should people be paid to trade in old cars?

[Photo: Telegraph]

One of the big obstacles to making a serious dent in emissions is the slow rate of transforming the world's fleet of cars, our stock of inefficient buildings, and other infrastructure and machinery that represent investments that cannot simply be discarded without a financial cost. So Obama's statement today that he will consider funding a fleet modernisation programme [via @Lighter Footstep] that would "[give] credit to consumers who turn in old, less fuel efficient cars and purchase cleaner cars" sounds like a way forward. But is it, really?

In line with Washington's aim to link economic recovery with "greening the economy", the suggestion is that this kind of programme will support jobs in the auto industry while reducing emissions: a win-win situation. While it may indeed support employment, there are a few caveats that need to be considered carefully.

power in the hands of the people

I fail to see why the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) wants to control renewable energy projects with a tendering system. What the country needs is as many projects as possible, and what project developers need is certainty. So fix the rate, and rely on other regulatory controls to ensure that things like environmental impacts are considered in project plans.

As Ingi Salgado points out in yesterday's Business Report, the argument that regulators need to ensure there is an appropriate energy mix doesn't hold water. There is nothing inherently wrong with having more wind farms than thermal solar collectors, for example.

The emphasis is also entirely on big projects - not big by Eskom's standards, but bigger than groups of individuals who want to supplement their supply with solar panels or other small-scale efforts. We need distributed energy sources, and small projects could supply this if they also had feed-in tariff incentives. Worldwide, there are all kinds of initiatives that adopt a creative approach to generating energy, from extracting heat from sewers to putting solar panels on top of downtown office towers.

peak carbon

The heated debates over cap-and-trade, carbon taxes and other ideas like a 'Federal Reserve of Carbon' are just pre-game warmup exercises. It will be some time before we reach a new geopolitical stability in a carbon-sensitive economy, and I suspect we may not get down to the serious game of making significant cuts to carbon emissions until volatility settles down. Recent reports suggest that this delay will have serious repurcussions, and is cause for concern.

There is a fundamental point that often is obscured by all the debate and political wrangling: emissions must be reduced to the point where the rate at which it can be sequestered (naturally or artificially) exceeds the rate at which atmospheric carbon is generated. Until this point - call it peak carbon - is reached, the greenhouse effect will cause increased global temperatures.

Just as it is difficult to precisely define the point at which peak oil is reached, it is equally difficult to define the point of peak carbon. Ecological systems are too complex to model accurately, but the body of evidence has been steadily growing in the form of hundreds of empirical studies that show how temperature and the ecology changes as atmospheric carbon changes. Some of these indicate ecological damage, and some demonstrate the ability of ecological sub-systems to compensate for increased carbon. So where does that leave us?

world water day

WWF South Africa forecasts a water deficit of 1.7 percent by 2025 in SA - without considering the effects of climate change. So WWF, with the government's Working for Water Programme, has launched a water neutral scheme that companies can join to show their commitment. Woolworths has signed up with a plan to cut its relative consumption by 30% by 2012, using strategies like eliminating thirsty alien plants from its supplier farms. SA Breweries and Sanlam have also joined.

Barbara Schreiner, former Deputy-Director General for Water Affairs, speaking at launch, said, "There is an urgent need to act in a concerted, coordinated and proactive manner. Failure to act now could place the country on a slippery slope leading to the critical loss of the freshwater ecosystems that underpin water security and sustainable economic growth in South Africa."

Check out World Water Day.

meeting the challenges of nonmotorised transport

Photo: Boy and Man, Mozambique by E.B. Sylvester

South Africa is strengthening its policy on non-motorised transport (NMT), in support of its already strong emphasis on improved public transport, and also as a mode in its own right. Late last year the government issued a national NMT policy, and some provinces and municipalities are following suit. I am currently assisting the Provincial Government of the Western Cape with its policy to provide a framework for local and district municipalities to establish plans and programmes that can be funded through the provincial administration.

One of the big challenges is lack of awareness, skills and resources needed to address NMT within broader transport planning. Many districts don't have dedicated transport planners; and those that have, don't necessarily understand the implications of designing for cyclists and pedestrians - much less other non-motorised modes of transport. There are countless books and standards published on the subject, but most concentrate on walking and cycling.

Traditional transport planning tends to focus on the commuter, since the peak commuter period is when road capacity is an issue. But if the planning perspective is broadened to account for all types of trip throughout the day, it becomes abundantly clear that there are other significant issues that are often ignored, including the use of modes such as wheelbarrows, horse-drawn carts, pedi-cabs, baby prams, inline skates, and so on. All trips considered, those made by non-motorised forms of transport actually outnumber trips made under power of the internal combustion engine. (And that's just considering NMT as the only mode used on a journey - public transport users also need to walk or use other NMT modes to reach a bus, train or taxi service.)

development agendas in the south

South Africa is setting itself on the path to a low-carbon future, with the national government having accepted its Long Term Mitigation Scenarios as a basis for new strategies. In the meantime, the country is the largest carbon emitter on the African continent, depending on coal for 90% of its electricity needs, and for synfuels manufactured by Sasol.

Sasol and Eskom have recently been labelled SA's duopoly in emissions, and the reality of their dominance in the country could have implications for a future local carbon market by limiting liquidity. As in any market, insufficient activity (which can result in uncertainty and volatility) is bad for business. And for the local market to tie in with international carbon trading mechanisms, it needs to be a healthy one. Perhaps this is another reason for establishing a regional market rather than independent national ones, particularly as smaller economies in Southern Africa will struggle on their own.

While the carbon market is ultimately intended to reduce emissions globally, part of the UN's intention is to raise cash for climate-related projects in developing countries. These countries therefore need to know what they want in terms of development, since projects will influence economic direction and community wellbeing.

a question of trust

International climate change negotiations face a real challenge over the debate about responsibilities shared between North and South. Harald Winkler of the Energy Research Centre at the University of Cape Town notes that developing countries are starting to recognise that it is in their own interest to establish an effective and equitable system for climate change mitigation, but this attitude was not met by developed countries at Poznan and has created a 'trust deficit'. Added to this, signatories to Kyoto are going to start finding excuses for why they have failed to meet their obligations for emissions reductions under the protocol. (Of the countries that signed, more than half are not on track to meet their targets.)

If trust is not restored through a greater demonstration of commitment from developed countries, the South is not likely to take on greater responsibility. Instead of finding ways to mitigate climate change, the developing world will strengthen its call for aid in the process of adaptation. Greater dependence on aid will not benefit anyone in the long run.

Barack Obama seems to offer hope that the US will pull up its socks, and is adding momentum for a global carbon market with his backing of a market-based cap on carbon. But if the US administration buckles under business pressure, with the argument that industry cannot afford the cost of carbon, that will further jeopardise negotiations. The developing world is not blind, and can see very clearly that industrialised countries have had a free ride for too long.

LEED, BREEAM and Green Star joining forces

A blog post from Zerochamp this morning alerted me to an agreement that's been signed by the world's three leading environmental rating tools. For several years the building councils that develop these tools have been leapfrogging each other with their updates, each building on the ones that went before. Hence the uncanny similarities, right down to the phrasing of some text in the manuals.

This agreement is to form a working group "to develop common metrics to measure emissions of CO2 equivalents from new homes and buildings". So instead of just learning from each other with successive updates, they will begin to align themselves with a global standard for what is the key concern of the rating tools: carbon emissions.

I had thought that the next major change in these tools would be the incorporation of social impacts, building on the existing environmental emphasis by shifting the building industry towards a recognition of the need to improve broader sustainability performance. There have been calls for such a shift, particularly in developing countries where there is a much more obvious polarity in social wellbeing and quality of life. There can be no doubt that buildings, neighbourhoods and districts have a huge impact on the shape of cities, on the ability to provide effective and affordable transport systems, and ultimately on the ability of vulnerable individuals and communities to gain access to what cities have to offer.

down on the (urban) farm

I have mentioned urban agriculture here and there, but it seems it's become more than a fringe idea. An exhibit showing how agriculture can be integrated with city life, curated by professors at Ryerson University in Toronto, may soon go on tour, following requests from other cities. The professors talk of Carrot City as a demonstration of how to integrate production and consumption into a coherent, self-sustaining cycle.

Imagine an urban farm supplying your neighbourhood farmers market, making use of fertilizer made from the city's own compost stream, and running workshops for nearby schools on nutrition and gardening.

We're not talking here about a few backyard veggie patches, but serious food production at different scales within the urban environment. And the integration aspect extends to job creation, education and other social benefits.

[via @saveossington]

the un-conference

The conference itself is over, but that hardly matters, because the whole point of <head> was that nobody should have to travel in order to attend. You could have watched it live on the internet, or physically joined a local hub, or participated in Second Life. But everything was recorded, so even though it happened in October 2008, you can still listen to talks now. This has got to be the greenest global conference ever.

I love the Second Life concept for conferences - I once attended a live talk by Chris Luebkeman in Second Life, and I enjoyed it even more than I would a normal teleconference.