Overmatter

Oiling the wheels

2012-01-16T23:05:00.001Z

Jan 14th 2012, 18:09 by N.L. | CHICAGO Online blog only..

ONE might have expected a humble presentation from Bob Dudley, head of BP, who spoke at the Economic Club of Chicago yesterday. In 2010, his company was responsible for a disaster in the Gulf of Mexico when an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 men, injured 17 others, and released more oil into the ocean than any other accident in the history of the industry. But it was not to be that way. Instead, and reading between the lines, Mr Dudley had an interesting new year’s message for a country in the middle of hard economic times: you need us as much as we need you.

In the middle of 2010, BP’s reputation was in tatters. And let’s face it, 5m barrels of crude oil spilling into the Gulf were bound to upset the natives. But as the crisis unfolded, politicians made things much more difficult for BP by publicly tearing strips off the company. Eager to stay in tune with the nation, and cast off an image of impotence, the administration said it would keep its boot on the throat of BP, and the president even declared he was ready to “kick ass”. [More...]

Thinking big in space

2011-12-27T09:00:00.000Z

Dec 27th 2011, 4:25 by N.L. | CHICAGO (Online only)

AS A small boy Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, dreamed of going into space. He even tried to launch the hollow aluminium arm of a chair, stuffed with propellant, into orbit. It didn't work out. But his latest adventure in space travel—a joint venture with Burt Rutan, a famous designer of aircraft—looks more promising. Earlier this month, the two of them said they will build an air-launched orbital delivery system. To do this, Paul Allen’s company Stratolaunch Systems will have to build the world’s largest aeroplane.

The Stratolaunch, as the plane will be called, will be big. Really, really big. It will have six engines, a wingspan of 117 metres (385 feet) and weigh about 544 tonnes. (The wingspan of Boeing's 747 is around half that of the Stratolaunch.) Taking off will require 3.6km of runway, and the aircraft will launch its rocket—a shortened version of the Falcon 9 rocket, built by another private space firm called SpaceX—at around 9,100 metres. The whole contraption will be able to put about 6 tonnes of payload into low-earth orbit. [More...]

Correction: I am hoping by the time anyone else reads this article again the word "hanger" will have been changed to read "hangar". As anyone older than about eight should know, one is a place for clothing and the other is a place for aircraft. I do honestly know the difference but I don't know how it came to pass that anyone would be said to be looking to find a hanger big enough for a large aeroplane.

Shovel ready

2011-12-17T09:00:00.000Z

Mr Emanuel’s feeling for snowDec 17th 2011 | CHICAGO | from the print edition

THE city of Chicago is proud of its ability to keep going, with gritty determination, through the worst of the nation’s weather. Snow that would bring London or Washington, DC, to a halt is laughed off as little more than a light dusting. This year some are expecting particularly bad weather, a test for the new mayor, Rahm Emanuel. He must keep the city moving throughout the winter, or face the wrath of the locals.

Fortunately, Chicago is well prepared for snowfall which, for the past four winters, has been over 50 inches (127cm). A secure facility on West Madison Street known as “Snow Command” houses some impressive toys. On one wall vast display-screens reveal everything you might need to know about the city’s weather conditions: the whereabouts of the fleet of up to 500 GPS-equipped snow-moving trucks; views from some of the city’s 1,000 cameras; the readings from a dozen road sensors (which pick up icy conditions); and a live feed of the regional weather system.[More...]

Detroit nears bankruptcy

2011-12-11T18:26:00.000Z

Nowhere to run

The motor city flirts with fiscal disaster

Dec 10th 2011 | DETROIT

IN THE 1960s, the first hit song from Berry Gordy’s Motown empire was “Money (That’s What I Want)”. It might well be an anthem for modern-day Detroit. On December 6th Michigan took the first legal steps towards a state takeover of Detroit. If it happens, it will be the largest American city to be taken over by a state.
The problem has been building for decades; declining property values and the flight of better-off people to the suburbs have hit revenues, while the cost of servicing a still-sprawling city has not shrunk proportionately. The effects of the recession, particularly severe in Michigan, have provided the trigger for the crisis. Detroit’s mayor, Dave Bing, now says the city will run out of cash in April 2012. [More...]

Taxes and disinvestment

2011-12-01T23:05:00.001Z

Illinoyed

Businesses are threatening to leave

Dec 3rd 2011 | CHICAGO | from the print edition

THE state finances in Illinois are an ugly mess of deficits, unpaid bills and tax refund backlogs. At the heart of the problem lies a public pension liability estimated at a present value of $80 billion. The state’s pension schemes are only 51% funded, the lowest rate among the 50 states. In January, in an attempt to grapple with its problems, the state raised corporate taxes from 7.3% to 9.5% and personal income tax from 3% to 5%. Although the tax hikes are theoretically temporary—and start to expire in 2015—both the rises and the continued failure of politicians to get to grips with the budget crisis are starting to worry businesses. [More...]

And Republicans in the house are now arguing for a reduction in corporate taxation to stabilise the business climate in Illinois.

The Chicago River

2011-11-30T21:29:00.001Z

Reflected glory

The Windy City will, at last, clean up its filthy river

Nov 26th 2011 | BUBBLY CREEK, CHICAGO | from the print edition

THE old-timers down by Bubbly Creek were hoping to land catfish for dinner. On a sunny afternoon they were fishing on a southern fork of the Chicago River made famous by Upton Sinclair in his social-realist novel of 1906, “The Jungle”. Sinclair described how offal and waste from the meatpacking industry had created a river so vile that putrid gas bubbled up from the bottom and made the river literally combustible. Today, the river hardly ever bubbles but the pollution remains so serious that the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered the state of Illinois to clean it up. Earlier this month, the EPA and the state finally agreed over how clean the river should be. [More...]

River walk

2011-11-30T20:46:00.001Z

It is lovely downtown by the Chicago river, even as winter starts to draw in. The skyscrapers and the water provide one of the world's most impressive urban settings. You can descend down from the busy street level in a few steps and arrive at the peaceful river. From there you can leave all the hustle behind and stroll through town and out to the (now) blustery lake. The river itself, like so many other things in this town, is a dirty mess but one that is finally being cleaned up. The future of the city, as well as the river, may be less murky now that local water officials say they will disinfect the sewage that goes into it.

One of the people I interviewed for a recent piece on the river, Debra Shore, a commissioner at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, said that her agency is looking at a host of other water quality standards being proposed by the state environmental protection agency. In the future, it isn't just the sewage that will be cleaned up but the river could see improvements in the amount of dissolved oxygen (which would help aquatic life), and the amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen which would reduce the growth of algae.

All these water quality issues are important not only for the current and future users of the river, but for everyone downstream. At the moment, all the junk that Chicago throws into its river ends up in the Gulf of Mexico and contributes to creating one of the world's largest dead zones. A depressing invention of modernity, a vast area of the ocean where so much crapola has been dumped into the ocean that little or nothing can survive there. The Louisiana fishing industry, the second largest in the nation according to this piece, is being damaged by an excess of nutrients being flushed into the ocean.

I also spoke to David Spielfogel, who is the head of policy and planning in the City of Chicago for the Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He put the problem of the Chicago River into perspective. The lake, he said, was a spectacular front yard where people flee at the weekends and bikers use to get downtown. The river could offer just the same thing but going through the heart of the city. And let us not forget that some of the city's most expensive real estate is by the lake. Experience from other major cities around the world tells us that city riverfront properties ought to be glamorous, desirable and expensive--not so cheap that you put your warehouses and industry there.

Margaret Frisbie, Executive Director of the Friends of the Chicago River, told me about the history of the river. How her group formed after a piece had been published about the friendless Chicago River and how in the early days they pushed for access to the water and a continuous river trail with guerrilla canoeing, and by taking people out and showing them the marvel on their doorstep.

It is all starting to pay off now that water quality is on the agenda. Margaret also told me that in the last five years the conversation about the Chicago River has changed. "People know what you are talking about when you talk about the river, its not about sewage and shipping, its about people, wildlife, boating, property values and for the first time regular people who are not involved in environmental activism or live near it see the value in a whole new way".

Groups like the Friends of the Chicago River, and the Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago, can look at the river and reflect on a quiet victory for common sense. You can also read the NRDC's report on the river here.

Losing things...

2011-11-23T17:11:00.001Z

Possessions

Lost and not found
Nov 19th 2011, 19:51 by N.L. | CHICAGO, from the travel blog Gulliver.

AS A frequent business traveller I’ve come to accept that the loss of personal items is something that comes with the job. On the way out of a hotel room I go through the mental checklist that we all use. Laptop… check…phone… check…wallet… check, and so on. But after the important things are accounted for, we then have to hope that our frisk of the room has been enough. And it frequently hasn’t. The sad truth is that, once you have shut that door, your chances of retrieving anything left behind are pretty low. [More...]

2011-11-18T18:47:00.001Z

Circular infrastructure

What goes around

Learning to yield

Nov 19th 2011 | CARMEL, INDIANA | from the print edition

“I MEAN, it’s round, how difficult can it be?” asks the front-desk attendant at the Renaissance Hotel in Carmel, exasperated, when asked whether visitors struggle to navigate the town’s many roundabouts. Carmel, just north of Indianapolis, has 70 of them—more than any other city in America. But while locals love them for their speed and efficiency, visitors are apprehensive. One recent out-of-towner was so terrified by the strange formations that he preferred to travel by taxi.The mayor, Jim Brainard, built the first roundabout in Carmel in 1997 after seeing them in Britain. Instead of a four-way intersection with traffic lights, a circular bit of road appeared. It was so successful that today Carmel is the roundabout capital of America, and the mayor plans to rip out all but one of his remaining 30 traffic lights. [More...]

A black eye in the Buckeye

2011-11-11T15:48:00.001Z

Ohio’s referendum

A black eye in the Buckeye

The unions flex their muscles in Ohio
Nov 12th 2011 | COLUMBUS, OHIO | from the print edition

IN TOUGH economic times it might well seem reasonable to suggest that public-sector workers need to contribute a bit more, or to admit that their unions have extracted some unreasonably generous benefits. Even Democrats such as Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, and Andrew Cuomo, New York’s governor, have said public-sector workers need to tighten their belts. Yet in Ohio the public-sector reforms of the Republican governor, John Kasich, were roundly rejected in a ballot on November 8th. [More...]

Blowback

2011-11-11T15:31:00.001Z

In Ohio this week, the public gave the governor John Kasich a electoral thumping as they comprehensively rejected his attempts to outlaw strikes among public-sector workers and greatly limit the extent of collective bargaining.

His biggest mistake was probably including the police and the firefighters in his plans. They are well-respected members of Ohio society and have powerful, well-organised unions. But even so, the scale of his defeat suggests that even had these two groups been excluded (as Scott Walker did in Wisconsin), he would have very likely been in trouble. In America they call this sort of politics "overreach". Where I come from it is called "biting off more than you can chew".

There is no particular love of unions in Ohio. One old woman, with a shotgun propped up nearby, told a canvasser "get off my porch you union crony". Moderates said things like, "I'm not a union person but..." and basically explained in one way or another that they didn't think the new law was fair.

There was a real show of union strength, with people coming in from all over the country to organise and campaign and someone even told the crowd the morning before the results came in that they were going to stuff Kasich's law down his throat. I was told that there was an incredible "energy" among the unions that had not been seen in a long time. This energy is now heading for Wisconsin in an attempt to unseat the governor there, who has enacted similar legislation. Beyond that, they will be working on the 2012 election.

On buying food

2011-11-10T05:36:00.001Z

Just deserts

Poor access to fresh food is a solvable health problem

Oct 29th 2011 | CHICAGO | from the print edition

THE corner shop on South Honore and West 59th in Englewood is an uninviting sort of place. Those windows that are not bricked up are covered in heavy security grilles; the shopkeeper hides behind a Plexiglas wall. Most of what is on offer is either packaged or carbonated, and is always processed. [More...]

Food for thought

2011-10-31T15:57:00.002Z

Fruit vs Candy at Walgreens on Chicago's South Side

Last week I took a trip to Chicago's South Side to report on food deserts. On Tuesday afternoon Michelle Obama was holding an event on healthy eating at a South Side Walgreens.

For someone from out of town, the biggest surprise to me was to find Englewood is so uniformlyAfrican American. It turns out that the food desert problem, at least in Chicago, is very much segregated along racial lines. Like Chicago itself.

I had to ask one taxi driver three times to take me to south 57th before he would believe that I really wanted to go there. On my way out from the Obama event a police officer said "where is your car?", I told him I'd taken a taxi and he told me that there was "no way" I'd get a taxi in this neighbourhood. When I told him I was planning to get the El (the urban train network in town), he expressed some surprise.

I'd like to write more about Chicago's racial divisions in the future. In most of the larger cities I've ever been to there is far more cultural diversity, it may be old news here but there is certainly an economic story to tell here. If anyone can tell me more about about the past, present and future of this issue in Chicago, please do get in touch.

Back to food deserts... I had expected not to be particularly impressed that Walgreens, by tradition a pharmacy, was making much more of an effort to sell fresh and healthy food. But walking around the South Side it is clear what an oasis this is. There are plenty of places selling packets of really nasty 'food' which are high in things like sugar, salt, fat, artificial colourings and every other nasty you might imagine. One of the shops I went into near 59th and S Wood was as scary and as uninviting a prospect as you might imagine. For anyone interested in food deserts, I recommend the reports by Mari Gallagher.

Not far from where Michelle Obama was talking about healthy eating, her husband had been paired up with something called Candy Corn which has a pretty terrifying list of ingredients that begin with Sugar, Corn Syrup, Confectioner's Glaze, Salt, Honey, and Dextrose. Eeek. I will be truly glad when Halloween, the national festival of sugar, is over.


Mr Obama found nearby promoting a different kind of fare.

Balancing the books in Chicago, part 1.

2011-10-20T20:16:00.002Z

Reality bites

How to slash a deficit without raising taxes

Oct 22nd 2011 | CHICAGO | from the print edition

AT ABOUT 8.30am on Saturday October 15th, close to the city’s former meatpacking district, one of Chicago’s ancient water mains burst. As the road buckled and water gushed down alleyways, it was a timely reminder that the modern city is built on crumbling, century-old infrastructure. Fixing the problem is not easy, as the city is awash in debt as well as water. [More...]

Balancing the books in Chicago, part 2.

2011-10-20T17:08:00.000Z

Rubbish competition

City and private-sector workers go bin-to-bin

Oct 22nd 2011 | CHICAGO | from the print edition

ON A cold damp morning in Chicago’s Irving Park a rubbish truck slowly inches its way along an alley, seeking out one of the city’s 240,000 recycling bins. The workers are unruffled over the latest initiative: a competition to see whether the public or the private sector can get the job done better. “We’ll just keep doing it the way we have always done,” says one city worker. [More...]

Correction in the Economist

2011-10-20T16:00:00.000Z

Correction: The ivory-billed woodpecker

Oct 20th 2011 | from the print edition

Because of a captioning error by our photographic source, our illustration supposedly depicting the ivory-billed woodpecker (Dead or alive?, October 15th) actually shows the crimson-crested woodpecker. The two birds do look very similar.

Pining for the fjords...

2011-10-14T15:26:00.003Z

Dead or alive?

Two groups say the ivory-billed woodpecker is extinct

Oct 15th 2011 | CHICAGO | from the print edition

WHEN Elvis Presley died in 1977, a lot of people continued to believe he remained alive but in hiding. The world of conservation has a similar phenomenon. The ivory-billed woodpecker was once found across the swampy forests of the south-eastern states. But as the big woods of the Mississippi Delta were chopped down, the woodpecker—with its distinctive tooting call and double knock—was slowly exterminated. Now, as with Elvis, sightings of the bird are hotly debated. [More...]

More protests and a guess at what it is giving it legs

2011-10-13T20:16:00.006Z

So this was City Hall in Chicago yesterday.

So it seems there are a lot of seriously pissed off people in town, and across America, at the moment. Some pundits reckon its an incoherent cry of rage aimed at Wall Street. Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute reckons it is all down to a financial crisis driven by reckless mortgage lending, which in turn was driven by government policy. (So why did the financial crisis repeat itself in countries like Ireland, Spain and the UK where there was no such policy?).

The website of the 99%, the banner under which many of the protests have come, raises a lot of of different complaints, and it would be easy to dismiss them as incoherent or even as "jealous anti-capitalists" as one presidential candidate, Hermain Cain, is reported to have done. What is probably closer to the truth is that they would think of themselves as angry with capitalism--a subtle but important difference.

Toby Chow, a protester with SOUL (Southsiders Organised for Unity and Liberation) in Chicago, told me at a downtown protest on Tuesday that "class warfare" had been waged by the rich against the vast majority of Americans. This war, he said, involved the recent pushing of unsuitable mortgages, and can also be seen in the long-term stagnation of median wages, the enormous cost of education, and job insecurity through loss of manufacturing jobs abroad.

It may be the powerless cry of the unwashed masses, but they are no unruly rabble or "mob" as the protesters have been called. Mr Chow is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Chicago. The protests are not calling for capitalism to be torn down--they simply want for it to work for them and they feel short-changed.

For them, capitalism hasn't delivered what was promised. So its not simply about people losing their homes, or not getting jobs after paying tens of thousands of dollars for a degree, or the unaffordability of healthcare. Without wanting to sound too dramatic, it seems to be about the death of the American Dream.

While the protests may have been modelled on Tahir Square they have more in common with the riots in London and the protests in Greece. They are all about the same thing. Governments, all over the world, and for good reason, were forced to rescue financial institutions and parts of industry. To not do so would have been disastrous.

But the rescue made it clear who was ultimately bearing the risks being taken by these institutions: the ordinary person on the street. The people who clean the homes, empty the rubbish carts, and take on educational debts in the hope of bettering themselves.

Rich people have been variously tolerated or venerated, depending on whether you live in Europe or America. Not only do they generate great wealth but they are supposed to take risks that other people do not, and can in theory become poor again as a result. But the narrative now is that the wealthy will be saved, and the poor will be left to flounder. Thus it seems many Americans are falling out of love with the rich.

Whomever is really "behind" the protests, you can't organise a protest movement like this. Someone might have started the fire, but there is plenty of fuel to keep it going. It seems to me, a correspondent of less than a week in America, that many of the protesters feel the American Dream was a lie, that not only did they never have a real chance to be rich (because the system is stacked against them) but that ordinary Americans have carried the can for the unwise risks taken by the rich.

The dangerous thing about this idea is that much of the social contract in America revolves around the idea that anyone could get rich if they work hard enough. So what happens if the 99% (not the protest group but the actual 99%) start not to believe this?

Interesting times.

Welcome to classless America

2011-10-11T18:21:00.003Z

Wall Street meets Main Street, today in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Mortgage Banker's Association.

They are shouting "lock us up, while the thieves are watching".

Our kind of town

2011-05-17T20:55:00.002Z

Moving home and having a baby are supposed to be two of the most stressful things in life, so I'm not sure that doing both at once is the best idea I've ever had. Nonetheless, the lovely Leo Francis Hopkins was born on March 31st in London at 9lbs and 13 oz--a whopper by any measure--and we plan to move to Chicago in August this year.

Writing for the science department at The Economist has been an enormous privilege. I am sad that I've had to move on. But I did need to make a move, had I not I would have fossilised. Which is why it is so thrilling to be starting, in a few months, a new job as the next Midwest correspondent for The Economist.

The entire family is shipping out to one of the most glorious and exciting cities in the world. Home to a new mayor, a presidential re-election campaign, massive debts, crumbling infrastructure, and more than its share of failing schools. A town where petrol at a mere $4 a gallon shocks and disturbs the locals. A town where the water authority can say with a straight face that cleaning up the river (which is an open sewer) is a bad idea because it will increase the risk of accidental drowning. A town known around the world for its corrupt politicians and where a former governor is currently on trial. Its a rich and hearty stew to feed any journalist. And Chicago is a tiny part of a vast territory that I'll be covering in the next three years. Excited doesn't even begin to cover it.

Baby on board

2011-03-08T17:06:00.003Z

Three weeks to go, and still not quite packed my hospital bag. Things may go quiet soon.

I'll be glad to see the back of this badge. It was kindly provided by Transport for London for me to wear in the hope that it would encourage people to give me a seat on the tube.

Do you know that it is far more embarrassing being ignored while wearing this badge than without it? Hard to believe that anyone would want to willfully ignore heavily pregnant women and bury noses in a book or newspaper, but its just a fact of life.

Fish Fight: Game Over

2011-03-02T15:10:00.005Z

Hats off to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and his campaign to end the dumping of dead fish. In a few short months, the power of one celebrity has done more to shift the debate over fishing than a decade of argument, and a fine campaigning book and film by the journalist Charles Clover. Last night, on Channel 4 news, Fearnley-Whittingstall proved he is more than a pretty-boy chef presenter by turning up and having a debate with Bertie Armstrong, Chief Executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation. The chef came out well.

Essentially, by making the discussion about how Britain and Europe fishes so public he has reminded citizens that the fish belong to everyone, not just those who have historically scooped them out of the sea. And if we don't stand up for our rights to a rational fishing policy, we will never get a deal that means our children will have access to the same marine wealth that we do. Although the buzz-word is "sustainable use", it basically means not stealing from the next generation by taking too much today.

Mr Armstrong revealed a little secret when he complained about proposals to ban the dumping dead fish as unworkable in various ways. In The Times today he reveals the policy would only be compatible with a "fleet that's a fraction of the size it is now". In other words, Mr Armstrong is opposed to any policy that will reduce the number of fishing boats, and jobs for fishermen--which his organisation represents.

Mr Armstrong and the Scottish Fishermen are, of course, entitled to their opinions. But thanks to the campaign, and the opinions of the broader public, the day is rapidly approaching when the fishing industry is simply told it is 'Game Over'. An industry that is subsidised by you and I to cause havoc in our oceans.

Fishing boats are far more capable than they used to be, thanks to new technologies. So we need fewer boats and fewer fishermen than we used to. I can't imagine any other industry insisting on its right to remain stuck in the previous century and getting away with it. If a less damaging fishing industry means fewer jobs for fishermen, this is unfortunate but necessary.

An article about doctoral degrees hits a nerve

2011-01-26T14:23:00.004Z

Sometimes it is easy to predict the articles will be popular, and sometimes an article unexpectedly hits a nerve. The essay composed for the Christmas edition of The Economist about doctoral degrees was always going to attract a little interest, but no idea how wildly popular it would be.

I think the reasons for this speak to an underlying problem: the commoditisation of academic research work. It looks at what happens to those who are hoovered up by academia to work on projects where a future career is unlikely.

In less than a month, this piece has had over 700,000 hits on the web page alone. It has featured in our list of the top ten most read articles for three weeks, and as of today still remains one of the ten most recommended items on the website. To put the phenomenal success of this article in context, well read articles can generally expect around 150K hits online in a week.

In the first week this article received about twice this number of hits, and has continued to maintain high levels of interest. In only a week this article became the highest hitting article of the entire year (maybe longer if we actually had looked back any further).

The disposable academic
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time
Dec 16th 2010

Increase of tuberculosis linked with sin?

2011-01-24T16:19:00.004Z

I find this moderately depressing. If I do a Google search on "antibiotic resistance in bacteria", the top hit is from a website called 'Answers', made to look a bit like Answers.com but with the easily missable subtitle 'building a biblical worldview'.

Most of the text is deceptively informative and harmless and you might read the entire thing oblivious until reaching the final line:

"Mutation and natural selection, thought to be the driving forces of evolution, only lead to a loss of functional systems. Therefore, antibiotic resistance of bacteria is not an example of evolution in action but rather variation within a bacterial kind. It is also a testimony to the wonderful design God gave bacteria, master adapters and survivors in a sin-cursed world."

If you've ever wondered why the world is struggling to contain antibiotic resistance, look no further than the accursed sinners afflicting our planet. Presumably Zsa Zsa Gabor's could have avoided a leg amputation if she had prayed more?

Escaping the ivory tower

2010-12-31T15:58:00.005Z

Interesting article by Nancy Baron in the journal Nature which makes a passionate case for why scientists should engage with journalists.

This is a familiar theme for Baron, who recently published an excellent book on the subject of scientists talking to the media: Escape from the Ivory Tower, a guide to making your science work. I've spoken at a number of her training events in the US. When it comes to turning media-shy scientists into confident speakers, she is really at the top of her tree.

The disposable academic

2010-12-24T18:54:00.006Z

In this year's special double Christmas issue of The Economist I have a piece on doctoral degrees. Our Christmas issue is always our most popular issue of the year, with lots of fabulous stuff for the holiday period. Go buy a copy.

Happy Christmas everyone.

The disposable academic
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

Dec 16th 2010

ON THE evening before All Saints’ Day in 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg. In those days a thesis was simply a position one wanted to argue. Luther, an Augustinian friar, asserted that Christians could not buy their way to heaven. Today a doctoral thesis is both an idea and an account of a period of original research. Writing one is the aim of the hundreds of thousands of students who embark on a doctorate of philosophy (PhD) every year.

In most countries a PhD is a basic requirement for a career in academia. It is an introduction to the world of independent research—a kind of intellectual masterpiece, created by an apprentice in close collaboration with a supervisor. The requirements to complete one vary enormously between countries, universities and even subjects. Some students will first have to spend two years working on a master’s degree or diploma. Some will receive a stipend; others will pay their own way. Some PhDs involve only research, some require classes and examinations and some require the student to teach undergraduates. A thesis can be dozens of pages in mathematics, or many hundreds in history. As a result, newly minted PhDs can be as young as their early 20s or world-weary forty-somethings.

One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labour”. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle. “It isn’t graduate school itself that is discouraging,” says one student, who confesses to rather enjoying the hunt for free pizza. “What’s discouraging is realising the end point has been yanked out of reach.”

[Read more...]

Santa school is coming to town

2010-12-21T09:54:00.003Z

My husband Bruce has just made a short film about an English Santa School which can be found on the BBC News website. Amusing.

Yaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-12-08T16:21:00.003Z

SpaceX has just launched its Dragon capsule into orbit. We have blogged about this on the Economist's Sci/Tech blog Babbage.

Well done to everyone at SpaceX. This truly is a milestone.

Read more about how 2011 is going to be an exciting year in space in the World in 2011--The Economist's annual publication.

Singing the blues

2010-12-08T12:00:00.000Z

The annual bluefin tuna bust up closes in Paris.

Climbing Mount Publishable

2010-11-24T18:30:00.002Z

TWENTY years ago North America, Europe and Japan produced almost all of the world’s science. They were the aristocrats of technical knowledge, presiding over a centuries-old regime. They spent the most, published the most and patented the most. And what they produced fed back into their industrial, military and medical complexes to push forward innovation, productivity, power, health and prosperity.

All good things, though, come to an end, and the reign of these scientific aristos is starting to look shaky. In 1990 they carried out more than 95% of the world’s research and development (R&D). By 2007 that figure was 76%.

Such, at least, is the conclusion of the latest report* from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, UNESCO. The picture the report paints is of a waning West and a rising East and South, mirroring the economic shifts going on in the wider world. The sans culottes of science are on the march. [Read more...]

Climbing Mount Publishable: The old scientific powers are starting to lose their grip, Nov 11th 2010 from PRINT EDITION, The Economist.

What's up pussycat?

2010-11-24T18:20:00.004Z

Just posted an Economist blog about why tiger farming is the way to save the tiger.

* Image: Malene Thyssen

Take me to your leader

2010-09-28T16:25:00.002Z

Sometimes Economist readers spot the punchline I missed.

A commenter on my just-posted item on alien diplomacy remarks: "for the UN this represents another important milestone in their quest for relevance."

Blog: The UN’s secretive alien ambassador, Sep 28th 2010, 16:03

Quangos

2010-09-24T10:59:00.002Z

In Britain the relatively new government is struggling to overcome a mountain of debt. Lots of radical plans for cutting the budget have been proposed. What is most fascinating is the reaction of all sorts of vested interests to budget cuts. Every day there is a new story about how disastrous it is all going to be, leading to riots, terrorism or a cultural black hole.

Its all fuelling a sense of increasing doom about the proposal. Proposals which, let us not forget, are about a nation living within its means rather than spending money it doesn't have, and blowing what it does on billions of pounds of interest payments.

Listening to people try to justify their ludicrous entitlements or the status quo is really informative. For example, today comes news that hundreds of quangos (strange quasi nongovernmental organisations financed by government) are going to be abolished. Hooray. Will we miss the Advisory Committee on Organic Standards and Cycling England? I doubt it.

One quango under threat is the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority which oversees fertility treatment. Its work looks set to move elsewhere. This is the really good bit. The former head of this agency, Baroness Deech, was just interviewed by the BBC. She claimed abolishing it would not save any money.

She went on, "It only costs £5m and it's not taxpayers' money. Most of that £5m comes from the patients. Now if you redistribute the functions, you're not going to save anything."

Er, hello? Earth to Baroness Deech? Women undergoing IVF are asked to pay £100 quid a cycle to fund her quango. Are you suggesting this is some kind of voluntary donation? I've never had IVF, but the idea that I'd be asked to write a cheque to support the regulator and be told that this isn't a tax is insulting.

Lord of the dance

2010-09-10T12:42:00.001Z

A fun story about what makes a man's dance moves attractive to women...

http://www.economist.com/node/16984701

Updated: This story was in the top five most popular items on the Economist website during the week of September 10th to 16th.

Testing times for genetics

2010-08-24T14:08:00.004Z

In America, the backlash against consumer genetics has begun. If you have ever been interested in what secrets your genes might hold, take note. In the near future, your right to spit into a tube, and have someone tell you what this means might be constrained. In short, governments of all sorts have begun to wonder whether you should be trusted with your own DNA.

Our healthcare correspondent wrote a piece in the Business Section on the issue of August 14th. I wrote a leader (op-ed), and followed it up with a blog post on our technology blog Babbage. This post is the latest installment in a sequence about consumer genomics.

I felt from the start of this story that the GAO report was strangely flawed. By that I mean it seemed determined to inflict the maximum damage on the industry using incorrect and flawed information.

I'm now fascinated to read that the genetics blogger Daniel MacArthur, is now seeking full access to the full transcripts and data used by the GAO. Presumably through FOI legislation.

Behind the scenes there is speculation that the FDA put the GAO up to this report in order to ask for money to regulate the industry.

Fruit research institute squashed in Moscow court

2010-08-13T20:58:00.002Z

Read my latest Economist post about the Pavlovsk genebank and fears over its imminent demise.

Marvel, too, at the fact that President Dmitry Medvedev has just tweeted that he has received the appeal over Pavlovsk and has given instructions for the issue to be scrutinised.

Incredible diversity in the ocean discovered...

2010-08-06T16:03:00.002Z

Check out this wonderful story about an American-Indonesian expedition that is discovering extraordinary diversity thousands of feet below the ocean surface in the waters of the Coral Triangle.

What lies beneath, The Economist, August 5th 2010.

Image: NOAA

Seeds of change

2010-08-06T15:43:00.005Z

An alarming situation is unfolding in Russia, where a valuable repository for plant genetic diversity, which contains valuable varieties of berry, could be bulldozed in order to build luxury housing. Read about it on Eastern Approaches, The Economist's blog.

* Image: David Monniaux

Sorry, Stephen

2010-08-06T14:49:00.003Z

Scientist Stephen Schneider died recently.

In 2002, The Economist wrote about him. It was after he got involved in the debate about a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist (which The Economist thought was rather good).

“The fuss over Mr Lomborg highlights an attitude among some media-conscious scientists that militates not just against good policy but against the truth. Stephen Schneider, one of Scientific American's anti-Lomborgians, spoke we suspect not just for himself when he told Discover in 1989: “[We] are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place...To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have...Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” In other words, save science for other scientists, in peer-reviewed journals and other sanctified places. In public, strike a balance between telling the truth and telling necessary lies.

Science needs no defending from Mr Lomborg. It may very well need defending from champions like Mr Schneider.”

A few months later I was in a lecture given by Stephen Schneider where he was talking to scientists about why they should reach out to the public about their research findings. He was explaining the risks and benefits of advocacy. One of the risks, he explained, was that your words would be distorted in order to attack you. Then he showed The Economist editorial and how his words had been selectively quoted back in 1989 and really read like this:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

Let us be clear about what Schneider said he stood for: He never approved of lying in order to win public approval. He never approved of the ends justifying the means. What he wanted was for scientists to come out of their ivory towers and speak up on behalf of their science.

"Staying out of the fray is not taking the high road, its just passing the buck", he said.

But in his many talks to scientists about advocacy, he had to warn them to be careful about the line they must walk as human beings and as scientists. And so his warning was that as human beings they would want to argue passionately for what they believe in and ignore caveats. But that as scientists they had to work entirely differently.

Many scientists are uncomfortable about ignoring any caveats at all, which is why when you ask them what they think the findings of their research means they will frequently parrot, "more research is necessary". Schneider recognised that the line between science and advocacy was personal, and not something he could advise on. He explained it thus: "Every time you are faced with an opportunity to provide information, including insights on the consequences and risks of any given action or inaction, you will have to make careful judgement calls".

Schneider was always clear that he personally strove to be effective and honest. That was his point. He hoped for others that would mean doing both.

Schneider was not a liar. He was a brave and honest scientist, someone who decided to take the difficult road and argue the case for his science rather than burying his head under academic carpets. As such the world owes him a debt of gratitude for for his enormous contribution to science and, indeed, global awareness of the issue of climate change.

* Image: Joi Ito

Updated: I forgot to link to our excellent Obituary about Schneider, which I did not write.

How big is the palm oil problem in Indonesia?

2010-07-29T18:08:00.004Z

One of the letters I received about my recent palm oil piece questioned whether palm oil was a really a significant component of deforestation in Indonesia.

In researching this piece, one of the pieces of Overmatter I did not use was an unpublished report by McKinsey (which was leaked to me by a source) that is pretty clear about what is known about the state of Indonesian forests. A large number of its contributors are the Indonesian forestry ministry.

The report states that deforestation of Indonesian forests peaked in the late 20th century at a rate of 1.9 million ha per year, and decreased to the current rate of 1.1 million ha between 2000 and 2005

However, it goes on to say that an increasing demand for pulpwood, palm oil, food crops will drive around 21-28 million ha of land conversions till 2030 along with mining and infrastructure. Further, that government plans for increasing pulp and palm oil production will require 11-15 million ha of currently forest covered areas to be converted.

Finally it says that deforestation and degradation is taking place across all regions and in all types of Indonesian forests--including protection and conservation forests.

We already know that between 1967 and 2000 the area under cultivation in Indonesia expanded from less than 2,000 square kilometres (770 square miles) to more than 30,000 square kilometres.

What we cannot say from these figures is exactly how bad the problem is right now. As recently as 2007 UNEP said deforestation in Indonesia for palm oil and illegal logging was so rapid that most of the country’s forest might be destroyed by 2022.

In considering how bad the problem might be, these factoids are useful:

1. each hectare of land can produce an average yield 4-5 tonnes of crude oil

2. the current average price of crude palm oil per tonne is about 800-900 US dollars. This is down from a peak two years ago of 2,000 dollars a tonne. (Oil World, and figure quoted by us)

3. although palm oil can be planted on degraded land, the conversion of forested land allows palm oil producers to use the sale of timber to fund plantations, providing up front capital prior to the first crop.

Given all these facts and figures, trying to argue that such a valuable crop is not a significant contributor to deforestation in a very poor forested country seems a tough call to me. One might as well nail $50 bills to tree trunks and expect them to stay there.

The one thing that our piece did not have the scope for was to ask that given that palm oil is such a significant contributor to economic growth in poor countries like Indonesia how does one get improvements in living conditions without causing environmental devastation? Its not easy to answer, but the fact that the government has announced a moratorium on deforestation thanks to a huge dob of cash from the Norwegian government suggests that minds are at least focusing on the problem.

Oiling the wheels of change

2010-06-30T17:24:00.007Z

Environmental activists such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the Rainforest Action Network having been pushing hard at the issue of palm oil.

Along with WWF and the new Forest Footprint Disclosure project, all are trying to raise awareness of the environmental consequences of palm oil, such as loss of rainforests and high carbon dioxide emissions.

The strategy has been to raise the level of corporate risk involved in the use of this commodity. The nasty KitKat video (man eats KitKat which turns out to be orangutans finger) was a recent example.

All these campaigns have been very effective, something I report on this, this week. I had assistance with the research on this project from the fabulous and diligent Tiffany Stecker, who is one of the first students on City's new Science Journalism course.

The article is currently the most read item on The Economist's website, if you exclude Kal's cartoon. Help keep it up there by reading the story.

Image with thanks from Marco Schmidt, via Wikimedia.

Why the Science Media Centre's Fiona Fox is wrong (this time)...

2010-06-30T11:41:00.006Z

So Roy Greenslade at The Guardian reblogged my earlier post about Jonathan Leake at The Sunday Times.

As a result, Fiona Fox, the smart and sassy head of the Science Media Centre sent an email to seven science journalists. She wrote to: Mark Henderson (The Times), Victoria Fletcher (The Express), Fiona Macrae (The Daily Mail), Sarah Bosely (The Guardian), Rebecca Smith (The Telegraph), Ian Sample (The Guardian) and Steve Connor (The Independent).

According to one of those who read her email, she expressed her frustration at the points that Greenslade and I raised and posed a question. She said that Jonathan Leake knew the material was embargoed and should have respected this, but then asked her correspondents, "am I wrong?"

I believe she is. Because you cannot embargo public information. As soon as the ESHRE published the abstracts, the game was over.

In a 1,400 word article on her blog today, Fiona argues thoughtfully around every corner of the issue about why Jonathan Leake was wrong to write about a story he must have known was embargoed. Buried in the penultimate paragraph are the 14 most important words:

"Perhaps there are lessons learned about how information and abstracts from a conference are distributed"

Indeed.

Irrespective of Jonathan's alleged track record, irrespective of how much he gets up everyone's noses, irrespective of whether one personally likes or dislikes Jonathan..... you cannot embargo public information.

I'm not trying to portray Jonathan as the ideal of jobbing journalism by not playing by the rule book of how scientific information is distributed. I'm not even saying that this is a debate about the future of embargoes. What I'm trying to say, quite clearly, is that public information officers don't get to blame journalists for their own mistakes. Nor do they then have the right to email the media the equivalent of a press release, blaming their mistake on someone else. I don't for a moment imagine that The Sunday Times would take this to court, but lets be serious here, ESHRE's email to the press is actionable.

Jonathan is basically an easy target for the ESHRE to draw attention from the fact that they published their own embargoed material in advance of the embargo. Please lets not get diverted down a rabbit hole about why embargoes are important or navel gazing about how the embargo system is good for public health.

For the love of all that is rational: If any embargo was broken it was ESHRE that broke the embargo not Leake.

The fastest way to bringing the embargo system into disrepute is to embargo public information and expect journalists, like sheep, to stick to this.

-------------------------

A note to readers. This blog has been updated at Fiona's request. She says the email she sent out earlier (and subsequently forwarded to myself and a number of other journalists) was private.

A note to commenters. You are welcome to offer comments for publication on this blog, positive or negative. However, I reserve the right to summarily reject spiteful, irrelevant or anonymous comments. In particular comments that comprise all three. Sock puppetry is not endorsed on this blog. And, guess what, I know who you are anyway.

In praise of Jonathan Leake

2010-06-28T16:24:00.002Z

One of the dirty little secrets of journalism is that many writers agree to be bound by something called an embargo. A press notice is put out that specifies the time and date at which the information in the notice can be published.

Journalists agree to this system when they benefit. One of the reasons they benefit is that they don’t miss out on stories, they know what is coming up. What is more, if the subject matter is complicated, such as science, it benefits the journalist if they have a day or two to verify the information in the release.

The people who issue press releases find this system generally guarantees better coverage of a news story both in terms of quality and quantity. If one newspaper runs a story ahead of the others, the rest will be reluctant to follow it up and thus acknowledge the scoop. An embargo means everyone crosses the finish line at the same time.

The trouble is that this finishing line tends to suit the daily journalists more than the weeklies or the monthlies. So some journalists choose to work outside of the system. Rather than relying on hand-outs from press offices, they hunt down their own stories. They are far closer to a model of journalism that we all might admire.

It was pretty surprising, then, to receive this email from the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), regarding a broken embargo from their meeting in Rome this week. It read:

“Jonathan Leake at the Sunday Times (again!) has broken the embargo and run the story today. The Sunday Times is already barred from all our media database and from the ESHRE website, so there is little further action that we can take against Jonathan Leake and his paper. We will, however, be informing Eurekalert and Alphagalileo of his actions.”

The story the Sunday Times published was about how a simple test will allow the prediction of the age of menopause. It was a good story. And ESHRE’s email sounds damning. But the problem is that Mr Leake did not actually break the embargo because, as the same email explained, he is “already barred” from ESHRE’s media database so didn’t receive a press release in the first place.

As Mr Leake confirms he picked up the story by having the downright audacity to read the abstracts on the ESHRE’s website. I asked him what happened, and with no shame, he describes his heinous crimes:

“I read through all the abstracts and picked ones that I thought would make interesting stories. None of them appeared to have any embargo notices and all were, in any case, completely available for anyone to read”.

Indeed, Mr Leake also pointed out that he had previously run another story from these same abstracts, with no complaints.

It has since become clear that a “technical error” was the reason why the abstracts were available for all to see. But Ms Mason is unrepentant, and continues to blame Mr Leake. In her latest statement she says that their policy is clearly stated on the ESHRE website and this is that embargoes lift “at the time of presentation to the meeting, unless otherwise stated”.

I’m not sure what planet Ms Mason lives on but on planet Earth I don’t believe that anyone can be criticised for breaking a promise they never made. Nor, for that matter, for not abiding by a policy that a “technical error” rendered irrelevant. Ms Mason tells me, reassuringly, that “he knew what he was doing”. It is a pity, then, that the same cannot be said for ESHRE.

Ultimately all this squirming is just nonsense. Either the information was public or it wasn’t. If it was public, then it can be reported—no matter what notice you put on the website. If it was private, it needed to be behind a password-protected area which would have excluded Mr Leake. This is all so obvious that it is astonishing it needs stating.

Moreover, what is also surprising is that this email criticising Mr Leake was sent without calling him to check the facts. This is all sadly starting to be a familiar refrain. We heard it last year with Paul Sutherland (Life on Mars). I’ve heard it again and again in my years as a journalist. Embargoes are broken and some journalist who was not part of the system is maligned for doing his job.

When people who have worked hard on press releases find their work ruined by the actions of a lone journalist outside their network, the instinct is to assign blame on the journalist. I’m afraid this does not wash. Embargoes are meaningless if the information is already available. I can slap an embargo on the results of the previous general election, that doesn't make it mean anything.

And the embargo system cannot be enforced through the bullying of journalists who choose not to work with this system. The ESHRE ought to apologise to Mr Leake, and do so quickly.

Its only a phone

2010-06-24T20:39:00.003Z

I had a reservation for a new Iphone from Apple today. Little did I realise that this would entitle me to arrive on the first day of launch and queue like a moron for up to 10 hours. So I went home empty handed. But I blogged about it on Economist's Babbage. Oh, and I posted the blog using the wifi at the Apple store in Regent's Street. Hehehe heh heh.

How did we get here?

2010-06-23T10:45:00.006Z

Only two years ago The Stern Review concluded that preventing deforestation was a vital step towards curbing climate change. In his summary report he wrote: "At a national level, defining property rights to forestland, and determining the rights and responsibilities of landowners, communities and loggers, is key to effective forest management. This should involve local communities, respect informal rights and social structures, work with development goals and reinforce the process of protecting the forests."

Some countries have well-established customary rights, ownership from long and continual use. One might think that this would be a strong basis for action to protect forests but apparently not. Over in Papua New Guinea, the government seems to have decided to give itself the power to remove any rights to consultation with landowners over activities on their land, or to allow citizens to challenge such decisions in the courts. These actions seem extraordinary. I would guess they are a response to the fact that many landowners have decided to sign up to carbon deals with private companies, some of which have involved dubious activities. But even so, Stern had it bang on: respect informal rights. Don't undermine them.

The real question is whether any international agency or government is going to endorse such extraordinary behaviour by funding deforestation projects in PNG?

If you want, you can sign the petition to reverse the Environment Act amendments.

Update:

Radio NewZealand's coverage of this new law.

Reader Lucas Winston sends link with further background to new law.

In deep water

2010-05-05T19:01:00.002Z

I've been working on the oil spill. Over the weekend my piece picked up significant traffic on the website. In the office, it has been all hands on deck for a special report. And I've just posted a blog about the Deepwater Response website.

Moonlighting

2010-04-30T16:18:00.003Z

In the last few weeks The Economist has started up a new technology blog called Babbage. I've been posting a few items on this. I suspect that it is an attempt by my employer to mop up every last creative word that I have inside of me, and the attempt seems to be working. Since Babbage launched I've not posted a thing.

Things have been busy. The section head is away, I've been writing and editing at times. In no particular order, and not necessarily comprehensively. I had a lot of good feedback over these two pieces in particular.

Leader - Ban the trade in tuna but set a path to sustainable exploitation, March 18th, 2010.
A ban on the trade of bluefin is rejected, March 18th, 2010.

Oh, one other piece of information. Apparently I upset the elephant people so much at CITES, with my daring questions about where the evidence is to show that ivory sales increase poaching, that I became known as "the Dragon lady from The Economist". I really like that. Thanks to Iain Douglas Hamilton for letting me know. I'm thinking of getting a tattoo or something.

(* Update -4.5.10-: One of the authors of a recent Science paper, on the ivory trade, which includes Iain Douglas Hamilton, writes to tell me that this paragraph may imply to some readers that one of the authors of this paper dubbed me "The Dragon Lady". Such a suggestion was absolutely not my intention and I have no evidence, nor reason to believe, this is the case at all.)

To everyone working on ivory and elephants, please direct your time and attention to producing some good evidence that links one-off sales with increases in poaching. It is far more productive than hurling abuse, and it will give me something to write about when it arrives.

Recent articles

The fly - in a flap about Drosophila, April 29th, 2010

Whales - the fiant compromise (jointly authored with Ken Cukier in Tokyo), April 29th, 2010.

Cosmic archeology - new ways to hunt for extraterrestrials, April 15th, 2010. (One letter writer accuses me of ignoring UFOs as evidence for aliens.)

Endangered species
Leader - Ban the trade in tuna but set a path to sustainable exploitation, March 18th, 2010.

A ban on the trade of bluefin is rejected, March 18th, 2010.

Aftermath of CITES - How the elephant hurt the bluefin, March 25th, 2010

Green.view, While stocks last, March 16th, 2010.

And various Babbage posts, GPS, Building Design, Electronic voting,

Fin

2010-03-25T12:54:00.003Z

DOHA

It has been a pretty gloomy week for shark protection at the convention to protect endangered species, this year being held in Qatar. Although Japan pursued what it felt to be a princpled attack on the inclusion of marine species in CITES, particularly in the case of the sharks it is difficult to see how any other organisation could have been as effective in controlling the trade of sharks as CITES. However the reasons for this attack are explored in more detail in a piece published in The Economist later today.

After two weeks, what has the meeting to show for itself? A handful of iguanas and frogs, and a bettle, have trade protection. EU nations spent most of their time bickering between themselves, rather than lobbying other countries. The Americans went in with high hopes, but came out empty-handed, despite having a a big team here and having had several years to prepare. Japan was an effective force in getting exactly what it wanted. It helped, of course, that it takes a two-thirds majority to vote to grant a listing.

Although Appendix 1 listing for bluefin tuna would have been a good idea, it does seem that the organisation that currently manages the bluefin (ICCAT) is changing its tune, although the extent to which the secretariat can actually hold contracting parties to these words that follow remains unclear.

At the end of the CITES meeting, the chair of ICCAT, Fabio Hazin, said:

"the management measures adopted by ICCAT last year to rebuild this species and manage the fisheries were sound and in full conformity with the scientific advice. But much more important, Mr. Chairman, the measures adopted were not taken just as a way to escape from the risk of having the bluefin tuna listed by CITES. They were indeed the inauguration of a new era in ICCAT, in which management measures not in full conformity with scientific advice are no longer a possibility.

For those who have concern that ICCAT Contracting parties could have second thoughts in regard of the measures adopted last year, I can assure you that setting Total Allowable Catches beyond the levels scientifically advised as necessary to ensure sustainability of tuna stocks under ICCAT’s mandate shall no longer be acceptable to the CPCs [contracting parties]."

The fight for bluefin goes on to Paris in November.

Error limits at CITES

2010-03-23T17:41:00.004Z

DOHA
At CITES meetings governments vote on whether or not to support a ban, or a limitation, in the trade of an endangered species.

Here in Doha, there is an electronic voting system. About 137 governments (of a total of around 180) have turned up. They put a card into the voting machine, then they press the buttons to vote. I've not been here for the full meeting, but from memory I'm absolutely certain that if you press '2' you vote yes. If you press '3' you vote no. And if you press '4' you abstain.

Earlier today, during the Porbeagle vote, the CITES voting system failed and two nations were not able to record their vote. The system was reset. The chair asked everyone to vote 'yes' to test the system. Of the 137 nations that voted yes, 7 hit 'no' and 2 hit 'abstain'.

Unless I'm greatly mistaken, this gives us an error level of 9 for the voting at CITES. In other words, if 100 parties intend to vote yes, about 6.5% will accidentally vote another way. (I know, hard to believe it is so difficult to press a button.)

The interesting observsation is that this is an argument for proposing the hammerhead shark again for a vote at the Plenary meeting tomorrow and Thursday. The hammerhead failed by only five votes.

The story so far..

2010-03-23T13:29:00.004Z

DOHA
CITES convention has closed its main committee phase, and will end with the plenary. More news is expected as the hammerhead shark seems likely to be returned to discussion, as too the Zambian proposal to downlist its elephant populations from Appendix 1 to Appendix 2.

Coverage of CITES so far:

IT WAS a moment of some drama when delegates assembled in Doha came to vote on a ban in the trade in bluefin tuna on March 18th. The previous evening many representatives of the 175 member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) had been at a reception at the Japanese embassy. Prominent on the menu was bluefin tuna sushi. (more...)

Eaten away
A ban on the trade in bluefin tuna is rejected, Mar 18th 2010

Fin times
Ban the trade in bluefin tuna—but set a clear path to sustainable exploitation, Mar 18th 2010

While stocks last
Some ivory sales are a good idea. This one isn’t, Mar 16th 2010

Selling wildlife

2010-03-23T05:56:00.003Z

DOHA

Interesting few days in Doha at the CITES convention. The politics are fascinating. Many species have not fared as well here as conservationists had expected. With the corals and bluefin failing to gain a listing on this trade convention.

I will be chairing a side event today in a room near the press centre.

CITES Roundtable: How business contributes to wildlife conservation

Every day, the planet's nearly 7 billion people are consuming biodiversity without knowing it, ignoring the source. Cancer medicines, food delicacies, lipsticks, chewing gums, perfumes, clothes
and many other products contain ingredients provided by wild nature. When a species arrives on a CITES list, it can be seen as the result of a collective failure. Sometimes those failures rest clearly with unregulated markets, but there are many cases where governments, corporations and consumers are inadvertently pursuing unsustainable agendas with regard to the use of our natural capital. For instance, overfishing and excessive logging are destroying marine and forest
life every day. Sourcing, traceability and reputation are three keyissues that need to be addressed if the world is to manage the business risks to biodiversity in a more responsible manner.

The debate would be articulated around the harvesting, transport and retailing aspects of the business in reptile skins. It will ask what can be done to help business to plot a course from unsustainable to sustainable businesses? How do we rebalance the conservation responsibility along the whole value chain?

James MacGregor, International Institute for Environment and Development
Giannina Santiago, Government of Columbia
Don Ashley, International Alligator Crocodile Trade Study
Burak Cakmak, Director of CSR, Gucci
Eduardo Escobedo, Economic Affairs Officer, UNCTAD BioTrade

Heading for Doha

2010-03-14T19:45:00.004Z

The CITES meeting has just started in Doha and running until the 25th of March...

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will consider how best to regulate trade in animals and plants. This year among the many proposals the bluefin tuna is proposed for a complete ban in trade, and Zambia and Tanzania want to sell some ivory. There will be discussions about sharks, corals, the polar bear and the bobcat.

I'll be filing one or two pieces on the CITES meeting. One, on elephants, is due to appear in our Green.view column on Tuesday, if all goes to plan.

I'll be heading out to Doha on Saturday 20th, and I'll be there through until the end of the event on the 25th. I'll be on a pretty tight schedule while I am there, so the best way to contact me is to send me an email.

Green vs Green

2010-03-11T15:23:00.013Z

A Bolivian rainforest conservation project Noel Kempff comes in for a bit of kicking in The Guardian's Greenwash column. This picks up on John Hari's piece in The Nation earlier this month. And Chris Lang also mentions it in a recent REDD-Monitor. The basic premise of The Guardian piece, and the parts of The Nation piece that mention Noel Kempff, is that the project is a scam because it promised to avoid lots of CO2 emissions but didn't.

The Guardian says, "Last autumn Greenpeace dubbed the Neol [sic] Kempff project a 'carbon scam'."

The Nation says, "The project had to admit it had saved 5.8 million tons or less--a tenth of the amount it had originally claimed. Greenpeace says even this is a huge overestimate. It's a Potemkin forest for the polluters. "

So given that no carbon offsets have been created, where exactly is the scam?

Let us back track. Last year, Greenpeace did an investigation into the Bolivian project known as Noel Kempff. The Noel Kempff project was led by US conservation organisation The Nature Conservancy (TNC). TNC wanted to save an area of rainforest, work out the greenhouse gas emissions savings made and potentially generate carbon offsets which could be sold to its partners (two energy-producing companies).

When the project began, over a decade ago, the idea of forest offsets were new and nobody had any idea the extent of the emissions savings that might be possible---so a guess was made. The project was going to have to do some seriously investigative carbon accounting. It did. It found that only a tenth of the carbon was saved. This isn't suspicious. This is the way science works.

Before I continue, I need to declare a conflict of interest. Last year, The Nature Conservancy paid my economy ticket flight to talk to a group of their scientists about science journalism at their centre on Santa Cruz island. (I was there with some other journalists doing the same thing, including Juliet Eilperin from the Washington Post, and Ken Weiss from the LA Times. I met some of TNCs people, although none that connect to this story as far as I am aware.)

More importantly, though, later in the year I found myself researching something on palm oil and talking with Greenpeace. And it was Greenpeace that introduced me to the Noel Kempff project, told me that TNC was involved, and said a report was coming. At some point, when I came to write on REDD-related issues, I was told about its concerns over Noel Kempff in more detail. Interesting, I said but I need to put these questions to TNC. (Greenpeace were hesitant about doing this, but I went ahead anyway.)

In an email on August 25th I wrote to one of TNC's press officers:

"One thing I wanted to ask TNC about was the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project in Bolivia, which TNC funded to 2.6m along with a bunch of energy companies. It was an early avoided deforestation scheme started in 97, with an eye on Kyoto. But avoided deforestation didn't get approved in Kyoto as we all know, so it generated voluntary credits under some 1605B scheme in the US.

I understand Greenpeace are working on something about Noel Kempff and they are going to say that auditors found massive amounts of leakage (15-43%; quite a large error however on this) and while the project promised benefits of about 60m metric tons, this has been reduced to only 5.8m, a reduction of 90% in the carbon benefits--which means all the power companies are using much higher figures for their offsets than are actually being offset albeit voluntarily.

They also tell me, something that is hard to believe, that seems to be some idea that these credits could now be revived and put through as a REDD type project. Would you be able to comment on any of this?"

The answers I got from TNC were good ones (all pasted below). This seemed most significant, "To date no certified offsets (credits) have yet been issued to any of the partners. Until that happens, the project partners cannot report or use certified offsets in any voluntary or compliance carbon credit regime.

Sadly, TNC's answer also showed that the issue was far too technical to resolve in the few lines I had----so Noel Kempff ended up as overmatter. It was irritating at the time but TNC said its carbon policy people were trying to talk to Greenpeace, and I figured that a number of these technical issues could get ironed out prior to the report, or at least discussed in some scientific context.
How wrong one can be. A few months on and I don't think either the readers of The Guardian, The Nation, nor (sorry Chris) REDD-Monitor, have had really much chance to hear from TNC about what it thinks of the project, which is a shame because it is pretty interesting.

The Guardian's Fred Pearce described it as "the ultimate greenwash nightmare", and he goes on to write "Both BP and AEP [American Electric Power] referred questions about the progress of the project to The Nature Conservancy." There is a reason for this.

And John Hari makes it quite plain what he thinks of TNC and Conservation International when he writes, "They are not part of the environmental movement: they are polluter-funded leeches sucking on the flesh of environmentalism, leaving it weaker and depleted."

The question of whether business is having an influence on these groups is an important one. But I'd only say that organisations are made up of individuals, and based on the employees of these organisations that I've met, I would be hard pushed to describe any one of them as "sucking on the flesh of environmentalism". But, then, I would freely admit that I'm probably quite biased towards having a positive view of the contribution that business can make to conservation. I spend a lot of my time writing about economically rational use of the environment and why business will be part of the solution. For one thing we need businesses to put a fair price on the environment, which they can pass to consumers so that we can all pay the real costs of our consumption and lifestyle. If putting a price on CO2 means that the energy companies pay for some forest carbon offsets this is not bad if they actually work.

Is there a risk that some businesses will be looking towards short-term goals of promotion rather than long-term goals of sustainability? Of course.

Rights and wrongs
Now at this stage I'll be brutally honest. I'm not sure I know who is right over Noel Kempff Greepeace or TNC. But I do fear that Greenpeace is turning Noel Kempff into a political football.
There are several things going on. Firstly, at a simple level, the science of carbon accounting has moved on quite a lot from 1996. That isn't surprising or interesting. Secondly, Greenpeace does not like projects such as Noel Kempff, which account for carbon at a local level. Because deforestation has shifted, the benefits of the project may be negligible. Having said which, hindsight is a wonderful thing and one might imagine that if Noel Kempff was created today, that it would involve other national-level policies to discourage deforestation.

Sub-national accounting is problematic, lets be honest, Greenpeace do have a point. But if asked, TNC would probably argue that you have to start from somewhere and end up with national-level accounting. As the article in The Nation reflects, there is a lot of suspicion about such a viewpoint. Is it really coming from TNC or its business sponsors who, in reality, don't intend for national-level accounting to happen? Finally, there is the ultimate political football, forest offsets for US domestic emissions. For those that don't want sub-national accounting to be part of future plans in America, creating controversy over this US-backed project seems an obvious strategy.

Overmatter: Questions were put to Karen Foerstel, at The Nature Conservancy press and publicity department about Noel Kempff project. Her response, on 26/8/09:

"We have not seen any report from Greenpeace, nor has Greenpeace contacted us about the Noel Kempff project, so we can’t respond to what may be in that report.

However, below you will find answers to your specific questions.

Overall, the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project was launched as a pilot project with the intent of testing and refining the science of forest carbon accounting and monitoring, and developing best practices for future REDD activities. Already, the Noel Kempff project has resulted in the creation of a set of methods that are being used in other projects (such as the World Bank BioCarbon Fund projects) and in standards (such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard).

Since the beginning of the project, the Conservancy and its partners have strived to be fully transparent, documenting carbon monitoring, accounting for leakage, and continually updating our methods based on lessons learned. As the world’s first REDD project to be certified by a third party, all partners understood that this was a pilot project that would test different methods and provide valuable lessons learned for future REDD projects.

Noel Kempff has allowed us to learn by doing and to pave the road for future REDD projects. We and our partners are working hard to make sure that any REDD regime created in the future is based on the highest standards of accountability and science.

Below are answers to your specific questions. I can set up a phone interview with our climate experts working on this projects if you have any further questions.

1) “auditors found massive amounts of leakage (15-43%)”

In verifying the carbon benefits of the Noel Kempff project in 2005, SGS (Societe Generale de Surveillance), a Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism approved verifier/auditor, found that leakage for the Noel Kempff project is 11%.

The 15 to 43% figure you refer to comes from a preliminary analysis that was conducted by Brent Sohngen, a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics at Ohio State University. Sohngen created a model of the Bolivian timber market and applied that model to estimate the change in logging across Bolivia that would result from the cessation of logging on the three timber concessions that were retired as part of the Noel Kempff project.

Sohngen’s model predicted that logging would increase in the remaining Bolivian timber concessions, and that leakage could range from 14% to 43%. The higher leakage estimate was based on an assumption that timber prices in Bolivia would be highly sensitive to supply changes.

But, because timber prices in Bolivia are not highly sensitive to supply changes (the country is considered a “pricetaker” not “price-setter”), a final estimate of 14% was used to calculate leakage! from 1997‐ 2005. But, again, when SGS verified carbon benefits in 2005, it found overall leakage for the program to be 11%.

2) “While the project promised benefits of about 60m metric tons, this has been reduced to only 5.8m.”

Noel Kempff was designed as a pilot project and proposed for inclusion in the US Initiative for Joint Implementation (USIJI) in 1996. (The USIJI has since become obsolete with the US’s failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol). In the USIJI proposal an initial estimate of the carbon benefits of the project was made, based on the best data available at that time. That estimate was that 53 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent would be prevented from being released over a 30-year period.

However, in the USIJI proposal and in the agreement signed by the project partners, it clearly stated that this initial estimate would be refined as targeted research was carried out during the course of project implementation. The project partners, including the energy companies, understood that this was a pilot project and no guarantees (or promises) were made as to a set amount of carbon benefits that would result from the project, nor whether the avoided emissions from forest protection projects would even be eligible in future compliance regimes.

Over the past 13 years, the Noel Kempff partners have pioneered methods to determine the carbon benefits of reducing degradation (stopping logging) and reducing deforestation. This work has created a set of methods that are being used in other projects (such as the World Bank BioCarbon Fund projects) and in standards (such as the Voluntary Carbon
Standard) today. The project partners have documented and reported on the advancements made and the revisions to the carbon estimates over time. We and the other project partners are very proud that other projects and programs are now applying the methods developed for Noel Kempff.

As new methods were created, tested, and applied, the carbon benefits of Noel Kempff were revised, with updates to the numbers occurring approximately every two years. In 2005, the Government of Bolivia selected SGS to verify the project benefits. SGS applied the applicable standards for afforestation and reforestation projects created under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism to verify the project benefits. The verified results are that between 1997 and 2005 1,034,107 metric tons of CO2 equivalent were prevented from being released. SGS estimates that over a 30-year period (1997-2026) 5,836,961 metric tons of CO2 equivalent will be prevented from being released.

3) “All the power companies are using much higher figures for their offsets than are actually being offset albeit voluntarily.”

To date no certified offsets (credits) have yet been issued to any of the partners. Until that happens, the project partners cannot report or use certified offsets in any voluntary or compliance carbon credit regime.

Also, as you know, how - and if - forest carbon credits will be accepted under future markets is still being debated. It is unclear if the carbon benefits from the Noel Kempff project would be eligible under a future climate/carbon compliance regime. Such regimes usually have a cut off dates for project inclusion. For example, under the Clean Development Mechanism, afforestation and reforestation projects must have a start date after January 1, 2000. It will all depend on the rules of the regime.

Update from the forests of Papua New Guinea

2010-03-02T22:47:00.003Z

As some readers of this blog will recall, I have written quite a bit in the last year about Papua New Guinea—particularly this country’s flirtation with generating carbon credits from its abundant forestry resources. (The idea being that payments will be made from the rich carbon emitting countries to the poorer countries who choose not to cut down trees and thereby avoid emissions of carbon associated with deforestation.)

While the government of Papua New Guinea has been trying to set up an approved scheme through official channels (via payments from other donor governments such as Norway as well as the UN), the private sector has been far quicker off the mark. One entrepreneur in particular having signed up many of the country's forest landowners to “broker” their carbon on international markets. These are the "guilt" markets whereby offsets are sold to voluntarily to buyers such as airline passengers or corporations that emit a lot of carbon and wish to green up their image.

The international donors are at a loss. Should they support the government's attempt to participate this market? This decision is difficult because Papua New Guinea is still reeling from the affair of irregular carbon credits produced by the government's own office of climate change (OCC).

No report has emerged into the collapse of the OCC last year, and as time progresses it seems less likely that one will appear. This is wrong. A major problem emerged last year, and no questions have been answered. Those who live in Papua New Guinea say this is just the way the place works.

I would argue that, as someone said recently: sunlight is the best disinfectant. Without transparency, things will continue to fester and it will make it impossible for the government to attract the international donors that it wants.

Ilya Gridneff, the Australian Associated Press reporter in Papua New Guinea, and I have been writing about this on and off since the middle of last year. (We were jointly awarded a UN climate-reporting prize in December.)

Ilya has a fine update on the ongoing saga here.

(Another recent item is here.)

Welcome to the genetic revolution

2010-02-24T19:37:00.005Z

San Diego

I leave today for London. But as I woke this morning at 5.30am, I remembered that I had one last job to do before leaving. The bay was inky black and the street lights around the harbour were still twinkling. There, on my bedside table was an empty plastic sample tube.

I rubbed my eyes, sat up and got to work spitting in the tube. The instructions told me, “do not eat, drink, smoke, chew anything, brush your teeth or rinse your mouth for at least 60 minutes prior to collecting your saliva”. A couple of mouthfuls was all it took to reach the fill line, then I screwed on the blue cap and a clear preserving fluid ran into it. I shook it a bit, put the tube into a bag and Fedexed it off to a local company called Pathway Genomics. Welcome to the genetic revolution. Please deposit your DNA on the way in.

***

Pathway has been set up in competition to some of the consumer genomics companies launched a year or two ago. 23andme, Navigenics and deCODEme. It offers a surprising number of different tests, for $399. Navigenics cost $999, and 23andme costs $499. deCODEme is also quite pricey but this company is bankrupt at present and has been bought up. The fate of its consumer genetics division remains unclear. Another company, Counsyl, has also started up just offering to test for carrier genes of rare conditions ($349), which makes Pathway look like pretty good value.

***

Of course when taking this test this morning there were all sorts of things going through my mind. Excitement at discovery and fear of finding out something bad. Of course, genes are not destiny. But they do tell you something about what might make you sick, and most of us like to go through life without having to think about this sort of thing. And when I visited the lab yesterday, I was told that I could actually register so that if there was anything I didn't want to know about, I could chose not to have these results shown to me (or Pathway's genetic counsellors that review their customers' data).

None of us are perfect, something that becomes increasingly evident as we age. Genetic information means that I'll have the best information possible to understand how to look after this body through, I hope, many more decades alive on this planet. What would be better for me, an hour doing cardiovascular training or yoga or swimming? Maybe my health and genetic profile will give me some clues about how best to look after myself.

I'd also be interested in any clues to my ancestry (also promised as part of the test), and on which migratory path they took around the globe. The tests will also tell me if I am a carrier of any genetic mutations that can cause genetic disorders, and also whether my genes are likely to cause any adverse responses to drugs that are given for medical conditions.

I'm particularly thrilled about discovering one very trivial piece of information, whether I have a fast or slow caffeine metabolism. If you have a slow caffeine metabolism it means that caffeine hangs around your body far longer and it is much more likely to give you a heart attack.

Libel reform

2010-02-23T23:34:00.002Z

* Picture creditRobert Sharp / English PEN

An important case was heard today, Tuesday 23rd February, at the Royal Courts of Justice in the United Kingdom.

It was the case of Simon Singh v the British Chiropractic Association. This case has turned into a focal point for the broader issue of libel reform.

Libel reform is an issue that a lot of people should be interested in...

Got kids? Don't think you are free to discuss what you think of childcare ideas with other parents on the web. Link

Rely on new medicines and drugs? Don't think that academics are free to raise any doubts they have about their efficacy or safety. Link

Got a business or reputation to protect? Don't think that Britain's restrictive and archaic libel laws protect you. They don't, unless you happen to have enormously deep pockets. The cost also constrains newspapers from publishing the truth. Link.

Think that because you live abroad, British libel laws don't affect you? Think again. If you publish or speak in the UK, British laws apply to you--no matter how few copies of your words are read here. Link. Also see Wikipedia on Libel Tourism.

Indeed, Britain's libel laws are causing so much trouble overseas several US states have introduced laws to protect American citizens from enforcement of legal settlements in foreign jurisdictions such as Britain. A federal law is before US Congress.

Libel reform affects everyone. We need laws designed for the 21st century. Laws that consider both freedom of speech and access to the law.

If you agree.......please sign the petition, and ask your friends to sign it too. 100,000 signatures are needed.

Who writes Science and Technology at the Economist?

2010-02-23T02:57:00.010Z

San Diego

A lot of journalists come to the AAAS meeting every year. And when I am faced with a lot of other journalists, I get asked a lot of the same questions about The Economist. I thought I'd answer a few of them.

Who writes what in the Science section?

Such a question is understandable. The issue of who writes what is opaque, because we write anonymously. (More about this subject is in this document.) But just because we write without bylines does not mean we are secretive about what we write, or who writes about what.

You can always ask to be put in touch with the author of an article by calling the office, or you can use the Media Directory to find out who writes about what. There is even a web form which you can use to contact individual writers.

If you were to sift through this online directory, you could easily work out who does what so this is breaking no confidences. But before I go further, may I please ask that if you work for one of those dreadful media disks, please don't put our names on without asking first. For those uninitiated into the world of public relations, there are a number of companies that compile the names and contact details of every journalist on the planet, along with the things they are supposed to be interested in.

The end result is that anyone who buys the disk can send mass mail outs of their inane press releases to journalists. Its essentially a form of high-grade spam. It may be that for every hundred people who use such disks there is one legitimate person who just wants to get in touch with something appropriate, but the signal-to-noise ratio is so high with these disks that I always ask to be removed.

Who writes the Science and Technology at the Economist?
Geoffrey Carr, is the science editor, when he isn't editing he has particular interests in human evolution, genomics, biotechnology, AIDS, malaria and evolution.

Paul Markillie writes about technology, and writes about cars in our wonderful consumer magazine Intelligent Life, and stands in for Geoff when he is away.

Vijay Vaitheeswaran, our healthcare correspondent, covers medicine (as well as pharma for the business section)

Oliver Morton, our energy and environment editor, covers climate change and other environment stories, and our online column green.view

Tom Standage, business affairs editor and editor of Technology Quarterly supplement

Natasha Loder (me!), science and technology correspondent, cover lots of things (as described below), green.view

In addition to the writers mentioned we have a network of freelancers, correspondents and stringers around the world who contribute.

Similarly, science and technology section writers may write for other sections of the paper, such as Business (Edward McBride), International (Bruce Clark), or United States (Chris Lockwood).

I write about most things that don't have a home except chemistry, maths and physics. I avoid these because, frankly, they are hard to write well about.

I've specialised over the years on space, forestry, marine biology and various evolution-linked stories. As some of our writers work for other sections, I may find myself doing odds and ends as news arises.

Do you hire freelancers?
Some. But we don't pay well. For Science you should offer us things that are not in the main journals, and if there is a press release you should add value to this in some way with a new angle or piece of information that has not been used or picked up on. You should keep an eye on the kind of things that we write about if you want to pitch successfully.

Please don't email me pitches, I only edit from time-to-time and I prefer not to regularly receive pitches about things that I may decide to write on. Pitches should go to the science editor.

Do you mind writing anonymously?
No, or I wouldn't work here.

But doesn't it bother you, not getting a byline?
Nope.

Science in the courtroom

2010-02-22T20:07:00.008Z

San Diego

The AAAS meeting in San Diego has been something of a blur. The highlight so far has been a session called The Brain on Trial, which was an attempt to reproduce the courtroom discussion surrounding the admissibility of evidence from an MRI scan of the brain in a court case. Judge Luis A. Rodriguez, from the Superior Court of California in the County of Orange, presided over the session. There were lawyers for the prosecution and the defense, and two expert witnesses in neuroscience.

This session was the AAAS at its best. Well thought out, and well planned. The scenario was a trial in to the murder of a woman called Jane Owens by a former lover Will Johnson. Will Johnson is on trial for first degree murder, however the defense would like to argue that he has a lesion on his brain that makes him incapable of forming an intent to kill--and therefore could not have planned to murder Jane Owens.

Theoretically, lesions of the type that Mr Johnson has (in the cortex, which is the planning region of the brain) could lead to a failure to form an intent to kill, it equally might leave him completely or mostly normal. In addition, one would expect that such a failure in ability to plan would be reflected in his everyday life as well, from getting up in the morning to put on his pants, to making his dinner at night.

The difficulty that arises with the evidence of a lesion that no scientific data exist that would help a juror decide how likely this lesion was a factor in the murder. Indeed, many people have lesions in their brain and walk around entirely unaware of them.

The prosecution didn't want it admitted in evidence, and argued it would be likely to confuse, mislead and take a great deal of court time to discuss. The defense wanted it included, arguing it was evidence. The scientific experts provided different views of the evidence, according to which side they represented, but both would agree that the lesion was far from proof that Mr Johnson could not have formed an intent to kill.

The judge took the not-unreasonable view that it was up to the jury to decide. But of course the prosecution then used this evidence to suggest there was "reasonable doubt". It was fascinating to watch, and the audience voting (as jurors) suggested that such evidence would sway them from a conviction for first-degree murder.

This was a hypothetical example, and any court case would (one would hope) not end up hanging on a dodgy MRI scan (and with an absence of psychological evidence of past or current mental problems). But the entire session was a graphic window into how science can be used in the courtroom.

Whether or not scientists believe that their research is reliable evidence of anything, it may well appear in the courtroom.

San Diego here I come...

2010-02-17T16:10:00.003Z

The boss is unwell, so I've been drafted in at the last minute to cover the AAAS Science Festival in San Diego this year. I leave tomorrow.

Forest footprint disclosure

2010-02-10T15:57:00.005Z

Last Wednesday, the Forest Footprint Disclosure (FDD) project unwrapped its first report in London. This new organisation, funded in part by the British government, aims to highlight the amount of forest destruction involved in big business. A "forest footprint" indicates the extent to which corporations are relying on unsustainable practices, such as rainforest destruction, to do business.

On the face of it, one might wonder why Fortune 500 companies would be willing to investigate, and then reveal, the extent to which the products they buy are from unsustainable, or even downright illegal, sources. And, true enough only 35 companies participated in the FFD this first year.

It turns out, though, that some companies are interested in doing this. One reason is the reputation risk that may come with their brand, whether it is Clarke's shoes, Dove or Kit Kat, companies have a great deal of money banked on a brand, and they know what damage can be done when the NGOs get nasty.

Another reason, partly related to this, is that dealing with unsustainable ways, or with practices that are likely to bring in bad PR (like cutting virgin rainforest), is also something that asset managers want to know. This sort of project helps investors identify how an organisation’s activities and supply chains contribute to deforestation, and how this links with their forest footprint and their value. FFD says it is backed by 34 financial institutions with $3.5 trillion in collective assets under management.

At the end of the day, companies need to know the provenance of the products they buy. They need to know whether what they sell is legal and sustainable. The issue of child labour harmed parts of the clothing industry, and so there is the possibility that rainforest destruction could become a similar kind of problem. Pictures of dead orangutans are powerful, and shareholders don't like it. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Indices do affect companies. Access to Medicines index, I hear, is already leading companies to change their policies towards drug access.

On a final word, for now, on the FDD. It brought together some quite interesting people from both sides of the fence. From the corporate world and the green NGOs. This conversation, which I caught part of, was overheard...

Paper industry man: Why did you call for a 12-month moratorium on cutting forests?

Green NGO man: We didn't, we called for a 12-month moratorium on cutting virgin rainforest for paper?

Paper industry: But we don't cut virgin rainforest for paper.

Green NGO: What about [unclear name of place in Asia]?

Paper industry: That's degraded land.

Green NGO: We don't think so.

Paper industry: Well why don't I locate the satellite images so we can sit down and show you.

Green NGO: Fine, but you'll also need to look at where the concessions are.

Paper industry: Well we only take out what we call wood residues from these areas.

Green NGO: Well we call it virgin rainforest.

One-third less hungry

2010-02-05T14:35:00.006Z

It never ceases to amaze me that some pieces of research are necessary. In the latest report from the Annals of Unsurprising Research, comes a study that shows that preventing humans from fishing is good for the other fish-eating animals. A study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society says that breeding African penguins spent one-third less time looking for food within three months of closing a 20-km zone to purse-seine fisheries around a major colony, while birds in a comparable colony 50km away increased their foraging effort.

Quantifying this sort of thing is probably helpful, but is it really that surprising?

Ready to melt in 45 minutes

2010-01-21T21:58:00.008Z

The year has barely started and already life seems to be running along at a fast clip. Glaciers that refuse to melt, biodiversity and ecosystems demanding payment, and a hole under the water line of the deforestation agenda. More, too, on PNG.

Glaciers
So the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) messed up and included a bogus fact in its report about melting glaciers. Then it made things worse by not wanting to correct it when it had the chance. Now would be a good time for the IPCC to do a bit of soul searching and confess if there is anything else in its multi-volume tome we might need to know about. The one thing that would kill the IPCC , and the climate consensus dead, would be a damaging drip, drip, drip of stories emerge about legitimate concerns over its reports that were ignored or papered-over. More of this kind of thing and we will see headlines that the IPCC sexed up its reports. With the failure of Copenhagen, and any international action on climate change, that would be bad for any actions to tackle the problem.

For anyone seeking to undermine the current climate change agenda, an obvious line of attack is to steadily undermine the scientific credibility of the evidence and to throw as much mud and confusion that genuine controversy seems to emerge. Then journalists must go back to balancing their stories about climate change (with a climate denier for every climate change scientist). Hacked emails and melting glaciers may only be the start.

My colleague Oliver has composed a fine article on the non-melting glaciers earlier this month.

Biodiversity
2010 is a big year for biodiversity. Biodiversity has always been the poor sister of climate change. Always the bridesmaid, and never the bride. But this year it get its shot at the limelight, with a meeting of the biodiversity convention coming up, and it being 'International Year of Biodiversity" as well as the bi-annual CITES meeting in March, we can expect plenty of media coverage of the biodiversity crisis, extinctions and international trade bans.

The Biodiversity Convention is an international treaty that seeks to conserve and make sustainable use of biodiversity, as well as to make sure there is a fair and equitable sharing of the benefits of genetic resource. There is a big meeting of the parties later this year, in Japan.

Practically every country in the world signed up in 1992. The US signed but never ratified. It now keeps company with Andorra and The Vatican as the non-signatories. The question on my mind is whether it would make any difference if the US did ratify? Most of the meeting will likely be taken up with reports documenting the decline of biodiversity around the world, how none of our targets for stemming this decline have been met, and a promise to do better next time. Then everyone will eat some sushi and fly home. Are these big meetings really the answer or should we be addressing the drivers of environmental damage, such as the systematic undervaluation of environmental goods and services?

I published something online this month about ecosystem services (the things that nature provides, like clean water and pollination) and biodiversity. Its about attempts to value the environment are worried about by people who care about biodiversity.

Price fixing: Why it is important to put a price on nature. Jan 18th, 2010.

Deforestation Finally, what has happened to the deforestation agenda? While Copenhagen got agreement on what a global deal on deforestation might look like, and some (but nowhere near enough) money.. it failed to get an agreement to cut emissions, which is what was needed to create demand for slowing the rate of deforestation in the first place.

So the United Nations "REDD" agenda (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) looks to be fatally holed beneath the waterline. But if REDD is dead, it may also be a case of long live REDD.

There is still a lot of activity in various fora, so it is not at all clear where things are and there are still likely going to be huge sums available for various forest-related activities. I'll blog about this a bit this year, with the tidbits I pick up here and there. The bad news is that things are looking messy, which is not what everyone wanted at all. More soon on this. I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on this.

To those of you who have written, and for whom I have failed to blog particular items or respond, my sincere apologies. I have a day job, and many other responsibilities, and time can be hard to find.

As for Papua New Guinea, I think it is time the government announced what it wants to do about its failed investigation into the Office of Climate Change. Last year, a scandal emerged involving forest carbon credits that appeared to have been endorsed by the government, on behalf of the United Nations, and issued to a private company. Besides reports by Ilya Gridneff and myself, there have been two television documentaries about the carbon cowboys.

A film is being made about deforestation and climate change called Two Degrees, which features PNG.

Everyone has been waiting for the report from this committee, but it looks like it may never come. I understand that all the key documents have vanished.

It is time that the international donors, the Australians, the Norwegians, the British and the World Bank, read PNG the riot act: clean up, or we will move out. If the report never appears, and the previous head of the office of climate change is merely bumped on to a cosy job in some quiet corner somewhere, perhaps in the diplomatic service, then the donors need to be ready to walk away. The point about getting a good deal is that you have to be prepared to walk away if the other side isn't playing by the rules. If there is no credible threat of a deal failing, then there is no chance of a credible deal.

The failure of Copenhagen

2009-12-22T23:57:00.003Z

I'm not intimate with the climate change negotiations, and have not reported on them or climate change except for a stint in November, but quite a few people have asked me what I thought of Copenhagen so here are my thoughts..... I'm disappointed, Copenhagen was a washout. You know that an event, or a deal, is a failure when people start redefining what success is after the event. Especially when success had been quite clearly defined to begin with as something else entirely.

We knew what we wanted: a legally binding deal over climate change, one with targets for emissions cuts and finance. Since November, the climate talks have been a car crash in slow motion. No doubt, behind the scenes, this crash has been going on for far longer. For me, the beginning of the end started on the penultimate day at the previous climate talks in Barcelona this November. It was apparent by Thursday that it was too late to get the legal deal that everyone had been aiming for over two years. I got very drunk that evening in a tapas bar that evening with environment correspondents from The Guardian, The Times, The Irish Times and The Telegraph. There was also someone from the RSPB, and a young man from Greenpeace who had travelled from the UK by train because he was ideologically opposed to travel by air. That evening, over one of many countless glasses of red wine I wondered how history would judge us, and judge this moment. I wondered whether I'd ever have to explain to my children why we couldn't agree to fix the world.

Will the next generation be laughing at us because some magic technofix solution solved the problem in a decade? Or will they be able to trace problems of climate, food and water supply and losses of biodiversity to our failure to master a global environmental problem of this kind?

In Barcelona, Yvo de Boer said that we could still get a legal deal but through a different route. First would come a political deal but a strong one with targets and commitments [sound of hollow laughter], which is then turned into a legal deal later on. In the end, five nations went into a huddle, had a group hug, took a collective bow and then went home for Christmas.
Although, lets be clear: it wasn't just hatched in the final hours. Negotiations over a political deal have been going on for some time during 2009, the only question is: how long?

If I were to guess, and this is a guess. I would suppose that the existence of a political deal had to remain secret until the UN talks were close to failure. Then the political deal could be produced like a rabbit out of the hat. Revealed too early, a political alternative suggests that some of the major players might not be quite so committed to the difficult and costly UN legal deal, when a lovely, fudgy, largely meaningless political deal is far preferable. A political agreement can be announced with great fanfare and everyone can go home with a warm feeling.

Avoided deforestation (REDD) as a climate reducing strategy, ironically, seems to be going strong--although without a commitment to cuts that Copenhagen was supposed to produce the market for carbon offsets related to forestry there is a big question of how much demand there will be for these.

If I were part of the political process, what I'd do next would be to try and put the blame squarely on the UN. Lets not blame the UN, everyone signed up for this process two years ago and to walk away with so little to show for all the effort is simply a testament to the failure of leadership by the world's largest carbon emitters.

As ever Kevin Grandia, at DeSmogBlog.com, puts it all far more pithily.

More of the green stuff wanted

2009-12-12T22:58:00.004Z

COPENHAGEN

Everyone loves trees. A lot of people think that climate change could be mitigated if we cut fewer of them down and left more standing.

Over the last few years, around the edges of the struggling climate change discussions, one of few areas of agreement has been on the merits of slowing down the rates of deforestation, and the costs of doing so. The Prince's Rainforest Project has been doing some important work in crystallising discussion around the sums of money needed to kick-start interim finance. So there are high hopes that some kind of agreement can come out of Copenhagen on forestry.

Against this backdrop, the Centre for International Forestry Research, has held a series of forest discussion days at the sidelines of climate change meetings of the last few years. One at Bali, one at Poznan and one at Copenhagen. Tomorrow is Forest Day 3. I will be chairing a subplenary on Mitigation.

"2009 is possibly the most important year for forests in living memory. We are in the final stretch of the road to Copenhagen, and COP 15, where negotiators expect to finalise a post-Kyoto global climate agreement in December. To coincide with the conference, CIFOR, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) and the Government of Denmark will host Forest Day 3. Forest Day 3 will build on the success of Forest Day 1 and 2 in helping to ensure forests are high on the agenda for future climate outcomes, and will pave the way forward in making these outcomes work beyond Copenhagen." Full Programme.

Forest Day 3 will be held on 13 December at the Radisson Blu Falconer Hotel & Conference Center, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Mitigation

11.00 – 12.45

Falconer Room

Co-hosts
CIFOR
World Agroforestry Centre

Abstract
Carbon emissions from land-use change are estimated to account for one-fifth of current global carbon emissions. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) has been promoted as an effective and efficient climate change mitigation option. Much of the debate has focused on the global architecture and how REDD+ can be included in a post-2012 climate agreement. Now is the time to increase the focus on national and local levels where the forests are found. The success of REDD+ in reducing emissions will depend on tackling profound market and governance failures. REDD+ policies must strengthen the institutional alignment of economic actors and the public interest, a challenge made more difficult by the complexity of the issues behind deforestation and the fact that many causes are external to the forest sector. Can this really be done? How do we introduce a transitional change instead of incremental improvements? Are global players and mechanisms up to the task? What about the resistance in countries and local communities? This subplenary will debate these controversial issues, seek answers to these questions and look to designing national REDD+ strategies that ensure climate-effective and cost-efficient reduction of carbon emissions with equitable impacts and co-benefits.

Moderator
Natasha Loder, The Economist

Panellists

Arild Angelsen, Professor, Norwegian University of Life Sciences
Vicky Corpuz, Executive Director and Chair, United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous People
Sara S. Kendall, Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety, Weyerhaeuser Company
Agus Purnomo, Head of Secretariat, National Council on Climate Change, Indonesia

Unpredictable weather: from Mojave to Copenhagen

2009-12-12T19:16:00.008Z

I've just returned from Mojave, California, where I attended the unveiling of a new spaceship, and have arrived in Copenhagen for the climate change meeting.

In Mojave I was lucky enough to witness the unveiling of Virgin Galactic's new spaceship, VSS Enterprise. It was an astonishing evening, with gale force winds rocking the marquee erected to shelter the 800 people (press, VIPs, astronauts) who came to witness the event.

In June 2004, I witnessed the flight of SpaceShipOne from this very runway in Mojave, in the full heat of the desert. The event on December 7th could not have been more different. A storm had blown in over the west coast of America, and the band of low pressure seemed to have its active edge right above the Mojave high desert plateau. Throughout the day, patches of blue skies fought with rain and clouds, until the end of the evening when the storm finally moved in.

When SpaceShipTwo was finally unveiled, it arrived from out of the darkness of a stormy night. There was dry ice and lighting, but nature threw more of a display than event management ever could. Wind and fog swirled around her as she appeared from the gloom. When Holly Branson (Richard Branson's daughter) smashed a champagne bottle it shattered into thousands of glittering green pieces which were instantly whipped across the runway. Burt Rutan's (designer of SpaceShipTwo) wife said she would be one of those who would be painstakingly picking these off the runway the next day.

I had to leave the party early to write a piece for The Economist. The next morning, Richard Branson told me that the marquee had to be evacuated when they were warned that winds of 115mph were coming. Only a few minutes after the area was cleared the entire marquee, all its contents (lighting and speakers) were blown away. It is very lucky that nobody was hurt. Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, told me afterwards that the only thing they found afterwards was the scale model of SpaceShipTwo.

A few days later and Copenhagen, by contrast, is windless. But the political weather is not too far from the gale force winds of Mojave. Walk outs, demonstrations, barbed comments from chief negotiators. What kind of climate deal will the world get from Copenhagen remains impossible to say. Even forestry, where it might be argued negotiations are more advanced and with greater agreement, the text is a mess and still a long way from being done according to insiders.

An interesting side note, one of Burt Rutan's hobbies (when he isn't designing innovative aeroplanes and spacecraft) is climate change. He thinks that the science behind anthropogenic global warming is overblown. I wish I thought he was right about this, it would make everything so much easier if climate change were a fiction. But for it to be true one would have to argue that thousands of the world's scientists, and many of the world's major scientific organisations, are involved in a conspiracy of silence.

Of course all this begs the question, should we be getting off the planet or saving it?

Award for coverage of climate change

2009-12-04T11:55:00.004Z

Ilya Gridneff of AP Australia and myself have just been awarded a Bronze medal by The Prince Albert Foundation/United Nations Correspondents Association Global Prize for coverage of Climate Change.

The award was made at UNCA's 2009 awards in New York and presented by Ban Ki Moon.

The award recognises our joint work on the subject of forestry in Papua New Guinea in the context of climate change negotiations, and was written in The Economist, Associated Press, as well as within this blog.

How your taxes pay to despoil the environment

2009-11-27T15:09:00.003Z

One of the many depressing things about overfishing is the extent to which taxpayers fund it through subsidies to the industry.

Rashid Sumaila at the University of British Columbia and colleagues have recently completed a study of how this works for deep-sea fish.

Deep-sea fish are long lived and slow growing, and as a consequence most of them are horribly over-exploited. The team studied the subsidies paid to bottom trawl fleets on the high seas--in other words, those outside of the exclusive waters owned by nations. Fisheries subsidies to these fleets are about $152m per year, about 25% of the total landed value of the fish.

Economic data for bottom trawlers suggest that the profit is usually no more than 10% of the landed value. Without these subsidies, says economist Dr Sumaila, most of the world's bottom trawl fleet would be operating at a loss and unable to fish. Simply cutting this funding would have a major effect on reducing the current threat to deep-sea and high-seas fish stocks.

Think such misspending of your money is bad? It is a drop in the ocean compared to the billions of dollars spent annually that encourage the use of fossil fuels. Cutting fossil fuel subsidies, say studies by the International Energy Agency and the Organisation for Economic Development, would result in a carbon saving of 10% by 2020.

Correspondent's Diary

2009-11-20T14:36:00.001Z

Full week of my Barcelona diary is available online at The Economist.

The buzz from Buzz

2009-11-17T00:50:00.006Z

Time magazine has voted NASA's Ares 1 rocket one of the 50 inventions of the year. "The best and smartest and coolest thing built in 2009 — a machine that can launch human beings to cosmic destinations we'd never considered before — is the fruit of a very old family tree, one with branches grand, historic and even wicked.

In a rather hilarious contrast, Buzz Aldrin rather blew the lid on the recent "Ares" launch in an article on Huffington Post on November 9th.

"Yes, the rocket that thundered aloft from NASA's Launch Pad 39B sure looked like an Ares 1. But that's where the resemblance stops. Turns out the solid booster was - literally - bought from the Space Shuttle program, since a five-segment booster being designed for Ares wasn't ready. So they put a fake can on top of the four-segmented motor to look like the real thing. Since the real Ares' upper stage rocket engine, called the J-2X wasn't ready either, they mounted a fake upper stage. No Orion capsule was ready, so - you guessed it - they mounted a fake capsule with a real-looking but fake escape rocket that wouldn't have worked if the booster had failed. Since the guidance system for Ares wasn't ready either they went and bought a unit from the Atlas rocket program and used it instead. Oh yes, the parachutes to recover the booster were the real thing -- and one of the three failed, causing the booster to slam into the ocean too fast and banging the thing up. So, why you might ask, if the whole machine was a bit of slight-of-hand rocketry did NASA bother to spend almost half a billion dollars (that's billion with a "b") in developing and launching the Ares 1-X?" (Read more at Huffington Post)

Kudos to the Space Frontier Foundation for pairing these two items.

Recifed wisdom

2009-11-15T22:49:00.006Z

So after ten days in Recife, Brazil, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has failed to make significant cuts to the tuna quota.

Certainly, the quota is a great deal lower than last year. But given that some in the industry itself had been arguing for either zero quotas or in four digits, and given the monumental scale of the illegal fish being landed, this is hardly a victory for the adherence to scientific advice. With the bluefin population in a state of collapse, some demonstration of serious concern about the recovery of the species was what was needed.

Instead, we see in ICCAT the usual serious concern about the state of the industry, and what levels of quota will support fishermen. As if biology is a matter for negotiation.

As the industry continues to shrink, year after year after year, we are all paying the price for the loss of this source of wealth from our oceans.

The world now looks towards the CITES meeting in Doha in March next year, when nations will discuss whether to ban the trade in bluefin because its population is in so much trouble.

Earth journalism

2009-11-11T18:36:00.003Z

Congratulations are surely due to Gerard Wynn and Sunandra Creagh at Reuters for their triumph at the Earth Journalism Awards. At the start of the week, the awards described how Reuters had single-handedly "exposed sharp practice at the office of climate change in Papua New Guinea" and how the head of the office of climate change was "suspended within weeks of the story being published", and how questions have even been asked in Parliament.

The overview of this piece is now in at least its fourth version, having been altered to avoid one libel, and (I suspect) one repetition of a claim that is almost certainly known not to be true. What is more important to someone who has been reporting on this story since the beginning, and for the last six months, is that the most recent changes on the awards site now offer a small acknowledgment of my work in The Economist.

Thank you to everyone who supported this.

At this point, I think it is also important to recognise, Ilya Gridneff of AAP Port Moresby who has also written up a storm on this subject over this year. Ilya has recently won an award from the Asia Pacific Forum of Environmental Journalists for excellence in science journalism for all his work.

As for the Earth Journalism Awards, you can vote for your choice of overall winner of these awards here and/or leave comments on the entries. The current overview of the winner of the forest award follows:

Forest Carbon Market Already Shows Cracks
Wynn, Gerard & Creagh, Sunanda
Reuters.com (2009-06-04)

This article exposed sharp practice at the office of climate change in Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the use of funds to protect rainforests. UN climate talks and a prospective U.S. climate bill have laid the foundations for a scheme whereby rich countries pay tropical countries to protect their rainforests and in return earn carbon offsets to help them meet their greenhouse gas emissions targets. But development and environment groups have warned that multi-million carbon deals already taking place in advance of such a deal threaten to stoke corruption and land grabs.Reuters in May ran an exclusive report using leaked 2008 papers which showed that the director of the office of climate change had endorsed a $10 million donation to the office from Australia-based carbon brokers. In return, that deal would have given the brokers exclusive rights to sell the carbon stored in vast swathes of the country's forests even though these are owned by the thousands of people that live in them. Reuters obtained a face-to-face interview in Bali with the director of the office of climate change who confirmed the authenticity of the papers. The report raised concerns of questionable practice in emerging forest carbon markets in Papua New Guinea. Shortly afterwards further news of misdeeds at the Office of Climate Change emerged in The Economist. Both these stories resulted in the Head of this office being suspended. The Reuters story was published as negotiations progressed to include a rainforest carbon market in a global deal to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.

No deal at Copenhagen

2009-11-05T18:07:00.004Z

The ticking clock display at Barcelon is appropriate, as time has run out. The news from the floor here at Barcelona, and also appearing in media outlets, is that we will get no legal deal at Copenhagen. Yves Boer had said at the start of the week that it was possible, but four days on and it is apparently not so. This view is being echoed by UK's David Miliband, and others. The only option now is a political deal of some sort, we are told.

Conveniently, there have been negotiations over a political deal for some time, outside of the UN. Was it always going to be like this? Did we just have to wait long enough for the politicians to say that time had run out, so they could come and save the failed UN deal with a political fudge?

At the end of the day the negotiators here negotiate according to a political mandate. If a legally binding deal had been wanted by all the key countries then more progress would have been made.

Barcelona and Copenhagen

2009-10-28T19:16:00.008Z

So we are on the final stretch to Copenhagen climate change negotiations. Next week, climate negotiators meet in Barcelona, the last stop before Copenhagen. Reducing carbon emissions from deforestation (REDD) will be high on the agenda.

I'll be chairing a REDD event hosted by the World Economic Forum, on Monday evening (see details below). In December, I've also agreed to chair a plenary discussion on forestry in Copenhagen hosted by the Center for International Forestry Research, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests and the Government of Denmark. More about this event closer to the time.

Anyway, if you are going to Barcelona, you'll find me at this event at 19.15, which is being held at the Fira Congress Hotel, Meeting Room 1, Barcelona. Which is across the street from the Southern entrance of the main Congress Centre).

Solving the REDD Puzzle
Parallel public side event to the Barcelona round of the UNFCCC negotiations
Hosted by the World Economic Forum Climate Change Initiative in collaboration with the Sustainable Amazon Foundation

Forest-based mitigation through a mechanism such as REDD+ is a critical component of any global climate change solution, offering a significant win-win abatement opportunity equivalent to as much as 25% of required emission reductions by 2020. Important questions remain however regarding how to practically catalyze such abatement not only in terms of the required enabling policies at the international and national levels, but also on a range of critical issues such as how to finance REDD+ and readiness activities, integrate forestry into the carbon markets, and build robust MRV systems to ensure environmental and social integrity.

Building on recent reports by the World Economic Forum and the Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE International) among others, this session will bring together key government officials with leaders from civil society and the private sector in a constructive dialogue on the best designs for putting together these various pieces of the REDD puzzle. This interactive session will begin with a keynote address with a proposition for how to solve this puzzle, followed by reactions and comments from the high-level panel and the audience. This session aims to engage the broad set of stakeholders required to solve the REDD puzzle and map a practical path forward to this end.

Opening Speaker:
Virgilio Viana, Director, Sustainable Amazon Foundation, IIED Fellow, Brazil

Ralph Ashton, Convenor and Chair, Terrestrial Carbon Group, Australia;
Federica Bietta, Deputy Director, Coalition for Rainforest Nations, USA
Adam Matthews, Secretary General, Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment (GLOBE) International, UK
Graeme Sweeney, Executive Vice President, Future Fuels and CO2, Shell, UK

Updated with revised location and final panellist list. November 1st.

Satellite highs and lows

2009-10-22T15:26:00.003Z

I worked on a couple of pieces published recently in The Economist on satellites (the second appeared in the Business section). I think the continued problems with America's NPOESS program are significant for us all, wherever we live. We all rely on the data from Earth observing satellites, even if that is invisible to us in our day-to-day lives. Whether it is predicting the course of hurricanes, or the effects of climate change, earth observation matters.

The White House has a big challenge on its hands. Any changes to the NPOESS programme which is currently facing a significant chance of failure will cost money. And Congress is mightily sick of being asked for more money to make NPOESS work. The solution is difficult for everyone to swallow but it is simply to put one agency in charge of the programme (in my mind preferably NOAA because it will improve the data we get), and simply swallow any extra cost. It might help if the contractors were paid on delivery as well.

Satellites in the alphabet soup

Oct 15th 2009
From The Economist print edition
America’s next generation of Earth-observation satellites is in trouble

WITHOUT satellites, both forecasting the weather and studying the climate would be a lot harder than they are. Such satellites, however, need replacing from time to time, and those used by the Americans are coming to the end of their useful lives. Unfortunately, the plan for their replacement is in chaos. Indeed, the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, NPOESS, as the replacement system is known, has suffered so many delays and budget increases that its whole future is in doubt. If things go badly wrong, crucial data about the climate could be lost. (More)

Beaming

Oct 8th 2009
The spread of satellite television bolsters a once shaky business

EARTH may have been hit hard, but the recession, it turns out, has not done much damage in space. Turnover among operators of satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO) grew by 7-8% last year, according to Northern Sky Research (NSR); analysts at Euroconsult, a rival research firm, put the figure even higher, at 11%. The three biggest firms in the business—SES, based in The Hague, Intelsat, based in Washington, DC, and Eutelsat, based in Paris—brought in combined revenues of over $6 billion. SES and Eutelsat boast profit margins of over 25%. NSR predicts that in the next decade the business of leasing satellite capacity will grow by an average of 4.3% a year. (More)

Kond words

2009-09-28T10:40:00.006Z

Ilya Gridneff who works for the Australian Associated Press (AAP) in Port Moresby has broken a number of excellent stories on the whole Papua New Guinea forest carbon saga. A few days ago he filed another fascinating chapter in the saga, which you may not have had a chance to read as it was not picked up by the papers*.

Its a fascinating story, Carbon Planet has been paying a company called Nupan which has then been paying the vice-president of the country's ruling party, James Kond, as a consultant who offers to "assist you to secure endorsement of these projects for carbon trading from the PNG government".

By Ilya Gridneff

PORT MORESBY, Sept 24 AAP - A Papua New Guinea governing party power broker was paid 200,000 kina ($A85,000), ultimately funded by Australian environment firm Carbon Planet, for "consultation" on carbon trading deals central to a pending investigation.

James Kond, PNG's ruling National Alliance (NA) party vice-president, received the money on May 14, 2008, as part of Carbon Planet's $1.1 million spend with companies in PNG for carbon projects they predict are worth a billion dollars a year.

Documents obtained by AAP show Carbon Planet's money went through Hong Kong-based company Forest Top, that then paid a number of entities including Australian businessman Kirk Roberts and his PNG company Nupan and its local facilitator Kond.

On April 16, 2008, Kond signed a memorandum of agreement with Forest Top, Roberts and Nupan assuring his work would earn him "10 per cent of the net cash flow generated from carbon credit sales".

Kond's Western Highlands Province-based business Koo management was: "to liaise with and advise the PNG government" on Nupan's deals that Carbon Planet would then broker for the global voluntary carbon market.

Kond stands by the deal and says there was no conflict of interest.

"It is a confidential business arrangement and none of your business about the way we do business," he said.

"I've been deputy NA leader for 10 years and doing my part to improve PNG and to help policy (and) there is no need for these investigations.

"I have not dealt with Carbon Planet, I invited Kirk (Roberts) to PNG and receive money from Nupan as their country representative."

Adelaide-based Carbon Planet declined to respond to questions.

Kond's other Nupan responsibilities included: "to bring together all of the parties and other persons required to achieve the commercialisation of the carbon credits from the specific present and future projects in PNG".

In a series of letters obtained by AAP, Kond writes to Roberts on December 28, 2007, suggesting PNG's Kamula Doso forest in Western Province and April Salome forest in East Sepik as potentially lucrative future carbon trading sites.

"I will personally be there to assist you to secure endorsement of these projects for carbon trading from the PNG government as I am part of the PM Somare government through being an executive member of the NA ruling party that has direct influence on shaping government policy," he writes.

In February, 2008, Kond urges PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare to meet him and experts from Australia.

"I am delighted to inform you we have already secured two projects for this carbon trading program," he said.

"I am now seeking a formal appointment ... to brief you on this matter."

Somare's media spokesperson Betha Somare, who has seen the letters, said: "The PM has never met Kirk Roberts or his associates".

AAP understands PM Somare's then chief of staff Theo Yasause met Roberts and also met several members of Carbon Planet.

Yasause later became PNG's Office of Climate Change (OCC) director but was suspended pending an investigation that includes why the office went bankrupt in less than a year of operating.

The investigation will also delve into a series of "sample" carbon trade documents Yasause signed as OCC director as well as a mandate to assure international carbon deals.

Acting OCC director Wari Iamo in a newspaper advertisement on August 31 said PNG was waiting for United Nations endorsed carbon trading rules, expected after the Copenhagen climate summit in December.

"Carbon trading agreements cannot be legally signed over these (PNG) lands until the government has put in place an appropriate policy and legal framework," he said.

Carbon Planet in July announced a merger with Australian publicly listed company m2m Group, saying they had 25 potential carbon trading projects in PNG that could generate $1 billion a year.

But Carbon Planet has not said where their PNG projects are, what the landowners benefits are, nor do they recognise that the 800,000-hectare Kamula Doso forest is subject to a court injunction on projects.

Carbon Planet's merger with m2m is "continuing with some delay arising from the complicated and novel circumstances of this emerging industry," m2m said in a statement.

AAP ig/mo/cdh

* A note about Wire Services
To explain, Gridneff's employer AAP is what is known in journalistic lingo as a "wire service" or news agency. Other well-known agencies include Reuters, Press Association and Agence France-Presse. With correspondents around the world these agencies provide, electronically, wholesale news for their subscribers -- the world's main retail news companies (newspapers, radio and television), who may then chose to publish it.

Last gasp for the forest

2009-09-26T20:58:00.004Z

This Friday, The Economist published my three-page feature on avoided deforestation. Avoided deforestation is a hot topic these days as climate negotiators have enthusiastically taken up the idea that reducing the rate of deforestation the world can make a substantial dent in global carbon emissions.

For most of those at the coal face of these things, the feature only really grazes the surface of major unresolved issues. But the point of the piece is to introduce a wider audience to the idea of REDD and some of the issues it faces.

As with most pieces of this size and scale there is a substantial tranche of overmatter to follow on this blog. A great deal was left on the cutting room floor. I've picked up some helpful material about Waxman-Markey, and also quite a lot about palm oil which is, frankly, quite depressing. But for now, here is that piece itself. You can follow the link to read it at The Economist.

The conclusion I reach about REDD, for anyone who doesn't want to read the entire article is merely that paying for environmental services is basically a good idea, but whether it is going to work to deliver global carbon emissions reductions will really depend on whether we can get a lot of little details right. That remains to be seen.

I also take the point made to me by several people I interviewed, which is that if we decide it isn't going to work, then it absolutely isn't. My view is, lets give REDD a chance to work. Scary to think that it is one of the better options on the table.

Last gasp for the forest

Sep 24th 2009

A new climate treaty could provide a highly effective way to reduce carbon emissions by paying people to not cut down forests

IN THE south-eastern corner of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, in the municipality of Novo Aripuanã, there is thick forest cover—for now. But as new, paved highways are driven into the trees, illegal loggers inevitably follow. At the current rate of deforestation, around one-third of the forest in Amazonas will have been lost by 2050, releasing a colossal 3.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. (More...)

Bluefin de siècle

2009-09-22T19:30:00.010Z

It gives me absolutely no satisfaction to report that my previous posting about the stinky politics of bluefin tuna turned out to be entirely accurate. European nations failed to vote for a proposal to list the bluefin tuna as an endangered species on Monday.

Lets roll back to July, when President Nicolas Sarkozy made a fine speech calling for a ban on the trade in bluefin tuna. How, then, is it that France was one of the six nations that did not support a ban in the trade of this species? I do hope that Prince Albert of Monaco, who recently had the insight to ban the sale of bluefin in the principality, will not be inviting the President and his wife out for sushi any time soon.

21 other European nations supported the ban. Those that opposed were Malta, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, France, and Greece. [see update]

Its a common myth that journalists have to balance a story. In fact, we are supposed to report the truth. Balance is only really useful if you have no idea where the truth lies. (This is why, for example, the media was engaged in a long struggle that is now over, over whether to "balance" stories about climate change.) In this case the truth is that this decision by these six nations is just simply wrong and Europe's politicians have failed yet again to do their jobs.

Its not just France. Last year we had the Spanish and the Japanese strutting around at an international conservation meeting (IUCN) claiming to support a ban on the trade in bluefin--presumably because it was good public relations to be seen to be doing something at this forum. A year later we have to swallow the stomach-churning hypocrisy of the behind-the-scenes work of the Japanese lobbying Europe hard against the ban, and the Spanish trying to organise outright opposition. (Do the delegates to these meetings not mind being made to look like idiots for backing a policy that is undermined behind the scenes by the rest of the government?)

How can this happen?

In trying to fathom it out, I am reminded of an episode of the hit US series Ugly Betty when Marc takes a female date with him when he meets his parents in order to conceal the fact that he is gay. In the slang, the female date was his "beard" to make him look more masculine.

I guess what this is all leading up to is that I'm wondering is whether all these big announcements that governments are going to save the bluefin are actually little more than "green beards" which seek to conceal the true orientation of their governments. (I would invite others to nominate their politicians for "green beard" awards in this vein, for politicians who make big environmental announcements but who actually do the opposite behind closed doors. It can easily be accomplished with an impish attitude and a copy of Photoshop.)

I have to say, if the green beard is the explanation for all these 180 degree turns in policy then it must be very disheartening for the civil servants working in the environment departments of various ministries around the world to find themselves being used as PR flunkies for bad environmental policy.

Instead of helping, they are promoting the idea that their government is doing something meaningful, responding to public pressure, when the government is quietly doing the exact opposite behind the scenes.

Luckily there is still hope for a bluefin listing. Although the niceties of the convention on endangered species dictate that "range" states be the ones to propose a species for listing there are a number of other range states that might decide to step up to the plate. These include US, Canada, Brazil, as well as Norway and others. The bluefin tuna has stocks in both sides of the Atlantic. And while the stock on the American side is not collapsing as badly as that of the stock on the European side, bluefin do travel between the two stocks and it is impossible to differentiate between them at port. So any of these states are within their rights to put the bluefin up for a CITES listing now that Europe has failed.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Brazil were to propose the bluefin for listing? Brazil, which is constantly being lectured about protecting its vast biodiversity and rainforests by northern Europe. How delicious if it had to step in to protect one single species simply because the politicians in Malta, Cyprus, Spain, Italy, France, and Greece are too spineless to do it. [see update]

At the moment there has been a bit of a waiting game with everyone waiting to see what the Europeans would do. Well, governments of Norway, Canada, Brazil and America, lets get this job done. ICCAT is embarrassment to everyone.

Please do not make me report again on this farce of a meeting next December knowing that its closed door backroom deals are all that stands between the bluefin and extinction for the next two years.

Update:

1. Portugal changed to Greece throughout. Portugal surprisingly voted for a ban. Just goes to show, you can't trust everything you read in the newspapers.

2. please email me your nominations for the best "green beard" awards for politicians who advocate green policies but do entirely the opposite elsewhere or behind the scenes.

3. I have corrected the confusion between the eastern and western side of the Atlantic. 25.9.09

Fishy politics that stink

2009-09-20T23:28:00.005Z

It is time for European nations to finally show leadership and ban the trade in tuna

LATE tomorrow morning in Brussels an important meeting takes place for the bluefin tuna. It could well decide the fate of the species, and whether it is going to be fished to extinction or at last protected from the overexploitation that has caused its population to crash to unprecedented lows. The northern bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) is classified as critically endangered for the Western Atlantic stock and endangered for the Eastern Atlantic stock 1,2.

It is an appalling story. Historically the bluefin has been tragically failed by a group of nations that collaboratively manage the fishery. The organisation known as ICCAT (The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) is supposed to manage the fishery but in reality it is little more than set of paper pushers in Madrid for the nations that meet every December. Every year, behind closed doors, the member nations hand themselves quotas far in excess of scientific advice. These quotas are handed out in the knowledge that Europe’s fishermen will then go out and catch more than double this allowance through illegal landings in the poorly managed fishery.

Bluefin politics are ugly because all these deals to allow the hunting of a species to extinction are done behind closed doors and in order to eward a vocal but powerful political group—fishermen.They have allowed the economically irrational over extraction of a resource, and essentially stolen fish that belongs to all of us and given it to a handful of people.

For a long time, Europe’s tuna fishermen have had things nicely wrapped up. The tuna fishing interests of Italy, France and Spain would lobby the Commission’s directorate general of fisheries, which would say nice words publicly about bluefin conservation, monitoring and management and then go out to ICCAT every year, and then negotiate another deal that was disastrous for the fishery.

Matters came to a head last year when the chair of ICCAT warned its members that if they didn’t show some leadership then management of the species would be taken away. Such calls were in vain. So now the world looks towards a trade ban under a convention known as CITES in order to protect this fish. While the bluefin easily qualifies (such is its level of imperilment) if only that were enough to make sure that could be protected. Politics, as ever, intrude.

The first step for the bluefin is for two members of the CITES to propose a listing before a deadline in October. Monaco the Mediterranean principality, under the leadership of its bluefin-loving Prince Albert, was the first to step forward. Now the world is waiting to see what the Europeans will do. At first the news was good, France threw its weight behind the plan, to the surprise of conservationists President Nicolas Sarkozy supported an end to the overfishing. Britain, Germany and other northern European states have supported a ban. So after some political warfare in Brussels between the department involved in ‘managing’ fish and the department involved in environmental protection, and some heavy lobbying by the sushi-loving Japanese, the Commission decided that a proposal to CITES was appropriate 3.

It is with regret that I write that I now understand that the vote on Monday is far from a formality. Rumour now has it that the French are now backing away from a full CITES listing, and the Spanish are trying to organise outright opposition.

Meanwhile, fresh evidence has emerged of how completely out of control this fishery is with illegal fishing continuing unabated, a French vessel has recorded some astonishing abuses by the Turkish fleet. The management measures that were supposed to protect the bluefin are not working.

All this underscores the need for a trade ban. Trade bans are not always the solution for an imperilled species, as they create some crazy economic dynamics such as an illegal trade dominated by organised crime. And on land a ban eliminates the value for a species and can in turn encourage habitat conversion. But habitat conversion isn't a problem for the bluefin, and organised crime is already heavily involved in the bluefin trade. So CITES is the only serious tool left to allow the international community to address the needs of a species that lives outside of the control of national governments. It is no longer reasonable to argue that ICCAT can be trusted with a job that it has failed so long to perform.

Furthermore a ban would, finally, prevent the fashionable diners of America, Europe and Japan to keep consuming the species with a clean conscience or blissful ignorance. Nobu restaurants around the world would finally be forced to remove the bluefin from the menu. Others would follow.

If European nations fail show leadership over a CITES listing, it may be that the only hope is that the Americans will step in. The politics are not straightforward, as Jane Lubchenco, head of America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said when I asked her about this a few weeks ago, there are concerns about how a CITES ban would affect the domestic bluefin industry in America, where the situation is not as disastrous as in the Meditteranean.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the Americans are watching the Europeans very closely indeed and waiting to see how its hand plays out. At the Bali conference on climate change in 2007, America was warned that it was either to "lead or get out of the way". That message should now be delivered to the Europeans over bluefin.

Introducting Graham Corby

2009-09-15T21:45:00.004Z

In April this year, when I first began working on carbon credits, I had copies of two lots of irregular carbon credits from Papua New Guinea. One was the Kamula Doso series which had been recently issued to Nupan Trading, owned by Kirk Roberts. The other set, the 'A' series dated back to 2005 and had been issued by a company called ClimateAssist, seemingly with the backing of the government.

Support for the apparent backing of the government in these credits came from a signature on the credits that appeared to be by a government minister, and an associated letter that gave the company ClimateAssist the right to monetise these carbon credits on behalf of the government.

The company ClimateAssist is in fact an Australian gentleman called Graham Corby. I spoke with him several months ago. The first thing to say is that if anything in what follows remains unclear this is not for lack of trying on my part. Mr Corby has failed to follow up on his promise to send me more information about his carbon credit generating scheme, and since I published his carbon credits, doesn't want to talk further about his business. But he told me plenty in April, so lets begin with that, because I sense I am not the only person interested in his activities at present.

Mr Corby claimed he was assisting Papua New Guinea in the sale of these carbon credits. The idea he said was to "use some of the credits to do projects up in Papua New Guinea". He told me, "The Papua New Guinea government gave us the credits and made us the brokers to monetize the credits." So I asked Mr Corby, what does it mean, exactly, to monetize the credits? Does it mean to sell them? He said, "Yes and no. There's companies that want to loan money against the credits and they want money back after the projects are finished". He continued, "Some companies want to buy them, but they're not in a position to buy them until the REDD thing comes in with Copenhagen at the end of the year. But other companies are looking at lending money to us to do the projects and then we pay them back over a four year period." In other words, the credits being offered were printed prior to any actual project to produce carbon emissions reductions.

Mr Corby agreed that the credits I had were his, and had been used to start his business, but that they had changed dramatically over the years. "We couldn't get them into trade or anything like that. And I had to go back to Papua New Guinea, it was 2007, and get others issued, and then I went back in 2008 and we got the last original ones issued". The serial numbers are the same, he added. "Because we couldn't do anything with the first two lots".

What was wrong with the original lots I asked? "Companies I was working with were not in a position to put funds there. Once Australia signed and ratified the protocol last year, we got new ones issued and the power companies actually took them as voluntary credits against the Australian government fining polluters". He added, "well they haven't bought them. They're in the process of lending money to us. They won't buy them until Copenhagen".

Have you paid the government of Papua New Guinea for these credits, I asked? "...We haven't paid them because we haven't sold them. And we, until Copenhagen comes into force we can't get any of the loan funds. But once it does come in then we'll have the loan funds to do projects there. What we've been doing has been on our own initiative and our own funds"

I'm confused, I say, how is it that the government can issue credits before they're actually generated?

Mr Corby: "They're not issuing them. ClimateAssist is issuing them on a voluntary basis from company to company"

Me: Right.

Mr Corby: "It's a company to company deal."

Me: "Are you allowed to do that?"

Mr Corby: "Oh yes. It's voluntary participation."

Me: "Right, so because the company, the power companies are voluntarily saying that they'll voluntarily buy them from you, then it's OK for them to be credits that haven't actually been generated?"

Mr Corby: "Haven't been generated until Copenhagen. Once that's been. Once Copenhagen is in then we can go back to the government and say right, you've got them there, here's the money, and generate the true credits that aren't voluntary."

So there you have it, once Copenhagen has come in, Mr Corby will be able to go and generate the "true credits that aren't voluntary".

So what about money? How much does he think these deals would be worth? Mr Corby said, "at the moment we've signed a joint venture agreement with one company and we're, we have sold them for $12 USD a tonne." You'll have to do the maths for me, I've no idea what that is, I said. He replied, "Eh – It's huge. I haven't got that in the brain, It is huge. " As for the project deals he says, "There's one that's 50 million USD, another that's 32 million, and another that's 27 million". (If you look at the notes on these "credits" one set claims to represent 87,460 million metric tonnes of carbon, the other 33,333,333 million metric tonnes.)

Mr Corby said that no money had passed hands between his company and government officials, adding that there was "a financial arrangement that if REDD comes in we would provide money for that office to operate". (This claim was first published by Reuters just prior to my first article on the subject, but as yet it remains unverified as to whether any such arrangement was ever actually officially agreed to by the government of Papua New Guinea.)

So what are all these carbon avoiding projects that Mr Corby is working on? There are projects all over the country he claimed but would not say where. He said some involve coffee projects where coffee is planted in the forest, instead of outright deforestation, another involves planting trees for the paper industry so that government doesn't have to cut down trees in the forest, and there is even a palm oil project. Are they REDD projects I asked? "They will be REDD projects if the Copenhagen summit is ratified. If it is not, then these projects are projects that can produce funds to pay back the companies that are investing with us".

Mr Corby seems to be arguing that various projects that would be financially viable in their own right, might also qualify for REDD credits if the deal is done in a particular way at Copenhagen. For example, I asked him why he would get carbon credits for planting trees for the paper industry, he said that two would be planted and only one would be used to make money. "The other tree stays there for eternity".

The international community is very keen on 'learning by doing' as a way of figuring out REDD, but I can't imagine that these are the kinds of deals that everyone had in mind. And is this part of a broader concern about creating the perverse incentives for cutting down forests and putting in plantations?

Finally, before everyone rushes in to blame the government, I think it is worth reminding ourselves that in June, The Office of Climate Change in Papua New Guinea added to the story by issuing a statement about Climate Assist saying:

"This company sought to negotiate Carbon Credits in the market places that were not issued by this Office. This Office has had no dealings with this company in respect of credits issued. We were aware of this some months ago. We have our lawyers pursuing this matter with foreign law enforcement agencies as a matter of fraud. As such we cannot comment further on it." I've also received information which backs up this notice in the form of a cease and desist notice issued late last year by the Office of Climate Change to Mr Corby.

N.B. These credits were first issued prior to the creation of the Office of Climate Change, so the statement doesn't actually answer the question of whether someone in government did become involved in promoting the brokerage of credits through Mr Corby as early as 2005.

I think the final word in this very curious, and opaque story, must go with Mr Corby himself:

"We are issuing voluntary credits between my company and other companies. That's why we have to give the money back to the other company. But these companies then go to their government and say we're supporting these projects, and they then are given a breaks from their government because they're supporting something that's green." Mr Corby went on to explain that these were power generating companies, two in Germany, one in Canada, and two in Japan. He wouldn't be specific about which companies these were and said that they would only discuss these deals after Copenhagen."

Kirk Roberts rides again

2009-09-03T21:23:00.005Z

The story so far... dodgy carbon credits purporting to represent forest carbon and signed by a government minister appeared in Papua New Guinea a few months ago. The credits caused consternation around the world, as nations prepare to do an international deal over forest carbon at the climate talks in Copenhagen. But a number of things have never been entirely clear. How much carbon, and how much money, the companies involved in these deals think they are handling in the country and what, exactly were those dodgy carbon credits used for?

Dramatis Personae

Kirk Roberts -- Nupan Trading. Dubbed the Kingpin of the carbon cowboys. Buyer of carbon credits from Papua New Guinea landowners, self proclaimed “one of the most important foreigners in PNG”. Former professional show-jumper, licensed horse trainer who was fined for doping a racehorse and instructing a vet to withhold veterinary records.

Dave Sag -- chief executive of Carbon Planet. Carbon Planet is the Australian carbon brokerage that wishes to sell forest carbon offsets to individuals, corporations, banks and governments.

Wari Iamo -- acting head of the Office of Climate Change. Dr Iamo is conducting the investigation into what went wrong previously in this office, and to pull together the country’s strategy for Copenhagen by November.

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald are two extremely illuminating articles about our drama so far. In one, Kirk Roberts has claimed to have power of attorney over 90 forestry deals in Papua New Guinea, “giving him control over land potentially worth tens of millions of dollars”. He has declined to give any information about how these deals were done, and what landowners understood by them.

But in the second article, Dave Sag finally spills the beans about the dodgy carbon credits. What were they for he is asked? Mr Sag says that Mr Roberts had used mocked-up carbon certificates signed by Mr Yasause as "props'' when negotiating with landowners, but he denied they were intended to mislead.

Quote from the article:

He said the documents, which purport to represent a million tonnes of ''voluntary carbon credits'' issued by the UN under the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation - or REDD [Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation] scheme - were created by PNG officials simply to explain the scheme. ''Those certificates are worthless. … No one who knows anything about carbon would take them in any way seriously,'' Mr Sag said. ''They ended up in Kirk's hands because they would have been produced as a prop to be taken out and waved in front of people in order to provide some physicality to what is essentially an ephemeral thing.''

Readers ought to judge for themselves whether or not these credits were intended to deceive. It is true that nobody who knows anything about carbon would take them seriously, but I guess the point is that the landowners certainly do not know very much about carbon at all. The story then goes on to report that one landowner claimed he was co-erced into signing a deal. And Wari Iamo calls plaintively to landowners not to sign any more agreements with private companies until after Copenhagen.

But what about money, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that “Carbon Planet, which has acquired a publicly listed company, told investors recently it had $100 million in potential REDD projects in PNG, which is an order of magnitude larger than what Mr Roberts was claiming.

However, more privately, in a document I’ve obtained that was created by Carbon Planet, their business model is illuminated. In it, it claims: 25 REDD Projects have been contracted at $1 billion per annum to date. (These are probably Australian dollars but it isn’t entirely clear).

I guess the disparity between these figures could depend on a number of factors (an over-active imagination being one of them). More seriously, some of them could refer to turnover, how much money would pass through the hands of these traders and brokers, the other could refer to their cut. Seeing as we don't know what percentage of any carbon deal that Mr Sag or Mr Robert's company is getting we don't really know what they hope to make on the deal.

But lets imagine for a second, that this figure of a billion turnover is in some way accurate. Even if the companies concerned were to return most of this money back over to the landwoners, even if they only took a 1% fee this would amount to over $10m a year. If they took 10% they would make $100m. All from an initial investment of $1.2m Australian dollars. Quite a punt.

The Carbon Planet business model also claims eight REDD memorandums of understanding have been contracted in Indonesia, at $600m per annum. In addition they have five CDM projects at $76 per annum expected in 2009 in Pakistan. The company is also working on securing carbon credit projects in Africa, Australia, Azerbaijan, Peru and South America.

The idea then seems to be to create “REDD” projects for carbon and biodiversity credits and sell these onto the voluntary market after certification through the various standards that are emerging. These certified credits will then sell these on to trading organisations, climate change consulting and accounting firms, PR, Advertising and Marketing firms doing Corporate Social Responsibility programs, and direct to banks, governments, corporations and traders.

I guess the real worry is that in the rush to do something about carbon emissions quickly and cheaply, when push comes to shove, how much is it really going to matter what a landowner who cannot even read or write understood about his land when he signed a cross on a piece of paper?

I am a top foreigner in Papua New Guinea, says carbon kingpin

MARIAN WILKINSON AND BEN CUBBY, Sydney Morning Herald

September 4, 2009

Australian firm linked to PNG's $100m carbon trading scandal

BEN CUBBY AND MARIAN WILKINSON

September 4, 2009

p.s. a name check also to Ilya Gridneff the AAP wire reporter who did a lot of the legwork that ended up on the front pages of the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.

Updated September 11th, 2009. "Sidney" changed to "Sydney" throughout. Apologies.

Call in the consultants

2009-08-21T15:14:00.003Z

The story so far: Papua New Guinea has been leading the way in international negotiations over avoided deforestation in the hope of curbing greenhouse gas emissions, an objective known as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). But during 2009, a scandal erupted over the appearance of carbon credits that appeared to have been endorsed by senior figures in the government. Following complaints by the state governors, legal moves in the court in Port Moresby, and media reports, the head of the Office of Climate Change (OCC; sometimes also referred to as OCC&ES), Theo Yasause, was suspended pending investigation.

The scandal in Papua New Guinea has happened at a difficult time for the country. While it should be working on national legislation for REDD, and preparing for Copenhagen, it has to waste time and resources on investigating its own office of climate change. But it is all much needed work. It would have been far worse to let the situation in the OCC fester.

The government is also having to handle an increasingly enraged opposition. In late July, angry scenes erupted in the parliament after the government narrowly avoided a motion of no confidence by adjourning the session until November for "much needed refurbishments" to parliament house. Yes, you did read correctly. The government survived the motion by closing parliament and calling in the decorators. Chaos ensued. Ilya Gridneff from AP writes, "MPs hurled abuse at each other across the chamber and security officers had to restrain members of the public who voiced their frustration when the government won the adjournment vote on Wednesday." See Canberra Times.

Improvements in governance and transparency, in any country, are often hard to win. The challenge for Somare's government is to complete this investigation, figure out what went wrong, and when the paint is dry on Parliament House, to publish its findings. If necessary, further legal action should be taken. It seems difficult to see how the report could fail to find fault in some places. For example, the evaporation of the office's budget is highly worrisome.

However, before government critics get too over-excited, it should be pointed out that not all of the things that have happened in the name of the government, were necessarily officially endorsed. Indeed, legal proceeding are under way in Australia in relation to the A series of carbon credits.

The acting executive director of OCC, Wari Iamo, wants the investigation and review to be completed by late October, so that everything is in place for the climate change meeting in Copenhagen this December. The investigation wants to find out whether any policies or laws were beached over carbon trading arrangements made by any public officer. It is also going to look into OCC's finances and how they have come to be so poorly managed that it has run out of money for 2009. Basic errors in financial management have resulted in substantial and unrecognised liabilities being incurred.

At the same time, the OCC needs to get on with developing its Interim Low Carbon Development Strategy, which emphasises the REDD policy agenda. Part of this involves looking at securing land for REDD and for benefit sharing. Another part of this strategy involves looking at the drivers of deforestation and degradation in the country. Again, much needed work. You can't just buy up a few blocks of forest in a country, slap a REDD sticker on them and hope that deforestation will go away. Finally, an economic analysis of REDD costs is also needed in the country, and will use the methodology developed for Guyana's low carbon development strategy.

So much work, so little time. So how is Papua going to do it? It is probably going to call in the consultants. Guyana did it. Brazil and Indonesia did it. So did Mexico. And the climate consultants du jour are McKinsey. If Papua can find a mere $2m, McKinsey will load up its crack team of climate consultants into the Batplane, fill it up with biofuel, and send it swooping down on Port Moresby to help the country prepare itself for Copenhagen by developing the national REDD and climate change plan, deploying cost-abatement curves from their utility belts... and all just in time for Papua's cabinet meeting in November.

Now I can guess what some of you are probably wondering, shouldn't Papua be doing this all for itself rather than calling in the western consultants? Well in an ideal world, which this isn't, perhaps--and only if it had all the expertise it needed. Remember that there are stacks of people fretting about whether Papua (and many other countries) are going to manage to get this all right.

How will leakage be avoided? How can REDD truly address the drivers of deforestation? How can Papua manage forest conservation at the same time as promoting a sustainable low-carbon development path? How can Papua increase agricultural productivity as a way of reducing pressure on forestry? Well, guess what? This is exactly the sort of thing that McKinsey consultants know all about.

Of course they don't come cheap, and they are not without their problems. Guyana's response to its McKinsey REDD report backfired a bit in some quarters. But Papua is a different country with a different set of problems, and a low baseline of deforestation is not one of them. So it will certainly be interesting to see what McKinsey comes up with. Where to find the money? Well UN-REDD is likely to be asked, and all the usual government donors. The Australians, in particular, might be a good source to tap. The country's entire carbon strategy seems to be to buy carbon offsets abroad, whether or not these are produced by the rules and regulations of a mandatory market.

Consenting adults

2009-08-19T08:48:00.012Z

In recent weeks, a number of fascinating discussions have been held across several websites that have helped to further unravel the story of forest carbon deals in Papua New Guinea. This has helped to throw some light onto a process that had formerly been going on behind the scenes, and at least allow some level of public scrutiny. See "Carbon trading under more scrutiny", and check out the comments. What is so informative about this discussion is that involves a discussion between some of the main players in private forest carbon projects in Papua New Guinea: Carbon Planet, local journalist Ilya Gridneff and at least one of the representatives of the landowners involved in a carbon deal in Kamula Doso. This conversation is also picked up by Chris Lang of REDD Monitor.

Most of those involved in negotiating over the scheme known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) say that rules and regulations should be properly set before a market for these forest carbon credits is introduced and traded. But holding back the private sector from doing deals in advance of Copenhagen is impossible.

While REDD policy wonks debate about whether it should work at a project level or a national level, the private sector is busy answering this question buying up projects all over the place. Instead of a national baseline for deforestation that the government tries to minimise, bits of forest here-and-there are being tied up in deals. And you can't simply blame 'carbon cowboys'... charities and environmental NGOs are all doing project level deals as well. How will these project level forests avoid 'leakage' and the movement of forest destruction to other areas of the country? They probably won't, which makes them a concern and which is why people argue about whether REDD should work at a project or national level.

One question that crops up again and again in forums discussing carbon trading in Papua is the question of how such trading is possible and what laws allow it? The answer appears to be quite deceptively simple. The laws that allow forest carbon trading are as simple as those that allow me to sell you any piece of property that I own. Indeed, I could sell you the spirits in the trees, if you were convinced I had the ownership rights to them and could transfer this ownership to you. And this is in essence what is going on in Papua right now, as well as in a number of countries around the world. For all the talk of REDD and carbon markets in the future between nations, the deals done right now and carbon being traded, seems to involve just a voluntary market between individuals and corporations. The market that offers you ways of offsetting your aeroplane flights, or car journeys.

Where does REDD come in? Well the idea is that when Copenhagen arrives, a deal over REDD would create a large and valuable mandatory market. A highly regulated market where governments would be obliged to buy forest carbon credits in order to offset their pollution--mostly from power generation. It seems there is an expectation that these voluntary agreements being done right now could somehow be turned into some kind of REDD credits and traded on that market. (The term of art is that they would be 'fungible'.) And even if official trading doesn't begin for years, just the creation of REDD at Copenhagen would stimulate the market to produce options to deliver REDD credits. (There is also Waxman-Markey bill in the US, which will allow forest carbon to be traded a lot sooner.)

So the point about these deals is that entrepreneurs are betting that the voluntary credits they are developing today will be transferable to forest carbon credits that can be upgraded and traded on the grown-up markets for more money later down the line. And while that speculation might be unhelpful at this stage, far bigger risks have been taken in business for far less potential reward. So it isn't unexpected. Furthermore there is the attraction of potentially huge profits. In some countries, in some parts of the world, the cost of conserving an acre of rainforest is ludicrously low compared with even low estimates of the vale of the carbon per acre. That is sort of the point of a market, is that the private sector finds the cheapest ways to conserve carbon. The trouble is that this is never going to be a normal market, its a highly regulated market created by national and international legislation in order to achieve a public good. The public will simply not be comfortable with massive windfall profits for a few entrepreneurs, or even the landowners themselves. There is already an idea floating around that such profits need to be taxed, and put into other carbon avoiding projects.

Although it is hard to know exactly what is going on, I think it might be valuable to conduct a thought experiment. Lets imagine that I've got a couple of thousand dollars I want to invest in Papua New Guinea forestry in a credit project. How might I go about doing this? Well for a start, I don't actually want to buy anything physical like a forest. I want to buy the rights to trade. And I want to part with as little money as possible initially, because I want to buy as many rights as possible.

I start a whirlwind tour of the provinces, the further the better. I make friends with the landowners and sweeten them up with cash and gifts. I explain that the world needs to conserve forests because of something that has been put in the atmosphere, and that I'll act as a broker for them to make sure they get the best deal. I'll take a percentage, and maybe a fee.

I sign deals with the landowners that gives me the sole rights to negotiate and sell carbon on their behalf. All I have to do now is hire a few consultants to boff out a few reports about how big the trees are and how happy all the locals are, and I'd be very nicely set up to do a massive post-Copenhagen deal. What is more, if the consultant's reports look particularly convincing, I might even be able to recoup my initial investment at a very early stage by getting further infusions of investment by selling off a portion of my rights to someone else, perhaps in the form of some kind of option for REDD credits. With more cash in hand, I go off again in search of more rights to buy.

What makes all this even more fabulous a proposal is that if anyone complains about what I am doing, or questions its transparency or processes, I can cite commercial confidentiality and then complain to all and sundry about how all I am trying to do is save the world and give local people some kind of way of surviving without cutting down their trees. I'm a good person and all these horrid people just want to make me out to look like I'm doing something wrong.

Some of these deals may be absolutely fine, we just don't know. What we need in Papua, and elsewhere, is some way of publicly notifying these deals. A simple way of doing this would be government-backed project deal webpages, lots of them. Proposed forest carbon deals should be published on them, so that if any landowners feel there is something awry, or there are competing claims, this should be immediately apparent, and these claims should be published. Kamula Doso is a legal nightmare. We don't want more of these cases. This is not simply private business. All these companies want to sell credits on the mandatory markets. Its going to be our money that is buying these credits. We have a right to more information. If companies want privacy over their deals, they have to guarantee that these credits will not be traded on mandatory markets. Its a small price to pay for access to a billion dollar public market that is ultimately paid for by higher taxes and fuel prices in developed nations.

Finally, given that there is a legitimate public interest, we really do need to know what the landowners understand by these deals and what they've been told. In medical research a concept that has developed is "informed consent", it isn't just enough for a subject to say yes to an experiment or procedure, you have to be able to provide proof that the people who have agreed have sufficient understanding of what they have agreed to.

I wonder if this might be a useful concept for these environmental deals with local landowners. Here is a standard web definition:

"Informed consent is a legal procedure to ensure that a patient or client knows all of the risks and costs involved in a treatment. The elements of informed consents include informing the client of the nature of the treatment, possible alternative treatments, and the potential risks and benefits of the treatment. In order for informed consent to be considered valid, the client must be competent and the consent should be given voluntarily"

In conclusion: More transparency over deals. Where they are being done, what financial arrangements and promises have been made, and what the landowners really understand and have been told.

I'm all in favour of markets for environmental services. But lets recall that this is a special market, created entirely by legislation, for a policy outcome--which is less carbon in the atmosphere for the least cost. While the private sector must be given the incentives the world needs to invest money, this market will never sit comfortably with massive windfall profits, whomever they fall to. That is just one of the current unresolved debates underway over REDD.

Nupan unveiled

2009-07-16T12:36:00.001Z

Congratulations to Ilya Gridneff of the Associated Press in Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea who has diligently followed the trail of the Kamula Doso carbon credit story right back to its roots. A few hours ago he filed a story on the wires about the elusive Australian businessman, Kirk Roberts. Mr Roberts is the man behind the company Nupan Trading--which had a relationship with Theo Yasause, formerly at the Office of Climate Change. Nupan Trading is also behind this website.

As Gridneff reports, Mr Roberts is a colourful character. A disgraced former horse trainer, he is currently working in the cock fighting industry in the Philippines (and currently under investigation by the immigration department in this country). In 2007, he was fined $2,800 by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for failing to assist liquidators and failure to provide reports to the liquidator. Mr Roberts told Gridneff, "I am the most beneficial foreigner to this country (PNG) right now."

Mr Roberts is undoubtedly referring to his work all around Papua New Guinea signing up landowners for big carbon trading deals in advance of negotiations to trade forest carbon as offsets between countries. Although Mr Roberts declined to offer more details about where his forest carbon deals are to be found in Papua, we know there could be a number of them. Carbon Planet previously revealed that it provided $1.2m Australian dollars of project finance to develop carbon trading projects around the country, with $100,000 in finance for each deal. Of course the one deal that we do know about is Kamula Doso.

The story so far sheds a spotlight on the impact that international discussions over avoided deforestation are having on forests around the world. Avoided deforestation markets will not just include the UN's REDD credits. The climate bill passing through Congress at the moment also allows for the trade in credits generated by avoided deforestation.

Some of those involved speak of an orderly arrival of this market. Nonetheless, the absence of a deal does not stop the private sector from speculating that a deal will be done, or even trading on the basis that they will do. In 2008, REDD projects made up 14% of the forest carbon credits traded on voluntary markets. So even though REDD credits do not formally exist, a way is being found to trade them as options. REDD “credits” trade at a lower price than other kinds of forest carbon credits, a signal that the market recognises their risk.

Economists would see nothing wrong with this, and might well argue that such advanced trading is stimulating investment in avoided deforestation projects. The problem is that the information vacuum over forest carbon deals puts landowners at a serious disadvantage.

Landowners who don't really understand what is going on, and who really cannot be expected to fully understand, feel pressured into signing confidential agreements. In the absence of an international consensus about how the profits of such deals should be shared between landowners, local and national governments and traders, how can landowners negotiate a fair deal?

Buying up forest carbon rights is popular at the moment. Even if forest fails to make the cut for REDD credits, there are Waxman Markey credits--which could quite possibly have more relaxed rules. And even if these newly purchased forests don't qualify for either of these mandatory carbon trading schemes then there is always the growing voluntary market to fall back on. The voluntary market in forest carbon is likely to get a boost from a deal in Copenhagen. Corporations and individuals will want to get in on avoided deforestation credits. Its going to be a bonanza.

But its all good, surely? It is all going to result in less deforestation? Not necessarily. The patchwork of discussions and deals under way currently offer little but uncertainty at the moment. Will the avoided deforestation projects really avoid deforestation or would they have been saved anyway? How will they avoid 'leakage' with loggers simply finding new areas of forest to cut down? If they cannot address the drivers of deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia such as demand for beef and palm oil, how will it actually work? Questions, questions, questions.

By Ilya Gridneff
PORT MORESBY, July 16 AAP - A former Australian horse trainer who ran a Philippines cock fighting business is involved in carbon deals central to an inquiry into Papua New Guinea's suspended climate change boss.
Kirk William Roberts denies any wrongdoing in his carbon dealings in PNG and claims former business associates are running a smear campaign against him.
"I am a loveable larrikin," Roberts said from his Port Moresby home.
"I've done nothing wrong, we're doing good things.
"I am the most beneficial foreigner to this country (PNG) right now."
But Roberts' role in a series of carbon deals is now at the crux of PNG's carbon trading woes that includes an investigation in Dr Theo Yasause's role as director of the country's Office of Climate Change (OCC).
Yasause gave Hong Kong based company Forest Top and Roberts, a director of another company called Nupan PNG, an official mandate to trade carbon after Roberts locked in local landowners for potential carbon deals.
But documents show Yasause issued the mandate when he was the PNG prime minister's chief of staff, signing documents as interim director of OCC on May 12, 2008, one month before he was officially appointed director.
The documents show Yasause allowed Roberts to go to the world market offering lucrative carbon credits in PNG.
On the same day Roberts and Yasause also signed a memorandum of understanding with Forest Top director David Leamey to facilitate international carbon credit deals.
Forest Top then gave Australian company Carbon Planet the exclusive rights to broker the credits and provide technical and scientific input to verify the credits.
Forest Top was to be the body that distributed carbon credit sale proceeds to the stakeholders like Nupan, Carbon Planet and landowners.
An Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) document shows Carbon Planet last year gave $1.2 million for projects in PNG which were associated with Nupan and Forest Top.
Carbon Planet literature predicts the global voluntary carbon market will be worth around $US9.9 billion-$US17.1 billion ($A12.5 billion-$A21.5 billion) per year by 2012, with the global compliance market worth up to $US2 trillion ($A2.5 trillion) by 2020.
Carbon Planet chairman Jim Johnson said they still stood by their PNG deals but declined to comment further.
The deal between Yasause and Roberts' company Nupan became public last month, and as PNG does not have any carbon policy nor legislation for such ventures, the PNG government sidelined Yasause and launched a full investigation into the OCC.
The prime minister's media secretary Betha Somare said any of the deals struck were not valid. The new acting director of the OCC, Wari Iamo, is expected to make a similar statement this month.
"As Nupan (PNG) Trading Corporation is the power-of-attorney for numerous incorporate land groups, it is inappropriate for us to comment on any media speculation at this time," Roberts said.
Nupan and Forest Top are now in dispute and Leamey and Roberts are locked in various legal battles over wide ranging allegations centred in the Philippines, where Roberts is under investigation by the Philippine immigration department.
"I want nothing to do with carbon credits and nothing to do with Kirk William Roberts," Leamey said.
Roberts, equally as frosty in his opinions of Leamey, was involved in what is considered the Philippines' national sport of cock fighting, running an operation in Olongapo, 130km northwest of the capital Manila.
"Cock fighting in the Philippines is the equivalent to pokies in Australia," he said.
Roberts said jealous cock fighting rivals, former business partners and competitors were running a smear campaign against his efforts to help PNG.
That smear campaign includes details of his time as a thoroughbred trainer in NSW, when his horse Yobro won the 1997 Auckland Cup and came second in the Brisbane Cup the following year.
But in March 2002 NSW Thoroughbred Racing Board stewards charged Roberts for verbally threatening his vet, Dr Darren Gibbins, during a December 2001 telephone call.
Roberts was given a six months disqualification after being found guilty of asking his vet to withhold records from an inquiry.
Previously Roberts had a six-month ban for administering a prohibited substance to a racehorse.
An ASIC prosecution report for July to September 2007 shows Roberts also was fined $2,800 under the Corporations Act for failing to assist liquidators and failure to provide reports to the liquidator.
AAP ig/mo/bwl

Knights in shining armour

2009-07-06T20:51:00.009Z

Who will save Papua New Guinea's forests? A year ago, Prince Charles launched his project to help save the rainforests. In doing so he described an "an astonishing level of public consensus in the developed world that tropical rainforest destruction must be stopped if we are serious about reducing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere". Shame, then, that on July 1st, to dismay among environmentalists, mummy (the Queen), gave a knighthood to megawealthy Tiong Hiew King, founder of giant Asian logging conglomerate Rimbunan Hijau, for services to deforestation, I mean, commerce.

Rimbunan Hijau is the Malaysian conglomerate which is the biggest extractor of tropical timber from Papua New Guinea. It is also the parent company of the subsidiary Wawoi Guavi Timber, which is engaged in a legal battle over the logging rights to the forest of Kamula Doso in Papua. Kamula Doso is one of the largest blocks of unlogged rainforest in the country, containing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of timber and strategically placed for access to all the other remaining forests in Western province.

Rimbunan Hijau would very much like to cut the forest of Kamula Doso, and the rest of the region, down to stumps. So that it can be turned into something useful like Australian barbeque trolleys, while locals scratch around wondering where future went. Indeed, the only reason Kamula Doso is still standing today is because of a lengthy court battle being fought by local NGO Ecoforestry Forum over the way the concession was awarded and the teensy weensy issue of whether logging rights had actually been acquired from local landowners before the concession was granted.

But others now realise there is money to be made by avoiding deforestation. So while the loggers and the NGOs tussle over who has the legal right to cut it down, others are tussling over who has the legal right to not cut it down. In other words, who has the rights to any carbon credits for avoided deforestation, should they exist.

The Kamula Doso forest has been an ongoing issue in the country. These days it is linked with the creation of irregular carbon credits, which have appeared in the hands of Australian carbon brokerage, Carbon Planet. On the same day that the Chainsaw King got his gong from the Queen, Papua New Guinea finally suspended Theo Yasause, director of the Office of Climate Change in relation to the printing off symbolic carbon certificates (some of which relate to the carbon in Kamula Doso). His suspension was reported by Ilya Gridneff of Associated Press and came after weeks of feverish rumour and speculation. An internal investigation of the office appears to be underway (although this has been said before), and in the meantime, Dr Wari Iamo has become acting director.

Significantly Gridneff reports that AusAID has announced a corporate planning adviser will be placed in the OCC office for three months as part of the $3 million pledged under the Australia-PNG carbon initiative. Great move Australia. Now the question is whether other parts of the international aid community (World Bank Forest Carbon Partnership Fund, the Norwegians and UK's DFID) will apply safeguards to REDD projects here and in other parts of the world or lumber on regardless?

Last but not least, Kevin Conrad was passing through London today, and spoke at a meeting on the politics of climate change at Chatham House in London. Although much of what takes place at Chatham House is usually on a non-attributable basis, Dr Conrad was one of those who spoke publicly at the meeting--so I am able to report what was said here. He reflected on some of the governance issues in relation to avoided deforestation, particularly in relation to countries that have struggled to control both logging and illegal logging. And also on some of the governance issues as faced by Papua New Guinea. On the latter issue he said:

"We found that because Papua New Guinea was advocating a regime shift in forests, we had every carbon cowboy in the world descend upon Papua New Guinea and try to get a deal with some landowners to they could go back and say they were working in Papua New Guinea and that somehow gave them some credibility.

We then, at the same time, had a group of governors who understood our law very well and understood that if the government got all of the money in a consolidated budget that they under our law would then receive 100% of it because it was an export oriented activity.

We have what is called a derivation grant, so money comes in as consolidated revenues and if it is an export it goes to the state. So what they did was rattle the cages, try to destablise the regime as it were, try to bait the government into signing saying that all the REDD money goes to the government first. Surprisingly it then ends up in the governor’s pockets.

But it was a serious issue we had some irregularities, so cabinet had to suspend our executive director, we have to launch an independent review, and we want it to be transparent. But we want to learn from this.

Papua New Guinea is the first of many upcoming instances, whether it is in... Peru. Whether...whenever there is prospective of oncoming wealth there is a tendency for the small to become overrun by the strong. That is something we as a global society have to guard against and that is why we have to hold back market forces, until made the necessary infrastructural and capacity investments in each country."

On the broader issues, Dr Conrad said: "That is the question of transforming a development pathway in developing countries and the understanding that that means significant capital needs to be invested. What we are already seeing globally is that when stakeholders see a gravy train on its way, many of them try and restructure the local system using information and misinformation to try and position themselves at the front of the line. Now that is normal human behaviour. But it is important.

What we have to understand we need to first invest in absorptive capability. You can’t just drop money into a third world country and expect that to solve a problem, can’t build a road and provide a car and expect that will solve a villagers challenge of getting product to market. Because it rains and guess what the road disappears the car runs out of fuel, spare parts don’t make it and after half a year they are back at square one and the money has been lost.

The question is how do we invest first, before we introduce market forces? How do we first invest in the analysis, the institution building the capacity building, the strengthening of governance? All of these things in developing countries to varying levels, there are some like Costa Rica that have a head start on that. There are some countries in Africa that have a further way to go and there are many are in between, and Papua New Guinea is one of those."

It would be nice to think that the suspension, the investigation and the new acting director for the Office of Climate Change will draw a neat clean line under this episode and allow everyone to move on. But Dr Wari Iamo is very unlikely to be able to do this. For one thing he is a very curious choice for the Office of Climate Change as he was involved in the original allocation of the disputed Kamula Doso forestry concession to Rimbunan Hijau, in 1999. In 2002, Dr Iamo was criticised by a subsequent investigation by Papua's Ombudsman Commission, which said among many things that he did not “give proper consideration to environmental matters” and his “conduct was baffling and negligent”.

Is it really not possible to do better than this in the search for champions for the world's third largest rainforest?

Barking up the right tree

2009-06-28T22:22:00.002Z

One of the curious aspects of the story about irregular carbon credits is how many people have emerged offering more "information" about the story. One of the first was someone who went only by the name of Treble Cleff, but otherwise remained anonymous. Treble Cleff was certain that I should stop writing about Kamula Doso, which he said was doing a lot of damage to the landowners. He wanted me to pay more attention to another aspect of the story. He also wanted to know what I knew. This sort of anonymous dialog is tough to handle, who are they and what is their agenda? Impossible to say.

In this context, on June 8th, shortly after I wrote about irregular carbon credits in Papua New Guinea, I was approached by an academic called Colin Filer at The Australian National University. He offered a copy of a soon-to-be published scientific paper on the PNG "carbon cargo cult", written by Dr Filer and some colleagues. It should, he wrote, explain part of what was going on. When it arrived, (titled “Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Papua New Guinea”), the manuscript argued that official deforestation rates in Papua are too high, and that countries have an incentive overestimate deforestation. This was interesting but when I asked how this was relevant to the story I was mysteriously told it was "just background" and that Dr Filer was hanging onto some “juicy stuff” on this until he could get more verification.

But Dr Filer had also told me that he knew something about Kamula Doso. So I asked him what he knew. At the same time I asked, "please forgive me for asking but given your long professional experience in this region, may I check whether you have any personal or financial ties with this story please?” He wrote back: “Of course I'm connected to some of the players, but
like any good journalist, I don't reveal my sources.”

Lets just stop for a moment and recap. Dr Filer has contacted me as an academic who knows about a huge story of international significance and it turns out that he has some other non-academic connection that he is now refusing to disclose. Astonishing. So I wrote to tell him why this was wrong.

Essentially, I pointed out that academic employees are generally expected to either be independent or openly disclose any financial ties they may have that may be relevant to their work. I ended, “If there is any uncertainty about the request I am making, or you wish to decline this second opportunity to disclose your involvements, the only route open to me is to contact the vice-chancellor's office, explain the situation and make a formal request that these questions are answered immediately through the press office.” He replied, “I don't respond to threats.”

Well as it turns out, his boss the VC took a different view, and after a little email abuse from Dr Filer, “you're out to lunch with the wrong end of the stick”, I finally got my declaration—albeit prefaced with “let’s get this straight”. So who does Dr Filer work for? He has worked for Carbon Planet, one of the companies that is integral to the story. Dr Filer's job was to write reports about the institutions that might be used to distribute landowner benefits from REDD projects.

Being contacted this way, seemed sufficiently unusual to ask the university for a statement. I suppose I had been expecting something a bit more robust than “the University encourages its academic staff to take part in constructive public debates in areas of their expertise. Dr Filer is a long-standing academic expert on PNG's forestry sector, and as such has a right to comment. The University does require staff to disclose sources of funding for research, and Dr Filer has now done that, albeit somewhat belatedly.”

Of course the existence of a consultancy isn't evidence of any wrongdoing. But not being open about one's consultancies is unusual, particularly in such a sensitive case such as this, and when asked directly about them.

Having received my disclosure, I returned to the university and Dr Filer and asked for more information about Kamula Doso, but sadly Dr Filer didn't want to talk to me any more. When I questioned this, the university replied that while it "encouraged academic staff to engage in constructive public debate, we don't require that they do so.... ”

I'm not sure that telling journalists that they are "out to lunch" when they request a disclosure of commercial interests, and then going off into a sulk, really qualifies as constructive public debate, but there you have it. In the meantime, I've also heard that a friend of Dr Filer has been telling another journalist that I'm "barking up the wrong tree".

I'm not so sure. The tree for me is merely that there are certain standards of transparent behaviour that are expected from academics, and they need to stick to them because they are employed by the public.

The broader issue here is about the disclosure of commercial consultancies in forestry. Forestry workers may be beavering away on dry academic information about biomass, growth rates, satellite imagery, regrowth rates or even tenure in traditional communities. But increasingly these studies are becoming fundamental to arguments about huge amounts of real money in the forest carbon market. Academic studies are what underpin estimates of value. On the basis of a report from a consultant, a forest can be deemed to sequestering a particular amount of carbon, and then this can be sold as a valuable offset worth millions of dollars.

While much money and attention is rightly being put into governance issues in poor countries that must handle REDD projects, it is worth noting that transparency is necessary everywhere if this market is ever going to work. It doesn't matter whether everyone is honest, it needs to be transparent to work because the market will not work well with lots of asymmetric information.

For example, it really does matter when someone comes to buy $20m of carbon credits who has verified that they exist. In medicine, disclosure of consultancies is the norm. I think forestry consultants everywhere are going to have to start paying more attention to disclosure and transparency, particularly in relation to work done for carbon brokers and traders.

Letters from the field

2009-06-25T00:20:00.004Z

Papua New Guinea is not the only country in the world with a problem with its forest carbon. In other parts of the world such as Liberia and Guyana, there are deals that are causing deep local unease and concern. One carbon trader wrote to me recently about Colombia:

On my last trip to Colombia I was contacted by various "brokers" or "in-betweens" that offered me "500'000 ha of virgin Amazonas forest" or similar areas to "buy oxygen". Prior to these meetings, they had "secured" the "oxygen sales rights" from native people's forests. I tried hard to explain them how things work but the carbon bonanza there seems strong. Other carbon companies in Latin America seem to face the same problems. I understand there was even an MP of the Colombian parliament that referred to oxygen credits (instead of CO2 credits) when proposing draft legislation on climate change."

It is a depressing vision. While politicians at national and local levels wrestle each other for control of the carbon markets in their countries, and argue about how these schemes will work, on the ground, fraudsters are muscling in and buying up sketchy rights to forest which at best could tie up forest carbon deals in legal red tape for years. At the same time, many of the countries that would sell the industrialised world carbon from their forests are struggling to contain illegal forestry, despite the fact that the international community has poured money into this goal for years. If we have not been able to incentivise the prevention of illegal forestry--which costs developing countries tens of millions a year in lost revenue--what hope is there for avoiding deforestation through carbon credits? The World Bank et al. seem to think the answer is better governance. Good luck with that.

Does the international community's checklist for selling REDD credits go like this?:

1. Sort out corruption
2. Establish rule of law
3. Free and fair elections
4. Trade forest carbon

I met earlier today with a forestry analyst, based in the UK. She said something interesting and slightly depressing. The only reason the industrialised world is interested in reducing emissions through deforestation (REDD), she said, was as a cheap way of generating cuts in emissions. But this assumes that REDD can be made to work cheaply, which may not be the case. It may be so costly, with so many rules, that it is almost impossible to implement.

This may leave REDD as a fringe mechanism, only used by a small number of countries and schemes that are able to qualify. Equally, if the rules for REDD are set too weakly, in order to attract more participation, then there is a very real risk that the credits sold through these schemes are valueless.

What happens if REDD falls through? What happens to all these forests that have done deals for the carbon rights? Discussions about REDD have incentivised a green gold rush, with carbon traders investing large amounts of money in financing projects that they expect to make money come a deal on forest carbon trading in Copenhagen this December. If REDD fails, do they try and recoup some of their lost finance by logging? Wouldn't it be hugely and depressingly ironic if discussing a way of avoiding deforestation actually ended up kicking off a global wave of deforestation? The stakes seem very high.

The unusual 'A' series of Papua carbon credits

2009-06-20T00:51:00.007Z

Over the past few weeks the government of Papua New Guinea has been embroiled in a scandal about the issuance of irr egular carbon credits in a “B” series. So what is the A series?

The Office of Climate Change in Papua New Guinea recently added to the story by issuing a statement about a company called Climate Assist saying:

"This company sought to negotiate Carbon Credits in the market places that were not issued by this Office. This Office has had no dealings with this company in respect of credits issued. We were aware of this some months ago. We have our lawyers pursuing this matter with foreign law enforcement agencies as a matter of fraud. As such we cannot comment further on it." Climate Assist, too, is keeping silent at this stage.

So what is this certificate shown here? Luckily, I managed to ask Gregory Corby of Climate Assist about the A series of credits a few weeks ago. I asked him about the certificate reproduced here and another (which specifies a monetary value of $20m). He said, the credits had changed dramatically over the years, and these early credits were used to start his business. “We couldn't get them into trade or anything like that. And I had to go back to Papua New Guinea, it was 2007 and get others issued, and then I went back in 2008 and we got the last original ones issued.”

The credit shown is signed by a government minister on behalf of the government. On the bottom of the certificate it says it represents “ownership in carbon sinks”. Mr Corby went on, “the Papua New Guinea government gave us the credits and made us the brokers to monetize the credits.” In addition, Mr Corby said he had a long-standing relationship with the Prime Minister. However the PM’s press secretary denied this when I asked her a few weeks ago.

Another document appears to back up Mr Corby's statement that he was empowered to "make and sell" carbon credits on behalf of the government. I've also been given a letter dated 24th October 2005, sent to Climate Assist and signed by the same government minister, says:

“the Prime Minister has accepted that Papua New Guinea (PNG) has carbon credits and they are tradable commodity.

The Prime Minister and I have accepted that Climate Assist (PNG) Ltd acts as Brokers on behalf of the Independent State of PNG to buy and sell carbon credits.

The carbon credits have been assigned to Climate Assist (PNG) Ltd through our certificate and monetization that will finance designated projects within PNG.

Therefore, this letter sets to acknowledge the role of Climate Assist (PNG) Ltd and advise that the Government of the Independent State of PNG unconditionally guarantee all actions undertaken for the monetization of these credits”.

Are all these documents what they purport to be? I think at this stage the arguments are best left to lawyers, and I'd like to edge carefully out of this blog, trying not to knock over any words as I leave.

Updated: 18.8.09 Spelling adjusted.

Media round up

2009-06-18T02:42:00.005Z

Other parts of the media are also picking up on this difficult story about the issue of irregular carbon credits in Papua New Guinea. All credit to the journalists who are digging.

Reproduced in full is the latest from AAP, published in Australian paper The Age. Ilya Gridneff seems to have had a run in with the silver-tounged Jim Johnson of Carbon Planet.

Eco firm pays out for PNG carbon trading
Ilya Gridneff
June 18, 2009 - 4:09PM

An Australian-based environmental company has paid $1.2 million to develop carbon trading projects in Papua New Guinea where no policy or legislation exists to facilitate such deals.

South Australian-based Carbon Planet, with offices across Australia and in London, promotes itself as a leading force in the global 'carbon economy'.

An Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) document obtained by AAP shows Carbon Planet's financial statement to the end of June 2008 reporting a $A1.2 million payment for development of carbon trading in PNG.

Carbon Planet chairman Jim Johnson refused to comment when asked by AAP about the funding in PNG.

"I've got nothing to talk about," he said.

"I am really sick of you people casting aspersions on my company.

"No payment has been made to PNG, your information is incorrect."

AAP read out ASIC's Carbon Planet statement which says: "Payments include $1.2 million of advanced funding on origination projects in PNG which the company expects to recoup in the 2009 financial year."

Johnson responded: "I am not explaining at all. I am not having this conversation," before hanging up.

PNG has the world's third-largest rainforest and the government has great interest in turning the asset into carbon trading revenue, but at present no such policy or legislation exists in PNG, nor under UN guidelines.

Earlier this week, PNG's Office of Climate Change (OCC) director Dr Theo Yasause denied that his office accepted money from foreign companies or made any deals despite, leaked documents suggesting otherwise.

AAP understands Carbon Planet is working on one scheme with Nupan PNG, run by Australian Kirk Roberts, who has developed potential projects in PNG's Kamula Doso regions, in Western Province.

In November 2008, the OCC issued a contract for one million tonnes of voluntary carbon credits to Nupan for the Kamula Dosa project.

Dr Yasause said the OCC document issued to Nupan was a "sample" and was now null and void.

Also, an ongoing court battle with Kamula Dosa landowners restricts any business dealings in the 80,000ha of pristine forest.

Carbon Planet's literature predicts the global voluntary carbon market will be worth around $US9.9 billion-$US17.1 billion ($A12.5 billion-$A21.5 billion) per year by 2012.

They expect the global compliance market to be worth $US2 trillion ($A2.5 trillion) by 2020.

But while carbon trading has the potential to be a lucrative business, Carbon Planet has other financial issues.

KPMG partner Gary Savage in a Carbon Planet audit flagged the company's $4.6 million after tax loss by the year ended June 30 2008, and by October net losses had reached $6 million.

"These circumstances indicate the existence of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern..." Savage wrote.

ASIC would not comment.
© 2009 AAP

And other stories...

PNG carbon racket dupes landowners Radio New Zealand International

PNG in hot seat: claims of false carbon credits The Canberra Times

PNG Climate Change Office says carbon credit report based on stolen documents Australia Network News

Carbon credit fraud inquiry

2009-06-18T01:08:00.006Z

There is a lot of mudslinging going on inside Papua New Guinea. Some of it involves sideswipes at the media. Seeing as there are only a small number of journalists are actively working this beat at the moment, I have to feel that complaints about media coverage must be partly directed towards me. The Office of Climate Change has referred to "misinformation in the media done deliberately to create sensationalism and drama with a view to destroy the Office of Climate Change and what it has achieved so far and what it stands to achieve for this country".

So before I write more about the irregular carbon credits from the government of Papua New Guinea, it might be useful for me to state my opinion about carbon markets, reducing carbon emissions through avoided deforestation (known as REDD) and Papua New Guinea.

I have been a long advocate for payments for ecosystem services and wrote a long piece about this very subject for the Economist many years back, which was the basis of a memorable cover we ran (shown above). It still graphically sums up what everyone is talking about right now. (The original piece is now behind our subscriber wall, so I've linked to a copy posted on the web.) And I've written many times in support of property rights in the solution of environmental problems.

Given the current threat of climate change, the idea of reducing deforestation as a way of reducing carbon emissions is a good one. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that the main aim of reducing this deforestation seems to largely be as a way for developed countries to avoid making meaningful cuts in emissions. We should be making those cuts in emissions and paying to reduce deforestation.

That said, everyone knows that we need to find a way of stopping people cutting down so many trees, and that some kind of incentive is necessary. Further, that this incentive is going to involve money. The devil, though, is in the details. Whether it will be possible to set up a system that is not open to massive abuse, is the big question. As for Papua New Guinea, I've no agenda towards anyone or any institution other than to discover the truth. Such an agenda will not suit everyone, which is just tough.

But I digress. The main point of my post is to pick up on a press statement published by the Office of Climate Change in a number of newspapers on Tuesday. I have a copy of one of these which was published on page 7, of The National. There must be about 1,500 words in this vast statement, which contains some bizarre and and a few ill-advised statements.

The press statement is signed by Leo Tale, acting executive director, of the Office of Climate Change on June 15th, but must have been submitted to the newspaper at least the day before on the 15th. This is very curious because on that day, Theo Yasause was also giving a press conference as the director of the Office of Climate Change. Who is running Papua's Office of Climate Change right now? I'll let you know when I have an answer on that.

Until then, if you happen to be part of the international community of donors (Norwegians, Australians, UN, World Bank) currently rushing to thrust money on Papua New Guinea in order to improve "governance" so that REDD will work... you might just want to make sure you know who is running the Office of Climate Change before you write the cheque. Indeed, if you can get a good answer to that question I'd be delighted to know. Until then, you have been warned.

Finally, I'll turn to the most interesting part of this recent press statement. It reads:

"2. Climate Assist PNG Pty Ltd: -
This company sought to negotiate Carbon Credits in the market places that were not issued by this Office. This Office has had no dealings with this company in respect of credits issued. We were aware of this some months ago. We have our laywers pursuing this matter with foreign law enforcement agencies as a matter of fraud. As such we cannot comment further on it."

I'm no lawyer but I would imagine that such a statement would be pretty damaging to Mr Corby's business interests and he might be somewhat miffed to be accused of fraud by someone who may, or may not, be the head of the office of climate change. Indeed, I just spoke with Gregory Corby, of Climate Assist, a few hours ago and he says he has made a complaint to the Attorney General in Papua New Guinea, and his lawyers have told him not to say anything.

There is a lot more to say, but it is late in the UK, and it will have to wait another day. Suffice to say that what everyone is referring to is an "A series" of carbon credits that were mentioned in passing in my piece for The Economist. (As opposed to a "B" series which were discussed more extensively.)

The A series date back to 2005, prior to the creation of the Office of Climate Change. So it could well be technically accurate to say that the office of climate change had "no dealings with this company in respect of credits issued". But if these carbon credits do exist, as the statement acknowledges, who, exactly, in government authorised their production?

It is hardly credible that Mr Corby would simply decide to print off a whole bunch of carbon credits from Papua New Guinea and try to sell them without any government knowledge.

So who in government knew about, and who approved, the "A" series of Papua carbon credits?

In search of stolen carbon credits

2009-06-16T09:35:00.003Z

According to a report by by Ilya Gridneff, of the Associated Press, on Monday of this week Theo Yasause, head of the office of climate change in Papua New Guinea, “emphatically” denied any wrongdoing in relation to the existence tens of millions of tonnes worth of carbon credits created by the office of climate change. By way of explanation, sample credits were created merely "to see what it looked like".

Yasause announced yesterday that a criminal investigation would be conducted to find who stole the "sample" documents. Yet Jim Johnson, of Carbon Planet, went on the record recently to tell me that the documents were, "issued by OCC.”

If the Papua New Guinea government really does intend to start a criminal investigation over the credits held by Nupan and Carbon Planet, one would think that a quick call to Carbon Planet would be the first port of call. That would clear up any questions about how these credits got out of the Office of Climate Change.

Carbon Planet will no doubt be more than delighted to remind the government firstly that these "symbolic" credits that are in existence were indeed issued by the government and not leaked or stolen. And secondly, one might easily imagine that Carbon Planet might also point out that any indication by the government that the possession of these sample credits is improper in any way is defamatory, and potentially actionable.

Update: Ilya Gridneff's report of Monday's press conferece:

"Sample" documents blamed for PNG carbon deals
By Ilya Gridneff, Papua New Guinea Correspondent PORT MORESBY, June 15 AAP - Papua New Guinea's Office of Climate Change (OCC) director has emphatically denied any wrongdoing amid reports he issued up to 39 false multi-million-dollar carbon trading deals.

Dr Theo Yasause told reporters in Port Moresby on Monday stolen documents leaked to the media were "samples" not designed for official use.

Documents obtained by The Economist magazine and available on the web show a series of what appears to be multi-million-dollar carbon trading deals with foreign companies in various regions of PNG. "I've not sold or made any money out of this process," Yasause said. "I've done no deals, or sold any credits."

Yasause said even though the leaked documents appear to carry his signature, the OCC's official seal and another colleague's signature, they did not represent real deals. "It's not a false document but a sample," he said. Asked why he would make sample documents, he said: "We want to see what it looked like." "It's speculation by certain individuals who have no regard for the process," Yasause said. "They should have asked before they released this kind of statements," he said. "It was a sample stolen from my drawer, we were looking at several types of project," he said.

Yasause said a criminal investigation would be conducted to find who stole the "sample" documents, along with a review of the OCC. "We never received any funding from foreign entities," he said. "We have not issued any credits to anyone," he said. PNG has the world's third-largest rainforest and great interest in turning the asset into carbon trading revenue, but at present no such policy or legislation exists in PNG, nor under UN guidelines.

On Friday an industry insider told AAP conmen were scamming PNG villagers by selling fake carbon trading schemes that relied on the community's confusion and belief in "sky money". AAP ig/jl/de

Carbon con, reloaded

2009-06-15T11:49:00.002Z

Imitation is the best form of flattery.

Ilya Gridneff, journalist for the Associated Press in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, published this very nice piece on June 13th, in the Sidney Morning Herald.

Carbon conmen selling the sky

Ilya Gridneff in Port Moresby

June 13, 2009

PAPUA NEW GUINEAN landowners are being ripped off by conmen travelling village to village offering fake carbon trading deals and promising big returns from "sky money".

The crude carbon trading racket has duped at least 500 villagers since late last year around Popondetta, Oro province, on the north-west coast, an industry insider said.

The unknown con artist hired agents to offer "brokerage" in the province's coming carbon trading windfall.

Locals pay 1110 kina ($510) for "registration as a shareholder" in a carbon trading company with promises of big dividends from the millions expected from PNG's carbon trading.

A receipt is given, and that is the last time villagers see the agent and their money.

This scam is a thumbnail of the broader concerns plaguing PNG's efforts to best utilise their lucrative rainforests, the third largest in the world.

Dave Melick, of the PNG arm of the conservation group WWF, said confusion in the provinces was one concern, while credibility, corruption and carbon trading complexities were other hurdles PNG faced. "People in the bush are calling it 'money bilong sky' [sky money] or 'selling the air' or 'selling the gas above'.

"Some have asked WWF, 'Who pays for the transport costs?' when they cut their tree, burn the logs and bring the carbon to Port Moresby," Mr Melick said. "A lot of people think you sell the gas over the forest canopy and they're not quite sure how to capture it. There is real confusion.'

Problems associated with PNG's infamous logging industry translated into moves towards a carbon market, he said. "We're telling people not to sign anything as there is no policy or legislation."

This month Reuters news agency and the magazine The Economist reported a series of anomalies with PNG's Office of Climate Change. It appears the office has been offering millions of dollars worth of carbon credits while no legislation or policy exists in PNG or under UN guidelines.

Betha Somare, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister, Michael Somare, said a review was being conducted into the "apparent irregularities".

AAP

The carbon rip-off

2009-06-11T23:11:00.004Z

While the world considers the possibility of a deal to trade forest carbon in Bonn, back in the forests of Papua New Guinea, unscrupulous entrepreneurs are ripping off the locals over carbon.

No, its nothing to with the government. This time its ordinary conmen travelling from village to village. An Australian forestry worker who has worked in Papua New Guinea for years, and who asked to remain anonymous, says he has uncovered a carbon trading scam being perpetrated in villages around Ponpondetta, which lies in the Oro Province, a coastal area of Papua New Guinea quite close to the capital Port Moresby. Somewhere over 40,000 people live in the Province.

The scam works like a carbon “broker” hires agents to travel from village to village who offers to register them in the province's forthcoming carbon bonanza, which will be worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. Locals are asked to pay 1,110 Kina (£250) for “registration as a shareholder” in a carbon trading company. Of course none of this exists, its all nonsense. But, says one cynical journalist, "this is a country where a conman was able to convince locals to pay 10 kina to look at his magic rock in a bucket".

I've posted a copy of the kind of receipt that is given. I've obscured the surname of the person who fell victim to this scam to avoid any kind of possible unpleasantness. Around 500 people are believed to have signed up to one scheme.

It is perhaps no surprise that the snake oil salesmen who sell cures for every ailment including AIDS, would recognise how easy it to sell hot air. Indeed, it is quite a popular idea in the country right now, the idea that one can simply decide to issue "symbolic" carbon certificates. But it begs the question of if this is what is happening in just one province what could be happening in a population of six million or more broadly around the world.

What is striking about the invention of an avoided forest carbon market is the extent to which it is quickly spawing a variety of imaginative ways of fleecing landowners and indigenous people in the rush for green gold. Whether it is unscrupulous locals, entrepreneurs from the cities or abroad, or even entire regional or national governments, everyone has realised that the avoided forest carbon market is the opportunity of a lifetime.

So how does this inform the international negotiations in Bonn ? Its another warning about being careful. If there is any doubt about my meaning, let me spell it out in the words of one British based forestry analyist: "REDD is an idea dreamt up by economists who have no idea how fucked the developing world is".

An odd REDD project in Aitape Lumi

2009-06-10T17:25:00.007Z

Almost daily, now, I am being sent documents from Papua New Guinea that are worrying and mystifying in equal parts.

The latest comes with regards to a REDD pilot project for Aitape Lumi, which is in West Sepik Province, the north-westernmost province of Papua New Guinea. (Number 19 on the map to the left, and with thanks to Wikipedia.)

This latest letter is from Theo Yasause, executive director of the Office of Climate Change, and is addressed to the managing director of Carbon (PNG) Dev. Corporation on March 24th of this year and says that the Office of Climate Change has no objections to the company developing a pilot REDD project in the area.

The letter, reproduced below, continues “your request to be allocated 50 million voluntary credits (CERs) can be granted subject to the development of the PDD [project documentation] by a third party..”

This is somewhat unexpected as, according to a Reuters report, the Office of Climate Change "suspended in January all plans to sell rights to the carbon stored in its rainforests after deals sparked land ownership disputes". Mr Yasause went on, "All projects are suspended while we get some experience".

I guess Mr Yasause forgot about this one. He also seems to have forgotten something else. The letter continues, “If you agree, I will request South Pole Ltd Carbon Trading Company based in Zurick Switzerland to assist you develop the project to have the credits ready for sale”.

Lets make one thing clear, senior industry figures tell me that South Pole is a very reputable Swiss based firm. So I showed this latest letter to Christian Dannecker, at South Pole, and he said they had never seen this letter, had never heard of Carbon (PNG) Dev. Corporation, and knew nothing about these projects.

Mr Dannecker has some observations and questions of his own. Why does does the letter refer to CER credits? This is a good question, voluntary credits go under the term Verified Emissions Reduction or VER. Where does the value of 50m voluntary credits come from? Another good question, the value of the carbon in any forest is not down to the government to decide. Finally, Mr Dannecker observes that merely a letter of support or approval is satisfactory in such circumstances.

South Pole Carbon is already formulating a complaint to the Office of Climate Change about the use of his company’s name in this context. He adds, “we appreciate that he thinks of us but would like to be informed beforehand”.

April Salome

2009-06-09T11:11:00.007Z

April Salome is a forest of about 521,000 hectares in East Sepik Province, of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The roughly 20,000 people who live there would like to find some way of living sustainably with their forest, without cutting it down.

Kevin Conrad, PNG's climate ambassador, says that a Dutch project in the area was abandoned quite suddenly, leaving the locals high and dry. Schools had no teachers, and clinics had no nurses. And so now the area is a pilot project for REDD. This means that it hopes to meet the eventual qualifications for a project that avoids carbon emissions, and can thus generate credits that can be traded on the anticipated global mandatory market.

In short, the rich world will pay April Salome to keep its forest intact in order to reduce carbon emissions and the landowners will be a little less poor than they are. (For more background on the REDD project read The Economist's green.view column this week)

There are plenty of questions about whether April Salome will qualify for REDD. But lets not get ahead of ourselves, that isn't a question anyone can really answer right now because everyone is still arguing how REDD will work. What is clear is that there is an active voluntary market for carbon credits, and South Pole Carbon, based in Zurich, are working to qualify the forest against the Voluntary Carbon Standard (or VCS). Borrowing words from the VCS standard website, it is intended to provide a... robust, new global standard for voluntary offset projects. It ensures that carbon offsets that businesses and consumers buy can be trusted and have real environmental benefits. So April Salome has two possible ways to sell credits, through the voluntary market which already exists and through the mandatory REDD market if this materialises.

If I as a customer, wanted to buy an option right now on the delivery of future certified credits from April Salome forest right now would that make me criminal or clever? It might be unwisely hasty but it would be legitimate. It might also be a good deal because the options I buy now could be worth a great deal more down the line. The only point at which it becomes a problem is if I pretend my stake is something that it isn't, i.e. I say I own REDD credits. Another possible issue is if I buy into a project like this, and also at the same time am financially involved in the qualification of the credits. The problem here is that there is a conflict of interests. My only incentive would be to qualify the credits and thus increase the value of my options. (N.B. I am not suggesting that either of these things are happening)

The other thing to know about April Salome is the locals want their forest developed this way. This isn't being imposed. South Pole Carbon say that four public stakeholder consultations took place between 4 and 15 May 2009 in Sepik Center of Hope, Wewak, and three villages within the April Salome Area with valuable assistance from the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Sepik River Programme. The entities inviting for this event were The National Office for Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability, the landowner group and Earthsky Ltd.

A Charitable Foundation has been established known as the April Salome Sustainable Forest Management Project Foundation, (ASSFMPF) managed with DNA involvement to distribute the benefits from utilising the UNFCCC (REDD) programme with April Salome Forestry Assets. For more information check out the new website.

That website explains: "South Pole, in cooperation with the PNG DNA [Designated National Authority] office, the landowner groups and the above NGOs, is currently working to address any question or issue raised during that consultation. The stakeholder consultation report, to be published in June, will be available to anyone interested. The project has been endorsed in writing by 163 landowner groups living in the April Salome Forest Management Area. A Benefit Sharing Agreement has been signed where the landowner groups will directly receive the largest share of the net proceeds from this project, while 2% of the proceeds will be donated to the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund and aditional funding will be made available from the project owners to the PNG government in form of project funding (with no cash being disbursed to the government). South Pole is not involved in this revenue sharing agreement and is not responsible for its distribution.

South Pole is contributing to the development of April Salome Sustainable Forest Management project in hope that this and other projects will contribute to further development of the REDD carbon market in order to significantly and reliably contribute to climate change mitigation while generating sustainable development benefits in some of the poorest countries on earth."

Hostage to fortune
Jun 8th 2009
Trading carbon credits based on avoided deforestation

The Kamula Doso credit

2009-06-06T14:44:00.008Z

This is a piece of paper that I refer to as the Kamula Doso REDD credit, which is part of a "B" series of credits issued from the Office of Climate Change in Papua New Guinea.

To everyday folk, it looks like it might represent that a certain amount of carbon had been verified as having been stored and verified by the government. Of course, it is well known that all sorts of odd carbon credits are traded on the voluntary market these days, what is peculiar about this certificate is that it claims to have been produced for what is intended to be the mandatory market. It says "pursuant to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change under Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) Initiative".

One problem with this piece of paper is that there is no legal framework for an actual REDD credit to exist. Anyone who knows anything about carbon trading says that this credit cannot possibly exist, because nobody has agreed a framework for this particular type of trade. But then there are many things about this document which are irregular.

I emailed Theo Yasause, executive director of the Office of Climate Change and one of those whose signature appears on the credit (and whose email address in the header). He wrote back:

"Kirks Roberst of NUPAN PNG have been working with the landowners of Kumula Doso and made representation to my Office.

We issued an Interim copy of the Certificate dated 3 Nov 08 on the basis that they will undertake wide stakeholder consultation covering all landowners, provincial and local government before such project can be entertained. The Original Certificate was kept in my Office but someone took that out and leaked it out on circulation. No documentation were submitted with proof that consultation were undertaken and the people are happy with possible carbon trade.

We have since ceased dealing with NUPAN as all landowners are not involved nor does the provincial and local governments in that area. We have stop any direct links with NUPAN since 3rd February. Forestry and ourselves were stoped by Court no to log or undertake carbon trade.

The credits in question were not sold or given to anyone as yet. This is because no Project Documentation were submitted to my satisfaction which would than be submitted to VCS for verifying.

Furthermore, there is a Court Injunction, in place and any dealing will be in contempt of court. Therefore, we have ceased dealing at this stage. from my side no credits were sold nor bought by anyone. Nor have the Office benefited in anyway. "

Mr Yasause mentions another reason why the Kamula Doso credit caused such outrage. The forest is the subject of a court injunction. Until a long-running ownership dispute is settled, nobody can buy or sell anything to do with the forest.

I have not been able to speak with Kirk Roberts, as he is travelling in Indonesia. But for a brief period, Kirk Roberts permitted the Australian carbon management company Carbon Planet to respond to questions about Carbon Planet's role with the Kamula Doso project, and a number of other similar projects.

Jim Johnson, of Carbon Planet, said, "there are in existence a group of certificates issued by OCC to Nupan for Kamula Doso. They are not real certificates. They are symbolic to the fact that Nupan is recognised by OCC as rightful developer to the landowners of Kamula Doso".

Carbon Planet's job is to help develop the Kamula Doso forest into a REDD carbon trade project for Nupan. Over $1.2m (AUS) in project finance was provided for this, and a number of other similar projects, around Papua New Guinea.

This is not unusual. All over the tropical forests of the world, entrepreneurs are doing deals with landowners over the rights to the carbon in their trees. They are speculating that a REDD deal will be done in Copenhagen, and that the value of the carbon will increase when it can become part of the global mandatory market.

Indeed, it is even possible to buy and sell promises to deliver REDD credits in the future. Again, this is perfectly standard. Fourteen percent of the forest carbon traded on voluntary markets right now are based on promises to deliver REDD credits. But an actual credit cannot exist. Its a small and technical detail. But an important one. A promise of something in the future is very different from saying that one already has it.

Has this Kamula Doso REDD credit been sold? No. Mr Johnson said, "there has been no purchasing of carbon credits under any agreement, they have not been put forward for sale or traded". He concluded, "Carbon Planet is putting forward carbon credits for sale from its contracted portfolio, but only subject to certification by one or more of the recognised standards bodies".

So there it is. The Kamula Doso credit was an "interim" or "symbolic" credit. Which raises the question, why were there at least 40 of these symbolic certificates issued? And how many projects these 40 credits represent around the country. Based on Carbon Planet's investment of $1.2m (AUS) into forest projects in Papua New Guinea, with $100,000 for each programme, there could be up to 12. And where are they? It would be great to find out more. And also to find out how it came to pass that the Kamula Doso project got to such an advanced stage with so many unhappy landowners.

Unfortunately, Carbon Planet tells me that it is no longer authorised to speak to me by Nupan, and is bound by a confidentiality agreement. I've asked if I might communicate with Mr Roberts by email or telephone but have not received any reply.

Mr Roberts, you know how to find me if you want to tell me more about these REDD credits.

* updated June 15th: Kamula Duso changed to Kamula Doso throughout.

The carbon credits that should not exist

2009-06-06T08:45:00.003Z

For the last three weeks I've been working on the most difficult story of my career. Difficult in many ways. Information that is hidden and wants to stay that way. Information that is financially complex and easy to get wrong, and information that is legally difficult to publish.

Today we publish a story about carbon credits that should not exist. Nonetheless they were produced by someone in the government of Papua New Guinea. Reading it now, what strikes me most is of what we could not write rather than what we could.

This is an important story for a number of reasons. A carbon credit puports to represent something real, in other words that carbon has been removed from the atmosphere by some activity. In this case, the activity in question was avoided deforestation. The problem is that it is very easy to print a piece of paper saying something has happened. It is much harder, and takes far longer, to actually do it. And these carbon credits that have materialised in Papua New Guinea very much seem to be claiming they are something they are not, and could not be.

But the fact that they do exist underscores something very crucial, as the world negotiates a deal to formalise the process of avoided deforestation, something called REDD. We need to be careful that we do not spend trillions of dollars on a technology that does not work to lower greenhouse gases. Trees are a carbon removal technology.

And the main problem with them is that those who are eager to sell rights to carbon, whether this is indigenous groups or governments, may not actually have full control of whether or not the trees are cut down. If you cannot defend property, then a property right is meaningless.

There is much more to tell. It is not easy but I will try. If you want to tell me more about this story, please get in touch via The Economist's media directory.

Papua New Guinea and carbon trading
Money grows on trees

Jun 6th 2009
From Economist.com
Irregular carbon credits cause upheaval in the government of Papua New Guinea

How green is your sushi?

2009-06-02T13:24:00.003Z

Check out the latest issue of Intelligent Life magazine, the Economist's glossy quarterly magazine, for an article about trying to eat sustainable sushi in London's famous Nobu restaurant.

Trees for sale

2009-05-27T12:06:00.004Z

Around the world trees are busily going about their business sucking up carbon. They do a good job at it. So good, in fact, their loss through deforestation contributes to about 20% of the overall greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere. Bright minds around the world are focused on avoiding this deforestation as a way of lowering the world’s carbon emissions.

So far so good. But avoiding deforestation means that many landowners must forego their rights to sell timber in order that the world has the benefit of the services that these trees provide when they are not used make tables. So it has been suggested that reducing deforestation and degradation (known by the acronym REDD) become a formalised international process that will lower carbon emissions. The crucial point, though, is that money should exchange hands from those who are providing the carbon storage, i.e. the landowners, to those who emit it, i.e. all of us.

The “all of us” bit actually means governments, corporations and of course individuals if we decide to make such payments. And the currency of such negotiations is the carbon credit. Thus, if I own an acre of forest that I decide not to chop down but to keep, then I will be paid for the amount of carbon that this forest stores. Each tonne of carbon my forest stores will be equal to one carbon credit. These carbon credits can then be sold by me, to someone else, who may decide to sell them on to someone else again. Thus there is a market for carbon credits based on avoided deforestation, and an incentive to landowners not to cut down trees.

One of the things that the world is negotiating at the moment is how this system will operate, and what rules will govern it. The international negotiators at meetings around the world, the next of which is Bonn in June, need to settle issues such as “additionality”.

This is an idea that is important for any payment for avoided deforestation. Say my forest had planning controls on it that prevented me from chopping the trees down. I owned the forest, and the trees, but my use of it was constrained to basically walking through it and enjoying it. If this is the case, then nobody should be able to pay carbon credits to me, for the simple reason that there is no avoided deforestation because I would never have been allowed to cut them down in the first place.

But there is sufficient deforestation around the world to make this potentially very big business indeed. If the international community agrees to REDD during Copenhagen, it will jump-start a very big market. The thing is, that many companies are not content to wait for official rules and regulations, they want to get in on the action early and sew up a good deal. Fortunes may well be made in this race, but they may also be lost. Because, and going back to the example of the forest, in some countries in the world it would be very easy for me to lie and say that I have the right to sell the carbon in my trees because I have the right to chop the trees down and sell them. And if I did have the right to chop down my trees, it would be even easier to sell the rights to the carbon in them, even if I had no intention to do so.

Over the next few weeks, I want to write in this blog about this business of REDD. Because of the concise nature of the publication that I write for, The Economist, its not possible for me to write everything that I have learned about this industry so far in its pages. Instead, I’ll use this blog to write about what I have discovered. There is an urgent need for clarity and transparency about the trade of carbon credits for avoided deforestation. If you want to email me with questions, or answers, please do so by filling out this form.

Snoutbreak

2009-05-05T12:30:00.003Z

Global health
Watching nervously
A new influenza virus is spreading across the globe. Is the world ready for the next pandemic?

Apr 30th 2009

The nature of Nature

2009-04-29T14:27:00.004Z

We published an essay on John Maddox last week, which many people have written to me to say they enjoyed. In researching this piece I spoke to a lot of my journalist colleagues about Maddox. It was a real privilege to be able to write this story. A couple of people mentioned something interesting about Maddox that got eliminated from my story by my editors.

Henry Gee a senior editor at Nature said that Maddox really admired The Economist. He said, "he wanted Nature to be like the Economist, he wanted Nature to be like a newspaper, to do for science what The Economist did for business, crsip tightly edited, utterly authoritative, he told me this several times."

This little aspect of Maddox's intentions didn't make it into print, I suppose because it would have seemed to much like boasting, and seem a little self-serving. But equally by editing it out, we did actually intentionally cover up a bit of the story.

Maddox's independence still runs strong through Nature, something that is helped by the fact that it doesn't have an editorial board as Science does. But during tough times, it is the commercial ventures like Nature that are usually faced with the most difficult decisions. So it will be interesting to see how Nature weathers the economic storms. (Related to this, I read that the owners of Nature, Macmillan, have decided to bring Scientific American closer into the Nature fold.)

So to read my essay about John Maddox, which is a sort of anti-obit, follow this link.