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Month: October 2021

Is Asia high on hydrogen?

Posted on by dishanth
Is Asia high on hydrogen?

Judging from how often the H-word came up during this week’s marathon dialogues held to discuss the energy transition in Asia, it is clear that hydrogen is having its big moment.

Even as players in the region acknowledge that it might take some time before their investments in low-carbon hydrogen pay off, many are pinning their hopes on the hydrogen economy redrawing the energy map of tomorrow.

At two separate conferences this week, high-level representatives from energy institutes based in Japan and Australia were especially bullish on the prospects of hydrogen. Both countries are leading the charge in Asia to roll out technological solutions to promote the alternative fuel as part of their energy transition strategies.

Speaking at the APAC Energy Conversations, a virtual event organised as part of the Energy Industries Council (EIC)’s biannual flagship conference, Miranda Taylor, who leads National Energy Resources Australia (NERA), said that her organisation is particularly focused on “the hydrogen journey”.

 

Australia’s energy institutes are now focused on helping the island continent build a renewable hydrogen industry, said Miranda Taylor, chief executive of NERA (top right in picture) at the recent EIC-APAC Energy Conversations. NERA is also working with authorities to ensure that the decommissioning of coal in Asia is up to standard. [Click to enlarge] Source: GE Gas Power

NERA is a non-profit working to support the island continent’s energy transition, by coordinating the provision of seed funding for companies and innovators. “Within the industry, we all know that the hydrogen story is a complex one. It is also an ‘unproven’ story, because there are doubts about how clean the fuel will finally be. Nonetheless, considerable investments in hydrogen are pouring in,” she said.

Professor Tatsuya Terazawa, chairman and chief executive of Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics, similarly believes that green hydrogen – hydrogen generated from renewables –  is the answer if Asia is seeking a “pragmatic approach”.

 

Not cheap nor lucrative yet

The region, unfortunately, cannot enjoy the growth potential of solar and wind power, due to its land and weather limitations, said Terazawa, at a Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) dialogue session on Monday. “There are also no transmission lines connecting Asia with regions rich in these renewables. But we can innovate and find a way to lower the costs of transporting hydrogen and it will alter the calculus of the energy transition in Asia,” he said.

It remains unclear how clean or lucrative hydrogen can be. Hydrogen has been the promised fuel of the future since the 1970s but there have been many false starts in the past decade. More than 95 per cent of the hydrogen used today, commonly known as ‘grey hydrogen’, is extracted from natural gas. The process of manufacturing hydrogen involves electrolysing water to separate hydrogen atoms from oxygen and is hugely water and energy-intensive.

 

An overview map of where different countries are at developing a hydrogen strategy. Investment in hydrogen production projects worldwide is increasing and the number of countries that already have strategies for the use of the fuel has increased from just three in 2019 to 17 today. Image: World Energies Council

 

Over the past few years, the industry has been turning to low-carbon energy sources such as renewables and nuclear power to extract hydrogen, but it is still prohibitively expensive. Within the region, countries like Singapore are opting to develop subsea cables to import renewable energy from its neighbours, rather than hedge bets on hydrogen.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), in the Global Hydrogen Review, its new annual publication focused on tracking progress in hydrogen production and demand, estimates that putting the hydrogen sector on a path consistent with global net zero emissions by 2050 requires US$1.2 trillion in investments by 2030.

To curb climate change, about US$90 billion of public money needs to be channelled into clean energy innovation worldwide as quickly as possible – with around half of it dedicated to hydrogen-related technology, the report said.

 

Within the industry, we all know that the hydrogen story is a complex one. It is also an ‘unproven’ story, because there are doubts about how clean the fuel will finally be.

Miranda Taylor, CEO, National Energy Resources Australia (NERA)

 

In Asia, Japan is spearheading the Hydrogen Energy Ministerial (HEM) meeting, a multilateral initiative organised to create consensus on hydrogen-related collaborations. According to the Institute of Energy Economics, for the region to realise net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, annual costs could go up to 2.9 per cent of each country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

“It is difficult to get a region that is the growth centre of the world to give up on growth,” said Terazawa.

Japan is banking on transforming hydrogen into ammonia to make it much less expensive to carry in the absence of transmission pipelines, and Terazawa thinks it is the right way forward. To transport hydrogen as a liquid, it needs to be cooled to a temperature of -252 °C, while ammonia can be carried as a liquid at just -33 °C, explained Terazawa.

“It will be the cheapest option for Asia if it wants to decarbonise,” he said.

 

Where will the gold rush lead to? 

Referring to Malaysia’s energy ministry’s announcement this week that it will limit renewable energy exports to Singapore, Andrew Bedford, director of energy transition at US-based consultancy Jacobs, said that governments in Asia are feeling the heat to meet their net-zero targets. This might fuel a more nationalistic mindset when it comes to the way they think about renewables and energy, he said.

“At the same time, it means that [countries that used to be] major energy importers now have an opportunity to invest in emerging areas of opportunities, diversify their energy mix and own a share of a new market,” said Bedford.

Describing the surge of investments in hydrogen-related infrastructure as a “green gold rush”, Bedford said that bigger players are now snapping up “the best areas of land” that are suited to such development.

 

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that hydrogen will become an important part of the Net-Zero Emissions (NZE) scenario, though the fuel forms only one part of the puzzle. [Click to enlarge] Image: IEA

 

 

In terms of coming up with comprehensive hydrogen plans, Southeast Asia still has a lot of catching up to do, said Bedford. The number of countries with hydrogen strategies has increased from just three in 2019 to 17 today, but none are from the region.

Singapore is working on one right now, though it is also taking a cautious approach in doing so. The island state announced on Monday that it will be awarding S$55 million to research projects that are focused on improving the technical and economic feasibility of low-carbon technologies, particularly hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), to enable local deployment in the future.

By 2035, Singapore aims to import up to 30 per cent of its power supply by 2035 in a bid to diversify the gas-dependent nation’s energy mix with renewables.

Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong, delivering a speech at SIEW, spoke about low-carbon hydrogen’s potential to “be a game-changer for Singapore’s energy transition”.

 

Speaking at the opening of Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW), Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong said that the move to import low-carbon energy will be a “key needle mover” in Singapore’s energy transition in the near to medium term. Image: SIEW

 

For hydrogen to be deployed meaningfully, especially for the power sector, global supply chains and proper infrastructure for hydrogen need to be established and the costs of hydrogen transport, storage and use need to be competitive, said Gan.

 

Consigning coal to history 

Experts at the energy dialogues said that while the viability of green hydrogen is being hammered out, gas is likely to play a role as a bridging fuel in the region’s energy transition.

Shantanu Som, engineering director for GE Gas Power, advocates for a more measured approach. “Companies are getting mixed signals on where they should be headed for. On one hand, Australia is aspiring to be the hydrogen hub for Asia and the government is taking very bold steps. On the other hand, you have China, which has a five-year plan but is just putting small stepping stones in-between in a very cautious manner,” he said.

China’s new road map, launched on Tuesday, pledged to hit peak greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade but stopped short of firm commitments to reduce reliance on coal.

When leaders gather at the COP26 summit in Glasgow this weekend, hydrogen is unlikely to prominently feature on their discussion agenda. The world needs to work on phasing out coal first, said energy experts.

Organisations working with authorities on pushing for the energy transition will need to have the capacity to make sure that coal decommissioning is done to the highest standards, said Taylor.

“The Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, has a considerable amount of offshore oil and gas infrastructure, which will need to be decommissioned or repurposed in the next decades. For a just transition to happen, we have to be realistic and make sure that workers are retrained, that they will be equipped with different skills and capabilities to work in a different industry,” she said.

 

 

Source Eco Business

Manchester Airport first to get direct supply of sustainable jet fuel

Posted on by dishanth
Manchester Airport first to get direct supply of sustainable jet fuel

Manchester Airport is to become the first in the UK to have a direct supply of jet fuel made from household and commercial waste.

The sustainable fuel is blended with traditional jet fuel, with a 70% lower carbon footprint.

It will be delivered by existing pipelines from a refinery in Stanlow, Cheshire.

Operations director Rad Taylor said: “It’s really game-changing for the industry.”

He said: “It’s essentially about using non-recyclable waste, which would typically go into landfill, and using that to generate aviation fuel so it’s a real sustainable alternative.”

The airport, part of Manchester Airports Group, will work with Fulcrum BioEnergy Limited UK, which is developing a new refinery for sustainable aviation fuel.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “This partnership is a huge leap forward for the long-term competitiveness of Britain’s aerospace sector, demonstrating how, by going green, industry can create jobs and help level-up across the UK.

“Cleaner aerospace and aviation is at the centre of our plans to end the UK’s contribution to climate change by 2050.”

 

Neil Robinson, MAG’s CSR and airspace change director, said: “Today really is a landmark moment in our journey towards a decarbonised aviation sector.

“By working towards a future supply of SAF, direct to Manchester airport via existing pipelines from a local refinery, we’re making sustainable operations accessible for airlines based here.

“The introduction of SAF is testament to the innovation we have seen, and the collaboration between airports, airlines, the government and suppliers like Fulcrum to achieve real progress towards our goal of net zero for UK aviation by 2050.”

Fulcrum NorthPoint is set to produce around 100 million litres of SAF per year, which when blended 50/50 with traditional jet fuel, could fill the tanks of 1,200 Boeing 777-300s.

 

 

 

Source BBC

How to Tackle the Sustainable Development Goals

Posted on by dishanth
How to Tackle the Sustainable Development Goals

Launched in 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a global agenda for “people and prosperity, now and in the future.”

There are 17 goals, addressing social and environmental priorities from “quality education” to “climate action.” Those goals are supported by 169 specific targets. The SDGs are intended for action by governments, organizations, and individuals, with full implementation by 2030.

NBS asked: What do the SDGs mean for business? How should companies best address them?

Our conversation brought together:

  • Dr. David Griggs, Professor at Warwick University (UK). Griggs helped develop the SDGs and has consulted with many organizations using them. He is the former head of the United Kingdom’s climate research centre and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scientific assessment unit.

  • Martin Fryer, a sustainability professional based in New Zealand. At the time of this conversation, Fryer was Sustainability Manager at utility company Mercury Energy. He was previously sustainability manager at Auckland Airport and is now Head of Strategy and Impact at sustainability consultancy thinkstep-anz.

 

 

Below is a summary of their advice on how organizations can best use the SDGs.

 

The SDGs have a range of benefits

Dave Griggs: The motivation for using the SDGs is different for different organizations. Some see themselves as environmental or sustainable organizations and want to make that part of their DNA as a selling point, and the SDGs give them a framework to do that.

Others look at it quite differently. I was speaking to the CEO of a very large international conglomerate who had embraced the SDGs quite thoroughly. I asked him about his motivation and he said it was avoidance of risk, specifically around reputation.

I was talking to people at a very large bank who, again, had embraced the SDGs completely, both in terms of their internal practices and their lending practices. I asked them why they’d done that and they said, “In terms of our lending practices, we need to know that the organizations we’re lending to are going to be able to pay us back. We want them to be around for a while.” But in terms of their internal operations, the rationale was competitiveness, in terms of recruiting staff.

 

In implementation, start small – but be honest and thorough

Dave: I think people get quite anxious about choosing SDGs or choosing targets within them. And it’s absolutely fine to look at your business and see how it aligns with the SDGs and to say, “All right, there may be three or four which are the primary ones and a few that are slightly less relevant.” Just concentrate on the main ones first.

Certainly, if you’re starting out on your journey, you start with the ones that are the most important. But, equally, it’s not an exercise to just make you look good. So, you can’t just pick them on the basis of the things you’re doing well and ignore the things you’re not doing well. Usually it’s the things that are hard, that you haven’t done already, that bring you the real benefit.

Martin Fryer: In New Zealand, the SDGs started to gain traction three or four years ago. At first, a lot of it was driven by annual disclosures: How can we talk about our sustainability journey or performance in a way that’s more engaging? And the SDGs were jumped on by some organizations and you saw an absolute plethora of the logos in annual reports. It was very much a reporting exercise.

But now, there are a much smaller number of organizations using the SDGs, but the difference is they are actually using them. They’ve actually taken them and internalized them. They’ve gone into real depth into how the SDGs relate to their organization.

 

Connect the SDGs to company operations

Dave: How do you approach these 17 goals, 169 targets, which when you first look at them, blows your mind a bit? The answer is: You look where your business is aligned to them. And that goes for whether you’re a country, or a business, or a government.

 I’ll give you an example. I was speaking to a health NGO who build hospitals in the developing world. They said, “We’ve completely aligned ourselves to the SDGs. We’re building this hospital in Africa and we’ve aligned it to SDG3, which is health. And we’ve made sure it’s properly aligned.” And I said, “Have you aligned to all the other goals?” They said, “Yeah, but we’re a health NGO. We just built hospitals, so we’re just SDG3.”

And I said, “Is this hospital going to use energy [SDG7]?” “Yeah.” “Where’s that energy going to come from?” “Okay.” “Now what about water [SDG6]? You use an awful lot of water in a hospital…” “Okay.” “What about the staff that you employ and providing a fair wage [SDG5]? Do you have equal pay for women in the hospital [SDG8]?” And so on. And we went through and virtually every goal, we found somewhere in building that hospital.

I must admit his reaction was, “You’ve just made my job 16 times more difficult!” But he also acknowledged that by doing that, they arrived at a far better outcome.

 

The SDGs’ special quality is integration

Martin: There has gradually been a realization of the interconnectedness of everything, that having a focus in one area has a knock-on effect in so many others.

From my experience in the corporate sector, [sustainability-related ideas] have come in waves. So, there was a focus on environmental protection and you had to have an EMS and it had to be compliant with ISO 14001 and international best practice and externally audited and verified. And then the focus now is more on the social side of things and how you’re treating your own people. Now, we’re all developing modern slavery statements.

At Mercury, we’ve just changed our corporate social responsibility policy into an integrated sustainability policy. It literally went to the Boards last month. So, the language of sustainable business practice is changing as well.

Now, we’ve done that without referring to the SDGs at all. But if you do embrace the SDGs, then it forces you to look at that interconnectedness. If you think about things in a far more integrated way, you can potentially get more value out of that process.

 

Collaboration (SDG 17) might be the most important goal

Martin: The New Zealand government has set a net zero 2050 target for the country. It is an amazing thing for organizations and society here to engage with. And we’re not going to achieve any of it in isolation. No one organization is going to find the solution. It has to be through collaboration and partnerships.

Dave: I think you have it perfectly, but the 17th SDG, “partnership for the goals,” is often seen as too hard. I’ve actually done some work with some colleagues about why collaboration is so difficult. It’s really because our entire structures are set up to be competitive.

Businesses compete against each other and government departments compete for their slice of the budget. So, when you now say, “This is a goal-based approach where we need to collaborate and bring the best minds together from social, economic, and environmental” — it’s actually very hard to do that. And also people speak very different languages, if the engineers have got to talk to the social scientists.

Actually, the COVID pandemic has given us very good examples of that collaboration. In the UK, we formed the SAGE committee, where all of the scientists and the politicians get together and discuss every day, and they’ve learned to speak the same language.

We had a collaboration example in Australia, where there were companies that wanted to do combined heat and power, using waste heat from operations to heat buildings. And it was impossible because the regulations were so complex. It took an NGO, ClimateWorks Australia, to say: “This just isn’t good enough.” They got together a number of companies, the government regulators, the generators, the network operators, and so on. And they basically sat them down for two years and sort of locked the door until they agreed on changes to the energy market rules. Then, because everybody had been in the room, the rules were relatively easy to implement.

Martin: Awesome. Yes, I think one of the most rewarding things that I participated in was when I was at Auckland Airport. The airport was about to do significant expansion, and we saw the opportunity to get better social outcomes from that huge capital spend that was coming to a part of Auckland which is lower socioeconomic class. We pulled together central government organizations, NGOs, local councils, philanthropic center, the airport company itself, and some of the big construction firms that were going to be involved in the project.

And it comes back to this idea of collaboration, and Dave talking about putting people into a room and just closing the door and not letting them leave until they sorted it out. The most important thing was starting the meeting by saying, “Has everybody left their baggage outside the door? Because when you come into this room, you’re representing a vision of the future.” In the end, we created an airport jobs and skills hub, which would enable the local community to get training, and employment.

 

The SDGs are imperfect but useful

Dave: The SDGs are a political compromise reached by 200 countries. And if you imagine trying to get 200 countries to agree what they’re going to have for breakfast, you’d be there forever. Trying to get them to agree a pathway towards a sustainable future for the world — It was miraculous we ended up with anything. So, they are not perfect.

There were things that I tried to get in that aren’t there, and there are things that are in there that I tried to get out and I couldn’t. For example, I think culture is hugely underplayed in the SDGs. And indigenous peoples are underplayed in the SDGs.

Some people say, “The SDGs, there are too many of them. They’re not perfect. They don’t cover this, they don’t cover that, and so we shouldn’t use them.” What they fail to realize is the enormity of the achievement in getting them at all. There is no question in my mind that if we all follow the 17 goals, we’d be in a better place than we are now.

 

Resources to Start With

Dave Griggs recommends: A Guide to SDG Interactions: from Science to Implementation (International Science Council). The report examines the interactions between the various goals and targets, determining to what extent they reinforce or conflict with each other. It includes a simple 7-point assessment scale.

Martin Fryer recommends: SDG Compass (GRI, UN Global Compact, and WBCSD). The guide supports companies in aligning their strategies with the SDGs and in measuring and managing their contribution.”

Special thanks to Fred Dahlmann (Warwick University) for suggesting this conversation.

 

 

Source Network for Business Sustainability

‘Green infrastructure’ shift for sustainable cities

Posted on by dishanth
‘Green infrastructure’ shift for sustainable cities

Climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution are just some of the issues facing the world’s rapidly growing cities as urban populations swell.

Now, with 70 percent of carbon dioxide emissions emanating from cities, a new initiative promoting integrated approaches to urban development aims to reduce their ecological footprint. And pioneers of the project hope to see it adopted by cities worldwide.

UrbanShift, led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), will support 23 cities to develop a range of strategies, such as green infrastructure, low-carbon transport systems and schemes to reduce or recycle waste. The initiative is being run in partnership with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), World Resources Institute (WRI), World Bank, Asian Development Bank, C40 Cities and others.

 

You don’t solve just a transport problem and then an urban planning problem and then an energy problem; you find solutions that actually help you do all these things together.”

Aniruddha Dasgupta, president and CEO, World Resources Institute

 

The programme is being rolled out in Argentina, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, with the hope that it will create conversations about sustainable cities across the world.

“The noise around what these cities are accomplishing can very much lead to other cities adopting it on their own – and that’s obviously what we want, shifting that global discourse and actions towards a more sustainable future,” said Inger Andersen, executive director at UNEP, speaking at an event to launch UrbanShift in late September.

“We will advocate for sustainable investments to ensure that the cities we build in the future […] are aligned not only with key sustainable infrastructure but also with critical investments in nature-based solutions and ecosystem restoration.”

 

Population explosion

The proportion of people living in urban areas worldwide is predicted to increase from 55 percent in 2018 to 68 percent by 2050, according to UN figures, with close to 90 percent of the growth forecast to occur in Asia and Africa.

Speaking at the launch event, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, chief executive and chair of the GEF, said rapid rural to urban migration in recent years meant environmental policies had often not been geared towards sustainability in cities. “In just a matter of a decade and a half, many of the countries in the global South have gone from these rural-based economies into an urban life,” he said.

As a city leader now, it is necessary to solve multiple problems at the same time, said Aniruddha Dasgupta, president and chief executive of WRI — for example, creating jobs in the wake of the pandemic while also protecting nature and decarbonising practices.

“You don’t solve just a transport problem and then an urban planning problem and then an energy problem; you find solutions that actually help you do all these things together,” he said.

Among its aims, UrbanShift will seek to avoid more than 130 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions and restore 1 million hectares of land, while impacting the lives of over 58 million people in the target cities.

 

Building momentum

Speaking to SciDev.Net, Tobias Kühner, an international consultant and researcher in urban planning at the University of Brasilia in Brazil, said UrbanShift recognised the need to solve the challenges facing cities. However, he questioned whether it seemed different enough from previous initiatives to have a much broader impact.

“Most [urban initiatives] are developed in the global North, which I think is a big disadvantage,” said Kühner. It would be interesting, he said, to see initiatives driven by South-South collaborations and in smaller-sized cities that often get less attention.

Sheela Patel, founder and director of the India-based Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centers, raised concerns that informal settlements were cited in UrbanShift’s brochure as a specific focus area in only one country — Rwanda — and often remain outside the focus of investments. “All these organisations champion adaptation and resilience-building, but a social justice lens is not obvious as a critical central element of this process,” she added.

The brochure does, however, highlight that 25 percent of city dwellers live in informal settlements, most of whom are women.

Luan Santos, a professor and researcher in sustainable finance and investment at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, believes the project could be helpful in stimulating dialogue and resources for dealing with environmental impacts. “The environmental and climate agenda in Brazil has not been prioritised in the current government, which is why the issue of financing becomes even more critical,” he said.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.

 

 

Source SciDev.Net

Cop26: world poised for big leap forward on climate crisis, says John Kerry

Posted on by dishanth
Cop26: world poised for big leap forward on climate crisis, says John Kerry

The world is poised to make a big leap forward at the UN Cop26 climate summit, with world leaders “sharpening their pencils” to make fresh commitments that could put the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement within reach, John Kerry has said.

Kerry, special envoy for climate to Joe Biden, gave an upbeat assessment of the prospects for Cop26, which begins in Glasgow at the end of this month, saying he anticipated “surprising announcements” from key countries.

“The measure of success at Glasgow is we will have the largest, most significant increase in ambition [on cutting emissions] by more countries than everyone ever imagined possible. A much larger group of people are stepping up,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “I know certain countries are working hard right now on what they can achieve.”

Kerry cautioned that there was “still a lot of distance to travel in the next four weeks” and that the progress he anticipated was not yet “signed, sealed and delivered”. That view echoes private soundings the Guardian has taken from the UK hosts, the UN and other key figures.

But he said Cop26 could set the scene for further progress to follow swiftly. “There is not a wall that comes down after Glasgow,” said Kerry. “It is the starting line for the rest of the decade.”

But Kerry, one of the pivotal figures at the talks, also acknowledged the outcome would fall short of a fully fledged deal meeting the aims of the Paris accord, which binds nations to hold global heating to “well below” 2C, with an aspirational limit of 1.5C.

 

Kerry delivers a speech at Cop25 in Madrid in 2019. Photograph: Fernando Villar/EPA

 

“Will it be that every country has signed on and locked in? The answer is no, that will not happen,” he said. “But it is possible to reach that if [Cop26 creates] enough momentum.”

He said: “Glasgow has to show strong commitment to keeping 1.5C in reach, but that does not mean every country will get there. We acknowledge that there will be a gap [between the emissions cuts countries offer and those needed for a 1.5C limit]. The question is, will we have created a critical mass? We are close to that. If we have some more countries stepping up in the next weeks, we have something to build on.”

Under the 2015 Paris agreement, 197 parties – every government bar a few failed states – agreed to hold global temperature rises to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels, while “pursuing efforts” to stay within 1.5C. But the commitments governments made on cutting emissions at Paris, called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), were too weak, and would lead to more than 3C of heating, so countries also agreed to return every five years to ratchet up their ambitions.

Those commitments should be made at the two-week Glasgow summit, which begins on 31 October, having been postponed for a year because of Covid-19, to be attended by more than 120 world leaders. In the six years since Paris, scientists have presented a clearer warning of the dangers of allowing temperatures to rise beyond the tougher 1.5C limit, so the declared aim of the UK hosts is to “keep 1.5C alive” by gathering enough NDCs, climate finance and pledges to phase out coal and preserve forests, to make that possible.

 

Staying within the 1.5C threshold would require carbon emissions to fall by 45% this decade, but apart from a brief plunge owing to Covid-19 lockdowns, emissions are still rising and are forecast to show their second-strongest leap on record this year. Despite new NDCs from the US, the UK, the EU and others, in total the commitments so far would lead to a 16% rise in emissions.

China, the world’s biggest emitter, will be key to any hopes of a strong outcome at Cop26, but has yet to submit a new NDC. The president, Xi Jinping, who has not left China since the start of the pandemic, has not said whether he will come to Glasgow.

Kerry said Cop26 could still be a success if Xi did not attend. “I am hopeful that President Xi is very much engaged and is personally making decisions, and personally committed,” he said, pointing to a long phone call between Xi and Biden recently in which the climate was discussed. “There was a very clear commitment to work with the US to achieve our goals. We are very hopeful.”

Another positive sign, he said, was that rich nations were close to fulfilling a longstanding pledge that developing countries would receive $100bn (£73bn) a year in financial assistance to help them cut emissions and cope with the effects of extreme weather, which has so far been missed. Biden recently vowed to double the US pledge of climate finance to $11bn a year by 2024, and other countries have stepped up their efforts, leading the climate economist Nicholas Stern to predict that the $100bn target would be met next year.

 

Xi Jinping remotely attends the Leaders Summit on Climate in April. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

 

“We need to get $100bn locked in, whether that is this year or next year. I believe we are going to be there with the money President Biden offered,” Kerry said.

He said countries must also agree to reform fossil fuel subsidies, which amount to hundreds of billions a year. “If you want a definition of insanity, it’s subsidising the very problem you are trying to solve,” he said.

Kerry, a longstanding US senator who challenged George W Bush for the presidency and served as US secretary of state under Barack Obama when the Paris agreement was signed, is embarking on a final hectic round of diplomacy in the next few weeks, with meetings planned with Russia, China, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. World leaders will also meet for the G20 summit in the days before they arrive in Glasgow.

In those meetings, Kerry will point to the commitments Biden has made domestically, including phasing out fossil fuels from electricity generation and reducing emissions from cars. “The US is heading to a post-2035 future where our power sector will be carbon-free. That is not a small step. I hope that can encourage other countries too, with regard to what they might be trying to achieve.”

He will also emphasise the technological advances that could help countries to move faster. “There is a massive amount of money and energy going to bringing these [clean technologies] up to scale,” he said.

Kerry was also confident the US’s post-pandemic infrastructure bill, which Biden hopes to be the engine of a “green recovery”, but which may be scaled back from the $3.5tn envisaged amid opposition and delays, would be passed.

Asked if he was worried about there being any upsets at the Cop26 conference, Kerry said: “I’m not succumbing to any fear at this point. Keep going, straight ahead.”

Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister and president-designate of Cop26, travelled to the French capital on Tuesday to call for world leaders to reprise the spirit of the Paris agreement, and come forward urgently with fresh commitments. He said: “Cop26 is not a photo op or a talking shop. It must be the forum where we put the world on track to deliver on climate. And that is down to leaders … Responsibility rests with each and every country, and we must all play our part. Because on climate, the world will succeed or fail as one.”

 

 

Source The Guardian

Facebook to block illegal sales of protected Amazon rainforest areas

Posted on by dishanth
Facebook to block illegal sales of protected Amazon rainforest areas

On Friday, embattled social media giant Facebook announced it would crack down on the illegal sales of protected Amazon rainforest land via its platform, according to a blog post by the company.

The move comes after a BBC investigation found that the company’s Marketplace product was being used to broker sales of protected lands, including Indigenous territories and national forest reserves. The revelations provoked an inquiry by Brazil’s Supreme Court, but Facebook said at the time that it wouldn’t take independent action on its own over the issue.

Facebook didn’t state what prompted its change of heart, but the blog post stated the company is committed to sustainability.

“We’re committed to sustainability and to protecting land in ecological conservation areas,” said the post. “We are updating our commerce policies to explicitly prohibit the buying or selling of land of any type in ecological conservation areas on our commerce products across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.”

Facebook said it “will now review listings on Facebook Marketplace against an international organisation’s authoritative database of protected areas to identify listings that may violate this new policy.” According to a report from BBC News, that database is the one run by the UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), which catalogues protected areas.

But experts immediately raised doubts about the effectiveness of Facebook’s approach since the social media company doesn’t require users to specify the coordinates of the land they are selling.

“If they don’t make it mandatory for sellers to provide the location of the area on sale, any attempt at blocking them will be flawed,” Brenda Brito, a Brazilian lawyer and scientist told BBC News. “They may have the best database in the world, but if they don’t have some geo-location reference, it won’t work.”

Facebook is reeling this week after revelations by whistleblower France Haugen, a former product manager on the civic integrity team at Facebook, that the company aided and abetted the spread of misinformation across its platforms to increase “engagement”, knowingly facilitated illegal activities, and put profit over the well-being of its users.

But even before the latest disclosures, Facebook had been under fire from environmental organisations and news outlets for blocking and restricting distribution of stories on climate change and other environmental issues.

This story was published with permission from Mongabay.com.

 

 

Source Eco Business

 

Google launches new features to help users shrink their carbon footprints

Posted on by dishanth
Google launches new features to help users shrink their carbon footprints

Google announced a suite of new features that it says will help people who use their platforms make more sustainable choices. The new services focus on reducing planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions and are primarily found on Search, Maps, Travel, and Nest.

But before we get into the details of how their new tools work, a quick note of context; some environmental advocates have called out companies for shifting responsibility for the climate crisis onto individual consumers. Holding big corporate polluters accountable for their emissions far outweighs any one consumers’ individual impact. And Wednesday’s announcements from Google aren’t really designed to reduce the company’s own carbon footprint.

That being said, there’s no time to lose to the prevent the climate crisis from getting worse, and every bit of emissions-savings helps. For those who might want some new tools to rein in their own emissions, here’s a breakdown of what Google just announced.

 

HOLDING BIG CORPORATE POLLUTERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR EMISSIONS FAR OUTWEIGHS ANY ONE CONSUMERS’ INDIVIDUAL IMPACT.

 

SEARCH

Sometime this month, Google plans to switch up the way results for “climate change” appear in its Search platform. Users will be led to a dedicated results page with “high quality climate-related information,” according to Google. It plans to source content from reputable authorities on the subject, including the United Nations.

The company also says it wants to make it easier for consumers to see more eco-friendly options when shopping on Google. By “early next year,” when users based in the US search for car models and manufacturers, Google will also show results for hybrid and electric vehicles. When searching for a particular electric vehicle, users will also find nearby charging stations that are compatible with the model.

Similarly, Google users in the US should begin to see suggestions Wednesday for more energy efficient home appliances when shopping online. That applies to searches for furnaces, dishwashers, water heaters, stoves, and dryers.

Google, however, did not announce any changes to searches on YouTube, which is a big platform for misinformation and lies about climate change. Of the top 100 videos that pop up when searching for “global warming,” 20 percent of views are for videos rife with misinformation, according to one recent analysis by nonprofit Avaaz. Google has also not met its own employees’ demands that it cancel contracts with fossil fuel companies or stop funding and lobbying for candidates that derail climate action.

 

MAPS

Starting Wednesday, people in the US can see which driving routes are the most fuel-efficient when using Google Maps. (The company originally announced in March that this feature was on the way.) Fuel efficiency cuts down on both gas costs and tailpipe pollution. When the most fuel-efficient route is also the fastest, Google Maps will default to that option. If the fuel-efficient route is slower, the app will show users their options so that they can make an educated decision on which to choose. Users in Europe will be able to do the same starting in 2022, according to Google.

That will, in theory, help individual Google Maps users reduce their CO2 emissions. A passenger vehicle typically releases just under five metric tons of CO2 a year. And a person in the US, which has one of the highest rates of per capita emissions in the world, might be responsible for about 18 metric tons a year. Google, on the other hand, unleashed 12,529,953 metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in 2019. That’s roughly equivalent to more than 2.73 million passenger vehicles’ pollution in a year.

 

Google’s new Lite Navigation for cyclists. GIF: Google

 

TRAVEL

When searching for flights through Google, starting Wednesday, users will now be able to see the carbon dioxide emissions associated with each flight. They’ll even be able to see how their seat choice affects their individual carbon footprint. Taking a seat in business or first class increases the amount of pollution you’re responsible for, since they take up more space and therefore a larger share of the plane’s emissions. Choosing a more fuel efficient itinerary can actually cut CO2 pollution from a given route by as much as 63 percent, recent research found.

 

NEST

 

 

 

Source The Verge

Climate change agreement may lead to ‘zero emission zones’ in Christchurch

Posted on by dishanth
Climate change agreement may lead to ‘zero emission zones’ in Christchurch

Christchurch leaders are considering joining a United Nations-linked climate change initiative that could lead to parts of the city becoming “zero emission zones”, meaning no petrol-guzzling cars, by 2025.

Christchurch City Council staff have recommended signing up to the Race to Zero climate initiative, following an invitation from Auckland mayor Phil Goff. Auckland and Wellington are both part of the initiative, which encompasses more than 730 cities worldwide.

The initiative encourages cities to pledge to reduce carbon emissions, come up with interim and long-term targets, take action on those targets, and produce annual reports showing their progress.

Councillor Sara Templeton backed the initiative, saying cities needed to work together while Cr Aaron Keown said it was just more virtue signalling.

Council staff say joining the initiative would reinforce the council’s commitment to “strong climate action” – but also admit that joining would be a “largely a symbolic move” and it would not require any significant additional council resources.

Keown said the initiative “was another group-think on how we’re going to change the planet without changing the planet”.

“Action leads to action,” he said. “You saying to me ‘I’m going to be an All Black’ – but you aren’t even playing rugby at the moment – isn’t going to get you to be an All Black.”

 

Cr Aaron Keown says joining the Race to Zero climate initiative will be more virtue-signalling. “Action leads to action,” he says. JOE JOHNSON/STUFF

 

Templeton, who chairs the council committee responsible for climate change, said the initiative had the potential for sharing of knowledge between cities.

“The actions are way more important than words on a piece of paper, but joining with others and working together is also really important, and we can’t do it alone,” she said.

“Being able to share resources, having those contacts, and reaffirming our commitment are really important.”

 

Cr Sara Templeton says while actions are more important than words, working with other cities is also really important. CHRIS SKELTON/STUFF

 

Council staff noted the practical benefit of the initiative would be accessing information and lessons from other cities involved.

If councilors decided to join the initiative, they must also select at least one action from a list of 23 to undertake before the end of the year.

Council staff recommended selecting a single action, one that called for the expansion of access to walking, cycling, and other transport methods as well as identifying areas suitable for becoming “zero emission zones” by 2025.

Staff said this action was “a direction the council already supports”, but noted identifying the zero emission zones would be a new piece of work. Identifying potential zones did not necessarily mean they would be implemented.

The council’s head of strategic policy, Emma Davis, said the zones would be areas promoting zero emission transport, such as walking, cycling, public transport or electric vehicles.

Residents and businesses in the zone would benefit from cleaner, healthier air and quieter streets, she said.

“The size and location of any potential future zero emission zones have not yet been identified”. Davis said the staff recommendation presently was only to explore the merits of these zones.

Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, has five of these zones already and Auckland intends to make its city centre a zone too.

The Christchurch City Council has set the whole city’s carbon-zero target at 2045, which is five years ahead of both Wellington and Auckland’s city councils.

The council last commissioned an audit of the city’s emissions for the 2018/19 financial year, which found 54 per cent of Christchurch’s emissions came from transport.

In 2019 Canterbury was the second-highest emitting region in New Zealand behind Waikato, accounting for 14.2 per cent of nationwide emissions, according to Stats NZ data.

 

 

Source Stuff

Global coal plant projects down 76% since 2015

Posted on by dishanth
Global coal plant projects down 76% since 2015

The global pipeline of new coal plant projects has shrunk 76 per cent since 2015, a new analysis shows, putting many countries in a good position to carry out UN Secretary General António Guterres’s call for no new coal investment.

“The economics of coal have become increasingly uncompetitive in comparison to renewable energy, while the risk of stranded assets has increased. Governments can now act with confidence to commit to ‘no new coal’,” reports climate think tank E3G in its analysis.

Based on findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), worldwide coal use will need to fall by around four-fifths during the current decade to keep average global warming below 1.5°C. The International Energy Agency says advanced economies will need to cut off coal by 2030, followed by a full global cessation by 2040.

For this to happen, “a pivotal first step is ensuring no new coal-fired power stations are built,” say Leo Roberts, E3G’s research manager for fossil fuel transitions, and Christine Shearer, program director at Global Energy Monitor, in a guest post for Carbon Brief.

To date, say the authors, 44 world governments have committed to stopping new construction of coal projects, and another 33 have cancelled their project pipelines. Seven other countries have no plans to develop new coal at all.

Only five OECD countries are considering building new coal, and projects in four of those five are not expected to come through. For the fifth country—Turkey—“fears of the impact of a potential European carbon border adjustment mechanism and climate-exacerbated wildfires are increasing pressure to cancel the country’s remaining pipeline and explore alternatives,” says Roberts and Shearer.

In China, which accounts for more than half of the world’s planned coal projects, coal capacity has scaled back 74 per cent since 2015. All the other non-OECD countries have reduced their collective pre-construction pipeline by 77 per cent.

In all, “the shift in coal dynamics means that fewer and fewer countries have new coal plants under development—and an increasing list are making this into a formal ‘no new coal’ commitment,” the authors write.

Just 37 countries have remaining pre-construction pipeline projects, and 16 of them only have one project each. In all, more than four-fifths of the planned coal plants can be found in just six countries: China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, and Bangladesh.

“Because the global distribution of proposed power plants is highly concentrated, firm commitments to ‘no new coal’ by just these six countries would remove 82 per cent of the world’s remaining pipeline, should such pledges be forthcoming,” say Roberts and Shearer.

Although they host a concentrated percentage of the world’s remaining pre-construction coal projects, several within this handful of countries are especially vulnerable to climate change, despite historically contributing only modestly to global emissions. The report from E3G calls on the international community to support these countries in moving away from coal through public and private clean energy finance.

“COP 26 will be a key moment for OECD and EU members and China to demonstrate that such support is available now for all countries that are willing to shift from dirty coal to clean energy,” says E3G in its report.

This story was published with permission from The Energy Mix.

 

Cutting methane should be a key Cop26 aim, research suggests

Posted on by dishanth
Cutting methane should be a key Cop26 aim, research suggests

Sharp cuts in methane from leaking gas drilling platforms and production sites could play a major role in the greenhouse gas emissions reductions necessary to fulfil the Paris climate agreement, and should be a key aim for the Cop26 UN climate talks, new research suggests.

Cutting global emissions of methane by 40% by 2030 is achievable, with most cuts possible at low cost or even at a profit for companies such as oil and gas producers. It would make up for much of the shortfall in emissions reductions plans from national governments, according to the Energy Transitions Commission thinktank.

Ahead of Cop26, senior UN and UK officials have privately conceded that the top aim of the conference – for all countries to formulate plans called nationally determined contributions (NDCs), that would add up to a global 45% cut in emissions by 2030 – will not be met.

 

However, the UK as hosts of the summit, to be held in Glasgow in November, still hope for enough progress to show that the world can still limit global heating to 1.5C, the aspiration of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. It is the biggest component of natural gas, used for fuel, and leaks can be caused by poorly constructed conventional drilling operations, shale gas wells, gas pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. Methane is also flared from some oil production sites.

Staunching such leaks or capturing the methane instead can be done at a low cost, and can even be profitable for gas producers, especially now as the international gas price soars. Just a few key producers – Russia, the US, China and Canada – could make a massive impact.

Lord Adair Turner, chairman of the ETC, said: “It is clear that if you add up NDCs they are not big enough to keep us to 1.5C. There is a huge gap left. But there are some actions that you can imagine groups of countries taking that could close that gap.”

The US and the EU recently announced a partnership aiming at reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030, but Turner said more could be achieved and this would help to compensate for the relatively unambitious NDCs that many countries have.

 

“We have not focused enough on methane, but it can be a really important lever, and cutting it has an impact [on global heating] sooner rather than later, which matters if there are feedback loops in the climate system,” he added.

Turner also pointed to other key actions that could be taken at Cop26 which he said would substantially help global efforts to tackle the climate crisis. For instance, helping developing countries to phase out their existing coal-fired power plants was one key way of reducing reliance on coal.

In India, for instance, new coal-fired power stations are now more expensive than renewable alternatives, yet the marginal cost of electricity generation from existing coal-fired power stations is still cheaper than wind or solar. That means companies have an incentive to keep old coal-fired power plants going, but if they could be paid to phase out the oldest, that would accelerate the country’s move away from coal.

“Developing countries need financial support to do this,” Turner said.

Steel should be another focus, according to Turner. Steel companies could move to “green” steel production, using hydrogen, far more easily than a few years ago, he said. A global agreement among steel producers at Cop26 could achieve that, and similar global agreements were possible among cement producers, the shipping industry and other high-carbon sectors.

Many countries, Turner added, were submitting NDCs that were too cautious or did not reflect how fast businesses were already cutting emissions and moving to green energy and clean technology. “NDCs have not caught up with what is possible and what is actually happening,” he said.

 

 

Source The Guardian