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Australia should lead the energy revolution
Madeleine Coorey, AFP via Cosmos
Australia is at the forefront of the devastating impact of climate change and must undergo an energy revolution to survive, says Australian scientist and author Tim Flannery.
If ever a textbook example of the impact of global warming was needed, Australia provides it, says Flannery. Bushfires have raged for weeks in the country’s alpine regions and water reserves in the major cities are drying up while a once-in-a-century drought has ravaged farming land, cutting into the nation’s economic output.
“We are the worst, as a developed country. There is nowhere else that is getting the hammering that we are getting at the moment,” he says.
…To avert biological disaster, Flannery’s suggestions are radical: the coal industry should be shunted aside, traditional methods of producing power junked, and a desert metropolis established and placed at the centre of Australia’s electricity grid. “We need to ‘decarbonise’ the economy extremely rapidly – which we could do if we were on a raw footing,” he says. “We could just close down the coal-fired power plants. We could. We could mandate we are going to have electricity rationing, we are going to close things down, we are going to build a new infrastructure as quick as we can.”
(24 Jan 2007)
Stern challenges Bush with call for green tax
Susie Mesure, The Independent
Sir Nicholas Stern, the author of an apocalyptic report on the dangers of global warming, called for more green taxes from world governments in an attempt to cut carbon emissions.
He said that it would be “plain daft” to reject the notion of a global carbon tax given the urgent need to tackle climate change, which he called the “biggest market failure the world has ever seen”. He added: “We need to use all the tools we’ve got. It would be mad to throw one away.”
The former World Bank economist stopped short yesterday of calling for a global carbon tax, but said it was “very important to harmonise taxes as best we can”. He pointed to the example of the UK, where high taxes on petrol in effect act as carbon taxes, as evidence of how national governments could force citizens to change their behaviour and emit less carbon.
“We should use tax mechanisms as one weapon in an armoury, along with regulation,” he said, expressing scepticism that a global carbon tax would work. “Taxes are there for many reasons. You don’t have to label them carbon taxes to be effective.”
Sir Nicholas was speaking from a Davos obsessed by the environmental threat posed by greenhouse gases. The 2,400-plus delegates have the option of attending no fewer than 17 separate debates on climate change, should they share Sir Nicholas’s concerns. The WEF meeting itself is attempting to be 100 per cent carbon neutral and has called on all attendees to offset the emissions produced by their own journeys to the venue.
(25 Jan 2007)
Related: Climate change expert seeks expansion of carbon trading (IHT)
Davos 07: a new star is born (Guardian)
Combatting Climate Change Cheaper Than Originally Thought
Celine Ruben-Salama, Treehugger
Last week, Lars Josefsson, chief executive of Vattenfall the Swedish power company, presented research that shows that the cost of combating climate change could be 40 per cent lower than the figure given in the Stern Report. The Stern Report claimed that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20 per cent but that taking action would cost roughly 1 per cent of the United Kingdom’s GDP. Josefsson explains, “[t]he cost of limiting the concentration of greenhouse gases is equivalent to 0.6 per cent of the gross world product – if all the identified potential is exploited.” According to the Vattenfall report, much of the cost savings come from implementing simple solutions that “pay for themselves” such as insulation improvements or fuel efficient cars. The report also assumes increased use of nuclear power and employing carbon capture technology.
(23 Jan 2007)
Merkel calls for tough emissions controls
Chris Giles and Gillian Tett, Financial Times
The twin demands of action to prevent climate change and enhance energy security requires Europe to commit to challenging mandatory controls on greenhouse gasses after 2012, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said on Wednesday.
In a marked contrast to George Bush’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, when he set an ambition to reduce gasoline usage in the US by 20 per cent over the next 10 years, Ms Merkel said she welcomed the opportunity for the European Union to “offer a [greenhouse gas] reduction target of 30 per cent, but we expect other large emitters to participate in that”.
(24 Jan 2007)
Developing nations dig in heels on climate change
Laura MacInnis, Reuters
GENEVA – Developing countries stand to suffer the worst effects of global warming, and should not have to pay for a problem created mainly by the rich, executives and experts said on Thursday.
At a gathering of 2,400 of the world’s most powerful people at Davos, a ski resort in the Swiss Alps, leaders from emerging nations said they wanted the United States,
European Union and others in the West to be more accountable for the heat-trapping emissions their cars and factories produce.
They also asserted their right to stoke their own economies, even if greenhouse gas levels rise as a result.
(25 Jan 2007)
Climate on the big screen
Kate Sheppard, Gristmill
Everything’s Cool is a 100-minute film resulting from four and a half years of work, thousands of miles traveled, and hours and hours spent following some of the country’s most ardent climate change activists.
Co-producers Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand finished the final cut of the film just the night before the special pre-screening event at the Sundance Film Festival, and sat down to watch it from credit sequence to credit sequence for the first time along with the audience — and almost all the characters in the film, who were flown in for the screening.
(25 Jan 2007)
