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  • It’s an odd boy who doesn’t like sport

    We may no longer want our sports heroes to die, but we do like our sport to push the boundaries. A bit of biffo adds depth to the football, tennis stars swear at umpires instead.

    The World Championship car rally pushes the boundaries of political correctness. It is appropriately dangerous, competitive and spectacular, but has raised the ire of those who care for the small, furry members of our community. More significantly, perhaps, it has failed to set local business on fire because it promises very little in the way of financial returns.

    The Repco Rally was rejected by the Western Australian government after seventeen years because it returned only $1.60 to the economy for every dollar invested. By comparison, the Cottesloe Surf Carnival returns around $14 for every dollar invested.

    Despite the best efforts of PR flacks to spin the story otherwise, the rally is inappropriate because it is expensive to mount, damaging to the natural landscape on which our tourist economy depends, a relic of the era of excessive consumption of cheap oil, and will return very little to the local economy.

    The global collapse of the financing for Formula One racing is proof that these are not isolated rumblings of tree-hugging, anti-car nuts. The sports sponsors’ love affair with speed is over. Even car manufacturers are pulling out. Corporates building profile in the post-carbon world that will endure this and future recessions do not want to be associated with an orgy of oil-burning hot rods, they want to support sustainable, green events that establish their credentials as corporate citizens. Today’s high octane addicts will shortly become the steam-train enthusiasts of the future. In a word, relics.

  • Mercury treaty puts more pressure on coal

    From the Guardian

    Environment ministers overcame seven years of obstacles today and committed to reducing the world’s mercury pollution.

    In a sign of America’s return to a global leadership role, United Nations environment ministers meeting in Nairobi agreed to take immediate steps to limit exposure to mercury.

    The White House said it would press hard for a legally binding treaty when negotiations get under way later this year.

    “The United States will play a leading role in working with other nations to craft a global, legally binding agreement that will prevent the spread of mercury into the environment,” said Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House council on environmental quality.

    The Bush administration had blocked international efforts to limit mercury – although such protections are in place in America.

    Mercury, which can travel thousands of miles from its original source, damages the central nervous system, and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and babies.

    The treaty will include measures to reduce the supply of mercury and its use in products, such as thermomenters, and processes, like paper making. It will also seek to cut back on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are responsible for about half of the world’s mercury pollution.

    The new-found consensus in Nairobi, which saw the US, India and China lifting their resistance to a binding global mercury treaty, raised hopes for progress later this year at the crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen on an international climate change deal.

    “There was a seismic shift from the American government from its previous position,” said Nick Nuttall, the spokesman for the UN environment programme. “It was clear from the beginning of this week that the US negotiators had been given a clear line from Washington, and indeed the White House, to come together with the rest of the world and do something.”

    “The US has taken a leadership role that will chart a new course on mercury protections around the world. We have set a strong example that is already influencing others to do the same,” said Susan Egan Keane, an analyst at the US National Resources Defence Council.

    Barack Obama had earlier taken a number of steps at home to break with the George Bush legacy on the environment – most notably restoring the power of government agencies to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants.

    The strong push from the US side in Nairobi this week evidently helped wear down resistance from governments such as China and India. China is heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants, while Indian manufacturers still use many processes that depend on the metal.

    The eight-point plan agreed on Friday calls for reduction in mercury emissions from power plants, and in its use in thermometers and other household products, as well as in plastics production and paper-making. It would cut down on the use of mercury in gold panning, a process that results in huge quantities of the heavy metal being washed into streams.

    Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but pollution has caused levels to rise sharply in many fish species, increasing the danger to humans that eat them.

    “Today the world’s environment ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over – the time for action on this pollution is now,” said Unep’s director, Achim Steiner.

    Formal treaty negotiations will get underway later this year, with a view to reaching a final agreement in 2013.

  • 40 nations condemn UK as climate criminal

    Related article from The Observer

    A global protest against UK plans to build new coal power plants is being launched today by campaigners from more than 40 developing countries accusing the government of being a “climate criminal”.

    They have written an open letter to energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband that follows repeated warnings from UK groups that the decisions to approve new coal power plants and the expansion of Heathrow airport would damage the nation’s position in international negotiations when it tries to persuade other countries to cut global-warming emissions.

    The 27 groups, including campaigners from India, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines and Uganda, say they are “alarmed” that the UK government is considering allowing new coal plants to be built, including one at Kingsnorth in Kent. They blame emissions from rich countries for causing global warming and the “increased floods, droughts, sea-levels and disease” that threaten the livelihoods of “hundreds of millions of people”.

    “Coal power is the most climate-polluting way to generate electricity,” continues the letter. “New coal power stations in the UK will exacerbate the impacts of climate change on impoverished communities in the south[ern hemisphere] … A decision to support new coal power stations will confirm the UK as a climate criminal in the international climate-change negotiations.”

    The groups oppose the current plans to build coal plants with no equipment for carbon capture and storage (CCS), and existing proposals for a “demonstration” of the technology are inadequate, said the World Development Movement, the UK-based poverty campaigning charity which coordinated the letter.

    The letter also criticises proposals to offset the carbon dioxide from coal plants by investing in clean technology projects in the developing world through the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism, which the groups say has “continuously had negative impacts on communities in the global south while failing to cut emissions”.

  • Wine prices chaotic as market and crops fail

    From The Land

    Australia’s era of cheap plonk is over, with vineyards struggling against nature and the global financial crisis.

    In the Barossa Valley, grapes are shrivelling under the blistering sun.

    In the Yarra Valley, the damage from the devastating bushfires that ripped through the region is still being assessed.

    At least the Hunter Valley seems to have overcome high temperatures and recent heavy rains to produce a good harvest.

    And in London restaurateurs are spending long nights looking at empty tables, spelling an end to the party on the other side of the world.

    Wine growers are expecting a rationalisation as the twin burdens of a lesser crop and slowing economy inflict wrath on their grapes.

    In the 12 months to January the industry’s peak body, Wine Australia, found that export volume dropped by 9pc.

    As growers finalised picking their white grapes this month, they are also facing the prospect of a 15pc fall in crop yield this year because of heat stroke and bushfires.

    The falls are expected to eat away the oversupply of grapes enjoyed from 2004 to 2006, when it was estimated that the industry was 20pc too large.

    Lawrie Stanford, Wine Australia’s general manager of information and analysis, said this season would have a profound effect on the industry with Australian wine exporters yet to convince foreigners they’re among the best in the world.

    “The era of cheap wine is definitely going to be over,” Mr Stanford said.

    “We simply can’t sell that wine any more – it’s over because growers have the aim to be a smaller industry, and it’s going to be over because after the global financial crisis passes, the programs in place in the industry to promote our higher priced wines will be what carries us through.”

    Wine Australia will release its annual survey on Friday of this year’s wine yield, but early estimations are that output will be lower than the 2007-08 season.

    Tony Jordan, from the Yarra Valley Winegrowers Association, said he expects a fall of as much as 15pc nationwide, though his region has experienced a more modest fall of about 5pc.

    Barbara Storey, from the Barossa Grape & Wine Association, expects crop yields to be down 20-30pc on a normal year after this month’s heatwave.

    “The ripening has been accelerated by the heat,” Ms Storey said.

    The main task for growers will be winning back the confidence of foreign drinkers when trade picks up again, especially our two biggest export destinations, Britain and the US, which spent 18pc and 26pc less on Australian wine in 2008, respectively.

    “We know that we haven’t quite done the job of convincing overseas consumers,” Mr Stanford said.

    “We also need to take into account that there’s been a fundamental shift in world market which will still be there when economic recovery occurs.”

  • Turnbull discovers biochar

    From Australian Associated Press

    AUSTRALIA could reduce greenhouse gas emissions annually by 150 million tonnes more than the Federal Government proposes, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has said.

    Mr Turnbull has flagged a more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target than the Government’s 5-15 per cent by 2020, and a less complex scheme for achieving the target.

    “We could, at relatively low cost … cut an additional 150 million tonnes a year by 2020, and do that very, very realistically without rocket science technology,” he said on ABC radio.

    Mr Turnbull says the government’s planned emissions trading scheme (ETS), due to start operating in July 2010, is “incredibly cumbersome”.   “(It) seems to disappoint everybody,” he said, adding the scheme was also ineffectual and economically damaging.

    Australia’s carbon emissions should be reduced by using such measures as environmental forestry and bio-char technology, Mr Turnbull said.  “The objective is to reduce emissions, not to have an ETS.”

    Mr Turnbull said the Opposition was not prepared to finalise a reduction scheme until it was known what the rest of the world planned.

    Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has said the Government has always acknowledged the need for additional policies, but turning Australia from one of the most carbon-intensive economies in the world to a low-pollution one requires the “hard” economic reform of an ETS.

    “Mr Turnbull knows this,” Senator Wong said.  She said Mr Turnbull was opposing an ETS simply because it did not have support in his party.   “Many … simply do not want to take action on climate change.”

    She said Mr Turnbull’s idea of using environmental forestry would require planting an area half the size of Tasmania every year for a decade to implement, Senator Wong said.  “That gives you an example of how much of what Mr Turnbull is talking about is nothing more than a mirage.”

  • UK government infighting fails climate

    Britain’s efforts to cut carbon emissions have been hampered by government infighting and a reluctance to stand up to industry, according to the UK’s former climate change minister.

    Elliot Morley, head of the new energy and climate change select committee, said tensions between different government departments had undermined moves to cut greenhouse gas pollution. Policies to cut carbon and help the environment were dismissed inside Whitehall as “idealistic and not giving enough attention to the pragmatic needs of industry”, he said.

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