Spur Green Growth with Lower Trade Barriers in Asia Pacific

The United States, taking the helm of the APEC forum, hopes to spur green growth in the Asia-Pacific region by knocking down trade barriers on environmental goods. Senior officials from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum meet in Washington to kick off a year that will culminate in a November summit in Hawaii and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address the forum on Wednesday to outline the US strategy. Muhamad Noor, executive director of APEC, said that the United States wanted to produce “deliverables.”
AFP March 9, 2011, 8:00 am

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States, taking the helm of the APEC forum, hopes to spur green growth in the Asia-Pacific region by knocking down trade barriers on environmental goods, a senior official said Tuesday.

Senior officials from the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum are meeting this week in Washington to kick off a year that will culminate in a November summit in Hawaii. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address the forum on Wednesday to outline the US strategy.

Muhamad Noor, executive director of APEC, said that the United States wanted to produce “deliverables.” Last year’s summit in Yokohama, Japan, called for progress on a long-mooted idea of a trans-Pacific free trade zone.

Noor, a veteran Malaysian trade negotiator, said that President Barack Obama’s administration was putting a priority on green growth and on helping both sides of the Pacific to “transition to a clean energy future.”

“APEC will accelerate efforts to address barriers to trade in environmental goods and services,” Noor told reporters.

“It will also seek to remove barriers related to the importation of advanced technology demonstration products such as vehicles and remanufactured and recycled goods,” he said.

APEC includes China and the United States, which are by far the world’s two biggest emitters of carbon blamed for the planet’s steadily rising temperatures.

Noor said that APEC, sometimes criticized as a talking shop, did not intend to supplant the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which is leading talks on an elusive successor to the Kyoto Protocol, but would seek to boost trade.

“If you are able to make this technology available to the developing nations, I think it will be a major contribution to the environment,” Noor said.

“APEC will continue to work in our traditional way, building consensus on this,” he said.

Most nations agree on the need for technology transfer, but the details have been controversial during climate negotiations.

Wealthy nations want assurances that developing economies will respect intellectual property rights. Many developing states, meanwhile, say climate assistance should not be a substitute for wealthy states curbing carbon emissions.

UN-led talks in December in Cancun, Mexico, made headway, with nations agreeing to set up a new fund under the World Bank to administer billions of dollars in climate assistance.

Source: www.au.news.yahoo.com

Coming to the Surface Near You: The Hottest Rock Band!

Did you know that Australia has the hottest known near-surface rocks outside of volcanic areas anywhere in the world? The team at Hot Dry Rocks knows, and it wants to spread the word. The Australian geothermal outfit announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding with three European companies to form EGS Global Group, an alliance aimed at building awareness and development of engineered geothermal systems (EGS), and to provide Australia with world-class opportunities for EGS energy developments. Climate Spectator has this and other clean energy stories.

Sophie Vorrath in Climate Spectator 10 March 2011

Did you know that Australia has the hottest known near-surface rocks outside of volcanic areas anywhere in the world? The team at Hot Dry Rocks knows, and it wants to spread the word. The Australian geothermal outfit announced yesterday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with three European companies to form EGS Global Group, an alliance aimed at building awareness and development of engineered geothermal systems (EGS), and to provide Australia with world-class opportunities for EGS energy developments.

Not only do EGS resources exist in vast quantities within 5 km of the earth’s surface, but according to HDR, decades of international research has established proven techniques for safely extracting the heat energy by pumping water through the earth’s hot rocks and back to the surface where the heat is used to drive turbines and generate electricity. “EGS has the potential to be the cleanest, most reliable, and one of the cheapest sources of renewable energy available,” says HDR’s technical director Graeme Beardsmore. “Now that we have a carbon price mechanism on the government’s agenda, providing more certainty for developers, investors and power consumers alike, this is the ideal time to increase efforts to promote EGS as the future energy alternative and the EGS Global Group allows us to take this lead.”

A spokesman for EGS Energy – leading UK geothermal player and one of the founding companies of the EGS Global Group; along with HDR, Germany-based BESTEC GmbH and GPC Instrumentation Process SARL of France – Guy Macpherson-Grant says a shared understanding between the four countries’ leading geothermal specialists will help develop the sector responsibly. “The respective business interests, experience and skill sets of the partner agencies fit well together, and by supporting one another to develop the sector, the EGS Global Group is paving the way for increased geothermal exploration and development,” he said.

Guardian angels

Obviously, the feeling out there in the cleantech world is that more help is required to really get the industry moving. Another announcement this week heralds the launch of The CleanTech Angels Network – a group whose purpose will be to link cleantech companies seeking funds with Angel investors seeking investments in the sector; a symbiotic process that is not, it seems, happening spontaneously. “Australia is lacking the drivers that are seen elsewhere in the world,” says John O’Brien, managing director of Australian CleanTech, the research and advisory firm behind the development of the Network. “The government stimulus is fragmented and small, the regulatory measures are providing only some assistance and the venture capital industry is under-funded.”

Meanwhile, says O’Brien, there is increasing demand from industry and the wider community for technology and business solutions that have environmental and economic benefits. And thought there are many solutions being developed, there’s a lack of accessible investment to bring them to market. “We are approached by many emerging cleantech companies that require between $100,000 and $300,000 to bring their ideas to market. Many of these are very promising concepts and ones that would also benefit from the expertise of an experienced angel investor,” says O’Brien. “It is very hard for many of these companies to even get passed first base with any investors that they are able to easily access.”

Indeed, such companies are already lining up for help. The Network’s inaugural list of technologies seeking developmental support includes: an integrated solar system that provides hot water, power, heating and air conditioning; a building construction system with a patented super-insulated, low labour, construction methodology that reduces home energy use by up to 80 per cent; a DVD material solution that claims to reduce the cost and carbon footprint of DVD production by 52 per cent; two wave energy technologies; an integrated food production system that profitably produces freshwater fish and organic vegetables; a solar module production facility that plans to produce panels especially adapted for the Australian market; and a micro-algae biofuels project that plans to build decentralised rural industries.

Big breakthrough, small technology

A new method for the production of catalysts used in the manufacture of super-strong, super-lightweight technologies known as nano-carbon products, has been developed by the US-based arm of Australia’s ASX- listed Eden Energy Limited. The company announced the breakthrough this week, saying it would make the production of the catalysts – an essential manufacturing step to producing such nano-carbon products as carbon nanotubes and nanofibers – 15X faster, as well as cheaper and more productive. “The new process works for a variety of catalyst compositions, reduces the quantity of chemicals needed, is easily scalable for higher production and eliminates the majority of the time and labor needed for previous catalyst production methods,” said Eden’s executive chairman Greg Solomon.

“For the production of nano-carbon with specific structure and physical properties, the composition and atomic-level crystalline structure of the elements in the catalyst is critical. In addition, the catalyst particle size and surface area can have significant effects on the total nano-carbon production yields and the stability of carbon growth on the catalyst,” Solomon said. “Hythane Company has reduced the particle size range from approximately 100 micron down to about 1 micron. …(and) the bulk densities of the catalyst powders have been reduced by a factor of about five, an indication of the micro-porous structure and much higher surface area created by the new method.”

Source: www.climatespectator.com.au

Microsoft Says Sustainability Can Comes Out of the Clouds

Cloud computing is all the rage. In its simplest terms, it means outsourcing your company’s information technology (IT) needs, from data and storage to software. All the servers and applications sit elsewhere in the Internet “cloud,” but more literally in a data centre. A recent study from Microsoft (with Accenture and WSP) called “Cloud Computing and Sustainability”  found that by outsourcing, companies can reduce the energy use and carbon footprint of computing by up to 90%

Andrew Winston

Founder, Winston Eco-Strategies; Author, ‘Green to Gold’ and ‘Green Recovery’

Posted: March 9, 2011 04:48 PM

Cloud computing is all the rage. In its simplest terms, it means outsourcing your company’s information technology (IT) needs, from data and storage to software. All the servers and applications sit elsewhere in the Internet “cloud,” but more literally in a data center or centers.

A recent study from Microsoft (with Accenture and WSP), “Cloud Computing and Sustainability“, compared the environmental footprint of running business software internally or with an outsourced provider (in this case, Microsoft). The study showed that, compared to running their own applications, by outsourcing companies can reduce the energy use and carbon footprint of computing by up to 90 percent!

This is very good news. IT is one of the fastest growing energy hogs, accounting for at least 2 percent of global energy use. In my last book, Green Recovery, I focused on IT as one of five operational areas where green initiatives help companies save money quickly (the others were facilities, distribution, telework, and waste).

In the book, I cited statistics from IBM showing that less than 4 percent of the energy going into a data center is used to process something.

While the IT world has gotten a lot more efficient lately, there’s still much room for improvement. And apparently moving your applications to the cloud can help immensely.

According to the Microsoft report (see page 6), cloud computing drives energy reductions in four related ways, which boil down to a few key leverage points:

• Reducing excess capacity
• Flattening peak loads
• Employing large-scale “virtualization” software
• Improving data center design.

Using the cloud addresses all three of the major energy-loss areas in the IBM chart: data center design tackles room and server cooling, while the other scale benefits mainly address the absurd waste, in percentage terms, from server underutilization (the far right bar).

Rob Bernard, Microsoft’s Chief Environmental Strategist, likens the cloud to mass transit: “A data center essentially gets computing applications to carpool or take the bus instead of sitting in their own individual servers… but unlike mass transit vs. private vehicles, there is no tradeoff for convenience and on-demand availability.”

So all of this is pretty logical. Scale is more efficient and allows for better resource planning. But I’d offer a few points worth thinking about, and one note of caution.

1. The centralization of computing power should look familiar. To get some perspective on the study, I spoke with Mark Monroe, the new Executive Director of Green Grid, an organization dedicated to making IT more energy and carbon efficient. He compares the cloud to the electric grid, citing Nicholas Carr’s book, The Big Switch, which Monroe says “compares utility computing development to the emergence of centralized electrical generation in the early 20th century.” Like electric plants, Monroe says, central computing “utilities” benefit from scale and high utilization.
2. In this case, outsourcing is another word for “servicizing,” or turning a product into a service offering. In theory, a service provider will strive to keep its costs down, thus using as little energy and resources as possible. Cloud computing fits this model well (and fits a general transition to helping customers use less). As Monroe says:

Cloud providers want to provide an hour of CPU time, a Gigabyte-month of storage, a CRM transaction, an email, or a web page for as little cost and as high a margin as possible. That just has to lead to higher efficiency than someone focused on delivering a feature internally.

1. Small companies get the biggest bang for their cloud bucks. The study’s most fascinating finding is that the larger IT users get less benefit out of working with Microsoft’s cloud. For organizations with more than 10,000 users, the reduction in GHG emissions is a healthy 30 percent. But that pales in comparison to the 90-percent reduction firms with just 100 users can attain.
2. Smart outsourcing, scale, and technology can help other parts of the business be more efficient also. For example, I talk in Green Recovery about the benefits of telecommuting and telepresence, and in distribution, larger carriers can ensure fuller, more efficient trucks, rail cars, and ships.
3. But, keep one thing in mind when outsourcing an energy-using function: the footprint is still yours. Technically, a company’s main footprint includes only its own facilities (in wonky terms, that’s “Scope 1 emissions”). But I believe that anyone doing contract work for you — which is not really the same as traditional suppliers — should count toward your footprint.

In short, finding providers and partners that can take some of your energy-using operations to scale, and manage them in a shared capacity, is good for your footprint and your bottom line.

This post first appeared at Harvard Business Online

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Global Approach Needed to Save Vulnerable Archaeological Sites

Archaeological treasures that have been frozen for millennia are being destroyed because of climate change. Remains in some of the coldest places on earth are being exposed as warmer temperatures cause ice and hardened ground to thaw. Edinburgh University experts said the materials at risk included ancient tombs, artefacts and human remains, as they studied cases of damaged remains in three locations around the world, at permafrost in the Altai Mountains in central Asia, sea ice in Alaska and glaciers in the Rocky Mountains.

11 March 2011 BBC

Archaeological treasures that have been frozen for millennia are being destroyed because of climate change, according to Edinburgh researchers.

Remains in some of the coldest places on earth are being exposed as warmer temperatures cause ice and hardened ground to thaw.

Edinburgh University experts said the materials at risk included ancient tombs, artefacts and human remains.

They are often culturally significant, especially for indigenous populations.

Scientists at the university’s business school studied cases of damaged remains in three locations around the world, at permafrost in the Altai Mountains in central Asia, sea ice in Alaska and glaciers in the Rocky Mountains.

They found coastal erosion caused by retreating sea ice was damaging remains in an Inuit village in Alaska, including a Fourth-Century coastal cemetery.

Their study suggested melting glaciers in the Rocky Mountains posed a threat to Native American human remains and artefacts such as hunting tools, weapons and clothing.

Researchers also discovered that thawing temperatures represented a risk to burial mounds in the Altai Mountains of central Asia.

The site, containing the only frozen tombs in the world, is the resting place of Eurasian nomadic horsemen with links to modern-day Siberian nomads.

The graves contain treasures such as gold and ancient carpets.

In the central Asian Altai Mountains, about 700 tombs have been preserved for 2,500 years by ice lenses or permafrost.

They contain frozen mummies, wood, leather and textiles, which are very rarely preserved and can provide a unique insight into the culture of prehistoric societies in this region.

‘The Ice Maiden’ was discovered in the Altai Mountains in Siberia in 1993.

As a result of increasing ground and surface temperatures over the past century, these tombs and their deposits are now within only a few degrees of melting.

Scientists have called for a global organisation to be set up to maintain a record of vulnerable sites and co-ordinate efforts to conserve items that are at risk, particularly indigenous remains.

Dr Dave Reay, of Edinburgh University, said: “Warming climates are expected to lead to more melting ice, and we need to take action to safeguard ancient treasures.

“Long-term efforts are needed to locate archaeological remains that are at risk, and research how best to care for them.

“We must also consider the political and cultural implications of preserving important relics.”

Source: www.bbc.co.uk

Is this enough to scare the world away from nuclear for good?

Amid all the quotes about Japan’s unfolding nuclear crisis that have galvanised the world’s attention over the past few days, this one stood out: “The earthquake was terrifying, but this is worse,“ said one Japanese resident, told to evacuate his home near the crippled plant a Fukushima. “We want to go home, but we are scared.”

Nuclear proponents can bang on all they like about the science and the textbook safety of nuclear energy, and how well it compares with other technologies; and of the dangers of exploding oil refineries, collapsing coal mines, or bursting dams. As awful as these events might be, there is nothing quite so menacing as the danger that is not seen and is not understood. The nuclear industry stands unique in this regard.

One of nuclear’s biggest proponents in Australia, the energy minister Martin Ferguson, has been happy to allow the development of renewable technology to be stalled, all the while pretending to be doing otherwise. Perhaps now he, and the government he serves, will recognise the importance of investing – with the same vigour and mechanisms he would have envisaged for a nuclear energy industry – in a credible long-term alternative to coal and gas. Giles Parkinson in Climate Spectator has this to say. Read More

Giles Parkinson in Climate Spectator (15 March 2011)

Amid all the quotes about Japan’s unfolding nuclear crisis that have galvanised the world’s attention over the past few days, this one stood out: “The earthquake was terrifying, but this is worse,“ said one Japanese resident, told to evacuate his home near the crippled plant a Fukushima. “We want to go home, but we are scared.”

Nuclear proponents can bang on all they like about the science and the textbook safety of nuclear energy, and how well it compares with other technologies; and of the dangers of exploding oil refineries, collapsing coal mines, or bursting dams. As awful as these events might be, there is nothing quite so menacing as the danger that is not seen and is not understood. The nuclear industry stands unique in this regard.

It has been quite surreal to observe “experts” some 10,000km away from the scene insisting there is no public danger from the dramatic events unfolding at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plants, while the nuclear authorities on the spot ordered the immediate evacuation of more than 200,000 residents, began the distribution of iodine tablets – given to minimise the threat of thyroid cancer – and recommended those that remained within a 20km radius of the plant close their windows and cover their heads in wet towels.

The nuclear industry has recognised, since the incidents of Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, that its prosperity depends on the indulgence of public opinion – unless, of course, you live in a country like China where that doesn’t matter so much. The passage of time, the emergence of a younger generation, the development of new technology, and the clamour for low emission energy sources to help curb greenhouse emissions held the promise of a new beginning. You would have thought that the industry – and its most ardent proponents – would have understood that the one essential ingredient to this surprising renaissance would be public trust.

Maybe not. In its obstinance, the nuclear industry can deliver as powerful an argument against itself as the most vociferous green opponent. The Japanese public have always been ambivalent about the industry, given their history with atomic reactions. Their faith has not been improved by revelations that executives from the Tokyo Electric Company falsified safety documents (from the very reactors that are now compromised), and its belated admission in 2007 that another nuclear plant had not been designed to withstand earthquakes of the magnitude that hit the region at the time.

Even the academics can’t make head nor tail of the events. One Japanese university expert replied to a query yesterday: “It’s all quite confusing. The Tokyo Electric Power Company has been holding a press conference almost every three hours since yesterday, but every time it seems to be an announcement that contradicts the last announcement they made.”

The one sure casualty of Fukushima is the fantasy that nuclear energy can somehow be stripped down to a cheap and easy model, that shorn of “unnecessary” regulation and safety measures, it could be as cheap as coal. Given the extraordinary circumstances that has seen the top blown off two reactor buildings and sea-water used to flood and effectively kill the overheating cores, this is delusional at best. This event will surely add to those extra layers of safety and costs.

As each layer of protection at the Fukushima nuclear plant was peeled back by the force of nature, bad planning, human error, or just plain bad luck, so too was the fantasy that the general public would agree to the installation of nuclear facilities – in Australia or any other developed nation, for that matter – without the maximum possible safety measures. That much was learned from Three Mile Island, which at this stage has more in common with Fukushima than Chernobyl.

The other key ingredient to a prosperous nuclear energy industry is the indulgence of the financial markets. Not a single buyer could be found for shares in Tokyo Electric Co for much of Monday, and when some could be found it translated into a slump of 24 per cent. Some industry experts suggest the cost of remediation at the Fukushima Daiichi plants could be horrendous, and may send the company broke. Only one light water reactor has ever been decommissioned – a small 60MWe facility at Shipping Port in the US – but it was not compromised by what appears to be at least a partial melt-down in two of its reactors. The company is in unknown territory in its efforts to control the immediate events at the reactor, and will continue to be when it seeks to clean it up.

Whatever the impact on the global nuclear industry – and judging by the comments of several western leaders over the last few days it seems stalled at best – it now seems clear that no nuclear energy industry will emerge in Australia, or at least not for another decade or two. That much was made clear by Prime Minister Julia Gillard last night, noting that the country had no need for it. Even without the safety concerns and the costs, there is no energy utility in the country that possesses the balance sheet to contemplate the scale of investment, let alone the risk that is attached to it. Incidentally, the Coalition policy on nuclear is not to have one (a policy) unless Labor does – a unique offering of bipartisanship

The US has been trying to rekindle its industry for 30 years, but no company has been able to obtain private finance without massive support from the US government through loan guarantees. It should be noted that the French nuclear network, often cited as the benchmark for the industry, was built entirely by finance at first provided, and then written off, by the French government. The low cost of French electricity to local consumers is not quite what it seems, and will be tested when the country needs to replace its fleet in coming decades.

Australia’s short term abatement requirements in the electricity industry will likely be delivered by the gas industry – as controversial and as costly as that might turn out to be. Thereafter, the future abatement prospects are likely to be delivered by renewable technologies – at least that is the assessment of the International Energy Agency, which predicted last year that large-scale solar could deliver as much as 40 per cent of its energy needs by 2050.

That remains to be seen. But if renewables – with the help of smart grids, high voltage networks, and a reduction in costs at scale – can deliver on such promises anywhere in the world, then it must be in Australia. Countless economists and experts point to Australia’s natural advantage, both in resources and technology – and Gillard reinforced those attributes on the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night – but we don’t appear to be in any rush to find out.

One of nuclear’s biggest proponents in Australia, the energy minister Martin Ferguson, has been happy to allow the development of renewable technology to be stalled, all the while pretending to be doing otherwise. Perhaps now he, and the government he serves, will recognise the importance of investing – with the same vigour and mechanisms he would have envisaged for a nuclear energy industry – in a credible long-term alternative to coal and gas.

Source: www.climatespectator.com.au

A global climate agenda

A landmark of sorts. And a pat on the back. Self-inflicted of course!  As this issue marks the third birthday of abc carbon express. 138 issues in three years since we started on 1 March 2008. Some readers have been with us from the beginning but many more thousand added since. We know that we average 60,000 hits a month to our website – www.abccarbon.com – driven largely by our e-newsletter content.Our geographic – or climatic – spread of content and readership is global, albeit with a bias to the Asia Pacific. We started in Brisbane, Australia and now we operate from Singapore, but that doesn’t mean we will ignore events and news from further afield. This issue certainly has information and announcements from Singapore and Australia, but also taps into the views of UK volcanologist Bill McGuire, prompted by last issue’s mention of the climate change connection to geological events, including earthquakes. UN Climate Change chief Christiana Figueres gets a word or two in, as do experts on green buildings from Malaysia and South Korea. Biofuels for aviation are taking off, with views and actions from the US and Australia. China renews its green agenda, while Africa is on the climate page with differing views on whether it faces more droughts or too much water. Australia struggles with its impending carbon pricing plan with support coming from unexpected sources. While Australia has its annual Clean Up Day and Singapore gets set to mark World Water Day on 20 March, the global community looks set to celebrate Earth Hour on 26 March. Turn off the lights and turn on to energy efficiency everywhere. – Ken Hickson

Profile: Bill McGuire

Here’s the volcanologist who says there’s evidence that “supports a robust link between changing climatic conditions and a broad portfolio of potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological processes”. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and landslides are some of the catastrophes that climate change and its rising sea levels and melting glaciers could bring. Skeptics are sure to point out that volcanoes have caused climate to change in the past and humans had nothing to do with it. Bill McGuire, author of Global Catastrophes begs to differ and thinks we have to change our ways, as well as our risk assessments.

Editor’s note: Bill McGuire has been speaking up on the linkage between geological events like earthquakes and climate change for some years. Since our mention in the last edition of Bill McGuire’s views, we have come up with more information (at the request of our readers), including his biographical details (who is this man!), an article in which he was quoted in Life Science in 2007, as well as a detailed paper put together by Bill McGuire for the Royal Society last year. – Ken Hickson

Biographical details

Bill McGuire is – by inclination and training – a volcanologist, and has worked on and visited volcanoes across the world. In 1996 he occupied a post of Senior Scientist at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory at a time of escalating activity and the first explosive eruption at the Soufriere Hills volcano. He currently holds the posts of Benfield Professor of Geophysical Hazards and Director of the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College London. The BHRC hosts over 50 core researchers and affiliates and is the largest academic hazard centre in Europe.

Bill’s principal research interests are volcano monitoring and volcanic hazards and global geophysical catastrophes and their impacts. He is also qualified to provide expert comment on a range of other natural hazards, including earthquakes, landslides, and the hazard implications of climate change. He is a staunch supporter of an anthropogenic cause for global warming and an evangelical advocate of the importance of drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate a more climatically hazardous future.

Bill has been the UK’s representative of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior, Secretary of UK Panel of the International Union of Geodesy & Geophysics, and a Council Member of the Geological Society. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society and of the Royal Institution, and is a member of the Royal Institution’s Science Media Panel. Bill was also a member of the UK Government’s Natural Hazard Working Group, established by Prime Minister Tony Blair following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Bill is author of over three hundred books articles and papers. His current academic work, the World Atlas of Natural Hazards was published by Hodder Arnold in August 2004 and his new popular science books, Surviving Armageddon: Solution for a Threatened Planet, and Global Catastrophes: a Very Short Introduction, were published by OUP in – respectively – June 2005 and January 2006. Bill is a member of the Association of British Sciences Writers and a regular contributor to radio, television, and the press on hazard-related matters. He presented the BBC Radio 4 series Disasters in Waiting and Scientists Under Pressure.

Global Warming Might Spur Earthquakes and Volcanoes

Andrea Thompson in Life Science (30 August 2007)

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and landslides are some of the additional catastrophes that climate change and its rising sea levels and melting glaciers could bring, a geologist says.

The impact of human-induced global warming on Earth’s ice and oceans is already noticeable: Greenland’s glaciers are melting at an increasing rate, and sea level rose by a little more than half a foot (0.17 meters) globally in the 20th century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

With these trends in ice cover and sea level only expected to continue and likely worsen if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, they could alter the stresses and forces fighting for balance in the ground under our feet—changes that are well-documented in studies of past climate change, but which are just beginning to be studied as possible consequences of the current state of global warming.

“Although they’ve described it in the past, nobody’s thought about it in terms of future effects of climate change,” said Bill McGuire of the University College London’s Hazard Research Center.

McGuire’s speculations of increased geological activity have not yet been published in a journal, but he has written an article about them published in the Guardian Unlimited.

Rebounding crust

One particular feature that can change the balance of forces in Earth’s crust is ice, in the form of glaciers and ice sheets that cover much of the area around Earth’s poles plus mountains at all latitudes. The weight of ice depresses the crust on which it sits.

As the ice melts, the crust below no longer has anything sitting on top of it, and so can rebound fairly rapidly (by geological standards). (This rebounding is actually occurring now as a result of the end of the last Ice Age: The retreat of massive ice sheets from the northern United States and Canada has allowed the crust in these areas to bounce back.)

Areas of rebounding crust could change the stresses acting on earthquake faults and volcanoes in the crust.

“In places like Iceland, for example, where you have the Eyjafjallajökull ice sheet, which wouldn’t survive [global warming], and you’ve got lots of volcanoes under that, the unloading effect can trigger eruptions,” McGuire said.

With the changing dynamics in the crust, faults could also be destabilized, which could bring a whole host of other problems.

“It’s not just the volcanoes. Obviously if you load and unload active faults, then you’re liable to trigger earthquakes,” McGuire told LiveScience, noting that there is ample evidence for this association in past climate change events.

“At the end of the last Ice Age, there was a great increase in seismicity along the margins of the ice sheets in Scandinavia and places like this, and that triggered these huge submarine landsides which generated tsunamis,” McGuire said. “So you’ve got the whole range of geological hazards there that can result from if we see this big catastrophic melting.”

Roland Burgmann, a geologist at the University of California, Berkeley, agrees that changes in ice cover can have significant effects on the underlying crust, but says that more research needs to be done to determine the actual scale of the threat and where the effects are most likely to occur.

Water pressure

Ice melt can have an added consequence because all that melted ice has to go somewhere—namely, the ocean.

And ice melt won’t be the only factor changing sea levels: as ocean temperatures rise, the water itself expands (a process called thermal expansion).

As all that extra water piles up, it could apply pressure to faults near coastlines.

“The added load of the water bends the crust, and that means that you tend to get tensional conditions in the upper part of the crust and compressional a bit lower down, just as if you bend a plank of wood or something,” McGuire explained.

These compressional forces could push out any magma lying around underneath a volcano, triggering an eruption. (This mechanism is actually believed to be the cause of the seasonal eruptions of Alaska’s Pavlof volcano, which erupts every winter when sea levels are higher.)

McGuire conducted a study that was published in the journal Nature in 1997 that looked at the connection between the change in the rate of sea level rise and volcanic activity in the Mediterranean for the past 80,000 years and found that when sea level rose quickly, more volcanic eruptions occurred, increasing by a whopping 300 percent.

If today’s worst-case global warming scenarios of catastrophic melting of glaciers and ice sheets come to pass, sea levels could rise rapidly, wreaking all sorts of geological havoc “comparable with the most rapid increases in sea level that we’ve seen in the last 15,000 years,” McGuire said.

Burgmann isn’t too worried about sea level rise causing more earthquakes or volcanic eruptions though, noting that catastrophic rates of sea level rise in the future are uncertain and that the current rate of rise—about 0.12 inches per year (3 millimeters per year)—isn’t enough to destabilize the crust.

“It would take a long time to add up to a significant amount,” Burgmann said—so while it’s an area of research to keep an eye on, it’s unlikely to have any disastrous consequences, at least for now.

Source: www.livescience.com

For those wishing to read more, here is an account by Bill McGuire for the Royal Society on Climate forcing of geological and geomorphological hazards.

Bill McGuire of  the Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK

The 12 research papers and two summaries of conference discussion sessions contained in this Theme Issue build upon presentations and dialogue at the Third Johnston–Lavis Colloquium held at University College London in September 2009.

The meeting brought together delegates from the UK, Europe and the USA to address the issue of climate forcing of geological and geomorphological hazards, with a particular focus on examining the possibilities for a geospheric response to anthropogenic climate change. Papers included in this issue are a reflection of new research and critical reviews presented in sessions on: climates of the past and future; climate forcing of volcanism and volcanic activity; and climate as a driver of seismic, mass-movement and tsunami hazards. Two introductory papers set the scene.

In the first, McGuire summarizes evidence for periods of exceptional past climate change eliciting a dynamic response from the Earth’s crust, involving enhanced levels of potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity. The response, McGuire notes, is expressed through the triggering, adjustment or modulation of a range of crustal and surface processes, which include gas-hydrate destabilization, submarine and subaerial landslides, debris flows and glacial outburst floods, and volcanic and seismic activity.

Adopting a uniformitarian approach, and acknowledging potential differences in both rate and scale from the period of post-glacial warming, McGuire goes on to examine potential influences of anthropogenic climate change in relation to an array of geological and geomorphological hazards across an assortment of environmental settings. In a second and complementary review paper, Liggins et al. evaluate climate change projections from both global and regional climate models in the context of geological and geomorphological hazards.

The authors observe that, in assessing potential for a geospheric response, it seems prudent to consider that regional levels of warming at 2°C are unavoidable, with high-end projections associated with unmitigated emissions potentially leading to a global average temperature rise in excess of 4°C, and far greater warming in some regions. Importantly, they note that significant uncertainties exist, not only in relation to climate projections, but also with regards to links between climate change and geospheric responses. Using the format adopted by McGuire, Liggins et al. focus on high-latitude regions, global oceans, non-volcanic mountainous regions and volcanic landscapes.

The sensitivity to climate change of gas hydrates, in both marine and continental settings, has long captured interest, in relation to its potential role in past episodes of rapid warming, such as in the Palaeocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM), and in the context of anthropogenic warming. In the first of a pair of papers on the subject, Maslin et al. review the current state of the science as it relates to gas hydrates as a potential hazard. The authors note that gas hydrates may present a serious threat as the world warms, primarily through the release of large quantities of methane into the atmosphere, thus forcing accelerated warming, but also as a consequence of their possible role in promoting submarine slope failure and consequent tsunami generation.

Maslin and colleagues also stress, however, that, while the destabilization of gas hydrates in permafrost terrains can be robustly linked to projected temperature increases at high latitudes, it remains to be determined whether or not future ocean warming will lead to significant methane release from marine hydrates. In a second paper, Dunkley Jones et al. look back to the PETM, the most prominent, transient, global warming event during the Cenozoic, in order to evaluate the effects of the rapid release of thousands of gigatonnes of greenhouse gases on the planet’s climate, ocean–atmosphere chemistry and biota, for which the PETM perhaps provides the best available analogue. Dunkley Jones et al. support the view that, while gas-hydrate release was probably not responsible for an initial, rapid, CO₂-driven warming, the as yet unknown event responsible for this subsequently triggered the large-scale dissociation of gas hydrates, which contributed to further warming as a positive feedback mechanism. As the authors note, this somewhat equivocal situation ensures that the question of what role, if any, gas hydrates may play in anthropogenic warming remains to be answered.

Continuing the gas-hydrate theme, Day and Maslin summarize—at the end of this issue—a discussion session at the colloquium, on the theme of Gas hydrates: a hazard for the 21st century? While wide-ranging, discussion focused primarily on the distribution of the potential hazard and how the level of hazard might vary with climate change. The outcome of the session was a ‘wish-list’ that emphasized the need for, among other things, a better understanding of whether and how (immediately versus over a longer time-scale) 21st-century climate change will trigger hydrate release, and a more robust appreciation of the likely fate of released methane.

Looking forward, one of the potential hazards presented by gas hydrates is their possible role in the destabilization of submarine slopes. This is one theme addressed by Tappin within a broader review of submarine mass failures (SMFs) as tsunami sources that incorporates the climate dimension. Tappin highlights the importance of climate in ‘preconditioning’ sediment so as to promote instability and failure, including its influence on sediment type, deposition rate and post-depositional modification. The author also notes that climate may play a role in triggering SMFs via earthquake or cyclic loading associated with tides or storm waves. Tappin makes the important point that, in the past, climate influence on SMFs appears to have been greatest at high latitudes and associated with glaciation–deglaciation cycles, which had a significant influence on sedimentation, preconditioning and triggering. As a corollary, Tappin notes that, as the Earth warms, increased understanding of the influence of climate will help to underpin forecasting of tsunami-sourcing SMFs, in particular at high latitudes where climate change is occurring most rapidly.

The theme of slope destabilization and failure, this time in a subaerial setting, is continued in a paper by Huggel et al., which examines recent large slope failures in the context of short-term, extreme warming events. Huggel and colleagues demonstrate a link between large slope failures in Alaska, New Zealand and the European Alps, and preceding, anomalously warm episodes. The authors present evidence supporting the view that triggering of large slope failures in temperature-sensitive high mountains is primarily a function of reduced slope strength due to increased production of meltwater from snow and ice and from rapid thaw processes. Looking ahead, they expect more frequent episodes of extreme temperature to result in a rise in the number of large slope failures in elevated terrain and warn of potentially serious consequences for mountain communities.

The slope failure hazard in mountainous terrain is also addressed by Keiler et al. in a paper that examines the influence of contemporary climate change on a broad spectrum of geomorphological hazards in the eastern European Alps, including landslides, rock falls, debris flows, avalanches and floods. In the context of the pan-continental 2003 heat wave and the 2005 central European floods, the authors demonstrate how physical processes and human activity are linked in climatically sensitive alpine regions that are prone to the effects of anthropogenic climate change. Importantly, Keiler et al. note that, while the European Alps, alongside other glaciated mountain ranges, are being disproportionately impacted upon by climate change, this is further exacerbated by regional factors, including local climatology and long-term decay of glaciers and permafrost. The authors conclude that future climate changes are likely to drive rises in the incidence of mountain hazards and, consequently, increase their impact on Alpine communities.

There is strong evidence for a crustal response to the rapidly changing post-glacial climate being elicited by load changes, either as a consequence of unloading at high latitudes and high altitudes due to ice-mass wastage, or as a result of the loading of ocean basins and continental margins in response to a 100 m or more rise in global sea level. The following three papers address the influence of load changes in the context of the triggering of seismicity and volcanism. In the first, Guillas et al. present the results of a statistical study of a putative correlation between contemporary variations in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the occurrence of earthquakes on the East Pacific Rise (EPR). The authors observe a significant (95% confidence interval) positive influence of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) on seismicity, and propose that increased seismicity on the EPR arises due to the reduced sea levels in the eastern Pacific that precede El Niño events, and which can be explained in terms of the reduction in ocean-bottom pressure over the EPR by a few kilopascals. Guillas et al. note that this provides an example of how variations in the atmosphere and hydrosphere can drive very small changes in environmental conditions that are able, in turn, to trigger a response from the Earth’s crust. Most importantly, they speculate that, in a warmer world, comparable and larger changes associated with ocean loading due to global sea level rise, or unloading associated with the passage of more intense storms, may trigger more significant earthquake activity at submarine fault systems that are in a critical state.

Continuing the theme, Hampel et al. take a broader look at how faults have responded to variations in ice and water volumes as a consequence of past climate change. Using numerical models, the authors demonstrate that climate-driven changes in ice and water volume are able to affect the slip evolution of both thrust and normal faults, with—in general—both the slip rate and the seismicity of a fault increasing with unloading and decreasing with loading. Adopting a case-study approach, Hampel and colleagues provide evidence for a widespread, post-glacial, seismic response on faults located beneath decaying ice sheets or glacial lakes. Looking ahead, the authors point to the implications of their results for ice-mass loss at high latitudes, and speculate that shrinkage of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets as a consequence of anthropogenic warming could result in a rise in the frequency of earthquakes in these regions.

In a similar vein, Sigmundsson et al. evaluate the influence of climate-driven ice loading and unloading on volcanism, focusing on Iceland and, in particular, on the Vatnajökull ice cap. Noting that a significant pulse of volcanism in Iceland, at the end of the last glaciation, flags a link between unloading and volcanism, the authors model the effects of contemporary ice-mass loss at Vatnajökull on future magmatic activity. Using a viscoelastic model of glacio-isostatic adjustment that incorporates melt generation in the underlying mantle, Sigmundsson and co-authors predict that ice wastage will result in additional magma generation beneath Iceland. The authors expect more frequent or more voluminous volcanic activity to be a consequence of enhanced melt generation, but also observe that it could take longer than decades or centuries for the resulting magma to reach the surface. Sigmundsson et al. also show that ice unloading is likely to drive shallow magma reservoirs progressively towards failure, although this effect will be small and therefore contribute only to modulating ‘normal’ activity.

A more general evaluation of the impact of a changing climate on glaciated volcanoes is undertaken by Tuffen, who looks ahead to how the melting of ice caps on active volcanoes may influence volcanic hazards in the 21st century. In reviewing the evidence for current melting of ice increasing the frequency or size of future eruptions, Tuffen notes that much remains to be understood in relation to ice loss and increased eruptive activity. In particular, uncertainty surrounds the sensitivity of volcanoes to small changes in ice thickness and how rapidly volcanic systems respond to deglaciation. Nonetheless, Tuffen expects an increase in explosive eruptions at glaciated volcanoes that experience significant ice thinning, and increased frequency of lateral collapse at glaciated strato-volcanoes in response to anthropogenic warming. On the positive side, deglaciation may ultimately reduce the threat from volcanic debris flows (lahars) and meltwater floods from volcanoes that currently support ice caps.

Volcano lateral collapse in response to a changing climate is explored further in the final research paper by Deeming et al., although in this case the driving force is precipitation rather than ice-mass loss. Deeming and co-workers present the results of a cosmic-ray exposure dating campaign at Mount Etna (Sicily), which constrains the timing and nature of collapse of the Valle del Bove, a major volcanic landslide scar on the eastern flank of the volcano. The authors link pluvial conditions during the early Holocene to the formation of a high-energy surface drainage system and to its truncation by a catastrophic lateral collapse event, ca7.5 ka BP, which opened the Valle del Bove. A possible mechanism is proposed, whereby magma emplacement into a water-saturated edifice caused the thermal pressurization of pore water, leading to a reduction in sliding resistance and subsequent large-scale slope failure. Deeming et al. present the mechanism as one possible driver of future lateral collapse at ice-capped volcanoes and at those located in regions predicted to experience enhanced precipitation.

Concluding the volcanoes and climate change theme, Tuffen and Betts draw together the thoughts of delegates at a second colloquium discussion session, which focused on Volcanism and climate: chicken and egg (or vice versa )? Among other outcomes of the discussion came the feeling that the title of the session was too prescriptive, with perhaps ‘Chicken and egg’ being more appropriate. This, it was broadly felt, better reflected the complexities apparent in the volcano–climate system, within which both climate forcing of volcanism and volcanic forcing of climate appear to play a part. Going further, rather than a chicken and egg debate, it was suggested that it might be more beneficial to concentrate efforts on understanding better how the volcano–climate system evolves over time, responds to different forcings, and incorporates various feedback mechanisms. Among other proposals, it was advocated that climate models should incorporate variable volcanic inputs so as to better explore how volcanic activity might affect the climate in the future.

Together, this set of papers provides a coherent whole that addresses a wide range of issues relating to how climate change may force geological and geomorphological phenomena capable of acting to increase natural hazard risk in a warmer world. They reflect a field of research that is only now becoming recognized as important in the context of the likely impacts and implications of anthropogenic climate change. We hope that this Theme Issue will provide a marker that reinforces the idea that anthropogenic climate change does not simply involve the atmosphere and hydrosphere, but can also elicit a response from the Earth’s crust and mantle. In this regard, we hope that it will encourage further research into those mechanisms by which climate change may drive potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity, and into the future ramifications for society and the economy.

One contribution of 15 to a Theme Issue ‘Climate forcing of geological and geomorphological hazards’.

© 2010 The Royal Society

Source: www.royalsocietypublishing.org

Kyoto Shadow Over Climate Progress

Work on implementing recent climate agreements, including a new green fund, will start next month despite wrangling over the future of the Kyoto Protocol. Christiana Figueres, head of the UN climate change secretariat, said the Green Climate Fund as well as the work agenda will be discussed at a ministerial meeting hosted by Mexico. She shrugged off the possibility that the main climate forum of all countries in Bangkok in April will be overshadowed by disagreements about Kyoto, which she says is not a new issue although governments will have to address and make “some decision” by the main year-end climate summit in Durban, South Africa.

Reuters

Mar 3 2011

By Risa Maeda

TOKYO (Reuters) – Work on implementing recent climate agreements, including a new green fund, will start next month despite wrangling over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, a top U.N. official said on Thursday.

Christiana Figueres, head of the U.N. climate change secretariat, said the Green Climate Fund as well as the work agenda for this year’s U.N. climate talks will be discussed at a ministerial meeting hosted by Mexico in March.

Uncertainty has been growing over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the first legally binding treaty to cut greenhouse gases, with Japan, Russia and Canada insisting they will not extend emission cuts.

Although most governments including developing nations support an extension, the three holdouts want all top emitters, notably China and the United States, to agree a new treaty beyond 2012, when Kyoto’s first period ends.

Figueres, in Japan for an informal meeting of climate envoys from about 30 governments, shrugged off the possibility that the main U.N. climate forum of all countries in Bangkok in April will be overshadowed by disagreements about Kyoto.

Kyoto is not a new issue although governments will have to address and make “some decision” by a year-end climate summit in Durban, South Africa, she said.

“There are many ideas that have been considered to find a middle of the way path forward … They have to come to some decision in Durban,” she said in an interview with Reuters.

Figueres also downplayed concern that a further rise in oil prices could undermine global economic recovery and provide an excuse or hurdle for governments to avoid immediate initiatives on cutting emissions.

“The fact that we have high oil prices is not for the first time in history. So it’s not such a historical issue that would affect the climate talks this year.”

Oil’s price volatility has been a compelling argument for governments to change the energy mix, she said.

Asked if the gap over Kyoto could be narrowed by reintroducing wording that would let developing countries list “voluntary commitments” to curb their emissions, Figueres said it would be hard to win support for the idea. It was rejected by developing nations in 1997 when Kyoto was agreed.

“It is absolutely the decision of the governments to decide how they want to take the Kyoto Protocol forward. But I don’t think your particular suggestion there is the one which would find a lot of support,” she said.

BILATERAL OFFSETS

As for Japan’s idea of a new bilateral market mechanism with developing countries to cut emissions by encouraging its private sector’s low-carbon technology and financial support, Figueres said “voluntary” emission-cut actions are always welcome.

But she said unlike a carbon offset scheme under Kyoto, called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), they are not part of an international compliance system.

Japan has pressed ahead with plans for bilateral deals, in which it invests in energy conservation and clean energy projects in developing countries in exchange for credits, hoping this will help it meet its obligatory target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at home.

Japan has criticized the CDM as too rigid and inefficient to provide funds for such projects in developing countries.

“Bilateral mechanisms that have been devised here in Japan are to provide offsets for the voluntary targets of the Japanese industry, which does not have a relationship, at least for the time being, with any international target or international compliance system,” she said.

Figueres said Japan can make extensive use of the CDM’s existing methodologies and reflect its views to improve the CDM if it wants to.

The government and Japanese companies have been major buyers of carbon offsets under the CDM and other market schemes to meet Tokyo’s 2008-2012 emission cut goals.

Despite Japan’s reservations about extending Kyoto, some Japanese companies have continued trading Kyoto offsets, as an agreement by countries that met in Cancun, Mexico, in December enables Japan to use CDM and other Kyoto Protocol market schemes without joining a second period of Kyoto.

Source: www.reuters.com

Carbon Price Makes Business Sense

Superannuation funds have thrown their weight behind the government’s plan to introduce a carbon price, saying the Opposition’s pledge to roll back an emissions trading scheme would hurt investment in cleaner energy. While business commentator Josh Dowse in Climate Spectator says the industry group leaders are misleading the public as very few of their members would be affected, as many firms who are feeling pain from rising energy costs, a carbon price is the least of their worries. But Prime Minister Julia Gillard still has a fight on her hands. 

Clancy Yeates In Sydney Morning Herald

March 4, 2011

SUPERANNUATION funds have thrown their weight behind the government’s plan to introduce a carbon price, saying the Coalition’s pledge to roll back an emissions trading scheme would hurt investment in cleaner energy.

With $1.3 trillion in assets, super funds are tipped to play a crucial role in funding the move towards a lower-carbon economy.

But amid a fierce political debate over pricing polluting, key funds have said they would be unable to invest with certainty unless there was an economy-wide carbon price.

The chief executive of construction industry fund Cbus, David Atkin, said a carbon price was ”critical” for backing cleaner investment, but that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s policy of direct action would not allow this.

”We think getting a price on carbon is critical to enable investors to allocate more capital to low-carbon assets,” he said. ”The difficulty with the direct-action policy is that it doesn’t provide an investment signal to the private sector, which is critical to the transformation required.”

The Investor Group on Climate Change, which includes private sector giants AMP, BT and Colonial and represents fund managers who control $600 billion, also backed carbon-price certainty.

The group’s chief executive, Nathan Fabian, said after pushing for a price on carbon for years, institutional investors were frustrated by the opposition’s pledge to roll back the scheme.

”Introducing doubt about the future regulatory environment undermines investor confidence,” he said. ”This is quite simple. Provide a long-term signal to investors and they will invest. Introduce significant regulatory uncertainty and they will not.”

The acting chief executive of the $8 billion VicSuper fund, Michael Geraghty, echoed other funds’ support for a carbon price, saying it would ”allow institutional investors to consider investments in climate solutions with confidence”.

The president of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, Michael O’Sullivan, estimated at least half the private capital needed to be committed to tackle climate change would come from pension funds. But he said the opposition’s roll-back pledge would introduce a ”profound sovereign risk” to the equation for institutional investors.

The comments come after a Mercer report last month advised investors to reallocate funds towards climate-friendly assets over coming decades as a hedge against the earnings risk that climate change posed to companies.

But Deutsche Bank analyst Tim Jordan said policy ambiguity was the ”great enemy” of low-carbon investments, which required the long-term certainty of a carbon price.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au

4 March Climate Spectator

Josh Dowse

Business Spectator

Australia’s largest businesses are more than capable of looking after themselves, financially and in policy negotiations. Always have, always will, and rightly so. So it seems a little strange when the Australian Industry Group (AiG) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) shout loud for our largest companies, to the detriment of the vast majority of their members.

First, let’s take the proposed carbon price. Despite all the noise, what is being proposed will have only the smallest effect on all but a literal handful of companies. The AiG’s own research, which I’ll get to below, shows this very clearly. In any case, the government has said that businesses will be “assisted”. Many question the wisdom of that largesse – the small potential cost is quite avoidable by most businesses and, if they do take energy-efficient action, their investments will have a financial return that most businesses would be more than happy with.

A few weeks ago, the AiG released its research report Energy shock: confronting higher prices. Though its sample size was small, it tells a great story. Firstly, most companies spend very little on electricity – two-thirds spend less than 2 per cent of sales (Figure 1). Accordingly, very few do anything to reduce that cost, and very few intend to (Figure 2). The cost of energy isn’t a big deal for most companies. If it was, business would be doing something about it.

Figure 1: What was your company’s electricity spend as a percentage of sales in 2009-10?

Source: AiG, “Energy shock: confronting higher prices”, February 2011

Figure 2: How do you expect your company’s energy efficiency to improve in the next 2 years?

Source: AiG, “Energy shock: confronting higher prices”, February 2011

A carbon price of $30 that might raise a firm’s electricity cost by a nominal 20 per cent won’t make that big a difference to most firms. That’s a nominal 0.2-0.4 per cent rise in the cost of goods sold – not really enough to send a business to the wall, despite what Tony Abbott, Heather Ridout and Peter Anderson might claim. If anything, it’s the uncertainty that is debilitating.

Why do I say ‘nominal’? Because it’s avoidable. Companies who have looked at energy efficiency find that reductions of 5 to 10 per cent per year are commonplace. There are strong government programs such as the NSW Energy Savings Credits to reduce the up-front cost. In any case, investment in energy savings has a typical return on investment of 30-50 per cent in the first year, and 15-25 per cent after that. Simple behaviour change programs greatly improve those returns. If the cost of energy or a reputation for sustainability is important, firms will act. But for most firms, it’s just not an issue. Those in the business of improving energy efficiency know that only too well.

For the many firms who are feeling pain from rising energy costs, a carbon price is the least of their worries. In NSW, IPART has confirmed that retail electricity will be 40 per cent dearer in 2012-13, without a carbon price. The AiG research confirmed why: electricity prices have been rising, and will continue to do so, due to rising generation and network costs. The resources boom has increased costs for skilled labour, building and maintenance materials, and of course thermal coal prices. It notes that “Nearly 60 per cent of Australian coal-fired generation capacity, including all of NSW’s coal plants, appears potentially exposed to these coal price movements.”

Network costs have risen by 58-93 per cent in NSW and Qld over the past five years, and the underlying causes are only getting worse: rising per capita energy use and peak demand, past under-investment in network assets, and more rigorous licensing conditions imposed by governments to avoid unpopular blackouts. There are also stronger incentives for companies to seek higher capital allowances from regulators than there is to manage demand: that is, they are rewarded for network spend, but not to reduce energy use.

As the resource boom continues, all sectors pay more for labour, materials and energy, while interest rates may rise. If the AiG and ACCI were truly acting for their members, they would be trying to dampen these impacts, pointing members to energy efficiency programs, identifying the opportunities in low-emission and energy efficiency businesses, not scaremongering on a carbon price.

Indeed, far from helping to reduce the business costs of their members in these ways, both AiG’s Heather Ridout and ACCI’s Peter Anderson this week insisted on prolonging the uncertainty over the carbon price, further increasing generation and network costs, by backing Tony Abbott’s intention to ‘roll back’ this ‘great big tax’.

The carbon price is not the only policy issue on which ACCI, at least, has supported the big boys at the expense of its larger constituency. The resource rent tax was designed by the Henry Review to restore the national share of mining proceeds to historic norms (Figure 3), but more importantly as a targeted policy lever to slow down the pace of that mining and so get better returns from it in the medium term.

Fig 3: Mineral tax and royalties as a share of mineral profits

Source: Australian Government, Australia’s Future Tax System, December 2009, chart C1-1.

The resources boom is undeniably putting upward pressure on costs and interest rates for the whole economy. Yet ACCI was happy to risk rising interest rates for its members, and indeed lose a reduction in company tax, by cheering for the short-term profitability of some mining companies rather than the short- and medium-term interests of its members.

As we’ve seen, those miners are in very healthy shape and well able to look after themselves in Canberra. As indeed are our heaviest emitters, trade-exposed or not. It’s not so clear who is looking after the other 1,100,000 businesses in Australia.

Josh Dowse is an independent consultant on sustainable business and investment: www.dowse-csp.com.au

Source: www.climatespectator.com.au

Are Sustainable Aviation Fuels Ready For Take Off?

The introduction of the Gillard Government’s proposed carbon tax is likely to accelerate the move by commercial airlines to adopt sustainable fuels,  Susan Pond, United States Studies Centre adjunct professor with the Dow Sustainability Program told a three-day forum looking at alternative fuels for commercial aviation as part of this week’s Avalon International Airshow and Aerospace & Defence Exposition in Victoria. To accelerate the commercialisation of Sustainable Aviation Fuels, Qantas is working with aviation stakeholders on an Industry Roadmap study, due to be released this month, in conjunction with the CSIRO, Australia’s peak scientific agency.

USSC Centre (4 March 2011)

The introduction of the Gillard Government’s proposed carbon tax is likely to accelerate the move by commercial airlines to adopt sustainable fuels, says Susan Pond, Centre adjunct professor with the Dow Sustainability Program .

The US Centre hosted a three-day forum looking at alternative fuels for commercial aviation as part of this week’s Avalon International Airshow and Aerospace & Defence Exposition in Victoria.

The forum saw presentations by representatives from Virgin, Qantas and Boeing among others. In a video interview now on our website, Dr Pond says that Australia is already quite involved in the global effort to find alternatives to petroleum, but that it is important to have government supporting research and development into biofuels.

Executive director of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, Richard Altman, co-led the forum with Susan Pond. In Australia as a visitor of the US Studies Centre, Mr Altman spoke to John Barron on ABC News Radio about the progress already made towards commercially viable biofuels capable of powering existing jet engines. Interview:

http://ussc.edu.au/news-room/Fuelling-the-future-of-aviation

Source: www.ussc.edu.au

A full report from the conference was not available in time for this issue, neither was the presentation at the conference by Nicole Williamson, Qantas Group Manager Climate Change Strategy and Programs, Qantas Airways. But we have obtained some relevant information from the Qantas website on  Sustainable fuels for aviation.

To accelerate the commercialisation of SAF, Qantas is working with aviation stakeholders on an Industry Roadmap study in conjunction with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s peak scientific agency.

The Roadmap is building on international developments, but focus on the unique advantages and challenges of our region. Specifically, it is looking at addressing barriers to a commercial and scalable SAF industry by bringing together stakeholders from aviation, scientific, traditional fuel supply, government and community groups.

The key challenges centre on scale, commercial viability, environmental sustainability and the selection of the most suitable biomass for our region’s climate and geography. Given the importance of aviation to the Australian and New Zealand economies, it is exciting to see our region leading the way in developing this Roadmap. Significantly, the Roadmap could also promote the development of new clean, ‘green’ energy businesses in regional areas.

The Roadmap report will be published in March 2011.