The University of Massachusetts added to the Earth Day festivities Friday when Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy announced that the state’s flagship public university will power its campus entirely with renewable energy by 2032. MASSPIRG Students at UMass Amherst, with support from Environment Massachusetts Research & Policy Center and Environment America Research & Policy Center, led the effort in securing UMass’ commitment to generating 100% of its power from renewable energy sources.
“The University’s commitment to 100% renewable energy marks a culmination of work and passion from students, faculty and administrators,” said Caroline Sunuwar, a sophomore at UMass Amherst and the 100% Renewable Energy Campaign Coordinator with MASSPIRG Students. “This crucial issue has unified the UMass community to bring a vision of a better future to fruition and drive progress toward 100% renewable energy.”
The wide-ranging plan aims for 80% reliance on renewable energy by 2030, and 100% by 2032, with “energy” defined as electricity, heating/cooling and transportation. Core features of the plan include reducing energy waste on campus by adopting higher green building standards for new buildings & renovations, a behavior change initiative to promote voluntary conservation, and making strategic efficiency improvements that slash energy waste.
The plan also includes retiring the campus’ steam heating network and replacing it with low-temperature hot water for heating. Heat will come from geothermal wells drilled under the athletic fields, a solar thermal array, and other non-fossil fuel sources. The campus also plans to add more on-campus solar and shift the entire campus fleet to electric vehicles by 2030.
“This plan puts UMass Amherst among the leading universities in the transition to renewable energy,” said Johanna Neumann, Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Senior Director for 100% Renewable Energy and a resident of Amherst. “UMass students, faculty and staff built and demonstrated support for eliminating fossil fuel use on campus for years and it’s exciting to see the administration commit to that vision. Now, it’s time for other major colleges and universities to follow in UMass’ trailblazing footsteps toward a future powered exclusively by clean energy.”
The Student PIRGs, in partnership with Environment America Research & Policy Center, have worked with students on more than 50 campuses in 15 states to transition higher education to 100 percent renewable energy. Other universities, including Boston University and Harvard, have committed to 100% clean electricity, while the University of California, Berkeley has pledged to phase out all fossil fuels by 2050.
“This is a bold plan, worthy of the flagship university of a Commonwealth that aims to be at the forefront of the clean energy transition,” said Ben Hellerstein, Environment Massachusetts Research & Policy Center’s state director. “Repowering a major university campus with renewable energy is no small task, but it is a necessary one. The work underway at UMass sets a powerful example for other institutions, and state leaders on Beacon Hill, to follow.”
The Legislature is considering a bill sponsored by state Reps. Marjorie Decker and Sean Garballey, the 100% Clean Act (H.3288, S.2136), that would transition Massachusetts to 100% clean sources of energy for electricity, heating, and transportation.
“Congratulations to my alma mater UMass Amherst, which is paving the way forward by modeling its commitment to a future that is no longer reliant on fossil fuels,” said Rep. Decker. “I am a proud alumna and a grateful legislator and parent who knows the urgency of this transition is our best hope for a healthier future for all of us. We are already experiencing the devastating effects of climate change, which is threatening our security and harming many who are already economically and politically marginalized.”
Petra Nova, once billed as the largest U.S. project to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from a coal-fired power plant, opened to considerable publicity in Texas in late 2016.
Less than four years later, owner NRG Energy Inc. NRG -0.20% shut down the carbon-capture system, which cost $1 billion—not because the technology wasn’t working but because the expected end use for the carbon was no longer economically viable. The coal plant continues to generate electricity and emit carbon.
Carbon-capture projects are attracting renewed attention from investors and governments world-wide as concerns mount about the greenhouse-gas emissions linked to climate change. But the initiatives have a dismal record.
More than 80% of proposed commercial carbon-capture efforts around the world have failed, primarily because the technology didn’t work as expected or the projects proved too expensive to operate, according to a 2020 study by researchers at Canada’s Carleton University, the University of California, San Diego and other institutions.
The U.S. has spent $1.1 billion on carbon-capture demonstration projects since 2009, with uneven results, according to a December report from the Government Accountability Office. None of the eight coal projects selected for $684 million of the funding during that time is operating, the researchers found. Projects to capture carbon from heavy industries met with some success.
While some early projects have demonstrated that it is technologically possible to collect carbon from power plants and industrial sites—or even directly out of the air—they have generally been very expensive. Many face a fundamental problem: there is no economic use for the carbon they capture.
Currently, the only large-scale use for captured carbon is for pushing more oil and gas out of declining reservoirs, which in turn leads to additional emissions when the fossil fuels are burned for energy. In the U.S., there is no federal requirement that companies capture carbon emissions, or carbon taxes or other fees aimed at discouraging them from releasing the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
As a result, most carbon-capture initiatives don’t save companies money or generate profits, and they represent an added business expense. Still, some companies are pursuing the projects to reduce their carbon footprint under pressure from investors and activists concerned about climate change.
A fresh round of U.S. carbon-capture projects is in the works, bolstered by around $12.1 billion in funding in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed into law last year by President Biden. Oil, power, chemicals and biofuels companies are kicking off a wave of new proposed carbon-capture investments, including carbon-transport pipelines in Iowa, a coal-power plant in North Dakota and a hydrogen plant in Louisiana.
Large fossil-fuel companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM -2.59% and Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY -4.02% are touting carbon capture as a part of their future plans to reduce emissions—and lobbying Congress to increase a tax credit to make the projects more economically sustainable.
New carbon-capture projects are bolstered by the infrastructure bill President Biden signed into law last year. PHOTO: SUSAN WALSH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Many companies and climate activists say governments need to nurture innovative technologies to capture emissions that would otherwise be hard to cut. Accelerating such projects, they argue, is the only realistic way to reach the targets of the international Paris agreement, which seeks to keep rising temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
“To meet the goals of the Paris climate accords, there’s no way we can do it without direct-air capture,” Occidental Chief Executive Vicki Hollub said in an interview. The company, which uses carbon to extract oil, plans to build facilities to capture it straight from the air, but considers the potential tax-credit expansion vital to its efforts.
Exxon is proposing a project with other companies in Houston to capture and bury the carbon from an array of industries. But it would be difficult to launch at its proposed size without policy changes such as a larger tax credit, said Erik Oswald, a vice president at Exxon.
Congress is considering boosting the credit for collecting carbon emissions from smokestacks by 70% to $85 for a metric ton if the carbon is stashed in saline geologic formations, or $60 if it is sent down oil wells. Direct air projects would get $180 for a metric ton if the carbon is stored, or $130 for oil.
Less generous tax credits have been on the books since 2008 but have failed to create a real carbon-capture industry. “There’s been little material impact on the deployment of carbon capture and storage,” said Scott Anderson, senior director of energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
The infrastructure bill included funding for pipelines and storage to help build a missing puzzle piece: a spider’s web of infrastructure that could gather and ship carbon from multiple sites.
“That’s a massive step forward for carbon capture and carbon storage,” said Cindy Crane, chief executive of Enchant Energy Corp., which plans to retrofit a coal-fired power plant in New Mexico with carbon-capture equipment for around $1.3 billion. The project would also require up to roughly $390 million in plant improvements, a pipeline and storage field.
Globally, industries will have to raise carbon-capture capacity by a factor of 50 to 100 times over what is in the development pipeline to achieve what the International Energy Agency estimates is needed to reach “net-zero” carbon emissions by 2070, said John Bradford, professor of geophysics and vice president for global initiatives at the Colorado School of Mines.
Building those projects—and keeping them running—can be costly. Petra Nova was a joint venture of NRG and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corp. that captured some emissions from a coal plant near Houston and piped them about 80 miles to an oil field, where they were used to push more crude out of the ground. The government awarded the project around $195 million in a proof-of-concept grant.
Petra Nova closed in 2020 after the pandemic reduced demand for fuel and led to a collapse in oil prices, which made the oil that the captured carbon was helping produce less economically viable. It remains in mothball status, though NRG said it proved the technology could work on a coal-fired plant.
“We continue to explore options to improve the economics,” said NRG spokesman Chris Rimel.
Mississippi Power’s plant in De Kalb, Miss. The company is the utility arm behind the Kemper project. PHOTO: ROGELIO V. SOLIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
In Mississippi, a carbon-capture initiative by utility Southern Co. SO 0.35% has turned into a white elephant. The project known as Kemper aimed to use locally mined lignite coal to fuel a power plant, and capture the resulting carbon emissions, which were then to be sent to oil fields to prime crude production. The Energy Department invested $387 million.
Forecast to cost $3 billion in 2010, Kemper’s costs spiraled above $7 billion. Once constructed, the coal-gasification technology never quite worked as intended, and Southern abandoned its initial plans, burning natural gas in the power plant instead.
The company imploded coal and carbon-capture equipment that couldn’t be dismantled for resale last October. Coal conveyors from Kemper are now available for sale online.
“It was the end of a long, bad experiment,” said Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, a Kemper critic. Mr. Presley said he favors innovation but believes government and business should bear the risk instead of utility ratepayers.
Mr. Presley and other regulators didn’t allow Southern to pass Kemper’s full cost on to customers. The company, which had to assume some $6 billion on the project’s cost, is paying for demolition of the carbon-capture part, estimated at $10 million to $20 million annually through 2025, said a spokesman for Mississippi Power, the utility arm behind the project.
The federal government is now funding a $24 million feasibility study that includes the same plant—this time for capturing and storing carbon emissions from natural gas.
A new bill in the state of New York could require fashion brands to disclose social and climate impacts as well as order these global companies to work toward reducing their environmental impact.
The bill, if passed, requires major fashion retailers that make over $100 million in revenue globally and operate in New York “to disclose environmental and social due diligence policies [and] establishes a community benefit fund for the purpose of implementing one or more environmental benefit projects that directly and verifiably benefit environmental justice communities,” the bill states. That includes luxury brands, like Prada and Armani, alongside fast-fashion retailers, like Shein.
Under the proposed Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act, retailers that do not disclose environmental and social policies nor work toward environmental benefit projects would face penalties of up to 2% on revenues of $450 million or higher. All fines collected from companies violating the law would go into a fund used to support projects for environmental justice.
If the new law is passed, fashion brands would need to show at least 50% of their suppliers by volume, Bloomberg reported, as well as the type and materials used to make apparel and how much of the materials are recycled. The companies must also identify impacts based on their emissions, water consumption and chemical use.
The law would also hold companies accountable for reporting wages paid to suppliers, with analyses on how that pay compares to minimum wages and living wages. All of these disclosures would need to be listed on the brands’ websites. New York’s state attorney general would then create an annual report listing any brands that do not comply with the law, and citizens could then file civil suits against the retailers.
“As a global fashion and business capital of the world, New York State has a moral responsibility to serve as a leader in mitigating the environmental and social impact of the fashion industry,” said State Senator Alessandra Biaggi, co-sponsor of the bill. Biaggi also noted that the law would make the state a leader in holding the fashion industry accountable and that the law would prioritize “labor, human rights, and environmental protections.”
As reported by The World Bank, the fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of all annual emissions globally. Fashion consumption is only speeding up, too, and experts estimate that the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions will surge 50% before the end of the decade.
The law, first introduced in October 2021, is currently in committee..
Stanford professor Mark Jacobson sees a way for the U.S. to meet its energy demands by 2050 with 100% wind, water and solar.
His models use no fossil fuels, carbon capture, direct air capture, bioenergy, blue hydrogen or nuclear power.
Jacobson’s roadmap is different from many clean-energy proposals, which advocate using all technologies possible.
A prominent Stanford University professor has outlined a roadmap for the United States to meet its total energy needs using 100% wind, water and solar by 2050.
Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor of civil and environmental engineering and the director of its Atmosphere/Energy Program, has been promoting the idea of all renewable energy as the best way forward for more than a decade. His latest calculations toward this ambitious goal were recently published in the scientific journal Renewable Energy.
Transitioning to a clean-energy grid should happen by 2035, the study advises, with at least 80% of that adjustment completed by 2030. For the purposes of Jacobson’s study, his team factored in presumed population growth and efficiency improvements in energy to envision what that would look like in 2050.
Jacobson first published a roadmap of renewable energy for all 50 states in 2015.
This recent update of that 2015 work has a couple of notable improvements.
First, Jacobson and his colleagues had access to more granular data for how much heat will be needed in buildings in every state for the coming two years in 30-second increments. “Before we didn’t have that type of data available,” Jacobson told CNBC.
Also, the updated data makes use of battery storage while the first set of calculations he did relied on adding turbines to hydropower plants to meet peak demand, an assumption that turned out to be impractical and without political support for that technology, Jacobson said.
Reliability of four-hour batteries
In the analysis, Jacobson and his team used battery-storage technology to compensate for the inherent intermittency of solar and wind power generation — those times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
The Achilles’ heel of a completely renewable grid, many argue, is that it is not stable enough to be reliable. Blackouts have become a particular concern, notably in Texas this year and during the summer of 2020 in California.
That’s where four-hour batteries come in as a way to generate grid stability. “I discovered this all just because I have batteries in my own home,” Jacobson told CNBC. “And I figured, oh, my God, this is so basic. So obvious. I can’t believe nobody has figured this out.”
Mark Jacobson’s garage where his four batteries are located. Two cars are currently charging, too. Photo courtesy Mark Jacobson
Jacobson said that he observed his batteries stayed charged if they weren’t plugged in when they are off.
To get more than four hours of charge, multiple four-hour batteries can be stacked to discharge sequentially. If a battery needs more charge output at one time than the battery can provide, then the batteries need to be used simultaneously, Jacobson told CNBC.
With this observation, Jacobson and his colleagues at Stanford produced scenarios showing it is possible to transition to a fully renewable system without any blackouts or batteries with ultra-long-duration battery technology.
That’s key because technology for ultra-long-duration batteries that would hold energy for several days have yet to be commercialized. Start-ups like Form Energy are working to bring such batteries to market.
Planning, of course, is also key to keeping the grid stable. “Wind is variable, solar is variable,” Jacobson said. “But it turns out, first of all, when you interconnect wind and solar over large areas, which is currently done, you smooth out the supply quite a bit. So it’s because, you know, when the wind is not blowing in one place, it’s usually blowing somewhere else. So over a large region, you have a smoother supply of energy.”
Similarly, wind and solar power are complimentary. And hydropower “is perfect backup, because you can turn it on and off instantaneously,” he said.
Also, there needs to be changes in pricing structures to motivate customers to do high energy demand activities at off-peak times.
“Demand response is a very big component of keeping the grid stable,” Jacobson said. “It’s used some today. But a lot of places a lot of states in the US right now, the electricity price is constant all day … and that’s a problem.”
Calculating the breakdowns
So far, Jacobson and his team have run simulations for the all renewable, four-hour battery roadmaps for six individual states – Alaska, Hawaii, California, Texas, New York and Florida, and the contiguous 48 states taken together. (For the rest of the states, Jacobson has approximate simulations, which are available here.)
According to his models, California’s energy mix would include 14.72% on-shore wind energy, 18.28% off-shore wind, 21.86% solar panels on roofs, 34.66% solar panels operated by a utility, 5.32% hydropower, 2.91% geothermal electricity and 0.25% wave energy.
Texas would be 37.66 on-shore wind, 14.77% off-shore wind, 20.87% roof solar, 23.85% solar panels operated by a utility, 0.1% hydropower and 0.19% wave energy.
Jacobson and his colleagues use three types of models for the calculations.
First, they use a spreadsheet model to project business-as-usual energy demand in each sector in each state to 2050 and then to convert the business-as-usual energy demand in 2050 to electricity provided by wind, water and solar.
Second, they use a weather model to predict the wind and solar fields in each state every 30 seconds. This weather-prediction model runs on a supercomputer and is written in Fortran computing language.
And the third component of his modeling matches the 2050 energy demand with the weather modeling of energy that can be supplied from wind, water and solar every 30 seconds. The third component is also written in Fortran, but this portion of the process can run on virtually any computer.
The resulting models use no fossil fuels, carbon capture, direct air capture, bioenergy, blue hydrogen or nuclear power.
And in that, Jacobson’s roadmaps are different from many clean-energy proposals, which advocate for using all technologies possible.
“So we’re trying to eliminate air pollution and global warming, and provide energy security. So those are the three purposes of our studies,” Jacobson told CNBC. And that “is a little different than a lot of studies that only focus on greenhouse gases. So we’re trying to eliminate air pollution as well, and also provides energy security.”
Addressing all three issues has been Jacobson’s focus for more than a decade. His first major work in the area was published in 2009 in Scientific American magazine, and four years later he appeared on NBC’s “Late Night with David Letterman” to promote his renewable-only approach. Jacobson and longtime progressive political candidate Bernie Sanders co-authored a clean-energy op-ed in The Guardian in 2017.
Combating fears of blackouts
Jacobson knows that his viewpoint is not the loudest. The promise of next-generation nuclear power plants, for example, has gotten government and private funding of late.
Nuclear innovation is “pushed mostly by the industry people, people like Bill Gates, who has a huge investment in small modular reactors,” Jacobson said. “He has a financial interest. And he wants to be known as somebody who tries to help solve the problem.”
Gates addressed the criticism that he’s a “technocrat” looking to solve climate change with new innovations, instead of with political legislation supporting technology like wind and solar which already exists, in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS’ “60 Minutes” earlier in the year. “I wish all this funding of these companies wasn’t necessary at all. Without innovation, we will not solve climate change. We won’t even come close,” Gates said.
Also, the timeline for getting some of these technologies to commercialization is too long to be useful. Gates’ advanced reactor company, TerraPower, announced in November that it has chosen the frontier-era coal town Kemmerer, Wyoming, as the preferred location for its first demonstration reactor, which it aims to build by 2028.
“Even if it’s seven years, that’s just a demonstration plant,” Jacobson said. “That’s not even close to a commercial plant and on the scale we need.”
TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque said the technology, specifically the Natrium nuclear reactor, will make a meaningful difference in combating climate change.
“The Natrium technology was chosen as the first mover of TerraPower’s technologies because we believe it will be operational in time to offer significant benefit toward the country’s decarbonization goals,” Levesque said in a statement.
Winning over clean-energy skeptics afraid of blackouts is a challenge, but Jacobson believes he can convince people to accept that a future like he has modeled is possible.
Renewable solutions for long-distance ships and aircraft are not available yet, he said. “But those are on the drawing board. And we know technically it can be done just as those haven’t been commercialized.”
Education is a key hurdle, as Jacobson sees it. “I am optimistic. But the thing I find that’s the biggest difficulty is the fact that it is an information issue, because most people are not aware, most people are not aware of what’s possible,” he said.
China and the US announced a surprise plan to work together on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the crucial next decade, in a strong boost to the Cop26 summit, as negotiators wrangled over a draft outcome.
The world’s two biggest emitters had been trading insults for the first week of the conference, but on Wednesday evening unveiled a joint declaration that would see the world’s two biggest economies cooperate closely on the emissions cuts scientists say are needed in the next 10 years to stay within 1.5C.
The remarkable turnaround came as a surprise to the UK hosts, and will send a strong signal to the 190-plus other countries at the talks. China and the US will work together on some key specific areas, such as cutting methane – a powerful greenhouse gas – and emissions from transport, energy and industry.
“Both sides recognise that there is a gap between the current effort and the Paris agreement goals, so we will jointly strengthen our Paris efforts and cooperation … to accelerate a green and low carbon transition,” said Xie Zhenhua, China’s head of delegation. “Climate change is becoming an increasingly urgent challenge. We hope this joint declaration will help to achieve success at Cop26.”
Speaking at a virtual business conference on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, President Xi Jinping did not mention the deal directly but said “all of us can embark on a path of green, low-carbon sustainable development”.
“Together, we can usher in a future of green development,” he said.
John Kerry said: “The two largest economies in the world have agreed to work together on emissions in this decisive decade.
“This is a roadmap for our countries and future collaboration. China and the US have no shortage of differences. But cooperation is the only way to get this job done. This is about science, about physics.”
He told the conference: “This declaration is a step that we can build on to close the gap [between the emissions cuts set out so far and those needed]. Every step matters. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Kerry compared the cooperation with China with the agreements by the US to reduce nuclear weapon arsenals in the cold war. “You have to look beyond differences sometimes to find a way forward.”
Just saw John Kerry sitting down with Xie Zhenhua. Fingers crossed that chief negotiators of worlds two biggest emitters 🇨🇳🇺🇸 can work together and nudge the world closer to 1.5C climate target.
The China-US Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s came despite growing political tensions between the two powers, which had been reflected in the climate talks. In his parting shot at the conference, Joe Biden on Tuesday slammed China’s president, Xi Jinping, for “not showing up”. After that, Xie took a swipe at the US in an interview with the Guardian, saying: “We are not like some countries who withdrew from the Paris agreement after entering into talks.”
Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, welcomed the agreement: “Tackling the climate crisis requires international cooperation and solidarity, and this is an important step in the right direction.”
The announcement followed a call by developing countries for rich nations to come forward with more financial help for vulnerable countries, saying a new draft outcome for the talks was too weak in this regard.
The draft text, published early on Wednesday morning by the UK as president of the talks, set out the probable outcome of the Cop26 talks, including a potential requirement for countries to return to the negotiating table next year to beef up their national plans on cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The text also set out the scientific case for limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, and expressed “alarm” that emissions were far higher than the levels needed to stay within safe temperature thresholds.
But poor countries said the text needed more emphasis on climate finance, to help them cut carbon and cope with the impacts of climate breakdown.
Aubrey Webson, chair of the Alliance of Small Islands States, which represents 37 of the most at-risk countries, said: “The text provides a basis for moving forward but it needs to be strengthened in key areas in order to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable, particularly on finance. We won’t get the ambition on emissions we need for 1.5C if we don’t scale up the provision of finance, and this includes the long overdue recognition of a separate and additional component for loss and damage.”
He added that the language was too weak: “‘Urging’, ‘calling’, ‘encouraging’ and ‘inviting’ is not the decisive language that this moment calls for. We have limited time left in the Cop to get this right and send a clear message to our children, and the most vulnerable communities, that we hear you and we are taking this crisis seriously.”
Bruce Bilimon, minister of health for the Marshall Islands, part of the High Ambition Coalition made up of developed and developing countries, added: “We need a comprehensive Glasgow package to build and reinforce trust between developed and developing states.”
Other developing countries told the Guardian that clearer commitments were needed to force countries to ratchet up their emissions cuts.
The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, made a flying visit to Glasgow on Wednesday, where he warned delegates that failure to reach an effective agreement would bring an “immense” and well-deserved backlash from around the globe.
Johnson called for “a determined push to get us over the line” – and said some countries had not done enough to achieve this. Leaders not in Glasgow needed to “pick up the phone to their teams here and give them the negotiating margin, give them the space they need in which to manoeuvre and get this done”, he said.
Johnson criticised – but did not name – some countries for “conspicuously patting themselves on the back” for signing up to the Paris climate accord but doing too little at Cop.
“The world will find it absolutely incomprehensible if we fail to deliver [a good outcome]. And the backlash from people will be immense and it will be long-lasting, and frankly we will deserve their criticism and their opprobrium.”
World leaders have agreed a deal that aims to halt and reverse global deforestation over the next decade as part of a multibillion-dollar package to tackle human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
Xi Jinping, Jair Bolsonaro and Joe Biden are among the leaders who will commit to the declaration at Cop26 in Glasgow on Tuesday to protect vast areas, ranging from the eastern Siberian taiga to the Congo basin, home to the world’s second largest rainforest.
Land-clearing by humans accounts for almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, largely deriving from the destruction of the world’s forests for agricultural products such as palm oil, soy and beef.
By signing the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forest and Land Use, presidents and prime ministers from major producers and consumers of deforestation-linked products will commit to protect forest ecosystems.
Boris Johnson will unveil the agreement at an event attended by the US president, Joe Biden, the Prince of Wales and the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo. He is expected to say: “These great teeming ecosystems – these cathedrals of nature – are the lungs of our planet. Forests support communities, livelihoods and food supply, and absorb the carbon we pump into the atmosphere. They are essential to our very survival.”
The commitment on nature and forests comes as more than 120 world leaders came together in Glasgow to thrash out fresh commitments on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns that key countries have failed to step up.
On a day devoted to speeches by presidents and prime ministers that underlined the scale of the challenges ahead, Johnson said future generations “will judge us with bitterness” if the conference fails. Other key moments included:
India pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2070. Although it is the first time the world’s third biggest polluter has set this target, and experts said it was a realistic commitment, it is 20 years behind the 2050 date set agreed by other developed countries.
President Biden warned that greater urgency was needed at the talks: “Right now, we are falling short. There’s no time to hang back, sit on the fence or argue amongst ourselves.”
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said the world was being driven to the brink by an addiction to fossil fuels. “We are fast approaching tipping points that will trigger escalating feedback loops of global heating,” he warned.
In a recorded message, the Queen called on leaders to “rise above the politics of the moment, and achieve true statesmanship”. She added: “Of course, the benefits of such actions will not be there to enjoy for all of us here today: we none of us will live forever. But we are doing this not for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children, and those who will follow in their footsteps.”
Following his own speech, Johnson provoked some ridicule by admitting he would fly home rather than take the train.
Shortly before, he had told a roundtable of leaders of developing nations: “When it comes to tackling climate change, words without action, without deeds are absolutely pointless.”
The commitments on deforestation are an early win for the UK, which as host nation bears responsibility for forging a consensus among the nearly 200 countries present, amid concerns that an overall commitment on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the 45% scientists say is needed this decade will fall short.
The political declaration, which is voluntary and not part of the Paris process, is one of a range of side deals that the UK presidency is pushing for at the climate summit in Glasgow alongside others on methane, cars and coal.
The package includes £5.3bn of new private finance and £8.75bn of public funding for restoring degraded land, supporting indigenous communities, protecting forests and mitigating wildfire damage.
A pledge from CEOs to eliminate activities linked to deforestation, and £1.5bn funding from the UK government for forests, are also part of the deal. £350m of that will go to Indonesia and £200m to the Congo basin, with a new £1.1bn fund for the west African rainforest.
While the forestry agreement has been cautiously welcomed by ecologists and forest governance experts, they point to previous deals to save forests that have so far failed to stop their destruction, including in 2014. But this time, the EU, China and the US alongside major forested countries like Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Papua New Guinea will all sign the commitment.
Many details need to be clarified, particularly how the money is spent, according to Carlos Rittl, who works on Brazil for the Rainforest Foundation Norway. “Big cheques won’t save the forests if the money doesn’t go into the right hands,” he said, emphasising that it should go to indigenous groups and other who are committed to protecting the forest.
In a separate announcement, at least £1.25bn of funding will be given directly to indigenous peoples and local communities by governments and philanthropists for their role in protecting forests.
But the promised funds still fall far short of what some believe is needed. “We are undervalued and our rights are still not respected,” said Mina Setra, an indigenous rights activist from Borneo. “A statement is not enough. We need evidence, not only words.”
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.
Dealing with the climate crisis involves the overhauling of many facets of life, but few of these changes will feel as tangible and personal as the transformation required within the home.
The 128m households that dot America gobble up energy for heating, cooling and lighting, generating around 20% of all the planet-heating emissions produced in the US. Americans typically live in larger, more energy hungry dwellings than people in other countries, using more than double the energy of the average Briton and 10 times that of the average Chinese person.
This sizable contribution is now coming under the scrutiny of Joe Biden’s administration, which recently put forward a raft of measures to build and upgrade 2m low-emissions homes. “Decarbonizing buildings is a big task but it’s an essential task,” said Michael Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Rapid change will be needed to avoid disastrous climate change. To get to zero emissions by the middle of the century, the sale of fossil fuel boilers will have to end within five years, all new buildings will have to run on clean electricity by 2030 and half of all existing buildings will have to be fully retrofitted by 2040, a recent landmark International Energy Agency report warned.
“The appliances we use at home have tended to be overlooked but they are contributing a significant amount to climate change and we need to address that,” said Mike Henchen, an expert in carbon-free buildings at RMI. “That will touch people’s lives – our homes are our refuges, the places we know best. But hopefully the change will also make people’s homes more comfortable, safer and healthier, as well as reduce the climate impact.”
So what will the climate-adapted homes of the future look like?
Designing the home to use less – and cleaner – energy
Changes on both the outside and inside of our structures will shape the future of climate-proof homes. According to Alejandra Mejia Cunningham, building decarbonization advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, homes will have to follow three interlocking mantras: “using the least energy possible from the cleanest sources at the right time”.
Source: The Guardian
Solar panels on roofs will become more common while, in rented or apartment accommodation, community solar schemes could provide an alternative. Solar panels can also be married with home batteries to help store excess energy which, along with proper insulation, will help keep a house functioning even during the sort of lengthy power blackouts Texas experienced earlier this year.
Such a scenario opens up the possibility of utility companies operating an automated network of homes, as is the case in parts of Vermont, to manage demand and supply, rather than rely on hulking centralized infrastructure. “Having solar panels, batteries and water heaters all orchestrated and distributed makes the home a part of the energy system and can provide a lot of savings,” said Henchen.
Power use will become smarter and more automated, with technology helping spread energy use throughout the day to work in tandem with a grid powered by variable wind and solar, rather than cause big surges in demand that require the burning of gas or coal.
New tools for heating and cooling the home
Another energy efficient move will be to properly insulate homes. In fact new homes could be pre-fabricated in factories and fitted on site to reduce gaps where heat can escape.
Source: The Guardian
Deep reductions in emissions will involve revamping the major appliances in the home, such as the water heater, furnace and air conditioning unit. As these items become older, they become wasteful and they will need to be replaced by more efficient appliances that run off clean electricity.
Some of these replacements will be relatively innocuous, such as the installation of heat pumps, which will be in the basement or on the side of the house. Heat pumps work on principles similar to a refrigerator, shifting heat from outdoors indoors and vice versa. They can heat and cool your home and can also heat your water with an efficiency rate four times greater than a gas-powered version.
The changes you’ll notice in everyday life
Other changes will be more obvious in day-to-day life, such as replacing incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs, installing low-flow shower heads and phasing out gas stoves in favor of electric induction stovetops.
Source: The Guardian
Such a change may be unnerving to dedicated home cooks but proponents point to the swifter heat-up time, reduced indoor air pollution and negated risk of injuries to the hands of curious children.
“People will get used to technology like induction cooktops. There are already top chefs out there giving out the message that they don’t have a worse performance than gas,” said Rohini Srivastava, a buildings expert at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
The phase-out of gas will also remove the need for a carbon monoxide detector in the home, although in the western US, air purifiers may become a standard feature in an age of growing wildfire smoke.
At what cost?
All of this will cost money – about $70,000 for the average American household to decarbonize, according to Rewiring America. And broader, systemic changes will need to take place to make housing denser and centered around transit lines and walkable communities to reduce car use, as well as a concerted effort to make homes resilient to the storms and fires spurred by the climate crisis.
Climate advocates are calling for a slate of government support to aid this transition – San Francisco is currently working out how to make the $5.9bn switch to electrify all its homes currently powered by gas – but stress that the public will need to view the changes as painless.
“The only way we will be able to do this is if the home feels just as comfortable and user-friendly as it has always been” said Cunningham. “You need to be able to take hot showers, be cool in summer and warm in winter and not know the difference in terms of how that is all powered.”
The Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it’s considering drinking water limits for the entire class of PFAS compounds, which public health advocates say are categorically toxic.
The chemicals are used to make products resistant to water, stain and heat, and are known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t fully break down or degrade. They are linked to a range of serious health problems such as cancer, liver disease, kidney problems, heart disease, decreased immunity and more.
Though the EPA announcement marks only the beginning of a years-long process, the move is significant because the agency does not place any limits on PFAS in drinking water, and states’ rules limit fewer than 10 types of individual PFAS compounds.
About 9,000 varieties of the chemical exist, and a growing body of scientific research suggests that the entire class is toxic to humans and animals, and accumulates in the environment.
nvironmental groups have argued for several years that developing rules for each individual compound is failing to keep the public safe.
“With over 1,000 PFAS chemicals approved for use in the United States, a chemical-by-chemical approach to setting drinking water limits would likely take many lifetimes,” said David Andrews, a senior scientist with Environmental Working Group.
A recent EWG analysis found drinking water supplies for more than 100 million people across demographic lines are contaminated with PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and it is estimated that they are present in 97% of Americans’ blood.
PFAS all share a key trait: they are fluorinated, which helps the chemicals resist degradation, move through the environment easily, accumulate in animals and ultimately cause disease.
Public health advocates say that trait is the basis for regulating the chemicals as a class, or outright banning them, and a drinking water limit would represent a significant step in that direction.
Developing rules for a small number of PFAS compounds is largely ineffective because industries simply replace regulated compounds with non-regulated compounds that are also fluorinated.
A timeline on when new limits could be put in place is unclear. It has taken the EPA up to five years to determine if it is going to regulate contaminants under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and additional time on top of that to develop the limits. The EPA did not immediately answer specific questions about a timeline.
One of the world’s biggest food and consumer goods companies is set to introduce carbon footprint labels on its products for the first time by the end of the year – marking a key moment in the shift to badge products with their cost to the planet, The Independent reveals today.
Unilever, which has 75,000 products including Magnum ice-cream, Pot Noodle, Marmite and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, said that the carbon footprint of 30,000 of these products would be measured within six months, with carbon footprint labels on a select range by the end of 2021.
The labels will be piloted on up to two dozen products in Europe or North America and could adorn packaging in UK supermarkets by the end of 2022. Unilever said it plans to badge its entire product range over the next two to five years and also floated the idea of supermarkets creating “carbon-neutral or carbon-friendly” aisles, just like they have ”vegetarian aisles”, to help consumers make greener choices.
It is the first move by a global player to introduce carbon footprint labelling and could shake up supply chains in the food and drinks industry, causing other companies to fall in line or accelerate their plans. It comes as Boris Johnson’s food tsar, Henry Dimbleby, recommended a move towards consistent labelling that shows the environmental impact of products. The National Food Strategy, released on Thursday, said the Food Standards Agency should work with government and industry bodies to “develop a harmonised and consistent food-labelling system”.
It said: “Creating a simple and consistent method of labelling would ensure that all shops and manufacturers give us the same kind of information about our food. Having to record information about the environmental impact of food production could also influence the way that manufacturers make their products.”
Last month, Marks & Spencer and Costa Coffee agreed to pilot an “eco-score traffic light-style” label on select own-brand products from September. The label, developed by scientists at the University of Oxford and launched by the non-profit group Foundation Earth, will be graded into tiers marked A to G and colour-coded – green for the most environmentally friendly and red the least. It will involve 13 brands, including meat brand Naked, and they hope to follow up the pilot by expanding into Europe next year.
Previously carbon footprint labels have been used only by plant-based companies, such as Quorn Foods and Oatly.
Marc Engel, Unilever’s global head of supply chain, said: “We are halfway to ‘knowing’ what the carbon footprint of our product range is and we think now is the moment to begin ‘showing’. Our market research shows that younger consumers especially are very impacted by climate change and are keen to use their buying behaviour to send a message. We intend to roll out carbon labels on our entire product range over the next two to five years and believe it will transform not only the actions of consumers, but of the thousands of businesses in our supply chain as well.”
Unilever’s move was welcomed by the government as well as early adopters. A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We support Unilever’s ambitions to include carbon labelling on its products to help consumers in the fight against climate change.”
Pot Noodle is part of Unilever’s vast product range, Source: Independent
Sam Blunt, global marketing operations director for Quorn Foods, said the announcement of labels by the end of 2021 was “exciting”, adding: “A business of that size could really drive things forward and make a big difference, especially if they quickly roll out the labelling across their whole product portfolio.”
With about a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from the food industry, according to the United Nations, carbon footprint labels serve as a quick way for consumers to evaluate the climate impact of a product. Measured as a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) value, it shows the environmental cost from farm to fork, taking into account fertiliser use, energy needs, transport, processing, refrigeration and packaging.
But arguments as to what data to include in the label – as well as underlying concerns as to how accurate that data is – still divide opinion behind the scenes.
The British Retail Consortium, the trade body representing UK retailers, warned that “capturing all the data to generate an accurate and scientifically trustworthy label is complex – and we are not there yet across the full spectrum of retail products”.
Its head of sustainability, Peter Andrews, said: “Take a simple product like blueberries. The carbon impact fluctuates according to whether they are ripened indoors or in a field, which is itself a factor of the weather, which cannot be predicted. A lot of data still needs to be captured before consumers can hold up two bags of rice or two brands of beef burgers and make a robust choice between them based on carbon labels.
“We think carbon labels will play an important role in helping everyone live lower carbon lifestyles, but trust in a label is essential and that means the data supporting it needs to be robust.”
The label itself is contentious and different forms have been floated: either an exact footprint measure stated as a CO2e value – though critics say this could be hard for the public to grasp – or a simpler traffic-light system. The further question – as to whether the label should calculate only carbon emissions or take in wider environmental issues such as biodiversity and water usage – also divides the room. Andrews said: “A single, universal approach to labelling is critical to enabling the public to compare products across different brands. A proliferation of labels would not be helpful.”
But Unilever’s Engel said: “We believe speed is important to generate momentum and we intend to build accuracy along the way. For the data, we will use a combination of industrial averages taken from approved databases together with actual carbon measures where we have them, such as with our Ben & Jerry’s range. We think our labels will be around 85 per cent accurate. Ideally we want a world where a carbon footprint is as simple to measure as a calorie count, but it took 30 years to standardise calories and we don’t have 30 years to standardise carbon labels.”
Unilever is “spending millions on focus groups and consumer feedback” before settling on what form its labels will take. “We’re considering a traffic-light system supplemented by more precise data on the website, but we are still working through the options because it has to make sense to the consumers,” said Engel.
In contrast, food giant Nestle, which has over 2,000 brands in 186 countries, said that to focus exclusively on carbon emissions would be a mistake. Emma Keller, head of sustainability, said: “We shouldn’t only use labels to drive down carbon emissions and forget about biodiversity and animal welfare. It’s in all our interests to have an industry-wide, harmonised approach to labelling that is led by the science and adopted across Europe. We think scientifically robust composite labels will emerge over the coming years and that the Cop26 climate summit in November will accelerate the debate, but that we shouldn’t rush into it. For it to be effective in reducing emissions and providing transparency and agency to consumers, nobody should do this alone or strike out with their own method. Collaboration is essential.”
Defra, criticised by some in the industry for sitting on its hands, told The Independent that it hoped to use its Environment Bill “to seek powers to ensure information about environmental impacts, such as carbon emissions, is provided with certain products” – but gave no timeline for doing so or sense of how such powers might work. Defra added that “the need to regulate will be reduced in those sectors where industry is already taking action”.
Luke Pollard, shadow environment, food and rural affairs secretary, said: “In the middle of a climate and nature emergency, people want to do what they can to help the environment, but at the moment they don’t have the information to make more sustainable buying choices. Labour would show leadership with clearer labelling on carbon and environmental credentials, so people can back the brands and products doing the right thing by our planet.”
Engel said: “We have to accept that governments and regulators are going to be late to the party and take action ourselves.”
Food companies agree that winning over the public is critical if this is not to end in the same way as Tesco’s botched attempt at carbon labelling in 2011. A Tesco spokesperson said: “We trialled carbon footprint labelling and abandoned it after finding they did not influence customer purchasing decisions and that the labels were hard to understand. We learned that we cannot affect transformational change alone and have called for collective action across the food industry.”
Today, a decade later and with climate change rising sharply up the public’s agenda, consumers appear hungry for information. A 2020 survey by the Carbon Trust, which launched one of the world’s first carbon footprint certification schemes, showed that almost two-thirds of adults in the UK support carbon labels with around 80 per cent backing them in France, Italy and Spain. A recent EU study reported that 57 per cent of consumers in the bloc were receptive to environmental claims when making purchase decisions.
Engel said: “Everybody is aligned on the urgency of this as well as the need for collaboration. Our view is the more pilots the better. At the end of the day, we’d have no problem adjusting our label to fall in line with others if it’s for the common good. We’re not trying to be competitive. We win and lose together when it comes to climate change. We agree with Nestle that we need to work together to make this happen, but we need to start now. In the debate between speed and perfection, we are opting for speed and will refine as we go.”
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