Climate - Feb 26

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

Experts call for sharp cut to CO2 emissions
Scott Capper, SwissInfo
Scientists at Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology say carbon emissions should be slashed to one ton per capita annually to help combat global warming.

They said achieving this ambitious goal - Swiss levels currently stand at nine tons per capita of carbon dioxide - would involve the three Es: increased efficiency, renewable energy and electricity.

For the past year, researchers at the federal institute's Energy Science Centre have been considering ways of countering the ongoing rise of global temperatures and stabilising temperatures so that they do not rise any higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius in the future.

Presenting their strategy paper on the issue at a conference in Zurich on Monday, scientists said the only way of reaching this target would be to limit CO2 emissions to one ton per person per year by the end of the century - if the planet's population increases to ten billion as foreseen.

This does not mean limiting energy consumption as such, but rather reconsidering what type of energy is used.
(25 February 2008)
Hat tip to archeologist Larry.

What we can do now (Australia)
Tim Colebatch, The Age
The problems facing energy-intensive manufacturers in areas such as aluminium and cement are more serious, and Garnaut as yet has no solution. Free permits might be one answer. World Trade Organisation rules limit the subsidy options.

... The big issue will be the shift away from coal-fired power. Burning coal with existing technologies, in existing power stations, will not fit with any target that significantly reduces emissions. To survive, stations will need costly retrofits with less polluting technologies, or be shut down and replaced by a less polluting plant: most likely gas, but possibly clean coal, nuclear or renewables.

The industry wants compensation for the future loss of its asset value. It also wants free permits. So do firms in energy-intensive manufacturing sectors that will have serious problems if they have to pay a price for their carbon while overseas competitors do not. These are tough issues, on which Howard went to water. How the Rudd Government deals with them will be a test of its mettle

... But not all emission cuts will cost us money. Malcolm Turnbull seized on one by ordering an end to the traditional but highly inefficient filament light bulb. Peter Garrett grabbed another last year by promising to ban new electric hot water heaters in areas served by gas. Five-star and six-star houses will save their future owners lots of money, as do interventions that focus us on buying energy-efficient cars and appliances. Matthew Ryan, a former senior Treasury economist and tax adviser to Peter Costello, now an economic consultant in Canberra, has opened up another front. In the latest Tax Policy Journal, he points out that we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions appreciably simply by getting rid of a lot of bad tax breaks.

Let's try some:

• End the freeze on petrol excise, which costs revenue $1 billion a year, and sends car buyers and manufacturers the wrong signal by cutting the tax in real terms.

• End subsidies to heavy trucks, which pay fuel excise at only half the rate recommended to recoup road user charges.
• Bring forward the tax rises on alternative fuels due in 2011, restore excise on heating, kerosene and fuel oil, and put off fuel excise credits for off-road uses (well over $1 billion a year).
• End fringe benefits exemptions for company cars and parking spaces ($1.1 billion).
• End concessional tax on aviation fuel ($805 million) and duty-free airport purchases.

Dr Ryan's list goes on, but my space ends here. These are the easy issues. If we can't win them, the hard issues will beat us.

Tim Colebatch is economics editor.
(25 February 2008)
Contributor SP writes:
Australia focused policy options.

UN Climate Head: US Stand a `nonstarter'
Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press
The U.N. climate chief on Monday welcomed statements by Bush administration officials that the United States would accept a binding international commitment to reduce global-warming gases. But he said their insistence that China and other developing nations do the same "is not realistic."

"If it's a quid pro quo, then it's a nonstarter," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the Bonn-based U.N. climate secretariat.

The United States is the only major industrial nation to reject the U.N. climate treaty's Kyoto Protocol, which requires 37 nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by an average 5 percent by 2012.

Instead, the Bush administration has called for voluntary reductions by U.S. industry and generally has discussed only national-level commitments, via legislation on vehicle fuel efficiency, for example, rather than accept the idea of international treaty obligations.
(25 February 2008)

The Candidates on Climate (text, audio)
Jeff Young, Living on Earth
The presidential hopefuls are starting to take shots at each other’s global warming plans. All three favor capping carbon emissions. But Living on Earth’s Jeff Young tells us they're looking for ways to draw distinctions among their climate change approaches.
(22 February 2008)

Institutional Investors Release Climate Action Plan (video)
United Nations via Energy Policy TV
Representatives from major institutional investors discuss the implications of climate
change as a financial issue -- its risks and opportunities

Panelists:
Denise Nappier, Treasurer, State of Connecticut; Alex Sink, Chief Financial Officer, State of Florida; John Chiang, Controller, State of California; Bill Lockyer, Treasurer, State of California; Donald MacDonald, Trustee Director, British Telecom Pension Scheme; Mindy S. Lubber, President of Ceres and Director of Investor Network on Climate Risk
(14 February 2008)

It's time for a body count
Simon Lewis, Guardian
Climate change is killing us. So why are we still so reluctant to quantify the deaths it has caused?
---
In April last year a group of environmentalists shut down E.ON's coalfired power station in Ratcliffe-on-Soar. The goal: to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and, in their words, "save lives". Yesterday judge Morris Cooper presented a 20-page judgment accepting there was an "urgent need for drastic action", but convicted them of aggravated trespass, saying their defence, that their crime was necessary to save lives, could not be substantiated.

In the trial, for which I was an expert witness, crucial questions were how many people does climate change kill, and what proportion is the UK responsible for? I was surprised to discover that nobody knows. Scientists such as myself are involved in programmes to measure CO2 emissions, air temperatures, sea-ice loss and the much more complex impacts on birds, rainforest trees and coral reefs. We know that climate change-related events are killing people, yet there is no comprehensive global monitoring program to document the lives lost due to climate change. There is no official climate-change body count.

Admittedly, the impact of climate change on human health and mortality is difficult to quantify. There is no comparison group of people not exposed to climate change. Deaths are often due to multiple causes. And while the probability of a particular event occurring under modified climate conditions can be estimated, no single event can be solely attributed to climate change. The biggest obstacle is the sheer variety of effects it has on health.

Dr Simon Lewis is a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth and Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds
(26 February 2008)