Natural Environment Blog

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) remanded a PSD permit on Thursday for a proposed coal plant addition near Vernal, Utah.

EPA says that it cannot grant such permits until it decides what to do about limiting the CO2 emissions that the plant will produce.  

The decision will essentially delay any new coal plant in the United States for at least a couple of years.

The Sierra Club went before the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) in May this year requesting that the air permit for Deseret Power Electric Cooperative’s proposed waste coal-fired power plant be overturned because it failed to require any controls on carbon dioxide pollution. Once the 110 MW Bonanza plant was in operation, it would have emitted 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. 

On Thursday, the permit was overturned.

Significant Decision

The ruling will make it much harder for companies to receive permits for new coal plants. This could have a significant impact on the US coal industry as over 100 coal plants are in various stages of development around the country. 

“They’re sending this permit — and effectively sending every other permit — back to square one,” said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. 

“It’s minimum a one to two year delay for every proposed coal-fired power plant in the United States.”

The ruling makes reference to the landmark Massachusetts v. EPA decision last year that declared carbon dioxide a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Until Thursday’s decision, the EPA had not yet acted on this ruling.

Coal Plants are Huge Carbon Emitters

Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permits are for construction projects that may significantly increase air pollutant emissions. Part of the process for granting a PSD permit is determining what Best Available Control Technology (BACT) to use in order to minimize pollutant emissions.

“Coal plants emit 30% of our nation’s global warming pollution. Building new coal plants without controlling their carbon emissions could wipe out all of the other efforts being undertaken by cities, states and communities across the country,” said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. “Everyone has a role to play and it’s time that the coal industry did its part and started living up to its clean coal rhetoric.”

Good News for Low-Carbon Technologies

Thursday’s decision helps pave the way to making solar, wind, nuclear and other low-carbon technologies more competitive.

“Instead of pouring good money after bad trying to fix old coal technology, investors should be looking to wind, solar and energy efficiency technologies that are going to power the economy, create jobs, and help the climate recover,” said Nilles.

View the ruling [PDF document, 69 pages]

The Great Barrier Reef is benefiting from a strong US dollar and weak Australian dollar. Photo: Copyright (C) 2004 Richard Ling (rling.com)

The Great Barrier Reef tourism appears to be benefiting from a strong US dollar and weak Australian dollar.

Amidst the global financial turmoil, the U.S. dollar has continued to strengthen while other currencies have struggled to keep up. The Australian dollar has taken a huge hit, and recently plunged to its lowest in 5 years.

While this is not normally something for Aussies to celebrate, it has made Australia a more attractive place for overseas visitors. In particular, $1 USD will currently buy you around $1.50 AUD. In other words, if you’re American, your dollar goes 50 percent further in Australia. If you’re Canadian you’ll gain around 25 percent.

“No Barrier to the Great Barrier Reef”

A recent campaign - “No Barrier to the Great Barrier Reef” - has brought in over $1 million dollars in bookings and quotes in the six weeks since it launched, and it’s likely that the low Aussie dollar has given the campaign an extra boost. 

The campaign included an email to 260,000 North American frequent flyers, inviting them to visit Queensland - the home of the Great Barrier Reef.

The email offers packages such as:

• Eight days to the Whitsundays from $US1999 including return airfares from the US, accommodation, transfers, some meals and activit ies
• A Great Barrier Reef Air Pass from $US1199 which includes return airfares from the US and three domestic Australian flights including Cairns
• A $US599 Aussie Wildlife package which includes two nights in Brisbane, two nights on Fraser Island, entry to Australia Zoo and transfers 

Tough Times for Australian Tourism

The campaign follows a particularly destressing time for the Australain tourism industry - particularly in the Far North.   

“Destinations such as Tropical North Queensland have been hard hit by a combination of flight cuts, high fuel costs and a downturn in the global economy so our aim is to hit our key international markets with a range of value-for-money package deals that are too good to refuse” said Queensland tourism Minister Desley Boyle.

“Tourism Queensland invested $200,000 of the $4 million assistance package funding into five US campaigns, but thanks to buy-in from travel partners in North America, we have been able to increase the campaign spend to $1.9 million,” she continued.

Great Barrier Reef a “Must See”

Ms Boyle stressed the importance of visiting the Great Barrier Reef while holidaying in Australia.

“The Great Barrier Reef is one of American travellers’ must-see Australian destinations and because these special packages are only available for a short period of time, our aim is to turn their ‘one day’ dream into ‘let’s book today’ reality,” she said.

About the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system and the largest natural feature on Earth. It is under threat from climate change and water pollution, and unless urgent measures are put in place to prevent this, it could die out within three decades.

A new agency will be formed in early 2009 to act as a driver for renewable energy on an international level.

Although there are other international energy agencies, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which was initially driven by Germany, Spain and Denmark, will be the first worldwide agency dedicated to renewable energy.

IRENA says,

There is an urgent need for renewable energy to play a stronger part in international political processes – whether they deal with trade, investment, environment, energy or other issues. Its aim will be to generate momentum for renewable energy on an international level.

Large-Scale Adoption of Renewable Energy

IRENA’s objective is to foster and promote the large-scale adoption of renewable energy worldwide. 

The agency plans to break the objective down into the following tangable targets:

• Improved regulatory frameworks for renewable energy through enhanced policy advice 
• Improvements in the transfer of renewable energy technology 
• Progress and improvements on renewable energy skills and know-how; a scientifically sound information basis through applied policy research 
• Better financing of renewable energy

Greenpeace has published the second edition of their Energy [R]evolution report, which has been updated with the latest economic, technical and population data. 

The report provides a blueprint that the world can use to cut emissions, phase out nuclear power, save money and maintain global economic development - all without fuelling catastrophic climate change.

The report shows how the planet can get from where we are now, to where we need to be.

Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Currently, developed countries use much more energy per capita than developing countries. 

The report explains that by 2020 developed countries such as USA, Europe and Australia are projected to use two to  three times more energy per capita than China or India. And because of this, those developed countries need to reduce their carbon emissions much earlier than developing countries. 

Greenpeace say,

In the global fight against catastrophic climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector must have peaked by 2015 and have returned to current levels by 2020.

The report says that industrialized economies such as the USA, the European Community and Australia, have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30% below 1990 levels.

It also says that developing countries need to stabilize their carbon emissions by 2020, then start reducing emissions. 

3 Step Approach

The blueprint provides a 3 step approach:

Step 1: Electrical efficiency

• Exploit all technical potential for electrical efficiency via technical standards

Step 2: Structural changes

• Change the way we produce energy in large centralised power stations towards a decentralised energy system, using large-scale renewable resources that use locally available energy sources such as wind, sun or geothermal.
• Cogeneration – end the huge amounts of waste energy via cooling towers

Step 3: Energy-efficient transport

• Build up efficient public transport systems

Implement efficient cars, trucks, etc.

5 key Principles

Greenpeace say that the report is based on proven technologies the following key principles:

1. Equity and fairness
2. Respect natural limits
3. Phase out dirty, unsustainable energy
4. Implement renewable solutions and decentralise energy systems
5. Decouple growth from fossil fuel use

Greenpeace’s Message to the World Governments

In the report, Greenpeace makes a plea to governments around the world to:

1. Phase out all subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy
2. Internalise the external (social and environmental) costs of energy production through “cap and trade” emissions trading
3. Mandate strict efficiency standards for all energy-consuming appliances, buildings and vehicles
4. Establish legally binding targets for renewable energy and combined heat and power generation
5. Reform the electricity markets by guaranteeing priority access to the grid for renewable power generators
6. Provide defined and stable returns for investors, for example by feed-in tariff programmes
7. Increase research and development budgets for renewable energy and energy efficiency

The Report

The Energy [R]evolution was developed in conjunction with specialists from the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) and more than 30 scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry around the world.

View a Summary (PDF, 16 pages) | View the  Full report (PDF, 212 pages.

In Australia, University of Queensland’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg has hit back at claims that his view on climate change’s impact on coral reefs is pessimistic.

A couple of days ago, two of his colleagues downplayed his comments that sea temperatures are likely to rise 2C over the next three decades, which would undoubtedly kill the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Today, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg posted a reply on his blog entitled “Great Barrier Reef could adapt to climate change, scientists say” – Facts, fallacies and fanciful thinking.

Hoegh-Guldberg begins by saying,

I must say I’m a little amazed that Andrew Baird has come out with such poorly supported statements.  In fact, his opinions seem to depend almost entirely on his personal opinion!  The argument that corals are able to magically “adapt” over one or two decades to climate change has come up many times over the years – always, with a complete dearth of evidence to support it.

After contacting Andrew Baird to see if he might know something Hoegh-Guldberg didn’t, Baird sent through a recently published article by Jeff Maynard and himself. 

Hoegh-Guldberg clearly wasn’t impressed with the article, or its lack of evidence to support its conclusions. In response to the Maynard et al (2008) suggestion that coral reefs will be able to evolve and adapt with climate change, Hoegh-Guldberg commented, 

Perhaps it is time for Baird and Maynard to propose a mechanism (with solid evidence) for how physiological traits such as thermal tolerance are able to evolve fast enough to keep rate with oceans that are warming and acidifying at rates which dwarf even the most rapid changes over the last several million years.

After dissecting the article piece by piece, Hoegh-Guldberg, acknowledes that coral reefs could potentially adapt to gradual climate change, but emphasizes that current global warming is occuring much faster than any other period in the last 420,000 years. He finishes with the following:

Overall, while the interest of Andrew Baird and his colleague Jeff Maynard are to be encouraged, one hopes that such loose and unsupported perspectives on such an important issue will be better thought out next time.  No one doubts that evolution occurs on organisms like corals, and hence it adaptation if given time will occur, I think it is important that we realise how unusual the current situation is. 

He continues,

I together with 16 other leading scientific experts recently calculated the rates of change over the past 420,000 years and found that the current rates of changes in temperature and important aspects such as the carbonate ion concentration rose much as three orders of magnitude higher than even the most rapid rates of climate change over this period.  Given the huge changes that did occur over this period in response to ice age and other global transitions, I think we need to be extremely careful in jumping to the conclusion that:

[to quote Andrew Baird] “adaptive qualities of coral reefs would mitigate the effects of climate change.”

Full text at Climate Shifts

Colorful fish at Rapture Reef, French Frigate Shoals of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

According to the Australian newspaper, several scientists have downplayed the significance that global warming will have on our coral reefs.

Specifically, they respond to a recent comment by University of Queensland’s Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, that sea temperatures are likely to rise 2C over the next three decades, which would undoubtedly kill the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg, also of the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS), has spent the past 15 years warning us about the impact of climate change on the coral reefs.   

But Dr Andrew Baird principal research fellow at CoECRS says that this is a pessimistic view, and that there are serious knowledge gaps about the impact that rising sea temperatures would have on coral. 

Baird believes that coral has the ability to adapt to climate change.

“I believe coral has an underappreciated capacity to evolve. It’s one of the biological laws that, wherever you look, organisms have adapted to radical changes.” he said.

However, Dr Baird did acknowledge that we need to do something about the impact of climate change on coral reefs.

“There will be sweeping changes in the relative abundance of species,” he said. “There’ll be changes in what species occur where.

“But wholesale destruction of reefs? I think that’s overly pessimistic.” he added.

Russell Reichelt, chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority shared Dr Baird’s sentiment.

“I think that he’s right,” he said. “The reef is more adaptable and research is coming out now to show adaptation is possible for the reef.”

Dr Reichelt, a marine scientist, believes that the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is water quality. In particular, he refers to the coastal regions where sediment and fertilizer is draining into the ocean and therefore threatening the future of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef.

“If a reef’s going to survive bleaching, you don’t want to kill it with a dirty river,” he said.

Coral can Cross-Breed

Baird and Reichelt aren’t the only ones who believe that coral could adapt to climate change.

Recent studies carried out by CoECRS have found that at least one species of coral can cross-breed and create a hybrid species, suggesting that coral may in fact be able to adapt to climate change.  

Ocean Acidification

Rising sea temperatures isn’t the only threat to our coral reef systems. Ocean acidification has been recently cited as a major threat.

At least three recent studies - one of which professor Hoegh-Guldberg was involved in - have concluded that rising CO2 emissions is a major threat to coral reefs around the world. This is because increased CO2 leads to increased ocean acidification - which in turn, destroys coral reefs.

WWF, the global conservation organization, has just released the 2008 version of their Living Planet Report (as I was anticipating), and things are not looking good for planet Earth - or those of us who reside here.

The report, prduced in conjunction with  the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN), is released every two years and is recognized as probably the most authoritative report on the state of the world’s ecosystems. It could be viewed as biennial bank statement for natural resources. 

According to the report, our global footprint now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent. This has increased from 25% in the 2006 report.

Furthermore, our global footprint is expected to keep increasing unless we do something about it. The report says that if our demands on the planet continue at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we will need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles.

WWF International Director-General James Leape said “Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing - and increasingly overdrawing - on the ecological capital of other parts of the world,”

“If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to maintain our lifestyles” he continued.

World Economical Crisis vs World Ecological Crisis

The 2008 report draws comparisons between the world economic crisis and the “world ecological crisis”.

It says:

The recent downturn in the global economy is a stark reminder of the consequences of living beyond our means. But the current  financial recession pales in comparison to the looming ecological credit crunch.

Whether we live on the edge of the forest or in the heart of the city, our livelihoods and indeed our lives depend on the services provided by the Earth’s natural systems.

The report continues to say that we are consuming the resources that underpin those services much too fast – faster than they can be replenished.

Just as reckless spending is causing recession, so reckless consumption is depleting the world’s natural capital to a point where we are endangering our future prosperity.

ZSL co-editor Jonathan Loh said “We are acting ecologically in the same way as financial institutions have been behaving economically - seeking immediate gratification without due regard for the consequences,”

“The consequences of a global ecological crisis are even graver than the current economic meltdown.”

The report also says that in the past 35 years, Earth’s wildlife populations have declined by a third”

5 Countries with the Highest Footprints

The five countries with the highest footprints per person were:

• United Arab Emirates
• the United States of America
• Kuwait
• Denmark
• Australia 

5 Countries with the Lowest Footprints

These countries were found to have the lowest footprints per person:

• Bangladesh
• Congo
• Haiti
• Afghanistan
• Malawi

Reckless Lifestyles at the Expense of Others

The report says that more than three quarters of the world’s population live in nations that have outstripped their country’s biocapacity. It says:

Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing (and increasingly overdrawing) upon the ecological capital of other parts of the world.

Water Footprints

For the first time the Living Planet Report also includes new measures of global, national and individual water footprints.

It finds that globally, each person consumes about 1.24 million liters of water per year.

But the actual figures vary significantly between countries. The nation with the highest water consumption per capita was United States, with 2.48 million liters of water consumed per year (about the size of an Olympic swimming pool). The nation with the lowest water consumption was Yemen, with 619,000 liters per person. 

The Good News…

Despite the apparent gloom and doom, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

WWF believes that it’s not too late for us to do something about the looming “ecological credit crunch”. 

In order to tackle climate change, the WWF refers to its own “WWF Climate Solutions Model” which outlines a model for achieving reductions in carbon emissions of 60 to 80 per cent by 2050.

The report offers some more advice for dealing with the issue:

Success requires that we manage resources on nature’s terms and at nature’s scale. This means that decisions in each sector, such as agriculture or fisheries, must be taken with an eye to broader ecological consequences. It also means that we must find ways to manage across our own boundaries – across property lines and political borders – to take care of the ecosystem as a whole

Download the Report

The report should be available on the Living Planet Report section of the WWF website very soon.

Alternatively, you can download the report here [PDF File 4.35 MB].

German scientists have estimated that sea levels around the world will rise a meter (100cm) by the end of the century.

That is much higher than previous estimates by IPCC’s Climate Change 2007 report which had projected a rise of between 18cm to 59cm depending on the temperature change.

The new research was carried out by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects, and Jochem Marotzke, Director of The Ocean in the Earth System at the Planck Institute for Meteorology.

Schnellnhuber said the new findings employed data unavailable to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for its report. 

The IPCC report, also known as the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report, had provided scenarios for temperature changes ranging between 0.3 degrees and 6.4 degrees Celcius.

Schnellnhuber said it is “just barely possible” that world governments will be able to limit the rise in average global temperatures to just 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, if they all strictly adhere to severe limits in carbon dioxide emissions.

The researchers also said that IPCC’s report had been based on data up to 2005, but since then ice loss in the Arctic had doubled or even tripled.

Schnellnhuber’s and Marotzke’s findings are based on studies of melting Himalaya glaciers and the shrinking Greenland ice cap.

Air Polution Is Not Helping

According to Schnellnhuber, 20 percent of the loss of ice sheet on Greenland could be linked to new Chinese coal-fired power stations. Soot particles settle on the ice, preventing the ice from reflecting as much sunlight back into space. The result is that the ice absorbs sunlight rays, raising the temperature of the ice and causing it to melt.

Schnellnhuber said ”Air pollution plays a massive role in the accelerating pace of climate change”.

Member countries of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) have pledged more than $100 million to help stop deforestation and fight climate change.

The pledge came during the FCPF’s first annual general meeting which was held this week.

“It is heartening to know that despite the current financial situation, countries around the world understand that we cannot delay action on battling climate change,” said Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, which serves on the FCPF panel. “Forest protection is one of the most cost-effective methods available to fight climate change. If we don’t take action now, climate change ultimately will have a much greater impact on the global economy and the natural resources we all depend upon for survival”.

Tercek also said “Right now, developing countries can generate more money from cutting down their forests than from keeping them standing,”

“The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility will bring developed and industrialized countries together — along with forest communities, indigenous groups, the private sector and civil society — to establish a financial value for the carbon stored in standing forests” he continued.

About the FCPF

The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) was first launched at the Bali Climate Meeting on December 11,  2007.

It was created because “forests are more important left standing than cut”. FCPF aims to reduce deforestation and forest degradation by compensating developing countries for carbon dioxide reductions realized by maintaining their forests.

FCPF members, which consist of government organizations from around the world, make up what is known as the “Participants Committee”. The member countries include Australia, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Guyana, Japan, Kenya, Madagascar, the Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Switzerland the United Kingdom, the United States and Vietnam.

Appointment of The Nature Conservancy

During this week’s meeting, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which was a founding member of the FCPF, was also appointed to serve on the governing panel. This makes TNC the only non-governmental organization to serve on the panel.

TNC had also previously pledged $5 million dollars to FCPF at its launch during the Bali Climate Meeting.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), global warming is occuring much faster than previously thought.

The findings have been released in a new report, entitled Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner. 

This report has found that the Climate Change 2007 report - released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - underestimated the speed of climate change. The 2007 report consolidated research from nearly 4,000 scientists from more than 150 nations.

WWF says that, since the Climate Change 2007 report, the science of climate change has moved on. 

IPCC Vice Chair, Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele supports the report. He said ”It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious,”

Key Findings

Here are some key findings from the report:

• The Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice up to 30 years ahead of IPCC predictions. It is now predicted that the summer sea ice could completely disappear between 2013 and 2040 - something that hasn’t occurred in more than a million years.
• Global sea level rise is expected to reach more than double the IPCC’s maximum estimate of 0.59m by the end of the century, putting vast coastal areas at risk.
• Natural carbon sinks - the areas that help to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere - are losing their ability to soak up growing levels of emissions faster than expected.
• Rising temperatures have already led to a major reduction in global yields of wheat, maize and barley, resulting in losses of 40 million tonnes of grain per year.
• Marine ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are being exposed to the warmest temperatures measured since records began.
• The number and intensity of extreme cyclones over the British Isles and the North Sea are projected to increase, leading to increased wind speeds and storm-related losses over Western and Central Europe.

A Call to the European Union

WWF are looking to the European Union for more action. 

Dr. Tina Tin, Climate Scientist and author of the report says “If the European Union wants to be seen as leader at UN talks in Copenhagen next year, and to help secure a strong global deal to tackle climate change after 2012, then it must stop shirking its responsibilities and commit to real emissions cuts within Europe”.

In particular, the report calls on the European Union to:

• Immediately adopt an emission reduction target of at least 30% below 1990 levels by 2020 – to be delivered within the boundaries of the EU; and
• Commit – on top of its own reduction target – to provide additional substantial support and funding for investment in socially and environmentally robust adaptation and mitigation activities in developing countries.

Dr. Tina Tin continues, “Climate change is a major challenge to the future of mankind and the environment, and this sobering overview highlights just how critical it is that EU Environment Ministers discussing the EU legislations against climate change today commit to a strong climate and energy package, in order to ensure a low carbon future”.