25/11/2020

(USA) With John Kerry Pick, Biden Selects A ‘Climate Envoy’ With Stature

 New York Times - Lisa Friedman

Mr. Biden said he would name Mr. Kerry to a cabinet-level climate post, giving him the job of persuading global leaders that the United States is prepared to resume a leadership role.

John Kerry has been advocating for action on climate change for decades at state and federal levels. Credit...David Degner for The New York Times
WASHINGTON — When John Kerry served as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, he helped steer the negotiation of the Paris Agreement, locking down commitments from nearly 200 nations — including his own — to begin to reverse the dangerous warming of the planet. Now his diplomatic task may be even tougher. 

On Monday, president-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said he intended to name Mr. Kerry his special presidential envoy for climate, a cabinet-level position in the new administration.

In that role, Mr. Kerry will need to persuade skeptical global leaders, burned by the Trump administration’s hostility toward climate science, that the United States is prepared to resume its leadership role — and will stay the course, regardless of the Biden administration’s future.

Those who know him best say Mr. Kerry is well suited to the role. He has been advocating for action on climate change since he attended the first Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the framework of United Nations climate talks was formed.

He also knows the struggle of persuading his own country to take action, having co-authored climate change legislation as a Massachusetts senator that ultimately failed. Then, after joining the Obama administration, he made climate change a core part of the State Department.

The appointment of Mr. Kerry to sit on the National Security Council as a climate envoy elevates the issue of climate change to the highest echelons of government and marks it as an urgent national security threat.

“America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat that it is,” Mr. Kerry said in a statement.

In naming Mr. Kerry Mr. Biden has tapped the biggest name in his government so far, a veteran politician adept at drawing attention to himself and his causes since he led opposition to the Vietnam War as a decorated young veteran.

“John Kerry brings unmatched stature, a record of being an effective, tireless and indefatigable negotiator, a record of profound commitment to this issue and an understanding of just what the speed and scale of the transformation needs to be,” said Todd S. Stern, who served as the State Department’s climate envoy under Mr. Obama.

Mr. Kerry was joined by his granddaughter during a signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement at the United Nations General Assembly in 2016. Credit...Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
As special presidential envoy for climate, Mr. Kerry will participate in ministerial-level meetings with a cabinet rank. He will not have to face Senate confirmation, according to Mr. Biden’s transition team.

The move marks the first time the National Security Council will include an official dedicated to climate change, “reflecting the president-elect’s commitment to addressing climate change as an urgent national security issue,” the transition team said in a statement.

“It’s an unusual sign, and certainly one that will grab everybody’s attention internationally. Every government from China to the E.U. to India is going to sit up go, ‘Wow,’” Mr. Stern said.

Paul Bodnar, managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute, which works on climate policy, and who served on the climate change negotiating team under Secretary Kerry, called him a “dream choice for this kind of role” and “a powerful signal of the importance of climate to the incoming administration.”

Mr. Bodnar described Mr. Kerry as someone who “does the homework” on policy even as he works the room as a negotiator.

During the Paris climate talks in 2015, he recalled, Mr. Kerry “almost alone among climate ‘ministers’ from other countries, spent the better part of two weeks roaming the halls of the giant conference center day and night, listening and advocating, getting into the details.”

Democratic administrations in the United States have a history of joining climate pacts like the Paris Agreement (and before that, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol) only for them to be abandoned by subsequent Republican presidents.

Restoring U.S. credibility once again will be a challenge, but several international leaders said they are eager to see Washington back at the table.

“I think the rest of the world will welcome the U.S. under Biden and Kerry with open arms and huge relief,” said Saleem Huq, director of the Bangladesh-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development, who works closely with the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

According to Mr. Biden’s transition team, the president-elect also will name in December a White House climate policy coordinator who will help streamline domestic climate change policies throughout the various federal agencies.

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(AU) Albanese Is Running Out Of Time To Solve Labor’s Climate Crisis. He Needs A Plan That Works For Two Australias

The Conversation - 

Mick Tsikas/AAP

Author
Mark Kenny is Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University.
During the recent American elections, the most eye-catching graphics were the individual county tallies.

These showed that even when states appeared to be overwhelmingly Republican red, some still “flipped” to the Democrats on the strength of a smaller number of blue squares.

The trick? These azure islands denoted population clusters in cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Phoenix.

The left-right chasm between urbanised Americans and the more sparsely distributed rural-regional ones was there to see in primary colours.

But the division itself was neither new, nor especially American.

Across England’s industrial north, British Labour’s Euro-centric cosmopolitanism cut little ice in the Brexit referendum of 2016, the same year once rusted-on working class Democrats first broke for Trump.

Labor struggling to reach ‘two Australias’

And of course in Australia, this trend is also well established.

Indeed, Coalition majorities have long been built on the need for niche-messaging. This sees Liberals garner the city vote, while mostly leaving the Nationals to reinterpret the conservative brand for bush sensibilities.

As a one-message-fits-all party, the ALP has struggled with this, and as the two Australias become more distinct and antagonistic, the strain is showing.

Labor’s primary vote nationally is stuck in the low-to-mid 30% range. In the resources states, it sits even lower. That’s too low to win a majority, prompting some in Labor to suggest a Liberal/National-style partnership with the Greens.

Labor needs to boost its primary vote if it is to win government on its own. Mick Tsikas/AAP

But it is far from clear how this would maximise the combined lower house seat haul, given they both court the same inner-city electors. What seems more obvious is that a joint Labor-Greens ticket would actually accelerate the drift of industrially-centred regional seats towards the Coalition.

Fitzgibbon and the coal dilemma

This is already happening.

According to Joel Fitzgibbon, who resigned last week from the shadow frontbench, Labor’s ambitious 45% by 2030 emissions cut at the last election proved this. After being pushed to preferences in 2019 on the back of a 14% primary vote slump, Fitzgibbon believes that “crazy” policy was kryptonite in his coal-dominated seat, and in regional communities up and down the eastern seaboard.

The Hunter Valley-based MP, and others in Labor’s right faction, argue such communities feel abandoned by a party beholden to inner-city progressives. There’s no doubt Labor MPs are increasingly pessimistic over their electoral prospects.

Some on the right insist the party is doomed unless it actively reconnects with its industrial roots, and that means dropping the climate change focus.

As Fitzgibbon told reporters when announcing his frontbench resignation,
We have to speak to, and be a voice for, all those who we seek to represent, whether they be in Surry Hills or Rockhampton. And that’s a difficult balance.
For Labor leader Anthony Albanese, this presents a near unsolvable puzzle. He needs to outflank the Greens on his capacity to form a government and deliver, and out-perform the Coalition on commitment. Now, he must also manage a rebellion inside his caucus from those who want to dump the party’s climate policy.

Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon is pressuring the party to adopt a less ambitious emissions plan. Lukas Coch/AAP

Right-aligned MPs, buttressed by powerful unions, argue steering closer to the Coalition than the Greens is the only way to secure government.

But Labor’s paid-up membership and a majority of its MPs favour a clear acknowledgement of the scientific evidence — evidence that unambiguously calls for the phasing out of fossil fuels in the next decade or two.

In a sign of things to come, the blaze of publicity surrounding Fitzgibbon’s resignation completely derailed Labor’s attempt to highlight how the new Democratic White House had left the Morrison government exposed as the only serious economy explicitly not committed to a net-zero time-line.

But Fitzgibbon, who claims to have substantial caucus support, wants Labor to simply tuck in behind the Morrison government and allow it to take any political heat for emissions targets not met and voters left frustrated.

Yet this too would be politically calamitous.

There could be an election next year

With an election possible within 12 months, time to reconcile these oil-and-water imperatives is fast running out.

It is a perfect storm. On the one hand, there is rising pessimism over Labor’s ability to compete with the Morrison government – especially during a pandemic. On the other, rising community impatience for decisive climate action.

That the opposition has not yet named interim emissions targets for 2030 and 2035 despite a clear commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, speaks to its nervousness. Its rhetoric stresses urgency and purpose, but its detail reveals hesitation.

Insiders know any repeat of its 2019 each-way bet on the Adani coal-mine will be a gift to the Greens.

As the policy show-down looms, so too does the ever-present danger to Albanese of it morphing into a leadership stoush. The left’s Tanya Plibersek and the right’s Jim Chalmers are regarded as the most credible alternatives.

Leadership speculation has bubbled up again, as Labor struggles with its climate stance. Samantha Manchee/AAP

While only a climate capitulation would satisfy right-wing malcontents, another school of thought favours a doubling down, based on the simple arithmetic that there are a dozen-plus Coalition seats held by margins of under 5% — more than enough to compensate for the loss of regional electorates.

Bold transition fund needed

Perhaps Labor’s only hope of keeping both sides in the tent is to propose a bold, generously funded transition fund.

This would not just talk about green jobs and retraining, but directly pay those workers who are displaced. It would include everything from the loss of income and retraining, to compensating for the loss of businesses, house values, and full family relocation costs.

Taking advantage of the low cost of borrowing, this multibillion brown-to-green transition fund could guarantee workers in phased-out sectors would not be left to carry the costs of what is a “national” responsibility and “national” economic reconfiguration.

This could this be Labor’s winning formula: representation, leading to reparation, enabling reform.

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(AU) How To Harness The Power Of Biosolids To Make Hydrogen

RMIT Australia - Gosia Kaszubska

Researchers have used biosolids to produce hydrogen from wastewater, in new technology that supports the comprehensive recycling of one of humanity’s unlimited resources – sewage.

The innovation focuses on the advanced upcycling of biosolids and biogas, by-products of the wastewater treatment process.

Developed by researchers at RMIT University, the patented technology uses a special material derived from biosolids to spark chemical reactions for producing hydrogen from biogas.

The approach means all the materials needed for hydrogen production could be sourced on-site at a wastewater treatment plant, without the need for expensive catalysts.

The method also traps the carbon found in biosolids and biogas, which could in future enable a near zero-emission wastewater sector.

Lead researcher Associate Professor Kalpit Shah said existing commercial methods for producing hydrogen were emission and capital-intensive, and relied heavily on natural gas.

“Our alternative technology offers a sustainable, cost-effective, renewable and efficient approach to hydrogen production,” said Shah, Deputy Director (Academic) of the ARC Training Centre for Transformation of Australia’s Biosolids Resource at RMIT.

“To enable the transition to a circular economy, we need technology that enables us to squeeze the full value from resources that would ordinarily go to waste.

“Our new technology for making hydrogen relies on waste materials that are essentially in unlimited supply.

“By harnessing the power of biosolids to produce a fully clean fuel from biogas - while simultaneously preventing greenhouse gas emissions - we can deliver a true environmental and economic win.”

The new approach means all the materials needed for hydrogen production could be sourced on-site at a wastewater treatment plant. 

Biosolids are commonly used as fertiliser and soil amendment in agriculture, but around 30% of the world’s biosolids resource is stockpiled or sent to landfill, creating an environmental challenge.

Dr Aravind Surapaneni, Senior Research and Planning Scientist at South East Water and Deputy Director (Industry) of the ARC Training Centre for Transformation of Australia’s Biosolids Resource, said research into new and valuable uses for biosolids was vital.

“The wastewater sector is constantly looking to develop new ways to transform biosolids into high-value products, in environmentally sustainable and responsible ways,” Surapaneni said.

How the tech works

In the new method, published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, biosolids are first converted to biochar – a carbon-rich form of charcoal used to improve soil health.

The biosolids-derived biochar contains some heavy metals, which makes it an ideal catalyst for producing hydrogen out of biogas.

As part of the experimental bench-scale study, researchers tested the process with a methane-rich gas that resembles biogas.

They showed the biochar made from biosolids is highly effective for decomposing the gas into its component elements – hydrogen and carbon.

The decomposition process can also be conducted in a specially designed and hyper-efficient reactor developed and patented by RMIT, which can produce both hydrogen and a high-value biochar that is coated with carbon nanomaterials.

By converting the carbon found in biogas and biosolids into advanced carbon nanomaterials, their method can also capture and sequester the greenhouse gas to prevent its release into the atmosphere.

The carbon nanomaterial-coated biochar produced through the novel technique has a range of potential applications including environmental remediation, boosting agricultural soils and energy storage.

The method for producing hydrogen can also convert the carbon found in biogas and biosolids into advanced carbon nanomaterials, pictured here magnified 50,000 times.

Patented reactor technology

Shah said the unique reactor developed by the RMIT School of Engineering team was at the heart of this innovative recycling approach.

“We’ve radically optimised heat and mass transfer in our reactor, while shrinking the technology to make it highly mobile,” he said.

“There are no reactors available that can achieve such phenomenal heat and mass integration, in such a small and cost-effective package.

“And while it’s already energy efficient, with further integration, this reactor could turn biosolids and biogas conversion into a process that actually produces energy instead of consuming it.”

As well as being used in wastewater treatment, the novel reactor has potential applications in the biomass, plastics and coating industries.

The research was supported by funding from RMIT's Enabling Capability Platforms and South East Water, which will be trialling the biosolids and biogas conversion technology in a pilot plant currently under fabrication.

Dr David Bergmann, Research and Development Manager at South East Water, said the technology had potential for adoption by the industry.

“Supporting these kinds of innovative emerging technologies is an important part of our commitment towards reduced emissions and a circular economy approach involving wastewater,” Bergmann said.

Lead researcher Associate Professor Kalpit Shah, with the novel reactor developed and patented by RMIT.

The Australian Research Council Training Centre for Transformation of Australia’s Biosolids Resource based at RMIT brings together expertise from 20 national and international partners from Australia, the UK and US including universities, wastewater sector and allied industry partners.

Directed by Distinguished Professor Andy Ball, the centre investigates how to best manage this valuable resource across the entire process - from treating biosolid waste and transportation, to legislation and improved uses to benefit agriculture and land management.

The training centre is also supporting the development of a highly-skilled workforce that will be ready to use the new technologies, as they are deployed.

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