Effectiveness of greenhouse gases

For the more technically minded, I posted an article on my blog on why different greenhouse gases have different effects, e.g., methane is molecule for molecule a more powerful warmer than carbon dioxiode. Short answer to that one: there is very little methane comparatively speaking; were there a similar amount of methane and carbon dioxide, adding methane would actually have a lower warming effect.

If you want to find out more, go to my blog. Any error corrections or requests for clarifications welcome.

SMH: Carbon won't cost the clever consumers

Alan Pears is an adjunct professor at RMIT University and an expert on things like energy efficiency. Last year I saw him give an interesting talk to the alternative technology association. Today he has an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald " Carbon won't cost the clever consumers" explaining how, with a bit of thought, most people could cut their energy use and keep their power bills down by moving to more energy efficient appliances and avoiding wasteful products.

"Consider a typical annual household electricity cost of $1500. If you've bought a new fridge in the past few years, your bill is up to $200 lower than it would have been if you still had the old fridge. Improved energy efficiency has cut running costs.

On the other hand, if you have those trendy halogen downlights, your bill is probably $200 more than it would have been with traditional lighting, because you are running many more lights."

He also points out that, with a bit of thought, many business's can cut their energy use too, cutting their carbon emmissions while actually saving money.

"The top 200 energy-consuming industries in Australia have been required to look for energy-efficiency measures under the Energy Efficiency Opportunities program. So far, they have identified 8.3 per cent savings at an average carbon cost of minus $100 a tonne avoided. These measures will slash their carbon costs - and make them handsome profits."

These examples, plus more in the article, remind me that, when we talk about behavioural change and using less electricity, we don't mean sitting around in the dark. We mean people taking advantage of better, more efficient technology and manufacturers making products that take less energy to create and less energy to run. We mean inventivising behavioural change that is goood for your wallet and the planet.

To encourage recycling, it pays to learn from zer best.

The Germans are well known for taking their recycling seriously, helping this along has been coming up with effective ways of encouraging people to recycle. Leo Hickman reports from Neustadt an der Weinstrasse where 70% of waste is recycled.

So how do that do it? Simple really, residents pay for every bag of rubbish they create, while recycling collection is absolutely free. The charge for waste is separated from rates so people know exactly how much money their rubbish is costing them. So, the less waste you create, the less you pay.

The reason for Neustadt's success is simple, says Weiss. "It's all about providing financial incentives and education. We don't charge citizens anything for the recycled waste they leave out. And the less waste you put out for incineration – we've had no landfill in Germany since 2005 – the less you pay.

"Having no incentive to reduce waste is poisonous to your aims. We have a separate, visible fee that is intentionally not embedded within a local tax."

Clearly the scheme works. And why wouldn't it...

A car towing a trailer full of construction waste pulls up at the weigh-station by the entrance gate. Weiss wanders over to inspect the contents. "This weighs about half of tonne. If will cost €270 to dump it as it is. Or if the car owner sorts it into separate types of waste — timber, paper, plasterboard etc — it will cost him just €17. That, in summary, is our system. We provide a major incentive to recycle."

Garnaut recommends a starting carbon price of $20-30 a tonne

Earlier today the government's climate change advisor Prof Ross Garnaut released his carbon pricing proposal. It was part 6 of a series of updates he has been making to his 2008 climate change report. Garnaut's report is not government policy but it likely to be influential in deciding how to proceed in implementing a carbon price.

There is a good description of the main points here (though the headline is perhaps a little inaccurate), the report can be found here.

Here are some of the key points:

• It is in Australia's interest to play our part in limiting climate change by reducing our emissions and working to secure global agreements to reduce emissions.
• A market based mechanism is the cheapest way to reduce our emissions.
  
• The effect of carbon pricing on the economy will be "modest".
  
• Garnaut has endorsed the plan to start with a fixed price (the carbon tax) before moving to an emissions trading scheme (price set by the market ie: supply and demand).
  
• Starting with a fixed price provides more certainty and stability when the scheme starts, allowing everyone to get used to a world where carbon pollution has to be paid for. Emissions trading is favoured in the long term for its ability to direct money for reducing emissions to the cheapest means of doing so.
• The carbon price should start at $20 to $30 per tonne and rise every year before being set by supply and demand under an ETS.
• A large amount of assistance (free permits) to business that produce products for overseas markets is favoured, this will be phased out over time (Nb: this is similar to in the EU ETS)
• Garnaut recommends household assistance should be mainly via tax cuts focusing on low and middle income earners, with some more targeted assistance for low income earners.
  

Not everyone will agree with all of Garnauts' recommendations, but he does provide some details policy people can now start to debate. For the average person the big picture remains the same: Polluters start paying for pollution, people are compensated for price rises.

Human Health Impacts of Open-Cut Coal and Coal Seam Gas Mining

Coal seam gas has been in the new a lot lately and some of you may have seen the movie GasLand, which is about another kind of gas but with some related issues. This forum may be of interest.

Queries: Drew Hutton – Phone: 0428 487 110
Human Health Impacts of Open-Cut Coal and Coal Seam Gas Mining
Venue: Abel Smith Lecture Theatre, The University of Queensland
Address: Blg 23, St Lucia Campus - Located at top of Campbell Rd
Public Forum: Thursday 17 March 2011 6-8pm
Speakers Include:

• Dr Dick van Steenis, UK physician, local govt advisor on public health impacts of coal mining.
  
• Assoc Prof Peter Dart, School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, UQ and ACF Council.
  
• Professor Jack Ng, UQ National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology.
  
• Ms Peta Ashworth, CSIRO Qld Director Energy Transformed Flagship Program
  
• Prof Kerry Carrington, QUT Law Faculty and Head of Justice Program

Coal and CSG mining are not only impacting on the environment but also on human and community health. Chemicals released as particulates or vapours from the processes, or used in extraction such as the fraccing chemicals have the potential to release toxins into the environment and cause a range of illnesses from asthma to cancer. The tensions in the community, differences in life style of the "locals" and the workers in these industries, as well as the loss of agricultural and even town land to mining can lead to mental health problems and violence. Communities need support to strengthen their resilience to cope with the changes. These issues need to be addressed in planning how these industries are allowed to operate.

Jill Duggan: Lessons from the EU emissions trading scheme

Jill Duggan is an expert in carbon pricing, having been involved in the UK and European Union (EU) emissions trading schemes (ETS) as well as advising regional schemes in the USA. She has been visiting Australia and yesterday she gave a talk at UQ on the EU emissions trading scheme, how it's been going and lessons they have learned. There was plenty of jargon on offer but also some take home messages.

• The EU is on track to meet is carbon pollution reduction targets of a 20% cut from 1990 levels. (The cuts required of different countries vary and some like Germany have an individual targets of ~40%, which is pretty impressive).
• Before a carbon price was introduced, there was a lot of nervousness about the effects of carbon pricing on the EU economies. However as the scheme has been implemented and improved this was subsided and many now view the various EU climate change policies as positive measures to move the EU countries to a low carbon economy.

As the for the scheme itself Jill emphasized the importance of:

• Keeping the carbon pricing scheme simple and transparent
• Strong regulation of carbon pricing
  
• Not allowing too many overseas offsets (although these had initially seemed attractive because of the perceived low cost of emissions cuts, they don't help move your economy to a low carbon future and both business and government in the EU were seeking to limit their use)
• The effect of having a carbon pricing scheme and enforcing strict compliance with the emissions caps can cause a larger decrease in emissions than you would expect just from the carbon price alone. Ie: You can get more emission reductions than expected based solely on how much a ton of carbon costs the polluter.
• Carbon pricing is not a magic bullet, other complementary policies are very useful but carbon pricing underpins the multiple policies used to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. (Ie: Complementary policies are useful at a more local level to target specifically areas, an example of this is improved building standards in the UK to increase the current poor energy efficiency of buildings).
  

Purpose of a Carbon Tax

Many commentators seem to think the purpose of a carbon tax is to reduce consumption. This is only part of the story, as many uses of energy have inelastic demand, i.e., the amount you use is independent of price up to the point where you can’t afford it, and go out of business or have to make major changes in your lifestyle. The increasing price of oil and the consequential change in price of petrol is a case in point. Car usage hasn’t changed much. It can’t for those who do not have access to public transport and have no other option for commuting.

While some of the problem can be addressed by infrastructure changes (e.g. spending more on public transport rather than roads), those changes don’t rely heavily on a carbon tax.

The bigger purpose for a tax that is seldom mentioned (but is a key component of economic models) is narrowing the price gap between clean and dirty energy. That has the biggest effect on large-scale investments, such as new power stations, and it is hence critical that we put the scheme in place soon and have a realistic plan for ramping up the price.

In the meantime of course we should still address the other components of the problem including changes in infrastructure, mandatory renewable energy targets and promoting energy efficiency (where but in Brisbane do shopkeepers air condition the streets, I ask with tears in my voice).

Any alternative to a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme needs to fit in with the big picture. It must at very least include a mechanism for promoting clean energy over dirty energy.