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When government extension agents first came to Juan Bautista's Yucatan village of Chun-Yah, a tiny pueblo in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, they told him he should start growing pitaya, also known as dragonfruit. Originating in Meso-America, this cactus is now cultivated in parts of Asia, Australia, and Israel. The fruit is tasty, the plant is easily propagated, and it thrives in places with long dry seasons like the Yucatan.

Bautista and other farmers in Chun-Yah followed the agronomists' instructions, clear-cutting nearby forests and building elaborate trellis systems made of concrete and wire to support the vine-like pitaya. Soon after the project began, the funding to maintain those trellises disappeared. The agronomists were at a loss as to how pitaya could be grown otherwise, and they left Chun-Yah. That was 15 years ago.

Rather than give up on pitaya, which by now was their main cash crop, the farmers of Chun-Yah decided to grow it in their milpas, the traditional Mayan field.

Bautista's milpa is no longer an ordinary farm field - it is an intensively managed forest garden, a food-producing ecosystem built in nature's image.

In traditional Mayan agriculture, maize has been the milpa's main crop. But numerous sister crops also provide balance to both the farmer's diet and the milpa ecosystem itself: beans, squash, melons, chiles, medicinal plants, pineapple, trees for fruit and lumber, plus the myriad fauna that call the milpa their home.

So what did Juan Bautista and the farmers of Chun-Yah do differently once the agronomists left? They essentially exchanged concrete trellises for living ones.

Pitaya is an epiphyte, meaning that it pulls moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, and debris that collects on the host plant, on which it depends for structural support. Instead of clear-cutting forest to plant pitaya, the farmers cut trees selectively, leaving Mexican Cedar and other lumber-producing tree crops for later harvest. They then select the host trees on which pitaya will grow, cutting them at head height to allow for easy harvesting of the dragonfruit. The host trees remain alive, their roots holding soil in place while bringing up nutrients from the sub-soil. Regular pruning of the trees provides mulch for other crops. The farmers plant pitaya and other food crops into this living forest system - a well-planned, well-managed agro-ecological system.

There is no irrigation in Chun-Yah. Other than a little fertilizer for the host trees, the only input is the knowledge and labor of farmers who have created this forest ecosystem. Growing pitaya on the concrete trellises was fine, but the only crop produced was the pitaya. Growing pitaya in the polyculture of the milpa means that Juan Bautista gets his cash crop plus all the benefits the milpa brings, with little drop in yield.

There are three main pitaya harvests between June and October. Through the Chun-Yah cooperative, Bautista sells his fruit locally in Quintana Roo. On his three hectares he harvests around 12 tons of dragonfruit per year. At $1/kilo, he's earning $12,000 annually, almost double Mexico's median annual household income of $7,297. And all that food coming from his milpa means a lower grocery bill than most city dwellers.

Thanks to their ingenuity, the farmers of Chun-Yah haven't had to leave their farms to work in el norte, and they are able to live comfortably on several hectares each.

And those agronomists who left 15 years ago? They have returned to learn how to grow pitaya from the farmers of Chun-Yah. Which is proof that these Mayan villages and their ancient agricultural arts are not just vestiges of a lost way of life; they are crucial models that could teach us "moderns" how to farm in ways that work with, not in spite of, our surrounding ecosystems.

Fred Bahnson is a Kellogg Food & Society fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. His writing has appeared in Orion, The Sun, and Best American Spiritual Writing 2007 (Mariner). He lives with his wife and two sons on a farm in Transylvania County, North Carolina.

This article originally appeared on the Worldwatch Institute blog Nourishing the Planet. For permission to republish this report, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org. 

For the past five years, Worldwatch has explored the history, production method, and environmental and social impacts of everyday products - from chopsticks to pencils - in the Life-Cycle Studies section of its bi-monthly magazine, World Watch. This print-exclusive content is now available for free to Eye on Earth readers. Look for a new study every Friday! 

Overview

The dirty business of laundry has long sought improvements over old-fashioned soap and water. The Celts washed their clothing in human urine. The launderers of ancient Rome rubbed a claylike soil known as "fuller's earth" into their stained togas. During the Renaissance, books of "secrets" circulated through Europe, offering such household stain-removal concoctions as walnuts and turpentine.

Modern dry cleaning is credited to a Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Jolly, who in the mid-19th century realized the stain-removal potential of kerosene when his maid accidently spilled a canful onto his soiled tablecloth. Hydro­carbon-based solvents prevailed thereafter until the 1960s, when flammability concerns and the affordability of new synthetic chemicals led to a switch. Tetrachloroethylene, also known as perchloroethylene ("perc"), became the preferred solvent among most of the world's dry cleaners.

An estimated 180,000 dry cleaners worldwide are believed to use perc. More than 30,000 small- and large-scale operations are based in the United States alone. The rise of service economies in the developing world will likely increase demand for dry cleaning, although many countries are shifting toward more casual office dress codes.

Process

The typical dry cleaner uses a combined washing machine/clothes dryer. A rotating stainless-steel basket holds the laundry while a circulating outer shell sprays solvent throughout the clothing. The machine extracts the solvent, recovering nearly all of it for further use.

Although much of the perc is recycled during dry cleaning, some solvent inevitably evaporates into the surrounding air. The cleaning process also leaves a sludge-like byproduct that contains solvent residue, and only a relatively small portion of this is properly treated; most is mixed with other waste products and burned in incinerators and cement kilns.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies perc as a probable human carcino­gen. Those who work in or live near dry cleaning facilities are exposed to various cancer risks, according to the World Health Organization, including bladder, throat, and lung cancer. Damage to the liver, kidneys, nervous system, and memory is a threat as well, according to the U.S. National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

Perc pollution contributes to the formation of smog. The toxin can also accumulate in water resources; U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists have detected perc at measurable concentra­tions in nearly 1 in 10 tested wells drawing on major aquifers across the country.

Mitigation and Alternatives

Advances in dry cleaning machinery have led dry cleaners in the United States to cut their solvent use by 80 percent in the past decade, according to the Dry Cleaning and Laundry Institute. Still, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the country's dry cleaners released some 10,000 tons of perc in 2006.

The European Union, Australia, and Canada have imple­mented regulations to further limit perc releases and mini­mize its use. California has passed the only perc phase-out, requiring that dry cleaners transition to alternatives by 2023, but many large dry cleaners have avoided regulation by moving their operations to Mexico.

About half of garments dry-cleaned with perc may instead be cleaned with a process known as "wet cleaning." The technique combines old methods (biodegradable soap and water) with new technologies such as computer-controlled dryers and stretching machines. Another alternative, immersion in liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), has been commercially available for the past decade. The Union of Concerned Scientists considers the process beneficial to the climate: The CO2 is nearly all recaptured, and it requires less energy than traditional dry cleaning.

Consumers seeking alternatives can also remove many stains with household substances such as baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, or cornstarch.

Ben Block is the staff writer for World Watch. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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For the past five years, Worldwatch has explored the history, production method, and environmental and social impacts of everyday products - from chopsticks to pencils - in the Life-Cycle Studies section of its bi-monthly magazine, World Watch. This print-exclusive content is now available for free to Eye on Earth readers. Look for a new study every Friday! 

Overview

Microbes: Can't live with them, can't live without them. We focus more on the first of these truths, as shown by the huge sums spent every year on preventing, treating, and researching infectious diseases. But the second is equally valid: Each human body contains at least 10 times as many microbes as human cells. The human gut alone contains about 1 kilogram of bacteria indispensable to digestion.

But sometimes microbes get out of hand, triggering everything from athlete's foot to influenza pandemics that kill tens of millions, and for millennia humans have sought ways to control them. People have tried everything from prayer, to natural biocides (Ötzi, the 5,300-year-old hunter found frozen in an Alpine glacier in 1991, carried fungal oils to treat intestinal parasites), to cautery (scorching wounds with a hot iron).

The results were mixed at best. Then, in 1929, Alexander Fleming noticed a clear zone on an agar plate of staphylococci bacteria "contaminated" with Penicillium mold. Ten years later, Ernst Chain and Howard Florey found a way to isolate the active ingredient. Penicillin was used to treat infections in World War II and was commercialized immediately afterward. From this accidental beginning, the global anti-infective market has grown to nearly US$70 billion a year; antibiotics account for about half.

Production

Producing mass quantities of antibiotics requires a bioindustrial fermentation technique. The source microorganisms, usually genetically modified strains of naturally occurring microbes, are grown in enormous vats of liquid growth mediums under carefully controlled conditions. The antibiotic compounds are actually metabolites of the microbes; these compounds are isolated, often using various organic solvents, then extracted, purified, and refined into one of several drug forms.

Impacts

The chief downstream impacts of antibiotic use involve antibiotic resistance. Resistance is natural; microbes that produce antibiotics do so to stave off competition from other microbes, which in turn evolve to escape harm. This co-evolutionary dance is expanded and accelerated by the immense scale of human antibiotic use - and misuse.

Antibiotic resistance developed almost immediately after commercial production of antibiotics began in 1946. It has since become a major threat to the control of pathogens, nearly all of which are resistant to one or more standard antibiotics. Resistant pathogens have become common in institutional settings such as hospitals and nursing homes; according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, about 70 percent of common hospital infections are resistant to at least one antibiotic. One of the most common institutional microbes, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, kills more people in the United States each year than AIDS.

Microbes' inherent tendency to develop antibiotic resistance is aggravated by human actions. For example, microbe resistance genes are sometimes used as markers in genetically modified crops and wind up in the products made from them. Antibiotics are often misused in medical settings, as when patients demand antibiotics for viral infections, against which they are useless. Even when the prescribed antibiotics are appropriate, patients often fail to use them properly. Both practices increase antibiotic resistance.

Perhaps most important, nearly 70 percent of U.S.-produced antibiotics and related drugs are fed to livestock to promote growth and prevent sickness. These uses help create resistant pathogens that can reach people directly via the meat and byproducts or indirectly via feedlot runoff that contaminates streams and groundwater. Antibiotics are also sprayed on fruit and vegetable crops, and the plants can absorb antibiotics from manure used as fertilizer.

These problems and others-there is some evidence, for instance, that the misuse of antibiotics has contributed to the increase in childhood asthma and allergies-have led the European Union to ban the nontherapeutic use of antimicrobial drugs in livestock. To date the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has declined to do so.

Tom Prugh is the editor of World Watch. He can be reached at tprugh@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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The Nourishing the Planet team is exploring the latest approaches to food security in Africa through a series of interviews with policy makers, politicians, non-profit and organizational leaders, journalists, celebrities, chefs, musicians, and farmers. These leaders' thoughts - and hopes - for agricultural development in Africa will be available in a series posted on the Nourishing the Planet blog and Eye on Earth.

Worldwatch Senior Researcher Danielle Nierenberg last week met the new U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray, and discussed how to best develop the agricultural sector of a country facing political turmoil, severe unemployment, and high food prices. Click here for the full interview.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the global credit crunch and decreased energy demand in many countries, more wind energy was installed last year than ever before.

Wind power capacity worldwide increased 31 percent in 2009, with an additional 37,500 megawatts installed, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). In 2008, the previous record-setting year, an estimated 27,051 megawatts were installed.

The United States led installations in 2008, but China emerged as the wind power leader in 2009. The rapidly industrializing country doubled its wind generation capacity for the fifth consecutive year, adding some 13,000 megawatts, or a third of installations worldwide in 2009. China installed 6,300 megawatts in 2008.

"China is not waiting to revamp its clean energy economy," said Virginia Sonntag-O'Brien, head of the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) secretariat, at the Renewable Energy Technology Conference last week in Washington, D.C. "Things are happening in China now at a pace that has everyone spinning."

China's wind energy boom suggests that the government considers renewable energy as a long-term investment for the country's development. Many of the installations boast a generation capacity that currently exceeds local electricity demands. "The Chinese have finally found an industry where they can build far into the future and not have all of that [production] absorbed," said Louis Schwartz, president of China Strategies, a consulting firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The United States continues to lead the world in total installed wind capacity, adding nearly 10,000 megawatts in 2009, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). After beginning the year with fears that wind power development would drop by 50 percent, the industry nearly tied with the natural gas industry as the leading source of new electricity generation in the country. The two industries combined accounted for some 80 percent of U.S. capacity additions.

"We are, for the last several years in a row, seeing this sector take off in manufacturing and added electricity capacity," said AWEA CEO Denise Bode in a conference call with reporters. "We are one of the only bright spots in this economy."

In Europe, wind energy prevailed as the continent's most popular new source of electricity generation for the second year in a row. The European Wind Energy Association estimates that the region installed 10,048 megawatts of new wind power capacity in 2009.

Overall, clean energy investments, not limited to renewable energy, totaled $145 billion in 2009 - 6.5 percent less than the all-time high of $155 billion in 2008, according to New Energy Finance. While many venture capitalists and private equity firms closed their wallets to energy investments, governments worldwide supported renewables as part of national economic recovery plans.

The resiliency of clean technology investments in the face of the economic downturn demonstrates that the sector has become the "third leg of the venture capital stool, right alongside information technology and life sciences," said Ira Ehrenpreis, a general partner with the investment firm Technology Partners. "It's the fastest growing [investment sector] in venture capital."

GWEC estimates that the 158,000 megawatts of wind energy installations worldwide employ some 500,000 people and avoid emissions of 204 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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Among the few policy agreements to emerge from December's United Nations climate summit was recognition of the "immediate" need to sequester more greenhouse gases in forests through a mechanism known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD. 

The Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding document drafted by Brazil, China, India, South Africa, and the United States at the summit in the Danish capital, is the first international agreement to recommend that financial resources support REDD. During the summit, Australia, France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States offered a $3.5 billion funding package for REDD preparation.

The program is considered a relatively affordable emission-reduction strategy that could also protect threatened tropical ecosystems and support rural communities. "This is wonderful news," said former Costa Rican politician Carlos Rodriguez, who now directs Conservation International's programs in Mexico and Central America. "When I was environment minister I pushed for this and no one cared.... Now there is a general understanding on the need to have REDD as an outcome."

While support for the policy has grown, considerable progress is still necessary before multinational organizations, national governments, and local authorities are ready to administer REDD programs, analysts said. Without proper reforms, the program threatens to increase human rights violations, land conflicts, and forest-sector corruption, and REDD's ability to reduce emissions would be in doubt.

"If significant payments were to flow today, REDD programs would be challenged to meet the tests of effectiveness in reducing emissions, efficiency in channeling funds, and equity in distribution," said Frances Seymour, director general of the Indonesia-based Centre for International Forestry Research.

Emission reductions and land reform collide

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Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } On the surface, REDD is a simple idea. Forested countries receive funding to limit their deforestation rates, boost forestation programs, or minimize the loss of carbon through forestry activities. Yet donor countries remain wary about how payments will be spent. So far, recipient countries decide whether funding is directed to nationwide forestry programs or dispersed among forest-reliant communities and industries. 

The first question for any REDD project is who owns the land where the carbon is to be stored. The answer determines who collects REDD payments and who bears responsibility for ensuring that the stored carbon is not released into the atmosphere.

Governments continue to claim ownership of most forestland - some 75 percent worldwide, according to a report released last month by the Rights and Resources Initiative. In many cases, however, farming communities and indigenous groups have resided on much of the land for generations.

Latin America has undergone the most significant change in land tenure, increasingly providing private firms, individuals, local communities, and indigenous people with legal recognition for their land. More than 60 percent of the region's land was owned by a non-governmental authority in 2008, compared to some 30 percent in 2002, according to the Initiative.

In areas where land rights remain unclear, governments or private industry may displace forest communities from their homes to gain access to forest carbon, human rights campaigners warn. Where indigenous groups or communities clearly own the forests, environmental and human rights groups are reporting instances of REDD project developers offering contracts without fully explaining the deals' consequences.

"REDD can be set up right to protect the people of the forest. It can also be set it up to destroy them," said WWF President Carter Roberts at a side event in Copenhagen. The United Nations, World Bank, and several non-governmental organizations have held REDD workshops during the past two years with indigenous groups, farmer associations, and other involved communities to improve awareness at the local level.

Lacking scientific expertise, government accountability

Once communities have agreed to participate in a REDD scheme, scientific expertise is often lacking to measure and monitor carbon stored in forest ecosystems. Governments are also ill prepared to ensure that the funding reaches the intended researchers and appropriate development organizations.

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Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } Of the 120 countries that may participate in a REDD program, only six of them host institutions with trained forest carbon experts who are connected to the U.N. system: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Singapore, and South Korea, according to a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) presentation during the Copenhagen summit. The FAO recognized potential experts in another 20 countries who have not formed institutional ties with the U.N. The remaining 94 countries were classified as lacking any technical or institutional capacity for REDD.

"Available experts in the world are very few.... Nobody is teaching greenhouse gas inventory at a university level," said Danilo Mollicone, an FAO forestry officer. "We need to take all experts from the U.S., Germany, Australia, and work together to bring information [to developing nations]."

Many of the countries seeking participation in a REDD mechanism also rank among the most corrupt in the world, placing doubts on whether REDD payments could effectively halt illegal logging. Anti-corruption programs would need to be institutionalized before REDD payments could flow directly to local communities, analysts said.

Indonesia, for instance, received more than $200 million in aid commitments during the Copenhagen summit to help meet its 26-percent emission reduction targets. While the goal relies mostly on curbing emissions from forestry and peatlands, a University of Indonesia study released last month reveals that from 1999 through 2006, high-ranking members of the Indonesian military regularly accepted bribes from the forestry industry in exchange for logging permits, invested directly in logging companies, and clearly ignored illegal deforestation in the heavily cleared tropical areas of East Kalimantan.

The World Bank's World Governance Indicators project, a 212-country corruption and accountability survey, ranked 30 of the 37 countries participating in the Bank's REDD program, known as the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, among the 106 worst-governed countries. "There is a general picture of weak forest enforcement across the board," said Rosalind Reeve, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Illegal deforestation could be curtailed if REDD payments help to develop independent forest monitoring systems, Reeve said. For instance, a Global Witness program in Cameroon improved forest management and assisted the government's efforts to punish illegal loggers, at a cost of $500,000 per year. "Don't panic: a cost-effective option is available and experience does exist from the past 10 years," Reeve told colleagues in Copenhagen.

Investors surge ahead

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Despite the lingering questions, private companies and investors are depositing an increasing amount of money in programs that store carbon in forests. The investments are mostly voluntary in anticipation of government-imposed greenhouse gas restrictions, the research group Ecosystem Marketplace reported in an analysis released last month.

The report estimated that the global forest carbon market was worth $71.6 million in 2007-08 and $21 million in the first half of 2009. Afforestation projects - planting seeds or trees on non-forest land - received most of the 2008 investments (53 percent), while REDD-focused projects accounted for 24 percent.

Additional support for REDD and other forest-based carbon projects will depend on whether international and domestic climate mitigation efforts impose limits on forest-related greenhouse gas emissions and establish funding mechanisms to support carbon sequestration initiatives, such as a cap-and-trade program.

Given the significant support for REDD in Copenhagen, industrialized and developing countries are likely to continue their efforts to fund and manage forest carbon efforts, according to Elly Baroudy, manager of the World Bank's BioCarbon Fund. "However we move forward, forest carbon is there," she said.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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Updated version

A key deadline for countries to submit emission reduction goals to the United Nations as part of the recently negotiated Copenhagen Accord passed last Sunday. The U.N. received commitments from 55 nations, but 139 countries remain unsupportive of the political statement, leading the international body to push back the commitment deadline indefinitely. 

Since the high-level climate change summit in Copenhagen concluded in December, global climate talks have been in a state of confusion. Two parallel tracks are already under way - one that includes the United States and one that omits this significant world emitter. The Copenhagen Accord, some say, threatens to introduce a third procedural track, complicating the already tense deliberations.

The Accord, a non-binding political statement introduced at the 11th hour of the Copenhagen summit, has been praised by some for garnering stronger commitments from major developing nations, which could in turn deliver a binding global climate treaty. Yet its formulation has also threatened to destabilize the nearly 20-year old process developed under the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the leading international body for climate change negotiations.

The United States, Brazil, South Africa, India and China formulated the Accord with the understanding that the text would later be adopted by all 194 nations. But many participants considered this outcome to be undemocratic and a departure from a U.N. process meant to offer equal voice to every nation.

Implications of the Accord

Many had hoped that the Copenhagen conference would deliver a legally binding international treaty on climate change, or at least provide direction on many of the core components under negotiation. But the Accord itself contains little of these details and provides instead for countries to set their own emission reduction targets unilaterally.

Among other elements, it states that 2 degrees centigrade is the target above which global temperatures must not rise; it proposes the mobilization of $30 billion by 2012 and $100 billion by 2020 for developing countries to address climate change; and it calls on developed 1024x768 Normal 0 false false false st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} and developing countries to submit their national actions on climate change to the U.N. by January 31, a deadline that has now been postponed "indefinitely."

Sanjay Vashist, director of Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) said that without larger consensus, the Accord reflects "an outcome of a flawed negotiating process...negotiated by a small group of countries," rather than the 194-nation body.

There are further reservations about the Accord's content itself. While the text addresses several key negotiation issues, many crucial details remain undetermined. "It is far from clear where the funding [for climate change mitigation and adaptation] will come from, if it is genuinely new and additional, and how it will be allocated and channeled," said Saleemul Huq, a senior fellow with the International Institute for Environment and Development's climate change group, who co-authored a recent report on climate finance.

Other observers said that the Accord does not contain the level of ambition with respect to temperature rise that is needed to protect the rights to survival or livelihood of many nations and people.

"[With] the mitigation ambition expressed in the...Accord, we are heading for a 4-degree Celsius rise in temperatures and the disappearance of almost all island states," said Srinivas Krishnaswamy of Vasudha with the Climate Action Network - South Asia. "In addition, this level of ambition will mean that most parts of Africa and perhaps even Asia...will experience large-scale hunger and destruction of livelihoods."

According to a recent Ecofys analysis, the emission reductions agreed to so far will commit the world to a 3.5 degrees Celsius rise in global temperature, not the agreed 2 degrees.

Getting the U.S. on board

Other advocacy groups have taken a different perspective, highlighting the Accord's value in establishing an important basis for a shift in U.S. domestic politics. Firmer commitments from large emerging economies such as China and India may facilitate domestic climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate - an action seen as crucial to obtaining strong commitments from Australia, Canada, and Japan, they say.

"Now the Senate can take up clean energy and climate legislation in the certain knowledge that Americans won't act alone," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

1024x768 Normal 0 false false false st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} "It's a powerful signal to see President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma agree on a meeting of the minds," said Senator John Kerry, chair of the foreign relations committee, in a prepared statement. "These are the four horsemen of a climate change solution. With this in hand, we can work to pass domestic legislation early next year to bring us across the finish line."

The United States has submitted a pledge to reduce national emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 54 other nations, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, and South Africa, have also provided commitments to the United Nations. However, some 139 countries have so far abstained.

Moving forward

In the wake of contention over the Accord, major developing countries restated their commitment to concluding a successful global treaty at meetings to be held in Mexico in December 2010. In a joint statement in Delhi, India, last week, environment ministers from the so-called "BASIC" countries - Brazil, South Africa, India, and China - reiterated their support of the Copenhagen Accord and their "commitment to working together with all other countries to ensure an agreed outcome...later this year."

The ministers called on Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who hosted the Copenhagen summit, to convene meetings of the two negotiating groups by March 2010 and ensure that they meet "at least five times" prior to the Mexico gathering, the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP-16) under the UNFCCC.

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, remains optimistic that nations will announce deeper commitments in the months ahead. "I think [the Accord's] adequacy...will depend greatly on what actions the world is willing to take now, and I hope they will take urgent and adequate action in the future," he said in an interview with Science magazine.

Breach of trust?

The four BASIC countries coordinated their positions closely in Copenhagen, exerting pressure on industrialized nations to commit to ambitious goals for emission reductions as well as to provide technical and financial support to developing nations.

But some observers argue that these large developing countries betrayed the interests of their smaller allies in the Group of 77 (G77), a broader grouping of developing-world nations.

1024x768 Normal 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} There was concern that by breaking off into a separate bloc, the BASIC nations put at risk many of the fundamental negotiating tenets that the G77 had embraced.

Jairam Ramesh, India's Minister for Environment and Forests, sought to address this concern at a press conference following a meeting of BASIC leaders last week in New Delhi. "BASIC is embedded in the G77, so there is no fissure," he said. "Since these four are the big countries, they need to have some coordinated actions towards helping the poor and vulnerable countries within the G77, as well as taking [their] own actions."

Ramesh further emphasized that after each BASIC meeting - gatherings that are now scheduled to take place quarterly - the group's decisions will be communicated to the G77 for consideration prior to any wider U.N. meetings.

The future of U.N. involvement?

Some critics have raised questions about the efficacy of the United Nations to manage the global negotiations fairly and effectively.

"This is a declaration that small and poor countries don't matter, that international civil society doesn't matter, and that serious limits on carbon don't matter," said Bill McKibben, a U.S. environmentalist and founder of the climate action group 350.org. "The president has wrecked the U.N. and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming."

Others suggest that the U.N.-sponsored climate talks have become unwieldy and should be addressed within a smaller forum of the major emitters, such as the G8+5 or the G20. Notably, the 55 nations that are reported to have submitted targets or actions under the Accord to date represent 78 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

"We...need to have major reform of the U.N. body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted," wrote UK Climate Secretary Edward Miliband in a late-December commentary in The Guardian.

"It is...impossible to imagine a negotiation of enormous complexity where you have a table of 192 countries involved in all the detail," U.S. climate negotiator Jonathan Pershing observed in a more recent Guardian interview.

In their joint declaration, the BASIC environment ministers were quick to stress their wish for the Accord's content to feed into the current framework of climate negotiations, and not to adopt a new framework based on the agreement. "All of us are unanimously of the view that  the value of the accord lies not as a stand-alone document but as part of the two-track negotiating process," India's Ramesh said.

Anna da Costa is a Worldwatch Institute research fellow based in New Delhi, India.

This article is a product of Eye on Earth, the Worldwatch Institute's online news service. For permission to republish Eye on Earth content, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

Correction: The article originally stated that Srinivas Vasudha works for Greenpeace India. His title is in fact Srinivas Krishnaswamy of Vasudha and he represents Climate Action Network - South Asia. The article also incorrectly attributed a quote from UK Energy and Climate Secretary Edward Miliband to Foreign Affairs Secretary David Miliband.

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Bacteria that convert plants into diesel could become a widely available method for creating alternative fuels at commercial prices within the next two years. 

U.S. researchers announced progress last week in converting sugars directly into biodiesel by modifying the Escherichia coli bacterium (E. coli). Their biodiesel, a fossil fuel alternative, can be transported in diesel pipelines and burned in standard diesel engines, releasing far fewer greenhouse gases than conventional diesel.

Analysts have linked grain-based biofuels such as corn ethanol to increased food prices and tropical deforestation. E. coli-generated biodiesel fuel may not compete with leading food sources, however, if the bacteria can effectively convert cellulosic feedstock such as switchgrass or corn husks.

The development, a collaboration of government, university, and private researchers, was hailed as a "milestone" in producing biodiesel at lower costs. Similar biodiesel efforts require expensive chemical processes to convert biomass into fuel.

"The fact that our microbes can produce a diesel fuel directly from biomass with no additional chemical modifications is exciting and important," said project leader Jay Keasling, chief executive officer for the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute, in a prepared statement. "Given that the costs of recovering biodiesel are nowhere near the costs required to distill ethanol, we believe our results can significantly contribute to the ultimate goal of producing scalable and cost effective advanced biofuels and renewable chemicals."

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu called Keasling last week to ask whether the E. coli process could become commercially viable without government subsidies. "He said we will know in two years," Chu said at an electric vehicle conference in Washington, D.C.

E. coli was previously known to synthesize fatty acids, key ingredients in forming biofuels efficiently. But the bacterium manufactures only as many fatty acids as it needs to survive - a limitation that had challenged inventors hoping to create enough biodiesel to replace conventional fuels.

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The research team from the Joint BioEnergy Institute and biotech firm LS9 were able to manipulate an E. coli strain to create more fatty acids than the bacterium itself would need. When the E. coli interacted with Brazilian sugar cane, it fermented the plant's sugars and generated a surplus of fatty acids, producing biofuel straight from the biomass, the team explains in the current issue of the journal Nature..

LS9 and the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory calculated that the newly developed biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions 85 percent compared with conventional diesel, calculated over the fuel's life cycle.

LS9 Vice President Stephen del Cardayre described the breakthrough as "a significant step toward the development of scalable, low-cost drop-in-compatible cellulosic fuels and chemicals." The project's next step will be adapting the process for fibers other than sugar cane, expanding its potential applications to grass or crop waste.

After LS9 struggled for funding in 2008 and 2009 due to decreased oil prices and the economic recession, the company received support from several funders, including the U.S. government and oil company Chevron. LS9 plans to open a commercial-scale demonstration plant this year.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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The U.S. agency responsible for regulating stock exchanges and securities markets issued new guidance on Wednesday to clarify what climate-related information publicly traded companies should disclose. The guidance, while not a new legal requirement, may result in corporations more consistently disclosing greenhouse gas emission inventories and climate risk analyses. 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-2 to clarify that environmental compliance requirements, environmental risks, and potential future regulations, as well as how these developments may affect business operations and profitability, should be included in annual filings to the SEC. Such filings form the basis of many investment decisions.

"The discussions, debates, and decisions that are taking place in the U.S. and elsewhere on [climate change] have implications under our existing, long-standing disclosure rules," said SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro. "A company must evaluate the impact it would have on the company's liquidity, capital resources, or results of operations, and disclose to shareholders when that potential impact will be material. Similarly, a company must disclose the significant risks that it faces, whether those risks are due to increased competition or severe weather."

Despite current regulations that require corporate disclosure of environmental risks, companies have inconsistently reported climate change impacts on their businesses. The Center for Energy and Environmental Security, Ceres, and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) reviewed more than 6,000 SEC filings by S&P500 companies from 1995-2008. The study was unable to find the words "climate change" in 76.3 percent of the reports filed in 2008, and only 5.5 percent of reports detailed any strategy for managing climate-related risks such as water scarcity or sea-level rise.

While the clarification does not require that companies disclose carbon footprints or emission reduction strategies, commissioners made clear that companies should become more transparent about their greenhouse gas contributions and climate impacts. "I strongly request that, across the board, our filers step up their disclosure efforts immediately in light of our most recent guidance," said SEC Commissioner Elisse Walter.

Ceres, EDF, and more than a dozen investors, including the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), California State Teachers' Retirement System, and New York State Common Retirement Fund, petitioned the SEC in 2007 to issue the disclosure guidance.

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"Investors have a fundamental right to know which companies are well positioned for the future and which are not," said Anne Stausboll, CalPERS chief executive officer, in a statement on Wednesday.

SEC Commissioners Kathleen Casey and Troy Paredes voted against the interpretive guidance. Both said that the requests for information related to "reputational damages" and "physical effects of climate change" may confuse investors and overwhelm them with unnecessary information.

Casey also expressed doubt about the scientific consensus of human-caused climate change and suggested that the SEC ruling served the "environmental lobby" more than investors. "As we begin to emerge from the worst financial crisis in generations, our consideration of this release today sends a curious signal to the investment community about what we view as the most pressing issues facing the commission," she said.

Commissioner Luis Aguilar, on the other hand, said that more information about climate-related impacts should help businesses and investors profit. When companies are uncertain about whether a climate-related regulation or environmental change constitutes a "material risk," he suggested that they lean toward disclosure. "Doubts should be resolved in favor of the investors," he said.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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China, the most populous country in the world, has announced that it is close to developing an effective male contraceptive injection after successfully carrying out the largest feasibility study to date.

Researchers from the Beijing-based Chinese National Research Institute for Family Planning reported last year a method for male contraception that is effective, reversible, and without serious short-term side effects.

In the test trial, conducted with nine other research centers around the country, 1,045 healthy fertile males were injected monthly with 500 milligrams of a formulation of testosterone undecanoate (TU) in tea seed oil during a course of 30 months. The androgen works by dramatically reducing two regulatory brain chemicals, follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinising (LU), which in turn disrupt sperm production. 

About 6.1 percent of men did not react to the treatment, a failure rate similar to that of combined oral contraceptives, such as birth control pills. During the 24-month study period, only 1.1 men per 100 experienced contraceptive failure.

"For couples who cannot or prefer not to use only female-oriented contraception, options have been limited to vasectomy, condoms, and withdrawal," said Yi-Qun Gu, a professor with the Beijing-based National Research Institute for Family Planning's male clinic research department. "Our study shows a male hormonal contraceptive regimen may be a potential, novel, and workable alternative."

The tested men experienced mild side effects including weight gain and acne. After the hormone treatment, the participants' sperm count returned to normal levels. However, Gu cautioned that more extensive testing will be necessary to ensure long-term safety, particularly with regard to cardiovascular and prostate health, as well as concerns about how couples would adjust their contraceptive use.

The development may place male contraception on par with the female birth control pill, with an additional advantage that only monthly injections would be necessary. The introduction of the pill in 1960 revolutionized users' sex lives, but it placed the onus of reproductive responsibility on women. Male contraception may even out the responsibility - a development that many women would welcome as only fair if women learn to trust male contraception.
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Male contraceptives may also offer an additional freedom of enjoying sex without the much more far-reaching consequences of reproduction for those who seek sex and do not necessarily want reproduction as the result.

The possibility of an additional means of contraception has arrived none too soon for China as the country continues to struggle with significant population growth. The United Nations estimates that the Chinese population increased from 1.266 billion in 2000 to 1.312 billion in 2005, and it is projected to grow from the present 1.315 billion to 1.396 billion by 2015. The average annual growth rate is declining, however, from 0.71 percent in the period 2000-05 to the current rate of 0.63 percent in the period 2005-10, and it is projected to decrease to 0.61 percent by 2015.

Population growth is occurring despite China's one-child policy. The at-large population has generally acquiesced to the policy, although the mandate has met with widespread criticism from human rights activists and others beyond China's borders. In urban areas, the policy is strictly enforced. In rural areas, where approximately 70 percent of Chinese live, enforcement is left to local officials and a second child is generally allowed, especially if the first child is a girl.

China's fertility rate - the number of children born per woman - was an estimated 1.75 in 2008, with the rate smaller in urban areas (1.3 children) than rural regions (2.0 children), according to the United Nations. Although there is now good evidence that China is becoming a small-family culture, especially as working couples opt for one-child families, the government faces a challenge as it strives to stabilize the population at 1.45 billion people by 2020.

Gioietta Kuo is a senior fellow with the American Center for International Policy Studies. She can be reached at kuopet@comcast.net.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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A new U.S. Department of Energy study concludes that up to 30 percent of the eastern and Midwestern United States could technically power itself with wind energy, the most optimistic government projection produced so far.

A 2008 analysis of wind speeds, infrastructure capacity, and government regulations estimated that the United States could generate 20 percent of its electricity from wind energy by 2030.

The new analysis, released on Wednesday, concluded that wind power could supply as much as 30 percent of the area east of the Great Plains, known as the U.S. Eastern Interconnection, by 2024 if transmission infrastructure expands significantly.

The energy department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) envisioned three 20-percent scenarios. The first would rely on energy from remote, windy regions. The second would rely on operations closer to areas with higher populations and include some offshore wind. Both would increase annual energy costs by an estimated $15 billion more than current projections, while avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and fuel consumption.

A third 20-percent scenario would include "aggressive" offshore wind development and greater amounts of wind energy near the eastern population centers, costing some $30 billion more each year. 

"As you go eastward, the transmission costs go down but the capital cost of offshore wind goes up," said David Corbus, an NREL senior engineer who monitored the study, which EnerNex Corporation, an electric power research firm, prepared.

A fourth NREL scenario increases the wind energy mix to 30 percent by combining high-speed wind farms in the Midwest with larger wind operations offshore. As with the other scenarios, the United States would buy less fossil fuel, but costs savings would be outweighed by the higher costs of installing, operating, and maintaining wind plants. The scenario would cost an additional $50 billion each year.

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Before the financial crisis, the United States surpassed Germany in wind energy production and cumulative wind power generating capacity, with more than 25,000 megawatts in operation, or nearly 2 percent of net U.S. electricity generation, at the end of 2008.

The study's cost scenarios all assume continued growth of energy demand. However, the United States holds vast energy efficiency opportunities that could slow increases in energy demand, notes the Worldwatch Institute's latest report, Renewable Revolution: Low-Carbon Energy by 2030.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimates that energy efficiency has met 75 percent of new demand for energy services since 1970, and the Rocky Mountain Institute found that bridging the gap between the most and the least energy-efficient states could avoid 30 percent of national electricity consumption. The global consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that $520 billion invested in energy efficiency in the United States could reduce projected energy demand 23 percent by 2020.

Speaking at a Worldwatch Institute-hosted side event in Copenhagen last month, Dan Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives at Google.org, compared changes to U.S. energy infrastructure to retrofitting a house: the house must first be modified to use energy as efficiently as possible, and then an appropriately sized renewable energy system can be put in place.

The main obstacle to the higher wind energy scenarios is transmission infrastructure. Sufficient power lines do not reach the Midwest and offshore regions where the highest wind speed sites are located. Grid expansion would represent less than 15 percent of the total electricity costs, the NREL study notes, but regional operators would need to overcome several siting and certification hurdles.

States and local organizations, including environmental groups, have opposed large transmission projects due to their location near neighborhoods or natural habitats, even though such projects would facilitate greater renewable energy use. "Everybody loves wind, but nobody likes looking ahead to see a wire," Corbus said.

Unless new transmission lines are built soon, already congested transmission lines will become further constrained, which may lead several wind operators to shut down their facilities. Transmission lines are also essential to balance the natural variability inherent in wind generation, especially if constructed using more efficient "smart grid" technology.

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While smart grid technology could help the aging grid structure evolve into a system that facilitates the integration of larger amounts of wind and other renewable power, it could also improve the operational security of the grid. It is, however, the transmission grid construction that requires the most time. Corbus estimates that 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) of transmission lines require, on average, seven years to build, while 500 megawatts of wind power could become operational in two years.

Worldwatch Institute staff writer Ben Block and project associate Amanda Chiu can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

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Ian Fry, the chief climate change negotiator for Tuvalu, fought on behalf of low-lying island nations during the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, last month. The 32-year-old country that he represents, a string of nine densely populated coral atolls located midway between Hawaii and Australia, rests no more than 4.6 meters above sea level. "The fate of my country rests in your hands," he told audiences in one teary-eyed speech. 

Worldwatch staff writer Ben Block caught up with Mr. Fry following the negotiations.

How did you, an Australian native, become Tuvalu's lead climate negotiator?

I've been on the job for 11 years. I was working for Earth Negotiations Bulletin and Greenpeace before that. I met the prime minister of Tuvalu at a meeting and provided him with a briefing on climate change. He then invited me to come onto their delegation at [the 1997 climate negotiations in Kyoto, Japan]. It evolved from there. I now work full time for the Tuvalu government as an international environment advisor.

What was your strategy going into the Copenhagen talks?

We were hopeful that we would have a substantial discussion on legal texts and that there might be a breakthrough on a legally binding outcome. We weren't naive to what the situation was in the United States. Given that there were 115 heads of state coming to the meeting, we thought it would be possible, if the mood was right, for a legally binding outcome.

How did Tuvalu decide to push for a target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and atmospheric greenhouse gas levels to below 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide equivalent?

Within the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), we had commissioned work by scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and we've done our own research on vulnerabilities based on work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It was clear that a global temperature rise above 2 degrees would be disastrous for Tuvalu. We were even saying well below 1.5 degrees. At 1.5 there are probabilities of sea-level rise that could be quite disastrous for Tuvalu. Well below 1.5 degrees relatively equates to 350 ppm.

Does Tuvalu consider the Group of 77, the largest negotiating bloc of developing countries, as representative of its national interests?

Tuvalu is not a member of G77. We only joined the U.N. in 2000. Since then, we have not joined the G77. We find it in our interests not to be members.... It seems strange that these 77 countries speak through one voice while New Zealand can sit at the table as one country.

Do you think that speaking alone is the best way to negotiate?

Within the context of climate change negotiations, it works both ways. An individual country can bring forward its views more strongly as an individual country. When it comes down to negotiations in the last few days then individual countries are not really considered. In the group of countries working on the accord, in the last couple of days, Tuvalu was not there. We were represented by Granada on behalf of AOSIS. There is a limit to what an individual country can do. It's a weird situation of the UN that's been going on for many years.

Is it true that the Copenhagen talks led to a split between developing nations?

During an interview with Australian radio I was accused of splitting the G77. There was intent to make a story out of something that was not happening.... Brazil, South Africa, China, India had already put out documents proposing their way forward in response to the Danish text [a proposed "political agreement"]. They were already putting up a position in response to the Danish draft declaration. If any group was talking about splitting, it was those countries.

In an article in The Guardian following the conference, author Mark Lynas, who attended the negotiations as a member of the Maldives delegation, wrote that China relied on delegates from other developing countries to act as "puppets" and "savage" the negotiation progress. Is this an accurate view?

Mark's views are far too simplistic. It was the first climate change negotiation Mark attended as a delegate. I know Mark; he's been to Tuvalu. It's a far too naive perspective. There are much more complex negotiations happening behind the scenes.

There were two key forks in the process. Obviously the U.S. could not bring anything substantial to the table, other than some offers of money because they can use appropriation bills, but they couldn't bring forward any substantial outcome because the climate bill was held up in the Senate. Because of that, the Danish government totally downplayed the outcome of the meeting, [and] played manipulative games through meetings of a few countries before the COP and after....

China was quite well aware of that. Why were they going to take the lead on some sort of commitment or whatever if the U.S. was not going to put anything on the table, especially considering that the U.S. did not ratify [the Kyoto Protocol] and is clearly responsible for the world's emissions? So you can understand China's viewpoint. But obviously there are other games to play in regards to bi-national negotiations between the U.S. and China that I'm not privy to. It's far too simplistic that we were "played off" by China.

Disagreements resurfaced in Copenhagen about which countries would receive aid for climate change adaptation. How did such disagreements affect efforts to reach an adaptation agreement?

Some countries in Africa are clearly the most vulnerable in the world, so I'm not sure where this trade-off game was played. One difficulty within the accord text was linking adaptation to impacts of climate change to linkage of compensation for oil-producing countries.... It brings a halt to consideration of financial support for vulnerable countries. We've made no progress for seeking funding because of that.

Critics of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change argue that any body that requires a consensus vote will never reach a deal on issues as divisive as climate change. Should the UNFCCC decide how we solve climate change?

It has to. There's no reasonable alternative. If you want all countries to agree on a collective global effort to address climate change, there is no other institution that can bring together that global effort. It has to work through the U.N. and the UNFCCC.

Of course it has its faults. With every country given a vote, the outcome is drawn down to the common denominator. Nonetheless, it compels all countries to think about climate change and drive toward collective action. It's hard to think of any other international process because climate change is such an international problem. Countries affected by climate change are so diverse. It's hard to think of any other institution that could handle that.

Why do you think Tuvalu received so much support from climate activists in Copenhagen?

I guess because we were outspoken in the plenaries. Because of the nature of the meeting, our comments were fed out through the media more broadly. It did provide a focus for what we were seeing. Obviously Tuvalu is the canary in the coal mine for climate change. Considering the low level of ambition driven by the Danish government at the meeting and our circumstances of high vulnerability, people rallied around our situation because the general public who came to that meeting and were observing the meeting wanted a lot more than st1\:* { BEHAVIOR: url(#ieooui) }what the Danish government was willing to deliver at the meeting. I guess Tuvalu became a focal point. We were hoping for a lot more.

How did such activist support affect your ability to negotiate?

It helped. Certainly the impromptu demonstration outside the plenary hall was very helpful, I think, in highlighting the fact that our concerns couldn't just be swept under the carpet. There was a strong voice of civil society supportive of our concerns. But, of course, in the end we weren't brought to the table. So, even the broad public viewpoint of civil society limited our input into the process. The problem was, again, that the Danish government misread the broad concerns of civil society. They seriously misread interests and concerns of civil society. Protests, demonstrations, reflected a much broader concern about climate change than the Danish government was willing to acknowledge. They became too entwined in narrow political negotiations.

What are your goals for COP 16 in Mexico City this December?

Obviously, hopefully, things will change on the U.S. legislation front. If they do, it will relieve pressure from the situation and allow for more progress to occur. And hopefully we'll be meeting again in June in Bonn, and that may allow us to move forward in a more substantive way. Hopefully we will move to Mexico with ideas of the U.S. having signed a legal agreement.... It gives us a little bit of breathing space. If that works out favorably, then I think we can really get into some negotiations of proper outcomes and not just window dressing, like we did in Copenhagen.

What happens if the United States fails to pass a climate bill?

Clearly the biggest [historical] polluter has to come on board somehow to commit to reduce its emissions. You get a domino effect. Once the U.S. commits, others will follow. If not, it's hard for the rest to move forward in any substantive way.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

Washington, D.C.-Without an intentional cultural shift that values sustainability over consumerism, no government pledges or technological advances will be enough to rescue humanity from unacceptably hazardous environmental and climate risks, concludes the Worldwatch Institute in the latest edition of its flagship annual report, State of the World 2010. The book, subtitled Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability, defines "consumerism" as a cultural orientation that leads people to find meaning, contentment, and acceptance primarily through what they consume.

"We've seen some encouraging efforts to combat the world's climate crisis in the past few years," says project director Erik Assadourian. "But making policy and technology changes while keeping cultures centered on consumerism and growth can only go so far. To thrive long into the future, human societies will need to shift their cultures so that sustainability becomes the norm and excessive consumption becomes taboo."

In 2006, people consumed $30.5 trillion worth of goods and services, up 28 percent from just 10 years earlier. This rise in consumption has resulted in a dramatic increase in resource extraction; the world digs up the equivalent of 112 Empire State Buildings worth of materials each day, with the typical American consuming an average of 88 kilograms (194 pounds) of stuff daily-more than most Americans weigh. If the whole world lived like this, Earth could sustain only 1.4 billion people, or just a fifth of the current population, the report notes.

"Cultural patterns are the root cause of an unprecedented convergence of ecological and social problems, including a changing climate, an obesity epidemic, a major decline in biodiversity, loss of agricultural land, and production of hazardous waste," says Assadourian.

The report's 60 authors present strategies for reorienting cultures that range from "choice editing"-deliberately striking options from consumer menus-to harnessing the power of religious groups and rituals to internalize sustainability values. Some examples from State of the World 2010 include:

• School menus in Italy and elsewhere are being reformulated to use healthy, local, and environmentally sound foods, transforming children's dietary norms in the process.
• In suburbs such as Vauban, Germany, bike paths, wind turbines, and farmers' markets are not only making it easy to live sustainably, but are making it hard not to.
• At the U.S.-based carpet company Interface Inc., CEO Ray Anderson radicalized a business culture by setting the goal of taking nothing from the Earth that cannot be replaced by the Earth.
• In Ecuador, rights for "Pachamama" (Mother Earth) have entered into the Constitution.

The report examines the institutions that shape cultural systems. Business has played the leading role in shifting cultures to center on consumerism, making an array of resource-intensive products such as bottled water, fast food, cars, disposable paper goods, and even pets seem increasingly "natural."

Government has also promoted consumerism as a lynchpin of policy, often making it synonymous with national well-being and job creation. As the global economic recession accelerated in 2009, wealthy countries primed national economies with $2.8 trillion of new government stimulus packages, only a small percentage of which focused on green initiatives.

Today, an intentional shift is necessary and is already taking root thanks to cultural pioneers around the world who are starting to use six culture-shaping institutions-education, business, the media, government, traditions, and social movements-to reorient cultures toward sustainability.

In 26 articles and 23 short text boxes, the report details dozens of innovative efforts that are tapping these key institutions, from changing business cultures and starting social enterprises to cultivating social marketing efforts, shifting family-planning norms, and tapping the power of primary schools, universities, and even school menus.

"As the world struggles to recover from the most serious global economic crisis since the Great Depression, we have an unprecedented opportunity to turn away from consumerism," says Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin. "In the end, the human instinct for survival must triumph over the urge to consume at any cost."

-END-

Worldwatch looks back at this year in environmental news, picking the most notable stories posted to Eye on Earth over the past 12 months.

January

Climate: Ocean acidification, "the other CO2 problem," receives wider attention as more than 150 marine scientists from 26 countries urge world leaders to take action. Australian scientists announce that the Great Barrier Reef is growing at its slowest rate in 400 years, one of several marine ecosystems threatened by acidification.

Read more: Scientists Sound Alarm on Ocean Acidification

Energy: The International Renewable Energy Agency, the first multi-governmental body to focus exclusively on the global development of renewable energy sources, is formed. Delegates choose Abu Dhabi as the agency's headquarters and French diplomat Hélène Pelosse as its director general.

Read more: 75 Countries Sign onto New Clean Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi Chosen to Host IRENA, IRENA Politics May "Taint" Agency, Advocates Say, and Interviews with IRENA Director General Nominees Hélène Pelosse, Arthouros Zervos, and Hans Jǿrgen Koch

February

Economy: The United States passes its economic recovery bill, a $787 billion program labeled as the largest energy bill ever created due to its support for renewable energy, energy efficiency, and "smart" electric grids. China, the European Union, South Korea, and Japan also include various "green job" measures in their stimulus packages. Altogether, some $436 billion, or 15.6 percent, of recovery funds help to mitigate climate change, according to the bank HSBC.

Read more: Countries Turn to Green Jobs for Economic Growth, OPINION: U.S. Climate Funds Increase, Future Levels in Doubt, and Worldwatch Report: Green Jobs: Working for People and the Environment

Pollution: The United Nations Environment Programme's Governing Council agrees to initiate negotiations on an international treaty to reduce global supplies of mercury, a neurotoxin increasingly prevalent in human populations.

Read more: Global Mercury Negotiations Commence

Climate: Activists descend on the U.S. capital for the largest collection of climate change rallies and protests in United States history. The protestors called for the United States to pass climate legislation and forge a legally binding international climate treaty.

Read more: Climate Change Activists Pour into D.C., Climate Protests Escalate Worldwide

March

Biodiversity: The United Nations forms the Global Industry Alliance with major shipping industries to limit the number of invasive species transferred in ballast water, the leading cause of marine alien species introduction.

Read more: Alliance Formed to Limit Invasive Species

Climate: Some 2,500 climate scientists from 80 countries meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to update the science of global warming ahead of December's major U.N. summit. The scientists' conclusion, that many of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst-case scenarios are being observed already, is reiterated in a United Nations Environment Programme report in September.

Read more: Climate Change Outpaces Predictions, State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World

Population: The U.N.'s biennial report on world population raises its optimistic "low" projection to 117 million more people worldwide in 2050. The "most likely" estimate predicts a world with 9.2 billion people by mid-century, up from nearly 6.8 billion today.

Read more: U.N. Raises "Low" Population Projection for 2050, United Nations Population Fund's State of World Population

April

Climate: The United States welcomes leaders from the world's largest economies to a Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Washington, D.C. Leaders from the industrialized and developing worlds discuss climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as technology transfer and finance, at four meetings held throughout the year.

Read more: OPINION: Climate Forecast Bright for Major Economies Meeting

May

Pollution: The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) bans an additional nine harmful chemicals, such as agricultural pesticide lindane. Activists warn that exemptions may allow health concerns to persist for generations.

Read more: Chemical Treaty Covers Additional Pollutants

Biofuels: The United States, the world's leading producer of biofuels, proposes to ensure that the fuels benefit climate by measuring lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with production. The Environmental Protection Agency meanwhile considers whether to allow more ethanol blended with nationwide gasoline stocks-a decision to be announced in mid-2010.  

Read more: United States Considers Biofuel Emissions, United States Considers Ethanol Blend Increase, and Worldwatch Report: Red,White, and Green: Transforming U.S. Biofuels

June

Climate: The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passes a cap-and-trade bill to lower greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The legislation later moves to the Senate, where it stalls amid a drawn-out healthcare debate.

Read more: Trade Concerns Raised in U.S. Climate Debate, Climate Debate Overlooks Small Businesses, Expanded Coalitions Support U.S. Climate Bill, OPINION: Turn up the Heat in the Climate Battle, and As U.S. Climate Bill Stalls, Global Treaty Languishes

Pollution: A strict Chinese limit on ultra-thin plastic bags significantly reduces bag-related pollution nationwide and enables the country to avoid the use of 40 billion bags, according to government estimates.

Read more: China Reports 66-Percent Drop in Plastic Bag Use, Plastic Bag Ban Trumps Market and Consumer Efforts, and New Bans on Plastic Bags May Help Protect Marine Life

July

Diplomacy: Delegates at a meeting of the G8, the industrialized world's eight largest economies, agree to provide $20 billion for international food security and to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above 1900 levels.

Read more: OPINION: Obama Says Teach a Man to Fish, OPINION: Climate Wake-Up Call In Italy

Business: Walmart, the world's largest retailer, announces that global suppliers must evaluate and disclose the full environmental costs of their products. The information may be used to develop the first global sustainability labeling scheme.

Read more: Wal-Mart Scrutinizes Supply-Chain Sustainability, More Corporations Are "Greening" Supply Chains

August

Energy: India reveals plans to expand solar energy from 3 megawatts currently to 20 gigawatts by 2020 and 200 gigawatts by 2050. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says the sun will occupy "center stage" in India's climate strategy.

Read more: India Announces Groundbreaking Solar Plan, India Launches Solar Mission, Seeks International Support, and India Steps Up Climate Change Efforts

Climate: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd struggles to gain support for his national climate change policy. Competing interests from fossil fuel industries, environmentally minded legislators, and economic conservatives lead the Senate to defeat cap-and-trade legislation in August and again in December. Rudd is expected to make his third attempt in February 2010.

Read more: Climate Change Politics Floods Australian Parliament

Energy: The United States approves a crude oil pipeline to connect refineries in the state of Wisconsin with oil sand operations in Alberta, Canada. Environmentalists raise concerns that the energy source threatens boreal forests and releases three times as much greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional oil.

Read more: Oil Sands Could Threaten Millions of Migratory Birds

September

Climate: More than 100 national leaders gather at a United Nations climate change summit, including U.S. president Barack Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao, but the speeches provide little clarity about what the major polluters will offer at December's climate negotiations.

Read more: World Leaders Short on Details at Climate Summit

Climate: North American countries support Micronesia's proposal that all nations reduce the consumption and production of HFCs, chemicals that had been favored in efforts to heal the ozone layer but that also contribute to climate change.

Read more: Momentum Grows to Limit Climate-Warming Chemicals

October

Biodiversity: Following a military coup in Madagascar, lawlessness coupled with a decline in foreign aid leads to increased deforestation that threatens some of the island's most unique ecosystems.

Read more: Political Unrest Portends Ecological Ruin in Madagascar

November

Biodiversity: The 2009 update of the Red List of Threatened Species reports that 17,291 species are threatened with extinction and an additional 11 species are now extinct outside of captivity.

Read more: Degraded Habitats Push More Species to Extinction

Climate: Months of negotiations between the United States and China yield a joint clean energy research facility and an agreement that China will inventory its greenhouse gas emissions with U.S. help. Weeks later, the world's two largest emitters announce emission reduction goals for December's climate summit: the United States will cut emission 17 percent below 2005 levels (or 5.5 percent below 1990) and China will lower carbon emissions 45 percent relative to the growth of its economy by 2020.

Read more: Report Outlines U.S.-China Climate Opportunities, China Gradually Improves Environmental Transparency

December

Climate: India announces a voluntary plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20-25 percent relative to economic growth (carbon intensity) compared to 2005 levels, if the country receives international support. The pledge follows announcements that India will increase solar energy and provide energy-efficient biomass stoves to rural residents.

Read more: India Announces Improved Cook Stove Program, India Launches Solar Mission, Seeks International Support

Climate: World leaders gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, in an effort to forge a climate change agreement that would succeed the Kyoto Protocol and put the world on a low-carbon development plan. The resulting political agreement, which "notes" that efforts should be made to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, is widely recognized as a disappointment. In addition, government leaders agree to provide $100 billion by 2020 to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate-related damages.

Read more: Finance Disagreements Loom Over Copenhagen Summit, Climate Negotiators Push for "Solution" Rather Than Treaty, Climate Negotiators Discuss "Hierarchy" of Survival, World's First Climate Change Hearing Staged in Copenhagen, OPINION: Escape from Copenhagen, and Despite Disappointment, Climate Summit Marks High Point for Activist Movement

Media audiences across the world took notice as Copenhagen police arrested hundreds of activists at the peak of the United Nations climate conference that ended last Saturday.

The variety of non-violent actions, from candlelight vigils to hunger strikes, as well as the sheer size of the demonstrations, served as constant reminders that a concerned public expected the conference to result in dramatic action to confront climate change.

"The standard way of doing activism is not working. We need dramatic action and personal action and to do what we can as individuals," said Anna Keenan, an Australian Youth Climate Coalition organizer. "Writing one more petition is not going to change the world."

The two-week U.N. conference may have ended in disappointment for most climate activists, who travelled from nearly every continent, but the gathering marked a historic high point for a movement that has swelled in strength and recognition in recent years.

An estimated 45,000 people attended the climate negotiations. This included greater participation from government delegations, business groups, and academics, in addition to larger turnout from campaigners. The "youth" delegation, representatives of the below-30 age group, increased its presence at forums that were once attended only by bureaucrats and scientists. Youth organizers said that their volunteers registered some 1,000 attendants, twice the participation compared to a year ago.

The activist crowds were relentless: they raised their voices during negotiation sessions, press briefings, and lunch breaks; they scattered in the corners of conference rooms and gathered in mobs to block passageways; and they screamed loudly for adaptation aid, among other demands. Activists also made subtle suggestions about the ineffectiveness of carbon offsets, for example by using tricks to show airplanes vanishing magically in the same way that carbon offsets make emissions "disappear," they said.

Negotiation leaders acknowledged that the demonstrations captured their attention.

"It's very important that you're here," said UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer in an address to the youth delegation. "You're taking a very strong position, you're holding leaders responsible for their decisions, and, at the least, you're making it a lot less boring."

The activists' "strong position," broadly, was a demand for climate justice. The term refers to aid that industrialized nations provide to developing countries to help them transition to low-carbon economies and adapt to damages caused by climate change. Such funding is justified, activists said, by the fact that the majority of greenhouse gas emissions are produced in the world's wealthiest nations yet the worst damages will disproportionally affect the developing world, women, and indigenous populations. 

"We are the creditors, and the debtors have to pay their debt!" shouted Wahu Kaara, a coordinator with the Kenya Debt Relief Network, at a press conference. "Not anymore are our lives going to be sacrificed at the hands of market economies for their profit!"

Activists rallied around Tuvalu, in particular. The future of the low-lying Pacific island nation is threatened by rising sea levels and more-extreme weather events. Demonstrators pressed negotiators throughout the conference to "listen to Tuvalu" and support the nation's demand that global temperature rise be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius rather than the 2-degree rise accepted by wealthier nations.

Keenan, the Australian climate activist, was one of several participants who fasted during the lead-up to the conference and throughout the negotiations. She, as well as Sara Svensson of Sweden, denied themselves food for 43 days.

"It's a way of showing leaders that we want more, we need more," said Matthew Ballé, a French solar panel installer who heard about the fast in November, joined the next day, and continued the protest action through the conference.

Even when the United Nations reduced access to the conference hall to keep the number of government delegations, media, and non-governmental observants within building capacity, activist organizers continued to attract attention through a series of marches and sit-ins.

"If people can't get into the negotiations - indeed, we are getting kept out - then the only way we can express ourselves is right there, on the streets," said Beverly Keene, co-coordinator of Jubilee South, a network of social movements, who organized a march from downtown Copenhagen to the conference hall, where police prevented the protesters' access.

Some analysts have speculated that the antagonistic nature of the protests, as well as the constant distractions caused by demonstrators inside the conference hall, may have further alienated the climate movement from the politicians and negotiators they were attempting to persuade. The violence of some climate protestors may have also further politicized the climate debate, at the cost of progress, some have argued.

But the restrictions on civil society suggest that the movement has grown to the point that leaders have become intimidated, said Bill McKibben, a leading U.S. environmental author and activist.

"At Kyoto, there was no need to lock civil society out of the conference room because there was not enough civil society to lock out," McKibben said. "Now there is. Now there's something for them to be scared about."

As the negotiations drew to a close, many of the remaining activists and organizers gathered for a climate justice "vigil." The somber meeting, in honor of the lives lost due to climate change, also served as a rally to uplift the mood of a movement that felt somewhat trapped in a losing game.

"We've felt a lot of disappointment, but within a few years we've mobilized world leaders - 110 heads of state sitting at a table talking about climate change - that is incredible," said Deepa Gupta, co-founder of the Indian Youth Climate Network. "As long as there is hope in the world, there is inspiration. As long as there is inspiration in the world, there is change. And we will defeat climate change."

In addition to the crowd of demonstrators who filled the streets of Copenhagen during the riot protests - estimates range from 25,000 to 100,000 protestors, according to organizers - some 5,000 people worldwide volunteered to join the climate fasters for a day without food, and 12 million people signed a petition by TckTckTck, a partnership of several environmental and social welfare groups at the Copenhagen summit, to demand a legally binding treaty.

"The result has not been the treaty we need, but we were never so naïve to think we would get it," said McKibben, organizer of the 350 movement, which coordinated 5,200 rallies in 181 countries in October to demand climate action, at the vigil. "Power does not surrender power easily. Privilege does not surrender privilege easily. It takes people like you who press."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

President Obama's speech in Copenhagen last Friday included a trenchant summary that few who had spent the past two weeks listening to the bickering negotiators would disagree with: "While the reality of climate change is not in doubt, I have to be honest, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now and it hangs in the balance."

Also hanging in the balance is the habitability of the planet. The Copenhagen conference did not come close to setting the world on a path to stabilizing the climate--or even to keeping the temperature increase below 2 degrees C, which is one of the few actual numbers in the 12-paragraph "Copenhagen Accord."

Both in its ambition and in the weakness of its framework--an accord rather than a legally binding protocol--Copenhagen represented a significant step backward from the climate treaty process that began in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and was strengthened with the Kyoto Protocol which came into force earlier this decade. And because the accord was crafted by a handful of new and old economic powers, many saw it as a breakdown of the U.N. process and its need for consensus among 193 nations.

Given the intensity of the public and governmental build up to Copenhagen, the intensity and vitriol of many of the reactions is understandable. The Obama Administration is rightly criticized for waiting so late to be clear about its approach to the negotiations and for not having earlier and more productive discussions with the Europeans, Chinese, and others. The Chinese government also shares blame for its unwillingness to recognize its growing responsibility to take action and to allow international verification of its efforts.

The Europeans--the undisputed world leaders in climate policy--have meanwhile been in denial for most of the past year about the state of the negotiations and the need to directly engage the world's largest emitters on fundamental questions about the kind of agreement that was being crafted. And some of the poor countries most vulnerable to climate change, including the Sudanese chair of the bloc of developing countries, did not help matters with the kind of angry rhetoric that is sure to make it harder to build political support for strong climate policies in the largest emitters. 

While it is tempting to respond to the near collapse in Copenhagen with a combination of anger and despair, neither will lead to the result that we and others believe is urgently needed: the transition to a low-carbon economy in the decades immediately ahead. Rather, it is time to practically and analytically assess where the world is on climate change in the aftermath of Copenhagen--and develop a new strategy for carrying the process forward. And that starts with recognition that the U.N. climate negotiations went off track long before the breakdown in Copenhagen revealed what has been clear for some time.

Now that the major emitting countries have made clear that they will only accept emissions targets that are developed internally--and submitted for international review voluntarily--attention will shift back to the national level. While this can be seen as a step backward, it also reflects the reality of where these countries are politically. And there is a silver lining to this cloud. The United States, China, India, and Brazil have all made substantial progress in implementing important new energy and climate policies in the past two years, and it seems likely that the extraordinary personal engagement of their leaders in those national processes--and in the final bargaining in Copenhagen--will help drive further progress in the coming years.

One of the great ironies of Copenhagen is that the international politics of climate change turned to chaos just as the global economy appeared, finally, to be headed in a less carbon-intensive direction. With a big assist from higher oil prices as well as new national and state policies, energy efficiency and renewable energy are advancing more rapidly than ever before. Indeed, the more important competition between the U.S. and China is not which will be able to take on the most modest climate obligations, but which will lead the world in building and selling the low-carbon technologies that have recently become a $100 billion-plus market.

The big emitters have a long way to go to get their emission trends onto a viable path; all are heavily dependent on the carbon intensive technologies of the past. But it is now clear that their success in that critical endeavor will be driven more by domestic economics and politics rather than the international negotiating process. In the coming months, attentions will turn to the looming battle royale in the U.S. Senate and to less visible policy debates in China, India, Brazil, and South Africa. Successful legislation will depend on the ability to persuade domestic constituents that they will benefit economically as well as environmentally from an energy transition.

The United Nations climate process will go on, and the challenge now is to prevent it from turning into an angry, rhetorical talk shop. That can best be accomplished if it focuses on practical and critical goals that need to be accomplished: providing financial support for the world's poorest countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change; accelerating international cooperation on technology; and mounting an international effort to protect the world's remaining forests.

Efforts over the next few years will determine whether Copenhagen was a fatal setback for efforts to combat climate change, or just a painful mid-course correction. This time, the negotiator across the table is the planet itself--and the human future.

Christopher Flavin is President of the Worldwatch Institute.

By Danielle Nierenberg and Brian Halweil  

It's been twenty-five years since a well-meaning music producer threw together a bunch of megastars to record the now ubiquitous humanitarian torch song, Do They Know it's Christmas. Bob Geldof's Band-Aid raised millions of dollars and immeasurable awareness with the compelling chorus of "Feed the World," but global interest in those hungry people has plummeted in the last two decades, if the barometer is international investment in agriculture: agriculture's share of global development aid has dropped from 7 percent to 4 percent since the song debuted, even though most of the world's poor and hungry people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
 
The famine-stricken Ethiopia that inspired the song in the 1980s remains hobbled by food shortages today: some 23 million people in the Horn of Africa are at risk for starvation, according to the World Food Program, which delivers food aid around the world. The global recession and a recent spike in food prices aren't helping, either; the United Nations reported recently that the number of hungry worldwide has crested 1 billion.
 
The sheer number of hungry people isn't the only reason we must raise our standards for success. Because agriculture makes up such a large percentage of the planet's surface, and touches our rivers, air, and other natural resources so intimately, the world can't tolerate some of the unintended-and counterproductive-consequences of how we farm and produce food. And farmers everywhere, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, will need crop varieties and whole new approaches to farming that help them deal with drought, extreme heat and increasingly erratic weather.
 
Hopefully, our collective understanding of how to "cure" hunger has matured enough over the last twenty-five years to recognize that solutions lie not only in shipping food aid, but a new approach to agriculture that nourishes people and the planet. One of us has been traveling in Africa for the last two months, visiting farmers, agricultural research centers and other sources of innovation. There is no shortage of innovative and winning ideas on the continent.
 
In the spirit of reflection and renewal that comes with the conclusion of yet another year, here are four recommendations for farmers, agribusiness, politicians and other agricultural decision-makers to consider as they make their New Year's resolutions.
 
1. Move beyond seeds.
The vast majority of global investment in agriculture is aimed at seeds. But we've neglected the environment in which the seeds grow-that is, the soil, nearby trees, livestock and the rest of the farm, not to mention the food processors, roads and other pieces of the food system that gets the crop to market and onto tables.
 
Consider that in sub-Saharan Africa, the region of the world where the greatest percentage of people are hungry, just 4 percent of the farmland is irrigated (compared with 70 percent in Asia). In parts of Kenya, Tanzania and Mali, the hundreds of thousands of farmers using inexpensive, locally made water pumps have seen incomes double and triple, because they can grow a greater range of crops, over a greater share of the year, and are protected from losing entire crops to drought.
 
2. Cut the slack in the system.
Instead of focusing simply on increasing production, what about making better use of what we already produce? It turns out that a shocking 30 to 50 percent of what's harvested in poorer nations spoils or is contaminated by pests or mold before it reaches the dinner table.
 
There's no new seed variety in the pipeline that promises anything like a 30 to 50 percent boost in production. But simple fixes can go a long way. In Nairobi, Margaret Njeri Ndimu has started selling her goats' milk in plastic bags sealed with candle wax. She learned this simple process through a training program provided by the Mazingira Institute; the bags make it easier to manage and sell her milk, allowing her customers to purchase small quantities of the perishable milk in portable containers. Similar practices can be used by other urban milk producers in cities all over the world.
 
3. Go local (and regional).
Just as important as the techniques that farmers use is to what extent the farmers and farm communities control those techniques. Locavores in the United States and Europe argue the benefits of a more decentralized food system, and solutions for hunger will often be rooted in harnessing local crop diversity, building up locally owned infrastructure, and developing regional markets.
 
In Kampala, Uganda, Project Disc is working with Slow Food chapters to catalogue and revive neglected indigenous foods and foodways that can help inject diversity into diets and into farmers' fields. At the World Vegetable Center in Tanzania, researchers are working with farmers to breed vegetable varieties that don't need costly fertilizers and pesticides, use less water, are locally appropriate, and raise farmer income. Mr. Babel Isack, a Tanzanian tomato farmer, advises staff at the Center about tomato varieties that best suit his needs, including those that depend less on chemical sprays and have a longer shelf life.  
 
4. Position Farms on the Frontline of Climate Change.
Agriculture is the human endeavor likely to be most affected by a changing climate. But it turns out that agriculture, livestock grazing and forestry-responsible for nearly one third of global greenhouse gas emissions-is also the only near-term option for large-scale greenhouse sequestration. In fact, a combination of farming with perennial crops and grasses, cutting nitrogen fertilizer use and managing manure better, reducing erosion, and enriching soils with organic matter could offset one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
 
According to Dr. Frank Place, of the World Agroforestry Centre in Kenya, several million farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are using leguminous trees and shrubs that are grown along with or before or after crops. This technique can improve soil, double or triple the yields of the subsequent crop, and eliminate the need for artificial fertilizers. These trees also lock two to three times the carbon into the soil as a typical corn crop.
 
All of these measures hold untapped potential for boosting global food production, strengthening rural communities, rebuilding ecosystems, and reducing poverty and hunger. And in contrast to "band-aid" shipments of food, the lasting solutions will involve farmers and food communities working together to feed themselves.
 
Danielle Nierenberg and Brian Halweil are Senior Researchers at the Worldwatch Institute. Danielle has been traveling in sub-Saharan Africa for the last two months researching innovations in African agriculture. Read more about her travels at Nourishing the Planet.

Copenhagen, Denmark - Climate "witnesses" from Bangladesh, Peru, the South Pacific, and Uganda testified at the world's first climate change hearing on Wednesday.

The hearing, organized by Oxfam International and Action for a Global Climate Community , was designed to put climate change victims-those whom climate change affects the most yet who have contributed least to the problem-at the center of the climate debate, according to Oxfam Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.

The concept of "climate justice" is widespread in the negotiation rooms, side events, and rallies at the ongoing international climate talks in the Danish capital.

"Fourteen percent of the world population has produced 60 percent of the world's carbon emissions since 1850," said Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the hearing. "The poorest have the least role in causing climate change yet they are being hit first, hardest, and worst."

Wealthy nations have proposed distributing $100 billion in climate aid annually by 2020 to the most vulnerable nations affected by climate change. U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced Thursday that the United States would help raise public and private funds for the effort.

Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi proposed on Wednesday that poorer nations receive $50 billion each year in immediate climate funding, with the aid increasing to $100 billion annually by 2020. Other African leaders have criticized the proposal as insufficient.

Pelenise Olafa, a community leader from the island nation of Kiribati, called for additional support for the South Pacific islands, where the highest land area is less than four meters above sea level. "We are on the frontline and may be the first countries to go down," Olafa said. "Don't we understand that climate change is not negotiable? It is a matter of life and death."

Shorbanu Khatun, a single mother of four from Bangladesh, described the loss of her husband and home as a result of rising sea levels, increased ground salinity, and the onslaught of Cyclone Isla. She and her children have lived hand to mouth during the decade since their home was lost to the sea.

"We have lost everything," Khatun said. "We used to think that God was punishing us, but I have come to know that climate change is manmade. I have come to you to seek justice and compensation. I want my life back."

Climate impacts are being observed in the mountain regions of South America as well. Cayetano Huanca, a farmer from Peru's Ocongate district, described new emerging diseases in his homeland. "The weather seasons have changed completely and are affecting our culture, cattle herding, and the life of human beings," Huanca said, noting that crop failures, glacial melt, and large temperature swings are becoming more regular. "We the indigenous people will not pay for the consequences. Are we guilty?"

Constance Okollet, a farmer from Uganda, described the devastating drought, flooding, and disease that has occurred in her village of Tororo since 2007. "We want our seasons back. We want our generations. Children and old people are dying. We want them to stop the emissions because we are suffering and dying as a result of them. We want money to adapt with the changes of climate because we are dying," she said.

"All of us are seeking to be heard," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who oversaw the session. "People who are living on the frontline of climate change...are the ones that must be listened to more than anyone else. They are the voices that must be heard...heeded...and acted upon."

Most of the individuals currently suffering from the impacts of climate change have not taken legal action to collect repayment for damages done.

However, on Wednesday the International Court for the Environment Coalition, a campaign run by "lawyers and environmentalists throughout the world," announced plans to create an International Court for the Environment where victims of climate-related human rights violations could air their grievances, said Philip Riches, the coalition's director.

At the conclusion of the testimonies, Commissioner Robinson delivered her verdict, observing that climate change is a "deep and global injustice" that is "undermining human rights on an unprecedented scale."

Archbishop Tutu closed the session with words of caution: "We are here to tell the leaders of the world we have one Earth home. If it is destroyed, there is no other. And we are in it together. We are going to swim or drown together. We are interconnected. We are bound together. If one slips down inexorably, he or she brings down the whole lot. We are here to call for action."

Worldwatch Staff Writer Ben Block contributed to this report.

Anna da Costa is a Worldwatch Institute research fellow based in New Delhi, India. This article is a product of Eye on Earth, the Worldwatch Institute's online news service. For permission to republish Eye on Earth content, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.

 

With a Proven Track Record of Environmental Destruction, Why Are Big Dams Still Being Built?

Washington, D.C.-Despite high environmental and social costs, a major resurgence in dam construction worldwide is now under way, driven by infusions of new capital from developing countries and a public campaign by the dambuilding industry to greenwash hydropower as a source of clean energy. In the latest issue of World Watch magazine, a look at the heavy dam-building activity in China, the Amazon basin, and Africa illustrates the risks involved.

"The dambuilding industry is greenwashing hydropower with a public relations offensive designed to convince the world that the next generation of dams will provide additional sources of clean energy and help to ease the effects of climate change," write Aviva Imhof and Guy R. Lanza, authors of "Greenwashing Hydropower" in the January/February World Watch. "In some of the world's last great free-flowing-river basins, such as the Amazon, the Mekong, the Congo, and the rivers of Patagonia, governments and industry are pushing forward with cascades of massive dams, all under the guise of clean energy."

Big dams have frequently imposed high social and environmental costs and longterm economic tradeoffs, such as lost fisheries and tourism potential and flooded agricultural and forest land. According to the independent World Commission on Dams, most projects have failed to compensate affected people for their losses and to adequately mitigate environmental impacts. Local people have rarely had a meaningful say in whether or how a dam is implemented, or received their fair share of project benefits.

The authors explain that the industry's attempt to repackage hydropower as a green, renewable technology is both misleading and unsupported by the facts. In general, the cheapest, cleanest, and fastest solution is to invest in energy efficiency. 

Despite alternatives, however, the promise of profits for the hydropower industry, their network of consultants, and host-country bureaucracies often trumps the impacts on people and ecosystems. 

"A vigorous assault on corruption, plus technology transfer and financial assistance: These are the keys to allowing developing countries to leapfrog to a sustainable, twenty-first century energy regime," write Imhof and Lanza. "The stakes are high, because healthy rivers, like all intact ecosystems, are priceless. The alternative, quite simply, is a persistent legacy of human and environmental destruction."

Copenhagen, Denmark - A draft United Nations climate treaty includes a reference to indigenous peoples' rights as part of an avoided deforestation plan, representing a first effort to grant indigenous communities legal protection through international environmental law. 

Negotiations remain unfinished, but the treaty text appears likely to include recognition of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration, adopted in 2007, maintains that indigenous peoples must express their "free, prior, and informed consent" for any biodiversity conservation program to proceed within their territory.

Advocates for indigenous people said that although the 2007 declaration is referenced, however, the current draft climate treaty does not offer true equal protections.

"It's not a victory, but it's something," said Juan Carlos Jintiach, a Shuar native from Ecuador who represents the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) at international meetings. "People recognize us. It's better than nothing."

International negotiators are likely to target the 15-20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions released from forest loss as part of a political agreement forged toward the end of the Copenhagen climate summit. The program, known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), would provide financial incentives to tropical countries that improve carbon sequestration in their forests.

Six nations threw their support behind the program on Wednesday, offering a total of $3.5 billion to help developing nations prepare for REDD requirements.

"We regard this as an initial investment to build the capacity in these countries and to undertake efforts to slow deforestation," said U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at an event on Wednesday. "If we are serious about climate change we have to be serious about our forests."

Indigenous representatives have traveled to Copenhagen concerned that REDD programs, without proper legal protections, would displace indigenous communities from forested lands and coerce them into unfair contracts.

Simone Lorena travelled from the Kuna territory of Panama, where the United Nations and World Bank are helping to develop a REDD program. The Kuna General Congress received $69,000 to develop training workshops that explained REDD initiatives to the Kuna population, but the government submitted its final REDD plan to the World Bank without the Kuna's approval, Lorena said.

"We're sure REDD will create conflicts in forests because it wasn't a transparent direct consultation with indigenous people," Lorena said. "There was a lot of manipulation."

The current negotiation text "notes" that the U.N. has adopted the indigenous peoples' declaration and recommends that indigenous knowledge and rights "should" be respected. Advocates for indigenous peoples had hoped the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the broader international climate agreement that is currently being amended under the new treaty, would set a legal precedent that indigenous peoples could potentially cite in the event of rights violations.

"'Should' is much, much weaker than ‘parties shall,'" said Nathaniel Dyer, a policy advisor for Rainforest Foundation UK. "It's important because this is what lawyers will pore over when the violations occur."

The four countries that voted against the 2007 U.N. declaration - Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States - opposed the inclusion of similar language in the UNFCCC agreement, according to Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

"We wanted it to be stronger. This is what the United States can live with," said Tauli-Corpuz, a Kankana-ey Igorot native from the Philippines who negotiated for the declaration's inclusion in the UNFCCC text. "We wanted respect for indigenous people as contained in the declaration, but of course, the U.S. didn't like it because the U.S. ruled against it and didn't feel obliged to implement it."

Australia, New Zealand, and the United States declined to comment on the ongoing negotiation text. The Canadian delegation, in an e-mail response, emphasized the importance of "appropriate consultative processes that support the fair and equitable balancing of interests" when working alongside indigenous communities.

"Free, prior, and informed consent is not the only, nor is it necessarily the most effective way, to ensure that the interests of indigenous peoples are accommodated," the statement said.

Nations that advocated for the U.N. declaration language included Bolivia, Columbia, Paraguay, the Philippines, and Venezuela, Tauli-Corpuz said.

The chair of REDD negotiations, Dean Tony La Vina of the Manila-based Ateneo School of Government, said on Sunday that legal "safeguards" - protections for biodiversity and transparency, as well as indigenous peoples' rights - would be addressed when ministers and heads of state work through the negotiation text during the rest of this week.

"I'm pretty confident we can work on those safeguards. REDD will not succeed if you don't respect the rights of indigenous peoples, if you don't maintain biodiversity, and if you don't ensure proper governance," La Vina said.

He added, however, that indigenous peoples' rights have largely been removed from the negotiation agenda in Copenhagen and were instead addressed in previous sessions. "We haven't had a debate on indigenous peoples in this session," he said.

Various voluntary standards are under development to ensure that national governments include safeguard protections in REDD programs. The REDD+ Social and Environmental Standards, a partnership between aid group CARE International and the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), has guided national REDD efforts in Ecuador.

"This is a very serious and genuine attempt to address the concerns that brings you all here," said Phil Franks, a CARE coordinator, in an address to indigenous representatives at a side event to the Copenhagen summit. "Communities should be involved fully in the [REDD] funding mechanism to make an attempt at knowing where those resources are going to go."

National or international forums may also be formed to allow communities or individuals abused as part of a REDD program to raise their concerns, said Nils Hermann Ranum, head of policy at Rainforest Foundation Norway.

"A complaint mechanism can be a possibility that helps countries adhere [to international guidelines], and it offers insurance for donors or buyers that it would not be their legal responsibility," Ranum said.

Following the summit, Jintiach said, indigenous peoples organizations will focus on educating their communities about REDD policies.

"How we implement on the ground, it's our responsibility as indigenous peoples' organizations," he said. "The world is coming. We have to do our part."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to republish this article, please contact Juli Diamond at jdiamond@worldwatch.org.