China promises to promote clean energy

China promised Wednesday to develop renewable energy for its fast-growing economy but warned that coal consumption will grow dramatically and avoided embracing binding limits on its greenhouse gas emissions.

In a report on its energy plans, the government announced no new initiatives but said it wants to curb reliance on oil and gas to drive an economy that is the world's second-biggest energy consumer after the United States.

"China gives top priority to developing renewable energy," said the 44-page report released by the Cabinet's press office.

The report said Beijing will promote hydroelectric, nuclear, solar and wind energy, as well natural gas extracted from garbage dumps and coal mines.

China's economic boom has sharply increased its need for imported oil and gas. That has prompted complaints that Chinese demand is driving record-high world crude prices and led to diplomatic strains as Beijing builds closer ties with oil-rich pariah states such as Sudan and Iran.

Communist leaders worry about the mounting damage to China's battered environment from fossil fuel use and see mounting reliance on imported energy as a strategic weakness.

The share of renewable sources and nuclear power in China's energy consumption rose from 4 percent in 1980 to 7.2 percent last year, the report said.

"China will pay more attention to the clean utilization of energy resources, especially coal, and make it a focus of environmental protection," the report said.

It said China takes greenhouse gases seriously and some of its measures would reduce its emissions. But there was no mention of whether Beijing might agree to demands by Washington to sign up to binding limits.

Beijing has rejected such limits, arguing that developing countries such as China are not to blame for current pollution levels and need to increase energy production to fight poverty.

The report said China will expand measures to exploit its abundant coal reserves — a step that will help to reduce reliance on imported fuel but could sharply raise greenhouse gas outputs.

"China will step up its efforts in prospecting coal resources," the report said. It said Beijing would reorganize its coal industry by closing smaller, less efficient mines while creating conglomerates with bigger production capacity.

Residents sue Japan over US jet noise

Thousands of residents near an air base used by Japanese and U.S. forces have sued the Japanese government to seek compensation for noise pollution caused by fighter jets, a court official said Tuesday.

A total of 6,130 residents filed the joint lawsuit Monday at the Yokohama District Court, demanding $41.15 million in damages for problems sparked by the noise at the Atsugi Air base near Tokyo, according to court spokesman Atsushi Yajima.

It was the fourth lawsuit related to noise at the base since the 1970s but is believed to be Japan's biggest so far involving military base noise. Residents near other U.S. bases in Japan have filed similar lawsuits.

The suit comes more than a year after the Tokyo High Court in July 2006 ordered the government to pay $35.40 million to 3,500 other residents near Atsugi in compensation for noise-related problems.

However, the plaintiffs complained it was insufficient because the noise persisted, interfering with their daily conversations and allegedly causing insomnia, hearing difficulties and other health problems.

Fifty-eight of the plaintiffs in the latest case are also demanding that the government suspend flights of U.S. and Japanese fighter jets in and out of Atsugi, Yajima said.

Under a bilateral security pact, Japan hosts about 50,000 American troops in bases across the country.

Amid a sweeping realignment of U.S. troops in Japan, Tokyo and Washington have agreed to move the U.S. aircraft carrier wing at Atsugi to another base further away from Tokyo by 2014, trading places with Japanese fighters currently based there.

UN: SKorea coast ecosystem should recover

The ecosystem on South Korea's oil-covered coast should recover in three to five years after this month's oil spill, a U.N. expert said Friday.

Tens of thousands of coast guard officers, soldiers and volunteer workers have been working daily since a wayward barge slammed into a Hong Kong-registered supertanker on Dec. 7, causing it to release about 78,920 barrels of oil into the water off the west coast.

The amount leaked was about a third the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that gushed 260,000 barrels of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.

Olof Linden, a member of a U.N. environmental team dispatched to help assess the damage, said it would take years for the ecosystem to fully recover. "I would say within three to five years ... That's the period we're talking about."

He said cleanup efforts have been successful and people should be able to use beaches in the area next year, though small amounts oil and tar will still be present.

"Tourism will suffer much more from the belief that that area is contaminated, rather than the actual situation," Linden said at a joint press conference with other international experts.

A major South Korean environmental group expressed skepticism about Linden's prediction.

"It's possible to revive the ecosystem within three to five years, but I think it will take longer," said Ji Chan-hyuck, a spokesman at the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement.

Bush signs bill boosting fuel standards

President Bush signed into law Wednesday legislation that will bring more fuel-efficient vehicles into auto showrooms and require wider use of ethanol, calling it "a major step" toward energy independence and easing global warming.

The legislation signed by Bush at a ceremony at the Energy Department requires automakers to increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent to an industry average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It also ramps up production of ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022.

Bush said the new requirements will help "address our vulnerabilities and dependency" on foreign oil by reducing demand for gasoline and diversifying the nation's fuel supply.

"We make a major step ... toward reducing our dependence on oil, fighting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations ... a nation that is stronger cleaner and more secure," said the president.

Bush was flanked by Democrat and Republican members of Congress who had ushered the legislation through.

The House passed the energy bill Tuesday by a 314-100 vote after the Senate cleared it last week following lengthy negotiations and sometimes testy confrontations. Bush had vowed to veto the original legislation passed by the House because it included $21 billion in taxes.

The tax provisions were dropped to get the bill approved.

Congress delivered the legislation to the White House late Tuesday in a gas-hybrid sedan.

Bush noted that earlier this year he had proposed a plan to cut gasoline use by 20 percent over the next 10 years. But the president has long opposed arbitrary numerical standards for vehicle fuel economy.

The legislation increases the federal standard automakers must meet to an industry wide 35 mpg for passengers cars, SUVs and small trucks. The standard for cars today is 27.5 mpg and for trucks and SUVs 22.2 mpg.

It requires refineries to increase the use of ethanol from about 6 billion gallons a year this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022 and mandates that by then at least 21 billion gallons are to come from feedstocks other than corn.

Bush praised that provision which would spur the development of ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks such as prairie grass and wood chips.

"We understand the hog growers are getting nervous. The price of corn is up," said the president.

Flanking Bush were Senate Majority Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California as well as Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime protector of the auto industry. Dingell played a key role in working out a compromise on the vehicle fuel economy measure.

Democrats have hailed the legislation as a turn to a new direction in U.S. energy policy.

"I firmly believe this country needs to have a comprehensive energy strategy," said Bush before signing the bill. He referred to the need for more nuclear energy and domestic oil production — issues that the new energy bill ignores.

Instead, the bill focuses largely on conservation, calling for more energy efficiency in "light bulbs to light trucks" as Dingell observed during the House debate on the legislation.

"This is a choice between yesterday and tomorrow" on energy policy, Pelosi said Tuesday shortly before the House passed the bill, sending it to the White House.

The bill also calls for improved energy efficiency of appliances such as refrigerators, freezers and dishwashers, and a 70 percent increase in the efficiency of light bulbs. It also calls for energy efficiency improvements in federal buildings and construction of commercial buildings.

The new lighting standards alone are projected to lower consumers' annual electricity bills by $13 billion in 2020, remove the need for 60 mid-size power plants and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, by 100 million tons a year, said the advocacy group Alliance to Save Energy.

Democrats said the fuel economy requirements will save motorists $700 to $1,000 a year in fuel costs and reduce oil demand by 1.1 million barrels a day when the fuel-stingy vehicles are widely on the road.

The overall bill including more ethanol use and various efficiency requirements and incentives, will cut U.S. oil demand by 4 million barrels a day by 2030, more than twice the current daily imports from the volatile Persian Gulf, Democrats said.

China: US must be positive on climate

The United States should take a more positive role in tackling climate change while developing nations improve their own domestic energy efficiency, China's chief climate change negotiator said Thursday.

China is satisfied with the result of the recent Bali climate change negotiations and will cooperate in international talks while working to improve its energy efficiency, Yu Qingtai, China's special representative for climate change negotiations, told a news briefing.

"When it comes to climate change, developing countries have a basic common position," Yu said, adding that the countries would have "different responsibilities" in handling the issue.

A contentious U.N. climate conference on the Indonesian resort island of Bali ended with the United States, facing angry criticism from other delegations, relenting in its opposition to a request from developing nations for more technological help fighting climate change.

Yu welcomed the move by the U.S., saying the country "should play a more positive and constructive role in dealing with climate change, and should make its own contributions against the common challenge."

The Bali roadmap is intended to lead to a more inclusive, effective successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which commits 37 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gases by an average of 5 percent between 2008 and 2012.

"The agreement is indeed hard-earned," Yu said. "The roadmap is only a beginning, which has shown the direction and planning for the coming two years. (But) a large amount of substantive work will depend on these two years of tough negotiations."

Developing countries such as China and India agree that developed countries possess the technology that can help developing countries reduce emissions, Yu said.

China, which some believe has surpassed the U.S. as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, has questioned the fairness of binding cuts when its per capita emissions are about 33 percent of developed countries.

EU proposes emissions cuts for new cars

Automobile manufacturers will have to limit car emissions in Europe by 2012 or face big fines, under proposals released Wednesday by the European Union.

"Passenger cars account for about 12 percent of overall EU carbon dioxide emissions and emissions from transport are continually increasing," said EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas. "The aim of the legislation is to reduce CO2 emissions from cars in order to help fight climate change."

Dimas acknowledged that the regulations could add 1,300 euros ($1,874) to the price of a car. But he said that would be offset by the 2,700 euros ($3,892) drivers would save in fuel over the lives of their cars.

The plan needs the approval of the 27 European Union governments to take effect.

The proposal quickly drew fire. Environmentalist said it was too weak. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it would hurt her country's economy. And automakers, who employ 2.3 million people in the EU, said it might force them to locate elsewhere.

"The proposal is very disappointing," said Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Italian carmaker Fiat and head of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. He said carmakers have to design their cars far ahead of time, and changes in driver tastes might make the targets difficult to meet.

But Franziska Achterberg from Greenpeace said automakers had already had too much influence on the proposal, which he said would make European countries unable to keep their promises on global warming.

"The European Commission has let car makers drive away with a proposal that sets a weak, short-term standard ... and offers an open road to heavy, gas-guzzling vehicles," Achterberg said.

Merkel said Germany — home to high-end automakers such as Daimler AG, BMW AG, Audi and Porsche — wants emissions reduced but believes "the path that was chosen is not economically beneficial."

"We think that industrial policy is being made here at the expense of Germany and German automakers, and so we are not satisfied with the result," she said.

German statistics show that the country's high-end carmakers BMW AG and Daimler AG would have to cut average emissions by about 25 percent. The proposal would force automakers to reduce average carbon dioxide emissions from new cars sold in the EU from around 160 grams per kilometer to 130 grams starting in 2012.

"I think it's a very fair proposal," Dimas said.

Dimas had first proposed a tougher limit of 120 grams. But the proposal was scaled back because of opposition from the German government and the car industry.

Legislation in California, which is leading U.S. vehicle emission cuts, foresees a 128 gram per kilometer limit by 2016, while in Japan carmakers have to cut emissions to 140 grams per kilometer.

Under the European Union plan, makers of gas-guzzlers, like SUVs or luxury cars, could pool their fleets with those of companies making of lower-emitting cars to meet the 130 gram target. That was seen as a partial cave-in to lobbying by German carmakers.

And manufacturers like Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini, which make high-end luxury racers and sell less than 10,000 cars a year, would be exempt.

The plan calls for fines for automakers whose fleet's average emissions exceed the limit. The fines would start at 20 euros ($28.83) per gram per kilometer, multiplied by the number of cars sold. It would rise to 95 euros ($136.95) by 2015.

Statistics from Germany and the EU show that many automakers, including Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., would face fines unless they reduce emissions significantly. Mitsubishi Motors Corp., Mazda Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG would also have to make reductions.

Emissions from road traffic are rising as more people buy cars and drive longer distances.

The proposal is part of the EU's push to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels over the next 13 years.

N.J. sues Pa. power plant over pollution

New Jersey has filed suit against a coal-fired power plant in neighboring Pennsylvania, claiming the plant's pollutants blow across the Delaware River and harm New Jersey residents.

The state claims sulfur dioxide and other pollutants from the plant, owned by Reliant Energy Mid-Atlantic Power Holdings, are carried downwind across New Jersey's western boundary, less than a mile away.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, alleges that the Portland Generating Station has been modified in ways that increase air pollution. It also alleges that the owners did not obtain proper permits before modifying the Northhampton County plant and that they are violating the federal Clean Air Act by not using the best pollution control technology available.

Patricia Hammond, a spokeswoman for Reliant, said the Portland facility has a valid air permit and is operating in compliance with the requirements of that permit.

"We disagree with New Jersey's contentions," she said.

New Jersey has tried to address claims of excessive downwind pollution by Reliant before. It filed a notice of intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a year ago for failing to respond to its objection of an operating permit for Reliant. When the EPA rejected New Jersey's opposition to the license in June, the state appealed; that appeal is pending.

A report by the public health advocacy group Environmental Integrity Project, released in July, ranked the Portland plant fifth-highest nationally in terms of sulfur dioxide emissions per megawatt of power generated.

Petition seeks protection for seals

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Frustrated by a lack of regulations limiting global warming, a conservation group wants ribbon seals listed as threatened or endangered because their habitat — sea ice — is disappearing amid climate change.

The Center for Biological Diversity on Thursday filed a 91-page petition with the National Marine Fisheries Service seeking to list ribbon seals as threatened or endangered. The group says the classification is needed because sea ice is disappearing due to climate change brought on by humans.

"The Arctic is in crisis state from global warming," said biologist Shaye Wolf, lead author of the petition. "An entire ecosystem is rapidly melting away and the ribbon seal is poised to become the first victim of our failure to address global warming."

A message left by The Associated Press on Thursday with the federal fisheries service was not immediately returned.

The petition marks the center's second attempt to use the Endangered Species Act to force action on global warming. Within weeks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to list polar bears as threatened because of habitat loss from global warming.

World climate experts who made up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in February that global warming "very likely" is caused by human use of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

The Endangered Species Act requires animals to be categorized as endangered if they risk extinction due to destruction of their habitat. A species is threatened if it is likely to become endangered.

Either listing would require federal wildlife managers to create a recovery plan that could address U.S. causes of global warming. When considering permits for development, other federal agencies could be required to take action to avoid harm to threatened animals.

Attorney Brendan Cummings, ocean program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said that without a national legal mechanism regulating greenhouse gases, his organization has turned to the Endangered Species Act.

"Absent action by Congress and this administration, it's perhaps the best law on the books to gain some benefits," he said.

The group's strategy is twofold, he said.

"One is to increase political, public and legal pressure on the Bush administration to squarely confront global warming and the reality that it's arrived in the Bering Sea and Alaska and the Arctic," he said.

Also, regulatory agencies are not considering changes in the Arctic before issuing permits, he said.

"Management decisions for things like oil and gas leasing are largely based on the fiction of a static Arctic that's not warming," he said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service manages ribbon seals. The animals are distinguished by the patterns of their fur — four white bands or ribbons encircling the head, base of the trunk and the two front flippers over a dark coat, a pattern that gives them the coloration of a panda bear.

Among marine mammals, ribbon seals may be the most dependent on sea ice, Cummings said. The rough estimate for the number of ribbon seals is about 240,000, he said.

During summer and fall, ribbon seals live in the water and feed on fish, squid and crustaceans in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. But from March through June, ribbon seals rely on loose pack ice in the Bering and Okhotsk seas for reproduction and molting, and as a platform for foraging.

Ribbon seals give birth and nurse pups exclusively on sea ice. Ice allows the seals and their young, which can't swim, to avoid predators. Newborn ribbon seals have a coat of soft, white hair called lanugo that provides insulation until the thick layer of blubber develops. Pups can only survive submersion in the icy waters only after they've formed a blubber layer.

Sea ice provides a dry platform necessary for pup survival during lactation, and after weaning, a resting platform when pups are learning to be proficient in water.

According to the petition, it's critical for ice floes used for pupping to remain stable until pups are independent. Weaned pups have poor swimming and diving skills because their hefty blubbers stores make them buoyant. They spend substantial time on sea ice as they slowly learn diving and foraging skills.

The group predicts ribbon seals could be extinct by the end of the century without changes. Sea ice is breaking up earlier in spring and ice thickness has declined.

"The Arctic is imperiled and it's not just the polar bear. it's the entire ecosystem and the ribbon seal is part of that ecosystem," Cummings said.

Officials pick Mattoon for FutureGen

Residents celebrated when this central Illinois city was chosen Tuesday as the site of a futuristic power plant that would burn coal without emitting global warming gases, then got to work figuring out what comes next.

The $1.8 billion plant known as FutureGen, which would store carbon dioxide deep underground, is expected to bring hundreds of jobs to this central Illinois town and will be built on several hundred acres. Mattoon was chosen over nearby Tuscola and two Texas towns, Jewett and Penwell.

"I know this is the biggest economic development opportunity for east-central Illinois in decades, so Merry Christmas Mattoon," said Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who arrived in town after the announcement.

But hours later, the U.S. Department of Energy warned that projected cost overruns involving the plant "require a reassessment of FutureGen's design."

The FutureGen Alliance, a consortium of 12 U.S. and foreign energy companies, announced the site against the advice of the DOE, which had said it was not yet ready to sign off on the site.

"DOE believes that the public interest mandates that FutureGen deliver the greatest possible technological benefits in the most cost-efficient manner. This will require restructuring FutureGen to maximize the role of private sector innovation, facilitate the most productive public-private partnership, and prevent further cost escalation," James Slutz, the DOE's acting principal deputy assistant secretary, said Tuesday in a statement.

The project, three-fourths of which is taxpayer funded, has been under increasing scrutiny in Congress. Some lawmakers have questioned its soaring cost — nearly double the $950 million originally projected — and its long delays.

President Bush has touted FutureGen as key to developing carbon-free coal-burning power plants. It is supposed to be virtually pollution-free and produce both electricity and hydrogen — while its carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, is to be captured and stored deep underground.

Griffin said representatives from the FutureGen Alliance would be in Mattoon Wednesday to begin seismic surveys of 16 square miles of land. Officials have said the plant is expected to be operating by 2012, and said Tuesday that they hope to begin construction by July 2009.

Meanwhile, city officials say they must determine how to get water to the site, build a road that can handle heavy construction equipment and hire a city planner. City attorney Preston Owen said they'll even examine their subdivision code to see if the city is prepared to handle an influx of new housing construction.

Mike Mudd, chief executive of the FutureGen Alliance, said Mattoon was chosen because of its "very good" water resources and geologic conditions and because carbon dioxide could be injected underground directly at the site, possibly simplifying construction.

Jerry Oliver, chief operating officer of the FutureGen Alliance, said bids for the first major project — the core technology that would turn coal to gas — will be sought beginning Jan. 2. Oliver said The Washington Group already has been hired as the engineering and construction manager and there eventually will be three to four major contractors at the site.

Environmentalists said they're eager to see if the technology delivers on its promises,

For the coal industry, besieged by questions about its role in global warming, "this is sort of their last stand. This is it," said Bruce Nilles of the group's Midwest Clean Energy Campaign.

"We welcome an honest discussion about is it technically and financially feasible for coal to be burned in a responsible manner," he said. "Obviously ... this is a very important research project."

The project has been the subject of intense lobbying.

Illinois offered a $17 million grant to help pay for various project costs and an estimated $15 million in sales tax exemptions on materials and equipment through local enterprise zones. The state also set aside $50 million for below-market rate loans to the FutureGen alliance.

The alliance members — including major U.S. coal-burning utilities American Electric Power and Southern Co., and the country's largest coal producer, Peabody Energy — have committed $400 million over 10 years.

Congress is giving the program $75 million this year, $33 million less than the administration had wanted. Committees overseeing Energy Department spending expressed concern that FutureGen was siphoning money away from other clean-coal programs.

Petition seeks protection for seals

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Frustrated by a lack of regulations limiting global warming, a conservation group wants ribbon seals listed as threatened or endangered because their habitat — sea ice — is disappearing amid climate change.

The Center for Biological Diversity on Thursday filed a 91-page petition with the National Marine Fisheries Service seeking to list ribbon seals as threatened or endangered. The group says the classification is needed because sea ice is disappearing due to climate change brought on by humans.

"The Arctic is in crisis state from global warming," said biologist Shaye Wolf, lead author of the petition. "An entire ecosystem is rapidly melting away and the ribbon seal is poised to become the first victim of our failure to address global warming."

A message left by The Associated Press on Thursday with the federal fisheries service was not immediately returned.

The petition marks the center's second attempt to use the Endangered Species Act to force action on global warming. Within weeks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to list polar bears as threatened because of habitat loss from global warming.

World climate experts who made up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in February that global warming "very likely" is caused by human use of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.

The Endangered Species Act requires animals to be categorized as endangered if they risk extinction due to destruction of their habitat. A species is threatened if it is likely to become endangered.

Either listing would require federal wildlife managers to create a recovery plan that could address U.S. causes of global warming. When considering permits for development, other federal agencies could be required to take action to avoid harm to threatened animals.

Attorney Brendan Cummings, ocean program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said that without a national legal mechanism regulating greenhouse gases, his organization has turned to the Endangered Species Act.

"Absent action by Congress and this administration, it's perhaps the best law on the books to gain some benefits," he said.

The group's strategy is twofold, he said.

"One is to increase political, public and legal pressure on the Bush administration to squarely confront global warming and the reality that it's arrived in the Bering Sea and Alaska and the Arctic," he said.

Also, regulatory agencies are not considering changes in the Arctic before issuing permits, he said.

"Management decisions for things like oil and gas leasing are largely based on the fiction of a static Arctic that's not warming," he said.

The National Marine Fisheries Service manages ribbon seals. The animals are distinguished by the patterns of their fur — four white bands or ribbons encircling the head, base of the trunk and the two front flippers over a dark coat, a pattern that gives them the coloration of a panda bear.

Among marine mammals, ribbon seals may be the most dependent on sea ice, Cummings said. The rough estimate for the number of ribbon seals is about 240,000, he said.

During summer and fall, ribbon seals live in the water and feed on fish, squid and crustaceans in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. But from March through June, ribbon seals rely on loose pack ice in the Bering and Okhotsk seas for reproduction and molting, and as a platform for foraging.

Ribbon seals give birth and nurse pups exclusively on sea ice. Ice allows the seals and their young, which can't swim, to avoid predators. Newborn ribbon seals have a coat of soft, white hair called lanugo that provides insulation until the thick layer of blubber develops. Pups can only survive submersion in the icy waters only after they've formed a blubber layer.

Sea ice provides a dry platform necessary for pup survival during lactation, and after weaning, a resting platform when pups are learning to be proficient in water.

According to the petition, it's critical for ice floes used for pupping to remain stable until pups are independent. Weaned pups have poor swimming and diving skills because their hefty blubbers stores make them buoyant. They spend substantial time on sea ice as they slowly learn diving and foraging skills.

The group predicts ribbon seals could be extinct by the end of the century without changes. Sea ice is breaking up earlier in spring and ice thickness has declined.

"The Arctic is imperiled and it's not just the polar bear. it's the entire ecosystem and the ribbon seal is part of that ecosystem," Cummings said.

Global warming blamed for Walrus deaths

In what some scientists see as another alarming consequence of global warming, thousands of Pacific walruses above the Arctic Circle were killed in stampedes earlier this year after the disappearance of sea ice caused them to crowd onto the shoreline in extraordinary numbers.

The deaths took place during the late summer and fall on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, which separates Alaska from Russia.

"It was a pretty sobering year — tough on walruses," said Joel Garlach-Miller, a walrus expert for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely. The giant, tusked mammals typically clamber onto the sea ice to rest, or haul themselves onto land for just a few weeks at a time.

But ice disappeared in the Chukchi Sea this year because of warm summer weather, ocean currents and persistent eastern winds, Garlach-Miller said.

As a result, walruses came ashore earlier and stayed longer, congregating in extremely high numbers, with herds as big as 40,000 at Point Shmidt, a spot that had not been used by walruses as a "haulout" for a century, scientists said.

Walruses are vulnerable to stampedes when they gather in such large numbers. The appearance of a polar bear, a hunter or a low-flying airplane can send them rushing to the water.

Sure enough, scientists received reports of hundreds and hundreds of walruses dead of internal injuries suffered in stampedes. Many of the youngest and weakest animals, mostly calves born in the spring, were crushed.

Biologist Anatoly Kochnev of Russia's Pacific Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography estimated 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of population of perhaps 200,000 died, or two or three times the usual number on shoreline haulouts.

He said the animals only started appearing on shore for extended periods in the late 1990s, after the sea ice receded.

"The reason is the global warming," Kochnev said.

The reports match predictions of what might happen to walruses if the ice receded, said wildlife biologist Tony Fischbach of the U.S. Geological Survey.

"We were surprised that this was happening so soon, and we were surprised at the magnitude of the report," he said.

Scientists said the death of so many walruses — particularly calves — is alarming in itself. But if the trend continues, and walruses no longer have summer sea ice from which to dive for clams and snails, they could strip coastal areas of food, and that could reduce their numbers even further.

No large-scale walrus die-offs were seen in Alaska during the same period, apparently because the animals congregated in smaller groups on the American side of the Bering Strait, with the biggest known herd at about 2,500.

Climate plan to adopt forest protection

Delegates at a U.N. climate conference have agreed to include forest conservation in any future discussions about a new global warming pact, paving the way for billions of dollars in new spending to attack illegal logging, officials said.

With deforestation making up 20 percent of global emissions, world governments are desperate to find a solution to a problem that has been fueled by rising demand for timber and palm oil, widespread corruption and endemic poverty.

The program, Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Degradation, aims to pay mostly developing tropical countries enough money to keep their trees in the ground — and thus continue to absorb carbon — rather than allowing them to be chopped down for a profit.

The agreement will be part of negotiations for a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012 and is "a good balance between different countries views," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said Friday.

"It is one of the substantial achievements of this conference."

Saving tropical rain forests, especially in the Amazon, Indonesia and Congo basin in Africa, has been marked by a series of failures the past three decades.

About 32 million acres of forest — or twice the size of Panama — are lost each year to logging, agriculture and other activities, according to the World Bank. Brazil and Indonesia — where 80 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation — are the worst effected due to rampant illegal logging and the growing demand for biofuels and other commodities like soybeans.

But with as much as $23 billion — the amount of money that could be raised through the program — conservationist and governments from tropical countries say there is renewed hope that the trend can be reversed.

"This is an important agreement because we need to have emissions included in the Bali roadmap," said Greenpeace Brasil's Paulo Adario.

The agreement calls for providing assistance to countries in the tropics to reduce deforestation and what is called degradation — mostly farming and small scale logging that destroys the forest undergrowth. It also includes a reference to conservation, a demand of India and Costa Rica, which want financial assistance for the work already done to protect their forests.

Other projects would help develop mechanisms to determine the best way to verify a country's claims of reducing deforestation and the method of providing assistance.

Brazil, for example, would like Western governments to provide aid to a fund for countries that are reducing deforestation. Papua New Guinea and other developing nations want a system where countries could get credit for saving their forests, which eventually could be traded for money.

Ominous Arctic melt worries experts

An already relentless melting of the Arctic greatly accelerated this summer, a warning sign that some scientists worry could mean global warming has passed an ominous tipping point. One even speculated that summer sea ice would be gone in five years.

Greenland's ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer's end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.

"The Arctic is screaming," said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government's snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.

Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.

This week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

So scientists in recent days have been asking themselves these questions: Was the record melt seen all over the Arctic in 2007 a blip amid relentless and steady warming? Or has everything sped up to a new climate cycle that goes beyond the worst case scenarios presented by computer models?

"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."

It is the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, responsible for man-made global warming. For the past several days, government diplomats have been debating in Bali, Indonesia, the outlines of a new climate treaty calling for tougher limits on these gases.

What happens in the Arctic has implications for the rest of the world. Faster melting there means eventual sea level rise and more immediate changes in winter weather because of less sea ice.

In the United States, a weakened Arctic blast moving south to collide with moist air from the Gulf of Mexico can mean less rain and snow in some areas, including the drought-stricken Southeast, said Michael MacCracken, a former federal climate scientist who now heads the nonprofit Climate Institute. Some regions, like Colorado, would likely get extra rain or snow.

More than 18 scientists told the AP that they were surprised by the level of ice melt this year.

"I don't pay much attention to one year ... but this year the change is so big, particularly in the Arctic sea ice, that you've got to stop and say, 'What is going on here?' You can't look away from what's happening here," said Waleed Abdalati, NASA's chief of cyrospheric sciences. "This is going to be a watershed year."

2007 shattered records for Arctic melt in the following ways:

• 552 billion tons of ice melted this summer from the Greenland ice sheet, according to preliminary satellite data to be released by NASA Wednesday. That's 15 percent more than the annual average summer melt, beating 2005's record.

• A record amount of surface ice was lost over Greenland this year, 12 percent more than the previous worst year, 2005, according to data the University of Colorado released Monday. That's nearly quadruple the amount that melted just 15 years ago. It's an amount of water that could cover Washington, D.C., a half-mile deep, researchers calculated.

• The surface area of summer sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean this summer was nearly 23 percent below the previous record. The dwindling sea ice already has affected wildlife, with 6,000 walruses coming ashore in northwest Alaska in October for the first time in recorded history. Another first: the Northwest Passage was open to navigation.

• Still to be released is NASA data showing the remaining Arctic sea ice to be unusually thin, another record. That makes it more likely to melt in future summers. Combining the shrinking area covered by sea ice with the new thinness of the remaining ice, scientists calculate that the overall volume of ice is half of 2004's total.

• Alaska's frozen permafrost is warming, not quite thawing yet. But temperature measurements 66 feet deep in the frozen soil rose nearly four-tenths of a degree from 2006 to 2007, according to measurements from the University of Alaska. While that may not sound like much, "it's very significant," said University of Alaska professor Vladimir Romanovsky.

- Surface temperatures in the Arctic Ocean this summer were the highest in 77 years of record-keeping, with some places 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, according to research to be released Wednesday by University of Washington's Michael Steele.

Greenland, in particular, is a significant bellwether. Most of its surface is covered by ice. If it completely melted — something key scientists think would likely take centuries, not decades — it could add more than 22 feet to the world's sea level.

However, for nearly the past 30 years, the data pattern of its ice sheet melt has zigzagged. A bad year, like 2005, would be followed by a couple of lesser years.

According to that pattern, 2007 shouldn't have been a major melt year, but it was, said Konrad Steffen, of the University of Colorado, which gathered the latest data.

"I'm quite concerned," he said. "Now I look at 2008. Will it be even warmer than the past year?"

Other new data, from a NASA satellite, measures ice volume. NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke, reviewing it and other Greenland numbers, concluded: "We are quite likely entering a new regime."

Melting of sea ice and Greenland's ice sheets also alarms scientists because they become part of a troubling spiral.

White sea ice reflects about 80 percent of the sun's heat off Earth, NASA's Zwally said. When there is no sea ice, about 90 percent of the heat goes into the ocean which then warms everything else up. Warmer oceans then lead to more melting.

"That feedback is the key to why the models predict that the Arctic warming is going to be faster," Zwally said. "It's getting even worse than the models predicted."

NASA scientist James Hansen, the lone-wolf researcher often called the godfather of global warming, on Thursday was to tell scientists and others at the American Geophysical Union scientific in San Francisco that in some ways Earth has hit one of his so-called tipping points, based on Greenland melt data.

"We have passed that and some other tipping points in the way that I will define them," Hansen said in an e-mail. "We have not passed a point of no return. We can still roll things back in time — but it is going to require a quick turn in direction."

Last year, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington and Marika Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado startled their colleagues when they predicted an Arctic free of sea ice in just a few decades. Both say they are surprised by the dramatic melt of 2007.

Bitz, unlike others at NASA, believes that "next year we'll be back to normal, but we'll be seeing big anomalies again, occurring more frequently in the future." And that normal, she said, is still a "relentless decline" in ice.

Gore gets Nobel, warns of ominous threat

Al Gore received his Nobel Peace Prize on Monday and urged the United States and China to make the boldest moves on climate change or "stand accountable before history for their failure to act."

In accepting the prize he shared with the U.N. climate panel, the former vice president said humanity risks sliding down a path of "mutually assured destruction."

"It is time to make peace with the planet," Gore said in his acceptance speech that quoted Churchill, Gandhi and the Bible. "We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war."

Gore shared the Nobel with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for sounding the alarm over global warming and spreading awareness on how to counteract it. The U.N. panel was represented at the ceremony by its leader, Rajendra Pachauri.

"We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency — a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here," Gore said at the gala ceremony in Oslo's city hall, in front of Norway's royalty, leaders and invited guests.

Gore urged China and the U.S. — the world's biggest carbon emitters — to "make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act."

His remarks came as governments met in Bali, Indonesia, to start work on a new international treaty to reduce climate-damaging carbon dioxide emissions. Gore and Pachauri plan to fly there Wednesday to join the climate talks.

The governments hope to have the new pact, which succeeds the Kyoto accord, in place by 2012, but Gore has said the urgency of the problem means they should aim to come to an agreement by 2010.

Before his speech, Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press that he believes the next U.S. president will shift the country's course on climate change and engage in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

"The new president, whichever party wins the election, is likely to have to change the position on this climate crisis," Gore said in the interview. "I do believe the U.S., soon, is to have a more constructive role."

He said it was not too late for Bush administration to join efforts to draft a new global treaty limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

"I have urged President Bush and his administration to be part of the world community's effort to solve this crisis," Gore said. "I hope they will change their position."

The Bush administration opposed the Kyoto treaty on climate change, saying it would hurt the U.S. economy and objecting that fast developing nations like China and India were not required to reduce emissions.

In his speech, Gore urged nations to impose a CO2 tax, and called for a moratorium on the building of new coal plants without the capacity to trap carbon. He directed special attention to the United States and China, the world's biggest emitters of carbon emissions.

"While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters — and most of all, my own country — that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act," Gore said.

"Both countries should stop using the other's behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment."

Pachauri described in his speech how a warming climate could lead to flooding of low-lying countries, disruptions to food supply, the spread of diseases and the loss of biodiversity.

The impact "could prove extremely unsettling" for the world's poor and vulnerable, he said, and ended his speech with a question for the Bali conference: "Will those responsible for decisions in the field of climate change at the global level listen to the voice of science and knowledge, which is now loud and clear?"

Each Nobel Prize includes a gold medal, a diploma and a $1.6 million cash award.

The Nobel Prizes, first awarded in 1901, are always presented Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of their creator, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.

The other Nobel awards — in medicine, chemistry, physics, literature and economics — will be presented at a separate ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.

In Stockholm, the winners of the science Nobels receive their awards Monday from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf before being treated to a lavish white-tie banquet at City Hall.

The 2007 awards in medicine, chemistry and physics honored breakthroughs in stem cell research on mice, solid-surface chemistry and the discovery of a phenomenon that lets computers and digital music players store reams of data on ever-shrinking hard disks.

Three U.S. economists shared the economics award for their work on how people's knowledge and self-interest affect their behavior in the market or in social situations such as voting and labor negotiations.

One of the economics winners, Leonid Hurwicz, 90, and the literature prize winner, 88-year-old British writer Doris Lessing, could not travel to Stockholm. They will receive their awards at later ceremonies in Minnesota and London, respectively.

Climate change meeting adds to emissions

Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from global warming, with more than 10,000 jetting into this Indonesian resort island, from government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.

But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.

"Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country," said Chris Goodall, author of the book "How to Live a Low-Carbon Life."

Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former Vice President Al Gore and a team of U.N. scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures, melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods, and lengthening heat waves.

Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, far-flung, holiday destinations — first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by dozens of smaller gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.

The pace is only expected to pick up, prompting some to ask if the issue is creating a "cure" industry as various groups claim a stake in efforts to curb global warming.

No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Conference.

"Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there," he said. "The question is, perhaps: Do you need to do it at all? My answer to that is yes."

"If you don't put the U.S., the big developing countries, the European Union around the table to craft a solution together, nothing will happen and then the prophecy of scientists in terms of rising emissions and its consequences will become a reality," de Boer said.

The U.N. estimates 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference in Bali, mostly from plane flights but also from waste and electricity used by air conditioners at five-star hotels lining palm-fringed beaches.

If correct, Goodall said, that is equivalent to what a Western city of 1.5 million people, like Marseilles, France, would emit in a day.

But he believes the real figure will be twice that, more like 100,000 tons, close to what the African country of Chad churns out in a year.

Organizers said they are doing everything possible to offset the effects.

Host Indonesia, which has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world, averaging 300 football fields an hour, said it had planted 79 million trees across the archipelago nation in the last few weeks.

"Our aim is not just to make this a carbon neutral event, but a positive one," Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said.

In largely symbolic gestures, 200 bright yellow mountain bikes are being offered to participants so they can pedal around the heavily guarded conference site, and recycled paper is being used for the reams of documents being handed out. Bins separating plastic and paper dot hallways — a rare sight in a country where formal recycling is virtually nonexistent.

Yet SUVs, taxis and other cars sit in long lines at the gates to the site, spewing out exhaust as they wait to get through security checkpoints.

Side trips, from scuba diving to shopping, are being offered at hotels. Indonesia's tourism ministry hopes to showcase its remaining forests, island jewels and bustling metropolises by providing expense-paid junkets.

Optimists hope the meeting will inaugurate a two-year process of intensified negotiations on a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and required signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average 5 percent below 1990 levels.

But no one expects concrete results here, with closed-door talks expected to be a battle over language and nuance, including whether emission reductions should be voluntary or mandatory and whether developing nations should have the same restrictions as industrial countries.

"We don't need talk, talk, talk," said Ursula Rakova, 43, of Papua New Guinea's Carteret islands, describing how the rising sea has destroyed once-fertile farmland on her island of Huene and split the land mass in two.

"For us to move, we need money to purchase land, build schools, build medical clinics," said Rakova, who along with other farmers and fishermen were ferried by boat, bus and plane to the Bali gathering. "Our situation is before us. We need something tangible."

In all, 190 countries are represented.

The United States is sending more than 100 delegates and all 27 countries of the European Union are flying in national teams, with Germany bringing 70 people and France 50. Many of them are just observers with no formal role.

Non-governmental organizations also are attending, from groups advocating the rights of indigenous people to those seeking to protect rapidly dwindling forests. Groups like Oxfam and CARE, which provide food and other humanitarian aid for the hungry, also are here.

And there are those with something to sell, including technology to produce pure drinking water and businesses ready to capitalize on future carbon trading markets.

Some say the size of the gathering doesn't matter.

"I look at it from a very simple point of view," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environmental Program.

"It may sound like a lot of people, but you have to look at the issues, the number of countries involved, the number of people affected. Global warming is literally everyone's business."

Indonesia hosting global warming talks

Government leaders started arriving Sunday for what are expected to be lengthy and contentious negotiations on how to fight global warming, which could cause devastating sea level rises, send millions further into poverty and lead to the mass extinction of animals.

Delegates from more than 180 nations will attempt to jump-start talks during the Dec. 3-14 meeting on how to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. They also will consider whether cuts in carbon emissions should be mandatory or voluntary, how to reduce deforestation, and ways to help poor countries, which are expected to be hardest hit by worsening droughts, floods and violent storms.

"There is a very clear signal from the scientific community that we need to act on this issue," said Yvo de Boer, the general secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. "We have to turn the trend of global emissions in the next 10 to 15 years ... The political answer has to come now."

The Kyoto pact signed one decade ago required 36 industrial nations to reduce carbon dioxide and other the heat-trapping gasses emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources. It set relatively small target reductions averaging 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

A new agreement must be concluded within two years to give countries time to ratify it and to ensure a smooth, uninterrupted transition.

De Boer said industrialized nations, which have pumped the lion's share of greenhouses gases into the atmosphere to date, should take the lead in reducing emissions. So far the United States, the No. 1 offender, says it will refuse any deal that calls for mandatory reductions.

"Since developing countries are just beginning to grow their economies, it's not reasonable at this stage to ask them to reduce their emissions," he said, referring in part to China and India, which oppose caps and any other measures that will impinge on efforts to lift their people from poverty.

"They can be asked to limit their growth."

The European Union wants Kyoto's replacement to limit global temperature rises at 3.6 degrees above the levels of the preindustrial era. The EU, Canada and Japan have endorsed a 50 percent emissions reduction by 2050 to meet that goal and avoid the worst effects of global warming.

The United States, which along with Australia refused to sign Kyoto, said ahead of the Bali talks that it was eager to launch negotiations and sought to deflect criticism Washington was not doing enough.

President Bush said a final Energy Department report showed U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, declined by 1.5 percent last year while his economy grew.

"Energy security and climate change are two of the important challenges of our time. The United States takes these challenges seriously," Bush said in a statement. "This puts us well ahead of the goal I set in 2002."

Still, the United States will find itself isolated at the conference, given that Australian Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd, whose party swept to power in general elections just one week ago, immediately put signing the Kyoto pact at the top of his international agenda.

Last month in Spain, a Nobel Prize-winning U.N. network of scientists issued a capstone report after six years of study saying that carbon and other heat-trapping "greenhouse gas" emissions must stabilize by 2015 and then decline.

Without action, they said, temperatures will rise, changing the world.

The Arctic ice cap melted this year by the greatest extent on record. Scientists say oceans are losing some ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, the chief industrial emission blamed for warming. And the world's power plants, cars and jetliners are spewing out carbon at an unprecedented rate.

At best, analysts believe, Bali could lead to a two-year negotiation in which the United States under a new administration, the Europeans and other industrial nations commit to deepening blanket emissions cuts. And they say major developing countries could agree to enshrine some national policies — China's auto emission standards, for example, or energy-efficiency targets for power plants — as international obligations.