Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for January 2006

First Meeting of Asia-Pacific Partnerhsip on Clean Development and Climate

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Tomorrow, leaders from 6 nations will meet in Sydney, Australia to discuss mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The group are a fascinating mix:

1. The United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and a super power.

2. India and China, the most populous nations on earth and emerging super powers.

3. South Korea and Japan, members of an alliance that plan to build a $16 billion nuclear fusion reactor in the south of France. Fusion is what powers the sun.

4. Australia, the other Kyoto recalcitrant and a country with a lot of natural resources including coal and uranium.

Together these six countries account for about half the world’s GDP, population, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

They have already decided that arbitary emissions targets (a central plank of Kyoto) will not be on the agenda. Instead they want to focus on developing, promoting and sharing new technologies including nuclear, hydrogen, fusion and solar.

The theme for the meeting tomorrow was perhaps forshadowed by Quigqing Zhao, First Secretary, Chinese Embassy in Australia, in his address to a climate change conference in Canberra last April, click here for full text. He said,

In China’s school textbook, there is a sentence which almost all Chinese adults believe to be true and I think most children
between 10 and 18 can recite, that is “Science and technology
is the most powerful impetus to productivity”. If I were one
of the editors, I would propose to add one more sentence
somewhere in the text book, that “Science and technology is
the most reasonable way to address climate change”.

We need a new approach – a new focus. With just Kyoto, global emissions will be some 40 percent higher in 2010 than in 1990.

I wish the new Asia-Pacific Partnerhsip on Clean Development and Climate well in Sydney at their first official meeting tomorrow.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade outlines government policies on climate change and the new Partnership at its website, click here. For information on tomorrow’s meeting click here.

Greenpeace has a Moral Duty to Discipline its Own

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Someone in authority has to take control at Greenpeace, or it will lose much of its credibility. Since yesterday Greenpeace has posted at least three versions of their collision with the Japanese whaling mother ship on Sunday.

This is a serious matter that might even have repercussions in criminal law. Greenpeace has to tell the truth, discipline its operatives and move on. Otherwise the organisation that drew so much credibility from the criminal actions against it of the French government will lose its own credibility, not just on whaling, but on all of its campaign issues.

Story 1:

On Sunday, 8th January, 2006 Greenpeace Southern Ocean Expedition Leader Shane Rattenbury was quick off the mark in a media release entitled ‘Whalers ram Greenpeace Ship in Southern Ocean’.

“…the Nisshin Mura suddenly disengaged from the supply vessel coming around a full 360 degrees before making for the Arctic Sunrise and striking it on the port side.

Story 2:

Well, this picture posted by Greenpeace says it all. This is the Greenpeace ship, these are its injuries, and Greenpeace claims it was rammed? The damage is to the bow because as the video, also posted by Greenpeace shows, their ship struck the whaling vessel amidships.

damage-to-the-bow-of-the-green-2.jpg

Story 3:

Rattensbury also said,

The ship’s captain tried to pull out of the way of the oncoming whaler.”

In the Greenpeace video, their Captain says that because their ship the Arctic Sunrise had right-of-way,

“I maintained course at speed”.

Greenpeace’s own video contradicts Rattenbury’s story.

In order to restore its credibility Greenpeace’s first move is obvious. It has to stand aside its frontline operatives, specifically Rattenbury, and explain why they misled the press, the public, and their own supporters.

This is a serious matter. Damage has been done to private property. It could fall within the ambit of the criminal law. A respectable organisation cannot allow itself to even potentially shelter wrong-doers.

Greenpeace & The Japanese: Who Rammed Who?

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Japanese whalers in the Antarctic claim their boat the Nisshin-Maru was rammed by Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise earlier today, while Greenpeace claim they were rammed by the whaler’s Nisshinn-Maru.

Photographs emailed to me by the Japanese Institute for Cetacean Research appear to show the bow of the Arctic Sunrise approaching and then colliding with the starboard side of the Nisshin-Maru.

Nisshin Maru1_resize.JPG

Nisshin Maru2_resize.JPG

The first photo appears to be taken from the starboard side of the Nishhin Maru looking at the port side of the Arctic Sunrise. The second photo appears to be from the same side of the Nisshin Maru looking back at the starboard side of the Sunrise.

Greenpeace prides itself on the photographs and video images its has taken over recent days and weeks showing its war against whaling in the Antarctic, click here.

There’s obviously two sides to this story, and I’m keen to post Greenpeace’s photos and their explanation here.

Update 10.15pm, 8th January 2006
Greenpeace now have a media release with a picture showing damage to the bow of the Arctic Sunrise at their website, click here. This picture is consistent with the claim by the Japanese that they were rammed by Greenpeace, however, in the caption to the picture, Greenpeace claim the Japanese boat cut across the front of their boat thus the damage to the bow. In the text of the media release Greenpeace claim the Japanese boat struck their boat port side. What really happened?

Update 9am, 9th January 2006
Greenpeace have now uploaded video of the collision at their website, click here. The video shows the Arctic Sunrise (which appears the size and shape of a tug next to the very large and apparently near stationary Nisshin Maru) heading towards and then ramming this much larger ship port side. There is then an interview with presumably the captain of the Arctic Sunrise, in which he explains that the large Nisshin Maru should have given way to the Arctic Sunrise because Greenpeace had right-of-way. The interview ends with the Greenpeace Captain stating: “I maintained my course at speed”. The video shows that Greenpeace took no evasive action, maintaining its course which appears to have been to ram the Japanese ship.

US Economists Want Clean Technologies

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I have just found the following statement amongst emails from December last year. Why didn’t the ‘leading economists’ mention the Kyoto Protocol? Is the Protocol too prescriptive and regulatory in nature? Would they endorse the upcoming meeting in Sydney on Wednesday of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate?

Policy Solutions

United States Needs Incentive Based Policy to Reduce Carbon Emissions
________________________________________
Statement by leading economists
December 7, 2005

The signatories below are all senior economists with expertise in the application of economics to environmental policy. We believe it important that the United States should move to control greenhouse gas emissions. There is now no credible scientific doubt that the composition of Earth’s atmosphere is changing, that this change is driven in part by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and that this change in atmospheric composition is changing Earth’s climate. The United States’ emissions of greenhouse gases constitute a major contribution to this process. The consequences of the climate change can be expected to be disruptive. Specific details of these effects at this stage remain uncertain. Nonetheless it is clear that any delay in the pace of change reduces the costs of adjustment. It serves as public insurance against more dramatic impacts and damages that can be expected when opportunities to adapt are limited.

It is important that greenhouse gas emissions be managed using an incentive based policy, such as a market-based approach to capping and reducing such emissions. This type of strategy provides clear incentives for changes in business practices and the development of new technologies. It assures that economic forces are directed to keeping the cost of reducing emissions as low as they can be. Many industrial nations have now adopted policies intended to limit greenhouse gases. As a result we can expect that the market for clean technologies will continue to grow over time. Adding industries in the United States to the other sources of these demands will help to reinforce this process.

George Akerlof, University of California at Berkeley
Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University
Edward Barbier, University of Wyoming
Robert T. Deacon, University of California at Santa Barbara
Walter P. Falcon, Stanford University
Hossein Farzin, University of California at Davis
Anthony C. Fisher, University of California at Berkeley
A. Myrick Freeman III, Bowdoin College
Lawrence H. Goulder, Stanford University
Theodore Groves, University of California at San Diego
Peter Hammond, Stanford University
Michael Hanemann, University of California at Berkeley
Geoffrey Heal, Columbia Business School
Gloria Helfand, University of Michigan
Larry S. Karp, University of California at Berkeley
Paul R. Kleindorfer, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
Charles Kolstad, University of California at Santa Barbara
Roz Naylor, Stanford University
Jason F. Shogren, University of Wyoming
V. Kerry Smith, North Carolina State
David A. Starrett, Stanford University
Joe Stiglitz, Columbia University
David J. Vail, Bowdoin College
Jeffrey Vincent, University of California at San Diego
James E. Wilen, University of California at Davis

Mountain Cattlemen Defy Government Ban

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Last June the Victorian State Government banned cattle grazing in the Alpine National Park. A protest website emerged at about the same time.

According to the most recent newsletter from this website:

Several small mobs of cattle are continuing to move slowly across the Alpine National Park. This is a week-long protest by many Mountain Cattlemen’s families against the loss of their grazing licences and subsequent treatment by the Victorian Government.

While the focus was on one of the small and symbolic herds yesterday, today it is becoming apparent that there are several groups of cattlemen, each with a small mob of cattle. This protest is clearly being supported by mountain cattlemen from all sides of the Alpine National Park, all wanting a return to alpine grazing.

The cattle and their drovers will be on the track for the next seven days as they travel to the annual Cattlemen’s Get-Together to be held at Rose River near Whitfield next weekend. The cattle are not in the Park to graze, they are travelling through.

The protest is being fully supported by lobby group Country Voice and the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association and many other groups concerned at the direction the Victorian Government is taking with public land and national park management

These small mobs are travelling on the original stock routes and bridle tracks across the Victorian High Country. The mountain cattlemen have been banished by the Bracks’ Government from the Alpine National Park for its political gain but at Australians cultural expense. end quote

According to Peter Attiwell quoted at my blog post of 16th June last year:

The critics of alpine grazing use science to support the basic tenet that grazing is incompatible with use of the land as a national park, as encapsulated in the slogan ‘National Park or Cow Paddock?’. The slogan is totally misleading. A cow paddock, once abandoned, will never return to the ecosystem that was destroyed to create it.

In contrast, there is no evidence that cattle grazing in the High Country has eliminated rare and threatened species, nor has species composition or diversity been irrevocably altered. Indeed, 170 years of controlled cattle-grazing has left by far the greater part of the High Country in excellent condition. Clearly, at the long-term and landscape levels, cattle grazing over some part of the High Country can be accommodated within management plans to achieve specific goals without an irreversible deterioration in biodiversity. end of quote

It is interesting to ponder that grazing was only allowed in about 15 percent of the Alpine National Park. Many may argue that there should be no grazing in National Parks. But what about Ramsar Wetlands? Most of the Ramsar Wetland listed Macquarie Marshes is grazed and there is evidence that this is having a significant negative impact, click here for earlier blog post.

We have a very adhoc and political approach to environment protection in Australia.

Last Year: Hottest on Record!

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It is official, last year was the hottest on record in Australia. The following graph from the Bureau of Meterology shows 2005 was exceptionally warm and more than a degree warmer than the 1961-1990 average which is the standard reference period for calculating temperature anomalies.

Temp Anomalies for Australia to 2005.JPG
Many of Australia’s warmest years, including 1988, 1998 and 2002, had temperatures boosted by significant El Nino events. However, 2005 was not an El Nino year, making the high temperatures even more remarkable.

According to the Bureau:

1. Australian temperatures have increased by approximately 0.9C since 1910, consistent with global warming trends.

2. Both daytime and night-time temperatures were high in 2005. The annual mean maximum temperature was 1.21C above average (equal highest), while the mean minimum temperature was 0.97C above average (2nd highest).

3.Temperature anomalies varied throughout the year but autumn 2005 was particularly warm. April had the largest Australian mean monthly temperature anomaly ever recorded, with a monthly anomaly of +2.58C breaking the previous record of +2.32C set in June 1996.

The Bureau noted in its assessment that:

Australian mean temperatures are calculated from a country-wide network of about 100 high-quality, mostly rural, observing stations. The Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre and National Climate Centre have undertaken extensive quality checking to ensure that the temperature records from these sites have not been compromised by changes in site location, exposure or instrumentation over time.