What a disaster!

Man-made disasters or natural “acts of God” strike us earthlings in different ways, but usually result in major disruption to shipping, air transport, industry and business, whether we like it or not. Witness the latest catastrophic oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico. Has the oil industry learned nothing from Exxon Valdez? Has the world not come up with more effective disaster management than this? More on this, including what WWF thinks we should do about it.

A disaster closer to home and with political ramifications was the Australian Government’s decision to drop its much-heralded Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Polls and columnists say what they think about this and how it could bring down the Government. And we ask the experts what impact this delay will have on the new National Carbon Offsets Standards. The Green Building Council rightfully adopts ecospecifier’s new Green Tag certification system and CSIRO is working on a massive solar tower to produce the energy we need. At the Clean Energy Conference this week concern was expressed about the Renewable Energy Targets. Are we on track or not?

On a global note, we hear from Sir David King and his call for a 21^st century renaissance to tackle civilisation’s biggest challenge. Germany and Mexico are determined to see a global agreement on climate change action. On home soil, we explore the innovative biosequestration work of Prime Carbon and Ken Bellamy in a Lucky Last article by Graham Readfearn.  – Ken Hickson

Profile: Sir David King

‘Climate change is the single biggest challenge our civilisation has ever had to face’. On the eve of the British election, and as the Australian Government finds itself in deep trouble over the postponement of a long-awaited emissions trading scheme, there’s some very challenging and wise words from the former UK Government chief scientific advisor Sir David King, who now heads Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment:  ‘I think we need a 21st century renaissance … if we are going to manage this in a way that doesn’t lead to massive breakdown of our global economies.’

Wanted: a 21st-century renaissance

By Oxford Today Editor Greg Neale (Volume 22 Number 2, Hilary 2010).

‘This is the single biggest challenge our civilisation has ever had to face.’ As a scientist, academic and senior government adviser, Sir David King may have had moments in his career where he has had to use language diplomatically measured, but when he talks about the issue currently dominating his thoughts, he is directness personified.

Sir David, Director of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, and a former chief scientist for the British government, is talking about climate change and the scale of the response that humanity must make to it if we are to negotiate the 21st century without economic and social catastrophe. ‘It requires all major countries, all players, to act together’, he observes.

In that sense, the Smith School, one of Oxford’s newest centres of research – it opened its doors in October 2008 – is likely to prove a lesson in such cooperation and pooling of talent. Its offices may lurk behind a relatively anonymous façade in a building that overlooks the Gloucester Green bus station, but inside, a bright and airy atmosphere welcomes the visitor, as if challenging any traditionalist idea of academics working in cloistered solitude, untouched and untainted by the worlds of commerce or politics, let alone other academic disciplines.

The School was set up to focus on global environmental issues, and to bring together leading academics as well as figures from business, industry and government. A principal aim is to find ways of cutting fossil fuel use without impeding economic growth, and to foster sustainable living. The School brings together academics from around the world and from different disciplines and backgrounds, including various environmental sciences, law, economics and international relations, as well as people from business and government backgrounds. Across the University, meanwhile, more than 60 academics from various departments have been appointed faculty associates of the School. ‘We are genuinely multidisciplinary’, Sir David says.

The speed with which the Smith School has established itself is also, one feels, a challenge to the more measured pace sometimes associated with a university established more than eight centuries ago. Certainly, Sir David gives the impression as he recalls the School’s beginning, there is no time to be wasted.

‘I started on 1 January 2008, and it was an initial hard slog for three to four months to establish a kernel of staff around me, and then it all started happening remarkably quickly’, he says. ‘By the time we opened the doors, we were about 30 people and are still growing. I think it’s fair to say that we hit the ground running.’

His approach to recruitment also reflects a career spent bridging the worlds of academic research and industry. ‘We were able to start with a good bunch of young research fellows, together with a remarkable bunch of more senior visiting fellows from abroad’, he reflects. ‘I think one of the cleverest things we did was to put an advertisement in The Economist for senior people – and so, at a relatively low cost to ourselves, we had some very brilliant people from around the world.’

The process has continued, and already the School can point to a roster of distinguished international scholars who have been visiting fellows. They include Professor Dan Bodansky, an international lawyer who advised former US President – and Rhodes Scholar – Bill Clinton on climate change issues. Professor Bodansky, who was a visiting fellow in the first half of last year, returns to Oxford later this year. That White House connection was echoed last year when Al Gore, Bill Clinton’s Vice-President, was a keynote speaker at the inaugural Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment, along with the presidents of the Maldives and Rwanda.

Less high profile, but with significant potential for policy development, are some of the School’s research projects. ‘We have established a very significant project on the future of mobility, looking at mobility from the point of view of moving people and goods around villages, towns, countries, from country to country, and extrapolating forward to the next century and talking to all of the providers of mobility about how to adapt to a low-carbon economy’, Sir David says. ‘The key to what we are doing is working with the private sector, working with governments and working with academics to find solutions.’

After an academic career working at several universities – Imperial College, London and the University of East Anglia, as well as Cambridge, where he was Head of the Chemistry Department and Master of Downing College – Sir David became chief scientific adviser to the British government and Head of the Government Office for Science, and gained a grandstand view of how science and public policy could come together. Then came the job at Oxford. He has no doubt of the value to the Smith School of being where it is, rather than at some of the other British universities in which he has worked.

‘There is no question that the reason I came here, rather than any of those places, to establish this school, is precisely because of the convening power, the brand name of Oxford’, he says. ‘This isn’t about finding solutions that are only relevant to Britain and British companies and the British government. We are a global operation, and the global recognition of Oxford is really what we are building on. I don’t think we could have pulled together such a marvellous group of people to the World Forum without that brand name – Oxford. However, the second factor is we have a level of in-depth expertise on environmental issues around the University. I think most of my new colleagues have been surprised to find just how much activity there is here. So I think that we can compete with anywhere in the world, given the strength we have.’

That multidisciplinary strength, he argues, also helps attract the interest and cooperation of business and industry, which must be part of the solution to environmental and sustainability issues.

‘We are sitting at the nexus of the private sector, governments and academics, with the private sector being our major sector that we work with. We are working with them to discuss what the future is going to look like. So we are looking 30, 40, 50 years hence, and we are saying – because this issue of decarbonising is going to be more and more important – your company will either have to adapt to a low-carbon economy or create an opportunity out of the innovative processes that can lead us towards a low-carbon economy. If you get there first, you are going to knock your competitors out of the way. In other words, we are very keen to say, here is an opportunity for you in the private sector.’

He adds: ‘On the other hand – and I use the case of General Motors as my counterexample – if you are not fully aware of what governments will do, and the directions that everyone will move in, you might become a white elephant. General Motors, by focusing a significant investment into the development of Humvees for the private sector, was leading itself into becoming a stranded asset. So our discussions with the private sector are all about self-interest.’

Our initial conversation took place in the weeks before the Copenhagen summit on climate change. The summit opened in the wake of renewed arguments from some critics, who dispute that industrial and agricultural emissions of greenhouse gases are leading to global warming – an argument reflected recently in the letters pages of Oxford Today. Sir David is unequivocal.

‘The scientific consensus is absolutely clear and the information rolling in year after year simply underlines how sound the science is’, he insists. The potential consequences of climate change are the reason he describes it as civilisation’s biggest challenge, requiring a unified response.

‘If, for example, one major country were to say, “We’re not going along with this”, the manufacturing sector that depends on the smokestack industries, which depend on massive energy usage, could well simply migrate into that country, and we buy all those goods back, and the problem is not solved. So it requires an international agreement for joint action of a kind that we’ve only once achieved before, again on an environmental issue, where CFCs [chlorofluorocarbons, linked to the destruction of the ozone layer] were slowly phased out.

‘The second reason I think it is a challenge is not only because it requires joint action, but also because of the nature of the challenge in the face of a [world] population that will rise to nine billion by mid century. So if we’ve got population density increasing on our land mass, and if we’ve got rising sea levels and rising temperatures, with increasing desertification, it means that the usable land mass is diminishing as the population is increasing. So food production, fresh water availability – all of these challenges become much more severe as a result of climate change being added on top.’

He concludes: ‘I think we need a 21st century renaissance – and by that I mean a transformation at least equivalent to the Renaissance or the Reformation or the Industrial Revolution – if we are going to manage this in a way that doesn’t lead to massive breakdown of our global economies.’

That, Sir David believes, means not only international cooperation between nations, but also individuals acting in small ways that bring about change.

‘An obvious thing to say is that it’s individuals who make up the population, the nine billion who will inhabit the planet by the middle of the century’, he argues. So the multiplier is enormous, and if we all change our behaviour, then the problem is solved.

He smiles at a memory: ‘I think I may have made myself a little unpopular with the car manufacturers, when at the end of a lecture to a group of students in London, I was asked by a young woman in the audience, “What should I be doing?” and I said, “You should stop admiring young men in Ferraris!” I didn’t realise that there were representatives of the media in the audience, and you can imagine the headlines in the papers the next day. But the point I was trying to make was a very serious one: that we all need to rethink what our status symbols are. We have through the centuries come to admire people who are big energy consumers, and give them a lot of status. We need to invert that. Every one of us contributes to this culture of wastage, and without much effort, we can turn that around.’

Perhaps it is because of this belief that collective effort can still help avert disastrous climate change that Sir David was not as dismayed as many by the outcome of the Copenhagen summit in December. Many observers had hoped that the summit would agree stronger international measures on greenhouse gas emissions, but even before the gathering, Sir David was taking a more cautious view.

‘Because President Obama is hostage to his own senate on global climate change policy, Copenhagen did just about all we could have expected’, he says. ‘Every country is now engaged in tackling climate change, developing nations found their voice and showed their muscle, and the US is now involved positively if not leading the way. ‘The conference was not the place to achieve a new deal. Much is now needed if a new protocol is to be agreed in Mexico at the end of this year, which meets the needs of the world.’

If business and industry could be persuaded to adopt sustainable solutions for reasons of economic interest, what, I wondered, did Sir David, with his experience of government, think would persuade politicians who work under the pressure of regular elections and are often accused of short-termism?

‘I think you are asking me, right at the end, the most interesting question’, he responds. ‘Short-termism always tends to win out. However, if we come back to individuals and what they can they do: if you have a society that recognises the challenges to our grandchildren, we can think that far ahead and it becomes a major issue. And so by raising this in the public mind as the biggest challenge we are facing, I think that becomes something politicians have to do something about.’

That, I suggested, was moving beyond a scientific or purely economic approach to environmental issues, and raising other questions – of values and a different attitude to what constitutes a good life.

‘We’ve lost sight of that’, Sir David replies. ‘Well-being rather than consumerism. And when I talk about a 21st-century renaissance, that’s exactly what I mean. Hoping that we can focus on that, our well-being; what makes us satisfied human beings.’

Sir David King

Born: South Africa, 12 August 1939

Educational career: University of Witwatersrand; Imperial College, London; University of East Anglia; University of Liverpool; University of Cambridge (Head of Chemistry Department, 1993-2000; Master of Downing College, 1995-2000).

UK government’s chief scientific adviser and Head of the Government Office for Science, October 2000-December 2007.

Director, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, since January 2008.

President of the British Science Association, 2008-9.

Officer of the Légion d’Honneur, October 2009.

The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment was founded by a benefaction from the Smith Family Educational Foundation, and has a home in George Street, close to the centre of Oxford. ‘The School’s aim is to find ways of cutting fossil fuel use worldwide without impeding any country’s economic growth, and to foster sustainable living so that all of us enjoy health and lifestyle advances without doing any more damage to the planet’, an introductory mission statement on its website proclaims.

The School’s activities are primarily based in a network of research centres:

The Centre for Climate and Development is promoting sustainable development in poorer countries; the Centre for Low-Carbon Mobility is improving transport for us and our goods; while the Centre for Catastrophe Risk Management deals with the risk and cost of disasters. Planned developments include a centre for environmental economics, a centre facilitating the low-carbon switch for business and a centre for climate science and regulation.

Editor’s note: Special thanks to our British friend and artist Graham Byfield for drawing our attention to this fine article which focuses on the work and words of a gentleman, scholar and scientist with his feet firmly planted on mother earth. Sir David King was in Australia as a keynote speaker at the Greenhouse 2007 conference, which also featured a speech by the then Minister for the Environment Malcolm Turnbull. – Ken Hickson

Source: www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk and www.oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/

A Gulf Too Wide: Oil & Water Don’t Mix

As Federal Government officials shut down fishing from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle because of the uncontrolled gusher spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama checked out the state of the environmental disaster which shows little sign of going away. It all underlines the need for the world to move strongly towards safer, cleaner energy, the global conservation organisation WWF said.

By Cain Burdeau and Ray Henry, for Associated Press (2 May 2010):

VENICE, Louisiana – Federal officials shut down fishing from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle on Sunday because of the uncontrolled gusher spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and the environmental disaster is still expected to take at least a week to cut off.

Even that toxic scenario may be too rosy because it depends on a low-tech strategy that has never been attempted before in deep water.

The plan: to lower 74-ton, concrete-and-metal boxes into the gulf to capture the oil and siphon it to a barge waiting at the surface. Whether that will work for a leak 5,000 feet below the surface is anyone’s guess; the method has previously worked only in shallower waters.

If it doesn’t, and efforts to activate a shutoff mechanism called a blowout preventer continue to prove fruitless, the oil probably will keep gushing for months until a second well can be dug to cut off the first. Oil giant BP PLC’s latest plan will take six to eight days because welders have to assemble the boxes.

President Barack Obama toured the region Sunday, deflecting criticism that his administration was too slow to respond and did too little to stave off the catastrophe.

Satellite images indicate the rust-hued slick tripled in size in just two days, suggesting the oil could be pouring out faster than before. Wildlife including sea turtles have been found dead on the shore but it is too soon whether the spill, caused by an April 20 oil rig explosion, was to blame.

Even if the well is shut off in a week, fishermen and wildlife officials wonder how long it will take for the gulf to recover. Some compare it to the hurricane Louisiana is still recovering from after nearly five years.

“It’s like a slow version of Katrina,” Venice charter boat captain Bob Kenney said. “My kids will be talking about the effect of this when they’re my age.”

More than 6,800 square miles of federal fishing areas, from the mouth of the Mississippi to Florida’s Pensacola Bay were closed for at least 10 days on Sunday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco says government scientists are taking samples from the waters near the spill to determine whether there is any danger.

Fishermen still were out working, however: They have been dropping miles of inflatable, oil-capturing boom around the region’s fragile wetlands and prime fishing areas. Bad weather, however, was thwarting much of the work; Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said 80 percent of the booms laid down off his state over the previous three days had broken down. He said boom along other coasts is breaking down also.

The Coast Guard and BP have said it’s nearly impossible to know exactly how much oil has gushed since the blast, though it has been roughly estimated to be at least 200,000 gallons a day.

At that rate, it would eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill — which dumped 11 million gallons off the Alaska coast — as the worst U.S. oil disaster in history in a matter of weeks.

“None of us have ever had experience at this level before. It ain’t good,” said Bob Love, coastal and nongame resources administrator with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. “The longer it goes, the more fish and wildlife impacts there will be.”

Even if the oil stays mostly offshore, the consequences could be dire for sea turtles, dolphins and other deepwater marine life — and microscopic plankton and tiny creatures that are a staple of larger animals’ diets.

Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss., said at least 20 dead sea turtles were found on the state’s beaches. He said it’s too soon to say whether oil contamination killed them but that it is unusual to have them turning up across such a wide stretch of coast, spanning nearly 30 miles.

None of the turtles have oil on them, but Solangi said they could have ingested oily fish or breathed in oil on the surface. Necropsies will be performed Monday.

The situation could become even more grave if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream and flows to the beaches of Florida — and potentially whips around the state’s southern tip and up the Eastern Seaboard. Tourist-magnet beaches and countless wildlife could be ruined.

Obama has halted any new offshore drilling projects unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent another disaster. On Sunday he called the spill a “massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster,” and made clear that he was not accepting blame.

“BP is responsible for this leak. BP will be paying the bill,” he said, rain dripping from his face in Venice, a Gulf Coast community serving as a staging area for the response.

Source: www.news.yahoo.com

WWF Reports (4 May 2010):

Recent offshore oil rig accidents and oil leaks – including the current Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico – underline the need for the world to move strongly towards safer, cleaner energy, global conservation organisation WWF said.

A world that seeks to source more and more oil and gas from deeper waters and more difficult and delicate locations also needs to factor into the equation the facts that we are also moving into territory where accidents are more likely, harder to respond to and have greater consequences.

“The Gulf of Mexico’s well-developed infrastructure and access to the most technologically advanced methods for responding to a spill offer the best possible set of circumstances for coping with such a disaster,” said WWF-US Vice-President for Arctic and Marine Policy William Eichbaum.

“Yet despite all these advantages, the crisis continues to worsen.”

It has been estimated that 400-600 species are potentially at risk as oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout begins to reach the US Louisiana coast at one of the worst times for migratory birds. The area is a vital wintering or resting spot for nearly three quarters of US waterfowl and now is the peak period of migrating and nesting, with the first chicks venturing into marsh ponds in the path of the oil.

The oil spill area is a major spawning area for the endangered Western Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, now also returning for their limited spawning season. Also under threat is one of the largest seafood industries in the United States, responsible for around half the US landings of wild shrimp and 40 per cent of its oysters, now also reproducing.

“The ecological and economic devastation now unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is a reminder that offshore oil exploration and production is in fact deeply hazardous and we should think twice before opening up even more delicate and treacherous waters to development,” said WWF International Director General James Leape.

Among recent indications on how the oil industry is failing to adopt a hope for the best but plan for the worst approach, WWF has detailed how environmental impact assessments and oil spill contingency plans for exploration drilling in the inhospitable Chukchi Sea off Alaska dismiss blowout risks as “insignificant” and declined to analyse potential impacts or plan responses.

Oil is highly toxic to the marine and coastal environment and its impacts on wildlife and can persist for decades. Oil can still be found and damaged is still being inflicted by the worst US marine oil spill, the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. Deep Horizon, estimated to be leaking around 5000 barrels of oil a day, is set to surpass the Exxon Valdez quantity of oil early this week.

In late 2009, WWF was involved in assessing the environmental risks and damage from the blowout of the Montara exploration well head in the Timor Sea.

Though less than one tenth the scale of the Gulf of Mexico disaster (an estimated 400 barrels a day, against the current 5000), and being located in much shallower seas (around 90 metres/300 ft as opposed to around 1500 metres/5000 ft) the leak still took five attempts and 105 days to plug.

Oil spread over 90,000 square kilometres of sea and reef and into Indonesian waters and the global conservation priority area of the Coral Triangle.

Like the Gulf, the Montara spill area contained whales and dolphins, tuna spawning areas, turtles and seabirds.

“Unfortunately the real toll on wildlife will never be known,” said WWF-Australia Conservation Director Dr Gilly Llewellyn, who travelled by boat to the Timor Sea during the spill to overcome an official and company information vacuum.

“There just simply wasn’t enough effort put into the monitoring to really get a sense of the full impact. But we think that there were thousands if not tens of thousands of marine creatures like sea birds, whales and dolphins that would have come in contact with that oil and would have been affected.”

Dr Llewellyn, a marine scientist also familiar with the Gulf of Mexico, said Louisiana’s coastal biological richness came from the complex mix of sandy barrier islands and muddy marshes.

“You can’t clean mud,” she said. “If the oil gets into the mud the effects could be very long-lasting.”

Source: www.wwf.org.au

All Ears: Climate Change Too Hot for Prime Minister Rudd to Handle

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s personal standing has taken a hammering after his decision to dump the emissions trading scheme last week, and for the first time since 2006 the Coalition has an election-winning lead. Mr Rudd’s previous standing as being seen to be “decisive and strong” also fell significantly, and for the first time since the election Labor lost its lead over all-comers as the preferred party to handle climate change.

Latest poll – Rudd losing points on climate change/emissions trading

Dennis Shanahan, Political editor for The Australian (4 May  2010):

The Coalition would score a shock election win based on the latest Newspoll.

KEVIN Rudd’s personal standing has taken a hammering after his decision to dump his climate change policy last week, and for the first time since 2006 the Coalition has an election-winning lead.

The Prime Minister’s personal satisfaction rating has dropped the most in the shortest time in the 20-year history of Newspoll surveys, and for the first time since the election Labor no longer has a clear lead over either the Coalition or the Greens on the issue of climate change.

Mr Rudd’s previous standing as being seen to be “decisive and strong” also fell significantly, and for the first time since the election Labor lost its lead over allcomers as the preferred party to handle climate change.

For the first time in Mr Rudd’s prime ministership, an opposition leader is seen clearly as being stronger and more decisive than Mr Rudd, and Tony Abbott is considered almost equal with the Prime Minister in his grasp of major policy issues.

After weeks of dramatic policy reversals and broken promises, culminating last week in Mr Rudd’s decision to put off his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme until at least 2013, the government’s primary vote has plunged eight percentage points to just 35 per cent. The Coalition’s primary support has risen three points to 43 per cent.

Most of Labor’s lost vote appears to have gone to “others and independents” rather than to the Coalition or the Greens.

According to the latest Newspoll, taken last weekend exclusively for The Australian and polling almost 1200 voters, the extraordinary shifts in the primary vote mean the two-party-preferred support for Labor has dropped to 49 per cent while the Coalition’s has risen from 46 to 51 per cent. The ALP won the last election with a two-party-preferred vote of 52.7 to 47.3 per cent. A swath of seats would fall in an election with a swing of just 1 per cent either way, and the Coalition needs to win about seven seats to win the election.

The last time the Coalition was in front on the two-party-preferred basis, according to preference flows at the last election, was in August 2006 when Kim Beazley was opposition leader and John Howard was prime minister.

The Rudd government is still failing to enhance its lead on the issue of health and Medicare, despite a month of deals with the states on hospital reforms and campaigning by Mr Rudd.

The Prime Minister’s personal satisfaction rating, down 11 points from 50 per cent two weeks ago to 39 per cent last weekend, is the lowest he has had as Labor leader, and it is the first time he has had a negative satisfaction rating, after dissatisfaction with him jumped nine points to 50 per cent.

Labor’s primary vote, at 35 per cent, is at its lowest since March 2006 when Labor was in opposition.

Although Labor’s vote dropped heavily after the government announced it would cancel the proposed new home roofing insulation scheme and spend $1 billion fixing up the old failed scheme, drop its CPRS this year and lift the tax on a packet of cigarettes by $2.16, the Coalition’s vote did not lift to the same degree.

Primary support for the Coalition rose from 40 to 43 per cent and Greens’ support was unchanged on 10 per cent. The category of “others”, that is smaller parties and independents, rose from just 7 per cent two weeks ago to 12 per cent last weekend.

Likewise, satisfaction with the way Mr Abbott is doing his job as Opposition Leader dropped a little, from 46 to 45 per cent, and dissatisfaction rose back to where it was a month ago, to 43 per cent.

Because of Mr Rudd’s fall in favour, Mr Abbott is now the best placed opposition leader on the question of better prime minister.

Support for Mr Rudd fell to his lowest level of 50 per cent, down six points, and Mr Abbott’s rose to his highest level of 32 per cent, up three points.

Additional questions in the Newspoll survey suggest Mr Rudd’s decision to dump the CPRS until 2013 at least and Mr Abbott’s attack on the Prime Minister as being “gutless” are the prime reasons for the slump in Mr Rudd’s personal support and the collapse of the party primary vote.

When Mr Rudd was first elected and faced Brendan Nelson as Liberal leader, 84 per cent of voters felt he was “strong and decisive” compared with Dr Nelson’s 47 per cent. In September 2008, Malcolm Turnbull, as the new Liberal leader, was on 74 per cent support for being decisive compared with Mr Rudd’s 73 per cent. Last weekend, Mr Rudd’s support for being decisive dropped 10 points since September 2008 to 63 per cent; Mr Abbott was on 69 per cent.

When asked whether the leaders understood the major issues facing Australia, Mr Rudd’s support fell from 76 per cent in September 2008 to 69 per cent last weekend and Mr Abbott’s first rating was 66 per cent.

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au

Clean Energy & Sustainability In Our Long-term Interests.

The sense of annoyance and frustration of many businesses at the Federal government’s behaviour over the past three years in relation to its proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) will be great, and it has been made worse by the government’s response to the Henry review of taxation. What’s more AGL Energy has criticised Canberra’s energy policies, warning that Australia’s reputation as a stable place to invest is threatened by delays to a green power scheme.

Wayne Kayler-Thomson in The Age (5 May 2010):

Sustainability is in our long-term interests.

THE sense of annoyance and frustration of many businesses at the federal government’s behaviour over the past three years in relation to its proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) will be great, and it has been made worse by the government’s response to the Henry review of taxation.

Not so long ago, the CPRS seemed almost inevitable, with the government raising the prospect of a double-dissolution election and a joint sitting of Parliament to ram it through.

In this context, coal-fired electricity generators were delaying investment, putting upward pressure on power prices, as were large electricity-dependent manufacturers.

Now the government will delay consideration of an emissions trading scheme until the end of 2012, amid increasing public scepticism of the cost and impact of the scheme on reducing carbon, as well as the slow or non-existent pace of adoption by other countries.

This has caused those in the gas and renewable energy sectors, and other businesses that stand to gain from a carbon price, to consider delaying investment themselves.

In a sense, the posturing of the past three years has produced the worst of both worlds. Apart from a shared distaste for the emissions trading issue being ruthlessly used as a political football, regardless of collateral damage, there is another thing the ”green” and ”brown” oriented businesses can agree on, and that is the importance of resource efficiency.

Optimal use of power and water and better waste-management processes not only help the environment, but also save money.

Sustainability is in the long-term interests of business, the broader community and the environment, and in this sense, the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water. The development and take-up of environmental technology will also help bolster Australia’s position as a leader in environmental technologies.

The Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s view is primarily that action on sustainability makes business sense, and that businesses should be encouraged and supported in taking action.

The Rudd backflip does not change the fact that we still need frameworks to deliver strategic, planned investment to commercialise low-carbon energy technologies, build smart networks (where cost-effective) and encourage appropriate use of distributed generation.

The take-up of sustainability products and services, including those offered by VECCI such as ”Grow Me The Money” and ”Carbon Down”, show that pragmatic support can make a difference. By taking action individually, businesses demonstrate that embarking on a sustainability journey actively contributes to saving money, cutting emissions and helping the environment.

Business can lead the way in sustainability adoption, both as inventors and users of sustainable practices, regardless of the stylised political shenanigans going on in Canberra. The government response to the Henry review is more of a “mixed blessing” for business, although anger is growing with the realisation that the rises in superannuation costs will not be offset by cuts in company tax rates, as most small businesses are not companies.

While small business will undoubtedly benefit from a suite of commonsense measures, including phased cuts in the company tax rate, immediate write-offs for depreciable assets and a standardised rate for all other assets except buildings, the cuts in company tax are less than those recommended by Henry (25 versus 28 per cent), and are also delayed, depriving business of any immediate benefit in a climate where business costs are rising.

Increased superannuation costs will hurt the bottom line and discourage the hiring of new labour, especially after the bottom-line hits many businesses have taken with the Fair Work Act – although the rise from a 9 per cent superannuation contribution to 12 per cent is tapered out to 2019-20.

A mining super-tax will punish one of the few industries in which Australia has a global comparative advantage, possibly pushing some mining company head offices overseas and delighting competitors such as Brazil and South Africa.

A federal infrastructure fund, a concept supported by VECCI for a decade, will help build the nation’s capacity to cope with its trade and population challenges, but the $700 million starting figure is puny compared with the money wasted during the school building and insulation rollouts.

There has been little focus on reducing the size of government or making it more efficient – for example, a review and consolidation of back-office expenditure.

The Henry report contains some exciting aspirational measures, including the abolition of inefficient taxes on insurance and payrolls, but these have not been taken up. It is hoped that some more measures to benefit business and the economy will be unveiled leading up to the election.

Wayne Kayler-Thomson is chief executive of the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Clancy Yeates in The Age (3 May 2010):

AGL Energy has criticised Canberra’s energy policies, warning that Australia’s reputation as a stable place to invest is threatened by delays to a green power scheme.

Amid widespread industry complaints that companies are operating in a policy vacuum after last week’s delay to emissions trading, AGL’s chief executive, Michael Fraser, took  aim at the renewable energy target (RET).

In a speech delivered in Adelaide at the Clean Energy Conference, Mr Fraser warned of “very serious consequences” if Parliament fails to pass amendments to the RET, which requires 20 per cent of all power to come from renewable sources by 2020. The troubled scheme was revised in March after generous subsidies for solar water heaters caused a slump in the price of renewable energy certificates, undermining investments in wind farms.

But the changes have not yet passed, leaving final investment decisions on renewable energy projects up in the air. Failure to implement them before the election would have ”very serious consequences” for jobs, investment, and industry confidence.

“Following the deferral of the introduction of the CPRS [carbon pollution reduction scheme], stability and certainty are not the first words that come to mind in relation to investors viewing the Australian power generation sector,” Mr Fraser says.

He told Clean Energy Council conference that passing the RET reforms would restore confidence. ”If investment confidence is not restored this year, there is a real risk that global players may not return to Australia.”

Source: www.businessday.com.au

Official Recognition for New Green Tag Building Certification System

Ecospecifier has been recognised under the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA’s) Assessment Framework for Product Certification Schemes and its GreenTag GreenRate Assessment is only the second to be completed and recognised under the Framework. Ecospecifier’s David Baggs will be holding workshops on his Green Tag scheme in Melbourne on 11 May, Sydney 12 May and Brisbane 19 May.

Green Building Council Australia announcement (4 May 2010):

Ecospecifier has been recognised under the Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA’s) Assessment Framework for Product Certification Schemes.

Ecospecifier’s GreenTag GreenRate Assessment is only the second to be completed and recognised under the Framework. The Carpet Institute of Australia’s Environmental Certification Scheme was the first to be recognised in March 2010.

This recognition means that products certified by GreenRate (one of two streams of the GreenTag scheme) under three categories – ‘carpet and flooring’, ‘furniture’ and ‘walls, partitions and ceilings’ – may achieve points under the Materials Category in the Green Star environmental rating tools for buildings.

According to the GBCA’s Green Star Executive Director, Robin Mellon, Ecospecifier’s product certification scheme was recognised after stringent independent assessment.

“We congratulate Ecospecifier on this certification, which will help to raise standards for green building materials and methods, and support Australia’s green building industry.

“Ecospecifier’s achievement is yet further confirmation that all schemes can now be recognised equally, provided they meet the strict criteria of the Framework,” Mr Mellon says. “We expect more schemes will be recognised in the coming months.”

David Baggs, Ecospecifier Global’s GreenTag Program Director, said that “Ecospecifier is pleased to continue its long association with the GBCA in facilitating the relationship between the green building industry, product manufacturers and the Green Star environmental rating system.”

The GBCA does not test, review or certify products or materials being used in buildings registered for Green Star. Instead, third party certification bodies are relied upon for testing and environmental assessments of products and materials.

The Assessment Framework for Product Certification Schemes was developed as part of the GBCA’s ongoing review of the Green Star environmental rating system for buildings.

For further information about the GBCA’s Assessment Framework for Product Certification Schemes, visit: http://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/materialscategory/product-certification-schemes/2933.htm

About the Green Building Council of Australia

The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) is Australia’s leading authority on green building. The GBCA was established in 2002 to develop a sustainable property industry in Australia and drive the adoption of green building practices.

The GBCA has more than 830 member companies who work together to support the Council and its activities. The GBCA promotes green building programs, technologies, design practices and processes, and operates Australia’s only national voluntary comprehensive environmental rating system for buildings – Green Star.

About Ecospecifier’s Green Tag

GreenTag™ is an exceptionally advanced third party certification system, underpinned by two key processes:

1. LCARate Certification puts products through a rigorous life cycle assessment (LCA) process, making it instantly easy for purchasers and specifiers to see how the product compares to business as usual solutions, plus offers a PLATINUM, GOLD, SILVER or BRONZE rating on every label and a GreenTag™ EcoPOINT score to accurately define a product’s position within the top end of the green market.
2. GreenRate Certifcation will be Australia’s green manufacturers’ leading assessment for product relevance to the Materials Calculators framework and other Green Star™ credits – and will provide assessment of LEVEL A, B or C rating against the Credit point allocations for the various Green Star™ Materials Calculators as well as a Technical Opinion of product relevance to all other credits.

Source: www.gbcasu.org and www.ecospecifier.org

Mexico & Germany Urges Action on Climate Change

With the fight against global warming in serious trouble, Germany and Mexico are calling on world leaders to get international negotiations back on track and reach concrete results by the end of the year. “We need to show the world how serious the threat is,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon said as he opened an international climate change conference in Germany at the beginning of the week.

By Verena Schmitt-Roschmann for Associated Press (2 May 2010):

KOENIGSWINTER, Germany — With the fight against global warming in serious trouble, Germany and Mexico are calling on world leaders to get international negotiations back on track and reach concrete results by the end of the year.

“We need to show the world how serious the threat is,” Mexican President Felipe Calderon said as he opened an international climate change conference in Germany on Sunday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who also spoke at the opening of the conference co-hosted by both countries and aimed at laying the groundwork for the next U.N. conference on climate change, asked nations around the world for more ambition in their efforts to cut greenhouse gases.

While scientists believe global temperatures must not rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times, the world is now headed for a 3 to 4 degree increase, Merkel said.

“We have to realize that we have quite a long way to go to reach the 2-degree-goal,” Merkel said. “Therefore we have to ascertain how we can reach our goals nonetheless.”

Mexico will host the next U.N. conference on climate change in Cancun in December, the first such high-level summit after the troubled U.N. conference in Copenhagen five months ago.

Germany has long presented itself as a driving force in the international efforts to curb global warming and came up with the idea of a “mid-term” meeting.

Both countries invited ministers and representatives from around 45 countries for informal talks on the Petersberg up above Koenigswinter.

The three-day conference called the Petersberg Dialogue hopes to make some progress on details, but most of all build trust between poor and rich nations, Calderon said.

He said the conference could produce a “clear message, this will be the signal whether it will be possible to reach a uniform agreement.”

Nations around the world agreed in 2007 to negotiate a new international treaty to fight global warming which scientists say has already started to cause some alarming changes such as droughts, flooding or heavier storms.

A treaty was originally hoped for in Copenhagen, but that meeting produced less than expected.

President Barack Obama and a few dozen other major players drafted the so-called Copenhagen Accord, which includes the 2-degree-goal and an immediate $30 billion three-year aid package for poorer nations.

However, the accord failed to gain full support at the summit, as some smaller countries felt left out in the process and were unhappy with the results of closed-door negotiations.

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said the Petersberg meeting is designed to work intensely on some sticking points and to build trust among those who eventually have to work with each other on the U.N. level.

To have something to show for even while the negotiating is going on, nations should agree on concrete projects to curb greenhouse gas emissions or to adapt to climate change, he said.

Calderon and Merkel said one of the areas that could see some progress in Cancun was the fight against deforestation.

Mexico’s president stressed that saving forests could help fight poverty at the same time as it would give residents an income.

Since Copenhagen, momentum in the drive to control global warming has slowed in some countries. The U.S. has not tackled its domestic energy bill; and Australia — one of the world’s biggest per capita polluters — put off for as long as two years legislation setting up carbon trading.

Roettgen has said his country and others have not given up on striking a deal at the U.N. climate summit in Cancun Nov. 29-Dec. 10.

Source: www.google.com

The Emissions Trading Scheme We Elected To Miss Out On

Just think: had John Howard won the last election we’d probably have an emissions trading scheme enacted by now. And it would be very similar to the one his Liberal successors defeated and Kevin Rudd has just run away from. So says Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald, while WWF says the  Government should negotiate with the Greens and other willing senators to put an interim price on carbon immediately, and then implement an emissions trading scheme by late 2011.

Ross Gittins in Sydney Morning Herald (3 May 2010):

Just think: had John Howard won the last election we’d probably have an emissions trading scheme enacted by now. And it would be very similar to the one his Liberal successors defeated and Kevin Rudd has just run away from.

It would be similar because Rudd’s scheme was heavily modified to accommodate business interests (as Howard’s would have been) and because both schemes would have been designed by the same bureaucrats who produced Howard’s Shergold report on climate change.

It would have been passed by the Senate because all the Coalition climate change deniers who’ve emerged from the closet since the election – Barnaby Joyce, Nick Minchin, Andrew Robb and, more self-servingly, Tony Abbott – would have stayed in the closet, bound by the party line, cabinet solidarity and by the same motivation that drove Rudd to dingo last week: a willingness to put retaining the spoils of office ahead of personal principle.

It would have been passed because Howard, a strong leader too canny to ever let himself be seen as weak, would have kept such a central election promise. And because his minister prosecuting the scheme would have been the only senior man left in Parliament with a genuine commitment to fighting climate change – and the only one willing to put his job on the line over it – Malcolm Turnbull.

The bitter joke is both Howard and Rudd went to the 2007 election promising similar emissions trading schemes, the public favoured Rudd, believing Howard to be a convert of convenience and Rudd to be the true believer.

How wrong could you be? It turned out Rudd was the fair-weather friend. From a policy perspective, the two big promises that got him elected were rolling back Work Choices and introducing an ETS.

Core promises don’t come more core than this, and Rudd has broken it without apology. Why? For the weakest of reasons. Because public support for the policy had slipped somewhat – largely due to his refusal to argue for it – and because Abbott’s ”great big new tax” scare campaign might have cost him a few votes. When the going gets tough, Rudd cuts and runs. The one thing that wouldn’t have happened under Howard was our ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Howard was too proud to recant on that one.

But what difference would that have made? None. Kyoto turned out to be no more than first in a line of grandiloquent gestures, full of self-congratulation and chest-thumping that counted for nothing.

While the expedient behaviour of all the parties – including the Greens – has contributed to this national failure of will, with all the powers of incumbency at his disposal the ultimate blame rests with Rudd.

Don’t believe his line that the perfidious Liberals have stopped him keeping his promise. He could still have got his legislation passed had he the courage to call a double dissolution followed by a joint sitting of Parliament. But he ran from this choice because it would have put climate change and his ”great big new tax” at the centre of the election campaign. He simply lacks the bottle to fight for a controversial reform – unlike Howard, who went close to defeat in 1998 to get approval for his goods and services tax, a genuinely ”great big new tax on everything”.

And don’t believe Rudd’s line that he’s merely delayed the implementation of his trading scheme until a more propitious time. His courage is unlikely to have returned by 2013, which will be the year of the following federal election.

He’s unlikely to have an easier run then than he has now. He’ll be dealing with a Greens-controlled Senate, but is unlikely to be willing to compromise with them in a less business-friendly direction.

(This is why they, too, have done the nation – and the planet – a grave disservice by refusing to support a less-than-perfect scheme. Held out for perfection; ended with nothing.)

Rudd must be praying a miracle – or an ecological disaster – gets him off the hook: other countries’ leaders show more strength and foresight than he can muster, the Liberals abandon their climate-change denial, or further evidence of damaging climate change stiffens the public’s resolve.

Business, too, has badly miscalculated. It white-anted Rudd’s scheme in pursuit of sectional advantage – it could tell a soft-touch when it saw one – giving comfort to the distorters and denialists.

For its trouble it’s been plunged into uncertainty about whether, when or how we’ll ever see a price on carbon. This is likely to delay major new investments – particularly in power generation – or encourage some firms to press on with installing new dirty technology that locks us in for the next 30 years.

The Shergold report assured Howard that getting on with the adjustment to a low-emissions world without waiting for a global agreement would greatly reduce the ultimate adjustment cost to Australia, and Rudd preached the same message to Howard’s successors.

Now he’s condemned himself out of his own mouth. To fail to act on ”the great moral and economic challenge of our time” constitutes ”absolute political cowardice, absolute failure of leadership and absolute failure of logic”.

But Rudd himself will pay a heavy price. He’s just trashed his credibility as a leader. Who will ever believe what he says again? His decline and demise began last week.

Ross Gittins is the Herald’s Economics Editor.

Source:  www.smh.com.au

WWF comment (28 April 2010):

The Australian Government’s decision to delay the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) is grossly irresponsible both in terms of the environment and the economy, and is a betrayal to those who voted the Rudd Government in, WWF-Australia CEO Greg Bourne said.

It also flies in the face of a new opinion poll which shows an overwhelming 79 per cent of respondents believe Australia should either begin reducing carbon pollution before other countries, or start reducing regardless of when other countries choose to act.

“It is clear the Australian public wants action now, and not when it is politically beneficial,” said Mr Bourne. “Delaying the scheme elevates opportunism over the welfare of future generations.”

The Government’s decision ignores environmental and economic advice from a wide range of experts recommending immediate Australian action, including the CSIRO and the Garnaut and Shergold reviews.

Both Garnaut and Shergold recommended the immediate implementation of an emission trading scheme irrespective of the positions taken by other countries because it would advantage Australia in the long run.

The new opinion poll of over 4,000 Australians living in metropolitan areas was conducted for WWF-Australia by AMR Interactive. Only13 per cent of respondents said Australia should wait until other countries take action on reducing their carbon pollution.

Despite the overwhelming public support for action, Australia’s carbon pollution remains the highest per-capita in the developed world. Australia’s carbon pollution is currently growing at twice the world average.

Respected Australian and international economists charged with assessing options to reduce carbon pollution have all found an emissions trading scheme to be the most efficient, cost effective and environmentally sound method to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution.

“Australia’s carbon pollution keeps going up and up. The longer we delay setting a price on carbon, the more it is going to cost Australian households and Australian businesses,” said Mr Bourne.

“No matter where you look, the advice is the same. We need a way to set a limit on carbon pollution and begin reducing it.

“The Australian Government should negotiate with the Greens and other willing senators to put an interim price on carbon immediately, and then implement an emissions trading scheme by late 2011.”

Source: www.wwf.org.au

Business Must Look Beyond  Adaptation Towards Building Resilience.

Organisations that apply a wait and see approach to thinking about the impacts of climate change on their business might reach a point where it is too late to adapt, according to a University of Queensland Business School researcher Martina Linnenluecke, who examined the relationship between business activities and expected changes in climate and weather conditions.

UQ Report  (28 April 2010):

Organisations should invest in assessing climate vulnerability: researcher

Organisations that apply a “wait and see” approach to thinking about the impacts of climate change on their business might reach a point where it is too late to adapt, according to a UQ Business School expert.

PhD researcher Martina Linnenluecke examined the relationship between business activities and expected changes in climate and weather conditions due to climate change in her thesis.

Ms Linnenluecke said those organisations and sectors that had large-scale infrastructure in disaster-prone regions or were reliant on stable climatic conditions should invest resources in assessing their own vulnerability to climate change and extreme weather events, and looking at what flow-on effects might exist.

“There’s a general awareness that climate change has emerged as a strategic issue but overall, organisations haven’t yet built up the capability to systematically consider the organisational implications of climate change and changes in trends of weather extremes,” she said.

“What organisations can do initially is to use the expertise and information that is already out there to try to identify hot spots and regions likely to be affected by climate change and to see if these regions in any way coincide with any organisational activity.”

Ms Linnenluecke said an organisation’s vulnerabilities might also extend to vulnerabilities in the organisation’s supplier base or value chain.

She said business needed to start thinking beyond climate change adaptation towards building up resilience.

“The issue with adaptation is it usually takes place in response to something that is known or expected — we adapt when we know it makes sense to adapt,” the UQ Business School researcher said.

“Climate change has the potential to affect organisations in ways that are unseen.”

Ms Linnenluecke recommends organisations use a resilience framework to thinking about their exposure and response to climate change and changes in the number and severity of weather extremes.

“Organisations should think about their ability to resist certain impacts and to recover from others, but also to ask ‘what is the amount of change we are able to withstand?’” she said.

“After an event, there’s a lot of pressure to quickly restore the status quo, to get the power on again for example, to get things happening, but this is not necessarily the best decision long-term.

“For example, what are the implications of an energy company putting power lines back in the exact same location after an event? That might create more vulnerability if a similar event occurs there again, however moving the power lines or putting them underground might be a longer-term solution.”

Ms Linnenluecke said a major challenge to building organisational resilience was a trade off between slack resources and efficiency.

“Slack resources are excess resources and probably not needed on an operational, day-to-day basis, but a certain degree of slack can provide organisations with the flexibility to respond to any changes.”

Ms Linnenluecke’s dissertation research was supervised by Professor Andrew Griffiths, who is one of Australia’s leading experts in sustainable business strategy.

She and Professor Griffiths will have their paper Beyond Adaptation: Resilience for Business in Light of Climate Change and Weather Extremes in a forthcoming edition of international journal Business & Society.

Source: www.uq.edu.au

This Solar Thermal Tower Doesn’t Need Water To Produce Electricity

In a major step forward for Australian research into solar energy, CSIRO is building the largest solar-power tower of its type in the world at the National Solar Energy Centre in Newcastle. This new facility will improves on the science by using a real-world, operating solar thermal field to test ways to make the process more efficient and reduce the cost of this clean technology.

CSIRO report (28 April 2010):

In a major step forward for Australian research into solar energy, CSIRO is building the largest solar-power tower of its type in the world at the National Solar Energy Centre in Newcastle.

The site will consist of around 450 mirrors (heliostats) that will direct solar heat onto a 30m-high tower to produce super-heated compressed air for a Brayton Cycle turbine.

“The new technology will pave the way for solar power of the future – solar power that only requires the sun and air to create electricity,” says the Director of CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship, Dr Alex Wonhas.

”The field will be used to refine the technology in order to make it a cheaper, more efficient energy source that is suitable for many desert locations in Australia, and the world.

“This new facility will allow us to improve our science by using a real-world, operating solar thermal field to test ways to make the process more efficient and reduce the cost of this clean technology.”

Dr Alex Wonhas, CSIRO

“Most solar thermal power stations require water to operate a steam turbine to produce electricity. Our Brayton Cycle technology does not need water. This technology is therefore ideally suited to many parts of Australia that only receive minimal rainfall,” Dr Wonhas said.

“This new facility will allow us to improve our science by using a real-world, operating solar thermal field to test ways to make the process more efficient and reduce the cost of this clean technology.”

CSIRO received $5m in funding from the Australian Solar Institute (ASI) – an Australian Government initiative – to build the field and conduct research over two years.

ASI Director Mark Twidell said the Institute looked forward to the project proving that lower-cost solar electricity can be produced by a new technology suited to all regions of Australia.

The field will cover an area of 4,000 square metres and once built will be capable of operating at temperatures above 900 degrees Celsius.

The field will be fully operational by March 2011 and is being built adjacent to an existing solar tower field that creates SolarGas – using water and natural gas – at the National Solar Energy Centre site.

National Research Flagships

CSIRO initiated the National Research Flagships to provide science-based solutions in response to Australia’s major research challenges and opportunities. The 10 Flagships form multidisciplinary teams with industry and the research community to deliver impact and benefits for Australia.

Source: www.csiro.au