The European Parliament released “Transport at a crossroads”, a report on the environmental impact of public transit, shipping, and freight, this month. The findings ranged the gamut from encouraging- air pollutants from vehicles are on the decline- to less than- that greenhouse gas emissions have increased 26% from 1990 to 2006. Lead researcher Jacqueline McGlade perhaps summed it up best when she said:

We know the technology exists to tackle impacts of the transport sector on Europe’s environment. However, many vehicles rolling off production lines are anything but green, the freight sector still favours the least efficient transport modes and railways across the EU still do not have a unified system.

The report urged European nations to develop transport policies that make transport more efficient and to respond to consumer demand, which the report often linked to rising fuel costs- the report shows a 25% increase in bus usage when fuel prices increased by 10%.

Image: European transport

A mostly overlooked regional conference held in Lebanon earlier this month may prove to be a keystone to Arab cooperation on the environment. Gathering together the heads of Arab environmental ministries, the United Nations Development Program-sponsored “Environment Crimes in the Arab States” meeting was little covered outside of news agencies in the region, yet may prove to be an important point of cooperation in establishing a legal, as well as environmental, framework for the area.

By fostering a healthier cross-border dialogue on environmental crime- an area that has traditionally been met with lax enforcement in the region- hope could be raised for an increase in overall cooperation, among the goals set by the UNDP. Among the issues the conference identified as being intrinsically linked with environmental concerns were other challenges at the heart of regional strife, among them public health, government corruption, and economic progress. Much of this discord can be summed up in one phrase: lack of water, which has become the poster child for the way an environmental issue can affect all aspects of public life. Lebanese Environment Minister Antoine Karam cited the need to bulk up the laws of most Arab states with enforcement powers for environmental crimes, as well as make sure that enforcement actually took place. Karam said:

Issuing laws is not effective if they are not implemented…[We need] to support environmental institutions with legal experts so they can live up to their role [and establish] environmental police, courts, and trained environmental prosecutors.

A variety of suggestions for sharpening the regional treatment of environmental violators was suggested, including a blanket policy of “he who pollutes, pays”, as suggested by a representative from Lebanon’s Ministry of Justice.

Image: Conference participants

South Africa announced a plan this week to capture and sequester carbon emissions through the establishment of a center devoted to studying and implementing solutions aimed toward lowering carbon emissions in the country.

The announcement comes on the heels of a previous statement by South Africa’s environmental ministry that pledged an attempt to capture 5% of the nation’s carbon emissions, a promise that indicates the political, economic, and environmental importance of the cause to the national government. By better understanding the geology of the region, the South African Center of Carbon Capture and Storage can best figure out the methods needed to capture carbon with the available natural storage, which geologists estimate at 100 gigatons.

Fortuitous timing on the part of South Africa had the announcement being released to coincide with a statement by Lord Ron Oxburgh of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, who urged leaders at the Energy & Environment 2009 conference to adopt more methods of carbon capture. He said that carbon capture technologies will become more and more important in the coming decades as China, India, and the United States rely more on their coal reserves.

Image: Carbon emissions will rise as coal is burnt when oil reserves stagnate

This week, announcements from around the globe offered possible solutions to two of Asia’s most intractable environmental problems: arsenic poisoning and wildlife trafficking.

With more than 140 million people consuming arsenic-laced water in Southern Asian nations like Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, understanding what causes the mass poisonings and how to prevent further ingestion has always been a top priority for scientists. Thus the announcement by a group of Stanford University researchers that a cause may have been pinpointed comes as welcome news. According to their analysis, the naturally occurring arsenic that is leached from the Himalaya Mountains and carried into water basins relied upon by human settlements actually dissolves due to contact with bacteria in the riverbeds. This discovery runs counter to the prevailing logic that arsenic-tainted water came primarily from deep beneath the earth’s surface. The new findings will be used to find safe well sites, a process that one of the researchers said would be “extremely accurate” in avoiding arsenic tainted water.

In a battle against wildlife trafficking, the Thai and US governments are pairing up to hold seminars at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport to better teach employees how to spot and detain animal smugglers and traffickers. Trafficking profits are estimated to be close to $30 billion each year, and reportedly is the third largest illegal trade after drugs and guns. Largely overworked airport security patrols welcomed the conference as an opportunity to gain a better understanding of just what animals were vulnerable to illegal trafficking.

Image: Caged monkey, Thailand

A dolphin trade conference in the Solomon Islands intended to be a conciliatory maneuver by the national government to calm the furor over their sale of live dolphins seems to have left many unpersuaded. As The Equatorial Press reported earlier this month, the conference was intended to placate critics who targeted the sale of dolphins from the Solomons to Mexico and Dubai.

According to several environmentalists, the conference was less than successful at persuading them that the dolphin trade was conducted in a reasonable manner. Lawrence Makili, regional director for the Earth Island Institute, accused the government of squelching all debate and using the event as a press conference. Makili said:

In fact it was a farce, I thought, made by the Minister for Environment and Conservation. In fact at the end of the conference I just realised I was called in just because the Minister would like to announce the stance of the current government about the quota of dolphin exports. So it was not really a consultation effort to get views from all the stakeholders. It was only designed in a way that dolphin traders came in and were happy with the Minister’s announcement.

Seconding the accusations was Maliki’s superior Mark Berman, who serves as associate director of the Earth Island Institute. In an editorial, he claimed that the government ignored statements he had provided that stated the International Union for the Conservation of Nature had determined the trade was not scientifically sound. He later cited the fact that the main opposition scientist was funded by the company that had purchased 28 dolphins from the Solomons to send to Dubai.

Image: Dolphins in the Solomon Islands