Author: Ben Debski

“At the end of 2009, the market for forest carbon stands in an uncertain position on the verge of potentially enormous growth,” the State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2009 report said.

“Amidst this scene of opportunity and risk, investors are still eyeing forest carbon, though many are waiting on more definite regulatory signals before taking a financial leap.”

Although climate talks in Copenhagen in December failed to agree a new legally-binding global climate pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the US pledged at the summit $1bn towards a scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

Many countries have committed politically to the $3.5bn scheme, of which Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain are also contributors.

A domestic US bill to cut emissions has also stalled in Congress, with market players calling its passage this year vital for investment.

Regardless of this uncertainty, the forest carbon market grew nearly fivefold since 2006.

The market was worth $37.1m in 2008, after rising to $40.5m a year before and from $7.6m in 2006, according to Ecosystem Marketplace, the report’s authors.

The report said the forest carbon market was worth $21m in the first half of 2009.

The volume-weighted average price was $7.88 per tonne of carbon dioxide, with compliance markets like the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme commanding the highest average price for forest offsets ($10.24).

The over-the-counter (OTC) market for voluntary carbon offsets, typically unregulated and somewhat opaque, had average prices of $8.44 a tonne, while forest offsets trading on the Chicago Climate Exchange, the only exchange for voluntary carbon offsets, saw prices of around $3.03.

To the end of June 2009, the market traded the equivalent of 20.8 million tonnes in offsets, representing 2.1 million hectares of forests worth some $149.2m, the report said.

Of this, North America was home to 39 percent worth $32m, Latin America had 22 percent worth $35.5m, Australia had 16 percent worth $37.8m and Africa had 11 percent worth $20.9m, the report said.

Asia and Europe made up only six percent and four percent of volumes, worth $10 and $6m respectively.

The report found that of the protected forests in question, the top drivers of deforestation were commercial logging (23 percent) and agricultural development (19 percent).

Latin America, home of the Amazon rainforest, showed the largest variety of pressures, which also included ranching, illegal logging, urban development and oil and gas exploration.

In years gone by, employers relied on subjective tools such as CVs and interviews to identify the best talent. However, it has become clear in recent years that personality and ability assessments play a valuable role in recruitment and development processes, offering managers unprecedented objectivity when identifying whether somebody has the right skills or attributes for a role.

Today more than ever, global businesses have recognised that the quality of their people can make or break their success and this has led to a close examination of recruitment, retention and talent management, with psychometric testing now playing a central role. Assessment is no longer seen as an optional extra. It gives organisations competitive advantage by helping identify the best and appropriate talent, saving time and cost in recruitment and increasing retention by ensuring optimum employee-job fit. This could not be more important for businesses than in the current economic environment.

Such assessments are also beneficial from a candidate’s perspective, ensuring that the role for which they are applying is right for them. Plus, given the current questions being asked about ethics and transparency in business, particularly in the financial sector, taking a psychometric test gives applicants an assurance that the company is following best practice in its recruitment and that it is serious about taking on the best people. 

The Growth of Online Assessment
Up until the early 2000s, psychometric testing, like many now web-based activities, was carried out on paper. SHL was one of the pioneers of online, on demand assessment through a ‘software as a service’ model and since then, its application has exploded. Fewer than 15 percent of SHL assessments today are delivered via paper – in the last 12 months alone, more than two million SHL online assessments have been completed worldwide by a vast range of organisations.

Saving Time and Cost
The move online provided numerous benefits that had not previously been possible with assessments. It meant that candidates could take assessments remotely from anywhere in the world at any time. This made it easier and quicker for the candidate, removing the need for them to take time out of their current role.

From the employer’s perspective, online assessment now enables them to screen out unsuitable applicants quickly at an early stage, facilitating short-listing  of the best people to be interviewed. Given that employers often need to assess a large number of people, such as during an annual graduate recruitment programme, this has huge time and cost-saving implications. And this does not just apply to graduate programmes; many businesses have recently seen a steep increase in the volume of applicants for individual roles, due to the unfortunate influx of candidates into the job market.

The development of online delivery systems has also led to unprecedented global reach and, with multilingual assessment offerings, has truly opened up a global, cross-border recruitment and selection market.

The Next Generation
That’s the story so far, but what of the future? With increasing demand for online testing, leading psychometric assessment providers are investing in online architecture to maximise the potential of the web. For example, “SHL On Demand” is an £11m investment which is at the forefront of the next generation of online assessment technology. This new architecture is revolutionising the assessment experience for both employers and candidates. 

SHL On Demand is the system that powers most of SHL’s online assessment tools, from the client interface, where employers can administer the different tools available, to the candidate interface, where candidates go to take the tests.  The system also incorporates administration functions, such as the analysis and distribution of results, report generation and customer support.

Working Harder for Employers
The advanced technology gives the system significant scope for expansion and provides a platform for development. It supports up to 10,000 concurrent users globally, and can deliver an impressive 8,000 assessments and generate 5,500 reports per hour.

Users benefit from faster set∞up times, faster processing speed and real time results – scores are available within seconds and reports within a minute, so candidates can be told almost instantly how they have performed. These improvements mean that psychometric testing works harder for employers, speeding up the process and making it easier to identify and recruit the perfect talent for the business. Leading∞edge e∞learning is also on hand to help users learn their way around the system and get the most from it.

Another important benefit to the employer is the system’s ability to integrate with third party talent management systems, of which there are a growing number. This means for example that SHL’s online assessment content can fit seamlessly with an independent recruitment management system, so that managers only need to interact with the one system and all data is stored in one place.

Global Solution
The candidate’s online assessment experience has been completely re-designed following a two year investigation into improving usability, whilst maintaining principles of best practice in assessment. The system meets the highest standards of internet accessibility (to WAI 1.0 Level 3) and usability, and being available in 30 languages, it is a truly global solution.

With the additional facility for a business to brand the candidate interface according to their requirements, SHL On Demand provides a credibility boost to their employer brand and gives candidates a consistent positive view of the company.

Building for the Future
The current economic downturn is dramatically changing the world of work. While many companies are reorganising and streamlining, the focus on cost-effectively identifying the right talent to drive the business forward has become more critical. There is also a growing demand for increased transparency across the industry spectrum, with companies and public sector organisations under intense scrutiny from the government, regulatory bodies, employees and the public at large.

The growth in psychometrics not only highlights the increasing importance that organisations are placing on the talent at their disposal, it also reflects this growing need for compliance and transparency, by providing tools to make recruitment and talent management as effective and objective as possible. Enlightened businesses are also recognising that the development of sophisticated online assessment systems is facilitating this drive and will support them in retaining a competitive edge through talent management strategies, both during the current uncertainty and in better times beyond

Bureaucratic changes mean that staff running the labs have to spend an inordinate amount of time asking for money while their facilities disintegrate, a panel of experts appointed by the council said.

“The fundamental research community at NASA has been severely impacted by the budget reductions that are responsible for this decrease in laboratory capabilities, and as a result, NASA’s ability to support even NASA’s future goals is in serious jeopardy,” they conclude in the report.

The report does not say NASA should spend any particular amount of money to fix the problems but recommends that the agency shift its emphasis to upgrading the facilities.

The report lands as President Obama tries to sell a new vision of space exploration that includes public-private partnerships to replace the government-dominated model that sent astronauts to the Moon 40 years ago.

Obama has asked for a $6bn increase in NASA’s budget to help ramp up exploration of the solar system and increase Earth-based climate change studies.

NASA commissioned the National Research Council, one of the independent National Academies of Sciences that advises the federal government on medical and scientific policy, to look at its science labs before Obama’s changes were in place.

The panel found that NASA has systematically neglected research laboratories at six centres – the Ames Research Centre and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, the Glenn Research Centre in Ohio, Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, Langley Research Centre in Virginia, and Marshall Space Flight Centre in Alabama.

“These research capabilities have taken years to develop and depend on highly competent and experienced personnel and infrastructure,” said Joseph Reagan, a retired vice president at Lockheed Martin Corp, who helped chair the panel.

“Without adequate resources, laboratories can deteriorate very quickly and will not be easily reconstituted.”

Maintenance budget
For instance, the report found the amount NASA needs to spend for maintenance has grown from $1.77bn in 2004 to $2.46bn in 2009.

“A reduction in funding of 48 percent for the aeronautics programs over … 2005-2009 has significantly challenged NASA’s ability to achieve its mission to advance US technological leadership in aeronautics in partnership with industry, academia, and other government agencies that conduct aeronautics-related research and to keep US aeronautics in the lead internationally,” the report reads.

“Approximately 20 percent of all NASA facilities are dedicated to research and development: on average, they are not state of the art: they are merely adequate to meet current needs,” it adds.

“Over 80 percent of NASA facilities are more than 40 years old and need significant maintenance and upgrades to preserve the safety and continuity of operations for critical missions.”

The panelists found a pattern of researchers “expending inordinate amounts of time writing proposals seeking funding to maintain their laboratory capabilities” and then looking for money elsewhere.

Efforts to improve child health, reduce maternal deaths, fight malaria and bring the AIDS epidemic under control in some of the world’s poorest nations have led to “striking improvements”, according to a WHO report – and experts say the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that galvanised political determination are largely responsible.

Now, however, fresh epidemics of chronic or ‘non-communicable’ diseases – including heart disease, stroke, cancers, lung conditions and type 2 diabetes – are poised to overwhelm health systems in developing countries, and there are calls for new goals to be set to force governments to prepare.

“We really need to halt this excessively rapid epidemic of chronic diseases. They are all spreading, and we are essentially doing nothing in the developing world,” Abdallah Daar, chair of the Global Alliance on Chronic Disease (GADC), told reporters.

Setting goals drives progress
According to the WHO’s World Health Statistics 2010 annual report, political will behind MDGs has helped the percentage of underweight children drop from 25 percent in 1990 to 16 percent in 2010, HIV infections fall 16 percent between 2001 and 2008 and upped the percentage of the world’s population with access to safe water to around 87 percent.

Yet the report also says that non-communicable diseases and injuries caused an estimated 33 million deaths in developing countries in 2004 and will account for a growing proportion of total deaths in the future.

“The health of individuals will also be undermined in the longer term by chronic conditions, sensory and mental disorders and violence,” said the report, which uses data from the WHO’s 193 member states.

Carla Abou-Zahr, the WHO’s coordinator for monitoring and analysis, says this is in part the price of success in tackling or managing killers like malaria, malnutrition, AIDS and child and maternal health – all covered by the MDGs which were set in 2000 and designed to be met in 2015.

“All of the countries are really working hard with this 2015 target date in mind,” she told reporters in an interview.

“And what we see and hear constantly from our partners is that political commitment is absolutely essential if progress is going to be achieved – sometimes even more than resources.”

But she said evidence is also becoming ever clearer that as levels of child mortality and death rates from infections diseases decline – and as populations age and people’s behaviours change – there is “an increasing predominance” of death and diseases due to chronic conditions.

Experts estimate that unless action is stepped up, 388 million people worldwide will die prematurely in the next decade of chronic non-communicable diseases. “Gradually, chronic diseases are spreading to developing countries. They are no longer just rich country problems,” said Abou-Zahr.

New targets needed for chronic disease
Daar describes it as a house burning from both ends – infectious diseases at one, chronic diseases at the other.

“MDGs have focused political attention, and they have provided metrics against which you can measure – so I think they have done a tonne of good,” he said.

“But we are putting out the fire at the infectious diseases end, and we’re going to get burnt and die because of the fire approaching us from the chronic diseases end.”

Daar, whose Global Alliance groups some of the world’s leading public health research institutions, said there was an opportunity, as the 2015 MDG target date approaches, for new goals to be set to help shift the focus.

The GADC plans to focus its efforts into tackling the threat of heart and lung diseases in poor nations, both of which are being ramped upwards by widespread tobacco use and increasing alcohol consumption.

“I’d also like to see chronic diseases captured in the next iteration of the MDGs,” he said. “They’re taking a toll on people in the developing world, but they’ve been neglected.”

Experts agree, however, that health authorities should not see this as a zero-sum game – where improving resources and policy for AIDS, for example, may cancel out efforts to combat cancer risk from drinking and smoking.

“Most governments are increasingly aware of the need to have a balance – that addressing child mortality and infectious diseases problems doesn’t mean doing nothing about the future epidemic of non-communicable diseases,” said Abou-Zahr.

Daar said it was important to look for synergies. “After all, if the patient is going to be taken care of for HIV, and then dies of cancer, you haven’t served that patient well.”

After 217 orbits around earth and 5.7 million miles (9.17 million km), commander George Zamka circled Endeavour high over the Kennedy Space Centre to burn off speed, then nosed the 100-tonne ship onto a canal-lined runway.

Ending the space shuttle fleet’s 130th mission, Endeavour landed three miles from where it blasted off on February 8.

“Welcome home,” astronaut Rick Sturckow radioed to Zamka from Mission Control in Houston. “Congratulations to you and the crew on an outstanding mission.”

“Houston, it’s great to be home,” replied Zamka. “It was a great adventure.”

The space station, a $100bn project of 16 nations, has been under construction 220 miles above earth since 1998.

Endeavour carried the station’s final connecting hub, named Tranquility, which will serve as a second living quarters for the resident station crew. The module has been outfitted with a toilet, water-recycling system, oxygen generator, air scrubber and exercise gear. NASA added a day to Endeavour’s planned eight-day stay at the station so the visiting astronauts could help with the work.

Endeavour also delivered a dome-shaped observation deck featuring seven windows, providing a view the astronauts described as spectacular.

The new rooms, which were hooked up during three spacewalks by Endeavour astronauts Robert Behnken and Nicholas Patrick, are the last major components of the station.

130th shuttle mission
Joining Zamka, Behnken and Patrick aboard Endeavour were veteran astronauts Stephen Robinson and Kay Hire, and rookie pilot Terry Virts.

NASA plans four more shuttle flights to complete delivery of spare parts and science experiments to the station. The US then intends to retire its three space shuttles before the end of the year.

The Obama administration has decided to cancel a planned follow-on programme intended to return US astronauts to the moon, due to cost concerns. Instead, NASA is being redirected to develop technologies for an eventual human expedition to Mars that would be conducted in partnership with other countries, similar to the space station programme.

The US space agency also wants to seed development of commercial space taxis so the station will not be solely dependent on Russia’s Soyuz capsules to transport crews to and from the outpost.

With the shuttles’ retirement, only the Russian and Chinese governments will have the ability to put people into orbit.

The cancellation of the moon programme, called Constellation, as well as the spending of government money for private space launch companies has sparked heated debate in Congress, at NASA field centres and surrounding communities, and among aerospace contractors.

NASA has also been investigating a series of main computer crashes aboard the space station. The problem did not impact any life support systems, NASA said.

Preliminary analysis indicated the problem may be with communications software in the European Space Agency’s Columbus laboratory. The crashes temporarily knocked out the crew’s audio and television links with Mission Control.

NASA’s next shuttle mission is scheduled for launch in April.

A coalition of rights and civil society groups said the agency was allowing Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to launder his international reputation by funding the $3m prize instead of using the cash to improve the living standards of his people.

“The grim irony of awarding a prize recognising ‘scientific achievements that improve the quality of human life’, while naming it for a president whose 30-year rule has been marked by the brutal poverty and fear of his people and a global reputation for governmental corruption, would bring shame on UNESCO,” 30 groups said in a statement sent to UNESCO.

“We repeat our call for the $3m that UNESCO has accepted from President Obiang to be applied to the education and welfare of Equatoguineans, rather than the glorification of their president.”

Signatories to the letter, dated May 10, include international groups such as Human Rights Watch and Global Witness, as well as national groups from around the world.

A UNESCO official declined to comment immediately on the letter, but forwarded via email parts of a statement it sent to Human Rights Watch acknowledging it “had received criticism about the prize”.

Obiang has run Equatorial Guinea since a 1979 coup. Under his rule, the country has leapt from small-scale cocoa production to becoming a key oil producer.

However, the rights groups say that a per capita GDP that rivals Italy’s and South Korea’s conceals huge inequalities in wealth, and three quarters of the population live in poverty.

The rights groups say that a number of nations on UNESCO’s executive board objected to the prize when it was established in 2008 but, after several delays, it is due to be awarded in June.

Other UN agencies have been “clear” about the country’s poor rights and development record, the rights groups say.

Despots don’t like being watched. In September 2007 the Burmese ruling military junta commenced a brutal crackdown on their citizens in response to huge street protests. They tried to prevent the world from knowing what was happening by cutting telephone lines, shutting down websites and closing internet cafes. However, they failed to keep their activities secret since they were being watched all the time by high-resolution Earth-observation satellites. In fact, satellites had been monitoring human rights abuses in Burma for a number of years. Images had been produced showing clear indications of destroyed or damaged villages, growing refugee camps, the build-up of military bases and the appearance of new villages near those military bases suggesting forced relocations.

This was the work of The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) who set up the Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights Project in December 2005. The purpose was to assess how Earth-observation satellites could be used to detect and monitor human rights abuses. They have now carried out a number of studies. In addition to their work in Burma, images have been collected of the damage done to the infrastructure of Southern Lebanon by the Israeli military. Studies have also been carried out of the destruction of homes and businesses of four communities in Zimbabwe’s Operation Murambatsvina. And attacks by the Sudanese government-backed militias against civilian communities in Darfur, Sudan and Chad have also been documented.

The first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. Now, just over 50 years later, there are around 3000 functioning satellites orbiting the Earth. These satellites study the weather, transfer telephone calls, relay television programmes, aid navigation, carry out military tasks, and now, monitor human rights abuses.

Observing the Earth was an early priority for artificial satellites. The first satellite photographs of Earth were made in 1959 by the US satellite Explorer, although only rather poor quality low-resolution pictures were obtained. The technical progress which has been made since those early days is impressive. Quickbird, an imaging satellite owned by DigitalGlobe, is one of the satellites used by the AAAS. It weighs about one tonne, travels at 7.1 km/sec at 450 km above the Earth. It orbits the Earth every 93.4 minutes and produces images with a resolution of 0.61 metre and snapshots 16.5×16.5 km or strips 16.5km x 115 km. Each area of the Earth is revisited every 2 to 3 days depending on the latitude.

The image sensors record green, red, blue and near infra-red wavelengths which can be used separately or combined to detect chosen features. For example, the red, green and blue channels can be combined to produce true colour pictures. The infrared can be combined with other frequencies to highlight vegetation which can be useful in humanitarian work, where overgrown agricultural areas may indicate mass displacement of people. Quickbird produces sharp focus views of buildings, building-destruction and soil disruption that might mark mass graves. It can detect small houses, fencing, footpaths, and vehicles. It can distinguish between cars and trucks, and between military and civilian vehicles.

Although Earth-observation satellites have been around for a long time their use for humanitarian purposes has only become possible in recent years. The high-resolution images produced by military satellites have never been available to the general public and images from privately-owned satellites are traditionally expensive. But now, with more satellites collecting more images, resolution is increasing and costs are coming down. Some satellite companies, including DigitalGlobe, now provide images at discounted prices for humanitarian work.

There are, of course, limitations on what can be achieved with Earth-observation satellites. For example, Burma is largely covered in forests and there is frequent cloud cover, especially during the monsoon season, which restricts observations. The killing or imprisoning of small numbers of people cannot be identified from satellite images. In many parts of the world there are no archived images so that before-and-after pairs cannot be produced, although, as time passes, more and more of the Earth’s surface is being recorded.

A good example of the value of this work is the study showing unequivocally that the Zimbabwe government had destroyed an entire settlement and relocated the people who lived there. The AAAS have before-and-after image sets of the settlement called Porta Farm just outside the capital Harare. The first is an archived image which appears to show nearly a thousand homes. It is possible to manually count the number of structures and it is believed that up to 10,000 people were originally living there. In the second image, collected in April 2006, the settlement has gone. The operation was called Operation Murambatsvina which translates as Operation Restore Order or Drive Out Trash.

The satellite evidence was used by Amnesty International and Zimbabwe lawyers in the preparation of a report to publicise human rights violations by the Zimbabwe government. The images will also be used in a legal action in Zimbabwe by those who lost their homes. The Zimbabwe government claimed the action was designed to clear illegal slums and black market areas but in reality, of course, it was designed to retaliate against those who opposed the Mugabe regime.

In future will it be possible to use Earth-observation satellites to predict the onset of human rights abuses? Some scientists think so. Fires may show that a campaign of repression is beginning and drought or other disruptions may be precursors to human rights abuses. Scientists are studying past conflicts and collecting information such as general disruption, economic data, eyewitness accounts and satellite images to find common patterns which precede repressive campaigns. Mathematical modelling of data from potential trouble spots may then become possible and governments might be persuaded to intervene at an early stage.

Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS, is optimistic. “We believe this technology will become a critical tool for human rights organisations worldwide. The satellite images show the technology has enormous potential for helping to prove broad human rights violations. And perhaps someday in the future, the technology will make it possible to intervene earlier in a human rights crisis, before it’s too late.”

About the author

Chris Holt is a physicist with a BSc from Sussex University and a PhD from Nottingham University. For many years he carried out blue sky research at Unilever’s Corporate Research Laboratory in Bedfordshire. He has presented papers at a number of international symposia and published many academic papers. He is the holder of seven patents. He now works as a freelance science journalist.

The foundation, a $34bn fund that is run by the multi-billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates and invests in scientific projects broadly aimed at improving global health, said each project would get a $100,000 grant for further study.

Other winning projects include developing a low-cost cell phone microscope to diagnose malaria, using ultrasound as a reversible male contraceptive, insecticide-treated scarves and using imaging systems to seek and destroy parasites with a targeted laser vaccine.

“We are convinced that some of these ideas will lead to innovations and eventually solutions that will save lives,” Tachi Yamada, of the Gates Foundation’s global health programme, said in a statement.

The foundation said winners were from universities, research institutes and non-profit organisations in 18 countries around the world.

One group of scientists in Germany will use their grant to develop nanoparticles that penetrate the skin through hair follicles and burst on contact with human sweat to release vaccines.

Grants will also help researchers investigate new ways to fight malaria: one team is trying to see whether treating traditional scarves worn by migrant workers along the Thai-Cambodia border with insecticide will reduce drug-resistant malaria; in Uganda, a team is testing the ability of insect-eating plants to reduce the number of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes.

Scientists in the US will use the grant to study the ability of ultrasound to temporarily deplete testicular sperm counts for possible use as new male contraceptive.

The grants were awarded by the foundation’s Grand Challenges Explorations scheme – a five-year $100m initiative which seeks to promote innovation in global health.

Since opening in 1994, the foundation Gates has handed out more than $21bn in grants.

Analysts said Google’s decision is tantamount to exiting the world’s largest internet market, with more than 360 million users, since it is highly unlikely the Chinese government would allow Google to operate an unfiltered search engine.

But the decision does not necessarily mean Google will abandon China entirely, as it could follow the footsteps of other US internet companies that have chosen to partner with local companies instead of maintaining their own sites.

“China is in our view one of the most attractive consumer internet markets. We think it (Google) is generating $200m in annual revenue from China,” said Sandeep Aggarwal, analyst at Collins Stewart.

“But this kind of attack they cannot afford to have as a global player. That’s why I think they’re evaluating whether they should basically withdraw from the country.”

Google controls about 31.3 percent of the Chinese search market, versus 63.9 percent for local search powerhouse, Baidu Inc, according to Analysys International.

Annual search revenue in China is estimated to be more than $1bn.

Google’s second-place standing in China means it won’t feel an immediate sting if it does close shop there. Analysts estimate revenue from China to be a fraction of the roughly $22bn in annual revenue Google generated in 2008.

Google said it may pull out of China after uncovering a sophisticated cyber attack on the email accounts of human rights activists. The company said the attack originated from China, but would not speculate on whether the Chinese authorities were involved.

However, with growth slowing in mature markets such as the US, Google needs all the sources of growth it can find and China is a strategic market for most technology companies.

 “Just about every earnings call recently has been that they are focused on the long term growth opportunities for China and that they are committed,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Stephen Ju, describing Google’s move as a “complete 180.”

“Others have pulled out already, so I guess Google pulling out would not be model breaking,” he said, but nonetheless described Google’s move as very surprising.

In 2005, Yahoo Inc handed over exclusive rights to the “Yahoo China” brand and folded its Chinese mail, messaging and other operations into the Alibaba Group, in a $1bn deal that gave Yahoo a 40 percent stake in Alibaba.

In 2006, eBay Inc folded its Chinese operations into a new venture controlled by a local partner as it switched tack in a fast-growing market where it has struggled.

The US-based web auction giant put its China business, acquired when it bought local auction site EachNet for $180m, into a joint venture with Tom Online, a Beijing-based internet portal and wireless services firm that is partly owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.

Filtered vs unfiltered site
Google launched its Chinese-language search engine google.cn in 2006, and the site complies with local laws requiring censorship of certain items such as pornography and “vulgar comment”.

“There were a lot of problems that hamstrung Google, but not all of them had to do with Google being picked on by the Chinese government,” said Kaiser Kuo, China internet commentator and former director of digital strategy at Ogilvy China.

Analysts have said that working with a local partner in China could help Google get a better competitive footing in a foreign market with different languages and customs.

But it could also expose Google to some criticism after having taken the stand it would not countenance Chinese censorship.

While Google could stop operating the filtered Google.cn site, one analyst said some Chinese users might still use the company’s flagship English-language site, Google.com.

“If they do pull out of China and shut down their offices, it shows that they are not that committed to this giant internet market,” said JP Morgan analyst Dick Wei.

“Before 2006 and before Google.cn came to China, I think market share for Google was over 20 percent, I don’t think if they pull out of China it will go down to zero. It will still be a substantial (market) share from Google.com, about 20 percent,” he said.

There was a lot of explaining going on at the recent Copenhagen climate summit conference. After the speeches and ceremonies, delegates got down to the hardcore negotiating.

Almost all of this hard graft was dealing with how countries and corporates tackle CO2 targets for the next 20-30 years and, crucially, how carbon capture storage (CCS) technology will get used.

“McKinsey Consultants recently did an in-depth study on CCS,” says Stan Dessens, “and it quickly became obvious that unless countries started to use CCS, then we can’t reduce our CO2 emissions effectively. In the long run, renewables will be able to help here, but until they arrive we need a bridge. CCS is the right bridge and the right technology. It’s a genuine alternative that works now.”

CCS in brief:
• CCS is a relatively new technology designed to let major producers of CO2 emissions like fossil fue∞burning power stations prevent the CO2 they create being released into the atmosphere.
• CCS is usually stored underground or under the sea.
• Its use is not widespread but it is increasingly
seen as a bridge-builder until more renewable technology arrives.
• A major part of CCS strategy is to reduce the cost and increase scale in order to get CCS commercially available by 2020.

Barriers remain though. More than 150 developing countries have no incentive mechanisms for developing CCS. Its technology needs to be more widespread and it needs to be cheaper. CCS also needs a great deal more public acceptance if it’s to make serious headway.

“In the Netherlands,” says Stan Dessens, “we continue to break down barriers in terms of public acceptance. It’s the usual ‘not-in-my-back-yard’ concerns and people do have a right to be concerned. But it’s also a communication issue, and a matter of convincing the public that CCS technology is safe and effective.”

Communicating the need
Is CCS promoted enough by the right agencies? It’s a good question when the need for it is so pressing, argues Stan Dessens. Part of the fight to get CCS more accepted is to broaden the net of groups and organisations that can talk about it with authority – it’s simply too big an issue to be left just to the politicians.

“We need to talk more and invest more with scientists and NGOs and other responsible authorities,” says Dessens. “Once NGOs and scientists start talking about the issue then you have a platform where they can be judged and trusted more by the public. When a scientist or an NGO says ‘we need to invest or accept CCS more’, then public acceptance does begin to change. So we need to talk to universities and NGOs. Some, of course, will be never convinced, but we need to start.”

There are several CCS steps to communicate successfully: capture, transport and storage.

Power plants, for example, are often part of the “capture” part of the chain but the public still largely remains unclear about the “transport” and “storage” elements, partly because the costs and how the technology functions remains unclear – quite a tangled mass of communication challenges. Although very sophisticated CCS technology exists, progress will be slow until there is broader public acceptance.

Practical, profitable partnerships
Dessens believes the role of private enterprise and private public partnerships (PPP) are essential in order to augment CCS progress, as well as aid consumer perception about the technology. “I’m really very optimistic about more PPP relationships in the future. It’s about looking for common outcomes and so far there have been several projects that have succeeded. Of course, there can be confrontations sometimes on this journey, but that’s expected.”

CCS technology also needs some flagship projects up and running on a commercial scale to prove the viability of the technology. That’s not easy. For example, current research by the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum suggests there are 273 CCS projects under way worldwide, but only 64 of which are of commercial scale. Seven are operational but none as yet generate electricity.

Dessens says the data can look discouraging from certain viewpoints. “But we have always stated we need a decade from 2010 to 2020 for development and while we have pilot projects running in the Netherlands, the decision to invest in a post∞combustion project of 250 megawatts under an ERP scheme with Eon/Electrabel is great progress.” This scheme has been nominated for a subsidy of EUR 180m under the EERP scheme (European Economic Recovery Plan) with an operation start date slated for 2015.

Meanwhile several pilot plants and demonstrations are on-going in the Netherlands. So progress is being made.

Current Dutch CCS storage projects
• An already up-and-running offshore project with Gaz de France (location block K12b) where CO2 is injected to stimulate gas production. Already more than 60,000 tons of CO2 have been injected here.
• Barendrecht: this is a 10-year injection project of 0.2 million tons a year in a depleted gasfield. CO2 is coming from a Shell refinery; there is a EUR 30m subsidy granted to Shell to help realise this project. Scheduled start of injection is 2012.
• Geleen in the province of Limburg; same size as Barendrecht; CO2 is coming from an ammonia plant with a subsidy of EUR 30 mln granted; injection in sandstone under coal layers. Start of operation is 2011/12.

Support from China and India
China and India are both investing seriously in CCS technology. But Western Europe and the US also have their part to play in exporting CCS technology to places like India and China – it’s all about a joint effort. “When a country like China takes the problem seriously,” says Dessens, “we all gain, because that speeds up the process for everyone. We have to develop and share technology together.”

CCS technology is very important for a country like China because it’s an enormous coal producer. Coal emits more than double the CO2 compared to gas per kilowatt of energy produced when burned. But CCS – sometimes labelled “clean coal” – promises to remove a large proportion of emissions from burning coal.

Also, says Dessens, CCS is vital in the fight against climate change because emerging economies like India and China are almost wholly dependent on coal for electricity generation.

In fact, carbon capture has been used in petrochemical and chemical processes for many years. But developing it on a truly massive commercial scale is a different thing.

Change is tough, tough work
Stan Dessens knows that the road to CCS acceptance will be hard∞going into the near future. He also acknowledges that there are well-known drawbacks to CCS, like its expense. But he’s confident broader acceptance will come. “Really you have to look around and ask yourself, ‘what is the alternative to CCS? What other technology works here, right now?’

“Some people will argue that we have to invest more in renewables, and I agree with that. But it’s impossible to solve the problem only with renewables. We have to be open to lots of ideas and pathways. We need them all.”

Further information: www.ez.nl

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, both with the University of Manchester, conducted experiments with graphene, a new form of carbon that is both the thinnest and strongest material known.

“Since it is practically transparent and a good conductor, graphene is suitable for producing transparent touch screens, light panels and maybe even solar cells,” the committee said.

Novoselov, 36, is a dual British-Russian citizen while Geim, 51, is a Dutch citizen.

The pair extracted the super-thin material from a piece of graphite such as that found in ordinary pencils, using adhesive tape to obtain a flake that was only one atom thick.

“Playfulness is one of their hallmarks, one always learns something in the process and, who knows, you may even hit the jackpot,” the committee said in its release. The material is almost completely transparent yet so dense that not even the smallest gas atom can pass through it. It also conducts electricity as well as copper.

Quantum leap
The academy said that graphene offered physicists the ability to study two-dimensional materials with unique properties and made possible experiments that can give new twists to the phenomena in quantum physics.

“Also a vast variety of practical applications now appear possible including the creation of new materials and the manufacture of innovative electronics,” it said.

Mentioning a few possible applications, the academy said graphene transistors were expected to become much faster than today’s silicon ones and yield more efficient computers.

The prize of 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.5m), awarded by the Nobel Committee for Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, was the second of this year’s Nobel prizes.