miércoles, 10 de diciembre de 2008

Japan sells Icelandic whale meat / Japón vende carne islandesa de ballena

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC news website

Whale meat imported from Iceland and Norway has gone on sale in Japan, according to the Icelandic firm which caught and exported most of the meat.
Hvalur hf told BBC News that after completing food safety checks, the meat was now being distributed.
The consignment is Iceland's first whale export to Japan in 20 years.
The trade is legal because all three countries have registered exemptions to rules banning international trade in whale products.
There were unconfirmed reports last weekend that the meat was on sale, but this is the first official notification.
Some environmental groups fear that Iceland and Norway want to step up whale meat exports to Japan, which is seen as having the biggest potential market.
The present consignment consists of 65 tonnes of fin whale meat caught by Hvalur hf, and five tonnes of minke whale meat exported by the Norwegian company Myklebust Trading.

It arrived in Tokyo in June, received an import permit last month, and has now been given a clean bill of health.
"The meat has now cleared customs in Japan after undergoing very rigorous testing to ensure that it meets every aspect of Japan's food safety regulations," said Hvalur's CEO Kristjan Loftsson.
"We were always confident that this would be the case. It was only a question of time, as Japan is legally obliged to handle whale meat imports in the same way as any other seafood."
Profit warning
Mr Loftsson, whose company is the only one in Iceland equipped to hunt fin whales - the second biggest species - told BBC News that this export was designed to re-introduce fin meat to Japanese palates.
It is considered one of the tastiest varieties, but has largely been absent from the market in recent years, as Japan's own hunts excluded the species until the 2005/6 Antarctic season.
Mr Loftsson said that if the market permitted, he could eventually hunt as many fin whales as Icelandic scientists recommended - provided the government granted a quota, which is likely if there is a proven market.

Although the fin is internationally classified as an endangered species, estimates of the north Atlantic stock run to about 30,000, and Icelandic scientists recently suggested that an annual catch of 200 would not damage the local stock.
But Arni Finnsson of the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (INCA) believes the market may not be as welcoming as the exporters hope.
"I don't believe there will ever be a market in Japan for Icelandic meat that can be profitable," he said.
"If they allow it from Iceland, they have to allow it from Norway, and then you could have thousands of minke whales flooding the market - it's impossible."
He believes the export is a political move designed to show the coalition government - which is divided on the issue - that whaling can be a profitable venture, generating jobs at a time when the country is in dire economic straits.
He also believes Hvalur has an interest in scuppering the "peace progress" within the International Whaling Commission which is exploring whether pro- and anti-whaling countries can find a compromise between their very different positions.
The next meeting in the process takes place next week in Cambridge.
The whale meat trade is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but Iceland, Japan and Norway have all registered reservations, as the treaty permits, exempting themselves from the ban.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

THE LEGALITIES OF WHALING
Under the global moratorium on commercial whaling, hunting is conducted in three ways:
Objection - A country formally objects to the IWC moratorium, declaring itself exempt. Example: Norway
Scientific - A nation issues unilateral 'scientific permits'; any IWC member can do this. Example: Japan
Aboriginal - IWC grants permits to indigenous groups for subsistence food. Example: Alaskan Inupiat

World Bank predicts global gloom / El Banco Mundial predice desaceleración global

The World Bank has forecast a significant decline in global economic growth in 2009 for both developed and emerging countries.
In a report assessing economic prospects, the Bank has predicted that the world's annual economic growth will slow to 0.9%, from 2.5% this year.
The rate of growth for emerging economies is expected to be around 4.5%, down from 7.9% in 2007.
The Bank said a deep global recession could not be ruled out.
And its forecast suggests that, on a per capita basis, world growth would be negative in 2009.
"Following the insolvency of a large number of banks and financial institutions... capital flows to developing countries have dried up and huge amounts of market capitalisation have evaporated," the bank said.
The World Bank has warned that some emerging economies are likely to face serious challenges, including bank failures and currency crises, even if global bail-out plans start restoring confidence in financial markets.
The Bank's chief economist, Justin Lin, said the financial crisis "has eased tensions in commodity markets, but is testing banking systems and threatening job losses around the world".

t also warns that capital flows to developing countries are shrinking fast, reducing the level of investment, while the slowdown in world trade is likely to cut into their export markets.
Regional impacts
Even the fast-growing emerging giants, India and China, are likely to suffer from the slowdown. The World Bank projects China's growth to slow from 11.9% in 2007 to 7.5% in 2009, while India's growth prospects will be cut from 9% to 5.8%.
The impact of falling commodity prices has been positive for around half of developing countries.
In response to the global downturn, the World Bank is increasing its support for developing countries by helping local banks recapitalise and providing aid for infrastructure projects.
Despite the current crisis, the Bank says that the long-term growth prospects for developing countries remain strong, and this will lead to substantial reduction in world poverty rates by 2015, with just 15% of people living on less than $1.25 per day, compared to 25% in 2005.
However, it warns that severe poverty in sub-Saharan Africa will fall less quickly, with 37% still living on $1.25 per day by 2015.

Poor countries 'need carbon cuts' / Paises pobres 'necesitan disminuir sus emisiones de carbono'

By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News, Poznan, Poland

People in developing countries will need to make big cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if "dangerous" climate change is to be avoided, a report warns.
Researchers at the Third World Network calculate that even if rich nations make deep cuts, the developing world will face per-capita reductions of 60%.
It suggests this would pose challenges to these countries' development.
Meanwhile, another report warns that current proposals for cutting developed world emissions do not go far enough.

The Global Climate Network, an alliance of research groups, says that current pledges by the EU and by US President-elect Barack Obama will not put the world on track to halving emissions by 2050.
Both reports have been under discussion here at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Poznan, Poland.
Growth curve
"The figures are very grim," said Martin Khor, director of the Malaysia-based Third World Network.
"They're grim if we go for a 50% [global] cut by 2050, and we may need more - I think we only went for a 50% figure so as not to scare politicians."
Halving global emissions by 2050 (relative to a 1990 baseline) would mean that they are unlikely to rise more than 2.5C above the pre-industrial average, according to calculations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Further IPCC analyses suggest this would avoid some of the most serious potential climate impacts.
The leaders of the G8 major industrialised nations endorsed the global target at their summit this year in Japan.
A number of countries, including the UK, want to keep their own emissions in 2050 80% below the 1990 baseline.

If the entire industrialised world took on this commitment, the Third World Network calculates, developing nations would have to cut their emissions by 23% in order for the world to hit its 50% target.
But because the populations of developing countries are growing, this 23% figure translates to a per-capita cut of 60%.
If the developing world made a more modest commitment, to keep its per-capita emissions constant at 1990 levels, population growth would still mean that the total emissions from these countries would double by 2050, scuppering any chance of a global 50% cut.
Although some developing countries have established plans for improving energy efficiency and curbing the rate at which their emissions are rising, there is no appetite within the bloc for an actual cut, and industrialised nations are not pressing them to take on firm targets.
Without such a commitment, this report suggests, there is little chance of avoiding temperature rises that are likely to bring major impacts, if the IPCC is right.
Cooking up
Ewah Eleri, executive director of the International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development based in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, said there were some obvious easy ways for the poorest developing countries to reduce emissions.
One would be to replace traditional open wood-burning stoves with more efficient models.
"Being able to introduce efficient wood stoves is not rocket science," he told BBC News.
"But it holds a lot of promise in terms of reducing the health hazard to men, women and children who work in the kitchen."
Making the switch across Nigeria could probably reduce the country's emissions by 20-30%.

Globally, he said, about two billion people use wood as their primary fuel; and switching them all to locally-made efficient stoves would cost about $6bn.
Mr Eleri said that although developing countries could do more, the lead has to be taken by the West.
The EU has staked a claim to that lead by vowing to cut its emissions by 20% by 2020, or by 30% if there is a global deal.
Mr Obama has proposed a more modest goal - bringing US emissions down by 2020 to the level they were at in 1990.
The analysis by the Global Climate Network suggests these pledges are not enough to halve global emissions by 2050, even if they are implemented.
There is, it says, a "mitigation gap".
"We have got to unlock emissions growth in developing countries," said the organisation's co-ordinator Andrew Pendleton, who is based at the Institute for Public and Policy Research (IPPR) in London.
"But we have got to find an equitable way of doing that."
The clear message from putting these two reports together was, he said, that richer nations will have to get finance and clean technology into the developing world if they want to turn the goal of a 50% cut into reality.rii