Helping homeowners harness the sun (Google / SolarCity)

Google Blog, 6/14/11

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog)

Imagine sitting on your patio watching the sun’s rays pass overhead, knowing that they power your home with clean energy—at a cost that’s less that what you would have paid using just the grid. That’s what my colleague, engineer Michael Flaster, has been doing at his home in Menlo Park, Calif. since March of this year. He did it with the help of a company called SolarCity, which enables homeowners and businesses to begin using solar energy to power their homes and buildings.

Today, we’re announcing that we’ve investing $280 million to create a fund that will help SolarCity finance more solar installations across the country. This is our largest clean energy project investment to date and brings our total invested in the clean energy sector to more than $680 million. We’ve also launched a partnership to offer SolarCity services to Googlers at a discount.

In SolarCity’s innovative financing model, the company covers installation and maintenance of the system over the life of the lease. You can prepay, or pay nothing upfront after which you make monthly solar lease payments. All told, Michael will save $100 per month on his energy bills this year, and more than $16,000 over his 15 year lease, after factoring in his lease payment and lower energy bills.

We believe the world needs a wide range of clean energy options in the future, each serving different needs. We’ve already invested in several large-scale renewable energy projects, so we’re excited that this new partnership with SolarCity helps people power their homes directly with solar energy, too. We think “distributed” renewable energy (generated and used right at home) is a smart way to use solar photovoltaic (PV) technology to improve our power system since it helps avoid or alleviate distribution constraints on the traditional electricity grid.

Our investment is a quadruple-win for Google, SolarCity, its new customers and the environment. We continue to look for other renewable energy investments that make business sense and help develop and deploy cleaner sources of energy. Whether harnessing the sun on rooftops like Michael’s or in the desert sands of the Mojave, it’s all part of building a clean energy future.

Posted by Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations

Related Articles:

Google invests $280 million in SolarCity

Leading the charge toward an electric vehicle fleet (Google)

Investing in the Alta Wind Energy Center (Google)

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain - (Google)

Google Shepherding the wind

GE, Google to invest in $2 billion Oregon wind farm

Google investing in the world’s largest solar power tower plant

Google invests $280 million in SolarCity

CNN News, By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoneyTech June 14, 2011

Google's investment in SolarCity will fund 7,000 to 9,000 home solar arrays.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Google and rooftop solar power company SolarCity announced a $280 million investment deal Tuesday, the largest such deal for home-based solar power systems in the United States.

The investment will give San Mateo, Calif-based SolarCity the funding to build and lease solar power systems to a 7,000 to 9,000 homeowners in the 10 states where it operates.

Founded five years ago, SolarCity has 15,000 solar projects around the nation completed or under way. Customers who wish to have the company's solar system installed at their home can pay for it outright, but most choose instead to let SolarCity retain ownership of the equipment and rent back the use of it through monthly solar lease payments.

As SolarCity's financing partner, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) plans to recoup its investment over time through those lease payments.

"We hope to be seen as a model," said Rick Needham, Google's director of green business operations.

Needham wouldn't elaborate on the exact terms of the deal, but said "these investments are designed to earn us a good return on our capital."

War veterans go solar

Funding arrangements like this are not uncommon in the energy businesses, but they have previously been restricted mostly to utilities and a handful of banks with specialized industry knowledge.

Google's entry into this type of financing is both a sign that more companies may be interested in funding alternative energy ventures and a nod to the fast-growing market in leasing residential solar panels.

"Google is out in front on this," said Nathaniel Bullard, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. "It's a sign of confidence in the space."

Google likes to experiment with clean energy investments -- witness last year's wind farm investment -- but the SolarCity deal marks its first move into the residential market. SolarCity is one of a handful of companies that lease solar panels to homeowners.

The idea behind leasing is to keep things as simple and cheap for the customer as possible.

In SolarCity's case, the customer signs a multi-year agreement with the company and begins writing a monthly check to the firm that's ideally 10% to 20% percent lower than what they were previously paying for their monthly power bill.

SolarCity then handles the rest -- everything from purchasing and installing the panels to claiming the various tax credits offered by the federal, state, and sometimes even local governments.

Eliminating the often hefty upfront costs for buying a solar system, as well as handling the maintenance and tax issues, has been a boon for the industry.

Nationwide, the number of homes installing solar has gone from under 10,000 annually in 2006 to nearly 50,000 in 2010, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

"The biggest constraint is financing," said SolarCity chief executive Lyndon Rive.

Generous government subsidies are the main reason the economics for solar work in the United States. Between federal, state and local incentives, up to 50% of the cost of a solar system can often be subsidized.

The government is funding this industry because it hopes that creating a market will foster technological innovation in the space, driving down the cost of solar panels to the point where they are competitive with fossil fuels.

Rive hopes more companies will follow Google's lead and use some of the trillions in cash they have stockpiled to invest in the clean-energy market.

Google may well be getting a return on its investment, but the company also sees an advantage in promoting cheap, renewable energy. Its server farms eat up massive amounts of electricity.

"Energy drives our businesses, and we want our energy to be clean," said Needham. "Over time renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuel. We're doing what we can to make that happen faster."

Related Articles:

Helping homeowners harness the sun (Google Blog)

Leading the charge toward an electric vehicle fleet

Investing in the Alta Wind Energy Center (Google)

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain - (Google)

Google Shepherding the wind

GE, Google to invest in $2 billion Oregon wind farm

Google investing in the world’s largest solar power tower plant

UN calls for eco-friendly farming

Herald Sun, (AAP) June 13, 2011

THE United Nations food agency is calling for greater use of environmentally sustainable techniques by poor farmers in order to increase crop intensity to feed the world's growing population.

"The new approach calls for targeting mainly smallholder farmers in developing countries," the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a statement accompanying a report entitled "Save and Grow".

"Helping low-income farm families in developing countries... economise on cost of production and build healthy agro-ecosystems will enable them to maximise yields and invest the savings in their health and education," it said.

"In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save," it said, pointing to lower crop yields in recent years despite an increase in environmentally unsustainable farming practices aimed at increasing intensive farming.

The eco-friendly techniques recommended by FAO include using plant residues to cover over fields, rotating cereals cultivation with soil-enriching legumes, more precise irrigation for fields and better use of fertilisers.

"Such methods help adapt crops to climate change and not only help grow more food but also contribute to reducing crops' water needs by 30 per cent and energy costs by up to 60 per cent," the report said.

"In some cases crop yields can be increased six-fold, as shown by trials with maize held recently in southern Africa," it said.

"Average yields from farms practicing the techniques in 57 low-income countries increased almost 80 per cent," it added.

FAO called on governments both in the developed and in the developing world to increase investments in order to provide incentives for poor farmers to adopt the new, more environmentally friendly farming techniques.

Related Articles:

Oxfam calls for radical rethink of world food system

One third of world's food is wasted, says UN study

Reducing poverty stresses food systems, says expert

Big food push urged to avoid global hunger

Global food crisis: the US speculators playing with our daily bread

Indonesia expects G20 meeting to press food speculators

Dutch hothouses could help solve world food crisis

Rob Baan uses four colours in LED-lighting (Photo: RNW)

Rabbit born without ears near Fukushima nuclear plant

News.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, June 13, 2011

• Rabbit born without ears at Fukushima
• Could be first sign of side-effects
• Fears of new radiation leak from plant
  
  

FRESH fears over a nuclear leak at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima plant have re-ignited after a rabbit born close to the facility was found to have no ears.

Locals have been left wondering whether this earless bunny - found near the facility at the end of last month - was the first sign of side-effects from the nuclear catastrophe.

The Fukushima plant suffered terrible damage when a tsunami, triggered by an earthquake, swept through the facility in March, destroying reactors.

Following a blast at the plant that caused initial leaks, officials warned people living near Fukushima to stay indoors, turn off airconditioning and stop drinking tap water.

Since then experts have been nervously watching radiation levels around the plant.

The Japanese government has already more than doubled the estimate for the amount of radiation released by the plant.

The government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency also said during a briefing in Tokyo that it was now believed that reactor cores in some of the units melted more quickly than previously thought.

Meanwhile, more than 90,000 people are still living in shelters three months after the tsunami and only a fraction of the debris has been removed. The confirmed death toll from the disaster yesterday reached 15,413 while another 8069 people remain missing.

Related Articles:

Fukushima plant: Six more workers exposed to radiation

Fukusima nuclear plant may have suffered 'melt-through', Japan abmits

Japan launches Pacific 'research' whaling

Italy Just Became The Latest Country To Abandon Nuclear Power

German cabinet approves 2022 nuclear shutdown

Swiss to phase out nuclear power

Coal mining company hopes to tap into green energy market

Deutsche Welle, 10 June 2011

Where miners once worked, green
energy will flow

Germany will cease hard coal mining operations in 2018. But abandoned mines could receive a new lease on life and make an important contribution to the development of renewable energies.

If the Ruhrkohle coal company (RAG) has its way, wind turbines could someday dot the top of its many mining waste mounds and hydroelectric pumped-storage stations could be installed in defunct underground shafts, turning former mines into "green batteries."

All the prerequisites exist, according to Walter Eilert, director of renewable energies at RAG. "Three years ago we examined the company's resources," he said. "And we discovered that we had resources in mine water, deep shafts, open surface areas and waste mounds."

Mining companies able to exploit these resources can reduce the so-called "eternity costs" of mining hard coal, Eilert argues. These costs stem, in part, from the need to continue pumping mine water out of shafts after operations have been shut down. RAG, for instance, pumps more than 100 million cubic meters of water out of its mines every year.

Wind conditions similar to North Sea

Initially, the Heine-based company will focus on using its mounds of mining waste, which can reach heights of 70 meters, as a base for wind turbines, according to Eilert. Wind conditions at these heights are similar to those along Germany's North Sea shoreline.

Prosper-Haniel could house the
first hydroelectric pumped-storage
station

Currently, two wind turbines erected on mining waste mounds in Gelsenkirchen are generating up to 2.5 megawatts of electricity each – enough energy to power more than 10,000 households in the region.

A key challenge for expanding renewable energies is to ensure a constant power load. Electricity generated from solar and wind installations is subject to fluctuations, requiring energy storage facilities.

RAG says it has found a solution. "We aim to store electricity by pumping water into reservoirs," Eilert said. "When demand grows, we allow the water to flow down to turbines that generate electricity."

Two reservoirs needed

The plan is to install turbines in old RAG mines and turn their shafts into hydroelectric pumped-storage stations.

RAG hopes to receive a patent for its new underground electricity
storage concept

Two reservoirs will be required: one on the earth's surface and one underground. If the wind is particularly strong, surplus wind energy can be used to pump underground water into the surface reservoir. If the wind is low and not meeting demand, water is released from the surface reservoir to flow down a shaft and power electricity-generating turbines.

Pumping mine water from depths as great as 1,000 meters is a task that RAG has mastered for decades. What the company still needs to realize its hydroelectric pumped-storage station concept, however, are large storage tanks to serve as underground reservoirs. It also needs to install turbines and linings in the mine shafts. In cooperation with researchers from the Bochum and Duisburg-Essen universities, RAG aims to complete a feasibility study within three years.

Economical and ecological

After that, the company aims to select mine sites where it can implement the new energy concept in this decade. Two mines in the Ruhr Valley, Auguste Victoria and Prosper-Haniel, as well as one in Ibbenbüren are already shortlisted.

The Ibbenbüren mine is
another possible hydroelectric
site

Along the way, RAG intends to secure a global patent for its concept. "So far, all of our research has shown that no one has yet to implement an underground hydroelectric pumped-storage system like the one we have conceived," Eilert said.

According to company calculations, the system will be able to generate about 300 megawatt-hours of electricity. The depth of the mines will play an important role from both an economical and ecological viewpoint. The greater the drop height, the less water is necessary to generate electricity from the turbines.

Equally important, Eilert expects no opposition from environmentalists who are currently trying to block the construction of surface reservoirs in southern Germany. "We don't see hydroelectric pumped-storage stations located below ground having any significant impact on nature, if any impact at all," he said.

Author: Klaus Deuse / jrb

Editor: Sam Edmonds

Leading the charge toward an electric vehicle fleet

Google Blog, 6/09/2011 10:02:00 AM

(Cross-posted on the Green Blog)

Over the last few years, several innovative electric vehicle (EV) technologies have emerged in the marketplace and we’ve been working to update our green transportation infrastructure. As a result, we’ve now developed the largest corporate EV charging infrastructure in the country. We’re also including the next generation of plug-in vehicles in Gfleet, our car-sharing program for Googlers.

When Google.org launched the RechargeIt initiative in 2007, there were no commercially available plug-in hybrid EVs on the market. So we bought several Toyota Priuses and had them retrofitted with A123 Hymotion batteries to create our own mini-fleet of plug-in hybrids to demonstrate the technology. It was the birth of Gfleet, which has since become a valued perk and makes it easier for Googlers to use our biodiesel shuttle system to commute to work by providing green transportation options for people after they arrive at the Googleplex. The new Gfleet will include more than 30 plug-ins, starting with Chevrolet Volts and Nissan LEAFs, several of which have already arrived and are available for Googlers to use today. We’ll be adding models from other manufacturers as they become available.

To juice up our new cars and provide more charging options for Googlers, we’ve been working with Coulomb Technologies’ ChargePoint® Network to continue to expand our EV charging infrastructure. We’ve added 71 new and faster Level 2 chargers to the 150 Level 1 chargers we’ve installed over the last few years, bringing our total capacity to more than 200 chargers, with another 250 new ones on the way. The ChargePoint Network provides us the charging data necessary to track and report on the success of our green transportation initiative.

Overall, our goal is to electrify five percent of our parking spaces—all over campus and free of charge (pun intended) to Googlers. Our expanded charging system has already helped several Googlers decide to buy new EVs of their own, and we hope others will, too.

All told, Gfleet and our biodiesel shuttle system result in net annual savings of more than 5,400 tonnes of CO2. That’s like taking over 2,000 cars off the road, or avoiding 14 million vehicle miles every year! But we’re only one company, so we hope other companies think about how they can incorporate these new technologies into their own infrastructure. By supporting new, green transportation technologies, we’re enabling our employees to be green and doing our part to help spur growth in the industry.

Posted by Rolf Schreiber, Technical Program Manager, Electric Transportation

Cooling with the heat of the sun

Deutsche Welle, 9 June 2011-06-09 

The potential for solar energy in
Africa is huge

The sun's rays can boil water, but they can also cool buildings and keep food fresher longer. While solar-cooling technology is advanced and environmentally friendly, it is also prohibitively expensive.

"Cooled by sunlight" are words that might well be found on food packaging of the future, since solar cooling units that keep fruits and vegetables fresh, and edible, longer, are now a reality.

The solar cooling technology could be especially beneficial to people in developing countries, where refrigerators are often unattainable luxuries and then only available in urban areas that have reliable electricity networks.

Keeping medicines cool is also a crucial issue in many poorer countries, particularly in rural regions.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) have demonstrated that solar cooling is now a reality, even in hot countries.

As a part of the EU-backed MEDISCO (Mediterranean Solar Cooling) project, ISE scientists set up solar installations in a winery in Tunisia and a Moroccan dairy.

The MEDISCO Project set up a
facility to cool wine in Tunisia

"The technology is very useful in sunny countries, especially in remote areas, where conventional cooling methods are difficult or impossible given the lack of water or the absence of a reliable energy source," said Tomas Nunez, a Fraunhofer ISE researcher.

"Solar cooling is environmentally friendly and greatly reduces the need for expensive electricity to power conventional refrigerating devices," he added.

Researchers have set up large solar collectors which use mirrors to focus sunlight on an absorber. The concentrated solar radiation heats water in a container to 200 degrees Celsius, which then drives a so-called "absorption chiller" that creates chilled water used to cool a space.

"Unlike refrigerators we don't use electricity to create cold, but heat," said Nunez. "It is cold in the form of cold water or, in our case, a water-glycol mixture."

Market barrier – cost

Many trials to cool rooms or entire buildings with the solar units have been successful and shown that solar systems can use from between 50 to 80 percent less energy than traditional air conditioning systems.

However, despite the obviously environmental advantages, experts warn that the technology is not yet ready for the market.

"The costs involved in installing these complex systems are simply too high," said Professor Ursula Eicker of the University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart.

Solar cooling can be especially helpful to rural regions without reliable
power sources

A solar cooling system in a single-family house in Germany or Austria will cost between 30,000 and 40,000 euros ($44,000 and $59,000), double the price of traditional air conditioning.

While that would discourage many Europeans, for an average mid-sized company in Africa, such an investment is often out of the question. In addition, the installation costs of an industrial system are even more daunting.

Still, most researchers say development in the sector will take place largely in the industrial sector. Nunez, for one, is optimistic about the technologies chances in the mid-term, especially in helping air condition buildings in hot, sun-rich places like Africa.

"The important thing is to promote the technology slowly, step by step," he said, stressing the need to spread awareness of solar cooling with sponsored projects and getting local people involved.

"Part of the production should take place at the local level, and you need trained engineers for the installation," he said.

Getting the government on board

Without state backing, like exists in Germany, Spain and Austria, solar cooling systems will never be competitive.

"We are in an absolute niche," said Eicker.

In 2007, 81 larger solar refrigeration machines were installed worldwide, almost all of them in Europe, and most of those in office buildings.

A "green" refrigerator keeps medicines
cool in Swaziland

In order to create a market for the technology, governments have to show interest and step up to the funding plate, experts said, like is happening now in Egypt and Morocco.

Despite the costs, replacing conventional cooling systems, and preventing the installation of many others in emerging countries, is essential to environmental protection. Refrigerants and foam blowing agents contain ozone-eating chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are 12,000 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide.

European governments are now helping some developing countries replace these substances with more environmentally friendly variants. Such efforts were kicked off by the Montreal Protocol, an agreement signed in 1987 that committed 180 countries to helping phase out these ozone killers.

To this end, the German government initiated the Proklima project, which introduces and disseminates environmentally friendly technology in developing countries that neither harms the ozone layer nor contributes to global warming.

The project has partnered with 40 nations, including Swaziland, where local businesses are manufacturing new, "green" refrigerators.

All in all, the initiative has prevented some 46 million tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Author: Torsten Schäfer (jam)

Editor: Ranty Islam

US universities in Africa 'land grab'

Institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt reportedly use hedge funds to buy land in deals that may force farmers out

guardian.co.uk, John Vidal and Claire Provost, Wednesday 8 June 2011

US universities are reportedly using endowment funds to make deals
that may force thousands from their land in Africa.
Photograph: Boston Globe via Getty Images

Harvard and other major American universities are working through British hedge funds and European financial speculators to buy or lease vast areas of African farmland in deals, some of which may force many thousands of people off their land, according to a new study.

Researchers say foreign investors are profiting from "land grabs" that often fail to deliver the promised benefits of jobs and economic development, and can lead to environmental and social problems in the poorest countries in the world.

The new report on land acquisitions in seven African countries suggests that Harvard, Vanderbilt and many other US colleges with large endowment funds have invested heavily in African land in the past few years. Much of the money is said to be channelled through London-based Emergent asset management, which runs one of Africa's largest land acquisition funds, run by former JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs currency dealers.

Researchers at the California-based Oakland Institute think that Emergent's clients in the US may have invested up to $500m in some of the most fertile land in the expectation of making 25% returns.

Emergent said the deals were handled responsibly. "Yes, university endowment funds and pension funds are long-term investors," a spokesman said. "We are investing in African agriculture and setting up businesses and employing people. We are doing it in a responsible way … The amounts are large. They can be hundreds of millions of dollars. This is not landgrabbing. We want to make the land more valuable. Being big makes an impact, economies of scale can be more productive."

Chinese and Middle Eastern firms have previously been identified as "grabbing" large tracts of land in developing countries to grow cheap food for home populations, but western funds are behind many of the biggest deals, says the Oakland institute, an advocacy research group.

The company that manages Harvard's investment funds declined to comment. "It is Harvard management company policy not to discuss investments or investment strategy and therefore I cannot confirm the report," said a spokesman. Vanderbilt also declined to comment.

Oakland said investors overstated the benefits of the deals for the communities involved. "Companies have been able to create complex layers of companies and subsidiaries to avert the gaze of weak regulatory authorities. Analysis of the contracts reveal that many of the deals will provide few jobs and will force many thousands of people off the land," said Anuradha Mittal, Oakland's director.

In Tanzania, the memorandum of understanding between the local government and US-based farm development corporation AgriSol Energy, which is working with Iowa University, stipulates that the two main locations – Katumba and Mishamo – for their project are refugee settlements holding as many as 162,000 people that will have to be closed before the $700m project can start. The refugees have been farming this land for 40 years.

In Ethiopia, a process of "villagisation" by the government is moving tens of thousands of people from traditional lands into new centres while big land deals are being struck with international companies.

The largest land deal in South Sudan, where as much as 9% of the land is said by Norwegian analysts to have been bought in the last few years, was negotiated between a Texas-based firm, Nile Trading and Development and a local co-operative run by absent chiefs. The 49-year lease of 400,000 hectares of central Equatoria for around $25,000 (£15,000) allows the company to exploit all natural resources including oil and timber. The company, headed by former US Ambassador Howard Eugene Douglas, says it intends to apply for UN-backed carbon credits that could provide it with millions of pounds a year in revenues.

In Mozambique, where up to 7m hectares of land is potentially available for investors, western hedge funds are said in the report to be working with South Africans businesses to buy vast tracts of forest and farmland for investors in Europe and the US. The contracts show the government will waive taxes for up to 25 years, but few jobs will be created.

"No one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans, create jobs or improve food security," said Obang Metho of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia. "These agreements – many of which could be in place for 99 years – do not mean progress for local people and will not lead to food in their stomachs. These deals lead only to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors."

"The scale of the land deals being struck is shocking", said Mittal. "The conversion of African small farms and forests into a natural-asset-based, high-return investment strategy can drive up food prices and increase the risks of climate change.

Research by the World Bank and others suggests that nearly 60m hectares – an area the size of France – has been bought or leased by foreign companies in Africa in the past three years.

"Most of these deals are characterised by a lack of transparency, despite the profound implications posed by the consolidation of control over global food markets and agricultural resources by financial firms," says the report.

"We have seen cases of speculators taking over agricultural land while small farmers, viewed as squatters, are forcibly removed with no compensation," said Frederic Mousseau, policy director at Oakland, said: "This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat to global security than terrorism. More than one billion people around the world are living with hunger. The majority of the world's poor still depend on small farms for their livelihoods, and speculators are taking these away while promising progress that never happens."

Related Articles:

Hedge funds 'grabbing land' in Africa

Global food crisis: the US speculators playing with our daily bread

“Locavesting”: Capitalism for Main Street

African summit calls for action on rainforests

BBC News, By Thomas Hubert, Brazzaville, 3 June 2011

Related Stories

• Can bankers help save the rainforests?
• Recognising the economic benefits of nature in 2011
• Nature's sting: The real cost of damaging Planet Earth

Representatives of 18 rainforest countries have met to strengthen co-operation between the three main forest regions in the world.

Deforestation is just one of the threats
facing the world's rainforests

The heads of state and government ministers met in Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo.

They called for more international funding for forest conservation in the fight against climate change.

However, they failed to agree on a formal structure to co-ordinate forestry policies around the Equator.

All the pomp of African summits was on display to show the world that rainforest conservation is now a top diplomatic priority for the 35 South American, African and South-East Asian countries invited to take part in this week's summit in Brazzaville.

But only half of them - mostly African nations - sent high-level envoys to Friday's final meeting.

Participants insisted that their forests provided international services such as carbon sequestration [removing carbon from the atmosphere] as well as opportunities to reduce poverty for the estimated 1.5 billion people who make a living from the forests.

One example discussed over the past week was food production from giant snails in the Cameroonian jungle.

Many countries sent ministers instead of heads of state

According to a report prepared by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation for the summit, deforestation has gone down by a quarter in the past 10 years but forests are still being depleted at an alarming rate.

Countries with rainforests agreed to hold regular ministerial meetings and co-ordinate their positions before a fresh round of international climate change and environment talks scheduled for December in South Africa and next year in Brazil.

They made it clear that they are not happy with the financial assistance received from developed nations so far, as expressed by Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo, who was appointed by the summit to act as roving ambassador for the three tropical forest basins.

"In the Copenhagen accord, $10bn ($6bn) was pledged per annum," he said.

"The developed world, in their interaction with us, is saying 'this money is being disbursed'. For us, we don't see any evidence of this disbursement. So where is this money going?"

Most countries from the Amazon and Borneo-Mekong basins did not attend the summit and others sent ministers instead of heads of state.

As a result, the signature of a draft pact circulated here to establish a permanent co-operation body for the world's three largest rainforest basins was postponed until next year.

However, NGO representatives and diplomats seemed pleased with the outcome of the meeting. One delegate said that he would have expected its message to be much more watered down.

Related Article:

More articles regarding the Amazon