Britain
could become as cold as Moscow
By Steve Connor,
Science Editor
The Independent, UK
21 June 2001
Britain's winter climate could become as cold as
Moscow's, according to new evidence that the vital ocean
currents of the North Atlantic are beginning to change.
Measurements over the past 50 years have shown that a key deep-sea current running along the ocean floor that separates Scotland from the Faeroe Islands has slowed down by at least 20 per cent. If the discovery is matched at other sites in the North Atlantic it could be the first sign that the warm Gulf Stream, which dominates the British climate, is itself beginning to slow.
One of the greatest fears of global warming is that rising temperatures could upset the Gulf Stream by switching it further south, causing northwestern Europe to descend into the temperature extremes of central Russia, which is at the same latitude. It would mean that a warmer world caused by the man-made emissions of greenhouse gases could, paradoxically, lead to a colder and more uncomfortable climate for Britain.
A team of scientists from Scotland, Norway and the Faeroe Islands publish their findings today in the journal Nature. They show that one of the deep-sea currents running in the opposite direction to the Gulf Stream and many hundreds of metres below it, from the Norwegian Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, has slowed by at least 20 per cent since 1950. Such a substantial change over a relatively short period has surprised the scientists, who believe that global warming may be beginning to exert a profound switch in the warm Atlantic "conveyor belt" that keeps winters mild in Britain and the rest of northwestern Europe.
"I had not expected this but it was predicted that there would be a slowdown due to climate change," said Bogi Hansen, an oceanographer from the Faeroese Fisheries Laboratories at Torshavn in the Faeroe Islands, and the principal author of the study. "Climate change is the most natural explanation for this. It is not the only possible explanation but it is the most likely."
The research centred on measurements taken of water movements in a deep-sea channel that separates the Faeroes from northern Scotland. The current in the Faeroe Bank channel pushes about 2 million cubic metres of water every second into the Atlantic, an amount equivalent to about twice the total flow of all the rivers of the world combined. "It is an awesome waterfall," Dr Hansen said.
The water moves along the seabed many hundreds of metres below the opposing currents caused by the Gulf Stream, or North Atlantic drift. These warmer currents at the surface could not exist without their colder counterparts on the seabed moving in the opposite direction to complete the "conveyor belt".
Scientists fear that if one of the key deep-ocean currents running from the Norwegian Sea into the Atlantic is slowing, then the incoming surface current must also be decelerating Further measurements at another deep channel in the Denmark Strait, which separates Greenland from Iceland, are needed to confirm whether the 20 per cent decrease in flow is matched elsewhere, Dr Hansen said.
"If this reduction we have seen in the Faeroe Bank channel is also seen in the Denmark Strait then we can be sure that the North Atlantic flow has been reduced," he said.
The most likely explanation for the slowdown is the rising amount of freshwater in the Norwegian Sea due to melting sea ice. This not only increases surface sea temperatures but, more importantly, it lowers salinity levels, causing the water to be less dense and therefore less able to sink to the depths necessary to drive seabed currents.
"The seas are warmer and there is more freshwater not just from melting sea ice but from the Siberian rivers. The water has to be salty and dense or it just won't sink," Dr Hansen said.
If sea ice is not forming as fast as it should, then an important "pump" that drives ocean circulation is switched off. Falling salinity levels in the northern oceans have already been recognised as an important change that could affect long-term climate.
Historical studies have shown that the Gulf Stream can flip, causing northern Europe to descend rapidly into an ice age. It is estimated that without the ocean current, Britain's average temperatures would be between 5C and 10C cooler, with much greater extremes in winter and summer.
Some studies have suggested that the Gulf Stream has slowed in more recent history, causing the mini-ice ages of the middle ages and the 17th century, when the Thames frequently froze over.
Tim Osborn, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, said: "This ocean circulation helps to keep northern Europe warm in winter, which is why it is so important. Because of the large impact a possible switch in the current may have, it can't be ignored, even though the probabilities may be small," Dr Osborn said.
Next week, more than 100 scientists will meet to discuss the latest findings at an international conference on ocean circulation at the Southampton Oceanography Centre.
John Gould, director of the centre's ocean circulation project, said that any signs of a weakening in the ocean circulation that drives the Gulf Stream could indicate that some long-term change is under way.
"It may be the precursor of something more significant," Dr Gould said. "This is fairly strong and robust evidence and it is another piece in the jigsaw."
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-------------------------------------------------
Latest on the Kyoto bargaining...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CARBON
DIOXIDE EMISSIONS JUMP 2.7% IN THE U.S.
LA Times
June 30, 2001
WASHINGTON--Carbon dioxide emissions,
a major contributor to
global warming, jumped nearly
3% in the United States last year
while declining
in other industrialized nations, according to
preliminary
estimates released Friday. The new figures, compiled
by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, show
that the
United States released 1,558 million metric
tons of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere in 2000,
up 41 million tons from 1999. It was
the biggest
U.S. increase in years.
"That's an astonishingly
large increase in a single year," said
Robert Williams,
a senior research scientist at the Princeton
University
Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. "The major
reason is we don't have a policy to address this
problem. We need
to have a national target and some
kinds of incentives [for
business] and a regulatory
system that will get us to meeting
these national
goals." But Perry Lindstrom, an energy expert for
the
federal agency, said the 2.7% increase in carbon dioxide
emissions is a "normal fluctuation" from the average
annual growth
rate of 1.5%.
The statistics are
expected to increase pressure on the Bush
administration
to propose tough policies to rein in so-called
greenhouse
gas emissions. President Bush has been widely
criticized
by U.S. allies and environmentalists for his decision
to end U.S. participation in the Kyoto global warming
accord and
for reversing a campaign pledge to regulate
carbon dioxide
emissions from U.S. power plants.
The agency attributed the increase in carbon dioxide
emissions to
several factors:
The U.S. economy
continued to grow, increasing fossil fuel use
across
the board. Average temperatures dropped somewhat after
several years of abnormally warm weather, increasing
use of fossil
fuels to generate heat. And a drought
in the West reduced
hydroelectric generation and
boosted power production from fossil
fuel plants.
Transportation-related emissions, mainly from cars
and trucks,
jumped 2.6%, while industrial emissions
increased 1.8%, the agency
calculated.
Williams
said Americans' lifestyles are a major factor in the
increased emissions.
"In transportation, we
have had a major shift to sports-utility
vehicles
that are real intensive carbon dioxide emitters because
they're gas-guzzlers," he said.
The Bush administration
will have an opportunity later this summer
to deal
with that issue when it decides whether to tighten fuel-
efficiency standards for cars and light trucks,
including SUVs.
But, Williams said, it would take
more than that to reduce
emissions enough to avoid
major disruptions of the global climate.
In particular,
he said, the country must find alternative energy
sources
that do not release large quantities of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere.
Electrical power plants,
many of which are fueled by coal or
natural gas,
account for about a third of U.S. emissions of
greenhouse
gases. Nuclear power and renewable energy sources, such
as wind and solar power, produce no carbon dioxide,
but most
experts say they won't replace fossil fuel
power plants any time
soon under current economic
conditions.
China, the world's second-largest generator
of greenhouse gases,
has reduced its emissions by
17% since the mid-1990s by replacing
old coal-fired
power plants with more efficient ones. Over the
same
period, China's gross domestic product grew 36%. Britain's
emissions have fallen to a 10-year low for much
the same reason:
It has replaced older power plants
fueled by coal and oil with
natural gas plants,
which are more efficient and emit less carbon
dioxide.
The latest increase in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions
is expected
to be a sore spot next month when Bush
goes to the Group of 8
meeting of industrialized
nations in Genoa, Italy, and a U.S.
delegation attends
the next session of the Kyoto accord
negotiations--as
a observer instead of a participant.
The United
States is responsible for about a quarter of the
world's
total emissions of greenhouse gases. White House spokesman
Scott McClellan said Bush is concerned that global
warming
emissions are increasing. That is why he
named a Cabinet-level
task force to come up with
"innovative ways to pursue market-based
incentives
and make use of new technologies to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by a significant amount in the years
ahead,"
McClellan said.
Global warming is a
phenomenon caused by increasing concentrations
of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the Earth's
atmosphere. The gases trap solar heat, causing surface
temperatures to rise over time. Scientists believe
the long-term
environmental effects could be profound,
including increased
drought in semi-arid regions,
melting glaciers and higher sea
levels.
See
also-
Boston
Globe
Reuters
report
EIA
website
more news on recent emission figures here
-------------------------------------------
UK
greenhouse gas emissions fall to 10-year low
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UK: June 29, 2001
LONDON - Britain's emissions
of greenhouse gases, blamed by many scientists for global
warming, have fallen to a 10-year low mainly as a result
of a drop in pollution from power stations, the government
said yesterday.
Emissions from the electricity industry
dropped after new clean-burning gas power stations replaced
older plants fuelled by coal and oil - both big producers
of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for climate change.
Gas use in generation has grown from nothing in
1990 to around 30 percent.
"The downward trend is
well established in Britain. It shows countries can
adopt a series of measures with little or no cost to
the economy to meet their Kyoto targets," said Kate
Hampton, a spokesperson for environmental group Friends
of the Earth.
The National Statistics Office said
while emissions from industry fell between 1990 and
1999, pollution from households rose because of increased
energy use at home.
Emissions of greenhouse gases
by the non-domestic sector of the UK economy, weighted
by global warming potential, fell by 16.5 percent.
However,
emissions from households increased by 6.5 percent over
the same period.
Pollution from road transport increased
by eight percent between 1990 and 1999, mainly from
commercial vehicles, despite a fall of 0.5 percent in
the most recent year.
The Kyoto climate change protocol
calls for industrialised states to cut their carbon
dioxide emissions by an average five percent from 1990
levels by 2020.
Scientists say if countries do not
curb air pollution, then the climate will be affected
with temperatures rising in coming decades, leading
to higher sea levels and big changes in weather patterns.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
more news on recent emission figures here
--------------------------------
Taking
No Chances
Disaster-Conscious Firms Treat Global
Warming as a Reality
By Greg Schneider
Washington
Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 26, 2001; Page E01
After two unusually warm winters melted profits
at his natural gas distributing company in Dallas, Robert
W. Best decided he needed protection. So he spent $4.9
million on a new tool called weather insurance.
If
global warming causes the customers of his Atmos Energy
Co. to continue using less gas to heat their homes,
the policy will pay out cash to offset the company's
operating losses.
That's the kind of practical response
beginning to take place throughout U.S. industry as
business leaders face up to the prospect of climate
change.
While the Bush administration debates other
governments about whether man-made pollution causes
global warming -- and, if so, who should take responsibility
-- many industries are trying to cope with the realities
of extreme weather.
Insurance companies have begun
hiring meteorologists to reassess the risk of natural
disasters. Farmers are planting different types of crops
and looking for crisis-proof seeds. Great Lakes shipping
companies are petitioning Congress for dredging to compensate
for falling water levels. Colorado ski resorts are discounting
tickets to bring people back to the slopes after two
sweaty winters.
These changes are incremental, not
massive shifts in operations. But over time, those incremental
reactions could add up to a major adaptation to "climate
change's pervasive and growing impacts over the next
century," said Nick Sundt, a scientist with the U.S.
Global Change Research Program in Washington.
"I
don't know for sure about global warming, but I do know
the past 15 or 20 years have been warmer than normal,"
said Best, the chairman, president and chief executive
of Atmos. "Some people will claim it's the natural cycle,
but for us it doesn't really matter. . . . We've got
to do something to protect ourselves."
Atmos, which
distributes natural gas in 11 states, including Virginia,
began investing in weather insurance a year ago. The
winter that began in November 1998 and the one that
followed were both more than 15 percent warmer than
usual across the company's entire market, Best said.
He read about weather insurance in a trade journal
and bought it through energy broker Enron Corp. If temperatures
had been warmer than average last winter by a certain
amount, Atmos would have gotten money back. As it turned
out, last winter was slightly cooler and the insurance
didn't kick in. But Atmos, concerned about the broader
warming trend, has signed up for two to three more years.
Enron began offering the insurance in about 1997,
said Todd Kimberlain, chief meteorologist for Enron
Weather Risk Management. El Niño -- a periodic
flow of warm surface water in the Pacific that disrupts
weather patterns worldwide -- had produced several extremely
warm winters, and companies were looking for a way to
make themselves less financially vulnerable, Kimberlain
said.
Some scientists believe El Niño and
other weather systems intensify when gases such as carbon
dioxide are released into the atmosphere by the burning
of fossil fuels. Such substances are called greenhouse
gases because they tend to trap heat, warming up the
earth's surface.
The extra heat could provide energy
to drive El Niño, hurricanes and other weather
events. Warmer air can hold more moisture, so when it
does rain, there is more potential for flooding. The
real danger of global warming, some scientists say,
is that it could produce greater extremes in the weather
-- a possible explanation for such recent phenomena
as unforeseen high storm waves in the North Atlantic
and flooding in Europe.
An unusually fierce El Niño
has been blamed for reducing water levels in the Great
Lakes over the past three years. Pleasure boats float
below dock level and cargo ships can't pull up to shore
to unload -- all symptoms of a problem that caused shipping
companies to lose thousands of tons of carrying capacity
last year.
George J. Ryan, president of the Lake
Carriers' Association of shipping companies, said he
personally worries about the causes of the lower water
levels, but professionally just has to focus on the
solutions. "I have to say from an industrial standpoint,
I just have to consider what it will take for us to
remain competitive," he said.
While Great Lakes
water levels have gone through low cycles in the past,
Ryan said, none of them came on as quickly as the most
recent cycle. The recent warm winters prevented the
lakes from freezing, causing them to continue evaporating
year-round.
For now, boating interests are asking
Congress to spend about $2 million to deepen a pair
of Great Lakes channels. But both industry and scientists
fear global warming could cause long-term water loss
-- predicted to be as much as four feet by the end of
the century -- that would require far more expensive
dredging and could even threaten the U.S. steel industry
with crippling transportation costs.
The same uncertainty
has affected the recreational skiing industry. Beginning
in 1998, U.S. ski resorts suffered two straight winters
of unusual warmth and low snowfall. While this year
brought better conditions for the Northeast, several
resorts in Colorado had to extensively discount tickets
to boost their business. That led to sharp drops in
profits.
On the other hand, business is fine for
Areco Snow Systems North America, the Vermont-based
distributor of Swedish snow-making equipment. Artificial
snow has become the only way ski resorts can guard against
increasingly erratic winters, said the company's president,
Peter Geise. "There's definitely a warming trend," he
said.
For some industries, the biggest worry is
that the weather is becoming more unpredictable and
extreme.
"What's of increasing concern to those
in agriculture is that it seems like we have greater
variation in the weather," said Richard Stuckey, past
executive vice president of the Iowa-based Council for
Agricultural Science and Technology.
What farmers
really need, he said, are seeds that can withstand both
drought and floods. In western Iowa, for instance, a
recent period of unusual dryness led farmers to switch
from corn to the more drought-resistant sorghum. But
now they are struggling with unseasonably cool, wet
weather.
Wanda Sorrells hears similar complaints
from gardeners all over the country who call her for
advice at the Park Seed Co. in Greenwood, S.C. As a
senior staff horticulturist, Sorrells said she has become
increasingly perplexed by the weather extremes she hears
about from customers.
"There just seem to be unusual
occurrences and these fluctuations where it will be
unusually warm for a few weeks and then unusually cold,
and that can be hard on certain plants," Sorrells said.
The biotechnology giant Monsanto Co. has an extensive
search program for plant genes that are resistant to
drought and other stresses in hopes of engineering hardier
crops. While a company spokesman said those efforts
are not aimed specifically at global warming, they are
in response to an increasing demand from farmers for
more resilient plants.
Agricultural scientists agree
there are higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
But they disagree on whether the increase is caused
by human activity and whether it leads to global warming.
Higher carbon dioxide is not necessarily bad for agriculture;
it's what plants breathe, after all.
Even climatic
warming could have short-term benefits.
"The temperature
change in itself might lengthen the growing season and
it might enable people farther north to grow crops that
are now" not feasible, said Paul Waggoner, a scientist
at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in
New Haven. "Maybe the Dakotas would become like Kansas.
You'd go from spring wheat to winter wheat. That sort
of thing."
While farmers have years to adapt to
such potential changes, the uncertainty alarms another
industry: insurance, which needs to understand long-term
risk to set rates and stay financially viable. "They
don't want to get caught behind the eight ball and have
the risks change without them knowing about it in advance,"
said John M. Wallace, a professor of atmospheric sciences
at the University of Washington who has taken part in
national climate studies.
Many of his colleagues,
Wallace said, have held conferences to explain climate
change to the insurance industry, "and they're starting
to hire some of our graduates, as well."
One of
those graduates is Lixin Xeng, who advises insurance
companies as a vice president for risk analysis and
technology services at Benfield Blanch Co., a global
risk management and distribution firm.
"This year
is warmer than 50 years ago on average, no argument,"
Xeng said. "And what we're interested in is whether
this warming causes more natural disasters to occur."
Those disasters can range from the unexpected ferocity
of a Hurricane Andrew, which devastated southern Florida
in 1992, to the spread of a tropical disease such as
the West Nile virus in a temperate place such as New
York.
Meanwhile, British Petroleum PLC not only
accepts that rising levels of carbon dioxide are causing
the earth's average temperature to rise, it hopes to
make a profit on it. The company is looking for profitable
ways to reduce emissions and hopes to become the world's
largest manufacturer of solar energy equipment.
"Now
people are starting to look at this as a business opportunity,"
said Jeff Morgheim, who occupies a new position at BP:
climate change manager. Companies, he said, are starting
"to look at this in a whole new way."
© 2001
The Washington Post Company
----------------------
Informal climate talks in The Hague 25th to 28th of June 2001- most recent news first
other news reports here 1, 2, 3
EU
presses Japan, US to allow deal on Kyoto
EU:
June 28, 2001
BRUSSELS, - The European Union's top
environment official said yesterday the future of the
Kyoto pact on global warming depended on the political
will of Japan and the non-interference of the United
States.
Commenting during high-level talks in The
Netherlands aimed at paving the way for a meeting in
Bonn next month to shore up the shaky environmental
deal, EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said
negotiators were "facing a difficult situation".
"We
are working hard to get an agreement in Bonn and are
willing to be flexible," Wallstrom said in a statement
released in Brussels.
"The key question is: do other
countries, including Japan, have the political will
to make Bonn a success? And will the U.S. let the other
parties go ahead? That is at least what President (George
W.) Bush promised." The talks, in the Dutch seaside
town of Scheveningen, are aimed at clarifying exactly
what can be achieved in Bonn - a meeting seen by many
as the last chance for keeping Kyoto alive since the
United States rejected the deal in March.
The EU
wants Japan to push ahead with the 1997 climate change
deal with or without the United States.
Japan, which
previously negotiated alongside the United States to
get flexible rules on cutting greenhouse gases, is trying
to bring the U.S. administration back on board - an
ambition considered hopeless by most EU officials.
Japanese
Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, in an interview
with the BBC yesterday, repeated that Japan would try
to bring the United States back into the treaty, but
did not say if Tokyo would back the deal without the
participation of Washington.
However, she did say
Japan was in line with the European Union and other
nations in trying to make the protocol legally binding
next year.
"We would like to see the protocol enter
into force by 2002," she said.
"We are committed
to make it into force by 2002."
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
other news reports just below 1, 2, 3
back to latest other news on the Kyoto bargaining
------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia
seeks wider "sinks" use in climate talks
NETHERLANDS:
June 28, 2001
SCHEVENINGEN, The Netherlands, - Russia
is insisting at informal climate talks that more of
its forests and farmland be counted as "carbon sinks"
to reduce its greenhouse gas totals, Germany's environment
minister said yesterday.
Russia was setting out
its position at high-level talks in the Netherlands
aimed at paving the way for a meeting in Bonn next month
to shore up the 1997 Kyoto pact on global warming, which
the United States has rejected.
"Russia demands...to
have more forest and (farm) land being accounted," German
Environment Minister Juergen Trittin told Reuters on
the sidelines of the talks. There was no immediate confirmation
from Russian delegates.
The reported Russian move
comes two weeks after the head of the U.N. climate change
forum, Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, issued
proposals that would allow Japan to claim wide areas
of forest and farmland toward its pollution targets
laid out under Kyoto.
The move to accommodate Japan
was designed to keep Tokyo's support for the protocol
following the U.S. President George W. Bush's rejection
of the pact earlier this year.
Keeping the support
of both Japan and Russia are seen as key to achieving
ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for
industrialised states to cut carbon dioxide emissions
by an average of five percent from 1990 levels by 2010.
Carbon dioxide emissions, partly from the burning
of fossil fuels, have been blamed by many scientists
for contributing to global warming, which is expected
to boost temperatures in the coming decades, raising
sea levels and sharply altering weather patterns.
KYOTO TARGETS
Russia is expected to meet its Kyoto targets
easily, since economic decline there has trimmed industrial
output of carbon dioxide, but wider usage of "carbon
sinks" would allow it to sell spare capacity to other
states, Trittin said.
Such emissions trading could
be lucrative for Russia and useful for rich industrialised
states that would otherwise fall short of their Kyoto
goals.
Environmental groups have criticised the
emissions trading component as a market in 'hot air,'
but Trittin said there was strong support among some
European countries for such a system.
"There are
countries inside the EU who would need emissions trading
to meet their Kyoto targets," he said.
The informal
negotiations among dozens of countries were called by
Pronk and began earlier this week. They are to end on
Thursday.
A handful of environmental protesters
gave Pronk a life preserver at a protest outside the
meeting on Wednesday and called on all delegates to
ratify the treaty.
Russia and Japan are seen as
key to ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to make it
legally binding. It must be ratified by 55 countries
representing 55 percent of the global carbon dioxide
output. Romania is currently the only industrialised
state to have officially adopted the protocol.
Despite
the Russian conditions, Trittin said he still saw a
willingness by Russia to bring the protocol into force.
"It's very clear Russia wants ratification. The
rumours that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is standing
aside with (U.S. President Bush) are not true," he said.
In an interview with the BBC, Japanese Environment
Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi reiterated earlier statements
that Japan would continue trying to bring the United
States back into the treaty, but did not comment on
whether Tokyo would back the treaty without the participation
of Washington.
However, she did say Japan was in
line with the European Union and other nations in trying
to make the protocol legally binding next year.
"We
are committed to make it into force by 2002," she said.
Story by Matt Daily
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
other news reports here 0, 2, 3
------------------------------------------------
States
huddle over climate change ahead of Bonn
NETHERLANDS:
June 27, 2001
SCHEVENINGEN, The Netherlands Ministers
from dozens of countries yesterday pored over the latest
proposals to curb global warming gasses at a final gathering
before key U.N. talks next month in Bonn.
The talks,
billed as an informal discussion on plans presented
by United Nations climate change forum chief Jan Pronk,
were also the last chance for a meeting behind closed
doors to prod wavering states, such as Japan, to back
the Kyoto Protocol after the United States rejected
the treaty earlier this year.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol
calls on industrialised states to cut emissions of carbon
dioxide by an average of five percent from 1990 levels
by 2010.
Carbon dioxide partly produced by burning
fossil fuels has been blamed by many scientists for
contributing to global warming, which is expected to
boost temperatures in the coming decades, lifting sea
levels and altering weather patterns.
Pronk, who
is also the Dutch environmental minister, issued proposals
to jump start the stalled talks earlier this month with
special provisions that would allow Japan to move closer
to its output reduction targets by using its forests
as carbon absorbing 'sinks'.
It was not immediately
clear whether Pronk's plan went far enough to keep support
in Tokyo, where many politicians are wary of breaking
ranks with the United States over the issue.
Swedish
Environmental Minister Kjell Larsson told Reuters on
the sidelines of the meeting that the European Union
was satisfied with using Pronk's proposals as the basis
for the Bonn negotiations.
"Unfortunately there
seem to be other countries that don't share that view,"
he said, declining to specify which states expressed
reservations.
Jennifer Morgan, climate change director
for the environmental group World Wildlife Fund, said
the pressure was mounting on Japan to move forward without
the United States, as the European Union has said it
would.
"The future of the protocol lies in the hands
of Japan. It will either live or die depending on what
Japan decides," she said.
A delegation from the
U.S. State Department was also attending the talks,
despite criticisms from President George W. Bush that
the Kyoto targets were unrealistic and did not include
output cuts by developing nations, such as China and
India.
Larsson said the US team had participated,
but had not shown any sign they would support the pact.
"It's too early to say," he said.
report from Japan Times just below
more recent news pieces on The Hague
REUTERS NEWS
SERVICE
------------------------------------
Japan, EU lock horns over COP6
THE HAGUE (Kyodo)
Japan and the European Union
remained at odds Monday after
separate discussions
among negotiating blocs of mostly industrialized
countries
on a compromise plan that would lead to ratifying the
Kyoto
Protocol next month.
Representatives from
Japan, the EU and other countries are here for an
informal
ministerial conference on global warming from Tuesday
to Thursday
to prepare for the sixth Conference
of Parties of the U.N. Framework
Convention on Climate
Change (COP6), aimed at finalizing the operational
rules
of the Kyoto Protocol.
A new proposal for the global
warming talks was drafted by Dutch Environment
Minister
Jan Pronk, who chaired last year's collapsed talks here
and who
will chair the resumed COP6 session from
July 16 to July 27 in Bonn,
Germany.
In order
for the Kyoto Protocol to be swiftly ratified, agreements
on the
operational rules must be reached during
the resumed session, along with
treaty ratification
by the EU and Japan.
However, the prospects of this
happening seem to be diminishing, given the
succession
of criticism from Japan and others of Pronk's draft
plan, which
would be the basis for the operational
rules.
Pronk's proposal, released June 11, is seen
as giving preferential treatment
to Japan -- considered
a key nation in the protocol's swift enforcement --
as it accepts nearly all of Japan's demands regarding
the use of forests to
absorb carbon dioxide.
The
issue of "carbon sinks" is a focal point of the resumed
session, as The
Hague talks last year collapsed
because of differences over the importance
of these
environmental preserves.
According to Japanese government
officials, at Monday's high-level meeting
of a negotiating
bloc that also included Australia and the United States,
there was sharp criticism of the proposal and opposition
to it underscoring
the resumed session.
At the
meeting, the U.S., the world's largest carbon dioxide
emitter, also
reaffirmed its intention to withdraw
from the protocol, as originally
announced by U.S.
President George W. Bush in March.
Meanwhile, another
negotiating bloc comprising the EU and countries of
the
Middle East held an unofficial meeting the same
day and basically agreed to
resume the session based
on the proposal, according to sources close to the
negotiations.
These diverging stances suggest a scenario in which
Japan is pitted
primarily against the EU in future
negotiations, according to sources in the
two blocs.
Earlier Monday, Environment Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi
met with British
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott
in London, where they agreed to make
joint efforts
in future protocol negotiations. Kawaguchi later flew
here to
attend the ministerial meeting.
As Prescott
has previously served as an intermediary between the
U.S. and
the EU, it is hoped he will also help bridge
the Japan-Europe gap.
The Kyoto Protocol, signed
in 1997, aims to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions
of
industrialized countries by an average 5.2 percent from
1990 levels by
2012.The Japan Times: June 27, 2001
(C) All rights reserved
----------------
EU mission to visit over Kyoto protocol
BRUSSELS (Kyodo)
A European Union delegation will visit Japan
on either July 6 or 9 in an effort to save the 1997
Kyoto Protocol on global warming, EU diplomatic sources
said Wednesday.
The schedule is tentative, but those
two days are the only ones on which the EU mission can
visit Japan and Australia, who are traditionally allies
of the United States on climate change, the sources
said.
EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom
and representatives from Sweden and Belgium will be
included in the delegation.
The representatives
will be decided Thursday, the sources said.
Belgium
will take over the six-month rotating EU presidency
from Sweden on July 1.
The mission is aimed at obtaining
commitments from the two countries to ratify the international
accord on curbing global warming.
EU leaders agreed
on the mission during summit talks last week.
The
EU is concerned about the possibility that Japan and
Australia will follow the United States in rejecting
the pact, which legally requires developed countries
to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.
In the
leadup to the resumed U.N. climate-change talks in Bonn,
Germany, scheduled to open in mid-July, the EU is trying
to garner support from U.S. allies as they are pivotal
to bringing the pact into force by next year.
The
Kyoto pact will take effect with ratification by at
least 55 parties, which must include developed countries
representing at least 55 percent of the total 1990 carbon
dioxide emissions from the group.
Since the United
States, the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide,
has announced its rejection of the agreement, the EU
is aiming for ratification of the treaty even without
the U.S., and other big emitters, including Japan and
Russia, have become crucial to salvaging the accord.
Japan has not clarified whether it will ratify the
treaty if the U.S. stays out of the framework, while
Australia has expressed a negative view on ratifying
the pact without the U.S.
The EU sent a delegation
to Japan, Russia, China and Iran in April to discuss
the repercussions of U.S. President George W. Bush's
announcement that America would pull out of the international
environment agreement.
The Japan Times: June 22,
2001
(C) All rights reserved
-------------------------
German
eco-employment on the rise
Environment Daily 1015,
22/06/01
-------------------------
About 1.3m
Germans now have environment-related jobs, amounting
to
3.6% of the entire workforce, the country's environment
agency reported
yesterday. The agency predicts that
the figure - which is based on
1998 data - will
double by 2005.
Environment minister Jürgen
Trittin leapt on the figures as proof of
his government's
contention that ambitious environmental policies - and
particularly climate policies - also benefit the
economy. Another
report published earlier this year
came to the same conclusion (ED
12/03/01 ).
Eco-employment was now one of the
country's biggest sectors, the
minister continued,
counting for more jobs than mechanical engineering
(1.15m),
car making or the food industry (both under 1m).
The
new research is presented in the German environment
agency's
annual report for 2000. Other topics reviewed
are EU and national
chemical policies, transport,
the government's ongoing ecological tax
reform programme
and drinking water safety.
Follow-up: German
environment agency
tel: +49 30 89 03 22 26,
a
press release
eco-employment
background paper (pdf) and annual
report (pdf)
See also
environment ministry press release.
---------------
German govt, industry sign CHP-subsidising deal
GERMANY:
June 26, 2001
FRANKFURT - An extended deal on encouraging
heat and power (CHP) plants as part of a scheme to lower
greenhouse gases emissions was signed by the German
government and industry yesterday, the economics ministry
said.
This followed broad agreement on the complicated
deal last month and precedes its presentation to parliament
with the aim of putting in place a new CHP law for January
1, 2002, to replace existing regulations.
"I am
pleased to see that, after difficult negotiations, we
have accepted voluntary measures by the industry instead
of the originally planned quota system," economics minister
Werner Mueller said in a press statement.
"I want
to stress that we now also include small engine-driven
CHP plants and the promotion of fuel cells with an additional
budget of 700 million marks up to 2010.
"I expect
a significant investment and innovation push from these
measures."
Through the voluntary measures, combined
with a payment scheme benefitting CHP operators to be
borne partly by consumers, the energy sector expects
to lower CO2 emissions via additional CHP usage by 23
million tonnes per year until 2010.
This is part
of a broader commitment to save a total 45 million tonnes
of CO2 each year until that date.
The scheme, which
entails degressive payments to CHP operators, meets
government demands that CHP-related state subsidies
should not exceed eight billion marks.
New plant
projects will be monitored to ensure the industry sticks
to its pledges - otherwise, Mueller said, a quota system
feared by industry and favoured by environmentalists
will be installed.
CHP power is environmentally
friendly, but costly, as it captures and passes on the
heat derived from power generation.
The talks had
been dragging on because they needed to reconcile the
interests of big industrial energy producers, hundreds
of small municipalities and industrial consumers.
Under
the latest deal, the operators of the fledgling fuel
cell technology, which use hydrogen and oxygen to produce
electricity and heat, have been given green light for
expansion.
Small engine-driven CHP plants, typically
of less than two megawatt capacity and used for the
on-site demands of small companies and public institutions,
have been encouraged.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
----------------------------
NZ
carbon dioxide emissions rose 22 pct in '90s
NEW
ZEALAND: June 28, 2001
WELLINGTON, - New Zealand,
whose carbon dioxide emissions grow 22 percent in the
decade of the 'nineties, is further away from its commitment
to the Kyoto global warming treaty to cut greenhouse
gases, the government said yesterday
The latest
annual report on New Zealand's energy sector shows that
gross carbon dioxide emissions grew two percent between
1999 and 2000, Energy Minister Pete Hodgson said in
a statement.
"This data represents the size of the
challenge faced by New Zealand in meeting its climate
change commitments," Hodgson said.
New Zealand's
overall carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and
industrial process sectors increased by 22 percent between
1990 and 2000, up from 20 percent the previous decade.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, named for the city in Japan
where it was signed, calls for industrialised countries
to trim output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse
gas, by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels,
by the year 2012.
The Kyoto treaty obliges New Zealand
to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by
2008-2012, or take responsibility for emissions above
that level, Hodgson said.
New Zealand's gross carbon
dioxide emissions in 2000 were 31.1 million tonnes in
2000, compared to 25.5 million in 1990.
New Zealand
plans to announce in November a set of steps to try
to meet its Kyoto objectives.
The government is
also considering negotiated greenhouse pacts for energy-intensive
industries and those with high emissions levels, in
an expansion of its current voluntary agreements programme.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
more recent news on emission inventories
----------------------------
Europe trades cleaner fuels ahead of German tax break
UK:
June 25, 2001
LONDON - European oil companies are
gearing up to a German tax break in favour of ultra-low
sulphur fuels by buying and selling increasing volumes
of cleaner diesel and petrol, traders with those firms
said on Friday.
From November 1, motor fuels sold
in Germany with a sulphur content higher than 50 parts
per million (ppm) will be subject to an additional duty
of three pfennigs per litre.
This tax burden will
be extended to fuels with sulphur content of more than
10ppm from January 1, 2003.
Michael Winkler, head
of environmental affairs at German refinery industry
association Mineraloelwirtschafts-verband (MWV), said
that there had "so far been no domestic refiner that
has complained that it can't make the November 1 date."
He said the extra cost of manufacturing ultra-low
sulphur (50ppm) diesel was about three pfennigs per
litre relative to the current 350ppm standard grade
required under existing European Union legislation.
"The price for the normal fuels will be the same
as, if not higher than the lower sulphur," Winkler said.
"The goal is to totally replace the higher sulphur fuels."
A diesel barge trader with an oil major active on
the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) market said he
had on Thursday sold a 2,000-tonne Rotterdam refinery
barge of 50ppm to another major at $25 a tonne over
July IPE gas oil futures.
The trade, done at a price
that was $12 a tonne above deal levels for 350ppm diesel,
followed the sale of another 4,000 tonnes on Wednesday.
"I expect a total of about 10,000 tonnes of 50ppm
diesel barges to be sold this week," the trader said.
"That compares with about 50,000 tonnes of 350ppm diesel."
Traders said refiners were slowly but surely building
up to the November 1 German deadline.
"It's starting
slowly; Germany will start soon refreshing tanks for
the change-over; people are trading it at the moment,
testing out their storage facilities, and so on," one
ARA trader said.
Ultra-low sulphur diesel (ULSD)
and ultra-low sulphur petrol (ULSP) - also 50ppm sulphur
- are already widely sold by petrol retailers in Britain,
encouraged by government tax incentives.
ULSD is
also widely available in the Netherlands, while ULSP
is sold at petrol forecourts across Scandinavia.
Gasoline
traders have seen growing interest in trading of ULSP
on the northwest European cargo market over recent months.
They expect barge trading to start in earnest this autumn.
The European Union has already set an indicative
limit of 50ppm sulphur for both petrol and diesel effective
from January 1, 2005, but no final agreement on these
Auto-Oil restrictions aimed at reducing traffic pollution
has yet been reached.
Story by Keyvan Hedvat
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
-------------------------------------------------------
French power bills to rise on high wind prices - CRE
UK:
June 25, 2001
LONDON - French electricity bills
will rise significantly as the government has set high
guaranteed prices for wind-generated electricity, said
the country's energy watchdog CRE on Friday.
Earlier
on Friday, the government confirmed wind energy producers
will be paid 55 centimes per kilowatt hour for the first
five years and then prices will fall to an average 48
centimes/KWh over 15 years.
State-owned Electricite
de France will pay the fixed prices to the wind producers
and then can pass the cost to consumers.
"The CRE
(Commission de Regulation de l'Electricite) believes
the price proposed for wind producers will lead to a
significant increase in electricity prices in France,"
said the watchdog in a statement.
It estimated that
if 10,000 MW of wind power was built under this system,
residential prices would have to rise three percent
and industrial prices by 15 percent to pay for the wind
energy.
This is equivalent to an increase of between
one and two centimes per kilowatt hour. The cost of
subsidising France's whole renewables programme, which
includes solar and biomass, will come to 3-4 centimes/KWh
by 2010.
France, which depends heavily on nuclear
power, has very little wind generation and the government
wants to kick-start the sector to increase the amount
of electricity produced from green sources.
The
regulator added the proposed prices were well above
wind generators' production costs and raised a question
about state-aid to the sector.
"The government has
chosen a very expensive way of doing this. With the
same targets, the costs could be a third lower for example
by using market driven mechanisms," Thierry Trouve,
in charge of relations with producers and suppliers
at the CRE told Reuters by telephone from Paris.
Trouve
said wind generators' operating costs were between 30
and 35 centimes/KWh while typical French electricity
prices were around 20 centimes/KWh.
Because EdF
is government-owned, the programme could be interpreted
as state aid and the government did not seek European
Union approval before setting the tariffs, said Trouve.
Recently the European Court of Justice ruled that
generous prices paid by German utilities for renewable
energy were allowed under EU law but Trouve said that
case was different as the companies were privately owned.
"The problem is to know if the French scheme is
compatible with that EU decision," he said.
The
French government has said it chose the guaranteed price
system to develop renewables as it would be quicker
than using market mechanisms like green certificates.
In market-based systems, renewable generators issue
green certificates which are bought by suppliers as
a way to meet legal commitments to buy a certain amount
of electricity from environmentally friendly sources.
France has a target to produce 21 percent of its
energy from renewable sources by 2010, building on the
15 percent currently generated by hydropower.
The
government is working on fixed price proposals for small
hydro, solar and biomass.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
---------------------------------------------
Oslo says to meet Kyoto goals with new technology
NORWAY:
June 25, 2001
OSLO - Norway said on Friday it would
promote new pollution-free technology in power plants
to help it keep a promise to combat global warming under
an international climate pact rejected by the United
States.
"The government wants Norway to ratify the
Kyoto protocol," Environment Minister Siri Bjerke told
a news conference, referring to the 1997 deal on limiting
emissions of gases blamed for driving up world temperatures.
She said that Norway, which has promised to limit
a rise in emissions of "greenhouse gases" to one percent
by 2008-12 from 1990 levels, would seek new technology
to eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from gas-fired
power plants.
"The government invites industry to
cooperate on such technology," she said. "We will support
construction of a demonstration plant for a pollution-free
gas power plant to be ready around 2005," she said.
Oslo would also continue to tax emissions of CO2
by industry until an international system for trading
emissions quotas was in place.
Oslo further proposed
a shift from the use of oil to natural gas in buses,
ferries and ships supplying the offshore oil and gas
industry.
It would also promote ways of supplying
electricity to offshore oil and gas platforms, now among
the biggest sources of greenhouse gases in Norway. Bjerke
said she had no overall estimates of costs of the plan.
She said that Norway was stepping up work to fight
"greenhouse gases" after U.S. President George W. Bush
decided in March to reject the Kyoto protocol, reckoning
it was too costly and unfair because it excludes developing
nations.
"Norwegian work on Kyoto has been intensified
since March," she said. Scientists say creeping climate
change is spreading deserts, bringing more extreme weather
in floods or hurricanes and raising sea levels.
"Norway
will cooperate closely with the European Union so that
the Kyoto protocol enters into force," she said. Norwegians
voted "No" to EU membership in 1994.
Norwegian environmental
group Bellona welcomed the Norwegian measures. "We're
very pleased. Emission free gas power plants and electrification
are big, big steps forward," Frederic Hauge, head of
Bellona, told Reuters.
In April, Prime Minister
Jens Stoltenberg had hinted that Norway might scale
back its fight against global warming after the U.S.
rejection. He later said his remarks were misinterpreted.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
ENDS report on Norway's climate strategy just below
-------------------------
Norway
publishes climate white paper
Environment Daily
1015, 22/06/01
-------------------------
The
Norwegian government today launched its white paper
on climate
policy with a reaffirmation of its commitment
to the Kyoto protocol.
Responding to recent media
reports that it was planning to postpone
ratification,
the environment ministry said in a statement: "The
government
wants Norway to ratify the Kyoto protocol, and Norway
will
cooperate closely with the EU and with other
countries so that the
Kyoto protocol will come into
force."
The white paper emphasises research and development,
in particular of
"profitable technology [for] CO2-free
gas-fired power stations," and
implementation of
"a broad quota system with a ceiling on emissions" in
respect of which the government sees itself as an
"innovator".
In the shorter term, it recommends:
continuation of existing CO2
taxes pending implementation
of the quota system; collaboration with
industry;
measures to reduce or limit non-industrial sulphur
hexafluoride
emissions, as well as emissions of HFCs and PFCs; use
of
natural gas as fuel for buses, ferries and vessels
serving the offshore
oil sector; and local and regional
climate projects.
Norway is committed under Kyoto
to a maximum 1% increase in
greenhouse gas emissions
from 1990 levels in 2008-2012, and to
demonstrating
"clear progress" by 2005.
The focus on CO2-free gas
technology is something of a U-turn for the
government,
as plans for several conventional gas-fired power stations
are already well advanced. According to the white
paper, the aim is now
to build a CO2-free pilot
plant by 2005. Some commentators are
convinced that
this would mean scrapping the current projects.
In
the industrial sector, the government will rely on voluntary
agreements to achieve reductions and/or stabilisation.
In the
aluminium industry, for example, new figures
released yesterday show
that the sector has cut
greenhouse gas emissions by 52% over the past
ten
years. Much of that reduction - equivalent to 4% of
the national
total - stems from a voluntary agreement
drawn up in 1997.
Follow-up: Norwegian
environment ministry
tel: +47 22 24 58 10, and
press
release.
Reuters report on the same topic here
-------------------------
French
climate challenge underlined
Environment Daily 1015,
22/06/01
-------------------------
French greenhouse
gas emissions were 1% below their 1990 level in 2000
but will rise significantly in future without new
counter-measures, the
country's inter-ministerial
commission on climate change (MIES)
reported this
week. France is committed to pegging emissions to 1990
levels by 2008-2012 under the Kyoto protocol.
According
to MIES, the key policy priority must be to introduce
new
economic instruments, especially aimed at moderating
energy demand and
increasing penetration of renewable
energies. The commission
acknowledged that the government
has faced "serious difficulties" in
introducing
such measures, but called for these to be "surmounted
without delay ".
Chief among the government's
failure on economic instruments has been
an industrial
energy tax. This was due to enter into force in January
but was ruled unconstitutional at the last minute
(ED
03/01/01).
It formed the centrepiece of a national
climate change action
programme launched in January
2000 (ED
20/01/00 ).
Follow-up: MIES,
tel: +33 1 42 75
87 40, and the
commission's review (word format)
-------------------------
EU
climate trading scheme set to emerge
Environment
Daily 1016, 25/06/01
-------------------------
The
European Commission is close to proposing rules for
an EU-wide
carbon dioxide emission trading scheme,
it has emerged. Circulated
internally by the Commission's
environment directorate, the draft
directive would
establish a highly flexible trading regime from 1
January
2005.
If it passes this next test, the directive
could be formally proposed
before international
talks to finalise the Kyoto protocol resume in
Bonn
next month. Its emergence would mark a huge about-turn
in EU
attitudes to emission trading since the protocol
was agreed in 1997 and
provide an important signal
reaffirming its determination to implement
it.
According
to the draft text, which has been seen by Environment
Daily,
the scheme would cover only carbon dioxide
(CO2) emissions, and would
initially be restricted
to certain installations under IPPC
legislation,
such as oil refineries, coke ovens, smelters, cement
kilns, pulp and paper mills, and iron and steel
furnaces. Chemical
plants would be excluded.
Also
covered would be any combustion or power plant with
a thermal
capacity of over 20 megawatts, with the
exception of waste
incinerators. The directorate
estimates that this scope would cover up
to 5,000
installations EU-wide, responsible for 40% of total
CO2
emissions. Member states would be able to propose
other sectors for
inclusion in the scheme.
EU
governments would allocate emission allowances, expressed
in tonnes
of CO2 equivalent, to firms covered by
the scheme. They would be free
to choose the amount
allocated, in line with their own Kyoto emission
reduction
commitment, and to choose the allocation method, though
all
allocations would have to comply with EU state
aid rules.
Firms would have to keep within their
allowance by reducing emissions
or buying emission
rights from other companies. Failure to do so would
make them liable to fines of euros 200 per tonne.
The directorate says
this is ten times the anticipated
market value of carbon allowances.
Cross-border
trades would result in appropriate adjustments to national
emission reduction targets.
The scheme would
initially run for three-years. During this time firms
would be able to "bank" allowances from one year
to the next. Whether
they could carry them forward
into a second phase >from 2008 would be at
member
states' discretion. In subsequent five-year allocation
cycles
they would have unrestricted rights to bank
allowances.
The directorate proposes no central body
to organise a carbon
exchange. It says it is "convinced
that market structures will arise
once the obligations
are clear," and should be "left open to solutions
driven
by the private sector." The proposal as a whole is "as
simple as
it can be," it concludes.
Follow-up:
European Commission http://europa.eu.int/comm, tel:
+32 2
299 1111.
Reuters report on the same topic just below
------------------------------------------------------------------
EU
drafts ambitious climate emissions trade plan
EU:
June 25, 2001
BRUSSELS - A wide range of major European
Union industries will be forced to take part in buying
and selling the right to emit carbon dioxide (CO2),
under a draft EU law seen by Reuters on Friday.
Oil
refiners, electricity generators, metals smelters and
processors and makers of cement, glass, ceramic, pulp
and paper would all be required to take part in the
"emissions trading" scheme which would start in 2005,
the draft says.
The European Commission has said
it will propose the emissions trading system, which
is still under internal discussion, before the end of
the year.
The plan - drawn up by the European Commission's
environment department - is a key part of the EU's policy
to achieve the cuts in the emissions gases blamed for
global warming in the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate
change.
Under Kyoto - the United Nations climate
change pact recently rejected by the United States because
of fears over its impact on the economy - the EU must
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by eight percent of
1990 levels by 2012.
The draft law on emissions
trading would require governments to grant industrial
installations the right to emit a certain annual amount
of CO2 - a gas produced as an inevitable result of burning
fuel which makes up 80 percent of the total greenhouse
gas emissions covered by Kyoto.
STIFF FINES
If
a plant emits less than its allocation it would be allowed
to sell the surplus. If it overshoots it would have
to buy credits from other companies - or face a stiff
fine.
If firms failed to reduce their emissions,
or to buy credits to make up for the any shortfall,
they would have to pay 200 euros ($170.8) for every
excess tonne of C02 - 10 times the amount the Commission
reckons emissions will trade for.
The Commission
says emissions trading will not in itself reduce greenhouse
gases, but will allow industry to find the cheapest
ways of cutting emissions.
The idea is not new.
Emissions trading in the acidifying pollutant sulphur
dioxide is already well established in the United States
and some European countries, such as Denmark and Britain,
have started work on their own CO2 trading systems.
But the EU-wide scheme would be the first major
international CO2 emissions trading scheme and could
be a pre-cursor to an international market, the draft
says.
INTERNATIONAL MARKET
Emissions trading
is one of the main "flexible mechanisms" allowed under
the Kyoto pact and is seen as critical tool for some
countries to be able to meet their emissions targets.
It is also of huge interest to Russia whose emissions
have dropped substantially since 1990 due to economic
decline and stands to profit if it is able to sell its
CO2 credits to countries where emissions have risen.
The draft legislation is still being finalised by
the Brussels-based EU executive and will then have to
be approved by EU governments and the European Parliament,
and is likely to be the subject of rigorous debate.
One likely discussion point is the choice of industry
sectors that are targeted and the minimum size of plants
that will be affected.
The chemicals industry is
largely exempted under the draft, despite the fact it
is covered by EU laws on environmental permits.
Waste
incineration and transport are also not covered by the
scheme and neither are combustion plants of less that
20 megawatts.
Also, the other greenhouse gases covered
by Kyoto - methane, nitrous oxide and three fluorinated
gases - will not be traded under the scheme as this
would be too complicated, the draft says.
Story
by Robin Pomeroy
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
ENDS report on the same topic here
------------------------------------------------------
UK puts nuclear power on the
agenda
ENDS 26/06/01
-------------------------
UK prime minister Tony Blair yesterday threatened
an explosive row
over possible new nuclear power
capacity as he launched the country's
first comprehensive
energy review for 20 years.
The review is aimed
at juggling long-term British energy security with
the
need to continue cutting greenhouse gas emissions against
a picture
of dwindling domestic oil and gas production.
The UK has been a big net
petroleum exporter, but
is set to become a net importer again within
the
next decade.
Mr Blair's Labour government pledged
not to build any more nuclear
stations in the run-up
to its 1997 election victory, but didn't repeat
the
promise before its re-election earlier this month.
One
part of the longer-term solution, the government it
has now
signalled, might be to resume a nuclear
power generation programme
stalled since 1987. Nuclear
currently produces 25% of UK electricity.
On current
trends this could fall to 3% by 2020, with gas supplying
half of energy needs, coal 6% and renewables 4%.
Britain's environmental movement reacted sharply
to the suggestion of
a renewed nuclear programme
yesterday, calling for major support of
renewables
instead. NGOs warned that Brian Wilson, the energy minister
who will lead the review, was "pro-nuclear".
Across
Europe, Finland is the only other country considering
building
more nuclear plants. Most countries with
existing nuclear capacity are
seeking to phase out
the industry.
Follow-up: UK
press release . See also a project
scoping note .
related report: study
shows nuclear power economically unviable
-------------------
Economics
likely to hamper British nuclear revival
UK:
June 27, 2001
LONDON - Nuclear power, dead and buried
across much of Europe, is back under the spotlight in
Britain after the government this week launched an in-depth
review of the nation's future energy needs.
New
Energy Minister Brian Wilson, who is said to be pro-nuclear,
on Monday said the government would look at what role
nuclear power could play in Britain's future energy
mix, as well as assessing coal, gas, oil and renewables.
The move comes six years after the UK last commissioned
a reactor and underscores nuclear's one big advantage
over fossil fuels - the absence of greenhouse gas emissions
which many scientists believe cause global warming.
But analysts said they doubted the economics of
hugely expensive new reactors, which can take up to
a decade to build, could be made to work in a liberalised
energy market characterised by tumbling electricity
prices.
"The decision to invest is down to commercial
companies looking for a particular rate of return which
make it difficult to justify nuclear unless there are
very large premiums for emission reductions," said Neil
Cornelius at industry consultants ICF.
"I don't
see emissions permits as sufficiently valuable in the
short to medium term to make up (for the high start-up
costs)," he said.
New nuclear power stations cost
three to four billion pounds ($4-$6 billion) to build,
about four times as much as a gas-fired plant, analysts
say.
"If you needed to make serious investment without
any guaranteed return in deregulated markets then that
could be very tricky," said David Newbery, an energy
expert at Cambridge University.
JUGGLING OBJECTIVES
The clock is ticking for Britain's energy policymakers
who must juggle the need for long-term, secure energy
supply with a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions
by 23 percent below 1990 levels by 2010.
Nuclear
accounts for roughly 22 percent of electricity supply
in the UK, with coal and gas about a third each.
Renewable
energy like wind and solar power accounts for just under
three percent of supply, including hydro-electric plants.
Renewed prospects for nuclear power in the UK, where
the last reactor was built in 1995, drew sharp condemnation
from environmentalists.
"This energy review, and
the fight against climate change, must not be used as
an excuse to build a new generation of nuclear reactors,"
said Friends of the Earth campaigner Mark Johnson.
In
addition to worries about safety, a big issue is how
to dispose of radioactive nuclear waste from the plants
which takes thousands of years to decay.
A reprieve
for nuclear power in the UK would go against the approach
taken across much of Europe.
Germany and Sweden
have taken the plunge and decided to phase out nuclear
energy and most other EU states are not actively developing
nuclear power.
But France still relies on nuclear
energy for 80 percent of electricity.
Finland is
alone is expanding its nuclear sector with plans to
build a fifth reactor.
LIFE SPAN EXTENSION UNCERTAIN
Analysts said it was unclear to what extent Britain
could minimise the need to build new reactors by extending
the life of existing plants.
"To determine the potential
for life extension you need a sustained period of continuous
operation over several years," said Stewart Gray, analyst
at Scotland-based consultants Wood Mackenzie.
"Most
of (British Energy's) AGR reactors have been up, down,
broken and fixed. Life extension is a very uncertain
issue," he said.
But he said on current evidence
it appeared the UK's ageing reactors would shut before
their counterparts in mainland Europe.
State-owned
British Nuclear Fuels has already started shutting down
its old Magnox plants and plans to switch them all off
by 2021.
But Gray did not rule new nuclear stations
in Britain in the longer term.
"My guess is that
the UK would like to see new builds in the U.S. first
but in that case we would be looking at 20 years down
the line for new plants in the UK," he said.
Story
by Stuart Penson
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
------------------------------------
Belgium becomes third
country to authorise KP ratification: news reports in
Dutch
On Thursday the 21st of June, Belgians
Second Chamber, the Senate, has authorised its government
to proceed towards ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
This makes belgium the third EU Meber State to do so
after France (June 2000) and Denmark (May 2001).
De Morgen
22-06-2001 Pagina 280 woorden
Kyoto
krijgt fiat van Senaat
De Senaat heeft donderdag unaniem het wetsontwerp goedgekeurd ter instemming van het protocol van Kyoto over klimaatsverandering. De Senaat is het eerste parlement van België dat het protocol van Kyoto stemt. Ook de gewesten dienen hun fiat nog te geven. De Hoge Vergadering is niet het eerste Europees parlement dat het protocol goedkeurt. Frankrijk en Denemarken waren eerder, zo had Agalev-senator Johan Malcorps nagetrokken.
De Financieel Economische
TIJD
VEV roept overheid op tot realisme bij implementatie
Kyoto-protocol
Werkgevers voorstander van convenant
over energie-efficiëntie
Mark Deweerdt 22-06-2001
Pagina 4 551 woorden
(tijd) - Het Vlaams Economisch
Verbond (VEV) roept de federale en de Vlaamse regering
op het Kyoto-protocol op een realistische manier te
implementeren, met aandacht voor milieu, mens én
economie. De Vlaamse bedrijven zijn bereid met de overheid
bindende afspraken te maken over een maximale energie-efficiëntie
van hun productie.
In Kyoto werden in december 1997
bindende doelstellingen afgesproken voor de vermindering
van de uitstoot van broeikasgassen, ter uitvoering van
het internationaal verdrag over klimaatverandering.
Dat verdrag, dat in 1992 in Brazilië werd gesloten,
beoogt de uitstoot van broeikasgassen te beperken, om
gevaarlijke klimaatveranderingen te voorkomen. Het debat
over Kyoto gaat de verkeerde kant op en wordt te veel
in slogantaal gevoerd, zei Philippe Muyters, de gedelegeerd
bestuurder van het VEV, gisteren op een persconferentie.
De Vlaamse werkgeversorganisatie pleit voor een realistische
benadering, die de economische, ecologische en sociale
aspecten van de zorg om het milieu verzoent. Marc van
den Bosch van de VEV-studiedienst beklemtoonde dat Kyoto
een hoofdzakelijk economisch dossier is. De winst voor
het milieu is immers hoogst onzeker. De voorgestelde
reducties zullen de CO2-concentratie in de omgevingslucht
niet doen dalen. Kyoto heeft bovendien weinig zin als
de Verenigde Staten, de grootste uitstoter van CO2,
niet meedoet. Bij de verdeling van de CO2-vermindering
tussen de landen van de Europese Unie heeft België
er zich toe verbonden de uitstoot van CO2 in de periode
2008-2012 met 7,5 procent te verminderen ten opzichte
van het referentiejaar 1990. België en Vlaanderen
hebben daarmee te veel hooi op de vork genomen, zegt
het VEV. Duitsland, bijvoorbeeld, kan zijn doelstelling
halen door vervuilende fabrieken in de voormalige DDR
te sluiten, Engeland door om te schakelen van steenkool-
op aardgascentrales. Dat is een niet te onderschatten
economisch voordeel. Draconische maatregelen Wegens
het hoge aandeel van de energie-intensieve bedrijven
kan België de afgesproken norm niet halen, tenzij
met draconische maatregelen. Men zou twee derde van
de Vlaamse industrie kunnen dichtdoen, met een verlies
van 400.000 arbeidsplaatsen tot gevolg, of het vervoer
op de weg zo goed als uitschakelen, zei Muyters. Zelfs
als de tien grootste bedrijven in Vlaanderen sluiten,
wordt het milieu er niet beter van, want die bedrijven
kunnen immers probleemloos uitwijken naar Portugal,
Spanje of Griekenland. Dat de federale regering en de
Vlaamse regering vorige week aankondigden het Kyoto-protocol
door hun parlementen te laten ratificeren, heeft voor
het VEV vooral symboolwaarde. De werkgeversorganisatie
zou liever zien dat België van het EU-voorzitterschap
gebruikmaakt om de vraag te stellen of het wenselijk
is bedrijven te sluiten, en om een debat op gang te
brengen over energie-efficiëntie. Uit een enquête
leerde het VEV dat de Vlaamse bedrijven bereid zijn
en er de voorkeur aan geven met de overheid een convenant
te sluiten over de verbetering van hun energie-efficiëntie.
Grote bedrijven zouden zich engageren de wereldtop te
halen, kleinere bedrijven zouden de verbintenis aangaan
hun energiegebruik te laten doorlichten. Bedrijven die
de afgesproken doelstellingen halen, zouden vrijgesteld
kunnen worden van een eventuele energietaks. Als de
bedrijven de wereldtop niet halen, zouden zij verplicht
worden emissierechten te kopen bij de Belgische overheid,
die daar op haar beurt in het buitenland moet voor aankloppen.
Senaat
Overigens keurde de Senaat gisteren unaniem
het wetsontwerp goed ter instemming met het protocol
van Kyoto over klimaatverandering. De Senaat is het
eerste parlement in België dat het protocol bekrachtigt.
De Kamer en de parlementen van de gewesten moeten dat
nog doen. MD
---------------------------------------------
Fresh look at wind energy blows to US from Europe
USA:
June 26, 2001
NEW YORK - Windpower is poised for
a relaunch in the United States, where regulators, investors
and utilities, following Europe's lead, are tilting
toward improved technology that now makes windpower
cost-effective, experts say.
Long-tainted by failures
that burned early U.S. backers and by critics who saw
windmills as an eyesore and as a danger to birds, windpower
still only provides the United States with less than
1 percent of its energy.
"But now there is a perceived
shortage of power that wasn't there 5 to 10 years ago,"
said Maurice Miller, an independent renewable energy
consultant in California, where a bungled attempt at
deregulation and a host of other factors has made rolling
electricity blackouts part of life in the state.
"Wind
energy companies are now perceived as viable, competitive
businesses," said Miller, who, as former chief financial
officer of U.S. Windpower, the wind industry's most
notorious failure would know.
Nowadays, windpower
is a viable business by nearly any standard, and is
growing at 25 percent a year worldwide.
Led by Denmark,
which gets 10 percent of its electricity from wind,
and by widespread wind development in Germany and Spain,
well-placed windfarms in spots such as the American
plains states are estimated to be capable of producing
three times the total electricity now generated in the
entire nation.
Wind turbine technology, vastly improved
in recent years, is ideal for flatlands where hot air
rises - off the plains of the Dakotas, Kansas and Texas,
for instance - and where cool winds are drawn off bodies
of water such as the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico
or the Pacific Ocean off California's coast.
SLOW
TO SHIFT
But Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Fleishman
said wind is still a "minute factor" for the two biggest
players in the U.S. windpower market, giant utility
Florida Power and Light , and Enron Corp. , the largest
U.S. maker of wind turbines.
Still, spurred by prices
that make windpower as affordable as natural gas or
coal as well as by tax subsidies for developers and
government mandates requiring utilities to buy more
power from renewable energy sources, both companies
are now involved in big windpower projects.
And
now a handful of other U.S. fund managers say wind has
huge potential to make money. So much so, that Jack
Robinson's Winslow Green Growth and Green Century Balanced
mutual funds have twice the weighting in renewable energy
companies as the S&P 500 index .
"Wind is at
an inflection point where it doesn't need subsidies
to be competitive with traditional power sources," Robinson
said.
THE COST OF WIND
While governor of Texas,
President George W. Bush signed a law mandating utilities
to buy more power from alternative energy sources. Texas
now has the fourth largest installed windpower capacity
in the United States, and can deliver wind power at
a competitive 5 cents per megawatt hour.
But Robert
Beningson, chief executive of York Research Corp., an
alternative energy developer based in New York City,
said wind only achieves such competitive prices with
the crutch of tax subsidies for developers.
What
the U.S. wind industry needs now to catch up with Europe's
wind power craze, Beningson said, is an extension of
the Production Tax Credit (PTC), a move mentioned but
not mandated in the Bush administration's new proposed
energy policy.
Lyn Harrison, editor of industry
magazine Windpower Monthly agrees.
"Wind is Bush's
chance to marry his big business stance and the environmental
messages in his proposed energy plan," said Harrison,
whose magazine has offices in wind-rich Denmark and
California.
Long term forecasts in the early 1990s
by Pacific Gas & Electric and the Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI) said wind would ultimately
become the least expensive electricity source.
Current
data shows those forecasts are no longer pipe dreams.
Based on its knowledge of current market conditions,
the Washington, D.C.-based American Wind Energy Association
(AWEA) estimates that the cost of tax-subsidzed wind
energy at good sites ranges from 3 cents to 6 cents
per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Without the tax subsidies,
or PTCs, wind generated electricity still sells at a
low cost between 4 cents and 6 cents per kWh, comparable
with the 4.8 cent to 5.5 cent per kWh cost of coal and
the 3.9 cent to 4.4 cent per kWh cost of gas.
WIND'S
TROUBLED PAST
But experts note that wind still suffers
from its early bad reputation with U.S. investors.
Since
its inception in the United States the late 1970s, the
American wind power industry faced an uphill battle
against bigger and more established oil and gas companies.
In September 1993, a California company called U.S.
Windpower, then the only U.S. maker of wind turbines,
raised $90 million in an initial public offering underwritten
by Merrill Lynch, hoping to use the money to improve
its turbine technology.
By May 1996, U.S. Windpower
filed for bankruptcy after a series of mechanical failures
proved windpower too expensive.
"There isn't a major
institutional investor who wasn't burned by U.S. Windpower,"
said Jan Paulin, chief executive of Sea West, a private
wind developer based in San Diego. "Their efforts were
noble but they miscalculated."
Because wind development's
cost reflects the time and money needed for making better
equipment, scouting the windiest sties, and getting
permits to build wind farms, the economics of the wind
turbine business are highly sensitive to the interest
rate banks charge developers, experts say.
"It's
a shame that U.S. institutional investors have such
an outdated view of the industry and the technology,"
Paulin said. "To this day, most of the U.S. wind power
developments were initially funded by European banks."
Also, governmental commitment to windpower in Europe
helped jump-start the industry before it became self
sufficient.
WINDPOWER IN EUROPE
If wind farms
were financed on the same terms as natural gas plants,
their cost would drop by nearly 40 percent, according
to an AWEA study.
Technological improvements that
enable turbines to generate steady streams of power
no matter what the wind's speed means that it is just
a matter of time before U.S. investors, like Europeans,
head straight into the wind business, fund manager Robinson
said.
"American investors will come to wind, but
they may not be investing in U.S. companies at this
point in time as there are very few pure plays," said
Robinson, whose funds hold the shares of Denmark's two
biggest publicly listed wind turbine makers, Vestas
Wind Systems, the largest wind turbine maker in the
world, and NEG Micron, the No. 4 wind turbine company
in the world.
Shares of Vestas and NEG Micron -
both part of the Copenhagen Bourse's top-20 index, KFX
- soared on May 1 after a Danish government researcher
forecast that wind turbines would supply 10 percent
of the world's electricity in 20 years.
Soon after,
Merrill Lynch started coverage of Vestas with a "neutral"
rating in the intermediate term and a "buy" rating in
the long term, citing a belief that the wind power companies
were on course for a sustained period of strong growth.
Denmark already gets 10 percent of its power from
wind, and Vestas and NEG Micron share prices have doubled
in a year.
Vestas also holds a 40 percent stake
in world's No. 2 wind turbine maker, Gamesa Eolica,
which is part of Spain's Gamesa Group.
Story by
Jonathan Landreth
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
------------------------------------
Japan
should sign Kyoto treaty without US - WWF
JAPAN:
June 25, 2001
TOKYO - Japan should ratify the Kyoto
treaty on global warming without the United States and
not set a precedent for one country to hinder an international
agreement, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said
on Friday.
Japan, the host of the 1997 meeting and
a key ally of Washington during the negotiations, has
been hesitant to ratify the treaty, saying it was meaningless
unless the United States, the world's biggest economy,
did the same.
The United States, also the world's
biggest producer of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
gases, decided in March to abandon the Kyoto protocol,
saying it unfairly imposed limits only on developed
countries and threatened to hurt the its economy.
"I
think it is clear that the U.S. will not change its
mind," Director of WWF Climate Change Campaign Jennifer
Morgan told a news conference in Tokyo. "We call for
the prime minister to make a decision to move ahead
before he leaves for the U.S."
Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush
are expected to discuss the issue when they meet at
Camp David on June 30.
Washington has said it would
come up with a substitute plan for the treaty by seeking
the participation of developing countries as well as
industrialised ones.
But Morgan said Japan should
not wait for the U.S. plan but join the European Union
and a growing number of nations in ratifying the Kyoto
Protocol.
"The U.S. plan would take time and it
would set a terrible international precedent that one
country's decision could set a decision on an agreement
on environment," she said.
For the pact to take
legal effect, it must be ratified by 55 states representing
55 percent of total man-made output of carbon dioxide.
Many EU member countries have said they will move
forward without the United States and are wooing Japan
to follow suit. An EU mission is set to visit Japan
again in the coming weeks to convince Tokyo after failing
to do so in April.
The Kyoto pact commits industrialised
countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by an
average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Scientists
believe greenhouse gas emissions trap heat in the earth's
atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
REUTERS
NEWS SERVICE
-------------------------------------------------------
Belgian
climate chief calls for clarity on Kyoto
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EU: June 21, 2001
BRUSSELS - The man who will
represent the European Union at climate change talks
next month has challenged the other nations involved
to say exactly where they stand on the Kyoto global
warming pact.
Belgian Energy Minister Olivier Deleuze
said yesterday countries should state, ideally by next
week, whether or not they will push ahead with the 1997
global warming deal, which the EU backs but the United
States opposes.
"Europe is clear...I think we now
need clarity from the other partners," Deleuze said
in an interview with Reuters.
Kyoto commits developed
countries to cut emissions over the coming decade of
the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
Deleuze,
a Green party member of Belgium's Liberal-Socialist
- Green coalition, will head the EU delegation at make-or-break
talks on the Kyoto protocol in Bonn next month.
When
the United States rejected Kyoto the EU said it would
push ahead regardless.
But the European bloc can
only salvage the deal with the support of other countries
which have yet to say if they will stay on board without
the Americans.
Japan, seen by diplomats as a crucial
player, said yesterday it still hoped to persuade the
United States to back Kyoto. The EU is set to pay diplomatic
visits to Japan and Canada to discuss it ahead of the
Bonn meeting.
THE BASIS FOR BONN
Deleuze said
he also hoped diplomats meeting in The Hague next week
would clarify what they hoped to achieve at Bonn, which
is supposed to finalise the rules on Kyoto.
"Not
just Japan, although Japan of course has a totally crucial
role. It's necessary that the international community
makes clear on what basis we are going to Bonn," he
said.
Countries should say whether or not they thought
the latest compromise paper issued by the climate talks
chairman, Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, was
a fair basis for negotiations, Deleuze said.
"Do
we agree to negotiate on the basis of the Pronk paper?
Will these negotiations bring us to an agreement that
will fulfil the conditions (required to bring the deal
into force)? We're not going to go to Bonn knowing nothing."
The EU is keen to avoid a repeat of similar talks
in The Hague last November where differences between
Europe and the United States - which under the Clinton
administration still backed Kyoto - prevented a final
deal.
"The European Union must show it's ready to
compromise," Deleuze said, "But that's not a renegotiation
of the protocol - it was negotiated in 1997 and signed
by countries, including the United States."
Deleuze
declined to say which areas the EU was prepared to move
on, but acknowledged what had been the most problematic
points for the United States and for its allies including
Japan, Canada and Australia.
"Everyone knows the
sensitive points," Deleuze said.
The main ones were
how much could countries use "flexible mechanisms" such
as buying the right to pollute, and how much their forests
and farmlands could be considered "sinks" that soak
up carbon and reduce the need to cut emissions, he said.
Story by Robin Pomeroy
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
UK
says it will push ahead on Kyoto treaty
------------------------------------------------------------------------
UK: June 21, 2001
LONDON - Britain's Labour government said yesterday it would push ahead with efforts to cut greenhouse gases by meeting its commitments under the Kyoto treaty, even though the pact has been abandoned by the United States.
In the Queen's speech at the
state opening of parliament, which sets out legislative
proposals until late next year, the government of Prime
Minister Tony Blair said it was committed to tackling
climate change and making a reality of sustainable development.
"It (the government) will fulfil the United Kingdom's
international obligations arising from the Kyoto Protocol,"
the text of the speech said.
The 1997 Kyoto accord
on global warming requires developed nations to meet
emission reduction targets that could mean big investments
by power plants and other industrial sources of greenhouse
gases.
In a meeting with European leaders last weekend,
U.S. President George W. Bush stuck to his position
that the Kyoto treaty should be abandoned, saying it
hurt the U.S. economy.
Downing Street said Blair's
policies delivered and even exceeded Kyoto commitments.
"The government's programme is estimated to cut
the UK's greenhouse gas emissions by 23 percent below
1990 levels by 2010, almost double the UK's target under
the Kyoto Protocol of a 12.5 percent reduction below
1990 levels by 2008-2012," the government said in a
statement.
The government has also set a domestic
goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent below
1990 levels by 2010, it said.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Australia welcomes talks with EU on Kyoto pact
AUSTRALIA:
June 20, 2001
CANBERRA - Australian Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer said yesterday he welcomed a visit
by European Union delegates who are seeking to shore
up support for the Kyoto climate treaty.
The European
Union (EU) plans to send a new mission worldwide to
urge states to ratify the Kyoto protocol after the United
States rejected the pact which seeks to limit emissions
of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases thought
to cause global warming.
Australia's stance on Kyoto
has remained ambiguous with Prime Minister John Howard
saying he sympathised with Washington's concerns over
Kyoto's failure to include developing nations like China
which are increasingly big polluters.
But Downer
denied that the conservative government, which is trailing
in polls ahead of an expected year-end election, backed
the U.S.'s rejection of Kyoto.
"We haven't said
that we'd back the U.S. position," Downer told reporters
yesterday. "We've signed up to the Kyoto Protocol. We
haven't unsigned what we've signed."
Downer said
he was looking forward to meeting EU officials to talk
about Kyoto, possibly next month.
"How the Kyoto
process is taken forward now that the Americans have
made the decision they've made, that's something we'll
have to work through with the Europeans, with the Americans,
the Japanese and the Russians," Downer said.
The
EU is hoping to reach a final agreement on the protocol
at a United Nations summit in Bonn in July.
President
George W. Bush has enraged environmentalists and provoked
stern rebukes from the EU for his decision not to ratify
the Kyoto protocol.
The United States - the world's
top producer of carbon dioxide - pulled out of the treaty
earlier this year, saying it was harmful to its economy
and did not include developing nations.
The pact,
agreed in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997, foresaw
industrialised nations cutting emissions of greenhouse
gases by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels
by 2012.
Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter,
had agreed to limit its emissions to eight percent above
its 1990 levels due to its heavy reliance on fossil
fuels.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
-------------------------------------------------------
Japan
PM to hold summit talks with Britain, France
------------------------------------------------------------------------
JAPAN: June 19, 2001
TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi will travel to Europe for meetings
with the leaders of Britain and France after a summit
at the end of the month with U.S. President George W.
Bush, the top government spokesman said yesterday.
Koizumi,
on his first overseas trip since he swept to office
in late April, will fly to Britain and on to France
after meeting Bush on June 30 at the Camp David presidential
retreat outside Washington, top government spokesman
Yasuo Fukuda told a news conference.
He will hold
talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on July
2 and meet French President Jacques Chirac on July 4.
Koizumi will also hold talks with French Prime Minister
Lionel Jospin in Paris before returning home on July
5, Fukuda said.
Domestic media said Koizumi wants
to meet leaders of Japan's key allies before the Group
of Eight summit of advanced nations and Russia to be
held in Genoa, Italy, in late July.
While there
are no pressing issues between Japan and the two European
countries, the Kyoto agreement on global warming that
the United States has rejected would be a likely topic
for discussion, analysts said.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
---------------------------------
EU
urges Japan to commit to Kyoto pact
GOTEBORG,
Sweden (Kyodo) Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden,
which currently holds the European Union's rotating
presidency, on Saturday urged Japan to take a resolute
stand toward ratifying the Kyoto Protocol aimed at curbing
global warming.
"I really hope that the Japanese
government will be strong and consistent in their support
for the Kyoto Protocol," Persson told Kyodo News, with
a view to the resumed session in July's Sixth Conference
of Parties of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change in Bonn, Germany.
Persson stressed that the
international environment agreement aimed at curbing
global warming is "the only tool" to combat climate
change globally. He made his remarks following the conclusion
of the EU summit meeting in Sweden's city of Goteborg.
In Europe there are widespread concerns over Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's remarks in a Diet
debate Wednesday, where he said, "At the moment, we
have not decided to make a decision independently" from
the U.S.
He was responding to Yukio Hatoyama, leader
of the Democratic Party of Japan, who urged the prime
minister to seek Diet approval for the pact independently
as a step to pressure the U.S. to change its position.
Koizumi's comment appears to reflect Tokyo's delicate
position. A Japanese official in Tokyo told Kyodo by
telephone, "Frankly, Japan is not so sure about going
ahead without the United States," because it may result
in repercussions on relations between Tokyo and Washington,
which is the axis of Japan's foreign policy.
EU
leaders agreed Friday to send a diplomatic mission to
Japan, Australia and Canada in a bid to procure their
commitments to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Persson
said the failure of international negotiations on deciding
the operational rules over the treaty would set the
world back at least 10 years.
He also urged Japan
to become more assertive in the upcoming resumed talks
on global warming, in light of the EU leaders' having
obtained a pledge >from U.S. President George W. Bush
during a meeting Thursday that Washington will not counteract
agreements made in Kyoto Protocol negotiations.
Last
Monday, Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol as "fatally
flawed" and called for an alternative requiring the
participation of developing countries and more science-based
solutions.
In 1992, the international society adopted
the Framework Convention on Climate Change, after which
the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 during the convention's
third meeting in Kyoto.
The protocol requires industrialized
countries to impose binding limits on emissions of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases by an average of
5.2 percent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.
This
goal, however, was thrown into turmoil mainly because
of the recent de facto withdrawal of the U.S., the world's
largest carbon dioxide emitter, from the treaty.
The
EU has recently pledged to ratify the Kyoto treaty.
T
he Japan Times: June 18, 2001
(C) All rights reserved
EU renewable energy law all but finalised
ENDS Daily, 20/06/2001
---------------------------------
A draft EU directive to promote electricity from
renewable sources came close to finalisation today as
the European Parliament's energy committee endorsed
a compromise reached between governments and the assembly's
rapporteur MEP Mechtild Rothe. But an argument over
whether biodegradable waste burning should be classed
as renewable is likely to delay adoption of the law.
Under the deal, individual member state targets
to increase renewable electricity generation will remain
non-binding, and national renewable support schemes
will enjoy a seven-year transition period once the EU
agrees a harmonised support scheme. The European Commission
is to propose harmonising rules within four years of
the directive's entry-into-force.
The parliament
earlier called for mandatory targets and a ten-year
transition period to protect successful feed-in subsidy
schemes in Germany and France. In return for dropping
these the rapporteur won a stronger commitment to introduce
binding targets if the indicative approach fails, and
better access to electricity distribution networks,
including possible transfer of connection costs from
generators to grid operators.
Ms Rothe negotiated
the deal last night with the Swedish presidency representing
all 15 EU governments. The move is unusual, and is aimed
at avoiding a lengthy conciliation battle. The compromise
must still be approved at a parliamentary plenary session.
The one remaining sticking point is whether the
biodegradable fraction of mixed municipal waste should
be classed as renewable. At first reading EU governments
agreed it should be, while the parliament took the opposite
view, urged on by environmental groups claiming the
move would divert subsidies from "real" renewables and
discourage waste prevention (ED
27/03/01).
Italy and the Netherlands are strongly
opposed to changing the classification, backed by Portugal
and the UK. To force a conciliation over the issue,
the parliament would have to reiterate its demand. The
energy committee voted to do this today, but only by
25 votes to 22. This signals a very tight plenary vote,
since at second reading an absolute majority is needed
to adopt proposals.
Follow-up: European
Parliament energy committee, tel: +32 2 284 2111,
where the adopted amendments will soon be posted
------------------------
Belgian
EU presidency will push for energy tax
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EU: June 21, 2001
BRUSSELS - Belgium will push
to harmonise energy taxes across the European Union
when it takes over the rotating six-month presidency
of the bloc next month, its energy minister said yesterday.
Belgium, one of the leading advocates for deeper
European political integration, will push the idea for
harmonised energy tax levels, despite reservations from
more Eurosceptic nations such as Britain, Belgian Energy
Minister Olivier Deleuze said.
"The Belgian government
has said one of its aims is to try to get an agreement
on a harmonised framework of energy taxes between the
biggest number of member states," Deleuze told Reuters
in an interview.
Deleuze said Belgium would carry
on diplomatic efforts started by the Swedes, who will
relinquish the EU presidency at the end of June, to
get the unanimous agreement between the 15 EU countries
which is required for changes to EU tax policy.
The
EU's executive Commission proposed setting minimum EU
tax levels on energy products such as coal, gas and
electricity in 1997. Minimum tax on oil duties already
exist.
But the draft legislation hit deadlock as
national governments - particularly Spain and Britain,
according to EU diplomats - refused to relinquish their
sovereign right to set taxes.
Sweden failed to makes
substantive progress on the issue and the legislation
was again rejected by finance ministers when they last
met earlier this month.
But Deleuze said it should
be possible to create a framework law which sets the
legal structure for harmonising taxes without actually
setting tax rates. The Swedish presidency had already
been working on this idea, he added.
Once the law
was in place, groups of countries could push ahead with
harmonisation while others could opt out, Deleuze said.
"We will make contacts see if we can get agreement
on a directive on the structure - which would be a kind
of empty box in which there's room to set rates for
energy tax," he said.
"Then we would see if those
rates can be set by 'enhanced cooperation'," he said,
referring to the process of some countries moving ahead
with EU policies faster than others.
Deleuze, a
member of the ecologist faction of Belgium's Liberal-Socialist-Green
coalition, said energy tax was a key policy for reducing
greenhouse gases blamed for causing global warming and
that harmonising them within the EU was essential to
prevent unfair competition between member states.
"Obviously
no country will agree to take any measures that will
lead to relocation of companies (from their territory).
And that's quite right because a chimney in Germany
or in Belgium is still a chimney - so we need a certain
amount of de facto harmonisation."
Story by Robin
Pomeroy
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
-------------------------
EU sustainable development strategy
adopted
Environment Daily 1011, 18/06/01
-------------------------
European leaders adopted the bloc's first ever sustainable
development strategy at their summit meeting in
Gothenburg on Saturday.
The environmental dimension
of the parallel "Lisbon strategy" on
becoming the
most competitive region in the world will be reviewed
at
every spring summit of EU leaders from now on,
starting next year.
Under the strategy, member states
will have to develop national
sustainability plans,
major EU policy proposals will include
sustainability
impact assessments, EU institutions will improve
internal
policy coordination between different sectors, and progress
will be reviewed annually, with the aid of "headline
indicators" to be
developed before next spring's
Barcelona summit. The Cardiff process
of sectoral
integration will also be reviewed at this time.
For
the most part a long series of specific actions proposed
by the
European Commission have not been taken up
by EU leaders, as predicted
by Environment Daily
- (ED
15/06/01).
On climate the leaders "reaffirm"
the EU's commitment to the Kyoto
protocol and to
"work to ensure" it enters force by 2002. They also
reaffirm a "determination" to meet indicative targets
for increasing
renewable energy generation.
Under
new guidelines for funding trans-European transport
networks,
the strategy calls for priority funding
for public transport, railways
and inland waterways;
it also "notes" the Commission's intention to
propose
a framework ensuring that by 2004 the price of using
different
modes of transport "better reflects costs
to society."
The EU must also "decouple economic
growth from resource use" by
implementing an integrated
product policy, and manage resources better
by ensuring
the common agricultural policy contributes to
"environmentally
sustainable production methods," including organic
production,
renewable raw materials and biodiversity protection.
Public health should be protected by a new EU chemicals
policy before
2004 which should ensure substances
"do not lead to a significant
impact" within a generation.
Responding to the strategy today, EU environment commissioner
Margot
Wallström expressed disappointment that
leaders had not been "more
specific on concrete
actions," but called the strategy a "big step
forward"
for putting the environmental dimension of sustainable
development on a par with the economy and social
issues. All the
Commission's proposals "remain on
the table," she insisted.
One particular area where
heads of government had "missed an
opportunity for
political leadership," said the commissioner, was their
failure to endorse a proposal for the EU to commit
to specified cuts in
greenhouse gases beyond the
Kyoto protocol "first commitment period" of
2008-12.
A spokesperson for Swedish environment minister
Kjell Larsson said
the EU presidency had also wanted
more "targets and timetables" but
that it had to
tone down its ambitions because of delays in the
Commission.
"It's a fact that they had 18 months from the Helsinki
summit, and we only got it a month ago," she said.
For CNE's Goteborg page, click here
----------------------------------------------------
German
power plants meet emissions cut targets - VDEW
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GERMANY: June 19, 2001
FRANKFURT - German power
plants since 1990 cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions
by nearly eight percent, showing they were serious about
global climate protection goals, electricity industry
body VDEW said yesterday.
German production of power
from coal, oil and gas rose by five percent in the period
under review, a VDEW statement said, citing latest surveys.
But their annual emissions of CO2 - thought to contribute
to global warming - during that time dropped to 267
million tonnes from 289 million, it added. The German
power industry in 1996 had pledged to reduce annual
CO2 emissions by 12 percent to 255 million tonnes by
the year 2015. VDEW president Guenther Marquis said
the reduction by 22 million tonnes in the 1990s showed
that power companies were keeping their earlier promises.
This was also demonstrated by the specific CO2 emissions
savings per kilowatt hour - these dropped by 13 percent
to 0.58 kilogram per kWh in the period under review,
VDEW said. VDEW said new plant constructions, higher
efficiency rates, and the increased usage of gas with
lower specific CO2 emissions had contributed to these
savings. Other factors were the expansion of renewable
energy sources and combined heat and power (CHP) plants
in Germany. Nuclear energy currently helps save 160
million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually, as these would
be incurred if the third of German power output they
contribute was produced at plants based on fossil fuel
usage, VDEW said. Industry and government have agreed
to phase out Germany's nuclear power plants by the mid-2020s.
Germany is to host the sixth annual U.N. Conference
of Parties (COP6) to discuss the 1997 Kyoto Protocol
aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Bonn (July
16-27).
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
------------------------------------------------------------------
CHINA SAID TO SHARPLY REDUCE CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS
New York Times June 15, 2001
BEIJING, June 14
- In the debate on global climate change it has long
been a given that China, with its huge population and
endless coal reserves, would overtake the United States
early this century as the biggest source of the atmospheric
pollution that scientists believe is warming the planet.
That specter of runaway Chinese emissions has been cited
by President Bush as a major reason for describing as
"fatally flawed" the 1997 Kyoto agreement to protect
the climate. The treaty exempts developing countries,
including China, from its initial, binding limits on
the output of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse
gases that scientists believe are causing traumatic
changes in the climate. But treaty obligation or not,
China has already achieved a dramatic slowing in its
emissions of carbon dioxide in the last decade, Chinese
and Western energy experts say. That record of progress
has pushed further into the horizon the day that China
will surpass the United States as the lead culprit,
and it is something that Mr. Bush seems to have overlooked
in his harsh appraisal. Chinese officials insist that
their country will do its fair share to combat a serious
global threat. "We already have one of the world's best
records in improving energy efficiency," Zhou Dadi,
director of the Energy Research Institute of the central
government's State Development Planning Commission,
said in an interview. "Our challenge is this: Can we
give people an acceptable lifestyle and also address
the problem of climate change?" Mr. Zhou said. "As an
energy expert, I think we need a demonstration from
a developed country to prove that a high living standard
can be associated with lower carbon emissions," he said.
"Then China will follow that example or even do better."
In the most surprising development, China's annual output
of carbon dioxide in the last four years of rapid economic
growth has actually declined, according to data compiled
by the United States Department of Energy. While the
numbers could be overstated because of flaws in both
economic and energy statistics, some experts think,
China does seem to have achieved a stunning if temporary
reversal of the usual trend during economic expansion.
"China's emissions of carbon dioxide have shrunk by
17 percent since the mid-1990's," according to an April
report from researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory in California. "Remarkably, over the same
period, G.D.P. grew by 36 percent." "Even without undertaking
binding commitments under an international agreement,"
the researchers concluded, China "has nevertheless contributed
substantially to reducing growth in global emissions."
This achievement has been a welcome side effect of China's
shift to market prices for fuels, including an end to
coal subsidies, and its programs to encourage energy
conservation and fight urban air pollution, mainly by
curbing the burning of coal. Only a few years ago, many
studies projected that China would emerge as the world's
leading source of carbon dioxide by 2020, but these
recent developments appear to have put off that day
by years or even decades. Although the United States
has improved its energy efficiency since the oil crises
of the 1970's, recent trends like the fad for large,
gas-guzzling vehicles have undermined the former goal
of returning carbon dioxide output to 1990 levels. "There
is a good basis to argue that China has done more to
combat climate change over the past decade than has
the United States," according to a new report by the
Natural Resources Defense Council, an American environmental
group that aids energy conservation projects in China.
Mr. Bush, most recently on Monday, has said he cannot
support the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in large part because
it exempts China and other developing countries from
the initial limits on emissions of greenhouse gases
that richer countries are supposed to accept. With his
condemnation of the hard- won treaty, Mr. Bush has set
off a tempest in Europe and many developing countries,
which are more convinced of the looming threat of climate
change and had thought they had agreement to act. The
signatory countries will meet next month in Bonn to
search for ways to save an agreement with some teeth.
In his speech on Monday, Mr. Bush complained that China,
as the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after
the United States, "was entirely exempted from the requirements
in the Kyoto Protocol." Chinese officials point to what
they feel is their unacknowledged progress, but they
also say the rich countries, which account for most
of the carbon dioxide that has already accumulated in
the atmosphere, must show that they are serious. "We've
done what we can to reduce emissions, and we'll continue
to do so," Gao Feng, a senior Foreign Ministry official
here who has taken part in the climate negotiations,
said in a recent interview. "But it's not fair to ask
the developing countries to take the lead." "Before
the developed countries show that they will do something
real and good to address this issue, why should the
developing countries make a commitment?" Mr. Gao asked,
repeating the arguments that have led to an impasse
between developing nations and the Bush administration.
Because it is so large and makes such enormous, inefficient
use of coal - the worst fuel in terms of climate effects
- China is second only to the United States in emissions
of carbon dioxide. At the same time, its people consume
on average only one-tenth as much energy as Americans,
and they hunger for economic advances. In the last decade,
according to data compiled by the United States Energy
Department, China's carbon dioxide emissions from the
burning of fossil fuels have climbed at annual rate
of 0.9 percent - lower than the 1.3 percent a year registered
in the United States, even as China's economy expanded
much more rapidly. Despite the recent slowdown, experts
say, substantial future growth in carbon dioxide emissions
is inevitable in China as the country develops. Yet
officials here also say that China accepts the need
to work against global warming and that at some point,
they know, China will need to accept international targets.
"Strategically, we have adopted climate change as an
important concern in our energy planning," said Mr.
Zhou of the Energy Research Institute. Before 1980,
Mr. Zhou said, China's energy use increased 1.6 times
as fast as the economy. But in the last 20 years, he
said, energy use has grown at less than half the rate
of the economy - an exceptional advance in the efficient
use of fuels. India and other large developing countries
have also improved efficiency but not as dramatically.
With a combination of increasingly stringent regulations,
like energy codes for new buildings, as well as other
conservation programs and rising prices, Chinese planners
hope to preserve a similar low ratio of energy use to
growth in the decade to come, Mr. Zhou said. "It's not
easy because there is no precedent anywhere in the world,"
he said. Fuel use in much of China remains extremely
wasteful, however, leaving opportunities for large gains.
"Our per capita energy use is just one-tenth of that
in the United States and one-seventh of that in Europe,"
Mr. Zhou said. "With development, it must be increased.
"I don't think China can achieve a unique style of development,"
he said. "Americans drive cars while we ride bicycles;
you live in houses while we live in dormitories." Frank
Loy, who as under secretary of state under President
Clinton helped negotiate climate issues and has since
left government, said he believed that creative new
approaches might allow the United States and other countries
to proceed against greenhouse gases, but that this would
require some give on all sides. Mr. Loy said it was
reasonable for the United States to insist on assurances
that its efforts will be part of an effective, shared
global plan to curb emissions. At the same time, he
said, it would not be fair to stifle the development
of poor countries. As one possible compromise, Mr. Loy
said, developing countries like China could take on
an obligation to keep emissions at a certain fraction
of economic growth, rather than setting absolute limits.
Or they could adopt targets for energy efficiency as
their economies grow. Mr. Loy said he believed that
some in the Bush Administration started out with a clear
goal: "to drive a stake through the heart of the Kyoto
agreement." But the outcry at home and abroad, he said,
has led them to second thoughts. At the same time, Mr.
Loy noted that poor countries, with their extreme vulnerability
to climate-related natural disasters, have the most
to lose if the agreement collapses, and he called for
more flexibility on their part. The original 1992 treaty
laying out the framework for climate talks, he noted,
called for "common but differentiated obligations" on
the part of rich and poor countries. "It's too bad that
this has been transformed into a group of countries
that have real obligations and a group of countries
that don't have any," he said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
executive
summary
Drilling in Detroit by UCS
download the full report here (pdf, over 2 MB!)
The fuel
economy of today's cars and light trucks is at its lowest
point in 20 years. A combination of federal inaction
on fuel economy policy and the increased marketing of
sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and minivans as substitutes
for passenger cars have led to this point.
Our nation
now faces a number of significant and growing problems
that could be addressed through a reasonable but aggressive
approach to fuel economy improvements. These problems
include increased consumer fuel costs; a growing dependence
on imported oil; rising emissions of greenhouse gases,
toxics, and smog-forming pollutants; and a fleet that
is less safe than it would have been without the massive
infusion of today's light trucks.
This report represents
a comprehensive assessment of both the technical and
economic potential of achieving a safe and fuel-efficient
fleet. The analysis is based on existing technologies,
many of which are on the road today. The research combined
conservative economic assessments with sound computer
models to investigate the impacts of significant fuel
economy improvements through the year 2020. The study
shows that increasing the fuel economy of the nation's
fleet of new cars and light trucks to 40 miles per gallon
(mpg) by 2012 and then to 55 mpg by 2020 can yield significant
benefits to consumers, the economy, and the environment
without sacrificing passenger safety during a collision.
These findings indicate that, instead of looking for
oil in environmentally sensitive areas, the nation can
tap the ingenuity of Detroit's automobile industry to
produce a fleet of safe and fuel-efficient vehicles.
For these