Banner Advertiser

Sunday, November 18, 2007

[vinnomot] CODEX & Food Trade + CLIMATE CHANGE & IPCC and Greenpeace + 11th Plan

NEWS Bulletin from Indian Society For Sustainable Agriculture And Rural Development
**********************************
 
1. 39th Session of Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH), Delhi, Oct 30-Nov 4, 2007 - New hygiene norms for food items soon
 
CLIMATE CHANGE-----
2. Global warming speeds up: IPCC
3. Deal climate injustice at home: Greenpeace India
 
ELEVENTH PLAN------
4. Rising subsidy worries PM; Montek for oil prices hike
5. Eleventh Plan sets GDP target at 9%
--------------------------------------
 
39th Session of Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH), Delhi, Oct 30-Nov 4, 2007 
 
New hygiene norms for food items soon
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Sunday , November 11, 2007 at 2235 hrs IST
 
Poultry, egg and egg products, fresh fruits, and vegetable will soon be subjected to new hygienic standards in global trade.
 
Based on the recommendations of an ad hoc panel chaired by India, the 39th session of the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH), which concluded in New Delhi early this month, agreed to take up the new work on the code of hygienic practices for fresh fruits and vegetables. The CCFH agreed that the US should take the initiative and set up an electronic working group for receiving comments and suggestions. The electronic working group would be open to all interested parties.
 
The 40th session of CCFH is scheduled to take place in the US in December 1-5, 2008. Guatemala, which expressed its desire to co-host the meeting, has been told to take up the issue with the US Codex Secretariat.
 
On the issue, the use of lifting the restrictions on the use of lactoperoxidase system (LPS) for milk and milk products in global trade, the 39th CCFH decided to refer the issue to the Codex Alimentarius Commission to clarify and explain that "restriction of the use of the LPS for milk in global trade in no way precluded the use of the system by countries at the national level."
 
The 39th CCFH also decided to work on proposed guidelines for control of Campylobacter and Salmonella spp in broiler (young birds), chicken meat, meat carcass, and portions. CCFH will also coordinate with the world organisation for animal health - OIE - which is working on the issue at the primary level. The FAO has also drafted a document on good practices for poultry. The CCFH has decided to finalise the proposed guidelines on basis of the code of hygienic practices for meat (CAC/RCP 58-2005) and where specific information on Campylobacter and Salmonella in birds other than broilers was lacking.
 
It was decided that "since the structure of the microbiological risk management metrics annex had substantially changed,there was no longer any need to develop an annex to the code of hygienic practices on liquid eggs."
 
The 39th CCFH noted the need to provide a more detailed scientific approach for the proposed draft on Listeria Monocytogenes in ready-to-eat foods. It deliberated on the proposed drafts on hygienic practices for powdered formulae for infant and young children, validation of food safety control measures, conduct of microbiological risk management, and metrics. WHO would work on emerging viruses like Nipah virus, Avian flu virus, and SARS coronavirus. 
------------------------------------
 
Global warming speeds up: IPCC
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Saturday , November 17, 2007 at 2024 hrs IST
 
The Planet Earth is moving towards a warmer period at a faster pace and the global emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) due to human activities have grown since pre-industrial times, with an increase of 70% between 1970 and 2004, cautioned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
 
The 130-nation body, which concluded its 6-day deliberation on Saturday at Valencia in Spain came out with a synthesis of its 4th assessment report on climate change. "The warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from the observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising average sea level," the synthesis report said.
 
In a web telecast of the press conference on Saturday, The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon urged the national governments to do more to arrest the climate change. The report also offered blueprints to avert the worst catastrophes, he said and added that climate change "imperils the most precious treasures of our planet."
 
Ki-moon said that the report would be placed before the forthcoming UN framework on climate change meeting in Bali in Indonesia to review the progress made under the Kyoto Protocol.
 
The report noted that observational evidence from all continents and most oceans showed that many natural systems were being affected by regional climate changes, particularly rise in temperatures. Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of the human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial value determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years.
 
"Most of the observed increase in globally-averaged temperatures since the mid-2oth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. It is likely there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica)," it said.
 
The IPCC further said that there was high agreement and much evidence that with current climate change mitigation policies and related sustainable development practices, global GHG emissions would continue to grow over the next few decades. Continued GHG emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century.
 
The IPCC expressed its confidence over its third assessment report and said that the projected patterns of warming and other regional-scale features, including changes in wind patterns, precipitation and some aspects of extremes and sea ice changes. The third assessment has enabled more systematic understanding of the timing and magnitude of the climate change impact, it said.
 
However, the synthesis report expressed some amount of optimism. It said "both bottom-up and top-down studies indicate that there is high agreement and much evidence of substantial economic potential for mitigation of global GHG emissions below current levels. While top-down and bottom-up studies are in line at the global level, there are considerable differences at the sectoral level."
---------------------------------------
 
Deal climate injustice at home: Greenpeace India
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
 
New Delhi, November 13: More than 800 poor people in India are bearing the burnt of climate change. This is partly due to the emissions caused by the few privileged rich people in the country, said a report released by Greenpeace India Society.
 
The report on climate injustice entitled `Hiding Behind the Poor' urged the government to apply the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" in the country to deal with the situation arising out of climate change.
 
The study authored by G Ananathpadmanabhan, K Srinivas and Vinuta Gopal, however advocated India's right to seek common but differentiated responsibilities at the global level.
 
Referring to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, it said that India claims its right to development and thus its right to consume more energy from fossil fuels, asking developed nations to create the carbon space. Implicit in this is the notion that the developed countries need to decrease their carbon dioxide emissions drastically so that developing countries can still increase theirs without pushing the planet in the direction of climate change.
 
However, the study pointed out that over the last few decades, emissions of rapidly developing countries like India and China have surged. In fact, rankings by the WRI of top GHG emitters has US on top and developing countries such as China and India are ranked at No 2 and 5 respectively, making them amongst the world's biggest emitters.
 
The Greepeace India made an urgent plea to the government to consider the situation especially when the next round of negotiations for the second phase of Kyoto Protocol is scheduled to take place in Bali in Indonesia in December, this year.
 
The Greenpeace India report further said that India was faced with two sharply contradictory realities. On the one hand there was a rapidly growing rich consumer class which has made the country the 12th largest luxury market in the world and on the other hand India has become the home to more than 800 million poor people on the planet who are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. India's per capita carbon dioxide emission has averaged to 1.67 tonne.
------------------------------------
 
Rising subsidy worries PM; Montek for oil prices hike
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Thursday , November 08, 2007 at 2313 hrs IST
 
New Delhi, Nov 8 In the current fiscal, subsidy burden will be fattened to Rs 1,00,000 crore, on account of fertiliser and petroleum subsidy. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated this at the full meeting of the Planning Commission on Thursday.
 
Singh said it was important to restructure subsidies so that only the needy and the poor benefit from them and all leakages are stopped. This would mean higher prices for LPG and imposition of user charges on electricity for farmers and charges for use of water from irrigation canals.
 
The subsidy bill, estimated by the Prime Minister, is 117% more than the estimated subsidy bill for this fiscal which was about Rs 46,000 crore.
 
Echoing Prime Minister's concern about rising subsidy bill, the Planning Commission also made a case for increasing prices of petroleum products in view of international crude prices nearing $100 per barrel. "Our view is that energy cost should be passed on to the consumers while providing targeted subsidy to the needy," Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters after the meeting.
 
"The present policy of insulating the consumers from global price rise is not sustainable as the public sector oil Companies bear a large burden of it," he said.
 
Rising oil prices would result in higher subsidies impacting the plan resources, especially for those programmes which are in the social sector if the government did not address the issue, he added. Ahluwalia, however, said it was also true that if the prices are passed on fully to the consumer it would reduce demand for oil, raise inflation and lower the growth rate of the Economy.
 
Arguing that given the current foreign exchange reserves it will not be a problem to pay for the increasing oil bill, Ahluwalia said if the prices are not increased, the budget will have to bear the brunt.
 
The PM said the additional burden on government expenditure meant there would be "fewer schools, fewer hospitals, fewer scholarships, lower public investment in agriculture and poor infrastructure". The subsidy bill would amount to 16% of the total government expenditure and far more than the allocation for education and rural development
--------------------------------------------
 
Eleventh Plan sets GDP target at 9%
 
 
ASHOK B SHARMA
Posted online: Thursday , November 08, 2007 at 2314 hrs IST
 
New Delhi, Nov 8 The full Planning Commission meeting on Thursday approved the draft proposal for the 11th Plan.
 
With an aim to improve the living standards in the country, the 11th Plan draft document has set ambitious targets of per capita income growth of 7.6% each year, and an overall average economic growth of 9%.
 
The Plan aims at an average growth rate of 9%, accelerating it from 8% in the first year of the Plan (2007) to 10% by the end of the Plan period (2011-12). The Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) for the new Five Year Plan has been increased 75% and fixed at Rs 14,21,711 crore, up from Rs 8,10,400 crore in the previous Plan. GBS is the Centre's support to the Plan. In order to make growth more inclusive, the new Plan proposes to hike the agriculture sector growth rate to 4%, from 2.13% in the 10th Plan.
 
For industry and services sector, the target growth rate have been pegged at 9-11%. The industrial sector grew at 8.74%, while the services sector grew by 9.28% in previous plan period.
 
In a bid to meet funding requirement of the Plan, the draft document has envisaged a savings rate of 34.8%, which is substantially higher than 30.8% in the current Plan.
 
The investment rate, which is crucial to the success of the Plan, is proposed to be raised to 36.7% from 30.8% in the previous plan. Some of the important targets of the 11th Plan are reduction of poverty by 10 percentage points, generating 7 crore new employment opportunities and ensuring electricity connection to all villages.
 
The draft document, which seeks to make growth more inclusive by significantly increasing the outlay for the priority sector programmes, will now be placed before to the Union Cabinet for vetting. The Plan also proposes to hike investment on infrastructure, including irrigation, drinking water and sewage from 5% of GDP in 2005-06 to 9% by 2011-12.
 
The non-priority sector will receive the same amount as was allocated to it in the 10th Plan and would have to fend for itself.
 
The allocation towards the non-priority sector has been reduced to 25.33% of the GBS from 44.80% in the 10th Plan.
------------------------------------------------

DELETE button is history. Unlimited mail storage is just a click away. __._,_.___

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___