Anti-Wind Group: Renewable Energy Foundation

Just after the government announced major plans for a wind power expansion in the UK a report appears criticising the potential of wind. That's a bit odd considering the momentum behind this most developed of renewable energies, particularly when studies have shown that it is just such large scale plans as announced by the government that most effectively deal with variability by dispersing generating systems over a wide geographical area. So who is behind this report?

It's funded by the innocuously named Renewable Energy Foundation. There is some PR blurb on the website but perhaps a quote from it's chair Nole Edmonds (yes the one off TV!) clarifies things most easily:

"Politicians are promoting wind turbines as a green icon, but they are misleading the public into believing the propaganda of the wind industry. The reality is that wind power is too costly and can never meet our energy needs- but it will destroy the countryside."

Whatever you think of wind power it's quite clear that reports produced for this group should be taken with a grain of salt: they are certainly not objective.

However, the report has been gladly taken up by...

• The Telegraph
• The Daily Mail

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Amory Lovins on Nuclear Power

In the wake of Gordon Brown's recent announcement on plans for new nuclear power in the UK there is a lively discussion about nuclear power, very liveley and very poorly informed for the most part.

In the video clip Amory Lovins, inernational energy policy guru takes nuclear to task.



Lovins has recently co-authored a report on nuclear power (pdf).

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UK Climate Change Bill Has Jumbo Sized Loophole

On Saturday the 5th April Campaign against Climate Change staged a photo opportunity outside parliament. We went along with giant prop loophole and model jumbo jet to make our point; aviation is flying through the climate bill, leaving a tattered rag where a serious climate bill used to be. In fact it is both Aviation and Shipping.

Previous post on aviation policy and climate change.

Photos from the event:

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Foolish about Biofuels.

Rising Tide, and several other groups got together on April Fools day to rebrand it Fossil Fools Day, and a whole range of foolish construction projects and policies where highlighted. Well, in the dash away from fossil fuels, one possible option has been latched onto as a way of maintining hypermobility; biofuels.

With widespread deforestation being drivin by demand for biofuel crops, this is starting to look like a bad idea!

On 15th April Bio-Fools day is being launched with a protest at Downing street at 6pm, this date was chosen as it is the launch of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), and environmetal policy that stands a good chance of doing worse than breaking even on environmental criteria!

"The RTFO will mean that all petrol and diesel must contain a minimum percentage of ‘biofuel’. This will drastically increase the demand for ‘biofuels’ or ‘agrofuels’, that is fuels that are made from living plants (rather than the “fossilised” ones that make up oil and coal). The theory is that because these fuels absorb as much CO2 when they grow, as they emit when they are burnt, they are basically ‘carbon neutral’. Now, ‘biofuels’ made from waste materials like used chip fat are fine…. but these could only ever supply a fraction of the demand if we use biofuels to replace any significant proportion of the transport fuel that now comes from fossil fuels. To do this requires growing crops for fuel (eg rapeseed, palm oil, soy, sugar cane or jatropha) on a massive scale (this is why we use the term “agrofuels”).

This increases the pressure on land and in places like Brazil and Indonesia this increases the pressure on the rain forest and other surviving biodiverse ecosystems. Clearance for palm oil plantations is now the biggest driver behind deforestation in Indonesia and an increase in the price of soy (caused by increased demand) is seen as the main cause of the recent huge increase in the rate of deforestation in Brazil. Even if agrofuels are produced from, say, “certifiably sustainable” rapeseed in Europe this can have knock-on effects – it means there is less rapeseed available to produce cooking oils and foodstuffs and this results in a massively increased demand for Indonesian palm oil to fill the gap."

More on biofuels here.

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UK Budget 2008: Green or just taxing?

The 2008 Budget is out tomorrow and the prospects of green tax hikes are about as popular with the right as they are with me. The problem seems to be that the government cant stand raising the main taxes so they go after alternative revenue streams from a variety of sources. This is quite a contrast to the idea of keeping the budget under control and then reshaping it to reflect priorities. If the government cynically exploit the label green then they will damage the true idea in the process.

Some good green taxes would include:

• A tax on aviation fuel, putting it in line with petrol, the hypothication of this towards our rail services would make it a real green tax.
• An across the board carbon tax at the level of fuel purchase. Reductions in council tax or the rate for the lowest income tax band would make this a popular scheme.
• A differentiation of vehicle excise duty (VED) so that those with highest mileage are free and those with the lowest mileage are really expensive range £0-3000 per year.
• A vehicle sales charge on polluting vehicles, the revenue from which is used to subsidies less polluting vehicles.

Some measures deal with green issues without tax:

• A free energy audit and installation of draft stripping, insulation and other air tightness measures. Offered as an alternative to winter fuel payments which require funding every year due to poor building stock.
• No new roads. Funding for roads diverted to cycling, walking and public transport schemes.

What do the papers have to say?

The Telegraph states that the widely anticipated rise if fuel tax may not materialise due to high oil prices.

"Alistair Darling does want to send out a signal that fuel use needs to be cut
and people have to pay for the environmental damage. However, previous fuel duty
rises have been delayed."

The Guardian points out that a forecourt fee is likely to be introduced for the most polluting vehicles.

"The chancellor will present a report on "decarbonising road transport" prepared
for the Treasury by Professor Julia King which recommends measures such as a
"showroom tax" on the most gas-guzzling cars to discourage consumers from buying
them. The £2,000 figure being speculated on at the weekend is thought to be on
the high side, however."

The Daily Mail points out in a surprisingly sane and analytical article that the charge for gas-guzzlers will apply to band G vehicles. I would be interested in the average cost of a band G vehicle and how a relatively small charge will effect purchases. It is also noted that a tax break for clean cars is expected. A tax on aviation based on flights not people is expected; this tweak acts as a motivator to full planes.

"Buyers of new 'gas-guzzlers' in car tax band G - including Range Rovers and
other 4x4s - will be hit with a first-year charge of more than £1,000 in vehicle
excise tax, before it reverts to the current level of £400. Drivers with green
cars will see their tax bill fall."

New aviation taxes will encourage fuller flights and we could well see green
rules covering the sale of commercial property.

The Daily Record points out that Darling is likely to get publicity by announcing significant increases in winter fuel allowances: an awful move people need warmth not fuel.

The Tories say he will unveil a headline-grabbing rise in the winter fuel
allowance for pensioners.

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The woman who stops traffic.

The woman who stops traffic, is a program about a woman who campaigns to free our streets of unnessicary traffic and replace it with healthier low impact methods of getting around. I like the title, it suggests a femme fatale, but the woman in question, Kris Murrin, is actually reducing pollution, increasing excercise and in doing so saving lives.

The Woman Who Stops Traffic is on Tuesday night 9pm on C4, and follows Kris Murrin to make the town of Marlow car free for one day.

The scheme was remarkably successful and even ended up with funding commitments for cycleways and related facilities from the local council. Check out a video clip of the program here.

Related:

• Could you reduce pollution, and if so by how much, an application to let you find out.
• Who is Kris Murrin?
• Start your own car free campaign!

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UK treasury pressured to take its own advice.

The UK Budget is on it's way and a group of MPs from both parties have called for the govornment to take its own advice. In perticular the Stern Review that has gone on to become internationally significant had a series of recomendations very few of whitch have been implemented.

"The committee of 16 MPs said green taxes, as a proportion of all taxes, has
declined from its peak of 9.7% in 1999 to 7.6% in 2006."

Punches have not been pulled by this group--the Environmental Audit Committee.

"We've had enough of half measures and green spin. The chancellor must put
climate change at the heart of next week's Budget and make it cheaper and easier
for people to go green."

The 40 page report (The 2007 Pre–Budget Report and Comprehensive Spending Review: An
environmental analysis) can be downloaded here (PDF). One of the starkest contrasts between congressional committees in the US and there counterparts in the UK is that somehow we manage to produce some great reports and often with cross party consensus. I`m not overly anamoured with the UK political system but our committees do some exceptional work.

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Ministers ordered to assess climate cost of all decisions.

A positive development in UK govornment climate policy, a shadow price on carbon for policy decisions.

The "shadow price for carbon", representing the cost to society of the environmental damage, has already been agreed for every year up to 2050 by government economists. It will be set at £25.50 a carbon tonne for 2007, rising annually to £59.60 a tonne by 2050.

The climate change minister, Phil Woolas, said: "This will have huge implications for [the] government. If for instance a new power station is due to cost £1bn, but it will add £200m worth of carbon emissions, we will decide that the cost of the power station is £1.2bn, even though its cash price is £1bn. We are creating a new currency."

Via the Guardian.

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Review: EU approves energy and climate change package.

The EU Comissions has today announced (official statement) what it calls a 'climate change package'. These measures are the follow up from a previous meting (march 9th, Guardian) where a 20% reduction target for energy usage and carbon emissions was made alongside a pledge to increase European renewable energy penetration to 20% (from the current 8%). A two page citizens guide is avialable to explain the motivations behind the climate package and the elements that it is trying to balance.

The citizens guide is the straightest talking policy document i have ever seen:

What is the problem?

• The EU needs to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. This is not happening fast enough.
• Dependence on imports of oil and gas is growing. The EU needs to find new energy alternatives and to produce more of its own energy.

According to EurActiv some of the most significant issues are:

• Total EU industrial emissions in 2020 capped at 21% below 2005 levels which equates to a 1.7% annual reduction. [I thought the 20% was on 1990 levels is this back tracking?]
• The scheme will be enlarged to include new sectors, including aviation, petrochemicals, ammonia and the aluminium sector...around 50% of all EU emissions will be covered. [Road Transport, Shipping, Buildings, Waste, Agriculture and Forestry will remain excluded].
• In order to achieve an average 10% reduction of greenhouse gases from sectors not covered... the Commission has set national targets according to countries' GDP. Richer countries are asked to make bigger cuts – of up to 20% in the case of Denmark, Ireland and Luxembourg – while poorer states...will in fact be entitled to increase their greenhouse emissions in these sectors – by up to 19 and 20% respectively for Romania and Bulgaria. [Understandable but environmentally inadequate if this principal where to be expanded to the rest of the world at Romanian development levels...what we need is a deal where such countries take on these targets and the wealthy take on a portion of the costs]
• Smaller installations, emitting under 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, will be allowed to opt out from the ETS, provided that alternative reduction measures are put in place. [I see why--red tape--but i wonder how significant this is are we talking about double digit percentages that can opt out?]
• Industrial greenhouse gases prevented from entering the atmosphere through the use of so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology are to be credited as not emitted under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. [I fully support this...its long past time such schemes where implemented]
• The proposal foresees a huge increase (up to 60% of total credits) in auctioning as early as 2013. It adds that "full auctioning should be the rule from 2013 onwards for the power sector", which is expected to lead to a 10-15% rise in electricity prices. In other sectors, free allocations will gradually be completely phased-out on an annual basis between 2013 and 2020. Nevertheless, certain energy-intensive sectors could continue to get all their allowances for free in the long term if the Commission determines that they are at significant risk of relocation to third countries with less stringent climate protection laws. [This increase in auctioned credits appear to me as the start of a serious emissions trading scheme, it is the most efficient way to do things and has the added benefit of brining in large revenues which if sensibly hypothicated to renewable energy projects, and --my personal favourite--paying for international climate funds e.g REDD, Tech Transfer, Adaptation, can go a long way to helping the world cope with and mitigate climate change.]
• The distribution method for free allowances will be developed at a later stage by expert panels within the Commission (through the so-called 'comitology procedure'). [It's going to be some kind of grandfathering but the good news is that this part is becoming rapidly less relavent]
• Competativeness concerns are a significant so decision on these issues has been put of untill 2011. Nevertheless, the text warns that if no global pact is reached by then, some sort of "carbon equalisation system" will be introduced – whether in the form of additional free allocations or by making third-country producers of carbon-heavy goods participate in the ETS in order to access the EU market. [Translation: shit gets ugly if we dont reach a global deal...is forced participation of foreign firms a tariff on high carbon goods? The avoidance of such tarrifs is apparently the reason the Kyoto protocol was initiated.]
• Assuming a global climate change deal is reached, member states will continue to be entitled to meet part of their target by financing emission reduction projects in countries outside the EU, although the use of such credits will be limited to 3% of member states' total emissions in 2005 –around one quarter of the total reduction effort. [This is still a significant amount of carbon trade, but it seems to me that markets and trade of all kinds in carbon makes this kind of limit hard to measure: how do personal and business offests work into this, or internal business trades...i think this is all getting murky we need a global treaty with a cap.]

The talk on competativeness and forced involvement in the EU ETS for foregin companies trading into europe brings up our old friend the WTO (past article). Commission President José Manuel Barroso:

"If our expectations about an international agreement are not met, we will look at other options such as requiring importers to obtain allowances alongside European competitors, as long as such a system is compatible with WTO requirements."

On the issue of cuts in emissions from industries not included in the ETS, national targets vary dramatically based on prosperity, but buy in large everyone has been hard done by; some have been more stoic but it's ammusing none the less. Germany's economy minister is quite typical:

"We really don't need this plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, it will destroy jobs in industries which consume a lot of energy"

The main points that i have seen made on this are 'its simply not good enough' and 'it's to far, its to tough on this country, why do we need to take orders from Brusselles.' The former has been the message of Rajendra Pachuri of the IPCC, and the science if you would care to read it, the latter is from the likes of the Times and other right leaning papers.

Related:

• Extensive coverage of this "climate change package" and its role in Eu climate policy can be found on the EurActiv website.
• The climate change package and associated documents.

Related General Articles:

• AFP "EU sets emissions targets to fight climate change"
• Earth Times "EU approves ambitious energy and climate change package - Summary"

Articles on the main issues:

• The cap and rate of cuts: WWF critical of draft EU climate law. CAN Europe reaction.
  
• New sectors included: Refineries, Airlines, Phased into ETS (Reuters)
  
• Distribution of Non-ETS emissions cuts: EU faces tough climate change road. (BBC)
  
• Increase in auctioning: EU's Barroso says pollution permits to be auctioned (Guardian) All carbon credits for EU ETS Phase 3 to be auctioned for power sector (Forbes)
  
• Carbon Capture and Storage: Could Carbon Capture Replace Cuts? (BBC)
  
• Competativeness: EU Threatens Trade Partners (AFP) Editorial (FT)
  
• Carbon trade with other nations: CAN Europe reaction.
  

[UPDATE]

• Celsias has just posted an article on this topic.
• Treehugger has also briefly covored the issues.
  

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Coal power plant in UK moves ahead in planning process.

A new coal fired power plant in Kent, England has just been given the go ahead by local planning authorities. This will not be the end of matters, expect this decision to be made by a government minister. This is a high stakes decision, not just because of the emissions from one coal power plant, but because of the signal that such a permission would give, namely that the single most carbon intensive technology in the world is still OK in the UK.

Related:

• All Climate Change Action posts on coal are here.
• Posts on the controversial but significant area of carbon capture and storage are here.

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Climate Change: Consultations and Reports

When you are as mad as Howard Beale about the government's climate policy, you do have recourse. You can take part in one of the many consultations that parliamentary committees and departments have...and if there is anything worse than being mad as hell it's being mad as hell and then realising that you have missed an opportunity!

So, if you happen to want to keep track of government consultations, or the reports that various parliamentary committees and commissions produce for the purposes of forming rational policy you are in luck. The British Ecological Society has a blog to keep you up to date with both, and a website that has a short list of open consultations.

I have just added these links to my sidebar along with links to the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), Environment Food and Rural Affaris Committee (EFRA), House of Lords Science and Technology Committee(HL-STC), Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) and the Royal Commission for Environmental Protection (RCEP).

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Hansen to Brown & Merkel: Keep Coal In The Ground

James Hansen, Chief Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Institute, and perennial thorn in the side of climate skeptics everywhere continues his energetic campaign to educated policy makers on climate science; and increasingly getting off the fence and reccomending policies. The main one being: keep coal in the ground keep the lithosphere out the atmosphere.

In the email bearing his latest joint letter to Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown he writes.

It seems to me that the nearness of climate tipping points has become
clear. What needs to be communicated is the fact that a successful
strategy to avoid climate disasters depends principally upon achieving a
phase-out of emissions from coal (and avoiding emissions from unconventional
fossil fuels). These goals are achievable, but they have to be recognized
first.

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What is the best way to tax cars?

Green Car Congress provides most of the information that this post is based on.

In the UK we have tax rates of around 70% on unleaded petrol. This is one reason that unleaded petrol costs £3.86 per gallon or $7.72 per gallon.

I would guess that Americans don't wish to pay this. The reason being that the US population are as proudly anti-tax as the French are proudly pro-tax, they also have an average fleet efficiency of 21-22mpg as compared to 34mpg in Europe as a whole.

It is curious to me that people will go out of there minds with rage if a govornment raises fuel taxes (therby paying for road infrastructure, health, education and essential services) and yet they dont seem to mind buying inneficienct SUV's or regular cars with inneficient engines. If you buy a car that does 40mpg rather than 20mpg that is the same in terms of your pocket as removing all fuel taxes at us levels.

However, given this political reality and the fact that people do cling quite stubournly to gas guzling vehicles is there a better way of incentivising efficient cars? Yes, there are many ways.

In France fuel prices are already relatively high but rather than increasing them futher they are moving to a freebate: freebates tax the polluting and use that money to pay the less-polluting. The system is revenue neutral and can be adjusted as technolgy advances or as policy strengthens.

In Ireland there is a sales tax on all new vehicles. This will now vary from 14-36% of the car's value depending on its carbon emissions. That is a significant up front cost. And people hate up front costs so for a relatively small amount of taxation a large effect is garanteed. Ireland also has annual road tax, which is also set to be linked to fuel efficiency; ranging from 100 to 2000 euros.

In the UK tax bands are currently diverging so that the range will move from £0-210 currently to £0-400 in 2009 the range, again, depending on carbon band of vehicle. Freebates, carbon-bands for insurance and for sales tax all have the disadvantage that they do not tax people who drive more, only cars that are less efficient. This makes them more alinged to changing the products that car manufacturers offer and less well designed to change driver behaviour.

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HOME TRUTHS: A LOW CARBON STRATEGY TO REDUCE UK HOUSING EMISSIONS BY 80%

The Environmental Change Institute does it again. Another killer report, if the govornment want to reduce emissions 80% by 2050 then this is a guide to how that can be done in the housing sector. The bastards left out transport!

"The Low-carbon Strategy from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University identifi es the policies needed to deliver an 80 per cent cut in carbon emissions from UK homes by 2050. These cuts are achievable but will require a quantum leap in commitment from Government and a radical new approach.

The policies have been designed not only to dramatically reduce carbon emissions, but also to be delivered equitably. The poorest households will be prioritised for assistance and fuel poverty will be wiped out. The scientifi c consensus is that for the UK to play its part in helping the world avoid a rise of more than 2°C, we must reduce our carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The household sector represents 27 per cent of our total emissions and achieving deep cuts here is an imperative.

The low-carbon revolution starts at home."

Full report Brief summary

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Labours green tint washes off after only a day!

After Gordon Brown's 'green' speech given on Monday the announcement today that heathrows 3rd runway will go ahead is a bit of a punch in the guts.

The greenwash was thin to start with and now it has washed away completely.

Plane Stupid have a lot more to say on this!

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Energy Efficiency is Not Enough