A Green Degree Blog: New Angles On Sustainability

October 31st 2012

Reconciling China & The US Over Climate Change, Impossible? Just Improbable

As part of my seminar work at university recently, we were tasked with acting out a mock debate between China and the United States, as though we were their respective leaders attempting to form an international agreement on climate change and emissions, all COP-like. Three of us were labelled China (me) and the other three the US, and for two weeks we prepared our sides of the argument with the ideas of fairness, equality and discussing topics which are rarely touched upon in the real world.

Now, our goal was to duke it out for 20 minutes or so, each bringing out our biggest guns on the topics of economy, climate policy, energy and poverty, with the ultimate goal of first debating who bore the better position on the global stage, before forming a bilateral framework to bring the rest of the world on board. Easy task eh! But fun nonetheless.

Our lecturer, an environmental barrister who has seen his fair share of global conventions and knows how they work and (mostly) don’t work, and was keen that we focus on one or two key attributes of a fair debate on this topic. Firstly, historical emissions, the idea that a figure can be derived to demonstrate how much greenhouse gas emissions had been accumulated over time by each industrialising country, generally from 1850 until the present. Secondly, the intent to damage, or mens rea, and associated legal issues such as liability were to be included, as these are generally ignored or swept under the rug in the conventions we’ve come to know and hate.

And who do you think holds the crown of the highest historical emissions between the US and China? Why the US of course, by a margin of about 220,000Gt of CO2, maxing out at ~340,000Gt, almost 30% of the entire worldwide past emissions accounted for. China on the other hand is responsible for around 9% of the share, and much of that has been in the last 30-40 years of rampant coal consumption and becoming the ‘manufacturer of the world’, a moniker the US has had much use out of. When you consider what we know of climate science and carbon dioxide today, that fantastically large proportion of emissions resulting from the States puts pretty much everything else into perspective, not least China’s emissions.

China has tried to use this against the US before, claiming that they should pay up for all the dirty CO2 and the years of unabated, joyful economic growth it brought with it; if China is to be expected to slow growth to mitigate climate change, then the US should compensate all those who have and will be affected by that 30% historical share, i.e. the entire planet. When they brought this demand to the table, the US used their secret weapon to shoot it down instantaneously, quickly brushing it out of sight before anything serious came of it. By claiming ignorance effectively, the US leaders merely stated that they could not have possibly known fossil fuel burning was damaging the environment as we now know, and to ask them to pay compensation for anything earlier than, say, the 1980s would be ludicrous. This is despite the fact that we as a society knew these emissions were damaging at least decades earlier, and certainly by the early 1970s, when the wider scientific community began studying the effects of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Posted at 10:01am and tagged with: us, china, energy, climate, COP, debate, money, global, climate change, science,.

October 25th 2012

Somehow, UK Leads (Mostly) Europe-Wide Overachievement Towards Kyoto Targets

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Well I must admit, I for one did not see this news coming, and it has come at quite the shock to me, and I would like to think much of the developed world and climate hawks all around. The EU is set to meet and surpass the greenhouse gas emission targets set out in the Kyoto Protocol way back in 1997, cutting overall amounts by at least 5% per country involved, which is a sizeable amount whichever way you cut it.

Considering many other developed nations have either long given up on reaching these goals, or have simply backed out in the interests of domestic markets (think Canada and their precious tar-sand resources), or never actually ratified the Protocol in the first place, the fact that the EU has achieved this is quite some show of progress in the right direction.

What surprised me even more so, and this is undoubtedly where my powerful cynicism comes into play, or what I like to think of as realistic cynicism at least, is that the United Kingdom is leading the pack in slashing GHG emissions in real terms (actual tonnes of emissions), cutting them by 6% in 2011, equivalent to roughly 36m tonnes of CO2. Compare this to 5% for France and just 2% for solar-rich Germany, and you see what all the fuss is about. Personally, and I don’t believe I was alone in this thought, I always mostly ignored the government’s claims of how well we were doing and how we would easily meet our targets and surpass them, and given recent developments in our energy policy, I would be mad to think of it as truth; but apparently I was wrong.

Now, there are multiple reasons as to why this sudden drop in emissions came to be, and when combined, they would seem to account for much of the cuts we are now seeing and inevitably will be boasting about on the global stage. Firstly, a milder year for weather all round depressed gas and electricity usage, and secondly, cleaner wind and solar energy has steadily been coming online since the mid-noughties, and even though there are relatively few numbers of MWs being produced via renewables, they obviously have a impact.

However, and possibly more importantly, a practically stagnant European economy drove down the use of any form of energy, be it fossil or renewable, in part forcing the decline in emissions, and in others the maddeningly new high bill costs supposedly ‘needed’ to keep the Big Six running our country’s supply of juice.

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: energy, climate, emissions, EU, europe, UK, kyoto protocol, cut, carbon, pollution, canada, china, us, germany, france, nuclear, solar, wind, greenhouse, government, politics, economy, growth, investment, osborne, hayes, cameron, policy,.

September 13th 2012

Japan Nuclear-Free By 2030s, But How Will They Fill The Gap?

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It would seem a decision on the fate of nuclear power in Japan has potentially been decided this week, with the announcement by the prime minister’s leading democratic party that policy will be settled soon which intends to ‘realise a situation where the number of nuclear plants operated be zero in the 2030s’, effectively hammering home the final nail in the industry’s coffin.

It has long been thought by followers of the nuclear market that Japan would eventually cut all ties and close down their operations post-Fukushima, but for a long time the prime minister was caught in two minds; on the one hand, he had an angry Japanese public to answer to for the Fukushima disaster, whilst he and the business sector believed Japan would need to nuclear to progress without blackouts and that the benefits outweighed the possible risks. Now it seems that the public may have won, with this statement no doubt gratifying many concerned citizens, although it may not seem to be coming quick enough for some.

Since the Tohoku earthquake, all of Japans fifty reactors have been offline, bar two in the same plot restarted earlier this year, for regulation and safety checks, leaving the country with a gaping energy deficit of 30%, the amount fission provided up until the fateful tsunami. With the closure in full effect and possible edgings towards restarting the nuclear fleet being banded around, a country normally peaceful and well conformed to government life was up in arms, with protests in the thousands rattling the streets of Tokyo, demanding an end to nuclear and it’s inherent dangers. This was certainly a Japan not often seen by the global public, not least the media.

Unfortunately, Japan has had to heavily rely on oil imports since the shutdowns across the country, ramping up their consumption of Middle Eastern black gold considerably, whilst at the same time employing strict and tough efficiency rulings and energy-saving requirements back home, just to stop the nation from all out blackouts during the summer months. In effect, this increased oil consumption not only stalled what looked to be a peaking industry, but also contributed greatly to the carbon being dumped into the atmosphere, carbon which otherwise would have been left in the ground had the nuclear plants been left on or restarted.

This is the crucial point of the entire ‘end to nuclear’ debate currently being hotly contested all over the developed world. If we choose to dump nuclear, an industry which provides a large chunk of global energy supply, we must be prepared to replace it with something else, and that doesn’t mean more oil, coal and natural gas from elsewhere in the world. That is clearly backward thinking and progress.

July 13th 2012

The ‘No More Solyndras’ Act - A Direct Threat To US Domestic Markets

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As I write this, the US government is mullung over claims by the GOP that the highly controversial, but equally highly successful government-backed solar loaning programme, is no longer worth anybody’s time or money, including the taxpayers of America.

The so-called ‘No More Solyndras’ Act, a cleverly named piece of legislation that aims to shut down all workings of the loan system is being hotly debated in the Houses involved, and there is no sign of Republican backing slowing. Standing on the shoulders of all those who were wronged and misguided during the entire Solyndra debacle and buoyed by the seemingly never-ending support for discontinuing further loans, it’s looking possible that the damn thing might actually get through the legal process.

Firstly, a quick recap. The US doesn’t employ feed-in-tariffs like those of the relatively successful European and Asian nations such as Germany or Japan, meaning that to raise funding and popularity in the renewable markets, other measures must be taken not involving direct payments to consumers or utilities. To this end, the US government, under the peruse of George Bush, set up the solar loaning programme in 2005, which would aim to invest taxpayer and private investor money directly into companies producing, manufacturing and selling solar cells, panels, technologies and the like. By propping up the as-yet immature industry and lending them a helping hand to wade their way into the global market, there was really no other way to go about it.

For a good time the programme was rather successful, if not very, lending money to multiple solar ventures which ultimately allowed the US domestic market to regain leadership status in the global trade, rising up to join the ranks of its eastern cousins who had been running clever programmes for years before. All in all, 33 separate companies were funded through government loans, with a total of $10bn set aside for mitigating any losses during loaning of up to $26bn, the original figure accrued for investment. Without this, it’s highly likely the US solar industry would have stagnated, or at best regained a tiny proportion of the status it has today, and in a world where Chinese and European solar is booming, that is a necessity.

Given how paranoid the US is over its domestic markets and anti-competitive trade, this is a godsend; you only have to look at the current trade war with Chinese solar companies to see this paranoia in its rawest form.

Posted at 10:28am and tagged with: GOP, republicans, energy, solyndra, solar, carbon, science, US, government, beacon, loan, bankrupt, renewable, feed-in-tariff, fracking, asia, china, trade, markets, economy,.

June 20th 2012

Rio+20: One Big Melee Of Motives & Morals Going Nowhere

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Let me just start this post by explicitly stating my views on the upcoming Rio+20 convention, set to kick off later today in Brazil, which may hold the keys to a future radically different from our current one, either for the bad or good. I wholeheartedly hope and wish that something good comes from this meeting of leaders, that a proper binding agreement, with goals, punishments and harsh realities, one that actually kicks our lazy society into gear truly does rise from the ashes and usher in a new day; I would love nothing more than for this to be accomplished, and I have always thought this.

However, whilst hoping for this, I believe in an entirely different outcome - that nothing useful, meaningful or optimistic will result from Rio+20, or any future global event, and that not only will it simply prove to be a stage for multiple nations to bicker and fight for three days straight, but will also prove to give nothing towards to the future we want.

I nurture this gut feeling from past experience and current knowledge of the structure of such conventions on environments, energy and development. Most, if not all of the past +whatever conventions have resulted in absolutely squat, with the Kyoto Protocol the only real agreement I’ve seen which may have actually made a difference to our global society, and even that is set to die this winter without any hope of a successor. Add to this the fact that multiple powerful nations, of which I feel I do not have to name, have continually proven to be like children stubbornly refusing to go to bed, blocking all hope of a unifying agreement on anything from carbon emissions to green job investment. None of this has changed this year.

In my opinioin, when Rio+20 finally opens it’s door to its many leaders and closes it behind them, all that will proceed will be a mad scramble to see who can shout the loudest, point the straightest finger and pull the angriest face. Think of it this way; when you have some of the most powerful people in the current political and economical sphere, all whom harbour untold morals, ethics, hidden motives and plans under their bonnets, and who have all their life grown up not listening to others but actively seeking to control them, it is daft not to think nothing whatsoever will be accomplished. Continuing with this notion, it is not hard to stretch the imagination to the point where it is simply children fighting over a candy bar.

To take us back down to earth once again, consider this approach. Some leaders will want clear goals on emission reductions, such as Europe and Japan, some want advances in renewable energy investment and green sector growth, some want CCS and natural has to take centre stage, whilst others simply want to end the whole thing there and then and go back to their fossil fuel rich lands without legal requirement to stop pillaging them. You cannot expect to put so many powerful voices against one another and expect a resoundingly democratic response to come out of it, and that is the horribly unfortunate truth of the matter, one I’ve tried to ignore for so long.

Thinking along these lines, it staggers me to think how anything ever got done through this mass gathering process, and yet progress of a small calibre has been made in some areas. REDD+ was at least recognised and drafted in the mid-noughties, Kyoto set tough but realistic emission goals and the backing of giants such as US and China finally came on board to at least listen to the rest of the world in the past several conventions. These made future gathering look like ever closer to the final ‘this is it’ moment, when a real, legally binding, sustainable agreement would be ratified by all involved. But here lies the problem. Every time one fails to achieve what it set out to do so, everyone simply shouts that the next one is when it will really happen, and that waiting another year for something to result is perfectly acceptable, despite the ravaging the environment undergoes during this time.

This time however is looking just as bleak as the last, with many nations causing trouble across the entire board. The US has effectively rewritten the initial draft in favour of vague terms and practically pointless prose, whilst the UK has ruined its own climate policies and energy roadmaps with slashes in prices and restrcutrings entirely unnecessary. Couple this with the current economic crisis, elections and Euro woes keeping Obama and Cameron from even attending the talks, and highly destructive logging and fossil fuel practices in Brazil, the host nation for the damn convention, and we have a perfect storm of absolutely zero progress in any direction.

Despite this, there is perhaps a glimmer of hope. This year, the talks are party to the first attempt by a globalised social network of concerned citizens and supporters to actively influence decisions on the global stage. The endfossilfuelsubsidies Twitterstorm, Avaaz, 350, Rio+Social and multiple other outlets have all acted together to slam home how much this means to the global society, and that we desperately want our voices heard by each and every leader.

Alongside this, more and more nations now recognise the extreme threat that warming climates, rising seas, carbon emissions and biome degradation really carry, and with the science only getting stronger, there is less room for them to squirm around in and avoid the real issues. Perhaps, with a determined and combined pincer attack by the socially active public and the obvious knowledge that we have screwed with our planet for too long, something may actually come from Rio+20, just something.

I’m certainly not thinking of anything truly legally binding and goal-setting, but just maybe, a draft which demonstrates that our global leaders, the rich who hold the power to change how we treat this world, have listened for once, and considered what their public have to say. For me personally, a true decision on redirecting fossil fuel subsidies into renewable investment is my highest of priorities. The only thing that rides higher than this, is that we finally realise that by flunking this convention, we cannot hope to believe the next one will be ‘it’, because it won’t be. We are rapidly running out of time for these events to be occurring, so something must be done now.

Posted at 10:17am and tagged with: Rio+20, Rio, Rioplusocial, Debate, Economy, Politics, Ban ki moon, UN, China, US, emissiions, Fossil fuels, Energy, Global, Development, Future we want, Subsidies, Carbon, Future, Sustainability, Twitter,.

June 1st 2012

Department Of Commerce Takes A Hit At Chinese Wind Power Next

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It would seem that the Department of Commerce has chosen its next target to slap some hefty trade tariffs on, that certainly didn’t take too long eh? This time they’ve stayed in China, but gone for another of the potential renewable winners of the world, wind energy, quoting the same old story as last.

Last December, the DoC received complaints from multiple American wind companies complaining that China was yet again unfairly subsidising and trading its domestic wind towers, reducing costs and outcompeting other manufacturers, namely in the US. By reducing their trading costs out of China, in an uncannily similar vein to the recent solar trade war, the US market is being flooded by cheap-as-chips wind towers designed for large-scale generation of 100KW and over.

Of course, the US they again doesn’t agree with this whatsoever, and has chosen to file preliminary reports to determine what value to set the counter-tariffs at, with both China and Vietnam under scrutiny, who has also been seen to be ‘unfairly’ trading its wind capacity. As many of you who have followed the solar mess that is the anti-dumping case, it has not only brought anger and protest from both US and Chinese sides, but has been suggested to be threatening the entire solar industry as a whole, and no doubt this will have the same effect on the wind industry.

What differs between both cases however is the size of each respective nation’s wind industry size. The US has been steadily throwing up wind towers in recent years in bigger and bigger quantities, and now has a formidable wind-generation capacity, whereas China’s influence in the market is much smaller, with solar their chosen renewable path.

So, my question is this…why start yet another trade dispute between China and themselves, when the DoC knows, 1) how much consumers/manufacturers/sellers rallied against the solar tariffs, and 2) when wind energy is in the best interest of everybody to continue growing worldwide, especially in the dirtier Asian countries yet to move on from coal; China’s industry is only small and this response could severely cripple it.

Posted at 9:46am and tagged with: wind energy, electricity, china, us, department of commerce, tariff, trade, market, manufacturing, science, solar, america, anti-dumping,.

May 25th 2012

So Environmentalists Are Satanic, Earth-Worshipping Radicals Now?

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A few stories have caught my eye of late, and both have not failed to make me laugh out loud and bring a swift hand to the forehead, striking it with such force as to try and knock what I’ve just read back out of my brain.

Unfortunately, they also haven’t failed to demonstrate the fundamentally ignorant and foolishly confident views of some big-mouthed American speakers on climate science and global change. No doubt you’ve heard of at least one of the offending characters, a certain Lord Monckton, but maybe not the other.

To start off with, I’m going to drive straight into the recent Heartland Institute stories, of which have made be both happy, and concerned for those who listened to such rubbish until now. In a recent Heartland convention, a ‘yearly’ event held by the foundation at which multiple infamous speakers comically attempt to derail climate science and laugh in the face of the literally millions who believe in it. I would love to attend one of these just to experience the inner bubble that these people cohabit, but alas they appear to be nearing their end.

This convention failed spectacularly at attracting the number of attendees as in past years, a combination of their poorly conceived and downright ludicrous billboard project, the dropping of over 35% of their annual funding and a crash in global public perception, all of which showed them for what they’re really worth. However, Lord Monckton, known as one of the most, if not the most outspoken climate denier in history, did not hesitate to rock up and joke about all things climate.

After opening with the a sentence along the lines of “it is hard for us people without any scientific qualifications to tackle these issues, but I thank you for trying”, addressing his loyal fans, before continuing to crack wise about Obama’s birth, and subsequently handing over to a speaker, who for all intents and purposes, stated that global warming is good for people; those old people who are killed by it, “are moribund anyway”. Classy stuff.

As I hope you are doing right now, both these quotes made me laugh aloud, but deeply worried at the same time. Their effective idol in Monckton had just applauded them for tackling something, so deeply rooted in scientific understanding and data, with no such science background whatsoever, it was as though they were the kings of a new age, and the crowd simply chuckled along, comfortable in their own little world. That is highly disturbing.

Posted at 10:31am and tagged with: earth, gaia, climate, science, global warming, lord monckton, james dobson, america, US, Environment, satan, religion, worship, god, extremist, radical, HEartland, Obama, birther,.

May 23rd 2012

NREL's Renewable Energy Map Takes Mapping To A New Level

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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s fantastic customisable map, demonstrating every conceivable form of green energy you can think of, really sets the bar high for future mapping of this kind.

Head on over to the link above and you’ll find yourself presented by a US-wide map with a multitude of drop-down settings to choose from, ranging from solar (PV & concentrated) to biomass, with a ton of information buried further in the tool. Each selection layers the map with the chosen resource/s with a neat coloured scale, gradated in an easy way to understand.

It’s the ease of use that really shines with this beast, as in a matter of minutes you can select wind or solar, see the data sources in detail, before bringing up a beautiful list of features, such as estimated solar radiation figures or wind class, all of which can be done at a localised scale; there is even a ‘find location’ button to type in a specific address.

With such user-friendly tools like this available to both the public and professionals, it is maddeningly easy to see that the world has plenty of renewable power for us greedy humans, and hopefully more global maps will follow suit soon.

For the moment, check it out and enjoy, it’s well worth it.

Posted at 5:35pm and tagged with: renewable, mapping, map, energy, NERL, US, america, wind, solar, PV, biomass, geospatial, GIS,.