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Microbeads report reveals loopholes in pledges by biggest firms

• Damian Carrington

26.07.2016

Greenpeace urges legal ban to tackle problem after finding that top personal care companies fell short on commitments, writes Damian Carrington 

Microplastics in the Azores. Campaigners say microbeads are the easiest type of this pollution to tackle. Photograph: Peter Charaf/RaceforWater

Loopholes in the voluntary pledges by the biggest personal care companies to phase out polluting microbeads have been revealed in a report from Greenpeace, which says a legal ban is needed.

Tiny plastic beads are widely used in toiletries and cosmetics but thousands of tonnes wash into the sea every year, where they harm wildlife and can ultimately be eaten by people, with unknown effects on health. A petition signed by more than 300,000 people asking for a UK ban was delivered to the prime minister in June A US law banning microbeads was passed at the end of 2015.

The Greenpeace report surveyed the world’s top 30 personal care companies and found that even those ranked highest came up short of the standard they deemed acceptable.

One of the leaders, Colgate-Palmolive, said it stopped using of plastic microbeads at the end of 2014, but Greenpeace said the pledge only applied to products used for “exfoliating and cleansing”. Microbeads can be used in moisturisers, makeup, lip balms, shaving foams and other products.


Microbeads are so small that they will not be filtered by sewage systems. Photograph: Vanessa Miles/Greenpeace

One of the lowest-ranked companies was Estée Lauder, which says it “is currently in the process of removing exfoliating plastic beads in the small number of our products that contain them”. Greenpeace said the company’s commitment is too narrow, applying only to microbeads used for exfoliating, and does not set a deadline.

The lowest-ranked company was US-based Edgewell Personal Care. It was given a score of zero out of 400 by Greenpeace, as “they did not respond to the survey and no publicly available information was found”. However, an Edgewell spokeswoman said: “We did not participate in the Greenpeace survey, as we do not incorporate the use of microbeads in any of our wide range of personal care products.”

The world’s biggest personal care company, Procter & Gamble, was ranked joint 18th. The company, whose brands include Olay, says its “goal is to remove polyethylene microbeads from all our cleansers and toothpastes by 2017”. Greenpeace said the commitment was unacceptable because it applies to just one type of plastic, rather than all types, and applies only to personal cleansing and oral care products.

Other loopholes in company pledges include not committing to phasing out microbeads in all countries, being unclear about the size of the microbeads excluded and allowing the use of “biodegradable” plastic microbeads, despite such materials being labelled as a false solution by the chief scientist at the UN Environment Programme.

Louise Edge, a senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “When it comes to dealing with microbeads, companies are all over the shop,” said Louise Edge, senior oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK.

“The UK government has already said it agrees that a ban on microbeads is the right way forward,” she said. “The new environment secretary, Andrea Leadsom, has some big challenges ahead of her, but banning microbeads would be a simple and effective start.”

Mary Creagh, the chair of the cross-party environmental audit committee of MPs, which will publish its inquiry into the issue in the summer, said: “Cosmetics companies’ voluntary approach to phasing out plastic microbeads is inconsistent and confusing for consumers. Most customers would be horrified to discover the effect their facial scrubs are having on the marine environment.”

Daniel Steadman, from Fauna & Flora International, which produces The Good Scrub Guide, said: “When you get down into the details of these brands’ microbead commitments, the potential for confusion is enormous. Marine life can be harmed by any type of plastic reaching our oceans, so if it’s a solid, a plastic and in a product that goes down the drain, it shouldn’t be there.”

Christopher Flower, the director-general of the UK’s Cosmetic Toiletry and Perfumery Association, said: “The cosmetics industry is taking this issue extremely seriously and is very much aware of its responsibilities to its customers and the environment.”

He said the European personal care association, Cosmetics Europe, has issued arecommendation to end the use of “synthetic, solid plastic particles used for exfoliating and cleansing that are non-biodegradable in the marine environment” by 2020.

“We believe that this course of action will have an impact far more quickly than waiting for any legislative ban,” said Flower He added that most microbeads are likely to have been phased out long before 2020.

Microbeads are too small to be filtered effectively by sewage treatment plants and flow into the oceans. Plastic pollution in the oceans is a huge problem: 5tn pieces of plastic are floating in the world’s seas. Microbeads are a small but significant part of this, which campaigners argue are the easiest to deal with.

Microbeads are eaten by marine life, which mistake them for food particles, and have been shown to kill fish before they reach reproductive age. The tiny beads can also attract toxins from seawater, which are then passed up the food chain.

The beads are thought to be eaten by people consuming seafood and possibly breathed in too. Safe alternatives are already available, including ground nutshells, pumice, sugar and salt.


Toothpaste containing microbeads. Small plastic particles such as these are used in many cosmetic products. Photograph: Georg Mayer/Greenpeace

 

This article was originally published by the Guardian and reprinted here with permission. 

courtesy:chinadialogue

 

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China’s 1-2-3 punch to tackle wasted renewable energy

• Song Ranping
• Miao Hong

17.05.2016

China must stop wasting renewable energy if it is to deepen pledges on curbing carbon emissions, write Song Ranping and Miao Hong

A wind farm in Shaanxi province in northern China, home to many of the country's new wind projects (Image by Hahaheditor12667)

China has emerged as a leader in renewable energy. Investment soared from US$39 billion to US$111 billion in just five years, while electric capacity for solar power grew 168-fold and wind power quadrupled.  Actual renewable energy utilisation also grew. The total share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption increased from 8.3% in 2010 to 12% in 2015, beating the country’s target of 11.4% and putting China well on track to meet its Copenhagen pledge to reach 15% by 2020 and Paris commitment to reach 20% by 2030.

Like other countries, China faces challenges in its shift to low-carbon electricity. One major problem is “curtailment,” which means power grids do not use renewable power even when wind and solar power plants are capable of producing it. Close to 10% of solar capacity remained untapped during the first half of 2015, while around 15% of wind power was wasted throughout the year. In regions such as Gansu, Ningxia, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang and Yunnan, the situation is a lot worse.

China’s Renewable Energy Law prohibits curtailment, but the problem persists, partly for technical reasons. However, a large part of the problem is not technical. In practice, fossil fuel power plants have priority over renewables, leaving less room for solar and wind power in a country with a large overcapacity of coal-fired power. There is also a lack of clarity on how the renewable energy integration mandate should be enforced. Better-designed and -implemented policies can help.

The 1-2-3 Punch

In the last two months, China’s government has thrown three punches to tackle the problem.

Punch 1: An emergency ban on new coal power construction

The central government has ordered 13 provinces to suspend coal-fired power plant approvals in the current pipeline, and another 15 provinces to delay new construction of projects that have already been approved, according to media reports. The government has also set up an on-going early warning mechanism to anticipate and discourage local decisions that may exacerbate coal power plant overcapacity in the future. Projecting to 2019, the government has issued a “red alert” for 28 provinces (in Chinese), asking local authorities to suspend approval and companies to reconsider investment. By curbing the development of new coal power plants, the dominant source of fossil fuel electricity in China, the government aims to prevent destructive competition with renewables.

Punch 2: Management rules to guarantee sale of renewable energy generation on the grid

The management rules issued in March set an annual minimum purchase guarantee for wind and utility-scale solar generation, securing the recovery of cost and reasonable profit for those projects. For the first time, the management rules stipulate that renewable energy power plants be compensated by fossil fuel plants that squeeze out their share of guaranteed purchase, making it costly for fossil fuel plants to generate electricity that should have come from renewable sources.

Above the guaranteed purchase level, renewables are encouraged to participate in the generation market with competitive pricing. Since renewables have low marginal generation costs, the move can further boost renewable generation. Other renewables, such as biomass, geothermal, wave and distributed solar power, have guaranteed purchase for all of their generation.

The directive also lays out roles and responsibilities for central and local regulators, fossil fuel and renewable power plants, and grid companies, providing the clarity needed for robust enforcement.

This is a decisive step towards the establishment of a green dispatch system that gives priority dispatching to renewable, efficient and low-carbon sources, which was called for by President Xi Jinping in a joint US-China presidential statement on climate change last September.

Punch 3: Consumption and generation targets for renewables.

New government guidance sets minimum electricity consumption targets for non-hydro renewable energy (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, wave and tidal energy etc.) Thirty-one provinces now have consumption targets ranging from 5% to 13% by 2020, creating incentives for local authorities to integrate renewables.

At the same time, the directive requires power companies to generate at least 9% of electricity from non-hydro renewable sources by 2020, almost doubling the generation share in five years. It also states the intention to develop a Renewable Energy Certificates trading scheme, where power companies can sell or purchase renewable energy as a way to comply with the above-mentioned requirement.
 

Source: 2010-2014 data from China Electricity Council; 2015 data from Statistical Communique 2015, National Statistic Bureau; 2020 requirement from National Energy Administration.

Moving towards high renewable energy penetration

Taken together, the latest actions are a significant step to see that less renewable energy is wasted in China. They also reflect the government’s attempt to tap into the power of the market to address the challenge.

To knock down the problem, the government needs to closely monitor and evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of these measures, and if needed, strengthen them decisively. The government has shown an awareness of the need for stronger environmental policy enforcement, and has begun to take steps in this direction.

Going beyond the 2030 target, a group of China’s top energy experts concludes China has a fighting chance to achieve high renewable energy penetration, where renewable energy accounts for over 60% of primary energy consumption and 85% of electricity consumption by 2050. It can happen only if China implements aggressive policies to back renewable energy at every turn. The latest developments give reason to believe that China may be on the road to the heavyweight championship.

This article was originally published here by the World Resources Institute.

courtesy:chinadiakogue

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How China can stop wasting wind energy

• Michelle Winglee

22.07.2016

Faster electricity market reform is needed to harness more wind and speed up a shift from coal, two experts tell chinadialogue

Workers install a wind turbine at Chicheng Wind Farm. The farm is located in Hebei Province, an area which is rich in wind energy resources. (Image by Simon Lim / Greenpeace)

China has roughly one third of global installed wind energy capacity, while the US has 17%. Yet China uses less wind-powered electricity than the US. What is going wrong?

Energy market structures and politics limit the uptake of wind energy by the grid, according to renewable energy specialists. Two of them shared their views with chinadialogue to explain what is causing the problem, and put forward solutions.

Michael Davidson is a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology specialising in renewable energy utilisation, while Tsinghua University lecturer Ning Zhang researches power system planning.

chinadialogue (CD): What is China doing to promote wind energy integration from a policy standpoint and how does it rank globally?

Michael Davidson (MD):  China has put in place polices to develop wind energy since the 2006 Renewable Energy Law, but actual generation of electricity from wind falls short of expectations, given its high capacity. By 2010, many regions started experiencing high levels of “curtailment”; when wind energy is available but the grid operator instructs wind farms not to put all of it onto the grid, effectively wasting it.

Many countries with high levels of wind energy deployment experience curtailment. Texas, prior to 2012, experienced some of the highest rates outside of China, though they have now declined to near-zero (see diagram). As part of the joint US-China statements on climate change before the Paris talks, President Xi Jinping announced that the country would develop “green power dispatch” to improve wind integration on the grid. China has also pledged to obtain 20% of power from non-fossil fuels by 2030.

NZ: The government primarily supports wind power through subsidies and an acquisition mechanism. In 2003, when wind farms were first set up, the government set a price for wind energy that guaranteed a return on investment. As wind farms became more widespread in 2009, China enacted a “feed in tariff,” a guaranteed fixed purchase price at which the grid would buy electricity. The National Renewable Energy Fund pays the difference between the energy grid companies’ purchasing prices and the “feed in tariff,” to encourage wind energy use.

CD: What are the roadblocks to greater wind integration in China? What are the technical vs. the political challenges, especially those that are unique to China?

MD: Curtailment is often attributed to “technical” challenges, such as managing the variability of wind power, and mismatches between the location of wind farms, demand centres, and the grid.

However, many of these are better thought of as “techno-economic” challenges, because they are determined by the costs of addressing certain technical limitations. For example, the cost of a coal plant producing at less than its installed capacity, so that more wind energy can be integrated into the grid.

MD: For China, all of the traditional technical issues are relevant. But in addition, China’s electricity sector is operated under a number of other political constraints that exacerbate techno-economic challenges. Because electricity prices are fixed by the central government, they do not respond to changes in supply, such as the availability of wind, or the costs of increasing and decreasing coal generation. Instead, the grid operator administratively determines the coal plant’s minimum output level in advance, which is typically high.

NZ: The technical challenges are that electricity cannot be stored on a large-scale, and generators fail to adjust in real time to changing supply and demand. One of our experiments, looking at two consecutive weeks of the energy grid in Inner Mongolia, revealed that wastage of wind energy mainly occurred at night.

Transmission congestion is another issue. At present, there is a great deal of abandoned wind power in the Jilin and Zhangbei areas because of network congestion.

The fundamental reason is that the national grid focused on the construction of ultra high voltage (UHV, 1000kV) networks, ignoring the construction of the 220kV and 500kV network connecting wind power to the grid. Currently, most of the bottleneck lies in the 220kV transmission line. Figure 2 summarises the main reasons for abandoning wind in several provinces.

Lastly, there is a big problem with the market mechanism for integrating wind power. Prices, and output, for thermal, hydropower, and gas are formulated by the government. Wind and thermal prices are identical, and there is no penalty for wasted wind energy. As wind farms lack any price advantage over thermal power, grid corporations have no motivation to capture the excess capacity on windy days. Rather, energy dispatching centres usually set the maximum amount of wind energy a day ahead of time, at a level fixed quite low due to the variability of the wind energy supply.

CD: What would make the system more efficient?

MD: Proposed power sector reforms in State Council Document No. 9, revived in 2015 after a decade-long hiatus, highlight important avenues to raise efficiency and improve integration of renewables. Two proposals, reducing the amount of planned wind energy quotas and gradually allowing market-determined generation tariffs, raised in Document No. 9 and subsequent documents, are high on my list. Regulatory changes to bring grid companies more in line with international best practices are also important to eliminate conflicts of interest in dispatching power plants.

Recent work with colleagues showed that if China reduces the minimum output level of coal plants and makes more frequent and flexible scheduling decisions, wind alone could reach 14% of primary energy in 2030—almost three quarters of the way toward its 2030 target [of 20% of power from non-fossil fuels]. Adding on other low-carbon sources, this means China could raise its commitment to non-fossil deployment.

NZ: Changes are needed to allow for more flexibility. China’s wind power consumption needs a more flexible pricing mechanism, that allows for a spot market, a short-term market, rather than long term contracts. Allowing wind farms to make independent pricing decisions would let the price of electricity better respond to real time changes in supply and demand and increase their competitiveness.

China’s current thermal-based power generation structure and large-scale power transmission makes it hard to accept intermittent power. Increasing more flexible power supplies such as gas power plants and increasing multi-energy system integration would help. Presently, different energy systems are relatively isolated.

CD: What are some of the things you feel are poorly explained in Chinese and US media discussions on China’s renewable energy grid integration that you think the public should know? 

MD: One area that could be better explained is the effect of overcapacity. In one stark example, China built 51 gigawatts (GW) of new coal plants in 2015 despite a decrease in coal use in the electricity sector. Under a fixed price plan, the outcome is different: the quota must be spread out to more coal plants, there is pressure to raise the overall quota and a shrinking the space left over for wind. Stopping coal overcapacity could open up more opportunities for wind, though it will not address the other flexibility obstacles to wind energy.

NZ: Domestic media reports sometimes misunderstand the real cause of low renewable energy consumption. The root cause of the problem is usually not technical, but lies in the lack of market mechanisms. Often the finger is pointed at grid companies and the solution is simply that the government needs to strengthen policy enforcement of wind power consumption.

However, the government releases documents to encourage greater wind consumption every year, while wind curtailment remains a significant problem. It’s clear that publishing documents that force grid companies to accommodate wind power doesn’t work and that more flexible market, price, and scheduling mechanisms need to be implemented to create incentives for conventional energy, grid companies, and even consumers to accommodate more wind power.
courtesy"chinadialogue

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Pimp my… trash cart?

• Cristina Veiga

01.07.2016

Brazilian graffiti artist’s campaign to support invisible recyclers has become a global movement

Eleven years ago, graffiti artist Thiago Mundano had his first encounter with one of Brazil’s 800,000 informal waste pickers, or catadores, when he asked for permission to paint the underside of a São Paulo flyover.

“What do you mean you want to vandalise my home?!” said the angry catador, who was sleeping on the pavement.

In order to avoid a conflict the artist quickly responded: “Can I paint your trash cart? If you don’t like it, I’ll paint over it.” With permission granted, Mundano not only brought colour to the catador’s cart, but etched the phrase that would become the mantra for a successful partnership: “Your trash is my treasure.”

Days later, Mundano received a phone call from a friend saying he had seen a cart bearing his signature, or “tag”, on the other side of town.

In getting the catador and his work noticed, Mundano realised he was helping someone, he said. He also realised that the carts could be mobile canvases.

Over the next five years, Mundano and his friends decorated carts with messages of appreciation for catadores and the environment: “A catador is worth more than an environment minister,” “My work is honest, how about yours?” and “For each tonne of cardboard collected, 20 trees are not cut down”.


"I am... you are... nature" (Photo: Pimp my carroça)

Closer contact with catadores led Mundano to want to do more and Pimp my Carroça (Pimp my trash cart) was born. Mundano and his friends crowd funded an event in the centre of São Paulo where they repaired and painted carts with graffiti while the catadores could see doctors, psychologists, barbers, and massage therapists. According to Mundano, the event aimed to raise awareness of catadores’ work and give them a sense of self-worth. Pimp my carroça has since held events all over Brazil and, more recently, in Bogotá, Colombia.

But the movement is not limited to Latin America or even developing countries. Pimp my Carroça has become a huge mobile art exhibition, extending to the US and Japan, with the potential to reach 20 million catadores worldwide.

Vital service ignored  

According to Brazilian government estimates, catadores are responsible for 90% of recycling that takes place in the country. São Paulo, a megalopolis of some 12 million inhabitants, produces 18,000 tons of rubbish per day. Yet it falls on the city’s 20,000 catadores to ensure that the 1% that is recycled does not go to waste. “Catadores are invisible workers,” Mundano said, adding that although their vocation is recognised by the Brazilian Ministry of Labour, they still lack the most basic equipment necessary for the job. Many have no rubber-coated gloves, raincoats, reflective tape, mirrors or horns for their carts. Worse still, catadores have no workers’ rights and generally face widespread discrimination.

Bispo’s journey

“I was born in the dump. I don’t really remember my father or my mother. But I remember playing with the toy cars I found at the dump,” Sergio da Silva Bispo, a São Paulo catador originally from Salvador, told Diálogo Chino. “I ate what I found there. I ended up becoming an alcoholic.”

“The money that I made selling cans I picked up on the street I spent on booze. Then one day, I was in a bar in Salvador, and saw an advert on TV saying that São Paulo was the land of work. I asked the bar owner what I had to do to move there, and he answered: just start walking,” Bispo recalls.

Illiterate and with no idea of the distance involved, Bispo walked the 1,846 kilometres between the two cities over 80 days. He moved into one of the buildings occupied by squatters in the city centre and went back to collecting aluminium cans, carrying a bag on his back until he could afford a cart.

Bispo’s charm earned him prominence among the other catadores in the city centre streets. The Franciscan church and the renowned Getulio Vargas Foundation also took note of Bispo and his group, offering to teach them how to make carts and about workers’ cooperatives.


"Do I look after nature because you destroy it?" (Photo: Pimp my carroça)

They also became well-versed in the environmental importance of recycling. Bispo gave a speech on the catadores’ work at the World Social Forum. Whilst there, he also learned more about the environment. Bispo organised his fellow catadores and today heads the collectors’ cooperative Cooper Glicério.

Bispo calculates that he alone has prevented the felling of 63,190 trees, saved 244,140 litres of oil and 514,550 kilos of iron ore because of the paper, card and cans he has collected.

Today, Bispo collects his recyclables in a vehicle dubbed the Kombosa Seletiva and takes all the material to the cooperative. The 40 members of the cooperative gather 150 tonnes of recyclable material per month. After the materials are sorted, they are sold to a large company that treats the material for reuse.

Spreading the word

With the Pimp My Cart partnership, the catadores have become more visible and now speak about their work at schools and businesses. “These are two marginalised professions,” Mundano said, referring also to graffiti art, “so the union was natural,” said Mundano.

Although the Brazilian government has a law for solid waste and commissioned studies on the potential of catadores, there are no policies to promote working as a catador in the country.

Bispo said it is vital that everyone involved in the process of recycling benefits from it, but adds there is still a lot of exploitation. Middlemen who purchase from individual catadores pay very little and sell the same product for 100 times the price. Doing away with the middleman is one of the goals of the group.

Bispo, who has been to France, Portugal, Chile, and Argentina, is now heading to the Netherlands to talk about recycling and the environment.

This article was originally published on Diálogo Chino.

courtesy:chinadialogue

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How Nordic nations are leading on climate action

• Justin Gerdes

06.07.2016

The world can learn a lot from Sweden, Norway and Denmark's ambitious targets on carbon, writes author Justin Gerdes

Middelgrunden offshore wind farm (Image by European Wind Energy Association)

Every country on Earth must choose clean energy and quit carbon if the world is to reach zero net carbon emissions by the end of this century, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.
Leading the pack in this momentous transition are Nordic nations such as Norway, whose parliament this month voted to become carbon neutral by 2030.
“This is a direct response to the commitments Norway took on by ratifying the Paris Agreement and means that we will have to step up our climate action dramatically,” Rasmus Hansson, leader of the Norwegian Green party in Parliament, told the Guardian after the vote.

The Nordic countries were among the first nations to price carbon, with Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all adopting carbon taxes in the early 1990s. By dint of geography and policy, these countries are clean energy front-runners. Hydropower supplies 95% of Norway’s electricity. Wind turbines supplied 42% of Denmark’s electricity in 2015.

Transport revolution

Norway has already nearly decarbonised its power supply but it will be much harder to cut carbon emissions in other sectors. Owing to generous tax, toll, and parking incentives, Norway is a world leader in the deployment of electric vehicles. EVs (including both plug-in hybrid and all-electric models) comprised 29% of new car sales in May 2016. Officials in Oslo, Norway’s capital and most populous city, are also working to persuade residents to opt for means other than cars to get around. On June 23, the City Council voted to ban cars from the city centre by 2019 and approved a plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 95% from 1990 levels by 2030.

“A key part of the plan is to prioritise pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transport before car traffic, both when it comes to investments in infrastructure and the use of space,” Lan Marie Nguyen Berg, Oslo’s vice mayor for the environment, told Climate Home.

The bicycle urbanism experts at Copenhagenize Design Company call Oslo’s new bicycle infrastructure plan, which prioritises Copenhagen-style, curb-separated cycle tracks, “one of the most interesting and inspiring documents we’ve seen coming out of a municipality anywhere in the world.”

Pack leaders

Denmark is pursuing an even more aggressive path. In my new e-book, “Quitting Carbon: How Denmark Is Leading the Clean Energy Transition and Winning the Race to the Low-Carbon Future,” I describe how beginning in the mid-1970s Denmark’s power and heating sectors shifted first from oil to coal and, later, from coal to energy efficiency and clean energy supplied by biomass, the sun, and wind.

Under an energy agreement approved by Parliament in March 2012, all sectors – electricity, heating, industry, and transportation – are to be fossil fuel-free by 2050. A plan approved by the Danish Government in August 2013 added medium-term targets. It prohibited the use of oil for heating and all uses of coal by 2030, and stated that the electricity and heating sectors will be 100% renewable by 2035.

Unlike Norway, Denmark does not have a plentiful and cheap supply of domestic hydropower. The country is, however, making every effort to harness its abundant wind resources. The March 2012 energy agreement calls for 50% of Denmark’s electricity to be supplied by wind turbines by 2020.

In practice, this means Denmark is working to electrify every segment of the economy – from the power sector to heating to private automobiles. The predominantly state-owned utility DONG Energy recently invested US$10.3 million to install Denmark’s largest electric boiler, which will convert cheap surplus wind electricity into carbon-free heat for the district heating system in Aarhus, Denmark’s second city.

In rural areas where homes are not connected to one of Denmark’s district heating networks, oil-burning furnaces are being replaced with electric heat pumps. In time, the battery packs in thousands of electric vehicles will charge with surplus wind power at night.

Results

Denmark’s decades-long clean energy transition is delivering results. The country’s adjusted gross energy consumption is essentially unchanged from the early 1970s. By the end of 2014, renewable energy sources accounted for more than 53% of Denmark’s domestic electricity supply. The country’s CO2 emissions have declined by 27.4% since 1990.

While Denmark has focused on domestic actions to reduce its emissions, Norway’s just-announced 2030 target relies on EU and international carbon offsets. A looming challenge is the carbon footprint of country’s oil and gas sector.
The 2030 plan does not compel Norway's lucrative oil and gas industry to make domestic emissions cuts. Legacy fossil fuel assets are also problematic for Norway's neighbor, Sweden. On July 2, Sweden's centre-left government approved the sale of the German lignite (brown coal) assets held by state-owned utility Vattenfall to Czech utility EPH. Climate campaigners, including Al Gore, had implored the government to explore ways to keep the coal in the ground. Instead, Sweden will spend 300 million SEK (US$35.6 million / 308.8 million yuan) annually from 2018-2040 to buy and cancel allowances from the EU's emissions trading system.

Both examples reinforce how difficult it will be to achieve the climate targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement. After all, when exported Norwegian oil is consumed in the US or India, for example, the resulting carbon emissions don't besmirch Norway's carbon totals. Likewise, the carbon emitted by Vattenfall's lignite-fired power plants in Germany, accrues to Germany's carbon ledger, not to Sweden's.

Electrification, biofuels, and energy efficiency solutions – deployed in the Nordic nations and beyond – must succeed in driving down demand for fossil fuels everywhere. In the end, when counting carbon, the only numbers that matter are global.

courtesy:chinadialogue

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UK faces multiple climate threats, warns new report

• John McGarrity

12.07.2016

Government and business need to do more to prepare for weather-related havoc, says committee

Climate change has increased the likelihood of last winter’s devastating floods in the UK by 40%, say scientists at Imperial College London / (Image by alh1)

The UK will be increasingly exposed to international and domestic risks from climate change that will cut across almost all areas of policy, a new report warned on July 12.

A study by the UK’s independent advisory body Committee on Climate Change (CCC), released as new prime minister Theresa May prepared to take occupancy of 10 Downing Street, said government, business, public services and individuals will need to prepare for the consequences of extreme weather as the world’s climate warms.

“Delaying or failing to take appropriate steps will increase the costs and risks for all UK nations arising from the changing climate,” said Lord Krebs, chairman of the adaptation sub-committee of the committee on climate change, in a statement accompanying the report.

In the CCC’s report, which is an update of previous estimates of adaptation risks, flooding and coastal change is viewed as one of the main climate hazards to households, businesses and infrastructure.

In the past 12 months the UK has endured serious flooding in northern cities, while intense bursts of rainfall have inundated electricity substations and washed away roads and bridges. Such events are expected to become increasingly frequent, raising major questions about how to reduce the impacts and assess the economic risks of climate change.

The report also warns of risks to health, wellbeing and productivity from increasingly frequent high temperatures, and the impact that extreme weather will have on public water supply, and the availability of water for power generation and industry.

Climate change will also have serious consequences for “natural capital”, such as terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems, soils and biodiversity.

The report also presents some stark warnings on how climate change will impact populations, economies and livelihoods around the world, which in turn would have big consequences for the UK, which ranked as the world’s fifth-largest economy in 2014.

Among these impacts include loss of life and major humanitarian crises, disruption to agriculture in a world that is experiencing a big increase in population, and interference to supply chains, food prices, international trade and overseas investments

The CCC report cited the example of a US drought in 2012, which contributed to increasing the price of soya which, in turn, led to some UK pig farmers being forced out of business.

“Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of weather extremes, disproportionately affecting low income populations. The UK is likely to be called upon to provide more resources for humanitarian assistance, and efforts to build state stability and long-term resilience could be undermined,” the report said, adding: 

“There are uncertain but potentially very significant international risks arising from climate-related human [migration], and the possibility of violent inter-state conflict over scarce natural resources.”

Natural disasters related to climate change, and longer-term trends such as water stress and desertification, could prompt populations to shift and migrate in response. While extremes in climate could also mean that the UK’s overseas aid budget is increasingly used for short-term disaster response rather than long-term development aid, the report continues.

The CCC report said it was too early to tell how the UK’s vote to withdraw from the EU would impact efforts to prepare for the effects of climate change, “The risks don’t change because of Brexit,” said Lord Krebs. However, he added: “Some of the legislation that might underpin our resilience and preparation for future climate changes is EU legislation and therefore there will be a need in due course to replace that with national legislation.”  

Concerns have also been expressed by one of the CCC report’s authors that the UK’s withdrawal from the EU will make it harder for the UK to tackle climate change, as the 28-nation bloc (which it will be until the UK exits formally) is often more effective when acts together rather than unilaterally.
courtesy:chinadiakogue

Book Review: Love Canal, a toxic history from colonial times to the present

• Kate Logan

11.07.2016

Historian Richard S Newman explores why the “toxic trash heap” became a symbol for citizen activists around the world

"Danger, Hazardous Area" sign as seen through chain link fence at the Love Canal containment zone. (Image by EPA)

“Even in the 21st century there is still power in the Love Canal brand,” writes Richard S Newman in his historical account of Love Canal, the neighbourhood in northern New York where a community built on top of a chemical dumpsite spurred widespread recognition of the dangers of toxic waste.

It is the legacy of this Love Canal “brand", Newman argues, that has enabled this site to shed light on the alarming consequences of industrial waste, both in the United States and beyond.

Love Canal is perhaps best known for instigating the 1980 adoption of the Superfund Act, the first US law to establish means for remediating toxic waste disposal sites. But why were tens of thousands of gallons of hazardous chemicals dumped there in the first place? And how did the residents of Love Canal transform local health concerns into an environmental movement that influenced national policy, and sparked a broader discussion of citizens’ environmental rights?

These questions are central to Newman’s meticulously-researched work.  The US historian examines the historical pathways that led to the tragedy. A key narrative is the rise of industrial development in America and human exploitation of the environment.

Newman argues, “The Love Canal citizens’ movement was the first group to challenge this industrial path-dependence; to break the cycle of disposable land use that had long dominated area politics and economics.”

The book is split chronologically into three sections: the history of the Love Canal site and why chemicals were dumped there, how Love Canal erupted in 1978 into a disaster that merited a national-level response, and what lessons are to be gleaned from the disaster.

While most commentaries of Love Canal begin when chemicals were buried en masse in the mid-20th century, Newman begins his account in the 17th century. He traces how the Niagara region had been eyed as an ideal environment to be commandeered for economic gain, seducing visionary William Love to dig the physical canal as part of his attempt to build a “Model City” before abandoning the project amidst financial troubles around the turn of the 20th century.

The same landscape – rich in natural resources and hydroelectric power – enticed Hooker Chemical Company to locate production there, and later use Love’s abandoned canal to dump chemical byproducts. Shortly after the dumpsite was sealed, a suburban neighbourhood was built and working-class families moved in.

Flash forward to the summer of 1978, when residents began linking health concerns to chemical leachate seeping into groundwater.

Love Canal’s transformation from an isolated incident to a public health crisis during the summer of 1978 was a direct result of citizens’ efforts to advocate for their right to live in a safe environment. People held protests that attracted media attention, hosted tours of the polluted site for officials, and mapped data to illustrate how the site threatened human health.

Newman argues that Love Canal solidified its historical role as a symbol for toxic waste “nightmares” when New York’s head health official declared it necessary to evacuate people from the site, after succumbing to pressure from aggrieved residents. Moreover, by framing events not only as a health crisis but as an environmental disaster, local residents reconfigured America’s environmental movement to incorporate protection of people as well as places.

Personal stories

Newman’s historical approach highlights humans’ relationship with the environment and how individual people shaped Love Canal’s legacy. He tells stories that are often ignored, such as the role of housewives-turned-environmental activists; the interplay between multiple citizen groups and their adoption of different tactics to push government for solutions; and the journalists who kept the case in the national limelight. These narratives echo factors that continue to influence environmental justice movements today.

As an historical analysis, Newman’s book may leave policy wonks wanting; especially in terms of details of new environmental laws that followed in the wake of Love Canal, or the incident’s influence on industrial regulation. For example, though Newman briefly mentions new information transparency and “right-to-know” laws, a deeper analysis of these laws, their influence on relationship with NIMBY movements and citizen activism would have been appreciated. In that vein, it was interesting to learn how Love Canal activists served as a key source for disseminating information to other toxic waste victims across the US in the pre-Internet era, giving rise to the idea of “Love Canal, USA”: a nation littered with hazardous waste sites.

Toxic legacy lives on

Newman reminds readers that the Love Canal story is not over: over 20,000 tonnes of toxic waste remains buried in the ground. After an old sewer pipe was removed in 2011, a new round of health-related complaints erupted, leading to over one thousand claims to be filed by 2014. Meanwhile, about one quarter of the US population currently lives within five miles of a Superfund site, defined as one of the worst 1,000 or so hazardous waste sites placed on a National Priorities List for long-term cleanup.

The Superfund is perhaps the most well-known policy solution to the notoriously difficult issue of soil pollution remediation, but the law has not necessarily been successful in addressing financial and technical challenges.

Lessons for China

Newman’s focus on the legacy of Love Canal and how it persists in shaping public perception worldwide is certainly relevant for countries that still lack policies to handle similar events. Most recently, earlier this year, hundreds of pupils attending a new campus of Changzhou Foreign Languages School, a top secondary school in China’s Jiangsu province, became ill with ailments that were quickly linked to pollution from three former chemical plants situated next to the school.

The media’s labelling of the incident as “China’s Love Canal” arguably refocused China’s national soil pollution discussion to the risks of developing former industrial sites, in addition to just remediating polluted farmland. Though China still lacks legal procedures for handling soil pollution, in the wake of the incident, China’s State Council finally released its long-awaited national Soil Action Plan, and a new Soil Pollution Law is on the legislative agenda for 2017.

Love Canal is very much an American story.  Still, Newman’s book reminds us as new incidents arise to not only consider how to handle these sites going forward, but to reflect on the deep-rooted historical causes of these incidents.

courtesy:chinadialogue