Carbon | News & Views

Winner of UK heats for innovation awards announced

The government yesterday (March 3rd) announced the winners of the UK heats of a Europe-wide competition to produce the most innovative solutions to pressing environmental problems.

Among the successful companies were the Coal Authority, for its minewater treatment scheme; Nuphalt Ltd for its infrared road repair system; Agfa Graphics for its profess efficiency and Toyota UK for its success in reducing carbon emissions.

Dan Morris, the environment minister, revealed the UK representatives at a ceremony at the Royal Society yesterday.

“All of our winners have shown great innovation and invention with new products, processes and systems which provide improved environmental performance and importantly, value for money for their customers,” Mr Morris said.

All will go on to compete at the European Business Awards for the Environment, the entrants of which will revealed after the panel meeting concludes on March 12th.

The UK has so far won at least one award in each round since 1994 and has more entries overall than any other European nation.

>>> Take a look at the government award site here

>>> Please read the full article here

Hurricane Katrina victims seek to sue greenhouse gas emitters

Victims of Hurricane Katrina are seeking to sue carbon gas-emitting multinationals for helping fuel global warming and boosting the devastating 2005 storm, legal documents showed.

The class action suit brought by residents from southern Mississippi, which was ravaged by hurricane-force winds and driving rains, was first filed just weeks after the August 2005 storm hit.
“The plaintiffs allege that defendants’ operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming,” say the documents seen by AFP.

The increase in global surface air and water temperatures “in turn caused a rise in sea levels and added to the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina, which combined to destroy the plaintiffs’ private property, as well as public property useful to them.”

More than 1,200 people died in Hurricane Katrina, which lashed the area, swamping New Orleans in Louisiana when levees gave way under the weight of the waves.
The suit, claiming compensation and punitive damages from multinational companies including Shell, ExxonMobile, BP and Chevron, has already passed several key legal hurdles, after initially being knocked back by the lowest court.

Three federal appeals court judges decided in October 2009 that the case could be heard. But in February the same court decided to re-examine whether it could be heard this time with nine judges.
Other companies named in the suit include Honeywell and American Electric Power, with the residents charging that “the defendants’ greenhouse gas emissions caused saltwater, debris, sediment, hazardous substances, and other materials to enter, remain on, and damage plaintiffs’ property.”
They allege that companies had a duty to “avoid unreasonably endangering the environment, public health, public and private property.”

The district court, which initially rejected the case, ruled that it was “a debate which simply has no place in the court.”
The court argued that Congress first had to enact legislation “which sets appropriate standards by which this court can measure conduct.”
Mississippi residents must now wait for the appeals court to fix a new hearing, in principle within the next three months.

A decision would then be due by the end of 2010, and both sides could also then take the case to the Supreme Court.

>>> See the whole article here

Whaling worsens carbon release, scientists warn

By Victoria Gill

A century of whaling may have released more than 100 million tonnes – or a large forest’s worth – of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists say. Whales store carbon within their huge bodies and when they are killed, much of this carbon can be released. US scientists revealed their estimate of carbon released by whaling at the Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland, US. Dr Andrew Pershing from the University of Maine described whales as the “forests of the ocean”.

Dr Pershing and his colleagues from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute calculated the annual carbon-storing capacity of whales as they grew. “Whales, like any animal or plant on the planet, are made out of a lot of carbon,” he said. “And when you kill and remove a whale from the ocean, that’s removing carbon from this storage system and possibly sending it into the atmosphere.” He pointed out that, particularly in the early days of whaling, the animals were a source of lamp oil, which was burned, releasing the carbon directly into the air.

“And this marine system is unique because when whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean. “If they die where it’s deep enough, it will be [stored] out of the atmosphere perhaps for hundreds of years.”

In their initial calculations, the team worked out that 100 years of whaling had released an amount of carbon equivalent to burning 130,000 sq km of temperate forests, or to driving 128,000 Humvees continuously for 100 years. Dr Pershing stressed that this was still a relatively tiny amount when compared to the billions of tonnes produced by human activity every year.

When whales die [naturally], their bodies sink, so they take that carbon down to the bottom of the ocean.
Dr Andrew Pershing, University of Maine. But he said that whales played an important role in storing and transporting carbon in the marine ecosystem. Simply leaving large groups of whales to grow, he said, could “sequester” the greenhouse gas, in amounts that were comparable to some of the reforestation schemes that earn and sell carbon credits.

He suggested that a similar system of carbon credits could be applied to whales in order to protect and rebuild their stocks. Other scientists said that he had raised an exciting and interesting problem.

Dr Pershing said: “These are huge and they are top predators, so unless they’re fished they would be likely to take their biomass to the bottom of the ocean [when they die].”

Read the full article at BBC News

Litter: our legacy to future generations

By Jeremy Paxman

Our grandchildren will know us by our discarded cans of Coca-Cola and packets of Walkers crisps

It’s the real thing, all right. That plastic jewel glinting in the verge among the emerging daffodils is a plastic bottle. Probably an empty Coke one.

An organisation called Litter Heroes (surely the most unglamorous club in Britain?) has done something rather useful. They have traced where the crud that morons in cars chuck out of their windows originally comes from. No surprise to discover that the worst-offending brand is Coca-Cola (4.9% of all litter), followed by Walkers Crisps (4.1%) and McDonald’s (3.6%).

And what does Coca-Cola say by way of apology? A company spokesman “acknowledges” the report. How very gracious of him. He goes on to blather that its bottles “carry the Tidy Man and Recycle Now logos”. Well, that should do it.

There is more fatuous wittering from McDonald’s, which even has the nerve to attempt a tone of wronged outrage, saying that “in 2009 we spent over ¬£2m on staff labour alone” picking up litter. That’s ¬£2m out of a turn over of more than ¬£2bn in Britain.

Anyone who walks anywhere in this filthy country knows that what the 39 volunteers from Litter Heroes discovered is true. No one in their right mind talks any longer about a “green and pleasant land”. A beautiful country is being submerged under a rising tide of rubbish.

Worst of all is the fact that whereas paper bags biodegrade, plastic bottles and confectionery wrappers last for generations. Our great-grandchildren will still be living among the gaudy wrapping of the chocolate bar we excreted last month.

The poor saps who have to act as apologists for the fizzy-drink and junk-food manufacturers never use the obvious argument because it would ¬≠insult their customers. Why don’t they try the tactic of US gun ¬≠manufacturers, who say: “It’s not guns that kill, it’s people”? Of course, it’s not the boss of Coke or Cadbury chucking the company products out of the car window; it’s some oaf who doesn’t understand that in tidying up his private space he’s making the shared space filthy.

The turning of verges into rubbish tips is a symptom of the “everyone for himself” attitude that has come to dominate in the last 50 years. What can we do? Local councils are supposed to have a statutory duty to clear up litter, but are largely useless. Ditto the national government. The fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves. At least future generations won’t lack evidence of the kind of people we were.

Read the full article at the guardian website

Did the Copenhagen Summit Fail?

According to John Vidal, Allegra Stratton and Suzanne Goldenberg – ‘Copenhagen Ends in Failure’ cop15_logo_b_m1

(This article is a summary – read the full article at the guardian.co.uk)

The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement in Copenhagen tonight, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.

After eight draft texts and all-day talks between 115 world leaders, it was left to Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, to broker a political agreement. The so-called Copenhagen accord “recognises” the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

American officials spun the deal as a “meaningful agreement”, but even Obama said: “This progress is not enough.”

In a press conference held after the talks broke up, Brown said the agreement was a “vital first step” and accepted there was a lot more work to do to get assurances it would become a legally binding agreement. He declined to call it a “historic” conference:

The deal was brokered between China, South Africa, India, Brazil and the US, but late last night it was unclear whether it would be adopted by all 192 countries in the full plenary session. The deal aims to provide $30bn a year for poor countries to adapt to climate change from next year to 2012, and $100bn a year by 2020.

But it disappointed African and other vulnerable countries which had been holding out for deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in past drafts were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO2 emissions by 80% was also dropped.

Obama hinted that China was to blame for the lack of a substantial deal. In a press conference he condemned the insistence of some countries to look backwards to previous environmental agreements. He said developing countries should be “getting out of that mindset, and moving towards the position where everybody recognises that we all need to move together”.

Negotiators will now work on individual agreements such as forests, technology, and finance – but, without strong leadership, the chances are that it will take years to complete.

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. Ed Miliband [UK climate change secretary] is among the very few that come out of this summit with any credit.” It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen.”

Concern for Temperature Rises Remains High

The most alarming forecasts of natural systems amplifying the human-induced greenhouse effect may be too high, globalwarming according to a new report.

The study in Nature confirms that as the planet warms, oceans and forests will absorb proportionally less CO2.
It says this will increase the effects of man-made warming – but much less than recent research has suggested.
The authors warn, though, that their research will not reduce projections of future temperature rises.
Further, they say their concern about man-made climate change remains high.

Some climate sceptics have argued that a warmer world will increase the land available for vegetation, which will in turn absorb CO2 and temper further warming. This is known as a negative feedback loop – the Earth acting to keep itself in balance.
But the Nature research concludes that any negative feedback will be swamped by positive feedback in which extra CO2 is released from the oceans and from already-forested areas.
The oceans are the world’s great store of CO2, but the warmer they become, the less CO2 they can absorb. And forests dried out by increased temperatures tend to decay and release CO2 from their trees and soils.

The IPCC’s fourth assessment report had a broad range of estimates as to how far natural systems would contribute to a spiral of warming. The Nature paper narrows that range to the lower end of previous estimates.
The report’s lead author, David Frank from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, told BBC News that many of the calculations for the IPCC assessment report did not include an integrated carbon cycle.
He said that if the results his paper were widely accepted, the overall effect on climate projections would be neutral.
“It might lead to a downward mean revision of those (climate) models which already include the carbon cycle, but an upward revision in those which do not include the carbon cycle.
“That’ll probably even itself out to signify no real change in the temperature projections overall,” he said.

The oceans’ ability to absorb CO2 figures strongly into the debate
This stands in sharp contrast to the recent estimates of positive feedback models, which suggest a release of 40 parts per million per degree; the team say with 95% certainty that value is an overestimate.

The paper will surely not be the last word in this difficult area of research, with multiple uncertainties over data sources.

“We have plenty of reason to believe that the shape of the relationship may change (be nonlinear) when we ‘hit the system harder’. So, I don’t think they can rule out that the positive feedback from the carbon cycle could become stronger in a significantly warmer climate.”

See the full article at the bbc.co.uk/news

Green Skills Required

The UK workforce lacks the green skills necessary to take advantage of the wind power revolution, claims an Green-Jobs-hard-hat energy-saving advisory group.

A spokesperson for the Renewable Energy Centre said that the £100 billion investment by the private sector would revitalise the construction sector only if the workforce has suitable skills in place.

She said: “The government has to make sure the UK is able to meet this demand otherwise jobs will inevitably go to those working in the UK from overseas.

“It is critical that as renewables become an integral part of the UK’s energy supply that the country has the skills to drive the industry forward from manual construction work through to project management and board level.”

The granting of nine major development licences for offshore wind farms by the Crown Estate this month is expected to create up to 70,000 jobs by 2020.
Find the article at: therenewableenergycentre.co.uk

China has ‘open mind’

China’s lead climate change negotiator has said he was keeping an “open attitude” as to whether global warming cop_logo_1_r was man-made or due to natural cycles.

Xie Zhenhua said climate warming was a “solid fact” and that mainstream scientific opinion held it was due to emissions of gases such as CO2.

Mr Xie’s comments appeared to surprise the other environment ministers and envoys at a news conference at the end of their two-day meeting.
He said: “It is already a solid fact that the climate is warming.
“There is one starkly different view, that the climate change or climate warming issue is caused by the cyclical element of nature itself.
“I think we need to adopt an open attitude to the scientific research.”
He said that it was important to include as many views as possible “to be more scientific and to be more consistent”.

A number of scientists have recently disputed the figure. The vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said last week that it was an error and would be reviewed.
But the IPCC’s vice-chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele said it did not change the broader picture of man-made climate change.

At their weekend gathering, the officials said they would announce by the end of the month their plans to cut emissions.

They also agreed to contribute $10bn (£6.2bn) this year to help poor nations combat the effects of climate change.
Brazil’s Environment Minister Carols Minc said this would be “a slap in the face to the rich countries” who pledged at the Copenhagen climate summit in December to contribute $30bn (£18.5bn) in funding for the next three years and $100bn (£61.8bn) by 2020.

See the full article at the bbc.co.uk/news

Environment Agency Reveals New Weapon Against Waste Crime

An innovative technology that can map what’s buried underground is being used by the agency to search for waste 203_environment_agency_203x152 buried illegally, and make sure the polluter pays for its clean up.
The new technology will add to the armoury of CSI-style techniques used by the Environment Agency to tackle serious waste criminals. It will be used alongside sophisticated techniques including forensics, handwriting analysis and Smartwater tracking by a dedicated national environmental crime team.

Since 2008 the Environment Agency has closed 1,500 illegal waste sites, and fines for committing waste offences have doubled since 2003, from £1.4million to over £3million. But the Agency estimates that there are still approximately 800 illegal sites currently in operation and new technologies are vital tools in shutting them down. Illegal waste sites and organised criminal flytipping operations cost businesses and taxpayers millions of pounds every year to clean up.

Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, Dr Paul Leinster, said: “This is just one of the many state of the art technologies that the Environment Agency uses to make sure that waste criminals are caught, prosecuted and made to pay for the clean up of the land they have polluted.
“By dumping waste illegally, waste criminals avoid landfill charges and undercut legitimate waste businesses, but more importantly they put the environment and human health at risk. We are making sure that waste crime does not pay, and have set up specialist crime teams to catch criminals and confiscate the assets they’ve gained from crime.”

See the full article at environment-agency.gov.uk