Geological CO2 Storage as a Climate Change Mitigation Option

Carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ capture and storage is increasingly being considered as an important climate change mitigation option. This paper explores provisions for including geological CO₂ storage in climate policy. The storage capacity of Norway's Continental Shelf is alone sufficient to store a large share of European CO₂ emissions for many decades. If CO₂ is injected into oil reservoirs there is an additional benefit in terms of enhanced oil recovery. However, there are significant technical and economic challenges, including the large investment in infrastructure required, with related economies of scale properties. Thus CO₂ capture, transportation and storage projects are likely to be more economically attractive if developed on a large scale, which could mean involving two or more nations. An additional challenge is the risk of future leakages from storage sites, where the government must take on a major responsibility. In institutional and policy terms, important challenges are the unsettled status of geological CO₂ storage as a policy measure in the Kyoto Protocol, lack of relevant reporting and verification procedures, and lack of decisions on how the option should be linked to the flexibility mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol. In terms of competitiveness with expected prices for CO₂ permits under Kyoto Protocol trading, the relatively high costs per tonne of CO₂ stored means that geological CO₂ storage is primarily of interest where enhanced oil recovery is possible. These shortcomings and uncertainties mean that companies and governments today only have weak incentives to venture into geological CO₂ storage.     

Major challenges of integrating agriculture into climate change mitigation policy frameworks

Taking the European Union (EU) as a case study, we simulate the application of non-uniform national mitigation targets to achieve a sectoral reduction in agricultural non-carbon dioxide (CO₂) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Scenario results show substantial impacts on EU agricultural production, in particular, the livestock sector. Significant increases in imports and decreases in exports result in rather moderate domestic consumption impacts but induce production increases in non-EU countries that are associated with considerable emission leakage effects. The results underline four major challenges for the general integration of agriculture into national and global climate change mitigation policy frameworks and strategies, as they strengthen requests for (1) a targeted but flexible implementation of mitigation obligations at national and global level and (2) the need for a wider consideration of technological mitigation options. The results also indicate that a globally effective reduction in agricultural emissions requires (3) multilateral commitments for agriculture to limit emission leakage and may have to (4) consider options that tackle the reduction in GHG emissions from the consumption side.     

Mating System and Sexual Selection in the Scorpionfly Panorpa vulgaris (Mecoptera: Panorpidae)

Panorpa vulgaris   has become a model insect for testing theories of sexual selection. This contribution summarizes that which has been learned in recent years and presents new data that clearly show that the mating system of P. vulgaris is not simply a resource-defense polygyny, as has previously been thought. In P. vulgaris neither the pattern in food exploitation nor the ratio of variance in the lifetime reproductive success of the two sexes is in accordance with that expected in resource defense polygynous mating systems. Lifetime mating duration is the most important proximate determinant of male fitness. Males employing alternative mating tactics obtain copulations of varying duration in relation to the following sequence: saliva secretion  1  food offering  1  no gift. The number of salivary masses which males provide to females during their lifetime is significantly correlated with the lifetime condition index. The condition index depends on the fighting prowess of males and their ability to find food items. Thus saliva secretion of Panorpa is considered a Zahavian handicap, which can serve as an honest quality indicator used by mating females. Our results confirm four main predictions of the indicator model of the theory of sexual selection: (a) the indicator signals high ecological quality of its bearer, (b) the indicator value increases with phenotypic quality, (c) the indicator value is positively correlated with the genetic quality affecting offspring fitness in a natural selection context, and (d) the quality indicator is more costly for low- than for high-quality individuals. The evolutionary consequences of the mating pattern and the sperm competition mechanism in P. vulgaris are discussed in the context the way in which sexual selection creates and maintains sperm mixing and the evolution of a promiscuous mating system.     

Prenatal diagnosis of 21-hydroxylase deficiency by rflp analysis of the 21-hydroxylase,complement C4, and HLA class II genes

In 19 pregnancies at risk for 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD) in 18 families with at lea one affected child, prenatal diagnosis was performed by RFLP analysis using the enzymi Taq I and EcoRI and the DNA probes specific for the 21 OH genes, the closely linke complement C4 genes and the highly polymorphic HLA class II genes DRB, DQB, and DPI For fetal DNA analysis either chorionic villi or cultivated amniotic cells were used. In all 1 cases, a clear prenatal diagnosis was possible either with the 21OH probe alone or in mo cases, by combining the results of the different closely linked loci.     

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