UN chief thankful for the release of kidnapped civilian staff in Darfur

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced deep gratitude today on hearing of the release of two civilian staff members of the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) after more than 100 days in captivity in the war-torn western flank of Sudan.

Ban voices concern over health of Saharawi activist on hunger strike

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has held talks with the Foreign Minister of Morocco to voice his “grave” concern over an independence activist from Western Sahara who has been on hunger strike since last month.

Carlyle interest in Shanks shows waste is no longer down in the dumps

The recycling revolution makes Tom Drury’s firm very attractive to buyers

Nick Mathiason
The Observer, Sunday 13 December 2009
Confirmation that private equity is a dirty business came last week when the Carlyle Group approached Shanks, the quoted British waste management firm, with an unsolicited bid of £536m.
Ask Shanks’s well-regarded chief executive, Tom Drury, whether he shares the opinion beloved of conspiracy theorists that Carlyle, a US private equity firm, represents an extension of neo-conservative American foreign policy and he politely suggests: “They’re your words. Not mine.”
In the City office of Shanks’s joint broker Investec, Drury is careful not to ratchet up hostilities in what could yet turn into a protracted bidding war that many believe will see his company taken over in the first quarter of next year.
Last Monday, shares in the Milton Keynes-based company leapt 40% after it revealed the approach. It is strongly believed that Carlyle will not be a lone bidder.
Drury’s response to the situation typifies two attributes from his Yorkshire upbringing: a direct style fused with caution. “The approach is slightly opportunistic,” he says. “The share price was relatively low and I guess the waste market has declined through the recession. It will pick up and when it does we’ll be in a good position to grow. I suspect the private equity approach suggests it’s not a bad time to buy into a company like Shanks.”
Drury, a 47-year-old rugby fan and real ale drinker, responded to Carlyle that a 135p-a-share bid undervalued the company. But in a move that surprised the City, he suggested an offer pitched at 150p (£600m) or more would be well received. Crucially, Schroders and Legal & General, who between them speak for 25% of Shanks’ share register, were on board with him.
Drury has in effect set a reserve price for Shanks, which could spark an auction. Other possible bidders include French industrial group Suez, which owns waste disposal business Sita, and AVR, another waste rival owned by private equity giants KKR and CVC.
“We wanted to indicate we don’t have a closed mind to an approach,” Drury explains. “But we didn’t see the point of going through the normal ‘dancing around the handbags’. We wanted to give a clear level to the market that at that [price] or more we would engage. We accept it’s an unusual thing to do, but the vast majority of feedback is that it’s a bold and sensible thing to do.”
Shanks is reckoned to be valuable because under Drury it has tidied up its balance sheet and rid itself of its landfill holdings – a sector that will soon be obsolete thanks to tough environmental legislation. It is considered well positioned in Europe, and in particular the UK, to take advantage of growth in recycling and in creating power from waste.
The company suffered after it bought into waste businesses in Belgium and Holland in 2000 with a view to bringing advanced recycling technologies to the UK; the timing was wrong, because the UK failed to tax landfill at high enough levels to allow recycling to take off. That is why 56% of Britain’s waste is dumped in landfill sites, against 3% in Holland and 1% in Germany. Shanks’s recycling divisions failed to win enough business.
But this is changing. Any company or local authority dumping waste in a landfill site now has to pay a tax of £48 per tonne. By 2013 this will grow to £72. “If you add on what the landfill operator needs you’re going to pay £90 per tonne by 2013,” Drury says. “To their credit, this government has pushed landfill tax to a level where they are actively discouraging landfill as a solution [and] I think very clearly the Conservatives are aligned with the same approach.”
It will allow Shanks to open its first anaerobic digestion plant in Scotland next year, taking food waste and turning it into electricity. Four more facilities are planned.
The tax increases are required to bring the UK into line with European regulation. To bring change about, Britain must also invest £10bn in new waste management facilities and local authorities are now offering 25-year PFI contracts.
“People see the UK as the fastest growing waste market in Europe because we have got a lot of people, we’ve got the biggest change to make – and that creates opportunities for this company,” Drury says. That is why the waste sector, which for so long has been about burying rubbish underground, is now a very visible target.

Turn your house green and cash in

The Pre-Budget Report revealed new money is available to encourage households to save energy
James Charles

If the clunky old boiler in your house needs replacing or installing a wind turbine on the roof appeals, you may be able to claim hundreds of pounds from the Government to help you to realise your goal.
A package of green incentives in this week’s Pre-Budget Report is aimed at helping households to cut energy bills and combat global warming. The Government hopes that 200,000 homeowners will be helped by a range of measures that is worth £200 million.
However, if you want to benefit, you may have to act fast because the money available will be capped.
Scrap your old boiler

The Chancellor Alistair Darling announced plans for a new boiler scrappage scheme similar to the programme launched last year to encourage drivers to trade in their old cars.
Households will be able to apply for a £400 incentive towards the cost of installing a new condensing boiler. Such boilers are usually A-rated — A is the most energy-efficient rating — and it is estimated that installing one will save a typical household £210 a year in energy bills.
Only households with the most inefficient G-rated boilers will qualify for the scrappage scheme, but competition for funds could still be fierce. About 4.5 million homes are believed to have a G-rated boiler but, with £50 million earmarked, only 125,000 will be able to upgrade their boilers at a reduced cost when the scrappage scheme is launched early next year. Details are still to be finalised by the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
David Weatherall, from the Energy Saving Trust, says: “We expect the scheme to be considerably oversubscribed, so homeowners should apply at the earliest opportunity.”
You can find out the efficiency rating of your boiler at www.sedbuk.com, which has a database of information on most boilers in the UK.
As well as helping householders to achieve valuable savings on their energy bills, switching to efficient boilers is also good for the environment. Replacing all G-rated boilers with A-rated models would save almost 4.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year, equivalent to the emissions from 830,000 households.
However, homeowners have been warned not to pay for a new system without checking out the potential savings first. Even if you qualify for the scheme, you will still have to shoulder most of the expense.
The total cost of changing your boiler can vary between £1,500 and £3,000. Radiators and pipes may need to be replaced, so it is recommended that householders get a range of quotes from local contractors.
Annie Shaw, of the consumer personal financial help website CashQuestions.com, says: “The boiler scrappage scheme looks attractive, but consumers should beware of hidden costs unless their old boiler is actually on the point of packing up.
“Modern condensing boilers can be more expensive to fit and maintain than older less fuel-efficient models. While you will find that your gas bills will go down with a modern boiler, don’t underestimate the potential cost of repairs and parts.”
The British Gas website has a calculator which provides information on how much you can save by upgrading your current boiler. Visit britishgas.co.uk for details.
For more information on the boiler scrappage scheme, homeowners should contact the Energy Saving Trust on 0800 512012 or visit energysavingtrust.org.uk.
Make money from wind power
Homeowners who generate their own power from wind turbines and solar panels will be able to earn hundreds of pounds a year tax-free under plans outlined on Wednesday.
Under the proposed new Clean Energy Cash Back tariff, which is scheduled to launch on April 10 next year, will see homeowners paid by their local energy company for every unit of renewable energy they generate at home. Homeowners will be paid about 36.5p for every unit of electricity generated that they use in their home, although this will vary depending on how the electricity is generated. The average household could be paid up to £900 tax-free, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
Those who generate more than they need can sell the surplus energy back to their local supplier, picking up a second payment of about 5p per unit in return. Both payments will be tax-free.
The new scheme simplifies the rules for homeowners who generate their own power. Under the current scheme, homeowners receive cash payments for selling energy to the national grid, but the administrative burden of registering for the scheme is high while the price paid for the electricity by some companies can be low. Under the terms of the new energy feed-in scheme, the Government will establish a standard price per unit for generating electricity at home, which all local suppliers must pay.
The scheme will cover only renewable technologies, such as wind turbines or solar (photovoltaic) panels, which are used to generate electricity. Renewable heat generators, such as ground-source heat pumps, which heat water but don’t generate any power, will be covered by a separate scheme, which will be launched in 2011.
Under current government proposals, homeowners who installed renewable energy devices before the middle of July this year will not qualify for Clean Energy Cash Back, but will be transferred on to a similar tariff allowing households to sell back energy at a rate of 5p per unit. However, the standard rate that these households will be paid for generating electricity will be lower.
The cost of installing a solar electricity system is typically between £8,000 and £14,000, but can vary depending on the size and type of equipment used, according to the Energy Saving Trust. Wind Turbines cost from £1,500 for small roofmounted units to £20,000 for mast mounted systems.
For more information on generating energy at home and the new Clean Energy Cashback tariff, contact the Energy Saving Trust on 0800 512012.
Insulate your home
The Chancellor provided a big shot in the arm to the Warm Front scheme, which is aimed at helping pensioners, families and the disabled to make their homes more energy-efficient. He promised an extra £150 million next April to provide improvements in heating and insulation for 75,000 households. The Warm Front budget was set to plummet next year as the scheme ran out of cash.
Under the terms of the scheme, established in 2000, homeowners can apply for grants of up to £3,500 to make improvements to heating systems and insulation. Households that are not connected to the gas network can apply for grants of up to £6,000. The grants are available to those on means-tested benefits over the age of 60, living with children under 16, or homeowners claiming a disability benefit or allowance.
The scheme has been criticised in recent months for the delays faced by applicants seeking improvements to their home. It warns homeowners that insulation work can take between three and six months to complete and heating works may take up to six months to finish.
The scheme is administered on behalf of the Government by Eaga, an energy outsourcing company that specialises in renewable energy. For more information, visit warmfront.co.uk; call 0800 3162805.
Make money from wind power
Homeowners who generate their own power from wind turbines and solar panels will be able to earn hundreds of pounds a year tax-free under plans outlined on Wednesday.
Under the proposed new Clean Energy Cash Back tariff, which is scheduled to launch on April 10 next year, will see homeowners paid by their local energy company for every unit of renewable energy they generate at home. Homeowners will be paid about 36.5p for every unit of electricity generated that they use in their home, although this will vary depending on how the electricity is generated. The average household could be paid up to £900 tax-free, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
Those who generate more than they need can sell the surplus energy back to their local supplier, picking up a second payment of about 5p per unit in return. Both payments will be tax-free.
The new scheme simplifies the rules for homeowners who generate their own power. Under the current scheme, homeowners receive cash payments for selling energy to the national grid, but the administrative burden of registering for the scheme is high while the price paid for the electricity by some companies can be low. Under the terms of the new energy feed-in scheme, the Government will establish a standard price per unit for generating electricity at home, which all local suppliers must pay.
The scheme will cover only renewable technologies, such as wind turbines or solar (photovoltaic) panels, which are used to generate electricity. Renewable heat generators, such as ground-source heat pumps, which heat water but don’t generate any power, will be covered by a separate scheme, which will be launched in 2011.
Under current government proposals, homeowners who installed renewable energy devices before the middle of July this year will not qualify for Clean Energy Cash Back, but will be transferred on to a similar tariff allowing households to sell back energy at a rate of 5p per unit. However, the standard rate that these households will be paid for generating electricity will be lower.
The cost of installing a solar electricity system is typically between £8,000 and £14,000, but can vary depending on the size and type of equipment used, according to the Energy Saving Trust. Wind Turbines cost from £1,500 for small roofmounted units to £20,000 for mast mounted systems.
For more information on generating energy at home and the new Clean Energy Cashback tariff, contact the Energy Saving Trust on 0800 512012.
Insulate your home
The Chancellor provided a big shot in the arm to the Warm Front scheme, which is aimed at helping pensioners, families and the disabled to make their homes more energy-efficient. He promised an extra £150 million next April to provide improvements in heating and insulation for 75,000 households. The Warm Front budget was set to plummet next year as the scheme ran out of cash.
Under the terms of the scheme, established in 2000, homeowners can apply for grants of up to £3,500 to make improvements to heating systems and insulation. Households that are not connected to the gas network can apply for grants of up to £6,000. The grants are available to those on means-tested benefits over the age of 60, living with children under 16, or homeowners claiming a disability benefit or allowance.
The scheme has been criticised in recent months for the delays faced by applicants seeking improvements to their home. It warns homeowners that insulation work can take between three and six months to complete and heating works may take up to six months to finish.
The scheme is administered on behalf of the Government by Eaga, an energy outsourcing company that specialises in renewable energy. For more information, visit warmfront.co.uk; call 0800 3162805.
Case study: Keeping warm — and saving on energy bills
Joan Wilson, from Daisy Bank, in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, applied for free loft and cavity insulation two weeks ago under a scheme run by her local authority.
The 75-year-old contacted her council after reading about Warm Front, the Government- funded programme to help homeowners to reduce their energy bills.
Although she does not qualify for Warm Front because she does not claim a benefit, Mrs Wilson is seeking to enrol in a similar scheme offering free improvements to those aged over 70.
She says: “I thought it was a good idea to apply for free loft insulation because you can save money on your energy bill. It would also help if we were going to sell our home.”
Mrs Wilson and her husband also receive the winter fuel allowance of £120 each, which goes towards reducing their fuel bill even further.
There are more than 100 schemes running across the country designed to improve energy efficiency and to reduce bills by providing funds to improve insulation in the homes of the elderly and those on benefits. Even if you are not a pensioner or claiming benefits, you can apply for a significant reduction in the cost of insulating your home.

Make way for electric white van man
The Chancellor announced that all electric vehicles would be exempt from company car tax for five years from next April, encouraging businesses to offer lower emission vehicles to employees.
Will Bush, of Ernst & Young, the accountant, says: “These incentives could persuade greener householders to sacrifice part of their salary in exchange for the use of a electric company car.”
Alistair Darling also promised that electric vans will be exempt from the van benefit charge for five years. He also offered a first-year capital allowance up to the full cost of a new electric van, which means that the purchase of the vans would be classed as an investment in the business rather than a company vehicle for tax purposes.
The Government hopes to raise the number of electric vehicles bought by businesses in the UK. Last year businesses purchased 900,000 vehicles, of which fewer than 50 were thought to be electric.
There will be future changes in the thresholds for company car tax, which are based on the level of a car’s CO2 emissions. The thresholds are to be edged down by 5g of C02 per km from 2012, falling to a new lower 10 per cent band of 99g/km.
The 10 per cent tax band currently stands at 120g/km and accountants estimate that the tougher limits will push thousands of company cars into higher tax bands. This could add up to £120 million to the tax bill of UK businesses from 2012.
There will also be a change in the figure used to calculate the tax paid on private fuel used in company cars. This will rise from £16,900 to £18,000 and for a company van from £500 to £550.

Copenhagen climate summit: eight greenhouse gases and what they do

Several greenhouse gases contribute to global warming by trapping heat in the lower layers of the atmosphere. The top six below have been recognised by the IPCC as man-made causes of climate change, but water vapour and ozone also play major roles.

By Matthew MoorePublished: 11:00AM GMT 11 Dec 2009

Carbon dioxide is the gas with the greatest influence on climate change Photo: PA
1) Carbon dioxide (CO2)While composing just 0.04 per cent of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is the focus of efforts to counter global warming because levels have increased significantly since industrialisation, through the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

2) Methane (CH4)Tonne for tonne, methane is around 30 times more damaging to the atmosphere than CO2. Produced mainly through agriculture – from burping cows to rotting vegetable matter – its levels have also shot up in the last 250 years. Generally considered a secondary threat to CO2 as it is found in smaller concentrations.
3) Nitrous oxide (N20)Emitted by animal manure, synthetic fertilisers and some industrial processes such as the production of nylon, nitrous oxide is considered the third most influential greenhouse gas in terms of its contribution to global warming. More commonly known as laughing gas because of its anaesthetic properties.
4) Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)Widely used in air-conditioning and refrigeration systems since CFCs were phased out in the 1990s because of their effect on the ozone layer, HFCs are now responsible for one per cent of human-caused warming. The chemicals’ potency as greenhouse gases has led to legislation to limit their use and trade.
5) Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)Primarily released through aluminium production and semiconductor manufacture. They are largely immune to the processes that break down most pollutants in the atmosphere, where they can remain for thousands of years.
6) Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6)The most potent greenhouse gas studied by climate change scientists, Sulfur Hexafluoride is used in small quantities in various industrial and electrical process such as the manufacture of circuit breakers.
7) Water vapour (H20)Gaseous water is the single largest contributor to the greenhouse effect, amplifying the warming caused by other gases because it occurs in greater quantities as temperatures rise. But water vapour is rarely discussed in debates about climate change because human activity has little impact on its overall levels in the atmosphere.
Ozone (O3)Scientists now believe that the destruction of the ozone layer by CFCs, long lamented by environmentalists, has actually helped counteract global warming as the gas is a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect. As the hole is repaired, climate change is expected to speed up.

Unilever Drops Palm Oil Supplier

By TOM WRIGHT
JAKARTA—Unilever PLC said on Friday it would stop buying palm oil from Indonesian producer PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources & Technology after fresh allegations emerged the company was destroying pristine rainforests to make way for plantations.
Unilever’s decision comes after environmental campaigner Greenpeace alleged in a report that the company, one of Indonesia’s largest producers of palm oil, was illegally cutting virgin rainforest in West Kalimantan province, home to orangutans, gibbons and other rare species.
A spokeswoman for Sinar Mas Agro said the allegations were “not accurate” but declined further comment, saying the company was preparing a detailed response. The palm oil market is fragmented, meaning the Unilever order cancellation won’t make a material difference to overall sales, the spokeswoman added.
The spotlight on the damage to Indonesia’s forests—an area half the size of Switzerland is lost to deforestation yearly—comes as climate-change negotiators meet this week in Copenhagen. Indonesia is the world’s third-largest largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas, after the United States and China, due to forest destruction. The burning of trees and peat lands to clear land for palm oil plantations releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The Greenpeace report alleges the Jakarta-listed company cut forests without permits, failed to protect areas of high biodiversity and drained environmentally-valuable peat lands, violating Indonesian laws and the principles of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a green certification body set up by environmentalists and corporations. Sinar Mas Agro is a member of the group.
“The Greenpeace claims are of a nature that we can’t ignore,” said Marc Engel, chief procurement officer of Unilever, the world’s largest single buyer of palm oil, which is used in products such as margarine and cosmetics. “We have no choice but to suspend our future purchasing of palm oil.”
The company is owned by Indonesia’s Sinar Mas Group, whose Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd. unit, a major producer of photocopier paper, paper bags, and other stationery products, has lost key U.S. and European customers including Staples Inc. in recent years on concerns the company’s operations have led to massive forest destruction in Indonesia.
Sinar Mas Group has in the past denied claims that it improperly cleared forest and said it is committed to protecting the environment.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was set up earlier this decade by Unilever, the environmental group WWF, Malaysian plantation companies and a Swiss supermarket chain to set minimum environmental standards amid rising pressure from consumer groups.
Today, 5% of the 45 million tons of crude palm oil produced annually, more than 90% of which comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, is certified by the RSPO as coming from production methods that don’t destroy forests.
But critics say many RSPO members, such as Sinar Mas Agro, join to bolster their green credentials without getting any palm oil supply certified. The group has a procedure to kick out members that don’t meet its standards—which include protecting biodiverse forest areas and respecting human rights—but has been lax in policing its own rules, critics say.
“The evidence clearly shows that buying palm oil from members of the RSPO does not protect consumer (goods) companies from buying a product connected to forest destruction and climate change,” said Joko Arif, Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s forest campaigner.
“The only solution is to demand a full moratorium on all forest and peat land clearances from all suppliers of palm oil.”
Unilever said it remains committed to the RSPO and would reconsider its stance toward Sinar Mas Agro if it can produce proof it’s not involved in unacceptable environmental practices.
Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com

Naked Copenhagen

Temperature is increasingly at the mercy of the developing world.

By RICHARD MULLER
Imagine a “dream” agreement emerging from Copenhagen next week: The U.S. agrees to cut greenhouse emissions 80% by 2050, as President Barack Obama has been promising. The other developed countries promise to cut emissions by 60%. China promises to reduce its CO2 intensity by 70% in 2040. Emerging economies promise that in 2040, when their wealth per capita has grown to half that of the U.S., they will cut emissions by 80% over the following 40 years. And all parties make good on their pledges.
Environmental success, right? Wrong. Even if the goals are all met, emissions will continue rising to nearly four times the current level. Total atmospheric CO2 will rise to near 700 parts per milion by 2080 (the current level is 385), and—if the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models are right—global temperature will rise about six degrees Fahrenheit at mid latitudes.

The reason is that most future carbon emissions will not come from the currently industrialized world, but from the emerging economies, especially China. And China, which currently emits 30% more CO2 per year than the U.S., has not promised to cut actual emissions. It and other developing nations have promised only to cut their carbon “intensity,” a technical term meaning emissions per unit of GDP.
China claims it is already cutting CO2 intensity by 4% a year as part of its five-year plan. President Hu Jintao has hinted that at Copenhagen China will offer to continue such reductions. By 2040, that will add up to a 70% reduction in intensity.
Sounds good, but here’s the catch: With 10% annual growth in China’s economy, a 4% cut in intensity is actually a 6% annual increase in emissions. India and other developing countries have similar CO2 growth. That 6% yearly increase is what is shown in the nearby chart.
True, China’s CO2 per capita is only a quarter of the U.S. emissions rate. But warming doesn’t come from emissions per capita, it comes from total emissions.
China’s carbon intensity is now five times that of the U.S.; it is extremely carbon inefficient. By the time the Chinese cut emissions intensity by 45%, its yearly total will be over twice that of the U.S. And in the proposed Copenhagen dream scenario, by 2025 China’s emissions will actually surpass those of the U.S. per capita.
If the issue is rising emissions in the next several decades, the bottom line is simple: The developed world is rapidly becoming irrelevant.
Every 10% cut in the U.S. is negated by one year of China’s growth. By 2040 China could be the most economically dominant nation on earth. The West might be able to cajole it, but won’t be able to impose sanctions on China. Temperature will be at the mercy of the newly powerful economies.
Moreover, an expensive effort to reduce Western emissions sets a worthless example. Only emissions cuts that provide measurable economic benefit to the developing nations will be adopted by them. If the 80% U.S. emissions cut winds up hurting the U.S. economy, it guarantees China will never follow our example.
Cheap green energy is not going to be easy. Coal is dirt cheap, and China has been installing a new gigawatt coal plant each week—enough to supply five completely new cities the size of New York every year.
Technological change can help a great deal. For now carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) from coal combustion is unproven, but so is cheap solar. I expect we can make CCS work. Perhaps the West can subsidize CCS in China or pay to make its plants CCS ready. A dollar spent in China can reduce CO2 much more than a dollar spent in the U.S.

There is another alternative: luck. Here’s how it could help. Scientists are aware of a phenomenon that would counter the greenhouse effect: warmth evaporates water; water creates clouds; clouds reflect sunlight. A small cloud increase would significantly reduce predicted warming. The IPCC gives such cloud feedback only a 10% chance. My estimate is 30%. Clouds may already be kicking in, responsible for the negligible global warming of the past 12 years. Maybe, but we don’t know. That’s why we need luck.
Perhaps we could geoengineer a solution: Squirt a few million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, emulating the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. We’ll certainly get pretty sunsets. Or we could foam up the oceans to increase reflectivity. Many people find such ideas scarier than warming because of the threat of unintended consequences.
Another option is that we could learn to live with global warming. Despite claims to the contrary, storms aren’t increasing. The rate of hurricanes hitting the U.S. coast has been constant for a century, and the number of damaging tornadoes has been going down. Will Happer, a former director of research for the Department of Energy, argues that additional CO2 may have helped the agricultural revolution. And chilly Berkeley might be nicer with a few degrees warming.
But the bottom line is that 80% cuts in U.S. emissions will have only a tiny benefit. The bulk of our effort is best directed at helping the emerging economies conserve energy and move rapidly toward efficient solar, wind and nuclear power. Developing cheap carbon capture and sequestration is also a priority. Above all, we need to recognize that make-the-West-bear-the-burden Copenhagen proposals are meaningless.
Mr. Muller is professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of “Physics for Future Presidents” (Norton, 2008). References and a spreadsheet with the numbers for the chart are at www.mullerandassociates.com.

If climate change doesn’t grab you, meet its evil twin

Charles Clover
Whoever leaked that clutch of Climategate emails last month must be laughing his socks off. For he has unleashed upon the rest of us the phenomenon of the born-again climate sceptic, the kind of man (always a man, almost invariably wearing a tweed jacket) who now materialises beside me at parties and confides that he has been having second thoughts about climate change.
My first instinct is always to humour him. I say I would be absolutely overjoyed if in a few years’ time we were to find out that Richard Lindzen, the most distinguished sceptic among the academic meteorologists, has turned out to be right and that the early 21st century got itself into a hysterical panic on the basis of trends based on highly uncertain computer predictions. But, I add, there are reasonable odds that he is wrong. My follow-up question is this: “Do you know that climate change is not the only reason to be uneasy about carbon emissions?”
On each occasion I am met by a look of puzzlement, followed by a perplexed nod, and I realise the person in question hasn’t a clue what I am talking about. He hasn’t heard of the acidification of the sea, a phenomenon quite separate from global warming but just as alarming. The reason, I suspect, is that it does not rate a line in the bestselling sceptical books on global warming by Christopher Booker or Nigel Lawson — which seem to be all that my tweedy friends have read on the subject.
Ocean acidification has been quite scandalously left out of the reckoning in the past few weeks. I am not for a moment belittling the science behind man-made global warming. This still seems to me solid, despite the shenanigans at the University of East Anglia. That levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are rising is not disputed. We have known since the 19th century that carbon dioxide was a crucial greenhouse gas. Venus has a lot of it and is hot as hell. Mars has almost none and is cold as ice.
However, even if you happen to believe that everything we know about greenhouse gases is illusory — unlikely though that is — we would still need to agree at Copenhagen this week to cut our emissions of carbon dioxide because of what is happening to the sea, the source of roughly half our food and provider of other useful services that we tend to take for granted.
We know the ocean absorbs about 25% of the carbon dioxide we emit each year. This CO2 dissolves through wind and wave action to form carbonic acid. This is altering the chemistry of the seas in ways that are not disputed and are far simpler to understand than the effect the same pollutants are having on the atmosphere. I recommend the startling practical demonstration on YouTube of what acidity will do to the oceans given by Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to a congressional select committee this month.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in about 1750, sea water acidity has increased by 30%. The speed and degree of this change are faster than anything that had happened for 55m years. The changes being observed are beginning to disrupt the ability of any organism to make shells out of calcium carbonate. Organisms that do this include corals, crabs, lobsters, small creatures vital to the diet of fish and plankton of the kind that die and form chalk deposits such as the white cliffs of Dover.
Projections show that by 2060, given the current rate of fossil-fuel emissions, sea water acidity could have increased by 120%. Lubchenco showed Congress a scary picture of what a shell would look like if it had spent a month in water as acidic as this. The shell had begun to dissolve.
Such an effect could trigger a chain of reactions through entire ecosystems, from whales to fish and shellfish, with huge implications for economies and wildlife. It could even stop the sea absorbing as much carbon dioxide as it does now, accelerating global warming. It is pretty scary stuff.
Predictably, the science of ocean acidification, which is accepted by governments on both sides of the Atlantic, does not go uncontested by the global warming sceptics. They say you can’t acidify the ocean because it washes over alkaline rocks. This process of weathering rocks is indeed how the alkalinity of the ocean will recover, but leading scientists say it will take hundreds of thousands of years. At the unprecedented speed that acidification is happening, the marine organisms will be knocked out before the rocks can dilute the acid.
There is plenty we still need to know about the acidification of the ocean. However, it looks as if unpleasant things start to happen if we go beyond 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (bear in mind we reached 390ppm earlier this year). That is, coincidentally, the threshold for holding the Earth’s average temperature rise down to a relatively “safe” 2C.
So ocean acidification, which people are beginning to call climate change’s “evil twin”, may be an even more pressing reason to move to a low-carbon economy than climate change itself. And that makes it doubly irresponsible for those people who scorn the need to cut carbon emissions to ignore what is going on in the oceans.

Greenhouse Effects: Food waste

Tony Juniper

Food security is set to become a big issue at a time when the population is rising fast, oil and gas prices are volatile and climate change is having an increasing impact. It also raises huge environmental questions related to chemicals and energy use, the demand for land, and emissions of greenhouse gases.
In the UK, we discard about a third of our food and drink — that is, about 8.3m tons, at an annual cost of about £12 billion. For the average family with children, this equates to £680 spent each year on food they don’t eat. Some of this is unavoidable: meat comes with bones, eggs have shells. Even so, about 5.3m tons of waste could be avoided.
More than half of this comes from not using food in time: often, it is thrown away untouched or unopened. Most of this ends up in landfill, where it rots, producing methane, the second most important greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. Doing away with food waste would have the same climate-change benefit as taking one in four cars off our roads.
One reason we waste so much food is that prices are relatively low. In the 1950s, food accounted for more than a quarter of the household budget. Now it is just 10%. Recently, however, prices have increased, and this is set to continue, so there are sound economic reasons to change our ways.
An excellent website called Love Food Hate Waste provides ideas on how to reduce your waste, as well as information on storage, recipes and useful tips for leftovers (see www.lovefoodhatewaste.com). The festive season is a good time to think about food waste. Last year, we spent more than £500m on Christmas dinner alone.
- Having backed a campaign for boiler-scrappage payments — similar to those for cars — I was especially pleased to see the chancellor announce a scheme last week. Householders will get £400 towards a new, more energy-efficient boiler when they trade in an old model. Up to 125,000 households are expected to be eligible.
Tony Juniper is an environmental campaigner and former director of Friends of the Earth; tonyjuniper.com

Officials cover up wind farm noise report

Jonathan Leake and Harry Byford

Civil servants have suppressed warnings that wind turbines can generate noise damaging people’s health for several square miles around.
The guidance from consultants indicated that the sound level permitted from spinning blades and gearboxes had been set so high — 43 decibels — that local people could be disturbed whenever the wind blew hard. The noise was also thought likely to disrupt sleep.
The report said the best way to protect locals was to cut the maximum permitted noise to 38 decibels, or 33 decibels if the machines created discernible “beating” noises as they spun.
It has now emerged that officials removed the warnings from the draft report in 2006 by Hayes McKenzie Partnership (HMP), the consultants. The final version made no mention of them.

It means that hundreds of turbines at wind farms in Britain have been allowed to generate much higher levels of noise, sparking protests from people living near them.
Among those affected is Jane Davis, 53, a retired National Health Service manager, who has had to abandon her home because of the noise.
It lies half a mile from the Deeping St Nicholas wind farm in south Lincolnshire whose eight turbines began operating in 2006.
“Our problems started three days after the turbines went up and they’ve carried on ever since. It’s like having helicopters going over the top of you at times — on a bad night it’s like three or four helicopters circling around,” she said.
“We abandoned our home. We rent a house about five miles away — this is our fourth Christmas out of our own home. We couldn’t sleep. It is torture — my GP describes it as torture. Three hours of sleep a night is torture.”
The HMP report was commissioned by the business department whose responsibilities for wind power have since been taken over by Ed Miliband’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
The decision to stick with existing noise limits became official guidance for local authorities ruling on planning applications from wind farm developers.
It has also been used by ministers and officials to support the view that there was no need to revise official wind farm noise guidelines and that erecting turbines near homes posed no threat to people’s health and wellbeing.
In 2007 Mike Hulme of the Den Brook Judicial Review Group, a band of residents opposing a wind turbine development close to their houses in Devon, submitted a Freedom of Information request asking to see all draft versions of the study.
Officials refused the request, claiming it was not in the public interest for them to be released. Hulme appealed to the information commissioner’s office, which has ordered Miliband’s department to release the documents. The drafts show the HMP originally recommended that the night-time wind turbine noise limit should be reduced from 43 decibels to 38, or 33 if they made any kind of swishing or beating noise — known as “aerodynamic modulation”.
The HMP researchers had based their recommendations on evidence. They took noise measurements at houses close to three wind farms: Askam in Cumbria, Bears Down in Cornwall and Blaen Bowi in Carmarthenshire.
They found that the swish-swish signature noise of turbines was significantly greater around most wind farms than had been foreseen by the authors of the existing government guidelines, which date from 1996. They also found that the beating sound is particularly disruptive at night, when other background noise levels are lower, as it can penetrate walls.
In their draft report the HMP researchers recommended that “Consideration be given to a revision of the night-time absolute noise criterion”, noting that this would fit with World Health Organisation recommendations on sleep disturbance.
However, an anonymous government official then inserted remarks attacking this idea because it would impede wind farm development. He, or she, wrote: “What will the impact of this be? Are we saying that this is the situation for all wind farms … I think we need a sense of the scale of this and the impact.”
The final report removed any suggestion of cutting the noise limits or adding any further penalty if turbines generated a beating noise — and recommended local authorities to stick to the 1996 guidelines.
Hulme said: “This demonstrates the conflict of interests in DECC, because it has the responsibility for promoting wind farm development while also having responsibility for the wind farm noise guidance policy … meant to protect local residents.”
Ron Williams, 74, a retired lecturer, lives half a mile from the Wharrels Hill wind farm in Cumbria. He has been forced to use sleeping pills since its eight turbines began operating in 2007.
“The noise we get is the gentle swish swish swish, non-stop, incessant, all night,” he said. “It’s like a Chinese torture. In winter, when the sun is low in the sky, it goes down behind the turbines and causes flickering shadows coming into the room.
“It’s like somebody shining car headlights at your window … on and off, on and off. It affects us all. It’s terrible. Absolutely horrible.”
Lynn Hancock, 45, runs a garden maintenance business. She has suffered disruption since 2007 when the 12-turbine Red Tile wind farm began operating several hundred yards from her Cambridgeshire home.
“Imagine a seven-ton lorry left running on the drive all night and that’s what it’s like,” she said. “People describe it as like an aeroplane or a helicopter or a train that never arrives. It’s like it’s coming but it never gets here.”
Such problems are likely to increase. Britain has 253 land-based wind farms generating 3.5 gigawatts, but this is expected to double or even triple by 2020 to help to meet targets for cutting CO2 emissions.