Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The flow of the Mekong river in Southeast Asia is at its lowest for 20 years, according to the Mekong River Commission. The Save the Mekong Coalition believes that the low level is the result of upstream dams in China. Chen Dehai of the Chinese embassy in Bangkok blamed low rainfall over the catchments of the rivers that feed into the Mekong in Thailand and in neighbouring areas, saying that only four per cent of the Mekong's flow was affected by the new hydro-electric dams. China has refused a request to release water from dams on the upper Mekong to allow commercial boats to continue to operate. "Chinese authorities have said they cannot release the water because Yunnan province is facing drought and they need to reserve the water for their people. They said that they had to wait for the rainy season," said Abhisit Khampilo from the Marine Transportation and Commercial Navigation Office of Chiang Rai Province.

The recent El Niño has affected rainfall throughout the region. Vietnam is facing its worst drought in 100 years, with virtually no rainfall in the north since September 2009. The Red River in northern Vietnam is at its lowest point since records began in 1902. "Never before has the water been so low that most ships cannot move," said one local resident. Ian Wilderspin, at the United Nations Development Programme in Hanoi, warned that climate change meant Vietnam could experience more frequent droughts that arrived sooner in the year and lasted longer. "We have to look at the ways and means to build resilience of local communities," he said, whether by providing drought-resistant seeds, planting different crops or protecting fresh water sources. "Climate change is only going to make these [natural] cycles worse."

China and India have announced that they will be listed amongst over 100 countries associated with the Copenhagen Accord. Earlier, when submitting voluntary plans for emissions controls as requested by the Accord, they had noticeably failed to give the agreement their full endorsement. "The Chinese are coming into line and cooling things off with the United States, which was exasperated with their attitude," commented Emmanuel Guérin of the Institut du Développement Durable et Des Relations Internationales in Paris.

In both cases, the endorsement has been heavily qualified. India placed three conditions on being associated with the Copenhagen Accord: that the Accord is a political document, that it is not legally binding or a template for outcomes, and that it is used as an input for the existing two-track negotiating process (regarding the future of the Kyoto Protocol and long-term cooperative action) rather than as a third outside track of discussion. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said that it is "neither viable nor acceptable" to use the Copenhagen Accord as the starting point for new negotiations. While accepting non-intrusive verification of emissions control measures at Copenhagen, both countries continue to reject any formal verification scheme.

Permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, according to an international research team led by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) in the United States. "Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap," reported UAF's Natalia Shakhova. The permafrost barrier was thought to be sealing in the methane, but it has become perforated.

"The amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans," Shakhova said. In recent surveys, methane levels in the air over the shelf were elevated overall and the team found more than 100 hotspots. As the shelf is shallow, the methane bubbles out into the atmosphere rather than oxidizing into carbon dioxide at depth. "The release to the atmosphere of only one per cent of the methane assumed to be stored in shallow hydrate deposits might alter the current atmospheric burden of methane up to three to four times," she said.