CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

Why are we still in a drought during floods?

It has been the wettest April on record for England and Wales, yet in the past few weeks, I have often heard people asking the question: how can we be told we’re in a drought in the UK, when at the same time we’re being told many areas of the country are experiencing floods?  Since I have some water science expertise, I thought I should write this blog on the subject.

Planet under Pressure

A major international conference ‘Planet under Pressure (PUP)’ is being held in London, United Kingdom, this week, 26–29 March 2012. The meeting is being attended by scientists, industry leaders and decision makers. It will show whether science can, not only diagnose our environmental crisis, but also provide effective solutions, says David Dickson, SciDev’s editor, the official organisation providing coverage of the event. CABI is also marking its presence at Planet under Pressure. Will PUP produce real solutions for Earth's acute environmental problems?

This week is climate week – 12-18 March 2012

The Met Office 2012 global temperature forecast predicts that this year will be around 0.48 °C warmer than the long-term (1961-1990) global average of 14 °C, with a predicted range of between 0.34 °C and 0.62 °C. The middle of this range would put 2012 within the top ten warmest years in a series which goes back to 1850. It seems hard to believe, but there are still people who do not believe in global warming and the imminent climate change; and there are also those who believe but do not know how to get involved in the effort to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions to slow down global warming. Climate Week is a supercharged national campaign to inspire a new wave of action on climate change. The first Climate Week, in March 2011, resulted in 3000 events, which were attended by half a million people, making it probably Britain’s biggest ever environmental occasion.

Theft! A new threat to glaciers

Argentina passed a law back in September 2010 aiming at preserving their glaciers on the grounds that they are important as: "strategic hydrological resource for human consumption; for agricultural use; to recharge hydrographic basins; to protect biodiversity; a scientific information source; and a touristic attraction.” The law imposed a requirement for a prior evaluation of any planned allowed activities. This is quite an important law, when considering the latest threat to glaciers – theft! A news article from the UN News Centre reported recently that criminal gangs might have become a more immediate threat to glaciers than climate change.

High-speed rail: when should governments invest?

 Recent years have seen a surge in investment in high-speed rail (HSR) infrastructure in many parts of the world, led by China where over $100 billion a year is being spent (although there was a slowdown in construction after a fatal crash in July 2011). The UK has so far lagged behind, but today the government looks set to approve plans for a high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham as the first stage of a planned network which will eventually extend to northern cities. With the mainstream media covering the debate in more detail than can be dealt with here, this blog instead features a recent Working Paper by de Rus which examines the economic rationale for government investment in the construction of HSR lines, before looking at the arguments in Britain in the context of this analysis.

COP17 the results – A step closer towards a legally-binding climate deal!

The high-level highly publicised UN climate change talks ended yesterday in Durban, South Africa. Most governmental and non-governmental organisations accept that climate change is inevitable and that we have to do something about it, i.e. have mitigation and adaptation measures in place. If the world ignore the changes and carry on with a business as usual approach, the consequences could be catastrophic. Many regions of the world have already been experience climatic change, which has resulted in high human and economic costs. It is therefore in everybody’s interest to do something about it, hence the UN conference. The last two conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun resulted in non-legal-binding agreements and there was a lot of pressure from all corners for leaders to work harder at reaching a legally-binding deal in Durban. According to reports from various media, a deal was finally agreed in Durban to push for a new climate treaty, but is it a big deal?

Working Together – Saving Tomorrow Today: 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17)

The climate talks in Durban, South Africa, entered their second week today, entwined in a weave of issues and with no expectations from observers of a guaranteed deal being reached by negotiators. The theme of this year’s meeting is ‘Working Together, Saving Tomorrow Today’. How much work and progress has been made so far, after one week of meetings?

NGOs call for Durban debate on climate justice in tourism

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa is now underway, and already running into difficulties with rumours that Canada may formally renounce the Kyoto Protocol due to fears about economic competitiveness. While tourism is not a major component of the Durban talks, aviation is one of the contentious issues, with individual countries and the EU controversially setting emissions targets for airlines using their airports in the absence of any global regulation of aviation. The tourism industry has long argued that taxes and emission charges on aviation would harm the economic development of some of the world's least developed countries which depend on long-haul tourism for much of their foreign exchange. However, a number of NGOs have issued a Position Paper suggesting that aviation should not be excluded from the talks, and that negotiators should "seriously and objectively address the role of tourism in the international climate negotiations."

The international alliance of civil society organisations, including AKTE (Switzerland), EED/Tourism Watch (Germany), ECOT (Thailand), Fair Trade Tourism in South Africa (FTTSA) and Naturefriends International, says that it is irresponsible to exclude aviation on the grounds that tourism is an "engine of development" and argues that globally binding negotiations on aviation emissions will, if managed properly, enhance rather than undermine poverty reduction.

The UN climate change summit opened in Durban today

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, begins today, 28 November, and will continue until 9 December 2011. The event includes the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP 17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP 7). The importance of the UN climate change summit, in my view, is undisputable, but is made even more relevant by a new assessment of global warming by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which confirms that the Earth is indeed warming.

Countdown to seven billion: does the world have enough water to produce food for us all?

As the world counts down to the landmark of seven billion people on the planet (a scary number predicted to happen - perhaps a little too conveniently? - on the scary day of Halloween, 31 October) we are seeing an increasing number of stories and statistics on whether the Earth's resources can cope with a population predicted to carry on increasing for the foreseeable future. The population increase has been a feature in agricultural conferences over the last weeks, and in press releases for CropWorld Global 2011, a conference set to open in London on 31 October, the day already mentioned as when our population may be officially declared to be seven billion.

Among the statistics presented by Dominic Dyer, UK Crop Protection Association chief executive, in a speech on 21 Ocotober to AgChem Asia Summit in Shanghai, China, was a figure that the amount of farmland available to feed each person on the planet has fallen from 0.5 hectares in 1950 to 0.2 hectares today. Clearly, in order to sustain a growing population on a finite amount of land (and land subject in many regions to problems of desertification, erosion and salinization) we need to maximise efficiency and reduce losses: in the strapline of CABI's Plantwise initiative, 'lose less and grow more'.