Climate Change / Articles

Increasing allegations of corruption and profiteering are raising serious questions about the UN-run carbon trading mechanism aimed at cutting pollution and rewarding clean technologies

• March 2008 World Rivers Review
  

The central assumption governing the design and operation of all major water projects has just been declared dead by a group of leading water and climate scientists. Designers and builders of dams need take note.

The scientists, led by Paul Milly of the US Geological Service, explained in a recent article in Science that our dams, floodwalls and sewers have been designed and operated under the assumption of "stationarity" - that natural systems fluctuate within a defined set of extremes that can be estimated from past experience. But climate change means "stationarity is dead" for water resources planning, the scientists say.

This op-ed first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, November 17, 2006

It comes as a surprise to most people, but the reservoirs behind the world’s dams are likely a major source of global warming pollution. In the case of big reservoirs in the tropics -- where most new dams are proposed -- hydropower can actually emit more greenhouse gases per kilowatt-hour than fossil fuels, including dirty coal.