Nagoya: More Fine Words And No Action?

A 2 week convention on biodiversity started today in Nagoya, Japan. The aim of the meeting is to set new targets for preserving the planet's biodiversity (i.e. The number of plant and animal species).

If past environmental meetings are anything to go by, there will be many moving speeches about how we must act now to avert impending disaster but little will actually be achieved.

However, all is not lost.

The new hope is that, by estimating the value of the 'services' provided by our natural environment, politicians, businesses, and the public will finally realise the actual cost of our actions.

Yes, they're actually trying to put a price on Nature.

This approach certainly appears to be focusing the minds of governments and companies alike. Suddenly, there are all sorts of projects out there to protect forests and halt fishing in designated areas, even without a global agreement. But it remains to be seen if these will continue to be the exceptions rather than the rule.

Regardless of the outcome of Nagoya, there needs to be a genuine commitment, from all nations, to preserve biodiversity very soon. Up to now, countries have been more than willing to agree targets only to miss them by a mile. We can't afford to do this anymore, otherwise Nature will soon be handing us a bill we cannot afford.

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More on biodiversity's services here and here.

Energy Saving Tip #5: Microwaves vs. Ovens

Microwave ovens use about half the energy of ordinary ovens since they only heat the meal and not the space around it. They are at their best when heating small portions or for defrosting.

For larger amounts, the hob (i.e. the oven top) is usually more efficient.

Climate Change: Time For A New Approach

Over the last few months I've become increasingly convinced that the UN Climate Conventions, in their current format, aren't going to work.

There are too many agendas being brought to the negotiating table: Rich nations don't want their economies undermined; China and India want to sustain their growth; Oil nations want to continue supplying; Island nations want dramatic emissions cuts; Poor nations want finance to cut their emissions; and so on.

How can you get a workable agreement from all that?!

So I've come to the conclusion there needs to be a different approach: To break the whole problem down into more manageable pieces (e.g. Stop deforestation, make container vessels cleaner, and do the same for aviation) and attack them all separately. It's like that old riddle: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: A little at a time.

The end result would probably have more chance of working than some watered-down successor to the Kyoto treaty or the useless Copenhagen Accord.

Then I came across this paper from, of all things, a conservative think tank called Policy Exchange. The paper is called Negotiating the Next Climate Treaty and talks a lot of sense.

It says the current emphasis on setting short term reduction targets is counter-productive and should concentrate instead on establishing permanent obligations.

It points out the contrast between the limited success of Kyoto (short term targets) and the overwhelming success of the Montreal Protocol (which took on ozone depletion by setting up permanent obligations), suggesting that the next climate treaty should be modelled on Montreal.

It goes on to explain how this might be done: By dealing with each greenhouse gas individually (e.g. CO2, methane, HFCs, PFCs, and nitrous oxide) using, where appropriate, the expertise of the industry that produces or uses them to find replacements or reductions; By dealing separately with industry sectors like aviation, shipping, cement manufacturers, and car manufacturers; And by providing massive funding for R&D into things like renewables, carbon capture, and more efficient energy usage.

It's 42 pages long, so if you don't fancy reading the lot, try the Executive Summary, Introduction, and Outline of a new approach. You'll find it an eye-opener.

Will Cancun Climate Conference Fail?

With less than 2 months to go until the sequel to the Copenhagen conference starts in Mexico, it seems expectations are already pretty low for success.

The last major preliminary talks in Tianjin, China have just closed with the U.S. and China slagging each other off. The U.S. is accusing China of refusing to allow outsiders in to verify their carbon savings, whilst the chinese accuse the US of trying to sideline the U.N.

Great start.

About the only good news from Tianjin is that the rich nations are close to agreeing £63 billion a year funding to poorer nations to cope with the effects of climate change.

How Would You Cut The Nation's Carbon Emissions?

Ever wondered what it would take to reduce your country's CO2 footprint? Well, the Guardian newspaper came up with this interactive calculator to give you a chance to find out. It's based on the UK's economy but, obviously, the same principles should apply anywhere, just with a different mix.

Of course, once you've come up with the new targets, you've got to figure out how you'd achieve them, and what the consequences of your actions would be. For example, in cutting 23% from our footprint, I decided to close down 8 coal fired power stations, whilst increasing wind, solar, wave and tidal power substantially. The closure of coal stations would mean job losses in the power-stations and mines but be partly offset by jobs from the renewable energy.

There's no doubt reducing emissions would cause pain but it would be good for us all in the long term. As Stern Review said in 2006, cutting carbon emissions will be painful and expensive, but not nearly as painful and expensive as just letting global warming go unchecked.

It won't all be pain though. Renewables would improve a nation's fuel security, so they wouldn't be hostage to supplier nations (such as we've had from the oil and gas producing countries), and would be insulated to a degree from fuel price fluctuations (which will be an increasing problem in the next few years).

Renewables also offer the potential for many thousands of new jobs in those countries that invest in their renewables industry.

So, instead of seeing carbon cuts as as a threat, we should see them as an opportunity.

Free Solar Panels

Last month, I was talking about a way people in the UK could get money from the government (Feed in Tariffs) every year for 25 years just for installing solar panels.

Now, I see that there's a UK company that offers to install your solar panels for free! That's right: So long as your roof is more-or-less south facing and big enough, a company called HomeSun will install it for free AND provide free maintenance for 25 years.

So what's the catch? Well, at the moment, I've not spotted one. They make their money by getting the Feed in Tariffs paid to them rather than you. You still get savings on your electric bill (up to a third off) and, if you decide you want to get the tariffs yourself at some stage, you just buy the system back off HomeSun at a reduced cost.

On the face of it at least, this looks like a game changer. It could encourage huge numbers of people to get solar panels who'd otherwise never consider them. Initial take-up may be slow though. I think many will hold back until they know HomeSun are for real. Once the company gets past that barrier, things should snowball.

Royal Society Issue Guide To Climate Change Science

The Royal Society is a 350 year old, UK based fellowship that has 1400 members from the fields of science, maths, engineering, and medicine. Their stated aims are to increase access to the best science, inspire interest in scientific discovery, invest in innovation, influence policymaking with the best scientific advice, and invigorate science and maths education.

One of the many things they do is publish documents that explain the science behind major issues of the day.

A few days ago they released Climate change: a summary of the science. This gives an excellent summary of where the science is, at the moment, stripped of all the politics, the mis-direction, and the outright lies, that surround the subject.

One of the useful things it does is break the science down into 3 categories: Where there's wide agreement; where there's wide concensus but continuing debate; and where things are not well understood.

If you have time, click the link above, and give it a read. It's only 13 pages long.

Fifth of the world's plant species under threat of extinction

A recent study by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and the Natural History Museam has concluded that 22% of all plant species are threatened by extinction, mostly due to human activity.

This is bad news for all of us because plants provide food, water (indirectly), fuel, oxygen, building materials, medicines, and coastal protection (e.g. mangroves), underpin ecosystems that we depend on, and absorb CO2. In short, they are essential.

So far, politicians have only paid lip service to biodiversity (agreeing to targets then missing them by miles), but there now seems to be a sense of urgency. Next month there will be a major conference on biodiversity in Japan. Let's hope governments start taking the subject more seriously and put a halt to the decline in plants AND animals.

See more here about the study. A link for the Nygoya conference.

Face Facts, The Planet is Warming

According to both land and sea based instruments, global temperatures have been rising for decades. Below is a typical graph of the data:

Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art

These surface readings are supported by satellite measurements:

Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art

As the temperature rises, oceans warm up and therefore expand, causing sea levels to rise.......

Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art

....meanwhile, the vast majority of the world's glaciers are melting.....

Image created by Robert A. Rohde / Global Warming Art

....as is the Arctic sea ice.

Image from NASA

Graphs like this are being produced by NASA, the UK Met Office, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and many other reputable organisations. They all contribute to a mountain of evidence that the World's climate is, indeed, warming. 

Climate change is with us already. It's time we finally admit it.

Arrghh!

I'm currently trying to chase 3 carbon footprint reducing ideas at the moment, and I'm being frustrated in all of them:

1) Car sharing/Cycling: As you can read here, I've been working on this for a while now, trying to cut out as many journeys to work as possible. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons beyond my control, I've not managed to cut more than 2 journeys a week. And I can't see this changing for months.

2) Changing My Car: Ideally, I'd trade my car in for a hybrid like a Prius or Honda Civic, but an efficient diesel would do. Unfortunately, as I'm the one who has the family car now, suitable (second-hand) replacements within budget, are rare.

3) Loft Insulation: Earlier in the year, only about a third of our loft was insulated, and even that was just 10cm (The recommended minimum is 25 to 30cm). That third is now up to 25cm but the rest remains completely uninsulated. The reason is that it's piled high with our belongings/junk. To get the job done we'd have to move the junk elsewhere (and we have no room for it - That's why it's in the loft!), take up the floor-boards, lay the insulation, raise the level of the floor (because the insulation would be too thick), then put back the floor-boards. Unsurprisingly, I've been putting the job off.

It will get done though, and hopefully before the Winter sets in. Watch this space!