2 January 2016, Climate News Network, China clamps down on coal. A slowing economy and falling energy demand, plus concerns over air pollution, spur Beijing to halt new coal mines and close hundreds of existing operations. China says it will not approve any new coal mines for the next three years. The country’s National Energy Administration(NEA) says more than 1,000 existing mines will also be closed over the coming year, reducing total coal production by 70 million tons. Analysts say this is the first time Beijing has put a ban on the opening of new mines: the move has been prompted both by falling demand for coal as a result of a slowing economy and by increasing public concern about hazardous levels of pollution, which have blanketed many cities across the country over recent months. Beijing, a city of nearly 20 million, issued two red smog alerts – the most serious air pollution warning – in December, causing schools to close and prompting a warning to residents to stay indoors. A 2015 study estimated that air pollution – much of it from the widespread burning of coal – contributed to up to 1.6 million deaths each year in China. The country is by far the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel. Emissions from coal-fired power plants and other industrial concerns in China have made it the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, putting more climate-changing gases into the atmosphere each year than the US and the European Union combined. Coal’s share falling In accordance with an agreement reached with the US in late 2014, and in line with pledges made at the recent Paris summit on climate change, China aims to radically cut back on coal use in future. In 2010, coal generated about 70% of China’s total energy: last year that figuredropped to 64% as more large-scale investments in renewable energy sources came on stream. Read More here
Tag Archives: Emissions
29 December 2015 IACentre, Winner of Project Consored top 25 articles for 2009 – 2010 news stories: Pentagon’s role in global catastrophe. In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen — with more than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets — it is important to ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or proposed restrictions? By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements.
The Pentagon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; its secret operations in Pakistan; its equipment on more than 1,000 U.S. bases around the world; its 6,000 facilities in the U.S.; all NATO operations; its aircraft carriers, jet aircraft, weapons testing, training and sales will not be counted against U.S. greenhouse gas limits or included in any count. The Feb. 17, 2007, Energy Bulletin detailed the oil consumption just for the Pentagon’s aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities that made it the single-largest oil consumer in the world. At the time, the U.S. Navy had 285 combat and support ships and around 4,000 operational aircraft. The U.S. Army had 28,000 armored vehicles, 140,000 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, more than 4,000 combat helicopters, several hundred fixed-wing aircraft and 187,493 fleet vehicles. Except for 80 nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, which spread radioactive pollution, all their other vehicles run on oil. Even according to rankings in the 2006 CIA World Factbook, only 35 countries (out of 210 in the world) consume more oil per day than the Pentagon. Read More here
23 December 2015, Carbon News Network, Improving soils cuts carbon and grows more food. One straightforward way to combat both climate change and mass hunger is to replace carbon lost from the soil. All sorts of clever, expensive and downright daft ideas for removing carbon from the atmosphere have been suggested, but one of the simplest and most effective – building up carbon in the soil – hardly rates a mention. It is a process that happens naturally, but intensive agriculture, deep ploughing, heavy artificial fertiliser use and cutting down forests have impoverished soils worldwide. If the process could be reversed by adding extra organic matter to the soil each year, then the worst effects of climate change could be averted. Although the issue was hardly raised in the two weeks of negotiations on theParis Agreement in early December, behind the scenes the way farmers produce crops remains central to knowing whether we can hope to avoid the full impact of the warming climate. More than 100 of the 196 countries present in Paris which submitted plans beforehand on how to reduce their own carbon emissions put agriculture, forestry and replacing carbon in soils into their programmes. Better yields Also, on the fringes of the conference, the CGIAR Consortium, a partnership of leading agricultural research organisations, announced a US$225 million five-year plan to mitigate climate change by putting carbon back into the soil while improving developing world agricultural yields. This is part of a much longer-running international initiative started by France,the 4% Initiative, which aims to increase the carbon content of soil by four parts per thousand each year, enough to counteract human interference with the climate from the continued burning of fossil fuels. Read More here
23 December 2015, Carbon Pulse, Dirtier energy mix pushes up Australia’s GHG emissions. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions rose 1.3% in 2014-15 to 549.3 million tonnes of CO2e, according to government data, as coal use increased after the carbon tax repeal. Electricity generation emissions increased 3% to 186.1 million tonnes of CO2e in the twelve months to June 2015, according to data from the Department of the Environment. “This increase corresponds to a flatlining in demand in the National Electricity Market (NEM) between the year to June 2014 and the year to June 2015 … combined with an increase in the emissions intensity of delivered electricity,” the report said. Electricity emissions from black coal rose 1.4% and brown coal 9.7%, the report said. Wind and other renewables increased 12.2%, but gas (6.2%) and hydro (30.3%0 saw drops. The comeback of coal in the generation mix has been well documented by NEM analysts, and coincided with the July 1, 2014 removal of the carbon tax. Most other sectors of the economy also saw higher GHG emissions in 2014-15, but this was partly offset by a 3.4% drop from agiculture, largely due to declining beef cattle population, a reduction in sheep numbers and reduced production of several key crops. Compared to 2005, Australia’s emissions have dropped 10.2%. Its target according to its DNC is to reduce emissions 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030. Australia now emits 23.2 tonnes of CO2e per capita, a 28.4% drop from 1990 but still among the highest in the developed world. Read More here