Online edition of Daily News

BERLIN, afp UN environment chief Klaus Toepfer called Tuesday on industrialised nations to assume responsibility for their role in causing the recent freak weather that has claimed scores of lives around the world.

He told Germany's Deutschlandradio station that there could no longer be any doubt that humans were partly to blame for the torrential rains that have wreaked havoc from Europe to Asia.

In a separate appeal, the environmental campaign group Greenpeace urged oil giants to provide urgent financial aid for those hit by the floods.The group said in a statement here that oil companies were also partly to blame for emissions of so-called greenhouse gases, which are blamed for global warming. Toepfer, a former German environment minister, said: "We have to do all we can to fight (this phenomenon) and that is above all the duty of industrialised countries." He said Africa represented 14 percent of the world's population but produced only 3.2 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions, "yet it's precisely there that the effects of climate change are so dramatic."

Toepfer, who is head of the United Nations Environment Program, said what was needed most of all were cuts in energy use and further development of renewable energy sources.

That had to be done in conjunction with developing countries, he added, so that efforts to reduce emissions in industrialised nations were not wasted by a rise in emissions elsewhere. By signing the Kyoto protocol, the European Union is committed to cutting by eight percent its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The United States, which is responsible for 36 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, has refused to ratify the Kyoto accord.Greenpeace climate expert Karsten Smid said the oil industry wielded too much influence on the US government and was torpedoing efforts to restrict climate change.

"The torrential rainfalls, hailstorms and hurricanes that we are seeing at present are the results of rampant global warming," he said in the Greenpeace statement. German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin also urged the industrialised world to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions, telling Berlin Inforadio that "we are suffering the consequences of 100 years of industrialisation."

The German environmental pressure group BUND, meanwhile, said the only way to halt the "climate chaos" was to further strengthen the Kyoto protocol by raising the targets for greenhouse gas cutbacks.

The Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation Trust, embarked on a Schools Awareness program in chosen districts in Sri lanka, where there are continuing incidents of human-elephant conflict. The purpose was to carry out the suggested program for children living in human-elephant conflict areas, to make them aware of the value of elephants and the need for their conservation for the future. The trust being conscious that elephants cause much destruction and were considered a nuisance and danger to the people living in these areas, designed the curriculum for these sessions accordingly.

The program is implemented through lectures, slide presentations, discussions and question and answer sessions. A video on the elephant in Sri Lanka has been produced by the Trust with the assistance of Young Asia TV and is shown to the children at these sessions. This gives the children an idea of the biology, physiology, social behaviour, reproduction etc of the elephant. To back this up the children are also given a handout on the elephant. Both the video and the handout are in Sinhala which is the language used by the rural children. A copy of the video is presented to the schools that have electricity. Since there is a dearth of wildlife, nature and environment related books in Sinhala, BECT tries to purchase several books and present them to the school libraries after the program.

The villagers are also informed as to how they could benefit from the presence of elephants, eg. eco-tourism (as guides, sale of produce, handicrafts etc.). If the villagers see a benefit from the presence of elephants in proximity to their villages they will look at elephant conservation positively. This is a very important aspect of elephant conservation.

The districts in Sri lanka that have serious human-elephant conflicts are Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Matale and Hambantota. Though the Biodiversity and Elephant Conservation trust has covered a number of schools in the first three districts, there are still a large number of schools that have yet to be covered. These will be covered as and when finances permit.

This program is run mainly by volunteers and has had a very positive impact in the schools where these sessions have been conducted. Sarath Wijeratne, Sarath Wijesuriya, Srilal Miththapala, Kelum Manamendraarachchi, Shantha Jayaweera, Shereen Ismail, Nigel Billimoria and Jayantha Jayewardene are volunteers who have assisted the program through lectures at these sessions.So far we have had financial assistance from the Oregon Zoo, Philadelphia Zoo, Woodland Park Zoo and the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society to carry out this program in the schools.

Reflecting on the collapse earlier this year of the Cartagena negotiations for an international biosafety protocol, the writer, who was actively involved in the negotiations, asks, "Was the North serious about regulating genetic engineering, or did it merely wish to fool its own public, and, as usual, the South?

The world expected a sufficiently robust Biosafety Protocol to come out of the February 1999 negotiations that took place in Cartagena Colombia.

This did not happen. I was there a Southern negotiator, a member of the Like-Minded Group. We will try the negotiations once more, but I am not optimistic.

My pessimism is based on weighing the considered recklessness of the Miami Group (the USA, Canada, Australia Argentina, Chile Uruguay) and, contrary to propaganda, also largely of the European Group. I have examined the controversial provisions included in, as well as excluded from, the Chairmans' draft Protocol, which was the basis for the last days of negotiations in Cartagena. In this draft, things went the way the South wanted only once for every 2.8 and 4.6 times they went the way the Miami and the European Groups, respectively, wanted. When I counted the number of times the positions of the Like-Minded and Miami, Like-Minded and European, and European and Miami Groups coincided the numbers were 0, 18 and 57, respectively. In spite of the propaganda, therefore, the European Group had the same stand as the Miami Group more than three times for every time it had the same stand as the Like-Minded Group. The negotiations were, therefore, as ever, between North and South.

As ever, the motives were money and power, with the North Americans wanting to continue in their global control, the Europeans trying to reassert their right to the global foray at par with the North Americans, and the Southerners trying to be spared from continuing to be the prey.

The Miami and European Groups would not allow the use of socio-economic variables even in risk assessment. The Chairmans' draft (Article 24) contains the nearly useless statement: 'Parties in reaching decision on import, may take into account... socio-economic considerations.' This is useless because it is qualified by the statement 'consistent with their international obligations', meaning that they have to give priority to facilitating free trade. Thus the South is expected to accept whatever disruption living modified organisms (LMOs) might cause to their society and economy.

The South needs an international regime on strict liability. As stated in Articles 8.5 and 19.3 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, genetic engineering is a new technology and we do not know what damage it might cause. We are told that even the insurance services in the industrialised countries do not cover anything to do with the biotechnology industry. Who are we, outsiders, to trust it completely? That is why the South proposed a fully developed international regime on strict liability. But the European and Miami Groups refused to even consider it. As a compromise, the South had to insist on meaningful moves in the Protocol towards a strict liability regime in the next four years.

There also were fights directly over trade, with both the Miami and European Groups staking their claims to continue to control the South's resources and trying to outsmart each other in the process. They both wanted Southern countries when they aim at a higher level of environmental protection (Article 2.4), to have their domestic laws subjugated to other, meaning trade, agreements. For a similar reason, they wanted the facilitation of trade to override safety considerations, and domestically produced LMOs not to have preferential domestic treatment (Article 22). How different is this from stating that the South will not be allowed to develop the capacity to produce LMOs?

The European Group, it seems, felt that the Miami Group had an advantage over them in genetic engineering. The latter agreed, and wanted Article 31, which subjugates the Protocol to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements, so that they might flood the European market with LMOs and depress the development of new ones by Europe. The European Group thus wanted Article 31 removed. The Like-Minded Group supported them.

The Miami Group opposed the Precautionary Approach totally. To appease their public, the European Group made bold statements about the Precautionary Approach (Preamble and Article 8.7). But, in the face of the Miami Group's opposition, they showed a quick desire to let go of Article 8.7. In a much less noticeable manner, they agreed to eliminate the Precautionary Approach from operative articles (e.g. Article 12 & Annex II, Articles 9.1, 13.4).

In a similar manner, the Miami Group wanted all health considerations deleted from the Protocol. But the European Group, perhaps feeling that their public would scrutinise health issues thoroughly, wanted health considerations included in most cases (e.g. Articles 4, 9.1, 13.2, 14.4 and Annex II). But even they stopped short of subjecting to the AIA (Advance Informed Agreement) procedure on LMOs for pharmaceutical purposes to satisfy their pharmaceutical corporations, showing that when it comes to the crunch, the corporation wins!

Envisaged by the Convention (Article 19.3) as the heart of biosafety, the AIA procedure came under the most sustained attack by the Miami and European Groups.

The South had started with the aim of ensuring that each trans-boundary movement of an LMO or its product would be under the AIA procedure.

The Northern Groups chipped away at the AIA procedure, removing bits including products of LMOs, though they contain the transmissible transgenes; plasmids, though they carry the transgenes and are invasive of all sorts of cells; and organisms obtained through cell fusion below the taxonomic family level, though these contain novel gene combinations. Then they wanted to reduce the application of the AIA procedure to only once (Article 5.1). Worse still, they wanted to abridge the steps of the AIA procedure even to the extent of sending notification and the merchandise together (Article 10.1 (a)). All this abridgement was to be done without increasing risk (chapeau of Article 10). What tricks would make this possible? But, the most damaging were the many exemptions from the Protocol and/or from the AIA procedure including those of LMOs which are for contained use in transit, pharmaceuticals, and commodities (Articles 4 and 5).

As if these were not significant enough already, the Meeting of the Parties was expected to exempt more LMOs (Article 5.4), and even each Party was to exempt any or all LMOs as it liked (Article 10.1 (b)). Armed with all these loopholes there would virtually be no LMOs, not even if it were banned in the country of origin, that anybody could not transport or use according to the Protocol, but without fulfilling its provisions. The only exceptions would be those LMOs which under Article 8.6, the Meeting of the Parties requires to be always transported through the strict application of the AIA procedure. And, if the Miami Group had their way, even this would never have happened.

Was the North serious about regulating genetic engineering, or did it merely wish to fool its own public, and, as usual, the South?

LONDON, (Reuters) A three-km (two-mile) thick cloud of pollution shrouding southern Asia is threatening the lives of millions of people in the region and could have an impact much further afield, according to a United Nations-sponsored study.

It said the cloud, a toxic cocktail of ash, acids, aerosols and other particles, was damaging agriculture and changing rainfall patterns across the region which stretches from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka. The lives of millions of people were at risk from drought and flooding as rainfall patterns were radically altered, with dire implications for economic growth and health.

"We have an early warning. We have clear information and we already have some impact. But we need much, much more information," U.N Environment Programme chief Klaus Toepfer told a news conference. "There are also global implications not least because a pollution parcel like this, which stretches three km high, can travel half way round the globe in a week."

Toepfer said the cloud was the result of forest fires, the burning of agricultural wastes, dramatic increases in the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, industries and power stations and emissions from millions of inefficient cookers.

He said the U.N.'s preliminary report into what it dubbed the "Asian Brown Cloud" was a timely reminder to the upcoming Earth Summit in Johannesburg that action, not words, was vital to the future of the planet. "The huge pollution problem emerging in Asia encapsulates the threats and challenges that the summit needs to urgently address," he said."We have the initial findings and the technological and financial resources available. Let's now develop the science and find the political and moral will to achieve this for the sake of Asia, for the sake of the world," he added.

Professor Victor Ramanathan, one of the more than 200 scientists involved in the study, said the cloud was cutting the amount of solar energy hitting the earth's surface beneath it by up to 15 percent. "We had expected a drop in sunlight hitting the earth and sea, but not one of this magnitude," he said. At the same time the cloud's heat-absorbing properties were warming the lower atmosphere considerably, and the combination was altering the winter monsoon, leading to a sharp reduction in rainfall over parts of north-western Asia and a corresponding rise in rainfall over the eastern coast of Asia.

The report calculated that the cloud - 80 percent of which was man-made - could cut rainfall over northwest Pakistan, Afghanistan, western China and western central Asia by up to 40 percent. Apart from drastically altering rainfall patterns, the cloud was also making the rain acid, damaging crops and trees, and threatening hundreds of thousands of people with respiratory disease. Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen - one of the first scientists to identify the causes of the hole in the ozone layer and also involved in the U.N. report - said up to two million people in India alone were dying each year from atmospheric pollution.

"If present trends as they are continue, then we have a very serious problem," he said. The report called for special monitoring stations to be set up watch the behaviour of the cloud and its impact on people and the environment.

"The concern is that the regional and global impacts of the haze are set to intensify over the next 30 years as the population of the Asian region rises to an estimated five billion people," the report said. A spokeswoman for environmental group Friends of the Earth said urgent action was needed."Actions must include phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with clean, green, renewable energy and tough laws to protect the world's forests," she said.