Copenhagen Conference 14/12/2009
Discussions suspended
A number of African nations walked out of the conference just before noon today amidst continuing tensions over the future of the Kyoto protocol. The African delegates want to see the Kyoto protocol remain in force post 2012, supplemented by additional measures involving the developing nations, whilst the rich nations mostly want to see new measures incorporated with Kyoto into a single treaty. Informal talks are attempting to resolve the issue and get the discussions back on track.
UN Report predicts major rise in Ocean Acidity
A UN report is today predicting that ocean acidity may rise 150% compared to pre-industrial levels by 2050. Such a change would constitute a major threat to shellfish, corals, and certain forms of algae which form acid soluble shells, and indirectly may lead to massive reductions in the biological productivity and ecological balance of the seas. Around half the oxygen we breathe is given off by marine plants, so that they are absolutely critical to maintaining a viable atmosphere. Increased acidity on the scale predicted would take more than 10,000 years to reverse with huge impacts on biodiversity.
Mayors meet to act on climate change
The mayors of 80 cities from around the world are meeting in Copenhagen today to discuss how cities can cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Two thirds of primary energy is consumed in cities which are responsible for 70% of energy related greenhouse gas emissions. Copenhagen reduced its emissions 20% between 1995 and 2005, is targeting a further 20% reduction by 2015, and aims to become carbon neutral by 2025.
A new model for climate funding
Norway and Mexico have jointly proposed the establishment of a green fund paid for from a mix of public money and the proceeds of emission permit auctions. The fund would provide developing countries with around $10 billion a year in 2013 rising to between 3 and 4 times this level by 2020 with which to carry out projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Will Africa’s leaders stay away?
A number of African leaders are threatening to stay away from Copenhagen this Thursday and Friday if there is no meaningful agreement ready to be signed. The Africa group of 53 nations are demanding that any new deal is based on continuation of the Kyoto protocol.
Forestry targets now less likely?
Deforestation is a major cause of increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 responsible for a little less than 20% of the total. Up until Sunday it had been proposed that measures be taken to reduce deforestation by 50% by 2020, however this proposal has now been struck from the discussion. The text now refers to funding without making specific reference to the amounts to be paid to the 40+ developing nations with significant forests in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The aspiration remains, but neither the amount of financing nor specific targets for reducing deforestation are currently on the table.
Asia Development Bank says financing inadequate
Haruhiko Kuroda of the Asia Development Bank warned today that if talks at Copenhagen fail, the carbon markets may collapse, threatening efforts to deal with climate change. He says that the developed nations have not yet brought sufficient funding to the table to pay for climate adaptation and mitigation measures in developing nations. If however sufficient financial arrangements are made, this will greatly facilitate the core aim of achieving agreement on greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Sea level rise underestimated by IPCC
New research indicates that the predictions of sea level rise made in 2007 by the International Panel on Climate Change are substantial underestimates. The panel predicted a rise of between 18-59 cm by 2100, however subsequent research modelling the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets indicates that a figure of 0.5 – 1.5 meters is now more likely.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Tensions Increase as Poor Nations Stage a Protest
Hopes Dim for Tough Decisions on Money
By JEFFREY BALL, ALESSANDRO TORELLO and STEPHEN POWER
COPENHAGEN -- Tempers flared Monday at the United Nations climate summit as poor nations staged a walkout to protest what they called inadequate aid offers from rich countries, and the U.S. and China jockeyed for position.
World leaders, including President Barack Obama, are expected to arrive in Copenhagen later this week, ostensibly to try to seal an international agreement to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and subsidize efforts by developing countries to adopt low-carbon energy technology and adapt to shifts in weather patterns or rising sea levels.
But the talk in Copenhagen is increasingly about scaled-back expectations. One possibility is a very general agreement in which developed countries promise to try to reduce their collective emissions by some amount and to provide a pot of money to help pay for a cleanup in the developing world. But such an agreement would leave the toughest questions -- how much each country would cut, and how much each would pay -- up in the air.
"Maybe the result you get from here is going to be less ambitious than we would like. But it would be better than nothing," said Sergio Serra, Brazil's ambassador for climate change.
The divide between rich and poor boiled over Monday when negotiators for the Group of 77 -- which represents developing countries as well as large emerging economies such as Brazil, India and China -- walked out of the negotiations in the morning.
They returned to the conference later in the day, but the underlying issues remained unsolved, Swedish Minister Andreas Carlgren said. This prompted a suspension in the official negotiation, and the chairman of the conference appointed two ministers to pursue consultation on how to solve the problem.
China, the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, is casting the talks as a referendum on what it calls the developed world's failure to clean up its act. Rich countries should "honor the commitments they have made" in the past, said Li Ganjie, China's vice minister of environmental protection.
At the heart of the disputes in Copenhagen are sharp disagreements over money. An existing treaty intended to curb global warming requires emission cuts from developed countries that ratified it but not from developing countries. That treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, doesn't demand emission cuts from the U.S. or China, which together produce 40% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, because the U.S. didn't ratify it and because China is classified as a developing country.
China argues that any new international agreement should continue to make more demands on developed countries than on developing ones. But most studies project that essentially all of the increase in global greenhouse-gas emissions in the next few decades will come from developing countries, with China topping the list, and so the fight is over how to ensure environmental action there.
That is a position that Chinese negotiators are intent on telegraphing back home. The Chinese delegation closed a scheduled news conference Monday to all but Chinese media, because it wanted "to urge the domestic population to support our endeavor" at the climate conference, said Lai Xing, a Chinese delegation spokesman. "We have a message for the domestic audience."
Speaking to reporters late Monday, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said governments have "a long way to go if we're going to produce the kind of agreement we need."
"We don't have very much time. The clock is definitely ticking," he said, adding that the walkout hadn't helped. "Any time that's lost is not helpful."
The European Union has pledged a total of €7.2 billion ($10.52 billion) between next year and 2012 to jump-start efforts to curb emissions in developing countries. Officials from developing countries have called that offer inadequate.
"We need to see developed nations give us a plan of what [financial] transfers will come in five years, 10 years and how much over the years ahead, and we aren't seeing that," said Mamadou Honadia, who is part of the negotiating team for Burkina Faso.
A Nigerian delegation official said the EU offer of short-term funding was "pathetic."
That criticism drew indignation from European officials. "We are the only part of the world that has put money on the table, and we're criticized for it," said Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner.
Jo Leinen, a member of the European Parliament from Germany, called on the U.S. and China to set more-aggressive targets for controlling their emissions.
The G-77 showed signs of disunity as well. Saudi Arabia and Brazil sparred Monday over carbon capture and storage, technology that the kingdom is pushing to shore up in its own emission-reduction efforts, said an official from a G-77 nation familiar with the matter. Brazil is concerned that carbon capture could dent its biofuels industry, as nations opt to burn more fossil fuel and bury emissions underground, rather than use clean-burning biofuels such as ethanol, of which Brazil is a leading producer.—Noah Buhayar and Spencer Swartz contributed to this article.
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com, Alessandro Torello at alessandro.torello@dowjones.com and Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com
By JEFFREY BALL, ALESSANDRO TORELLO and STEPHEN POWER
COPENHAGEN -- Tempers flared Monday at the United Nations climate summit as poor nations staged a walkout to protest what they called inadequate aid offers from rich countries, and the U.S. and China jockeyed for position.
World leaders, including President Barack Obama, are expected to arrive in Copenhagen later this week, ostensibly to try to seal an international agreement to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and subsidize efforts by developing countries to adopt low-carbon energy technology and adapt to shifts in weather patterns or rising sea levels.
But the talk in Copenhagen is increasingly about scaled-back expectations. One possibility is a very general agreement in which developed countries promise to try to reduce their collective emissions by some amount and to provide a pot of money to help pay for a cleanup in the developing world. But such an agreement would leave the toughest questions -- how much each country would cut, and how much each would pay -- up in the air.
"Maybe the result you get from here is going to be less ambitious than we would like. But it would be better than nothing," said Sergio Serra, Brazil's ambassador for climate change.
The divide between rich and poor boiled over Monday when negotiators for the Group of 77 -- which represents developing countries as well as large emerging economies such as Brazil, India and China -- walked out of the negotiations in the morning.
They returned to the conference later in the day, but the underlying issues remained unsolved, Swedish Minister Andreas Carlgren said. This prompted a suspension in the official negotiation, and the chairman of the conference appointed two ministers to pursue consultation on how to solve the problem.
China, the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, is casting the talks as a referendum on what it calls the developed world's failure to clean up its act. Rich countries should "honor the commitments they have made" in the past, said Li Ganjie, China's vice minister of environmental protection.
At the heart of the disputes in Copenhagen are sharp disagreements over money. An existing treaty intended to curb global warming requires emission cuts from developed countries that ratified it but not from developing countries. That treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, doesn't demand emission cuts from the U.S. or China, which together produce 40% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, because the U.S. didn't ratify it and because China is classified as a developing country.
China argues that any new international agreement should continue to make more demands on developed countries than on developing ones. But most studies project that essentially all of the increase in global greenhouse-gas emissions in the next few decades will come from developing countries, with China topping the list, and so the fight is over how to ensure environmental action there.
That is a position that Chinese negotiators are intent on telegraphing back home. The Chinese delegation closed a scheduled news conference Monday to all but Chinese media, because it wanted "to urge the domestic population to support our endeavor" at the climate conference, said Lai Xing, a Chinese delegation spokesman. "We have a message for the domestic audience."
Speaking to reporters late Monday, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said governments have "a long way to go if we're going to produce the kind of agreement we need."
"We don't have very much time. The clock is definitely ticking," he said, adding that the walkout hadn't helped. "Any time that's lost is not helpful."
The European Union has pledged a total of €7.2 billion ($10.52 billion) between next year and 2012 to jump-start efforts to curb emissions in developing countries. Officials from developing countries have called that offer inadequate.
"We need to see developed nations give us a plan of what [financial] transfers will come in five years, 10 years and how much over the years ahead, and we aren't seeing that," said Mamadou Honadia, who is part of the negotiating team for Burkina Faso.
A Nigerian delegation official said the EU offer of short-term funding was "pathetic."
That criticism drew indignation from European officials. "We are the only part of the world that has put money on the table, and we're criticized for it," said Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner.
Jo Leinen, a member of the European Parliament from Germany, called on the U.S. and China to set more-aggressive targets for controlling their emissions.
The G-77 showed signs of disunity as well. Saudi Arabia and Brazil sparred Monday over carbon capture and storage, technology that the kingdom is pushing to shore up in its own emission-reduction efforts, said an official from a G-77 nation familiar with the matter. Brazil is concerned that carbon capture could dent its biofuels industry, as nations opt to burn more fossil fuel and bury emissions underground, rather than use clean-burning biofuels such as ethanol, of which Brazil is a leading producer.—Noah Buhayar and Spencer Swartz contributed to this article.
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com, Alessandro Torello at alessandro.torello@dowjones.com and Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com
Time for a Smarter Approach to Global Warming
Investing in energy R&D might work. Mandated emissions cuts won't.
By BJORN LOMBORG
Copenhagen
The saddest fact of climate change—and the chief reason we should be concerned about finding a proper response—is that the countries it will hit hardest are already among the poorest and most long-suffering.
In the run-up to this month's global climate summit in Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Consensus Center dispatched researchers to the world's most likely global-warming hot spots. Their assignment: to ask locals to tell us their views about the problems they face. Over the past seven weeks, I recounted in these pages what they told us concerned them the most. In nearly every case, it wasn't global warming.
Everywhere we went we found people who spoke powerfully of the need to focus more attention on more immediate problems. In the Bauleni slum compound in Lusaka, Zambia, 27-year-old Samson Banda asked, "If I die from malaria tomorrow, why should I care about global warming?" In a camp for stateless Biharis in Bangladesh, 45-year-old Momota Begum said, "When my kids haven't got enough to eat, I don't think global warming will be an issue I will be thinking about." On the southeast slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, 45-year-old widow and HIV/AIDS sufferer Mary Thomas said she had noticed changes in the mountain's glaciers, but declared: "There is no need for ice on the mountain if there is no people around because of HIV/AIDS."
There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn't mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions.
Take malaria. Most estimates suggest that if nothing is done, 3% more of the Earth's population will be at risk of infection by 2100. The most efficient global carbon cuts designed to keep average global temperatures from rising any higher than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (a plan proposed by the industrialized G-8 nations) would cost the world $40 trillion a year in lost economic growth by 2100—and have only a marginal impact on reducing the at-risk malaria population. By contrast, we could spend $3 billion a year on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for new therapies—and within 10 years cut the number of malaria infections by half. In other words, for the money it would take to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives.
Many well-meaning people argue that we do not need to choose between tackling climate change and addressing these more immediate problems directly. We can, they say, do both. If only that were true. Just last week, activists from the international aid agency Oxfam reported evidence that European countries were planning to "cannibalize" existing development aid budgets and repackage them as climate-change assistance. According to Oxfam, if rich nations diverted $50 billion to climate change, at least 4.5 million children could die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment. And what would we get for that $50 billion? Well, spending that much on Kyoto-style carbon-emissions cuts would reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years.
Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can't use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/Aids prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation. This does not mean that we should ignore global warming. But it does raise serious questions about our dogmatic pursuit of a strategy that can only be described as breathtakingly expensive and woefully ineffective.
As I write this in the Bella Center in Copenhagen, I am surrounded by delegates, politicians and activists engaged in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Almost every one of them is singing from the same hymn-book: The world's nations must commit themselves to drastic, immediate carbon cuts if we are to avoid the worst of global warming.
The tune may be seductive, but the lyrics don't make any sense. Even if every major government were to slap huge taxes on carbon fuels—which is not going to happen—it wouldn't do much to halt climate change any time soon. What it would do is cost us hundreds of billions—if not trillions—of dollars, because alternative energy technologies are not yet ready to take up the slack.
Over the last several centuries, the world economy has exploded and the human condition has improved immeasurably because of cheap fossil fuels; we're not going to end that connection in just a few decades. Just before the summit convened, political leaders from a number of major nations were lauded for announcing carbon-reduction targets that are in fact economically, technically, and politically impossible to achieve. We saw the same thing at the 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro and then again a decade later in Kyoto. And just like the promises made back then, the vows being made now in Copenhagen are sure to be broken by future administrations. Pretending otherwise is fraudulent.
There was one positive sign in Copenhagen last week. Someone leaked a draft text of a proposed climate agreement that would break away from the deeply flawed Kyoto model (which exempted the developing world from having to promise anything) and compel both rich and poor nations alike to agree to specific carbon cuts. The leak caused great dissension and infighting among delegates, reflecting a realization—at last—that cutting carbon emissions is not going to be easy.
Of course, I would like to see the politicians move even further away from the Kyoto approach. Instead of making far-fetched promises about greenhouse gases, how about a concrete commitment to green energy research and development? Specifically, we should radically increase spending on R&D for green energy—to 0.2% of global GDP, or $100 billion. That's 50 times more than the world spends now—but still twice as cheap as Kyoto. Not only would this be both affordable and politically achievable, but it would also have a real chance of working.
In order to make this kind of shift, leaders will have to stop papering over a consistent record of failure and instead recognize that the Kyoto approach is going nowhere. In this sense, the likely failure of the Copenhagen summit could end up being a blessing in disguise. If we are serious about helping the world's worst-off inhabitants, we are going to need to rethink our approach completely.
Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007).
By BJORN LOMBORG
Copenhagen
The saddest fact of climate change—and the chief reason we should be concerned about finding a proper response—is that the countries it will hit hardest are already among the poorest and most long-suffering.
In the run-up to this month's global climate summit in Copenhagen, the Copenhagen Consensus Center dispatched researchers to the world's most likely global-warming hot spots. Their assignment: to ask locals to tell us their views about the problems they face. Over the past seven weeks, I recounted in these pages what they told us concerned them the most. In nearly every case, it wasn't global warming.
Everywhere we went we found people who spoke powerfully of the need to focus more attention on more immediate problems. In the Bauleni slum compound in Lusaka, Zambia, 27-year-old Samson Banda asked, "If I die from malaria tomorrow, why should I care about global warming?" In a camp for stateless Biharis in Bangladesh, 45-year-old Momota Begum said, "When my kids haven't got enough to eat, I don't think global warming will be an issue I will be thinking about." On the southeast slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, 45-year-old widow and HIV/AIDS sufferer Mary Thomas said she had noticed changes in the mountain's glaciers, but declared: "There is no need for ice on the mountain if there is no people around because of HIV/AIDS."
There is no question that global warming will have a significant impact on already existing problems such as malaria, malnutrition, and water shortages. But this doesn't mean the best way to solve them is to cut carbon emissions.
Take malaria. Most estimates suggest that if nothing is done, 3% more of the Earth's population will be at risk of infection by 2100. The most efficient global carbon cuts designed to keep average global temperatures from rising any higher than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (a plan proposed by the industrialized G-8 nations) would cost the world $40 trillion a year in lost economic growth by 2100—and have only a marginal impact on reducing the at-risk malaria population. By contrast, we could spend $3 billion a year on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for new therapies—and within 10 years cut the number of malaria infections by half. In other words, for the money it would take to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives.
Many well-meaning people argue that we do not need to choose between tackling climate change and addressing these more immediate problems directly. We can, they say, do both. If only that were true. Just last week, activists from the international aid agency Oxfam reported evidence that European countries were planning to "cannibalize" existing development aid budgets and repackage them as climate-change assistance. According to Oxfam, if rich nations diverted $50 billion to climate change, at least 4.5 million children could die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment. And what would we get for that $50 billion? Well, spending that much on Kyoto-style carbon-emissions cuts would reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years.
Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can't use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/Aids prevention, health and education infrastructure, and clean water and sanitation. This does not mean that we should ignore global warming. But it does raise serious questions about our dogmatic pursuit of a strategy that can only be described as breathtakingly expensive and woefully ineffective.
As I write this in the Bella Center in Copenhagen, I am surrounded by delegates, politicians and activists engaged in negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Almost every one of them is singing from the same hymn-book: The world's nations must commit themselves to drastic, immediate carbon cuts if we are to avoid the worst of global warming.
The tune may be seductive, but the lyrics don't make any sense. Even if every major government were to slap huge taxes on carbon fuels—which is not going to happen—it wouldn't do much to halt climate change any time soon. What it would do is cost us hundreds of billions—if not trillions—of dollars, because alternative energy technologies are not yet ready to take up the slack.
Over the last several centuries, the world economy has exploded and the human condition has improved immeasurably because of cheap fossil fuels; we're not going to end that connection in just a few decades. Just before the summit convened, political leaders from a number of major nations were lauded for announcing carbon-reduction targets that are in fact economically, technically, and politically impossible to achieve. We saw the same thing at the 1992 "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro and then again a decade later in Kyoto. And just like the promises made back then, the vows being made now in Copenhagen are sure to be broken by future administrations. Pretending otherwise is fraudulent.
There was one positive sign in Copenhagen last week. Someone leaked a draft text of a proposed climate agreement that would break away from the deeply flawed Kyoto model (which exempted the developing world from having to promise anything) and compel both rich and poor nations alike to agree to specific carbon cuts. The leak caused great dissension and infighting among delegates, reflecting a realization—at last—that cutting carbon emissions is not going to be easy.
Of course, I would like to see the politicians move even further away from the Kyoto approach. Instead of making far-fetched promises about greenhouse gases, how about a concrete commitment to green energy research and development? Specifically, we should radically increase spending on R&D for green energy—to 0.2% of global GDP, or $100 billion. That's 50 times more than the world spends now—but still twice as cheap as Kyoto. Not only would this be both affordable and politically achievable, but it would also have a real chance of working.
In order to make this kind of shift, leaders will have to stop papering over a consistent record of failure and instead recognize that the Kyoto approach is going nowhere. In this sense, the likely failure of the Copenhagen summit could end up being a blessing in disguise. If we are serious about helping the world's worst-off inhabitants, we are going to need to rethink our approach completely.
Mr. Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank, and author of "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming" (Knopf, 2007).
World's Mayors Gather for Their Own Climate Summit
Associated Press
COPENHAGEN -- It isn't easy getting Italy's city dwellers out of their Fiats, off their Vespa scooters and onto bicycles to ride to work.
"It isn't a matter of painting a right lane and saying, 'This is a bike lane,' " explained Emanuele Burgin, a Bologna provincial councilor. "We realize we're far away from this."
But Copenhagen's lord mayor has her problems, too. Finding enough parking space for all those bikes is just the beginning when it comes to improving the city's environmental credentials."First, we must get rid of our coal plants, and we need to get that subway expansion built," Ritt Bjerregaard said. She also wants even more Copenhageners cycling than the one-third who pedal each day to the office or school.
Ms. Bjerregaard and some 80 other mayors and local officials, including New York's Michael Bloomberg and representatives of Tokyo, Jakarta, Toronto and Hong Kong, have converged on the Danish capital in their own climate and energy summit.
They will compare notes on how to combat climate change, and save money on energy and other costs.
This five-day "cities summit," which opened Monday, will parallel the second week of the U.N. climate conference, intended to boost international efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.
Today's cities and towns consume two-thirds of the world's total primary energy and produce more than 70% of its energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency reports. Most comes from providing electricity and heating to private, commercial and municipal buildings.
In a report last week, the IEA's executive director, Nabuo Tanaka, said local authorities "have significant potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions" through renewable energy and other means. "Yet relatively few are taking up the challenge," he said.
Cities face many obstacles -- from extensive old infrastructure that would cost too much to replace, to political hurdles. The New York example is illustrative.
New York City last week approved legislation requiring owners of large buildings to conduct energy audits, replace insulation and take other steps toward energy efficiency. But under pressure from developers and real-estate interests, the measures were stripped of requirements for more costly improvements, such as total overhauls of heating systems and replacing windows.
Similarly, Mr. Bloomberg's efforts to cut traffic in Manhattan by charging fees to drive cars in certain neighborhoods was blocked by New York state politicians.
London succeeded where New York failed. In 2003, then-Mayor Ken Livingstone introduced a daily "congestion charge" -- the equivalent of $16 -- on cars and trucks entering the central city during business hours.
Other big cities are also trying to lead on climate. São Paulo, Brazil, for example, has by law set as a goal a 30% reduction in emissions from 2005's level by 2013. It has already achieved a 20% cut, chiefly through its new system of generating biogas for energy at landfills.
Rome's environmental chief, Paolo Giuntarelli, said his city intends to be the "first capital in Europe with an ambitious plan for energy self-sustainability." The Romans have a motivation beyond care for the environment.
"We are bidding to host the 2020 Olympics," Mr. Giuntarelli said, and Rome believes only a green city can snare that prize.
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press
COPENHAGEN -- It isn't easy getting Italy's city dwellers out of their Fiats, off their Vespa scooters and onto bicycles to ride to work.
"It isn't a matter of painting a right lane and saying, 'This is a bike lane,' " explained Emanuele Burgin, a Bologna provincial councilor. "We realize we're far away from this."
But Copenhagen's lord mayor has her problems, too. Finding enough parking space for all those bikes is just the beginning when it comes to improving the city's environmental credentials."First, we must get rid of our coal plants, and we need to get that subway expansion built," Ritt Bjerregaard said. She also wants even more Copenhageners cycling than the one-third who pedal each day to the office or school.
Ms. Bjerregaard and some 80 other mayors and local officials, including New York's Michael Bloomberg and representatives of Tokyo, Jakarta, Toronto and Hong Kong, have converged on the Danish capital in their own climate and energy summit.
They will compare notes on how to combat climate change, and save money on energy and other costs.
This five-day "cities summit," which opened Monday, will parallel the second week of the U.N. climate conference, intended to boost international efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.
Today's cities and towns consume two-thirds of the world's total primary energy and produce more than 70% of its energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency reports. Most comes from providing electricity and heating to private, commercial and municipal buildings.
In a report last week, the IEA's executive director, Nabuo Tanaka, said local authorities "have significant potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions" through renewable energy and other means. "Yet relatively few are taking up the challenge," he said.
Cities face many obstacles -- from extensive old infrastructure that would cost too much to replace, to political hurdles. The New York example is illustrative.
New York City last week approved legislation requiring owners of large buildings to conduct energy audits, replace insulation and take other steps toward energy efficiency. But under pressure from developers and real-estate interests, the measures were stripped of requirements for more costly improvements, such as total overhauls of heating systems and replacing windows.
Similarly, Mr. Bloomberg's efforts to cut traffic in Manhattan by charging fees to drive cars in certain neighborhoods was blocked by New York state politicians.
London succeeded where New York failed. In 2003, then-Mayor Ken Livingstone introduced a daily "congestion charge" -- the equivalent of $16 -- on cars and trucks entering the central city during business hours.
Other big cities are also trying to lead on climate. São Paulo, Brazil, for example, has by law set as a goal a 30% reduction in emissions from 2005's level by 2013. It has already achieved a 20% cut, chiefly through its new system of generating biogas for energy at landfills.
Rome's environmental chief, Paolo Giuntarelli, said his city intends to be the "first capital in Europe with an ambitious plan for energy self-sustainability." The Romans have a motivation beyond care for the environment.
"We are bidding to host the 2020 Olympics," Mr. Giuntarelli said, and Rome believes only a green city can snare that prize.
Copyright © 2009 Associated Press
Tensions Increase as Poor Nations Stage a Protest
Hopes Dim for Tough Decisions on Money
By JEFFREY BALL, ALESSANDRO TORELLO and STEPHEN POWER
COPENHAGEN -- Tempers flared Monday at the United Nations climate summit as poor nations staged a walkout to protest what they called inadequate aid offers from rich countries, and the U.S. and China jockeyed for position.
Environmental reporter Jeffrey Ball reports from Copenhagen, where political clashes are taking place outside and delegates are staging walkouts inside the COP15 Climate Conference.
World leaders, including President Barack Obama, are expected to arrive in Copenhagen later this week, ostensibly to try to seal an international agreement to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and subsidize efforts by developing countries to adopt low-carbon energy technology and adapt to shifts in weather patterns or rising sea levels.
But the talk in Copenhagen is increasingly about scaled-back expectations. One possibility is a very general agreement in which developed countries promise to try to reduce their collective emissions by some amount and to provide a pot of money to help pay for a cleanup in the developing world. But such an agreement would leave the toughest questions -- how much each country would cut, and how much each would pay -- up in the air.
Getty Images
Participants at the conference walked past a globe on Thursday, when a walkout by developing countries stalled negotiations.
"Maybe the result you get from here is going to be less ambitious than we would like. But it would be better than nothing," said Sergio Serra, Brazil's ambassador for climate change.
The divide between rich and poor boiled over Monday when negotiators for the Group of 77 -- which represents developing countries as well as large emerging economies such as Brazil, India and China -- walked out of the negotiations in the morning.
They returned to the conference later in the day, but the underlying issues remained unsolved, Swedish Minister Andreas Carlgren said. This prompted a suspension in the official negotiation, and the chairman of the conference appointed two ministers to pursue consultation on how to solve the problem.
China, the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, is casting the talks as a referendum on what it calls the developed world's failure to clean up its act. Rich countries should "honor the commitments they have made" in the past, said Li Ganjie, China's vice minister of environmental protection.
At the heart of the disputes in Copenhagen are sharp disagreements over money. An existing treaty intended to curb global warming requires emission cuts from developed countries that ratified it but not from developing countries. That treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, doesn't demand emission cuts from the U.S. or China, which together produce 40% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, because the U.S. didn't ratify it and because China is classified as a developing country.
China argues that any new international agreement should continue to make more demands on developed countries than on developing ones. But most studies project that essentially all of the increase in global greenhouse-gas emissions in the next few decades will come from developing countries, with China topping the list, and so the fight is over how to ensure environmental action there.
That is a position that Chinese negotiators are intent on telegraphing back home. The Chinese delegation closed a scheduled news conference Monday to all but Chinese media, because it wanted "to urge the domestic population to support our endeavor" at the climate conference, said Lai Xing, a Chinese delegation spokesman. "We have a message for the domestic audience."
Speaking to reporters late Monday, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said governments have "a long way to go if we're going to produce the kind of agreement we need."
"We don't have very much time. The clock is definitely ticking," he said, adding that the walkout hadn't helped. "Any time that's lost is not helpful."
The European Union has pledged a total of €7.2 billion ($10.52 billion) between next year and 2012 to jump-start efforts to curb emissions in developing countries. Officials from developing countries have called that offer inadequate.
"We need to see developed nations give us a plan of what [financial] transfers will come in five years, 10 years and how much over the years ahead, and we aren't seeing that," said Mamadou Honadia, who is part of the negotiating team for Burkina Faso.
A Nigerian delegation official said the EU offer of short-term funding was "pathetic."
That criticism drew indignation from European officials. "We are the only part of the world that has put money on the table, and we're criticized for it," said Stavros Dimas, the EU environment commissioner.
Jo Leinen, a member of the European Parliament from Germany, called on the U.S. and China to set more-aggressive targets for controlling their emissions.
The G-77 showed signs of disunity as well. Saudi Arabia and Brazil sparred Monday over carbon capture and storage, technology that the kingdom is pushing to shore up in its own emission-reduction efforts, said an official from a G-77 nation familiar with the matter. Brazil is concerned that carbon capture could dent its biofuels industry, as nations opt to burn more fossil fuel and bury emissions underground, rather than use clean-burning biofuels such as ethanol, of which Brazil is a leading producer.—Noah Buhayar and Spencer Swartz contributed to this article.
Write to Jeffrey Ball at jeffrey.ball@wsj.com, Alessandro Torello at alessandro.torello@dowjones.com and Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com
Gordon Brown aims to be first world leader at Copenhagen summit
Philippe Naughton and Ben Webster in Copenhagen
Gordon Brown has brought forward his arrival in Copenhagen to tomorrow night in order to be seen to be the first major world leader to join the climate summit.
Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Secretary, said that the Prime Minister hoped to inject a note of urgency into negotiations towards a new global climate pact.
"I think that it's a sign of the seriousness with which he takes this issue and I think it's a sign that the negotiations are moving too slowly," Mr Miliband told a press conference in Copenhagen. "My very clear feeling is that ministers and negotiators need to start getting their act together."
Many of the 120 national leaders due to attend the summit have also brought forward their arrival dates and about 20 will be arriving on Wednesday morning. Mr Brown is keen to give the impression that he is more engaged than any other leader in striking a global deal on greenhouse gas emissions.
With speculation rife that he will call a snap election early in the new year, Downing Street will be hoping to use the Copenhagen summit to burnish the Prime Minister's image as a world statesman, especially if he can help to engineer a meaningful accord to tackle global warming.
Mr Brown is not expected to join the negotiations until Wednesday, by when a succession of developing country leaders will be making "national statements" in a plenary session of the conference.
Behind the scenes and in less formal working groups, negotiators will be working around the clock drafting and redrafting paragraphs in the negotiating texts, ready for the leaders to make the hard political decisions on carbon dioxide emissions targets and long-term financing.
The obstacles to an agreement are still significant, especially between the two key players, the United States and China, which together account for around 40 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
The US is the world's largest per capita CO2 emitter but walked away from the Kyoto Protocol eight years ago, making it the only major developed nation exempt from the obligations of that treaty. President Obama continues to reject Kyoto, but has made a firm, albeit unambitious, offer to start cutting US emissions over the next decade.
China overtook the United States as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide two years ago but rejects the notion that it, too, will have to join a binding emissions reduction regime. Despite its export-led industrial success, China insists that economic development must remain its priority.
The competing demands of these two global powers means that the European nations are effectively sidelined in the negotiations that matter. The EU wants developed countries to reduce their CO2 emissions by 30 per cent by 2020, far beyond what the Americans are currently willing to accept.
The situation is complicated by the fact that there are two separate tracks in the negotiations — for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol with another round of binding emissions targets, and for an entirely new agreement bringing in the Americans.
The Japanese, who hosted the Kyoto meeting 12 years ago, threatened last week to walk away from that agreement if there is no significant progress on a new treaty, and there have been calls for Europe to do the same and to renew the push at a later date.
But Mr Miliband said that the Copenhagen summit was still the best chance to tackle the problem. "This is not just about getting any old deal and it is really important to say that," he said. "I don't think that Plan B is a good option at all. In other words, putting it off is not the answer. This is not going to get any easier."
He said that Mr Obama's election and the growing international consensus on the risks posed by global warming meant that "the stars are aligned that make this the most the most propitious time for a new agreement".
In talks last Friday, EU leaders agreed to commit £6.5 billion to a new "fast track" financing fund for Third World nations most vulnerable to rising temperatures. That fund is expected to hand out $10 billion (£6.1 billion) a year for the next three years, but the longer-term funding — which the UK puts at $100 billion a year by 2020 — has yet to be found.
Small island states and sub-Saharan African nations have called for the summit to endorse a target for the rise in global average temperatures to be limited to 1.5C, more ambitious than the 2C target proposed by Europe.
A negotiating text circulated on Friday did not fix a clear target on what is known as "global peaking" — the idea that worldwide emissions will start to have to fall by a certain date if the world is to have any chance of averting catastrophic warming.
Mr Milliband said that emissions had to peak by 2020, although developing countries' emissions might continue to rise past that point. "We're not asking developing countries to necessarily peak by 2020 but we need a global peak," he said. "Unless we get global peaking by, at the latest, 2020, then we're going to find that we have runaway climate change. All the science tells us that.
Gordon Brown has brought forward his arrival in Copenhagen to tomorrow night in order to be seen to be the first major world leader to join the climate summit.
Ed Miliband, the Climate Change Secretary, said that the Prime Minister hoped to inject a note of urgency into negotiations towards a new global climate pact.
"I think that it's a sign of the seriousness with which he takes this issue and I think it's a sign that the negotiations are moving too slowly," Mr Miliband told a press conference in Copenhagen. "My very clear feeling is that ministers and negotiators need to start getting their act together."
Many of the 120 national leaders due to attend the summit have also brought forward their arrival dates and about 20 will be arriving on Wednesday morning. Mr Brown is keen to give the impression that he is more engaged than any other leader in striking a global deal on greenhouse gas emissions.
With speculation rife that he will call a snap election early in the new year, Downing Street will be hoping to use the Copenhagen summit to burnish the Prime Minister's image as a world statesman, especially if he can help to engineer a meaningful accord to tackle global warming.
Mr Brown is not expected to join the negotiations until Wednesday, by when a succession of developing country leaders will be making "national statements" in a plenary session of the conference.
Behind the scenes and in less formal working groups, negotiators will be working around the clock drafting and redrafting paragraphs in the negotiating texts, ready for the leaders to make the hard political decisions on carbon dioxide emissions targets and long-term financing.
The obstacles to an agreement are still significant, especially between the two key players, the United States and China, which together account for around 40 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
The US is the world's largest per capita CO2 emitter but walked away from the Kyoto Protocol eight years ago, making it the only major developed nation exempt from the obligations of that treaty. President Obama continues to reject Kyoto, but has made a firm, albeit unambitious, offer to start cutting US emissions over the next decade.
China overtook the United States as the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide two years ago but rejects the notion that it, too, will have to join a binding emissions reduction regime. Despite its export-led industrial success, China insists that economic development must remain its priority.
The competing demands of these two global powers means that the European nations are effectively sidelined in the negotiations that matter. The EU wants developed countries to reduce their CO2 emissions by 30 per cent by 2020, far beyond what the Americans are currently willing to accept.
The situation is complicated by the fact that there are two separate tracks in the negotiations — for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol with another round of binding emissions targets, and for an entirely new agreement bringing in the Americans.
The Japanese, who hosted the Kyoto meeting 12 years ago, threatened last week to walk away from that agreement if there is no significant progress on a new treaty, and there have been calls for Europe to do the same and to renew the push at a later date.
But Mr Miliband said that the Copenhagen summit was still the best chance to tackle the problem. "This is not just about getting any old deal and it is really important to say that," he said. "I don't think that Plan B is a good option at all. In other words, putting it off is not the answer. This is not going to get any easier."
He said that Mr Obama's election and the growing international consensus on the risks posed by global warming meant that "the stars are aligned that make this the most the most propitious time for a new agreement".
In talks last Friday, EU leaders agreed to commit £6.5 billion to a new "fast track" financing fund for Third World nations most vulnerable to rising temperatures. That fund is expected to hand out $10 billion (£6.1 billion) a year for the next three years, but the longer-term funding — which the UK puts at $100 billion a year by 2020 — has yet to be found.
Small island states and sub-Saharan African nations have called for the summit to endorse a target for the rise in global average temperatures to be limited to 1.5C, more ambitious than the 2C target proposed by Europe.
A negotiating text circulated on Friday did not fix a clear target on what is known as "global peaking" — the idea that worldwide emissions will start to have to fall by a certain date if the world is to have any chance of averting catastrophic warming.
Mr Milliband said that emissions had to peak by 2020, although developing countries' emissions might continue to rise past that point. "We're not asking developing countries to necessarily peak by 2020 but we need a global peak," he said. "Unless we get global peaking by, at the latest, 2020, then we're going to find that we have runaway climate change. All the science tells us that.
Developing nations stage walkout over Copenhagen stalemate
Ben Webster, Environment Editor in Copenhagen
The UN climate negotiations were suspended this morning after developing countries staged a walk-out in protest over lack of progress on their key demand for legally binding emissions targets from rich nations.
With only four days remaining before world leaders are due to sign a deal in Copenhagen, the protest is an ominous sign that the summit is going to fail to deliver a robust agreement.
The talks resumed after a five-hour delay but there is now much more distrust between rich and poor countries than there was at the start of the two-week meeting.
A source close to the UN secretariat running the talks said: “We have already lost half a day and we can’t afford that at this stage.
“The big fear is that we end up with nothing firm emerging from Copenhagen from either of the negotiating tracks.”
The developing countries forced the suspension of this morning’s negotiations after claiming that their concerns were not being given sufficient priority.
After a previous walkout at climate talks in Barcelona last month, developing countries secured an agreement that more time would be spent discussing rich countries' legal commitments under the Kyoto Protocol than other issues.
Developing countries want to maintain the Kyoto Protocol because it is the only legal instrument which requires rich countries to make emissions cuts. They fear that it will be replaced by a much weaker agreement under which rich countries would only make voluntary pledges on emissions and would not be held to account for failing to meet them.
The US, the EU, Japan and Russia, among other developed countries, say that the Kyoto Protocol needs to be revised because it does not place any obligation on developing countries to cut their emissions.
Under current trends, more than 90 per cent of the future growth in emissions will come from developing countries.
The first round of commitments on emissions under the Kyoto Protocol cover a period ending at the end of 2012. Poorer nations are seeking a new seven-year commitment period starting in January 2013.
There are two sets of talks, one concerning the Kyoto Protocol and a separate track set up to accommodate the US, which rejected the Protocol.
This morning’s walkout was led by African countries, with the support of the G77 group of developing countries.
Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, said that the walkout had succeeded in focusing attention on the central issue which needed to be dealt before world leaders gathered on Friday.
He said: "Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week.
"Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions, yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this — the Kyoto Protocol.
"This not about blocking the talks — it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival of people in Africa and across the world."
Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The African countries' protest highlights the dirty tactics of rich countries who are trying to stitch up negotiations to their benefit.
"We support the African countries' demands that rich countries must commit to binding targets to cut their emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020.
"Wealthy nations are trying to push for a deal which will leave millions of people in the developing world to face the worst effects of catastrophic climate change.
"The informal consultations which the Danish presidency has organised at the climate talks between rich countries are underhand and undermine negotiations by excluding most developing countries.”
Mr Atkins said that the summit’s Danish presidency had today proposed "President's informal consultations" which appeared to be an attempt to collapse the two negotiating tracks in Copenhagen and abolish the Kyoto Protocol.
The walkout delivered another blow to the summit which has already been marred by growing tension, and trading of insults, between China and the United States.
Douglas Alexander, the International Development secretary, criticised the walkout.
He said: “Time is now against us in Copenhagen and we need leadership, not brinkmanship, to secure a deal to save the planet.
"Today's temporary suspension reminds us all of the real risk of failure. We need all countries around the negotiating table at all times to make progress.
“These negotiations must not descend into a battle between rich and poor."
The UN climate negotiations were suspended this morning after developing countries staged a walk-out in protest over lack of progress on their key demand for legally binding emissions targets from rich nations.
With only four days remaining before world leaders are due to sign a deal in Copenhagen, the protest is an ominous sign that the summit is going to fail to deliver a robust agreement.
The talks resumed after a five-hour delay but there is now much more distrust between rich and poor countries than there was at the start of the two-week meeting.
A source close to the UN secretariat running the talks said: “We have already lost half a day and we can’t afford that at this stage.
“The big fear is that we end up with nothing firm emerging from Copenhagen from either of the negotiating tracks.”
The developing countries forced the suspension of this morning’s negotiations after claiming that their concerns were not being given sufficient priority.
After a previous walkout at climate talks in Barcelona last month, developing countries secured an agreement that more time would be spent discussing rich countries' legal commitments under the Kyoto Protocol than other issues.
Developing countries want to maintain the Kyoto Protocol because it is the only legal instrument which requires rich countries to make emissions cuts. They fear that it will be replaced by a much weaker agreement under which rich countries would only make voluntary pledges on emissions and would not be held to account for failing to meet them.
The US, the EU, Japan and Russia, among other developed countries, say that the Kyoto Protocol needs to be revised because it does not place any obligation on developing countries to cut their emissions.
Under current trends, more than 90 per cent of the future growth in emissions will come from developing countries.
The first round of commitments on emissions under the Kyoto Protocol cover a period ending at the end of 2012. Poorer nations are seeking a new seven-year commitment period starting in January 2013.
There are two sets of talks, one concerning the Kyoto Protocol and a separate track set up to accommodate the US, which rejected the Protocol.
This morning’s walkout was led by African countries, with the support of the G77 group of developing countries.
Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam International, said that the walkout had succeeded in focusing attention on the central issue which needed to be dealt before world leaders gathered on Friday.
He said: "Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week.
"Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions, yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this — the Kyoto Protocol.
"This not about blocking the talks — it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival of people in Africa and across the world."
Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "The African countries' protest highlights the dirty tactics of rich countries who are trying to stitch up negotiations to their benefit.
"We support the African countries' demands that rich countries must commit to binding targets to cut their emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2020.
"Wealthy nations are trying to push for a deal which will leave millions of people in the developing world to face the worst effects of catastrophic climate change.
"The informal consultations which the Danish presidency has organised at the climate talks between rich countries are underhand and undermine negotiations by excluding most developing countries.”
Mr Atkins said that the summit’s Danish presidency had today proposed "President's informal consultations" which appeared to be an attempt to collapse the two negotiating tracks in Copenhagen and abolish the Kyoto Protocol.
The walkout delivered another blow to the summit which has already been marred by growing tension, and trading of insults, between China and the United States.
Douglas Alexander, the International Development secretary, criticised the walkout.
He said: “Time is now against us in Copenhagen and we need leadership, not brinkmanship, to secure a deal to save the planet.
"Today's temporary suspension reminds us all of the real risk of failure. We need all countries around the negotiating table at all times to make progress.
“These negotiations must not descend into a battle between rich and poor."
US left behind in technological race to fight climate change
A speech by the US energy secretary, Steven Chu, shows how America's unquestioning belief in the free market has held back technological innovation
I have just been watching the tragic sight of a fallen giant flailing around on its back like a beetle, desperately trying to turn itself over.
The occasion was a speech by the US secretary of energy, Steven Chu. He is, of course, a Nobel physicist, brilliant, modest, likeable, a delightful contrast to the thugs employed by the previous administration. But his speech was, in the true sense of the word, pathetic: it moved me to pity.
Yesterday afternoon in Copenhagen – where the UN climate talks are entering their second week – Professor Chu unveiled what would have been a series of inspiring innovations, had he made this speech 15 years ago. Barely suppressing his excitement, he told us the US has discovered there is great potential for making fridges more efficient, and that the same principle could even be extended to lighting, heating and whole buildings. The Department of Energy is so thrilled by this discovery that it has launched a programme to retrofit homes in the US, on which it will spend $400m a year.
To put this in perspective, four years ago the German government announced it would spend the equivalent of $1.6bn a year on the same job: as a result every house in Germany should be airtight and well insulated by 2025. The US has about 110m households; Germany has roughly 37m, and German homes were more energy-efficient in the first place. This $400m is a drop in the ocean.
Professor Chu went on to explain two amazing new discoveries: a camera which can see how much heat is leaking from your home and a meter which allows you to audit your own energy use. Perhaps thermal imaging cameras and energy monitors seem new and exciting in the US, but on this side of the Atlantic, though their full potential is still a long way from being realised, they've been familiar for more than a decade.
He thrilled us with another US innovation, a technology called pumped storage: water can be pumped up a hill when electricity is cheap and released when it's expensive. The UK started building its first pumped storage plant, Dinorwig, in 1974. Then he told us about a radical system for heating buildings by extracting heat from water: this must have been the one that the Royal Festival Hall used in 1951.
I'm sure these technologies have in fact been deployed for years in parts of the US. My point is that Chu appeared to believe that they represent the cutting edge of both technology and public policy.
The energy secretary explained that the US is now making "a very big investment" in developing and testing new components for wind turbines. The "very big investment" is $70m, which is what the US spends on subsidies and forgoes in tax breaks for fossil fuels every two days.
As if to hammer home the point that the Department of Energy seems to be stuck in a time-warp, and as if to highlight the sad decline of technological innovation in the US, Chu finished his talk with a disquisition on the beauty of the earth as seen by the Apollo astronauts.
What has happened to the great pioneering nation, the economic superpower which once drove innovation everywhere? How did it end up so far behind much smaller economies in boring old Europe? How come, when the rest of the developed world has moved on, it suddenly looks like a relic of the Soviet Union, with filthy, inefficient industries, vast opencast coal mines and cars and appliances which belong in the 1950s?
It can't all be blamed on George Bush: this technological backwardness pre-dates him. The real problem is the terror of all modern US governments of being seen to interfere in the free market. It's ironic that the lack of effective regulation in the US has not ensured – as the free market fundamentalists prophesied – that the US came out in front, but that it has been left far behind. Just ask the car manufacturers. The truth, too uncomfortable to be discussed by US officials, is that government regulations are among the main drivers of technological innovation.
monbiot.com
I have just been watching the tragic sight of a fallen giant flailing around on its back like a beetle, desperately trying to turn itself over.
The occasion was a speech by the US secretary of energy, Steven Chu. He is, of course, a Nobel physicist, brilliant, modest, likeable, a delightful contrast to the thugs employed by the previous administration. But his speech was, in the true sense of the word, pathetic: it moved me to pity.
Yesterday afternoon in Copenhagen – where the UN climate talks are entering their second week – Professor Chu unveiled what would have been a series of inspiring innovations, had he made this speech 15 years ago. Barely suppressing his excitement, he told us the US has discovered there is great potential for making fridges more efficient, and that the same principle could even be extended to lighting, heating and whole buildings. The Department of Energy is so thrilled by this discovery that it has launched a programme to retrofit homes in the US, on which it will spend $400m a year.
To put this in perspective, four years ago the German government announced it would spend the equivalent of $1.6bn a year on the same job: as a result every house in Germany should be airtight and well insulated by 2025. The US has about 110m households; Germany has roughly 37m, and German homes were more energy-efficient in the first place. This $400m is a drop in the ocean.
Professor Chu went on to explain two amazing new discoveries: a camera which can see how much heat is leaking from your home and a meter which allows you to audit your own energy use. Perhaps thermal imaging cameras and energy monitors seem new and exciting in the US, but on this side of the Atlantic, though their full potential is still a long way from being realised, they've been familiar for more than a decade.
He thrilled us with another US innovation, a technology called pumped storage: water can be pumped up a hill when electricity is cheap and released when it's expensive. The UK started building its first pumped storage plant, Dinorwig, in 1974. Then he told us about a radical system for heating buildings by extracting heat from water: this must have been the one that the Royal Festival Hall used in 1951.
I'm sure these technologies have in fact been deployed for years in parts of the US. My point is that Chu appeared to believe that they represent the cutting edge of both technology and public policy.
The energy secretary explained that the US is now making "a very big investment" in developing and testing new components for wind turbines. The "very big investment" is $70m, which is what the US spends on subsidies and forgoes in tax breaks for fossil fuels every two days.
As if to hammer home the point that the Department of Energy seems to be stuck in a time-warp, and as if to highlight the sad decline of technological innovation in the US, Chu finished his talk with a disquisition on the beauty of the earth as seen by the Apollo astronauts.
What has happened to the great pioneering nation, the economic superpower which once drove innovation everywhere? How did it end up so far behind much smaller economies in boring old Europe? How come, when the rest of the developed world has moved on, it suddenly looks like a relic of the Soviet Union, with filthy, inefficient industries, vast opencast coal mines and cars and appliances which belong in the 1950s?
It can't all be blamed on George Bush: this technological backwardness pre-dates him. The real problem is the terror of all modern US governments of being seen to interfere in the free market. It's ironic that the lack of effective regulation in the US has not ensured – as the free market fundamentalists prophesied – that the US came out in front, but that it has been left far behind. Just ask the car manufacturers. The truth, too uncomfortable to be discussed by US officials, is that government regulations are among the main drivers of technological innovation.
monbiot.com
Steven Chu pledges $350m clean tech fund to sweeten deal at Copenhagen
US energy secretary attempts to show Obama administration is serious about action on climate change
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 December 2009 18.42 GMT
The Obama administration tried to sweeten a climate change deal for developing countries today with the promise of a $350m fund for the development of new clean energy technologies.
The fund will be used to encourage the development of renewable energy projects such as wind and solar power and more energy efficient appliances in the developing world.
In an appearance at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the energy secretary Steven Chu likened the initiative to the breakthrough of seed technology which helped lift countries in Asia out of poverty. "We need a gamechanger like the green revolution was for agriculture," he said.
Chu's appearance before a packed hall at the US pavilion was part of an ambitious outreach effort by the Obama administration to persuade a sceptical international community it is serious about taking action on climate change. It comes amid rising rancour between rich and poor countries. The talks were suspended for five hours today, with negotiators from African and other developing countries accusing the Danish chair of ignoring their concerns.
But Chu said he detected no sign of resentment from the developing countries. "I don't feel that at all that there is any mistrust," he said. "Perhaps in discussion they may see me as a scientist and say: 'let's just get on with it. let's solve the problem'."
He followed up with an appeal for cooperation. "Rather than competing and trying to bargain to the last advantage let's approach this all with a feeling of will and compassion and endurance for the long road ahead," he said. "In the end whatever happens the world has to act on it."
Obama has dispatched more than half a dozen senior members of his team to try to demonstrate America's commitment to cutting emissions and bringing in new energy-efficient technoogies.
Chu described the initiative as an expansion of agreements reached earlier this year with India and China for joint research on energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and carbon capture and technology. Under the initiative, the US will provide $85m over five years to the fund. Italy will provide $30m and Australia $5m.
Chu used charts to show the Obama administration committing to the highest levels of spending on energy research since the oil crisis of the 1970s, with the $80bn investment in green technology in the American economic recovery package.
He singled out two promising areas of research: batteries and the development of powerful wind turbines in a more compact size.
But despite the high-visibility campaign – and the huge crush of people trying to get into the room – America still has some explaining to do.
"Because the Senate hasn't acted [to pass climate change legislation], I think there is quite a lot of interest in what the US is willing to commit," said Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But there is one American whose green credentials are often seen as impeccable - Al Gore. The former vice-president was treated like a rock star when he made his debut at the conference centre to release two new reports on the melting of polar ice in the Arctic. He told the packed room that there was a 75% chance that the entire ice cap could be ice-free by summer in the next five to seven years.
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 December 2009 18.42 GMT
The Obama administration tried to sweeten a climate change deal for developing countries today with the promise of a $350m fund for the development of new clean energy technologies.
The fund will be used to encourage the development of renewable energy projects such as wind and solar power and more energy efficient appliances in the developing world.
In an appearance at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the energy secretary Steven Chu likened the initiative to the breakthrough of seed technology which helped lift countries in Asia out of poverty. "We need a gamechanger like the green revolution was for agriculture," he said.
Chu's appearance before a packed hall at the US pavilion was part of an ambitious outreach effort by the Obama administration to persuade a sceptical international community it is serious about taking action on climate change. It comes amid rising rancour between rich and poor countries. The talks were suspended for five hours today, with negotiators from African and other developing countries accusing the Danish chair of ignoring their concerns.
But Chu said he detected no sign of resentment from the developing countries. "I don't feel that at all that there is any mistrust," he said. "Perhaps in discussion they may see me as a scientist and say: 'let's just get on with it. let's solve the problem'."
He followed up with an appeal for cooperation. "Rather than competing and trying to bargain to the last advantage let's approach this all with a feeling of will and compassion and endurance for the long road ahead," he said. "In the end whatever happens the world has to act on it."
Obama has dispatched more than half a dozen senior members of his team to try to demonstrate America's commitment to cutting emissions and bringing in new energy-efficient technoogies.
Chu described the initiative as an expansion of agreements reached earlier this year with India and China for joint research on energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and carbon capture and technology. Under the initiative, the US will provide $85m over five years to the fund. Italy will provide $30m and Australia $5m.
Chu used charts to show the Obama administration committing to the highest levels of spending on energy research since the oil crisis of the 1970s, with the $80bn investment in green technology in the American economic recovery package.
He singled out two promising areas of research: batteries and the development of powerful wind turbines in a more compact size.
But despite the high-visibility campaign – and the huge crush of people trying to get into the room – America still has some explaining to do.
"Because the Senate hasn't acted [to pass climate change legislation], I think there is quite a lot of interest in what the US is willing to commit," said Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But there is one American whose green credentials are often seen as impeccable - Al Gore. The former vice-president was treated like a rock star when he made his debut at the conference centre to release two new reports on the melting of polar ice in the Arctic. He told the packed room that there was a 75% chance that the entire ice cap could be ice-free by summer in the next five to seven years.
Copenhagen talks stall as African bloc accuses UN of trying to kill Kyoto
UN and Danish hosts rush to repair rift as G77 delegate claims scrapping Kyoto would mean 'killing of Africa'
One of the two negotiating tracks at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen broke up in drama and confusion today when the Africa group of countries followed by other developing countries accused the chair of the conference of trying to "kill" the Kyoto protocol. They were also objecting to what they characterised as efforts to sideline the poorest countries.
The crisis was then exacerbated after Australia said that rich countries should suspend talks about emission cuts.
The UN and the chair of the conference, Denmark, tried hurriedly to repair the rifts as ministers began to arrive in Copenhagen for the high level political section of the talks. But after the talks were suspended for two hours, observers said that it looked increasingly unlikely that an ambitious deal would now be negotiated by Friday.
Earlier today, it was confirmed that the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, will fly to Copenhagen tomorrow, two days earlier than planned.
Brown's spokesman denied the change was due to concerns that the negotiations lacked momentum. "The prime minister has re-prioritised his diary this week to ensure that he can put the time that is required into shaping the next few days," said the spokesman. "He is not seeking to push himself forward but he has taken a personal view that it is important that, if world leaders can, they should get there early."
In the next two days he will meet other leaders who have brought forward their arrival at Copenhagen, including prime ministers Kevin Rudd of Australia, Jens Stoltenberg of Norway, Sheikh Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.
The confrontation in Copenhagen began when the Africa group called a press conference in the Bella centre. Seven countries, led by Algeria and including South Africa and Nigeria, said that rich countries were trying to collapse the Kyoto protocol.
This followed moves by Japan, Australia and other rich countries at the weekend who argued that a new single treaty had to be presented to heads of state to be signed.
Developing countries fear that rich nations will ensure that a new treaty will not place strict and legally binding commitments on the developed countries to cut their emissions, unlike the Kyoto protocol.
Victor Fodeke, head of the Nigerian special climate change unit, said any attempt to remove the Kyoto track would be disastrous for the talks. "Africa is on death row. It has been sidelined by some countries. If there is any attempt to remove one of the tracks of negotiations, then it's obvious the train will crash."
"This is of paramount importance. We cannot, we can never accept the killing of the Kyoto protocol. It will mean the killing of Africa," said another spokesman for the group.
"Right now we are going to lose everything. In one or two days they will tell us that we don't have the time to deal with Kyoto protocol issues." said Maria Mbengashe, adviser to the South African minister of the environment.
The extreme sensitivity of the Kyoto issue had been raised earlier by the UK climate change minister, Ed Miliband, who said today, "I am sympathetic to developing countries that they do not want the Kyoto track to be ended before new instruments are in place."
Later, in a fast moving series of meetings between Connie Hedegaard, the Danish climate minister, the G77 and other countries, provisional agreement was reached to continue the talks on two tracks.
"The developing countries have won this round," Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77 (a group of 130 developing nations) told the Guardian. "Two texts will be presented to heads of state to sign. We won because Africa and other countries stood up."
Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN talks, said that countries would now go into an open-ended "conversation". "If we try to end the Kyoto protocol now or in the next year, then we face the risk of no second commitment period for 35% of the emissions," he said.
One of the two negotiating tracks at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen broke up in drama and confusion today when the Africa group of countries followed by other developing countries accused the chair of the conference of trying to "kill" the Kyoto protocol. They were also objecting to what they characterised as efforts to sideline the poorest countries.
The crisis was then exacerbated after Australia said that rich countries should suspend talks about emission cuts.
The UN and the chair of the conference, Denmark, tried hurriedly to repair the rifts as ministers began to arrive in Copenhagen for the high level political section of the talks. But after the talks were suspended for two hours, observers said that it looked increasingly unlikely that an ambitious deal would now be negotiated by Friday.
Earlier today, it was confirmed that the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, will fly to Copenhagen tomorrow, two days earlier than planned.
Brown's spokesman denied the change was due to concerns that the negotiations lacked momentum. "The prime minister has re-prioritised his diary this week to ensure that he can put the time that is required into shaping the next few days," said the spokesman. "He is not seeking to push himself forward but he has taken a personal view that it is important that, if world leaders can, they should get there early."
In the next two days he will meet other leaders who have brought forward their arrival at Copenhagen, including prime ministers Kevin Rudd of Australia, Jens Stoltenberg of Norway, Sheikh Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia.
The confrontation in Copenhagen began when the Africa group called a press conference in the Bella centre. Seven countries, led by Algeria and including South Africa and Nigeria, said that rich countries were trying to collapse the Kyoto protocol.
This followed moves by Japan, Australia and other rich countries at the weekend who argued that a new single treaty had to be presented to heads of state to be signed.
Developing countries fear that rich nations will ensure that a new treaty will not place strict and legally binding commitments on the developed countries to cut their emissions, unlike the Kyoto protocol.
Victor Fodeke, head of the Nigerian special climate change unit, said any attempt to remove the Kyoto track would be disastrous for the talks. "Africa is on death row. It has been sidelined by some countries. If there is any attempt to remove one of the tracks of negotiations, then it's obvious the train will crash."
"This is of paramount importance. We cannot, we can never accept the killing of the Kyoto protocol. It will mean the killing of Africa," said another spokesman for the group.
"Right now we are going to lose everything. In one or two days they will tell us that we don't have the time to deal with Kyoto protocol issues." said Maria Mbengashe, adviser to the South African minister of the environment.
The extreme sensitivity of the Kyoto issue had been raised earlier by the UK climate change minister, Ed Miliband, who said today, "I am sympathetic to developing countries that they do not want the Kyoto track to be ended before new instruments are in place."
Later, in a fast moving series of meetings between Connie Hedegaard, the Danish climate minister, the G77 and other countries, provisional agreement was reached to continue the talks on two tracks.
"The developing countries have won this round," Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77 (a group of 130 developing nations) told the Guardian. "Two texts will be presented to heads of state to sign. We won because Africa and other countries stood up."
Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN talks, said that countries would now go into an open-ended "conversation". "If we try to end the Kyoto protocol now or in the next year, then we face the risk of no second commitment period for 35% of the emissions," he said.
China Hits Out at U.N. Carbon Office
By SHAI OSTER
BEIJING -- China lashed out at the United Nations and warned clean energy investment could be hurt after the U.N. denied 10 Chinese wind farm carbon credits earlier this month and accused China of fudging the numbers to make the projects eligible for international subsidies.
China has been the chief beneficiary of the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism, or CDM, under which rich countries can invest in carbon-abatement projects in poor countries and get carbon credits that can be traded. But China has been accused by critics of gaming the system and the U.N. CDM board earlier this month said that China deliberately set electricity tariffs so that the 10 wind farms, with a combined investment of some six billion yuan (about $879 million), couldn't be profitable without the subsidies.
The rejection of the 10 projects has sparked an unusually public response for China's biggest wind power developers, who banded together to issue a public letter Monday protesting the U.N. decision. The Chinese government and companies called the U.N.'s decision-making process arbitrary, opaque and unfair.
"If you reject wind power, what else is there?" said Sun Cuihua, an official at the National Reform and Development Commission which oversees CDM projects in China.
"They say that we made up the electricity prices; that is an irresponsible thing to say," Ms. Sun told reporters.
The rejection "is sending a strongly wrong signal which will seriously damage the enthusiasm and confidence of investors to continue their investment in wind power industry," said a statement by nine companies including the wind power units of some of China's biggest state-owned companies including such as utility China Datang Corp., and coal miner Shenhua Group Corp. The companies said Monday they planned to present their letter at the climate-change summit in Copenhagen.
The fight over a handful of projects illustrates the much bigger battle being waged in Copenhagen over how and who will pay for reducing global warming and which countries will benefit from the developments of new technologies.
The spat has called into question the legitimacy of the entire U.N. process created as a way to help poor countries pay for the costly upgrades needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In theory, the credits are a way for rich countries to meet their domestic greenhouse gas commitment by paying for a carbon abatement project in a poor country that wouldn't have been built otherwise. But critics say the system has been distorted and abused, saying that China has sought to unfairly get investments for projects that fail to meet the U.N.'s standards because they would have been profitable to build anyway.
Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com
BEIJING -- China lashed out at the United Nations and warned clean energy investment could be hurt after the U.N. denied 10 Chinese wind farm carbon credits earlier this month and accused China of fudging the numbers to make the projects eligible for international subsidies.
China has been the chief beneficiary of the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism, or CDM, under which rich countries can invest in carbon-abatement projects in poor countries and get carbon credits that can be traded. But China has been accused by critics of gaming the system and the U.N. CDM board earlier this month said that China deliberately set electricity tariffs so that the 10 wind farms, with a combined investment of some six billion yuan (about $879 million), couldn't be profitable without the subsidies.
The rejection of the 10 projects has sparked an unusually public response for China's biggest wind power developers, who banded together to issue a public letter Monday protesting the U.N. decision. The Chinese government and companies called the U.N.'s decision-making process arbitrary, opaque and unfair.
"If you reject wind power, what else is there?" said Sun Cuihua, an official at the National Reform and Development Commission which oversees CDM projects in China.
"They say that we made up the electricity prices; that is an irresponsible thing to say," Ms. Sun told reporters.
The rejection "is sending a strongly wrong signal which will seriously damage the enthusiasm and confidence of investors to continue their investment in wind power industry," said a statement by nine companies including the wind power units of some of China's biggest state-owned companies including such as utility China Datang Corp., and coal miner Shenhua Group Corp. The companies said Monday they planned to present their letter at the climate-change summit in Copenhagen.
The fight over a handful of projects illustrates the much bigger battle being waged in Copenhagen over how and who will pay for reducing global warming and which countries will benefit from the developments of new technologies.
The spat has called into question the legitimacy of the entire U.N. process created as a way to help poor countries pay for the costly upgrades needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In theory, the credits are a way for rich countries to meet their domestic greenhouse gas commitment by paying for a carbon abatement project in a poor country that wouldn't have been built otherwise. But critics say the system has been distorted and abused, saying that China has sought to unfairly get investments for projects that fail to meet the U.N.'s standards because they would have been profitable to build anyway.
Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com
World's Top Polluter Emerges as Green-Technology Leader
By SHAI OSTER
BEIJING -- Xu Shisen put down the phone and smiled. That was Canada calling, explained the chief engineer at a coal-fired power plant set among knockoff antique and art shops in a Beijing suburb. A Canadian company is interested in Mr. Xu's advances in bringing down the cost of stripping out greenhouse-gas emissions from burning coal.
Engineers led by Mr. Xu are working to unlock one of climate change's thorniest problems: how to burn coal without releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
Mr. Xu is part of a broader effort by China to introduce green technology to the world's fastest-growing industrial economy -- a mission so ambitious it could eventually reshape the business, just as China has done for everything from construction cranes to computers.
China looms large over the global climate summit in Copenhagen, where Chinese officials are pressing the U.S. and other rich nations to accept new curbs on their emissions and to continue to subsidize poor nations' efforts to adopt clean-energy technology. China is the world's biggest source of carbon emissions. Less understood is the way China is now becoming a source of some of the solutions.
China's vast market and economies of scale are bringing down the cost of solar and wind energy, as well as other environmentally friendly technologies such as electric car batteries. That could help address a major impediment to wide adoption of such technologies: They need heavy subsidies to be economical.
The so-called China price -- the combination of cheap labor and capital that rewrote the rulebook on manufacturing -- is spreading to green technology. "The China price will move into the renewable-energy space, specifically for energy that relies on capital-intensive projects," says Jonathan Woetzel, a director in McKinsey & Co.'s China office.
China's government is backing the trend. It wants to replicate the success of the special economic zones that transformed cities such as Shenzhen from a fishing village near Hong Kong into one of the biggest manufacturing export centers in the world. Set up when China began its economic reforms in the 1980s, the zones were designed to attract foreign investment into light manufacturing to kick-start exports. They became engines of China's economic boom.
Regulators will announce several low carbon centers next year that will have preferential policies to promote low carbon manufacturing and exports.
China's Push for Clean Coal
China's goals face big challenges. China could end up becoming simply a low-cost manufacturing base, not a source of innovation. Worse, its drive to cut costs could stifle innovation overseas.
And Beijing has a long way to go to reducing China's carbon footprint. For each out-of-date power plant it shut down in a two-year cleanup campaign, it added the capacity of roughly two more. Even some of the better power plants are run poorly because company bosses don't want to pay to clean up their emissions.
In the fight against global warming, some of the biggest gains are to be made in scrubbing carbon from coal-burning power plants. China and the U.S. together have 44% of the world's coal reserves, and aren't about to give up on the cheap and reliable source of power. According to U.S. government projections, world coal use could increase nearly 50% by 2030.
"If emissions aren't reduced from power plants, global warming cannot be avoided," says Jonathan Lewis, a climate specialist at the U.S.-based Clean Air Task Force, which has sought to pair U.S. utilities with Chinese companies. "The solution can be led by the U.S. and China."
Capture technology traps carbon dioxide gasses released by coal plants. The gas can be pumped deep underground, typically into salt caverns or aging oil fields. The carbon can be stripped either before or after the coal is burned. Post-combustion capture is simpler and can be retrofitted on existing power plants. Current versions cut energy output by a fifth or more.
Far more complicated is precombustion carbon capture, which involves completely redesigning plants. Coal is turned into a gas, the carbon is stripped out and the rest is burned. Called "integrated gasification combined cycle" plants, these cost billions of dollars and haven't been developed on a commercial scale yet.
China has a technological lead in turning coal into gas. It has been using the technology widely to make petrochemicals and fertilizers as a substitute for pricier natural gas. Houston-based Future Fuels LLC has licensed gasification technology from China to use in a plant in Pennsylvania.
Critics say current carbon capture technologies are merely a Band-Aid for global warming. That's because they're so inefficient that even more coal has to be burned to produce the same amount of electricity. Also, the technology uses a lot of water and sequestering carbon underground isn't proven.
Still, some analysts estimate carbon capture could account for between 15% to 55% of the world's cumulative carbon emissions reduction by 2100.
Among those leading the ramp-up is Mr. Xu. These days, he is busy with three clean coal projects. One is on the outskirts of Beijing, underneath looming cooling towers of the Gaobeidian Huaneng power plant.
Mr. Xu and colleagues work at a state-run research institute partly owned by China Huaneng Group, China's biggest utility. The state-owned giant produces about 10% of China's electricity, nearly all from coal.
The Beijing project, started before the 2008 Summer Olympics, traps a fraction of the carbon dioxide emitted by the plant, purifying and selling it for use in food packaging and for the fizz in sodas. Using what he's learned in Beijing, Mr. Xu is building another capture facility in Shanghai that will be 30 times bigger.
If Mr. Xu's team can figure out how to bring the costs down -- mostly by recycling energy lost in the process of scrubbing out the carbon -- these units could be retrofitted to coal-fired power plants around the world.
Mr. Xu is also involved in the GreenGen project, a $1 billion power plant led by Huaneng that will turn coal into a gas before burning it. The project is scheduled to go online by 2011. Burning gas is more efficient than burning coal -- meaning less coal is required to make the same amount of electricity. The less coal burned, the less carbon released.
Though carbon capture has moved into the mainstream, it is still at least five to 10 years away from becoming a widespread technology, analysts say.
In the meantime, China is reshaping two of the biggest green technologies in use already -- wind and solar power.
In 2004, foreign firms owned 80% of China's wind-turbine market, according to energy consulting firm IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Now, Chinese companies own three-quarters of the country's market, thanks to companies which make turbines a third cheaper than European competitors.
Chinese wind-turbine makers are starting to export. In October, Shenyang Power Group struck a deal to supply 240 turbines to one of the largest wind-farm projects in the U.S., a 36,000-acre development in Texas.
China already has a 30% share of the global market for photovoltaic solar panels used to generate electricity. Solar-power panel makers, including Suntech Power Holdings Co., Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar Ltd., export most of their product to Europe and the U.S., contributing to a 30% drop in world solar-power prices.
Chinese competition is forcing rivals to shift production. U.S. Evergreen Solar Inc. said it will move its assembly line from Massachusetts to China. General Electric Co. said it will shut a facility in Delaware. BP PLC's solar unit said this spring it would stop output in Maryland and rely on Chinese suppliers instead.
Yet, despite China's armies of fresh engineering graduates, foreign companies still create and own most of the key technologies. "China lags about 10 years behind in technology," says Bernice Lee, a research director at Chatham House, a London-based think tank that analyzed patent holders on renewable and low-carbon technology.
As in other industries, China's cheap manufacturing may spark protectionism. In one hint of battles to come, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) wrote a letter to the U.S. energy secretary protesting the use of federal stimulus money to support the $1.5 billion wind project in Texas unless it relies on U.S.-built turbines.
Critics in rich countries accuse China of unfairly subsidizing companies via cheap loans from state-controlled banks and dumping excess supply overseas.
Others say China's missteps could hurt the market for all. "China is making prices cheaper in renewables today, by lunging into oversupply, as it does in most industries," says Daniel Rosen, principal of consulting firm Rhodium Group. "The question -- and danger -- is whether by oversupplying the market today China is damaging longer-term innovation and competition in the sector for the future."
In green technology, China has figured out ways to turn excess capacity to its advantage. Until this year, China's solar-panel makers exported nearly all their output to countries such as Germany and Spain, where government supported growth in the sector.
That changed this year when solar-panel prices fell as dozens of new Chinese polysilicon-makers started operating. The sudden glut in the raw material to make solar panels coincided with a drop in orders from European companies hit by the recession. The result: Polysilicon prices fell by half from January peaks. HSBC estimates they could drop 20% more by the end of 2010.
Softening prices created an opportunity for Chinese regulators. Officials are now talking about raising solar power capacity targets five- or tenfold, so that by 2020 China could have more than double current global solar-power capacity.
Executives at Trina and Yingli say increased economies of scale from making more panels for China will push costs even lower. "We could go to $1 a watt by the end of 2010," which would be a landmark in bringing solar power in parity with conventionally produced electricity, says Yingli's Chief Executive, Miao Liansheng, a veteran of the People's Liberation Army who sold cosmetics before turning to solar panels.
"The Chinese manufacturers can now make [solar panels] a lot cheaper than Europe, the United States and Japan because the whole supply chain is now available in China," says Martin Green, who runs the photovoltaic center at the University of South Wales in Australia, a training ground for many scientists working in China's solar industry. "The Chinese are making it more affordable, and they're more adventurous in introducing new technology as well."
The ability to manufacture cheaply is attracting the notice of U.S. utilities. Huaneng says it can make gasification equipment cheaper than foreign rivals.
Duke Energy Corp., of Charlotte, N.C., signed a pact with Huaneng in August to share information on clean-coal technology. Duke says it would take eight years to build an IGCC plant in the U.S. -- versus three in China.
Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com
BEIJING -- Xu Shisen put down the phone and smiled. That was Canada calling, explained the chief engineer at a coal-fired power plant set among knockoff antique and art shops in a Beijing suburb. A Canadian company is interested in Mr. Xu's advances in bringing down the cost of stripping out greenhouse-gas emissions from burning coal.
Engineers led by Mr. Xu are working to unlock one of climate change's thorniest problems: how to burn coal without releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
Mr. Xu is part of a broader effort by China to introduce green technology to the world's fastest-growing industrial economy -- a mission so ambitious it could eventually reshape the business, just as China has done for everything from construction cranes to computers.
China looms large over the global climate summit in Copenhagen, where Chinese officials are pressing the U.S. and other rich nations to accept new curbs on their emissions and to continue to subsidize poor nations' efforts to adopt clean-energy technology. China is the world's biggest source of carbon emissions. Less understood is the way China is now becoming a source of some of the solutions.
China's vast market and economies of scale are bringing down the cost of solar and wind energy, as well as other environmentally friendly technologies such as electric car batteries. That could help address a major impediment to wide adoption of such technologies: They need heavy subsidies to be economical.
The so-called China price -- the combination of cheap labor and capital that rewrote the rulebook on manufacturing -- is spreading to green technology. "The China price will move into the renewable-energy space, specifically for energy that relies on capital-intensive projects," says Jonathan Woetzel, a director in McKinsey & Co.'s China office.
China's government is backing the trend. It wants to replicate the success of the special economic zones that transformed cities such as Shenzhen from a fishing village near Hong Kong into one of the biggest manufacturing export centers in the world. Set up when China began its economic reforms in the 1980s, the zones were designed to attract foreign investment into light manufacturing to kick-start exports. They became engines of China's economic boom.
Regulators will announce several low carbon centers next year that will have preferential policies to promote low carbon manufacturing and exports.
China's Push for Clean Coal
China's goals face big challenges. China could end up becoming simply a low-cost manufacturing base, not a source of innovation. Worse, its drive to cut costs could stifle innovation overseas.
And Beijing has a long way to go to reducing China's carbon footprint. For each out-of-date power plant it shut down in a two-year cleanup campaign, it added the capacity of roughly two more. Even some of the better power plants are run poorly because company bosses don't want to pay to clean up their emissions.
In the fight against global warming, some of the biggest gains are to be made in scrubbing carbon from coal-burning power plants. China and the U.S. together have 44% of the world's coal reserves, and aren't about to give up on the cheap and reliable source of power. According to U.S. government projections, world coal use could increase nearly 50% by 2030.
"If emissions aren't reduced from power plants, global warming cannot be avoided," says Jonathan Lewis, a climate specialist at the U.S.-based Clean Air Task Force, which has sought to pair U.S. utilities with Chinese companies. "The solution can be led by the U.S. and China."
Capture technology traps carbon dioxide gasses released by coal plants. The gas can be pumped deep underground, typically into salt caverns or aging oil fields. The carbon can be stripped either before or after the coal is burned. Post-combustion capture is simpler and can be retrofitted on existing power plants. Current versions cut energy output by a fifth or more.
Far more complicated is precombustion carbon capture, which involves completely redesigning plants. Coal is turned into a gas, the carbon is stripped out and the rest is burned. Called "integrated gasification combined cycle" plants, these cost billions of dollars and haven't been developed on a commercial scale yet.
China has a technological lead in turning coal into gas. It has been using the technology widely to make petrochemicals and fertilizers as a substitute for pricier natural gas. Houston-based Future Fuels LLC has licensed gasification technology from China to use in a plant in Pennsylvania.
Critics say current carbon capture technologies are merely a Band-Aid for global warming. That's because they're so inefficient that even more coal has to be burned to produce the same amount of electricity. Also, the technology uses a lot of water and sequestering carbon underground isn't proven.
Still, some analysts estimate carbon capture could account for between 15% to 55% of the world's cumulative carbon emissions reduction by 2100.
Among those leading the ramp-up is Mr. Xu. These days, he is busy with three clean coal projects. One is on the outskirts of Beijing, underneath looming cooling towers of the Gaobeidian Huaneng power plant.
Mr. Xu and colleagues work at a state-run research institute partly owned by China Huaneng Group, China's biggest utility. The state-owned giant produces about 10% of China's electricity, nearly all from coal.
The Beijing project, started before the 2008 Summer Olympics, traps a fraction of the carbon dioxide emitted by the plant, purifying and selling it for use in food packaging and for the fizz in sodas. Using what he's learned in Beijing, Mr. Xu is building another capture facility in Shanghai that will be 30 times bigger.
If Mr. Xu's team can figure out how to bring the costs down -- mostly by recycling energy lost in the process of scrubbing out the carbon -- these units could be retrofitted to coal-fired power plants around the world.
Mr. Xu is also involved in the GreenGen project, a $1 billion power plant led by Huaneng that will turn coal into a gas before burning it. The project is scheduled to go online by 2011. Burning gas is more efficient than burning coal -- meaning less coal is required to make the same amount of electricity. The less coal burned, the less carbon released.
Though carbon capture has moved into the mainstream, it is still at least five to 10 years away from becoming a widespread technology, analysts say.
In the meantime, China is reshaping two of the biggest green technologies in use already -- wind and solar power.
In 2004, foreign firms owned 80% of China's wind-turbine market, according to energy consulting firm IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Now, Chinese companies own three-quarters of the country's market, thanks to companies which make turbines a third cheaper than European competitors.
Chinese wind-turbine makers are starting to export. In October, Shenyang Power Group struck a deal to supply 240 turbines to one of the largest wind-farm projects in the U.S., a 36,000-acre development in Texas.
China already has a 30% share of the global market for photovoltaic solar panels used to generate electricity. Solar-power panel makers, including Suntech Power Holdings Co., Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar Ltd., export most of their product to Europe and the U.S., contributing to a 30% drop in world solar-power prices.
Chinese competition is forcing rivals to shift production. U.S. Evergreen Solar Inc. said it will move its assembly line from Massachusetts to China. General Electric Co. said it will shut a facility in Delaware. BP PLC's solar unit said this spring it would stop output in Maryland and rely on Chinese suppliers instead.
Yet, despite China's armies of fresh engineering graduates, foreign companies still create and own most of the key technologies. "China lags about 10 years behind in technology," says Bernice Lee, a research director at Chatham House, a London-based think tank that analyzed patent holders on renewable and low-carbon technology.
As in other industries, China's cheap manufacturing may spark protectionism. In one hint of battles to come, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) wrote a letter to the U.S. energy secretary protesting the use of federal stimulus money to support the $1.5 billion wind project in Texas unless it relies on U.S.-built turbines.
Critics in rich countries accuse China of unfairly subsidizing companies via cheap loans from state-controlled banks and dumping excess supply overseas.
Others say China's missteps could hurt the market for all. "China is making prices cheaper in renewables today, by lunging into oversupply, as it does in most industries," says Daniel Rosen, principal of consulting firm Rhodium Group. "The question -- and danger -- is whether by oversupplying the market today China is damaging longer-term innovation and competition in the sector for the future."
In green technology, China has figured out ways to turn excess capacity to its advantage. Until this year, China's solar-panel makers exported nearly all their output to countries such as Germany and Spain, where government supported growth in the sector.
That changed this year when solar-panel prices fell as dozens of new Chinese polysilicon-makers started operating. The sudden glut in the raw material to make solar panels coincided with a drop in orders from European companies hit by the recession. The result: Polysilicon prices fell by half from January peaks. HSBC estimates they could drop 20% more by the end of 2010.
Softening prices created an opportunity for Chinese regulators. Officials are now talking about raising solar power capacity targets five- or tenfold, so that by 2020 China could have more than double current global solar-power capacity.
Executives at Trina and Yingli say increased economies of scale from making more panels for China will push costs even lower. "We could go to $1 a watt by the end of 2010," which would be a landmark in bringing solar power in parity with conventionally produced electricity, says Yingli's Chief Executive, Miao Liansheng, a veteran of the People's Liberation Army who sold cosmetics before turning to solar panels.
"The Chinese manufacturers can now make [solar panels] a lot cheaper than Europe, the United States and Japan because the whole supply chain is now available in China," says Martin Green, who runs the photovoltaic center at the University of South Wales in Australia, a training ground for many scientists working in China's solar industry. "The Chinese are making it more affordable, and they're more adventurous in introducing new technology as well."
The ability to manufacture cheaply is attracting the notice of U.S. utilities. Huaneng says it can make gasification equipment cheaper than foreign rivals.
Duke Energy Corp., of Charlotte, N.C., signed a pact with Huaneng in August to share information on clean-coal technology. Duke says it would take eight years to build an IGCC plant in the U.S. -- versus three in China.
Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com
France to Invest in Research
Sarkozy Says the Country Will Borrow Billions for Major Projects Aimed at Long-Term Benefits
By GABRIELE PARUSSINI
PARIS -- France will borrow billions of euros next year to invest in projects ranging from advanced electric-car batteries to modern university campuses, in the hope of propping up the country's competitiveness and of lifting economic prosperity in the long run.
Reuters
French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday after announcing plans to fund major strategic investments, with a focus on education.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters on Monday that all the money, €35 billion ($56.8 billion), would go toward research and development projects, not for day-to-day expenditures.
"This isn't another stimulus plan," Mr. Sarkozy said. "This loan won't finance current spending, but only investment that will make the country richer."
France's monumental public spending -- which, at 52% of gross domestic product, is the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- mainly finances current expenses, including civil-servant salaries and interest on the debt. Little is left to finance large-scale projects, such as high-speed trains and nuclear-power reactors, which in the past have depended heavily on government financing, but have ultimately strengthened private companies.
The government will channel €11 billion into higher education, in part to refurbish France's aging university campuses. About €8 billion will go to research laboratories, including €2.5 billion toward health-care and biotechnology projects. An additional €6.5 billion is destined to a variety of industrial projects, including energy-efficient ships, planes and cars. The government will plow €2 billion into a national fiber-optic cable network for ultrafast data transmission. About €2.5 billion will be used to digitize books, films and other cultural contents.
The French president said the government will raise €22 billion on financial markets. The remaining €13 billion will come from public aid reimbursed by the country's banks.
The government will encourage private investors to match public investment, Mr. Sarkozy said. As a result, overall investment could reach €60 billion, provided private investors bring an expected €25 billion.
Mr. Sarkozy said the plan won't be a drag on the country's public finances because he has asked ministers to save amounts equivalent to annual interest that will have to be paid on the loan. Accounting of the overall investment plan will be managed by an ad hoc commission, separately from the country's budget.
France's budget has been strained by the economic crisis, with spending rising to boost the economy and tax income falling thanks to lagging activity.
The country's deficit is projected to climb from 77.1% of GDP this year to a record 91% in 2013, and next year the OECD expects a budget shortfall of 8.6% of GDP.
In January, the government will set up a new commission to discuss proposals to better manage public debt, Mr. Sarkozy said.
Write to Gabriele Parussini at gabriele.parussini@dowjones.com
By GABRIELE PARUSSINI
PARIS -- France will borrow billions of euros next year to invest in projects ranging from advanced electric-car batteries to modern university campuses, in the hope of propping up the country's competitiveness and of lifting economic prosperity in the long run.
Reuters
French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday after announcing plans to fund major strategic investments, with a focus on education.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters on Monday that all the money, €35 billion ($56.8 billion), would go toward research and development projects, not for day-to-day expenditures.
"This isn't another stimulus plan," Mr. Sarkozy said. "This loan won't finance current spending, but only investment that will make the country richer."
France's monumental public spending -- which, at 52% of gross domestic product, is the highest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- mainly finances current expenses, including civil-servant salaries and interest on the debt. Little is left to finance large-scale projects, such as high-speed trains and nuclear-power reactors, which in the past have depended heavily on government financing, but have ultimately strengthened private companies.
The government will channel €11 billion into higher education, in part to refurbish France's aging university campuses. About €8 billion will go to research laboratories, including €2.5 billion toward health-care and biotechnology projects. An additional €6.5 billion is destined to a variety of industrial projects, including energy-efficient ships, planes and cars. The government will plow €2 billion into a national fiber-optic cable network for ultrafast data transmission. About €2.5 billion will be used to digitize books, films and other cultural contents.
The French president said the government will raise €22 billion on financial markets. The remaining €13 billion will come from public aid reimbursed by the country's banks.
The government will encourage private investors to match public investment, Mr. Sarkozy said. As a result, overall investment could reach €60 billion, provided private investors bring an expected €25 billion.
Mr. Sarkozy said the plan won't be a drag on the country's public finances because he has asked ministers to save amounts equivalent to annual interest that will have to be paid on the loan. Accounting of the overall investment plan will be managed by an ad hoc commission, separately from the country's budget.
France's budget has been strained by the economic crisis, with spending rising to boost the economy and tax income falling thanks to lagging activity.
The country's deficit is projected to climb from 77.1% of GDP this year to a record 91% in 2013, and next year the OECD expects a budget shortfall of 8.6% of GDP.
In January, the government will set up a new commission to discuss proposals to better manage public debt, Mr. Sarkozy said.
Write to Gabriele Parussini at gabriele.parussini@dowjones.com
European taxpayers lose €5bn in carbon trading fraud
• Europol says EU's Emission Trading System in peril• Fraudsters could target gas and electricity markets next
Ashley Seager
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 December 2009 17.06 GMT
The European Union has probably lost at least €5bn (£4.5bn) to VAT fraud related to carbon trading and there is a risk that the criminals will now shift their attention to Europe's electricity and gas markets, according to Europol.
The news will cause further embarrassment for European governments negotiating at the Copenhagen climate summit and trying to persuade other parts of the world to sign up to carbon trading as a way of reducing emissions.
The Guardian recently revealed that the Danish government had been forced, on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, to rush through an emergency law making it impossible for criminal gangs to reclaim huge amounts of VAT on fraudulent trades they were making on Europe's various carbon exchanges.
At the time, the Danes refused to estimate how much money the fraud cost them but now Europol, the EU's law enforcement operation, has estimated an approximate cost of the fraud on carbon trading. This was mainly carried out over the summer before Britain, France and the Netherlands – home to big exchanges – changed their VAT rules to stop criminal activity.
Europol has now set up a specific project to collect and analyse information to identify and disrupt the organised criminal structures behind these fraud schemes.
Rob Wainwright, Director of Europol, says "These criminal activities endanger the credibility of the European Union Emission Trading System and lead to the loss of significant tax revenue for governments. Europol is using its expertise and information capabilities to help target the organised crime groups involved".
"There are reasons to believe that fraudsters might soon migrate towards the gas and electricity branches of the energy sector," said Europol.
A spokesman added that the organisation had no specific evidence that Europe's huge markets for electricity and gas have yet been targeted, but said the markets were so similar to that for carbon that the link in the criminals' minds would be obvious.
The fraud involves a criminal registering to be able to trade carbon permits in the ETS. Most of these registrations have taken place in Denmark where the rules are slackest. The criminal then starts buying carbon permits in one EU country from another, free of VAT, then sells them on with the VAT added. But instead of passing the VAT on to the relevant tax authority, he disappears without trace, hence the name "missing trader" fraud.
In its more sophisticated form, groups of fraudsters in different countries will send carbon permits round a circuit between various countries, reclaiming VAT repeatedly before the ruse is discovered, by which time they are long gone.
This led to a big spike in trading volume last summer, particularly on exchanges in the UK, France and Netherlands, which subsequently moved to change their VAT laws so VAT was not payable along with the trading charge. Trading volumes have since fallen dramatically.
The French authorities last week arrested four people suspected of engaging in a €156m carbon carousel fraud on France's Bluenext exchange.
Ashley Seager
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 December 2009 17.06 GMT
The European Union has probably lost at least €5bn (£4.5bn) to VAT fraud related to carbon trading and there is a risk that the criminals will now shift their attention to Europe's electricity and gas markets, according to Europol.
The news will cause further embarrassment for European governments negotiating at the Copenhagen climate summit and trying to persuade other parts of the world to sign up to carbon trading as a way of reducing emissions.
The Guardian recently revealed that the Danish government had been forced, on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, to rush through an emergency law making it impossible for criminal gangs to reclaim huge amounts of VAT on fraudulent trades they were making on Europe's various carbon exchanges.
At the time, the Danes refused to estimate how much money the fraud cost them but now Europol, the EU's law enforcement operation, has estimated an approximate cost of the fraud on carbon trading. This was mainly carried out over the summer before Britain, France and the Netherlands – home to big exchanges – changed their VAT rules to stop criminal activity.
Europol has now set up a specific project to collect and analyse information to identify and disrupt the organised criminal structures behind these fraud schemes.
Rob Wainwright, Director of Europol, says "These criminal activities endanger the credibility of the European Union Emission Trading System and lead to the loss of significant tax revenue for governments. Europol is using its expertise and information capabilities to help target the organised crime groups involved".
"There are reasons to believe that fraudsters might soon migrate towards the gas and electricity branches of the energy sector," said Europol.
A spokesman added that the organisation had no specific evidence that Europe's huge markets for electricity and gas have yet been targeted, but said the markets were so similar to that for carbon that the link in the criminals' minds would be obvious.
The fraud involves a criminal registering to be able to trade carbon permits in the ETS. Most of these registrations have taken place in Denmark where the rules are slackest. The criminal then starts buying carbon permits in one EU country from another, free of VAT, then sells them on with the VAT added. But instead of passing the VAT on to the relevant tax authority, he disappears without trace, hence the name "missing trader" fraud.
In its more sophisticated form, groups of fraudsters in different countries will send carbon permits round a circuit between various countries, reclaiming VAT repeatedly before the ruse is discovered, by which time they are long gone.
This led to a big spike in trading volume last summer, particularly on exchanges in the UK, France and Netherlands, which subsequently moved to change their VAT laws so VAT was not payable along with the trading charge. Trading volumes have since fallen dramatically.
The French authorities last week arrested four people suspected of engaging in a €156m carbon carousel fraud on France's Bluenext exchange.
Dutch aubergine grower pipes carbon dioxide into greenhouses
Having a chemical plant sited next door to your plantation isn't what the average farmer might want for his crop.
By Alix Rijckaert, in Terneuzen for AFP Published: 11:01AM GMT 14 Dec 2009
Jan van Duijn, however, walks proudly through his greenhouse, a vast glass and metal structure spread out over five hectares (12.3 acres) where millions of aubergines are doing very nicely thank you.
He's happy because thanks to a deal with a supplier, he's getting hot water piped in from the factory, which produces ammonia, to maintain the temperature at a constant 68 degrees F (20C).
The chemical site, five kilometres (three miles away), also supplies carbon dioxide which helps his aubergines grow more abundantly.
"We're pioneers in a way," van Duijn said, while admitting that what drove him to try this business model was cost.
The water from the Yara factory, where it is used as a coolant, flows along underground pipes and into his greenhouse at a temperature of 90 degrees C.
There it is circulated in pipes between the rows of aubergines, sharing its heat among the beds of rockwool they grow in, before being pumped back to the factory as coolant again.
Similarly, CO2 released during the manufacture of ammonia is injected into the greenhouse to stimulate growth.
"It's the basic principle of photosynthesis," van Duijn said. Combined with water and light, the plants convert the carbon dioxide into organic compounds, releasing oxygen as a side product.
The level of CO2 inside is three times higher than outside, giving a crop yield that according to van Duijn is two to three times greater.
He reckons the project will produce 2.5 million kilogrammes (5.5 million pounds) of aubergines a year, adding to the millions he already cultivates under glass on his land in the southern Netherlands.
Their temperature is monitored and adjustable by computer, said van Duijn, who employs 10 people in summer and 30 in winter at Terneuzen.
Using CO2 in greenhouses is a common practice in the Netherlands but it is rarely so closely tied to industry.
The Netherlands, Europe's top exporter of horticultural products cultivated under glass - think tulips - has 10,000 hectares under cover producing flowers, fruits, vegetables and other plants.
According to the horticultural association LTO Glaskracht they produced 5.2 megatonnes of CO2 last year - around 63 per cent of the agricultural sector's total emissions.
Meanwhile, keeping greenhouses at the right ambient temperatures accounted for eight to 10 per cent of the country's natural gas consumption.
"It's the first time residual heat is being reutilised on a large scale for a private, commercial venture," said Jacob Limbeek, the commercial director of WarmCO2, the company supplying the water and carbon gas.
He said that the system allows for a 90 per cent reduction in fossil fuel energy use compared with traditional greenhouses, which are heated by oil or natural gas.
Van Duijn, whose energy bill for the new greenhouse accounts for 20 per cent of fixed costs against 25 per cent for the standard version, struck a deal with WarmCO2 that set prices for the next 15 years.
"That gives us a certain security," he said. "Our competitors have no idea what their energy bills will be like from one year to the next, they depend on oil prices, gas prices and exchange rates."
WarmCO2, which also supplies greenhouses producing tomatoes and peppers, is aiming eventually to pipe CO2 to 168 hectares under glass at Terneuzen.
The sector, which is also experimenting with solar panels and geothermal energy, has committed itself to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 from its 1990 level, according to LTO Glaskracht.
By Alix Rijckaert, in Terneuzen for AFP Published: 11:01AM GMT 14 Dec 2009
Jan van Duijn, however, walks proudly through his greenhouse, a vast glass and metal structure spread out over five hectares (12.3 acres) where millions of aubergines are doing very nicely thank you.
He's happy because thanks to a deal with a supplier, he's getting hot water piped in from the factory, which produces ammonia, to maintain the temperature at a constant 68 degrees F (20C).
The chemical site, five kilometres (three miles away), also supplies carbon dioxide which helps his aubergines grow more abundantly.
"We're pioneers in a way," van Duijn said, while admitting that what drove him to try this business model was cost.
The water from the Yara factory, where it is used as a coolant, flows along underground pipes and into his greenhouse at a temperature of 90 degrees C.
There it is circulated in pipes between the rows of aubergines, sharing its heat among the beds of rockwool they grow in, before being pumped back to the factory as coolant again.
Similarly, CO2 released during the manufacture of ammonia is injected into the greenhouse to stimulate growth.
"It's the basic principle of photosynthesis," van Duijn said. Combined with water and light, the plants convert the carbon dioxide into organic compounds, releasing oxygen as a side product.
The level of CO2 inside is three times higher than outside, giving a crop yield that according to van Duijn is two to three times greater.
He reckons the project will produce 2.5 million kilogrammes (5.5 million pounds) of aubergines a year, adding to the millions he already cultivates under glass on his land in the southern Netherlands.
Their temperature is monitored and adjustable by computer, said van Duijn, who employs 10 people in summer and 30 in winter at Terneuzen.
Using CO2 in greenhouses is a common practice in the Netherlands but it is rarely so closely tied to industry.
The Netherlands, Europe's top exporter of horticultural products cultivated under glass - think tulips - has 10,000 hectares under cover producing flowers, fruits, vegetables and other plants.
According to the horticultural association LTO Glaskracht they produced 5.2 megatonnes of CO2 last year - around 63 per cent of the agricultural sector's total emissions.
Meanwhile, keeping greenhouses at the right ambient temperatures accounted for eight to 10 per cent of the country's natural gas consumption.
"It's the first time residual heat is being reutilised on a large scale for a private, commercial venture," said Jacob Limbeek, the commercial director of WarmCO2, the company supplying the water and carbon gas.
He said that the system allows for a 90 per cent reduction in fossil fuel energy use compared with traditional greenhouses, which are heated by oil or natural gas.
Van Duijn, whose energy bill for the new greenhouse accounts for 20 per cent of fixed costs against 25 per cent for the standard version, struck a deal with WarmCO2 that set prices for the next 15 years.
"That gives us a certain security," he said. "Our competitors have no idea what their energy bills will be like from one year to the next, they depend on oil prices, gas prices and exchange rates."
WarmCO2, which also supplies greenhouses producing tomatoes and peppers, is aiming eventually to pipe CO2 to 168 hectares under glass at Terneuzen.
The sector, which is also experimenting with solar panels and geothermal energy, has committed itself to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2020 from its 1990 level, according to LTO Glaskracht.
Healthy diets do not necessarily have a low environmental impact
It is preferable to eat local food than to restrict ourselves to vegetable-only diets
Melanie Leech
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 December 2009
Your article was correct to say that the Sustainable Development Commission's efforts to define a healthy, low-environmental-impact diet would be seen as an "assault on the UK's current food system" (Eat less meat and dairy: official recipe to help health of consumers – and the planet, 11 December). But their study contained flawed logic and a narrow focus.
You reported that the commission's research provided the "first official recommendations for a diet that is both healthy and good for the environment". And readers were told: "British consumers must cut down on meat and dairy produce, reduce their intake of processed foods and curb waste."
Not so. Other government advisers – such as Defra's council of food policy advisers – have acknowledged that there will never be one clearcut answer in this debate. There will always have to be hard tradeoffs that reflect the personal preferences, incomes and cultures of our varied population groups.
And don't be fooled by the headline: a diet that is healthy will not necessarily be low-impact. For instance, vegetables grown in UK greenhouses may have a high carbon footprint; but then vegetables grown elsewhere may have a damaging water footprint. Which is more important for the environment? And what do we want to do: encourage consumers to eat more vegetables, or encourage them to eat only UK field-grown, seasonal vegetables? These questions clearly represent different sets of challenges, choices and tradeoffs for government, for the food chain and for consumers.
And while we look at ways of encouraging consumers to eat healthily, while minimising their impact on the planet, we still have to find ways to ensure that eating remains a pleasurable experience.
Perhaps the report's biggest flaw is that it assumes Britain can address these issues as if we existed in isolation from the rest of the world – and from the potential global impacts of climate and demographic change, environmental degradation and future shortages of fossil fuels and water.
With the world population set to balloon to 9 billion, what should we be doing to maintain the UK's food security? If we try to stop the production of meat and dairy in the UK, we run the risk of externalising our environmental impacts in the short term (as imports increase), as well as undermining our ability to respond to long-term changes in food production and sourcing. After all, in the UK, keeping cattle and sheep on land that can't support any other form of cropping is surely a good use of a valuable resource.
Food and drink companies recognise their responsibility to engage with efforts to reduce the food chain's carbon footprint, and to cut unnecessary waste. Only this week, members of our federation announced that they had reduced their carbon emissions by 19% since 1990.
The commission's report is not "the first coherent advice on a sustainable diet". It's a recipe for disaster – and fails to understand the nature of the challenge or the importance of the UK food chain in an increasingly uncertain world.
Melanie Leech
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 December 2009
Your article was correct to say that the Sustainable Development Commission's efforts to define a healthy, low-environmental-impact diet would be seen as an "assault on the UK's current food system" (Eat less meat and dairy: official recipe to help health of consumers – and the planet, 11 December). But their study contained flawed logic and a narrow focus.
You reported that the commission's research provided the "first official recommendations for a diet that is both healthy and good for the environment". And readers were told: "British consumers must cut down on meat and dairy produce, reduce their intake of processed foods and curb waste."
Not so. Other government advisers – such as Defra's council of food policy advisers – have acknowledged that there will never be one clearcut answer in this debate. There will always have to be hard tradeoffs that reflect the personal preferences, incomes and cultures of our varied population groups.
And don't be fooled by the headline: a diet that is healthy will not necessarily be low-impact. For instance, vegetables grown in UK greenhouses may have a high carbon footprint; but then vegetables grown elsewhere may have a damaging water footprint. Which is more important for the environment? And what do we want to do: encourage consumers to eat more vegetables, or encourage them to eat only UK field-grown, seasonal vegetables? These questions clearly represent different sets of challenges, choices and tradeoffs for government, for the food chain and for consumers.
And while we look at ways of encouraging consumers to eat healthily, while minimising their impact on the planet, we still have to find ways to ensure that eating remains a pleasurable experience.
Perhaps the report's biggest flaw is that it assumes Britain can address these issues as if we existed in isolation from the rest of the world – and from the potential global impacts of climate and demographic change, environmental degradation and future shortages of fossil fuels and water.
With the world population set to balloon to 9 billion, what should we be doing to maintain the UK's food security? If we try to stop the production of meat and dairy in the UK, we run the risk of externalising our environmental impacts in the short term (as imports increase), as well as undermining our ability to respond to long-term changes in food production and sourcing. After all, in the UK, keeping cattle and sheep on land that can't support any other form of cropping is surely a good use of a valuable resource.
Food and drink companies recognise their responsibility to engage with efforts to reduce the food chain's carbon footprint, and to cut unnecessary waste. Only this week, members of our federation announced that they had reduced their carbon emissions by 19% since 1990.
The commission's report is not "the first coherent advice on a sustainable diet". It's a recipe for disaster – and fails to understand the nature of the challenge or the importance of the UK food chain in an increasingly uncertain world.
Daimler Plans Electric Smart Car for China
By PATRICIA JIAYI HO AND NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
BEIJING -- Daimler AG plans to start a pilot program for an electric version of its Smart minicar in China next year, joining a growing list of firms evaluating the potential for next-generation clean-energy vehicles in the world's biggest automobile market.
Daimler is currently considering which cities to test the cars in, said Ulrich Walker, chairman of Daimler Northeast Asia, in a year-end briefing with reporters. "We have to see the acceptance of this car," he said.
The move follows an announcement by the central government last week that it will subsidize private purchases of alternative-energy vehicles in five cities.
Chinese auto makers such as BYD Co., which plans to market all-electric battery cars and other clean-energy cars, say government subsidies are key if pricey alternative-energy vehicles are to be feasible in China on a large scale for consumers and producers.
The German auto maker's move highlights the potential it sees in China for all-electric and other new-energy cars. "We think there are opportunities for electric [vehicles] in China and we are exploring opportunities," Beijing-based spokesman Trevor Hale said.
Daimler's Mercedes-Benz unit currently sells the S400 Hybrid in China, which is based on conventional hybrid technology. Electric vehicles and plug-in cars use newer technology that allows vehicles to be driven exclusively or primarily on electricity.
Nissan Motor Co. said in November it plans to test-market its Leaf electric in China in 2011 by making it available to government agencies and other fleet customers in the city of Wuhan.
General Motors Co. intends to launch the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle Chevrolet Volt in China, starting in 2011. The Volt is powered by lithium-ion batteries and is supplemented by a gasoline engine.
Toyota Motor Corp. has also said it will likely test-market a plug-in hybrid in China.
Meanwhile, Daimler said more Mercedes-Benz buyers are turning to financing rather than cash for their purchases, perhaps reflecting a slowly growing acceptance of credit use. Mr. Walker said Mercedes-Benz's financing portfolio for retail customers and dealerships in China has doubled to 4 billion yuan ($586 million) from the end of 2008.
About 12.5% of Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold in China were bought on credit, as opposed to cash, Mr. Walker said, without giving last year's rate. In smaller cities, financing rates were as high as 30%, he said. Those rates are still relatively low and compare to 50% in the U.S. and Europe, according to the company.
Daimler received regulatory approval to offer vehicle leases in February, but Chinese customers have been slow to embrace the concept, Mr. Walker said.
Mr. Hale said Mercedes-Benz expects its sales in China next year to be "much better" than the overall market's estimated 15%-20% growth. Mercedes-Benz sales in China in the January-November period rose 68% to 59,150 units.
BEIJING -- Daimler AG plans to start a pilot program for an electric version of its Smart minicar in China next year, joining a growing list of firms evaluating the potential for next-generation clean-energy vehicles in the world's biggest automobile market.
Daimler is currently considering which cities to test the cars in, said Ulrich Walker, chairman of Daimler Northeast Asia, in a year-end briefing with reporters. "We have to see the acceptance of this car," he said.
The move follows an announcement by the central government last week that it will subsidize private purchases of alternative-energy vehicles in five cities.
Chinese auto makers such as BYD Co., which plans to market all-electric battery cars and other clean-energy cars, say government subsidies are key if pricey alternative-energy vehicles are to be feasible in China on a large scale for consumers and producers.
The German auto maker's move highlights the potential it sees in China for all-electric and other new-energy cars. "We think there are opportunities for electric [vehicles] in China and we are exploring opportunities," Beijing-based spokesman Trevor Hale said.
Daimler's Mercedes-Benz unit currently sells the S400 Hybrid in China, which is based on conventional hybrid technology. Electric vehicles and plug-in cars use newer technology that allows vehicles to be driven exclusively or primarily on electricity.
Nissan Motor Co. said in November it plans to test-market its Leaf electric in China in 2011 by making it available to government agencies and other fleet customers in the city of Wuhan.
General Motors Co. intends to launch the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle Chevrolet Volt in China, starting in 2011. The Volt is powered by lithium-ion batteries and is supplemented by a gasoline engine.
Toyota Motor Corp. has also said it will likely test-market a plug-in hybrid in China.
Meanwhile, Daimler said more Mercedes-Benz buyers are turning to financing rather than cash for their purchases, perhaps reflecting a slowly growing acceptance of credit use. Mr. Walker said Mercedes-Benz's financing portfolio for retail customers and dealerships in China has doubled to 4 billion yuan ($586 million) from the end of 2008.
About 12.5% of Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold in China were bought on credit, as opposed to cash, Mr. Walker said, without giving last year's rate. In smaller cities, financing rates were as high as 30%, he said. Those rates are still relatively low and compare to 50% in the U.S. and Europe, according to the company.
Daimler received regulatory approval to offer vehicle leases in February, but Chinese customers have been slow to embrace the concept, Mr. Walker said.
Mr. Hale said Mercedes-Benz expects its sales in China next year to be "much better" than the overall market's estimated 15%-20% growth. Mercedes-Benz sales in China in the January-November period rose 68% to 59,150 units.
Toyota to Sell Plug-In Hybrids Globally
By Yoshio Takahashi and Kate Linebaugh
Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday it would sell plug-in hybrid cars globally in about two years, as the Japanese auto maker seeks to retain its dominance in the market for cars powered by alternative technologies.
Initially, Toyota expects sales of plug-in hybrids to account only for several tens of thousands of cars a year. Still, "Toyota believes that plug-in hybrids are a realistic solution among vehicles using electricity," Toyota Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada said at a Tokyo news conference, where the company displayed a plug-in version of its Prius, the top-selling hybrid vehicle globally.
As with today's hybrids, Toyota's plug-in models will be powered by electric motors and a gasoline engine that kicks in to drive the wheels when the batteries run low or more power is needed. But compared to today's hybrids, the batteries will have higher capacity to hold electricity and can be recharged by plugging the car into a standard electrical outlet. That means they can go a longer distance on battery power alone before the gasoline engine starts.
Toyota has said that conventional hybrids are the auto maker's core alternative technology and has set a goal to have that option in all its models by 2020. But Toyota has pushed ahead with plug-in hybrids as its competitors race to release similar models or to build zero-emission, all-electric vehicles.
General Motors Co. plans to begin selling the Chevrolet Volt in 2011. Nissan Motor Co. seeks to roll out an all-electric car next year. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. introduced the world's first mass-market electric model, the i-MiEV, in Japan earlier this year. And Daimler AG aims to start a pilot program for an electric version of its Smart minicar in China next year.
But the cost of such cars may be prohibitive, analysts warn. The U.S. National Research Council in a new report Monday said the current high cost of the lithium-ion batteries used in plug-in hybrids exceeds the fuel savings reaped over a vehicle's lifetime. The NRC estimates it would cost $18,000 more to produce a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle next year than a regular gas-powered car.
"While these costs will come down, a fundamental breakthrough in battery technology, unforeseen at present, would be needed to make plug-ins widely affordable in the near future," the group said.
And many auto makers are reluctant to begin investing in electric-car technology before a recharging infrastructure is in place. Audi of America Inc. President Johan de Nysschen said Monday the U.S. car market won't be able to support plug-in all-electric vehicles on a mass scale for at least 20 years.
He criticized the U.S. government's multibillion-dollar investment in the technology, contending that other technologies could offer more immediate benefits. "I fear right now that government investment is essentially prejudging winning and losing technologies," Mr. de Nysschen said in a speech at the National Press Club.
Toyota's Mr. Uchiyamada said the price of his company's plug-in hybrid hasn't been set. He said he hopes to limit the extra charge for the plug-in to less than 1 million yen, or about $11,000. While that surcharge is about half the cost of the cheapest non-plug-in Prius, he noted that some U.S. customers spend about that amount to have their Priuses turned into plug-in versions.
The third-generation Prius, which had its debut earlier this year, was a hit in Japan, helped by government incentives.
In the U.S., though, Toyota seems to be falling short of its goal. In January, Toyota said it was aiming to sell 160,000 Priuses to Americans this year but it sold only 127,907 in the year's first 11 months.
At the big Detroit auto show next month, the company plans to show a new dedicated hybrid concept car that would be part of the Toyota line. Earlier this year, the company released a hybrid version of its luxury Lexus and it has sold 4,719 of the vehicles so far.
The plug-in version of the Prius which boasts fuel-efficiency of 57 kilometers a liter,can run about 14 miles on a fully charged battery. With the aid of its combustion engine, it can travel up to 870 miles.
Ahead of the mass-market introduction of the plug-in Prius, Toyota said that in the first half of 2010 it will lease about 450 of the cars in Japan, Europe and elsewhere, and will offer about 150 in a free program in the U.S. to gather data to improve the model. he first vehicles were delivered in Japan and Europe, and are coming to the U.S. early next year. —Joshua Mitchell and Norihiko Shirouzu contributed to this article.
Write to Yoshio Takahashi at yoshio.takahashi@dowjones.com
Toyota Motor Corp. said Monday it would sell plug-in hybrid cars globally in about two years, as the Japanese auto maker seeks to retain its dominance in the market for cars powered by alternative technologies.
Initially, Toyota expects sales of plug-in hybrids to account only for several tens of thousands of cars a year. Still, "Toyota believes that plug-in hybrids are a realistic solution among vehicles using electricity," Toyota Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada said at a Tokyo news conference, where the company displayed a plug-in version of its Prius, the top-selling hybrid vehicle globally.
As with today's hybrids, Toyota's plug-in models will be powered by electric motors and a gasoline engine that kicks in to drive the wheels when the batteries run low or more power is needed. But compared to today's hybrids, the batteries will have higher capacity to hold electricity and can be recharged by plugging the car into a standard electrical outlet. That means they can go a longer distance on battery power alone before the gasoline engine starts.
Toyota has said that conventional hybrids are the auto maker's core alternative technology and has set a goal to have that option in all its models by 2020. But Toyota has pushed ahead with plug-in hybrids as its competitors race to release similar models or to build zero-emission, all-electric vehicles.
General Motors Co. plans to begin selling the Chevrolet Volt in 2011. Nissan Motor Co. seeks to roll out an all-electric car next year. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. introduced the world's first mass-market electric model, the i-MiEV, in Japan earlier this year. And Daimler AG aims to start a pilot program for an electric version of its Smart minicar in China next year.
But the cost of such cars may be prohibitive, analysts warn. The U.S. National Research Council in a new report Monday said the current high cost of the lithium-ion batteries used in plug-in hybrids exceeds the fuel savings reaped over a vehicle's lifetime. The NRC estimates it would cost $18,000 more to produce a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle next year than a regular gas-powered car.
"While these costs will come down, a fundamental breakthrough in battery technology, unforeseen at present, would be needed to make plug-ins widely affordable in the near future," the group said.
And many auto makers are reluctant to begin investing in electric-car technology before a recharging infrastructure is in place. Audi of America Inc. President Johan de Nysschen said Monday the U.S. car market won't be able to support plug-in all-electric vehicles on a mass scale for at least 20 years.
He criticized the U.S. government's multibillion-dollar investment in the technology, contending that other technologies could offer more immediate benefits. "I fear right now that government investment is essentially prejudging winning and losing technologies," Mr. de Nysschen said in a speech at the National Press Club.
Toyota's Mr. Uchiyamada said the price of his company's plug-in hybrid hasn't been set. He said he hopes to limit the extra charge for the plug-in to less than 1 million yen, or about $11,000. While that surcharge is about half the cost of the cheapest non-plug-in Prius, he noted that some U.S. customers spend about that amount to have their Priuses turned into plug-in versions.
The third-generation Prius, which had its debut earlier this year, was a hit in Japan, helped by government incentives.
In the U.S., though, Toyota seems to be falling short of its goal. In January, Toyota said it was aiming to sell 160,000 Priuses to Americans this year but it sold only 127,907 in the year's first 11 months.
At the big Detroit auto show next month, the company plans to show a new dedicated hybrid concept car that would be part of the Toyota line. Earlier this year, the company released a hybrid version of its luxury Lexus and it has sold 4,719 of the vehicles so far.
The plug-in version of the Prius which boasts fuel-efficiency of 57 kilometers a liter,can run about 14 miles on a fully charged battery. With the aid of its combustion engine, it can travel up to 870 miles.
Ahead of the mass-market introduction of the plug-in Prius, Toyota said that in the first half of 2010 it will lease about 450 of the cars in Japan, Europe and elsewhere, and will offer about 150 in a free program in the U.S. to gather data to improve the model. he first vehicles were delivered in Japan and Europe, and are coming to the U.S. early next year. —Joshua Mitchell and Norihiko Shirouzu contributed to this article.
Write to Yoshio Takahashi at yoshio.takahashi@dowjones.com
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