David Fogarty

No pun intended but for the world's carbon community, times are looking a little black.

The global financial crisis, or GFC as it is being called this week during Australia's largest ever carbon market gathering, is deeply troubling many participants. But a larger, more worrying issue remains "post 2012".

This is when the Clean Development Mechanism under the current phase of the U.N. Kyoto Protocol runs out, along with the hundreds of CDM projects already approved and the 3,000 still awaiting approval by a U.N. board.

U.N. talks at the end of next year aim to agree on a broader replacement for Kyoto from 2013 and market players are hoping those talks don't fail. Already there are fears that some rich nations will use the financial crisis as an excuse to say now is not the time to be negotiating tougher emissions curbs that might hurt industry and cost jobs.

"The volume of primary CDM activity is declining. Every month virtually this year, the number of new CDM transactions has been in decline. And that's because the 2012 deadline is approaching and we're running out of runway," said Paul Bodnar, Manager of  Carbon Markets at London-based Climate Change Capital.

In China, the largest source of Kyoto offsets called CERs, the number of projects there are in decline, just as they are elsewhere, said Alex Wyatt, director of Emissions Zero, which helps Chinese entities to become carbon neutral.

"If you wanted to put it on a scale, the financial crisis and the post-2012 uncertainty, many times more significant is the post-2012 uncertainty. If you know what's going on past 2012 you can invest with a much longer-term horizon," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference on the Gold Coast in Queensland state.

A lot of people are still taking the risk to invest in CDM projects, said Wyatt, whose company has about 130 projects in China, many of them focused on renewable energy.

"But the willingness to do so is decreased. You see it now.  People are investing a lot more in short-term projects that will only take a year or so to build."

He said the financial market had yet to affect CDM project development in China.

"It's too early to see any real effects. Projects take a long time. But if there are any effects, they will be seen in a few months."

"The impact on the VER market is a lot more direct in the sense that a VER is like any retail good. It's discretionary spending," he said, referring to verified emission reductions, which must meet firm standards but are outside the Kyoto Protocol.

    In a country of more than one billion people, protecting critically endangered species isn't always a top priority when it comes to making a living and growing enough food.

    In the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, though, a court has halted construction of a major water canal to save one of the world's rarest birds.

    Only about 50 Jerdon's coursers (Rhinoptilus bitorquatus) are believed to be left in the wild and are found in scrub-jungle habitat in the Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, which the Andhra Pradesh government created to protect the remaining birds.

     The Teluga Ganga Canal, being built to bring water to Chennai, India's fourth-largest city, will now be diverted around the sanctuary, rather than running straight through as originally planned. The Supreme Court halted construction because of the threat to the birds and local authorities will compensate local villagers for the loss of extra land.

   Dr Panchapakesan Jeganathan, a scientist at the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), said: "This bird is more threatened than the tiger and very few people have ever seen it.

   "People thought the Jerdon's courser was a block to progress but are now benefiting from the canal's realignment because their compensation is generous and the only land they are losing is difficult to farm," he said.

    Officials have agreed in principle to buy 3,000 acres of scrub forest between the new canal route and the sanctuary. The state's forest department will manage that land to protect and enlarge the bird's habitat.

      The BNHS and Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which both pressed the Supreme Court to order a halt to the canal, have also been involved in survey work to determine the bird's true range. 

    "It is crucial we find other sites hosting Jerdon's coursers and encourage both politicians and the people living nearby to support that work," said Ian Barber, RSPB's Asia officer.

    With many species being driven towards extinction by human activities, perhaps the world needs to see more examples such as this Indian bird?

   (Picture credit: Simon Wootton, RSPB)

It's summer at the G8 media centre in Hokkaido. Yet underneath the building are tonnes of snow to keep journalists cool as they write about global warming.

Japan budgeted $283 million for security at the summit and $30 million to build a temporary, low-emissions media centre far from where the G8 leaders are meeting in a luxury hotel.

The centre took five months to construct next to a ski resort and the company that built it says 95 percent of the materials will be recycled or reused once the building is torn down in the weeks after the G8 meeting.

During construction, tonnes of snow were scooped up from the resort's car park and dumped into an insulated area under the floor. Of the 5.5 metres of snow, more than 4 metres remain, which is used to chill the air circulating around the cavernous two-storey building. Large arrays of solar panels also help power the centre and cut emissions.

Journalists can walk over glass panels to see the snow underneath.

 Jun Oishi of Takenaka Corporation, which designed and built the centre, says it will save 6,ooo tonnes of carbon dioxide over its short life compared with a conventionally designed building.

It's a revelation compared with the media tents at last December's climate talks in Bali, which were basically sweat boxes filled with large and inefficient air conditioners battling the tropical heat.

Green though the new building is, the fleets of cars ferrying journalists between the airport and Sapparo, both two hours from the media centre, has raised doubts about how much carbon will ultimately be saved. A case of style over substance?

Greens are seeing red this week after the World Bank approved partial financing for a $4.2 billion coal-fired power station in India.

   The 4,000 MW plant will provide crucial power for millions of Indians, prove a much-needed boost for industry and use "super-critical" technology that will make it India's most-efficient coal-fired plant.

   The Bank's board approved $450 million in loans through its International Finance Corp for the Tata Mundra project and the IFC said it looked at many alternative ideas, including wind and solar, but found the giant coal power station was the best solution.

   The volume of emissions from the plant will be about 40 percent less than existing coal-fired plants in India but it will still produce up to 23 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year.

   And that's angered environmental groups who say the World Bank is failing to help fight global warming by backing polluting projects. The Bank said using solar or wind for the project instead of coal would have been just too expensive to meet India's vast appetite for electricity.

  Greens say much more investment and willingness needs to go into clean energy to help poor nations prevent the polluting mistakes of richer nations. Otherwise we're all doomed to face a warmer world with rising seas and more chaotic weather.

  But who's going to take that chance and start backing giant renewable projects in poorer states to wean them off coal and oil? Or will the sharp rise in coal and oil prices generate the needed political and financial shift anyway?

   No one disputes India's right to develop. But should lenders such as the World Bank impose a ban on involvement in future coal plants as a way to focus global investment on clean energy? For the Tata Mundra project, the IFC said coal was the least expensive option and that using solar or wind would have required billions in subsidies.

Ask many Japanese about whaling and they explain it's part of their culture. After all, Japan is surrounded by the ocean and whaling and fishing have been part of Japan for many centuries.

During a recent visit to Japan, several Japanese friends and colleagues were puzzled, indeed annoyed, by Western media coverage of Japan's scientific whaling in Antarctic waters earlier this year and thought the stories were hostile and uninformed.

To them, stopping whaling would be akin to Australians being forced to stop summer barbecues, Inuits from hunting seals, or Germans from drinking beer during Oktoberfest.

 But to many Westerners, the images of whales being harpooned under the guise of science means the practice should be stopped, particularly since some of the meat ends up for sale in special whale meat shops and restaurants in Japan.

What do you think? Are anti-whaling nations such as Australia being hypocritical when thousands of iconic kangaroos are culled each year, as some in Japan point out?

   It was like a scene from the future. A carpark brimming with fuel-cell and hydrogen-powered cars, while fuel-cell buses ferried delegates to lunch near the modern conference centre outside Tokyo.

   Japan was determined to display its green credentials at weekend G20 talks, one of the biggest meetings of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters since last December's Bali gathering. Even conference staff were given chopsticks and traditional "bento" boxes that could be reused instead of the usual throw-away items.

    Inside the conference hall, though, delegates were more interested in substance than style as they discussed ways to agree on a global pact by the end of 2009 to curb growing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

    And for most delegates, Japan came up very short indeed.

   Japanese ministers told the gathering, ranging from G8 nations to big developing countries China, India, Brazil and Mexico, that combining individual emissions reductions targets for industries is one way to come up with national goals to fight climate change.

   But the plan met resistance from developing nations and a number of rich nations in the group that said the idea lacked clarity and didn't fully cater to poorer states' individual circumstances for their industries.  It was also unclear if the targets were voluntary or mandatory.

   Developing nations say they need more money and clean energy technology from rich nations to clean up their steelmills and power stations and that developed nations should do more to curb their emissions, too. That means clear and binding emissions targets.

   The European Union said Tokyo should get serious by adopting an emissions trading scheme, something Japan's powerful business lobby has been reluctant to adopt until recently.

   But Japan, the world's number two economy and fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter, balks at fixed emissions targets, preferring other benchmarks that have attracted criticism for being vague. This might seem strange for a nation whose ancient capital, Kyoto, is where the protocol was agreed more than a decade ago and is also struggling to meet its Kyoto reduction targets.

     Japan's prime minister said earlier this year the government would instead back a global energy efficiency target of 3o percent by 2020 and spend billions in R&D in achieving this. Tokyo also backs a 50 percent emissions reduction target by 2050 but hasn't fully settled on the base year.

   Europe, by comparison, says it backs a reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels but is struggling to enact laws to achieve this, keen to "avoid excessive costs for member states".

       All this means the world is a long way from agreeing by the end of next year a global pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, whose first period runs to the end of 2012.

   What do you think of global climate change negotiations and their chances of success?

    Private jets on the tarmac, fleets of limousines with police at the helm, helicopters flying overhead, endless columns of buses and taxis, five-star hotels filled to the brim.

    Welcome to another annual U.N. climate conference crammed with 10,000 delegates from around the world all focused on how to cut carbon emissions.

   Yes, we can all see the irony, and so does one U.S. Congressman.

   Instead of jetting over to Bali for climate talks, Edward Markey (a Democrat from Massachusetts) will use a 3-D animated version of himself to address the conference at 9.30 am on Wednesday Bali time.

    It is estimated Markey will save 5.36 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by doing this.

    His address will be streamed live at www.oneclimate.net/virtualbali

   Do you think this is the future of all big conferences, even company meetings?    

    It might seem the fear of rising seas, melting glaciers and chaotic weather is the main reason to cut emissions from fossil fuels. 

    But what if you are a climate change sceptic? Does that mean polluting at will?

    No. Even if you don't believe the world is at risk from climate change, burning fossil fuels still creates pollution and health problems. And powering global economies with oil, coal and gas is becoming more and more expensive -- except if you are a big oil producer.

       An executive from Dutch electronics giant Philips said in Bali that installing more energy-efficient lighting in homes, along streets and in offices and factories could save 1.5 billion barrels of oil a year, or about the annual output of 530 medium-sized power stations.

    Yet he said research showed that 80 percent of office lighting is still based on outdated and energy-inefficient lighting systems. More efficient lighting could cut electricity bills by 50 percent or more.

     So even if you don't believe all the science pointing to the threat from a warming planet, it makes sense for people to cut back on energy-intensive lifestyles. The only problem is, why aren't more people doing it?

    Journalists and delegates are cutting carbon emissions at the Bali climate talks by cycling between the venues. So large is the Bali gathering that meeting rooms (there are dozens of them) are spread out among a number of luxury hotels.

    So, instead of everyone walking (unlikely in the steamy tropical heat) or relying on fleets of air-conditioned talks and buses, the organisers have organised free bicycles for visitors to whizz between events.

     The scheme is a success but there only a few hundred bicycles between 10,000 delegates.

     Taxi!

    So, you're comfortably middle-class, drive the kids to school in an SUV (good protection for them in case of an accident, right?), have reverse-cycle heating and a kitchen with all the latest gadets.

   Life is good and yet, you're worried about your carbon emissions, destruction of rainforests and subtle changes to the climate in your area. But what can you do?

     Then you hear about a proposal at UN climate change talks in Bali that could lead to rich nations buying carbon credits aimed at saving the rainforests. These forests soak up vast amounts of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted by SUVs  and power stations.

     The scheme sounds very attractive. You can continue driving your SUV knowing your government is offsetting your emissions by paying to save the rainforests. Sounds like guilt-free living.

    Not quite.

    Flicking on the toaster may seem peripheral to the outcome of climate talks in Bali -- but whether the electricity comes from high carbon-emitting coal or clean alternatives like wind partly depends on how far Europe and other rich countries want to meet emissions targets by carbon offsetting. That would allow you to buy permits to continue to pollute by funding emissions cuts in poor nations. The question is whether that's the long-term answer.

    Some green groups are opposed to offset schemes that aren't matched by real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at home by rich nations. They say there's no such thing as buying your way out of polluting lifestyles in a world where greenhouse emissions keep rising. Forests can only absorb so much CO2 and, anyway, oil, gas and coal prices are rising, meaning the more rich nations continue to burn, the more the costs at home will burn a hole in consumers' pockets. Making that SUV just too expensive to run.

   What do you think?