Humanitarian crisis persists in Somalia with malnutrition rampant in young, UN warns

A widespread humanitarian crisis persists in war-torn Somalia, with an estimated 3.2 million people, or 42 per cent of the population, in need of emergency aid or livelihood support, and one in six children acutely malnourished and requiring specialist care, according to a United Nations update released today.

UN refugee agency to facilitate absentee voting for Iraq’s upcoming elections

A large number of Iraqi refugees sheltering in neighbouring countries will be able to vote in Iraq’s parliamentary elections early next month with help from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the agency announced today.

UN appeals for donations to restore Haiti’s quake-devastated educational system

With hundreds of Haitian schools destroyed or damaged by last month’s devastating earthquake, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has launched a public appeal for donations to help re-establish the education system in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

Côte d’Ivoire: UN urges calm as violence mars voter registration appeals process

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Côte d’Ivoire has deplored recent violence in the towns of Katiola and Divo and appealed for calm as the voter registration appeals process for the upcoming elections takes place.

Funding crisis threatens UN aid efforts in Yemen

Two United Nations agencies today warned that a lack of funding is hampering their efforts to assist the estimated 250,000 civilians uprooted by conflict in Yemen, with the UN refugee agency saying it has received less than three per cent of the needed cash.

Green energy will not meet world demand, warns BP boss

By Alistair Dawber
Friday, 5 February 2010
Policymakers are fooling themselves if they believe greener sources of energy alone can adequately meet Britain’s needs for the next decade, the chief executive of BP warned last night.
Demand will not be met by the “very ambitious” nuclear programme and planned increases renewable energy capacity, Tony Hayward said.
“With these uncertainties in mind, it would be foolish to underplay the role that natural gas and energy conservation can play in reducing carbon emissions,” he added in a speech at the London Business School.
Weighing into the politically sensitive debate about energy security, Mr Hayward said the UK had coped well during the recent cold spell but argued that the “legitimate and desirable goal” of greater energy security would be realised only by more investment in infrastructure, including gas storage.
Unsurprisingly for the head of an oil company, Mr Hayward suggested that hydrocarbons would continue to play a key role in meeting growing global demand. BP estimates that global energy usage will double by 2050, requiring investment of $1trn a year.
“The share of renewable energy will certainly increase, but we have to be realistic about its contribution,” he added. “As of today, all the world’s wind, solar, wave, tide and geothermal energy accounts for around 1 per cent of total consumption. Given the practical challenges of scaling up such technologies, the International Energy Agency cannot see them accounting for much more than 5 per cent of consumption in 2030.”
Mr Hayward also dismissed suggestions that the Copenhagen climate change summit was a failure. Despite governments failing to agree to legally binding agreements on cutting CO2 emissions, the BP chief said the conference was the first time countries had agreed to head “in the same direction”, adding: “This is a huge step forward.”

Wolves good for U.S. parks, report says

Wolves should be reintroduced in U.S. national parks to help restore damaged ecosystems, according to a new report.

Researchers writing in the February issue of “BioScience” propose reintroducing small, managed populations in an effort to improve the biodiversity of many natural areas in North America.

These areas, say the authors led by Daniel Licht of the U.S. National Park Service, have been environmentally-impacted by population growth of hoofed mammals, for example elks and deer, which have prospered in the absence of “top-level” natural predators.

More wolves, they argue, would result in fewer hoofed mammals which in turn would lead to greater plant biomass and diversity.

A number of recent studies are cited to back up the report’s proposal.

According to a 2004 study of south western Montana by W.J. Ripple and R.L. Beschta, wolves influence the distribution and behavior of elks by reducing the amount of time they spend foraging in woody vegetation.

Furthermore, wolf populations have been found to provide recreational and economic benefits. A 2006 study reported that wolves in Yellowstone National Park increased visitor numbers and expanded eco-tourism spending by $35 million in 2005.

Wolf populations, say the report, should be small, non self-sustaining and be introduced for the sole purpose of restoring ecosystems where adequate numbers of prey already exist and where contact with humans can be managed.

Many of the public’s fears about wolf attacks, not only on humans but on livestock, game and pets could be allayed, say the authors, by tagging and tracking them using global positioning system technology.

According to the authors, it’s not the first time wolves have been employed environmentally.

In 1960, four wolves were reintroduced to Coronation Island in the state of Alaska to control the deer population. Although the plan was successful, their numbers weren’t managed and the population soon increased to 13 before eventually crashing.

Today, public concerns over small populations growing unchecked could also be addressed by surgery or contraception say the authors, although they concede that these solutions remain ethically and environmentally contentious.

The authors also propose the use of barriers, both real and virtual (where collared animals receive an electric shock when approaching a buried wire) to act as a further safeguard to populations running out of control.

“Variations of it [wolf conservation] are regularly and successfully used throughout the world with large predators such as lions and African wild dogs,” the authors conclude, but they admit there will be problems convincing many Americans — who view the wolf as potent symbol of wilderness — that these changes are desirable.

“The wolf is a passion-inspiring symbol to many people, but the symbolism varies and is polarizing. Restoring and managing the animal under our proposed paradigm appears doable; managing the symbolism remains the challenge.”

Source:
Cable News Network, “Wolves good for U.S. parks, report says“, accessed February 3, 2010

India forms new climate change body

The Indian government has established its own body to monitor the effects of global warming because it “cannot rely” on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group headed by its own Nobel prize-winning scientist Dr R.K Pachauri.

By Dean Nelson in New Delhi Published: 3:47PM GMT 04 Feb 2010

The move is a significant snub to both the IPCC and Dr Pachauri as he battles to defend his reputation following the revelation that his most recent climate change report included false claims that most of the Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035. Scientists believe it could take more than 300 years for the glaciers to disappear.
The body and its chairman have faced growing criticism ever since as questions have been raised on the credibility of their work and the rigour with which climate change claims are assessed.

In India the false claims have heightened tensions between Dr Pachauri and the government, which had earlier questioned his glacial melting claims. In Autumn, its environment minister Mr Jairam Ramesh said while glacial melting in the Himalayas was a real concern, there was evidence that some were actually advancing despite global warming.
Dr Pachauri had dismissed challenges like these as based on “voodoo science”, but last night Mr Ramesh effectively marginalized the IPC chairman even further.
He announced the Indian government will established a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor the effects of climate change on the world’s ‘third ice cap’, and an ‘Indian IPCC’ to use ‘climate science’ to assess the impact of global warming throughout the country.
“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism. I am for climate science. I think people misused [the] IPCC report, [the] IPCC doesn’t do the original research which is one of the weaknesses… they just take published literature and then they derive assessments, so we had goof-ups on Amazon forest, glaciers, snow peaks.
“I respect the IPCC but India is a very large country and cannot depend only on [the] IPCC and so we have launched the Indian Network on Comprehensive Climate Change Assessment (INCCA),” he said.
It will bring together 125 research institutions throughout India, work with international bodies and operate as a “sort of Indian IPCC,” he added.
The body, which he said will not rival the UN’s panel, will publish its own climate assessment in November this year, with reports on the Himalayas, India’s long coastline, the Western Ghat highlands and the north-eastern region close to the borders with Bangladesh, Burma, China and Nepal. “Through these we will demonstrate our commitment to climate science,” he said.
The UN panel’s claims of glcial meltdown by 2035 “was clearly out of place and didn’t have any scientific basis,” he said, while stressing the government remained concerned about the health of the Himalayan ice flows. “Most glaciers are melting, they are retreating, some glaciers, like the Siachen glacier, are advancing. But overall one can say incontrovertibly that the debris on our glaciers is very high the snow balance is very low. We have to be very cautious because of the water security particularly in north India which depends on the health of the Himalayan glaciers,” he added.
The new National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology will be based in Dehradun, in Uttarakhand, and will monitor glacial changes and compare results with those from glciers in Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan.

Britain and India agree nuclear power deal

Rhys Blakely, Mumbai

Britain and India today agreed the text of a deal that will allow British companies to enter the fray against Russia and France in the scramble to supply nuclear power equipment worth an estimated $150 billion.
The breakthrough, which emerged from talks held in London, comes after international sanctions that had prevented India from buying civilian nuclear technology for 30 years were lifted in 2008.
Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, said: “This is a very, very significant advance, and I look forward to that text being signed off at a ministerial level before long.”
The countries declined to give further details, but officials said it would provide “major trade opportunities” for British businesses.

India is expected to increase the power it generates from nuclear sources 100-fold in the next 40 years and American Government offials estimate that deals worth at least $150 billion will be generated.
A British Government spokesman added: “Fifty years after building the world’s first commercially operated power station, the UK is still one of the market leaders in this sector. It’s an industry that earns the UK £700 million in overseas business every year and employs over 80,000 people across the nuclear supply chain.”
During a visit to the Kremlin in December, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed a new pact under which Russia will build as many as 12 new reactors in India.
The deal, which Russian officials said was worth “several dozens of billions of dollars”, is structured in such a way that India will continue to receive nuclear fuel from Russia and keep imported equipment, even if it tests nuclear weapons.
India’s equivalent pact with the United States Government is far more stringent, calling for the return of all nuclear co-operation and return of all associated US-supplied equipment and fuel if the arrangement were to be terminated.
India was originally banned from accessing civilian nuclear technology when it tested an atomic bomb in 1974.
India has also approached Areva, the French manufacturer, over the possible supply of latest generation reactors. Areva already has a deal in place to supply India’s regional rival China with the same advanced hardware.
Much of India is regularly blighted by power cuts and with nuclear fuel in short supply, the country’s existing nuclear power plants are estimated to be running at only about half of their full capacity.
Meanwhile, India is on course to become the world’s third largest energy consumer within three decades, according to McKinsey, the consultants, after the US and China. With demand for electricity in India expected to increase five-fold in the same period, its share of world energy consumption will nearly double.

Greenpeace director tells IPCC boss Rajendra Pachauri to stand down over glacier claim

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is under increased pressure after the head of Greenpeace called for him to step down.

By Matthew MoorePublished: 7:45AM GMT 04 Feb 2010

Dr Pachauri has refused to apologise for an inaccurate claim published in an IPCC report that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035.
The error has been seized upon by climate change sceptics as evidence that the case for man-made global warming is being exaggerated, and now Dr Pachauri’s allies in the environmental movement have spoken out against his handling of the affair.

John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK, called on the Indian academic to be replaced to rebuild the “credibility” of the UN’s climate change body.
“Mistakes will always be made but it’s how you handle those mistakes which affects the credibility of the institution. Pachauri should have put his hand up and said ‘we made a mistake’,” he told The Times.
“It’s in these situations that your character and judgment is tested. Do you make the right judgment call? He clearly didn’t.
“The IPCC needs to regain credibility. Is that going to happen with Pachauri [as chairman]? I don’t think so. We need someone held in high regard who has extremely good judgment and is seen by the global public as someone on their side.
“If we get a new person in with an open mind, prepared to fundamentally review how the IPCC works, we would regain confidence in the organisation.”
Earlier this week Dr Pachauri said a personal apology on the glacier mistake would be a “populist” step.
The 2035 claim originated in an article published in New Scientist magazine which even the author has admitted was based on “speculation” rather than formal research.