International Rivers: July 2010

Friday, July 30, 2010

Towards a renewable Egypt

(Note on an error in this piece: Europe gets just 20% of its power
from hydro, not 60% as author states; that electricity is
"endangered" because of glaciers melting from climate change (see for
example http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2009/world/melting-glaciers-changing-europe%E2%80%99s-energy-outlook/)

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1009/ec1.htm

Towards a renewable Egypt
Nader Noureddin* examines Egypt's renewable energy potentials and
options
Clean and renewable energy technologies are an answer to environmental
pollution, energy security requirements, and negative health impacts
of current energy sources. Clean and renewable energies include
hydropower, wind, solar power and biomass, which include biofuels and
agrofuels. Hydropower is the largest source of renewable electricity
in Europe, supplying 60 per cent of Europe's total renewable energy
compared with only 10 per cent in Egypt. Wind power has been the
fastest growing European and global renewable energy.

One of the major reasons for the growth in wind power use is that it
is currently the lowest cost renewable energy source. Onshore wind
power, at prime locations, can cost as little as 0.065 Euro per
kilowatt-hour (kwh) whilst the lowest offshore costs are 0.09 Euros
per kwh. Biomass simply means biological material. So energy from
biomass means obtaining heat, light or power from biological sources
such as food crops, timber, straw, vegetable oil, animal manure or
energy crops. The use of biomass to produce energy is the oldest
renewable energy; firewood has been used for cooking and heating for
millennia, and its use still supplies much energy around the world.

Biomass can be processed into liquids for use in combustion, and these
liquids are often referred to as biofuel. At the moment, the main
sources of biomass for liquid fuel production are food crops. Oil
crops such as soybean, oilseed rape, oil palm and sunflower are used
to produce bio-diesel, which can be used as a replacement for diesel.
Crops such as sugar cane, sugar beet, maize, wheat and barley are used
to make ethanol, which can be used as a replacement for gasoline.
Ethanol production in 2009 represented about six per cent of the 1300
billion litres of gasoline consumed globally.

Recently the term "agro-fuels" has come into use to describe bio-fuels
produced from large-scale, intensive or industrial production.
Cellulosic ethanol, which is produced from plant residues, is slated
to replace more than five per cent of US gasoline consumption by 2030
according to the US Department of Energy.

Photovoltaic solar and concentrating solar power is the most promising
electricity source by 2050. The electricity supply system of North
Africa and Europe in 2050 will be 100 per cent renewable, following a
continuous and steady transformation of the power system in parallel
with sustained growth demand. The grids of North Africa and Europe are
strongly interconnected. This has been achieved through the
reinforcement of the high voltage alternating current grid, a pan-
European cross Mediterranean overlay of high voltage direct current.

Biofuel sales, global production and wholesale pricing of ethanol and
biodiesel, reached $44.9 billion in 2009 and are projected to grow to
$112.5 billion by 2019. In 2009, the bio-fuels market consisted of
more than 23.6 billion gallons of ethanol and bio-diesel production
worldwide ( Clean Energy Trends 2010 ).

Wind power's new installation capital costs are projected to expand
from $63.5 billion in 2009 to $114.5 billion in 2019. Last year,
global wind power installations reached a record 37,500 Mega Watt (MW).

China, the global leader in new wind installations, accounted for more
than a third of new installations, or 13,000 MW. Solar power will grow
from a $30.7 billion industry in 2009 to $98.9 billion by 2019. The
total of clean energy (bio-fuel, wind and solar) reached $124.8
billion in 2008, grew 11 per cent to $139.1 billion in 2009, and is
projected to grow to $325.9 billion in 2019.

Egypt could produce electricity from solar power collected from the
western and eastern deserts, which is considered one of the five
highest solar areas in the world, and at the same time desalinise
Mediterranean and Red Sea water to get an appreciable amount of fresh
water for sustainable development.

Renewable energy is the only choice for the future of energy in Egypt
and the world.

* The writer is professor of soil and water sciences at the Faculty of
Agriculture, Cairo University.

ï¿½ Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
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Thursday, July 29, 2010

Thailand Faces Flak for Backing Mekong Dams

SOUTH-EAST ASIA
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52314
Thailand Faces Flak for Backing Mekong Dams
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jul 29, 2010 (IPS) - Northern Thai villagers living on Mekong River’s banks are poised to join a growing tide of opposition against a planned cascade of 11 dams to be built on the mainstream of South-east Asia’s largest body of water.

These communities, many of them from the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai, are drafting a petition to be submitted in the coming weeks to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. They see this step as the first in a long battle to protect a riverine culture and livelihood that has come down generations.

The target of the Thai villagers’ ire is the Sayaboury dam, to be built across a part of the Mekong that flows through neighbouring Laos. In opposing it, they are coming up against powerful Thai interests behind this dam project.

The 1,260-megawatt Sayaboury dam is the one in the most advanced planning stage among the 11 dams, followed by the 360-mw Don Sahong dam, which is also in Laos, where nine of the lower Mekong dams are to be built. Two other dams on the river’s mainstream are planned in Cambodia.

The backers of the Sayaboury dam include a Thai-based dam developer, four Thai commercial banks that are reported to have pledged funds for the dam and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), a state utility that signed an agreement in Laos in June to buy power once the new dam’s turbines come to life.

"The local communities are upset at the direct involvement of Thailand in a dam that could permanently damage their livelihood," said Pianporn Deetes, coordinator of Save the Mekong Coalition, a Bangkok-based network of environmentalist and grassroots activists. "Their fishing livelihood will be affected, because the dams across the Mekong’s mainstream will damage fish migration patterns for spawning."

The petition will challenge the Abhisit government to reveal its position on this dam and to explain if it consulted locals, Pianporn told IPS. "Local communities have no faith in fish ladders being built at the dam site to help fish migration. They know how such technology failed with the Pak Mun dam in Thailand."

For now, history is on the side of the villagers, since the mainstream of the lower Mekong, which is shared by Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, has been free of massive hydropower barriers. The only dams that cut across the river – and have enraged the 60 million people in the lower Mekong – are three large ones in its upper reaches that flow through China.

Thus, the Sayaboury dam has emerged as a benchmark to gauge which of the competing interests will prevail in the still unresolved debate about the 11 mainstream dams and their impact on local communities and the environment.

Beyond these, activists say the dam will condemn to extinction a much-storied icon of the river – the Mekong giant catfish.

"The Mekong giant catfish is a critically endangered species that will not survive if it cannot migrate through the Sayaboury dam," said the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in describing a "critical spawning area" close to the dam site near Chiang Rai and the Lao province of Bokeo.

"This area is one of the last places in the world where the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish is found spawning in the wild," the WWF added in a report it released this week, ‘River of Giants: Giant Fish of the Mekong’.

The last time a Mekong giant catfish was sighted was in May 2009, near a section of the river that flows through the northern Thai district of Chiang Khong, says Trang Dang, WWF’s Mekong River ecoregion coordinator, in describing a fish that tips the scale at 350 kilogrammes.

These fish, whose numbers have dwindled by up to 95 percent over the past century, journey upriver from the Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia to spawning areas near Chiang Rai once the monsoons begin in May, covering distances of nearly 1,000 km at times.

The giant catfish is one of four large freshwater fish that inhabit the Mekong, the other three being the giant barb, the dog-eating catfish and the largest of them all, the giant freshwater stingray, which measures half the length of a bus and weighs 600 kg. "The world’s biggest freshwater fish and four out of the top 10 giant freshwater fish species can be found in the Mekong River," noted the WWF study. "More giants inhabit this mighty river than any other on earth."

But for now, the Thai villagers and environmentalists may be able to take heart from a comment by a Lao official. "We have studied so many planned dam construction projects, but there has been no decision to build any so far. The two dam projects in Sayaboury and southern Laos near the Cambodian border have been studied," Lao Minister of Energy and Mines Soulivong Daravong was quoted by media reports as saying in July.

But while the construction of the Sayaboury dam remains uncertain, what is clear is the growing role of the private sector in dam development, replacing institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank that used to lead such investments.

This shift presents new challenges to activists bent on protecting the Mekong River, which begins its 4,880-km journey from the Tibetan plateau, through southern China, and then Burma, before coursing into the Mekong basin, and emptying out into the South China Sea in southern Vietnam.

"When hydropower development becomes private sector led, where profit is the main motive, it leads to hydro chaos," said Carl Middleton, Mekong programme coordinator of the U.S.-based environmental watchdog International Rivers. "Each developer is trying to develop their own project to generate the cheapest electricity."

"It is not an integrated approach, balancing the needs of Laos and addressing environmental and social concerns," he added. (END)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

UN declares access to clean water a human right

General Assembly declares access to clean water and sanitation is a
human right

UN News Service, 28 July 2010 - Safe and clean drinking water and
sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and
all other human rights, the General Assembly declared today, voicing
deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access
to clean water.

The 192-member Assembly also called on United Nations Member States and
international organizations to offer funding, technology and other
resources to help poorer countries scale up their efforts to provide
clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for everyone.

The Assembly resolution received 122 votes in favour and zero votes
against, while 41 countries abstained from voting.

The text of the resolution expresses deep concern that an estimated 884
million people lack access to safe drinking water and a total of more
than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. Studies
also indicate about 1.5 million children under the age of five die each
year and 443 million school days are lost because of water- and
sanitation-related diseases.

Today's resolution also welcomes the UN Human Rights Council's request
that Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN Independent Expert on the issue of
human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and
sanitation, report annually to the General Assembly as well.

Ms. de Albuquerque's report will focus on the principal challenges to
achieving the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, as
well as on progress towards the relevant Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs).

The MDGs, a series of targets for reducing social and economic ills, all
by 2015, includes the goals of halving the proportion of people who
cannot reach or afford safe drinking water and halving the number who do
not have basic sanitation.

In a related development, Ms. de Albuquerque issued a statement today
after wrapping up a nine-day official visit to Japan in which she
praised the country for its nearly universal access to water and
sanitation and for its use of innovative technologies to promote hygiene
and treat wastewater.

But the Independent Expert said she was shocked that some members of the
Utoro community near Kyoto, where Koreans have been living for several
generations, still do not have access to water from the public network.

"People are also not connected to the sewage network, despite the fact
that the surrounding area is largely covered by sewage service," she
said. "When floods occur, as happened one year ago, the lack of sewage
and proper evacuation of grey water result in contamination of the
environment, including with human faeces, posing serious health concerns.

"I am also worried that water and sanitation are extremely expensive for
some people living in Utoro, who reportedly do not have a right to
receive a pension."
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Dams pose threat to giant catfish [Bangkok Post 28/07/2010]

Dams pose threat to giant catfish

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/188177/dams-pose-threat-to-giant-catfish

Giant catfish in the Mekong River will be driven to extinction if plans for hydroelectric dams go ahead, a report by the World Wildlife Fund says.

The report, "River of Giants: Giant Fish of the Mekong", profiles four giant fish living in the Mekong that rank among the world's 10 largest freshwater fish.

At half the length of a bus and weighing up to 600kg, the Mekong River's giant freshwater stingray is the largest freshwater fish in the world. The critically endangered and culturally fabled Mekong giant catfish ranks third at up to three metres in length and weighing 350kg.

"A fish the size of a Mekong giant catfish simply will not be able to swim across a large barrier like a dam to reach its spawning grounds upstream," said Roger Mollot, freshwater biologist for WWF Laos. "This would lead to the collapse of the wild population of this iconic species."

Scientists say the Mekong giant catfish migrate from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia up the Mekong River to spawn in northern Thailand and Laos. It is believed dams built on the lower Mekong will block the migration route.

Those objecting to the projects say the hydropower dam planned for the Mekong in Sayaboury province, northern Laos, is a threat to the survival of the wild population of Mekong giant catfish.

The Sayaboury dam is the first dam on the lower Mekong mainstream to enter a critical stage of assessment before member countries of the Mekong River Commission advise on whether to approve its construction.

"More giant fish live in the Mekong than any other river on Earth," said Dang Thuy Trang, Mekong River eco-region coordinator for the WWF Greater Mekong Programme.

"Currently, the lower Mekong remains free-flowing, which presents a rare opportunity for the conservation of these species. But the clock is ticking."

Other Mekong giant fish featured in the report are the dog-eating catfish, named because it has been caught using dog meat as bait, and the giant barb, the national fish of Cambodia. At 300kg, these tie for fifth place on the global top 10 for freshwater fish.

The impact of lower Mekong River mainstream dams is not restricted to these Mekong giants. They would also exacerbate the impact of climate change on the Mekong River Delta, one of the world's most productive regions for fisheries and agriculture.

Building the Sayaboury dam would reduce sediment flowing downstream to the Mekong River Delta, increasing the vulnerability of this area to the impact of climate change such as sea level rise.

The WWF supports a delay in the approval of the mainstream dams, including the Sayaboury dam, to ensure a comprehensive understanding of all the positive and negative impacts of their construction and operation.

Download the report here: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/new_river_of_giants_report_14_may_2010_web_version.pdf

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

World's biggest fish threatened by dams, WWF says

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38435722/ns/world_news-world_environment/

10-feet-long catfish threatened by dams, WWF says
Giant stingrays and barbs also cited in report on Asia's Mekong River

Four of the world's 10 largest freshwater fish species ï¿½ including a
catfish that can reach 10 feet long ï¿½ are threatened with extinction
if hydropower dams planned on Asia's Mekong River go ahead, the World
Wildlife Fund warned in a report Tuesday.

Of particular concern is the Mekong giant catfish, which is already
listed as critically endangered.

"A fish the size of a Mekong giant catfish cannot swim across a large
barrier (like a dam) ... to reach its spawning grounds upstream,"
Dekila Chungyalpa, WWF's Greater Mekong Program director, said in a
statement. Such dams, he said, "will lead to the collapse of the wild
population of this iconic species."

The catfish are thought to migrate from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia
up the Mekong River to spawn in northern Thailand and Laos, WWF said.

The three other freshwater fish species profiled in the WWF report are:

* The Mekong giant stingray, which can be as long as half a bus.
Fishermen have claimed to have seen stingrays that weigh more than
1,100 pounds, but none that large has ever been caught;
* The so-called dog-eating catfish, given that nickname by
fishermen who have caught it using dog meat as bait; and
* The giant barb, Cambodia's national fish.

At over 600 pounds, the dog-eating catfish and the giant barb, which
is part of the carp family, tie for fifth place on the global top ten,
WWF said.

Dams would also reduce sediment flowing to the Mekong River Delta,
increasing the delta's vulnerability to sea level rise, WWF added.

"The Lower Mekong is currently free-flowing but the clock is ticking,"
Chungyalpa said. "We have a rare opportunity to conserve these
freshwater giants and ensure the livelihoods of millions of people who
live along the Mekong mainstream."

The Mekong originates in the Tibetan Plateau and flows to southeast
Asia through Yunnan, China. It is the lifeblood for 65 million people
in six countries ï¿½ Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam.
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SA: Eskom Finally Opens Up to Independent Power

http://allafrica.com/stories/201007270530.html

BusinessDay

South Africa: Eskom Finally Opens Up to Independent Power
27 July 2010

Johannesburg ï¿½ IF YOU'RE looking for a tangible example of how SA's
poor infrastructure constrains economic growth and exports, just ask
Xs near Polokwane, three years ago and it had planned the second phase
for 2013-14. But it has had to put the R5bn Lion 2 (and Lion 3) on
hold because Eskom could not guarantee power supply.
SA has nearly three-quarters of the world's chrome reserves and
ferrochrome is a big export earner. But ferrochrome smelters are
energy-intensive facilities; there is no point building them if there
is any doubt about the security of their power supply. And with SA
going into a period in which Eskom will be extremely stretched to meet
demand, many mining companies are looking twice at new investments.

As it happens, Xs trata is also in the coal business, and is keen to
generate its own power, using its own discarded coal. It could
generate more than enough megawatts to meet the additional demand from
all three Lion phases. And it could build a cost-effective new power
station and connect it to the Eskom grid within two or three years.

Anglo American is looking to do much the same kind of "own
generation", and between them the two mining companies could generate
up to 600MW of power for their own use. Not that anyone would know
whether the electrons their smelters were using were the same ones
their power stations were producing - in practice they would be
selling power into the Eskom grid and buying it back again, with Eskom
charging them a "wheeling tariff" to transport it.

What that tariff should be, and who should determine it, is as yet
unclear. And though these "own generation" projects sound like no-
brainers, the fact that they are coal-based, with implications for
SA's carbon emissions, complicates matters because it touches on
bigger policy debates. So too do big base-load private projects, such
as (coal-fired) Mmabula in Botswana and (gas-fired) Moambo in
Mozambique, which are still uncertain.

But these are among at least four types of private power that SA could
draw on. And after years of much talk but no action, some progress is
now being made to bring at least two types of private generation to
the market - co-generation, where companies generate power from the
waste products of their processes, and renewable energy. Sasol is one
of the companies with which Eskom has now signed a power purchase
agreement; its project is somewhere between "own gen" and "co-gen"-
the company will use its own waste gas to produce power for its own
needs.

Eskom has also reached agreements with independent power producer Ipsa
and with one Sappi project and is waiting for confirmation from the
National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa). Altogether it hopes to close
six deals to generate a total of more than 400MW by March next year.
There is potential for double or triple that.

Then there are the renewables, particularly wind and solar power. The
"Refit" tariff that Nersa set has made investment in renewable energy
so attractive that Eskom has been swamped with applications - more
than 11000MW worth - from potential producers wanting to connect to
the Eskom grid. The question is how many of those are serious
projects. Eskom's Kannan Lakmeeharan reckons Eskom could sign up at
least 1000MW of renewables within the next three years. But there is
potential for up to 6000MW of wind and 500MW of solar.

It's not just that much of this independent power is "green"; it's
also that many of these projects can be built fairly fast, so may help
address the power crunch of the next few years if they are signed up
soon. Perhaps most important is that Eskom doesn't have to fund or to
build them - they draw on sources of finance, and skills, outside of
those that a cash-strapped Eskom can tap into.

And whether from desire or necessity, Eskom is now finally showing
willingness to sign up independent power producers (IPPs). After years
in which it expressed support for IPPs in theory but seemed highly
reluctant in practice, it has suddenly done quite a lot in just six
months. The interministerial process on energy that the Cabinet set up
has helped and there is now closer collaboration between business,
government and Eskom.

But it's not up to Eskom. These are policy decisions and there is
still friction within the government over energy policy. Perhaps the
most immediate issue is who will buy the power from these independent
producers. The government is committed to setting up an independent
system and market operator (Ismo) that will buy power from Eskom and
from private producers. But there's no clarity within the government
as to what this means and it could take years to set up.
Eskom, meanwhile, is going ahead and doing deals with producers. And,
as it revealed at a workshop last week, it has moved to avoid
perceived conflicts of interest by "ring-fencing" the revenues it will
receive from private producers and putting governance structures in
place to make the process transparent and equitable. In essence, it
has moved to circumvent the Ismo debate - at least for now. The
question is whether the government will allow it to do that. If it
doesn't, the quest to bring private producers into the market could be
slowed yet again.

Joffe is senior associate editor.
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China seen quickening hydropower approvals

China seen quickening hydropower approvals - media

BEIJING | Tue Jul 27, 2010

BEIJING (Reuters) - China is likely to expedite approving hydropower
projects from the second half of this year, or face missing its
ambitious renewable energy target after cutbacks in the past five years,
local media said.

Huaneng and Huadian -- parents of Huaneng Power International and
Huadian Power -- have won environmental clearance for the dams they were
told last year to halt, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on
Tuesday.

China has set a goal to utilize renewables to supply 15 percent of its
primary energy demand by 2020, and two-thirds of it will come from
hydropower, according to a plan mapped out by the National Energy
Administration, the paper said.

Under the plan, China, the world's No.2 energy consumer and the top
emitter of carbon dioxide, will need to have installed a total of 380
gigawatts of hydropower capacity by then, or nearly double the current
capacity.

"It seems the central government's attitude toward hydropower has warmed
again. It's expected to speed up approving projects from the second half
of the year and in the next five years," an official with China Society
for Hydropower Engineering was quoted as saying.

Hydropowr is one crucial element in achieving China's target to cut
carbon dioxide emissions by 40-45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level.

Last week, Beijing gave the final greenlight to two hydropower projects
-- Jin'anqiao in Yunnan and Zangmushui in Tibet -- the first such
approvals in more than two years, the paper said.

Tougher environmental rules, massive burdens of migrant relocation as
well as the devastating earthquake in 2008 also contributed to curb
development of the hugely expensive projects that take 6-8 years to build.

At present, China has 197 GW of hydropower generation capacity, roughly
23 percent of the country's total. Coal fires about three quarters of
China's total electricity.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
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Credit where it's due

Credit where it's due
Adina Matisoff
China Dialogue
July 27, 2010
www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/3742-Credit-where-it-s-due-2

China's commercial banks are making strides in domestic green finance but
failing to show the same commitment abroad. In the conclusion of her
article on sustainable credit, Adina Matisoff calls for new standards.

In the three years since the Chinese government introduced the Green
Credit Policy, progress has been made in sustainable finance on China's
home front. While green finance is gaining traction domestically, however,
there are no such policies governing the investments of Chinese commercial
banks beyond the nation's borders. This is the time, as China's financial
powerhouses are increasing their overseas transactions and grappling with
the associated environmental and social risks, to institute such policies.

Up to now, Chinese commercial banks have not played an influential role in
financing Chinese business activities abroad. Instead, Chinese policy
banks have filled this financing space, often with deals arranged at the
highest political level. For example, China Export-Import (Exim) Bank
recently loaned the government of Ecuador US$1.68 billion (11.38 billion
yuan) to finance Sinohydro's construction of the Coco-Coda Sinclair
hydropower dam, and China Development Bank provided a US$30 billion (203
billion yuan) line of credit to China National Petroleum Corporation for
the oil giant's global expansion.

However, not all overseas investments are on such a large-scale or so
complex. In cases where the Chinese government is not directly involved,
Chinese commercial banks such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
(ICBC), China Construction Bank or Bank of China are increasingly willing
to step in, and hence better compete with their international peers. "We
are no HSBC or Citi," says Xiao Shaolin, head of China Construction Bank
(London), "But we are following our clients as they go global."

This is especially true in services such as financing the outward mergers
& acquisitions (M&A) of Chinese companies, where the input of commercial
banks is making possible more deals like China's Minmetals' purchase of a
US$1.2 billion stake in Australia's OZ Minerals in 2009. In late 2008, the
government introduced regulations allowing China's commercial banks to
help Chinese firms acquire companies abroad. Since then, such deals have
seen a boost. According to Cai Ersheng, a vice-chairman at the China
Banking Regulatory Commission, Chinese commercial banks loaned Chinese
companies US$400 million (2.7 billion yuan) in the first five months the
government allowed them to carry out such transactions. According to
financial analysts in Beijing, this helped outward M&A deals account for
close to 25% of all M&A activity in the first three quarters of 2009,
compared with just 8.5% in 2007. But, says Cai, "Improving risk management
remains a key challenge for the healthy development of merger and
acquisition loans."

Despite domestic progress, the three top banks mentioned above and other
Chinese commercial banks do not yet have policies to address the
environmental and social risks of their overseas investments. In contrast,
China Exim Bank's "Guidelines for Environmental and Social impact
Assessments of the China Export Import Bank's (China Exim Bank) Loan
Projects" provides a basic synopsis of how environmental and social issues
are taken into consideration by the institution and how concerns are
addressed. It highlights that host country laws must be followed, impact
assessments must be conducted and that the bank has the right to
investigate environmental concerns at any point during the lending cycle
and call in loans on environmental grounds if need be.

The policy's eight paragraphs pertaining to overseas investments are far
from comprehensive, but have shown potential to deter environmental and
social risks abroad. In 2008 China Exim Bank was considering financing
the China National Machinery Export-Import Company to build the Belinga
Iron Ore Mine in Gabon. This project was a favorite of Gabon's late
president, Omar Bongo, but part of the project was to be built (illegally)
in Ivindo National Park, which, according to Marc Ona of the Gabonese
environmental organisation Brainforest, is home to "the most spectacular
waterfalls in Central Africa… [that] have become the symbol of nature
conservation in Gabon."

When presented with information about this project's violations of
Gabonese laws and negative impacts on the environment and local
communities depending on its natural resources, China Exim Bank announced
that it was freezing financing on the project until the results of
environmental impact assessments could be verified. In the absence of
China Exim Bank's financing, the detrimental project stalled.

Without even basic policies to address environmental and social issues
abroad, commercial banks are ill equipped to address similar risks in
other international deals. The Rio Blanco mine in the mountainous Piura
region of northern Peru is one project that deserves more careful
environmental and social consideration by Chinese banks. Bank of China,
China Construction Bank and ICBC made it possible for Chinese copper miner
Zijin to buy this mine and its other global projects. Zijin bought the
mine from UK-based Montericco Metals in 2007 amid allegations that the
mine's management tortured local community members who opposed the scheme.

Zijin has had its own issues with the project. Peruvians opposed to the
mine say it will pollute the already meagre water resources used for
farming and drinking in this rugged highland. As a result, says Javier
Jahnke from the Ecumenical Foundation for Development and Peace in Peru,
"Polluting this area could bring about an environmental disaster for the
entire region." There have already been breaches of Peruvian environmental
laws, for which Zijin was fined, and local consent to operate the mine -
required by Peruvian law - was never obtained. Jahnke and other Peruvians
concerned about the project wrote to Zijin's financiers earlier in 2010
asking for a review of the scheme, but have not received a response. They
are not aware of any measures the company or banks have taken to address
the environmental and social risks that threaten the communities of the
Piura region.

Citizen groups in Gabon, Peru and other countries on the receiving end of
Chinese ventures have made suggestions for how to improve Chinese
investment methods in their countries. High on some of their lists has
been respecting local laws, local land and the decisions of local people.
Implementing those concepts would most likely include environmental and
social impact assessments, environmental planning, community development
and other measures. Better communication and engagement with civil
society, especially local communities, could also inform project decisions
that impact on the local environment and people and diffuse possible
tensions.

If Chinese banks adopt environmental and social standards such as these in
their overseas lending systems, they would be able to help companies such
as Zijin avoid or mitigate these project risks. The Chinese government,
which has helped banks address environmental and social issues at home
through the enactment of the Green Credit Policy and other measures,
should work quickly to develop similar guidelines and supervision for
banks in their overseas financing decisions. This would be a new take on
the international model, where voluntary standards such as the Equator
Principles, preferred by banks, have been the norm. However, it would
follow the precedent set by the Green Credit Policy domestically. There
are rumors that China's Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of
Commerce and Banking Regulatory Commission are already in the process of
developing environmental guidelines for Chinese overseas investments;
however such has been the talk for years, with no a draft or timeline yet
publicly released.

As Chinese commercial banks follow their corporate clients overseas,
developing environmental and social standards for lending abroad - like
they are starting to do domestically - could keep the related risks at bay
and demonstrate commitment from China to sustainable finance globally. The
Chinese government should lay the framework to bring responsible Chinese
investments abroad to fruition as soon as possible.

Part one: Progress at home
(www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/3740-Credit-where-it-s-due-1-)

Adina Matisoff is the China sustainable finance analyst for Friends of the
Earth in the United States.
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Africa looks to vast forests for carbon credits

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-adfg-africa-forests-20100727,0,5756955.story

Africa looks to vast forests for carbon credits

Efforts to combat illegal logging are making gains, but agriculture
looms as another threat.

July 27, 2010

Reporting from Banco, Ivory Coast ï¿½
By Tim Cocks, Reuters

They inhabit a polluted part of Ivory Coast's main city with few jobs
and a swelling population, but residents of Abidjan's slums have a
rare respite: a stretch of pristine rainforest.

From their wooden shacks and unpainted concrete houses beside
motorways on the edge of Banco National Park, the millions who live in
north Abidjan need no lesson on its worth.

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"This forest is a great thing," textile worker Sebastien Coulibaly,
35, said of the sky-scraping green mass of vines and broccoli-shaped
trees.
"It helps us to breathe better; we live at ease because of it.
Sometimes we walk our children there. We must protect it, because our
planet will be nothing without forests."

Logging, farming and armed conflict still threaten Africa's jungles,
which include the Congo Basin, the world's second largest after the
Amazon. But analysts are hopeful.

A new global study released this month by London's Chatham House think-
tank found that since 2002 illegal logging had decreased by about 50%
in Cameroon, once one of the biggest sources of illicit timber, a
decline of twice the global average.

The European Union this year signed deals with Ghana, Cameroon and the
Republic of Congo to tighten restrictions on logging. An EU ban on
illegally harvested timber was passed this month and is to take effect
in 2012.

"We've dared to sanction firms, from withdrawing permits to big
fines," said Cameroon Forest Minister Elvis Ngolle.

Logging bans don't directly address forest loss from other threats,
such as agriculture, but officials are hoping that a potential money
spinner ï¿½ carbon offsets ï¿½ will.

A United Nations plan (called REDD) to reduce emissions from
deforestation or degradation has enabled Indonesia, which has the
world's third-largest forest but is being deforested by palm oil and
timber firms, to get $1 billion from Norway in May to revoke those
firms' forestry licenses.

Deforestation makes up a fifth of global CO2 emissions and the REDD
fund is worth $4 billion so far.

Unlike Asia, African states have been slow to capitalize on climate
aid; they account for 2% of developing nation carbon projects. But
many hope to change that.

An African Development Bank fund was established in 2008 for the Congo
Basin, a forest of half a billion acres spanning nine countries and
storing, the bank says, 25- to 30-billion tons of carbon, which
currently trades at $18 per ton in Europe.

The fund aims to harmonize forest tax, share ecological data,
cooperate on policing and sponsor community projects that encourage
forest protection, such as honey-production.

"Expectations are extremely high that this will allow us to preserve
the forest, restore what's been degraded and pay these countries for
their ecological services," Patrice Wadja, the fund's operations
officer, told Reuters.

Gabon's President Ali Bongo seeks to be first in line. He has banned
raw wood exports and in May set up a climate council that must come up
with a REDD plan for the 80% of its original forest that remains
before December's climate talks in Cancun.

Despite the challenges, experts think Africa's forests have at least
as good a chance as Brazil or Indonesia.

The rate of forest destruction is generally slower: 0.16% a year in
the Congo Basin, compared with 11% in Indonesia, Wadja said, because
Central Africa has been largely spared large-scale clearing for
agriculture.

West Africa's deforestation is much higher, driven by logging and
clearing to plant cash crops, especially cocoa, a topic so sensitive
that Reuters could not get permission to visit some forests in Ivory
Coast, the top grower.

"At independence, we had 16 million hectares of forest. We today have
6 million. The lost area is now all farms," said Ivorian forest and
water technician Yamani Soro.

Improving yields with fertilizer and pesticides is key, although
reforms have been blocked by Ivory Coast's post-civil war political
crisis.

Drier nations in the semi-desert Sahel belt with scant forest land are
meanwhile planning to plant trees. Presidents from Senegal to Djibouti
agreed in Chad last month to build a "green wall" thousands of miles
long with IMF funds.

But even as Africa curbs illicit logging and plants trees, another
threat looms: Asian palm oil companies are eying Africa's forests to
feed their growing populations. Liberia has signed deals with two and
China this month proposed a vast project in the Democratic Republic of
Congo.

"The big unknown are the Chinese," said conservationist Terese Hart
who has worked in the DRC for decades. "They are looking at the
interior for exploitation, including palm."

Tansa Musa and Fonka Mutta in Yaounde, Christian Tsoumou in
Brazzaville and Betel Miarom in N'Djamena contributed to this report.

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Monday, July 26, 2010

Laos turns to hydropower to be 'Asia's battery'

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2010/0702/Laos-turns-to-hydropower-to-be-Asia-s-battery

Laos turns to hydropower to be 'Asia's battery'

The Laos government is banking on hydropower - with plans to build 55
dams - to sell electricity to its Asian neighbors. But critics say
hydropower comes at the cost of more displaced farmers and altered
rivers.

By Jared Ferrie, / Correspondent / July 2, 2010
Vientiane, Laos

Scarred by war and plagued by poverty, Laos now dreams of becoming a
regional energy superpower. Its communist government plans to
capitalize on 55 hydroelectric dams built on rivers that crisscross
this sliver of land between Thailand and Vietnam.

"If all sources of energy can be developed, Laos can become the
battery of Southeast Asia," says Industry and Commerce Minister Nam
Viyaketh during a recent interview in the capital. "We can sell our
energy to our neighbors. Laos can be rich."

Perhaps nowhere is Mr. Nam's ambitious hydropower plan more explicit
than in the massive Nam Theun 2 (NT2) hydroelectric plant, which began
operating April 17 and is expected to bring in $2 billion in
government revenue over the next 25 years by selling 95 percent of its
electricity to Thailand.

The $1.45 billion, 1,070-megawatt (MW) dam was bankrolled in part by
international investors including ï¿½lectricitï¿½ de France. French
President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to attend the official
inauguration on Nov. 2, along with the presidents of the World Bank
and Asian Development Bank.

Laos produced 1,600 MW of energy before NT2 began operating, and Nam
says the government wants to increase production to 23,000 MW by 2030.
Both Vietnam and Thailand want to buy 7,000 MW each, while Cambodia
wants 2,000. As far as China goes: "However much you have, they will
import from you."

However, echoing a story that's played out for decades across Asia,
Africa, and South America as developing countries dam their rivers for
energy, critics say the dam projects will displace thousands of
Laotians and cause irreparable environmental damage.

Such trepidations are groundless, according to Christopher Hnanguie, a
country economist with the Asian Development Bank, which provided
loans for the project. Eighteen years of research and consultation
with local communities went into the project, he says, resulting in an
agreement whereby resettled communities receive better housing,
medical clinics, electricity, and financial assistance such as small
business loans.

"The environmental and social safeguards are the best in the world,"
says Mr. Hnanguie.

'Life used to be better'

While proponents of NT2 say adversely affected communities have been
compensated and profits will be funneled into alleviating poverty,
villagers affected from past projects say their lives have yet to
improve.

"Life was definitely better in the old village," says a man who was
relocated in 1997 to make way for the Huouay Ho dam, also in the
central Laos province of Khammuan.

He and other villagers received new houses, schools, and health
centers. But some pledges, such as electricity, were not honored, says
the villager, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of
government reprisal.

Worst of all, he says, they were not provided enough farmland. In
their old villages, agriculture was the main source of food and
income, and people did not need to hire themselves out as laborers.
Now, "almost every family is unable to grow enough food to feed
themselves. Now they depend on selling their labor."

Some resettled villagers still sneak back to their old farms inside
Huouay Ho dam's watershed, he says. The old farms are about 36
kilometers from the current settlement, so farmers have built shacks
to sleep there for days at a time.

Two years ago, the villager says, 59 families signed a petition asking
to be allowed to return to their former homes. The government
responded by pressuring villagers into writing a pledge that they
would not go back.

Ikuko Matsumoto, a researcher with the nongovernmental organization
International Rivers, worries that people affected by NT2 have also
lost access to forests and rivers. "I think the most important issue
for villagers is the food security issue," she says in a telephone
interview from Khammuan Province where she visited communities
affected by NT2 just days after its turbines began humming.

"Their everyday life relies on fishing, rice cultivation, and
collecting material from the forest," says Ms. Matsumoto. "How can
companies and the government help restore a similar way of life? That
is the biggest challenge and I really haven't seen much success."

Matsumoto says villagers told her they were worried about fish stocks
declining, and they feared that rising water levels would flood
riverside gardens.

Benefits outweigh costs

Nam, the industry minister, admits that massive development of Laos's
energy sector has had some negative impacts. "Development is never
pure good," he says.

He argues that the benefits far outweigh the costs, though, saying
that building the energy sector is a key element of the government's
plan to reduce rural poverty. Laos is ranked 133 out 177 nations on
the United Nation's Human Development Index, which measures education,
income, and life expectancy. The World Food Program estimates that 40
percent of children under age 5 are chronically malnourished.

The Laos government also touts NT2 as a way of reducing its dependence
on international donors, who provided $560 million in fiscal year
2008-09, about 1/10th of total gross domestic product, according to
the CIA World Factbook.

Critics remain skeptical that huge profits generated by hydroelectric
plants will actually trickle down to those displaced ï¿½ especially in a
country that Transparency International in 2008 ranked one of the
world's 10 most corrupt. "How about the loss from hydropower
development that is not part of formal economic data?" says Matsumoto.
"I think this is a big question for the Laos government."
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6 000 MW of wind power ‘ready to be commissioned’ in SA

RENEWABLE ENERGY
6 000 MW of wind power ï¿½ready to be commissionedï¿½ ï¿½ Sawea

By: Christy van der Merwe
23rd July 2010

The South African Wind Energy Association (Sawea) on Thursday said
that information from wind energy project developers in South Africa
showed that 6 000 MW of wind energy was "ready to be commissioned
right now".

Developers were, however, waiting for the power purchase agreements
(PPAs) under the renewable energy feed-in tariff (Refit), as they
could not take a project to a bankable stage unless they had a power
offtake agreement in place.

However, Standard Bank director of investment banking coverage for
South Africa and Africa, Paul Eardley-Taylor said that a number of
entities (such as industrial and mining companies) could be interested
in signing PPAs with renewable power producers, outside of the Refit
programme, if one considered increasing electricity price forecasts
for 2015.

As South Africa awaited the draft of the integrated resource plan
2010, or IRP2010, which was initially expected by the end of June,
interests promoting different forms of energy generation stated what
they hoped to see from the document.

Representing Sawea, Mark Tanton purported that the country should aim
to derive 25% of its total electricity generation mix from wind energy
by 2025. That would amount to about 30 000 MW of installed wind
capacity.

Tanton said that this figure would in turn mean the creation of an
additional 40 000 jobs, 12 000 of which would be permanent jobs in
rural areas.

He also noted that some 60% of the wind turbine could be manufactured
locally, and would thus contribute significantly to industrial
development.

Tanton emphasised that Sawea wanted the IRP2010 to be a "risk-
adjusted" plan, which looked at the "true cost" of producing power
from all the technologies proposed, and ensured a portfolio mix that
was complementary, affordable and sustainable in the long-term.

And importantly, clarity and limited ambiguity were expected from the
IRP2010.

Representing the Nuclear Industry Association of South Africa, Ayanda
Myoli stated that South Africa had the opportunity to be a "big
player" in the nuclear industry, and if a nuclear build programme of
20 000 MW was initiated, some 77 000 jobs could be created in the
country. Of these jobs, some 50 000 would be permanent jobs, not only
in operation and maintenance of nuclear power plants, but also in
downstream supplier industries.

The country's nuclear policy was said to support the local
beneficiation of uranium, for example.

Myoli also said that localisation, and development of high-end skills
was high on the agenda.

Eskom representative Adele Greyling stressed that Eskom wanted the
IRP2010 to address the issue of security of supply, as well as for the
document to make provision for the entrance of independent power
producers (IPPs) into the market, and to also ensure a more diverse
energy mix.

She said that Eskom was ready, willing and able to facilitate the
process of IPPs entering the market in South Africa, but emphasised
that the process was not up to the utility alone.

Greyling added that Eskom felt that it would be practically possible
for renewable energy to contribute 20% to the entire energy generation
mix by 2030.

Independent industry commentator Chris Yelland said that it was of
utmost importance that the drafting of the IRP2010 should follow due
process.

Yelland was concerned that the IRP2010 was not being drawn up by
independent consultants, which were free of vested interests, and was
rather being driven by stakeholders - which were largely dominated by
Eskom and the Energy Intensive Users Group, as they had the finances
to be most involved with the process.

He highlighted that it would be difficult to accept the outcome if one
did not accept the process.

IRP2010, spearheaded by the Department of Energy, would determine
current and future energy requirements for South Africa for the next
20 years.

Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said previously that the country has
reached a "delicate situation, which requires us to take bold and
decisive decisions on whether to build coal-fired or nuclear power
stations for baseload energy requirements".

Edited by: Mariaan Webb
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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Dam fails in eastern Iowa, causing massive flooding

Dam fails in eastern Iowa, causing massive flooding
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 24, 2010 7:15 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- A dam on an eastern Iowa lake suffered a "catastrophic" failure
Saturday, sending a massive amount of water into nearby communities and
forcing residents to flee, officials said.

The Lake Delhi dam, about 45 miles north of Cedar Rapids, failed as a
result of "massive rain -- a very unusually high amount this season,"
according to Jim Flansburg, communications director for Gov. Chet Culver.

Culver told CNN that nearly 10 inches of rain had recently fallen in a
12-hour period in the area and was "too much water for the dam to hold."

The roads on either side of the dam -- which were part of the cement dam's
containment measures -- apparently gave out as a result of the rainfall,
Flansburg told CNN.

Video showed massive amounts of water violently gushing from the pool
behind the dam into the Maquoketa River below. Nearby homes and buildings
were under water up to their eaves.

However, as of Saturday evening, the waters appeared to be receding,
Flansburg said.

Much of the flooding occurred in farm areas instead of well-populated
neighborhoods, Flansburg said, adding a would-be catastrophe was avoided.

Earlier Saturday, residents in Hopkinton, a town of about 700, were given
minutes to flee approaching floodwaters, Flansburg said.

No injuries were reported.

The town of Monticello, where Culver was meeting with emergency personnel,
was also under a flood warning.

Amanda Duck, a trained weather spotter along with her husband in
Monticello, told CNN she had been watching the water slowly rise all day.

By evening, water was beginning to seep over a road that runs behind her
house and into her neighbor's yard, she said.

"We're both just in a state of shock," Duck said. "We're just trying to
keep our wits about us and help our neighbors."

Culver activated the National Guard in the area to help with recovery
efforts, his office said.

He also issued disaster proclamations for Delaware and Jones counties due
to the flooding.

Culver credited the lack of injuries to local officials providing early
warning to residents in the flood plain about the possibility of a dam
breach.

The governor said such a failure had never happened before.
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Dams for Patagonia in Science Magazine

An article has been published (http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/
latin-america/patagonia/dams-patagonia) in Science Magazine that is
noteworthy for the technical look at the potential impacts of mega-
hydro development in Chile's Patagonia.

The article is well worth the read!

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/latin-america/patagonia/dams-
patagonia

Stay tuned for more updates soon!

For the rivers,

Gary

Gary Graham Hughes
Patagonia Campaign--Latin America Program
International Rivers
http://internationalrivers.org/patagonia
Email: gary@internationalrivers.org
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Friday, July 23, 2010

AfDB at World Energy Congress - Energy Key to Africa's Development

http://allafrica.com/stories/201007230391.html

African Development Bank
(Tunis)

AfDB at World Energy Congress - Energy is Key to Africa's Development
22 July 2010

Location: Montrï¿½al, Canada
The African Development Bank (AfDB) will explain the challenges facing
the African energy sector to a wide audience at the World Energy
Congress (WEC), scheduled to take place in Montrï¿½al, Canada, 12-16
September 2010.

"Increasing energy access is a priority for Africa", says Hela
Cheikhrouhou, the AfDB's Director for Energy, Climate Change and
Sustainable Development. She said large segments of the continent's
people, especially in Sub-Sahara Africa and in the rural areas of
middle-income countries, live in conditions of acute 'energy poverty'.

Africa's energy production is about 9.5% of the world's total output,
including 12.1% of the world's crude oil production; 6.6% of natural
gas output; 4.7% of the world's hard coal; and 3.1% of hydro-electric
power.

The continent's one billion inhabitants consume the least amount of
energy per capita. Endemic low per-capita energy consumption is both a
cause and consequence of Africa's prolonged poor socio-economic
performance since the first oil shock in the early 1970s, particularly
in oil-importing Sub-Sahara African countries.

"Long-term planning, taking into account economic, social and
environmental costs would increasingly shift the balance in favor of a
low-carbon path to development and poverty reduction, Ms. Cheikhrouhou
explained. "As one of the region most vulnerable to global warming,
Africa has a vested interest in rendering effective support for global
mitigation efforts," she stressed.

African countries are in effect facing the threats posed by climate
change. They have witnessed extreme weather conditions - historic hot
spells, droughts, torrential rains, cyclones, floods, extreme
fluctuations of river flow and lake water levels. Climate change has
emerged as an important challenge facing Africa in the 21st century.

The continent has however a number of options for clean energy
development with enormous potential. African countries, especially
south of the Sahara, need to make greater use of their huge largely
untapped renewable energy potential - especially hydro-power,
geothermal energy, solar and wind power, and more efficient
utilization of biomass.

"African countries' energy development strategy geared to the goal of
access-for-all should be anchored on three pillars: maximizing clean
energy options; emphasizing energy efficiency; and working with
developed countries and development institutions to quickly and
effectively channel a more substantial share of Climate Financing",
says Ms Cheikhrouhou.

The World Energy Council organizes a world congress every three years.
The upcoming congress, the premier international multi-energy forum
with exhibitors with field experience, is an opportunity for
participants to better understand energy issues and solutions from a
global perspective. It brings together more than 3,500 top world
leaders in the energy sector, coming from industry, governments, and
international organizations, as well as the media, universities and
energy industry associations.

Contacts

Yvan Cliche
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Three Gorges Dam's flood capacity 'limited'

Gorges Dam's flood capacity 'limited'
By Hu Yinan, China Daily
2010-07-23

BEIJING - The flood control capacity of the Three Gorges Dam, the world's
largest hydropower project, is designed to be limited, a senior engineer
said on Thursday amid mounting concerns over the project's ability to
manage floods.

The multi-billion dollar dam was designed to withstand floods with water
flow of 83,700 cubic meters per second, covering the Jingjiang River area
and the Chenglingji region in Hubei and Hunan provinces, Zhao Yunfa,
deputy director of the China Three Gorges Corp's cascade dispatch center,
told China Daily.

"The dam's flood-control capacity is not unlimited it has a capacity of
22.1 billion cu m and protects, by design, a limited area any flood with
water flow exceeding 122,000 cu m per second would put the dam's own
safety at risk," he said.

As China's main reservoir on the Yangtze River, the dam on Tuesday passed
its first and largest test by sustaining a water flow greater than the
flood of 1998, which killed 4,150 people across the country.

The flow of water into the dam's reservoir peaked at about 70,000 cu m per
second. The dam, which was completed in 2008, discharged water at about
40,000 cu m per second.

Zhao's explanation came amid growing concern over the controversial dam,
which officials hope would play a pillar role in flood control and clean
power generation.

In the past few days, members of the public have been hotly debating
online posts comparing four reports of the dam's flood-control capacity.

The first, released in June 2003, claimed that the dam "could fend off the
worst flood in 10,000 years". The second, dated four years later, changed
that number to "the worst flood in 1,000 years". In October 2008, the
number was again modified to "the worst flood in 100 years."

On Tuesday, a report on State broadcaster China Central Television's
website was titled "The Three Gorges Dam's capacity to store floodwater is
limited". The story urged the public not to "lay all hopes on the dam".

In an exclusive interview with China Daily that same day, China Three
Gorges Corp's chairman Cao Guangjing said he can "absolutely guarantee"
that the dam is capable of withstanding "the worst flood in 100 years".

Cao, an engineer with the corporation since 1985, said the dam's
flood-control facilities are "complete and need no adjustment".

Instead, the immediate focus of the work is on ways to improve weather
forecasting ahead of the next major flood-control test, which will likely
take place some time in August, he said.

Liu Ning, vice-minister of water resources, earlier praised the dam, which
was completed in October 2008, as "instrumental" in China's flood control
efforts.

Cao said the dam is able to do much more. "The peak flow this time was
historical. But the frequency, peak period and volume of water were all
comparatively limited - the worst in about 20 years. The dam is far from
displaying its full potential," he said.

China had spent 181.5 billion yuan ($26.5 billion) on the dam project by
the end of 2008. But critics claim that the project has caused, or will
cause, consistent landslides and severe erosion downstream.

Cao, 46, dismissed the allegations as "nonsense". All these issues were
addressed in preliminary feasibility studies from years ago, he said. The
project began in the early 1990s and billions of yuan have been invested
to preventing possible ecological disasters, he said.

"Extreme climate change and large natural trends are far beyond the
control of the Three Gorges Dam project," Cao said.

The dam, which spans the Yangtze River, China's longest river, in Yichang
city of Hubei province, has a capacity of more than 20 billion cu m and
its water level can rise to 175 meters.

Its monitoring systems cover 60 percent of the upper reaches of the
Yangtze, which incorporates an area of about 1 million square kilometers.
________________________________________________