Global warming in Malaysia? You're kidding.

Some readers commented that I hardly touch on local topics on global warming. I agree and I too wish that our local media finds the topic worthy enough to report.

Let me ask a question. Being in a hot country, does anyone really notice if its a couple of degrees hotter or cooler today from yesterday? I doubt so. We're holed up in airconditioned offices, complexes and homes most of the time to notice anyway. We blame the warming of our highlands like Genting and Frasier's hill on rampant development of hillslopes rather than the ravages of invisible greenhouse gases. I guess if we can't see it, the problem doesn't exist

Its not that we don't care about the environment. Sure we make noise about polluted rivers, indiscriminate logging, land-clearing and toxic waste dumps but for different reasons. The truth is that we hate foul smells, soil erosion, losing nice greenery from land clearing and having our underground water poisoned.

These are serious issues no doubt but does anyone really pay any attention to the massive amounts of carbon we release and how it stands to affect our children's lives in the future? Like I said, for most people, if you can't see it, it doesn't exist.

I suppose its normal for people not to care about something until they lose it. I've no doubt we will one day see unusually ferocious storms that flatten entire kampungs, rising food prices due to more failed crops, higher disease rates, knee-high water in Georgetwon Penang and Port Klang, and generally some kind of humanitarian disaster that seem to have no visible cause.

The trouble with that scenario is that by the time it happens, it is already too late.

Sometimes our blessing is also our curse. Because the drastic effects of global warming is less visible in the tropics, we worry less about the weather. But its also a curse in that we've desensitized ourselves to a growing problem that could kill us. We are like frogs being slowly boiled alive.

Because our local climate and weather can be clobbered by carbon emissions from as far away as China and Russia as theirs are to us, it is naive to think that we could solve the problem by ourselves. A global problem needs a global solution. That means everybody working together, which is why we have worldwide commissions like Kyoto and the IPCC.

Its not just supposed to be a talk shop. Its supposed to be a do shop where governments collectively hammer out their plans for global change, from educating their citizens to turn out the lights when not in use to strict legislation of industrial carbon emissions within their countries. And these actions are supposed to become national policy, filtered down to local city levels complete with incentive and enforcement.

But I've long woken from that dream. China and India does recognize the problem but prefer to take the cautious approach (i.e. do little or nothing) because it may hurt their economy. The government of the US, the world's no. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases, doesn't recognize the problem, also because it may hurt their economy. The decision of these 3 giants plus the European Union will in my opinion determine the fate of man and whether he will still exist a century from now.

This is why many of my blog entries have so far dwelt on their actions and opinions.

So does it matter if we Malaysians care about global warming or not? Personally I don't think it'll make a difference one way or another because the problem has grown way too big for any single community to handle. The only thing we can do now is soften the impact by practicing energy-saving consumption habits and I've outlined several already.

In the bigger scheme of things I think the greatest contribution we or any country can make today is to be a such a great leader in the active reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that it inspires other countries to do the same. Will we ever become that torch bearer? Your guess is as good as mine.

Al Gore's dream come true

Things are not going too well for GW Bush. That's George W Bush, not Global Warming Bush.

On Monday the apex court of the US, the Supreme Court, ruled that "greenhouse gases are a pollutant and ordered federal environmental officials to re-examine their refusal to limit emissions of the gases from cars and trucks."

What this means is that it compels the EPA - the US Environmental Protection Agency - to determine if greenhouse gases is harmful humans (something it has tap-danced away from due to pressure from Washington) and if so, to start regulating its emissions or explain to the court why it will not.

Currently any program to limit emissions in the US are done voluntarily by individuals, private organizatons or local governments but not the Federal government.

This is likely to force doubters of global warming in Washington to go into unpleasant territory where a face-off with their campaign financiers - those with large business interests - will likely occur.

Al Gore is no doubt a happy man now that one obstacle is down.

Read the news article here.

Burn more wood, emit less Co2

Going back to the good old days. That's the British plan to avoid consuming more heating oil.

The plan is for the government to provide "2 million tonnes a year more wood available for fuel by 2020 through better forest management and support." If you've been to the UK you'll notice that most British homes are individually warmed up by coal, gas or oil.

On the question whether burning wood is more environmentally friendly than burning oil, apparently the answer is yes, to the tune of avoiding 400,000 tons of carbon compared to burning the equivalent in fossil fuel.

And how to deal with the remaining carbon that's released anyway? The British Forestry Commission will plant more trees to absorb some according to the report, suggesting that this is a program aimed at reducing carbon emissions, not eliminate it.

It does leave me wondering whether balancing carbon emissions is a factor in the sustainable logging programs in Malaysia or whether it is purely in support of an economic activity.

Read the complete report here.

Image source: here.

The EU Ecolabel

As some major Asian economies settle comfortably in their polluted air and water and argue why their industries cannot be so eco-friendly, Europe has pulled ahead with initiative after initiative.

Few in Malaysia would have heard of the EU Eco-label, the flower logo above that is affixed to products that have been verified by independent bodies as complying with strict ecological and performance criteria.

Their website lists 11 product categories under this system - Bedding, Gardening, Electronic equipment, Footwear, Household Appliances, Textiles, DIY, Cleaning, Paper, Services and Lubricants.

For example, the compliance requirements for bedding manufacturers look like this:


This is not just a commercial branding stunt but a carefully administered plan by the European Eco-labelling Board (EUEB) and receives the support of the European Commission, all Member States of the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA).

According to their website, the Eco-labelling Board includes representatives such as industry, environment protection groups and consumer organisations.

Read their FAQ here about the whats and whys of the EU eco-label. The EUROPA website also has a good backgrounder on this.

My question is with Asia's notoriously booming population, will their governments have the will to adopt anything like this soon? How about anytime this century?

Formula One: Green quotes

...any research to improve that racing engine would have to be directly relevant to research to improve fuel efficiency in road cars... actually contribute something to society rather than yearly sterile research for another 200-300rpm from a fixed-capacity engine.

FIA President Max Mosley on the motor sport's brand new focus on fuel economy


The entire fuel bill and the carbon burn for the entire formula one world championship season is less than one 747 taking off for one flight.

Steve Slater
Formula One commentator


Jenson Button's Earth Car (the green Honda) will emit 50 tonnes of carbon this formula one season, five times higher than the average Briton produces in 12 months.

Guardian sport

Although the messages may be a little confusing for now, something green is brewing in F1. Great news indeed for conservation.

Autobahn putting on the brakes?

Will the Autboahn, Germany's famous no-speed-limit highway, finally give up its fame by imposing a 120kmh speed limit?

That's what the German Federal Environment Agency is mulling. The reason? To help Germany meet its promise to cut Co2 emissions.

A CNN spot last night did an interesting test to see what effect slowing down would have on feul burn. They took a BMW 5-series to the speedway, sped it past 240kmh and then reduced the speed down to half. The feul consumption was then compared. True enough, at 120 kmh consumption was cut down to half.

But Germany's speed demons were not amused though, some even angry.

Read the full news here.

World public opinion on global warming

WorldPublicOpinion.org recently conducted a poll to split hairs over what people thought about global warming.

The poll was conducted in 17 countries—China, India, USA, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, Poland, Iran, Mexico, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Argentina, Peru, Israel and Armenia. These represent more than 55 percent of the world population.


The results were not unexpected. About 12-13% of people in the US and China think global warming is not an important threat compared to only 4-5% of South Koreans and Australians who felt the same way. Surprisingly 70% of Mexicans believe the problem is critical compared to the USA's 46%.

On the need to take action, Indians were the least supportive with 24% feeling that unless we are sure that global warming is really a problem, we should not do anything that would cost money. On the other hand, Australians seems the most concerned with 69% saying something should be done now even if the costs are significant.

The study does affirm that although there are dissenters, an overwhelming majority in the countries polled believe global warming is a problem that needs to be addressed. But the data also shows that the protection of economic interests may prove to be a wet blanket with developing countries like the Philippines (49%), Thailand (41%), Poland (39%), Ukraine (37%) and India (30%) leading the way on "going slow".

Graphic source: here.
Read the detailed srticle here.

Beating global warming: An Australian perspective

FIRST

We must accept the reality that information on environmental issues and global warming issues are being manipulated by skilful public relation gurus to maintain the sales of fossil carbon based fuels and products.

SECOND

We remove the excess carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. We do this by modifying our agricultural practices to enhance the buildup of soil organic matter.

THIRD

For large-scale industrial power generation, we switch from a system primarily based on fossil fuels, to a system primarily based on nuclear fuels. It is both the only feasible option, and the safest.

FOURTH

For our mobile transport fuels we switch totally to ethanol and biodiesel produced from sugarcane and grains, and oil palms and oil seeds. That’s for cars, trucks, busses, ships and aeroplanes. Source.

The article is a long read but if you can put aside some of its diatribes, you might find some practical suggestions on what an agro-commercial society can do.

And since Malaysia wants to go big into that space with our palm oil and stuff, an alternative view into the practice of large-scale organic farming could be insightful.
.

Britons fight for road tax increase

What would you say to a 10-fold increase in road tax on the biggest gas-guzzling cars as part of an aggressive pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions, especially when you realize that road transport accounts for a fifth of the country's Co2 emissions?

This is on top of other extra fees imposed if you drive through the city.

This is what Friends of the Earth is campaigning to the British government in this news report.

It poses an interesting question. What would our public reaction be if such a move if done here?

Bear in mind Malaysia is a signatory to the Kyoto protocol.

All talk no action

I've always stayed clear of the political aspect of the global warming debate, firstly because I don't care for politics and secondly because I don't believe science can be mixed with consensus (politics). If its science its not consensus. If its consensus its not science. I prefer to stick with science.

Be that as it may, I do keep a pulse on what world bodies are debating ...errr.. doing. One thing that keeps coming up since the days of Kyoto protocol is who - as in which nations - are to blame.

The rationale of the debate I suppose is to decide who should be doing the most of the cleaning up. We can read that as bearing the cost and possible economic slowdown as industry rules are altered. One of the reasons why the US didn't go with Kyoto was their claim that developing economies were not subject to the targets that the rich countries were.

The other side's defence is that most of the Co2 presently circulating in the atmosphere have been dumped there by indutrialized countries decades and centuries ago, hence it is they who should be leading the cleanup efforts.

It sounds reasonable until you realize where the argument is heading: that if America and Europe had polluted well and hard in the past, then why can't India and China do the same today?

Its like a youngster telling someone you can't stop me from dumping trash out to the street because you yourself did it when you were young.

Maybe I'm being a little simplistic and there's a lot more to the arguments but I think the basic principles are the same. Squabbling about history will not change the fact that we - as in the Americans, Asians and Europeans - are all stuck in the same sinking ship.

The irony is that while the Americans may not have signed Kyoto, they are doing something to change the situation as I blogged here, here, here and here, probably forced to by a more environmentally mature citizenry, while some nations that signed Kyoto could only give excuses why its hard to implement measures in their countries. Lets be honest. Which country would you rather live in - one where the rivers are clean and clear but didn't sign Kyoto or one who let its rivers be biologically poisoned but signed Kyoto.

This is why I prefer to stick to science. Action speaks louder than words. A lot louder.

Read this, this and this for perspectives of India and China on this issue.

Why our storms are getting fiercer

Storms and flooding are hitting us with a vengeance this year. For the first time in my life I was nearly blown off my feet by super strong winds and rain that was unleashed in PJ last Friday evening.

This freaky weather phenomena looks set to be a long term if not permanent feature of our weather system if this report is true. Scientists now say pollution from Asia is helping generate stronger storms. These come in the form of tiny particles generated from coal burning in China and India which had been going on for decades.

The terrible air pollution in China is no fairy tale as I found out recently when I went there.


Above was the sight that greeted me on the approach to Guangzhou airport. The clouds sit in a reddish brown soup caused by emissions from coal fired plants.


And this is the view of Guangzhou airport as we drove on the highway. The haze is a permanent feature that just hangs in the air day and night. Even rain won't clear it.

While Malaysia is quite far away from the North Pacific area mentioned in the report, I don't think we are ever free from the climactic effects of pollution from the greater Asian continent. We experience this first hand every August & September when haze from Indonesian forest fires envelop us.

Whether forest fire or dirty coal-fired plants, tons of carbon particles are ejected into the air where they stay suspended and add to the grim load already carried by the atmosphere.

"The Pacific storm track, they noted, plays a critical role in global atmospheric circulation, and altering this weather pattern could have a significant impact on the climate," says the report.

The bad news gets badder

Here's some cheerful highlights from a sneak preview of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report:

- Within 20 years hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water.
- About 100 million will be made homeless due to flooding each year from rising sea levels
- Insect-borne diseases like malaria will spread. In 40 years, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos. Pests like fire ants will thrive.
- By 2080, half a billion people could face starvation.

So, still think its a good idea to have kids?

Link: here

Carbon-neutral bank

Is your bank carbon-neutral?

Mine isn't but its heartening to know that there are financial institutions out there who are putting money where their mouth is in the struggle against global warming. After all, banks are voracious consumers of materials such as paper and technology whose production involves the creation of megatons of greenhouse gases.

On 6th March '07, the largest retail bank in the US, Bank of America, announced a US$20 billion environmental initiative to encourage a greening of the environment. Some of the money goes to an internal drive to reduce consumables consumption, the rest to consumer programs and commercial lending and investment banking for "green" projects over the next decade.

It sounds like the start of a big corporate social responsibility campaign (CSR) for BA. CSR has gained ground in recent years as a new public relations weapon and it has worked very well in communities that puts high value on social well-being. By developing an image of a caring instituion, it puts itself in the same mindspace of the population mindful of the same concern. In other words, its a bit of smart marketing.

I wonder when our local institutions will start following suit.

Is nuclear power carbon-free?

Not according to Dr Uwe Fritsche, a researcher at the Öko Institut in Darmstadt, Germany, who says there's no such thing as carbon-free power.

A big 1,250 megawatt plant produces the equivalent of 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year during its life, he says. Its does better than coal- and gas-fired turbines but in reality, a lot of Co2 is produced in setting up the plant, mining the uranium ore it requires and in operating it.

So it seems that when its life-cycle cost of reducing Co2 emissions is compared with other energy alternatives, nuclear power may not fare as well in the global warming equation. There are suggestions that improving a nation's energy efficiency would produce far less Co2 than a new nuclear plant.


Source: Öko Institut

Link: Here

Carbon footprint calculators

A carbon footprint calculator asks questions about your lifestyle and consumption habits and calculates how much carbon dioxide you produce annually.

Why bother knowing your carbon footprint?

Good question. The answer is if you really want to reduce global warming, start at home. Know how many tons of greenhouse gases you are personally dumping into the atmosphere. Then choose how you want to cancel those effects (to be covered in later articles).

Here's a few calculators I found on the net.

1. Carbonfootprint.com Calculator
2. WRI Calculator
3. An Inconvenient Truth Calculator
4. Junkscience Calculator
5. BP Calculator
6. Carboncalculator.co.uk

My only issue with carbon calculators is that many were written for western audiences and tend to categorize usage around American or European peculiarities. Some calculators for example only work if you provide a valid US zip code or they ask you to choose car models only found in that country.

We're seeing the same harebrainedness found during the baseball world series where the 'world' is defined as Florida, New York, California, etc.

Anyway given the seriousness of the situation, I hope someone will come up with a calculator that's more applicable to Asian audiences soon.

What is Carbon neutrality

What does it mean when someone goes carbon neutral?

It means the person emits no net carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

The principle is similar to a balanced budget. If you must spend X dollars, to keep your head above water you better make sure you recover that X dollars somewhere.

With this simple idea, if you're able to calulate the amount of carbon you produce from your lifestyle in a year, you can make up for what you used (called an offset) by doing a number of things.

The simplest is tree planting. A tree can soak up a ton of Co2 in its lifetime. Another way is to contribute money to energy conservation projects or to those that generate energy from renewable sources.

Lets do a quick example. Lets say using a carbon footprint calculator (one example here) I learn that I produce 10 tons of Co2 a year. I have 2 choices,

a) sponsor the planting of 10 trees to absorb that much Co2, or

b) donate money to a hospital for them to install energy devices like solar water heaters to prevent electricity usage that would have otherwise produced 10 tons of Co2.

Its not an exact science and hospitals in apathetic countries will laugh you out the door but you get the idea.

In countries that do take their carbon neutrality seriously, businesses are already offering people a way to live carbon neutral lives by offering "carbon credits" for sale. See examples here and here to understand how they work.

The main point is that if you must pollute, you should do something to allow that amount of pollution to be absorbed or better yet, prevent its production somewhere on this planet. If everybody does this, then in theory we will have a 'balanced carbon account' i.e. no net gain of Co2 produced by human activity.

Read this, this and this to get a better understanding of carbon neutrality.

Honda Formula 1 goes green

...and blue. Literally. F1 fans will see this car above instead of the usual red and white livery come 18th March when the new season flags off. Quite a turnabout for a team that used to carry the Lucky Strike cigarette brand decal.

And get this. For a pledge you can actually have your name incorporated in the artwork of the real F1 car! A brilliant opportunity at grandstanding if I may say so, never mind if you need a microscope to see your pixel-sized name on the car. I'm not sure what they do with the money you pledge though.

From their promotional website at www.myearthdream.com,


While this move may not actually change the sport in the short run, it will remind millions of TV viewers that a) the earth should look as green and blue as the livery, b) here's a team that puts the welfare of the planet above that of their team sponsors.

That bold statement, to me, is well worth the amount of sponsorships they forgo this season. I expect they will recoup some if not all of the cost of this from the increased sales of their hybrid street cars. Smart. Go Honda!

Links: Here and here.

Global warming FAQ

There are many excellent FAQs on global warming available on the Internet so I won't reinvent the wheel. At the bottom of this post I've presented a few FAQ links that I think are good.

But before that, here's my own piece on the fundamentals of global warming.

Since I started this blog, the first bunch of posts have dwelled on the topic of carbon dioxide or Co2 emissions. There's a reason for that.

Amongst the various types of heat-trapping greenhouse gases present in our atmostphere, Co2 is by far the largest in volume.

The rash of carbon-themed posts was to emphasize its role in this little mess we're in and to point out that we are as guilty as everyone else in producing carbon. Yes everyone pollutes but we should care enough to know what portion of the problem has our fingerprints on it so we can start thinking about how to neutralize it.

While Co2 has been around long before man appeared, its volume began to accelerate rapidly when he appeared. Man's appetite for energy compels him to burn fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil, as is his desire to clear land cheaply by burning forests and blanketing entire regions with thick haze. These just a couple of examples of actions that release carbon into the atmosphere.

The planet has natural carbon sinks like ocean and forests, places that absorb carbon and sometimes produce oxygen in return. However there's a problem. We are producing much more carbon than the carbon sinks can take. Indiscriminate deforestation only serves to shrink the remaining carbon sinks even further.

As the level of unabsorbed airborne carbon rises, more heat is trapped in the atmosphere and global temperatures begin to rise. Glaciers melt, sea water level rises, the climate shows unusual patterns, the food chain goes out of whack, food supply drops and man's existence eventually comes into question.

Great emotional debates have raged on whether global warming is natural or man-made and whether the recommendations of the scientific community will actually work. Regardless of who is right or wrong, responsible countries have started to act.

Since the ozone layer panic of the 80's, international accords like the UN-backed Kyoto protocol have been launched. These initiatives set county-level targets for greenhouse gas emissions and provide financial incentives for doing so.

To measure who's dirtiest and cleanest and who's doing the most and the least, these communities have adopted carbon weight and volume as the basic unit of measurement to define pollution severity in the global warming context. Carbon is a word we'll be hearing a lot of in the coming years, from carbon offsets to carbon footprints to carbon trading, so lets start getting used to it.

Below are just a few FAQS I found useful. You can google up a lot more.

Links:
A beginner's guide to understanding the issue of global warming
Goddard Space Flight Center's Global Warming FAQ
About.com's Global Warming FAQ
UCSUSA's Global Warming FAQ
NCDC's Global Warming FAQ


Image source: NASA

Just when we thought we had it all covered

... and we discover more holes.

This time, the climate change experts apparently overlooked one big polluter: ships. And get this, the carbon dioxide emissions are found to be double that of the entire aviation industry!

At 600 and 800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, ships' emissions are in fact "nearly double Britain's total emissions and more than all African countries combined."

Maritime emissions are not covered by the Kyoto accord. It is also absent from many discussions that pounce on lesser things like airline pollution.

It is estimated that the world now has 70,000 ships and there are apparently about 20,000 new ships on order.

Why so many ships? If you own anything that is imported, chances are it was brought in by a ship. The more we consume, the more cargo ships required for transport. The fuel they often use? Diesel.

Read the article here.

Image source: Freefoto.com

Environmentally friendly Malaysians?

The facilities are great.


But the mentality? Here's paper thrown in a bin marked 'plastic.'


And plastic stuffed in a bin marked 'paper.'


These pictures were taken on Friday noon at Ikano Power Center at Kota Damansara KL, a happening place frequented by the educated and the rich.


Apathy clearly cuts across social lines.

I commend Ikano and Ikea for encouraging public awareness of recycling by walking the talk. I think they deserve an award.

USD25 million for the best greenhouse sucker

Got an idea of how to suck one billion tonnes of Co2 a year from the atmosphere?

Al Gore and Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson teamed up to launch the Virgin Earth Challenge on 9 Feb 2007, announcing the $25m cash reward that they hope will inspire innovations in the field of combating climate change.

"The earth cannot wait 60 years," said Branson at a news conference.

Read more here and here.

Top 20 Co2 emitters

Source: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2-emissions.html


These are 1990-1996 figures. What mystified me was the fact that Saudi Arabia recorded the second highest growth of carbon emissions at +51.2%, led only by South Korea at +69.2%.

I can understand South Korea at the top, it being a major global manufacturer and all but Saudi Arabia?

Carbon stats: How do we fare with our neighbours?

Got these off the net. All stats are per capita up to 2001/2002.




Source: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_coun.htm

Of the three, it looks like we are the highest emitters of Co2 per head. However I feel the data should be compared with GDP or something to get a balanced picture as countries with different population & industry mixes may have different emission profiles.

I omitted Singapore precisely because of this.

Calculate your carbon footprint

This table is extracted from an article by George Barnwell about how much carbon dioxide you're dumping into the atmosphere, the main component of greenhouse gases. And that's from electrical appliances alone. Read his short article here. Note that 1 pound is equivalent to 0.453kg.

If you're interested in the bigger picture, try out BP's Carbon Footprint Calculator and see for yourself what your carbon footprint is.


Mine is 6 tonnes a year, lower than the Singapore average of 8.38. Woohoo!

And if you're wondering what a tonne of CO2 is like, read this, also from the BP site.



Aren't numbers painful :)

London's plan to cut emissions (27th Feb)

The aim according to the London Mayor is to reduce the city's emissions by 20.2 million tons by 2025.

The plan?

Hit it where it hurts. Impose a $16 (Rm56) charge for cars traveling in the busiest sections of the London and charge vehicles according to their emissions levels. Zero-emission vehicles travel free while the highest-polluting cars pay $49 (Rm172) a day.

Will KL ever do the same some day?

Read more here.

Five US governers cooperate to cut emissions (26th Feb)

Fed up with the inaction of the US federal government, the governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state have agreed to work together to develop a plan targeting a reduction in the emission of their states' greenhouse gases.

It's nice to see that environmentally friendly leaders really do exist.

Read the rest of it here.

Gore's inconvenient electricity bill

What: Gore mansion's electricity bill
Where: Nashville, Tn
How much: About USD 1,300 a month

Many of Al Gore's detractors were quick to jump on this new revelation to accuse him of hypocrisy, of lecturing other people to reduce their energy consumption at home while he spends 20 times the US national average on the same.

Responding on his behalf, his aide said that Gore and his wife Tipper works at home and hence use more energy than the average home. To play his part in reducing carbon emissions, he buys his energy from a green energy supplier and he is in the process of installing energy savers like solar panels and energy-saving light bulbs.

To balance out other carbon emissions, the Gores are said to invest money in projects to reduce energy consumption.

The group that's accusing Gore, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, disputes that global warming is a serious problem.

Read more here and here.

CO2 emissions of Malaysia

Here's where we stand according to Earthtrends:


(Source: EarthTrends Country Profiles)

And this is what the graph tells us.

1. We overtook the world average in Co2 emission per capita sometime before 1998.

2. Our Co2 emissions more than tripled since 1975 (105 million metric tons in 1999).

3. By 1999, electricity generation, transportation and manufacturing & construction contributed nearly 80% of the total Co2 emission of the country.

It should be a relief to us that Malaysia is a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol (2002), UNFCCC (1994) and the Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer (1989).

Bear in mind that these statistics are 8 years old. If anyone knows where to find newer data, please let me know.

CO2 emissions by country

Here's an interesting table of carbon dioxide emissions by country from UNFCCC.


Are you surprised at the top country at the rightmost column? I was.

Read this report to understand how much CO2 emission is too much.

YTL's Climate Change Week, 6-9 March

YTL is organizing an event called Climate Change Week on 6-9 March in KL. Its apparently a business conference aimed at promoting companies to go greener, I presume as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) plan. For details go to their website here.

I took the trouble to enquire at their call center for details. I was told it will be held at the Ritz Carlton KL, will cost RM200 per participant and there will be no public gallery or exhibition.

The Inconvenient Truth - March 15

This much awaited movie, starring Al Gore, is coming to a theater near you starting March 15.

The movie-documentary bagged 2 Oscars recently. I promise it will be an eye opener for those trying to comprehend the situation.

Watch the trailer here.

Don't buy Beachfront Property

(This post is reproduced from my other blog Bryan's Cafe)

Unless it's perched high up on a granite cliff or you enjoy snorkeling in your living room.

It seems that an ommission in earlier reports on global warming painted a misleading picture of the crisis. To quote this Guardian article "Climate change: scientists warn it may be too late to save the ice caps",

"The revelation comes as a new report points out that greenhouse gas emissions running into hundreds of millions of tonnes have not been disclosed by Britain's biggest businesses, masking the full extent of the UK's contribution to global warming."


An earlier IPCC report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is now seemingly erroneous as only 16 of Britain's FTSE 100 companies met disclosure guidelines of CO2 emissions, meaning that about 200m jaw-dropping tonnes of damaging CO2 is estimated to be missing from earlier estimates, an amount more than "annual reported emissions of Pakistan and Greece combined."

This discovery pretty much lobbed a grenade into the kitchen. Forecasts are now more onminous with the prospect that "there is "a significant probability that some large-scale events (eg deglaciation of major ice sheets) may no longer be avoided due to historical greenhouse gas emissions and the inertia of the climate system"."

"Areas such as the Maldives would be swamped and low-lying countries such as the Netherlands and Bangladesh, as well as coastal cities including London, New York and Tokyo, would face critical flooding...Such melting would raise sea levels by four to six metres, the scientists say. "

Would island nations like Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Singapore lose precious land mass to the water and see their countries shrink dramatically? It would pose a national defense issue like no other, something no missile or warship could avert.

"New studies of Greenland and Antarctica have forced a UN expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss "may no longer be avoided" because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.... The previous official line, issued in 2001, was that the chance of such an event was "not well known, but probably very low"."

That's what happens when politics stands in the way of scientific objectivity and countires thumb their noses to the cries of panic in the name of economic sustainability. We do get what we deserve.

But there is an opportunity in every disaster.

"...average temperatures would probably increase by 4C this century if emissions continue to rise. Even under its most optimistic scenario, based on a declining world population and a rapid switch to clean technology, temperatures are still likely to rise by 1.8C."

Maybe I should invest in companies that build cooling systems and tree nurseries?

"Very large sea level rises that would result from widespread deglaciation of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets imply major changes in coastlines..."

I'll avoid investing in beachfront property and in companies building beachfront resorts. But mountain resorts like Genting should be ok.

The IPCC report which assesses the likely impacts of global warming and will be published in April. I will be anxiously waiting.

Global warming: My perspective

(This post is reproduced from my other blog Bryan's Cafe)

Now that the silly season that is valentine has passed, I can safely move on to more down-to-earth things.

I was intrigued by a discussion on lowyat.net forum about the international debate on global warming. As with any worthwhile issue, there are 2 strongly opposing camps - countries that signed the Kyoto agreement and countries that didnt. One side says that humans are to blame for the warming while the other insists there is no proof to support that.

Okay, there is a 3rd school of thought - that the earth is being terraformed by aliens. Being a Trek fan myself this theory is my favourite but apparently it hasn't gained much of a following.

But regardless of whether man, mother nature or aliens are to blame, I do share the view that we are sliding down an irreversible path to climactic doom. The awakening of developing nations to the dangers of uncontrolled pollution, particularly China, comes too little too late as my recent trip to Guangzhou tells me. The US's lethargic response to its own CO2 emmissions is also very telling. Just how do you tell a red-blooded American that driving a gas-guzzling Hummer is a bad thing?

Quite frankly, even if everyone signed on Kyoto today, what difference would it make when the horse has bolted from the barn.

What does remain today are these facts.

- The arctic icecap is melting.
- Strange unseasonal weather patterns have beset the world.
- Storms and droughts are getting more intense.
- Deserts are expanding.
- Sea water levels are rising.
- Ocean temperatures are rising.

And that's not all. Other non-climatic events are also jumping into the fray.

- Noticeable increase in earthquakes and tsunamis.
- An environment struggling to cope with rapid population growth.
- The emergence of new fatal diseases like H5N1.
- The onset of "mass insanity" - world conflicts beckoning ppl to kill each other in large numbers.

So not only are we killing each other with our own industrial garbage and ideological differences, nature is kindly giving us a hand by throwing at us new incurable diseases, moving earth's crust around and cranking up the thermostat. With luck it might even throw in a couple of asteroid our way to make things merrier.

If I sound a little pessimistic, its due to the fact that out of 6.6 billion people on the planet, I estimate not even 1% has the capacity to understand much less do anything about global warming. Most don't have any choice but to go back to their air polluting vehicles, their strip-farmed land or consume products that disproportionately strip the planet of its resources. To convince the other 99% to take heed and actually do something will take a thousand years too many. We've started on the wrong foot. We've built entire civilizations on self-destructing habits like slash and burn farming and unbridled consumerism. If destroying and rebuilding cultures on a global scale is as easy as what Al Gore thinks, we would have it by now but we don't.

So am I being a little fatalistic in saying we're headed for a climactic armageddon? I don't think so. I believe only total rebirth and regeneration can save the planet. But to be reborn, the planet has to die first. All indications are that this is well under way.

Science is already predicting the arrival of a new ice age resulting from the melting of the polar ice cap. Great. Nature is defrosting the fridge before laying down some new ice, except this defrost cycle might last a million years. I'm not putting any hopes or money that man will survive it.

I've long shrugged off the world's petty bickering because of all this. All the opinions and beliefs, the rights and wrongs, none of it will change how our story ends. The way I see it, the most humane thing we can do today is to make sure the next generation can make their own exit as comfortably as possible. In fact, try not to have kids. Why have them and then leave them on a desert island. Even if you believe the situation is not as dire, deep down you know that the world is not likely to change in this lifetime or in your children's lifetime. What you can do is reduce future suffering by reducing the number of its recipients. The other thing is to consume less today so that there's a little more to go around tomorrow.

But who am I kidding. Isn't our greatest motto "its every man for himself?" Doesn't the attention span of the average human go only as far as his next meal, his next paycheck or his next shag? Will anyone listen if there's no bread on the table? On that score alone I'm convinced that as humans, we are pretty much screwed.

Why this blog

Everyone has heard of climate change and global warming. Not everyone knows what to do about it.

This space is for me to record selected news as well as my own personal views on the topic of climate change.

While we may not be in a position to make much of a dent on tons of greeenhouse gasses that's already ciculating around the planet, we can still create awareness. That is in my opinion a worthwhile investment for the future.

I welcome any blog contributors, either regular or one-off, who have original things to say about global warming. Just drop me an e-mail.

Bryan.