Assessing the aftermath of international climate change negotiations always puts me in mind of the twentieth century Chinese leader Zhou Enlai's famous reponse to an inquiry about the impact of the French Revolution: "It's too early to tell".

The fallout from Bali has adopted a model now familiar to anyone who has followed the tortuous history of the Kyoto Protocol and attempts to agree a successor: optimists hail an "historic" moment, while pessimists complain that once again nothing solid has been agreed. Meanwhile, businesses are once again left to cope with a series of equivocal statements that suggest that a new global framework designed to curb carbon emissions is on the cards but fail to give anyone a truly solid picture of what that framework will look like.

The fact is Bali has achieved everything it was ever going to achieve. This was always going to be a meeting about future meetings and the environmentalists and European politicians who worked themselves up into a frenzy of excitement over the prospect of getting emission targets agreed were always going to be left disappointed.

The conference set out to agree a timetable for future negotiations and it achieved exactly that. Moreover, it also undertook some much needed house cleaning, delivering reforms to the struggling CDM, finally recognising the importance of tackling deforestation, and giving the UN clearer direction in how it will address adaptation and technology transfer.

The White House may have poured cold water on the whole agreement by barely waiting until the applause in the convention centre had died out to voice its "serious concerns" and issue a thinly veiled threat to abandon future talks if China and India are not tied into deep cuts.

But that cannot detract from the fact that the US has signed up to an international climate change agreement for the first time and committed to the agreed timetable. There are still plenty of doubts surrounding the post-Kyoto framework, but a deal in 2009 looks more likely now than it did a week ago.

So the pessimists are in the wrong. But then again so too are the optimists.

The idea that just because there will be a new incumbent in the White House by the time the negotiations reach their climax everything will be OK is an absurdly upbeat assessment. The presidential candidates almost all appear greener than Bush but they have given themselves plenty of wriggle room when it comes to climate change legislation and there is no guarantee a new president is going to sign up to a Kyoto successor in a blaze of first term.

Furthermore, there is hardly any limit to the amount of havoc the Bush administration can wreak as the lame duck presidency limps towards 2009. Given Bush's record on climate change it is not unrealistic to imagine US officials returning to their default role as a negotiating roadblock over the next two years, imposing damaging delays on the Bali-agreed timetable. By the time a greener president is elected the whole process could already be on the brink of collapse.

All of this means that it is a case of as you where for business leaders. The business case for investment in cutting energy use remains strong, the carbon market is gaining strength and will become increasingly influential despite remaining flawed in several key areas, and risk assessors will continue to warn that an increase in environmental legislation and green taxes remains highly likely.

However, the critical detailed information needed to inform green investments - such as how much a tonne of carbon emissions will cost, what carbon targets will be agreed, what penalties will be in place for firms that breach them, how different geographies will be effected by green regulations, and which technologies will be subsidised by governments - remains two years away at best.

There are still plenty of reasons to be confident that solid successor to Kyoto will be agreed in 2009, but at the same time any Chinese leader commenting in 200 years time on whether the Bali conference was a success or not may sadly be doing so from a coastal resort in the Himalayas.

Posted by James Murray on December 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why is nothing in the world of green business ever simple?

Take London's plans for a ban on all free disposable carrier bags. At first glance this is a surely A Good Thing: almost two thirds of Londoners support the idea; a ban on plastic bags has proved highly successful in the Devon town of Modbury; most of the supermarkets are already pushing reusable bags as an alternative; and it would strike a blow against one of the most visible symbols of consumer waste.

But as soon as you start investigating the proposals everything starts to get confusing.

Despite the proposal's popularity the government - whilst committed to phasing out single use plastic carrier bags through its waste strategy - seems strangely unwilling to endorse a ban.

Spokespeople for both Defra and the Treasury are quick to cite the supposedly poor example of Ireland, which introduced a tax on plastic bags in 2002 with a similar goal of slashing the number of bags in circulation. They argue that far from slashing the use of plastic bags the move simply resulted in a surge in sales of heavier reusable bags and bin liners, which require more energy to manufacture and transport.

The UK Packaging and Industrial Films Association (PIFA) even claims to have uncovered Irish customs and excise figures show that while the use of thin plastic bags in Ireland plummeted following the introduction of the tax the total weight of plastic bags being imported into the country has increased as people buy alternatives.

Meanwhile, Irish shops have reportedly simply started handing out paper bags, which (almost incredibly)some argue have a greater environmental impact than plastic bags as they release carbon dioxide as they decompose.

All this sounds so counterintuitive it is easy to imagine a well organised plastic bag lobby has simply constructed an argument to suit its own ends and both the UK and Scottish governments, which shelved plans for an Irish style bag levy, have fallen for it.

This is certainly the view of a spokesman for the Irish department for the Environment, Heritage and local Government, who argues that evidence claiming overall use of plastic bags has increased is anecdotal, that use of plastic carrier bags has plummeted 90 per cent and that use of reusable bags has soared.

He also points out, not unreasonably, that Ireland has now stuck with the ban for around five years and earlier this year increased the levy to ensure it remains effective – a strange thing to do if it was not delivering a positive environmental impact.

The intuitive position remains that the Irish government must be in the right and the plastic bag lobby is attempting to muddy the waters of the debate.

It stands to reason that any tax or outright ban on carrier bags, such as that proposed in London, will lead to the increased use of heavier reusable plastic bags and bin liners – after all people still need to carry their shopping home and line their bins, but it is hard to believ this increase offset the environmental gains from a full ban. 

For example, I have been using a small rucksack and three reusable plastic bags to carry shopping back from my supermarket for the last year; they are all still going strong and there is no way they are heavier than all the disposable bags I would otherwise have used. This would surely be the default position if a ban was enforced with more reusable bags being used, far fewer disposal bags being used and overall demand for plastic bags falling.

And yet, some observers maintain that the evidence from Ireland is to the contrary.

If the Irish government is as proud of its plastic bag policy as it appears then it owes it to every other national, state, city and local government currently considering a bag ban to put this debate to rest one way or another and commission a full audit into the overall environmental impact of its levy.

Perhaps then the decision for MPs voting on the London councils proposals would prove simple after all.

Posted by James Murray on November 13, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (8)

A coalition of leading UK businesses, environmental charities and MPs have today written to environment secretary, Hilary Benn, and business and enterprise secretary, John Hutton, calling for standardised rules for corporate on carbon emissions.

The coalition, known as The Aldersgate Group and including BT and United Utilities, argues that the value to companies in disclosing their carbon footprint is being undermined by the lack of a recognised standard for measuring emissions, and urges the government to introduce a "common protocol" for all firms to follow.

"Current reporting levels are still too low, and what is disclosed is not comparable because of the use of different calculation methods," says the letter. "The lack of transparency… undermines the comparative advantage that should accrue to companies with good carbon reporting and control."

Previous attempts to encourage companies to report on their environmental impacts were killed by the government last year when the then-Chancellor Gordon Brown scrapped plans for Operating and Financial Review legislation that would have forced them to report annually on non-financial impacts to their business.

The release of the letter was timed to coincide with today's UK launch of research from the US-based Carbon Disclosure Project showing that many firms are still failing to publish data on their carbon emissions.

The report, which was released in the US last month, found that while 95 per cent of FT500 companies had implemented emissions reductions programmes, less than half of FTSE350 were publishing carbon emissions data.

Speaking at the launch event earlier today, climate change minister Joan Ruddock said investors had a responsibility to increase pressure on firms to report on their environmental impacts.

"Investors have a particularly key role to play in this," she said. "They should give consideration to environmental and social credentials, sending out signals to the financial markets to say that carbon disclosure is vital and show companies that it will affect their investment decisions."

Posted by James Murray on October 9, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The European Commission is continuing on its collision course with the aviation industry after the Environment Committee this week called for plans to include airlines in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to be pulled forward to 2010.

The Commission had originally planned to include flights within the EU in the scheme from 2011 with flights in and out of the EU included from 2012. However, the environment committee has called for all flights to be included in the scheme from 2010 as separate rules for different flights would lead distort competition between airlines.

"It is difficult to explain that a flight from the UK to Morocco is not covered by the scheme while a flight from the UK to the Canary Islands [would] be covered," commented the committee's rapporteur Peter Liese.

The Committee, which voted 50 votes to none in favour of the proposals, also called for much stricter emission reduction targets for airlines under the scheme.

The Commission had proposed assigning credits or allowances equivalent to 100 percent of airlines' average emissions between 2004 and 2006 – a move that would mean airlines would have to pay for extra credits if their emissions increased further. But, mindful of the failure of the first phase of the ETS when many industrial sites received more credits than they required leading to a collapse in the market for credits, the Committee called for allowances for airlines to be cut to 75 percent of current emissions.

Assigning emission allowances to cover just three quarters of current emissions would add significant costs to airlines and likely lead to increased ticket prices as carriers would be forced to buy in large numbers of credits to cover their current emission levels. However, the Commission hopes the mechanism would also provide a major financial incentive for airlines to invest in technologies and processes that allow them to cut emissions. Those that reduce their emissions to less than three quarters of current levels could even generate revenue from the scheme by selling on their excess credits. 

However, the plans will face staunch opposition from many within the airline industry after the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) last week passed a resolution opposing plans to include foreign airlines in the scheme.

In a statement the UN-backed body said that while it recognised "market-based options are valuable tools for addressing aircraft emissions. A majority of the delegations felt, however, that States should not apply emissions trading systems to the airlines of other States except pursuant to mutual agreement".

ICAO director general Giovanni Bisgnani went further still, reportedly branding the EC's plans as "disappointing and irresponsible".

Several airlines such as easyJet have pledged tentative support for the scheme, but with US airlines already planning legal action against the EU over the plans and Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary vowing to boycott the scheme the ICAO's position all but confirms that the EC will face a major legal battle if it is to force flights into and out of the EU into the scheme.

Posted by James Murray on October 4, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So that's then. If there was any doubt that President Bush's Climate Change talks were little more than a diversionary tactic designed to undermine the existing UN process it has been finally erased.

As comedian Rory Bremner observed it was already "perhaps the most implausible piece of summit calling since Harold Shipman set up a focus group to improve geriatric care", but now attendees at the first round of Bush's talks in Washington have confirmed, albeit through off the record briefings to the press, that they had an entirely wasted journey. Perhaps they should bill the administration for the cost of offsetting their flights.

By all accounts the talks were dominated by Bush's steadfast refusal to countenance binding emission cuts and his now familiar ode to increased investment in clean technologies, leaving European diplomats flabbergasted as to why he called a meeting simply to restate his existing position.

If there was a silver lining it came in the form of plans for a new clean technology development fund, although details were scant, and the news that even China and India now accept the need for legally-binding as opposed to voluntary emmision reduction targets, even if there is no sign of agreement on what these cuts should be.

But despite this limited progress it looks like the already ailing chances of agreeing a post-Kyoto agreement involving the Americans on Bush's watch are now stone dead. Indeed, relations between the Bush administration and European climate change negotiators, never exactly cosy, are so strained that there is a very real possibility that the upcoming UN meeting in Bali to begin the process of developing the post-Kyoto agreement could again be enlivened by dramatic walkouts from the US team. It will take nothing short of one of the greatest volte-faces in US political history for any real progress to be made and if there is one thing Bush doesn't do it's U-turns.

The European's have not yet given up hope. The schedule for the Post-Kyoto negotions mean any new treaty is not scheduled to be ratified until 2009, by which time Bush will be back at the ranch trying to convince anyone who'll still listen that he was not the worst president in modern history. It is hardly an ideal, or likely, situation but there is chance that a new president could come in and attempt to undo some of the damage done to US international relations under Bush by simply rubber stamping whatever treaty was on the table at the time.

In this light the deafening silence from most of the presidential hopefuls on climate change policy is cause for considerable concern. I may have missed something watching the seemingly interminable presidential race from this side of the Atlantic, but the environment seems to be playing a surprisingly small role in the campaigns thus far.

This lack of clarity is becoming ever more maddening for business leaders desperate to know whether they will face globally binding emission reduction targets or not. The potential post-2012 scenarios are still numerous and varied. Despite Bush's opposition strict legal targets, incorporating both the developed and developing world and tied to a global carbon trading mechanism are still very much on the table. But so too is the possibility of a global agreement featuring watered down targets, an agreement with every one bar the US, an agreement with everyone bar the US, China and India, an agreement including some US states - such as Schwarzenegger's California which is already planning its own legal targets - but not others, an agreement featuring just voluntary targets, and, whisper it quietly, no agreement at all.

Forget the businesses taking climate change seriously and imposing their own internal emission reduction targets for a moment and analyse this situation from the perspective of those business leaders and investors (surely still the majority) who develop their commercial strategies and make their investment decisions based on the legislative environment in which they operate and projected return on investment calculations. They are facing a planning nightmare.

Do you get in ahead of the coming post-Kyoto agreement and start to de-carbonise your business or would doing so add unnecessary costs that your rivals will avoid? Do you invest in a Europe where legal targets are already on the statute books and multi-billion euro fines look inevitable for those companies that miss them or do you invest in a US or China that may never have such targets. If your business is based in California or any other state or country with legally binding targets do you get the hell out now before the risk of fines soars or do you calculate that the inevitable investment in clean technologies made in these jurisdictions will drive massive economic growth? Do you invest in developing those very clean technologies with the confidence that you will soon have a guaranteed global market for your new products or do you refuse to take a punt on a sector of the economy now almost entirely dependent on the vagaries of international negotiations? The list of questions goes on and on.

I know I keep banging on about this, but the single best thing the world's politicians can do for the embryonic green business movement, and more broadly their entire economies, is to deliver some clarity, and fast. Many businesses simply cannot justify green investments unless they know legal targets will give them a reason to invest, Meanwhile, even where they want to make those investments they will be rightly furious at the prospect of a global patchwork of different binding and voluntary targets.

Ironically, even Bush's calls for greater investment in clean technologies will not work unless he gives investors some clear guidance on the legal environment those clean technologies will operate in - he needs to guarantee a market for their new products.

But the killer irony in this sorry little saga is that in rejecting calls for binding emission targets in order to supposedly protect the US economy Bush is also rejecting the opportunity to guarantee the strength of the US economy for decades to come.

The US, and in particular California and Silicon Valley, is already the dominant force in the embryonic clean tech sector and with one swish of his pen Bush could turn them into engine room of the global economy. He could ensure that the country will dominate the economy of the twenty-first century in the same way it dominated the twentieth.

By signing up to legally binding targets he would create an immediate global market for these predominantly US technologies, he would spark a technical revolution even greater than the IT revolution of the late twentieth century, guaranteeing long-term growth in the process. Rather than fearing the growth of China and India US companies would become the real winners from legally-binding targets as emerging economies are effectively forced to buy US clean-tech and expertise.

In fact, the only identifiable losers in a world with binding emission targets would be those big carbon intensive companies too lumbering or short-sighted to diversify. But then again the president owes the majority of his career to those very companies and there-in surely lies the real reason why he continues to oppose an agreement that the rest of the world so desperately needs.

Posted by James Murray on October 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The grass roots campaign to ban the plastic bag, that all too powerful symbol of consumer waste and environmental degradation, is on the march.

According to a recent article in The Guardian the trail-blazing Devon town of Modbury has enjoyed such success since it effectively banned plastic bags from its shops six months ago that 50 other towns, cities and villages are now working on similar initiatives.

Most notably Hebden Bridge has already followed Modbury as the second town in the UK to stop handing out plastic bags in its shops, while the 33 boroughs of London have proposed a ban on all disposable plastic bags from 2009. Meanwhile, Mull, Arran and Guernsey are racing to become the world's first plastic bag free island.

All of this has to be A Good Thing. The UK alone uses 17 billion plastic bags a year, the vast majority of which are made primarily from oil and take centuries to decompose. What is more, as the success of the Modbury experiment has proved they are surprisingly easy to live without and a ban can provide an important rallying point for future community-based environmental initiatives.

However, while no business is going to openly criticise such admirable grassroots movements for fear of being branded an uncaring faceless corporate monster even those firms committed to environmental sustainability will be forgiven for not jumping for joy at the prospect of further plastic bag bans and, more importantly, the trend towards locally-conceived environmental legislation that they signify.

There will be plenty of national retail chains who have adopted wide-reaching green initiatives and may even support a ban on plastic bags in principle that will still be inwardly furious at the town-by-town approach to plastic bag policy that appears to be gathering momentum.

Despite recent attempts by major retailers to highlight their links with local communities, such as Tesco's commitment to sourcing milk from farmers local to their stores, the overriding retail trend of the past fifty years has been one of centralisation - of stripping power from store managers and shifting decision-making and strategy development to head office.

Critics may blame this trend for the UK's increasingly homogenous High Streets but it has allowed retailers to slash costs and guarantee generally higher levels of service and product availability.

However, while this approach works when the customer and legislative landscape is broadly the same across the entire country it becomes something of a nightmare when head office has to account for a patch work of different laws and regulations.

It is easy to imagine strategists at all the UK's major retail chains having palpitations at the suddenly all too real prospect of having to develop different approaches for towns with an all out ban on plastic bags, towns with a ban on non-biodegradable plastic bags, towns with a tax on plastic bag use, and towns with no policy for plastic bags.

This scenario is of course a costly and annoying managerial headache rather than a full blown crisis, but it is also a working example of the current fragmentation of environmental legislation and the serious problems it could create for many of the world's largest businesses.

If individual cities, towns and villages can ban plastic bags there is little to stop them dabbling in other areas of environmental legislation, particularly when community-agreed bans don't even have to make it onto the statute books in order to prove highly-effective and potentially damaging to those businesses that do not comply.

For example, plans are also afoot for road pricing schemes in certain cities and counties, but not in others, while council strategies for waste reduction also offer something of a post code lottery.

This fragmentation of green legislation is playing itself out on a larger scale in the US where the void in environmental leadership at a federal level is being at least partly offset by plans for stringent new regulations in states such as California and New York and cities such as Seattle and Chicago. As with the local bag bans in the UK these proposals are openly admired and supported by many environmentally-conscious businesses but they also create a "patchwork quilt" legal scenario where major components of firms' environmental compliance strategies will have to change each time they cross a state line.

This trend is in complete opposition to the creation of a globally consistent legislative framework that has long been the (usually unstated) goal of multinational companies.

It is often said that business leaders hate legislation, but like footballers who seem to despise referees what they really hate are not the rules of the game but their inconsistent application. A more homogenous international compliance framework - whether it covers financial reporting or environmental standards - allows firms to slash compliance costs and risks and makes it far easier for them to execute global corporate strategies. It is little surprise that such legislative consistency has long been a corporate Holy Grail and has done as much to fuel corporate lobbying efforts as any inherent distaste for red tape.

The dilemma for business leaders now is how to react to this localised approach to environmental legislation. The current political vogue for devolved power and the idealisation of all things local and community-based means green rules spawned from grass roots campaigns such as Modbury's bag banning are largely beyond reproach. As a result any attempts to argue against such laws on the grounds they create a confusing and counterproductive compliance maze may be valid but they are likely to be given short shrift.

Instead, business leaders would be advised to take the diametrically opposite approach and realise that with such environmental grassroots movements gaining more and more momentum it is easier to create legislative consistency by encouraging national and international law makers to expand rather than oppose this new wave of localised green proposals.

For example, retailers may have to accept that it is easier to cope with a blanket ban on plastic bags than five or six different approaches dotted all over a country. Similarly, the more enlightened car manufacturers are beginning to realise that it may be easier simply to comply with Californian and European fuel efficiency regulations globally rather than keep chopping and changing engine design by region.

It is this understanding of the value of a more homogenous regulatory framework that also explains why many business leaders were hoping, albeit in vain, for signs from the UN's recent meeting on climate change and President Bush's controversial conference in Washington that a truly international agreement can be reached.

When it comes to grassroots, regional, or even national movements for environmental regulation the message is simple: you can't beat them, so you may as well join them.

Posted by James Murray on October 1, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2)

The influential European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) is this week expected to call on the European Commission to reassess its target for ensuring 10 percent of road fuels come from biofuels by 2020.

The recommendation forms part of a package of proposed changes to current EU environmental policies put forward by the advisory group of employers, employers and other social and business interest groups, which often plays a key role in the European Commissions' decision making process.

Through a series of recommendations, or opinions as they are known, scheduled to be ratified at a plenary session of the Committee this week the consultative body is to advise the commission that "the implications of the 10% target for biofuels in the transport sector should be carefully assessed".

It will also call for more details on how the Commission plans to meet the targets and a commitment that it will "be prepared to modify the approach if it appears to be less effective in carbon reduction than has been hoped, or is having other undesirable effects on the structure of world agriculture or on biodiversity".

The EESC has also signalled it will side with environmental groups in taking a "very critical stance" of the Commission's recent biofuel progress report. The report largely praised moves to promote wider use of biofuels, but the EESC argues it has failed to adequately account for the "manifold problems" associated with wider use of biofuels such as "high production costs and storage problems for bio-diesel and high consumption of water and fertilisers, potentially causing soil destruction, for ethanol… [and] the impact of biofuels on the world market for food".

Environmentalists have repeatedly called for a moratorium on biofuels arguing that the use of land previously used for food crops for biofuel crops such as sugar and palm oil is already leading to increased food prices and shortages. Others have argued that increased demand for palm oil will also lead to an increase in deforestation in countries such as Indonesia, undermining any reduction in carbon emissions associated with using biofuels.

The controversy has already prompted some firms to scrap plans for biofuel-powered fleets with coach company National Express recently cancelling a biofuel trial due to environmental concerns.

To help ensure that increased use of biofuels does not lead to detrimental effects on the environment the EESC is also urging the European Commission increase R&D investment in so-called second generation biofuels produced from non-food crops; introduce a mandatory certification scheme for accrediting sustainable biofuel production; and commit to revising its targets if it is proved that biofuels are leading to environmental damage.

Separately the committee is also calling for a new public awareness campaign across EU members to promote energy efficiency measures and the adoption of "favourable tax regimes" and financing mechanisms to stimulate adoption of energy efficient technologies.

The calls will be welcomed by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown who earlier this year signalled plans for an EU-wide reduction in VAT on energy efficient technologies.

However, European leaders including Brown can expect to face criticism from the Committee for adopting pro-coal energy policies based on the assumption that carbon capture and sequestration technologies are poised to enter the mainstream. While the EESC will recognise that such technologies will have a major role to play in climate protection it argues that proven cost-effective carbon capture technologies do not yet exist and the EC's plans for such technologies are based on "optimistic" assumptions.

The broadly critical nature of the Committee's recommendations further highlight the extent to which business and employee groups are now frequently in closer alignment with environmentalists than with politicians when it comes to matters of environmental policy.

It will be interesting to see if the EESC's advice is adopted by the European Commission, but either way it provides further evidence that there is a growing understanding amongst business leaders that there is more to be gained from recommending workable, sustainable and in many cases stringent environmental legislation than there is from repeatedly lobbying against new green laws.

Posted by James Murray on September 26, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gordon Brown yesterday signalled that the government could toughen up its proposed climate change bill, announcing in his first Labour conference speech as Prime Minister that he was ordering an investigation into whether or not draft proposals for a legally binding 60 percent cut in carbon emissions are strong enough.

The draft bill, which is the first of its kind in the world and is set to include a legally binding target for the UK to slash carbon emissions by 60 percent on 1990 levels by 2005, has been widely praised by environmental groups but has also been criticised for failing to demand the scale of cuts demanded by the latest scientific reports.

This summer a series of parliamentary committees also argued the draft bill was not stringent enough and that stricter targets were required. Most notably the cross party Environmental Audit Committee branded the proposals "incoherent" and reserved particular criticism for the government's inadequate emission reduction targets.

Writing in its report on the bill EAC chairman Tim Yeo said, "the 2020 and 2050 targets need to be significantly strengthened, in accordance with the latest science of where we need to be to limit global warming to 2 degrees centigrade".

The government's target of cutting emissions by 60 percent had been in line with recent declarations from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that such cuts offered a good chance of curbing "dangerous" climate change.

However, many scientists have branded the IPCC's conclusions as optimistic and recent research into so-called positive feedback loops have raised fears that emission reductions in excess of 80 percent are required to stop runaway global warming whereby increased temperatures cause natural carbon sinks such as permafrost and the rainforests to begin releasing greenhouse gasses, thus further accelerating climate change.

Now Brown has recognised these concerns declaring that he is "not satisfied" with the draft bill and revealing that he is "asking the new independent climate change committee to report on whether the 60 per cent reduction in emissions by 2050, which is already bigger than most other countries, should be even stronger still".

The likelihood is that the committee will now have to recommend stricter targets in line with the latest worst case scenarios predicted by scientists or face criticism that it has placed political expediency ahead of stabilising the climate.

The Prime Minister also hinted in his speech at some of the measures likely to be deployed in order to meet the targets included in the climate change bill, announcing that he is to double the number of planned eco-towns from five to ten and committing to continued investment in clean technologies.

"By investing in energy efficiency, renewables, carbon capture, clean fuels and new environmental technologies, I want Britain to lead in carbon-free vehicles, carbon-free homes and carbon-free industry," he said. "And I want the new green technologies of the future to be the source of British jobs in British businesses."

Brown's speech comes a crucial week for global climate change negotiations as world leaders meet today at the UN in New York to discuss climate change strategy ahead of the crucial meeting in Bali this December where negotiations for a post-Kyoto Treaty will formally begin.

Those talks are to be followed later this week by a controversial meeting of the world's major emitters hosted by President George Bush. The US administration claims the meeting, which was proposed earlier this year, is intended to also support the Bali negotiations, however critics have argued that the setting up of parallel talks are intended to undermine the UN process.

Posted by James Murray on September 25, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Growing up in a village not too far from the middle of nowhere I always used to think of noise pollution as pretty much the most pathetic form of pollution going.

In fact, I wasn't even sure if it was deserving of the pollution tag. After all, noise is temporary, it's immaterial. Sure it can be annoying, but no ice cap ever melted because of too much noise, no trees wilted from acid noise, there are no greenhouse gas noises, in short, no body died from too much noise.

Or did they?

According to a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) report high noise levels (and they regard as dangerous many of the noises you'd hear in an average day) can lead to increased stress and risk of heart attacks. It even suggests that over 3,000 deaths in the UK each year are the result of exposure to chronic noise.

I no longer need convincing as to the accuracy of this report (if anything I'm astounded it took them so long) because for the past three years I have lived in a flat overlooking one of London's main arterial roads - four lanes and two bus lanes of twenty four hour, seven days a week noise.

It's not too bad in the winter when the double glazing keeps everything down to a dull hum, but in the summer we are left with the choice of roasting alive or opening up a window and letting in the noise (and traffic fumes). Suffice to say, lying awake a few nights ago listening to the faulty burglar alarm that the manager of the Clinton Cards across the road refuses to fix I was left wondering if the longer commute that would come with living in the suburbs would so bad after all.

Like millions of people living in similar circumstances I am painfully aware of how much of a problem noise pollution poses and yet despite the stress and the quite literal heart ache it causes I'd hazard that many people still refuse to see what all the fuss is about.

How many businesses I wonder include a strategy for tackling noise pollution in their environmental plans? If they do, where does it rate? My guess is pretty near the bottom. If noise pollution is ever considered at a corporate level it is likely to be seen as an issue for HR, a box to tick to keep the dreaded 'elf and safety officer happy.

But there are compelling business reasons for addressing the problem; for legislators, for firms with offices on busy roads or under flight paths, and for the car manufacturers and airlines who are responsible for so much of the noise we have to endure.

The primary reason for at least investigating reducing noise levels at work is that excessive noise is a sizeable drain on productivity and contributor to workplace stress. Whether it is a noisy air conditioner or traffic noise from outside it is bound to be annoying your staff, even if they don't fully realise it.

In an age when good workplace conditions are so highly valued steps to cut noise levels are bound to be welcomed by employees, will certainly lead to increased productivity, and could lead to improved staff retention rates. I doubt you'll ever be ranked near the top of one of those best places to work league tables if your company has an issue with noise.

The second reason for declaring a full blown war on noise is that the bulk of noise pollution is inextricably linked to more conventional forms of pollution. Most notably cars and aircraft are huge sources of both carbon and noise emissions so policies to limit transport-related carbon emissions, such as increased investment in public transport, limits on airport expansion, and incentives for electric cars, would have the additional benefit of cutting noise pollution.

For businesses the problem of carbon emissions and noise pollution are also tightly linked on the grounds that if the noise can get into your building the heat (or in the summer the cold air) can also get out. Passivhaus buildings constructed to the highest environmental standards typically make use of large but tripled-glazed windows that allow the sun to heat the building and then keep the heat in, but as a convenient by-product triple-glazing also keeps the noise out. Such windows are naturally more expensive than conventional alternatives, but they should bring down heating and air-con costs, cut noise levels and more than pay for themselves over their lifetime.

If keeping staff happy and limiting carbon emissions are not big enough drivers for incorporating attempts to limit noise pollution into your business' environmental strategy there is also one other reason that could well emerge in the coming years for those businesses that have the most serious noise problems.

It is a safe bet that that right now somewhere in the world there is a lawyer poring over the new WHO report on the health risks of excessive noise and seeing nothing but dollar signs. If there is medical evidence that noise can contribute directly to death or ill-health then it is highly plausible that you could bring a case against a company that failed to adequately protect an employee or citizen from such noise.

There are of course already laws and employment contracts that deal with exposure to excessive noise but they are extremely poorly-policed making civil litigation the more likely means by which a business could be punished for a failure to have a clear and adequate policy on noise pollution.

For example, it is hard to imagine that a group of stressed-out local Heathrow residents armed with the UN report's findings couldn't construct a pretty strong case against the airport's planned expansion because of its detrimental effect on their health. They might not win, in fact they almost certainly wouldn't, but they could cause untold brand damage.

In truth litigation against firms that generate or fail to protect employees from excessive noise is likely to remain extremely rare, but as more evidence of its damaging medical effects emerge the risk of legal action against businesses that don't at least have a demonstrable strategy for tackling noise pollution only increases - just something that might be worth thinking about next time you find yourself lying awake at night.

Posted by James Murray on September 21, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Despite increased talk about climate change and energy security, federal R&D spending on energy has declined over the last decade. Daniel Kammen reckons it is time for the new presidential candidates to explain how they are going to rectify this worrying situation

Over the next five decades progress to meaningfully address the risk of significant climate change will require an estimated 80 percent, or more, reduction in the global emissions of greenhouse gases. From the baseline in 2007 of over seven billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, three-quarters of which comes from fossil fuel combustion (with the remainder largely from land conversion and forest burning), the reductions required are from a global emissions portfolio that is currently increasing.

As the largest current emitter, at roughly 25 percent of the global total -- but more importantly as the nation with the largest energy resource and research base to affect change -- the United States and its inaction on climate protection for the last several years is poised to play a critical role, if not the critical role in our collective climate future.

It is now very clear that through action or inaction, our collective climate future is strongly tied to what course the United States steers in the beginning of the 21st Century.

A range of technologies exist that can protect the environment and improve our economic and political security -- in many cases not at a cost, but instead with political and economic benefits to the nation in the form of reasserted leadership both technologically and financially, through increased geopolitical stability and flexibility, and through job growth in the clean energy sector.

To accomplish these goals, not only will a comprehensive strategy be needed, but we must develop a balanced approach that recognises that replacing the vast infrastructure and economic machinery developed to exploit fossil fuels will be a central challenge of the 21st Century, and one where the fundamental mindset of large, centralised energy monopolies will need to evolve to one of a decentralised clean energy marketplace. This is the issue where -- more than any set of technologies or economic incentives -- climate change causes the most uncertainty, and in some cases fear and pushback.

Developing a balanced portfolio of energy research, development, and deployment projects is central to meeting the challenge of climate change, but it is equally clear that "technology push" projects must be accompanied by "demand pull measures." Among the most important demand-pull -- or market creating or enabling -- options available to us today are:

• A national commitment to saving money and energy through energy efficiency measures at every step of the economic value chain (some states, including California, are fully 40 percent more efficient than the national average);
• The pursuit and steady increase of renewable energy portfolio standards as a baseline, and in the cities, states and regions with mandate to pursue more aggressive policies, the addition of feed-in laws to diversify and expand the number and type of clean energy producers;
• Low-carbon fuel standards that evolve in time into sustainable fuel standards;
• The use of carbon taxes or cap and trade systems under which carbon emission rights are limited;
• Developing and using for business, industrial, municipal and -- critically -- personal purchases carbon footprint analyses; and
• International collaborations and public-private partnerships designed to commercialise, or at least open market space for clean energy and energy efficient technologies.

This is a remarkably simple list, but one that has enough teeth, and economic opportunities, to truly harness the innovative power of the Superpower economy. It also happens to be a simple enough plan that a suitably committed presidential candidate, or president, could put it into action.

Despite a great deal of sound and fury, it is critical to recognise that we currently do not have an energy plan. In the United States arguably there has not been anything even remotely resembling an "energy plan" since the efforts by Presidents Ford and Carter three decades ago.

Recently, however, integrated planning on climate and energy has begun to emerge, although largely at the state and regional level. The precedent for this changing the course of national energy policy is, however, a strong one. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in 1932 that:

… a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel economic and social experiments….

Conservative and liberal justices have quoted this line over 30 times in subsequent Supreme Court opinions. Courageous experiments are now taking place in a number of US states, and can form the basis of needed federal legislation and leadership.

The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32) in California, as well as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States are such examples. By contrast, the US Federal government's current target will require only a slight change from the business as usual case (Figure 1, left). More relevant to the climate problem, reaching this target would actually allow emissions to grow by 12 to 16 percent. This target would thus represent a larger increase than the 10 percent increase that occurred in the previous decade.

If we are to be serious about meeting the climate challenge we need to set a goal consistent with the US Department of Energy's Climate Change Technology Plan (CCTP) objective of moving in the long term (e.g. ~ 2050) toward 80 percent reductions in net emissions. In fact, the CCTP actually mentions a zeroing of net emissions at some time after mid-century.

The California climate change protection plan is one to carefully consider in developing a comprehensive climate plan. The Governor of California's five decade GHG emissions targets of 80 percent below 1990 levels (EE 3-05) and the 25 percent GHG reductions adopted via AB32 (signed on September 27, 2006) include both near-term and longer-term goals -- including market-based cap and trade mechanisms -- that delineate a path of emissions reductions toward climate stabilisation. Congress should act to set a series of targets that show a clear path to meaningful emissions reductions.

What is needed is a sustained commitment to emissions reductions and a time scale that conveys to the country the urgency of the need for future options. The California plan, for example, does not start or end with AB32, but includes a set of mutually reinforcing laws and executive orders. The most recent of which, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (EE 1-07) makes a significant advance in our regulatory power to discriminate between the full range of liquid (petroleum or fossil-fuel based) fuels or electricity to power plug-in hybrid vehicles. The California plan represents only one such path to a low-carbon integrated, consistent approach that both initiates early action and clarifies the long-term roadmap to a decarbonised future.

The US has under-invested in energy research, development, and deployment for decades, and sadly the FY2008 budget request is no exception. This history is shown in Figure 2 left: federal energy research and development investment is today back at pre-OPEC levels -- despite a panoply of reasons why energy dependence and insecurity, and climatic impact from our energy economy are dominating local economics, geopolitics, and environmental degradation.

As an example of the "commitment" to clean energy, consider the US federal energy budget. At $2.7 billion for energy research, the overall federal energy research and development budget request for 2008 request is $685 million higher than the 2006 appropriated budget. Half of that increased request is accounted for by increases in fission, and the rest is in moderate increases in funding for biofuels, solar, FutureGen, and $147 million increase for fusion research. However, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) budget is to be cut precisely at a time when concerns over energy security and climate change are at their highest level.

The larger issue, however, is that as a nation we invest less in energy research, development, and deployment than do a few large biotechnology firms in their own, private R&D budgets. This is unacceptable on many fronts. The least of which is that we know that investments in energy research pay off at both the national and private sector levels.

In a series of papers (Margolis and Kammen, 1999; Kammen and Nemet, 2005; Nemet and Kammen, 2007 -- all available from the RAEL website), my students and I have documented a disturbing trend away from investment in energy technology -- both by the federal government and the private sector, which largely follows the federal lead.

The US invests about $1 billion less in energy R&D today than it did a decade ago. This trend is remarkable, first because the levels in the mid-1990s had already been identified as dangerously low, and second because, as our analysis indicates, the decline is pervasive across almost every energy technology category, in both the public and private sectors, and at multiple stages in the innovation process. In each of these areas investment has been either been stagnant or declining. Moreover, the decline in investment in energy has occurred while overall US R&D has grown by 6 percent per year, and federal R&D investments in health and defence have grown by 10 and 15 percent per year, respectively.

Figure 2 shows all US federal R&D programs since 1955. Notice the thin strip showing the small energy R&D program relative to other sectors. The current budgets for energy R&D would continue this situation, or even reduce R&D investment (Kammen and Nemet, 2005). This is not in the best interests of the nation.

We are now in a moment -- perhaps a first -- where a growing view exists that energy and climate could be front-burner issues for candidates and voters. The time is right to focus on the energy system we want, not on the one we had, and sadly, still have.

Daniel M. Kammen is the Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley. He co-directs the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and is founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory. He has appointments in the Energy and Resources Group and the Goldman School of Public Policy.

This article first appeared at Greenbiz.com

Posted by James Murray on September 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)