Working Together Can Forge A Path

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, meets Yasuo Fukuda, Prime Minister of Japan, in Kyoto. June 30, 2008. (Photo by Eskinder Debebe courtesy UN)
The secretary-general arrived in Japan on Saturday, kicking off a two-week, three-nation official visit to East Asia which will culminate with his participation at the annual summit of the Group of Eight, G8, industrialized countries in Hokkaido early next month.
The world must galvanize its will and reach a new agreement on measures to fight climate change by the end of 2009, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Sunday in the Japanese city where the Kyoto Protocol was finalized.
Ban said he chose Kyoto as his first stop because he wants to "send out a very symbolic political message from the place where the Kyoto Protocol was adopted more than 10 years ago."

"We have resources; we have technologies. I think what is missing is largely political will. If we have united political will, I am sure we will be able to overcome these crises," the secretary-general said.

Ban said the 1997 protocol was a historic and crucial first step by the international community to curb greenhouse gas emissions. With the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ending in 2012, the secretary-general stressed that a new agreement must be adopted by December 2009, a target date already agreed by governments at the UN climate summit in Bali, Indonesia last December.

"Last year, we witnessed how working together can help us forge a path to collective action in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges," Ban told an audience of students, scholars and representatives of the private sector and civil society at Kyoto University.

He said climate change is too big and complex a challenge for any country or sector of society to address alone; each country and each sector can and must contribute.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, known as IPCC, provided the science; the Stern Report, the economics; the UN High-Level Event on Climate Change, the political leadership; Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, the public awareness. Taken together, all these contributed to rising momentum and achieving a significant breakthrough in the global response," he said.

"This came in the Bali Roadmap agreed last December, which launched a new negotiations process to design a comprehensive post-2012 framework," said Ban.

The secretary-general called on all major emitters to set ambitious targets which he said were essential to conclude the deal in 2009.
He commended Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda of Japan "for the impressive vision he recently announced for moving Japan to a low-carbon society - including Japan's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent by 2050."
On June 9, Prime Minister Fukuda said in a speech at the Japan Press Club, "We must greatly shift the country's helm towards a low-carbon society for the sake of future generations."

"For this we must halve global CO2 emissions by the year 2050. This reduction target forms the crux of the 'Cool Earth Programme' which Japan has proposed to the world. I aim to have this goal shared by the G8 and other major economies," the prime minister said.

Commenting on this announcement, Ban said, "This is the kind of leadership by example we need from developed countries to fulfil the larger share of responsibility they bear."

The secretary-general said he would count on Japan's leadership at the G-8 summit to come up with concrete measures to address three pressing, interrelated challenges - the global food crisis, climate change, and the race to reach global anti-poverty targets called the Millennium Development Goals by the deadline of 2015.

Climate change was the focus when Ban met Japanese business leaders in Tokyo later in the day. Speaking to about 30 senior executives of leading Japanese corporations, the secretary-general said support and cooperation of the private sector is vitally important to addressing pressing issues such as climate change.

"The race is under way to develop and provide needed solutions, such as clean technology, renewable energy, efficient products and processes, and sustainable goods and services," he said. "I have no doubt that the Japanese companies will play a leadership role in this new era of responsible and sustainable business."

Ban said he was excited by his first visit to Japan as secretary-general. "Japan's leadership cannot be more important than today as it is assuming the presidency of the G8," he said.

On Monday, he had an audience with the Emperor and Empress of Japan, and held meetings with Crown Prince Naruhito, Prime Minister Fukuda and Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura.

http://www.ens-newswire.com

"Water Undervalued and Not Treated With Respect"

A Report Of Conference on Water Issues in SADC

A two-day conference on water issues in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which opened Wednesday in Maseru, Lesotho, has seen representatives of government, civil society, the private sector, donors and other groups discuss the likely effects of climate change on development in the region.

Keynote speaker Torkil Jønch-Clausen emphasised that practical solutions were needed to help countries cope with these effects: "...climate change is an added challenge to achieving the Millennium Development Goals," he said. "We need to rise above the challenges..."

Eight goals, or MDGs, were agreed on by global leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 in a bid to raise living standards around the world by 2015. MDG seven, on environmental sustainability, commits nations to halving the number of people who lack access to ,.

According to the latest data from the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, an initiative of the World Health Organisation and United Nations Children's Fund, 40 percent of people in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to a safe and adequate water supply. The figures, from 2004, also show that people living in rural areas are much worse off than their urban counterparts: only 26 percent of rural Africans have adequate access, compared to 55 percent of city dwellers.

While the numbers are generally better in Southern Africa -- with Botswana reporting 95 percent coverage, and South Africa 88 percent -- Zambia and Angola with 58 and 53 percent coverage respectively show the region has some way to go with providing water to its citizens. Mozambique, at 43 percent, has the lowest coverage in SADC -- although this figure marks an improvement from the 36 percent coverage registered in 1990.

According to the United Nations, obstacles to providing clean water in sub-Saharan Africa include population growth, the relatively low priority given to water and sanitation management, and the frequent failure of water supply systems.

Jønch-Clausen is a Danish engineer and researcher who has advised the organisations that convened this week's meeting, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Global Water Partnership: a Stockholm-based organisation that brings together governments, companies and development agencies -- amongst others -- to help meet water-related needs and improve management of the resource.

He said there was a range of solutions at hand to help communities adapt in situations where the availability of water was declining, and that governments should look into rationing water to meet the competing needs of manufacturing, agriculture and households. New pricing structures for water, greater re-use of the resource and the introduction of drought-resistant crops could also assist.

Maieane Khaketla, chief public relations officer in Lesotho's Ministry of Natural Resources, who officiated at the opening of the meeting, also raised the issue of wide- ranging demand for water -- saying the biggest challenge in meeting development goals was ensuring citizens' access to water for basic needs, while responding to increased demands for the same resource from the industrial and agricultural sectors.

With several countries in the region planning increased hydro-electric power generation to meet their future energy needs, Belinda Petrie of OneWorld Sustainable Investments urged caution in this regard: "What is the use of investing in a huge hydro-power plant that will in a few years to come have no water?" OneWorld Sustainable Investments is a South African consultancy firm working on sustainable development.

She said the answer to uncertain rainfall could be to build small hydro-electric plants, and that governments should also consider alternative, renewable energy sources such as wind power.

Pete Ashton, an aquatic ecologist from South Africa's Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, told the conference that to avoid conflict and improve water management, Southern African states needed to address delicate issues such as control over shared water basins, at once. The Orange, Limpopo and Zambezi Rivers are amongst the region's trans-boundary water resources.

Ashton also said that urgent attention needed to be given to use of alternative water sources such as harvesting rain water, and to new technologies for sustainable use of these sources.

"We need to improve the way we understand the value of water," he observed. "It is undervalued and not treated with respect."

By Lawrence Keketso

Mining endangers caves in north-east India

Meghalaya carries a bewitching world in its belly. The natural caves found in Jaintia Hills are a storehouse of geological treasures. Rivers and streams flow through some of their dark, damp chambers, lending an other-worldly beauty to the caves.

The rocky roof hangs so low at times that the explorer has to crawl on all fours.

And to explore there is a lot: various life forms and geomorphological features carrying records of climate change in a different era.

These treasures may just be lost before they are fully appreciated because rampant coal mining is systematically destroying these caves.
Coal miners inside a cave / Photo credit: Fraser Simpson / Down to Earth


Jaintia Hills is also a major coal producing area, with an estimated 40 million tonnes of coal reserve. The state government, which had promised to formulate a comprehensive policy to regulate private coal mining and limestone quarries over one-and-a-half years ago, is yet to deliver.

Prompted by a public-interest petition, filed in the Supreme Court by a group involved in mapping caves, the government set up an expert committee in August, 2006, to look into unregulated mining activity in the state. Nothing much has happened since.

The government has a ready excuse.

Heritage in danger

“There are many members in the committee, and many are from other states like Delhi and Jharkhand. It takes time to receive all the recommendations from all the members and frame the final policy. The draft mining policy is ready and will be out soon,” says Arindom Som, the state mining secretary.

While the government still has no idea how it is going to control it, indiscriminate mining has begun to threaten the famed Krem Liat Prah-Um Lm-Labit cave system in Jaintia Hills, the longest in India at 30.9 km.

Jaintia Hills is part of the Meghalaya plateau made of rocks belonging to the Archean (2.5-4 billion years ago) and Tertiary periods (63 million to 2 million years ago). Meghalaya has the largest concentration of caves in the subcontinent. About a thousand caves were discovered in the past decade and most of these are yet to be explored and mapped.

Over the years, 118 cave passages, stretching across 148 km, have been mapped on the Nongklieh-Shnongrim ridge, 60 km from Jowai town in Jaintia Hills. The ridge has India’s longest Krem Liat Prah and third longest Krem Umthloo cave passages.

Tracking climate change

Cave sediments and stalagmites—conical limestone pillars rising from the floor—represent an undisturbed chronological repository of records of climate change which can stretch back to one million years.

“Caves hold the key to understanding world climate changes. Taken in their totality the caves of Meghalaya should be considered national and archaeological heritage sites that call for concerted protection at both the national and state levels,” says Brian Daly Kharpran, secretary, Meghalaya Adventure Association, which had filed the petition seeking a ban on mining to save the caves.

“Only Meghalaya has high quality caves in the country, therefore, there is an urgent need for the government to have a new approach to coal extraction,” adds Terence M Whitaker, a biologist and an authority on caves.

Besides being geologically important, these caves are rich in biodiversity, teeming with fish, salamanders, spiders, woodlice and millipedes, which have adapted to the cave environment—they have no eyes, are white and have long antennae.

These are yet to be studied properly. The caves are also home to three bat species: the Long Winged Bat, Dobson’s Long Tongued Fruit Bat and the Kashmir Cave Bat. “The number of bats has reduced significantly, which is alarming because they control pests. Their current population is between 3,000 and 5,000,” says Adora Thabah, an expert on bats.

“There are fish which have been living in these caves since ages and have lost their pigmentation. Coal mining activities are a severe threat to these life forms,” warns Thabah. “Unscientific mining of coal is a hazard to the existence of these caves and their fragile ecosystems. Already all the rivers in Jaintia Hills are polluted and highly acidic due to mining,” adds Kharpran.


Rat-hole mining

Regulating mining in Meghalaya is tricky. It is the only state in India where coal mining is done privately by mine owners, who use cheap methods to take out coal. In other states anyone interested in mining coal in an area has to obtain a mining lease from the state government under the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.

Besides, the centre has marked coal mines of Meghalaya as small-scale mines. This means they do not have to abide by the environmental and safety norms laid down by the Coal Mines Act, 1973.

In Jaintia Hills, primitive surface mining method, also called rat-hole mining, is used. The land is cleared by removing the vegetation and then pits, 5 to 100 sq m in size, are dug to reach the coal seam. The excavated matter is dumped in the surrounding area. A large amount of soil runs off and gets swept inside the caves and coats the stalagmite and calcite formations with mud. In many areas sandy clear underground streams are getting replaced by torrents of mud.

During mining large amounts of shale are brought to the surface as by-product of coal cleaning. Iron pyrites in shale decompose when exposed to air and water, and produce sulphuric acid and ferrous hydroxide. These flow into the surface and underground water, making it unsuitable for aquatic life as found by the Centre for Environmental Science, North East Hills University.

Then there is another threat: increased flooding of caves. Mining may be partly responsible for this as water gets accumulated in the excavated pits and seeps into the caves. Higher water levels inside the caves erode sediments. Coincidentally, caves are adjacent to huge reserves of coal and limestone.

The Meghalaya Pollution Control Board says it is studying the effects of coal mines on the environment and the caves. “Once the mining policy comes into effect, every coal miner will be required to treat the mine water,” says D Hooroo, member secretary of the board. But that is a long wait.
Amarjyoti Baruah

Source: Down to Earth

India on brink of water crisis, says climate panel

The per capita water availability in India is projected to decline to about 1,140 cubic metres per year in 2050 from 1,820 cubic metres per year recorded in 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated in a report released recently.

While the figures are not new, the IPCC has put out a warning specifically on the impact on freshwater sources for the world by culling all the scientific data it has earlier assessed. The warning comes at a time when the country is already recording a spate of water wars between different states.

The report points out that another study it had assessed had warned of an even earlier crisis — predicting that India could reach a state of water stress before 2025 when the availability would be below 1,000 cubic metres per capita. The fall in the per capita water supply would be the result of both climate change and increase in population.

With the winter rains predicted to fall, water storage levels in India could dip leading to greater water stress during the lean monsoon period. Combined with the fall in winter rains, the increasing intensity of rain would lead to a higher number of floods during monsoon which too could result in reduced groundwater recharge potential, the authors of the report have warned.

The consequences of global warming which would change the dynamics of the water cycle and could lead to changes even in the irrigated areas. The fluctuation in the irrigated land could be from minus 6% to plus 5% in the case of India by 2020.

The consequences of increased water scarcity as well as increased irrigation demand could lead to rather odd spin offs — uncontrolled water usage

By Nitin Sethi
The Economic Times