Many readers will remember our critique of a paper by Douglass et al on tropical tropospheric temperature trends late last year, and the discussion of the ongoing revisions to the observational datasets. Some will recall that the Douglass et al paper was trumpeted around the blogosphere as the definitive proof that models had it all [...]

Leaders from the environmental and business communities have released the most comprehensive recommendations yet on the role that forests should play in the next climate change agreement.

The Forest Dialogue's Initiative on Forests and Climate Change, a 250-person coalition of governments, environmentalists, timber companies, trade unions, financial institutions, and indigenous peoples, released five "guiding principles" [PDF] in a joint statement at the World Conservation Union (IUCN) World Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday.

Among the recommendations, the initiative said negotiators must address the factors that now complicate halting deforestation, including agriculture production, population growth, and unclear land rights.

"Perverse incentives that encourage the clearing of land that would otherwise have remained as forest should be identified and removed," the statement said.

Deforestation is reponsible for nearly 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet forest management is not included in the Kyoto Protocol, the current international climate agreement. The exclusion was due in part to disagreement within the environmental community about how such a forestry policy should work, or whether it should exist at all.

At December's United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, however, negotiators from Costa Rica and Papua New Guinea said it was unfair that countries that have been actively protecting their forests were not being rewarded for this effort. Conference delegates agreed and included a policy that would compensate nations for forest protection, known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), in the final "Bali roadmap" [PDF] report.

The policy's ambitions, however, are no easy task. Billions of dollars will likely be necessary to persuade loggers to change their ways. The policy also raises the questions: Who will receive the funds? How will they be distributed? And how will people who depend on forest clearing for their livelihood be compensated if tree felling is prohibited?

Several critics have also raised concerns about the general concept of REDD. "Reward the destroyers to stop destroyin g- isn't that encouraging those who are doing wrong instead of those who are trying to protect the forests?" said Kanyinke Sena, Eastern Africa representative for the Indigenous People of Africa Coordinating Committee.

While the initiative's statement does not provide specific answers to these questions, it emphasizes that sustainable forest management must be central to the REDD agreement.

"Unless development issues such as poverty and corruption are addressed... a revenue stream to reduce deforestation might not do the trick," said Warren Evans, senior director of the World Bank Environment Department.

The guidelines also call for climate policies that respect the "importance of mapping and securing the tenure, property, and carbon rights of Indigenous Peoples, family forest owners, and local communities." These groups have often been excluded from climate negotiations both in their own countries and in international negotiations.

"For a long time we have been kept out - the people really doing work [of traditional forest management]," said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. "It's good that we are finally being heard through the Forest Dialogues."

The initiative's consensus is similar to what environmentalists have been saying since sustainability became a popular talking point nearly two decades ago. Yet the collaboration provides the first comprehensive guidelines on REDD for climate negotiators. "The huge step is having a unified statement from businesses to indigenous groups," said Daniel Birchmeier, senior program officer for Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). "That can't be ignored."

The consensus also suggests that the environmental community as a whole is more willing to include forestry in a climate agreement than it was in the past. The initiative was organized mainly by IUCN and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, but leaders from the largest environmental organizations all participated in the process.

While the REDD policy has still not been finalized, several countries are already accepting funds to support anti-deforestation measures. Earlier this year, Norway became the first donor to Brazil's voluntary forestry fund, which the government hopes will collect $1 billion annually to help protect the Amazon forest from further destruction. And the World Bank's Carbon Finance Unit selected 14 forest-rich countries in July to receive grants for policies that they hope will avoid further deforestation.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reach at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

The theme of this year's annual meeting of the European Meteorological Society (EMS) [European Congress on Applied Climatology (ECAC)] was adaptation to climate change. So what's more appropriate then, than hosting the meeting in Amsterdam - on a building site? Adaption may involve changes in both building practices and in being able to forecast adverse conditions. [...]

A coalition of environmental organizations and travel businesses is forming a global sustainability standard for tourism.

More travelers are desiring sustainable vacations and more destinations are seeking to lessen the impacts of rising visitor numbers. But tourists who want to leave a lighter footprint must currently choose among some 300 different sustainable tourism standards, members of the Partnership for Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria said Monday at the launch of their criteria at the World Conservation Union (IUCN) World Congress in Barcelona. 

The partnership - a collection of 27 organizations from the tourism industry and environmental community - said the unified standard provides a resource that could become as widely recognized as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label for wood products or the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED designation for green buildings.

"There is mass confusion about what is sustainable tourism," said Tensie Whelan, executive director of the Rainforest Alliance, which organized the partnership alongside the United Nations Foundation and various United Nations agencies. "This body will help to make this information available...and ensure that it is indeed reliable."

Sustainable tourism has grown in popularity in recent years and now accounts for an estimated 1 percent of all tourism operations. In early 2007, this rising interest led concerned environmental groups and several major travel providers-including Choice Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Travelocity, Expedia, Inc., and the American Hotel & Lodging Association-to come together to develop the sustainability standard.

The criteria require that tourism operations conduct their business without having an adverse impact on a destination's habitats, local communities, or cultural heritage. If widely adopted, the standard could further expand efforts to green the supply chain of hotels and resorts as well as lessen the impact on wildlife and local communities, organizers said.

The partnership will suggest specific indicators for a sustainable tourism operation-for example, the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions a hotel must reduce. But unlike other standards such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's organic label that applies blanket rules for food production, what is considered to be a "sustainable" tourism operation would vary depending on a location's unique environmental or cultural challenges.

The actual requirements will be established by local organizations or governments based on certain local or regional specifics. "This develops the use of local standards-not like the FSC...it's a locally based financial system," Whelan said.

While the standard would be uneven across the world, the architects of the guidelines said they wanted to avoid more rigid criteria that may discourage businesses from applying. "We don't want the bar to be set so high that it's a barrier to entry," said Kate Dodson, the U.N. Foundation's deputy director of sustainable development. "It's how they start [that is important]."

On the environmental side, the criteria require businesses to measure and reduce their energy consumption, water use, waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions. To address social impacts, a "code of conduct" would be necessary for activities in indigenous and local communities, which the communities would need to approve. Certifiers would also have to ensure that the businesses "respect" cultural heritage and wildlife populations.

Tourism, directly or indirectly, provides roughly 8 percent of world employment and generates trillions of dollars worldwide. Yet the rapid growth in the industry - the World Tourism Organization predicts 1.1 billion people will be traveling in 2010 and 1.6 billion by 2020 - has led to rising environmental concerns including habitat degradation, resource over-consumption, and pollution. Tourism accounts for an estimated 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Tourism also introduces foreign visitors to traditionally sheltered areas, which may threaten the ability for indigenous and tribal communities to protect their cultural heritage.

"Can tourism ever be truly sustainable? I don't think so because of the way it is carried out," said Chris Thompson, head of responsible tourism at the Federation of Tourism Operators and a member of the partnership. "All we can do is mitigate it to make it as sustainable as possible."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

More than a third of the world's species are threatened with extinction, according to the latest international biodiversity assessment from the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

The IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species, considered the authority on the status of the world's species, was updated this year to include 44,838 species. Of these, about 38 percent are designated as "threatened" and 7 percent are "critically endangered."

Continued habitat depletion, deadly diseases, and climate change are all posing dire threats to biodiversity across the world, conservationists warned at the IUCN's World Congress in Barcelona.

"Within our lifetime, hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions," said Julia Marton-Lefevre, the IUCN Director-General.

The updated assessment includes the most comprehensive review of the world's mammals ever completed. The study, which will be published in the journal Science this week, counted 1,141 of the world's 5,487 mammals, about one-fourth, as threatened. 

The list added 366 species of amphibians, bringing the total of threatened or extinct amphibians to 1,983, or 32 percent. Holdridge's Toad, native to the rainforests of Costa Rica, was officially declared extinct after not having been seen since 1986.

The status of mammals, amphibians, and other classes may be even more severe; however, a lack of sufficient data prevents a more accurate assessment. The IUCN said it does not have enough information about 836 mammals to declare their status and that the share of threatened mammals could be as high as 36 percent, said Jan Schipper, program coordinator for the IUCN and Conservation International's joint global mammal assessment and the lead author of the Science study.

"We have social, political, and economic indexes. But we lack broad biodiversity indexes," Schipper said. "This is vital for our global species' existence."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

Guest commentary from Mauri Pelto Changes occurring in marine terminating outlet glaciers of the Greenland Ice Sheet and ice shelves fringing the Antarctic Peninsula have altered our sense of the possible rate of response of large ice sheet-ice shelf systems. There is a shared mechanism at work that has emerged from the detailed observations of [...]

In the backyard of a suburban home in Denver, Colorado, 22 chickens are hiding out from the law.

They arrived when a member of BackyardChickens, an online forum, ordered the birds in the mail this past May. "I actually get my chicks in today hopefully, and I am worried that animal control will be at the post office waiting for me with hand-cuffs," the new poultry farmer wrote.

An underground "urban chicken" movement has swept across the United States in recent years. Cities such as Boston, Massachusetts, and Madison, Wisconsin, are known to have had chickens residing illegally behind city fences.

But grassroots campaigns, often inspired by the expanding movement to buy locally produced food, are leading municipalities to allow limited numbers of hens within city limits.

Cities such as Anne Arbor, Michigan; Ft. Collins, Colorado; and South Portland, Maine have all voted in the past year to allow residents to raise backyard poultry. "It's a serious issue - it's no yolk," said Mayor Dave Cieslewicz of Madison, Wisconsin, when his city reversed its poultry ban in 2004. "Chickens are really bringing us together as a community. For too long they've been cooped up."

Raising backyard chickens is an extension of an urban farming movement that has gained popularity nationwide. Home-raised livestock or agriculture avoids the energy usage and carbon emissions typically associated with transporting food.

"Fresh is not what you buy at the grocery store. Fresh is when you go into your backyard, put it in your bag, and eat it," said Carol-Ann Sayle, co-owner of five-acre (two-hectare) farm in Austin, Texas, located within walking distance from the state capitol. "Everyone should have their own henhouse in their own backyard." 

"Buying local" also provides an alternative to factory farms that pollute local ecosystems with significant amounts of animal waste - which can at times exceed the waste from a small U.S. city, a government report revealed last month. In the United States alone, industrial livestock production generates 500 million tons of manure every year. The waste also emits potent greenhouse gases, especially methane, which has 23 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Meanwhile, advocates insist that birds raised on a small scale are less likely to carry diseases than factory-farmed poultry, although some public health officials are concerned that backyard chickens could elevate avian flu risks. 

Chicken: The 'Buy Local' Mascot

After the trend first gained popularity in London, England, with the invention of the "eglu" chicken house about ten years ago, large numbers of city dwellers began to raise chickens in the U.S. cities of Seattle and Portland, said Jac Smit, president of the Urban Agriculture Network. "It's no longer something kinky or interesting," Smit said. "The 'chicken underground' has really spread so widely and has so much support."

Within the past five years, the trend has expanded to cities where raising hens was already legal, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. "Chicken has become the symbol, a mascot even, of the local food movement," said Owen Taylor of New York City, who knows of at least 30 community gardens that raise poultry, mostly for their eggs. One Brooklyn home has raised upward of 50 hens. "We're the biggest city in the country, so to have it here I think blows people's minds."

K.T. LaBadie, a University of New Mexico graduate student, was born into a family that grew its own fruits and vegetables. So when she moved to Albuquerque and met a friend who was raising his own chickens, poultry was a logical progression in her own home. She began with two hens, and now she has four.

"It felt like a good compliment to our backyard gardening. We get compost from the chickens that goes back into the vegetable beds," LaBadie said. "And there's really nothing better than harvesting tomatoes and peppers from your garden and being able to make an omelet with it using a meal that was based in your backyard."

The spread of backyard chickens has promoted spin-off businesses that cater to the local market. Some communities are relying on mobile slaughterhouses to manage and distribute the poultry meat, according to Smit. "It's no longer huge slaughterhouses doing millions [of birds]. It's a guy driving around on a truck, visiting neighborhood to neighborhood," he said. "And it's not chickens only.... Duck, turkey, and quail are particularly attractive."

In Portland, Oregon, residents have organized a farming cooperative [video] to raise hens for egg production. "The money is used to maintain the cooperative. It's not necessarily organized to be a profit-sharing venture," said Debra Lippoldt, executive director of Growing Gardens, a Portland urban agriculture advocacy group.

Public Health Concerns

If avian influenza eventually evolves to infect humans, experts fear that backyard chickens will be vectors of the disease. Government officials have threatened to ban free-range chickens in cities in Thailand, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, where bird flu has spread in the past. Governments around the world are also concerned that wild fowl will infect backyard chickens, leading to calls for similar bans in the Canadian province of British Columbia and in Australia.

But several public health officials argue that homegrown poultry are not a disease threat if the chickens are properly maintained. "Make sure the roof of the pen has a solid cover to protect birds from fecal matter that may drop from birds flying overhead," said University of California at Davis poultry specialist Francine Bradley in a statement released in 2005, at the peak of avian flu concerns. "We always tell people, don't let anyone near your birds who doesn't need to be there [due to fears of people carrying the virus]."

Sustainable farming advocates insist that backyard chickens are less of a concern than factory-farmed poultry, which the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production has said poses serious risks of transmitting animal-borne diseases to human populations, especially due to the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance.

"When it comes to bird flu, diverse small-scale poultry farming is the solution, not the problem," the international sustainable agriculture organization GRAIN concluded in a 2006 report.

For urban poultry farmers, a more relevant health issue is whether the chickens, which many owners consider to be pets, can survive urban wildlife, even in New York City. "It's awful how often flocks are decimated by raccoons or hawks or possums," said Owen Taylor, who runs the City Farms livestock program, an extension of the sustainable food organization Just Food. 

As the backyard chicken movement spreads, urban farmers are finding new ways of experiencing city living, whether their chickens are pets or dinner. "Raising chickens on a backyard stoop, especially if you have children, is agreeable," Smit said. "How you convince the kids you'll cut its neck and eat it is another thing."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

Here at RealClimate we understandably have an intense interest in the positions of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates regarding global warming and carbon emissions. What the stance bodes for future action on climate change is consequential in itself, but beyond that the ability to use sound science in this case serves as a bellweather for [...]

This October marks the month 70 years ago when the U.S. chemical giant DuPont announced "one of the most significant developments in the history of industrial research":  nylon. It was, they said, as strong as steel and fine as a cobweb.

The invention of nylon, dubbed the "miracle fiber," was among the first of a series of revolutionary synthetic products. A cheap alternative to natural fabrics, nylon offered a material that could be stained, machine-washed, and re-used countless times.

Its numerous applications-from violin strings to jungle gym ropes to automobile tires-have provided countless benefits. But at the same time, the material's simplicity has encouraged a culture of consumerism, and its production has been a significant source of pollution.

Nylon's first application was in socks. The material first proved itself as a cheap alternative to silk in women's stockings, and demand quickly outpaced production. Rations during World War II forced women to abandon their nylon stockings cold turkey; the fiber was needed for parachutes, tires, tents, ropes, and ponchos. Many of the wealthy turned to the black market, although some made their sacrifices: actress Betty Grable sold a pair of nylons for $40,000 in a war-effort fundraiser.

After the war, nylon production expanded for the clothing, carpeting, and automobile industries as the U.S. economy boomed. In 1969 it went to the Moon, in the astronauts' space suits and the flag they planted on the surface.

Nylon, however, has a history of environmental concerns. Manufacturing all nylon products depends heavily on large amounts of crude oil. Another main ingredient is the chemical adipic acid. Producing the acid was once the largest source of industrial nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas. Efficient pollution controls have reduced adipic acid emissions 61 percent between 1990 and 2006, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But the chemical still accounts for 5-8 percent of global human-caused emissions of N2O.

Another concern is that nylon cannot be melted down and used again, so recycling nylon requires it to be broken down into its constituent chemicals.

But many nylon products, such as carpets and tires, are still reused in different forms. DuPont, Evergreen, and BASF Corporation have built nylon-carpet recycling facilities in North America and Europe. While the purification and remanufacturing processes do create some waste, this system (which recycles 25 million kilograms of carpet annually) is nearly a closed loop.

More than half the tires discarded in California are patched up for further driving or shredded to become products such as insulation, playground cushioning, and mulch. A Connecticut public health study, however, warned in 2007 that tire crumbs could release carcinogenic chemicals into the air and ground water.

In 1970, nylon accounted for about 40 percent of the world's synthetic fibers. Since then, polyester-cheaper although less durable-has taken over. Nearly 4 million tons of nylon were made in 2005, mostly in the United States and more recently in China. Whereas almost 30 million tons of polyester were produced in 2004, according to Textiles Intelligence. Overall nylon production appears to be falling about 0.35 percent each year.

Polyester, however, also consumes significant oil during production. Yet a Cambridge University study found that polyester materials consume less life-cycle energy than organic apparel, which require frequent washings at high temperatures, tumble-drying, and ironing.

Nylon filaments, on the other hand, are growing in demand for tire production as China and India purchase more cars.

The following is adapted from a speech given by Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin at a high-level United Nations event on September 25, 2008.

I want to commend the UN Secretary-General for his decision to focus on environmental sustainability as one of the three cross-cutting pillars of the Millennium Development Goals. Environmental sustainability may have seemed peripheral to meeting human needs when these goals were adopted in 2000. But the world has changed.

The health of the world's ecological systems will be decisive in determining our ability to meet all of the Millennium Development Goals. Environmental sustainability is not just another policy goal. The human economy is wholly contained within the global biosphere - and if the biosphere's productivity is undermined, the human economy will suffer.

Just as some parts of our economy have accumulated unsustainable fiscal debts, the global economy has accrued a massive ecological debt - a debt that must be settled if we are to sustain economic development and meet the needs of the 1.4 billion human beings who are still mired in severe poverty.

Today, our planet supports 6.5 billion human beings. Those numbers are growing by 70 million people each year, and global consumption levels are soaring, as China and other countries enter the consumer age. The economic model that has supported unprecedented economic progress for several hundred million people in industrial countries over the past half century cannot possibly meet the growing needs of the more than 8 billion people who will live on this planet by the middle of this century.

The events of the past year have provided graphic reminders that collapsing economic systems have real human impacts-and that the world's poor, who are most directly dependent on natural resources, will suffer first and suffer most:

• In Haiti, the impact of three large hurricanes this summer was magnified by the vast deforestation that has left millions of people vulnerable to floods and landslides.
• In West Africa, the decline of local fisheries has left thousands of poor families without a livelihood and in some cases with no source of affordable protein.
• Across large areas of the Indian subcontinent, diminishing supplies of fresh water are undermining food production and leaving people with inadequate drinking water.

And from the Arctic to the Equator, the world's climate is changing rapidly - and undermining ecological systems on every continent, from forests to oceans and fresh water. Many scientists believe that a dangerous climate tipping point may be near-unleashing a runaway greenhouse effect that would feed on itself for centuries to come.

The bottom line is clear: the inefficient, carbon-intensive, throwaway economy that was so successful in an earlier era is not suited to today's world. Our planet in now in mortal danger of an ecological collapse whose human impact would dwarf the financial collapse the world is now seeking to avoid.

Stabilizing the world's climate and dramatically reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is the central challenge of our generation. Building a new energy system is essential to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, a fact that is reinforced by the devastating impact that rising prices for oil and other fossil fuels have had on the world's poor in recent years. These fuels are no longer sufficiently abundant to provide the reliable, affordable energy supplies needed to fuel economic development.

It is therefore urgent that we build a sustainable low-carbon economy that meets all human needs and is in balance with the world's natural resources. This effort could jumpstart a powerful new engine of economic development, creating thousands of industries and millions of jobs in rich and poor countries alike.

In the eight years since the Millennium Development Goals were launched, the world has come a long way in its understanding of the fundamental importance of environmental sustainability to human well-being. It is time for world leaders to embrace this understanding and begin building a green economy for the 21st century.

Christopher Flavin is president of the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C. His forthcoming report, Low-Carbon Energy: The Way Forward, will be released in November.

Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch have been making surveys of climate scientists for a number of years with the reasonable aim of seeing what the community thinks (about IPCC, climate change, attribution etc). They have unfortunately not always been as successful as one might like - problems have ranged from deciding who is qualified [...]

In South Korea, wind power would be a likely resource to help the world's tenth largest energy consumer meet government goals to lower fossil fuel dependency through greater investment in renewable energy.

Yet efforts to build wind turbines in South Korea have met fierce opposition, even among environmentalists, due to the lack of open land in the densely populated country. Only about 100 megawatts (MW) of wind power are installed nationwide despite plentiful wind resources and government price controls that keep renewable power competitive with traditional energy sources.

The solution might be found off the Korean peninsula's shores, and South Korea is not alone. As more countries seek to increase their renewable energy ratios, many consider off-shore wind a potential solution to provide clean energy without affecting local landscapes and communities.

Off-shore wind has so far taken a back seat to on-shore wind farms during the current boom in wind energy development. Off-shore turbines are more difficult to maintain, and they cost $.08-$0.12 per kilowatt-hour, compared to $.05-$.08 for on-shore wind.

But off-shore wind farms offer several benefits over their land-based counterparts. Strong ocean winds allow one off-shore turbine to generate substantially more power than one on-shore turbine. Also, if an off-shore wind farm is located near a coastal city, clean energy would be available without dedicating land to new transmission lines.

Denmark installed the first off-shore wind farm in 1991. Since then, slightly more than 1 gigawatt  (GW) has been installed worldwide, mostly in the North Sea, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). An additional 3.8 GW is expected in the next four years, forecasts British energy firm Douglas-Westwood, Ltd. Based on their estimates, annual installations are set to increase from 419 MW in 2008 to 1,238 MW in 2012, with the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and China leading the way.

In Europe, about 80 percent of the off-shore wind market will be concentrated in Denmark and the United Kingdom by the end of this year, with 1 GW planned by the two countries combined, EWEA said in a policy recommendation report. The association predicts that 50 GW of off-shore wind will be operating in Europe by 2020.

In Asia, China installed its first off-shore wind farm in November. The country plans to add more than 1.5 GW of off-shore projects. Feasibility studies are under way in South Korea and Japan.

Along North America's coasts, a handful of projects are moving forward, and several more are tied down in local site disputes. According to a U.S. Department of Energy report, more than 900 GW of off-shore wind power could potentially be tapped from U.S. shores, mostly along the northeastern and southeastern seaboards. The United States is expected to finalize its leasing rules for off-shore wind farms this year.

Similar to concerns that on-shore wind farms threaten bat and bird populations, off-shore wind farms could disrupt marine ecosystems. The initial construction may kill organisms on the seafloor, and transmission cables create magnetic and electric fields that may disrupt fish orientation.

But researchers are still unsure what damage might occur, and several studies suggest that turbine construction and operation would pose minimal threats. Some experts suggest the turbines would benefit marine life by creating artificial reefs.

Weather may also be a limiting factor. Harsh winds often prevent construction during winter months, slowing development. Turbines are designed to sustain winds as strong as 200 miles per hour, but so far few have experienced intense hurricanes. 

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be contacted at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

The recently announced alliance between technology giants General Electric and Google may provide the lobbying arsenal necessary for the U.S. to overhaul an outdated electric grid widely considered as a barricade to a low-carbon future.

The collaboration brings together two industry leaders with significant investments in U.S. renewable energy. Their focus on electricity infrastructure may stimulate improvements in transmission efficiency and utility access to clean energy sources, industry observers said.

The companies' early messages indicate support for more national leadership. "The current regulatory and economic model is failing to drive the innovation and investment we need in today's electric grid," a joint statement said [PDF]. "We will work to overcome regulatory and institutional barriers, and advocate for appropriate incentives."

The U.S. government acknowledges costly updates are necessary to meet electricity demands, connect a burgeoning renewable energy sector with markets nationwide, and implement plug-in hybrid vehicles on a large-scale. But states and the federal government are divided about who should pay.

The companies' main request is for federal leadership on digital "smart" grids, a technology that provides utilities with greater control over power source selection. With smart grids, utilities can tap an energy source when it is most reliable-a solar power plant during a sunny day, for instance. The advances are expected to accelerate renewable energy development and prevent blackouts, regardless of the power source.

Smart grids also provide consumers with advanced information about their electricity usage, which encourages energy efficiency. "We make the gadgets, smart meters, and people like Google could make the software," said GE chief executive officer Jeff Immelt at a Google technology conference where the partnership was announced.

GE and Google seek to fix an electric utility grid that the American Society of Civil Engineers has described as being "in urgent need of modernization" in its infrastructure report card. Existing transmission lines are overburdened, while the country's electricity demand continues to rise. Congested power lines prevent utilities from accessing cheaper sources of generation that may be located farther away, and instead they often rely on natural-gas facilities that are easier to site near urban areas.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that wind power could supply 20 percent of the country's energy needs if efficient transmission lines are built across the country.  Large amounts of renewable energy sources are currently located too far off-the-grid to be tapped, such as the windy mountains of South Dakota or the geothermal hot beds of Nevada's deserts. The department estimates the additional transmission capacity would cost $60 billion, spread out between now and 2030.

Immelt said the system is a realistic goal, but federal funding is crucial for its development. "Clean energy is imminently doable, imminently solvable," he said. "[But] there's no such thing as perfect free markets-it's a market that needs a catalyst (from the government) to say this is what we'd like to see done, and then the entrepreneurial dollars will flow freely."

A more difficult challenge, however, may be overcoming current regulations. States and private utilities have little incentive to approve long transmission lines that benefit the nation as a whole. The 2005 Energy Policy Act gave the federal government permission to approve transmission if states were unwilling, but several U.S. senators have complained that such action is too aggressive.

Mike Taylor, research director at Solar Electric Power Association, a utility consultant group, said the partnership could be most influential with on-going developments of regional renewable energy zones - prioritized areas for siting transmission lines and power generation - and an intercontinental transmission system that could deploy renewable energy more efficiently. "I would hope GE and Google scan that horizon of what's already happening and reach-out their hands rather than march on their own," Taylor said.

GE often leads the pack among U.S. corporate lobbyists, due to its control of a diversity of industries-from jet engines to TV studios to wind turbines. This year alone, GE spent nearly $2.2 billion on campaign contributions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Renewable energy legislation, including a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, has been a company priority since GE launched its Ecomagination initiative three years ago, which promotes clean energy technologies.

Google's philanthropic branch has several renewable energy ventures of its own. Last month it invested $10 million in advanced geothermal energy development as part of its Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal initiative. 

At a Senate energy committee hearing last week [PDF], Google's director of climate change and energy initiatives, Dan Reicher, called for federal energy efficiency and renewable energy standards

"Our vision is a 21st century U.S. electricity system featuring hundreds of thousands of megawatts of renewable power, millions of plug-in vehicles, and tens of millions of energy efficient homes and businesses," Reicher said. "The biggest impediment to achieving this vision is not technology or finance; it's policy, particularly on the national level."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

After a recent series of unsavory news reports, the European Commission has announced that its fisheries policy may need to be overhauled due to continued ecological decline and unsustainable fishing practices.

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg announced a laundry list of flaws with the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in a statement released last week. "In its current form, the CFP does not encourage responsible behavior by either fishermen or politicians," Borg said.

In response, the Commission authorized an immediate review of its ten-year policy. The current fisheries policy has been in effect since 2002.

A reassessment of Europe's fishing regulations could have sweeping implications for dwindling fish populations. About two-thirds of Europe's fisheries are estimated to be exploited at a rate that exceeds sustainable levels, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization [PDF].

The Commission is expected to reduce the European fishing fleet as one measure to address the exploited fish stocks. Borg said the current number of vessels can catch between two and three times the government-authorized, maximum sustainable yield.

European countries have been shrinking their fleet capacity since the 2002 policy required a "stable and enduring balance" between capacity and resources. Fleet capacity is based on a vessel's size (tonnage) and power (kilo-watts). Between 2003 and 2005, size was reduced about 6 percent, and power decreased about 7 percent, according to a World Wildlife Fund analysis [PDF].

The fisheries policy has been hotly debated by the fishing industry and environmentalists since its inception. But recently, a series of uncomplimentary news reports have put the policy under heightened scrutiny.

An independent review panel for the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas earlier this month described regulation of bluefin tuna fisheries as "an international disgrace." The review noted that the 2007 catch for the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea fisheries was estimated at 60,000 tons - more than double the legal limit and four times the amount that scientists recommend, according to environmental groups who obtained early access to the report.

In August, a British fishing vessel was caught on film dumping more than 5.5 tons of cod, which amounted to 80 percent of its catch. EU quotas limit the amount of fish that ships can bring back to port, but vessels are not limited on the amount they can catch. The unfortunate result is that 40-60 percent of all fish caught by trawlers in the North Sea are discarded, the EU estimates.

Several environmentalists and fisheries researchers have advocated more dramatic policy changes than what the Commission has so far suggested. For instance, more marine protected areas are being requested. Researchers suggest that at least 20-30 percent of the world's ocean habitats be included in a network of marine reserves - the current level is estimated at 1 percent - to ensure long-term protection of exploited fish stocks, according to the 2007 Worldwatch report Oceans in Peril.

A second alternative approach that has recently gained popularity and scientific support is known as an individual transferable quota (ITQ). Instead of fishermen competing against each other to obtain the greatest share of the total allowable catch set by government scientists each year, individual fishermen are provided a share of the catch, which eliminates the incentive to overfish. Independent observers, and sometimes cameras, ensure that when the harvest is low, everyone brings in a low catch, and when the harvest is high, their catch subsequently increases.

"By doing this, it provides fishermen an incentive to take a long-term view into account. Essentially they make an investment in their future," said Chris Costello, the lead author of a study published in the journal Science last week that found that ITQs implemented in Alaska, Iceland, New Zealand, and Australia reduced the chance of fisheries collapse by 13.7 percent.

Unsustainable management of fisheries is not just a problem in Europe. Increased seafood consumption and more efficient fishing technologies have led to the depletion of fish stocks globally in recent years. If current trends continue, the world's fish stocks risk collapse by 2048, according to a 2006 study in the journal Science. 

"Every fishery in the world could benefit from some form of incentive-based management system," said Costello, a resources economics professor at University of California in Santa Barbra. "The critical feature is to design those incentive-based schemes for the biology of the species, the culture of the communities, and the economies of the fisheries."

While the number of ITQs remains low - about 1 percent of global fisheries - Costello predicts they will double in number within the next ten years. Some European fisheries have already switched to the incentive-based system, such as a few small fisheries in the Netherlands.

Ben Block is a reporter with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

What reduces emissions more? A. Someone swapping their old SUV (which gets 12 miles per gallon) for a hybrid version (18 mpg) or B. someone upgrading their 25 mpg compact to a new 46 mpg Prius? (ignore for a minute manufacturing issues or driving habits and assume the miles driven are the same). The surprising answer (for those who [...]

As international climate negotiations move closer to including forests in the successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, indigenous and traditional peoples realize they have either a lot to gain or everything to lose.

If industrialized countries are allowed to purchase the carbon rights of forests, groups from the Americas, Africa, and Asia fear their ancestral lands may be taken away. They worry that the benefactors of the carbon market will be governments or wealthy landholders, and not them.

At a time when their concerns should be at the forefront of debates, the venues for indigenous peoples to express themselves have so far been limited. They are granted observer status at United Nations climate negotiations, but they do not have voting rights - leading many to demand a stronger voice in the process.

"When you don't have recognized status, you're not existent. You're not at the table," said Kanyinke Sena, the Indigenous People of Africa Coordinating Committee's Eastern Africa representative.

Forests were not considered as carbon sinks in the Kyoto Protocol, but realization that deforestation accounts for almost 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions has led to their reconsideration. Industrialized nations may be allowed to offset their emissions by paying developing nations to protect their forests, known as reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

Several indigenous groups initially opposed REDD due to their suspicion that it would be another form of Western land-grabbing. But climate negotiators say a solution would ideally benefit the traditional stewards of the world's forests through some sort of financial compensation. As awareness grows about the potential benefits for forest peoples, some indigenous leaders are shifting towards wary support. But they still emphasize that without official land rights for indigenous peoples, REDD will likely lead to further suffering.

Indigenous representatives from across the globe have joined The Forest Dialogues - a gathering of environmentalists, business leaders, financial donors, and government officials who are forming a joint policy recommendation on REDD. Their inclusion should lead to a greater presence in the REDD debate.

"This is the first time indigenous and non-indigenous groups are meeting at this type of forum," said Parshuram Tamang, the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of Tropical Forests' climate negotiations representative and a member of the Tamang ethnic group of Nepal. "This is very important for indigenous people."

The presence of indigenous groups at the dialogues' meetings has helped shape a consensus, which although it has yet to be finalized, stresses the "fundamental importance of the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples, small forest owners, and local communities."

Participation in the dialogue meetings, held last week at the World Bank, has also provided indigenous leaders with access to a network of influential forestry officials. Leaders of the Amazon Alliance, representatives of indigenous organizations and NGOs from nine South American countries, hand-delivered a letter to World Bank President Robert Zoellick that demanded the Bank "cease its exclusion of indigenous peoples and the violation of our rights." Zoellick told them that the bank will try to work on these issues.

The alliance's letter also accused the bank of ignoring indigenous people in a REDD pilot program that was launched in July with 14 tropical nations. "I am trying to show the World Bank that indigenous people are well organized," said Juan Carlos Jintiach, the alliance's executive co-director and a member of the Shuar tribe of Ecuador. "I don't want them to ever forget us. There are not just trees there; there are human begins there now."

Despite the criticisms, the presence of indigenous peoples at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings has increased recently, according to Steve Schwartman, co-director of the Environmental Defense Fund's international program. "More indigenous leaders are there participating as observers," he said. "There is much more discussion going on about it. Issues are slowly gaining visibility."

Also, the World Bank has held several workshops with indigenous leaders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America this year to inform them about the REDD negotiations. And the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues made climate change awareness a theme of its annual meeting in April. 

But for leaders such as Tamang, being informed is not enough. "[The U.N.] should give indigenous people specialty status... because we are affected by the decision," he said. "We are the victims of climate change and we are the impact of a solution to climate change."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

In a recent post about sea level rise, we highlighted a paper by the University of Colorado's Tad Pfeffer and others in which they show that one can rule out more than 2 meters of sea level rise in the next century. While we liked the paper very much, we also complained that Pfeffer [...]

In a harsh review of U.S. hazardous waste laws, independent government investigators highlighted the need for improved regulation of electronic waste in a new report.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released on Wednesday said a "substantial quantity" of discarded electronics, such as computers, televisions, and cell phones, are sent to the developing world where they are dismantled in conditions unsafe to workers and dangerous to the environment.

"The United States' regulatory coverage of exported, used electronics is among the narrowest in the industrialized world and the little regulation that does exist has been enforced to only a minor degree," the report said.

The international shipping of electronic waste, or "e-waste," is regulated by the 1989 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. The agreement, ratified by 170 countries, requires signatories to notify developing nations of incoming hazardous waste shipments. The United States is the only industrialized country not to ratify the convention.

U.S. residents removed more than 300 million electronic devices from their households in 2006, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At least 80 percent of the e-waste is sent to domestic landfills. The rest is frequently sold to brokers who ship it to the developing world, mainly Asia and West Africa, where workers dismantle the products and often burn the remains in the open air or dump it into nearby water bodies.

Products with cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), such as televisions and computer monitors, are the only exported e-waste that the EPA regulates. Exporters must obtain EPA consent before exporting the products, which contain harmful levels of copper and lead.

GAO officers who posed as overseas and domestic scrap brokers uncovered 43 businesses that were willing to export the items without obtaining EPA consent during a three-month period. "The export of CRTs from the United States in apparent violation of the CRT rule seems widespread," the report noted.   

The report recommends that the EPA take stronger action to enforce its hazardous waste laws. While it is not the role of the GAO to lobby Congressional action, the report also suggests that the EPA foster debate in Congress "to compel ratification of the Basel Convention."

In the EPA's comments on the report, administrators wrote, "EPA is well aware of the numerous challenges in appropriately controlling the management of e-waste, both domestically and internationally. However, we are not convinced that developing a regulatory scheme to address these issues is the most appropriate course of action." The response instead advocates voluntary measures.

The GAO responded that voluntary measures are often ineffective because "the agency has no enforcement recourse against reluctant participants."

The United States is not the only contributor to the world's growing e-waste problem. As more consumers discard their used electronics, 20-50 million metric tons of e-waste is generated worldwide each year, the United Nations Environment Programme estimates.

Some companies are improving the recyclable content of their products to reduce the amount of e-waste generated. According to Greenpeace's "Greener Electronics Guide," cell phone manufacturer Nokia leads the competition. 

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

Before

 

After

In the Appalachian mountains of the United States, growing numbers of fish farmers are raising trout, catfish, and even salmon throughout the valleys of the state of West Virginia. What they'd rather not tell you, however, is that the source of their water is deserted coal mines.

Worry not, seafood lovers. According to independent experts from within West Virginia and outside the state, the farmers' claims of  using "clean, clear water" are true. The fish that are being raised in the mine waters are not only safe, but they may also be healthier than fish grown in conventional aquaculture operations.

"The focus is less the mine water - we know it works, we know the fish are safe - and more of marketing," said Ken Semmens, a West Virginia University aquaculture researcher who is promoting the mine-water operations.

Many abandoned coal mines in Appalachia are polluted with toxic metals. But some have been spared, and the water sources that accumulate are considered clean enough to raise fish. Pipes carry the water directly to the aquaculture operations without any treatment.

At the more polluted sites, coal companies are required to build treatment facilities that return the water to health. These purified water sources are abundant and growing in number [PDF] as the region's once-plentiful coal supplies are emptied.

By channeling water from the mines or adapting treatment facilities into farms, some dozen potential mine sites could supply water for large-scale fish farming - enough for about 45 tons (100,000 pounds) of fish per year, Semmens said. Hundreds of smaller streams are also being assessed to raise fish for recreational purposes.

"Buy Local" Applies to Fish, Too

This creative use of mine water helps meet a growing global demand for fish. As marine fish stocks struggle due to overexploitation, the volume of farmed fish has doubled in the past decade. Aquaculture now supplies 42 percent of world seafood and could soon account for half of global production, according to a new report from the Worldwatch Institute, Farming Fish for the Future.

"As there is an increased concern for sustainable seafood production - [about] the carbon footprint of shipping fish halfway around the world - maybe fish grown locally will get a preferred place in the marketplace," said Joe Hankins, director of the Freshwater Institute, the field office of the Virginia-based Conservation Fund. "It may make the opportunity [of mine water-raised fish] more viable."

But in West Virginia, fish farming is relatively new. The state's industry is ranked only 35th in value nationwide [PDF] and is geared mostly toward recreational fishers rather than the larger market of consumers along the East Coast.

Efforts to repurpose the abandoned coal mines began in 1994 when the state invested in a venture group called Minaqua (mining plus aquaculture) that it hoped would create 300 jobs from as many as 20 farms raising arctic char and rainbow trout. Those plans ended following a series of unfortunate incidents: a fish disease outbreak, a fire, and the death of the project's architect in a helicopter accident.

But the idea persisted, influenced by ideal aquaculture conditions. The water flows out of the coal mines at roughly 13 degrees Celsius (56 degrees Fahrenheit) year round, and unlike facilities that rely upon local streams, the water does not need to be pumped or diverted if it runs downhill naturally. Farms have been launched at four mine sites in the past eight years, and these are expanding.

"We plan to put a new farm online every year or two years. We see 10 years down the road between 1 and 2 million pounds of production. The water supply is that good in the state of West Virginia," said Tom Ort, manager of Mountaineer Trout Farm in Princewick, near the state's southern border.

West Virginia University researchers are running demonstration farms as well, in the hopes of encouraging further investment. One farm captures water that flows from a treatment facility reservoir. A second has converted a former treatment plant into a fishing park. "I started to think this is a wonderful resource we could have," said Dan Miller, a research associate at WVU. "Otherwise we would have to tear down the whole facility and blow up the concrete."  

The fish farms provide new opportunities for post-mining landscapes that are often of little use otherwise. But the operations can be applied only to deep mining locations, not to places damaged by surface mining activities such as mountaintop removal.

At Some Locations, Mine Water Is Safe

Aquaculture is not suited to all post-mining sites. Pyrite, a mineral better known as "fool's gold," is found throughout the coalfields of northern West Virginia. Pyrite contains high levels of sulfur and iron, which pollute the water that fills abandoned mines and raise its acidity beyond levels that many freshwater species tolerate.

At sites rich in pyrite, treatment facilities are required to balance the water's acidity. Even after treatment, minerals such as iron, aluminum, and magnesium remain at higher levels than are suggested for raising many fish species. But unlike mercury and many other toxins, these minerals do not accumulate in the fatty tissue of fish and endanger human health. "The reality is it's really good," Hankins said. "And it's a resource that really should be looked at."

The treatment reservoirs change temperature with the seasons, affecting fish growth during the colder months. As a result, most of West Virginia's mine-water farms are located farther south. Here, pyrite is not mixed in the coal, so treatment is unnecessary because the acidity and level of harmful metals are naturally within ranges suited for aquaculture, researchers said.

These fish farms also benefit from the fact that their water source is relatively isolated from exterior pollutants. Farmed fish often require antibiotics to ward off waterborne pathogens. Diseases are still a possibility in West Virginia, but the mine water is less likely to contain the dangerous pathogens. Also, water from within a coal mine is less likely to contain airborne mercury - a heavy metal that pollutes waterways after being released, ironically, from coal-fired power plants. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can accumulate in seafood.

One of the most serious environmental problems with aquaculture operations has been the run-off of fish waste into waterways, creating oxygen-free "dead zones" where few species can survive. Blue Ridge Aquaculture owns a facility near Man, West Virginia, that plans to raise salmon in a closed system. The company says the operation will re-circulate the mine water and filter the waste, which could be sold as fertilizer.  

State law, however, considers the aquaculture byproduct to be "industrial" waste, so the fertilizer cannot be applied to agricultural farms and must instead be burned. "West Virginia is behind in the legal structure," WVU's Miller said. "Farmers are screaming about the cost of nutrients going up. Here it is-we have fish poop."

Supporters envision these farms providing income in a state where 16.9 percent of people live below the poverty line, the second highest poverty rate in the United States [PDF] But even the larger aquaculture operations do not create significant employment opportunities. Based on Miller's estimates, only six full-time jobs are created for every 450 tons (1 million pounds) of fish raised.

Still, with wild fish stocks plummeting and freshwater supplies dwindling worldwide, West Virginia's coal-mine fish farms could provide a much-needed resource. "As long as rain falls on the state, the water will be there," Hankins said. "If we manage it properly, a lot of the former mined area...makes for a sustainable business opportunity."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.

The potential for renewable energy development in Africa is experiencing an increase in attention lately as investors and world leaders seek a new clean energy frontier.

The continent could become a gold mine for renewable energy due to abundant solar and wind resources. But roadblocks to clean energy worldwide are amplified throughout the troubled regions of Africa - financial resources are thin and infrastructure is often unreliable.

Meeting at the Africa Carbon Forum in Senegal's capital Dakar last week, United Nations officials, World Bank specialists, and business leaders exchanged strategies for "Clean Development Mechanism" (CDM) projects on the continent - greenhouse gas-reducing initiatives that industrialized countries can support as a way to compensate for their excess emissions. A theme throughout the meetings was the possibility of future CDM projects under a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, especially if the United States joins the market.

Yet so far, Africa has benefited the least among all continents from the $7 billion annual CDM market. Since the European Union began trading "carbon credits" through its Emissions Trading Scheme in 2005, only 27 of the 1,156 CDM projects included under the scheme have been registered in Africa, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told the carbon forum.

But a World Bank report [PDF] released on Monday provides further evidence of the continent's potential. Sub-Saharan Africa could provide more than 170 gigawatts of additional power-generation capacity - more than double the region's current installations - through 3,200 "low-carbon" energy projects, such as combined heat-and-power, biofuels production, mass transportation, and energy efficiency, according to the report.

Together these projects could avoid some 740 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent reductions each year. The total capital costs are estimated to be at least $157 billion, the report said. "The pipeline of similar projects in other regions shows us that such projects are often economically viable when carbon revenues are added," said World Bank senior energy specialist Massamba Thioye, who co-authored the report, in a statement.

A look into the near future suggests the international market still does not consider Africa to be a priority investment region. Sub-Saharan Africa is set to receive only 1.4 percent of the 3,700 CDM projects under way worldwide as of September 1. Furthermore, during the Africa Energy Forum this past June, participants focused almost entirely on fossil fuel-based energy sources, according to World Council for Renewable Energy Chairman Preben Maegaard.

After Maegaard complained that the forum lacked a renewable energy focus, conference director Rod Cargill responded that Africa's future energy growth is reliant on conventional power sources and that the renewable energy hype has only provided set-backs. "To claim that Africa's problems of poverty would be alleviated by relying on renewable energy is folly," Cargill wrote in an e-mail that Maegaard later published. "The number of failed renewable energy projects in Africa over the last 20 years is unacceptable, and verging on the irresponsible. These failed projects have set back development by raising aspirations and then failing to deliver."

Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the electric utility infrastructure necessary for large-scale renewable energy power plants is lacking. In Kenya, for instance, at least 50 power outages occur each year. Across the region, 500 million people lack access to electricity. "African countries will need to spend at least six percent of their GDP on energy over the next 10 years to keep up with their economic growth. It is therefore clear that a number of technologies (both traditional and new) will need to be applied," said Dana Rysankova, a World Bank senior energy specialist for Africa, in the report's press release.

But grand renewable energy schemes are still being drawn.

A researcher from the European Commission's Institute for Energy reported earlier this year that 0.3 percent of the sunlight that shines on the Sahara and Middle East deserts could supply all of Europe's energy needs. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have supported plans to build a 45 billion Euro ($64 billion) "super grid" that would connect renewable energy resources across Europe and Africa.

Along the Great Rift Valley - a 6,000 kilometer terrain stretching from Syria to Mozambique - a huge amount of untapped geothermal energy may soon be developed. In June, Kenya announced that it would install some 1,700 megawatts of geothermal capacity within the next 10 years - 150 percent of the country's total electricity generating capacity. Djibouti plans to supply nearly all of its electricity needs through geothermal energy, with the help of Reykjavik Energy Invest and the World Bank.

At the Senegal convention, among the plans announced were a solar-powered university in Nigeria, biofuels development in the Ivory Coast, and a wind farm in Senegal. Biofuel production from jatropha, a drought-resistant oilseed bush, could provide the most opportunities if the plant can be effectively domesticated and its energy conversion rate improves. The World Bank report counted 555 potential jatropha projects in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.