Current Savers Blog

Sell the Salton Sea? That’s one approach to refilling the shrinking salty sea in California’s southeastern desert, according to a story in The Desert Sun. The sea was created by a breach in a Colorado river dike early last century and has become a bird-lovers’ and jet-skiers’ paradise since. With California’s budget shortfall heading toward $42 billion, the idea of a private-public partnership is sure to generate some support. (Thanks to rtumble.com for outpointing the Desert Sun story.)

(Photo: California State Parks)

California is either about to bankrupt all its businesses, or it’s unleashing a green revolution.

Either way, it took a big step toward cutting greenhouse gases on Thursday, when its top air quality regulator, the California Air Resources Board, passed a scoping plan. That sounds deadly dull, we know, but it has excited a lot of people because it means specific targets are being set by the largest U.S. state in the midst of the worst economy almost anyone living has seen.

Some businesses fear they won’t be able to survive the costs. Some feel California will be economically reborn. Check out our story, and don’t be afraid to go to the CARB site and check out the plan itself, along with economic analysis and more.

Every once in a while you run into someone with so much energy that you find yourself wishing you could plug something into them to tap a bit of that excess power. On a dark, cloudy December afternoon, I spoke to Frank Asbeck, the chairman of SolarWorld and dubbed the “Sonnenkoenig” (Sun King) by a leading newspaper in his native Germany for turning an idea (mass use of photovoltaic) into a multi-billion euro corporation with 2,500 employees — in little over a decade.

Asbeck, 49, easily the most entertaining chief executive I’ve met in Germany, lit up the room with a 90-minute surge of ideas, witty comments and untempered optimism about solar power — a delightful respite from the economic doom and gloom of the current era.

But what especially interested me about him was his trip a day earlier to the Vatican, where he donated 2,400 photovoltaic panels worth 1.2 million euros that will produce enough electricity for the equivalent of 100 households (300 Megawatt hours) each year. So I asked: “Did you donate the solar panels to the Vatican because:

A) you’re a good guy
B) it was an advertising gimmick for solar power in general or
C) it was an advertising gimmick for SolarWorld.”

Asbeck answered: “First of all, I am a good person. And, secondly, we’re glad to do advertising in general for solar power because it’s a good thing and, thirdly, we did it as a gesture of thanks for a bit of inspiration I got from Pope John Paul II six years ago.”

Asbeck explained that the original idea to cover the 5,000-square metre roof of the Vatican’s Papal audience hall next to St. Peter’s Cathedral came in 2002 when he presented Pope John Paul with a sample solar cell made from sand (raw silicone) in the course of a general audience. “I showed him a solar cell and mentioned that we were able to produce energy from sand and sun,” Asbeck said, smiling at the fond memory. “And he said to me ‘God can do everything’. That gave me tremendous motivation to think more deeply about this photovoltaic technology and that we could be doing a whole lot more with it than we were. So as a small gesture of gratitude for that inspiration we installed the beautiful solar system.”

It all sounded very sincere from this extraordinarily energetic character. But, in this day and age, I still found myself wondering if his motives were truly genuine or not. What do you think?

Now that Bank of America is cutting back on lending to mountain top removal mining companies, citing the environmental costs, rival Citigroup is weighing its options.

“Bank of America’s announcement has just been released so Citi will study the content,” the bank said on Friday. Citi and Bank of America were prime targets of Rainforest Action Network and others for their support of mountaintop removal mining for coal in Appalachia. Cutting the top off a mountain is a cheap and efficient way to get coal — and environmental groups call it an ecological disaster.

“We are continuing to learn about this issue through engaging and listening to a variety of stakeholders, including our clients. Today we met with a number of industry, scientific, and community experts to listen and learn from their perspectives. Citi has a long history of engaging in dialogue with our stakeholders on this and other critical environmental issues,” the bank said.

Rainforest Action Network says the bank has a history of funding dirty coal and has called Citi’s steps to curb its carbon footprint small. The coal industry, on the other hand, says Bank of America is pandering to the the green movement at the expense of work in a place where jobs are few and far between.

(Photo: Reuters/Andrea Hopkins)

There’s plenty of hot air filling the sprawling conference centre that houses the U.N. climate change talks this week and next in Poznan, Poland. But many of the 500 or so youth participants in the conference - who hail from more than 50 countries - feel left out in the political cold.

On Friday morning, six of them created a human installation in the lobby to draw attention to their demand for fair use of the world’s natural resources.

A banner emblazoned with “Equity now: Our future is in the balance” (see photo below) was flanked by two inflatable globes - one crushing an Indian delegate (photo left), representing today’s imbalance in consumption, and the other representing a more just world supported on either side by two young women from India and Sweden.

The installation artists told Reuters they were disappointed they didn’t have greater influence on the negotiations, and suggested their elder country representatives should take a leaf out of their book.

“There has been a real contrast between the youth coming together and putting their national interests aside and the failure of our nations to break the deadlock,” said Paul Ferris, 23, from Australia. 

The Dec. 1-12 talks in Poland are reviewing progress at the half-way stage of a two-year push for a new pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which is meant to be agreed by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen.

“We need to break the deadlock before Copenhagen - there is so much to do,” said Leela Raina, 19, from India. “We should have more ambitious goals,” chimed in My Sellberg, 20, from Sweden.

The young people said it was hard for them to get access to their own countries’ negotiators at the talks, but they were trying to corner them at the many events taking place on the sidelines of the conference.

Only the Netherlands, Switzerland and Belgium have given young people formal places on their teams at the talks in Poland.

Later at an “inter-generational inquiry on climate solutions”, the U.N.’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, cited a several-nation study that revealed 90 percent of young people wanted their politicians to take decisive action on global warming. But he said the youth voice was not being heard in climate negotiations.

“I think a lot can and should and must be done on the road to Copenhagen to ensure that voice is heard,” he said.

He urged governments to honour a promise to include youth in their teams, and young people to take every opportunity to speak out about their concerns and interests, including through the statement they are allowed to make in the high-level session for ministers.

Not being allocated an office or even room of their own means most youth delegates have been forced to commandeer cafes and other public spaces for their meetings.

But Ruchi Jain, 22, from India took heart from a meeting between her country’s young representatives and de Boer, who had given them lots of encouragement and told them to do something “spectacular” (they’re still working on it).

Asked about their personal experiences of climate change, Jain mentioned floods and this year’s exceptionally cold winter in Mumbai. Australia’s Ferris said his father had been forced to abandon farming for teaching because of the severe droughts that have hit the major wheat-producing country in recent years.

The installation artists said that was why it was so critical to keep up pressure at the U.N. climate talks, to make sure the world was a better place for its future — them.

Anna Keenan of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition stressed that while governments argued, young conference participants were all agreed that rich nations needed to make deep emissions cuts. “All we need now is for our political leaders to…make the plans that we are already ready, willing and prepared to implement,” she said.

But there were signs patience was wearing thin. “If things don’t change over the next week, we’ll be more disheartened and frustrated and we’ll scale up our activities!” warned Ferris.

Luckily for my colleague, photographer Kacper Pempel, this solar powered “taxi” was not going very fast when it smashed through a wall of polystyrene at the end of a 52,000 km trip around the world.

It stopped pretty much in the debris of the makeshift wall after the deliberate “crash” marking the finish outside the venue of Dec. 1-12 U.N. climate talks in Poland. (Click here for a story)

Driver Louis Palmer, a Swiss teacher (in blue, lower right), has driven through 38 nations over 17 months, the first time a solar-powered car has gone round the world. He ended the final stretch at U.N. climate talks with Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat as a passenger.

I have enjoyed following Louis’ travels. He once gave me a lift a year ago at the last U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia and the car was certainly zippier under the tropical sun than it was in mid-winter Poland.  Whatever the location the car was quite difficult to drive because of its length: it tows a flat-backed trailer covered with solar panels.

Louis says that his trip shows that the world needs more electric powered vehicles….Is this the way forward for carmakers?

Tulane University professors worried about global warming’s effect on New Orleans have advice for their co-citizens — don’t build new shopping malls below sea level.

Still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, Nola, as it is affectionately called, is a city built on a swamp. In fact, it is urban sprawl built on a swamp. Large parts are below sea level.

An early post-Katrina plan to restrict rebuilding to the parts above sea level was scrapped due to popular pressure, but professors Torbjörn E. Törnqvist and Douglas J. Meffert say New Orleans needs to think unconventionally.

After one of the briefest honeymoons in history, developing nations at U.N. climate change talks in Poland are saying that President-elect Barack Obama’s goals for cutting greenhouse gas emissions don’t go far enough.

Delegates from China and India told Reuters at the Dec. 1-12 talks that they welcomed Obama’s plan to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 compared to less ambitious goals set by President George W. Bush. (Emissions are now about 14 percent above 1990 ).

But they say Obama isn’t going far enough. See story here.

Developing nations want all developed nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by far more. That, they say, is the condition for the poor to start slowing their own rising emissions from factories, power plants and cars.

Is that realistic? Can the United States cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020? And how far should developing nations curb their own emissions as part of a new deal on global warming meant to be agreed by the end of 2009?

This week the U.N. leads a new round of global climate talks, in its 14th meeting since the world signed up to the convention on climate change in 1992.

It’s all about replacing the Kyoto Protocol with a more ambitious climate deal from 2013. Kyoto is widely regarded as toothless, but so could be its successor. (For a story, click here)

After all, fighting climate change isn’t easy – it involves limiting emissions of greenhouse gases which are a by-product of everyday essentials from energy to food, from burning fossil fuels and making fertiliser, for example.

But where does that leave Kyoto – a multilateral process which requires unanimity for every decision?

Oxford University’s energy expert Dieter Helm last week compared the entire emissions-cutting effort of Kyoto from its base year 1990 to 2012 to the increase in emissions from aviation alone over the same period.

At the moment Kyoto excludes the United States, which didn’t ratify the pact, and all developing countries, including China and India. And it gave too much emissions headroom in its target for Russia.

So the pact has had no binding effect on four of the world’s top five emitters.
Now 190 countries are meeting in Poznan, Poland, to try and lay the foundations of a new agreement next year on a sharper treaty. What chance have they got?

While Barack Obama could follow Europe with cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the problem is more about changing energy use in developing countries, which they’re worried will curb their economic growth, too.

If you believe U.N. climate scientists, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015 to avoid dangerous global warming.

There’s no chance of that on current trends, most scientists and economists say, given that emissions from top carbon bad boy China are rising by about 10 percent a year.
Is it time to shelve the Kyoto process and hand over to a centralised agency, to dish out tough climate medicine?

Or is the climate problem over-blown? Perhaps the world should wait for a new energy breakthrough, like nuclear fusion…