Burning Wood as Renewable Energy Threatens Europe’s Climate Goals

The European Union declared this week that it could make deeper greenhouse gas cuts than it has already pledged under the Paris climate agreement. But its scientific advisors are warning that the EU's new renewable energy policy fails to fully account for the climate impacts of burning wood for fuel.

A ranger explains to a group of landowners how maintaining
old-growth forest in the Dürrenstein Wilderness area
 helps Austria meet its climate targets by sequestering carbon. 

By counting forest biomass, such as wood pellets used in power plants, as carbon-neutral, the new rules could make it impossible for Europe to achieve its climate goals, the European Academy of Sciences Advisory Council (EASAC) wrote in a strongly worded statement. 

The council said the renewable energy policy's treatment of biomass is "simplistic and misleading" and could actually add to Europe's greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 to 30 years.

Read the story by Bob Berwyn from Inside Climate News - “Burning Wood as Renewable Energy Threatens Europe’s Climate Goals.”

As Arctic Ocean Ice Disappears, The Global Climate Impacts Intensify

(The top of the world is turning from white to blue in summer as the ice that has long covered the north polar seas melt away. This monumental change is triggering a cascade of effects that will amplify global warming and could destabilize the global climate system)

The news last week that summer ice covering the Arctic Ocean was tied for the second-lowest extent on record is a sobering reminder that the planet is swiftly heading toward a largely ice-free Arctic in the warmer months, possibly as early as 2020.

After that, we can expect the ice-free period in the Arctic basin to expand to three to four months a year, and eventually to five months or more.

Since my days measuring the thickness of Arctic Ocean ice from British nuclear submarines in the early 1970s, I have witnessed a stunning decline in the sea ice covering the northern polar regions — a more than 50 percent drop in extent in summer, and an even steeper reduction in ice volume. Just a few decades ago, ice 10 to 12 feet thick covered the North Pole, with sub-surface ice ridges in some parts of the Arctic extending down to 150 feet. Now, that ice is long gone, while the total volume of Arctic sea ice in late summer has declined, according to two estimates, by 75 percent in half a century.

The great white cap that once covered the top of the world is now turning blue — a change that represents humanity’s most dramatic step in reshaping the face of our planet. And with the steady disappearance of the polar ice cover, we are losing a vast air conditioning system that has helped regulate and stabilize earth’s climate system for thousands of years.

Read the Yale 360 Environment story - “As Arctic Ocean Ice Disappears, The Global Climate Impacts Intensify.”

U.S. Concerned Scientists voice concerns for our reef

‘Australia concerns lead to holding-back case study on Great Barrier Reef, so Union of Concerned Scientists posts it independently. Climate impacts seen posing risks to sites . . . and to tourism’

Sometimes, too often in fact, it’s not what’s included in the text of a report that captures the attention. It’s what’s omitted from that report, often not mistakenly.

That’s a lesson learned and re-learned in the public policy field, but apparently not really absorbed in many cases.

Those who internalized the lessons from the early-70s Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation know well that it’s the cover-up, more so than the initial offense, that is the real crime. Only slightly more recently, the original “Jaws” in 1975 taught a similar lesson, as the fictional Amity Island town council sought to silence the truth in an effort to protect its tourism financial interests.

Advance now to a new report, “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate,” released May 26 by two United Nations agencies and the Union of Concerned Scientists, UCS. In a somewhat dual-personality report that at times seems as concerned tourism as with impacts of climate change, the report paints a dire image of 31 natural and cultural World Heritage sites in 29 countries around the world.

Around the world, that is, save for Australia and its, ahem, rather important Great Barrier Reef (GBR), by any practical measure a worthy entry among top-ranking heritage and tourism sites. And clearly one with observed and serious impacts from rising ocean temperatures, increased acidification, and continuing carbon dioxide emissions.

Read the Yale Climate Connections story - “U.N., UCS Point to Risks to World Heritage Sites.”

Bonn UN conference hears about hydrogen mobility

Hydrogen powered vehicles at the UN in Bonn.

Berlin/Bonn, 12 May 2016. The Clean Energy Partnership is presenting its fleet of vehicles at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn. The partnership will also provide information on present status of  hydrogen mobility and its potential as a key component in an energy and transport revolution – because hydrogen-powered electric vehicles support the UN goals for the decarbonization of transport.

The shared goal of the 197 Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is to stabilize the climate system by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at a level which would avoid the worst climate impacts. The resulting necessity to successfully transition to green energy is particularly relevant for the transport sector: one of the largest emitters, transport is responsible for 23% of global CO2 emissions. At the same time, the volume of traffic is steadily increasing worldwide. There is an urgent need to continuously reduce the use of fossil fuels in transport. Governments and business have great hopes in the potential of new technologies, which in combination with renewable fuels will enable efficient, environmentally friendly mobility.

Read the UN Climate Change Climate Action story - “Clean Energy Partnership to Display Hydrogen Vehicles at UN in Bonn.”