This Week in Enviro News
15 Jan 06 Edition

Following up my previous post on Sunday's NYTimes call for disengaging from our reliance on foreign oil for our energy needs, here's a story about one state that's actually making the right moves toward bringing alternative energy to a wider swath of constituents (via ENN, the Environmental News Network):

The California Public Utilities Commission Thursday approved a $2.9 billion program to make California one of the world's largest producers of solar power.

The "California Solar Initiative," backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, aims to add 3,000 megawatts of solar energy over 11 years through the installation of 1 million rooftop solar energy systems on homes, businesses, farms, schools and public buildings.

That amount of electricity would be equivalent to about six new power stations.
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If the program is fully implemented, California would become the world's third-largest solar generator behind Japan and Germany. The state currently has about 100 megawatts of solar electricity.
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Solar spending could save California utility customers an estimated $9 billion from a reduced need to build new power plants and purchase electricity supplies during high demand days in the summer, according to a commission report.

This last week also saw the first meeting Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, the Kyoto Protocol run-around headed by the US and Australia, as well as China and India. This is essentially the "blue-ribbon committee to explore innovative ways of ignoring the [global warming] problem" that David Letterman joked that President Bush was looking towards convening. And as the Economist notes (subscription required), the so-called AP-6 has had its share of critics, who have a bit of grounding to their criticism:

Environmentalists would be delighted if they thought the members of the partnership were serious about taking action on climate change. After all, they account for roughly half of the world's population, economic output and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. They include both the countries with the biggest total emissions (America and China) and the country with the biggest emissions per person (Australia). Moreover, of the six, only Japan is currently trying to cut down its gaseous output in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, which sets mandatory reductions for rich countries. Both America and Australia refuse to sign the treaty, while China, India and South Korea, as developing countries, are exempt.

But critics claim that the partnership is designed precisely to reduce the pressure on these countries to join whatever pact follows Kyoto, which is due to expire in 2012. They note that, unlike Kyoto, the partnership explicitly rejects mandatory caps or reductions as a useful way to cut emissions. The group's founding charter actually states several times that none of the commitments it contains is legally binding. Instead, the six will simply try to promote greener technology.

So, let's check into how it all went with this report from ENN :

Six of the world's biggest polluters endorsed a voluntary plan Thursday that they claim will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2050, but environmentalists called it an empty promise that will only benefit big business.

The United States and Australia pledged a combined US$127 million (euro105 million) to help finance the six-nation Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. The partnership's plan calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by promoting renewable energy sources and cleaner ways to use coal but avoids setting targets for reducing emissions.
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The energy measures favored by the U.S. and Australia included greater use of such renewable sources as wind and solar power, and treating coal so it gives off fewer greenhouse gases when burned or burying the gases underground.

Environmentalists said the the group was focusing too heavily on untried technologies to prop up the fossil fuel industry, and not enough on renewable energy sources.

"Thanks to the work of the Australian and U.S. governments, the delegates to this meeting have agreed to continue the coal trade while watching greenhouse pollution double by 2050, and they have the gall to call that climate protection," Greenpeace climate campaigner Catherine Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard defended the plan, saying that coal, oil and gas will remain the dominant source of energy.

"The world will go on using fossil fuels for many years into the future because it's more economic to do so," Howard said. "So, therefore, it's elementary common sense that you should try and make the use of fossil fuels more greenhouse gas sensitive, you should try and clean up the use of fossil fuel."

Ross Gelbspan paints an even bleaker picture of this circus sideshow at the Desmogblog:

They have invited 120 industry observers – primarily from oil and coal interests – to provide input – while locking out environmental organizations whose voices traditionally have provided valuable corrections at other international climate meetings. The U.S. and Australia acknowledge they will be recruiting other countries into the APAC group. That, in turn, will dilute if not completely negate those countries’ commitments to the United Nations under the Kyoto Protocol. And they will be promoting a host of technologies designed not to pacify our inflamed climate but to provide a facade of acceptability for the continued use of coal, the most climate-destabilizing of all fuels.
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There are, to be sure, problems with the Kyoto framework. Its goals are too modest and its timetable too slow to match the escalating pace of climate change. But given the flexibility built into the Protocol’s design, it will be easy, when the time comes, for delegates to increase the targets to match the scope and urgency of the threat. As several oil company presidents have said off the record, any meaningful effort to avert climate chaos requires the governments of the world to impose binding and enforceable timetables and goals on the energy industry. That sentiment was echoed publicly by executives of some of America’s largest utilities including Cinergy Corporation – as well as by the investment banking firm of Goldman Sachs. And that approach is at the heart of the Kyoto Protocol. By contrast, the real agenda behind the APAC summit involves a new framework—the emergence of a global corporate state whose goals are determined by short-term profit calculations rather than an authentic concern for our common future or our common planet.

And as a reminder, here's why all this is so important (via The Independent in London):

Global warming is set to accelerate alarmingly because of a sharp jump in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Preliminary figures, exclusively obtained by The Independent on Sunday, show that levels of the gas - the main cause of climate change - have risen abruptly in the past four years. Scientists fear that warming is entering a new phase, and may accelerate further.
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Through most of the past half-century, levels of the gas rose by an average of 1.3 parts per million a year; in the late 1990s, this figure rose to 1.6 ppm, and again to 2ppm in 2002 and 2003. But unpublished figures for the first 10 months of this year show a rise of 2.2ppm.

Scientists believe this may be the first evidence that climate change is starting to produce itself, as rising temperatures so alter natural systems that the Earth itself releases more gas, driving the thermometer ever higher.