Adapt to Climate Change to Reduce Vulnerability for People & Eco-systems

Adaptation experts Sven Harmeling of Germanwatch, and
Sandeep Charmeling of the World Wide Fund for Nature WWF) say that as mitigation
measures have failed, climate change adaptation should now become compulsory to
reduce vulnerability for people and the eco-systems they inhabit, reports the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Human life, productive
land, physical infrastructure and biological diversity are all vulnerable to
climate change, but there is no consensus on which are more or most important.

IRIN Humanitarian news and analysis, from the UN Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (16 November 2011):

JOHANNESBURG – The western world’s financial crisis is
leaving governments less inclined to make deep cuts to the production of
greenhouse gases if that means greater short-term costs to their economies.

That has added to the gloom around the likely outcome of the
global climate change conference in Durban later in November, where governments
will decide on the future direction of the Kyoto Protocol, the first commitment
phase of a deal to reduce emissions, which expires in 2012.

Some rich countries have started backing out. At the last
round of UN climate talks, in Panama in October 2011, Canada, Japan and Russia
indicated that they did not want to be part of the second commitment phase.
British media have reported that the UK favours postponing the deal to 2020,
and has been lobbying emerging economies China and India to join them.

The second commitment phase aims to restrict carbon dioxide
emissions in the atmosphere to a level that would keep a rise in global
temperature below two degrees Celsius.

But the International Energy Agency (IEA) has warned that
within the next five years such irreversible damage could have been done to the
climate that we could see global temperatures soar by two degrees Celsius and
beyond by the turn of the century.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and
other climate scientists regard global warming of two degrees as catastrophic,
bringing water stress in arid and semi-arid countries, more floods in low-lying
coastal areas, coastal erosion in small island states, and the elimination of
up to 30 percent of animal and plant species.

“To prevent that scenario, all future energy needs would
effectively have to be zero-carbon,” said Antony Froggatt, an energy expert at
British think-tank Chatham House. But, taking into account the number of fossil
fuel power plants already under construction and the financial outlay, he said
this would be “highly unlikely, if not impossible”.

In this scenario, “adaptation is unavoidable” even for rich
countries, said Saleemul Huq, lead author on the subject in the IPCC’s last two
assessment reports on climate change.

Adaptation experts Sven Harmeling of Germanwatch, and
Sandeep Charmeling of the World Wide Fund for Nature, said with mitigation
having failed, adaptation should now become compulsory to reduce vulnerability
for people and the eco-systems they inhabit.

Given these circumstances, becoming more familiar with
“adaptation” could be useful.

Cancun Adaptation Framework

Uncertainty around climate change will constantly change the
parameters of vulnerability. The last formal round of UN climate talks in 2010,
in Cancun, Mexico, was a turning point for countries seeking support to help
them adapt to climate change. After three years of negotiations, the forum
stated that adaptation should be given the same priority as mitigation.

A framework was adopted to help countries set up programmes
and actions to reduce vulnerability and make them more resilient. It identifies
countries that are most vulnerable and establishes how to address loss and damage
on account of a changing climate.

The framework has five clusters: implementation, support,
institutions, principles and stakeholder engagement. These cover issues such as
providing financial and technical support in drawing up adaptation plans, ensuring
that the process is country-driven, gender-sensitive and uses best science, and
draws on indigenous knowledge.

Adaptation Committee

This is envisioned as the driver of adaptation in the UNFCCC
process and will elaborate the Framework. As the advisory body on adaptation it
also provides technical support to UNFCCC countries.

Membership of the committee has yet to be decided. Harmeling
said they hoped it would become operational at the meeting in South Africa, and
thought it could become a key institution beyond the UNFCCC, “building up
coherence and consistency in the international response”.

Loss and damage

Inclusion of the words “loss and damage” in the
Cancun Agreements and the Cancun Adaptation Framework, which could allude to
compensation and a legal obligation on the part of developed countries, cheered
many poor countries.

The Alliance of Small Island States, many of whose members
are threatened by storm surges and sea-level rise brought on by climate change,
have suggested a multi-window mechanism, including components that deal with
compensation and insurance. The UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Body for Implementation has
been asked to suggest approaches to loss and damage, and will report back at
COP 17.

Vulnerability

Deciding on the criteria that determine which country is
more vulnerable to ensure they are first in the line for technical and
financial support has been hugely contentious.

“Vulnerability’ means different things to different people.
Human life, productive land, physical infrastructure and biological diversity
are all vulnerable to climate change, but there is no consensus on which are
more or most important,” said scientist Richard Klein, who is leading
preparation of the chapter on adaptation for the upcoming IPCC assessment
report.

He told IRIN that science cannot resolve the issue, and
negotiators should not rely on external experts to “develop a definitive,
objective and unchallengeable method to rank countries according to their
vulnerability to climate change”. The solution will have to be arrived at
politically, with a consensus “reflecting different and biased interpretations
of vulnerability”.

Scientist Atiq Rahman, who led Bangladesh’s efforts to draw
up an adaptation strategy, agreed that “It is not a beauty contest,” but thinks
the issue will be resolved by the end of 2012.

Vulnerability analysis is a complex and often contradictory
field. During recent droughts in Afghanistan the highest levels of malnutrition
were found among the children of relatively wealthy shopkeepers and
moneylenders who lost their capital and income when farmers couldn’t repay
loans, but who weren’t eligible for relief from aid agencies, wrote Marcus
Monech, president of the international body, Institute for Social and
Environmental Transition, in a new paper.

Existing approaches to measure vulnerability are “often of
little use: at best, they reiterate what we already know; at worst, they are
used to justify entrenched agendas. To be truly useful as a basis for dialogue,
action and accountability, the meaning of ‘vulnerability’ must be clarified,
and the methods for analysing it greatly strengthened,” he suggested.

However, Nanki Kaur, a researcher at the International
Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), noted that “a ‘static’
approach to defining vulnerability is pointless. Uncertainty around climate
change will constantly change the parameters of vulnerability.”

She advocates the approach Nepal has taken: a constant
monitoring and evaluation process that aims to track changes to the parameters
of vulnerability and adapt plans in response, beginning with the local
government level and moving up.

Adaptation Fund

Set up exclusively to finance adaptation projects in
vulnerable countries, the Fund started disbursing money in 2010. Unlike other
UNFCCC mechanisms, it allows countries to have control over how they spend the
money.

The Fund receives direct contributions from developed
countries and also raises money from a levy of about 2 percent on credits
generated by the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established under the Kyoto
Protocol.

The mechanism allows industrialized countries to earn and
trade emission credits by implementing projects in developed or developing
countries; they can then put the credits towards meeting their greenhouse gas
emission targets.

The Fund has raised more than US$138 million through the
levy, according to an independentclimate fund watch website run by two
think-tanks, the Heinrich Boll Stiftung and the Overseas Development
Initiative.

Insufficient funds are an ongoing concern. The UNFCCC has
said that by 2030 poor countries would need $28-59 billion a year to adapt; the
World Bank puts the amount at $20-100 billion; the European Union Commission
says it will take $10-24 billion a year by 2020; and the African Group of
climate change negotiators think more than $67 billion a year will be needed by
2020.

Saleemul Huq, from IIED, noted that although “money is
available in the short term for initial projects”, there could be
“bottlenecks as more countries submit project proposals” .

Green Climate Fund

It was decided in Cancun to set up a fund with thematic
windows to address the varying needs of countries to deal with climate change.
A Transitional Committee was established to design the Green Climate Fund and
will report back in Durban, said Klein.

“However, at the last meeting of the Transitional Committee…
no consensus was reached about the final text of the ‘Governing Instrument’ to
be forwarded to COP 17. On the insistence of the US and Saudi Arabia, the draft
Governing Instrument will therefore not be forwarded with a recommendation to
COP 17 to adopt it, but instead it will be submitted for consideration by COP
17, which in practice means that it will be reopened for negotiation.”

The proposed design was seen as “too closely linked” to the
UNFCCC, which US negotiators felt would be unacceptable to the Republican
majority in Congress.

This view was expressed in a joint blog by Pa Ousman Jarju
of Gambia, Chair of the Least Developed Countries Group (LDC); Fred Onduri
Machulu, Former Chair of the LDC Expert Group at the UNFCCC; Munjurul H. Khan,
a member of the Bangladesh government delegation to the UNFCCC; Carol Mwape LDC
Transitional Committee member from Zambia and LDC group finance coordinator; and
Benito Müller, Director of Energy & Climate Change at the Oxford Institute
for Energy Studies.

“Unfortunately, a link with the UN seems not the only taboo
on Capitol Hill. ‘Climate change’ – or rather, ‘global warming’, in local
parlance – and ‘multilateral’ (in the sense of sending taxpayers’ money abroad)
are regarded as equally objectionable. So, short of turning the Green Climate
Fund into a domestic fund for non-climate purposes, Congress is not going to
appropriate funding for it in the foreseeable future,” they said.

“This must no doubt be painful for the present
[Democrat] Administration, who we believe would very much wish to play a more
positive role in these negotiations.”

Nairobi Work Programme (NWP)

The NWP was set up under the UNFCCC in 2005 to help
developing countries understand, assess and adapt to the impact of climate
change. Any country can become a partner and use the NWP data base to engage
with other countries and the private sector to develop their own programmes. It
maintains an evolving inventory on adaptation knowledge.

At Cancun the Parties decided to continue the Nairobi Work
Programme – initially a five- year programme – pending a review, which was
presented in Bonn in June 2011, said Klein.

The programme will feed into the Framework, and will now
examine new sector-specific needs and cross-sectoral activities to be
strengthened, including water, food security, ecosystems, infrastructure and
human settlements.

Community-based adaptation (CBA)

This is a new concept. It recognizes that small communities
are the most vulnerable and inadequately resourced to handle climate change.
Projects are designed with the input of the community and take into account
their needs and indigenous knowledge – many communities have generations of
experience in coping with climate variability.

Adaptation projects look much like any other standard
development project. “The difference lies not in what the intervention is,
but in the inputs to the intervention. It is not what the community is doing
but why, and with what knowledge,” said Huq, who is also a senior fellow at
IIED.

“The adaptation element introduces the community to the
notion of climate risk and then factors that into their activities. This makes
them more resilient both to immediate climate variability and long-term climate
change.” But there are very few existing CBA projects, he said, and
“they have hardly been tested for resilience to climate variability, let
alone to climate change”.

Source: www.irinnews.org

Reduced Emissions Good for Health, Security, Economy & Climate

Paul R. Epstein, a Harvard Medical School public health
expert and physician who helped illuminate the connections between climate
change and the spread of infectious disease, has died aged 67. His death might
draw greater attention to health impacts of climate change. He was one of the
first to talk about the multiple benefits of reducing greenhouse gases. In 1992,
he linked a cholera epidemic in Peru to algal blooms caused by warming sea
surface temperatures and nutrient discharge.

By Juliet Eilperin in Washington Post (16 November 2011):

Paul R. Epstein, a Harvard Medical School public health
expert and physician who helped illuminate the connections between climate
change and the spread of infectious disease, died Nov. 13 at his home in
Boston. He was 67.

The cause of death was lymphoma, said his wife, Andy
Epstein.

Dr. Epstein, who served as the associate director of Harvard
Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, produced a
series of seminal papers examining the public health implications of climate
change and its impacts.

Rather than confine his work to academic circles, he devoted
much of his career to speaking publicly about humans’ need to curb greenhouse
gas emissions or risk facing disastrous consequences. Dr. Epstein was an
adviser to former vice president Al Gore for the 2006 Oscar-winning documentary
film “An Inconvenient Truth.”

In an e-mail, Gore said that Dr. Epstein “always found the
time to make sure that the latest research was relayed to the public.”

“His rare ability to communicate the subtleties and
complexities of his field in layman’s terms and his strong desire to reach out
and educate people about the climate crisis are a lasting part of his legacy,”
Gore said.

Dr. Epstein’s work sparked controversy, in part because it
is harder to connect climate impacts such as extreme weather and rising
temperatures to the spread of disease than to more straightforward developments
such as ocean acidification. But his dogged work helped transform the popular
understanding of global warming, by demonstrating how an environmental
phenomenon could exact a human toll.

Raised in a progressive family in Manhattan, Dr. Epstein was
advised by his pediatrician father to combine his passion for social justice
with a medical career.

“No matter what you do — you can do politics, you can lead a
revolution — but no matter what, be a doctor,” Andy Epstein, a nurse, recalled
in an interview Tuesday, “which I thought was good advice.”

Dr. Epstein managed to do both. Living in Mozambique from
1978 to 1980 with his wife and their two children, he saw how citizens
struggled to get adequate medical care in the aftermath of that nation’s bitter
war of independence with Portugal.

He devoted much of his early career to providing health-care
access to poor Americans. As a medical student at New York’s Albert Einstein
College of Medicine, he co-led a group of medical, nursing and social work students
in a federally funded project to foster community medicine. He later worked in
clinics in East Boston and Cambridge, Mass.

In the 1980s, Dr. Epstein led a group of American and
Russian medical students to Kenya, where epidemiologists there said they were
discovering malaria at higher altitudes than ever before.

He turned his attention to how changes in Earth’s climate
could affect human health, releasing a report at the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro that linked a cholera epidemic going on at the time in Peru to
algal blooms caused by warming sea surface temperatures and nutrient discharge.

“There was a sense that physicians had a very important role
to play in helping people to understand the gravity and implications of these
climatic changes that were underway,” said Eric Chivian, who attended the
summit with Dr. Epstein and now directs Harvard’s Center for Health and the
Global Environment. Dr. Epstein co-founded the center in 1996.

Dr. Epstein went on to publish papers in prominent scientific
journals on topics ranging from how warming can speed the outbreak of
mosquito-borne diseases and the growth of ragweed to the connection between the
rise in asthma and the soot from power plants and diesel trucks.

He also plunged into the public debate over global warming,
publishing opinion pieces, giving interviews and delivering a Power­Point
lecture to investors and policymakers on the multiple benefits of reducing
greenhouse gases.

“This can be good for public health, good for the security,
good for the economy, and we hope it’ll stabilize the climate,” he told an
audience of lawyers in a speech that aired on National Public Radio in 2007.
Later he told the reporter, “Reverend William Sloane Coffin said, and I
slightly paraphrase, hope is the passion for the possible.”

Paul Robert Epstein was born Nov. 16, 1943, to Nathan
Epstein and Edith Hillman Boxill, a music therapist. He graduated from Cornell
University with a degree in physics in 1965 and received his medical degree
from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1969. He earned a master’s
degree in public health from Harvard in 1982.

Survivors include his wife of 44 years, Andy Gates Epstein
of Boston; two children, Benjamin Epstein of New Orleans and Jesse Epstein of
Brooklyn; and a sister.

Despite the contentious nature of climate research, Dr.
Epstein was known for his gentle manner and the fact that he was, in the words
of MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel, “kind and very concerned with
humanity.”

Even as he fell seriously ill this summer, he published four
pieces in the Atlantic and continued to blog about his work.

“He knew his time was very short, and he wanted to say what
he needed to say in the time he had left,” Chivian said. “His work is so
important — now perhaps even more important — because there is such a lack of
understanding about what’s happening globally.”

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Sustainable Targets For Shipping  as 90% of World’s Trade Goes by Sea

Sustainabile Shipping Initiative came to Singapore on its
way to becoming a global movement with the support of 15 major players in the
shipping industry -  with Carnival the
only cruise company to sign up – along with Forum of the Future and WWF.  Meanwhile, the International Chamber of
Shipping (ICS) – which represents all sectors and trades of the global shipping
industry and more than 80% of the world merchant fleet – has produced a
briefing document for government climate change
negotiators attending the Durban conference.

Ken Hickson reports on the Singapore launch on the
Sustainable Shipping Initiative:

Launched in Singapore 23 November  after its London launch four weeks earlier,
the Sustainabile Shipping Initiative is going global with the support of 15 major
players in the shipping industry, along with Forum of the Future and WWF.

Those of us who attend the Singare launch heard Sir Jonathn
Porrit give an overview of the initiative from its beginnigs and its progress
to date. He told us why sustainability is an imperative for the shipping
industry and how the industry is getting involved in making it a reality. He
also set out the Vision for a Sustainable Shipping Industry in 2040 and why the
Sustainable Shipping Initiative is needed now and what companies can do to
ensure success.

Also speaking at the Singapore launch was Kim Kyung Soo,
Deputy Chief Executive Officer of IMC Industrial Group and Tim Blackburn,
Managing Director of The China Navigation Co, a member of the Swire group of
companies. They talked about what the SSI Vision and collaborative group mean
to them.

Shipping affects the lives of billions of people, with 90%
of the world’s international trade travelling by sea. The industry accounts for
three to four percent of global CO2 emissions and there is growing scrutiny of
its wider social and environmental impacts.

The industry now faces a range of social and environmental
challenges, such as rising and volatile fuel prices, shifting markets and
patterns of trade,and changing governance structures, which are explored in the
Case for Action.

Many key players in the industry are aware of these factors,
but, unlike the aviation and auto sectors, have not yet acted decisively to
prepare shipping for this new world. Shipping has a compelling case as the most
energy-efficient freight service, but any return to growth will be
unsustainable if the industry does not innovate to cut costs and reduce its
environmental impacts.

The Sustainable Shipping Initiative is designed to help the
industry make long-term plans for future success. An industry with long-lived
assets needs long-term thinking, and the SSI aims to help members think beyond
the next regulation or design tweak.

Founding members of the Sustainable Shipping Initiative are:

ABN-AMRO, BP Shipping, BUNGE, Cargill, Carnoval Corporation,
China Navigation/Swire, DSME, Gearbulk, Lloyd’s register, Maersk Line, Rio
Tinto, RSA, Tsakos Energy Navigation, Wartsila and Unilever.

Source: www.forumforthefuture.org

Carnival backs sustainable shipping initiative

Travel Weekly (1 November 2011):

Carnival Corporation is the only cruise company to sign up
to an initiative co-ordinated by Forum for the Future to map out a sustainable
future for international shipping.

Seventeen global companies, including freight lines and
marine insurers, are backing the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) designed
to lay out a ‘vision for 2040’ for the industry.

The SSI is to address three principal challenges identified
as facing the industry: rising oil prices, structural shifts in world trade and
growing scrutiny of the industry’s social and environmental performance.

Five key objectives identified include diversifying the
international shipping industry’s energy mix. They aim for greater efficiency,
“dramatic reductions” in greenhouse gases and to ensure responsible governance
of the oceans.

The Initiative’s 17 members claim to have a combined market
value of half a trillion dollars.

Jonathon Porritt, founder director of non-profit
organisation Forum for the Future, described shipping as having reached a
“crossroads”.

He said: “After years of focusing on a commodity-focused
‘boom and bust’ business model, leaders in the industry have aligned to ask
more of themselves – emphasising the urgent need to take the lead in reshaping
the entire industry ahead of regulation.”

David Dingle, chief executive of Carnival’s British arm
Carnival UK, said: “From Carnival’s perspective the Sustainable Shipping
Initiative should support an expanding, well-rewarded and supported workforce
and network of suppliers and to enhance significantly the economies and
services of the communities its ships visit.

“From an industry perspective it will ensure that future
growth across the shipping industry is maintained economically, socially and
environmentally.

“It is a tough challenge but one to which we are fully
committed.”

Source: www.travelweekly.co.uk

Maritime Reporter and Engineering News (15 November 2011):

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) – which
represents all sectors and trades of the global shipping industry and more than
80% of the world merchant fleet – has produced a briefing document for
government climate change  negotiators,
in advance of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 17).   The Document entitled ‘Shipping, World Trade
and the Reduction of CO2 Emissions’ is being distributed via ICS member
national shipowners’ associations and can be downloaded at www.ics-shipping.org/CO2lowres.pdf

ICS Secretary General, Peter Hinchliffe explained: “The
international shipping industry is firmly committed to reducing its CO2
emissions by twenty per cent by 2020, with significant further reductions
thereafter. However, the Durban Climate Change Conference needs to give the
International Maritime Organization a clear mandate to continue its vital work
to help us deliver further emission reductions through the development of
Market Based Measures.”

The shipping industry hopes that governments at COP 17 will
respond positively to the significant IMO agreement, in July 2011, to adopt a
package of technical measures to reduce shipping’s CO2 emissions – which by
2030 should reduce  ships’ emissions by
25-30% compared to ‘business as usual’. This is the first ever international
agreement containing binding and mandatory measures to reduce CO2 emissions
that has so far been agreed for an entire industrial sector.

Most importantly– and without prejudice to what governments
might agree at UNFCCC – the shipping industry believes that IMO is now very
well placed to continue the real progress it is making on Market Based Measures
to help deliver  further emissions
reductions. This includes a possible shipping industry environmental
compensation fund – with possible linkages to any ‘Green Fund’ agreed by
UNFCCC. This could address the Kyoto Protocol principle of ‘Common But  Differentiated Responsibility’ (CBDR) by
directing the lion’s share of any funds raised from international shipping to
environment related projects in developing countries, including climate change
mitigation and adaptation.

The shipping industry wishes governments to understand that
in the absence of a global framework agreed by IMO there is a serious risk of
regional or unilateral measures attempting to regulate CO2 emissions for
shipping. This would have  a seriously
distorting effect on international shipping markets, but would also be much
less effective in delivering meaningful reductions in CO2 emissions by the
global shipping sector as a whole. The ICS Document explains why shipping is a
global industry requiring global regulation, and contains details of the
measures that the industry and its international regulator (IMO) are taking to
reduce ship emissions; means by which IMO
might take account of the UNFCCC CBDR principle; and the reasons why
shipping does not lend itself to inclusion in national CO2 emissions targets.

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Source: www.marinelink.com

China Strategy to Clean Industry & Energy,  Creating Millions of Green Jobs

China’s climate negotiators fired off a pre-emptive volley,
with the most detailed report to date on the progress the country has made to
ease greenhouse gases, and the strategy it will adopt at the climate talks in
Durban. A few days earlier it was reported that China can make a net gain of
9.5m jobs over the next five years if it phases out its dirtiest, energy
intensive industries and replaces them with renewable technology and other
“green” businesses.

White paper outlining China’s recent achievements seen as
attempt to minimise blame if talks in Durban break down

Jonathan Watts on
guardian.co.uk (22 November 2011):

China has been battling against its greenhouse gas
emissions. China’s climate negotiators fired off a pre-emptive volley, with the
most detailed report to date on the progress the country has made to ease
greenhouse gases, and the strategy it will adopt at next week’s climate talks
in Durban.

With the world’s biggest carbon emitter expected to come
under intense pressure in South Africa, the government released the white paper
to highlight its achievements on renewables, afforestation and industrial
efficiency, and set the stage for closer collaboration with Europe and developing
nations.

It is both a last-ditch attempt to salvage a deal and a
political insurance policy aimed at minimising blame – and most likely
deflecting it to the US – if the talks break down.

The document released by the State Council – China’s cabinet
– contained no new details, but it spelled out the measures the government has
taken to meet the commitment made at Copenhagen: a reduction in carbon
emissions relative to GDP by 40-45% between 2005 and 2020.

The paper also spells out the steps that will be taken over
the next five years to increase forest cover by 12.5m hectares and lift the
non-fossil fuel share of energy consumption to 11.4%.

Despite widespread pessimism about the prospects for a deal,
Xie Zhenhua, the head of the Chinese delegation to Durban, said China wanted to
overcome the impasse between rich and poor countries by getting Europe to
commit to a renewal of the Kyoto Protocol, and other nations – who are
unwilling to sign – to make comparable voluntary cuts or provide technology and
financial assistance.

Xie said an extension to the Kyoto Protocol – the first
commitment phase of which is currently set to end in 2012 – was crucial:
“How to solve this problem is actually a very central, very key problem at
the Durban meeting”.

A comprehensive deal still looks elusive and the Guardian
reported this week that rich countries have privately admitted that no new
global climate agreement will be reached before 2016 at the earliest, but hopes
have been rekindled by signs that Europe, China and the G77 group of developing
nations have been working constructively in recent months. There is a faint
possibility that Europe may agree to a new commitment period if China and the
G77 promise to accept binding cuts by 2015 or 2020.

Yang Fuqiang, senior climate adviser to the US-based Natural
Resource Defence Council, said the paper showed a more co-operative and
transparent approach.

“This new white paper shows China’s new policy towards
climate change is more constructive, more flexible,” he said. “This
white paper will help to release the pressure if China is unfairly accused in
Durban.”

Other NGO analysts concurred. Wu Changhua, the greater China
director of the Climate Group, said: “I don’t think this white paper will
influence the process of the Durban conference, but it is a form of
communication with the world. It shows what China has done.”

Other observers saw hints of a more fundamental shift,
including a recognition by the government that its existing approach is
insufficient because the economy is growing so fast that even if China achieves
its carbon intensity goals the overall amount of emissions will surge.

Li Yan of Greenpeace said she was encouraged that Xie was
talking openly about the need to control total energy consumption, rather than
just its intensity relative to GDP.

“I think Xie admitted the China’s energy structure is
the big problem for China carbon emission. To control the use of coal energy is
key to control carbon emissions,” Li said. “The central government
has the policy, but the problem is how to implement it.”

But most noted the strategic role of the paper in highlight
how much China has done in recent years compared to the US and other so-called
“boulder nations” that are increasingly seen as obstacles to
progress.

Report urges China to replace dirty, energy intensive
industries with renewable technology and other ‘green’ businesses

Jonathan Watts on guardian.co.uk (18 November 2011):

If China phases out energy-intensive technology it can great
millions of jobs, a report says.

China can make a net gain of 9.5m jobs over the next five
years if it phases out its dirtiest, energy intensive industries and replaces
them with renewable technology and other “green” businesses,
according to an influential advisory body.

The potential for green growth was flagged up in a report
that highlights the “Jeckyl and Hyde” nature of the environmental
situation in China, which can claim both the world’s biggest investment in new
energy and the most dangerous levels of pollution. The report was released this
week by the China Council of International Co-operation on Environment and
Development, which is headed by Li Keqiang – widely tipped to become the next
prime minister – and includes 200 domestic and overseas experts and leading
figures in the United Nations and other world bodies.

On the economics of a shift to a more sustainable
development path, it is brimful of ambition and optimism. The council advises
the government to spend 5.8 trillion yuan (£61bn) on measures to save energy,
protect the environment and replace polluting industries with hi-tech firms. It
estimates this would create 10.6m jobs, boost GDP by 8 trillion yuan and result
in energy savings worth another 1.4 trillion yuan. These gains, it says, would
far exceed the costs of eliminating the dirtier sectors of the economy, which
are calculated as a loss of 950,000 jobs and 100bn yuan in output.

At their annual meeting, the council emphasised the need to
shift track – a process that the government has tried to promote in its latest
five-year plan. “The industrial sector is still the prime energy consumer
and a major cause of pollution, so greening the sector is key for China’s green
transformation,” Li Ganjie, vice minister of environmental protection and
the council’s secretary general was quoted as saying by the China Daily.

On the environmental situation, however, the report painted
a far bleaker picture for the next 10 years of worsening levels of toxic waste,
ecological degradation and water shortages. At the release of the report, Achim
Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, praised China’s
$49bn (£31bn) investment last year in renewable energy, but said the country is
also paying an alarming health cost for the past three decades of dirty growth.
“They are paying a price first of all individually by premature deaths …
Respiratory diseases and premature deaths in the hundreds of thousands,”
he said.

The report – which was three years in the making – placed
much of the blame on an obsession with GDP expansion, particularly at a local
government level, which has resulted in lax implementation of environmental
goals. “The blind pursuit of economic growth has now become a huge
obstacle for China’s green growth,” it says.

It suggests the introduction of a carbon tax and new pricing
mechanisms that would encourage more efficient use of scarce resources such as
water. The central government says it is also trying to rebalance environmental
quality with economic quantity, partly by setting new goals to reduce pollution.

In the latest promise of improvement, the Ministry of
Environmental Protection said it will tighten air quality monitoring and
include PM2.5 small particulate matter in the index for the first time. Zhou
Shengxian, the environment minister, told the council that China would move
towards international standards of monitoring, but warned that there was still
a long way to go. “It will be a gradual process, and won’t be achieved all
at once,” Zhou said while outside Beijing was shrouded in a thick haze.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Sun Shines for Bigger Solar Future & Arab Spring Boosts Sahara’s Desertec

Renewable energy guru Professor Joachim Luther advances  that solar is the clear leader in the renewable
energy race, predicting it could be the majority energy source for the world by
2100, providing more than 65% of all energy, leaving fossil fuels languishing
at no more than 20%. Recharge News reports that the Arab Spring could be the
best thing to happen to the planned big scale Desertec solar in the Sahara.

Singapore, 24 November 2011

Solar Rises to the Top of the Renewable Fuel Gauge

Ken Hickson reports on “Meeting Our Future Energy Needs:
What Role Will Renewables and Energy Efficiency Play? organised by Institute of
South East Asian Studies, Energy Studies Institute, Innovation Norway and
Norwegian Embassy in Singapore.

It was billed as an event to get people thinking and acting.
And with the line-up of experts from around the world, it certainly did that.

The organisers acknowledged: “Renewable energy will play an
increasingly important part of the global energy mix in the years to come.
However, additional efforts are needed to make these forms of energy more
commercially competitive. Such efforts may include technological advances, regulatory
efforts, financial mechanisms and public-private partnerships.

Featuring renewable energy and energy efficiency expertise
from industry and academe, this seminar certainly looked at current and
developing thrusts in renewable energy production and use, energy efficiency
and new ways to reduce future carbon emissions.

While energy efficiency and all renewables had a good share
of time and space at the half day event, it was solar which rose to the top of
the renewable pile, thanks to an insightful overview by none other than global
solar guru Professor Joachim Luther named by Time Magazine in 2008 as a “hero
of the environment”.

Singapore is fortunate to have him now as the CEO of the
Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS). He is also a visiting
Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, at the
National University of Singapore. He was a member of the International Panel of
Experts (IPE) on Sustainability of the Built Environment for the Building and
Construction Authority of Singapore (BCA) in 2008 and of the Steering Committee
on Environmental Sustainability (CES) of Singapore’s Housing and Development
Board (HDB).

For someone who is grounded in nuclear physics – Professor
Luther holds a PhD degree in atomic physics from the University of Hannover,
Germany and was professor of applied physics at the University of Oldenburg in
the 1974 to 1993 – he has moved totally away from the nuclear option, in the
same way the Government of his homeland has.

Germany is now the among the biggest users of solar energy
from photovoltaic (PV)  panels in the
world, largely due to leadership from the Government, advances in research and
development in solar in the country and due to a the incentives of a feed in
tariff for homeowners and business who install solar.

Professor Luther sees incredible growth in production of
solar PV energy and adoption of solar. More than anything, this will be helped
by price. He foresees the price of conventional electricity going up and solar
electricity coming down. Studies done in Singapore show that by 2020 the cost
per kWh of electricity (largely produced from gas) could be 5% higher from a
2011 base, while solar PV sourced electricity could be between 7% and 13% less
per kWh.

Where does the cost reduction come from? According to the
professor:

• Higher efficiency of energy conversion
• Less material consumption
• Low-cost materials
• Optimised manufacture, mass production
• Optimised module technologies
• Optimised grid integration (smart grids)
• New concepts of photovoltaic energy conversion

While he concentrated in his talk on solar PV, he also sees
tremendous opportunity for large scale solar thermal plants to help meet future
renewable energy demand.

He uses a colourful graph produced in 2003 by the German
Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) which dramatically shows a predominant
role for solar – PV and thermal – in the future. In fact, by 2050 solar appears
as the largest chunk in the renewable energy mix, which makes up close to 50%
of energy from all sources.

But from the projections to 2100, the predominant colour in
the graph is yellow (for solar PV and thermal) making up more than 65% of all
energy, with other renewables amounting to 15%, while the fossil fuels are
yesterday’s energy, reduced to around 20% of the total.

At the time, 2003, when the WBGU report entitled  “Towards Sustainable Energy Systems” – came
out, it clearly said: “Over the long term, the rising primary energy
requirement can only be met through vigorous utilization of solar energy – this
holds by far the largest sustainable potential. To tap this potential in time,
installed capacity will need to grow ten-fold every decade – now and over the
long term. The proportion of renewable energies in the global energy mix should
be raised from its current level of 12.7 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020, with
the long-term goal of more than 50 per cent by 2050.”

As you would expect for a seasoned solar expert, Professor
Luther clearly supports that view and uses the graph to illustrate the role
that solar can play in the future. Not as an “also-ran” among a mix of existing
and potential renewable energy technologies, but as the clear leader in the
field, by far the predominant clean energy of the future.

Source: www.seris.sg, www.innovationnorway.no, www.iseas.edu.sg, www.esi.nus.edu.sg

Recharge News:  18
November 2011

Backers of the €400bn ($550bn) Desertec solar project are
growing increasingly bullish over its prospects, with the political landscape
across the Middle East and North Africa shifting towards more democratic
structures.

As the Arab Spring consolidates, the vision of building
concentrating solar power plants across North Africa’s deserts to supply
electricity to the region, as well as Europe, is gaining credibility. It has
struck just the right note at the right time in many quarters.

Fast progress is being made in Morocco, the starting point
for the ambitious project. Agreements have been reached ­between the Desertec
Industrial Initiative and the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy to start
building a 150MW array that will later be expanded to 500MW. Construction is
due to start next year.

In the long term, Morocco will be a key first “reference
point” for the overall Desertec vision. The country’s existing transmission
interconnection with Spain, established many years ago, already allows energy
to be exported to Europe.

It is hoped the success of the Morocco-Spain link can be
built on, with additional projects planned in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, where
discussions and framework studies have ­begun. Egypt, which connects the North
African Sahara with the ­Middle East, will play a crucial role in the years
ahead.

With Libya set to embark on a massive post-conflict
reconstruction effort, it is hoped that projects such as Desertec could
contribute to rebuilding its war-torn economy and provide much-needed jobs.

A product of the Desertec Foundation, a global network of
governments, companies and think-tanks, the project has corporate backers from
the energy, technology and construction sectors, as well as banks and a
reinsurer.

Many big challenges lie ahead — not least from cash-strapped
Greece, which is promoting its Helios project to export solar electricity to
Germany, claiming that this is more politically and economically feasible than
Desertec.

However, the Arab Spring offers a real chance for Europe and
North Africa to develop stronger political, economic and social ties. What
better way to represent the dawning of a new relationship than by moving ahead
with a visionary project to bring clean energy to Europe.

Expectations surrounding the forthcoming climate change
summit in Durban are low, but it may be possible to make progress on issues
such as the establishment of an international Green Climate Fund, which was
agreed in Copenhagen in 2009.

The fund has proved hugely contentious, with governments
from developing and developed countries alike split over its size, and how the
cash will be raised and distributed.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for a
concerted effort in South Africa to establish the $100bn-per-year fund, warning
that an empty shell is not sufficient, and that even in the current economic
climate, the world cannot afford delays.

Although UN climate
chief Christiana Figueres is playing down the likelihood of a successor
agreement to Kyoto being agreed at Durban, Ban has been much more upbeat —
suggesting a compromise might still be possible.

Fears are growing that failure to agree a new deal could see
the Kyoto Protocol lapse, removing binding emissions targets from many
countries and the regulatory regime that supports an international carbon
market. Governments must come to Durban willing to compromise to stop that
happening.

Source: www.rechargenews.com

Asia Businesses Could Save 20 – 40% with Energy Efficiency Investments

Asia’s best bet for reducing energy demand and carbon
emissions – energy efficiency – receives only a fraction of the investment
needed. Energy efficiency topped the rankings as the most cost-effective
measure to tackle climate and energy security in Asia, yet investments in this
sector are not nearly enough, said the United States Agency for International
Development’s Regional Development Mission for Asia (USAID/RDMA).

Jenny Marusiak in Eco-Business.com (25 November 2011):

Asia’s best bet for reducing energy demand and carbon
emissions – energy efficiency – receives only a fraction of the investment
needed.

Energy efficiency topped the rankings as the most
cost-effective measure to tackle climate and energy security in Asia, yet
investments in this sector are not nearly enough, said an international
development agency on Wednesday.

The United States Agency for International Development’s
Regional Development Mission for Asia (USAID/RDMA) has launched a report which
found that of 152 possible actions to push Asia towards a low-carbon energy
supply, the top six were energy efficiency-related.

Yet, the Asian countries studied are coming up with only a
small fraction of the necessary investment in energy efficiency, noted the
report authors.

“There is a large disconnect between the potential of energy
efficiency and its actual implementation,” they wrote.

Called Energy Trends in Developing Asia: Priorities for a
Low-Carbon Future, the report compared the current and projected energy demands
with the clean energy investment outlook of developing Asia’s highest energy
consumers, including China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and
Vietnam. It also studied data for the Asean nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos,
Malaysia, Singapore and Myanmar.

It then assessed the potential for different clean energy
initiatives including increasing renewable energy sources, carbon, capture and
storage (CCS) options and energy efficiency actions, for reducing overall
carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

By analysing the costs and effectiveness of low-carbon
measures, the report authors aimed to provide Asia’s policy-makers, businesses,
academics and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with the necessary data to
prioritise investment in a cleaner, more secure energy supply.

Investment in renewable energy has been steadily ramping up.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has said that power from renewable
energy sources is growing fastest in developing Asian countries, led by China
and India.

Yet, even with the
rapid growth in renewable energy investement, the EIA predicts that by 2035
electricity from renewable energy – most of which will be hydropower – will
only make up 20 per cent of the region’s overall power supply.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in its World
Energy Outlook 2010 that energy efficiency would have to provide the bulk of
the world’s future carbon dioxide (C02) emissions reductions through 2030. To
avoid a global temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius, the world
would need to increase energy efficiency to make up 57 per cent of its overall
emissions reductions.

“There is a lack of capacity in the region to plan, design,
and finance energy efficiency on a scale commensurate with the urgency of the
risks posed by energy insecurity and climate change,” wrote the report’s
authors.

China alone has identified US$43 billion in yearly
investments that will be needed if it is going to meet its energy savings
targets.

Much of the region’s needed investment could come from the
private sector if it can take advantage of the potential savings, say experts.

The USAID/RDMA report found that the six most cost-effective
energy efficiency investments were in lighting, residential appliances and
equipment, residential building efficiency, commercial building efficiency,
motor-systems efficiency, and in more efficient passenger vehicles.

Earlier this month, a study published by global consultancy
Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and the European Chamber of Commerce
(Eurocham) found that in Southeast Asia alone, energy efficiency investments
such as these could save US$15 billion to US$43 billion in energy costs and
result in a 12 to 30 per cent decrease in energy consumption by the year 2020.

The same study found that, for the most part, the private
sector was failing to tap into that potential market.

Global sustainability
expert Dr Martin Blake, who is executive director of The GreenAsia Group
consultancy, told Eco-Business in a phone interview that the key to generating
investment from the private sector was to focus on the business case for energy
efficiency.

“Bringing carbon into the argument only creates confusion,”
he said.

Dr Blake added that energy savings was one of the greatest
opportunities facing companies today, and that most businesses could save from
20 to 40 per cent after recouping energy efficiency investments.

“Once they realise that, the carbon emissions reductions
will follow,” he said.

The biggest opportunities for increasing energy efficiency
are in Asia’s growing cities,where energy demand is rapidly expanding for
buildings, industries and transport, according to the USAID/RDMA report.

In China, for example, the daily operations of residential
and commercial buildings consume about a quarter of China’s total energy use –
this is more than its iron, steel and cement industries combined.

Asia’s cities will contain more than half of the world’s
urban population by 2030.

According to the report, the combination of rapid
urbanisation and growing per capita incomes, which raise people’s consumption
levels, are driving a massive increase in the region’s energy demand.

Currently, developing countries within Asia consume only 28
per cent of global energy supplies, despite being home to nearly 50 per cent of
the world’s population.

China, Asia’s largest consumer, uses 17 per cent of the
total global output of energy. On average, the largest six Asian countries
studied in the report consume about one tenth of the energy of the United
States on a per capita basis.

But, the report notes, power generation in Southeast Asia,
China and India is expected to double from 2008 to 2030.

Electricity from coal, which emits the most CO2 per unit of
energy of all the fossil fuels, will grow by 77 per cent. Nuclear power will
grow by a multiple of twelve; over 30 new nuclear power plants are planned for
the region.

Electricity from natural gas will triple, and power from
biomass is set to increase by 50 times, while hydroelectric power will increase
by 44 per cent.

Of the major electricity sources, only crude oil is
projected to decrease – by 15 per cent – but its use as a fuel for
transportation will increase dramatically.

USAID/RDMA predicts that the region’s growing energy
consumption will result in a 55 per cent increase in CO2 emissions from the six
focus countries within the next 20 years – mostly from India and China, which
together contribute 91 per cent of developing Asia’s energy-related emissions.

The study further found that the region’s rising energy
demands are causing a growing reliance on fossil fuel imports, and thereby
increasing threats to the energy security of developing Asian nations.

Oil imports into Asia have increased by 140 per cent in the
past decade, and the amount of oil demand met by imports is projected by the
IEA to increase from 55 per cent in 2009 to 85 per cent in 2030.

The percentage of natural gas imports to Asia is also
predicted to rise dramatically. In 2008, Asia exported more gas than it
imported. By 2030, the region will have to import 30 per cent of its natural
gas supplies.

USAID/RDMA’s study was a project of its recently completed
Environmental Cooperation-Asia Clean Development and Climate Program (ECO-Asia
CDCP).

Source: www.eco-business.com

To Business: Change Habits to Meet the Sustainability Challenge

Sustainability needs to be ‘part of the business model’,
says Unilever CEO Paul Polman and businesses need to promote sustainability in
order to fill the commitment gap from governments that fail to deliver. This
and other reports on the business of sustainability as reported by the grapevine
magazine, incuding Sainbury’s and the University of Exeters new One Plant MBA.

Sustainability needs to be ‘part of the business model’,
says Unilever CEO

Businesses need to promote sustainability in order to fill
the commitment gap from governments that fail to deliver, says Paul Polman,
Unilever’s chief executive.

Unilever has launched its ‘Five Levers for Change’
guidelines, which provide advice on how to change habits to meet the
sustainability challenge.

Mr Polman explained that, despite the current economic
instability, now is the “moment to get a different type of growth” by making
sustainability “a part of the business model”.

To coincide with a public debate on mainstreaming
sustainable living, Unilever has today published the behaviour change model its
marketers use to encourage sustainable changes in consumer living habits: ‘Five
Levers for Change’.

Based on Unilever’s long history of research and insights
into consumer behaviour, the tool is based on a set of key principles, which,
if applied consistently to behaviour change interventions, increases the
likelihood of having an effective and lasting impact. Unilever is sharing the
model in the hope that others will find it helpful and use it to inspire people
to turn their concerns about sustainability into positive actions.

The model outlines five techniques to apply when looking to
encourage new behaviours based on five key insights.  The ‘Five Levers for Change’ are:

1. Make it understood. Sometimes people don’t know
   about a behaviour and why they should do it. This Lever raises awareness and
   encourages acceptance.
2. Make it easy. People are likely to take action
   if it’s easy, but not if it requires extra effort.  This Lever establishes convenience and
   confidence.
3. Make it desirable. The new behaviour needs to
   fit with how people like to think of themselves, and how they like others to
   think of them.  This Lever is about self
   and society.
4. Make it rewarding. New behaviours need to
   articulate the tangible benefits that people care about.  This Lever demonstrates the proof and payoff.
5. Make it a habit.
   Once consumers have changed, it is important to create a strategy to
   help hold the behaviour in place over time. This Lever is about reinforcing and
   reminding.

“We have been working hard to distil those critical areas of
behaviour change insight that we all need to use to engage consumers,” said
Unilever CEO Paul Polman. “We are publishing our approach because we think that
there are wider benefits from sharing our work with others.”

“A huge part of our environmental impacts come from how
people use our products; two thirds of the greenhouse gas impacts across the
lifecycle and about half of our water footprint is associated with consumer
use. So inspiring consumers to adopt new sustainable products and behaviours is
fundamental to achieving the goals set out in the Unilever Sustainability
Living Plan,” added Polman.

‘Five Levers for Change’ is published in a booklet which
also contains a series of personal perspectives on sustainable living by
leading experts on sustainability and behaviour change from around the world,
including Forum for the Future Founder Jonathon Porritt, Akatu Institute for
Conscious Consumption President Helio Mattar, and behaviour change specialist
Val Curtis from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Source: www.unilever.com

Global companies pledge support for new University of Exeter
One Planet MBA

A raft of major corporations have announced their support
for the new One Planet MBA programme, exclusively offered at the University of
Exeter Business School in collaboration with WWF.

Companies including Canon, Coca Cola, the Cooperative Group,
IBM, IKEA, Lafarge, Lloyds TSB, Nokia, Sony, Atos and Thomson Reuters are
backing scholarships for MBA students. They are also providing guest speakers
for the programme and offering students the opportunity to work with them on
projects as part of their MBA.

Professor Malcolm Kirkup, Director of the One Planet MBA
commented, ‘We’ve been overwhelmed by the level of interest and support
received from the corporate community. These particular companies are
demonstrating real leadership on sustainability and it is great to have them on
board. We are delighted they have already recognised the value of the programme
and the quality of our students. These scholarships will ensure that we
continue to attract high quality cohorts of students from a diverse range of
backgrounds.

The One Planet MBA has recently been highlighted as ‘good
practice’ at the 2011 Principles of Management Education Summit in Brussels.
More details can be found on the PRME Summit website.

Source: www.business-school.exeter.ac.uk

Sainsbury’s also unveiled a £1billion plan to bring the
agenda to the foreground of their business practice, creating 50,000 jobs in
the process.

The planet is under strain and the choices we make about the
products we buy have never been more important. The global population is rising
at a time when natural resources are decreasing. As such, there is increasing
pressure on the global food system. The earth’s capacity to provide food is
threatened by climate change, water scarcity and unsustainable farming
practices. We need to find ways to make land more productive and to protect the
biodiversity on which all food production ultimately depends. That means
building resilient supply chains to ensure long term security of sustainable
supply.

The 20 by 20 Sustainability Plan comes at exactly the right
time for Sainsbury’s. One only has to pick up the daily newspapers to see the
challenges facing our society, economy and planet to understand why.

Following consultation with NGOs and other stakeholders,
we’ve set ourselves 20 ambitious goals, which will help our customers make more
nutritious, sustainable and ethical purchasing decisions week in, week out, on
a journey to 2020. We want to transform the marketplace for greener, fairer and
healthier products. We want to help shift our customers’ everyday behaviour in
favour of sustainability but still provide the value and quality that they have
come to expect.

20 by 20 is our roadmap towards making this vision a
reality, and through our scale and these commitments, we can make a positive
difference throughout the value chain.

For example, Deforestation is responsible for around 20 per
cent of global greenhouse gas emissions (UNEP).

It causes irreversible damage to the natural habitat of many
species vital for sustaining life on earth. Unsustainable logging practices and
the destruction of forests for farming threaten to remove the earth’s natural
breathing system. The challenge is not only to stop this damage but also help
to restore forest cover.

By 2020, our own brand products won’t contribute to global
deforestation.

Source: www.j-sainsbury.co.uk
and www.thegrapevinemagazine.com

Flying into Cloud: Will EU’s Emission Scheme Get Off the Ground?

A new European Union (EU) scheme gets
introduced from 1 January 2012 which will punish airlines for polluting the
skies. Airlines object as it could lead to higher airfares for passengers and
fewer direct flights to Europe. The EU has refused to compromise so far, setting
the stage for a showdown. British Airways said the airline intends to comply
with the scheme, but the nightmare scenario would be a tit-for-tat seizure of
planes across countries.

By Feng Zengkun  in Straits Times (24 Noveber 2011):

A BREATH of fresh air could
become more expensive from next year for anyone visiting Europe. But for
Singaporean travellers, an air ticket to the continent could come at an even
higher price, given the longer distance.

This is because a new fee will
kick in on Jan 1 to punish airlines for polluting the skies. Airlines have been
coy about it, but analysts said the extra cost could well be passed on to
passengers.

Only flights that use European
Union (EU) airports are affected. On a Singapore-Jakarta-Frankfurt flight, for
example, only the Jakarta-Frankfurt leg will be counted.

Keeping airlines in check

FROM Jan 1, a new European Union
(EU) scheme will punish airlines for polluting the skies. This could lead to
higher airfares for passengers and fewer direct flights to Euro

When it was introduced: 2007

When it takes effect: Jan 1, 2012

How long it will last: Until
2020, but could be extended after that time

What is affected: All flights
that take off or land at EU airports

How much it is expected to cost
airlines: US$18 billion (S$23 billion) over the eight years, although the EU
disputes this.

How it works:

•Airlines calculate their total
pollution each year by multiplying the fuel used on affected flights by a
carbon dioxide emissions factor.

•They submit the figures to the
EU, which independently verifies them.

•Each airline is given an annual
free emissions ‘allowance’. They will have to pay if they exceed this
allowance.

•To do this, they have to buy
‘carbon credits’ from other airlines which have not exceeded the cap; airlines
can ‘bank’ unused credits.

•They can also buy these credits
from other industries; the EU scheme has already been rolled out to other
sectors such as the paper industry.

•If the airlines fail to pay the
owed fees, they will be fined €100 (S$175) for each tonne of carbon dioxide on
top of what they owe.

•The scheme is administered by
different EU states, which have additional penalties for continued
non-compliance. These include banning airlines from entering EU airspace or
seizing their planes.

The fuel used on these flights is
multiplied by a standard carbon dioxide emissions factor to calculate the total
pollution.

The EU will monitor airlines’
emissions each year between next year and 2020. The scheme could be extended
after that time.

While each airline will be
allowed to emit some carbon dioxide for free each year, they will have to buy
‘carbon credits’ from other airlines or industries to pay off the pollution if
they exceed the allowance.

Since the scheme was announced by
the EU in 2007 as part of a larger green plan, it has been heavily opposed by
the aviation industry.

The International Air Transport
Association (IATA) estimated that the scheme will cost airlines US$18 billion
(S$23 billion) over the next eight years, but the EU disputes this.

An IATA spokesman told The
Straits Times that the industry is already being battered by rising fuel costs,
which have increased by 60 per cent since last year.

In a bid to counter the EU
scheme, airlines set its own target to reduce emissions by 50 per cent by 2050,
compared to 2005. But EU lawmakers were not persuaded.

The industry now emits 2 per cent
of all carbon dioxide. But in Europe alone, the number of flights is expected
to treble in the next four decades, to around 25 million flights per year in
2050.

Lufthansa, Europe’s largest
airline, said it will have to pay up to €300 million (S$528 million) next year
under the scheme, a third of its profits for last year.

The free emissions allowance will
also be lowered by three percentage points in 2013, which means airlines will
have to pay more between 2013 and 2020.

Flights from Asia to Europe will
be affected more because of the longer distance; Singapore Airlines (SIA)
declined to provide a dollar figure but said 9,000 of its flights will be
affected each year.

Cabins without toilets?

WITH the new fees being
inevitable, passengers could end up absorbing them, said Mr Paul Ng, global
head of aviation at law firm Stephenson Harwood.

Airlines such as British Airways,
Lufthansa and SIA told The Straits Times they have not ruled out doing that.
But at the same time, airlines have been on a drive to find ways to cut
emissions to avoid paying the fees.

One way is to offer fewer direct
flights. A Singapore-London flight, for example, could be broken up into two
separate flights with a stopover just outside the EU.

This would reduce the amount of
fuel that falls under the scheme, since only the shorter, latter leg would be
counted.

But Mr Ng said such actions
carried risks.

‘No one wants to be the first to
inconvenience passengers or charge higher prices. Passengers would just go to
another airline,’ he said.

Mr Ng added that airlines cannot
collude to charge higher prices together as this is illegal.

Another way is to cut short-haul
flights if other transportation methods are available.

Lufthansa cut its
Frankfurt-Cologne flight in 2007 because there was a faster high-speed train
route. It now operates a carriage on the train

This will mean that Singaporeans
travelling abroad may find fewer short-haul flights within the EU in the future

Mr Ng Chin Hwee, SIA’s executive
vice-president for human resources and operations, said airlines can also
reduce the fuel used by making the planes lighter.

The airline is currently
conducting a trial on electronic magazines and newspapers, which are installed
on its in-flight entertainment systems.

The paper versions can weigh up
to 1,000kg on flights, according to trade magazine Enviro Aero. It also
estimated that a plane could save 34,000 litres of fuel a year by reducing the
weight of each passenger seat by 1kg.

Mr Jonathan Galaviz, chief
economist at Galaviz and Company, which does consultations for airlines, said
the industry is also looking into lighter food carts and seats.

He said airlines could consider
lowering baggage limits, ‘but there has to be a balance between customer
satisfaction and airline profitability’.

In an extreme example of
cost-cutting, Ryanair last month announced that it would remove two out of
three toilets on its planes to add more seats. While the additional seats may
not make the plane lighter, it will earn the airline more money.

Planes powered by biofuel

BUT these short-term measures may
not be enough.

The potentially hefty price tag
has led some airlines to look into other, more long-term measures, such as
changing their fleet of planes.

Newer planes such as the Airbus
A-380 and Boeing-787 Dreamliner transport more people and use up to 20 per cent
less fuel per passenger compared to older models, but each plane takes years to
produce.

Many airlines, including Lufthansa,
Continental, Qantas and SIA, are also investing in biofuels, which are not
counted under the scheme.

These are fuels made from plants
such as jatropha and canola seeds. But some are controversial because
environmentalists say forests could be razed to make way for them, harming the
planet even more than conventional fuel.

In July, Lufthansa started
testing a jet fuel made up of 50 per cent biofuel on a flight between Frankfurt
and Hamburg. The findings will be ready only in a few years.

Dr Alexander Zschocke,
Lufthansa’s senior manager for biofuels, added that alternative fuels are still
too expensive to help airlines in the next few years.

‘They now cost two to three times
more than conventional fuel, which would wipe out any savings under the scheme,’
he said.

Other airlines told The Straits
Times that more can be done to shorten flight routes between countries.

Mr Petteri Kostermaa, Finnair’s
sales director for Singapore and South-east Asia, said: ‘Right now, many flight
routes zigzag due to restrictions imposed by air traffic control. This is not
efficient.’

Even changing the planes’ noses
to reduce wind resistance and inventing smoother paint – both being researched
now – would shave precious tonnes off the airlines’ fuel use.

Nightmare scenario

BUT the greatest and most
immediate threat to passengers and airlines is what will happen if airlines do
not pay the fee.

The scheme includes clauses to
revoke airlines’ operating licences in the EU and to seize their planes if they
do not pay owed fees. This would cause chaos for airlines and passengers.

The United States last month
voted to ban its airlines from paying the fee. It said the EU scheme was
illegal.

The Air Transport Association of
America is also suing the EU in the European Court of Justice over the scheme,
saying it violates international aviation law. A ruling is expected by the end
of the year or early next year.

Several Chinese airlines plan to
bring a similar suit by year end.

But the EU has refused to
compromise so far, setting the stage for a showdown.

Mr Jonathan Counsell, head of
British Airways’ environment department, said the airline intends to comply
with the scheme, but the nightmare scenario would be a tit-for-tat seizure of
planes across countries.

‘We all hope that a compromise
can be reached. But there’s not much time left,’ he told The Straits Times.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

Last word…. Media is the Message: Sustainability in the News

If we continue to live unsustainably, we will by definition
fail to sustain our societies – our, societies will crumble. There is growing
irrefutable evidence of this creeping fact all around us. Everyone, especially
the young, needs to be educated about this simple fact. About what the problems
are and how we can deal with them and what we may expect if we fail to deal
with them.

A role for the media? Certainly says Brisbane’s Dr Geoffrey
Chia, who leads Doctors and Scientists for Sustainability and Social Justice
(D3sj), who would ike to see a TV channel dedicated entirely to sustainability
issues.

Then there’s the Media Alliance at the Asia
Television Forum at Marina Bay Sands  in
Singapore on 7 December, looking at Corporate Social Responsibilty and Climate
Change, where “Media and Multi-Sector Partnerships in Achieving Positive Social
Change”. Ken Hickson and Martin Blake will be among those taking part along
with media bosses and represenatves from the UN and Asian Development Bank.
Read More

Media leaders Forum at the Asia Television Forum at Marina
Bay Sands  in Singapore on 7 December,
looking at Corporate Social Responsibilty and Climate Change, where “Media and
Multi-Sector Partnerships in Achieving Positive Social Change”.

The Media Leaders’ Forum will discuss the role and
responsibility of media companies in affecting positive social action and
behaviour change on the critical issues relating to climate change.

UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN
Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP), Dr Noeleen
Heyzer, will deliver a keynote address, followed by a panel discussion of
senior media, advertising and development community representatives who will
discuss the use of media relationships and tools for advocacy, awareness and behaviour
change in accomplishing companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR)
objectives.

The Media Leaders’ Forum will explore how partnerships with
international development and donor agencies and private-sector companies with
strong CSR initiatives can affect public engagement on issues relating to
climate change. It will encourage invited media heads to support broad and
extended campaigns to raise awareness and achieve behaviour change on climate
change by providing advertising inventory, entertaining program content and
editorial space to explain the issues.

P R O G R A M

11.00 am –           Opening
remarks:  David Astley, Executive
Chairman, The Media Alliance

11:05 am –           Keynote
Address:  UN Under-Secretary-General and
Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific (UN-ESCAP), Dr Noeleen Heyzer

11:25 am –           Introductory
presentations by panelists:

Robert Van Zwieten, Director of Capital Markets and
Financial Sectors Division, Private Sector Operations Department, Asian
Development Bank, Manila

Martin Blake, Executive Director, The GreenAsia Group,
Singapore, and Executive Chairman, Carbon Zero Solutions Ltd, London

Dan Gibson, Managing Director, Ogilvy & Mather,
Singapore

Thepchai Yong, Managing Director, Thai Public Broadcasting
Service, Bangkok

Ken Hickson, Author of ‘The ABC of Carbon’ and Governor of
WWF Australia

Arya Gunawan Usis, Advisor for Communication and
Information, UNESCO

12.10 pm –          Panel
discussion and input from invited media leaders

Moderator:  Sharanjit Leyl, BBC World

12.50 pm –          Summary
and closing remarks:

1.00 pm –             VIP
luncheon for panelists and invited media leaders

Sustainable
TV Channel

From  Dr Geoffrey
Chia, Brisbane, Australia, who leads Doctors and Scientists for Sustainability
and Social Justice (D3sj):

An idea whose time has come: A 24 hour ABC TV channel
dedicated entirely to sustainability issues

When Ted Turner came up with the idea of a 24 hour news
channel, people at the time derided it as crazy and unworkable. But it proved a
resounding success. It was the naysayers who had to eat humble pie. CNN’s success
bred a whole host of imitators and now we regard, say, BBC 24 hour News as just
one of many such channels. Furthermore this idea spawned the mushrooming of
many other specialty channels such as the history channel, national geographic
channel, even the weather (!) channel.

There are now a profusion of individual sustainability
programs and documentaries available, but they are widely scattered about in
time and place. Such programs, gathered together, can easily fill several 24
hour dedicated channels. Let us in Australia start with just one sustainability
channel.

Why? Because if we continue to live unsustainably, we will
by definition fail to sustain our societies – our, societies will crumble.
There is growing irrefutable evidence of this creeping fact all around us.
Everyone, especially the young, needs to be educated about this simple fact.
About what the problems are and how we can deal with them and what we may
expect if we fail to deal with them.

How? It should be funded from the public purse with no
commercial advertising. There will be few other projects more worthwhile, more
cost effective and more important, the best bang for the taxpayers buck. There
is absolutely no doubt that the pursuit of sustainability is in the public
interest, hence this channel should be a free to air public broadcasting
channel.

Who? Those who select programming should choose material on
the basis of scientific validity, on the basis of whether the assertions made
have the backing of evidence and reason.

BBC Horizon documentaries related to sustainability would be
ideal material. This does not preclude an entertaining approach (such as
channel ten’s Scope program, one of the few commercially produced science based
programs). There will be no place for lunatic ideas or for deceit perpetrated
by sources such as the Marshall institute (who are the original tobaccocancer deniers
and global warming deniers) or the “Institute of Public Affairs”, an
industry funded pseudo thinktank which promotes commercial interests under a
bogus banner.

The chief scientist of Australia should be on the board of
our ABC sustainability channel, perhaps chair the board. This board should
mainly consist of experts in specific fields related to sustainability:
conservation biology, climate science, resource depletion, steady state sustainable
economics etc. Only those actively publishing / researching / teaching in their
fields should be allowed on the board. Industry funded trojan-horse
“scientists” such as those from the IPA must be screened for and actively
excluded. Other board members should include those who work towards social
justice initiatives and selected community leaders, because sustainability
issues are intimately tied in with social justice measures.

When? The sooner the better. Yesterday.

Specifics:

1. We should start a letter writing and email petition
campaign for an ABC sustainability TV channel. Swamp the government with strong
demands for this channel: an antidote to the mindless, voyeuristic, consumeristic,
gossipy drivel we see on the commercial “buy, buy, buy” channels.
Write to your local MP, to your federal representative, to the Prime Minister.
If you personally know any ABC executives, speak to them about it, write to
them about it. If you don’t have time, simply copy this letter and add your signature
endorsing it.

2. ABC3 at present is not a 24 hour channel, it is off air
much of the time. This free airtime should be filled with sustainability programming
right now. It does not matter if good programs happen to be aired at 3am,
sensible viewers will select and record their preferences anyway for later
viewing. There will be no concerns about filling a children’s TV channel with
sustainability programs because firstly they are G rated programs and secondly
the young audience are the most important audience to address in any case.

If they by accident happen to view a program on renewable
energy instead of Sponge Bob Squarepants, so much the better. The biggest
mistake we can make is to underestimate the potential intelligence and wisdom
of the youngest members of our community. The greatest task we can undertake is
to nurture their intelligence and wisdom. These children can then engage their
parents in discussion and teach the adults a thing or two.

3. As momentum picks up, transfer the sustainability
programs from ABC3 to a dedicated 24 hour ABC sustainability channel.

4. Other (sensible) countries of the world will then follow
suit when they realise what a good idea this is.

Our ABC can then take credit for being the pioneer.

Let’s get on with it! Please support this initiative. Please
send this note out to everyone else in the sustainability network nationwide.
Thanks for your attention.

Geoffrey Chia, October 2011

Doctors and Scientists for Sustainability and Social Justice
(D3sj) Our group invites participation from all members of the public who agree
with these medical and scientific principles: that we should use evidence,
reason and fairness as the principal means to address the issues facing
society, in order to achieve the greatest amount of good for the greatest
number of people on a long term basis.

We are located in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Next meeting December 7, 2011.

Source: www.d3sj.org

A Day to Remember

The date was thought to be propitious.
11.11.11. For many it continues to be Remembrance Day or Armistice Day, marking
the end of the First World War. For others, a great mark on the calendar for a
wedding day or birthday. Some of us hoped it would draw attention to the 11th
Hour – the urgency and the necessity – time to make big decisions about our
future world, which is headed on the path to disaster. Significantly, the
International Energy Agency chose this time to give a dire warning that we must
change our energy ways or we are all doomed. Amony Lovins gives us hope and
says it is possible to run a much bigger US economy without oil, coal or
nuclear.There’s a new global list of the world’s most vulnerable countries in
line for climate change impacts and recognition for Munich Re for setting out
the genuine climate risks and leading investment in the Sahara solar scheme.
But we are not doing so well so far…global emissions are still on the rise,
but one way to quickly change things is starring us in the face. Stop chopping
down trees. The UN tells us what we know to expect – more extreme weather and
disasters. Thailand  knows what that
means.Island states want more say and hope the upcoming Durban Climate Change
conference delegates take note, while Africa hopes for a multi-billion dollar
green fund. Australia has a new hope along with its finally legal Carbon Price and
a Clean Energy Future. Singapore comes clean with a new plan for a floating
solar island and an innovative solar charging device. There’s a lot of money to
be made and saved with greater energy efficiency measures in South East Asia,
says Roland Berger, while there’s a warning – again – of an eco-disaster with a
global population out of control.Seven billion and growing fast. How about some
close encounters of a clean energy kind?
Ken Hickson