Going, Going, Gone – Government Sell Out

Bad news this week. The Australian Government has given up on its promise to introduce the Carbon Reduction Scheme and given in to the vested interests who didn’t want to pay for their emissions. No point blaming the Opposition for this backward step. The Government has lost its authority and its ability to act on climate change. And seemingly lost any semblance of capability to achieve anything positive for the environment and the economy. Look at the disastrous insulation scheme. Can we expect it to do better with a comprehensive energy efficiency programme and other measures to reduce emissions? We would hope so. We have reports this week on what needs to be done with energy efficiency, what California is doing in this direction and what a city like Melbourne has underway. Bill McKibben says it’s already too late – we just have to learn to cope with what we have done to the planet. Michael Roux says business is already doing a lot and prepared to go even further. Much could be achieved with massive investment in renewable energy, with the sun shining for solar. What about moving to faster and more greenhouse friendly rail transport? In Queensland, there’s a big worry about who’s calling the shots on developing an effective energy grid and there’s new research to show what’s happening to our oceans. Good news that four developing countries are getting back to the basics and back on track for global climate change action. Four cheers for Brazil, South Africa, India and China.

Profile: Bill McKibben

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben – and originator of the successful global 350.org campaign –  says it is already too late to prevent global warming. What we have to do now is find a way to cope with a new reality. But he insists that we must put a price on carbon so that we really begin to ween ourselves aggressively from fossil fuel. He’s launched a new book and will be visiting Australia 21 to 25 May.

Author Bill McKibben talks with Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace on US Public Radio about his book, “Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet,” why he chose that title, and what we have to do cope with how we’ve changed our planet.

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben says it’s already too late to prevent global warming. What we have to do now is find a way to cope with our new reality.

Ryssdal: This book, for those who can’t see it out there, the title is “Eaarth” with the unconventional spelling of e-a-a-r-t-h. Help me out there.

McKibben: The conceit is that we really have built a new planet. Substantially different enough from the one that we were born onto to warrant a new name. This earth that we live on now has 5 percent more moisture in the atmosphere than the one 50 years ago. Its oceans are turning steadily acid. We’re seeing dramatic increases both in drought and in deluge, enough so that we’ve really begun to alter not only the ecological fabric of the planet but the economic fabric as well.

Ryssdal: It kind of feels on a day-to-day basis like the same old place.

McKibben: It does until something happens. I recount the story of our small town, and the fact that summer before last we had the two biggest rainstorms ever recorded there. That kind of storm is now happening in some place around the world every single day. This is a different world. It so far doesn’t feel entirely different. It just feels a little different.

Ryssdal: So how do we recalibrate? Do we just get used to living smaller and less complicated and closer to home?

McKibben: Well, that’s certainly part of it. We need to do two things. One, put a price on carbon so that we really begin to ween ourselves aggressively from fossil fuel. Even when we do that we’d be very wise to re-examine our economic life. Stop thinking constantly about expansion, and start thinking more about security. That implies getting away from too-big-to-fail, not just in banking, but in energy, in agriculture, and in almost everything we do.

Ryssdal: Take me through one of those big fixed investments that you spend some time on in the book: agriculture. How do we deconstruct that so that it becomes sustainable?

McKibben: Right now soil has become a kind of matrix for holding your corn upright while you apply fossil fuel. We need to get back to a very different kind of agriculture. One that’s much more diverse and is much more localized. And that’s beginning to happen, Kai. The fastest growing part of the food economy for the last decade has been local farmers’ markets.

Ryssdal: I don’t want to get all macroeconomic on you here, Bill. But just to go back to basic economics and Adam Smith, the opening lines of “Wealth of Nations,” the book that he wrote, was consumption is the soul and purpose of all production. I mean that’s why you have economies is to grow and get bigger.

McKibben: He didn’t say that it’s to grow forever getting bigger. In fact, he was pretty clear that there was a place at which that no longer made sense. What economists have failed to realize from the beginning, the economy is a subset of something else, and that something else is the natural world. There comes a point in which infinite growth no longer works. This is the moment finally when those limits are at hand.

Ryssdal: You’re probably the last guy I need to tell this to. But there are fundamentally two responses to a book like this. One is to put your fingers in your ears, and say, la, la, la, because it’s really just so depressing that you can’t even comprehend. Or, as you say in the book, you go down into the basement, and you start oiling your guns because the apocalypse is nigh. What are you supposed to do about those responses?

McKibben: You know I’ve spent the last two or three years of my life organizing the largest scale global environmental movement we’ve seen. At the same time, I’ve been doing all kinds of work in the place where I live, in my town in Vermont. We need to work at that local scale and at that global. It’s true that we’ve taken the sweet earth on which we were born and degraded it in pretty powerful ways. There’s already damage. There will be more. So we better figure out how to live on the planet we have left.

Source: www.marketplace.publicradio.org

An American environmentalist and writer, Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign. This October 10, 350.org is organizing the second annual 350 International Day of Climate Action, with thousands of events planned at iconic places around the world. Bill frequently writes about global warming, alternative energy, and the risks associated with human genetic engineering. Beginning in the summer of 2006, he led the organization of the largest demonstrations against global warming in American history. McKibben is active in the Methodist Church, and his writing sometimes has a spiritual bent.

Bill grew up in suburban Lexington, Massachusetts. He was president of the Harvard Crimson newspaper in college. Immediately after college he joined the New Yorker magazine as a staff writer, and wrote much of the “Talk of the Town” column from 1982 to early 1987. He quit the magazine when its long-time editor William Shawn was forced out of his job, and soon moved to the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York.

EAARTH

Twenty years ago, with The End of Nature, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about global warming. Those warnings went mostly unheeded; now, he insists, we need to acknowledge that we’ve waited too long, and that massive change is not only unavoidable but already under way. Our old familiar globe is suddenly melting, drying, acidifying, flooding, and burning in ways that no human has ever seen. We’ve created, in very short order, a new planet, still recognizable but fundamentally different. We may as well call it Eaarth.

That new planet is filled with new binds and traps. A changing world costs large sums to defend—think of the money that went to repair New Orleans, or the trillions it will take to transform our energy systems. But the endless economic growth that could underwrite such largesse depends on the stable planet we’ve managed to damage and degrade. We can’t rely on old habits any longer.

Our hope depends, McKibben argues, on scaling back—on building the kind of societies and economies that can hunker down, concentrate on essentials, and create the type of community (in the neighborhood, but also on the Internet) that will allow us to weather trouble on an unprecedented scale. Change—fundamental change—is our best hope on a planet suddenly and violently out of balance. 

Bill McKibben visits Australia next month, for talks and book signings in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. He will be in Sydney 21 – 23 May; in Brisbane Monday 24 May; and in Melbourne Tuesday 25 May.

Source: www.billmckibben.com and www.350.org

Emissions & CPRS on the Back Burner

Once a centrepiece of the Federal Government’s election strategy, now the climate change deal   on emissions trading – the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme –  has been relegated to the shelf until at least 2013. Delaying the scheme means the Government could save A$2.5 billion from its budget over the next three years, because it would not be paying compensation to households and industries.

By Alexandra Kirk on ABC News (27 April 2010):

It was once a centrepiece of the Federal Government’s election strategy, but now the emissions trading scheme (ETS) has been relegated to the shelf until at least 2013.

Delaying the scheme means the Government could save $2.5 billion from its budget over the next three years, because it would not be paying compensation to households and industries.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says he has been forced to put his emissions trading scheme (ETS) on ice because of the Coalition’s opposition and the slow pace of international climate change action.

Mr Rudd has confirmed the ETS has been shelved until at least 2013 so the Government can consider what the rest of the world will do beyond the expiration of the Kyoto protocol.

He says the Government remains committed to implementing the scheme but the Opposition’s refusal to back it and the lack of international progress in the wake of the Copenhagen talks meant it had to be delayed.

“The Liberal Party have executed a complete backflip in their historical position in support of an ETS,” he said.

“The rest of the world is being slower to act on appropriate action on climate change.

Mr Rudd has in the past described climate change as a “great moral challenge of our generation” and said action could not be delayed.

The Opposition’s about-face on the ETS after Tony Abbott took on the Liberal leadership last year dashed the Government’s hope of passing the legislation after Mr Abbott ditched support for an amended scheme negotiated by his predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull.

The Greens also refuse to support the bill because they say it gives too many concessions to industry and its emissions reduction targets are too weak.

When asked if the Government would consider negotiating with the Greens, Mr Rudd replied: “Our doors have always remained open to negotiations with people from all sides of politics.

“But when you have one side of politics saying that you cannot act on climate change through an ETS and another side that would happily close the economy down tomorrow, it makes life a bit of a challenge.”

The scheme has now been removed from the upcoming budget papers and its delay means the Government could save $2.5 billion over the next three years because it will not have to pay for household and industry compensation.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently said climate change remained a fundamental economic, environmental and moral challenge, whether it was popular or not.

But Government sources say it was decided last week to remove the scheme from next month’s budget, bowing to the political reality that the Senate is unlikely to pass the ETS any time soon.

The Upper House has already blocked the ETS legislation twice.

The bills are before the Parliament again but the Senate has delayed the debate while it examines the deal that Mr Rudd struck with former Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull.

The bottom line is that neither the Opposition, now led by Tony Abbott, nor the Greens like the amended legislation, so it remains in limbo.

Greens leader Bob Brown says Mr Rudd has caved in to Mr Abbott’s attack on the ETS.

“If it is true, it is quite irresponsible because it signifies a climate change collapse by the Government in the face of the right-wing criticism from the Opposition and others that it is a great big tax,” he said.

Mr Brown says the Government could do a deal with the Greens, but lacks the political will to do so.

“Climate change is real. It is stalking Australia. It is threatening the Great Barrier Reef. It is threatening the Murray-Darling Basin,” he said.

“We have seen projections of up to 90 per cent loss of productivity of the Murray-Darling Basin this century if climate change isn’t tackled.

“It is up to the Australian Government to be responsibly taking the action now … beginning with this budget.”

Climate ‘inconvenience’

The Opposition’s climate action spokesman, Greg Hunt, says he is sceptical about the Government’s agenda.

“It is a pea and thimble game because what is absolutely clear is that last year’s greatest moral challenge has become this year’s inconvenience,” he said.

“The Government is concerned about the financial impacts of their enormous impost on electricity and grocery prices and the Government is concerned about its impact on the budget.”

Mr Hunt says the Government may have realised that the Senate is not going to agree to the ETS any time soon.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has told Radio National it is clear there is not enough support to pass the legislation.

“I think it’s very clear that we don’t have much hope of getting the legislation through the Senate,” he said.

“We’re disappointed and I’m sure the broader community is disappointed.”

Climate concerns

The decision to shelve the ETS comes as a new survey shows climate change could be a deciding factor in the next federal election.

The poll, conducted by Auspoll on behalf of the Climate Institute, Conservation Foundation and other groups, shows climate change is still of great concern to two-thirds of Australians.

The chief executive of the Climate Institute, John Connor, says 35 per cent of voters are more likely to vote for the Rudd Government if it takes stronger action on climate change and only 16 per cent are less likely.

“About two-thirds of Australians are concerned over climate change,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of muck-raking and misleading advertising campaigns from big polluters but concern is still strong.

“We think that the parties that take stronger action on climate change will be rewarded at the next poll.”

And Mr Connor says delaying the ETS is economically reckless.

“It’s not government for the good of Australia, or the good of humanity. We are still emerging from delicate global talks,” he said.

“We actually think there’s been better momentum, but Australia taking an act like this really throws us back five years.”

Source: www.abc.net.au

Deadly and Dumped: Bungled Green Scheme is No More

One million people who had their homes insulated under the bungled energy efficiency scheme would be anxious until every roof was checked, says the Opposition.  The A$2.45 billion scheme – linked to four deaths and more than 120 house fires – was dumped by the Government last week. An anonymous Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts insider told ABC TV’s Four Corners program that staff tried to warn their superiors about the risks of the insulation scheme.

AAP Report (26 April 2010):

SAFETY was put second to job creation when the federal government designed its ill-fated home insulation scheme, a whistleblower claims.

The $2.45 billion scheme – linked to four deaths and more than 120 house fires – was dumped last week.

An anonymous Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts insider told ABC TV’s Four Corners program, aired on Monday, that staff tried to warn their superiors about the risks of the insulation scheme.

“We were told many times, by senior management, that the technical and safety issues were of less importance than getting this program up and running to create jobs,” he said.

“Without proper audit of the work, without the proper audit of the competence of the installers, there was no way of knowing whether a house had foil insulation, or any material, installed safety.

“Because the installers were not trained properly, there was no way of checking that installers knew what they were doing.”

Matthew Fuller, 26, was the first installer to be electrocuted while working under the scheme.

On October 14 last year, six days into the job, he was installing foil insulation in a house south of Brisbane, when he fired a metal staple through a live cable.

His girlfriend Monique Pridmore, who was four days into the job, was seriously injured in the incident and is still recovering.

Mr Fuller’s mother Christine blames his death on the government, for rolling out the scheme without a plan.

“There was no duty of care anywhere in any of this from the top down, from the government to the ministers, their aides, the guys that employed them,” she said.

“There was no care.”

His father Kevin said the couple met with Assistant Energy Efficiency Minister Greg Combet about the scheme, and although Prime Minister Kevin Rudd joined the meeting, he had little sympathy.

“Even ‘sorry for your loss’ would’ve been good,” he said.

Both Mr Rudd and Environment Minister Peter Garrett declined to be interviewed for the program.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott called on Mr Rudd to reveal what he knew about the home insulation bungle.

“I think the prime minister has a very, very serious case to answer,” he told reporters in Sydney on Monday.

“What did he know, when did he know it and knowing what he obviously did know, why has he made the promises that he did make?”

Mr Abbott said one million people who had their homes insulated under the scheme would be anxious until every roof was checked.

“The government received many, many warnings and those warnings went right to the top,” he said.

Source: www.couriermail.com.au

Getting Down to the Basics to Demand a Climate Pact

A group of developing countries, among the world’s fastest-growing carbon emitters, said a legally binding global agreement to limit climate change needed to be completed by 2011 at the latest. Environment ministers of the so-called BASIC bloc — Brazil, South Africa, India and China — met in Cape Town to look at how to fast-track such a deal to curb global warming.

Reuters report (25 April 2010):

Developing countries push for climate deal next year

CAPE TOWN – A group of developing countries, among the world’s fastest-growing carbon emitters, said on Sunday a legally binding global agreement to limit climate change needed to be completed by 2011 at the latest.

Environment ministers of the so-called BASIC bloc — Brazil, South Africa, India and China — met in Cape Town to look at how to fast-track such a deal to curb global warming.

“Ministers felt that a legally binding outcome should be concluded at Cancun, Mexico in 2010, or at the latest in South Africa by 2011,” the ministers said in a joint statement, referring to U.N. climate talks.

Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment and forestry minister, told reporters: “Right now it looks as if we will have to come back to Cape Town in 2011. There is no breakthrough in sight … we have a long way to go.”

The Kyoto Protocol, which the United States did not ratify, binds about 40 developed nations to cutting emissions by 2008-12. U.N. climate meetings have failed to reach a legally binding agreement on what happens post-2012.

More than 100 countries have backed a non-binding accord, agreed in Copenhagen last year, to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, but it did not spell out how this should be achieved. It included a goal of $100 billion in aid for developing nations from 2020.

The United States supports the Copenhagen Accord but many emerging economies do not want it to supplant the 1992 U.N. Climate Convention, which more clearly spells out that rich nations have to take the lead in cutting emissions and combating climate change.

The BASIC ministers on Sunday proposed to use $10 billion of “fast-start funding” this year to test and demonstrate ways of adapting to and mitigating climate change.

They said the world could not wait indefinitely for the United States, the second-biggest carbon emitter after China, to pass domestic legislation needed to conclude negotiations.

A bipartisan working group on Saturday delayed a compromise climate change bill, a top priority of President Barack Obama that has been closely watched by other nations sceptical of U.S commitment to fight global warming.

“Of course there is no way to fight climate change without the United States and we believe that we can be able to build an agreement that (would enable) the United States to come on board,” Izabella Teixeira, Brazil’s environment minister, told journalists.

Her South Africa counterpart, Buyelwa Sonjica, said if the United States did not soon pass necessary domestic climate laws, “that would impact on vulnerable countries, making them remain at risk”.

Emissions from industrial countries fell by 2.2 percent in 2008 as the world fell into recession, the sharpest fall since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Experts say there is no basis for believing the decline was the result of a coordinated effort to tackle emissions.

Industrialised nations have been unwilling to take on new commitments beyond 2012 unless major emerging nations, such as India and China, also sign up.

Source: www.reuters.com

Sustainability & Clean Energy Goes to Top of Business Agenda

There is a big surge in investment in alternative energy worldwide, this despite policy inertia in many places – not to mention the absence of an enforceable international treaty. The corporate world is acting swiftly, with most top companies moving the green agenda from the corporate brochure to the corporate plan, placing sustainable practices at the heart of what they do. This from Michael Roux, who is chairman of the Australian Davos Connection.

Michael Roux in The Age (23 April 2010):

CONFRONTED with a growing international consensus on climate change and the alarming possibility of a meaningful Copenhagen treaty, the forces for the carbon-fired status quo needed a strategy – and some luck.

In 2009, they got both.

The strategy devised and put into practice by sceptics and their industry and media sponsors is breathtakingly simple and devastatingly effective: drown climate change in a partisan political swamp.

Events, random and otherwise, have conspired to aid these forces no end. Consider just the past 12 months. The leak of thousands of emails between climate scientists – dubbed Climategate – seemed to reveal cracks in the scientific consensus as well as an unseemly political undertone in the research. The global financial crisis drew focus away from global warming and towards urgent domestic economic and political priorities. The UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen was caught up in a whirl of geopolitical point-scoring, ending in a nil-all draw. And, in Australia, the issue became proxy in a battle for the soul of the Liberal Party, kneecapping any hope for a bipartisan response.

This chain of events, the confluence of luck and strategy, has transformed climate change from an urgent global priority to just one more political grudge match.

The proponents for action on climate change naively rested on their scientific laurels, as if overwhelming evidence and the threat of impending catastrophe were enough. But, in modern political discourse, facts are far less important than framing.

If the science is basically irrefutable – and it is – the next-best approach is to discredit scientists themselves; to paint them as elitist conspirators on a mission to sacrifice growth and jobs on the altar of environmental extremism.

The global climate change debate has no momentum, except perhaps in reverse.

For example, a meeting was held in Bonn last week to rescue some working parts from the wreckage at Copenhagen. It opened to low expectations and had trouble meeting them.

Yet the picture on climate change brightens at the national level. Recent research into the global clean-energy economy by Pew Charitable Trusts has uncovered a big surge in investment in alternative energy worldwide. This has happened despite policy inertia in many places – not to mention the absence of an enforceable international treaty.

In the five years from 2005, clean-energy investments have increased by 230 per cent globally. China, now the world leader in clean energy, increased such investments by 50 per cent in 2009 alone. Britain, Spain and Brazil are other standout performers, investing heavily in wind and solar. In quiet ways, even the US has made strides with big-ticket renewable energy and transportation initiatives – and the green credentials of states like California are second to none.

Australia lags at 14th among the G20 for investment in clean energy.

Meanwhile, the corporate world is acting swiftly on sustainability, oblivious to diplomatic wrangling or public ambivalence. Over the past two years most top companies have moved the green agenda from the corporate brochure to the corporate plan, placing sustainable practices at the heart of what they do. What the World Business Council on Sustainable Development calls ”The Race for Green” is under way in earnest.

Australian business competes well: Westpac, IAG and Stockland are among nine Australian companies rated in the top 100 sustainable companies at the World Economic Forum this year. No country performed better.

Election-year politics in the US and Australia make heavy lifting of the issue but, away from the political spotlight there is plenty of urgency in both countries.

In contrast, the British general election is a contest between three parties eager to claim the climate change mantle and offers no room for sceptics.

Even as many of our companies do the opposite, Australia’s politicians have surrendered any claim to moral or policy leadership on the defining issue of our lifetime.

Michael Roux is chairman of the Australian Davos Connection.

Source: www.businessday.com.au

On the Greens Fast Track: All Roads Lead to Rail

A high speed rail ink for Australia’s East Coast cities would reduce greenhouse emissions from transport and congestion. Rail is the best form of land transport for the environment with rail freight transport around four times more energy efficient than road transport. But Railway watcher Robin Bromby thinks we don’t have critical mass to go on the fast track.

AAP Report (23 Apr 2010):

Greens call for east coast rail link

Cities on Australia’s east coast would be linked by a high-speed railway line under a Greens plan.

Greens senator Bob Brown on Friday said the Melbourne to Sydney flight route was the fourth busiest in the world, so it made sense to establish a high-speed rail link between the two capitals, Brisbane and even Canberra and Newcastle.

Launching his proposal for a concept study into the idea, he said the network could shuttle travellers between hubs in about four hours.

High-speed rail links are common in Europe and Asia.

Senator Brown said the infrastructure would benefit three-quarters of Australians.

“The (link) would reduce greenhouse emissions from transport and congestion on the high-demand Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane flight routes and accident-prone Pacific, Hume and Princes highways,” he said.

“Construction of a high-speed rail link would also generate thousands of jobs and promote regional development.”

Senator Brown wants $10 million to be earmarked for a one-year feasibility study into the link.

A rail union is also keen on the idea.

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) says the recent airline chaos in Europe, caused by a volcanic eruption, highlights the need for fast trains as an alternative.

“The events of the past week have shown what a devastating impact over-reliance on air travel can have on ordinary families and to the economy,” RTBU national organiser Bob Nanva said.

“It just doesn’t make sense putting all of our transport eggs into one basket if extreme weather or natural events can bring air travel to a sudden halt and leave thousands of families and businesses in disarray.”

The NSW Greens called on the state government to back Senator Brown’s proposal, saying it will drag NSW out of the “transport dark ages”.

“Australia lags behind Japan, Europe and the UK, China, South Korea and Taiwan which have embraced high speed rail networks over a 35-year period,” NSW Greens MP Lee Rhiannon says.

“High speed rail would not only save time but protect travellers from a predicted rise in oil costs.”

But Transport Minister David Campbell says NSW doesn’t have the population to justify a fast rail link.

“Fast rail hasn’t stacked up in the past,” he said.

“We simply haven’t had the population to support this kind of infrastructure spend.

“But the value of a project like this is really a matter for the commonwealth.”

Source: www.businessspectator.com.au

This comment from Robin Bromby, who writes for the Australia and is also the author of several railway books, including The Railway Age in Australia and Ghost Railways of Australia:

“While high speed trains are something which Australia should investigate fully, the issue with the case put by the Greens is that of critical mass. You can have fast trains running between Rome and Milan on the hour when you can fill a train every hour with enough people to pay $A200 a throw for the ride. That’s a three hour trip (with stops at Florence and Bologna, both with large populations to provide additional traffic); I suspect a Sydney-Melbourne HST would have to charge a great deal more.

“Also, there is a critical difference between us and Europe: that is, our railways are used mainly for freight, not people. The Europeans, Japanese and Chinese use the HST trains for passenger traffic, but I doubt whether you could undo years of cheap air travel here, not to mention the ownership level of cars. I would love to see high speed rail here but Australians don’t see trains as part of their lives.”

From the report Climate Change and the Environment from the CRC for Rail Innovation:

Reducing Emissions and Improving Environmental

Rail is the best form of land transport for the environment with rail freight transport around four times more energy efficient than road transport and two times more efficient for moving people.

The rail industry in Australia is committed to positively respond to climate change issues and further improving its environmental performance by:

Energy Suppliers Taking the Lead:  Energy Efficient Meters & Appliances

Customers of Southern California Edison and Southern California Gas Co can receive extra rebates from the state when they purchase new qualifying energy-efficient appliances and recycle their old energy-guzzling models, while the energy supplier will also start installing smart electric meters throughout communities in Orange County as part of the Edison SmartConnect program.

ROSEMEAD, Calif., Apr. 26, 2010 – Southern California Edison (SCE) will start installing smart electric meters throughout communities in Orange County as part of the Edison SmartConnect program. SCE customers in those communities are receiving new meters starting this week through June, and soon will be able to take advantage of new programs and services enabled by the meters.

Communities in the upcoming installation phase include: Corona del Mar, Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Midway City, Seal Beach, Sunset Beach and Westminster. 

Edison SmartConnect meters are digital, secure, two-way communicating devices that will replace traditional mechanical meters and provide a key step in transforming the electric system to a smart grid. Smart meters measure electricity usage up-to-the minute and, later this year, customers will be able to view their energy usage from a computer, cell phone, or other electronic device to track how much they use and how much it costs.

“Over the past several years, we have focused on developing an industry-leading smart meter program, including extensive testing of our smart meters and associated systems to ensure their quality and performance,” said Ken Devore, director of SCE’s Edison SmartConnect program. “Smart meters will empower our customers to become better managers of their electricity usage through new tools, programs and services that will help them save energy, money, and the environment.”

Within the next year, SCE will introduce new pricing plans, programs and services that will empower customers to make better-informed decisions about their energy use. In the second half of 2010 and beyond, once the advanced features are fully activated, the meters will be enabled to communicate with the next generation of smart thermostats, appliances and other devices.

The first smart meter in the Edison SmartConnect program was installed last September in Downey, Calif., with installations continuing through 2012 to total nearly 5 million SCE residential and small-business customers in the utility’s 50,000-square-mile service territory. To date, SCE has installed more than 600,000 meters. 
 
SCE has contracted with Corix Utilities, Inc. to perform most of the installations. Here is some important information for customers getting the new meters:

• Customers will be notified by mail in advance when installations are scheduled in their neighborhood.
• Customers do not need to be home, but they do need to provide clear access to their meter. The installer will leave a door hanger indicating if the installation was successful or if an appointment for installation is required due to access issues.
• During a typical residential or small business installation, customers will experience a short power interruption of less than one minute.  As an extra measure of protection, customers are encouraged to plug electronic equipment, such as personal computers and televisions, into power surge protectors.
• Corix installers carry identification indicating they are approved SCE contractors.
• Customers with smart meters will receive follow-up information by mail notifying them when new program features and services become available, and how to access them.

Edison SmartConnect is a $1.6 billion program authorized by the California Public Utilities Commission. SCE anticipates customers’ use of the information provided by the new meters will reduce demand on the electricity grid by about 1,000 megawatts, the amount of energy produced at an average power plant. Sustained energy conservation resulting from customer response to their energy use information is also expected to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and smog-forming pollutants by a minimum of 365,000 metric tons per year –  the equivalent of removing 79,000 cars from the road.  

ROSEMEAD, Calif., April 20, 2010 — Customers of Southern California Edison (SCE) and Southern California Gas Co. (The Gas Company) can receive extra rebates from the state when they purchase new qualifying energy-efficient appliances and recycle their old energy-guzzling models.

The state’s Cash for Appliances program, which is funded by $35.2 million in federal stimulus dollars, will apply to new, energy-efficient refrigerators, room air conditioners and clothes washers. Although SCE’s and The Gas Company’s rebate programs will be available year-round, the Cash for Appliances rebates will only be available on a first-come, first-served basis for qualified purchases made from April 22 to May 23, 2010 or until rebate funds are no longer available. Residential customers may receive one rebate for each type of appliance: $200 for a new refrigerator; $100 for a new clothes washer; or $50 for a room air conditioner. These rebates can be combined with the available rebates being offered by the utilities.

“We want to encourage customers to take advantage of the incentives being offered by the state and the utilities when buying energy-efficient appliances,” said Mark Gaines, director of customer programs for The Gas Company. “By doing so, customers are doing their part to help conserve precious natural resources all year-round and put a little ‘green’ back in their pocket.”

“Southern California Edison hopes that this program gives customers an extra nudge to get those inefficient energy-hogging appliances out of the house. Any time consumers choose an efficient appliance over an inefficient one, it reduces their electricity bill and it helps the planet. Everyone wins,” said Gene Rodrigues, SCE’s director of Energy Efficiency and Solar.    
 
Combining the California Cash for Appliances rebates with The Gas Company’s and SCE’s 2010 rebates can help customers earn up to $535.

About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a population of more than 14 million via 4.9 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California.

About Southern California Gas Co.
Southern California Gas Co. is the nation’s largest natural gas distribution utility, providing safe and reliable energy to 20.5 million consumers through 5.7 million meters in more than 500 communities. The company’s service territory encompasses approximately 20,000 square miles in diverse terrain throughout Central and Southern California, from Visalia to the Mexican border. Southern California Gas Co. is a regulated subsidiary of Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE). Sempra Energy, based in San Diego, is a Fortune 500 energy services holding company. To learn more, go to www.socalgas.com.

Source: www.edison.com

Climate Influenced by Deep Ocean Currents and Worsening Acidity

A deep ocean current with a volume equivalent to 40 Amazon Rivers has been discovered by Japanese and Australian scientists in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean. This will influence climate, now and in the future. While carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming are also turning the oceans more acidic at the fastest pace in hundreds of thousands of years, the National Research Council reported.

CSIRO Reports (26 April 2010):

In a paper published today in Nature Geoscience, the researchers described the current –more than three kilometres below the Ocean’s surface – as an important pathway in a global network of ocean currents that influence climate patterns.

“The current carries dense, oxygen-rich water that sinks near Antarctica to the deep ocean basins further north,” says co-author Dr Steve Rintoul from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC and CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

“Without this supply of Antarctic water, the deepest levels of the ocean would have little oxygen.

“Mapping the deep current systems is an important step in understanding the global network of ocean currents that influence climate, now and in the future.”

 “The ocean influences climate by storing and transporting heat and carbon dioxide – the more the ocean stores, the slower the rate of climate change. The deep current along the Kerguelen Plateau is part of a global system of ocean currents called the overturning circulation, which determines how much heat and carbon the ocean can soak up.”

While earlier expeditions had detected evidence of the current system, they were not able to determine how much water the current carried. The joint Japanese-Australian experiment deployed current-meter moorings anchored to the sea floor at depths of up to 4500m. Each mooring reached from the sea floor to a depth of 1000m and measured current speed, temperature and salinity for a two-year period. 

“The continuous measurements provided by the moorings allow us, for the first time, to determine how much water the deep current carries to the north,” Dr Rintoul said. The current was found to carry more than 12 million cubic metres per second of Antarctic water colder than 0 °C (because of the salt dissolved in sea water, the ocean does not freeze until the temperature gets close to -2 °C).

“It was a real surprise to see how strong the flow was at this location. With two-year average speeds of more than 20cm per second, these are the strongest mean currents ever measured at depths three kilometres below the sea surface.

“Mapping the deep current systems is an important step in understanding the global network of ocean currents that influence climate, now and in the future.  Our results show that the deep currents near the Kerguelen Plateau make a large contribution to this global ocean circulation,” Dr Rintoul said.

Antarctic waters carried northward by the deep currents eventually fill the deep layers of eastern Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The research team included scientists from the Institute of Low Temperature Science (ILTS) at Hokkaido University in Japan, the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and the Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship. Funding support was provided by the Australian Climate Change Science Program, the Cooperative Research Centre Program and logistics support from the Australian Antarctic Division.The lead author of the paper is Dr Yasushi Fukamachi, from the ILTS.

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

Source: www.csiro.au

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent, Reuters (22 April 2010):

WASHINGTON – Carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming are also turning the oceans more acidic at the fastest pace in hundreds of thousands of years, the National Research Council reported on Thursday.

“The chemistry of the ocean is changing at an unprecedented rate and magnitude due to anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions,” the council said. “The rate of change exceeds any known to have occurred for at least the past hundreds of thousands of years.”

Ocean acidification eats away at coral reefs, interferes with some fish species’ ability to find their homes and can hurt commercial shellfish like mussels and oysters and keep them from forming their protective shells.

Corrosion happens when carbon dioxide is stored in the oceans and reacts with sea water to form carbonic acid. Unless carbon dioxide emissions are curbed, oceans will grow more acidic, the report said.

Oceans absorb about one-third of all human-generated carbon dioxide emissions, including those from burning fossil fuels, cement production and deforestation, the report said.

The increase in acidity is 0.1 points on the 14-point pH scale, which means this indicator has changed more since the start of the Industrial Revolution than at any time in the last 800,000 years, according to the report.

The council’s report recommended setting up an observing network to monitor the oceans over the long term.

“A global network of robust and sustained chemical and biological observations will be necessary to establish a baseline and to detect and predict changes attributable to acidification,” the report said.

ACID OCEANS AND ‘AVATAR’

Scientists have been studying this growing phenomenon for years, but ocean acidification is generally a low priority at international and U.S. discussions of climate change.

A new compromise U.S. Senate bill targeting carbon dioxide emissions is expected to be unveiled on April 26.

Ocean acidification was center stage at a congressional hearing on Thursday, the 40th anniversary of Earth Day in the United States.

“This increase in (ocean) acidity threatens to decimate entire species, including those that are at the foundation of the marine food chain,” Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey told a Commerce Committee panel. “If that occurs, the consequences are devastating.”

Lautenberg said that in New Jersey, Atlantic coast businesses generate $50 billion a year and account for one of every six jobs in the state.

Sigourney Weaver, a star of the environmental-themed film “Avatar” and narrator of the documentary “Acid Test” about ocean acidification, testified about its dangers. She said people seem more aware of the problem now than they did six months ago.

“I think that the science is so indisputable and easy to understand and … we’ve already run out of time to discuss this,” Weaver said by telephone after her testimony. “Now we have to take action.”

Source: www.alertnet.org

1200 Buildings for Retrofit: City Rises to the Challenge

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle told the Carbon Reduction Conference last week that the City of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government aims to retrofit more than two thirds of Melbourne’s commercial buildings in a bold sustainability initiative.  The first programme of its kind in Australia, it will create 800 new green jobs and generate A$1.3 billion in economic activity.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle told the Carbon Reduction Conference last week that the City of Mlebourne and the State Government aims to retrofit more than two thirds of Melbourne’s commercial buildings in a bold sustainability initiative, the largest transformation the city has seen in 160 years.

The program, official announced a little over a month ago was  a first of its kind in Australia and it will create 800 new green jobs and generate $1.3 billion in economic activity.

Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said the program would transform Melbourne’s city centre, bringing about a ‘green gold rush’.

“The 1200 Buildings program is one of the greatest economic and environmental opportunities we have and will place Melbourne at the cutting edge of the green building movement. It will transform existing commercial buildings into centres of environmental innovation, showcases of engineering excellence and engines of economic growth,” the Lord Mayor said.

“Sixteen corporates, including the City of Melbourne, managing 30 buildings have taken a leadership role in signing up to the program – each committing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 38 per cent.”

Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden also spoke at the Carbon Reduction Conference. Earlier he had  announced the approval of $500,000 to support the expansion of the City of Melbourne program.

“The Victorian Government is proud to support the 1200 Buildings program, which is a leading example of building a sustainable city for the future,” Mr Madden said.

“The Victorian Government is committed to enabling the 1200 Buildings program to operate at full capacity in a commercial market.”

The State Government is also collaborating with the City of Melbourne to investigate a viable financial mechanism which will give building owners access to low cost finance for retrofits as part of the 1200 Buildings program.

Congratulating the first signatories, the Lord Mayor said Council had also signed up to retrofit two of its own historic buildings.

“Council is putting its money where its policies are by including Melbourne Town Hall and the former Commonwealth Bank Building at 225 Bourke Street,” the Lord Mayor said.

“Buildings that meet high environmental standards, use less resources and save their owners money in the long term are also much more attractive stock for buyers and tenants. It’s smart economics.”

Source: www.melbourne.vic.gov.au