Poor nations will struggle with World Bank’s climate change plans

Carl Mortished, World Business Editor: Analysis
You might think that we could do without another big report on climate change but this one from the World Bank is overdue and badly needed. Sadly, it does not have a hope in hell of doing what it says on the title page — Changing the Climate for Development. The World Bank has been trying to eradicate poverty and raise living standards in poor countries since 1946, with meagre success.
Now the good bankers have been given an extra ball to juggle — how to improve the lot of the world’s poorer countries, those where 1.6 billionpeople live on $1 a day, without burning a lot more fossil fuels.
The Bank provides trite answers uttered by others many times before: the need for more public spending on technology, a big commitment by developed countries to curb emissions. More interesting is where the bankers stumble in their effort to grapple with the horrible problem of our age.
The report states blandly that climate change policy “is not a simple choice between a high-growth, high-carbon world and a low-growth, low-carbon world”. Unfortunately, for most of the world’s population that is precisely the choice. Poor countries have limited or no options. Expensive fuel and food mean riots, so the solution is blindingly obvious — growth. Even among the more developed states, China and India, for example, resistance to our attempt to impose a curb on their carbon emissions has been ferocious.
Without infrastructure, without good roads, good government, reliable power and food distribution, poor countries collapse at the first wave and breath of wind. That was brought home in last year’s hurricane season when catastrophic floods devastated impoverished Haiti but the same storms left neighbouring and wealthier Dominican Republic less affected.
Oil and gas infrastructure, power stations, these were the World Bank’s bread and butter, although nuclear power was vetoed back in the 1970s when America’s writ dominated the institutions even more than it does today. The World Bank wants to be greener and it boasts of its investment in renewables. But what we need to know is whether a poor country, such as Bangladesh, can afford to dabble in greenery. Or does it need to build, build, build.

Germany to create national hydrogen fuel network by 2015

Germany speeds up the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology with countrywide hydrogen fuelling network.
Inhabitat, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 13.36 BST

Nissan hydrogen fuel cell vehicle: such cars would be able to easily refuel in Germany if a plan for a nationwide hydrogen network by 2015 becomes reality.
When it comes to the future of automotive technology, electric cars get the lion’s share of the attention. But hydrogen-powered vehicles are slowly gaining traction, first with an announcement last week that auto companies are spending billions on fuel cell vehicles, and now with news that Germany is planning to launch a countrywide hydrogen fueling network by 2015.
A total of eight companies (Daimler, EnBW, Linde, OMV, Shell, Total, Vattenfall and the NOW GmbH National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology) are working to bring the fueling network to fruition. In its first phase, scheduled for 2009-2011, the companies involved will lobby for public support and begin fuel station installations. The second phase will see the mass rollout of hydrogen-powered cars along with an accompanying fuel network.
Germany isn’t the only country trying to speed up the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology. Canada is working on a hydrogen highway to link Vancouver and Whistler in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, while Denmark is planning a hydrogen network to connect Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Germany.

Boost bus use to cut carbon emissions, groups urge government

Public transport groups say 1 billion car journeys could be taken off roads with more bus-friendly initiatives
Dan Milmo
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 19.35 BST
Public transport groups have urged the government to take 1 billion car journeys off British roads by imposing targets for more bus and coach use, creating more lanes and building more park-and-ride sites outside towns and cities.
Bus industry executives said a much-mooted high-speed rail line was a distant prospect and claimed that coach and bus travel could achieve significant emissions reductions over a shorter period of time. The Greener Journeys campaign, launched today, said that if one of of 25 journeys were made by bus or coach rather than car it could save 2m tonnes of carbon dioxide within three and cut 1 billion car trips over the same period.
“[High-speed rail] is 20 years off and there are huge sums of money associated with it. We can take 1bn car journeys off the road in the space of three years. With some pretty low-level initiatives we think that we can achieve some big strides forward,” said Professor David Begg, former chairman of the Commission for Integrated Transport.
The bus industry’s public service credentials were tarnished last month after the Office of Fair Trading warned that millions of bus passengers were being overcharged. Brian Souter, chief executive of Stagecoach group, said he “totally refuted” the OFT’s initial findings. “I believe that we deliver very good value for money across the country,” he said.
Bus and coach trips account for around 6% of passenger journeys in the UK, compared with 84% for motor vehicles and 7% for trains. Tackling transport emissions will be a key factor in achieving the government’s carbon dioxide reduction target of 80% by 2050. Transport accounts for around a quarter of British domestic emissions, with buses accounting for less than 4% of all carbon dioxide generated by travel.
Executives from Britain’s five largest public transport groups – Arriva, National Express, Go-Ahead, Stagecoach and FirstGroup – said small changes, such as more investment by local authorities in bus lanes, could make bus and coach travel more attractive, with only two out of 10 drivers describing themselves as “die-hard” motorists.
“Bus lanes reduce bus journey times and are not expensive to implement,” said Martin Dean, managing director of bus development at Go-Ahead. He said local authorities could set targets for the proportion of journeys made by bus, depending on the amount of bus services and quality of facilities offered by a town, city or local area.

Climate change will damage your health

World’s doctors unite in challenge to politicians over ‘biggest health threat of this century’
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Wednesday, 16 September 2009

Human society faces a global health catastrophe if climate change is not effectively tackled at the UN conference in Copenhagen in December, leading doctors from around the world warn today.
Calling on medical practitioners everywhere to put pressure on politicians in advance of the meeting, the doctors say that the world’s poorest people will be hit first by the health effects of global warming, but add that “no one will be spared”.
Their stark challenge to governments follows a report in May which said climate change would represent “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.
Malaria, dengue fever and other tropical diseases would increase, the study predicted, spelling out how rising temperatures will cause health crises in half a dozen areas: there will be increased problems with food supplies, clean water and sanitation, especially in developing countries. Meanwhile, the migration of peoples will combine with extreme weather events such as hurricanes and severe floods to make for disastrous conditions in human settlements.
The doctors make their appeal as momentum begins to build for the UN conference, which will be held in the Danish capital from 7-18 December, and which will see the world community attempt to draw up a comprehensive new climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto protocol. Its crucial objective will be drastic worldwide cuts in the emissions of industrial gases such as carbon dioxide which are causing the atmosphere to warm.
On Tuesday, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is convening a climate change summit of world leaders in New York, including Gordon Brown and President Obama, to try to give some impetus to the tortuous pre-conference negotiating process – the draft text of 200 pages already contains 2,000 “square brackets”: that is, points where the 190 countries taking part disagree.
The doctors’ challenge to politicians to sort this out comes in a letter published simultaneously in Britain’s two principal health journals, the British Medical Journal and The Lancet.
In the letter, Professor Ian Gilmore, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, joins 17 other national doctors’ leaders from the US to Australia in saying: “There is a real danger that politicians [at Copenhagen] will be indecisive, especially in such turbulent economic times as these. Should their response be weak, the results for international health could be catastrophic.”
They go on: “Doctors are still seen as respected and independent, largely trusted by their patients and the societies in which they practise … As leaders of physicians across many countries, we call on doctors to demand that their politicians listen to the clear facts that have been identified in relation to climate change and act now to implement strategies that will benefit the health of communities worldwide.”
The letter follows the report on the health effects of global warming which was launched jointly last May by The Lancet and University College London (UCL), and which squarely labelled climate change as the 21st century’s biggest global health threat.
That report’s lead author, Professor Anthony Costello, director of UCL’s Institute for Global Health, said at the time: “The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation. The impacts will be felt not just in the UK, but all around the world – and not just in some distant future but in our lifetimes and those of our children.”
Today’s letter is accompanied by an editorial written by two of Britain’s most senior figures in the area of health and development: Professor Sir Michael Marmot, director of the UCL International Institute for Society and Health, and Lord Jay of Ewelme, who as Sir Michael Jay was head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and is now chair of Merlin, (Medical Emergency Relief, International), the UK charity which provides healthcare and medical relief for vulnerable people caught up in natural disasters, conflicts and major disease outbreaks.
The two men write: “A successful outcome at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen this December is vital for our future as a species, and for our civilisation.” And they echo the writers of the letter in asserting: “Failure to agree radical reductions in emissions would spell a global health catastrophe.”
They point out that there is now wide consensus that global temperatures are rising and that human actions are responsible; that there is a need to cut carbon emissions by at least 50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change; and that the economic argument that taking action now rather than later will be cheaper has also been widely accepted since the Stern report in 2006. Furthermore, they say, the election of President Obama has shifted policy in the US from seeking to block an agreement to seeking to find one.
They go on: “So the chances of success should be good but the politics are tough. The most vocal arguments are about equity: the rich world caused the problem so why should the poor world pay to put it right? Can the rich world do enough through its own actions and through its financial and technological support for the poor to persuade the poor to join in a global agreement?”

Obama administration rolls out plan to require fuel efficiency from automakers

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 21.59 BST
The Obama administration, under pressure to show concrete action in the final stretch of climate change negotiations, rolled out its plans today to require automakers to produce cleaner and more fuel-efficient cars.
In an appearance at the White House, the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, and the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Lisa Jackson, introduced new fuel efficiency standards that would raise the average gas mileage for new cars and trucks to an average 35.5mpg by 2016.
The measures, which were first announced last May, come barely 48 hours before the first of a series of high-level events in Washington, the United Nations and Pittsburgh which will focus on climate change, and which will test Barack Obama’s ability to deliver on his promises to get America to act to reduce carbon emissions.
Obama won praise from world leaders for his promises to undo George Bush’s environmental record, but there is growing scepticism abroad that Democrats will be able to overcome opposition in Congress and pass legislation that would put America on a path to cutting its carbon emissions.
Jackson told reporters the new standards would save 1.8bn barrels of oil, and were the equivalent of taking 42m cars off the road. According to government estimates, the new standards would cost up to $1,300 a car by 2016 - but those costs would pay for themselves through better gas mileage.
Obama, in a visit to a General Motors plant in Ohio, said the measures, which were first announced last May, were long overdue. “This action will give our auto companies some long overdue clairty, stability and predictability.”
Environmental organisations also praised the move - noting that it was the first time the EPA had used its powers under the clean air act to try to reduce global warming. The Union of Concerned Scientists called it the biggest improvement on fuel economy and exhaust standards in 30 years - although it gave far lower estimates for fuel economies than the Obama administration.
“You have to go back to the days of disco to see a fuel economy improvement like this,” said Jim Kliesch, a senior engineer in the organisation’s Clean Vehicles Program. “These proposed standards will be the biggest increase in fuel economy in more than 30 years. That’s good news for the environment, consumers’ wallets and our nation’s energy security.”
However, the UCS and other groups expressed concerns at measures that could provide a loophole to car makers for meeting the new requirements. Foreign automakers who sell a limited number of cars in the US will also not be held to the standard.
The new regulations will be finalised in late March.
Today’s announcement was widely seen as an effort by the Obama administration to show that it is working hard to reduce America’s carbon emissions despite signs that climate change legislation could be stalling in the Senate.
Democratic leaders in the Senate have delayed taking up the climate change bill so they can focus on healthcare. That has fuelled concerns in Washington and abroad that a climate change bill could falter.
Such concerns have grown as the administration comes into the spotlight ahead of a UN climate change summit next week. The summit will be attended by nearly 100 world leaders, and America - as a major polluter - is expecting pressure from the small and developing countries that will suffer the most severe consequences of climate change to show it is taking concrete action.
With that in mind, the Obama administration has carefully coordinated a number of measures to showcase its commitment to action - even in the absence of legislation.
The EPA followed by today’s roll-out by announcing that it would more rigorously monitor toxic discharges from coal plants into the water supply. The announcement comes a day after three environmental organisations threatened to sue the EPA for failing to regulate the discharge of toxic metals such as lead, selenium, cadmium and mercury from the coal plants.
The EPA said the new rules, which have been pending since 1982, would be ready by 2012.
Also today, the State Department announced that the administration had signed on to a North American initiative to phase out production of another greenhouse gas, hydroflurocarbon or HFC, which is used in refrigerators and air conditioning. HFC, unlike other coolants, does not damage the ozone layer but it does contribute to climate change.

Renewables winning the energy race

The Guardian, Wednesday 16 September 2009
If I am travelling down an “irrational” road to renewables, as Richard Phillips implies (Letters, 11 September), then I am not alone. Last year, solar PV generation capacity grew by 70% around the world, wind power by 29% and solar hot water increased by 15%. By 2008, renewables represented more than 50% of total added generation capacity in both the US and Europe, ie more new renewables capacity was installed than new capacity for gas, coal, oil, and nuclear combined; with no emissions, no wastes and no security issues to worry about – and no worries about fuel running out, or increasing in price.
It’s true the energy available from some renewable sources, like wind, varies over time, but we already have to have backup capacity for other plants (including for nuclear plants), which is also used to deal with the daily energy demand peaks. With variable renewables on the grid, these backup plants have to be used a bit more often, adding a small extra cost and, if they are fossil-fuelled, reducing the amount of emissions saved very slightly. But hydro can also be used as backup, and increasingly, so can other types of non-variable renewable source, including biomass and geothermal energy.
If we to have a large amount of nuclear on the grid and the planned large wind-power input, then during low-energy demand periods – particularly at night in summer – we will have more electricity than needed, and one or other will have to give way. Since the output from nuclear plants cannot be varied easily and regularly without economic and operational penalties, we would have to curtail the wind output. How rational is that?
Professor David Elliott
The Open University

VW unveils 180 mile-per-gallon, two-seater L1 hybrid at Frankfurt Motor Show

Volkswagen has unveiled its answer to the recession at The Frankfurt Motor Show, the L1 - a 180 mile-per-gallon, tandem two-seater hybrid car.

By Andrew English, Motoring CorrespondentPublished: 12:18PM BST 15 Sep 2009
Andrew English, the Telegraph Motoring Correspondent, tries out VW’s L1, an 180 mile-per-gallon, two-seater hybrid car, at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
The L1 concept is shorter than a VW Fox and lower than a Lamborghini. When it goes into production in 2013, it will be the most aerodynamic car in the world and, at just 840lb, the lightest.
It is built of the most exotic materials, with slippery carbon-fibre coachwork, a fighter aircraft’s cockpit canopy and rear-view television cameras instead of wing mirrors.

Its tiny, 800cc engine is one half of a VW 1.6-litre TDI turbodiesel unit, which delivers maximum power of 29 brake horsepower together with a 14 horse power electric motor to provide extra oomph for overtaking.
Free road tax
The L1 is capable of 99mph and 0-62mph acceleration in just 14.3sec and emits carbon dioxide at the parsimonious rate of just 39g/km, meaning free road tax in the UK.
In fact if the average British motorist swapped his 35mpg hatchback for an L1, he would reduce his annual fuel bill from about £1,430 to about £277.
No prices have been mentioned, but the sheer knowhow involved in the L1 as well as the exotic materials used in its construction means this new generation of super car might save money at the pumps but is unlikely to be very cheap to buy.
Green power
The Frankfurt motor show has opened into the worst sales slump the industry has seen for decades. Europe’s car markets were over 14pc down in the first six months of this year and mass-market car makers are having their sales artificially buoyed up by scrappage schemes.
However, despite ecology, frugality and the environment receiving more than lip service, with lots of hybrids and tiny electric prototypes, it was the big, heavy and fast cars that captured the headlines.
So Volkswagen’s hybrid L1 concept marks a refreshing change from the normal.
Piëch’s vision
The L1 is a result of an extensive Volkswagen research project which commenced in 1998.
It looked into ways of saving production costs in exotic materials such as carbon fibre, as well as combining tiny petrol engines and electric motors to give huge fuel consumption.
The original concept was ordered by Volkswagen supervisory board head Dr Ferdinand Piëch in 2002.
In 2002 on the eve of his retiring from the role of VW Group chairman, Dr Piëch drove it from his office in Wolfsburg to the VW shareholders’ meeting in Hamburg, recording 317·4mpg at an average speed of 43·5mph.
“We will never build a one-litre car,” he said as he stepped out of the cockpit, “but it could give us the knowledge to build a two-litre car.”
That research concept was retired to the company’s museum in Wolfsburg, but in the R&D department work continued.

Climate change: Senate Democrats may delay legislation

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 September 2009 01.59 BST

Democratic leaders in the Senate said last night they may wait until next year to take up climate change legislation, jeopardising the prospect of reaching a deal to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of global warming.
The delay would prevent Barack Obama from delivering on his promise of demonstrating firm US commitment on climate change action in advance of negotiations at Copenhagen next December.
The setback arrives at a critical moment in the home stretch of the negotiations, with UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, telling the Guardian that world leaders needed to show stronger leadership if they want to reach a deal at Copenhagen.
In a briefing with reporters, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, said Democrats wanted to push ahead on healthcare reform this year before taking up climate change.
“We are going to have a busy, busy time the rest of this year,” Reid said. “And, of course, nothing terminates at the end of this year. We still have next year to complete things if we have to.”
Such a delay means that America would be unable to send the strong signal it is ready to act to cut its greenhouse gas emissions that has been demanded by other big polluters such as China and India. That in turn would imperil the prospects of coming to a deal at Copenhagen to halt warming in time to avert dangerous rising of temperatures and sea levels, and severe droughts.
Reports of Reid’s comments caused instant dismay among environmental organisations which have organised an unprecedented effort to build support in the Senate and among the American public for climate change legislation.
“It’s really distressing news,” said Jennifer Haverkamp, who follows international climate negotiations for the Environmental Defence Fund. “What this does is it gives a lot of other countries the excuse they may have been looking for to hide behind the US inaction.”
With time running out before the meeting in Copenhagen that is designed to seal an international climate change deal, Ban had been looking to the summit of nearly 100 world leaders at the UN next Tuesday to break through the distrust between rich and poor countries.
“We are deeply concerned that the negotiation is not making much headway. It is absolutely and crucially important for the leaders to demonstrate their political will, leadership, and to give clear political guidelines to the negotiators,” Ban told the Guardian. “They should be responsible for the future of this entire humanity.”
But Reid’s statements now look set to dominate the summit, and intensify the focus on whether the US will be prepared to make the cuts in carbon emissions needed to tackle climate change, and persuade India, China and other countries to follow its example.
Climate negotiators, while praising the Obama administration for its support for climate change action, have said repeatedly the US needs to follow up on such promises with concrete measures to reduce carbon emissions.
The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill last June, but it will not become law until passed by the Senate, and signed by Obama.
Diplomats say that without signs of movement in the Senate it will be even more difficult to restart the bogged down climate negotiations.
Todd Stern, the state department envoy, acknowledged as much last week, telling Congress: “Nothing the United States can do is more important for the international negotiation process than passing robust, comprehensive clean energy legislation as soon as possible.”
There is also widespread concern a delay to next year would make it even more difficult for the Senate to take up difficult legislation, such as climate change, before congressional elections in November.

Against the grain on Norman Borlaug

The feted agronomist may have saved a billion from starvation, but critics say he planted the seed for future environmental woes
Leo Hickman
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 September 2009 12.00 BST

Accolades don’t come much more gushing than those expressed this week following the death of Norman Borlaug, the agronomist whose lifelong work developing high-yield crops played a major role in heralding the so-called “green revolution” and who has often been credited as the “man who saved a billion lives“.
Throughout his life he was feted with awards and honours across the world: the Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, India’s Padma Vibhushan, to name just a few.
But despite the passionate humanitarian zeal that drove much of his work, he certainly had his critics. The criticism was not so much aimed at the man himself, but for the biotech legacy he played such a major role in creating. After all, this was the man who arguably did more than any other to nurture the era of monocrops, GM foods and the intensive use of petrochemical pesticides and fertilisers. He may well have saved a billion people from imminent starvation, but by doing so, say his critics, he also inadvertently helped to plant the seed for future environmental woes.
Has there ever been a person in human history whose legacy has pivoted so precariously on the fulcrum between good and bad? We will only know the complete answer in the decades to come once the full implications of the world being so reliant on what are now called “conventional” farming methods have been borne out in the context of overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, water depletion and all the other issues now so inextricably linked to modern farming.
Borlaug was not naive on these issues, though. In his Nobel acceptance speech, he recognised that “we are dealing with two opposing forces, the scientific power of food production and the biologic power of human reproduction”:
There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind.Borlaug said this in 1970 when the global human population stood at 3.7 billion. Today, it is fast approaching seven billion. Modern farming has won the “battle” with population control convincingly.
Borlaug also dismissed the sometimes barbed attack of the environmentalists by arguing that his high-yield crops helped protect rainforests because they allowed farmers to continue exploiting existing farmland, therefore avoiding the need to stray into neighbouring forests with their chainsaws and firesticks.
As he grew older, though, he became an increasingly fervent supporter of GM technology, arguing that without it the booming human population would face widespread famine.
It was another subject for which he often came into combat with some environmentalists. But he saved much of his disdain for the organic farming movement. This is what he told Reason magazine in 2000 when asked what he thought of organic farming:
Don’t tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertiliser. That’s when this misinformation [about the merits of organic farming] becomes destructive.
Borlaug’s vision and subsequent success was underpinned by the widespread availability of cheap oil. His solution for feeding the world was one that could only have ever been dreamed up in that post-war era when the energy source was obvious and unquestioned. But times have changed: with Borlaug’s passing we are reminded how impatiently we await a successor to dream up the answer to our battle between rising population levels and sustainable food production.

U.S. cracks down on mountaintop coal-mine permits

U.S. environmental regulators said on Friday they will scrutinize 79 applications for mountaintop coal-mine permits in Appalachia to guard against damage to water supplies.

“Release of this preliminary list is the first step in a process to assure that the environmental concerns raised by the 79 permit applications are addressed and that permits issued are protective of water quality and affected ecosystems,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.

In mountaintop mining, companies blast the tops of hills with dynamite to get to the coal seams. The resulting rubble is pushed off the mountains into valleys below, often burying streams.

The move was seen as a sign that President Barack Obama, who has put environmental and energy issues high on his agenda, is serious about slowing down mountaintop mining.

“This administration is full force headed down the path where it wants to stop this practice,” said Dan Scott, an analyst at Dahlman Rose & Co in New York.

Scott said the move would likely benefit mining companies, like Consol Energy Inc, that have low-cost underground operations as opposed to mountaintop mining.

The EPA said it will work with the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that the proposed projects will not harm water supplies.

Environmentalists praised the EPA’s move.

“By recommending these permits not be approved, the EPA and the Army Corps have demonstrated their intention to fulfill a promise to provide science-based oversight which will limit the devastating environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining,” Willa Mays, executive director for Appalachian Voices, said in a release.

In the next 15 days, the EPA will evaluate the preliminary list of projects slated for further review and transmit a final list to the Army Corps. Then environmental issues over particular permit applications will be addressed during a 60-day review process triggered when the Corps informs EPA that a particular permit is ready for discussion.

Source:
International Business Times, “U.S. cracks down on mountaintop coal-mine permits“, accessed September 12, 2009