World Watch Magazine Jan-Feb 2010

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W ORLD W ATCHW ORLD W ATCHVolume 23, Number 1 Vision for a Sustainable World January/February 2010Volume 23, Number 1 Vision for a Sustainable World January/February 2010

Climate Chanand SecurityDrawing CarbOut of the AirMore on TransformingCapitalism

Climate Chanand SecurityDrawing CarbOut of the AirMore on TransformingCapitalism

GreenwashingHydropowerGreenwashingHydropower


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L I F E - C Y C L E S T U D I E S

Dry Cleaning

Process

The typical dry cleaner uses a combined washing machine/clothes dryer. A rotating stainless-steel basket holds thelaundry while a circulating outer shell sprays solvent through-out the clothing. The machine extracts the solvent, recoveringnearly all of it for further use.

Although much of the perc is recycled during dry cleaning,some solvent inevitably evaporates into the surrounding air.The cleaning process also leaves a sludge-like byproduct thatcontains solvent residue, and only a relatively small portionof this is properly treated; most is mixed with other wasteproducts and burned in incinerators and cement kilns.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer

classifies perc as a probable human carcino-gen. Those who work in or live near dry cleaningfacilities are exposed to various cancer risks,according to the World Health Organization,including bladder, throat, and lung cancer.Damage to the liver, kidneys, nervous system,and memory is a threat as well, according tothe U.S. National Institute of OccupationalSafety and Health.

Perc pollution contributes to the formationof smog. The toxin can also accumulate in waterresources; U.S. Geological Survey hydrologists

have detected perc at measurable concentrationsin nearly 1 in 10 tested wells drawing on majoraquifers across the country.

OverviewThe dirty business of laundry has long sought improvements over old-fashioned soap and water. The Celts washedtheir clothing in human urine. The launderers of ancient Rome rubbed a claylike soil known as fullers earth intotheir stained togas. During the Renaissance, books of secrets circulated through Europe, offering such householdstain-removal concoctions as walnuts and turpentine.

Modern dry cleaning is credited to a Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Jolly, who in the mid-19th century realized thestain-removal potential of kerosene when his maid accidently spilled a canful onto his soiled tablecloth. Hydro-carbon-based solvents prevailed thereafter until the 1960s, when flammability concerns and the affordability of new synthetic chemicals led to a switch. Tetrachloroethylene, also known as perchloroethylene (perc), became thepreferred solvent among most of the worlds dry cleaners.

An estimated 180,000 dry cleaners worldwide are believed to use perc. More than 30,000 small- and large-scaleoperations are based in the United States alone. The rise of service economies in the developing world will likelyincrease demand for dry cleaning, although many countries are shifting toward more casual office dress codes.

Mitigation and AlternativesAdvances in dry cleaning machinery have led dry cleaners inthe United States to cut their solvent use by 80 percent inthe past decade, according to the Dry Cleaning and LaundryInstitute. Still, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencyestimates that the countrys dry cleaners released some10,000 tons of perc in 2006.

The European Union, Australia, and Canada have imple-mented regulations to further limit perc releases and mini-mize its use. California has passed the only perc phase-out,requiring that dry cleaners transition to alternatives by2023, but many large dry cleaners have avoided regulationby moving their operations to Mexico.

About half of garments dry-cleaned with perc may insteadbe cleaned with a process known as wet cleaning. The tech-nique combines old methods (biodegradable soap and water)with new technologies such as computer-controlled dryers andstretching machines. Another alternative, immersion in liquidcarbon dioxide (CO2), has been commercially available for thepast decade. The Union of Concerned Scientists considers theprocess beneficial to the climate: The CO2 is nearly all recap-tured, and it requires less energy than traditional dry cleaning.

Consumers seeking alternatives can also remove manystains with household substances such as baking soda,hydrogen peroxide, or cornstarch.

Ben Block

Pe r c - ba sed d r yc leanin g ma c hine.

Shanghai Cobber Laundr yCo., L td.

Sa me ma c hi ne f r omt he ba c k .

Shanghai Cobber Laundr y Co., Lt d.

K r i p p t i c


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W ORLD W ATCH

Front cover photograph: Three Gorges Dam under construction,Hubei, China. Construction Photography/Corbis

WORLDWATCH is printed on an alkaline, recycled papermade from 100% post-consumer ber certied by theForest Stewardship Council, processed chlorine-free,and manufactured using biogas energy.

COMING UP.. .Urban Agriculture Potential

Geoengineering the Climate

Toilet Paper Fundamentals

Whatever Happened to Biomimicry? Contents copyright 2009 Worldwatch Institute.All rights reserved.

DEPARTMENTS2 From Readers

On stuff, capitalism, and population.

4 Eye on EarthBike-congested Copenhagen; European offshorewind development slowed; climate change likely to worsen hunger; U.S. public still not convincedabout climate change; river deltas sinkingworldwide; Madagascar political troublesundermine conservation.

7 Updates

15 Vital SignsCoral Reefs under Threat

16 Talking PicturesThree Gorges Dam

32 Matters of ScaleWasteland

W ORLD W ATCHVolume 23, Number 1 Vision for a Sustainable World January/February 2010Volume 23, Number 1 Vision for a Sustainable World January/February 2010

FEATURES8 G REENWASHING H YDROPOWER

Big dams are still being builtand still wreakinghavoc.BY AVIVA IMHOF AND G UY R. L ANZA

18 C LIMATE OF R ISKClimate change poses new challenges to security policy.BY M ICHAEL R ENNER

24 R ECARBONIZING THE EARTHShovel-ready ways to draw carbon out of the air.BY R ICHARD J. BLAUSTEIN

29 T RANSFORMING C APITALISM :W ORKER -O WNED BUSINESS , OR EXPANDING THE N ON -P ROFIT SECTOR ?A rebuttal to David Schweickart.BY H UNTER LEWIS

Icon of desertification, Sossusvlei Valley, Namibia. J e f f r e y v a n R o s s u m


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2 World Watch | January/February 2010 www.worldwatch.org

F R O M R E A D E R S F R O M R E A D E R S

Worldwatch Institute website:www.worldwatch.org

Stuff, Capitalism,and Population

I really enjoyed theLessStuff, or More Bloodarticle in the September/

October issue. I totally agree that eco-efficiency improvements by them-selves are not enough tomake the math of sustain-ability work over the next 3040 years, asTom Prugh explained so well. Prugh alsopointed out that the math at the generalscale is a gross generalization of problemsat the regional or local level, which willalways be much worse in some regionsthat others. As David Schweickart stated inhis article,A New Capitalismor a NewWorld? [same issue], there is more suffer-ing going on today in many parts of theworld due to war and starvation than mostof us will ever experience in our lifetimes.

Along these lines, I think it is helpfulto consider current resource issues andconflicts as well as potential crises in thefuture. Staying connected to the presenthelps me to feel less overwhelmed and tobe more optimistic. I personally feel muchhappier when I take a slightly optimisticattitude, and when I feel that I can dosomething to contribute toward makingthe world a nicer place.

Getting back to consumption choicesand habits, I agree with Prugh that focus-ing on energy and meat consumptionmakes a lot of sense. In particular, I thinkwe should focus on reducing our con-sumption of red meat, which typically requires much more grain inputs andgenerates much more greenhouse gasemissions per pound than poultry orfarm-raised fish. And within the category

of energy consumption, I think it is espe-cially important to focus on oil products(gasoline and diesel). Several wars havealready been fought over oil, including the2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Despite otherweak justifications provided at the time,oil was definitely a huge driver in the neo-conservative strategic thinking that led tothe war. If there are other wars overresources in the future, oil would be themost likely candidate. One need only lookat military posturing in the world today.For example,U.S. interests in the Mid-dle East are the primary reason why theU.S.defense spending is so outrageously high, accounting for 48 percent of theworlds total military spending. (By com-parison, U.S. oil consumption is only22 percent of total world consumption.)

Therefore, reducing our personalgasoline or diesel consumption should bethe highest priority in terms of reducingfuture bloodshed over resources, espe-cially for Americans. As we consider ourtransportation choices, we could think,Today I will ride my bike or take thebus/train, as a small contribution to worldpeace. Or,as my contribution to worldpeace, I will adjust my lifestyle to get by with one fuel-efficient car for my family.

By discussing the connectionsbetween consumption and potential

World Watch Editor Thomas Prugh

Senior Editor Lisa Mastny Art Director Lyle Rosbotham

Staff Writer Ben BlockDirector of Publications and Marketing Patricia S. Shyne

Communications Associate Julia TierResearch Department

Erik AssadourianAmanda Chiu

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Room for more: Bicycle commuting in Portland, Oregon.

k w o r t h 3 0
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investors without growth. A properly structured industry allows participants toearn a sufficient margin on sales to pay labor costs, replace worn equipment, andpay a return to investors in the form of

dividends. A company in an industry notsubject to dramatic technological changecan exist in this way indefinitely, provid-ing jobs but not growth, without requir-ing additional investment capital. Whentechnology does advance, requiring newenterprises to replace the old, investorswill provide the necessary capital forstart-up, without the need for constantgrowth, as long as an adequate cash-on-cash return can be expected.

We will need several adjustments

to our economy to achieve this kind of prosperity without growth, but the mostfundamental change needed is popula-tion stabilization. As long as our popula-tion grows, we will need unsustainableeconomic growth to support it. Unfortu-nately, a broad alliance against popula-tion stabilization remains in control of policy, including business conservativeswho want growth to enhance theirwealth, religious conservatives whofavor human expansion and opposebirth control, and liberals opposed torestrictions on migration or reproduc-tion on human rights grounds. If wecan not break this unintended alliance,sustainability cannot happen.

Walter Branson

Newton, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Editors Note: Mr. Branson was not alone in taking exception to David Schweickarts arguments. See page 29 for a rebuttal fromHunter Lewis, an investment banker, active environmentalist, and author of Are theRich Necessary?and other books.

www.worldwatch.org January/February 2010 | World Watch 3

Seeing the environmental situation ascoming down to a choice between send-ing our children to die for us or gettingreal about the problem is an apt way of stating things. Blunt but true. Thanks for

doing this. The fact of your doing it puts you and the magazine right on the line.

I also liked very much the article ondoing away with capitalism [A NewCapitalismor a New World?] , by David Schweickart, a person of whomId not heard previously. His ideas aboutmoving toward cooperative models of economy are very close to my own think-ing in this area, on which I spent muchtime 20 or so years ago. I wish hedpressed the idea of turning extant corpo-

rations into consumer/worker-ownedand -controlled cooperatives, since thispoints to a vision of how people in extantcompanies can begin to get some lever-age both within the companies and vialegislation. Im inclined to agree withKovels thesis that its either get rid of capitalism or the death of the species. If the U.S.A., in its commitment to capital,stays on the path of sending our youngto kill to save our way of life, eventually therell be the nuclear holocaust that willalso be the final ecological crisis for ourspecies. We humans keep flirting withthis. Added to your piece and the one oncapitalism needs to be an emphasis onnonviolent methods for dealing withconflict, not for ideological reasons butout of pragmatic necessity. Theres a Chi-nese proverb to the effect that if we dontchange direction well end up wherewere headed.

LeRoy Moore

Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.

David Schweickarts ideas for a demo-cratic economy are interesting, butunlikely to be implemented in the nearterm. However, he too quickly dismissesthe possibility of sustainability within acapitalist system, based on his idea thatinvestors in a capitalist system demandconstant growth, and will fail to provideinvestment capital without that opportu-nity, leading to contraction and job losses.

In fact, profitable companies can, andoften do, provide an adequate return to

armed conflicts, many thoughtful/concerned citizens may be motivated todo something about their own habits.(Obviously, many others will not be soeasily convinced.) Prughs article is an

excellent start in this direction. Sloganslike less oil consumption, more peaceand happinesscould eventually catch on.

Neil Kolwey

Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.

I applaud your article Less Stuff, orMore Blood, which talks about the needfor overturning the consumptive lifestylesand flawed economic thinking pushedforward by developed countries.

I raised exactly all the issues you have

raised at the recent World Water Week inStockholm. There was so much talk thereabout climate change mitigation andadaptationhow water needs to be fac-tored into the climate talks and so on.But no one came to the crux of the issue,which is a consumptive lifestyle based ona fatally flawed economic system.

The poor fisherman in Bangladeshdoes not have a car nor an air condi-tioner. He does not even have an electri-cal appliance. Yet it is he and his family who will bear the brunt of rising sealevels caused by climate changea con-sequence of the consumptive lifestylesof the developed countries (and copycatdeveloping countries).

Are the people in developed countriesready to reduce their resource footprints?Will they move into smaller houses whichrequire less heating, or shift to vegetariandiets which need less water, or adopt sim-pler/more austere lifestyles?

As long as they continue to consume,the factories of the world will producethe goods they need. Energy, food, water,landall natural resources of the Earth willcontinue to be sucked out. Small, incre-mental lifestyle changes will not help to facethe cataclysmic challenges that lie ahead.

I do hope that voices like yours (andmine) will be heard.

Sahana Singh

Editor, Asian Water , Singapore

Just read your very thoughtful article[Less Stuff] in the latest World Watch .

TALK TO US!Please include your home town, country,and phone number (not for publication).Letters may be edited for clarity or brevity.Send them to: [email protected]

orEditor, World Watch

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As Denmarks capital city strives to reachcycling rates of 50 percent, transportationofficials face a problem that few urbanareas have had to confront: bicycle con-

gestion. In the Copenhagen metropolitan

area, where more than a third of residentspedal to work, more cyclists are com-plaining that cramped lanes push themcloser to cars or buses.

The Danish Transport Research Insti-tute estimates that 47 percentof cyclists feel unsafe riding onCopenhagen streets, up from 40percent a decade ago. The risinginsecurity comes even as seriouscycling injuries in the city haveplummeted, from 252 in 1996 toonly 92 in 2006. Bike-related fatal-ities have dropped from six in2006 to five in 2008 and none asof September 2009.

Copenhagen has set a goal that80 percent of residents should feelsafe biking in traffic. To achieve

this target, planners are redesigning inter-sections and particularly congested bikelanes, as well as adjusting traffic lights onbike-heavy roadways to enable high-speedcyclists to pass unimpededa measure

known as a green wave.Yet despite cyclings lower emissions,few Copenhagen bike commuters haveforegone cars out of a desire to reducetheir carbon footprint, according to LasseLindholm, a campaign officer with theDepartment of Traffics cycle program.Less than 1 percent of Copenhageners say they bike for the environment, he said.They do it because its easy and its fast.

About 20 percent of trips in Denmarkand Germany are made by bicycle. Rider-ship is slightly higher in the Netherlandsand China, at an estimated 30 percent and50 percent, respectively.

Offshore wind energy developers inEurope have found that mastering turbu-lent seas and harsh weather is more diffi-cult than many expected, especially asfacilities are built farther from the coastand rely on larger turbines.

Denmarks Horns Rev 2, the worldslargest offshore wind project, was inaugu-rated last September after two monthsof weather delays. The London Array, aneven more ambitious 1 gigawatt project,is still on track but has neared financialruin on several occasions. Alpha Ventus,Germanys first offshore wind farm, wenton line last summer after a year of delaysthat led the projects budget to balloon.

There should be offshore wind by now, but it isnt there yet, said MalteKreutzfeldt, environment editor of the

German newspaper Die Tageszeitung .Itturns out its a lot more expensive thanpeople thought, a lot more complicated.

Despite the setbacks, several Europeangovernments are betting on offshore windpower. Denmark plans to expandits existing 825 megawatts tomore than 3 gigawatts by 2025as part of its push to have windpower supply at least half thecountrys electricity consump-tion by then. The United King-dom has proposed 14 gigawattsof offshore wind by 2020, andGermany has set a goal of 25gigawatts by 2030.

Seven offshore wind farmswere built in Europe in 2008,with a combined capacity of

1.47 gigawatts. The European WindEnergy Association expects offshore windto reach 2 gigawatts continent-wide this year and projects an additional 1 gigawattin 2010to total some 0.3 percent of European Union electricity demand.

E Y E O N E A RT H E Y E O N E A RT H

by Ben Block

European Offshore Wind Projects Confront Challenging Seas

Bicycle rush hour in downtown Copenhagen.

Bicycle-Friendly Copenhagen Tries to Ease Crowded Lanes

M i k a e l C o l v i l l e

- A n d e r s e n

J i n S u k


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Climate change is expected to lower grain yields and raise crop prices across thedeveloping world, leading to a 20-percentrise in child malnutrition, according to a

September study from the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).The study was the first to combine cli-mate and agricultural models to measurethe effects of climate change on the globalfood supply.

Higher temperatures are expected toreduce some crop yields, allow damagingweeds and insects to spread, and shiftprecipitation patterns worldwide. Whilesome agricultural regions are expected tobenefit from climate change, overall pro-

duction will decline for the worlds rice,wheat, maize, millet, and sorghum har-vests, the report said.

Most severely affected will be thewheat-growing regions of South Asia,Europe and Central Asia, and sub-SaharanAfrica, where production is projected todecline by 46, 47, and 35 percent, respec-tively. Also under threat are MiddleEastern rice paddies, where production

is expected to fall by 36 percent.The regions that would benefit from

climate change would experience rela-tively smaller changes. The analysis esti-

mates that wheat production in LatinAmerica will grow by 13 percent and thatmillet production will increase in theEast Asia and Pacific region and in Latin

America and the Caribbean, by 6 and 8percent, respectively.

The expected changes vary for irri-gated and rain-fed fields. Irrigated rice yields are projected to decline by more

than 16 percent in developing countries,whereas rain-fed rice would decline by less than 1 percent. Likewise, irrigatedwheat yields are projected to decline by more than 31 percent in developing coun-tries, and rain-fed wheat would increaseby more than 1 percent.

Rising concentrations of greenhousegases may, however, encourage someplants to waste less water and grow morequickly, a process known as carbon diox-ide fertilization. If so, the total calories

available in developing countries may increase by nearly 6 percent by 2050, thestudy said.

IFPRI recommends that at leastUS$7 billion be set aside annually to helpdeveloping countries adapt to the agricul-tural effects of climate change. The fundswould support agricultural research,improve irrigation systems, and expandrural roads.

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Climate Change Will Worsen Hunger, Study Says

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E Y E O N E A RT H E Y E O N E A RT H

Most of the worlds major river deltas aresinking, increasing their vulnerability tosevere storms and floods, new satellitestudies find. Of the worlds 33 major riverdeltas, 24 are sinking due to flood-controlefforts and other human-caused changesto river systems. The study, published inthe September 2009 issue of Nature Geo-science , conservatively estimates that thearea vulnerable to flooding could increaseby 50 percent worldwide.

An estimated 500 million people live

on river deltas, which are created as sedi-ments are deposited at the mouths of rivers. Seasonal floods typically expanddeltas, but flood-control efforts such aslevees and dams have prevented regenera-tion in many delta systems. Deltas arealso being tapped for water and mineralresources, causing the ground to subsidefaster than new sediments arrive.

In the past decade, 85 percent of theworlds major deltas underwent severefloods, including the U.S. MississippiRiver Delta, Myanmars Irrawaddy Delta,and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta of India and Bangladesh, the study found.But Thailands Chao Phraya River, whereparts of the delta have sunk 1.5 metersbelow sea level, may be the worst affectedby delta loss.

The scientists used satellite data tocompare current delta conditions againsthistorical maps of major low-lying riverspublished between 1760 and 1922. They based their estimate of flooding increaseon the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change projection of 0.45 metersof sea-level rise by 2100.

U.S. Public Still Unconvincedon Climate ChangeFewer U.S. citizens consider climatechange to be a serious threat comparedto two years ago even as scientific evi-

dence demonstrates that the problem hasbecome increasingly severe, according toa nationwide opinion poll.

The survey, by the Pew Research Cen-ter for the People and the Press, polled1,500 telephone respondents in Septem-ber and October 2009. It suggests that 65percent of the U.S. public considers cli-mate change to be a very serious orsomewhat serious problem. This marksa decline from January 2007, when 77percent of participants said they were

seriously concerned about climate change.The survey suggests that anti-climate-change campaigns are not adequately explaining the latest science. U.S. residentshave also been subjected to more sophisti-cated messages from conservative media,fossil fuel-dependent industries, and

politicians who question the scientific cer-tainty of climate change, especially as law-makers consider national cap-and-tradelegislation that would restrict emissions.

In the public mind, the science defi-nitely isnt settled, said Riley Dunlap, anenvironmental sociologist at OklahomaState University. Environmental groupsand environmental funders need to takenote of that and adjust their strategy andtactics accordingly.

In what is perhaps a silver lining, thePew results suggest that half of the U.S.public supports a limit on greenhouse gasemissions, even if higher energy pricesresult. A majority also said that the UnitedStates should join other countries in set-ting standards to address climate change.

Deltas Sink Worldwide, Increasing Flood Risk

World Watch is a bimonthly, nonprotmagazine, written by Worldwatch Instituteanalysts and guest authors, that tracks key indicators of the Earthswell-being.We mon-

itor and evaluate changes in climate, forestcover, population, food production, waterresources,biological diversity, and other key trends, and identify and analyze the mosteffectivestrategies for achievinga sustainablesocietyincluding those that come fromthe advances of science and technology, therethinking of traditional economics,and theneglected wisdomof now-vanishing indige-nous peoples. We are beholden only to ourreaders, fromwhom we welcomecomments.

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About World Watch

To renew online visitwww.worldwatch.org/ww/ .Sandbags keep Chao Phraya River floodwaters out

of a temple in Bangkok.

J i n S u k

R e u t e r s / S u k r e e S u k p l a n g
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Recent political developments in Mada-gascar have led to a rise in both illegaland sanctioned logging, underminingdecades of conservation work, environ-

mental groups say.After pro-opposition troops ousted

President Marc Ravalomanana in March2009, illegal logging and the trade inwildlife-derived bushmeat escalated inmany of the islands protected areas.Although a November deal betweenpolitical parties provided some stability,conservation groups worry that persist-ent lawlessness coupled with a declinein foreign aid will lead to increaseddeforestation in some of the worlds

richest ecosystems.

Conservation groups have priori-tized their efforts in Madagascar, consid-ered ahotspot for biological diversity.Most of the islands reptiles, plant life,and land mammals, including lemurs,are found naturally nowhere else onEarth. But conservation programs are inperil following decisions by two majordonors, the United States and WorldBank, to withdraw non-humanitarianaid following the change of government.

Park staff and management author-ities have been deprived of the resourcesand mechanisms they need to preventillegal logging, said Frank Hawkins,vice president of Conservation Interna-tionals Africa program. Communitieswho have been developing mechanismsfor generating revenue from intactforests, tourism, or carbon [sequestra-tion]will have to go back to slash-and-burn agriculture.

Visitwww.worldwatch.org/ww/ to access these and other archived

editions ofWorld Watch .

See Is Local Food Better? May/June 2009, p. 6

Fat-Fighting MIT researchers are callingfor increased local food production to tackle the U.S. obesity epidemic. Local food offersa healthier alternative to the national-

scale system of food production and distri-bution, which surrounds childrenwithhigh-calorie products, they write.

See Bye, Bye Birdie, July/August 2006, p. 28

Life Losses Eleven more species areeither fully extinct or extinct outside ofcaptivity, including a Tanzanian toad andeight tree-snail species, according to thelatest Red List of Threatened Species . Thenumber of species threatened with extinction now totals 17,291.

See Living with Climate Change in the Arctic,

September/October 2005, p. 18 No See Ice A Canadian scientistreported in October that the multiyear icecovering the Arctic Ocean has effectivelyvanished, a development that will facilitatepolar shipping but that reflects faster-than-projected melting of the northern ice cap.

See Poisonous Waters, January/February 2003, p. 22

Poisonous Ponds Artificial ponds maybe responsible for the arsenic-lacedgroundwater that has poisoned more than

2 million Bangladeshis, according to astudy in Nature Geoscience . The pondshave become a dumping ground for debris that releases the toxic metal, the study said.

See Crimes of (a) Global Nature, September/October 2002, p. 12

Illegal Ivory The illicit trade in ivory, on the rise since 2004, surged dramatically in2009, according to seizure data in the Ele-phant Trade Information System. The spikesuggests the increased involvement oforganized crime networks that link African

source countries with Asian markets.See "Trespass," January/February 2005, p. 24

GMO Blow Rapid U.S. adoption of geneti-cally engineered crops has led to increasedpesticide use, a herbicide-resistant weedepidemic, and more chemical residues infoods since 1996, according to new researchby health and environmental groups.

UPDATES UPDATES

Communities and park officialsreport that armed gangs have enteredprotected areas, such as the Marojejy and Masoala World Heritage Sites and

the Mananara-Nord Biosphere Reserve,and removed endangered rosewoodtrees, ebony, and other threatened hard-wood species. An estimated 7,000 cubicmeters of felled rosewood and ebony were shipped each month to Madagas-cars ports between January and October2009, according to Global Witness, anenvironmental group working withMadagascars transitional government.

International conservation groupsand conservation scientists warn that

the increased pressure on protectedforests is threatening to push many of the islands rare species toward extinc-tion. In addition, endangered lemursare being trapped in increasing numbersand sold as food.

The previous government workedclosely with conservation groups toexpand ecotourism opportunities andkeep much of the islands endangeredhardwood off the market. But environ-mental groups accuse the new transi-tional government of failing to upholdcommitments to protect national for-ests. At the heart of concerns is an orderissued in late Septemer that granted 13operators permission to each export 25containers of rosewood and ebony.

The World Bank and U.S. Agency for International Development have sus-pended their funding for environmentalprograms in Madagascar until at leastOctober 2010. Unless foreign aid resumesin the coming months, Hawkins expectslocal officials will be unable to stop theconservation losses.

This illegal logging, the hunting of lemurs, its something people are gettingbolder in doing as they see they are notbeing constrained from doing so, hesaid. The capacity from the community to stop this will not last long.

Political Unrest Portends Ecological Ruin in Madagascar

The illustrations for this Eye on Earthsection were created by students in Glenna Langs illustration class at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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n a hot May day, a peasant farmer named Bounsouklooks out across the vast expanse of water beforehim, the 450-square-kilometer reservoir behind thenew Nam Theun 2 dam in Laos. At the bottom of the

reservoir is the land where he once lived,grew rice, grazed buf-falo, and collected forest fruits, berries, and medicinal plantsand spices. Now there is just water, water everywhere.

Before the flood I could growenough rice to feed my fam-ily and I had 10 buffalo, he says. I like our new houses andI like having electricity in the new village, but we do not haveenough land and the soil quality is very poor. Now I cantgrow enough rice to feed my family, and three of my buffalodied because they didnt have enough food.

Bounsouk is one of 6,200 indigenous people whose landswere flooded to make way for the Nam Theun 2 HydropowerProject in this small Southeast Asian country. His story is onethat is heard over and over again in the project resettlementarea. People are generally happy with their new houses, elec-tricity, andproximity to the road,but are concerned abouthowthey will feed their families in the long term. The poor qual-ity of land andlack of viable income-generating options in thisremote area make their prospects bleak.

Big dams have frequently imposed high social and envi-ronmental costs and longterm economic tradeoffs, such aslost fisheries and tourism potential and flooded agriculturaland forest land. According to the independent World Com-mission on Dams, most projects have failed to compensateaffected people for their losses and adequately mitigate envi-ronmental impacts. Local people have rarely had a meaning-ful say in whether or how a dam is implemented, or receivedtheir fair share of project benefits.

ButElectricitde France, Nam Theun 2s developer, together

with the Lao government, the World Bank,and other backers,promised that Nam Theun 2 wouldbe different.They called ita poverty-reduction project. The company committed torestoring the incomes of affected communities, and theWorldBank claimed that thecash-strappedLaogovernment would usethe revenues from Nam Theun 2s electricity exports to neigh-boring Thailand solely to benefit the poor. These promiseshelped seal the deal, bringing in European development agen-cies, banks, and export credit agencies with hundreds of mil-lions of dollars in grants, loans,and insurance for the US$1.45billion project, the largest foreign investment ever in Laos.

But while Nam Theun 2s engineeringdeadlines have beenmet, social and environmental programs have stumbled eversince construction started, making life more difficult for Laovillagers. Legal agreements have been violated and social andenvironmental commitments have been broken.In a mannertypical of hydro projects worldwide, promises were madeprior to project approval that were later broken by projectdevelopers and governments.

Downstream, more than 120,000 people are waiting tosee how their lives will be affected when the project startsoperation in early 2010. They are likely to suffer the projectsmost seriousdamage, including destruction of fisheries, flood-ing of riverbank gardens, and water quality problems.Yet theprograms to restore livelihoods in this area are badly under-funded and poorly planned.

Rather than being a new model of hydropower develop-ment, theexperience with Nam Theun 2 to date only reinforceslessons learned from other large hydropower projects aroundthe world. Instead of giving hope for the future, Nam Theun2 threatens more of the same: broken promises, shatteredlives, ruined ecosystems.

Big dams have a serious record of social and environmental destruction,and there are many alternatives.So why are they still being built?

by Aviva Imhof and Guy R. Lanza

O


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Hydro BoomThe dam building industry is greenwashing hydropower witha public relations offensive designed to convince the worldthat the next generation of dams will provide additionalsources of clean energy and help to ease the effects of climatechange. In some of the worlds last great free-flowing-riverbasins, such as the Amazon, the Mekong, the Congo, and therivers of Patagonia, governments and industry are pushingforward with cascades of massive dams, all under the guiseof clean energy.

Following a decade-long lull, a major resurgence in damconstruction worldwide is now under way, driven by infu-sions of new capital from China, Brazil, Thailand, India, andother middle-income countries. In particular, Chinese finan-cial institutions have replaced the World Bank as the largestfunder of dam projects globally. Chinese banks and compa-nies are involved in constructing some 216 large dams (largemeans at least 15 meters high, or between 5 and 15 meters andwith a reservoir capacity of at least 3 million cubic meters) in49 different countries, particularly in Africa and SoutheastAsia, many with poor human rights records. A look at theheavy dam-building activity in China, theAmazon basin, andAfrica illustrates the risks involved.

China. China is already home to more than 25,000 largedams, about half of the global total.These projects have forcedmore than 23 million people from their homes and land,andmany are still suffering the impacts of displacement and dis-location. Around 30 percent of Chinas rivers are severely pol-luted with sewage, agricultural and mining runoff, andindustrial chemicals, and the flows of some (such as the Yel-low River) have been so dramatically altered that they nolonger reach the sea. Free-flowing rivers with adequate oxy-gen and natural nutrient balances can remove or reduce thetoxicity of river contaminants, but dams compound pollutionproblems by reducing rivers ability to flush out pollutantsand because the reservoirs accumulate upstream contami-nants and submerge vegetation, which then rots. The waterthen released can be highly toxic and can have significantecological and human-health effects downstream.

Despite the poor record of dam construction in China,

the Chinese government has ambitious plans to expandhydropower generation, more than doubling capacity to250,000 megawatts by 2020. Huge hydropower cascadeshave been proposed and are being constructed in some of Chinas most pristine and diverse river basins in the coun-trys remote southwest.

The Three Gorges Dam, perhaps the worlds most noto-rious dam, generates electricity equivalent to that of about 25coal-fired power stations. Yet the tradeoffs involved are enor-


Top: Site of theNam Theun 2 Damon the Theun River, Laos.Middle: Thedam under construction in 2008.Bottom: A woman plants corn and rice onher 0.66-hectare allotment of land in a resettlement village. C a

r l M i d d l e t o n

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mous. The project has been plagued by corruption, spiralingcosts, environmental catastrophes, human rights violations,andresettlement difficulties.To date,more than 1.3millionpeo-ple have been moved to make way for the dam. Hundreds of thousands of these people have received tiny, barren plots of land or have been sent to urban slums with limited cash com-pensation and housing. Those resettled in towns around theedge of the Three Gorges reservoir have seen the shore of thereservoir collapse in as manyas 91 places, killing scores of peo-ple and forcingwholevillages torelocate. Protests havebeen metwith repression, including imprisonment and beatings.

The Three Gorges Dam is, unfortunately, the tip of theiceberg. In southwest China, at least 114 dams on eight riversin the region are being proposed or are under developmenton major rivers, such as the Lancang (Upper Mekong), theNu (Upper Salween), and the Jinsha (Upper Yangtze). Many of these projects are among the largest in the world, with cor-respondingly serious impacts on river ecology, displacementof hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority people, andconcerns about the safety of downstream communities. Sev-eral of the projects are in or adjacent to the Three ParallelRivers World Heritage Site, threatening the ecologicalintegrity of one of the most spectacular and biologically richareas of the world.

N O R T

P A C I F

O C E A

N O R T H

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

S O U T H

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

I N D I A N

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O C E A N

Amazon

Madeira

Paran

Congo

Kunene

Zambezi

Jinsha(Yangtze)

Nu (Salween)

Lancang (Mekong)

Three ParallelRivers WorldHeritage Site

Mekong Theun

Yellow Yangtze

Nile

Baker

A landslide on the shore of the reservoir created by theThree Gorges Dam .

P e t e r B o s s h a r d , I n t e r n a t i o n a l R i v e r s

Selected rivers mentioned in the text, eitherdammed or the target of dam proposals.


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Of increasing concern is the potential for dams in South-westChina to trigger earthquakes. Recent evidencehas emergedthat the devastating 7.9-magnitude Sichuan earthquake of May 2008, which killed an estimated 90,000 people, may havebeen caused by the Zipingpu Dam. It is well established that

large dams can trigger earthquakes through what is calledreservoir-induced seismicity. Scientists believe that there aremore than 100 instances of reservoirs causing earthquakesaround theworld.According to geophysical hazards researcherChristian Klose of Columbia University, The several hun-dred million tons of water piledbehind the Zipingpu Dam put just the wrong stresses on the adjacent Beichuan fault.

Many of Chinas dam projects are being built on interna-tional rivers with no evaluation of the potential transbound-ary impacts. The cascade of eight dams being built on theLancang River will drastically change the Mekong Rivers nat-ural flood/drought cycle andblock the transport of sediment,

affecting ecosystems and the livelihoods of millions livingdownstream in Burma, Thailand, Laos,Cambodia, and Viet-nam. Fluctuations in water levels and reduced fisheriescausedby the three dams already completed have been recordedalong the Thai-Laoborder. Despite this, construction has pro-ceeded without consultation with Chinas downstream neigh-bors and without an assessment of the dams likely impactsonthe river and its people.

Meanwhile, downstream along the Mekong, the govern-ments of Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia are planning theirowncascade of 11 dams on the rivers mainstream, andscoresof additional dams on its tributaries. The projects are beingproposed by Chinese,Vietnamese, Malaysian,and Thai devel-opers, with financing presumably from public and privatefinancial institutions in their home countries. The growth of regional capital has fueled the resurgence of these projects,which have been on the drawing board for decades.

Around 60 million people depend on the Mekong Riverfor fish, irrigation, transportation, and water. Known region-ally as theMother of Waters, the Mekong supports one of theworlds most diverse fisheries, second only to the Amazon.Those fisheries are a major source of protein for people liv-ing in the Mekong basin, and the annual fisheries harvest hasa first-sale value of about $2 billion. If built, the dams wouldseverely damage the rivers ecology and block the major fishmigrations that ensure regional food security and provideincome to millions of people.

The Amazon. Under the guise of promoting cheap,clean energy, Brazils dam builders are planning more than100 dams in the Amazon. Already two big dams are underconstruction on the Amazons principal tributary, theMadeira, with several others in the licensing process. Brazils


Top: A satellite view of theZipingpu Dam on the Min River, Sichuan, China.Middle: TheXiaowan Dam under construction on the Lancang (Mekong)River in 2008, Yunnan, China.Bottom: Dead trees in the reservoir of theBalbina Dam , on the Uatum River, a tributary of the Amazon, Brazil.

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electricity-sector bureaucrats say these will be kinder, gentlerdams with smaller reservoirs, designed to lessen social andenvironmental impacts. Legislation has been introduced thatwould fast-track the licensing of new dams in Amazonia andallow projects to circumvent Brazils tough environmental

laws, under the pretext that they are of strategic impor-tance to Brazils future.By flooding large areas of rainforest, openingup new areas

to logging, and changing the flow of water, the scores of damsbeing planned threaten to disturb the fragile water balance of the Amazon andincrease thedrying of the forest, a process thatis already occurring due to climate change andextensive defor-estation. New research confirms the critical role the Amazonplays in regulating the climate not only of South America,but also of parts of North America. The transformation of extensive areas of the Amazon into drier savannas wouldcause havoc with regional weather patterns. Lower precipita-

tion, in turn, would render many of the dams obsolete.Meanwhile, mocking one of the dams justifications, thegreenhouse gas emissions could be enormous. Amazoniandams are some of the dirtiest on the planet; the Balbina Damalone emits 10 times more greenhouse gases (from rottingvegetation in the reservoir) than a coal-fired plant of the samecapacity. Whats more, the planned projects would expel morethan 100,000 river-bankdwellers from their lands andseriously degrade extensive indigenous lands and protected areas.

The SantoAntonio andJirau Dams on the Madeira River,currently under construction, have also raised the possibility that individual dams could affect a huge area of the AmazonBasin. Scientists have pointed out that several valuable migra-tory fish species could suffer near-extinction as a result of theMadeira dams, depleting fisheries and fauna thousands of kilometers up and downstream. The fertility of the Amazonfloodplain, important for agriculture and fish reproduction,would also be impaired because a significant portion of thesediments and nutrients carried by the Madeira would betrapped in the reservoirs.

There is no doubt that meeting Brazils future energy needs is of crucial importance, but there are alternatives tomore dams. A study by WWFWorld Wide Fund for Natureshowed that Brazil could meet a major part of its future energy needs at lower social, environmental, and economic cost by investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy. Brazilsenormous windpower potential is attracting investors, andthe countrys potential for generating electricity from bio-mass, such as sugarcane bagasse, rice husks, and sawmillscraps, has been calculated to exceed the capacity of the mas-sive Itaipu Dam.

Africa. In Africa, dam construction is also on the rise.Africa is the least-electrifiedplace in the world,with just a frac-tion of its citizens having access to electricity. Solving thishuge problem is made more difficult by widespread poverty and poor governance, and because a large majority of the

people live far from the grid, which greatly adds to the cost of bringing electricity to them.

The World Bank and many of the continents energy plan-ners are pinning their hopes for African electrification onsomething as ephemeral as the rain, by pushing for a series of

large dams across the continent. World Bank energy special-ist Reynold Duncan told an energy conference earlier this year that Africa needs to greatly increase its investments inhydropower.In Zambia, we have the potential of about 6,000megawatts, in Angola we have 6,000 megawatts, and about12,000 megawatts in Mozambique, he said. We have a lot of megawatts down here before we even go up to the Congo.

Duncan said that governments and investors should nothesitate to look at riskier assets such as hydropower, addingthat only 5 percent of the continents hydro potential hadbeen tapped.Butrisky is right.New African dams are beingbuilt with no examination of how climate change will affect

them, even thoughmany existing dams are already plagued by drought-caused power shortages.Climate change is expected to dramatically alter the

dynamics of many African rivers, worsening both droughtsand floods. In this climate, the proposed frenzy of Africandam building could be literally disastrous. Unprecedentedflooding will cause more dams to collapse and hasten the rateat which their reservoirs fill with sediment.Meanwhile,wors-ening droughts will mean dams will fail to meet their powerproduction targets.

Dams are not inexpensive investments: Just developingone of these dams, the Mphanda Nkuwa in Mozambique, isexpected to cost at least $2 billion (not including the neces-sary transmission lines). Yet these huge projects are doing lit-tle to bridge the electricity divide in Africa. With the majority of the continents population living far from existing elec-tricity grids, what is needed is a major decentralized-powerrollout of renewables and small power plants to build localeconomies from the ground up, not the top down. But thatsnot where the money is right now.

CorruptionThese examples from three areas of heavy dam-building activ-ity hint at the spectrum of major problems they present. Bigdams can contribute to development, but that progress oftencomes at staggering cost, in displaced and impoverishedrefugees, ecologically fragmented and damaged rivers, anddownstream victims of destroyed fisheries and impoundedsediments. Bigdams also expandthehabitat of waterborne dis-ease vectors such as malaria, dengue fever, schistosomiasis,andliver fluke,and can trigger devastating earthquakes by increas-ing seismic stresses. Dams frequently fail to deliver their projected benefits and usually wind up costing more thanpredicted. And although hydropower is touted as a solutionto climate change, many dams actually emit huge quantitiesof greenhouse gases. As Indian writer and activist ArundhatiRoy has put it, Big dams are to a nations development what


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nuclear bombs are to its military arsenal. Theyre bothweapons of mass destruction.

If dams continue to wreak havoc with peoples lives andecosystems, andare increasingly risky in a warming world,why do they continue to be built and promoted? And why are they

now being hailed as a source of green, renewable energy?One of themain reasons is vested interests: There are sub-stantial profits to be had, for the hydropower industry, theirnetwork of consultants, and host-country bureaucracies,fromplanning, building, and operating massive infrastructureproj-ects. These attractions often trump the impacts on peopleandecosystems andthe need to develop sustainable economiesin the midst of a growing water and food crisis.

Industry consultants and engineering companies thatundertake feasibility studiesand environmental impact assess-ments know that they need to portray a project in a favorablelight if they want to get future contracts.In case after case, and

without comprehensively assessing the alternatives, they con-sistently claim that the impacts can be mitigated and that theproject in question represents the best option for meeting thecountrys needs.

Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) that shouldanticipate problems have served as a rubber-stamping devicerather than a real planning tool. Jiang Gaomingof the ChineseAcademy of Sciences reports that construction on many proj-ects in southwest China is under way in violation of key aspectsof Chinese law. Many projects lack an EIA and have not beenapproved by the government. According to Jiang, even basicsafety checks have not been performed and government regu-lators are uninvolved.EIAs have become a marginalized anddecorative process, seen as just a part of the cost of doingbusi-ness, says Jiang.Both thebuilders and local governmentknowthat, to date, an EIA has never managed to halt a dam project.

Needless to say, corruption also plays a key role. A daminvolves a huge upfront investment of resources, making it easy for government officials and politicians to skim some off thetop.One of the most egregious examples of corruption involv-ing a dam project is the Yacyret Dam on the Paran River,between Argentina and Paraguay. In the 1980s, the cost of this monument to corruption (in thewords of former Argen-tine president Carlos Menem) ballooned from an originalestimate of $1.6 billion to more than $8 billion. In 2002 and2003, several of the biggest dam-building companies in theworld were convicted of bribing the former director of theLesotho Highlands Development Authority to win contractson Lesothos Katse Dam. Masupha Sole accepted around $2million in bribes from major dam-building firms such asAcres International of Canada and Lahmeyer International of Germany. In China,corrupt local officials stole millions of dol-


Top two: Both the Teotnio Rapids and the Giant Otter are threatened by theproposedMadeira Dams in Brazil.Third: The partially functioningIngaDam on the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congoonly half ofthe turbines work because they have never been maintained.Bottom: Site ofthe proposedMphanda Nkuwa Dam on the Zambezi River in Mozambique.

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lars intended for people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam.At least 349 people have been found guilty of embezzling atotal of about 12 percent of the projects resettlement budget.

The Way Forward

Needless to say, these are not easy problems to address. Themost ambitious and systematic attempt to date has beenundertaken by the World Commission on Dams (WCD), amulti-stakeholder independent body established by theWorldBank and the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 1998.After a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of largedams, theCommission issued its final report, Dams and Devel-opment: A New Framework for Decision-Making , in 2000.

Briefly, the WCD recommends conducting an open andparticipatory process to identify the real needs for water andenergy services,followed by a careful assessment of all optionsfor meeting those needs, giving social and environmental

aspects thesame significance as technical, economic, andfinan-cial factors.If a newdam is truly needed, outstandingsocialandenvironmental issues from existingdams should be addressed,and the benefits from existing projects should be maximized.Public acceptance of all key decisions should be demonstratedand decisions affecting indigenous peoples should be guidedby their free, prior, and informed consent. Legally bindingagreements shouldbe negotiated with affectedpeople toensurethe implementation of mitigation, resettlement,and develop-ment entitlements. Impact assessments should follow EuropeanUnion andother global EIA standards.By definition, an effec-tive EIAensures that environmental consequences of projectsare identified and assessed before authorization is givensomething that almost never occurs in todays world. Damprojects built on international rivers should also evaluate thepotential transboundary impacts or cumulative impacts frommulti-dam projects in regional watersheds.

Thedam industry has rejected the WCD guidelines and in2007 established its own process, hoping to develop a sus-tainability protocol that will replace the WCD framework asthe most legitimate benchmark for dam projects. But theindustry approach is clearly an attempt to circumnavigatethemore robust requirements of the WCD while paying lipser-vice to sustainability.

In fact, the industrys attempt to repackage hydropoweras a green, renewable technology is both misleading andunsupported by the facts, and alternatives are often prefer-able. In general, the cheapest, cleanest, and fastest solution isto invest in energy efficiency. Up to three-quarters of theelectricity used in the United States, for instance, could besaved with efficiency measures that would cost less than theelectricity itself. Developing countries, which will accountfor 80 percent of global energy demand growth up to 2020,could cut that growth by more than half using existing effi-ciency technologies, according to McKinsey Global Institute.Technology transfer programs can be an effective way tohelp poorer nations avoid having to reinvent the wheel; for

example, Californias remarkable energy efficiency programhas been sharing knowledge with Chinese energy agencies andgovernment officials to jump-start strong efficiency pro-grams there.

Even with investment in efficiency,however, many devel-

oping countries will require new generation sources. Devel-oping countries often have vast, unexploited renewable energy potential, such as wind, solar, geothermal, and modern bio-mass energy, as well as low-impact, non-dam hydropower.Such technologies aremuch more suited to meeting theenergy needs of the rural poor, as they can be developed where peo-ple need the power and do not require the construction of transmission lines. Examples include the installation, sup-ported by Global Environment Facility incentives, of hun-dreds of thousands of solar home systems in Bangladesh,China, Sri Lanka, and Uganda.

Large-scale true renewables can also be an attractive and

affordable solution to many countries energy problems. Thecost of windpower in good locations is now comparable to orlower than that of conventional sources. Both solar photo-voltaic and concentrating solar power are rapidly comingdown in price. A 2008 report from a U.S. National Academy of Engineering panel predicts that solar power will be cost-competitive with conventional energy sources in five years.

As for systemic corruption, it must be openly challengedby governments, funding agencies, and other proponents of dam projects.Regulations must be written to identify, define,and eliminate corruption at all levels of the planning process.And the regulations must be openly supported and enforcedby the World Bank, the dam industry, the hydropower com-panies, and the governments supporting dam construction.The dam industry itself, together with its biggest governmentallies,such as China,Brazil and India, must take steps towardinternal reform. Adopting the WCD guidelines would be agood first step, together with instituting such practices asintegrity pacts, anti-corruption legislation, and performancebonds that require developers to comply with commitments.

A vigorous assault on corruption, plus technology trans-fer and financial assistance: these are the keys to allowingdeveloping countries to leapfrog to a sustainable, twenty-first-century energy regime. The stakes are high, becausehealthy rivers, like all intact ecosystems, are priceless. Thealternative, quite simply, is a persistent legacy of human andenvironmental destruction.

Aviva Imhof is the campaigns director for International Rivers, an environmental and human rights organizationbased in Berkeley, California . Guy R. Lanza is a professor of microbiology and director of the Environmental Science Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

For more information about issues raised in this story, visitwww.worldwatch.org/ww/hydropower .
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water quality, increased sedimentation, and more pollution.

These threats are expected to worsen: At least 39 percent of the world lives within 100 kilometers of an ocean, and projec-tions indicate that population density will continue to grow inthese coastal areas.

Climate change is arguably the most important factor forthe future of coral reefs. Coral reefs are particularly susceptibleto warming sea-surface temperatures, which over the last fewdecades have raised the frequency and intensity of coral bleach-ing events that can reduce coral growth and reproductive capac-ity, change reef fish species composition, and make the reefsvulnerable to disease and mortality. In 1998 (the secondwarmest year on record), the largest documented bleaching

event killed 16 percent of the worlds corals.

Another worrying climate change factor for coral reefs isincreasing ocean acidity due to higher atmospheric carbon diox-ide concentrations, which can decrease coral calcification andgrowth and lead to weaker structures and slowed reproduction.Ocean acidity has already increased by 30 percent.

Most approaches to coral reef protection rely on somedegree of improved management. For example, socioeconomicmodeling looks at how local peoples perceive threats to coralreefs as a way to help inform local management approaches.A revision to the monumental Reefs at Risk survey coordinatedby the World Resources Institute is under wayrelying onimproved modeling and data and looking specifically at climatechange threatsto offer a new look at coral reef threats that canbe used in management decisions.

Coral Reefs under Threat

Alice McKeown

bout one-fifth of the worlds coral reefs have already beenlost or severely damaged, while another 35 percent couldbe lost within 1040 years, according to the latest review

by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. The number of coral reefs considered at low risk stood at 46 percent, up from30 percent only four years ago, but the number of effectively lostreefs remained constant during the periodalthough this figure

was double the 10 percent lost or severely damaged in the firstglobal estimate in 1992. However, the recent estimates do nottake into account risks from climate change; when these areincluded, all coral reefs are in danger and widespread mortality is predicted.

Coral reefs in Asia and the Indian Ocean are most at risk,with 54 percent either lost or critically threatened and another25 percent moderately threatened. Southeast Asia, which con-tains the highest biodiversity of all coral reefs as well some of theworlds highest human population densities, has already lost 40percent of its reefs (36,680 square kilometers).

In the Caribbean region, 38 percent of coral reefs are eitherlost or critically threatened and 24 percent are moderately threatened. The Middle East region contains one of the areaswith the lowest-risk reefs (in the Red Sea), as well as the areawith the largest percentage of lost reefs, the Persian Gulf, Ara-bian Sea, and Gulf of Oman.

Coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean are by far in the best shape,with only 11 percent lost or critically threatened, 16 percentmoderately threatened, and 72 percent considered at low risk.

There are roughly 284,000 square kilometers of coral reefs inthe world, covering less than 0.1 percent of the worlds oceansequal to about 0.6 percent of the worlds agricultural lands. But,though relatively rare, coral reefs support more than a quarter of all known fish species and more species per unit area than any other ecosystem. Coral reefs directly supply about 25 percentof the global fisheries harvest and are an important protein andincome source, especially in developing countries. They provideresources and food for about 500 million people across theglobe, including 30 million people who are almost completely dependent on reefs and associated coral resources. The associ-ated goods and services are worth an estimated US$30 billionper year.

Many of the ongoing threats to coral reefs can be linkedto human activities, including overfishing and destructivefishing practices such as using explosives and cyanide poison.Another threat is coastal development, which leads to lower

Vital Signs are adapted from Vital Signs Online, which containadditional data and more in-depth analyses.

Visithttp://vitalsigns.worldwatch.org to view and readthe complete collection of trends.

Coral Reef Area Threatened, 2008

MiddleEast

Indian Oceanand Asia

Pacific Oceanand Australia

WiderCaribbean

R e e f A r e a ( t h o u s a n d s q u a r e k i l o m e t e r s )

010

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90Eectively LostThreatenedLow-Risk

V I TA L S I G N S

A
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P I C T U R E S

Construction Site, Three Gorges Dam

Welders Assistant,Li Dou


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Climate change may very well be the biggest challenge our civ-ilization has ever faced. Left unaddressed, the effects on nat-

ural systems, biodiversity, food security, and habitability willlikely be calamitous and the economic penalties severe.And in the absence of increased cooperation, runaway

climate change may well trigger a whole new age of conflict.We live, after all, in a world marked by profound inequalities,unresolved grievances, and tremendous disparities of power.Ruled by competitive nation-states and rootless global cor-porations, our planet bristles with arms of all calibers. Undersuch circumstances, the additional stress imposed by climatechange could have tremendous repercussions for human well-being, safety, and security.

Nations around the world, but particularly the weakestcountries and communities, confront a multitude of pres-sures. Many face a debilitating combination of rising compe-tition for resources, severe environmental breakdown, theresurgence of infectiousdiseases, poverty and grow-ing wealth disparities,demographic pressures,and joblessness and liveli-hood insecurity. Climatechange is certain to inten-sify many, if not all,of thesechallenges. More frequentand intense droughts,floods, andstorms will play havoc with harvests andweaken food security.Extreme weather events,sea-level rise, and spread-ing disease vectors couldconceivably undermine thelong-term habitability of some areas. Together withreduced economic viability,the result could be escalat-ing social discontent and

large-scale involuntary population movements, severely test-ing national and international institutions. Possible conflict

constellations revolve around resource access, natural disas-ter impacts, and refugee and migrant flows (see figure below).

RESOURCE ACCESS

Growing depletion andscarcity of fresh water, arable land, andforests could lead to conflicts over access and distribution.Almost one-third of the worlds populationestimates vary between 1.4and2 billion peoplealready lives in water-scarceregions (defined as less than 1,000 cubic meters per capitaper year).Most affected are swathes of North Africa, the Mid-dle East, and Central and South Asia; parts of China, south-eastern Australia, southernAfrica, southwestern Latin America;and parts of the U.S. West. Population growth alone willincrease the affected number of people.Anddepending on theclimate scenario that comes to pass, an additional 60 million

EnvironmentalDegradation,

Climate Change

Reduced (and morevariable) rainfall,

glacier melt,rising temperatures

and drought,

desertification

Floods, storms,landslides,

sea-level rise

Lower/variablecrop yields, lossof marginal land

Rising food prices, food insecurity

Economic/development toll(environmental

migrants)

Inhabitability(environmental

refugees)

Rising competition for land and water,

rural-urban migration

Hunger, urbandiscontent(food riots)

Deepening fault lines,discontent over slow

or uneven relief

Potential conflictin receiving areas(competition for

land, jobs, services)

Pathways from Climate Change to Conict

CLIMATE WARMING DEMANDS FRESHTHINKING ABOUT SECURITY POLICY.

BY MICHAEL RENNER

CL IMAT E OF RIS K


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to 1 billion peoplecould be affected by 2050 (while 700 mil-lion to 2.8 billion peo-ple already affected

by water stress nowwould see their situa-tion worsen).

The repercussionsof climate change forfood productionreduced water avail-ability, higher temp-e r a tu r e s, g r eat e rdrought, etc.willvaryenormously fromregion to region, and

some populat ionsmay indeed benefit.But a study by sci-entists at the Uni-versity of Washington and Stanford University found thathalf of the worlds population could face severe food shortagesby the end of this century. In the tropics and subtropics, har-vests of rice, corn, and other staples could fall by 20 to 40percentas a result of higher temperatures alone.And a height-ened risk of drought could cause even greater crop losses.

In what is perhaps a preview of a growing scramble forresources, a number of wealthy but food-insecure nations(including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, China, Japan, andSouth Korea), as well as private investors, have purchased orleased substantial tracts of land abroad, mostly in poor Africanand Asian countries, in order to produce crops for export.There have been at least 180 such transactions, which havecome to be known as land grabbing, involving somewherebetween 15 million and 20 million hectares of farmland. Butas the moniker suggests, thesedealshave also triggered intensefears that they will promote export-oriented monoculturesthat exploit poor countries, jeopardize foodsecurity, and ulti-mately undermine political stability in host countries.

Whether and how rising resource stress translates intoconflict is not easy to predict. Different population groupsexperience the effects of resource depletion and environ-mental degradation unevenly. These divergences can rein-force existing social and economic inequities or deepen ethnicandpolitical fault lines.Growing hardships may reinforce theperception of a zero-sum game. This is especially the casewhere economies are heavily geared towardagriculture,wherelarge portionsof the populationare directly dependent on thehealth of the natural resource base, and where land distribu-tion is highly unequal or otherwise contested.

Farmers and nomadic herders in the Sahel region of Africa, for instance, increasingly clash as droughts and deser-tification processes intensify,magnifying contradictory needs

and interests. The influx of arms has made such strife moredeadly in a number of cases. But nowhere has the situationbeen more severe than in Sudans Darfur province, wherethe government has deliberately stoked hostilities amongdifferent communities in a cold-blooded strategy designed tosuppress a regional insurgency. Darfur suggests that it is notresource and environmental trends in isolation, but theirinterplay with political dynamics, that may be most worri-some in terms of potential conflict.

Conflicting claims over water resources have been citedas a possible cause of violent clashes in regions like the Mid-dle East and in Central and South Asia. But water coopera-tion, rather than conflict, has so far been the norm ininternational river basins. Water agreements have been aboutbenefit-sharing (that is, shared exploitation of waterresources). As climate change heightens water scarcity, thequestion is whether countries will still be able to reconcilecompeting interests. Will water diplomacy be able to shiftfrom benefit-sharing to burden-sharing? This is also animportant question within national boundaries. Already,internal disputes revolve around water allocation among dif-ferent communities and regions, and between local suste-nance needs and export crops.

AFTERMATH OF DISASTERS

A second pathway toward conflict is found in the context of disasters. A combination of resource depletion, ecosystemdestruction, population growth, and economic marginaliza-tion of poor people (who often have no choice but to settle inmarginal, vulnerable locations or in poorly constructed hous-ing) has already led to more frequent and more devastatingdisaster events.

The number of natural disasters (excluding geological


This family was among the 60,000 internally displaced people living in camps near El Geneina in West Darfur, Sudan, in 2004.

H a r t m u t S c h a r z b a c h / P e t e r A r n o l d , I n c .


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events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions) has risenfrom 233 per decade in the 1950s to more than 3,800 in thedecade 20002009. Though there are considerable variations year-to-year, the number of people affected by such disastershas grown from less than 20 million to 2 billion during thesame time frame.

The pace is likely to accelerate as climate change translatesinto more intense storms, flooding, and heat waves. In addi-tion to sudden disasters, there is also theslow-onset degra-dation of ecosystems through drought and desertificationprocesses, which in some cases is sufciently extreme to com-promise habitability.

Disasters undermine human security by exacerbatingpoverty, deepening inequalities, and straining the social andeconomic fabric of affected communities. Disasters oftenwiden existing fault lines within societiesbetween rich andpoor, urban and rural communities, and different ethnicgroups. In divided societies, conflict may arise if the provi-sion of relief and reconstruction aid is inadequate or unevenamong different groups and communities. Slow or incom-petent disaster response can also lead to growing oppositionto the government and unrest, particularly where populardissatisfaction is already widespread.

One analysis found that out of 171 storm and flood dis-asters with at least 1,000 victims, in at least a dozen cases a clearconnection existed between a disaster event and an intensifi-cationof conflict, violent unrest, and/or political crisis.Amongthese were hurricanes in Haiti (1954 and2004), several flood-ing events in India and China, and typhoon and floodingevents in Bangladesh (1970, 1974, and 1988).

POPULATION DISPLACEMENT

Disasters, along with environmental and resource pressures,are increasingly a contributing factor to displacement. But itis not always easy to categorize the displaced by single, sepa-

rate causes. Warfare, human rights violations,poverty, inequality of land ownership, as well asresource disputes and environmental problems,can be closely intertwined.

Some 42 million people were officially recog-

nized as either international refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs) in 2008, having fled waror persecution. In addition to the narrow reasonsrecognized in international law, there are addi-tional reasons why people decide to seek refugeelsewhere. Some 25 million people are thought tohave been uprooted by natural disasters. And Lon-don-based NGO Christian Aid estimates that asmany as 105 million people have been made home-less by a variety of so-called development proj-ectswhich typically inflict substantialenvironmental damageincluding dams, mines,

roads, factories, plantations,and wildlife reserves.Environmental degradation is already lead-ing to sizable population movements (see table). In the mid-1980s, Essam El-Hinnawi of the UN Environment Pro-gramme coined the term environmental refugees andoffered the following definition: People who have beenforced to leave their traditional habitat, temporarily or per-manently, because of a marked environmental disrup-tionthat jeopardized their existence and/or seriously affected the quality of their life.

Forecasts of the number of people that may have to movedue to climate change and environmental degradation vary enormously. Projections for 2050 range from a low of 25 mil-lion to a high of 1 billion. Because no one knows how severeclimate disruptions will be and how resilient governmentsand communities are, these numbers must be understood asno more than educated guesses.For instance, how many of themore than 630 million people living in low-lying coastal zones

Sources: See www.worldwatch.org/ww/climaterisk

Refugees16.2 million

Disaster-displaced25 million

Internally displaced26 million

Development-displaced105 million

People Forcibly Displaced, 2008

M i l l i o n s

Source: EM-DAT Emergency Events Database

0

400

800

1,200

1,600

2,000

2,400

195059 196069 197079 198089 190099 200009

Number of People Affected by Natural Disasters,19502009
http://www.worldwatch.org/ww/climateriskhttp://www.worldwatch.org/ww/climaterisk


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worldwide might one day be displacedby sea-level rise, stormsurges, and rising salinity of coastal aquifers?

Further complicating assessments is the possibility thatsome people will be displaced temporarily, rather than per-manently. And people do not move only because they arepushed out, but also because they sense opportunities else-where. (There arean estimated 200 million longterm migrantsworldwide.) Hence, some people may depart well before hab-itability and economic viability are too compromised. Oth-ers may migrate seasonally to supplement local incomesmade more meager or precarious by climate impacts. It may be more meaningful to speak of climate migrants than of climate refugees.

Environmental refugees and migrants may be seen asunwelcome competitors for land, water, jobs, and social serv-ices. In the poorer states of northeast India, for instance,Bangladeshi migrants have been met by violence. NorthAfrican cities (either as destinations or as stops on the way toEurope) are increasingly magnets for migrants from the Sahelregion, but in some cases the influx has ledto social unrest andattacks on migrants.

Whether violent conflict ensues depends on the scale andspeed of population movements, as well as the mix of socialand economic conditions and the presence of unresolvedgrievances in host areas. Likewise, governance capacities and

political stability play a criti-cal role.Some political leaders(or would-be leaders) may findthey can capitalize on stirringup resentments against

migrants and refugees.CONNECTING

THE DOTS

Environmentconflict linkageshave for some years workedtheir way onto the agendas of various national governmentministries, including the envi-ronment, development coop-eration, foreign, and military portfolios. Intergovernmental

bodies like the World Bank, arange of UN agencies, theOECD, OSCE, Eu

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