A Brazilian mayor whose city has been called the ‘cleanest in the world’, a mayor from England where a fee to ease traffic congestion is being successfully pioneered, and a mayor from China who is grappling with one of the world’s fastest growing urban areas will be converging on San Francisco on 1 - 5 June for World Environment Day (WED).

Exactly four weeks from today, the three mayors - Carlos Alberto Richa from Curitiba, Ken Livingstone from London and Han Zheng from Shanghai - will be joined by more than 60 others, representing cities from across the globe. They plan to exchange ideas and sign a set of ground-breaking environmental actions for cities.

These actions,  collectively referred to as the Urban Environmental Accords - Green Cities Declaration,  cover seven environmental categories that cities can address to enable sustainable urban living and improve the quality of life for urban dwellers: energy, waste reduction, urban design, urban nature, transportation, environmental health, and water. They reflect this year’s World Environment Day theme “Green Cities - Plan for the Planet!”

The Accords lay out 21 practical actions cities can take to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, or the health of the planet.

Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), said: ” It is up to cities in the developed world to set an example in areas such as the efficient use of energy and water. And it is incumbent upon them to partner developing world cities so they do not take a short-term ‘dirty’ development path, but a long-term sustainable one.”

“If this can be done, we can help realize the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and in doing so rid the world of poverty � the most toxic element of all”.

Just over half of the world�s people now live in cities. Urban populations consume 75 per cent of the world�s natural resources and produce 75 per cent of its waste.

“The Urban Environmental Accords represent an innovative response to the fact that we now live on an urban planet,”  said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the host of the celebrations. “We need to develop real solutions to urban environmental challenges,” he added.

Attending the celebrations will be the UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, former US Vice President Al Gore and mayors from around 60 cities including Kabul, Buenos Aires, Moscow, Dublin, Phnom Penh, Caracas, Jakarta, and Istanbul (see list below).

UNEP’s World Environment Day celebrations have been hosted by a different city since 1987. This is the first time the event takes place in the United States and it is most fitting that San Francisco - the birth place of the United Nations 60 years ago - should be this year’s venue.

“Municipal governments have the power to shape the future of the world’s environment,” said Jared Blumenfeld, director of San Francisco’s Environment Department. “With the majority of the earth’s population living in cities, decisions made at World Environment Day will have far-reaching effect.”

In addition to the signing of the Urban Environmental Accords on 5 June, the official celebrations also include a walk entitled “Peace and the Environment at Muir Woods - the UN at 60″. Furthermore, over 200 community activities are planned around WED in the Bay Area. They range from special organic menu selections at local restaurants to a display of artwork made from recycled material. There will be a Green Cities Expo with booths and exhibits at Fort Mason during June 3 -5, where this year’s winners of the UNEP photo competition “Focus on Your World” will also be on display.

The draft text of the Accords can be viewed on the World Environment Day website, www.wed2005.org as well as at www.urbanaccords.org

Original press release: A Green Deal for Cities (UNEP)

The newest and most powerful wind farm in the UK is today officially switched on in what is proving to be a record year for the UK wind industry.

The opening today of Rothes wind farm in Scotland by Deputy Enterprise Minister Allan Wilson is the 8th commissioning of new wind projects this year. The 22 turbine 50.6 megawatt (MW) project brings the total UK wind power portfolio to 979 megawatts from 1234 turbines, representing some 0.7% of total UK electricity supply.

This figure is set to rise to 1.5% of supply by the end of 2005 as other projects currently under construction are commissioned, including the third of the UK’s large-scale offshore wind farms, Kentish Flats, off the coast of Kent.

2005 is a record year for wind energy, confirms a new survery by the industry association, BWEA. A total of 18 new wind farms will be officially commissioned this year alone, representing some 500 megawatts of capacity and this success is echoed in new wind farms receiving consent. 11 new projects with a total of 218.3 MW have been approved so far this year. With an additional 6,180 MW already in the planning system, representing some 6% of UK electricity supply, the wind industry is well on track to meeting expectations of the sector, widely predicted to be the technology that will meet the bulk of the Government’s targets for renewables by 2010.

BWEA CEO Marcus Rand commented:

�The wind industry in the UK is now expanding at a record rate. This year alone it will be commissioning as much new capacity as was achieved in the whole of the nineties. In 2006, the industry is set to grow at an even faster rate as we become the world leader in offshore wind development.

Wind projects representing some 10% of the UK’s electricity needs from on and offshore projects are either being commissioned, are awaiting planning determination or are due to enter the planning system over the next 12 months. This represents an investment potential of some 10 billion to create thousands of new jobs as well as helping in our fight against climate change.

The Rothes wind farm comprises twenty two turbines, situated at Cairn Uish, in Moray, 13km south west of Elgin and 10km west of Rothes and was developed by Fred Olsen Renewables Ltd., through its agent Natural Power Consultants. See http://www.naturalpower.com for further details.

For a list of all operating UK wind projects, see http://www.bwea.com/map. A list and map of projects due for commissioning in 2005 can be found at http://www.bwea.com/map/2005.html.

The 11 consented projects are:

Bessy Bel 2 (9 turbines, 11.7 MW)
Dalswinton, Pennyland Moor (16 turbines, 48 MW)
Drummuir (21 turbines, 42 MW)
Findhorn Foundation (3 turbines, 0.9 MW)
Hafoty Ucha 3a (1 turbines, 0.85 MW)
High Hedley 2 (4 turbines, 5.2 MW)
Millenium (16 turbines, 48 MW)
Nissan Motors Plant (7 turbinesm, 5.25 MW)
Power Factory (8 turbines, 10.4 MW)
Walkway, High Swainston (7 turbines, 21 MW)
Wether Hill (14 turbines, 25 MW)

Record year for UK wind industry

There are currently 18 wind energy projects under construction and due for commissioning by end 2005. These include the third of the UK’s large-scale offshore wind farms, Kentish Flats, off the coast of Kent. Once completed, these will add a further 600 megawatts (MW) to the UK’s wind power portfolio, increasing wind power’s contribution to the UK electricity portfolio to some 1.5% of total supply. Approved projects awaiting construction represent an additional 2% of supply waiting in the wings. A further 6,180 MW of potential wind capacity is currently progressing through the planning system, which if approved, represents and additional 6% of UK electricity supply.

BWEA is the professional association championing the UK wind and marine renewables industry representing 325 companies active in the sector.

Original press release: UK�s Largest Wind Farm Switches On in a Record Year for Wind Industry (BWEA)

Medical researchers are using satellites to track massive dust storms blowing across Africa’s Sahel belt. The aim is to learn more about lethal meningitis epidemics that often follow in the dust’s wake.

“Meningitis outbreaks take place after a period without rain, low humidity and lots of dust in the air,” explained Isabelle Jeanne of the Niger-based Centre de Recherche Medicale et Sanitaire (CERMES), associated with the international network des Instituts Pasteur and a partner in ESA’s Epidemio project.

“The exact correlation is not yet known. But making use of satellite data enables us to follow week by week the development of the dust storms and the appearance of conditions favourable for an epidemic to start.”

Meningitis is an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord lining known to cause seizures and deafness in those victims it does not kill outright. Meningococcal meningitis - caused by the meningococcus bacteria - is the only form of the disease to spread in epidemic form. Outbreaks occur throughout the world but are most common in the ‘meningitis belt’ of semi-arid sub-Saharan territory known as the Sahel.

Meningitis mainly attacks children and young adults. The 18 nations of the Sahel have under-resourced healthcare systems: without treatment 70% of cases will perish, though with prompt anti-biotic therapy the death rate is reduced to one in ten.

Researchers want to study the hypothesis that the Sahel dry season � when wind-blown dust of talcum-powder-consistency can fill the arid air � makes the 300 million inhabitants of this region much more vulnerable to meningitis infection.

The source of infection is other people: up to a quarter of the people may be carrying the source of the meningocuccus bacteria without symptoms, spreading the infection through overcrowded living conditions by droplets from coughing or throat secretions. Normally meningococcus dwells harmlessly in the nose and throat - it is only when it gets into the bloodstream it becomes a potential killer.

Dust blown from the Western Sahara towards the Canary Islands
“The dryness and dust does not spread the bacteria directly,” Jeanne explained. “Instead it seems as though the irritation caused to local inhabitants’ mucus membranes renders them more vulnerable to bacterial infection. However an epidemic begins to decrease as soon as the first rain comes.”

Therapeutic vaccination is a possibility, and drugs are available to lower morbidity levels. With supplies limited, it would be helpful to be able to anticipate the likeliest times and places of fresh outbreaks.

For this reason, during the last dry season, ESA has been supplying weekly dust maps of the Sahel as part of an early warning system. The maps are based on daily images from the Meteosat Visible and InfraRed Imager (MVIRI) aboard the ESA-built Meteosat-7 geostationary weather satellite.

“The dust maps have been very useful so far,” Jeanne added. “There have been no meningitis outbreaks this year - fortunately for the inhabitants - so we cannot show a correlation as yet. The next planned step is to obtain archived images for the last ten years, to search for correlations against our records.”

This activity is part of a wide-ranging ESA Data User Element project called Epidemio, developing Earth Observation (EO) services for epidemiologists.

Led for ESA by the company Jena-Optronik GmbH, with partners including the World Health Organisation (WHO), Epidemio is based on the principle that more detailed information on the environments within which infectious diseases occur can help epidemiologists study, understand and predict threats to human health.

Original press release: Satellites monitoring dust storms linked to health risk (ESA)

Caspar Ammann, a paleoclimatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), is available to comment on the so-called hockey stick controversy discussed by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The hockey stick refers to the shape of a frequently cited graph of global mean temperature that shows a rapid rise between 1900 and 2000 after 900 years of relative stability. The graph first appeared in a research paper by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes published in the journal Nature in 1998.

Ammann and Eugene Wahl of Alfred University have analyzed the Mann-Bradley-Hughes (MBH) climate field reconstruction and reproduced the MBH results using their own computer code. They found the MBH method is robust even when numerous modifications are employed. Their results appear in two new research papers submitted for review to the journals Geophysical Research Letters and Climatic Change. The authors invite researchers and others to use the code for their own evaluation of the method.

Ammann and Wahl’s findings contradict an assertion by McIntyre and McKitrick that 15th century global temperatures rival those of the late 20th century and therefore make the hockey stick-shaped graph inaccurate. They also dispute McIntyre and McKitrick’s alleged identification of a fundamental flaw that would significantly bias the MBH climate reconstruction toward a hockey stick shape. Ammann and Wahl conclude that the highly publicized criticisms of the MBH graph are unfounded. They first presented their detailed analyses at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco last December and at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Denver this year.

McIntyre and McKitrick’s papers were published in Energy and Environment (2003 and 2005) and in Geophysical Research Letters (2005).

Original press release: The Hockey Stick Controversy, New Analysis Reproduces Graph of Late 20th Century Temperature Rise (NCAR)

While glaciers around the world are shrinking and disappearing, presumably due to global warming, two small glaciers in the Trinity Alps of Northern California are holding their own.

Richard Heermance, a doctoral student in geological sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, presented findings of his research on the glaciers at the western meeting of the Geological Society of America in San Jose last weekend.

Heermance first became familiar with the Trinity Alps in the Klamath Mountain Range while visiting there with his family when he was growing up. Recently, as a UCSB graduate student, he looked into the history of the Trinity glaciers and found that there were only two published accounts of them, one in 1903 and the other in 1960. He also found some aerial photos taken in 1955.

“First of all, it’s surprising that these glaciers still exist because they are located below 9,000 feet,” said Heermance. “Most California glaciers are located above 10,000 feet. And the glaciers in the Sierra Nevada have clearly receded over the past 50 years.”

Yet the Trinity glaciers and those on Mt. Shasta show minimal shrinkage. The hypothesis of Heermance and his colleague Richard Briggs, a post-doctoral fellow at Caltech, is that these glaciers are being sustained due to higher precipitation. The increase in temperature attributed to global warming, say the geologists, is offset by the increased precipitation. Globally temperature has increased 1 to 2 degrees Farenheit since 1970.

“We would have assumed the same reaction to global warming that exists in most places�that these glaciers would have disappeared,” said Heermance.

For example, Heermance cites recent reports published in the journal Science within the last 3 months indicating that global warming has caused the majority of glacier fronts worldwide to retreat over the last 50 years. But the Trinity glaciers and glaciers on Mt. Shasta are holding their own, only shrinking a small amount, and certain glaciers in Alaska are growing, notes Heermance.

“This anomalous reaction of the Trinity glaciers, and others, to large-scale warming trends underscores the importance of understanding the big picture,” said Heermance. “Any individual site can show behavior contrary to the average, that of most glaciers receding globally. The Trinity glaciers can provide insight into the variability of responses of glaciers to global warming.”

Heermance explained that overall changes due to global warming include changes in global air circulation patterns. “In general, warmer climates are linked to higher precipitation,” said Heermance. “In some places, the precipitation increases lead to increased snowfall that balances the warmer temperatures, so that glaciers can maintain their position or even advance.

“On the average, the whole West is heating up,” said Heermance.

The researchers plan to look more closely at the Trinity glaciers and examine their glacial moraines: the debris pushed up in front of the glaciers. This will help them to determine the age of recent advances in these glaciers, and will yield information on the interaction between climate and the glaciers over the last 10,000 years.

Original press release: Small Glaciers in Northern California Buck Global Warming Trend (UCSB)

The amount of sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface is increasing, two new studies in Science magazine suggest.

Using different methods, they find that solar radiation at the surface has risen for at least the last decade.

Previous work had found the opposite trend, leading to a popular theory known as “global dimming”.

But the latest Swiss and US research indicates the dimming in the past has now been reversed, possibly because of reduced atmospheric pollution…

Read the complete story: Cleaner Air Makes Brighter Skies (BBC)

Read the original PNNL press release: Earth Lightens Up (PNNL)