Life of a Plastic Bottle

You're out and about and feeling thirsty. You go into a shop and buy a bottle of your favourite fizzy drink and you gratefully gulp it down. A moment or two of bliss on a hot day.

But what now? Carry the empty with you until you get home, or put it in a litter bin?

This is a regular dilemma for me. In truth, I should be taking a reused bottle of water with me when I'm out. It's cheaper and doesn't add to the mass of plastic out there already. But I'm never that organised and I prefer my drinks chilled.

The answer to my earlier question is: Take it home (Unless recycling bins are available). Bottles that go into a public bin are unlikely to be separated, so will most likely go to a dump or be incinerated.

By taking it home and putting it in your own recycling bin, it then has a chance to be recycled as a bottle again. This stops it ending up in landfill, and reduces the carbon footprint of the new bottle:

• 80% of all plastic ever made has ended up in the environment or in landfill. 
• Today, 8 million tonnes of plastic end up in our oceans, each year.
• Manufacturing a tonne of recycled plastic bottles creates 1 to 3 tonnes less CO2 than a tonne made the usual way (from oil).

Clearly, recycled bottles are better for the environment. However, globally, only 7% become bottles again. Even in the UK, the recycling rate is only 14%.

Why is that?

Basically, it's cost. It is cheaper to produce a plastic bottle from scratch, from oil, than by using recycled material. That's because oil is relatively cheap at the moment.

If we are to reduce both the carbon footprint of plastic and reduce the amount of plastic going into the environment, then the economics have to change. 

Raising the price of oil is clearly out, therefore governments need to make the use of recycled plastic more attractive to manufacturers. Or recycling plastic needs become less costly.

What we're doing with plastics is clearly unsustainable. We need to change our attitudes towards it.

We need to reduce the amount of plastic packaging being used; reduce the frivolous, unnecessary purchases we make; reuse wherever possible; and create a market where recycled materials are favoured against raw materials like oil.

This can only come about when governments, companies, and the public recognise the dangers of our throwaway society, and work together to overcome them.

It's a big ask but, somehow, I think we've got to learn to work together if we're going to meet the challenges that face us all this century.

(Source of figures: New Scientist, 19 May 2018)

Paying for Carbon Cuts: Green Taxes

If and when the international community gets it's act together and starts delivering on the Paris Climate deal of 2015, how do we pay for it?

There are numerous ways of doing this, but they generally have a common theme: Make sure the price of goods and services include the cost of their carbon footprint.

Just about everything we buy has carbon emissions associated with it - Energy was used in processing the raw materials, manufacturing the final product, and transporting it. A large proportion of that energy would have been generated from fossil fuels, and these are contributing to climate change.

You might think that this means that the price of everything will go up to reflect that cost. However, that shouldn't be the case. If the world is to reduce it's emissions, then the industries and companies that emit the most should be taxed the most and these taxes used to subsidise those industries and companies which are being the most efficient.

The general idea being that efficiency is rewarded (subsidies) and inefficiency is penalised (green taxes).

However, green taxes need to be used with care, otherwise you end up hitting the wrong people.

For example, you could put a tax on petrol/diesel to change people's driving behaviour and encourage the take-up of hybrid & electric cars. This sounds reasonable until you realise that this would hit the poor hardest, as they have less (if any) 'disposable' income.

President Macron of France learnt this to his cost towards the end of 2018. He applied a green tax to fuel and sparked off mass protests across France. And it's not as if this wasn't predictable either. Britain had a similar experience a decade or so ago when the UK government tried the same thing.

Using taxes in this way shows how out of touch politicians are with the poorest in society and brings green taxes into disrepute.

The poor around the world are likely to be hardest hit by climate change in the future. If we are to prevent the worst effects of carbon emissions then we cannot afford to turn the poor against our efforts before we've even begun.

They have to be protected or the battle's as good as lost.

(More here)

COP24: Katowice Climate Conference

I first started this blog in 2010 because I was very disappointed in the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15).

At the time, many millions of people around the world expected politicians to finally sign an agreement to deal with climate change but, instead, we got a meaningless 'accord'.

At a stroke, much of the public who were clamouring for a deal, just gave up on climate change as a lost cause. So it wasn't until 2015 that a final deal was struck at the Paris conference (COP21) in 2015.

It was an historic moment, but it should have happened many years earlier. The science, after all, has been pretty clear on the issue for decades.

So what?

Well, anyone who has been following what the climate change experts have been saying for years is that: The later we start to deal with climate change, the harder the effects of dealing with it will be on society and the more expensive measures they bring in will be.

So the politicians (and climate deniers, who've deliberately muddied the waters), have let us all down - Had we started dealing with climate change when it first became a clear threat, we'd have barely noticed the measures our governments would have needed to implement.

After decades of dithering, we're definitely going to notice them now.

But even that will be nothing compared to what we'd face if we do nothing and let the climate warm by more than 2 degrees C.

Anyway, back to COP24 (Katowice December 2018). In 2015, the nations of the world agreed to keep warming to less than 2 degrees. Since then they've submitted their plans to help do that and been trying to agree rules on how to make sure these plans happen.

However, those plans, combined, would only keep warming down to around 3C. Not enough.

So the hopes from Katowice were that a) The above rules would be agreed; and b) Nations would up their ambition.

It looks like it succeeded with a) but utterly failed with b). See here for a summary.

Not only that but the climate change plans, weak as they are, don't come into effect until 2020.

Yet more delay. Yet more pain to be suffered by us when they finally get going.

Back Again

Hi all, I'm back. Had a few problems accessing my account but I finally got in after hours of effort. No thanks to Google.

Anyway, I'm here now. So what's next? Well, it's been 3 years since the Paris Climate Accord - Has any progress been made since? What effect has the climate scepticism of Trump had in the States and around the World? And what, if anything, has the UK, who claim to be the world-leaders (snigger) in decarbonisation been up to?

I'll be looking into all this, and more, over the coming weeks.

Watch this space

Paris Climate Summit: Time to be Optimistic?

The Paris Climate Conference is due to conclude tomorrow (Friday 11th Dec 2015) amid hopes that 2 weeks of negotiation will produce an ambitious deal.

But let's have a look at some of the highlights of the talks:

• Arnie suggests we have 1 or 2 meat free days a week: The former governor of California, Arnold Swarzenegger put this forward as a serious suggestion during the summit. Many people would label him as a whacko for saying this but he's got a point. Worldwide production of meat is responsible for at least 20% of carbon emissions, so cutting down on our meat intake like this would have a big impact. And with a growing world population likely to drive up the price of meat (Much more than it has already), meat may become an expensive treat for most of us anyway. So you might need to get used to the idea.
• India digs it's heals in: India has a plan to raise millions of it's people out of poverty by going down a similar industrialisation route as China. To do that, it will have to embark on a massive program of building coal-fired power stations (In the hundreds). So, while the rest of the world may be cutting their emissions, India will be growing theirs on scale similar to what China has been doing. Why are they using coal? Because it's cheap and there's lots of it. India have been taking a very hard-line on this, and refuse to be lectured to by developed countries who've used the same trick to build thriving economies themselves. However, they suddenly softened their approach last week, saying they were prepared to replace some coal stations with solar...providing other countries stump up the cash.
• 1.5C instead of 2C?: All this time we've been talking about keeping the rise in global temperatures to under 2C. 'Only' island states were arguing for keeping it under 1.5C. But now 1.5C is gaining traction at the summit amongst more and more delegates. In fact....
• The 'High Ambition Coalition' grows and grows: In possibly the most encouraging development at the conference, well over a hundred nations have joined together (including the African countries, the EU, other europeans, and now the US) with the aim of making the outcome as ambitious as possible: Recognition of the 1.5C target, a well-defined pathway towards a low carbon future, 5 yearly reviews, and a strong package of support for developing countries.

Time to be optimistic? Let's wait for the outcome of the summit first.

DECC forecasts less Renewables and more Gas for UK

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), has reduced it's forecast for the amount of renewables to be added to the UK energy mix over the next couple of decades, whilst raising it's forecast for energy coming from natural gas in the same period (See here for more).

Looks like the writing's on the wall guys: Don't look to the UK government for leadership in the fight against climate change anymore.

Morocco to Open Solar Thermal Plant Next Month

Around 3 years ago, I reported about the possibility of a european super-grid which would import energy from as far afield as Africa and Iceland.

That grid has come a step closer with the opening, next month (December 2015) of a solar thermal plant in Morocco which aims to provide electric to a million of it's citizens. This is just the first step in an ambitious plan to exploit the country's natural resources: Winds off the Atlantic and solar energy in Morocco's part of the Sahara.

The plant will eventually provide electric for 20 hours of the day (thanks to energy storage) and Morocco as a whole will have enough excess electric to start supplying Europe.

More here.

UK Government Axes £1bn Grant for Carbon Capture

One of the key elements to a lower carbon future will be the development of a working, affordable, and efficient form of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The UK government was offering a £1bn grant for the winning bidders in a competition to develop such a system here in Britain. Several companies, including Shell and SSE, have been working on bids for years. Now the government have pulled the rug out from under them.

Wow. How short sighted can you get?

More here.

Climate Change: Does UK Government Get It?

At the end of this month, all nations will be meeting in Paris to sort out a climate change agreement.

The signs are good: The U.S. and China seem fully committed; Australia and Canada now have themselves prime ministers who aren't climate deniers; and many nations are putting in some bold promises.

However, the UK government seems to be going backwards. They may say they're fully committed to fighting climate change but they seem hell-bent on rolling back just about any scheme that helps cut carbon. Here are some examples of what they've done or plan to do:

• Blocking onshore wind energy.
• Blocking solar in the countryside
• Cutting industrial solar subsidy
• Cutting biogas subsidy
• Cutting biomass subsidy
• Cutting domestic solar subsidy
• Ending Green Deal (Low interest loans to home owners who want to be more energy efficient)
• Ending the Green Deal's far more successful predecessor (Included subsidies for roof insulation)
• Scrap requirement that all new homes be zero carbon.
• Cut zero carbon offices
• Put carbon tax on renewables!
• Tax breaks for the oil and gas industry 
• Increase the subsidy for diesel generators
• Freeze fuel duty escalator (to make driving progressively more expensive, encouraging drivers to move away from gas guzzlers).
• Increasing tax on small cars
• Cut support for community energy schemes
• Sell off the Green Investment Bank

Does all this strike you as the program of a government "fully committed to fighting climate change"? The most charitable interpretation is that they have a somewhat short-sighted, cost cutting agenda which trumps all other considerations.

Let's hope that the coming climate deal encourages our useless government to get it's priorities straight: We need to start investing in the future.

After A Climate Deal Part 2 - How Will It Effect Us?

In part 1 of this mini-series, I speculated about whether a climate deal would fall apart before it had any effect. This time round, I assume the deal goes ahead as planned, taking a look at the effects the deal might have on our lives.

• Energy efficiency: Amongst the most cost effective ways of cutting carbon emissions is by improving energy efficiency. New buildings will be better insulated, use less energy and produce their own energy. Old buildings will be retrofitted with similar effects. As a result, home owners and businesses will have greatly reduced fuel bills. And buildings are only the beginning - Energy efficiencies can be found with vehicles, laptops, domestic appliances, and just about anything else that uses energy. All these things will save us money.
• Transport:  It seems unlikely that gas-guzzlers like 4x4's, SUV's, sports cars and the like will be targeted, as that would have little impact on the overall carbon footprint. Instead, expect a push for new vehicles to be increasingly cleaner and incentives to move over to them. I don't expect electric and hydrogen vehicles to be out-selling petrol and diesel ones any time soon due to their relative costs. Same goes for hybrids. Some governments may try to tax petrol/diesel off the road but, as the UK discovered, that's politically dangerous. Public transport will be improved where feasible but only in cities. Shipping and aviation will fast become significant contributors to global emissions. At the moment, they seem to be excluded from U.N. climate negotiations. I doubt they'll escape for long.
• Coal-fired power stations will have to be quickly phased out (10 to 15 years) or have carbon capture installed. Expect a growth of hydro, tidal, wave, nuclear, natural gas, and biomass energy schemes to replace them. Also expect the air to get a lot less polluted as coal is phased out.
• Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has struggled to get off the ground, but it may be a only way of keeping coal fired stations in the mix (whilst other forms of energy catch up). Many have tried to make it happen (The UK and Norway amongst them) to no avail. When someone does eventually get a cost effective method going, it will be a game changer for the climate and worth billions.
• Carbon pricing: This, and carbon trading, was once seen as the answer to climate change - Let the market sort it out by making fossil fuels more expensive and therefore renewables more competitive. However, carbon pricing seems to have disappeared from the U.N. climate change agenda. Not sure why. Possibly because carbon trading has thus far proven to be a difficult tool to get right (Ask the E.U. who have made a right mess of it). Maybe because carbon pricing is seen, quite wrongly, as a stealth tax.
• Energy storage: Solar and wind are intermittent energy sources, unlike say, coal or nuclear which are constant. However, if you store spare renewable energy in times of low demand and use it during times of high demand, it becomes more like a constant source. A lot of progress has been made in energy storage lately, and I expect it to only improve. Once they get this going, then renewables will replace fossil fuels even quicker.
• Super-grids: Meeting energy demand whatever the conditions even during peaks in demand is essential to modern day society. By connecting up very large areas (like the whole of Europe) in one supergrid, it's easier to do this. Watch out for countries getting increasingly inter-connected.
• Reforestation: Expect a lot of  forests to be re-planted. They take carbon from the atmosphere, clean water supplies, prevent soil erosion, and protect coastlines. What's not to like?
• In it together: A strong, worldwide climate deal could prove to be a rallying call to millions around the planet to get behind the deal and make it happen for the sake of future generations. Imagine that: Bringing the peoples of the world together for a common purpose.
• A new dawn: Hopefully any deal made in Paris will be ambitious enough that we will have to get very clever to meet our targets. It could spark the dawn of a new age of science, bringing forward technology we haven't even thought of yet. It could prove the catalyst for a future we can only dream of.

A strong climate deal will have a transformative effect on the way energy is delivered and used. We will therefore do things very differently in the future, both as individuals and as a society. However, I suspect we'll see this as a good thing.