The Chagos archipelago, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, is a group of 55 tropical islands over half a million square kilometres of Indian Ocean that have belonged to Britain since they were captured from France in 1814 during the Napoleonic Wars. The islands include Diego Garcia, the site of a controversial joint British-American military base.

The archipelago boasts the world's largest coral atoll and the world's cleanest, most pristine waters, that are home to at least 220 coral species and more than 1,000 species of fish. The underwater landscape of 6,000m deep trenches, oceanic ridges and sea mounts, is also a refuge and breeding ground for large and important populations of sharks, dolphins, marine turtles, rare crabs, birds and other vulnerable species. It is Britain's greatest area of marine biodiversity.

Rachel Jones, the deputy team leader of ZSL London zoo's aquarium, said: "If Gordon Brown declares the Chagos archipelago a marine protected area it will be one of the biggest conservation breakthroughs for 100 years.

"This underwater Garden of Eden could be a legacy that Gordon Brown will really be proud of."

"If done in the right way, the Chagos protected area could be as important as the reserves which protect the Galapagos islands and Great Barrier Reef. Indeed, it would protect one of the world's most resilient coral reefs and some of the finest coral habitats remaining in the Indian Ocean," said Tony Juniper, green party candidate and campaigner.

Pollutant levels in Chagos waters are exceptionally low because of minimal human influence. Since the 1960s the islands have been set aside for defence purposes, with no inhabitants except for the military personnel and civilian contractors at the US military base on Diego Garcia.

As a result, the ecosystems of the Chagos have so far proven resilient to climate change and have been lagely immune from threats to other reefs worldwide.

But the Chagos Conservation Trust, a member of the CEN, says legal and illegal fishing has impacted the area despite regulations, with sharks, sea cucumbers, turtles and fish known to have declined. "An increased level of environmental protection and enforcement is now urgently required," said William Marsden, the chairman of the trust. "A protected area in Chagos would contribute to a richer Indian Oceans and would benefit people living in and around it."

The consultation, which ends on 12th February, is examining three options for protection. One is to declare a full "no-take" marine reserve for the entire territory; a second is the creation of a marine reserve of the same size but one that would allow some deep-sea fishing in certain zones at certain times of the year, and a third, to establish no-take reserves to protect only the vulnerable reef systems.

Jessica Aldred

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/27/gordon-brown-britain-great-barrier-reef

Luke Walsh

http://www.edie.net

L

The Arctic Fox, Leatherback Turtle and Koala have all been identified in a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The “top ten” list includes a range of wildlife, on land and in the sea, with the Beluga Whale and Emperor Penguin on the unenviable list.  Also threaten is the Clownfish, made famous to many, especially those with children, by the Finding Nemo movie.

The impact of climate change on sea ice means polar species make the list.  The Emperor Penguin, highly adapted to unforgiving Antarctic conditions, faces a similar problem as regional sea ice, which it needs for mating, chick-rearing and moulting, is declining. Reduced ice cover also means less krill, affecting food availability for the Emperor Penguin and many other Antarctic species.

The Arctic tundra on which the Arctic Fox depends is disappearing as warming temperatures allow new plant species to flourish. As the habitat changes from tundra to forest, the Red Fox, which preys on the Arctic Fox and competes with it for food, is able to move further north, reducing the Arctic Fox’s territory.

In tropical areas, many coral species are being severely affected by rising ocean temperatures, which causes coral bleaching.  Clownfish, of “Finding Nemo” fame, are also victims of ocean acidification.  Salmon are threatened by increases in water temperature, which reduces water’s oxygen levels, increasing their susceptibility to disease and disrupts their breeding efforts.

Australia’s iconic Koala faces malnutrition and ultimate starvation as the nutritional quality of Eucalyptus leaves declines as CO₂ levels increase. The Leatherback Turtle, another iconic species, is being affected by rising sea levels and increased storm activity due to climate change which destroys its nesting habitats.

Following a consumer survey of 400 shoppers, 72% want to know the carbon footprint of the products that they are buying.  The survey also asked if the shoppers know their own personal carbon footprint, with 83% not knowing the answer.

The report supports the growing awareness of climate change and the move to "buy green", indicating a change in purchasing linked to the carbon footprint of a product.

Individuals and business can work out their carbon footprint on-line with co2balance – please follow this link.

African delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.

As news spread around the conference centre, about 200 activists responded with chants of "We stand with Africa - Kyoto targets now".

It is unclear how matters will proceed now, though informal talks are likely.

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Copenhagen

To read the full article please visit 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8411898.stm

The conclusion comes from a study by the UK Met Office (UKMO).

Even if emissions peaked in 2020, there would be a 50% chance of temperatures rising by more than 2C, the target adopted by the G8 at its July summit.

Meeting the lower target of 1.5C favoured by some developing countries is virtually impossible, the UKMO says.

The findings come from the Avoid programme, run by the Met Office in conjunction with other UK research institutions under government funding.

The latest results were presented at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

The Avoid programme aims to use the latest scientific understanding to make risk-based assessments of the impacts, global and regional, of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

'Virtually impossible'
Echoing the general conclusion of other analyses, including by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Avoid researchers conclude that the earlier global emissions peak and begin to decline, then the gentler that decline can be.

So peaking in 2018 and shrinking emissions by 4% per year after that would give a 50% chance of keeping warming below 2C, it calculates.

But if the peak came just two years later, in 2020, the decline would then have to be 5% per year for the same odds of staying below 2C.

"If you go to 2025 before peaking, it's virtually impossible to stay under 2C," said Vicky Pope, head of climate science at the Met Office.

Drawing on socio-economic research from other institutions in the project, the Avoid team believes that cutting emissions by more than 5% per year would be the maximum feasible.

'Negative emissions'
A bloc of small island states and vulnerable African countries are demanding that any new deal on climate change should aim to keep the temperature rise below 1.5C.

But the Met Office analysis suggests that would be very difficult.

"There's no way you'd get a 50% chance of avoiding 1.5C," Ms Pope told BBC News.

"If you reduced everything to zero immediately you'd still get about 1.3C because of the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere."

Policies to ensure a reasonable chance of remaining under 1.5C would involve "negative emissions" - sucking CO2 out of the air - she said.

And if emissions peak later than 2020, negative emissions - a form of geo-engineering - would be needed even to hit the G8's 2C target.

The concept of geo-engineering has its adherents but it is also fraught with economic, social and technical difficulties.

 A report by the UK's Royal Society, released in September, concluded that although the approach might have a role, there were "major uncertainties regarding its effectiveness, costs and environmental impacts", and was no substitute for curbing emissions.

Climate change is especially important to many Commonwealth members, as many are island states threatened by rising sea levels.  The plan would start next year and build to $10bn (£6bn) annually by 2012.  Half of the fund is set to go towards helping developing nations reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and the other half towards helping them adapt to climate change.  

In addition, the United Nations chief has urged world leaders to "seal a deal" on climate change when they meet in Copenhagen.  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he believed an agreement was in sight, with recent moves by some countries a positive step to cutting emissions.

Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen said he hoped to see "money on the table" at the UN conference he will host.

The Copenhagen summit, from 7-18 December, will see more than 85 national leaders gather to discuss climate change. The Commonwealth's 53 nations comprise nearly two billion people, a third of the planet's population.

US researchers found that across the continent, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm years.  Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they suggest strife arises when the food supply is scarce in warm conditions.

Climatic factors have been cited as a reason for several recent conflicts.  One is the fighting in Darfur in Sudan that according to UN figures has killed 200,000 people and forced two million more from their homes.

Previous research has shown an association between lack of rain and conflict, but this is thought to be the first clear evidence of a temperature link.

The researchers used databases of temperatures across sub-Saharan Africa for the period between 1981 and 2002, and looked for correlations between above average warmth and civil conflict in the same country that left at least 1,000 people dead.

Warm years increased the likelihood of conflict by about 50% - and food seems to be the reason why. "Studies show that crop yields in the region are really sensitive to small shifts in temperature, even of half a degree (Celsius) or so," research leader Marshall Burke, from the University of California at Berkeley, told BBC News.

"If the sub-Saharan climate continues to warm and little is done to help its countries better adapt to high temperatures, the human costs are likely to be staggering."

Conflicting outcomes

If temperatures rise across the continent as computer models project, future conflicts are likely to become more common, researchers suggest.  Their study shows an increase of about 50% over the next 20 years.

When projections of social trends such as population increase and economic development were included in their model of a future Africa, temperature rise still emerged as a likely major cause of increasing armed conflict.

"We were very surprised to find that when you put things like economic growth and better governance into the mix, the temperature effect remains strong," said Dr Burke.

At next month's UN climate summit in Copenhagen, governments are due to debate how much money to put into helping African countries prepare for and adapt to impacts of climate change.

"Our findings provide strong impetus to ramp up investments in African adaptation to climate change by such steps as developing crop varieties less sensitive to extreme heat and promoting insurance plans to help protect farmers from adverse effects of the hotter climate," said Dr Burke.

Nana Poku, Professor of African Studies at the UK's Bradford University, suggested that it also pointed up the need to improve mechanisms for avoiding and resolving conflict in the continent.

"I think it strengthens the argument for ensuring we compensate the developing world for climate change, especially Africa, and to begin looking at how we link environmental issues to governance," he said.

"If the argument is that the trend towards rising temperatures will increase conflict, then yes we need to do something around climate change, but more fundamentally we need to resolve the conflicts in the first place."

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8375949.stm

Eight weeks after the scheme was launched, 55% of households have activated their RecycleBank account and are earning points based on the amount of glass, plastic, cans and paper they put into their recycling bin.

Run in partnership with the council, Veolia and RecycleBank, the mixed recycling rewards scheme was launched at the beginning of September, following a three-month technology trial with green waste.

The council's lead member for sustainability, Liam Maxwell, said: "We are witnessing first hand how much more successful using the carrot and not the stick can be to encourage residents to recycle.

"The majority of activated households have already redeemed rewards and are spending their vouchers in local shops and businesses."

Rewards encourage residents to recycle by awarding them for every kilogram of material recycled.

Households receive 5.5 RecycleBank points per kilogram, which can then be swapped at more than 85 local and national retailers including grocers, restaurants, and leisure and entertainment facilities.

http://livetg.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=17251&channel=0&title=Rewards+for+recycling+scheme+making+progress

China has poured billions into cleaning up its often toxic landscape and is set to invest 1.4 trillion yuan (£140 billion) next year on environmental protection. However, Wang Jinnan, the deputy director of the Academy For Environmental Planning, said that "more than 40 per cent" of the money will end up being wasted by Communist party cadres on extravagant follies to boost their personal prestige.

"How much of the money is used to clean up the pollution and improve the environment?" asked Mr Wang in the People's Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist party.

Some of the projects approved by officials in recent years include large recreational squares and lawns, and even golf courses alongside polluted rivers that were supposed to be cleaned up.

The latest report from China's National Audit Office revealed that China's six most polluted lakes and rivers remain heavily contaminated, in spite of the fact that 91 billion yuan was allegedly spent on cleaning them up between 2001 and 2007. The report said that 11 of the 13 provinces involved in the programme either misused the funds or faked spending.

Along the Pearl River, which flows through the southern province of Guangdong, more than 40 per cent of people have felt sick this year because of heavy pollution, according to a government survey.

Guangdong, which has a population the size of Germany's, is the centre of China's manufacturing industry, and has been heavily polluted for years. The Guangdong provincial social research and study centre, which conducted the survey, said the number of lung cancer patients in the past decade has doubled, and is seven times the number at the end of the 1970s.

The government said on Saturday that it had rejected requests to build new industrial projects worth almost 200 billion yuan, and will close some heavily-polluting factories.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6574125/Chinese-officials-waste-half-their-environmental-budget.html

The new statistics from Wrap are published in a new report – Household Food and Waste in the UK – which shows that while the amount of food we waste has broadly stabilised, the addition of liquids including vast amounts of milk, soup and soft drinks, has boosted the amount of avoidable food waste from 4.1m tonnes to 5.3m tonnes every year.

The cost of the avoidable food and drink waste is typically £480 per household per year – rising to around £680 a year for families with children – while the potential damage to the environment is huge. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with avoidable food and drink waste are the equivalent of approximately 20m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year – equivalent to 2.4% of greenhouse gas emissions associated with all consumption in the UK. Most discarded food reaches landfill sites, where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. But more effective composting, as well as reduced waste, would slash this.

guardian.co.uk

Rebecca Smithers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/britain-food-drink-waste-figures

The president will offer details on funding for the "smart grid" during an appearance at a solar plant in Arcadia, Fla. White House officials said the projects would create tens of thousands of jobs in the near term and lay the groundwork for changing how Americans use and pay for energy.

The spending is aimed at improving the efficiency and reliability of the U.S. power supply, and helping to create markets for wind and solar power, officials said. They also said it would create "smart meters" to help consumers use electricity when demand is low and when rates are cheaper -- for example, by running dishwashers and other energy-thirsty appliances in the middle of the night.

Obama is to travel to Arcadia, Florida, on Tuesday to make the speech and take a tour of the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center.

Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE59P3EP20091028?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

The London assembly study said the capital produced around 22m tonnes of waste every year, enough to fill the largest skyscraper at Canary Wharf every eight days.

Currently more than half of London's rubbish ends up in landfill, with only a fifth (22%) being recycled, the research said.

Converting non-recyclable rubbish such as leftover food into energy, through methods that did not involve incineration, could reduce the amount sent to landfill – an increasingly expensive option as the tax on dumping waste in the ground is high and rising.

Creating gas from the rubbish which could be used for heating or generating electricity could also cut London's carbon dioxide emissions by 1.2m tonnes and reduce emissions of another greenhouse gas, methane, which is produced when waste breaks down in landfill.

It will also help meet government targets to source 15% of the UK's total energy from renewable sources, the Where There's Muck There's Brass report from the assembly's environment committee said.

The committee urged Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, to take the lead in developing the technologies to convert energy from waste such as anaerobic digestion, gasification and pyrolysis.

The technologies face a number of barriers, including public opposition, difficulties obtaining planning consent and long-term existing contracts for rubbish that prevent potential companies obtaining waste material.

Murad Qureshi, the chairman of the London assembly's environment committee, said: "London's waste management is unsustainable and uneconomical. The mayor must take the lead on further measures to help jump-start waste management step change.

"Waste to energy technology will help the capital reduce greenhouse gases, cut down on waste sent to landfill, increase renewable energy generation, benefit the economy and create jobs," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/28/london-rubbish-2-million-homes

European heads of state will formally recommend this week that rich countries should hand over around €100bn (£90bn) a year to nations such as India and Vietnam by 2020 to help them cope with the impact of global warming. The pledge is expected to come at the end of a two-day summit of European leaders on Thursday and Friday, and before negotiations on a new climate treaty in Copenhagen in December.

The move marks a victory in Brussels for the UK and Gordon Brown, who appears to have won arguments with member states including Germany over whether Europe should commit to climate funding ahead of the Copenhagen talks. Brown was the first western leader to put hard figures on the table when he said in a speech earlier this year that rich countries needed to provide $100bn (£61bn) a year by 2020.

A draft copy of the European summit's conclusions obtained by the Guardian spells out that a "deal on financing will be a central part of an agreement in Copenhagen" and that Europe is ready to "take on its resulting fair share of total international public finance".

The document says: "It is estimated that the total net incremental costs of mitigation and adaptation in developing countries could amount to around €100bn annually by 2020, to be met through a combination of their own efforts, the international carbon market and international public finance."

It adds: "The overall level of the international public support required is estimated to lie in the range of €22bn to €50bn per year by 2020 … this range could be narrowed down in view of the Copenhagen summit." The document does not specify how much money Europe is willing to provide, though previous estimates have put their likely contribution at about €10bn-€15bn each year. That could land European taxpayers with a bill of about €5bn-€7.5bn each year.

The European move marks the first formal recognition that rich countries will need to pick up the climate change bill prior to Copenhagen. Developing nations such as China and India have stressed that serious financial assistance is a prerequisite for any deal in Copenhagen.

The draft European position says: "All countries, except the least developed, should contribute to international public financing … based on emission levels and on GDP to reflect both responsibility for global emissions and ability to pay."

Such a move would leave the US with a bill running to tens of billions a year, unlikely to go down well in Washington.

The European move comes amid gathering pessimism on the chances of a meaningful deal at Copenhagen. Hanne Bjurstroem, Norway's chief climate negotiator, became the latest senior figure to express doubts when she told Reuters today: "I don't believe we will get a full, ratifiable, legally binding agreement from Copenhagen."

Joss Garman of Greenpeace said: "This document has a big number but as soon as you drill down there's no plan for how to raise the money. Europe needs to push for a levy on shipping and aviation which could raise tens of billions to finance low carbon development in poor countries, and the means to adapt to climate change. Solving the question of finance for the developing world is the key to success in Copenhagen."Some experts have said the true costs to the developing world of tackling climate change could be much higher than what will now be pledged – perhaps up to $200-300bn a year. China and India have called for rich countries to hand over 1% of their GDP.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/27/europe-climate-change-deal-pledge