Energy Korea

PostMORE

• 

  EU is investing in toxic waste projects in developing world, GAIA claims

  The EU’s clean development mechanism (CDM) is supporting waste projects in developing countries that threaten livelihoods and cause toxic emissions, according to a report by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA). The study, published on Tuesday in Brussels and entitled The European Union’s double standards on waste management and climate policy (pdf), claims the EU is funding waste-to-energy methods that violate its own guidelines and would be illegal in its member states. The report’s authors argue that projects funded by EU states under the CDM, a climate finance scheme, include incinerator plants that burn reusable materials without consideration for waste prevention or recycling, such as the Changsu facility in eastern China. “In developing countries, the great majority of the municipal solid waste consists of food waste, garden waste, paper and cardboard – materials which provide methane in landfills but which could easily be composted, recycled or fed to animals,” says the report. It also notes that fossil fuels are frequently burned during waste incineration in developing countries owing to high moisture levels that require the addition of extra fuel. Likewise censured are landfill gas schemes such as the Doña Juana project in the Colombian capital Bogotá, which was designed to collect methane gas but, according to the study’s authors, has resulted in increased emissions. Many landfill gas projects backed by the CDM – which aims to promote investment in low-carbon technology in poorer countries by awarding carbon credits that can be bought by rich countries to offset their own emissions – deliberately increase emissions to generate more credits, claims the report. “This study shows double standards are being maintained by European countries,” says GAIA’s climate policy campaigner Mariel Vilella, who co-authored the paper. “On the one hand, European countries have committed to reducing the amount of waste going to landfills, and they have committed to recycling, pollution controls and emissions reductions. On the other hand, they are buying carbon credits from projects in the developing world that are effectively increasing emissions and undermining local communities.” Hardest hit are the waste-pickers who earn a living by scouring the world’s rubbish dumps to recover metal, paper and plastics for recycling. These grassroots recyclers, who number approximately 15 million worldwide and “face challenges of poverty, exploitation by those to whom they sell recyclables, lack of recognition for their work, and lack of access to public benefits”, increasingly face displacement and loss of livelihood as a result of CDM-backed incinerator and landfill gas system projects, argue the report’s authors. “Some waste-pickers are working in landfills,” says Vilella. “The conditions are really bad, but they’re still making a livelihood. When the landfills are closed – or if a community of waste-pickers have been taking care of the recyclables and the organics, and then the access to waste is privatised and all the materials are taken – they are just cut off. “The CDM is financing projects that are preventing community-based solutions that could be far more successful. One example shows that, in Delhi, community waste-pickers are saving so much more in emissions than the CDM project in Delhi was doing. So while the first impact is on communities, the CDM is also effectively preventing other municipal solid waste management solutions that would be more cost-effective.” The report concludes it is essential to integrate grassroots recyclers in poor countries into the planning, development and implementation of municipal solid waste programmes. “There are examples of integration of the informal sector into municipal solid waste management,” says Vilella. “It doesn’t work the same way everywhere, obviously, because it depends on local circumstances. But waste-pickers are increasingly forming networks and regional alliances. There is the Latin American Network of Waste-pickers, the Alliance of Indian Waste-pickers, the South African Waste-Pickers’ Association; [in each case], they are working together with municipalities to provide services to cities to recycle effectively. “In Pune, there is a co-operative called Swach, and they have made an agreement with the municipality to collect organic waste from a large number of households and separate the recyclables. They are backed by a trade union of waste-pickers, so it’s a highly organised network of people who are creating a livelihood for themselves and engaging with the municipality to provide services to the city.” The study identifies the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands as having the worst record on supporting waste incineration and landfill projects in developing countries that would be illegal in the EU. Through the carbon market, UK companies have backed 71 landfill and incinerator projects in 21 countries; not one conforms with EU strictures, claim the authors. source: The guardian

  0 comments | May.17.2012 | view:7

• 

  Green Energy Delegation Paves Way for Korean Companies to Enter Middle East Market

  Ahead of Rio+20, a report is calling for a joined-up approach to managing the world’s water, land and energy demands The international community needs to “radically transform” the way it manages water, energy and land to ensure the needs of the poorest people are met and the environment is protected, according to the European Report on Development, published on Wednesday. The flagship report, Confronting scarcity: managing water, energy and land for inclusive and sustainable growth, calls on the EU to adopt an integrated approach to managing the three elements to achieve universal access to water and energy, and sustainable food security. An estimated 1 billion people are still undernourished, around 0.9 billion have no access to safe water and 1.5 billion have no electricity. The demand for water and energy is expected to rise by 40% by 2030 and by 50% for food. Badly managed or scarce resources tend to hit the poorest people hardest. “Co-ordination failures between policies on water, energy and land need to be addressed to avoid the negative impacts of these interlinkages,” said the report, which aims to “shape global action” in the run-up to next month’s Rio+20 UN conference on sustainable development. “A drop of water, a piece of land, or a kilojoule of renewable energy cannot be seen through the single lens of one sectoral policy or management system. What might appear to be an efficient policy in one dimension can be harmful for others,” it said. Achieving this joined-up approach will involve the public and private sectors, and the EU. The public sector would provide the regulatory and legal frameworks for change, including those that make for a more conducive environment for private sector investment, as well as some of the money. The private sector should create more sustainable practices in accessing and consuming natural resources, while the EU will support poorer countries through aid and its wider development policy. Launching the report in Brussels, the European commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, said: “This report is particularly relevant and timely ahead of the UN Rio+20 conference and the international year for sustainable energy for all. Water, energy and land are crucial resources for development and human wellbeing, and scarcity cannot be overcome by piecemeal actions.” The annual report, compiled by the Overseas Development Institute, the European Centre for Development Policy Management and the German Development Institute, sets out ideas for governments, business and the EU to consider. To strengthen water security for poor communities, for example, it suggests that national governments are supported to implement integrated water resources management programmes. It calls for a significant reduction in the environmental footprint of consumption in developed countries – though not exclusively. The report also urges governments to ensure land investments contribute to economic development and that deals are not at the expense of weakening ecosystems or people’s livelihoods. It argues for strengthened land tenure to protect customary and collective rights. Initiatives that protect the environment, such as halting deforestation, should be rewarded with payments, says the report, offering as an example a scheme operating around Lake Naivasha in Kenya under which companies pay local smallholders who put their land to good use. The sentiments of the report chime with an increased focus on joined-up approaches to the challenges of water, land, energy and food security. In March, the ministerial declaration from the World Water Forum called for a greater recognition of the links between water, food and energy in decision-making to improve the “sustainable management of these scarce resources”. In November, a report by the International Institute for Environment and Development made an explicit link between water and land. It said African governments were signing away water rights to land investors, who want to profit from water fees and improved agricultural yields and revenues. These “water grabs” show little regard for their impact on people, said the report. “Water managers must seriously consider the extent to which water rights should be linked to land in this way before setting a long-term precedent that could compromise sustainable and equitable supply to all users in the future,” it said. Wednesday’s report comes two days after foreign ministers endorsed the European Commission’s Agenda for Change policy, under which more money will be targeted towards the world’s least developed countries and budget support will be made dependent on governments’ human rights and governance records. The new agenda makes clear the EU’s desire to see sustainable, inclusive growth and development, and to increase the involvement of the private sector, which includes allowing them access to development aid. Critics have argued that the private sector role lacks clarity. “Will it be local firms in developing countries or foreign multinationals who get access to funds? EU countries need to make sure they don’t divert essential aid support away from those most in need,” said Olivier Consolo, director of the European NGO confederation Concord. Last month, the EU pledged €50bn to support clean energy projects in developing countries. source: The guardian

  0 comments | May.17.2012 | view:17

• 

  Earth’s environment getting worse, not better, says WWF ahead of Rio+20

  Swelling population, mass migration to cities, increasing energy use and soaring CO2 emissions squeeze planet’s resources Twenty years on from the Rio Earth summit, the environment of the planet is getting worse not better, according to a report from WWF. Swelling population, mass migration to cities, increasing energy use and soaring carbon dioxide emissions mean humanity is putting a greater squeeze on the planet’s resources then ever before. Particularly hard hit is the diversity of animals and plants, upon which many natural resources such as clean water are based. “The Rio+20 conference next month is an opportunity for the world to get serious about the need for development to become sustainable. Our report indicates that we haven’t yet done that since the last Rio summit,” said David Nussbaum, WWF-UK chief executive. The latest Living Planet report, published on Tuesday, estimates that global demand for natural resources has doubled since 1996 and that it now takes 1.5 years to regenerate the renewable resources used in one year by humans. By 2030, the report predicts it will take the equivalent of two planets to meet the current demand for resources. Most alarming, says the report, is that many of these changes have accelerated in the past decade, despite the plethora of international conventions signed since the initial Rio Summit in 1992. Climate-warming carbon emissions have increased 40% in the past 20 years, but two-thirds of that rise occurred in the past decade. The report, compiled by WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network, compiles data from around the world on the ecological footprints of each country and the status of resources like water and forests. It also examines changes in populations of 2,688 animal species, with the latest available data coming from 2008. The eighth report of its kind, the new Living Planet document, comes five weeks before Rio+20, the latest United Nations conference on sustainable development. Nussbaum said: “We have taken some important steps forward: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an important step, a way in which the world is seeking to come to agreement about [cutting] greenhouse gases. The Convention on Biological Diversity is an important way of the world identifying steps that can be taken in protecting biodiversity. But the pace in both cases is rather glacial. And unfortunately our lifestyles and the consequences of those are having an impact more quickly than the acts we are taking to protect the planet.” Wealthy countries have seen some improvement, with the Living Planet biodiversity index, rising 7% since 1970, as nature reserves and protections were introduced. But the biodiversity index has dropped by 60% in developing countries, where people depend more on nature. Demographic shifts have had a significant impact. The world’s cities have seen a 45% increase in population since 1992, according to the Global Footprint Network, and urban residents typically have a much larger carbon footprint than their rural counterparts. The average Beijinger, says WWF, has a footprint three times the Chinese average, due to factors including private car use. Water security is a growing concern in many parts of the world as population and agriculture drives demand, placing enormous stress on freshwater ecosystems and fishing zones, according to data from WWF. “The Living Planet report shows that the biggest single drop in the living planet index is for freshwater species in tropical areas, which have shown a decline of 70% since 1970,” said David Tickner, head of freshwater at WWF-UK. A note of hope for the future, said the authors, is that the world could see peak population sometime this century. Though the population hit 7 billion in 2011, the UNEP reports the population growth rate has fallen from 1.65% to 1.2% since 1992, with women now having an average of 2.5 children. source: The guardian

  0 comments | May.16.2012 | view:22

• 

  Ferrari to launch its first hybrid car – a snip at £527,000+

  From horsepower to battery power, Ferrari is joining the growing ranks of green carmakers by launching its first ever hybrid vehicle at the end of the year. The Italian firm, one of the most elite names in motoring, indicated that one of its glitziest products, the Enzo, will be released in a hybrid version. “At the end of the year, we’ll also be unveiling the new Enzo, a limited series model and our first ever hybrid car,” said Ferrari’s chairman, Luca di Montezemolo. According to reports on Monday, the price will probably exceed the €660,000 (£527,000) cost of the Enzo and will be the carmaker’s most powerful model – combining two electric motors with a 12-cylinder gas engine, allowing for a 40% cut in fuel use. Average new car emissions in Europe are 138g of carbon dioxide per km, but the European Union has set a target of 95g per km by 2020. There are, however, exceptions for niche manufacturers such as Ferrari. Even if the new Enzo halves its CO2 emissions, it will be at the upper end of the greenhouse gas emitters on the roads. Its emissions are currently 545g/km. In general, cars are getting greener. A recent report by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said a new car now emits 28% less carbon dioxide than a new car purchased 15 years ago. Nonetheless, car emissions need to be cut substantially for decades to come. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the government’s advisory body on tackling greenhouse gas emissions, believes that UK surface transport emissions – of which cars account for 60% of the total – must reduce by 91% from 2008 levels to meet wider emission reduction targets by 2050. Along the way to meeting those benchmarks, the CCC expects the UK market for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids to grow from just over 1% of sales currently to 16% by 2020. source: The guardian

  0 comments | May.16.2012 | view:46