Carbon | News & Views

Government announces low-carbon transport funding

The UK government has announced the launch of a £30 million fund to help reduce transport emissions and improve air quality in major cities.

It will deliver low-carbon buses across England, with local authorities and bus operators being given the chance to bid for additional funds to buy more vehicles.

Some £3.5 million will also be set aside to support increases in the use of biogas to power cars, buses and homes.

Biogas is produced from waste material and the government believes it can play a crucial role in helping the country meet its carbon reduction targets.

“These measures will not only help us to reduce emissions but also provide a sustainable and economically viable alternative to traditional carbon-based transport,” said transport secretary Andrew Adonis.

The announcement follows the publication of a report by the House of Commons environmental audit committee, which claimed that air pollution contributes to the early deaths of around 50,000 people in the UK each year.

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Chancellor announces green investment bank

The chancellor has announced plans to set up an investment bank that will fund green transport and renewable energy projects.

In his 2010 Budget speech in the House of Commons, Alistair Darling said the fund would control £2 billion worth of equity for low-carbon investment.

He said that the UK must take long-term decisions to secure its energy supplies while at the same time moving to a low-carbon economy.

The green investment bank would help to facilitate this, with half of the money coming from the sale of assets such as the Channel Tunnel rail link and the rest being matched by the private sector.

Mr Darling confirmed: “The fund will focus first on investing in green transport and sustainable energy, in particular offshore wind power, where Britain is already the world leader.”

He also announced that £60 million would be set aside for the development of ports to host offshore wind turbine manufacture.

Also in the Budget, the chancellor said he would provide £100 million locally to repair roads damaged by the cold weather this winter and £285 million to fund motorway improvements aimed at reducing congestion.

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UK must help homes adapt to climate change, MPs say

Programme to “retrofit” homes with measures to make them more energy and water efficient and resilient to flooding is needed to help households cope with climate change, MPs said today.

The environmental audit committee also warned that new housing developments should only get planning approval if they are designed to suit future changes in the climate, as part of efforts to make sure the UK adapts to rising temperatures.

And there needs to be greater focus on “green infrastructure” including water storage, more trees and more open spaces which can tackle flash flooding and hot city summers, the committee said.

A report by the committee of MPs warned efforts to adapt to a changing climate needed to be as much of a priority as cutting the greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming.

The UK is already locked in to a rise in temperature, and is expected to experience wetter winters, drier summers and a higher likelihood of heatwaves, storms and flooding.

To maintain current levels of flood protection will require real terms spending on defences to increase from around £600m a year now to £1bn in 2035.

And by the end of the century some £7bn may be needed to improve the Thames barrier and tidal defences.

The committee called on the government to ensure there was a coherent approach to adaptation that involves all Whitehall departments and helps local communities tackle the risks posed by climate change.

The government should also be clear how it is going to help those worst affected by climate change – for example those whose homes face the risk of coastal erosion.

Tim Yeo, chairman of the committee, said: “For a long time the climate change debate has focused on reducing carbon emissions, but adapting to the inevitable impacts of rising global temperatures is equally critical.

“Even if all the world’s power stations were switched off tomorrow, past emissions mean that some climate change will still take place and we will face more floods, droughts and heat waves.”

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Forest loss slows, as China plants and Brazil preserves

The world’s net rate of forest loss has slowed markedly in the last decade, with less logging in the Amazon and China planting trees on a grand scale.

Yet forests continue to be lost at “an alarming rate” in some countries, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Its Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 finds the loss of tree cover is most acute in Africa and South America. But Australia also suffered huge losses because of the recent drought.
“It is good news,” said the report’s co-ordinator Mette Loyche Wilkie, a senior forestry office with FAO.

The area of forests undisturbed by human activity continues to decrease, so countries must further strengthen their efforts to conserve and manage them
Eduardo Rojas, FAO

“This is the first time we’ve been able to say that the deforestation rate is going down across the world, and certainly when you look at the net rate that is certainly down.

“But the situation in some countries is still alarming,” she told BBC News.
The last decade saw forests being lost or converted at a rate of 13 million hectares per year, compared to 16 million hectares in the 1990s.
However, new forests were being planted to the tune of more than seven million hectares per year; so the net rate of loss since the year 2000 has been 5.2 million hectares per year, compared to 8.3 million in the 1990s.
Globally, forests now cover about 31% of the Earth’s land surface.

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Universities working on green fuel project

Researchers at three UK universities are working on a new project that aims to turn carbon dioxide into fuel for cars.  They are hoping to develop porous materials that can absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into chemicals for fuel, after being offered funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Led by the University of Bath, the project will also involve scientists from Bristol University and the University of the West of England.   It is hoped that the new materials could be used to line factory chimneys and soak up CO2 emissions before they are released into the air.  Dr Frank Marken, senior chemistry lecturer at Bath, said this process, which would be powered by renewable solar energy, would be more energy-efficient than existing carbon capture techniques.

“Current processes rely on using separate technology to capture and use the CO2, which makes the process very inefficient.   ”By combining the processes the efficiency can be improved and the energy required to drive the CO2 reduction is minimised,” he explained.  Researchers in France are also working on the development of green fuels.  Using a reactor found in plasma televisions, they are devising a process that can turn waste materials into ultra-clean biodiesel.

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£250bn tar sands money enough may transform renewables sector

Billions spent developing the Canadian tar sands over the next 15 years could be instead be used to support projects that could secure long-term clean energy supplies for the UK.

A report published yesterday (March 15th) from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) argued that the £250 billion to be spent to be spent producing oil from the Canadian tar sands could also fund projects to accelerate the UK’s transition to a low carbon economy.

According to the authors, the money could ‘transform’ the UK’s power sector, with £264 billion being enough to make the UK meet its target of 15 per cent renewable energy by 2020.

The study also highlighted that the tar sands project is not guaranteed to bring in huge revenues.

“Companies that make big investments in tar sands risk big future losses by focusing on a business area that is only profitable if emitting carbon is cheap, oil prices are stable at a high level, and there is a large market for the oil produced,” claim the report’s authors.

“It has been conservatively estimated that £35.5 billion of UK pension assets are
invested in shares in UK oil and gas.”

Last month, Shell announced that it will continue producing upwards of an additional 100,000 barrels a day from tar sands, despite international protests from activists and environmental groups.

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Defra: air pollution targets could save £24bn

Joint measures to cut emissions and improve air quality could save the UK around £24 billion, according to a new government report.

The Department of Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) published the paper last week outlining new ‘cost-effective’ initiatives to meet EU targets on reducing air pollution.

Defra’s chief scientific adviser, Bob Watson, said: “We’ve seen time and again that dealing with environmental problems in isolation is neither effective nor efficient. We need a coordinated view which confronts the complexities involved and seeks to maximise the co-benefits of actions.”

Studies cited in the report found that air pollution and climate change derived from the same sources. Recent success in improving air quality was attributed in part to reductions in transport emissions.

One of the conclusions of the report is that promoting “non-combustion renewable sources of electricity, promoting the use of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and reducing agricultural demands for nitrogen” is key to better air quality in the future.

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Climate ‘fix’ could poison sea life

By Richard Black – Environment correspondent, BBC News

Fertilising the oceans with iron to absorb carbon dioxide could increase concentrations of a chemical that can kill marine mammals, a study has found.

Iron stimulates growth of marine algae that absorb CO2 from the air, and has been touted as a “climate fix”.
Now researchers have shown that the algae increase production of a nerve poison that can kill mammals and birds.
Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they say this raises “serious concern” over the idea.
The toxin – domoic acid – first came to notice in the late 1980s as the cause of amnesiac shellfish poisoning.

If the end goal is to use it to fight climate warming, then we have to understand the consequences for marine life

It is produced by algae of the genus Pseudonitzschia, with concentrations rising rapidly when the algae “bloom”.
Now, its presence in seawater often requires the suspension of shellfishing operations, and is regularly implicated in deaths of animals such as sealions.

Domoic acid poisoning may also lie behind a 1961 incident in which flocks of seabirds appeared to attack the Californian town of Capitola – an event believed to have shaped Alfred Hitchcock’s interpretation of Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds in his 1963 thriller.

Carbon focus

Over the last decade, about 10 research projects have investigated iron fertilisation, with mixed results. But only two of them measured domoic acid production, and only then as an afterthought, explained William Cochlan from San Francisco State University, a scientist on the new project.

“We had a number of major aims in this work; but one of them was to ask ‘do you normally find the species of algae that produce domoic acid, are they producing domoic acid, and will production be enhanced by iron?’,” he said.
In studies conducted around Ocean Station Papa, a research platform moored in the north-eastern Pacific Ocean, the answers to all three questions turned out to be “yes”.

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Marine energy may create power for 15m homes

A new report from the government has suggested that marine energy holds the key to the UK’s low carbon transition.   The Marine Energy Action Plan has laid out proposals to harness marine renewables and create thousands of new jobs in the sector.

Recommendations include developing guidelines for new technologies and establishing a nationwide group to strategically coordinate the industry.  It is thought that electricity generated through marine energy could provide power to 15 million homes in the UK and save up to 70 million tonnes of carbon.  The sector could also create some 16,000 new jobs.

Energy minister Lord Hunt said: “Harnessing the power of our seas will help us reduce our carbon emissions, provide clean, green, secure and reliable energy, create jobs and provide export opportunities.   ”This Action Plan sets out our vision for what marine energy can do for the UK and what we need to do to make it happen.”

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Low carbon driving skills could save up to 3m tonnes of emissions

A new government scheme to train lorry drivers in eco-driving techniques could result in savings of up to three million tonnes of carbon over five years.

Eco-driving skills could become mandatory under new government proposals to reduce carbon emissions from the freight sector.

The plans would mean that drivers are tested on energy-efficient driving techniques, as part of their EU Driver Certificate of Professional Competence, which is compulsory for all professional bus, coach and lorry drivers.

According to Department of Transport estimates, eco-driver training could result in savings of up to three million tonnes of CO2 over five years.

Minister Paul Clark said: “We are absolutely committed to reducing emissions from across the transport sector. Given that 20 percent of all transport emissions come from road freight, these drivers must be a priority.

“With initiatives like this I am confident we will succeed in creating a greener and cleaner industry fit to meet the environmental challenges we face.”

A consultation of approximately 16 weeks will aim to enable at least 90 percent of lorry drivers to take up eco-driver training. The government also plans to extend take-up through promoting the schemes.

Overall, transport accounts for a quarter of man-made greenhouse gas emissions from the UK.

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