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Aviation is the next target in Europe

by William Yeatman on April 13, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

Aviation demanded and received a separate, special deal in the Kyoto Protocol, but several governments and the European Union are now actively exploring ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes.  The goal is to reduce airline passenger demand, and the methods being considered are additional taxes on air travel or including airlines in a cap-and-trade system. 

Emissions from aviation are substantial.  For example, in the United Kingdom aviation accounts for 15 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions, and this is estimated to grow by two thirds by 2050.  Cheaper flights and more passengers account for most of the projected increase.

The German Environment Ministry is arguing that government regulation is a necessity and has suggested that aviation be included in the EUs proposed carbon cap-and-trade system. On the other hand, the British Airports Authority has reacted to speculation by insisting that it would only enter an emissions trading system if it were on a global scale.  Caroline Corfield, head of media relations for BAA, has stated, If you put prices up, it will have an impact on demand.

 Trucost, a group which advises investors on corporate environmental and social risk, estimates the average price increase for airline tickets will be 2 per cent and will continue to increase as the cost of reducing emissions rises.  This will most affect low-income passengers, who tend to be more price sensitive.  (The Observer, Mar. 24, Edie, Mar. 24.)

Canada not doing enough

by William Yeatman on April 13, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations

In Canada, Action Plan 2000 earmarked $210 million in government funding to promote technologies that reduced greenhouse gas emissions in industry and transportation and gave $125 million to cities to encourage use of such technologies.  Another $100 million went to promote foreign demand for these Canadian solutions.  Despite these efforts, Canadas greenhouse gas emissions in 2002 were the highest ever.  This puts Canada well off the mark of reducing emissions by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels as called for in the Kyoto Protocol.

 We seriously underestimated the difficulty of getting reductions and overestimated the payoff from new technologies, said a senior official working on climate change.  Nevertheless, last month the Canadian federal budget allocated $1 billion more to support new environmental technologies.  Ottawa is also offering the one ton challenge, in which it calls on individual Canadians to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by one ton.  (Toronto Star,  April 5 and 6).

GAO examines Kyotos costs

by William Yeatman on April 13, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations

At a July 2002 hearing on the Bush Administrations climate initiative, James Connaughton, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), testified that implementing the Kyoto Protocol would reduce U.S. economic output by up to $400 billion in 2010.  In contrast, a 1998 study done by President Clintons Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) found that the costs of implementing the Protocol would be $7 billion to $12 billion annually in lost output. 

The General Accounting Office has analyzed the stark difference between the two studies and concluded that there are two principal reasons for it.  First, the Bush Administrations estimate assumed that all reductions would be achieved domestically, while the Clinton Administrations estimate assumed that compliance would be largely achieved through the purchase of emissions reductions from other nations.  Second, the economic growth rate assumed by the Bush study (2.3 percent a year for 1995 through 2010) was higher than the growth rate assumed by the Clinton study (2.1 percent for the same time period), and thus forecast a higher level of emissions.  (GAO report, January 30, 2004).

Two new attacks on hockey stick by paleoclimatologists

by William Yeatman on April 13, 2004

in Science

Following the questions raised by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick over the quality of the data employed by Dr. Michael Mann of the University of Virginia in compiling his now infamous hockey stick graph, Manns interpretations of proxy temperature data are now coming under fire from within the community of paleoclimatologists.

In 2002, Esper et al. published in Science magazine a temperature record for the Northern Hemisphere over the past 1000 years that looked quite unlike the hockey stick.  Both the Medieval Climate Optimum and the Little Ice Age were clearly evident.  In the March 23 edition of Eos, Esper and other colleagues examine why this should be so.  According to the Greening Earth Society, Esper basically eliminates all the possibilities except the technique used to process tree-ring data sets the primary information relied on to construct early portions of the temperature reconstructions.

The problem with tree rings appears to be that their variations reflect more than year-to-year climate differences (temperature and/or precipitation). As the trees age, tree-ring production changes and introduces a spurious trend in the tree-ring series. This aging effect differs among tree species, as well as within species, depending on the trees growing conditions (soil type, elevation, slope aspect, etc.). It becomes difficult to separate trends due to aging from those due to climate.

Although various research groups use different techniques to account for this problem, the absence of ground truth (true temperature) makes it impossible to ascertain whose technique is best. Esper uses a method aimed at retaining long-period (greater than a century or so) variations in the tree-ring records, whereas Mann uses a method that virtually eliminates all long-term variation.  Esper concludes, Higher-frequency [decadal] climate variations are generally better understood than lower-frequency variations.

Meanwhile, David S. Chapman, Marshall G. Bartlett, and Robert N. Harris of the University of Utah, published in the April 7 edition of Geophysical Research Letters an examination of how Manns imputation of temperatures from boreholes contradicts their work.  Mann argues that borehole records of ground surface temperature (GST) do not accurately reflect surface air temperature (SAT) because of the effects of snowfall.  Chapman et al., however, have found that (1) GST tracks SAT extremely well at time scales that are appropriate for climate change considerations.  (2) Snow cover can either warm or cool the ground relative to a no snow case and need not lead to any bias. (3) Finally, our observations have not revealed any physical process that would explain the supposed preconditioning of GST by a prior season SAT.

In describing the differences between their work and Manns, Chapman et al. use surprisingly strong language for a scientific paper.  They describe three of Manns conclusions as misleading, and his end-point analysis as erroneous and just bad science.

Gulf stream safe if wind blows and Earth turns

by William Yeatman on April 13, 2004

in Science

There has been much alarmist speculation recently that global warming could trigger the collapse of the Gulf Stream.  Carl Wunsch, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography at MIT, sent a letter to Nature magazine (published in the April 8 issue) stating that such a trigger effect is nearly impossible.

Wunsch wrote that, The Gulf Streams existence is a consequence of the large-scale wind system over the North Atlantic Ocean, and of the nature of fluid motion on a rotating planet.  The only way to produce an ocean circulation without a Gulf Stream is either to turn off the wind system, or to stop the Earths rotation, or both.  He added, The occurrence of a climate state without the Gulf Stream any time soon within tens of millions of years has a probability of little more than zero.  

Candidate Kerry on Kyoto and global warming

by William Yeatman on April 13, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

The campaign web site of Senator John Kerry (DMass.) only briefly mentions what the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party would do about global warming if elected.  The issues section says, When John Kerry is president, the U.S. will reengage in the development of an international climate change strategy to address global warming, and identify workable responses that provide opportunities for American technology and know-how(http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/energy/).

However, in an October 2003 document, John Kerrys Comprehensive Vision for a Cleaner Environment, A Stronger Economy, Healthier Communities (http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/long_enviro.pdf), he has much more to say.  On international arrangements he says:  Bushs abrupt and unilateral decision to abandon discussions with the world community on climate change was early evidence of this Administrations misguided approach to dealing with the community of nations. Dropping out of international implementation of the Kyoto Protocol was foolhardy then, and it is even more obviously foolhardy today. In our absence, many of our major trading partners in Europe and elsewhere have been working on the details of international programs to manage greenhouse gas emissions. American interests are on the sidelines, having no ability to influence the development of a system that will profoundly affect the global approach to resource protection and investment in climate change technologies.
 
The document notes that Kerry has demonstrated a long commitment to addressing climate change beginning as a participant at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 that produced the U. N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and calls  climate change the globes most serious environmental challenge.  It continues: John Kerry will reinsert the United States into international climate change negotiations. He will reestablish our nations credibility and influence over the process.  The Kerry Administration will come to the international table with a serious domestic climate change program in hand.

That domestic program will be centered on a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions.  The statement continues: John Kerrys plan recognizes that we must take immediate action to halt and reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our carbon footprint while the economy expands. Leveraging pioneering state and regional programs, Kerrys plan calls for all major sources of greenhouse gas emissions to participate in a cap and trade emissions reduction program for CO2 and other greenhouse gases (not just utilities, as some have suggested), so that the power of the marketplace can be directed to encourage that the most cost-effective reductions be made, whether at coal-fired utilities or from automobile tailpipes.  This cap-and-trade program will reinforce other near-term initiatives that drive down emissions without reducing economic output.

In addition Kerry offers a predictable mix of measures to require energy conservation and efficiency, such as higher CAF standards for automobiles.  Kerry would also require increased use of renewable energy.  Subsidies for rural America are not neglected: We can capture emissions reductions opportunities in forests, rangelands, and farmland by providing financial incentive for no-till agriculture and maintaining and increasing natural carbon sinks such as forests and rangelands.

Finally, The Kerry plan will establish the Energy Security and Conservation Trust Fund to invest in the hydrogen economy and other promising technologies, with clear targets for increasing the number of hydrogen powered cars and trucks on the nations roads.  Because of the importance of coal to our energy mix, the Kerry Administration will actively support technologies that separate and sequester CO2 when extracting the energy from coal.

Keen observers will have noticed that one of John Kerrys key campaigning points recently has been the current high price of gasoline.  According to a study by the American Council for Capital Formation in 2000, the Kyoto Protocol would add 71 cents to the price of each gallon.

New Zealand Frozen Out of Market by EU Cartel

by William Yeatman on March 30, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations, Politics

According to the New Zealand Herald (Mar. 20), New Zealands recipients of emissions credits may be unable to sell them in their biggest potential market, the European Union.

The newspaper points out that, “The rules proposed by the European Commission, and now adopted with some amendments by the European Parliament’s environment committee, would shut out from the European emissions trading system credits arising from Kyoto forests – those planted since 1990 on land not previously forested – because they do not achieve permanent emission reduction from sources.”

New Zealand had been expecting to use these credits to cover growth in its emissions and provide a further 50 million metric tons of credits to sell to Europe. As an example, one company, Meridian Energy, sold credits it had received as a subsidy for its wind farm operation to the Netherlands government at NZ$10 a ton.

The Herald quoted Federated Farmers president Tom Lambie as suggesting, “If New Zealand was unable to sell credits to the Europeans, it raised a question about whether New Zealand should remain a party to the protocol.”

Wind Power Slowing Down

by William Yeatman on March 30, 2004

in Blog

Danish wind power consultancy BTM predicts that the huge recent growth in the global wind power market will slow to an expansion of 10 percent per year over the next five years (Reuters, Mar. 19). That figure is less than half the average growth of 26.3 percent seen over the period 1998-2003.

A record 8,344 MW of wind power generation was installed in 2003, but the figure this year is expected to be down by 4 percent. The total installation worldwide is now over 40,000 MW, enough to power 16 million European homes. Europe continues to account for two-thirds of installed megawattage.

BTM expects wind power to take off again after 2008, with new installations then exceeding 25,000 MW per year, taking the total industry to 194,000 MW. This is largely dependent on large scale offshore developments in Germany and Britain after 2007.

EU Auto Manufacturers Wake Up to Kyotos Costs

by William Yeatman on March 30, 2004

in Kyoto Negotiations

The European trade group for auto manufacturers has voiced its objections to EU emissions reduction plans privately. According to Scotlands Sunday Herald (Mar. 21), “A confidential memo from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association to the Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallstrm, claims that the proposed cuts will seriously damage the industry. The association represents Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Fiat, Renault, Peugeot Citroen, Volvo, Volkswagen and four others.”

The Herald says that the memo suggests that the emissions cuts from 165 grams of CO2 per kilometer in 2002 to 120 by 2010 would raise the cost of a car by 2,700 (nearly $5,000) at an annual cost to the EU of 33.5 billion ($60 billion).

The memo states, “Car buyers are not prepared to pay any extra for cleaner, more environmentally-friendly cars. An over-ambitious carbon dioxide reduction policy that is essentially only car-technology focused, would impose massive additional costs per car along with tremendous negative societal costs for the EU economy, and would threaten the competitiveness of the European car manufacturing industry. Adverse impacts for the EU economy would include: a move of car production to non-EU countries, disappearance of large/premium cars, plant closures, sizeable job losses, decreased trade balance, reduced income tax and lowered economic growth.”

The memo was backed up by one from the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, which represents Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Suzuki, Yamaha and six other car makers. The Japanese memo says, “Considering the increasing trend towards globalization, competition in todays automobile industry is getting extremely fierce. We advise that the economic situation of this key industry be taken into account when considering the introduction of increased environmental legislation.”

Environmental groups reacted angrily to the documents. Duncan McLaren of Friends of the Earth Scotland told the Herald, “The EC must stand up to the car industry on this issue. If the industry fails to deliver on its promises then the EC should legislate to force it to cut pollution. Past experience tells us that the threat of legislation is the best way to stimulate real improvements and technological innovations.”

Nothing to fear from tropical diseases

by William Yeatman on March 30, 2004

in Science

The invaluable www.co2science.org, run by Drs. Sherwood, Craig, and Keith Idso, draws attention this month to two important articles on the reality behind the supposed spread of tropical diseases in a warmer world.

First, Reiter et al. (in Emerging Infectious Diseases 9) examine the response of dengue fever in a significant outbreak in Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico in 1999. As co2science.org summarizes, they learned that, “The incidence of recent cases, indicated by immunoglobulin M antibody serosurvey, was higher in Nuevo Laredo [16.0% vs. 1.3%], although the vector, Aedes aegypti, was more abundant in Laredo [91% vs. 37%].  Reiter et al. additionally determined that environmental factors that affect contact with mosquitoes, such as air-conditioning and human behavior, appear to account for this paradox.  They found, for example, that the proportion of dengue infections attributable to lack of air-conditioning in Nuevo Laredo [where only 2% of the homes had central air-conditioning compared to 36% of the homes in Laredo] was 55%, which means that 55% of the cases of dengue in Nuevo Laredo would not have occurred if all households there had had air-conditioning.”

Co2science.org summarizes, “Reiter et al. correctly conclude, for example, that if the current warming trend in world climates continues, air-conditioning may become even more prevalent in the United States, in which case, the probability of dengue transmission [there] is likely to decrease [our italics].  And if the economy of Mexico continues to grow (which it will, if its citizens are allowed to freely utilize fossil fuels), the use of air-conditioners will likely gain momentum south of the border, which would lead to even greater decreases in the occurrence of dengue there.

“Clearly, the development of wealth, which currently is dependent on the availability of fossil-fuel-derived energy, will lead to greater decreases in mosquito-borne diseases than any change or stasis of climate ever would.”

The other article, Small et al. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100), looks at the impact of climate change on malaria transmission in Africa. According to the Idsos, the researchers “determined that malaria transmission suitability did indeed increase because of climate change in specific locations of limited extent; but in Southern Mozambique, which was the only region for which climatic suitability consistently increased, the cause of the increase was increased precipitation, while areas where the climate became less suitable for malaria transmission had all experienced decreased rainfall.  In fact, Small et al. say that climate warming, expressed as a systematic temperature increase over the 85-year period, does not appear to be responsible for an increase in malaria suitability over any [our italics] region in Africa.”

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