The rain in Spain no longer falls mainly in the plain.
Global warming could cause rainfall in the Iberian peninsula to fall by up to 40 per cent by the end of the century, according to a European Commission report.
Spain and Portugal could be the hardest hit by climate change, according to the commission white paper, which predicts that food harvests could fall 30 per cent in the region because of a lack of water.
There has been an increase in the number of heat waves as in 2006, when thousands of people died and reservoirs such as the one in Ancora, Spain, right, dried out.
“For Europe as a whole heat waves are expected to increase in frequency, intensity and duration,” the report said.
The reduction in agricultural production could have a dramatic social impact, the report said, “where whole local rural populations could be affected if the local farmland was abandoned or if the local farming profitability was reduced substantially”.
The report warned that global warming could affect tourism, agriculture and energy sectors.
Spain currently gains about 10 per cent of its GDP from tourism but the sector is under pressure, partly because of the recession.
Source - The times
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global warming. Show all posts
Monday, 6 April 2009
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
State intervention vital if Britain is to meet its green energy targets, says former BP boss
Article by Alan Rusbridger and David Adam from the guardian
Britain must revert to greater state control of energy markets to hit ambitious targets on renewable energy and climate change, according to the former head of BP.
Lord Browne of Madingley warns that market mechanisms are failing to deliver the necessary growth in clean energy. Crucial offshore wind projects could be cancelled unless there is an urgent rethink of energy policy, he says.
In a speech tonight at Cardiff University, Browne will say: "Competition has been the guiding star of UK energy policy since the 1980s and it worked well while there was a surplus of energy infrastructure capacity. But price competition is now failing to deliver the new, more diversified infrastructure that we urgently need to bolster energy security and meet our climate change targets.
"I remain convinced that the market is the most effective delivery unit available to society. But the market will need a new strategic direction and a new framework of rules, laid down by government."
Under EU efforts to combat global warming, Britain must generate 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. The bulk of this is expected to be met by the electricity sector, and ministers have announced plans to build thousands of offshore wind turbines off the UK coast.
In an interview with the Guardian in advance of the speech, Browne, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said there was a real risk that many of these windfarms would not be built, because of high costs, falling power prices and more expensive credit. His words echo the concerns of others in the industry.
"We must fundamentally rethink the objective of energy policy in this country," Browne said. He compared the current need for urgent investment and new infrastructure with efforts to develop North Sea oil and gas fields in the 1970s and 1980s. "High oil prices provided a strong market pull. But governments also gave industry a helping hand, creating generous tax incentives and regulations, and helping to build strategic infrastructure," he said. "There's even more cause for government intervention today. That's because energy security and climate change mitigation are public goods. They would not otherwise be recognised by the free market."
One option, he suggested, would be for the government to direct state-controlled banks to lend money for green infrastructure projects, as is being done in Ireland. "Policymakers must be frank - the cost of supporting renewable energy will be borne by consumers who pay a little more for their delivered energy."
Browne said the UK risked being left behind in the global race to develop a low-carbon industry if ministers relied on market mechanisms such as carbon trading to drive change. "A lot of people say carbon trading, the European emissions trading scheme, will take care of this. In theory it can, but in practice it won't."
The scheme is supposed to encourage companies to trade the rights to emit carbon dioxide, with cleaner firms selling pollution permits to dirtier rivals - thereby setting a price on the emission of carbon. It has been dogged by a surplus of permits, the price of which has fallen to near €10 from €30 last summer.
Analysts say the price drop reflects a slowing demand for permits as recession-hit companies scale back production and cut their carbon emissions. But it could also indicate companies have sold large amounts of surplus permits to raise cash.
Browne said of the scheme: "Eventually I'm sure it will be terrific. Right now it needs to work side by side with simple regulations and simple incentives to get investors to invest in the right way."
He said the recent decision by Shell to stop investments in wind, solar and hydro-electric power reflected a move "back to basics" for oil and gas companies. "I read it as a pure business decision," he said. "Oil companies have a tremendous number of things they've got to do in developing oil and gas. That's where their expertise is and that's probably where they're focused."
He said the large utility companies and independent firms might be better placed to develop renewables. "It's about focus. When telephones went from landlines to mobiles, the people who did the best in mobile telephones were not the people who did best in landlines. A new breed of people came up and dominated that industry. It may be the case with renewables too."
On the controversial plans by E.ON to build a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, Browne said that the pragmatic need for a diverse energy supply should triumph over environmental concerns. "I think there's a practical reality here. From everything I've seen it looks like it does need to be done."
He said the price of carbon would need to be much higher than today to realise carbon capture and storage, where pollution could be trapped and piped to underneath the North Sea. "It is expensive, it is very expensive. In the long term we may find a way of capturing the carbon and putting it back in the ground. Right now that looks like a really big challenge with no solution. But it may have a solution."
He said it was vital that environmental policy was at the heart of government. "It's essential that we do not compartmentalise climate change as an issue. Environmental integrity should be made a tangible part of other social priorities, such as economic prosperity and national security. This will require a new approach to policy across all levels of government and all government departments."
Risky investment
The financial crisis has hit numerous firms in the renewable power sector:
Shell pulled out of the British wind sector last year. It believes only biofuels, and carbon capture and storage make sense, alongside oil and gas.
E.ON The economics of the world's biggest offshore wind farm project are "on a knife edge", warned the chief executive of one of the companies behind it.
Centrica planned to invest in 1,500MW of offshore wind capacity but is now reviewing its investment plans.
BT is trying to develop renewable energy projects to generate its own green power, but it says government rules for on-site renewables are threatening its schemes and it may not go ahead without a change in regulation.
Source - The Guardian
Britain must revert to greater state control of energy markets to hit ambitious targets on renewable energy and climate change, according to the former head of BP.
Lord Browne of Madingley warns that market mechanisms are failing to deliver the necessary growth in clean energy. Crucial offshore wind projects could be cancelled unless there is an urgent rethink of energy policy, he says.
In a speech tonight at Cardiff University, Browne will say: "Competition has been the guiding star of UK energy policy since the 1980s and it worked well while there was a surplus of energy infrastructure capacity. But price competition is now failing to deliver the new, more diversified infrastructure that we urgently need to bolster energy security and meet our climate change targets.
"I remain convinced that the market is the most effective delivery unit available to society. But the market will need a new strategic direction and a new framework of rules, laid down by government."
Under EU efforts to combat global warming, Britain must generate 15% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. The bulk of this is expected to be met by the electricity sector, and ministers have announced plans to build thousands of offshore wind turbines off the UK coast.
In an interview with the Guardian in advance of the speech, Browne, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said there was a real risk that many of these windfarms would not be built, because of high costs, falling power prices and more expensive credit. His words echo the concerns of others in the industry.
"We must fundamentally rethink the objective of energy policy in this country," Browne said. He compared the current need for urgent investment and new infrastructure with efforts to develop North Sea oil and gas fields in the 1970s and 1980s. "High oil prices provided a strong market pull. But governments also gave industry a helping hand, creating generous tax incentives and regulations, and helping to build strategic infrastructure," he said. "There's even more cause for government intervention today. That's because energy security and climate change mitigation are public goods. They would not otherwise be recognised by the free market."
One option, he suggested, would be for the government to direct state-controlled banks to lend money for green infrastructure projects, as is being done in Ireland. "Policymakers must be frank - the cost of supporting renewable energy will be borne by consumers who pay a little more for their delivered energy."
Browne said the UK risked being left behind in the global race to develop a low-carbon industry if ministers relied on market mechanisms such as carbon trading to drive change. "A lot of people say carbon trading, the European emissions trading scheme, will take care of this. In theory it can, but in practice it won't."
The scheme is supposed to encourage companies to trade the rights to emit carbon dioxide, with cleaner firms selling pollution permits to dirtier rivals - thereby setting a price on the emission of carbon. It has been dogged by a surplus of permits, the price of which has fallen to near €10 from €30 last summer.
Analysts say the price drop reflects a slowing demand for permits as recession-hit companies scale back production and cut their carbon emissions. But it could also indicate companies have sold large amounts of surplus permits to raise cash.
Browne said of the scheme: "Eventually I'm sure it will be terrific. Right now it needs to work side by side with simple regulations and simple incentives to get investors to invest in the right way."
He said the recent decision by Shell to stop investments in wind, solar and hydro-electric power reflected a move "back to basics" for oil and gas companies. "I read it as a pure business decision," he said. "Oil companies have a tremendous number of things they've got to do in developing oil and gas. That's where their expertise is and that's probably where they're focused."
He said the large utility companies and independent firms might be better placed to develop renewables. "It's about focus. When telephones went from landlines to mobiles, the people who did the best in mobile telephones were not the people who did best in landlines. A new breed of people came up and dominated that industry. It may be the case with renewables too."
On the controversial plans by E.ON to build a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, Browne said that the pragmatic need for a diverse energy supply should triumph over environmental concerns. "I think there's a practical reality here. From everything I've seen it looks like it does need to be done."
He said the price of carbon would need to be much higher than today to realise carbon capture and storage, where pollution could be trapped and piped to underneath the North Sea. "It is expensive, it is very expensive. In the long term we may find a way of capturing the carbon and putting it back in the ground. Right now that looks like a really big challenge with no solution. But it may have a solution."
He said it was vital that environmental policy was at the heart of government. "It's essential that we do not compartmentalise climate change as an issue. Environmental integrity should be made a tangible part of other social priorities, such as economic prosperity and national security. This will require a new approach to policy across all levels of government and all government departments."
Risky investment
The financial crisis has hit numerous firms in the renewable power sector:
Shell pulled out of the British wind sector last year. It believes only biofuels, and carbon capture and storage make sense, alongside oil and gas.
E.ON The economics of the world's biggest offshore wind farm project are "on a knife edge", warned the chief executive of one of the companies behind it.
Centrica planned to invest in 1,500MW of offshore wind capacity but is now reviewing its investment plans.
BT is trying to develop renewable energy projects to generate its own green power, but it says government rules for on-site renewables are threatening its schemes and it may not go ahead without a change in regulation.
Source - The Guardian
Friday, 20 March 2009
Google to release energy-saving tools
Google is soon to roll out free software which allows consumers to track their home electricity use and improve energy efficiency in a bid to help mitigate global warming.
Dan Reicher, Director for Climate Change and Energy Initiatives Google, told Reuters it was in talks with utilities companies in the United Sates, Europe and Asia to make the product available shortly to general consumers.
As part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Google said in February it would use its software skills for the program that will show home energy consumption in real time on a user's computer or a telephone.
"It will get rolled out very soon to regular energy consumers," Reicher said, without providing exact timings.
"When I began getting information about my own home, I discovered that I had a 35-year electric motor running for my heating system. That was using huge amount of electricity. I did not realize that's the change I need to make in my home."
The company cited studies showing that access to home energy information typically saves between 5 percent and 15 percent on monthly electricity bills.
"The beauty of the tool we are developing is that is going to be an open source," Reicher said.
Source - The Independent
Dan Reicher, Director for Climate Change and Energy Initiatives Google, told Reuters it was in talks with utilities companies in the United Sates, Europe and Asia to make the product available shortly to general consumers.
As part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Google said in February it would use its software skills for the program that will show home energy consumption in real time on a user's computer or a telephone.
"It will get rolled out very soon to regular energy consumers," Reicher said, without providing exact timings.
"When I began getting information about my own home, I discovered that I had a 35-year electric motor running for my heating system. That was using huge amount of electricity. I did not realize that's the change I need to make in my home."
The company cited studies showing that access to home energy information typically saves between 5 percent and 15 percent on monthly electricity bills.
"The beauty of the tool we are developing is that is going to be an open source," Reicher said.
Source - The Independent
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
UK government carbon targets 'too weak' to prevent dangerous climate change, scientists say
Official advice being used to set Britain's first carbon budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change, experts from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research say
Proposed government carbon targets are too weak to prevent dangerous levels of global warming, according to a new analysis by leading scientists. Ministers are poised to introduce strict limits on UK carbon pollution when they announce Britain's first carbon budget next month. But experts from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research warn today that official advice used to set the budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change.
It comes after scientists at a global warming conference in Copenhagen last week warned that emissions are rising faster than expected, and that climate change could strike harder and faster than predicted.
The Tyndall Centre report analyses the conclusions of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which said in December that ministers should aim to cut UK carbon emissions 34% by 2020, as part of worldwide efforts to limit temperature rise to 2C.
The Tyndall scientists say the committee's report is "inevitably and significantly compromised" because it focuses on limiting temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels, which the EU defines as dangerous. The committee was forced to use "highly optimistic and sometimes unclear assumptions" to hit the 2C target, they say.
Chief among these, they say, was that global emissions of greenhouse gases would peak in 2016, despite little evidence that such a U-turn in soaring emisions within seven years is "in any way viable". A peak of emissions in 2020, which the Tyndall Centre says is more realistic, would leave governments facing an impossible challenge to hit the 2C target, it adds.
"The CCC's first report is therefore inevitably and significantly compromised by its implicit need to deliver demanding but nonetheless politically palatable conclusions in line with the 2C threshold," the scientists say. "Peaking in 2020 would recast the agenda as much more radical and urgent, and well beyond the ability, even if applied stringently, of orthodox policies to deliver the necessary mitigation and adaptation."
The government should aim to cut emissions 42% by 2020 - the most stringent scenario in the CCC report - the Tyndall Centre says, and must make the cuts at home rather than buying offsets abroad. These proposals are backed by more than 90 Labour MPs – including four ministerial aides – in a parliamentary petition.
Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre said: "At a time when the message from Copenhagen is for urgent action and leadership, paying poorer communities elsewhere to make the reductions for the UK risks undermining seriously the government's hard-earned reputation as leading the international climate change agenda."
The findings of the report, commissioned by Friends of the Earth, will be presented at a special meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee today.
Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth's executive director, said: "This advice from one of the world's leading climate research centres cannot be ignored. If we are to play our part in avoiding dangerous climate change, the government must commit the UK to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 42 per cent by 2020 without buying pollution 'offsets' from abroad. The UK has one of the best renewable energy potentials in Europe. Investing in green power and cutting energy waste can create tens of thousands of jobs and help lead this country out of recession."
The CCC said: "The choice of peaking year was more determined by what we thought might be possible if a global deal was achieved in 2009. The CCC analysis drew upon, and cited, a number of studies which suggested that global emissions could peak around 2016 if the world dedicated sufficient intellectual and material resources towards solving the problem."
Source - The Guardian
Proposed government carbon targets are too weak to prevent dangerous levels of global warming, according to a new analysis by leading scientists. Ministers are poised to introduce strict limits on UK carbon pollution when they announce Britain's first carbon budget next month. But experts from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research warn today that official advice used to set the budget is "naïvely optimistic" and will not stop dangerous climate change.
It comes after scientists at a global warming conference in Copenhagen last week warned that emissions are rising faster than expected, and that climate change could strike harder and faster than predicted.
The Tyndall Centre report analyses the conclusions of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), which said in December that ministers should aim to cut UK carbon emissions 34% by 2020, as part of worldwide efforts to limit temperature rise to 2C.
The Tyndall scientists say the committee's report is "inevitably and significantly compromised" because it focuses on limiting temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels, which the EU defines as dangerous. The committee was forced to use "highly optimistic and sometimes unclear assumptions" to hit the 2C target, they say.
Chief among these, they say, was that global emissions of greenhouse gases would peak in 2016, despite little evidence that such a U-turn in soaring emisions within seven years is "in any way viable". A peak of emissions in 2020, which the Tyndall Centre says is more realistic, would leave governments facing an impossible challenge to hit the 2C target, it adds.
"The CCC's first report is therefore inevitably and significantly compromised by its implicit need to deliver demanding but nonetheless politically palatable conclusions in line with the 2C threshold," the scientists say. "Peaking in 2020 would recast the agenda as much more radical and urgent, and well beyond the ability, even if applied stringently, of orthodox policies to deliver the necessary mitigation and adaptation."
The government should aim to cut emissions 42% by 2020 - the most stringent scenario in the CCC report - the Tyndall Centre says, and must make the cuts at home rather than buying offsets abroad. These proposals are backed by more than 90 Labour MPs – including four ministerial aides – in a parliamentary petition.
Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre said: "At a time when the message from Copenhagen is for urgent action and leadership, paying poorer communities elsewhere to make the reductions for the UK risks undermining seriously the government's hard-earned reputation as leading the international climate change agenda."
The findings of the report, commissioned by Friends of the Earth, will be presented at a special meeting of the Environmental Audit Committee today.
Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth's executive director, said: "This advice from one of the world's leading climate research centres cannot be ignored. If we are to play our part in avoiding dangerous climate change, the government must commit the UK to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 42 per cent by 2020 without buying pollution 'offsets' from abroad. The UK has one of the best renewable energy potentials in Europe. Investing in green power and cutting energy waste can create tens of thousands of jobs and help lead this country out of recession."
The CCC said: "The choice of peaking year was more determined by what we thought might be possible if a global deal was achieved in 2009. The CCC analysis drew upon, and cited, a number of studies which suggested that global emissions could peak around 2016 if the world dedicated sufficient intellectual and material resources towards solving the problem."
Source - The Guardian
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Europe 'will be hit by severe drought' without urgent action on emissions
Southern England would be badly affected – while Spain, Portugal, southern Italy, Greece would turn into semi-desert
Europe will be struck by a series of severe droughts that will make life "hell" for hundreds of millions of people unless urgent action is taken to reduce carbon emissions, a new study shows.
Large swaths of land, from Portugal to Ukraine, will suffer serious droughts at least every other year by the end of the century if average temperatures rise by 4C. Southern England would also be severely affected, with summers as dry as the droughts of 1976 and 1995 expected every other year.
Rachel Warren, a climate expert at the University of East Anglia, who presented the new research to a global warming conference in Copenhagen today, said: "We are looking at enormous increases in drought over the 21st century, particularly in the south."
Spain, Portugal, southern Italy, Greece and numerous other countries would be turned to semi-desert as climate change turned off their rainfall, the study shows. Asked what life would be like there, Warren said: "Hell, I should think. It is incomprehensible to imagine adapting to that level of drought."
Other studies have predicted increased drought in southern Europe, but these are the most severe conditions so far. "I certainly haven't seen such a dramatic picture."
She added: "The message has to get out that this can be avoided. The world has to pull together to deliver the kind of [carbon] cuts we need."
Strict controls on greenhouse gas emissions would prevent almost all of the damage, the research shows.
Source - The guardian
Europe will be struck by a series of severe droughts that will make life "hell" for hundreds of millions of people unless urgent action is taken to reduce carbon emissions, a new study shows.
Large swaths of land, from Portugal to Ukraine, will suffer serious droughts at least every other year by the end of the century if average temperatures rise by 4C. Southern England would also be severely affected, with summers as dry as the droughts of 1976 and 1995 expected every other year.
Rachel Warren, a climate expert at the University of East Anglia, who presented the new research to a global warming conference in Copenhagen today, said: "We are looking at enormous increases in drought over the 21st century, particularly in the south."
Spain, Portugal, southern Italy, Greece and numerous other countries would be turned to semi-desert as climate change turned off their rainfall, the study shows. Asked what life would be like there, Warren said: "Hell, I should think. It is incomprehensible to imagine adapting to that level of drought."
Other studies have predicted increased drought in southern Europe, but these are the most severe conditions so far. "I certainly haven't seen such a dramatic picture."
She added: "The message has to get out that this can be avoided. The world has to pull together to deliver the kind of [carbon] cuts we need."
Strict controls on greenhouse gas emissions would prevent almost all of the damage, the research shows.
Source - The guardian
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Obama focuses on green economy in speech before Congress
Barack Obama raised the development of a green economy to the top of America's agenda tonight, calling on Congress to pass a law cutting the carbon emissions that cause global warming.
The president, in a rousing speech to both houses of Congress, tried to put to rest fears that the economic recession would force him to scale back ambitious plans for energy reforms.
Instead, he made it clear that he sees a direct link between America's long-term economic interests and the development of clean energy, budgeting additional funds for research into wind and solar power.
The president also pressed Congress to push ahead on a new law to cut greenhouse gas emissions, defying critics who say cap-and-trade measures could be a brake on economic recovery.
"To truly transform our economy, protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," the president said. "So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America."
Barely a week after the passage of his $787bn economic rescue plan, Obama came back to Congress with plans for further green investment.
The recovery plan devoted more than $100bn to making private homes and government buildings more efficient, developing wind and solar power and spending money on public transport.
But the president promised even more tonight, saying his budget, which will be announced on Thursday, would allocate $15bn a year to develop wind and solar power and more fuel-efficient cars.
"We are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry," he said. "The nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
Obama also set out a plan to modernise the electric grid.
He said America needed to re-establish its leading role in the development of solar and other renewable energy technologies, after losing ground to China, Germany and Japan.
"I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders – and I know you don't either. It is time for America to lead again,"
The direct appeal for climate change legislation could re-energise efforts to produce legislation before global climate change talks get underway in Copenhagen next December.
White House officials admitted on Monday it was increasingly uncertain such legislation could pass in time, and that the deadline might slip to 2010.
Source - Theguardian
The president, in a rousing speech to both houses of Congress, tried to put to rest fears that the economic recession would force him to scale back ambitious plans for energy reforms.
Instead, he made it clear that he sees a direct link between America's long-term economic interests and the development of clean energy, budgeting additional funds for research into wind and solar power.
The president also pressed Congress to push ahead on a new law to cut greenhouse gas emissions, defying critics who say cap-and-trade measures could be a brake on economic recovery.
"To truly transform our economy, protect our security and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," the president said. "So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America."
Barely a week after the passage of his $787bn economic rescue plan, Obama came back to Congress with plans for further green investment.
The recovery plan devoted more than $100bn to making private homes and government buildings more efficient, developing wind and solar power and spending money on public transport.
But the president promised even more tonight, saying his budget, which will be announced on Thursday, would allocate $15bn a year to develop wind and solar power and more fuel-efficient cars.
"We are committed to the goal of a re-tooled, re-imagined auto industry," he said. "The nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."
Obama also set out a plan to modernise the electric grid.
He said America needed to re-establish its leading role in the development of solar and other renewable energy technologies, after losing ground to China, Germany and Japan.
"I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders – and I know you don't either. It is time for America to lead again,"
The direct appeal for climate change legislation could re-energise efforts to produce legislation before global climate change talks get underway in Copenhagen next December.
White House officials admitted on Monday it was increasingly uncertain such legislation could pass in time, and that the deadline might slip to 2010.
Source - Theguardian
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Economic downturn must not hamper green energy plans
Former prime minister Tony Blair has urged his successor Gordon Brown and other political leaders not to allow the global financial crisis to halt the fight against climate change.
The former prime minister called for a new global deal that would set tough interim targets up to 2020 in a bid to “transform” countries to low-carbon economies.
Speaking at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Blair said: “It is right now, at the instant when our thoughts are centred on the economic challenge, that we must not set to one side the challenge of global warming, but instead resolve to meet it and put the world on path to a sustainable future.”
Blair outlined a range of steps that were required through a “global compact” to meet the environmental challenge.
“It needs not just a 2050 target but an interim target to get there …a target for 2020 that shows seriousness of intent and gives business a clear, unequivocal signal to invest in a low-carbon future with green energy technologies such as solar panels.”
The interim goals would largely be aimed at the West but he believed it would have to be matched by obligations in the developing world. He suggested that strategic partnerships between China and America, India and America and Europe and America would be important, with all three being of “paramount importance”.
Blair said there was a need for a step change, not small steps to meet the scale of the challenge, but he also said it was necessary to be practical about what could be done.
“There is no point in demanding of President Obama something he cannot deliver. Instead let us help him deliver what he can.”
Blair said global warming required enormous changes in the way the world did its business but that global cooperation brought wider benefits.
He praised Abu Dhabi for its decision earlier this week to set a 7% renewable energy target for 2020. That showed other oil-rich nations in the region what could be done and was an example of the kind of move away from pure self-interest that the world needed, argued Blair.
He set out the importance of a green new deal to revitalise economies, arguing it was vital to “invest now in these times of a low-carbon price for the times when that price rises again”.
Blair, who took no fee for his speech, gave an upbeat assessment of his own 10 years in office as UK prime minister, saying greenhouse gases had fallen while economy had continued to grow. “There are now more jobs in the new environmental industries than in coal, steel and shipping combined,” he argued.
He also encouraged the development of nuclear power as a way of lowering carbon emissions, although he acknowledged that it was “controversial”.
Observers would contest Blair’s assessment of his green record, pointing out that much of the carbon dioxide reductions resulted from the demise of the UK coal industry, for economic reasons.
Source - Theguardian
The former prime minister called for a new global deal that would set tough interim targets up to 2020 in a bid to “transform” countries to low-carbon economies.
Speaking at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Blair said: “It is right now, at the instant when our thoughts are centred on the economic challenge, that we must not set to one side the challenge of global warming, but instead resolve to meet it and put the world on path to a sustainable future.”
Blair outlined a range of steps that were required through a “global compact” to meet the environmental challenge.
“It needs not just a 2050 target but an interim target to get there …a target for 2020 that shows seriousness of intent and gives business a clear, unequivocal signal to invest in a low-carbon future with green energy technologies such as solar panels.”
The interim goals would largely be aimed at the West but he believed it would have to be matched by obligations in the developing world. He suggested that strategic partnerships between China and America, India and America and Europe and America would be important, with all three being of “paramount importance”.
Blair said there was a need for a step change, not small steps to meet the scale of the challenge, but he also said it was necessary to be practical about what could be done.
“There is no point in demanding of President Obama something he cannot deliver. Instead let us help him deliver what he can.”
Blair said global warming required enormous changes in the way the world did its business but that global cooperation brought wider benefits.
He praised Abu Dhabi for its decision earlier this week to set a 7% renewable energy target for 2020. That showed other oil-rich nations in the region what could be done and was an example of the kind of move away from pure self-interest that the world needed, argued Blair.
He set out the importance of a green new deal to revitalise economies, arguing it was vital to “invest now in these times of a low-carbon price for the times when that price rises again”.
Blair, who took no fee for his speech, gave an upbeat assessment of his own 10 years in office as UK prime minister, saying greenhouse gases had fallen while economy had continued to grow. “There are now more jobs in the new environmental industries than in coal, steel and shipping combined,” he argued.
He also encouraged the development of nuclear power as a way of lowering carbon emissions, although he acknowledged that it was “controversial”.
Observers would contest Blair’s assessment of his green record, pointing out that much of the carbon dioxide reductions resulted from the demise of the UK coal industry, for economic reasons.
Source - Theguardian
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Obama's revolution on climate change
Barack Obama ushered in a revolution in America's response to global warming yesterday when he appointed one of the world's leading climate change experts as his administration's chief scientist.
The president-elect's decision to make Harvard physicist John Holdren director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy reveals a new determination to draw a line under eight years of US policy that have seen George Bush steadfastly reject overwhelming evidence of climate change.
News of the appointment was hailed by scientists around the world, including former UK chief government scientific adviser Sir David King. "This is a superb appointment," he told the Observer. "Holdren is a top-rate scientist and his position on climate change is as clear as you could get. This is a signal from Barack Obama that he means business when it comes to dealing with global warming."
Obama also used his weekend radio address to announce that respected climatologist Jane Lubchenco is to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The appointments follow Obama's selection of Steven Chu, a Nobel prizewinner, to the Department of Energy, where he has been directed to lead the development of alternative energy sources.
"Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation," Obama announced. "It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and ... worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology."
In one telling remark, he added that respect for the scientific process was not "just about providing investment and resources. It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted nor obscured by politics nor ideology."
Obama's appointments are outspoken proponents of the need for urgent action over climate change, and they come after eight years of inaction, during which the Bush administration resisted international emission-reduction accords and the introduction of US laws to protect threatened species.
Holdren, whose expertise runs from nuclear-weapons proliferation to global warming, recently warned in a speech at Harvard that he considered "global warming" to be a misnomer. "It implies something gradual, something uniform, something quite possibly benign, and what we're experiencing is none of those. There is already widespread harm ... occurring from climate change. This is not just a problem for our children and our grandchildren."
As he pointed out, new figures point to a rapid acceleration in the loss of Arctic sea ice, as well as dramatic acidification of the ocean.
With the international community looking to America for leadership, Obama has made it clear that, despite the global economic crisis, the success of his presidency will hinge on a revolution in America's use and production of carbon-based energy. The selection of marine expert Lubchenco underscores that. She has warned that even if the world abruptly shifts away from fossil fuels, the oceans will continue to soak up carbon dioxide and become more acidic. She recommends protecting marine life by reducing overfishing, cutting back on nutrient run-off and creating marine reserves to protect marine eco-systems.
"The Bush administration has not been respectful of the science," she said earlier this year. "I am very much looking forward to a new administration that does respect scientific information and considers it very seriously in making environmental policies."
In another signal of his determination to move on the environment, Obama appointed Carol M Browner as his climate tsar last week. She was quoted as saying: "Time and time again, when the nation has set a new environmental standard, the naysayers have warned it will cost too much. But, once we have set those standards, American ingenuity and innovation have found a solution at a far lower cost than predicted."
For Obama, the creation of this green team is part of a broader push toward economic and environmental self-enlightenment. He has expressed hope that engaging technology with environmental and energy policy will lead to significant job creation.
Source - The guardian
The president-elect's decision to make Harvard physicist John Holdren director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy reveals a new determination to draw a line under eight years of US policy that have seen George Bush steadfastly reject overwhelming evidence of climate change.
News of the appointment was hailed by scientists around the world, including former UK chief government scientific adviser Sir David King. "This is a superb appointment," he told the Observer. "Holdren is a top-rate scientist and his position on climate change is as clear as you could get. This is a signal from Barack Obama that he means business when it comes to dealing with global warming."
Obama also used his weekend radio address to announce that respected climatologist Jane Lubchenco is to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The appointments follow Obama's selection of Steven Chu, a Nobel prizewinner, to the Department of Energy, where he has been directed to lead the development of alternative energy sources.
"Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation," Obama announced. "It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and ... worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology."
In one telling remark, he added that respect for the scientific process was not "just about providing investment and resources. It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted nor obscured by politics nor ideology."
Obama's appointments are outspoken proponents of the need for urgent action over climate change, and they come after eight years of inaction, during which the Bush administration resisted international emission-reduction accords and the introduction of US laws to protect threatened species.
Holdren, whose expertise runs from nuclear-weapons proliferation to global warming, recently warned in a speech at Harvard that he considered "global warming" to be a misnomer. "It implies something gradual, something uniform, something quite possibly benign, and what we're experiencing is none of those. There is already widespread harm ... occurring from climate change. This is not just a problem for our children and our grandchildren."
As he pointed out, new figures point to a rapid acceleration in the loss of Arctic sea ice, as well as dramatic acidification of the ocean.
With the international community looking to America for leadership, Obama has made it clear that, despite the global economic crisis, the success of his presidency will hinge on a revolution in America's use and production of carbon-based energy. The selection of marine expert Lubchenco underscores that. She has warned that even if the world abruptly shifts away from fossil fuels, the oceans will continue to soak up carbon dioxide and become more acidic. She recommends protecting marine life by reducing overfishing, cutting back on nutrient run-off and creating marine reserves to protect marine eco-systems.
"The Bush administration has not been respectful of the science," she said earlier this year. "I am very much looking forward to a new administration that does respect scientific information and considers it very seriously in making environmental policies."
In another signal of his determination to move on the environment, Obama appointed Carol M Browner as his climate tsar last week. She was quoted as saying: "Time and time again, when the nation has set a new environmental standard, the naysayers have warned it will cost too much. But, once we have set those standards, American ingenuity and innovation have found a solution at a far lower cost than predicted."
For Obama, the creation of this green team is part of a broader push toward economic and environmental self-enlightenment. He has expressed hope that engaging technology with environmental and energy policy will lead to significant job creation.
Source - The guardian
Friday, 12 December 2008
Barack Obama's choice of energy team signals climate change intent
Barack Obama has picked an energy team that includes a Nobel Laureate obsessed with fighting global warming and an acolyte of Al Gore — a clear sign that he intends to move quickly on climate change legislation despite the dire economy.
Mr Obama has chosen as his Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics and who in recent years has devoted himself to the cause of inventing alternative fuels.
The President-elect has also created a new post, a White House overseer of energy, environmental and climate policy — already known as an "energy tsar" — who will be responsible for driving his agenda on Capitol Hill. For this, he has picked Carol Browner, a former legislative director to Al Gore.
The choices, and the fact that Mr Obama is intent on co-ordinating environmental policy from inside the White House, underscores his intent to push ahead with his hugely ambitions and expensive plan to create alternative fuels, and reduce carbon emissions, despite the fierce resistance that will inevitably come from US industry.
Mr Obama is in fact exploiting the economic crisis as a way to justify much of his legislative agenda. He is arguing that economic recovery is tied implicitly to big reforms in areas such as healthcare, the environment and schools, and he appears to have a Democratic-controlled Congress willing to fund much of it.
Yesterday, as he announced Tom Daschle, the Democrats' former leader in the Senate, as his Health Secretary, Mr Obama said: "Now, some may ask how, at this moment of economic challenge, we can afford to invest in reforming our healthcare system. Well, I ask a different question — I ask how we can afford not to."
Mr Chu, 60, the son of Chinese immigrants, has been director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California since 2004. On his website, he says it has been his "mission" to make the facility the world leader in finding alternative and renewable energy sources. He views a shift away from fossil fuels central to fighting global warming.
On Tuesday, Mr Obama had a meeting in Chicago with Mr Gore, declaring afterwards: "The time for denial is over." He added, referring to climate change: "This is a matter of urgency and national security, and it has to be dealt with in a serious way. That is what I intend my Administration to do."
Source - The times
Mr Obama has chosen as his Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics and who in recent years has devoted himself to the cause of inventing alternative fuels.
The President-elect has also created a new post, a White House overseer of energy, environmental and climate policy — already known as an "energy tsar" — who will be responsible for driving his agenda on Capitol Hill. For this, he has picked Carol Browner, a former legislative director to Al Gore.
The choices, and the fact that Mr Obama is intent on co-ordinating environmental policy from inside the White House, underscores his intent to push ahead with his hugely ambitions and expensive plan to create alternative fuels, and reduce carbon emissions, despite the fierce resistance that will inevitably come from US industry.
Mr Obama is in fact exploiting the economic crisis as a way to justify much of his legislative agenda. He is arguing that economic recovery is tied implicitly to big reforms in areas such as healthcare, the environment and schools, and he appears to have a Democratic-controlled Congress willing to fund much of it.
Yesterday, as he announced Tom Daschle, the Democrats' former leader in the Senate, as his Health Secretary, Mr Obama said: "Now, some may ask how, at this moment of economic challenge, we can afford to invest in reforming our healthcare system. Well, I ask a different question — I ask how we can afford not to."
Mr Chu, 60, the son of Chinese immigrants, has been director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California since 2004. On his website, he says it has been his "mission" to make the facility the world leader in finding alternative and renewable energy sources. He views a shift away from fossil fuels central to fighting global warming.
On Tuesday, Mr Obama had a meeting in Chicago with Mr Gore, declaring afterwards: "The time for denial is over." He added, referring to climate change: "This is a matter of urgency and national security, and it has to be dealt with in a serious way. That is what I intend my Administration to do."
Source - The times
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Solar panels look brighter with Obama
The election of Barack Obama has put the wind back into the sails of the renewable energy sector, where investor confidence had been badly punctured by the credit crisis. Clean technology and green energy stocks have soared as City analysts predict a major boost from the incoming president.
Solar Integrated Technologies rose by 30% yesterday after increases of 22% by Renewable Energy Corporation and 16% by the wind turbine maker Vestas in the 24 hours before, when they were helped upwards by oil prices returning to above $70 a barrel.
Obama has promised to invest $150bn over 10 years in renewables as part of a wider plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also reducing the country’s carbon emissions in a bid to tackle global warming - and create jobs during an economic downturn.
Kate Hampton, head of policy at Climate Change Capital, a UK-based investment manager, was one of many who welcomed the poll result as a massive step forward for renewables.
“We cannot overstate how divisive the Bush administration was, how far behind the US now is in the transition to the low-carbon economy and how high expectations are now that Obama is the president-elect,” she said.
Dean Cooper, alternative energy analyst with Ambrian Partners in London, predicted widespread change in the US with production tax credits for the wind industry increased from one year to seven years and a national renewable-energy guideline introduced alongside a cap-and-trade scheme to give more certainty on a carbon price.
The moves come as Britain has recently put more muscle into its low-carbon drive by creating a new government department to cover energy and climate change, while Spain, Germany and other European nations press ahead with their own plans to boost renewables.
The US election result has provided a much-needed boost at a critical time for an emerging investment sector that risked being crushed by the banking crisis and emerging economic recession. Some companies had seen their share prices halve in the turmoil that began in September.
“Since the onset of the most recent phase of the credit crisis, the European wind sector has been battered with an unweighted average decline of 45% compared to a decline of 23% for both the S&P 500 and FTSE Eurofirst 300 over the same period,” said Michael McNamara, analyst at Jefferies & Co, in a research note published at the height of the sell-off.
“Much of this has been linked to fears that wind power developers would see themselves cut off from access to financing due to a toxic combination of a potential global closure of the project finance market and a drying up of demand for tax equity investment in the US.”
Sentiment in the City and Wall Street has steadied since, but the dependence on project finance at a time when the cost of money has soared continues to cast uncertainty over a sector that is also nervous about rising costs and planning delays in countries such as Britain.
Peter Horsburgh, a manager of the Environmental Technologies Fund, said early start-up businesses were going to find it much harder to raise capital and those who had rushed early into a stockmarket listing could find it hard to win secondary tranches of cash.
“Rights issues are going to be incredibly difficult and yet neither is bank lending going to be easy for small and medium-sized firms,” said Horsburgh, who expects his own fund will look at less speculative, “later stage” companies that have defined revenue streams.
In fact, there is nothing new about volatility in the clean tech and green energy sector, with share prices being driven in the past to hugely inflated levels on the back of hyped euphoria that sucked in investors before being rapidly deflated as realism set in.
The dotcom boom surrounding internet stocks was followed in the US at the turn of the century by a bubble in solar and hydrogen companies that soon burst. A similar spike happened in Europe with Vestas among the companies whose future looked in doubt at one stage.
Global solar stocks have suffered since last Christmas over fears of an oversupply of modules and cells, while wind turbine makers have been hit since the highs of the summer by soaring input costs. Confidence in the offshore wind sector in Britain was also dented by Shell’s decision to sell up its interest in the huge London Array project.
Peter Fusaro, chairman of energy consultant Global Change Associates, said the green investment sector remained still relatively small but “fat with hype and fluff”.
But it is also growing. Whereas there were four hedge funds looking at the sector in 2004 there are more than 90 today, while an estimated 4,000 private equity funds are said to be targeting the sector, according to Fusaro.
But the profit margins in many of the renewable sectors are relatively small, making them particularly vulnerable to a serious global economic slowdown and rising inflation. However, Kevin Collins, chief operating officer at the specialist renewables insurer GCube, said he was confident of the long-term value in the sector. He also warned: “Are the banks and lenders going to be in a position to finance projects as they were? We don’t see a massive slow-up in demand yet, but its early days and while renewables will continue to grow it is difficult to say at what rate.”
Many of the pioneers of low-carbon energy are dependent on public subsidy to survive. There is a question over whether bank bail-outs will have drained the state coffers and lead to a slowdown in environmental grants.
France, Germany and Austria have already called for an easing of European Union climate goals to help industries cope better with the downturn. In Washington one Republican senator said, on condition of anonymity, that the green bubble had burst.
“There is a very large question mark hanging over the idea that Congress would take economy-wide action on global warming with the economy in such anaemic shape,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.
Source - The Guardian
Solar Integrated Technologies rose by 30% yesterday after increases of 22% by Renewable Energy Corporation and 16% by the wind turbine maker Vestas in the 24 hours before, when they were helped upwards by oil prices returning to above $70 a barrel.
Obama has promised to invest $150bn over 10 years in renewables as part of a wider plan to increase US energy security amid fear of oil shortages, while also reducing the country’s carbon emissions in a bid to tackle global warming - and create jobs during an economic downturn.
Kate Hampton, head of policy at Climate Change Capital, a UK-based investment manager, was one of many who welcomed the poll result as a massive step forward for renewables.
“We cannot overstate how divisive the Bush administration was, how far behind the US now is in the transition to the low-carbon economy and how high expectations are now that Obama is the president-elect,” she said.
Dean Cooper, alternative energy analyst with Ambrian Partners in London, predicted widespread change in the US with production tax credits for the wind industry increased from one year to seven years and a national renewable-energy guideline introduced alongside a cap-and-trade scheme to give more certainty on a carbon price.
The moves come as Britain has recently put more muscle into its low-carbon drive by creating a new government department to cover energy and climate change, while Spain, Germany and other European nations press ahead with their own plans to boost renewables.
The US election result has provided a much-needed boost at a critical time for an emerging investment sector that risked being crushed by the banking crisis and emerging economic recession. Some companies had seen their share prices halve in the turmoil that began in September.
“Since the onset of the most recent phase of the credit crisis, the European wind sector has been battered with an unweighted average decline of 45% compared to a decline of 23% for both the S&P 500 and FTSE Eurofirst 300 over the same period,” said Michael McNamara, analyst at Jefferies & Co, in a research note published at the height of the sell-off.
“Much of this has been linked to fears that wind power developers would see themselves cut off from access to financing due to a toxic combination of a potential global closure of the project finance market and a drying up of demand for tax equity investment in the US.”
Sentiment in the City and Wall Street has steadied since, but the dependence on project finance at a time when the cost of money has soared continues to cast uncertainty over a sector that is also nervous about rising costs and planning delays in countries such as Britain.
Peter Horsburgh, a manager of the Environmental Technologies Fund, said early start-up businesses were going to find it much harder to raise capital and those who had rushed early into a stockmarket listing could find it hard to win secondary tranches of cash.
“Rights issues are going to be incredibly difficult and yet neither is bank lending going to be easy for small and medium-sized firms,” said Horsburgh, who expects his own fund will look at less speculative, “later stage” companies that have defined revenue streams.
In fact, there is nothing new about volatility in the clean tech and green energy sector, with share prices being driven in the past to hugely inflated levels on the back of hyped euphoria that sucked in investors before being rapidly deflated as realism set in.
The dotcom boom surrounding internet stocks was followed in the US at the turn of the century by a bubble in solar and hydrogen companies that soon burst. A similar spike happened in Europe with Vestas among the companies whose future looked in doubt at one stage.
Global solar stocks have suffered since last Christmas over fears of an oversupply of modules and cells, while wind turbine makers have been hit since the highs of the summer by soaring input costs. Confidence in the offshore wind sector in Britain was also dented by Shell’s decision to sell up its interest in the huge London Array project.
Peter Fusaro, chairman of energy consultant Global Change Associates, said the green investment sector remained still relatively small but “fat with hype and fluff”.
But it is also growing. Whereas there were four hedge funds looking at the sector in 2004 there are more than 90 today, while an estimated 4,000 private equity funds are said to be targeting the sector, according to Fusaro.
But the profit margins in many of the renewable sectors are relatively small, making them particularly vulnerable to a serious global economic slowdown and rising inflation. However, Kevin Collins, chief operating officer at the specialist renewables insurer GCube, said he was confident of the long-term value in the sector. He also warned: “Are the banks and lenders going to be in a position to finance projects as they were? We don’t see a massive slow-up in demand yet, but its early days and while renewables will continue to grow it is difficult to say at what rate.”
Many of the pioneers of low-carbon energy are dependent on public subsidy to survive. There is a question over whether bank bail-outs will have drained the state coffers and lead to a slowdown in environmental grants.
France, Germany and Austria have already called for an easing of European Union climate goals to help industries cope better with the downturn. In Washington one Republican senator said, on condition of anonymity, that the green bubble had burst.
“There is a very large question mark hanging over the idea that Congress would take economy-wide action on global warming with the economy in such anaemic shape,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch.
Source - The Guardian
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Micro generation - Real green energy
Ministers could avoid building nuclear reactors by encouraging families to fit solar panels and other renewable energy equipment to their homes, a startling official report concludes.
The government-backed report, to be published tomorrow, says that, with changed policies, the number of British homes producing their own clean energy could multiply to one million – about one in every three – within 12 years.
These would produce enough power to replace five large nuclear power stations, tellingly at about the same time as the first of the much-touted new generation of reactors is likely to come on stream.
And, it adds, by 2030, such “microgeneration” would save the same amount of emissions of carbon dioxide – the main cause of global warming – as taking all Britain’s lorries and buses off the road.
The conclusions of the report – approved and partly financed by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) – sharply contrast with initiatives hurriedly launched by Gordon Brown last week in reaction to the lorry drivers’ fuel-price protests.
In his most pro-nuclear announcement to date, the Prime Minister indicated that he wanted greatly to increase the number of atomic power stations to be built in Britain. And he met oil executives in Scotland to urge them to pump more of the black gold from the North Sea’s fast-declining fields – even though his own energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, admitted that this would do nothing to reduce the price of fuel.
Even more embarrassingly for the embattled Mr Brown, the report closely mirrors policies announced by the Conservative Party six months ago to start “a decentralised energy revolution” by “enabling every small business, every local school, every local hospital, and every household in the country to generate electricity”.
Yesterday Peter Ainsworth, the shadow Environment Secretary, said: “We have found that there are huge economic, social and environmental gains to be made by doing this. It is good that, at last, part of the Government seems belatedly to be coming to the same conclusion, and we can only hope that the Prime Minister can rise above his panic-stricken clutching at old technologies and grasp the opportunities microgeneration offers for clean and more secure energy supplies.”
The 130-page report, due to be launched by Mr Wicks, has been produced by a consultancy, Element Energy, after a wide-ranging survey of public attitudes on installing household renewable energy systems. It has been financed, and steered by, 14 official and other bodies including DBERR, the official Energy Savings Trust, five regional development agencies, British Gas, the Micropower Council and the Ashden Trust.
The department’s approval marks something of a revolution in itself, since its predecessor, the Department of Trade and Industry, was for decades hostile to renewable energy and microgeneration. Its mandarins hated the thought of allowing millions of ordinary people to affect energy supplies by generating their own heat and power.
As a result, Britain is almost bottom of the European league for exploiting renewables – above only Luxembourg and Malta – despite having the best resources in the entire continent. Though ministers claim their efforts have been “highly successful” in boosting these clean sources of energy, they now account for only about 4 per cent of electricity – compared, for example, with 14 per cent in Germany.
Ministers also boast that 100,000 British homes now have microgeneration, mainly solar thermal panels that heat water – but in Germany they adorn more than a million roofs.
Last year just 270 solar photovoltaic panels, which produce electricity, were put on Britain’s homes, compared with 130,000 in Germany. At this rate, David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation told MPs last month, it would take the UK 1,500 years to equal the number Germany has. Britain’s only manufacturer of the panels, Sharp, calculates that less than a week of its year-round production actually gets installed in this country, with the rest exported to the continent.
The new report shows that, unlike in Germany, government incentives to householders fail to persuade them to invest in renewable energy. It concludes that they are daunted by the high initial cost of buying and installing them and want to see returns within three years.
The Government gives grants to help with the initial costs, but these are too small and too restricted to be effective. Indeed, ministers deliberately cut them back at the very point when they looked as if they were inspiring a rooftop revolution.
When first launched two years ago, the grants – which, for example offered up to £7,500 to install photovoltaic panels – were an instant hit. Payments soared to £1.4m in November 2006 alone, exceeding expectations more than four times over. But instead of welcoming it, ministers determined to dampen down the soaring demand. First they rationed payments to just £500,000 a month – with the result that, in February 2007, this entire allocation was used up in just two hours.
When this was ridiculed, they suspended the scheme altogether, relaunching it with the grant for photovoltaic panels slashed by two-thirds, and the one for wind turbines cut in half. Demand duly slumped.
For the past year, payments have been running at just £200,000 a month, far beneath the original target. But in April ministers rejected pleas from environmentalists and the renewable energy industry to increase the grants. Statistics to be released tomorrow will show that, partly as a result, only 18,000 new microgeneration installations have been completed over the past four years.
The new report instead suggests that Britain adopt the same approach as has been successful in Germany, which pays householders for feeding the electricity they produce from microgeneration into the national grid; the rate of these “feed-in tariffs” for photovoltaic panels is especially generous, fuelling their rapid expansion. At least 15 other European countries have also adopted them.
Last November, Gordon Brown appeared to back them, indicating that it should be “made easier for people to generate their own energy through microgeneration, and sell it on to the grid”. But little has happened since, with ministers promising only to “look” at feed-in tariffs. They failed to include them in the Government’s Energy Bill, sparking the biggest rebellion of Mr Brown’s premiership, when 33 Labour MPs last month defied the whips.
A staggering 278 MPs have now signed an early-day motion calling on the Government to adopt them. Yet, last Wednesday, speaking for the Government in a House of Lords debate, Lord Jones, a junior DBERR minister, called feed-in tariffs “a regulatory nightmare and extremely expensive”. He added: “If we were to change now we would destroy the consistency and stability that business craves and private sector investors need.”
The report also gives a fair wind to a proposal by the Micropower Council to set statutory targets for household renewables, to give the industry the certainty it needs to expand.
The confusion in Government over micropower echoes the chaos of its entire energy policy on display last week. Ministers panicked at the fuel price protests, which blocked the A40 on Wednesday, just as they did seven years ago when larger protests paralysed the country.
Then Gordon Brown, as Chancellor, rapidly backed away from green taxes, despite having promised to put “the environment at the core of the Government’s objectives for the tax system”. Last week he and his ministers were scrambling over themselves to react to the new protests, contradicting each other over whether they would perform U-turns over plans to raise fuel duty by 2p, and increase road tax disproportionately on bigger cars.
The Prime Minister also increased his backing for nuclear power. Previously he had only suggested that new reactors should be built to in place of old ones as they were closed down. But on Wednesday he said he would be “more ambitious”, adding: “We are pretty clear that we will have to do more than simply replace existing nuclear capacity in Britain.”
The report offers a very different future, as do the Tories, who see microgeneration as central to their philosophy of redirecting power to individuals. David Cameron sees “decentralised energy” as “a key part of our political vision, energy for the post-bureaucratic age”. He believes microgeneration could make Britain, and individual communities, “self-sufficient in energy”.
Source - The Independent
The government-backed report, to be published tomorrow, says that, with changed policies, the number of British homes producing their own clean energy could multiply to one million – about one in every three – within 12 years.
These would produce enough power to replace five large nuclear power stations, tellingly at about the same time as the first of the much-touted new generation of reactors is likely to come on stream.
And, it adds, by 2030, such “microgeneration” would save the same amount of emissions of carbon dioxide – the main cause of global warming – as taking all Britain’s lorries and buses off the road.
The conclusions of the report – approved and partly financed by the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR) – sharply contrast with initiatives hurriedly launched by Gordon Brown last week in reaction to the lorry drivers’ fuel-price protests.
In his most pro-nuclear announcement to date, the Prime Minister indicated that he wanted greatly to increase the number of atomic power stations to be built in Britain. And he met oil executives in Scotland to urge them to pump more of the black gold from the North Sea’s fast-declining fields – even though his own energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, admitted that this would do nothing to reduce the price of fuel.
Even more embarrassingly for the embattled Mr Brown, the report closely mirrors policies announced by the Conservative Party six months ago to start “a decentralised energy revolution” by “enabling every small business, every local school, every local hospital, and every household in the country to generate electricity”.
Yesterday Peter Ainsworth, the shadow Environment Secretary, said: “We have found that there are huge economic, social and environmental gains to be made by doing this. It is good that, at last, part of the Government seems belatedly to be coming to the same conclusion, and we can only hope that the Prime Minister can rise above his panic-stricken clutching at old technologies and grasp the opportunities microgeneration offers for clean and more secure energy supplies.”
The 130-page report, due to be launched by Mr Wicks, has been produced by a consultancy, Element Energy, after a wide-ranging survey of public attitudes on installing household renewable energy systems. It has been financed, and steered by, 14 official and other bodies including DBERR, the official Energy Savings Trust, five regional development agencies, British Gas, the Micropower Council and the Ashden Trust.
The department’s approval marks something of a revolution in itself, since its predecessor, the Department of Trade and Industry, was for decades hostile to renewable energy and microgeneration. Its mandarins hated the thought of allowing millions of ordinary people to affect energy supplies by generating their own heat and power.
As a result, Britain is almost bottom of the European league for exploiting renewables – above only Luxembourg and Malta – despite having the best resources in the entire continent. Though ministers claim their efforts have been “highly successful” in boosting these clean sources of energy, they now account for only about 4 per cent of electricity – compared, for example, with 14 per cent in Germany.
Ministers also boast that 100,000 British homes now have microgeneration, mainly solar thermal panels that heat water – but in Germany they adorn more than a million roofs.
Last year just 270 solar photovoltaic panels, which produce electricity, were put on Britain’s homes, compared with 130,000 in Germany. At this rate, David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation told MPs last month, it would take the UK 1,500 years to equal the number Germany has. Britain’s only manufacturer of the panels, Sharp, calculates that less than a week of its year-round production actually gets installed in this country, with the rest exported to the continent.
The new report shows that, unlike in Germany, government incentives to householders fail to persuade them to invest in renewable energy. It concludes that they are daunted by the high initial cost of buying and installing them and want to see returns within three years.
The Government gives grants to help with the initial costs, but these are too small and too restricted to be effective. Indeed, ministers deliberately cut them back at the very point when they looked as if they were inspiring a rooftop revolution.
When first launched two years ago, the grants – which, for example offered up to £7,500 to install photovoltaic panels – were an instant hit. Payments soared to £1.4m in November 2006 alone, exceeding expectations more than four times over. But instead of welcoming it, ministers determined to dampen down the soaring demand. First they rationed payments to just £500,000 a month – with the result that, in February 2007, this entire allocation was used up in just two hours.
When this was ridiculed, they suspended the scheme altogether, relaunching it with the grant for photovoltaic panels slashed by two-thirds, and the one for wind turbines cut in half. Demand duly slumped.
For the past year, payments have been running at just £200,000 a month, far beneath the original target. But in April ministers rejected pleas from environmentalists and the renewable energy industry to increase the grants. Statistics to be released tomorrow will show that, partly as a result, only 18,000 new microgeneration installations have been completed over the past four years.
The new report instead suggests that Britain adopt the same approach as has been successful in Germany, which pays householders for feeding the electricity they produce from microgeneration into the national grid; the rate of these “feed-in tariffs” for photovoltaic panels is especially generous, fuelling their rapid expansion. At least 15 other European countries have also adopted them.
Last November, Gordon Brown appeared to back them, indicating that it should be “made easier for people to generate their own energy through microgeneration, and sell it on to the grid”. But little has happened since, with ministers promising only to “look” at feed-in tariffs. They failed to include them in the Government’s Energy Bill, sparking the biggest rebellion of Mr Brown’s premiership, when 33 Labour MPs last month defied the whips.
A staggering 278 MPs have now signed an early-day motion calling on the Government to adopt them. Yet, last Wednesday, speaking for the Government in a House of Lords debate, Lord Jones, a junior DBERR minister, called feed-in tariffs “a regulatory nightmare and extremely expensive”. He added: “If we were to change now we would destroy the consistency and stability that business craves and private sector investors need.”
The report also gives a fair wind to a proposal by the Micropower Council to set statutory targets for household renewables, to give the industry the certainty it needs to expand.
The confusion in Government over micropower echoes the chaos of its entire energy policy on display last week. Ministers panicked at the fuel price protests, which blocked the A40 on Wednesday, just as they did seven years ago when larger protests paralysed the country.
Then Gordon Brown, as Chancellor, rapidly backed away from green taxes, despite having promised to put “the environment at the core of the Government’s objectives for the tax system”. Last week he and his ministers were scrambling over themselves to react to the new protests, contradicting each other over whether they would perform U-turns over plans to raise fuel duty by 2p, and increase road tax disproportionately on bigger cars.
The Prime Minister also increased his backing for nuclear power. Previously he had only suggested that new reactors should be built to in place of old ones as they were closed down. But on Wednesday he said he would be “more ambitious”, adding: “We are pretty clear that we will have to do more than simply replace existing nuclear capacity in Britain.”
The report offers a very different future, as do the Tories, who see microgeneration as central to their philosophy of redirecting power to individuals. David Cameron sees “decentralised energy” as “a key part of our political vision, energy for the post-bureaucratic age”. He believes microgeneration could make Britain, and individual communities, “self-sufficient in energy”.
Source - The Independent
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
Global warming deal in 2009 - UN
The world can reach a significant new climate change pact by the end of 2009 if current talks keep up their momentum, the head of the United Nations climate panel said on Sunday.
The United Nations began negotiations on a sweeping new pact in March after governments agreed last year to work out a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year.
“If this momentum continues you will get an agreement that is not too full of compromises,” said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, during a seminar at the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in Madrid.
Without a deal to cap greenhouse gas emissions around 2015, then halve them by 2050, the world will face ever more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising seas, according to the U.N. panel.
The United Nations hopes to go beyond Kyoto by getting all countries to agree to curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases that fuel global warming.
Only 37 rich nations were bound to cut emissions under Kyoto. The United States, one of the world’s biggest polluters, refused to join the agreement.
The next talks, to be held in Germany in June, will address funding technology to mitigate climate change — a key demand from developing countries who say rich countries should foot much of the bill.
Getting the private sector on board with a well regulated carbon emissions trading system is key to long-term financing, according to delegates at the ADB seminar.
“Investors need some certainty they will get some return,” said Simon Brooks, vice president at the European Investment Bank.
PRESTIGE AND POLITICS
India’s Pachauri said popular awareness of global warming had risen sharply over the last 12 months and put pressure on Washington and other governments for action.
He said he believed it would be very difficult for any country to remain outside a climate change pact.
“There’s a question of national prestige involved,” said Pachauri, head of the U.N. panel that last year shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. President Al Gore.
President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, saying the pact would hurt the economy and was unfair since it excluded big developing nations from committing to emissions cuts.
Key to a new agreement is Asia, notably China, said Odin Knudsen, a managing director for JP Morgan & Chase.
“China is making tremendous progress,” said Knudsen, a specialist in climate change. “It’s in China’s interests and they want to be energy efficient.”
In the last 3 decades Asia’s energy consumption has grown 230 percent and the region has gone from producing one tenth of world greenhouse gas emissions, to a quarter, according to the Asian Development Bank.
The United Nations calculates global warming will cause a 30 percent decline in crop yields in central and south Asia by 2050 and decrease freshwater availability for over a billion people.
Faced with such threats, China is switching over to renewable energy sources which are expected to provide more than 30 percent of its power needs by 2050, according to the United Nations.
Source - Reuters
The United Nations began negotiations on a sweeping new pact in March after governments agreed last year to work out a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year.
“If this momentum continues you will get an agreement that is not too full of compromises,” said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, during a seminar at the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in Madrid.
Without a deal to cap greenhouse gas emissions around 2015, then halve them by 2050, the world will face ever more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising seas, according to the U.N. panel.
The United Nations hopes to go beyond Kyoto by getting all countries to agree to curbs on emissions of greenhouse gases that fuel global warming.
Only 37 rich nations were bound to cut emissions under Kyoto. The United States, one of the world’s biggest polluters, refused to join the agreement.
The next talks, to be held in Germany in June, will address funding technology to mitigate climate change — a key demand from developing countries who say rich countries should foot much of the bill.
Getting the private sector on board with a well regulated carbon emissions trading system is key to long-term financing, according to delegates at the ADB seminar.
“Investors need some certainty they will get some return,” said Simon Brooks, vice president at the European Investment Bank.
PRESTIGE AND POLITICS
India’s Pachauri said popular awareness of global warming had risen sharply over the last 12 months and put pressure on Washington and other governments for action.
He said he believed it would be very difficult for any country to remain outside a climate change pact.
“There’s a question of national prestige involved,” said Pachauri, head of the U.N. panel that last year shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. President Al Gore.
President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of Kyoto in 2001, saying the pact would hurt the economy and was unfair since it excluded big developing nations from committing to emissions cuts.
Key to a new agreement is Asia, notably China, said Odin Knudsen, a managing director for JP Morgan & Chase.
“China is making tremendous progress,” said Knudsen, a specialist in climate change. “It’s in China’s interests and they want to be energy efficient.”
In the last 3 decades Asia’s energy consumption has grown 230 percent and the region has gone from producing one tenth of world greenhouse gas emissions, to a quarter, according to the Asian Development Bank.
The United Nations calculates global warming will cause a 30 percent decline in crop yields in central and south Asia by 2050 and decrease freshwater availability for over a billion people.
Faced with such threats, China is switching over to renewable energy sources which are expected to provide more than 30 percent of its power needs by 2050, according to the United Nations.
Source - Reuters
Sunday, 20 April 2008
The cost of green tinkering is in famine and starvation
Farewell the age of reason, welcome the idiocracy. Only George Orwell could have invented - and named - the government's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) that came into operation yesterday. It is the latest in a long line of measures intended to ease the conscience of the rich while keeping the poor miserable, in this case spectacularly so.
The consequences of the RTFO have been much trumpeted on these pages. It says enough that one car tank of bio petrol needs as much grain as it takes to feed an African for a year, or that a reported one-third of American grain production is now subsidised for conversion into biofuel. Jeremy Paxman pleaded the cause of this latest green wheeze on Monday's Newsnight, while the United Nations food expert, Jean Ziegler, screamed for it to stop: "Children are dying ... It is a crime."
The transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, said this week: "The government has consistently stressed that biofuels are only worth supporting if they deliver genuine environmental benefits." Yet she must know that, at present, the opposite is the case. Kelly pleaded that rescinding her policy might impede investment and "weaken our influence over the direction of EU policy". She did not mention biofuels' threat to rainforests, food self-sufficiency and global warming generally, through needing costly fertiliser and road transport. Nor did she mention the role in her decision of such lobbies as the British Association for Biofuels and Oils, and the National Farmers' Union.
The RTFO is the latest in a series of policies, proselytised by the green movement and then commandeered by commercial lobbies, which fit a pattern of irrationality worthy of Moral Re-Armament. Until recently, most greenery has seemed no more than a feelgood parlour game. Now it is getting serious.
I have tried to follow the global warming debate, and will admit that it has changed my mind on occasions. I was once a sceptic on nuclear power and genetically modified foods. Security made the former expensive, and ignorance made the latter suspect, vulnerable to such greed-motivated cul-de-sacs as the "terminator gene" (increasing output but for just one harvest). I could also see the virtue of harnessing wind and waves, and seeking new ways of using the sun's rays, either directly or through plant photosynthesis.
Source - green tinkering famine and starvation
The consequences of the RTFO have been much trumpeted on these pages. It says enough that one car tank of bio petrol needs as much grain as it takes to feed an African for a year, or that a reported one-third of American grain production is now subsidised for conversion into biofuel. Jeremy Paxman pleaded the cause of this latest green wheeze on Monday's Newsnight, while the United Nations food expert, Jean Ziegler, screamed for it to stop: "Children are dying ... It is a crime."
The transport secretary, Ruth Kelly, said this week: "The government has consistently stressed that biofuels are only worth supporting if they deliver genuine environmental benefits." Yet she must know that, at present, the opposite is the case. Kelly pleaded that rescinding her policy might impede investment and "weaken our influence over the direction of EU policy". She did not mention biofuels' threat to rainforests, food self-sufficiency and global warming generally, through needing costly fertiliser and road transport. Nor did she mention the role in her decision of such lobbies as the British Association for Biofuels and Oils, and the National Farmers' Union.
The RTFO is the latest in a series of policies, proselytised by the green movement and then commandeered by commercial lobbies, which fit a pattern of irrationality worthy of Moral Re-Armament. Until recently, most greenery has seemed no more than a feelgood parlour game. Now it is getting serious.
I have tried to follow the global warming debate, and will admit that it has changed my mind on occasions. I was once a sceptic on nuclear power and genetically modified foods. Security made the former expensive, and ignorance made the latter suspect, vulnerable to such greed-motivated cul-de-sacs as the "terminator gene" (increasing output but for just one harvest). I could also see the virtue of harnessing wind and waves, and seeking new ways of using the sun's rays, either directly or through plant photosynthesis.
Source - green tinkering famine and starvation
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