Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg and the UK Climate Debate

It's been an interesting couple of weeks here in Britain where the climate change debate is concerned.

Just as things had quietened down in the media about the school children striking about climate change than we had the Extinction Rebellion phenomenon, the sudden appearance of Greta Thunberg (who'd started of the strikes amongst school kids) in Britain to talk in Parliament, and a high impact documentary from David Attenborough called 'Climate Change: The Facts'.

All in the space of a week.

Extinction Rebellion (aka XR), are a group of climate protestors who decided to take 'direct action' in London. This meant such things as super-gluing themselves to trains and entrances to major financial institutions, blocking major roads and bridges, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They had been planning this for months and the idea was to put climate change at the top of the political agenda in the UK. They knew that there'd be arrests, they were prepared for it, and indeed, they were counting on it. They were arrested in their hundreds, and yet, each day, more would join the protests, inspired by their actions.

Whatever you think of their methods, when governments fail to respond to strong public feeling, then all there's left is direct action. This happened with women's fight for the right to vote, and the civil rights movement in the States.

The XR protests were peaceful, good natured, and they made their point well. The arrival of Greta in Britain, to speak to XR and then to party leaders in Parliament upped the ante. To see this young woman confronting our politicians with her quiet dignity and direct, no nonsense language was, frankly, inspirational. She speaks for a generation whose future is being thrown away while governments do nothing. Those party leaders must have known they'd met their match and, for once, I think they actually listened.

And then, whilst this was all going on, there was David Attenborough's 'Climate Change: The Facts' film. If this documentary isn't a call to arms, I don't know what is.

I think the coming together of these three elements galvanised many people in this country. So the XR protests grew, and the emails/letters/calls to MPs went through the roof, dwarfing those from Brexit.

Suddenly Climate Change was back on the agenda and, not only that, at the very top.

I was sceptical that anything would actually come from this. After all, our politicians are past masters at saying the right things (to placate the voters) but doing nothing. However, the opposition in Parliament, bless 'em, forced a debate yesterday about whether there was a climate emergency. I watched a fair bit of this debate live and I've got to say I was impressed about how many MPs, on both sides of the House, actually got it. Oh, there were a few Tory MPs who got up to defend the government's record on bringing down carbon emissions, but it was pretty much unanimous - Their IS an emergency, Britain (and the World) isn't doing enough, there was plenty more we could do, and we needed up our ambition and our sense of urgency.

Bottom line: Parliament declared a national climate emergency.

Wow.

Of course, it remains to be seen if all these fine words will be turned into action, but the signs are looking good. An emergency has been declared, the government HAVE to respond.

Is this history in the making or just another false dawn?

Are Solar Batteries Worth It?

One of the things that's been on my 'radar' lately has been battery storage for our solar panels.

Think about it - For much of the year in the Britain, a decent-sized solar array on your roof probably produces more energy in daylight hours than you can use. So the 'spare' electric goes back to the grid. But what if you could store that spare power until you could use it? That could save you some money and reduce your carbon footprint.

The way to do this is to install a solar battery storage system.

The batteries can be Lead-Acid or Lithium-Ion but the latter are supposed to be the better choice (in terms of weight and battery life). However, they are expensive - Despite the cost of Lithium-Ion batteries coming down dramatically (> 80% since 2010) - with prices in the UK currently starting at £3000 for a 6.5 kWh battery.

So, is it worth it at today's prices? Well, I did some rough calculations for our own panels.....

Example 1:
If I take a Solax 3.3 battery, costing £4000 for 3.5kWh with a 10 year warranty. I'd need to get £400 a year's worth of stored electric out of it just to break even (Assuming the battery only lasts as long as it's warranty). If I assume it stores the maximum 3.5kWh every day, it will give me 1277 kWh a year. Based on the price per kWh from my electric company of £0.1617, that gives me a saving of £204.40 per year. Just over half what I'd need to break even. But it would cut our carbon footprint by 0.69 tonnes.

However, assuming the battery stores 3.5kWh every day is a bit optimistic. Even in the height of Summer you can get days were the panels generate less than 3.5, that gets worse in Winter. So, the savings in electric and carbon would be even less (maybe half?).

Example 2:
Tesla Powerwall, costing £5500 for 13.5 kWh with 10 year warranty. Here, I'd need a return of £550 per year to break even.  However, the larger capacity of the battery means I could get an increased return. Maybe as much as 2/3rds of the energy we generate of around 2000 kWh a year. This would give us a return of £328.40 a year and a saving of 1.08 tonnes a year of carbon.

An improvement, but still only around 60% of what I'd need to break even.

Bottom-line: Solar battery prices would need to halve before they become cost effective in the UK. I'm guessing that's not too far off now.

School Chidren Want Action on Climate Change - NOW

Last week (15th Feb 2019), tens of thousands of young people in the UK walked out of school to join protests calling on the UK government for radical action on climate change. See here.

This was part of rolling, worldwide protests by school kids that have been going on for weeks.

They were first begun by a Swedish girl called Greta Thunberg who did a solo protest outside the Swedish parliament back in August, and it's snow-balled ever since.

The media have variously described these protesters as truants, naïve, and dupes of adults pushing an agenda.

I'm sure some of the children were truants, but I'm betting this was a very small percentage of them. If there's anything I've learnt about teenagers nowadays, it's that they are lot more worldly wise than we were back in the 20th century. This generation are lot better informed than back then and, as a consequence, care deeply about the injustices they see all around them. They haven't been duped, they know their own minds. They are concerned about their own futures and the world they'll have to live in.

Maybe they are naïve though. Naïve to think that politicians are quick to act and do the right thing.

As long ago as 1992, with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, all countries signed up to a treaty that had a stated aim of curbing dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. 27 years later, politicians are still trying to thrash out the details of how to do that. All the way along, scientists have been warning we need to act fast or face dire consequences, and yet the politicians continue to act as if they have all the time in the world. They love procrastinating, and kicking the can down the road where difficult decisions are needed.

Radical change will be needed, and that's what they can't face. The solutions are available and well-known. They just need the political will, of which, they have none.

It looks very much like nothing will be done until 2020 when the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement supposedly comes into effect. Even then, I'm sure no sense of urgency will suddenly appear.

Pity the poor children. Pity us all.

How Green Are Wood Burners?

We bought a wood burner about a year ago. Basically we wanted something better looking than our dated, inefficient gas fire (with fake coal). It was a bit expensive, taking into account lining the chimney and so on, but it's worked out well.

It looks stylish, has a touch of nostalgia about the flames, the fuel is relatively cheap, and it's very cosy. I also think it's helping to reduce our heating bill. This, and the fact that using wood for fuel is carbon neutral, makes it a nice way to reduce our carbon footprint.

Currently, there are 1 million wood burners in the UK with 175,000 being added each year. It's thought that they will account for 10% of the government's carbon reduction target by 2020, cutting our emissions by 2 million tonnes a year.

All good right? So why did the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, want to ban them?

Well, burning wood releases soot/smoke. In environmental terms, these are known as particulates. And particulates from diesel cars, industry, and, apparently, wood burning are responsible for thousands of deaths a year in the UK's urban areas.

The problem is that a lot of people are burning the wrong sort of wood and in inefficient ways.

The government is bringing in legislation to ensure all wood burners are at least 80% efficient which greatly reduces the soot produced, and wood suppliers are providing wood with < 20% moisture (the wetter the wood, the more smoke is produced).

This will greatly reduce the amount of particulates. In addition, wood burner owners need to learn what they can burn safely. We shouldn't burn treated wood and we shouldn't burn anything other than wood and plain paper (as kindling). Anything else would be unhealthy.

The Car That Runs on Air

Over 9 years ago, I came across news of a car that would run on nothing more than air.

Sounds like a hoax doesn't it? But it's actually possible.

The basic principle is that you fill the tank with compressed air, which is effectively a form of stored energy, and this is what's used to run the car.

Back then, the prototypes were being built by a French company called MDI (https://www.mdi.lu/) and Tata Motors were looking to launch a car based around MDI's compressed air engine in 2011.

It never happened. Ever since, launch of these so-called Air Cars has always been imminent but has never actually taken place. Apparently, there have been numerous issues to overcome, such as limited range, technical challenges, and safety concerns.

But these all seem to have been overcome as....

Currently Tata are saying they'll launch by 2020, Zero Pollution Motors (https://zeropollutionmotors.us/), a U.S. licensee for MDI is saying mid-2019 for the AirPod 2.0 model. This is priced at $10,000 dollars and they've already been taking deposits.

The claim is that it does 50 mph, has an 80 mile range, and can be 'charged' in 4 minutes.

If this turns out to be true then it's a pretty cheap way to drive clean. I look forward to the reviews.

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.