People & Planet, alongside World Development Movement (WDM) and Platform, are taking the Treasury to court. We are seeking a Judicial Review to stop the Royal Bank of Scotland pouring money into projects which are linked to climate change, environmental destruction and human rights violations.
Irresponsible lending by profit-hungry banks has brought about an unparalleled financial crisis in the global economy. Because of its huge investments in highly-polluting fossil fuel projects and energy companies, Royal Bank of Scotland (which owns NatWest) plays a leading role in financing the climate crisis.
The Treasury bail out of RBS-NatWest comes at huge cost to the UK taxpayer, tying us all to the disasters which it finances. We have a responsibility to hold them accountable.
Support the legal challenge - take action now!
Email the Treasury and tell them to stop spending public money on climate chaos
The government holds 75% of the bank’s voting shares, and has a fantastic opportunity to be both bold and responsible. The Treasury has the power to ensure that the Royal Bank of Scotland now becomes a force for good in the transition to a low carbon economy.
A government committed to leading the world on tackling climate change would require RBS-NatWest’s lending decisions to support renewable energies, companies and infrastructure, and cut its investment in high-risk, high-carbon projects and companies. We must convince the Treasury to stand up to the power of the finance sector.
Challenge the Treasury and your MP today!
Email the Treasury and tell them to stop spending public money on climate chaos
Lobby your MP to sign EDM 880: RBS and Climate Change
People and Planet have put an email together to get you started.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
What are the real costs of reducing forest emissions?
Without knowing REDD's true costs we can't analyse the benefits, says the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins' Peter A. Minang.
Science tells us that valuing forests for carbon (by financing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) or REDD-plus) could help mitigate climate change and improve livelihoods. But it seems to me that delivering these benefits will depend as much on politics and institutions as on science.
Evidence from across the humid and sub-humid tropics shows that people make very low economic returns from cleared forests, when calculated per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted. The Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins has shown that, in Cameroon, Indonesia, Peru and the Philippines, 80 per cent of all emissions from deforestation between 1990 and 2005 could have been avoided for less than US$5 per tonne of CO2 equivalent released.
This is a relatively low opportunity cost that should make REDD-plus very attractive for developing countries. Other studies including the Stern and Eliasch reviews have also found relatively lower costs compared to other mitigation options. But are low opportunity costs enough?
Land use change in the tropics is driven by people trying to maximise their economic gain. They will always choose the most profitable option available. If REDD is to work as a real financial incentive, it must be robust enough to compete with other potential land uses.
One answer might be to target specific ecosystems, such as peatlands, that store large amounts of carbon and that don't generate much money when land use is changed. In Indonesian peatlands, for example, the ASB studies found that land users earned just US$0.10–0.20 per tonne of CO2 equivalent lost from changing land use. Compensating land users to conserve peatlands here could arguably be a cost-effective way to lower emissions, while maximising livelihood benefits.
Another option for REDD could be to focus on supporting trees in farmed landscapes that are intermediate between natural forests and intensive agriculture (i.e. agroforestry systems). The ASB studies show that multi-storey agrofrestry systems, such as cocoa or coffee plantations in west and central Africa, or jungle rubber in Indonesia, can conserve and sequester moderate to high amounts of carbon, while also maintaining relatively high biodiversity and providing moderate profits for farmers.
Better agriculture, less deforestation
But it will take more than financial incentives alone for REDD to lower emissions and improve livelihoods. REDD strategies will also have to address other issues, including causes of deforestation, sustainable forest management and monitoring capacity.
There is overwhelming evidence that deforestation in Africa and parts of Asia is largely due to agricultural expansion. So stopping it means making agriculture more efficient. This, in turn, means that funding for agricultural research and extension programmes for agricultural intensification has to be part of any effective and efficient REDD package.
Investing in agricultural intensification in the tropics is often complicated by unclear tenure and land rights. These also make designing and implementing REDD (and ensuring proper benefit sharing) complicated. Clearly, property rights would have to be reformed for REDD to be successful — which presents a whole new suite of challenges.
And some of the countries with the greatest potential for REDD also have serious governance challenges. For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar, Sudan, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe and to some extent Indonesia are among the top ten countries for REDD potential but have also ranked poorly on forest governance. In many of these countries illegal logging even in protected forests remains a challenge.
Hidden costs
Planning, measuring, monitoring and reporting REDD activities could prove a major stumbling block. We have learned some lessons from existing carbon markets transaction costs, like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which have led to REDD readiness programmes by the World Bank and UN. But this is just a beginning to what's needed.
Many developing countries will require substantial investments in capacity building, science, policy and institutions before REDD will cut carbon emissions and benefit livelihoods. For example, countries will need technical support to develop carbon inventory systems and remote sensing capacity. And they will need support to set up the institutional infrastructure required to distribute REDD benefits and implement various incentive schemes.
Broadly speaking, developing countries will have to promote rural development that encourages high carbon stocks in landscapes with high profitability and other environmental service benefits such as water and biodiversity.
Even if monitoring and measuring can be achieved, there is the question of permanence — whether a projects' emission reductions will stand the test of time, or whether they might be reversed. This issue, among others, has kept the price of carbon from developing countries' land use change and forestry at about US$4 per tonne — compared to about US$15 for the European Union. Any REDD agreement must address this differential if it is to offer developing countries effective financial incentives.
The bottom line is that our support for REDD is based on flimsy evidence. Though opportunity costs appear to be low, we still know very little about how much it will really cost a country to set up and implement REDD. So since the costs and benefits have not been well understood, we cannot realistically assess how and when REDD could deliver sustainable benefits.
Science tells us that valuing forests for carbon (by financing Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) or REDD-plus) could help mitigate climate change and improve livelihoods. But it seems to me that delivering these benefits will depend as much on politics and institutions as on science.
Evidence from across the humid and sub-humid tropics shows that people make very low economic returns from cleared forests, when calculated per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted. The Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins has shown that, in Cameroon, Indonesia, Peru and the Philippines, 80 per cent of all emissions from deforestation between 1990 and 2005 could have been avoided for less than US$5 per tonne of CO2 equivalent released.
This is a relatively low opportunity cost that should make REDD-plus very attractive for developing countries. Other studies including the Stern and Eliasch reviews have also found relatively lower costs compared to other mitigation options. But are low opportunity costs enough?
Land use change in the tropics is driven by people trying to maximise their economic gain. They will always choose the most profitable option available. If REDD is to work as a real financial incentive, it must be robust enough to compete with other potential land uses.
One answer might be to target specific ecosystems, such as peatlands, that store large amounts of carbon and that don't generate much money when land use is changed. In Indonesian peatlands, for example, the ASB studies found that land users earned just US$0.10–0.20 per tonne of CO2 equivalent lost from changing land use. Compensating land users to conserve peatlands here could arguably be a cost-effective way to lower emissions, while maximising livelihood benefits.
Another option for REDD could be to focus on supporting trees in farmed landscapes that are intermediate between natural forests and intensive agriculture (i.e. agroforestry systems). The ASB studies show that multi-storey agrofrestry systems, such as cocoa or coffee plantations in west and central Africa, or jungle rubber in Indonesia, can conserve and sequester moderate to high amounts of carbon, while also maintaining relatively high biodiversity and providing moderate profits for farmers.
Better agriculture, less deforestation
But it will take more than financial incentives alone for REDD to lower emissions and improve livelihoods. REDD strategies will also have to address other issues, including causes of deforestation, sustainable forest management and monitoring capacity.
There is overwhelming evidence that deforestation in Africa and parts of Asia is largely due to agricultural expansion. So stopping it means making agriculture more efficient. This, in turn, means that funding for agricultural research and extension programmes for agricultural intensification has to be part of any effective and efficient REDD package.
Investing in agricultural intensification in the tropics is often complicated by unclear tenure and land rights. These also make designing and implementing REDD (and ensuring proper benefit sharing) complicated. Clearly, property rights would have to be reformed for REDD to be successful — which presents a whole new suite of challenges.
And some of the countries with the greatest potential for REDD also have serious governance challenges. For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar, Sudan, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe and to some extent Indonesia are among the top ten countries for REDD potential but have also ranked poorly on forest governance. In many of these countries illegal logging even in protected forests remains a challenge.
Hidden costs
Planning, measuring, monitoring and reporting REDD activities could prove a major stumbling block. We have learned some lessons from existing carbon markets transaction costs, like the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which have led to REDD readiness programmes by the World Bank and UN. But this is just a beginning to what's needed.
Many developing countries will require substantial investments in capacity building, science, policy and institutions before REDD will cut carbon emissions and benefit livelihoods. For example, countries will need technical support to develop carbon inventory systems and remote sensing capacity. And they will need support to set up the institutional infrastructure required to distribute REDD benefits and implement various incentive schemes.
Broadly speaking, developing countries will have to promote rural development that encourages high carbon stocks in landscapes with high profitability and other environmental service benefits such as water and biodiversity.
Even if monitoring and measuring can be achieved, there is the question of permanence — whether a projects' emission reductions will stand the test of time, or whether they might be reversed. This issue, among others, has kept the price of carbon from developing countries' land use change and forestry at about US$4 per tonne — compared to about US$15 for the European Union. Any REDD agreement must address this differential if it is to offer developing countries effective financial incentives.
The bottom line is that our support for REDD is based on flimsy evidence. Though opportunity costs appear to be low, we still know very little about how much it will really cost a country to set up and implement REDD. So since the costs and benefits have not been well understood, we cannot realistically assess how and when REDD could deliver sustainable benefits.
Reducing forest emissions needs good science
The climate change debate offers a way to integrate forest management into development policy, but strategies must be informed by good science.
Conservationists have long recognised the role of forests in supporting indigenous people's livelihoods in developing countries. In addition to fuel and building material, forests often provide critical supplies of food and medicine. They are also an important source of ever-dwindling biodiversity. In Africa, researchers estimate that more than 70 per cent of people depend on forest resources.
More recently, cash-strapped governments have grown interested in the idea of being paid to conserve forests because of the 'ecosystem services' they provide, such as moderating local air temperature; controlling water flow and mitigating floods; and generating rainfall.
But forests are now being propelled into the spotlight for another value: their ability to store carbon and mitigate climate change. Developing countries will be paid for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in a scheme to be finalised at this year's climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Getting REDD right for everyone
Forests act as carbon sinks — trees and soil absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it away. If left intact, such forests could play a crucial role in offsetting carbon emissions.
But many tropical forests are being rapidly cleared by logging or to make way for agriculture, releasing the carbon stored in them either rapidly if they are burnt, or more slowly as the organic matter decays.
Deforestation can also change soil dynamics and increase erosion, both of which can release more carbon into the atmosphere. Overall, researchers estimate that deforestation emits around one fifth of global carbon emissions.
Any effort to tackle climate change in the long term must therefore involve reducing deforestation.
The 2007 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks in Bali, Indonesia, saw a broad global commitment to reducing emissions from deforestation, and countries around the world are now busy thrashing out the details in time for Copenhagen.
REDD offers a singular opportunity to combine forest management with sustainable development but establishing a one-size-fits-all framework is not easy, particularly given the diversity in forest types, management and use found across the tropics.
As a result while there is an emerging consensus on some aspects of REDD — for example, that only developing countries should be able to benefit, and that funding should come from multiple sources — many of the details remain to be agreed.
Simultaneously meeting local needs and adding to sustainable economic growth is a particular challenge for REDD. A critical component to achieving this is to ensure that REDD strategies are informed by good science that is also locally relevant.
Diverse viewpoints
This week, we put REDD under the spotlight in a series of articles to identify and explore where science and research can make a difference.
A background article summarises the main issues including the development of REDD activities in global climate negotiations, explaining some of the stumbling blocks and outlining how scientists can help (see Reducing forest emissions: Facts and figures).
The task of monitoring, reporting and verifying REDD projects is highlighted as a particular challenge for many developing countries, although recent advances in technologies such as remote sensing can help (see An eye in the sky watching forests disappear).
Science can help in other ways too. Godwin Kowero, head of the African Forest Forum, emphasises the depth of local knowledge held by African forestry researchers and urges global negotiators to listen, and learn from, these critical perspectives (see Getting REDD right for Africa).
Festus Akinnifesi and colleagues from the World Agroforestry Centre offer one such viewpoint, arguing that incorporating agroforestry into REDD is the key to both delivering climate goals and improving livelihoods in Africa (see Africa needs agroforestry to cut forest emissions).
Peter A. Minang, from the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins, provides another. He argues that support for REDD is based on flimsy evidence and that we know little about costs for developing countries (see What are the real costs of reducing forest emissions?).
Meanwhile, N. H. Ravindranath and Shamama Afreen, from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, suggest that REDD is inappropriate for South Asia, saying that a scheme that rewards afforestation, reforestation and growth in forest carbon stocks is needed (see Climate deals should reward wider forest management).
Other problems in REDD proposals are identified by Romain Czebiniak, policy advisor on climate change and forests for Greenpeace. He suggests that while REDD is a critical ingredient in any effort to stay below a two-degree rise in global temperatures, it cannot be simply applied in carbon markets where experience shows that few developing countries can readily participate (see The promise and peril of REDD).
Twin goals
This is by no means an exhaustive list of issues facing REDD negotiators, particularly those from the developing world, as they prepare for Copenhagen. But these articles, taken with the background material we link to, will provide a useful overview of some of the key issues at the interface between REDD and science.
Whatever path the REDD debate takes, negotiators must keep in sight the twin goals of supporting sustainable development while also addressing climate change. A well-structured framework for REDD could help deliver both. But only if it is informed by good, and locally-relevant, science.
Conservationists have long recognised the role of forests in supporting indigenous people's livelihoods in developing countries. In addition to fuel and building material, forests often provide critical supplies of food and medicine. They are also an important source of ever-dwindling biodiversity. In Africa, researchers estimate that more than 70 per cent of people depend on forest resources.
More recently, cash-strapped governments have grown interested in the idea of being paid to conserve forests because of the 'ecosystem services' they provide, such as moderating local air temperature; controlling water flow and mitigating floods; and generating rainfall.
But forests are now being propelled into the spotlight for another value: their ability to store carbon and mitigate climate change. Developing countries will be paid for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in a scheme to be finalised at this year's climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Getting REDD right for everyone
Forests act as carbon sinks — trees and soil absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store it away. If left intact, such forests could play a crucial role in offsetting carbon emissions.
But many tropical forests are being rapidly cleared by logging or to make way for agriculture, releasing the carbon stored in them either rapidly if they are burnt, or more slowly as the organic matter decays.
Deforestation can also change soil dynamics and increase erosion, both of which can release more carbon into the atmosphere. Overall, researchers estimate that deforestation emits around one fifth of global carbon emissions.
Any effort to tackle climate change in the long term must therefore involve reducing deforestation.
The 2007 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks in Bali, Indonesia, saw a broad global commitment to reducing emissions from deforestation, and countries around the world are now busy thrashing out the details in time for Copenhagen.
REDD offers a singular opportunity to combine forest management with sustainable development but establishing a one-size-fits-all framework is not easy, particularly given the diversity in forest types, management and use found across the tropics.
As a result while there is an emerging consensus on some aspects of REDD — for example, that only developing countries should be able to benefit, and that funding should come from multiple sources — many of the details remain to be agreed.
Simultaneously meeting local needs and adding to sustainable economic growth is a particular challenge for REDD. A critical component to achieving this is to ensure that REDD strategies are informed by good science that is also locally relevant.
Diverse viewpoints
This week, we put REDD under the spotlight in a series of articles to identify and explore where science and research can make a difference.
A background article summarises the main issues including the development of REDD activities in global climate negotiations, explaining some of the stumbling blocks and outlining how scientists can help (see Reducing forest emissions: Facts and figures).
The task of monitoring, reporting and verifying REDD projects is highlighted as a particular challenge for many developing countries, although recent advances in technologies such as remote sensing can help (see An eye in the sky watching forests disappear).
Science can help in other ways too. Godwin Kowero, head of the African Forest Forum, emphasises the depth of local knowledge held by African forestry researchers and urges global negotiators to listen, and learn from, these critical perspectives (see Getting REDD right for Africa).
Festus Akinnifesi and colleagues from the World Agroforestry Centre offer one such viewpoint, arguing that incorporating agroforestry into REDD is the key to both delivering climate goals and improving livelihoods in Africa (see Africa needs agroforestry to cut forest emissions).
Peter A. Minang, from the ASB Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins, provides another. He argues that support for REDD is based on flimsy evidence and that we know little about costs for developing countries (see What are the real costs of reducing forest emissions?).
Meanwhile, N. H. Ravindranath and Shamama Afreen, from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, suggest that REDD is inappropriate for South Asia, saying that a scheme that rewards afforestation, reforestation and growth in forest carbon stocks is needed (see Climate deals should reward wider forest management).
Other problems in REDD proposals are identified by Romain Czebiniak, policy advisor on climate change and forests for Greenpeace. He suggests that while REDD is a critical ingredient in any effort to stay below a two-degree rise in global temperatures, it cannot be simply applied in carbon markets where experience shows that few developing countries can readily participate (see The promise and peril of REDD).
Twin goals
This is by no means an exhaustive list of issues facing REDD negotiators, particularly those from the developing world, as they prepare for Copenhagen. But these articles, taken with the background material we link to, will provide a useful overview of some of the key issues at the interface between REDD and science.
Whatever path the REDD debate takes, negotiators must keep in sight the twin goals of supporting sustainable development while also addressing climate change. A well-structured framework for REDD could help deliver both. But only if it is informed by good, and locally-relevant, science.
Australian town bans bottled water
Residents of a rural Australian town have voted to ban the sale of bottled water. They are possibly the first community in the world to take such a step.
Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting on Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia's beverage industry in one day. Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.
"I have never seen 350 Australians in the same room all agreeing to something," said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the "Bundy on Tap" campaign in Bundanoon, a town of 2,500 about 100 miles south of Sydney. "It's time for people to realise they're being conned by the bottled water industry."
First popularised in the 1980s as a convenient, healthy alternative to sugary drinks, bottled water today is often criticised as an environmental menace, with bottles cluttering landfills and requiring large amounts of energy to produce and transport.
Over the past few years, at least 60 cities in the United States and a handful of others in Canada and the United Kingdom have agreed to stop spending taxpayer money on bottled water, which is often consumed during city meetings, said Deborah Lapidus, organiser of Corporate Accountability International's "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign in the US.
But the Boston-based nonprofit corporate watchdog has never heard of a community banning the sale of bottled water, she said.
"I think what this town is doing is taking it one step further and recognising that there's safe drinking water coming out of our taps," she said.
Bundanoon's battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company's proposal in court.
Then in March, Huw Kingston, who owns the town's combination cafe and bike shop, decided that if the town was so against hosting a water bottling company, they could just ban the end product.
To prevent lost profit in the town's businesses that sell bottled water, Kingston suggested they instead sell reusable bottles for about the same price. Residents will be able to fill the bottles for free at public water fountains, or pay a small fee to fill them with filtered water kept in the stores.
The measure will not impose penalties on those who don't comply when it goes into effect in September. Still, all the business owners voluntarily agreed to follow it, Kingston said.
On Wednesday, 356 people voted, which was the biggest turnout ever at a town meeting.
Only two people voted no. One said he was worried banning bottled water would encourage people to drink sugary beverages. The other was Geoff Parker, director of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute which represents the bottled water industry.
Australians spent AU$500m (£242) on bottled water in 2008, a hefty sum for a country of just under 22 million people.
On Thursday, Parker blasted the ban as unfair, misguided and ineffective.
He said the bottled water industry is a leader in researching ways to minimise bottled beverage impact on the environment. Plus, he said, the ban removes consumer choice.
"To take away someone's right to choose possibly the healthiest option in a shop fridge or a vending machine we think doesn't embrace common sense," he said.
But tap water is just as good as the stuff you find encased in plastic, said the campaign organiser Jon Dee, who also serves as director of the Australian environment group Do Something! "We're hoping it will act as a catalyst to people's memories to remember the days when we did not have bottled water," he said. "What is 'Evian' spelled backwards? 'Naive.'"
Last year, students at Leeds University in the UK voted for a ban on bottled water at the university's shops, but no UK village, town or city has yet followed in its footsteps.
Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting on Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia's beverage industry in one day. Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.
"I have never seen 350 Australians in the same room all agreeing to something," said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the "Bundy on Tap" campaign in Bundanoon, a town of 2,500 about 100 miles south of Sydney. "It's time for people to realise they're being conned by the bottled water industry."
First popularised in the 1980s as a convenient, healthy alternative to sugary drinks, bottled water today is often criticised as an environmental menace, with bottles cluttering landfills and requiring large amounts of energy to produce and transport.
Over the past few years, at least 60 cities in the United States and a handful of others in Canada and the United Kingdom have agreed to stop spending taxpayer money on bottled water, which is often consumed during city meetings, said Deborah Lapidus, organiser of Corporate Accountability International's "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign in the US.
But the Boston-based nonprofit corporate watchdog has never heard of a community banning the sale of bottled water, she said.
"I think what this town is doing is taking it one step further and recognising that there's safe drinking water coming out of our taps," she said.
Bundanoon's battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company's proposal in court.
Then in March, Huw Kingston, who owns the town's combination cafe and bike shop, decided that if the town was so against hosting a water bottling company, they could just ban the end product.
To prevent lost profit in the town's businesses that sell bottled water, Kingston suggested they instead sell reusable bottles for about the same price. Residents will be able to fill the bottles for free at public water fountains, or pay a small fee to fill them with filtered water kept in the stores.
The measure will not impose penalties on those who don't comply when it goes into effect in September. Still, all the business owners voluntarily agreed to follow it, Kingston said.
On Wednesday, 356 people voted, which was the biggest turnout ever at a town meeting.
Only two people voted no. One said he was worried banning bottled water would encourage people to drink sugary beverages. The other was Geoff Parker, director of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute which represents the bottled water industry.
Australians spent AU$500m (£242) on bottled water in 2008, a hefty sum for a country of just under 22 million people.
On Thursday, Parker blasted the ban as unfair, misguided and ineffective.
He said the bottled water industry is a leader in researching ways to minimise bottled beverage impact on the environment. Plus, he said, the ban removes consumer choice.
"To take away someone's right to choose possibly the healthiest option in a shop fridge or a vending machine we think doesn't embrace common sense," he said.
But tap water is just as good as the stuff you find encased in plastic, said the campaign organiser Jon Dee, who also serves as director of the Australian environment group Do Something! "We're hoping it will act as a catalyst to people's memories to remember the days when we did not have bottled water," he said. "What is 'Evian' spelled backwards? 'Naive.'"
Last year, students at Leeds University in the UK voted for a ban on bottled water at the university's shops, but no UK village, town or city has yet followed in its footsteps.
Medical Isotope Shortage Looming
A leaky Canadian reactor which supplies the United States with about half of its medical isotopes will be shut for much longer than first anticipated.
Atomic Energy of Canada, a government-owned reactor maker and operator, said on Wednesday that it will likely take until late this year to repair the device in Chalk River, Ontario.
Speaking on a conference call with reporters, Hugh MacDiarmid, the company’s president, did not rule out longer delays.
The 52-year-old reactor, which has been plagued with problems in recent years, closed on May 15 after a leak of heavy water, which it uses as a moderator, was discovered. At the time, Atomic Energy estimated that repairs would take three months.
The reactor is the only one in North America that produces isotopes used medical imaging and treatments.
Sourcing isotopes from other reactors is difficult because Chalk River is the world’s largest isotope maker. Medical isotopes also have a relatively short shelf life, making it impossible to build up stockpiles to cover periods when the reactor is out of order.
Some medical imaging and nuclear physics experts have speculated that Chalk River may never reopen, a possibility that Mr. MacDiarmid rejected.
In a joint statement, Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s health minister, and Lisa Raitt, the natural resources minister, said the continued reactor shutdown “will result in a significant shortage of medical isotopes in Canada and in the world this summer.”
Atomic Energy of Canada, a government-owned reactor maker and operator, said on Wednesday that it will likely take until late this year to repair the device in Chalk River, Ontario.
Speaking on a conference call with reporters, Hugh MacDiarmid, the company’s president, did not rule out longer delays.
The 52-year-old reactor, which has been plagued with problems in recent years, closed on May 15 after a leak of heavy water, which it uses as a moderator, was discovered. At the time, Atomic Energy estimated that repairs would take three months.
The reactor is the only one in North America that produces isotopes used medical imaging and treatments.
Sourcing isotopes from other reactors is difficult because Chalk River is the world’s largest isotope maker. Medical isotopes also have a relatively short shelf life, making it impossible to build up stockpiles to cover periods when the reactor is out of order.
Some medical imaging and nuclear physics experts have speculated that Chalk River may never reopen, a possibility that Mr. MacDiarmid rejected.
In a joint statement, Leona Aglukkaq, Canada’s health minister, and Lisa Raitt, the natural resources minister, said the continued reactor shutdown “will result in a significant shortage of medical isotopes in Canada and in the world this summer.”
The Two-Degree Solution
I’m going to try to go offline through next Tuesday, but wanted to offer one more piece on climate statements by the Group of 8 industrialized countries.
After years of resisting efforts to define a dangerous level of warming in international climate discussions, the United States joined with the rest of the world’s major industrial powers on Wednesday in a (non-binding) pledge to avoid warming the planet beyond a threshold long favored by European governments and many climate campaigners as a no-go zone.
The chosen danger zone, derived from a host of scientific studies over the last two decades, lies 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) beyond the planet’s average temperature in 1850 or so. (That translates to about a 2 degree Fahrenheit warming from today’s global average, by some ways of measuring, of about 59 degrees.)
But, given the persistent lack of clarity on how much the world will warm from a certain buildup of greenhouse gases and the divergent views around the world on what an ideal climate is in any case, is this threshold meaningful or useful? (And of course there’s the question of whether it’s an utterly wishful goal given emissions trends and energy options, as Richard Black explores on his BBC blog.)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, proscribed from making judgments about how much warming is too much by its charter, has focused on laying out what could happen as warming proceeds, degree by degree, demarcating a list of “ reasons for concern” that build rapidly after such a warming. The purpose of the panel’s “ burning embers” diagram was to convey how dangers build without telling governments which point was excessive.
It’s not hard to find climate scientists and policy experts who strongly feel the world needs to move rapidly to curb emissions, but who say there are no such clean lines. Some go further, saying that setting such thresholds can be counterproductive. I touched on this issue a few months ago in my article and Dot Earth post examining “tipping points” in the climate system.
Back in 2006, Gavin Schmidt, the NASA scientist and Realclimate.org blogger, critiqued thresholds in a piece with a great title, “Runaway Tipping Points of No Return”:
This can lead to two seemingly opposite, and erroneous, conclusions – that nothing will happen until we reach the ‘point’ and conversely, that once we’ve reached it, there will be nothing that can be done about it. i.e. it promotes both a cavalier and fatalistic outlook. However, it seems more appropriate to view the system as having multiple tipping points and thresholds that range in importance and scale from the smallest ecosystem to the size of the planet. As the system is forced into new configurations more and more of those points are likely to be passed, but some of those points are more globally serious than others.
Stephen H. Schneider, the Stanford climatologist I’ve been interviewing since 1988 on this issue, has long favored pursuing climate policies that reflect the overall reality that the risk of bad outcomes rises with gas concentrations:
I like to use the analogy to a kids skateboard park, where the ramp starts up slowly, and gets non-linearly steeper until it is vertical at the top and the kid jumps and the parents hide their eyes! In other words, there are many such threshold tipping points in the bio-geophysical-social system, but the problem is we don’t know precisely where they are — ergo the need to frame it probabilistically and my skateboard ramp is an analogy to the steepening threats as we add warming. The warmer we get the more systems there are at risk and the deeper the impacts.
Kenneth Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University says that implying, as many do, that the 2-degree threshold is defined by science and not politics and values is unwise at best:
This presents a value judgment as if it’s a scientific conclusion. I would personally be in favor of a ban on new CO2-emitting devices, but I wouldn’t think of presenting that as a scientific result. We still don’t know for a CO2 doubling whether Earth will warm 2 degrees, 4 degrees or whatever. And we don’t know exactly how the Earth is going to respond to that 2 or 4 degrees of warming. The situation is that we’re entering risky territory and every emission pushes us deeper into that territory faster.
Here’s more from Realclimate.org on the merits and drawbacks of 2 degrees:
We feel compelled to note that even a “moderate” warming of 2°C stands a strong chance of provoking drought and storm responses that could challenge civilized society, leading potentially to the conflict and suffering that go with failed states and mass migrations. Global warming of 2°C would leave the Earth warmer than it has been in millions of years, a disruption of climate conditions that have been stable for longer than the history of human agriculture. Given the drought that already afflicts Australia, the crumbling of the sea ice in the Arctic, and the increasing storm damage after only 0.8°C of warming so far, calling 2°C a danger limit seems to us pretty cavalier.
Realclimate.org authors also said (in 2005):
Is there a “point of no return” or “critical threshold” that will be crossed when the forcings exceed this level, as reported in some media? We don’t believe there is scientific evidence for this. However, as was pointed out at an international symposium on this topic last year in Beijing by Carlo Jaeger, setting a limit is a sensible way to collectively deal with a risk. A speed limit is a prime example. When we set a speed limit at 60 mph, there is no “critical threshold” there – nothing terrible happens if you go to 65 or 70 mph, say. But perhaps at 90 mph the fatalities would clearly exceed acceptable levels. Setting a limit to global warming at 2ºC above pre-industrial temperature is the official policy target of the European Union, and may seem a sensible limit in this sense. But, just like speed limits, it may be difficult to adhere to.
By Andrew C. Revkin
After years of resisting efforts to define a dangerous level of warming in international climate discussions, the United States joined with the rest of the world’s major industrial powers on Wednesday in a (non-binding) pledge to avoid warming the planet beyond a threshold long favored by European governments and many climate campaigners as a no-go zone.
The chosen danger zone, derived from a host of scientific studies over the last two decades, lies 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) beyond the planet’s average temperature in 1850 or so. (That translates to about a 2 degree Fahrenheit warming from today’s global average, by some ways of measuring, of about 59 degrees.)
But, given the persistent lack of clarity on how much the world will warm from a certain buildup of greenhouse gases and the divergent views around the world on what an ideal climate is in any case, is this threshold meaningful or useful? (And of course there’s the question of whether it’s an utterly wishful goal given emissions trends and energy options, as Richard Black explores on his BBC blog.)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, proscribed from making judgments about how much warming is too much by its charter, has focused on laying out what could happen as warming proceeds, degree by degree, demarcating a list of “ reasons for concern” that build rapidly after such a warming. The purpose of the panel’s “ burning embers” diagram was to convey how dangers build without telling governments which point was excessive.
It’s not hard to find climate scientists and policy experts who strongly feel the world needs to move rapidly to curb emissions, but who say there are no such clean lines. Some go further, saying that setting such thresholds can be counterproductive. I touched on this issue a few months ago in my article and Dot Earth post examining “tipping points” in the climate system.
Back in 2006, Gavin Schmidt, the NASA scientist and Realclimate.org blogger, critiqued thresholds in a piece with a great title, “Runaway Tipping Points of No Return”:
This can lead to two seemingly opposite, and erroneous, conclusions – that nothing will happen until we reach the ‘point’ and conversely, that once we’ve reached it, there will be nothing that can be done about it. i.e. it promotes both a cavalier and fatalistic outlook. However, it seems more appropriate to view the system as having multiple tipping points and thresholds that range in importance and scale from the smallest ecosystem to the size of the planet. As the system is forced into new configurations more and more of those points are likely to be passed, but some of those points are more globally serious than others.
Stephen H. Schneider, the Stanford climatologist I’ve been interviewing since 1988 on this issue, has long favored pursuing climate policies that reflect the overall reality that the risk of bad outcomes rises with gas concentrations:
I like to use the analogy to a kids skateboard park, where the ramp starts up slowly, and gets non-linearly steeper until it is vertical at the top and the kid jumps and the parents hide their eyes! In other words, there are many such threshold tipping points in the bio-geophysical-social system, but the problem is we don’t know precisely where they are — ergo the need to frame it probabilistically and my skateboard ramp is an analogy to the steepening threats as we add warming. The warmer we get the more systems there are at risk and the deeper the impacts.
Kenneth Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University says that implying, as many do, that the 2-degree threshold is defined by science and not politics and values is unwise at best:
This presents a value judgment as if it’s a scientific conclusion. I would personally be in favor of a ban on new CO2-emitting devices, but I wouldn’t think of presenting that as a scientific result. We still don’t know for a CO2 doubling whether Earth will warm 2 degrees, 4 degrees or whatever. And we don’t know exactly how the Earth is going to respond to that 2 or 4 degrees of warming. The situation is that we’re entering risky territory and every emission pushes us deeper into that territory faster.
Here’s more from Realclimate.org on the merits and drawbacks of 2 degrees:
We feel compelled to note that even a “moderate” warming of 2°C stands a strong chance of provoking drought and storm responses that could challenge civilized society, leading potentially to the conflict and suffering that go with failed states and mass migrations. Global warming of 2°C would leave the Earth warmer than it has been in millions of years, a disruption of climate conditions that have been stable for longer than the history of human agriculture. Given the drought that already afflicts Australia, the crumbling of the sea ice in the Arctic, and the increasing storm damage after only 0.8°C of warming so far, calling 2°C a danger limit seems to us pretty cavalier.
Realclimate.org authors also said (in 2005):
Is there a “point of no return” or “critical threshold” that will be crossed when the forcings exceed this level, as reported in some media? We don’t believe there is scientific evidence for this. However, as was pointed out at an international symposium on this topic last year in Beijing by Carlo Jaeger, setting a limit is a sensible way to collectively deal with a risk. A speed limit is a prime example. When we set a speed limit at 60 mph, there is no “critical threshold” there – nothing terrible happens if you go to 65 or 70 mph, say. But perhaps at 90 mph the fatalities would clearly exceed acceptable levels. Setting a limit to global warming at 2ºC above pre-industrial temperature is the official policy target of the European Union, and may seem a sensible limit in this sense. But, just like speed limits, it may be difficult to adhere to.
By Andrew C. Revkin
Cleaner Buses in Developing World May Be Key for Climate
Like most thoroughfares in booming cities of the developing world, Bogotá’s Seventh Avenue resembles a noisy, exhaust-coated parking lot — a gluey tangle of cars and the rickety, smoke-puffing private minibuses that have long pBut a few blocks away, sleek, red vehicles full of commuters speed down the four center lanes of Avenida de las Américas. The long, segmented, low-emission buses are part of a novel public transportation system called bus rapid transit, or B.R.T. It is more like an above-ground subway than a collection of bus routes, with seven intersecting lines, enclosed stations that are entered through turnstiles with the swipe of a farecard and coaches that feel like trams inside. Versions of these systems are now being planned or built in dozens of developing cities around the world — Mexico City, Cape Town, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Ahmedabad, India, to name a few — providing a public transportation network that improves traffic flow and reduces smog at a fraction of the cost of building a subway.
But the rapid transit systems have another benefit: they may hold a key to combating climate change. Emissions from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles in the booming cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America account for a rapidly growing component of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. While emissions from industry are decreasing, those related to transportation are expected to rise more than 50 percent by 2030 in industrialized and poorer nations. And 80 percent of that growth will be in the developing world, according to data presented in May at a international conference in Bellagio, Italy, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the Clean Air Institute.
To be effective, a new international climate treaty that will be negotiated in Copenhagen in December must include “a policy response to the CO2 emissions from transport in the developing world,” the Bellagio conference statement concluded.
Bus rapid transit systems like Bogotá’s, called TransMilenio, might hold an answer. Now used for an average of 1.6 million trips each day, TransMilenio has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small, private buses from its roads, reducing the use of bus fuel — and associated emissions — by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001, according to city officials.
In recognition of this feat, TransMilenio last year became the only large transportation project approved by the United Nations to generate and sell carbon credits. Developed countries that exceed their emissions limits under the Kyoto Protocol, or that simply want to burnish a “green” image, can buy credits from TransMilenio to balance out their emissions budgets, bringing Bogotá an estimated $100 million to $300 million so far, analysts say.
Indeed, the city has provided a model of how international programs to combat climate change can help expanding cities — the number of cars in China alone will quadruple between 2002 and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency — pay for transit systems that would otherwise be unaffordable.
“Bogotá was huge and messy and poor, so people said, ‘If Bogotá can do it, why can’t we?’ ” said Enrique Peñalosa, an economist and a former mayor of the city who took TransMilenio from a concept to its initial opening in 2001 and is now advising other cities.
In 2008, Mexico City opened a second successful bus rapid transit line that has already reduced carbon dioxide emissions there, according to Lee Schipper, a transportation expert at Stanford University, and the city has applied to sell carbon credits as well.
But bus rapid transit systems are not the answer for every city. In the United States, where cost is less constraining, some cities, like Los Angeles, have built B.R.T.’s, but they tend to lack many of the components of comprehensive systems like TransMilenio, like fully enclosed stations, and they serve as an addition to existing rail networks.
In some sprawling cities in India, where a tradition of scooter use may make bus rapid transit more difficult to create, researchers are working to develop a new model of tuk-tuk, or motorized cab, that is cheap and will run on alternative fuels or with a highly efficient engine.
“There are three million auto rickshaws in India alone, and the smoke is astonishing, so this could have a huge impact,” said Stef van Dongen, director of Enviu, an environmental network group in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that is sponsoring the research.
Bus rapid transit systems have not always worked well in cities that have tried them, either. In New Delhi, for example, the experiment foundered in part because it proved difficult to protect bus lanes from traffic. And a system that does not succeed in drawing passengers out of their cars just adds buses to existing vehicles on the roads, making traffic and emissions worse.
But with its wide streets, dense population and a tradition of bus travel, Bogotá had the ingredients for success. To create TransMilenio, the city commandeered two to four traffic lanes in the middle of major boulevards, isolating them with low walls to create the system’s so-called tracks. On the center islands that divide many of Bogotá’s two-way streets, the city built dozens of distinctive metal-and-glass stations.
Just as in a subway, the multiple doors on the buses slide open level with the platform, providing easy access for strollers and older riders. Hundreds of passengers can wait on the platforms, avoiding the delays that occur when passengers each pay as they board.
Mr. Peñalosa noted that the negative stereotypes about bus travel required some clever rebranding. Now, he said, upscale condominiums advertise that they are near TransMilenio lines. “People don’t say, ‘I’m taking the bus,’ they say, ‘I’m taking TransMilenio,’ ” he added, as he rode at rush hour recently, chatting with other passengers.
Jorge Engarrita, 45, a leatherworker who was riding TransMilenio to work, said the system had “changed his life,” reducing his commuting time to 40 minutes with one transfer from two or three hours on several buses. Free shuttle buses carry residents from outlying districts to TransMilenio terminals.
To the dismay of car owners, Bogotá removed one-third of its street parking to make room for TransMilenio and imposed alternate-day driving restrictions determined by license plate numbers, forcing car owners onto the system.
With an extensive route system, TransMilenio moves more passengers per mile every hour than almost any of the world’s subways. Most poorer cities that have built subways, like Manila and Lagos, Nigeria, can afford to build only a few limited lines because of the expense.
Subways cost more than 30 times as much per mile to build than a B.R.T. system, and three times as much to maintain. And bus rapid transit systems can be built more quickly. “Almost all rapidly developing cities understand that they need a metro or something like it, and you can get a B.R.T. by 2010 or a metro by 2060,” said Walter Hook, executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, in New York.
Although TransMilenio buses run on diesel, their high-efficiency engines mean they emit less than half the nitrous oxide, particulate matter and carbon dioxide of the older minibuses. Cleaner fuels were either too expensive or did not work at Bogotá’s altitude, 9,000 feet above sea level.
TransMilenio is building more lines and underpasses to allow the buses to bypass clogged intersections, but for the moment the real challenge is overcrowding.
Juan Gómez, 21, a businessman, takes TransMilenio only on days when he cannot drive, and he griped that it was often hard to find a seat.
“It’s O.K., but I prefer the car,” he said.rovided transportation for the masses.
But the rapid transit systems have another benefit: they may hold a key to combating climate change. Emissions from cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles in the booming cities of Asia, Africa and Latin America account for a rapidly growing component of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. While emissions from industry are decreasing, those related to transportation are expected to rise more than 50 percent by 2030 in industrialized and poorer nations. And 80 percent of that growth will be in the developing world, according to data presented in May at a international conference in Bellagio, Italy, sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the Clean Air Institute.
To be effective, a new international climate treaty that will be negotiated in Copenhagen in December must include “a policy response to the CO2 emissions from transport in the developing world,” the Bellagio conference statement concluded.
Bus rapid transit systems like Bogotá’s, called TransMilenio, might hold an answer. Now used for an average of 1.6 million trips each day, TransMilenio has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small, private buses from its roads, reducing the use of bus fuel — and associated emissions — by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001, according to city officials.
In recognition of this feat, TransMilenio last year became the only large transportation project approved by the United Nations to generate and sell carbon credits. Developed countries that exceed their emissions limits under the Kyoto Protocol, or that simply want to burnish a “green” image, can buy credits from TransMilenio to balance out their emissions budgets, bringing Bogotá an estimated $100 million to $300 million so far, analysts say.
Indeed, the city has provided a model of how international programs to combat climate change can help expanding cities — the number of cars in China alone will quadruple between 2002 and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency — pay for transit systems that would otherwise be unaffordable.
“Bogotá was huge and messy and poor, so people said, ‘If Bogotá can do it, why can’t we?’ ” said Enrique Peñalosa, an economist and a former mayor of the city who took TransMilenio from a concept to its initial opening in 2001 and is now advising other cities.
In 2008, Mexico City opened a second successful bus rapid transit line that has already reduced carbon dioxide emissions there, according to Lee Schipper, a transportation expert at Stanford University, and the city has applied to sell carbon credits as well.
But bus rapid transit systems are not the answer for every city. In the United States, where cost is less constraining, some cities, like Los Angeles, have built B.R.T.’s, but they tend to lack many of the components of comprehensive systems like TransMilenio, like fully enclosed stations, and they serve as an addition to existing rail networks.
In some sprawling cities in India, where a tradition of scooter use may make bus rapid transit more difficult to create, researchers are working to develop a new model of tuk-tuk, or motorized cab, that is cheap and will run on alternative fuels or with a highly efficient engine.
“There are three million auto rickshaws in India alone, and the smoke is astonishing, so this could have a huge impact,” said Stef van Dongen, director of Enviu, an environmental network group in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that is sponsoring the research.
Bus rapid transit systems have not always worked well in cities that have tried them, either. In New Delhi, for example, the experiment foundered in part because it proved difficult to protect bus lanes from traffic. And a system that does not succeed in drawing passengers out of their cars just adds buses to existing vehicles on the roads, making traffic and emissions worse.
But with its wide streets, dense population and a tradition of bus travel, Bogotá had the ingredients for success. To create TransMilenio, the city commandeered two to four traffic lanes in the middle of major boulevards, isolating them with low walls to create the system’s so-called tracks. On the center islands that divide many of Bogotá’s two-way streets, the city built dozens of distinctive metal-and-glass stations.
Just as in a subway, the multiple doors on the buses slide open level with the platform, providing easy access for strollers and older riders. Hundreds of passengers can wait on the platforms, avoiding the delays that occur when passengers each pay as they board.
Mr. Peñalosa noted that the negative stereotypes about bus travel required some clever rebranding. Now, he said, upscale condominiums advertise that they are near TransMilenio lines. “People don’t say, ‘I’m taking the bus,’ they say, ‘I’m taking TransMilenio,’ ” he added, as he rode at rush hour recently, chatting with other passengers.
Jorge Engarrita, 45, a leatherworker who was riding TransMilenio to work, said the system had “changed his life,” reducing his commuting time to 40 minutes with one transfer from two or three hours on several buses. Free shuttle buses carry residents from outlying districts to TransMilenio terminals.
To the dismay of car owners, Bogotá removed one-third of its street parking to make room for TransMilenio and imposed alternate-day driving restrictions determined by license plate numbers, forcing car owners onto the system.
With an extensive route system, TransMilenio moves more passengers per mile every hour than almost any of the world’s subways. Most poorer cities that have built subways, like Manila and Lagos, Nigeria, can afford to build only a few limited lines because of the expense.
Subways cost more than 30 times as much per mile to build than a B.R.T. system, and three times as much to maintain. And bus rapid transit systems can be built more quickly. “Almost all rapidly developing cities understand that they need a metro or something like it, and you can get a B.R.T. by 2010 or a metro by 2060,” said Walter Hook, executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, in New York.
Although TransMilenio buses run on diesel, their high-efficiency engines mean they emit less than half the nitrous oxide, particulate matter and carbon dioxide of the older minibuses. Cleaner fuels were either too expensive or did not work at Bogotá’s altitude, 9,000 feet above sea level.
TransMilenio is building more lines and underpasses to allow the buses to bypass clogged intersections, but for the moment the real challenge is overcrowding.
Juan Gómez, 21, a businessman, takes TransMilenio only on days when he cannot drive, and he griped that it was often hard to find a seat.
“It’s O.K., but I prefer the car,” he said.rovided transportation for the masses.
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