Posted in 2010

Satellite Readings Offer New Ways to Identify the Best Irrigation Practices

BY KATE ROSS, The International Herald Tribune, November 29, 2010

A new technology, using sensors on satellites, could help to establish standards for the amount of water that farmers need to irrigate their crops, and help to optimize the use of that water, an increasingly scarce resource.

See the full text of the article on: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/business/energy-environment/29iht-rbogwater.html?_r=2&src=busln

This article by Sir Julian Hunt first appeared in The New Zealand Herald on December 1st 2010. Lord Hunt is former director-general of the UK Met Office, now a visiting professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

The Cancun climate change summit is taking place in the context of the summer’s extraordinary floods in Asia and record high average temperatures over the whole world (with drought in other parts of Asia and southern Africa).

Moreover, with the snows melting last year on the Andes, as on high mountains everywhere, the Amazon had record-high and record-low levels.

While the "urgency to act" is thus growing in some quarters, the prospects for a comprehensive deal in Mexico are slim.

The central problem is that there remains slow progress and uneven elite and popular support in many countries for the United Nations objective of achieving within the next 20 to 30 years the necessary reductions in overall emissions of greenhouse gases.

At the Cancun preparatory meeting in Tianjin in October, little progress was apparently made amid widely reported public disagreements between the United States and China. With Washington accusing Beijing of reneging on its commitments to transparency under last year’s Copenhagen Accord, China asserted that the US was not reducing its greenhouse gases.

While even a significant US-China rapprochement will probably not be enough to secure a comprehensive deal at Cancun, such a development would undoubtedly increase the prospects for a new agreement next year and beyond. But, what are the chances of Beijing and Washington moving closer in the months to come?

To answer this question, it is imperative to understand the Chinese perspective on climate change, especially as the country is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. While there has been major discussion in recent years about US climate change policy, much less attention has focused on that of China and the reasons why it views the problems of curbing global warming differently from the West.

For instance, in discussions in the West about how to avoid dangerous climate change, two numbers are especially prominent – 450 parts per million and 2C. These are, respectively, the upper "safe" concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the upper "safe" limit of average global temperature increase. The fear is that if we exceed either, the climate will pass an irreversible tipping point.

In my most recent visits to China, including last month, I have heard some very different numbers being debated.

China is absolutely committed to political stability and that stability depends on economic growth. Over the next 40 years, it forecasts that its gross domestic product will increase by a factor of six. The driving force of this enormous growth will be fossil fuels, in particular coal.

China’s stated policy is to increase the total output of its coal-fired electricity generation while improving efficiency. This is its only significant target in relation to energy and climate change.
China, in other words, is not committed to limiting emissions so as not to exceed any particular target for the global CO2 concentration.

This is not to say, however, that China does not regard the climate change issue seriously. Legislation will soon also be introduced to make compulsory the reductions in emissions per unit of energy by up to 40 per cent and also to expand low carbon supplies by up to 15 per cent of the total, including solar, wind, hydro and nuclear fission.

Moreover, authorities are already encouraging industries to reduce emissions by using carbon trading at five regional centres. Beijing is also considering a mandatory carbon-trading scheme as part of its 12th five-year plan, to be published next year.

Despite these efforts, the country’s booming overall emissions will contribute significantly to atmospheric CO2. Indeed, this overall picture is consistent with estimates last year by the Beijing Climate Centre that by 2050 total Chinese greenhouse gas emissions may be more than double the current levels.

Climate models indicate that this continued growth in emissions will lead to atmospheric concentrations of the gases equivalent to about 600ppm and global land temperatures in excess of 3C-4C by 2100. These are staggering numbers compared with those being discussed in the West. The key question that arises is whether there is anything the rest of the world can do to avoid the risk of dangerous climate change that these Chinese numbers imply?

I believe there are reasons to be hopeful. The main way that China can limit its emissions will be to improve the efficiency of its coal-fired power stations, adopt carbon capture and storage, and expand nuclear power. Developed countries, including the US, can encourage and facilitate this transition by providing China with substantial technological assistance. But first, Western nations must commit to making deep cuts in their own emissions – in the order of at least 80 per cent – before 2050, conditional on China doing so after 2050 as its energy efficiency, renewable and nuclear programmes become effective.

As ambitious as it may seem, an international agreement along these lines next year or beyond is a credible goal (although it would most likely need to be facilitated outside of the UN process), for at least two reasons.

Firstly, because China has a long-term financial interest in collaborating with the West. And secondly because – as I have seen in meteorology and in plasma physics – China has a good track record in delivering on advanced technology projects and sticking to international agreements.

For those, like myself, who believe that global warming is the greatest danger to humanity in the 21st century, it is to be hoped that all countries will show the ambition and imagination needed to move towards a comprehensive and effective deal in Mexico.

With a growing urgency to act, we simply cannot afford to see the shambles of Copenhagen repeated in Cancun.

This article was first published in the South China Morning Post on November 29th 2010 by Julian Hunt. Lord Hunt is vice-president of Globe (Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment), visiting professor at Delft University of Technology, and former director general of the UK Met Office

The range of views on climate change offers some grounds for collaboration, if not a deal at Cancun

In advance of the UN climate summit in Cancun, which begins today, legislators from across the world – from US congressman Bart Gordon to Chinese congressman Wang Guangtao – met in Tianjin this month at Globe International’s climate change symposium. Though the prospect of reaching a comprehensive deal in Mexico is being widely talked down, much progress can still be made; there remains substantial room for optimism.

Last year’s disappointing and confused Copenhagen conference showed the lack of willingness of major countries to establish any meaningful international agreement to deal with the causes and impact of manmade climate change. This might involve only the developed countries reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases, as in the Kyoto Protocol, or could also involve other countries with major emissions.

Neither of these scenarios seems likely to be achieved at Cancun. It now seems that the meeting might just result in a set of statements by countries about what they are doing individually and in various multilateral arrangements – a disappointing re-run of Copenhagen.

However, it needs to be remembered that text in a communique does not reduce emissions in itself – action on the ground does. In this context, there are reasons to be optimistic about recent legislative activity in developing countries. For instance, the Chinese announced at the Globe symposium that they are studying the feasibility of a comprehensive climate change law.

Moreover, if a comprehensive deal isn’t reached at Cancun, the summit still represents a remarkable opportunity for countries to assess the future more realistically, and collaborate on the practical policies that need to be introduced. Cancun offers a stepping stone to secure a truly sustainable global deal next year or beyond.

Under current plans, many industrialising countries will continue to increase their emissions. This is despite the fact that, in most of the major emitting countries, administrative and innovative market mechanisms are offering incentives to industry to use energy more efficiently.

In China, financial rewards for reducing energy use provided by regional governments are leading to substantial improvements in efficiency. These arrangements are evolving into local carbon markets, albeit small-scale and voluntary at this stage. Although the Kyoto Protocol does not apply to the emissions in China and other developing countries, where millions still live in extreme poverty, politicians in these countries nonetheless say that the protocol does provide a policy framework for controlling emissions.

In the United States, the Obama administration is relying on national regulations operated by the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor and limit further emissions from major power plants. As green stimulus measures, such as the investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency, wind down, this work becomes more important.

The US, China and the European Union are also planning to introduce new systems of monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, using remote-sensing and ground-based instrumentation. EU countries have been emphasising low-carbon energy such as wind and nuclear, as well as carbon sequestration, but have not been able to agree on priorities. There is more unanimity in the EU about promoting its policy of carbon trading to motivate industrial efficiency.

Other countries are focusing on preventing the rise of atmospheric greenhouse gases by expanding forestry. This is why some Latin American and EU legislators are considering how natural conservation and preserving biodiversity can be an integral part of climate change policy.

Given this wide range of political, economic and technical approaches to climate change policy, it may be impossible to frame an international agreement that would satisfy all governments, businesses and also civil society groups. However, it should be possible to agree on a range of practical actions to mitigate climate change and deal with its effects on health, business, agriculture and natural disasters.

The rising costs of dealing with these effects, such as coastal defenses, and reducing desertification and urban overheating, mean that preventative actions have to begin now. They must not be delayed until economies grow further, as some influential economists argue.

The legislators at the Globe symposium generally agreed that there are three areas where urgent action is needed most.

First, more information is needed about expected levels of greenhouse gas, global and regional climate risks, and likely impact on countries. Decision-makers need to know more clearly the likely scenarios and reasonable targets. Communities need to be informed so that they can also contribute, as for example farmers do in Mali, by measuring and communicating the changes to local climate and ecology. The best way for improving information exchange is through United Nations agencies.

Second, countries and regions should exchange information about actions they have taken for mitigation and adaptation, as was agreed in principle at Copenhagen. Members of Globe are already exchanging experiences about legislation and its effectiveness in different countries. However, more work is needed to make this a reality, with transfer of know-how to developing countries.

Third, more collaboration is needed in implementing policies. This should build on national, regional or sectoral initiatives, for example in carbon trading, funding adaptation in developing countries, and developing new technologies for global application, such as desalination, plant breeding and genetic engineering of new crops. Also key are social programmes for the millions of people who are likely to be displaced by the effects of desertification, sea-level rise and probably the melting of mountain snows.

For those, such as myself, who believe that global warming is the greatest danger to humanity in the 21st century, it is to be hoped that agreement can be reached in these areas so that we can move nearer towards a comprehensive and effective deal. We cannot afford to see the shambles of Copenhagen repeated in Cancun.

HUUB SAVENIJE over het waterbeheer in Nederland en België

Verloopt het waterbeheer in Belgie anders dan in Nederland? Huub Savenije onderzoekt de overeenkomsten en de verschillen.

Huub Savenije is hoogleraar hydrologie en waterhuishouding aan de TU Delft. Dit artikel verscheen op dinsdag 16 november 2010 in De Morgen . 

Naar aanleiding van de recente overstromingen wordt er zowel in België als in Nederland weer druk gedebatteerd over het water. Zodra er mensen natte voeten krijgen, ondergelopen kelders of, erger nog, drijvend huisraad in hun woning, is het waterbeheer weer even topprioriteit. Maar als alles weer droog is vergeten we de ellende weer vlug en gaan we weer over tot de orde van de dag. Voor de gemeenteambtenaar en voor de projectontwikkelaar betekent dat: het plannen van stadsuitbreiding, woningbouw, industrieterreinen, nieuwe wegen, parkeerterreinen en rioleringen. Dat is in Nederland en België waarschijnlijk niet anders. Mensen die waarschuwen dat de vergroting van het geplaveide oppervlak en de intensivering van de drainage leidt tot wateroverlast benedenstrooms, zien zich gesteld tegenover de grote belangen die gemoeid gaan met het intensiveren van het landgebruik. Bouwgrond is schaars en duur, en met het verkopen van grond en het bebouwen daarvan is veel geld te verdienen, vooral als de onbebouwde grond relatief goedkoop is. Helaas ligt die goedkope grond vaak daar waar ook het water terecht komt als het hard regent. Als waterbeheerder is tegen deze belangen nauwelijks op te boksen, ook in Nederland niet. De waterbeheerder ziet zich voor steeds grotere veiligheidseisen gesteld terwijl zijn speelruimte afneemt.

Geen extreme buien
Uiteraard is het aantrekkelijk om de recente wateroverlast in het licht van mogelijke klimaatsverandering te zien. Maar dat is niet terecht. Het waren heftige, maar geen extreme buien. Wat veel sterker is veranderd, zijn: ons landgebruik, de inrichting van de publieke ruimte, en de eisen die wij stellen aan het watersysteem. In Nederland is het inmiddels heel normaal dat mensen hun kelder bewonen, daar waar die vroeger alleen gebruikt werden om voorraden koel en donker te bewaren. Huizen en winkels zijn tegenwoordig drempelloos, zodat het water ongehinderd naar binnen kan stromen. Vervolgens hebben we dure vloerbedekking, stopcontacten en elektrische apparaten op voethoogte liggen, zodat de schade direct groot is zodra er water binnenkomt. Daarmee worden er eisen aan het waterbeheer gesteld die vroeger niet bestonden. Dus aan de ene kant wordt het risico groter omdat er meer water van boven naar beneden wordt afgevoerd en aan de andere kant neemt de schade toe omdat we steeds meer gebouwen met waardevolle spullen op kwetsbare plaatsen hebben. Ook dat is in Nederland en in België waarschijnlijk niet anders.

Zijn er dan geen verschillen? Je hoort vaak dat de oorzaak vooral gezocht moet worden in de organisatie van het waterbeheer die veelal versnipperd is over verschillende overheden. De gemeente probeert de nood te lenigen als er wateroverlast is. Als er kelders onderlopen of als er mensen gered moeten worden, dan rukt de brandweer uit. Maar het is vaak dezelfde gemeente die vergunningen heeft afgegeven voor stadsuitbreiding, afwatering of voor het bouwen op riskante plaatsen. Daarom is er een hoger orgaan nodig dat de effecten van deze maatregelen doorrekent en kaders stelt waarbinnen lagere overheden kunnen manoeuvreren. In Nederland zijn er de waterschappen en is er de Rijkswaterstaat die deze gemeenteoverschrijdende belangen in de gaten moeten houden, maar in de praktijk werkt ook dat in Nederland lang niet altijd zoals het moet. De gemeentes trekken meestal aan het langste eind en passen hun plannen hooguit cosmetisch aan.

Geaccidenteerd België
Wat is er dan anders tussen Nederland en België? Ik denk dat louter door het feit dat Nederland zo vlak is, en dat een groot deel van het land beneden zeeniveau ligt, de problemen bij intense regenbuien minder extreem zijn. Zodra er hoogteverschillen zijn, loopt het water naar de laagste plek – en tegenwoordig gaat dat steeds sneller door de intense bebouwing. België is nu eenmaal meer geaccidenteerd dan Nederland en het water concentreert zich dus gemakkelijker in de laagste stukken. Ten tweede is Nederland waarschijnlijk iets beter ingespeeld op dit soort van gebeurtenissen. Omdat grote delen van Nederland onder zeeniveau liggen, zijn de waterschappen dagelijks bezig om de waterpeilen in de sloten en waterlopen te handhaven. Zodra het regent gaan er pompen aan, of het nou veel of minder regent. Het is de routine van alledag die maakt dat er direct handelend wordt opgetreden. Maar wellicht geldt dat evenzeer voor de lagere gebieden van België.

Dit neemt niet weg dat het in Nederland nooit fout gaat. Onlangs nog was er na een heftige regenbui veel wateroverlast in Egmond aan Zee, en deze zomer trad de Oost-Nederlandse Dinkel buiten zijn oevers, met veel schade. In Nederland is er een intensieve maatschappelijke discussie gaande over de hoeveelheid land die wij moeten reserveren om het water de nodige ruimte te geven. Uiteindelijk is het een kwestie van ruimtelijke ordening, waarbij wij zowel ervoor zorgen dat het water voldoende kan worden vastgehouden (in de bodem of op daartoe aangewezen land), als dat we de schade beperken door de laagliggende gebieden beter toe te rusten op eventuele inundaties.

This article by Andy van den Dobbelsteen and Nico Tillie first appeared on Reuters The Great Debate UK on Nov 9, 2010.
Andy van den Dobbelsteen is a Professor of Architecture and Nico Tillie is a PhD candidate at Delft University of Technology. Tillie also works for the City of Rotterdam.

This year’s World Town Planning Day, on November 8, was held in 30 countries on four continents. It is a recognition and celebration of the contributions that sound planning has made to the quality of the human environment and provides recognition of the ideals of community planning among the profession and the general public worldwide.

In recent times, World Town Planning Day has been strongly influenced by environmental themes and this year was no different with much of the world’s eyes on the upcoming Cancun U.N. climate change summit. However, our own view is that planners have yet to fully grasp the fundamental question at the heart of the global warming challenge in urban areas: how can cities and towns become far more autonomous and possibly even free from fossil fuels?

In Europe, until now, architects and urban planners have often followed three steps when designing a sustainable built environment. Reducing energy consumption, utilising sustainable energy, and using fossil fuels as efficiently and cleanly as possible. However, to date at least, this approach has not led to substantially more sustainable towns and cities.

As part of a new approach, we have therefore added in another step: re-using waste flows such as waste-water, household and agricultural waste, and residual heat, whilst using renewable energy to satisfy remaining demand. All buildings and urban areas generate "waste streams" that could be harnessed, but rarely are. We believe that adoption of this approach will eventually render the use of fossil fuels completely unnecessary.

Our project is part of the Rotterdam Climate Initiative, which aims to halve the level of CO2 emissions in the city by 2025, compared to 1990 levels. This is an ambitious plan which will require the truly transformational paradigm we advocate in our revolutionary REAP (Rotterdam Energy Approach and Planning) model.

REAP incentivises urban planners to comb urban areas looking for opportunities to exchange energy. For instance, in the area of Rotterdam near the World Trade Centre, many new homes, offices and a second shopping mall and supermarkets are all forthcoming. All of these buildings will have their own heating and cooling needs and produce residual energy flows which can be "exchanged":

*    For instance, supermarkets must continually operate cooling systems which produce huge amounts of heat that, at present, simply disappears into the atmosphere.  Under our plans, heat pumps will transfer this residual heat to nearby homes and buildings.

*    This principle will also allow for the exchange of heat between offices and homes. On hot days, for instance, office air conditioning units roar into action, yet the heat that is produced in this process is currently wasted. It could (and should) be stored, for instance in underground aquifer layers (Heat and Cold Storage) for inter-seasonal exchange (and then used to heat homes during the winter months) or in tanks for covering diurnal or weekly differences.

*    Organic waste from the neighbourhood could also be collected to produce biogas. Moreover, there are also plans underway for the city to generate residual demand for energy using available green technologies such as solar panels or heat pumps.

We applied these principals in Hart van Zuid, an existing district in Rotterdam, where urban planning calls for homes to be built near the Zuidplein shopping centre that can use the residual heat generated by a local supermarket. The Ikazia Hospital, which is located nearby and consumes huge amounts of energy, is also being modified to be energy self-dependent by reclaiming heat from residual hot air and water, while also becoming much better insulated by means of an overarching climate façade which resembles a huge greenhouse covered in vegetation.

While REAP principles can be applied universally, they do require a substantial amount of infrastructure changes. For instance, small communal facilities must be built to store and redistribute energy. Moreover, heat pumps and heat storage systems are needed for counter-balancing daily and seasonal temperature changes.

Logistics also provide a challenge. For instance, suppose a newly built residential complex in a CO2 neutral neighbourhood is completed earlier than the supermarket the residents depend on for their heat. The only interim solution here might be an emergency generator which could prove costly.

However, for all of these potential obstacles, the big picture here is that carbon-neutral urban development is definitely possible, at least for the demand for heat and cooling — as we have evidenced through REAP in Rotterdam. We believe that REAP can be applied in any urban geography and the next step is to see whether it can provide a structure for other natural resources such as water and materials.

While that experiment is for the future, we are extremely excited about the value REAP has right now as a planning tool for urban planners to make the transition from existing city regions to more sustainable and autonomous city regions. Indeed, we believe that adoption of this approach will eventually render the use of fossil fuels completely unnecessary, a development that would be truly transformational.

This article by Julian Hunt and first appeared on Reuters The Great Debate UK on Nov 3, 2010. Lord Hunt is a visiting professor at Delft University of Technology and emeritus professor at University College London, and former director-general of the UK Meteorological Office.
Dr Simon Day is a researcher at the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, University College London.

The devastating tsunami that struck the Indonesian islands of Mentawai may have caused about 450 deaths, with hundreds more still missing, and compounds the disaster caused in the country by the eruption of Mount Merapi in Java. Following a magnitude 7.7 earthquake, the Mentawai Islands were engulfed with estimated three-metre waves that affected thousands of households.

What has shocked many about this latest disaster is the fact that, more than five years after the cataclysmic Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, when at least 187,000 people died (with 43,000 still missing), there were no greater preparations against the devastation.

This is especially puzzling to some as, since 2004, our understanding of the risks of tsunamis and how to reduce their impact has advanced considerably through warnings, forecasting and better tsunami-resistant construction and design.  For instance, in the past five years there has been significant progress in most aspects of warnings around the world, and the Indian Ocean region now has a system in place.

Much of the explanation for this apparent paradox stems from the fact that, even with a warning system in place, some communities close to epicentres may still not receive the warnings in time. This was exactly the issue with the recent disaster.

With Mentawai no more than 100 kilometres from the earthquake’s epicentre, the tsunami waves reached the shores of the islands within 15-30 minutes; even if a tsunami alert had been issued by a warning system, it would have arrived too late for many people to have time to escape. This underlines the fact that, in almost all major earthquake-generated tsunamis (the exceptions occur when the source area is more or less uninhabited), at least 80 percent of the casualties occur in the zone of felt seismic shaking from the source, and within the first hour.

So does this mean that there is nothing we can do to assist communities near earthquake epicentres from tsunamis? The short answer is ‘no’ in at least two main respects.

First, whether there are warnings or not, communities and infrastructure need to be resilient against the most likely kinds of natural hazards. Since 2004, for instance, many people near the Indian Ocean coastline sleep at higher elevations to avoid surprise tsunamis at night.

Research is now leading to more ambitious solutions for building resilient infrastructure. At several research institutes, including Delft University of Technology and University College London, laboratory wave-makers have reproduced tsunami events. But mathematical models and computations are now needed to turn the experiments into reliable estimates for engineers and for community planners to build tsunami proof structures and plan more resilient communities. With global warming, these calculations also take account of the increasing danger as the sea level rises – which is happening three times faster in tropical seas where tsunami risk is greatest.

Resilience also involves understanding how hazards affect local situations. Education for Self-Warning and Voluntary Evacuation (Eswave) is the best and most cost-effective method, whether in developed countries (as with earthquake drills in California) or in developing countries (as with tsunami-earthquake response procedures that saved many lives in Chile this year).

Eswave helps explain to local communities the diversity of tsunami waves (and the appropriate responses), such as:

● High surge waves, as occurred in Mentawai, which increase in height as they travel at speeds of about 10 metres a second or more up the beach and several kilometres inland, drowning and destroying villages in their path.
● Depression waves, as happened in Thailand and Sri Lanka in 2004 and in Samoa last year, when the water withdraws – lulling people into relaxing or even approaching the beach – before returning as large, surging waves.

The wider use of Eswave could have almost certainly saved lives in Mentawai by teaching local people to find higher ground or move further inland when they felt the initial seismic shaking or perhaps seen initial sea level changes. Survivor accounts indicate that they felt the earthquake, but that many did not react until the early tsunami waves were breaking on the shorelines.

This contrasts strikingly with the behaviour of many communities in the southwestern Pacific, who know that earthquake shaking often precedes a tsunami: mortality rates from tsunamis in such communities are at least 90 per cent lower than in adjacent communities of immigrants who are not tsunami-aware.

Forecasting is the second main way to mitigate tsunami risks. Perhaps the most promising research for improving our predictive skills is holistic geophysical forecasting.

This makes use of the fact that tsunami related disturbances are so large and so powerful that they disturb the solid earth, the oceans and the atmosphere. These disturbances do not lead just to mechanical forces and releases of heat, as in storms, but they also affect electrical, magnetic and molecular processes, especially higher up in the atmosphere.

Modern instruments have become so sensitive that they can measure magnetic fields one millionth of the strength of the earth’s magnetic field; they can detect tremors in the earth’s rigid outer layer long before large earthquakes and tsunamis actually occur. Research at Moscow’s Geoelectromagnetic Research Centre confirms that the motions in tsunami waves can be detected over many hundreds of kilometres from distant measurements of weak, slowly changing magnetic fields.

This new frontier of prediction is pathbreaking and already achieving exciting results. However, true success will only be achieved when human lives are routinely saved by applying both this and other tsunami-related research in practice.

This opinion piece by Sir Julian Hunt appeared in The Australian on October 08, 2010.
Julian Hunt is visiting professor at the Dutch Delft University of Technology and a former director-general of the UK Met Office.

SCIENTISTS need to do a better job of explaining how the environment affects our lives.

THE UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Tianjin, China, that ends tomorrow has been taking place against the backdrop of the northern summer’s extraordinary floods in Asia and unprecedented temperatures in much of the world. For instance, static weather patterns across much of the western US (which climate change is likely to induce more often in the future) have led temperatures to rise in Los Angeles to 45C. The urgency to act is thus growing: Copenhagen cannot be repeated at the Cancun climate change summit in December.

The problem is that there remains slow progress and uneven elite and popular support in many countries for the UN objective of achieving within the next 20 to 30 years the necessary reductions in overall emissions of greenhouse gases by means of immediate agreed international action by wealthier countries and longer-term action by less wealthy countries with growing populations.

In addition to securing a post-Kyoto global change agreement, we must look beyond present scientific and technical arguments, and political rhetoric, to see whether there may be other ways of moving forward and better engaging the doubters and objectors.

Unlike now, the international consensus paradigm worked well from the 1960s to 90s for dealing with serious continental-scale environmental degradation caused by industrial processes – notably air pollution and the ozone hole. In these cases the scientific case was soon established, within about 20 years, and the economic costs of the technical solution were hardly noticeable.

However, where the solutions of international environmental problems are vastly expensive and life-changing to communities and individuals alike (as with climate change), not only are they sometimes resisted but the science that has identified the problem then tends to be challenged. Dissenting groups have in recent years also doubted data and predictions on the deterioration of the marine environment and fish stocks, and of forests. The challenge of securing an international agreement to replace Kyoto is also complicated by the large and uncertain economic and social effects of such a new treaty, and the increasing recognition that such an approach may not be the best way to achieve the overall desired goal, which is for each country to secure sustainable policies to minimise the human causes of climate change and adapting to its consequences.

In this light, political leaders in several countries and in large cities are showing that other approaches can work. In China – which is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases – authorities are encouraging industries to reduce emissions by using carbon trading at five regional centres. Beijing is also considering a mandatory carbon trading scheme as part of its 12th five-year plan, due for publication early next year. The European Union’s carbon trading scheme may be linked to those in other countries.

There is similar variation in policies. In some countries, including the US, nuclear and wind energy tend to be favoured because they are economic and more secure than importing fossil fuels. US politicians are also often sceptical about the scientific case for human-induced global warming and tend to deprecate any connection between their non-fossil energy policy and reducing global warming.

Other countries concerned about the future reserves and prices of fossil fuels are also now including nuclear energy as part of their non-fossil energy plans, despite there being no reference to this development in the UN summary document following Copenhagen. In Europe, by contrast, political leaders and communities are expanding low-carbon energy systems mainly because they reduce global warming.

Similarly, low-energy technologies to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels are driven as much by economic and resource limitations as by climate change policies and the other international goals of reducing the loss of biodiversity and improving the environment. For instance, the network of mayors of large cities, led by the mayor of Mexico City, is successfully negotiating with automobile companies to reduce the costs of suitable electric vehicles for urban transportation; the co-operative ideal should not be forgotten in the age of global companies and UN agreements.

Whether these practical policies are regional or international, what’s uncontroversial is that they will be most effective if they are based on good science and continuing research into the environment, its effects on society and how the climate is changing. All the countries engaged in climate research accept that this requires a global approach.

However, what is missing, and vitally needed, is that the science of climate and environment is much more widely explained, so that people understand how it affects them and how they can positively contribute. In Britain, for instance, car drivers are not informed about how their speeding adds to greenhouse gas emissions, as they are in France and Germany.

In only a few cities of the world is there public information about environmental and climatic trends. But data from air quality monitoring stations may be a beginning to reverse this.

Regularly publicised local data is crucial to enable communities to appreciate trends and the range of possible developments, including the consequences of different emission strategies, protective measures and possible natural hazards that might be likely. Such measures appropriate to each region are being considered right across the world, and in many cases being combined with measures to introduce low-carbon energy systems, such as wind turbines on dykes, reforestation and bio-mass energy. There is no global solution for the best way to combine mitigation and adaptation policies.

Even at the highest level meetings, as at Copenhagen, the data supplied is often quite inadequate.

Hopefully, at Cancun the range of observed and predicted climatic trends for different parts of the world, including the marked differences in the trends over land and sea, will be presented more fully. Science still has much to do to explain and predict the kind of climatic fluctuations seen over the past 10 years when there was a marked cooling of the oceans, which is now ending. How these large fluctuations will strengthen or, as I suspect, weaken is unknown. However, governments and wider society need to know about these possibilities, despite their uncertainties.

This opinion piece by Sir Julian Hunt was published in the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST on Thursday, October 7, 2010. Lord Hunt is visiting professor at Delft University of Technology and former director general of the UK Met Office.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Tianjin comes against the backdrop of this summer’s extraordinary floods in Asia and unprecedented temperatures in much of the world. The urgency to act is thus growing: the disappointment at Copenhagen cannot be repeated at the Cancun climate change summit in December.
The problem, however, is that progress remains slow with uneven support for the United Nations objective of achieving within the next 20 to 30 years the necessary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, we must look beyond current scientific and technical arguments, and indeed political rhetoric, to see whether there are other ways of moving forward and better engaging the doubters and objectors.
There is an increasing recognition that an international agreement may not be the best way to help each country work out for itself policies to minimise the human causes of climate change and adapt to its consequences.
In this light, some political leaders are showing that other approaches can work. In China – which is now the largest emitter of greenhouse gases – authorities are encouraging industries to reduce emissions by using carbon trading at five regional centres.
Beijing is also considering a mandatory carbon trading scheme as part of its 12th five-year plan, due for publication early next year.
In some countries, including the United States, nuclear and wind energy tend to be favoured because they are economical and more secure than importing fossil fuels.
Still other countries concerned about the future reserves and future prices of fossil fuels are also now including nuclear energy as part of their energy plans, despite there being no reference to this development in the UN summary document following Copenhagen. “Low energy” technologies to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels are driven as much by economic and resource limitations, as by climate change policies.
As well, the basic co-operative ideal should not be forgotten even in the age of global companies and UN agreements. For instance, the network of mayors of large cities, led by the mayor of Mexico City, is negotiating with car companies to reduce the costs of suitable electric vehicles for transport.
Whether these practical policies are regional or international, they will be most effective if they are based on good science and continuing research into the environment’s effects on society and how the climate is changing.
What is missing, and vitally needed, is to explain much more widely climate science, so that people understand how it affects them and how they can positively contribute. Public information about environmental and climatic trends is available in only a few cities. But data from air-quality-monitoring stations may be beginning to reverse this. Regularly publicised local data is crucial to enable communities to appreciate trends and the range of possible developments, including the consequences of different emission strategies and protective measures. Such measures are being considered across the world, and in many cases are being combined with measures to introduce lowcarbon energy systems, such as wind turbines on dykes, reforestation and biomass energy.
Even at the highest-level meetings, as at Copenhagen, data supplied is often quite inadequate. Hopefully, at Cancun, the range of observed and predicted climatic trends for different parts of the world will be presented more fully.
Science still has much to do to explain and predict the kind of climatic fluctuations seen over the past 10 years when there was a marked cooling of the oceans – which is now ending. How these large fluctuations will strengthen or, as I suspect, weaken is unknown. However, governments and wider society need to know about these possibilities, despite their uncertainties.

This article also appeared on Reuters The Great Debate UK, under the heading Why Pakistan deserves generosity on August 25th 2010. 

Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman TARIQ, Ph.D. Student, Delft University of Technology (m.a.u.r.tariq@tudelft.nl)

Nick van de Giesen, Professor Water Resources Management, Delft University of Technology (n.c.vandegiesen@tudelft.nl)

 According to the latest official reports of the Federal Flood Commission of Pakistan, at least 1,556 people have died and more than 568,000 homes have been badly damaged or totally destroyed as a result of the recent floods in Pakistan. Almost 6.5 million people have been affected by this flooding and 3650 sq km of Pakistan’s most fertile crop land have been destroyed. The flooding hit 11,000 villages and cities. The situation is deteriorating in flooded areas, where waterborne diseases may increase the human death toll if measures are not taken in time.

The devastating flooding occurred at a moment at which Pakistan was still confronting the consequences of a severe drought. As such, the flood came as a complete surprise, especially in the province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa where flash flooding occurred. The country had suffered severe droughts from 2000 to 2005 and had not faced any major flooding since 1995. Historically, most occurrences of severe flooding had been caused by the Indus River, which were largely checked after the construction of the Terbela dam in 1974. The present floods are atypical and their severity of floods was not anticipated by the inhabitants of the floodplains. Current flooding can be described as the worst in this area in at least 80 years.

The flooding has disrupted electricity supply through inundation of the Jinnah Hydro power plant and some other minor power plants. The flood has also damaged transmission lines, transformers, feeders and power houses in different flood-affected areas. People suffering the load-shedding of electricity outside the inundated area are protesting on the roads in different parts of the country. Floods have damaged highways and railroads, causing disruption of transportation and communication. Relief operations are being rolled out at a slow pace, as many towns and villages are not accessible and communications have been disrupted. The flood has destroyed much of the healthcare-infrastructure in the worst-affected areas. Outbreaks of diseases, such as gastroenteritis, diarrhea, and cholera due to lack of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation can pose a serious new risk to victims of flood. Survivors of flooding are already blocking highways to protest the lack of support being provided.

Lack of information on flooding in Pakistan exacerbates the impact. During this flooding event, the flood forecasting division of the Pakistan Meteorological Department has uploaded some GIS maps showing the area to be evacuated on their official website. In fact, these maps are not based on the present flood. Instead, they were developed for simulated floods occurring with a return periods of 5 and 50 years, whereas present flooding is much more severe and is caused by different mechanisms than historical floods. Misrepresentation by these flood maps may hide or modify the actual information and can be extremely counter-productive.

Aid coming from the international community is not sufficient. As remarked by UK relief organisation Oxfam, the lukewarm response of the international community is inexplicable. Possible reasons for this lack of support include the low regard that the Pakistani Government is held in by local and international communities. Instead, most support is channeled through NGOs and other institutions.

This reason can only be a partial explanation as the cyclone Nargis that hit Myanmar in 2008 did trigger a large international response, while Myanmar’s government was internationally extremely unpopular and media coverage was scant at best.

While the national government has been slow to respond, banned militant groups and extremist organizations, such as the Taliban, are active with relief activities. This could have unwelcome implications in the medium to long-term. The flood will also divert Pakistani military forces from fighting the militants to help in the relief efforts. Clearly, this will allow militants to regroup and also help them secure more public support.

The flooding requires swift help and aid from national and international donors, otherwise it may produce large scale and lasting damage at national and international levels. The Taliban understand the strategy of ‘minds and hearts’ very well. This is the moment for the international community to show genuine compassion. In the process, it stands to win many hearts for generations to come.

This article by Julian Hunt first appeared on the site of The Guardian on 24th August 2010.  Lord Hunt is visiting professor at Delft University of Technology and a former director-general of the Met Office.

Deluges after the deluge: Catastrophic floods in Pakistan are likely to recur as global warming combines with El Niño

The Pakistani crisis is already one of the very first order. Some 20 million people have been left homeless, along a path of destruction of more than 600 miles. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has even compared the challenges the country now faces to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent in which around half a million people were killed in mass violence.

It is small wonder that Pakistani president Asif Ali Zadari has said that it will take at least three years for the country to recover from the disaster, and that he is thinking ahead to "prepare the capabilities and capacity" for the "next monsoon". Zadari’s comments highlight the fact that one of the key questions arising from the crisis is whether the floods, the worst for at least 80 years (with one fifth of the country estimated to be under water), are linked to global warming and are thus likely to happen again.

The danger is that Pakistan, and the Indian subcontinent in general, will become the focus of much more regular catastrophic flooding with the problems this would bring for a state at the centre of the campaign against terrorism. This is not just therefore a question of better protecting against natural hazards, but also one with profound implications for geopolitics and international security.

Heavy monsoon precipitation has increased in frequency in Pakistan and western India in recent years. In July 2005, Mumbai was deluged by almost 950mm of rain in just one day, and more than 1,000 people were killed in floods in the state of Maharashtra. Last year, deadly flash floods hit northwestern Pakistan, and Karachi was also flooded.

This trend is fuelled both by global warming (which means extremes of rainfall are a growing worldwide trend) and potentially by any intensification and alteration of the El Niño/La Niño cycle. To understand the reasons why global warming is playing a role, one needs to look at the main climatic trends in South Asia. In addition to more extreme rainfall, there is also a reduction of ice over the Tibetan plateau and changing precipitation patterns, with less snow at higher levels, plus more rapid run-off from mountains.

How does climate change help explain this? First, the warming in temperatures leads to less snow. Second, the less stable atmosphere causes deeper convection and intense rainfall. The less stable atmosphere also leads to more airflow over mountains and less lateral deviation – so that the monsoon winds and precipitation can be higher in north-west India and Pakistan and weaker in the north-east. In 2006 there was an unusually intense drought in Assam and rain in north-west India. This year with the strong rainfall in the north-west, there is no pronounced decrease in the north-east. Recent US studies have also concluded that the mountain meteorology is changing, but as a result of the aerosols emitted from urban areas of south Asia.

The biggest question is whether the El Niño southern oscillation (Enso), that determines the 10-year oscillations of weather across the Pacific basin and into South Asia and Africa, will change.

Although there is no scientific consensus, it seems likely that if the Amazon rainforest continues to disappear, and snow/ice melt significantly increases over the Tibetan plateau, there will be significant changes in Enso climatic fluctuations as rises in temperature over land become comparable with the areas of the Pacific where the temperature fluctuates over a few degrees – which is now better monitored and computer modelled.

The reason for concern about changing Enso is that depending on its periodic strength, it greatly affects magnitudes and locations of floods, droughts and hurricanes. Until about 2020-2030, these natural fluctuations are expected to be greater than man-made changes (as was pointed out by many scientists in the 1990s).

Given the massive stakes, not least because of the sizable proportion of the world population affected, these issues need urgent study and also preparations on the ground by the affected countries. Unless this happens, including better flood warning systems and water management infrastructure put in place, societies and governments in the region will be unable to respond to the devastating combination of changing environmental stresses, growing population and geopolitical instability.