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?

  Climate change is a threat, we must all work together but we can’t let it affect economic growth or the ambitions of hundreds of millions of impoverished people to live better lives.

    That was basically the message from some of the world’s top polluters on Wednesday after they signed a regional climate declaration,  less than two weeks before a major U.N.-sponsored meeting on global warming in Bali.

     The pact contained no fixed targets on cutting emissions or limiting their growth by a specific date but did pledge to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the long run. As pacts go, this one is pretty vague.

   “Climate change has to be addressed — but they cannot leave people in absolute poverty,” Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said after the negotiations involving 16 nations in the city state.

    The pact involved the leaders of the East Asia Summit, which comprises 10 South East Asian countries, plus six other nations. These include China, India and Japan, among the world’s top polluters, and Australia, a major coal exporter.

      “Efforts to fight climate change should promote, not block, economic development,” China’s Premier Wen Jiabao told the summit.

      The problem is that many scientist and the United Nations say Asia will be among the regions hardest-hit by climate change.

    More extreme weather, such as intense storms and prolonged droughts, rising seas and melting glaciers are expected to cause widespread damage, affect food and water supplies and create millions of refugees.

    For Asia, and indeed the rest of the world, climate change has truly become the classic chicken-and-egg situation. Do you reform your economies and prepare your populations now or do you go for growth and deal with the problem in earnest when it really becomes a crisis?

   While many Asian nations are working to trim emissions and become more energy efficient, these steps aren’t matching the pace of economic development. China says it needs an extra one million kilometres (600,000 miles) of roads by 2020 and says rich nations should take the lead in cutting emissions during negotiations to be launched in Bali.

    While developed nations should do more to fight climate change, what should fast-growing Asian nations do now before the costs of climate change become too great to ignore?

  The world might squabbling over the Kyoto Protocol and how best to fight climate change.

     But a project involving thousands of ocean robots shows nations can still cooperate when it comes to weather forecasting and understanding the science of global warming.

     The 26-nation Argo project involves deploying and maintaining an array of tube-shaped robots 1.5 metres long across the world’s oceans.

    The robots, called Argos, take a variety of measurements, such as salinity, temperature and ocean pressure. The data is then sent via satellite back to governments, weather forecasting centres and universities.

     Deployments of the $27,000 robots began seven years ago and this month marks the first time 3,000 Argos are operating at any one time. The trick is to maintain that number because the robots have a 4-to-5 year lifespan before their batteries run out.

     ”Argo will allow us to grapple with some of the big climate questions, as well as provide insight into how the ever-changing ocean weather affects marine ecosystems,” said Susan Wijffels of the Australia’s top research body, the state-backed CSIRO.

    She said the project was causing a lot of re-examination of past data of how the ocean has warmed over the past 60 years.

    Past measurements relied on data taken from ships or equipment moored at sea. Argos, however, can descend up to 2 kilometres and take a variety of measurements before surfacing to send their data. Once that’s done, the robots head back to the
depths once more for another cycle of data collection.

    The data can be used to improve weather forecasting and refine complex computer models showing the global impacts of climate change.

    The Argos now allowed scientists to track ocean heat content on a 2 or 3-month basis in real time, said Wijffels, of the CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship programme.

    At times ocean heat content varies, because of El Nino or a major volcanic eruption.

    “The other exciting thing Argo is allowing us to do is to look at long-term changes in ocean salinity,” she told Reuters.

    This helped track how rainfall was changing over the oceans.

    “The ocean is like a giant integrator…a giant rain gauge. It averages all that rainfall. It is a climate warning signal. It allows us to pick up tiny signals that are very hard to pick up in the noisy data in the atmosphere,” she said.

    Member states of the project, including Australia, China, India, the EU, South Korea and the United States, are meeting this week in Hobart, in southern Australia, to discuss data from the network and how to further refine the robots and their
sensors.

    The problem with Argos, though, is that not many people have heard about the robots or know what they look like.

    Earlier this year, an Australian prawn fisherman snared one in his nets off Mooloolaba in south-east Queensland state — thousands of kilometres from where the probe was originally released.

     The robot had stopped sending its regular radio signals weeks earlier but came to life again in the back of the fisherman’s van.

     Australian scientists eventually tracked down the missing probe by tracking its radio signals and just managed to save the robot from being converted into a letter box by the fisherman.
 (Michael Byrnes in Sydney contributed to this entry)