Lethal Heating: 04/08/19

08/04/2019

Electric Vehicles An Opportunity For Local Government

Fairfax - Caitlin Fitzsimmons

Local councils could save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by shifting their fleets to electric vehicles, a study by ClimateWorks Australia suggests.
Project officer Claire Connell said more than half of new vehicles sold in Australia in 2017 were purchased by the government and corporate fleets so it was a significant opportunity.

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore's council has embraced electric cars in their fleet. Credit: Jessica Hromas

"Local governments specifically have an explicit obligation to manage their assets in the best interests of their constituents," Ms Connell said. "A number have significant emissions reductions targets in place."
The research follows the federal opposition's announcement of its electric vehicle policy last week. Labor's plans include spending $100 million to support the rollout of charging stations around the country and a target for electric vehicles to make up half of all new car sales by 2030. A Labor government would also commit to an electric vehicle target of 50 per cent of new purchases and leases of passenger vehicles for the government fleet.
Transport emissions account for 18 per cent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions and that figure is rising, according to the Climate Council.The City of Sydney has embraced electric vehicles, with 19 Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV vehicles in its fleet, as well as 40 hybrid cars and 70 hybrid trucks. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the council was waiting for electric versions of some larger vehicles such as garbage trucks to become available.
"By using electric and hybrid trucks and vehicles, the City reduced its fleet emissions by 26 per cent between 2010 and 2014, and we are on track to achieve our goal of zero increase in fleet emissions by June 2021," Cr Moore said.
"There are many advantages to moving to electric vehicles. They produce no tailpipe emissions, are quieter, cheaper to fuel and lower carbon if using renewable electricity.
"We know we are fast running out of time to take serious action on climate change, and transitioning to electric vehicles is one way we can reduce our emissions."
The ClimateWorks project engaged 43 local governments across Victoria over nine months, but Ms Connell said she believes councils across Australia have similar drivers. The report recommends a national capacity building program to give councils information and support to make the shift.
Ms Connell said the latest figures, from 2016, found the average emissions intensity of a petrol vehicle was 182 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre. The emissions intensity of electricity from the grid was generally less - in NSW, for example, electricity from the grid contributed 160 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre driven in an electric car.
This would improve as electric cars became more efficient and the electricity grid shifted to renewables.
The study analysed the councils' fleets - which included hatchback and sedans, larger SUV vehicles, vans, mini-buses and small trucks, utes and small box trucks - and the actual usage patterns. The analysis looked at the total cost of ownership of switching to electric vehicles where an appropriate equivalent was available.
The analysis didn't include the cost of charging infrastructure because different councils planned to deal with this differently.
Some councils would see no financial benefit, the study found, while others would save money, depending on their usage patterns. One council that could switch to electric vehicles for hatchbacks, sedans and vans would save 1-3c per kilometre, based on owning the vehicles for six years, driving 20,000 kilometres a year and energy costs of 15c per kilowatt hour.

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Environmental Groups To Sue Shell Over Climate Change

Washington Post - Mike Corder AP

Climate activists pose outside the Shell headquarters, rear, in The Hague, Netherlands, Friday April 5, 2019, prior to deliver a court summons to Shell in a court case aimed at forcing the energy giant to do more to rein in carbon emissions. (Mike Corder/Associated Press)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Climate activists delivered a court summons Friday to oil company Shell in a court case aimed at forcing it to do more to rein in carbon emissions.
Friends of the Earth Netherlands, one of the groups involved, said it wants a court in The Hague to order Shell to reduce its carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels and to zero by 2050, in line with the Paris Climate Accord.
“Shell’s directors still do not want to say goodbye to oil and gas,” said the group’s director, Donald Pols. “They would pull the world into the abyss. The judge can prevent this from happening.”
The summons, more than 250 pages long and backed up by boxes of supporting documents, was wheeled into the headquarters on a trolley as a couple of hundred activists looked on.
The move comes a year after the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth sent a letter to Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden accusing the company of “breaching its legal duty of care” by causing climate damage across the globe.
In a statement, Shell outlined renewable energy projects it is involved in in the Netherlands and said that it agrees climate change action is necessary and that the company is “committed to playing our part.”
“We welcome constructive efforts to work together to find solutions to the challenge of climate change, but we do not believe the courtroom is the right venue to address the global climate challenge,” the company said.
The Shell case, which has more than 17,000 claimants, follows a groundbreaking ruling by a Hague court in 2015 that ordered the Dutch government to cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by at least 25% by 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels.
The new case is not seeking compensation; it focuses instead on pushing Shell to take more action to rein in emissions.
Roger Cox, a lawyer who initially represented environmental group Urgenda and is now leading the civil action against Shell, said the two cases are similar because they are based in part on a duty of care enshrined in Dutch law.
“And more specifically the duty to not create dangerous situations for others if these dangerous situations can reasonably be prevented,” he said. “So what we in fact are stating is that Shell is contributing to dangerous climate change because its emissions are not in line with what is needed.”

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Be The Change You Want To See In The World: How Individuals Can Help Save The Planet From Climate Catastrophe

Phys.org - University of Sussex

How energy use demands change through different milestones in life. Credit: HOPE Project

Individuals have as big a role to play in tackling climate change as major corporations but only if they can be encouraged to make significant lifestyle changes by effective government policy, a major new European study co-authored by a University of Sussex academic has found.
The study notes that voluntary lifestyle choices by well-meaning individuals would only achieve around half the required emission reductions needed to hit the 1.5 C Paris Agreement goal. But the authors suggest that Paris targets could be achieved if voluntary choices were combined with policies that target behavioural change, particularly around eating meat and using fewer cars and airplanes.
The study's authors say the international climate policy debate has so far focused mainly on technology and economic incentives, relegating behaviour change to a voluntary add-on. This is despite the fact behavioural change has the potential for far greater emission reductions than the political pledges made under the Paris Accord.
The study, written by academics from 11 institutions including the University of Sussex, investigated the preferences for reducing household emissions, responsible for about 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It involved hundreds of families in four European cities using a specially-designed simulation tool to indicate carbon and money savings from 65 lifestyle choices combined with in-depth surveys with household members.
It found public support for policy initiatives that encouraged more sustainable practices around food production but resistance to initiatives that restricted personal mobility and transport options. The study also found that ironically the areas where greatest lifestyle changes were required and the largest carbon footprints produced, such as aviation and changes to diet, had received the lowest policy attention to date.
Lead author Ghislain Dubois, founder of the TEC Conseil in France, said: "Our research proves that if supported by adequate policies, households can have a decisive contribution to the Paris agreement objectives. This is largely ignored by current climate policies and negotiations, which rely only on macro-economics and technology. We should dare envisaging and doing research on taboos like consumption reduction or sobriety. When you consider the impacts on CO2 emissions, but also on households' budgets and the potential co-benefits, it is worth it."
Professor Benjamin Sovacool, second author of the study and Director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex, added: "Our study underscores the contradictions we all have in balancing climate change with other priorities. We want to fight climate change, but stick to eating meat and driving our cars. There are certain changes we can make voluntarily but beyond that we need policy to step in."
The study, published in the upcoming June edition of Energy Research and Social Science, found that the greater the potential actions have to reduce emissions, the less households were willing to implement them. In these areas "forced" solutions such as a considerably higher carbon tax on fuel and regulations encouraging food producers to reduce packaging or increase local and organic farming in addition to voluntary measures will be needed, the academics warn.
Carlo Aall, co-author of the study from the Western Norway Research Institute, said: "There is political room for taking a tougher stand on supporting economically and regulating household consumption to become more climate friendly. Meat consumption and long air trips in particular need to be addressed."
Alina Herrmann, co-author from the Heidelberg Institute for Global Health said: "Strikingly, people were very open to climate friendly solutions in the food and recycling sector. We have found strong support for less packaged food, more sustainable food production and moderate reduction of meat consumption in our study population. Many participants even wished for external support to make such sustainable choices easier for them."
However, in areas such as mobility, the authors recommend limiting the availability of greenhouse gas-intensive consumption through regulative instruments such bans, restrictions or increased taxes; balanced with making low-carbon alternatives more readily available.
Dr. Hermann added: "Changing mobility behaviour was seen as incredibly difficult. To gain acceptance for reduced mobility as part of societal transformation in the face of climate change, and entirely new public discourse would be needed."
Responses from the study revealed household carbon footprints are not static but can fluctuate significantly with major life events such as having children, experiencing illness or retiring.
The authors recommend that targeted interventions at these milestones could be highly effective in bringing about long-lasting change and suggested that intermediaries at these milestones, such as estate agents, car sales staff and retirement planners, could all play a much more active role in identifying carbon-reducing options.

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The Doomsday Vault’s Home Is Already Altered By Climate Change. A Report Says It Could Get Worse.

Washington Post - Kayla Epstein

A view of the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway. (David Keyton/AP)

Few places have served as a locus for the public’s anxiety about climate change as much as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
The seed ark, popularly known as the “Doomsday Vault,” is embedded deep in the permafrost of a northerly Norwegian island and stores nearly a million samples from around the world for safekeeping in the event of war, famine, disease and, yes, climate change.
It backs up gene banks around the globe, a fail safe for the fail safes.
It is supposed to be indestructible, the frigid landscape serving as a natural coolant for the genetic material it protects.
And yet, climate change has been profoundly affecting the region, causing permafrost to melt, avalanches to strike and, on one notable occasion, water to collect and freeze at the beginning of the tunnel to the vault.
That latter phenomenon led to a flurry of panicked headlines in 2017; on the Internet, where such events can take on an ominous significance, the pessimistic conclusion was that if the Doomsday Vault is doomed, so are we.
The vault is probably going to be okay. But its occasional troubles put a focus on a much bigger problem: Its home is undergoing rapid change thanks to the warming climate.
A report on climate change in the Svalbard archipelago released this year by the Norwegian Center for Climate Services and commissioned by the Norwegian Environment Agency states that “from 1971 to 2017, a warming of 3-5 degrees Celsius has been observed … with the largest increase in winter and the smallest in summer.” The estimated average temperature for Svalbard is -8.7 degrees Celsius.
“We know that the warming in this area has been very fast during the last five decades, seen in a global perspective,” said Inger Hanssen-Bauer of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, who was one of the editors of the study.
Svalbard’s glaciers are “losing more ice through melting and calving than they are accumulating through snowfall,” according to the report. “All of the well observed glaciers are shrinking.” The warming of the surrounding ocean “has halted sea ice from forming."
But the predictions for the future are even more stark. The report projects changes from a period of 1971-2000 until 2071-2100 based on various scenarios for global warming set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Under medium to high scenarios for future climate emissions,” the annual air temperature will increase by approximately 10 degrees Celsius under high emissions and 7 degrees Celsius under medium emissions, scientists found.
That temperature increase will lead to drastic changes for the region, according to the report. Heavy rainfall will occur more frequently. Avalanches and mudslides will happen more often. The snow season will become shorter. In the high-emission scenario, near-surface permafrost is predicted to melt in coastal and low-altitude areas.
The report does contain a caveat. “Inadequate knowledge of the climate system’s sensitivity and of future natural climate variations, as well as limitations in the climate models, lead to large uncertainties in the projections even under a given emission scenario,” the scientists wrote. “It is still clear that reduced greenhouse gas emissions will lead to reduced changes in the physical climate.”
The Svalbard archipelago, about halfway between the mainland of Norway and the North Pole, is home to one of the northernmost human settlements on Earth, Longyearbyren. The town is a hub for Arctic explorers and scientists and home to the Global Seed Vault. The city has been experiencing anomalies and occasional disasters thanks to the changing climate.
Houses are cracking and shifting because the melting of the permafrost destabilizes their foundations, CNN reported. A 2015 avalanche killed two people and injured nine — the types of avalanches the Norwegian report say will increase in frequency if emissions aren’t brought under control.
The Arctic overall has been highly susceptible to climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2018 Arctic report card showed that “continued warming of the Arctic atmosphere and ocean are driving broad change in the environmental system in predicted and, also, unexpected ways.” NOAA showed that surface air temperatures in the Arctic were warming at “twice the rate relative to the rest of the globe,” among other concerning changes.
The IPCC has laid out stark projections for what catastrophes await the planet if global emissions are not curbed within the next few years. The problem is global in scale, and the proposed solutions can become mired in international politics.
If it’s hard to keep focus, just think of the Doomsday Vault.

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