Liu Xiao spends her weeks visiting sludge and organic waste treatment plants across China. The travel can be tiring but as a technical and policy adviser on waste management she must help implement President
China yesterday signed two multibillion-dollar long-term deals to buy liquefied natural gas from Qatar, marking a milestone in Asia's evolution as the hottest market for the fuel. PetroChina struck a deal to buy 3m tonnes of LNG a year over 25 years from 2011 with Qatar and its partner, Royal Dutch Shell. Analysts said the deal could could be worth as much as $60bn. CNOOC, China's primary LNG importer, also signed a framework supply agreement. Al-though it is yet to be formalised in a binding contract, it is for 2m tonnes a year from 2009.
What started as an ambitious dream, for a desert nation bereft of rivers and lakes to become self-sufficient in wheat, became a reality with the aid of billions of dollars from the first oil boom in the 1970s. Today, however, Saudi Arabia is preparing to phase out production by 2016. The volte-face could make the Gulf nation one of the world's top 15 importers of the cereal, even as countries across the globe grapple with high wheat prices.
The European Union faced calls to abandon plans to increase bio fuel use from its,, own scientific advisers yesterday. The scientific committee of the European Environment Agency said a target of having 10 per cent of transport fuel derived from plants by 2020 could deprive millions of people of food and damage the environment. Andrew Bounds, Brussels Full story: http://blogs.ft .com/brusselsblog
For the past 40 years, consumers have had the upper-hand in the global rice market, which has witnessed a steady decline in prices, interrupted only by the brief spike in 1973-74 triggered by the first oil crisis. The structural decline in prices was the result of the Green Revolution, the agronomics movement that spread the use of irrigation, fertiliser and high-yielding varieties of rice in Asia in the late 1960s and led to bumper crops.
Advice for those trying to solve the global food crisis: do not start from here. As governments across the developing world impose export bans on staple foods, further worsening the shortages on inter
The Philippines is mounting an ambitious bid to achieve self-sufficiency in rice within three years as a policy of relying on imports to cover production shortfalls unravels amid tightening global supply and soaring world prices. The government is hoping the Philippines, the world's biggest rice importer, will be able to halt imports by 2010 thanks to a spending spree on irrigation and farm support aimed at boosting production. The country's 2m rice farmers produced only 90 per cent of its requirements during the past seven years, necessitating imports averaging 1.2m tonnes a year.
The rising cost of basic foods risks wiping out a decade of efforts to combat global -poverty and could trigger further riots in the world's poorest countries, leading multilateral institutions warned yesterday. The World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the International Monetary Fund were unanimous in concluding that the rising appetite of the bio-fuels industry was part of the reason for the increase in food prices.
Outside the white-walled town of Moura in the rolling plans of southern Portugal, more than 240,000 solar panels covering an area equivalent to 150 football pitches are slowly being manoeuvred into position in what will be the world's biggest photovoltaic power plant. A few kilometres away, at Alqueva, the Guadiana river has been dammed to create the largest reservoir in western Europe and one of 18 hydroelectric power projects under way in Portugal's river valleys. In the north-west Alto Minho region, one of the world's biggest wind farms is under construction.
European gas oil prices set a new high above $1,000 a tonne on Tuesday, boosted by a fire in a key European refinery last week and unexpectedly strong demand. Power blackouts in South Africa, Chile and China have forced many companies to run diesel generators to offset electricity supply interruptions, while a harsh winter in south-east Asia has boosted heating oil demand. ICE April gas oil futures hit a record $1,017 a tonne on Tuesday, up 1.3 per cent on the day and 21.2 per cent since the start of the year.
Sir, Nigel Lawson's promotion of his new book ("Stop this foolish overreaction to climate change", April 6) does his readers a disservice by ignoring the Stern review and the new literature on the risks of climate change. The review estimated the costs at between 5 and 20 per cent of world gross domestic product, depending on an assessment of the risks and treatment of the discount rate.
