Scotland tops EU emissions reduction table

It was revealed this week that Scotland has topped the European league table for emissions reductions.  Between 1990-2010, emissions in Scotland fell by 22.8% which is the largest reduction among the EU-15 Member States.
SSN

CleanWeb or CleanTech

An interesting prospective from @SunilPaul showing the growth of CleanWeb as opposed to CleanTech.  An excellent ending quote from @Montymetzger.

"Your mobile phone has more processing power that all of NASA in 1969. NASA launched a man to the moon.  We launch a bird into pigs."

Clean Informatics

Green Investment Bank HQ to be Edinburgh

Great news for Scotland and Edinburgh, GIB to have HQ in Edinburgh with an office in London.
BBC News

131 Years of Global Warming in 26 seconds - video from NASA

The Carbon Bubble will Burst

A very interesting thought pieice on  how the carbon bubble will burst and how this will cause economic uncertainty.
"For the last 20 years, politicians and regulators were asleep at the wheel, allowing a bubble to inflate which when it burst pushed the global economy to the brink of collapse. Less than four years on and there is ample evidence precisely the same thing is happening again, only this time it is both the global economy and the global ecosystem that could collapse. Investors, pension funds, politicians, and business leaders all need to wake up to these risks, and fast."  James Murray Editor of Business Green.
Business Green

Scottish Government Announces New Sustainable Transport Funding Package

The Scottish Government last week announced details of a new four year sustainable transport fund. The Future Transport Fund is a four year £50 million funding package targeted at improving cycling infrastructure, shifting freight from road to rail and supporting low carbon vehicles.

Sustainable Scotland Network

The Edinburgh Partnership has been allocated £207,000 to encourage the use of green transport amongst its community planning partners. A host of new electric cars are set to be added to public sector agencies’ fleets across Edinburgh as funding is secured from the Scottish Government to promote sustainable travel.
City of Edinburgh

Scotland to have £7bn grid upgrade to ease renewables deployment

UK energy regulator Ofgem has outlined plans for a £7bn upgrade of Scotland’s grid to ease the integration of renewables on to the electricity network.
Ofgem has launched a consultation on proposals that include a £2.9bn of investment with up to a further £4.7bn available over the course of the price control period, out to 2021.

New Energy World Network

CER's drop to all time low of €3.32/tC

The price of UN-backed carbon offsets hit a record low of €3.32 a tonne this morning, as fears over the eurozone crisis and on-going concerns about the long-term validity of some certified emission reduction (CER) credits prompted a sell off. Prices fell by over six per cent before rallying slightly to over €3.60.
Business Green

EU Meets 2010 Renewables Target

The EU achieved its 2010 renewable electricity target of 21% of electricity consumption according to latest analysis by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

If renewable electricity production in the EU continued to grow at the same rate as it did from 2005 to 2010 it would account for 36.4% of electricity in 2020 and 51.6% in 2030.

EWEA

Scottish Government Publish Land Use Strategy Action Plan

Following the publication of the Land Use Strategy in March 2011, the Scottish Government have published an accompanying Land Use Strategy Action Plan on 21 December 2011.

A number of short- and long-term milestones have been identified in the Action Plan to deliver the 13 Proposals detailed in the Strategy. These include:

• Development of an Agri-Renewables Strategy in summer 2012
• Submission of advice from the Woodland Expansion Advisory Group in June 2012
• Water environment mapping by SEPA during 2012
• Creation of an Environmental Crime Taskforce in spring 2012
• The identification of pilot areas for peatland restoration

Sustainable-Scotland.net  |  Scottish Government's Land Use Strategy Action Plan

Scottish Government Deal with Masdar

The First Minister Alex Salmond will travel to the Middle East next week to sign a ground-breaking deal on renewables.Mr Salmond will sign Scotland up to a landmark agreement to develop tangible green energy products with the world's leading innovator, Masdar, based in Abu Dhabi.  This will focus on Universtiy research towards renewables.

Scottish Government

Australian Carbon Farming Initiative

The Australian Government has approved a methodology that will allow farmers and land owners to generate extra revenue while reducing carbon pollution by planting permanent native forest trees.Australian Government's CFI  |  Farm Weekly Australia

Scotland could generate £2bn annually by exporting electriicty

According to a report by think-tank Reform Scotland the country could generate £2bn annually by exporting electricity and becoming a world leader in new energy technology if energy policy was fully devolved from Westminster. The report, Powering Scotland, said energy powers should be formally devolved to Holyrood so that the Scottish Government can formulate a policy that truly meets the country’s needs.

"This would increase Scottish exports by £2 billion per annum, equivalent to around 17% of manufacturing exports to the rest of the UK".
Reform Scotland

Durban Climate Deal or No Deal?

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) confirmed that attendees delivered a "breakthrough on the future of the international community’s response to climate change". A universal legal agreement on climate change will be adopted as soon as possible, but no later than 2015.

Governments also agreed to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol from January 2013 and to "get the Green Climate Fund up and running" to deliver financial support of developing countries to reduce emissions.
UNFCCC
 Climate activists are saying that this is still not enough and it will mean that the 2 degrees Celcius rise will be breached and it now be 4 degrees. Some even called the deal useless. Whilst the new agreement will be decided no later than 2015, it is not schedulded to come into effect until 2020 which many are saying is too late.
Further Views and links EcoAnalytics

Stop the Annual Charade of UN Climate Talks

A must read persepctive on Durban COP17 from Michael Liebreich saying it won't work and summising that the UNFCCC should be broken into three tracks.

1. A forum for the top 20 emitting nations to work on mitigation, or controlling the amount of greenhouse gases they produce.
2. A group to work on helping the poorest nations on Earth deal with adaptation, which should unequivocally be funded by the biggest historical emitters.
3. A group to deal with eliminating deforestation, which is far too complex to be seen through a climate and carbon lens alone.

Bloomberg

Met Office Climate Change Assessment

The results of a major new scientific assessment of climate change assessment commissioned by Chris Huhne, the UK's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and lead by the Met Office Hadley Centre studied 24 different countries, from developed to developing. It notes that all the countries in the study have warmed since the 1960s and that the occurrence of extremely warm temperatures has increased whilst extremely cold temperatures have become less frequent.

Key findings:

• All countries studied show an increase in the number of people at risk from coastal flooding due to sea level rise. By the end of the century, in the worst case scenario, up to about 49 million additional people could be at risk, with the majority being in Bangladesh, China, India, Egypt and Indonesia;
• The majority of countries studied are projected to see a significant increased risk of river flooding;
• The production of staple food crops may decline in parts of Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Russia, Turkey, and the USA. In some cases, crop yield increases may be expected for example in Germany and Japan. Food security is highlighted as a growing risk before 2040 in Bangladesh and India;
• Water resources are threatened by drought and growing demand. Areas highlighted as likely to suffer increased water stress include parts of Italy, France and the southwest USA. In some cases however, water stress may decline in some regions.

Met Office | Country Specific Reports

Huhne opens UK’s first CCS plant

Plans to commercialise carbon capture storage (CCS) technology took a major step forward today, after Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne formally opened a £21m pilot project in West Yorkshire.

Energy giant SSE launched the UK's first live trial of a CCS system at its Ferrybridge power station today, in collaboration with Swedish utility Vattenfall and engineering firm Doosan Power Systems.
BusinessGreen

Deutsche Bank Lowers Carbon Price

Deutsche Bank said its previous carbon price forecasts the EU ETS's year-ends from 2011-14 are too optimistic.  The bank now predicts the price of carbon will be:

• 2011 -  €12/t rather than €17/t, 
• 2012 - €15/t instead of €19/t 
• 2014 - €22/t rather than €24/t.

Business Green

Australian Carbon Farming Initiative

The Australian Government has introduced a scheme to encourage farmers to take advantage of carbon from land use credits from reforestatoin and also includes biochar.
The Carbon Farming Initiative includes:

• Legislation to establish a carbon crediting mechanism
• Fast-tracked development of methodologies for offset projects, and
• Information and tools to help farmers and landholders benefit from carbon markets

Aus Gov |  Offset Methodologies  |  Fact Sheet

China's Toe in the Water for an Emissions Trading Scheme

China has ambitious plans to reduce the carbon intensity of it economy by 40~45% by 2020 against 2005 levels. The country (where nearly 70 percent of the power supply comes from coal) is taking this commitment serious.

China has made significant progress in specifying the targets, incorporating them into national development strategies and notably, laying the foundation for pilot emission reduction incentive or trading schemes. China’s first steps to the establishment of a national carbon emission trading scheme are becoming visible.

Funding has been given for Tianjin to launch a pilot carbon market in 2013.  Tianjin Municipality alone has a population of around 13 million and had a nominal GDP of US$110 billion in 2009.

Tianjin is just one of seven cities and five provinces selected by the central government to launch pilot. 
China has comitted to having a fully functional Emissions Trading Scheme in place by 2015.

NY Times  |   Climate Focus  | Piloting Carbon Trading in China - Karla Lieberg and Jelmer Hoogzaad

Carbon Market Prices Tumbles

U.N.-backed carbon prices fell to a new record low on Wednesday, taking a cue from a 7-percent drop in European Union carbon permits amid growing worries about a slowing economy.

• EU Allowances (EUA's ) hit a fresh 33-month low of 8.45 euros.
• Certified Emissions Reduction (CERs) contract traded at a record 5.99 euros ($8.08), down 6.4 percent from the previous day's settlement.

In the same week a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report showed that Greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 could rise more than forecast to between 6 billion and 11 billion tons above what is needed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

"To stay within the 2 degree limit, global emissions will have to peak soon (and) total greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 must be about 46 percent lower than their 1990 level, or about 53 percent lower than their 2005 level," the report said.


Reuters - EU CO2 underperfomance strains traders' faith
Reuters- Emissions cuts off course to halt global warming: UNEP

6 US States withdraw from WCI

Six U.S. states have abandoned the planned Western Climate Initiative greenhouse gas trading program leaving only California and four Canadian provinces involved in the program’s development.   New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Utah have formally declared their withdrawal from the WCI.

Instead they have joined the North America 2050 Climate Initiative which aims to collaborate on topics such as exploring carbon capture and sequestration and developing high quality offsets that may be used in emissions trading programmes.


Environmental Finance
Environmental Leader
NA 2050 Factsheet Download on WCI's website

BP Target Neutral

BP has launched its Target Neutral offering using AMEE data which allows you to calculate and off-set personal travel emissions.  Off-sets are accredited by  internationally-recognised ICROA Code of Best Practice and money goes towards a varied spread  of off-set projects http://www.bptargetneutral.com/our-projects/
https://calculatetargetneutral.bp.com/ 

CDP Launches Supplier Emissions Scoring

The Carbon Disclosure Project and FirstCarbon Solutions have launched a program to score the CDP Supply Chain program.
Environmental Leader

CCS - We shouldn't focus on the capture

Article showing that the focus on the Capture is wrong, we should be focussing on the connection, network development, and transferring and storing the captured carbon dioxide.
Utility Week

Renewable Energy as Share of Total Primary Consumption, 2010

Link to Graph and stats for 2010.  Environmental Leader

Water footprint of energy companies set to be key theme of 2012

Deloitte's 'Energy & Resource Predictions 2012' report outlines 10 key themes likely to impact the energy and resources sector over the next year.  This includes: volatility in commodity prices; new technologies in oil recovery; demergers among international oil companies; and breakthroughs in nanotechnology.

It notes that we will see a rise in the importance of water footprinting of energy companies and that "according to a recent Globescan/Circle of Blue survey, water-related themes represented the number one and number two concerns identified, with even climate change ranked sixth".
Deloitte

Global project financing hits a new peak but Asia experiences its first decrease since 2010

Global project financing volumes grew to $49.9 billion in 3Q11, a 15% increase on the $43.4 billion recorded in 2Q11 and a 50% increase on the $33.3 billion in the corresponding period last year. This rise pushed financing volumes to their highest level ever recorded.
Clean Energy Pipeline

Skills Research Energy Efficiency and MicroGeneration

The report was commissioned by the Scottish Government, in conjunction with Built Environment Sector Skills Councils and The Alliance of Sector Skills Councils (Scotland), to enhance the evidence base for energy efficiency and low carbon skills in Scotland. This complements the objectives outlined in the Energy Efficiency Action Plan ( EEAP) for Scotland in which the Scottish Government has set out a "wide-ranging programme of activity on behaviour change, household, business and public sector energy efficiency, infrastructure, skills and finance"

Scottish Government

Analysis say EU carbon costs may force refiners to relocate

Concern that EU cabon prices will make it too expensive to stay in Europe and the UK refining industry is t particular risk due to UK government plans for a carbon floor price. Reuters