3p Contributor: Richard Levangie
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Prime Minister Wants to Paint Canada Green
April fool 2011 :-)
In a dramatic campaign promise, embattled Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced that, if re-elected, his government would become a world leader in the production of clean, green energy, with plans to shut down the Alberta Tar Sands by 2025, and a commitment to do everything in its power to see that a global treaty on climate change is signed at COP-17.
Harper made the announcement in St. John’s, Newfoundland as he unveiled his government’s support for a $6.2 billion hydro-electric project for Churchill Falls which will provide clean electricity to Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia via undersea cable.
“[The Lower Churchill] has the potential of being a very important part of our efforts to fight climate change in Canada,” he said. “In terms of specifics, that would be decided in committee, there’s a lot of discussion yet to go, but I think this project’s enormous potential is evident to all Canadians.”
But that’s just his government’s first step in a bold new green initiative, he added. Formerly a vocal, uncompromising supporter of the Tar Sands, Harper indicated that his government would invest $53.6 billion in renewable and sustainable energy over the next five years, and elevate the environmental ministry to the top tier of cabinet positions, equal in status to finance. He also admitted that no one in his party knew the first thing about protecting the environment, so he would reach across the aisle and offer the portfolio to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, should she win her seat in British Columbia.
Renewable Energy Incentives Future in Danger
Political rancor seems likely to derail a vitally important piece of legislation affecting the renewable energy sector.
The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) grant scheme was introduced as part of the 2009 U.S. stimulus package, and it was considered a key piece of legislation by the green sector because it supported the industry during an economic recession when venture capital all but dried up. Clean technology manufacturers are now looking to the Democrats to extend the ITC past its scheduled end point this month, but Republicans stalled the legislation until the White House capitulated on extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. With Congress currently embroiled in a lame duck session, and filibusters threatened at every turn, it remains uncertain if the legislation stands a snowball’s chance.
Clearing the Air at Cancun Climate Summit
As COP-16 begins in Cancun, Mexico, world leaders need to understand that global warming isn’t only about carbon dioxide. In a world that is stepping close to a steep and dangerous precipice, doing more to reduce non-CO2 climate change contributors such as methane, black carbon soot, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) might help head global warming off at the pass, according to Professors Veerabhadran Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and David G. Victor at the University of California, San Diego.
In a commentary in The New York Times, the authors argue that adopting a new perspective could transform the debate at a United Nations climate change conference even though it’s beginning with exceedingly low expectations. Most analysts believe that little of substance will be forthcoming because current negotiating positions among the big players — the U.S., Europe, India and China — are moving further apart.
But climate scientists and policy analysts like Ramanathan and Victor are offering a way to solve the diplomatic impasse.
New UK Plastics Facility to Handle 50 Percent of Recyclables
Sometimes, you really can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. In August 2009, the AWS Eco Plastics facility in Lincolnshire, UK burned to the ground. But management saw opportunity amid the ashes and created a new £13 million ($20.5 million US) plant that will work better with the low-carbon economy being created in the UK.
The new plant is state of the art and can process enough plastic bottles to fill the Royal Albert Hall every two weeks. In straight figures, that works out to 100,000 metric tons of plastics annually. The company is looking to invest another $23.6 million to expand capacity to 140,000 metric tons of recycled bottles annually — which would represent approximately one-half of all the plastic currently recycled in the UK.
ForestEthics Issues Scathing Review of SFI Practices
ForestEthics has never minded punching above its weight.
The forest advocacy group is taking on the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and it shouldn’t be a fair fight. After all, the SFI is the world’s largest forest certification standard, having certified more than 181 million acres of land. The group promises that it’s concerned with the most important issues of the day, including biodiversity, sustainability, and protecting water quality.
But ForestEthics isn’t impressed by SFI. They’ve released a new report called SFI: Certified Greenwash, and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. According to ForestEthics, SFI is funded by the very timber companies that it purports to oversee, with the result that oversight is negligible. In an article in The Huffington Post, Todd Paglia, Executive Director at Forest Ethics, likens SFI to the snake oil salesmen that visitors saw at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.
Marks and Spencer to Meet Sustainability Goals Four Years Early
We see it time and time again at Triple Pundit: When the world’s most progressive companies set ambitious sustainability goals for their organization and definite plans for implementation, they usually exceed expectations and get to a better place sooner than expected.
Marks and Spencer (M&S) launched its Plan A initiative in 2007, identifying 180 commitments that it would undertake to green their operations. The company then boldly predicted they would become the world’s most sustainable major retailer by 2015. That remains to be seen, but M&S has managed to fulfill 70 commitments already, and a further 20 will be achieved in just four months.
Zipcar Expanding in the U.S. and U.K.
Zipcar has certainly been busy, zipping this way and that as the company expands dramatically. Earlier this month, Zipcar announced expanded services to another 31 college and university campuses in the U.S, bringing its presence to more than 225 institutions in total. That gives the company a potential reach of 1.7 million students and staff.
Tidal Power is a Natural Fit in Nova Scotia
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
Emerson may have believed that, but most folks in Nova Scotia — on Canada’s east coast — would disagree. The ocean is the province’s alpha and omega. In spirit, if not fact, Nova Scotia is an island, barely connected to Canada by a narrow isthmus. Nova Scotians share more than 5,000 miles of undulating of coastline, and no one lives more than 50 miles from the sea. Most people can walk there easily.
And now the cold waters of the North Atlantic will be providing power for Nova Scotians, thanks to the ebb and flow of the world’s highest tides. The Bay of Fundy has a broad, conical shape that funnels rough ocean waters into the Minas Basin, creating a rich breeding ground for the endangered Northern Right whale, and enormous opportunities for tidal power.
11,000 and Counting: Feed-In Tariffs Prove Enormously Popular in UK
If the UK is anything to go by, feed-in tariffs (PDF) are an idea whose time has come. In just six months, Ofgem, the British regulating authority, has had more than 11,000 generators registering for feed-in tariffs, proving that small-scale renewable power is being installed at a phenomenal rate. If you do the math, these applications equate to about 44MW of renewable energy — enough to power 35,000 homes.
Interestingly, I had expected to discover that small wind turbines would take the top slot, proof that I still buy into an old cliché. However, solar panels have proven to be the most popular renewable installation by a wide margin, indicating that the foggy, damp climate of Sherlock Holmes or Jack the Ripper has little to do with the modern UK climate in a warming world.
Canada’s Climate Change Accountability Act Killed By Conservative Senate
At each of the last three climate summits, Canada has been deemed the world’s Colossal Fossil — the country that has done more to sabotage an international climate agreement than any other. After events yesterday, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that Canada will retain its title in 2010 at COP-16, and the world will pay the price, especially the developing nations that can least afford it.
In a move that is unprecedented in Canada’s parliamentary system, the unelected Senate has subverted the will of the House of Commons by killing legislation that would have set medium- and long-term greenhouse gas reduction targets that have been vetted by climate scientists as not only attainable, but necessary.
A private members bill — the Climate Change Accountability Act (C-311) — had passed the House of Commons in the spring, despite every effort by the minority government to derail it. As required, it was then sent to the upper chamber for study and final approval. The Senate occasionally delays legislation, but for the first time in Canadian history, a Conservative majority killed the bill outright with a little procedural sleight-of-hand. While experts believe that the methods deployed are not illegal, they do fly in the face of 143 years of parliamentary tradition.
GE Takes Steps to Ensure EVs Arrive Sooner: Will Buy 12,000
Synergy has been used too often in marketing campaigns, but it’s still a wonderful word, and it does describe an emerging trend in the electric vehicle (EV) market. Electric cars are the future of the clean transportation industry, but it may be a distant future. The plug-in-hybrid and electric-vehicle premium that attaches to the early production-line models will scare away most consumers. Automobile manufacturers need economies of scale to kick in so they can advance the technology, and bring prices down to a point where a mass market is created.
Many corporations want the clean transportation industry to succeed because the new technology will create new markets and new opportunities for them. That’s exactly the thinking at GE, which recently announced that it will purchase 12,000 electric or plug-in electric cars from GM, beginning with the soon-to-be-released Chevy Volt. The company pledges that half of its 30,000 vehicle electric fleet will be electric by 2015 — an impressive stat by any measure.
In doing so, GE is helping itself in a couple of ways, so there is a method to the company’s madness. GE recently designed and created the WattStation electric vehicle charger, and it could sell hundreds of thousands of units if groups like Better Place can promote electric car technology, and the EV market kicks into high gear.
Melting Ice and Rising Temperatures
The Arctic is making news this year, but it isn’t good news. Now that the summer solstice has passed and the Arctic sea ice melt season has kicked into high gear, the Arctic sea ice extent is declining rapidly, and setting record lows for June. In May, Arctic air temperatures remained well above average, and scientists believe the sea ice extent has fallen below that recorded in 2006, the previous record low for spring melting. Yet, surprisingly, 2007 set the record for lowest Arctic sea ice extent on record, as summer conditions created an unprecedented and unexpected melting that shocked researchers.
Certainly, current conditions could result in a new record low this summer, but wind and weather conditions are too difficult to predict to know for certain. Most are not predicting a record low for 2010. Nevertheless, these same expert scientists are worried by the decline in sea ice extent, and the dramatic loss of older, more resilient sea ice over the last decade. During May, sea ice melted at the rate of 68,000 square kilometers per day, about 50% above the mean for this time of year. Temperatures throughout most of the Arctic have been a scorching 2 to 5°C (4-9°F) above normal for late spring and early summer
G8 Summit Reflects Canada’s Climate Change Policies
Obama, Medvedev & Harper (White House photo)
No one should be surprised that the G8 Summit in Toronto came and went with almost no mention of global warming. After all, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is the rotating G8 President this year, and his government has been named the world’s Colossal Fossil at each of the last three climate summits. The message from G20 Summit on Sunday was no different.
Though the wording was slightly different, G8 leaders reiterated much the same goal as they did last year in Italy — that they share a desire to cut global CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050. Of course, the devil is in the details, and environmentalists are quite right to criticize their promises as weak and nebulous.
“Consistent with this ambitious long-term objective,” the G8 Communique ran, “we will undertake robust aggregate and individual mid-term reductions, taking into account that baselines may vary and that efforts need to be comparable.”
That and $2.50 will get you a cup of fair trade coffee.
More Fraud Within the Clean Development Mechanism
photo credit: Laz'Andre F. Cawagas
A consortium of North American and European activists have demanded sweeping changes to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) after charging that up to one-third of all CERs ever sold may have been illegitimate.
The groups are demanding an investigation to determine whether a number of coolant firms have manipulated the marketplace since 2005 by deliberately increasing their greenhouse gas emissions in order to obtain offsets by reducing them to normal levels. The 19 firms at the center of the storm are headquartered mainly in China and India, with others based in South Korea, Argentina and Mexico. They are alleged to have increased their production of the greenhouse gas HFC-23, a by-product of the coolant HCFC-22, to earn the CERs.
“Sometimes they produce gas just to burn it and get some CDM money, and it’s not at all an honest way of behaving,” said Chaim Nissim, Director of Noe21. “It’s fake.”
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