Australia and Europe to link their ETS
Beginning 1 July 2015, Australia’s carbon pricing scheme will be linked to the EU’s ETS under a provisional link that will coordinate carbon prices in the two markets, and allow for global permit trading.
A deal was recently struck by Canberra and the EC to link the Australian and EU ETS. It was announced that Australian liable entities will be able to buy up to 50% of their carbon permits in Europe from 2015. European entities will also be able to purchase credits from Australia from 2018. Linking the markets will create the world’s biggest emissions trading market.
“The EU is the first regional emissions trading system and spans the largest part of the European continent. We now look forward to the first full intercontinental linking of ETS,” said Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action.
Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal and iron ore. With heavy reliance on coal-fired power stations to generate electricity, Australians generate more carbon pollution per head than any other developed country. With a population of 22 million, the country is responsible for 1.5% of global GHG emissions. In contrast, Britain is responsible for just 1.7%, despite having nearly three-times the population of Australia.
Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, said that “Linking the Australian and EU systems reaffirms that carbon markets are the prime vehicle for tackling climate change and the most efficient means of achieving emissions reductions. These arrangements provide Australian businesses with access to a larger market for cost-effective emission reductions and provide European market participants with enhanced business opportunities.”
To facilitate linking, the Australian Government will make two changes to the design of the Australian carbon price: the first is that the price floor will not be implemented, and second, “a new sublimit will apply to the use of eligible Kyoto units. While liable entities in Australia will still be able to meet up to 50% of their liabilities through purchasing eligible international units, only 12.5% of their liabilities will be able to be met by Kyoto units.”
Hedegaard stated, “I welcome the changes agreed to by the Australian Government, which will allow the interim arrangements to proceed. The step-wise linking of the European and Australian market will ease full linking in 2018.”
Chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change, Nathian Fabian, said the link between the two markets would please investors. “We think investors will be pleased about the greater predictability this arrangement will give in the longer term for carbon pricing arrangements and, of course, linking with a larger, more liquid market, which is more established is also good for investor confidence,” Fabian said.
The EC and Australia will work to agree registry arrangements for the interim link by mid-2013. A full linking, by means of the mutual recognition of carbon units between the two cap-and-trade systems, is aimed to occur no later than July 2018.
– Written by Joanna Tung
Sources: EU press release: www.europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/916&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter; Australia and European Commission agree on pathway towards fully linking emissions trading systems: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/28/australia-eu-carbon-markets?INTCMP=SRCH
‘Game-changing’ value-chain carbon management software delivered by Carbon Trust and CRedit360
The Carbon Trust and CRedit360 have recently collaborated and announced a new series of software solutions, designed to enable companies to cost effectively manage value-chain carbon emissions. The system has potential to measure, calculate, interpret and make recommendations on carbon reduction activities.
Carbon footprinting typically includes direct and indirect operational emissions, known as Scope 1 and 2 emissions under the Kyoto GHG Protocol. Scope 3 emissions, which represent the full life cycle from both suppliers and consumers, including all use and end-of-life emissions, are also included in value-chain footprinting. To meet business requirements, it is critical that data are captured accurately to enable strategic business decisions to be made with confidence.
John Whybrow, General Manager of Software at the Carbon Trust, said that “Many companies are already stretching the capabilities of Excel™ to the limit and businesses need to have a reliable intuitive solution that can deliver the right level of business insight without the need for data-management specialists. We believe the collaboration with CRedit360 will deliver unique game-changing software to help address this challenge.”
Rewards of a successful collaboration would include significant cost reduction, enhanced revenue, risk mitigation and improved brand equity. However, accurately measuring value-chain emissions represents high volumes of data and presents unique, complex and time-consuming challenges.
Value Chain Hot-Spotter, the first of the products developed by the collaboration, is available now. It has been designed to enable companies to quickly estimate carbon intensive areas of their value chain. The release of the full value-chain reporting software platform is planned for later in 2012.
– Written by Joanna Tung
Source: Carbon Trust and CRedit360 partner to deliver ‘game-changing’ value chain carbon management software: www.carbontrust.com/about-us/press/2012/08/value-chain-carbon-management-software-carbon-trust-credit360
Computer model may speed up the search for better carbon capture
A new computer modeling system has recently been developed by researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (CA, USA), the University of California, Berkeley (CA, USA) and the University of Minnesota (MN, USA). It is the first computational method to provide accurate simulations of the interactions between CO2, molecular nitrogen and other GHGs with metal–organic frameworks (MOFs).
Existing technologies, based on amine and other molecular systems, would use about one-third of the energy generated by the power plants, substantially increasing the price of electricity. MOFs are crystalline systems, structurally consisting of a metal oxide center surrounded by organic linker molecules to form highly porous 3D crystal frameworks. MOFs have unsaturated open metal sites, enabling them to have a large surface area, a strong affinity for CO2 and the opportunity for customization of their chemical behavior. Since MOFs exist in millions of variations, finding the small fraction of them that are of use is important.
“Our model saves this time by enabling us to synthesize only those that are most ideal,” stated Berend Smit, who is co-leader of the model, holding appointments with the Berkeley Laboratory’s Materials Sciences Division and University of California, Berkeley.
Previous forcefield models underestimated the properties of open metal site MOFs by two orders of magnitude. The new model uses state-of-the-art quantum chemical calculations and a strategy based on the non-empirical model potential methodology.
“With the model we developed we were able to reproduce the experimental adsorption isotherms of CO2 and molecular nitrogen and correctly predict the mixture isotherms at flue-gas conditions in Mg-MOF-74, an open metal site MOF that has emerged as one of the most promising for CO2 capture,” Smit added.
The aim is for development of forcefield models for broad combinations of different metals, linkers and topologies. Work is already underway to apply the model to new amine-based systems for removing CO2 from flue exhaust.
– Written by Joanna Tung
Source: Speeding the search for better carbon capture: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2012/08/20/speeding-the-search-for-better-carbon-capture
Report charts China’s increasing emissions
The average carbon footprint of people living in China is now almost the same as that of the average European.
China became the largest national emitter of CO2 in 2006, while its emissions per person have always been lower than those in developed countries. However, a recent report, carried out by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the EC’s Joint Research Centre, only based on energy consumption data for 2009 to 2011, has shown that in 2011 emissions in China increased by 9% per capita in 2011 to reach 7.2 tonnes per person, which is almost equal to the EU average of 7.5 tonnes. The total Chinese CO2 emissions are now approximately 80% higher than those of the USA; the USA is still in the lead with 17.3 tonnes of emission per person.
Emission levels are decreasing in many OECD countries, driven mainly by the recession and high oil prices compared to low fuel taxes, while China’s emissions have been rising rapidly, as a result of its increasing rate of economic growth and construction activity. Other studies have highlighted that China’s emissions may be even higher than reported, showing that the country’s official energy statistics were as much as 20% lower than they should be. A challenge currently faced by China is the accuracy and reliability of their emissions data. “The sad fact is that Chinese energy and emission data as primary input to the models will add extra uncertainty in modeling simulations of predicting future climatic change,” say the authors of a study published in Nature Climate Change.
The latest results published by Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research, and recent statistics on energy use and other activities provided by energy company BP, were used in the report. The report has shown that global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other sources, such as gas flaring and cement production, increased by 3% in 2011. This has lead to a record-breaking total emissions of 34 billion tonnes of CO2, exceeding the average annual increase for the past decade, which stands at 2.7%. CO2 emissions in all OECD countries now equal those in China and India combined, each representing one-third of global emissions.
– Written by Delaram Ranaei
Sources: Olivier JGJ, Janssens-Maenhout G, Peters JAHW. Trends in global CO2 emissions 2012 report (2012): www.pbl.nl/en/news/newsitems/2012/per-capita-co2-emissions-in-china-reached-european-level; Guan D, Liu Z, Geng Y, Lindner S, Hubacek K. The gigatonne gap in China’s carbon dioxide inventories. Nat. Climate Change doi:10.1038/nclimate1560 (2012) (Epub ahead of print). China emissions study suggests climate change could be faster than thought: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/06/10/us-china-emissions-idUKBRE8590AD20120610
Revealed: Facebook’s carbon footprint
New data has recently revealed figures for the carbon footprint of Facebook’s numerous operations and activities.
A comparison with Google has been made, showing that “Facebook’s annual emissions were 285,000 metric tons of CO2-e in 2011, compared with Google’s 1.5 million tons in 2010.” Calculations have also been able to identify that 72% of emissions come from the company’s data centers in the USA. For active individual users, an annual footprint of approximately 269 g, or the equivalent footprint of a cup of coffee, has been stated.
The energy sources that power Facebook’s data centers have been disclosed: “The majority, 27%, comes from coal power, with the rest coming from renewable sources (23%), gas (17%), nuclear (13%) and the remaining 20% uncategorized.”
It was announced by Facebook last year that it would aim to build a ‘green’ data center in Sweden. The new center would take advantage and utilize the country’s cold climate to keep servers cool – one of the most energy intensive elements of data center operations.
“ For active individual users, an annual footprint of approximately 269 g, or the equivalent footprint of a cup of coffee, has been stated. ”
The future of computing looks to move from local machines to technology known as ‘the cloud’. The technology allows for more efficient computing by centralizing data storage, processing and bandwidth. However, the environmental impact of hosting so much data in iCloud services is under increasing scrutiny from green campaigners.
– Written by Joanna Tung
Source: Green on Facebook: www.facebook.com/green/app_267612046686321;
Opponents of the EU carbon tax for airlines fail to find an alternative
A 2-day meeting for countries opposed to the EU carbon tax has been recently held in Washington, DC, USA. However, the meeting aimed at devising an alternative global solution has ended without a joint declaration between the 17 nations.
Delegates from around the world, including emerging countries such as China, India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, who are opposed to the controversial EU scheme, have been discussing an alternative solution that would include the EU avoiding a patchwork system if other countries impose their own tax. Although, a global solution was not achieved, the countries reaffirmed that they want to continue discovering an alternative solution to address GHG emissions under the UN’s aviation body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
“The meeting confirmed strong opposition to the ETS, but indicated interest in continuing to work on the suite of activities in the ICAO,” said a senior US official.
The countries plan to implement the goals and actions that they agreed to at the 2010 ICAO assembly. These consist of a voluntary target to cap net carbon emissions by 2020, national action plans, improving air traffic management and applying an emissions standard for aircraft.
Among the opposing countries, there was also broad agreement that they would strive to develop market-based measures that countries or regions could use to curb emissions.
– Written by Delaram Ranaei
Source: US Department of State, background briefing: senior administration official provides a readout of the European Union Emissions Trading System (ETS) meeting: www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/08/195960.htm
Carbon storage capacity in Ghanaian forests increases despite drought
A study by a team of UK and Ghanaian researchers suggests that despite the area experiencing a 40-year drought, the carbon storage capacity of protected forests in West Africa has increased.
West Africa has been in drought for approximately 40 years – since 1970 there has been a reduction in rainfall of 11%, with a 23% reduction in the driest part of the year.
The researchers tracked more than 10,000 trees between 1990 and 2010, assessing changes in plant functional composition and biomass in 19 plots, from a variety of forest types. They found that there was an increasing number of dry forest, deciduous, canopy species that had intermediate light demand, and a decreasing number of wet forest, evergreen, subcanopy and shade-tolerant species. Total aboveground biomass also increased.
Lead author Sophie Fauset, a researcher from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds (UK), explains, “Tropical forests are valuable stores of carbon and biodiversity, but these stores are under threat given future increases in temperature and shifts in rainfall patterns. Short-term droughts cause high tree mortality and declines in forest carbon storage, but our results show that in response to longer term droughts tropical forests can change their species composition, and maintain their overall forest carbon stocks.”
Fauset suggested, therefore, that “…projects aiming to mitigate CO2 emissions using forests should aim to conserve the processes that maintain species diversity, and reforestation projects should utilize a broad range of native species.”
The research is a collaborative effort between the University of Leeds, Forestry Commission of Ghana, Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, and University of Aberdeen (UK), and is funded by the Earth and Biosphere Institute (UK) and the Royal Society (UK).
– Written by Deborah Hide
Sources: Fauset S, Baker TR, Lewis SL et al. Drought-induced shifts in the floristic and functional composition of tropical forests in Ghana. Ecol. Lett. doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01834.x (2012) (Epub ahead of print); University of Leeds press release: Biodiversity protects tropical rainforests from drought: www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3281/biodiversity_protects_tropical_rainforests_from_drought
TINAs: examining the potential of marine energy, carbon capture, electricity networks and storage
The Low Carbon Innovation Coordination Group (LCICG) has recently published three in-depth reports, known as technology innovation needs assessments (TINAs). The work has been implemented by the Carbon Trust, with input from all core LCICG members, other organizations and individual experts in the field.
The TINAs examine and focus on the commercial potential and key economic benefits of marine energy, electricity networks and storage, as well as CSS. Addressed in the study are the key obstacles that need to be overcome to ensure they achieve their full potential. The first study, on CCS, states that it has huge potential and ability to impact the UK and global future energy systems, helping to cut down on GHG emissions. There is scope to reduce UK energy system costs by GB£10–45 billion to 2050. Innovation can also help create a UK industry with potential to contribute further economic value of £3–16 billion by 2050.
The second study describes the potential of utilizing marine energy sources in the UK, using both tidal and wave energy. By successfully harnessing this energy, it is thought marine energy could deliver over 10% of the UK’s electricity needs in 2050 while helping to meet GHG emission and renewable energy targets. In order to compete with other technologies, however, the cost of energy generated needs a reduction of 50–75% to approximately £100/MWh by approximately 2025.
Concepts for the design, operation and maintenance have not yet been fully developed but, if successful, marine energy could save the energy system approximately £3–8 billion up to 2050.
The final report focuses on electricity, networks and storage technologies, with emphasis on renewable electricity generation, renewable heat, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies, and improvement from traditional fossil fuel power systems. It states that with innovation in electricity, networks and storage technologies, a saving of £4–19 billion could be made, alongside emergence of UK-based business opportunities in the low-carbon sector that could contribute an estimated £6–34 billion to GDP by 2050.
The findings will be used to structure LCICG’s programs in these technological areas. TINAs for other low-carbon sources including bioenergy, industrial energy efficiency, renewable heat, nuclear fission and hydrogen are expected to be published in the near future.
– Written by Joanna Tung
Source: Low carbon technologies have been put under the spotlight with the publication of three in-depth reports into key areas of innovation: www.carbontrust.com/news/2012/08/tinas-potential-of-marine-energy-electricity-networks-and-carbon-capture