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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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  • Surging dollar hits chance of deal on ETS

     

    But in the short term the expected forecasts are disastrous for the Coalition, which was relying on unallocated excess revenue from permit sales to pay for its proposed amendments to boost assistance to emissions-intensive industries, small businesses and electricity generators.

    The forecast estimates will dramatically lessen the chances of a deal in ETS negotiations between the government and the opposition, ahead of the second Senate vote late next month when the laws could become a double-dissolution trigger.

    The Coalition could reject Kevin Rudd’s proposed carbon emissions trading scheme next month even if the Prime Minister accepts all of Malcolm Turnbull’s proposed amendments.

    Senate leader Nick Minchin said yesterday there was no guarantee the Coalition partyroom would accept any agreed proposals, sparking government claims the opposition was acting in bad faith in negotiating with it over amendments.

    Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner demanded the Opposition Leader intervene to clarify the position.

    Opposition emissions trading spokesman Ian Macfarlane has insisted the cost of changes proposed by the Coalition would be covered by revenue from permit sales.

    “There’s $50bn in unallocated credits by 2030. And it’s about $20bn by 2020,” he said last week. “That’s how much they are collecting and keeping as a tax. There’s enough money in unallocated credits to fund our scheme — more than comfortably fund our changes.”

    But The Weekend Australian expects new government forecasts will show the continued strength of the Australian dollar will dramatically cut revenue generated by the scheme because permits sourced offshore become relatively cheaper in Australian dollar terms.

    As foreign permits, from international schemes such as the Clean Development Mechanism, become cheaper, more firms will meet their requirements by buying offshore permits rather than buying Australian permits at auction, and the price they are prepared to pay for Australian permits will be reduced.

    Unlike the US, Europe and Japan, Australia is not proposing to limit the amount of greenhouse abatement that can be sourced from overseas.

    Strong growth in commodity exports could also reduce the scheme’s revenue. The Climate Institute’s estimate of an $11bn surplus over the first decade of the scheme is based on the government’s assumption of a 3per cent growth in the emissions-intensive industries that qualify for free permits.

    The forecast estimates will be the first time the government has provided 10-year costings for its ETS. Climate Institute chief executive John Connor conceded yesterday that “all the risk is on the downside” to his estimate of an $11bn surplus over 10 years.

  • Impact of religions will have ‘deeper roots ‘ than Copenhagen

    Impact of religions will have ‘deeper roots’ than Copenhagen

    Ecologist

    31st October, 2009

    Archbishop speaks of the lasting impact of a religious movement to tackle climate change ahead of major summit of religious leaders

    The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has spoken out about the crucial role of the world’s religions in tackling climate change ahead of a major summit of faith leaders.

    Speaking at Lambeth Palace this week, the Archbishop said religions held the ‘moral vision’ and that ultimately their impact would have ‘deeper roots’ than anything achievable at the Copenhagen summit.

    His comments come as leaders from nine of the world’s major faiths – Baha’ism, Christianity, Daoism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Dhintoism and Sikhism – gather at a major summit in Windsor next week to announce commitments to tackling climate change.

    Faith commitments

    Among the practical measures being announced is a commitment by  The Northern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania to plant 8.5 million trees, and by Sikhs to source sustainable fuel for India’s Sikh gurdwaras, or temples, which cater for 30 million people every day.

    Leaders will also announce a new Islamic eco label for goods and services, eco-tourism packages for pilgrimages (still the world’s biggest tourism events) and the turning of Shabbat into an environmental celebration of avoiding consumption.

    Biggest civil movement

    The event, being organised by the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), has been described as ‘the biggest civil society movement on climate change in history,’ by the UN.

    Faith communities own between 7-8 per cent of the habitable land surface of the planet, run (or are involved in) half the world’s schools and control more than 7 per cent of international financial investments.

    UN Assistant Secretary-General Ola Kjorven said with more than 85 per cent of the world’s population adhering to a religion the commitments made at the Windsor summit had the potential to be, ‘the biggest mobilisation of people and communities that we have ever seen on this issue.’

  • The first climate evacuation: what have we learned.

    The first climate evacuation: what have we learned?

    Dan Box

    28th July, 2009

    Earlier this year, journalist Dan Box won recognition from environmentalist George Monbiot for documenting the world’s first climate change evacuation, of the Carteret islands in the South Pacific. Now, he returns to his experiences to ask if this is the first evacuation of many, how should we do it in future?

    What happens when you want to move a state? What happens when the Maldives moves to India and says it wants to still be the Maldives?

    Ruth Marcella was crippled at birth and it hurts to walk this far around her island. But she is determined and, swinging her twisted hip, leads me through the palm trees to the white beach and the blue South Pacific ocean.

    As she shows off her tiny homeland, Han, one of the Carteret Islands in the far east of Papua New Guinea, Ruth keeps saying sorry quietly. I think she is apologising, and ask her why.

    ‘I am sorry for my island,’ Ruth replies. ‘I believe that one day this island will disappear, and we won’t have this island. We will lose it.’

    Behind us men are cutting down dead breadfruit trees for firewood. Once pawpaw, taro and banana grew here, but no more. The ocean, Ruth says, is rising. Trees that once stood in the forest are now 20 metres out among the waves. Many that remain are poisoned by salt water. The islanders are hungry, and afraid.

    The Carterets, it has been decided, will be abandoned, in what is the world’s first official evacuation of an entire people because of climate change. If global warming continues as we expect, many more will soon suffer the same fate. But how do you move an entire people? No one knows. It has been left to these islanders to set a…

     

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  • East-west tussle erupts over bill for combating climate change

     

    Poland and other more recent and poorer EU members threatened to block agreement on a financial package for funding global warming action in the developing world, a central plank of the international pact needed if the Copenhagen talks are to succeed. At the end of yesterday’s talks, no deal had been agreed on funding for tackling climate change in developing countries. Talks are to continue today.

    Chairing last night’s Brussels summit, Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of Sweden, said Europe’s claim to lead the world on global warming was at stake. But the Poles, Hungarians, and Lithuanians fiercely criticised the outline deal tabled by the Swedes.

    The Swedes and the European commission, as well as Britain, called for the EU to agree a package of up to €15bn (£13.4bn) of public money for transfers to developing countries by 2020. They want the bill to be split on the basis of the greenhouse gas emissions and economic prowess of each of the 27 member states.

    The Poles and other east Europeans maintain that they cannot afford to pay a fair share of the bill, particularly since some of the east European countries have been hit particularly hard by the financial crisis.

    The €15bn is supposed to be the European share of the developed world’s bill of up to €50bn of public-sector spending by 2020. The EU also hoped to agree on transitional funding of up to €7bn a year, starting from next year, for the developing world.

    The Germans last night objected to pinning down the short-term fund now. But the bigger problem came from east European opposition over how the bill should be split.

    “In its current form, the burden sharing is not acceptable,” said Gordon Bajnai, the Hungarian prime minister.

    Senior officials said the Poles were also refusing to agree to the terms.

    The Swedes have offered a compromise which would include “readjustment” mechanisms for the poorer EU member states in the form of rebates, or via other refunds.

    “The poorer countries in eastern Europe have been more reluctant. Some of the richer ones have been less forward than us,” said a senior UK official.

    The poorest EU member states, such as Romania and Bulgaria, are complaining that the European subsidies will go to some developing countries, such as Brazil, which are wealthier than they are.

    While Sweden, Denmark, Britain, and the European commission said that the EU had to agree a package now in order to send a strong signal to Copenhagen, put pressure on the US and other countries to agree similar funding, and retain the pioneering role it claims on climate change, Germany was reluctant to commit to figures publicly, arguing that the Europeans should not reveal their hand until the “card game” got under way properly in Copenhagen.

    “You cannot simply wait right until the very end of Copenhagen to do this,” said the British official. “We need to explain the terms in which we want countries to put their commitments on the table, and now is the time to do it.”

  • National Grid plan for local waste-to-biogas plants

    In a new report released today, the grid operator sets out how a series of ‘Urban Energy Centres’ could take delivery of separated food and household waste.

    The food waste would be fed straight into an anaerobic digester, which breaks down the sludge to produce a methane-rich gas and a nutrient-rich liquid slurry, that can be used as an agricultural fertiliser.

    The household waste would be fed into a Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) plant, which sorts the waste to remove recyclable materials, and then submits the remaining fraction to high pressure steam, sterilising the waste and reducing its volume.

    This waste is then heated to high temperatures in the absence of air to drive off ‘syngas’ – a mixture rich in hydrogen – which can be upgraded and then injected into the gas mains along with the gas from the anaerobic digester for use in home boilers and cookers.

    Because the process does not incinerate waste in the presence of air, harmful combustion byproducts should be kept to a minimum.

    National Grid calculates that 10 plants could deal with all of London’s waste, reducing CO2 emissions by some 146,365 tonnes a year by displacing fossil natural gas.

    However, although the report calculates that the Energy Centres would make better economic sense than incinerators (costing £62.50 per megawatt hour of energy produced, as opposed £110.25 per megawatt hour of energy from an incinerator), the Grid’s executives believe that the project will not succeed unless the Government introduces promised financial incentives.

    ‘This only becomes feasible if the Government introduces a renewable heat incentive (RHI) payment for renewable gas that makes it commercially viable,’ said Mark Fairbairn, executive director of gas distribution for National Grid. ‘Also support will be needed to develop gasification technology alongside a review of waste policy to ensure that energy recovery from waste is maximised at all plants in the UK.’

    Useful links
    National Grid report

    See also

     

  • Emissions trading hits the poor

     

    The reason why increasing electricity bills has caused such a scandal in the past, and should be taken incredibly seriously now, is that the poor and elderly spend far more as a portion of their income on electricity. The 10% of the population on the lowest incomes spend more than three times as much, as a share of their income, as the richest 10%. Over-75s spend nearly twice as much as under-30s. We need to resist increases in VAT because it hits the poor hardest, but at least VAT is exempted or at least reduced for some items like food and children’s clothing. The ETS does precisely the opposite, pushing up prices on the spending priorities of low-income families.

    The fact that a large share of the proceeds goes to energy companies as windfall profits rubs salt in that wound. Those profits are going to continue for some years to come as the scheme slowly moves towards auctioning allowances rather than allocating them for free. Even once full auctioning is in place, the ETS will still be a highly regressive tax.

    Of course, the reason why we are supposed to accept such a regressive tax is that it will help to cut emissions. Unfortunately, the efficacy of the scheme is undermined by its inability to produce a stable carbon price. The price has collapsed a number of times since the scheme was introduced. As Oliver Tickell wrote for this website, “wild fluctuations create a risk that deters some investors altogether and makes others demand a significant risk premium, putting up the price of capital.” EDF Energy has called for a floor on the carbon price to “encourage investment in low-carbon energy like nuclear power”. This calls into question the whole point of the scheme.

    That volatility isn’t going to end any time soon. The basic problem is that the supply of allowances is fixed (the “cap” in “cap and trade”) so shifts in demand are entirely reflected in prices. As firms and households find it easier or harder to improve their carbon efficiency, and as the economy grows more or less quickly, the number of allowances allocated by the participating countries will never be quite right and the price will continue to crash up and down.

    That volatility doesn’t just undermine the efficacy of the ETS. It also makes the burden it imposes on households and businesses that bit harder to bear.

    For those reasons alone, the Emissions Trading Scheme should be abolished. Instead, we should focus on making sure that developed and developing countries are prosperous and free enough to cope with whatever climate change throws at them. We should also directly support the development of technologies that can provide us with new options, ideally with the kind of rigorous prizes that have delivered dramatic results in the development of everything from agricultural machinery and private suborbital spaceflight. That will be far more effective and affordable than the current approach.

    The ETS has been an expensive failure. Having been implemented through the EU without a real debate here, it lacks democratic legitimacy and it is imposing a significant burden on the poorest families while achieving very little. It should be abolished.