• Terry Macalister
• The Guardian, Monday 8 July 2013 03.44 AEST
• Jump to comments (30)

Facilities operated by Shell, BP and BG were all offenders, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Photograph: Royal Dutch Shell Ho/EPA

Britain’s offshore rigs and platforms have leaked oil or other chemicals into the North Sea on 55 occasions over the past month alone, challenging claims by the industry that it has a strong safety and environmental record.

Among the fields to have reported pollution discharges is Piper Alpha, the scene of the world’s worst offshore accident in terms of fatalities when it blew up, killing 167 workers, 25 years ago.

Facilities operated by Shell, BP and BG were all offenders, according to the latest petroleum operations notices (PON1s) reported to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Greenpeace said the alarming statistics should act as a reality check for an industry that was trying to persuade the world it should be allowed to drill in the pristine waters of the Arctic.

“They’re trying to convince the world that they can operate safely in one of the world’s harshest environments, yet they can’t prevent this steady trickle of oil and other polluting chemicals leaking into the relatively safe waters of the North Sea,” said Greenpeace senior climate adviser Charlie Kronick. “This will do little to increase public trust in their ability to drill in the Arctic without damaging this incredibly beautiful and fragile corner of our planet.”

But the industry itself says the leaks often contain tiny amounts of relatively harmless substances and the reporting system is an example of a good regulation.

One of the worst offenders in the latest set of DECC figures is Shell, which on 3 June reported lubricant and other chemical discharges from its Brent Bravo and Brent Charlie platforms.

A Shell spokesman said: “Asset integrity and process safety is Shell’s foremost priority at all times. No spill is acceptable and we work hard both offshore and onshore to minimise risks to maintain a safe working environment for our workforce and reduce any environmental impact on the North Sea.

“Shell is actively participating in the Step Change in Industry safety initiative, which includes a focus on hydrocarbon spill reduction. The industry has achieved an almost 50% reduction in hydrocarbons leaks during 2012, based on a baseline set in 2009.”

In 2006, Shell was fined £900,000 after pleading guilty to safety lapses on the Brent B platform following an accident in 2003, when the facility was hit by a gas leak in which two oil workers died.

BP, which is still fighting criminal charges following the Deepwater Horizon accident of 2010 in the US Gulf, is reported to have had crude leaks off the Paul B Loyd Jnr rig, which was working on the Clair field on 6 June this year. There was also a release of “another” substance from the same drilling unit two days earlier. On 25 May there was discharge on the Marnock field.

BG had a leak on the Everest North platform on 31 May while Talisman Energy discharged chemicals the day before on the Piper Bravo platform that was built in place of the Piper Alpha structure destroyed by fire in 1988.

Petroleum operations notices are all reviewed and investigated by an offshore environmental inspector as they are reports of potential breaches of DECC-enforced regulations.

Some of the discharges are allowable under North Sea rules but most on the latest PON1s monthly data whose status is marked “completed” rather than still “under review” ascribed the source to various mechanical failures.Those incidents that do show how much product was released indicate small amounts but any unintended action is unwelcome at a time when safety and the environment are major concerns of the public.

Although the PONS1 data seen by the Guardian for the month from 6 May to 6 June show 55 different numbered notices, employers dispute the figures and downplay their significance.

Mick Borwell, Oil & Gas UK’s environmental issues director, said: “The vast majority of the 103 spills this year [in PON1 reports] are very small operational chemical spills. They have no potential to cause a major accident, so do not compromise the increase in safety standards reported recently including a year on year reduction in combined fatal and major injury rates and in all types of dangerous occurrence and a 48% reduction in hydrocarbon releases over three years.”

BP and Shell declined to comment. On Monday, BP will appear in court in New Orleans to argue that the huge compensation package agreed last year following the Deepwater Horizon disaster is being abused. Lawyers for BP will claim that large numbers of “fraudulent, excessive or improper claims” are being filed to the victims’ fund, to which BP set aside around $8bn.

• Share
• inShare

New model could give 12 months warning on El Niño

Updated 1 hour 37 minutes ago

Photo: El Nino has been known to cause drought in some parts of Australia, Indonesia, and South America and heavy flooding in places like Peru and Ecuador. (ABC TV)

Map: Germany

Scientists hope a new method for forecasting El Niño weather events earlier will help Pacific farmers and fishermen adapt to droughts and floods.

El Niño weather events lead to floods in the eastern Pacific and droughts in the west, severely affecting agriculture and fishing.

El Niños typically happen every two to seven years, but current techniques measuring water temperature only allow scientists to forecast at most six months in advance.

Professor Armin Bunde, from the University of Giessen in Germany, has told Pacific Beat their approach is different.

“We do not consider the water temperature, but we consider the atmospheric temperature in all areas of the Pacific Ocean,” he said.

“Then we study how the temperatures at different place in the Pacific are linked to each other…so by doing this we find that well before an El Niño event – in the year before – the data connections build up strongly.

“This…we can use to forecast an El Niño event [and] when we do this we find that we succeed in forecasting seven out of ten El Niños, with less than one false alarm in 20 years.”

Professor Bunde says the ability to predict El Nino’s further in advance allows those most at risk from unusual weather patterns to plan ahead.

“During an El Niño in the west the water gets colder, there’s less evaporation and this may lead to droughts,” he said.

“In the east where the water gets warmer, this may lead to heavy rainfall and floods.

“Both results – droughts in the west and floods in the east – are bad for agriculture.”

“By predicting El Niño events one year in advance, one can help the farmers to adapt better – to invest in drought or flood resistant crops.”

Australian lecturer in climate change research, Dr Alex Sen Gupta, has told ABC Science the new model is “almost too good to be true”.

“There’s no real physics behind it,” he said.

“At the moment they’ve found a pattern, but they’re not really explaining where that pattern comes from.

“I think give it another two or three El Niños and if it predicts those correctly more than a year in advance you’d start to think we’re on to something.”

El Niño is Spanish for “the child”, named after the baby Jesus because it often appeared off Peru around Christmas.

The pattern has been known to cause drought in some parts of Australia, Indonesia, and South America and heavy flooding in places like Peru and Ecuador.

It’s also been linked to severe winters in Europe, unusual monsoons in East Asia and hurricanes in the Caribbean.

Topics: weather, agricultural-crops, climate-change, germany, pacific, australia

First posted 2 hours 15 minutes ago

Climate Change Conjures Up ‘Alarming’ Scenarios In Southeast Asia – Analysis

July 7, 2013

By RFA

By Parameswaran Ponnudurai

Imagine these scenarios: The rice bowl of Vietnam cracking. Popular diving spots in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia lying idle with no tourists. Nearly half of Bangkok inundated with water.

Well, they could become a reality in 20 to 30 years—no thanks to the adverse effects of climate change in Southeast Asia exacerbated by forest fires particularly in Indonesia which recently blanketed the region with deadly smoky haze.

Scientists warn in a new World Bank report of major impacts on the region if the temperature rises by up to 2 degrees Celsius—warming which they say may be reached in two to three decades—fueled by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

The warming climate will push up the sea level in the region and cause an increase in heat extremes, a higher intensity of tropical cyclones, and ocean acidification stemming from excess carbon dioxide in the air, according to the latest edition of the bank’s “Turn Down the Heat” report.

The scientific report predicts a drop in agricultural production and widespread food shortages, rapidly diminishing fish catch, increasing water- and vector-borne diseases, and diarrheal illnesses, impacting mostly the urban poor, who constitute large proportions of city populations in the region.

The climate change effects will also dampen the region’s tourism industry, a top money-spinner, as coral reefs in pristine waters that lure divers and help fish breed are rapidly destroyed.

‘Alarming scenario’

The World Bank issued its first “Turn Down the Heat” report last year, likening it to a wake-up call to climate change. It concluded that the world would warm by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century if no concerted action is taken.

In the new report, scientists say that if the temperature rises by just 2 degrees Celsius, warming may be reached in 20 to 30 years.

It gives a more detailed look at how the ongoing negative impacts of climate change could create devastating conditions especially for those vulnerable, predicting what the bank’s chief Jim Yong Kim calls an “alarming scenario for the days and years ahead.”

“The displacement of impacted rural and coastal communities resulting from the loss of livelihood into urban areas could lead to ever higher numbers of people in informal settlements being exposed to multiple climate impacts, including heat waves, flooding, and disease,” the report said.

“Basically, you’ll have a range of impacts on countries but the incidence on that will fall disproportionately on poor people, because fisheries and agriculture [are the key areas to be affected],” John Roome, the bank’s director for sustainable development in the East Asia Pacific Region, told RFA.

He said that while there is greater awareness by governments to combat climate change, efforts needed to be accelerated by putting in place early warning, monitoring and evaluation systems, and allocating special budgets to mitigate the crisis.

“The alarming part is that a 4-degree world [where the temperatures are 4 degrees warmer] is not going to be a very pleasant place to live in for all the reasons that are set out in the report but there are things that can be done if countries act soon to stem the temperature rise so that [the rise] doesn’t reach 4 degrees,” Roome said.

Mekong Delta crop production drop

The new report, based on analysis using advanced computer simulations to paint the clearest picture of vulnerabilities, says that as early as 2040, Southeast Asia’s major rice-growing region—the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam—will see crop production drop by about 12 percent due to an estimated sea-level rise of 30 cm (nearly 1 foot).

The Mekong Delta, popularly known as the “rice bowl” of Vietnam and home to some 17 million people, makes up half of Vietnam’s total agricultural production and contributes significantly to the country’s rice exports.

“Any shortfall in rice production in this area because of climate change would not only affect the economy and food security of Vietnam but would also have repercussions for the international rice market,” the report said.

The Mekong Delta is also Vietnam’s most important fishing region. It is home to almost half of Vietnam’s marine fishing vessels and produces two thirds of Vietnam’s fish from aquaculture.

But saltwater intrusion associated with sea-level rise is already affecting freshwater and brackish aquaculture farms.

By 2050, the sea-level rise is expected to increase by over 30 percent of the total current area—1.3 million hectares— affected by saltwater intrusion in the delta, the report said.

Sea levels rising

It also warns that floods due to sea-level rise will engulf 43 percent of Thailand’s capital Bangkok around 2025, and about 70 percent in 2100.

Bangkok together with Jakarta, Yangon, Manila, and Ho Chi Minh City are projected to be among cities in Southeast Asia to be most affected by sea-level rise and increased storm surges.

Coral reefs, fish catches vulnerable

The report said that rising ocean acidity caused by excessive carbon dioxide will lead to a significant loss of coral reefs and the benefits they provide as fish habitats, protection against storms, and revenue-generators in the form of tourism.

Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Cambodia were cited as “among the most vulnerable tourism destinations.”

Based on the projections, all coral reefs in the Southeast Asia region are very likely to experience severe thermal stress by the year 2050, as well as chemical stress due to ocean acidification.

“Coral bleaching and reef degradation and losses are very likely to accelerate in the next 10–20 years; hence, revenue generated from diving and sport fishing also appears likely to be affected in the near term,” the report said.

It also said that ocean fish catch in the southern Philippines is expected to be slashed by half due to warmer water temperatures and habitat destruction.

Fish in the Java Sea in Indonesia and the Gulf of Thailand are also projected to be severely affected, with “very large reductions” in average maximum body size by 2050.

Weather extremes and forest fires

Scientists are also forecasting a significant increase in Southeast Asia in the intensity and maximum wind speed of tropical cyclones making landfall. Heat extremes are expected to surge in the region.

More important, Southeast Asia is one of two regions—the other being the Amazon—which is projected to see, in the “near-term,” a strong increase in monthly heat extremes with the number of warm days projected to increase to 45–90 days per year under a 2-degree temperature rise scenario or to 300 days in a 4-degree scenario.

The heat scare has also fueled concerns over a rise in brush, forest, and peat fires across Indonesia’s Sumatra Island and in nearby Borneo Island.

Such fires recently caused a smoky haze in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore and raised air pollution to hazardous levels.

The burning “causes a short-term problem with the smoky haze but in the medium- and longer-term would exacerbate climate change and warming,” Roome said, calling for a concerted regional action to stem the crisis.

“If countries could put in place actions that could better manage the forest resource and the peat land to preserve the green cover and to preserve peat land, you will get two benefits—in the short term you wouldn’t get the smoky haze and in the medium and longer term, it would reduce the impact on climate change,” he said.

In all of East Asia, the biggest contribution to global warming come from China, particularly its energy sector, but the second biggest culprit is forest cutting in Indonesia, the biggest Southeast Asian nation.

“So one of the most important ways of mitigating climate change in Southeast Asia is to mitigate the reduction of forest cover—stop the rate at which forests are being burned or being chopped and stop the conversion of peat land,” Roome said.