The government has for the first time managed to stabilize the size of the population, which is why all the forecasts about Russia’s extinction are unfounded and must be reviewed. This announcement was made by Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Zhukov. However, the forecasts, made by Western analysts and Rosstat (Federal State Statistics Service), indicate a population decline in the next 10-20 years. The demographics argument is that economic growth is impossible with a declining population, and a reduced number of workers destabilizes the retirement system. The situation could only be offset by high immigration.

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During last Thursday’s meeting of the Council on Priority Projects, Zhukov said that “in all the years of implementation of national priority projects, the birth rate has increased by 21%, the death rate decreased by almost 12%, and life expectancy rate rose to 69 years. For the first time ever, we have managed to stabilize the size of the population.”

Meanwhile, he referred to the forecasts of American analysts, who argued that the size of the Russian population will be reduced in the coming years, as “absolutely unfounded.”

Recall that, according to the latest report of the American research organization Population Reference Bureau, Russia’s population is expected to decline drastically. If today the number of Russians is approximately 142 million people, then by 2025 it is expected that it will be reduced to 133 million, and by 2050 to 117 million people.

Zhukov promises to “stabilize and gradually increase the population.” As proof, he cited the following encouraging statistics: “A 16.2% death rate decline by 2013 in comparison to 2009, a 9.5% increase in birth rate, and increased life expectancy by 2.3 years, to 71.3 years.”

However, experts say that there isn’t a single country in all of human history that developed at an annual rate of 7% for more than 15 consecutive years with only a 1% annual decline in thr employable population. Yet according to the existing predictive estimates, that is exactly what will be happening in Russia until 2020. It is incredibly difficult to perform the optimistic economic scenario in such an unfavorable demographic situation.

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The Deepwater Horizon disaster caused headlines around the world, yet the people who live in the Niger delta have had to live with environmental catastrophes for decades.

We reached the edge of the oil spill near the Nigerian village of Otuegwe after a long hike through cassava plantations. Ahead of us lay swamp. We waded into the warm tropical water and began swimming, cameras and notebooks held above our heads. We could smell the oil long before we saw it – the stench of garage forecourts and rotting vegetation hanging thickly in the air.

The farther we travelled, the more nauseous it became. Soon we were swimming in pools of light Nigerian crude, the best-quality oil in the world. One of the many hundreds of 40-year-old pipelines that crisscross the Niger delta had corroded and spewed oil for several months.

Forest and farmland were now covered in a sheen of greasy oil. Drinking wells were polluted and people were distraught. No one knew how much oil had leaked. “We lost our nets, huts and fishing pots,” said Chief Promise, village leader of Otuegwe and our guide. “This is where we fished and farmed. We have lost our forest. We told Shell of the spill within days, but they did nothing for six months.”

That was the Niger delta a few years ago, where, according to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks.
In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. “We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old,” said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.
This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: “Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable.”

Read more here.

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Image by Downing Street via Flickr

More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, calling for better protection and sustainable management of one of the Earth’s most precious resources on the occasion of World Water Day.

“These deaths are an affront to our common humanity, and undermine the efforts of many countries to achieve their development potential,” Mr. Ban said in his message for the Day, which this year focuses on “Clean Water for a Healthy World” as its theme.

“Our growing population’s need for water for food, raw materials and energy is increasingly competing with nature’s own demands for water to sustain already imperilled ecosystems and the services on which we depend,” he noted.

“Day after day, we pour millions of tons of untreated sewage and industrial and agricultural waste into the world’s water systems. Clean water has become scarce and will become even scarcer with the onset of climate change,” added the Secretary-General.

In his message, Mr. Ban highlighted that water is vitally linked to all UN development goals, including maternal and child health and life expectancy, women’s empowerment, food security, sustainable development and climate change adaptation and mitigation.

As such, the General Assembly recognized 2005-2015 as the International Decade for Action “Water for Life.”

In doing so, it called for a greater focus on water-related issues at all levels and for the implementation of water-related programmes to achieve internationally agreed upon goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – an agenda for poverty reduction agreed to by world leaders in 2000.

The Secretary-General said that the poor “continue to suffer first and most from pollution, water shortages and the lack of adequate sanitation,” even while world leaders have the “know-how to solve these challenges and become better stewards of our water resources.”

Read more here.

The United Nations Climate boss Yvo de Boer says that the 193 countries that are taking part in the COP15 Climate Summit have to speed up their negotiations, reports Politiken.

“As soon as this conference is over, things have to happen. So my call to people is that they should use this first week to get all the basic work done,” Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer says at a news conference on the second day of the summit.

Negotiators have been working for months to reach agreement on texts, work that is now reaching a climax prior to the arrival in Copenhagen next week of heads of state and government.

One of the main issues at stake is ways to finance efforts by poor countries to mitigate climate change. Developing and industrial countries remain at loggerheads as to how much transfer funding is needed to help developing countries.

“I am sure that the conference will result in action and support for the developing countries. There is an immediate need of USD 10 billion in 2010, 2011 and 2012. And much greater funding in the future. I sense a growing understanding about this,” de Boer says.

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As the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen kicks off, one thing is clear: for millions of people around the world climate change is not simply a future threat, it is a current reality.

In my role as the United Kingdom’s International Development Secretary, I’ve met people around the world who are living with the consequences of climate change – from families in Bangladesh forced to leave their flooded homes, to women in parts of Ethiopia who are walking further each year to collect water for their families.

In Uganda the climate crisis threatens the very activities that have underpinned Uganda’s strong economic growth and poverty reduction. Coffee, a very important export for Uganda and a major source of income for subsistence farmers is becoming more difficult to grow. Droughts are becoming more common, leading to loss of animals, low production of milk, food insecurity, and increased food prices.

People living in the developing world are the least responsible for climate change, yet they are already most affected by it. As we look to the future it is clear that climate change will increasingly hit poor people hardest.

By 2020, some countries across Africa could see the yields from rain-fed agriculture fall by a half. By 2035, parts of the Himalayan glaciers, which provide water to 1.5 billion people across Asia, could have disappeared. By 2080, an extra 400 million people could be exposed to the threat of malaria.
Climate change threatens to make poverty the future for millions of people. That is why the government of the United Kingdom believes that the world has not only a common interest, but also a moral responsibility to people in the most vulnerable countries, to secure a fair deal on climate change.

To keep global temperature rises below 2 degrees centigrade will mean nothing less than a 50 per cent reduction in global emissions by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. This will require a firm commitment from rich nations to significant cuts in emissions – for developed countries do bear the greatest responsibility for the emissions we have seen over the past century. A deal will also need to involve developing countries – because the greatest growth in emissions over coming decades will be in such countries.

At the same time we must agree a strong deal on climate finance, to help developing countries both adapt to the now-inevitable effects of climate change, and get their economies on a low-carbon path to growth.

Read more from Douglas Alexander’s article in Uganda’s Daily Monitor.

Almost seven in 10 Chinese are willing to pay a higher price for energy and other products to mitigate climate change, even though only about three in 10 think it is a “serious problem”, says China Daily.

A World Bank poll that covered 15 nations, however, shows the majorities of the people, especially in the developing world, want their governments to take steps to fight global warming, even if that entails costs.

The majorities in all countries support “limiting the rate of constructing coal-fired power plants, even if it raises the cost of energy.” In China, which is highly reliant on coal, 68 percent support the measure. Across the 15 countries, on average 68 percent support the idea (31 percent strongly) and 26 percent oppose it (8 percent strongly).

Pollsters approached 1,010 people in nine provinces and municipalities of China, 68 percent of whom said they were willing to pay a fixed amount equal to 1 percent per capita GDP for energy and other products as part of taking steps to combat climate change. But only 28 percent considered global warming to be a “serious problem”, though nearly half saw it as “somewhat serious”.

Respondents in the US have slightly higher awareness than the Chinese, with 31 percent saying it was “very serious”.

In contrast, about 90 percent of the respondents in Mexico and 85 percent in Bangladesh said it was a “very serious matter”.

People said they would support public steps to limit greenhouse gas emissions and expedite adaptation measures. For example, they said they would support higher fuel efficiency standards for cars, preserving or expanding forests and extending funding to vulnerable countries so they could develop hardier crops suited to more severe climates.

Read more here.

Over the past year the countries of Africa have intensified their efforts to build a coalition on climate change. Across the continent, governments and communities have been working to ensure that their concerns and expectations are heard at the Copenhagen climate negotiations later this month.

Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change. In our lifetimes, climate shifts will likely inflict severe damage to human welfare in a continent already battling with entrenched poverty, degraded ecosystems and civil strife.

But Africa’s potential to help tackle climate change is both largely unrecognized and unrealized. For instance, thanks to the forest cover and rich topsoil found in many African countries, the region represents a major carbon storehouse. African forests take in 20 percent of the carbon that is absorbed by trees across the world. Its soil stores at least as great a share of the planet’s carbon produced by agriculture.

Climate change management thus offers a number of “win-win” opportunities for African countries both to reduce the adverse effects of climate change and address some of their deep-rooted development concerns such as access to energy, food security and the prevention of crises and conflicts.

While these key issues should serve as the core pillars of Africa’s engagement in the negotiations, the next question is how to transform these opportunities into concrete actions and results.

Africa will require urgent support for the formulation of climate change strategies as well as upfront financing to take effective measures for adaptation and mitigation.

Read more here.

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Sea levels are likely to rise by about 1.4m (4ft 6in) globally by 2100 as polar ice melts, according to a major review of climate change in Antarctica, writes the BBC News website.

Conducted by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), it says that warming seas are accelerating melting in the west of the continent.

Ozone loss has cooled the region, it says, shielding it from global warming.

Rising temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula are making life suitable for invasive species on land and sea.

The report – Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment – was written using contributions from 100 leading scientists in various disciplines, and reviewed by a further 200.

Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that the global average sea level would probably rise by 28-43 cm (11-16in) by the end of the century.

Launching the SCAR report in London, lead editor John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) suggested that observations on the ground had changed that picture, especially in parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet.

“Warmer water is getting under the edges of the West Antarctic ice sheet and accelerating the flow of ice into the ocean,” he said.

This is the first time that an international body such as SCAR has endorsed the likelihood that sea levels will rise enough to threaten some of the world’s biggest cities by the end of the century.

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Climate activists are gearing up for the UN Climate Change Conference in two weeks, but face harsh jail conditions if arrested, reports The Copenhagen Post.

Legislation was recently tightened to allow police to hold protestors for up to 40 days if they hinder police work and the already overstretched prison service is gearing up for new arrivals.

Vestre Fængsel prison in Copenhagen is preparing to house those who are being held in custody by doubling up on cell-space and holding others in the prison gym and workshop areas.

The prison houses many pre-trial detainees and if climate protestors are added to the current population, prison warden Peter Vesterheden warned that conditions would not be ideal.

‘There’s no doubt that they’ll be bored and really surly,’ Vesterheden told DR News.

The warden said they plan to convert the gym to house 40 inmates temporarily, sleeping on mattresses on the floor at night. Single person cells of 8sqm will double up to house two inmates – one on the bunk and one on the floor.

A further 30 temporary detainees may be housed at the Ellebæk detention centre next to the Sandholm Asylum Centre in North Zealand.

Activists have also been warned by police not to spread advice that could lead to criminal behaviour.

A number of manuals on how to avoid the police and deal with them in case of arrest have been circulating on activists’ websites.

The planet’s temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. “At present, however, the warming is taking a break,” confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany’s best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. “There can be no argument about that,” he says. “We have to face that fact.”

Even though the temperature standstill probably has no effect on the long-term warming trend, it does raise doubts about the predictive value of climate models, and it is also a political issue. For months, climate change skeptics have been gloating over the findings on their Internet forums. This has prompted many a climatologist to treat the temperature data in public with a sense of shame, thereby damaging their own credibility.

“It cannot be denied that this one of the hottest issues in the scientific community,” says Jochem Marotzke, director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. “We don’t really know why this stagnation is taking place at this point.”

Just a few weeks ago, Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research added more fuel to the fire with its latest calculations of global average temperatures. According to the Hadley figures, the world grew warmer by 0.07 degrees Celsius from 1999 to 2008, and not by the 0.2 degrees Celsius assumed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And, say the British experts, when their figure is adjusted for two naturally occurring climate phenomena, El Niño and La Niña, the resulting temperature trend is reduced to 0.0 degrees Celsius — in other words, a standstill.

The differences among individual regions of the world are considerable. In the Arctic, for example, temperatures rose by almost three degrees Celsius, which led to a dramatic melting of sea ice. At the same time, temperatures declined in large areas of North America, the western Pacific and the Arabian Peninsula. Europe, including Germany, remains slightly in positive warming territory.

But a few scientists simply refuse to believe the British calculations.

Read more here.