WATERLOO -- A University of Waterloo research team received funding today from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to build a laboratory to investigate underwater sampling by using robots.

Christopher Clark and Patricia Nieva, professors in the department of mechanical engineering, and Bill Annable, a professor of civil engineering, are the recipients of the $159,000 Leaders Opportunity Fund award for a project titled, "Facility for the Advancement of Underwater Sampling Technology."

"This infrastructure will be vital for developing, validating and testing our planning, control, mapping and localization algorithms to enable the autonomous control of underwater robots as applied to a large number of new sensing tasks," Clark said.

"It will also facilitate the design and fabrication of new MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems)-based sensors required for such tasks. Our students have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this equipment so that their research can progress."

Underwater robots have traditionally been limited to oceanic research because of their large size and high cost. However, with today's level of personal computing power, intelligent robotics has become accessible to a broad range of people and applications.

Clark heads the Laboratory for Autonomous and Intelligent Robotics. His research interests include autonomous mobile robots, multi-robot systems, motion planning, modular and reconfigurable robots, as well as intelligent control.

Nieva said that to fully realize deployable sensing systems which can conduct spatiotemporal underwater sampling in the field, new infrastructure is required in the existing research programs.

"The development of new MEMS sensors that are small enough, economical and adequately robust to withstand harsh underwater environments requires technology for the dynamic characterization of microsystems," she said.

Hence, advanced testing methods for the dynamics of microstructures are necessary to develop and verify innovative, reliable and marketable MEMS. Using the out-of-plane microsystem analyzer requested, Nieva plans to acquire reliable measurement data that can validate simulation models.

Nieva leads the Systems-on-Chip and Harsh Environments Microsystems Laboratory. Her main research interests include MEMS for harsh environments, multi-functional MEMS, micro-power harvesting, laser interferometry, along with on-chip integration of self-powered sensors and actuators with micro-optics and microelectronics.

Annable said the CFI award will, in part, be used to acquire high resolution flow and water quality measurement equipment to be used in river and lake settings. The research will provide detailed verification and calibration data sets used in the development of robots and MEMS sensors.

His research interests include river mechanics, hydraulics, river restoration and groundwater surface water interaction.

"This award represents a strategic boost to the research capacities of the University of Waterloo," said Dr. Eliot Phillipson, president and CEO of the CFI. "It's investments like these that have transformed Canada's research landscape over the past decade and made the country a destination of choice for the world's best researchers."

"This investment at Waterloo will help ensure that Drs. Clark, Nieva and Annable and their students will have access to a world-class research and training environment," said Alan George, UW's interim vice-president, university research.

The CFI announced today a total of $23.6 million in new funds for 35 institutions across the country, including the UW team project.

The announcement marks the launch of the CFI's new Leaders Opportunity Fund. The program, created to reflect Canada's fast-evolving research environment, was designed to give Canadian universities the added flexibility they need to both attract and retain top researchers at a time of intense international competition for leading faculty.

The CFI's board of directors approved the investment under two funds: $19.7 million under the Leaders Opportunity Fund and $3.9 million under the Infrastructure Operating Fund -- an accompanying program which assists universities with the incremental operating and maintenance costs associated with new infrastructure projects.

For a complete list of Leaders Opportunity Fund projects, by university, visit www.innovation.ca.

Chamber members recently raised concern about the consultation process for a proposed storm water management utility. Chamber members on the Storm Water Advisory Committee are concerned about estimates of 50 to 60% cost increases.

Click here for the most recent minutes of the Storm Water Advisory Committee.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include a pledge to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access, but the world is hopelessly off track, writes Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office, Kevin Watkins in a commentary published in Liberation (France).

Unequal access to water powerfully captures the gross disparities that divide our world. In Britain, come rain, flood or drought, the average person uses 160 liters of clean water each day. In rural Mozambique or Ethiopia, people use what women and young girls can carry back from rivers and lakes: around 5-10 liters a day for each household member. The global sanitation gap is even more overwhelming. In the Kenyan slum of Kibera, over 90 percent lack access to a latrine. Kibera is a microcosm of what happens across the developing world. Rapid urbanization and a crumbling water and sanitation infrastructure in cities like Jakarta, Manila, Nairobi and Lagos have left millions of desperately poor people in overcrowded slums facing a constant threat from water infected with human excrement.

To add insult to injury, the poor invariably pay more for their water than the rich. In Kibera, you pay three times more per unit of water than in Manhattan or London – and ten times more than in high-income suburbs of Nairobi. Similar patterns are repeated across the cities of the developing world. The reason: water utilities pump cheap subsidized water to well-off customers, but seldom reach the poor. Most slum dwellers face the choice between buying water from high-cost private traders, or taking a trip to the nearest stream.

Overcoming the water and sanitation divide is a cause that unites moral imperative with economic common sense. Meeting the MDG target would cost around $4 billion annually for the next decade. To put the price tag in context, it represents about one month’s worth of spending on bottled mineral water in Europe and the US. So why is progress so slow? Partly, of course, because this is a crisis borne overwhelming by poor people. Too often, governments in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere are more disposed to provide subsidized water for the rich, rather than universal access for the poor. The low priority attached to water and sanitation is reflected in national budgets – and, more acutely, in the chronic under-financing of infrastructure.

Aid donors have also under-delivered. Even with increased domestic financing and improved utility governance, the poorest countries need a step increase in external financing. Extending water and sanitation infrastructure requires large up-front investments with payback periods of 20 years or more. Yet the share of aid dedicated to these sectors (adjusted for the inevitable surge to Iraq) has halved and fallen in real terms since 1997. To make matters worse, aid flows are weakly related to need. Sub-Saharan Africa faces the greatest financing gaps, but the region accounts for only 15 percent of aid.

Sterile debates about ‘public versus private’ provision do not help take things forward. Privatization is not a magic bullet, though in some cases the private sector can provide the services needed to enhance efficiency. Conversely, failures and under-financing in the public sector is already forcing poor people into private water markets, with disastrous consequences. South Africa has shown the way by introducing legislation requiring all providers, public and private, to supply a minimum amount of water free of charge. In Senegal and Manila, new forms of public-private partnership are extending access for the poor through small surcharges on the wealthy. Redistribution may be out of fashion these days. But converting public water subsidies for the rich into public investments for the poor would help accelerate progress and overcome the glaring equity gaps that scar many countries.

Should The G8 Promise To Buy Vaccines That Have Yet To Be Invented? Michael Kremer, an economist at Harvard University, argues that donors—i.e., rich countries' governments—could engineer a market where none yet exists, writes The Economist. This elegant notion, often called an “advance purchase commitment” (APC), has migrated with unusual speed from Kremer's blackboard to the communiqués of the powerful. Next month, the finance ministers of the G8 countries will settle on one or two proposals in this spirit. As well as the toughest nuts—vaccines for AIDS, malaria and TB—three softer targets are also vying for the G8's

attention: rotavirus (which causes diarrhea in children), human papillomavirus (a cause of cervical cancer), and pneumococcus (a bacterium that causes pneumonia).

But even as it wins converts, the APC idea is also collecting critics. None is more dogged than Andrew Farlow, an economist at Oxford University and author of a sprawling critique of Kremer's big idea and its application to malaria in particular. APCs, he says, are a “policy boil” that needs to be lanced. There is, Farlow points out, no such thing as “a” malaria vaccine. The first vaccine to market may not be the best possible. From the outset, the G8 will have to set out the traits of a vaccine it would be willing to buy: how effective it must be; how long it should last; the maximum number of doses it should require. Its thorny task is to decide what would be desirable, at what price, long before anyone knows what is feasible.

Officials from 140 countries were set to issue a broad declaration on World Water Day on Wednesday, but will stop short of declaring a universal right to the precious resource for which two thirds of humanity face uncertain supplies, reports Agence France Presse.

Wrapping up their week-long World Water Forum, ministers are hoping to help shape global strategy to improve water distribution and eradicate waste in order to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. Government ministers called Tuesday for a global campaign to ensure the survival to the majority of the world's people who are at risk from inadequate or unsafe supplies.

The World Water Council, which is co-sponsoring the Forum along with the Mexican government, is seeking to have the right to water recognized as a "human right," much the same as the right to education.

The Guardian (UK) further writes that the UN's second "World Water Development" report, published Wednesday in Mexico City at the Fourth World Water Forum says that millions of people may have to wait years for clean water as some of the world's largest companies pull out of developing countries because of growing doubts about privatization projects. Many companies have met intense political resistance in the past five years after winning large contracts to supply cities but then having to raise prices significantly. Some have been forced out of countries, others have left voluntarily. Many companies, the report says, have not been able to make money and are now concentrating on less risky markets in Europe and North America. The UN report, which urges private firms to partner local authorities or governments, says the trend of privatization is now reversing and that local and small-scale water companies are mushrooming.

Agence France Presse notes that in a separate report released Tuesday, the UN warned that trouble caused by the world's dwindling supply of fresh water goes far beyond perpetual thirst for billions around the globe. The study gave a litany of problems extending to severe pollution, species loss, and even food insecurity.

BBC News Online writes that the World Development Movement (WDM) notes that governments, not private firms, must take responsibility for getting water to their people in its new report entitled, "Pipe Dreams" launched Tuesday. The Sustainable Development Network, on the other hand, argued last week that free markets improve water services. The WDM was unconvinced by the conclusions of the Sustainable Development Network and WDM Director of Policy, Peter Hardstaff said that a look at investment around the world shows that private companies do not focus on areas of greatest need.

The Associated Press reports that even though just about everybody, from CEOs to aid workers, spoke out against the privatization of water at the Forum ending Wednesday, the apparent victory for anti-corporate forces may prove hollow. Activists say developing countries are being pushed hard to build big dams and hydroelectric projects, which are often built by big corporations. Perhaps the only thing everybody from aid workers to water-company executives agreed on are concepts like "multi-stakeholder processes" and "integrated water resource management." Put simply, the terms mean consulting everyone involved before a dam or other project is built, and taking into account all the environmental, economic and social effects during the design stage.

In a separate piece, The Associated Press writes that children are often the hardest hit by the lack of safe water or sanitation that affects nearly half the world's population, and they took the stage at the World Water Forum. Some told of classmates dropping out of school because they had to haul water home from distant wells or because of filthy, open schoolhouse washrooms; of friends sickened by waterborne epidemics, or girls raped as they carried water home alone before dawn. With an estimated 400 million children around the world suffering from some form of water shortage, a delegation of young activists addressed a summit of water ministers from across the world on Tuesday, asking them to create youth parliaments to represent their demands.

Xinhua (China) adds that some participants of the fourth World Water Forum appealed for the removal of water-related items from all deals of the World Trade Organizations. The head of Bolivia's Environment and Sustainable Development Committee, Omar Fernandez said Monday that water should not be a part of free trade deals because it should not be considered just another commodity. The participants said they would ask their leaders to halt all negotiations on drinking water and basic sanitation. Representatives of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela said they would form a common front to strive for the aim.

Experts searching for solutions to the world water crisis at the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City on Saturday said much of the problem comes not from dams, lakes or rivers, but an unexpected place: the farm, reports Dow Jones (03/18).

With 525 million small farms in the world, farmers suffer the most from each problem discussed at the forum: poverty, disease, and the lack of sanitation and clean water. Representatives at the Forum noted that farming accounts for 70 percent of the water consumed and a majority of its waste. Agriculture based on fields that temporarily flood is also a major problem because most of that water is wasted through evaporation. Added to these woes are pesticide and herbicide runoff from farm fields that pollute rivers and lakes, as well as soil erosion and salt buildup from irrigation. Traditionally, governments have responded to the problems of small-scale farmers -- defined as those with plots of 2 hectares (5 acres) or less -- by building big dam projects. But Patrick McCully, Executive Director of International River Network says most small farms are so high up in the hills or removed from rivers that they can't benefit from them.

The Associated Press (03/20) further writes that on average, women in developing countries walk six kilometers per day to fetch water. But simple solutions can help such as a World Bank project in Morocco that moved water taps closer to villages increased school attendance by girls in six provinces by 20 percent over four years. This and other projects under discussion at the Forum also cost mere pennies compared to other solutions, like big dams.

In addition, Africa has taken advantage of an estimated three percent of its hydropower potential -- compared to Europe's 75 percent. A majority of Africans don't have regular electricity service, preventing them from operating pumps to extract water from wells. Huge hydroelectric dams could fix that, some say. On Friday during the presentation of a report on the continent's water problems World Bank Director of Water and Energy, Jamal Shagir said that "Investment in hydroelectric infrastructure is not a choice anymore for Africa, it is a must." However, the Director of the World Wildlife Fund, Jamie Pittock, is promoting the restoration of thousands of small, community earthen dams dating as far back as the 13th century instead of big dams or irrigation projects -- whose water doesn't reach the smallest, remote farms.

Agence France Presse (03/20) also reports that several studies unveiled at the conference showed financing the delivery of water to those who need it requires a complex dance between governments, private companies and the tariff structures. A UN report urges creation of new mechanisms "based on the concept of mutual support, without the goal of turning a profit." For example, since the 2003 World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan, the World Bank has adjusted its rules and can now issue loans directly to big cities, bypassing central governments.

Meanwhile, the World Bank said in a study made public Saturday that although subsidies aim to make water available to more people, in Latin American and Sub Saharan Africa they benefit primarily the middle and upper classes. Jamal Saghir, the Bank's Director for Water and Energy, argued that the majority of poor people don't benefit from the subsidies because they don't use water distribution networks. However, he pointed out, middle-class customers are usually the most hostile to tariff increases.

The New York Times (03/20) writes that for all the focus on privatization, much of the serious work of the Forum was rooted in heart-wrenching statistics. One in three people in the world, 2.6 billion, does not have access to any kind of toilet or latrine, according to the UN report to be presented at the conference on Tuesday. Water-related diseases cause more than three million deaths a year, mostly of children younger than 5. Only $3 billion in aid a year goes to improve water access and sanitation, the UN World Water Development Report said, and very little of that gets to the people who need it most.

Reuters (03/19) further writes that UN officials said on Sunday that drought, poverty, war, pollution and chaotic urban growth are preventing African governments from supplying clean water to their people. The UN announced at a news conference a $550 million loan from the African Development Bank to be spent on small-scale urban water projects over the next five years. Kalyan Ray, a UN infrastructure expert, said that was not enough to meet Africa's water needs. Ray said disruption caused by droughts and wars made it harder for governments to supply their citizens with basic services.

The Director of the UN Development Program's Human Development Report Office, Kevin Watkins writes in a commentary in The International Herald Tribune (03/18) that the buzz-phrase at the Mexico Water forum is "integrated water resource management," meaning that governments need to manage the private demand of different users and manage this precious resource in the public interest. The other, equally profound challenge, according to Watkins, is strengthening the rights and the voice of the poor and this means putting social justice at the center of water management.

“Water and Health” is the topic of the 2005/06 Kenneth Hammond Lectures on Environment, Energy and Resources, to be held March 24 and 25 at the University of Guelph.

Keynote speaker David Anderson, former federal minister of the environment, will deliver the opening address on "Water Policy: Adjusting to Predictions of Climate Change" in War Memorial Hall at 7 p.m. March 24.

Speakers during an all-day symposium to be held March 25 will include:

• Ransom Myers, Killam Chair of Ocean Studies, Dalhousie University, who will discuss “The Global Loss of Top Predators in the Ocean: Consequences of a World Without Sharks, Tuna and Great Fish.”

• Laurie Richardson, a biologist at Florida International University, “Corals and Coral Reef Health: The Canary in the Coal Mine?”

• Dana Kolpin, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, “Pharmaceuticals and Other Emerging Contaminants in Water Resources of the United States.”

• Maude Barlow, national chair of the Council of Canadians, “Is Water a Human Right?”

The symposium runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cutten Club. Both the lecture and the symposium are free and open to the public. Seating for the symposium is limited; to reserve seats, send e-mail to hls@uoguelph.ca.

Sponsored by U of G and the Faculty of Environmental Sciences (FES), the annual Hammond lecture series began in 2000 and is named for Kenneth Hammond, a former member of Board of Governors and an advocate of environmental and resource issues and environmental education.

Ten years ago, many poor countries hoped private cash would bring safe water to the one billion people in the world who lack it, but now corporate interest is drying up, reports Reuters.

After pumping about $25 billion into water supply and sanitation in developing countries in the 1990s, many companies have retreated or reduced their presence in places ranging from Bolivia to Indonesia. Delegates at the Fourth World Water Forum that started in Mexico City on Thursday said new investments and ideas are needed to meet a UN goal of halving by 2015 the number of people without safe drinking water. Relying on private business to reach that target, one of the UN Millennium Development Goals, is increasingly difficult, said Daniel Zimmer, Executive Director of the World Water Council (WWC).

Xinhua further notes in a separate piece that the UN World Water Development Report issued ahead of the Forum that said despite ample freshwater resources on the planet, about 20 percent of the world's population, or 1.1 billion people, lacked access to safe drinking water and 40 percent, or 2.6 billion, lacked access to basic sanitation, due to unfair distribution, mismanagement and inadequate investment in infrastructure. In many parts of the world, between 30 and 40 percent of water is wasted because of leaks in canals and pipes, and illegal connections. In developing countries, water use and exploitation are inefficient. In addition, only 12 percent of the $4.5 billion allocated to water sectors by governments and international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, have been used to improve water access for people.

Xinhua (China) adds that the WWC called for an annual investment of $10 billion in water distribution to help the 1.1 billion people who were suffering from shortages. Zimmer told reporters before the Fourth World Water Forum opened in Mexico City on Thursday morning that "If politicians do no take responsibility for water policy, then even the private sector will find itself in problems." Zimmer said they were dealing with a public service and had to create new public-private partnerships, which did not exclusively serve market forces.

In other developments, The Associated Press reports that the Forum, which pledged to focus on the world's poor, heard a proposal Thursday for an international peacekeeping force to deal with future conflicts over water, as well as a call for massive donations to rebuild water systems in poor nations, in part to keep people from migrating to richer nations. Separately, the news agency also writes that the first day of the summit ended with rage and frustration as police blocked the path of some 10,000 demonstrators who said their lands or livelihoods were threatened by water policies and that the conference represented big corporations interested in running water systems for profit.

Reuters meanwhile reports that Bolivia plans to invest $1 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade its public water network, the country's Deputy Minister of Basic Services, Rene Orellana told the news agency Thursday. Orellana further said that the government will finance the investment from funds generated by Bolivia's energy and mining sectors, donations and long term loans from the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development Bank.

One billion human beings are deprived of the building blocks of development. But this problem has more to do with the absence of available infrastructure than the resource, reports Le Monde (France).

The consequences are serious. Polluted water is the first cause of mortality on the planet, ahead of malnutrition. Each year, 8 million people die of diseases related to contaminated water, including cholera, diarrhea or typhoid. Half of the victims are children of less than five years old. The Fourth World Water Forum which opens Thursday in Mexico City offers the opportunity to reflect on these facts. Le Monde points out however that the reasons for this crisis are above all political and financial.

EFE News Service notes that the overarching theme for the conclave in Mexico City will be "Local Actions for a Global Challenge," with discussions on the role of water in economic development, more efficient provision of the resource, managing water in an environmentally sound manner and averting water-related natural disasters, among other topics. While barely 500 people turned up in Marrakech for the first World Water Forum, more than 320 separate government agencies, NGOs and other entities are sending delegates to Mexico City to represent the diverse and sometimes conflicting interests of billions of stakeholders.

The Associated Press writes that failing public water systems have forced more and more people in the developing world to buy bottled water from private companies, the kind of privatization that has created a sharp divide among activists and officials gathering in Mexico City for the international water summit. Demonstrators outside the World Water Forum planned to protest privatization and a host of other issues, including dam projects and water extraction from poor Indian communities.

Meanwhile, organizers of the forum, to be attended by 121 nations, have established the goal of improving water access for the poor. Similar past efforts have failed: The poor pay vastly more money to private corporations for their water today than they did when the first global water forum was held in Marrakech, Morocco, in 1997. Outright privatization of water systems has been a hard sell since 2000, when thousands of Bolivians protested rate increases in water contracts held by foreign companies.

Xinhua (China) notes that residents of Mexico City will see marches organized by civil groups, calling for public awareness on the problem of water shortage. A recent UN report "World Water Resource Development" showed that some 1.1 billion of the world's more than 6 billion population are suffering from drinking water shortages, with Africa and the Middle East most affected. Only around one percent of the world's water is drinkable, according to the report. Meanwhile, climate changes, population growth, underinvestment, inadequate protection and uneven water resource distribution have made the situation more complicated.

The New York Times meanwhile writes that Mexico City, the host city of the World Water Forum this year, has only now, in preparation for the conference, the local press engaged in a bout of collective hand-wringing over the city's water worries. The city's response to the shortage is to take its water from elsewhere, namely the pine-forested mountains to the west where a system of pumps and treatment plants carries about a quarter of the city's water 80 miles uphill taking water away from the poorest inhabitants of those mountains. The problems around wastewater are just as bad. A decade-old project to build four wastewater treatment plants is paralyzed by feuding among the city, state and federal governments. The result is that the Valley of Mexico treats less than 10 percent of its wastewater, sending its sewage into rivers that irrigate farmland to the north.

WATERLOO – Gordon Miller, the environmental commissioner of Ontario (ECO), will highlight the state of Ontario’s environmental policies during a talk at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Miller will deliver a presentation entitled Planning our Landscape: The Annual Report of the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario. His talk will begin at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, March 22, in room 102 of the Bricker academic building.

“Since Mr. Miller’s position is particularly unique, anywhere in the world, this presentation promises to offer a unique perspective on monitoring governments and the environment,” said Kevin Hanna, with Laurier’s department of geography and environmental studies. “Inquiries from the ECO tend to make government agencies nervous since, like the auditor general, his position is one that assesses performance.”

Miller was sworn in as environmental commissioner on January 31, 2000, to oversee the continued implementation of the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR), one of Canada’s most progressive pieces of environmental legislation. He was re-appointed to a second five-year term on April 25, 2005.

As an independent officer appointed by the legislature, Miller monitors and reports annually on government compliance with the provisions of the EBR. His mandate includes reviewing how provincial ministries use public input to shape environmental acts and policies, as well as ensuring that educational programs on the EBR are provided.

Since his appointment, Miller has released three annual reports and three special reports to the Ontario legislature.

One billion human beings are deprived of the building blocks of development. But this problem has more to do with the absence of available infrastructure than the resource, reports Le Monde (France).

The consequences are serious. Polluted water is the first cause of mortality on the planet, ahead of malnutrition. Each year, 8 million people die of diseases related to contaminated water, including cholera, diarrhea or typhoid. Half of the victims are children of less than five years old. The Fourth World Water Forum which opens Thursday in Mexico City offers the opportunity to reflect on these facts. Le Monde points out however that the reasons for this crisis are above all political and financial.

EFE News Service notes that the overarching theme for the conclave in Mexico City will be "Local Actions for a Global Challenge," with discussions on the role of water in economic development, more efficient provision of the resource, managing water in an environmentally sound manner and averting water-related natural disasters, among other topics. While barely 500 people turned up in Marrakech for the first World Water Forum, more than 320 separate government agencies, NGOs and other entities are sending delegates to Mexico City to represent the diverse and sometimes conflicting interests of billions of stakeholders.

The Associated Press writes that failing public water systems have forced more and more people in the developing world to buy bottled water from private companies, the kind of privatization that has created a sharp divide among activists and officials gathering in Mexico City for the international water summit. Demonstrators outside the World Water Forum planned to protest privatization and a host of other issues, including dam projects and water extraction from poor Indian communities.

Meanwhile, organizers of the forum, to be attended by 121 nations, have established the goal of improving water access for the poor. Similar past efforts have failed: The poor pay vastly more money to private corporations for their water today than they did when the first global water forum was held in Marrakech, Morocco, in 1997. Outright privatization of water systems has been a hard sell since 2000, when thousands of Bolivians protested rate increases in water contracts held by foreign companies.

Xinhua (China) notes that residents of Mexico City will see marches organized by civil groups, calling for public awareness on the problem of water shortage. A recent UN report "World Water Resource Development" showed that some 1.1 billion of the world's more than 6 billion population are suffering from drinking water shortages, with Africa and the Middle East most affected. Only around one percent of the world's water is drinkable, according to the report. Meanwhile, climate changes, population growth, underinvestment, inadequate protection and uneven water resource distribution have made the situation more complicated.

The New York Times meanwhile writes that Mexico City, the host city of the World Water Forum this year, has only now, in preparation for the conference, the local press engaged in a bout of collective hand-wringing over the city's water worries. The city's response to the shortage is to take its water from elsewhere, namely the pine-forested mountains to the west where a system of pumps and treatment plants carries about a quarter of the city's water 80 miles uphill taking water away from the poorest inhabitants of those mountains. The problems around wastewater are just as bad. A decade-old project to build four wastewater treatment plants is paralyzed by feuding among the city, state and federal governments. The result is that the Valley of Mexico treats less than 10 percent of its wastewater, sending its sewage into rivers that irrigate farmland to the north.

The World Water Forum, which opens Thursday in Mexico City, will make a new attempt to shape global strategy for this vital resource whose erratic distribution and wanton waste allow more than one billion people to go thirsty everyday, reports Agence France Presse.

Some 5,000 delegates and scientists from international groups, governments, and public and nongovernmental organizations will attend this fourth meeting organized by the World Water Council from March 16 to 22. Guidelines for action are expected to be drawn up at a ministerial meeting during the final two days. The forum's battle cry will be decentralizing water management and returning focus to traditional methods that, experts say, often make more "intelligent" and efficient use of water in sync with local supply.

Agriculture, which uses 70 percent of the world's fresh water resources, is likely to come under close scrutiny, notably what experts call a dangerous trend towards draining underground water supplies in unsustainable fashion, and often to produce export crops. Though experts site a host of culprits, including India, China, Brazil and the US, they called Saudi Arabia an extreme case where wheat is grown in the desert in a country that does not consume this crop and where 90 percent of the underground water used for irrigation is lost to evaporation. According to the World Water Council, $20-$30 billion per year are needed to attain the UN goal of halving by 2015 the number of people who do not have access either to potable water or to proper sanitation.

Michel Camdessus, author of a 2003 United Nations report on financing water management insists good water management is key to reducing global poverty, but notes that the message must be spread to governments and international financial institutions. Camdessus, whose 2003 report urged that local communities and groups be allowed to borrow directly from international institutions argued that argued that corruption would be less as "on the local level, it's harder to steal because there is less money and more eyes watching what's going on.”

Canada NewsWire meanwhile notes that the World Bank estimates that 300 million people live in areas of severe water shortage, and six million people die every year of water-related illness worldwide. The disparities in the availability and quality of fresh water are increasingly a matter of life and death and constitute one of the great governance imperatives of present times, the agency argues. The Associated Press and The Seattle Times further write that the host of the conference, Mexico City, would probably flunk in all the five topics to be discussed at the World Water Forum: how water can be harnessed for growth, be provided more efficiently, better benefit the poor, be used environmentally, and be prevented from causing natural disasters. Mexico City's system serves no one very well, the media outlets suggest. But it serves the poor worst. For many, bad water or none at all is just another fact of life.

The city water system isn't bad because it's cheap. Because it's bad, it's terribly expensive. City water pipes are leaky, low-pressure and often dry, so every home must have an underground storage tank, as well as a system to pump the water up to a rooftop storage tank from which to flow down. As the sewer-rivers, the population, and water wastefulness all multiply, the city must spend even more -- about $2 billion over the next five years -- not to fix the system or create separate storm drains, but simply to build larger pipes out of the valley.

As the world hits peak oil production, there is keen interest in finding the next great fuel source. Many hope that hydrogen can be harnessed and that by the end of the 21st century we will all be driving hydrogen-powered cars.

Ironically, that's not the hope of Xianguo Li, a UW professor of mechanical engineering and a hydrogen fuel cell researcher. Though his research is focused on improving hydrogen fuel cells so they could be used in everybody's car, he doesn't want them to be the sole option. Instead, he espouses the notion of diversity. "The second law of thermodynamics, in essence, states that every energy process has an impact," said Li. "Biomass, solar, wind, hydrogen, if any of these took a dominant position in the market they would have major disadvantages."

Li cites London or Paris 100 years ago: everyone used carriages pulled by horses to get around, and that meant there were horse droppings everywhere. At a time of poor sanitation and street infrastructure, that led to a lot of disease, not to mention the smell.

Then, a novel device known as the automobile came along. It ran on oil, which was in vast supply throughout the world, and the only thing it released was a little smoke that vanished into the air. Perfect solution, right? Only a few decades later we learned in a hard way -- like the Los Angeles smog -- that it was not perfect, after all.

Li believes the same would be true if hydrogen dominated the energy market. "Often, in history, we hail a new technology as a major step forward, only to realize its horrible side effects later, and we had to spend tremendous effort to eradicate those effects. It all comes back to the principle that you can't get something for nothing." Instead of one energy source dominating, Li believes the answer is energy diversity and that hydrogen fuel cells can play a large part, such as for automobiles in urban areas.

The mechanical engineering researcher has been working to make fuel cells less expensive, more reliable and more user friendly. "The real world is not kind to cars like labs are, so we have to design better and robust engines that can be easily made and maintained."

One of the ways that the life and reliability of hydrogen fuel cells could be improved is through optimizing how many fuel cells are in operation at any given moment. Not as much power is needed for idling at a red light as for cruising at 100km/h, so Li's research team is developing a technique that can determine how many cells need to be activated.

As hydrogen technology develops and gains acceptance, Li hopes that people will temper the desire to use it everywhere with the knowledge that all energy systems have negative impacts. "If we use any energy on a worldwide scale, there can be lots of problems, but if we use it on a small scale we should be okay."

The United Nations next week launches a new global emergency fund to provide swifter relief to victims of natural disasters, but with far less money on hand than the $500 million it had hoped to raise, reports Reuters.

The Central Emergency Response Fund will have just $188 million when it opens for business, which is nonetheless a significant improvement over an existing UN standby loan facility of $50 million. Donations to the new fund, which will be able to make grants as well as loan money, have come from 19 of the 191 UN member-states.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland asked for the fund after the tsunami, and the General Assembly approved it last December. The idea is to give the world body the ability to quickly send emergency supplies to areas hit by natural disasters and other humanitarian crises, without having to wait for international donors to send checks. The money in the fund would be continually replenished as contributions later poured in for each individual disaster.

Inter Press Service (US) writes that the world's two richest countries, the US and Japan, have yet to commit any money to the upgraded Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). Australia, Italy, and Canada -- traditionally major contributors to disaster assistance -- also have yet to be heard from, according to Britain-based Oxfam International, a major non-governmental promoter of the new fund. In contrast, several poor countries that have recently been on the receiving end of international disaster assistance have come forward with pledges, including Sri Lanka, a major emergency-aid beneficiary after the December 2004 tsunami, as well as Mexico, Grenada and Armenia.

Fifteen European countries have also submitted pledges, although some, such as France's $1.2 million, have fallen short of expectations. The biggest donors to date include Britain, at $70 million; Sweden, $41 million; Norway, $30 million; the Netherlands and Ireland, $12 million; Denmark, $8 million; Finland, $5 million; Luxembourg and Switzerland, $4 million. The proposed fund, which will be officially launched March 9 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, will replace the existing fund of $50 million that could only be drawn down by UN agencies if they could identify how the money would be replenished.

In response to the announcement of the possible discovery of at least 10 different species of old growth trees within the Hanlon Creek Business Park, the City of Guelph already has in place numerous processes to protect environmental features, including trees and natural areas.

When Guelph City Council conditionally approved requests for Draft Plan approval, Zoning Amendments and Official Plan Amendments in February 2005, they recognized the need to balance the importance of the proposal from an economic and employment perspective with the need to place conditions to assess and protect the environmental features of the proposed park.

“Prior to any site development including tree cutting and grading development work, the City requires the developer to prepare and submit for approval a tree inventory and conservation plan to protect trees and natural areas,” said Jim Riddell, Director of Planning and Building Services for the City of Guelph. “The developer must also prepare and Environmental Implementation Report, based on terms of reference approved by the City and the Grand River Conservation Authority.”

“Throughout 2005, the City and developer representatives have met with those groups that have concerns regarding the Hanlon Creek Business Park proposal,” said Peter Cartwright, Director of Economic Development for the City of Guelph. “We are committed to continue to work with the community to address and resolve their issues pertaining to the proposed park.”

In addition to these municipal conditions, this proposal is currently being reviewed by the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). Through this review, the issues raised by the appellants will also be addressed.

The United States and Australia on Thursday pledged a combined $127 million to an Asia-Pacific plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by promoting renewable energy sources and cleaner ways to use coal, reports The Associated Press.

Six of the world's worst polluters signed off on a plan Thursday at the end of the two-day conference of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate to boost investment in clean and renewable energy to slash their greenhouse gas emissions. But environmentalists warned an action plan issued after the inaugural two-day meeting of the six-nation Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate in Sydney was a blueprint for the countries to keep burning coal and oil to power their heavy industries.

The BBC writes that in the closing news conference, Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the Partnership will have an impact on emissions. "The partnership efforts in technology and best practice could lead to partners' emissions being 30 percent less in 2050 than would have otherwise been the case. This, if it is effective, could make a very substantial contribution to mitigating the greenhouse problem."

Downer's figures came from a new report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, launched at the meeting. The report concludes that although Partnership activities may lessen the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, they will not produce a fall. Even if the Partnership succeeds in rolling out low-pollution technologies across member states, it projects a doubling of global emissions by 2050.

Agence France Presse further writes that Australian Prime Minister John Howard said it was unrealistic to expect nations to sacrifice economic growth in order to halt global climate change. Howard told the conference that growth was the only way many nations could reduce poverty levels among their populations. Howard said private enterprise must perform the bulk of the work needed to deal with climate change, reiterating a position that has become a central theme of this week's Asia-Pacific Clean Development and Climate Partnership.

Reuters writes that speaking after the meeting, Indian Environment Minister A. Raja told Reuters on Thursday that India would accept help to reduce emissions but would not be forced into cuts. India has signed the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges about 40 developed countries to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. But India, along with China, is exempt from the mandatory cuts because it is a developing nation. India is mainly dependent on coal for its energy, but has about 15 nuclear power plants and is under pressure to boost energy production to meet a furious pace of industrialization.

In related news, The Washington Post writes that scientists have speculated that rising temperatures and changing weather patterns could endanger the survival of many species, but a new study documents for the first time a direct correlation between global warming and the disappearance of around 65 amphibian species in Central and South America. The findings reported Thursday by a team of Latin American and US scientists who published a study in the journal Nature provide compelling evidence that climate change has already helped wipe out a slew of species and could spur more extinctions and the spread of diseases worldwide. It also helps solve the international mystery of why amphibians around the globe have been vanishing from their usual habitats over the past quarter-century -- as many as 112 species have disappeared since 1980.

Reuters further notes that German scientists have discovered a new source of methane, a greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in its impact on climate change. The culprits are plants. They produce about 10 to 30 percent of the annual methane found in the atmosphere, according to researchers at the Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. The scientists found that the amount of methane increases with rising temperatures and exposure to sunlight. The scientists said their finding is important for understanding the link between global warming and a rise in greenhouse gases.

Separately, Reuters meanwhile writes that the Earth lacks the energy, arable land and water to enable populous and fast-growing China and India to attain Western levels of resource consumption, an environmental think tank said in a report on Wednesday. The Worldwatch Institute said booming China and India, once sleepy backwaters in the world economy, are becoming not only economic powers, but "planetary powers that are shaping the global biosphere" and affecting world economic policies.

The Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate between the US, Australia, Japan, China, South Korea and India meeting this week in Sydney, Australia will also form eight working groups with business and industry to develop clean-energy projects for the fund. Combined, the six countries account for half the world's greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil and their Sydney meeting is the first for their clean-energy partnership.

Green groups said the two-day talks in Sydney were a facade and were aimed at subverting the Kyoto Protocol, which the US and Australia refuse to sign claiming its mandatory greenhouse gas cuts would threaten economic growth. They said that without binding targets, which the Sydney climate pact will not propose, it was doomed to fail.

About 80 executives from global mining and energy firms, including BHP Billiton, Exxon Mobil and Rio Tinto, attended the talks on Wednesday. "We will expect to challenge the private sector to do more... because this matter of greenhouse gas control is one that we all share," US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman told a joint news conference with Australian Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane. Industry leaders leaving the first day's talks backed the creation of a technology fund and taskforces and were optimistic that voluntary targets to tackle climate change would work.

Agence France Presse writes that Macfarlane said if all countries adopted "clean" fossil fuel-burning technology advocated by delegates from the Asia-Pacific Clean Development and Climate Partnership then emissions would be reduced by three times the level envisaged under the UN's Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Attending ministers were expected to use the two-day, closed-door meeting to press corporate giants for billions of dollars in contributions to pollution-reduction programs. American Electric Power President Mike Morris said industry was prepared to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy, adding that his company alone had committed $20 billion to the latest hi-tech power plants.

The Associated Press notes promoting technologies that reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in coal -- with names like gasification, oxy fuel and geosequestration -- grabbed the spotlight at the inaugural two-day meeting of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. On the streets of Sydney, coal has quickly become the whipping boy, with dozens of environmentalist protesters saving their harshest criticism for the industry which they say is a major contributor to global warming. Rather than banish it, coal advocates say it makes more sense to find ways to allow it to be burned more cleanly or to prevent the carbon dioxide produced from coal-fired power plants from reaching the atmosphere. Considered the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, coal is undergoing a resurgence of sorts in part because it is a cheap alternative to oil and gas, especially in China and India.

The Australian meanwhile writes that the world's largest private electricity provider has hailed the Asia Pacific climate summit as the first real opportunity for business to participate in climate change talks. Tokyo Electric Power Company Executive Vice-President Takuya Hattori said he viewed the two-day conference as the start of real action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Japan's Federation of Electric Power Companies Vice-Chairman Teruaki Masumoto, also in Sydney, said Japanese industry viewed the Asia Pacific climate pact as the first real opportunity to address climate change in a practical manner. "Up to the moment, with Kyoto, almost all the discussions have been made by politicians and academics, but this meeting includes business, which is very important," Masumoto said.

Six of the world's top polluters meet in Sydney this week to promote clean energy technology as a way to tackle climate change without sacrificing economic growth, reports Reuters (01/08).

The United States, Japan, China, India, Australia and South Korea will hold the first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate - a pact they say will complement, not rival, the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases. But unlike Kyoto, the six members will not be backing fixed targets for cutting emissions from burning fossil fuels and some analysts expect any resolution to be vague.

Government sources told the news agency that the partnership plans to create a fund to help develop cleaner energy technologies, which Australia would kick start with about $75 million. The partnership will also be counting on private support to develop and deliver technologies such as clean coal and renewable energy and will meet some of the world's top energy companies, including BHP Billiton and ExxonMobil, during the two-day talks.

Critics have branded the partnership, which meets from Wednesday, as simply serving the needs of industrialized nations. According to figures released by the partnership, the six members account for 45 percent of the world's population, 48 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and 48 percent of the world's energy consumption. Analysts and green groups predict clean coal technology, which uses a variety of methods to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases harmful to the atmosphere, will be a key focus of the partnership.

The Associated Press (01/08) notes that environmentalists were skeptical that the meeting would yield any meaningful results. "It's becoming clear that it is really just a trade show," Greenpeace campaigner Danny Kennedy told the news agency. "It's about how big business and bureaucrats can best ensure that the climate change agenda and the politics of confronting ... global warming doesn't derail their profit taking." Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell vehemently rejected the claim, saying the development of cleaner energy depends on collaboration with private industry. "One of the reasons we have some leading industrialists coming to the meeting is that we want to build much, much deeper and wider levels of cooperation between industry (and

governments) within the partnership," Campbell told AP by telephone. He said a strong private sector and continued economic growth in both developed and developing countries was essential to tackling the climate change problem.

Dow Jones (01/08) writes that China and India are exempt from the Kyoto treaty but have indicated they are unlikely to agree to setting mandatory controls on gasses like carbon dioxide and methane. "This signifies that the developing countries have never accepted that targets are something that should work for them," said Alan Oxley, who heads the free-trade think tank Australia APEC Study Centre. "I think (the

partnership) will attract countries that want to demonstrate they are doing something but don't like Kyoto," he said. "It has political appeal. The most important thing about this partnership is that it's an approach which will produce results and gives time to get a better understanding of the science."

The Associated Press (01/09) also suggests that the US-led partnership to combat global warming through cleaner energy technologies is the latest sign that the debate is shifting away from caps on emissions of greenhouse gases and toward voluntary measures, experts said Monday. Washington and Canberra have refused to sign the 1997 Kyoto climate treaty, saying the caps on greenhouse gas emissions it demands would damage their economies.

In contrast, only 1% of Canada's population live in the most rural watersheds.

The study, which was based on data from the Statistics Canada publication Human Activity and the Environment, grouped Canada's watersheds according to the share of residents that were designated "census rural" to profile the rural versus urban population pattern in watersheds across Canada.

Most water bodies within Canada are located in rural areas and the viability of this supply is often viewed as the responsibility of rural citizens. With much of this water consumed by industrial and domestic use within Canada's cities, water supply constitutes an important facet of the interconnectivity of rural and urban areas of Canada.

The study found that one-third of Canada's population live in six very highly urban watersheds. These six watersheds occupy less than 3% of Canada's land area.

Meanwhile, just 6% of the population live in 133 "rural" watersheds covering over half of Canada's land area.

Four out of five rural residents live in a watershed where they are outnumbered by the urban population. An urban-rural dialogue is particularly important for the successful management of the water resources within these watersheds.

The population in very highly urban watersheds increased 45% from 1981 to 2001, representing an increase of over three million individuals. Meanwhile, highly rural watersheds saw an increase of only 4%, representing an increase of a little over 9,000 individuals.

The Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin, Vol. 6, no. 6, entitled "Canada's watersheds: The demographic basis for an urban–rural dialogue" (21-006-XIE, free) is now available online.

MONTREAL, Reuters - Environment ministers agreed on Saturday to a road map to extend the Kyoto Protocol climate pact beyond 2012, breaking two weeks of deadlock at U.N. talks aimed at curbing global warming.

Ministers also agreed to launch new, open-ended world talks on ways to fight climate change that will include Kyoto outsiders such as the United States and developing nations. Washington had long resisted taking part in the talks.

"This is a watershed in the fight against climate change," European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told reporters of the accords after talks that dragged on till nearly dawn. The conference was attended by 10,000 delegates.

"There is still a harsh road in front of us," Dimas said about the long-term drive to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases released by burning fossil fuels and blamed for heating the atmosphere and oceans.

Environment activists cheered, hugged and some even cried after the delegates passed what they hailed as historic decisions to brake catastrophic changes ranging from desertification to rising sea levels.

"There were many potential points at this meeting when the world could have given up due to the tactics of the Bush administration and others but it did not," said Jennifer Morgan, climate change expert at the WWF conservation group.

The United States, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying a fixation on emissions targets would harm economic growth, a view challenged on Friday in Montreal by former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

WATERED DOWN

Washington agreed to join the open-ended dialogue only after Canada and the European Union watered down the text and spelled out that it would not lead to formal negotiations or commitments or the type of emissions caps enshrined in Kyoto.

"The text that was adopted recognizes the diversity of approaches," said U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson.

Washington favors voluntary measures and big investments in technology like hydrogen or carbon storage. Other countries are seeking to engage Washington for the long haul, hoping President George W. Bush's successor will be less skeptical of U.N.-led action on the environment.

The Montreal talks followed a twin track -- one pursuing negotiations to advance Kyoto and the other under the broader U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Convention, Kyoto's parent treaty ratified by Washington.

"We are delighted," said Margaret Beckett, environment secretary for Britain, head of the rotating European Union presidency.

Stephane Dion, Canada's environment minister and chair of the Montreal talks, was relieved. "Finally, we have achieved what many claimed was unattainable," he told delegates at the final session.

"Facing the worst ecological threat to humanity, you have said: the world is united, and together, step by step, we will win this fight," he said.

The Kyoto decision urges rich nations to decide, as early as possible, new commitments for the period starting in 2013 so that there is a seamless transition when the current phase ends in 2012. Beckett said that this would reassure traders in carbon dioxide markets.

Under Kyoto, about 40 industrialized nations have to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

But developing countries, such as China and India, have no targets under Kyoto and say that rich industrial states -- having fueled their economies with coal, oil and gas since the Industrial Revolution -- have to take the lead in cutting emissions.

The agreement on a Kyoto renewal road map gives members seven years to negotiate and ratify accords by the time the first phase ends in 2012. Most countries agree that deeper cuts will be needed to avoid climate chaos in coming decades.

Global warming is widely blamed on a build-up of gases from burning fossil fuels in power plants, cars and factories.

With the talks over, a huge sigh of relief swept through the vast conference hall after a 20-hour session that left delegates exhausted and a little emotional. Some environmentalists said the Montreal talks would have profound consequences for humanity.

"At 6.17 this morning, (Dion) brought down the gavel on a set of agreements that may well save the planet," said Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club of Canada.

Greenhouse:

Protecting the Climate by Putting Development First at a press conference here today during the UN climate talks. Representatives from more than 150 countries are here to determine how to structure the Kyoto Protocol after its first phase ends in 2012. Kyoto requires developed nations to cut their emissions of heat-trapping gases by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2008-2012.

"The climate science clearly tells us that developing-country participation in cutting emissions will be vital to avoiding dangerous climate change," Pershing said. "At the same time, these countries have pressing development needs, and are not yet ready to take on emission caps of the kind adopted by industrialized nations. What we need is a more innovative approach that both promotes development and reduces emissions."

Growing in the Greenhouse, a work involving eleven authors from both developed and developing countries, presents an approach known as Sustainable Development Policies and Measures (SD-PAMs). This focuses on how best to meet the development goals of developing countries, while finding low-emission development choices. The authors flesh out part of the great deal of work that needs to be done to implant SD-PAMs into the international policy framework. Although higher levels of funding will be required for improvements in developing countries, integrating climate into broader development concerns may help increase the effectiveness of both development and climate spending.

SD-PAMs offer the potential to promote economic development while reducing the long- standing tension between industrialized and developing nations surrounding climate- change goals and agreements.

To illustrate the SD-PAMs approach, the report presents four detailed policy studies from major developing countries: Brazil, China, India and South Africa.

Since the 1970s, Brazil has used ethanol from sugarcane as a partial substitute for gasoline. The decision to use ethanol was driven by concerns over oil imports and a desire to support sugar producers. The authors estimate that Brazil has saved $100 billion in external debt by avoided oil import and debt service costs. But the incidental impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been significant: an estimated saving of 574 million tons of CO2 over 30 years, or about 10 percent of the country's total emissions during that period.

"Climate change played no part in Brazil's decision to embrace biofuels," Bradley added. "But the climate has certainly benefited. Our authors suggest that some 20 other countries could benefit from the same strategy, which would further help reduce global emissions. The SD-PAMs approach aims to harness both the development and climate change advantages of such measures."

China's growing transport sector presents a more complex case. In urban areas in particular, the growth in car ownership and use is spectacular and has given rise to rapidly increasing GHG emissions. Although China itself has begun to implement policies, such as improved vehicle-efficiency standards, the sectors involved especially the automobile sector are global in scope. In such a case, concerted international action may prove more effective than a select number of countries acting individually.

In India, 56 percent of the households have no electricity supply, and the problem is growing worse as new connections fail to keep pace with population growth. Based on concerns raised about the grid and diesel technologies, there are significant reasons for India to prefer renewable energy on domestic policy grounds. The authors suggest that making India's electrification goals part of an international climate effort might successfully help to address the country's current high cost of renewable energy technologies.

South Africa, meanwhile, offers an example of the limitations of the SD-PAMs approach. Carbon capture and storage technology has the potential to cut emissions while expanding the public's badly needed access to electricity. It would be possible for donor countries to finance the future capture and storage of South African emissions, but this would mean a step change in the willingness of the international community to pay for climate protection.

While the concept of combining domestic and climate priorities is firmly embedded in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), existing climate agreements have not attempted to systematically foster the integration of climate change and development at the policy level.