Gas-guzzling Pentagon going green

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon may seem an unlikely promoter of alternative energy, but the biggest consumer of oil in the United States is looking at ways to become just that by partnering with private firms.

"When you don't use as much fuel, not only does it not cost you as much, but it also saves lives and injuries of those people who would have to deliver fuel through hostile territory," Assistant Army Secretary for Installations and the Environment Keith Eastin told AFP.

Despite reducing its overall energy consumption by five percent between 2005 and 2007, the US military spent 13 billion dollars on energy in 2007 and requested an additional five billion due to a spike in oil prices.

The stakes are high, with the army estimating that reducing fuel consumption by just one percent translates to about 6,400 fewer soldiers in fuel convoys, a favorite target of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

All of this has added up to renewed urgency for the Pentagon to reduce its energy consumption. It is already federally mandated to obtain 25 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Hundreds of small companies are expected to benefit from the military's green energy push, developing everything from alternative fuels to electric vehicles and efficient power generators.

One low tech initiative that has yielded surprisingly big results is spraying tents with a layer of hard foam. The insulation helps maintain steady temperatures inside the tents, reducing fuel consumption for heating or cooling by 50 percent and saving an estimated 100,000 gallons of fuel or two million dollars per day.

"Each gallon you save is a ton of money that can be used elsewhere, either at the installation or fighting the war," Eastin said. He estimated that a three-dollar gallon of fuel can end up costing up to 28 dollars on the battlefield after factoring in transportation and security costs.

With a staggering 7.7 billion dollars spent last year on aircraft fuel alone, the US Air Force is the military's biggest energy consumer.

It is purchasing renewable energy, reducing aircraft loads and certifying its entire fleet to fly on a 50/50 synthetic fuel blend by 2011.

"Our efforts to drive a domestic source of synthetic fuels is a piece of the puzzle to be more secure as a nation and as the air force," said Kevin Billings, acting air force secretary for installations, environment and logistics.

The air force estimates that removing 100 pounds from its heavy cargo fleet saves one million pounds of fuel per year, and it is now reducing weight with simple measures such as using lighter paint or removing redundant toolboxes.

"It's like running when you put on 20 pounds. It's so much easier to run a mile when you aren't carrying that extra weight around," Billings told AFP.

At Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, SunPower Corporation has built North America's largest solar farm, where over 72,000 solar panels now supply upwards of 14 megawatts of clean electricity to meet about 25 percent of the base's needs and save a million dollars annually.

Green energy won big with US President Barack Obama's 787-billion-dollar stimulus package, which earmarked 300 million dollars for Defense Department research in renewable energy and 4.5 billion dollars for greening federal buildings.

"We are part of this clean energy movement and interest for what we are doing grows day by day," said Greg Cipriano, vice president of the Massachusetts-based Protonex Technology Corporation.

The company has produced portable power and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) fuel cells for the military since 2005 and plans to deploy them by 2010.

Officials say the energy-saving initiatives could make green energy more commercially affordable.

"Just by nature of the fact that we are big, we can be a test bed for a whole lot of things that normally wouldn't seem to make a lot of powerful economic sense," said Eastin.

Jet engines and global positioning systems were for example first developed for the military before reaching private investors and consumers.

"This was always our strategy -- go after the military market first, then spin off products for the commercial market from that solid product foundation," said Cipriano.

Obama envoy: Time to act on climate change

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer Arthur Max, Associated Press Writer – Sun Mar 29, 2:42 pm ET

BONN, Germany – Once booed at international climate talks, the United States won sustained applause Sunday when President Barack Obama's envoy pledged to "make up for lost time" in reaching a global agreement on climate change.

Todd Stern also praised efforts by countries like China to reign in their carbon emissions, but said global warming "requires a global response" and that rapidly developing economies like China "must join together" with the industrial world to solve the problem.

The debut of Obama's climate change team was widely anticipated after eight years of obdurate participation in U.N. climate talks by the previous Bush administration.

"We are very glad to be back. We want to make up for lost time, and we are seized with the urgency of the task before us," Stern said to loud applause from the 2,600 delegates to the U.N. negotiations.

They clapped again when Stern said the U.S. recognized "our unique responsibility ... as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases," which has created a problem threatening the entire world.

The two-week meeting by 175 countries that began Sunday was the latest stage of talks aimed at forging a climate change agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on emissions targets for rich countries, which expires in 2012.

The United States was instrumental in negotiating Kyoto, but failed to win support at home. When George W. Bush took office, he renounced it, calling Kyoto a flawed agreement that would harm the U.S. economy and unfair because it demanded nothing from countries like China or India.

Stern said his team did not want a repeat of the Kyoto debacle. The latest agreement is due to be finalized in December in Copenhagen, Denmark.

"Ultimately, this is a political process," he said. "The way forward is steered by science and pragmatism."

Stern said no one on his team doubted that climate change is real. "The science is clear, the threat is real, the facts on the ground are outstripping the worst-case scenarios. The cost of inaction or inadequate action are unacceptable," he said — a total change of tone from his predecessors.

Scientists warned recently that climate change is happening more rapidly that previously calculated and said the Earth could be in danger of major climatic changes that would trigger widespread social disruption. U.N. scientists say rising sea levels caused by global warming threatens to swamp coastlines and entire island states, and predicted increasing drought for arid countries, especially in Africa.

Obama has set aside $80 billion in his economic stimulus package for green energy, promised $150 billion for research over 10 years, and was tightening regulations on auto emissions, Stern said.

"America itself cannot provide the solution, but there is no solution without America," he said.

"It sent chills up my spine seeing the U.S. applauded," Keya Chatterjee of the Worldwide Fund for Nature said after Stern's speech.

It was only 15 months ago at Bali, Indonesia, that U.S. negotiators were booed when they threatened to veto an accord laying down a two-year negotiating process to replace Kyoto. They backed off when the delegate from Papua New Guinea, Kevin Conrad, told them if "you are not willing to lead ... please get out of the way."

Stern urged delegates Sunday to adopt a long-range vision for reducing climate change, rather than to focus on "a series of short-term, stopgap measures," and repeated Obama's determination to cut emissions by 80 percent by mid-century.

His speech was meant to shift the debate from persistent demands by developing countries for industrial nations to reduce emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Stern has said previously that goal was unattainable for the U.S.

Speaking earlier to reporters, Stern defended the U.S. administration's goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions by roughly 16 percent over the next dozen years from current levels.

"We don't think (the target) is low at all," he said, adding it was "consistent with what other countries are willing to do."

Others disagreed.

"The target that the United States has put forward is not going to be sufficient," said Chatterjee.

Jake Schmidt of the Nature Resources Defense Council said the Obama administration was talking behind the scenes about setting an annual emissions reduction target leading up to 2050.

"It's hard to turn a big ship around, but it would show we are serious about our commitments to cut emissions from the medium to the long term," Schmidt said.

With time running out before the pact is due to be completed in December, delegates are trying to narrow vast differences over how best to fight climate change.

Issues include how much countries need to reduce emissions, how to raise the tens of billions of dollars needed annually to fight global warming and how to transfer money and technology to poor countries who are most vulnerable to increasingly fierce storms, droughts and failing crops.

Stern said the U.S. position will be guided by whatever deal Obama can strike with Congress.

"I do not think that it is realistic to believe that we will then be able to go into an international setting and get a higher number than that," he said.

___

AP correspondent Vanessa Gera contributed to this article.

AP source: EPA closer to global warming warning

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the first step on the long road to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

Politicians and the public, business and industry will have to weigh in along the way, but for now a proposed finding by the EPA that global warming is a threat to public health and welfare is under White House review.

The threat declaration would be the first step to regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and could have broad economic and environmental ramifications. It also would probably spur action by Congress to address climate change more broadly.

The White House acknowledged Monday that the EPA had transmitted its proposed finding on global warming to the Office of Management and Budget, but provided no details. It also cautioned that the Obama administration, which sees responding to climate change a top priority, nevertheless is ready to move cautiously when it comes to actually regulating greenhouse gases, preferring to have Congress act on the matter.

The Supreme Court two years ago directed the EPA to decide whether greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, pose a threat to public health and welfare because they are warming the earth. If such a finding is made, these emissions are required to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, the court said.

"I think this is just the step in that process," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, noting the Supreme Court ruling. Another White House official, speaking anonymously in deference to Gibbs, predicted "a long process" before any rules would be expected to be issued on heat-trapping emissions.

But several congressional officials, also speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft declaration had not been made public — said the transmission makes clear the EPA is moving to declare carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a danger to public health and welfare and views them as ripe for regulation under the Clean Air Act.

Such a finding "will officially end the era of denial on global warming," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., whose Energy and Commerce subcommittee is crafting global warming legislation. He said such an endangerment finding is long overdue because of the Bush administration's refusal to address the issue.

The EPA action "signals that the days of ignoring this pressing issue are over," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., whose Senate committee is working on a climate bill.

Many business leaders argue — as did President George W. Bush — that the Clean Air Act is ill-suited to deal with climate change and that regulating carbon dioxide would hamstring economic growth.

"It will require a huge cascade of (new clean air) permits" and halt a wide array of projects, from building coal plants to highway construction, including many at the heart of President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan, said Bill Kovacs, a vice president for environmental and technology issues at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Abigail Dillen, an attorney for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, which is involved in a number of lawsuits challenging permits for new coal plants, dismissed the dire economic warnings from business groups about carbon dioxide regulation.

"It's to their interest to say the sky is falling, but it's not," she said. "The truth is we've never had to sacrifice air quality to maintain a healthy economy. The EPA has discretion to do this in a reasonable way."

An internal EPA planning document that surfaced recently suggests the agency would like to have a final endangerment finding by mid-April. But officials have made clear actual regulations are unlikely to come immediately and would involve a lengthy process with public comment.

Gibbs, when asked about the EPA document Monday, emphasized that "the president has made quite clear" that he prefers to have the climate issue addressed by Congress as part of a broad, mandatory limit on heat-trapping emissions.

But environmentalists said the significance of moving forward with the long-delayed endangerment issue should not be understated.

"This is historic news," said Frank O'Donnell, who heads Clean Air Watch, an advocacy group. "It will set the stage for the first-ever national limits on global warming pollution and is likely to help light a fire under Congress to get moving."

White House seen reviewing greenhouse gas dangers

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House is reviewing a report outlining the dangers to health and the environment posed by global warming, which could pave the way to the United States regulating greenhouse gas emissions, officials said.

A draft proposal outlining the dangers posed to public health and welfare by global warming was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Friday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a statement, EPA press secretary Adora Andy said: "The document does not propose any requirements on any sources of greenhouse gas emissions. The proposed finding does not impose any new regulatory burdens on any projects..."

But the proposal, which was leaked to the media last week and of which AFP saw a summary on Monday, uses "the language of the Clean Air Act that triggers the need to regulate emissions from vehicles," John Walke, a senior attorney at the National Resources Defense Council, said

The proposal represents "an important legal and scientific milestone because previously the EPA has refused to make that finding (on dangers to public health and welfare)" in a context that would result in regulation of greenhouse gases, he said.

In the proposal that the White House is currently mulling, the EPA "says the magic words," Walke said.

"They make findings that greenhouse gas emissions not only endanger public welfare -- ecosystems, the environment and the planet at large -- but also make the important link between global warming emissions and how they will affect smog pollution, malaria and other public health problems," he said.

The proposal being reviewed by the White House is the latest step in a long battle triggered by a Supreme Court decision taken during President George W. Bush's second term.

Five out of nine Supreme Court justices ruled in April 2007 that carbon dioxide was a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

They ordered the EPA to decide if the greenhouse gas endangered public health and welfare and said that if a so-called endangerment finding was made, the agency must draft rules to reduce vehicle emissions of carbon dioxide.

In December 2007, the EPA sent a draft finding to the Bush White House, presenting evidence that CO2 did endanger public welfare.

But the Bush administration failed to acknowledge the report and spent the remainder of its tenure resisting the Supreme Court decision.

"The Bush administration refused for eight years to take action over the greatest crisis of our time and manipulated and ignored science in order to pursue inaction at all costs," said Walke.

"Now, within the first three months of the Obama administration, you have this announcement that they will take global warming seriously and take action to reduce C02 emissions," he said.

In the leaked summary of the new proposal under review by the administration of President Barack Obama, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says she will sign the document by April 16, after which there will be a 60-day public comment period and two public hearings before the proposal is finalized.

Even if the EPA holds to that timeline, it would take a year or longer before regulations to reduce carbon pollution take effect, Walke said.

Feinstein seeks block solar power from desert land

WASHINGTON – California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy.

Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.

Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

The Wildlands Conservancy orchestrated the government's purchase of the land between 1999-2004. It negotiated a discount sale from the real estate arm of the former Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroad and then contributed $40 million to help pay for the purchase. David Myers, the conservancy's executive director, said the solar projects would do great harm to the region's desert tortoise population.

"It would destroy the entire Mojave Desert ecosystem," said David Myers, executive director of The Wildlands Conservancy.

Feinstein said the lands in question were donated or purchased with the intent that they would be protected forever. But the Bureau of Land Management considers the land now open to all types of development, except mining. That policy led the state to consider large swaths of the land for future renewable energy production.

"This is unacceptable," Feinstein said in a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "I urge you to direct the BLM to suspend any further consideration of leases to develop former railroad lands for renewable energy or for any other purpose."

In a speech last year, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger complained about environmental concerns slowing down the approval of solar plants in California.

"If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave desert, I don't know where the hell we can put it," Schwarzenegger said at Yale University.

But Karen Douglas, chairman of the California Energy Commission, said Feinstein's proposal could be a "win-win" for energy and conservation. The governor's office said Douglas was speaking on the administration's behalf.

"The opportunity we see in the Feinstein bill is to jump-start our own efforts to find the best sites for development and to come up with a broader conservation plan that mitigates the impact of the development," Douglas said.

Douglas said that if the national monument lines were drawn without consideration of renewable energy then a conflict was likely, but it's early enough in the planning process that she's confident the state will be able to get more solar and wind projects up and running without hurting the environment.

"We think we can do both," Douglas said. "We think this is an opportunity to accelerate both."

Greg Miller of the Bureau of Land Management said there are 14 solar energy and five wind energy projects that have submitted applications seeking to develop on what's referred to as the former Catellus lands. None of the projects are close to being approved, he said.

The land lies in the southeast corner of California, between the existing Mojave National Preserve on the north and Joshua Tree National Park on the south.

"They all have to go through a rigorous environmental analysis now," Miller said. "It will be at best close to two years out before we get some of these grants approved."

Feinstein's spokesman, Gil Duran, said the senator looks forward to working with the governor and the Interior Department on the issue.

"There's plenty of room in America's deserts for the bold expansion of renewable energy projects," Duran said.

Lethal air pollution booms in emerging nations

GENEVA (AFP) – International experts are warning that potentially lethal air pollution has boomed in fast-growing big cities in Asia and South America in recent decades.

While Europe has managed to drastically cut some, but not all, of the most noxious pollutants over the past 20 years, emerging nations experienced the opposite trend with their fast economic growth, scientists at the UN's meteorological agency said.

Their comments came ahead of World Meteorological Day on Monday, which this year has the theme "The Air We Breathe".

The World Health Organization estimates that about two million people die prematurely every year as a result of air pollution, while many more suffer from breathing ailments, heart disease, lung infections and even cancer.

Fine particles or microscopic dust from coal or wood fires and unfiltered diesel engines are rated as one of the most lethal forms or air pollution caused by industry, transport, household heating, cooking and ageing coal or oil-fired power stations.

In 2005, the WHO estimated that deaths rates in cities with higher particle pollution were 15 to 20 percent above those found in cleaner cities.

"Particulate matter is of great concern in cities," said Liisa Jalkanen, atmospheric environment research chief at the World Meteorological Organisation.

"In Asia many cities such as Karachi, New Delhi, Kathmandu, Dacca, Shanghai, Beijing, and Mumbai they exceed all the limits."

"Also several cities in South America such as Lima, Santiago, Bogota. The worst city in Africa is Cairo," she told journalists.

Half of the world?s population now live in urban areas, and the proportion is expected to grow to two-thirds by 2030, according to the United Nations.

The WMO says more resources are needed for a global air monitoring network it runs with national weather offices.

Len Barrie, director of WMO research, said restrictions set up in Europe after concern about acid rain emerged in the 1980s have cut concentrations of another pollutant, sulphur dioxide, there "by a factor of 20".

"In other areas where economic growth has leapt forward, such as Asia, China, India, the opposite is true," he added. In North America levels were largely kept in check.

But Barrie told AFP that such pollution in China appeared to be reaching its peak.

"There?s a real awakening in China on the economic benefits of reducing air pollution," he added.

Attempts are being made to bring developing and emerging nations, as well as the United States, into a new global warming pact in Copenhagen in December.

While such curbs on carbon emissions can have a substantial impact on overall air pollution, they may not tackle it completely.

Levels of another harmful pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, from vehicle traffic have not decreased in Europe by as much as the WMO expected, while the impact of weather patterns on pollution is also a concern.

Diplomacy key to defusing row over 'Blue Gold'

ISTANBUL (AFP) – From South Asia and to the Middle East, from Australia to California, rivers and aquifers that cross boundaries have become potent sources of friction.

Farmers squabble with city dwellers over irrigation rights while countries in river basins complain about pollution or water theft from upstream, as their neighbours build dams to siphon off flow from the watershed.

"Conflicts about water can occur at all scales," the UN warned ahead of the World Water Forum, which winds up in Istanbul on Sunday.

"Local-level conflicts are commonplace in irrigation systems, where farmers vie for limited resources," it said in a massive document, the third World Water Development Report.

"Conflicts also occur at the scale of large national river basins -- multistate Indian rivers such as the Cauvery and the Krishna -- or transnational river basins, such as the Jordan and the Nile."

"Water wars" for the time belong in the realm of conjecture.

In more than half a century, there have been only 37 cross-border disputes about water that have led to some form of violence, while some 200 treaties on water-sharing have been negotiated and signed.

Some of these initiatives have worked well.

They include the 1960 Indo-Pakistani treaty on sharing the water of the Indus, which has survived two wars between the two neighbours; the Mekong Committee, which has functioned since 1957 and swapped data throughout the Vietnam War; and the Nile Basin Initiative, launched in 1999 gathering all 10 riparian, or river-bank, states along the world's longest river.

But there are also treaties that remain a dead letter, especially in Africa, which has nearly a quarter of the world's cross-border river basins.

The risk of bloodshed over the stuff of life is a scenario taken seriously by many specialists.

Global warming may already be causing changes in rainfall and snowfall patterns, affecting river flow and groundwater recharge, and amplifying water shortages in countries that are already under stress, say scientists.

Flavia Loures, senior programme officer for international law and policy on freshwater at the World Wildlife Fund, said governments urgently needed to set in place better mechanisms for resolving water disputes.

"We really need a stable cooperation now, before we come to the point where, due to climate change, competition for water resources becomes much stronger," she said.

Loures said a solution could be found in a UN pact that was signed in 1997 by more than 100 countries -- China, Turkey and Burundi demurred.

The accord, called the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, requires parties to pledge "equitable and reasonable" use of water resources that straddle an international boundary.

But only 16 countries have ratified the convention so far, and 35 are needed before it becomes international law. France this month announced its intention to ratify. Loures said it was possible that the convention could become international law in 2011.

A European diplomat, though, said some countries, notably China, which have a river watershed, baulked at the convention.

"They fear it will entail interference in their internal affairs," he said.

EU fails to commit to climate change aid

BRUSSELS (AFP) – A European Union summit refused Friday to put a figure on aid for developing nations to cut greenhouse gases, waiting to see what United States and others have to offer.

The European Commission had mooted 30 billion euros.

However no figure was agreed at a two-day summit that ended Friday, with the EU not keen to show its hand before the United States, China and others had indicated their proposals.

Pressure is mounting ahead of global climate change talks to be held in Copenhagen in December.

"We have, before taking a formal decision on our side, to ask other developed countries also to come with us (so that) the US, Japan and many other contributors also signal what will be their position," said European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

It would be "premature" for Europe to name a figure now, he said, adding that such a decision would be made some time between June and the Copenhagen conference, he added.

That position was expressed by several of the leaders behind closed doors, according to sources.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted on the fundamental role of the United States and the need to find out the intentions of President Barack Obama, they said.

There was also no agreement at the summit on how to divide the costs, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk admitted after a debate with his European counterparts on Thursday.

Tusk, whose country relies heavily on coal-fired power stations, said "the simplistic mechanism of 'the polluter pays' is unacceptable."

The EU leaders stressed that "the European Union remains committed to playing a leading role in bringing about a global and comprehensive climate agreement in Copenhagen in December 2009.

The European leaders' message was slammed by environmental groups.

The EU leaders "spent most of their time discussing multi-billion euro responses to the financial and economic crises and did not commit a single cent of the money Europe must contribute to international efforts to deal with global warming," complained Friends of the Earth.

"Poor countries will not agree to a new treaty unless they have assurances from the developed world," it added in an argument also voiced by Action Aid and Oxfam.

"After more than one year of discussions, European leaders have once again put on hold decisions that could stimulate a global climate deal," said WWF

Claude Turmes a Green member of the European parliament from Luxembourg, denounced the summit's "timidity."

EU nations have committed to ambitious environmental goals by 2020 that aim to reduce greenhouse gases by 20 percent, make 20 percent energy efficiencies and increasing the use of renewable energy sources to 20 percent of the total.

Temperature rise may trigger West Antarctic thaw

OSLO (Reuters) – The West Antarctic ice sheet may start to collapse if sea temperatures rise by 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit), triggering a thaw that would raise world ocean levels by 5 meters (16 ft), U.S. scientists said.

Such a rise in sea levels -- taking thousands of years -- would swamp many coasts and cities and wipe some low-lying Pacific islands off the map.

West Antarctica, the part of the frozen continent most vulnerable to climate change, has thawed several times in the past few million years, most recently 400,000 years ago, according to Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

The study "suggests the Western Antarctic ice sheet will begin to collapse when nearby ocean temperatures warm by roughly 5 C," David Pollard of Pennsylvania State University and Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts wrote.

The study helps plug big gaps in understanding Antarctica's likely reaction to modern global warming by improving knowledge of the history of the ice.

Pollard told Reuters the 5 C estimate for triggering a collapse was a rough guide, based on an computer model. The bigger East Antarctic ice sheet had not thawed in past warm periods studied.

The U.N. Climate Panel has projected a best estimate that world atmospheric temperature will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius by 2100 because of emissions of greenhouse gases that could bring floods, droughts, heatwaves and more powerful storms.

Higher rises were possible unless the world reined in the growth of emissions, it said. Oceans temperatures lag far behind the rise in air temperatures.

"The required ocean warmings, of the order of 5 Celsius, may well take several centuries to develop," wrote Philippe Huybrechts of Vrije University in Brussels in a commentary.

"But such an outcome could result from the accumulation of total greenhouse-gas emissions projected for the twenty-first century, if emissions are not greatly reduced," he wrote.

A related paper in Nature suggested that past collapses of the West Antarctic ice were linked to the earth's rotation.

"The pattern of collapse suggests an influence of 40,000-year cycles in the tilt of Earth's rotational axis," Nature said of the study led by scientists in New Zealand.

Recycled sewage struggles with yuk factor

ISTANBUL (AFP) – One day, when you read on a drink bottle "this water has been passed by the minister of health," the message may be open to interpretation in more ways than one.

To a corps of hydrologists, the only way that parched regions of the world can meet the surging demand for water is to recycle -- and use -- the stuff that has already been through the human body.

Rather than throwing away water that results from treating urine, faeces and bathwater, the valuable liquid can be harnessed once more, they say.

It could go not just for farm irrigation or industry -- as is already widely the case in many countries -- but also for drinking water.

Presentations at the World Water Forum, running in Istanbul until Sunday, have been pressing the argument that "used" water, also called rather more gracefully "grey" water, should comprise a percentage of what comes out of our taps.

But specialists also caution that overcoming human repugnance -- could it be called a gut response? -- is a far greater challenge than the engineering.

"People hate the idea of drinking something that could have been sewage," said Gerard Payen, a member of the UN's consultative committee on water and sanitation, which reports to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

"There's a major psychological block. But it will go away bit by bit."

Windhoek, the capital of the arid southern African country of Namibia, has been using a "toilets-to-taps" system with success for many years.

But it's a rare example of public acceptance to date.

In Australia, inhabitants of the Queensland town of Toowoomba voted out of introducing such a scheme in a referendum three years ago. In other parts of the drought-wracked country, the idea encounters a shake of the head, but is at least being taken seriously as an option.

"Technically, using modern recycling methods, we are able to turn out water that is perfectly drinkable," explained Antoine Frerot, managing director of Veolia Eau, a French water company that has high stakes in this sector.

"Used water is a resource that is close to cities and its availability rises at the same rate of consumption," he said. "Recycling it uses less energy than desalination and avoids pollution."

According to Frerot's figures, drinking water extracted from an aquifer costs around 10 euro cents (eight US cents) per cubic metre and 70 euro cents (56 US cents) when taken from sea water.

Somewhere in between is recycled used water, at 45 euro cents (36 US cents) a cubic metre.

Faced with public suspicions, water companies are looking at indirect ways of water conservation. They include separation of drinking water and toilet systems, so that sea water can be used to flush toilets.

Another widespread practice is "indirect" sewage recycling. In other words, the sewage, once cleaned by treatment, is poured out into the local river or reservoir, which is drawn up by a different intake pipe as the source for drinking water.

This has been the practice for many years on the River Thames, for instance, where local utilities upstream extract and return the water several times before it reaches London.

Singapore, a groundbreaker in reuse, has a programme called NEWater, in which one percent of drinking water comes from recycled sewage effluent, which is added to the city-state's main reservoir.

"Passing the water through a 'natural environment' is a way of partially overcoming the psychological barrier and also brings in the ecosystem as an additional filter," said Jacques Labre, a specialist with Suez Environnement, a French water services company.

"The psychological barrier is still quite strong, but I think it will change in the future. It's a lot about trust in the technology," said Louise Korsgaard, an expert with Danish consultancy DHI and a researcher at Singapore's Nanyang Technical University.

Google to roll out free tool to help save energy

LONDON (Reuters) - Google Inc is soon to roll out free software which allows consumers to track their home electricity use and improve energy efficiency in a bid to help mitigate global warming.

Dan Reicher, Director for Climate Change and Energy Initiatives Google, told Reuters it was in talks with utilities companies in the United Sates, Europe and Asia to make the product available shortly to general consumers.

As part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Google said in February it would use its software skills for the program that will show home energy consumption in real time on a user's computer or a telephone.

"It will get rolled out very soon to regular energy consumers," Reicher said, without providing exact timings.

"When I began getting information about my own home, I discovered that I had a 35-year electric motor running for my heating system. That was using huge amount of electricity. I did not realize that's the change I need to make in my home."

The company cited studies showing that access to home energy information typically saves between 5 percent and 15 percent on monthly electricity bills.

"The beauty of the tool we are developing is that is going to be an open source," Reicher said.

Coal industry hopes it has place in Obama's energy plan

WASHINGTON — The coal industry — long the lifeblood of mountain rich but economically poor states like Kentucky — is bracing for a seismic shift as the Obama administration charges ahead with re-envisioned energy policies focused heavily on renewable resources and new ways of storing carbon emissions.

The gambit pits mining companies and lawmakers who are concerned about costly innovations against environmentalists who argue the ecological damage left behind by an industry that powers nearly all of Kentucky and much of the nation is too high a price.

"The stakes are very high. We have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and efforts to do that will affect how we use coal in the future," said Barbara Freese, author of the book "Coal: A Human History," and a clean energy and climate policy advocate with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Climate change will force economic and technological changes. The question is how to bring those changes about in the most cost effective and efficient way."

Politically, changes in the nation's approach to coal are already afoot.

The Department of Energy will soon announce whether it will use $1 billion in stimulus funds to resurrect FutureGen, a proposal to create in Illinois the world's first coal-fired power plant designed to capture and bury carbon emissions underground. Kentucky was once a contender for the plant, which the Bush administration ultimately decided not to build citing a cost overrun that pushed the price tag to $1.8 billion.

A recent Government Accountability Office report said the cost to build is actually closer to $1.3 billion, and the Bush administration's overestimation, coupled with the decision not to build the plant, set the country's "clean coal" efforts back a decade.

In response to last year's massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority facility in Kingston, Tenn., the Environmental Protection Agency recently announced plans to create standards for regulating the ash that is left over after coal is burned to produce electricity.

According to a Natural Resources Defense Council report, Kentucky comes in at No. 11 on a "Filthy 15" list of states where new power plants would produce more coal ash.

The Obama administration is also promising to make good on a campaign pledge to implement a governmental cap-and-trade program that would "cap" companies' carbon emissions and force businesses to purchase or "trade" for lower emissions levels.

The economic stimulus has $16.8 billion for renewable energy and efficiency programs compared to $3.4 billion for the coal industry. Congress previously nixed $50 billion in loans for the coal-to-liquid fuels and nuclear industries.

Some Kentucky lawmakers feel that's not nearly enough.

"President Obama in his budget proposal said that if they initiate a cap and trade it would produce $650 billion in revenue for the federal government. That's a little bit scary in itself because it's a source of income he's depending on to offset some of his proposals," said Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment. "It will increase the cost of electricity being produced and it will be extremely difficult for Kentucky and a lot of Midwestern states to get themselves in a position to meet these standards."

Lexington has the country's largest "carbon footprint" -- leading the nation in emitting the greenhouse gases that most scientists think contribute to global climate change. Other Kentucky cities follow closely, including the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky area and Louisville, according to a study of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas by the Brookings Institution.

The coal mining industry has donated heavily to the state's congressional delegation's campaign war chests.

Kentucky lawmakers have long pinned their hopes for an economic revival in Appalachia on a windfall in federal funding to capture and store carbon emissions underground. The method is seen as critical to efforts to convert coal to liquid fuels -- a process that produces a significant amount of carbon dioxide that could be released into the atmosphere.

Clean Coal Power Resources of Louisville could decide in a few months if it will move forward with a proposed $7.6 billion coal-to-liquid fuels plant in McCracken County -- a project that would take years to build as environmental and regulatory standards are met. During the last Congress, Whitfield and other Kentucky lawmakers co-sponsored legislation to advance the development and deployment of carbon capture and storage.

However, that technology is not yet commercially viable, and "absent greater incentives through government subsidies, regulatory policies, or shifting construction risks to vendors, 'clean coal' is likely to remain an elusive part of the future of electric generation," Todd Shipman, a credit analyst with Standard and Poor's, told the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment during a panel on the future of coal last week.

The tremors created by the shift in energy policy can perhaps best be seen in the multimillion-dollar advertising battle over the public perceptions of coal as an energy resource. The mining industry, environmentalists, lawmakers and the Obama administration all have varying definitions of "clean coal". Coal companies through the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity have produced television spots punctuated with snippets from Obama's campaign trail speeches extolling the virtues of "clean coal".

The Reality Coalition shot right back with a commercial directed by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen that features a clean coal air freshener that "harnesses the awesome power of the word clean."

"The term clean coal has been around for a long time, before we were even talking about carbon capture and storage," Freese said. "It came out of the industry and it became a catchall phrase for reduced pollution related to coal. That's not helpful because there are so many technologies involved."

McClatchy Newspapers 2009

China appeals to exclude exports in climate deal

WASHINGTON (AFP) – China appealed to exclude its giant export sector in the next treaty on climate change, as doubts grow whether the world can close ranks by a deadline of December.

Rich nations buying Chinese goods bear responsibility, a Chinese negotiator said, estimating that export production caused up to 20 percent of the Asian power's carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

"It is a very important item to make a fair agreement," senior Chinese climate official Li Gao said during a visit to Washington.

Climate envoys from China, Japan and the European Union were holding talks with US President Barack Obama's administration as the clock ticks to the December conference in Copenhagen meant to approve a post-Kyoto Protocol deal.

Developed nations demand that developing countries such as China and India take action under the new treaty. They had no obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, leading Obama's predecessor George W. Bush to reject it.

But Li said it was unfair to put the highest burden on China, which by some measures has surpassed the United States as the world's top emitter.

"We are at the low end of the production line for the global economy," Li told a forum.

"We produce products and these products are consumed by other countries, especially the developed countries. This share of emissions should be taken by the consumers but not the producers," he said.

Li said Beijing was not trying to avoid action on climate change, noting that Obama in his address to Congress last month said China "has launched the largest effort in history to make their economy energy efficient."

Li's remarks met immediate skepticism, with other negotiators saying it would be a logistical nightmare to find a way to regulate carbon emissions at exports' destination.

Asking importers to handle emissions "would mean that we would also like them to have jurisdiction and legislative powers in order to control and limit those," top EU climate negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger said.

"I'm not sure whether my Chinese colleague would agree on that particular point," he said.

China's chief climate official, Xie Zhenhua, was also in Washington where he met with US global warming pointman Todd Stern, who praised Beijing's "broad work" on climate change but sought greater cooperation.

"This is a historic opportunity for both countries to contribute to a better future for the planet," Stern said, according to the State Department.

But Obama has run into resistance in Congress from members of Bush's Republican Party who say tough measures to reduce emissions would further hurt an economy in its roughest patch in decades.

Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change which organized the forum, said that countries should be ready to accept setting only a framework in Copenhagen.

"We can still make very substantial progress toward a final agreement and perhaps the best way to do that is aiming for a strong interim agreement in Copenhagen," she said.

Runge-Metzger said the EU believed the world now had the political will for an agreement in Copenhagen but conceded: "It doesn't have to be a deal that goes into each and every technical detail."

Japan's chief negotiator Shinsuke Sugiyama said that Asia's largest economy -- which is struggling to meet its own obligations under the Kyoto treaty reached in its ancient capital -- was waiting for Washington and Beijing.

"Japan will not repeat Kyoto," Sugiyama said. "At Kyoto we were not able to involve the biggest emitters in the world by now -- and that means the United States of America and China."

Li hit back that Japan, not China, was among countries with "historical responsibility" for global warming -- which UN scientists say threatens entire species if left unchecked.

"If I were Japanese, I would be very proud of the Kyoto Protocol. It seems the ambassador is not," Li said.

Crisis hampers EU wind power in short-term: lobby

MARSEILLE (Reuters) – The economic downturn is delaying wind power projects in the European Union but the negative impact will not last because of strong sector fundamentals, a European wind power lobby said on Monday.

"There is a slowdown in the sector, we are seeing some signs, but much less than in other sectors," Arthouros Zervos, president of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), told Reuters on the sidelines of a wind conference.

"The impact will be short term because the fundamentals are still there for wind development," he said.

There was some difficulty in financing projects, which meant some were delayed but there had been no canceled projects so far, Zervos added.

Michael Liebreich, analyst with consultancy firm New Energy Finance, said he believed between 10 and 15 percent of all new projects in Europe in 2009 would be delayed or canceled.

The wind energy sector was attracting new sources of capital that compensated for banks' reluctance to provide debt finance for projects, the EWEA said.

"A growing number of power companies with strong balance sheets are investing in wind energy and there is increasing interest from institutional investors," it added.

While it expected the sector to be among the first to emerge from the economic turmoil, it urged governments and the European Investment Bank to establish loan guarantees to ease the banking liquidity squeeze.

LONGER TERM

In the longer term, Zervos was optimistic because of the European Union's decision last year to source a fifth of its energy by 2020 from renewable sources like the sun and wind, to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce dependence on unreliable imports of oil and gas.

The EU's plan had gained urgency after a gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine earlier this year, which forced hundreds of European businesses to shut down and left thousands of homes without heating, the EU's energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs told conference delegates.

"We now estimate installed capacity in the European Union to reach 230,000 megawatts (MW), up from a 2003 forecast of 180,000 MW," Zervos said, adding this included 40,000 MW in offshore capacity.

Wind power was expected to generate 600 terawatt hours per year by 2020 and make up between 16 and 18 percent of the EU's electricity demand.

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said last week the economic downturn would dent wind power growth in the United States in 2009, as firms scrambled to finance their projects.

It expected wind power growth to be stable in Europe and continue to increase sharply in China.

GWEC was more optimistic than some analysts, forecasting added installed power would grow in 2009 compared with 2008, contrasting with an HSBC report which last week forecast new additions would drop by a fifth.

The council said a $787 billion U.S. stimulus package would however help revive the sector when it kicked in, through tax breaks, financial incentives, loan guarantees and grants.

The council said it expected global wind power capacity to nearly triple in the next five years, although the year-on-year growth would slow down to an average of 22 percent, down from 28 percent in the last 10 years.

(Editing by Sue Thomas)

Maldives Pledges to Be First Carbon-Neutral Country

WASHINGTON, Mar 16 (OneWorld.net) - The president of the Maldives announced Sunday that his nation will become the first carbon-neutral country in the world, within 10 years.

• The announcement was made via video link with viewers at the premiere of the forthcoming climate film, "The Age of Stupid," which will be released in Britain later this week. Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed said: "What we need to do is nothing short of de-carbonizing the entire world economy," adding that the process will likely be difficult and somewhat painful, but it is achievable and necessary. "If man can walk on the moon, we can unite to conquer our own carbon enemy. We [the Maldives] are willing to play our part."

• Nasheed called on the leaders of wealthier nations to take decisive action at the Copenhagen climate summit in December. Climate journalist Mark Lynas said: "This is more than just an amazing announcement. This is potentially a game-changer for the entire political negotiations on climate change, worldwide."

• Nasheed did not say how his country would reconcile its drive to become carbon-neutral with its economic reliance on tourism, which often demands long-haul airline travel, a major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions.

• "The Age of Stupid" is aiming to reach 250 million viewers worldwide with its message clarifying the short time frame in which humans must act to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. Concerned viewers are being directed to the action hub at OneClimate.net, a member of the OneWorld family of Web sites, to find out how they can get involved in the follow-up action campaign entitled "Not Stupid."

Climate change accelerates water hunt in U.S. West

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – It's hard to visualize a water crisis while driving the lush boulevards of Los Angeles, golfing Arizona's green fairways or watching dancing Las Vegas fountains leap more than 20 stories high.

So look Down Under. A decade into its worst drought in a hundred years Australia is a lesson of what the American West could become.

Bush fires are killing people and obliterating towns. Rice exports collapsed last year and the wheat crop was halved two years running. Water rationing is part of daily life.

"Think of that as California's future," said Heather Cooley of California water think tank the Pacific Institute.

Water raised leafy green Los Angeles from the desert and filled arid valleys with the nation's largest fruit and vegetable crop. Each time more water was needed, another megaproject was built, from dams of the major rivers to a canal stretching much of the length of the state.

But those methods are near their end. There is very little water left untapped and global warming, the gradual increase of temperature as carbon dioxide and other gases retain more of the sun's heat, has created new uncertainties.

Global warming pushes extremes. It prolongs drought while sometimes bringing deluges the parched earth cannot absorb. California Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow says two things keep him up at night: drought and flood.

"It isn't that drought is the new norm," said Snow. "Climate change is bringing us higher highs and lower lows in terms of water supplies."

Take Los Angeles, which had its driest year in 2006-2007, with 3 inches (7.6 cms) of rain. Only two years earlier, more than 37 inches (94 cms) fell, barely missing the record.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a drought emergency last month, and Los Angeles plans to ration water for the first time in 15 years. Courts are limiting the amount of water taken from into rivers to save decimated fish populations, which is cutting back even more to farms.

California farmers lost more than $300 million in 2008 and economic losses may accelerate to 10 times that this year as 95,000 people lose their jobs. Farmers will get zero water from the main federal supplier.

Nick Tatarakis sank his life savings into the fertile San Joaquin Valley but now thinks his business will die of thirst.

"Every year it seems like this water thing is getting rougher and rougher," he said. "I took everything I had saved over the last three or four years, put it into farming almonds, developed this orchard. Now it is coming into its fifth year and probably won't make it through this year."

SWINGING TEMPERATURES, PRICES

In the global economy, a little trouble goes a long way when supplies are tight, said University of Arkansas Ecological Engineering professor Marty Matlock.

The essence of climate change is greater swings in precipitation -- and thus food production. At times of peak demand, prices can skyrocket, he said, as happened to food prices last year.

"There's no slack any more. The rope is tight, and if you give it a tug, it yanks on something," he said.

While farmers suffer, cities continue to grow. The sunny, warm American West remains a magnet.

"Add water and you have the instant good life," said James Powell, author of "Dead Pool," a book about global warming and water in the U.S. West.

"For the last few years, the driest states, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, have been the fastest growing. And you know that can't be sustained," he said.

California, the world's eighth-largest economy, already uses a staggering amount of water -- roughly enough to cover the nearby state of Washington with a foot (30 cms) of it.

Some 80 percent is used by farms, growing organic lettuce on the temperate coast; rice and citrus inland. Almost anything will grow in the ideal climate -- if there is water.

California water planners in a draft report see three different scenarios for the state by 2050. In the most unfettered, suburbs sprawl ever-farther, replacing productive farms with water-soaking lawns and the population doubles -- as does urban water use. In the best case scenario for water use, the population increases about 20 percent, but denser housing and conservation help keep urban water use roughly steady.

All of the scenarios show agricultural output dropping -- it is just a question of how much.

Businesses, too, have much to fear. Semiconductor manufacturers and beverage companies are high on a list of at-risk sectors in a report on corporate water by Pacific Institute and investor group Ceres.

SLOW CHANGE

Change is happening too slowly, nearly all water planners say, but they disagree about what to do and which options are financially viable, especially the expensive dam projects favored by agricultural interests.

Climate change's challenge to traditional water supplies starts in the mountains. The snow-capped Sierras in eastern California and the Rockies farther east fuel rivers that provide a steady supply of water through much of the year.

The Sierras will have 25 percent to 40 percent less snow by 2050 as rising global concentrations of greenhouses gases raise the temperature, California's water department forecasts.

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program sees the entire West on average getting less precipitation, but there is plenty of debate about that. There is a consensus, however, that most of today's snow will turn in coming decades to rain, often in the form of blinding thunderstorms early in the year, when it is needed least.

California wants to raise or build new dams to catch the increased flow as part of a broad set of solutions.

"There is no one silver bullet," the water department's Snow said.

But the Natural Resources Defense Council and a Los Angeles business coalition see dams as a costly solution that mostly favors farmers.

"The dams are an expensive detour that I don't think will ever be built," said Lee Harringon, executive director of the Southern California Leadership Council, a group of urban public utilities and other businesses.

A study by his group put the price of new dams at up to $1,400 per acre foot. Current supplies cost about $700 for one acre foot -- a year's supply for two houses. Urban water conservation costs $210, local stormwater $350 and desalination of ocean water or contaminated groundwater about $750 to $1,200 an acre foot.

The NRDC estimates that California could get 7 million acre feet per year from conservation, groundwater cleanup and stormwater harvesting.

Even energy-intensive desalination is cheaper than dams, the group argues. "People always used to think that desal was the lunatic fringe of water supply. (Now) desal is the mainstream, and dams are exiting the mainstream," said policy analyst Barry Nelson.

But so far water is the cheapest utility in most homes and businesses, and it's treated that way.

"As long as you are undervaluing a resource, you are going to be perpetually short," said Robert Wilkinson, director of the Water Policy Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Many see water's pricing future following that of electricity. Despite the energy crisis of the early 2000s, California leads the nation in controlling electricity use. One key strategy was letting utilities charge more when consumers use less, making power producers advocates for conservation.

But the simple conclusion is that the West must secure a water supply, even at a high price, says business advocate Harrington.

"While these options are expensive, the options of not having the water makes them all viable at the end of the day," he said.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

Climate scientists gather, and the news is not good

COPENHAGEN (AFP) – Only months before make-or-break UN climate talks in Copenhagen, an extraordinary conclave of climate scientists gathering on Tuesday are expected to warn that global warming is accelerating more quickly than forecast by a key UN report for policymakers.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in early 2007 that global warming, if unchecked, would unleash a devastating amalgam of floods, drought, disease and extreme weather by century's end.

But a welter of new research suggests the impact could be even worse, and will arrive sooner rather than later.

Most worrying, they say, is the possibility that human activity -- mainly the burning of oil, gas and coal -- could trigger natural drivers of global warming which, once unleashed, would be nearly impossible to reverse.

The shrinking of the Arctic ice cap, and the release of billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases trapped in melting permafrost are two such "positive feedbacks" that could become both cause and consequence of global warming.

The three-day conference is also likely to unveil a new scientific consensus that sea levels are set to rise at least a metre by 2100, more than double the IPCC estimate, which failed to take melt-off from the Greenland Ice Sheet into account.

"I and a lot of scientists see this meeting as an opportunity to update the science that has come out since the last IPCC report," said William Howard, a researcher from the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia.

Howard will present evidence showing for the first time that ocean acidification caused by climate change is stripping away the calcium-based shells of tiny organisms, called forams, that play a vital role in absorbing huge amounts of carbon pollution from the atmosphere.

"The policymakers that are meeting in Copenhagen in December need to consider this and other impacts in addition to what they traditionally think of as climate change," he told AFP.

More than 2,000 scientists and researchers from 80 countries responded to the open invitation to present their findings, which were then vetted by a panel of climate experts, many of them top figures in the IPCC.

The head of the UN panel, Rajendra Pachauri -- who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace prize with Al Gore -- is slated to kick off the proceedings, along with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and top climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern.

"The huge response from scientists comes from a sense of urgency, but also a sense of frustration," said Katherine Richardson, head of the Danish government's Commission on Climate Change Policy and a co-organiser of the meeting, sponsored by the University of Copenhagen and nine other schools.

"Most of us have been trained as scientists to not get our hands dirty by talking to politicians -- throw your data on the table and run away as fast as you can.

"But we now realise that what we are dealing with is so complicated and urgent that we have to help to make sure the results are understood," she told AFP.

Richardson said the IPCC report was an invaluable document, but will be five years out of date by the time negotiators convene in December to hammer out a global climate treaty.

"There is a whole lot more knowledge available today," she said. "When you make decisions on what you are going to do about the problem it is important to know what trajectory you are on."

Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's Minister for Climate and Energy, agreed that political decisions should be driven by science.

"As policymakers, we can't ignore what the scientists are telling us, nor can we close our eyes to reality," she told AFP.