The maize, known as MON863, has been engineered by the American biotech company, Monsanto, to resist the corn rootworm insect by producing a toxin in the plant.

According to the environmental organisation Friends of the Earth Europe, food safety studies of the GM maize on rats showed significantly different levels of white blood cells, kidney weights and kidney structure, as well as a lower albumin/globulin rate in the rats fed the GM maize.

But the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has concluded the MON863 maize is as safe as conventional maize and unlikely to produce adverse effects.

MON863 is the third GM product to be approved by the commission since the end of the EU?s six-year moratorium in April last year.

In May 2004, the Commission gave the go-ahead to the Swiss firm Syngenta’s application to import BT-11 sweet corn into the 25-nation bloc and in October 2004 Monsanto was given the go-ahead to market foods and food ingredients derived from the genetically modified maize NK603.

A majority of member states were opposed to the clearances, but did not hold a qualified majority of votes to decide the matter. Under EU rules, the commission is allowed to take a final decision, if the Council is unable to.

On 24 June, the Environment Council failed to reach a position on the proposal to allow the import of MON83. 14 member states voted against, while seven countries (Germany, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Finland? Sweden and the UK) voted in favour and four (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Spain and Ireland) abstained.

The authorisation now granted to Monsanto is valid for 10 years, but covers only the import and the use of the maize as animal feed.

Next steps
The commission underlined that the product would be clearly labelled as containing genetically modified maize. "Its post-marketing monitoring will be assured through a unique identifier assigned to the maize to enable its traceability", it said in a press release.

The next step will be a decision in September by EU agriculture ministers on the food application for the same maize. Environmentalists are hoping for ministers to use this last opportunity to block import of the GM maize.

"They must use the opportunity to protect their citizens, stand up to the commission, and reject it once and for all," said Helen Holder, GMO campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

Under EU legislation, no import, including that of animal feed, is allowed until the food application has been authorized. "In this case, no imports will be able to start unless the MON863 food application is authorised", according to the Friends of Earth Europe.

"On arctic drilling and global warming, they are the worst of the worst," said Athan Manuel of U.S. PIRG, an environmental group that has teamed up with the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, MoveOn.org and others to mount the protest campaign. Last week the groups held press conferences in 50 U.S. cities to announce a global boycott of ExxonMobil’s service stations and products. They also launched the website exxposeexxon.com to publicize their cause and gain support for the joint campaign.

The groups claim that ExxonMobil spent $15 million since 1998 to fund organizations that publicize junk science in order to cloud the international debate about global warming. They also accuse the company of failing to invest in clean energy technology, and berate it for not paying $4 billion in punitive damages to fishermen and others harmed by the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. The groups are also appalled by the company’s open desire to drill in ANWR, even though other major oil companies have pulled out support for drilling in the disputed area.

In response, ExxonMobil spokesperson Russ Roberts told reporters that the company recognizes global warming risks and will be investing $100 million over the next decade in climate research as such. Regarding ANWR drilling, Roberts said his company supports environmentally responsible development there. "We believe that with more than 30 years of industry experience on Alaska’s North Slope and with recent technological advancements, ANWR can be developed with little threat to the ecology of the Coastal Plain," he said.

by Roddy Scheer

The leading lights of the so-called "solar nanotechnology" revolution are companies like Nanosys and Nanosolar, both of Palo Alto, California, and Konarka of Lowell, Massachusetts. Engineers at these companies have created prototypes of thin rolls of highly efficient light-collecting plastics for spreading across rooftops or embedding in building materials in order to power heating, cooling and other electrical needs within. Company executives claim that once they can mass-produce these products, consumers will be able to generate all their power from the sun while only spending about as much as they do today for non-renewable energy.

While these companies and their investors are hesitant to prognosticate about when their technologies can be rolled out widely, they have intimated that mass production facilities could take five years or more to set up properly. But while these technologies might not be ready for primetime yet, many of the same venture capitalists who bankrolled the tech run-up during the 1990s are banking on solar this time around.

"The market is obviously huge, demand is huge. Besides, [alternative energy] is imperative in the world we live in," said Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture firm whose partners got rich on investments like AOL, Ebay and Palm Computing. Still, these investors know that solar nanotechnology is not a sure thing, with long production cycles and issues of manufacturing purity presenting long-term challenges. But as the casualties mount in Iraq and oil companies get ready to dig into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more and more forward thinking investors are hitching their wagons to the dream of solar nanotech.

[i]Reporting by Roddy Scheer[/i]

"We believe these are realistic and achievable and good goals," said Kerry Morash, chair of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. "We certainly have the science that backs up the suggestions that have been put forward."

Mercury generated from electric power plants is a known toxin that can cause organ damage and compromise the central nervous system in humans. Mercury exposure has also been linked to learning disabilities, mental retardation and blindness in children.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, the Bush administration is backing a proposal by its Environmental Protection Agency to cap mercury emissions beginning in 2010 by allowing American power utilities to trade the right to pollute through a market-based system similar to the one successfully implemented to curb acid rain during the 1990s. But critics fear that such a plan will not provide sufficient remediation in those areas hardest hit by mercury contamination, such as New England.

”We support the acid rain trading program," said John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington DC-based environmental group. ”But like the vast majority of states and public health officials, we oppose trading in a neurotoxin, like mercury.

Reporting by Roddy Scheer

Any deal at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Scotland is unlikely to satisfy environmentalists who want all countries to sign up to binding targets on the carbon emissions that scientists say are causing the world to heat up.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has put the issues of climate change and African poverty at the top of the summit agenda, said the idea was to move beyond the binding Kyoto protocol, which the United States has refused to accept.

"There is no point going back over the Kyoto debate … that’s not what it’s about," Blair said after talks with US President George W. Bush at the luxury Gleneagles hotel where the summit is being held.

"What it is about is seeing whether it will be possible in the future to bring people back into consensus together, not just America and Europe and Japan but also … the emerging economies like China, like India," he said.

"Can we do that? I don’t know, but it’s important that we at least begin a process of dialogue that allows us to make progress on it."

The US has refused to accept any targets which could damage the its economy and says there is no point in agreements which do not include major developing economies such as China and India, whose leaders are attending the summit as guests.

Bush urged the world to focus instead on developing new clean technologies.

"Now is the time to get beyond the Kyoto period (which ends in 2012) and develop a strategy forward that is inclusive not just of the United States but also of developing nations," he said after his meeting with Blair.

"This is an opportunity for those of us who have the capacity to spend research dollars to share information."

GREEN GROUPS ANGRY

Environmental group Greenpeace denounced Blair’s approach.

"In fact, Blair is destroying Kyoto and selling out the EU position, which demands binding commitments to reduce carbon emissions," Greenpeace director Stephen Tindale said.

"This is a fast lane to climate chaos. We can only hope other G8 leaders have the courage to say ‘no’."

The world economy was also due to feature prominently in Thursday’s talks at the plush golf resort, with record oil prices the main concern.

Oil prices hit record levels of over $62 a barrel Wednesday, despite expectations that the leaders would make an official appeal for more stable prices and more freedom for oil companies to invest in oil-rich countr?es.

There were no plans to include any comment on currencies in the economic communique.

G8 leaders were also due to discuss foreign policy issues, particularly the Middle East, although they were not expected to make any major announcements.

Following five days of pop concerts, demonstrations and sporadic violent protests on Scotland’s streets that focused public attention in Britain on the G8 as never before, no anti-G8 protests were planned on Thursday.

But police surrounded a protest campsite in the town of Stirling, 32 km (20 miles) south of Gleneagles, to protect public safety. They were allowing protesters to come and go as long as they submitted to body searches.

GLENEAGLES, Scotland – The Group of Eight powers meeting in Scotland reached agreement on Thursday on the need for urgent action to combat global warming, but set no measurable targets, Germany’s top negotiator said.

A draft with Thursday’s date seen by Reuters contained an acknowledgment that human activity was a significant contributor to global warming, and that there was a need to reduce the greenhouse gases that trigger it.

But it made only cursory reference to the binding Kyoto accord on cutting greenhouse gases, signed by seven of the G8 powers and championed in Gleneagles by France and others — but termed economic suicide by US President George W. Bush.

France made clear that it saw the outcome as only just sufficient.

"Even if it does not go as far as we would have liked, it has one essential virtue in my eyes — that is, to re- establish a dialogue and cooperation between the Kyoto seven and the United States on a subject of the highest importance," French President Jacques Chirac said.

FORMAL AGREEMENT DELAYED

Thursday’s bombs on London’s transport network forced a delay in the formal final agreement by heads of state, but German negotiator Bernd Pfaffenbach told reporters:

"The document was accepted and you can be sure that there won’t be any more changes."

The text seen by Reuters contained no brackets to indicate that passages were still disputed, and so appeared likely to be a copy of the text Pfaffenbach was referring to — final in all but name.

In the event, it also went some way to meeting other demands from Kyoto signatories led by France. They wanted it to endorse the view of the world’s top scientists that human activities are a significant contributor to global warming — disputed recently by the Bush administration – - and require action.

While uncertainties remained in understanding climate science, enough was known to act now to begin to slow down and arrest and reverse the increase in greenhouse gases, the draft said.

"DETERMINATION AND URGENCY"

It committed all eight countries to "act with determination and urgency" to reach common goals that included reducing greenhouse gases, but without offering any yardstick.

The draft also stated that the United Nations provided the appropriate forum to negotiate a future multilateral regime to address climate change.

However, environmentalists were dismissive of a text that made no concrete commitment to any measurable reduction in greenhouse gases.

"President Bush is isolated from the 12 other countries who have all emphasised the need for tough targets to reduce CO? emissions," Greenpeace director Stephen Tindale said, referring to the participation of South Africa, Mexico, India, China and Brazil in some of the G8 meetings.

The draft said it was in the interests of all to work with large emerging economies — a reference in particular to China and India, which are expected to produce more greenhouse gases.

The G8 powers pledged to promote work on more efficient and cleaner energy use, and also to promote the transfer of new technology to developing countries, and to "launch a dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development".

Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said the Bush administration had "again done its best to derail international action to tackle climate change".

But he added: "Even if there was no progress here, there has been a big impact on public awareness."

And the world today is changed, but while we achieved the goal of stopping nuclear weapons testing, we are all still living under the threat of nuclear weapons. The urgent task for us now is to abolish them.

We’ve set up a website commemorating the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and recalling her mission to work for peace and nuclear disarmament.

Visit the site here:
[url=http://www.greenpeace.org/rw20]http://www.greenpeace.org/rw20[/url]

If you remember the bombing, you can post a recollection here:
[url=http://www.greenpeace.org/i-remember]http://www.greenpeace.org/i-remember[/url]

If you were too young to remember the bombing or not born yet, tell us how a new younger breed of activist would carry on the work of abolishing nuclear weapons here:
[url=http://www.greenpeace.org/i-say-peace]http://www.greenpeace.org/i-say-peace[/url]

(The winning submission will get a T-shirt and a grab-bag of Greenpeace goodies and possibly be featured in our media work. Don’t forget to register at the cybercentre — anonymous postings don’t count.)

Thanks for your help in keeping the Rainbow Warrior sailing, a living reminder to our adversaries that while you can send a boat to the bottom of the ocean, you can’t sink a rainbow.

Nevertheless, by the middle of this century, the U.S. economy will slip into second place if China’s burgeoning growth continues. And even before China takes the lead economically, it will replace the U.S. as the world’s leading producer of carbon dioxide gas, the primary cause of global climate change.

With more than a billion Chinese eager to acquire the trappings of a Western lifestyle — such as more meat, cars, air conditioners refrigerators and the like — nations worldwide are already repositioning themselves to feed China’s growing appetite for natural resources and finished goods.

Economists see this demand in rosy terms, but there is a downside. Our planet is simply unable to sustain billions more humans consuming at the same rate as today’s Americans and Japanese.

Globally, our oceans are already overfished, farmland is being lost to urban sprawl, overgrazed grasslands are turning to deserts and groundwater supplies are drying up. In short, we are nearing (and some say we have surpassed) the limits of Earth’s capacity to support human civilization.

Now that the Chinese are rightfully demanding seats at this banquet of apparent plenty — just when the planet is on the verge of maximum yield — how can Earth provide America-like lifestyles for China’s billion-plus inhabitants?

And what about India’s billion more?

Today, per capita GNP in the U.S. and Japan sits at about $38,000 annually, while China’s per capita GNP is a mere $1,000. Nevertheless, China — which is home to more than 20 percent of the world’s people — is intent on closing this gap.

China’s economy is surging at a rate of over 9 percent annually. If growth continues at about 8 percent a year, its economy could double every nine years. As a result, by 2031, income per person for China’s projected population of 1.45 billion would reach $38,000, according to Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington D.C.

If the Chinese reach this income level in 2031, and choose to consume grain at the same annual rate as Americans on this income level do today, then grain consumption per person in China would climb from 291 kg today to the 935 kg needed to sustain a U.S.-style diet rich in meat, milk and eggs. Put another way, in 2031, China would consume 1,352 million tons of grain — far above the 382 million tons used in 2004.

In a March 9 policy paper titled "Learning from China: Why the Western Economic Model Will no? Work for the World," Brown explains in a sobering sentence that bears re-reading — "this is equal to two-thirds of the entire 2004 world grain harvest of just over 2 billion tons."

Assuming the Chinese follow the voracious lead of their American brethren, where will this grain come from, and what will everyone else eat?

And it’s not just about grain. What about other foods, energy sources and countless other consumables?

According to Brown, writing in another paper released in February, China is already becoming the world’s leading consumer of resources. "Among the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities — grain and meat, oil and coal, and steel — consumption in China has already eclipsed that of the U.S. in all but oil," he says.

In that paper, titled "China Replacing the United States as World’s Leading Consumer" ( [url=http://www.earth-policy.org),]www.earth-policy.org),[/url] Brown also reports that, in 2004, China consumed 382 million tons of grain, compared with the U.S. consumption of 278 million tons; Chinese ate 63 million tons of meat, compared to the 37 million tons eaten in America; and, China’s use of nitrates, phosphates and potash for fertilizer was more than twice the 19.2 million tons that were used in the U.S.

In 2003, China also used more than twice as much steel as the U.S. (258 million tons vs. 104 million tons), and its annual consumption of coal was 25 percent more than in the U.S. (800 million tons versus 574 million tons). Only in oil does the U.S. still hold the lead, with consumption triple that of China’s — 20.4 million barrels per day to 6.5 million barrels a day in 2004, according to Brown.

But China’s consumption is soaring.

"While oil use in the U.S. expanded by only 15 percent from 1994 to 2004, use in China more than doubled," says Brown. "Having recently eclipsed Japan as an oil consumer, China is now second only to the U.S."

Of course, burning more coal and oil adds to the already serious problem of rising carbon dioxide emissions. In 2002, the Chinese only emitted 2.7 metric tons per capita, a fraction of the 9.4 metric tons released per capita by the Japanese, or of the 20.1 metric tons per capita released by Americans.

But human activities worldwide now emit more than 23 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, and China’s blazing economy depends on coal and oil.

None of this is China’s fault. "The point of this exercise of projections is not to blame China for consuming so much," Brown stresses. "But rather to learn what happens when a large segment of humanity moves quickly up the global economic ladder. What we learn is that the economic model that evolved in the West — the fossil fuel-based, auto-centered, throwaway economy — will not work for China, simply because there are not enough resources."

Nor will it work for the 3 to 4 billion others in the developing world who still want a piece of American pie — even as it is being reduced to crumbs.

Stephen Hesse welcomes readers’ comments and questions at [email]stevehesse@hotmail.com[/email]

The Japan Times: June 23, 2005

Credits should be allocated to all forestry planting, not just to "permanent forest sinks".

"That way there will be a massive amount of planting…

"By 2012 we would probably be back in credit again at no cost to the government."

Tree plantings, which had plummeted to nearly zero, would return to 1990 levels of more than 50,000ha a year.

The Government has nationalised New Zealand’s carbon credits. It has said it might allow carbon credit trading from 2012.

Last week it revealed New Zealand taxpayers faced a bill of at least $500m to buy carbon credits in the first commitment period, 2008-2012, under the protocol.

Mr Dickie said the Government’s policy of carbon credits for "permanent forest sinks" which could not be harvested for 35 years was impractical and did not encourage planting by mainstream plantation forest owners.

"Why don’t they just let forest owners get on with their business?"

The credits would make "quite a substantial difference to the economics of planting a forest", he said.

"We’ve got some figures that suggest the return changes dramatically. It was so huge we decided we’d get them researched by some other independent consultants and we will have those figures out sometime in the next week or so.

"But it looks as though the returns for planting a forest and growing it would more than double. When log prices go down the returns from other aspects like your forest sink credits as a percentage become more important.

"Peopl? are just totally turned off by what the Government has done to the forest owners here. It’s our trees, it’s our credits."

New tree planting had fallen from a peak of 100,000ha in 1994 to 10,000ha last year.

Yesterday Mr Dickie presented the association’s submission to the parliamentary commerce select committee on the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill.

The submission urged the Government to leave the rights and obligations associated with carbon credits to the organisations and individuals who earned them, to require industries and organisations that created liabilities to obtain credits and to provide a mechanism for trading credits.

The European Commission has also launched a school competition meant for 6 to 16 year-old children.

On the last day of Green Week 2005, Friday June 3, European Commissioner for the Environment Stavros Dimas and high-level politicians will face questions from a panel of children debating short and long term solutions to climate change.