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China’s three biggest power firms emit more carbon than Britain, says report

July 28, 2009

Greenpeace report names top three polluters and calls for tax on coal to improve efficiency and encourage switch to renewables

China’s three biggest power firms produced more greenhouse gas emissions last year than the whole of Britain, according to a Greenpeace report published today.

The group warned that inefficient plants and the country’s heavy reliance on coal are hindering efforts to tackle climate change. While China’s emissions per capita remain far below those of developed countries, the country as a whole has surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest emitter.

Greenpeace said the top 10 companies, which provided almost 60% of China’s total electricity last year, burned 20% of China’s coal — 590m tonnes — and emitted the equivalent of 1.44 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The efficiency of Chinese power generation compares unfavourably with other countries. In Japan, 418 grams of carbon dioxide are emitted per kilowatt hour and in the US, the equivalent figure is 625 grams. But most of the top 10 firms in China produce 752 grams of CO2.

“China is suffering the pains of extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves, typhoons and floods, worsened by climate change. These power companies can and must help China to prevent climate disaster by rapidly increasing efficiency and the share of renewable energy such as wind and solar,” said Yang Ailun, Greenpeace’s climate campaign manager, at the launch in Beijing of the Greenpeace report, Polluting Power: Ranking China’s Biggest Power Companies.

The report says that in 2008, Huaneng, Datang and Guodian — the top three firms — emitted more greenhouse gases than the whole of the United Kingdom.

But Yang added: “China is ideally placed to…[become] the world’s superpower in terms of smart energy and renewable energy.”

The group said China closed down 54.07 gigawatt of the least efficient coal-fired plants over the last three and a half years — more than the total electricity installed capacity of Australia.

It urged power firms to phase out all inefficient coal-fired plants under 100 megawatt by 2012, saving 90m tonnes of coal consumption and 220m tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.

Firms are already turning to renewable energy and by the end of last year Guodian had installed 2.88 gigawatt of wind power; almost 24% of China’s total and enough to make it the biggest wind energy firm in Asia.

But Greenpeace said only three of the top 10 produced 10% or more of their energy from renewable sources. The vast majority relied heavily on hydropower — with eight of the firms not even halfway to their legal obligation to produce 3% of energy from other renewable sources by 2010.

Greenpeace urged the Chinese government to impose energy and environment taxes on coal, encouraging increased efficiency and a move to renewable sources.

It also called for a doubling of the national renewable energy target to 30% by 2020 and for stricter efficiency standards for coal-fired power stations.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, is currently drawing up plans for a massive “new energy” programme to cut emissions and ensure energy security. Reports in the domestic media and from foreign diplomats suggest the next decade could see between 1.4 trillion (US$200 bn) and 4.5 trillion yuan (US$600bn) investment in projects ranging from nuclear power, low carbon transport and clean coal technology to super-efficient electric grids.

This huge expansion is already causing problems. Manufacturing capacity is outstripping supply and the country’s under-invested power grid networks were not ready for large-scale wind power input. Some wind farms have been unable to start operating because of a lack of grid connection or were operating at levels lower than planned.

But experts warn that de-carbonising the energy supply must happen fast, given the massive toll on China’s environment. State news agency Xinhua reported yesterday that the country’s largest desert lake could vanish in decades due to climate change and human activities.

“Just 10 years ago, one couldn’t see the other bank of the Hongjiannao even through a telescope. Today, it’s visible with the naked eye,” said He Fenqi, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The Hongjiannao, sandwiched between the Muus Desert in Shaanxi Province and the Erdos Plateau in Inner Mongolia, has shrunk by at least 30% in the past two decades, Xinhua reported. It now covers 4,600 hectares and its water level is declining by 20 centimetres annually.

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US satellites reveal true extent of melting polar summer ice

July 28, 2009

Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama administration provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating

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World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns

July 28, 2009

New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics

The world faces record-breaking temperatures as the sun’s activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted for the next five years, according to a study.

The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. But new research firmly rejects that argument.

The research, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO₂ and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.

As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind’s research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.

The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind’s paper suggests. A particularly hot autumn and winter could add to the pressure on policy makers to reach a meaningful deal at December’s climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen.

Bob Henson, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said: “To claim that global temperatures have cooled since 1998 and therefore that man-made climate change isn’t happening is a bit like saying spring has gone away when you have a mild week after a scorching Easter.” Temperature highs and lows

1998

Hottest year of the millennium

Caused by a major El Niño event. The climate phenomenon results from warming of the tropical Pacific and causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. The 1998 event caused 16% of the world’s coral reefs to die.

1957

Most sunspots in a year since 1778

The sun’s activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The late 1950s saw a peak in activity and were relatively warm years for the period.

1601

Coldest year of the millennium

Ash from the huge eruption the previous year of a Peruvian volcano called Huaynaputina blocked out the sun. The volcanic winter caused Russia’s worst famine, with a third of the population dying, and disrupted agriculture from China to France.

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Kenya to build Africa’s biggest windfarm

July 27, 2009

With surging demand for power and blackouts common across the continent, Africa is looking to solar, wind and geothermal technologies to meet its energy needs

One of the hottest places in the world is set to become the site of Africa’s most ambitious venture in the battle against global warming.

Some 365 giant wind turbines are to be installed in desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya – used as a backdrop for the film The Constant Gardener – creating the biggest windfarm on the continent. When complete in 2012, the £533m project will have a capacity of 300MW, a quarter of Kenya’s current installed power and one of the highest proportions of wind energy to be fed in a national grid anywhere in the world.

Until now, only north African countries such as Morocco and Egypt have harnessed wind power for commercial purposes on any real scale on the continent. But projects are now beginning to bloom south of the Sahara as governments realise that harnessing the vast wind potential can efficiently meet a surging demand for electricity and ending blackouts.

Already Ethiopia has commissioned a £190m, 120MW farm in Tigray region, representing 15% of the current electricity capacity, and intends to build several more. Tanzania has announced plans to generate at least 100MW of power from two projects in the central Singida region, more than 10% of the country’s current supply. In March, South Africa, whose heavy reliance on coal makes its electricity the second most greenhouse-gas intensive in the world, became the first African country to announce a feed-in tariff for wind power, whereby customers generating electricity receive a cash payment for selling that power to the grid.

Kenya is trying to lead the way. Besides the Turkana project, which is being backed by the African Development Bank, private investors have proposed establishing a second windfarm near Naivasha, the well-known tourist town. And in the Ngong hills near Nairobi, the Maasai herders and elite long-distance athletes used to braving the frigid winds along the escarpment already have towering company: six 50m turbines from the Danish company Vestas that were erected last month and will add 5.1MW to the national grid from August. Another dozen turbines will be added at the site in the next few years.

Christopher Maende, an engineer from the state power company KenGen, which is running the Ngong farm and testing 14 other wind sites across the country, said local residents and herders were initially worried that noise from the turbines would scare the animals.

“Now they are coming to admire the beauty of these machines,” he said.

Kenya’s electricity is already very green by global standards. Nearly three-quarters of KenGen’s installed capacity comes from hydropower, and a further 11% from geothermal plants, which tap into the hot rocks a mile beneath the Rift Valley to release steam to power turbines.

Currently fewer than one-in-five Kenyans has access to electricity but demand is rising quickly, particularly in rural areas and from businesses. At the same time, increasingly erratic rainfall patterns and the destruction of key water catchment areas have affected hydroelectricity output. Low water levels caused the country’s largest hydropower dam to be shut down last month.

As a short-term measure KenGen is relying on imported fossil fuels, such as coal and diesel. But within five years the government wants to drastically reduce the reliance on hydro by adding 500MW of geothermal power and 800MW of wind energy to the grid.

Not only are they far greener options than coal or diesel, but the country’s favourable geology and meteorology make them cheaper alternatives over time. The possibility of selling carbon credits to companies in the industrialised world is an added financial advantage.

“Kenya’s natural fuel should come from the wind, hot underground rock and the sun, whose potential has barely even been considered,” said Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme. “After the initial capital costs this energy is free.”

The Dutch consortium behind the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) project has leased 66,000 hectares of land on the eastern edge of the world’s largest permanent desert lake. The volcanic soil is scoured by hot winds that blow consistently year round through the channel between the Kenyan and Ethiopian highlands.

According to LTWP, which has an agreement to sell its electricity to the Kenya Power & Lighting Company, the average wind speed is 11metres per second, akin to “proven reserves” in the oil sector, said Carlo Van Wageningen, chairman of the company.

“We believe that this site is one of the best in the world for wind,” he said. If the project succeeds, the company estimates that there is the potential for the farm to generate a further 2,700MW of power, some of which could be exported.

First, however, there are huge logistical obstacles to overcome. The remote site of Loiyangalani is nearly 300 miles north of Nairobi. Transporting the turbines will require several thousand truck journeys, as well as the improvement of bridges and roads along the way. Security is also an issue as the region is known bandit country, and many locals are armed with AK-47 assault rifles.

LTWP also has to construct a 266-mile transmission line and several substations to connect the windfarm to the national grid. It has promised to provide electricity to the closest local towns, currently powered by generators.

The greening of Africa

At the end of 2008, Africa’s installed wind power capacity was only 593MW. But that is set to change fast. Egypt has declared plans to have 7,200MW of wind electricity by 2020, meeting 12% of the country’s energy needs. Morocco has a 15% target over the same period. South Africa and Kenya have not announced such long-term goals, but with power shortages and wind potential of up to 60,000MW and 30,000MW respectively, local projects are expected to boom. With the carbon credit market proving strong incentives for investment other types of renewable energy are also set to take off. Kenya is planning to quickly expanding its geothermal capacity, and neighbouring Rift Valley countries up to Djibouti are examining their own potential. As technology improves and costs fall, solar will also enter the mix. Germany has already publicised plans to develop a €400bn solar park in the Sahara.

“Ultimately for Africa solar is the answer, although [costs mean] we may still be decades away,” said Herman Oelsner, president of the African Wind Energy Association.

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The low-carbon wine baa

July 23, 2009

Winemaker deploys miniature sheep to cut fuel costs and keep grass short

A New Zealand winemaker believes he has struck upon the solution to reducing the carbon footprint of wine – and the answer, which may come as no great surprise, lies in sheep. Miniature sheep, that is.

There are only 300 of them in the world and they were originally bred as cute miniature pets, but Peter Yealands believes that babydoll sheep could help him to reduce the environmental footprint of his wine.

By allowing the rare breed to graze on the grass between his vines, Yealands says he can dramatically reduce the energy his wine takes to make and ultimately enable the process to be more sustainable.

Wine producers often use sheep to keep grass short, but flocks must be removed when the vines bud because the animals will eat them too. So, to prevent the grass using up precious nutrients and water, and to prevent the spread of disease and fungus, growers normally use tractors to do the job.

With 1,000 hectares in Yealands’ vineyard that means driving 3,500km for each of the 12 times a year the grass has to be mowed. As a result, for Yealands, diesel makes up about 60% of his energy costs. To avoid using a tractor, last year he experimented by letting loose giant guinea pigs. That worked initially, he said. “But once the hawks had a taste for them they were sitting prey. We were losing them by the hour. Besides, we would have needed 11 million of them to make it work.”

Now Yealands has turned his attention to babydolls, a rare breed of sheep which only reach about 60cm tall when fully grown, pictured left in a Californian vineyard. Because the grapes tend only to start growing from about 110cm off the ground the sheep can’t reach them. Yealands has tested 10 of the sheep on a 125-hectare patch of vines.

By selectively breeding them with another more common sheep, the Merino Saxon, which is favoured for its meat, Yealands now hopes to get his stock up to the 10,000 he needs within the next five years. If successful, the flock should save him NZ$1.5m (£600,000) a year in diesel alone, and he hopes to sell the sheep for meat too.

Marleen Stumpel, co-director of AdVintage Wines, a London-based supplier of carbon-neutral wines, said the babydolls are an unusual approach. She said most wine makers reduce their carbon footprint by paying to offset their emissions. “There is a growing market for it, but the wine does tend to be a little bit more expensive,” she said. Photograph: Kathryn Cohen

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Expedition measures Arctic melt

July 22, 2009

Greenpeace is leading a team of scientists in Greenland to gather global warming data in time for the Copenhagen climate summit in December

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6 Businessmen Caught Smuggling 11 Tons of Ivory

July 21, 2009

Six businessmen from Tanzania were charged today for smuggling 11 tons of elephant ivory worth $600,000 into the Philippines and Vietnam.

The men were charged under 11 counts of conspiracy, unlawful hunting, exporting concealed and undeclared items as well as making false documents. It’s likely that the intricate smuggling job was conducted between October 2008 and March this year.

London to Cardiff rail line will be electrified to cut carbon footprint

July 21, 2009

One of Britain’s busiest rail lines is to be electrified in a move that will introduce greener and more reliable services for millions of passengers.

The government is finalising plans to transform the Great Western mainline as part of a drive to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport. The programme will involve installing hundreds of miles of electric cables as well as alterations to tunnels, bridges and stations on one of Britain’s oldest rail routes.

An announcement could come as soon as Thursday, although the financing is still being put in place. The Department for Transport (DfT) and Network Rail, owner of Britain’s rail infrastructure, have discussed electrifying the route from London Paddington to Cardiff, taking in Reading and Bristol, as well as the popular commuter route from London to Oxford.

However, the programme is expected to be carried out in phases over the next decade in order to minimise disruption.

Britain lags behind many of its European counterparts in electrical coverage of its rail system, with only 40% of the 20,000-mile network electrified. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, has pledged to electrify swaths of the network, led by Great Western and the Midland mainline from St Pancras to Sheffield, in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from transport by 14% by 2020.

Train operators said electrification would bring quicker and more reliable services for passengers, as well as giving rail a green edge over car and air travel. Michael Roberts, chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: “Electrification brings with it the dual benefits of helping to make rail services more attractive to customers and drawing them away from cars and planes. It also relies on lower-carbon sources of energy.” First Great Western, the main operator on the Great Western network, carries 84 million passengers a year.

According to Network Rail, the diesel trains that travel on the Great Western route emit at least double the carbon dioxide output per mile of an electric train. The government-backed company has also calculated that it will cost £800,000 a track mile just to erect the cabling. Once work on tunnels, bridges and culverts is added in electrifying the 118-mile stretch from London to Bristol could cost £380m, according to Network Rail.

It is understood that the DfT and Network Rail have discussed funding the work through an increase in Network Rail’s borrowings. Network Rail’s debt is underwritten by the state and the government will pay off the interest over a number of decades, minimising the immediate impact on the taxpayer.

Stephen Glaister, professor of transport and infrastructure at Imperial College London, said the benefits of electrifying thousands of miles of railway track would be undermined if trains were not powered by energy produced from low-carbon sources such as nuclear plants or wind farms. Otherwise, electrification would simply increase demand for electricity from coal- and gas-powered plants, he added. “The government has to clarify where the electricity is coming from. In a world where nuclear power is declining and renewables cannot fill the gap, where else is it going to come from apart from burning more coal and gas?”

Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, said last week: “Transport accounts for a significant amount of our domestic emissions. Therefore decarbonising this sector has to be front and centre of efforts to meet our obligations and commitments to tackle climate change.”

The government is also encouraging greater production, and acquisition, of electric and hybrid cars as part of its low-carbon policy.

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Activists reveal plan to storm Copenhagen climate summit

July 21, 2009

Anti-globalisation group Climate Justice action talks of plans to mobilise up to 15,000 protesters to storm Copenhagen summit in December

A network of radical green groups is planning to disrupt the international climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December by invading the conference centre and occupying it for a day, it has emerged.

The anti-globalisation group Climate Justice Action has said it hopes to mobilise up to 15,000 protesters to storm the climate summit, and a large carbon dioxide emitter nearby, while negotiators try to thrash out a replacement for the Kyoto protocol.

“We want to take over the summit space to set the global agenda away from false, market-based solutions, towards an agenda of social justice,” said Tadzio Müller, a 32-year-old German activist who is part of the group organising the protest. “Real emission cuts will not be achieved by initiatives like carbon trading…It is (the pursuit of) economic growth that is driving us into climate chaos.”

But other green groups have condemned the plan. WWF said the action would be “counter-productive”. It is “very concerned” that the proposed protest will put off its own supporters.

“If you want to help fight against climate change, you don’t storm the building,” said Rasmus Helveg Petersen from WWF Denmark. “I don’t see the point of this protest.”

“We are afraid it might affect our ability to mobilise people during the conference. If there is a sense that there could be violence, people will stay at home.”

According to Müller, thousands of activists will take part in the action, organised by an international network of green and anti-globalisation activists called Climate Justice Action. He says: “If the turnout is bad, it will be 2,000-3,000 people. If it is good, it is going to be between 10,000 and 15,000 people.” He added that demonstrators will come from a variety of countries, including the UK.

The action will begin with a march in the streets of Copenhagen, ending at the summit’s conference site, the Bella Centre in the south of the city, where protesters will attempt to push pass police officers guarding the venue. “The police will try to stop us, but we will try to break the blockade in strictly non-violent ways,” said Peter Polder, a 34-year-old Dutch green activist and member of Climate Justice Action.

Activists are also planning to occupy an installation in the Copenhagen area that is a big emitter of carbon dioxide. Polder explains: “It could be a factory or a coal-fired power plant. We are still looking into it.”

Danish authorities appear not to be worried by the protest. “It’s not the first time we are having a conference in Copenhagen, so we are well prepared,” said Flemming Steen Munch from Copenhagen police. He declined to comment on the security measures taken for the conference.

Müller said the climate meeting was a legitimate target for protest because it would not go far enough to tackling the global warming crisis. “There is not a hope in hell that something significant will take place in Copenhagen,” said Müller. “Everyone close to the negotiations knows that nothing is on the table.”

“Copenhagen will be dominated by false solutions like biofuels and carbon trading,” added Polder. “The most effective way to do so is to return to more localised, sustainable economies…We should work on true solutions and not wait for the politicians.”

Petersen at WWF disagreed. “We want to influence the summit by engaging as widely as possible … This protest will not affect the summit and its outcome.”

He also dismissed Climate Justice Action’s description of their tactics as “a contradiction in terms”. “You can’t force your way into the conference centre and remain non-violent at the same time,” he said.

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UN panel to study climate impact on poor nations

July 21, 2009

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change determined to increase understanding of regional effects of warming

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body of scientists drawn from around the world, will use its next assessment due in 2014 to look at how the impact of global warming is falling unequally on the poorest developing countries.

Two hundred key members of the IPCC met in Venice last week to begin scoping out its fifth assessment. Rajendra Pachauri, the body’s chairman, told reporters at the UN building in New York today that the panel was determined to increase its understanding of local and regional impacts of rising temperatures.

There was an awareness, he said, that in Africa in particular there was insufficient scientific and modelling fire-power to be able to predict in any detail what was likely to happen under global warming. “It’s critically important that we create the capacity in Africa to be able to assess the impact of climate change.”

A portion of the money the panel was awarded for the 2007 Nobel peace prize that it shared with Al Gore has been put into a trust specifically to help the least developed countries predict, and thus prepare for, the likely consequences.

Pachauri said the fifth assessment, the first draft of which is scheduled for 2013, would concentrate both on adaptations and mitigations that countries could make as rising temperatures take hold. “Every nation and community in the world will have to adapt [to] whatever happens in Copenhagen.”

Pachauri said he had been heartened by the recent G8 meeting in which the world’s industrialised powers agreed on an aspirational ceiling of 2C temperature rise. But he said that in that case they should also have signed up to the IPCC’s conclusion that to contain global temperatures within that limit, emissions of greenhouse gases had to peak in 2015 and decline rapidly thereafter.

“They should have categorically stated that by 2020 they will implement deep cuts in emissions. So there are several gaps that are rather glaring.” He went on to say that “the time has come for the global community to take action. There is frustration about the gap between our knowledge [of climate change] and acting on that knowledge.”

Another area that the IPCC will home in on in its fifth assessment is extreme weather caused by climate change, a topic that has garnered mounting public attention in recent years.