Globally, coal production and coal power account for 44 percent of carbon emissions annually. Credit: Bigstock

By Suganthi Singarayar
SYDNEY, Mar 11 2015 (IPS)

With less than a year to go before the United Nation’s annual climate change meeting scheduled to take place in Paris in November 2015, citizens and civil society groups are pushing their elected leaders to take stock of national commitments to lower carbon emissions in a bid to cap runaway global warming.

Industrialised countries’ trade, investment and environment policies are under the microscope, with per capita emissions from the U.S., Canada and Australia each topping 20 tonnes of carbon annually, double the per capital carbon emissions from China.

“Without changing our energy choices, we are not going to be able to act effectively on climate change.” -- Fiona Armstrong, convenor of the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA)
But despite fears that a rise in global temperatures of over two degrees Celsius could lead to catastrophic climate change, governments around the world continue to follow a ‘business as usual’ approach, pouring millions into dirty industries and unsustainable ventures that are heating the planet.

In Australia, coal mining and combustion for electricity, for instance, has become a highly divisive issue, with politicians hailing the industry as the answer to poverty and unemployment, while scientists and concerned citizens fight fiercely for less environmentally damaging energy alternatives.

Others decry the negative health impacts of mining and coal-fired power, as well as the cost of dirty energy to local and state economies.

Globally, coal production and coal power accounts for 44 percent of CO2 emissions annually, according to the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions.

Australia’s reliance on coal for both export and electricity generation explains its poor track record in curbing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reporting last year that Australia’s 2010 carbon emission rate was 25 tonnes per person, higher than the per capita emissions of any other member of the organisation.

Counting the cost of coal: The case of Hunter Valley

A report released in February by the Climate and Health Alliance (CAHA), a coalition of 28 organisations working to protect human health, concluded that the “estimated costs of health damages associated with coal combustion for electricity in the whole of Australia amounts to 2.6 billion Australian dollars [197 million U.S. dollars] per annum.”

CAHA’s convenor, Fiona Armstrong, told IPS that CAHA aims to draw attention to Australia’s health and energy policy in light of its heavy dependence on fossil fuels.

“Without changing our energy choices, we are not going to be able to act effectively on climate change,” she contended.

She pointed out that the Hunter Region, one of the largest river valleys on the coast of New South Wales, is one of the most intensive mining areas in Australia.

“It’s responsible for two-thirds of our emissions,” she explained, “So it’s a good example […] to see what the impacts are for people on the ground, [and] also to see what the contribution of coal from that community has on a global level.”

Hunter Valley produced 145 million tonnes of coal in 2013. Keeping in mind a conversion rate of 2.4 tonnes (2.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted for each tonne of coal produced), experts say that coal mined in the Hunter Valley in 2013 produced the equivalent of 348 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

According to the NSW Minerals Council, mining in the Hunter Region employs over 11,000 fulltime workers. It contributes 1.5 billion Australian dollars in wages and contributes 4.4 billion Australian dollars to the local community through direct spending on goods and services, as well as to local councils and community groups.

But these riches come at a high price.

The Hunter Valley is known for its vineyards, horse studs and farming areas, all of which are threatened by extensive mining in the region.

Addressing a community meeting in the inner Sydney suburb of Glebe this past February, John Lamb, president of the Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association, spoke about the cost of mines on local communities, and the uncertainty wrought by their inability to fight against the rampant growth of the industry.

Lamb’s Association previosly fought the expansion of the Mount Thorley Warkworth coal mine by the multinational mining giant Rio Tinto.

Dust from coal mines, he said, coats the roofs of people’s homes and runs into their rainwater tanks, polluting the community’s water supply. Day and night, noise is a constant issue.

Lamb also noted the impact of mining on land values in the area. The village of Camberwell in the Hunter Valley, for instance, which is surrounded by mines on three sides, only has four privately owned homes – the rest are occupied by miners or are derelict.

Yancoal, the owner of the Ashton mine – 14 km northwest of the town of Singleton in Hunter Valley – owns 87 percent of homes in the area.

Health risks for communities, ecosystem

Wendy Bowman, one of the last remaining residents of Camberwell village who has farmed in the Valley since 1957, is extremely concerned about the extent of mining in the area.

She lives on a farm at Rosedale, between the towns of Muswellbrook and Singleton, and she is refusing to leave the area. She left her previous farm when the dust and water pollution caused by the Ravensworth South open cut mine became impossible to live with.

In a video on the CAHA website, she says that she has dust in her lungs and that she has lost 20 percent of her lung capacity. But she is far more concerned about the health of the children in the area than she is about her own medical condition, and the consequences for the Department of Health in 20 or 30 years time.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), coal mining and coal combustion for electricity generation is associated with high emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, both of which react to form secondary particulate matter in the atmosphere.

Complex air pollutants such as these are known to increase the risk of chronic lung and respiratory disorders and disease, including lung cancer, and pose additional threats to children, and pregnant women.

CAHA states that most health and medical research on coal-related pollution focuses on fine particles measuring between 2.5 and 10 micrometres in diameter (PM 2.5-PM10), which are particularly damaging to human health.

According to the CAHA report, emissions of PM10 increased by 20 percent from 1992-2008 in the Sydney Greater Metropolitan area, an increase that is attributable to the increase in coal mining in the Hunter Valley.

The report states that while at one time the Hunter Valley was “renowned for its clean air”, in 2014 it was identified as an “air pollution hot spot”.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

An Indian farmer points to his modest plot of farmland, which no longer yields enough to feed his family. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By Sujoy Dhar
NEW DELHI, Jun 6 2014 (IPS)

Ramanjareyulu, a 55-year-old farmer from the southern India state of Andhra Pradesh, has been struggling to find his feet ever since inadequate rainfall dealt a blow to his harvest of groundnut and red gram (a pulse crop that grows primarily in India).

A man who once sustained his family of five off his small patch of farmland, Ramanjareyulu now finds himself in abject poverty, and is considering joining a massive exodus of farmers heading for the big cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad in the hopes of finding work as unskilled labourers.

“I don’t know why nature is so unkind to us,” the desperate farmer told IPS.

Dr. Y. V. Malla Reddy, director of the Bangalore-based Accion Fraterna Ecology Centre, which works with farmers in the region, has the answer to that question and is quick to articulate it: climate change.

"How do we adapt to disasters like [...] flash floods, to drought, to unseasonal rains, to multiple cyclones - all of which occurred in 2013-2014?" -- Chandra Bhusan, deputy director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment
“The farmers are now living in dire straits,” he told IPS. “Of the nearly 700,000 farmers in Anantapur [the largest district in Andhra Pradesh], 500,000 are in this situation due to a drastic reduction in the number of rainy days per year.”

All across India, similar warning signs indicate that the country is on a dangerous trajectory. From the disappearing Sundarbans (the largest single bloc of mangrove forest in the world situated in the Bay of Bengal), to the vast tracts of parched farmland in southern, western and northern India, to the plight of all those caught in the disaster-struck Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, extreme weather is taking its toll.

With carbon emissions increasing by 7.7 percent in 2012 – and CO2 emissions from coal plants shooting up by 10.2 percent that same year – the country seems to be contributing towards its own demise.

And the “worst is yet to come”, according to a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found that the highly fertile Indo-Gangetic plains are under threat of a significant reduction in wheat yields.

Currently the area produces 90 million tons of grain annually, accounting for nearly 15 percent of global wheat production, but projections indicate a nearly 51 percent decrease in the highest yielding areas due to hotter temperatures.

Such a scenario could be disastrous for the roughly 200 million residents of the plains, whose food intake is dependent on harvests, experts say.

India is also one of the 27 countries that are “most vulnerable” to sea level rise caused by global warming.

According to the Geological Survey of India, a one-metre rise in sea level is expected to inundate about 1,000 square kilometres of the Sundarbans delta.

Nearly half of the 102 islands that comprise the U.N.-protected biosphere reserve have become uninhabitable due to rising seas and coastal erosion over the last four decades.

About a fifth of the southern part of this delta complex, the heart of a major tiger reserve, is already submerged. At the current rate of erosion, scientists are predicting a loss of 15 percent of farmlands and a further 250 square km of the national park.

Increased soil salinity has resulted in miserable agricultural yields and thousands of climate refugees.

Another major red flag for India was last year’s Uttarakhand tragedy, when cloudbursts and glacial leaks caused a flash flood that swept away thousands of pilgrims and tourists in the northern state in what scientists called a ‘Himalayan tsunami’.

International legislation

Against this backdrop, Indian lawmakers are joining some 500 delegates descending on Mexico City on Jun. 6-8 for the second World Summit of Legislators organised by GLOBE International for the purpose of drafting an international climate agreement centered on national legislation.

India Ready for ‘Robust’ Stand on Climate Change from IPS News on Vimeo.

According to Pranav Chandan Sinha, director of GLOBE India, the Indian public is waking up to the realities of climate change, thus pushing the government to seek a balance between development and environmental protection.

Sinha told IPS the new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has an absolute majority in parliament, is likely to pursue sustainable development goals, in line with GLOBE International’s emphasis on the importance of wealth accounting, valuation of ecosystem services and legislative reforms.

Ever since the Uttarakhand disaster, for instance, GLOBE India has been engaging legislators from various states, particularly in the north, on the need for legislative reforms and combined efforts to tackle climate change.

The purpose of forums like the summit currently underway in Mexico “is not only to educate but to demystify international negotiations on environment, sustainability and climate change and communicate them at the national and state level,” Jayanat Chaudhary, former Indian parliament member and founder of GLOBE India, told IPS.

Although these meetings cannot hope to generate binding action, they serve to inform lawmakers who can push their respective governments to take a more robust stand on issues like emissions targets, said Chandra Bhusan, deputy director-general of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, India’s leading green pressure group.

Bhusan says India has to meet multiple challenges on the climate change front, particularly due to the centralisation of power that stymies action on a local level.

“One challenge is adaptation itself,” he told IPS. “How do we adapt to disasters like the Uttarakhand flash floods, to drought, to unseasonal rains, to multiple cyclones – all of which occurred in 2013-2014. This has been a period of extreme weather and we have to adapt to the variability,” he asserted.

“There is an energy challenge too. About 800 million people in India still cook on cow dung and firewood stoves. So we need clean energy for all and we cannot say we will not do anything,” Bhusan added.

Still, the forecast is not entirely bleak, with various local governments taking some positive steps towards accountability and sustainability.

Uttarakhand, for instance, recently became the first state in India to start tabulating its gross environment product (GEP) – a measure of the health of the state’s natural resources – to be released annually alongside its GDP figures.

In partnership with Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Economic Systems (WAVES), the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh has begun tabulating costs of timber, water and minerals.

A 2013 report entitled Green National Accounts in India also spells out the Union Government’s plans to include the value of natural resources in its annual economic calculations.

Green activists say these positive steps give India a stronger voice in the international arena, which it should use to press polluting western nations for a binding agreement on carbon emissions.

(END)

The sea level near the Federated States of Micronesia is rising by 10 millimetres per year, more than three times the global average. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, May 29 2014 (IPS)

The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), a western Pacific Island state located north of Papua New Guinea and east of Palau, has become a regional pioneer in drafting national legislation centred on climate change.

In December last year the government passed the Climate Change Act, making it compulsory for state sectors, including those responsible for the environment, disaster management, transportation, infrastructure, health, education and finance, to mainstream climate adaptation in all policies and action plans. The president is also required to report to congress annually on the Act’s implementation.

“The legislation is a first in a Pacific Island country and a small island state, so we broke new ground,” Lam Dang, legislative counsel to the Micronesian congress, told IPS.

"One alternative for a small island country to the deadlock in international climate change negotiation [is] to pass our own domestic legislation." -- Lam Dang, legislative counsel to the Micronesian congress
The legislation acknowledges the profound challenge that extreme climate hazards pose to human security and economic health. It reinforces, too, the rationale that action on climate change will only have an enduring effect if enforced.

When high tides flood coastal areas or a typhoon descends on the Pacific Island state, local – and often low-income – communities suffer the most. Thus their experiences and input were crucial to the development of the new policy, said Dang.

“The main concern at the community level is sea-level rise with the resulting loss of agricultural capacity and pollution of drinking water,” Dang said.

Most of Micronesia’s population of 104,000 live in close proximity to coastlines and are engaged in subsistence fishing, as well as farming of crops like taro, banana and yam. The average subsistence household income is close to 11,000 dollars per year.

But the sea level near the island state is rising by 10 millimetres per year, more than three times the global average, leading to more aggressive ‘king tides’ and coastal erosion. Flooding has damaged villages and infrastructure and contaminated arable land and fresh groundwater supplies, affecting thousands of people. As a result, food and water insecurity is a consistent challenge for communities and the government.

According to the Pacific Climate Change Science Program, Micronesia will experience increasing air and sea surface temperatures; rising sea levels; higher rainfall; and typhoons with faster-than-average wind speeds during this century.

The country is already vulnerable to natural disasters and endures an annual typhoon season from July to November.

Suzie Yoma, executive director of the Micronesia Red Cross Society in Pohnpei, recalled the devastation wrought by Typhoon Chata’an in 2002 when a landslide triggered by excessive rainfall tragically buried 47 people in Chuuk state. In 2004 Typhoon Sudal damaged 90 percent of homes and infrastructure on Yap Island and affected more than 6,000 people.

Small islands on the global stage

The groundbreaking reform was informed by FSM’s participation in international meetings of the Global Legislators Organisation, otherwise known as GLOBE International, whose objective is to support national lawmakers in developing legislation that promotes sustainable development.

At a time when the international community seems unable to reach consensus on a carbon emissions peak – which scientists have warned is essential to prevent a global temperature increase of two degrees Celsius – Small Island Developing States like Micronesia struggle to be heard at the global level, compared to industrialised super-powers, such as the United States, Russia and China.

Talks at the GLOBE summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012, followed by the conference on climate change adaptation in Beijing in 2013, were clear calls to action.

“It became clear after discussions with the large number of gathered legislators from around the world that one alternative for a small island country to the deadlock in international climate change negotiation was to pass our own domestic legislation,” Dang explained.

By demonstrating action with clear accountability at the national level, developing nations hope to galvanise movement towards a binding international climate change agreement that includes high carbon emitting industrialised nations. Currently, the Pacific Islands as a region produces some 0.006 percent of greenhouse gases, yet the people here are bearing the brunt of melting ice and rising seas.

The potential of global warming to increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters and their impact on human settlements, livelihoods and economic infrastructure prompted the government of Micronesia to integrate disaster risk management into its climate law.

Over the past 60 years natural disasters have affected 9.2 million people in the Pacific Islands region, incurring damage costs of 3.2 billion dollars.

Micronesia’s policy is aligned with a broader regional Pacific Islands strategy to incorporate climate change and disaster risk management into policies and legislation. Regional development organisations such as the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) have supported this approach since 2008.

Andrew Yatilman, director of FSM’s office of environment and emergency management, said the integrated policy would strengthen the operation of his division.

“Activities [related to disaster risk and climate change] tend to be carried out by staff separately, with climate change generally viewed more as an environmental issue,” he said. “We are now in the process of realigning our programme to make the two more complimentary.”

Benefits include reducing the duplication of tasks and more effectively utilising limited funding and resources.

President Emmanuel Mori has called the Climate Change Act “essential [for] protecting our nation and furthering the interests and wellbeing of our people.”

The country’s leadership will play a critical role in making that objective a reality.

“We can pass the best law but it is up to the executive branch to implement it,” Dang emphasised. “If there is enough political will, the legislation itself is very flexible and allows for continual input.”

Micronesia’s leaders have advocated tirelessly for international action to address climate change, especially at the United Nations.

At the 19^th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2013, Micronesia was a key supporter of a proposal to reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) through the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that aims to gradually eradicate substances that contribute to ozone depletion.

HFCs, manufactured gases commonly used in refrigeration and air conditioning, are believed to be highly detrimental to the atmosphere and their use is increasing by 10 to 15 percent per year.

According to GLOBE International, worldwide legislative action to date will not limit the global average temperature rise to two degrees Celsius, widely accepted by the international scientific community as the global warming safety threshold.

Micronesian leaders would like their commitment to inspire a global sense of responsibility for the future environmental fate of all nations and their peoples.

(END)

Logs stacked in Riau, Sumatra, which has one of Indonesia’s highest rates of deforestation. Credit: Sandra Siagian/IPS

By Sandra Siagian
JAKARTA, May 27 2014 (IPS)

Comprised of over 17,000 islands that are highly susceptible to rising seas, Indonesia is taking stock of its position as the world’s third leading emitter of greenhouse gases after the United States and China.

Faced with the upcoming GLOBE Summit of World Legislators, scheduled to take place in Mexico City next month to test a new international climate change agreement centered on national legislation, the Indonesian government is in a race against time to evaluate its existing climate change policies, and bring its laws in line with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s promise to slash carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2020.

The international community is largely agreed that the next two years will be crucial in determining the planet’s future vis-à-vis global warming. At the end of 2015, Paris will host the 21^st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an event scientists are calling the “last chance” for world leaders to agree on a global emissions peak.

"What we need [now] is to encourage frank and open dialogue between legislators and the government.” -- Farhan Helmy, manager of the Indonesia Climate Change Center (ICCC)
Indonesia is poised to play a significant role in negotiations, with local initiatives like its Green Economy Caucus (GEC) – a sustainable development model launched last year – offering valuable lessons for the international community.

But environmental experts here say that unless swift steps are taken to boost dialogue between legislators and government officials, the country will not advance far down its path towards sustainability.

Farhan Helmy, manager of the Indonesia Climate Change Centre (ICCC), is hopeful that the GLOBE summit will provide the basis for exactly this kind of conversation.

“The conversations so far [on climate change] have not been very well connected, even in Warsaw last year,” Helmy, who was a lead negotiator with the Indonesian delegation on climate change at the 2013 UNFCCC in Poland, told IPS.

“I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel with less than two years left… What we do need is to encourage frank and open dialogue between the legislators and the government.”

Helmy strongly supports platforms like the GEC, comprised of a team of lawmakers who are plotting the country’s transition to a green economy, including identifying environmentally friendly methods of exploiting natural resources.

According to Satya Yudha, GEC’s president and a member of Indonesia’s House of Representatives who was recently re-elected for another five-year term in office, the caucus also focuses on devising green bills, creating a renewable energy strategy, and implementing the United Nations-backed REDD+ initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

The latter, Yudha told IPS, is essential for the management of land usage and for monitoring forest conservation and protected areas.

“Seventy percent of [Indonesia’s] carbon emissions come from land usage, and 30 percent from the energy sector,” he said, adding that legislators must push parliamentarians to prioritise environmental policies when setting the government’s annual budget.

Setyo Budiantoro from Prakarsa – the local NGO that helped set up the GEC – told IPS that one of Indonesia’s biggest obstacles was its parliamentarians’ mistrust in the very notion of climate change.

“That’s why there’s no…sense of urgency for parliamentarians to act on a climate change law,” the NGO’s executive director explained. “So that’s one of GEC’s main objectives, to create more awareness.”

The case for a multi-sector approach

Indonesia’s attempts to cut emissions caused by deforestation also serve as an excellent case study on the need for collaboration between lawmakers and various government sectors.

Deforestation has been rampant here in recent years, mainly due to the world’s hunger for palm oil, pulp and paper. According to a 2013 study published in ‘Science’ magazine, the country’s rate of deforestation between 2000 and 2003 totalled roughly one million hectares a year, and doubled to two million hectares a year between 2011 and 2012.

The destruction has led to deadly flash floods, landslides and the loss of habitat for endangered species like orangutans and rhinos.

Last year Yudhoyono extended a 2011 moratorium, which barred new logging and palm-oil plantation permits under a one-billion-dollar deal with Norway.

The extension of the landmark ban on clearing primary rainforests and peat lands will preserve 64 million hectares until 2015. However, environmentalists have been sceptical that some protected areas continue to be exploited due to corruption, illegal fires and logging.

A recent Human Rights Watch report argued that Indonesia’s forestry ministry failed to “accurately map forests, land use, and concession boundaries, and did not fairly allocate use rights.”

Citing an investigation by the country’s Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the report, entitled ‘The Dark Side of Green Growth’, found that these “weaknesses were central causes of persistent corruption and lost government revenue, as well as high levels of deforestation.”

Muhammad Farid from REDD+ believes that Indonesia “needs to enforce policies from the top level to monitor all land sectors for unplanned deforestation, illegal logging, encroachment and forest fires.”

“REDD+ can’t fix everything,” he told IPS. “We need support from other ministries within Indonesia to really make a difference. Mining, agriculture, home affairs, they all need to coordinate with the government. This is not an easy task, but it will eventually be done.”

Locally, the jury is still out on Yudhoyono’s voluntary pledge to severely reduce carbon emissions by the end of the decade. Some experts, like Yudha, admit the president is on the right path, but are concerned about balancing an “ambitious” target with savvy economic policies.

Others, like Farid, are more optimistic, convinced that the right policies and incentives could put the country within reach of the goal in six years.

“If we [successfully] reduce encroachment and [improve] the state of our forests, and also…reduce unplanned deforestation and illegal logging, I think this goal can be reached,” he said.

With presidential elections scheduled for July, it remains to be seen whether or not the new government will follow in Yudhoyono’s footsteps.

“My hope is that whoever leads the country understands that we are not alone in [these] efforts,” Helmy asserted, adding that Indonesia is just one of many countries actively participating in global negotiations on climate change.

“I think the stakes for us are quite high… we have small islands and rising sea levels.”

Given that reality, if Indonesia fails to take concrete steps to strengthen its national legislation it will stop being part of the solution and join the ranks of the “troublemakers in the global society,” he added.