At various sessions throughout the Week, a number of organizations and officials have articulated the reasons why water needs to be an integral part of the negotiation process on climate change and adaptation. Those reasons became key points of the “Stockholm Statement” which the assembled participants of the 2009 World Water Week unanimously supported at the final plenary session this morning.

The Stockholm Statement from World Water Week to the COP-15

Introduction: Climate change is happening and adding complexity to existing global challenges. A strong and fair agreement on future global commitments on climate change measures—both mitigation and adaptation—is crucial in order to secure future water resource availability. The negotiations towards a Copenhagen Agreement are therefore of great concern to the global water community.

The importance of water must be properly and adequately reflected within the COP-15 agreement, and in processes beyond COP-15. In recent months substantial efforts have been undertaken to ensure that this is achieved including the Dialogue on Climate Change Adaptation for Land and Water Management, the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul and during dialogues held at the Climate Change Negotiations.

Reflecting these efforts, and the urgent need to ensure that the global community is adequately prepared to respond to climate change, the following messages are conveyed from Stockholm to Copenhagen:

* Water is a key medium through which climate change impacts will be felt. Managing the resource effectively, including through well-conceived IWRM approaches and at a transboundary level, is central to successful adaptation planning and implementation, and to building the resilience of communities, countries and regions;

* Adaptation is a prerequisite for sustainable development and poverty reduction. Adaptation measures thus need proper integration within broader development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals;

* Integration of water with land and forest management is key to effective adaptation. We strongly endorse the Nairobi Statement on Integrated Land and Water Resources Management for Climate Change Adaptation; we also emphasize that water-related adaptation can and should support global mitigation actions;

* Ecosystem protection and sustainability is fundamental to adaptation and human development. We therefore urge increased efforts towards and investment in the protection and restoration of natural resources—including water—as an essential part of any adaptation process;

* Higher-quality information that is more effectively shared will strengthen responses. In particular there is a critical need for the water and climate communities to increase the sharing of information at all levels of policy and practice—from global to local, and from local to global;

* Vulnerability assessments and risk management are critical to sound adaptation practice. Knowing where and how the impacts of climate change are most likely to affect populations and ecosystems through the water cycle will help in the identification of areas for early intervention or ‘hot spots’; these include arid regions, areas highly dependent on groundwater, small island developing states, low-lying deltas and fragile mountainous areas;

* New and additional funds are essential. It is imperative that additional funding is allocated in support of developing adaptive strategies for vulnerable groups and ecosystems; there is a need for an initial mobilization of finance to assist vulnerable, low income countries already affected by climate change, followed by the establishment of a well-resourced mechanism for funding adaptation as part of ongoing climate negotiations.

Follow up
We urge the global water and climate communities to look beyond COP-15 and work through dialogue to strengthen global mechanisms that can enhance collective action on water and adaptation. These should include, but not be limited to, better sharing of knowledge and technology in support of adaptation measures in developing countries, active support for capacity building and access to improved levels of financing.

Finally, the water community expresses its commitment to strengthening institutional cooperation at all levels between the climate, water and wider development communities under appropriate mechanisms and institutional arrangements in order to work more collectively to address the immense development challenges ahead.

• 93 percent say water pollution is a very serious (72 percent) or somewhat serious (21 percent) problem.
• 91 percent believe that a shortage of fresh water is a very serious (71 percent) or somewhat serious (20 percent) problem; while
• 78 percent say "solving drinking water problems will require significant help from companies," indicating that partnerships are an important component to resolving the world's fresh water sustainability challenges.

Infographic of global water use by sector by Hannah Nester for Circle of Blue. Click for full-sized.

Perfectly illustrating this need for partnerships -- as well as for business stepping up to manage its water use responsibly -- a new report, Water for Business: Initiatives Guiding Sustainable Water Management in the Private Sector," jointly published by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), explores in-depth 16 initiatives or tools that have been developed in the last three years by business leaders, civil society and governments.

A sample of the global initiatives for water conservation. Click for full-sized.

The report focuses specifically on three main categories of water-issues:

Unsustainable water use in India is threatening agricultural production and raising the spectre of a major water crisis.

Matthew Rodell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and colleagues used data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites — operated by NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) — to determine how groundwater levels are changing in the Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, which includes the national capital of New Delhi.

Their research, published online in Nature this week (M. Rodell et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature08238; 2009), found gravity anomalies suggesting a net loss of 109 cubic kilometres of water — equivalent to a mass of 109 billion tonnes — from August 2002 to October 2008. The amount lost is double the capacity of India’s largest surface-water reservoir, the Upper Wainganga, and almost three times the capacity of Lake Mead in Nevada, the largest reservoir in the United States.

A second study using GRACE data, by scientists at the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, has found that the most intensively irrigated areas in northern India, eastern Pakistan and parts of Bangladesh are losing groundwater at an overall rate of 54 cubic kilometres per year, consistent with Rodell’s results (V. M. Tiwari et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. doi:10.1029/2009GL039401; in the press).

Groundwater depletion in northwest India is a known problem, but Rodell’s data suggest that the loss rate is around 20% higher than the Indian authorities have previously estimated.

Rodell notes that rainfall during the study period was close to the long-term climatic mean, and says that the observed groundwater depletion is unlikely to be the result of unusual dryness or variability.

The regions of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana have a combined population of 114 million people, and receive an average of 500 millimetres of rainfall per year — just slightly less than that of London — but with pronounced seasonal and regional differences. Although less than a third of agricultural land there is irrigated, crop irrigation accounts for up to 95% of groundwater consumption. “If farmers could shift away from water-intensive crops, such as rice, and implement more efficient irrigation methods, that would help,” says Rodell.

Meanwhile, the Indian government is looking into framing regulations to reduce groundwater consumption. “Hopefully,” says Rodell, “our research will give them the evidence they need to carry through.”

"We have a new energy source from rain with a piezoelectric effect with this project," Dag said at the award ceremony held Tuesday night as part of World Water Week. "I hope that my work will contribute to the development of the next generation of energy panels where rain, sun, and wind are combined."

Ceren Burcak Dag, winner of the 2009 Stockholm Junior Water Prize (Photo courtesy SIWI)

Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials to generate an electric potential when mechanical stress, such as the impact of a raindrop, is applied.

Dag used the specialty plastic polyvinylidene fluoride, PVDF, a non-reactive and pure thermoplastic fluoropolymer, to transfer the kinetic energy of raindrops into electrical energy.

The Stockholm Water Foundation and the Stockholm International Water Institute announced the prize winner to an audience that included high-school students from 29 countries who won their national competitions, qualifying them to compete for the international prize. As the winner, Dag received a US$5,000 award and a crystal sculpture.

Water issues are the planet's top environmental problem, ahead of air pollution, depletion of natural resources, loss of habitat and climate change, according to a public opinion poll of 15,000 people in 15 countries released in Stockholm as part of World Water Week.

Ninety-three percent say water pollution is a very serious (72 percent) or somewhat serious (21 percent) problem and similar percentages believe that a shortage of fresh water is a very serious or somewhat serious problem.

Pollsters did in depth surveys of 500 people in each of seven countries - Canada, China, India, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In all those countries, more than half of those surveyed agree that government is responsible for ensuring clean water. When asked whether individual citizens are responsible, responses vary widely by country, from a high of 76 percent in Mexico to a low of 30 percent in China.

People in Mexico are the most concerned about "lack of water for agriculture," while people in India are most concerned about "the high cost of water." compared to other countries.

The survey was commissioned by Circle of Blue, a Michigan-based international network of journalists, scientists and communicators focused on global water issues. Molson Coors Brewing Company sponsored the research, which was conducted by GlobeScan, a global survey research firm.

Celebrating drinking water in Yosemite National Park, California (Photo by Rex Polito)

"This research shows that across the globe, concerns about water are reaching a critical level of public consciousness," said J. Carl Ganter, Circle of Blue co-founder and director. "People think water is the most important environmental concern, in many cases more pressing than climate change. It's the axis issue that intersects the world's greatest challenges, from health, poverty and security to climate, immigration and environment, even financial and commodities markets."

Organized and directed by The Stockholm International Water Institute, The World Water Week has brought together some 2,000 participants from the scientific, business, policy and civic sectors. SIWI says the program "aims to transcend rhetoric and provide real answers to the global water crisis."

Water scarcity is in fact one of the world's most serious environmental problems. More than five million people die each year due to a lack of safe drinking water, and the United Nations estimates that 5.5 billion people will lack adequate access to fresh water in the next 20 years.

To develop global standards for freshwater stewardship, the conservation organization WWF and other nongovernmental, research and business partners Tuesday announced the formation of a Global Water Roundtable.

"Water resources around the world are in a crisis and poor water management is a major factor," said Jason Clay, senior vice president for market transformation at WWF. "The Global Water Roundtable is a pragmatic, consensus-driven way to recognize those water users who are doing their best to lessen their water footprint."

A holy day on the River Ajoy, West Bengal, India. January 14, 2009. (Photo by Asis K. Chatt)

While the Roundtable's first focus will be a series of meetings with stakeholders around the world to set standards for responsible environmental and social water use and accountability, WWF says the initiative could lead to certification for responsible water use.

Other organizing members of the Alliance for Water Stewardship, which will manage the process, include World Wildlife Fund, the Pacific Institute, The Nature Conservancy, Water Witness International, The Water Stewardship Initiative, the Water Environment Federation and the European Water Partnership.

The initiative is supported by a $1 million grant from JohnsonDiversey, a global provider of commercial cleaning and hygiene solutions.

The Stockholm International Water Institute offers statistics that underline the urgency of finding solutions to the global water crisis.

Of all the water on Earth, 97 percent is salt water. Of the remaining three percent fresh water, some 70 percent is frozen in the polar icecaps. The other 30 percent is mostly present as soil moisture or lies in underground aquifers.

Less than one percent of the world's fresh water is readily accessible for direct human uses. Of that one percent, agriculture uses 70 percent, industry uses 22 percent, and eight percent is used by households.

The world's 10 largest water users, by volume, are India, China, the United States, Pakistan, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mexico and the Russian Federation.

A child born in the developed world consumes 30 to 50 times as much water as a child in the developing world. And with rapid population growth, water withdrawals have tripled over the last 50 years.

To ensure our basic needs, we all need 20 to 50 liters (five to 13 gallons) of clean water every day.

Copyright Environment News Service, ENS, 2009. All rights reserved.

That’s because Jacobson is one of the few scientists looking at energy’s Big Picture. How big?

In an article published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science earlier this year, Jacobson reported the first quantitative, scientific study evaluating the top energy sources based on:

1. Potential for delivering adequate power for electricity and vehicles
2. Impacts on global warming
3. Air pollution mortality
4. Energy security
5. Water supply
6. Land use
7. Wildlife
8. Water chemical pollution
9. Thermal pollution
10. Nuclear proliferation
11. Undernutrition

By using each of these factors to assess ten major energy sources, Jacobson produced a list that should be the starting point in any discussion about our energy future. Here’s what he found:

The top electrical generating energy sources are (from best to worst):

1. Wind
2. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)
3. Geothermal power
4. Tidal power
5. Solar photovoltaics (PV)
6. Wave power
7. Hydroelectric power
8. Nuclear power
9. Coal (even with Carbon Capture and Sequestration, CCS)

Nuclear and coal actually tied for last place.

For powering vehicles, Jacobson produced a second list. Again going from best to worst:

1. Wind BEV (Battery Electric Vehicles)
2. Wind HFCV (Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles)
3. Solar CSP-BEV
4. Geothermal BEV
5. Tidal BEV
6. Solar PV-BEV
7. Wave BEV
8. Hydroelectric BEV
9. Nuclear BEV
10. Coal CCS-BEV (tied with #9)
11. Corn ethanol
12. Cellulosic ethanol

Jacobson’s findings are a surprising blow to backers of ethanol-based biofuels. He also had harsh words for politicians who are pouring money into this area. “Biofuels are the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels,” Jacobson told a reporter. “We should be spending to promote energy technologies that cause significant reductions in carbon emissions and air-pollution mortality, not technologies that have either marginal benefits or no benefits at all.”

Jacobson highlights the need to fund wind energy in particular. He says that the entire U.S. fleet of vehicles could be powered by as many as 144,000 five-MW wind turbines. That’s a large number. But the country has met higher production goals in the past. In WWII, Jacobson says, America built 300,000 airplanes—a far larger and more difficult job than building wind turbines.

Such a program would be a positive way to stimulate and grow our economy as well, he adds.

“There is a lot of talk among politicians that we need a massive jobs program to pull the economy out of the current recession,” Jacobson says. “Well, putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles, and transmission lines would not only create jobs but would also reduce costs due to health care, crop damage, and climate damage from current vehicle and electric power pollution, as well as provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power.”

The entire article is available here.

The program would give buildings a rating from A+ to F, with the former reserved for facilities that are net zero –- meaning they produce as much energy on site as they consume –- and the latter meant for those that are “unsatisfactory.” The labels would provide an easy-to-understand metric for owners and tenants to compare with other, similar buildings, such as office buildings in downtown San Francisco, for example. ASHRAE hopes the labels will help spur more energy-efficient design by making energy use a more visible characteristic of buildings, said Bruce Hunn, director of strategic technical programs for ASHRAE, a research and standards writing organization.

The program, called Building Energy Quotient, or Building EQ, will include ratings for all building types except residential and will roll out first as a prototype this fall, with a widespread launch scheduled for next year. Under the program, each building would be given two ratings based on energy use per square foot, per year: one related to how it’s designed, and one based on energy-use data from its operation. The two could differ as a result of poor workmanship or the use of less energy-efficient lighting or other equipment than was specified by the designers.

Building EQ wouldn’t be the first energy label for buildings. The Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program is already available for structures, and it’s widely used for identifying top energy-performing buildings. ASHRAE has made a point of saying that the organization doesn’t intend to “re-invent the success” of the EPA’s program and that Building EQ will “expand on the type and amount of information the Energy Star program provides.” But if successful, it’s hard not to see Building EQ as having significant overlap with Energy Star, and Hunn acknowledged that the new program is an “alternative.”

Building EQ is planned to be available for more building types than those currently under Energy Star (it currently omits laboratories, for example), and ASHRAE’s program would provide a more detailed label (A+ to F as opposed to Energy Star’s pass/fail). But Building EQ is also more aggressive and, according to Hunn, meant to push the building industry toward net zero. A typical commercial building today would get about a C rating under Building EQ, and an Energy Star-rated building would land around B.

The Green Building Council’s LEED rating system takes a broader approach to assessing the environmental character of a building than both Energy Star and Building EQ. LEED includes other measures besides energy, including water use, the materials used, location and indoor air quality. Under its energy category, LEED currently references Energy Star as a way to measure energy efficiency and in the future it could do the same with Building EQ.

Like LEED and Energy Star, Building EQ is meant to be voluntary. The intention with these programs is that by providing more information about the environmental impact of a building, the market will provide a premium for those structures that are cleaner and in so doing, incentivize owners and developers to seek out the rating. Matthew Macko, a principal with San Francisco-based Environmental Building Strategies, said ASHRAE has a well-established name in the building industry and a wealth of resources and that its new rating label will likely be embraced. In that regard, ASHRAE is reaching out to real estate developers to help implement the prototype program this fall. But Macko said the Web-based Energy Star program does have its benefits — it’ quick, often taking less than an hour to crank out a pass/fail, and it’s backed by the EPA, a federal agency that is widely known outside the building industry.

Building EQ’s launch does seem well timed. There are efforts afoot to make building energy labels mandatory, in which case ASHRAE’s program or an alternative could serve as a model. California and the District of Columbia are in the process of requiring labels on buildings that change ownership, and the Waxman-Markey climate bill has a labeling provision on a nationwide level.

COPENHAGEN -- When Kay Helt moved into his superefficient home on the outskirts of Copenhagen two years ago, he felt as if he had just stepped into the lifestyle of the future. His high-tech house uses five times less energy for heating than his old one, and it recycles rainwater for the toilets and shower.

Yet in only a few years, Helt's house will already be obsolete.

With various degrees of urgency, E.U. countries are moving toward requiring new homes to only use clean energy and have zero net carbon emissions, despite some real estate developers' complaints that such homes cost more to build and will be harder to sell.

The United Kingdom mandates all new homes be zero-carbon by 2016. France and Germany are debating stronger building requirements of their own. And Denmark will require all new houses to meet the "passive house" standard by 2020, meaning using 85 percent less energy and producing 95 percent less carbon dioxide than regular houses.

Such houses already exist all over the continent, some only a stone's throw away from Helt's, in a development kick-started by idealistic and determined local officials who thought the Danish central government wasn't pushing hard enough for efficient housing.

In 1977, Denmark was the first country to set what were then demanding energy efficiency requirements for buildings. But by 2003, the law no longer seemed so progressive to the local council in the county of Egedal. Since Egedal wasn't allowed at the time to set its own local building standards, the council decided to go into the real estate development business.

It bought 76 hectares of land in Stenløse, 17 miles northwest of Copenhagen, and resold it to developers and private citizens under the condition that all 750 buildings to be eventually erected there would be much more energy frugal compared to the national standards in Denmark. When finished, the development will save 630 tons of CO2 and 3.6 million kWh per year compared to a conventional neighborhood of its size.

Willy Eliasen, a former police detective, was mayor of Egedal at the time. He now serves as deputy mayor, and is spearheading the effort to turn Stenløse into Europe's largest low-energy development. "It's important that it's for ordinary people, not just rich people," he said as he proudly showed off Stenløse to a visitor.

Indeed, Stenløse looks like any other suburb, with cul-de-sacs, Danish flags hoisted on white porches, a large park in the middle, a kindergarten and a senior citizen center. People who want to move here can select a pre-approved house blueprint, or they can bring their own plan to be certified as low-energy.

The first two stages of the development, which included Helt's house, consisted of 350 buildings that were 25 percent more efficient than the current Danish building standard. Phases three and four are under construction now, with some buildings 50 percent and others 100 percent more efficient, including some passive houses.

The fifth phase will be only passive houses. Buildings in the last three stages will be equipped with 3 square meters of solar panels each.

Street lights here use low-energy bulbs. The salt spread on the roads during winter is specially formulated so as not to spoil groundwater. Polyvinyl chloride pipes and pressure-creosoted wood are banned.

It costs the equivalent of $96 per square meter more to build this way, but Eliasen is convinced that government mandates would push the price down. "Builders won't offer efficient houses unless required by law, for fear of losing clients to cheaper alternatives," he said.

But the cost of building efficient houses is dropping as contractors learn how to do it better and in less time. It took workers three weeks to build the first floor of the first house in the development. By the time they got to Helt's house, they performed the same work in two days.

Helt paid 2.3 million Danish crowns (about $450,000) for his two-story, 137-square-meter (1,475-square-foot) house -- a small premium for houses this size in his area, but a bargain compared to older houses closer to Copenhagen.

"We've chosen to live here because it fits our lifestyle," he said. "We love the fact that the house recycles rainwater, and we love the savings on utility bills. But of course we also like the fact that it's trendy now to be 'green.'"

Thick walls, shutters and a good ventilation system

Some critics say superefficient houses are too insulated, making the inside air stale. But Helt said he has never experienced this. As long as the house's automatic ventilation system is properly calibrated, stale air -- which contains too much CO2 from humans' breathing -- should never be a problem, experts say.

Helt's house has thick walls full of state-of-the-art Rockwool insulation designed to keep the temperature a constant 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit) inside, whether it's summer or winter. It is tested regularly to make sure it is airtight. The ventilation system keeps the air fresh and also takes out the humidity.

Houses face south or southwest and are equipped with thermal windows with shutters that go down to preserve heat in the winter and coolness in the summer. For a little extra money, a house can be designed to control the indoor climate automatically -- insulating from the cold, keeping heat out or providing ventilation as needed.

"We want to maintain high standards of living but at the same time reduce the CO2 emissions," said Jorgen Tang-Jensen, CEO of the Danish window manufacturer Velux, which supplies the windows in Stenløse.

"You take daylight much more into consideration, and when you talk of energy efficiency, you have to consider the building as a whole, not just individual components," he said. "Strict demands for components won't work for the whole house. After the oil crises of the 1970s, we started building with small windows. But the indoor climate was bad, and nobody wanted to live in those buildings."

Slashing heating bills by 80%

Helt said he paid only 3,800 Danish crowns for heat in his first year in his new house, compared to the 20,000 crowns he used to pay in his old house, which was of comparable size. "I had a house built in 1963 that was poorly insulated," he said. "That's a lot of money to save on heat, and I save even more by using less water, as well."

Rainwater is collected in two underground tanks, each the size of a bus. The tanks supply Helt and three of his neighbors with water for the shower and toilet, while drinking water still comes from the local utility. The neighborhood saves 23,000 cubic meters of water per year.

Solar panels and photovoltaic cells can provide hot water and some electricity. "Solar energy offers great potential for decreasing house CO2 emissions," Tang-Jensen said. "Up to 70 percent of hot water needs can be covered this way, and with a very short payback time. However, it's not financially feasible to use solar power for air conditioning."

To meet its goal of cutting 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, Britain will require all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016 and is considering plans to make all new commercial buildings zero carbon from 2019. A zero-carbon home gets the little power it needs from clean sources and on average returns to the grid as much power as it takes.

Home energy use accounts for 27 percent of British carbon dioxide emissions, with commercial buildings adding another 18 percent. If all U.K. buildings were zero carbon, the country would eliminate nearly half of its carbon emissions.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change says it also wants older buildings to be refurbished to become zero carbon by 2050, but so far, it has only proposed voluntary measures, much to the dismay of some environmentalists, as well as building material companies, which need a new source of demand after last year's real estate market collapse.

The next frontier: older houses and buildings

"We need to look into all existing buildings," said Tang-Jensen. "New houses should be built with the latest technology, but we can never escape the 99 percent of the houses that are old. Renovation is important for reducing global emissions." Tang-Jensen lobbies for incentives such as cheap loans for owners to renovate their homes and make them more energy efficient.

Denmark briefly ran one such program earlier this year, when it provided 1.5 billion Danish crowns for home renovations. The funds were quickly snapped up by homeowners.

Tang-Jensen hopes the Copenhagen climate summit, at which international negotiators will attempt in December to agree to a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol and curb world greenhouse gas emissions, will include some guidelines for green building standards.

"The codes have to be local, because climate is different all over the world, but we should put very strict limits on how much energy your house is allowed to consume," he said.

This idea resonates in France, which is proposing that all new buildings be passive houses by 2020. Meanwhile, in Germany, where the passive house concept originated in the 1980s, the new Reichstag building in Berlin produces its own energy. In Freiburg, the Solar Village features houses that make more energy than they consume, selling the surplus back to the grid.

Can the U.S. catch up?

Catching up with Europe's more energy-conservative standards would pay off big for the United States, according to a report the consulting firm McKinsey and Co. released last month. The report said the United States could save $1.2 trillion by 2020 and cut greenhouse emissions by 1.1 gigatons annually if it invested $520 billion in better building insulation and low-energy appliances.

Velux and Rockwool, another Danish company that is the second-largest insulation maker in the world, are also cooperating to build a carbon-neutral new natural sciences building for Copenhagen University. The three-story building, which is to be ready this fall, uses a combination of district heating, solar cells, solar thermal heating and cooling energy and seasonal heat storage.

"We wanted to make it so it doesn't need heating or cooling for 10 months of the year and then get a little help in January and July," Velux Project Manager Lone Feifer said. Heat stored in the summer in metal rods buried deep below the building is released again in the winter. The university had to strike a special deal with the district heating utility to return hot water back to the district system at 72 degrees Celsius instead of 75 degrees without paying a penalty.

Rockwool is also involved in building experimental low-energy houses in Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic. Since builders use local labor and Rockwool delivers insulation materials produced regionally, the cost of low-energy homes varies from country to country, with cheaper price tags in Eastern Europe than in Denmark, Rockwool said. A passive house built in the Czech Republic costs only $1,150 per square meter, according to Rockwool.

Green Party members voted down the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme because they said it was too easy on polluters. The Green Party crowed in a statement, "The CPRS bill, which was a prescription for failure in tackling climate change and included $16 billion compensation for polluters, has been rejected by the Senate."

Senator Bob Brown (Photo courtesy Office of Senator Brown)

Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown said, "The Rudd government's bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only five percent by 2020 would help lock in dangerous climate change and accelerate the melting of the world's glaciers.

Brown pointed out that the vote came the day after Pemba Dorjie Sherpa, the world's fastest climber of Mount Everest, was in Canberra, making a plea to Australia to reverse climate change, which is melting 40 Himalayan glaciers on river headwaters upon which one billion people rely.

Liberals voted against the package because, in the words of Senator Scott Ryan on the Senate floor, "This legislation will cost Australian jobs, it will not achieve its stated goals and it represents a massive power grab and a massive tax grab by a government obsessed with its own spin and with increasing its role in our national life rather than listening to the genuine concerns of the Australian people."

Senator Ryan Scott (Photo courtesy Parliament of Australia)

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was to start in July of 2011. The bill killed by the Senate requires that more than 1,000 of Australia's most polluting companies buy permits to emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, about 75 percent of national emissions.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government will reintroduce the bills in three months. "We will bring these bills back before the end of the year because we on this side understand we have to start the economic transformation we need. We will bring these bills back before the end of the year because, if we do not, this nation goes to Copenhagen with no means to deliver our targets."

In Copenhagen in December, world government leaders will gather for the annual UN climate change conference. There, they are expected to agree on a greenhouse gas reduction treaty with legally binding targets to pick up when the Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012.

In May, the Rudd Government committed to reduce Australia's carbon dioxide emissions to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020 if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal to stabilize levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million CO2-equivalent or lower by mid-century.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (Photo courtesy Office of the PM)

"Very complex, we've worked on this for a year and a half, taken it through all stages very methodically, got to the stage where we got supportive statements from the Business Council of Australia, from the Australian Industry Group, and then on the conservation side, with the major conservation groups as well," said Rudd. "It's about as balanced as we're going to get."

"But here we are, at 18 months into this Government's term, and we still have an Opposition which can't put forward its policy," complained Rudd. "And why is that relevant? Because they have the numbers in the Senate, they've blocked our legislation yesterday, without putting forward a single amendment."

Australia is one of the world's largest coal-producing nations, and coal produces more emissions and greenhouse gases than the other fossil fuels.

But the the Business Council of Australia said in a statement, "Unresolved issues in the current legislation include treatment of electricity generation, the coal industry and a number of matters involving emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries."

With the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme voted down in the Senate, the country's largest environmental group is urging the big polluters to stop undermining action on climate change.

"It is time to take the exaggerating, the point-scoring and the finger-pointing out of the climate change debate in Australia," said Australian Conservation Foundation Executive Director Don Henry.

"Big polluters should stop impeding action on climate change and start preparing for the realities and opportunities of a clean energy economy," said Henry. "It's time for the dinosaurs to evolve."

Wind farm near Albany, Western Australia (Photo by Scott Davis)

ACF will continue to push for bigger cuts in carbon pollution and remains committed to achieving an Australian target of at least 40 percent cuts by 2020 in the context of a global agreement - 15 percent deeper cuts than the Rudd Government's target.

Henry said the Australian Parliament should "strengthen national emission targets and make the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme flexible enough to respond to new climate science."

He said Parliament should also strengthen and pass the Renewable Energy Target legislation, one of the 10 related bills linked to the emissions trading scheme.

The government does intend to split the renewable energy bill off from the package and allow the Senate to debate it separately, the "Sydney Morning Herald" reports today.

Only a tiny band of skeptics support no action by Parliament on climate change while more than three quarters of Australians want the Liberals to back the CPRS legislation, a poll conducted for the independent Climate Institute shows.

"Australians are losing patience with their politicians on climate change and the support for Liberals backing the CPRS legislation remains very solid at 78 percent, up one point from May," said The Climate Institute CEO John Connor.

The Auspoll survey conducted earlier this month showed that 48 percent of voters believed the Federal Parliament was "moving too slowly" on addressing climate change, with frustration highest among women, 52%, and 18-24 years, 60%.

In recognition of this public frustration, labor, welfare, environment and research groups gathered last weekend to launch a National Clean Energy Jobs Campaign. The multi-media and grassroots campaign is supported by The Climate Institute, Australian Council of Trade Unions, Australian Council of Social Service, Australian Conservation Foundation and the WWF-Australia.

WWF-Australia CEO Greg Bourne said after Thursday's vote, "It is a travesty that our Parliament cannot deliver the certainty which communities, businesses and other nations are looking for as we move towards a global deal in Copenhagen. Only a global deal will secure a climate safe future and Australia must play its part. The failure of this legislation has left the world in a more vulnerable position."

Copyright Environment News Service, ENS, 2009. All rights reserved.

Western Australia is set to become the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas" as other deals follow the signing of a $50 billion agreement to supply liquefied natural gas to China, Premier Colin Barnett says.

The Chevron-led joint venture contract with Chinese energy giant PetroChina to supply LNG from the Gorgon development off the West Australian coast is Australia's biggest ever resources deal.

It comes a week after the signing of a $25 billion contract to supply gas to India from the same project, breaking the $12 billion record set a few years ago by the North West Shelf Pluto LNG project, now under construction.

Mr Barnett said it appeared a "whole series of projects is queuing up".

"What you are seeing now is that the future production of Gorgon is being purchased around the world - China, India, Japan and Europe and other places," Mr Barnett told Fairfax Radio Network.

"Today I'm about to go to a signing between a major French group and Santos, who are are developing a relatively small field right up off the Kimberley coast.

"That'll probably be a floating production facility as it is a small field.

"I think you'll see a whole series of projects queuing up.

"Western Australia is basically becoming the Saudi Arabia of natural gas."

Mr Barnett said he had met with PetroChina and other major Chinese energy companies during an official visit to China last month.

"We discussed (the Gorgon) contract and others and this has now come to fruition," he said.

"This is for 2.25 million tonnes of LNG a year."

He said the Gorgon project would produce many times this amount and several other contracts were being pursued.

He said while the state government had already given its final environmental approval to the project, the commonwealth had agreed on the issue of long-term liability for the carbon dioxide to be extracted from the gas.

The carbon dioxide would be reinjected below the surface as part of the largest geosequestration project ever implemented.

Mr Barnett said while the process was already being used in the North Sea, it was "world-breaking technology".

"The Gorgon gas reservoir, which is in commonwealth waters, has a 12 per cent carbon dioxide content that's naturally occurring," Mr Barnett said.

"One of the conditions is that as the gas is brought on shore to Barrow Island, the gas is separated and reinjected hundreds, maybe even thousands of metres, below the surface into a porous body that's got a sealed structure above it.

"It will stay there during the life of the project, which will be 60 to 100 years.

"The responsibility for making sure that works lies with the joint venture partners under (state) government supervision.

"When the project finishes they continue to be responsible for 15 years.

"Thereafter the state and the commonwealth government accept long-term responsibility shared 80 per cent commonwealth, 20 per state.

"As part of that we (WA) get a share of the revenues coming out of the Gorgon project.

"It's a great deal for WA".

Mr Barnett said "no-one" expected the gas to escape after it was returned under geosequestration.

"Some of it may seep to the surface in several thousands of years," he said.

"This is world breaking technology, but look, these companies know what they're doing and there is very strict scientific and technical supervision."

AAP

t is a well-known fact that China and the United States are the two most prolific emitters of carbon into the atmosphere, and hence the world’s biggest contributors to global warming. Less well known, and perhaps more surprising, is the country that ranks third on the list: Indonesia. The Southeast Asian archipelago nation has earned this dubious distinction nowhere nearly so much from industrialization as from deforestation. Since 1950, when the country was down near the bottom of the list, Indonesia has lost a staggering 40 percent of its tropical forests to logging, agriculture, and other commercial ventures. Deforestation there continues to accelerate.

We tend to think of climate change as just a matter of what comes out of smokestacks and tailpipes—an energy issue. In fact, according to the World Resources Institute’s careful tabulations, tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent or more of all carbon emissions into the atmosphere. That, says the World Wildlife Fund, is "more than the combined emissions of every car, truck, ship, plane or train on the planet." The reason is not hard to understand. Plants remove carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere and turn it, via photosynthesis, into organic matter: leaves, bark, roots, and so on. This "fixing" process is most intense in dense tropical forests, which cover only 7 percent of the earth’s dry land but store (in the plants themselves and in the rich soils below) about 45 percent of all terrestrial carbon. Chopping down the rainforests removes this carbon-absorbing buffer while releasing vast amounts of stored carbon into the air as the brush is burned off.

The alarming role that deforestation plays in climate change, and what might be done about it, is the subject of this special report. In particular, the report addresses the quest for financial systems in which the owners and residents of tropical forest properties can make more money from the standing forest than from its removal, which may be our best hope for reining in deforestation and its contribution to climate change. The term of art for this concept is REDD—Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. REDD encompasses a variety of ways in which substantial funds to protect tropical forests and stimulate sustainable development might be generated, either through carbon market mechanisms or direct payments from public and private sources.

The REDD concept is gaining traction among environmentalists, scientists, and in the halls of power. In fact, the key climate change legislation now in play in Congress, the Waxman-Markey bill, contains language that would bring tropical forest conservation into a proposed national cap-and-trade system. In effect, the legislation would allow U.S. companies to "offset" the carbon they emit by paying tropical countries and their citizens not to cut down their rainforests. A market-based system that includes REDD is also expected to be prominently on the agenda at UN-sponsored talks in Copenhagen this December, where representatives hope to hash out a new climate change treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

here are many strong arguments, in addition to carbon sequestration, for protecting the world’s tropical forests, and scientists and environmentalists have been making them for years. The trees act as anchors, inhibiting erosion. They do much to regulate local and regional climates by collecting, storing, and then releasing ample quantities of water. Clouds form, and rain ensues; when there are fewer trees, there is less rain and the region is drier and warmer. Germ plasm from wild plants protects many common food plants from disease and viruses. The remarkable biodiversity within tropical forests—the greatest anywhere—includes millions of plant and animal species we have not even discovered, let alone examined for their prospective contributions to human well-being.

Using such arguments, many conservationists of the late twentieth century tried to save the tropical forests by walling them off from human use. International organizations gave park rangers boots and rifles. Attempts were made to control logging by certifying hardwoods and other forest products as having been sustainably harvested, and to restore lands degraded as deforestation spread and "agricultural frontiers" advanced. Ecotourism ventures dependent on forest preservation were launched. The worlds of international conservation and development assistance crackled with talk of tropical forest action plans, integrated conservation and development projects, extractive reserves, and restoring the rights and management responsibilities of indigenous people dependent on forests for food and medicine. Top-down partnerships were formed between ranchers, conservationists, governments, and aid donors, with beleaguered forest dwellers occasionally making their way to the big table.

As human pressures mounted on lightly populated lands, such initiatives have met with only partial success. Ultimately they have failed to stem the tide of ongoing tropical forest loss, which roars on at the rate of one acre a second. For every Costa Rica, a plucky little country whose economic strength rests largely on a pedestal of careful land use, there is a larger-scale counterexample such as Indonesia where blatant connivance between illegal loggers and government officials stripped many forests and where oil palm plantations are now carving ever deeper into forest lands. At current rates, the world will lose about 70 percent of all remaining forests—almost all of this in tropical developing countries—within the next 200 years.

The old remedies have failed to slow deforestation because they have not sufficiently altered the basic economic fact that there is often more money to be made in cutting rainforests down than in leaving them standing. The appeal of REDD is that it can fundamentally change that equation. The idea has its roots back in the 1980s, when environmentalists began persuading Western banks to write off some Latin American debt in return for those countries agreeing to preserve tracts of rainforest, in what became known as debt-for-nature swaps. It evolved in the 1990s, when the Clinton administration created tax incentives for U.S. power companies to invest in tropical forest conservation projects in return for "carbon credits" that could be traded on the open market—an early, voluntary test of the kind of REDD mechanism that the Waxman-Markey bill would make mandatory.

These nascent efforts showed promise. But when United Nations negotiators met in 1997 to craft the Kyoto Protocol, they pointedly excluded deforestation from the carbon-trading scheme that was established there. Diplomats worried, not without reason, that measurement and monitoring would be extremely difficult. Environmentalists protested that the system would make it easy for polluters to avoid cutting back their emissions, by allowing them to use forest-based credits as offsets.

n the twelve years since Kyoto, opinions have changed—a shift Rhett Butler describes in his centerpiece article on REDD ("Big REDD"). The growing threat of climate change and the failure of other methods to stem deforestation have turned environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund from opponents of market-based REDD initiatives into advocates. Also, improvements in procedures and new technologies like GPS systems have given scientists and diplomats more confidence that a complex carbon-offset market for tropical forests can be successfully monitored and enforced.

For all this progress, there is no guarantee that negotiators in Copenhagen this December will agree on the terms of a REDD-type forest conservation initiative—or indeed on anything at all. As David Adam notes ("From Kyoto to Copenhagen"), the politics going into the negotiations are treacherous, many technical complexities with the REDD idea remain unresolved, and the chances that final negotiations will be pushed off beyond this year are growing. Reflecting continuing skepticism in some quarters about REDD, Marcelo Leite ("The Brazilian Dilemma") describes an alternative approach now under way in Brazil: a government-sponsored fund that receives grants from overseas and distributes them itself, thus avoiding sovereignty concerns and the uncertainties surrounding market-based financing mechanisms.

As if carving out a long-term climate change regime that encompasses deforestation weren’t challenging enough, there is also a desperate need to find ways to adjudicate conflicting pressures over land use so our food and fuel needs can be met without invading ever deeper into the tropical forests. In these pages, Mark Rice-Oxley reports on the search for more forest-friendly "second generation" biofuels ("Algae Soup"), while Michael Grunwald ("The Case for Big Ag") makes the case for why industrial-style agriculture, stripped of its least sustainable qualities, might actually benefit the developing world and its forests.

All of these new treaties, technologies, and methods will take time to perfect and put in place. Yet, as Paul Brown explains ("The Long Hot Summer"), time is not on our side. New scientific research shows that global warming could devastate our forests, causing the vegetation to dry up and gradually die off. As a result, these rich ecosystems would stop absorbing vast quantities of carbon and begin to release billions of tons instead. This, in turn, would accelerate global warming, causing the forests to die off faster—a vicious cycle with devastating consequences for the planet.

Put another way, our forests, whose capacity to sequester carbon has made them our greatest ally in the battle against climate change, could become one of our greatest liabilities. Whether this happens depends entirely on the choices we make now.

The move is the first major development since the Guardian revealed a three-year undercover investigation by Greenpeace in June. The investigation said leading Brazilian suppliers of leather and beef for products sold in Britain had obtained cattle from farms involved in illegal deforestation.

"The decision is good news," said Carlos Minc, Brazil's environment minister. "With government pressure on one side and with the pressure of the consumer on the other, we have started to close in on [environmental] criminals."

"It's great progress in a very short space of time," said Greenpeace's James Turner. "What this does now is really put pressure on the UK food companies. The shoe companies have realised there is a problem and taken action, now it's up to the supermarkets to follow that lead."

Clearing tropical forests for agriculture is estimated to produce 17% of the world's carbon emissions – more than the global transport system. Cattle farming is now the biggest threat to the remaining Amazon rainforest, a fifth of which has been lost since 1970. "I'd say that 65-75% of deforestation is linked to the growth of ranching," Minc said. "We are closing in on this, but it is still the sector that is most opposed to change and responsible for the most deforestation in the Amazon."

Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, who is in the Amazon on an unrelated diplomatic trip, said: "We can only get an agreement on climate change if it involves Brazil and it involves forestry. There is no solution to the question of climate change without forestry. The Amazon forest is such a beautiful place when it is untouched and then you see these scars on the landscape from the deforestation, bigger and bigger scars."

In addition to the moratorium on leather from newly deforested areas, the footwear makers have also demanded that suppliers bring in a stringent traceability system within a year, which will "credibly" guarantee the source of all leather.

Last night, one large supplier agreed to ensure that the farms it takes cattle from are not responsible for deforestation. Bertin, one of Brazil's - and the world's - major suppliers of leather and beef also agreed to meet Greenpeace this month to negotiate how to prevent cattle ranching from driving deforestation.

The Greenpeace investigation compiled field work, government records, company documents and trade data from Brazil, China, Europe, Vietnam and the US to piece together the global movement of leather and meat from Brazilian cattle.

The organisation said cattle from hundreds of legal and illegal farms across the Amazon were mixed and processed on their way to export sites, making it currently impossible to trace the origins of products. "In effect, criminal or 'dirty' supplies of cattle are 'laundered' through the supply chain," said the report. Greenpeace has asked companies to refuse to buy from such suppliers and for consumers to press supermarkets and high street brands to clean up the supply chains.

It said that some Brazilian processing companies exported products linked to Amazon destruction to dozens of blue-chip companies across the world, and named three major processors, Bertin, JBS and Marfrig, which together control a third of Brazilian beef exports.

"We all agree [preventing deforestation] is possible," Leonardo Swirski, head of Bertin's leather division, told the Guardian last night. But he warned against measures that would harm the livelihoods of the 20 million people in the Amazon region.

"If all [consumers] are not buying any products from the Amazon, they will surely create other sorts of problems." He believes other supply companies will also take action: "We have an advantage if they don't. I believe everyone will follow."

JBS and Marfrig reiterated commitments to not sourcing cattle from illegally deforested land, and all three have agreed with the federal prosecutor to reject these cattle. Marcus O'Sullivan, a director in JBS's London office, said: "We are very committed to the protection of the Amazon biome. We work closely with Ibama [the Brazilian ministry of defence's enforcement agency] and don't purchase cattle from the blacklisted farms."

Under the moratorium, the footwear companies will refuse to buy leather sourced from farms on both legally and illegally deforested land. It will be extended if the demand for credible traceability is not in place within a year.

Clarks, which is a major customer of Bertin, said in a statement: "Clarks will require suppliers of Brazilian leather to certify, in writing, that they are not supplying leather from recently deforested areas in the Amazon biome."

Timberland said: "We are grateful for the work of NGOs such as Greenpeace in exposing problems deep within the Brazilian leather supply chain."

Adidas said: "We believe that joining together with our industry partners in this effort ensures an ongoing and sustainable method to stop deforestation in the Amazon biome region."

A group of chefs, sommeliers and chateaux has issued a call to action, urging the country to secure ambitious targets in the months ahead to limit global warming.

President Nicolas Sarkozy was issued a stark choice: save French wine by clinching a deal at the international climate conference in Copenhagen this December, or see generations of viticulture slowly die out as vineyards cross the Channel and head north.

"As flagships of our cultural heritage, elegant and refined, French wines are today in danger," 50 leading names from the world of French wine and food wrote in an open letter. "Marked by higher alcohol levels, over-sunned aromatic ranges and denser textures, our wines could lose their unique soul."

Among the signatories were Marc Veyrat, a chef with three Michelin stars, Mauro Colagreco, the award-winning chef, and Franck Thomas, who was voted the best sommelier in the world. The message was also supported by a host of domains from Champagne to Languedoc-Roussillon.

Heatwaves

Climate change has been blamed for degrading French vineyards, with heatwaves, giant hailstorms in Bordeaux and new plant diseases.

The signatories say that if global temperatures rise by more than 2pc before the end of the century, "our soil will not survive" and "wine will travel 1,000 kilometres beyond its traditional limits".

"We will have new wine-producing regions in zones where one doesn't normally cultivate vineyards like in Brittany and Normandy," said Jean-Pierre Chaban, a climatologist at France's National Institute for Scientific Research, in an accompanying online film. "It will spread to Great Britain. One can imagine vineyards in southern Sweden and Scotland."

The signatories want the government to push for a global deal to cut industrialised countries' greenhouse gas emissions by 40pc by 2020 and set up "solid aid mechanisms" for developing countries.

According to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, there are now 416 vineyards in England and there are 2,732 acres of vines under cultivation -- an increase of 45pc in the past four years.

Julie Trustram Eve, from English Wine Producers, said: "There are, as far as we know, no vines yet in Scotland, although there have been rumours. It's gradually creeping up. It depends how accurate the predictions are for the long term, but some say by 2080 it will be too hot to grow grapes in southern England."

However, Roxanne Canvan Schayk, who runs a traditional fruit and flower wine shop at Lambholm in the Orkney islands, believes the French have nothing to fear. "It's far too windy for a start," she said.

(©Daily Telegraph, London)

- Henry Samuel in Paris