Xstrata To Face The Full Force Of The Law Over Lead

The Queensland government is preparing to prosecute mining giant Xstrata after one of its Mount Isa air monitoring sites found illegal levels of lead. Minister of Climate Change and Sustainability Kate Jones says her officers will examine the evidence after meeting with the company.

By Chris O’Brien in ABC News (23 February 2010):  

Queensland Government officials will meet Xstrata representatives in Mount Isa in the state’s north-west today to check the mining company’s assurances about lead levels.

Xstrata says lab tests have shown that a high lead level reading from late last year is an anomaly, but the Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Kate Jones, says her department will examine the evidence.

Last week, Ms Jones said the operation could be scaled back, closed or fined up to $2 million.

She says the company formally notified the Government yesterday about the latest results.

“My initial feeling is relief, if indeed it is true that this is an anomaly and we haven’t seen a breach of their lead levels,” Ms Jones said.

“Of course this is something that everybody wants to see, but I want to make sure that this data is correct and that is why I’m instructing staff to meet with senior officers from Xstrata to go through that data.”

Ms Jones says she stands by her tough language against Xstrata. She says that is still appropriate.

“I absolutely stand by the strong words that I used against Xstrata on Friday,” Ms Jones said.

“That was because we were given information from Xstrata which showed there had been a breach.

“If indeed it turns out that that breach was an anomaly, then we’ll all breathe a sign of relief, but I want to make sure that is absolutely correct before we take any further action.”

Source: www.abc.net.au

AAP (19 February 2010):

The Queensland government is preparing to prosecute mining giant Xstrata after one of its Mount Isa air monitoring sites found illegal levels of lead.

Xstrata Mount Isa Mines issued a statement on Friday saying one of its five air sampling stations in Mount Isa found a “potential exceedence for lead”.

An Xstrata spokesman told AAP it exceeded the 1.5 microgram per cubic metre of lead allowed into the atmosphere but four other stations were well below the limit.

Queensland Environment Minister Kate Jones said the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) was preparing to prosecute the company.

“Xstrata must report on its investigations and detail what urgent action the company has taken to fix the problem by Monday,” Ms Jones said in a statement.

“Xstrata will face the full force of the law.”

Source: www.news.brisbanetimes.com.au

More Investment Dollars in GreenTech & CleanTech

“I think green is where the action is going to be,” says Robert Purves, the former head and major shareholder of health group DCA and now a significant sponsor of environmental initiatives and an investor in green industries. “It’s all about putting a price on carbon.” Giles Parkinson writes about the investors and the opportunities in The Deal.

Giles Parkinson writes of The Deal Magazine, with The Australian (19 February 2010):

WHEN the annual rich lists come out, one sector that hardly ever gets a mention in the top 100 is that focused on the environment and clean technology.

But that is surely about to change. The realisation that environmental and economic health go hand in hand, the focus on tackling climate change and the expected investment of hundreds of billions of dollars in low-emission technology mean the green economy will generate many rich-listers in future.

Some have already made it. A former solar energy researcher at the University of NSW, Zhengrong Shi, is credited with being the first “solar billionaire”. His Suntech Energy has grown to be among the world’s largest solar energy companies.

But other rich list incumbents are finding green opportunities – in  carbon trading, renewables, algae fuels and other forms of bio-sequestration, transformative industries such as electric car networks and direct investment in environmental and conservation programs.

“I think green is where the action is going to be,” says Robert Purves, the former head and major shareholder of health group DCA and now a significant sponsor of environmental initiatives and an investor in green industries. “It’s all about putting a price on carbon.”

Last year London’s The Sunday Times published a list of the world’s richest 100 “eco-pioneers”. The table was dominated by billionaires who made their money elsewhere but who are now making huge investments in renewable technologies and conservation issues. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates headed the list, with both investing in wind and other renewables, along with Michael Bloomberg, Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, oil man T. Boone Pickens, the Rockefeller family, Nicky Oppenheimer and Richard Branson. Shi appears on the list, with a dozen other Chinese solar entrepreneurs.

Compiling an Australian green rich list wouldn’t be easy, as green investment here is in its infancy. But bankers say the green sector has attracted the interest of the country’s richest families, including the Pratts, Smorgons, Myers, Blooms, Lews and Liebermans, among others.

“They tend to hunt in packs,” says the head of one investment bank that specialises in the area. “If they hear one of the other guys has come in, they tend to want to join in. They are all focused on finding the next big thing and getting it as quickly as possible.”

Then there are the inventors, such as Ralph Sarich, who made his fortune from the orbital engine and in property investment. He is working on a new technology that can harness wind and other renewable sources. Another is oil man Alan Burns, who developed wave energy technology that may soon come into commercial production through the company Carnegie Wave Power.

The Belgiorno-Nettis family is one of the largest green investors. Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, joint managing director of the family-owned Transfield Holdings group, says many companies see the potential in renewable energy sources, even if the sector is “fraught with government fiats”. The Transfield Services Infrastructure Fund – a listed offshoot – is now a major wind-farm developer and the family’s private company is making significant investments in solar energy and biofuels.

Transfield invested in Australian Biodiesel, but as Belgiorno-Nettis notes, it was not a success. The company was later absorbed into a US-based renewable energy company, Solverdi Worldwide.

An investment in the solar thermal energy developer Novatec Biosol holds greater promise. Transfield acquired a controlling stake in the German company in 2007 and now has a 1.4 megawatt (MW) plant in Spain and won a major award for industry innovation at the Hannover Fair earlier this year.

Novatec plans another 90MW of solar installations in Spain, but there are no immediate plans to bring the technology to Australia. “We don’t have anything here [in the form of government incentives] to rival Spain,” Belgiorno-Nettis says. “That’s why we are not here. People want to make commercial sense out of it … there are not many people running as a charity.”

Simon Holmes à Court, son of the late businessman Robert, is chairman of what will be Australia’s first community-owned wind farm, located near the twin towns of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs in Victoria. The project will install two 2MW turbines to provide enough energy for 2300 houses. The amount imported from the grid on calm days will be offset by that exported on windy days. The farm is based on the model in Denmark, where more than 5500 wind turbines are owned by about 200,000 households. The project has raised more than $7.3 million from more than 1100 mostly local investors, supplemented by a $3.1 million loan from the Bendigo Bank and a $1 million state government grant. Holmes à Court has contributed about 10 per cent of the equity. A further $1 million needs to be raised.

Holmes à Court says his interest in renewables was piqued when he looked at supplementing the energy supply of the family’s cattle properties in the Northern Territory with solar energy. He also owns a farm in Daylesford (off-grid and powered mostly by solar). An information stall on the local main street caught his eye and he was soon elected inaugural chair of the wind project. “It is a fantastic and empowering project for a community to undertake,” he says.

Once the project in Daylesford is completed – hopefully by mid-year – Holmes à Court plans to take the model to other Australian communities. He is already talking to one NSW community about harnessing solar and to a group from fire-torn Marysville about using fire-damaged plantation timber for a biomass power plant. Hepburn Wind has presented a paper to the federal government, in which it argues a $99 million investment could catalyse more than 100 such community-scale projects by 2020, worth more than $770 million and creating hundreds of jobs in regional Australia.

Holmes à Court and his wife Katrina are funding the establishment of Embark Australia, a proposed peak body for community renewable energy, which will invest in future initiatives. They have also invested in electric car start-up Better Place and a Scottish wind co-operative (Kilbrauer) similar to Hepburn Wind.

But Holmes à Court says it is neither the technology nor the money that excites him the most. “The Hepburn model is … about enabling communities to work together and constructively engage in the most serious issue of our time. I used to get frustrated at how slowly we were responding to climate change, but now I’m very optimistic. Smart money, smart people and community sentiment are moving quickly in the right direction.”

Purves is also focused on the environment as a long-term passion, an opportunity to make money and to influence government policy. He created the Purves Environmental Fund in 2003 with a $10 million contribution and has put another $5 million in more recently.

Purves is a former WWF Australia chairman and he remains a director. His fund has been a key supporter of climate change and environmental initiatives – including the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, Tim Flannery’s 2005 book The Weather Makers and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. But Purves is also keen to bridge the gap between business and environmental issues. He chairs Environment Business Australia and with Flannery he was instrumental in creating the Copenhagen Climate Council, which brings global business leaders together to consider opportunities in a low-carbon economy.

“The recurring message I’m hearing overseas is that there are opportunities in a carbon-constrained world. Major corporates such as GE say they see all their growth in this area, and we are starting to see that here with players such as Origin and AGL. Business is the most dynamic part of society. It can cope with change, it thrives on change.”

Purves also pursues green investments via his private investment group, though – possibly due to his business background – he tends to focus on “service industries” rather than on new technology. “Most investors tend to struggle with technology plays,” he says. “It creates uncertainty. You might have 20 per cent of the fund in emerging technology, but for the rest you have to get some certainty on returns.”

Although Purves insists advocacy is his passion, his roles within the environment movement and the business community place him in a unique position.

“I feel like I’m a corporate financier in environment. I am plugged into a lot of different organisations and hear a lot about what’s going on. I see many opportunities go by. Often I think: We don’t want to fund that, but I know someone who does.”

Martin Copley made his fortune in insurance underwriting in Britain before moving to Australia and devoting his life to wildlife conservation. His new mission was born after a visit to a sanctuary led him to fight what he sees as an “extinction crisis”. Copley invested millions of his own dollars in creating the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, before deciding he was unable “to do this on my own” and he turned AWC into a public charity in 2001. “There are a lot of generous supporters – people who were a success in business and wouldn’t be there unless they believed in the cause,” he says.

Fellow board members include the founder of Sealcorp, Graeme Morgan; scientist Tim Flannery; co-founder of Portfolio Partners and County NatWest Investment Management Keith Ince; and investment banker Ross Samuel.

“It’s all come together in a way that is highly gratifying. It’s a lovely thing to be involved in,” Copley says.

AWC now has 2.5 million hectares of land in 20 sanctuaries and hosts critical populations of some threatened Australia species. He says these populations are secure and growing. With more than 1500 species and 3000 ecosystems under threat of extinction, Copley says the task is beyond the capacity of government and politicians, whose timelines are very different from those of threatened animals.

“It is blindingly obvious that the government effort is failing by inaction. There are a lot of fine people and words, but programs are contracting all over the country. There is a huge vacuum.”

Copley says that while his focus is on the foundation, he has made one large investment in green technology. He is a major shareholder (as is Graeme Morgan) in the solar energy firm Solar Systems, which collapsed in early September.

“It’s terribly disappointing. I can’t believe that we haven’t succeeded. We have supported it long enough, now it’s time to get someone else in.”

Giles Parkinson writes the Greenchip column in the Monday business section of The Australian.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-deal-magazine

Lucky Last…..Two Bulls in a Paddock

ISSUES of climate change and sustainability have been reduced to a political contest between two bulls in a paddock. The result is that Australians have seen yet more years of inaction on climate change… Australia can’t afford inaction in a world of finite resources; it must pursue economic and environmental sustainability, or concede the advantage to early innovators. Instead, our politicians have been locked into an old, false and paralysing debate. Read More

Editorial in The Age (22 February 2010):

ISSUES of climate change and sustainability have been reduced to a political contest between two bulls in a paddock. Labor took its 2007 election mandate and, with little consultation with other parties on a policy for future decades, adopted a ”take it or leave it” approach to the complexities of emissions trading, daring the Coalition to risk another election on the issue. The opposition aims to make the election about Kevin Rudd’s ”big new tax”.

The result is that Australians have seen yet more years of inaction on climate change. Former opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull briefly appeared to have secured a bipartisan position, only for his party to turn on him, elect Tony Abbott as leader and reject the legislation.

The government had seemed determined to keep resubmitting the bills. Last week, signs of a rethink emerged. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong and Greens climate spokeswoman Christine Milne are believed to have made progress on a compromise that involves a tax of $23 a tonne of greenhouse gas for two years, giving Australia time to frame a carbon market as global negotiations proceed. The International Monetary Fund has already advocated a hybrid model of emissions trading and carbon taxes.

An interim deal with the Greens would need the votes of two other senators, most likely the two Liberals who crossed the floor on emissions trading legislation or independent Nick Xenophon. That would enable action on emissions and reduce business uncertainty. The opposition can be expected to exploit the politics of a new tax, but no one committed to action on climate change or sustainable development should shy from that debate.

Economists agree that a price must be put on carbon to induce markets to move away from an unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels. For some nations, this economic ”sacrifice” has already proven a long-term winner. Sweden imposed the world’s first carbon tax, of $US100 a tonne, in 1991 and today ranks in the four most competitive economies. The ultimate costs of sticking with the status quo are huge. That is why the G20 nations agreed last year to end fossil fuel subsidies – in Australia, the tax cost is about $9 billion a year. If subsidies were eliminated globally by 2020, the OECD estimates an emissions cut of 10 per cent by 2050.

The ever-increasing price the world pays to sustain carbon economies runs to tens of trillions of dollars in health, environmental and security costs. Even as the world stumbles out of a deep recession, the oil price is rebounding towards the once-unthinkable record level of $US150 a barrel. Nations such as the US, China and Germany are moving fast to reduce fossil fuel dependency. Global investment in renewable energy rose fourfold in the past four years. In 2008, for the first time, the US and European Union added more renewable power than conventional power capacity.

For Australia, inaction carries a huge cost in missed opportunities for technological and economic development. Australian energy technology has already been exported to other nations such as Germany and China for development into industries involving hundreds of thousands of jobs. The latest example is Australian-developed fuel cells, a cheaper, smarter alternative to spending billions on generating and distribution infrastructure to keep up with peak-load demand. Coal-fired stations account for a third of our emissions. Fuel cells’ efficiency in providing power and hot water could cut emissions from the average Victorian household by a third, or 18 tonnes a year. The new fuel cell factory and new jobs are to be found in Germany.

Even if not threatened by climate change, Australia can’t afford inaction in a world of finite resources; it must pursue economic and environmental sustainability, or concede the advantage to early innovators. Instead, our politicians have been locked into an old, false and paralysing debate.

Source: www.theage.com.au

Profile: Jennifer Lauber Patterson

While the Copenhagen process proved it is difficult for governments to agree on global targets, the desire to prevent climate change was shared by the majority of representatives from across both private and public sectors, says Jennifer Lauber Patterson. She also urges finance professionals interested in sustainability issues to make a contribution. “This is the right time to transition as opportunities in carbon accounting are growing as the number of specialists will need to expand.”

Jennifer Lauber Patterson has a track record of 20 years experience in the energy, renewable and carbon markets. Jennifer is a highly respected specialist in environmental markets and is a thought leader in sustainability strategy and low carbon product solutions.

From CPA’s In the Black Magazine (February 2010):

While the United Nations Climate Change Conference may not have come up with the binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions that many had hoped for, Jennifer Lauber Patterson CPA says that the global gathering nevertheless produced some positive outcomes that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Lauber Patterson, the director of Australian-based consulting firm Innovative Carbon, was nominated by the International Emissions Trading Association to attend the conference as a non-government organisation observer.

Lauber Patterson is a consultant specialising in advising industry on sustainability, carbon, and renewable and energy efficiency markets, and is a non-executive director of the London-based company Frontier Advisory that develops clean energy and carbon projects in devel­oping and developed countries.

“It’s true that Copenhagen didn’t achieve initial expectations, which is disappointing,” she notes.

“Those objectives were difficult as a few countries made negotiations challenging. However, other than a few countries, there was a lot of synergy in the way that the issues were discussed and the majority of the countries shared a common vision in combating climate change.”

The involvement of American and Chinese leaders is an impressive accomplishment alone, she notes, in addition to estimated 117 other heads of states who attended, making it the larg­est gathering of heads of states and governments in the history of the UN. While the Kyoto Protocol had established some measures to bind countries to reducing their own carbon emissions, this is the first time developing countries have been involved in making reduction commitments.

“A significant proportion of the increases in carbon emissions are going to come from developing countries in the future,” Lauber Patterson says. “We are not going to achieve our global targets with the involvement of developed countries alone. We need to have international mitigation targets.”

Going into the conference, many developing countries described how they were more than ready to go low-carbon, but were limited by their access to funding and technology. In this respect, Lauber Patterson says the conference made some major advancements, pledging US$30 billion a year for poor countries to 2012, rising to US$100 billion a year by 2020.

Moving forward

Lauber Patterson was most impressed with the general global momentum towards preventing climate change, saying that it was far stronger than she had initially expected. While it proved difficult for governments to agree on global targets, the desire to prevent climate change was shared by the majority of representa­tives from across both private and public sectors.

“While different policies exist in different countries, I was actu­ally quite excited by the fact that countries are moving forward towards lower carbon economies,” says Lauber Patterson. “From an economic perspective, the majority recognise that the longer you wait to implement carbon reduction schemes, the more it will cost your economy in the long run.”

Lauber Patterson notes that a number of heads of state outlined steps that they are already taking to reduce emissions, even without a legally binding, global agreement.

China pledged to reduce its carbon intensity (being the level of greenhouse gases it emits per unit of economic activity) by 40–45 per cent by 2020 relative to its 2005 carbon intensity, while Japan said it would reduce its emissions by 25 per cent of 1990 levels.

South Korea recently announced it would reduce emissions by 30 per cent of business as usual levels. The US pledged a 17 per cent reduction of 2005 levels by 2020, and by more than 80 per cent by 2050. The EU had already committed to a target of 20 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020 with the potential to increase this target to 30 per cent within the framework of an international agreement.

While Lauber Patterson has traditionally considered economic growth an important reason to support climate change, in addition to saving the planet, meeting delegates from all over the world gave her a fresh perspective on other potential positive outcomes.

“What was most outstanding for me was understanding the issues of developing countries, and understanding the opportunities that climate change can present to alleviate poverty,” she says. On the flight from London to Copenhagen, she sat next to a delegate from Kenya, who told her about his vision to use the initiative as a way to empower women.

“He explained to me that women who lose their partners and are not educated do not have the capability to support their families. Jobs created through climate change mitigation provides these women with the opportunity to learn new skills and obtain employment, which can save precious children’s lives,” says Lauber Patterson.

Leading change

As for the role of finance professionals in all of this, Lauber Patterson embodies the leading role they can play. She started off her own career preparing financial reports and business plans, and later moved into energy trading, where she started to focus on green energy. Prior to her current role as a consultant, she worked for the ANZ Banking Group as the director of electricity, renewables and emissions.

She credits much of her current success to her background as a finance professional and her CPA Australia training.

“A CPA Australia background has been so valuable in providing me with the analytical and numerical skills that are important to apply in energy and carbon trading,” she notes. “I can understand the implications of carbon to a business and these are all factors to consider when establishing strategies on how to create a competitive advantage and manage risks effectively.”

When emissions reporting requirements were first established, Lauber Patterson says that they traditionally fell under the responsibility of the head of sustainability. However, the complexity of emissions reporting and its implications to annual reporting naturally lends itself better to someone in a financial position, and in an increasing number of companies the responsibility is falling to the CFO.

“The CFO is best placed to ensure that the systems and processes are in place to ensure that the information is accurate,” says Lauber Patterson.

With few specialists in the field, she notes that now is a key time for finance professionals interested in sustainability issues to make a contribution.  “If you are a CPA and passionate about the environment, this is the right time to transition as opportunities in carbon accounting are growing as the number of specialists will need to expand.”

This appeared in the February issue of CPA’s In The Black magazine. Read other articles:

The Green Space Race; Green Profits; Natural Resources; What’s in a Word – Sustainability; Emissions trading

Source: www.cpaaustralia.com.au

Jennifer  Lauber Patterson commenced her career in the Utilities Sector. During this time Jennifer developed and managed derivative operations for Southern Hydro Partnership (A hydro generator) and Edison Mission Energy (Coal/gas generation company) It was 13 years ago at Southern Hydro that Jennifer executed her first green energy transaction.

In 2001 Jennifer moved to the Banking Industry as the Director, Electricity, Renewable and Emissions at ANZ Bank, one of Australia’s largest banks. At ANZ she established the electricity, renewable and carbon sales business. ANZ had a strong focus on Corporate Social Responsibility and was awarded as the Most Sustainable Bank in the World as rated by the Sustainability Dow Jones Index during 2007 and 2008. Jennifer assisted customers in Australia and abroad in managing their carbon and renewable risks and identifying opportunities that existed with a global move towards a lower carbon economy.

Jennifer left ANZ this year and is consulting to a number of large corporations, government departments and green companies in the fields of the Australian Renewable Energy Target and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

Jennifer is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, CPA, Bachelor of Business & Diploma in Financial Services.

Source: www.frontier-advisors.co.uk and www.innovativecarbon.com.au

Is “Terrapower” the Energy Miracle the World Needs?

“The formula is a very straight forward one,” Bill Gates said. “More carbon dioxide equals temperature increase equals negative effects like collapsed ecosystems. We have to get to zero.” Microsoft co-founder has broken from philanthropic work fighting poverty and disease to take on another threat to the world’s poor — climate change.

By Glenn Chapman  for AFP (13 February 2010):  

LONG BEACH, California — Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has broken from philanthropic work fighting poverty and disease to take on another threat to the world’s poor — climate change.

“Energy and climate are extremely important to these people,” Gates told a TED Conference  audience packed with influential figures including the founders of Google and climate champion Al Gore.

“The climate getting worse means many years that crops won’t grow from too much rain or not enough, leading to starvation and certainly unrest.”

Gates said he is backing development of “terrapower” reactors that could be fueled by nuclear waste from disposal facilities or generated by today’s power plants.

He broke down variables in a carbon-dioxide-culprit formula, homing in on a conclusion that the answer to the problem is a source of energy that produces no carbon.

“The formula is a very straight forward one,” Gates said. “More carbon dioxide equals temperature increase equals negative effects like collapsed ecosystems. We have to get to zero.”

To dramatize his point, Gates pulled out a large jar of fireflies in playful flashback to when he unleashed mosquitoes on a TED audience a year earlier while discussing battling malaria.

“They won’t bite,” Gates joked of the fireflies. “As a matter of fact, they might not even leave this jar.”

Gates touted terrapower as more reliable than wind or solar, cleaner than burning coal or natural gas, and safer than current nuclear plants.

“With the right materials approach it could work,” Gates said. “Because you burn 99 percent of the waste, it is kind of like a candle.”

Nuclear waste fed into a terrapower reactor would potentially burn for decades before being exhausted.

“Today we are always refueling the reactor so lot of controls and lots of things that can go wrong,” Gates said. “That is not good. With this, you have a piece of fuel, think of it like a log, that burns for 60 years and it is done.”

Researching and testing terrapower will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, with the building of a test reactor likely to cost in the billions. Once the technology is proven, market forces will drive down costs, Gates predicted.

Work on terrapower has been done in France and Japan, and there has been interest in India, Russia, China and the United States, according to the famed philanthropist.

Gates said that if he were allowed a single wish in the coming 50 years, it would be a global “zero carbon” culture.

“If I could pick a president or a vaccine, which I love, this is the wish I would pick,” he said.

“We need energy miracles. The microprocessor and Internet are miracles. This is a case where we have to drive and get the miracle in a short time-line.”

Gates dismissed climate change skeptics, saying terrapower would render arguments moot because the energy produced would be cheaper than pollution-spewing methods used today.

“The skeptics will accept it because it is cheaper,” Gates said. “The might wish it did put out CO2, but they will take it.”

The world is at “an extraordinary moment” in the struggle to save the climate balance, according to former US vice president Al Gore.

A vital step will be to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions so the cost of polluting the air gets factored into the global economy.

Legislation to do that has cleared the US House of Representatives and must fight its way through the Senate, where it needs only a few more supporters to send the law on to the willing pen of President Barack Obama, Gore said.

“A price on carbon dioxide emissions can help us make the right decision, not only on nuclear, solar, and wind but on the gamut of energy alternatives available to us,” Gore said.

Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection has organized groups in 22 US states with “swing senators” in the hope getting the legislation passed “before the political season gets completely wild.”

“These next few months represent the last feasible political window for quite some time to get this done,” Gore said. “So much is at stake we have to double down.”

Source: www.google.com

The Percentage Game for Climate Change, Energy & Emissions

The latest Newspoll shows there is little change in the percentage of Australians who believed climate change was either partly or entirely a result of human activity, down from 96% in 2008 to 94% now, but they have been turning off Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme at a faster rate. While the nation could move to 100% renewable energy within a decade if it spent heavily on cutting-edge solar thermal and wind technology, says Beyond Zero Emissions in its Transition Decade plan.

Adam Morton in The Age (15 February 2010):

AUSTRALIA could move to 100 per cent renewable energy within a decade if it spent heavily on cutting-edge solar thermal and wind technology, according to an analysis released as part of a community bid to redirect the flailing climate policy debate.

The shift would require the annual investment of up to $40 billion – roughly 3.5 per cent of national GDP – with the largest chunk going towards solar thermal power plants that used molten-salt heat storage to allow power generation to continue without sunlight.

The plan by advocacy group Beyond Zero Emissions was outlined at the launch of the Transition Decade, or T10, a grassroots campaign hoping to garner support for dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Pitched as a response to the failure to introduce national and state policies to substantially reduce emissions, T10 won support yesterday from the City of Melbourne, the Australian Greens and Victorian Governor David de Kretser.

Launching the campaign, Professor de Kretser said Australia had a responsibility to act.

”If every person in the world generated greenhouse gas emissions per person equivalent to those of each Australian today, the levels would quickly exceed those predicted to cause very dangerous global warming,” he told more than 1000 people at the Melbourne Town Hall. ”The consequences for planet Earth … would be disastrous.”

Under the Beyond Zero Emissions model, concentrated solar thermal plants at 12 sites across the country would meet 60 per cent of national energy demands. They would be supplemented by wind and photovoltaic solar panels, with existing hydroelectricity and biomass from burning crop remains as back-up.

Beyond Zero Emissions spokesman Mark Ogge said developments overseas had shown the claims that renewable energy could not provide baseload power had no basis.

Spain plans to install enough concentrated solar thermal in the next three years to power half of Victoria, with capacity six times greater than this in development.

Mr Ogge conceded the estimated investment was huge, but said it should not seen as just a cost.

”All these power plants pay themselves off over their lifetime,” he said. ”When you finish we’ve got a brand new renewable energy system that is going to last 50 years at least and have no fuel costs.”

Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne said the government and opposition were too invested in ”business-as-usual” politics to support the change needed to combat climate change.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the government was continuing to negotiate with all parties in a bid to have the scheme passed. He again alluded to a possible double dissolution if the bill was defeated.

”Whenever the next election is held, and whatever form that election takes, both emissions trading and action on climate change will be front and centre,” Mr Rudd told Network Ten’s Meet the Press.

Source: www.theage.com.au

Dennis Shanahan, Political editor  for  The Australian (16 February 2010):

VOTERS have been turning off Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme at a faster rate than they have stopped believing in the existence of climate change.

Although Australians overwhelmingly believe climate change exists and it is at least partly a result of human activity, there has been a sharp rise in the percentage of people who do not believe in climate change.

The shift follows the collapse of the UN’s climate change conference in Copenhagen in December and widespread publicity of false claims in the UN’s 2007 climate change report.

In the week when the Rudd government made its latest attempt to pass an ETS through parliament, public opposition to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme jumped.

The Prime Minister remains committed to the ETS as a central part of the government’s election strategy and continues to attack Coalition opposition to the CPRS.

According to the latest Newspoll survey, taken exclusively for The Australian last weekend, support for the CPRS fell from 67 per cent two months before the Copenhagen summit and before Tony Abbott became Opposition Leader, to 57 per cent.

In October 2008, support for the CPRS was at 72 per cent.

Since Copenhagen and the release of climate change scientists’ emails casting doubt on their research and false claims being exposed in the UN’s 2007 climate report, opposition to an ETS jumped from 22 to 34 per cent.

Since mid-December, Mr Abbott has been campaigning against the ETS as a “great big new tax on everything”, while Mr Rudd has accused the Opposition Leader of believing climate change science is “absolute crap”.

Under Mr Abbott’s predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, the Coalition supported the government’s ETS.

There has also been a fall in the percentage of people who believe in climate change. In July 2008, 84 per cent of those surveyed believed climate change was happening and only 12 per cent did not believe it existed at all. Last weekend, the number who believed climate change existed had dropped to 73 per cent, down 11 points, and those who did not believe in it rose 10 points to 22 per cent.

Overall there was little change in the percentage of people who believed climate change was either partly or entirely a result of human activity, down from 96 per cent in 2008 to 94 per cent.

However, the percentage of voters who thought humans entirely responsible for climate change was down eight points to 24 per cent, while there was a rise among those who thought humans partly responsible, from 64 to 70 per cent.

Young people were the most strongly convinced of humanity’s part in climate change and those most supportive of an ETS to cut greenhouse gas emissions by establishing a carbon market.

Those least convinced of humanity’s role in climate change were aged over 50.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au

New US Climate Service Good for Business & Jobs

 “By providing critical planning information that our businesses and our communities need, NOAA Climate Service will help tackle head-on the challenges of mitigating and adapting to climate change,” said US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. “In the process, we’ll discover new technologies, build new businesses and create new jobs.”

New office would target nation’s fast-accelerating climate information needs

NOAA launches www.climate.gov as portal for climate science and services

NOAA announcement (8 February 2010):

Individuals and decision-makers across widely diverse sectors – from agriculture to energy to transportation – increasingly are asking NOAA for information about climate change in order to make the best choices for their families, communities and businesses.

To meet the rising tide of these requests, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the intent to create a NOAA Climate Service line office dedicated to bringing together the agency’s strong climate science and service delivery capabilities.

NOAA responds to millions of annual requests for climate data vital to planning and operations. In vulnerable areas, infrastructure can be designed with a better understanding of projected sea-level rise, flooding and/or changes in hurricane frequency and intensity.

More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives.

“By providing critical planning information that our businesses and our communities need, NOAA Climate Service will help tackle head-on the challenges of mitigating and adapting to climate change,” said Secretary Locke. “In the process, we’ll discover new technologies, build new businesses and create new jobs.”

“Working closely with federal, regional, academic and other state and local government and private sector partners, the new NOAA Climate Service will build on our success transforming science into useable climate services,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

 “NOAA is committed to scientific integrity and transparency; we seek to advance science and strengthen product development and delivery through user engagement.”

Leaders from numerous public and private sector entities support the creation of NOAA Climate Service.

NOAA researchers collect climate data throughout the world. This data yields important clues about long-term global changes, improving predictions of climate variations in the shorter term, such as during cold spells and periods of drought, and over centuries.

 “Addressing climate change is one of our most pressing environmental challenges. Making climate science more easily accessible to all Americans will help us gain the consensus we need to move forward,” said Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy.

“The new NOAA Climate Service is a welcome addition. It will help bring people together so we can also bring about an economic recovery by more rapidly modernizing our nation’s energy infrastructure.”

“NOAA has consistently led the world in climate research and observation,” said Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change.

“Businesses, communities and governments will rely even more on its expertise and the critical information it provides to make informed decisions based on the best science available. Through NOAA’s improved climate services we will be better able to confront climate change, and the many challenges it presents for our environment, security, and economy.”

“The establishment of NOAA Climate Service will be an important step forward in helping the nation better understand and forecast the changing climate. The Navy’s Task Force Climate Change looks forward to working closely with NOAA Climate Service to ensure that both the nation and the Navy are best prepared for the future challenges posed by climate change,” said RADM Dave Titley, oceanographer of the Navy and director of the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change.

“NOAA’s reorganization to consolidate its formidable capabilities relating to climate science and services in a single office is an important step forward in the larger effort of harnessing relevant capabilities across all the executive branch agencies to help citizens and businesses plan for and cope with climate change,” said Shere Abbott, associate director for environment and energy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Unifying NOAA’s climate capabilities under a single climate office will integrate the agency’s climate science and services and make them more accessible to NOAA partners and other users. Planning has been, and continues to be, shaped by input from NOAA employees and stakeholders across the country, with close consideration given to the recommendations of the NOAA Science Advisory Board, National Academies and National Academy of Public Administration.

NOAA Climate Service will encompass a core set of longstanding NOAA capabilities with proven success. The climate research, observations, modeling, predictions and assessments generated by NOAA’s top scientists – including Nobel Peace Prize award-winners – will continue to provide the scientific foundation for extensive on-the-ground climate services that respond to millions of requests annually for data and other critical information.

Thomas R. Karl, director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, will serve as transitional director of NOAA Climate Service. New positions for six NOAA Regional Climate Services Directors will be announced soon and will provide regional leadership for integrating user engagement and on-the-ground service delivery within the Climate Service.

NOAA Launches Landmark Climate.gov Portal

NOAA is also unveiling today a new Web site – http://www.climate.gov – that serves as a single point-of-entry for NOAA’s extensive climate information, data, products and services. Known as the NOAA Climate Portal, the site addresses the needs of five broadly-defined user groups: decision makers and policy leaders, scientists and applications-oriented data users, educators, business users and the public.

Highlights of the portal include an interactive “climate dashboard” that shows a range of constantly updating climate datasets (e.g., temperature, carbon dioxide concentration and sea level) over adjustable time scales; the new climate science magazine ClimateWatch, featuring videos and articles of scientists discussing recent climate research and findings; and an array of data products and educational resources.

NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.

Source: www.noaanews.noaa.gov

Year of the Tiger Only Good For  Some!

Some conservationists worry that the coming year could be a bad one for tigers. During the Year of the Tiger there could be an increased use of tiger body parts in traditional Chinese medicine, a practice that’s now illegal but continues on the black market. So WWF has launched a new campaign to protect tigers.

ABC AM programme  (13 February 2010):

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Tonight it’s New Year’s Eve in China and Chinese people all over the world will usher in the Year of the Tiger with food, fun and plenty of fireworks. 

But some conservationists worry that the coming year could be a bad one for tigers. The fear is that during the Year of the Tiger, there could be an increased use of tiger body parts in traditional Chinese medicine, a practice that’s now illegal but continues on the black market. So a new campaign has been launched to try and use this year to protect tigers.

Our China correspondent Stephen McDonell reports.

STEPHEN MCDONELL: In the forests along the Chinese borders with North Korea and Russia, wild tigers move through the deep snow but their numbers are ever dwindling – some say there could be as few as 15 or 20.

Tonight Chinese people will welcome the Year of the Tiger celebrating with their family and friends but this might not be such a great 12 months for this endangered animal. Traditionally ground up bone and other tiger body parts were used in Chinese medicine. But in 1993 it was made illegal. Yet a black market for tiger parts still thrives, meaning poachers get big money for catching and killing tigers.

The fear is that during the Year of the Tiger some people will especially want to use tiger medicine.

Dr Zhu Chunquan is biodiversity conservation director for the Worldwide Fund for Nature in China. 

(Zhu Chunquan speaking)

He told the ABC that there’s a real problem in parts of Chinese tradition and history that’s led some people to believe in the medicinal qualities of tiger bones when genuine medicine manufacturers and hospitals here don’t use them.

(Stephen McDonell speaking Chinese)

I asked if he expected to see an increase in black market demand for tiger body parts during the Year of the Tiger?

(Zhu Chunquan speaking)

“There is that possibility,” he said, but added, “We hope that through Government, media and NGO publicity this could reduce the use of tiger products and hence reduce the pressure on wild tigers”.

(Sound of tiger growling)

Conservationists, scientists and Government officials have come together here to try and use the Year of the Tiger to preserve the animals rather than threaten them. Apart from public awareness campaigns there has been renewed scientific research into the remaining wild tigers – especially those in the north-east. The feeling is that the North East has the best hope for increasing wild tiger numbers. 

If forest habitat destruction can be turned around, corridors could be preserved to allow Chinese tigers to link up with much larger populations in Russia. This would protect the animals with a wider gene pool. Government officials have also made it illegal to hunt the deer and boar that tigers eat but not many people have been prosecuted for breaking this law.

Xie Yan is a tiger researcher in China for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

XIE YAN: For the tiger conservation, actually the law is quite enough because anything related with tigers is illegal and in the north-east of China any hunting of the prey of tigers are illegal. The problem is the law enforcement is very weak.

(Sound of tiger growling)

STEPHEN MCDONELL: The overall goal is for there to be more wild animals here by the time the next Year of the Tiger comes around in just over a decade. The other alternative…

(Sound of tiger growling)

STEPHEN MCDONELL: …is that there are no wild tigers left here.

This is Stephen McDonell in Beijing for Saturday AM.

Source: www.abc.net.au

Report from WWF International on its Save the Tiger Campaign:

WWF outlines the current top 10 trouble spots for tigers in a first-time interactive map that provides a unique overview of threats faced by wild tigers.

The map comes as many Asian countries and the world prepare to celebrate the start of the Year of the Tiger, which begins on Feb. 14.

However, there are only an estimated 3,200 tigers left in the wild, and they face increasing threats including habitat loss, illegal trade and climate change, according to the map.

There is hope though, as tiger range countries, conservation groups and organizations such as The World Bank will gather in Russia in September to lay out an ambitious agenda for saving wild tigers at a special summit.

“Tigers are being persecuted across their range – poisoned, trapped, snared, shot and squeezed out of their homes,” said Mike Baltzer, Leader of WWF’s Tiger Initiative. “But there is hope for them in this Year of the Tiger. There has never been such a committed, ambitious, high-level commitment from governments to double wild tiger numbers. They have set the bar high and we hope for the sake of both the tiger and people that they reach it. Tigers are a charismatic species and a flagship for Asia’s biological diversity, culture and economy.”

In the lead up to the summit, all 13 tiger range countries recently committed to the goal of doubling tiger numbers in the wild by 2022 at a 1st Asian ministerial conference on tiger conservation in Hua Hin, Thailand.

The map is designed to raise awareness of these issues and help tiger range states achieve this crucial goal.

Additional threats to wild tigers highlighted in the map include:

Pulp, paper, palm oil and rubber companies are devastating the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia with critical tiger populations; Hundreds of new or proposed dams and roads in the Mekong region will fragment tiger habitat; Illegal trafficking in tiger bones, skins and meat feeds continued demand in East, Southeast Asia and elsewhere; More tigers are kept in captivity in the U.S. state of Texas than are left in the wild — and there are few regulations to keep these tigers from ending up on the black market; Poaching of tigers and their prey, along with a major increase in logging is taking a heavy toll on Amur, or Siberian, tigers; Tigers and humans are increasingly coming into conflict in India as tiger habitats shrink; Climate change could reduce tiger habitat in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangroves by 96 percent.

Already, three tiger sub-species have gone extinct since the 1940s and a fourth one, the South China tiger, has not been seen in the wild in 25 years.

Tigers live in 40 percent less habitat since the last Year of the Tiger in 1998, and they occupy just seven percent of their historic range. But they thrive in the wild when they have strong protection from poaching and habitat loss and enough prey to eat.“We know that wild tigers need protection, prey and secure habitat, but these alone will not save the big cats”, said Amanda Nickson, Director of the Species Programme at WWF International.

“What is also needed is sustained political will from the highest level of government in the tiger range states and this Year of the Tiger, and at the summit, these countries will have the chance to commit to making tiger conservation work.”

A glimpse of hope

Although the map shows many trouble spots, there is still hope for wild tigers. New camera trap photos of a tigress and one of her cubs obtained from a selectively logged-over forest in Malaysia show that tigers may be able to persist in such altered habitats.

The photo shows the tigress checking out a WWF camera trap with one of her two cubs. Researchers from WWF-Malaysia working in the area have caught the same female tiger on camera several times during the last several years, but this was the first time they saw that she had become a mother.

The photos, taken around September 2009, were from a camera trap retrieved last month, and set on a ridge of about 800 meters in elevation.

“This is really encouraging to see a mother with her cub,” said Mark Rayan Darmaraj, senior field biologist, WWF Malaysia. “Such rare photographic evidence of breeding success magnifies the importance of this habitat for tiger conservation in Malaysia.”

Source: www.panda.org

Pollution Price Rise Needed to Drive Clean Investment

The price of emitting a tonne of carbon would have to rise from E15 (A$23) to about E100 a tonne to discourage pollution and drive new investment in low-carbon technology, according to a UK all-party committee chaired by senior Conservative MP Tim Yeo. It did confirm that emissions trading was still the best way to reduce carbon emissions but it needed tighter targets, backed by other measures, such as a carbon tax or minimum prices.

Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent From: The Australian February 13, 2010

THE only large-scale “pollution trading” system in the world, run by the European Union, is failing to deliver green energy investment and will not succeed without a radical hike in the price imposed on polluters, British MPs say.

The price of emitting a tonne of carbon would have to rise from E15 ($23) to about E100 a tonne to discourage pollution and drive new investment in low-carbon technology, according to an all-party committee chaired by senior Conservative MP Tim Yeo.

The British MPs’ conclusion that the EU’s emissions trading scheme is too soft on polluters is a stark warning to the Rudd government, which is proposing an emission trading system even more generous to heavy polluters.

The Rudd government’s reliance on market-based emissions trading is the biggest difference between the Labor and opposition climate change policies.

A lengthy review of Europe’s 27-nation ETS by the House of Commons’ environment audit committee concluded that emissions trading was still the best way to reduce carbon emissions but it needed tighter emissions targets and may have to be backed by other measures, such as a carbon tax or minimum prices.

“If the government wants to kick-start serious green investment, it must step in to stop the price of carbon flatlining,” Mr Yeo said.

As many carbon permits as possible should be auctioned instead of being issued free to heavy polluters, the British MPs said. The Rudd government has sought to placate industry opponents by promising large-scale allocations of free permits to heavy polluters such as power generators.

The most potent lesson from Europe for countries considering carbon trading schemes is that it is not worth doing unless it imposes enough rigour on the market to change the behaviour of investors and polluters.

Mr Yeo, an environment minister in the government of John Major, said emissions trading “should be helping us to combat climate change, but at the moment the price of carbon simply isn’t high enough to make it work”.

“The recession has left many big firms with more carbon allowances than they need and carbon prices have collapsed.”

Mr Yeo said the European scheme should one day join up with Australian and other schemes to form a global system but the looser standards of the foreign proposals would create the need for safeguards to protect the rigour of the European scheme.

A carbon “exchange rate” would be necessary to stop more freely available foreign credits from undermining the European prices, he said.

“Only a global effort will make a real difference in tackling climate change. Other countries outside Europe are developing emissions trading schemes, and these need to be joined up.

“The government and the rest of Europe should actively push for this, while ensuring that in doing so action is taken to at least maintain the carbon price.”

The committee reported that Britain, “with its European partners, should ensure that schemes are not merged without a well-founded `exchange rate’ in place.”

Britain’s main business lobby, the Confederation of British Industry, backed the committee’s warning that carbon prices were too low.

CBI deputy director-general John Cridland said emissions trading “remains the best way to reduce carbon emissions cost-effectively, and is currently helping to achieve Kyoto Protocol and EU 2020 emissions targets”.

The House of Commons committee heard evidence from a fund manager specialising in low-carbon investments that part of the problem was the success of major polluters in pleading for a soft start to emissions trading.

Climate Change Capital executive director James Cameron said it was crucial “not to have gentle sloping starts” despite “the evidence you generally get from industry, who tell you, be gentle on us to begin with”.

Mr Cameron said such pleading “has been very successful recently in Australia: don’t touch us now that the economy is in trouble”.

“Actually the reverse is true. You really want emissions trading to confront you right away with a significant challenge to make you face up to the obligation to reduce” emissions and make the consequent investment decisions.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au