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The first day of the Rome summit - the leaders' first face-to-face gathering since the start of the COVID pandemic - focused mainly on health and the economy, while climate and the environment is front and centre of Sunday's agenda. Climate scientists and activists are likely to be disappointed unless late breakthroughs are made, with drafts of the G20's final communique showing little progress in terms of new commitments to curb pollution. The G20 bloc, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany and the United States, accounts for an estimated 80% of the global greenhouse gas emissions which scientists say must be steeply reduced to avoid climate catastrophe. For that reason, this weekend's gathering is seen as an important stepping stone to the UN's "COP26" climate summit attended by almost 200 countries, in Glasgow, Scotland, where most of the G20 leaders will fly directly from Rome. "The latest reports are disappointing, with little sense of urgency in the face of an existential emergency," said Oscar Soria of the activist network Avaaz. "There is no more time for vague wish-lists, we need concrete commitments and action." A fifth draft of the G20's final statement seen by Reuters on Saturday did not toughen the language on climate action compared with previous versions, and in some key areas, such as the need to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, it softened it. This mid-century target date is a goal that United Nations experts say is needed to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, seen as the limit to avoid a dramatic acceleration of extreme events such as droughts, storms and floods. UN experts say even if current national plans to curb emissions are fully implemented, the world is headed for global warming of 2.7C. The planet's largest carbon emitter China, is aiming for net zero in 2060, while other major polluters such as India and Russia have also not committed to the mid-century deadline. G20 energy and environment ministers who met in Naples in July failed to reach agreement on setting a date to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and end coal power, asking the leaders to find a resolution at this weekend's summit. Based on the latest draft, they have made little progress, pledging to "do our utmost" to stop building new coal power plants before the end of the 2030s and saying they will phase out fossil fuel subsidies "over the medium term." On the other hand, they do pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year. Some developing countries are reluctant to commit to steep emission cuts until rich nations make good on a pledge made 12 years ago to provide $100 billion per year from 2020 to help them tackle the effects of global warming. That promise has still not been kept, contributing to the "mistrust" which UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Friday was blighting progress in climate negotiations. The draft stresses the importance of meeting the goal and doing so in a transparent way.

Farmers who lost their homes and crops when the devastating Cyclone Sidr battered Bangladesh's low-lying southern coasts on Nov 15 face a new problem from migratory birds that swarm into the country by the thousands every winter. "They are welcome guests and we do usually enjoy their presence," said Mohammad Shahabuddin, a local council chairman in the Bhola district on the coast. "But this year the birds are making our struggle to survive following the cyclone more difficult," he said. "The birds are destroying our seedbeds by eating the soft and tender saplings before we can replant them in the croplands." As the winter that started late last month gets chillier by the day, the number of migratory fowl is increasing. "We really don't know what to do and how to drive them away," Shahabuddin said. Tens of thousands of birds of various species fly from as far as Siberia to escape bitter cold and bask in a warmer climate in Bangladesh. Species include hawks, swallows, shrikes, loons, ducks and geese. They take temporary refuge in the country's vast rivers, lakes and marshes, and feed on fish, green leaves and grasses. But Cyclone Sidr, which struck Bangladesh with winds of 255 kph (150 mph) and a 5-metre surge had washed away almost everything, including rice and other crops in the fields. It also killed more than 3,300 people, made millions homeless and left a trail of devastation that officials and aid agencies say will need months or a year to be healed. Cyclone survivors on the islands and in riverside villages said they faced an immediate problem of food and were losing hope for an early harvest as the migratory birds were eating their seedbeds. Fishermen said fish were depleted in the waters along the coasts following the cyclone and surge, forcing many fish-eating fowl to change their diets for survival. The farmers say they cannot kill the birds as Bangladesh law prohibits killing or capturing "guest birds." "It's really a big problem for us," said Mohammad Belayet Hossain, deputy commissioner (administrator) of Bhola, about 250 km (155 miles) from the capital Dhaka. "We suggested farmers to guard their fields as we have no technology to protect them." Mohammad Dastagir, another local council official in the district, said farmers try to scare away the birds by shouting and beating tin-containers, and sometimes by making fires. In some places, farmers also put up scarecrows made with straw and bamboo, but it does not work after a few days as the fowl get used to the scene, said the islanders. "Migratory birds also damaged rice plants in the previous years, but this time we are more concerned as we really need to yield rice in the shortest possible time, so that our families are not hungry," said Abdul Malek, a farmer. Rice is the main staple in Bangladesh, home of more than 140 million people.

The region, where power demand is expected to double by 2040, is striving to expand the share of renewable sources as developing nations seek affordable electricity while battling climate change. Southeast Asia's cumulative solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity could nearly triple to 35.8 gigawatt (GW) in 2024 from an estimated 12.6 GW this year, consultancy Wood Mackenzie says. Vietnam leads the pack with a cumulative solar PV installation of 5.5 GW by this year, or 44% of the total capacity in the region, said Rishab Shrestha, Woodmac's power and renewables analyst. This compares with 134 MW last year. Among the encouraging signs for the solar industry was a recent auction for a 500 megawatt (MW) solar project in Malaysia of which 365 MW were bid at a price lower than the country's average gas-powered electricity, said Yeo Bee Yin, minister of energy, science, technology, environment and climate change. "For the first time in the history of Malaysia we have a large-scale solar energy costs that is less than gas, Yeo said at the Singapore International Energy Week. "We now finally have an alternative energy that is cheaper than gas to replace our peak energy demand at midday." Malaysia has set a target to increase its renewable energy in electricity generation from current 6% to 20% by 2025, and a majority of this would be driven by solar. The country also plans to open at least another 500 MW tender in the second quarter next year, Yeo said. Singapore has also targeted at least 2 gigawatt (GW) peak of solar power capacity by 2030, or more than 10% of current peak electricity demand, potentially replacing natural gas which generates 95% of the country's power now. "This being presented by the (Singaporean) authorities is very interesting as this points towards firm political determination to go towards a low-carbon economy in a constrained world," said Francesco La Camera, Director-General of International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Keisuke Sadamori, the International Energy Agency (IEA) director for energy markets and security said: "There needs to be some good measures to ensure that investors feel confident that their money could be returned in a relatively reasonable period." Still, the mushrooming of solar PV in Vietnam has exceeded its grid capacity by 18%, Woodmac's Shrestha said, underscoring the need for further investments across power sector. "The approved capacity for the Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provinces amounts to 5 GW, more than double the grid usable capacity," he said.

VIENNA (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Global use of nuclear energy could increase by as much as 100 percent in the next two decades on the back of growth in Asia, even though groundbreakings for new reactors fell last year after the Fukushima disaster, a UN report says. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has not yet been made public but has been seen by Reuters, said a somewhat slower capacity expansion than previously forecast is likely after the world's worst nuclear accident in a quarter of a century. But, it said: "Significant growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide is still anticipated - between 35 percent and 100 percent by 2030 - although the Agency projections for 2030 are 7-8 percent lower than projections made in 2010." Japan's reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant triggered by a deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11 last year shook the nuclear world and raised a question mark over whether atomic energy is safe. Germany, Switzerland and Belgium decided to move away from nuclear power to grow reliance on renewable energy instead. The IAEA document, obtained by Reuters on Friday, said the number of new reactor construction starts fell to only three last year - two in Pakistan and one in India - from 16 in 2010. Also last year, 13 reactors were officially declared as permanently shut down, including the four units at Fukushima as well as eight in Germany. "This represents the highest number of shutdowns since 1990, when the Chernobyl accident had a similar effect," the Vienna-based UN agency said in its annual Nuclear Technology Review. "As a comparison, 2010 saw only one shutdown and 2009 three." In 1986, a reactor exploded and caught fire at Chernobyl in the then Soviet Union, sending radiation billowing across Europe. TEMPORARY DELAYS? At Fukushima one year ago, fires and explosions caused a full meltdown in three reactors while a fourth was also damaged. Today, the four reactors are in a stable, cold shutdown state and clean-up of the site continues, but the final phase of decommissioning will not happen for 30 or 40 years. Almost all of Japan's 54 reactors sit idle, awaiting approvals to restart. "The 7-8 percent drop in projected growth for 2030 reflects an accelerated phase-out of nuclear power in Germany, some immediate shutdowns and a government review of the planned expansion in Japan, as well as temporary delays in expansion in several other countries," the IAEA report said. But many countries are still pushing ahead with nuclear energy, with 64 reactors under construction at the end of 2011, most of them in Asia, said the document prepared for a closed-door meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board last week. Factors that had contributed to growing interest in nuclear energy before Fukushima - increasing demand for energy, concerns about climate change, energy security and uncertainty about fossil fuel supplies - had not changed, it said. "In countries considering the introduction of nuclear power, interest remained strong. Although some countries indicated that they would delay decisions to start nuclear power programmes, others continued with their plans to introduce nuclear energy." China and India are expected to remain the main centres of expansion in Asia and Russia is also forecast to see strong growth, it said.

Governments should focus more on generating returns and reducing risk for investors to attract the $100 billion in aid needed by developing countries to cope with climate change, a panel of experts said on Wednesday. Rich countries are being urged to adhere to key elements of a climate accord signed in Copenhagen last year, including a promise of $10 billion a year in quick-start aid from 2010-12 for poor countries, rising to $100 billion a year from 2020. "$100 billion sounds like a lot of money ... (but) raising large amounts of money in the private sector is actually very easy," said Martin Lawless, head of environmental financial products at Deutsche Bank. "Too much attention is focussed on who will provide the money. Instead it should be on the other side, how to increase returns and reduce risks. Once that is established, the finance will follow." The United Nations urged rich nations on Tuesday to keep their pledge to give $30 billion to poor nations by 2012, saying it was "not an impossible call" despite budget cuts in Europe. But with worries over sovereign debt also growing, the private sector may be asked to help fill more of the funding gap. "When you have the right proposition, the financing will come," said Mohsen Khalil, global head of the International Financial Corporation's new Climate Business Solutions Group. "We're at a transition phase where the public and private sectors have to align their interests because heavy subsidies will be required initially until costs come down and we can have a large-scale sustainable business." The panel agreed that the role of carbon markets in directing funds to financing clean energy and climate change adaptation in developing countries was shrinking. Another panel of analysts said earlier on Wednesday that market mechanisms will survive beyond 2012, but their exact shape remains unclear as international climate talks now bypass their role in favour of the wider policy picture. "Carbon credits were good for a time, but is it the only instrument (to engage the private sector)? I don't think so," said Khalil. "Against the background of recent economic turmoil, investors are particularly risk averse, so the private sector needs TLC: transparency, longevity and consistency," Lawless said. He cited a unilateral carbon price floor set by China in 2007 and growing uncertainty over the $144 billion global carbon market's future post-2012, when the first five-year leg of the Kyoto Protocol expires, as deterrents to investors. Key ministers and climate negotiators from China to Norway have said governments are unlikely to agree a successor to Kyoto at UN talks in Cancun, Mexico later this year.

The United Nations said on Monday that a climate change deal in Copenhagen next month is crucial to fighting global hunger, which Brazil's president described as "the most devastating weapon of mass destruction". Government leaders and officials met in Rome for a three-day U.N. summit on how to help developing countries feed themselves, but anti-poverty campaigners were already writing off the event as a missed opportunity. The sense of scepticism deepened at the weekend, when U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders supported delaying a legally binding climate pact until 2010 or even later, though European negotiators said the move did not imply weaker action. "Hunger is the most devastating weapon of mass destruction on our planet, it doesn't kill soldiers, it kills innocent children who are not even one-year old," Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told the summit. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there could be "no food security without climate security". "Next month in Copenhagen, we need a comprehensive agreement that will provide a firm foundation for a legally binding treaty on climate change," he said. Africa, Asia and Latin America could see a decline of between 20 and 40 percent in potential agricultural productivity if temperatures rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, the U.N. says. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to be the hardest hit from global warming as its agriculture is almost entirely rain-fed. With the number of hungry people in the world topping 1 billion for the first time, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation called the summit in the hope leaders would commit to raising the share of official aid spent on agriculture to 17 percent of the total -- its 1980 level -- from 5 percent now. That would amount to $44 billion a year against $7.9 billion now. Farmers in rich countries receive $365 billion of support every year. WHERE'S THE MONEY? But the summit declaration adopted on Monday included only a general promise to pour more money into agricultural aid, with no target or timeframe for action. A pledge to eliminate malnutrition by 2025, one of the early aims of the summit, was also missing from the statement, which merely stated that world leaders commit to eradicate hunger "at the earliest possible date". Last year's spike in the price of food staples such as rice and wheat sparked riots in as many as 60 countries. Rich food importers have rushed to buy foreign farmland, pushing food shortages and hunger up the political agenda -- but also raising fears of a new colonialism in poor countries. "We should fight against this new feudalism, we should put an end to this land grab in African countries," Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi told the summit. Food prices have fallen back since their 2008 record highs but remain high in poor countries. The FAO says sudden price rises are still very likely. A summit of the Group of Eight leading powers in July pledged $20 billion over the next three years to boost agricultural development, in a big policy shift towards long-term strategies and away from emergency food aid. But FAO Director General Jacques Diouf said those were "still promises that need to materialise". Apart from Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, G8 leaders skipped the summit, which looked more like a gathering of Latin American and African heads of state.