Kenya to tap Rift Valley's geothermal gold mine
KenGen announces plans to build four new geothermal power plants boasting combined capacity of 280MW

Long-standing plans to establish Kenya's Rift Valley as one of the world's largest providers of geothermal energy received a major boost last week, with the news of an ambitious plan by national utility giant the Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen).

The $1.3bn (£830m) project, to develop 280MW of geothermal power by 2013, is expected to be backed by the World Bank and will more than double KenGen's geothermal capacity.

The company told Reuters that the "scope of the project includes four 70MW power-generating machines, steam-gathering systems, substations, transmission lines and other infrastructure".

It added that it has already signed a joint venture agreement with New Zealand-based engineering firm Sinclair Knight Merz to undertake the project and has purchased two drilling rigs to work on the development of the new power plants.

The project is likely to accelerate the development of one of the world's most promising regions for geothermal energy.

According to a report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) released in late 2008, that also involved contributions from KenGen, up to 4,000MW of electricity could be harnessed from the Rift Valley by tapping into naturally occurring steam wells.

The report also concluded that geothermal power plants would be relatively cost-effective, calculating that a 70MW geothermal power plant would cost $75m less than a conventional plant of the same scale.

Speaking at the time, Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general and UNEP executive director, urged Kenya to exploit its geothermal resources as a means of providing electricity to its population without increasing carbon emissions.

"It is time to take this technology off the back-burner in order to power livelihoods, fuel development and reduce dependence on polluting and unpredic table fossil fuels," he said. "From the place where human-kind took its first faltering steps is emerging one of the answers to its continued survival on this planet."

Source: BusinessGreen.com, February 16, 2010
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Africans 'take blame for climate change'
Matt McGrath

Many Africans blame themselves for climate change even though fossil fuel emissions there are less than 4% of the global total, a new survey suggests.

The report, the most extensive survey ever conducted on public understanding of the issue, found that others blamed God for changes in weather patterns.

It suggests dealing with climate change poses similar challenges to HIV and Aids, as people lack key information. It was carried out for the BBC World Service trust and the British Council.

It has become a well-worn truism of international climate politics that those that did the least to cause climate change are those set to suffer the most from it.

However the Africa Talks Climate Report indicates that this message hasn't got through to many of those bearing the heaviest consequences of rising temperatures across the continent.

Over 1,000 citizens in 10 countries took part in discussions to ascertain what Africans really know and understand about the climate.

Divine punishment

The report found a near-universal sense that what people call "weather" is changing and affecting lives.

But most of those interviewed did not connect these changes with global causes such as emissions of carbon dioxide.

Instead people tend to blame themselves or their peers for local environmental degradation and some see the changes as a form of divine punishment.

Anna Godfrey, research manager for the BBC World Service Trust, says this religious perspective could help in climate education.

"One of the big stumbling blocks is language with many people not understanding the terminology of climate change, and often there are no words for these concepts in local languages," said Ms Godfrey.

Some 200 opinion leaders were also interviewed for the report.

Some argued that the lack of appropriate information about rising temperatures is comparable to the early days of HIV/Aids where ignorance helped the rapid spread of the infection.

Often local government leaders were among those least informed about global climate change.

Source: BBC, March 17, 2010
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Sustainable energy: a challenge nearly as great as global warming

The goal of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy (GSB) project is to create a global advisory panel for sustainable bioenergy similar to those that exist for subjects such as climate change and biodiversity. To reach this goal, the GSB project has organized five large international conventions in 2010, the third of which –The Latin American Convention of the Global Sustainable Bioenergy Project – will take place in São Paulo, Brazil, from March 23 to March 25, at the headquarters of the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP, São Paulo Research Foundation). FAPESP and Brazilian Academy of Sciences are the sponsors of convention.

Conceived and coordinated by Lee Rybeck Lynd, a researcher at Dartmouth College and a pioneer in the study of converting biomass to energy, the GSB project involves scientists from across the globe seeking a solution to one of the critical problems of our times: how to supply the planet with renewable energy that can guarantee human progress without endangering food production and with minimal environmental impact. On the basis of preliminary findings, GSB project leaders believe that biomass (including sugarcane and other plant species) can meet 25% of global energy demand over the next 50 years.

In addition to Lynd, two more founders of the GSB project will take part in the São Paulo convention: Nathanael Greene of the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council; and Tom Richard of Pennsylvania State University. The Brazilian delegation will be led by two internationally renowned scientists: José Goldemberg, currently a researcher at the Brazilian National Biomass Reference Center; and Carlos Henrique de Brito Cruz, scientific director of FAPESP. Goldemberg and Brito Cruz are members of the organizing committee for the scientific meetings of the GSB project.

An urgent and important debate

Renewable energy that does not interfere with food supplies and causes minimal environmental damage: that is a formula important not only to governments, businesses, and environmentalists but, literally, to everyone who lives on the planet. It is no exaggeration to say that humanity's adventure here on Earth depends on it. However, to transform this well-intentioned formula into concrete policies, we need reliable answers to a number of questions. Will heavy use of biofuels increase or decrease carbon emissions? How will production of biomass for energy affect how land is used in food production? What impact will biofuels have on the consumption of water, a resource that is in shorter supply every day? To what degree will countries with little potential for producing biomass become economically dependent on biofuel-producing nations?

It is clear that the questions surrounding sustainable energy are multidimensional, and that there are no simple answers. Therefore, the scientific community needs to debate these issues openly and in depth.

To facilitate these debates, the GSB project organized the five conferences that are taking place in 2010. At the first meeting, which took place in the Netherlands in February, the bioenergy situation in Europe was debated. The situation in Africa was debated as part of the second conference in South Africa (March 17-19). The third conference, scheduled to take place in Brazil, will focus on Latin America. The fourth convention (in Malaysia, June 14-16) and the fifth convention (in the United States, September 14-16) will address Asia and North America, respectively.

Local concerns, global solutions

The choice of São Paulo, Brazil, to host the third conference was not an accident. Brazil today is in the vanguard of energy production from biomass. Nearly half the energy used in the country comes from renewable sources, of which ethanol accounts for 16%. In the state of São Paulo, the figures are even better: renewable sources provide 56% of the energy consumed, 38% coming from ethanol. Over the last 30 years, increasing use of ethanol made from sugarcane has resulted in the share of energy coming from petroleum to fall from 66% to 33% in the state.

Drawing from the results of the five conferences, the GSB project will move on to two additional stages: 1) answering, in a definitive fashion, whether it is physically possible for us to meet a substantial fraction of global energy demand (vehicle fuel and electricity generation) through the use of bioenergy, while still feeding humanity, preserving wildlife habitat and maintaining environmental quality; 2) proposing viable and environmentally responsible strategies for moving energy use onto a balanced and renewable path. 

Source: EurekAlert, March 19, 2010
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Concerns Over Africa’s Stuttering Carbon Market
Michael Simire 

Mixed feelings have welcomed Africa’s fledgling carbon market, which observers believe is stuttering in the face of a massive potential.

According to the United Nations Environment Programmes (UNEP), the continent has over 120 carbon market projects up and running or in the pipeline, in areas ranging from wind power to forestry schemes.

However, in comparison to the rest of the world, Africa is widely believed to be lagging behind, with the potential for clean and green energy largely under-exploited.

Similarly, the growth in Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects under the Kyoto Protocol appears uneven among countries.

For instance, larger economies such as Egypt and South Africa are claiming the lion’s share, with 32 and 13 projects respectively.

But Nigeria, which has three CDM projects currently operational – two gas utilisation schemes and the third designed to reduce use of fuel wood – claims that the Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) earned from just one of the gas gathering schemes are more than that from the entire 13 projects in South Africa. Nigeria has four more CDM projects in the pipeline.

However, Kenya and Uganda seem to have taken impressive strides. The number of ongoing and proposed projects has jumped from two in 2007, to 15 and 12 respectively today.

In comparison, noted UNEP, countries such as Zambia, Madagascar, Cameroon and Mali only have one or two. Equatorial Guinea is among several countries which has none.

These are among the findings compiled by UNEP’s Centre on Energy, Climate and Development and unveiled at the 2nd Africa Carbon Forum, which held recently in Nairobi, Kenya.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “The growth of the carbon markets in Africa are both cause for optimism, and cause for concern. On the one hand, the work of UNEP and a myriad of other partners on capacity building, catalysing finance and other barrier-breaking initiatives have been bearing fruit among an ever wider range of countries.”

“But in order to realise only a few percentage points more of the massive potential for wind, solar, biomass and waste into energy schemes, action across a range of challenges needs to be stepped up,” he added.

Steiner said this was in part the responsibility of the UN, regional development banks and international funding and donor bodies.

“However, there is also a great deal private national and trans-national banks and individual governments can do to make clean energy investments more attractive through innovative loans and forward-looking policies and smart market mechanisms,” he added.

The UNEP chief cited the case of Kenya where the introduction of a feed-in tariff (a policy mechanism designed to encourage the adoption of renewable energy sources) rapidly triggered interest by a consortium in establishing Africa’s largest wind farm—a 300MW scheme in the Turkana region in the north of the country.

“The groundwork has been laid for Africa to boost its participation in the carbon market, which is growing as an important commodity market worldwide,” said John Kilani of the Bonn-based United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat on behalf of the organizers of the Africa Carbon Forum.

Under the Kyoto Protocol’s CDM, developed economies can offset some of their emissions at home, by investing in developing country projects in areas such as renewable energy and forestry schemes.

The projects can earn valuable, saleable credits called Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) whose value is linked to the traded price of carbon. 

“You are bound to do business when you bring all of the key market players together: the investors, buyers and sellers. This forum is therefore bound to boost the number of carbon offset projects in Africa,” said Kilani.

The new Africa-wide assessment estimates that, world-wide, close to 4,900 CDM projects are up and running or in the pipeline - with the lion’s share in the big developing economies such as Brazil, China and India.

In Africa, CDM projects entail those that harvest methane gas from landfills to fuel electricity generation. These are close to 20 per cent of all projects on the continent and the most popular.

These are followed by projects in biomass energy, 15 per cent; hydro-electric including run of river schemes, 10 per cent; reforestation, 14 per cent; fossil fuel switching, eight per cent and wind power, seven per cent.

It is estimated that, based on the current pipeline, the number of CDM projects in Africa could total around 245 by the end of 2012.

It is also estimated that by 2012, and with the price of carbon at just over $13 a tonne, these could be worth over $475 million.

The forum brought together about 1,000 delegates from countries, the private sector, NGOs and international and intergovernmental bodies.

Both gas utilisation projects in Nigeria – the Kwale Gas Project and the Pan Ocean Gas Utilisation Project – are designed to reduce green house gas (GHG) emission. The Pan Ocean scheme is estimated to cut emission by more than two million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually.

The CDM allows for GHG reduction from projects in developing countries to be registered and monitored under the UN so that these reductions can be sold to developed countries that have emission limits.

Chairman of Pan Ocean Oil Corporation, an indigenous oil and gas company and operators of the project, Chief Festus Fadeyi, stated that it was the largest CDM project in Africa and when at full capacity would provide 135 million standard cubic feet per day for electricity.

He said that this gas which otherwise would have been flared would be sold to developed countries to generate revenue for the country.

“The CDM registration has taken more than four years of efforts that were led by Carbon Limits of Norway. The credits will be sold to NUON, the Dutch state utility, so that the carbon emissions reductions that occur in Nigeria will help the Netherlands meet its obligation under the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.

The third Nigerian CDM project – the Safe 80 Fuel Efficient Wood Stoves – ensures that less fuel wood is used for cooking hence reducing the rate of deforestation, particularly in the dry, desertification-threatened north.

The system (a stove and a heat-retaining box) needs around 80 per cent less wood than traditional stoves and expected to save 2.72 tonnes of CO2-equivalent per household each year. The whole project is expected to prevent the emission of 300,000 tonnes of CO2 by 2019.

Environment Minister, John Odey, disclosed that the projects placed Nigeria ahead of every other African nation in the number of CERs.

Head, Special Climate Change Unit (SCCU) in the Environment Ministry, Dr. Victor Fodeke, submitted that Nigerian CDM projects accounted for 40 percent of the total in Africa as a whole.

He said, “Total credits generated in Nigeria have wiped out that of South Africa as a whole even though South Africa has more projects than we do. In fact Nigeria accounts for less that 50 percent of the total CERs generated in Africa.”

Nigeria’s proposed CDM projects are the Platform New Cross and Adad (both gas utilisation schemes), the World Bank Kainji Hydro-electric Upgrade and the Adscan Methane Avoidance Project.

While the first two will cut emission by processing hitherto flared associated gas for use, the third will cut emission from hydro-electric plant while the fourth will probably utilise methane gas produced or emitted from a waste dumpsite in Lagos. 

Source: Daily Independent, March 21, 2010
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World Bank must tackle pressing water issues: report

The World Bank needs to pay more attention to the most pressing water-related problems in developing countries, where the effects of climate change are a growing threat, the Bank's internal watchdog said on Monday, World Water Day.

A report by the Independent Evaluation Group said that while water projects funded by the World Bank have had good success rates when measured against their objectives, the institution's tendency has been to focus on problems that are easier to correct.

"The Bank and the countries have not yet sufficiently tackled several tough but vital issues, among them sanitation, fighting pollution, restoring degraded aquatic environments, monitoring and data collection, and cost recovery," the IEG report said.

It said that almost a third of all World Bank projects approved since 1997 have been water related, with most related to developing water infrastructure for irrigation, dams and hydropower.

Governments and development groups warned that drinking water is threatened by climate change and that demand for potable water may cause conflicts.

Regions likely to become drier because of climate change include Central Asia and North Africa. Up to 250 million people in Africa could experience extra stress on water supplies by 2020, according to the United Nations.

LENDING VERSUS NEED

The IEG report said water scarcity had become more of a threat in arid regions, and that about 700 million people in 43 countries were facing stress on water supplies.

But, the report said, there was "no apparent correlation between a country's water stress and bank lending for water to that country."

The report recommended that the World Bank find ways to support countries facing the greatest water problems, and to find a way to attract other donors to ensure water issues are properly addressed.

"The Bank should look for entry points to help countries make water use more sustainable, even if the Bank may not necessarily be able to finance all the work that is needed to resolve the most pressing water issues," the report said.

Although 40 percent of the World Bank's water portfolio deals with water quality, the IEG said only a few projects actually measure water quality, and that data on water quality produced by Bank-financed projects are in short supply.

It suggested the World Bank use data on water to promote better understanding of ties between water and economic development.

In response to the report, the World Bank said it had been responsive to the water priorities of governments in the most water-stressed countries and countries that will face water problems in the future. It said that countries with the most pressing water problems had received more financing than others.

The Bank said it was looking at ways to close the water resource gap in countries.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton)

Source: Reuters, March 22, 2010
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Volcanoes helped dinosaurs rule the Earth, say scientists
Massive eruptions triggered by separation of tectonic plates killed off dominant crurotarsans, fossil evidence shows
Ian Sample

Volcanoes that spewed out lava and noxious gases for more than half a million years paved the way for dinosaurs to rule the Earth by wiping out their competitors, scientists say.

The environmental devastation wrought by relentless volcanic activity at the end of the Triassic period 200m years ago laid waste to animal species that lived alongside the early dinosaurs, giving them the upper hand in the Jurassic period that followed.

Before the rise of the dinosaurs, the animal world was dominated by crurotarsans, ancient relatives of modern crocodiles. But as their populations crashed, early therapods, the group of dinosaurs that includes all meat-eating species from Velociraptor to Tyrannosaurus rex, gained ground and thrived.

More than 200m years ago, most of the land on Earth was locked up in the Pangea supercontinent, but this broke apart when the North American and African tectonic plates parted. The separation of the plates created a basin that became the Atlantic ocean and opened up fissures in the Earth's crust, triggering volcanic eruptions that lasted for 600,000 years.

The surge in volcanic activity coincided with one of Earth's big extinction events that is believed to have wiped out half of all species, including most of the large amphibians and around one-fifth of marine organisms.

Scientists reconstructed events surrounding the rise of the dinosaurs by examining evidence from fossilised animals and plants that lived and died in the volcanic onslaught.

A team led by Jessica Whiteside, a paleobiologist at Brown University, Rhode Island, focused on a massive lava flow known as the central Atlantic magmatic province, which covered more than 9m sq km. Regions of the ancient lava field, which flowed from volcanoes 201.4m years ago, are preserved in sediments in Newark and Hartford, in the north-eastern US.

Analysis of wood and ancient leaves recovered from the sediments suggests that atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases soared as volcanic activity increased. The effect on the environment was extraordinary. Ancient pollen residues revealed a mass extinction of plant life in which half of all flora species died out. This was followed by a rise in the growth of ferns, which are often the first plants to return in an environment ravaged by volcanic activity. Ferns can grow in dim lighting conditions, which can be caused when particles churned out by volcanoes block out natural light.

Animal fossils uncovered at the sites revealed a sharp fall in the population of crurotarsans, while theropod footprints became larger and more common as the dinosaurs grew in number and size. After the lava flows "the fossil record for crurotarsans is nearly completely gone", Whiteside said.

Why the early dinosaurs survived while the crurotarsans perished is not known, said Whiteside. "They had the blind luck of being unwittingly adapted to get through that climate catastrophe," she added. A report on the research appears in the US journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The big thing is many people have heard why dinosaurs went extinct, but the question why they came to be is much more interesting," Whiteside said.

Scientists had speculated that dinosaurs rose to prominence when an asteroid struck Earth and wiped out other species. Writing in the journal, Whiteside said the latest research was the "strongest case for a volcanic cause of a mass extinction to date".

Earth's five mass extinctions

The Cretaceous period ended 65m years ago with the death of the dinosaurs. Many scientists believe the Earth suffered a direct hit from an asteroid or that a comet could be to blame for the extinction.

The Triassic period ended 210m years ago with another mass extinction of land animals and sea creatures. A surge of volcanic activity released huge volumes of greenhouse gases and caused massive floods of lava.

At the end of the Permian period 250m years ago, between 80% and 96% of all living marine species were extinguished, along with 70% of land animals. The cause is unclear.

Near the end of the Devonian period, 370m years ago, many species of fish and 70% of marine invertebrates perished. The reason is unclear.

At the end of the Ordovician period, 440m years ago, a mass extinction event wiped out almost all corals and fish, and 25% of all families of creatures. The formation and subsequent melting of glaciers, which caused sea levels to fall and then rise, was the most probable cause.

Source: Guardian, March 22, 2010
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Environmental Refugees and Global Warming

Climate change and environmental degradation are likely to trigger increased migration in Sub-Saharan Africa with potentially devastating effects on the hundreds of millions of especially poor people, according to a paper in the International Journal of Global Warming.

Environmental changes are especially pronounced in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), explain Ulrike Grote of the Institute for Environmental Economics and World Trade, at the Leibniz University of Hannover, and Koko Warner of the United Nations University Institute of Environmental and Human Change in Bonn, Germany. Today, degradation is a serious problem for 32 countries in Africa, and a third of a billion people already face water scarcity.

Grote and Warner have analysed the latest data on environmental factors to determine what changes are most likely to trigger migration in SSA. They point to evidence from different branches of research, environmental sciences, migration research as well as development economics. They focus specifically on the effects on four countries: Ghana, Mozambique, Niger, and Senegal covering different regions in SSA. They are characterised by very different natural resource endowments, population and country sizes, political situations and environmental influences, thus providing very different pictures of migration.

In 2005, 34 of the 50 least developed countries were located in Africa, the researchers explain, in 2004, 41% of the population in SSA lived in extreme poverty. Almost a third of the population had to live with insufficient food from the years 2001 to 2003, while violent conflict between 1993 and 2002 prevailed in 27 out of 53 African states. Two thirds of Africa is covered by desert or dry land.

"Against this background, it is not surprising that Africa accounts for 12% of the world's population, hosts around 28% of the world's refugees and almost 50% of the world's internally displaced persons," the researchers say.

Other researchers have suggested that people begin to move "whenever land degradation is coupled with political pressure, armed conflict, ethnic tension, growing poverty, deteriorating services and infrastructure." Socio-economic and political factors accelerate the chain of processes leading to migration and conflict, environmental factors exacerbate the problems, leading to large-scale migration.

The team explains that in the four countries studies, environmental changes like soil degradation and erosion are especially prevalent in rural areas where poverty is pronounced. In Ghana, these slowly occurring environmental changes, coupled with severe and frequent droughts have been partly responsible for internal migration from the north to the south. Similarly, in Mozambique, droughts triggered internal migration from rural areas in the south to coastal and urban centres. In Niger, these environmental changes related to the expansion of the Sahel desert have resulted not only in internal but also border-crossing regional migration flows. Also, in Senegal, internal and international migration resulted from the environmental changes with respect to the peanut basin where job and farming opportunities decreased with increasing environmental degradation.

"While a strong link between environmental changes and migration is clearly visible, it needs to be considered that these environmental factors are mostly also paired with socio-economic factors like poverty and demographic changes like population growth or conflicts and institutional factors, among others," the team concludes.

While strategies and policies have been adopted in these four countries to either improve the environmental situation or to reduce widespread poverty, there is too little information available to determine how successfully or not they have been implemented.

Source: ScienceDaily, March 22, 2010
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Europe's electricity could be all renewables by 2050

Europe could meet all its electricity needs from renewable sources by mid-century, according to a report released Monday by services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers.

A "super-smart" grid powered by solar farms in North Africa, wind farms in northern Europe and the North Sea, hydro-electric from Scandinavia and the Alps and a complement of biomass and marine energy could render carbon-based fuels obsolete for electricity by 2050, said the report.

The goal is achievable even without the use of nuclear energy, the mainstay of electricity in France, it said. Over all, about 50 percent of Europe's energy demand is met with imported fuels.

Under so-called business-as-usual scenarios, that share could increase to 70 percent in coming decades, according to several projections.

The switch to renewables is more than a matter of energy security, said the report, backed by research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Climate Forum, both based in Potsdam, Germany.

"Substantial and fairly rapid decarbonisation... will have to take place if the world is to have any chance of staying within the 2.0 degree Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit) goal for limiting the effects of global warming," the report said.

Many scientists have warned that if global temperatures rise more than 2.0 C (3.6 F) by century's end, Earth's climate system could spin out of control, unleashing human misery on an unprecedented scale.

Achieving all-renewables electricity will depend less on new technology than on revamping Europe's legal and regulatory framework, the report argued: "Most of the technical components are available in principle already today."

To become a reality, such a vision will require a regional power system based on a super-smart grid and the rapid scaling up of all forms of renewable power.

It also depends on a unification of the European power market, and its integration into the North African one, allowing for free trading of electricity between all countries, it said.

"Policies would also need to incorporate mechanisms to disincentivise construction of new fossil fuel power plants," the report added.

The European Union is on track to meet its goal of supplying 20 percent of its total energy needs from renewable sources by 2020, the European Commission reported earlier this month.

Solar energy leader Spain, along with Germany and Austria, have forged ahead of their targets, more than compensating for Italy, which has lagged behind, the Commission said.

Source: Yahoo News, March 29, 2010
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Backers of Copenhagen climate deal, 2020 plans

The number of nations backing the non-binding Copenhagen Accord for fighting global warming has risen to more than 110 and includes all major greenhouse gas emitters, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The accord, reached at a summit in December, sets a goal of limiting a rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), but does not spell out how to achieve the goal. Rich nations also aim to give $100 billion a year in climate aid from 2020.

The U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said that backers were:

Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia, Botswana, Brazil, Britain, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Canada, Central African Republic, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Laos, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Samoa, San Marino, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uruguay and Zambia

National plans include:

INDUSTRIALISED NATIONS -- EMISSIONS CUTS BY 2020 (FROM 1990 LEVELS UNLESS STATED)

UNITED STATES - 17 percent from 2005 levels, or 4 percent from 1990 levels.

EU (27 nations) - 20 percent, or 30 percent if others act.

RUSSIA - 15 to 25 percent.

JAPAN - 25 percent as part of a "fair and effective international framework".

CANADA - 17 percent from 2005 levels, matching U.S. goal.

AUSTRALIA - 5 percent below 2000 levels, 25 percent if there is an ambitious global deal. The range is 3-23 percent below 1990.

BELARUS - 5 to 10 percent, on condition of access to carbon trading and new technologies.

CROATIA - 5 percent.

KAZAKHSTAN - 15 percent.

NEW ZEALAND - 10 to 20 percent "if there is a comprehensive global agreement".

SWITZERLAND - 20 percent, or 30 percent if other developed nations make comparable cuts and poor nations act.

NORWAY - 30 percent, or 40 if there is an ambitious deal.

ICELAND - 30 percent in a joint effort with the EU.

LIECHTENSTEIN - 20 percent, or 30 percent if others act.

MONACO - 30 percent; aims to be carbon neutral by 2050.

DEVELOPING NATIONS' ACTIONS FOR 2020

CHINA - Aims to cut the amount of carbon produced per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels. This "carbon intensity" goal would let emissions keep rising, but more slowly than economic growth.

INDIA - Aims to reduce the emissions intensity of gross domestic product by 20 to 25 percent from 2005 levels.

BRAZIL - Aims to cut emissions by between 36.1 and 38.9 percent below "business as usual" levels with measures such as reducing deforestation, energy efficiency and more hydropower.

SOUTH AFRICA - With the right international aid, South Africa says its emissions could peak between 2020-25, plateau for a decade and then decline in absolute terms from about 2035.

INDONESIA - Aims to reduce emissions by 26 percent by 2020 with measures including sustainable peat management, reduced deforestation, and energy efficiency.

MEXICO - Aims to cut greenhouse gases by up to 30 percent below "business as usual". A climate change programme from 2009-12 will also avert 51 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

SOUTH KOREA - Aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below "business as usual" projections.

OTHERS' PLEDGES

ARMENIA - Increase renewable energy output, modernise power plants, restore forests.

BENIN - Develop public transport in Cotonou, better forest management, methane recovery from waste in big cities.

BHUTAN - Already absorbs more carbon in vegetation than it emits from burning fossil fuels; plans to stay that way.

BOTSWANA - Shift to gas from coal. Nuclear power, renewables, biomass and carbon capture also among options.

CONGO - Improve agriculture, limit vehicles in major cities, better forestry management.

COSTA RICA - A long-term effort to become "carbon neutral" under which any industrial emissions will be offset elsewhere, for instance by planting forests.

ETHIOPIA - More hydropower dams, wind farms, geothermal energy, biofuels and reforestation.

ERITREA - Improve energy conservation, efficiency, reduce deforestation, enhance soil carbon stocks.

GABON - Increase forestry, bolster clean energy

GEORGIA - Try to build a low-carbon economy while ensuring continued growth.

GHANA - Switch from oil to natural gas in electricity generation, build more hydropower dams, raise the share of renewable energy to 10-20 percent of electricity by 2020.

ISRAEL - Strive for a 20 percent cut in emissions below "business as usual" projections. Goals include getting 10 percent of electricity generation from renewable sources.

IVORY COAST - Shift to renewable energies, better forest management and farming, improved pollution monitoring.

JORDAN - Shift to renewable energies, upgrade railways, roads and ports. Goals include modernising military equipment.

MACEDONIA - Improve energy efficiency, boost renewable energies, harmonise with EU energy laws.

MADAGASCAR - Shift to hydropower for major cities, push for "large scale" reforestation across the island, improve agriculture, waste management and transport.

MALDIVES - Achieve "carbon neutrality" by 2020.

MARSHALL ISLANDS - Cut carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent below 2009 levels.

MAURITANIA - Raise forest cover to 9 percent by 2050 from 3.2 percent in 2009, boost clean energy.

MOLDOVA - Cut emissions by "no less than 25 percent" from 1990 levels.

MONGOLIA - Examining large-scale solar power in the Gobi desert, wind and hydropower. Improve use of coal.

MOROCCO - Develop renewable energies such as wind, solar power, hydropower. Improve industrial efficiency.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA - At least halve emissions per unit of economic output by 2030; become carbon neutral by 2050.

SIERRA LEONE - Set up a National Secretariat for Climate Change, create 12 protected areas by 2015, protect forests.

SINGAPORE - Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 16 percent below "business as usual" levels if the world agrees a strong, legally binding deal.

SIERRA LEONE - Increase conservation efforts, ensure forest cover of at least 3.4 million hectares by 2015. Develop clean energy including biofuels from sugarcane or rice husks.

TOGO - Raise forested area to 30 percent of the country by 2050 from 7 percent in 2005; improve energy efficiency.

For a related story, click on [ID:nLDE62U0UH]. For a factbox about the Copenhagen Accord, click on [ID:nLDE62L0WV]

(Compiled by Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Paul Taylor) 

Source: AlertNet, March 31, 2010
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