Hantu Dive with new nudis, fishies and more
photos and stories on the hantu blog
7 Nov (Fri): Workhop for nature guides - Echinoderms
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Ethics for Underwater Photographers
on the Gill Divers Blog
Pulau Jong Reef Check
on HBing's memories
Kusu Island Reefwalk
on the Blue Water Volunteers blog
Babbler feeding Drongo Cuckoo fledgling
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Tania Tan, Strait Times 28 Oct 08;
ARMY regular Ong Chee Siang spends many sleepless nights mentoring young environmentalists, educating people about climate change and organising green events.
While burning the midnight oil can be exhausting, the 26-year-old said the effort is worth it.
'It's tiring, yes. But if I can help make a difference in some way, what's a little lost sleep?'
Mr Ong is part of a growing number of National Environment Agency (NEA) volunteers who are spreading message of conservation and sustainability to the masses.
Survey results released by the agency showed the number of volunteers jumped by a third in the last year to more than 11,400. Volunteer-driven activities are also on the upswing; over 5,770 were organised this year, up almost a third from last year.
'I'm very busy but it's a nice problem to have,' said Mr Ong. 'It shows that people are becoming more aware about the environment.'
The sustained public appeal has helped foster a growing awareness of the environment. Almost 85 per cent of 1,500 Singaporeans surveyed felt the need to be good to the planet, compared to just under half in 2004.
'It's heartening to see that green awareness is starting to take root,' said the NEA.
Volunteers do more than just wave the anti-
littering flag. They promote recycling, help residents improve energy efficiency, and educate Singaporeans about climate change.
Constituencies, in particular, are experiencing a flurry of activity as more grassroots organisations help households save power and shrink their electricity bills. For example, the Radin Mas constituency already has 1,500 households involved in its home energy audit programme, which sees some 100 volunteers go door-to-door to teach households how to conserve energy.
The year-long Clean and Green Singapore campaign has been key to boosting volunteer activity, said the NEA. Launched last year, it was expanded after many said green activities should be a sustained affair, instead of a week-long blitz.
This year's campaign - called Every Little Step Counts, Let's Make A Difference - will kick off on Friday with a three-day carnival at the Marina Barrage. The complex will be transformed into an eco-friendly town to show how everyday activities, like shopping, eating and working, can be greener.
NEA youth volunteer Teo Shuli, 18, believes the campaign will spawn greater awareness of the environment.
'It provides a larger platform for green issues to be brought to the masses,' said Shuli, who is unable to volunteer this year, as he will be sitting for his A-levels in November.
'But I'll definitely visit,' he said.
For more information, go to www.cgs.org.sg
Tariff revision no benefit to power generation companies
Letter from Jenny Teo
Director, Corporate Communications
Energy Market Authority
Today Online 28 Oct 08;
In “Is this the best deal?” (Oct 20) Mr Conrad Raj suggested that the increase in electricity tariffs had benefitted power generation companies (gencos) and Singapore Power (SP) at the expense of consumers. But he has confused the issues and painted a distorted picture.
SP’s electricity infrastructure subsidiaries in Singapore are regulated by the Energy Market Authority and earn a Return on Total Assets (Rota) of about 6 per cent. This is a reasonable return to finance the investments needed to expand and maintain our electricity grid infrastructure. In comparison, the Rota earned by other infrastructure companies overseas varies between 6 per cent and 15 per cent.
The regulatory framework is also designed to promote system efficiencies, so that the savings generated can be passed on to consumers. For example, SP has announced a reduction of 8 to 11 per cent in the charges for transporting electricity from Oct 1, 2008.
As for the gencos, they are subject to competitive pressures in an open market environment. Investors are free to build new plants and compete in the electricity market, as companies like Keppel Merlimau Cogen and Sembcorp Cogen have done in recent years.
The gencos have every incentive to innovate and provide electricity at competitive prices. The divestment of the gencos will attract new players into the industry and continue to keep a downward pressure on price. There is therefore no basis to link the divestment with the tariff revision.
Mr Raj’s suggestion that the gencos purchase their fuel at “the same time and (at) exactly the same price” is inaccurate. The gencos negotiate their own commercial contracts for natural gas with the gas suppliers. Every contract is different, but they follow the industry practice of indexing the price of gas to the price of fuel oil.
Changes in this fuel oil cost are reflected in the electricity tariff every quarter. As the tariff is set in advance using the forward fuel oil price, there is a three-month time lag between the oil price movement and the actual tariff revision. Alternatively, if we had used the spot oil price to compute the tariff, it would have been higher in 11 of the 16 quarters since 2004. Hence, under the present formula, households have generally paid less for their electricity.
For this quarter, the forward fuel oil price had risen sharply by 38 per cent. All of the increase in the tariff goes into paying for this higher cost of fuel. The tariff revision does not benefit either the gencos or SP.
We are a power service provider
Role is to transport energy from power generation companies to the end user
Letter from Ho Lai Fung
Director, Corporate Communications
Singapore Power Ltd
Today Online 28 Oct 08
We refer to the article by Mr Conrad Raj “Is this the best deal” (Oct 20) and would like to put things in perspective.
Following the liberalisation of the electricity market, Singapore Power (SP) is no longer in the business of generating electricity. Electricity generation is undertaken by five generation companies (gencos), namely Senoko Power, PowerSeraya, Tuas Power, SembCorp Cogen and Keppel Merlimau Cogen. SP does not own any of the gencos.
The role of the SP Group in Singapore is confined to:
• The transportation of electricity from gencos to end-users through the transmission and distribution network by SP PowerGrid;
• The provision of market support services to the electricity market, viz meter-reading, billing and payment collection, by SP Services. Regulated by the Energy Market Authority, SP Services purchases electricity from the gencos and then sells the electricity at cost (with no mark-up) to small businesses and households.
For providing these services, SP receives 5.17 cents (17 per cent) of the 30.45 cents per kilowatt hour tariff applicable to households today. This fee of 5.17 cents per kilowatt hour does not fluctuate with the changes in the price of fuel. Over the last six years, SP has reduced its share of the average tariff by 24 per cent. This reduction is made possible because SP has achieved operational and financial efficiencies, and shared the savings from these efficiency gains with all consumers.
The increase in the tariff this quarter is used to meet the higher cost of fuel needed to generate electricity. Neither SP nor any of its subsidiaries benefit from the tariff increase.
With regard to Mr Raj’s comment that SP Group made a “whopping” profit of $1.09 billion, we would like to clarify that this profit included the results of our international operations and the sale of investments. For SP’s regulated electricity business, the after-tax profit was $423 million, which represents a return of about 6 per cent on our total Singapore assets of about $9.7 billion. On the strength of this performance, SP will have to secure financing to invest another $5 billion in the Singapore electricity grid over the next 5 years.
Such investments are required not for the sake of “surpassing our peers” or winning international accolades, as Mr Raj suggests. Rather, these investments are needed to meet growing electricity demand and to replace ageing equipment. Ultimately, this will help to support our economy and to ensure that all Singaporeans can enjoy peace of mind with a reliable supply of electricity to their homes.
Pricier power? Life goes on
How low-incomefamilies are coping withelectricity price hikes
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 28 Oct 08;
TOA Payoh resident Mdm Noorhayati used to top up her electricity account with $10 every five days, but now she does it every three to four days.
The dressmaker and her four children, aged 12 to 27, live in a two-room rental flat, and have been on the Pay-As-You-Use (Payu) electricity metering scheme for the last “two to three years” after falling into arrears with SP Services.
When electricity prices rose by 21 per cent on Oct 1, Mdm Noorhayati, 51, was caught off-guard. “I said, ‘How come (the top-ups get used up) so fast?’ and my son told me, ‘Mum, it’s because electricity prices have been raised’,” she said.
But the price hike has not led to worse times for Mdm Noorhayati and other Payu households so far, social workers and the Community Development Councils (CDCs) told Today.
This is mainly due to increased Government rebates and subsidies for the poor.
“We do not expect a surge in applications over this month or the next because of the tariff rise,” said a spokesperson from South West CDC. “Residents who apply for financial assistance usually face multiple issues such as loss of employment, loss of breadwinner, unstable income, arrears in HDB instalments and so on.”
Said senior social worker Frances Lee: “Theoretically speaking, yes, there should be an increase in Payu households. But my observation is that their problems don’t happen all of a sudden, and with the Government’s rebates, the end cost to them might not be as great as it’s said to be.”
Electricity tariffs have risen every quarter since April last year, from 18.88 cents per kilowatt hour to 30.45 cents per kilowatt hour now. But the number of Payu households has dropped slightly, from 13,627 in December last year to 13,401 in August, according to SP Services.
Payu is for households whose electricity supply has been cut and are unable to pay the minimum sum required for re-connection. It is also for those who default on their instalment plans. With a 50 per cent increase in the Government’s Utilities-Save rebates this year, households will receive between $120 and $330, depending on their flat types. For one- to three-room flat households, the rebates exceed their estimated bill increases.
The attractiveness of the Payu scheme is that it allows households to top up accounts in small amounts from as low as $10, 20 per cent of which goes towards settling their debts.
“We are better off with Payu, because now we won’t overuse. When my sons play too much computer games, I will ask them if they can afford what they are using,” said Mdm Noorhayati.
Dishwasher Mdm K F Leong, 63, often checks the credit left in her Payu account and cuts electricity usage by turning the lights off at 8pm when her two grandchildren go to sleep. But she sometimes has to borrow $100 to $200 from friends for top-ups, repaying them when she gets her salary.
“We do hear of clients who say friends and relatives are more willing to lend money for something concrete — to top up electricity accounts,” said Ms Lee, a senior social worker with Care Corner Family Service Centre (Toa Payoh).
Frequent Payu top-ups, however, are a problem for those with mobility problems. For such households, Care Corner either appeals to SP Services for standard meters or arranges for Giro payments, said Ms Lee.
Besides rebates from the Government, low-income households also get utilities vouchers from the North West and South West CDCs, while Central Singapore CDC holds budgeting and power-saving workshops.
Central Singapore CDC’s workshops, which include financial literacy programmes, have been held for 4,000 households earning less than $1,500 since April last year. Three in five households have seen a reduction in household expenditure, including on utilities, after attending the workshops, said its general manager Agnes Kwek.
David Adam, guardian.co.uk 27 Oct 08;
A new global deal on climate change will come too late to save most of the world's coral reefs, according to a US study that suggests major ecological damage to the oceans is now inevitable.
Emissions of carbon dioxide are making seawater so acidic that reefs including the Great Barrier Reef off Australia could begin to break up within a few decades, research by the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University in California suggests.
Even ambitious targets to stabilise greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, as championed by Britain and Europe to stave off dangerous climate change, still place more than 90% of coral reefs in jeopardy.
Oceanographers Long Cao and Ken Caldeira looked at how carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea as human emissions increase. About a third of carbon pollution is soaked up in this way, where it reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid. Experts say human activity over the last two centuries has produced enough acid to lower the average pH of global ocean surface waters by about 0.1 units.
Such acidification spells problems for coral reefs, which rely on calcium minerals called aragonite to build and maintain their exoskeletons.
"We can't say for sure that [the reefs] will disappear but ... the likelihood they will be able to persist is pretty small," said Caldeira.
The new study was prompted by questions by a US congressional committee on how possible carbon stabilisation targets would affect coral loss.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million (ppm) before the industrial revolution to more than 380ppm now. Campaigners and politicians in Europe and the UK say a new global climate deal, which is expected to be agreed next year, must aim to limit CO2 to 450ppm, though scientists say that is unlikely and the world is heading for 550ppm or even 650ppm.
The research suggests that stabilising world carbon levels at 450ppm would still dump so much carbon dioxide in the oceans that only 8% of coral reefs would be surrounded by water with enough aragonite to maintain their structure. Some 7% of the ocean below 60 degrees south will see a shortage of aragonite, while parts of the high latitude ocean could see a pH drop of 0.2 units.
At 550ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, no coral reef would have access to enough of the mineral. Even stabilising CO2 at current levels would still leave some 60% of coral bathed in seawater with low aragonite levels.
The increased amounts of carbon dioxide going into the ocean will also affect other marine life, such as shellfish, that need the calcium mineral to build carbonate shells.
Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists say the risk posed by carbon pollution to coral and marine life could justify a carbon stabilisation goal "lower than what might be chosen based on climate considerations alone".
The UK's Royal Society is preparing to issue a warning to policymakers on the issue, together with dozens of other international science academies.
Caldeira said the affected reefs would not disappear straight away, but that the change in water chemistry would leave them vulnerable to attack, bleaching or disease.
He said: "We're losing the Arctic ice, it looks like we're going to lose the coral reefs and we could lose much of the rainforest. I find it disconcerting that these ecosystems that have been around on Earth for a long, long time are no longer able to survive."
PlanetArk 28 Oct 08;
GENEVA - A rare sale of African ivory will be held under United Nations auspices over the next two weeks, with proceeds to be used for conservation purposes, officials said on Monday.
The sales will take place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with only China and Japan permitted to buy.
Africa's elephants are protected species and cross-border trade in their ivory tusks is generally prohibited.
But signatories of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last year gave the four southern African states special permission to sell a combined total of 108 tonnes of raw ivory from elephants that died of natural causes or were killed in population-management programmes.
CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers will be on the spot to "supervise closely" the closed-door transactions.
The first sale will take place in Namibia on Tuesday, with the second in Botswana on Oct. 31, CITES said. Dates for the South African and Zimbabwean sales, not open to reporters or the public, will be announced later.
The two Asian nations, traditional users of ivory, were approved to buy after showing they could fight illegal domestic trade in the material used mainly in jewellery and carvings.
Wijnstekers will hold talks on the margins of the auctions with officials from both countries about how CITES will monitor trade controls "to ensure that unscrupulous traders do not take this opportunity to sell ivory of illegal origin".
Cash raised in the one-off auctions must be used to fund programmes for nature conservation and community development projects in the areas the four countries say rising elephant populations have caused problems for local farmers.
Last week the Internet auctioneer eBay Inc said it would institute a global ban on the sale of ivory products after a conservation group found 4,000 illegal elephant ivory listings on its site. The company already prohibits cross-border sales of ivory and items made from other endangered or protected species.
(Editing by Michael Roddy)
Controversial ivory sale to open
Richard Black, BBC News 28 Oct 08;
The first officially sanctioned sale of ivory in southern Africa for almost a decade opens on Tuesday.
Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe will auction more than 100 tonnes of ivory from stockpiles to buyers from China and Japan.
The money raised will go into elephant conservation projects.
Some environment groups say the sales encourage poachers elsewhere in Africa to kill elephants for ivory that can be fed into the illegal trade.
However, data collected by the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic shows that seizures of illegal ivory fell in the years following the last legal sale in 1999.
The secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the UN body that sanctioned the sale, says it will monitor trade in China and Japan to make sure companies are not mixing illegally sourced ivory with these legal shipments.
The ivory trade was banned globally in 1989 because poaching was decimating elephant populations. This and the 1999 sale are the only exceptions.
Last week, the internet site eBay banned virtually all products containing ivory after lobbying from animal welfare groups.
Continental divide
The sale was approved in principle in 2002; and at last year's CITES meeting in The Hague, delegates agreed that enough precautions had been taken that the auction could go ahead, with Japan as the sole validated buyer.
Earlier this year, CITES decided that China had acted against the illegal trade with enough vigour that Chinese companies could also bid for a share of the stockpiled ivory.
This was contested by some environment groups, which argued that Chinese controls remained lax - a judgement re-iterated this week on the eve of the Namibian auction.
"We are deeply concerned that these sales will open the floodgates to additional illegal trade," said Will Travers, CEO of the Born Free Foundation.
"For some inexplicable reason some people think that all elephant populations are adequately protected and thriving. Nothing could be further from the truth."
The issue starkly illustrates the divided fortunes of elephants across Africa.
In some range states, particularly those in central and west Africa affected by civil unrest, populations are believed to be declining, partly because of poaching.
But in southern Africa, decades of protection and management have seen numbers rising by about 4% per year. South Africa has recently approved in principle the use of culling to control populations.
HAVE YOUR SAY It is a very good idea to sell ivory stockpiles. It will reduce the market value and make it less profitable to poach Fasahath Husain, Chennai, India
In this region, conservation groups argue that elephants are safer if local communities benefit financially from looking after them, whether through eco-tourism or the sale of ivory from animals dying naturally.
The 1999 auction raised about $5m for conservation and community projects. But with Chinese buyers also involved, a total bounty of $30m is said to be possible this time around.
Namibia will auction its stockpile of nine tonnes on Tuesday, followed by Botswana's much larger disposal of 44 tonnes on Friday. The South African and Zimbabwean sales take place next week.
The 1997 CITES meeting that approved this sale also declared there should be no more for 10 years.
PlanetArk 28 Oct 08;
LUXEMBOURG - EU farm ministers on Monday broadly welcomed plans to crack down on the lucrative illegal timber trade by making exporters obtain licences to prove their wood does not come from endangered rainforests.
Ministers will negotiate the proposals in detail over the next few months, after a discussion in which some voiced concern over the plan's costs for business and others said the scheme was long overdue.
The proposals, drafted by the EU's executive Commission, would oblige importers to check the legality of the timber products, to prevent shipments of wood that had been illegally harvested. It would also apply to domestically produced timber.
The European Union is an important market for both legally and illegally harvested timber -- it is the largest importer of plywood and sawnwood from Africa, the second largest from Asia, and a key market for Russia.
Environmental groups say European imports of illegally felled timber are worth 1.2 billion euros ($1.49 billion) a year and the trade can lead to more forest fires and poaching.
Many of the ministers who took the floor at the monthly meeting said the EU plan for action against illegal logging was welcome but long overdue. Britain said its success would depend largely on the degree of enforcement. Several countries, notably Austria, Latvia, Romania and Slovenia, voiced concern about the possible extra costs the scheme would impose on their timber industries and importers.
"What we fear is that companies would have to provide lots of documents, small companies in particular. The burden could be considerable," said Walter Grahammer, Austria's deputy permanent representative to the European Union.
"It's also a question of stopping suppliers from supplying illegal timber," Dutch Agriculture Minister Gerda Verburg said. "But the burden must not be so great that we discourage people from making the effort (to comply)," she said.
Illegal logging costs governments of timber-producing states between 10 and 15 billion euros a year, the Commission says.
It estimates about 19 percent of the timber products used in the EU pulp and paper sector are of illegal origin.
(Reporting by Jeremy Smith; editing by Tim Pearce)
Paul Rincon, BBC News 27 Oct 08;
Amphibian populations at Yellowstone - the world's oldest national park - are in steep decline, a major study shows.
The authors link this to the drying out of wetlands where the animals live and breed, which is in turn being driven by long-term climate change.
The results, reported in the journal PNAS, suggest that climate warming has already disrupted one of the best-protected ecosystems on Earth.
The park covers some 9,000 sq km (3,500 sq miles) in the western United States.
It lies mostly within the state of Wyoming, but spills over into Montana and Idaho. The area has been protected for more than a century; US congress granted Yellowstone national park status on 1 March 1872.
Visitors flock there to see its geysers, hot springs and bubbling mud pots, fuelled by ongoing volcanism. The park's vast forests and grasslands are also home to grizzly bears, wolves and bison.
But it is to much less conspicuous inhabitants - frogs, toads and salamanders - that scientists look for early indications of environment degradation.
Four amphibian species are native to the park: the blotched tiger salamander ( Ambystoma tigrinum melanostictum ), the boreal chorus frog ( Pseudacris triseriata maculata ), the Columbia spotted frog ( Rana luteiventris ) and the boreal toad ( Bufo boreas boreas ).
The lower Lamar Valley in northern Yellowstone harbours countless small, fishless ponds - ideal for amphibian breeding and larval development.
Downward trend
Between 1992 and 1993, researchers surveyed 46 of these "kettle" ponds, which are re-filled in spring by groundwater and snow melt running down from the hills.
When a team from Stanford University in California repeated this survey between 2006 and 2008, the number of permanently dry ponds had increased four-fold.
Of the ponds that remained, the proportion supporting amphibians had declined significantly.
In addition, three of the four native amphibian species had suffered major declines in numbers. The number of species found in each location had also dropped off markedly.
Amphibians lay jelly-coated eggs that are unsuited to development on land, so they must return to water in order to spawn.
"They go through an aquatic period and a terrestrial period during their lives so they are very susceptible to changes in both types of environment," said co-author Sarah McMenamin, from the department of ecology and evolution at Stanford.
Changing landscape
The scientists saw no change in numbers of the boreal toad - which the IUCN conservation body lists as threatened. But this species was rare in 1992, as it is now, making it difficult to extract population trends.
Ms McMenamin and her colleagues also analysed monthly temperature and precipitation data from Yellowstone, as well as satellite images of the park taken between 1988 and 2008.
These data revealed that decreasing rainfall and increasing temperatures during the warmest months of the year have significantly altered the landscape.
Drought is now more common and more severe than at any time in the past century, the researchers say.
"There is a pretty substantial signal of climate change in this region," Ms McMenamin told BBC News.
""Snow pack during the winter is decreasing - which other studies have documented - and the regional aquifer is drying up as a result of these large-scale climate changes.
"These ponds are changing, the environment is changing, the landscape is drying up and the amphibians no longer have a place to breed. It's disturbing."
Amphibian populations are in crisis worldwide: pollution, diseases such as chytrid fungus and rana virus, invasive species, UV radiation and habitat destruction all contribute to the problem.
Climate change might affect amphibian populations in numerous ways. In addition to drying out aquatic breeding habitats - preventing spawning - it could also make the land environment inhospitable to them.
Evidence suggests that a warming climate could also predispose amphibians to infection, particularly to chytrid fungus.
Rising energy prices and green campaigns persuade firms to open ecostores
Juliette Jowit, The Guardian 25 Oct 08;
It was a small but chilling symbol of 20th century consumerism. Obsessed with choice and convenience at any cost, supermarkets for years refused to put doors on fridges because they might get in the way of customers reaching in.
Now a small but very 21st century revolution is under way. On Monday Asda will open what it claims is Britain's first superstore with doors on every freezer, fridge and chill cabinet. The initiative is part of a £27m new "low carbon" store in Bootle, Liverpool, and this one measure alone is expected to save 8% of the building's electricity bill - and emissions.
Asda is not alone. With electricity bills rising fast and campaigners and regulators turning up the heat on companies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, supermarkets are opening ecostores to test a hotchpotch of improvements, from renewable energy to recycling plastic bags into kerbstones, animal-friendly products, and seeking out the green pound of more environmentally-friendly shoppers.
With tens of millions of shoppers a week and £85 out of every £100 spent on food in the UK, the supermarket chains could be a force for transforming the way people shop and encouraging suppliers around the world to reduce energy use, waste and exploitation of people and land. "It's a healthy competition which is moving us all faster and faster," said Katherine Symonds, Tesco's sustainability manager.
Others claim the very notion of an "ecosuperstore" is a contradiction in terms. "While green technology can improve the environmental footprint of a building, this is a small part of a supermarket's impact, which includes emissions from food freight and customer travel to stores," said Helen Rimmer, campaigner for Friends of the Earth.
Walking around the huge (recycled) brick and (sustainable) wood Bootle store, Bob Simpson, Asda's head of project development, pointed out two geothermal pumps to bring up hot water from underground aquifers and a wood pellet-burning boiler to help heat the store.
Passing through wafts of warm bread from the bakery test on to a shopfloor busy with shelf stockers, Simpson showed off ventilators recycling "ambient air", sun pipes in the roof, and translucent bricks to bring in natural light but keep out the heat of the sun - and, of course, the omnipresent fridge doors.
The fridge doors are, admitted Simpson, a leap of faith. At one store the electricity bill fell 14%, but in two sales dipped. "I think here it will be slightly different, and that's why we've not changed them; also it's a bit late [to change] because we open on Monday," he said.
The mantle of Britain's greenest supermarket changes almost monthly: in August Sainsbury's opened what it claimed was the greenest store in Dartmouth, Devon, promising to reduce emissions by 40%; Asda says Bootle will cut energy use and emissions by up to half; but Tesco claims to have already trumped that, with a 60% cut at Shrewsbury.
Nor is carbon the only battleground: all the supermarkets have targets to cut the distance goods travel, emissions from vehicles, waste and a range of other unpopular byproducts of their business.
One key driver has been rising electricity bills, which account for about 40% of store costs and 60% of the companies' direct emissions. "We have seen a dramatic upturn in price that's changed the energy environment in the UK ... that's driving a totally different set of behaviours than even was the case two years ago," said John Ashford, head of engineering for Sainsbury's.
The other is customers, though evidence that shoppers are lobbying for greener goods is hard to find, especially since the threat of recession.
But supermarkets see green values as a way of winning or at least retaining customer loyalty, said Ronan Hegarty, news editor of The Grocer industry magazine: "It's a bit of a trump card to say 'who's the greenest'."
At the same time, retail bosses see the opportunity to use the cost savings to win more customers by bringing down prices, said Julian Walker-Palin, head of corporate policy for sustainability and ethics for Asda. "Anything a supermarket does, we do for our customers.
"For 17 million people who shop [in Asda] each week, the majority don't understand climate change or carbon, and they don't want to. But they understand there's this issue we need to do something about; they very much [say to] their supermarket 'you have the experts, I want you to help me do the right thing'," she said.
The tension between sustainability and price-profit ethos has raised serious doubts about how much supermarket greening is greenwash. Critics point out there is only a handful of ecostores although all chains have less ambitious group-wide energy and emissions reduction targets.
Fairtrade and organic products and local supplier deals make up a tiny fraction of total product lines and contracts.
A host of other accusations are also levelled at supermarkets: bullying of suppliers, vast, oil-dependent freight networks, ruination of high street shops, millions of car miles driven by shoppers to out of town stores, promotion of unhealthy food, and the whole notion of trying to sell as many disposable consumer goods as possible.
In what could be a turning point, Wal-Mart's chief executive, Lee Scott, this week said that on occasions the company might pay more for more sustainable products. "We don't want to rule that out," said Walker-Palin. At the same time, Simpson admitted that if the fridge doors do act as a barrier to sales, some might be removed: "It's about being brave, not stupid."
by Thomas E. Lovejoy, Tim Flannery and Achim Steiner
International Herald Tribune 27 Oct 08;
In the course of Earth's history, life collectively has had a strong influence on atmosphere and climate. It has helped shape both, and has been shaped by both. Today atmospheric and climate changes are driven by a single species - ourselves - and they are happening very rapidly.
One of the principal elements in this is carbon, the most basic of the building blocks of living organisms.
When we burn fossil fuels, we release solar energy captured by ancient green plants and carbon goes into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Similarly when current living matter is burned and degraded, as in tropical deforestation, it too converts into carbon dioxide.
Greenhouse gas emissions are central in the climate agenda. But the key question has always been, what is a "safe" concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases. The pre-industrial concentration was 280 parts per million (ppm). Today the concentration is 389 ppm and emission rates have passed beyond the worst case scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Climate scientist James Hansen has suggested that 350 ppm was the concentration beyond which it was unsafe to go. The rapid retreat as well as thinning of the Arctic Ocean ice is consistent with that conclusion. So, too, Earth's ecosystems and biodiversity are sending multiple signals that essentially confirm 350 ppm as the limit. Unquestionably we are beyond where we should be.
Nature is on the move all over the planet, with species changing their natural history (e.g. earlier blooming) and their geographical location (e.g. often moving northward and up in altitude).
We have also begun to see abrupt threshold change in ecosystems. Coral reefs are being bleached all over the globe as the fundamental coral animal-alga partnership of reef systems breaks down at warmer temperatures. Evergreen forests in western North America and in Europe are experiencing major tree mortality as a longer summer tilts the balance against the trees in favor of bark beetles.
With major additional temperature increase due from current greenhouse concentrations, major ecosystem disruption is surely in store. In addition, the growing acidity of the oceans (as they absorb carbon dioxide) is already affecting some marine food chains. The outlook for the species and ecosystems so fundamental to human existence is truly grim at higher greenhouse gas concentrations and consequent climate change.
Clearly the imperative should be to peak at as low a concentration as possible and then come down to the safe level. Once in the atmosphere, a carbon dioxide molecule will stay there for 100 to 1,000 years. We need ways to remove it and reach the safe level more quickly.
Fortunately Earth's living systems can contribute to that goal in a significant way. That is why forests have been part of the climate change agenda from the outset. But the time has come to scale up to the planet's ecosystems as a whole.
In the last 300 years, the planet's ecosystems have released a staggering amount - between 200 and 250 billion tons - of carbon, as landscapes have been converted for human uses such as agriculture and cities. Were some of that to be recovered, with each billion tons restored to ecosystems the atmospheric concentration would be reduced by one part per million.
It is more complicated than that because of the equilibrium between atmospheric
CO² and that which has been taken up by the oceans, but the potential to remove
CO² from the atmosphere by restoring biodiversity and carbon is clearly of major consequence.
Recent studies suggest that restoring degraded grazing lands worldwide could take up billions of tons of carbon, maybe even as much as the difference between current greenhouse gas concentrations and the "safe" 350. Reforesting degraded rain forest lands has enormous potential also. Both would have biodiversity conservation benefits as well. Restored grazing lands actually would provide improved grazing and there is no reason the forest couldn't be used for forest products. Peat lands would have an important role to play.
There are complications: The climate is still changing and affecting ecosystems, human population is growing, and demands for food and biofuels will command their part of the landscapes. Those are huge factors that could work against the role ecosystems can play in reducing the greenhouse gas climate change threat, but increasing carbon retention by agricultural ecosystems can make a contribution in its own right.
Charcoal from plant waste is a relatively long-term way to add carbon to soils and could conceivably remove a significant fraction of the
CO² from the atmosphere we add annually. In addition, it is essential to integrate concerns for equity in land use and tenure, rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and livelihoods of farmers and herders.
This in no sense reduces the imperative to redesign the energy base of human societies. It is as urgent as ever. The scale of the change needed is not beyond our abilities. Together the ecosystem and energy approaches both help reduce the peak amount of gases in the atmosphere (and consequent climate change) and can get us back to the safe level as fast as possible.
Nations are already preparing for the upcoming meetings in Poland and then Denmark of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The time has come to look at this as a whole, and at the scale of the problem - namely the entire planet.
Notions of planetary engineering abound, but this is the only one essentially free of potential unintended environmental consequences. We need to turn to the rest of the living planet to influence atmosphere and climate as it has done in the past.
Thomas E. Lovejoy, of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, chairs the science and technology advisory panel for the Global Environment Facility. Tim Flannery is professor of environmental and life sciences at Macquarie University. Achim Steiner is executive director of the UN Environment Program.
Carbon emissions are rising so fast that the world has no chance of hitting climate targets, says Australian economist
David Adam, guardian.co.uk 27 Oct 08;
Carbon pollution levels are rising so fast that the world has no realistic chance of hitting ambitious climate targets set by Britain and the G8, an influential report to the Australian government has warned.
The report, from economist Ross Garnaut, says existing carbon goals, such as those in Britain's climate change bill, are based on out-of-date emissions figures, and are so ambitious that they could wreck attempts to agree a new global deal on global warming.
Garnaut says that nations must accept a greater amount of warming is inevitable, or risk a failure to agree that "would haunt humanity until the end of time."
The report, billed as the Australian Stern review, uses recent estimates of booming carbon emissions that were not included in last year's report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), or the 2006 report from Sir Nicholas Stern on the economics of the problem.
Since 2000, the Garnaut report says, global carbon emissions from fossil fuel use have grown by 3% each year, as economies of developing countries including China have boomed. This compares to annual growth rates of 2% through the 1970s and 1980s, and just 1% in the 1990s.
The report, published today, predicts that carbon dioxide emissions will continue to rise by more than 3% each year until 2030.
The worst case considered by the IPCC was that world carbon dioxide emissions would rise by 2.5% each year — a scenario often criticised as too pessimistic. Most government projections and discussions are based on the milder IPCC "median" scenario, which sets an annual growth rate of just 2%.
Garnaut says the recent spike in emissions reflects a "platinum age" for the world economy, with growth exceeding the "golden age" of the 1950s and 1960s. And he says the trend raises "serious questions" about suggested climate targets.
Britain and Europe are pushing for the world to agree to limit carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million (ppm), which they say could avoid dangerous climate change. The level is currently more than 380ppm, up from 280ppm before the industrial revolution, and rising by more than 2ppm each year.
The framework for such an agreement was established at UN negotiations in Bali last year, and will be discussed in Poland this December. Analysts say a new treaty must be agreed at a meeting in Copenhagen, late next year, for it to enter into force in 2012, when the existing Kyoto protocol expires.
The Garnaut report says developed nations including Britain, the United States and Australia would have to slash carbon dioxide emissions by 5% each year over the next decade to hit the 450ppm target. Britain's climate change bill, the most ambitious of its kind in the world, calls for reductions of about 3% each year to 2050.
Garnaut, a professorial fellow in economics at Melbourne University, said: "Achieving the objective of 450ppm would require tighter constraints on emissions than now seem likely in the period to 2020 ... The only alternative would be to impose even tighter constraints on developing countries from 2013, and that does not appear to be realistic at this time."
The report adds: "The awful arithmetic means that exclusively focusing on a 450ppm outcome, at this moment, could end up providing another reason for not reaching an international agreement to reduce emissions. In the meantime, the cost of excessive focus on an unlikely goal could consign to history any opportunity to lock in an agreement for stabilising at 550ppm, a more modest, but still difficult, international outcome. An effective agreement around 550ppm would be vastly superior to continuation of business as usual."
Experts say that a 450ppm goal could limit temperature rise to 2C, while 550ppm would commit the world to 3C warming, which the IPCC warned would inflict drought and famine on hundreds of millions of people and devastate wildlife.
Friends of the Earth said: "A target of 550ppm of carbon dioxide is a recipe for disaster and even the lower target of 450ppm will mean we will face runaway climate change. The Arctic sea ice and Himalaya glaciers are already disappearing and the permafrost bomb is looming. We need much deeper cuts. Professor Garnaut has described strong targets as delusional, but he continues to feed a delusional policy debate that recognises the problem but doesn't want to implement the solution."
The report, which was released by the Australian government last month, comes after climate scientists criticised carbon targets as having no scientific basis and potentially leading to "dangerously misguided" policies.
Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows at the Tyndall centre for climate change research at Manchester University say global carbon emissions are rising so fast that they would need to peak by 2015 and then decrease by up to 6.5% each year for atmospheric CO2 levels to stabilise at 450ppm, which might limit temperature rise to 2C. Even a goal of 650ppm - way above most government projections - would need world emissions to peak in 2020 and then reduce 3% each year.
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 28 Oct 08;
OSLO - Backers of extreme technologies to curb global warming advocate dumping iron dust into the seas or placing smoke and mirrors in the sky to dim the sun.
But, even though they are seen by some as cheap fixes for climate change when many nations are worried about economic recession, such "geo-engineering" proposals have to overcome wide criticism that they are fanciful and could have unforeseen side effects.
"We are at the boundaries, treading in areas that we are not normally dealing with," said Rene Coenen, head of the Office for the London Convention, an international organisation that regulates dumping at sea.
The London Convention, part of the International Maritime Organisation, will review ocean fertilisation at a meeting this week.
Among those hoping for approval for tests is Margaret Leinin, chief science officer of California-based Climos, a company that is looking at ways to use the oceans to soak up greenhouse gases.
"The world has not been able to get carbon emissions under control" Leinin said. "We should look at other options."
Climos is seeking to raise money to test adding iron dust to the southern ocean to spur growth of algae that grow by absorbing heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the air. When algae die, they fall to the seabed and so remove carbon.
Other short-cut ideas include spraying a smoke of tiny particles of pollutants into the sky to dim sunlight, or even deploying a vast thin metallic barrier in space, with 100 space shuttle flights, to deflect the sun's rays.
"CHEMICAL SOUP"
The UN Climate Panel has said world greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, mainly burning fossil fuels, rose 70 percent between 1970 and 2004.
But it said that fertilising the oceans or dimming the sun "remain largely speculative and unproven, and with the risk of unknown side-effects."
"More evidence has been coming in since then, but it's far from making a reliable case for geo-engineering," said Terry Barker, head of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research and one of the leading authors of the UN panel report.
The seas are already suffering enough from a "chemical soup" of pollution from humans, he said. "There's no need to add to the mess."
With fears of recession and amid the deepest financial crisis since the 1930s, some governments may find cheap geo-engineering attractive compared with reducing carbon emissions. "It would be shortsighted," Baker said.
Last year, the London Convention said that "knowledge about the effectiveness and potential environmental impacts of ocean iron fertilisation currently was insufficient to justify large-scale operations."
Those doubts were "still valid," the Convention's Coenen said.
Firms such as Australia's Ocean Nourishment, Atmocean in New Mexico and Climos are working on varying sea-based projects. Another start-up, Planktos, indefinitely suspended operations in February after failing to raise cash.
Some like Climos hope that sucking carbon into the ocean, if it works, could qualify for credits as carbon trading.
"It is possible to design experiments to avoid harm to the oceans," said Leinin. Climos wants to test iron fertilisation in the southern ocean, at the earliest in January 2010 in a test that could $15-20 million, she said. If it works, Leinin said it could be one of the cheapest ways to combat global warming.
LESSER RISK
Among objections are that carbon makes water more acidic and could undermine the ability of shellfish, crabs or lobsters to build shells. That in turn could disrupt the marine food chain.
Backers of geo-engineering say the risks are slight compared to far bigger disruptions from climate change, stoked by human emissions of greenhouse gases, which could lead to heatwaves, floods, droughts, more disease or rising seas.
"We are already bludgeoning nature," said Victor Smetacek, a professor at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, who is planning an iron sulphate fertilisation experiment off Antarctica in early 2009.
His institute will cooperate with India to disperse 20 tonnes of iron sulphate near South Georgia over 300 sq kms (115 sq miles).
"Iron has a very positive effect. Added to the ocean it's like water in the desert," he said. "We don't have space to store the carbon we are producing on land," he said of proposals including planting more forests.
They will study how far algae grow and absorb carbon. The extra algae, as food, might help a recovery of stocks of shrimp-like krill, a species on which penguins and whales depend.
Among other schemes, Nobel chemistry prizewinner Paul Crutzen has floated the idea of blitzing the upper atmosphere with sulphur particles to reflect some sunlight back into space.
"The price is not a factor...it's peanuts," he told Reuters in Nicosia earlier this month. "The cost has been estimated at some 10, 20 million US dollars a year."
Similar smoke is released naturally by volcanic eruptions, such as Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 or Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. The Indonesia eruption led to a "year without a summer," according to reports at the time.
Other proposals reviewed by the UN Climate Panel include installing a metallic screen covering a 106 sq km (40.93 sq mile) patch of space 1.5 million kms (930,000 miles) away from earth in the direction of the sun.
The 3,000-tonne structure could be put in place over 100 years by 100 space shuttle flights. "The cost has yet to be determined," the panel said.
Another idea is to spew more sea spray into the air -- a natural process caused by waves. The plan would make low-level clouds slightly whiter and bounce solar rays back into space.
Advantages are that the only ingredient is sea water, and production could be turned off. But the UN panel said "the meteorological ramifications need further study."
(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Additional reporting by Michele Kambas in Nicosia; Editing by Eddie Evans)
Yahoo News 27 Oct 08;
BEIJING (AFP) – China's dependency on coal as its major energy source is creating hidden environmental and other costs worth more than seven percent of its annual gross domestic product, green groups said Monday.
A report entitled: "The True Cost of Coal", jointly commissioned by Greenpeace, the Energy Foundation and conservation group WWF, said taking into account the real expense was vital to the nation's future energy security.
The unaccounted costs equate to an estimated 1.7 trillion yuan (249 billion dollars), and would be even higher if the impacts of climate change were included, according to the report.
"Environmental and social damages are underestimated while using coal in China as a result of market failures and weakness in government regulations", said Mao Yushi, an economist and lead author of the report.
By accounting for the hidden annual costs, China could wean itself off its coal dependency and better address ecological degradation and global warming concerns, the report said.
"The government of China has the opportunity to make a real improvement to the environment by reforming the current coal pricing system," the report said.
"If all the external costs of coal are genuinely reflected in the coal price, this will provide a non-distorted price signal for the whole energy market."
The report said the external and unaccounted costs to China of using coal included air and water pollution, ecosystem degradation, damage to infrastructure, human injuries and loss of life.
It also takes into account the distortion of government regulations which keep the cost of coal down such as distorted land ownership policies, and inadequate worker safety and worker compensation systems.
China depends on coal for about 70 percent of its booming energy needs, which is one factor in its huge increase in greenhouse gas output in recent years.
China now ranks alongside the United States as one of the world's two biggest emitters of the gases that are blamed for climate change.
Hidden Cost Of China's Coal Is $250 Bln – Survey
Emma Graham-Harrison, PlanetArk 28 Oct 08;
BEIJING - China's dirty and dangerous coal mining industry cost the country a hidden $250 billion last year in lost and damaged lives, wasted energy and environmental devastation, according to a survey launched on Monday.
Pollution affected water, land and air around mines, thousands died and many more were hurt in mining accidents, and acid rain-causing sulphur dioxide and mercury were among dangerous emissions when coal is burnt in factories and power plants.
None of this is reflected in low coal and power prices, according to "The True Cost of Coal", researched over three years by Chinese economists and environmentalists.
"Behind China's large production and consumption of coal ... lie expensive and worrying environmental and social costs," their report warns.
Tariffs would need to rise by around a quarter to reflect the real burden for Chinese society, which in 2007 was 1.7 trillion yuan (US$254.9 billion), they say.
"Currently these costs are paid by the people in China suffering from the damage," Mao Yushi, one of the report's authors and chairman of the Unirule Institute of Economics, told a news conference at the launch of the report.
Experts from the coal heartland of Shanxi province, Peking University, the government's top energy think-tank and the Chinese Centre for Disease control also contributed research.
Last year nearly 3,800 miners died in explosions, flooding and other underground accidents. Although that marked a 20 percent decrease from 2006, it is still the most dangerous mining industry in the world.
For a country short of water and struggling to keep its food and air safe, it is also an environmental liability, said Yang Ailun from Greenpeace, who helped coordinate the report.
Each tonne of coal produced means 2.5 tonnes of water are polluted, while coal mining waste makes up some 40 percent of the country's solid industrial waste, she said.
NO END TO COAL
The key problems identified by the report are government regulations that distort prices and weak oversight that allows miners to get land cheaply, dodge safety and environment laws and ship their coal in dirty, dangerously overloaded trucks.
Extra taxes, stricter enforcement, and an end to the price caps that have kept electricity temptingly cheap would make coal prices more realistic and curb waste, deaths and the worst pollution, the report said.
The good news for a country that relies on the dirty fuel for more than two thirds of its energy is that the big price increase it calls for in the long term would mean only a tiny hit to the economy as efficiency soars and green energy firms prosper.
But for those who dream of a future powered only by windmills and dams, they warn that coal will not lose its dominance in China for decades. The report says the 23 percent price rise it recommends would cause only a 7 percent fall in consumption.
China is already the world's biggest producer and consumer of coal, which provides a cheap, domestic energy source at a time when volatile global oil markets have exacerbated worries about tight supplies.
Demand is growing so fast that its miners have to produce an extra 200 million tonnes a year to keep up, or the equivalent of the entire coal mining industry of major producer Indonesia.
A slight decline in consumption, in place of this frantic expansion, might give the industry room to improve their standards without starving the country of energy.
(US$1=6.845 Yuan)
China pays high environmental and social price for reliance on coal
Pollution, emissions and mining accidents cost £160bn each year, say Greenpeace, WWF and energy campaigners
Tania Branigan, guardian.co.uk 27 Oct 08;
China's main source of power is so destructive that its social and environmental impact costs £160bn annually, warns a new report from green campaigners.
The country is the world's largest producer and consumer of coal, relying on it for more than 70% of energy production, compared with a global average of around 40%.
The True Cost of Coal, published by Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and The Energy Foundation, says by-products ranging from water pollution to mining deaths cost China an additional 1.7 trillion yuan, or more than 7% of annual GDP.
"From extraction to combustion, every step in the process of using coal damages the environment," warns the report.
"To ensure its energy security, environmental protection and healthy economic and societal development, China must reduce its reliance on coal."
The report catalogues the effects of the industry across a wide range of areas. According to official figures, coal is responsible for 70% of soot, 85% of sulphur dioxide, 67% of nitrogen oxides and 80% of carbon dioxide emitted in the country — leading to respiratory diseases and contributes to global warming.
Thousands die annually in the country's mines, despite a safety drive in recent years. Wastewater and solid residue damage water systems and agricultural land.
Land subsidence caused by mining damages road, railway lines and power lines and results in the relocation of 2,000 people for every 10m tonnes of coal produced.
Each tonne of coal consumed in 2007 cost China an extra 150yuan in environmental damage, the study shows.
The authors — from well-regarded research institutes in China — show how the government could ensure those costs are internalised, suggesting the price of coal would rise by 23%.
They accept that would reduce GDP by 0.07%, but argue it would increase China's long-term international competitiveness and increase social wealth by 940bn yuan.
"Environmental and social damages are underestimated while using coal in China, as a result of market failures and weakness in government regulations," said economist Mao Yushi, lead author of the report.
The report suggests that imposing environmental taxes, improving compensation schemes and other restructuring the coal industry could all slash coal use.
"Recognising the true cost of coal would create incentives to developing cleaner, sustainable energy sources. The government should introduce an effective price signal for coal, which would ensure a massive improvement in energy efficiency and large-scale implementation of renewable energy.
"This would reduce China's environmental pollution and show its leadership in fighting climate change," urged Yang Ailun, climate and energy campaign manager of Greenpeace China.
Michael Richardson, Straits Times 28 Oct 08;
IN THEIR quest for energy security, Indonesia and the Philippines are planning to develop nuclear power to buttress their electricity generating systems.
However, the possibility of accidents and deadly radioactive releases from nuclear power plants - particularly those in countries like Indonesia and the Philippines which are peppered with active volcanoes and subject to earthquakes and tsunamis - worries neighbouring nations. Such plants would be sited on coastlines so they can draw water from the sea for cooling purposes.
Instead of going nuclear with its risks, Indonesia and the Philippines could expand what they are already doing: tapping the virtually limitless heat from deep underground.
The two countries are the world's biggest geothermal electricity producers, after the United States. This form of renewable energy supplies just over 23 per cent of the electricity generated in the Philippines and 5 per cent in Indonesia. Unlike solar and wind, geothermal fields do not stop producing energy at night or when the wind ceases to blow.
Coming from the earth's molten core and from the decay of naturally occurring elements such as uranium and thorium, the heat energy in the uppermost 10km of the planet's crust is vast - 50,000 times greater than the energy content of all known oil and natural gas resources. Among countries with the richest geothermal resources are those that lie atop the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, a geologic zone encircling the Pacific Ocean. They include the western US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Russia, Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and New Zealand.
Globally, hydropower is by far the most important renewable energy source, accounting for 19 per cent of global electricity production. Wind generates just one per cent. Though both geothermal and solar each provide well under 1 per cent now, they have the potential to supply much more.
Indonesia is the world's third biggest producer of geothermal electricity. Yet it supplies barely 1,000 megawatts of an estimated 27,000MW potential from its geothermal resources. It plans to develop new capacity of nearly 7,000MW over the next decade, equivalent to ten nuclear power plants and equal to nearly 30 per cent of its current electricity-generating capacity from all sources. The Philippines, the number two producer, aims to increase its installed geothermal capacity by over 60 per cent by 2013, to just over 3,100MW.
But first impediments in both countries to expanded geothermal investment must be removed. In Indonesia, a presidential decree earlier this month offered tax incentives for expanded production from existing fields and development of new resources. However, political bickering in the Philippines has blocked passage of a renewable energy Bill. In both countries, red-tape, difficulty in gaining access to public and private land for development projects, and disputes over the price offered for geothermal electricity going into state-owned power supply networks has slowed progress. Now the global squeeze on credit and the recent fall in prices of fossil fuel energy sources, are putting additional barriers.
Still, the potential for growth remains promising. According to a recent survey by the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, geothermal energy is being tapped in 24 countries, five of which used it to produce 15 per cent or more of their total electricity. In the first half of this year, world installed geothermal power capacity passed 10,000MW, enough electricity to meet the needs of 60 million people. By 2010, capacity could increase to 13,500MW in 46 countries.
Most geothermal plants in operation around the world tap into underground pockets of high-temperature water or steam to drive steam turbines. These ventures need high capital investment for exploration, drilling and pipeline construction, compared to coal or gas-fired electricity plants. However, operation and maintenance costs are relatively low.
New geothermal technologies enable electricity to be generated at much lower temperatures. They use liquids with lower boiling points than water in heat exchange systems, opening a vast new frontier for geothermal power.
The writer is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of South East Asian Studies.
Louis Charbonneau, PlanetArk 27 Oct 08;
UNITED NATIONS - Nuclear energy is undergoing a worldwide renaissance, but poor nations yearning to develop need to realize that it is no panacea to profound poverty, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Monday.
After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, many governments questioned the value of nuclear power. Some European countries, like Austria and Germany, decided to wean themselves off nuclear energy.
But issues like global warming and the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels have brought the nuclear reactor, which emits virtually no "greenhouse gases", back into vogue.
According to Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize-laureate head of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, many developing states see atomic energy as a key source of the power they need to combat poverty.
"It could be part of the energy mix in many of the large developing countries, but I always continue to lower expectations," he told Reuters in an interview after addressing the UN General Assembly.
"It is not a panacea by itself and many countries will have to understand that it will take 10 to 15 years before they can use nuclear (power)," he said. "They'll have to prove it's economically competitive, a good part of the energy mix."
While nuclear power plants can bring many benefits, they are expensive to build, and require strict adherence to safety and security requirements, ElBaradei said.
"There's a lot of over-expectation," he said. "We think everybody has the right to use it but there are certain parameters you have to fulfil."
There is a downside to the nuclear renaissance -- the more nuclear material there is worldwide, the greater the risk that some of it could be diverted to make nuclear weapons, he said in his speech to the General Assembly.
"Countries that master uranium enrichment and plutonium separation become de facto nuclear weapons-capable states," he said. For this reason, he said it was time to consider creating multinational nuclear fuel centres to ensure all countries have access to atomic fuel while minimizing proliferation risks.
WORRIES ABOUT IRAN
Western countries suspect Iran wants enrichment to produce fuel for atom bombs. Tehran denies the charge but has rejected UN Security Council demands that it halt enrichment work.
Russia offered to host an enrichment joint-venture with Iran on Russian territory. Tehran never officially responded but made clear it wanted to enrich uranium on Iranian soil.
In the interview, ElBaradei said the number of nuclear reactors in the world would double in coming decades to between 850 and 900, though the proportion of nuclear energy to other power sources would remain steady at the present 14 percent.
"It will help with climate change, energy independence, fluctuation in prices, but one has to take it in perspective."
In his speech, ElBaradei said there was a tremendous energy imbalance between the developed and developing worlds.
For example, he said the developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) consume on average 170 times more power than African states.
This is why many nations are eager to get nuclear energy, he said.
Nuclear plant technology is much safer than it was at the time of the Chernobyl disaster. But this does not mean the risks associated with reactors had vanished, ElBaradei said.
"Vulnerabilities remain. We can never be complacent about safety. A single nuclear accident anywhere in the world could undermine the future of nuclear energy everywhere," he said.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 28 Oct 08;
THE financial crisis should not be an excuse for policy-makers and businesses to delay acting to fight climate change, a carbon markets expert said last week.
In fact, the crisis offers an opportunity for carbon markets to grow in tandem with the consolidated and restructured financial markets worldwide, said Mr Jeremy Wilcox, managing director of Britain-based Intelligent Carbon, at a forum here last week.
The general sentiment is that the imperative is to secure the economy, with climate change taking a backseat, he added.
But in reality, carbon trading being a finance instrument, can learn from the mistakes of the financial system and grow alongside it once markets bottom out, he said.
Mr Wilcox also shared the findings of a survey on a snapshot of executive views on Asia's climate change market.
The survey was conducted ahead of the annual United Nations climate change conference in Poznan, Poland, next month.
The online survey, conducted by Intelligent Carbon, polled 31 executives from Asia, Europe, Middle East and North America.
It showed that 96.7 per cent felt that carbon trading helps mitigate climate change.
About two-thirds of the participants believe Asia has the most important role to play in achieving a global climate deal.
But those polled were divided on what realistic global emission targets are. The most popular was a reduction target of 50per cent by 2050.
Many also felt that Asia should develop its own carbon market, similar to Europe's cap-and-trade system, which restricts emissions on certain industries and allows the trading of carbon credits between firms in different countries.
Singapore emerged as the top destination for an Asian carbon market hub among those polled.
Mr Wilcox told The Straits Times that this was not surprising, as Singapore already 'has the necessary infrastructure'.
But Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai are also potential locations, and 'whichever market attracts the most liquidity will become the natural hub', he said.
He told a 40-strong audience at the Asia Carbon Forum at the Raffles City Convention Centre last week that while there is a lot of awareness of climate change issues, there is a lack of direct action in the market in Asia.
'It is like everyone is a believer but no one is going to church. There are not enough people practising their beliefs,' he said.
This sort of practice will develop as Asia becomes part of the global agreement to come out of climate change talks in Copenhagen next year. There is no legal requirement yet so not many companies are taking action, he said.
Europe has led the way in showing how the rest of the world can move towards a carbon-constrained economy and still be competitive, he added.
Other findings include bullish sentiment of businesses on renewable energy technology.
'There's a learning curve, and companies in Asia seem keen on learning from the European experience and technology,' said Mr Wilcox.
James Pomfret, PlanetArk 28 Oct 08;
HONG KONG - The risks of inaction over climate change far outweigh the turmoil of the global financial crisis, a leading climate change expert said on Monday, while calling for new fiscal spending tailored to low carbon growth.
"The risk consequences of ignoring climate change will be very much bigger than the consequences of ignoring risks in the financial system," said Nicholas Stern, a former British Treasury economist, who released a seminal report in 2006 that said inaction on emissions blamed for global warming could cause economic pain equal to the Great Depression.
"That's a very important lesson, tackle risk early," Stern told a climate and carbon conference in Hong Kong.
As countries around the world move from deploying monetary and financial stabilisation measures, to boosting fiscal spending to mend real economies, Stern said the opportunity was there to bring about a new, greener, carbon-reducing world order.
"The lesson that we can draw out from this recession, is that you can boost demand in the best way possible by focusing on low carbon growth in future," Stern said, including greater public spending on mass public transport, energy and green technologies.
Stern's warning comes on the heels of last week's Asia-Europe or ASEM meeting in Beijing, where China indicated in talks it was committed to seeking a climate change pact in vital end-game talks in Copenhagen at the end of next year.
Leaders at the summit also urged countries not to use global economic upheaval as a reason for delaying a deal. Partly as a result of the darkening global economic outlook, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently warned that 10 other EU nations backed his efforts to block an EU climate plan, prompting further doubts over European action on global warming.
Yet Stern remained optimistic, saying while talks would be "very tense" the likelihood of a deal in Copenhagen to reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent by 2050 remained "very high".
Any deal would have to iron out differences between the United States, historically the largest greenhouse gas emitter, and rapidly developing countries like China, which by some accounts has surpassed the United States on emissions.
China, with its bulging output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas behind global warming, was singled out by Stern along with the US as pivotal in the talks, with the next US president likely to be much more proactive than George W. Bush.
"The US and China will be the key leaders for a global deal. Either one of them could kill it, and I don't think either one of them will kill it."
Fresh from a trip to China, Stern said China's next national economic blueprint or five-year plan would acknowledge its key role to stave off a big rise in global temperatures, the melting of ice-caps and destructive rises in sea levels the world over.
"I think we'll see the 12th five-year plan focus on low carbon growth," he said.
(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
Top economist talks up risks of climate inaction
Yahoo News 27 Oct 08;
HONG KONG (AFP) – Nicholas Stern, one of the world's leading environmental economists, said Monday that the global economy will face a more severe downturn than the current crisis if it fails to halt climate change.
Stern, the author of a key climate change report and a former World Bank chief economist, said moves towards a low carbon economy should not be stifled by the fallout from the current economic downturn.
"One thing we should have learned from this experience of the financial crisis is if we ignore risk building in the system, that risk will get much more difficult to manage than if we recognise it and tackle it early," the British economist told reporters in Hong Kong.
"We have seen the consequences of ignoring risk in the current economic and financial crisis. It has already led to negative growth in rich countries.
"The risk consequences of ignoring climate change will be very much bigger that the risk consequences of ignoring risk from the financial system."
Stern, whose 2006 report estimated the effects of climate change could cost up to a fifth of worldwide gross domestic product if no action was taken, said that countries should try and grow out of the current recession by focusing on low carbon growth.
Stern added that failure to act could lead to a temperature rise that would have severe consequences for global stability.
"These kinds of changes will transform the physical geography of the planet. They will transform where people will live," he told reporters at an event for HSBC, a bank where he is a part-time policy advisor.
"You will see movements of billions of people, the result of that will probably be extreme conflict."
Earlier, Stern addressed a group of business and political leaders at a conference organised by the Climate Group, a non-governmental environmental group, where he stressed the opportunities for firms that adapt early to a low carbon model.
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