Possibilities and options for the Clean Development Mechanism and the Green Investment Scheme in Central and Eastern Europe: Macedonian and Romanian perspectives

Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is a rapidly changing and developing region which is making the transition to a market based economy. Along with economic reforms, the countries of the region are engaged in substantial environmental reforms, including climate change mitigation activities. Mitigation of, and adaptation to, the consequences of climate change are costly processes. It is therefore of great importance that the national and international mechanisms addressing these problems use methods both environmentally sound and economically efficient. Through two case studies that address the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Green Investment Scheme (GIS) in Romania, this paper explores challenges, related tasks and main problems in the establishment of mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol in Central and Eastern Europe.     

Decision Support for Road System Analysis and Modification on the Tahoe National Forest

The United States Forest Service is required to analyze road systems on each of the national forests for potential environmental impacts. We have developed a novel and inexpensive way to do this using the Ecosystem Management Decision Support program (EMDS). We used EMDS to integrate a user-developed fuzzy logic knowledge base with a grid-based geographic information system to evaluate the degree of truth for assertions about a roads environmental impact. Using spatial data for natural and human processes in the Tahoc National Forest (TNF, California, USA), we evaluated the assertion the road has a high potential for impacting the environment. We found a high level of agreement between the products of this evaluation and ground observations of a TNF transportation engineer, as well as occurrences of road failures. We used the modeled potential environmental impact to negatively weight roads for a least-cost path network analysis to 1573 points of interest in the forest. The network analysis showed that out of 8233 km of road analyzed in the forest, 3483 km (42%) must be kept in a modified road network to ensure access to these points. We found that the modified network had improved patch characteristics, such as significantly fewer cherry stem roads intruding into patches, an improved area-weighted mean shape index, and larger mean patch sizes, as compared to the original network. This analysis system could be used by any public agency to analyze infrastructure for environmental or other risk and included in other mandated analyses such as risks to watersheds.     

Linear features and butterflies: the importance of green lanes

Green lanes are unmetalled tracks between fields of variable width, which may be sunk below or raised above field level, and bounded on both sides by ‘grass’ banks, hedgerows or dry-stone walls. In the UK they have no unique planning status and have been overlooked as discrete landscape elements. Green lanes were surveyed for butterflies in 1997 on lowland arable farmland on the Trafford/north Cheshire border (Warburton) and on upland grassland in the Yorkshire Dales (Ribble Valley). At the lowland site the green lanes were bounded by vegetation and were compared with grass banks and single hedgerow field boundaries; at the upland farm, the green lanes were bounded by dry-stone walls and were compared with grass banks and single dry-stone walls. Data from earlier work on a largely arable farm (Manydown) in Hampshire in 1987 and 1988 were re-analysed to make comparisons between a green lane, the rides and glades of two coppiced woodlands, and the grass banks and single hedgerows surrounding arable fields. Green lanes, whether bounded by vegetation or stone were superior to other common farmland biotopes with the exception of woodland, in terms of both butterfly abundance and species richness.Multiple regression of the Warburton data indicated the importance of green lanes, adjacent habitat type, and nectar sources for species richness and butterfly abundance. The interior of green lanes had lower windspeeds, and more bramble nectar sources than hedgerows or grass banks. By their nature they occupy a larger area of uncropped land, and are subject to a reduced disturbance regime and reduced inputs of agrochemicals and fertilisers. Their value as biodiversity reservoirs in intensively managed land is likely to be high.     

美国《濒危物种法》对联邦机构的要求--美国《濒危物种法》第七章浅析

目前，在世界范围内，美国《濒危物种法》可以说是物种保护方面最强有力的国内立法，它规定了两项国家政策，其一就是要求所有的联邦部门和机关都必须努力保护濒危物种并运用其权力促进《濒危物种法》立法宗旨的实现。本文简要介绍美国《濒危物种法》的历史发展和其第七章的主要内容，分析美国《濒危物种法》对联邦机构在物种保护中的要求。     

Terrestrial Carbon Dynamics: Case Studies in the Former Soviet Union,the Conterminous United States,Mexico and Brazil

This research assessed land-use impacts on C flux at a national level in four countries: former Soviet Union, United States, Mexico and Brazil, including biotic processes in terrestrial ecosystems (closed forests, woodlands, and croplands), harvest of trees for wood and paper products, and direct C emission from fires. The terrestrial ecosystems of the four countries contain approximately 40% of the world's terrestrial biosphere C pool, with the FSU alone having 27% of the global total. Average phytomass C densities decreased from south to north while average soil C densities in all three vegetation types generally increased from south to north. The C flux from land cover conversion was divided into a biotic component and a land-use component. We estimate that the total net biotic flux (Tg/yr) was positive (= uptake) in the FSU (631) and the U.S. (332), but negative in Mexico (−37) and Brazil (−16). In contrast, total flux from land use was negative (= emissions) in all four countries (TgC/yr): FSU −343; U.S. −243; Mexico −35; and Brazil −235. The total net effect of the biotic and land-use factors was a C sink in the FSU and the U.S. and a C source in both Brazil and Mexico. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

China, the United States and technology cooperation on climate control

The U.S. and China are the world's largest and second largest CO₂ emitters, respectively, and to what extent the U.S. and China get involved in combating global climate change is extremely important both for lowering compliance costs of climate mitigation and adaptation and for moving international climate negotiations forward. While it is unavoidable that China will take on commitments at some specific point of time in the future, this paper has argued that the proposal for joint accession by the U.S. and China is not a way forward. For various reasons, such a proposal is in the U.S. interest, but is not in the interest of China. Given the U.S. political reality and institutional settings on the one hand and China's over-riding concern about economic growth and poverty reduction on the other, the two countries are unlikely to take on emissions caps under an international regime, at least for the time being. Therefore, we need to explore the area where cooperation between the two countries to address climate change seems best. The research, development and deployment of clean technology is the area that is in the best interests of the two countries. The U.S. has adopted a technology-oriented approach to climate issues, and has launched the four multilateral initiatives on technology cooperation and the Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate (APP). China has participated in all these U.S.-led initiatives, and is a partner to the APP. Strengthened technology cooperation between the two countries through these initiatives and the APP has led some tangible benefits. However, it should be pointed out that while technology is a critical ingredient in a climate policy package, efforts such as the APP can only be part of the solution. They alone cannot ensure that best available technologies are always deployed in the marketplace, and that new technologies will roll out at the pace and on the scale that we need. In order to have such technology-oriented approach to play a full role, we do need a coordinated policy framework agreed via the Kyoto Protocol or a follow-up regime or the parent United Nations Framework Convention.     

The tragedy of Kampuchea

This paper, abstracted from the final report of the Kampuchea Inquiry Commission, analyses the population losses in Cambodia prior to 1979 and goes on to describe some of the unwanted side effects of the international relief programmes in both Thailand and in Kampuchea. The paper concludes that various opposition movements to the present Vietnamese backed regime in Kampuchea have been strengthened by international aid.     

MEASURING THE CONTRIBUTION OF LAND AND WATER TO AGRICULTURE1

ABSTRACT Irrigated land outproduces dryland agriculture, especially in the western United States. Many valuable crops could not be grown without irrigation. A paucity of yield data does not allow direct measurement of the contribution from irrigated crop agriculture, nor does it allow evaluation of the contributions from livestock which are dependent upon irrigated feed. Regression results indicate that 80 percent of Idaho farm income is associated with irrigation, and that 75 percent of the farm income in the 17 western states is associated with irrigation. For the United States as a whole, results indicate that 13.7 percent of the total cropland (irrigated land) produced 41.3 percent of all cash receipts from farming in 1978. If 14 percent of the land can produce 40 percent of the value of production, can 35 percent of our land produce all our food and fiber needs? Such an allegation has several implications in terms of the adequacy of our land and water resources. It also emphasizes the role of technology in future resource use and production.     

Culture and the environment in the United States

The beliefs of Americans about the proper relationship between humans and their environment were profoundly affected by waves of immigration from Europe. Immigrants valued ownership of land, individuality, freedom, domination of nature, and technological development. These themes remain strong today as centerpieces of the American dominant social paradigm (DSP).That DSP has been reexamined and found wanting by an increasing proportion of Americans. This departure from the old DSP has progressed further among the public than among the elite who have a greater stake in preserving the status quo. Environmentalists constitute a vanguard trying to lead the people to a new, more environmentally oriented social paradigm. The beliefs of the old DSP and the new environmental paradigm (NEP) are contrasted in Table 2. Briefly, the NEP advocates stress love of nature rather than domination of it; compassion for other peoples, future generations, and other species; planning to avoid risk; limits to growth; fundamental social change; and a new structuring of politics.These two worldviews are likely to be in vigorous conflict for several decades in the USA. Social learning, spurred by deterioration of the old ways, is likely to lead Americans to a new perspective on their relationship to nature.With the advice and assistance of Barbara V. Fisher.     

A SURVEY OF THE U.S. NATIONAL PRECIPITATION NETWORK1

ABSTRACT: Numbers and record lengths of precipitation stations were surveyed in the conterminous United States using climatological data published in 1975 by the National Weather Service (NWS). The total numbers of nonrecording (8247) and recording (3036) gages were about the same as in the 1940s and less than in the late 1950s; about 70 percent of the nonrecording gages have record lengths of 25 years or more. State network densities were increased exponentially with population density and long term precipitation average. Except for a few states, precipitation stations maintained by the NWS are adequate in numbers to ensure a 95 percent statistical probability that state sample means will estimate true means within ± 5 percent.