http://www.eceee.org/news basesyndication http://www.eceee.org/logo.png http://www.eceee.org/news http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-18b http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-18b No one thinks it will be easy to slash the carbon emissions driving climate change while keeping the lights on and at an affordable price. But trying to tackle the challenge with policies that contradict each other and silly spin makes a tough job unnecessarily harder. Ed Davey, the energy and climate change secretary, launched a good report on Friday , suggesting the damage wrought on the UK's economy by spikes in global oil, gas and coal prices could be reduced by over half in 2050 as a result of climate change policies. "Only last year, the impact of the Arab spring on wholesale gas prices, pushed up UK household bills by 20%," he said. "Every step the UK takes towards building a low-carbon economy reduces our dependency on fossil fuels, and on volatile global energy prices." annebe Tue, 22 May 2012 10:19:12 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-18a http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-18a Apple plans to power its main data centre entirely with renewable energy by the end of this year, taking steps to address longstanding environmental concerns about the rapid expansion of high-consuming computer server farms. The maker of the iPhone and iPad said on Thursday it was buying equipment from SunPower Corp and startup Bloom Energy to build two solar array installations in North Carolina, near its core data center. Once up, the solar farm will supply 84m kWh of energy annually. The sites will employ high-efficiency solar cells and an advanced solar tracking system. annebe Tue, 22 May 2012 10:16:28 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-18 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-18 Arnaud Montebourg, the newly-appointed French minister for "industrial revival" who has built a reputation for his fierce attacks against globalisation, has promised to revive old plans by Nicolas Sarkzoy for a carbon tariff at the EU's borders, an idea previously rejected as protectionist among France's European partners. "We must demand reciprocity," Montebourg told French public television during his first interview as minister , saying he will revive plans for a carbon tariff at the EU's borders to protect local industry from unfair competition. "This is an external tax," he explained when asked whether this would mean imposing tariffs on products imported from China, where industries are not subject to CO2 emission limits. annebe Tue, 22 May 2012 10:13:17 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-17 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-17 The last 60 years have been the hottest in Australasia for a millennium and cannot be explained by natural causes, according to a new report by scientists that supports the case for a reduction in manmade carbon emissions . In the first major study of its kind in the region, scientists at the University of Melbourne used natural data from 27 climate indicators, including tree rings, corals and ice cores to map temperature trends over the past 1,000 years. "Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1,000-year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region," said the study's lead researcher, Dr Joelle Gergis. annebe Tue, 22 May 2012 10:07:33 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-16 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-16 "What I see now with existing investments for plants under construction...we are seeing the door for a 2 degree Celsius target about to be closed and closed forever," Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist, told a Reuters' Global Energy & Environment Summit. "This door is getting slimmer and slimmer in terms of physical and economic possibility," he warned. The IEA said last November that around 80 percent of total energy-related carbon emissions permissible by 2035 to limit warming were already accounted for by existing power plants, buildings and factories, leaving little room for more. annebe Tue, 22 May 2012 10:04:48 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-15 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-15 "We should be moving towards outcome targets," Davey said on Monday (14 May). "Carbon emissions should be the key target." He was asked whether Britain would support another target for renewable energy when the EU goal to increase the share of green energy in the mix to 20% expires at the end of the decade. "While we think the renewables target for 2020 is a very good target and we believe we are on track to meet it, in terms of another renewables target, we have to think about what we are trying to achieve here," he replied. Business, which needs investment certainty, has been putting pressure on the European Commission to come up with policy which can replace the goals that expire in 2020. annebe Tue, 22 May 2012 10:02:39 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-13 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-13 In the foothills of the Andes, in the Sierra Piura region of Peru , the problems faced by coffee farmers are clear. Up to 6,600 farmers produce here for the Central Piurana de Cafetaleros co-operative (Cepicafe), growing 4,000 tonnes a year of the finest Peruvian coffee on family plots scattered across the mountainside. Together, year in, year out, they bring in this special harvest, the arabica coffee cherries, which are painstakingly picked by hand, processed and dried in the sun. However, thanks to "weather change", a continual topic of conversation in the area, the harvest is unpredictable. Last year, there was too little rain in the region. This year there has been a deluge: in some areas an increase of 500% on the "norm". "I still think coffee is worthwhile," says 47-year-old Gusto Regis. "It's not yet as bad as 1983." That was when the El Niño weather system hit, and landslides and flooding drove his family away to find work labouring in an adjoining region. "Of course we had no land and no money so we needed to come back. I don't know what we would do if we had to leave again." annebe Mon, 14 May 2012 12:13:02 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-14 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-14 “Our final decision will come in the coming two weeks,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia told a news conference in Brussels on 11 May. “We have to finalise our decision on the sectors to be included in the list of those which will be compensated for the increase of electricity prices due to the new system of allowances,” he added. A preliminary list shows that the industries affected include: Aluminium production; mining of chemicals and fertiliser minerals; manufacture of inorganic chemicals; lead, zinc and tin production; leather cloths; iron and steel manufacture; paper; manufacture of fertilisers; copper; organic-based chemicals; spinning of cotton-type fibres; man-made fibres; mining of iron ores; and plastics, including polycarbonate, the omnipresent polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride, among others. annebe Mon, 14 May 2012 12:08:33 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-11b http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-11b The joint statement by some of the world's leading science academies was issued on Thursday ahead of the G8 summit in the United States. It is part of the annual lobbying effort aimed at focusing the attention of world leaders on issues the scientific community regards as crucial. For the first time, the scientists argue that looming shortages in water and energy supplies should be treated as a single issue. "Major stresses on availability of energy and water are already being felt in many countries and regions and more are foreseeable," the joint statement said. Fossil fuel, nuclear and hydropower are still providing the bulk of the world's energy and they all rely heavily on the supply of water for cooling, running steam turbines or direct power generation. Conversely, large amounts of energy are used in pumping, purifying and desalinating water around the globe. annebe Mon, 14 May 2012 12:06:43 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-11a http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-11a Argentina's GDP grew 7.3 percent last year, driving demand for energy that is overwhelmingly derived from fossil fuels. According to Argentine Institute of Petroleum and Gas (IAPG), energy demand rose 5.1 percent in 2011. Fossil fuels, which are largely imported due to a failure by local refiners to meet demand, account for almost 90 percent of Argentina's energy use. The value of fuel imports doubled last year to $9.3 billion dollars. In a bid to boost oil and gas production to keep up with local demand, the Argentine government last month decided to seize a controlling stake in oil company YPF from Spain's Repsol, sparking international concern that Argentina may scare off investment. Experts and government officials have recognized that greenhouse gas emissions are rising as a result of growing energy consumption. annebe Mon, 14 May 2012 12:02:42 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-11 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-11 The draft language called for the mutual acceptance of compliance instruments like allowances and offset credits between the two jurisdictions. It also called for a common allowance registry and auction, and included provisions for tracking allowances which are designed to enhance market security. California Air Resources Board (ARB) Chair Mary Nichols said California's cap-and-trade program was always designed to link with other systems, and said a bigger market would benefit the state. "The sheer fact that we're adding to the number of allowances that are tradable, that there are more regulated parties to trade with, a larger pool of offsets potentially available... all of those things are benefits as far as California is concerned," Nichols said during a phone interview on Wednesday. annebe Mon, 14 May 2012 11:59:39 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-10a http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-10a They seldom meet on the cricket or football fields, but the world's small island developing states are informally competing with each other to be the first to ditch fossil fuels and embrace clean energy . A new United Nations analysis of the most recent energy plans of 52 low lying poor countries - traditionally heavily dependent on imports of petrol and oil - shows the Caribbean island of Dominica leading the world with plans to become carbon "negative" by 2020. The Maldives is not far behind, hoping to be carbon neutral by 2020. Tuvalu and the Cook islands intend to generate all their electricity from renewables by 2020 and Timor-Leste, the poorest country in Asia, expects to provide solar electricity to all its 100,000 families by 2030. annebe Mon, 14 May 2012 11:53:05 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-10 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-10 His study predicts that average fuel costs in Europe – currently running at between €1,235 (in Luxembourg) and €2,143 (in Sweden) – would plummet to between €962 and €1,665 by 2020, if an expected EU target of 95 grams of CO2 emissions per km (g/km) for new cars and 147g/km for vans is confirmed in July. If the cars target was tightened to 60g/km by 2025, fuel costs would plunge further to between €494 and €863 by 2030, the report finds. “The lesson from these figures is clear,” said Franziska Achterberg of Greenpeace. “A weakened law will pile hundreds of euros extra on drivers' fuel bills, while a strong one will do a lot to shield them from rocketing fuel prices.” annebe Thu, 10 May 2012 09:55:10 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-09e http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-09e "There is a political agreement to get a deal by the end of June, we have quite a lot of trialogue meetings left," said Krzysztof Gierulski, an official at the Commission's energy efficiency unit who was speaking on Tuesday (8 May) at a conference on smart meters. Member states have taken a commitment to reduce their consumption of primary energy by 20% by 2020 – or 202 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe). The Energy Efficiency Directive is seen as the EU's main tool to achieve this target. But the Council of Ministers, which represents the 27 EU member states, has watered down the draft directive. As a result, the amended text is now estimated to reduce primary energy consumption by about only 58.1 Mtoe, the Commission said in a non-paper circulated at the beginning of the negotiations on the bill. annebe Thu, 10 May 2012 08:45:22 +0200 http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-09d http://www.eceee.org/news/News_2012/2012-05-09d Failing to tackle climate change in the first half of this century will put the world on a dangerous track to warming in the second half, even though global population should peak in 2042 at 8.1 billion and economic growth will be much slower than expected in mature economies, the Switzerland-based body said in a report on Tuesday. "It is unlikely that governments will pass necessary regulation to force the markets to allocate more money into climate-friendly solutions, and (we) must not assume that markets will work for the benefit of humankind," said Jorgen Randers, author of the report and professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian School of Management. "We are emitting twice as much greenhouse gases every year as are absorbed by the world's forests and oceans. This overshoot will worsen and will peak in 2030." The Club of Rome, whose members include political and business figures and scientists, analyses problems such as limits to economic growth, resource pressure and employment. annebe Thu, 10 May 2012 08:43:19 +0200