is the future looking greener this week?

As the dust begins to settle after the American election frenzy, Urban Sprout has outlined some of Obama's proposed policies relating to environmental issues. And the blog Green Building Law has posts on the topic both before and after election day. [Update: here's another environment-focused Obama roundup.] My impression is that we're in for a much more enlightened attitude from the US, though it's not clear how that will translate into foreign policy. Will Obama adopt a more inclusive approach internationally? On the domestic front, he seems to be keeping an open mind:

Environment and Energy Daily is reporting here that Obama will begin almost immediately working on these issues by going on a listening tour to explore "energy and environmental issues before Inauguration Day in an attempt to build momentum for its policies and legislative plans," allowing California to enhance its automobile standards, setting the stage for cap and trade and investing $15 billion per year to promote the deployment of renewable technologies.

We can hope that his approach to fundraising has kept him less beholden to lobbyists, as he claims. Let's also hope the Obama administration doesn't rely entirely on regulation to solve the environmental crisis. We need a dramatic shift, and regulation alone won't achieve that. Thomas L. Friedman, author of the 2005 book The World is Flat and the newly-released Hot, Flat and Crowded, suggests that we need to innovate our way out of global warming. To those who say that renewable energy can't provide the industrial-strength power needed to run the modern economy, Friedman says we haven't really tried. Seen in comparison to mainstream R&D, efforts at reducing energy dependence have been halfhearted at best.

One of the case studies presented at last week's GBCSA conference was that of carpeting manufacturer InterfaceFLOR, whose European manufacturing operations use electricity from renewable sources only. That's a positive example on its own, but what the company is trying to promote is a change in their marketplace that will allow them to improve sustainability performance even more. Illustrating the importance of industry awareness, Lindsey Parnell (CEO and President of InterfaceFLOR in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India) pointed out that it can actually be better to design carpets for a shorter lifespan that fits with the trend of replacing carpets every 3 to 5 years.

Every time a new tenant moves into a building they inevitably tear up the carpets, so Parnell argues that designing a carpet to last as long as the typical lease would allow them to use different raw materials that have a lower environmental impact. But purchasers generally baulk at the idea of a carpet that is designed to last such a short period. InterfaceFLOR has also tried promoting the "evergreen lease", where they manufacture, install, maintain and dispose of carpets (which also allows them to repurpose old carpets), but the concept hasn't caught on.

This example tells me two things. One, that many manufacturing processes can be made efficient enough to be supplied by non-fossil-fueled energy, if sufficient attention is paid to the choice of materials and manufacturing processes. Two, that change is often stymied by attitudes, rather than technologies or regulations. I do recognise that standards and regulations have an important role to play in encouraging change, but the transformation often needs to cross jurisdictions or economic sectors, while regulations tend to be piecemeal because they are enacted within sectoral boundaries. Every industry needs to interface with other industries and markets, and each of these may be governed by legislation that is not uniformly supportive of sustainable business practices. Consequently there is a limit to how effective the regulations are in creating a transformative environment.

top ten reasons why we need green buildings

Buildings have a huge role to play in addressing environmental concerns. They contribute around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the same proportion of waste; and since South Africa is in the top 20 list of worst offenders, the building industry in this country has a lot to be accountable for. [Update on 10 Nov 2008: The GBCSA informs me that the correct figures for buildings are 23% of greenhouse gas emissions, 40% of electricity use, 40% of waste production and 15% of water use.] The conference held in Cape Town by the Green Building Council of South Africa earlier this week also demonstrated that changing the environmental impact of buildings is relatively easy compared with some other sectors. Many of the appropriate technologies are proven and available.

Green buildings can influence impacts - positively or negatively - in a number of sectors, not only in the operation of the building itself. The technologies for reducing dependence on water, energy and other resources are ready and waiting; but it's not only about what goes on inside the building. By locating offices where more people can walk to do their errands, transport impacts are reduced. By collecting and using rainwater and greywater, downstream problems are reduced and upstream water is available for others. By designing for healthy indoor air quality, loads on the health care system are reduced.

The point is, there's lots that can be done and lots that already is being done - in isolated islands of change. The challenge lies in turning those islands into vast oceans, but the tide is turning. The business case for building green has already been made, and in countries where green building rating systems have been around for a few years, developers now understand the financial benefits.

Here are ten things (in no particular order) that green buildings are already doing in different parts of the world, as reported by the various speakers at this week's GBCSA conference.

bursting the carbon bubble

After listening to the panel of IPCC experts on Tuesday night - which kinda spooked me - I needed to hear this on halting fossil fuel use: "Renewable energy could provide all global energy needs by 2090," according to a study just released by the European Renewable Energy Council and Greenpeace. But it all depends on political will. If there's one thing the IPCC scientists don't agree on, it's whether or not humanity has the gumption to make the changes necessary to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. Science and technology are not the obstacles. Does it require flooding of the Cape Flats before we take this thing seriously?

We've had a dot.com bubble, a financial bubble, and all kinds of other situations where human behaviour has taken us beyond reason. On a longer timescale, we are in a carbon bubble, bingeing on a resource that seems too good to be true - as indeed it is. Like every other bubble, this one will end. It's not possible to indefinitely sustain limitless growth based on borrowing beyond our means, ignoring the casualties, hoping that rational behaviour will ensure that things don't get out of control. And like every other bubble, things got out of control long before we recognised it. We explain away the early warning bells as aberrations, the messengers as freaks, and the first fatalities as fools who lost their nerve.

With this one, our "borrowing" is in the form of capital depletion (dipping into energy and water stores that are non-renewable within the timeframes that we work with) and destruction of habitat at a rate that is faster than Earth can regenerate its ecosystems.

carbon efficiency - SA joins the leaders

If Africa has the potential to benefit from the rise of economic powerhouses outside the US, South Africa would do well to put itself on a low-carbon diet that will allow it to capitalise on markets that are sensitive to the carbon intensity of products. Recent announcements suggest that South Africa is on that trajectory. As reported in Engineering News, "South Africa now joins only a handful of developing countries, including China, Brazil and India, in moving ahead with mitigation programmes under a so-called 'comparability of effort' framework canvassed at the recent global climate change gathering in Bali."

With annual CO2 emissions of 800 million tons, South Africa has a few hard pills to swallow, but Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk sounds convinced that investment in mitigation now will reduce the cost of adaptation later. Unfortunately this will only hold true if the rest of the world does its bit, but if we want to show some leadership in this area, we can't join in the US-China game of "I'll diet if you do".

When we look at economic performance, we've got to start factoring in carbon efficiency as a measure of how well we are doing - if not to fight global warming, then at least to remain competitive in an increasingly carbon-aware world.

The necessary pieces are being put in place. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel announced a tax on nonrenewable energy in his February budget - effectively a carbon tax. Cabinet endorsed a 'strategic direction and framework for climate policy' last month. Van Schalkwyk says the Treasury may create a 'cap and trade' mechanism to control carbon emissions. The Department of Trade and Industry should follow with policy that will reduce energy demand for each unit of economic output. And municipalities are starting to make noises in favour of getting their residents and businesses to work towards the ten percent electricity reduction target that Eskom says is needed to address the supply shortfall. Building standards will start to change, and things like solar water heaters will become mandatory in new houses.

So be warned: it's more carrots, less beef for the lot of you. There's no pudding if you don't eat your veggies.

Copenhagen Consensus - four years on

Four years ago, academic Bjørn Lomborg put together a panel of economists under the banner of the Copenhagen Consensus Center to come up with a prioritised list of projects to address a selection of the world's great contemporary challenges. Lomborg's assumption was that money allocated to address climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, education, financial instability, governance and corruption, malnutrition and hunger, migration, sanitation and water, and subsidies and trade barriers could be most effectively spent if priorities were based on rational economic assessment. The resulting list put climate change strategies down at the bottom of the pile.

Lomborg's panel is meeting again this month for a fourth anniversary update, so it's worth considering why climate change fared so badly last time, and what might be different now. SourceWatch has noted that the Copenhagen Consensus "has been strongly criticised by NGOs such as Oxfam for drawing attention away from the existing consensus built up over several years and codified in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals." Given the political will needed to put significant resources towards any of these development challenges, this is a serious charge.

role of cement in carbon emissions

The cement industry is responsible for 5% of all carbon dioxide released globally as a result of human activities, according to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. In each country, the volume of emissions depends on the sources of electricity, since a large portion of emissions is related to the power used in cement manufacture. In South Africa, where most electricity comes from coal-fired plants, each ton of cement produced releases 750kg of carbon dioxide. Last year, the country consumed 14.1 million tons of cement, 89% of which was produced locally.

In response to the South African government's support of emissions targets for developing countries, the local cement industry, represented by ACMP, has warned that carbon emissions caps would lead to higher volumes of imports. The assumption is that growth in cement use (forecast to be 24 million tons a year by 2014) is the only way to feed economic growth.

There are two flaws to this argument.

First, caps would not be imposed without the option to trade carbon credits, so if the industry does grow, cement will simply become more expensive as a result of internalising the cost of carbon emissions. And since the UN negotiations that are expected to lead to a renogotiated climate change treaty by next year will include limits and trading for many more countries than at present, cement prices will increase everywhere and imports won't necessarily be cheaper than the local product.

Second, there are perfectly viable alternatives to cement in the construction industry. Cement quantities in concrete can be reduced by substituting with flyash, for instance. (And flyash is a readily available by-product of coal-fired electricity production.) The building industry could also put much more effort into designing buildings to use less concrete.

There needs to be greater awareness of the options and of the carbon implications of design decisions, then we can begin to decouple economic growth from emissions growth.

Once the Green Building Council of South Africa starts using a local version of Green Star - the Australian system for rating the sustainability performance of buildings - choices will be much smarter in terms of energy efficiency overall. The next step will be to establish building codes that address carbon intensity explicitly, as is already happening in the UK.

For more information on the cap-and-trade concept, and variations on the theme, have a look at this recent WorldChanging article.

BC takes the lead with carbon tax

From July this year, the Canadian province of British Columbia will charge a tax on fossil fuels, gradually increasing the rate each year as an incentive for reducing carbon emissions. The government's strategy for reducing the impact on the economy is to reduce other taxes:

Corporate and personal income tax rates will drop to help make the tax revenue neutral, and lower-income British Columbians will receive an annual climate action credit of $100 per adult and $30 per child.

British Columbia will be the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a consumer-based carbon tax.

development equity is key to climate negotiations

One of the sticking points in the Bali COP 13 climate talks is the impact of agreements on trade, and how climate mitigation strategies affect economic and social challenges particularly in developing countries.

A press release was issued on Thursday last week about the Nairobi Agreement, which is an attempt to spread the benefits of CDM across Africa, where only 2.6% of all CDM projects are located. (CDM is the carbon trade mechanism by which heavy emitters in developed countries can offset their emissions by investing in clean projects in the developing world.) The press release points out that much still needs to be done to spread benefits around. It's going to be tough getting political agreement on a workable solution at the global scale. The issues are complex, and the definition of fair and equitable depends on your political perspective.

A draft proposal tabled on Saturday at the Bali talks asks for deeper cuts in emissions by developed nations, but addresses other countries too:

The four-page draft, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates, said developing nations should at least brake rising emissions as part of a new pact.

But developed countries are living off the accumulated benefits of past carbon-intensive industrial activity, and with the extent of socio-economic catching up required by developing countries, any deal that is limited to current emission levels is not going to cut it. So far, there is no sign of changes that will address the exploitative aspects of global trade. The outsourcing of carbon-intensive industries to China and India is just another form of imperialism. The US, Canada and others are changing their economies to be less energy-intensive, but somebody has to make the products that the developed world buys. And now they turn around and tell China and India to clean up: Washington is presently considering legislation that will bar carbon-intensive imports.

Even South Africa, which is a relatively heavy emitter, is unlikely to agree to binding emissions targets in the short term - as suggested by countries like Canada, Australia and Japan - unless there is a clear path to addressing poverty and social development issues.

The Climate Change Performance Index ranks the 56 worst greenhouse gas emitters (where position 1 is the best). In the just-released 2008 index, South Africa is at position 33. Canada, Australia and the US are at the bottom of the heap, at positions 53, 54 and 55 respectively.

Reuters reports:

"Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They are trying to shift the burden to China and India."

This is a bit rich, considering Canada's poor carbon record and the fact that their commitment to the Kyoto Protocol has steadily disintegrated. The country started the Protocol period with good intentions, but Ottawa's strategies to reach emissions targets were all voluntary and achieved little. Now Ottawa simply doesn't have a meaningful plan, and puts the climate change blame elsewhere.

Political solutions tend to be based on simplified versions of reality. One of the realities that needs to be addressed with a post-2012 successor to the Kyoto Protocol is that carbon emissions are not the only issue. There are alternative ways to set targets, and these need to address developmental concerns.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, has acknowledged:

...the two-week conference needs to deliver on ongoing issues of particular importance to developing countries. This means moving forward on adapation, transfer of technology and deforestation, as well as strengthening capacity-building.

Let's see if Bali produces the goods. But don't hold your breath - this is just the opening play in what will be a drawn-out series of negotiations.

buy nothing day

I spent most of yesterday in meetings that had a lot to do with sustainability and how it can be achieved through good planning and design. The discussions related to a particular development project I am working on as a transport planning consultant. Working for developers sometimes makes me squirm, because my view of an appropriate design solution is not always aligned with that of the client paying my bills; but in this case, the match is a good one.

What is even more satisfying is that the people who attended yesterday's meetings (people who are not involved in the project but have an indirect stake in its outcome) are generally supportive and are keen to see it succeed. As a result, they asked incisive questions and offered constructive criticism. They are concerned about its potential impacts - not only on themselves, but on culture and the environment, on social structures and on economic livelihoods - and they are looking for reassurance that the broader challenges will be considered and addressed, and that the potential positive spinoffs will be realised. The best kind of meeting.

In discussion afterwards with a colleague who also attended, our conversation turned to questions about why sustainability is such a Big Deal. It's all about greed, she suggested. If we lived simpler lifestyles that met our physical, emotional and spiritual needs, we would automatically be living sustainably. My colleague had clearly been thinking of spiritual matters, as she had been out the previous night to hear Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan nun who secluded herself in a remote cave 13 000 feet up in the Himalayas for 12 years of Buddhist meditation. I'm not advocating cutting ourselves off from the material world, but if we were more aware of ourselves and our social interactions, we would know what to do, and we might even do it.

So here's something to do. On Saturday, 24 November, buy nothing. Join international Buy Nothing Day as a reminder of our wasteful, consumptive lifestyles. It’s about reminding ourselves to really think about what we are buying‚ why we are buying it‚ and whether we really need it at all. Consuming at the level we do is unsustainable and is directly responsible for many of the world's environmental and economic problems. Waste, pollution, climate change, and many other topical and important issues are all fueled by consumerism.

I'll leave the last word to A.A. Milne, writing about Winnie-the-Pooh and the episode In which Christopher Robin leads an expotition to the North Pole:

"I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to eat all our provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to carry."

"Eat all our what?" said Pooh.

"All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work.

"That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work too.

"Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin with his mouth full.

"All except me, said Eeyore. "As usual." He looked around at them in his melancholy way. "I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any chance?"

"I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and looked behind him. "Yes, I was. I thought so."

"Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He moved across to Pooh's place, and began to eat.

"It doesn't do them any Good, you know, sitting on them," he went on, as he looked up munching. "Takes all the Life out of them. Remember that another time, all of you. A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference."

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism

http://www.ecoplan.org/ibnd/ib_index.htm

http://www.verdant.net/society.htm

http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption.asp

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0111_040112_consumerism.html

economics and environmental protection

Here's a brief discussion - based on recent comments by 2007 Nobel economics prize winner Professor Eric Maskin - on why we need a combination of good governance and markets with externalities thrown in to deal with goods like the environment. Pure capitalism has never existed, anyway, so it beats me why some economists think everything should be left to the markets to sort out. There has always been some level of government intervention, for better or worse, and there have always been externalities ignored by the market: from slavery to carbon impacts.

To be fair, we can't give capitalism all the blame or all the credit (depending on our point of view), but we are clearly in a mess. In the space of a few decades the industrial complex has used up the energy stored over millennia in earth's solar-charged batteries - coal and oil - and those babies ain't gonna be recharged anytime soon. We have gone into planetary debt. On top of that, we've overloaded ecological systems beyond their capacity to recover. Witness loss of biodiversity, loss of habitat, increased vulnerability to disease, global warming... Something's gotta give.

For a more specific discussion, here is an article on carbon trading and the limits of free-market logic.

And, to come round to today's business news in South Africa, Pick 'n Pay is following the lead set by Wal-Mart in the US and Tesco in the UK in reducing the carbon footprint of their operations. Except the Business Report article doesn't mention what measures the South African retailer is planning to take to actually reduce emissions (although it briefly mentions that there will be "measures to cut out wasteful water usage and reduce electricity consumption"). Rather, the company is planning to offset carbon emissions by planting trees in Soweto.

I am sure the trees will be a welcome addition to the sprawling township, but let's get real here. Planting trees is not the answer to excessive consumption and waste, it's just putting a green sheen on the flagship Hypermarket. Can we see some targets, please? How much energy reduction through improved design and operational efficiency; on-site renewable energy generation; reduced packaging; diverting waste to other uses; recycling greywater?