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[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009
Millions from mom 'lent' to Hatoyama
Funding reports may have listed fictitious donors as the source
Kyodo News

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's mother "loaned" him around ¥900 million over five years to 2008 and some of the money may have been recorded as coming from fictitious donors in his political funding reports, sources said Wednesday.

They said the roughly ¥180 million per year over the five years were treated as loans, otherwise Hatoyama would have had to pay a huge gift tax if the money was merely given to him by his 87-year-old mother, Yasuko, the oldest daughter of Bridgestone Corp. founder Shojiro Ishibashi.

A secretary Hatoyama dismissed in June when he first became embroiled in a funds scandal is believed to have made a similar claim, about the funds constituting loans from the mother, during voluntary questioning with prosecutors. The ex-aide had been in charge of managing Hatoyama's political funds.

If, on the other hand, the funds had been donated to his political fund management body, Yuai Seikei Konwakai, that would have violated the Political Funds Control Law, which limits donations from an individual to a politician to ¥1.5 million per year. Hatoyama is president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

"I'm wondering what was going on without me knowing about it and I'm very surprised by it all," Hatoyama told reporters Wednesday. "I strongly hope the prosecutors' investigation makes headway and reveals the truth."

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office is probing to determine if more than ¥300 million was falsely declared in Hatoyama's political fund reports, as it considers whether to indict the former state-paid secretary without arrest over the false statements. The aide has not been identified.

Yasuko Hatoyama is a major shareholder in the leading tire maker. Her assets are managed by the family's private asset management firm, Rokko-shokai, in Tokyo's Minato Ward.

During questioning in the Diet recently, Hatoyama denied having received that much money from his mother, claiming, "I believe there was no such thing as far as I know," while admitting the former aide had withdrawn about ¥50 million a year over the past six years from his account at Rokko-shokai.

According to Hatoyama's political fund reports, his mother has donated ¥1.5 million every year from 2004 to 2008 to his fund management body.

The former secretary had been drawing cash from Rokko-shokai, as well as Hatoyama's account there, following written directives issued by Hatoyama when his political funds ran short, according to the sources and prosecutors.

The prosecutors believe the political fund reports falsified at least ¥21.77 million in donations from about 90 individuals over four years to 2008, most of the roughly ¥180 million from "anonymous" donors over five years to 2008, and more than \\¥100 million in revenues from his fundraising parties during the same period.

Hatoyama on June 30 admitted that the aide had falsely reported the ¥21.77 million as donations using the names of deceased people and others who denied making any contributions, and apologized. He said he has corrected the fund reports.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009
Toyota to replace 4.26 million gas pedals in U.S.
Compiled from AP, Kyodo

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it will replace gas pedals on 4.26 million vehicles in the U.S. free of charge to address problems with sudden acceleration or the pedal becoming stuck in the floor mat.

As a temporary step, Toyota will have dealers shorten the length of the gas pedals beginning in January while the company develops replacement pedals for their vehicles, the Transportation Department said in a statement. New pedals will be available beginning in April, and some vehicles will have brake override systems installed as a precaution.

They said owners of the ES350, Camry and Avalon would be the first to receive notification because the vehicles are believed to have the highest risk for pedal entrapment.

Toyota plans to install a brake override system on the Camry, Avalon and Lexus ES350, IS350 and IS250 models as an "extra measure of confidence," the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said. The brake override system, commonly called a "smart brake," will ensure the vehicle will stop even if both the brake and the accelerator pedals are applied simultaneously.

Dealers will be instructed on how to modify the pedals before the end of the year and will begin shortening the accelerators in 2010. New replacement pedals are expected to be available for some models beginning in April and will be provided even if the vehicles have already received a modified pedal under the recall.

Toyota was expected to provide more details Wednesday on the repair. The automaker announced the massive recall in late September and told owners to remove the driver's side floor mats to prevent the gas pedal from potentially becoming jammed.

The recall includes the 2007-10 model year Camry, 2005-10 Avalon, 2004-09 Prius hybrids, 2005-10 Toyota Tacoma, 2007-10 Toyota Tundra, 2007-10 Lexus ES350 and 2006-10 Lexus IS250/350.

On Tuesday, Toyota announced a recall of 110,000 Tundra trucks from the 2000-03 model years to address excessive rust on the frames.

The recall involving the accelerators was Toyota's largest in the U.S. It was prompted by a high-speed crash in August involving a 2009 Lexus ES350 that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three members of his family near San Diego. The Lexus hit speeds exceeding 193 kph, struck a sport utility vehicle, launched off an embankment, rolled and burst into flames.

A family member in the runaway Lexus made a frantic call to authorities moments before the crash, telling emergency responders that the accelerator was stuck and the driver couldn't stop the car. The call ended as someone was overheard urging others to hold on and pray, followed by a woman's scream.

NHTSA investigators determined a rubber all-weather floor mat found in the wreckage was slightly longer than the mat that belonged in the vehicle, and could have snared or covered the accelerator.

The government has attributed at least five deaths and two injuries to floor mat-related unintended acceleration in the Toyota vehicles and has received reports of more than 100 incidents in which the accelerator may have become stuck. A Massachusetts-based safety consultant who has investigated the cases, however, has found more than 2,000 incidents involving 16 deaths and 243 injuries potentially tied to the Toyota gas pedals.

The automaker and government regulators have been discussing a potential fix for several weeks. In late September, Toyota announced the recall and told owners to remove driver's side floor mats and not replace them until the company had determined a remedy. The automaker said unhooked floor mats or replacement mats stacked on top of the originals could lead to stuck accelerators.

In early November, Toyota issued a statement saying NHTSA had confirmed "that no defect exists in vehicles in which the driver's floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured." But in a rare rebuke, NHTSA accused Toyota of releasing misleading information about the recall, saying removing the mats did not "correct the underlying defect." Toyota said it was not the company's intention to mislead anyone.

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[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009
Ex-Hatoyama aide allegedly faked profit
\300 million in declarations questionable
Kyodo News

A former secretary of Yukio Hatoyama repeatedly tried to balance the books by faking profits around every January, sources said, providing the first glimpse into details of shady accounting practices by the prime minister's fund management body.

It has also been revealed that more than \100 million was falsely declared out of revenues from selling tickets for fundraising parties between 2004 and 2008, the sources said, and that it now looks like at least \300 million was falsely declared in the body's financial statements.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office has already questioned the former government-paid secretary, who was dismissed by Hatoyama in June, on a voluntary basis and is expected to indict him without arrest on charges of violating political financing laws.

Before compiling a financial report for the previous year, the secretary, who was also the accountant of the political funds body, calculated how much it had spent as political funds and balanced the books by reporting falsified revenues, the sources alleged.

The fund management body, Yuai Seikei Konwakai, reported about 92.54 million in individual donations, excluding those made by Hatoyama himself, in amounts of more than \50,000 between 2004 and 2008.

Prosecutors suspect that at least \21.77 million of these donations reported between 2005 and 2008 from about 90 individuals were fake, the sources said.

On top of that, most of the roughly \180 million worth of individual donations in amounts up to \50,000, which the law allows to be reported without listing the contributors' names, has been found to have been forged between 2004 and 2008.

Hatoyama admitted June 30 that the political fund management body stated in its annual reports that donations were made by people who were deceased or who had not donated anything.

Diet boycott over
The Diet got back to normal Wednesday for the first time since the ruling bloc forced a debt repayment bill through the Lower House last week.

The focus now is on whether the session will be extended beyond its scheduled end Monday.

The Democratic Party of Japan is proposing to extend it to Dec. 4, while the opposition bloc led by the Liberal Democratic Party is seeking to extend it to Dec. 9.

The LDP is also demanding that the money scandal involving Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama be discussed during the extended period.

"We will call for discussion time (on the issue) if the session is extended," Yasukazu Hamada, a member of the LDP Diet Affairs Committee, told a news conference.

Hatoyama has admitted his ex-secretary falsified his official political funding reports, disguising a substantial amount of money from his own pocket as donations from individuals.

Another key point will be whether the first debate between Hatoyama and LDP President Sadakazu Tanigaki will be held during this session.

The opposition camp joined Diet deliberations after a boycott following the forced passage of the debt repayment bill by the ruling coalition.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said the Cabinet remains committed to drafting a state budget for fiscal 2010 by the end of this year, even if the ongoing Diet session is extended into December.

Fujii's remarks came amid growing concern that the DPJ-led government may not be able to finish drafting the budget by the end of the year as planned.

While the clock is ticking, the Cabinet is finding it difficult to fend off vested interests and trim requests from central government offices for the budget for the year starting next April.

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[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
CO2 cuts will require nation's transformation
By SETSUKO KAMIYA
Staff writer
First in a series

Imagine yourself in a Japanese city in 2020.

{Keeping up with the Joneses: Solar panels have been installed on some 550 rooftops in the Pal Town neighborhood in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, where a government-supported study on how to ensure a steady supply of electricity is under way.}

As you walk down the street, chances are that every other car you see is a hybrid or powered by electricity. Solar panels on rooftops are common, and homes are equipped with cogeneration water heaters. They also have high-tech insulation, warm in winter and cool in summer without having to rely very much on air conditioning.

This is what life will be like a decade from now if the country wants to achieve a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with 1990 levels, according to a report issued in April by the National Institute for Environmental Studies.

Pretty much everything you encounter on a daily basis will have to be drastically changed to be environmentally friendly.

For example, only 0.3 percent of all cars on the road in 2005 were hybrids or electric, but this needs to be raised to 40 percent by 2020. Electricity generated by solar panels must also be drastically increased to 79 million kw from 1.42 million kw in 2005. The number of cogeneration water heaters should reach 440 million units from only 700,000 four years ago, and newly built homes must feature insulation in 2020 compared with only 30 percent in 2005.

The NIES figures were based on the premise that the 25 percent cut is achieved entirely by domestic efforts. The reduction, however, more likely will have to be met by combining national efforts with international mechanisms such as emissions trading.

Still, Japan has a long way to go to reach an environmentally friendly future in just 10 years.

The bold greenhouse gas reduction target announced by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in September means the country has stepped on the gas in the drive to become a low-carbon society, which will require a major transition in the structure of society, experts say.

"To stop global warming, we need to stop relying on carbon as an energy resource. A transition in our energy framework is necessary," Yoichi Kaya, director general of the Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth, said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.

To keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees, the Group of Eight most industrialized nations pledged at their summit in July to reduce 80 percent of their greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This goal was reaffirmed by Hatoyama and U.S. President Barack Obama in a joint message Nov. 13 on global climate change negotiations.

Although there is still 40 years to go, cutting emissions 80 percent is an extremely challenging goal, Kaya said.

Analysts say the midterm goal set for 2020 is an indicator of what Japan is willing to achieve.

Before the Democratic Party of Japan's landslide win in the Aug. 30 general election, the nation's 2020 reduction target was 15 percent compared with the 2005 level. When converted to the 1990 level, the target was 8 percent.

When he set this goal last June, then Prime Minister Taro Aso of the Liberal Democratic Party stressed that the reduction would be achieved through domestic efforts only. But nongovernment and international organizations working on climate change criticized the target as less than ambitious for the world's fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

In contrast, Hatoyama said his administration will mobilize all available policy tools to achieve his more aggressive pledge, including introducing of a domestic emissions trading system and global warming tax.

But Hatoyama and his Cabinet have yet to map out precisely how they plan to bring about the 25 percent cut.

As part of the process, a government task force of experts and five research institutions have analyzed possible scenarios to reach the 2020 target and submitted a midterm report Tuesday.

The group's calculations involved a wide range of factors, from the impact on the economy, industries and households to different possible measures taken to achieve the goal.

According to the report, households will have to bear a financial burden ranging from about \130,000 to \765,000 a year if Japan slashes its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent purely through domestic efforts.

The figures touched a political nerve.

After receiving the report, Environment Minister Sakihito Ozawa said the task force will be dissolved and the calculations will be done over because the institutions involved were the same ones that performed an analysis under the Aso government.

Policies on how industry should be involved in the reduction process have not been decided either.

The government has yet to clarify how much of the 25 percent cut should come from domestic efforts, and various industrial sectors that are major polluters have voiced concern over making further sacrifices.

The manufacturing sector covers around 40 percent of Japan's emissions. The transportation industry makes up 19 percent, while the service and other sectors make up 18 percent.

The private sector claims sharp reductions will risk Japan's international competitiveness and will impose a heavy burden on consumers, as they have already been making efforts to meet the international pledge under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce 6 percent of emissions compared with 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

Hitoshi Ikuma, director of the Center for the Strategy of Emergence of the Japan Research Institute, said conventional industries need to realize there will be much opportunity for growth if they change their business structures and mind-sets.

"There is no other market besides the market related to the environment that has potential for growth," he said, adding that Hatoyama's decision to make Japan a low-carbon society should be greeted with enthusiasm.

Solar and wind power generation is one such example. But over the last few years Japanese companies, despite having competitive technologies, have lost market share or have failed to compete with foreign rivals.

Ikuma blames the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the LDP for upholding policies that catered to conventional industries and failed to support the new markets.

"There needs to be a shift in the industrial structure that will be able to meet the 2050 (target)," he said, noting there are various fields that companies have the potential to flex their competitiveness.

For example, Ikuma noted, developing energy-saving technologies, further promoting recycling of materials, increasing the use of public transportation for moving goods and promoting a paperless work environment are some of the areas key to making the structural transition.

Regardless of what policies are drawn up, the public will have to be ready to meet the challenges. In fact, several opinion polls show that most Japanese are concerned about global warming and want to do something about it.

A NIES survey between April and July found a large majority saying they consider global warming an important problem that needs to be addressed and that swift action must be taken.

Although the survey was conducted around the time Aso announced his emissions reduction target, Midori Aoyagi of the NIES Social and Environmental Systems Division, who compiled the survey, predicted that people will likely support Hatoyama in this case.

"The poll showed people believe Japan should play a leading role with developed countries while also involving developing countries in the quest for an overall reduction. This matches the direction of the 25 percent target," she said.

In the end, policies will determine the path Japan heads down, observers agree.

"Policies that focus on (heeding the opinions of) industries will come to an end in the post-Kyoto Protocol society," Ikuma said. "Politicians and government officials must return to the basics and come up with a grand vision. That's what we need."

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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Fishing]
Widen choice to save fish stocks, supermarkets told
Avoid cod, plaice, swordfish and ling while stocking gurnard, pollock and mussels, says Marine Conservation Society
Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 26 November 2009 Article history

Supermarkets could be doing more to help the environment and boost Britain's dwindling fish stocks by offering consumers a wider variety of fish and seafood, according to a report published today.

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) also recommends that retailers should refuse to use North Sea cod, plaice from the western Channel, swordfish and ling in own-brand products. These are on the charity's list of fish to avoid on sustainability grounds.

The society urges supermarkets to sell more seafood which has not been overfished, including gurnard, pollock and mussels, while improving labelling and information for customers.

While eight supermarket chains have improved their policies on sourcing sustainable fish since the last survey in 2007, a further seven failed to respond, which the MCS said was "deeply disappointing". The survey rates the stores on a number of measures, including sourcing and labelling.

The Co-operative chain leads the way, hailed for having eliminated all the MCS's fish to avoid from own-brand products, and having the largest percentage of sales from the fish to eat list in the society's Good Fish Guide. Marks & Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Waitrose also performed strongly, praised for having clear policies on sustainability. Aldi, Booths, Budgens, Farmoods, Lidl, Netto and Spar did not respond.

Sam Wilding, the society's fisheries officer, said: "In European waters, nearly nine-tenths of fish stocks are overfished. Supermarkets supply 80% of the seafood sold in the UK. Both consumers and retailers can help stop the overfishing crisis if supermarkets supply their customers with sustainably sourced seafood. MCS wants all Britain's major supermarkets to use a sustainable seafood sourcing policy and provide their customers with good information on sustainable seafood choice."

The society said it had worked closely with retailers on sustainable sourcing but called on them to sell more from the fish to eat list while eliminating the fish to avoid and improving labelling.

Wilding said: "The supermarkets included in this survey are trying harder than ever before to put sustainability at the heart of their sourcing. MCS was very disappointed that seven retailers did not respond and finds their reluctance to take part difficult to understand given that the survey celebrates the progress made by supermarkets in supplying sustainable seafood."

Ally Dingwall, the aquaculture and fisheries manager of Sainsbury's, which sells more fish than any other retailer, said: "This survey shows that we are the best of the major supermarkets when it comes to responsible sourcing of fish. We sell around 20% of the fresh and frozen fish consumed in the UK, so any positive changes we make can have a huge impact on our oceans.

"There are further improvements in the pipeline, which will make it even easier for our customers to shop ethically."

A spokeswoman for Waitrose said: "We are entirely supportive of the MCS and their work to further sustainability – we are the only retailer that is an MCS Oceans 25 ambassador. We believe it's a real shame that almost half of retailers failed to respond to the MCS – it's essential the industry works together on these issues if we are to ensure a future for global fish stocks."

A spokesman for Aldi, which did not respond to the survey, said: "We already sell a range of fish from Marine Stewardship Council-approved sustainable fisheries and are looking at sourcing fresh and frozen fish from other sustainable sources.

"Aldi is committed to responsible sourcing and continues to review and update policies in line with global best practice and in association with independent organisations. We'll be publishing our policies in 2010 to clearly demonstrate our continued progress as a responsible grocery retailer."


[Business > Utilities]
Ofwat to decide on lower bills as water industry resists
> Regulator ponders 4% reduction in bills until 2015
> Water companies argue against cut, citing huge debts
Tim Webb
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 19.21 GMT Article history

Millions of households in England and Wales will learn whether the water industry has succeeded in overturning plans to cut bills for the next five years.

Water regulator Ofwat is making its final decision on its previously announced draft proposals which would see the average water and sewerage bill fall by about £14, or 4%. This equates to £330 by 2015, in real terms.

Thames Water and Southern Water, which were both sold at huge premiums to their regulated value at the height of the credit boom two years ago, stand to lose most if the regulator's plans go ahead. Thames Water, now owned by a consortium led by Macquarie Bank, has publicly threatened that it could appeal to the Competition Commission if it does not get its way.

The only common ground between consumer groups and the industry is in urging the regulator to allow companies to spend more on preventing sewers flooding, and to pass on the costs to customers.

But beyond that Ofwat is unlikely to change its proposals significantly , which spells uncharacteristically lean times ahead for the industry.

Every five years, Ofwat sets household bills and how much companies should spend on the UK's water pipes, sewerage and treatment facilities. The idea is that the former – which kick in in April - should pay for the latter.

Ofwat has told companies to cut bills, excluding inflation (compared to allowing them to hike bills by 18% in the last five years), and at the same time to spend more (£21bn versus just under £17bn spent this time around) on the network. The regulator thinks this is possible because it has estimated a lower cost of capital – the costs of raising debt and equity in the City – at a rate of 4.5%.

For the current five-year review, ending next April, the regulator back in 2004 set a cost of capital of 5.1%. Even the industry privately admits that this turned out to be extremely generous because the real costs of raising finance during the credit boom were much lower, and it led to a frenzy of debt-driven takeover deals at massively inflated values.

But now companies, lumbered with huge debts to service, argue that the regulator has gone too far the other way. In plain English, in the space of two years, the industry has gone dramatically from feast to famine.

Not surprisingly, their pleas of poverty aren't attracting much sympathy in a recession when households are also struggling to pay rising electricity and gas bills. Tony Smith, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, said: "It has been a pretty attractive few years for water companies. To now come along and say things are a bit tough for us, there is little sympathy if someone has overpaid for a company and now wants customers to pay for it."

Privately, the water industry suspects that Ofwat, mindful of the Conservatives' plans to slash spending on regulators and quangos, is trying to curry favour by matching the public mood for restraint on spending. "There is the sense that the regulator is going with the zeitgeist," said one industry source.

Paul Chadwick, associate director with Mott MacDonald's Water Utilities Division, said that companies with the toughest settlements may choose to cut spending on capital maintenance rather than make a risky appeal. This decision also has its dangers. "This carries a risk on the operational side, as the longer it is delayed, the more likely faults will occur and these may impact on the level of service to customers, which companies are obligated to maintain," he said.

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[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > World news > New Zealand]
Rare iceberg flotilla in southern Pacific poses threat to shipping
Associated Press in Wellington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 19.40 GMT Article history

A flotilla of hundreds of icebergs that have broken away from Antarctic ice shelves is drifting toward New Zealand and poses a risk to ships in the south Pacific Ocean, maritime authorities have warned.

The area is not a major shipping lane and few sailors are out in November – spring in the southern hemisphere – but ships that traverse the area have little hull protection.

An official navigation warning for the area south of New Zealand is "an alert to shipping to be aware that these potential hazards are around and to be on the lookout," Maritime New Zealand spokeswoman Sophie Hazelhurst said.

Large numbers of icebergs last floated close to New Zealand in 2006, when some were visible from the coastline – the first such sighting since 1931.

An iceberg up to 200 metres long had reached 160 miles south-east of New Zealand's Stewart Island on Tuesday, Australian glaciologist Neal Young said.

He could not say how many icebergs were at large in the south Pacific, but said he had counted 130 in one satellite image alone and 100 in another.

New Zealand oceanographer Mike Williams said the icebergs were drifting at a speed of about 16 miles a day, and he expected most would not reach New Zealand. He said he was "pretty sure these icebergs came from the break-up of the Ross sea ice shelf in 2000" – an ice shelf the size of France and the origin of the 2006 flotilla of icebergs.

Temperatures have risen in the Antarctic Peninsula area near South America by as much as 3C in the last 60 years, and "whole ice shelves have broken up," Young said. But he said the iceberg flotilla south of New Zealand came from the Ross Sea, a completely different area of Antarctica, and the event was unrelated to climate change.


[Environment > Energy]
Power of osmosis used to deliver eco-friendly energy
A Norwegian firm is testing a renewable and emission-free source of energy that harnesses the power of water through osmosis
Gwladys Fouché
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 17.45 GMT Article history

The world's first test plant to harness osmotic power, a new emission-free source of energy, opened on Tuesday, in Norway. Nestled amid pine-covered hills on the banks of the Oslo fjord, 60km south of the Norwegian capital, the facility will exploit the energy produced when fresh water meets seawater.

Statkraft, the Norwegian energy firm behind the test plant, says osmotic power could produce up to 1,600–1,700 terawatt hours worldwide – the equivalent of half of the energy generated in the EU today.

"Osmotic power has great potential," says Arild Skedsmo, head of climate and energy at WWF Norway. "In theory the power is available and it's an emission-free way of producing energy."

He adds: "This is an immature technology. But like all renewables, we need a whole range of technologies to be available. Osmotic power can definitely be part of the solution."

The right site
Statkraft says osmotic power would be especially suited for generating electricity for large cities. "Many are situated at the point where large rivers flow into the sea," says Sverre Gotaas, senior vice-president for innovation and growth at Statkraft. "So you would not need to transport the electricity over long distances."

Another advantage, argues Gotaas, is that a commercial plant would be modest in size, but still produce a significant amount of energy. "A facility the size of a football field could generate 25 megawatts – enough to supply 30,000 households," he says.

However, Skedsmo at WWF Norway sounds a note of caution, explaining that an osmotic plant could have the same environmental impact as a hydropower facility. "The infrastructure built can have an impact on the biodiversity of the area … so it's important to choose the right location," he says. "It should not be built in unspoilt river deltas or protected areas."

Could osmotic power plants appear in the UK? "Certainly," says Gotaas. "Any area where river flows into the ocean could be suitable … Another important aspect is that the rivers can't be too polluted. If it's muddy, we would have to clean the water [before using it]. But you have clean rivers in the UK."

The new technology is based on the principle of osmosis, the diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane, which is how plants draw water from the soil.

At the test facility, fresh water and salt water is guided into separate chambers, divided by an artificial membrane. When the fresh and seawater meet on either side of the membrane, the fresh water is drawn towards the seawater. The flow puts pressure on the seawater side, and that pressure can be used to drive a turbine, producing electricity.

The two-storey, tennis-court-size plant, situated next to a pulp mill, will generate little power. "It will produce two to four kilowatts. You might be able to run a coffee machine on it, if you are lucky," says Gotaas.

There is no river at the site, situated outside the village of Tofte, so Statkraft will use the water from a nearby lake piped by the pulp mill.

Statkraft has invested 100m crowns (£10.7m) in the project since 1997, in addition to 50m crowns it received from Norwegian and EU funds. The company hopes to launch the first commercial plant between 2015 and 2020 – if everything goes to plan.

Cost of change
The challenges are many. First is the price. As with many renewables, and since it is a new technology, osmotic power is expensive to run. Statkraft says the company can break even if the electricity price reaches between €70 (£63) and €100 a megawatt hour. But current electricity prices in Norway are lower, hovering between €30 and €40 a megawatt hour.

Another challenge is technical. The key to the technology is the membrane, but Statkraft says it needs to be made five times more efficient than it is today. Yet another issue is developing the business, with Statkraft looking to find business partners, such as membrane manufacturers and utility companies.

Statkraft is not the only company trying to harness osmotic power: the Dutch firm Redstack is commercialising a similar technology and is planning to develop a pilot plant in the north of the Netherlands. However, the plan appears to have run into problems. Dutch utility firm Eneco, which had previously said it would help finance the plant, pulled out of the project in October. "We could not agree with the other partners," says Cor de Ruijter, a press officer at Eneco. Executives at Redstack were unavailable for comment.

Nasa is also looking into osmotic power. Researchers at the US space agency are looking to the technology as a possible way to provide enough water for long-term manned missions to the moon or Mars. The idea is a system using osmotic power could separate salt and water from wastewater and purifies human liquid wastes, such as urine and non-potable water, into water that is safe to drink.

news20091126gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Business > Royal Dutch Shell]
Shell: market alone cannot deliver green energy
> Chief executive says falling carbon price stifling investment
> Call for government action to support new technology
Tim Webb guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 24 November 2009 20.56 GMT Article history

Shell's new chief executive has called on governments to intervene in carbon markets, the first time the Anglo-Dutch oil company has acknowledged that markets cannot be left to set the price of pollution.

Peter Voser told the Guardian that action needed to be taken to make expensive green projects like carbon capture and storage (CCS) economically viable.

He cited the example of Shell's CCS project in Australia where the government has introduced a carbon tax, or a minimum price of carbon. "That is a way of making sure it gets the support," he said.

The Shell boss has become the latest and most high profile business leader to moot the idea of a tax, which is also receiving growing support from politicians in the UK and France ahead of the Copenhagen summit on climate change next month.

He said Shell, which until very recently had opposed any such government intervention in carbon markets, had revised its view based on its experiences of Europe's emissions trading scheme. Companies wanting to build costly low carbon power plants complain that the price, which has slumped since the recession began, is too low to make them competitive.

As the Guardian revealed last month, the government's Office of Nuclear Development has promised energy companies that ministers are prepared to set a minimum carbon price to make building new nuclear reactors economic. The UK could act in concert with other European countries next year.

Voser said that such government intervention would only be needed for a few years. Beyond that, the market should still be capable of setting the carbon price. "Over the long term the market should be capable of working out the CO2 price," he said, in one of his first interviews since taking the top job at Shell in the summer. "But I can see a scenario where in the first few years you have to intervene to get the market going. I should not be opposed to that." He did not say where any minimum price should be set, describing the U-turn as a "refinement" "not a big change".

Only last month, David Hone, Shell's climate change adviser, echoed Shell's long-standing position on carbon trading when he wrote to the Guardian to say Shell did not support governments setting a floor price within Europe's trading scheme.

"This is a market based system and the market needs to be left to find the price that is required to deliver the necessary reductions to meet the clear environmental objective of the system," he wrote. "Today, as a result of the financial crisis and a consequent reduction in emissions across the EU due to lower industrial activity, the market is telling us that it can meet the 2020 20% reduction objective at a price of around €15. We should respect this and allow the market to do its job."

Voser said Britain and the rest of Europe was losing its leading position on developing CCS technology. "Europe had a leading position for some time but has slowed down on funding [being made available for projects]. Maybe they are losing their CCS leadership – we have conveyed that message to Brussels and the UK."

A Greenpeace spokesman said: "Shell is accepting what everyone else has known for a long time – that you can't rely on the European Union's emissions trading scheme to deliver technologies like CCS, as pointed out by the likes of Lord Turner in his climate change report last year."


[Environment > Copenhagen climate change congerence 2009]
Barack Obama to attend Copenhagen climate summit
UN and campaign groups welcome Obama's decision, but critics say 'right city, wrong date'
John Vidal and David Adam
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 18.38 GMT Article history

President Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen next month for the United Nations climate summit with a new offer to cut US greenhouse gas emissions by 17% on 2005 figures by 2020.

But critics said the long-awaited White House initiative would do little to ensure a successful outcome to the talks, and that it came at the wrong time in the negotiations.

Obama will travel to Copenhagen on 10 December, on his way to collect the Nobel peace prize in Oslo the next day. But the White House gave no indication that the president was prepared to return to the city when Gordon Brown and 60 or more world leaders fly in to add impetus to the final deal one week later on 18 December - the last day of the talks.

The Observer revealed this week that the US administration was poised to announce a specific figure for cuts ahead of the Copenhagen talks.

Obama's commitment to attend the talks was welcomed by the UN and many environment groups but dismissed by others as a photo opportunity designed to upstage the other 60 world leaders.

"I think it's critical that President Obama attend the climate change summit in Copenhagen. We have figures from all industrialised countries, with the exception of the United States. This is the first thing we need, and this is critical," said Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief.

Lord Stern, the former head of the UK Government Economic Service and author of the influential Stern review on the economics of climate change, said: "It is important that President Obama and all the leaders of the major nations attend the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen next month. Only leaders can take the decisions on the broad range of issues, such as finance, technology and trade, that are necessary to reach a strong framework agreement on climate change. Strong action and inspirational leadership will be required in Copenhagen."

But others dismissed Obama's appearance. "The Copenhagen climate summit is not about a photo opportunity, it's about getting a global agreement to stop climate chaos," said a Greenpeace international spokesperson. "President Obama needs to be there at the same time as all the other world leaders. This is when he is needed to get the right agreement. It's the right city, but the wrong date. It seems that he's just not taking this issue seriously."

"The new US offer to cut emissions 17% on 2005 figures equates to 6% at 1990 levels and will not help the climate summit reach a strong deal to stop climate chaos," Greenpeace added. The 17% figure is the same as the emission cut in energy legislation passed by the US House of Representatives earlier this year.

By comparison, the EU has pledged to reduce emissions by 20% by 2020 on 1990 levels – or 30% if there is a global deal.

The White House also laid out possible future emissions cuts: 30% by 2025, 42% by 2030 and 83% by 2050, but these are all on 2005 levels. The figures are drawn from pledges in existing planned US domestic cap and trade legislation.

Observers close to the negotiations questioned whether the US target for 2020 would be enough to draw large developing nations such as China into a global deal. The US may have to promise massive financial assistance as a sweetener, they said. The White House statement did not mention finance.

The US move comescomes ahead of a press conference scheduled for tomorrow morning in Beijing, where Chinese officials are expected to announce China's planned target to reduce the energy intensity of its economy by 2020, perhaps by 40-45%.

Hu Jintao, president of China, had been expected to announce the figure at a high-level summit in New York in September, but instead pledged only a cut by a "notable margin".

US officials have been anxious about the timing of the Chinese announcement, which follows significant pledges to reduce emissions from nations such as Brazil, Russia and South Korea in recent weeks.

Obama had previously said he would only attend the conference if negotiators were "on the brink of a meaningful agreement and my presence in Copenhagen will make a difference in tipping us over the edge".

Others urged Obama to prepare to return to Copenhagen. "If his presence during the latter days of the meeting becomes necessary to secure the right commitments, we hope the president will be willing to return to Copenhagen with the rest of the world's leaders during the final stages of the negotiations," said WWF-US climate programme director, Keya Chatterjee.

De Boer acknowledged, however, that industrialised countries' emission cut pledges, estimated to total between 16 and 23%, fall far short of what scientists say is needed to head off serious impacts from global warming. Scientists say that reductions of between 25-40% are necessary compared with a 1990 baseline.

The UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, confirmed he would be at the Copenhagen talks earlier this month, along with other world leaders including the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd.

news20091126gdn4

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change]
Andy Burnham: 'Climate change poses serious threat to health'
UK health secretary backs Lancet report that says reducing carbon emissions and home insulation will improve the country's health
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 12.40 GMT Article history

The impacts of climate change on health are a "very real and present danger", the health secretary, Andy Burnham, warned today at the launch of a new report on how rising temperatures will affect the public.

The Lancet study, published ahead of UN talks on tackling climate change in Copenhagen, calls on health ministers and professionals around the world to recognise the danger global warming poses to health.

It says putting health at the centre of action on climate change could deliver the twin benefits of preventing illness and cutting emissions. Reducing carbon emissions from vehicles could reduce urban air pollution, which can cause heart and breathing problems, and insulating houses could prevent deaths from extremes of cold and hot weather, as well as making houses more energy efficient. The report also says reducing the amount of meat people eat will cut the impact of livestock on the climate while lowering the amount of saturated fat people eat.

Burnham said: "Climate change can seem a distant, impersonal threat – in fact the associated costs to health are a very real and present danger.

"Health ministers across the globe must act now to highlight the risk global warming poses to our communities. We need well-designed climate change policies that drive health benefits."

The energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said global warming was a serious threat to public health and an ambitious deal to cut climate emissions is needed from the crunch Copenhagen talks.

"To protect the world's health we must stop dangerous climate change happening and limit temperature increases to no more than 20C. An ambitious and fair deal in Copenhagen will not only have major benefits in terms of reducing the climate change-related spread of infectious diseases and risks to food supply, but will also result in immediate green benefits in terms of a healthier environment and lifestyle for a low-carbon Britain – and a low-carbon world," Miliband said.

This year a report in the Lancet warned climate change was the biggest threat to global health in the 21st century, with catastrophic effects such as insect-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever spreading more easily.

news20091126nn

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 25 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1106
News
Plans for cutting emissions could also benefit health
Global leaders target health benefits in advance of Copenhagen meeting.
Lizzie Buchen

Many strategies for reining in greenhouse gases come with substantial health benefits, according to a new study. But the actions with the most dramatic impact on greenhouse gases aren't necessarily the biggest winners for health.

Twelve days before the United Nations climate summit kicks off in Copenhagen, an international task force has published five research papers exploring the impact that strategies for tackling greenhouse gas emissions would have on public health.

Public health leaders from around the world weighed in on today's announcement, including United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon, World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan, US secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and UK secretary of state for health Andy Burnham.

"Policies for mitigating the impact of climate change must align with policies for protecting public health," says Chan. The findings released today "can guide the assessment of alternatives for mitigation and motivate wise choices".

The reports were published in The Lancet^1,2,3,4,5.

Killing two birds

The team, led by epidemiologist Andrew Haines at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, modelled a number of scenarios for reducing greenhouse gases. For each case study, the authors calculated the reductions of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), a measure of potential years of life lost to disease or premature death, and the megatonnes of carbon dioxide saved.

In the household energy and food and agriculture sectors, the proposal with the biggest impact on both climate change and public health was a 10-year programme in India to replace 150 million indoor biomass-burning stoves with low-emissions cooking stoves, according to lead author Paul Wilkinson, also at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine¹. In one year the programme would save 12,500 DALYs and 0.1–0.2 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent for every million people.

By comparison, Wilkinson found that improving household energy efficiency in the United Kingdom would save more energy — 0.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide per million people over a year — but would only save 850 DALYs, due in part to reduced cardiovascular and respiratory disease.

Another analysis, led by Sharon Friel at the Australian National University in Canberra, looked at the effects of reducing livestock production by 30%. Such a change in the UK would save 2,850 DALYs from heart disease; in São Paulo, Brazil, it would save 2,180⁴.

The authors acknowledge, however, that these strategies would not be a unilateral win for health: less livestock could lead to poor nutrition in low-income countries, and better housing insulation could lead to health risks from factors such as more indoor air pollution.

Adjusting priorities

The team also assessed scenarios in the transportation and electricity generation sectors, including increased cycling and walking in London and Delhi, India^2,3. The greatest health gains would result from fewer cars and increased walking in Delhi, reducing DALYs by 13,000 when modelling the population in 2030 compared with the same population under business-as-usual conditions.

Though some scenarios have far greater health impacts than others, even the smaller benefits are worthwhile, says Haines.

Haines notes that although the world "does not have the luxury of choosing one intervention over another", societies "have the choice of which to pursue most vigorously at first".

Global leaders hope public health issues are taken into consideration at Copenhagen. Chan says she hopes the findings will "add to the urgency of negotiations", and that policymakers will use the findings to "seize an important social opportunity and ensure a broader return on their investment".

Although the effects of cutting greenhouse gases are long term and global, she says, "the health benefits are immediate" and more localized, which should sweeten the deal for politicians.

References
1. Wilkinson, P. et al. The Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61713-X (2009).
2. Woodcock, J. et al. The Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61714-1 (2009).
3. Markandya, A. et al. The Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61715-3 (2009).
4. Friel, S. et al. The Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61753-0 (2009).
5. Smith, K.R. et al. The Lancet doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61716-5 (2009).


[naturenews]
Published online 25 November 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1107
News
Spin success for silicon
Replacing electron charge with electron spin paves the way for a new mode of computing.
Geoff Brumfiel

{{Could spin cut the power consumption of silicon chips?}
Dave Porter / Alamy}

Low-power computer chips that don't rely on an electrical current to handle data have just come a big step closer.

The key result, unveiled today in Nature¹, sounds deceptively simple: scientists have injected electrons into silicon at room temperature and set a majority of them spinning in the same direction.

But the experiment "is a real breakthrough", says Jaroslav Fabian, a theoretical physicist at the University of Regensburg, Germany. "Silicon is entering in a big way into spintronics."

Conventional electronics uses the electron's charge to move and process information. Spintronics — or spin-transport electronics — offers an alternative, relying on the electron's magnetism, or spin, to encode information.

Charge can be stored and is easy to manipulate using electric fields, properties that have enabled electrical engineers to develop ever-smaller chips over the past four decades. "But there are now increasing concerns that this progress may come to a halt," says Ron Jansen, a physicist at the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands. As chips shrink they also become more complex and operate at higher speeds, driving an exponential growth in the amount of power needed to move electrons around them. Unless an alternative can be found, Jansen says, electronic devices may soon become too power-hungry to be practical.

Jansen and others believe that the answer may lie in spin. Rather than moving charges around, spin-based devices would simply have to flip the direction of an electron's internal bar magnet.

Single-layer success

The difficulty with spintronics is that although electron spins are readily aligned in magnetic materials, they are less well-behaved in the semiconductors used in the electronics industry. To build a spintronic device, researchers must be able to move spin-aligned electrons from magnetic to semiconductor materials without losing that alignment.

Previous experiments had managed the feat at ultra-cold temperatures, or by using exotic semiconductors such as gallium arsenide. But now Jansen and his colleagues have successfully injected spin electrons en masse into everyday silicon at room temperatures¹.

The team began with a magnetic nickel–iron alloy used in the read head of hard-disk drives, and an ordinary slab of silicon. Between the two they sandwiched an ultra-thin layer of aluminium oxide, roughly a nanometre thick. The aluminium oxide acts as an insulator, but when a voltage is applied some electrons are able to quantum-mechanically tunnel from the magnetic material into the silicon. The aluminium-oxide interface allows some spin directions to pass through more easily than others, creating a net excess of spins pointing in the same direction.

The key to the team's success was the single layer of aluminium oxide. Previous experiments had used two or more such layers, which stifled the flow of spin-aligned electrons. A single, thin coating between the magnetic material and the silicon allowed the electrons to flow smoothly at room temperature.

The simplicity and reliability of the technique are likely to make it a new standard in the field, says Shinji Yuasa, a researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan.

But there are still a few more steps before spintronics can come to fruition, says Jansen. Crucially, researchers must develop reliable ways to flip spins around once they are in silicon. Still, "The building blocks are there," he says. "Now it's just a matter of building something."

References
1. Dash, S., Sharma, S., Patel, R. S., de Jong, M. P. & Jansen, R. Nature 462, 491-494 (2009). | Article

news20091126reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Clean energy, better homes cut pollution, save lives
Wed Nov 25, 2009 7:27am EST

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Better home insulation and ventilation and using electricity instead of fossil fuels could reduce indoor pollution and save thousands of lives, especially in low-income countries like India, a study has found.

Using mathematical modeling and case studies, researchers said such strategies could avert 5,500 premature deaths and reduce carbon dioxide emission by up to 41 megatonnes, or 41 million tonnes, per year in a country like Britain.

"Indoor household fuel pollutants would be removed by switching all household fossil fuels to electricity, and energy could be saved by reducing thermostat temperatures," the researchers said in a paper published in The Lancet Series on Health and Climate Change

Led by Paul Wilkinson at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the researchers said the costs of such energy-efficient improvements would be substantial but would be offset by significant savings on fuel.

The researchers examined the benefits of introducing cleaner cooking stoves in a low-income country like India, where burning of biomass results in lung and heart disease.

Assuming that 150 million efficient low-emission household cooking stoves were installed, the authors said: "By 2020, 87 percent of Indian households would have very much cleaner combustion and air."

"The total number of averted premature deaths from acute lower respiratory infections will have reached about 240,000 children aged younger than 5 years, and more than 18 million premature adult deaths from ischemic heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will have been averted."

In another paper in the same series, researchers said reducing carbon-based electricity generation would lead to significant health benefits worldwide, particularly in countries like India and China.

Led by Anil Markandya at the BC3 Basque Center for Climate Change in Spain, the researchers calculated the benefits of reducing total carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent in 2030.

"The best-case scenario would, in India, avert 93,000 premature deaths in 2030 compared with business as usual," the researchers wrote.

"In the EU, 5,000 deaths would be averted and in China the number would be 57,000."

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Paul Tait)


[Green Business]
China says content, not form, key to climate pact
Wed Nov 25, 2009 7:29am EST
By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will rate the success of the Copenhagen climate summit by the actual content of any deal reached, a top negotiator said on Wednesday, in Beijing's first hint it accepts there will not be a legally binding pact.

Yu Qingtai, the country's climate change ambassador, blamed developed nations for the slow progress of two years of talks, a delay that has effectively put Copenhagen's original goal -- of completing a new framework to fight warming -- out of reach.

The Danish government, host of the December talks, has proposed that the world delay a final legal agreement until 2010 and instead aim to reach a comprehensive political deal.

"As for what success can be expected from Copenhagen, many sides including the host country Denmark, have made proposals," Yu said, when asked about the plan.

"We think that the actual content of whatever is achieved is more important than the title of the document that is produced," Yu said. China had previously said only that it was "studying" the Danish proposal.

Yu's comments suggested China would accept a political deal, but his strong denunciation of broken promises and selfish behavior by developed countries was a reminder of the obstacles to tying up a deal in the few weeks before a December 18 deadline.

Talks have been hobbled by a rift between rich and poorer nations over who should cut emissions, by how much, and who should pay for it.

"In the last two years, we have wasted a lot of time on marginal issues, technical issues, we haven't focused on the core questions in the negotiations," Yu said.

"Why have we spent two years talking without making enough progress? I personally think it is because developed countries have not sat down to the negotiations in good faith. This is not just my view, it is the wider consensus of developing nations.

AWAITING TARGETS

Beijing has invested large amounts of diplomatic capital in reaching a deal. President Hu Jintao earlier this year unveiled the country's first pledge to curb carbon emissions -- by cutting so-called carbon intensity a "notable" amount -- at a United Nations summit.

It has not yet revealed what the target would be but is widely expected to do so ahead of, or at, the Copenhagen summit.

In a boost to the meeting, the United States also said this week it will propose an emissions target, though it must win support from U.S. lawmakers who are needed to put it into law.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants to see an agreement with "immediate operational effect."

But his administration has until now been reluctant to put an emissions reduction target on the table because the Senate has yet to pass a sweeping climate bill.

Yu said that any agreement in Copenhagen must lock-in all deals struck so far. Sealing arrangements to shift funding and technology to poorer nations could make a delayed final pact more palatable to the developing world.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Bill Tarrant)


[Green Business]
FACTBOX: Unraveling the voluntary carbon market
Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:29am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Buyers of offsets in the global voluntary carbon market are showing increased interest in so-called exotic and U.S. credits, market players said on Wednesday.

Voluntary carbon offsets allow individuals and companies to compensate for their own greenhouse gas emissions by funding projects that reduce emissions, often in developing countries.

Projects can include land-use, methane, biomass, renewable energy or industrial energy efficiency.

The unregulated voluntary market operates outside mandatory emissions reduction schemes such as the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme.

It evolved largely in the United States as a market-based mechanism to address climate change and in Europe as a byproduct of implementing the Kyoto Protocol.

Carbon credits totaling 123 million tonnes, valued at $705 million, were transacted in the global voluntary carbon market in 2008, according to New Energy Finance and Ecosystem Marketplace estimates. This is a fraction of the $126 billion global carbon market. Some of the jargon used in the voluntary market is unraveled below:

VERIFIED EMISSIONS REDUCTIONS (VERs)

A VER represents one tonne of carbon dioxide reduced. The credits can be generated from projects which fall outside of the scope of the CDM, from a country which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol or they are specifically developed for the voluntary market.

PRE-CDM VERs

These credits are generated by CDM projects which have been operational but have not yet been registered with the CDM Executive Board. They may not become CDM credits, called certified emissions reductions, but they can be sold in the voluntary market.

Pre-CDM VERs are a major source of supply to the voluntary market because they provide an early revenue stream crucial for project development.

VOLUNTARY CARBON STANDARD

The VCS is a global standard for voluntary offset projects and ensures they have real environmental benefits. It operates a registry system to track credits from issuance to retirement. The founding partners of the VCS are The Climate Group, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

VOLUNTARY CARBON UNIT (VCU)

VCUs are credits created under the Voluntary Carbon Standard Programme.

GOLD STANDARD

The Gold Standard Foundation is a non-profit organization which operates a certification scheme for premium quality carbon offsets. The Gold Standard quality benchmark is considered to be the highest in the voluntary carbon market.

VER+

The VER+ Standard was developed by international certification organization TUV SUD. It was the main standard for offset credits before the VCS began in 2007 but has since declined in popularity.

'EXOTIC' CREDITS

The term 'exotic' refers to the location of the emission reduction project, usually in countries with smaller project numbers.

VINTAGE

Vintage refers to the year the carbon reduction takes place.

CLIMATE RESERVE TONNES (CRTs)

CRTs are traded under California's Climate Action Registry. Members of the registry include over 300 of the world's largest corporations, universities, environmental organizations and government agencies. They voluntarily measure, monitor and publicly report their greenhouse gas emissions using the registry's protocols. Sources include: www.cdmgoldstandard.org; www.v-c-s.org; www.climateregistry.org.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

news20091126reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
EU carbon drops early then recovers on German power
Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:39am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - European carbon emissions futures hit a new 5-month low early on Wednesday before climbing back into positive territory on the back of stronger German power prices, traders said.

Benchmark EU Allowances opened at 12.64 euros a tonne and fell as low as 12.47 euros, the lowest level since June 16, before clawing back.

The futures contracts traded up to 12.76 euros, up 13 cents or 1 percent at 0840 GMT.

"We fell early on but saw a rebound on firmer German power prices," said one emissions trader, adding that these low prices could present attractive buying opportunities for traders looking to hedge positions long-term.

"Also we may see a bit of cold weather in Europe soon, which could give a bounce to other energy prices."

German Calendar 2010 baseload power was up 25 cents at 44.90 euros per megawatt hour.

Research published on Monday by Barclays Capital showed that EUA futures have a 72 percent correlation to German power prices, higher than with any other energy commodity.

Crude oil prices rebounded above $76 a barrel after falling 2 percent a day earlier on disappointing U.S. growth and data showing a big build in crude inventories, signaling weak demand in the world's top energy user.

Day ahead natural gas traded up 0.40 pence at 26.50 pence per therm.

CERs were untraded by 0850 GMT, the benchmark contracts having closed at 11.87 euros per tonne.

EUA and CER prices were unaffected by news that New Zealand's revised emissions trading bill passed into law on Wednesday and neighboring Australia moved a step closer to ending a deadlock stalling its carbon-trade plan ahead of a vote this week.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by William Hardy)


[Green Business]
Czechs cut solar feed-in tariffs by 5 percent for 2010
Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:41am EST

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech energy regulator has cut feed-in tariffs for solar-generated power by 5 percent from the beginning of 2010, the country's energy regulator announced on Wednesday.

Generators who produce solar energy sold to any of the country's three main power distributors will receive 12,250 Czech crowns ($709.3) per megawatt hour, down from 12,890 crowns per MWH in 2009, according to the Energy Regulatory Office.

The new tariffs also include a so-called "green bonus" of 11,280 crowns per MWH for solar power sold to traders or other customers, down from a current price of 11,910 crowns per MWH, the office said.

Tariffs are the solar industry's lifeblood as long as the so-called grid parity -- the point at which renewables cost the same as fossil fuel-based power -- has not been reached.

Investors are on the lookout for new opportunities in central and southeastern Europe after Spain and Germany, the global industry leaders in photovoltaics (PV) that turn sunlight into energy, have either cut or plan to curtail incentives.

The Czech Republic has so far attracted the lion's share of investment in eastern Europe due to generous subsidies but investors are worried Prague may reduce the feed-in tariffs even further.

Generous tariffs in Spain caused a bubble and Madrid slashed subsidies and introduced caps on qualifying plants in 2008, which hit the worldwide PV industry that had come to rely on the Spanish market. [ID:nLB182330]

The lack of fixed prices has kept the installed solar capacity at just 1.4 MW in 2008 compared with 54 MW in the Czech Republic out of a total of 63 MW in eastern Europe, data from the network of photovoltaics in new EU member states showed.

The Czech capacity could reach 200 MW this year as investors rush to connect solar parks to the grid before the government's likely decision to limit tariffs for new parks, they say.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn; editing by James Jukwey)


[Green Business]
Commonwealth leaders seek momentum for climate deal
Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:44am EST
By Pascal Fletcher

PORT OF SPAIN (Reuters) - Rich and poor states grouped in the Commonwealth and representing a quarter of the world's population hope to create critical momentum toward a global climate deal when they meet in the Caribbean this week.

Leaders of the 53-member Commonwealth, a group of mostly former British colonies, gather in Trinidad and Tobago from Friday in the last major international summit before high-level U.N. climate change talks due in Copenhagen on December 7-18.

They have placed the climate issue at the top of their agenda in Port of Spain, along with measures to beat the global recession and democracy-building.

They will be joined in Trinidad by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Danish President Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who want to use the Commonwealth gathering to cement an international consensus on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global warming.

Although most nations have given up hopes of agreeing to a binding legal treaty text in Copenhagen, the Commonwealth is viewed as an important microcosm in which to align such a consensus on a far-reaching climate pact.

"They want to clinch a deal, as much as possible ... at least try and build consensus and keep the smaller states on board," Victoria teVelde, director of the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit, a University of London think tank, told Reuters.

The sought-after treaty to fight global warming, now expected to be adopted as a final text only next year, will replace the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.

TeVelde said the leaders of the Commonwealth, which includes many small island states that fear rising sea levels caused by global warming could threaten their future existence, were expected to issue a firm and clear statement in favor of reducing global carbon pollution and how best to achieve this.

Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning had set aside the whole of Friday's agenda for discussion on climate change.

TeVelde said a clear stance by the Commonwealth, which includes five members of the G20 group, would send a "powerful message" for a climate deal ahead of the Copenhagen talks.

One intended recipient of this message would be the United States, the world's biggest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases, which has been accused of vacillating over setting clear new greenhouse gas emissions goals. China, the world's top carbon polluter, is watching the U.S. position closely.

A climate bill in the U.S. Senate has been making slow progress, although President Barack Obama's administration indicated this week it would bring an emissions cut target to the table in Copenhagen.

RWANDA TO JOIN

Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has said the Port of Spain summit will try to ensure the "voices of the poor and vulnerable" will be heard.

The Commonwealth, which was founded in 1931 mostly as a grouping of former British colonies, has widened its membership in recent decades, with Mozambique, a former Portuguese territory in Africa, joining in 1995. It aims to promote democracy and good governance and develop trade links among its members.

Commonwealth leaders in Port of Spain were expected to approve the admission of French-speaking Rwanda, whose President Paul Kagame has worked to bring his country into the English-speaking sphere in Africa after disagreements with France over events leading up to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

But some human rights groups, such as the non-governmental Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, have opposed Rwanda's admission on the grounds the country does not measure up to international standards for freedom and justice.

TeVelde said the Commonwealth, unlike some other international and regional bodies, had its own mechanisms, including sanctions like suspension, to try to ensure that members preserved acceptable levels of democracy.

In September, the Commonwealth suspended Fiji after the leaders of a 2006 coup failed to take steps to return the country to democracy.

The Port of Spain meeting was expected to also raise the possibility in the future of eventually readmitting Zimbabwe, which left the Commonwealth in 2003 after it was censured over a poll that re-elected President Robert Mugabe. Commonwealth observers had condemned his re-election as flawed.

(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft and Linda Hutchinson-Jafar; Editing by Eric Beech)

news20091126reut3

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Abengoa secures E.ON as partner for solar plants
Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:40am EST

FRANKFURT/MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish renewable energy company Abengoa will team up with German utility E.ON to build two solar mirror plants in southern Spain, benefiting from E.ON's cash and large grid expertise.

E.ON will pay half of the overall investment of 550 million euros ($828 million) for the two plants, which have a capacity of 50 megawatts each, giving Seville-based Abengoa access to the finance power of the world's largest utility by sales, the companies said in a statement.

Spain has not yet released a list of solar mirror plants included in its new renewables register, which grants subsidies on normal electricity prices of about 27 eurocents per kilowatt hour, but the companies are confident the plants will be included.

"It is highly probable that they will be included in the register; I cannot say more at the moment," the head of Abengoa's solar division Santiago Seage said at a press conference in Madrid following the announcement.

Abengoa, which has already started building the two plants in Ecija, close to Seville and plans to start producing power in 2011 and 2012, respectively, with the power stations, said E.ON was not just a financial partner in the joint venture.

"E.ON will learn from us in the field of solar thermal energy, but we will learn from E.ON about large energy grids and plants," Seage said.

Both companies plan to extend the partnership to further develop solar power in Spain and will study future projects on a case-by-case basis.

The plants use the sun to generate steam that powers turbines, a technology called solar-thermal as opposed to solar cells.

(Reporting by Peter Dinkloh and Tom Kaeckenhoff in Frankfurt and Jonathan Gleave in Madrid; writing by Peter Dinkloh and Jonathan Gleave, editing by Will Waterman)

($1=.6643 Euro)


[Green Business]
Wal-Mart price pressure hurts China workers: report
Wed Nov 25, 2009 12:01pm EST

BEIJING (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's demand for rock-bottom prices from suppliers in China means some of these companies are forcing their employees to work in sweatshop-like conditions, a new report said on Wednesday.

China Labour Watch said Wal-Mart, which also operates more than 250 stores in China, is failing to pick up on such abuses when it carries out audits of certain suppliers, calling into doubt pledges to source ethically.

"As the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart leverages its massive product orders to purchase goods at low prices, and workers suffer the financial burden," China Labour Watch, a New York-based rights group, said.

Wal-Mart's China offices referred questions on the report to the United States, where representatives were not immediately available for comment.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and with more than 60,000 suppliers worldwide, procures billions of dollars worth of goods directly from China every year.

The company said last year that it would enforce stricter quality and environmental standards for its army of Chinese suppliers.

But in some factories run by Wal-Mart suppliers, China Labour Watch found pay was withheld to workers who did not meet production targets, and employees who were given only poor quality food or accommodation.

In two of the factories, workers were banned from wearing gloves, lest it slowed production, the report said.

"Worst of all, two of the factories have rules forcing workers to lie to Wal-Mart auditors, forcing workers into silence as Wal-Mart turns a blind eye to sweatshop conditions," the report said.

While China Labour Watch noted that Wal-Mart had "responded enthusiastically" to help factories which do not meet standards, there had been no overall, systematic improvement.

"Wal-Mart has basic standards which it must implement," China Labour Watch said.

"It has the size and power to be an industry leader, and this will not come from Ethical Standards Programme initiatives alone but also from major change to Wal-Mart's corporate practices, including increased investment in the audit system and careful review of purchasing practices," it added.

"The case of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, shows that corporate codes of conduct and factory auditing are not enough by themselves to strengthen workers' rights if corporations are unwilling to pay the real price it costs to produce a product according to the standards in their codes."

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Alex Richardson)


[Green Business]
Optimism for greentech sector points to more IPOs
Wed Nov 25, 2009 2:40pm EST
By Poornima Gupta - Analysis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Purse strings are loosening, new bets are being placed, and cautious optimism has caught on in the green technology sector.

With oil prices up sharply and the U.S. economy steady, the emerging green technology industry is seen moving back to a growth path from a sheer survival track, with factories being built, funds moving to research and some high-profile young firms mulling initial public offerings of shares.

Venture capitalists, investment bankers and company executives say 2010 will be marked by some of the more mature start-ups testing public enthusiasm for companies that have big growth potential, but little profit.

Experts see energy efficiency and green lighting technology gaining more attention in 2010. Next year should also mark the launch of electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles from giant global auto makers such as Nissan Motor Co Ltd and General Motors Co, and expansion by smaller players like Tesla Motors.

"Next year should be a pretty good year for public markets," said Bryce Lee, managing director at Credit Suisse and co-head of the bank's alternative energy group. "We will see a fair amount of IPOs."

Lee, speaking at a recent industry conference, predicted that smart grid networking company Silver Spring Networks is one of the companies most likely to go public.

Silver Spring, which has a revenue run rate of over $100 million this year, has said it is considering an IPO but has not publicly detailed any timeline.

Silicon Valley-based electric carmaker Tesla is also preparing to go public, sources have told Reuters.

Silicon Valley had seen funding for green companies dry up in the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year, but sentiment has changed.

"I am very optimistic as we leave 2009 and enter 2010," said Tom Baruch, founder of San Francisco-based CMEA Capital. "We will see a lot of money coming into this space."

"The low-carbon economy will absolutely be the predominant theme in our economy going forward," he added. "It's going to drive growth."

"As long as oil prices keep going up, we are going to see more and more replacement of fossil fuel," Baruch said.

'BRING ME YOUR BUSINESS PLANS'

CMEA Capital was one of the few venture funds brave enough to test the public market this year with the IPO of lithium-ion battery maker A123 System Inc. It had a smash-hit debut, as the shares soared 50 percent on their first day.

Baruch foresees more IPOs next year, which would "fire up people's enthusiasm in investment in the green space."

Companies involved in green technology -- including everything from renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy storage to better power transmission -- saw funding shrink earlier this year as oil prices tumbled and the U.S. economy slumped.

Companies with capital-heavy technologies really felt the pinch. Project financing and debt capital all but dried up.

"The last year has been incredibly difficult and sets a pretty low bar," said Jennifer Fonstad, a managing director at venture fund Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

With so little funding available, the year also saw the U.S. government play the unlikely role of venture capitalist.

Aggressive stimulus from the U.S. Department of Energy, which has pledged nearly $100 billion to back a wide variety of green technology, helped prevent the sector's collapse.

Now, Silicon Valley is back in the game.

"We see a bunch of new opportunities that are well priced," Fonstad said, adding that her firm plans to invest broadly in the sector.

The Westly Group, another green venture capital firm that recently closed a $130 million fund, is soliciting business plans, and founder Steve Westly believes the green sector could propel a boom in the United States.

"This is a big, big industry," he said. "These things are here to stay."

Westly, a former California state controller and eBay Inc executive, is especially bullish on smart grid firms.

"Bring me your business plans," he told an industry gathering last week. "We are ready to start funding."

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
FACTBOX: White House lays out Copenhagen emissions proposal
Wed Nov 25, 2009 3:09pm EST

(Reuters) - The White House laid out the U.S. negotiating position on Wednesday for U.N. climate change talks in Copenhagen, pledging to cut emissions roughly 17 percent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels, in line with legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

President Barack Obama will attend the Copenhagen talks on December 9, officials said.

Below are the proposed figures and other elements of the U.S. proposals:

EMISSIONS CUTS

The United States will pledge to make the following cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions compared to a 2005 base year:

-- an emissions reduction target "in the range of 17 percent" by 2020

-- a 30 percent emissions reduction in 2025

-- a 42 percent emissions reduction in 2030

Compared to 1990, the base year used by the European Union and many other developed countries, the figures correspond to:

-- a 3 percent reduction in 2020

-- an 18 percent reduction in 2025

-- a 32 percent reduction in 2030

IN LINE WITH CONGRESS

The Obama administration's hands have been tied in international negotiations because a domestic climate bill has not yet become law. The House of Representatives has passed its version, but a Senate bill is still languishing.

The House passed a bill that sets a 17 percent reduction target for emissions by 2020 from 2005 levels. A Senate version is shooting for a 20 percent cut.

The White House said its 2020 targets would be flexible based on the outcome of final legislation, but it chose the less ambitious 17 percent figure passed by the House to ensure its negotiating position would have lawmaker support.

White House officials conferred with lawmakers before laying out the U.S. plans.

CALLING ON CHINA, OTHER COUNTRIES

White House officials said the U.S. proposal would come "in the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions from China and the other emerging economies."

But the U.S. proposals are far lower than what the 27-nation European Union has called for. The EU is pledging a 20 percent emissions cut by 2020 compared to 1990 levels and has promised to change that to 30 percent if other rich nations follow suit.

U.S. PLAYERS IN COPENHAGEN

Obama will go to the Denmark talks on December 9, right at the beginning of the two-week negotiating period.

Other players slated to attend during the course of the talks include:

-- Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson

-- Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

-- Commerce Secretary Gary Locke

-- Energy Secretary Steven Chu

-- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

-- Assistant to the President Carol Browner and Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley

- Climate negotiator Todd Stern and deputy national security adviser Michael Froman

(Reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)


[Green Business]
Obama offers U.S. climate cut, to attend Copenhagen
Wed Nov 25, 2009 4:49pm EST
By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States unveiled its proposal to cut greenhouse gases by 2020 on Wednesday and said President Barack Obama will attend U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen next month -- before other world leaders show up.

Obama will go to the December 7-18 talks in Denmark on December 9, the eve of a ceremony in nearby Oslo, Norway, where he will collect the Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said.

He is not scheduled to return, however, for the final days when most of the hard bargaining is likely and dozens of other leaders are slated to attend.

The White House said the United States will pledge in Copenhagen to cut its greenhouse gas emissions roughly 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, a drop of about 3 percent below the 1990 benchmark year used in U.N. treaties.

That figure is in line with legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives but is less ambitious than a 20 percent reduction sought in a Senate version that has been delayed.

U.S. negotiators consulted with lawmakers before arriving at the proposed figure and said it would be flexible based on the outcome of final domestic legislation.

Senate support will be required to ratify any treaty that comes out of Copenhagen or follow-up meetings, so U.S. envoys are eager for backing from lawmakers.

The United States is the last major industrialized country to offer a target for cutting greenhouse gases in a U.N.-led drive to slow rising world temperatures that could bring more heat-waves, expanding deserts, floods and rising sea levels.

The White House said it hoped Obama's attendance would give momentum to the Copenhagen talks.

"The president going to Copenhagen will give positive momentum to the negotiations, and we think will enhance the prospects for success," said Michael Froman, a deputy national security adviser to Obama and one of his climate advisers.

Activists and other officials agreed.

"If he can deliver on his election campaign statements that Copenhagen needs to be a success by coming to Copenhagen himself, that I think will be critical to a good outcome," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told reporters in Germany.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said: "I am pleased the American president will visit Copenhagen. The strong commitment of the American president to the climate change issue is very valuable."

'RIGHT CITY, WRONG DATE'

Some green groups were disappointed that he would miss the climax when other leaders arrive. "The right city, the wrong date; it seems that he's just not taking this issue seriously," said Kyle Ash, Greenpeace USA climate policy advisor.

More than 75 world leaders have confirmed they will attend the conference, which the Danish hosts hope will clinch a deal laying the foundation for a treaty to be agreed to in 2010.

The European Union is pressing for more aggressive cuts and has pledged at least a 20 percent cut in its emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

Though the U.S. figure was constrained by the bills in Congress, some environmentalists said it could have been stronger.

"The President needs to do more than just show up; he must ensure that the United States promotes real solutions, including stronger emissions reduction targets and funding for developing countries to deal with climate impacts," said Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica.

Looking beyond 2020, the United States will also propose emissions cuts of 18 percent by 2025 and 32 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, White House officials said.

Many governments and analysts have blamed the U.S. failure to propose a carbon cutting target sooner for the delay in agreement on a full climate treaty.

"In the last two years, we have wasted a lot of time on marginal issues, technical issues, we haven't focused on the core questions in the negotiations," Yu Qingtai, China's climate change ambassador, said on Wednesday.

Yu hinted that China would bow to a milder ambition for the summit in Copenhagen: "We think that the actual content of whatever is achieved is more important than the title of the document that is produced."

China had previously said only that it was "studying" the Danish proposal to defer agreement on a full treaty until 2010.

The United Nations' de Boer said the world was depending on U.S. leadership. "The world is very much looking to the United States," he said.

New Zealand's revised emissions trading plan passed into law on Wednesday, while neighboring Australia moved a step closer to ending a deadlock stalling its carbon-trade legislation ahead of a vote this week.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Hacked climate emails called a "smear campaign"
Wed Nov 25, 2009 4:54pm EST
by Stacy Feldman, SolveClimate solveclimate.com/

(SolveClimate) Three leading scientists who on Tuesday released a report documenting the accelerating pace of climate change said the scandal that erupted last week over hacked emails from climate scientists is nothing more than a "smear campaign" aimed at sabotaging December climate talks in Copenhagen.

"We're facing an effort by special interests who are trying to confuse the public," said Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and a lead author of the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

Dissenters see action to slow global warming as "a threat," he said.

The comments were made in a conference call for reporters.

The scientists—Somerville, Michael Mann of Penn State and Eric Steig of University of Washington—were supposed to be discussing their new report, the Copenhagen Diagnosis, a dismal update of the UN IPCC's 2007 climate data by 26 scientists from eight nations.

Instead they spent much of the time diffusing the hacker controversy, known in the media as "Climate Gate."

The scandal began on November 20, when an unknown hacker stole at least 169 megabytes of emails from computers at the prominent Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia and put them online for the world to see.

CRU is considered one of the world's leading institutions concerned with human-caused global warming. The leaked emails contain private correspondence on climate science dating back to 1996.

Skeptics of global warming say these messages are filled with evidence of manipulated data from lead authors of the UN's highly influential IPCC reports.

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma, pictured here), a climate skeptic, said he would launch an inquiry into UN climate change research in response.

In an interview with the Washington Times radio show, Inhofe explained the investigation would look into "the way cooked the science to make this thing look as if the science was settled, when all the time of course we knew it was not."

CRU Vice-Chancellor of Research Trevor Davies responded in an official statement:

"There is nothing in the stolen material which indicates that peer-reviewed publications by CRU, and others, on the nature of global warming and related climate change are not of the highest-quality of scientific investigation and interpretation."

Michael Mann, co-author of the Copenhagen Diagnosis and lead author of the UN IPCC Third Assessment Report, blamed skeptics for taking the personal emails out of context.

"What they've done is search through stolen personal emails—confidential between colleagues who often speak in a language they understand and is often foreign to the outside world. Suddenly, all these are subject to cherry picking," he said.

They've turned "something innocent into something nefarious," Mann added.

The vital point being left out, he said, is that "regardless of how cherry-picked," there is "absolutely nothing in any of the emails that calls into the question the deep level of consensus of climate change."

This is a "smear campaign to distract the public," said Mann. "Those opposed to climate action, simply don't have the science on their side," he added.

Professor Davies called the stolen data "the latest example of a sustained and, in some instances, a vexatious campaign" designed "to distract from reasoned debate" about urgent action governments must take to reverse climate change.

According to Somerville, the comments in the emails "have nothing to do with the scientific case" for climate change.

It is "desperate" to launch this right before Copenhagen, Eric Steig, co-author of the Copenhagen Diagnosis, said on the call.

Sen. Inhofe, meanwhile, lauded the timing of the incident.

"The interesting part of this is it's happening right before Copenhagen. And, so, the timing couldn't be better. Whoever is on the ball in Great Britain, their timing was good," he said.

Science Can't Silence Skeptics, Still

The fallout from the scandal is putting some of the world's leading climate scientists on the defensive and underlining the influence of skeptics, even as the case for human-caused warming gets stronger.

According to the Copenhagen Diagnosis report, climate change has rapidly accelerated beyond all previous predictions and humans are to blame.

The findings are a synthesis of 200 peer-reviewed papers that continued to pour in from all over the world after the UN IPCC issued its 2007 analysis. Somerville described the report as an "authoritative assessment" of the newest climate change data.

The results reveal that global warming emissions in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Further, sea level rise is 80 percent above past IPCC predictions.

If 2 degree Celsius warming is to be avoided—the point at which catastrophic damage is predicted to occur—fossil fuel emissions must peak between 2015 and 2020, "and then decline rapidly," the authors warn.

"There's an urgency to this that is not politically or ideological driven," said Somerville. This is "objective scientific reality," he added, and we're "running out of time," to stop the problem.

In a statement released on Tuesday, three of the UK's leading science organizations—the Met Office, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society—issued an unusually strong statement in advance of Copenhagen. They wrote:

The scientific evidence which underpins calls for action at Copenhagen is very strong. Without co-ordinated international action on greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts on climate and civilization could be severe.


[Green Business]
World can reach climate pact by end 2010: Mexico
Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:57pm EST
By Robert Campbell

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Global climate change talks in Copenhagen next month should yield a concrete base that will allow for a definitive treaty to be agreed within a year, Mexico's top climate change diplomat said on Wednesday.

Acknowledging that world leaders will not be able to draw up a new global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol at a December 7-18 summit in the Danish capital, Luis Alfonso de Alba said he was optimistic the meeting would yield a major results including an accord to cap rising temperatures and set billions of dollars to help poor countries.

"What is important is that in Copenhagen we say what it is we want, and afterward the 'how.' If we decide what the goal is, the terms of the negotiations that follow will be easier," de Alba said in an interview.

Denmark has proposed that the world delay a final legal agreement until 2010 rather than try to reach a comprehensive political deal at the December meeting, which dozens of world leaders are expected to attend.

At a minimum, the Copenhagen agreement must include a commitment to not allow the planet's temperatures to rise more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and a binding commitment to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by at least half by 2050, with at least 80 percent of the reduction coming from developed nation, de Alba said.

The United Nations Climate Panel said in a 2007 report that developed nations should cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst environmental effects of climate change.

If these targets are agreed, negotiators should be able to arrive at a final binding treaty by the end of 2010 at a meeting that Mexico is likely to host, he added.

"What is most probable is that this work finishes in Mexico. What is clear is that it must not end after Mexico. It ends either before or at the Mexico meeting."

$10 BILLION A YEAR

The Copenhagen process has been bedeviled by sharp differences between rich countries and developing nations over how to achieve the goals. Fast-growing poor countries like China have pushed for deep cuts in emissions by the industrialized world.

However, China's top climate diplomat hinted at flexibility on Wednesday, saying the substance of any agreement at Copenhagen mattered more than legal formalities.

De Alba suggested one solution may be to allow wealthier nations to agree among themselves how to achieve a target set for them as a group.

This compromise would allow the United States, which has balked at the rapid and deep cuts proposed by the European Union, to reduce its emissions more gradually while still ensuring wealthy nations as a whole make big reductions in emissions.

Any agreement at Copenhagen should also include an early commitment by rich countries to fund carbon emissions reduction efforts by poorer countries starting in 2010, de Alba said.

Funding for the proposal should be at least the $10 billion a year proposed by the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

Transfers to the developing world would likely reach $100 billion through 2020 once a final treaty is agreed that will include mechanisms to accurately measure the benefits of carbon reduction schemes in poorer countries, de Alba said.

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[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
UK power market needs radical reform: utilities
Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:28am EST
By Daniel Fineren

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's power market must be radically redesigned to spur hundreds of billions of pounds of investment in low-carbon technologies needed to fight climate change and keep the lights on, the heads of two UK utilities said on Wednesday.

Energy regulator Ofgem estimated in October that at least 200 billion pounds ($334.5 billion) of investment is needed over the next 15 years to meet electricity demand and climate change targets and some analysts say the final bill could be much bigger.

Most of the investment will be needed to replace Britain's ancient coal- and oil-fired power plants, expected to close by 2015, with plants able to backup an expected boom in wind power capacity in the UK North Sea over the next few decades.

It still makes economic sense for utilities to run their fully-depreciated old fossil fuel plants when wholesale prices rise at times of tight electricity supply.

But they will not spend billions on building plants that under current rules will only make money when output from heavily-subsidized offshore wind farms drops drastically.

"We keep the lights on by running some quite old power stations for a small number of days a year...You can't do that if you invest two or three billion pounds in a new station," Paul Golby, the chief executive of E.ON UK, told a carbon capture and storage (CCS) forum in London on Wednesday.

INCENTIVE

E.ON, like its competitors in the UK energy market, has a growing portfolio of wind farms which benefit from a government incentive scheme, called the Renewables Obligation, paying renewable energy technologies like wind for their output regardless of the wholesale electricity price.

Under Britain's current power market, called NETA, other plants get no support, earning only what they can sell their output for.

As the current market structure stands prices could fall into negative territory at times of very high wind output if Britain gets even close to its target of installing 33 gigawatts of turbines by 2030.

"This has major implications for the future funding of projects ... How do we make a return on these massive investments when those plants may be running intermittently?" Golby told the conference.

If world leaders meeting in Copenhagen next month fail to agree a deal that significantly increases the cost of emitting carbon the UK needs a technology-neutral back up plan to support the use of cleaner technologies.

"It's vital that the UK energy market can remunerate both new nuclear and coal with CCS alongside other forms of low carbon energy," he said.

Although low carbon, nuclear power plants are too slow in raising or lowering output to respond effectively to rapid changes in output from thousands of wind turbines that the government needs to be turning over the next decade if it is to come close to meeting its carbon emissions targets.

Nuclear plants also take too long to build to replace all the plants expected to be retired by 2020.

So utilities have tended to build cheap gas fired power plants to back up wind, which many industry observers say is making Britain dangerously dependent on one fuel, and will find even more gas plants hard to justify to more cautious creditors under current rules.

"We are trying to repower and rewire the UK," Nick Horler, chief executive of ScottishPower, told journalists on the sidelines of the conference.

"We are doing it at a time when we have to bring quite rightly, greater discipline to the balance sheet and maintain credit ratings and at a time when we are in the UK in a global battle for capital."

Britain was the first country to set legally-binding targets to cut emissions of the climate-warming gas, aiming for a reduction at least 80 percent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.

(Reporting by Daniel Fineren, editing by Anthony Barker)