Sunday, November 23, 2008

Climate Chnage and Obama

It won’t be easy to pull off a solution to the global climate change dilemma, but with leadership from a President who enjoys a huge measure of goodwill around most of the globe, the answer just might be ‘yes we can’. That’s what I argue in a longer piece in today’s Canberra Times.

Was Keynes thinking of clean energy?
You might think that now, with the new US administration needing to fix the banks, keep Detroit alive and deal with soaring unemployment, might seem like a truly bad time to be expecting breakthroughs on climate policy. But it ain’t necessarily so.
Obama needs to put in place effective domestic policies to establish America’s credibility on the issue. Getting Congress to approve domestic emissions caps is a much more likely prospect than it was just a few years ago, yet it may still depend on getting climate commitments in place in China, and recession could dampen the appetite for putting a price on carbon for a while. But the downturn may very well mean large amounts of public money for clean energy and improving energy efficiency. That used to kill two birds with one stone: it helps with greenhouse gases, and lessens the reliance on imported oil.
Now it kills three: government spending is fast becoming the only way to pump the economy. Infrastructure is an obvious target for such Keynesian spending, and it beats sending cheques in the mail or paying people to paint rocks. The danger is misallocation of resources, with governments sometimes prone to favour wasteful causes – think roofs covered with solar panels in cloudy Germany and grain converted to fuel in America. Be that as it may, the next New Deal may well have a green streak to it. China’s government has announced that it is going to pour money into railways, and America could jump-start its energy revolution.
In parallel, Obama must take the lead in getting developing countries on board of meaningful global climate policy. The timing is delicate: halting the slide into recession is paramount, but the crisis right now is also the chance to break open the long-established patterns. A treaty at the December 2009 Copenhagen conference might prove too ambitious a timetable, but the base could be laid there for a treaty to be brought together in 2010. The crucial factor is a political deal struck outside the climate negotiations, between the leaders of the major countries: at least the US and China, plus India and the EU, and better, these four plus other major economies, say the G20 group.
The ideas for a global climate deal are out there. The Garnaut Review for example recommended a package with these elements: binding greenhouse gas commitments with absolute reductions for all high-income countries; commitments below business-as-usual with a temporary opt-out clause for developing countries; equal per-capita emissions entitlements for all countries after a period of convergence; international emissions trading to give flexibility and to encourage developing countries into the system; an immediate start with key emissions intensive sectors everywhere; and large-scale funding from rich countries for clean technology.
China could fulfil its initial share of such a bargain by simply turning its current domestic goals for limiting energy use into binding greenhouse gas commitments. That would help America to commit, and could get a positive chain reaction underway. It’s an optimistic scenario, but maybe a more likely one precisely because economic crisis offers the opportunity for change.
Link East Asia Forum

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Climate change & sustainability reporting
In increasing numbers, companies are incorporating sustainability and environmental considerations into their business strategies and processes. Many now issue formal sustainability reports.

Food, drink and consumer goods companies are looking at sustainability in the context of their entire value chain. Common focus points include packaging, waste and recycling, transport, component safety and carbon management.

Issues associated with global climate change are becoming part of these sustainability reports

A new study, Reporting the Business Implications of Climate Change in Sustainability Reports, examines how companies are reporting on climate change to their stakeholders. The study summarizes the results of a survey conducted by the Global Reporting Initiative™ (GRI) and KPMG’s Global Sustainability Services™. The survey analyzed 50 sustainability reports from major companies around the world.The survey’s main finding is that, in reporting on climate change, many companies emphasize potential opportunities arising from climate change rather than the financial risks and other liabilities it could give rise to.This approach ignores new evidence that climate change presents a serious global economic threat. Thus the Stern Report on the Economics of Climate Change predicts that the costs of extreme weather events alone could reach a half to one percent of world GDP by mid-century. Stern warns that the scale of economic disruption from climate change could equal that associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century.

Opportunities identified

The GRI/KPMG study suggests many companies view climate change not only as a threat but also as an opportunity for new products, services and trading.Two-thirds of the surveyed companies report new business opportunities arising from climate change. Nearly half say they are involved in emissions trading.Some companies set up carbon funds or engage in emissions brokering. A quarter of the respondent companies report on taking advantage of opportunities arising from the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol.

Energy efficient consumer products are seen as a business opportunity

Many companies in the survey give targets for reducing greenhouse emissions and/or energy use. Where companies report the financial implications of these reductions, many believe they will make savings or generate positive returns on investment.

Risks ignored

Companies are reporting little on the business risks of climate change.Just one-fifth disclose a threat of increases in energy prices resulting from climate change abatement activities.Few companies mention the risks of legal action related to climate change such as class action law suits. Hardly anyone reports on potential disruptions caused by extreme weather events or long term physical changes such as reduced water availability.Some of the most anticipated future regulation or legislation related to climate change is emissions trading, which many companies see as a business opportunity rather than a threat.In general, the survey found that companies are not reporting on the financial implications of the risks and opportunities associated with climate change.The demand for effective reporting on the business implications of climate change continues to increase. As public awareness of climate change intensifies, company responses to the problem have become a significant reputational and strategic issue.

Link KPMG

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Philippines to suffer worst climate change devastation

The Philippines faces serious threats of climate change as the rising temperature and sea level will devastate most of the archipelago's ecology system, a U.S. space scientist warned here Friday. Josefino Comiso, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) physicist who made climate change studies, said the Philippines is very vulnerable to warming climate because it is home to a high diversity of species.

Comiso, a contributing author to the report on climate change of Nobel winner Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, is in Manila for a visit to share his knowledge with Philippine scientists, the online news network INQUIRER.NET reported. Comiso said that the country's coral reefs, home to algae and hundreds of species of fish, are under immediate threat. "The Philippines is not emitting a lot of carbon dioxide, but it's going to be the biggest victim of climate change," he said.

The leading NASA scientist said coral reefs, a wide range of plant and animal species are particularly under extinction threats of the climate change. Six countries, including the Philippines, contain over half of the world's reefs. Together with Indonesia, the Philippines has a high diversity of coral reefs, studies show. Only 4 to 5 percent of the 27,000 sq km of the country's coral reefs are in excellent condition, the report said. Comiso also said a rise in sea level and stronger storms will affect the Philippines.
Climate change: The nature of the evidence


If Hurricane Gustav had struck New Orleans with full force, what would that have told us about the scale and speed of climate change? If more of the sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is lost in this year’s summer melting season than last year (which was the worst on record), will that convince people that global warming is a real and present threat? What should people accept as evidence? And what will they accept in practice?

For scientists, the most persuasive evidence that global warming is happening faster than the models predict is the accelerating loss of Arctic sea ice. The National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, which tracks the summer melt season each year, calculates that the loss of ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has already exceeded that of 2005, the second-worst year since observations began, and may surpass last year’s record low. This is not only bad news for polar bears, since an ice-covered Arctic Ocean reflects most incoming sunlight back into space while open water, being darker, absorbs most of the sun’s heat instead. An ice-free Arctic Ocean changes the world’s heat balance and causes faster warming. In the last twenty years of the 20th century, the ice cover shrank each year from an average of 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles) in late winter to about 7 million sq. km. (2.7 million sq. mi.) in late September. Last year’s low was only 4 million sq. km. (1.55 million sq. mi.), and this year looks likely to be about the same. This is the kind of evidence that grabs scientists by the throat -- but it barely gets anybody else’s attention at all.
Only a couple of years ago, the climate models suggested that we might see a completely ice-free Arctic Ocean in late summer by 2040. Now some experts are speculating that we might get there as soon as 2013. But a thousand stories have been written about Hurricane Gustav for every one that is written about what is happening in the Arctic. That’s understandable, because not one in a thousand human beings has ever seen the Arctic Ocean close up. Nobody is being evacuated because of this accelerating disaster, and so the media virtually ignores it. Whereas for a few days earlier this month, we were inundated with stories about the threat posed to New Orleans by Hurricane Gustav only three years after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. If you include all the “missing” people whose bodies were never found, about two and a half thousand Americans were killed by Katrina. The incompetence of the federal government’s response made the event even more shocking to a nation that had come to think that this kind of natural disaster only happened to places like Honduras or Bangladesh, so it’s not surprising that President Bush cancelled his planned speech at the Republican National Convention at the last minute. The last thing John McCain’s campaign needed was a living reminder of that blunder. However, the main impact of Katrina was to break a great many people out of their denial that climate change was a problem.
The big shift in American public opinion over the following eighteen months owed much to Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth”, but for many Americans who would never believe a word Al Gore said, Katrina was the moment when the denial stopped. Yet the truth is that Hurricane Katrina could have happened at any time in the past fifty years. In any of those years it would have produced the same results, assuming the same degree of human incompetence, because the flood defenses of New Orleans had been inadequate for a long time. The climate change models predict more intense hurricanes, but not necessarily more of them -- and Katrina was only category three on a scale that goes up to five. Katrina hit in just the right place, and exposed the vulnerability of New Orleans. Hurricane Gustav, another category three storm, missed it and struck less populated areas which, this time, had been mostly evacuated. But if it had been Katrina II, it would have done more than a thousand stories about shifting rainfall patterns, acidifying oceans and melting ice to persuade people that climate change is a real threat to their well-being. Even though it was just a hurricane, and may have had nothing to do with global warming.
The regrettable reality is that there will not be a critical mass of people willing to act decisively on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the developed countries -- where most of the cuts must be made -- until some really big natural disaster kills a lot of people IN ONE OF THOSE COUNTRIES. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a disaster caused by climate change (although it probably will be), because most people don’t understand enough about the climate to know what is valid evidence for climate change and what is not. Katrina helped to move Americans from denial to acceptance that global warming is a problem, but it will take an even bigger disaster to persuade them to act decisively

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Olympic village to save electricity in Beijing- Green games

Echelon Corporation today announced that the Olympic Village in Beijing is using Echelon's LonWorks([R]) technology to create an energy efficiency lighting control system. Lighting typically consumes as much as a third of the electricity used in a building, making it a prime target for energy efficiency for the Olympic Village during the Games. The smart LonWorks based control system integrates all lighting subsystems to optimize energy usage while maintaining a safe and aesthetically pleasing environment for the athletes - contributing to the government's pledge to stage a "green Olympics."
Beijing is committed to reducing energy and water consumption per unit of GDP by five percent this year as part of a push for a 'recycling economy' in time for the Olympics.
"Only LonWorks technology was able to fulfill the unique needs of this project," said Vincent Wang, General Manager, of Lang Meng Technology, Inc. "There are vast numbers of devices scattered across a large area, serving the many needs of the Village from beautification, to safety, to energy efficiency. It is extremely important to China that the Village be seen positively by the tens of millions of viewers that will be watching the Olympics on television. Because the LonWorks products from our various suppliers integrate easily, we were able install and configure the project in less than two months, helping to ensure that the Olympic Village will open on schedule."
Echelon's LonWorks control technology is incorporated in the Chinese national standard for building automation, intelligent residential community construction, and in the national standard for control applications.
The Olympic Village is the largest non-competition venue in Beijing, and will accommodate over 23,000 athletes and team officials for both the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Village has over 370,000 square meters of apartment space, including 22 six-floor buildings and 20 nine-floor buildings, and facilities such as general information centers, meeting rooms, medical clinics, religious centers, multiple restaurants, a library, parking areas, and entertainment and leisure activity centers.
The smart lighting control system integrates lighting subsystems for the apartments, public areas, car park areas, and all landscape and beautification lighting. In addition to increased energy efficiency and safety, the system is designed to enhance the beauty of the Village by illuminating architectural details on the buildings and entry arches into the Village, as well as various landscape features such as water fountains.
"Beijing is making substantial, if not historic, efforts to produce the first 'green Games' that impact not only the Olympic venues, but the entire country," said Anders Axelsson, Echelon's senior vice-president of marketing. "The Olympic Village is essentially a city within a city and a great example of how Echelon and its partners can bring solutions that can enhance the quality of life in a city while at the same time making it more energy efficient

Link Echelon

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Top climate scientist blasts G8 climate pledge

One of the world's most respected climate scientists on Tuesday slammed the G8 summit's goal of halving global warming emissions by 2050 as "worse than worthless."
Leaders of the world's richest nations, meeting in Japan, "are taking actions that guarantee that we deliver to our children climate catastrophes that are out of our control," US expert James Hansen said in an e-mail to Agence France-Presse.
Hansen, who heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, was one of the first climate scientists to sound an alarm about the threat of global warming.
In a landmark study published in 1981, Hansen predicted that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activity would accelerate climate change far more quickly than previously thought.
At their summit in the resort town of Toyako, the leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) nations -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- agreed Tuesday to "consider and adopt" the goal of achieving the 50-percent cut in worldwide emissions by mid-century.
But they made no targeted pledge for action next decade, nor did they mention specific action against coal, which Hansen characterized as the greatest peril.
"A statement of any goal for percent reduction is worthless. Indeed, it is worse than that: it is a pretence that they understand the problem and plan to take needed actions," said Hansen.
The only way to avoid climate catastrophe, argued Hansen, was to halt the emissions of coal, the most abundant and highly polluting of all fossil fuels.
He reiterated a call for a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants and for existing ones to be fitted with technology to capture the CO2 and store it deep underground.
"Otherwise we are sending a death sentence to uncountable species and are leaving our children with an ungodly mess," he said.
Sky-rocketing oil prices have spurred energy-efficiency plans in many countries but at the same time have intensified the use of coal around the world, especially in developing juggernauts China and India.
Testimony by Hansen on June 23, 1988 -- a day of record-breaking heat -- before a US Congressional committee made headlines around the world when he said "the Earth is warmer in 1988 than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements."
His intervention helped spur the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Nobel-winning committee of climate scientists.
His now-famous "hockey-stick" graphic predicting a sharp rise in world temperatures provoked a backlash among climate skeptics.

Link AFP

G8 buries climate pledges in time capsule


Group of Eight leaders meeting in Japan wrangled over the timeframe to fight global warming, but they have a set deadline when their pledges will be reviewed - in 100 years.
Their summit documents, along with current newspapers, will be buried in a time capsule at the luxury hotel where they met for three days in the mountain resort of Toyako in northern Japan.
The Windsor Hotel Toya will dig up and open the time capsule on July 7, 2108.
"We hope to confirm that the summit will have been remembered for 100 years as a key conference on climate change and that by then global warming will be halted as promised by the leaders," a hotel spokesman said.
The time capsule will be put in a new park along with a monument with the engraved autographs of the G8 leaders and a sculpture representing a chunk of ice that is melting due to global warming.

Link AFP

Monday, July 7, 2008

G-8 goes green in Japan

A brand new Toyota 'plug-in' Prius is parked near a sleek-looking, hydrogen-powered RX-8 Mazda and eight more environmentally friendly cars.

Behind them, a futuristic 'Zero Emissions House' is showcased to the thousands of international journalists who have come to Toyako, in northern Japan, to follow the Group of Eight (G8) summit.

Inside their media centre, journalists find 400-page directories of eco-friendly products currently on sale in Asia, from a recyclable and reusable microwave food container to an energy thrifty LED spot light.

And an exhibition on the impact of global warming on the melting Arctic ice cap and the Himalayan glaciers reminds them of why everybody needs to do their bit to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Fighting climate change is one of the top priorities of this week's G-8 meeting, which brings together the world's seven richest countries (United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada) plus Russia.

At their last meeting in Heilingendamm, Germany, G-8 leaders promised to take into serious consideration Japan's 'Cool Earth 50' proposal to at least halve greenhouse gas emissions from the current levels by 2050.

But aside from reiterating that commitment, G-8 leaders meeting in Hokkaido are not expected to reach any groundbreaking deals on a post-Kyoto protocol, which called for a 5-percent reduction of global emissions on their 1990 levels and which is due to expire in 2012.

'As for medium-term targets, this is the core challenge for United Nations negotiations until the end of 2009. The G-8 is not a forum to agree on that target,' this year's host, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told reporters ahead of the July 7-9 summit.

A series of obstacles stand in the way of such a deal.

The first is political.

The United States, the world's biggest polluter, did not ratify Kyoto out of concerns for its industries and now says it will not sign up to a new protocol unless this imposes strict limits also on rapidly developing countries such as China and India.

The second is more practical.

Even the staunchest supporters of Kyoto are failing to meet its ambitious targets. According to latest figures available, for instances, the industrial plants and power stations of Germany and Britain, two of the world's best-behaving countries on the environmental front, not only failed to cut emissions in 2007, they both increased them by about 2 percent.

And even Japan, which is challenging the European Union (EU)'s role as the world's leader on climate change, has seen its carbon dioxide emissions rise rather than fall in recent years.

Moreover, the current slowdown in the global economy risks making costly emission-reducing schemes even less popular.

As the display in Toyako proved once again, it is not only a matter of lacking political will.

Another problem is that the technology behind some the boldest environmentally friendly projects is still either untested or too expensive.

The Zero Emissions House, for instance, gets all the energy it needs from a combination of solar panels on its roof and windows and from nearby small wind turbine generators - but it currently costs three times more than a normal house.

'We hope to make these kinds of houses viable within the next 10 to 20 years,' said an official from Sekisui, one of the companies behind the initiative.

The Mazda RX-8, meanwhile, is currently only available for leasing to a handful of Japanese corporations, though a further 30 are being built for the Norwegian market.

Of more immediate benefit could be the new Toyota Prius, which has added a battery that can be recharged from home to its existing hybrid electric-petrol engine.

Toyota says the new Prius, due to hit the Japanese, European and the US markets in 2010, will produce half as much CO2 as its previous incarnation.

But the company acknowledges that existing batteries are too heavy and expensive to allow the new model to run on electric energy alone for much more than 15 km.
Environmentally conscious journalists present in Toyako were at least able to draw some relief from the fact that the building that hosted them is fitted with recyclable materials and an air-conditioning system that uses snow.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Saarc ministers hold climate change meet in Dhaka July 3
In view of the growing concern for climate change, environment ministers from eight Saarc countries will meet in Dhaka on July 3 to take a common stance on the climate change issue before the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December next year. This will be the first such regional meeting as environment has been an important agenda for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc).

A deal for facilitating exchange of information between the Saarc countries will top the agenda, said officials of both the environment and foreign Ministries. They said Saarc is to devise a regional action plan for adapting to climate change and mobilising funds for the purpose. Chief Adviser Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed will inaugurate the Saarc ministerial meeting. The decision to hold Saarc climate change meeting was made at the 29th session of the Saarc Council of Ministers in New Delhi in December 2007. The July 3 Saarc ministerial meeting will be preceded by an expert-level meeting on July 1 and 2.

The expert-level meeting will make an in-depth assessment on the adverse impact of climate change in the region and suggest measures to address the situation through cooperation.
They hoped that the Dhaka meeting would pave the way for Saarc to take a common stance on the climate change issue.

The UN has been pressing for a new, historic deal on Climate Change in Copenhagen next year. The treaty due to be hammered out in the Danish capital next year is meant to provide an action plan after the Kyoto Protocol's obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions expire at the end of 2012.

On the issue of regional funding for facilitating adaptation to climate change, a high official of the foreign ministry said the ways and means to mobilise a fund called the Saarc Development Fund might be discussed at the meeting.

The Dhaka meet is also expected to seek funds from donor agencies whose representatives have been invited to the meeting, the official said. Besides officials and experts from eight member nations -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka --, representatives from donor bodies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Global Environment Facility, DFID, Saarc Observers China, Japan, South Korea, USA and EU are expected to join the meeting.

Bangladesh, being located in a region regularly affected by floods and cyclones, is very vulnerable to extreme weather. The country has already begun to feel the effects of the climate change as flood periods have become longer and the cyclones that hit the country cause greater devastation. Besides, rise in sea level will inundate the coastal areas of the country. A rise of 30-45cm in sea level will affect the coastal ecosystems, water and agriculture and also food production. This will result in displacement of about 35 million people from the coastal districts by the year 2050.

The caretaker government has made a proposal to create a fund titled “Fund for Climate Change” and allocate Tk 3000 million (about 43 million US$) in the budget for 2008-09.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

HP Outlines How Its Products Can Save 1 Billion Tons of CO2

Hewlett-Packard has published a whitepaper detailing how its green products can help businesses cut carbon emissions by 1 billion tons.HP's whitepaper builds on the report The Potential Global CO2 Reductions from ICT Use: Identifying and Assessing the Opportunities to Reduce the First Billion Tons of CO2, co-produced by WWF International. The report identifies ten existing IT solutions that reduce carbon emissions in areas including buildings, transportation networks, and industrial production.
The whitepaper also coincides with HP's new Eco Solutions program, which helps customers identify products and services that can help them lower their environmental footprint from IT operations.

Link HP

ISO standards highlighted at Bali conference as essential to voluntary and regulatory efforts to fight climate change


Laying a pathway for 2012 beyond Kyoto was central to this year's meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Over a two-week period from 3-14 December 2007 in Bali, Indonesia, more than 12 000 participants from government, intergovernmental organizations, and international NGOs associated with business, academic, environmental and civil society interests converged in Bali to address a most pressing issue of our time – climate change.
The need to act for the sake of future generations has never been clearer, or more urgent. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), co-winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, has highlighted the unequivocal impact that mankind's activities are having on the world's climate in its Summary for Policymakers, a summary from its Fourth Assessment Report (see http://www.ipcc.ch/).
The findings indicate that the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from pre-industrial values of about 280 ppm, to 379 ppm in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650 000 years (180 to 300 ppm).
The report predicts that continued greenhouse gas (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.
With a mandate to address these challenges, the Bali meetings convened the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol. In addition, the meetings included an extensive array of side events and exhibits that probed topical issues of importance to global climate change.
A central theme was the renewed importance of industry and governments to work towards common solutions and to ensure that voluntary initiatives align with the imperatives of government and society at large. ISO's foundational contribution to such voluntary approaches was highlighted late in the first week by the ISO Deputy Secretary-General, Kevin McKinley, in a special side event session hosted by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Resources Institute (WRI).
The ISO process was promoted as an effective mechanism for developing international consensus amongst countries and stakeholders from civil society, business and other interests – ISO's reach being achieved through its network of national standards institutes from 157 countries, as well as links with more than 600 international and regional organizations collaborating in its programme of more than 3000 committees and working groups.
ISO standards offer practical tools for addressing climate change at four levels:
Monitoring climate change through technical, basic equipment and measurement standards (e.g., ISO/TC 211 on geomatics, ISO/TC 146/SC5 on meteorology).
Quantifying GHG emissions and communicating on environmental impacts, including the leading ISO standards ISO 14064 (Parts 1, 2 and 3) and ISO 14065 on GHG accounting, verification, validation and accreditation of bodies carrying out these activities.
Promoting good practice in environmental management and design, for example achieving broad deployment of organizational commitment to the environment through widespread implementation of ISO 14001, which provides the requirements for environmental management systems-
Opening markets for energy efficient technologies and renewable sources, including established programmes for hydrogen, nuclear and wind technologies, as well as new standardization work on solid and liquid biofuels, and proposals for standards on improving energy management in organizations.
In particular, ISO, WBCSD and WRI highlighted the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) under which the organizations have agreed to jointly cooperate on and promote the ISO 14064 standards and the WRI/WBCSD-developed GHG Protocol
In the second week, ISO contributed to discussions concerning a proposed new initiative to fund and encourage small business action on the sustainability agenda. Currently entitled the Sustainability of the Planet foundation, its founders will be seeking to establish the initiative at a global level and to strengthen more formal cooperation with key actors such as ISO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Global Compact, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and WBCSD.
In the final days of the Bali meetings, ISO presented at a special side event organized by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) concerning voluntary carbon markets and the impact of the new Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS). The VCS is a recently launched, global carbon offset standard that effectively incorporates exacting principles from the ISO 14064 series and ISO 14065.
Co-developed by the IETA, the Climate Group and WBCSD, the VCS will provide a new and much-needed level of assurance for the certification of voluntary offsets, especially targeted to organizations keen to tackle climate change by going "carbon-neutral". Developers of the VCS estimate that annual transactions in the voluntary carbon market could reach USD 4billion in the next five years and that the VCS will be instrumental to this future growth.
ISO International Standards - Practical tools for addressing climate change
Hot topics - Climate change
ISO Deputy Secretary-General Kevin McKinley stated: "The success of all emissions trading programmes will be assisted by extensive use and reference to the globally accepted ISO 14064 series and ISO 14065. In fact, truly additional and material reductions in global GHG emissions can only be achieved through the continued convergence of ISO standards and both the voluntary and regulatory GHG emission verification, validation, accreditation and trading regimes.
"This Bali meeting has been especially useful to promote, particularly with key industry and non-governmental partners, the foundational role that ISO standards are playing in contributing to mitigating climate change and to achieving a truly sustainable world."

Link ISO

U.S. Carbon Emissions Increase Again
The U.S. Energy Information Administration just released preliminary data showing that carbon dioxide emissions from energy sources in the United States grew by 1.6 percent in 2007—the single largest year-over-year increase since Bush took office. This one-year increase of 96 million metric tons is like adding 14 million cars to the road. And if we look at the increase in carbon dioxide pollution from energy sources during the entire Bush administration, that sum rises to 230 million metric tons—a nearly 10 percent increase.
The jump this year comes after a small decline last year that was driven by a mild winter and summer in 2006 that enabled Americans to use less energy for heating and cooling. With weather returning to normal last year, higher electricity use is one of the largest drivers of emissions increases in both the commercial and residential sectors.
Overall emissions from the electric power sector increased by 3 percent in 2007. Coal-fired electric plants were the number one stationary source of emissions last year, accounting for a 35.3 million metric ton carbon dioxide increase between 2006 and 2007. Some utilities have turned to natural gas to try to reduce their emissions. And the increase in natural gas emissions in 2007 slightly exceeded coal—a 35.6 million metric ton increase of carbon dioxide.
Petroleum-related carbon dioxide emissions experienced a tiny decrease in 2007, mostly due to a decrease in emissions from oil-fueled electricity. Nonetheless, petroleum still generates the most emissions of all fossil fuels, surpassing coal in 2007 by 429 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. And emissions from petroleum use have grown the most since Bush took office—4.6 percent since 2001.
The EIA data sends several important signals about national carbon dioxide emissions generated by fossil fuel use. There is a clear need to change our energy usage. Proposals to build dozens of new coal-fired electric plants would exacerbate emissions problems—problems that relying on natural gas aren’t solving. Electricity generation is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions. This makes enacting a strong, effective cap-and-trade bill particularly urgent.
Other fossil fuel emissions are also an important part of the puzzle. While emissions from petroleum experienced a slight decrease last year, oil combustion produced the single highest increase in carbon dioxide emissions since 2001. Total fossil fuel energy emissions from the transportation sector have increased a total of 8.4 percent since Bush took office. Higher fuel economy standards in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 will begin to reduce emissions from the transportation sector after their implementation in 2012. But more action is necessary to reduce emissions from this and other fossil fuels.
Scientist urges carbon tax to help climate
The U.S. scientist who 20 years ago first told Congress that the Earth's climate was warming said on Monday that urgent action was needed to cut greenhouse gases and proposed a tax on carbon emissions.
James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said at a congressional briefing that a carbon tax would be the most efficient way to cut global warming emissions and encourage non-fossil energy sources.
"We have to level with the public that there has to be a price on carbon emissions," Hansen said. "That is the only way we are going to begin to move toward a carbon free economy."
Hansen said urgent action was needed to cut carbon dioxide emissions that are warming the globe and are already causing arctic ice to melt. He said world leaders had only one or two years to act before the Earth reaches a "tipping point" with major consequences to the global climate and species survival.
"We have reached an emergency situation," Hansen said.
He said the government should not keep the proceeds from any carbon tax, but refund the money to taxpayers to help them pay for more fuel efficient technology.
President George W. Bush has opposed any broad program to curb carbon emissions saying it would hurt the economy and has consistently resisted any tax increases. But global warming is an issue in this year's presidential campaign and is expected to be a major topic of discussion at next month's meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations in Japan.
Twenty years ago today, Hansen testified before a Senate committee and told lawmakers that "the greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now."
Hansen's testimony helped spur the first congressional efforts to curb greenhouse gases. The most recent effort, legislation that would have created a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions died in the Senate earlier this month in face of a veto threat from the White House

U.N. agenda for new global climate deal by 2009

A 190-nation U.N. climate meeting in Bali edged towards a deal on Saturday, after two weeks of talks to launch two-year negotiations on a broad pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol from Jan 1, 2013.
Following are contents of the final draft text, still to be approved by the full conference of ministers and delegates on Saturday, describing the agenda for those negotiations.
LAUNCH OF NEW TALKS
A new U.N. group would supervise work on a new climate deal, to begin "without delay", not later than April 2008, and "complete its work in 2009".
HOW AMBITIOUS?
The level of ambition to guide rich countries' efforts to fight climate change was one of the most contentious issues at the Bali talks.
The United States opposed a European Union-backed range for greenhouse gas emissions cuts by 2020. Earlier drafts had mentioned a goal for rich countries to cut emissions by 25-40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.
The EU backed down and the final draft relegated the emissions range to a footnote, which cited 2 pages in a report on fighting climate change published this year by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Those pages do not specify which one of six emissions-reduction targets countries should aim for. Those goals range from peaking global greenhouse gas emissions in 8 to 80 years time, resulting in long-term global temperature increases after 2100 of between 2 and 6.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
RICH AND POOR
Another contentious item was how far developing countries should match rich nations' efforts to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
The final draft called on all developed countries to consider "quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives", and "nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions".
Meanwhile, developing countries should consider "measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation actions", with support for efforts to curb deforestation.
The text said "deep cuts in global emissions will be required" to avoid dangerous climate change.

ADAPTATION, TECHNOLOGY, FINANCING
Many countries worldwide are already suffering from climate change, many delegates said. The final text called for "urgent implementation of adaptation actions" including the "immediate needs" of small island states.
The text asked countries to accelerate efforts to transfer technologies which would help developing countries cut their contribution to and adapt to climate change.
The final draft called for more financial resources and investment for developing countries on adaptation, mitigation and technology cooperation, especially for the most vulnerable.

Link Reuters

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Clean Climate

The United Nations urged the world to kick its addiction to carbon dioxide on World Environment Day on Thursday, and said everyone must take steps to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change.

Just under half of personal emissions come from things under individuals control, the United Nations said.

It recommends the following for anyone keen to shrink their carbon footprint.

· Wake up with a traditional wind-up alarm clock, not an electronic one: save almost 48 grams (g) of carbon dioxide (Co2) each day.

· Brush witha a non-electric toothbrush; avoid nearly 48 g of Co2 emissions

· Replace a 45-minute workout on a treadmill with a jog in a nearby park; save nearly 1kg of carbon.

· Heat bread rolls in a toaster, not an oven, for 15 minutes; save nearly 170g f Co2.

· Take the train rather than the car to the office: a distance of as little as 8 km can save 1.7kg of CO2.

· Shut down your computer and flat screen during the lunch break and when you leave work: this cuts Co2 emissions generated by these appliances by one-third.

· Install a water-saving shower head. This will save 10 liters of water per minute and halve CO2 emissions of a three-minute hot shower.

· Switch from regular 60-Watt light bulbs to energy saving compact fluorescent lamps.

· Dry clothes on a washing line instead of a tumble dryer: knock 2.3kg of CO2 off your total.

· Pack a light suitcase: world savings of 2million tonnes of CO2 a year are possible if every airline passenger cuts their baggage to below 20kg and buys duty free goods on arrival.

Sources: Reuters, United Nations Environment Programme.