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eco-business.com will on occasion have guest writers contributing from policymakers, industry and society. If you would like to get contact details of specific guest writers, email news@eco-business.com

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Eco Business articles by Guest Writer

Food figures need a pinch of salt, by Isobel Tomlinson

The idea that the world needs to double its food production by 2050 in order to feed a growing population is wrong, says Isobel Tomlinson from the Soil Association.

28 August 2010
Climate change

A dark ideology is driving those who deny climate change, by Robin McKie

August 1 - Life can be hard in Moscow. The Russian capital is sweltering in temperatures that reached a record 37.7C last week. Vast stretches of peat bog surrounding the city have dried out and caught fire covering Moscow with choking smog. The changing of the horse guard in Cathedral Square was cancelled as sentries wilted in traditional woollen uniforms. Elsewhere, more than 2,000 Russians – many drunk – drowned trying to cool off in lakes and rivers and at least 10 million hectares of crops have been ruined. States of emergency have been declared in 23 regions.

3 August 2010
Climate change

Rethinking the Measure of Growth, by Wayne Arnold

Singapore, July 18 - Almost overlooked amid BP’s debacle in the Gulf of Mexico was an oil spill in the Singapore Strait, where in late May two tankers collided and disgorged the equivalent of 18,000 barrels of oil into one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

19 July 2010
Business

Renewable energy, at what price? by Tilak Doshi

CAN renewable energy significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions? More importantly, can it be done at a reasonable cost, within the boundaries of the politically feasible?

7 July 2010
Business

Put a price on the carbon culprit, by Warren Fernandez

Singapore, July 5 - By the time your copy of The Straits Times lands on your doorstep tomorrow morning, another 120,000 people will have joined the millions already inhabiting the world’s burgeoning cities. In line with this, poverty is being urbanised, with more and more of the world’s poor inhabiting slums on the fringes of cities.

6 July 2010
Business

Trading anti-pollution controls for low cost

Indonesian power utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara’s (PLN) 10,000MW coal-fired First Crash Programme will finally be completed in 2012. John McBeth examines the back story and explains that somewhere down the road, PLN will find itself saddled with inevitable breakdowns and a heavy maintenance bill.

19 June 2010
Energy

Yudhoyono needs to walk the green talk

While Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is known for his impassioned speeches in support of the environment at international forums, conservationists have questioned the extent to which he regards environmental issues as a priority. Bruce Gale looks at the issues.

18 June 2010
Government

Energy planning in a changing environment

Jakarta, June 14 - Hanan Nugroho examines Indonesia’s regulatory reforms and energy planning through the years, and underscores the need for high quality energy planning and good coordination among actors and stakeholders in its implementation, so as to deliver high quality results.

15 June 2010
Energy

Labor needs a practical, not a moral approach to climate change

Now may seem a strange time for progressives to talk about renewing the climate change debate. With Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s abandonment of Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation, climate change has ceased to be an urgent political concern.

14 June 2010
Climate change

The imperative for urban sustainability

National Environment Agency’s Director of the Centre for Liveable Cities Andrew Tan explains that Singapore has a unique rold to play in the development of sustainable cities, and with urbanisation is the new reality for the world’s increasing population, effective leadership, good governance and integrated solutions will ensure a sustainable way forward.

14 June 2010
Green Economy

Biodiversity protection can help tackle climate change and poverty

Why can’t prevention of global warming and preservation of biodiversity go hand-in-hand? Won’t solutions to global warming and biodiversity loss conflict with the development needs of developing countries? Pavan Sukhdev addresses these questions and how saving species can be more powerful than climate change.

10 June 2010
Climate change

Ensuring Redd is not mere pulp fiction, by Michael Richardson

RECENT developments in curbing high levels of forest loss around the world are promising. They are significant because deforestation, including the clearing of trees from peat swamps in South-east Asia, is the biggest source of global warming emissions from human activity, after fossil fuel burning.

7 June 2010
Climate change

Nuclear: Rethinking for a new generation, by Dickson Yeo, Valerie Choy, and Michael Quah

THE possibility of using nuclear energy here and elsewhere in the region has generated debate, with many raising the specter of nuclear catastrophe. Perhaps it is time to demystify nuclear technology so it can be considered objectively.

1 June 2010
Climate change

Our Energy Future Demands Action Today, by Valerie Choy and Catrina Yeo

Imagine flicking on a light switch and the light does not come on. No gas emits from the gas stove when it is switched on. Transportation systems come to a halt as fuel supplies are restricted.

10 May 2010
Business

Climate change campaigners must learn some lessons, says Guy Pearse

Guy Pearse is a research fellow at the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.

2 May 2010
Business

How green is your technology? asks Nigel Kendall

Attempts by corporate giants to prove their green credentials are often met with suspicion — usually with good reason. At a recent UK press event, representatives of the Japanese electronics giant Toshiba spent 30 minutes regaling journalists with new technologies — from batteries to products with better power consumption, new lightbulbs and toxin-free laptops — in a bid to emphasise their eco-friendliness.

1 April 2010
Business

Rethinking the population conundrum, by John Gee

THERE is a secret that hides in plain view, but goes unrecognised. It is that a lot of Singaporeans want to have all the conveniences of the city, but to live in the country. Those who market property know. Most advertisements in the print media and on television show new apartment blocks with trees around them.

27 March 2010
Climate change

Cap-and-trade's last hurrah, by The Economist

IN THE 1990s cap-and-trade — the idea of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by auctioning off a set number of pollution permits, which could then be traded in a market—was the darling of the green policy circuit.

18 March 2010
Business

The race to exploit the polar regions, by Michael Richardson

BRITAIN’S Cairn Energy is about to begin a risky but potentially lucrative search for oil and natural gas in waters off the coast of Greenland, where the rapid melting of ice from global warming is expanding opportunities for international commerce.

8 March 2010
Business

S'pore firm in emissions breakthrough seen as too good to be true, by David Hughes

Singapore, 3 March - I HAVE been a shipping journalist for over 20 years now but I am sure I have never come across a story like the one about Singapore-based Ecospec Global Technology’s CSNOx gas abatement system.

3 March 2010
Business

The North-South divide and tackling global warming, by Helena Norberg-Hodge

28 February - As signs of climate instability increase, radical and rapid action is becoming ever more urgent. One of the biggest obstacles to global collaboration, however, has been the foot-dragging and obstructionism of the US government, much of it based on the fear of giving Southern economies a ‘competitive advantage’ if they are permitted to emit greenhouse gases at higher rates than the North.

2 March 2010
Business

Nuclear energy: The options for Singapore by Michael Richardson

IF SINGAPORE is to go nuclear, how could it prepare for such a big change in meeting national energy needs, particularly for electricity? And what kind of reactors might be best for the small island-state?

1 March 2010
Business

Go to plan B to limit costs of climate paralysis, says The Age

Melbourne, 22 February - Issues of climate change and sustainability have been reduced to a political contest between two bulls in a paddock. Labor took its 2007 election mandate and, with little consultation with other parties on a policy for future decades, adopted a ”take it or leave it” approach to the complexities of emissions trading, daring the Coalition to risk another election on the issue. The opposition aims to make the election about Kevin Rudd’s ”big new tax”.

22 February 2010
Climate change

The Muslim World and Climate Change, by Murad Qureshi

Speaking at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic States in Istanbul in November, Bangladeshi President Zillur Rahman called on the Organization of the Islamic Conference to take a lead in combating climate change and to support countries like Bangladesh that are fighting global warming even though they contribute little to its cause.

17 February 2010
Climate change

Don’t put climate science on ice, says UNEP executive director Achim Steiner

THE science of climate change has been on the defensive in recent weeks, owing to an error that dramatically overstated the rate at which the Himalayan glaciers could disappear. Some in the media, and those who are sceptical about climate change, are currently having a field day, parsing every comma in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 assessment.

12 February 2010
Climate change

Nuclear power: Time for a feasibility study, says Dr Elspeth Thomson, Energy Studies Institute

by Elspeth Thomson

Singapore’s Economic Strategies Committee in its recently released report, Ensuring Energy Resilience And Sustainable Growth, recommended that Singapore study the feasibility of nuclear energy and develop expertise in nuclear energy technologies.

10 February 2010
Climate change

Thoughts on Singapore's new energy future, by Dr Michael Quah, Energy Studies Institute

As an American migrant worker, recently stationed in Singapore, I am both puzzled and fascinated by the high-wire balancing act executed recently by Singapore’s Economic Strategies Committee.

Why the puzzlement? In the US, where I have lived for almost four decades, technology policy is often heavily influenced by lobbyists and special interest groups, and once policy is set, somewhat asks “Gosh! Did the policy violate laws for science?”

8 February 2010
Energy

Most important implication of Copenhagen for business is risk management, says Insead professor Paul Kleindorfer

The Copenhagen Climate Summit (COP 15) began on December 7, 2009, on the heels of the pirating of the East Anglia University Climatic Research Unit’s email exchanges, and calls of climate sceptics to re-examine the scientific basis for undertaking actions to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions originating from human activity.

2 February 2010
Business

The red light against green trade wars, by Simon Tay

TWO failures in multilateral cooperation are developing into a third, more severe danger.

27 January 2010
Business

COP 15 - Review and analysis

Before COP15 there was widespread optimism that even if the outcome was not legally-binding, it would include strong positives for the 100 or so developing nations that have done least to cause climate change and are most at risk – the Least Developed Countries, Small Island Developing States and most of Africa.

22 January 2010
Climate change

Break the climate deadlock, says Tony Blair

By Tony Blair, former British prime minister, campaigner for The Climate Group

My simple message today is this: there can be a deal at Copenhagen. There should be a deal. It will not be all that everyone wants. But it was never going to be.

14 December 2009
Climate change

Deal at Cop15 now within our reach, says Ed Milliband UK secretary of state for energy and climate change

by Ed Miliband, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

14 December 2009
Climate change

Let’s get going on energy and the environment, by Shell CEO Peter Voser

Let’s get going on energy and the environment, says Shell chief executive Peter Voser.

11 December 2009
Business

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