AP - At a tumultuous time in U.N.-led climate negotiations, one of the world's most credible scientific groups agreed Wednesday to plug the recent cracks in the authoritative reports of the United Nations' Nobel Prize-winning global warming panel.

AP - The crash of a Toyota Prius in New York caught the attention of federal regulators Wednesday after the driver said it accelerated on its own, then lurched down a driveway, across a road and into a stone wall.

AP - The federal government has recommended an endangered-species listing for loggerhead turtles in U.S. waters, a decision that could have big implications for the fishing industry.

Moves aims to restore public confidence in science of global warming after mistake over melting rates of glaciers

The UN called in the world's top scientists today to review a report by its climate body, four months after public confidence in the science of global warming was shaken by the discovery of a mistake about the melting rates of Himalayan glaciers.

In an announcement at the UN in New York Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and Rajendra Pachauri, the much-criticised head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the InterAcademy Council, which represents 15 national academies of science, would conduct the independent review.

The announcement follows months of controversy which, while not altering the scientific consensus on climate change, has given fresh ammunition to opponents of action on global warming.

Pachauri has faced calls for his resignation, a controversy he acknowledged obliquely today. "We have received some criticism. We are receptive and sensitive to that and we are doing something about it," he said.

The review, which is to complete its work by August, will not undertake a dissection of the 2007 report, which has been pored over by climate sceptics, or re-examine the scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change, said Robert Dijksgraaf, the head of the InterAcademy Council.

"It will definitely not go over vast amounts of data," he told reporters. "Our goal will be to assure nations around the world that they will receive sound scientific advice on climate science."

Instead, he said it would focus on putting in place better quality control procedures for the next report, which is due in 2014.

These would include guidelines for dealing with material that has not undergone peer review such as the item on Himalayan glaciers.

One focus of the review would be the role played by Pachauri who has been criticised for his handling of the error when it first came to light.

Djiksgraaf also said the panel, likely to be made up of 10 experts, would also look at procedures for making corrections in a timely and transparent manner.

The report has been pored over by climate sceptics for errors since last November when it emerged that the IPCC had stated, wrongly, that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. As Pachauri and Ban noted today, the solid body of the 3,000 page report remained unchallenged.

The discovery of the error goes to the core of criticism of Pachauri whose first response to questions about the accuracy of the IPCC's prediction on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers was to dismiss it as "voodoo science".

Pachauri had also rankled critics by refusing to apologise for the mistakes.

But a spokesman for Pachauri today said the IPCC had initiated the independent review, and had pressed the UN to call in the scientists.

In his brief comments, Pachauri said the work of the IPCC, which shared a Nobel prize with Al Gore in 2007, remained the gold standard of climate science. "We believe the conclusions of that report are really beyond any reasonable doubt," Pachauri said.

Environmental and science organisations supported the UN's decision.

"This is the right move," said Peter Frumhoff, the science director for the Union of Concerned Scientist and a lead author on the IPCC report.

"If this independent review is carried out with rigour and transparency, it will help strengthen the IPCC's commitment to robust scientific assessments and restore public confidence that has been shaken by an aggressive campaign to sow confusion about climate science."

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Climate change
• Rajendra Pachauri
• Climate change
• United Nations

AFP - A respected international scientific body will review the UN's Nobel prize-winning climate panel, under fire for errors in a key report on global warming, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.

AFP - The city of Amsterdam is to be prosecuted over the dumping of toxic waste by a ship in Ivory Coast in 2006, the Supreme Court has ruled in a decision made available Wednesday.

AFP - The state power companies of South Korea and Turkey signed a preliminary deal here Wednesday aimed at building a nuclear power plant in northern Turkey.

AFP - The United States could source 10 percent of its electricity from solar power by 2030, a report said Tuesday, winning support from a US lawmaker who wants to boost the number of US solar panels.

Corrupt contractors and militants take up to 50% of aid before it reaches the country's hungry people, says leaked document

Up to half the food aid meant to feed hundreds of thousands of hungry people in Somalia is being stolen, according to a leaked UN security council report.

The report, seen by the New York Times, says the food is being diverted to corrupt contractors, radical Islamic militants and local UN workers. It advises the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to open an independent investigation into the organisation's world food programme operations in Somalia.

The losses are blamed on improper food distribution and the country's war-ravaged infrastructure.

The bags of food have to be driven through roadblocks manned by a bewildering array of militias, insurgents and bandits.

Not only are kidnappings and executions common, the country's insecurity also makes it difficult for senior UN officials to travel to the country to check on procedures. Investigators who do go there run the risk of relying for protection on the same people they are examining.

A UN diplomat, who did not wish to be named, told Associated Press that a significant amount of food delivered by the UN food programme was being diverted to cartels who were selling it illegally.

Although nearly half of Somalia's 3.7m people need aid, the country's main extremist Islamic group said earlier this year that it would stop the UN's food programme distributing food in areas under its control because it says the aid undercuts farmers selling recently harvested crops.

The group, al-Shabaab, also accused the agency of handing out food unfit for human consumption and of secretly supporting "apostates" who have renounced Islam.

The UN's ability to conduct investigations was badly damaged in 2009 when it dissolved its special anti-corruption unit, the procurement taskforce, three years after its establishment. Investigations are now conducted by the office of internal oversight services' permanent investigation division.

An AP analysis in January found not a single significant fraud or corruption investigation was completed in 2008 out of about 150 begun. Five major corruption cases were halted.

A spokesman for the world food programme, which is based in Rome, said it would not be commenting until it had studied the report.

A Nairobi-based spokesman for the programme had previously said that internal investigations showed between 2% and 10% of aid was being sold.

The US reduced its funding to Somalia last year after its treasury department said it feared that aid could be diverted to al-Shabaab, which the Americans say has links to al-Qaida. The issue remains unresolved.

The report also found regional Somali authorities to be collaborating with pirates and says that government ministers have auctioned off diplomatic visas.

However, the Somali finance minister, Abdirahman Omar Osman, denied the charge. "We don't sell visas. That is not true," he said, adding that his government would investigate the allegations.

Somalia's government is readying a military offensive to combat an Islamist insurgency linked to al-Qaida and to retake Mogadishu, the capital. The insurgents frequently attack government forces in the city and stage public amputations with impunity.

However, the report described the security forces as "ineffective, disorganised and corrupt".

The issue of aid distribution has been in the news over the last week following a BBC World Service programme which claimed that 95% of the $100m (£67m) aid raised to fight famine in northern Ethiopia was diverted by rebels and spent on weapons.

The allegation prompted a furious denial from the veteran aid campaigner Bob Geldof, who threatened legal action and called for a string of resignations at the World Service.

Others, however, have argued that any allegations over the misuse of aid have to be investigated.

The former BBC correspondent Rageh Omaar, who was born in Somalia, provoked Geldof's ire by saying that humanitarian operations in disputed territories were "almost always politicised and misused".

He added: " The idea that this never happens and that NGOs are never put in situations where, in order to get the aid delivered, they have to work with and often through the powers that control the territory where the suffering is taking place is a ridiculous fantasy.

"It's happening now, in Congo; in my own country, Somalia, where al-Qaida-affiliated groups have dictated how the world food programme delivers emergency food; and also in Zimbabwe, where I have just spent two weeks talking to aid workers having to work through government bodies in delivering aid to prisoners of Mugabe."

• Somalia
• al-Qaida
• United Nations
• Ethiopia
• Zimbabwe
• Famine
• Food
• International aid and development

AFP - US investigators launched a probe Tuesday into a runaway Toyota Prius in California, a high-profile case that threatens to undermine the Japanese automaker's effort to repair its battered image.

Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta by the photojournalist Ed Kashi documents the consequences of fifty years of oil extraction in the Niger delta

AP - Before he called 911, James Sikes says he reached down with his hand to loosen the "stuck" accelerator on his 2008 Toyota Prius, his other hand on the steering wheel. The pedal didn't move.

RenewableUK says inconsistencies in tariff favour solar panels, which takes microgeneration business out of UK

UK small wind turbine manufacturers say they will lose out to foreign solar panel manufacturers in the race to cash in on the UK government's new feed-in tariff scheme.

They claim their products will be penalised because solar panel owners will receive higher government subsidies than wind turbine buyers. As the arrangement stands, a wind turbine would qualify for 26.7-34.5p per KWh in government subsidies, while solar panels would typically bring in 41p per KWh.

Turbine manufacturers will also have to pay a fee of up to £100,000 to have their models certified for the scheme, and they argue that planning rules make it harder for customers to get approval for turbines.

Due to come into effect on 1 April, the tariff – also known as Clean Energy Cashback – will offer home owners a government subsidy for installing small-scale renewable energy technologies, including solar panels and wind turbines.

Alex Murley, RenewableUK's head of small systems, said: "Small wind is the only microgeneration technology which UK manufacturers dominate the market for. If we don't get this right we could be shooting ourselves in the foot and killing off a burgeoning UK success story."

According to Renewable UK, planning applications for small wind turbines have traditionally taken up to 14 months to process. Britain's oldest surviving small wind manufacturer, Ampair, has accused some local authorities of "systematically rejecting" applications.

The government promises to allow households to install small turbines without planning permission from June, but turbine manufacturers say the current planning allowance is too limited, restricting domestic wind turbines to a hub height of 10 metres and 2.2 metres blade diameter.

This will allow a 1.5KW turbine, producing an average of 800KWh a year in windy conditions – less than a fifth of the average UK household's electricity needs. By comparison, UK panel installer Solarcentury has estimated that the typical 18 metre square domestic solar panel installation would on average generate just over 2,000KWh – nearly half the average household's electricity consumption.

The government's Energy Saving Trust said that although such limitations are fine for urban roof top turbines, wind turbines in rural locations need to be bigger for small wind turbines to generate a significant amount of energy for the UK. It is these rural locations that will generate the lion's share of energy from "small" turbines. EST figures published last year show small turbines could meet 4% of the UK's electricity demands but only 4% of that energy would come from small turbines in urban locations.

UK manufacturers currently produce four-fifths of the country's small turbines, 3,500 of which were installed in the UK in 2008. All larger wind turbines and the vast majority of solar panels are manufactured abroad.

David Sharman, managing director of Ampair, claims the UK government is penalising its own manufacturing industry through inequalities in the feed-in tariff.

He also claims that the rigorous tests to qualify for the tariff's quality assurance certificate, the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), are prohibitively expensive at at £50,000-£100,000 per product certified. No small wind turbines have so far been MCS accreditedbut the government has set up an MCS 'transition list' for small wind turbines, which allows them to temporarily qualify for the tariff for one year while they complete the accreditation scheme.

Responding to criticism of planning restrictions for wind, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "We consulted on the proposals to find the right balance for these technologies. We want to enable homeowners to install microgeneration easily and also make sure we're fair about planning permission for larger installations. Different homes will be suitable for different technologies based on a number of factors – it's not a one size fits all."

• Feed-in tariffs
• Wind power
• Renewable energy
• Energy
• Utilities
• Manufacturing sector

As global warming and habitat degradation accelerates, people indigenous to the Arctic circle say they have much to teach the world about how to adapt, survive, and thrive

Elina Helander-Renvall comes from Utsjoki, a place so obscure that even many Finns have little idea where it is. Utsjoki, or Ochejohka, Uccjuuha, and Uccjokk, depending on which local language you are speaking, is Finland's northern-most municipality. Straddling the border with Norway, it shivers, unregarded, deep inside the Arctic circle, a few icy miles from the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

Utsjoki, population 1,034, is home to Finland's largest concentration of Sami speakers, the indigenous people once loosely known as Lapps who have eked out an itinerant existence herding reindeer across the frozen wastes of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and western Russia since the last Ice Age. Nearly 50% of Utsjoki's population are Sami. In Finnish terms, it's the closest this eternal minority has got to being the majority.

Born and raised on the margin though she was, Helander-Renvall's message these days is strictly mainstream. As accelerating climate change and other man-made environmental degradations create growing alarm across the planet, the Sami people have much to teach the world about how to adapt, survive, and thrive, she says.

"There is a lot to learn from the Sami, they have the traditional ecological knowledge, they really know about nature," said Helander-Renvall, head of the Arctic Indigenous Peoples Office at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. "They have the most precise knowledge about the weather conditions, about the plants, the diet, the resources. The Sami people have an ethical relationship with nature; a respect for nature that also has a spiritual side."

The Arctic region is uniquely vulnerable to global warming, but if it is to weather the storm, it would do well to adopt Sami methods of land and resource management, communal co-operation and communication, local knowledge and best practice, she said.

In order to keep a reindeer herd out of trouble, for example, a knowledge of different types of snow could be decisive, Helander-Renvall said. Muohta (ordinary snow) or oppas (untouched snow) might be safe. But the presence of sievla (wet snow), skarta (thin, ice-like snow layers) or ceavvi (a hard layer that the reindeer cannot penetrate in search of lichen) could dictate a life-saving change of route or decision to move camp.

Local knowledge will also be vital to the large-scale industrial development on the fast-expanding oil and gas fields of western Russia's Yamal peninsula, and for the burdgeoning commercial and tourism industries in the Scandinavian north. Knowing where it is safe to build, how to site the foundations for a new road, airstrip or pipeline, what terrain to avoid, and how to do so responsibly while protecting biological diversity will all be increasingly important. "We need to preserve and transfer indigenous knowledge to future generations," Helander-Renvall said.

Professor Monica Tennberg of the Arctic Research Centre in Rovaniemi said the Sami had shown notable ability to adapt to changing climate conditions. "We've seen how the community adapts, for example finding new ways to deal with floods. We've seen better co-operation, better municipal leadership, better communications, better early warning systems," she said. Adverse effects of climate change on pasture and traditional herding trails had been met with new rotation and migration patterns and also by a tighter communal discipline.

The Arctic as a whole faces enormous challenges. Broadly speaking the region is warming at double the rate of the rest of the world, said Paula Kankaanpaa, director of the Research Centre, with local "hotspots" that fare even worse.

Symptoms include reduced sea ice; the opening of blue-water sea passages both east and west in summer, north of Canada and Russia; increased levels of carbon-carrying organic waste in the Arctic Ocean caused by melting tundra; coastal erosion due to increased wave activity; loss of habitat for large mammals such as seals and polar bears and growing disruption of indigenous human communities.

Governments still resist the idea that Arctic indigenous peoples have something unique to contribute. Canada announced this month that it will convene a foreign ministers' meeting of the five Arctic Ocean states (Canada, Russia, the US, Norway and Denmark/Greenland) in March "to encourage new thinking on responsible development" and "reinforce ongoing collaboration in the region".

To their dismay, Arctic indigenous people's organisations, including the Sami, Inuit and Inuvialuit, were not invited.

• Climate change
• Polar regions
• Finland
• Arctic

AFP - Malaysians' voracious appetite for turtle eggs could drive the marine creatures to extinction on its shores, conservationists warned on Wednesday.

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• Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts
• New hope for mountain gorillas in Congo
• Ghost orchid comes back from extinction
• Downpours threaten extinction for Britain's rarest butterfly
• Conservationists unveil plans to restore bison to North American plains
There was good news this week for bisons in the US and gorillas in South Africa, but bad tidings for Duke of Burgundy butterflies and biodiversity globally. "There's no question that the current extinction rates are faster [than the rate at which species evolve]", warned an expert at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

• George Monbiot: Are we really going to let ourselves be duped into this solar panel rip-off?
• Jeremy Leggett: Solar panels are not fashion accessories
• George Monbiot: There is no 'green treachery' in questioning this solar panel rip-off
• Jeremy Leggett: I accept George Monbiot's £100 solar PV bet
• Ask Leo: Is it time to generate your own domestic power?
Guardian columnist George Monbiot sparked a war of words over the government's plans to pay householders, businesses and communities for generating their own green energy. Monbiot argued it was an inefficient and costly way to increase the UK's renewable energy capacity, while Jeremy Leggett and other commentators argued the scheme would create UK jobs and bring down the price of solar PV.

• In pictures: Paul Nicklen: Polar Obsession
• The week in wildlife
• In pictures: Saving Congo's mountain gorillas
• Audio: Moth predator to attack knotweed: '£150m damage every year'
• Video: The National Geographic archives: The wildlife of Namibia
This week's galleries include stunning photos of wildlife from the polar regions by award-winning photographer Paul Nicklen, plus our regular roundup of wildlife around the world - including a spectacular glowing squid.

• Do digital screens have a greater carbon footprint than printed posters?
• Which manifesto pledges for cycling would get your attention?
• You ask, they answer: Nokia
• 'Eco' lifestyle magazine is depressingly predictable disappointment
• The innovator: Tom Podkolinski, eco nappy designer
Help us answer Leo Hickman's dilemma this week - do digital screens have a greater carbon footprint than printed posters? And don't forget to post your questions for Nokia on its green track record.

If you only read one thread...

How food and water are driving a 21st-century African land grabAn Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens

Best comment
Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts
Valleyboi: Look at it this way: You have been dropped into a situation where your task is to tackle Jonah Lomu in his prime in order to survive. If he was walking slowly towards you from 10m away, you'd have a bit of time to sum up your options and formulate the best plan of attack to bring down the big man. Conversely, if he was already running at full steam you'd only just have time to sob for your mummy before most probably being steam-rolled. That's how I think of the situation we are putting nature in.

Read interaction manager Mariam Cook's latest blogpost for more about this week's community activity.

• The 'waterless' washing machine that could save you money

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