Rich Nations Upsetting Island States; Africa Goes for $100 Billion Climate Fund

The 42-member Alliance of Small Island States
(AOSIS) – island states most vulnerable to global warming – have lashed out
against rich nations for being “reckless and irresponsible” for
promoting a delay in the adoption of a new international agreement until 2018
or 2020, just weeks before the start of a United Nations climate summit in
Durban, South Africa. Meanwhile, there are plans in the pipeline to establish a
$100 billion ‘Africa Green Fund’ to address the issues of climate change
confronting the continent, says Professor Mthuli Ncube, Chief Economist and
Vice President of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

AfDB to launch $100b ‘Africa Green Fund’ to
address climate change issues

Ghana Business News (28 October 28 2011):

The African Development Bank says there are
plans in the pipeline to establish a $100 billion ‘Africa Green Fund’ to
address the issues of climate change confronting the continent..

Prof. Mthuli Ncube, Chief Economist and Vice
President of the African Development Bank
(AfDB) said at a press conference in Addis Ababa during the Africa
Economic Commission (AEC) Conference on Green Economy and Structural
Transformation that the Fund is still being conceptualised and depending on how
fast progress is made in identifying sources of funding the Fund will
kick-start.

He said the money is expected to come from
countries in the north and from Africa. He mentioned among others, pension
funds as some of the sources from which the money would be raised.

Later in an exclusive interview with
ghanabusinessnews.com, he said the Fund is designed around the climate change
issue. “It is just to make sure that this opportunity around climate change,
doesn’t become a curse, but only becomes an opportunity,” he said.

He told ghanabusinessnews.com that the fund
would be used to finance green projects in infrastructure such as dams,
hydro-electric power generation, geothermal, wind farms, and any form of clean
energy will fall under the umbrella of the Fund.

He said the Fund will also cater for the
AfDB’s socio-economic  programme such as
the Sahel programme in Mali to address the challenges posed by desertification
by reducing its impacts on farmers. It would also be used to provide irrigation
schemes for farmers to reduce their dependence on the rains, he said.

He is hopeful that the Bank will be able to
capitalise the Fund and launch it as soon as possible.

Economists, environmental experts, civil
society and government representatives are meeting in Ethiopia at the African
Economic Conference 2011 under the theme ‘Green Economy and Structural
Transformation’ to discuss and push for structural changes in African
countries’ towards a green economy as the continent and the whole world is
being faced with the challenges of climate change.

On Monday
October 24, 2011, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie, Director of Economic
Development and NEPAD Division, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
told journalists at a Sensitization Workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that “The
impact of climate change is huge on the economy and the people,” he said as can
be seen in the shrinking of natural resources such as the Lake Chad, and sea
erosion at Keta in Ghana.

He said the devastating impact of climate
change is already costing Africa a lot already.

The requirements in terms of financial
requirement for climate change adaptation programmes in Africa he said is said
to be around $20 billion to $30 billion per year.

“Mobilizing this resources is a great
challenge and even if the resources are available, accessing is a problem,” he
said.

He called on African countries to do two
things by instituting policies to adapt to climate change and adopting an
economic transformation strategy that does not worsen the problem, ” because it
pays nobody for Africa to contribute to climate change which is already
affecting Africa worse than anyone else,” he said.

According to Prof. Nnadozie, Africa must
adopt a green economy strategy which promotes sustainable development, uses
less carbon and more renewable energy.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi in Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia

Source: www.ghanabusinessnews.com

Vulnerable Islands Urge Climate Deal before
End of 2012

A group of island states most vulnerable to
global warming have lashed out against rich nations for wanting to delay a new
international climate pact until years after the Kyoto Protocol on curbing
carbon emissions expires in 2012.

Reuters Report (3 November 2011):

A group of island states most vulnerable to
global warming have lashed out against rich nations for wanting to delay a new
international climate pact until years after the Kyoto Protocol on curbing
carbon emissions expires in 2012.

The 42-member Alliance of Small Island States
(AOSIS) said countries such as Japan and Russia were “reckless and
irresponsible” for promoting a delay in the adoption of a new
international agreement until 2018 or 2020, just weeks before the start of a
United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa.

“If we allow this to happen, global
warming problems are going to worsen and the impact on a country like Grenada
will be devastating,” Joseph Gilbert, Grenada’s environment minister and
current chair of AOSIS, said in a statement.

“We therefore cannot continue to delay
making decisions, to 2018 or 2020, as there will not be sufficient time for countries
to take action,” he said.

If world governments fail to agree a pact
that sets tough climate targets then small island countries in the Caribbean,
the Pacific, Africa and elsewhere will be further exposed to severe drought,
rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes as a result of climate change,
Gilbert said.

AOSIS said a large number of developed and
developing countries also want a climate deal done before the end of 2012 and
are calling for that timetable to be agreed at the climate summit in Durban.

Representatives from more than 190 nations
will meet in the South African city from November 28-December 9 to resume
climate talks, but a binding pact to reduce emissions looks unlikely to be
delivered and may take several years due to deep divisions between rich and
poor nations. [nL5E7LE2PU]

KYOTO DIVISIONS

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol covers only emissions
from rich nations that produce less than a third of mankind’s carbon pollution
and its first phase is due to expire end-2012. Poorer nations want it extended,
while many rich countries say a broader pact is needed to include all big
polluters. [nL3E7L30B0]

Russia, Japan, Canada and others have said
they will not sign up to a second commitment period unless it includes all
major emitters.

Two years ago, industrialized nations set a 2
degree Celsius warming as the maximum limit to avoid dangerous climate changes
including more floods, droughts and rising seas. Some experts say a 1.5 degree
limit would be safer.

Scientists have said carbon emissions need to
be cut by 80 to 95 percent by 2050 to keep warming levels reasonably safe.

This is well above the collective commitment
by developed countries for a 5.2 percent reduction from 1990 levels under the
first phase of Kyoto, and well above developed country targets currently on the
table.

The AOSIS chair urged developed countries not
to renege on their legal commitment and “historical responsibility”
to commit to new targets under the Kyoto pact after 2012.

Otherwise, he said: “What this will do
is ruin the Kyoto Protocol, wreck the international carbon market, and
undermine the credibility of the legally-binding international climate regime
that has taken the world more than 20 years to build.”

Benchmark U.N.-issued carbon credits traded
at an all-time low of 6.35 euros ($8.76) earlier on Thursday, before recovering
somewhat. ($1 = 0.725 Euros)

Source: www.scientificamerican.com

Beyond Euro/US Financial Uncertainly, is a Looming Energy/Climate Disaster

Not from some doomsday prophet or climate change
fanatic, but from the normally cool headed International Energy Agency (IEA). The
world is effectively heading for disaster. If it continues with business as
usual, then the world is hurtling towards a 6°C global warming scenario and the
runaway impacts of climate change. And David Jones says that at forums like
G20, in the midst of all of the economic and financial uncertainty, it’s easy
to forget the looming issue of climate change. Yet if we do not act and find a
solution, issues such as the size of Greece’s debt may unfortunately be
somewhat academic.

Giles Parkinson in Climate Spectator (11
November 2011):

Much of big business, particularly the fossil
fuel industry and its cheer-squad in the mainstream media, likes to dismiss the
ambitions and the policy proposals of the green movement as some sort of
unrealistic, utopian dream. But the bombshell dropped by the deeply
conservative International Energy Agency in its World Energy Outlook, released
overnight, should shake them out of their socks: It is not the
environmentalists and clean energy developers that are kidding themselves about
the world’s energy future needs, it’s Big Oil and Big Coal.

The IEA said overnight that the world is
effectively heading for disaster. If it continues with business as usual, then
the world is hurtling towards a 6°C global warming scenario, and the runaway
impacts of climate change. But even under the “new policies” scenario, which
includes the pledges made at the last UN climate talks in Cancun, and national
initiatives such as Australia’s newly passed carbon pricing legislation, the
world only gets one third down the track to where it has said it wants to be –
limiting greenhouse gas emissions to 450 parts per million.

The World Energy Outlook is an annual
publication keenly watched by the energy industries that it serves. Under its
“new policies” scenario, coal, gas and oil have a rosy future. But the IEA says
this is not good enough. “We cannot continue to rely on insecure and
environmentally unsustainable uses of energy,” it says. “Governments need to
introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon
technologies. If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world
will lose forever the chance to avoid dangerous climate change.”

So the IEA also paints its 450 scenario –
which it says gives the world an even bet at limiting global warming to 2°C –
and it requires a dramatic and immediate change in policies and investment,
effectively a halt to new coal fired power plants, increased deployment of gas
(but only as a transitional fuel), massive investment in renewables, and a
significant deployment in nuclear, particularly in developing economies (to
replace their coal-fired plans). It also turns the assumptions made by
Australian Treasury, and possibly the business plans of the oil, coal and gas
industries, on their head.

The critical leap made by the IEA – often
described as a bland, conservative organisation over its 40-year existence – is
that it has now firmly embraced the concept that the world has a finite carbon
budget. And it gives the energy industry, particularly those who seek to
prevent early policy action, a clarion call about the implications.

The IEA calculates that 80 per cent of that
carbon budget is already locked in by plants that have already been built. This
“lock-in” leaves little room for manoeuvre. But delaying serious action until
2015, just three years away, would lift that lock-in to 95 per cent of the
carbon budget, a scenario that that would mean that half of the world’s coal-
and gas-fired energy plants would need to be shut early – by 2035.

If action was delayed until 2017, then the
“lock-in” of existing plants would exceed the world’s carbon budget. In this
case, the IEA says, if the world wants to meet that 450 target, then no new
coal- or gas-fired generation could be built after that time, without forcing
the immediate closure of another dirtier plant. Effectively, the only option
after 2017 is to build emissions-free generation – renewables and nuclear. And
not just that; the IEA says any investment in appliances, buildings and
passenger and commercial vehicles after 2017 will also have to be emissions
free, or require the early retirement of some existing plant or facility to
create headroom for the new investment.

So what does the 450 scenario look like?
According to the IEA, both our means of transport and our energy grids are
completely transformed. Improved fuel efficiency plays the biggest role in
transport, but by 2035, electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids will account for
one third of all vehicle sales. Biofuels also are a major contributor.

The energy grid is dominated by renewables
and the share of fossil fuels falls dramatically. Coal goes from 32 per cent of
capacity (and 41 per cent of generation) to just 13 per cent (and 15 per cent),
with a net loss of 300GW of capacity to 1,268GW. To understand the implications
of that, around 330GW-worth of plants are now under construction, so more than
600GW of coal fired plants will have to be retired – much of it early. That’s
not much of a growth scenario.

Gas nearly doubles its capacity, to 2,10GW,
but its market share falls from 24 per cent to 22 per cent; nuclear’s share
increases slightly to 9 per cent from 8 per cent, but its capacity also doubles
(to 865GW), mostly in developing countries such as China, India and Korea. The
share of hydro falls slightly, to 19 per cent from 20 per cent, although its
capacity also nearly doubles to 1,803GW.

The most dramatic change is in non-hydro
renewables, whose share increases phenomenally – from just 4 per cent in 2009,
to 34 per cent of global electricity capacity in 2035. Wind capacity grows
10-fold to 1,685GW, sending Landscape Guardians across the globe completely
barmy. Solar PV rises 40-fold to 901GW from 22GW in 2009; solar thermal leaps
from just 1GW to 226GW; geothermal from 11GW to 60GW; marine from zero to 23GW,
and biomass grows six-fold to 329GW. In terms of generation, non-hydro
renewables soar to 28 per cent from just 2 per cent in 2009, nuclear and hydro
have a 20 per cent share each, while coal drops from 41 per cent to 15 per
cent, and gas from 21 per cent to 17 per cent.

There couldn’t be a clearer picture about
where the investment and business and job opportunities lie in the future.
According to the IEA scenario, solar thermal has a compound annual growth rate
in investment of 35 per cent from 2011 to 2035, little wonder that the world’s
biggest energy groups are falling over each other trying to get hold of the
best technology. Solar PV, even after its spectacular growth in recent years,
delivers 15 per cent compound annual growth for the next two and a half
decades, wind grows at 10 per cent per annum and marine at 18 per cent.

The renewables sector will attract a total of
$20 trillion in new investment. The other growth industries in this scenario
are clean transport – fuel efficiency and EVs – which attract around $6.3
trillion. The building sector attracts an extra $4.1 trillion, “smart” energy
technology attracts $2 trillion. The losers? Coal capacity slumps by 0.5 per
cent per year out to 2035, a net reduction in investment of $6 trillion, and
investment in poles and wries would be reduced by $900 billion – even after the
investment needed to accommodate intermittent renewables. There is a lot at
stake for vested interests.

And if all this sounds like it is
horrendously expensive and should be put off for as long as possible – echoing
those old chestnuts trotted out by business lobbies hand-wringing about poor
economic conditions, and it not being the right time – then the IEA is
dismissive. “Delaying action is a false economy,” it says. “For every $1 of
avoided investment between 2011 and 2020, either through reduced low-carbon
investment or adoption of cheaper fossil-fuel investment options, an additional
$4.30 would need to be spent between 2021 and 2035 to compensate for the
increased emissions.”

But there is another surprise. The aggressive
investment in the 450 scenario, which includes the dismantling of fossil fuel
subsidies, and the diversion of some of that to renewables, will mean consumers
around the world actually pay $669 billion less in energy costs than they
otherwise would. And, says the IEA, there are other benefits: less pollution;
more countries that are energy self reliant (less chance of conflict);
healthier people who live longer; and a much greater chance of preventing
runaway global warming, with far lower adaptation costs. It seems like a policy
no-brainer.

But contrast the 450 scenario to the
direction we are now headed. Australian miners are relatively happy for the
world’s politicians to continue to say they want to limit global warming to
2°C, but not actually implement the policies to do it. In the IEA’s “New
Policies” scenario, Australia is actually the only major OECD country to
increase coal production out to 2035 and, along with Indonesia, to dominate
regional trade, which is why so many coal companies are piling into NSW and
Queensland to dig the ore up.

But in the 450 scenario, should politicians
get their act together, the outlook is turned on its head. China is no longer
Australia’s biggest customer, it actually ceases to become an importer of coal.
Output in the US and Europe declines dramatically, India becomes the biggest
customer. These go completely against the scenarios outlined by Australian
Treasury.

The IEA says gas may well be facing a
“golden” age, but it is not inevitable. It carries several caveats. Like
renewables, it will require the policy intervention of governments to displace
coal – this could be mandated closures, or a high enough carbon price. This is
particularly so in China, where the IEA says gas would have little impact on
the power mix if market economics became the absolute priority for deployment
in power generation in that country. In certain scenarios – such as the delayed
response to 450, and the delayed deployment of CCS – the golden age is brought
to an abrupt halt, possibly as early as 2030, when it begins to decline. In all
scenarios, renewables account for a far greater level of abatement of either
gas or nuclear, second only to reduced consumption, or energy efficiency.

But if these scenarios look like hell on
earth for Big Coal and Big Oil, the IEA paints an even more radical scenario –
the one that happens if policies are delayed, but the world finally decides
that it wants to get to 450 in a big hurry. In other words, what does it do if
OECD countries do not lock in, by 2013, CO2 pricing and support for low-carbon
technologies at levels which are strong enough to steer the energy sector onto
a steep decarbonisation path? This, after all, given the state of international
negotiations and individual country commitments, is the most likely scenario.

Essentially it means the early retirement of
fossil fuel plants – well ahead of their economic life. Anyone building a new
coal-fired power station, or even a gas-fired power station, cannot rely on it
surviving until the end of its normal economic life, unless stringent policies
are implemented within two years, or there is a great leap ahead in CCS.

But of particular concern to the IEA is that
the rollout of CCS is delayed. This will require an even greater shift to
renewables, and particularly solar PV in buildings. Wind would have to grow at
90GW a year; sales of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles would need
to be three quarters of passenger and commercial vehicle sales in 2035,
requiring a significant transformation of the infrastructure used to fuel/recharge
the cars. There would also need to be a more rapid roll-out of nuclear.

But therein lies a problem. The IEA says the
accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power station has led to a re-evaluation of
the risks associated with nuclear power, and to greater uncertainty about the
future role of nuclear power in the energy mix. It paints varying scenarios,
including a “low nuclear case” in which it plays a smaller role in global
energy supply, and more is required of renewables to compensate – 20 per cent
more than in the base-case 450 scenario. And CCS would need to deliver 30 per
cent more.

But what would happen if both CCS failed to
deliver in time, and governments were reluctant to push the button on nuclear?
The IEA doesn’t cover that scenario; it’s not quite ready to go there. Maybe
next year.

Source: www.climatespectator.com.au

David R. Jones, Global CEO of Havas and
co-founder of One Young World on  Why
Greece’s Debt Shouldn’t Be the G20′s Biggest Economic Issue  (4 November 2011):

As the G20 leaders meet in Cannes, the entire
meeting is being consumed by the current debt crisis in Europe and its
potential impact on the global economy.

On one level, that is completely
understandable. The world’s economy is precariously balanced and without
confident, decisive action could tip back into another major global downturn.
It’s a critical issue and one that must be resolved. Especially after defeat
was almost snatched from the jaws of victory by Greece’s decision to hold a
referendum which has fortunately now been reversed

However, there is another subject that the
G20 has a unique opportunity to take action on. And one that is every bit as
critical. In the midst of all of the economic and financial uncertainty, it’s
easy to forget the looming issue of climate change. Yet if we do not act and
find a solution, issues such as the size of Greece’s debt may unfortunately be
somewhat academic. The phrase ‘rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic’ springs
to mind.

Climate is an economic issue. Both in its
threat and in its potential opportunity. And while history will probably forget
the current Greek debt crisis, it will not forget the consequences of action,
or to be more pessimistic inaction, on climate. As the quote on the wall of
Patagonia’s head office says: “There is no business to be done on a dead
planet.”

President Sarkozy has stated that he wishes
to lead the G20 in addressing global problems with “action and
ambition” — this can and should include action on mitigating the effects
of Climate Change. Alongside resolving the world’s debt crisis, establishing a
new framework for consultation on a financial transaction tax and exchange rate
developments, the G20 should be stating clear, specific commitments by member
states as to how they will deliver on the recent Cancun agreement within their
own legislative programs, as well as acting in concert, and thereby delivering
economic growth and jobs through the green economy.

While taking action on climate change has
been somewhat of a political hot potato in recent years — given both its
complexity and low perceived chance of success many politicians have sought to
steer well clear of the subject — it could actually, almost
counter-intuitively, be the one subject the G20 leaders could agree on. The
opposition from member states regarding financial transaction taxes and
exchange rate reform make the chances of agreement on those issues limited –
the White House has already this week expressed its skepticism about Sarkozy
and Merkel’s plan on taxing financial market transactions, and it is highly
unlikely that the US and China will resolve their very public differences on
exchange rate — thus realistic practical proposals regarding action on Climate
Change have a very real chance of being adopted and therein delivering a major
tangible success to the Summit. Which may interest those leaders who have a
rather important date with the polls next year.

In order for Cannes to deliver concrete
action on climate, any solution needs to achieve the following:

Firstly, it needs to be practical and have a
realistic chance of being adopted. It must be within relatively easy reach of
each member of the G20 and be something they are already looking at. It must
also be something on which they can legislate quickly. What is key is that it
is a starting point, not an end point.

Secondly, it needs to diffuse the political
standoff between the developed and developing world and the tensions between
China and America — already exacerbated by the currency debate. The Chinese
government is paying the highest financial price of all the G20 members for the
negative effects of carbon emissions, but they need to keep their economy
growing and they need a realistic starting point for world action on climate
change that they can adopt. Their investments in Green Energy show how
committed they are to acting — just not on someone else’s terms.

The following two simple proposals address
these criteria and could and should be adopted by the G20 leaders in Cannes.

Proposal 1: PEY18

In order to ensure that the negative effects
of carbon emission begin to come under control, the G20 member states should
resolve to set 2018 as the year in which these emissions will peak; emissions
will fall after 2018, Peak Emission Year, as a result of the legislative action
agreed by the G20 member states. If it should be that a G20 member will not
accept 2018 then they must state and commit to their own national peak
emissions year.

Peak Emission Year (PEY) will give the
Chinese government something they can sign up to without losing face and
without being seen to ‘blink first’ in a standoff with US interests. It allows
for a global agreement but with everyone acting on their own terms. And China
can be seen to ‘lead’ as opposed to bending to the will of developed economies.

Proposal 2: FFS18

The G20 members will agree to abolish Fossil
Fuel Subsidies by 2018.

The G20 has already made a commitment to
establish a plan to end fossil fuel subsidies. They can and should demonstrate
that they are accountable to that commitment. A report by the International
Energy Agency (IEA), Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
Organization for

Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD),
and World Bank estimated that fossil fuel consumption subsidies cost the global
economy $557 billion in 2008, and unless eliminated can be expected to impose
similar costs in the future — that can finance a lot of Greek debt! There is
even political momentum on this issue, with the US in particular wanting to
pursue an end to FFS.

These two proposals are broadly in line with
the publicly-stated views of the majority of G20 government environment
ministers. They have been developed with the informal input of the governments
or environment ministries of many of the G20 countries, and after consultation
with Climate experts, Business leaders, the Global Climate Change Alliance and
the Global Sustainability 50 Committee of 50 of the world’s largest companies.

More importantly, they are credible, tangible
and achievable.

As President Sarkozy said in his August 20,
2010 speech to the 18th UN Ambassadors Conference: “Shouldn’t the G20 be
discussing the financing of a climate agreement? At a time when the fight
against climate change is at a standstill.”

Yes, I think it should.

PEY18/FFS18 is one of the nine proposals that
were developed for the French government, this year’s G20 Chair, by the ‘G20
Paris Initiative Task Force’ of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders
community including David Aikman, Fabrice Seiman,Thomas Buberl, Alfredo Capote,
Kevin Lu, Erwann Michel-Kerjan, Jill Janaina Otto, Anthony Stevens and David
Jones.

About the Author:

David
Jones is the Global CEO of Havas and co-founder of One Young World. In advance
of the United Nations’ Copenhagen Climate Summit, David led Kofi Annan’s
TckTckTck campaign, recruiting 18 million “climate allies.” He also
led the advertising agency team working with David Cameron and the UK
Conservative Party team from 2007 to the successful election in 2010.

The opinions are the author’s own.

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Australian Government Gives Green Light to a Clean Energy Future

With the Carbon Price passed into law, Australia
is set to unlock more than A$13 billion in government funds for clean energy
that could boost investments for large solar power stations, geothermal, wave
power and energy efficiency projects, but is wind  missing out, asks David Fogarty. But Giles
Parkinson thinks the Government-approved Clean Energy Future package could
hardly have been better timed for the 850 or so delegates to the Carbon Expo
forum in Melbourne.

By David Fogarty for Reuters (8 November
20110:

Australia is set to unlock more than A$13
billion in government funds for clean energy that could boost investments for
large solar power stations, but wind farm developers are at risk if the money
disrupts an existing green scheme.

The Senate on Tuesday passed laws supporting
renewables and a national carbon price to accelerate investment in cleaner
energy.

Geothermal, wave power and energy efficiency
projects are also likely to benefit from two independent bodies to be approved
by the Senate, the A$10 billion dollars ($10.3 billion) Clean Energy Finance
Corporation (CEFC) and A$3.2 billion Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

Wind farms and household solar are unlikely
to get access to the cash because the technologies are more mature, cheaper
than other renewables and less in need of support.

But getting the design right for the CEFC in
particular will be crucial, energy policy analysts say, or the risk is
undermining an existing scheme that has driven major investment in wind farms.

“Not only does the CEFC stimulate
certain technologies but it also acts against other technologies, so the wind
industry might come out really loudly against the CEFC,” said Tony Wood,
director of the energy program at the Grattan Institute in Melbourne, an
independent think tank.

Australia is blessed with vast potential to
generate renewable energy from the sun, wind, geothermal, wave as well as hydro
power. While government programs have tried to support green energy, about 90
percent of the country’s power comes from coal and gas.

With energy costs and greenhouse gas
emissions rising, the government is trying to change this.

The CEFC starts in 2013 and runs for 5 years,
with half the money set aside for renewable energy and the remainder to support
lower-emissions technologies and energy efficiency. It aims to commercialize
green energy power generation that needs additional financial help to make it
viable.

It potentially represents the most important
program to ramp up green investment since the government overhauled and
expanded a market-based scheme that mandates a national target of 20 percent
renewable energy by 2020.

REVIEW

That scheme, the Mandatory Renewable Energy
Target, has led to a dramatic rise in wind farm investment, with more than
2,000 megawatts of capacity now installed and about another 9,000 MW of
projects proposed.

The projects earn renewable energy certificates,
currently trading at about A$40 per megawatt/hour, that retailers and some
generators have to buy to meet green energy targets

The government is reviewing the design of the
CEFC, with wind farm developers fearing a major scaling up of rival renewable
energy technologies that would also earn renewable energy certificates could
distort the market.

“The CEFC needs to have the right
principles around it to make sure that it doesn’t create a market distortion
under the renewable energy target and that’s what we will be advocating for
strongly,” said Lane Crockett, managing director, Australia, of Pacific
Hydro, a large wind farm developer.

“If there was a market distortion, it
could threaten wind assets,” he said, adding the A$5 billion under the
finance corporation should deploy renewable energy investment for assets or
generation above and beyond the 20 percent renewable energy target, and focus
on less mature technologies.

Questions remain over the level of risk CEFC
is willing to take and the type of financial support for projects.

“The CEFC, being a government-owned
body, wouldn’t be expected to give the rate of return that banks or others
would, so people talk about it that would be just above the bond rate,”
said Paul Curnow, who advises on carbon, renewable energy and environmental
markets for law firm Baker & McKenzie in Sydney.

“It could be loan guarantees, early
stage equity, concessional loans,” he said, steps that would help bridge
the price gap in servicing debt costs and the money a project earns from
selling power and earning renewable energy certificates.

A major issue for many large renewable energy
projects is the high initial capital cost and debt repayments. Depending on the
technology, the long-term power purchase agreement as well as money from
renewable energy certificates might not cover the debt servicing costs.
Sweeteners become essential.

The smaller Australian Renewable Energy
Agency, set to start next year and run for nine years, will focus on grants to
emerging green energy technologies to help with research and development and
bringing them up to commercial scale.

WAVE AND GEOTHERMAL

The agency will repackage existing programs,
with additional support for large-scale solar expected, along with money for
geothermal and wave power developers.

Beneficiaries could include Carnegie Wave
Energy Ltd and Oceanlinx and geothermal companies Geodynamics Ltd, Green Rock
Energy Ltd and Pacific Hydro.

“In Australia, local banks will often
only lend for 5 to 8 years, so if the CEFC is able to take a long-term view,
able to invest 10 to 15 years, then the returns on areas such as solar and
geothermal start to make more sense as the returns on investment kick in with
higher energy and carbon pricing over this longer period,” said Curnow.

Geodynamics says it aims to complete a 25 MW
plant by Dec 2013 and is targeting production of more than 500 MW by 2018.

Large-scale solar is set to benefit from both
funding bodies. This includes utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) power
plants and solar thermal, which focuses the sun’s energy to drive steam
turbines to generate power.

These can use large numbers of parabolic
troughs to heat fluids to drive the turbine, or use acres of mirrors to focus
sunlight to a point on top of a tower.

Leading power generation equipment maker
Alstom is confident it will benefit since its turbines can be used for both
types of solar thermal technology. Alstom also has a stake in U.S. solar tower
firm BrightSource.

“We haven’t secured deals with anybody
at this point,” said Gwen Andrews, vice-president Asia and Oceania for
environmental policies and global advocacy at Alstom.

“But with the new funding announcements
coming out, we are very hopeful of the future for solar thermal in
Australia.”

The government earlier this year announced it
would partially fund the country’s two largest solar power stations with total
capacity of 400 MW. Investors include French nuclear firm Areva, BP Solar and
Pacific Hydro.

Curnow said it was too early to judge how
successful the CEFC would be. If the aim was to solely support the target of 20
percent renewable energy, then the body might not be able to spend the full
A$10 billion because there were already sizeable green energy investments in
the pipeline.

“If you just need a 20 percent target, then
assuming all of those projects going forward need some support from the CEFC,
you have to question whether they could spend that money, since the aim is to
leverage private investments,” he said.

“So it does imply that we are going to
see more renewables than the 20 percent.”

Source: www.reuters.com

Giles Parkinson in Climate Spectator (8
November 2011)

It was a couple of years later than it needed
be, and about an hour later than the organisers hoped, but the passing of the
Clean Energy Future package by the Senate on Tuesday could hardly have been
better timed for the 850 or so delegates to the Carbon Expo forum in Melbourne.

Some 20 years after climate change first
became a serious public policy issue, after some 35 different policy reviews,
several aborted attempts, a trail of political victims and some harsh words
both in and out of parliament, the Senate gave its approval to a carbon price
by a handful of votes.

There were cheers in the Senate, but a muted
reception at the expo, possibly because most had left the giant screen relaying
the proceedings of the Senate to tuck in to lunch. “I can’t quite believe it
has actually happened,” said one lawyer who had been working on legislative
drafts for the best part of a decade. But, as one banker lamented, some
uncertainty has simply been replaced by more uncertainty: the question posed by
his customers, which up to now has been “will the legislation be passed?” will
simply be replaced with “will the legislation be repealed?”

The passage of the legislation does have one
important political dynamic: the onus of the government to justify and explain
its legislation is now passed to the Opposition, which has been campaigning on
a platform of “no, no, no,” underlined by Abbott’s extraordinary blood oath to
repeal it. It was quickly the focus of the leading business types invited to
speak at the expo.

Michael Fraser, the CEO of AGL Energy,
described the “Abbott factor” as “very unfortunate”. For AGL it meant that any
decisions made on certain investments, such as the baseload gas generation that
most say is crucial to transition one of the world’s dirtiest economies to a
cleaner future, will be deferred. “We will proceed with caution,” Fraser told
the audience. “We want to see bipartisan agreement.”

And, he warned, energy prices would not fall
as the Opposition claimed they would, should the carbon price be repealed. In
that situation, they would likely go even higher. “When I look at the
fundamentals, energy prices are going to rise.”

Steve Sargent, the CEO of GE Australia, the
local branch of the world’s biggest industrial conglomerate, said the political
situation was “disappointing,” particularly when both sides of parliament had
identical climate policies, at least as far as the crucial emissions reduction
target was concerned. “We should have been debating what we were going to do
and how we going to get there,” he said.

The federal government insists that Tony
Abbott’s threat to repeal the legislation is simply hot air. It’s not that it
can’t be done, at least in theory, said Mark Dreyfus, the parliamentary
secretary for climate change, it’s that it won’t be, for political reasons.
“This legislation will not be repealed. It’s a hollow promise,” he told the
audience.

In the meantime, big business seemed mostly
happy and enthusiastic about the arrival of a carbon price. “There are a whole
lot of business that don’t exist today that are going to emerge,” Fraser said.
“We certainly see lots of opportunities.” GE, which has been pricing carbon on
its own internal models for nearly a decade, also saw lots of opportunities.
And Sargent noted, citing new engine models GE had delivered for the Qantas
fleet: new technologies could deliver both lower operating costs and lower
emissions. “It’s very doable,” he said.

One of the areas of concern was about the
price of carbon, not so much that it was set so high in comparison to the
current European price (it is currently about double) – as both AGL and Delta
pointed out, to achieve transition to gas in short term will need a price far
higher than $23 a tonne – but that it was set at all. “The quicker the
transition to a market price, the better, said Santos CEO David Knox. “We
already take on oil price risk, gas price risk. Now we will have carbon price
risk. We will just model this into our business plans.”

Knox said Australia now had a fantastic
opportunity to drive down emissions, with a “clever” combination of gas and
renewables, that could reduce Australia’s emissions intensity by more than half
to 0.4t/MWh, and make local industry competitive and the economy an attractive
place to invest.

But Steve Everett from Delta was still
hopeful for a role for coal, saying “remnants” of the industry would be needed
to provide centralised power stations. He even expected coal-fired power
stations to be built in various “pockets” such as in Western Australia, and
possibly even along the east coast if carbon capture and storage could prove
its worth.

Knox said that would be possible, but not
easy. The huge transport costs of CO2 to be sequestered meant that CCS was
“very unlikely to solve the problem,” unless the coal-fired plant and the tanks
to sequester the emissions were close together. Coal seam gas, which Santos
exploits, still has its own issues. Knox said concerns about entry to the farm
gate and its impact on aquifers needed to be addressed properly. Indeed, he
said, the industry needed to aim to “jump high” on these issues, rather than
engage in limbo dancing.

Most people would be hoping for some of the
same from the Opposition on climate policy. But it may take a while.

Source: www.climatespectator.com.au

Tell Flood-prone Thailand that Disasters will Multiply in the Future

A new UN report seems to state the obvious…it
concludes that man-made climate change has boosted the frequency or intensity
of heat waves, wildfires, floods and cyclones and that such disasters are
likely to multiply in the future. Thailand pretty much knows that as it
grapples with the impact of the worst flooding for many decades…is it a 50 or
100 year occurrence? For sure it will happen again.

By Marlowe Hood  for AFP (1 November 2011):

A new UN report concludes that man-made
climate change has boosted the frequency or intensity of heat waves, wildfires,
floods and cyclones and that such disasters are likely to multiply in the
future.

The draft document, which has been three
years in the making, says the severity of the impacts vary, with some regions
more vulnerable than others.

Hundreds of scientists working under the
Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) will vet the phonebook-sized
draft at a meeting in Kampala of the 194-nation body later this month.

“This is the largest effort that has
ever been made to assess how extremes are changing,” said Neville
Nicholls, a professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and a
coordinating lead author of one of the review’s key chapters.

The report’s authors stress that the level of
“confidence” in the findings depends on the quantity and quality of
data available.

But the overall picture that emerges is one
of enhanced volatility and frequency of dangerous weather, leading in turn to a
sharply increased risk for large swathes of humanity in coming decades.

AFP obtained a copy of the draft report’s
20-page Summary for Policymakers, which is subject to revision by governments
before release on November 18.

A series of natural catastrophes around the
world has boosted the need to determine whether such events are freaks of the
weather or part of a long-term shift in climate.

In 2010, record temperatures fuelled
devastating forest fires across Siberia, while Pakistan and India reeled from
unprecedented flooding.

This year, the United States has suffered a record
number of billion-dollar disasters from flooding in the Mississippi and
Missouri Rivers to Hurricane Irene to a drought in Texas.

China is reeling from lack of water too, even
as central America and Thailand count their dead from recent flooding.

These events match predicted impacts of
global warming, which has raised temperatures, increased the amount of water in
the atmosphere and warmed ocean surface temperatures — all drivers of extreme
weather.

But teasing apart the role of natural
fluctuations in the weather and rising levels of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere has proven devilishly difficult.

The nine-chapter Special Report on Managing
the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,
or SREX, pored over hundreds of recent scientific studies in search of
patterns.

The new report’s main conclusions about
future trends include:

- It is “virtually certain” –
99-100% sure — that the frequency and magnitude of record-hot days will
increase over the 21st century on a global scale.

- It is “very likely” (90-100%
certainty) that the length, frequency and/or intensity of warm spells,
including heat waves, will continue to increase over most land areas.

- Peak temperatures are “likely”
(66-100% certainty) to increase — compared to the late 20th century — up to
3.0 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050, and 5.0 C (9.0 F) by
2100.

- Heavy rain and snowfall is likely to
increase, especially in the tropics and at high latitudes.

- At the same time, droughts will likely
intensify in the Mediterranean region, central Europe, North America,
northeastern Brazil and southern Africa.

- Rising and warming seas are also very
likely to boost the destructive power of cyclones, while melting glaciers and
permafrost, along with heavier precipitation, will trigger more landslides.

The Carnegie Institution’s Chris Field,
co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group 2, would not comment on the report’s
conclusions, but said they would help shape political choices.

“When the SREX is finalized and approved
by the world’s governments, it will provide a solid foundation for smart
policies on managing risks from climate extremes and climate-related
disasters,” he said by email.

The IPCC’s landmark Fourth Assessment in 2007
said global warming was “unequivocal” and that human activity was
almost certainly largely to blame.

Source: www.google.com

Asia pays watery price for overdevelopment

By Denis D. Gray, Associated Press (25
October 2011)

As millions of urbanites living a modern
lifestyle fear that torrents of floodwater will rage through Thailand’s
capital, some in enclaves of a bygone era watch the rising waters with hardly a
worry — they live in old-fashioned houses perched on stilts with boats rather
than cars parked outside.

“No problem for them. They’ll be
safe,” says boatman Thongrat Sasai, plying his craft along some of the
remaining canals that once crisscrossed Bangkok, earning it a “Venice of
the East” moniker.

Like most of monsoon-swept Asia, the city and
its environs have experienced periodic floods since it was founded more than
two centuries ago. But recent decades have witnessed dramatic changes — from
intense urbanization to rising waters blamed on climate change — that are turning
once burdensome but bearable events into national crises.

“In a sense traditional society had an
easier coexistence with water and flooding,” says Aslam Perawaiz, an
expert at the Bangkok-based Asian Disaster Preparedness Center. “Now, with
such rapid development there’s a much bigger problem.”

Across Asia, areas of high population density
are also those most prone to flooding and other water-related disasters,
according to an Associated Press analysis of recent U.N. maps. When overlaid,
the maps show such convergence in a wide arc from Pakistan and India, across
Southeast Asia, to China, the Philippines and Indonesia.

This isn’t mere bad luck. Historically,
agrarian societies settled in the continent’s great river basins, including the
Ganges in India, the Mekong in Southeast Asia and the Chao Phraya in Bangkok.
The gift of the rivers was fertile land, but it came at the price of almost
annual flooding during the monsoon rains.

By providing sufficient food for growing
populations, these rice bowls in turn spurred the rise of some of Asia’s
largest cities from Bangkok to Kolkata, India. The concentration of national
resources and wealth means even smaller disasters can have a big impact.

Severe flooding this year has killed more
than 1,000 people across Asia, and economic losses are running in the tens of
billions of dollars.

Thailand, suffering its worst flooding in 50
years, offers a prime example of the perils of centralization and man’s
fractured bonds to the natural environment. Floodwater has spilled into
outlying parts of Bangkok, and the government is scrambling to try to prevent
the inundation of the city center.

The basin of the Chao Phraya — the River of
Kings — and its headwaters in the north are home to 40 percent of the country’s
66 million people. Bangkok is Thailand’s industrial, financial, transportation
and cultural heart, contributing more than 65 percent of its gross domestic
product.

Growth, outward and upward, has been
stunning. Bangkok’s greater metropolitan area now covers nearly 3,000 square
miles (more than 7,700 square kilometers) and continues to gnaw away at a
surrounding countryside that once acted as a natural drain for water from
northern mountain watersheds — themselves shedding more water because of
widespread deforestation.

Highways, suburban malls and industrial
parks, many now swamped and sustaining crippling losses, create dangerous
buildups of water or divert it into populated areas rather than along
traditional paths toward the Gulf of Thailand.

In Bangkok itself, streets where today’s
middle-aged residents used to play with water buffaloes as children are studded
with towering, cheek-by-jowl condominiums and office blocks. The ratios of
green space to population and area are among the lowest of any major city in
the world.

To this add extreme and erratic weather, said
to be triggered by climate change, which has increasingly buffeted Asian
countries with storms, typhoons and floods. These include ones such as Thailand
with a historically mild tropical climate.

Further, the legal and illegal pumping of
underground water faster than it can be replaced has compressed water-storing
aquifers, causing Bangkok to sink between 0.8 and 2 inches (2 to 5 centimeters)
each year. Scientists say the rise of waters in the nearby gulf as a result of
global warming could combine with the sinking land to put Bangkok under water
much of the time by mid-century.

Similar subsidence and seawater encroachment
is occurring in Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City and Manila, where a typhoon last
month triggered the worst flooding in the Philippine capital in decades.

Bangkok, some experts half-jokingly say, may
well return to what it was in the 19th century: a water world where almost all
its 400,000 inhabitants lived on raft-houses or homes on stilts. “The
highways of Bangkok are not streets or roads, but the river and the
canals,” wrote British envoy Sir John Browning in 1855.

A century later, on the advice of
international development agencies, Bangkok began to fill in most of its canals
— excellent conduits of floodwaters — to build more roads and combat malaria.

Sumet Jumsai, a prominent architect and
scholar, says that Bangkok’s early development “evolved with nature and
not against it.” But, he adds, by the early 1980s the city had become
“an alien organism unrelated to its background and surroundings, a great
concrete pad on partially filled land that … must succumb to the flood every
year.”

Dikes and drainage pipes have been built, but
nature appears to be keeping several steps ahead of manmade defenses.

“Of course this year the flood is maybe
too great to stop, but all in all it was better in the old days,” says
Phairat Klatlek, sitting atop a poorly erected concrete flood wall through
which water rushed into the first floor of her home. She and her electrician
husband, like most of their neighbors, had built a ground-hugging, modern house
along the Bangkok Noi canal.

Sumet is designing modern, functional
buildings, including a university campus, built on stilt columns and proposes a
revival of floating houses, promenades and markets.

“The underlying philosophy is the return
to living with nature like in Bangkok of yesteryear,” he says.

But Aslam, the disaster expert, says, “I
don’t think we can go back to living in harmony with nature as in the past.
What is now necessary is huge investments and long-term planning by governments
to mitigate such flooding.”

Associated Press writers Sopheng Cheang in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Teresa Cerojano in Manila, Philippines; and Asia
interactive producer Pailin Wedel contributed to this report.

Source: www.google.com

Sizing Up Innovations: A Small Solar Charger and a Floating Solar Island

At Clean Energy Expo, a small Singapore start-up
company set the tech media world buzzing with the launch of its unique solar
charging mPowerPad.  the Government announced
Singapore will build its first floating solar system – the first of its kind in
the region – led by the Economic Development Board (EDB) and national water
agency PUB, at a cost S$11 million and be operational by 2013.

By Jessica Cheam in Straits Times (3 November
2011):

Singapore will build its first floating solar
system – the first of its kind in the region – in the calm waters of the
western Tengeh Reservoir.

The innovative project, led by the Economic
Development Board (EDB) and national water agency PUB, will cost $11 million
and be operational by 2013.

National Environment Agency (NEA) chief
executive Andrew Tan announced this yesterday, noting that the pilot project
will be studied for the potential of using reservoir water surfaces for these
systems to generate electricity.

This is to overcome Singapore’s land
constraints: Solar panels need large land mass to generate a large amount of
energy. In Singapore, they are usually built on rooftops.

Speaking at the third Solar Pioneer Awards
ceremony, where he was the guest of honour, Mr Tan said he was optimistic that
‘local solar adoption will continue to proliferate, driven by factors such as
increased local capabilities, innovation and government support’.

The 2-megawatt solar photovoltaic system –
which will be connected to the national grid – will generate enough energy from
the sun to power 450 four-room flats at any one time.

Mr Goh Chee Kiong, EDB’s director of clean
technology, told The Straits Times: ‘This is a major step for us… if this pilot
project works out, the potential is tremendous for rolling out similar projects
across the island.’

He added that remote reservoirs would be good
locations. Those that currently host recreational activities, such as
MacRitchie, will not be considered.

Singapore got its inspiration from existing
floating projects such as those in the United States’ Napa Valley, where land
owners built such systems to reduce water loss and overcome land constraints,
he added.

Singapore’s solar industry has grown into a
thriving industry in recent years; The HDB recently unveiled the first solar
leasing project, which allowed private firms to design, install and maintain
solar energy systems.

The floating project will be a public and
private partnership, where the government agencies will work with interested
private-sector companies to build the system.

Singapore can learn about the technical
challenges and cost-effectiveness of such systems through this test bed, which
will also look into other considerations such as aesthetics and impact on the
environment, said Mr Goh.

EDB and PUB will also study other potential
benefits, such as the cooling effect of the water body on the solar panels,
which will enable it to be more effective in generating electricity.

Other
possible benefits are reduced water evaporation, and algal growth in the
reservoirs.

Industry players said they were excited about
the project. Mr Christophe Inglin, managing director of solar firm Phoenix
Solar, who is keen to bid for it, said: ‘This is a very interesting experiment…
but there are some technical challenges to be ironed out. Water and electricity
do not mix very well together.’

NEA’s Mr Tan noted the Asian sunbelt region
is viewed as the ‘next exciting growth frontier for solar markets’. ‘Solar
energy also has the potential to help Singapore diversify its energy sources
and reduce its carbon footprint,’ he said.

Yesterday’s ceremony was held at the inaugural
PV Asia-Pacific Expo, part of the annual Singapore International Energy Week.

Five private-sector projects were given the
Solar Pioneer Award, which recognises solar installations in Singapore that are
at the forefront of system design, size and installation techniques.

The five are Keppel DHCS’ district cooling
systems plant at Changi Business Park, Hyflux’s innovation centre in Bendemeer,
GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals’ plant in Tuas, OUB Centre’s One Raffles Place
Tower 2 and UOL Group’s Upper Pickering hotel and office development.

Source: www.eco-business.com

By Jacqueline Seng on cNet Asia, Crave (1
November 2011):

If you’re off the (power) grid often–and you
don’t own a rugged solar phone–you might need the mPowerpad, a charger that
harnesses solar energy to charge up to two devices at a time.

Launched by Singapore-based startup Third
Wave Power, the mPowerpad is actually more than a solar charger. It also acts a
reading light, flashlight, insect repellent (by emitting an ultrasonic
frequency) and FM/AM/shortwave receiver.

During a demo at the Clean Energy Expo Asia
2011, Third Wave Power co-founder Lim Chuin Kiat showed off the device’s accelerometer-based
user interface which we found relatively intuitive and easy to use. For
instance, tilting the device in a certain direction triggers one function, or
turns it off. Lim says that avoiding the use of moving mechanical parts also
helps ensure the device is as robust as possible.

With its polycarbonate material, silicon
sleeve and rubber bumpers, the mPowerpad is claimed to be water-resistant and
shock-resistant for falls of up to 1m. It’s about the same size and weight as
an iPad, so it should fit well in a backpack.

The 4-watt solar panel is fully charged
within six hours and can juice up an iPhone fully with more than enough power
remaining to use other functions for up to six hours. The 2,500mAh charger is
made up of five standard AA-size nickel-metal hydride batteries which can be
easily removed and replaced, or used in other compatible devices when fully
charged. Lim estimates that the cell is able to last for 500 recharge cycles,
or up to 18 months if used daily.

The mPowerpad works with non-iOS devices,
too–it comes with seven common connector tips, so you can use it with most
other handsets. There’s also the option of using an AC input if there’s a power
socket readily available. People in remote areas without a ready supply of electricity,
such as hikers or those living in rural areas, may find this solar charger
useful.

Third Wave Power co-founder V.S. Hariharan
says that the company is in talks with retail partners and NGOs about
distributing the mPowerpad in Asia, India and Bangladesh, and that shipping
should begin in early January next year. The device will cost US$80.

Source: www.asia.cnet.com

Singapore, 31 October 2011 – Singapore-based
company Third Wave Power Pte Ltd today announced its new offering, mPowerpad,
the world‟s first multi-function, portable solar device that can power up
digital devices and is equipped with essential functions for users operating
away from the power grid like AM/FM/SW radio, reading light, flashlight and
ultrasonic insect repellent. mPowerpad launches this week at the Clean Energy
Expo Asia 2011 in Singapore, 1-3 November (Booth F05, Suntec City).

Compact, rugged and lightweight, mPowerpad
takes less than 6 hours to fully charge under direct sunlight. Through two USB
ports, mPowerpad is capable of charging many types of devices and gadgets such
as mobile phones, smartphones, tablets and cameras. With a 2500mAh battery
capacity, it can fully charge up an iPhone – as quickly and efficiently as from
an AC/DC outlet – while simultaneously providing reading light, radio and
insect repellant for 4-5 hours.

“mPowerpad is designed for people who often
travel to remote places and need a serious solution to keep their gadgets and
equipment up and running,” said VS Hariharan, Co-founder of Third Wave Power.
The company – backed by commercial incubator Small World Group and Singapore‟s
National Research Foundation – recently won the ‟Most Eco-friendly Start-up„
award at Techventure 2011, held in October in Singapore.

“Other solar chargers in the market do not
have more than one or two functions, or they lack durability and reliability.
mPowerpad, however, delivers an affordable, sustainable boost to productivity,
and benefits outdoor enthusiasts, professionals and households with no ready
access to electricity,” said Hariharan.

mPowerpad features a unique gesture-based
user interface that requires no button, knob or dial to operate the device.
With no moving mechanical parts that could break down from manual wear and
tear, and being water, dust- and drop-resistant, mPowerpad is built to
withstand harsh weather and terrain conditions.

Said Lim Chuin Kiat, Co-founder of Third Wave
Power, “mPowerpad has been designed for ultimate ease-of-use. With a built-in
accelerometer, functions are activated by simple motions of tilting or turning
the device. Anyone in the world – regardless of culture, literacy or education
– will find mPowerpad extremely easy to use.”

Field testing of pre-production units is
currently underway across various geographies. The first shipment of mPowerpad
is expected early January next year with a recommended retail price of US$80
per unit.

For more information on mPowerpad, visit
Third Wave Power at Clean Energy Expo Asia 2011, Suntec City Singapore, Booth
F05, 1-3 November or visit www.thirdwavepower.com. In addition, a public CEEA
session on “Making solar power portable and useful” by Third Wave Power is
scheduled on 2 November, 11.00–11.45 am at Tech Talk Room 1.

About Third World Power Pte Ltd

Third Wave Power aims to empower people
around the world by improving lives and increasing productivity. Incorporated
in 2011 and based in Singapore, the company develops affordable and innovative
renewable power solutions that serve portable energy needs in both urban and
rural areas. Third Wave Power products are designed based on customers‟ needs
and are made to perform and last in the environments they are used in. The
company is backed by commercial incubator Small World Group and Singapore‟s
National Research Foundation. Third Wave Power was honored at the recent
Techventure 2011 event, winning the “Most Eco-friendly Start-up” award. For
more information, visit

About the Founders

VS Hariharan, Co-Founder

Hariharan brings more than 20 years‟
experience from the information technology industry. In Hewlett-Packard Company
and Wipro Infotech, he was in general management roles as well as senior
positions in sales and marketing. Hari has extensive experience in product marketing
as well as building go-to-market engines for consumer and business products.
Throughout his career, he has also been involved in scaling many new and
emerging businesses.

Lim Chuin Kiat, Co-Founder

With more than 20 years‟ experience in the
information technology industry, Chuin Kiat oversaw research & development
department and was also in senior management roles in Hewlett-Packard Company,
Dell and Venture Corporation. He holds eight US patents for inventions relating
to printers, scanners and battery power management. Chuin Kiat has also been
involved in scaling many product businesses.

About the Investors

Small World Group Incubator

Small World Group Incubator (SWGI) regularly
provides seed funding, mentoring and help to start and grow small companies.
SWGI operates under the National Research Foundation‟s (NRF) Technology
Incubation Scheme in Singapore. SWGI focuses on three areas of technology
innovation – clean tech, optical systems and advanced materials. For more
information, visit www.smallworldgroup.com

The National Research Foundation

The National Research Foundation seeks to
strengthen Singapore‟s R&D capabilities, encourage greater innovation and
nurture the growth of technology-based enterprises in Singapore. This will help
Singapore to remain competitive and create high value jobs and prosperity for
Singaporeans. For more information, visit www.nrf.gov.sg/nrf.

Source: www.thirdwavepower.com

Energy Efficiency in South East Asia Could Yield Multi-Billion Dollar Bonuses

The Southeast Asian market has great
potential for increasing energy efficiency, but so far countries here are failing
to take advantage of it, says a new study by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants  for the European Chamber of Commerce
(Eurocham) released at the Clean Energy Expo Asia. It found that by 2020,
Southeast Asia could potentially increase overall energy efficiency by 12 to
30%, resulting in savings of US$15 billion to US$43 billion.

Tapping into Southeast Asia’s energy efficiency
market

Jenny Marusiak in eco-business.com (3
November 2011):

The Southeast Asian market has great
potential for increasing energy efficiency, but so far countries here are
failing to take advantage of it.

A new study has found that by 2020, Southeast
Asia could potentially increase overall energy efficiency by 12 to 30 per cent,
resulting in savings of US$15 billion to US$43 billion.

The new report was launched on Thursday by
global consultancy Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and the European Chamber
of Commerce (Eurocham) at the Clean Energy Expo Asia in Singapore.

The study included five Asean countries –
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – which together account
for 86 per cent of Asean’s gross domestic product in 2010.

Roland Berger’s managing partner for
Southeast Asia, Joost Geginat, told Eco-Business that the energy efficiency
sector has identified a US$40 billion market in the region. Now the question
is: how do they tap into that, he said.

Willi Hess, chairman of Eurocham’s
sustainability committee, said that energy efficiency technology was vital to
meeting future energy needs, given the rapidly rising demand and the shrinking
fossil fuel resources.

“At the same time, it has a potential to
benefit businesses by reducing costs to consumers, improve competitiveness and
enhance overall productivity,” he noted.

The study’s authors note that while some
progress has been made in Southeast Asia in energy efficiency, major barriers
remain. These include insufficient policies and standards for energy
management, mistrust and lack of communication between energy users and the
suppliers, energy efficiency’s low ranking in business priorities, and a
shortage of funding options for energy efficiency solutions.

According to the study, the answers lie in
getting governments and companies to work together to raise awareness and
capacity for increased energy efficiency in all sectors, including factories,
power plants, households, office buildings, public buildings and retail malls.

Specifically, governments should provide a
comprehensive range of policies that include mandatory and voluntary incentives
to increase energy efficiency, and professional accreditation programmes that
will ensure high industry standards.

The study also recommended that governments
work with industry to integrate energy efficiency improvements at all levels,
from power generation to household use. Part of this would entail setting up
funding schemes to boost energy efficiency financing.

Mr Geginat noted in a statement that the
private sector should do their part too. “Private sectors need to be more
pro-active in developing the energy efficiency market,” he said.

One industry player trying to do that is
global energy services firm Schneider Electric. Speaking to Eco-Business on the
sidelines of the Clean Energy Expo Asia, Schneider Electric vice president Jane
Goh, noted that as power costs rise, growing numbers of large energy consumers,
such as leading property developers and multi-national corporations, are
willing to spend to reduce their escalating electricity bills.

These companies, in addition to those
committed to improving sustainability and transparency in their operations, are
the main drivers of energy efficiency within the building industry, said Ms
Goh.

It helps that government regulations are
imposing stricter standards on building owners. But companies do not need to
wait for a major renovation or equipment replacement to significantly improve
their building’s energy efficiency.

Building design and equipment are only part
of the solution, explained Ms Goh, adding that once a building is operational,
it is up to the building manager to keep operating costs low and make sure
resources are used efficiently.

This is where Schneider comes in, she said,
adding that the firm has helped clients save up to 30 per cent on energy costs
by overhauling the way they manage energy consuming systems such as lighting,
air-conditioning, IT networks, security systems, production equipment and
lifts.

The firm often works with companies on an
organisation-wide basis, meaning that energy management for multiple sites
including offices, factories and other facilities can be rolled into one
location.

After auditing a company’s energy patterns
and consumption, Schneider identifies ways of reducing operating costs through
more efficient electricity and staff management. This often entails automating
the different buildings systems under the control of a single software
programme.

Under this system, energy managers can access
data instantly on a single monitor and be alerted to any problems immediately.
This means building managers can do their jobs more effectively, and building
occupants have more peace of mind, noted Ms Goh.

Eliminating wasted energy through automated
lighting alone can save up to 10 per cent in energy consumption, she said, and
savings such as these mean that companies can recoup their energy saving
investments within one to three years.

The company is also looking at ways to get
building occupants more involved in the energy management efforts by increasing
visibility and transparency, a process Ms Goh said may very well lead to
tenants getting a share of energy costs savings.

Active metering through building management
software systems, which provides feedback to energy managers and building
occupants on their energy consumption, allows energy users to be involved in
the energy conservation process, she noted.

Roland Berger’s Mr Geginat agreed that
multi-nationals have an additional role.

“Multinationals can act as catalysts by
applying the same guidelines for energy utilisation and ensuring that best
practices are adopted across their international operations. These companies
can set the standard in energy efficiency for their industries and acting as
role models in Southeast Asia,” he said.

Source: www.eco-business.com
and www.rolandberger.com

What a Wonderful World. Welcome  to Population Explosion.

This week the United Nations announced the
birth of the seven billionth human, and urged world leaders to consider the
challenges faced by our growing global population. From issues surrounding
adequate access to food and clean water to ensuring reasonable expectations of
safety, medical care and justice, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked that
despite fiscal austerity we not turn our backs on the truly impoverished and
remain vigilantly aware of our detrimental impact on the environment.

Luke Malone in Sydney Morning Herald (4
November 2011):

Eco-disaster? … population growth threatens
our way of life, say experts.

Is the baby boom threatening the Australian
way of life? Luke Malone consults the experts.

This week the United Nations announced the
birth of the seven billionth human, and urged world leaders to consider the
challenges faced by our growing global population. From issues surrounding
adequate access to food and clean water to ensuring reasonable expectations of
safety, medical care and justice, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked that
despite fiscal austerity we not turn our backs on the truly impoverished and
remain vigilantly aware of our detrimental impact on the environment.

“Today, we welcome baby seven billion.
In doing so we must recognise our moral and pragmatic obligation to do the
right thing for him, or for her,” he said at a press conference on Monday.
“I am one of seven billion. You are also one of seven billion. Together,
we can be seven billion strong – by working in solidarity for a better world
for all.”

According to Ban Ki-moon, the world’s
population will increase to nine billion by 2043 and may almost double,
swelling to 16 billion, by the end of the century. These projections suggest
the dependence we have on natural resources is likely to grow, which could have
catastrophic implications both at home and abroad.

While the highest birth rates are recorded
throughout Africa, it’s important to note that for women of developing nations
it has less to do with choice than a lack of reproductive rights and poor
access to birth control. Not only that, the majority of these nations produce a
near negligible amount of carbon emissions compared to the rest of the world.
It is countries like Australia that are leading the way when it comes to
willfully breeding the next generation of high-impact consumers.

“When you tally species threat, total
carbon emissions, deforestation rates, marine captures, fertiliser use and
water pollution, we have a huge international footprint,” says Professor
Corey Bradshaw of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide.
“We have the world’s highest mammalian extinction rate and one of the
highest per capita carbon emission rates, we also have one of the higher per
capita water uses, which is intriguing considering we’re also one of the driest
continents. Australia has lost about 40 per cent of its forest cover since
European colonisation. Our so-called small population is actually fairly high
relative to how many people our low-productivity land can support.”

Though prominent population control advocate
Dick Smith flirted with xenophobia last year by suggesting immigration poses
the biggest threat to the country’s environmental sustainability, in reality
statistics show that birth rates claim a higher culpability.

A study undertaken by Oregon State University
scientists Paul Murtaugh and Michael Schlax in 2008 discovered that the
children of developed countries such as the United States and Australia each
add about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to their parent’s carbon legacy.
To even begin to counter this, parents need to greatly increase their car’s
fuel economy, slash their kilometres by a third, install double window panes
and compact fluorescent bulbs in the home and buy the most energy-efficient
whitegoods available. Even then, this would offset only 1/40th of the emissions
caused by the little ones of a two-child family.

“The babies will need food after they’re
weaned, or immediately if they’re on formula. Producing food requires land,
usually fertiliser and energy for shipping if it’s not homegrown,” says
Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us. They need clothing: if cotton,
that’s another crop; if wool, land was needed to graze the sheep; if polyester,
that’s a petroleum product that requires more energy to produce.  They drink water, and bathe in it. Their
nappies, if disposable, create more plasticised garbage; if not, they require
water and energy to wash. Depending on the weather, their mother may use
heating or cooling to keep them comfortable. The more babies, the more strain
on sewage systems, in addition to water supplies.  People add up.”

With a current population of just under 22.8
million, data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics predicts that
Australia’s natural increase – the excess of births over deaths – will be a
major factor in a growth that will see our nation reach upwards of 42.5 million
people by 2056.

Though population control as social policy
was a deeply misogynistic failure in China – it is, however, an ongoing success
in Iran, where mandatory contraceptive courses are required before you can
obtain a marriage license – experts say we need to consider the possibility of
voluntary depopulation as a personal choice and environmental imperative.
Alternatively, if we are to continue down this increasingly congested road we
must implement significant measures at personal, state and federal levels to
inhibit the potentially dire consequences.

“As a wealthy country we’ve come to
expect a certain high standard of living that is, in turn, driving up
consumption because of the need to import and distribute so many of our
goods,” says Bradshaw, who suggests that wholesale change is necessary if
we are to support a growing population. “We need to get over our hang-ups
about alternative energy sources. Embracing smart grids and subsidies for
renewable technologies, and overwhelmingly support incentives at the
Commonwealth level – such as a comprehensive and rising carbon price. This will
force our society to turn into a one that emits much less. We have to change
our society radically; we couldn’t live like we do now if we want to pack even
more people into our already resource-stressed country.”

Source: www.smh.com.au

Close Encounters of a Clean Energy Kind

Not being big on the practice of Tweeting (or
Twittering, as I once described it), my preference is to bring together in one
place at one time (fortnightly, by design) a newsletter full of news,
information and current comment on all things climate change, carbon, green, eco,
energetic  and clean.

In doing this, I draw heavily on articles and
commentary from sources far and wide, local and global, but by necessity, I also
tap into events and meetings, whether attended in person or remotely. In this
issue, I’m compelled to provide more of a personal account of meetings – with
people and at events – as the diary seems to have been full of such delightful
and inspiring close encounters of a clean energy kind.

See who’s in and who’s not. Read on

So forgive me if this appears as a personal
meandering through a resourceful minefield, but hopefully you end up with an
impression that there are a lot of people doing a lot of very positive and
purposeful things to clean up the community, the city and the country,
where-ever they may be. We’ll do this in the ABC Carbon tradition –
alphabetically!

Amida Recruitment

The Singapore office of this global
recruitment company specialising in sustainable development jobs is well and
truly open. The launch party at Harry’s Bay, Boat Quay was a great occasion to
hear about its work, meet and listen to Aaron George and Greg Books, the
co-founders of Amida in London, as well as Director Asia Pacific Andy Clapham,
Martin Blake and Simon Thomas, who gave great insight into the sustainability
work he’s done to make the new United World College one of the greenest and
most sustainable educational institutions in the world. More to go: www.amida-recruit.com

Angel’s Gate

They called it a “reality tv show”, but the
one thing very real about it was the ordeal it put contending start-ups through in
their quest for funding to get their inventions and businesses off the ground. It
was a welcome introduction to the venture capital/investment world for a number
of enthusiastic early entrepreneurs, including Mike Carmichael with his Kabook-i
bamboo construction method. Watch this space – and other media – for news of
success for Singapore’s growing collection of innovators. And when the show airs with the  very professional presenter Philippa Lett. Learn more : www.angelsgate.com

Blake, Martin

The inimitable and seemingly omnipresent Dr
Blake was everywhere but loose these last few weeks. Popping up at event after
event in Singapore, speaking and advising, as he does best. He works with The
Green Asia Group, but also wears some vital advisory hats for Amida and Carbon
Systems, among others. We expect to see much more of Martin in and around
Singapore, even though he’s popped down to Australia for a time to give them
the benefit of his advice and experience. More:  www.thegreenasiagroup.com

Canada Comes Clean

Having a strong presence at the Clean
Energy Expo, Canada seems determined to be noticed. It also organised an Energy and
Sustainability Seminar, in conjunction with the Energy Studies Institute, as
well as an excellent event at the High Commission called “Building Value in a
Low Carbon & Water Constrained Future”. If that’s a mouthful, what was
presented was a host of innovative businesses doing great things in Asia
Pacific. It was brought together by the Climate Change Infrastructure
Corporation and Tangerine Tango. Very colourful and very energetic. And clean,
of course. All in the capable hands of Paula Murphy Ives, Canada’s trade
commissioner for cleantech, green building, energy and CSR. For more: www.singapore.gc.ca & www.climatechangeinfrastructure.com

Elkington, John

What a pleasure to listen to John Elkington
on a recent visit to Singapore. He is so wise and predictive of a future, which
we might not enjoy very much at all unless we all take action to deal with burning
fossil fuels, and move to a low or zero carbon existence.  This is the man who came up with the “Triple bottom
line” as a means to measure and manage business more successfully and sustainably.
It was a launch of sorts for a 50 page book called The Future Quotient – a very
useful collection of case studies – produced by Volans and JWT. Thanks to the
NUS Business School and Bob Fleming for making it possible. For more from John,
go to: www.volans.com

Energy Week

The focus of much of the recent attention,
not only by clean and green locals, but visitors from afar, was Singapore
International Energy Week (31 October to 4 November).  The only thing wrong with the week was that
there was far too much to see and do, and far too many people of note to listen
to, and catch up with. But we tried to fit it all in…along with a few other
related or connected occurrences.  Congratulations
to the organisers of the week – the Energy Market Authority – as well as
Koelnmesse, who managed the two big events, Clean Energy Expo Asia (CEEA) and
Carbon Forum Asia (CFA). For more go to: www.siew.sg
and www.koelnmesse.com.sg

Energy Opportunities

It was great to participate and “work” with
all other voluntary contributors featured in the CNBC Brainstorm on Energy
Opportunities, support by Shell and Harvard Business Review, and ably organised
by Shaunagh Connaire and presented by Geoff Cutmore.  It was a novel and productive way to get
involved individuals – including Singapore’s Minister for the Environment and
Water Resources Dr Vivian Balakrishnan – to share their thoughts and ideas for
a clean energy future. Highlights of the brainstorm will feature on CNBC
internationally – at times and dates to be announced – and online at www.energyopportunities.tv

ev HUB

You don’t know what David Chou will come up
with next. On show at the Clean Energy Expo was all his electric dreams which he
has so far realised. A 10-year-old Renault Kangoo van which has zipped around
the hilly terrain of Sentosa Island on only 10 cents a kilometre. evHUB
converted the diesel-powered van to an electric plug-in in 2009 and lent the
van to the Sentosa Development Corporation. It was on show along with the Yike
Bike – and its New Zealand creator Grant Ryan – and there were boats, yes
boats. The latest electric venture is electric motor powered rescue craft.
Always more at: www.evhub.co

Green Drinks

A panel discussion on the National Climate
Change Strategy 2012 was held in consultation with the National Climate Change
Secretariat. The Permanent Secretary, Tan Yong Soon kindly kicked off the
consultation. Panel members included Jessica Cheam (The Straits Times), Vaidehi
Shah (Singapore Environment Council), Howard Shaw (Halcyon Group), David Chou
(evHUB), Abigail Alling (Biosphere Foundation), Michael Quah (NUS), P K Wong
(A*STAR), Sanjay Kuttan (DNV Clean Technologies), Allan Lim (Alpha Biofuels)
and Eugene Tay (Low Carbon Singapore / Green Future Solutions).  More on: www.sggreendrinks.wordpress.com

Green Prints

Meeting up with Mark Cheng of Green Prints,
was an eye-opener. What he is able to do with the greenest of all paper – from
sugar cane waste in India – is illuminating to say the least. Not just your run
of the mill paper for printing and copying, but a full suite of papers for
quality printing in all shapes and sizes. Check it out at:  www.greenprints.sg

Stormy Affair

Running into Kannan Chandran at Suntec City
was opportune. He’s editor and publisher of Storm magazine and invited me to:
1. Write on sustainability for a future issue, and 2. Attend a stormy affair at
Capella on Sentosa, which included a leadership forum on Character,
Communication, Community, Consumerism, Culture,
involving Prof Arnoud De Meyer President of SMU, jazz musician Jeremy
Montiero, Michelle Ng, Lim Soon-Hock and Shanker Iyer, Chairman, SICC. It was
ably moderated by Prof Kirpal Singh, a creative genius. It was an ideal
opportunity to connect with some old friends too. Check Storm out: www.storm.sg

The Green Asia Group

Good to meet Victoria Burrows, who has joined
The Green Asia Group. Previously a Senior Design and Sustainability Consultant
for Inbuilt Design in UK, a world class company in this arena, she is making
her present felt in the region. So expect to see and hear more of Victoria and
TGAG team in Singapore and South East Asia. More here: www.thegreenasiagroup.com

Third Wave Power

A key focus at for me and media at CEEA was
the arrival on the scene of the quite unique solar charger mPowerPad. Co-
Founders VS Hariharan and Lim Chuin Kiat (with supporting team) have done a great
job getting this device ready in a matter of months. Admittedly, I had a minor role
in launching this – and spoke at the associated Tech Talk on the global solar
scene – but it was great to see and hear the extent of media interest in this.
See the separate article on this and here for more: www.thirdwavepower.com

I’m sure I’ve missed something and someone of
importance. But there’s room for more. In fact, there’ll be more to come about
these people and these organisations, along with others, who are making an impact
at home and abroad.

Warm wishes for a cool change!

Ken Hickson