Asian ozone raising levels of smog in Western United States, study shows

“The important aspect of this study for North America is that we have a strong indication that baseline ozone is increasing,” said Cooper. “We still don’t know how much is coming down to the surface. If the surface ozone is increasing along with the free tropospheric ozone, that could make it more difficult for the US to meet its ozone air quality standard.”

The study is the first link between atmospheric ozone over the US and Asian pollution, said Dan Jaffe, a University of Washington-Bothell professor of atmospheric and environmental chemistry.

He contributed data from his observatory on top of Mount Bachelor in Oregon to the study.

The US Environmental Protection Agency is considering lowering the current limit on ozone in the atmosphere by as much as 20%, and has been working with China to lower its emissions of the chemicals that turn into ozone.

Ozone is harmful to people’s respiratory systems and plants. It is created when compounds produced by burning fossil fuels are hit by sunlight and break down. Ozone also contributes to the greenhouse effect, ranking behind carbon dioxide and methane in importance.

Ozone is only one of many pollutants from Asia that reach the United States. Instruments regularly detect mercury, soot, and cancer-causing PCBs.

Jaffe said it was logical to conclude that the increasing ozone was the result of burning more coal and oil as part of the Asia’s booming economic growth.

The next step is to track the amounts of Asian ozone reaching ground levels on the west coast, said Cooper.

Work will start in May and end in June, when air currents produce the greatest amounts of Asian ozone detected in the US weather balloons and research aircraft will be launched daily to measure ozone closer to ground, where it affects the air people breathe, Cooper said.

The study to be published in Nature looked at thousands of air samples collected between 1995 and 2008 and found a 14% increase in the amount of background ozone at middle altitudes in spring. When data from 1984 were factored in, the rate of increase was similar, and the overall increase was 29.

When ozone from local sources was removed from the data, the trend became stronger, Cooper said. Using a computer model based on weather patterns, the ozone was traced back to south-eastern Asia, including the countries of India, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

The ozone increases were strongest when winds prevailed from south-eastern Asian, Cooper said.

In a commentary also published in Nature, atmospheric chemist Kathy Law of the Université de Paris in France said the study was “the most conclusive evidence so far” of increasing ozone over the western United States.

Law noted that natural sources of ozone could contribute to the increases, and there were limitations to the computer model used to trace the sources of the increases, but the study remained a “vital benchmark” that could be used to test climate change models, which have been unable to reproduce increases in ozone.

William Sprigg, a research professor at the University of Arizona who studies the global movement of airborne dust, said he agreed with Law’s comments, adding that studies like this one make it possible to control air quality.

“Part of the solution to controlling emissions from abroad is to show the negative consequences and our own efforts to lower emissions,” he wrote.

Fate of US climate change bill in doubt after Scott Brown’s Senate win

“The political atmosphere doesn’t reduce the urgency of dealing with pollution and energy, and the surest way to increase the anger at Washington is to duck the issues that matter in peoples’ lives. There’s overwhelming public support and this can be a bipartisan issue,” he said today . “This is the single best opportunity to create jobs, reduce pollution, and stop sending billions overseas for foreign oil from countries that would do us harm. Sell those arguments and you’ve got a winning issue.”

The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill last June. But Senate Democrats had long calculated that – with the divisive fight over healthcare causing internal splits – their only hope of passing their own version of a climate bill was to win Republican support.

Kerry has been leading a tripartisan effort with Republican Lindsey Graham and independent Joe Lieberman to craft a bill that would pull support from at least a few Republicans. The troika has yet to produce a draft proposal, but there is anticipation of an expanded role for nuclear power, perhaps with more cheap government loans or streamlined regulations to get projects approved. There is also talk of offshore oil and gas drilling.

Some Senators have proposed limiting the scope of the bill, regulating only the biggest power plants, or perhaps encouraging renewable energy without laying the foundations of a carbon trading market. Other Democrats – who were opposed to a climate change bill even before the vote in Massachusetts – say the Senate is unlikely to move in 2010 without those compromises.

“It is my assessment that we likely will not do a climate change bill this year, but we will do energy,” Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat who opposes action on climate change told reporters in a conference call yesterday. “I think it is more likely for us to turn to something that is bipartisan and will address the country’s energy interest and begin to address specific policies on climate change.”

Brown’s victory robs the Democrats of their filibuster-proof 60-40 majority in the Senate. But it is not entirely clear the Senate’s newest member would be an automatic no. In the excitement of the campaign, Brown cast himself as a climate change sceptic. “I think the globe is always heating and cooling,” the Boston Globe quoted Brown as saying. “It’s a natural way of ebb and flow. The thing that concerns me lately is some of the information I’ve heard about potential tampering with some of the information.”

But as a Massachusetts state senator in 2008, Brown voted for a regional cap-and-trade regime, which is similar in concept to what the climate bill is proposing on a nationwide scale.

Outside the US, reaction to Brown’s win suggested it made a global pact to fight global warming harder. Nick Mabey, head of the E3G climate thinktank in London, said without US action there were risks talks would stall. “We can’t afford climate to be a dysfunctional regime like trade,” like the inconclusive Doha round on freer world trade launched in 2001, he said.

“On the international front, China is constantly looking to the US on climate bills. This is definitely bad news. It doesn’t bring new confidence to international negotiations,” said Ailun Yang of Greenpeace in Beijing.

Shirish Sinha of WWF India said US action was essential but that “irrespective of what happens in US…it is on our self-interest to do something for climate change.”

Developing nations continue to lead post-Copenhagen

And the momentum appears to be continuing, even though their governments balked at endorsing global targets for emission cuts at the summit itself.

Little more than a week after leaving Copenhagen, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a law to require a 39 percent reduction on forecast emissions for 2020. His environment minister, Carlos Minc, commented that this showed the country’s determination to respect its pledges: “It doesn’t matter if the Copenhagen summit did not get the results we wanted,” said Minc. “We will still meet our goals.”

Indonesia’s forestry minister then announced a plan to plant more than 52 million acres of forest by 2020, cutting the growth of its emissions by over 26 percent. At present, Indonesia’s deforestation, according to a World Bank study, makes it the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States. And South Africa is aiming to submit a plan by the end of this month for curbing its emissions growth by 34 percent by 2020.

Even India and China, which proved the most resistant to international targets in Copenhagen—and who, apart from the obstructive Saudi Arabia, expressed most pleasure at its limited achievement—have pressed ahead.

Indeed, India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, was contradicted by his boss after he expressed satisfaction with the results: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh insisted that “no one was satisfied with the outcome” [of Copenhagen], adding, in a flourish of hyphens, “There is no escaping the truth that the nations of the world have to move to a low-greenhouse-gas-emissions and energy-efficient-development path.” India, he added, “must not lag behind” in adopting low-carbon technologies. Sure enough, environment minister Ramesh then announced that the country would go ahead with its plans to cut its carbon intensity—the amount released per unit of GDP—by 20 to 25 percent by 2020. And this without awaiting international financial help. “We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” said Ramesh. “We will have a low-carbon growth strategy.”

And China, which is already taking big steps to moderate emissions and develop clean technologies, has, if anything, stepped up the pace, despite having done more than any other country to block progress in Copenhagen. China is confident that it will, this year, meet its current target of reducing its carbon intensity by 20 percent in just five years. The country is also drawing up tough new goals for 2015. It is widely expected to exceed its formal pledge of a 40 to 45 percent reduction on 2005 levels by 2020.

Already the world’s leading manufacturer in solar cells—a position achieved in just two years after a standing start—China, last week, signed a deal with a California company to build a series of solar thermal power stations. China’s windpower is expected to exceed its 30,000 MW target by 2012, eight years ahead of schedule. It has just tested the world’s fastest train, as part of a high-speed rail program. And it is increasing sales of electric cars to the United States.

India has invited China, Brazil, and South Africa to meet with it next week to coordinate future strategy. And the E.U. is proposing pursuing a new climate agreement through the G20—which includes such leading developing countries—rather than through the unwieldy United Nations negotiating system. But all this momentum holds real dangers.

Keen though they are to press ahead with their national strategies, the rapidly industrializing countries are reluctant to be bound into agreements with developed countries. Why? They are uneasy, at the best of times, about being placed under an international, legally binding obligation to curb their pollution, and they balk at any suggestion that developed nations would be telling them what to do. And their wariness is increased because rich countries have so far offered to do less than their share of the job and have a poor record of meeting the targets they set themselves under the Kyoto Protocol.

Besides, a deal between developed and fast-growing developing countries would bypass the U.N., with its universal representation, and thus exclude those nations most likely to be victimized by climate change. Such an agreement would, effectively, be struck among the polluters. This would mute demands from more than 100 countries, including a call for the world to aim at a 1.5 degree centigrade rise in global temperative rather than a 2 degree one. And it would breed resentment amongst those left out of the bargaining.

Such resentment among poorer and most-vulnerable developing nations emerged as a major problem in Copenhagen. Any way forward will have to address this.

——-

Q. The so-called environmental problems we face now are closely integrated into our lives—our energy systems and buildings, our food and transportation. They’re a different beast than traditional wilderness conservation. How does the Sierra Club adapt?

A. By not looking at these problems as obligations but as opportunities. With clean energy and climate legislation, there are enormous benefits like job creation, reduced health burden from the toxic pollution many communities are facing, and a whole series of opportunities that will result from deeper investments in clean-energy research, development, and deployment.

Q. What should we be calling this work in the 21st century, to get more people on board?

A. I don’t focus so much on the name—I think environmentalism is a decent word. What is perhaps most important is to appeal to a wider set of values. In talking about climate change, we can discuss terms like parts per million or discuss how many votes we have in the Senate. But what’s more inspiring is talk about the people who will be hurt by climate change, the people who will benefit from a clean energy transition, and also, as the Sierra Club has done for decades, talk about the wild places that need to be protected and restored in order to address climate disruption. If we look at health concerns, jobs, the impact on the economy that climate change will have, we’ll do a much better job appealing to a wider section of the public.

Q. What habits and ways of thinking—perhaps acquired in the ’60s—does the movement need to shed?

A. I’m reluctant to criticize folks on whose shoulders we’re standing. The work that was done in the ’60s and ’70s might be a little outdated, perhaps, but the results have improved the lives of millions of people.

That said, there is important work to be done in the near term, such as isolating the corporations and public institutions that are most resistant to change, that are most aggressively fighting to maintain a failing status quo. Companies like Massey Energy and much of the coal and oil industries need to be challenged to either evolve or face dramatically decreasing public support.

Q. Where should the climate movement be focusing this year? The Senate looks like an even tougher place to work after the Massachusetts special election debacle.

A. The top priority is still passing strong climate and energy legislation. I certainly think that’s something that can be done in the next year. And it will have a powerful impact on a whole range of issues progressives care about.

Q. I talked to Bill McKibben this morning, and he told me he doesn’t see Congress acting until it perceives a much larger social movement demanding climate action. He thinks Congress members are pretty good at discerning whether there are people and pressure behind what they are being asked to do. There’s a different argument that lasering in on specific senators or on the filibuster is the way to go. What do you think?

A. I definitely agree with Bill. A focus of this movement should be to push all elected officials to make a stand and not to narrow our focus on one particular bill or a handful of senators. We have much deeper work to do over the next several months and years.

Q. Was there a moment of discovery when it became clear you wanted this job?

A. Two and a half years ago I was working with Sierra Club Books on publishing my book Coming Clean. I started looking more closely at the work the Sierra Club has been doing and the grassroots base that the Sierra Club is a part of. I think anybody that has been paying attention to the environmental movement over the last several years has to be impressed with the record of the Sierra Club in stopping new coal-fired power plants and in promoting far-reaching and progressive policy initiatives.

Q. What happens to Rainforest Action Network now that you’re departing?

A. RAN will continue doing its great work. We just launched a new campaign to change Chevron, to hopefully inspire California’s largest corporation to become a 21st century energy company. Chevron needs to clean up its mess in Ecuador and RAN and others will be at their heels continuously to push them to do that. On RAN.org, you can see an action that we did just yesterday to push General Mills and Cargill to stop converting rainforests into palm oil plantations. RAN’s probably going to have its best year ever. I’m just sorry I won’t be around to take all the credit.

——

Also check out Jason Mark’s analysis of what the leadership change means for the Sierra Club.

UN drops deadline for countries to state climate change targets

The deadline was intended to be the first test of the “Copenhagen accord”, the weak, three-page document that emerged at the end of the summit, and which fell far short of original expectations. It seeks to bind all countries to a goal of limiting warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial times and proposes that $100bn a year be provided for poor countries to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change after 2020.

But with just 10 days to go, only 20 countries out of 192 have signed up, with many clearly unready or unwilling to put their name to the document. Countries which have signed so far include India, Russia, Mexico, Australia, France and Norway.

De Boer also endorsed the controversial idea of short-circuiting the traditional UN negotiating process of reaching agreement between all countries by consensus. Instead, he argued that a smaller group of countries could negotiate a climate agreement on behalf of the many.

“You cannot have 192 countries involved in discussing all the details. You cannot have all countries all of the time in one room. You do have to safeguard transparency by allowing countries to decide if they want to be represented by others, and that if a debate is advanced then the conclusion is brought back to the larger community”, he said.

However, this more exclusive method of reaching agreement was criticised by some in Copenhagen after the host government, Denmark, convened a meeting of 26 world leaders in the last two days of the conference to try to reach agreement on behalf of everyone.

Critics argued that this was not only illegal, but undermined negotiations already taking place among the 192 countries and threatened the UN’s multilateral and democratic process.

“The selected leaders were given a draft document that mainly represented the developed countries’ positions, thereby marginalising the developing countries’ views tabled at the two-year negotiations. The attempt by the Danish presidency to override the legitimate multilateral process was the reason why Copenhagen will be considered a disaster,” said Martin Khor, director of the South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank for developing countries based in Geneva.

The US and Britain have argued since the conference that climate negotiations are best served by meetings of the world’s largest polluters, such as China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa. These countries, which emit more than 80% of global emissions, signed up to a deal in the final hours of the summit.

Brazil, India, China and South Africa, known as the “BASIC” group, meet next week in Delhi to agree a common position ahead of further UN climate talks.

ARCHITECTS PROPOSE ‘RADICAL’ COASTAL FLOOD DEFENSES

Architects propose ‘radical’ coastal flood defenses

Ecologist

15th January, 2010

Architects, engineers and developers say that the UK faces an ‘extreme threat’ from flooding, and must respond accordingly

A joint project run by The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the thinktank Building Futures, has said that straight-forward engineering defences are no longer sustainable or affordable in defending UK coastlines.

A report produced by the group says that the only viable options for coastal protection are to retreat inland, create habitable defence structures or build out into the sea.

Focusing on Kingston upon Hull and Portsmouth, two of the UK’s highest flood risk areas, the research presented six scenarios and proposed solutions based on a trio of briefings.

Extreme situation

RIBA President Ruth Reed said:
‘The scenarios we have created are extreme, but it is an extreme threat we are facing.

‘Approximately 10 million people live in flood risk areas in England and Wales, with 2.6 million properties directly at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.’

The report said that the 12,000 kilometers of coastline in the UK was now much more densely populated, increasing the possible scale of disaster.

However, Reed offered a solution:
‘If we act now, we can adapt in such a way that will prevent mass disruption and allow coastal communities to continue to prosper.’

Three solutions

The proposed solutions came under three headings: retreat, defend or attack.

1. Retreat involves moving the line of coastal defence inland, allowing flood water to occupy previously protected urban areas.

2. In terms of defence, the benefits of preventing water entering existing cities were said to outweigh the costs, but the report claims that there is currently a deficit in costal flood defences, caused by a lack of Government funding.

3. ‘Attacking’ the sea has been a proven success overseas, and due to the high demand for space, the public and private sector are both willing to invest in expanding seaward.

Urgent change

The report was designed to provoke longer-term thinking across a wider audience: from government and policy-makers, to planners, architects and importantly, the general public.

Chair of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) steering group, Ben Hamer, said:
‘The UK must urgently change the way it plans, builds and designs at-risk communities.’

Useful links
The full project will be exhibited at the Building Centre, London 6th Jan – 29th Jan 2010, before traveling to Portsmouth 15th – 27th February and Kingston upon Hull 15th – 28th April

20 January, 2010

Category: General news

Asian ozone raising levels of smog in Western United States, study shows