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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.
As well as Giovanni’s articles it picks up the most pertinent articles from a range of other news services. You can publish the news feed on your website using RSS, free of charge.
 

  • A terrifying vision of a world devastated by climate change

     

    Oxfam’s remarkable new online interactive documentary – Gabura, from daily life to disaster – launched in conjunction with the Guardian yesterday, allows you both to bear witness to the impact of climate change and to choose your own journey through the story.

    We enable you to see vividly how livelihoods have been ruined, crops destroyed, and families torn apart. To step into their shoes, and see where they go, how they live, and the hardships they suffer from the impact of climate change.

    Why have we chosen this medium to talk about climate change? Because, ahead of crucial talks this December in Copenhagen, we need our message to get out there in as many different ways as possible.

    We wanted to show some of the many stories about the devastating impact of climate change. After all, it is the people in poorer communities whose voices are all too often drowned out in the drumbeat of reports, debates and summits.

    There is Abdus, a farmer whose crops were lost after a bad harvest, who fears he cannot feed his family. There is Hosne Ara Khatun, a young widow too traumatised to speak after her husband was mauled to death by a tiger, starved as its natural habitat has disappeared due to rising sea levels. And there is the young father left to weep over the loss of his wife and young children after the community of Gabura was lashed by the devastation of cyclone Aila.

    They may seem thousands of miles away, but their troubles are real, they are growing worse, and they could soon happen to us unless we take action now.

    So while we show you – and allow you to choose – the images of devastation caused by climate change, we are also letting you know what you can do to stop the damage.

    The UK is currently preparing for its biggest ever climate change demonstration in support of action against climate change, The Wave, on 5 December in London.

    The march is one of scores of events by Oxfam and its partners ahead of the talks in Copenhagen, as we urge world leaders to forge a safe and fair climate deal to halt dangerous global warming and protect those most at risk, such as those living in Gabura.

    By calling on our leaders to act on climate change this December, we help the people of Gabura, and we help ourselves.

    • Barbara Stocking is the chief executive of Oxfam

  • Are your emissions ‘survival or ‘luxury’ ?

    Are your emissions ‘survival’ or ‘luxury’?

    Daniel Scharf

    11th November, 2009

    A runner-up in the Ecologist/nef essay competition, Daniel Scharf suggests that the whole concept of a carbon ‘market’ is radically flawed…

     

    How do you price the extra tonne of carbon that, once burned, tips the balance
and triggers potentially catastrophic, irreversible global warming?

    The answer is 42 Dollars, Euros, Pounds, Yen or Yuan  or in whatever currency we will be pricing the meaning of human life when it comes to an end.

    Meanwhile, the question is how we can continue to contemplate quantifying, or placing a monetary value on the infinite. Global warming is the greatest ever market failure says Lord Stern, so fix the market and the error will be corrected?

    Since the Stern Review was published in October 2006 the whole concept of the ‘market’ has been discredited in almost every area in which it has been applied. While the banks are being trusted to reform their ways and to continue to fuel most areas of economic life, the credit crunch might have come at the right time to spread the sense that the marketeers should not be trusted to commodify; that is, to price and trade in carbon. If market economics or capitalism are unlikely to save the whale, the rain forest, or the atmosphere, will it be down to the command economy – discredited during the last century – to ride to the rescue? 

    Ditch discounting

    Suppose that we have ten years to reverse the trend of adding carbon to the atmosphere, ten years before the tonne of greenhouse gas that broke the camel’s back is emitted from a power station chimney or the back of a camel: the mechanism of control has to be capable of dealing with both carbon and methane (and possibly account for water vapour).

    The value must be applicable to the producer and the sequesterer, to the fossil fuel burner and to owners of flatulent beasts. In ten years – and the earlier the better – the market economist has to revisit the rule of discounting whereby the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and whereby future benefits are given less value due the uncertainty of their manifestation.

    It is true that a tonne of carbon saved today is worth very much more in terms of reducing global warming than the same tonne saved ten years down the line. However, the tonne that needs to be saved in ten years to prevent irreversible global warming would actually have an infinite value if oblivion is to be avoided. So much for economics as we know it, putting a price on everything and knowing the value of nothing.

    Few would dissent from another homily: that the best things in life are free to acquire and enjoy, and most if not all are free of or low in carbon content. That being the case, it should not be too difficult to see that pricing or regulating carbon so that its use is largely out of reach will not deprive people of those things that they value most. Whether it is through price or regulation, access must be given to ‘survival emissions’: those we need to subsist in both developed, over-developed and under-developed countries. On the other hand, through price or regulation it should be made universally difficult to emit ‘luxury emissions’: those attributed to the excesses of modern life that show no benefit in human welfare.

    A third category of carbon emissions are those associated not with survival or luxury, but with the alleviation of poverty, hunger and disease in all parts of the world. These could only be delivered, through a world carbon bank and national agencies, according to need, and not the ability to pay.

    What price a Bengali mother?

    Thus we have the carbon ‘market’ cut in three, where access to, and consumption of, these distinctive tonnes of carbon and their subsequent emissions is the different between life and death. 

    Perhaps there are clever bankers in city towers even now being offered bonuses to work out the formula that would put a value on a tonne of carbon that would be considered fair by a Bengali mother whose home will be flooded and a Sudanese farmer whose pasture will be wasted at, say, 3 degrees of warming that might, at the same time, provide warmer winters to a Muscovite family and improve the crops of an arable farmer in Alberta?

    Bankers need to be dissuaded from widening the ‘market’ to embrace the emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases. If the tonne of carbon that pushes the climate over the edge is a ‘luxury emission’ then it should logically have a value close to infinity such that the market would prevent it from being emitted.

    Unfortunately it could be a tonne of emissions relating to the survival of the 9 billionth inhabitant of this crowded planet, by denying them the benefits of an item of energy, water or food. A Malthusian revenge. This outcome being within the realms of possibility, if not probability, should suggest to the market economist that a price should be put on the process of procreation, if the existence of more souls to be fed, sheltered and watered is causing both intolerable carbon concentrations, and death would arise from their prohibition.

    Or would the market economist rather work at the other end and calculate the scale of bribe that would attract volunteers for an early but very green funeral? Economists will soon find that some of the externalities to which significant carbon effects can be attributed are not just hard to quantify but are taboo subjects. Would they want to be the ones responsible for a revised concept of human rights?

    No, Lord Stern, climate change has not been a failure of markets. Global warming is no more and no less than a failure of global governance, and a measure of general deference to economists and reliance on markets. Economists have drawn the net around what to value and include on balance sheets too narrowly. But the answer is not to always try to include externalities, but to acknowledge that some goods are beyond quantification, atmospheric carbon being one of them. The quicker we abandon the concept of placing a price on carbon the better. The use and access to goods that cannot be traded needs instead to be regulated, allocated or rationed.

    To read the winning entry to the Ecologist/nef essay competition, click here

  • Antarctic iceberg found floating near Macquarie Island

    Antarctic iceberg found floating near Macquarie island

    Australian biologist spots ‘huge floating island of ice’ halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica

     

    A large iceberg spotted off Macquarie Island

    A large iceberg spotted off Macquarie Island. Photograph: Murray Potter/AP

    Dean Miller, an Australian fur seal biologist, was the first person to spot the large white object floating past Macquarie island in the far south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean.

    “I’ve never seen anything like it. We looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice,” Miller told the Australian Antarctic division. “It was a monumental moment for me as it was the first iceberg I have seen.”

    Estimated to be about 50m high – from the waterline – and 500m long, the iceberg is now about five miles (8km) off the north-west of Macquarie island, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica south-west corner of the Pacific Ocean.

    Scientists have said it is rare for icebergs to be seen so far north. Neil Young, an Australian Antarctic division glaciologist, said: “The iceberg is likely to be part of one of the big ones that calved from the Ross ice shelf nearly a decade ago.

    “Throughout the year several icebergs have been drifting slowly northwards with the ocean current towards Macquarie Island. We know there are also a few more icebergs 100km-200km to the west of the island.”

    Several huge icebergs broke off from Antarctica’s Ross ice shelf and the Ronne ice shelf in 2000 and are now drifting away from Antarctica. The first was about 190 miles long and 23 miles wide.

    Scientists believe the iceberg off Macquarie will break up and melt rapidly as it meanders northwards. However, before melting it could present a danger to ships, Young said.

    Since the start of satellite records in 1979, total Antarctic sea ice has increased by about 1% a decade, according to Nasa. The US space agency says it is unclear whether the small overall increase in sea ice expanse is a sign of meaningful change because ice areas vary considerably from year to year and from sector to sector.

    Considered individually, only the Ross sea sector had a significant positive trend, while sea ice extent has actually decreased in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas.

     

  • New Zealand was a friend to Middle Earth, but it’s no friend of the earth

     

     

    Then there are the US and Australia, which both reneged on the protocol after signing it. And Canada, which never reneged but still has emissions up by a quarter (worse than the US) and shows no sign of contrition or of being called to account by the other signatories.

     

    But my prize for the most shameless two fingers to the global community goes to New Zealand, a country that sells itself round the world as “clean and green”.

     

    New Zealand secured a generous Kyoto target, which simply required it not to increase its emissions between 1990 and 2010. But the latest UN statistics show its emissions of greenhouse gases up by 22%, or a whopping 39% if you look at emissions from fuel burning alone.

     

    Some countries with big emissions growth started from a low figure in 1990. Arguably, they were playing catchup. There is no such excuse for New Zealand. Its emissions started high and went higher.

     

    They are today 60% higher than those of Britain, per head of population. Among industrialised nations, they are only exceeded by Canada, the US, Australia and Luxembourg. In recent years a lot of Brits have headed for Christchurch and Wellington in the hope of a green life in a country where they filmed the Lord of the Rings. But it’s a green mirage.

     

    To rub our noses in it, last year New Zealand signed up to the UN’s Climate Neutral Network, a list of nations that are “laying out strategies to become carbon neutral“.

     

    But if you read the small print of what New Zealand has actually promised, it is a measly 50% in emissions by 2050 – something even the US can trump.

     

    Where do all these emissions come from? New Zealand turns out to be mining ever more filthy brown coal to burn in its power stations. It has the world’s third highest rate of car ownership. And, with more cows than people, the country’s increasingly intensive agricultural sector is responsible for approaching half the greenhouse gas emissions.

     

    You might expect the UN Environment Programme to throw New Zealand off its list of countries supposedly pledged to head for climate neutrality. Sadly no. These steely guardians of the environment meekly say that the network “will not be policed… nor will UNEP verify claims“.

     

    Indeed, it seems to go to great lengths to deny reality. Check the UNEP website and you will find an excruciating hagiography about a “climate neutral journey to Middle Earth“, in which everything from the local wines to air conditioning and Air New Zealand get the greenwash treatment.

     

    After extolling the country’s green credentials, it asks: “Have you landed in a dreamland?” Well, UNEP’s reporter certainly has. He cheers New Zealand’s “global leadership in tackling climate change“, when the country’s minister in charge of climate negotiations, Tim Groser, has been busy reassuring his compatriots that “we would not try to be ‘leaders’ in climate change.”

     

    This is not just political spin. It is also commercial greenwash. New Zealand trades on its greenness to promote its two big industries: tourism and dairy exports. Groser says his country’s access to American markets for its produce is based on its positive environmental image. The government’s national marketing strategy is underpinned by a survey showing that tourism would be reduced by 68% if the country lost its prized “clean, green image”, and even international purchases of its dairy products could halve.

     

    The trouble is, on the climate change front at least, that green image increasingly defies reality.

  • Trillions of dollars needed to cut climate change

    World leaders will need to invest more than $10 trillion to halt climate change by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

    The World Energy Outlook 2009, the annual flagship publication from the IEA, was presented by Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the agency in London this week.

    Mr Tanaka believes this huge investment will be more than offset through savings in transport, buildings and health care.

    While pointing out energy use has fallen in the past 12 months, as a result of the economic downturn, Mr Tanaka fears it will ‘soon resume its upward trend if government policies don’t change’.

    If policies don’t change Mr Tanaka sees a ‘reference situation’ where demand will increase by 40% between now and 2030.

    He said: “The cumulative incremental investment of $10.5 trillion is needed in low-carbon energy technologies and energy efficiency by 2030.

    “In addition to avoiding severe climate change, this cost is largely offset by economic, health and energy-security benefits.

    “Energy bills in transport, buildings and industry alone are reduced by $8.6 trillion globally over the period 2010-2030.”

    He also highlighted the energy poverty challenge with 1.3 billion people still without electricity in 2030, a small decrease from 1.5 billion today.

    He said: “Universal access could be achieved with investment of only $35 billion per year in 2008-2030.”

    Luke Walsh

  • Revealed: polluters’ fear tactics on climate

     

    In Australia, 20 companies who have already won the most concessions from the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme employ 28 lobbying firms with well over 100 staff, many of them former politicians, political advisers or government officials.

    In the US there are more than 2800 climate lobbyists, five for every member of Congress, an increase of more than 400 per cent over the past six years. From Washington to Canberra and New Delhi to Brussels, companies and their lobbyists are often raising the same widespread fears about jobs, power blackouts and economic losses unless governments weaken commitments to combat climate change.

    The report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists examined the climate lobby in eight countries including the US, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, China, Belgium and Brazil. It relied on more than 200 interviews, lobbying registers and political donation records. The Herald collaborated in the investigation for Australia.

    The findings come as hopes are fading that a binding climate change agreement will be reached at Copenhagen next month.

    This week African nations staged a day-long boycott of UN climate talks in the lead-up to the summit, demanding that rich countries make more ambitious pledges to cut emissions. And the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, bluntly told reporters: ”We are not going to have a full-fledged binding treaty – Kyoto type – by Copenhagen”. Instead, a political agreement is being flagged with a treaty not being concluded until at least next year.

    The consortium’s investigation found big greenhouse-polluting industries in all countries, developed and developing, are pushing back against ambitious targets to cut national emissions.

    In China, the Government’s plans to boost renewable energy has not been embraced by many of the nation’s power companies which rely on coal. Only one of the top power companies, all state-owned, will meet the Government’s goal to get 3 per cent of their power from renewable energy by 2010.

    In the US, chief executives of coal and power companies have hosted a public campaign against climate legislation which is being blocked in the Senate. The millionaire coal chief Don Blankenship appeared at a ”Friends of America” rally with country music stars and prominent Fox TV host Sean Hannity. The rally was designed to warn Americans ”how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs”.

    In Europe, ambitious targets to cut greenhouse emissions were significantly reduced after lobbying by heavy industries protesting they would face unfair competition from the developing world.

    Industry lobby groups have also carved out a permanent role at the UN talks as representatives of the so-called BINGOS – Business and Industry Non-Government Organisations.

    While lobbyists for the renewable energy industry, the carbon traders and environmental groups are also becoming more prominent, the report finds that their voices ”can barely be heard above the clamour of the older, well-capitalised and deeply entrenched industries that have been lobbying on climate change for more than 20 years”.

    More reports www.icij.org