Beat the carbon tax before it gets here

Buy this book:

The CSIRO Home Energy Saving Handbook – How to save energy, save money and reduce your carbon footprint

The CSIRO Home Energy Saving Handbook is a practical guide designed to help Australian households reduce their carbon footprints and take action against climate change.

Click for a radio interview by one of the CSIRO authors, who talks about how we can save an average of 50% off our energy bills.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Emissions down, interest up: Banking on a carbon neutral future

It's highly unlikely that the thing to bring me back out of my grumpy hiatus from blogging about climate change (after ex-PM Rudd stalled on the ETS), would be a press release. Particular one from a bank. Like most of Australia, I suspect, the only reason why I am still with my current bank is that they are the best of a bad lot.

But, when one of the big four are telling me they are now carbon neutral, and it doesn't smell of green-wash at first sniff, I'm encouraged to notice the real-world progress being made while certain political parties bugger around spoiling. I am reminded that procurement departments in large companies in Australian and globally are sending out forms to all of their suppliers, getting them to record what systems they have implemented to record and reduce their carbon footprints. Tendering offices are responding to requests of the same. Marketing departments are framing the triple bottom line. Supply-chains are greening.

Beavering on in the background of the busy commercial world, the biggest survey since Domesday is going on. Facilities managers are recording the savings in energy and recyclables and environmental performance now makes the annual report. Top 200 CEOs are proudly talking up their companies' newly declared carbon neutral pledges, as if they were hippies at a Stonehenge Solstice moon festival. It's not all puffery, these companies are now subscribing to rigid environmental management standards like the ISO14000+ series. Tangible, verifiable stuff - ETS-proof.

HR departments are running behavioural change programs. Photocopiers are being changed to print double sided, and idle out. Screen savers drop into energy saving mode after 30 seconds, down from 5 minutes. Cardboard boxes for paper waste are replacing the all purpose desk bins at employees cubicles and now the poor darlings have to make the trip to the communal recycling bins for any other waste disposal matters. Early grumblings soon becomes office chatter as the food and organic waste bin becomes the new water-cooler in my office.

Everywhere there is cause for optimism: Energy is being saved, emissions cut, cars are being taken off the road as far as the atmosphere is concerned.

About about 13,500 cars annually by the NAB alone, in fact. The NAB has announced that they are now proudly carbon neutral, savings of around 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per annum since 2006 through efficiency and effectively taking 13,500 cars, annually.

I checked out their website to find out more, and liked the new design -- it's bold and clean. In the equally bold headline they announce they're "proudly carbon neutral". Good on them, they deserve to be proud - they are the first bank to go carbon neutral. Not a bank of the future, but a bank for the future. Anyway, NAB have now given me something more to consider in a new bank, next time I get pissed off at my current bank's more opportunistic fees regime.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Energy efficiency adds up to $700 million savings for Australian business

Far from being onerous on business, research by the Energy Efficiency Council demonstrates the potential for business to reap big savings by reducing emissions.

CLAIMS that even small greenhouse gas targets will hurt big industry have been undermined by a government report that found basic efficiency improvements could cut national emissions and save businesses more than $700 million.

An assessment of 199 large energy users found improving efficiency could stop at least 6.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted - a 1.1 per cent cut in the national carbon footprint each year.

The energy savings could run 1.4 million homes for a year and give the companies an extra $736 million.

An industry group, the Energy Efficiency Council, said if the biggest companies improved efficiency by 15 per cent, national emissions would fall by nearly 5 per cent, saving billions in energy costs.

Now imagine if they had a ETS to trade those savings as carbon credits? At $25 a tonne that would put $160 million into their coffers.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Where do we go from here?

The last three months or so has been somewhat depressing for those hoping for concerted global action on climate change (which is on reason why my blogging has been light). Yet, they have been heady months for what is becoming a powerful climate-skeptic movement.

The relentless amplification of allegations from 'climategate', the damp-squib Copenhagen conference, and the constant attacks on the professionalism of the IPCC have taken a toll on the public support for global warming mitigation measures.

In Australia, Newspoll is documenting that decline:

Good luck if you can read the fine-print. Clicking on the image should give you a bigger one, but not much clearer than The Australian version, from whence it came. But, the point is, while the community is still mostly aware that climate change is happening, a whopping 84% believed so in July 2008 but this figure is down by 11% a little over eighteen months later. The change in the percentage of those ascribing climate change to human influences has not been as great, nevertheless it is moving in the same direction - down.

All while certainty in the scientific community has moved in the opposite direction.

But, the biggest erosion has been in support for the CPRS, and it has been in a greater proportion to the change in belief that climate change is real. Fifteen percent fewer are in favour of a CPRS/ETS than were sixteen months ago, and 13% more are against it. To my mind, that is a consequence of the Rudd government not bothering with selling it to the public, preferring to let the Coalition's previous internal woes dominate the discourse.

Now the Coalition opposition have coalesced under the plain speaking Tony Abbott, and convoluted Kevin has to actually start selling.

While all of this is interesting to watch, the idea that the planet's climate salvation is going to come from the political arena, one that I held for years, grows weaker by the month for me.

I am starting to think that our necessary salvation is going to come from people themselves - from individuals doing what they have to do to reduce their impact. If the 73% of Australians who are concerned each reduced their annual co2 footprint by 1 tonne, the saving would roughly be 16 millions tonnes. Not shabby, when you consider that a coal-fired power station emits roughly about 1.2 million tones of co2 per annum.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

All power to you, Google!

My leprechaun friend, below, tells me that it's motivated, grass-root ideas that are going to create the groundswell needed for meaningful change at the level where it has to happen — the consumer.

I would rather throw my lot in with a market-signalling coalition of the good-willing than all the vapid international treaties and lobby-bruised politicians in the world. And Google PowerMeter now offers me a practical way to participate (assuming Google in Oz offers same). Here's their spiel:

Google PowerMeter allows you to:

Access
See your electricity use from any Google Powermeter enabled device.

Learn
Understand more about how you use electricity throughout the day.

Save
Reduce your electricity use and lower your monthly bills.

Since Google are currently exhausted from Doing No Evil, they are Doing This Gratis, participating leprechauns, and their offspring, get to keep their saved gold:

Google PowerMeter is a project of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, which aspires to leverage the power of information and technology to address global challenges.

May de road roise up to greet you!

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Green Paper is cautious politics

The great Emissions Trading Scheme Sell begins, and the Rudd Government opens by signalling that they ease the pain of introducing the EMT, or whatever they will call it.

HOUSEHOLDS earning up to $150,000 and the nation's heaviest polluters will be helped to cope with the introduction of an emissions trading scheme in 2010 that the Government says will be "calm and measured".

Sounds a bit soft to me. A price signal should function as a price signal. But I don't have to stay in power, and it looks as if the Liberals have decided against a bipartizan approach. That makes me grumpy.

Labor have to position themselves for a hasty implementation, be seen to do so, yet not expose themselves to the Opposition canard that it makes no sense moving before China, India and the US. Someone should blow that damn meme out the water.

So what's the damage?

Releasing the green paper outlining the shape of the scheme, the Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, confirmed that increases in petrol prices would be neutralised by corresponding reductions in fuel excise.

She refused to guarantee that this would continue beyond 2013 and said motorists should start considering what types of cars they would be driving by then.

On first impression, I have doubt that market behaviour would change much by watering down the medicine. Economically, it misses the point. But, there is satisfying logic in weaning the Government of this revenue and reducing their conflict of interest with the oil lobby. I believe the revenue is about $2 billion a years, and Rudd's 'fiscally conservative' government is sure to fund the shortfall from revenue raised from issuing carbon permits to industry.

In addition, horrible hikes in the cost of oil are predicted anyway. I've been reading suggestion that market pressures going to have more of an impact on the cost of fuel, than a carbon tax.

Back to the question of damage:

When the scheme begins, electricity and gas prices will rise immediately. Under a $20-a-unit carbon price, electricity bills would increase by 16 per cent, gas bills by 8 per cent and the overall cost of living by 0.9 per cent.

Using some of the billions in revenue the scheme will generate, low-income households - those earning up to $53,000 a year - will receive full compensation through either the tax or family payments system.

Middle-income households - earning up to $150,000 - will receive partial compensation. Pensioners, carers, the elderly and others will have their pensions increased to compensate fully.

The payments will start either when or before the scheme begins and will help insulate Labor against expected electoral fallout.

So how are they going to fund this electoral fire-break?

A cap will be put on the amount of carbon that can be emitted. Within this cap, 1000 of the nation's biggest polluters will have to buy permits for each tonne of carbon they produce. The costs will be passed on to consumers and companies can trade unwanted permits. These are designed to act as incentives to reduce emissions.

The carbon price - the cost of each permit - will depend on the level of emissions.

UPDATE

Reaction (and a growing round-up of of reactions) from Not a Hedgehog: "Piss.Weak."

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change

ACCI input into The Garnaut Report

In two days the guiding document that kicks off the Australian Government's policy review process gets tabled. The Garnaut report on climate change will input into a white paper, and then a green paper, and I'll be blogging more about these.

I came across the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) SUBMISSION TO THE GARNAUT CLIMATE CHANGE REVIEW [25pg PDF] the other day. The ACCI open strongly in favour of an Emissions Trading System in their executive summary.

ACCI supports an ETS that is efficient, maximises participation across all industry sectors and, will include major world emitters, when possible. Furthermore, a domestic ETS must minimise compliance costs and provide measures to ensure the international competitiveness of trade exposed energy intensive businesses. This should also recognise some SME’s will face energy and transport cost increases with variable, and in some cases limited, opportunities to pass such costs onto final consumers. ACCI has previously endorsed a series of policy priorities, which form the high-level policy position of our response to climate change. This includes objectives relating to environmental outcomes, economic efficiency, Australia’s
welfare (underpinned by job security and maintaining competitiveness) and assuming a fair share of the burden.

These issues were further expanded into more detailed
policy guidelines which include:

• Australia’s largest contribution to climate change will be through indirect measures such as technology development, rather than though direct reductions in emissions;
• Australia can reduce its own direct emissions, however, it’s contribution to global climate change will be marginal;
• all technologies and fuel sources must be available for abatement and not regulated out of consideration – including nuclear;
• the broadest range of sectors must be included in an ETS;
• all six Kyoto greenhouse gases must be included in an ETS; and
• Australia’s high per capita emissions profile does not reflect our contribution to the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Back to the exec summ..

ACCI agreed with the Government that the arrangements
applying post-2012 must include commitments from large
emitters including India, China and the USA.
Any ETS should be national rather than based on multiple state schemes, this includes complimentary measures such as the Renewable Energy Target and taxation liabilities such as stamp duties.

This submission provides some detailed responses to design aspects of a proposed ETS (see section 2). In providing this response we do howerver maintain concerns about the wider impact of an ETS on the Australian Economy. In large part this concern relate to the potential economic and compliance costs that will be faced by business,
especially smaller enterprises which are less able to pass
through costs. These costs will be exacerbated where an ETS operates with very restrictive emissions targets and competitor
nations remain outside these arrangements. ACCI considers that Australia’s fuel mix can only change over a long period and irrespective of the operation of an ETS unrealistic expectations of a shift from fossil fuels to renewables or the adoption of lower emissions technologies need to be tempered.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change

Guide to Greener Electronics now captures carbon

The 8th edition of Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics has expanded it's criteria to include both the direct and indirect carbon footprints of a manufacturer's products. An indirect footprint includes emissions from the embedded energy that goes into manufacturing and distributing a product.

Only two companies - Sony Ericsson and Sony – score above 5/10. The overall score of the ranked companies has plummeted as Greenpeace tightened requirements on electronic waste (e-waste) and toxic chemicals and adds new requirements for evaluating companies’ impact on global warming.

“Electronics giants pay attention to environmental performance on certain issues while ignoring
others that are just as important,” said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International Toxics Campaigner. “Philips, for example, scores well on chemicals and energy criteria but earns a zero on e-waste since it has no global take-back policies. Philips would score higher if it took responsibility for its own branded e-waste and established equitable global take-back schemes.”

Many companies score well on energy efficiency as their products comply and exceed Energy Star standards. The best performers on energy efficiency are Sony Ericsson and Apple, with all of their models meeting, and many exceeding, Energy Star requirements. Sony Ericsson stands out as the first company to score almost top marks on all of the chemicals criteria. With all new Sony Ericsson models being PVC-free, the company also has met the new chemicals criterion in the ranking, having already banned antimony, beryllium and phthalates from models launched
since January 2008.

Don't waste energy going to work

Two MIT graduate student dynamo inventors, James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk, have developed an idea for "crowd farm" whereby the lost energy from the impact of a footfall is captured and converted into electricity. Now that's thinking on your feet.

clipped from www.smh.com.au ENERGY from humans walking through cities would be harvested and converted into electricity as part of an extraordinary renewable energy scheme put forward in the US. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) propose paving major urban areas with blocks that would move slightly under the weight of pedestrians' footfalls, driving dynamos that would then produce power. When a human walks, energy is used to drive muscles and overcome inertia and gravity. When the foot hits an unyielding surface, such as a road, energy can be lost through sound and reabsorption by the leg muscles. The MIT pair propose capturing the energy that would otherwise be wasted. They calculate a single footfall contains enough energy, if harvested, to power two 60 watt light bulbs for one second. The power from 28,527 footfalls, generated by, say, the crowd at a football match, would have enough energy to power a train for one second. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Greenbox turns car emissions into bio-oil

Carbon dioxide engine emissions are diverted into a Greenbox, which is about the size of, and replaces, the car exhaust system. This Greenbox traps the exhaust carbon-dioxide and holds it inert. It is big enough to capture most of the carbon dioxide emissions from a full tank of fuel. using the carbon dioxide as fuel. When a new tank of fuel is filled, a fresh Greenbox is swapped with the spent one. This is then forwarded to huge central processing tanks where algae fixes the carbon dioxide that is extracted from the spent Greenbox, i.e. it grows, to be harvested as biofuel. Great idea, if it works. Who would have predicted that mankind's future could depend on us taking up a new symbiosis with... algae?

clipped from larvatusprodeo.net Three Welsh inventors are touting their Greenbox system that would replace car exhaust systems with an emissions capture system. It uses algae to absorb the emitted gases and hold them inertly so that the boxes can be easily transported for centralised processing of the car wastes. The three [...] have set up a company called Maes Anturio Limited, which translates from Welsh as Field Adventure. Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel. This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again. The process also yields methane gas and fertiliser, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain’s auto emissions would take up around 400 hectares. Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Companies fighting climate change rated & ranked

The solution to global warming will be marketplace driven. For the market to work, consumers need to know what companies are doing to reduce their footprints. Schemes like Climate Count, and corporate carbon counting systems will be keenly observed.

clipped from blogs.wsj.com Companies Judged for Global-Warming Awareness, Found Lacking Posted by Mark Gongloff A new group is giving consumers a way to evaluate the companies whose products they buy based on their commitment to fighting climate change. The takeaway: There is a lot of room for improvement. A nonprofit group called Climate Counts has come out with a new ranking of 56 companies divided into eight sectors. Each company was assigned a score on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 meaning the company is perfectly committed to fighting global warming. The highest-scoring of all companies was camera maker Canon (part of the “electronics” group), with a score of 77. Second in the electronics group was IBM, with a score of 70. In the apparel group, shoe company Nike topped the list with a 73. Leading the food-products group was Unilever, which makes Dove soap and Lipton teas, with a score of 71. These were the only four companies to score 70 or higher. After that, the scores dropped off dramatically.

Global warming survival guide

Just in Time.

clipped from www.time.com The Global Warming Survival Guide GLOBAL WARMING 51 Things We Can Do to Save the Environment Can one person slow global warming? Actually, yes. You—along with scientists, businesses and governments—can create paths to cut carbon emissions. Here is our guide to some of the planet's best ideas. Enter the Time Magazine Survival Guide More Stories Graphic: Effects of Climate Change by 2020 A forecast of how climate changes will impact the environment and society by mid century. Graphic: The Earth Friendly Home Are you wasting energy? There are ways you can alter your lifestyle to reduce your carbon footprint, the measure of carbon you produce What Now? On the Front Lines Of Climate Change By Mark Hertsgaard Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Bookmark this page and tell your everyone you care for about it.

Energy gluttons are to be shamed

Haringly Council in North London has an innovative approach to getting residents to insulate their homes, or to turn down the heating. It has contracted the services of a spy plane sporting thermal imaging equipment to shoot the borough, and overlay their heat-maps onto street maps to identify houses that are wasting or producing too much heat-energy.

Check out the Haringey Council Interactive Heat Loss Map.

Now this does not sit so well with me. I am all for measures that encourage people to use energy efficiently - this is our low hanging fruit when it comes to combating climate change - but I am not so sure about the 'shaming' aspect. It attacks individual liberty.

People should want to conserve energy out of a sense of community, responsibility to those who will come after us, and common planetary stewardship. They should not be shamed into it. Because they will not conserve when they think no one is looking.

Only after this fails should we take these people out the back and shoot them, giving their homes to those poor who can't afford any heating - thus solving another social problem.

I accept the objective is to push for more home-insulation but, once achieved, it is worthwhile keeping in mind that the heat-maps do not discriminate between heat produced by fossil-fuels or 100% green energy.

Powered by ScribeFire.