Major Economies Forum Climate Plan

The 17 strong Major Economies Forum (MEF) is due to meet in Italy to hopefully agree on a climate plan. The MEF member countries account for 80 percent of the world’s emissions, therefore any possibility of reducing emissions by a significant level is wholly dependent on the MEF. US President Obama is chairing the event, so the likelihood of some sort of agreement is pretty high. The real issue here is will the agreement have any merit or will it be a token gesture to give the impression of success?

 

Unfortunately the primary concern of any country’s leadership is economic, the issue of climate change comes a poor second to any country’s economy. With the world in recession at the moment, the last thing any government wants to do is commit to anything that can damage their industrial output. Reducing emissions can be achieved by any industrialised nation, but at a cost. For the developed world it can mean restricting industry, stifling growth and reducing the prosperity of its citizens. For the developing world it can mean a slower path to prosperity and more citizens remaining in poverty for longer.

 

There needs to be a concerted long term effort by the MEF to manage the massive level of emissions they produce year after year. Ways have to be found to minimise the economic damage while maximising the reduction in emission levels. I’m sure some decisions will be unpopular with the public, but new and innovative ways of reducing emissions have to be found. The alternative is increasing global temperatures leading to the expected rise in sea levels, larger areas of the planet affected by drought, food and water shortages, increasing migration and more armed conflicts. 

ichapters Plant A Tree Scheme

ichapters is an online book store selling both digital and printed student textbooks. Over the last month they have worked with ChangingthePresent.org and PasoPacifico.org to plant a tree for every eBook and eChapter sold via their website. So far they have planted 45927 trees. This is an amazing figure for a campaign that has only been running for four weeks.

Dr. Sarah Otterstrom, Founder and Executive Director of PasoPacífico.org said: “Today’s youth are aware of the global environmental crisis and want to act. This partnership provides an exciting way for students to participate in the solution… Trees are central to healthy life on earth. A single tree can provide a home to a multitude of species, filter water and provide fuel, shelter, and comfort for local people. Simply put, trees benefit people.”

What a fantastic idea this is, maybe other companies could follow ichapters example and contribute something to the environment. The only problem I can see with this campaign is it finishes on Friday 15th February. A great deal of good has been done by ichapters, in both raising awareness and reducing their carbon footprint, but why only do it for one month? Why not keep the Plant A Tree campaign going for as long as ichapters is doing business? We need to do so much more to protect our environment, token gestures are simply not enough. We all need to do something positive to reduce our impact on climate change and we need to start now.

Is nuclear power the way forward?

According to the UK government, nuclear power is the way forward for our future energy requirements. The supporters of nuclear power say it is far more environmentally friendly than many other forms of electricity generating methods. Nuclear power is cleaner, produces less carbon emissions and will eliminate our need to import energy, so the theory goes. Unfortunately, the whole picture may not be as rosy as the nuclear power supporters would have us believe. There are drawbacks to nuclear power that need to be taken into consideration.

For example, Greenpeace believe that pouring so much money into nuclear power will cut off funding for research into renewable power generating technologies. And then of course is the issue of the nuclear waste created by the nuclear power industry. Nuclear waste needs to be disposed in a safe and environmentally friendly way. Is this really possible? The issue of an industrial accident at a nuclear power plant is always a worry, but now we have the added threat of a terrorist attack too. The problem is, not enough money has been put into renewable energy generation, so now we are left with few choices. I really think the government never had any intention of investing in or using renewable energy on any kind of scale large enough to make it viable. To me, all their talk of renewable energy just seems like a PR exercise.

UK power companies fail to tackle climate change

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has claimed that the UK’s biggest power companies are failing to deal with climate change. In its annual survey, the WWF rated the UK’s top six energy companies in order of their attempts to tackle climate change. Top of the league came Centrica (owner of British Gas) for tackling carbon emissions and promoting energy efficiency followed by Scottish Power for having the highest investment in renewable energy resources. They were followed by E.ON UK, Scottish and Southern Energy, EDF Energy and finally RWE Power. EDF Energy and RWE Power had demonstrated the least progress in tackling climate change, but even the companies at the top of the list still lacked the vision necessary to combat climate change.

WWF’s head of climate change, Keith Allott said: "If you combined the best elements of Centrica's and Scottish Power's strategies, you might begin to see a real leader pushing towards a green and efficient power sector… The power sector's emissions have been rising in recent years and many companies are focusing on building new fossil fuel or nuclear stations rather than providing efficient energy services and clean renewable energy." For all their ‘green’ claims, the power companies are still not doing enough. Maybe consumer pressure would spur them on. If enough consumers changed suppliers to the ‘greenest’ companies, the rest would soon change their attitude to climate change.

[Via The Guardian]

Fear turns Catalina green

The small but idyllic Catalina Island is turning green. Catalina is a small island off the southern coast of California. It has a population of around 3500 mostly conservative and affluent citizens. Not exactly stereotypical green activists, but the people of Catalina are embracing change to help reduce their impact on global warming. Their aim is to reduce their carbon emissions to as near zero as possible and be as self-sustaining as possible.

The reason? One film by Al Gore, you know the one, “An Inconvenient Truth” and the fact that their island paradise will very likely be underwater if global warming continues at its present rate.

Fear is driving their desire for change. It is fear that is creating the impetus for real change. The good people of Catalina are looking at their lifestyles and making changes to help themselves, both as individuals and as a society. They hope to be an example of model living that will influence others across the USA. The fact that it is helping the planet may initially have been of little interest to them, but does it really matter? The end result is the same: they are causing less damage to the planet.

So perhaps what some people need to drive positive change is fear. Rather than appealing to people’s sense of duty or concern for the environment, we should be making them afraid of the consequences to them. A good dose of fear may save the planet where common sense has failed.

The Great Global Warming Swindle appears to have been a swindle

How many of you watched ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ recently on channel 4? If you did, you will remember the whole programme was an attempt to portray global warming as a purely natural phenomenon caused primarily by solar activity. Even more disturbing, was the film-makers attempt to convince us the theory that global warming is being caused by human activity was false and basically a lie. Apparently we are all victims of a great big con.

Now it appears we were victims of a con. A con by the film-makers themselves. The programme has been referred to Ofcom, the regulatory watchdog, to consider a complaint by 37 scientists. The programme has been accused of misrepresenting the prevailing views and facts relating to global warming. Even one of the climate sceptics whose research work was used on the programme has accused the film-makers of broadcasting falsehoods.

I watched this programme with my partner and we were both shocked by the portrayal of global warming as nothing more than a natural cycle, the rising levels of carbon dioxide relegated to mere coincidence. It made us wonder at the time who was funding the programme and what their agenda was. Whatever it was, I found the whole thing irresponsible and detrimental to the cause of reducing the human activities associated with global warming. Nice one channel 4, way to save the planet.

Tories embrace the environment with new policies

The conservative party is fast becoming the party of the environment, with an 800-page report due to be published on Thursday outlining a raft of policies to make us all more environmentally friendly. The report promises to be bold and innovative in its approach to protecting the environment. There are proposals to ban electrical appliances that exceed precise limits on energy consumption. Another idea worth mentioning is to force manufacturers to fit appliances with devices that switch them off rather than leave them on stand-by. These are great ideas, they will force manufacturers to develop technology that is better geared to reducing climate change emissions.

The other important element of this policy document is the concept of increasing taxation on energy wasteful practices, such as buying big petrol guzzling cars and giving rebates to households that take positive steps to reduce their energy use. Some may see this as a cynical marketing ploy to attract voters, but I like to think that whatever the motivation behind the policies, as long as the policies are effective, it does not really matter.


[Via The Telegraph]

Eco-housing gets a boost

The second largest house-builder in the UK, Persimmon has pledged to support the government’s plans for low carbon emission housing. The company has said it wants to help build the 3 million houses needed by 2020. They have agreed to introduce environmental measures in the new homes to try to get the zero carbon emissions standard the government wants. They are currently testing things like wind turbines and photovoltaic solar cell roof tiles. The company in return wants the government to change the planning laws to speed up the planning application process and make it easier for them to buy land to build on.

This may appear to be a worthwhile move by a building company, but is it? Building new homes with renewable energy technologies is a great idea and needs to be a statutory requirement for all new houses, not a marketing ploy by builders. The worrying element of this deal is the relaxation of the planning application law that could allow builders to use precious greenbelt land to build on. They are in effect holding the government to ransom. The government knows the country needs 3 million new homes, so they will have to cave-in to house-builders demands to ease planning and building restrictions.

[Via The Guardian]

Biofuel demand starts to hurt poorest communities

As predicted by many environmentalists recently, the demand for corn (or maize) for biofuel production has started to cause suffering among the poorest of communities. Western demand for biofuel is leading to higher prices and declining food stocks for people in the poorest countries. An example of this is Mexico, where demand for corn in the USA has increased dramatically since president Bush stated his aim that the US produce 35 billion gallons of biofuels by 2017. Corn is a main staple in the Mexican diet, and when the price jumped by 50% there were protests in the streets. The Mexican government had to step in and enforce a price freeze. As demand grows further there are fears that decreased stocks and price rises will create more problems in Mexico. As Doña Catalina, making and selling tortillas from her little shop says "Poor corn..It isn't meant to go in cars. It is meant to feed our children and our grandchildren. And their grandchildren too."

The scale of demand for biofuel crops such as corn is staggering. In the US alone there are already 121 ethanol biorefineries with a 76 under construction. Even so, this will only meet a third of president Bush’s quota of biofuel production. The whole international biofuel production process has to be managed effectively and fairly otherwise it will be another case of the richer developed countries inflicting suffering on the poorest countries to satisfy their own greed.

[Via The Guardian]

Solar powered watch to save the planet

In the Guardian today there is an article called ‘Top 10 green gadgets’ which I just happened to glance at while I was reading the more serious news items. Number six on the list is a Citizen solar powered watch. I never thought of a solar powered watch as something that could save the planet, but now I’m convinced. All I need to do now is persuade my partner that this is something I simply must buy to reduce the threat of global warming. The rationale behind this broad statement is that people tend to buy new watches quite frequently, many just replace their watch when the battery has died rather than have the battery changed. 18.4 million watches are sold in the UK alone in 2003, imagine how many are sold every year throughout the world. Having a watch like this one means you can keep the same watch for life, saving energy and resources, thereby protecting the environment. You can find these ‘green’ watches at Citizens website. They have women’s and men’s watches in sporty, classic and dress styles. My favourite is the perpetual calendar sports model for £299, so if Father Christmas is reading this, I’ve been good all year, honest!

Wind turbines in your backyard

There are many people, myself included that believe wind and solar power is a good solution to our energy needs. So far, the majority of wind farms have been planned and located in the countryside, far away from population centres. This does blight the countryside and affect the local wildlife and population, but for the majority of people there is no consequence apart from greener electricity. Local councils and residents have in the past, and continue now, to campaign against wind farms in their local area. All that is about to change. Ecotricity have started a new policy of seeking planning permission to install wind turbines in urban areas. This makes it far easier for them to get planning permission approval. Apparently urban populations do not oppose wind turbines and local residents have little objection to them. I suppose this is because we are used to having big ugly structures all around us in cities, whereas in the countryside people are more used to living in a beautiful and peaceful environment. Whatever the reasons are, this is a good move by Ecotricity and will mean more green electricity for more people without spoiling the countryside.

[Via The Guardian]

Climate change hits Inuit way of life

Climate change is something that we sometimes perceive as abstract and a bit unreal at the moment, in our country at least. We have not really had to experience the devastating effects of global warming on our way of life, yet. For the Inuit people of Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Russia’s far east, climate change is real and it is current. Rising temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels are affecting entire communities and their traditional way of life. This is not something that they need to worry about in the future, this is their reality now. Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the former president and international chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) is trying to raise awareness of the effect of global warming to her people. She talks about increasing numbers of hunters falling through the ice. She explains about her neighbour: “He fell through the ice and found him two days or three days later when his legs were frozen…

…It's a remarkable story because he is an experienced hunter yet even he couldn't read the condition of the ice. What you see on the surface of the ice may look like what you've been taught for generations, but the ice is forming differently because the Arctic sink is warmer”

She goes on to say: “In Baffin, yes, the floe edge is much closer than before. In Greenland, the ice sheet is melting much faster than anything that they have ever experienced in the past few years. Alaska has been hit very hard as communities are literally falling into the sea.” This really brings home to me how important it is for us to do everything we can to reduce our own carbon footprint. It is not just about us, and our future, it is about other people around the world and their present. We owe it them.

[Via The Guardian]

Government policy on climate change lacking

The Commons Environmental Audit Committee has urged the government to take more effective and co-ordinated action to reduce the emissions that are causing climate change. The cross-party group of MP’s on the committee believe that government policy is becoming incoherent and the measures put in place do not go far enough.

The government has set the UK a target of reducing carbon emissions by 60% of 1990 levels by 2050 in a legally binding plan under the draft Climate Change Bill. The government believes that this will be sufficient to keep global temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius. The most recent research however suggests that this level of reduction will not be enough to achieve the 2 degree Celsius rise the government wants. Even if this was enough, the UK’s carbon emissions have risen rather than fallen, making it highly unlikely that the government’s own target will be met.

The committee points to series of failings on the government’s policy towards meeting not just its own targets, but also its Kyoto commitments. The problem is, people are not prepared to take the necessary steps as individuals, and the government is wary of introducing regulation for fear of becoming even less popular. It is a strange situation really, most people agree that something needs to be done to stop the rise in global temperature, but no one really wants to do much about it, other than easy token gestures.
[Via The Independent]

Website helps you to reduce CO2 from your car

There are a few simple steps you can take to reduce the environmental impact of driving your car. By choosing the right car and driving the right way you can cut down CO2 emissions.

The Department of Transport in association with What Car? magazine has launched a website with details of the most fuel efficient cars in all classes. The website lets you input the type of car you are interested in and it gives you details of the top 10 in the class for fuel efficiency and emissions. The car categories are: Supermini, Small family, Family, Estate, MPV, Compact Executive, Executive, Coupe, Open-top, Hot hatch, Compact 4x4, Large 4x4, Luxury and Performance Car. These categories were developed by What Car? magazine, to cover the majority of cars people will buy.

According to the website, if drivers follow their Smarter Driving Tips, CO2 emissions from their existing cars could reduced by 8%, and even better, if drivers buying new cars bought the most fuel efficient in its class, it could lead to a 24% reduction in CO2 emissions from new cars. It just goes to show that by taking very simple steps we can reduce our individual carbon footprint.

Water transport promises greener way

Using coastal waters and the canal system to transport goods around the country can produce 80% less carbon emissions compared to road haulage according to a report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee. That would be a pretty massive reduction in carbon emissions if all UK companies would switch form road to water freight. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen because of the higher costs involved.

Despite British Waterways promising to double the freight carried on water by 2010, the amount carried by water has dropped from 4.3m tonnes to 3.4m tonnes between 2000 and 2005. The British Waterways agency believes this is because it is uneconomic to transport goods by water in comparison.

The obvious answer would be for the government to increase the tax on road haulage to make water haulage more attractive. The government increases taxes all the time, so this would fit in nicely with their tax ethos. The other way to get more freight on Britain’s waterways is to give subsidies or tax breaks to firms using water haulage.

If the government is at all serious about reducing the UK’s carbon emission levels, this would be a very easy option to take. It may mean a slight increase in prices, or slightly less profit for the companies, but compared to the alternatives, this is a small price to pay.

[Via The Guardian]

Gadget swapping parties (not just for men)

Clothes swapping events have been going on for some time now, we read about them everywhere. This is great for all you ethical fashionistas, but what about us ethical techies? we want to do our bit to save the planet too! Well, now there is something for us too, Cadge-IT swapping parties. The concept of Cadge-IT is to get a group of guys to bring their unwanted electrical gadgets, power tools, sports kit, basically whatever they have bought and no longer want, have a few drinks and then swap stuff.
According to YouGov, each household has around £460 worth of unused products, which adds up to £9 billion nationwide.

That’s £9 billion worth of products buried and forgotten in people’s lofts and garages. Rather than waste it, swap it should be the message for everyone. It’s a simple and fun idea that will help towards reducing climate change gas emissions. Although the idea is aimed at men, I’m sure women will participate in our gadget parties before too long!

[Via The Independent]

Airlines attacked by MP’s

British airlines have been criticised by MP’s for not doing enough about carbon offsetting. Whenever I see politicians accusing others of ‘not doing enough’ about climate change the phrase about ‘pot, kettle and black’ pops into my head for some reason. Aircraft produce greenhouse gases, and until the engines that power the aircraft are developed sufficiently to produce less greenhouse gas emissions, there is not much the airlines can do about it. Carbon offsetting is both unproven and unreliable in reducing CO2 emissions. The government pushing the airlines to promote carbon offsetting will not necessarily reduce climate change. This just looks like another token effort to give the appearance of effective action.

The aviation industry is a contributor to climate change because people want the convenience of flying to any destination whenever they want to. We as a society and as individuals have to decide if we value our planet more than our way of life. The two are simply incompatible at the moment. The way we are choosing to live is damaging the planet, and the more our population grows, the more damage we do. It all comes down to how much we are prepared to change to save our future.

[Via The Telegraph]

Europe’s greenest city is in Sweden

The Swedish city of Växjö has been awarded the European Union’s award for sustainable development. Växjö is very likely the greenest city in Europe, with a level of 3.5 tonnes of carbon emissions per person, it is the lowest of any urban area in Europe. The average in Sweden is around 5 tonnes, and in the USA it is 20 tonnes. This puts into perspective how environmentally friendly Sweden is generally. The city decided ten years ago to become a fossil fuel free city and set itself a target date of 2050 to achieve this. Their electricity power plant runs on biomass, using woodchip and other wood waste from the local sawmills. The plant not only provides electricity, but the hot waste gas is condensed and purified then pumped around the town to supply water boilers and room heaters.

This is an incredibly efficient use of the local resources and shows the kind of joined up thinking that is needed to get the most out of our limited resources. The next step for the council is to get the local people to change from petrol powered cars to more environmentally friendly cars. I have no doubt the good people of Växjö will go even further in reducing their impact on the environment. Växjö is certainly leading the way to a greener way of living.

[Via The Independent]

The increase in rainfall is due to human activity

A new paper published in the journal Nature today has concluded that human activity is causing the global shifts in rainfall patterns and contributing to both the wetter weather and hot dry weather we are experiencing. This is something most people felt was true anyway, but this is the first important study to show the direct link between human activity and increased rainfall. The research was carried out by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office in conjunction with a number of national climate research institutes. The study looked at weather records from around the world going back to 1925 and used 10 computer models to predict the weather changes. The only models that could explain the recorded change in rainfall were the ones that factored in human induced climate change.

So there you have it, evidence that we have altered the planet’s weather systems and made our own lives more difficult. The worrying thing is there may be worse to come. Hopefully the government will take the flooding seriously enough to spend the money to improve flood defences and set up a flood response unit that can quickly send assistance to the affected areas.

[Via The Guardian]

Energy firms want government money for carbon capture research

The main electricity generating companies involved in the development of carbon capture technology have asked the government to give them £1 billion to help with project costs. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the process of capturing the CO2 emissions from large producers like power plants and then compressing and storing the CO2 in deep geological formations or in deep oceans. The technology to capture the CO2 exists, but the actual storage of the compressed CO2 is new and untested. This is the area energy companies want the government to invest in. Although this will eliminate around 90% of the CO2 from power stations, the process itself is energy intensive, costly, and will produce its own CO2 emissions. Whether CCS gives an overall reduction in CO2 emissions is still to be demonstrated.

BP has already abandoned its plans to build an experimental hydrogen plant using carbon capture in the North Sea due to government inaction. Other companies are threatening to do as BP has done and shelve their plans for CCS plants unless the government coughs up the money. Should the government, and by extension us the taxpayers, give money to private companies to carry out research that will benefit them and make them money? I suppose if the government doesn’t meet the costs of the project, the companies could always put their prices up to recover the costs anyway. Either way, we end up paying for the whole thing. It CCS actually helps the planet, then maybe it is just worth it.

[Via The Guardian]