Climate Panel Details Its Review Plan

U.N. Appoints Another Global Science Body to Investigate Problems in Now-Controversial 2007 Report on Warming Trend

By JEFFREY BALL
The United Nations detailed its plans for an outside review of its beleaguered panel on climate change, amid political reverberations as critics and advocates each jockeyed to use the announcement to their advantage.
The InterAcademy Council, a body representing scientific academies around the world, is to conduct a wide-ranging review of the procedures and management of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The review, to be done by August, comes in response to revelations of questionable behavior and factual errors by some scientists who contributed to the IPCC’s 2007 report, which won a Nobel Peace Prize.
The report called climate change “unequivocal” and “very likely” caused by emissions from human activity. Most scientists say the conclusions haven’t been undermined by errors in the report, but at minimum their disclosure has hurt the credibility of the report and the panel that carried it out.
Robbert Dijkgraaf, co-chair of the InterAcademy Council, said in an interview that the most delicate task will be to pick who participates in the review. The council needs people who have knowledge of climate science but aren’t too close to the IPCC: “Clearly you cannot be the reviewer and the reviewed at the same time,” he said. But people involved in previous IPCC reports could serve on the review committee, he said.
The council was set up in 2000 to advise international institutions such as the U.N. and the World Bank. The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, participated in a previous council report on energy issues, but Mr. Dijkgraaf said that wouldn’t compromise the council’s objectivity.
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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made climate change one of the top priorities of his tenure. Mr. Ban took no questions Wednesday and didn’t directly address trhe future of Mr. Pachauri, who has faced calls to resign. But the two stood together at the U.N. podium and Mr. Ban was supportive.
“Regrettably, there were a very small number of errors” in the panel’s 2007 report, Mr. Ban said. “Remember, this is a 3,000-page synthesis of complex scientific data. I have seen no credible evidence that challenges the main conclusions of that report.” In an interview Wednesday, Mr. Pachauri said he would “certainly not” resign.
Critics of proposed greenhouse-gas regulations in the U.S. have begun using questions about the IPCC as their latest ammunition. Peabody Energy Co., one of the country’s major coal producers, filed a petition last month with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s move to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions because it relies on IPCC determinations.
The EPA “relied on a study that has enough uncertainty that you need to go back and revisit this finding,” Gregory Boyce, Peabody’s chief executive, said last week. The EPA said in a statement that it is confident its move will withstand legal challenge. “The question of the science is settled,” the agency said.

The IPCC expressed “regret” earlier this year that its 2007 report erroneously claimed that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The report also said inaccurately that about half of the Netherlands sits below sea level. IPCC leaders, including Mr. Pachauri, say an independent review is needed to try to restore public confidence in the panel.
The InterAcademy Council’s board is likely to elect members to its review committee on March 22, Mr. Dijkgraaf said. He said the committee probably will include some people who have little exposure to climate science, but have expertise in issues such as quality control of data and use of non-peer-reviewed literature. The report will go through the council’s board, which consists largely of presidents of national science academies.
“Scientific reputations will rest on this, and if it can be shown the science was sloppy, their stars will fall,” said scientific ethicist Thomas M. Powers, director of the Science, Ethics, and Public Policy Program at the University of Delaware, speaking of those involved in the IPCC report. “Apart from divining rods, the best we can do is get the smartest people in the world, the people who know science, and ask them to review their peers.”
Environmentalists said that they hoped the review would quiet criticism of the IPCC. It should “restore public confidence that has been shaken by an aggressive campaign to sow confusion about climate science,” said a statement by Peter Frumhoff, who helped to write the 2007 report and is director of science and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, who is among those calling for Mr. Pachauri’s resignation, on Wednesday said that the U.S. “cannot afford to continue to base our energy and environmental policies on contaminated U.N. data.”
The InterAcademy Council will probe, among other things, the IPCC’s guidelines for using non-peer-reviewed literature in its reports, how to ensure the IPCC considers a “full range of scientific views,” and how it corrects any errors in its reports once detected, Mr. Dijkgraaf said, The council also will “look at the management of the IPCC,” he said.
Neither the U.N. nor the IPCC will “exercise any control” over the study by the InterAcademy Council, Mr. Dijkgraaf said.
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com

More than two extinct species a year in England, report reveals

The biggest national study of threats to biodiversity found nearly 500 species that had died out in England, nearly all in last two centuries
Juliette Jowit
The Guardian, Thursday 11 March 2010
More than two animals and plants a year are becoming extinct in England and hundreds more are severely threatened, a report published today reveals.
Natural England, the government’s agency responsible for the countryside, said the biggest national study of threats to biodiversity found nearly 500 species that had died out in England, all but a dozen in the last two centuries.
The losses recorded compare with a natural rate of about one extinction every 20 years before humans dominated the planet, but are almost certainly an underestimate because of poor records of any but the “biggest, scariest” creatures before the 1800s.
The high rate at which species are being lost is set to continue. Almost 1,000 other species face “severe” threats from the same problems that drove their relatives extinct – hunting, pollution, development, poor land management, invasive species and, more recently, climate change – says the report, Lost life: England’s lost and threatened species. This represents about a quarter of all species in the best-studied groups, including every reptile, dolphin and whale species, two-thirds of amphibians and one-third of butterflies and bumblebees. In total, the report records 55,000 known species in England.
“Each species has a role and, like the rivets in an aeroplane, the overall structure of our environment is weakened each time a single species is lost,” said Helen Phillips, the agency’s chief executive. “We seem to have endless capacity to get engaged about rainforests but this reminds us conservation begins at home.”
Tom Tew, Natural England’s chief scientist, called for a “step change” in conservation, including more “targeted” schemes to protect individual species, better safeguarding of protected areas and better management of land outside the protected areas, especially farmland.
“This report is not all doom and gloom, but we’re losing species at an alarming rate and many of our species are seriously threatened,” he said. “These species could the tip of the iceberg unless we take action.”
Matt Shardlow, head of Buglife, said: “The report [confirms] we are in the midst of an extinction crisis and it is happening here in England under our very noses.”
Dozens of scientists trawled records going back to the first century AD from official lists and books. They identified 492 species recorded in England that could no longer be found, all but 12 of which disappeared after 1800.
A further 943 species are listed under the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) as plants and animals under threat. These include a number of species now extinct in many counties or regions of England. One statistic that shocked the experts was a study of nearly half of English counties, which showed one plant species going locally extinct every two years.
So widespread are the problems that some once prolific species are under threat, including the common toad, common frog, common skate and the corncrake. “They are not common any more,” said Tew. “Our ancestors used to lie awake at night unable to sleep because of the noise of the corncrake.”
Four of the species extinct in England also became extinct globally: the penguin-like great auk; Mitten’s beardless moss; York groundsel, a weed only discovered in the 1970s; and the Ivell’s sea anemone, last seen in a lagoon near Chichester.
Many more English animals and plants are also on the threatened list, including the whitebeam, a tree with young leaves like “white candles”, said Tew: “That signals the start of spring; it can be found nowhere else in the world and has disappeared from much of England.”
The remaining extinct and threatened species exist in other countries, though the agency warned that reintroducing species was not reliable because the threats still remained, and national or regional extinctions led to the loss of genetic diversity.
Last year Natural England also published a report highlighting the economic cost of not protecting natural ecosystem services such as clean air, clean water, productive soils for crops, carbon storage, flood defence and natural resilience to climate change.
Other benefits were beyond value, said Tew: “Lots of you, like me, feel the worse for not hearing the corncrake in the country, or the flash of a red squirrel. When we lose wildlife we lose something priceless, and that effects our quality of life.”
The report calls for better conservation, especially following successful schemes to reintroduce or bolster populations such as the red kite and large blue butterfly.
Of the hundreds of species on the BAP list in the 1990s, seven have since become extinct but 45% are now stable or recovering. The government has also ordered a review of protected areas.
“Species loss is not inevitable; we can do something about it,” added Tew. “But we need to think ambitiously if we’re to meet the needs of this and future generations.”
This week, Simon Stuart, who oversees the team of experts that declare species globally threatened and extinct, said humans were causing extinctions faster than new species could evolve for the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared.
Winners and losers
GOING: Species facing “severe” threats in EnglandRed squirrelNorthern bluefin tunaNatterjack toadCommon skateAlpine foxtailKittiwakeGrey ploverShrill carder bumblebee
RECOVERING: Recent conservation success storiesPole catLarge blue butterflyRed kiteLadybird spiderPink meadowcapSand lizardPool frogBittern

Europe’s Road to Energy Security

Unconventional gas could free the EU from dependence on Russian gas supplies.

By GARY SCHMITT
Last week, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev visited Paris to wrap up the sale of the French warship, the Mistral, to Russia. In turn, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was able to announce that France would get a stake in the Russian-sponsored Nord Stream natural gas pipeline and an increase in supplies of gas from Russia starting in 2015.
All this wheeling and dealing is hardly the epitome of great statesmanship. Nevertheless, it has become expected as European governments seek to close the gap between their own shrinking energy resources with those provided by Russian mega-supplier, Gazprom.
But it needn’t be that way.
North America, for example, is now awash with natural gas. Technological advances in drilling and accessing “unconventional” gas sources—such as in shale and coal beds—have turned America from an importer of gas to a potential exporter. Estimates vary, but the United States likely has more than a century’s worth of this fossil fuel at its disposal.
This revolution in gas supply has obvious and significant implications for American economic and energy security. However, if these technological advances were duplicated in Europe, the result could well be a geo-political game-changer on the Eurasian landmass as well.
Although it is still too early to predict the amount of accessible unconventional gas reserves in Europe, there are many locations in Europe, including areas in Germany, Poland and Sweden, that are analogous geologically to high-return sources of gas in the U.S. and Canada. Estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy and the International Energy Agency suggest that there are over 1,200 trillion cubic feet of unconventional gas reserves. This is more than six times the conventional reserves now on hand in Europe: More than enough to supplant nearly four decades of gas imports at current European levels of use. And many experts think these agency estimates are on the low side.
The advantages to Europe for tapping into this new resource are clear. It can substantially reduce Russian leverage over its European customers, such as Germany and many of its former Warsaw Pact allies. It can also prevent the “Gas Exporting Countries Forum,” a collection of the world’s leading natural gas producers that includes nations such as Iran, Libya and Venezuela, from becoming an “OPEC”-style monopoly for gas. With the U.S. no longer in need of importing significant amounts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from abroad, the global glut has already allowed Europe to begin diversifying its suppliers and lessening its overall dependence on Gazprom.
In fact, precisely because Russia’s Gazprom risks losing a substantial share of the European energy market to Europe’s own producers, European development of unconventional gas could result in Moscow being a more reliable and pliant energy supplier. In turn, Russia still has a vast amount of untapped gas reserves but its production continues to decline due to its inability to draw investment and technology from the West. If Europe’s capitals play their cards right, they ought to be able to get far better deals for their companies in developing Russian reserves as Moscow worries about no longer being competitive in this transformed gas market. In short, if Europe follows the American lead in natural gas exploration, when it comes to who is dependent on whom in the energy supply chain between Russia and Europe, the shoe could begin to shift to the other foot.
But there is a big “if” in that equation. Will Europe actually follow America’s example?
Right now, Europe has nowhere near the drilling infrastructure or skill set that exists in North America. For example, the U.S. has somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 drilling rigs available for use in gas exploration, while Europe’s total stands at less than two dozen. Also, labor costs are far higher; competition among companies to keep costs down is far less; and regulatory and environmental standards tougher. Much of America’s drilling can take place in relatively open spaces; whereas European population density makes it more likely that governments on the Continent will face cries of “not in my back yard” from towns and individuals.
None of these issues are insurmountable, although they do likely mean that the rapid exploitation of unconventional gas sources that took place in North America will not be duplicated in Europe. That said, the fact that natural gas is a cleaner fossil fuel than coal or oil, and hence more environmentally friendly, should boost Europe’s incentive to make the most of newfound reserves. No less an incentive is the fact that, in the absence of exploiting these unconventional reserves, estimates are that Europe will require a 90% increase in gas imports over the next two decades if it hopes to keep up with domestic demand. A failure to do so will only increase Europe’s dependency on precisely those countries whose foreign and domestic policies we find problematic. But, conversely, exploiting these reserves could produce strategic windfalls that go well beyond simply increasing Europe’s energy supplies.
Mr. Schmitt is director of the program on advanced strategic studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Review of Climate Panel Aims for Summer Release

by Eli Kintisch on March 10, 2010 5:28 PM
Yesterday the United Nations announced that a panel of scientists appointed by a global coalition of national science academies would launch an investigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Speaking to reporters, Robbert Dijkgraaf, a Dutch mathematical physicist who co-chairs the InterAcademy Council, explained the outlines of the plan, but few details were available.
Dijkgraaf’s group, which represents 15 nations’ national academies of science, said the review would include a close look at IPCC’s procedures for assuring quality of data in its reports, the kind of literature used in its assessments, its review procedures, and ways it might publicize errors found in the future. In addition, Dijkgraaf said the review would look at IPCC’s leadership structure, including issues about transparency and how it conducts its affairs. No members of the review panel have been named, although Dijkgraaf said he aimed to complete the report by August—a very quick turnaround for the National Academies.
Facing reporters at the UN headquarters in New York City, Dijkgraaf ducked questions about IPCC Chair Rajendra Pachauri’s leadership or the contents of e-mails at the University of East Anglia last fall. The review would be “really forward-looking,” he said, suggesting that IPCC could “implement even better procedures for the next report,” expected in 2014.
And Pachauri? “We are receptive,” he said. “This review will help us strengthen the process.”
“Nothing that has been alleged or revealed in the media recently [about the IPCC] alters the fundamental scientific consensus on climate change,” added UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “The threat posed by climate change is real.”

An Energy Head Fake

The Administration is still hostile to oil drilling and nuclear power.
President Obama used his January State of the Union speech to promise “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants” and “new offshore areas for oil and gas development.” Judging by its recent decisions, we’d say his Cabinet hasn’t received the memo.
Congress’s ban on offshore drilling expired in September 2008, and a Bush Administration plan for leasing the energy-rich Outer Continental Shelf was due to begin this year. Yet within a month of taking office, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar halted leasing by extending the public comment period by six months. When that period ended last September, Interior said it would take “several weeks” to analyze the results. It has yet to release a summary.
Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions group used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain Interior emails suggesting that the public comments ran 2-to-1 in favor of drilling. Instead of acknowledging this, Mr. Salazar last week informed Congress he was scrapping the Bush plan and that leasing will not begin for at least another two years.
The Administration failed to meet a deadline last month for submitting a court-ordered analysis of the environmental impact of new leases off the Alaskan coast. And in January, Mr. Salazar rebuffed Virginia’s request—endorsed by its governor and legislature—to allow drilling offshore. Sensing a pattern?
Onshore, meanwhile, Interior canceled oil and gas leases on 77 parcels of federal land in Utah (a handful have since been reinstated). Mr. Salazar also yanked eight parcels from a lease sale in Wyoming. Several weeks ago a leaked Interior Department memo disclosed plans to have Mr. Obama use executive power—under the Antiquities Act—to designate 10 million acres of western land as “monuments,” putting them off-limits to energy development as well as current timber or mining work.
As for nuclear power, Mr. Obama has promised an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia. However, Mike Morris, the CEO of American Electric Power, explained at a recent Wall Street Journal energy conference that while loan guarantees were a “nice thing,” they were meaningless in the absence of regulatory certainty.
Only five of 50 states have what Mr. Morris calls nuclear-friendly “enabling” legislation that might convince corporate boards to commit capital to a long-term project. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, despite adopting a streamlined licensing process in 2005, hasn’t issued key rules.
The Administration also sent mixed signals last week by putting the kibosh on Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste disposal. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has convened yet another “blue ribbon” panel on nuclear waste, which will probably have the half-life of uranium. Companies are already suing the feds for failing to meet legal obligations to collect waste, and the end of Yucca is one more reason for utilities to avoid making large capital bets amid uncertain government policy.
The President says he wants new supplies of home-grown energy, but the government’s actions suggest continuing hostility to oil drilling and nuclear power. GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has been promoting a deal in which Republicans would endorse cap and trade in return for Democrats agreeing to more oil drilling and more nuclear plants. He appears to be selling a bridge to nowhere.

Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts

The IUCN lists west African giraffes as an endangered species. Conservationists say the rate of new species is slower than diversity loss. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve, one of the world’s experts on biodiversityhas warned.

Conservation experts have already signaled that the world is in the grip of the “sixth great extinction” of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.

However until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.

Speaking in advance of two reports next week on the state of wildlife in Britain and Europe, Simon Stuart, chair of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature – the body which officially declares species threatened and extinct – said that point had now “almost certainly” been crossed.

“Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there’s no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it’s inevitable,” said Stuart.

The IUCN created shock waves with its major assessment of the world’s biodiversity in 2004, which calculated that the rate of extinction had reached 100-1,000 times that suggested by the fossil records before humans.

No formal calculations have been published since, but conservationists agree the rate of loss has increased since then, and Stuart said it was possible that the dramatic predictions of experts like the renowned Harvard biologist E O Wilson, that the rate of loss could reach 10,000 times the background rate in two decades, could be correct.

“All the evidence is he’s right,” said Stuart. “Some people claim it already is that … things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, all getting worse. But we haven’t measured extinction rates again since 2004 and because our current estimates contain a tenfold range there has to be a very big deterioration or improvement to pick up a change.”

Extinction is part of the constant evolution of life, and only 2-4% of the species that have ever lived on Earth are thought to be alive today. However fossil records suggest that for most of the planet’s 3.5bn year history the steady rate of loss of species is thought to be about one in every million species each year.

Only 869 extinctions have been formally recorded since 1500, however, because scientists have only “described” nearly 2m of an estimated 5-30m species around the world, and only assessed the conservation status of 3% of those, the global rate of extinction is extrapolated from the rate of loss among species which are known. In this way the IUCN calculated in 2004 that the rate of loss had risen to 100-1,000 per millions species annually – a situation comparable to the five previous “mass extinctions” – the last of which was when the dinosaurs were wiped out about 65m years ago.

Critics, including The Skeptical Environmentalist author, Bjørn Lomborg, have argued that because such figures rely on so many estimates of the number of underlying species and the past rate of extinctions based on fossil records of marine animals, the huge margins for error make these figures too unreliable to form the basis of expensive conservation actions.

However Stuart said that the IUCN figure was likely to be an underestimate of the problem, because scientists are very reluctant to declare species extinct even when they have sometimes not been seen for decades, and because few of the world’s plants, fungi and invertebrates have yet been formally recorded and assessed.

The calculated increase in the extinction rate should also be compared to another study of thresholds of resilience for the natural world by Swedish scientists, who warned that anything over 10 times the background rate of extinction – 10 species in every million per year – was above the limit that could be tolerated if the world was to be safe for humans, said Stuart.

“No one’s claiming it’s as small as 10 times,” he said. “There are uncertainties all the way down; the only thing we’re certain about is the extent is way beyond what’s natural and it’s getting worse.”

Many more species are “discovered” every year around the world, than are recorded extinct, but these “new” plants and animals are existing species found by humans for the first time, not newly evolved species.

In addition to extinctions, the IUCN has listed 208 species as “possibly extinct”, some of which have not been seen for decades. Nearly 17,300 species are considered under threat, some in such small populations that only successful conservation action can stop them from becoming extinct in future. This includes one-in-five mammals assessed, one-in-eight birds, one-in-three amphibians, and one-in-four corals.

Later this year the Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to formally declare that the pledge by world leaders in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met, and to agree new, stronger targets.

Despite the worsening problem, and the increasing threat of climate change, experts stress that understanding of the problems which drive plants and animals to extinction has improved greatly, and that targeted conservation can be successful in saving species from likely extinction in the wild.

This year has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity and it is also hoped that a major UN report this summer, on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, will encourage governments to devote more funds to conservation.

Professor Norman MacLeod, keeper of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum in London, cautioned that when fossil experts find evidence of a great extinction it can appear in a layer of rock covering perhaps 10,000 years, so they cannot say for sure if there was a sudden crisis or a build up of abnormally high extinction rates over centuries or millennia.

For this reason, the “mathematical artifacts” of extinction estimates were not sufficient to be certain about the current state of extinction, said MacLeod.

“If things aren’t falling dead at your feel that doesn’t mean you’re not in the middle of a big extinction event,” he said. “By the same token if the extinctions are and remain relatively modest then the changes, [even] aggregated over many years, are still going to end up a relatively modest extinction event.”

Source:
The London Guardian, “Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts“, accessed March 8, 2010

Today on New Scientist: 10 March 2010

All today’s stories from newscientist.com at a glance, including: the (accidental) origin of species, why food kills but flab protects, and why women with good genes might get more sex

Alien v predator: moth out to kill Japanese knotweed

Chosen insect feeds on invasive species but not other closely related plants and crops

The Guardian, Tuesday 9 March 2010

Biological warfare is to be declared on an alien invader, Japanese knotweed, that swamps gardens and rivers, with the release of an insect to eat the virulent weed.
The decision by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is the first allowing one non-native species, a flying insect resembling a miniature moth, to control the seemingly unstoppable spread of an alien plant.

Huw Irranca-Davies on introducing an insect predator to attack Japanese knotweed Link to this audio
However, it is likely to cause concern among wildlife lovers because of a long history of human interventions in the natural world ending in failure, and sometimes causing worse problems than the original, as with the cane toad in Australia.
In a public consultation by Defra last year about 20 responses opposed the scheme, though 42 were in favour.
The wildlife minister, Huw Irranca-Davies, said the fast-growing Japanese knotweed was estimated to cost £150m a year to control, and was able to grow through buildings and roads.
Fallopia japonica has also been blamed for flooding, by causing erosion to river banks and clogging up streams with dead plants.
“This project is not only ground-breaking, it offers real hope that we can redress the balance,” said Irranca-Davies.
Experts estimated in 2003 that it would cost £1.5bn to fund a physical clearance campaign for Japanese knotweed.
Laboratory tests were started on pests from Japan which control the knotweed by feeding on sap from its stems, causing the plant to die back.
The tests showed the chosen Aphalara itadori did not eat any other species, including closely related British plants and important crops.
The psyllids – or plant-jumping lice, which grows to only 2-2.5mm – will be released at two sites initially, under close supervision.
If these outdoor trials are a success the trials will be extended to another six sites, none of which Defra will disclose.
The concept is similar to biological pest control practised by some farmers, using predator insects to control crop pests. The non-native predatory beetle Rhizophagus grandis was also released in Britain under licence in the mid-1980s to tackle the invasive alien spruce bark beetle (Dendroctonus micans).
On conservation and wildlife internet forums, opponents of the idea said they feared the impact on other native wildlife, for example species that might start feeding on the psyllids. One blogger compared the risk to the traditional nursery rhyme “I know an old lady who swallowed a fly” in reference to the long pursuit of one animal to destroy another – ending in the lady swallowing a horse: “She’s dead of course.” The Global Invasive Species Programme said that despite a few well-known failures, a third of biological control programmes to tackle pests and weeds were judged successes, and the system was often considered more “permanent, efficient, environmentally sustainable and relatively cheap” than using chemicals or mechanical removal.
“While there are some risks, which still may be considered by some to be unacceptable, biological control is increasingly viewed as being the preferred management strategy for invasive species, wherever possible, and in the case of biological weed control specifically, it has an enviable safety record,” said Sarah Simons, Gisp’s executive director.
Japanese knotweed, which is native to Japan, Taiwan and China, was introduced by botanists into Britain in the 19th century as an ornamental plant. It grows at up to a metre a month, and a fragment of just 0.8 grams can grow into a new plant. Invasive predators have become a global problem and are among the top causes of global species threats and extinctions according to conservation experts.
The Royal Horticultural Society suggests gardeners destroy knotweed using glyphosate-based weed-killers or by digging out the roots and cutting back regrowth, however it warns that the process can take several seasons. Experts stress that uprooted plants must be destroyed carefully to avoid spreading. “Eradication requires steely determination,” says the RHS.

UK import emissions are the highest in Europe, figures show

Study finds 253m tonnes of CO2 are released annually in the manufacture of products bound for UK shores - mostly in the developing world

Ian Sample, science correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 March 2010 20.00 GMT
Britain’s demand for imported goods is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions abroad than any other European country, according to a new study published today.
The report shows that 253m tonnes of carbon dioxide are released overseas each year in the manufacture of products bound for UK shores, the equivalent of 4.3 tonnes per person. The average Briton’s carbon footprint is 9.7 tonnes, not including emissions from goods.
Only the US and Japan have higher emissions linked to their imports, at 699m tonnes and 284m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year respectively, the study found.
The majority of the emissions are released in rapidly industrialising parts of the developing world, such as China and India.
The study, by scientists at the Carnegie Institute of Washington in California, highlights the unresolved issue of responsibility for carbon dioxide that is released to make products for foreign markets.
Under the Kyoto protocol, emission targets apply to the country where the gases are produced. But China has so far resisted binding emissions targets, as it does not accept responsibility for emissions associated with making goods that are exported to wealthy nations.
Previous studies, by the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research last year and Oxford University in 2007, have found that the UK is “outsourcing” much of its carbon emissions for the manufacture of goods to China.
For this study, Steven Davis and Ken Caldeira used published data on international trade from 2004 to build up a picture of how goods moved between 113 countries or regions and 57 industrial sectors, including machinery, vehicles, chemicals and food. By allocating carbon emissions to products and sources, they calculated the net emissions linked to countries imports and exports.
“Instead of looking at carbon dioxide emissions only in terms of what is released inside our borders, we also looked at the amount of carbon dioxide released during the production of the things that we consume,” said Caldeira.
Over one-third of the carbon emissions linked to goods used in many European countries were actually released in developing countries, the study shows. Imports to Germany and France were responsible for 233m tonnes and 170m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions abroad respectively. Switzerland “outsourced” more than half of its carbon dioxide emissions, according to the report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“Just like the electricity you use in your home, we found that products imported by the developed countries of western Europe, Japan and the US cause substantial emissions in other countries, especially China,” said Davis. Nearly one-quarter of China’s annual carbon dioxide emissions, some 1.4bn tonnes, come from the manufacture of products and services that are ultimately exported, the report adds.
Jan Minx, an expert in environmental economics at the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, said the study’s system of attributing emissions - based on which country’s consumption causes emissions rather than the country where the emissions are released - can help identify when international agreements to cut greenhouse gas emissions are being undermined. Some countries, the UK included, are increasingly becoming service-based economies, but they still import goods from countries that rely heavily on fossil fuels and have no binding emissions targets. “It’s not intentional, but it can have a detrimental effect on international agreements,” Minx said.
Obliging countries to cut carbon emissions beyond their national borders is fraught with political and practical difficulties, but this should not stop import-related emissions being taken into consideration in negotiations to cut emissions, Minx said. “It’s most feasible for a country to reduce emissions on their own territory, but this kind of accounting system can provide extra information for policymakers,” he added.
Adopting such an accounting system for greenhouse gas emissions could be fairer to developing countries, such as China and India, which rely heavily on fossil fuels to manufacture products for wealthy foreigners, the researchers said.
“Apart from an opportunity to inform effective climate policy, consumption-based accounting of emissions provides grounding for ethical arguments that the most developed countries - as the primary beneficiaries of emissions and with greater ability to pay - should lead the global mitigation effort,” the authors write.

South African tourism minister nominated for top UN climate job

Marthinus van Schalkwyk is a candidate to take over from United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer, who announced his resignation last month

Damian Carrington and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Monday 8 March 2010 16.48 GMT
The South African president’s office today announced the nomination of its tourism minister for the United Nations‘ top climate post.
The office said Marthinus van Schalkwyk is a candidate to lead the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The current post holder, Yvo de Boer, announced his resignation in February and will step down on 1 July to take up a post with consultancy firm KPMG.
Van Schalkwyk was South Africa’s former minister for environmental affairs and tourism until May 2009, when the ministry was split. He succeeded former South African president FW de Klerk as leader of the National party in 1997 and presided over its dissolution and merger with the ruling African National Congress in 2005.
De Boer and others have stated that a binding global deal to tackle climate change will not be reached this year at the main annual UNFCCC event in December. That elevates the importance of the 2011 meeting, which will be held in South Africa, perhaps boosting van Schalkwyk’s chances.
But there will be other candidates. Reports from India suggest that the environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, is supporting the candidacy of environment secretary, Vijai Sharma, who is also said to have the support of China. Alongside Brazil, India, China and South Africa - also known as the Basic group of nations - were seen to be the key drivers behind the Copenhagen accord, the weak agreement that emerged from the last UN climate summit in December.
The appointment is made by the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, from a private shortlist, which he discusses with representatives from around the world.