Conservatives added 'loopholes' to system, critic says

Alberta's oilsands industry will be allowed to triple its annual greenhouse-gas pollution over the next decade, and more than 20 per cent of emissions from the rest of the oilpatch will be exempt from Prime Minister Stephen Harper government's green plan, Environment Canada documents released this week show.

New provisions introduced into the climate change plan would allow oilsands operations in Alberta and the coal-fired power plants of Ontario to offset 100 per cent of their pollution by paying themselves "pre-certified investments."

"They can pollute as much as they want as long they pay a certain minimal amount of money into a fund," said Nashina Shariff, associate director of the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta. "So basically, it gives them a good ride until 2018."
Alberta's oilsands, above, and coal-fired plants in Ontario are getting a 'good ride until 2018' under the Tories' plan, critics say.View Larger Image View Larger Image
Alberta's oilsands, above, and coal-fired plants in Ontario are getting a 'good ride until 2018' under the Tories' plan, critics say.
Ted Jacob, the Calgary Herald

Meantime, Environment Canada has confirmed that millions of tonnes of pollution from small facilities will be exempt for companies in sectors such as oil and gas, natural gas pipelines, electricity, chemicals and fertilizers.

A department estimate in December predicted about 10 million tonnes of greenhouse-gas pollution would not be covered as a result of the exemptions proposed to reduce administrative burdens on the smaller companies, including 20 to 30 per cent of emissions from small oil and gas companies outside of the oilsands sector.

Ms. Shariff said it appeared the government has introduced loopholes that were tailor-made to help out oilpatch companies and coal-fired power plants. She also questioned new incentives for nuclear power and credits for cogeneration -- using heat from combustion to produce more power and save energy -- that allow facilities to benefit from their business-as-usual practices.

An industry spokesman said there still aren't enough details to assess whether the plan is tough or weak, but added he thought the "pre-certified investments" proposal was an intriguing idea.

"It's an interesting flexibility mechanism. We're intrigued and we will be looking at it," said Pierre Alvarez, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
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ZURICH (AFP) - The world's glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, calling for immediate action to prevent further constraints on water resources for large populations, UN data released Sunday showed.

"Millions if not billions of people depend directly or indirectly on these natural water storage facilities for drinking water, agriculture, industry and power generation during key parts of the year," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The culprit is climate change, according to data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), based at the University of Zurich and supported by UNEP.

The centre drew its findings from nearly 30 glaciers in nine mountain ranges revealing that in 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting more than doubled.

"The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight," said Wilfried Haeberli, director of WGMS.

According to UNEP, the growth has particularly sped up in the past few years, with what had been a record loss for two decades -- 0.7 metres (2.3 feet) in 1998 -- having been exceeded in three of the past six years.

Steiner said that "it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice," adding that the forecast is not entirely gloomy given the growth of the so-called green economy.

However, Steiner said the 2009 climate convention in Copenhagen will provide the true litmus test of governments' commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon pollution from fossil fuels damaging Earth's climate system.

"Otherwise, and like the glaciers, our room for manoeuvre and the opportunity to act may simply melt away."

WGMS measures the thinning of glaciers in terms of water equivalen, for instance, estimating that in 2006 shrinking was equivalent to 1.4 metres of water equivalent, compared with half a metre in 2005.

Some glaciers have particularly suffered, such as Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier, which thinned almost 3.1 metres in 2006 compared with 0.3 metres in 2005.

Other glaciers to have experienced dramatic loss in Europe are Austria's Grosser Goldbergkees glacier, France's Ossoue glacier, Italy's Malavalle glacier, Spain's Maladeta glacier, Sweden's Storglaciaeren glacier and Switzerland's Findelen glacier.

However, of the 30 glaciers WGMS tracks for changes, four percent have thickened.
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The Independent, By Steve Connor, March 26

It is one of the biggest in Antarctica and, for the past century, the massive Wilkins ice shelf appeared to have escaped the ravages of global warming. But now, enormous cracks have appeared in this floating ice platform the size of Northern Ireland. Scientists say it is breaking apart at an unprecedented rate after warmer temperatures weakened it.

A thin strip of ice is all that now prevents the Wilkins shelf from disintegrating and breaking away from the landmass of the Antarctic peninsula, scientists said yesterday. The peninsula is the fastest-warming region in the Antarctic and has seen some of the largest temperature rises on earth – 0.5C per decade – which is why the Wilkins ice shelf is on the verge of disappearing completely, said one of the scientists.

Observers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge and the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado said they were astonished to discover just how fast the ice shelf was breaking apart since the first cracks were seen in February.

"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf yet on the Antarctic peninsula to be threatened, said David Vaughan of the BAS. "I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread – we'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be.

"In this case things are happening more rapidly than we thought. We didn't really understand how sensitive these ice shelves are to climate change," said Dr Vaughan, who predicted in the 1990s that it would take 30 years for the ice shelf to break up.

New York Times, By Andrew C. Revkin, April 6

The charged and complex debate over how to slow down global warming has become a lot more complicated.

Most of the focus in the last few years has centered on imposing caps on greenhouse gas emissions to prod energy users to conserve or switch to nonpolluting technologies.

Leaders of the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change — the scientists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year with former Vice President Al Gore — have emphasized that market-based approach. All three presidential candidates are behind it. And it has framed international talks over a new climate treaty and debate within the United States over climate legislation.

But now, with recent data showing an unexpected rise in global emissions and a decline in energy efficiency, a growing chorus of economists, scientists and students of energy policy are saying that whatever benefits the cap approach yields, it will be too little and come too late.

The economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, stated the case bluntly in a recent article in Scientific American: “Even with a cutback in wasteful energy spending, our current technologies cannot support both a decline in carbon dioxide emissions and an expanding global economy. If we try to restrain emissions without a fundamentally new set of technologies, we will end up stifling economic growth, including the development prospects for billions of people.”

The Guardian, By Kate Connolly, April 8

Berlin - The German government has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown over its plans to lead a worldwide biofuels revolution on the roads after the discovery that too many cars would be unable to run on the proposed ethanol-petrol mix.

The environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, had planned to introduce the new fuel to motorists next year. It is known as E-10, and 90% of it would consist of petrol and the rest of ethanol.

The proposal was seen as central to Germany's ability to achieve its ambitious climate-protection goals under which it wants 20% of all fuel it uses to be made up of biofuels by 2020.

Experts said that target was now likely to be in jeopardy after the country's powerful car lobby headed by the German Automobile Club, the ADAC, and a group representing car importers, said that around 3.7m cars, approximately 200,000 of which are German-made, would not be able to process the mix.

Dot Earth (NYT Environment Blog), By Andrew C. Revkin, April 10

The troubling tension between propelling prosperity and limiting climate risks in a world still wedded to fossil fuels is on full display this week. India’s Tata Power group just gained important financial backing from the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank, for its planned $4 billion, 4-billion watt “Ultra Mega” coal-burning power plant complex in Gujarat state.

The I.F.C., along with the Asian Development Bank, Korea, and other backers, sees the need to bring electricity to one of the world’s poorest regions as more pressing than limiting carbon dioxide from fuel burning. The plants will emit about 23 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to the I.F.C., but using technology that is 40 percent more efficient at turning coal into kilowatt-hours than the average for India.

The decision powerfully illustrates one of the most inconvenient facets of the world’s intertwined climate and energy challenges — that more than two billion people still lack any viable energy choices, let alone green ones.

As Michael Wines reported last year, the 700 million people of sub-Saharan Africa outside of South Africa have access to the same amount of electricity used by the 38 million people of Poland.

[...]

Even as former Vice President Al Gore and NASA climate scientist James E. Hansen call for a freeze on new coal-plant construction in the United States unless the emissions can be captured, the reality of decades of coal burning is unfolding.

And, as we’ve written here repeatedly, experts say the world has barely begun to engage in the research and testing required to determine whether it’ll be possible to capture and bury carbon dioxide at the rate of billions of tons a year.

· Toshiba-owned firm will build two reactors
· Deal points to new era for atomic power

The Guardian, By Terry McAlister, April 10

Westinghouse Electric, the nuclear design and build firm sold by the British government two years ago, has won its first contracts in America for 30 years.

The move underlines the worldwide renaissance of atomic power generation as a source of low-carbon energy. The Pittsburgh-based group, which has sought approval for its reactor design to be accepted in Britain, has won a deal from Georgia Power to build two AP1000 nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle site near Waynesboro, Georgia, for an estimated $13bn (£7bn).

Westinghouse, which won the contract with its partner, the Shaw Group, said the project moves the country's nuclear revival "beyond the planning stage" and into a new era.

Steve Tritch, president of Westinghouse said: "Nuclear power is now rightfully recognised as a clean, safe and economically competitive source of baseload generation that helps ensure US energy independence."

AP, By Catherine Tsai, April 23

DENVER — An outbreak of mountain pine beetles in British Columbia is doing more than destroying millions of trees: By 2020, the beetles will have done so much damage that the forest will release more carbon dioxide than it absorbs, new research indicates.

The study, led by Werner Kurz of the Canadian Forest Service, estimates that over 21 years trees killed by the beetle outbreak could release nearly one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – roughly equivalent to five years of emissions from Canada's transportation sector.

The outbreak has affected about 134,000 square kilometres of lodgepole pines. Bark beetles also have killed huge swaths of pines in the western United States, including almost 6,000 square kilometres of trees in Colorado.

“When trees are killed, they no longer are able to take carbon from the atmosphere. Then when dead trees start to decompose, that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” Dr. Kurz said.

National Geographic's 'Strange Days On Planet Earth'
from pbs, narrated by Ed Norton

http://www.edward-norton.org/strangedays.html

http://www.pbs.org/strangedays

an excellent presentation of our environmental chain of circumstances and it's acceleration.

Winds of change: Shell ditches renewable stake amid fears of a retreat to carbons

· £2bn UK windfarm project now at risk, says partner
· Move comes as company invests in Canadian oil

The Guardian, By Terry Macalister, May 1

The future of the world's largest offshore wind farm and a symbol of Britain's renewable energy future was thrown into doubt last night after it emerged that Shell was backing out of the project and indicated it would prefer to invest in more lucrative oil schemes.

Shell said the decision to sell its 33% stake in the £2bn London Array off the coast of Kent was part of an "ongoing review of projects and investment choices" and was not part of any major rethink about renewables versus other oil and gas projects.

But environmentalists will see the decision to drop one of only two renewable schemes being worked on by Shell in Britain as a further sign that the company is retreating back to hydrocarbons at a time when the price of oil has risen to about $120 a barrel.

Shell, which earlier this week reported first quarter profits of £4bn, has been selling off much of its solar business while moving more into Canada's carbon-heavy tar sands. The Department for Business said last night that a number of successful offshore wind projects had seen changes of ownership in the past "and we would therefore anticipate that the project will be able to proceed".

New York Times, By Andrew C. Revkin, May 1

After decades of research that sought, and found, evidence of a human influence on the earth’s climate, climatologists are beginning to shift to a new and similarly daunting enterprise: creating decade-long forecasts for climate, just as meteorologists routinely generate weeklong forecasts for weather.

One of the first attempts to look ahead a decade, using computer simulations and measurements of ocean temperatures, predicts a slight cooling of Europe and North America, probably related to shifting currents and patterns in the oceans.

The team that generated the forecast, whose members come from two German ocean and climate research centers, acknowledged that it was a preliminary effort. But in a short paper published in the May 1 issue of the journal Nature, they said their modeling method was able to reasonably replicate climate patterns in those regions in recent decades, providing some confidence in their prediction for the next one.

The authors stressed that the pause in warming represented only a temporary blunting of the centuries of rising temperatures that scientists have projected if carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases continue accumulating in the atmosphere.

“We’re learning that internal climate variability is important and can mask the effects of human-induced global change,” said the paper’s lead author, Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Kiel, Germany. “In the end this gives more confidence in the long-term projections.”

Few new rules planned, despite harm cited to sanctuary

The Boston Globe, By Beth Daley, May 6

A long-awaited government plan for protecting a marine preserve 25 miles off Boston proposes few new fishing or other restrictions, despite the document's sobering conclusion that humans are harming whales and fish.

The 842-square-mile Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is among the world's richest ocean feeding grounds, but it is suffering from a host of problems, from fishermen taking too many big, mature fish to whales getting entangled in fishing gear, says the draft plan being released today.

The report, which took nearly a decade to complete, does recommend tightening restrictions around whale-watching boats and creating buffer zones around historic shipwrecks on the sea floor. It proposes a fishing ban on sand lance, a key food for humpback whales that is not fished commercially off New England. Yet the document avoids pushing for controversial restrictions on the bank, such as no-fishing zones.

"What it does is provide a solid foundation for next steps," Craig MacDonald, superintendent of the sanctuary, said in an interview yesterday. MacDonald said creating the plan took nearly a decade be cause of the need to perform scientific studies and hold numerous meetings with interested parties, including conservation groups, boat captains, and fishermen.

[...]

But the nearly 400-page report notes that "virtually every square kilometer of the sanctuary is physically disturbed by fishing." Each year about 17.5 million pounds of fish and crustaceans from the sanctuary arrive at area ports, but vast amounts of fish are also thrown back - many presumably dead - because they were species fishermen are not allowed to catch or don't want. And 41 percent of whale entanglements in the Gulf of Maine occur in the sanctuary, more than anywhere else.

[...]

"Stellwagen Bank is clearly one of the prime spots where protection could have a significant impact to restoring the marine life of this region," said John D. Crawford, senior scientist for the Conservation Law Foundation, an advocacy group that has helped identify key areas to protect in the Gulf of Maine. "Right now, there is no enduring protection."

BBC, May 6

Many tropical insects face extinction by the end of this century unless they adapt to the rising global temperatures predicted, US scientists have said.

Researchers led by the University of Washington said insects in the tropics were much more sensitive to temperature changes than those elsewhere.

In contrast, higher latitudes could experience an insect population boom.

The scientists said changes in insect numbers could have secondary effects on plant pollination and food supplies.

AP, May 7

JAKARTA — The world's largest population of wild orangutans – on Indonesia's Borneo island – faces extinction within three years because of rapidly expanding oil-palm plantations, a conservationist group said Wednesday.

A report by the Centre for Orangutan Protection says that only 20,000 of the endangered primates remain in the tropical jungle of Central Kalimantan, down from 31,300 in 2004.

If the government does not protect wildlife from commercial exploitation, illegal logging and poachers, orangutans there could be extinct by 2011, said Hardi Baktiantoro, the group's head.

He said more than 5,000 orangutans in the region have died every year since 2004, largely from loss of habitat.

AP, By Juliana Barbassa, May 7

San Francisco — A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 per cent of commercially managed hives in the United States lost since last year.

Last year's survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 per cent.

As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops, it is clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies such as the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.

This is only the second year that the association has measured colony deaths, so there are not enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said Mr. vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

“For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss,” he said. “That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm.”

AP, By Rod McGuirk, May 7

CANBERRA — Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves that the animals feed on, a researcher said Wednesday.

Ian Hume, emeritus professor of biology at Sydney University, said he and his researchers found that the level of toxicity in the leaves of eucalyptus saplings rose when the level of carbon dioxide within a greenhouse was increased.

Prof. Hume presented his research on the effects of carbon dioxide on eucalyptus leaves to the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra on Wednesday.

The researchers found that carbon dioxide in eucalyptus leaves affects the balance of nutrients and “anti-nutrients” – substances that are either toxic or interfere with the digestion of nutrients.

The Independent, By Cahal Milmo, May 6

The aviation industry's failure to curb its soaring carbon emissions could lead to the "worst case scenario" for climate change, as envisaged by the United Nations.

An unpublished study by the world's leading experts has revealed that airlines are pumping 20 per cent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than estimates suggest, with total emissions set to reach between 1.2 billion and 1.5 billion tonnes annually by 2025.

The report, by four government-funded research bodies, is one of the most authoritative estimates of the growth of pollutants produced by the industry. It was presented to a conference co-organised by the United States' Federal Aviation Authority but not given a wider audience.

Combining data produced by the leading emissions-modelling laboratories in the US, Britain and France, the study found that the number of people seriously affected by aircraft noise will rise from 24 million in 2000 to 30.3 million by 2025, despite the introduction of quieter jets, and that the amount of nitrogen oxides around airports, produced by aircraft engines, will rise from 2.5 million tonnes in 2000 to 6.1 million tonnes in 2025.

As oil prices soar, crofters return to the old ways and get their heat from peat

The Guardian, By Severin Carrell, May 5

The soaring price of fuel is leading cash-conscious crofters in the Outer Hebrides to revive the ancient tradition of cutting peat to fire their kitchen stoves and central heating. Over the past few months the steep surge in the price of oil, now routinely used by residents on islands such as Lewis, has led to a rush in orders for traditional, hand-made peat cutters and peat-cutting permits.

Some crofters are re-installing peat-burning stoves alongside oil-burning stoves and combi-boilers, or even using them as a replacement heating source.

Calum Macleod, 73, a blacksmith in Stornoway, whose father began making the 12in (30cm) peat cutters by hand in the 1920s, said orders for the tools had risen sixfold over the past few weeks. He has made nearly 40 cutters this year, compared with the six he made last year. Orders are still arriving.

"This year they've really snowballed," Macleod said. "I reckon it's the price of fuel. With prices going up, I was thinking, oh well, they may be wanting peat irons this year; then it turned out true enough. People were saying to me, 'I'll cut peat this year to help out'."

BBC | Richard Black | May 8

At least one of Britain's birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust. Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise.