Lethal Heating: 05/28/16

28/05/2016

Global Clean Energy Employment Rose 5% In 2015, Figures Show

The Guardian - Damian Carrington

More than 8 million people were employed worldwide in the renewable energy sector last year as rapidly falling costs drove growth in the industry

Workers install solar panels in Washington, DC. A boom in solar and wind power jobs in the US led a global increase in renewable energy employment. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

A boom in solar and wind power jobs in the US led the way to a global increase in renewable energy employment to more than 8 million people in 2015, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).
More than 769,000 people were employed in renewable energy in the US in 2015, dwarfing the 187,000 employed in the oil and gas sector and the 68,000 in coal mining. The gap is set to grow further, with jobs in solar and wind growing by more than 20% in 2015, while oil and gas jobs fell by 18% as the fossil fuel industry struggled with low prices.
Across the world, employment in renewable energy grew by 5% in 2015, boosted by supportive government policies and subsidies including tax credits in the US, although jobs in renewables fell in Europe. The growth was despite renewable energy subsidies being far outweighed by subsidies for fossil fuels, where jobs were lost.
Another contrast, according to the Irena report, is the greater proportion of women employed in renewable energy compared to the wider energy sector. Irena found 35% of renewable energy sector jobs were held by women, compared to 20-25% in the wider energy sector, although the agency noted the renewables percentage remains lower than women’s overall share in employment of 40-50% in most OECD countries.
Renewables employment fell in the European Union for the fourth year running, due to the Eurozone economic crisis and the cutting of subsidies and other support. The UK employed 112,000 people in renewables in 2015, according to Irena. The report said: “The UK became the continent’s largest [solar panel] installation market, and the second-largest [solar] employer with 35,000 people. However, cuts in feed-in tariffs for residential rooftops in the UK could result in a loss of 4,500 to 8,700 solar jobs according to UK government’s own estimates.
Irena director general, Adnan Amin, said: “The continued job growth in the [global] renewable energy sector is significant because it stands in contrast to trends across the energy sector.” He said the increase is being driven by rapidly falling costs for renewable energy and expect the trend to continue as renewables become ever more competitive and as countries move to achieve the targets pledged in a global climate change deal agreed in Paris in December.
“Even without a price on carbon, renewable energy is competing with dirty energy and winning,” said Ben Schreiber, at Friends of the Earth US. “The question isn’t whether renewable energy supplants fossil fuels, but whether fossil fuels companies can delay the transition long enough to destroy the climate.”
The estimate of 8m renewables jobs included those working in manufacturing, installation and maintenance. It did not include large hydropower schemes, for which less robust data is available, but Irena estimated this sector to employ 1.3 million people in 2015.
The solar photovoltaic (PV) industry was the biggest renewables employer in 2015, with 2.8m jobs worldwide, an 11% increase. About 60% of these were in China, with Japan and the US also significant employers. Japan’s solar PV employment rose by 28% but the country is also being criticised for a large coal expansion plan.
Liquid biofuel was the next biggest renewables sector, with 1.7m jobs, with Brazil and the US the largest nations. However, employment fell by 6% in part due to increasing mechanisation. Biodiesel production from palm oil in Indonesia plummeted by 50%, amid concerns that its environmental impact can actually be worse than fossil fuels.
The third biggest sector was wind power, employing 1.1 million people, up 5% compared to 2014. Other important sectors included solar thermal - using the sun to heat water - and solid biomass.
China added a third of the world’s new renewable energy in 2015 and employed 3.5 million people in the sector. But while employment rose in solar PV and wind, they were offset by losses in the solar thermal and small hydropower sectors, leading to an overall job decline of 2% in the country.
In Europe, solar PV employment in 2015 was a third of its peak in 2011, as economic problems led to subsidy cuts and as solar panel manufacturing moved to Asia.

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CSIRO Cuts: As Redundancies Are Announced, The Real Cost Is Revealed

The Conversation - Chris Turney

Ancient air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice. The Ellsworth Mountains Project

The unfortunate manner in which the latest phase of restructuring of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has played out has raised questions about Australia's scientific capability and our ability to meet international responsibilities.
Faced with a budget cut of A$115 million, some 275 staff have apparently been identified for redundancy (though the final number may be as high as 317). Many of them are scientists contributing to long-term sea, air and climate science programs. The restructure is geared towards focusing CSIRO's attention on the question, as framed by chief executive Larry Marshall, of "how can we find solutions for the climate we will be living with?"
The problem is that the programs at threat form the backbone of national and international research efforts. Virtually all of them are critical for helping us mitigate and adapt to future climate.
In 1979, the great scientist Carl Sagan wrote:

We live in an extraordinary age. These are times of stunning changes in social organisation, economic wellbeing, moral and ethical precepts, philosophical and religious perspectives, and human self-knowledge … Had we been born fifty years later, the answers would, I think, already have been in.

Australian scientists do indeed live in extraordinary times, but not necessarily for the best of the reasons. We may be living through a remarkable period of discovery, but recent events are a timely reminder that we must all work harder to manage the precious resources available to science if we're not to threaten decades of investment and hard work.

Global response
The cuts have been met with very public protests, including those by former US vice-president Al Gore and the World Climate Research Program.
The most public of all staff to be earmarked (so far) for redundancy is Dr John Church. He is arguably the world's leading expert on global sea level rise, a role that is more important than ever for adapting to the effects of climate change. It's a decision so extraordinary it was even reported in The New York Times.
The facilities at risk from CSIRO cuts are used by research teams around the world.
The threat to close the "Ice Lab" involves a facility unique in the world for analysing ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice, helping understand future climate-carbon feedbacks.
The Tasmanian Cape Grim atmospheric station is crucial for monitoring greenhouse gas levels in the southern hemisphere. Only last week it confirmed CO₂ concentrations now exceed 400 parts per million, likely the last location on the planet to do so.
And just last month, CSIRO staff (of which Dr Church was a senior author) led a Nature Climate Change article showing anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have dominated global sea level rise since 1970. This is crucial work for understanding the source(s) of sea level rise. Such work can inform major infrastructure projects such as Brisbane Airport's new runway, which is being constructed four metres above minimum required standards to accommodate future coastal flooding.

A wider problem
The funding gap CSIRO faces is a story common to many in the scientific community. Some sectors in the 2016 budget continue to enjoy some funding increases, such as the A$200 million for Antarctic science and A$100 million for Geoscience Australia.
But others have experienced cuts, most notably the Australian Research Council. The ARC has received a further 10% cut on the back of a succession of cuts over recent years.
Putting aside the effect on staff morale and the observation that government science spending has a strong multiplier effect on economic growth, the shortfall of funding in some quarters has immediate implications for how we best co-ordinate our efforts as a community.
Targeted, industry-focused projects are an essential part of a thriving scientific culture in Australia. But the threatened erosion of public science and the loss of capacity in areas of expertise CSIRO has taken decades to build represent a loss to all.
While the recent focus has been on climate science, there are salutary lessons from events of recent months if we are to minimise the impact on this research field and others in the future.

Where to from here?
Like any sector, science needs stability. The cuts have to stop and ideally reverse. If we keep trimming budgets, there will come a point where whatever capacity we have will only be a token effort.
The recent announcement that a CSIRO climate change centre will be established with 40 staff in Hobart is most welcome, but details are sketchy. A major concern regarding all these decisions are how these cuts and developments align with the efforts of the rest of the community.
Reports that the Bureau of Meteorology and Australian Antarctic Division learnt of the proposed cuts in capacity only after the decisions had been made are remarkable if true.
If a realignment of priorities in an institution is to take place, we need to make sure that these decisions are made with wider consultation and as much lead-in time as possible so the scientific community can make the best of a bad situation.
Recently, the Australian Academy of Science announced a welcome, urgent review of national climate science capability. (If you're part of the community, submissions must be made by June 5, so hurry.)
Announcing cuts that have implications for others without discussion doesn't help science, it only stifles findings. I hope the CSIRO climate change science centre has been developed in consultation with others and the 40 staff identified are the number truly required.
We need to make sure everyone is talking to one another. Only last week, the CSIRO released its Australia 2030 report, modelling various scenarios for Australia's future. One scenario is called "weathering the storm", in which geopolitical instability increases, driven by climate change and regional conflicts.
Faced with this situation, CSIRO suggests that "the energy market relies on tried and tested energy sources such as coal rather than further developing the potential of renewables".
To suggest under future climate change we should continue to exploit fossil fuels is a remarkable statement from a national scientific body.
We may be half-way to the great leaps in knowledge Sagan prophetically described by 2030, but our understanding of the planet and how we mitigate and adapt to change has to be better co-ordinated as a community. We need to do a lot better.

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Australia, Fearing Fewer Tourists, Has Chapter Taken Out of Climate Report

New York Times - Michelle Innis

The coral in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia has suffered significant bleaching over the last year. Credit David Gray/Reuters

SYDNEY, Australia — Leading scientists in Australia and abroad have expressed concern that a new United Nations report about the impact of climate change on dozens of World Heritage sites is absent a chapter describing damage to the Great Barrier Reef, after the Australian government requested that the section be cut.
"I was amazed," the lead author of the report, Adam Markham, deputy director of climate and energy programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said by telephone.
The Australian government requested that the chapter be removed from the report, issued by UNESCO and the United Nations Environment Program on Thursday, so that further accounts of damage to the reef, the world's largest coral ecosystem, would not adversely affect tourism.
In a statement on Friday, the Department of the Environment said "experience had shown that negative comments about the status of World Heritage-listed properties impacted on tourism." The statement went on to say that the department did not support any of the country's World Heritage-listed properties being included in "such a publication.''
Environment Minister Greg Hunt had not been informed of the department's decision, the statement said, but concerns had been relayed to Australia's ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.
"But as far as I can see, it is in the newspapers every day," Mr. Markham said. "Pretty much everyone in the world knows there is a problem on the Great Barrier Reef."
Mr. Markham said he had thought the report would galvanize support for important sites suffering degradation as sea levels and temperatures rise, and as extreme weather damages the environment.
The Great Barrier Reef, which stretches from the tip of northern Queensland more than 1,400 miles southward along Australia's east coast, has experienced significant coral bleaching over the last year. Bleaching can lead to coral death.
The chapter removed from the report, now published on the website of the Union of Concerned Scientists, warns that Australia is the world's fourth-largest coal producer and that risks come with plans to expand coal mining and shipping near the reef.
"Its future is at risk, and climate change is the primary long-term threat," the chapter says.
Australian scientists who reviewed the chapter before the report was published said they were surprised it had been cut.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, said the report contained nothing new.
"I was naturally a bit disappointed, because the process had not preserved the science," he said. "And in one sense, if you were trying not to draw attention to the problems on the reef, this would not be the way to do it."
Prof. Will Steffen of the Climate Change Institute at Australian National University said it was troubling that a government department had succeeded in censoring a global report.
"Australia is the only inhabited continent that is not featured in the report," he said. "Information is the currency of democracy, and the idea that government officials would exert pressure to censor scientific information on our greatest national treasure is extremely disturbing."
Australia's conservative coalition government, in the middle of a re-election campaign, has received little support for its approach to climate change. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull did not mention it in a major campaign speech recently and has done little to convince voters that his government believes it is an election issue.
Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or Csiro, is in the middle of a restructuring that includes cutting the number of climate scientists it employs, drawing criticism from scientists at its partner organizations, including NASA.
The inclusion of the Great Barrier Reef in the United Nations report was founded on its significance, Mr. Markham said, adding that references to the island of Tasmania and to Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory, had also been removed from the report.
The report does not cover all World Heritage sites; rather, its authors started with about 100 natural and human-made monuments, including Yellowstone National Park and the Statue of Liberty, and winnowed that list to 31 sites in 29 countries.
Terry Hughes, the director of the Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the Australian Research Council who spent days in April flying over the Great Barrier Reef tracking bleaching and coral mortality rates, said it was astonishing that the reef would be excluded from such a report.
"There is an unprecedented bleaching event underway," Professor Hughes said. "Climate change and coral bleaching is the single biggest threat to the tourism industry, and the reef itself."

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