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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Nitrous oxide concerns cloud future of biofuels

     

    The road transport industry is also keen to increase the use of biofuels, and an EU directive last year requires 10% of all road transport fuel to come from plants by 2020. Theoretically the fuels are carbon-neutral: when burned they only release the carbon dioxide they absorbed while the plants were growing.

    Campaigners argue biofuels are not as sustainable as they seem and say more biofuels would mean the destruction of virgin forests – and the release of their stored carbon – to create agricultural land.

    Heinz Ossenbrink, of the EC’s Institute of Energy (IoE), said research carried out by EU-funded scientists increasingly pointed to a long-term problem for large-scale biofuels use, namely the emissions of nitrous oxide. This is about 270 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and is released through use of fertilisers to grow biofuel crops. “Some of the older studies don’t take that into account,” he said. “We have now come to less positive values for biofuels.”

    The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change does consider the production of nitrous oxide when deciding on the sustainibility of particular biofuels, but errors in its calculations are known to be large.”That’s because there’s such a huge local variation – [emissions] could double from one end of the field to the other and hundreds of times between the fields in the same country and thousands of times around the world,” said Robert Edwards, of the renewable energies unit at the IoE.

  • World’s largest ice sheet melting faster than expected

     

    The measurements suggest the polar continent could soon contribute more to global sea level rises than Greenland, which is shedding more than 250bn tonnes of ice a year, adding 0.7mm to annual sea level rises.

    Satellite data from the whole of Antarctica show the region is now losing around 190bn tonnes of ice a year. Uncertainties in the measurements mean the true ice loss could be between 113bn and 267bn tonnes.

    “If the current trend continues or gets worse, Antarctica could become the largest contributor to sea level rises in the world. It could start to lose more ice than Greenland within a few years,” said Jianli Chen, of the University of Texas at Austin.

    Chen’s team used data from the Nasa mission to see how Earth’s gravitational pull varied month to month between April 2002 and January 2009. Measurements taken over the south pole reflect changes in the mass of the Antarctic ice sheets.

    The survey confirmed the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting rapidly with the loss of around 132bn tonnes of ice a year, but revealed unexpected melting in the larger East Antarctic ice sheet.

    The scientists used a computer model to take account of ongoing movements in the Earth’s surface caused by the retreat of glaciers at the end of the last ice age. Uncertainties in the model gave the scientists only a broad estimate of ice loss in the East Antarctic ice sheet of between 5bn and 109bn tonnes a year.

    Chen said that warmer ocean waters may have triggered the melting by seeping under the ice sheet and making it slide more easily over the rock it rests on.

    Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, Chen’s team reports that Wilkes Land on the East Antarctic ice sheet was stable until 2006, but has since begun to lose ice. Another region on the ice sheet, Enderby Land, was thickening until 2006, but has since started to melt. “We’re seeing these kinds of climate change effects all around the world now,” Chen said.

  • Climate change? Well, we’ll be dead by then

     

    Suggesting that personal behaviour change will have a big role to play, when we know that telling people to do the right thing is a weak way to change behaviour, is an incomplete story: you need policy changes to make better behaviour easier, and we all understand that fresh fruit on sale at schools is more effective than telling children not to eat sweets.

    This is exacerbated because climate science is difficult. We could discuss everything you needed to know about MMR and autism in an hour. Climate change will take two days of your life, for a relatively superficial understanding: if you’re interested, I’d recommend the IPCC website.

    On top of that, we don’t trust governments on science, because we know they distort it. We see that a minister will sack Professor David Nutt, if the evidence on the relative harms of drugs is not to the government’s taste. We see the government brandish laughable reports to justify DNA retention by the police with flawed figures, suspicious missing data, and bogus arguments.

    We know that evidence-based policy is window dressing, so now, when they want us to believe them on climate science, we doubt.

    Then, of course, the media privilege foolish contrarian views because they have novelty value, and also because “established” views get confused with “establishment” views, and anyone who comes along to have a pop at those gets David v Goliath swagger.

    But the key to all of this is the recurring mischief of criticisms mounted against climate change. I am very happy to affirm that I am not a giant expert on climate change: I know a bit, and I know that there’s not yet been a giant global conspiracy involving almost every scientist in the world (although I’d welcome examples).

    More than all that, I can spot the same rhetorical themes re-emerging in climate change foolishness that you see in aids denialism, homeopathy, and anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists.

    Among all these, reigning supreme, is the “zombie argument”: arguments which survive to be raised again, for eternity, no matter how many times they are shot down. “Homeopathy worked for me,” and the rest.

     

    Zombie arguments survive, immortal and resistant to all refutation, because they do not live or die by the normal standards of mortal arguments. There’s a huge list of them at realclimate.org, with refutations. There are huge lists of them everywhere. It makes no difference.

    “CO2 isn’t an important greenhouse gas”, “Global warming is down to the sun”, “what about the cooling in the 1940s?” says your party bore. “Well,” you reply, “since the last time you raised this, I checked, and there were loads of sulphites in the air in the 1940s to block out the sun, made from the slightly different kind of industrial pollution we had then, and the odd volcano, so that’s been answered already, ages ago.”

    And they knew that. And you know they knew you could find out, but they went ahead anyway and wasted your time, and worse than that, you both know they’re going to do it again, to some other poor sap. And that is rude.

  • China rejects draft climate deal

     

    Under the draft agreement, rapidly industrialising countries such as China, India and Brazil would still be considered developing nations but would have to commit to abatement measures and would not receive the same compensation as poor nations.

    “China believes priority should be given to making clear and specific arrangements for reduction, adaptation, technology transfer and financial support,” Mr Zhang told The Weekend Australian in an exclusive interview yesterday as Chinese delegates in Denmark cited the outrage of developing nations against the secret arrangement.

    “To be frank, now the negotiations at the meeting are moving slowly and we believe the main reason for that is the developed nations and that they have retreated on their position regarding key issues such as mitigation, funding and technological transfer,” Mr Zhang said.

    The Chinese position is providing no room to raise its carbon emissions target and to accept any binding agreement. It is demanding new technology regardless of patents, and rejects the view that it should be labelled a developed nation. The draft proposal, which involved the Danish leader and Mr Rudd as a “friend of the chair of the conference”, “was not the overwhelming view of developed countries and was also a personal view not representing the view of his country”, Mr Zhang said. “The so-called draft has been widely criticised by the developing camp through the group of 77, which truly demonstrates this draft was made by a very small number of countries in isolation, and there are a lot of problems to be addressed,” he said.

    Mr Zhang, speaking at the embassy in Canberra, said the European Union nations had promised to cut emissions by 30 per cent but were now saying this relied on what the developing nations committed to. He said a number of European nations had failed to meet their obligations under Kyoto, some by up to 30 per cent.

    “In the meantime they have tried hard to impose unreasonable requirements on developing countries. But developed countries should take the lead in undertaking reduction targets and honouring their commitments to provide funding and technology support to developing countries.

    “While they fail to deliver on all of these they are trying to put more pressure on the developing nations and shift the focus of the priority of the Copenhagen conference,” he said.

    Mr Zhang said China was taking its own action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and was taking Copenhagen seriously, with more than 200 Chinese delegates at the summit.

    He said China had committed to reduce carbon emissions “to cut per unit GDP energy consumption by 40 to 45 per cent and these targets represent the maximum targets China can achieve”, despite calls from developed nations for the target to be lifted.

    The Chinese government also rejected any proposals to change China’s designation as a developing nation when it came to financial aid for climate change, either now or even by 2050.

    Mr Zhang said while many people saw the cities of Shanghai, Beijing or Shenzhen, they were not representative of the rest of China, which, according to the UN, still had 150 million people living below the poverty line who had to face harsh winters.

    “I can tell you that the per capita GDP in China now is barely over $US2000 ($2183),” he said.

    “For China to achieve development there should be a reasonable level of rising energy consumption and a reasonable level of emissions for China and we believe climate change should be tackled in a way that does not hamper development.”

    But the ambassador said the proposed $US10bn a year for developing countries to fight climate change should not be seen as “financial aid” but as “emissions redress or redemption” for the “luxury emissions” the West had enjoyed.

    “We have a right to development,” he said.

  • As climate talks drag on, low-lying atolls are already beimg flooded

     

    I am scared, and so too are the people from these atolls about what this means for our culture, our communities and our identity.

    Because of climate change, I am uncertain about what is to come. How can I feel that my future is safe? How can I be sure that my home village won’t disappear in 10 years’ time? How can I be sure that my community won’t have to find a new home? How can I be sure that I will be able to raise my children in the same place that my mother and father raised me? I am not sure. I am scared and worried.

    At the global negotiations, many nations, including Australia, have focused on avoiding 2 degrees of global warming. While this may not sound like much, it will threaten the survival of many small island nations.

    Sea-level rise and unprecedented storm surges caused by climate change are already affecting communities across the Pacific and are expected to get significantly worse if climate change is not immediately and adequately tackled.

    Consequently, small island governments, like my own, are asking the global community to prevent global warming above 1.5 degrees. This means a global emission stabilisation target of below 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent in the atmosphere.

    Throughout my life, flags have been raised at the United Nations as the global community has recognised new nations. The global community cannot allow flags to be taken down as nations and cultures vanish beneath the ocean.

    I came to the climate change conference because, as a young person, I believe that there must be urgent action to protect my future. I am here with Project Survival Pacific, an initiative of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and working with a team of young Australians and 10 other youth from diverse Pacific island countries to raise the concerns of people from vulnerable island nations.

    I am also working with my Government to support it in negotiations for a strong agreement for my people.

    Since arriving in Copenhagen, I have been working with young people from all over the world and this has given me hope that together we can build a better future.

    Developed countries at this conference must commit to a legally binding agreement that will ensure the world’s most vulnerable nations are protected from climate change.

    Solomon Islands, as a small island nation, is one of the smallest emitters of greenhouse gas in the world, and yet we are being hit the hardest and the fastest by climate change. I ask Australia, as our closest developed neighbour, to please help us: assist us financially in adapting to climate change and commit to strong mitigation targets to ensure the lowest temperature rise.

    This conference has the power to transform the way the world responds to climate change, but only if all countries realise the true urgency of the problem and commit to an ambitious, fair and legally binding agreement now.

    For my entire life, world leaders have been negotiating a climate agreement. They cannot tell me they need more time. There is no more time. I hope world leaders realise this week that my generation’s future is in the palm of their hands.

    Christina Ora is a youth delegate at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

  • Vulnerable nations at Copenhagen summit reject 2C target

     

     

    Holding temperatures to an increase of 1.5C compared to preindustrial levels would mean stabilising carbon concentrations in the atmosphere at roughly 350 parts per million (ppm), down from a present 387ppm. No technology currently exists to feasibly remove CO2 from the atmosphere on a large scale.

     

    The temperature issue was starkly highlighted yesterday when Tuvalu, one of the world’s most climate-threatened countries, formally proposed that countries sign up to a new, strengthened and legally binding agreement that would set more ambitious targets than what is presently being proposed. This divided G77 countries, some of whom led by China and India argued against it, fearing that it would replace the Kyoto protocol.

     

    But they were supported by many of the vulnerable countries, from sub-Saharan Africa as well as the small island states, with passionate and powerful statements about the catastrophic impact of climate change on their people.

     

    “Tuvalu has taken a strong stand to put the focus back on their bottom line. Nothing but a legally binding deal will deliver the strong commitments to urgent action that are needed to avoid catastrophe, especially to the most vulnerable countries and people,” said the Oxfam spokesman Barry Coates.

     

    Today the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), a grouping of 43 of the smallest and most vulnerable countries, including Tuvalu, said any rise of more than 1.5C was not negotiable at Copenhagen. They are backed by 48 of the least developed nations.

     

    But the UN conference chief, Yvo de Boer, implied this morning that the proposal had little chance of being adopted. “It is theoretically possible that the conference will agree to hold temperatures to 1.5C but most industrialised countries have pinned their hopes on 2C,” he said.

     

    The 2C figure, which was included in the leaked draft negotiating text prepared by the summits host Denmark has emerged as the figure favoured by large economies and the likeliest to be adopted. But the poorest countries say that latest science implies that a 2C warming would lead to disastrous consequences – for example from sea level rise.

     

    “We have two research stations, one in the Pacific and one in the Caribbean. They both suggest a rise of 2C is completely untenable for us,” said Dessima Williams, a Grenadian diplomat speaking for Aosis.

     

    “Our islands are disappearing, our coral reefs are bleaching, we are losing our fish supplies. We bring empirical evidence to Copenhagen of what climate change is doing now to our states,” she said.