Current Savers Blog

Some politicians are mentioning “Copenhagen” and “Doha” in the same breath — a worrying lament less than 2 months to go before a U.N. climate deal is meant to be wrapped up in the Danish capital.

So is there a risk – if negotiators are not smart — that the new U.N. accord to fight global warming will stall like the long-running Doha round on freeing world trade, launched in 2001?

India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, for instance, said on Oct. 10 that negotiators should aim for a realistic agreement in Copenhagen from Dec. 7-18 that was not too ambitious. He said there was a risk of repeating the “mistake of the Doha round”, saying that “the basic problem of the Doha round was ‘all or nothing’.”

And British Finance Minister Alistair Darling said on Oct. 21 that he wanted to ensure that the climate talks do not keep dragging on like the Doha round.

The WWF environmental group says there’s a lack of leadership in the run-up to Copenhagen, with a rise in whispered suggestions that the talks might fail.

One week of formal climate negotiations remains before Copenhagen, in Barcelona from Nov. 2-6, after almost two years of meetings.

“The world doesn’t want Copenhagen to come to mean another Doha,” said Kim Carstensen, head of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative.

Talks on the existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions, agreed in Japan in December 1997 also often looked bleak in the run-up, especially after the U.S. Senate voted that year by 95-0 against some of the basic principles of an accord. 

WWF accused industrialised nations of trying to lower expectations for a deal “as they continue to dodge the hard decisions on slashing their emissions and funding the transition to a low carbon economy.”

So will Copenhagen echo Doha?

((Picture: Top: Smoke rises out of a cement plant in Baokang, Hubei province September 12, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer. Right: A Qatari security policeman guards the WTO conference centre during the 2001 conference in Doha. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun))

The holy grail for solar power is to match the cost of power from coal-fired power plants or other traditional fuel.

That goal is still on the horizon. But researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab say the industry is getting closer as the cost of going solar in the United States saw a pivotal year in 2008.

In a new report, the researchers found that the cost of going solar fell by more than 30 percent from 1998 to 2008. The installation costs — before taking into account any incentives –  dropped from $10.80 per watt to $7.50 per watt during that period.

Costs like labor, marketing and overhead drove much of that decline. But the fall in panel prices, which tumbled from 2007 to 2008, helped push the total cost down in recent years.

Photo: Thousands of solar panels are shown that generate electricity used at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. Photo credit: REUTERS

A travel agent is ditching an offer allowing holidaymakers to pay extra if they feel guilty about the greenhouse gases created by their flights, saying it’s like selling “medieval pardons”.

responsibletravel.com said it was dropping carbon offsets from its website, bucking an industry trend of recent years.

Ever more airlines and travel groups offer customers the option of paying a bit more to plant trees in Africa, for instance, or to help build a wind farm in India to soak up greenhouse gases equal to those emitted by their vacations.

“We believe that the travel industry’s priority must be to reduce carbon emissions, rather than to offset,” said Justin Francis, managing director of the British-based firm.

“Carbon offsets distract tourists from the need to reduce their emissions. They create a ‘medieval pardon’ for us to carry on behaving in the same way (or worse),” he said.

The company said: “In 2002 we were the first travel agent to offer carbon offsetting, in 2009 we believe we are one of the first to stop offering offsets to customers.”

The firm said it agreed with environmental group Friends of the Earth that offsets were a “dangerous distraction”.  “Ultimately we need to reduce our carbon emissions. We can do this by flying less – travelling by train or taking holidays closer to home for example, and by making carbon reductions in other areas of our lifestyles too, alongside travel,” it said.

Criticising travel — rather than selling letting people buy indulgences for a high-carbon lifestyle — sounds like shooting yourself in the foot if you are selling holidays.

Or is this a smart decision?

While solar power has investors on Wall Street seeing green, countries in the developing world also see a bright future in solar technology.

They believe solar power systems that convert sunlight into electricity can help power developing areas without going the route of dirty coal-fired power plants.

Solar companies like China’s solar panel maker Suntech and California-based eSolar, have recently announced forays into the developing world.

Suntech is teaming up with Pakistan’s alternative energy development board, which the company’s chairman and chief executive Zhengrong Shi called “a clear example of the promise of solar energy.”

Solar thermal company eSolar said last week that it is expanding in Africa and earlier this year it partnered with an Indian company to build solar power plants in India over the next 10 years.

And a $400 billion euro plan is gaining steam to power Europe with Sahara sunlight, despite critics.

Today’s top solar market — and lots of profits — are found in Germany while the United States and China are fast-growing alternative energy sectors. Will countries like South Africa join their ranks one day? How will countries and governments make good on the promise of solar energy for the developing world?

Photo: Workers build a thermo-solar power plant in Beni Mathar August 20, 2009. Photo credit:REUTERS/Rafael Marchante

If there’s one person the Canadian government would perhaps rather not hear from right now, it’s Tim Flannery, the vocal Australian climate change campaigner. Canada, which over the last 20 years or so has largely preferred to let economic development trump environmental concerns,  is trying to keep a low profile in the run-up to the Copenhagen meeting in December charged with producing a successor to the Kyoto accord.  Canada’s Conservative government — following the lead of former U.S. President George W. Bush – walked away from Kyoto on the grounds that it would damage the economy. Canada has made an enormous amount of money shipping oil to the United States, much of it from the tar sands in the western province of Alberta. Developing those sands burns up a huge amount of carbon and Canadian emissions are rising steadily, so it’s no coincidence that Canada says it is for action on climate change while allowing responsible economic development.  Environment Minister Jim Prentice told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp on Wednesday that Canada would bring “a reasonable constructive approach” to Copenhagen.  This is a message which wins few friends among environmentalists.

Flannery rolled into town on Wednesday and loudly announced that Ottawa’s role in the talks leading up to Copenhagen so far had been very unhelpful. “We desperately need Canada to play a much more positive role in the coming months . . . the Canadian government is largely isolated in its stand vis-a-vis the Copenhagen agreements. It would be tragic, I think, to see a country like this standing in the way of agreement,” he told reporters.

If the truth be told, Canada is not doing much of anything on the environment right now, in part because of last year’s U.S. presidential election and the victory of Barack Obama, who vowed tough action on climate change.  Ottawa had promised to introduce rules to cut emissions starting in 2010 but those are on hold until Washington decides what approach it will take on climate change. The same goes for Canadian plans to set up a carbon trading market: let’s wait for Obama.  While this is understandable — there’s little point taking the time and trouble to craft a green policy only to see it wrecked because your main trading partner decided to go off in a different direction — it only adds to the impression of inertia.

“Canada needs to get its domestic policies in order. It’s concerning to see the Canadian government say it will follow the U.S. lead in terms of carbon trading and so forth,” said Flannery. “But then we enter a period of a lull where there is very little activity to follow that up . . . time is exceedingly short for Canada — with its very different economy and very different approach to this problem — to be able to follow the lead of the U.S. in any meaningful way.”

The Conservatives’  main power base in is Alberta, home to most of the tar sands projects, so the party has to tread carefully when it comes to cutting emissions. Ottawa would rather talk about carbon capture and on Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the Canadian and Alberta governments would invest C$779 million ($756 million) in one such project.

This development also pleased Flannery, who described the news as excellent. “That is exactly the sort of leadership that’s required of the Canadian government in future,” he said.

((A worker rides his bike near Syncrude’s expansion mine, which remains shut after residents complained of odors coming from the site, north of Fort McMurray, Alberta May 24, 2006  Stringer photo))

When people think of hunting and fishing politicians in America — at least prominent ones – two things spring to mind: 1. Republican and 2. Climate change skeptic. Former President George W. Bush, his vice president Dick Cheney and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin all fall into both categories.

But the hunting and fishing crowd — widely seen as reliably Republican because of that’s party’s successful portrayal of itself as the defender of God and guns — has also started to take note of climate change. After all, hunters and anglers are in the outdoors in pursuit of wildlife season after season, year after year.

But what may concern some Republican strategists is that many of them also accept the science of climate change, which overwhelmingly points to fossil fuel emissions as the main cause driving global warming.

This may help explain why Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina broke ranks with his party to outline a compromise to limit carbon emissions in a Sunday New York Times opinion piece he co-wrote with Democratic Senator John Kerry. Hunters and anglers in the U.S. South are widely seen as part of the Republican base and his call for action was saluted on Wednesday during a teleconference call hosted by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation (SCWF) and involved other outdoor groups.

“I have observed things in my life time that suggest that significant impacts have already been felt here in our state,” said Clinch Heyward, the 60-year-old chairman of the SCWF.

He noted that in a life time of duck hunting he had noticed a decline in the state’s duck population while Virginia, where one of his sons now lives, had more and more ducks.

“I was deer hunting last weekend and here it is October and it is 90 degrees (about 32 Celsius),” he said in his thick southern accent.

The SCWF said in a statement that: “Sportsmen are calling for passage of comprehensive climate and energy legislation“.

Such legislation is currently being considered in the U.S. Senate and is one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities.

 The shooting and fishing crowd is not always seen as a natural ally of the bunny and tree-hugging crowd. Do you see at least some of them uniting on this issue? And what might the political implications for the Republican Party be?

(PHOTO: A young hunter takes aim at the Cabela’s store in Fort Worth, Texas June 26, 2008. REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi (UNITED STATES)

Prized as a nutritious delicacy, eels are fascinating animals. They are grilled over charcoal in asia, boiled in stews across Europe and smoked and eaten on toast or bread in the Netherlands.  They have never been observed spawning in the wild, so scientists haven’t yet been able to breed them. So the only way to fish for eels is to find them wild in shallow waters or tributaries, or capture baby eels (called glass eels because they are transparent) and transport them to aquaculture farms.

Yet, there’s a growing fear that eels may disappear altogether. The number of eels in Europe, which spawn in the North Atlantic’s Sargasso Sea and migrate to shores in Europe and the Mediterranean, has dropped by over 95 percent in recent decades. Scientists haven’t agreed on the cause, but in an effort to stem the precipitous population decline, the European Union has started to impose fishing restrictions. This has gained the support of wildlife preservations groups, but angered fishermen.

Anguilla anguilla, the European eel, has been listed as ‘critically endangered’ (by the IUCN:

The species suffers from many threats including overfishing, dams, introduced parasites and pollution. … However, as the species reproduces only once on average at around 20 years, and the extremely depleted state of the population, restoration is expected to take several of the eel generations.

Until there’s a way to breed eels in capitivity, there may be little choice but to eat less eel (prices have already skyrocketed) as their numbers decline.

Natural gas is regarded as a relatively clean source of energy but there is mounting evidence that it has a dirty side.

My colleague Jon Hurdle has reported on Wyoming water woes that have been linked to the booming gas industry. You can see his stories here and here.

In August U.S. government scientists reported that they had for the first time found chemical contaminants in drinking water wells near natural gas drilling operations, fueling concern that a gas-extraction technique is endangering the health of people who live close to drilling rigs.

The Environmental Protection Agency found chemicals that researchers say may cause illnesses including cancer, kidney failure, anemia and fertility problems in water from 11 of 39 wells tested around the Wyoming town of Pavillion in March and May this year.

On Monday, I reported that high concentrations of harmful compounds have been found in the air in a north Texas town that is in the heart of the region’s gas industry, according to a report released by an environmental consultancy.

The study by Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers and Consultants found high concentrations of carcinogenic and neurotoxin compounds in the atmosphere at seven locations around the rural town of DISH, which is about 50 miles northwest of Dallas.

Carcinogens are linked to cancers while neurotoxins are toxins that act on nerve cells.

The report said the levels of several of the substances exceeded those that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) uses as benchmarks or triggers that could prompt it to investigate or take action. This does not mean that these levels are an immediate hazard but the town’s mayor Calvin Tillman told me that he would like to see the several compressor stations in the area shut down until people are reassured that they are not emitting toxins.

DISH is on the Barnett Shale, a large geological formation in north Texas that contains vast amounts of natural gas.

What do you think? Is natural gas a viable option in the quest for an energy source cleaner than coal, which emits about twice as much carbon dioxide? Or must the industry first clean up its own act?

(Photo: A worker at EnCana’s Frenchie Draw gas-drilling rig in central Wyoming guides sections of steel pipe into an 11,000-foot well on September 19, 2009. REUTERS/Jon Hurdle)

California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is working to burnish his green legacy in the Golden State. But one of his latest moves to lift a hold on air pollution permit applications is not likely to make environmentalists happy.

The governor signed a bill late Sunday that allows the agency regulating air pollution along California’s southern coast to start issuing more than 1,200 applications frozen by a state court decision in 2008.

Schwarzenegger signed the bill the same day he approved two measures benefiting the state’s solar power industry.

Environmentalists may call the governor’s actions two steps forward, one step back.

But the region’s business community cheered the move on air quality permits. The bill’s author says it will create 60,000 jobs and $4 billion in economic activity in Southern California. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates Orange County and parts of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, believes that the governor’s approval will jump-start the region’s economy.

We wanted to know what readers think about the lifting of the ban and Schwarzenegger’s moves to boost the use of energy from renewable resources. What grade would you put on the governor’s environmental report card?

Photo:Traffic passes downtown Los Angeles on the Interstate-10 freeway. Photo credit: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

The high tech industry regularly sees lawsuits fly over intellectual property rights.

Time will tell if clean technology will see a similar play, but a settlement this week between California-based solar power company SunPower Corp and SunLink Corp may shed light on things to come.

In February 2008, SunPower sued SunLink, saying SunLink had violated patents protecting several of SunPower’s rooftop systems. Under the settlement, SunPower licensed its patents to SunLink but did not disclose the financial details.

Some believe that solar power companies who successfully defend their intellectual property could win additional revenue streams. That could benefit SunPower and innovative companies both with upstream and downstream technologies, Deutsche Bank analyst Steve O’Rourke wrote in a note.

We were wondering what role readers think IP and patent lawsuits will play as the solar industry continues to develop. Do you think they will help bigger companies defend their market share? Or could a litigious environment stifle newcomers to the industry?