9 December 2015, Climate News Network, Climate heads for irreversible change. COP21: With the UN climate conference still trying to agree an effective way to tackle global warming, a scientific group warns that policy is ignoring the reality of a melting world. PARIS, 9 December, 2015 – Some of the world’s coldest places, on land and sea, may be plunged into an unstoppable transition to a climate system most scientists believe has not existed for 35-50 million years. The almost immediate consequences would include the loss of reliable water resources for millions of people, and the start of a process leading to ultimate sea level rise of 4-10 metres or more. The warning comes in a report by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), a group of scientists, diplomats and others who say climate change “is happening in the cryosphere faster and more dramatically than anywhere else on earth”. The report says that unless the negotiators at the COP21 climate change summit in Paris show far more ambition than they have so far, the verdict on this conference will be “too little, too late”. Cryosphere dynamics Pam Pearson, ICCI’s founder and director, introduced the report on the risks of irreversible climate change in the cryosphere − the scientific name for the parts of the world that are covered in ice and snow for part or all of the year – by saying: “We are worried by the disconnect between cryosphere dynamics and the policy response.” Read More here
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9 December 2015, Washington Post, How the Earth itself could undermine a Paris climate agreement. PARIS — With only three days left, tensions here are rising as countries race to resolve outstanding differences and forge an agreement that — hopefully — will set the planet on a path to avoiding the worst consequences of climate change. The goal is an agreement that would set the world on a path to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, or perhaps even 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels. But at a news conference here at the Le Bourget conference center Wednesday morning, scientists pointed out a factor that could make hitting these targets quite a lot harder. It’s called permafrost. As the planet warms, this frozen northern soil is going to continue to thaw — and as it thaws, it’s going to release carbon dioxide and methane into the air. A lot of it, it turns out. Potentially enough to really throw off the carbon budgets that have been calculated in order to determine the maximum emissions that we can release and still have a good chance of keeping warming to 2 C or below it. In particular, Susan Natali of the Woods Hole Research Center explained Wednesday that with a very high level of warming, permafrost emissions this century could be quite large indeed. Natali used numbers from the 2013 report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which found that humans can only emit about 275 more gigatons, or billion tons, of carbon (about 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide, which has a greater molecular weight) to have a greater than 66 percent chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees C. But out of that limited budget, she said, permafrost emissions could take up some 150 of those gigatons (or about 550 gigatons of carbon dioxide). Read More here
9 December 2015, Energy Post, New: renewables can now play important role in industrial development. Thanks to massive cost reduction, renewable energy can now be used by developing countries in their industrial growth strategies, which was unthinkable until recently, writes John Mathews of Macquarie University in Australia in a new publication from UNIDO, “Promoting Climate Resilient Industry“. Mathews notes that renewables can help countries expand manufacturing and create jobs, reduce local pollution, increase energy security and reduce import costs from fossil fuels. Oh, yes – and they reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The necessity to align industrial development strategies with climate change mitigation provides a chance to bring a fresh perspective to both issues. Energy has not been a central concern in industrial development strategies in the past. This was for the simple reason that it was always assumed that countries would industrialize using fossil fuels – in the same way that Western countries had relied on fossil fuels in the 19th and early 20th centuries, followed by East Asian countries as they likewise depended on coal, oil and gas in the second half of the 20th century. Renewable sources are now within reach of almost all industrializing countries, or will be so within a few short years. This changes everything. But a coal-driven industrial pathway does not look so attractive in the 21st century, especially when being pursued at the scale envisaged by China, India and other industrializing giants. One fresh perspective is that renewable energy sources can now be factored into development strategies. This was not even feasible just a few years ago because of concerns that costs were greater than those associated with consuming fossil fuels. But as China and other emerging giants have placed more and more emphasis on renewable sources – with a focus on water, wind and sun – so they have driven down the costs, with global repercussions. Renewable sources are now within reach of almost all industrializing countries, or will be so within a few short years. This changes everything. Read More here
9 December 2015, Energy Post, German grid operator can handle 70% wind, solar before storage needed. The company responsible for more than one-third of Germany’s electricity grid says there is no issue absorbing high levels of variable renewable energy such as wind and solar, and grids could absorb up to 70 per cent penetration without the need for storage, writes Giles Parkinson of Reneweconomy.com. Boris Schucht, the CEO of 50 Hertz, which operates the main transmission lines in the north and east of Germany – and which is 40 per cent owned by Australia’s Industry Funds Management – says the industry’s views of renewable energy integration has evolved rapidly in the past decade. “It’s about the mind-set,” Schucht said at the Re-energising the Future conference in Paris, and later to RenewEconomy. “10 to 15 years ago when I was young engineer, nobody believed that integrating more than 5 per cent variable renewable energy in an industrial state such as Germany was possible.” Yet, Schucht says, in the region he is operating in, 42 per cent of the power supply (in output, not capacity), came from wind and solar – about the same as South Australia. This year it will be 46 per cent, and next year it will be more than 50 per cent. “No other region in the world has a similar amount of volatile renewable energy ….. yet we have not had a customer outage. Not for 35 or 40 years.” Read More here