is to warn against the restrictions on civil freedoms. Were the forecasts of certain climatologists to be fulfilled, our freedoms would be tantamount to the freedom of someone hanging from a twentieth-story parapet.
We live in a world ringed by a single global civilization comprising various areas of civilization. Most of them these days share one thing in common: technocracy. Priority is given to everything that is calculable, quantifiable or ratable. That is a very materialistic concept, however, and one that is drawing us toward an important crossroads for our civilization.
Whenever I reflect on all the various problems of today’s world, whether they concern the economy, society, culture, security, the ecology or civilization in general, I always end up confronting the moral question whether this or that is responsible or acceptable. The moral order and its wellspring, our conscience and responsibility, as well as human rights and the right to human rights, these are the most important issues at the beginning of the third millennium. It is necessary to return again and again to the roots of human existence and confront our sojourn on this planet with the prospects of the centuries to come. We must analyze everything open-mindedly, soberly, unideologically and unobsessively, and project our knowledge into practical policies. Maybe it is no longer a matter of simply promoting energy-saving technologies, but chiefly of introducing ecologically clean technologies that can be incorporated into the natural cycle, of diversifying resources and of not relying on just one single invention as a panacea.
I’m also skeptical about whether such a complex problem can be solved by one single branch of science. We cannot rely on mere technical measures and regulations being able to bypass or take the place of responsibility. Economic instruments and legally stipulated limits are all important of course, and they must be used and implemented. But equally important, however, is support for education, ecological training and ethics, in other words, a consciousness of the commonality of all living beings and an emphasis on shared responsibility.
We will either manage to achieve an awareness of our place as humankind in the living and life-giving organism of our planet, or we will face the threat that our evolutionary journey will be set back thousands or even millions of years. That is why we must take this issue very seriously and see it as a challenge to behave responsibility and not as an anticipation of the end of the world. The end of the world has been anticipated many times in the course of history and has never happened, of course. And it won’t happen this time either. We have no need to have fears for our planet as such. It was here before us and most likely will be here after us. But that doesn’t mean that the existence of the human race might not be at serious risk. As a result of our endeavors and our irresponsibility the climatic system on this Earth could end up in a state in which there would be no place for us. If we drag our feet, the scope for decision making – and hence for our individual freedom – could be considerably reduced.
lørdag den 11. oktober 2008
Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'
Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.
The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.
The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.
It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.
Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.
Capital losses
Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.
"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News.
Teeb will... show the risks we run by not valuing [nature] adequately."
Andrew Mitchell
Global Canopy Programme
"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."
The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU presidency, with the European Commission providing funding.
The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.
Stern message
Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.
So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.
Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.
The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.
The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.
Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.
"The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to reality," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial resources into forest preservation.
"Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks we run by not valuing it adequately."
A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days.
Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something different must be tried.
Whether Mr Sukhdev's arguments will find political traction in an era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review.
But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.
"Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago, their eyes would glaze over.
"Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetize it, what can we do about it, why don't you speak with so and so politician or such and such business."
The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the date by which governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm
The global economy is losing more money from the disappearance of forests than through the current banking crisis, according to an EU-commissioned study.
It puts the annual cost of forest loss at between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.
The figure comes from adding the value of the various services that forests perform, such as providing clean water and absorbing carbon dioxide.
The study, headed by a Deutsche Bank economist, parallels the Stern Review into the economics of climate change.
It has been discussed during many sessions here at the World Conservation Congress.
Some conservationists see it as a new way of persuading policymakers to fund nature protection rather than allowing the decline in ecosystems and species, highlighted in the release on Monday of the Red List of Threatened Species, to continue.
Capital losses
Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.
"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News.
Teeb will... show the risks we run by not valuing [nature] adequately."
Andrew Mitchell
Global Canopy Programme
"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year."
The review that Mr Sukhdev leads, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), was initiated by Germany under its recent EU presidency, with the European Commission providing funding.
The first phase concluded in May when the team released its finding that forest decline could be costing about 7% of global GDP. The second phase will expand the scope to other natural systems.
Stern message
Key to understanding his conclusions is that as forests decline, nature stops providing services which it used to provide essentially for free.
So the human economy either has to provide them instead, perhaps through building reservoirs, building facilities to sequester carbon dioxide, or farming foods that were once naturally available.
Or we have to do without them; either way, there is a financial cost.
The Teeb calculations show that the cost falls disproportionately on the poor, because a greater part of their livelihood depends directly on the forest, especially in tropical regions.
The greatest cost to western nations would initially come through losing a natural absorber of the most important greenhouse gas.
Just as the Stern Review brought the economics of climate change into the political arena and helped politicians see the consequences of their policy choices, many in the conservation community believe the Teeb review will lay open the economic consequences of halting or not halting the slide in biodiversity.
"The numbers in the Stern Review enabled politicians to wake up to reality," said Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme, an organisation concerned with directing financial resources into forest preservation.
"Teeb will do the same for the value of nature, and show the risks we run by not valuing it adequately."
A number of nations, businesses and global organisations are beginning to direct funds into forest conservation, and there are signs of a trade in natural ecosystems developing, analogous to the carbon trade, although it is clearly very early days.
Some have ethical concerns over the valuing of nature purely in terms of the services it provides humanity; but the counter-argument is that decades of trying to halt biodiversity decline by arguing for the intrinsic worth of nature have not worked, so something different must be tried.
Whether Mr Sukhdev's arguments will find political traction in an era of financial constraint is an open question, even though many of the governments that would presumably be called on to fund forest protection are the ones directly or indirectly paying for the review.
But, he said, governments and businesses are getting the point.
"Times have changed. Almost three years ago, even two years ago, their eyes would glaze over.
"Today, when I say this, they listen. In fact I get questions asked - so how do you calculate this, how can we monetize it, what can we do about it, why don't you speak with so and so politician or such and such business."
The aim is to complete the Teeb review by the middle of 2010, the date by which governments are committed under the Convention of Biological Diversity to have begun slowing the rate of biodiversity loss.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7662565.stm
tirsdag den 7. oktober 2008
Environment: Twisted As Unnaturally as the Banks by Julio Godoy
BARCELONA - The financial meltdown in most of the industrialised world presents an opportunity for a new economic model that would end short-sighted search for high returns, according to leading economists attending the IUCN World Conservation Congress here.
"Right now, the most conservative leaders in the industrialised world, such as George W. Bush of the U.S. and Angela Merkel of Germany are allocating public money to save the banks from bankruptcy," Alejandro Nadal, a Mexican economist attending the congress told IPS.
"This rediscovery of the role of the state as a major actor in economic affairs, and the perspective of a new regulation of international financial transactions opens a window of opportunity to rethink neoliberalism in the developing world," Nadal said.
"This is not only an academic question, it is an extreme political matter," he said. And it can have an environmental dimension, he said. Nadal urged the IUCN to coordinate a global effort among civil society organisations to rethink the role of the state in linking macro-economic and environmental policies.
The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), organiser of the Barcelona congress that continues until Oct. 15, is the oldest and largest global environmental network, with a membership of more than 1,000 governments and NGOs, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.
"It is time for civil society and environmental organisations to take the world," Pavan Sukhdev, an Indian economist and co-author of 'The Economics of Ecosystems and Sustainability' told IPS.
Unlike earlier crises such as the stock exchange crash of 1987, or the currency crisis of the 1990s in Latin America, South East Asia and Russia, the present crisis has come amidst a new awareness of the dramatic environmental costs of neo-liberalism, Sukhdev said.
"Back then, most of us had no idea of the environmental crisis lurking in nature. But now we are aware that we cannot go on with this economic model based on the destruction of biodiversity and the abuse of most of humankind.
"Now we have the wind on our backs. And when you have wind in your sails, you sail. Let's sail towards a new economic model, one that respects both nature and humanity, instead of this one that destroys them."
Joan Martínez Alier, professor of economics and economic history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, said the present economic crisis "will mean a welcome change to the totally unsustainable increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the last few years."
Carbon dioxide is considered by scientists to be the principal greenhouse gas arising from the combustion of fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases are thought to cause global warming, and consequently climate change and the decimation of biodiversity.
Alier believes the economic crisis, by reducing industrial and transport activities, offers an opportunity to put the economy on a different trajectory regarding material and energy consumption, and could therefore help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The crisis might also offer an opportunity for restructuring social institutions in industrialised countries, with the objective of living well without the imperative of economic growth," Alier said. "Happiness is not necessarily a function of economic growth, above a certain level of income."
But in developing countries, the economic crisis could damage the environment for the converse reason. Since below a certain income level wellbeing is dependent on economic growth, governments may push economic activity regardless of its environmental costs in order to overcome the economic crisis.
"The global economy could suffer a deep and protracted recession as a consequence of the financial crisis," Argentine economist Alain Cibils told IPS. "As the crisis unfolds, priorities will be put on recovery for growth and employment, and controlling inflation, instead of forestalling climate change. Protecting biodiversity, aquifers and soil erosion may be seen as non-priorities."
Cibils said that the neoliberal economic model applied in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and other Latin American countries since the late 1980s has given priority to macroeconomic policies aimed at reducing inflation and fiscal deficits, and increasing export, regardless of social and environmental costs.
"These policies are epitomised in Argentina by intensive year-round agriculture concentrated on a couple of crops such as soybean and maize, and priority to short-term high-returns, very much as in financial globalisation," Cibils said.
The land area cultivated with soybean has more than doubled in Argentina from seven million hectares in 1997 to 16 million hectares in 2008. The land for wheat cultivation has remained constant.
"Soybean growing has taken place in Argentina at the expense of native forests," Cibils said. "Year-round agriculture has produced severe soil nutrient depletion and soil degradation, and a substantial loss of biodiversity."
"Right now, the most conservative leaders in the industrialised world, such as George W. Bush of the U.S. and Angela Merkel of Germany are allocating public money to save the banks from bankruptcy," Alejandro Nadal, a Mexican economist attending the congress told IPS.
"This rediscovery of the role of the state as a major actor in economic affairs, and the perspective of a new regulation of international financial transactions opens a window of opportunity to rethink neoliberalism in the developing world," Nadal said.
"This is not only an academic question, it is an extreme political matter," he said. And it can have an environmental dimension, he said. Nadal urged the IUCN to coordinate a global effort among civil society organisations to rethink the role of the state in linking macro-economic and environmental policies.
The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), organiser of the Barcelona congress that continues until Oct. 15, is the oldest and largest global environmental network, with a membership of more than 1,000 governments and NGOs, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.
"It is time for civil society and environmental organisations to take the world," Pavan Sukhdev, an Indian economist and co-author of 'The Economics of Ecosystems and Sustainability' told IPS.
Unlike earlier crises such as the stock exchange crash of 1987, or the currency crisis of the 1990s in Latin America, South East Asia and Russia, the present crisis has come amidst a new awareness of the dramatic environmental costs of neo-liberalism, Sukhdev said.
"Back then, most of us had no idea of the environmental crisis lurking in nature. But now we are aware that we cannot go on with this economic model based on the destruction of biodiversity and the abuse of most of humankind.
"Now we have the wind on our backs. And when you have wind in your sails, you sail. Let's sail towards a new economic model, one that respects both nature and humanity, instead of this one that destroys them."
Joan Martínez Alier, professor of economics and economic history at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, said the present economic crisis "will mean a welcome change to the totally unsustainable increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the last few years."
Carbon dioxide is considered by scientists to be the principal greenhouse gas arising from the combustion of fossil fuels. Greenhouse gases are thought to cause global warming, and consequently climate change and the decimation of biodiversity.
Alier believes the economic crisis, by reducing industrial and transport activities, offers an opportunity to put the economy on a different trajectory regarding material and energy consumption, and could therefore help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The crisis might also offer an opportunity for restructuring social institutions in industrialised countries, with the objective of living well without the imperative of economic growth," Alier said. "Happiness is not necessarily a function of economic growth, above a certain level of income."
But in developing countries, the economic crisis could damage the environment for the converse reason. Since below a certain income level wellbeing is dependent on economic growth, governments may push economic activity regardless of its environmental costs in order to overcome the economic crisis.
"The global economy could suffer a deep and protracted recession as a consequence of the financial crisis," Argentine economist Alain Cibils told IPS. "As the crisis unfolds, priorities will be put on recovery for growth and employment, and controlling inflation, instead of forestalling climate change. Protecting biodiversity, aquifers and soil erosion may be seen as non-priorities."
Cibils said that the neoliberal economic model applied in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and other Latin American countries since the late 1980s has given priority to macroeconomic policies aimed at reducing inflation and fiscal deficits, and increasing export, regardless of social and environmental costs.
"These policies are epitomised in Argentina by intensive year-round agriculture concentrated on a couple of crops such as soybean and maize, and priority to short-term high-returns, very much as in financial globalisation," Cibils said.
The land area cultivated with soybean has more than doubled in Argentina from seven million hectares in 1997 to 16 million hectares in 2008. The land for wheat cultivation has remained constant.
"Soybean growing has taken place in Argentina at the expense of native forests," Cibils said. "Year-round agriculture has produced severe soil nutrient depletion and soil degradation, and a substantial loss of biodiversity."
Starbucks Wastes Millions of Litres of Water A Day
Coffee giant's running-tap policy contradicts its claimed green credentials
by Angela Balakrishnan
Environmental campaigners have attacked Starbucks after the discovery that millions of litres of water are wasted in its coffee shops every day, contradicting its much-boasted green credentials.
[Starbucks signs are seen outside one of its stores in New York July 3, 2008. (Chip East/Reuters)]Starbucks signs are seen outside one of its stores in New York July 3, 2008. (Chip East/Reuters)
An investigation by the Sun revealed that over 23.4m litres of water are poured down the drains of 10,000 outlets worldwide due to a policy of keeping a tap running non-stop.
It is enough daily water for the entire 2 million population of Namibia in Africa, which has severe droughts, or to fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes.
A single Starbucks tap left running for just over three minutes wastes the amount of water one African needs to survive for a day in drought conditions.
Each Starbucks has a cold tap behind the counter that runs into a sink known as a "dipper well" - used to wash utensils.
Under the company's health and safety rules, staff are banned from turning the water off because management claim that a constant flow of water prevents germs breeding in taps.
Water companies joined green activists in criticising the firm for harming the environment and wasting a vital natural resource. Experts said leaving taps running for hygiene reasons was "nonsense".
Water shortage is one of the world's biggest problems. Australia is in the grip of a seven-year drought - the worst in a century.
In the UK, Starbucks has 698 branches, each open for 13 hours a day. Even a slow tap flows three litres of water a minute, meaning Starbucks in the UK is wasting an estimated 1.63m litres a day - enough to supply Matlock village in Derbyshire.
The running water policy was revealed after a Starbucks executive wrote back to a couple who complained about the tap at their local branch.
Lisa Woolfe, 39, of Cuffley, Hertfordshire, said: "I noticed a small sink behind the counter had its tap running. The assistant said the store was told to keep it running as it cleaned the pipes.
"I could not believe it but when we contacted head office, they confirmed the taps were left on and the water was not recycled.
"It is an absolutely astonishing waste of water, especially for a company which prides itself on its green credentials."
Speaking to staff at Starbucks outlets around the world, the Sun found that many did not use the running tap or even know what it was for.
Peter Robinson, of the environmental charity Waste Watch, said: "Leaving taps running all day is a shocking waste of precious water. And to claim you are doing it for health and safety reasons is bonkers.
"Tap water comes from rivers and groundwater and wasting it can cause great harm to the environment and wildlife. Big companies should set an example."
Jacob Tompkins, of the independent water efficiency agency Water Wise, said: "If they are doing all their basic cleaning procedures, I fail to see why they would need to do this. There are a lot of other ways to stop a build-up of bacteria.
"The chance of a build-up in the spout is extremely remote. And if there is one they're not cleaning the tap properly."
Ian Barker, the head of water resources at the Environment Agency, said: "We are already taking too much water from the environment and are seeing reduced river flows."
A spokeswoman for Starbucks said that the company's water use adhered to the World Health Organisation, US and EU environmental directives for in-store water supply standards. But she acknowledged the company could cut its water use.
She defended its dipper well system, saying the technique was common and accepted in the industry.
"Starbucks' challenge is to balance water conservation with the need for customer safety," the spokeswoman said. "The dipper well system currently in use in Starbucks retail stores ensures that we meet or exceed our own and local health standards."
She said the company had tested alternative methods such as the use of an ice bath but it was not successful. It was considering other alternatives and cut its water use per square foot this year.
Starbucks is known for its campaigns and instore advertising boasting how it gives back to communities and the environment.
In the company's latest corporate social responsibility report, it says: "From promoting conservation in coffee-growing countries to in-store 'green teams' and recycling programs, Starbucks has established high standards for environmental responsibility.
"By taking steps to reduce waste from our operations and recycle, we can preserve the Earth's natural resources and enhance the quality of lives around the globe.
"Starbucks actively seeks opportunities to minimise our environmental impact."
This is not the first time the Seattle-based firm has come under fire over its social and environmental credentials. In 2006, the Guardian reported how the US coffee giant has used its muscle to block an attempt by Ethiopia's farmers to copyright their most famous coffee bean types, denying them potential earnings of up to £47m a year.
As a result, Starbucks negotiated an agreement with the Ethiopian government to give the country more ownership and a better price for its coffee beans.
by Angela Balakrishnan
Environmental campaigners have attacked Starbucks after the discovery that millions of litres of water are wasted in its coffee shops every day, contradicting its much-boasted green credentials.
[Starbucks signs are seen outside one of its stores in New York July 3, 2008. (Chip East/Reuters)]Starbucks signs are seen outside one of its stores in New York July 3, 2008. (Chip East/Reuters)
An investigation by the Sun revealed that over 23.4m litres of water are poured down the drains of 10,000 outlets worldwide due to a policy of keeping a tap running non-stop.
It is enough daily water for the entire 2 million population of Namibia in Africa, which has severe droughts, or to fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes.
A single Starbucks tap left running for just over three minutes wastes the amount of water one African needs to survive for a day in drought conditions.
Each Starbucks has a cold tap behind the counter that runs into a sink known as a "dipper well" - used to wash utensils.
Under the company's health and safety rules, staff are banned from turning the water off because management claim that a constant flow of water prevents germs breeding in taps.
Water companies joined green activists in criticising the firm for harming the environment and wasting a vital natural resource. Experts said leaving taps running for hygiene reasons was "nonsense".
Water shortage is one of the world's biggest problems. Australia is in the grip of a seven-year drought - the worst in a century.
In the UK, Starbucks has 698 branches, each open for 13 hours a day. Even a slow tap flows three litres of water a minute, meaning Starbucks in the UK is wasting an estimated 1.63m litres a day - enough to supply Matlock village in Derbyshire.
The running water policy was revealed after a Starbucks executive wrote back to a couple who complained about the tap at their local branch.
Lisa Woolfe, 39, of Cuffley, Hertfordshire, said: "I noticed a small sink behind the counter had its tap running. The assistant said the store was told to keep it running as it cleaned the pipes.
"I could not believe it but when we contacted head office, they confirmed the taps were left on and the water was not recycled.
"It is an absolutely astonishing waste of water, especially for a company which prides itself on its green credentials."
Speaking to staff at Starbucks outlets around the world, the Sun found that many did not use the running tap or even know what it was for.
Peter Robinson, of the environmental charity Waste Watch, said: "Leaving taps running all day is a shocking waste of precious water. And to claim you are doing it for health and safety reasons is bonkers.
"Tap water comes from rivers and groundwater and wasting it can cause great harm to the environment and wildlife. Big companies should set an example."
Jacob Tompkins, of the independent water efficiency agency Water Wise, said: "If they are doing all their basic cleaning procedures, I fail to see why they would need to do this. There are a lot of other ways to stop a build-up of bacteria.
"The chance of a build-up in the spout is extremely remote. And if there is one they're not cleaning the tap properly."
Ian Barker, the head of water resources at the Environment Agency, said: "We are already taking too much water from the environment and are seeing reduced river flows."
A spokeswoman for Starbucks said that the company's water use adhered to the World Health Organisation, US and EU environmental directives for in-store water supply standards. But she acknowledged the company could cut its water use.
She defended its dipper well system, saying the technique was common and accepted in the industry.
"Starbucks' challenge is to balance water conservation with the need for customer safety," the spokeswoman said. "The dipper well system currently in use in Starbucks retail stores ensures that we meet or exceed our own and local health standards."
She said the company had tested alternative methods such as the use of an ice bath but it was not successful. It was considering other alternatives and cut its water use per square foot this year.
Starbucks is known for its campaigns and instore advertising boasting how it gives back to communities and the environment.
In the company's latest corporate social responsibility report, it says: "From promoting conservation in coffee-growing countries to in-store 'green teams' and recycling programs, Starbucks has established high standards for environmental responsibility.
"By taking steps to reduce waste from our operations and recycle, we can preserve the Earth's natural resources and enhance the quality of lives around the globe.
"Starbucks actively seeks opportunities to minimise our environmental impact."
This is not the first time the Seattle-based firm has come under fire over its social and environmental credentials. In 2006, the Guardian reported how the US coffee giant has used its muscle to block an attempt by Ethiopia's farmers to copyright their most famous coffee bean types, denying them potential earnings of up to £47m a year.
As a result, Starbucks negotiated an agreement with the Ethiopian government to give the country more ownership and a better price for its coffee beans.
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