The US Army released its first climate strategy on Tuesday with goals to reduce the Army’s greenhouse gas pollution by 50% by 2030 and attain “net-zero” emissions by 2050.
The Army plans to meet these goals by increasing fuel efficiency, making more Army vehicles electric, modernizing “operational power generation, battery storage, land management, procurement,” and “supply chain resilience,” the report said.
The strategy comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has made climate change and studying its effects within the US military a priority since taking the helm of the Defense Department. Shortly after being sworn in as Defense Secretary in January 2021, Austin announced the department would “immediately” take “appropriate policy actions to prioritize climate change considerations in” military activities and risk assessments.
“Climate change threatens America’s security and is altering the geostrategic landscape as we know it,” Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said in the opening statement of the Army’s strategy document. “For today’s Soldiers operating in extreme temperature environments, fighting wildfires, and supporting hurricane recovery, climate change isn’t a distant future, it is a reality.”
The US military has been impacted by extreme weather in the past few years at air force bases, naval stations and army bases in the continental US. Hurricane Florence in 2018 caused about $3.5 billion in damages and repairs at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and flooding at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska caused about $500 million in damages in 2019, according to a Defense Department report.
“The time to address climate change is now. The effects of climate change have taken a toll on supply chains, damaged our infrastructure, and increased risks to Army Soldiers and their families due to natural disasters and extreme weather,” Wormuth said.
The US Army strategy offers a “roadmap of actions” that will make army bases more prepared “in the face of climate-related threats,” a news release on the report said.
Part of the strategy involves enhancing “resilience and sustainability” by “adapting” military infrastructure to be better prepared to face the potential risks caused by climate change and climate change related weather events.
This includes considering climate change and its risks in all aspects of the Army’s development of infrastructure and installations, from “resilient energy and water supply” to “carbon-pollution-free electricity, efficient structures,” and more, the report states.
Right now, the US Army has 950 renewable energy projects supplying 480 megawatts of power, and there are 25 microgrid energy projects planned through 2024. The Army plans to install a microgrid on every Army installation by 2035, the report states.
The Army is moving towards carbon-pollution-free electricity production with the goal of using 100% pollution-free electricity on Army installations by 2030. They are moving towards purchasing electricity from carbon-pollution-free sources to meet this goal, the report states.
The strategy also includes ways to improve sustainability on army installations, reduce “sustainment demand” and prepare the Army with “skills, concepts and plans necessary to operate in a climate-altered world,” the release about the report said.
Reliance to build 100 gigawatts of renewable energy projects
Mukesh Ambani’s group aims to be net carbon zero by 2035
The conglomerate led by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, announced plans to invest $76 billion toward clean energy projects, dwarfing an earlier commitment of $10 billion by the world’s biggest fossil-fuel billionaire.
Reliance Industries Ltd., controlled by Ambani, has signed pacts with the state government of Gujarat for a total investment of 5.96 trillion rupees ($81 billion), according to an exchange filing Thursday. Of this, about 5 trillion rupees would be used over the next 15 years to build 100 gigawatts of renewable power projects and a green hydrogen network while 600 billion rupees will be for factories making solar modules, hydrogen electrolyzers, fuel cells and storage batteries, the filing said.
The remaining sum is to be spent in the retail-to-refining group’s new and existing projects, including the upgrade of its telecom network for 5G services and expansion of its consumer retail businesses. Reliance has already “started the process of scouting land” for its renewable energy power projects and has requested the Gujarat administration for 450,000 acres (182,110 hectares) in the arid Kutch region.
Though the investment pact is just a memorandum of understanding right now, it outlines the scope of Ambani’s green ambitions and is a big step up from the $10 billion investment over three years he had announced in June. Ambani is in the midst of transforming his fossil fuel-fed empire and pivoting it toward green energy and digital technology.
Ambitious Target
These projects will also boost Reliance’s target to make its operations carbon neutral by 2035 – an ambitious target for a company that derived 60% of its revenue from oil refining and petrochemicals.
The announcement follows billionaire Gautam Adani-led conglomerate’s pact with South Korean steel giant Posco to explore business opportunities in India, including setting up a green steel mill in Gujarat, with a potential investment of $5 billion. Adani has committed to invest a total of $70 billion by 2030 across its green energy value chain.
Both the billionaires and their ability to walk the talk on their green energy commitments are crucial if the Narendra Modi-led government has to achieve its target of making the country net carbon zero by 2070.
Like their global peers, Reliance and Adani groups, who made their fortunes from fossil fuels, are now aggressively expanding their clean energy footprint amid mounting pressure to join the fight against climate change.
Countries have gathered to negotiate the final details of a global bid to keep planetary warming under 1.5-2C.Olivia Wannan reports from Glasgow.
ANALYSIS: The world has agreed to ramp up climate action even further this decade, spend more on adaptation, and even for the first time, agree that (some) fossil fuels must go.
The two-week UN climate summit in Glasgow has ended in a joint compromise from nearly 200 countries, including on a number of outstanding sticky issues in the Paris Agreement “rulebook”. Developed countries have also acknowledged they have a legal and moral obligation to help vulnerable countries with the permanent loss and damage they are already suffering – though punted a solution to future meetings.
And a last-minute capitulation to phase down rather than phase out coal power cast a shadow over the Glasgow pact. In the end, the measure of success will depend on where history sets its benchmark.
If we use the lowest bar for success – whether there is more global climate action today than there was two weeks ago – then the 26th Conference of the Parties (or COP26) has achieved that.
The announcement that India had set a net-zero target was a pleasing development, even if the target date is 2070 and its short-term pledges remained unambitious. Indonesia’s and South Korea’s pledges to phase out coal-power was also good news. Canada and the US made large commitments to reduce fossil methane leaks (and, interestingly, agricultural emissions) and got nearly 100 other countries to sign up.
And while China declined to join the methane pledge, it did sign a deal with the US late in the second week, which included commitments to regulate methane leaks and limit deforestation.
Were governments ambitious enough?
If the point of success is 1.5 degrees Celsius, then the conference will not earn that accolade. Climate modellers have been tracking the plethora of commitments and coalitions launched during the meeting. Even on the basis that every single one will be met (a prospect many doubt), that path would hold warming to 1.8C. Scientists warn that the effects of climate change get vastly worse with even a fraction of a degree, so there is a lot of human suffering between 1.5C and 1.8C.
In addition, experts have also exposed the large gap between countries’ long-term goals and the short-term action they’re prepared to take.
Short-term goals are outlined in each country’s Nationally Determined Contribution (or NDC). These look out to 2030 – a point when carbon dioxide emissions would need to nearly halve, according to the world’s climate scientists, to keep 1.5C within reach. The path set by these and other pledges out to 2030 put the world on a path to 2.4C.
The host country, the UK, selected Alok Sharma to act as the president of the 26th Conference of the Parties (or COP26). JEFF J MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES
With this in mind, countries that have not yet updated their NDC have been officially urged to submit tougher targets before COP27, to be held in Egypt. In fact, all countries are being requested to revisit their targets by the end of next year to ensure they align with 1.5C to 2C of warming (though this is caveated to take into account national circumstances).
It’s hoped big emitters such as China, Russia and Australia might then come to next year’s meeting with NDCs that could shift the global temperature dial even further still. Climate Change Minister James Shaw has already poured cold water on the idea of the New Zealand Government following this recommendation.
The onslaught of coalitions and alliances – on everything from methane and fossil fuel extraction to deforestation – announced during COP26 will supplement countries’ NDCs. There was plenty of criticism that these were voluntary, with no compliance. For example, if New Zealand fails to produce its intended methane savings of 10 per cent by 2030, the Global Methane Pledge won’t come after us in any way, beyond a public shaming.
But that’s a pattern set by the Paris Agreement itself. There are some seemingly mandatory features for the 197 countries signed up – such as reporting and deadlines for new targets. But even those aren’t well enforced: New Zealand missed the deadline to strengthen its NDC. We just scraped in before the start of COP26.
During a short speech on the final day, Shaw reflected on the shortcomings of the proposed agreement: “Is it enough to hold warming to 1.5C? I honestly can’t say that I think that it does. But we must never, ever give up,” he said.
“The text represents the least-worst outcome. The worst outcome would be to not agree [on] it, and keep talking through next year and deter action for yet another year.”
Countries in the naughty corner
Large greenhouse emitters China and Russia were called out for not showing up, literally and figuratively. Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russia president Vladimir Putin did not attend the leaders’ summit at the beginning of the talks, though negotiating teams for each country did attend to get the Paris Agreement “rulebook” and other outstanding matters settled.
Chinese president Xi Jinping did not attend COP26. He has not left China since the beginning of the pandemic (File photo) ANDY WONG/AP
By COP26, all 197 countries in the Paris Agreement were supposed to “ratchet” up their ambition. Russia updated its pledge last year, though it was deemed little better than its old one.
In 2020, Xinping announced a new pledge: that his country’s emissions would peak before 2030 and that China would reach net zero by 2060. This year, he formalised those commitments and promised to stop financing coal-fired power plants in other countries.
The Chinese leader is known to save his major climate announcements for UN general assembly events, rather than play to the COP timetable.
But similar criticism could be aimed at New Zealand, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern not attending the talks and – more importantly – taking few concrete steps during the two weeks.
The Government did increase its NDC, before the summit began. Ardern promised to save 149 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over the next decade.
Billed as a halving of emissions, Climate Action Tracker said – minus the creative maths – this was closer to a 22 per cent cut (a target now rated as “almost sufficient” though not our fair share).
And even that won’t require the country to take additional action domestically. (Thus, New Zealand retained Climate Action Tracker’s “Highly Insufficient” rating).
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern did not attend the Glasgow climate summit, citing her duties as the APEC host. (File photo) HAGEN HOPKINS/GETTY IMAGES
New Zealand is still planning to emit roughly the same amount of net emissions between now and 2030 as in the budgets proposed by the Climate Change Commission earlier this year. So now, the Government will just buy a few more carbon credits from other countries.
During the summit, New Zealand also signed up to a number of pledges without taking any major new steps. No new policies will be required for the Government to meet the Global Methane Pledge – because it’s a collective goal to reduce methane by 30 per cent, New Zealand can simply make the cut of 10 per cent it’s already obliged to under the Zero Carbon Act.
Similarly, our new membership in the pledge to end deforestation or in the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance required little extra.
In sum, the Government has done little but spent more money: committing to a larger carbon credit bill, and also increasing foreign aid towards mitigation and adaptation for developing nations – which it bumped up to $325 million each year.
Still, New Zealand behaved better than our trans-Tasman neighbour. Australia refused to boost its NDC, stayed far away from alliances cutting methane and coal, and initially attempted to block declarations on phasing out fossil fuels.
An emotional Mary Robinson, Chair of @TheElders and former President of Ireland slams leaders for not being in crisis mode and blames Saudi Arabia for blocking @skynews#COP26 Today will be very important. pic.twitter.com/BxEcXzGptg
Climate finance was a critical item on this year’s agenda. In return for a commitment to begin cutting emissions, developed countries promised – by 2020 – to deliver $100 billion to developing countries each year.
That deadline was missed, but the COP26 organisers hoped to pull a few additional commitments out of large economies. Early in the talks, the goal appeared to be within reach after the Japanese prime minister agreed to bump his country’s share up by $10b.
Yet with the US arguing their hands were tied by a requirement to get permission from Congress, there were few other large economies to come to the table. As the summit closed, this goal remained unmet.
Australia was a relative Scrooge: prime minister Scott Morrison doubled his contribution – to AU$2b (NZ$2.08b) – whereas New Zealand quadrupled its cash to NZ$1.3b.
As well as meeting the old goal, the talks turned to the next climate finance target.
There wasn’t much progress on setting a new goal for mitigation finance, apart from a call for discussions to begin. Finance in the form of loans – a bugbear of developing countries – wasn’t ruled out. On a brighter note, rich countries are urged to “at least” double the cash put towards adaptation.
Another request of developed countries was for the finance they were owed, under the legal precedent of loss and damage, for the permanent effects that climate change was already having on their lives. In the Pacific, this includes the loss of land to sea level rise and salinisation, plus the loss of GDP from extreme weather events that had become a permanent part of storm season.
Three philanthropies offer £3m to help set up a Glasgow Loss and Damage Finance Facility, nudging developed countries resisting calls to create one https://t.co/5gwTXfsLAG
Developed countries had contributed the lion’s share of the rise in greenhouse gas, and therefore – the argument goes – should have to stump up that share of the costs.
And while developing countries welcomed the help from a proposed network that would offer them technical assistance in dealing with these permanent issues, they also wanted cash for reparations. This was a point of principle for many. In the end, the countries decided that this scheme “will be provided with funds”, though specific numbers will need to be discussed.
Cyclones are coming with increased frequency to Fiji. So too are calls for rich, developed countries to provide reparations. NASA VIA AP
The biggest sticking points
The summit’s to-do list also included the finalisation of the Paris Agreement “rulebook”, which would specify how the landmark 2015 accord would actually work in practice.
A number of sticky issues – including how countries might create and trade carbon credits between one another and what information would be required to be submitted on a regular basis – had failed to be resolved at previous meetings.
One of the most contentious debates revolved around who could claim credit for carbon-cutting projects paid for by others. Many countries – including New Zealand – maintained that the global carbon maths must be balanced: if carbon credits were sold, then the purchasing country (or company) would adjust its emissions tally down and the host country must adjust its tally upwards.
But Brazil in particular argued that the host should, essentially, be able to have its climate cake and eat it.
To settle this issue, a proposal to create two types of carbon credits was put on the table. There would be higher-quality credits to be sold to other countries and airlines in an international pact. In addition, there would be a lesser type of credit, offered to private companies.
The host country of carbon cutting projects now holds the power to authorise higher-quality credits. When that happens, the balanced carbon maths (that New Zealand and others want) would be required.
It can also authorise lesser credits. While these would be paid for by someone else, the host country could claim the environmental benefits when it reported its progress towards its NDC.
Experts, including Environmental Defense Fund’s Kelley Kizzier, said this system appeared robust – though it may need keeping an eye on.
It’s debatable how many companies would want these lesser credits, since they may not be able to use carbon-neutral claims, for example.
However, activists were worried that giving host countries authorisation powers might allow them to flout safeguards, such as protections for human rights.
Another area of contention was on old carbon credits, dating back to the predecessor of the Paris Agreement, the Kyoto Protocol. Many Kyoto carbon-cutting projects had issued credits that remained available for sale.
Since president Jair Bolsonaro took office, Brazil began to fight for controversial climate provisions in the Paris rulebook. ERALDO PERES/AP
Climate activists hate this idea, criticising these old units as “zombie credits”.
But the host countries of some of these projects – notably Brazil – did not want to lose the value of the units. They argued that the schemes, which were reducing emissions, could collapse without funding.
In the talks, some countries signalled they’d be open to allowing these projects to transition into the new system, but wanted to restrict the number of “carryover credits” issued before 2020, when the Paris Agreement took effect.
A consensus was struck, allowing some old credits to enter the new system. There were a few limitations: the project had to have started after 2013, with the credits issued before 2021, and these could only be used towards a country’s first NDC. This is one compromise likely to receive heavy criticism from climate activists in the coming days.
The purchase of these old credits will weaken, or completely undermine, the NDC of any country that uses them.
Speaking earlier in the week, WWF carbon market expert Brad Schallert said it is risky to allow these credits, even if there’s no appetite for them. They “blow a hole” in the Paris Agreement, he added.
“If no one buys them, then we’d be okay,” he added. “But we have to assume the worst.”
A proposal to limit the number of carbon credits a country can use to achieve its NDC made it into the rulebook. New Zealand negotiators opposed this provision strongly – if set high enough, this could seriously mess with the Government’s plans to outsource up to 68 per cent of its carbon-cutting pledge.
But the work to set this limit won’t start until 2028, meaning it’s more likely to be an issue for the next NDC period, beyond 2030.
What climate activists fought for
Considering the failure of “Global North” countries to produce the $100b on time, one hot-button issue during the summit was a suggestion that every carbon trade should provide a 2 or 5 per cent cut of the proceeds to an adaptation fund, to help vulnerable communities.
It wasn’t just the percentage that negotiators were haggling over, but the types of trade involved. The Paris Agreement specifically links this idea to the international carbon market, so some negotiating teams (including New Zealand’s) thought this shouldn’t apply when countries trade directly with each other. But developing countries argued this would simply be a loophole, and wondered why anyone would design a carbon trading system with one type of credit undermining another.
This debate was also linked to a proposal to gift an “angel’s share” of all credits purchased to the Earth. If rich countries outsource their carbon goals to others, then this would give an additional boost, argued vulnerable countries (which are the keenest to see ambitious climate action). Shares of up to 30 per cent were suggested.
Under one COP26 proposal, a percentage of all carbon credits would be cancelled – and “gifted” to the good of the planet. NASA
In the end, countries settled on 5 per cent for adaptation, and 2 per cent for the planet, for any carbon credits sold on the international market.
But when countries trade credits directly between one another, they are only “strongly encouraged” to provide a share of the proceeds for adaptation and donate another cut to the Earth. This would mean a country such as New Zealand would be named and shamed for not doing this, but wouldn’t be breaking the Paris rules.
One of the passion projects of many New Zealand activists and attendees was to get protections for human rights and the rights of Indigenous people into the Paris rulebook. This would ensure that any projects using foreign funds to reduce carbon emissions would not come at the expense of vulnerable communities.
This was identified as a problem under the pre-2020 Kyoto credit system. The New Zealand negotiating team said it lobbied strongly for these rights to be included and the proposed rules to be as tough as could be.
This was successful: projects will need to demonstrate how they will protect these rights, both in the initial design of the scheme and in regular reports. The push to get an independent body to assess grievances was also successful.
How much should developed nations pay for damages due to climate change? It’s a major #COP26 flashpoint, and these @nyt charts dive into 170 years of CO2 emissions that show a huge rich/poor divide that’s not going away after Glasgow. https://t.co/TBH8xchx2R
A fight to get 197 countries to agree to some joint commitment calling time on fossil fuels was a major bone of contention at the 11th hour. To avoid annoying countries that export a lot of fossil fuels, the Paris Agreement doesn’t mention them at all.
As Saturday began, the proposed joint summary from all countries called for accelerated efforts to “phase out” both unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. The US pushed to keep in the qualifiers “unabated” and “inefficient”, which weaken the proposal. It would, for example, allow coal power stations with carbon capture. The efficiency of subsidies is also a subjective assessment.
On the final day, China, India, Iran, Nigeria, South Africa and Venezuela voiced their opposition to this call.
India even argued that developing countries are “entitled” to use fossil fuels. The country’s negotiators proposed the watered-down “phase down” replace “phase out” related specifically to coal power.
This didn’t go down well: the Swiss negotiator pointed out the amendment would make it harder to reach 1.5C, and received a long round of applause. COP26 president Alok Sharma, who set out to “consign coal to history”, became visible upset when discussing the concession.
In the end, the wording was reluctantly passed – so the package of wider measures could be as well.
While hardly progressive, fossil fuels still took a small hit, and the call could pave the way for stronger language at future COPs.
Let's remember that despite this watered-down language, this is the first COP decision to mention coal (even "phase down"), and fossil fuel subsidies. #COP26
All in all, the sheer volume of competing interests means COP26 was unlikely to be capable of producing an agreement that any single person would prefer.
There will be a lot of interpretation of what it got wrong. But getting nearly 200 countries to collectively move, even on this existential issue, is a mammoth undertaking. For just a day or two, that needs to be celebrated.
The judgement of the world, particularly the young, was on negotiators’ minds. On Friday (Saturday NZ time), European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans held up a photo of his grandchild, and shared his concern about the young child’s future.
A day later, Tuvalu Climate Minister Seve Paeniu shared a photo of his three grandchildren. “Glasgow has made a promise to secure their future – that will be the best Christmas gift that I will present to them.”
The COP26 climate summit in Glasgow has been billed as a last chance to limit global warming to 1.5C.
But beyond the deals and photo opportunities, what are the key things countries need to do in order to tackle climate change?
1. Keep fossil fuels in the ground
Burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and especially coal, releases carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, trapping heat and raising global temperatures.
It’s an issue which has to be tackled at government level if temperature rises are to be limited to 1.5C – the level considered the gateway to dangerous climate change.
A recent UN report has suggested that reducing emissions of methane could make an important contribution to tackling the planetary emergency.
A substantial amount of methane is released from “flaring” – the burning of natural gas during oil extraction – and could be stopped with technical fixes. Finding better ways of disposing of rubbish is also important, because landfill sites are another big methane source.
At COP26, nearly 100 countries agreed to cut methane emissions, in a deal spearheaded by the US and the EU. The Global Methane Pledge aims to limit methane emissions by 30% compared with 2020 levels.
3. Switch to renewable energy
Electricity and heat generation make a greater contribution to global emissions than any economic sector.
Transforming the global energy system from one reliant on fossil fuels to one dominated by clean technology – known as decarbonisation – is critical for meeting current climate goals.
Wind and solar power will need to dominate the energy mix by 2050 if countries are to deliver on their net zero targets.
There are challenges, however.
Less wind means less electricity generated, but better battery technology could help us store surplus energy from renewables, ready to be released when needed.
4. Abandon petrol and diesel
We’ll also need to change the way we power the vehicles we use to get around on land, sea and in the air.
Ditching petrol and diesel cars and switching to electric vehicles will be critical.
Lorries and buses could be powered by hydrogen fuel, ideally produced using renewable energy.
And scientists are working on new, cleaner fuels for aircraft, although campaigners are also urging people to reduce the number of flights they take.
5. Plant more trees
A UN report in 2018 said that, to have a realistic chance of keeping the global temperature rise under 1.5C, we’ll have to remove CO2 from the air.
Forests are excellent at soaking it up from the atmosphere – one reason why campaigners and scientists emphasise the need to protect the natural world by reducing deforestation.
Programmes of mass tree-planting are seen as a way of offsetting CO2 emissions.
Trees are likely to be important as countries wrestle with their net zero targets, because once emissions have been reduced as much as possible, remaining emissions could be “cancelled out” by carbon sinks such as forests.
6. Remove greenhouse gases from the air
Emerging technologies that artificially remove CO2 from the atmosphere, or stop it being released in the first place, could play a role.
A number of direct-air capture facilities are being developed, including plants built by Carbon Engineering in Texas and Climeworks in Switzerland. They work by using huge fans to push air through a chemical filter that absorbs CO2.
Another method is carbon capture and storage, which captures emissions at “point sources” where they are produced, such as at coal-fired power plants. The CO2 is then buried deep underground.
However, the technology is expensive – and controversial, because it is seen by critics as helping perpetuate a reliance on fossil fuels.
7. Give financial aid to help poorer countries
At the Copenhagen COP summit in 2009, rich countries pledged to provide $100bn (£74.6bn) in financing by 2020, designed to help developing countries fight and adapt to climate change.
That target date has not been met, although the UK government, as holders of the COP presidency, recently outlined a plan for putting the funding in place by 2023.
Many coal-dependent countries are facing severe energy shortages that jeopardise their recovery from Covid and disproportionately affect the poor. These factors stop them moving away from polluting industries.
Some experts believe poorer nations will need continuing financial support to help them move towards greener energy. For instance, the US, EU and UK recently provided $8.5bn to help South Africa phase out coal use.
The future of heavy transport is looking increasingly zero emission, as the first trial of electric trucks kicks off in Auckland’s Zero Emissions Area (ZEA) just as a major manufacturer reveals it is expecting the arrival of its first shipment of hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks this month.
The Auckland Inner City ZEA trial follows the arrival of the first Fuso eCanter electric trucks, five of which are being used by trial participants: Mainfreight, Bidfood, Toll Global Express, Owens Transport and Vector OnGas.
The one-year trial will see the integration of the fully-electric trucks into New Zealand’s commercial fleet to deliver goods in the inner city.
“Transport makes up more than 40 per cent of Auckland’s emissions profile,” said Auckland Mayor Phil Goff. “The shift towards emissions-free vehicles is a critical step towards meeting our climate change goals.
“This trial will complement emissions-reduction work already underway by Auckland Council and Auckland Transport, including the roll-out of emissions-free electric buses across our transport network. It will also contribute towards our vision of creating a zero-emissions area in Auckland’s city centre.”
Earlier this year, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) approved co-funding for the five trucks to support the development of New Zealand’s zero-emission transport fleet.
The all-electric Fuso eCanters are ready to hit the streets of Auckland city. SUPPLIED/STUFF
Tracey Berkahn, Auckland Transport’s group manager of services and performance, said AT is proud to endorse and support the trial.
“It’s really important for AT that this trial helps demonstrate the potential for electric heavy vehicles. Companies involved in the trial will have the advantage of understanding what it really takes to run electric trucks. This trial is quite unique as those involved have banded together over this common cause.
“While our focus at AT has been on the electrification of buses, it is also important that we explore other ways to support the lowering of emissions.”
At the same time as the trial starts, Hyundai New Zealand has revealed that it is expecting to land five new hydrogen fuel cell-powered Xcient trucks here before the end of the month.
Hyundai is expecting the first five Xcient hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks before the end of this month. SUPPLIED/STUFF
Hyundai says the trucks, which are expected to arrive at the Port of Auckland on or about 18 November “signify the progression and application of hydrogen technology in New Zealand” and that the hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) and traditional battery electric vehicles (BEV) “will complement one another in the future as the country transitions to zero carbon.”
The company says that hydrogen technology is better suited than battery electric trucks as a heavy-duty, reliable, future cost-effective replacement for diesel trucks, as the use of hydrogen rather than weighty batteries means they have longer range, shorter refuelling time and greater payload.
The Xcient’s electric motor is run by two 90kW fuel cells supported by a small 72kWh battery pack, and Hyundai New Zealand says the first of the trucks will be on the road in the second quarter of next year, in a live field demonstration transporting “large volumes of goods commercially across New Zealand.”
“As a Kiwi owned company, we are big believers of implementing alternative fuel technology here in New Zealand,” said Andy Sinclair, Hyundai New Zealand General Manager.
The Xcient is powered by two 90kW fuel cells that charge a 72kWh battery pack, which runs the electric motor. SUPPLIED/STUFF
“We have championed this through the introduction of New Zealand’s first hydrogen-powered SUV, the Nexo, in 2019. Now with the Xcient FCEV, we have an opportunity to help fast track the large scale adoption of alternative green fuels in the New Zealand road freight sector,”
“We’re fortunate as a local distributor to have a strong working relationship with Hyundai Motor Company, who acknowledge and support our hydrogen ambitions. Hyundai Motor Company anticipated the future potential of hydrogen fuel cells at an early stage, and we have been able to benefit from that.”
New Zealand is just the third country to have access to these trucks, following Switzerland and Korea, and Hyundai New Zealand has initially taken Swiss specification to get the programme underway early.
Hyundai New Zealand says it will work with local partners in the freight sector to determine where the trucks will operate regionally. This demonstration will give insights into how the trucks fit into timetables, capacity, maintenance schedules, refuelling, drivability and user-training specific to New Zealand.
David Brown of Go-Ahead is promising that his company’s bus and train operations will be carbon-free by 2035.
‘Personally, I think that’s quite cool!” David Brown, 60, is beaming like a young boy, having just recognised the bus controller at the terminus outside Victoria station as a colleague who joined London Transport at the same time as him, almost 40 years ago. “People stick in transport a long time. That’s what I love about it. They’re doing a frontline job, I’m just doing mine, there’s no difference really.”
Except Brown is trying to steer not just buses but a multinational transport group as chief executive of Go-Ahead – in particular, to wrestle its emissions down to net zero, as the sector faces up to being the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases. This year he will leave the group – whose operations include Thameslink, Southern and Southeastern trains and buses in London and nationwide – after a decade at the helm.
While Covid threatens to unravel a lot of the work done to build up rail and bus services during Brown’s career, he is clear that climate change is the bigger long-term issue. Transport has far surpassed energy generation as the biggest CO2 culprit – making up a quarter of UK emissions – and last week Go-Ahead made a pledge that its 5,000 UK buses and trains would be entirely zero-emission by 2035, cutting its CO2 by 75%. It aims to hit net zero by 2045, before the national target, by offsetting the remainder.
Although Go-Ahead’s decarbonisation strategy – edged off stage by the government’s, which was published the same day – sets out many ambitions, it admits that many are not in its own hands. So what exactly is the point?
“It’s galvanising 30,000 people to get behind a climate strategy,” says Brown. “It’s a sense of purpose. What we deliver is helping solve climate change problems – if you get people on to public transport you’re taking them out of their cars.” About 55% of transport emissions are private cars, he says; just 3% come from buses, and 1% from trains.
The pledges assume continued government spending on hydrogen and electric vehicles, and subsidy for green operations. Brown lobbied for a change announced in the government’s decarbonisation plan, improving bus operators’ grants for running electric vehicles to 22p per kilometre. “It transforms the economics for investing in new buses.”
A high-speed train belonging to Southeastern, one of Go-Ahead’s rail franchises Photograph: Johnny Green/PA
He thinks there are opportunities for more hydrogen buses, but is cautious: “The capital cost is huge and it’s unknown what the ongoing operating costs and lifetime costs will be.”
Go-Ahead’s north London depot at Northumberland Park will be what Brown bills as “the first bus-to-grid virtual power station”, where electric buses charge slowly overnight, and put energy back into the network from their batteries when supplies are needed, as wind and solar supplies – and prices – fluctuate.
In all this, as the small print of the strategy makes clear, there is a commercial imperative: “If Go-Ahead does not take action on this issue, our competitors will – and those with more climate-friendly reputations could ultimately take market share from us. This would weaken our business.”
Brown happily concurs. “There’s an altruistic view, and a commercial reason for doing it, in terms of positioning. And a people reason: younger people especially are attracted to work for companies who have purpose and are doing the right thing environmentally.”
Right now, though, public transport faces a more immediate crisis, with passenger numbers still only about half of pre-pandemic levels. And there is a renewed focus on the risks with Covid cases soaring, particularly as mask-wearing becomes optional on trains in England.
Brown frowns. “Whenever anyone talks about a tight, packed environment, they talk about public transport – and I want to scream and say hold on, the average journey time on a bus is 18 minutes max, the doors are opening all the time, fresh air is coming in and out, the windows are open on the top deck. You really aren’t exposed as you would be in a packed pub sitting there for two hours, there’s no comparison.”
He doesn’t mention names, but the prime minister, Brown’s former boss when mayor of London, suggested even as he was removing the legal requirement to wear masks that people “might choose to do so in enclosed spaces, such as public transport”.
We used to bring 150,000 people into London Bridge every morning. They’re not coming at the moment.That affects everyone. – David Brown, Go-Ahead
Brown argues: “There seems to be a little bit of demonising it and that shouldn’t be the case. There is no evidence that anyone can catch Covid on a train or a bus, none whatsoever.”
That conviction comes despite the Covid deaths of a significant number of bus drivers. Brown says Go-Ahead believes none contracted Covid at the depot or while working.
Another factor may be at play, he suggests, comparing the clamour to travel abroad on planes, which are more enclosed than buses or trains: “People are choosing to do that because the prize at the end is going on a holiday. They might not be choosing public transport because the prize at the end is going to work.”
He sees a similar phenomenon with rail: “We have much busier trains at the weekend now, people are going to the coast – they love it, they don’t worry about what’s happening in the trains in those circumstances.”
On the mask issue, he says, he wants transport “to be treated the same as other parts of the economy”. If he could choose, “I’d want to say, everyone should be doing it everywhere, in any environment, I want that consistency”. Come Monday, he will still wear a mask. “It’s not protecting you, it’s protecting other people … it’s just a polite thing to do.”
Covid, he says, has only accelerated underlying changes towards working from home and ordering goods. “I don’t think we’ll go back to packed trains, because social trends are changing. Commuter journeys are going to become more discretionary.”
But net-zero targets depend on people returning to public transport, rather than the car, he says. “We have to find ways of getting people back on the railways, and we have to tackle the costs, because the cost base is not sustainable now.”
However, he points out that public transport is often seen abroad as part of the “fabric of society”, and subsidised accordingly. ”You need to cut your cloth, attract customers – and you may need government money, because of the social benefits.”
Nowhere is this more apparent to him than in the capital. “We used to bring 150,000 people into London Bridge every morning. They’re not coming at the moment. That affects everyone. The big fear I have for places like London is how do you keep that vibrancy of the city centre, if you don’t have all those people coming in? You need all that activity and buzz – otherwise, you’re just in the suburbs.”
It seems inconceivable to remember, he says, that in the job-scarce 1980s, when he started as a graduate trainee, the discussion at London Transport was about cutting back the Bakerloo and the Northern lines because the population of the capital was in decline.
But without public transport, “it wouldn’t move, it wouldn’t function”. The challenge now for operators, he says, is “making sure that when people do come back, that we’re ready and we’re there for them. If they don’t find that the 7.25am is still operating or we don’t have the same frequency of service, then we’ve got a problem.”
Ministers are drawing up plans to impose carbon taxes on imports from abroad as part of efforts to hit Britain’s net-zero target by 2050, i understands.
The proposals emerged as a “civil war” broke out between ministers over the best way to ensure the public pays for the carbon emissions they produce.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to lay out new carbon taxes this autumn to help the country meet its obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while also raising money to repair public finances damaged by Covid.
Among the proposals being looked at is a carbon border adjustment tax, which will slap levies on goods arriving from abroad. Such taxes aim to prevent wealthy countries such as the UK from outsourcing their carbon emissions to the developing world – known as “carbon leakage”.
One minister told i: “Carbon border adjustment tax is definitely in the mix. Eventually people will have to tackle the question of consumption – they are going to need to decide if they are willing to consume less stuff imported from China or not.”
For any domestic industry that has a carbon price placed on it, the same price would be placed on imports to prevent cheaper goods flooding the market.
Which products would be targeted has not been undecided, but the EU’s plans for carbon levies on imports will focus initially on the most carbon-intensive sectors, such oil refineries, steel and other metals, and cement.
The measures are under consideration ahead of the UK hosting the COP26 UN Climate Change Council in November. Experts have warned that the Government currently has an “alphabet soup” of carbon taxes and urgently needs to fill the policy vacuum ahead of the meeting in Glasgow.
With the UK welcoming world leaders to COP26, the Chancellor will have little choice but to spell out plans for environmental taxes in an autumn Budget and Comprehensive Spending Review.
Westminster sources said, however, that any move towards a carbon border tax would have to consider the implications it would have with major trading partners, such as the US, and how problematic it would be for post-Brexit Britain to go out and strike trade deals.
Ministers are increasingly at odds over the best way to ensure the public pays for the carbon emissions they produce, with the Treasury in a stand-off with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and No 10.
One source said: “There is a civil war raging between departments as to how the Government can meet its commitments.”
i understands Mr Sunak is pushing for a simpler carbon pricing approach, which would set baseline prices according to which sectors carbon emissions are coming from, while Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is eager to focus on regulation.
Boris Johnson is keenly aware he needs to lead the way on the issue, but “the PM likes to spend money more than he likes to tax people”, as one well-placed source put it.
What has become clear is that the burden of who will pay for carbon emissions is shifting from the corporate sector to consumers.
It is widely accepted that petrol and gas will become more expensive, and the idea of taxes on meat and dairy products have also been floated. At the same time, the Government’s attempts to persuade people to upgrade their homes to make them more energy-efficient have largely failed.
There is a growing recognition that ministers will have to do more to allow people to make greener decisions. One Whitehall source said that the Government was “looking at ways to help ‘fuel-poor’ families and incentivise a switch to low-carbon heating”.
A minister said that the Government may end up introducing new rules to speed up the retrofitting of old homes, if existing incentives do not prove enough. They told i: “Retrofitting is really hard. One option is that we could say that old houses have to be redone every time they go on the market, or every time they’re bought.
“But eventually, you’ll probably find that people just don’t want to live in draughty homes anyway.”
Experts have warned, however, that the Government can only hope to raise taxes to generate much-needed funds, while nudging people towards more environmentally friendly choices if there are “viable alternatives”.
Rachel Wolf, Founding Partner of policy institute Public First and co-author of the Conservatives’ 2019 election manifesto, said it suggests why a “meat tax” is a long way off.
“Agriculture and certainly meat will be the very last thing they price,” Ms Wolf said. “The problem the Government has is if they want to take people with them to reach net zero, they will have to make the costs bearable and there have to be viable alternatives right now, as there could be with electric cars. Telling people to just eat less meat is not viable.”
Can you imagine a world powered by 100% renewable electricity and fuels?
It may seem fantasy, but a collaborative team of scientists has just shown this dream is theoretically possible – if we can garner global buy-in.
The newly published research, led by Professor James Ward from the University of South Australia and co-authored by a team including Luca Coscieme from Trinity, explains how a renewable future is achievable.
The study, published in the international journal, Energies, explores what changes are needed in our energy mix and technologies, as well as in our consumption patterns, if we are to achieve 100% renewability in a way that supports everyone, and the myriad of life on our planet.
The fully renewable energy-powered future envisioned by the team would require a significant “electrification” of our energy mix and raises important questions about the potential conflict between land demands for renewable fuel production.
Explaining the work in some detail, Luca Coscieme, Research Fellow in Trinity’s School of Natural Sciences, said:
“Firstly, the high fuel needs of today’s high-income countries would have to be reduced as it would require an unsustainably vast amount of land to be covered with biomass plantations if we were to produce enough fuel to satisfy the same levels.
“Additionally, our research shows that we would need to radically ‘electrify’ the energy supply of such countries – including Ireland – with the assumption that these changes could supply 75% of society’s final energy demands. We would also need to adopt technology in which electricity is used to convert atmospheric gases into synthetic fuels.
“We very much hope that the approach designed in this research will inform our vision of sustainable futures and also guide national planning by contextualizing energy needs within the broader consumption patterns we see in other countries with energy and forest product consumption profiles that—if adopted worldwide—could theoretically be met by high-tech renewably derived fuels. Countries such as Argentina, Cyprus, Greece, Portugal, and Spain are great examples in this regard.
“Even so, the success of this green ideal will be highly dependent on major future technological developments, in the efficiency of electrification, and in producing and refining new synthetic fuels. Such a scenario is still likely to require the use of a substantial – albeit hopefully sustainable – fraction of the world’s forest areas.”
Reference: ” Renewable Energy Equivalent Footprint (REEF): A Method for Envisioning a Sustainable Energy Future” by James Ward, Steve Mohr, Robert Costanza, Paul Sutton and Luca Coscieme, 24 November 2020, Energies. DOI: 10.3390/en13236160
