"Such a massive collapse ... would require reckless behavior of all industries and governments for four decades, and an incredible level of apathy of all world citizens to let this happen, without mentioning economic forces that would discourage this from happening," said Serge Michel Garcia, director of the FAO's fishery resources division.

South Korea's fisheries ministry labelled the report "too radical," and said more scientific data was needed before heeding the call of environmentalists like Greenpeace to set aside 40 percent of oceans as marine reserves.

The cry for urgent action came in the wake of a report published in the November 3 issue of the US journal Science. In the most exhaustive study conducted to date, US and Canadian researchers warned that overfishing and pollution threatened the accelerated loss of ocean species, ecosystems and human food supplies.

The worldwide fishing industry currently extracts some 90 million tons of fish each year from the worlds ocean's, according to the FAO. It represents a significant economic sector in many countries, including Scandinavia nations, where officials expressed skepticism on the report's conclusions.

"I don't think the oceans will be empty in 50 years time," said Helga Pedersen, the Norwegian minister of fisheries.

"That said, we have to work harder to secure sustainable management of fish stocks," she added.

Nordic fishing unions said industrial overfishing was not, in any case, the main culprit. "Sure there are threatened species, but pollution is the main problem," said Lena Talvitie, vice-president of the Finnish federation of professional fishermen.

Britain conceded that the plundering of fish from the seas posed the most serious environmental challenge after global warming, the British secretary of state for fishing Ben Bradshaw told the BBC.

But as the fourth-biggest fishing country in Europe after Spain, Denmark and France, Bradshaw also defended London's record on clamping down on illegal fishing and setting quotas. He rejecting any moratorium on cod fishing.

"If there were a zero catch for cod, we would have to close almost all of the UK fishing industry because there's almost no part of our fishing industry that doesn't catch some cod as by-catch," he said.

The economic impact of massive conservation efforts would be felt from the shores of Britain to Japan, which is the world's largest consumer of fish.

For environmentalists, however, the report's message was unequivocal.

"Overfishing and pirate fishing are destroying our oceans at an alarming rate," said Greenpeace spokesman Nilesh Goundar in Australia.

Twenty-nine percent of 8,000 fished species were considered "collapsed" in 2003, that is, their catches had declined by 90 percent or more," Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Canada, lead author of the report.

The European Commission reacted by urging better international cooperation to turn around any doomsday scenario on the world's marine fish supply.

The good news, said Mireille Thom, spokeswoman for European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg, is that biologists believe that "if we act on overfishing, the ecosystems could come back to life".

"The measures are already in place but international cooperation must be strengthened to put an end to illegal fishing, which is an international problem," said Thom.

earlier related report
Wiping out of fish stocks by 2048 'unlikely': FAO
Rome (AFP) Nov 3 - The conservation status of fish and crustaceans in the world's oceans is "unacceptable" but dire predictions published Friday in the US magazine Science are "unlikely", according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

"To state that all exploited taxa will have collapsed by 2048, the authors have made a simple extrapolation of their results across the next 40 years. This is statistically dangerous," said Serge Michel Garcia, director of the FAO's Fishery Resources Division.

He added: "Such a massive collapse ... would require reckless behaviour of all industries and governments for four decades, and an incredible level of apathy of all world citizens to let this happen, without mentioning economic forces that would discourage this from happening."

The US-Canadian study warned that accelerating overfishing and pollution of the oceans could force seafood completely off of mankind's plates by the middle of the 21st century.

The scientists said they were "shocked" and "disturbed" by the conclusions of their own research, saying the trend toward mass disappearance of fish and seafood species was speeding up.

If not reversed, they said, humans would have to stop eating seafood by 2048.

"Most if not all conclusions regarding the relation between species diversity and the resilience of the ecosystem ... have been available for years if not decades," Garcia said in an e-mail to AFP.

"It is evident that a further decay of the situation of wild stocks can only be globally detrimental for food security," he said.

The effort to combat the situation, "as we see it from FAO, shows contradictory signs of progress (in a few leading countries) and stagnation (in many developed ones)," he wrote.

FAO member states are "struggling to implement" a 2001 code of conduct for responsible fishing, "often despite unfavouravble economic and social conditions", he said.

Positive signs include the implementation of the "ecosystem approach", which also dates from 2001 and is "progressing rapidly in a small number of leading countries", along with quotas and eco-labelling, he said.

In the Mediterranean Sea, trawling below a depth of 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) is prohibited, he added.

"Faster progress (would require) a stronger political will ... fuller collaboration of the industry, more participative governance and more deterrent enforcement," Garcia said.

Noting that the UN agency estimates global demand for fish at 180 million tonnes in 2030, Garcia said: "Assuming that wild stocks continue to produce about 90 million tonnes as they do today, this implies doubling the present aquaculture production with a not insignificant impact on the environment and a potential shortage in fish meal (used for aquaculture feed)."

Currently some 35 million tonnes of fish is processed into feed for farmed fish and livestock.

Nearly one fish in two, 43 percent, consumed in the world last year came from fish farms, compared with nine percent in 1980.

earlier related report
Experts urge action on fish stocks after stark warning
Tokyo (AFP) Nov 3 - Environmental experts across Asia urged dramatic action Friday after a report warning all marine fish and seafood species faced collapse within 50 years, although a South Korean official called the report alarmist.

The economic fallout from any changes to fishing practices would have a profound effect on the region, where Japan is the world's largest consumer of fish.

In the most exhaustive study to date on the subject, in the November 3 issue of the US journal Science, US and Canadian researchers warned that overfishing and pollution threatened the accelerated loss of ocean species, ecosystems and human food supplies.

Environmental group Greenpeace called for tough protection for large areas of ocean.

"Overfishing and pirate fishing are destroying our oceans at an alarming rate," said Greenpeace spokesman Nilesh Goundar in Australia, calling for 40 percent of oceans to be set aside as protected reserves.

"Ocean pirates are stealing up to nine billion US dollars worth of fish a year from some of the world's poorest people.

"Urgent action worldwide is needed to change fishing practices and reclaim our oceans for marine life and coastal communities," she said.

But Oh Sung-Hyun of the South Korean fisheries ministry's maritime resources department said: "It sounds too radical to say the world's fish and seafood species are projected to collapse by 2048.

"And we need more scientific data before we consider the Greenpeace call for 40 percent of the world's oceans to be declared marine reserves," he said.

However, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Hong Kong said the city's once-thriving fisheries were in a "critical state" and had almost disappeared after decades of intensive and uncontrolled fishing.

It blamed pollution, reclamation, dredging and dumping.

Andy Cornish, director of conservation for WWF Hong Kong, said: "Overfishing is a very serious problem in Hong Kong. We are losing diversities. We are losing big fish and only have very small species left."

Independent researchers in Pakistan painted a bleak picture. There had been no accurate assessment in its waters since 1980, said Shaheen Rafi Khan of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute.

"The government has acted on the premise of adequate stocks, setting no limits on the number of fishing vessels, restricting catch sizes or protecting threatened species," he said.

"But the stocks must have declined by 20 to 50 percent since then due to multiple bad reasons," he added. These include the replacement of traditional practices and industrial pollution.

In Thailand, overfishing was the main threat to marine species, while deforestation, pollution and agricultural waste posed the greatest danger to freshwater life, Dr. Chavalit Vidthayanon, a Thai freshwater species expert at the WWF said.

Ainun Nishat, Bangladesh director of IUCN, the World Conservation Union, said fish were losing breeding grounds.

"Industrial pollution and nitrogen fertilizer for agricultural purposes has precipitated a drastic fall in the fish population. Alien fish being imported here and introduced to our water bodies is another reason of the destruction of our national fish stock," he said.

Just last month Japan accepted a major cut in its international quota for prized southern bluefin tuna as punishment for overfishing.

About half of the species that live in waters close to Japan "(are) at a low level of preservation", Japan's fisheries agency said on its website.

In August the World Bank issued a report calling on the Philippine government to take better care of its degraded marine ecosystem, including curtailing fishing.

It said economic losses from overfishing in the Philippines amounted to 125 million dollars a year.

Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, in Canada, lead author of the US/Canadian report, "Impact of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services", said in a statement: "If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime -- by 2048."

Twenty-nine percent of 8,000 fished species were considered "collapsed" in 2003, that is, their catches had declined by 90 percent or more, he said.

The loss of marine diversity also appeared to increase the risks of coastal flooding, harmful algal blooms and oxygen depletion, the report said.

earlier related report
London rules out cod fishing ban despite report warning
London (AFP) Nov 3 - British fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw responded to a major report warning that stocks could be wiped out by 2048 by ruling out a complete ban on cod fishing.

He told BBC online that the situation represented the world's biggest environmental challenge after global warming but added that a ban would signal "the end of all fishing in the UK".

The increasing scarcity of fish and seafood species could also lead to the disappearance of entire ecosystems, according to the report published by United States and Canadian researchers in the journal Science.

Commenting after publication of the report, Bradshaw said that the UK had already taken action by clamping down on illegal fishing and setting fishing quotas.

"If there were to be a zero catch for cod, we would have to close almost all of the UK fishing industry because there's almost no part of our fishing industry that doesn't catch some cod as by-catch," he told the BBC.

Britain has the fourth highest cod catch levels in Europe, after Spain, Denmark and France, according to official figures.

earlier related report
Better international cooperation needed on overfishing: EU
Brussels (AFP) Nov 3 - International cooperation must be increased in the fight against overfishing, the European Commission said Friday after a report warned fish stocks could disappear in the coming decades.

"The study speaks of a certain number of direct and indirect causes and overfishing is one of them," said Mireille Thom, spokeswoman for European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg.

The European Union's executive arm made the warning following a report in the US magazine Science that accelerating overfishing and pollution of the oceans could wipe out fish stocks by the middle of the century.

The good news, Thom said, is that biologists believe that "if we act on overfishing, the ecosystems could come back to life".

"The measures are already in place but international cooperation must be strengthened to put an end to illegal fishing, which is an international problem," said Thom.

Illegal fishing happens for the most part out in the open sea where effective surveillance is impossible.

Because of persistent overfishing, fish stocks have fallen in EU waters for the past three decades, plunging the sector into crisis.

The European Commission in September proposed tightening protection for endangered deep-sea fish stocks in EU waters.

earlier related report
Greenpeace calls for 40 pct of oceans to be marine reserves
Sydney (AFP) Nov 3 - Environmental group Greenpeace called Friday for 40 percent of the world's oceans to be declared marine reserves following a report saying the planet's fish and seafood could disappear within 50 years.

US and Canadian researchers said overfishing and pollution was accelerating the loss of ocean species, ecosystems and food supplies and had wiped out one third of 8,000 species fished worldwide by 2003.

The report published Thursday warned that if nothing was done to reverse the trend, the world's menus would be devoid of fish and seafood by 2048.

"Overfishing and pirate fishing are destroying our oceans at an alarming rate," said Greenpeace spokesman Nilesh Goundar in Australia, calling for 40 percent of oceans to be set aside as protected reserves.

"Ocean pirates are stealing up to nine billion US dollars worth of fish a year from some of the world's poorest people.

"Urgent action worldwide is needed to change fishing practices and reclaim our oceans for marine life and coastal communities," she said.

earlier related report
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Reach Record Levels In 2005
Geneva (AFP) Nov 3 - Global concentrations of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas blamed for climate change, reached in 2005 the highest levels ever recorded, the UN's weather agency said Friday. The trend of growing emissions from industry, transport and power generation from burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal is set to continue despite an international agreement to cap emissions, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned.

"To really make CO2 level off we will need more drastic measures than are in the (1997) Kyoto Protocol today," senior WMO scientist Geir Braathen told reporters.

"Every human being on this globe should think about how much CO2 he or she emits and try to do something about that," he said.

The latest data gathered from monitoring stations, ships and aircraft around the world were contained in the WMO's second annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

Globally averaged mean ratios of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere reached 379.1 parts per million (ppm), an increase of 0.5 percent over 2004

Concentrations of nitrous oxide (N2O), another key greenhouse gas, reached 319.2 ppm in 2005, an annual increase of 0.2 percent, the bulletin added.

"In 2005, globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached their highest levels ever recorded," the WMO said in a statement.

Braathen said the levels of the two greenhouse gases were increasing at steady rates, in line with a decades-long trend.

"It looks like it would continue like this for the foreseeable future," he added.

"The current Kyoto Protocol will not be sufficient to stabilise. It will maybe reduce the increase, but this will still take time," he added.

The treaty sets limits for emissions of six greenhouse gases emitted mainly by burning oil, gas and coal, including carbon dioxide, from 2008, for the 165 countries that have ratified it.

The United States and Australia have rejected the compulsory cap, while developing countries, including China and its booming economy, are not covered by Kyoto.

A report for the British government released this week warned that unchecked climate change would cause huge economic damage worldwide, estimated at between five and 20 percent of global gross domestic product every year.

The governments involved in the Kyoto Protocol are due to meet in Nairobi from Monday to examine their future path in combatting global warming.

The environmental group WWF this week urged them to produce a "clear" plan for a "Kyoto plus" treaty on even deeper cuts in carbon dioxide emissions after 2012.

Braathen said Friday: "Every intiative to bring down greenhouse gases is a welcome one and will help maybe to convince others that change is necessary."

He insisted that the data on greenhouse gases, which scientists only began to gather and analyse systematically at a global level two years ago, was the product of consensus among scientists.

"We believe that this data has a really good scientific foundation," he said.

The bulletin showed that levels of another greenhouse gas, methane, which have been following a similar growth pattern to carbon dioxide, have begun to level off since 1999. "This has come as a surprise to the scientific community... There is no real good explanation why," Braathen said.

Methane is produced both by burning fossil fuels, and by natural sources such as wetlands, termites, and ruminant animals like cows.

earlier related report
Scientific news grim for UN talks on global warming
Paris (AFP) Nov 5 - An upcoming UN conference on climate change is taking place against a darkening background of scientific news, for barely a week goes by without a major study adding to a tall pile of distressing evidence. Doubts about the reality of global warming that were significant half a dozen years ago have today shrunk to zero, leaving only denialists and fossil-industry lobbyists in opposition.

A steady drumbeat of data confirms the rise in Earth's surface temperature and the part played by oil, gas and coal, whose invisible carbon pollution traps the Sun's heat, in effect creating a global greenhouse.

Scientists report melting sea ice around the North Pole, shrivelling glaciers in Greenland and Europe, retreating permafrost in Siberia and progressive acidification of the seas from atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

These phenomena could be the canaries in the coal mine: the forerunners of damaging, some say even potentially catastrophic, changes to the world's climate system.

Such is the backdrop to the November 6-17 meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the parent of the Kyoto Protocol on curbing dangerous greenhouse gases.

"What was forecast back in 1990 is being confirmed today," said Jean Jouzel, a French expert who is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's foremost scientific authority on global warming.

"Surface temperatures are rising by around 0.2 C (0.35 F) a decade. On top of that the effects of climate change are now visible. The skeptics are seeing their arguments melt like ice in the sun."

The IPCC was set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide neutral, science-based assessments on climate change.

Its last assessment was published in early 2001 and confirmed that global warming was underway. The next report is due in early 2007.

"We get together to update our knowledge every six years, assessing certainties and uncertainties. I don't know of any other issue where an effort of this magnitude is made," says French researcher Valerie Masson-Delmotte, who is contributing to a chapter on the climate in the past.

The 2001 IPCC report suggested that by 2100, the mean global temperature will have risen by between 1.4 and 5.8 C (2.5 and 10.4 F).

Since then, climate science has leapt ahead, both in terms of the depth and range of research and the tools, especially computer power, available to do it.

The latest lab simulations do not point to any significant shift in temperature rise from the 2001 forecast, said Jouzel.

But temperature is only one factor in an equation whose complexity, it is now emerging, is far greater than was previously thought.

The newest research says that a bland global figure of temperature rise will mask wide regional variations -- which in turn will affect winds and rainfall patterns and thus fuel the risk of regional droughts and floods.

Just as worrying is evidence that triggers have been unleashed which could amplify global warming: in effect, creating a vicious circle.

These so-called positive feedbacks include the release of methane that had been locked for millennia in the frozen soil of northern Siberia, and the loss of glaciers and snow cover. Ice and snow are white and thus reflect the Sun -- strip away that cover and the exposed soil, because it is dark, traps the heat.

Just as depressing is the realisation that the global warming machine will work for years and years to come.

If levels of greenhouse gases miraculously stabilised tomorrow, there is already so much carbon in the atmosphere that the temperature will continue to rise until 2300, said Serge Planton, an IPCC member who also heads climate research at the French weather agency Meteo-France.

Even though knowledge about global warming has advanced enormously, there remain significant areas of doubt, debate or ignorance.

These areas include the health of Antarctica; whether global warming will make hurricanes and other storms more vicious or frequent; and the role of the deep oceans in the highly complex interchange of heat.

The UNFCCC meeting in Nairobi will gather politicians for talks to gear up the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty with a flawed and troubled history, to meet the challenge.

Thousands of grassroots campaigners will take part, as will representatives from businesses in the fast-growing sectors of renewable energy, carbon trading and adaptation to climate change.

earlier related report
Kyoto Protocol carbon market remains promising despite turbulence
Paris (AFP) Nov 5 - Once dismissed as an oddity and hit by two crashes in less than six months, the market for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is nonetheless recovering battered credibility and remains alluring, experts say.

The market is the keystone of the Kyoto Protocol for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, which comes under the microscope at a UN conference running in Nairobi from November 6-17.

The innovative -- critics prefer "untested" -- idea is to provide a financial incentive for tackling CO2, which traps solar heat and drives dangerous climate change.

It works like this: big polluting corporations are set a target for their maximum permitted pollution, with the threat of a penalty for every tonne of CO2 above the limit.

Those firms that become more fuel-efficient and reduce the pollution can sell their surplus permits to those that are over quota to help them meet their target. It thus dangles a carrot to everyone to get with the carbon cleanup.

So far only one mandatory CO2 market exists -- the European Union's Emissions Trading System (ETS).

It comprises 11,500 big industrial firms that account for about half of the 25-nation bloc's CO2 output. They face a penalty of 40 euros (50 dollars) for every excess tonne of CO2 for 2006 and 2007, a punishment that will rise to 100 euros (125 dollars) a tonne from 2008.

Launched at the start of 2005, the ETS has had a white-knuckle ride.

At its peak, in April 2006, CO2 was changing hands at 31 euros a tonne, tripling the profit of anyone canny enough to have bought at the market's inception.

Then came chaos. EU governments announced that their economies were in fact polluting less than they thought. The goals set for the ETS participants during the startup phase had been based on estimates.

As a result, the market became flooded with sellers, and the price of CO2 crashed by two-thirds in just 10 days.

The market picked up again and remained stable for the next five months, only to slump by another 25 percent in September, mirroring a big fall in the price of gas and electricity. CO2 is currently trading at around 12 euros a tonne.

But analysts and traders remain confident, saying a revolutionary concept like the carbon market is bound to have teething troubles.

Even so, they are closely watching the EU to see how it fixes the main causes of the first crash -- poor information and over-estimates -- and whether it can coerce member states to tighten up quotas to meet their Kyoto targets.

Verbally, at least, the European Commission is hiking the pressure ahead of decisions, due next year, for the so-called Phase 2 of the ETS -- the commitment period running from 2008 to 2012.

"Reliable reporting by member states is a crucial part of our efforts to win the battle against climate change," Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said on October 12 as he launched proceedings against eight EU states for failing to say how many permits they would allot polluters from 2008.

The Commission estimates that member states must slash pollution allowances by six percent to meet their obligations under Kyoto.

As for the second crash, some analysts say it was an encouraging sign of maturity -- that the market for CO2 is at last linked with the markets for fossil fuels that cause the greenhouse-gas problem.

"There was astonishing stability in the carbon market in the five months between the two crashes, but it was rather an anomaly in comparison to other energy markets, and this has been corrected," says Powernext Carbon, a Paris spot trader in CO2.

Another good sign is rising market liquidity.

According to Point Carbon, a Norwegian-based consultancy, the pre-ETS carbon market in 2004 amounted to 94 million tonnes in 2004, worth 377 million euros, and rose to 799 million tonnes, worth 9.4 billion euros in 2005.

Powernext, which set up stall in June 2005, expects its own trading volume to reach 24 million tonnes in 2006, compared with four million tonnes for the last six months for 2006.

In the long term, say analysts, a carbon market will be an essential part of the panoply of weapons for tackling greenhouse gas.

The costs, but also potential rewards, of this campaign are huge.

To stabilise carbon emissions by 2050 will take total expenditure of some 60,000 billion dollars, equivalent to the world's annual global domestic product today, at a price of 20 dollar per tonne of emissions prevented, according to Shell Springboard, an initiative launched by the energy giant Royal Dutch/Shell.

Paul Watkinson, a senior official on climate change at the French ministry of ecology, says the European market is making headway and could one day be "the embryo" of a global market.

Despite US President George Bush's fierce opposition to Kyoto's mandatory approach, there is growing interest in cap-and-trade at state level.

Some experts believe a federal market will inevitably emerge after Bush leaves office in 2008, although how it could hook up with the EU's scheme is unclear.

One regional gas trading scheme is under development -- the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), governing emissions from the energy sector. California also has a state-wide programme to cap emissions, which has provisions for a potential market.

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