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

Tony Abbott supports a carbon tax

It's hard to believe than Tony Abbott ever endorsed a carbon tax, even tacitly, given the ferocity of his sustained attack on Julia Gillard for announcing her government's intention to set a carbon price next year in anticipation of an emission trading system.

But endorse it he did, on page 172 of Battlelines, the book he wrote after the Liberals lost office and before he took over leadership of the opposition in the spill that cost Malcolm Turnbull the top job by a singe vote. The issue was the ETS that Malcolm had fought so hard for.

Tony's words are cautious, but the meaning is clear:

"...many now think that a carbon charge scheme directed at the least environmentally efficient producers would be simpler and fairer than an emissions trading scheme."

The description, "carbon charge scheme" is hilarious, given that he battered Rudd's ETS with his "great big new tax" positioning. The guy means 'carbon tax'; he doesn't mean 'carbon price', as you need to have a price in order to have an ETS.

Given this, and the multiple positions that Abbott has held on climate change, it's quite obvious that Abbott's line of attack on Gillard is rank opportunism. Throw in the hard to ignore fact that the opposition does actually share the same emissions reductions objectives as the Gillard government, and one is left wondering about the Abbott's credibility. No wonder he has worked so hard to paint Julia as a liar. A case of projection, perhaps?

UPDATE:

Crikey has detailed Abbott's many stances on global warming, and included another example of Abbott's endorsement of a carbon tax:

Still, a new tax would be the intelligent skeptic’s way to deal with minimising emissions because it would be much easier than a property right to reduce or to abolish should the justification for it change.

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

Cycling to work, I emit hydrocarbons

Not me - my car that is sitting back at home. While I'm saving those co2 emissions, it is releasing hydrocarbons and contributing to smog:

Vehicles sitting in the sun for days at a time can spew out damaging hydrocarbons – one of the main ingredients in smog, a federal government study has found.

Hydrocarbons are in the vapour that escapes from petrol tanks on a warm day. Most newer cars have canisters that trap them before they are released but if cars are left sitting for longer than 24 hours the canisters can fill up and stop working until the vehicle is driven, the Second National In-Service Emissions Study found.

As many as 3 million Australian cars may not conform to Australian standards for evaporative emissions.

"The results indicate that when vehicles are parked in warm conditions for an extended period (more than a day), the evaporative emission control systems may not be able to effectively control the build-up of evaporative hydrocarbons, as even the latest systems are only designed to provide effective control for a continuous 24-hour period," the report said.

Ya know ya do ya best... At least this lets me off the cycling 5 days a week. Maybe I drive to the train station twice a week, and cycle the rest. And drive on rainy days.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Australia's carbon intensity begins to fall

While electricity use increased, emissions from electricity generation fell due to a shift to gas-fired and renewable generators from black coal plants, as Ben Cubby, environmental reporter for the SMH, writes:

AUSTRALIA'S greenhouse gas emissions may be reaching a plateau, even though demand for electricity is rising inexorably, new data suggests.

A slight trend towards burning gas instead of coal in power stations means that carbon emissions are beginning to be ''decoupled'' from power generation and economic growth, a report by energy consultants pitt&sherry found.

It is a crucial first step if national emissions are going to be reduced by between 5 and 25 per cent by the year 2020.

The news came as the federal government released its first report measuring the individual emissions of the nation's biggest companies.

While this would appear to be positive news, Hugh Saddler, the economics and sustainability adviser who helped prepare the report says it's too early to see whether this trend will take. The Department of Climate Change expects it to:

"From 2013 to 2020 emissions from the stationary energy sector are projected to grow at an average annual rate 0.5 per cent per annum, compared to the historical growth rate of 2.3 per cent per annum,'' a spokeswoman said. ''This is predominantly due to the projected slowdown in growth in electricity emissions mainly due to the increase in renewable generation associated with the expanded Renewable Energy Target."

Fine aspirations, yet the Government only narrowly avoided another climate scheme disaster that was on track to happen from their lumping solar water in with renewable energy generation for government incentives. Luckily, Penny Wong called in Mr Fix-it.

The Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, asked Mr Combet to fix the problem a few weeks ago and after intensive talks with the industry he finalised the changes in the nick of time.

The energy provider AGL yesterday said more than $1 billion in investments was on hold because of problems with the renewable energy market. It then quickly issued a statement to say the government's changes meant the investment was likely to go ahead.

Steve Garner, the managing director of the wind turbine maker Keppel Prince Engineering, had been preparing to sack 150 workers within days. His factory had been idle for a month because energy companies had stopped ordering turbines. "Greg Combet called me this week," Mr Garner said yesterday. "He suggested I hang on, that he was working on something."

Roaring 40s this week said construction of its $400 million Musselroe Bay wind farm in Tasmania had stopped. But yesterday it said the changes meant the project might be viable again.

The Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, promised he would help the project if he won the election.

And Pacific Hydro said it would restart $1 billion worth of investments.

Energy retailers will buy certificates from a large-scale market and a separate fixed-price market covering small-scale domestic technologies.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Garnaut's post-Copenhagen waiting game - Plan B

Professor Ross Garnaut, Australia's answer to Sir Nicholas Stern, tells Tony Jones where the emerging global emissions trading market finds itself post-Copenhagen - we have entered the "waiting game":

And my proposal is a proposal that was in the original report. I call the situation we're in after Copenhagen, the waiting game.

We're waiting for international agreement to provide a basis for international trade in permits. I suggested then, and I think it's the right case now, in the waiting game, to legislate the ETS and to fix the price over a period.

Given the "Government has great difficulty in the legislation of the ETS", Garnaut has a Plan B. He laid it out in his 2008 report, The Garnaut Climate Change Review.

TONY JONES: Tony Abbott says the Government doesn't have a Plan B, if the Emissions Trading Scheme fails at every hurdle to be passed as legislation.

The Greens say that you actually have a Plan B and that Plan B is for a carbon tax - $20 a tonne - on the thousand top polluters in the country and that they, the Greens, are prepared to support it.

Is that in fact your Plan B?

PROF ROSS GARNAUT: That's the waiting game to which I referred. And which was...

TONY JONES: It wasn't- it wasn't quite clear because you referred to it as Emissions Trading Scheme legislation, but in fact, it seems to be that what the Greens are saying is this wouldn't be an Emissions Trading Scheme but a transition towards one. It would begin with two years of, effectively, a carbon tax.

PROF ROSS GARNAUT: I think they were referring to my waiting game proposal, which puts in place the ETS but has the regulator making permits available at a fixed price.

So you don't have trade in permits, you don't have fluctuations in price, until you've got an international agreement that allows us to set our targets with confidence and allows a confident basis for international trade in permits.

TONY JONES: Are you encouraged that the Greens appear to be prepared to vote in the Senate for that kind of Plan B approach and should the Government take that on board and start negotiating with the cross bench senators on that basis?

PROF ROSS GARNAUT: I'm not going to get in the middle of these complex Senate negotiations, Tony.

I think that the proposals I described as the waiting game are the best way forward in the circumstances after Copenhagen and anyone who supports them, I think, is on the right tram.

I'm glad Garnaut has a Plan B, one that sounds like the Australian economy can start now to absorb the cost, and begin seriously thinking of ways to turn it into profit when we reach the end of the waiting game. The two year deadline for the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation to become an Emissions Trading Scheme gives certainty to business to invest and encouragement to those people, families, and communities who have personally invested in minimising their footprint.

It's worth watching the interview. Is it just me or does Garnaut have a passing resemblance to Ian Plimer?

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

Obama's Energy Plan: Really good

So says Climate Spin:

Obama came out with his energy plan yesterday. I agree with Joe over at Climate Progress that its pretty darn good from a major-party candidate (I don't recall if its better then Gore's 2000 plan. Anyone?)

Here are some good points:

• cap-and-trade program with all credits auctioned
  
• Reduce emissions to 80% of 1990 levels by 2050.
  
• Raise CAFE by 4% a year
  
• Increase building, appliance and power generation efficiency (still the easiest "win")
  

And tucked way at the bottom was this nice part about building more sustainable and livable communities: "Obama is committed to reforming the federal transportation funding and leveling employer incentives for driving and public transit." Yeah!

I didn't like the mention of exploiting oil shales in Montana and clean coal but, overall, this is great. Too bad energy, except for gas prices, and climate has fallen off the radar in the campaign or this might get more attention.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change

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

G8 negotiations on track for 2009 climate deal

G8 nations have committed to working towards a target of at least halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in a summit in Tokyo, Japan.

They are pleased with their effort.

"This is a strong signal to citizens around the world," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, adding that the EU's benchmark for success had been achieved.

Others aren't.

"The G8 are responsible for 62 per cent of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the Earth's atmosphere, which makes them the main culprit of climate change and the biggest part of the problem," WWF said shortly after the communique was issued.

"WWF finds it pathetic that they still duck their historic responsibility...," the campaign group said.

The last and final hold-out is the US.

But US President George W. Bush has insisted that Washington cannot agree to binding targets unless big polluters such as China and India rein in their emissions as well.

That's what you get when your president used to be an oil man.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change

Cap 'n Trade on US election menu

Hot on the heels of Australia's green election (Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol as his first act of government), follows the second US climate change election. Bush tore up the Kyoto Protocol after the first one. Waste of good lead-time.

Obama and McCain have both stated that climate change requires decisive action. Both support cap-and-trade, putting a limit (cap) on greenhouse gases and enabling the market to work by allowing the trading of permits.

Click for more on Cleantechblog's take on how it would work.

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

California goes down hydrogen highway

Look to California for leadership on climate change action, says John Addison in CleanTechBlog:

On April 20, 2004, after 40 years of fighting it was all smiles between auto executives from Detroit and the regulators of California’s health and emissions. That day a new governor signed the historic California Hydrogen Highways Executive Order.

Two years later California has it's first hydogen refuelling station. Terry Tamminen, an energy and environmental consultant to governments and author of Lives per Gallon drives a Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell vehicle:

The car is an electric vehicle that uses an electric motor, not an engine, and captures braking energy into advanced batteries. The car also has a fuel cell which takes hydrogen from the onboard storage tank and makes continuous electricity. From his home in Santa Monica, Terry can drive almost 200 miles then pull into a hydrogen station and refuel. Terry leases the car from Honda for $500 per month. The lease includes all maintenance and collision insurance. In the future, he may lease Honda’s latest fuel cell vehicle, the FCX Clarity for $600 per month, and get a range of almost 300 miles.

Unlike most places in the United States, Terry can find over ten hydrogen stations in the nearby Los Angeles area for a fill-up. Conveniently nearby is a new Shell gas station that also includes a hydrogen pump. The hydrogen is made from H2O at the station. Yes, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. Customers like Terry can fuel their hydrogen vehicles in five minutes then drive off, an advantage over battery electric vehicles that are typically charged overnight.

With his zero-emission vehicle, Terry gets convenience while staying true to his environmental values.

I want one. C'on Sydney.

Technorati Tags: global waming, climate change

Personal carbon trading

Was this the future being debated in the British House of Commons by the Environmental Audit Committee, last month?

A House of Commons committee suggested last week that the U.K. Parliament create a personal carbon-trading scheme for all citizens of the United Kingdom. It was the strongest statement yet by any government in favor of an individual cap-and-trade system for buying and selling greenhouse gas emissions.

Personal carbon trading would provide a set "carbon emissions allowance" to each citizen and establish a national carbon budget. Individuals would then be able to trade their carbon credits with one another on a designated carbon market if they chose to purchase additional energy or to partake in activities that would exceed the allowed emissions limit, such as riding a plane.

Seems logical to me, but there will be adjustment pains. Seems logical to Tim Yeo, the committee chairman, when he told the BBC,"It's the single best instrument to encourage every man, woman, and child in the country to make a low-carbon choice every day. The problem with green taxes is they tend to bear most heavily on poor households. This way poor households will be able to make cash rewards for their decisions."

UK law mandates 60% emissions cuts by 2050

Good effort by the UK Government under Gordon Brown — becoming the first nation in history to put carbon emissions reductions into law.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has committed the UK to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 60% before 2050 to help tackle global warming.

While the bill will also enforce reductions of greenhouse gas emissions of between 26% and 32% by 2020, Mr Brown previously said he would consult the new committee to see if bigger reductions were required.

Bush bashed over vapid climate conference

Time Magazine reported on the White House organised Climate Change Conference. They were rather unflattering of Bush, and set him up as a foil for Clinton to do what he does best. Shine.

Look at the photos accompanying the article.



Clinton looks steely and resolved, Bush defensive ... hunched. Clinton's jaw is firmly set, in contrast to the slack-jawed look of Bush, which is unfortunately what can happen when one is photographed mid-sentence. He is looking down, Clinton is looking forwards. George is looking a mite wan against Bill's robust complexion.

If you think I am letting my biases get in the way of my judgement, you should read Time Magazine reporter and resident climate change geek, Jason Decrow.

Start with the headline — Climate Change: Filling the Bush Gap. Positioned above Bush's photo, the aforementioned gap seems to refer to the one between his hears. Very unfairly too.

Reporting on Bush:

You could Amtrak down to the White House and hear President George W. Bush tell the world's major economies that this global warming thing might actually be a problem and that we should maybe consider doing something about it eventually.

No hint of scorn for Clinton:

Of the three, it was the Clinton meeting that proved the best bet —

[...]

As part of his Clinton Climate Initiative, launched in August 2006, the former President has brought together business and philanthropy to generate locally focused efforts to reduce energy use and carbon emissions.

While President Bush offered mostly empty rhetoric, on Friday afternoon Clinton reeled off pledge after concrete pledge for his climate initiative: $150 million to harness geothermal energy in Africa, $5 million for the Alliance for Climate Protection in the U.S., $210 million for carbon offsetting in the developing world.

While UN action on climate change remains stalled by the deadlock between the developed and the developing world, Clinton has proved remarkably successful in fostering real engagement and investment on global warming across national lines. "Clinton just really gets it," says Ted Nordhaus, co-author of the new environmental politics book Break Through.

Good to see some balanced journalism, the type where you call a spade a spade.

Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Emissions reductions — aspirationals miss the binding obvious

Condoleeza Rice sounds as convincing a leader on climate change, as she is on the Palestinian crisis. But at least she knows that others regard her warily:

THE US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has tried to assuage European and green group concerns the US is trying to hijack the United Nations process for developing a new global deal on climate change. "I want to stress that the United States takes climate change very seriously," Dr Rice said at the start of a two-day conference. "Managing the status quo is simply not an adequate response."

Oh goodie... they are now up to speed in Washington. So how to they plan to respond?

But she repeated that the US did not support binding targets on individual countries - a key difference between the US and European position.

Oh — back to the status quo. "Yip, yip, yippy", yapped her lap-dog Downer-Under, issuing discombobulated climate policy like flying fur-ball:

Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, predicted that Australia, like the European Union, Canada and Japan, would ultimately embrace binding targets. This was because it was essential to make the Coalition's proposed carbon trading scheme work, he said. "In our case, the way the binding target will work, we'll set next year an aspirational goal, then to make that work, we have to get the emissions trading scheme into operation and you have to have binding targets under an emissions trading scheme, otherwise you can't create a price for carbon," Mr Downer said.

The South Africans don't sound too convinced by the conviction of the Kyoto Protocol hold-outs.

Critics have questioned whether the US approach of voluntary targets would work. "We appreciate the sentiments expressed by Secretary Rice, but the devil is always in the detail," said South Africa's Environment Minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

The Europeans are wary of a process that circumvented the United Nations. They were right about Iraq; they are right about climate change. A target is not a target if it is not binding. If it is not binding, if it is an aspirational target, it is a mere wish.
Global Warning Climate Change Energy

Amazon Deforestation down by 25%

For whatever reason this has happened, surely it is a good thing. Long may it continue.

clipped from news.nationalgeographic.com Amazon Deforestation Drops 25 Percent, Brazil Says The pace of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 25 percent in a recent 12-month period, according to recently released government figures. Even so, some conservation groups claim the decrease is due to lower demand for crops that grow on cleared forest land, and not successful environmental policies. Between July 2005 and July 2006, the amount of cleared forest fell to about 5,400 square miles (14,000 square kilometers), as compared to 11,681 miles (18,800 kilometers) cut in the same period between 2004 and 2005, according to government figures. (Related: World's Forests Rebounding, Study Suggests [November 13, 2006].) In his weekly radio address Monday, President Luiz Inácio da Silva said he expected further declines for the 2006 to 2007 period—drops that he said will not crimp economic growth, the Associated Press reported. "I am plainly convinced that it is possible to grow while preserving the environment," da Silva said

Fine ceramic tubes cut carbon dioxide out of coal-fired power

If this works out, I'm putting my money (ha) into advanced ceramic material...

clipped from www.sciencedaily.com Science Daily — Greenhouse gas emissions from power stations could be cut to almost zero by controlling the combustion process with tiny tubes made from an advanced ceramic material, claim engineers on August 3, 2007. The oxygen-depleted air, which consists mainly of nitrogen, can be returned to the atmosphere with no harmful effects on the environment, while the carbon dioxide can be collected separately from the inside of the tubes after combustion. An alternative would be to control the flow of air and methane so that only partial combustion took place. This would result in a flow of 'synthesis gas', a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can easily be converted into a variety of useful hydrocarbon chemicals.

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