Tag: China

Something 4 The Weekend

Bali continues to make headlines. The rough positions are becoming clear. China’s playing hardball – no mandatory cuts, West has to cut first and most deeply. The New York Times‘ Andy Revkin has a couple of good Bali posts on his blog: the first suggests that the IPCC may have to revise its goal for the next report – updating AR4 for the conclusion of the post-Kyoto process in 2009, while the second looks at what’s going on around the negotiations. Meanwhile, 200 scientists from around the world, coordinated by the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, issued a statement calling on the conference to aim for emissions cuts of at least 50% by 2050 [Herald, Globe & Mail (Canada)].

Meanwhile, there’s lots more below the fold (as they say on the broadsheets)….

Continue reading “Something 4 The Weekend”

I don’t like Mondays

Lady Young, head of the UK’s Environment Agency, thinks that coping with climate change demands wartime urgency, as the Telegraph [UK] reports:

“This is World War Three – this is the biggest challenge to face the globe for many, many years. We need the sorts of concerted, fast, integrated and above all huge efforts that went into many actions in times of war. We’re dealing with this as if it is peacetime, but the time for peace on climate change is gone – we need to be seeing this as a crisis and emergency,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Observer covers a new report from a peace group:

This stark warning will be outlined by the peace group International Alert in a report, A Climate of Conflict, this week. Much of Africa, Asia and South America will suffer outbreaks of war and social disruption as climate change erodes land, raises seas, melts glaciers and increases storms, it concludes. Even Europe is at risk.

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, and the International Energy Agency sees “inexorable”growth in energy demand over the next 30 years with a risk of more coal being burned. It does suggests a 450ppm CO2 limit might be achievable, but:

“Exceptionally quick and vigourous policy action by all countries, and unprecedented technological advances, entailing substantial costs, would be needed to make this case a reality.”

Not much hope of that. And the China Post says EU officials reckon that China will reject binding limits on emissions in any post-Kyoto deal. The words “hell” and “handbasket” spring to mind…On the upside? Bryan Appleyard in the Sunday Times [UK] looks at options for “fixing” climate through technology (well worth a read), scientists at Harvard and Penn State reckon they’ve found a way to speed up a natural weathering process to neutralise ocean acidity and remove carbon from the atmosphere, and Technology Review reports on a Dutch biofuel company working with a California-based venture capital outfit to develop catalysts that can turn organic matter such as waste wood into biocrude – chemicals that can be processed to make biofuels. If you’ve got money to invest, the Observer [UK] reckons that one of a new breed of green investment funds might be a good place to put it.

To boldly follow…?

NzifollowThe New Zealand Institute, the politically neutral think tank born of the “Knowledge Wave” conference, has been making waves of a different kind today with its new, and rather idiosyncratic take on how NZ should approach emissions reductions. The report, part of a series on climate change, is called “We’re Right Behind You” [PDF], and advocates a “fast follower” approach to emissions reductions – which apparently means reneging on our Kyoto commitments. The report recommends that:

…it seems appropriate and realistic for New Zealand to undertake to reduce its net emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 rather than by 2012. We recommend that New Zealand should seek to avoid the obligation to purchase carbon credits associated with the decision to delay achieving its Kyoto committment by 2012.

This effectively means withdrawing from Kyoto, and as you might expect this “considered analysis” has been welcomed by the big emitters. I was interviewed by one of the authors of the report back in June, before HT was published, and in a swift email exchange this morning I promised to read the report thoroughly before rushing to any judgement (unlike some). So, my timely (but not rushed) view of this contribution to the policy debate?

Continue reading “To boldly follow…?”

Tuesday linkfest

Labour weekend means just that, chez Hot Topic. Catching up with farm work, planting the vege garden, getting a sore back – all in a weekend’s work. But climate change waits for no man, so here’s a compendium of stuff that caught my attention over the last few days.

  • Contact Energy has announced plans for a huge – 218 turbine, 650MW – wind farm called Hauauru ma raki, to be built on a remote site south of Port Waikato. NZ turbine builder Windflow Technology has announced plans for new models designed to work in India and China, and Meridian has sent wind experts to Scott Base in Antarctica to advise on building wind turbines to reduce fossil fuel requirements. According to Stuff, they think it could be easier than building in Wellington.
  • Still more on the Arctic summer: the NSIDC updates its coverage with some excellent animations, while Cryosphere Today adds an archive of maps of atmospheric conditions over the summer, and introduces a web app that allows iPhone users to monitor sea ice conditions. Another reason why I want one. Technology Review visits Greenland to meet the teams measuring the melt, and down south, satellites spot a huge berg breaking off the Pine Island Glacier.
  • On the roof of the world, the Nepali Times reports Kiwi guides describing how the disappearance of ice on the planet’s biggest mountains is changing the climbs.
  • Two more good articles from TR: Fixing the Power Grid describes how big batteries (capable of supplying 1MW+ for hours at a time) can provide back up for grid problems, and Tiny Solar Cells looks at nanowire solar cells made by a team at Harvard.
  • Carbon emissions from shipping could be as much as twice those from aviation, according to a report from Intertanko. Strong growth in trade has driven emissions to 1.2 billion tonnes oer annum. Meanwhile, the Herald reports on aviation’s attempts to be seen to be more climate friendly – and Richard Branson’s efforts to beat Air New Zealand to the first use of biofuels in jets.
  • CO2 absorption in the Atlantic has nosedived, adding to concerns that the ocean carbon sink may be reducing – leaving more of our emissions in the atmosphere [University of East Anglia].
  • Coral reef specialists have issued a call to action on the impact of climate change: “We call on all societies and governments to immediately and substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Without targeted reductions, the ongoing damage to coral reefs from global warming will soon be irreversible.”
  • The Daily Telegraph [UK] is in the process of becoming enthusiastically green. Latest evidence is a nifty widget – the Telegraph Earth Pulse – which monitors climate and general environment news.
  • A dairy farm can produce as much sewage as a small town (see North & South current issue), but worms can turn it all into mellow compost according to US researchers.
  • It looks like a “three-wheeled technicolour shoehorn”, but the No More Gas will do 75 mph and has a range of 30 miles. OK for getting around town, but I’d still prefer a Tesla Roadster…
  • The financial word is getting the climate message: Deutsche Bank thinks that efforts to combat climate change will drive an investment “megatrend”, Morgan Stanley estimates that global sales of wind, solar and geothermal power and biofuels could be US$1 trillion a year by 2030, and HSBC is launching a climate change investment fund for investors who want to track companies active in the field.
  • HT tends to steer clear of dsicussing peak oil, but the Guardian [UK] covers a new report that claims that we passed peak oil last year, and that global oil production will be halved by 2030. Adds a certain piquancy to energy strategy…

Into ecological overdraft

Globe07In the final chapter of Hot Topic, I refer to the concept of global overshoot: the idea that human activities are exceeding the planet’s ability to regenerate resources. It’s the ultimate meaning of sustainability – living within our planetary means. This year we started eating into our ecological overdraft on October 6th – three days ahead of last year, and the best part of month earlier than in 2000. The Global Footprint Network calculates Ecological Debt Day:

As humanity’s consumption of resources increases, Ecological Debt Day creeps earlier on the calendar. According to current calculations, humanity’s first Ecological Debt Day was December 19, 1987. By 1995 it had jumped back a month to 21 November. In 2007, with Ecological Debt on October 6, humanity’s Ecological Footprint is almost thirty per cent larger than the planet’s productivity this year. In other words, it now takes more than one year and three months for the Earth to regenerate what we use in a single year.

Continue reading “Into ecological overdraft”