Thursday May 03, 2007

Incredulity greets rice field warning

Fear finding may hurt country's rice output

KULTIDA SAMABUDDHI and ANCHALEE KONGRUT

The world scientific body on climate change's conclusion that paddy fields are one of the main causes of rising methane emissions has upset the Agriculture Department and the Thai Farmers Association, which fear the finding could hurt the country's rice production. Agriculture chief Adisak Sreesunpagit yesterday said he did not deny the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) finding that flooded rice paddy fields emit methane, but the amount of the heat-trapping gas emitted by the farm sector was far less than by other sectors, he said.

''It is premature to talk about reform of rice-growing methods as a global warming mitigation measure. The major culprits [in greenhouse gas emissions] are industrialised nations, not agricultural countries like us,'' said Mr Adisak.

Thailand has about 55 million rai of paddy fields, he said. Methane emissions come mainly from only two to three million rai of irrigated areas where the farmers flood their fields almost year-round, leading to fermentation of organic matter which releases the gas.

The IPCC is meeting this week in Bangkok. Mr Adisak said the Thai delegation should make sure the issue is ''fairly'' addressed in the final report on climate change mitigation coming out tomorrow.

Methane is a greenhouse gas which has the second greatest effect on climate change, after carbon dioxide. The concentration of methane in the atmosphere has almost tripled in the last 150 years.

Methane comes from various sources, including coal mining, landfills, natural gas production, rice paddies, livestock farms, and mangrove forests.

Scientists suggest rice farmers periodically drain their fields and stop burning rice straw from the previous crop to cut methane and carbon dioxide emissions.

Suwan Kathawut, president of the Thai Farmers Association, said shallow flooding of paddy fields was a traditional rice-growing practice.

The water would be kept in the field throughout the four-month cropping period to prevent invasion by weeds and to enhance rice growth.

''To periodically drain water out of the field does not make sense at all. How can we grow rice without water in the field?'' Mr Suwan said.

Draining water from the paddies would also increase costs and water demand, he said. Farmers could not stop burning leftover rice husks either.

He had no idea how the rice paddies came to be seen as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and said farmers were not prepared to reform their rice-growing practices.

''The cost of complying with the scientists' recommendation is too high,'' he said.

Bhichit Rattakul, director of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, said asking rice farmers to drain water from paddies was unfair.

''The whole point is that the energy, industrial and transport sectors are the major culprits and the Kyoto Protocol called for industrialised nations to reduce emissions from these sectors. They are trying to pass blame to the farm sector in poor countries,'' he said.

Mr Bhichit said reforming rice production could result in a worsening of water shortages and lead to fighting over water resources.

Chatri Chuayprasit, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, said paddy farming reform was only one of many issues that around 400 scientists and government officials from 120 countries have discussed at the climate meeting.

More focus needed on health impact of a hotter climate

PIYAPORN WONGRUANG

Former US vice-president Al Gore's documentary film An Inconvenient Truth has taken the problem of climate change to a worldwide audience _ but scientists still have trouble getting some important issues across to the public. According to scientist Tony McMichael, one of those issues is the impact of climate change on people's health.

Dr McMichael said most attention was still focussed on political and economic aspects.

''We already have a lot of compelling evidence about the impact on non-human systems, but we know that public health is also at risk,'' said Dr McMichael, a review editor for the human health chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's second working group report on the impact of climate change.

He says climate change is likely to have both a direct and indirect impact on human health.

The heat wave in Europe in 2003, when up to 900 people died, was an extreme example of how climate change could affect people.

The changes in weather would also pose a secondary impact on people's health, including an increase in injuries caused by extreme weather events, a rise in infectious diseases, and malnutrition among the world's poor, Dr McMichael said. The World Health Organisation has acknowledged some influence that climate change has on people, and has been studying the issue in several countries.

Neville Nicholls, a lead author for the IPCC's first working group report assessing the scientific basis of climate change, said the IPCC's reports could establish likely initial relationships between climate change and public health, but more knowledge was needed to help people address the impact and come up with measures to cope.

He said people could start to act now, citing Australia's effort to mitigate the impact of heat waves on its senior citizens, the most vulnerable group.

''We know that people died because of them, and even though it may not have been from climate change, thinking about ways to cope is still a good thing to do,'' said Dr Nicholls.

Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla said Thailand has been monitoring changes in trends of some tropical diseases, in one response to climate change.

Recently, the ministry has detected a surge in malaria vectors in the western part of the country, although that increase may not be linked to the change in weather patterns.

Thais have also been encountering hotter and wetter weather, he said.

''What would be the most significant thing for us to do is equipping our people with adequate knowledge about climate change so that they can adapt themselves to the changing climate. The ministry also keeps an eye on changes in disease trends which may flare up or emerge as a result of changing weather patterns,'' said Dr Mongkol.

The draft report of the IPCC's third working group assessing the mitigation and economic costs of climate change, said climate change mitigation is worth the investment as it would help save the cost of medical treatment incurred from climate change-related diseases.

The IPCC says global emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activity since 1750.

The increase in carbon dioxide emissions comes mainly from fossil fuel use and land use change, while the increase in methane gas emissions is due mainly to agriculture. These have caused the total global temperature to rise up to 0.76 degrees Celsius.