Wharton Social Impact: Business is Making Sustainability Mainstream

“Sustainability has become more mainstream now,” says Eliza Eubank, assistant vice president for the environmental and social risk management department at Citigroup. “It is not just something that the do-gooder environmentalist cares about. It is something that is on the priority list of CEOs.”  This came out of the recent Wharton Social Impact conference in the US. In fact, for savvy companies, a strategy built around sustainability can be a critical advantage, Boston Consulting Group senior partner Martin Reeves pointed out.

From  Knowledge@Wharton (19 January 2011):

If building a sustainable enterprise was a fashionable trend five years ago, today it is a business imperative. Forward-looking corporations have figured out that a focus on environmental, social and governmental (ESG) factors is not just a bid to burnish their image, but rather it is a necessity in today’s marketplace. And if done well, it is a true competitive advantage.

A panel of senior executives from consulting, banking and the chemical industries sat down to debate and discuss this critical shift during the recent Wharton Social Impact conference.

The panel, “Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility: Is ESG the New CSR?” included participants from a variety of backgrounds and experience. Still, all were in agreement that what was a somewhat nebulous (but fashionable) movement five or 10 years ago has become a focused, integrated way of doing business at many firms.

“Sustainability has become more mainstream now,” said Eliza Eubank, assistant vice president for the environmental and social risk management department at Citigroup. “It is not just something that the do-gooder environmentalist cares about. It is something that is on the priority list of CEOs.” Stephane N’Diaye, senior manager of strategy-sustainability at consulting firm Accenture, echoed that view. The progress over the last several years in sustainability efforts, he noted, stems from “where it stands on the CEO’s agenda.”

In fact, for savvy companies, a strategy built around sustainability can be a critical advantage, Boston Consulting Group senior partner Martin Reeves pointed out. Even when government action puts more burdens on business, Reeves said there can be an upside. When you change the rules of the game, you “are putting a floor on certain behaviors [and] raising barriers to entry.” Case in point: the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration, which Reeves contended “essentially took a snake oil industry and turned it into an industry with very strict scientific standards.”

Certainly a focus on sustainability has changed the way many big firms operate on a daily basis. Citigroup’s Eubank pointed to the firm’s work in financing projects such as oil and gas pipelines. The bank requires borrowers for those types of projects to meet certain environmental and social guidelines.

 ”We work with our sponsors who are developing these projects to make sure they have consulted the local community, that they are using adequate pollution control technology, and that they have good environmental and health and safety standards for their workers,” Eubank said. There are real repercussions for failing to meet those standards. “We agree on an environmental action plan, which is a formal to-do list that the company needs to follow in order to bring their operation into compliance with international standards. It actually becomes an event of default if they stop complying with the environmental standards that we require of them.”

According to Eubank, the motivation for this push comes from practical concerns. For one thing, the loans are repaid when the project becomes operational and starts generating cash. So if the project sponsor has done a poor job of building local support for a pipeline, for example, there is a risk that someone will sabotage the project, potentially delaying the repayment to Citigroup.

In addition, if lenders like Citigroup fail to police their borrowers, they run the risk that their own brand becomes tarnished. The reason: Over the last decade, environmental groups began focusing their campaigns on the companies financing controversial projects. “You don’t want to be on the front page of The New York Times [with a headline] saying ‘Citigroup financed some mine and this mine spilled cyanide into the local river and poisoned the drinking water for all the villages downstream,’” Eubank noted.

Accenture’s N’Diaye said that concern about reputational risk is widespread. According to a 2010 survey of more than 750 CEOs by Accenture and the United Nations Global Compact, 93% viewed sustainability as important to their future success, while 72% said “strengthening [the] brand, trust and motivation” was the biggest driver of their action on sustainability issues.

In fact, the right sustainability formula can transform a brand. N’Diaye pointed to the Swedish burger chain Max Hamburgerrestauranger AB. In 2007, the company, in response to evidence that the meat industry was a key contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, overhauled its business. The chain measured the climate impact of its food from the farm to the restaurant and printed that information on its labels.

In addition, the firm shifted to wind energy and has supported reforestation projects in places like Uganda. The result: Between 2007 and 2009, an independent survey found customer loyalty for the chain spiked 27%, mostly driven by its sustainability blitz.

“Here is a company that in the downturn has invested pretty heavily in environmental sustainability, in social sustainability and in paying attention to the consumer and making bold choices,” N’Diaye said. “With all of those programs, they still manage to keep growing revenues.”

Growing Green

Despite these success stories, however, the science of understanding how such social and environmental programs drive consumer behavior remains an inexact one. “We don’t have the right metrics,” N’Diaye noted. “We haven’t done a good job of tying sustainability performance with business performance. We need to better understand the consumer and see how sustainability can drive the purchase decision. About 75% of people would say, ‘All things being equal, I would buy green’. How you translate that into an actual purchase decision … is something else.”

Beyond brand protection, however, there are some very tangible benefits to these practices, as panelists made clear. Catherine Hunt, R&D director of external science and technology for Dow Chemical, said sustainable business practices can drive profitability. “If you use less energy, that affects your bottom line. If you generate less waste and, particularly in the chemical industry, [if] you don’t have to get rid of chemical waste, you improve your bottom line.”

Indeed, for companies like Dow that are actually developing green products, finding a showcase for those efforts can enhance their brands while expanding their markets. Dow’s Hunt highlighted her company’s co-sponsorship of RetroFIT Philly’s “Coolest Block” contest, in which Philadelphia neighborhoods competed to win an energy efficiency overhaul of their homes, including installation of a “cool roof” using Dow technology.

“The Dow Chemical Company Foundation funded this,” Hunt stated. “And I was asked ‘If you paid, what is sustainable about that?’ But it is about education. If you don’t know what it means to have a cool roof, and what a difference that makes to your neighborhood, you are not going to do it.”

For other companies, the benefits to their business may be less obvious but no less critical. According to Boston Consulting Group’s Reeves, one of the biggest challenges for his industry is finding and retaining the right employees. That talent pool is a product of the education system in this country, which Reeves noted “is not in a great state.”

That is why BCG has partnered with Chicago Public Schools, which teaches some 400,000 children, in an effort to boost performance and cut the dropout rate. The firm put its consulting expertise to work, analyzing what was wrong with the Chicago system, where, for every 100 freshman high school students, a scant six go on to graduate college. The project resulted in new efforts, including a scorecard for parents of high school students and new, intensive support for math, science and English teachers in struggling schools.

More recently, Reeves was part of a team using a logistic regression model to understand what was causing the unacceptably high rate of high school shootings. “We are applying analytical, business approaches to a social problem,” Reeves said. “Some of this is not about new ideas, but it is about applying existing ideas and clear thinking to places where that has been absent.”

And when it comes to borrowing good ideas on sustainability, the panel made it clear that innovation can come from surprising sources. Citigroup’s Eubank pointed out that Chinese banking regulators have required banks in that country to take a look at the environmental impact of their lending activities.

“The Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission came down with a mandate that all banks in China need to start developing environmental policies,” Eubank said. “There is actually a black list of about 200 companies in China that banks are not allowed to finance because they are too polluting.” A representative from the Commission visited with Citigroup executives last summer and talked to them about the policy.

Among the panel’s key messages was that the need to address ESG issues will only intensify over time, in part because the next generation of business leaders is demanding it. One of the audiences most keenly interested in the report Citigroup puts out annually on its sustainability record, Eubank noted, is the company’s recruiting operation.

“Students these days are much more environmentally aware, and they want to know what a company’s sustainability policies are,” Eubank said. “Bankers want to know that they are working for a company that is being responsible.”

Source: www.knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu

Singapore Launches Eco Food Courts & Envirofriendly Gets Down to Work

An obsession with food and a growing desire to do more for the environment has led to the establishment of a new certification standard for food courts, introduced by the Singapore Environment Council. Meanwhile Australia’s innovative liquid waste solution, Envirofriendly is getting down to work in Singapore at two Sentosa resorts and in the Environment Building.

Singapore Environment Council (19 January 2011):

Singapore, 19 January 2011 – Food courts are undeniably the most popular and ubiquitous communal spaces in Singapore. Their operations generate huge amounts of waste and consume massive amounts of energy and water every day. To address these environmental challenges, the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) today launched the Eco-Foodcourt certification to facilitate the adoption of environmentally sustainable practices among local foodcourt operators.

“It was reported last year that Singapore saw an alarming increase of 31 percent of waste generated since 2000, with food waste as one of the top five waste types. A natural choice was to focus on foodcourts as they are a great avenue to not only reduce waste but also to save resources. Foodcourts are a great platform for outreach on conservation and recycling because they are a big part of our culture in food-loving Singapore,” said Mr Howard Shaw, SEC Executive Director.

The Eco-Foodcourt certification assesses the environmental management system in a foodcourt. It addresses the key components of a food court’s environmental policies, air quality, the twin resource of water and energy management, as well as waste management.

One of the mandatory requirements for attainment of the Eco-Foodcourt status is the non-usage of Styrofoam packaging as a takeaway option for customers. This is a tough stance taken by SEC to promote the reduction of the harmful impact on our environment and to introduce environmentally preferable options such as biodegradable packaging.

Guest-of-Honour, Dr Amy Khor, Minister of State, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, unveiled Singapore’s first Eco-Foodcourt, The Deck at Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences (FASS), at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The NUS is the first educational institution to be awarded this certification. Also receiving this award at the launch was the Kopitiam @City Square Mall from the commercial food and beverage (F&B) sector.

“We are pleased to be awarded the Singapore Environment Council’s Eco-Foodcourt Certification which recognises the environmentally sustainable practices implemented at the The Deck at FASS. As the University continues to strive for positive solutions to pressing environmental problems, the adoption of these sustainable initiatives reduces the environmental impact of canteen operations. In our campus, while waste materials such as plastics, cardboard boxes, aluminum cans, cooked oil and food waste are recycled, promotional campaigns on bringing your own lunch boxes for takeaways and using fewer plastic bags drive home the message of being environmentally responsible,” said Mr Joseph P Mullinix, Deputy President (Administration), National University of Singapore.

Examples of environmentally sustainable practices implemented at the The Deck (NUS Arts Canteen) include organic food recycling, recycling of cooking oil, use of eco-friendly Microwave Packaging food boxes, use of reusable boxes and promotion of meat-free meals. Some of these practices are also adopted at other NUS canteens.

Kopitiam’s Corporate Communications Manager, Ms Goh Wee Ling, shared about the impact of going for the Eco-Foodcourt certification, “As we went about raising the awareness of our tenants on environmental sustainability, they began to see the importance of adopting practices friendly to the environment. A big bonus to the tenants for being environmentally responsible was the realisation that they were reducing their operating expenses when they managed the use of energy and water wisely. Kopitiam is happy to partner SEC in their mission to reach out to more people with the important message of being eco-conscious.”

At this event, the SEC also took the opportunity to launch its new logo. SEC has, in the last 15 years, grown from a small non-governmental organisation (NGO) that provides environmental outreach and education to businesses and the community to become an authority in the endorsement of environmental standards and the promotion of best practices. The new logo represents both its current role in highlighting environmental sustainability issues to the community, and reflects its ongoing role as an expert in framing new opportunities that others may not see.

Source: www.sec.org.sg

Envirofriendly Makes its Mark in Singapore

By Ken Hickson

Envirofriendly – the innovative liquid waste solution from Brisbane, Australia – is being introduced into Singapore and is already on trial at two resorts on Sentosa Island and in the Environment Building in Scotts Road.

Neil Christie, the inventor and owner of the microbial water saving and waste management process, was in Singapore early in January, along with Maree Norton Managing Director of Envirofriendly Product Distribution, to get the trials under way.

This followed exploratory work and market development by Sustain Ability Showcase Asia in Singapore, including gaining approval from Public Utilities Board (PUB) and National Environment Agency (NEA) for trials to be undertaken.

The Environment Building, where trials using Urinalkleen are underway in bathrooms on two floors, also houses the Ministry of Environment & Water Resources, as well as offices of the PUB and NEA.

Neil Christie has also checked out the building’s grease trap to see how its performance can be improved. The building has already set very high standards in environmental management, winning regional awards after a major retrofit, for energy efficiency, water and waste management.

On Sentosa, trials using two products – UrinalKleen and Drainsolv – are underway at the Siloso Beach Resort, which is owned by a dedicated and far sighted environmental enthusiast Ng Swee Hwa and managed by his son, Kelvin Ng. The boutique resort is the winner of many environmental awards.

Drainsolv is also being put to the test at the nearby Rasa Sentosa, a member of the Shangri-La group of hotels and resorts. As this resort has only just re-opened after many months of renovation, the Envirofriendly product will be seen at work through all the resorts nine kitchens to reduce water use and manage the waste going into the grease traps.

This Envirofriendly product works to eliminate odour causing bacteria and speeds up the breakdown of waste in sinks, drains, pipe work and greasetraps. It can also significantly reduce the frequency of costly evacuation of grease traps.

It is too early to tell from the trials at Rasa Sentosa as the resort has only just re-opened (19 January), but early observations of the use of Envirofriendly at Siloso and the Environment Building indicate it is working to plan and producing the improvements expected.

UrinalKleen ensures the effective operation of both waterless and flushing urinals in bathrooms, significantly reducing water use, breaking down waste that causes blockages and also removing lingering unpleasant odours.

Ken Hickson is based in Singapore as Founder Chairman and CEO of Sustain Ability Showcase Asia, which represents a number of businesses (products, processes and services) in Asia Pacific. For further information on Envirofriendly products and their application in Singapore and Asia, please contact Ken Hickson – kenhickson@sustain-ability-showcase.com

The Heat is On: Flooding Our Minds, Homes and Streets

The reluctance of our politicians and media to attribute the devastating floods in Queensland to climate change is nothing but cowardice. The science is in. We must accept the verdict that climate change leads to more frequent and severe disasters. So says Matthew Wright writing in the Daily Telegraph. For a slightly more restrained overview, we look to Mike Steketee writing in The Australian, who draws attention to the warming world and the disastrous extreme weather many parts of the world experienced in 2010. He says: Even if the world achieved what so far has proved beyond it – a mechanism to stabilise greenhouse emissions at 450 parts per million of CO2 – global temperatures still will rise by an estimated 2C; that is, four times the increase that has occurred in the past 30 years.  That means further consequences already are locked in and we will have to turn our minds increasingly to adapting to them. For the full story from both of these commentators: Read More

 Matthew Wright writing in the Daily Telegraph (17 January 2011):

I’D LIKE to know how much money the coal industry will chip in? The reluctance of our politicians and media to attribute the devastating floods in Queensland to climate change is nothing but cowardice. The science is in. We must accept the verdict that climate change leads to more frequent and severe disasters.

Denying the link between climate change and extreme weather events such as the Queensland floods is akin to the way the tobacco companies denied the link between smoking cigarettes and cancer.

Just as smoking increases the risk of cancer, emitting carbon changes our climate and increases the risk of extreme weather.

The connection between flood and climate change was put well by home-grown climate scientist David Karoly, who said recently that Australia has been known for more than 100 years as a land of droughts and flooding rains, but what climate change means is Australia becomes a land of more droughts and worse flooding rains. Speaking to The Australian, Monash University’s Professor Neville Nicholls said you’d have to be a brave person to say climate change was not having some sort of effect.

Dozens of scientific studies by governments and the insurance industry released over the last decade, including the Queensland Government’s inland flooding study released last November, accept the link.

The floods have affected an area the size of Germany and France combined. And Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says the reconstruction effort facing the state is one of post-war proportions. The damage is currently estimated at a whopping $5 billion and the economic impact of the disaster is expected to wipe one whole point off GDP.

As flood victims come to terms with their losses and get on with rebuilding their lives with savings, government assistance and charity, I’d like to know how much money the Australian coal industry will chip in?

Given that they are a major driver of climate change, they should be the ones forking out money to help affected Australians recover. Will they pay the increased premiums and cover rises in excesses as everyone’s insurance costs rise?

Eventually tobacco companies were compelled to pay damages to the victims of their harmful product. So too should the coal industry. They have contributed massively to the cumulative carbon emissions and must finance rebuilding Queensland.

Queensland is the world’s largest exporter of seaborne coal. As the floods shut down the state’s supply chain, global coal prices shot up by 20 per cent. This rise clearly demonstrates the scale of Australia’s contribution to the coal market and to climate changes.

The industry should also be held accountable for the impacts of mine heavy metals the waterlogged mines have injected into floodwaters.

While there is no legal precedent or legislation that obliges the coal industry to help pay for the damage it is fuelling through climate change, they have a moral obligation to make sizeable donations to the recovery.

Failure to do so will not only demonstrate contempt for Australia’s fragile climate, but contempt for the flood victims.

Source: www.dailytelegraph.com.au

Mike Steketee in The Australian (8 January 2011):

NOW for the good news: Australia has just had its coolest year since 2001, with a mean temperature in 2010 of 22C.

You probably already had guessed something like that was going on and it may have eased your concerns about global warming.  Perhaps it even made you more inclined to the view of geologist and paleontologist Bob Carter that it is “the greatest self-organised scientific and political conspiracy that the world has ever seen”?

If only.  Being duped is preferable to being fried.  Unfortunately, it is hard to find such comfort from the data.  But then perhaps that is because it has been collected by the alleged co-conspirators.

The Bureau of Meteorology said this week the 2010 mean temperature was above the average of the three decades to 1990, which is the standard reference period, though only by 0.19C.

The first decade of the 21st century was also the warmest since standard records began in 1910.  And based on preliminary data to November 30, sea surface temperatures around Australia were the warmest on record last year, as were those for the past decade.

The news for the rest of the world is not so promising, either.  The World Meteorological Organisation, on the basis of data collected from 189 countries and territories (co-conspirators all?), says the year to the end of October was the warmest since instrumental climate records started in 1850 – 0.55C above the 1961-90 average of 14C.

Perhaps the cold northern winter will bring the final figure, which will not be published until March, down a little but the WMO was confident enough last month to say that 2010 would rate in the top three warmest years.

And the decade also was the warmest on record – despite the annual peak in 1998.

That puts a bit of a dent in the argument that the world has been cooling since 1998.

While the records cover only a relatively short period, the trends happen to follow closely the predictions over the past 40 years of temperature rises resulting from increased greenhouse gas emissions.

In 1972, John Sawyer of the British Meteorological Office estimated an increase of about 0.6C by the end of the century.  The actual figure was about 0.5C.

Most scientists agree that doubling the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is likely to lead to warming of 2C-3C, an amount that risks significant economic and environmental damage.

So far the increase since the mid-18th century of all greenhouse gases has been 38 per cent, including a 27.5 per cent rise from 1990 to 2009.

As well as rising temperatures, the WMO says that Arctic sea ice shrank last year to its third lowest area in the satellite records and was offset only slightly by Antarctic sea ice at just above the long-term average.  Global snow cover is falling and sea levels rising.

Despite that, much of the debate about global warming still is conducted in terms of future and uncertain consequences.

Perhaps we should start looking harder at the present.  Recent extreme weather events include not only the Victorian bushfires and record floods in Queensland.  According to the international insurance group Munich Re, 2010 saw the second-highest number of natural catastrophes since 1980, with 90 per cent of them weather-related.

Australia always has been a land of drought and flooding rains, and weather records are broken as regularly as cricket records. But not in the way they have been recently.

The temperature of 46.4C in Melbourne on Black Saturday was more than 3C above the previous highest for February.

July 29 last year saw the temperature reach 38.2C in Moscow, while for the whole month the mean temperature was more than 2C above the previous record.

Munich Re says the heatwave and associated fires and air pollution in central Russia killed at least 56,000 people, making it the worst natural disaster in Russia’s history.

Pakistan experienced its worst ever floods, costing 1769 lives.  Munich Re says the hurricane season in the North Atlantic was one of the most severe in the last century even though most countries, including the US, had a lucky escape, with the storms mostly over the sea.

So, can we blame climate change?  Probably to some degree, even cautious scientists tend to say.

CSIRO research has identified climate change as contributing to the 20 per cent decline in rainfall in southwest Western Australia over the past 40 years, as well as the reduced rainfall in southeastern Australia.

Neville Nicholls, meteorologist, Monash University professor and one of the lead authors of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, says of the Queensland floods: “The reality is that we don’t know if there is a climate change component in it.”

On his estimate, the current La Nina that usually generates higher rainfall in eastern and northern Australia is the strongest or second strongest we have ever experienced.  While there is no evidence to link La Nina to climate change, one possible connection is that water temperatures in the oceans around Australia have never been so warm and the La Nina has been unusually strong.

“But honestly we don’t know,” says Nicholls.

Nor does he attribute the Victorian bushfires per se to global warming.  “The particular weather situation we had is the kind of weather situation we have had in the past: it was hot, it was dry and it was windy.”

The differences were that the 12 years of drought was twice as long as the previous longest drought in the region, the heatwave at the end of January 2009 was the worst Melbourne had ever experienced and the temperatures on Black Saturday saw a large step up from the previous record.  “What you can say is that there is very strong evidence that global warming exacerbated the fire situation.”

Applying the same reasoning, Nicholls does not argue that climate change is responsible for any other single event.

But he does point to the succession of extraordinary heatwaves, with big jumps in record temperatures, starting in Europe in 2003 and continuing all around the world, culminating in Russia last year.  More than 17 countries broke their maximum temperature records in 2010.  “Putting them together, you really have to strain credibility to say it has nothing to do with climate change,” he says.

“With climate change you expect many more of these really hot events and that is what we are getting.  At the same time there are still records being set for cold temperatures.  But for the last couple of decades we have certainly been getting more hot records being set than cold records.”

Even if the world achieved what so far has proved beyond it – a mechanism to stabilise greenhouse emissions at 450 parts per million of CO2 – global temperatures still will rise by an estimated 2C; that is, four times the increase that has occurred in the past 30 years.  That means further consequences already are locked in and we will have to turn our minds increasingly to adapting to them.

Nicholls says most developed countries, including Australia, already have set up heatwave alert systems.

Other changes will be harder.  Reducing water allocations in the Murray-Darling Basin is still years away at best, and the recent rain will tempt politicians to postpone it further.

Building rail lines that don’t buckle and electricity systems that don’t fail, as they did at the time of the Victorian bushfires, let alone the bigger tasks of managing increasingly vulnerable coastlines and transforming agriculture, will be big challenges but ones that only will get bigger the longer we delay.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au

Meeting of Minds

The great things about being in Singapore and in this line of work, is the opportunity to meet and work with great people, who have a commitment to all things green, sustainable, ecologically and environmentally friendly. The new year continues in that vein, not only because I’ve been in the company of Dr Martin Blake, Chairman of Carbon Zero Solutions, for the best part of the past fortnight, but largely through meetings with many more great thinkers and doers.

It was a pleasure to attend the launch of the Eco Food Court, initiated by the Singapore Environment Council and meet (again) Isabella Loh and Howard Shaw, as well as  the guest of honour, the Minister of State, with responsibility of Environment and Water Resources, Dr Amy Khor.  Building Energy Efficiency supremo from the UK, David Strong, was also in Singapore, conducting a series of workshops for the National Environment Agency and Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore for Energy Managers.

Then there was the international sustainability guru himself, John Elkington – the main who coined the term “triple bottom line” – speaking at a seminar organised by Thomas Thomas and the Singapore Compact. More on all that in future issues. Without wanting to offend by omission many others we met and enjoyed the company of, I will only touch on one other – George Hatzimihalis, MD of the Hatlar Group, visiting from Melbourne, Australia, who is already doing some amazing work in Asia in water and waste management and energy efficiency. If great minds think alike, we all have a lot more work to do!

Ken Hickson

No Longer “Business As Usual”

New Year resolutions might be passé but we have a few recommendations for improvements in human activity in this issue, from American notables, including John Holdren, Glenn Meyers, Anna Clark and a host of business leaders.

There are some interesting developments on the US EPA front and the Carbon War Room has businesses calling for faster action. Weather and climate are the talk of the town, particularly when you are snow-bound or flood-affected as millions have been in Europe, North America, Australia and elsewhere. Of course, extreme weather has been on the cards ever since climate charge first reared its ugly head. So let’s stop talking about “global warming” if it means some think we will never be cold or wet again.

For CNN, Greenpeace and Professor Kurt Lambeck the weather/climate nexus is in focus, while Michael Richardson takes us below the surface for the impact of CO2. Indonesia and Norway are seeing REDD together, while the BBC reports on a “new” way to harness fuel from sunlight and NCAR has the lowdown on the crucial climate role of dust. Australia is having trouble keeping its RECs up, while Malaysia is moving ahead with its green building schemes. Nirmal Ghosh from Bangkok takes a personal look at his footprint and recommends we “stop collectively sawing at the branch we are sitting on”.

We take the stand and boldly predict: sustainability and a low-to-zero carbon future will start to replace “business as usual” for industry worldwide. And we expect even greater leadership from the new “developing” world, including India, China, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea. Here’s to a happier and more sustainable New Year ahead. – Ken Hickson

Profile: John Holdren

Here is the man who famously said: “Without energy, there is no economy. Without climate, there is no environment. Without economy and environment, there is no material well-being, no civil society, no personal or national security. The overriding problem associated with these realities, of course, is that the world has long been getting most of the energy its economies need from fossil fuels whose emissions are imperiling the climate that its environment needs.” President Obama’s science advisor  John Holdren confirms in an upcoming Science article that “the science of climate change is robust, that the core conclusions of climate science are sound — namely that the climate is changing in ways that are unusual against the backdrop of natural variability and that humans are responsible for a large part of that”.

Preview of article by John Holdren in Science News (15 January 2011):

“There has been a fair amount of talk about congressional hearings looking into climate science. I personally will welcome such hearings.”

Just over a month after the midterm elections, President Obama’s science adviser took the podium in San Francisco at the American Geophysical Union meeting. John Holdren, a physicist and climate scientist, said the White House is making strides in improving the nation’s science and technology policies. Later that week, Holdren’s Office of Science and Technology Policy released long-overdue federal guidelines for scientific integrity.

Science News contributing editor Alexandra Witze excerpted his comments from a lecture and later press briefing at the AGU meeting.

How do you respond to criticism that the federal government was slow to request and use outside expertise after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?

In the first few days of the spill, I made a number of calls to leaders of major marine science organizations in the country to see what resources and insights and scientific capabilities they could bring to bear. Within the first few days, the White House was convening meetings. Very quickly task forces were set up that reached out into the academic community and the private sector community.

It was a huge challenge. I’m not saying we got everything right at every moment. Certainly there were disagreements about priorities, about approaches, about specific resources. That’s inevitable in any problem of this scale and complexity and with a wide variety of different people. But overall, this actually was handled remarkably well given the magnitude of the mess and its complexity.

How will the White House go about working with the new, more Republican Congress on science issues?

It will be a big challenge working with the new Congress, whose composition is obviously somewhat less favorable to Democrats than the last one. My view is that science, technology and innovation are not fundamentally partisan issues. My hope is therefore we will be able to keep much of this out of the domain of poisonous partisan politics and get quite a lot done. But only time will tell.

There has been a fair amount of talk about congressional hearings looking into climate science. I personally will welcome such hearings because I think what they will reveal is that the science of climate change is robust, that the core conclusions of climate science are sound — namely that the climate is changing in ways that are unusual against the backdrop of natural variability and that humans are responsible for a large part of that. A variety of forms of harm, in a variety of places, are already associated with climate change, and we know that that harm will grow unless and until we significantly reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and other heat-trapping substances. Any set of hearings into the climate science issue are simply going to underscore the reality of those propositions. I think most policy makers will eventually reach the conclusion that betting on mainstream science being wrong is gambling with the public’s welfare against very long odds.

There will be other discussions with the Congress that will be less contentious, because investments in science and technology accelerate the pace of innovation that we need to maintain economic competitiveness, to increase American exports and to create high-quality jobs. That should not be the slightest bit controversial across party lines.

How does the administration intend to move ahead with the control of greenhouse gas emissions?

Investments that we make in clean energy, in more efficient energy systems, in a smart grid are all investments that are valuable, important and productive even if you don’t believe that climate is changing and we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

There are a lot of executive authorities that can be used without the Congress to tackle pieces of the problem. We already saw in the first two years of the Obama administration an agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation to issue the first set of combined … tailpipe standards that address greenhouse gas emissions as well as fuel economy and conventional pollutants. We have an interagency task force on adaptation now in the executive branch. That’s something I think is unlikely to be challenged … because measures you take to increase resilience against storms, shoreline erosion, floods, droughts, heat waves — these are things that one should be interested in doing even if you don’t believe climate is changing. There is enough that we can do without legislation. I think we can get on the emissions trajectory that would ultimately take us to President Obama’s goals for 2020 in the next two years.

Source: www.sciencenews.org

Dr. John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Prior to joining the Obama administration Dr. Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded and co-led the interdisciplinary graduate-degree program in energy and resources.

Dr. Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and is highly regarded for his work on energy technology and policy, global climate change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as foreign member of the Royal Society of London. A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. He served from 1991 until 2005 as a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s board of trustees. 

During the Clinton administration Dr. Holdren served as a member of PCAST through both terms and in that capacity chaired studies requested by President Clinton on preventing theft of nuclear materials, disposition of surplus weapon plutonium, the prospects of fusion energy, U.S. energy R&D strategy, and international cooperation on energy-technology innovation. In December 1995 he gave the acceptance lecture for the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization of scientists and public figures in which he held leadership positions from 1982 to 1997.

Source: www.whitehouse.gov

We reproduce an excerpt from a paper by John Holdren published in the journal “Innovations” in the Fall 2009 issue.

“Energy for Change: Introduction to the Special Issue on Energy & Climate Change”, Journal Article, Innovations, volume 4, issue 4, pages 3-11, Fall 2009

“Without energy, there is no economy. Without climate, there is no environment. Without economy and environment, there is no material well-being, no civil society, no personal or national security. The overriding problem associated with these realities, of course, is that the world has long been getting most of the energy its economies need from fossil fuels whose emissions are imperiling the climate that its environment needs.

Compounding that predicament are emissions from land-use change—above all, deforestation in the developing countries of the tropics. Like society’s choices about energy supply and use, this process has been driven by powerful economic and political forces insufficiently moderated by understanding or consideration of the environmental component of societal well-being.

This is no longer a hypothetical or distant issue. It is real and it is upon us. The climate is changing markedly nearly everywhere. The air and the oceans are warming, mountain glaciers are disappearing, permafrost is thawing, sea ice is shrinking, the great land ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica are slipping, and sea level is rising. And the consequences for human well-being are already being felt: more heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires; tropical diseases reaching into the temperate zones; vast areas of forest being destroyed by pest outbreaks linked to warming; hurricanes and typhoons of greater power; and coastal property increasingly at risk from the surging seas.

All this is happening faster than was expected. Sea level is rising at twice the average rate for the 20th century. The volume of sea ice in the Arctic (its area times its average thickness), which reaches a seasonal minimum every September, appears to have been smaller in September 2008 than in any year of the last 30—the period in which we’ve been able to estimate this variable. In that same 30 years, the average area annually burned by wildfires in the western United States has quadrupled.

Nor is the primary cause of these changes any longer in serious doubt. The primary cause is the emission of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants from our factories, homes, offices, vehicles, and power plants, and from land clearing. We also know that failure to curb these emissions will bring far bigger impacts from global climate change than those experienced so far. Drastic changes in weather patterns, sharp drops in the productivity of farms and ocean fisheries, a dramatic acceleration of species extinctions, and inundation of low-lying areas by rising sea level are among the possible outcomes.

But we also know what we can and must do to avoid the worst of these possibilities. We must work together—East and West and North and South—to transform our technologies for supplying and using energy from polluting and wasteful to clean and efficient. We must create new incentives and agreements to accelerate this transformation, and to bring deforestation and other destructive land-use practices to a halt around the world. And we must invest in adaptation efforts to reduce our vulnerability to the degree of climate change that can no longer be avoided.

We can do this together. And when we do, we will benefit not only by avoiding the worst damage from climate change, but also by reducing our perilous overdependence on petroleum, alleviating the air pollution that afflicts our cities, preserving our forests as havens for biodiversity and sources of sustainable livelihoods, and unleashing a new wave of technological innovation—generating new businesses, new jobs, and new growth in the course of creating the clean and efficient energy systems of the future.

The key question we now need to heed about what the science of climate change is telling us is how much progress we need to make with these measures,and how quickly, to have a good chance of avoiding climate changes more extreme than our adaptation efforts will be able to manage. And the science is increasingly clear in pointing to the conclusion that it will be essential to hold the global average temperature increase to no more than two degrees Celsius if we are to keep climate change to a manageable level.

It is likewise clear that if we are to have a good chance of meeting this goal, global emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollutants must level off by about 2020 and decline thereafter to something like 50 percent of the current levels by 2050, with continuing declines after that. Allowing for the larger historical responsibility and much higher current per capita emissions of the industrialized countries and for the development trajectories and aspirations of the developing ones, the most likely way to achieve this goal would be for the industrialized world to level off its emissions by 2015 and reduce them thereafter to around 20 percent of current levels by 2050, with the developing countries following after a lag of about a decade, leveling off their emissions by about 2025 and reducing them after that.

These are targets that we can meet. As the content of this special issue of Innovations illustrates, the solutions to our climate challenge aren’t just “out there,” they are right here—before your eyes, in your hands. Climate solutions are in California, which thirty years ago charted a course toward energy efficiency that other states are only now beginning to follow. They are in Brazil, which generates 50% of the fuel used in its cars from home-grown sugarcane. They are in New Hampshire, where a company started by a former nuclear engineer is working to develop the carbon capture and storage technologies that will be essential for a cleaner coal future. They are in Hawaii, where plug-in electric vehicles are quietly becoming a reality. And they are in Arkansas, where the world’s biggest company—Walmart—is establishing standards for energy use and carbon reductions that will apply not only to its global operations but to its entire supply chain.

These and the other innovations described in this special issue are not isolated anecdotes. Nor are they elements of any single grand plan. They are simply a few of the many pathways to progress created every day by citizens, by the businesses that serve them, and by the governments that represent them. Such pathways derive from another other type of energy vital to addressing our climate challenges: the creative energy of people who, through ingenuity, partnerships, and collaborations, are able to cut through complexity to arrive at practical solutions. We can ask for no better guides than they to lead us toward the prosperous and secure future to which we all aspire….”

Source: www.mitpressjournals.org

Should EPA Regulate Big US Emitters Now?

Even though Paul Chesser of the National Legal and Policy Center acknowledges “corporate climateers” Nike and 3M for their awards “the equivalent of an Oscar for the climate change mitigation world” for their efforts to reduce their carbon emissions, he doesn’t like attempts by these businesses (and others) to get the US EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The Washington Post thinks otherwise: “Modest EPA regulation can achieve some valuable ends and keep pressure on Congress to do more. The president must resist lawmakers’ efforts to limit the EPA’s power”.

Washing Post editorial (31 December 2010):

ENVIRONMENTALISTS have had a rough year, but over the past week the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals gave them some hope. On December 23 2010 the agency announced a schedule for setting greenhouse gas standards for power plants and oil refineries over the next two years, and on Wednesday the court refused to halt the implementation of the EPA’s carbon-cutting program pending legal challenge.

Congress hasn’t passed a sensible, comprehensive energy policy. EPA regulation of greenhouse gases is one way the government can cut emissions now, using current law. Over the next year, the president should defend his administration’s authority to do so.

With the Supreme Court’s blessing, the EPA has deemed greenhouse emissions threats to public health under the Clean Air Act. That means the agency can require emitters to arrest those gases’ release in various ways. What the EPA will force plant operators to do, though, isn’t yet clear. The guidance it produced for state regulators last month stresses the value of efficiency improvements, such as turbines that convert more of the energy released from burning fossil fuels into usable electricity.

Agency officials insist that requirements will be “cost-effective” and “common-sense.” In a legally distinct but nonetheless related effort, the EPA is also preparing to clamp down on other nasty things that coal-fired power plants spew into the air, such as mercury, which would require other emissions control technologies.

Critics such as Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, insist that both regulatory avenues will seriously harm the economy. They are exaggerating, but it’s true that EPA regulation absent some overarching congressional carbon policy isn’t ideal. Because such a rule raises no revenue, it can’t compensate those consumers who have to pay more for their energy. Because it depends on the policy preferences of the president, new administrations might move to gut the policies, leading to the sort of regulatory uncertainty that is punishing to business. Because it relies on federal mandate, it’s not likely to put America on the cheapest path to sustainable energy production even if it became America’s primary carbon-reducing program.

But Mr. Upton’s GOP colleagues killed the efficient solution: putting a price on carbon and unleashing market forces in the fight against climate change. And carbon dioxide continues to accumulate in the atmosphere. If critics want to be helpful, they should propose a realistic emissions-reduction scheme instead of simply picking on the EPA.

Moreover, EPA regulation done carefully isn’t the worst of carbon-cutting policies. The slow death of the traditional coal plant – one likely outcome of the EPA’s efforts – would be welcome, even if it were just replaced with the traditional natural gas plant, which produces roughly half the carbon emissions. The EPA has also repeatedly signaled that it wants to restrain the ambition of its carbon regulation, writing regulations that target only the largest sources of emissions.

In the long term, this attenuated sort of EPA regulation alone isn’t likely to result in the carbon reductions that America needs to participate seriously in the global response to climate change; it might cut emissions by 5 percent of 2005 levels by 2020, not the 17 percent that is Obama’s stated policy. Congress will have to act, and sooner is better. In the meantime, modest EPA regulation can achieve some valuable ends and keep pressure on Congress to do more. The president must resist lawmakers’ efforts to limit the EPA’s power.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

By Paul Chesser in National Legal and Policy Center (31 December 2010):

Earlier this month corporate climateers including Nike and 3M were given awards — supposedly “the equivalent of an Oscar for the climate change mitigation world” — for their efforts to reduce their carbon emissions. The honors were bestowed by the Carbon War Room, which “harnesses the power of entrepreneurs to implement market-driven solutions to climate change.” The Virgin Group’s Richard Branson is one of the nonprofit’s co-founders.

The War Room gave Nike the Gigaton Award for the “consumer discretionary” category. The prize was named for a Clinton Global Initiative project called Gigaton Throwdown, which “encourages companies, entrepreneurs, policy makers, and investors to build big solutions to create climate stability and energy security.” Award winners are chosen by the Gigaton Academy, which consists of alarmist luminaries such as Branson, Ted Turner, UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, Nicholas Stern, and a host of rent-seeking alternative energy industry leaders.

As reported earlier this month by NLPC, Nike also co-signed a letter to President Obama that called for U.S. leadership in an initiative to create and finance the Global Climate Fund, which was established at the UN climate talks in Cancun in early December. Similarly as part of the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy  – created by environmental pressure group Ceres — Nike endorsed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his colleagues to urge Congress to allow the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions:

We are writing as major US businesses to urge you to oppose all riders to the FY11 Interior Appropriations bill that would block or delay enforcement of the Clean Air Act and /or specifically curtail EPA’s ability to take action on the regulation of carbon.

For nearly two years, our coalition, Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy [BICEP] has worked with members of Congress toward passage of comprehensive climate and energy legislation because we believe it is critical to the health of our businesses and essential for job creation and innovation in the United States.

It is important to underscore that we have always believed strongly that Congress should lead on setting climate and energy policy for the United States. However, in lieu of Congress’s ability to pass a comprehensive bill we feel that EPA’s legitimate authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions should not be constrained at this time.

Other members of BICEP include Levi Strauss & Co., Starbucks, Timberland, Best Buy, Ben & Jerry’s, eBay, Gap Inc., The North Face, and Target Corporation. Mark them down as corporations who favor the circumvention of the peoples’ right to have their elected representatives make U.S. laws.

Source: www.nlpc.org

Don’t Do a Snow Job on Climate Change

Greenpeace’s Kumi Naidoo worries that if the scientific evidence (for climate change) can be buried, in the eyes of some, by a single heavy snowfall, then we must have new strategies that generate interest in this complex issue and sustain public and political support for action. We have to acknowledge, he says that “the world is no longer as we knew it. It is not possible to backtrack on climate change. It is, however, still within our power to help preserve our planet for future generations.”

By Kumi Naidoo, Special to CNN (29 December 2010):

Kumi Naidoo said Amsterdam snow delightful, but he feared it would fuel global warming denial. He says NASA analysis named 2010 the warmest year on record.

Naidoo: Even those who doubt climate change can take actions that benefit them and the planet. For skeptics, case must be made in terms of better health, water, energy independence

Amsterdam (CNN) — I recently returned to Amsterdam from the latest round of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, and found this city of canals covered in snow. It was a beautiful sight. Yet rather than filling me with joy, it caused me concern.

Over the past few years, climate-change skeptics have repeatedly used cold snaps as proof that our planet is not heating up.

This argument ignores NASA’s recent analysis of 2010 as the warmest year on record and the World Meteorological Organization’s pronouncement of the first decade of this century as the hottest since records began.

Global warming does not simply mean that temperatures are always climbing. What it does mean is that although our planet is steadily heating up, a delicate set of climatic imbalances creates an increase in extreme weather events.

These may include both dramatic heat spells and powerful snowstorms, such as those that have blanketed parts of Europe not used to seeing such weather — as well as the more southerly reaches of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S.

Most scientists tell us that we must dramatically curb greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avert catastrophic climate change. To do this, it will be necessary to mobilize people around the globe who are not yet concerned about the issue.

But if the scientific evidence can be buried, in the eyes of some, by a single heavy snowfall, then we must have new strategies that generate interest in this complex issue and sustain public and political support for action.

Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Joel Pett may have hit upon something with a cartoon he drew for last year’s climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. It shows a scientist addressing a large audience at a climate summit. A spectator at the left side of the panel asks his neighbor: “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?” The answer emerges on the right side of the panel where the following list appears on a chalkboard: energy independence, preserve rainforest, sustainability, green jobs, livable cities, renewables, clean water and air, healthy children, etc., etc.

There is indeed something for almost everyone in climate protection.

A small nonprofit group called the Climate and Energy Project ran with this idea in 2007. It sponsored a yearlong competition between six towns in Kansas with the goal of getting them to lower carbon emissions. They did this by reducing their energy consumption and accepting renewable sources of energy.

A study had shown that a majority of residents in that region believed either that climate change was a hoax or that recent dramatic weather events were simply the result of natural climate cycles. Organizers decided to highlight the more immediate benefits of cutting carbon emissions, including energy independence, development of the local economy and financial savings. The New York Times reported in October that the project’s strategy seems to have worked.

In a year, the article read, “energy use in the towns declined as much as 5 percent relative to other areas — a giant step in the world of energy conservation, where a program that yields a 1.5 percent decline is considered successful.”

Most of the world’s major religions also offer reasons to engage in climate protection. Because taking care of the poor and needy (often disproportionately affected by climate-related disasters) and protecting God’s planet are tenets of most of the world’s major faith-based organizations, environmental protection is commonly becoming part of what they preach.

Some Muslim and Hindu groups, for example, are working on special product labeling that would inform consumers about environmental impacts of the items being purchased.

Similarly, around the globe, diverse organizations — including trade unions, churches, non-governmental organizations and governments — are coming together to find solutions to climate change.

In 2010, the fossil fuel industry offered, albeit by accident, one of the greatest motivations to take action on global warming. BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill resulted in the death of 11 rig workers; local economies suffered deeply, and wildlife in the region could take decades to recover.

The continued disintegration of public trust in government and business policy and procedures surrounding the disaster will, justifiably, have repercussions for a long time to come.

Speaking with a Dutch friend, I commented that the snow — which has caused great travel difficulties around Europe — was at least a wonderful thing for children, who are out in force making snowmen. “Yes,” he replied, but when I was growing up, winters were so cold the canals would freeze over every year, and we could skate on them. Last year was the first time this happened again in over a decade.

The world is no longer as we knew it. It is not possible to backtrack on climate change. It is, however, still within our power to help preserve our planet for future generations.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Kumi Naidoo.

Source: www.edition.cnn.com

Science Academies: Climate Evidence is Strong & Credible

Australian Academy of Science along with several other national science academies – including the Royal Society of Britain and US National Academy of Science – have produced statements detailing the extent of consensus and uncertainty about climate change science. Together, they show that evidence for climate change in response to human activity is strong and credible and that urgent action is required to cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly and quickly. To improve our understanding, extensive research and rigorous debate must continue among scientists. Importantly, communicating this research to the wider public must be effective. This from Professor Kurt Lambeck, immediate past president of the Australian Academy of Science.

Kurt Lambeck In National Times
December 28, 2010 – 8:31AM

The rains have come but that is not a reason to ignore the scientific evidence on climate change. The US National Climatic Data Centre issued figures for the year to the end of October that indicate global average surface temperatures for 2010 are heading for one of the warmest years on record. Climate change is about trends that operate on time scales longer than that of individual human memory.

Ever since it became apparent the atmosphere was warming, people have been questioning the evidence and the nature of the likely causes. This questioning of evidence and of the underlying causes is an essential part of the scientific process.

Understanding what drives climate, and predicting how it may change under a combination of natural and anthropogenic forcing, is possibly one of the most challenging problems for the science community. No single scientist or group of scientists can successfully claim to understand all, free of all doubt. It becomes even more of a challenge for the wider public to understand the science and, in the face of uncertainties, to be able to make informed decisions about how to respond. That challenge becomes even more difficult in the face of seemingly conflicting messages about the science.

It is therefore important for scientists to take stock periodically and focus on the key scientific questions, on what the consequences are of specific uncertainties, and on what is required to resolve remaining uncertainties.

Recognising that the consequences of climate change are potentially global, serious and irreversible on human time scales, the Australian Academy of Science has published such an assessment, The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers.

In the past few months several other national science academies have produced statements detailing the extent of consensus and uncertainty about climate change science too. These include the Royal Society in Britain, the US National Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences. In addition, other science bodies, including the Geological Society of London, have expressed their views.

A scientist is not usually elected to a national academy for doing consensus science. These recent academy statements express views that have been robustly debated both by experts in areas of climate science and by eminent scientists with extensive research experience in related fields.

The independent messages from the four academies and the geological society are consistent and urgent. They include that the role of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is well understood, and that increasing the atmospheric concentration of the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas, CO2, leads to higher mean global surface temperatures. It is accepted that CO2 has increased substantially during the past century, to the highest levels seen in 800,000 years, and that this increase is primarily from human activity as a result of burning fossil fuels, with a lesser contribution from other activities such as the manufacture of cement and deforestation.

They recognise that some of the greenhouse gases from human activities will remain in the atmosphere for a very long time and that, unless these emissions are significantly reduced now, the rise in the global average surface temperature will continue. The importance of the potential effects of CO2 and temperature increases on sea level and ocean acidification are also recognised.

All reports recognise that natural processes have also contributed to past climate change but they also underline, for example, in the words of the geological society, that ”it is not possible to relate the Earth’s warming since 1970 to any . . . geological cause”.

Climate change science is no different to any other experimental science, with the attendant uncertainties, and policy decisions have to be made taking them into account. For example, accurate values cannot yet be given for the likely range of future warming because of current uncertainties in climate sensitivity to small disturbances. But climate models and evidence from past climate change do provide a plausible range of values, and all point in the same direction: the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions are such that they can only lead to global mean surface temperatures that have not been experienced in the present interglacial period.

Likewise, predicting accurate rates for future rises in sea level remains difficult without new information on the responses of ice sheets and mountain glaciers to rising temperatures, but all models and observations point to the same direction of a globally averaged rise in sea level at rates where it is already affecting land use in low-lying coastal areas. Regional climate remains difficult to assess with accuracy, particularly for changes in regional rainfall patterns.

The reports identify where work needs to be done to reduce the uncertainties in the present knowledge but they also stress that these uncertainties do not affect the major conclusions, although they may impinge on precise time scales or magnitudes of change and on the nature of the regional impact.

Together, the statements show that evidence for climate change in response to human activity is strong and credible and that urgent action is required to cut greenhouse gas emissions significantly and quickly.

To improve our understanding, extensive research and rigorous debate must continue among scientists. Importantly, communicating this research to the wider public must be effective.

Scientists have the responsibility of providing the best evidence to help policy makers reach conclusions that are founded in science, that are based on the best current understanding.

The academies’ findings provide a firm basis for understanding the science of climate change, and contribute to the understanding of the science on which any policy response must be debated and constructed.

Professor Kurt Lambeck is a climate scientist and immediate past president of the Australian Academy of Science

Source: www.nationaltimes.com.au

Where There’s Sun, There’s Power To Burn or Store

A prototype solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life, turning the Sun’s energy into fuel. The machine uses the Sun’s rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported. The prototype, which was devised by researchers in the US and Switzerland, uses a quartz window and cavity to concentrate sunlight into a cylinder lined with cerium oxide or ceria.

New solar fuel machine ‘mimics plant life’

By Neil Bowdler, Science reporter, BBC News (23 December 2010):

A prototype solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life, turning the Sun’s energy into fuel.

The machine uses the Sun’s rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down carbon dioxide or water into fuels which can be stored and transported.

Conventional photovoltaic panels must use the electricity they generate in situ, and cannot deliver power at night.

Details are published in the journal Science.

The prototype, which was devised by researchers in the US and Switzerland, uses a quartz window and cavity to concentrate sunlight into a cylinder lined with cerium oxide, also known as ceria.

Ceria has a natural propensity to exhale oxygen as it heats up and inhale it as it cools down.

If as in the prototype, carbon dioxide and/or water are pumped into the vessel, the ceria will rapidly strip the oxygen from them as it cools, creating hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide.

Hydrogen produced could be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars, for example, while a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be used to create “syngas” for fuel.

It is this harnessing of ceria’s properties in the solar reactor which represents the major breakthrough, say the inventors of the device. They also say the metal is readily available, being the most abundant of the “rare-earth” metals.

Methane can be produced using the same machine, they say.

Refinements needed

The prototype is grossly inefficient, the fuel created harnessing only between 0.7% and 0.8% of the solar energy taken into the vessel.

Most of the energy is lost through heat loss through the reactor’s wall or through the re-radiation of sunlight back through the device’s aperture.

But the researchers are confident that efficiency rates of up to 19% can be achieved through better insulation and smaller apertures. Such efficiency rates, they say, could make for a viable commercial device.

“The chemistry of the material is really well suited to this process,” says Professor Sossina Haile of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). “This is the first demonstration of doing the full shebang, running it under (light) photons in a reactor.”

She says the reactor could be used to create transportation fuels or be adopted in large-scale energy plants, where solar-sourced power could be available throughout the day and night.

However, she admits the fate of this and other devices in development is tied to whether states adopt a low-carbon policy.

“It’s very much tied to policy. If we had a carbon policy, something like this would move forward a lot more quickly,” she told the BBC.

It has been suggested that the device mimics plants, which also use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to create energy as part of the process of photosynthesis. But Professor Haile thinks the analogy is over-simplistic.

“Yes, the reactor takes in sunlight, we take in carbon dioxide and water and we produce a chemical compound, so in the most generic sense there are these similarities, but I think that’s pretty much where the analogy ends.”

Daniel Davies, chief technology officer at the British photovoltaic company Solar Century, said the research was “very exciting”.

“I guess the question is where you locate it – would you put your solar collector on a roof or would it be better off as a big industrial concern in the Sahara and then shipping the liquid fuel?” he said.

Solar technology is moving forward apace but the overriding challenges remain ones of efficiency, economy and storage.

New-generation “solar tower” plants have been built in Spain and the United States which use an array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto tower-mounted receivers which drive steam turbines.

A new Spanish project will use molten salts to store heat from the Sun for up to 15 hours, so that the plant could potentially operate through the night.

Source: www.bbc.co.uk