By Daniel Howden, Deputy Foreign Editor
Thursday, 27 March 2008
A deal has been agreed that will place a financial value on rainforests – paying, for the first time, for their upkeep as "utilities" that provide vital services such as rainfall generation, carbon storage and climate regulation.
The agreement, to be announced tomorrow in New York, will secure the future of one million acres of pristine rainforest in Guyana, the first move of its kind, and will open the way for financial markets to play a key role in safeguarding the fate of the world's forests.
The initiative follows Guyana's extraordinary offer, revealed in The Independent in November, to place its entire standing forest under the protection of a British-led international body in return for development aid.
Hylton Murray-Philipson, director of the London-based financiers Canopy Capital, who sealed the deal with the Iwokrama rainforest, said: "How can it be that Google's services are worth billions but those from all the world's rainforests amount to nothing?" The past year has been a pivotal one for the fast- disappearing tropical forests that form a cooling band around the equator because the world has recognised deforestation as the second leading cause of CO2 emissions. Leaders at the UN climate summit in Bali in December agreed to include efforts to halt the destruction of forests in a new global deal to save the world from runaway climate change.
"As atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide rise, emissions will carry an ever-mounting cost and conservation will acquire real value. The investment community is beginning to wake up to this," Mr Murray-Philipson added.
Guyana, sandwiched between the Latin American giants Venezuela and Brazil, is home to fewer than amillion people but 80 per cent of its land is covered by an intact rainforest larger than England. The Guiana Shield is one of only four intact rainforests left on the planet and at its heart lies the Iwokrama reserve, gifted to the Commonwealth in 1989 as a laboratory for pioneering conservation projects.
Iwokrama, which means "place of refuge" in the Makushi language, is home to some of the world's most endangered species including jaguar, giant river otter, anaconda and giant anteater.
Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo, a former economist, has appealed for state and private sector help for the country to avoid succumbing to the rampant deforestation currently blighting Brazil and Indonesia, in an effort to raise living standards in one of Latin America's poorest countries.
"Forests do much more for us than just store carbon ... This first significant step is in keeping with President Jagdeo's visionary approach to safeguarding all the forests of Guyana," said Iwokrama's chairman, Edward Glover.
The deal, drawn up by the international firm Stephenson Harwood, is the first serious attempt to pay for the ecosystem services provided by rainforests.
"We should move beyond emissions-based trading to measure and place a value on all the services they provide," said Mr Glover.
In addition to providing shelter to half the world's terrestrial species and one billion of the earth's poorest people, forests such as Iwokrama act as pumps, drawing water from the Atlantic Ocean inland to the Amazon and Guiana Shield where they help to seed clouds and deliver moisture over vast distances.
The Amazon generates the rain that falls on the vast soya estates of Sao Paulo, helping to make Brazil the second biggest agricultural exporter in the world.
Guyana's attempt to secure its entire standing forest has received the backing of the British environment minister Phil Woolas and Downing Street has told The Independent that it is "considering the offer". President Jagdeo met with Gordon Brown on the sidelines of a recent Commonwealth Summit in Uganda where they discussed the proposal. The UN road map to a deal to replace the Kyoto protocols foresees payments from wealthy climate-polluting nations to developing countries to compensate for potential income lost through avoiding deforestation. But there are fears that this formula may simply displace the demand for timber and cheap agricultural land.
Andrew Mitchell, head of the Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of rainforest scientists, said: "The decision on forests at December's conference in Bali is a major step in tackling climate change but it fails to reward countries such as Guyana that aren't cutting down their forests."
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Hard sell
Guy Shrubsole
The Guardian, Wednesday 20 June 2007
Article history
Gold first lured outsiders to claim the rainforests. Later, medicines became the prize, then land for ranching cattle, soya and, more recently, biofuels. Now a different part of the Amazon is ours to buy: its massive stocks of carbon. A new scheme launched this month aims to exploit the surge in interest in saving trees to save the planet, and offers individuals the chance to pay to protect swaths of rainforest.
Called Cool Earth, and set up by the entrepreneur Johan Eliasch and Labour MP Frank Field, the scheme says it will "price deforestation out of the market" by securing forest in local trusts, and watching it "around the clock to keep the carbon where it belongs".
It might sound familiar - schemes to buy up and protect the rainforests have been around since campaigns to highlight their plight peaked in the 1980s. But climate change has brought those concerns into new focus, and the organisers of Cool Earth hope to capitalise on the recent boom in ethical consumerism, carbon labels and offsetting services.
Global emissions
The problem is clear. Deforestation releases massive amounts of carbon. The recent Stern review into the economics of climate change said greenhouse gas released from the 150,000 sq km of tropical forest destroyed each year now accounts for 18% of global emissions - more than from any single nation.
Conversely, this makes tackling deforestation a cheap way of fighting global warming. A recent report from international consultancy firm McKinsey identified forest conservation as the "single largest opportunity for cost-effective and immediate reductions of carbon". And the most recent report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that "forest-related mitigation activities can considerably reduce emissions from sources, and increase CO2 removals by sinks, at low costs."
Each square acre of Amazon rainforest absorbs and stores up some 260 tonnes of CO2. To protect it, Cool Earth will charge £70 per square acre, which works out as 27p a tonne. As far as saving carbon goes, that is at the very cheap end of the scale. Offset companies such as Climate Care will typically charge £7.50 per tonne of CO2.
Cool Earth operates as a charity and denies it is in the offset business (although its website offers companies the chance to go "carbon neutral"). "We are not offering an offset or any guilt alleviation mechanism," says Matthew Owen, a spokesman for Cool Earth. "If people want to use Cool Earth as one, there is not much we can do, since we think it's important to advertise how much CO2 an acre stores." Field calls Cool Earth's work "offsetting plus".
So who is buying? So far, Tony Blair, editor Ian Hislop, rock star Jarvis Cocker, and Mark Ellingham, founder of the Rough Guides series of travel books, number among supporters. Donors are almost entirely individuals, with donations ranging from £5 to £5,000, says Owen. Travel agency First Choice says it is planning a large investment. Field talks of getting philanthropists to unite to buy land tactically, so that "buck for buck, you're making a bigger impact".
Others have tried before to sell the British public shares in the rainforest. The World Land Trust has bought 142,000 hectares (350,000 acres) of endangered habitats with individual donations since 1989. RainforestForever.org sells "tree kits", the deluxe editions complete with a framed certificate of ownership. But certificates are seldom guarantees against chainsaws. WWF's figures for land ownership in the Brazilian Amazon show 35% to be "public or private lands in dispute", which, they say, shows "why any initiatives to encourage land purchase as a strategy for conservation are likely to be limited." Cool Earth says it will place microchips in protected trees and display the location of preserved areas on the internet.
Perhaps more worrisome to potential investors is the sense that Cool Earth is taking land from native Brazilians. Eliasch was accused of "green colonialism" last year when he bought up a piece of rainforest the size of Greater London to protect it, forcing the closure of a sawmill and putting 1,000 people out of work.
He says: "You either keep the forest standing, which takes jobs away from indigenous people who need to feed themselves, or you cut down the trees, which affects the climate. In the long term, you have to protect the forest."
Contrary to such criticisms, says Field, Cool Earth's policy aim is to "disadvantage the west", forcing polluting nations to compensate rainforest states for the ecological services they perform. The resultant source of income has "huge potential" which, he says, "will begin to make overseas aid redundant".
The US-based Rainforest Action Network discourages direct purchase of tropical forests, as "most 'buy-an-acre' programmes ignore the fact that there are people who live in and depend upon the rainforest." Cool Earth insists it works in a different way, by leasing land from the Brazilian government. It says this will ensure "full access for local people to protected areas for rubber tapping, nut and fruit extraction and other traditional trades".
Key issue
Whether or not Cool Earth succeeds in its ambition to price deforestation out of the market, the idea of paying countries such as Brazil not to chop down their forests is gaining momentum. Negotiations continue on how rainforest nations could be compensated for such "avoided deforestation" in a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, and deforestation will be a key issue on the agenda at the UN climate talks in Bali in December.
Gordon Brown announced last autumn that the UK would work with rainforest countries to "explore ways of mobilising international resources to assist in sustainable forestry management". In this year's budget he proposed an "environmental transformation fund", to deliver £50m to protect the Congo Basin forest.
Field claims that while these initiatives will take time to get off the ground, schemes such as Cool Earth can act immediately. "Acting in consort takes time," he says. "And the one commodity the world no longer has is time."
The Guardian, Wednesday 20 June 2007
Article history
Gold first lured outsiders to claim the rainforests. Later, medicines became the prize, then land for ranching cattle, soya and, more recently, biofuels. Now a different part of the Amazon is ours to buy: its massive stocks of carbon. A new scheme launched this month aims to exploit the surge in interest in saving trees to save the planet, and offers individuals the chance to pay to protect swaths of rainforest.
Called Cool Earth, and set up by the entrepreneur Johan Eliasch and Labour MP Frank Field, the scheme says it will "price deforestation out of the market" by securing forest in local trusts, and watching it "around the clock to keep the carbon where it belongs".
It might sound familiar - schemes to buy up and protect the rainforests have been around since campaigns to highlight their plight peaked in the 1980s. But climate change has brought those concerns into new focus, and the organisers of Cool Earth hope to capitalise on the recent boom in ethical consumerism, carbon labels and offsetting services.
Global emissions
The problem is clear. Deforestation releases massive amounts of carbon. The recent Stern review into the economics of climate change said greenhouse gas released from the 150,000 sq km of tropical forest destroyed each year now accounts for 18% of global emissions - more than from any single nation.
Conversely, this makes tackling deforestation a cheap way of fighting global warming. A recent report from international consultancy firm McKinsey identified forest conservation as the "single largest opportunity for cost-effective and immediate reductions of carbon". And the most recent report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change states that "forest-related mitigation activities can considerably reduce emissions from sources, and increase CO2 removals by sinks, at low costs."
Each square acre of Amazon rainforest absorbs and stores up some 260 tonnes of CO2. To protect it, Cool Earth will charge £70 per square acre, which works out as 27p a tonne. As far as saving carbon goes, that is at the very cheap end of the scale. Offset companies such as Climate Care will typically charge £7.50 per tonne of CO2.
Cool Earth operates as a charity and denies it is in the offset business (although its website offers companies the chance to go "carbon neutral"). "We are not offering an offset or any guilt alleviation mechanism," says Matthew Owen, a spokesman for Cool Earth. "If people want to use Cool Earth as one, there is not much we can do, since we think it's important to advertise how much CO2 an acre stores." Field calls Cool Earth's work "offsetting plus".
So who is buying? So far, Tony Blair, editor Ian Hislop, rock star Jarvis Cocker, and Mark Ellingham, founder of the Rough Guides series of travel books, number among supporters. Donors are almost entirely individuals, with donations ranging from £5 to £5,000, says Owen. Travel agency First Choice says it is planning a large investment. Field talks of getting philanthropists to unite to buy land tactically, so that "buck for buck, you're making a bigger impact".
Others have tried before to sell the British public shares in the rainforest. The World Land Trust has bought 142,000 hectares (350,000 acres) of endangered habitats with individual donations since 1989. RainforestForever.org sells "tree kits", the deluxe editions complete with a framed certificate of ownership. But certificates are seldom guarantees against chainsaws. WWF's figures for land ownership in the Brazilian Amazon show 35% to be "public or private lands in dispute", which, they say, shows "why any initiatives to encourage land purchase as a strategy for conservation are likely to be limited." Cool Earth says it will place microchips in protected trees and display the location of preserved areas on the internet.
Perhaps more worrisome to potential investors is the sense that Cool Earth is taking land from native Brazilians. Eliasch was accused of "green colonialism" last year when he bought up a piece of rainforest the size of Greater London to protect it, forcing the closure of a sawmill and putting 1,000 people out of work.
He says: "You either keep the forest standing, which takes jobs away from indigenous people who need to feed themselves, or you cut down the trees, which affects the climate. In the long term, you have to protect the forest."
Contrary to such criticisms, says Field, Cool Earth's policy aim is to "disadvantage the west", forcing polluting nations to compensate rainforest states for the ecological services they perform. The resultant source of income has "huge potential" which, he says, "will begin to make overseas aid redundant".
The US-based Rainforest Action Network discourages direct purchase of tropical forests, as "most 'buy-an-acre' programmes ignore the fact that there are people who live in and depend upon the rainforest." Cool Earth insists it works in a different way, by leasing land from the Brazilian government. It says this will ensure "full access for local people to protected areas for rubber tapping, nut and fruit extraction and other traditional trades".
Key issue
Whether or not Cool Earth succeeds in its ambition to price deforestation out of the market, the idea of paying countries such as Brazil not to chop down their forests is gaining momentum. Negotiations continue on how rainforest nations could be compensated for such "avoided deforestation" in a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, and deforestation will be a key issue on the agenda at the UN climate talks in Bali in December.
Gordon Brown announced last autumn that the UK would work with rainforest countries to "explore ways of mobilising international resources to assist in sustainable forestry management". In this year's budget he proposed an "environmental transformation fund", to deliver £50m to protect the Congo Basin forest.
Field claims that while these initiatives will take time to get off the ground, schemes such as Cool Earth can act immediately. "Acting in consort takes time," he says. "And the one commodity the world no longer has is time."
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Plume of Pollutants From a Small Airport
December 1, 2009
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
For people who live near an airport, noise is a major concern. But air quality can be an issue, too: after all, aircraft engines produce emissions on the ground as well as in the air.
Air quality around airports has not been studied much, however, and when it has, the focus has been on larger airports, which usually have buffer zones separating them from neighborhoods. A study by Shishan Hu and Suzanne E. Paulson of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues is one of the first to analyze the air at a small airport nestled in a neighborhood.
The researchers sampled air around Santa Monica Airport, a general aviation field near Los Angeles that averages 80 arrivals daily of propeller planes and corporate jets. As they report in Environmental Science and Technology, they found high concentrations of ultrafine particles of organic carbon and sooty black carbon in a plume extending more than 2,000 feet downwind of the airport. The plume was longer than those typically found around highways in daytime.
Dr. Paulson said that while epidemiological studies had shown that there were health risks with these kinds of emissions by vehicles, there had not been similar analyses done around airports.
“Without epidemiological data, it’s hard to really know what those are doing to people in the neighborhood,” Dr. Paulson said. “That said, I wouldn’t personally choose to live there.”
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
For people who live near an airport, noise is a major concern. But air quality can be an issue, too: after all, aircraft engines produce emissions on the ground as well as in the air.
Air quality around airports has not been studied much, however, and when it has, the focus has been on larger airports, which usually have buffer zones separating them from neighborhoods. A study by Shishan Hu and Suzanne E. Paulson of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues is one of the first to analyze the air at a small airport nestled in a neighborhood.
The researchers sampled air around Santa Monica Airport, a general aviation field near Los Angeles that averages 80 arrivals daily of propeller planes and corporate jets. As they report in Environmental Science and Technology, they found high concentrations of ultrafine particles of organic carbon and sooty black carbon in a plume extending more than 2,000 feet downwind of the airport. The plume was longer than those typically found around highways in daytime.
Dr. Paulson said that while epidemiological studies had shown that there were health risks with these kinds of emissions by vehicles, there had not been similar analyses done around airports.
“Without epidemiological data, it’s hard to really know what those are doing to people in the neighborhood,” Dr. Paulson said. “That said, I wouldn’t personally choose to live there.”
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Solar-Powered Golf Carts Get Day In Sun
By David Shefter, USGA
Southampton, N.Y. – A glorious fall day has enveloped the eastern end of Long Island, with the clear-blue sky matched only by the hues glistening off the Great Peconic Bay.
Even on a Monday, the near-perfect late-September weather has brought a few more members and their guests to the tony Sebonack Golf Club, a 4-year-old Tom Doak/Jack Nicklaus design that will host the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open.
By going to solar-powered golf carts, Sebonack Golf Club is saving $4 a day per cart. (John Mummert/USGA)
While it’s an idyllic day to walk, some of the golfers choose motorized transportation to help them make their way around the gorgeous 318-acre property. As they play, something scientifically remarkable is taking place, and it has nothing to do with any shot or particular design feature.
Even more astonishing is the fact that many of the golfers don’t even realize it.
This past May, Sebonack decided to enhance its environmentally conscious practices – it earned the Metropolitan Golf Association’s Club Environment Award in 2008 – by fitting 39 of its 40 carts with solar panels designed and engineered by SolarDrive, a Denmark-based company. By doing so, it became the first U.S. golf course to implement solar technology for golf carts.
“Power costs are very expensive on Long Island,” said Sebonack owner Michael Pascucci. “We’re saving minimum two-thirds on the amount of electricity [being used]. Why not take advantage of the free solar power we have on Earth? I don’t know why everybody isn’t doing this.”
That day could be coming soon, especially as the price for the technology comes down. The solar roofs run approximately $2,700 per cart, but like anything new that hits the market – whether it’s a titanium driver or a high-definition flat-screen television – costs tend to drop once there is greater demand and increased production. There are also state and federal tax incentives for golf clubs that go solar.
The potential savings are enormous, especially for facilities in year-round golf locales that heavily depend on golf carts for their day-to-day operations. Earlier this year, the Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau Public Golf Course in Hong Kong became the first club in the world to outfit its entire fleet of golf carts with this technology. The club estimates it will save $50,000 annually by making the switch.
“Not only does it make sound business sense, but we think this type of technology sends out the right kind of strong environmental message,” SolarDrive’s Peter Randow said on the company’s Web site. “We’re lobbying other countries, and hopefully more and more will follow [Sebonack’s] lead [in the U.S.]”
The panels can be retro-fitted onto any make of golf cart. Once out in the sun, a cart can be fully charged within an hour and easily go 18 or more holes. A sensor underneath the roof provides instant feedback on the amount of solar energy the panels are receiving.
If it’s a sunny day, the cart constantly charges even while being used. But even on a cloudy day, a fully charged cart will have enough energy to go one full round.
And thanks to the technology, Sebonack staff members are no longer receiving distress calls about a dead electric cart out on the course.
By switching to solar-powered carts, golf clubs can save thousands of dollars in energy costs as well as preserve the environment. (John Mummert/USGA) “Normally, if you’ve got no sunlight on it and it’s just charged up, you’ll do 18 [holes], maybe 27,” said Mark Hissey, who works for Pascucci and was the project manager during the course’s construction. “But 18 is more likely.”
An energy study by the Golf Resource Group, a Phoenix-based firm, concluded that most golf courses use from 250,000 to 5 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually for operations. To put the higher number in layman’s terms, that’s the energy equivalent used in 278 2,500-square-foot houses.
Pascucci, knowing that eastern Long Island residents are concerned about conserving energy and protecting the environment, saw going solar as a way to cut costs without sacrificing high-quality service to the membership.
For Sebonack, going solar means a savings of $4 per day per cart. With 39 carts in operation, that’s nearly $160 per day. More important, the club estimates it will reduce its consumption from the electric grid by 50 to 75 percent.
The solar carts also help extend the life of the cart batteries, which cost $200 apiece. Because the sun constantly keeps the carts charged, the batteries last longer and don’t need to be replaced as often.
“You can’t miss with these carts,” said Pascucci. “It’s a really positive thing for our members and their guests to see that they’re riding around on the sun’s power and reducing their carbon footprint.
“The bottom line is … it was the right thing to do.”
Added Hissey: “Morally and financially … made it a no-brainer in my book.”
http://www.usga.org/news/2009/October/At-Sebonack,-Solar-Powered-Golf-Carts-Get-Day-In-Sun/
Southampton, N.Y. – A glorious fall day has enveloped the eastern end of Long Island, with the clear-blue sky matched only by the hues glistening off the Great Peconic Bay.
Even on a Monday, the near-perfect late-September weather has brought a few more members and their guests to the tony Sebonack Golf Club, a 4-year-old Tom Doak/Jack Nicklaus design that will host the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open.
By going to solar-powered golf carts, Sebonack Golf Club is saving $4 a day per cart. (John Mummert/USGA)
While it’s an idyllic day to walk, some of the golfers choose motorized transportation to help them make their way around the gorgeous 318-acre property. As they play, something scientifically remarkable is taking place, and it has nothing to do with any shot or particular design feature.
Even more astonishing is the fact that many of the golfers don’t even realize it.
This past May, Sebonack decided to enhance its environmentally conscious practices – it earned the Metropolitan Golf Association’s Club Environment Award in 2008 – by fitting 39 of its 40 carts with solar panels designed and engineered by SolarDrive, a Denmark-based company. By doing so, it became the first U.S. golf course to implement solar technology for golf carts.
“Power costs are very expensive on Long Island,” said Sebonack owner Michael Pascucci. “We’re saving minimum two-thirds on the amount of electricity [being used]. Why not take advantage of the free solar power we have on Earth? I don’t know why everybody isn’t doing this.”
That day could be coming soon, especially as the price for the technology comes down. The solar roofs run approximately $2,700 per cart, but like anything new that hits the market – whether it’s a titanium driver or a high-definition flat-screen television – costs tend to drop once there is greater demand and increased production. There are also state and federal tax incentives for golf clubs that go solar.
The potential savings are enormous, especially for facilities in year-round golf locales that heavily depend on golf carts for their day-to-day operations. Earlier this year, the Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau Public Golf Course in Hong Kong became the first club in the world to outfit its entire fleet of golf carts with this technology. The club estimates it will save $50,000 annually by making the switch.
“Not only does it make sound business sense, but we think this type of technology sends out the right kind of strong environmental message,” SolarDrive’s Peter Randow said on the company’s Web site. “We’re lobbying other countries, and hopefully more and more will follow [Sebonack’s] lead [in the U.S.]”
The panels can be retro-fitted onto any make of golf cart. Once out in the sun, a cart can be fully charged within an hour and easily go 18 or more holes. A sensor underneath the roof provides instant feedback on the amount of solar energy the panels are receiving.
If it’s a sunny day, the cart constantly charges even while being used. But even on a cloudy day, a fully charged cart will have enough energy to go one full round.
And thanks to the technology, Sebonack staff members are no longer receiving distress calls about a dead electric cart out on the course.
By switching to solar-powered carts, golf clubs can save thousands of dollars in energy costs as well as preserve the environment. (John Mummert/USGA) “Normally, if you’ve got no sunlight on it and it’s just charged up, you’ll do 18 [holes], maybe 27,” said Mark Hissey, who works for Pascucci and was the project manager during the course’s construction. “But 18 is more likely.”
An energy study by the Golf Resource Group, a Phoenix-based firm, concluded that most golf courses use from 250,000 to 5 million kilowatt hours of electricity annually for operations. To put the higher number in layman’s terms, that’s the energy equivalent used in 278 2,500-square-foot houses.
Pascucci, knowing that eastern Long Island residents are concerned about conserving energy and protecting the environment, saw going solar as a way to cut costs without sacrificing high-quality service to the membership.
For Sebonack, going solar means a savings of $4 per day per cart. With 39 carts in operation, that’s nearly $160 per day. More important, the club estimates it will reduce its consumption from the electric grid by 50 to 75 percent.
The solar carts also help extend the life of the cart batteries, which cost $200 apiece. Because the sun constantly keeps the carts charged, the batteries last longer and don’t need to be replaced as often.
“You can’t miss with these carts,” said Pascucci. “It’s a really positive thing for our members and their guests to see that they’re riding around on the sun’s power and reducing their carbon footprint.
“The bottom line is … it was the right thing to do.”
Added Hissey: “Morally and financially … made it a no-brainer in my book.”
http://www.usga.org/news/2009/October/At-Sebonack,-Solar-Powered-Golf-Carts-Get-Day-In-Sun/
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