Sunday, July 15, 2007

Climate change sucks water from China's two longest rivers


Climate change linked to the contraction of wetlands at the source of China's two longest rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow River, has reduced the volume of water flowing in the rivers, said Chinese scientists.Scientists from the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) studied changes over the past 40 years to the wetlands on the cold Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in west China where the two rivers have their source.Analyzing aerial photos and satellite remote sensing figures, they found that the wetlands on the plateau have shrunk more than 10 percent over the past four decades. The wetlands at the origin of the Yangtze River suffered the most, contracting by 29 percent.In addition, about 17.5 percent of the small lakes at the source of the Yangtze River have dried up, said the scientists. "The wetland plays a key role in containing water and adjusting the water volume of the rivers," said Wang Xugen, a researcher with the Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment.

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HSBC donates US $100m to tackle climate change
The HSBC Group has announced a five-year US$100m programme to help tackle the causes and impacts of climate change.
HSBC is joining forces with The Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and WWF, to form the HSBC Climate Partnership.
Working with four of the world's most respected environmental organisations while creating and mobilising a "green taskforce" of thousands of HSBC employees world-wide, HSBC will tackle the causes and impacts of climate change in a tangible manner.
"The HSBC Climate Partnership is a profound step towards trying to address global climate change and making this commitment pivotal to HSBC's operations globally," Shaun Wallis, HSBC Malta CEO, said. "We, in Malta, will be stepping up our plans locally to help with the environment," he added.
This new partnership will build upon five years of good work done on the group's "Investing in Nature" programme, which was finished last year. This helped train 200 scientists and sent 2,000 HSBC employees on conservation research projects to save 12,000 plant species from extinction.
The new work will focus on four key areas. It will make some of the world's largest cities - Hong Kong, London, Mumbai, New York and Shanghai - cleaner and greener models for the rest of the world. It will also create "climate champions" across the world, who will participate in field research and return to share their knowledge and experience with their communities.
The partnership will conduct the largest ever field experiment on the world's forests to measure carbon and the effects of climate change. It will also help protect four of the world's major rivers - the Amazon, Ganges, Yangtze and Thames - from the impact of climate change.
The US$100m commitment that HSBC is contributing to the partnership marks the largest ever charitable donation given by a UK-based company. The funds will allow the charities to get more done, in more places, and for more people than they've ever been able to do in the past.