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With Germany’s largest company by revenue, Volkswagen, deep in damage recovery mode, and the market still unable to decide just how systemic and profound the fallout will be from the emissions scandal which has already cost the job of VW’s CEO and which according to some will impact the GDP of Hungary and the Czech republic as much as -1.5%, many are still trying to determine not if but how many other companies – whether “clean diesel” focused or otherwise – will be impacted by the crackdown on emissions fraud.
We don’t know the answer suffice to speculate that it will be “many” for one simpler reason: there are dozens of ways to manipulate emissions tests in both the lab and on the road, and with the temptation to “reduce” emissions all too great for management teams laser-focused on boosting profit margins, one can be certain that in this particular case not only is there more than one cockroach, there are dozens.
The chart below from Transport and Environment shows some of the traditional ways in which carmakers manipulate CO2 emissions tests to make their cars appear more efficient:
Worse, according to a follow-up report, it is only a matter of time before far more widespread crackdowns take place within the auto industry where emissions fraud now appears as systemic as that of the global banking sector.
As reported earlier this week, the gap between official test results for CO2 emissions/fuel economy and real-world performance has increased to 40% on average in 2014 from 8% in 2001, according to T&E’s 2015 Mind the Gap report, which analyses on-the-road fuel consumption by motorists and highlights the abuses by carmakers of the current tests and the failure of EU regulators to close loopholes. T&E said the gap has become a chasm and, without action, will likely grow to 50% on average by 2020.
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An astonishing 720 million people around the world face falling back into extreme poverty unless we tackle climate change immediately, warns a new report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
The report was published as world leaders gathered this week at the United Nations General Assembly and agreed the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs), among which is the eradication of extreme poverty by 2030.
This goal is achievable, according to the ODI, but not without a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions peak in 2030, and a fall to near zero by 2100. “Climate change increases the probability that those who emerge from extreme poverty will be at risk of falling back into it,” it concludes.
Beyond 2030
Sustaining poverty reduction therefore relies on curbing climate change the report argues.“If the global community is serious about eradicating extreme poverty for good, it needs to think beyond 2030. Eradicating poverty by 2030 will be no great accomplishment if we are incapable of sustaining that achievement from 2030 onwards.”
It continues: “It is policy incoherent for big GHG emitting countries, especially industrialised ones, to support poverty eradication as a development priority, whether through domestic policy or international assistance, while failing to shift their own economy toward a zero net emissions pathway.”
As the report notes, progress on poverty eradication over the past two decades has reduced the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day in the developing world – defined as the extreme poor – from 43 percent in 1990 to about 17 percent as of 2011.
“In order to stop poverty, we must stop climate change.” – Jay Winter Nightwolf, Echota Cherokee nation. #ActOnClimate
Analysing data on the impact of climate change on food prices, the effects of childhood malnutrition and stunting, the productivity of primary sectors (such as agriculture or mining), and increased droughts, the ODI estimates that up to 720 million people are at risk of facing extreme poverty from 2030 to 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario.
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A recent battle over imposing a “climate fee” on coal-fired power plants highlights Germany’s continuing paradox: Even as the nation aspires to be a renewable energy leader, it is exploiting its vast reserves of dirty brown coal.
The hole in the landscape that opens up in front of the group of visitors is so vast and deep that some of them simply stare, mouths agape. “This mine will be active until 2026 or 2027,” says Barbara Wittig, a guide with a local operator of excursions into one of Germany’s largest open-pit lignite mines.
Down below at the bottom of the mine, workers are busy running gigantic machines to remove the topsoil and dig deep into a layer of brown coal, or lignite. These rich seams of fossil fuel have provided the Lausitz region,
60 miles southeast of Berlin, with jobs and incomes for more than a century. “We certainly hope that mining will continue after 2027 and we keep producing reliable electricity in our beautiful power plants,” Wittig says, pointing toward large cooling towers on the horizon, which send steam into the atmosphere.
These towers also spew a much more problematic gas: The three regional coal-fired power plants — Jänschwalde, Boxberg, and Schwarze Pumpe — are among the largest point-sources of CO2 emissions in the world. In recent months, Welzow-Süd and other lignite mines have become
Three regional coal-fired German power plants are among the largest point-sources of CO2 emissions in the world.
the subject of heated controversy in Germany as their continuing operations clash with the country’s ambitions of being a green energy powerhouse. That conflict has sparked a battle over imposing a special “climate fee” on coal-fired power plants.
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Burning wood pellets to produce electricity is on the rise in Europe, where the pellets are classified as a form of renewable energy. But in the U.S., where pellet facilities are rapidly being built, concerns are growing about logging and the carbon released by the combustion of wood biomass.
In 2011, Enviva — the United States’ largest exporter of wood pellets — opened its flagship pellet-manufacturing mill in Ahoskie, North Carolina. The plant annually converts 850,000 tons of trees and waste wood into tiny pellets that are shipped to Europe and burned in power plants for what is being touted as a renewable form of electricity.
Two years later, Enviva opened another mill 50 miles away in Northampton County, North Carolina, and by 2016 the company is expected to operate eight wood pellet mills from Virginia to Mississippi. Elsewhere in the southeastern United States, other companies are planning or rapidly building facilities to produce wood pellets. A mill planned by Biomass Power Louisiana in Natchitoches, La., will produce up to 2 million tons of the pellets annually. Drax, a British utility that’s taking steps to transform itself into a predominately biomass energy generator, has said it will open four of its own large mills to produce pellets in Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana.
Demand for this purportedly green form of energy is so robust that wood pellet exports from the United States nearly doubled from 2012 to 2013 and are expected to nearly double again to 5.7 million tons in 2015. This soaring production is driven by growing demand in the U.K. and Europe, which are using wood pellets to replace coal for electricity generation and heating. The European Union’s 2020 climate and energy program classifies wood pellets as a carbon-neutral form of renewable energy, and European companies have invested billions to convert coal plants to plants that can burn wood pellets.
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EU reaches deal on CO2 emissions cut – Europe – Al Jazeera English.
The agreement adopts 27 percent targets for renewable energy supply and efficiency gains [EPA]
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| European Union leaders have reached what they described as the world’s most ambitious climate change targets for 2030, paving the way for a new UN-backed global treaty next year.
The 28 leaders on Friday finally overcame divisions at an EU summit in Brussels to reach a deal including a commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent compared to 1990 levels. They also agreed on 27 percent targets for renewable energy supply and efficiency gains, despite of reservations from some member states about the cost of the measures. |
“Deal! At least 40 percent emissions cut by 2030. World’s most ambitious, cost-effective, fair EU 2030 climate energy policy agreed,” EU presidentHerman Van Rompuy tweeted.
The EU wanted to agree on the targets ahead of a summit in Paris in November and December 2015, where it is hoped the world will agree to a new phase of the Kyoto climate accords which run until 2020.
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