Category: Climate chaos

In January 2008 the ACCC began consultations by inviting interested parties to respond to an ACCC Issues paper: The Trade Practices Act and carbon offset claims. 

“The ACCC consulted broadly with stakeholders including consumer groups, accreditation agencies, offset providers and corporate participants in carbon offsets schemes,” Mr Samuel said.

“The difficulties in understanding and verifying carbon claims give rise to concerns that consumers may be facing misleading and deceptive conduct associated with this emerging market.”

Speaking with the ACCC’s Consumer Consultative Committee, Mr Samuel said he was pleased to release industry and consumer guidance on these issues.

“Carbon claims and the Trade Practices Act is a guide for business and industry. It is intended to educate businesses about their obligations under the Act and to alert them to potentially problematic areas.  

“The guide examines areas of concern identified in the consultation and submission process, including forward credited offsets, double counted offsets, low quality offsets and carbon neutrality.”

Mr Samuel said the Consumer Consultative Committee would have a particular interest in Avoiding hot air: a consumer guide to carbon claims.  This will be published on the ACCC website, as part of a new ‘environmental claims’ section.

“This approach was taken so that complex and somewhat technical information could be broken down easily for access by consumers.

“The information addresses what carbon claims are and the ACCC’s role in regulating such claims.  A list of useful links has been included also.”

The publications have been released in electronic format only, in deference to environmental concerns and to the changing policy landscape.

Mr Samuel stressed that the ACCC is not advocating particular standards nor entering the policy debate on climate change.

“Our focus is on ensuring that appropriate steps are taken by business so that claims of carbon offsets or carbon neutrality are not misleading and that these claims are clear and understandable for consumers.”

The ACCC has been active on ‘greenwashing’ and since December 2007, has achieved a number of market outcomes relating to ‘green’ claims.  It has issued updated guidance for businesses and industry on the use of general environmental claims in marketing Green Marketing and the TPA as well as advice for consumers – Your consumer rights: environmental claims.

In developing this general guidance it became apparent that carbon offset claims were becoming a key area of concern.

“The ACCC guidance will provide a tool for consumers and business in navigating the sometimes murky waters of this new market.”

The report, entitled Climate Change in Queensland – What the science is telling us, said the annual temperature had risen faster than the national average since 1950.

Under the current high emissions scenario, Queensland’s temperature would rise by 2.8 degrees by 2050 and five degrees by 2070.

The report identified the Great Barrier Reef and wet tropics rainforest as especially vulnerable.

Most of the population, which lives on the coast, could face severe flooding from sea levels expected to rise by up two metres by the end of the century.

“Queensland has key challenges because of our widely distributed population,” Mr McNamara told reporters today.

“We have four million people living across a much broader area than Victoria, for example.

“So our transport challenge is significantly more difficult because we simply have to transport people and goods over greater distances.

“We have a highly distributed economy and it’s an energy intensive economy.

“We have a very strong mining sector, but of course, that entails the significant production of greenhouse gases.

“So Queensland, because of the structure of our economy and the distribution of our people, has more at risk because of climate change than any other state in Australia.”

Energy generation, which includes coal-fired power stations, makes up 40 per cent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory for 2006 showed that Queensland accounted for 170 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions or 29.7 per cent of the national total, ahead of the next highest greenhouse gas emitter NSW, which produced 27.8 per cent of the national total.

Queensland Resources Council (QRC) chief executive Michael Roche said today the state’s mining and energy companies were working to reduce their emissions.

“If we want the lights to continue to come on, definitely there is a place for coal,” Mr Roche said.

“But the future for coal is a different sort of future – it’s a future with coal being burnt far more efficiently, where the CO2 is being captured, transported and being stored safely, permanently underground.”

Mr McNamara today initiated the program encouraging householders to reduce their carbon footprint.

Based on a model developed in the United States, the “low carbon diet” is a program that provides information and resources to help households cut their greenhouse gas emissions by two tonnes a month or up to 20 per cent within the first year.

Measures include running dishwashers less frequently, using cold water to wash clothes and buying energy-efficient appliances.

But environmental group WWF said the state government must do more to tackle climate change.

“Queensland has the highest emissions per capita due to its reliance on coal power and road transport,” WWF spokeswoman Kellie Caught said.

“The state needs to diversify its energy portfolio by shifting freight to rail and focusing on renewable energy rather than relying too heavily on the coal industry.”

Climate change alone would not topple governments, he said. But it could worsen problems such as poverty, disease, migration and hunger, creating conditions that could destabilize already vulnerable areas, Fingar said.

But he warned that efforts to reduce global warming by changing energy policies “may affect U.S. national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself.”

“The operative word there is ‘may,’ we don’t know,” Fingar said.

The assessment of global climate change through 2030 is one in a series of periodic intelligence reports that offer the consensus of top analysts at all 16 spy agencies on foreign policy, security and global economic issues. Congress requested the report last year. The assessment is classified as confidential.

It predicts that the United States and most of its allies will have the means to cope with climate change economically. Unspecified “regional partners” could face severe problems.

Fingar said the quality of the analysis is hampered by the fact that climate data tend not to focus on specific countries but on broad global changes. For that reason, the intelligence agencies have only low to moderate confidence in the assessment.

Africa is seen as among the most vulnerable regions. An expected increase in droughts there could cut agricultural yields of rain-dependent crops by up to half over the next 12 years.

Parts of Asia’s food crops are vulnerable to droughts and floods, with rice and grain crops potentially facing up to a 10 percent decline by 2025.

As many as 50 million additional people could face hunger by 2020. The water supply, while larger because of melting glaciers, will be under pressure from a growing population and increased consumption. Between 120 million and 1.2 billion people in Asia “will continue to experience some water stress.”

Latin America may experience increased precipitation, possibly cutting tens of millions of people from the ranks of those in need of water. But from 7 million to 77 million people could be short of water resources because of population growth.

Fingar’s statement strikes a considerably less ominous tone than a report issued a year ago by the Center for Naval Analyses.

Rep. Edward Markey, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, accused the White House of trying to “bury the future security realities of global warming” in Fingar’s prepared statement. Markey, D-Mass., received a briefing on the classified assessment, which he said is “first-class.”

Fingar said no one in the White House changed any of his public testimony.

The center’s report, by retired military leaders, drew a direct correlation between global warming and the conditions that lead failed states to become the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.

“Climate change will provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror,” said Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, who commanded U.S. and allied peacekeeping forces in Bosnia in 1996.

“Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,” the center’s report said. “The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations,” according to the report, which drew on 11 retired generals and admirals.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the request for the intelligence agencies’ report was “a dangerous diversion of intelligence assets.” He said the issue should be studied by climate scientists, not intelligence agencies.

Republicans used the hearing to argue for domestic oil drilling and nuclear power to reduce reliance on foreign energy.

Alcoa‘s QUASAR Global Program Manager Dr. Dennis Mason said, ‘Controlling production in an alumina refinery is a difficult task. Productivity and safety rely on reliable, real-time, process information, so that the alumina refining process and equipment can be monitored, maintained, and adjusted to get the maximum benefit.

‘As a global leader in alumina production, we realized to continue to succeed in the global commodity business, we must have the ability to produce alumina safely at the lowest possible cost.

‘In addition to our operating practices, we recognized that automation, process control and instrumentation were going to be some of the key business drivers to give us a significant competitive advantage, and that‘s how QUASAR was born in 2001.‘

Alcoa World Alumina decided to take process control at its seven refineries around the world (three in Western Australia, three in Central and South America and one in Europe) to a new level ‘ aiming to implement the same system in each plant, with full integration to enable global knowledge sharing, remote monitoring, 24/7 support, and best practice benchmarking capabilities.

By working with Honeywell, a suite of advanced process control applications and newly developed instrumentation were used on top of a revamped infrastructure layer to deliver several benefits. Among them, reduced alumina process variability and the ability to operate the refineries closer to their practical limits, all while using less energy and raw materials. This, in turn, increased production rates, improved process efficiencies, and reduced waste and emissions at the refineries.

The benefits for Alcoa at the Western Australian sites alone:

• have exceeded A$8 million per year in savings, including reductions in green house gases and raw material usage;
• contributed around A$40 million to the local economy through implementation contracts;
• and, have shown that automation, control and instrumentation, and the advanced control applications have not only reduced environmental incidents but have allowed safer operation of the plants and quicker stabilization from adverse plant events.

Dr. Mason said, ‘Shared leadership, resources, engineering ingenuity and technology have worked together to deliver the most significant step change in the way process control technology is managed.

‘The project‘s success demonstrates what is possible with innovative design, sound engineering practices, strong project management and well developed implementation.

‘With all the hard work undertaken by so many people around the world, it is fantastic to be recognized alongside Honeywell by Engineers Australia for this project.‘

Dave Olney, Vice President, Technology, Alcoa of Australia concluded, ‘The QUASAR program has been a significant and very successful undertaking. It has delivered major benefits to our business, largely through capturing and leveraging the creative talent of Honeywell and Alcoa in process control automation across Alcoa‘s refining system.‘

About Alcoa

Alcoa (NYSE:AA) is the world leader in the production and management of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry. Alcoa serves the aerospace, automotive, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation and industrial markets, bringing design, engineering, production and other capabilities of Alcoa’s businesses to customers. In addition to aluminum products and components including flat-rolled products, hard alloy extrusions, and forgings, Alcoa also markets Alcoa® wheels, fastening systems, precision and investment castings, and building systems. The Company has 97,000 employees in 34 countries and has been named one of the top most sustainable corporations in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. More information can be found at www.alcoa.com

 

Mr Albanese has signalled transport must be included. But there are reports today that the Rudd Government is also considering measures to protect motorists from more petrol pain with the introduction of a price on carbon under any ETS.

Mr Swan told Parliament today that the Government would make its own decisions on the final details of any ETS.

“We don’t necessarily have to agree with every recommendation that is put forward by Professor Garnaut,” Mr Swan said. “We will take our decision in the national interest.”

Queensland’s The Courier Mail newspaper reported today Labor sources had confirmed that ahead of an options paper due mid-July, cabinet had met on the issue to examine various schemes and commission work on a number of alternatives.

Under one option being considered, the ETS would operate with a low start-up price for carbon and not include fuel transport until at least 2012.

Mr Albanese told Parliament the transport sector, which includes fuel, could not be left out of the scheme and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong also said the broader the scheme the better.

Invited to confirm the newspaper reports today in Parliament, Mr Albanese said he had no intention of discussing cabinet deliberations.

“What I won’t do is discuss cabinet meetings. But my position on climate change is very clear … we will take action as we did when the first action of the Rudd government was to ratify the Kyoto protocol. We will do this to address the 12 years of inaction and denial of those opposite,” he said.

The Australian reported today that Coalition frontbenchers are pushing for a delay in the introduction of emissions trading in a move that threatens bipartisan support for the main mechanism to cut greenhouse gases and tackle climate change.

Kevin Rudd seized on doubts about the Opposition’s commitment yesterday to accuse it of reneging on its pre-election promise to support an emissions trading system.

Under an emissions trading system, polluters such as coal-fired power stations that cannot meet greenhouse gas reduction targets will be forced to buy carbon credits on an open market. This is expected to force the cost of services such as electricity and transport higher as companies adapt to the new environment.

Yesterday, opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull raised the option of cutting fuel excise to compensate motorists for the introduction of any emissions trading scheme to ensure it was revenue neutral.

He hinted he would support the inclusion of petrol however in any broadbased scheme.

Mr Swan also quoted from international and domestic reports that the cost of not acting on climate change would be higher than the cost of taking action.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008