Independent UN expert urges greater efforts to help South Ossetia’s displaced

An independent United Nations human rights expert who just completed a visit to South Ossetia has called for “more pragmatism and less politics” to improve the situation of those displaced during last year’s armed conflict that pitted Georgia against separatists and their Russian allies.

In face of Abbas’ electoral withdrawal, UN again urges Israeli settlement freeze

Terming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ announcement that he will not run for re-election “a loud and clear wake-up call,” a senior United Nations official today called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Energy agency warns of ‘irreparable’ damage

New figures from the International Energy Agency warn of huge increases in carbon emissions if we do not switch to low-carbon energy sources, says Jim Giles

Millions of poor across Africa set to suffer deepening food crisis, warns UN report

Despite good global cereal harvests this year, millions of people in dozens of poor countries are in desperate need of emergency humanitarian aid due to stubbornly high food prices, the United Nations agricultural agency warned in a report released today.

Boost to Scots CCS bid for £1bn emissions cash as rival quits race

Published Date: 10 November 2009
By Jenny Fyall
SCOTLAND’S chances of winning at least £1 billion in funding to capture emissions from power stations have been boosted after a key competitor pulled out of the contest.
ScottishPower has ambitions to win the huge sum of government funding to install carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology at Longannet Power Station in Fife.The firm had been competing against E.ON, which hopes to win the money to install CCS at a new power station at Kingsnorth in Kent, as well as RWE npower, for its power station in Tilbury, Essex.However, RWE npower yesterday confirmed it had decided withdraw from the competition, blaming the current economic situation.It has been highlighted that E.ON has admitted it is unable to meet the competition deadline – which has demanded a full-scale working demonstration plant built by 2014. This is due to a decision earlier this year that it would be postponing plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth – which was to have been its host site for the CCS project if it won the technology.Although E.ON has been allowed to remain in the competition, some experts say this makes ScottishPower the front-runner for the cash.Professor Stuart Haszeldine, an expert in CCS at Edinburgh University, said there was now just “one obvious winner”.If ScottishPower won the money to retrofit Longannet Power Station, it could pave the way for Scotland to lead the way globally in developing a technology considered crucial for the fight against climate change.If CCS is developed successfully, it will be able to capture about 90 per cent of the emissions produced by coal-fired power stations – meaning the plants could continue operating without hampering efforts to tackle global warming.Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said: “The government has received two bids – from E.ON and Scottish Power – to proceed to the next stage of the current CCS demonstration competition.”It is expected contracts for the detailed design stage will be concluded early next year.” Nick Horler, ScottishPower’s chief executive, said: “The ScottishPower consortium is ready to demonstrate CCS at a commercial scale at Longannet from 2014 and help the UK realise the massive economic and environmental potential of this revolutionary technology.”Meanwhile, the Scottish Government and UK government both announced yesterday they would no longer allow any new coal power stations without CCS technology. Previously, the SNP had only insisted on new power stations being “ready” to use the technology, once it was invented.Environmental campaigners welcomed the move, but argued deadlines for installing CCS technology at existing power stations were not ambitious enough.

Energy policy: Atomic dreams

Editorial
The Guardian, Tuesday 10 November 2009

“No government has sought to influence me in any way whatever,” declared Sir Frank Layfield before giving the go ahead for the last nuclear power station to be built in Britain. His Sizewell B inquiry, which occupied Aldeburgh’s Snape Maltings for much of the early 1980s, was tortuous and expensive. Its successor, Ed Miliband confirmed yesterday, will be swift and restricted, its scope directed by government to an almost Napoleonic extent.
Mr Miliband is a convert to the nuclear cause, arguing that the price of not building a new generation of plants, in the form of higher carbon emissions, trumps the environmental and financial cost of going ahead. Yesterday he issued the new Infrastructure Planning Commission with its orders. There will be no drawn-out public inquiry into each new nuclear site, windfarm or power line. The IPC will review specific applications, and consult, but its remit will not allow it to question whether such things should be built, only where.
The new planning process is already controversial and will become more so once it swings into full operation next year. Decisions will be taken quickly and once made cannot be overturned by ministers (a point the Conservatives intend to change). There are promises of consultation, but no right of veto for local people on big projects. Applications for smaller wind farms below 50MW will continue to be decided by local government – which might throw the industry’s focus behind bigger ones. But Mr Miliband is right to set out an energy policy, and right that planning policy had to change to accommodate it. “Saying no everywhere would not be in the national interest,” he told the Commons. His aim is a near-zero level of carbon emissions from electricity production, but even if Britain faced no pressure to cut pollution, it would need to replace ageing power plants to keep the lights on and avoid a dangerous dependence on expensive imported gas.
Half the energy secretary’s statement concentrated on clean coal technology, glossing over its erratic progress, and the reality that even if carbon capture and storage is made to work, it will only have a marginal impact on emissions by 2020. The big focus was on nuclear, the planning challenge underlined by confirmation that all 10 possible sites are next to existing nuclear plants. It is hard to dispute Mr Miliband’s logic that, if Britain is to meet its carbon targets, extra nuclear power will be required – though some will ask why, ruling out Dungeness because of the risk of floods, he is happy to build at Sizewell, on an eroded coastline. Yesterday’s statements also leave the issues of funding and waste management unresolved. Fast-track planning is only the start.

Here we go again

The European Court of Auditors has, for the 15th year in a row, today refused to sign off the EU’s accounts.

EU anti-fraud Commissioner Siim Kallas anticipated this predicatable development in a piece on EUobserver yesterday in which he attempted to pin the blame for the mismanagement of EU funds on national governments and regional authorities.

(In classic Commission style, he also tried to ward off all critcism and shut down debate by getting in there first with the trademark ‘anti-EU’ jibe: “some quarters will yet again use the report to promote their own anti-EU agendas, which have little or nothing to do with the report’s findings.”)

But, as we argue today in a new briefing, the problem is with the EU budget itself. It is dominated by two failing policies which even the current UK Government is essentially opposed to: the Common Agricultural Policy, and the so-called Structural Funds. The sheer size and complexity of these two top-down spending programmes means the EU’s budget is wide open to waste and mismanagement, regardless of whether the blame lays with the Commission or the member states. The budget therefore represents extremely bad value for taxpayers’ money.

Also, while mismanagement of the accounts continues to be problematic, arguably the most important issue is the fact that the EU budget is hugely wasteful and irrational in terms of what the money is actually spent on, and where the money is spent.

To illustrate this, we have today published a light-hearted list of 50 new examples of EU waste, which may make you smile and despair in equal measure.

In the same leaky boat on climate change

The Maldives and Britain are united in the face of environment crisis – and we take inspiration from underwater politics
Douglas Alexander and Mohamed Nasheed
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009 21.00 GMT
Be in no doubt. Climate change is not tomorrow’s future menace. It is today’s growing catastrophe. In Copenhagen next month a meaningful deal must be secured if we are to have any hope of avoiding catastrophe.
This very human crisis is already being felt in parts of the world. This year, entire communities in Bangladesh are being forced to leave their homes due to rising sea levels; women in drought-ridden parts of Ethiopia have to walk five miles a day to collect water; and natural disasters are occurring with increasing frequency and ever more devastating results.
Climate change threatens us all. If we fail to bring it under control in the next decade we may move past the point of no return. This is a defining political test of our generation. Less than one degree of global warming since the industrial revolution has caused dangerous changes to our world.
Last month, the government of the Maldives held a cabinet meeting underwater to illustrate the stark reality facing the nation. The meeting caused a media sensation internationally. It was a lighthearted event with a deadly serious message: if climate change is not addressed, these beautiful islands will slowly slip into the Indian Ocean.
This week, the Maldives is hosting a conference of climate-vulnerable developing countries. The conference aims to thrash out a common position among the most vulnerable nations ahead of the Copenhagen meeting in December.
Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with the Maldives and all vulnerable countries. We are working to ensure the voices of the people who will be hit first and hardest by climate change are heard around the negotiating table. Copenhagen must secure a deal that sees rich countries shouldering their fair share of the burden of controlling climate change. This means tough targets on their own emissions but also an agreement on funding to help developing countries pursue green growth and cope with the impacts of climate change.
This will mean helping to end the deforestation that sees 8 million trees lost every day; governments working with the private sector to secure large investments in green industries; and a commitment to renewable energy, to make renewables cheaper than fossil fuel.
A fair deal at Copenhagen also means that climate change funding is not plundered from existing aid budgets but should be new, additional finance.
It is vital that the developing world has a strong, coherent voice at the table. The rich world must take the lead in cutting emissions and providing sufficient funds for developing countries. They, however, also have responsibilities. Developing nations need to grow, but their economic growth must be green.
To that end, the Maldives has signed an agreement to build a 75MW wind farm which will power the capital, Malé, the international airport, and 24 luxury tourist resorts. This project will cut CO2 emissions by 25%. It is due to be operational in 20 months. If a small developing country can make this rapid shift to renewables, there can be little excuse for richer nations to drag their feet.
Copenhagen is a moment of necessity. We must agree a credible, long-term deal that is fair and equitable. One that merely protects the interests of the rich will tell the world that the leaders of 2009 lacked the political will and moral conviction to help those whose lives will be blighted by climate change.
We need to use these last 28 days before Copenhagen to ensure that all parties are in a position to work towards a deal that will stand alongside the Geneva conventions and the UN charter as a defining document for humanity.

Barack Obama will go to Copenhagen if he can clinch climate deal

Daniel Nasaw in Washington
The Guardian, Tuesday 10 November 2009
President Barack Obama will travel to the climate summit in Copenhagen next month if the countries involved are on the verge of a deal and he thinks his presence will help to clinch agreement, he said in an interview last night.
It is Obama’s strongest assertion yet that he will attend the meeting in Denmark to help secure a binding treaty in the fight against climate change, and comes after weeks of pessimism and a significant downgrading of the summit’s goal.
“If I am confident that all the countries involved are bargaining in good faith and we are on the brink of a meaningful agreement and my presence in Copenhagen will make a difference in tipping us over edge, then certainly that’s something that I will do,” the US president told Reuters.
Obama made clear he considers his talks with Chinese leaders during an Asia tour later this month to be crucial in clearing remaining obstacles to an accord.
“The key now is for the United States and China, the two largest emitters, to come up with a framework that, along with other big emitters like the Europeans and those countries that are projected to be large emitters in the future, like India, can all buy into,” he said. “I remain optimistic that between now and Copenhagen that we can arrive at that framework.”
He spoke as progress on legislation in the US remains halting, and just days after the last formal international negotiations in Barcelona in the run up to the summit collapsed in acrimony. On Friday, developing countries threatened to walk out of the Copenhagen summit unless wealthier states commit to great cuts in their own emissions, and to more aid. Meanwhile, the UN, EU and some NGOs have accused the US of holding up the talks by refusing to show up at Copenhagen with firm emissions targets.
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill setting a 17% reduction in America’s emissions from 2005 levels, and a version currently in the Senate aims for a 20% cut by 2020.
It became clear on Friday that the best hope for Copenhagen is a “politically binding” agreement, which rich countries hope will have all the key elements of the final deal, including specific targets and timetables for greenhouse gas emissions cuts and money for poor countries to cope with climate change.
A British government official said: “It would be substantive. It would set timelines, and provide the figures by which rich countries would reduce emissions, as well as the money that would be made available to developing countries to adapt to climate change.” But, she said, a legally binding agreement “could take six months, up to a year, but we would want it to be [signed] as soon as possible.”
If Obama shows up next month, he will join more than 40 heads of state, including prime minister Gordon Brown and others from Europe, Africa and South America who have said they will attend the talks.
In Washington, Republicans and some Democrats have resisted emissions legislation, saying it would hinder job growth as the country claws its way out of recession. The White House has said global climate negotiations should continue while the US domestic political debate plays out.
Republicans are little inclined to allow Obama a victory on climate change, which they see as a liberal issue in the US, and the entire Congress is embroiled in a bitter fight over his health care reform plans.
In a dramatic display of intransigence, Republicans on a Senate committee tasked with approving emissions control legislation boycotted a hearing last week on the bill. The bill passed and will now be further shaped by Senate Democratic leaders before a floor vote.
Complicating the situation are next year’s congressional and Senate elections, when Democrats will be more concerned with voters’ economic woes than with demands from Copenhagen participants.
On Monday, Obama said he was optimistic he could convince American businesses and the public of the “enormous amount of benefits” of emissions control.
“In meeting with world leaders, I’ve repeatedly explained that America is not a speedboat,” he said. “We’re a big ocean liner. And you can’t reverse course overnight.”

Spain’s windfarms set new national record for electricity generation

High winds over the weekend supplied 53% of Spain’s electricity – equivalent to the power output of 11 nuclear plants
Giles Tremlett
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009 16.27 GMT

Wind energy provided more than half of Spain’s total electricity needs for several hours over the weekend as the country set a new national record for wind-generated power.
With high winds gusting across much of the country, Spain’s huge network of windfarms jointly poured the equivalent of 11 nuclear power stations’ worth of electricity into the national grid.
At one stage on Sunday morning, the country’s wind farms were able to cover 53% of total electricity demand – a new record in a country that boasts the world’s third largest array of wind turbines, after the United States and Germany.
For more than five hours on Sunday morning output from wind power was providing more than half of the electricity being used. At their peak, wind farms were generating 11.5 gigawatts, or two-thirds of their theoretical maximum capacity of almost 18GW.
The new record, which beat a 44 % level set earlier last week, came as strong winds battered the Iberian peninsula.
The massive output of wind turbines meant the Spanish grid had more electricity than was needed over the weekend. In previous years similar weather has forced windfarms to turn turbines off but now the spare electricity is exported or used by hydroelectric plants to pump water back into their dams — effectively storing the electricity for future use.
José Donoso, head of the Spanish Wind Energy Association, recalled that just five years ago critics had claimed the grid could never cope with more than 14% of its supply from wind.
“We think that we can keep growing and go from the present 17GW megawatts to reach 40GW in 2020,” he told El País newspaper.
Windfarms have this month outperformed other forms of electricity generation in Spain, beating gas into second place and producing 80% more than the country’s nuclear plants.
Experts estimate that by the end of the year, Spain will have provided a quarter of its energy needs with renewables, with wind leading the way, followed by hydroelectric power and solar energy.