The US and Australia should be on a transitional parallel track to the Kyoto Protocol according to a report published today (Wednesday) by the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr). The report says that this would integrate them into a new global climate plan after 2012. In the interim the US and Australia should adopt domestic mandatory emission cap-and-trade systems compatible with the EU or a future Kyoto trading scheme.

The report Climate Change Policy Beyond Kyoto: A new global plan argues that developing countries should take on different levels of commitment according to national circumstances. Initially they would aim to decouple economic growth from growth in emissions, subsequently adopt targets to reduce the emission intensity of their economies and ultimately take on binding emission reduction targets.

The new global climate plan would come into effect at the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which runs from 2008 to 2012, and would be negotiated under the forthcoming UN climate negotiations. The key principles of the plan are:

• industrialised countries should take on progressively deeper greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments and provide financial and technological support to developing countries for low-emission economic development and adaptation to climate change;
• developing countries should take on different levels of commitment according national circumstances, guided principally by capacity to mitigate (e.g. GDP per capita) and potential to mitigate (e.g. emissions per capita);
• a long term global target is adopted to guide mitigation efforts, such as limiting average global temperature increase to no more than 2C above the pre-industrial level; and
• short term national commitments are periodically negotiated with the aim of meeting the long term global target and the gradual transition towards a system of equal per capita rights to use the absorptive capacity of the atmosphere.

Tony Grayling, Associate Director, ippr said:

“A new global climate plan must build on the Kyoto Protocol while addressing its weaknesses, which include limited participation, absence of a long-term strategy and insufficient focus on adaptation. The next stage will need to include commitments from all countries on a fair basis, including the US and major developing countries.”

Original press release: New global climate plan to engage US and developing countries (institute for public policy research - ippr)

In the first meeting of its kind, Australian industry, government, scientific, community and environmental groups will today come together to discuss the nation’s energy and transport future.

Participants of Australia’s Energy Futures Forum, holding it first full meeting in Canberra today, will begin the process of determining plausible scenarios and implications for the nation’s energy and transport future out to 2050.

Initiated by the CSIRO’s ‘Energy Transformed’ National Research Flagship, the Forum will use an innovative approach to energy modelling.

“It will integrate technology development, economics and environmental considerations as well as social attitudes”, Dr John Wright, Director of the Energy Transformed Flagship, said.

Participants include a broad spectrum of industry and community groups - all of whom have a shared interest in exploring alternative future pathways for Australia’s energy and transport industries.

“It has taken many months of hard work and negotiations to assemble the Forum, which includes 21 leading Australian organisations. This kind of national collaboration is what CSIRO’s Flagships are about and we are excited to be the catalyst for such an important initiative”, Dr Wright said.

The Energy Futures Forum has been jointly developed by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) and CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship program with the support of the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources. It will run for a period of 18 months, allowing time to apply appropriate rigour to the modelling process.

Today’s inaugural meeting is the first step on a long path to determine up to ten plausible energy scenarios out to 2050. Scenario building and subsequent modelling will offer individual participants a unique tool to enable rigorous and insightful strategic planning and inform policy development that will benefit all Australians.

Original press release: Addressing Australia’s energy and transport future now (CSIRO)

Farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers and wildlife managers remember the Columbia River Basin drought of 1992-1993 as a year of misery.

Now researchers using tree-ring data have determined six multiyear droughts between 1750 and 1950 that were much more severe than anything in recent memory because they persisted for years, including one that stretched for 12 years.

“Imagine what a drought lasting that long would do to the resources and economy of the region today,” says Dave Peterson of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources.

The study, recently published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association, is the first to establish Columbia River flow estimates back 250 years, says lead author Ze’ev Gedalof of the University of Guelph, Ontario. Reliable natural-runoff estimates extend back only about 75 years, he says.

Of the six major multiyear droughts researchers detected in the Columbia River Basin, the most severe and persistent started in the 1840s and lasted 12 years in a row. Flows were 20 percent below long-term averages, Gedalof says, and could have been even lower, the extreme low flows being something the model used in the project cannot pinpoint as precisely as it can the years the droughts persisted.

The second worst corresponds to the 1930s dry period that, together with poor farming practices, caused the Dust Bowl. The Columbia River Basin experienced multiple years of low flows, punctuated with some average years, during that time.

In addition to the extremes of the 1840s and 1930s, other periods of low flows around 1775, 1805, 1890 and 1925 were notable, but shorter, lasting some three to five years each.

“This is a wake up call for the importance of drought planning, and seeking ways to restore some flexibility in Western water supply systems that have a limited ability to respond to multiyear droughts,” says co-author Nate Mantua of the Climate Impacts Group based at the UW. “The drought like the one indicated in 1840s, for instance, simply hasn’t been part of the modern water systems experiences.”

Scientists used tree rings, which indicate how much a tree grows each year, to determine when forests in the Columbia River Basin experienced drought. Tree growth is particularly sensitive to winter snow pack, which is also the main driver of stream flow in the Columbia. The scientists first related tree-ring data to stream-flow records since 1931, then considered the implications for flows of tree-ring data back to 1750, much of the time when record keeping was anecdotal, inconsistent or nonexistent.

Such tree-ring reconstructions have been done previously by other research groups for rivers such as the Sacramento and Colorado. The work was funded by the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean based at the UW, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and USDA Forest Service.

“The big lesson is that prolonged low flow years are a normal part of the Columbia Basin’s history,” Mantua says. “The problem is that water in most sub-basins is fully allocated. These demands have gone a long way to eliminating flexibility and buffers needed in the face of drought caused water-supply shortages.”

Original press release: Tree-ring data reveals multiyear droughts unlike any in recent memory (University of Washington)

The Kyoto Protocol Enters into Force this Week on 16 February 2005

Having won enough ratification, the Kyoto Protocol will come into effect on 16 February 2005. The protocol, adopted by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997, builds on the convention and presents legally-binding measures for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol has been slow in coming, having had to maintain a delicate balance between effectiveness against complicated worldwide problems, such as global warming and climate change, and political appeal.

The protocol’s major feature is its mandatory targets on greenhouse-gas emissions for the world’s leading economies, which have accepted it. These targets range from -8 per cent to +10 per cent of the countries’ individual 1990 emissions levels “with a view to reducing their overall emissions of such gases by at least 5 per cent below existing 1990 levels in the commitment period 2008 to 2012″.

The agreement offers flexibility in the manner in which countries may meet their targets and commitments. The overall 5 per cent target for developed countries is to be met through cuts (from 1990 levels) of 8 per cent in the European Union (EU [15]), Switzerland, and most Central and East European states; 6 per cent in Canada; 7 per cent in the United States (although the US has since withdrawn its support for the protocol); and 6 per cent in Hungary, Japan, and Poland. New Zealand, Russia, and Ukraine are to stabilize their emissions, while Norway may increase emissions by up to 1 per cent, Australia by up to 8 per cent (Australia also withdrew its support for the protocol), and Iceland by 10 per cent. The EU has made its own internal agreements to meet its 8 per cent target by distributing different rates to its member states.

Russia was the last nation to ratify the Kyoto Protocol in Nairobi, in November 2004, thus facilitating its entering into force. The Secretary General had commended the move and described the Protocol’s entering into force as: “a historic step forward in the world�s efforts to combat a truly global threat. Most important, it ends a long period of uncertainty.”

Original press release: The Kyoto Protocol Enters into Force this Week (United Nations Environment Program - UNEP)

A new global plan designed to unite the world in fighting the unprecedented and longterm challenge posed by climate change has been released internationally today by The Australia Institute, one of the nation’s leading public policy research organisations.

Going beyond the Kyoto Protocol, it proposes a framework that would enable Australia and the US to rejoin international efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions over the next decades and, if adopted, would forestall the most serious impacts predicted from the warming of the planet.

Recognising concerns about the Kyoto Protocol expressed by the Howard Government and Bush Administration, it proposes a framework that provides a way for both nations to overcome their reservations about joining a multi- lateral effort. The release of the plan coincides with the historic entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol.

“The Protocol is an enormous achievement. But it is only be a first step and does not include either Australia or the USA,” said Dr Clive Hamilton, executive director of The Australia Institute.

“We urge all governments - but especially those in Australia and the United States - to transcend the rancour that now bedevils this issue and consider the new plan seriously,” said Dr Hamilton. “The world needs a breakthrough. This is a plan that blends the need for action with economic reality and political feasibility.”

Key elements of the plan were adopted by the International Climate Change Taskforce in its report, Meeting the Climate Challenge, released earlier this year. The path for Australia and the USA to rejoin global efforts builds on the recommended introduction of domestic emissions trading systems that could be linked with the European emissions trading system that began this year. Many observers expect the US Senate to adopt a national emissions trading system in the next few years following the narrow loss of the McCain-Lieberman Bill which aimed to introduce a ‘cap-and-trade’ system for major polluters.

Original press release: New Plan to Resolve Climate Change Stalemate (Australia Institute)

‘Global Monitoring for Environment and Security’ (GMES) is a joint venture of ESA and the European Commission.

“GMES will deliver independent European monitoring capabilities from space for environment and security. It will also incorporate data from airborne and in situ instruments. ESA is developing and implementing the space component with the corresponding ground segment.

“This is the model of co-operation set out in the Framework Agreement between ESA and the EU, and in the new EU Treaty. In addition to its function vis-a-vis its own Member States, ESA is the implementing agency for the European Union when it comes to space projects.”

Does this mean that the GMES programme will become the main activity of your Directorate?

“ESA’s Earth Programme will have three main activities. One is the continuation of the very successful EOEP, the Earth Observation Envelope Programme. In the context of the Earth science mission, specific technologies are being developed which will be key to future applications and the continuity of the Explorer missions, the backbone of our ‘Living Planet Strategy’. Every methodology starts with science. We plan to implement and launch an Explorer mission every two years, addressing issues selected by the scientific community. The related science and technologies will in many cases be the basis for future operational missions.

“Bringing these technologies and the associated science methodologies to maturity is our second objective. This will translate into operational missions like GMES. This explains the importance of our EOEP. Of course, GMES will become the second and biggest element of our programmes. In preparation for GMES, we are already working on initial operational services to support the implementation of European policies.

“The third element of our programme is co-operation with Europe’s meteorological satellite organisation (Eumetsat) for which ESA develops satellites such as Meteosat Second Generation and Metop. This long-standing co-operative relationship has been very successful for meteorology and is a good model for the implementation of GMES.”

Will GMES missions run in parallel with the Earth Explorer and Earth Watch missions of the Living Planet programme? What is the status of these missions?

“When we drafted the Living Planet strategy, we added the category of Earth Watch missions, covering operational and commercial satellites. The Meteosat and Metop spacecraft of Eumetsat are in fact Earth Watch missions. We have other elements in prospect: the Spanish Fuegosat system for fire detection and the TerraSAR venture of InfoTerra. We are also working on the ground segment for TerraSAR. Both missions have the potential to be part of GMES in the future.

“GMES will not only consist of missions developed by ESA but will also encompass missions from Member States or industry. ESA will not duplicate existing work, but will try to close data gaps and deliver monitoring services that have been identified in co-operation with the Commission.”

Will GMES include national missions?

“ESA is proposing to bridge the gaps in operational remote sensing capabilities using the Sentinel satellites. The Sentinels will not replace existing sensors nor will they duplicate the work of satellites planned as national initiatives. The Sentinels are complementary. National programmes should and will be part of GMES, or will at least contribute to it.

“The definition of the Sentinels, which we worked on with the Commission, is based on the requirements anticipated for the future in Europe. Thus, user requirements have been transferred to system requirements. We anticipate four or five families of Sentinel satellites. All Sentinels will fill identifiable gaps in Europe’s operational remote sensing infrastructure.

“The basic idea of GMES is to give Europe independence in its own data sources in Europe. Today we rely a lot on international data, especially from the USA. As with the GALILEO navigation system, if Europe has its own capabilities we can also offer these services internationally and better negotiate our participation in international initiatives. GMES will be the European contribution to the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), aiming to establish a global environmental monitoring system.”

How and when will we see the first Sentinel programme?

“The first Sentinel will be launched, in 2008-2009 at the earliest.”

Will GMES be operational in 2008?

“This depends, in part, on the availability of funding. A set of initial GMES services could be operational by 2008, based on existing elements of the Space component.”

What will ‘Oxygen’ mean for GMES?

“Oxygen is the name of our initiative to harmonize the ground segment for earth observations in Europe. The idea is that we change the previous system where every mission had its own dedicated ground segment, to something that can be available for all missions and has only one user interface. Common standards will be established for all space missions. This will represent a great advantage for the user community, which is not necessarily familiar with space data.

“Users want a service that facilitates the link with the appropriate data sources and access to the information they need. This will also include the interfaces with the systems of in situ observations as the final services are built on data sources from satellites and from ground measurements. The challenge is to bring all the information together in order to generate useful products.”

When GMES becomes operational will a new GMES authority or operating company be established?

“What I like to use as a model is meteorology. The distribution of weather data is a success story and is a reference model for GMES operations. The example of Eumetsat, the operational entity for meteorological satellites in Europe, shows the efficient distribution of roles between an operator and a developing and implementing agency, which is ESA. Eumetsat could play the role of an operator for two application areas monitoring of the atmosphere and oceanography. We have a gap in Europe when we consider land applications.

“In the USA, there are two operating entities: the US Geological Survey for the civilian side, NIMA for the security side. Something like this is missing in Europe. In the context of GMES, the Commission could establishment a new operational agency for land applications. Time is passing. It took some ten years to have Eumetsat as an operational agency for meteorological satellites after the first Meteosat launch. For GMES land applications and security aspects, this should take place earlier. ESA is not aiming to be the GMES operator. We are willing to do it for a short interim period, if necessary, but we need one or more operational agencies in addition for land applications.”

What is the budget for the GMES programme?

“The final report of the GMES initial period refers to a budget of about €2.7 billion, for the space component, with its ground infrastructure, until 2013. The estimate for the service element is €150 million per year. The figures from the other side of the Atlantic are higher: the USA is spending about seven times more on earth sciences and they have begun to study a GMES-like system.

“In Europe we expect about one third of the budget to come from ESA Member States, two-thirds from the European Commission. In 2005 we will know better what will be available for 2007. So far, for the European Commission, the GMES budget comes mainly from DG Research, but it could change.”

Is GEOSS, to be discussed in Brussels in February 2005, the USA�s reaction to Europe�s GMES initiative?

“GEOSS is an intergovernmental activity leading to the global establishment of environmental monitoring systems. We have needed this for many years. Europe will provide GMES, but we want our own and independent global monitoring capability in order to be in a position to decide ourselves about the implementation of policies for environment, e.g. regarding the Protocols of Montreal and Kyoto. “Europe will deliver its capability to the global community via GEOSS. It is the same for the USA. Both American and European systems will have global capabilities, but they will be harmonized through GEOSS. It looks a little like the duality with European Galileo and American GPS. Both sides of the Atlantic have accepted now that they will work closely together with their own systems for global operations. Galileo and GPS III generation will share the same civil signal structures for the combined use of navigation channels, for the benefit of the users, who can use the two independent systems. Similarly, through GEOSS, the users will be able to use GMES and the equivalent in the USA.”

What can GMES do for Africa?

“There are a lot of possibilities for co-operation. Worldwide, many user communities look with great interest at the data and products delivered by GMES, especially for Africa where there is a real gap in environmental data. The overwhelming response from African users to ESA’s TIGER water initiative, where we received 95 project proposals on the first call, shows the high demand in Africa. GMES will be a great help, and is an ideal instrument for international co-operation.”

How do you see the future of GMES?

“The GMES initiative has been discussed and approved at two Ministerial Conferences. We already plan to spend 80 million euro from ESA in the next two and half years on preparatory work, including the GMES service elements, the socio-economic assessment study and the Sentinel studies. ESA is preparing everything for the Ministerial Council in Berlin at the end of 2005. After Galileo, GMES is the most advanced programme in Europe jointly initiated and carried out by the European Union and ESA.”

The most challenging task for GMES

“Funding will be a challenge, as money is short in all Member States, but I am optimistic, seeing the demand in Europe. Reaching the wide user community is also a challenge for implementation, from atmospheric environmentalists to security officers, through volcanoes specialists, natural hazards managers, dangerous construction planners. GMES is a multipurpose tool with high potential. The challenge is to implement this system so as to meet the needs of the majority in an efficient way.”

Original press release: “A multipurpose tool with high potential”: EO Director Volker Liebig discusses GMES (ESA)