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China set to confront climate change, defend growth
Chris Buckley, Reuters
China’s first plan for climate change will seek to fortify the country against damage from global warming but also against international pressure to cut greenhouse gas pollution that Beijing calls the cost of growth.
China will unveil its national plan on Monday, two days before President
Hu Jintao attends a meeting of Group of Eight leaders in Germany at which global warming will feature.
Beijing has already signaled that the plan is meant as a defensive policy wall to limit damage from rising seas, worsening droughts and melting glaciers, but also to protect ambitious growth goals from possible greenhouse gas quotas that it fears would cripple development.
(3 June 2007)
Self-interest will do more to cut carbon emissions than all the low-energy light bulbs in the world
Hamish McRae, Independent
Only when rising prices and supply fears force the top 10 polluters to conserve fuel will progress really be made
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The wind has shifted direction. The acknowledgement last week by President Bush that the world needed a new treaty to curb carbon emissions, and that the US would support this, is an important back-cloth to this week’s G8 economic summit in Heiligendamm on Germany’s Baltic coast.
Unsurprisingly there is some scepticism at the President’s sudden conversion, and since he is at the tail-end of his presidency, you could say that it is not that significant. That is true in the sense that what matters is the shift of perception that has been taking place over the past three or four years within the US; the President is merely responding to that.
It is also true that by seeking to move the debate away from the United Nations towards some new forum, the President has annoyed a lot of people. But that may be no bad thing. In practice all that is needed is agreement between the 10 countries that produce 90 per cent of global emissions. Arguably the UN is an inappropriate body for this sort of task.
Of those 10 top energy users, the US is the world’s largest. It is also the largest producer of carbon emissions, and will remain so for at least another 15 years. So what it does is of profound importance. If it has taken a threatened bust-up at the G8 to provoke such a change of heart, and a more nimble body than the UN is being sought to co-ordinate better global practice, then so be it.
…If governments can’t do it all, who will? In shorthand: technology responding to market signals. The official projections for global energy use show it rising inexorably for the next 20 years at least, with the three main fossil fuels – mineral oil, natural gas and coal – remaining the principal sources. If the more alarming projections for the supply of mineral oil prove true, peak oil production will be reached within the next 20 years.
That peak may come within the next five years if some of the more alarming estimates of future Middle East oil production prove true. Saudi Arabia seems to be cutting production at the moment: it is not clear whether this is from choice or through reaching production constraints.
If the oil supply becomes tighter, the price will rise further. There will be some substitution of other fossil fuels but there are practical limits to this, and making oil from coal is an inefficient process. There will also be some relief from biofuels but, as we have seen, using food crops to produce fuel pushes up the price of food for some of the world’s poorest people. US subsidies for biofuels have been particularly ill-constructed, forcing up food prices in Mexico for little environmental gain.
(3 June 2007)
Bush’s Trade Barriers to Climate Success
Joe Brewer, t r u t h o u t
Yesterday President Bush declared that he has a proposal for dealing with the climate crisis. Rockridge Institute fellow Joe Brewer responds to his speech by analyzing the narrative underlying Bush’s international development agenda. What does he find? The answer, of course, is more of the same…
President Bush announced his international development agenda yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, where he made headlines for declaring that the world’s wealthiest countries should talk about climate change. As an atmospheric scientist who analyzes the language of political discourse, I would like to share my perspective on what was said (and not said) in his proposal.
There were two major themes in the section of his speech devoted to climate change. First, he promoted the development of clean energy technologies to replace conventional fuels and production practices. And second, he recommended the elimination of “tariffs and other barriers to clean energy technologies” to promote the spread of these wonders of modern science. All of this was embedded within a story of American compassion to bring prosperity to the world’s poor.
Bush is using his story of climate change to frame the debate. At first blush, President Bush’s story appears to frame climate change in progressive language. He appears to be in tune with the majority of Americans who want something substantive done about the climate crisis. After closer analysis, however, his framing of the climate change issue will likely lead to business as usual – more trade and technology instead of an adequately regulated market that greatly reduces carbon pollution. Business as usual will continue to make matters worse.
Let’s have a look at these ideas more closely to see why the president is still firmly on the path to becoming the worst environmental president in US history.
Throughout his speech, President Bush presents his arguments in the form of a story. By extracting segments in the order they were presented, we can reconstruct the central theme of his story to see how his argument works. Bush wraps the specifics of his story in a progressive vision with which most Americans agree:
(3 June 2007)
Emissions plan hurts households, but not big polluters
Phillip Coorey and Marian Wilkinson, The Sydney Morning Herald
ELECTRICITY and fuel bills will rise and the only way to avoid the sting will be to use less, under the national emissions trading system to be adopted by the Howard Government.
But the biggest emitters will be compensated for their initial losses as they adapt to a scheme designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the long term without causing undue damage to industry or the economy.
The report, by a taskforce commissioned by the Prime Minister, warns that “much of the cost from imposing a constraint on emissions will ultimately be borne by Australian households”.
“They will face higher prices for electricity, petrol and other [carbon emitting]-intensive products.”
For example, if the carbon price was set at $30 a tonne, it would add $200 to an annual household power bill.
The scheme, which could be operational by 2012, would raise significant revenue from companies trading emissions permits and paying fees for breaching caps.
Although the report recommends using some revenue to “assist households”, such assistance would not be energy bill subsidies but would be in the form of helping and informing people how to use less energy.
(2 June 2007)
Hero or villain? A carbon critic relies on coal
Ivar Ekman, International Herald Tribune
STOCKHOLM: Lars Josefsson doesn’t look like a man of extremes. The 56-year-old chief executive of the Swedish electric utility Vattenfall radiates the kind of soft-spoken calm that has given Swedish business leaders a reputation for being low-key consensus-builders.
Yet despite his measured style, Josefsson elicits the strongest of feelings – positive as well as negative.
Many see him as a true visionary. At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, this year, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany used part of her opening speech to say how “delighted” she was over Josefsson’s initiatives to engage the corporate sector in combating climate change. In 2005, Time named him a European “hero” for the same reason.
To others, he is the embodiment of a cynical, corporate “villain,” as Aftonbladet, Scandinavia’s biggest daily, put it recently. A leading Swedish politician, Peter Eriksson of the Green Party, has called Josefsson’s environmentalism a “bluff.”
As the head of one of Europe’s biggest utilities in a time of growing environmental awareness, as well as dramatic change – a wave of consolidation is rolling across the Continent’s energy markets and Vattenfall has been an active player – Josefsson is destined to be in the limelight.
But at least as important is the direction in which Josefsson has taken Vattenfall since he became chief executive in 2000. Revenue at the state-owned company has more than quadrupled, to 145 billion kronor, or $20.9 billion, from 32 billion kronor, mainly through huge investment in coal-fired power plants and lignite mines in Germany.
From a business point of view, these acquisitions have made clear sense. With rising oil prices and the closure of several nuclear power plants, coal has become more important for the German energy supply. Coal is also, as Josefsson points out, a cheap source of energy, which means that it is highly profitable.
But the German acquisitions also mean that Vattenfall has gone from being a negligible emitter of carbon dioxide – its production units in Sweden are mainly nuclear and hydroelectric, and “vattenfall” means “waterfall” in Swedish – to emitting about 80 million tons per year, making the company one of the Continent’s biggest polluters. When the World Wide Fund for Nature, or WWF, recently published its list of the “Dirty Thirty,” Europe’s 30 most polluting power plants, Vattenfall was listed as the owner of four.
At the same time, Josefsson has become something of a corporate prophet on the dangers of global warming.
(1 June 2007)
No more hot air
Editorial, Nature
Nature 447, 507 (31 May 2007) |doi:10.1038/447507a;
The leaders meeting at this year’s G8 summit must grasp the opportunity to assert themselves and commit to real action on climate change.
When the world’s most powerful political leaders convene at the G8 summit next week in the German spa town of Heiligendamm, they will bring with them pre-prepared communiqués on most of the topics to be discussed, from the financial risks of globalization to the need for development aid in Africa.
But the eight heads of states will also carry with them responsibility for most of the world’s annual greenhouse-gas emissions. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who hosts this G8, wants the leaders at Heiligendamm to agree a concrete plan on how to substantially lighten this load in the next couple of decades.
The Bush administration, however, seems once again to be working to foil any meaningful progress by the G8 on climate issues. Merkel should learn lessons from what happened to UK prime minister Tony Blair when he sought to pursue the same agenda at the G8 at Gleneagles, Scotland, two years ago: by accommodating US resistance and talking compromise, he achieved precisely nothing.
This time, Merkel should hold her ground, refuse to include inadequate climate-change language in the final communiqué and, if necessary, dismiss G8 protocol and break publicly on the issue with Bush and any allies he can muster.
(30 May 2007)
To maximize their influence, the editorial writers of “Nature” magazine should remove the paywall on editorials. Is anybody going to pay $30 to see an editorial? It’s discouraging when one of the foremost science journal is behind the times on using the Web. -BA
Global Meltdown
Andrew Revkin, AARP
I’m staring up at the crumbling edge of the frozen white cap cloaking most of this vast Arctic island. The ice is thousands of years old, yet melting relentlessly in the bright May sunshine, sending a torrent of gray water to the sea. With me is Joe McConnell, a snow scientist who just spent three weeks drilling samples from the ice sheet, which extends over an area four times the size of California and is almost two miles high at its peak.
It may be that what we face is less a climate crisis than an energy challenge. Many experts believe the key to limiting climate risks and solving a host of momentous problems-including the end of abundant oil-is to begin an ambitious quest for new ways to conserve, harvest, and store energy without creating pollution.
Harnessing the power of the sun remains the Holy Grail of most energy experts. But research on solar technologies remains tiny in scale, though the potential has been clear for decades. Consider this incredibly prescient quote: “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
The year? 1931. The speaker? Thomas Edison.
“The biggest challenge is how to get people to wake up and realize this is a one-shot deal,” says Caltech’s solar guru, Lewis. “If we fail, we are witting participants in the biggest experiment that humans have ever done: moving CO2 levels to more than twice their value in the past 670,000 years and hoping it turns out okay for generations to come.”
Andrew Revkin is a reporter with The New York Times and the author of The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).
AARP is a US nonprofit membership organization of persons 50 and older dedicated to addressing their needs and interests, claiming 36 million members.
(July/August 2007)
