The Climate Report

Malaysia calls a halt to new forest clearing for palm oil industry

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:35:13 GMT

The Malaysian government is intent on prohibiting any new forest clearing for the establishment of oil palm plantations, the online journal Mongabay reports.

According to Malaysia's Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi only areas zoned for agriculture will be allowed to be converted for palm oil production.

"We don't have to reduce the protected forests to increase new oil palm plantations," Abdullah was quoted in the New Straits Times as saying. "With more effective management of the plantations and new technologies, production can go up by 30 per cent."

But notes Mongabay," some environmental groups have expressed concern that as Malaysia improves the environmental performance of oil palm within its borders, Malaysian firms have lower standards when operating in neighboring Indonesia where much expansion is taking place."

Malaysia — the world's second larger producer of palm oil after Indonesia — has already acquired land in Papua, Kalimantan, Aceh and Brazil for future expansion.

Indeed the new policy may be tough to enforce at home. Last last week the Chief Minister of Sarawak province, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, said that his government would continue to open up more land for oil palm plantations as it was convinced there was adequate protection for endangered orangutans and the indigenous Penan population.

U.S. to blame for global warming and the sinking global economy?

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:49:27 GMT

That's the perception of the majority of non-Americans who responded to the latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey, The New York Times reports. The NYT writes:

Concern about global warming has increased since last year in 11 of the 20 countries for which trends are available, Pew found.

“When asked which country is ‘hurting the environment the most,’ majorities or pluralities in most countries surveyed cite the United States,” the Pew report said. “But people are increasingly pointing fingers at China.”

The United States and China are among the 10 countries where majorities do not define global warming as a very serious problem.

The survey of 24,717 people is the seventh major study conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project since 2002.

Also, of the two dozen countries surveyed, just 8 have majorities who have a favourable view of the U.S. They are: Britain, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Tanzania.

Tough crowd.

-- Bernhard

Attention climate change sceptics

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:29:15 GMT

For those of you who ascribe to the old crack "climate is what you expect; weather is what you get" here's a handy bit of news to reinforce your more sceptical views on climate change. In Italy, from where I write, we are experiencing one of the wettest and coolest Springs in the past 200 years, according to the latest statistics from the Italian research commission at CNR (in Italian). With still two weeks to go in the spring season, precipitation in Spring 2008 is 35 per cent above the national annual average, as recorded during the past 30 years, CNR says.

Italy's primavera bagnata of 2008 would seem to obliterate all those calculations predicting climate change would inflict North African-style drought on the Mediterranean region, particularly when you consider last summer was so hot and dry half the country was engulfed in brush fires. But that's the thing about what we're entering into: extreme climatic fluctuations. Desert conditions one year, underwater the next. Though, here in Italy, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion we'll be having a lot more of the former. Correct that. What we expect to get.

-- Bernhard

Do cars belong in the city centre?

Wed, 28 May 2008 07:51:18 GMT

It's a contentious debate, to be sure. Here in Italy, the historic centres of most Medieval hilltowns have been partially shut to car traffic, primarily because the roads are too tight for both man and machine. The cities are a different story. Fiat cinquecentos and Mini Coopers, and more recently Smart cars and those silly 50 CC cars that Italian teens drive with abandon, line most every street of the old quarters. City officials would love to get them off the streets but the locals complain it would kill the local shop trade and send their property values plummeting.

One Italian city is trying to be the first (dicounting Venice) significantly sized city to go car-free in its town centre. It is Perugia, the capital city of Umbria. On a few frigid days in December I had the opportunity to visit the Mini Metro construction project, a 95-million-euro alt-transport project that, at its height, can ferry 72,000 people a day in and out of the town centre. I wrote about the Mini Metro for The Guardian this week.

If you are heading to Perugia this summer for the Jazz Fest or later in October for the decadent Chocolate Festival, you should give it a ride. You'll be silencing the critics if you do. (And, if you are in Perugia from 15-30 June, you may want to check out an interesting art exhibition, the works of the eclectic artist Michael Eldridge. It's in the centre of town on the Via Oberdan in the ex-Chiesa di Santa Maria della Misericordia.)

- Bernhard

Could clean energy be the next credit crunch victim?

Tue, 20 May 2008 12:38:17 GMT

The ripple effects from the sub-prime crisis and the resultant credit crunch in the United States is being felt well beyond the financial sector. Investments in clean energy in the U.S. are down, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. It notes that investments from private equity firms totalled just $2.4 billion (£1.2 billion) in the first quarter of 2008, down from $3.7 billion in Q1 2007. By our maths, that's a greater-than 50 per cent drop year-on-year. Not a promising start to the year.

According to an editorial in The San Francisco Chronicle, any reduction would be bad news as private equity is the fastest growing area of clean energy investment. The author of the commentary, Daniel M. Kammen, from the Energy and Resources Group, noted that "no nation is better positioned to adopt a low-carbon energy diet than we (the United Nations) are."Kammen calls for more government investment in this area.

Perhaps, market forces (and some help from canny Spanish investors) will make up the difference. As the always reliable Greenbang reports, Spanish utility Iberdrola has promised to invest €8.6 billion into the US renewable energy market between 2008 and 2010, with an eye to claiming 15 per cent market share of the U.S. renewables market by the end of the decade.

With credit-strapped U.S. competitors feeling the pinch, it might get there sooner.

All this movement comes as the multilateral process headed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is trying to encourage private investors to get more involved in clean energy. They meet next month.

Degradated mangroves exacerbated Burma cyclone disaster

Thu, 15 May 2008 09:33:23 GMT

As Burma and the international community start to grapple with the true scale of destruction from last week's cyclone, one top regional politician claims massive mangrove destruction exacerbated the damage.

Speaking at a meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore, secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said widespread coastal developments had resulted in mangroves, which act as a natural defence against storms, being destroyed, the BBC reports.

"Encroachment into mangrove forests, which used to serve as a buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and residential areas; all those lands have been destroyed," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.

"Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces."

Burma's coastal degradation has been a worry for some time. In 2002, The World Rainforest Movement highlighted the problems in a report "in which it described the mangroves of the Irrawaddy Delta as 'some of the most degraded or destroyed mangrove systems in the Indo-Pacific'. WRM blamed the declining mangroves on upstream deforestation and the conversion of mangrove forests into prawn farms," the Democratic Voice of Burma website reports.

This is not a new trend. As the Wall Street Journal writes, "Researchers in Myanmar estimate that 83% of the mangroves in the Irrawaddy were destroyed between 1924 and 1999. The destruction was spearheaded by British colonial authorities who encouraged rice cultivation in the delta, which was once known as the "rice bowl" of the world."

And neither is Burma an exceptional case. As the WSJ notes, the cyclone highlighted "an environmental problem plaguing Asia's coastlines: widespread degradation of mangrove forests that once protected coastal villages from tidal surges and strong winds."

Greenpeace warns of Canada's "carbon bomb"

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:21:05 GMT

Continued heavy logging in Canada's boreal forest could ignite a "carbon bomb" that could drastically worsen global warming. That's the warning of a new report prepared by researchers at the University of Toronto and commissioned by Greenpeace.

The report, titled Turning Up the Heat, estimates the boreal forest currently stores 186 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is more than 27 times the world's annual fossil fuel emissions. However, it says the combined threats of forest fires, insect outbreaks, permafrost melting and industrial development are undermining the boreal forest's resistance to the impacts of global warming.

"If left unchecked, these problems could culminate in a catastrophic scenario known as 'the carbon bomb': a massive release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere driven, for example, by a widespread outbreak of forest or peat fires," says the report.

"Research is starting to show that the forest is tipping from being an annual carbon sink to being an annual carbon source," said Christy Ferguson, Greenpeace's forests campaigner in Toronto.

Canada's forest industry has argued that because harvested trees are replanted, carbon released through logging is eventually recaptured as the new trees grow. The Canadian Forest Products Association intends to make the industry carbon neutral by 2015 without having to purchase carbon offset credits.

The Greenpeace report estimates that logging removes about 36 million tonnes of above-ground carbon annually - that's more yearly carbon emissions than all the passenger vehicles in Canada combined, according to an Environment Canada report on greenhouse gas sources.

Yet late last week the report was attacked by a senior federal government expert on forestry.

"Increased temperatures and changes in precipitation are already having impacts on the severity of forest fires and insect infestations," wrote Dr. Werner Kurz, a leading scientist in the department's Canadian Forest Service and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "But these impacts are the result of global climate change, not local logging activities."

Food and biofuel fight for land while the poor suffers

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:18:16 GMT

Rioting on the streets of Cairo and Bangladesh. Haiti's President resigning after protesters stormed his palace. These are the signs that have leaders around the world roiling at the prospect of a global food shortage and the devastating social unrest that is likely to accompany it.

Both the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, and the World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned last week that fast-rising food prices - spurred on by crop failures and the rush in the West to create biofuels to replace fossil fuels - could trigger a global catastrophe.

Darling, for his part, has demanded an urgent review of international biofuel programmes, reports the Observer. He has called on the World Bank to produce an analysis - for June's G7 meeting of global leaders - on the impact of green policies, including America and Europe's biofuel programmes, on global food shortages.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Zoellick warned that a doubling of food prices over the past three years could push 100 million people in poorer developing countries further into poverty, AFP reports.

Here's the scale of the crisis told by looking at the numbers. According to the Guardian, "In less than a year, the price of wheat has risen 130 per cent, soya by 87 per cent and rice by 74 per cent. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, there are only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks in the world, while grain supplies are at their lowest since the 1980s."

While the rush to convert food crops into biofuels is only part of the problem it's political symbolism - rich nations raiding the food sources of the developed world to keep their cars running - is exacerbating tensions in the global community.

"When millions of people are going hungry, it's a crime against humanity that food should be diverted to biofuels," India's finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. Turkey's finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, added the use of food for biofuels is "appalling."

One fast developing nation that isn't criticising the biofuel boom is Brazil, home to a massive sugar cane ethanol industry. " Rather than causing economic ruin ethanol production "can be the hope for a development model for many countries, particularly in Africa, Latin America and Asia," Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said last week as he signed an agreement with the Netherlands to intensify cooperation on biofuels.

Are some species simply unfit for survival?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:20:39 GMT

One of the most controversial areas of conservation is human-aided conservation. In other words, when people step in to help endangered species reclaim a habitat in the hopes they will settle down, reproduce and thrive once again. It's problematic even for conservationists as it throws the balance of species out of whack, allowing a strong species (in almost all cases, us) to reverse the evolutionary tide of nature for the benefit of a more precarious species. But there is growing support for human-aided conservation as we come to grips with just how much damage we humans are inflicting on planet earth.

But it's still not a black-and-white issue. For example, what about species that simply haven't adapted well? Should we help them too?

This is the interesting question raised by the fascinating work of a determined group of researchers in Austria who are trying to re-introduce the endangered Northern Bald Ibis to southern Europe.

To put it kindly, the ibis, also known as the Waldrapp Ibis, hasn't evolved well. Over the centuries, it has lost much of its motivation and its sense of direction, problematic if you are a migratory bird that needs to get to point A down south to wait out the winter and point B up north to breed.

The birds are one of the most precarious in the world. Just a few hundred survive in the wild, and none (as of yet) in Europe. To be sure, the birds haven't helped themselves. They are poky flyers, have poor motivation and are tasty, evidently. They are true slackers. Still, the Waldrapp Team is heroically trying to revive their numbers. All of this perhaps raises the question: are some species simply not fit for survival in this cruel world?

Before you answer that, read my article in today's Guardian about a determined group of biologists attempts to teach the species how to migrate, and, ultimately survive.

And, for more on the research team's efforts, click here.

-- Bernhard

UN Joins the Biofuels Backlash

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:31:31 GMT

UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, last week called for a comprehensive review of the organisation's policy on using biofuels to help fight fossil fuel-led climate change.

"We need to be concerned about the possibility of taking land or replacing arable land because of these biofuels," Ban told the Guardian.

His comments comes as a new peak in global food prices - partly due to the increased use of crops for energy generation - threatens to trigger social instability throughout the world. The UN's World Food Programme said last week that 33 countries in Asia and Africa now face political instability as the urban poor struggle to feed their families. As the Daily Telegraph reported, the World Bank said last week "that the price of staple foods has risen by 80 per cent in the past three years".

The latest alarm over the rush to embrace biofuels - something the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls "Grains Gone Wild" - comes as the "EU is being urged to take action to stop a biofuel trading scam that exploits US agricultural subsidies and undermines the fight against global warming," writes the Guardian.

This so-called "splash and dash" scam where, as the Wall Street Journal explains, traders ship biodiesel from Asia or Europe to U.S. ports, where it is blended with a “splash” of regular diesel. That qualifies for U.S. export subsidies and then it is shipped back to Europe where it is sold below domestic prices, undercutting Europe's biofuel industry.

As the WSJ writes, "Biofuel’s already-tarnished environmental reputation comes under more fire, because round trips across the Atlantic add unnecessary transport emissions to the mix".

So, with food prices set to rise for a few years to come according to biofuel executives will the UN turn its back on the biofuel "solution"? Ban doesn't think so:

He tells the Guardian: "At this time I wouldn't make any definitive judgment or definitive plans, in particular vis-à-vis these biofuels.....I know there are some concerns raised by certain quarters about biofuels. But biofuels are a renewable source of energy when we are experiencing extreme difficulties [with] resources."

The UK Budget: 'green' or simply 'green wash'?

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:59:32 GMT

Can Alistair Darling's UK Budget succeed in boosting growth amid a precarious global downturn, muffle inflation as oil and food prices sky-rocket and tackle climate change? These are the daunting questions facing the Chancellor of the Exchequer maiden Budget. Talk about a rough debut!

Darling's 52-minute speech finished just a few minutes ago with a green flourish, a nice recovery from the pessimistic growth figures (GDP growth is now expected to clock in at between 1.75 - 2.25 per cent, down from a year-ago forecast of 2 - 2.5 per cent, the worst performance in 16 years) he laid out at the start of the speech. And, yes, high food and oil prices will send short-term inflation rates ever higher.

Amid such a gloomy economic picture, the Chancellor of the Exchequer put forth some bold environmental initiatives while extending some short-term relief to consumers. In the nearer term, a 2 pence fuel duty that was to go into effect at the pump next month has been postponed until October. (Mind you, that will be more than offset by a 4 pence duty to be added to the purchase of a pint of beer).

Still, the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave these eco-friendly promises:
-- Britain is committed to an £800 million environmental fund to finance clean technologies.
-- Darling wants to extend Britain's commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 2050. Previous target was a cut of 60 per cent; now, Darling wants it cut by 80 per cent.
-- Increase the number of corporate carbon credits that qualify for public auction from 7 per cent to 100 per cent.
-- Triple usage of renewable energy by 2015.
-- Darling wants a tax on plastic bags imposed by 2009 with an aim to reduce the number of plastic "carrier" bags in circulation by 12 billion.
-- A £26 billion initiative to reduce carbon emissions from homes with the number of zero-carbon homes and buildings to be increased by 2016 and 2019, respectively.
-- Revenues from air travel duties will increase by 10 per cent.
-- Imposing tighter targets on polluting cars. Darling wants to lower the clean standard to 100 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre by 2020.
-- For those who purchase cleaner cars, the vehicle excise duty will be eliminated for the first year of ownership by 2010.

Of course, the opposition has taken to labeling the Budget little more than 'green wash', a smoke screen to mask the truly pessimistic economic outlook we are facing. The headlines will rightly reflect the pain we are about to enter, but it's good to see the Brown government looking a few years beyond the sub-prime mess to a time when a movement towards a more eco-friendly business approach will actually stimulate the economy.

If Darling is to be believed, such a move towards green innovation could create 1 million jobs in the green sector, a nice cushion from the next credit crunch.

Are biofuels too much trouble for the effort? The debate rages

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:07:47 GMT

Not too long ago ethanol was seen as the best chance for most non oil-producing countries to break their addiction to crude. But at what expense? As federal money (particularly in the U.S.) begins to pour in to develop bio-fuel production facilities, communities are beginning to see there is a significant local eco cost: precious fresh water.

Yep, the backlash against water-hogging ethanol producers in the United States continues to escalate towards a boiling point. The Economist was the first to take a jab saying America's federally financed biofuels projects are not properly considering the water consumption that goes into these "eco-friendly fuels".

"A typical ethanol factory producing 50 million gallons of biofuels a year needs about 500 gallons of water a minute," The Economist writes. "Most of that goes into the boiling and cooling process, which is similar to making beer. Some water is lost through evaporation in the cooling tower and in waste discharge. All this is putting a heavy burden on aquifers in some corn-growing areas." In the more parched corners of America, including the Southeast and parts of the West and Midwest ethanol production could be more costly to the environmental than crude. Projects to build ethanol plants in a host of states, including Florida, Minnesota, Kansas and Nebraska are already facing tough local opposition.

Still, enthusiasm for ethanol continues unabated. Texas, a latecomer, wants to become "an ethanol hub," The Houston Chronicle reports. But perhaps Texas is learning from its litigious neighbours. One of the state's big new ethanol plants, which will produce 40 million gallons of ethanol per year, will rely heavily on "gray water" or municipal wastewater.

Producers are also hitting out with a renewed PR effort. The Minnesota Corn Growers Association were quoted in Ethanol Producers Magazine as saying the water consumption of ethanol producers should be viewed in light of other industries. The MCGA says the beer, plastics, tyres manufacturers are all bigger consumers of water than ethanol producers.

Raisin in the sun? The wine industry faces an uncertain future

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:18:57 GMT

Whither the vine - and the wine for that matter - as climate change increases? That was the pressing question being considered last week at the Climate Change and Wine Conference in Barcelona.

Three hundred and fifty of the world's top wine producers grappled with their industry's high carbon footprint - "wine production emits large quantities of CO2" notes AFP - and the affects of a changing climate on growing conditions and yields.

Two years of drought in Australia have put an end to the glut of mass-produced, water heavy Australian export wine but it has also focused world winemakers' minds on how their own wines will be affected.

Australian viticulture specialist Dr. Richard Smart warned the conference "fine wine regions like Bordeaux will cease to be viable as global warming redraws the world wine map," writes Decanter. It's not only southern France that should worry. California also faces major problems as growers seek to flee the baked inland valleys of Napa and Sonoma and head instead to the coast.

So where does the future of good wine reside? China, just north of Beijing for one. "China is lucky," Smart told delegates. "The warming temperatures are opening up new regions.

Also on Smart's viticultural real estate tip list in a warming world: Chile, Argentina, Tasmania and New Zealand says the Los Angeles Times.

It writes: "The Southern Hemisphere is dominated by oceans, which mitigate the effects of global warming, [Smart] says. These places down under won't suffer the temperature shifts that could make life difficult in more established wine regions in the Northern Hemisphere. In each of these regions, it is possible to plant vineyards at elevations 100 meters higher than current plantings. Or they have cool coastal vineyard regions or the ability to move their viticultural zones south, toward Antarctica."

Indonesian Villagers Could Receive Compensation Not to Cut Down Trees

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:19:46 GMT

Residents of Aceh ultimately could receive $26 million in carbon credits for the long-term protection of rainforests from logging in an innovative avoided deforestation project that has the support of the Government of Aceh, UK-based conservation organization Fauna & Flora International (FFI) and Australian company Carbon Conservation.

The plan would protect the 1.9 million-acre Ulu Masen forest, a tract of rainforest rich in biodiversity and home to the Sumatran elephant, the Clouded Leopard and the Sumatran Orangutan. By preventing logging and conversion of Ulu Masen forest for oil palm plantations, planners expect to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 100 million tons over 30 years. The proceeds — in the form of carbon credits — will help fund health and education projects in the local community.

The proposal hinges on the sale of credits to companies and individuals seeking to offset emissions and burnish their environmental reputations, writes Bloomberg News. The credits typically cost $4 to $8 per ton of pollution reductions.

Critically, the project has won approval from the Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Alliance, which includes NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy and the Rainforest Alliance and companies such as Intel Corp. and Weyerhaeuser Co. Its qualifying criteria is meant to ensure any land use projects are designed to mitigate climate change and deliver compelling community and biodiversity benefits.

The Ulu Masen project is the first project for reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD) to be independently-approved as conforming to the CCB Standards.

Project organizers estimate they will be able to reduce deforestation by 85 percent over 30 years and avoid the emission of more than 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. This will be accomplished largely by transforming logging concessions into conservation areas and community forestry zones where limited harvesting is allowed.

Local residents will benefit by receiving financial incentives to protect their resources and develop alternative livelihoods such as sustainable small-scale forestry operations and agro-forests using income from carbon sales. In addition, the project will support increased forest monitoring, provide funding to civil society organizations to monitor project activities, and support a scheme of forest restoration and reforestation.

The nine "tipping points" of climate change

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 15:14:55 GMT

Ever get the sense that climate change is, well, more than a little complicated?

To simplify things a team of international scientists have come up with a simple but worrying climate change guide to the "nine ways in which the Earth could be tipped into a potentially dangerous state that could last for many centuries," as the Independent describes it.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that climate change will likely result in a number of sudden and dramatic geophysical shifts if global average temperatures continue to rise as a result of the predicted increase in emissions of man-made greenhouse gases. Once these "tipping elements" have occurred, they will be "irreversible on a human timescale....and the widespread effects of the transition to the new state will be felt for generations to come," writes the Indy.

According to Wired News' coverage, the nine climate change benchmarks are:

Very sensitive to already-happening climate change

Greenland Ice Sheet. In a worst-case scenario, even slightly warmer temperatures will melt the ice, possibly causing the ice sheet to disappear during the next 300 years. Global sea levels would rise by over 20 feet.
Arctic sea ice. As sea ice melts, the dark ocean surfaced will be exposed, absorbing solar energy and accelerating the melt. Good-bye, sea ice. We may have hit this point already.

Somewhat sensitive

West Antarctic Ice Sheet. If global temperatures rise, the ice sheet will melt, finally collapsing and raising sea levels by 15 feet in the next 300 years.
Boreal forest. If northern forests can't handle the heat, they'll die, taking away one of Earths primary terrestrial carbon sinks.
Amazon rainforest. Deforestation and climate change will probably reduce Amazonian rainfall, causing the rain forests to dry up and shrink. There goes another carbon sink.
El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Different temperatures in different Pacific water layers interact with varying equatorial temperatures to produce the global weather patterns known as El Niño and La Niña. If ENSO is disrupted, the El Niño aspect will become more pronounced, leading to harsher droughts in some places and flooding in others.
Sahara/Sahel- and West African monsoon. A warming Atlantic could make the monsoons dry up -- or become even more severe. Or both, depending on the year.
Indian summer monsoon. Warmer air carries more water; see previous tipping point for consequences.

Not so sensitive

Atlantic thermohaline circulation. Atlantic ocean circulation is driven by seawater cooling and sinking in the North Atlantic. If fresh water is added from warming glaciers, or seawater warms, then the cooling-and-sinking cycle could stop, causing North Atlantic sea levels to rise and a shift in tropical rainfalls.

"Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under human-induced climate change," Professor Tim Lenton from the University of East Anglia, the lead researcher on the study, told the BBC.

Italians rally to pull the plug on energy waste

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:57:09 GMT

Here in Italy, where every town has a drop-everything feast day for the local patron saint, there is a recently anointed day to remember that has succeeded in gathering participants from around the country. It's called, dully enough, the national "Energy Saving Day." This year, the fourth annual is to be held on Friday, 15 February.

In past years, the city of Rome has shut off the spot lights on Il Colosseo, Pantheon and Trevi Fountain; the Duomo and Piazza della Scala in Milan also go dark, plus landmarks around the country. Shops and businesses also shut off the lights and computers (even the British Embassy in Rome will go green this year) and Italians are asked to eat by candle light.

It's just for a few hours, but the impact is pretty impressive. According to the Ministry of the Environment, in 2006, the act of shutting off the lights by consumers and businesses and the government succeeded in reducing the equivalent effect of the daily electricity consumption for a city the size of Turin. Last year, it was like shutting off 5 million light bulbs.

You don't have to be in Italy to get involved. You can pledge to join here and do your part.

-- Bernhard

Who needs batteries? A leg brace could power your gadgets

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:12:22 GMT

As energy-saving innovations go, this one is pretty ingenious.

Researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada and the University of Michigan have developed an energy-producing knee brace that generates enough electricity to power small gadgets. According to The Times, dashing out to the corner shop could be enough to juice up a mobile phone or iPod. Taking a brisk walk while wearing one of these braces on each leg is enough to produce 5 watts of electricity, or enough to power up simultaneously 10 mobile phones, The Times calculates. One researcher generated 54 watts, enough to power an incandescent 40 watt bulb.

The brace unveiled to the press is a prototype. But if successful, a commercial version could be on the market in five years.

There's a few things the designers need to work on. The brace is fairly bulky still. It would be tough to pull on a pair of trousers while wearing the brace.

-- Bernhard

U.S. cancels landmark clean coal power plant

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:53:13 GMT

In the opinion of most climate change scientists, policy makers and investors carbon sequestration (or carbon capture as it is more commonly referred to) needs to play a key role in helping the world reduce its CO2 emissions.

Yet carbon capture technology received a body blow last week when the Bush administration cancelled its showcase FutureGen clean coal program citing soaring costs and a need to overhaul the entire project.

Launched four years ago and heralded at the time as "one of the boldest steps our nation has taken toward a pollution-free energy future," FutureGen was supposed to be the blueprint for a new generation of coal-fired power stations where all CO2 emissions would be captured at source and buried underground in secure natural chambers. Budgeted at $1 billion, FutureGen already has a cost overrun of $.8 billion.

Deputy secretary of energy, Clay Sell, said the FutureGen would return as a new retuned project but the chief executive of the FutureGen Alliance, criticised the U.S. government's decision saying the cancellation would delay the effort to create zero-emissions electricity from coal-gasification by some four years.

It's a rare day when you see the U.S. coal and utility industries siding with the climate angels but the Bush administration has a habit of making everyone else appear environmentally friendly. This case is no different with the 13 members of the FutureGen consortium penning a stinging rebuttal of the Department of Energy's claims as to why the project needs to be shelved.

The Bush administration's decision comes the same week that Canada's government recommended spending at least $2 billion on new carbon capture projects.

UN names and shames nearly 400 companies for shoddy CSR reporting

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:47:33 GMT

Call it 'The list of those who could not cut it'. 394 companies were booted yesterday from the United Nations Global Compact for failing to report, as they had promised, on the progress they are making in various corporate social responsibility initiatives, including environmental sustainability, anti-corruption and fair labour practices.

The companies include Air India, Banca Monte Parma here in Italy, and an outfit calling itself The Ethical Investment Company of Australia. (Just don't ask about their compliance problems.) For the full list click here. It should be noted, this is a voluntary agreement. There are no penalties or fines for failing to report whether a company on the list is meeting its goals of adhering to a virtuous plan of corporate social responsibility. (They just run the risk of getting singled out by sniping bloggers like yours truly).

That said, bravo to the organisers of the UN Global Compact for naming and shaming those who do not live up to the organisation's justifiably high standards. Companies should not be allowed to pay lip service to CSR initiatives. Consumers expect more of them.

-- Bernhard

Japan announces $10 billion emerging nations climate fund

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:58:11 GMT

Climate change may have been pushed off the main agenda at this year's World Economic Forum Davos Summit by fears of a global recession but the economic and social implications of global warming remained the elephant in the room of nearly every forum discussion.

Of course with edgy discussions of a global food and water crisis dominating the intellectual agenda, climate change was always going to be just one step removed. It was left to Japan to make the one major climate change statement, announcing a $10 billion investment fund to help emerging countries tackle climate change without risking growth.

The five-year "Cool Earth Partnership" fund announced by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will be both financed publicly and privately, and "will set aside up to $8 billion for assistance in climate change mitigation, and up to $2 billion for grants, aid and technical assistance for countries switching to clean energy," writes Reuters.

Japan will also be investing about $30 billion in research and development in the environment and energy sectors over the next five years and proposed a global target to improve energy efficiency by 30 percent by 2020.

Blog list: Our Other Projects

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:56:27 GMT

Our Other Projects

Gastrokid Network
A social network and blog for foodie families with recipes and advice on kids food and kid-friendly restaurants
mateoland
The personal site of Matthew Yeomans
Bernhard Warner.com
Bernhard's personal site
Social Media Influence
Custom Communication's blog on how social media is shaping corporate reputation management, marketing and communications.